Chapter 2

John liked to cook.

It was one of the first things Jacob learned about his youngest brother when they reunited after so many years, no longer the lanky little boy with chubby cheeks and too-long hair that flopped over soulful eyes. This new man, he had soon learned, swaggered with all the confidence and tastes of the rich. Those tastes included finer foods than Jacob's military-conditioned simplicity allowed—and truth be told, Jacob fucking hated the chore of cooking anyway—so he graciously accepted his unspoken ban from the kitchen and allowed the pretty boy to whip them up all the fancy dishes Jacob forgot the name of soon after.

In the scarcely used reception hall, Jacob watched his brother's back as the younger man flitted around the kitchen in a practiced dance of this-goes-here and stir-this-there, frowning at the unusual anxiety the motions inexplicably prompted in him. Joseph was saying something about tightening security at the compound in the wake of her attack on the ranch, and Jacob vaguely registered his own response to the topic. His skin felt clammy, and he had the burning desire to march out of the hall and… do something, he wasn't sure what yet. Later he would recognize the signs of shock, but in the moment he could do nothing but sit there and struggle to function again, feeling like a lone cloud blown into the desert by the wind, slowly dissolving in unforgiving heat.

"Wasn't that the Deputy in that cage, Jacob?" John's voice wafted in through the fog, if only because of the forced tone of innocent curiosity that wasn't fooling anyone. "How did you manage to capture her?"

"…Chosen did it," Jacob grunted in response, without the ribbing over the note of jealousy in John's voice that would have come were he in his right mind.

He felt the back of his neck grow hot. He didn't want to talk about her.

"It was surprising to see how battered she was," John's voice cut back in.

"Wasn't me."

John sent him a confused look at his sharp replies, but before he could continue the radio in his pocket began barking requests for attention. Jacob tensed at the sudden interruption, curling his fists over the edge of the table to stop his jittery limbs from jumping up and attacking the non-existent threat. Shutting off the stove, John excused himself and sauntered out of the hall to take care of his call, Joseph nodding in acknowledgement.

"Are you well, Jacob?" Joseph asked, glancing down at Jacob's tight fingers.

"Fine," Jacob said again, but since Joseph looked unconvinced he supplied, "Didn't get much sleep."

"Do you usually?"

That got his attention. Jacob frowned at his brother, at that wide-eyed, yellow-tinged gaze that felt like Joseph knew everything in the world, like he could see the darkest parts of his soul just from looking at him, like he could find any secret Jacob tried to hide with just one golden glance.

Jacob hated when that look was directed at him.

Glancing back at the door where John departed, mostly for show but partly to appease his adrenaline rush by scoping out the room, Jacob said lowly, "Tell me what's going on in the Valley, Joe. I've seen the reports, but there's no reason the Dep—there's no reason the ranch should have fallen into Resistance hands so easily."

His brother's eyes narrowed at the way he choked on her honorific, but Joseph just sat back and steepled his fingers on the table. "The Deputy is… skilled in the ways of violence. We knew she would be a formidable threat when she came to us."

It wasn't really an answer, and that made Jacob irrationally angry. "Those fucking weaklings fell to a woman. How can we trust them to protect John? How can—"

"Peace, Jacob," Joseph hushed, and the wood creaked under Jacob's iron grip. "I know you are shaken about John."

"Fifteen minutes, Joe," Jacob bit out, even though that wasn't the true reason behind his current state.

"You must have faith that John can handle things," Joseph replied calmly. "Just like how I have faith you will treat the Deputy accordingly."

Jacob froze in his skin, eyes narrowing at his brother as his heart began bouncing in an irregular rhythm against his ribcage. It was clearly a warning… but it also felt like a prediction.

Before Jacob could fall down the rabbit hole of whatever that meant, John returned swiftly and beelined for the stove again.

"All is well, I hope?" Joseph said in his airy way, turning to face Joseph and missing the way Jacob deflated in his seat.

"Deputy Hudson has become a nuisance since she saw her Wrathful little friend in the bunker," said John crossly as he resumed stirring. "She managed to knock out two Faithful before they recaptured her."

Joseph glanced at Jacob as if to say 'see, he can take care of himself', but while Jacob remained silent he frowned at the indication that John had left yet another high-value, dangerous captive alone and unsupervised in the bunker.

