《 》《 》《 》

The Captain

"We need to talk about Eden's Gate." Jerome says some time later when both girls have joined him at the map table. For all that he had sent Carmina and Sequoia off to get cleaned up, he still wears the same gear from that morning, boots and pant legs mud stained, face gleaming with oil and dried sweat.

Carmina has settled at the head of the table, arms crossed, her face obstinance set in stone. Her lips are pressed tight and her eyes follow the other adults in the room, stubbornly avoiding landing on Sequoia.

"You mean New Eden? The Judge?" The Captain asked hesitantly, eyes flicking from the pastor to Kim and the Native man, Wheaty, who had perked up from halfway across the room at Jerome's words.

"Yes and no." Jerome says. He moved a few loose papers around the table, gathering them up until the full map could be seen.

It was an old print, an series of aerial photos from before the bombs, that showed buildings and roads and landscape that didnt exist anymore. Someone had taken a white grease pencil to the laminated surface and had marked updated sites on the grid.

"How much do you know about Eden's Gate?" Jerome asked the two.

"Not as much as I want." Carmina answered, her gaze firmly on him, bright and intent like a dog with a scent.

"They were a religious group led by Joseph Seed." Sequoia states firmly. "Started some sort of civil war between their group and the townspeople of Hope County, four months or so before the bombs fell."

"They were a cult of fanatics." Kim cuts in, as she approaches the table, eyes firm on Jerome, her eyebrows raised in question. "Why are we talking about them?"

The pastor turns to look at her, face going soft in a way that speaks more of guilt than comfort. "There are things they need to understand. About our new allies, about the Judge. There are factors that remain in play that I didn't even think to consider, and it's too dangerous to leave them unsaid."

"What happened?" Kim's voice has gone low and growling, eyes flicking to her daughter and giving her a solid once over.

Jerome just turns to the map, finger drawing a slow line across the landscape until invisible boundaries are established. "When Eden's Gate started their Reaping, Hope County was split into four regions. You had the Cult's Compound, this island up north, where Joseph and his forces stayed. And the rest of the county was split into thirds, parceled out between the Seed Siblings, John, Jacob, and Faith."

"We built Prosperity on John Seed's Ranch." Carmina commented. "This used to be his house."

Kim nodded. "It was but the old missle silo was his main base. He would kidnap townsfolk from Falls End and the surrounding farms and drag them into the bowels of that thing and torture out a confession before he'd work on converting you."

Sequoia cringed. "I'm guessing the other siblings did that kind of thing too?"

Jerome nodded, his eyes firmly on the sprawl of his hands on the table. "I thought that the Judge may have been one of John's Chosen - one of his top ranking soldiers - but now I'm thinking he was one of Jacob's. Or hell, did anyone ever run into one of Joseph's Faithful?"

Kim shook her head. "Not that I ever heard, but I only knew John's soldiers. Nick didn't spend too much time in the mountains, R—" her face collapsed on her for a moment, mouth and eyes pulling down in a sudden flash of old grief, "Rook kept him out of there, He didn't want him getting into trouble with Jacob's helicopters."

"The Judge knows his way around the Valley." Jerome says, "He knows it enough to be able to gauge walking distances for travel on foot not just by car, so he has to be a local or one of John's. But he also reacted badly when an old pop song came on over the radio, so he must have spent time with Jacob."

Kim hums in thought. "Or Joseph just poached the best of his sibling's forces."

"I don't understand." Sequoia cut in, "Why does it matter which sibling the Judge fought for?"

"The song." Carmina cut in, voice raising with sudden recognition, "It wasn't even the right song and it freaked him out."

"Triggered." Jerome put forth, "That's the term you're looking for Carmie. It matters because if he gets triggered again, we need to know how he'll react."

"John was a sadist." Kim said after a long pause. "But his people weren't, they did most of the capturing and converting, so they were trained to keep people alive, but if Judge is one of Jacob's…"

It's then that Wheaty steps forward, taking his place at the table end opposite Carmina. His face is serious, eyes catching each of the others in turn as he says, "The Judge used to be a Whitetail. He's one of Jacob's Hunters if he's anything, but he was a Whitetail first."

"You're sure?" Kim asks, and Wheaty nods, his hand falling into his pocket and pulling out the scratched rectangular body of an iPod.

"The Judge gave me this last night." He clicks the home button and shows them the song list as he scrolls through. "I didn't ask for it, didn't even know he had it, but he gave it to me. So he remembers me. He remembers that I used to ask for music to play on air, to drown out the Cult Propaganda. He has to be a Whitetail."

The table is silent for a long moment, but for Carmina and Sequoia trading glances and mounting 'whitetail?' at each other.

"You're going to want classic rock." Wheaty says as he hides the iPod away. His eyes are distant and weary. "Something with hard drums and lots of electricity in the sound."

He swallowed, and tilted his head towards the Captain. "We had tons of 'em. Whitetails, I mean, who got fucked up by Jacob Seed's brainwashing. Every single one would lose their shit at the sound of an old pop song. Sinatra, Etta, even Bing fucking Crosy. It didn't matter, it was something about the sound of them, the strings, the background singers, I don't know what, but it scared them to death before their brain connected it wasn't even the same song Jacob used as the control switch.

"Eli used to have me play classic rock in the Wolf's Den, real loud, especially around where Jacob's survivors were recovering." He tapped his hand once more against the table and stepped back, "You want one of Jacob's toys to break free of their training, you play them classic rock, and you play it as loud as you can, understand?"

《 》《 》《 》

The evening drags on for all that Jerome's conversation around the map table has unleashed a number of stories from the older denizens of Prosperity. Carmina is enraptured, asking endless questions, following dozens of storylines, until she is bloated with information that had been withheld from her for so long.

It makes her eyes grow distant. As she reviews the actions her parents took in her mind. As the cautionary tales they had told in her childhood finally made sense.

Do not play near white flowers. Don't eat anything New Eden grows, Don't speak, don't look, don't interact with them. They'll steal you, take you from us, we'll never see you again. Stay where we can see you, don't wander off, don't travel east of the pumpkin farm. Stay where you'll be safe.

It finally makes sense to her, why her mother fought so hard against allying with New Eden. She can see the realization in the Captain's eyes too, after Jerome talked of the attack on Falls End, on his church, on the day Carmina' s daddy got that deep hand sized scar on his chest.

