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consumedkings-archive · 4 years ago

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WITCHING HOUR, a john seed/deputy fic. chapter twelve: the desire to devour

word count: ~10.3k rating: m warnings: naughty language, .000002 seconds of spiciness (but not really), john goes "we were vibing, right? we had the vibes? right?" for like the entire last half. also mentions of self-harm and elliot's previous trauma. notes: hi friends! i hope you enjoy this chapter! this is going to be the last sort of in-between chapter before we really get into it, and from here it's going to go faaaaast. i had a lot of fun writing it and feeling out these different dynamics. not to mention john being a gigantic fuckhead (but like what is new, lmao). special thank you as always to my wifey and beta reader @starcrier for your impeccable eyeballs, and also to @vasiktomis and @shallow-gravy for lending their eyes as well because i did fuss a bit with this chap. i would be lost without y'all. thank you everyone for your love and support, esp with comments! it really fills my heart so so much to hear back from you, and i am always in the market for friends so do not be afraid to reach out to me <3

She is twenty-five.

She’s twenty-five, and it's her first full day of work. Or, it was; now, she's sitting in the Spread Eagle listening to Pratt talk about everything that's happened while she's been gone, because he'd said, c'mon, let me take you out tonight. He grins a boyish, toothy grin at her—the same kind that's mimicked in the multiple school dance photos her mother covets—and tries to sound nonchalant when he asks how she liked being in the city.

It's hard not to think about how this is the first place she had ever met John Seed, then-Duncan, and how it feels like it's spoiled the whole place for her.

Elliot redirects her attention as best as she can to what it is Pratt is saying. He's fishing for information. They've always been each other's safety net, the person they can fall back on when all else fails. School dances. Picking partners in class. Graduation walking buddies. He'd driven her to the airport when she left for the Academy, even. But even though she knows he's trying to figure out if she's still a safety net, Elliot can't disguise the way thinking about Mason makes her feel—disgusting—so she brings the beer bottle to her mouth and takes a swallow.

The result is her face scrunching up. Pratt laughs.

“Geez, Elli, slow down,” he says, his smile crinkling at the corners of his eyes. “Bet money you're still a lightweight. When'd you start drinking beer, anyway?”

“I didn't,” she manages out around the taste, swallowing thickly. “I just won't let your money go to waste.”

He shrugs, as if to say, could, if you wanted, and swivels on the stool a little. He wants to press again—she can tell—but seems to have the good sense not to, instead busying his mouth with his own beer.

“Mama said Whitehorse let you right on,” Elliot says casually, trying to ignore the twinge of envy in her voice.

Pratt shrugs again. “He's known my dad a long time.”

“Known my mom too,” Elliot replies, dry.

“Yeah, well.” Pratt pauses, and sounds a little smug when he says, “Just because your mama likes me doesn’t mean I don’t know how she is to everyone else.”

“Likes you, does she?”

“Obviously,” the brunette replies confidently. “She still keeps all those photos of us. Remember senior year, she had all of her gal pals over when we were getting ready for prom—”

“Ugh.”

“—took us about 45 minutes before we were exactly where she wanted to take pictures—"

She rolls her eyes. Pratt grins, and then bumps his shoulder against hers. He says, “Aw, c’mon. Not so bad, is it? Having your mom like me?"

Elliot can feel the flush spreading under her cheeks. Not because she's embarrassed, or flustered, but because the beer sitting in her stomach feels rotten, and because Pratt's looking at her with the same kind of eyes he did before—always, always there's the before—and she doesn't know how to say I'm not her anymore, I'm not that girl, I'm different and changed and I don't know how to go back.

It doesn't matter. If Pratt can see it on her face, he doesn't let it show; just pats her shoulder and pretends he doesn't see the way she flinches from his hand swinging into her peripheral, pretends he doesn't notice the way she covers it up by swallowing another mouthful of beer she doesn't want to drink.

“Hudson’s really glad to have you back,” he says after a minute, when she doesn’t confirm nor deny that it’s not so bad knowing her mom thinks he’s a fine enough person. “Been talking about it nonstop.”

A smile creeps its way onto her face. “I’m glad to be back. With her, especially.”

“Yeah, you two always been thick, huh?”

She nods, swallows more beer, and Pratt rolls his eyes and snags the bottle out of her hand.

“Don’t keep drinking if you don’t like it,” he tells her, and then finishes it off himself, setting the empty bottle on the countertop with a grimace. “Can’t have people telling Whitehorse I bullied the probie into drinking.”

“‘Probie’,” she scoffs. “I could kick your ass.”

“Bullshit!”

“Could’ve done it before, Pratt.”

“Now that is lies and slander.”

Elliot only grins at him, the only time since coming back sans Joey getting her from the airport that it’s been a genuine thing; lopsided and a little sloppy but a grin nonetheless. Pratt finishes his own beer now, coughing a little into his fist before he blurts out, “I’m glad, too.”

She blinks. “Huh?”

“That you’re back,” Pratt clarifies. “Y’know—nice to have my friend back. Didn’t like sendin’ you off to the big city, anyway.”

He doesn’t know. He can’t know, because her mother won’t talk about it and Joey would never divulge what it was that had brought about her speedy return—but even though he doesn’t know about the way she has to swallow back a flinch every time he waves his hand in her peripheral, or the way the smell of beer on a man’s breath makes her stomach clench with anxiety, or how her hands are so fucking cold all the time because her heart hammers in her chest, the way he says that (Didn’t like sendin’ you off to the big city, anyway) feels a little like vindication.

“S’okay,” she murmurs, nudging his shoulder with hers. “Came back in one piece, didn’t I?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The scent of roses wafted over her in waves. The sound of bathwater murmuring against the sides of the porcelain tub rippled each time she moved, each time she used the grip of her hands against the lip of the sides to sink herself under; her knuckles went cold with the ferocious grip, but when she went under she was submerged in quiet once more. Blissful, serene, quiet; just what she wanted.

Elliot pulled herself out of the water. Downstairs, she could hear her mother’s voice, spiking frantic even through the floors and the two closed doors that kept her separated.

“...years, Mr. Seed, I have lost years of my life agonizing over what she did to herself...”

She dipped below the water, closing her eyes. No sound; no shrill noise; just the heavy, bloated static that existed underneath the surface of the bath. Only her and the baby.

It occurred to her, absently, that she needed to start picking out names for the baby. Now that they had a guess at what the gender was, they’d have to decide about a name; not only a first, but a middle, too—the last name—

“...find it quite intriguing, actually, that the second she comes back to me after being involved with your kind that she’s got all this—this—”

Oh, don’t say it, Elliot thought tiredly, closing her eyes.