The rest of the visit was largely spent in idle chatter, of which Jacob didn't contribute to unless directly addressed. He swallowed whatever was in his bowl without tasting it and escorted them back to the helipad, keeping his eyes locked straight ahead of him so he wouldn't have to look at her. He bid his brothers farewell with a press of his forehead to theirs, but Joseph gripped his shoulder again before he could see them off to their helicopter.

"The Deputy must remain alive, Jacob," the Father commanded, and not for the first time it felt like the order was coming from God through him. "We must make her see, if we are all to be saved."

"Yes, Joseph," he replied mechanically.

Seemingly appeased, Joseph waved him farewell as he turned to climb into the helicopter, aided by the hand of a Project member and John. He stood like a sentinel as the blades whirred to life and lifted his brothers into the air, staying still as stone until they were entirely out of sight, before turning on his heels and marching—not fleeing, he did not flee—towards the peace and quiet of his office, where he could slow down for a fucking second and think—

"Sir?"

Son of a bitch.

He froze in his stride and turned to positively glare at Peaches. The man's throat bobbed in a hard swallow, eyes skirting to the ground.

"The, uh, the conditioning trials are ready, sir," he stammered, visibly shrinking under the weight of Jacob's ire. "Will you be overseeing them, now that the Father and Brother John have left?"

Jacob exhaled an angry breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. He could offset the responsibility to Peaches—the man was perfectly capable of handling it now, maybe even without the supervision of a Chosen this time—but Jacob was no coward, and would not flee from his duties. The only thing he knew for certain was that he needed a moment to sort out whatever the fuck just happened.

"Delay them until I come back," Jacob barked, already taking off for the Center again. "I have work to do."

Without hearing Peaches' response, Jacob strode up the steps at a pace too fast to be casual and slammed the door to his office. Irrational rage replaced the bizarre haze that had weighed him down all afternoon.

The Deputy was his soulmate. The Deputy, the almighty and seemingly untouchable hellcat that had burst from the remains of the flaming helicopter to bring their world to ruin, shared the other half of his soul.

It had always been a point of confusion why Jacob was the one out of all the Seed brothers to have a soulmate. He didn't need one, he didn't want one—his job was to protect his family, not to be distracted by supposedly holy ties to another person. If anything, it felt like an accident of nature. God couldn't have been paying attention at the time, especially since Joseph was clearly the most deserving of a soulmate. John, even, would probably need the support of one the most. But Jacob? After the war, the many hazy years of homelessness and all the other bullshit he went through over the course of his terrible life, he never cared to think about his soulmate, never expected to find them.

But today he had, and it was the person who nearly made him fail his duty, almost killed his brother. Hell, the Deputy, the enemy. This wasn't supposed to happen—this wasn't in the plan. What did it mean if the Herald of the Project was irrevocably tied to the one woman who was waging war against their cause?

He knew the answer. It meant weakness.

With an almost animalistic snarl, Jacob grabbed his desk and upended the thing with a flurry of papers and the cracking of wood. When that wasn't satisfying enough, he hurled his chair across the room too. It nearly flew into the window to his left, cracking but not breaking the glass, and he forced himself to stop his tirade before it prompted anyone to come check up on him—he didn't trust himself not to strangle whoever dared look at him in that moment, the mere realization of his situation tensing his every muscle in preparation for a fight, breath coming out in staccato pants.

The Deputy was his soulmate, and by extension she was a weakness in him.

She was out there right now, he thought, his anger cooling to a simmer for a moment. He could march out there and end her where she stood, root out the cancer before it could destroy him. The Strong culled the Weak—it was his way, and he would not be the weak one. Joseph would understand.

Jacob exhaled a humorless laugh, his mouth curled down into a snarl—no, Joseph would not understand. He would hear the news of this little revelation and take it as a sign that he was right, that she needed to stay alive, that she would be family. He wouldn't think of the risks that came with accepting the enemy into their fold—he would command that Jacob accept her too, and pray his thanks to God for the supposed blessing while he was at it.

Jacob was well and truly stuck. He couldn't kill her without earning the ire of the Father, and he had no doubt doing so would cause him to be more than scolded. Joseph would lose his faith in him, and then what would he have? He had to figure out what to do with her.

