Chapter 1
Rook couldn't remember what she was expecting when she was first transferred as a fresh-faced junior deputy over to Ass-End-of-Nowhere, Montana, otherwise known as Hope County, but becoming a one-woman army in a war against cultists who committed crimes against humanity on an hourly basis was probably the furthest thing from her mind. She knew she was in for some kind of Twilight Zone-esque bullshit when she and her team flew past the mountaintop statue whose size could rival Lady Liberty, but a masterfully done lockdown of the county orchestrated by Hope County's own heavily armed, waylaid residents, three sadistic lieutenants and a creepy shirtless leader carved with sins seemed almost too ridiculous to be real, if Rook thought about it too hard.
In the weeks that followed the day of their failed arrest of Joseph Seed, Rook had been doing her damnedest to survive—and doing a surprisingly decent job at it, if she did say so herself. The first few days after leaving Dutch's bunker were tense and downright scary. How the cultists (affectionately named 'Peggies') managed to seize control over the entire county so quickly, Rook will never know, but for those first few days it really felt like Rook was alone in a warzone, dumped right into enemy territory with all paths to safe harbor blocked by the promise of death. She stuck to the forests and bushes as much as she could, following the road and ducking out of sight whenever she heard voices, any voices. Friendly-sounding or not, the only way Rook could tell friend from foe was if the former was on their knees with the latter pointing a gun at their heads. With the exception of rescuing said innocent bystanders with a shitty, pilfered compound bow and freeing Dutch's island at his behest (she did owe the man for the clothes… and not turning her into the cult) Rook focused her attention on keeping herself unseen and surviving through the nights. For the first time, she was grateful for the brief stint she did in the army, and mentally thanked her asshole of a father for pushing her so hard into it.
Doing nothing but running for her life and scavenging for food and supplies got old quickly, especially as Rook caught glimpses of what these nutcases were doing every day—she'll likely never forget that one crow-pecked corpse crucified in the middle of the I-40, completely skinned except for one large swath on his back so they could carve 'SINNER' like a fucking badge of honor—and God damn her if she wasn't sworn to protect and serve. This would not stand, not while she was still breathing.
Rook turned to answering the looping calls for help over the radio. Dutch had suggested the town of Fall's End first, but Rook thought it best to gather some allies and better weapons than a shitty 1911, a bow and six measly arrows before charging an entire town. Rae Rae and anyone else at the pumpkin farm were already dead by the time she got there, but Rook found her first ally in man's best friend, a scruffy champion dog with a useful penchant for alerting her of Peggie presence. She also became fast friends with the cousins Sharky and Hurk, who besides being hilarious company were the textbook definition of 'hick' with the added benefit of knowing their way around explosives. Rook learned pretty quickly they did not belong on stealth missions—Sharky had a tendency to hum the Mission: Impossible theme song to himself no matter how many times she scolded him for it, and Hurk once accidentally blew up the truck they were sneaking towards with a poorly aimed shot from his RAT4, alerting every Peggie in a five mile radius—but they were fantastic for blowing up shrines and silos and those creepy beacons that played dying animal noises on loop.
She also somehow ended up with both a cougar and a bear, because God apparently thought she might want to start a zoo when this was all over.
She knew her main goal, eventually, would be to rescue her team from the cult's clutches. There was no word on Earl or the Marshal yet, but Joey had been sent up to Holland Valley and Staci to the Whitetail Mountains, and she'd be of no use to any of them with shitty guns and no organized allies backing her up. Rook's tactic was to cause a bit of chaos, rescue some people and then flit out of the region before she could catch the attention of the Seed siblings, especially considering the horrendous shit she's been hearing about them. Never mind Joseph and his weird, wide-eyed stare behind those tacky Ray-Bans—Jacob was supposedly brainwashing people and caging them like animals, and Faith was rumored to be something like a ghost, snatching people into 'the Bliss' and burrowing into people's heads until reality was questionable… or until their brains melted and they turned into those disco-hating zombies she'd helped Sharky set on fire.