“—tear, just wretched wear and tear, Mr. Seed, don’t you? Don’t you find that intriguing?”

John was sitting down there, enduring a thorough verbal lashing, and she hadn’t even asked him to. She’d said, I don’t care if she thinks it was me, and he’d guided her upstairs and cupped her face and kissed her, long and open-mouthed, and swept his thumb over her cheek. Now, Elliot could hear the sound of his voice—calmer, empathetic, like just knowing that her mother was hysterical was giving him some kind of control over himself—but that he was speaking in a normal tone meant that his words didn’t come through quite so clearly.

She heard the sound of her mother saying, “I suppose you’re going to tell me why you’re not bothered in the least?” just before she dipped under the water again.

What was she going to name the baby? Did she even have an idea of what kinds of names she liked? Exhaustion pulled at the edges of her attention; she thought, I’m too tired to come up with a baby name, and gripped the edges of the bathtub harder. More fierce, more firm; grip and pull, maybe spill the entire bathtub over, tilt the clawed feet until it hit the tiled floor and the porcelain broke and the rose-scent water flooded the bathroom, her room, the hallway.

Then they’d have to leave. Then they couldn’t stay, surely, in a house flooded with rose water.

Fingers brushed over hers where they’d gone white at the edges of the tub. She pulled herself out of the water to find John sitting there, knelt at the side of the tub—not unlike the way he’d sat back at her mother’s house in Hope County, when she’d drank too much in the bathtub and said that he could mark her.

Because that’s what it had been. As much as she had wanted it, as much as she had enjoyed it, no matter what John said—he had been marking her as his. Like that Oscar Wilde poem.

The same sin binds us.

Elliot brushed the water from her eyes and settled her head back against the tub, regarding him. He looked less bothered than she thought he would, having sat through her mother’s grilling and interrogation—though he did look like he wanted to say something, like maybe it was sitting, burning into ash in his mouth, the way she could see the flex of his jaw and the way his free hand clenched and loosened.

Ignoring the nagging feeling that he wanted to ask her what she’d been doing under the water, and the even more bothersome knowledge that she had, at some point, become painfully aware of his body language, Elliot said, “We have to think of a name.”

John blinked at her. Less than an hour ago, he’d been saying Of course I’d come for you, I love you, with or without the baby I love you, and she’d been sobbing into his arms and clinging to him.

He said, “And a middle name.”

“I’m trying not to think about it.”

A smile finally ticked the corner of his mouth, his fingers uncurling hers from the edge of the tub. Reluctantly, she let him.

“Your mother’s upset.” He paused. “She still wants you to play nice for her Christmas party, but she’s upset.”

“I know,” she replied sullenly. The despair of her shame, which had at once both overwhelmed her and hollowed her out, had dissipated in the wake of her indignation. What would she know, that vicious thing inside of her said, replaying the way her mother’s expression had crumpled. What would she know of our suffering? What would she know of our pain? ‘Wretched wear and tear’, like we haven’t been torn up for ages, like she didn’t throw us to the wolves and scoff in disgust when we came back bloodied and battered.

She wanted to be angry, really angry, but like most things that had to do with her mother, Elliot found herself more exhausted than anything. Scarlet had always found it impossible to comprehend the scars she’d given herself, had always claimed to feel disconnected to the ways Elliot had searched out meaning and comfort.

Absently, Elliot wet her lips and let her gaze flicker up to where John had perched himself beside the tub. He looked mighty pleased with himself, having finally gotten his words out. I love you, he’d said, palm flat against her window, I love you, with or without the baby.

And John, I want a home with you.

And John, Marriage is hard work, but I know you’re just the woman for the job.

And John, No way baby, I’m fucking it for you.

Blood rushed through her head, thunderous. John was saying something to her, but the words felt distant, and far away, and everything felt like it was underwater when she moved—not just the parts of her submerged in the bath, but all of it, the air too-thick and dragging on her skin and pulling her down slow as molasses. She blinked a few times as she disentangled their hands and reached for the towel, but John pulled it off of the hook first.

She watched him. She watched his mouth move, and his brows pull and furrow together at the center of his forehead, and the way his breath rose and fell in his chest, pushing and pulling the Sloth scar scratched across his sternum. Just like me, dream John had said, gripping her blood-covered hands, you’re just like me.

His voice, muffled and bogged down by the blood rushing through her ears, quirked up at the end. Elliot’s eyes darted back to his, and she asked, “Sorry, what?”

“The water’s cold,” he replied, waving the towel a bit. “Aren’t you getting out?”

“Yeah,” Elliot murmured. She felt hollow. Her fingers itched. She wanted—

John caught her hand as she stepped out of the bathtub, steadying her while her free hand gathered the towel up against her front. Goosebumps prickled across her skin, the lukewarm temperature of the bath still lingering; his fingers interlaced with hers, and she used it to steady herself.

He was close. They were close. A part of her resented it—that she let him be so close to her, that she let him kiss her and fuck her but mostly that she let him hold her when she cried, miserably, that she wanted to go home. Because after everything, after all of it, Hope County still felt—

She closed her eyes. Of course it still felt like home. Joey was there; now she knew Pratt was, too.

And among all of that, if she waded through the weeds spreading in her mind, if she hacked and cut them away, there was John.

“What are you thinking about?” John murmured, his cologne washing over her, their noses brushing. Her eyes fluttered open and she let out a little breath, that wanton little creature in her head chanting it over and over. There’s John, there’s always been John, nobody will love us with this much red in our ledger. No one but him.

“You,” she managed. Her head felt swimmy, the words coming out of her mouth sounding like a stranger’s—thick with want. John’s eyes flickered up to hers, having fixed on her mouth.

“If you want something, Ell,” he rumbled, the pressure of his fingertips against the back of her neck guiding her forward just a little but not all the way, “you only—”

Elliot leaned forward and kissed him, her hand lifting so that she could curl her fingers into his hair, the towel slipping to the floor. His body had tensed, like he wasn’t expecting it—like he was waiting for something else—and she thought about the way he’d kissed her with Kian’s blood in her mouth, the way he’d been just rampant with desire, the way the way the way—

Her teeth caught his lower lip, a little sharper than she’d intended, and his hand gripping her wrist tightened and he moaned, and she felt that same little thrill as before surge through her. It’s my magic, too, the itch in her fingers subsiding when she dug her nails in and pulled his hair a little, parting her lips against his; John leaned into her, crowding her up against the counter in front of the mirror, the hand at the nape of her neck threading into damp hair.

