Hunting Party

3.

As the Deputy emerges from John's house behind him, Jacob thinks briefly about telling her to get lost, that he'll handle the problem on his own.

It's a juvenile thought, one he has no intention of following through on. Like most elements of nature, wild animals are unpredictable and prone to kicking one directly in the ass if they're underestimated, and that goes triple for one that's been turned Judge. He's pretty sure he can handle himself with this thing, but it's better to have backup just in case. Of course, he could take one of the dozen or so Chosen he'd brought with him, but doubtless the Deputy would see that as evidence that she'd gotten to him somehow. Best to just go through with it as agreed, even though it grates on him, handing John a win like this.

Speaking of John—he obviously said something to the Deputy after Jacob left the room, since she's a good fifteen-twenty seconds behind him, and when she glances at him, her eyes have lost the little shine they've held almost since she first met up with him this time around, are much more distant, like her head's somewhere else entirely. Even as she drops to a crouch immediately upon leaving the back way, heading for the shrubs along the path and hopping the low stone wall to take cover, he catches something automatic about the movements, like she's acting on reflex rather than thought.

He follows, after a fashion, less concerned with being quiet—he's not the one who's not supposed to be here, after all—and not bothering with the plant cover. He just heads southeast through the ranch's property, doesn't see her maneuvering to follow unseen in the dark, but he hears her. Just barely, though: most people wouldn't. She's learned to be quiet, even on the forest floor in autumn.

After a while, he loses track of her. He's not particularly concerned, because this whole thing was her idea, and he doesn't think she'll flake on him. She'll be back.

Sure enough, after about five minutes, he's out of sight of John's guards, and Dep appears in the trees a few yards away, wearing a jacket now and carrying a compound bow she hadn't had at the ranch. It's a bright night, the moon well on its way to full, so he doesn't need another light source to get a good look at her. The heavier gear is a good idea—it's already in the forties and will get colder as the night wears on. The bow, maybe less so, because they're going to need to hit this thing hard, but he's got his rifle, and if they manage to attack from a distance, it could work. At any rate, he sees her pistol in the holster on her leg. They've got options, so he keeps his silence.

So does the Deputy, for a long enough span of time that it makes him suspicious. She can be silent—she can be silent for surprisingly long periods of time, he's found throughout the course of his time observing her. It usually means she's plotting something. He falls behind her so he can keep a close eye on her, and once or twice she glances back, looks like she's about to say something, but each time she changes her mind. He leaves her be, a little caught up in his own thoughts.

He's giving himself hell for allowing himself to get caught, by John of all people, in John's house. Uncovering secrets is where John excels; Jacob should have been particularly careful in his territory, should've turned the Deputy right around and sent her away the second he caught her trying to sneak up on him.

He hadn't. He'd done the foolish thing and humored her. He'd thought about sending her packing; hell, he'd thought about turning her over to John, but he'd caught sight of that shine in her eyes, and she'd been so unabashedly pleased to see him that he'd held off for longer than he should have, couldn't resist messing with her a little bit. He thought after the last time he saw her that he had this whole situation in hand, but if he's making mistakes like this, maybe he's wrong.

After the encounter at the waterfall, after catching up on some much-needed sleep, Jacob had reconsidered what had happened, looking at it with clearer eyes. Yes, associating with the Deputy on terms that weren't strictly hostile was a bad idea, but it didn't have to be. John seemed to think he could use any attachment on her part against her, manipulate her into acting against her own self-interest. Jacob's experience with interpersonal relationships that aren't professional or familial is limited, to say the least, but manipulation… that's something he knows a thing or two about.

He couldn't just do nothing, that was clear to him—his first instinct, to pretend nothing had happened, was flawed, because something had happened, and she knew that, even if no one else did. After getting a little distance from the incident, he saw the cowardice in just ignoring it. He had to get out in front of it, map out a direction for their interactions before she could try.

