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vasiktomis · 11 months

Text

Pairing: John Seed/Original Female Deputy. Rating: Explicit (Minors do NOT interact). Word Count: ~5000 Warnings: Burning flesh smell. Descriptions of wounds and medical procedures. Angst. Author suddenly switching to present-tense.

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Under arrest.

Delayed rage wakes him from his stupor.

Under arrest.

John Seed, you're under arrest.

That phrase shouldn’t shake him as much as it does. How many times has he heard it before, without giving a shit? Now, his adversary sways on the spot, wiping the bile from her chin, out-of-uniform and almost definitely no longer employed, and hearing her say it — hearing it said with such little ceremony and care —

They might as well be strangers, and she doesn’t even have the decency to end his life with the same theatre she’d given his sister? He deserved to be a fucking martyr. Instead, he gets humiliation.

“You’re kidding.” John spits, biting his cheek to keep his tone level. Anger won’t help him here. Not while there are witnesses. Not while he’s on record.

There’s a disdain in the way she looks at him now, like he’s just another stranger. As if she’d not bordered on swearing herself to him hours prior. As if they hadn’t almost forsaken their allegiances for each other.

How dare she make him do that. How dare she be so ignorant to the foundations she’d shaken.

The fucking arrogance. The nerve.

“You people do know she’s not a deputy anymore, right?” Blood flicks between his teeth at the last consonant while John surveys the pack of bumpkins. “Your leader tried to sell you all for a place in the New Eden.”

“I’m not fired until after you’re in custody.” Cora comments, inspecting the drenched dressing around her forearm.

He smiles bitterly. “Fuck you.”

He has to keep his cool. If he survives this, he has to fight his way back to Joseph.

“Noted.” Cora hums. Not even looking at him now. “You have the right to remain silent-“

“Fuck you. How fucking dare you—“

“Anything you say can be used against you in c—“

“I know my rights. You can’t do this.”

She finally looks at him, then, and he immediately regrets having wanted her to.

“Anything you say can be—“

“YOU FUCKING BITCH!” John shrieks, lunging at her despite his restraints and the disdained looks from her insignificant companions. “You can’t pretend this isn’t all your fault! What, you wanna go back to the book now that you’re in control, huh?! Fat fucking chance! As soon as Joseph finds out what you’ve done, he’ll come for me. He’ll kill all of you. You’ll pay for this!”

The Deputy leaves the Mirandas by the wayside, nodding thoughtfully. “That reminds me. Take off your clothes.”

…

Of all the-

John endures a fresh swell of pain in his head to shoot his enemy a particularly scathing look.

”Excuse me?”

“Your clothes. Take them off. Quickly.”

“You’re sick.” An empty smile plasters itself over disbelief.

What for? Surely not just for the purpose of humiliation. It has to be a means to an end, but what end? He’d listened to the Sheriff’s ultimatum on the radio; Cora Stammos had disobeyed orders and gone rogue. There’s no way she could still be employed after such a betrayal.

“You’re lucky I got somethin’ extra for you, bud.” Sharky speaks up, slinging his pack down to start yanking out clothes. His clothes. Sharky Boshaw’s stained, nasty, much too big clothes that he rotated through on a daily basis like a cartoon character.

“Otherwise you’d be walkin’ outta here bare-ass naked.”

That’s it. It’s a decoy. They’re shoving him in disguise.

The watchful eyes of whatever remaining flock in Holland Valley need to be depended on right now. After Nancy’s treachery, the odds of her telling his brothers what’s happened are low. He needs his people to see him. He needs them to know where he’s going, so he can be extracted. So he can be saved.

Either that, or they need to know the he died fighting these people tooth and fucking claw.

John has the freedom to resist for all but a few seconds before the guns are trained back on him. Then, with as much indignation as he can summon, the Baptist shrugs off his coat into the grabbing, snatching hands of Adelaide Drubman, who right away squeals her delight over the new trophy.

Everyone else in the group maintains mild enough decency to at least put him in their periphery while he gingerly sorts through the reeking bag.

He has to stall. He has to keep talking, making certain he’s easier to identify.

