Jess sat crouched in the low brush of the forest while Morgan sat a few feet in front of her peering through his binoculars. It was about eleven in the morning, and their fruitless search of the nearby forest had made a turn around when they came up on an airfield, where a cultist fighter aircraft was sitting on the tarmac. A sizable group of Eden's Gate soldiers were milling around, performing preflight checks or arming weapons. Morgan scanned down to see a pair of cultists rolling a distinctive green barrel. Bliss.
Jess looked at the cultists going about their activities with interest, but she became distracted by a mosquito buzzing around her face. It was late May, well into Spring. Nature is in bloom. And so were the bugs.
"These bugs can fuck off," Jess mumbled as she swatted away the mosquito, which promptly came back to buzz at her with a vengeance.
Morgan continued to look down his binoculars.
"Shush, I'm concentrating," he told her.
Jess scowled and threw a pinecone at Morgan, which bounced off the back of his head.
"Hey!" he exclaimed as he turned around to face her.
"Don't 'shush' me. Asshole," she scolded.
Morgan felt ashamed for angering Jess, but saw she was grinning. She did not mean it and was just pushing his buttons. It was… cute, in a way. In a very Jess Black sort of way.
"I'll 'shush' you whenever I want," Morgan countered, also grinning.
She got up and moved closer to him. Closer than she really needed to be, but Morgan did not complain.
"You can try," she said in a tone that bordered on teasing.
Morgan felt the familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. Normally, he would have used a bit of his confidence to continue the back-and-forth, but he was actually more concerned with the cultists at the moment.
"So, what's the plan?" Jess asked. She seemed eager to get to work. Morgan decided to oblige her.
He drew his 9mm Browning Hi-Power pistol and threaded a suppressor over the muzzle.
"The plan, Miss Black, is I'm going to go down there quiet and see if I can't take these guys down without them noticing. And as always, you'll cover me with those fantastic bow skills of yours."
"Oh, so I'm 'Miss Black' now?" she asked in that same teasing tone.
Morgan paused. She was being a bit… forward today. He had noticed it. When they were hiking an hour earlier, Jess asked for his help steadying herself on a climb up a rocky ridge. Morgan offered his hand to her, assuming she would grab his wrist or upper arm. Instead, she grabbed his hand and held on for longer than she probably had to. It made Morgan wonder what was going on in her head.
Sure, they had been sharing those occasional glances and "accidental" touches that hinted at something for the past few weeks. But this was new. Morgan could not complain. This was what he wanted, after all.
He almost wanted to laugh out loud at what he was concerning himself with. They had been fighting together the past few weeks against an army of fanatics who believed the end of the world was nigh. And Morgan occupied much of his thoughts with does she like me? It was like being back in high school.
"Oh, uh, it just popped into my head," Morgan mustered.
Jess was smirking, probably at his awkwardness. Maybe she found it endearing.
"Whatever you say. So, you head down there, pop a few heads, and I'll make sure to come save your dumb ass when you inevitably get spotted."
"That's how it usually goes, right?" Morgan said with a grin.
She gave a smile back. "Right."
Jess stood up and picked up the bow she had leaned against a tree. With expert precision, she nocked an arrow and took up a position by a fallen log.
"Well, get down there so I can start killing people!" she urged Morgan.
"Yes, ma'am," Morgan replied as he ran down the hill.
Grayson Horton, a former plumber's apprentice turned Chosen pilot, looked over the small gang of Eden's Gate fighters he had at his disposal. They were all men, armed with a mishmash of different weapons. A few had automatic rifles, some just had a pistol, others were armed with a melee weapon. But what mattered was that these men were ready to continue the fight for the Project.
It was no secret that the Father was gone. Taken by the heretics and sinners. But the Father would have wanted his flock to continue their work, because regardless of what happened, the Collapse was still coming. They still had much to do.
The loss of the Father, along with John, Jacob, and Faith, had made the job of Horton and the rest of the Project that much more difficult. Many of the faithful were being led by various Project VIPs now, or in some cases, Chosen who had stepped up. There was reports that some of the Project were giving up and leaving Hope County.
Let them leave, Horton thought. Leave us who want to do something.
The sinners, led by that damned deputy Morgan Rook, had taken back almost all of the county. Most of the Project's outposts and bases of operations were destroyed or taken back by the sinners. There were few aircraft left and even fewer places to land them. The supply of Bliss was starting to dry up too. Any Bliss that remained had to be used prudently.
The sinners thought they had won, that the Project had been destroyed. No. They were battered, but not beaten. Horton had seen the heretics from afar the previous night, celebrating like this was over. He wanted to grab his rifle and walk into town, killing as many as he could before the sinners took him down. But that would not have been an efficient use of his life. So, he had another plan.
"Sir, you're ready to go. We got the Bliss loaded into bombs and it should remain stable until detonation," one of the men, Merton, reported.
"Good," Horton said with a nod.