So the next time he'd seen her, he'd taken her measure. He'd tempted her, and been pleased with her response. She's stuck on him, all right (though just how much and for how long, he can't say), and he's decided to encourage it. Partially because she probably won't be trying to kill him as long as this lasts and that's an advantage he'd be a fool to waste. Partially because her attention is an interesting change of pace—she's a pretty young thing and he can think of worse ways to spend his time.

Only now John knows, and while this was his idea in the first place and Jacob is mostly sure the threat to loop Joseph in is just an act for the Deputy's benefit (and to force Jacob to agree to take care of the moose), it's still not ideal. Jacob would prefer to keep this quiet, and with John, there's no telling what he'll decide to do, who he'll decide to tell. He needs to talk to his little brother, see where his head's at. He'd rather not.

He glances at the back of the Deputy's head as they move through the woods. Easiest thing would be to take her out here and now. No Deputy, no problem. She's not watching him like she should be. He wouldn't even have to use a weapon—he could just creep up, put one arm around her to hold her still, grab her by the jaw, twist hard around and up. It'd be done before she even realized what was happening.

She grabs a low-hanging tree branch, pushes past it, then pauses, holding it out of the way, waiting for him to step forward and take it so it doesn't whip back and hit him in the face. He stands still for a second, considering—leaves it a little too long, because she glances up at him and says his name, quietly, questioningly.

He grabs the branch. She holds onto it, brow furrowed, still watching him.

"You good?" she asks.

"Worry 'bout yourself," he tells her.

The uncertain look lingers for a half second, but in a flash she's covering it up with a mischievous smile. "You are vastly underestimating my capacity for worry if you don't think I have plenty to spare for the both of us."

She's so certain she's charming him, and that certainty makes him want to smile. He narrows his eyes at her instead, and tugs at the branch. She laughs, quiet, and lets go, turning away.

Not long after, he hears something, and so does the Deputy; she freezes up and glances warily back at him. He pauses, listening. Sounds like music. Dep points up through the trees. He's already seen what she's indicating—the flickering light of a campfire.

They approach slowly, in near-silence, keeping a bit of distance from the point where the trees break. Jacob squats down, looking, listening, and Dep drops to one knee right beside him.

It's nothing, just a few people—a couple, dancing by the fire, while the other plays the guitar and sings an old country song. Probably Resistance, because they're not Faithful, and everybody in the county is one or the other nowadays.

Jacob lifts his rifle, and she instantly puts two fingers on the barrel and pushes it down again, giving him a filthy look. "Don't," she says, so quietly that if she wasn't so close he wouldn't even hear her. "If you kill them, then I'll kill some of your people, and that's just gonna start a never-ending revenge cycle that nobody wants."

He cracks a smirk. "Relax, Deputy," he drawls, matching her for volume. "Just jerkin' your chain."

She doesn't like that she finds that funny—she presses her lips together to keep from grinning, but he can still see it in her eyes. After a second, she says, "You're a sick S-O-B," but her tone makes it sound like a compliment.

She rises to her feet and retreats. Jacob eyes the resistance members for a moment longer, lifts a hand, fingers formed into a gun, and points at them. One. Two. Three.

He straightens up, turns, and follows the Deputy back into the forest.

Rook finds the moose tracks about three miles east of the ranch. They've just left the cover of the woods, and out under the bright moonlight, she spots an uncovered stretch of ground, a place where the leaves don't reach.

She makes a beeline for it, crouching down, and sees the faint impressions. She gets the little Maglite from her belt so she can see better, confirm what she thinks and sure enough… it's just a print and a half, but it's something.

When she glances up again, Jacob's standing over her, and she should really stop being startled by how quiet he can be. She nods down at the prints, keeping the flashlight steady.

"Yeah, I see them," he says.

"You smell em?" she asks.

"Bliss?"

"Just a touch." She turns a little, still crouched, and then points the flashlight at the ground cover a few feet away, in the direction the prints are pointing—the leaves further on have been disturbed by something moving through. "What you want to bet they keep going on like that?"

"You doing a lot of tracking these days?" he asks instead of answering. His face is as expressionless as ever, but something about his tone makes her think he's teasing her again.