"I shouldn't have said what I did earlier." Carmina says to her. "About the Judge running off, and how the fight went. It wasn't right."

The Captain nods, a flush growing up her neck and settling on the tips of her ears. "I said a lot too, things that I shouldn't have. And you weren't wrong…I need - I should be better at this. Being a leader, I mean. And I'm not. Not yet at least. I'm trying, and I'll do better, but it's just-"

"Yeah." Carmina says simply, her hand finding and squeezing the Captains. "We'll do better next time."

《 》《 》《 》

The Judge never returns. The Captain waking to an empty room, the makeshift bed he had spent the previous night in the same state of rumpled he had left it the previous morning.

For all that Carmina had apologized, her words still echoed through the young woman's mind, 'Way to go, you broke New Eden's favorite toy.' And it was all the worse after the conversation with Jerome, after she had learned the truth about how the Seed siblings made their best soldiers. Worse now that she knew the Judge hadn't joined them willingly, but was shaped into being without consent.

It makes her stomach sour, thinking of the way Joseph ordered him around, the way he didn't even check if the Judge wanted to go to Prosperity, to fight the Highwaymen, just gave him to her like he was some tool to be lent out.

It made her think of all the ways she may have taken choice from him too. All the thoughtless orders or ignored attempts to communicate.

That thought sticks with her throughout the morning, as she cleans her weapons, as she looks over the aerial maps of the valley, as she sits side by side with Rush on the porch, eyes watching the lengthening shadows as the sun approaches its noontime peak.

"Do you think this was a mistake?" She asks him quietly, "Leaving California, coming here?"

"We came because they needed our help." Rush said, voice flat in the way that betrayed his words.

But that was the problem, had always been the problem, the driving motivation behind the man. Someone else needed help so Rush rushed in. He had always been that way, for the full extent of Sequioa's memory. Even before the bombs. She could remember him spending long weekends helping her dad replace the drywall in Nona Vessecio's living room after the upstairs bathroom flooded and the first floor ceiling went with it.

She remembers the first batch of survivors, she, Rush and Mila had stumbled upon. She remembers how quickly Mila's dad had offered help, his support, even with two young girls clinging to his side.

She remembers how willing he was to take her in, when her parents died in the bomb blast. How willing he was to scrape and scrounge and work to keep two young girls fed.

He did his best by her, did his best by every person he could, even the ones he had never met before. Which led them here.

To Hope County.

Which led them and their people, a whole train full of Rush's Militia to die when the train went off its tracks. To be killed, or captured, or worse by the people they had been tasked to help protect against. Sequoia's family went from a group of 60 to a party of two, and even though it's been nearly two weeks since the train burrowed its way into the rocky Montana soil, she has heard of no other survivors but her and her best friend's father.

"We came here to help." She agreed, leaning forward on her knees and looking down at the spring grass between her boots. "We came here to help and we died for it… I just— knowing what we know now, about the Highwaymen, about what's really going on here, about what happened. Sometimes I just— I think we never should have come at all."

The sigh that passes his lips is long and rife with feeling. "We didn't know. I wish I could say differently. That if we had known how bad this would go, then our family would still be intact. That we'd still have Terry, and Joan, and Sara, and all the other people who came with us, who believed we could help make another community safer, better off. It's just," His hand finds hers and squeezes. "We can't play these what if games, niña. The fact is we're here, and we're here to stay. We can only move forward, and hope for the best, and do our best."

Her throat is tight and she squeezes his hand back, hard, before letting go and swiping at the moisture rising in her eyes.

"Yeah. Yeah okay." Sequoia takes a long breath and then another. "At the train. When they took you— do you remember anyone else? Any other survivors that ended up in the mines with your or or…"

"They had Terry Goodman. He was banged up, but not really hurt. They uh…they split us up pretty quickly, once they figured out he was a doctor. Put him in a car and drove off to - hell I don't know, one of their main bases maybe? A doctor like him, with actual medical schooling… he's worth more than his weight in gold. They didn't want to risk him."

He continued, "The Highwaymen pulled four others from the wreck, sent them into the mines with me, but they didn't make it."

"Who? Who went with you?" Sequoia asked, face pulling into a grimace.

Rush just shook his head, and stared out over the yard, watching the children playing with one of the camp dogs, before he eventually said, "Part of me thinks a few of ours made it into the woods and escaped. Wishful thinking maybe. But I'm going to keep believing it. I have to."

She falls into his side and tucks her arm around his waist, and his arm loops around her in turn, instantly, thoughtlessly, just as it always had. "I like that. I think— I think I'm going to keep that dream too."

She knows it would be a lie, this dream, a pretty lie to tell herself at night to ease the guilt of being one of two who survived.

《 》《 》《 》

She sees the smoke long before they reach the outpost. A thick column of black rising over the treetops to stain the soft blue sky with poison and ash. She can smell the acrid weight of it through the open window of the repurposed SUV, the word 'Resistance' spray painted atop the pink and black graffiti all Highwaymen vehicles seemed to carry.

She thinks she can still smell the lingering gunpowder as they drive through the busted gates into the devastation that used to be U.S. Auto.

It takes a long moment for her brain to catch up to what her eyes are seeing. To stop skimming over the burning wreckage of three different vehicles, their windows, and tires peppered with arrow shafts, to recognize the slumped forms of bodies behind their steering wheels, or the bodies pouring out in rag doll fashion from the open air door frames.

"Jesus Christ." Don from Prosperity mutters as he slows to a halt and shoves the vehicle into park.

"The Judge did this?" Sequoia can't help but say, her voice echoing in her ears, "Alone?"

She should step out of the car. Move from her seat, but it's like her muscles have frozen, have forgotten how to move when faced with the carnage.

There are bodies. There is blood. And it is so inconceivable that it was done by one man.

Her eyes skim over the area, looking for the bright pops of undyed wool which would betray another New Eden archer.

"Judge? You here?" Sequoia calls out as she finally steps from the vehicle, her boot landing inches from a paint spill. She skirts around it, calling out again, before her eyes land on a churn of boot prints leading out of the paint.

She follows the trail of those smooth soled prints. Her eyes darting between workbenches and piles of parts, doubtful but hoping that he's just tucked away somewhere for a quick rest while waiting for Properties reinforcements to arrive.