But Rook was especially wary of John Seed, the smooth-talking lawyer who conned over half of Hope County into selling their businesses and homes to the cult, whose region seemed to have the greatest number of 'SINNER'-carved bodies strung up like warning signs. Word about him was that he kidnapped people, skinned them alive as he forced them to 'confess their sins' and then locked them away in his personal doomsday bunker never to be seen again, if they weren't killed outright for failing to 'atone'. Rook recognized the kind of man who enjoyed causing pain better than he liked killing, and she wanted to steer clear of that as long as she could.
That first day in the church John caught her eye, as he stood with his siblings behind Joseph like a threatening bodyguard, glaring at her with eyes so blue they pierced through the darkness. But she hadn't thought much of him beyond that, too focused on escorting the madman to the chopper while angry cultists threw rocks at their heads. John Seed blended into the background, just another glaring face in a sea of dozens more.
Yet the more she saw of him, the more there was something fascinating about the man… in a disturbing kind of way, like being unable to look away from a horrific car accident. Everything about him seemed like a multi-tiered juxtaposition—a rich lawyer tatted up to hell who wore designer clothes and styled his hair every day was the same person who crooned about love and the glory of God, while at the same time carving bloody sins into flesh and flaying it off when he pleased. The man looked like he should be a big shot in New York snorting cocaine off a fancy desk in a high-rise office, not in this backwater farm country packing silos full of explosives and preaching the fucked up word.
Then there was that hilariously awkward infomercial about the power of 'YES' Dutch had shown her in the bunker, where John Seed smiled at the camera with a boyish face and crinkled eyes, too sweet and warm for someone so vicious. It was almost laughable, all uplifting music and happy touches like a life coach ad, all undermined by the unkempt outfits and the machine gun rounds strapped to their backs and Joey Hudson gagged and bound like a prop off to the side. Whatever amusement Rook was getting out of John's cringey ad dissipated like smoke at the sight of her partner with mascara-dirtied tears streaking down her cheeks, and Rook made the woman a silent promise that she'd come get her soon, once she was a little better equipped.
Eventually, Rook had had enough of hearing calls for help from Fall's End and decided it was time to stop sneaking around and actually push back at the Peggies, instead of slowly chipping away at them. She took Boomer and the sniper champion she'd rescued from the church roof, Grace, and the three of them managed to take back the town so quickly it was almost unreal. Grace stationed herself on top the nearby water tower and picked off any Peggie who dared wander too far from his kin, while she and Boomer carefully lured stray cultists with well-thrown stones or quiet barks close enough that Rook could silently sink her knife into their throats, before taking the remaining few head-on with guns blazing, John's voice preaching dramatically in the background. Their only hiccup was when the fuckers decided to call in a Chosen in a fighter plane, but some lucky shots from Grace and one absurdly well-timed throw of C4 on Rook's part when the plane swooped at her head won the day.
Mary May Fairgrave and the good Pastor Jerome made her realize she had made something of a name for herself, tearing through the county as she had been. 'The Deputy', she was called now, like an honored title. It caught her by surprise, having been basically on her own for most of the last few weeks. Apparently her attempts to stay under the radar weren't working on the part of the brewing resistance movement, at least.
And it was nice, at least at first, when the five of them (Grace and Boomer included, once they coaxed Grace out of scouting the roads for more Peggies) shared a beer and the first decent home-cooked meal Rook had had since this shit started that wasn't just pilfered rations and unseasoned fish and game she managed to forage. Boomer happily chowed down on bits of meat Casey threw him from inside the kitchen, while Grace cleaned her gun and Rook talked to Mary May.
"So, John Seed," Rook had said seriously, once there was food in her stomach and the adrenaline from being shot at started to wear off. "Where exactly is he keeping my partner?"
"He takes all of his hostages into the bunker to the west," Mary May replied coolly, slamming the bottle down after taking a long swig. "You'll have a fuck of a time gettin' her out of there, Deputy. The whole place is guarded, and there's a security gate near the main road about a mile down the mountain. The only way you're gettin' in is if you're going in as a hostage, and that's not the best idea right now."
"We're going to have to weaken John's hold over this region first," said Pastor Jerome over his steak and fries, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "Take his outposts, steal his prisoners, and kill as many goddamn Peggies as we can."
Rook raised her eyebrows at hearing a pastor encouraging murder, but said instead of commenting, "And get his attention in the process."