The answer is yes, actually—she's hunted more since she came to Hope County than she ever has in her life—but since he's intentionally being a little shit, she returns the favor. "Oh, I've always been a great tracker." She glances back up at him, flashing a grin. "I was an Eagle Scout, you know."

"Eagle Scouts is Boy Scouts," he points out, sounding flat and unimpressed.

"Oh, it's all the same thing these days." He raises an eyebrow, like he's not sure if she's fucking with him. "No, I'm serious," she says. "They decided to let girls in this year. About time, I say. Girls've been shafted into selling fucking cookies and not learning anything useful for decades."

"Well," Jacob says. "Isn't that something."

His tone is fairly neutral. It might be a touch sarcastic. Rook rises to her feet and perches her hands on her hips. "You one of those guys who thinks boys are contaminated the second they have to work alongside girls?"

Jacob gives her a look, says, "I am not getting into an argument with you about the Boy Scouts of America," then moves past her in the direction of the tracks.

"It's just Scouts of America now," she says helpfully, but he doesn't take the bait. She grins and lets the topic lapse, jogging after him.

The tracks cross the little field they find themselves in and enter the woods on the other side. Jacob's taken the lead from her, and she yields it willingly, because her recent uptick in hunting and her luck in originally finding the tracks notwithstanding, she knows he's a better tracker than she is, especially in the dark.

There's a question on Rook's mind, one that's been plaguing her since they left the ranch. She's held off on asking Jacob, because for a while there he seemed a little murderous—the prayer, it was definitely the prayer that pushed him to the edge—and he's not anymore, but now she doesn't want to bring that eerie intensity back.

She thinks she's doing a pretty good job of playing it cool, but she must be wrong, because as they ford a small stream—Rook hisses as the icy water soaks into her jeans—Jacob says, without looking back, "So. You got something you need to say to me, Deputy?"

Well. Since he's asking.

She waits till they're both on the other side of the stream before responding. "Just wondering what you think John's going to do now that he knows we're… you know." She sure as hell doesn't know what they're doing, so she doesn't make an effort to elaborate, and Jacob doesn't force her to.

He doesn't really answer her directly, either. "You worried?" he asks instead.

"Kinda," she admits after a few more seconds.

"I don't see why. The two of you were getting along pretty well at the end there." If it was anyone else saying this to her, she'd think it smacked of jealousy, that it was more accusation than statement, but Jacob has a way of saying things that comes across as completely unaffected. Even so, given the obvious sibling rivalry…

"John punched me in the boob," she reminds him, rubbing at her still-sore chest. He hadn't held back, either; she's definitely going to bruise.

"You hit him first," Jacob says idly.

"Yeah, because he's the worst. Let me ask you, you think he knows his shirt has more than three buttons on it?"

Jacob laughs. He's facing away from her, but she definitely hears it, a harsh little huff. He recovers almost immediately, but she's already wearing a shit-eating grin. "Was that a laugh?" When he doesn't answer, she presses him a little. "I know you like to pretend you don't have a sense of humor, but you really should show it more often, because it's a pretty good one."

"You been hittin' the Bliss, Deputy? Cause you're hearing things that aren't there."

"You know, it's okay if you think me trash-talking your baby brother is funny."

"You know, not everything has to be a joke."

"Oh, right, well, excuse the hell outta me for trying to get whatever joy I can out of this absolute shitshow; I forgot that you—"

He stops abruptly, startling her out of finishing her remark. She nearly runs into his back, pulls up short as he turns around, and has to fight the urge to back up a few steps as he looms over her.

"That's just it, huh?" he says, voice deathly quiet. "You treat this like a goddamn game. You want to watch yourself. That attitude's gonna come around and bite you in the ass."

It doesn't take her long to go from surprised to angry. He's closer to her than she wants him to be given that he's currently pissing her off; she lifts a fist and braces it against his shoulder, pushing at him, but he doesn't budge, just stares at her, jaw tense and eyes challenging.

"It's a coping mechanism, asshole," she snarls. "What, you think I'm not extremely aware of what's happening every day in this county? You don't think I wake up most nights in cold sweats, wondering what it means that no one on the outside has come looking for us?"