As his mind turned from rage to calculating consideration, Jacob righted the chair again and sank into it, running a hand through his hair. The only reason he hadn't wanted to put her through the conditioning trials was because killing her negated the greater risks involved in keeping her alive, but since that wasn't an option, the best thing he could do to avoid her breaking him was to break her first. He had taken note of the way she gathered allies as she breezed through the county, so perhaps she would do so again—she hadn't been in his territory long enough to gain the Whitetails' attention yet, but that would change.

Maybe Jacob just needed to push her into their path.

Relief at having formed a plan relaxed his muscles, and he rested his elbows on his knees. She would be the perfect double agent, if all went well. Unless the Deputy had been stumbling through Hope County on blind luck, she would most likely survive in the trials, and because of her clear desire to help whatever weakling shouted their hatred for the Project, she would be drawn to the Whitetails like carrion to a carcass. Provided the Whitetails took her in—which he had no doubt they would, seeing as they couldn't afford to turn away a resource like her—the Deputy would walk right into his trap and become an asset to the Project without even knowing it.

And if they chose to kill her, he would be rid of her.

It was almost satisfying how well the idea seemed to fit everything about his situation. With a nod to no one, he hauled himself off the chair and out of the office, back straight once more as he marched outside and towards the gates of the Center. Armored trucks were already waiting to take him to the Grand View, Peaches waiting like an obedient dog with his hands clasped in front of him.

"Awaiting departure on your orders, sir," he barked upon spotting Jacob.

"Good job, Peaches," Jacob replied, a smirk only barely playing at his mouth at the way the other man perked up. "Prep the Deputy for conditioning."

"Sir?"

"You heard me." Jacob strode without looking back towards the van at the front, idling in wait for his arrival. "We're putting her through the trials."

Six days later, Jacob strolled into the Grand View right on schedule, at 1400 hours. Everything was as it should be—the footfalls of patrolling soldiers on the balcony, the churning smoke coming from the chimney, the crackle of tires over gravel as a handful of prisoner vans rolled in for delivery. An itch persisted under his skin despite how perfectly in place everything was, because this time those vans contained the Deputy.

He hadn't visited her, looked at her, or so much as asked about her in the days leading up to this moment. It was almost easy to put the sudden discovery of his soulmate out of his head and stick to his schedule—she wasn't there if he didn't see her or think about her, and when he had to, she wasn't worth enough for him to work himself up about anymore. Sometimes he could almost feel the weight of her eyes on him, glaring as he passed through the cages without so much as a sideways glance at where he knew she was, but since every prisoner in that place wanted a piece of him, he could easily pretend it wasn't just because of her.

Stick to the routine, he thought, and all would be fine.

Today was only different because it was the moment of truth, he told himself as he reached for the clipboard placed conveniently for his perusal at the front entrance. This would be the moment when she'd either fall in battle, or emerge from the chaos into the perfect sleeper agent to infiltrate the Wolf's Den and take down the Whitetails for good. As he descended the stairs towards the basement, ignoring the buzz of electricity and the screams of someone being tortured with it, Jacob perused the details of the newest recruits, some of which had been crossed out (weaklings). But he could only fool himself for so long by examining the intel on R. Sullivan and F. Roy before his eyes inevitably wandered to their true target.

Jacob paused in his steps as he took in the sparse details of the Deputy's life. Her surname was Rook, her first name reduced to an initial, just shy of turning twenty-six (and Jesus Christ did he feel like an old creep just thinking about it—what the hell was God thinking?) and born in the backwoods of West Virginia. He was only half-surprised to see her brief (much briefer than him, in any case) stint in the army listed—he knew she had to have gained her exceptional survival and combat skills from somewhere—alongside an even briefer amount of time training at the police academy. After graduation she had transferred to Montana in a county not far from Hope County, lingering only a few months before coming to their little corner of the treasure state. Why would she leave home to come all the way up here, he wondered? It definitely wasn't to find better work—by comparison, her hometown was bigger and more happening than Hope County could even wish to be.

Jacob realized he'd been meandering, and he shook off the curiosity before stepping into the conditioning room. Two weaklings whom Jacob could only assume were Sullivan and Roy were already strapped into their chairs, unfocused eyes squinting at the light of the projector. Peaches arrived right on schedule, the arm of the semi-conscious Deputy slung over his shoulder—she looked like shit, the blood and dirt she came in with having matted itself into her hair, her cheeks sunken in from days without food, mouth cracked and pale from dehydration. The satisfaction of how well a job his men did with her mixed with the unpleasant feeling of… something, he wasn't sure what, but it was uncomfortable, so he turned away and busied himself with setting up the projector.