“Ell,” he said against her mouth, his voice rougher than before and hands planted on the counter on either side of her, “what are you doing?”

She murmured, “Stop talking,” and kissed him again, fingers clumsily working through the buttons on his shirt—her voice came out even but everything else about her felt wobbly, unsteady, craving craving craving the way it felt to have him begging her. Anything, to feel in control. Anything, to feel whole. Dig, and dig, and when you hit the bottom you keep digging some more, right?

What do we do with grief, right?

Burn and erase the image of her mother’s disgust and horror at seeing a part of her she might actually like, scrape it from her mind, dig her trenches deep deep deep and hunker down where she could feel safe, where she could feel strong; soon she would be home and—

And John’s teeth snagged her lower lip in retribution, sparking violent and red-hot behind her eyes with pleasure lighting her neurons on fire.

“Off,” she ground out against his mouth, pushing helplessly at the shirt she’d only halfway unbuttoned. The brunette grinned; his hands resumed her work, and she instead devoted her attention to the belt at his waist, yanking at it as John’s face dropped to her neck, hot breath fanning across her skin teeth dragging against her pulse point to pull a moan out of her.

There was a split second between John discarding his shirt on the floor and gripping her hips to lift her onto the countertop, his mouth seeking hers out again as she wound her arms around his neck. She had never been completely naked and felt not vulnerable at all, felt more in control—but she did, now, when she grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled and he moaned her name, a little frantic, Ell, Ell, hellcat, he said into their kiss, let me let me, greedy and wanting as he glided fingers up along the inside of her thigh.

He tensed, like he was going to drop to his knees, and she kept her hand in his hair and said, “Don’t.”

“Hm,” is what he replied, “pulling on my hair, ordering me to take my clothes off—”

“I’m about to tell you to shut up again.”

“—but won’t let me eat you out?” John grinned against her mouth, the scent of his cologne—expensive, stupid shit, but it never failed to feel like it was overwhelming her senses—washing over her. “What is it, baby? Want me to say please?”

Yes, something wicked inside of her said, John’s eyes lifting from her mouth to hers, narrowing playfully. Yes, I’d like that, I’d like to hear you say it like that.

“I know you,” he purred. He dug his nails into her hips, a sound—the wanting kind—trying to crawl its way up her throat. “Know exactly what you want from me. Yeah? So, Ell, won’t you please—”

There was a sharp knock at the door, a pause, and then: “Elliot?”

A near-silent laugh billowed out of John, stifled into her neck when her mother’s voice came through the door. Elliot’s eyes fluttered; her fingers, knotted in John’s hair, loosened and smoothed down the back of his neck, the intoxicating tension relaxing just a little. Heat had coiled in the hollow of her chest, spreading warm fingers at the same leisurely pace that John’s hand drifted up to her hip, his mouth finding the hollow of her jaw.

“I can’t believe her,” she muttered. “Yes?”

“Miss West is here, with her brother.” Scarlet’s voice was tight. “Returning your vehicle.”

Fuck. Elliot sighed, her eyes closing for a second while she tried to gather her thoughts. It was difficult to focus with John’s breath on her neck and his hands on her skin and that fucking cologne—and boy, did she not want to dwell on the fact that he’d shown up with barely anything but somehow also remembered to pack his stupid fucking cologne. But there was a different, special kind of warmth that spread through her when she realized that Sylvia was coming to check on her.

“Hair’s wet,” she called after a moment, “I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Fine.” There was another pause, and then her mother’s voice, scathing even through the door: “Ensure you are put together, Elliot.”

John murmured against her neck, “So no hickeys, then?” and she swatted his shoulder, rolling her eyes and sliding off of the counter. He seemed reluctant to let her disembark, thumb sweeping the slope of her hip before he dropped down—just far enough to plant a kiss on the gentle slope of her tummy. It was—sentimental, unseating her with incredible ease.

And then he ruined it by saying, “Your mommy won’t let me fuck her filthy, but I hear the second trimester throws a woman’s hormones through the roof, so we’ll see how long that lasts,” to her bump as he grabbed the towel from the floor to offer to her.

She snatched it from his hands, wrapping it around herself. “Don’t say that shit to the baby. You think I won’t end your life?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” he offered, head cocked to the side. “Leaving the hickeys, anyway, I mean. Well, and the second part too. About sex. Not the murderous part. Actually, you know I find it—”

Choosing to ignore the latter statement, Elliot narrowed her eyes. “You’d risk Via’s opinion of you dropping so severely?”

“You know what they say.” John spread his hands, almost in a gesture of helplessness; though she knew he was far from it. “Old habits die hard.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“She’s killing all of my angels!”

Faith’s voice was sharp, piercing; Isolde’s fingers fluttered over the bridge of her nose to fend off an impending headache, pen held poised above the notepad where she’d been writing down her thoughts but had paused in time for the girl’s interjection. She couldn’t stand a messy page—ink smears, jarred letters. Unacceptable.

Two hours ago, she’d had Jacob drive her out to where the service was strongest. A flood of emails and texts from her family had been waiting to overload her phone. Her dad, things are looking poorly, where are you?, her sister, I’ve been trying to reach you for days.

“Jacob,” the blonde plunged on, interrupting her train of thought, “you have to do something. They’re being—gutted like fish!”

“You should have locked them down,” Jacob told her. “And you’re not the only one losing things.”

“I put—” Faith cut herself off, clearly taking a moment to compose herself before she pitched her voice low and said, “I put just as much work into them as you do into yours.”

The red head’s voice bloomed with annoyance when he said, “Oh, did you?”

“No fighting, please,” Joseph called from where he sat next to her. His voice was even, elbows rested on his legs and fingers interlaced in thought. “I know this is stressful. But you must keep your faith in God.”

“Santi told me that—whoever she is has been leaving their corpses all around!” Faith’s voice pitched high with distress, now, sweeping around Jacob to come to where they had sat, big doe eyes wide. “We have to do something. Please, Father—I don’t want our people to wonder if they’re going to be next.”

Joseph paused, looking pensive for a moment; Isolde thought he might have been trying to figure out how he wanted to phrase something, but before he could speak, Isolde looked at Jacob and said, “You were going to hunt her down anyway, weren’t you?”

The eldest Seed’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you start with me too, Sol.”

“Get some fresh air,” she replied curtly, “go for a drive, clear your head. Eliminate a problem. You’ve been wearing a hole in the floors anyway; put that energy into being productive.”