Jacob grabs her by the wrist, forces her hand off him and down between them instead, but she barely notices. She doesn't talk about this, it's part of how she copes, but now that he's goaded her into it, it's all rushing to the surface, and hell, he asked for it. "Your fucking brother keeps taunting me about my use of violence, like he knows it's going to catch up to me eventually, and you know what? He's right. I have killed… so many people over the last month. And, you know, I tell myself—them or me, right? Peggies see me, they start shooting. So fuck 'em. And on a logical level, I'm fine. I can laugh about this whole ridiculous situation—because, let's be real, it is ridiculous—and do what I have to, day in and day out, but…"

Jacob's still holding her wrist, watching her with something that could be curiosity, or could just as easily be condescension—she doesn't really care which. She lifts her free hand, presses her knuckles hard to her breastbone, and looks intently at him. "It's going to catch up to me. I know it is. Maybe tomorrow, maybe years down the line, if I make it that long, but eventually I won't be able to keep it down anymore. The thought scares the shit out of me."

Admitting this to him (she hadn't planned to, but Jacob, maybe because he himself tends towards reticence and it makes her feel contrary, frequently manages to get her to talk herself into trouble) drains what's left of the fight out of her. She relaxes all at once, closing her eyes and shaking her head. Okay, enough. "So, sure, maybe I'm weak for doing it, but trying to keep things light helps me fend off the, y'know, encroaching horror and dread. So maybe let me do what works for me, and you do what works for you, which is—I don't know—traumatizing more people so you're not alone, maybe?"

It takes another moment before he lets her go, lifting his fingers deliberately, one at a time, from her wrist. She's a little worried that her last remark crossed the line, but when he speaks, it's just to ask in a lightly conversational tone, "How long have you been sitting on all that?"

Honestly, Rook doesn't know anymore if he's fucking with her or being dead serious. Knowing him, it's some bizarre mixture of both. She keeps getting a feeling, a bad one, that he's putting her through her paces, saying things that he knows aren't true—or at least doesn't actually care about—just to test her reaction.

So quit being so damn reactive. She sighs, shakes her head, and says, "Probably a little too long," then turns away, moving past him towards a point up ahead where the stream they just crossed loops back around in front of them. Once she gets there, she crouches at the edge, sets her bow aside, and rinses her hands in the icy water, then puts the wet backs of her hands to her flushed cheeks.

Jacob follows just to stand nearby. She takes a steadying breath, then raises her eyes to his, pulling on a practiced, rascally smile. "Did you really used to change John's diapers?"

He grunts, glances through the trees, like he's checking for dangers hidden in the dark. "Needed to be done."

"Yeah," she says, wrapping her arms around her knees, "but that strikes me as more of a Joseph kinda job."

"We both looked after him. At that age, we both had to."

She can imagine. No wonder they're still so close after the years Joseph said they'd spent apart; a childhood where two of the brothers had to work close to raise the other would have had quite the bonding effect for all three.

She thinks about the early passage of the book, where Joseph had mentioned—almost in passing—that Jacob had gone from merely hating their shitheel father to plotting his murder outright when their father turned his abuse to John. She's letting herself get into dangerous territory—she knows it—but she presses a still-warm cheek to the cold denim covering her knees and says, "Joseph said you used to steal candy for them."

Jacob goes still. She can see his profile pretty well in the moonlight—he doesn't look at her. He doesn't roll his eyes, but she swears he's radiating the exact same energy he would if he had. "You read his book," he says.

It's not a question, but Rook still lifts her head so she can nod. "You guys leave them lying around everywhere. Figured it was the smart thing to do."

He glances sideways at her. "Learn anything interesting?"

"It's an active cult leader's personal history and manifesto," she says honestly. "It was all interesting. Why do I get the feeling you disapprove of it?"

For a moment, she's sure he'll dodge the question. He's silent for a good while, folds his arms across his chest, shifts his weight from one foot to the other, but apparently, she's not the only one who's been sitting on something that bothers them. At length, he answers, albeit obliquely. "Joseph's always been… open. You know, he'll tell anyone just about anything. It's not that he can't keep quiet, it's that he doesn't often feel the need to."