“So this is the Resistance’s clever plan: a botched capture and a weak attempt at concealment. You realise as soon as the Father gets word that I’m not in that bunker, there won’t be a stone unturned in this valley. You’re making an easy target for him.” The Baptist muses comfortably enough to mask the difficulty he has pulling that nasty sweater over his head. The shock is starting to recede, and the pain is beginning to bloom. “So kind of you to bring a spare pair of underwear just for me, Boshaw.”

There's a snort. “Fuck you mean spare?”

Boshaw’s clothes smell just as awful as one would expect, heavy with stale sweat, old pot, and all manner of wet and dry stains. The intimates are no exception. At least the man’s gigantic hoodie is long enough to shield him from Adelaide’s prying eyes while he changes.

Not that he checked — nor that he continues to, but he does find some exasperation in the Deputy’s sudden, pointed inability to look at him. How sweet it would be, to have the court throw out any charges laid against him for the simple fact that his arresting officer was involved in misconduct. To recount in detail all the things they said and did until she was reduced to nothing but a corrupt, inept, liar.

He can make it out of this.

The Father wouldn’t let it end this way.

“Be careful with those.” John orders when Boshaw bends down to pick up his neatly folded clothes.

“Yessir, they sure are.” The man shoots him a crooked grin.

“They’re evidence. Tamper with them and you won’t even get to see the inside of a courtroom.”

Once he's fully dressed, the Deputy approaches him. A cable tie slips around his wrist, and were he in better shape, he'd follow through on the instinct to grab her. Curl his fingers around her throat. Tear at her wounds with his nails until he found bone. He chooses the wiser approach and lets her guide his hands into the front pocket of the hoodie, where she cuffs the other wrist, hidden from view. A snarl gurgles in his increasingly swollen larynx at the warmth of her finger brushing his. Again, he chooses the wiser option.

“Clever.” John muses, “But if you think my people won’t recognise me-” “Won’t be trouble for much longer.” Cora interjects. “In the meantime…” She reaches over his shoulders, pulling the hood over his head. The cords are yanked straight down, pulling a sharp yowl out of the Baptist when the cotton drags over his snapped nose and through the barely covered remnants of his ear. The hood is tightened to the max, until barely a fist-sized gap remains for him to peer out of.

She gives him a moment to hiss and curse through the pain before she returns to applying pressure to her arm. “Can you walk? Xander can assist you.” “If I refuse?” John seethes. “Then you roll.”

They both glower, long and hard.

“Walking’s fine.”

______________________________________________________________

By the time they've made it through the woods and the around the crossfire on the roads, the colourful words of protest begin to wane. Once the truck pulls onto Seed Ranch property, it seems the fight as left their prisoner entirely.

Reality and finality have since settled in, and silence has taken the place of adrenaline. Exhaustion. Tired apprehension of things to come. The log-cabin exterior of the ranch creeps into view through the trees, and for a second, Cora almost feels compelled to savour the unchanged appearance. Familiar and untouched, home to an old enemy who'd welcomed her scorn so readily that at some point she stopped being able to tell what was hatred and what was fondness anymore. The hangar wall flashes through the leaves, and she recalls somewhere around this time having watched him peacefully work away on his machines. She remembers the quiet. The whistled tune. Combing stray locks out of his eyes. The way he looked so utterly harmless that evening, and how, perhaps a few times, he might find his way out of quiet reverence and complete malice — and look at her the way he looks when he feels safe.

Reclaimed vehicles litter the airstrip. Piles of Project memorabilia dot the front garden. The Resistance and the Cougars have already begun to gut the property.

It'll never be the same as it was.

This place will never be the haven she'd wanted it to be.

Everything he had promised her — the hate, the friendship, the recognition — it was never personal. It was all for his brother. He was never a rare, fellow person trying to carve out a place of solitude in the world. All he wanted from her was the commodity. The win of breaking her and offering her to someone else. For that, she knows she has to teach herself that this isn't something to mourn.

She will find relief in marching him to his doom.

She can to go back to her own solitude, and forget ever having entertained the idea of someone sharing that with her.

She has to find joy in taking back her Valley.

The Baptist can barely find his footing once they remove him from the Sheriff’s truck. Oversized sneakers crunch and slide on gravel driveway. Knees give way over his twisted ankle, and he nearly crumples into her side. This is the second time in the past 24 hours that they’ve made this walk together, beat to shit and bleeding out.