“P—” Jacob’s voice spiked, incredulous. “Excuse me?”

He was agitated. She could tell—Pratt, and the phone call with the deputy in Georgia, and the Hunter on some kind of one-man rampage. But more importantly, Isolde thought, Jacob was agitated because there had not been a single conversation between him and Joseph since their argument.

Well, not even an argument. Just a lashing. A public one.

Isolde scooted her chair back from the table that had been set up at the front of the chapel, setting her pen down and stepping away. Her hand landed on the crook of Jacob’s elbow as she passed, and though he made a noise that implied disdain, he followed—not without shrugging her hand off by the time they got to the front doors of the chapel, leaving the other two to talk in low, murmured voices.

“You have got to stop letting this get to you,” she hissed.

“Nothing is ‘getting’—”

“Listen to me,” Isolde interjected. “I’ve been keeping as close an eye on the news as I have been on you. Things are—” She paused, mouth twisting around the words. “There is no room for you lot to be bloody fighting with each other. Do you understand me? This has moved far past needing to prepare PR and build a legal defense.”

Jacob’s eyes narrowed. He looked suspicious. “So why are you still here then, Sol?” he asked.

The words burned insult in her chest. Why are you still here, stinging fresh and hot, because it was a fair question. It was the most fair question. Unlike any of these people, she had a family outside that she still loved. Her sister, and her parents. She should have told John and all of the Seeds to go fuck themselves, to enjoy the end of the world, while she went to be with her family.

But she wasn’t. She was here. Doing—this. Finding fresh new ways for Joseph to connect with his people to keep their morale high, keeping the infighting at bay to make sure they looked like a united front to everyone, second doomsday cult included.

“My parents will take care of Avery. You know they’re close with—government,” she replied after a minute, shaking off the unease. “And I told John that I would.”

He snorted. “John says jump, you ask how high?”

“No,” she bit out, “I say jump and you kiss the fucking ground I’m standing on because I cobbled together what the fuck is left of your congregation.” Before Jacob could say anything, Isolde added, “My hands are full, Jake. Do not add to my pile.”

Dark brows furrowed, his mouth thinning in disdain. He clearly wanted to say something. But true to his nature, Jacob straightened back and settled himself before he said, “Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Fine,” he reiterated with his eyes narrowed. “I’m going to the Veteran’s Center.”

“That doesn’t sound like where we heard about the killings happening last,” Isolde protested, eyes narrowing.

“But she was there,” he replied. “Or someone was. Someone was there enough to steal my files.”

“Your—” Isolde snapped her mouth shut, sucking her teeth as she glanced back at Joseph and Faith; haloed in the dim lighting of the chapel, she could see them looking back at Jacob and herself expectantly. She wondered how much they could hear, from there.

Turning her attention back to Jacob and pitching her voice down in volume, Isolde hissed, “I don’t think prioritizing files is the best move right now.”

“Thank you,” Jacob idled, “for your input.”

“Fuck you.”

“Have fun,” he added, opening the door and letting in a waft of biting, cold air, before gesturing to the Book of Joseph on the table that she’d had her nose stuck in. All the better to make Joseph’s sermons hit home harder, after all. “You know—with your light reading.”

Isolde narrowed her eyes, watching him trudge down the steps for just a second before she said, “Jacob—”

“Yes, Isolde?”

Her mouth pressed into a thin line. “Don’t get shot.”

For a moment, he looked almost surprised at her words—but it was only a moment before he said, “Don’t worry, I’m taking Vidal. He makes a suitable meatshield.”

“God, he’s a talker.”

A tiny ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of Jacob’s lips, before he said, “John and the deputy should be making their way here any day now.”

Isolde grimaced. “I was there for the phone call.”

“Are you going to leave?” Jacob pressed, expression stiffening again. “When he does?”

She paused, clearing her throat and shifting on her feet. I should, were the words that wanted to come out of her mouth. I should go. I only came down here because John wasn’t here. I should go, and get back to my life, and maybe get to my family and try to stay out of the crossfire and—

After a heartbeat, she said, “I don’t know.”

Jacob shrugged, as if to say, see? Told you, though to what he could be referring to, she had no idea; she only knew that she didn’t like the way he swung around and sauntered out of the chapel, leaving her alone in the tepid warmth with Joseph and Faith’s eyes on her in favor of the blistering cold outside. Snow had continued to dump throughout the day and night, and had only just let up recently; the members of Eden’s Gate—those who had survived the Family’s relentless assaults, and those that had been pulled from the bunkers—had been tirelessly shoving pathways, only to have their work tidily undone each night.

Fingers brushed the palm of her hand. Isolde startled; she glanced back just as fingers interlaced with hers to be met with sweet, bright eyes and Faith’s adoring attention planted on her.

“It means so much to me,” Faith murmured, “that you would help. Not just me, but all of us.”

Soli watched the blonde for a moment, trying to gauge. The physical closeness was not something she was accustomed to; carefully, she disentangled their fingers, skin prickling with unease. When she glanced up, Joseph’s eyes were on them, on Faith’s fingers falling from her hand but skimming the inside of her palm in a lingering touch of affection.

He was always doing that. Watching. Watching, and waiting, and pinning each movement and gesture and thought and word out perfectly like the wings of a butterfly, just the color he liked and just the shape.

“Don’t thank me,” Isolde replied, mustering a smile and brushing the hair from her face.

“It’s my job.”

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“Hey, Miss Honey, John!”

Wyatt’s cheerful voice broke through the late-afternoon chill; the sun setting early, people’s breath coming out in puffs of smoke. It all felt oddly normal, given the circumstances of the morning and the way she’d forgotten to call Sylvia once she got home, and that her friend had fished up a reason to come by the house and make sure she hadn’t—

Well.

Still, if there was any remnant of the morning in Sylvia’s heart, it didn’t show in her face, and it certainly didn’t show in Wyatt’s. Instead, both blondes beamed at her, radiant, the second she came out with fuzzy, fresh-from-the-blow-dryer hair and swaddled up to her chin in thick fabrics to fend off the cold.

And, truthfully, to hide the bump. John had reminded her of it, and even though the moment had been a...good one, it had also reminded her she hadn’t expressed this truth to Sylvia or Wyatt. As John closed the door behind her and jogged down the steps,

“Howdy,” Ell greeted, albeit a bit awkwardly thanks to her stuck-somewhere-nowhere-sort-of-accent. “You didn’t have to drive it back all the way out here, you know.”