"You took back our town, honey," Mary May said dryly, leaning over the counter on her elbows. "He's been trying to grab it for weeks. Only just succeeded, finally. He wants this town, Dep, and you just took it from him. If he don't already know you're here, he's gonna know now."
And she was right, as not even an hour later Rook was bunking down in Mary May's spare room for the night when her radio crackled to life.
"Brothers and sisters," John's voice declaimed like a sermon over the grainy speaker, so unexpectedly Rook almost jumped out of her skin. "Someone out there is not playing by the rules… Someone is taking from us, stealing what rightfully belongs to the Father… They are a murderer and a coward." Rook snorted and picked up the radio, wondering if she should interrupt with some snark, but deciding against it—she'd already riled the psycho up enough for one night. "But God sees them… and God will guide us to them. They will be found, and they will be punished. This is the will of the Father."
Over the next few days of tooling around Holland Valley, Rook held her breath and waited for Johnny boy to send a cavalry for her, or at least for Fall's End, but it never came. A proper resistance group gathered in Fall's End once word spread that it had food, guns and more importantly freedom from the cult, but John didn't seem to take the threat of her very seriously—something Rook desired to rectify. Grace managed to find her a decent sniper rifle with a silencer, which made taking outposts a lot easier and quicker than with her compound bow. She quickly mowed down the outposts nearest to Fall's End, each time easily taking out four to five Peggies before anyone realized what was going on.
Rook learned the hard way that her reputation preceded her elsewhere than with the Resistance. The second the Peggies at the Green-Busch fertilizer plant found the bodies, they slammed on the alarms shouting, "The Deputy is here!" and "It's the sinner!" forcing Rook to flee before they spotted her. She spent the rest of the morning trapped on top of a billboard and watching through her rifle's scope as backup arrived and the Peggies combed the woods in search of her, swearing and damning her to hell all the while. She picked off whoever wandered too close before sneaking up behind the last few and gunning them down with her battered AR-C (fucking Christ, she needed some better weapons).
Rook made sure to shoot the alarms first, after that.
As she waged her lone crusade, Rook answered some more calls and made friends with more Resistance members. God help her if her heart didn't clench for the Ryes, out in the middle of nowhere with a baby on the way. They were sweet folks—Kim gave her clothes that didn't hang off her like a parachute, warmly commenting to, "Keep 'em. Fuck knows my ass isn't gonna fit in 'em anymore," to which Nick called from the other room, "Your ass is the greatest thing on Earth, baby," with absolutely zero shame.
Everyone in Holland Valley knew the Ryes were fucking adorable.
And John was apparently watching the whole while, as Rook took outpost after outpost, blew up all his silos, liberated people from his prisoner vans and stole Nick Rye's plane right out of his personal hangar at that obnoxiously highbrow ranch of his, because it wasn't long before he radioed her a second time. This time he sounded pissed.
"Sin is pervasive," the high-balling preacher snarled, yet still managed to somehow sound like he was giving a speech at the UN, the fancy asshole. "It drives us to do unspeakable acts. I know the feelings that drive you. I know them… intimately."
"Kinky," Rook muttered to herself, only half-listening as she busied herself with looting one of the many prepper stashes littering the county, because apparently everyone here was a doomsday-loving nutcase, Peggie or not.
"But I can help you, Deputy." The title rolled off his tongue like a term of endearment, every syllable carefully drawn out. "I can wash away these sins. I can cleanse your soul. It will be difficult, and it will be painful, but… it will be worth it. My people will come for you. They will bring you to me. Don't fight it. Because the harder you resist, well…" He chuckled, a dark, rumbling sound, "…the harder we'll have to scrub your soul."
The radio clicked off.
"Oh shit," Rook groused, and bolted for the open hatch.
A quick glance around yielded no sign of Peggies, just rustling, sun-browned grass swaying in the breeze and the buzz of a beehive forming on the side of a nearby house. Boomer was waiting like the good boy he was, laid down on the dirt biting absently at some long strands of grass. She exhaled a relieved sigh. If anyone were after her, Boomer would let her know. She'd just stick to the woods and the hills, just like before—it seemed to work well enough the first time. Just in case, she switched the frequency onto the one most used by the Peggies, hoping that would give her a fair bit of warning as to whereabouts they were looking for her.