Rook thinks back to the second time Jacob had sent his hunters after her, the time he'd stood watch while Joseph Seed knelt beside her, held her hand through the bars of her cage, looked deeply into her eyes, and overshared, and she feels a shudder tickling at her spine. Jacob isn't wrong.

"In the end," Jacob continues slowly, "it's up to him, what he wants to tell everyone. He's got a feel for this kinda thing."

"But you're not comfortable with it," guesses Rook. He turns his head, gives her a narrow little look, and she shrugs. "I wouldn't be."

"I'd feel better if he didn't put it all down on paper," he says, sounding a little grim. "There's some shit in there that could cause problems." He pauses a beat, then runs a palm over his hair and adds, "Guess it doesn't matter anymore."

Ah, right. Because you expect to win this. She doesn't believe it's wise to open that can of worms, so she circles back around to a marginally safer topic, one she's been curious about since this all started. She puts her hands on her knees and as she stands, she asks, "What's the foundation for Eden's Gate, anyway?"

He looks at her then, not answering, a challenge in his eye that she knows by now to interpret as a request for more information. She obliges. "Religion-wise, I mean. The history it adheres to. In the book, your family—your dad, anyway—scanned as radical Christian, but Joseph never seemed all that committed to anything but the Voice. No talk of Jesus that I can recall. But he didn't make it all up, or hear it all from the Voice or however you want to look at it; I can see things from other faiths, so…"

"Abrahamic faiths," Jacob specifies, quietly. "Not all of any. Some of each. Mostly focused on where they agree. Joseph figures they were all wrong about some things, right about others." She tilts her head, and the glaring curiosity she's feeling must show on her face, because he acts the closest to uncomfortable she's ever seen him (including when she'd spilled her guts to him at the waterfall). He clears his throat, looks away again, and says, "You want more detail, you're gonna have to talk to Joseph. This isn't Sunday School."

"Are you saying that because you don't believe him?"

He turns fully towards her then, levels a hard stare at her. She doesn't back down. "I mean, I know you love him, that's obvious. You're loyal, that's obvious, too—but pious?" She squints skeptically. "I don't really buy it."

"That right?"

"Mm," she says, nodding. "Faith, yeah, I see it in her. John? He might just be a really good actor, playing the zealot to keep his swanky position as herald, but my gut tells me he's sincere."

"Your gut, huh?"

"I don't get that from you," she says, steadfast despite the warning signs he's telegraphing—and maybe there's a bit of petulance to her pressing, annoyance that he'd gotten to her so easily before, a desire to even the playing field between them again. "I get…" She pauses, glances up at the moonlit sky and thinks about it even as he takes a step closer, then another. "…less 'spiritual warrior' convinced that he's owed a seat in heaven. More like a guy who'll do anything, literally anything to get his family to the place he thinks they belong."

He's close, now; she wouldn't be able to stretch out her arm fully without her hand running into him. Her heartbeat picks up a bit; she's acutely aware that her bow is on the bank of the stream behind her, but her pistol is cold against her leg, in easy reach should he make a false move. She tilts her chin up so she can look at his eyes, which reflect pinpricks of moonlight back at her. "Tell me I'm wrong."

She realizes, after a beat of silence, that he doesn't look angry. If anything, he looks thoughtful, but she keeps her guard up, unwilling to get lulled into a false sense of security. "I don't know if God talks to Joseph," he says eventually, in his standard soft tones. "I couldn't even tell you if there is a God. The way I see it, it doesn't matter. Joseph's right. This world is on its way to hell—and I don't care if you want to take that literally or not, it ends the same either way."

"Really. How's that?"

"Burning," he says, so simply that it gives her chills, despite her best efforts to stay unaffected.

He lets that sit in the space between them for a little stretch, giving her plenty of room to interject, but she has nothing to say to that, at least not immediately, and she suspects he knows it. After a moment, he moves properly into her personal space, his body just inches away now, and she drops her gaze to the ground, shying away even as she hates herself for letting him see how jumpy he makes her.