Sequoia loses the tracks around the time the Judge would have stepped onto the concrete slab, his boots clearing of paint like a stamp without ink. She can see where he went though, as her eyes fell upon the long range radio. The outer casing of the headset's earcups coated in a marbled handprint of sapphire and white.

She approaches the table, glancing at the battered spiral notebook for any messages that may have been left, and then reaches for the headset when she finds none.

She holds it up to her ear, the paint still tacky when her fingers press into it, and then pressed down on the microphone's receiver.

"Away team is in position. All quiet here." She reports. She lets off the receiver and starts to browse through the notebook.

"Acknowledged." Grace Armstrong says from the other end of the radio. "You find your Peggie?"

The Captain can't hold back the moue of disgust at those words. "No and he's not a-"

Her eyes flick down and spot the palm sized red stain on the floor, too thick to be paint, blood.

"He's hurt. And he's not here." She says, as her eyes follow the trail of quarter sized drops that lead away from her to the far edge of the concrete floor, and out towards the treeline.

"How hurt?"

"Unknown." The captain replies, and she can feel her heart in her throat, the pulse of it behind her ears. "Enough to be leaving a trail, he may have headed east."

Grace grunts on the other side of the line. "Peggies used to have an outpost at Davenport Farm, some of the buildings are still there, overgrown but functional, he could have headed that way. It's maybe a mile east of you, you'll see it if you follow the old highway."

"Any place else?" Sequoia growls, her hands pulling an old tourist map from her pocket, her fingers darting across the well worn print and landing in the general area of U.S. Auto.

There's a pause at the other end of the line. "There is my old place." Grace says, her voice stuck between thoughtful and wary. "House burned down a long time ago, at the start of the Cult War, but the bunker is still there. Closer to three miles if you stick to the roads, two if you cut through the fields. It'd be southeast of you, at the top of a hill. You can see the rise from the farm."

"Ok. Ok." Sequoia replied automatically, her eyes on the map. "I'm going after him. Captain out."

《 》《 》《 》

The Judge

One of the greatest tragedies in life is to lose your own sense of self and accept the version of you that is expected by everyone else."

K.L. Toth

The bunker had seen better days, the insides burned by a recent fire, the walls black with soot, and the air tinged with old smoke. It doesn't stop you from limping farther in, tucking yourself into the room farthest from the gaping hole that once was a vault door.

Use the wall to slide to the floor, your wounded leg a shaking, pulsing heat. You should force a restart. Drive a knife through your heart and let your body speed its way back to its natural state but the thought exhausts you. To force a resurrection in as little as two days will leave you weak, will leave you vulnerable and hurting. And you don't fear death, you can't, not anymore, not when it means nothing but another long day toiling in the sun, but you do not court it either. You do not long for the five minutes of emptiness a minor death will grant you, nor the day long solitude a major one promises.

Instead you live in limbo, wanting what you cannot have but never having the chance to obtain it. You are stuck accepting the awful truth. The reality of the situation. Knowing that the truth of it is this: Death cannot kill you. You cannot kill you. The only thing you have is the here and now, and the jostled memories of the life you lived before the fire and smoke of Joseph's apocalypse.

You regret it sometimes, regret the series of events that brought you to this moment, you wonder how things could have changed if you didn't try and fight, if you didn't stay in Hope County, if you fled instead of fought.

Your leg hurts. There is a puddle of red growing from it. From you. Your pants are wet, your hands when you reach to touch the ground meat of your thigh are smears of blue.

Why are they blue? That's not right is it?

Your body is slumping, hands shaking, leg twitching, your breath is slow, your eyes heavy in the growing dark. So dark, why is it so…

There is a hand at your throat. A finger pressing hard into your under jaw and you jerk, mouth curling, air leaving you in a hiss.

Shove yourself to your feet and stumble as your muscles scream, as they lock up and send you crashing back down.

Sound comes back to you, female, voice frantic as she reaches for you. You can see her now, skin washed out in the yellow light of her flashlight, dark hair, brown eyes wide, frantic.

Sequoia. Captain. Safe.

The fight drains out of you with a grunt. Settle against the cold concrete. Your leg hurts. The muscles are stiff and pulling, even rolling your foot at the ankle is too much to ask.

"—s okay, it's alright. You're safe, okay? You're just fine, Judge. I've got you." Words leave her mouth in an endless string of babble, even as her hands try and wedge under you to roll you onto your back.

Grunt again, not in pain, but acknowledgement. Bat at her questing hands, try to push them away from where they have targeted the bloody swatch of your pants.

Your fingers are slow, stiff, as useless as you are, caught prior to a resurrection, body yanked from death before it could fully settle in.

"Mmm- uh-Kay." You manage to piece the sounds together. Thankful that none of the syllables require your tongue to shape them.

"What?" Her hands freeze where they are pressed against your skin,her palms flat against your back, in a misplaced attempt to soothe.

"Uh-Kay." You manage again, rough words matching the mangled rasp of your voice.

"You can talk?" Her disbelief is loud, keeps her frozen for long seconds.

Don't bother to respond to that. Grind your forehead into the cold concrete as you draw your arms under you. Your wrists hold your weight as you heave yourself up and roll over onto your back. It is strange to feel both more secure and more vulnerable with your eyes on Sequoia but your belly exposed to the air.

She recoils at your movement, hands hovering as if unsure you'll allow her to help you twist or if she should let you carry on alone. Her eyes rove over your form when you settle against the concrete.

Head tilting to the side, you notice the small medical kit by her knee, unzipped and spilled open, ziplock bagged bandages tumbling out over the edges. You see Sequoia reach for the kit, and you grunt. One hand moving dismissively through the air. 'Don't.' You mean to follow it up but you can feel yourself slowing down. The last bit of motion is all the energy your body has to spare. Your eyesight is growing blurry, your eyelids heavy, sliding down despite how you try to force them open.

It may have been a mistake, rolling to your back. It's harder now, to stay awake, to stay conscious, played out as you are, the cost of the coming resurrection pulling you back down, slowing your brain, your breath, the electric fire of your muscles as it leeches the final dregs of your energy.

Your eyelids fall closed, and in that darkness you realize that Sequoia has been talking to you, probably has been chattering the whole time, but you can't understand it, can't process it beyond the fading syllables, you think you are listening to a distant conversation in a far room.