Tracey is the first to emerge from the building, climbing halfway down the porch steps with a motion to hurry up, silently hooking an arm under the Baptist's and sharing the burden of his weight with a look that suggests she might as well be dousing herself in gasoline. Sheriff Whitehorse isn’t far behind, not as concerned with quiet in the way he shoves himself into John’s other side, muscling Cora out of the way.

His head lolls amidst an attempt to look back over his shoulder, and then he repeats.

Then, they disappear into the ranch with him, leaving Cora to linger on the porch.

The Deputy. The one who's been prodded and shoved and begged to lead all this despite her better judgement and her protests. Not even a thanks.

She shouldn’t feel as dumbfounded as she does. But still. It feels, unceremonious. Left outside while the people who were once too busy to do anything about John Seed beyond tasking her to take him down claimed her catch like she didn’t even exist. Watching them disappear into the South wing — to where she’d been taken for medical treatment earlier — Cora can’t help but feel an ache in her stomach that surely can’t just be forced-up bile.

“Hey, didn’t they do the same shit with-“

“Yeah.” She interrupts the muffled man inside the cartoonish dragon suit over her shoulder. Several glances of pity are cast at her. She can feel it. Better not to give it any gas, as much as she’d like to agree with them.

“I’m sorry, Shorty.” Sharky mumbles. “When I wished on that star I’d see a cop get cuckolded, this weren’t what I’d meant.”

“Don’t.” Stern doesn’t quite reach her voice the way she wants it to. It sounds too much like a plea.

It’s bullshit. This is bullshit.

She’s not any less important just because she wasn’t the one to carry the Baptist over the threshold as a prisoner, and with that thought, she makes for the sick bay.

______________________________________________________________

Tracey and Whitehorse have got him on one of the cots when she enters. The man is out cold, and neither of them look pleased about that, nor the impatient ushering from a vaguely familiar face. The veterinarian. She can’t remember his name.

The moment he spots her, the colour drains from his face.

“Jesus, Deputy, your arm.”

Cora glances down. Stitches in both holes snapped open, courtesy of the work that'd also fucked up her knuckles. There's a searing pain in her elbow, but honestly, she can't feel the older puncture wound in her hand.

The Sheriff’s face contorts at both of them. “Don’t you dare call her that. That’s no fuckin’ Deputy of mine.”

The veterinarian ignores him, too preoccupied juggling checking the Baptist’s vitals and looking Cora over. “Sit down. I’ll stitch you up. Sheriff, Ms. Lader, I need you both to leave the room and give me some space to work-“

“That’s not happening-“

”Sheriff.” Tracey overrides the old man’s flaring temper with a hostile look of her own. “Forget about her job and do yours.”

“Deputy, uh —“

It occurs to Cora that the veterinarian has forgotten her name. Kind of rude of him, she thinks.

“Take a seat. Mrs. Drubman, if you could get some fresh towels from the cupboard and apply pressure to her wound until I’m finished here…”

Adelaide’s already shaking her head. “No can do. Hate to get my nice new coat dirty.” She lifts his coat, proudly.

“Just — someone do it.” He clips, far too busy trying to clean the blood off His face to inspect the damage Cora had inflicted. “Anyone else who isn’t a patient, get the hell out of my workspace.”

Ultimately, it’s the Sheriff that steps up to the plate, pressing his weight down on Cora’s torn stitches while her team reluctantly leaves. He doesn’t look happy to be doing it. “You went against direct orders, Rook.” He growls.

Cora’s too busy observing what’s happening on the other side of the room.

A syringe of assumed pain medication is delivered with a series of irritated tuts, and he tries to fight it, unconscious and weak, shifting tiredly against restraints that now have his wrists shackled to his cot. Tracey, all too familiar with the Bliss rehabilitation facility, hooks him up to an IV. Disdain twinges in her face whenever her fingers touch his skin.

“How long’s he been in your head?” The Sheriff asks. In Cora’s periphery, his lip is curling. Barely-restrained rage. When she fails to respond yet again, he presses down a little harder, catching her gaze with a pained hiss.