With a grunt, Rook hoisted herself up and snatched up her backpack, whistling to Boomer to get going. He hopped to attention at once, tail wagging and trotting in front of her like a furry bodyguard as she made her way through the woods. She didn't think anything of the faraway rumble of planes flying overhead, until her radio hissed with the sound of an open link.
"It's deputy huntin' season," snickered one voice, before another responded sharply, "Capture, not kill. Hit her with the Bliss bullets."
The screech of tires on sun-heated pavement up the hill caused Rook to bolt at once, Boomer darting after her with an angry bark. Her thick boots skidded and twisted over the stony slope of the hill, her ankle twinging with every awkward landing, a grimace forming every time her supply-laden backpack banged against her back. She didn't hear the telltale sound of booted Peggie footsteps following, and when she glanced behind her she saw nothing but the sun-brightened tree line and a startled pronghorn taking off into the bushes. She slowed, breathing heavily and blinking in awe at the decided lack of Peggie pursuits.
"Are you fucking serious?" Rook panted, bending over to catch her breath and huffing out a disbelieving chuckle.
Did she manage to evade them with a clumsy sprint that couldn't have lasted longer than five minutes? Fuck, she'd kill to have Peggies this incompetent over in Jacob's region—his Chosen were goddamn devils who could (and had) easily shoot her through the thigh from a mile away without ever alerting her of their presence. Johnny's lackeys had a lot to learn.
Her barely healed thigh throbbed at the memory, so she stopped meandering and started jogging, scowling at whatever jar in her pack was still bruising her back with every step. Boomer followed close by, scouting ahead and looking wary. Apparently he too couldn't believe they'd gotten away that easily.
"Where are you, sinner?" bounced directionless through the trees, and Rook's legs kicked right back into gear, darting behind shrubbery.
"She can't hide for long," someone snarled over the radio.
"Try me, bitch," Rook muttered, scouting her options.
There was a cement overpass arching over a stream branching off from the river that she could dart under, but it was less than ideal assuming the Peggies were still flooding the highway. She could keep following the tree line; she'd probably eventually get to an empty cabin, and—
The roars of dual engines and the crackle of tires skidding over twigs and bushes prompted Rook to nearly jump out of her boots. The fuckers were literally driving into the woods!
"There you are!" one of them snarled, already pointing a pistol at her.
Boomer barked once, prepared to attack, but Rook grabbed him by the collar before he could dart into the fray and hurled herself back into the trees, hoping against hope the trunks would provide an adequate shield. She swore when she could hear the buzz of an ATV practically nipping at her heels, fumbling to try and unclip her handgun from the harness on her thigh mid-sprint. She cursed again when the snaps of the holster came undone, the handgun tumbling uselessly down the hill. Heart pounding, Rook did the first thing that came to mind—she grabbed a pack of C4, hurled it over her shoulder and squeezed the trigger.
Angry and pained shouts echoed through the woods once Rook's ears stopped ringing, and she chanced a glance behind her to find the charred pieces of the vehicle's frame and several bodies littering the leafy ground, a second vehicle already maneuvering around them to follow her. Its rider glared at her as he revved the engine, the passenger pointing a gun at her. At the last second Rook darted out of the way, the ground exploding behind her.
She cursed and whistled for Boomer to split off, loath to risk him to the capture party. The dog whuffed but obliged, branching off from her and disappearing into the bushes, while she risked slowing herself down by reaching back to rummage for another explosive. She swore to herself when she found nothing, then again when another bullet collided with a tree trunk and burst in a shower of sawdust and bits of bark.
In desperation, Rook darted up the hill towards the road, hoping beyond hope that there would be an idling vehicle for her to pilfer (it wouldn't have been the first time) but she cried out as a sharp pain blossomed in her shoulder. Her booted foot stumbled against the rocky hillside as her world started to tilt, until it felt like she was running on a treadmill. Rook blinked as glitter exploded in her eyes, the ground splitting into two wobbly pictures, her bones suddenly feeling like they were made of lead.
"…the fuck is this?" was her last word before the ground shot up to meet her face.
"This one?"
"No. This one."