There is a hand in your hair. Gentle fingers brushing the close crop, never grasping, never clawing, never trying to wrap the longer strands through the vice of their fingers and hold.

You know it's not Joseph.

You know it's not Joseph and your spine is buzzing. The feeling jittering like a wind up toy, sending lightning through your nerves and neck and shoulders.

You don't know if you like it. Whatever this is.

The hard twitch that follows your awakening can't be held back. It jolts you, causes the hand to stop, to slide away, fingers just as soft, as gentle as they were before.

Breathe.

Open your eyes, stare into the blackness and try to open them again, realize this time that it's the room that's dark not your sight and sigh out. Twitch your fingers, your toes, your mouth, our nose, and hum questioningly into the night.

The figure is beside you, stretched out on the hard concrete along your side, you can feel the warmth of them run from your head to your wrist.

"Hey.' Comes a voice, breathy and feminine, an unpracticed whisper.

Hum again, same query in your tone, though you know it's probably lost, hidden under the gritty strain of your vocal cords.

Something brushes against your temple, draws down to your cheekbone and you can't help the flinch, the wounded animal yelp. The hand retreats in a flutter of air and the slide of polyester.

It's that noise that brings it all back, what has happened, who it is beside you. Visions of a blue windbreaker enter your mind.

"I wasn't sure you were breathing." Sequoia says, and her voice is louder now, has lost that childlike whisper, though quiet still. "I had to check, I'm sorry."

It's then you realize what she means, why you could even feel the press of a finger against the skin of your face. Your mask is gone and it unnerves you, sends a snake to curl in your gut, sour, and venomous. The stiff hand that you raise to your lips shakes with the rush of it.

You feel fabric there, damp and slightly warm, a collection of condensation from your mouth.

"I didn't take your bandana off." Sequoia says, and you don't know if her eyes are better than yours in this pitch blackness, or if she could hear the scrape of your callused fingers over the worn cloth. "I just pressed my ear to your mouth and listened."

Sequoia laughs awkwardly, unnerved by the silent air between you, "I don't recommend it by the way. Really weird experience for me. Two thumbs down."

Her poor joke makes the tension slowly drain from your body. The relief starts in your hands and runs up to your shoulders, your neck, your jaw. Ease into the floor, and feel as she eases with you, as her leg relaxes from where it lays against your side.

"I was - no- I am really worried about you Judge." You hear the shift of fabric against concrete and sense as she adjusts her seat, curling in on herself. "I thought you were dead."

Twitch your own hand, move it laboriously until it fits over the curve of her ankle, and squeeze two quick pulses before you let it linger there, gaining warmth from her skin to chase away the chill of the concrete floors.

"I thought you were dead." She says again, and this time there is no mistaking the deep seated worry. "You ran off and you were bleeding out and you would have died. You would have died if I hadn't found you. How could you just—"

She takes a deep breath, pulling the air through her teeth as if that will help disperse the thoughts rattling away in her mind.

"I was really worried. Ok, I was really worried for you and," She swallows here, you can hear the drag of it through her throat, "We need to talk about things. About how this is going to work—with you, with our team. But we can't do that here. I can't see you. And I need to know that we're on the same page, okay?"

It stumps you, for a long minute, her words, the insistence in them. What does it matter what you think? Why does it matter to her what you want? Either you will do what she says, or you will do what you think is best. There is no middle ground there. Joseph loaned you out to her, to Prosperity, and that makes you nothing more than a tool to be thrown at the enemy. You seeing eye to eye with this girl has nothing to do with that.

Push yourself up onto your elbows, feel the strain of it down your back, from where the muscles had frozen up from lying on chilled concrete for who knows how many hours. Twitch your feet, the muscles in your legs, and wince at the pull of still wounded flesh.

You didn't die. Didn't resurrect or reset. You can feel it now, the heavy bandaging around your leg, the stiff pull of dried blood against cotton wrapping as your muscles twitch. You can feel it better now, the lingering pain in your left thigh and hip, the one that spoke of half healed muscle and regrowing bone.

Troublesome, but only for as long as it takes you to get space from the Captain and her people.

With that in mind, it is easy enough to shove yourself to your feet, less easy to keep them, as your stiff muscles protest the weight of your body, but you manage it, taking a few limping steps down the hall to the ladder that would take you to the surface. You can hear the startled yelp from the girl before she too clamberes to her feet . Her surprised call, following you down the barren concrete halls, and mixing with the shuffle of her gathering her tossed aside supplies.

It was sunny on the surface, the doorless porthole letting in a stream of steady light. Too bright to be sunrise, too sharp to be sunset.

You grunt and growl as you climb the ladder, each step taken with your bad leg sending a jolt of pain up your spine to linger in your temples. You are sweating by the time you breach the top, crawling out onto the burned grass and churned dirt and you can't help but flop down to wait.

The Captain joins you minutes later, face flushed and arms laden with hastily scooped up supplies. You see relief in her eyes the moment they land on you, sprawled out in the sun and waiting on her, instead of whatever she assumed you'd be doing. It is a quick change, relief to annoyance. She stomps over to you, dropping the gathered supplies on your torso and sinking down beside you in a tumble of limbs.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're an asshole?" She grumbles, pulling her backpack from off her shoulders, and unzipping the pouches.

Raise a hand and teeter it back and forth, 'Sometimes.'

She snorts, angry still, but amused, "Well they should say it more often."

Pick up a collection of ziplocks and hand it to her, watch as she shoves them back into the side pocket of her pack that has a little Red Cross painted on it. Remember how they originally held bandages and press your hand to the linen wadding wrapped around your leg.

Turn your face to hers and wait until she looks up, and your eyes meet. 'Thank you.' Another one of your limited pieces of actual sign language, one she seems to know, for her eyes brighten at the action.

"You're welcome." She says, and her smile is something small, fragile, somewhat hopeful. "What else is a teammate for?"

Say nothing though, just pass her another of the items dumped across you, and watch as that one is also packed away.

There is a mindless sort of focus to the way she tucks each handed item back into her kit, the careful placement, and order, as if that had been drilled into her as something other than preference.

It probably had. You remember the way she and Thomas Rush had circled around each other, shored each other up. You remember seeing the special forces symbol tattooed across his neck, the shape of dog tags beneath his shirt. She would have learned it from him, from her boss? Her dad?