She doesn't have to be looking at him to tell that he's bending over her; she can feel it in the way the temperature of the air in front of her rises a few degrees, hear it in the sound of his voice—when he speaks, it's close enough to make her flinch. "You know it too, don't you? You say you're waking up in the middle of the night, afraid. Why is that, do you think?"

When she doesn't answer, she feels his soft, humorless huff of laughter stirring strands of her hair. "Ah… yeah. You know. You know it's because whatever's going on out there, it's big enough to overshadow a US Marshal gone AWOL, a few missing deputies. Public attention's fickle on a good day, sure, but rumors of new violent cult shit? That guarantees headlines; the press should be all over this. More than that: some of you've got families. I don't know about you, but Whitehorse does. Peaches does. Why haven't they raised a fuss with your department?"

Gaze still trained on the ground, she says, "Fuckin' Nancy, I assume."

He laughs again, though this one sounds a touch more amused. "Oh, she was set to run interference for a few days—didn't think it would take longer than that to wrap things up with you all—but we're long past that now. By now, if no one's come sniffin' around? It's because they're all too busy worrying about something else."

He's making a terrible sort of sense, and Rook deeply regrets spilling any of her anxieties to him, let alone that one, because he's gotten straight to the heart of it. She should've known he would—and maybe she did know; maybe in some masochistic way, she wanted his opinion on why things are playing out the way they are.

Well, I've sure got it now. Along with plenty more nightmare fuel.

She's suddenly terrified that if she keeps avoiding his stare, he'll keep talking, will keep telling her awful, worrisome things that she'll never be able to get out of her mind, so with some difficulty, she lifts her head again, meets his eyes. She's startled when instead of the malice she expects to find there, she sees… the closest thing to sympathy she's ever seen on Jacob Seed's face.

He's standing so close. Low, steadily, he says, "You know we have a place for you."

Her breath leaves her in a soft, stuttering little sound, a little like a laugh, but shakier. Intent, Jacob tilts his head a little, his eyes never leaving hers. "He'll still forgive you," he says, and then after a few more seconds of weighted silence: "We can keep you safe from what's coming."

What am I even supposed to say to that?

Rook would be lying if she said she wasn't tempted. Truth be told, she's more tempted than she's ever been, because not only is this coming from Jacob—the Seed who she trusts most to tell her more of the truth, at least, over all of the others—but also because he's put his thumb directly on a powerful fear she's been refusing to look at head-on and is offering her a way to counter it. She doesn't like to admit it, even to herself, but he's right: she and her colleagues and Burke disappearing into Hope County a month ago with no word from any of them since? It should have caused a stir. She doesn't know about Burke, but Whitehorse and Staci have family, Joey has a sister, Rook has family. People should have come looking. Hell, Burke is Federal—the US Government should have been kicking the cult's door down in less than twenty-four hours.

Whatever's happening out there… it's almost certainly not good.

But there's so much she doesn't know. She knows John, at least, has some influence outside of the cult—maybe he's woven a web of lies, spread the word that she and her colleagues are dead, somehow made sure the warrant for Joseph got buried. Maybe people have come looking for them—the cult's everywhere, maybe any intruders were just hastily killed and hidden away. Rook would have no way of knowing. There are people in the county that depend on her; she can't just lay down her weapons and walk into the cult's open arms just because she's anxious about Joseph maybe being right.

Still. Looking at Jacob, she can see he does really believe, certainly in Joseph, if not in any real Divinity, and the reminder that they want her to join them, it's… she wouldn't have expected it from him. She knows it's a manipulation tactic, she knows that, but also, given that she believes that he believes that everyone outside of Eden's Gate is in real danger, it also strikes her as a kindness, one from a man not accustomed to extending them.

She moves before she can really think it through, lifts a hand to rest her fingertips at Jacob's collar—he doesn't react, doesn't move to stop her, just keeps watching her—and leans up to kiss him, chastely, softly.