A choked sound from Peaches regained his attention, as he dropped the Deputy into her chair and began working on the arm straps.

"…shouldn't have come for me," the other man was muttering roughly, as he tugged on the straps. "You should've run."

Jacob sent him a sharp look, a wordless order to back off, and Peaches obligingly skittered away from his former colleague to stand at his side. Inhaling deeply, silently, Jacob set the music box on the table and nodded to a Chosen, who slipped the first picture into the slider, and began his duty.

"This world is weak," he murmured, watching out of the corner of his eye as her head jerked up at the sound of him. "Soft. We have forgotten what it is to be strong…"

Her dry mouth curled into a snarl, and he almost smirked. Fearless—never a coward—Jacob stepped out from behind her and into the space between Sullivan and Roy, who struggled at the sight of him. She didn't struggle—he could hear her silence, feel her eyes.

Lifting his hands to the projector screen, sporting a picture of a wolf devouring its kill, he exclaimed, "Our heroes used to be gods. And now, our heroes are godless. Weak. Feeble. Diseased." The light flashed and a new image appeared, but he barely saw it as he turned to address the room, pointedly looking away from the tiny spot of heat and rage that was the Deputy. "We let the weak dictate to the powerful, and then we are shocked to find ourselves adrift. But history knows the value of sacrifice… of culling the herd so that it stays strong."

A flash of light, a new image. One of the recruits was visibly shaking in her seat. She was weak—she would be culled.

"Over and over, the lives of the many have outweighed the lives of the few—this is how we survived. And we've forgotten. And now… the bill has come due."

He turned to her, and he felt the impact of her stare before he even saw it. They locked eyes, hers like little pools of darkened rageas she glared, glared at him, fearless and still as stone, looking like she could knock mountains down with nothing but her eyes. While the other weaklings quaked in their bindings, she tore him apart with her gaze. He had to bite his tongue to stop from inhaling sharply, a small frisson of heat shooting out from his soul to the ends of each limb, but he would not fall into her now—he would do his job, and then watch her do hers.

"Now, the Collapse is upon us," he told her, leaning in to grip the armrests, and she didn't even flinch, "and this time the lives of the few outweigh the lives of the many. And when a nation that's never known hunger or desperation descends into madness…" Her cause was pointless, and she would soon see it, "…we'll be ready." He straightened, her eyes following as he picked up the music box and turned it over in his palm. "We will cull the herd." He wound the key. "We will do what needs to be done."

He opened the lid.

Her ironclad will could never have withstood the power of classical conditioning, he knew, but it was still a sight to watch her succumb to the familiar signs of a fugue state. Angry eyes rolling into the back of her head, she jerked in her chair in tandem with the others in the room, snarling like a beast and tearing at her bindings with such strength the metal of the chair creaked. Satisfied, Jacob shut the music box with a clack of wood on wood and nodded to Peaches, who left his post by the projector to follow him back up the stairs.

They headed up to the observation room, Jacob sinking into his chair slightly more eagerly than normal to peruse the cameras and observe her progress, Peaches shuffling off to the corner to watch over his shoulder. It took barely a moment for the three recruits to be released their bindings, stumbling to their feet. Everything was perfectly set up for them—there was a pistol on the table within arm's reach, one of the quickest ways to weed out the weaklings early on, and one of them would grab it right on schedule and shoot the other two, or maybe have it knocked out of their hands and a struggle would commence…

Except none of those things happened.

Instead, the Deputy hauled her malnourished body out of her chair, leapt over the table and descended on the other two like a rabid animal, the gun clattering unclaimed to the floor as the table tipped onto its side. Jacob couldn't even pretend to be anything but in awe, immediately straightening up in his seat and leaning uncomfortably close to the monitor so he could take in the way she delivered a cruel kick to Sullivan's stomach and slammed his face down on her knee with a definitive crack, the way she locked her arm around Roy's neck and snapped it like a twig. It was like he'd just unleashed Death itself upon the world, and his blood sang at the sight of her. He was so caught up in her that he almost forgot to murmur words of praise over the speakers, until she darted out of the room like a speeding bullet.