It didn't matter. Not your business.

'You wanted to talk.' You remind her, wrapping up the string of motions with a childish opening and closing of fingers. You remember making that shape to tease your mom when she talked on the phone for hours with her sister, yap yap yap.

Sequoia is getting better at reading you, her brow still tucked with focus, but no longer quite as confused. "Yes" She pauses for a moment, eyes dropping from you, to where she is tucking the final box back into her pack. It feels like avoidance, but you know she is just bracing herself, gathering herself, for whatever landmine she thinks she's going to be navigating.

"Jerome told us more about Eden's Gate, about the war before the bombs…He told us about Joseph Seeds siblings," and its there her eyes flick to yours, expression worried, and tight, "He told us about the brother who used the music to…y'know. And um— I'm sorry about before, with the radio, I didn't know —Carmina didn't know what it meant for you. I'm sorry."

Her attention is fully on you, and you look from the sincerity in her face to the white knuckled grip she has on the shoulder straps of her bag.

It stuns you at first. That she bothered to apologize. That she didn't let that afternoon in the car fade into obscurity, into an unaknowled but present trump card held in perpetuity until the right moment to use it against you, like Joseph would have, like Jacob had. It is odd that she feels the need to apologize. To grovel for something that wasn't her fault, that she wasn't the cause of. It leaves you wrong footed, an embarrassed tumble in your gut. You don't know what to do, so you flounder, hands wringing.

The pause grows between you, her eyes locked on your face. She is expecting a response, so you duck a quick nod, hoping it is the answer she is looking for, and after a few seconds more she continues.

"Will you come back to Prosperity with me?"

Your answer is immediate. Your head shakes even as your arms shove you into a seated position, your legs are slow to follow, feet planting on the ground as you move to stand.

A hand on your arm stops you. Sequoia has shuffled closer to you, holding you down with proximity but not with weight. "You're hurt Judge. You need to rest, to heal. Prosperity is closer than New Eden, and we have Selene, she's a doctor…sort of, but she can fix you up, get you some antibiotics, some painkillers, help make you better."

The pressure of her hand on your arm holds you, arrests you, you can hardly move beneath the weight of it. Shake your head again, slowly, keep your eyes on the floor. 'I don't need—'

"Judge." Sequoia says again, her hands moving from your arm to your hand, where she squeezes your fingers gently. "You don't have to do everything alone. We can help you…I can help you, you just have to let us."

Her face falls into a frown and she moves so that she is kneeling in the dirt in front of you, her eyes boring into your face, and it's then you realize how important that is to her, to be able to see you, your expressions, your eyes fully. Wonder what it was in her life that made that so important.

"You do a lot of solo work for New Eden." She says, and her voice is sure, there is no supposition within her tone. "That's what you're used to, what they ask of you, or maybe it's what you decided for yourself. But Judge, it doesn't have to be that way. Not with me, not with us. I know you're good at it, I've seen it, saw U.S. Auto. I know what you can do. You can fight alone against superior numbers and come out on top. But you don't have to. I have your back, so does Jerome, Carmina…We all do, okay? You don't have to be the one who does things alone, who takes the risk, who gets hurt because there is no one there to watch his back. You don't have to do it alone. Just let me help you. Please."

Her eyes are boring into you, just like Josephs used to, but they aren't demanding like his, and aren't challenging. They beg instead, molten and dark as the earth, let me, let me they say.

You crumble beneath them. You nod.

Sequoia had driven one of Prosperity's jeeps in her search to find you and had parked it beneath the treeline as if that would hide it from scouting eyes. She presses to her feet and motions for you to remain as she walks to the Jeep and starts it up. Through the open door you can hear the moment that she turns the radio off, the white noise buzz cutting with a press of her finger.

She returns for you then, dipping down to grab something by your foot before presenting it to you with a quiet, "Here."

It's your mask, the white paint marred by a thick streak of marbled blue and white from the chin to the brow, a reminder of your less than graceful face plant the day or maybe even days before.

Snort when you see it, the corners of your mouth twitching upwards. Roll your eyes and pick at the mess, as if your paint stained gloves will do anything to remove it.

"You don't have to wear that, y'know, not if you don't want to." The Captain says, all casual like, her posture carefully uninterested, for all that her eyes are intent upon you.

Shrug at her and slide the leather strap around your head, let the faceplate rest at the crown of your skull a while longer, and accept the hand Sequoia offers to pull you to your feet.

She lets out a grunt of exertion as she heaves the weight of you, and you stumble together as she shifts to bolster your injured leg. She helps you to the passenger seat before she too climbs in.

The road Sequoia takes to Prosperity is slow and meandering, and you can't help but wonder if you've made a terrible mistake by trusting her.

The Captain is unknown to you, a being with no ties to Hope County in the time before the Fall. She is neither Resistance nor Peggie, and because of that you struggle to grasp her purpose. Her point, her reason for being.

It was so simple for so long. Being able to fit people nicely within those two descriptors. Good vs Evil. Friend vs Foe. The lines blurred, in the long years after the bombs fell, of course they did, nothing can stay the same, but the broad strokes still remained despite the hairthin offshoots.

It is Sequoia's kindness that both concerns and disarms you. The care she extends to you, the easy comfort to her actions as she operates in your space, as she offers to patch you up, to hear you out, to listen to your opinions. The sincerity of it blindsides you again and again. Sequoia carries none of Faith's sweetness, none of the Seed sister's honey'd platitudes and for that alone you want to believe Sequoia when she says, "I'm sorry."

You heard her say it and for once you think you can trust those words. That when Sequoia says "we made a mistake, we didn't know' what she really means 'I understand now, I won't use it against you', just like she's not used your wounds or your muteness, or the vulnerability of your uncovered face against you.

It is so utterly foreign, to be able to place your weaknesses in the palm of another and not to see them squished beneath the grasp of that hand. You had forgotten you could even offer yourself up to another and receive kindness in turn. You had forgotten that you didn't always have to hide your pain and hurt and solitude behind a hard white mask.

It is that tentative trust that puts you in that vehicle. It is that trust that makes you give Sequoia a chance.

