Chapter Text
John stared up at her from where he lay half dead in the mud covered in debris and blood. A long endured game of cat and mouse through Holland Valley followed by an air fight and he wasn’t looking too hot. Almost pitiful. Her lip curled in disgust at the shell of a man who was drawing his final breaths.
Getting closer was a mistake. It made this all too real. She crouched low on the ground, hand twirling around the key that hung on his neck. A key that would save the lives of so many innocents. Not that John would agree with her assessment. Everyone had sins to bear in his eyes. He was an asshole, simple as that. He ruined countless lives. She should let him struggle for air as he tried to get his last words out, walk away and forget about the pain it would cause his brothers and sister.
It didn’t feel right to watch him look so powerless. Something strange pulled at her chest. It made her lean into the tight hold he had on her wrist. Her gaze shifted to one of worry as she looked into his eyes, the way the weaning light shone off them didn’t make him seem so bad, right now he was a struggling man instead of a monster. She clenched her eyes shut and made a noise in the back of her throat akin to that of a wounded animal.
When she looked back at John he was giving her a half smile, appearing softer, almost happy. The same smile he gave at the church in Falls End when she said yes. A second before she tried to blow his head off.
Her muscles were shaking, twitching with adrenaline. He slumped away from her, finally letting her go. His stuttered breathing was barely there. Her indecision only lasted a second before she was pulling him up. John’s conscious body would have been heavy, but now she had to carry his dead weight. She huffed a laugh as she struggled down a steep slope, she supposed that she didn’t have to do this. But something didn’t sit right with her if her last thoughts of John was walking away from him when he was at his lowest. It left a sour taste in the back of her throat and made her stomach curled up into knots. There was nothing right with leaving a man to die when you could’ve done something. She wouldn’t let Hope County rob her of her humanity.
She almost dropped him six times during the walk to her car. He was leaking blood from the numerous cuts on his body. Long lacerations that would need stitches and leave nasty scars. They were all bleeding, driving the man closer towards death.
She shoved him unceremoniously into the passenger seat. It was her personal car that she gladly splurged for tinted windows, including the windshield. No one needed to know she was carting John around. They’d kill her before she had a chance to explain. Not like she could even explain to herself, she didn’t know what the hell she was doing. It was idiotic and the resistance would question what side she was on once this was all done.
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. Her gloves were torn off, too slick with John’s blood. Her teeth were grinding together each time she looked over at John’s slumped figure. His head was rhythmically bashing against the window and just like that, her concern was back, suddenly focused on the possibility of a concussion. With one hand on the steering wheel, the other grabbed John’s fancy coat and hauled him to lean on her shoulder. She could feel each warm breath that ghosted over her shoulder.
He was still completely unconscious by the time she decided where the fuck she was driving. She had fumbled with retrieving John’s phone from his pocket, having to stop on the side of the road to avoid crashing. There were an excessive amount of cars out, John’s men probably sent out tons of warning messages and now with him silent and hearing his final transmission from the plane, they were flocking to his last known location.
Surprisingly, he didn’t have a password on his phone, she had access to anything she wanted. But she only had eyes for his phone contacts. She started up the car, driving as she listened to the soft ring in her ear. Using her radio wouldn’t have helped, it would have been on open channels, signaling to the whole world that she practically killed John and now had precious cargo.
By the third ring, a small click sounded through the phone. “Johnny, you alright? They run you outta Falls End, or did you actually manage to pull that shit off?” The laugh that came after had her almost burst into tears at the obvious love coming out of his voice. She had to briefly remind herself that John wasn’t dead, she wasn’t delivering that kind of news.
“Jacob.” She made herself sound neutral, hoping he didn’t hear John’s labored breathing. She waited three beats of silence, thinking maybe he hung up and was already sending a search party out to find her. He was smart. John told him what he was planning on doing and now John wasn’t the one with his phone.
“Deputy.” His tone was detached, cold and raw. “What did you do this time? What else did you manage to fuck up and how fast do you think you can run?” She forced herself to focus on the winding road stretching in front of her, rejoicing when she read the sign welcoming her to the Whitetail Mountains.
“John’s not looking too good.” Her voice warbled, the tears she held back were now rising to the surface. Rearing her emotions to a man who would call her weak. “I don’t know what to do Jacob.” She slammed her fist down on the wheel. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do!” She made the car speed up.
“Is my brother alive, Kitten?”
“Yes.”
“And you expect me to believe you?” Her body went rigid and she risked a glance at John. Finally, his eyes were opening, looking glazed over and stunned. There was no way he’d be able to talk, to prove he was fighting for life and needed someone else other than her. An incompetent, emotional mess of a woman.
“Jacob—“
“I’m sending my hunters. God, I don’t care what Joseph said, you’re mine to deal with. I’ll make it painful Deputy. It’s how my brother would have liked it.” The click on the other end was earth-shattering. If had her screeching to a stop in the middle of the road. She made quick work of bringing the window down enough to shove his phone through it, that’s how Jacob’s hunters would pinpoint her location. And though that might save John, she also didn’t want to be captured, especially if John ended up dying. That’d make her situation much worse.
Her route changed from Jacob’s compound to a small cabin that she had. Everyone needed a place to call their own and though it was rarely used because it was so far out of her way, it made the perfect spot for laying low when the rest of Hope County expected you to be in Holland Valley.