"Listen up!" he called out, addressing his men. "The Father gave us the groundworks, but now we must finish the job. We've already gone over our plan, now we must execute it. Once the sinners in Fall's End have been put under the Bliss, we will march in and take back their town. It's what Joseph would have wanted of us."
The assembled Project fighter mumbled in agreement. Horton nodded firmly.
"You four," he said, pointing to a random foursome, "go and patrol the fence and make sure no one gets in. The rest of you, make sure no one gets on the tarmac and meet at the rally point when I get the job done."
With that, Horton moved to jump into the cockpit and began to warm up his plane.
Morgan moved steadily and quietly down towards the fence surrounding the airfield. The Chosen pilot had jumped into his plane and would definitely be taking off soon.
He had connected an earpiece to his radio so he could talk to Jess hands-free. With a grunt, Morgan slid into cover in a patch of bush. Two cultists came towards him, one armed with a wood splitting axe and another with a shotgun. They walked slowly and casually, so they obviously had not seen him.
"Jess," he whispered, "I'll get the one with the gun. Think you can get the guy with the axe?"
"If you insist," she replied over the radio.
As the two cultists meandered over to Morgan's position, Morgan popped up and put a single 9mm round through the shotgun toting cultist's forehead. As his buddy dropped, the second man jumped in surprise and faced Morgan. Before he could make a sound, an arrow sailed through the air and pierced his temple. He stumbled forward and fell to his side.
Morgan gave a thumb's up in Jess's direction and moved on.
A second pair of cultists were standing in front of the gate to the airfield. They were scanning the horizon for hostiles but did not catch Morgan slipping through the undergrowth just beyond their field of vision.
"I'll take right. Why don't you take the left?" Morgan said into his earpiece.
"Sounds like a plan."
Morgan picked up a small rock and tossed it at the fence, causing it make a metallic sound that caused both guards to turn around. They did not have a chance to notice Morgan rising up and firing one round into the back of one man's head while Jess simultaneously sent an arrow sailing clean through the neck of the other man.
With both guards down, Morgan stepped over their corpses and pushed open the gate. He swiftly entered and shut the gate behind him. Seeing as the Peggies were not paying attention to him at the moment, he crouch-ran to a wooden crate and took cover, just in time for a cultist to hop up and take a seat in front of him.
Wasting no time, Morgan reached over and put an arm around the cultist's neck. He applied a rear naked chokehold while pulling the man behind the crate. The cultist struggled and thrashed, but Morgan held firm until the man faded into unconsciousness.
While pondering his next move, Morgan heard a cultist say "hey, Alex, where'd you go?"
Morgan looked down at the unconscious Peggie.
Shit. Are you Alex? he thought to himself.
Morgan peeked over the crate and saw a man walking over, curious as to why his friend suddenly vanished. As he took the AK-47 slung over his shoulder into his hands, Morgan leaned around the corner of the crate and fired a shot from his pistol, dropping the man with a shot through the bridge of his nose.
Unfortunately, another cultist had just turned around and caught sight of his friend's brains blowing out the back of his head.
"What the hell?!" he managed to shout before an arrow slammed through the base of his skull.
"Ah, shit," Morgan snapped.
He holstered his pistol and readied the custom AR-15 rifle he had slung over his shoulder.
"Nice going!" Jess said over the radio.
"Save it!" Morgan shouted.
He peered over the crate and began sending semi-automatic fire at the cultists streaming towards him. Two of his rounds caught a cultist in the torso, causing him to shout and fall to the ground.
One of Jess's arrows found its home in the back of a cultist hiding behind cover and she wasted no time sending another that slammed into the heart of a cultist taking aim at Morgan with a hunting rifle. Realizing she could not provide the best cover from her position, Jess ran down the hill, bow at the ready. The cultists were advancing on Morgan, weapons firing incessantly. She had to do something.
Morgan hopped up and sprinted to cover behind a pickup truck all while bullets whizzed past him. His heart was pumping and he took a moment to appreciate the fact he had managed to not get hit this whole time.
As he listened to bullets impact into metal, Morgan paused to swap magazines in his rifle. He put the empty magazine back in his pocket and loaded a fresh one. He was about to pull the charging handle when a shadow came over him.
A cultist armed with a baseball ran towards him. He was going to pounce before Morgan could get a chance to chamber a round and aim.
"Got you, sinner!" he shouted as he raised his bat over his head.
An arrow seemed to suddenly appear out of nowhere and impact his thigh, causing the cultist to shout in pain and stumble onto one knee. Morgan did not waste a moment to load his weapon and fire a single 5.56mm round, which took off half the cultist's face.
"It's Black! Get her!" one of the cultists shouted.
Morgan looked around the corner of the truck and saw Jess sprinting towards him. The cultists obviously feared her and seemed to mostly forget Morgan existed. She drew their fire, but was able to get into cover behind some crates.