Jerome and Carmina greet you at the gates. The younger of them is shame-faced at the sight of you, but it doesn't stop her from approaching and offering a sincere apology. You accept it with more grace than you did Sequoia's remorseful offering, less shocked now that you've had some time to sit on those words, to digest the meaning behind them.

Carmina seems relieved when you accept her words with a nod and a fleeting pat on the shoulder. A smile overtakes her face.

Jerome replaces Sequoia as your crutch, his height a better fit for your own to help you limp inside the fortified walls. The rest of them trail after you down the side yard to where their medic has set up shop in one of the side buildings.

You had seen the woman on your first day here, the almost-doctor called Selene, who had wild mousy blond hair and a dazed sort of aura. She was somewhere between Carmina and Sequoia in age and smelled heavily of marijuana. The scent was startlingly familiar. The smell, once so annoyingly prevalent in your life as a Sheriff's Deputy that you had grown to loathe the scent of it, so closely linked to memories of endless late night traffic stops that often ended in a more forceful booking than drunk driving. The deep seated shame as you filled out paperwork that would change a life for the worst when all you wanted to do as a Deputy was help. The shame of knowing that with certain eyes on your back, you couldn't bend the law enough to let someone pass with a warning and a shuttle home in the back of your squad car. Even now, it wasn't a smell that brought you comfort, even though you could see yourself longing for a similar escape from the harsh sting of reality.

"Oh shit," Are the first words out of Selene's mouth when she spots your group. She bolts to her feet all nervous energy and wringing hands. "Yeah, come on in, that table there—-okay, now uh—" The medic started pulling open drawers even as Jerome helped you sit then gently supported your ankle as he pulled your legs to the table top.

You hate every moment of this. The tight quarters, the weakness, Selene's anxious energy, the hungry curiosity in your goddaughter's eyes, the firm watchfulness in Jerome's expression, the worry in Sequoia's.

You can't help the way your body folds in on itself, your arms wrapping around your chest with a defensiveness you so rarely display, your position within New Eden and your particular abilities so rarely leaving your crippled form to be seen by others. You should have denied Sequoia, should have made her leave you so you could force a reset. Should have avoided all this by not getting wounded in the first place. By not allowing yourself to be tracked too easily to your bolt hole, so that Sequoia, a woman with few skills in woodcraft managed to find you.

"Alright!" Selene says, "What do we have? Leg wound, bullets? Ooh boy, alright don't worry, me and my kit have you covered. Pain killers, antibiotics, you name it, I got it, or at least something that will work in its stead." She laughs a bit, all that energy cresting.

She looks at you, finally processing the room as her eyes flash over your hunched form. You watch her face fall, her eyes dart between you and the others before she turns on them, arms sweeping. "All of you out, c'mon, that's enough of a free show. Go be useful elsewhere, jeez!"

Carmina swells, like a songbird in winter, but Jerome wraps his arm around her shoulders and ushers her out with a "Let's go find him some clean clothes hmm?"

Sequoia balks for a moment, her mouth opening to protest, "Do you want me to stay?" She asks in a rush, her eyes flicking from you to Selene, "I can help translate, if you need it or—"

"Or nothing!" The medic protests. "Me and Cult Guy have this covered, I know he can write! Unless you want Cap to stay?" She turns to you, waits on your response, and then turns back, "He also says no. So off you get Sequoia, I've got this covered, doctor patient confidentiality or what the fuck ever."

You can see the emotions war across the Captain's face before her mouth settles in a firm line. "Ok. I'm going, but Judge," And she waits for you to look her in the eye, or as close as she can tell with your mask back in its place, "Don't go tearing off as soon as you have stitches. I want you to promise me, you'll stay in Prosperity. That you won't leave without telling me."

She stares at you until you nod and then she leaves. For a long second after the door latches shut the room is silent.

Selene looks at you, eyes flicking from face, to shoulders, to the blood dark fabric of your pants. "Well those are a total loss. I'm gonna have to cut through the waistband to get them off you. I can see your leg is swollen from here."

An old bath towel gets tossed your way, and you scramble to catch it before it falls to the floor.

"Cover yourself up." She orders, scissors in hand, " I have no interest in seeing your dick when the pants come off, got it?"

Your treatment goes from there. Bullets extracted, wounds sanitized, stitched and covered, all the while Selene keeps up an endless string of chatter.

You had forgotten what it was like to be treated without reverence. To the people of Prosperity, you are not an idol; they don't notice when your gilt comes off in their hands.

Carmina found you an assortment of clothes that probably would have been insulting if you were a proper follower of New Eden. As it was, the blue sweatpants bearing the Missoula Osprey logo, Metallica T-shirt, and Hope County Cougars hoodie simply amuse you. Mostly you are grateful that the hood is deep enough to cover your hair, and the edges of your mask.

She had stayed to talk with you after you had changed into the clothes she brought. Her hands reached for the fur and leather monstrosity that was your jacket, and she played with the bear fur as she caught you up on the coming and goings around the settlement.

Apparently, some kid called Bean accidentally offended a girl a bit younger than him and she had started some sort of prank war in retaliation. According to Carmina the outbuilding he claimed for his cartography and information gathering work had smelled strongly of skunk for the last four days and was unlikely to clear out anytime soon.

Gina, a woman who was still a mystery to you, was still missing, though last known to have been collecting information deep in Highwayman Territory. She had been gone long enough, Carmina confessed as her fingers attempted to unclump paint hardened fur, that the girl was concerned Gina wasn't going to be coming back at all. And wasn't that just a shame for baby Blade.

And you're sorry, what?

No, really, 'what?' You ask.

Carmina's eyes trail up to you with the motion, the sharp movement enough to break her out of her steady chatter. "I don't think she's coming back?" She says, voice trailing up questioningly.

You shake your head, mime cradling an infant, and then stabbing at the air, before spreading your arms wide in question.

"Oh! Yeah, the newest addition to our Hope County family, Blade Drubman. He's Gina and Hurk Drubman's kid, did you know…"

You stop listening then, can't be bothered really, when shock and memory rise up to overtake your vision. Hurk. Sweet, supportive, dangerous, foolish, rush into danger Hurk is a father.

You're pleased for him, though your surprise and confusion keep it a distant feeling. It also makes your gut churn, in a way that has nothing to do with the antibiotics and opiates Selene has all but poured down your throat.