By the time they made it to her place, she had dodged an absurd number of chosen. All streaming overhead in fast jets. As well as caravans on the roads that she avoided by taking detours through the woods that dented her car. It had to be worth it. And if John lived through this he was gonna be the one to pay for the repairs.
He was semi-conscience this time around. Walking with him was still hell. His legs got tangled up in her own, making them stumble around in a drunken pattern. She kicked open the door, leaving scuff marks she could complain about later.
She laid the softest blanket she owned on the floor in front of the fireplace and let John lay on it. The fire illuminated his sickly pale skin, which was coated in a thin sheen of sweat. His eyes were flicking everywhere, looking terrified, like a little boy.
“You’re gonna be fine John.” He didn’t hear her. He was mumbling incoherently under his breath. Too far gone to make sense of reality. But alive.
She laid out a number of supplies in front of her. Probably too many. She never treated something this serious, she was a deputy, not a doctor. Her hands were shaking with adrenaline as she peeled off his coat. It stuck to his body like a second skin. The blood was shiny and sleek, turning everything a brilliant shade of red. She was soon covered in the stuff. John gasped and coughed when she took off his vest, trying to stop her when she cut off his shirt with her knife. He groaned the entire time.
He was covered in so much blood that is was hard to tell where the cuts were. The deputy rushed to get a bucket of water and sponges. The fear of scrubbing his flesh right off made her pour the cold water on him instead. It had him cringe at the change of temperature. His eyes were looking more clear once the blood was off and she could see his wounds.
She had something to numb the area, it probably wasn’t strong enough. The dulled pain of her piercing a needle through his skin made him laugh. “Deputy. This isn’t what I pictured happening when I woke up this morning.” He shifted, wincing when she pushed him down by the shoulders.
“You see, I was always so scared of dying. But did I have a right to be afraid when Joseph said I had a choice? Joseph told me that the amount of love I let into my life would change whether I lived or died. Figured God finally got fed up with me when I jumped out of my plane. I was ready to die. Why Deputy? Are you doing this hoping I’ll give you my key.” He laughed, resulting in him spitting up blood. “Or are you thinking this’ll get you on Eden’s Gate good side?”
He smiled at her through the pain. She swallowed thickly, hand smoothing out the three long gauze wraps she fixed around his torso. She couldn’t do anything if he was bleeding internally. “Deputy.” His voice was falsely happy, making her glare over at him. Cocky now that death wasn’t waving right in front of him and surviving was a possibility.
“Does it really matter? You’ll live John and I made that happen. You’re welcome.”
She got up to clean the mess they made. Thankful that he dropped the subject. While in her room she took a moment to look in the mirror. She leaned forward, seeing the bags under her eyes and the redness on her face from her tears. Her entire body was now saturated with blood. The smell of iron permeated the air, making her gag. She was scrambling to chuck off her clothes, tossing them in the adjoining bathroom so the smell wouldn’t be so strong.
There was a shirt she owned that was baggy enough that John might fit in. He wasn’t that tall and wasn’t bulging with muscles, it’d have to work.
She yanked on her own change of clothes, inhaling at the scent of gunpowder that lingered from last time she was in a firefight. Not exactly pleasant, but a much better substitute for his blood.
The sensation of anger she knew too well arose in her when she saw John standing and scrounging through her fridge. “The least you could do Deputy is offer a man some water. Whatever happened to hospitality?”
“John.”
“I almost died, I’m thirsty, starving. This isn’t how you get in my good graces.”
“John.”
“And still you stand there and don’t help. You wouldn’t make the best partner huh?”
“Jo— wait what?”
He smiled crookedly. “May you help me Miss Wrath?” Her shoulders bunched around her neck at the reminder of her sin. She ran her fingers over the raised skin. A piece of her that was moments away from being torn from her body.
He pushed his weight onto her, body draped across her, as she reached in to grab the water at the back of the fridge. Thanking her when she thrust it into his waiting hands. She toyed with the idea of getting food, but they both seemed moments away from keeling over from exhaustion.
John was quiet all the way to the bedroom. Watching her with a calculated gaze as she helped him put on a shirt that thankfully was loose enough. He helped when she reached for his belt, accepting the fact that any pants she had wouldn’t fit him. He was reduced into a young child as she fussed around him. Making sure his neck wasn’t strained on the pillows and placing the water close enough on the bedside table. She pulled the blankets up to his chin, hiding a smile when he grabbed at it to raise it until only his eyes were showing.
When she hopped in beside him and flicked the lights off he spoke up. “You never answered my question.” She kept quiet. “Why Deputy?” He sounded on the verge of tears. So confused and scared. And she understood.
When was the last time someone outside his family or his blind worshipers actually did something nice to him? He hadn’t been shown mercy or sympathy and her out of all people now gave it to him. And that frightened him based off of what Joseph said.
She shifted closer to him, mindful of his cuts. Her arm looped around his shoulders and she pulled him until his head was on her breasts. She stroked his hair and let her lips brush his temple. “Would you believe me if I said I did it because I care John?”
“Yes.” He whispered the word like a prayer.
“Good. I don’t think lying would help anyone.”