“Sure we did.” Wyatt chirped. “Wouldn’t be very neighborly of us if we let it sit and the battery died out, now would it?”

“No,” John demurred after a moment even as Elliot’s cheeks went warm, “I suppose not.”

“You all recovered from this morning?” Via asked cheerfully, purposefully avoiding the actual question. Elliot shifted on her feet. John’s hand skimmed the small of her back, and even through the layers of fabric, it felt warm; she wondered if this was what it would have been like for them, had their life been normal. Had John been truthful with her from the get-go. Now, with everything laid out between them—the lies unearthed and only the brutal, unapologetic knowledge that they wanted each other, in one way or another—it felt like they might have been normal. Sometime, somewhere, someplace else.

It was still hard to swallow, all of it. The lies and the now-truths and the knowledge that she did, in fact, want.

“Oh, yeah,” Ell replied faintly. “Took a bath and...” She tried for a smile. “Decompressed.”

“That what smells so good?”

“Y’all get that tired from dress shoppin’?” Wyatt tsked, having pulled his coat out of the jeep and started to pull it on. He grinned at her and skillfully dodged a side-swipe from Sylvia; he had a good foot of height on her—and Elliot—so it wasn’t difficult. The siblings fussed for only a moment before Sylvia managed to fetch the Jeep’s keys from Wyatt’s coat pocket and held them out to Elliot, puffing.

She was in the middle of saying, “Your keys, madame,” when John’s head tilted and he muttered, “Now what is this?”, drawing her attention to the end of the drive. A police cruiser made its way slowly down the drive, carefully pulling up behind the Jeep.

Not beside it. Not further up toward the garage, not on the other side of the four of them chatting. Behind it. Blocked in.

Sheriff Pritchard stepped out, shuffling a little as he adjusted the black, fur-trimmed jacket on his shoulders and closed the driver side door. He’d come alone, which made Elliot certain he wasn’t here to arrest her—and what a ludicrous thought, that he might have considered it a possibility, because the mere mental image of Pritchard grabbing her arm and keeping his eyes in his head made a hysterical kind of laugh want to bubble out of her.

Not me, not me and not my baby, that thing inside of her said, lifting its hackles and baring its teeth when Pritchard began to saunter over. Not my baby.

“Afternoon, you two. And Wests,” Pritchard greeted as he drew closer. He’d earned himself a curious murmur from Sylvia. “Havin’ a little shindig out here, Miss Honeysett?” Elliot opened her mouth to respond, but he lifted his hands quickly in defense. “‘M sorry, forgot myself. Mrs. Seed.”

It caught her off-guard, sucked the air right out of her lungs. It was one thing to hear her mother say John is Elliot’s husband, to hear her say John is my son-in-law, but it was another entirely to hear herself referred to as Mrs. Seed. It had never, ever been that she was John’s wife, except out of his own mouth, but now—

John seemed eager to engage with Pritchard, because he said, “Something that you needed, sheriff?”

“Yes, actually. Believe it or not, I ain’t in the business of drivin’ out to the rich part of town just for shits and giggles,” Pritchard replied coolly. “Your mama home, Elli?”

“Probably resting,” Sylvia offered, smiling politely. “We just finished dress shoppin’ for her Christmas Party not but an hour ago.”

“Yeah,” Pritchard rumbled, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. “Heard about your little trip to the boutique today.”

John asked irritably, “Do you need to smoke that right now?”

Elliot swallowed thickly. Her lashes fluttered, eyes desperate to close; the warmth that had flooded her face now felt like it verged on feverish, threatening to make her head swim again. This was bad. This was bad-bad, chop her hair off and run run run again bad, the kind of bad that made a girl change her name and burn her birth certificate and make sure that nobody would ever be able to find her again.

“I don’t,” she began, “think mama’s feeling up to visitors right now.”

Pritchard eyed her, taking a puff of his cigarette while completely glazing over John’s pointed question. “Imagine not. You know, you been a hot topic of conversation lately, Mrs. Seed. Gotten loads of questions about you. Lady from out of town, Federal Marshals. I don’t like folks sniffin’ around my town, you know, especially not the fuckin’ Feds, but it’s gotta make me wonder.” The smoke curled out from his nose, the smoke of a lazy, self-righteous dragon wafting around her.

“Sheriff,” John continued tightly, clearing his throat, “you’re going to need to put that out.”

“We’re outside, Mr. Seed. You ain’t ever seen someone smoke a cigarette outside?”

“Do you make a habit of smoking around pregnant women?” John snapped viciously, and oh, she thought, oh, I didn’t even think of that, because her brain was too busy kicking into overdrive and parse out the absolute confirmation that Federal Marshals were asking after her and strange women, too. Oh, I didn’t even think about the baby.

And then Sylvia said, eyes wide as saucers as she laughed, flustered, “Oh, John, that’s very kind of you, but I’m not—” and her eyes landed on Elliot, and she blinked rapidly.

Wyatt was looking at her, too. Big, big eyes, surely having not only learned that she and John were married but that she was also pregnant in the span of only a few minutes. At least, Elliot didn’t think Sylvia would have divulged that information, and if the shock he was clearly trying to cover up in his expression was any indication, that gut feeling was right.

No, she thought, no, this is not what I wanted. This is not what I wanted at all. It wasn’t his to tell, it wasn’t his to tell, it was mine, my choice, mine alone.

Her gaze snapped to Pritchard. She said, “It’s time for you to leave.”

Pritchard lifted his eyebrows. “That so? Well, good for me I ain’t here to talk to you, missy.”

“Get. Off. My. Property,” she bit out through her teeth. “Scarlet isn’t taking visitors, and I’ll cut the decay out of my own teeth before she makes anything close to the time of day for you.”

Now, his eyes narrowed and the cigarette sat between his fingers, still burning amber at the end. “Excuse me?”

“And tell the fucking Feds whatever you want,” she snapped, fingers curled tightly around the keys until the metal edges dug into the nooks and crannies of her hand. “But whatever you do, get the fuck out of my driveway, sheriff.”

Something flickered in the corner of her vision. John started, “Ell,” and his hand went to her shoulder, but she jerked back from him before he could make much more than a brush of contact.

“Don’t,” Elliot snapped at him, her voice wobbling and the tears—shameful tears—welling up and burning, “touch me.”

“Alright, okay,” Sylvia murmured, “Elliot and I are gonna go inside, and John can—”

“Ain’t here to talk to Mr. Seed,” Pritchard drawled venomously.

“If you’re asking questions about Elliot,” Sylvia replied calmly, taking Elliot’s hand with a firm squeeze, “I can imagine there is no better person to ask than her husband, don’t you think so, Sheriff?”