'Oh, I wasn't expecting that.' You finally sign, not thinking about how Carmina wouldn't have enough of a base of knowledge to understand you. It didn't matter, not even when she pressed you to clarify.

You just sink back onto the cot in the infirmary and let your own thoughts overtake you.

Thoughts of babies that never made it to term and one, unexpected child who did.

Nightfall has long come and passed when you pull yourself from the heavy drug induced sleep. The infirmary is quiet, empty but for yourself. The candle that was left for you had burnt out, and you could see the remnants of it in the faint moonlight.

Despite your waking, you are still exhausted, muscles protesting the slightest movement with angry thrums of pain. It's not enough to keep you down though, can't be when both your mind and your body know what must be done.

Shove yourself out of bed and limp over to the chair containing your effects. Pull the knife from its sheath, and limp back towards the cot. It takes some maneuvering but you manage to get the blade beneath the hoodie and shirt, and press the tip underneath your rib cage.

Don't worry about the mess.

Resurrections stopped costing you blood a long time ago.

Wake to the heady scent of marijuana. Grimace as it passes heavily over your tongue, and blink open bleary eyes. Selene is easy enough to spot, in her white doctor's coat, and with a battered bong in hand.

She breathes in and stares at you, eyes white around the edges.

She feels you looking. "Holy fuck." She says and then says it again.

She takes another drag, and stares at you from across the tight aisle. "So uh, we can not talk about the fact that yesterday you had three holes in you and a cracked hip bone and today you've got nothing at fucking all. Like, that's okay, we can totally just ignore that. No big deal."

Sit up, your muscles protest duly, stiff from your resurrection like a day after a long session in a gym.

"I mean, yeah totally, okay, lets just go with that." She decides, and nods firmly. She brings the bong back to her lips, and then eyes you. "You want a toke?"

Shake your head and ease yourself to your feet, be careful to keep the distance between you two, to keep your shoulders loose and rolled forward, your arms slack. Make yourself smaller, hold yourself as non threateningly as you can.

'Thank you,' You sign, and then pull out a small notebook and a cheap plastic pen she had given you midway through your treatment the day before.

Flip through to a clean page, wincing as you pass the ones where your handwriting had been infected by the drugs in your system, turning your already poor handwriting into baby-scribble glyphs.

You are more careful this time, writing as smoothly as your wobbly hands and fifteen years out of practice will let you. You are a very good doctor.

Rip the sheet out and hold it out to her, she takes it without a thought and a smile breaks out over her face when her eyes flick down.

"Oh, I mean, it's not entirely me, obviously, but thanks."

Pull your things off of the chair and rearrange them on your body, sneak your knife out from under your shirt and slide it back into its sheath when your torso has turned away from her line of sight.

Head for the door and don't pause when you hear her voice trail out after you, "So Rush was right? New Eden does have super soldiers?"

It's late in the day, shadows lengthening, and the light glowing with warm tones as the sun prepares to depart for another long night. You can hear men and women calling back and forth across campfires as food prep has begun, you watch as children whoop and holler and chase after each other in the front courtyard, a gamboling labrador following in their wake.

It is easy to hobble your way up the walk and into John's lodge, to slide through the kitchen door and swipe a bowl of dried fruit and nuts to help tide you over until dinner is called.

People notice you less when you're wearing old castoffs and not your New Eden gear. It isn't surprising, but it does alarm you. You are still wearing your mask after all, and if Prosperity's residents aren't noticing your lack of face beneath the logo splashed clothing, how were they ever supposed to notice an infiltrator in their midst.

Find yourself in Sequoia's room later that evening, back pressed against the wall as you use your thumbnail to scrape away some of the paint splatter that dried to your mask in the fading light.

The task is slow going, the paint cans holding an oil based paint that refused to budge. You'd probably need to sand it off, and repaint if you wanted it to return to normal.

You know your leathers are ruined: no amount of solvent, or scrubbing will get the blue off without wrecking what exists below. You consider, briefly, what it could be repurposed as, but you toss it aside when no thought comes to you immediately.

Destroying Joseph's jacket isn't a loss.

—Carmina may want the fur though. You remember how her hands kept stroking through the dense bear hide when she talked to you.

That you can do, cutting it down, trimming out the paint hardened bits, and re-edging it. There would be enough left for a women's stole, or maybe a muffler if you can find the time and patience to sew one.

It would be a decent gift.

Though God knows you have missed enough birthdays and Christmas to owe your goddaughter something better.

The door knob twists and you are brought out of your musings, as the door swings open with a frantic push to reveal Sequoia on the other side.

"Oh thank fuck." She groans as she steps inside and shuts the door behind her. "You weren't in the infirmary and Selene wasn any help either. I thought you ran off again."

'You made me promise.' You sign with a distinctly annoyed air.

"I didn't expect you to keep it." She confesses and approaches where you are sitting. She slides down and slumps against your side, her eyes falling to the mask and the slight blue crust growing beneath your thumbnail. "You're gonna have to sand it off."

Heave a sign into the room, and drop the mask to the floor.

"I think it's nice though, the blue gives it a bit of character." She smiles widely at you, charmed with herself and gently amused at your annoyance.

Roll your eyes and she nudges your shoulder. "So I got a lot done today, went out to all the bases we cleared in Holland Valley, and I helped devise some defense plans and guard rotations. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to help scrounge some more scrap to really get them started, and then I keep helping build those defenses until you're back on your feet and our squads at full strength again and we can take the fight back to the Highwaymen!"

'We can get back to clearing out Highwaymen tomorrow.' You say, and then sign again when the concept is beyond her understanding.

"You're still injured." Sequoia has lost her smile. She is looking at you, and this is as severe as you have ever seen her face get, serious, and tight in the eyebrows. "You're not leaving Prosperity until you're healed. It's not optional."

You raise your hands to protest but pause halfway through the first motion. You need to do this carefully, nothing can be left to interpretation.

Pull out the notepad and pen from your hoodie's pouch, flip to a clean page and carefully write.

When you went North, did Joseph offer you an apple?

Sequoia pauses for a second before answering. "Yeah, he called it The Gift, and said that eating it would—" her voice trailed off for a moment before it came back stronger, more sure, "He said that it cleansed the soul and that it healed people. That by eating it..people were made special."