The world was spinning, and Rook was cold. Her borrowed flannel clung wetly to her arms and torso, and she tried writhing away from the uncomfortable feeling, but didn't have the energy to move more than an inch before flopping back down.
She blinked up at the stars, both the ones that were stuck to the sky and the ones that lazily floated in and out of view, and frowned up at the scowling face that towered over her like a sentinel.
"Don't seem very worthy."
"It is not for us to judge."
Who wasn't worthy?
"Deliver them unto the waters," said the second voice, now suddenly behind her. "The Cleansing begins tonight."
Unto? Who the fuck says unto anymore?
Somebody yanked on her arm, hard, and if Rook had the energy she would have protested. Her eyelids were heavy, so she let them close for just a second. When she opened them again, the world was right-side up again, except now she couldn't breathe. Instinctively, she pressed her lips shut despite the burn in her lungs and whimpered, blinking up through the water at the shimmery face of an unknown Peggie, whose hands were clamped around her shoulders to keep her under. Through the dull ambience of the water and the rush of blood in her ears, Rook could hear someone talking, declaiming, with all the drama of a Shakespearean soliloquy.
"…We must expose our sins. We must atone!"
Her captor pulled her up way too quickly for her addled head, and she collapsed into him, spluttering and coughing. He righted her with a hand on her shoulder and a disapproving glare, before turning her attention to the mysterious voice with an outstretched hand as if to beckon, 'come and see'.
"For only then," John Seed boomed, with a voice so powerful Rook wondered if it could knock down mountains, if he tried, "may we stand in the light of God…"
She blinked the water from her eyes, cringing away from the bright lights that lit up the herald's frame with a heavenly white glow. He read from an open Bible (or their weird Peggie equivalent, anyway) and held his hand out to gently touch the forehead of another figure, like he was anointing them, and it was then that Rook realized she wasn't alone. Woozily, she chanced a glance around and was just able to make out several other blurry figures stumbling out of the water, all escorted by a Peggie with as firm a grip on their shoulders as Rook's new friend had on hers.
"…and walk through His Gate unto Eden," he finished, closing the book with a snap as he turned towards her (again with the 'unto' shit).
His head tilted slightly as she was led towards him, looking at her with a kind of inquisitiveness… except it turned her stomach in knots, like there was something quiet and dangerous underneath it. His lean figure wobbled in and out of focus, wisps of light still sparkling around his head, and if Rook stared long enough she could trick herself into thinking they were little fairies, glowing with magic and dancing around him. He stared at her with a gaze hard as stone, and Rook tried to stare back at him, but the hum of Bliss in her system weighed down her eyelids and drifted her focus. She was just able to make out the blurry motion of his arm darting out to stop her captor, eyes still locked on her.
"Not this one," he muttered to the Peggie holding onto her, whose grip disappeared abruptly.
John locked eyes with her once more as he handed his henchman the strange white Bible, before stepping forward into the shallow water to stand before her. He looked at her as one might look at a wild creature, blank and calm in expression but poised to attack should she make a move. Was he afraid of her? If Rook wasn't stoned out of her mind she might have smirked, but instead she just blinked back at him curiously. Up close, the strange, soft beauty of his face was almost awe-inspiring, high cheekbones sculpted above his well-kept beard, his sunglasses perched fashionably in his styled hair. Fucking Christ, Rook thought, why was this guy a weird preacher and not off modelling somewhere? His eyes were so blue even in the dark of the night; it was like drowning in the sky. Her ears rang from the adrenaline and the rush of the Bliss, but she shook it off just in time for John Seed to destroy her world.
"This one's not clean," came out of her soulmate's mouth, and her jaw dropped open in a gasp just before he roughly seized her soaked shoulders and shoved her back under the water.
A/N: Johnny boi's turn! I binge wrote this since before I had even finished posting Joseph's, because I am biased for sad baby blue preacher man because John needs a lil extra love 3 Please excuse mistakes, there's only so many times I can reread the same fic and try to make it perfect before my eyeballs threaten to fall out.
It's not at all necessary to have read Joseph's story before this, but they are connected in tiny ways, like little alternate timeline Easter eggs (๏ᆺ๏υ) I hope some of you catch them!