“I did what you told me to do. I brought him down. Alive.”

Maybe she might not have, had the others not intervened. That, Whitehorse didn’t need to know.

“You went fucking rogue, Cora Stammos.” He grits. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing down here, but I do know that you were on the brink of somethin’ royally fuckin’ stupid before we showed up—“

“Are you trying to be my boss, or my father? Because you’re neither.” Cora finally bites back. The man half-flinches. “You made me come back here. You made all of these people my responsibility — and fuck you for doing that — and you wanna tell me I did it wrong?”

Whitehorse’s pupils shift minutely. Catching the angry, welted tattoo He’d left on her sternum. Guilt colours his face.

“We shouldn’t have sent you.” Tracey says, taking a seat on the next cot over. Her arms cross. Hands cupping her elbows.

“Like anyone else would have chased him up there?”

“Here's the issue, Dep: no one really knows whether you were gonna kill him for reasons that have nothing to do with the rest of us, or if you were going to lock yourself in that bunker with him. Either way, you nearly fucked up a plan that you agreed to. You think everyone bordering the Valley hasn’t heard the shit you two’ve been talking to each other?”

“You’ve gotten too close to this.” Whitehorse sighs. “You had us worried you were startin’ to come ‘round to the Peggies’ side of things.”

Tracey offers the older man something close to a sympathetic look. They've both been through that before. "Neither of us wanna think that you were doing anything beyond your job. You just...fuck, Stammos, you gotta communicate with us if you're gonna go off like that."

"Why, so you can take the credit?" Cora's jaw rolls. "Seemed happy enough to pull down half the Henbane when everyone thought it was your idea."

"Because we looked united when everyone thought it was our idea." Tracey bites back, leaning forward, pressing her weight to her knees like she might need to attack.

“I brought him in.” Cora grunts, turning her attention forward. “It’s done. Everything else doesn’t matter. I don’t care what you do with him now. It’s not my concern. What about the fires?”

“Getting under control.” Tracey replies.

Some of the tension that’s been building in Cora’s shoulders subsides a little. One less very important matter to worry less about.

Tracey seems to feel it too, posture slackening as she follows the other woman's gaze to the Baptist. “Who’s got his clothes?”

“They’re in Sharky’s bag.”

“Good. Won’t be hard to find.” Tracey doesn’t linger. She stands just as quickly as she’d sat down. “Sheriff. Gonna need your help.”

Whitehorse shifts. Reluctant.

Cora turns her attention back to him, no less hostile. “I’d give you my badge if they hadn’t torn my uniform off my back.”

His bottom lip trembles. “Hudson’s uniform.”

That makes Cora’s stomach drop. Suddenly, she can’t bear to keep looking at the man.

His shadow moves, then, leaving altogether. “We’ll talk later. Dr. Lindsey? Don’t leave them alone together.”

The door closes behind the two, and the veterinarian — Dr. Lindsey — snaps his gloves off, tossing them onto a tray before he approaches Cora.

“Did a number on him.” He comments, pulling up a stool and wheeling in to examine the torn stitches on her forearm. No time is wasted on threading a needle. “Payback for this?”

“This was Mary May.” She replies, drily. Dr. Lindsey's gaze shifts to the hole-punch between the bones in her hand, and she relents. "That one I already got payback for." Then, after a pause: “Did I hurt him?”

“You blew his ear to pieces, but they tend to bleed a lot. Once it heals it’ll look almost new.”

“Did I hurt him?”

The needle point slides through her skin. Tugs out through the other side of the wound. Twice. Thrice. Not long before he's starting on the other.

“I can imagine it would’ve been pretty fucking painful.”

“Hm. What else?”

“His nose is broken. Fractured eye socket, too — not going to ask how you got those, by the way." He nods at her skinned knuckles. "Some lesions. Mostly bruising. No missing teeth, but his gums are bleeding.”

“Good.”

Dr. Lindsey goes quiet for a moment. A final tug and tie-off of thread, and he’s dropping the needle back onto his tray. “When was your last tetanus shot?”

“I’m up to date.”

“Well, keep an eye on that tattoo. It already looks infected. All that blood can’t be helping, so, you know…consider a shower when you can. If it’s still angry in a couple of days, come find me.”