Pritchard’s eyes were squinted into poisonous little slits, and he took a long drag of his cigarette.

“Mrs. Honeysett won’t be any type of cooperative if you get her up now,” Wyatt chimed in, eyes flickering nervously to Elliot—perhaps both because of the news and because of her outburst. But she didn’t have time to think much about it, because Sylvia was tugging her out of the cluster of folks, ginger and reassuring even as her brother plunged on, “I mean, sheriff, come on—you know how women can be when they’re gotten up too early, let alone they’ve been shoppin’ all day—”

And Pritchard said, “You want I should put my cigarette out now, Mr. Seed?” as Sylvia opened the door,

and John replied with a slick, charismatic kind of venom, “No reason to anymore, smoke to your heart’s content,”

and the door clicked shut behind her and Boomer scampered out from where he’d been snoozing under the dining table.

She had to leave.

She had to go.

She had to get out.

Federal Marshals and strange women asking after her, and now her only two friends in the whole fucking world—

(well, not entirely true, since we still have Pratt, isn’t that right? Isn’t that right, Elli?)

—had just seen her almost go fucking bananas on an officer of the law, had watched her demand he get the fuck out of her driveway for wanting to ask her mother about her, had seen her.

“Hey,” Sylvia said, “you’re alright.”

I’m not, she thought, dropping the keys into the crystal bowl by the door, smearing red against the glass. Her hand stung. She reached with the good, unmarked hand for Boomer absently. His cold, wet nose brushed against it, and he whined, feet tapping against the wood as he bumped her for her attention. I won’t go. I won’t fucking go. I won’t pay the price for what they did to me, what they made me into.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out abruptly, her voice coming out tight. “Sorry that I didn’t—um, tell you. About the—”

“It’s okay,” Sylvia told her quickly, “it’s alright, Elli, it’s not a big deal. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

Elli, she said, without knowing what the nickname meant. Elli, Sylvia said, it’s alright, and Joey, right now we need to leave, Elli, and Pratt, geez, Elli, slow down, an affectionate nickname saved only for folks who considered her their friend. Sans Pritchard. Fuck Pritchard.

“Lots of people wait to tell,” Via continued, one hand coming to rest on her shoulder and jarring her out of her thoughts, which were quickly and rapidly devolving back into the urge to march outside and ensure Pritchard was obeying her command. Out out out, something vicious inside of her demanded, we want him out we want him gone.

Elliot said, “Yeah, you’re right,” but she felt far away—not lost, not gone from herself, but thinking. She could pack fast. She could pack fast, and John had brought barely anything, and they could leave right now, her mother none the wiser. They could leave now and be gone and Cameron Burke would have to—

But are we sure it’s Burke? Are we sure it’s Burke and not someone else, come to haul your ass to a fucking psych ward, for what you did in Hope County?

For what you did?

No. She wasn’t sure. She could only hope it was one singular Federal Marshall on her tail, and not an actual piece of the government body. That was all.

But whoever it was that was asking after her—strangers, government officials—it didn’t matter. That old mantra had kicked in again; something has to be done, the same kind of calm before the storm that she’d felt when Joey had been killed, something has to be done.

Something has to be done and I’m going to have to be the one to fucking do it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Pritchard dropped the cigarette into the snow and stamped it out with his bootheel, his eyes fixed on John. Sylvia had rushed Elliot inside, but he didn’t think that had been purely necessary—only in the instance they had wanted to keep Pritchard out of a blood bath. Elliot hadn’t been checking out, trying to keep herself together; she had been angry, and he’d had half a mind to let her say and do exactly as she pleased to the man now standing in front of him in the cold.

“She always been that volatile, Mr. Seed?” the sheriff asked.

“Not undeservingly,” John replied tartly, his eyes narrowed. “Did you have specific questions, sheriff, or did you just come by to terrorize my pregnant wife with your theoretical judgment of her soul?”

“More your speed?” Pritchard replied, lifting a brow.

“Pardon?”

“Heard about you Seed boys,” he continued coolly, “and your...” He gestured with a calloused hand vaguely, looking for the right word.

John smiled, with teeth. “Before I grow old, if you don’t mind, sheriff.”

“Proclivities,” Pritchard elaborated, “for religion.”

Fucking Burke, he thought, with no absence of venom; fucking Burke can’t resist the urge to try and fuck up my life when he’d be better off trying to find a place to hunker down for the end of the world.

“We’re red-blooded Americans,” John idled coolly, “freedom of religion goes hand in hand with that.”

“Mr. Pritchard, you wanna get that car started?” Wyatt cut in abruptly, glancing around like he thought maybe the rest of the patrol might be rolling in any minute. “It doesn’t sound like you’ve got any questions for Mr. Seed.”

“That’s sheriff to you, boy,” he snapped. And then, after a heartbeat, he fished his keys out of his pocket and said, “I s’pose I got all the information I needed, after all.”

“Mmhm.”

John had turned back to the house, spotting Elliot and Sylvia through the front window, when Pritchard announced, “You make sure Scarlet gives me a call when she’s recovered from your wife’s antics, Mr. Seed.”

His gaze returned to the sheriff, narrowed. “Certainly, Sheriff Pritchard.”

“But if I don’t hear from you, no worries,” the man continued, opening his car door, “I’ll make another special trip out here.”

“Goody.”

John flashed another grin when Pritchard’s eyes flickered over him. Wyatt said, “Have a safe drive,” and Pritchard slammed his door shut, his cruiser’s engine roaring to life before he began to slowly back out and make a u-turn to head down the long driveway again. There was a moment of silence, stretching between himself and Wyatt that he didn’t feel particularly inclined to break—after all, Wyatt had been taking liberties with Elliot that he shouldn’t have been—before the blonde finally broke the silence.

“Congrats,” Wyatt said after a minute. “About—uh, the baby, I mean. I didn’t know!”

Ah, he thought, feeling a strange little surge of pride at the way the man across from him shifted on his feet with discomfort, and that’s why Elliot’s mad I brought it up. Her friends didn’t know.

Well, it was better this way, after all. He wouldn’t have taken it back even if he’d gotten the chance, knowing what he did now.

“Thank you,” he replied amiably. “It’s certainly a blessing.”

Wyatt’s mouth twisted for a moment, looking like there was something he wanted to say specifically and didn’t know how to say it without foregoing social niceties, but the sound of the front door opening caught both of their attentions.