Morgan used this opportunity to leap up and go of the offensive. With focused precision, Morgan fired several rounds and downed three cultists. Jess claimed two more kills, one with an arrow through the throat and one with an arrow through the left eye.
The Peggies were all dead, but they could not reflect on the victory as the Chosen began to taxi down the runway.
"Come on, we got to take him down!" Morgan urged Jess. She nodded and followed him as he ran.
Morgan came to a stop and fired several rounds from his rifle. A few pinged off the metal skin of the plane but did no damage. Suddenly, his weapon clicked, indicating he was dry.
"Oh, crap," he said frantically as he tried to reload as fast he could.
Jess was silent, yet focused on something else. She withdrew one of her homemade incendiary arrows and aimed it at the plane. It was covered in a form of very sticky and very flammable pine resin and Morgan knew what she was going to do.
"Jess, there's no way…"
"Shut up," she told him plainly. She was obviously concentrating.
Morgan just decided to let Jess do her thing.
As the plane began to lift up, Jess released her grip on the bowstring. Her homemade arrow flew and stuck itself to the bottom of the fuselage- right in front of the cockpit.
Flames suddenly appeared in front of Horton's face as he took off. Before the Chosen could do anything about it, flames licked into exposed engine parts and quickly began to ignite electronics and insulation material. In a minute, fire began to creep into the cockpit itself and a few seconds after that, Horton found himself on fire.
He quickly lost control of the plane, screaming as he attempted to put out his burning clothes. It did not matter because his aircraft took a dive and crashed into the woods.
Morgan watched the explosion from his position, which was followed by thick black smoke rising into the air. He looked at Jess, not realizing his mouth had dropped open.
She looked satisfied with herself.
"Man, that never gets old," she quipped as she stowed her bow.
"How the fuck do you do these things?" Morgan inquired.
Jess was turning to walk away from the carnage.
"Practice. Lots and lots of practice."
"Well, I can certainly see that."
Jess nodded and turned around to survey her and Morgan's handiwork.
"This is what I like to see," she said approvingly.
They walked together out of the airfield and back on the wooded trail towards where Morgan had parked their truck.
"So, uh, thanks again," he told her.
She shrugged. "It's what I'm here for."
"To bail me out?" he asked with a smile.
"To bail your ass out of trouble," she confirmed, also adding a smile.
They walked a bit more in silence. It was still early. But they both felt spent after the intense fight.
"So, what are you doing tonight?" Morgan asked her when he tired of hearing nothing but birds and their feet crunching on the trail.
Jess looked at him, seemingly interested in the question.
"You want to know what I'm doing tonight? Since when?"
"Since, like, always. We're friends, right?"
"I would say so."
"Yeah, so I'm just wondering. Miss Black," Morgan said.
She chuckled at that.
"Well, Grace has been staying in one of the abandoned houses in Fall's End. She's been letting me sleep there. I don't know. I might have some dinner later and uh, I don't know, mess with my bows."
"That certainly sounds like you," Morgan nodded.
"So, I guess I should ask what you're doing tonight too, right?" she said.
"Oh, nothing much," he replied, not sure where he was actually going with this.
"Sounds like a crazy night for Deputy Rook," she teased.
"You know me."
They reached the pickup they had used to drive into the area and got in. Morgan started the engine and began the drive back to Fall's End.
About ten minutes later, Jess tapped him on the shoulder.
"Hey, can you let me off here?" she asked. "I'm thinking of doing some hunting."
Morgan pulled over and put the truck in park. Jess opened her door and hopped out, taking her bow with her. She walked over to the driver's side and leaned on the open windowsill.
"Thanks for the ride, Morgan. And thanks for taking me to kill Peggies," she said.
Morgan gave a grin. "Anytime, Jess. Anytime."
She turned to leave, but lingered ever so slightly.
"Hey, Jess?" Morgan asked. He had decided that maybe, just maybe he should take a little more steps towards achieving those dreams of his.
She stopped her leaving.
"What's up?"
"I was wondering- do you want to get a beer later in town?" he managed to get out without stammering or stumbling once.
Jess was silent. Then she smiled. A real, genuine smile.
God, it looks so nice on her.
"You want to get a beer," she repeated.
"Yeah. You know- drinks. And stuff," Morgan added.
She chuckled and looked down at the ground, still smiling.
"If you don't want to, that's fine-" Morgan began before she looked up at him.
"Of course, I want to get a beer with you. I'll see you at eight. How's that sound?" she asked.
Morgan tried to process her reply. He ended up staring blankly at her in a stunned silence for a moment.
"You okay?" she asked while laughing.
Morgan blinked. "Oh! Yeah, yeah eight is good."
"Then I'll be seeing you at eight, deputy," Jess said as she finally turned and headed into the woods.
Morgan watched her depart from his seat. With all the grace befitting of a master huntress, she effortlessly glided over the rough terrain and underbrush. Before disappearing into the woods, she looked back at Morgan and smiled one last time.
In that moment, Morgan felt life was pretty good.