Cora acknowledges him with a nod, but her attention has settled on the opposite side of the room. “Is he awake?”

“If he is, he’s doped up to his eyeballs.” Dr. Lindsey stands, taking a cue Cora hadn’t realised she’d given. “I’m going to be across the street paying Mr. Rye a visit, so please don’t kill my patient while I’m gone.”

That ship has sailed by now. Whatever rage was keeping her going on her venture to end His life, all that’s left now is a bitter emptiness.

Confusion? Betrayal? She doesn’t want to think about it.

“Oh, Deputy, that reminds me.” Dr. Lindsey pipes up, already at the door. “Congratulations on killing John Seed.”

She offers up a tight smile. “Yeah. Well.”

Once he’s gone, she waits a minute. No one’s watching. No one cares. Just her own pride. She slips out of the cot and heads over to where he’s been left. No motion to startle her barring the slow, if laboured, breathes between his teeth.

Must have done a more damage to his windpipe than what it felt like in the moment. He'd been screaming himself hoarse at the beginning of the car ride; one might not have assumed she'd strangled him at all.

Cora examines him, carefully mapping a nearly familiar face through dabbed-at blood, cuts and swelling. Dr. Lindsey’s quick work has left his face dotted with little tape bandages, and a splint covers the bridge of his nose. His ear is entirely covered with gauze, hidden from her.

His eyes, already beginning to turn purple, crack open.

“You got in trouble, Wrath.” He croaks. There’s a woozy attempt at a smile as he tries and fails, more than once, to make sense of his surroundings. “Did we come home?”

Cora shakes her head. After a moment, it’s clear that he can’t quite to witness it, nor is he of fit enough mind to register. “No. The Resistance is here.”

“Oh. Do we run?”

“No. You’re our prisoner.”

“Oh. But you…” A cough interjects. The corners of his mouth tug downward. “But you were s’posed to be with me.”

Unfiltered sweetness. And there's that look. That safe little look. She has no idea what to say. Maybe she’d feel bad if he hadn’t done everything he did. Now, after it all, even this harmless, battered version of him still knows that he’d lied to her, doesn’t it? It has no care for her wishes, just like all the other versions of him she’s met.

He only ever wanted her as a trophy, and at some point, she knows, she’s going to have to feel disgusted with herself for humouring that want, even in its purest form.

She should have never been so fooled by the idea that he understood her.

She’s glad that this is over.

That she’ll be rid of him.

“Cora?” John asks, quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Would you kill me?”

It’s a strange hypothetical, especially after her very clear attempts to do so over the past couple of days. But then the muscles under his eyes twitch.

“Please?”

Wet lines pass through cracks in the mud on his temples. John doesn’t look at her; he keeps his unsteady gaze on the ceiling. It’s the slightest emotional distance to keep, but it seems his pride is still intact enough to need it.

Cora, meanwhile, finds herself frozen. She’s seen him cry before — mostly when he’s screaming, cursing at her, nursing a fresh wound she’s inflicted. This is new. This stirs a whole new discomfort nestled beneath her ribs.

He’s doped, she has to remind herself. He’s not aware of what he’s saying. Chances are he won’t remember this.

The pleas come in sporadic whispers as she breaks away from him. Cut-off mentions of his brothers get choked back to shaken breaths, soothing only when she returns with a rag to dab at his face with. Not the muck. Just the tears.

“Wish I had.” She admits.

"Wish I'd killed you, too." He smiles tightly. "So what happens if the world ends before my trial?"

Cora doesn't answer that. She doesn't know how to. There's too many variables, and he doesn't catch on until she looks away.

"Y'know, even if you're fired, you're still my Deputy."

She tilts her head back to avoid a sudden sting in her eyes. From the cot, the Baptist watches.

"I really hope I'm fired." Cora admits through a sharp breath, blinking the blur away.

"Why's that?"

"Because then I don't ever need to see you again, Mr. Seed."

______________________________________________________________

Tracey and Sheriff Whitehorse have resumed custody of the Baptist come nightfall. Their part of the arrangement comes and goes with the darkest tint the Cougars could find on a vehicle. There’s no more discussion over Cora’s job, but Sheriff Whitehorse goes to such a pointed length not to associate with her up until taking his leave that it’s safe to assume she’s no longer employed by the county.