He's very still as she pulls back. She tells him "Thank you," and means it. She says, "But as long as you all are killing and abducting people, taking their homes and possessions when they want nothing to do with you, I can't give this up. If you want to negotiate a ceasefire, a real one, then believe me, I'm all ears—but if you keep using force, I keep using force. You know that."

He nods, and his eyes are distant. She thinks that's the end of it, turns around and takes a few steps away from him to retrieve her bow, then he speaks. "You're a goddamn fool."

It's the dispassionate way he says it that gets under her skin, and her thoughts about not being reactive go out the window. She turns, flashing a sharp warning grin, and says, "Come again?"

"You heard me," he says steadily. She heads back towards him, because apparently they're not done, and he continues, tracking her with his eyes. "You got a way out, offered to you on a silver platter—the only way out that doesn't end with you cold in a shallow grave somewhere, if you make it to a grave at all—and you're turning your nose up at it. Offer won't last forever, you know. Take it now, while Joseph's still convinced that you're just another one of his children, instead of a pain in the ass that needs to be taken out."

She's furious—how can he be this blind—so her tone is openly, bitterly cruel when she says, "Yeah, thanks, but no thanks; Joseph's already told me what he does to his children."

Jacob's face twists—subtly, as soon as it's there it's gone, but she sees pain, and anger—then he lifts his arm and hits her across the face.

It's not bad. The average Peggy hits her much harder than this on a daily basis—this is just an open-handed slap across the mouth, less than she'd expect from him, but it's the delivery that rankles, like he's punishing a misbehaving puppy. She looks at him, eyes huge with disbelief, lifting her fingers to the corner of her mouth where he made contact.

A split second later, she kamikazes him.

He's expecting it, he had to have been after a bullshit move like that, but he's clearly not accounting for her anger—even as he brings his hands up to block her, she's slamming into him with her full weight, and because she's aiming extra high, she succeeds in throwing off his center of gravity and knocking him over. He hits the ground hard beneath her, and she drags herself upright with one leg on either side of him and whales on him for a second—not aiming for his head or his face, she's not that far gone, but she gets a few solid thumps in to his chest and stomach before he recovers from the unexpected fall and surges beneath her. Her position is precarious to begin with, and he catches an incoming fist at the same time he lifts and twists his body, knocking her to the side.

She tries to twist around, slip her hand out of his grip, but his fist is like iron and he twists her wrist until she cries out in pain, and in short order he's got half her face pressed into the cold dirt of the creek bank.

She writhes a little, trying to find a way to slip out of his grip without also dislocating her shoulder, but most moves result in instant, sharp pain and the ones that don't aren't useful in the least bit, so eventually, she stops moving, though it irks her to have to yield. For a few seconds, there's nothing but the sound of both of them, breathing hard, and then, he asks, "You done?"

His voice is even, as calm as ever, but his heavy breathing belies it, and Rook feels a flare of smug satisfaction. "Yes," she says grudgingly.

"You sure?"

"Jacob! Get off of me!"

He holds her down for another second or two, and then, suddenly, the pressure's gone. She scrambles immediately to her feet, spinning in case she's about to have to face another attack. He's standing, close, and as she watches him warily, he exhales a long breath through his nostrils, like he's trying to get control of himself, then he steps a little nearer and holds a warning finger up to her face.

"You come after me like that again," he says, "and I swear to God, you'll wake up in a cage, you hear me?"

She has to fight the considerable urge to swat his finger away, only manages to resist because she's pretty sure that if she does, she'll end up with her face in the dirt again, at best. She bares her teeth instead and replies, "Then don't fucking hit me."

"Then watch your fucking mouth."

There's a tense moment as they both catch their breath, but she doesn't say anything. She doesn't think Joseph deserves it, this delicate approach to the monstrosity he's committed, but against her own will, she can understand where Jacob's coming from, how the mention of what happened to his niece might still be a little tender, even for someone who plays it as unaffected as he does. After a few seconds, he drops his hand again and turns away.

"Come on," he says over his shoulder. "We've still got work to do."

A/N - next up: boss fight boss fight boss fight!