"Excellent," he managed to choke out, watching wide-eyed as she paused her rampage for the briefest moment, tilting her head at the sound of his voice.

The shouts of other conditioned soldiers caught her attention soon enough, because she snarled like a savage thing and snatched up the second weapon almost without even seeing it. And Jacob could do nothing but sit there and stare, face almost pressed to the monitor, at the sheer bloodlust and unholy speed he'd provoked in this woman. She tore through the obstacles they'd set up through the hotel like gravity had no effect on her; she shot, sliced and broke whatever so much as twitched in her direction, blood pouring over her skin like a gory baptism. He barely blinked as he watched, waiting for a single moment where she'd pause for breath, or get surprised when she turned a corner, or fell to a hidden threat, but it never came. She took every shout of 'hunt', 'kill', 'sacrifice', and turned it to her advantage, doubling back around so fugue-addled recruits—those unlucky enough to be classified as Meat—encountered each other and shot before they could realize it wasn't their target. It was like she breathed violence, the battlefield a wonderwork of her own making.

She was perfect.

"Sir?" came another man's confused voice—Peaches—through the haze.

Jacob blinked, and turned away from the monitor. Did he say that out loud?

"Pull her out," he said, clearing his throat when the order came out more breathless than he ever intended. "Pull her out and put her back in the chair. Leave her for the Whitetails to find."

"You think Rook—you think the Deputy would be perfect for the Whitetails?"

Shit, he had spoken out loud. He ignored the burning heat on the back of his neck and stood up from his chair, pointedly not looking at the monitors as an absolutely hellish snarl sounded from Rook, as Peaches called her.

"We'll see," he said gruffly, striding out of the booth.

He returned to St. Francis at 1900 hours, once the scene had been properly set for the Whitetails to find. He made sure the Deputy was sedated enough to wake up just in time for their arrival, loath to lose her to the mistaken belief that she was already dead. The Grand View was abandoned by all to await their arrival, and with his work done, Jacob headed back and made his way up to his rooms for his meager dinner and lights out as normal.

Except he didn't feel normal. He felt… stunned.

He didn't know what to make of his own situation, as he ate his food without tasting it in his office and held up a report without reading what it said. For the first time since discovering his soulmate, he felt like it made sense. That wild thing in the conditioning rooms could only be his soulmate—not Joseph's, not John's, not anyone else's. Only he could have something that violent and beautifully untamed belong to him.

And he had no idea what to make of that.

A part of him was thrilled, at the very least because she was the perfect sleeper agent for him to plant among the Whitetails' ranks, provided they kept up their end. But another part of him was unsettled at how… for lack of a better word, how fucking smitten he was acting just from that little show. She was impressive, certainly, and he'd yet to see anyone half as good as that run through his trials… but that didn't warrant making him swoon like a goddamn kid when a pretty lady winked in his direction. What the fuck was happening to him?

With a glance at the door, Jacob shoved his half-eaten dinner aside onto a filing cabinet and bent over a nearby safe to pull out an old laptop. It wasn't contraband to have—the Project used what few computers remained in the county to store data—but what was technically contraband was the flash drive that Jacob swiftly plugged into the side as the old thing booted up, connecting him to the only satellite internet connection left in the county. Jacob was the only one (save Joseph of course) who knew about this sole connection, keeping the potential security risk close at hand to ensure it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands. A single inkling of what was going on in Hope County being broadcasted to the outside world might mean gaining the ire of forces that would try to stop them before the Collapse, hence why one of the first things they did when the Reaping began was cut off all the radio, phone and internet towers. He had kept a private satellite service open to stay in contact with his arms dealers in Russia (those wintery fucks would do anything to screw with the US, including deal with their own secret insurrectionists) but now he used the closely-guarded privilege to access Google and search up the curious phenomenon of soulmates.

The further he scrolled, the deeper he frowned.

The bond could have broken, he learned, if they hadn't unwittingly blurted out each other's words at the same time. A soul bond could be broken if one party purposely said something different than the other's soul mark… but it was solidified if both marks were spoken. The possibility of breaking the bond hadn't even occurred to him, but he was disappointed in the lack of the option anyway, even if the idea sounded like some magic bullshit—how the hell would science break something like a soul bond anyway, something that was largely mental and emotional?