The chilly night air is quiet. Gunfire has dwindled with the diminishing presence of the Project. Those who didn’t manage to get to the bunker ahead of their Herald were left without a leader, demoralised and abandoned. The chances of a counter-attack are slim, and Joseph has proven himself unwilling to step into emptied shoes once before. Whoever's left likely has little confidence in remaining.

It doesn’t mean there’s been an exodus from the valley, though. Cora’s sure to hope for it while she sits on the rocks of Seed Ranch’s front garden bed with Jess and Sharky. The trees surrounding the property’s North approach are dense and dark. Occasionally, the green laser of Grace’s sight will catch on a branch while she scans from the roof, but any remaining foes in the brush don’t make themselves known.

If they’re out there, they’re too scattered to fight. Whoever lingers is bound to carry word back to the Father, and that’s just what tonight is for.

Just a little of that ceremony she's been looking for.

“That watch woulda sold for a pretty penny.” Sharky huffs, gaze following what looks a whole lot like John Seed’s body — wrists bound above his head and eyes wrapped in gauze, beard trimmed into that sharp, defined shape — hoist higher and higher on the totem poll in the front yard. “Think about it. Cult leader’s personal watch. I could retire with that kinda money, never have to work again.”

Jess squints at him. “You’ve never even had a job.”

“Not true, not true. If recreational use was legal here, I’d be gettin’ called the number one dispensary in the county.”

“And since it’s not, you’re just some asshole who steals pot from his grandma. Dep, would you tell him to take that fucking suit off? It’s embarrassing.”

“Don’t make me put the head back on, Jess.”

“Dep—!”

“They took my gear when they carted Seed off, okay? Until I go back to my place, this is all I got. And before you ask: no, I’m not wearin’ any of the Peggie shit around here. Been there, done that. Got the rash to show for it.”

“Could you two—“ Cora interjects sharply. Then, after a moment, she exhales the frustration. “Just — sit quietly.”

What’s the point in asking, she reflects. Not once has it ever worked.

A flint is struck, once. Twice. Three times. Baby flames lick at cotton balls and shredded timber, too young yet to try their luck at the totem pole.

“You, uh —“ Jess shifts beside Cora, exchanging a look with Sharky past the woman’s opposite shoulder. “You…good?”

“Yeah,” Sharky encourages, “Lotta stock to put into, makin’ some dude obsessed with you and then ruining his life like that. Speakin’ of — did you get him to be that weird just since you came back? Or has he been that freaky for you for longer?”

Cora considers lying. She considers silence.

“There’s no weird.” She replies. “Taking me down was always gonna be a win for him.”

“Yeah, bullshit. From what I heard, that dude’s had a hard-on for you from the start.”

“Had.” Jess hisses. “He’s fuckin’ history now.”

“Jess is right.” Cora nods. “It doesn’t matter. We took him down.”

The flames climb higher, hot enough to find their way up John Seed’s bloodied clothes without being discouraged by the cold and the damp.

Sharky shrugs a shoulder. “I’unno. S’just…if you wanna gasbag or whatever, you don’t needa do it over the radio. I won’t even try to make it weird like the other guy did.”

Jess say’s nothing. She’d never venture that far out of her way. Instead, the tip of her pinky finger smushes a blade of grass into the canvas of Cora’s boot. Contact without being contact. Presence without acknowledgement.

Neither of them are graceful, nor clever about offering support. Maybe that’s what makes it easier to stomach. Less processing power when each of them feels similarly weird about getting too soft.

“It’s done.” Cora assures her two most important people. “We don’t need to talk about it anymore.”

The body strung up before them is finally enveloped, and the Hope County residents who have stayed behind clap and cheer for the official official demise of the Baptist. Some raise glasses and cups in Cora's direction in congratulations and thanks that her employers never gave, but on this side of the fire, it's getting hard to see them all through the haze.

If the sticky, stinging aroma of pine smoke and gunpowder is strong, then the stench of burning flesh and hair cuts through space and time.