You nod once, head tilted toward where she sits by your side, leg close enough to brush against yours. Sitting there, in the brightness of a springtime evening you cannot help but be relieved that she never ate New Eden's Gift, that the horror and weight of your cursed blood would not impact this girl like the numerous others who ate of the fruit in search of its power. That she would not carry that spark of rage, of wrath in her eye, that she would not be tainted by the worst of your sins.

You do not know where her gifted apple ended up, but you need to ensure she does not bite its flesh.

I was the first to eat the apple, you lie, I was the first to receive its power and to suffer its consequences. I'm glad you were smarter than me.

For all that you stare at her, she does not become uncomfortable under the weight of your gaze as you wait for her to connect the dots. It alarms you instead, when she brushes past the point you were trying to impart and turns to look at you as she says, "So you're saving Joseph's Gift is real. That the Apple actually does something? That it's not just some— I don't know, religious metaphor?!"

Only Joseph calls it a gift. You write, words biting into the paper when they come off your pen. Yes, the apples are real, yes they may grant some special abilities but don't mistake it for what it isn't. Those apples are not a GIFT.

The fruit affects people differently. Most people just get harder to kill, not because they are healing, but because they get so angry that nothing but death will bring them down. Like, and here you pause, shifting the recesses of your brain for the proper term, like berserkers, like they become nothing more than the savage need to kill, the need to be one the who comes out on top.

You barely manage to stop your hand from writing 'The weak are meat, the strong eat.'

It's those words flashing through your consciousness that makes your pen slow, makes your throat grow tight as you try to swallow shame and memory down. It's your inattention that makes you miss what happens next.

Sequoia jolts upright with a sucked in breath, her spine ruler straight and muscles tensed. The speed of it makes you flinch back, shoulder knocking against the wall you had been leaning against hard enough to send a thump through the room.

"Is that what's going to happen to me?" She asks you frantically, and you can see the fear in her eyes, hear the growing tremor in her voice, "Is that what it's going to do to me? I don't want to get so angry I forget what I was even doing. I'm not, that's not how I operate, that's not how I fight! Joseph didn't say—he didn't mention…"

She curves forward and lets out a frustrated growl.

Your pounding heart has nothing to do with the sudden startle and everything to do with the fact you couldn't feel it on her, couldn't see the taint of your curse in her eye, couldn't remember a moment when a rage so like your own overtook her and sent her to fight and rend and kill until her hands were wet with blood. You don't know how you could have missed it, not when you have been in the girl's shadow since she had left Eden's Gate.

"Joseph said it was a gift." Sequoia protested. Her voice was loud in the small room. "He said it would help me lead our people to safety, to a better life, he didn't—He just didn't say how."

Reach for her before you think it through, wrap your arm around her shoulders and pull her close. Let her shift and shuffle until she is comfortable against the lines of your side, comfortable under the weight of your arm. One of her hands sneaks up to grab your wrist, to complete the circuit, to hold you near.

The room is silent but for the ragged susurration of her breath as she thinks her thoughts and you wait out the fear and anger.

"I wanted to tell Rush. That I found New Eden's Secret, the thing that made you all so strong." She says eventually, her voice little more than a murmur. "That's why he sent me north, y'know, he wanted whatever drug it was that made you all so strong. He said he watched one of yours take a chest full of bullets and keep going. He wanted that. He wanted that for our people to better get revenge on the Highwaymen… but I never told him I found that Secret, cause I wasn't sure it worked. I mean, I had some sort of vision. It felt real, but I've been in Bliss before, I know how real things seem when you've got a lung full of that. And I just, I wasn't sure. Didn't have proof, not when the only thing I experienced was a hallucination."

She swallowed once before she said. "Is that how it works for you? Do you just get so angry you can't stop?"

Shake your head and regret having to pull your arm from her shoulder to write, I just heal fast, the rage is natural.

"Do you think…do you think that maybe that's how it'll work for me? That maybe i'll be special, and I won't, I won't lose myself to it?"

It is then you realize your plan has gone awry. That maybe you should have been more truthful from the start, anything to keep the girl at your side from thinking she can take a bullet and walk it off, realize that she can die from the false assumptions and half truths you have been weaving.

Your stomach sinks, leaves you feeling nauseous and afraid and your hand trembles on the first few strokes as you write, No. You won't be like me. It's not I am the only one who heals.

"You're sure?" She asks, and she is still tucked tight against your side, seeking comfort from the worst person to give it to her. "Not even Joseph–"

Seed ate the apple and he says he slayed the beast but the powers never worked for him. There, the first full truth you had written in the course of the whole evening.

She pulls away from you, angling her body better to see your face, "How do you know, how can you be sure?" She is desperate for an answer that isn't the one you're going to give her, but you'll give it to her all the same.

'I know,' you sign, 'I always know."

You take advantage of her position to look at her then, to stare into her eyes, and really look at her. Look for the flash of fire that all those tainted by the apple have, the ones who live with an echo of your Wrath inside them. Look carefully for the simmering rage and the burning heat of a monstrous beast, of a peice your own tainted essence compressed to a spark within her. Find her empty, find her lacking, like the great expanse of an ocean stretching endlessly to the horizon with nothing to break the stretching vista.

Blink once, and look again. Nothing.

Nothing.

She is empty.

Not like Joseph, who holds a piece of your soul but can never access it. Not empty like an Angel who has forgotten all the world but for the Bliss.

But empty. Empty as if she had never taken a bite of the apple at all. As if she had never killed the sliver of your being that resided inside them.

Fall back against the wall, shaken, relieved. Take a breath and steady the fast paced beat of your heart. Then reach for her hand and trace letters into her palm. Y-O-U-R. V-I-S-I-O-N… Y-O-U K-I-L-L-E-D. T-H-E. B-E-A-S-T?

"No." Sequoia says, and her voice is soft in the falling darkness. You can still feel the weight of her against your side. "I saved it."


Authors Note:

Unfortunately this chapter is the last of the backlog I have written. The next chapter has been sitting half completed for at least a month now but I've been struggling with motivation issues, due to prolonged conflict with my roommate. Good news is the lease is up at the end of the month and I hope to regain the will to be creative once I've moved out and had some time to decompress. I'd expect the next chapter to release sometime this summer, and I apologize in advance for the wait.

I hope you all are doing well and I hope to hear from you in the comments! They always brighten my day.