“Wyatt, you gonna stand out here like a lemming all afternoon or what?” Via called. “Get the car warmed up, you caveman.” She took a few steps down the front stairs and looked at John. “You’re wanted inside, Mr. Seed.”

A very polite way of telling him that Elliot, perhaps, was in the mood to throttle him with her bare hands. Though he didn’t really see the harm in spilling the news—perhaps with Via, sure, but Wyatt? The cowboy? Like that was ever going to be anything.

“Thanks for your help,” John said, clapping Wyatt on the shoulder before he made his way to the front steps. Via hadn’t moved. In fact, her normally polite expression was eerily cool—whatever amicable, feigned interest she had manicured for him in the past seemed to have evaporated in the wake of Elliot’s own fury.

As he neared, he said, “Something else you needed, Miss West?”

Via’s eyes narrowed. She looked at Wyatt, now inside the car, and then back to John. “You must think I’m mighty dumb, don’t you?”

John lifted an eyebrow inquisitively. “If you think I instigated that little outburst on purpose—”

“What I think,” Via replied, “is that you know exactly what she’s capable of handling. Just because you didn’t do it on purpose doesn’t mean you weren’t thinking of letting her physically assault a police officer.”

His easy-going expression flattened. Sylvia, and her seeing, the same kind of uncanny people-reading skills that Joseph had, too. Seeing his delight at knowing that Elliot would have taken on a man a foot taller than her, pregnant, if it meant keeping him away from the baby, if it meant keeping herself out of the grip of a greater power that wanted her in a psychiatric evaluation.

“I want to like you,” Via continued, taking the steps until she reached the bottom, “and I thought maybe you were here to make a real effort. But it seems like you’re the same person you were before, John Duncan.”

The name sent a jolt of red-hot anger flushing down his spine, filling him up suddenly with a sort of molten rage that only the reminder of his adoptive parents could have inspired in him. When Via went to move past him, he snatched her elbow, holding her in place.

“And where,” he ground out, “did you hear that name, Miss West?”

“It’s called a web browser, John,” Via replied coolly. “You ever heard of Google? Imagine how many John Seeds there are in Hope County, Montana. I don’t need to tell you that the articles regarding you and your brothers, though a bit old, are unflattering. And all I want you to know—” She paused, arm still in his grip. “—is that we’re aware of each other, and that I don’t want anything happening to Elliot.”

“Neither do I,” John replied tightly, “and I especially don’t want someone digging trenches where there’s not a war zone.”

Via regarded him with an even gaze for a moment, glancing back at the car where her brother sat, before she murmured idly, “Kindly take your hand off of my arm, John.”

“Ellliot’s already aware of the any of the information in those articles,” he continued lowly, “just so you know.”

“My point, John,” Via replied casually, “is that I know, and I can—and will—deal with it as I see fit. Now, you gonna take your fuckin’ hand off of my arm, or are we going to have a problem?”

He watched her for a moment—just long enough to consider the dopamine rush of killing her, grabbing a fistful of her hair and slamming her face into the top of the porch, doing something, anything to ensure that Sylvia West was not capable of messing up anything that he was doing—and then he planted a big smile on his face and dropped his hand from her arm.

“Careful,” he said, louder now so that Wyatt would hear, “it’s icy.”

The blonde didn’t respond. Instead, she brushed her hand absently where his had been, as though to brush herself free of his touch, and picked her way across the driveway and to the truck idling just on the other side of the jeep.

Well, that would be one less problem to deal with, in the end.

John made his way inside, closing the front door quietly behind himself and taking a moment to gauge. Just to see what was going on. The house itself was quiet, and Boomer’s little footfalls were nowhere to be heard, and Scarlet wasn’t sipping her vodka in the living room—so.

So.

Taking a breath, he started up the stairs, turning into the hall to find Elliot’s bedroom door halfway ajar. He paused in the doorway; she was rifling through drawers, pulling sweaters and long-sleeved shirts and jeans and sweats out and dropping them into a duffel bag, furious little exhales occasionally coming out of her.

“I was told I was being summoned,” John said, Elliot’s attention razor-sharp and snapping to him immediately.

“Pack your shit,” she said briskly, “we’re leaving.”

He blinked. Taking a step inside, he glanced at Boomer—perched protectively between himself and Elliot—and said, “I thought we were waiting until after the Christmas party?”

“You’re not fucking deaf, John, you heard Pritchard,” she snapped. “The Feds have been asking about me. The only reason they don’t know exactly where to look—whoever it is—is because Pritchard’s a fucking asshole and likes to be as obstinate as possible.”

“And if we sprint out of here,” he replied, “you’re just going to draw their attention.”

“It’s what Pritchard wants.” Elliot zipped the duffel bag shut and then brushed past him into the bathroom, gathering up her toothbrush and toothpaste and the sleeping pills. “For me to be gone. He’ll piss off if I go. And there’s no way he’s going to put up a big fight to cozy up to the government.”

“Elliot.” John watched her furiously gathering things up, and then when she came by again he caught her with his hands. “Ell, just slow down—”

“Stop,” she bit out, “stop telling me what to fucking do, John, and—I told you not to touch me.”

He lifted his hands from her, but not far enough that she could duck past. “Are you that mad about Sylvia and Wyatt knowing you’re pregnant?” When she didn’t answer, and instead hauled the bag over from the other side of the bed to be close to her so that she could dump the collections from the bathroom into it, he sighed. “I didn’t know you hadn’t told them, but I don’t understand what all of the secrecy is about. The baby isn’t—”

“I felt normal!” Elliot replied sharply, her voice pitching a little higher now, and John heard the wet wobble in it too—the way the timbre of her voice thickened and rounded out with the threat of oncoming tears, her cheeks flushed with anger and maybe shame and pain, too. “Okay? I felt—I f-fucking felt normal, for once, and it was enough that Sylvia knew you and I had been—that we’re married, which I don’t even want to dig into right now, but it was another to be like—yes, the father of my fucking child, who I’m actually married to even though I didn’t want it, is here and oh, by the way? He’s part of a cult. Yeah, a fucking doomsday cult. I’m carrying the child of a doomsday cultist.”

“How was I supposed to know?” he demanded. “How was I supposed to know that you didn’t want Sylvia and her brother knowing you were pregnant? You never said. And what does it matter?” And then, feeling the petulance well up inside of him: “I know it probably felt nice, to have Wyatt giving you attention—”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she asked, incredulous. “You’re really pulling that now? So, what—you dumped the news because you wanted to make sure my friend found me as off-limited as possible?”