It’s terribly familiar; a stench that had lingered thickly over the roads cut into the Whitetail Mountains during their brief, if confronting stay. It probably hasn’t changed much. Probably only gotten more populated with strung-up bodies as the weeks have worn on. Not to say that the Henbane and Holland Valley territories didn’t have their fair share of gruesome cadaver displays on the roadsides. Faith during her time had an affinity for pairing prisoners up with Angels and simply letting the mindless drones live out their unconscious starvation beating what would become the unrecognisable pile of mush that was their partner. John, meanwhile, took it upon himself to desecrate the corpses of his failed converts; humiliated their shells by showcasing their anatomy to the world. Suggesting their true, less-than-human nature by fitting antlers into their flesh. Replacing skulls with that of cattle. One could usually assume how well the subject had resisted Confession by the degree of creativity lent to their death.

Cora had seemed to be the exception to this, and maybe, she supposes, she can be grateful for that. Nick managed to get out with his life, but John still managed to mark an art piece of him.

No matter.

Jacob’s displays were less personal. Erected timber walls riddled with bullet holes. Entire families laying in smouldering heaps, left out in the sun without ceremony or care. Jess had once told Cora that the Project insisted anyone under eighteen was treated well, physically speaking. Priestesses filled the spaces parents once occupied. Children were pure. Their souls yet unmarked by the sins of their carers, and no harm would come to them.

Faith and John seemed to uphold this rule. At least, Cora had yet to see any kids strung up in the regions their oversaw.

Jacob, however, took little part in the business of execution. According to Jess, this was left up to the discretion of his foot-soldiers, and as a result, there was rarely a distinction drawn between body sizes.

She hoped — she still does — that the coming winter might make it a tidier affair.

Maybe the snow might be thick enough that she won’t have to wonder who she’s walking over.

“So, two down, two to go, huh?” Sharky mutters, irises glinting orange with the life of the young flames. Maybe he’s thinking about the same thing she is.

She doesn’t dare look at Jess.

“Guess so.” She replies, pulling the wool blanket tighter around her shoulders. Jacob is an intimidating thought. Joseph? Her throat tightens at the very concept of having to see him again. “If I’m not out of a job.”

“Yeah, who the fuck else is gonna do it though.” Jess scoffs.

Anyone else.

“We’ll wait out the snow. Set up shop down here in the meantime. Re-establish the settlement.” Cora says. “Beats living at the county jail.”

“You wanna help get the community back on its feet instead of minding your own shit?” The Huntress cocks her head to the side. Then, when there’s no answer to fill the silence, she arrives at the right conclusion: The only real Resistance outpost is the jail. Minding one’s own shit meant living under the same roof as their newest prisoner.

Cora can feel the girl’s eyes on her. Reflecting. Recognition.

“Hey.” Jess leans forward, capturing a glance from her for just over a second. “It’s over. Take it from someone who’s been there — don’t lock yourself in your head about it.”

She’s right. Finality is hard when it’s not true closure, but she can’t afford to dwell on this. It is over, and in no time she’d have to renew another cycle with another Seed. And that’s all this one was anyway.

Just another Seed.

Cora inclines her head. A curt nod. Lips pressed together. “Yeah.” She affirms, shortly. “I just — I just need to watch this.”

All the catharsis she can hope for right now is this sight: someone who could very possibly be — and with each layer of skin burned away, it feels a little more believable — the silhouette of John Seed hanging dead in the flames. Defeated. Gone from the foreground of her life, and by her doing.

Even…even if this one’s hair is half an inch too short, and the cartilage in his nose isn’t quite the right angle of crooked, it won’t matter come morning. By then, all identifying features barring the clothes that melt into his charred flesh will be gone, and Cora can make that enough, she’s sure.

She can cast everything he’s spoiled her peaceful existence with into the fire with this pretend, and be done with it. She can reclaim herself. Rebuild. It’s far from the first time, and by time the sun rises she won’t even be able to make the distinction between this restart and the last.

Yeah. Come morning, she won’t feel a fucking thing.

Two down, two to go.

…

“You guys wanna take a photo with the burning guy?”

Cora and Jess look at each other, considering Sharky’s suggestion.

“Yeah. Why not.”

#if you see typos no you didn't #pomegranate chapter 20 #far cry 5 fanfiction #cora stammos #john seed

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