But he positively scowled when he read that death wasn't the answer either. The articles said nothing about being able to kill one's soulmate—and why would they, given the absurdity of the idea anywhere but in Hope County?—but they did espouse that if one half a soul bond died, the bond would remain. Even if he did kill her, or if someone did the job for him, he would be mourning her loss until he died. The thought almost disgusted him into shutting the laptop, but he refrained when more questions arose. What if a soulmate was like him? Would he really feel sadness for her if she were gone, when he didn't even know what sadness felt like anymore? He almost hoped he was too broken to feel sadness, able to train himself to ignore it like everything else. The thought was almost comforting.

Out of curiosity, he backed out of the page and searched up what would happen if he just ignored her, if soulmates could just leave each other after a soul bond occurred. That happened all the time, right? People didn't always leave their current partner when they found their soulmate, so maybe he could ignore her in favor of devoting himself to the Project. The answer was even more irritating: it was exceptionally rare that soulmates did not end up together, feeling inevitably 'drawn' to each other, unless one or both was already in love with someone else and willing to devote themselves to their partners… willing to suffer through the urge to go seek out their other half.

He slammed the laptop shut with a snarl. Why the fuck did God, or whoever the hell was responsible for this, make soulmates to begin with? He hated having control over his life wrenched out from under him, the feeling awfully familiar to when he drifted through the streets of Rome a washed up, PTSD-addled wreck, unable to choose more than where to sleep (if he could sleep) and where to wander. It gave him the uncontrollable urge to move, to pull at his hair, to go out and kill something just to distract himself.

Just like before, Jacob calmed himself somewhat with the assurance of the plan he had in motion. She was under his control now. The Whitetails would sweep her away, integrate her into their ranks, and be none the wiser. And she, with all her hatred of the Project and her desire to bring them down, would do the same as he would—fight their respective fights and pretend the other didn't exist. It was clear from the righteous glares he'd gotten at the Grand View that she wouldn't accept him, and he never thought she would. He wouldn't accept her either.

Frowning contemplatively, Jacob gave in to the bizarre urge to pull up his sleeve and examine the soul mark. It was barely legible anymore under the cratered skin, the first 'e' and the 'o' the only clear characters that could be made out. A humorless laugh huffs out of him at the irony—his life had already destroyed any chance of a soul bond before they'd even met each other.

Where was hers, he wondered?

"Son of a bitch," he snarled at himself, when his mind began to wander up her lithe little body and picture all the places his words might be branded onto her, and he felt the first stab of sexual attraction to another person in literal decades.

He would not fall to her, he commanded in his mind as he stormed out of the office and up to his rooms, angrily shoving off his clothes and readying for bed. As he lay on his back and counted the cracks in the ceiling (still gotta get that fixed) he considered telling Joseph about his problem, confiding in his brother like so many of the Flock did. But he shook his head at himself, already able to picture Joseph's reaction—first he'd bray out some Bible quote about faith or perseverance or some bullshit, then he would plead with Jacob to bring her into the Family, even if it'd be kicking and screaming. He squeezed his eyes shut against the mental image, finding the mere idea deeply unsettling for reasons he couldn't (and really didn't want to) figure out.

It didn't matter what Joseph said anyway. She was currently unconscious on the floor of the Grand View, strapped back into her chair and surrounded by the piles of dead bodies she was responsible for killing, and the Whitetails would find her. She'd stay the fuck away from him, at least for a bit—she'd probably flit over to one of his siblings' regions again and pretend she never saw him, never spoke his words. And she'd fight like hell again, in all her misguided certainty about her cause, to bring down their so-called evil, no matter whether her soulmate was behind it or not.

She would never allow herself to be brought into the Project, least of all at his side.

He sat up with a snarl as his swirling thoughts kept him from even light rest, already shucking on his clothes again. Slamming the door behind him, Jacob stalked out towards the cages and took out his frustrations on one of the weaklings in the cages, wishing every time his bare knuckles connected with bone and skin that he could stop picturing fiery glares and beautiful violence.

A/N: Disclaimer: this fic will consist entirely of Jacob thinking he has a good plan before Rook bitch-slaps him with the opposite. Pls enjoy.