John crossed his arms over his chest. “I know this may come as a shock to you,” he said, feeling the tension peeling apart behind his eyelids, “I really didn’t want Pritchard smoking near my baby.”

“My baby.” Elliot jammed her finger into his chest, just above his heart, her words vicious. “It’s our baby, or it’s my baby, but there isn’t a single fucking universe where the only person this baby is beholden to is you.”

“He’s,” John corrected, tartly. “He’s our baby. And at the end of the day, whether you like it or not—”

“Have you ever,” she cut in over him, biting the words out between her teeth, “done anything for me that wasn’t for you too?”

Watching her, the words sat sticky in his chest. His instinct was to say, of course I have, but that wasn’t true. Of course it wasn’t. And he wasn’t going to pretend like it was, either—because he wasn’t ashamed that everything he had done had been for them, that if Elliot wasn’t his then there would be no point in it, that it was a zero sum game where he either had her or he had nothing.

He said, evenly, “No.”

Elliot looked unseated by his honesty. She swept her fingers across her forehead tiredly and turned back to her bag. “Then do me a favor and pack your shit so we can go.”

John sighed. “Don’t you think—”

“John,” she bit out, “I am making an executive decision.”

“Alright, Ell.”

“And—”

John had turned to the door to go gather what few of his belongings he’d had when Elliot cut herself off, drawing his eyes over his shoulder to her again. She looked unwell—stressed, feverish, her hands buried into the duffel bag maybe to hide the shaking and her face flushed and her brows furrowed together.

“Thank you,” she managed out after a minute, “for being honest. For once.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Pratt brushed the snow from his hair, teeth chattering as he waded through knee-deep snow out towards the water. It had been three days, and Helmi had told him to meet her out there—how she was going to get past the compound’s security, Pratt didn’t know, but he also thought it probably was best not to dwell on the things that Helmi would do (and could do) to get where she needed to be.

Which is why he found himself less and less surprised to find her standing at the edge of the water, in the middle of the night, swathed up to her jaw in dark, heavy fabrics. The only part of her that wasn’t covered were her hands; the closer he got, he could see she was turning a smooth, dark rock over and over in her hands, passing it between them as she watched him come nearer.

“You remembered,” was how she greeted him, most of her face cast in shadow thanks to the high position of the moon behind her. Pratt shivered and jammed his hands into his coat pockets.

“Yeah, well, kinda hard to forget,” he replied. “Considering it’s been looming over me for the last few days.”

“Poor thing,” Helmi agreed, not sounding sympathetic at all. “Did you call her?”

Pratt paused, clearing his throat. There was something that didn’t quite sit right with him, knowing that he had called Elliot not out of a cry for her help—not really, anyway—but because this other cult wanted her. This cult, which had tore its way through Hope County splitting and gutting its residents, wanted her. And Helmi didn’t seem keen on telling him why.

“I did. They just got word that she and John are on the road now,” he said after a moment. “What, uh—do you want her for, anyway?”

Helmi quirked a brow at him, the corner of her mouth tilting upwards. “Shouldn’t you have asked that before making the phone call, if it was going to bother you?”

A little lick of shame and embarrassment crawled red-hot into his cheeks, and he scoffed, turning his face away. “Well, you said you wanted her alive. Can’t say the same for the Seeds.”

“She’s carrying John’s child,” Helmi pointed out. “You think they’d kill her still?”

Pratt grimaced. It was still hard to stomach—the idea that Elliot was with John. Or had been, at one point. It didn’t sound like things were going great, and he could only imagine why. Still—

Still, he thought there was a lesser of the two evils, and Helmi sounded like it. Maybe not the others, but Helmi.

“They don’t have a problem killing babies,” Pratt replied after a minute. “What are you going to do, once she gets here? They won’t let her leave, and they definitely won’t let you in.”

Now, the blonde grinned—pearly teeth in the dark of the night, surprisingly satisfied with herself. “Big one’s pissed at me, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. Well, you know, Faith too. You've been killing her angels.”

She shrugged. “I’ve got a plan. You know exactly as much as you need to know right now. Are you eating?”

The question came so quickly that Pratt didn’t have time to register the oddness of it, replying on automatic the same way he had been with Arden’s consistent, gentle pestering: “Yeah, I mean—don’t have much of an appetite, but...”

His voice trailed off and he glanced back at the woman. Her head was cocked and her eyes were fixed on him expectantly. “What?”

“Eat,” she told him. “Take advantage of as much as you can. And most of all, listen. Any information you can get will be helpful.”

Pratt’s throat felt a little tight. He kept thinking about the way Jacob had grabbed his shoulder, laughing when he’d insulted the woman doing the heavy lifting for Joseph—grinning like a fucking wolf, like he was going to be dinner, next.

He managed out, “He’ll kill me. If he suspects. He’ll take—everything, from me.”

Helmi planted a hand on his shoulder. The gesture made him want to flinch, but he bit back the urge, and he thought maybe she’d seen but didn’t say.

“He already took everything from you,” she replied lightly, “and do you know what that means?”

The dark of her gaze was intense, piercing even in the late night; it made it hard to look away. Voices echoed back in the compound, and briefly, he thought maybe they’d noticed his absence—but he only shook his head.

“It means you have nothing to lose,” Helmi murmured, “and everything to take back from him.” Her hand moved from his shoulder to the back of his neck, the pad of her thumb sweeping up to his pulsepoint pensively. “See? Your heart is beating, and hard. Your blood knows it’s what you want, even if you don’t yet.”

Swallowing thickly, he nodded his head once. Nothing to lose, and everything to take back. Could he? Could he get things back? Is that what Helmi had done? What Elliot had done?

“And don’t fuck it up,” she added, dropping her hand from his neck and zipping her coat up. Leaving so soon. She grinned. “Or I’ll gut you myself. And I guarantee, it won’t be an Återfödelse.”

A nervous, almost hysterical little laugh bubbled up out of him. Helmi shot him a look and then brushed past him, heading back into where the brush became the thickest, calling over her shoulder, “See you in a few days, Staci Pratt.”

A few days. A few days, Elliot would be back, and John Seed would be back, and Helmi would be seeing him. Seeing them. Maybe it would be better to make a break with Elliot, once she got in—but what if she didn’t want to? What if she was one of them?

Pratt let out a puff of hot breath, digging the heel of his palm into his eyesocket while the pain bloomed just there, turning and beginning to trudge back to the compound before anyone noticed his absence. Each scrape and puff of snow fell in line with his heartbeat, the mantra on and off again.

Nothing to lose.

Everything to take back.

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