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Rook had lived in Hope County for a few years. She had only lived as a Deputy for about a month when she was tasked with arresting a Mr. Joseph Seed. Since that day, she had been all over the county. She had helped a few people out in all regions of Hope County, but she had yet to stop any of the 3 siblings terrorizing Holland Valley, Henbane River, or the Whitetails Region.
Something had been calling her to the Whitetails first, and so that is where she went. She had done many things, some she was not proud of - but it all led to this.
…
Rook had never felt fear quite like the fear of hearing the bombs dropping. The loud and repetitive noise- it felt like it was deafening for the longest time. Then it stopped. It felt like it was sudden, too. It just was like a snap and all of a sudden it was silent.
Rook should feel lucky. She happened to be in one of the bunkers littered around Hope County, but it was who she was with that made her feel a multitude of discomfort.
Jacob Seed.
She had a bleeding heart, she couldn't kill Jacob. She wasn't a monster. Rook handcuffed him after sending Pratt on his merry way to a medic to get himself checked out, and it was only in a panic after a bright light appeared over the sky that she realized things weren’t going to plan. They weren’t going to make it to somewhere Jacob could be held while they figured things out.
She had stopped the car, and just began shaking. There wasn't training for this part. This wasn't supposed to happen.
It was only after a second that she realized Jacob was speaking to her, from the back seat with his handcuffs still snuggly on his wrists behind his back.
"We are in the southeast corner of my region. There is going to be a turn coming up, you need to-" Jacob gave a series of instructions, and just as she had been taught, she followed them.
The door was shut behind her before she knew it, and she was safe. Jacob Seed was safe. Those two phrases feel like they shouldn't go together- like they couldn't. If two of them are safe then neither of them are safe. Especially if they were together. Fire and ice. Oil and water. Jacob and Rook.
…With that being said, it does not explain the energy left after the bombs had ceased outside. Two of them just sat on the other side of the doorway, about 5 feet away from what could've been their death if they had not been so quick.
Jacob was still in the handcuffs, his back against the other side of the hallway that led to the door. Both were sat, almost defeated in a heap on the ground. The moment the doors had closed he had slid down, and just kept his eyes neatly directly towards the ground.
It was Jacob who spoke up first, and it felt like he opened the floodgates when he did. Breaking the seal, if you will. "There should be more than enough food in here for-" Jacob started, his eyes not leaving the floor. His voice was so quiet, and shaky. "For as long as we need it." He almost seemed afraid to say how long they would be in this bunker. Like saying it would make it too real.
He was not acting like the Jacob Seed she had known. This was not the same man who was known as being the scariest person in all of Hope County. Jacob Seed, the name that people whispered in fear.
Rook had read The Book of Joseph. She had been given dozens of copies from back when she was still just a Sheriff's Deputy in a place where the locals weren't hostile. When it was still just a new church in town with perhaps a bit too much zeal.
Rook knew who she was seeing. It took her a second, but it made sense. This Jacob was the Jacob from The Book of Joseph. The man who was broken without his brothers. The man who had nobody to take care of him but himself after being beaten down nearly daily by everyone and everything in his life. There was no fight left in him. No bucking and screaming. Just a man who seemingly had nothing left to live for.
Even after actively trying to stop the cult, treating them like enemies, being scared of Jacob, even… Rook cannot help the tang in the heart she feels after seeing him like this. She had become a deputy to help people after all. Even if the man in front of her had such a big hand in ruining her life, sending her down a path she will never be able to escape from.
“...This may sound…” She began, pausing for a moment to consider her words. “...ridiculous…” She decided on, before continuing. “...but, are you okay?” She said, feeling very silly at asking such a question in a moment like this.
Jacob swallowed, and let out a small sigh. “No.” He said, answering the question with the sort of inflection that told her he was not lying.
Rook mulled over that for a second. “Can I do anything to help?” She asked, cringing over her own words. As if she could even do anything in this scenario. Just grab him a time machine and throw him back a year, a month, a week, a day. Anything to prevent him from not being trapped with the very person he had spent significant time trying to actively brainwash.
It was now that his eyes met hers, like he were gauging what exactly her intention had been via those words. Jacob looked surprised. Here was someone who had bested him, had proved themselves to be the stronger of the two of them. The idea of helping someone when they were down rather than just putting a bullet in their head had long grown foreign to him.
She could see just the stages of emotions clear on his face, and it made sense now why he had spent so little time in the public with the cult. He seemed to not be able to as easily mask his emotions as the other figures in his family. John did it as easily as breathing, Faith did it to survive, and Joseph only seemed so believable most of the time because he truly believed in what he was spewing. But Jacob?
Jacob’s face hid nothing. He went through a series of emotions that Rook could read like a book. There was confusion, a brief look of fear, one flicker of anger, and he settled on what she was sure was just pure grief.
Jacob did not even have to say anything. Rook knew there was nothing she could do. Nothing, at least, that could fix everything. There was no way for her to undrop the bombs. There was no way for her to bring John and Faith and Joseph from their respective regions, miles away, and teleport them beside them.
The only thing Rook had to offer Jacob was herself. And she was willing to try, she had to. Jacob would be the only person she was going to be around for years. Rook may be unable to create something from nothing, but she was going to be the person to lay the first brick.
After a moment, Rook managed to stand up for the first time since the world had ended outside. Jacob looked startled when she moved, almost like an animal cornered. He jumped, and quickly cooled back down when he saw she wasn’t reaching out for him.
“Jacob. I’m…” Rook began, her eyes meeting Jacob’s for a moment before quickly averting them to the rest of the bunker in front of them. “I’m going to do an inventory of the place. When I am done, I’ll come back and unhandcuff you, okay?” Rook said, gently.
Rook may be someone who was willing to work with Jacob, but she also knew that you did not let a man like Jacob Seed free without first understanding your surroundings and any possible dangers lying ahead. She was empathetic, not suicidal. Jacob may be depressed, but he was far from dead, and an alive Jacob is a dangerous one.
Jacob let out a small noise of confirmation, and he remained where he was, on the ground with his hands still handcuffed behind himself.
While that was not the excited response she had hoped for, it was something Rook was willing to work with. He hadn’t threatened her life since they entered this bunker, and Rook could see this as being the start of something new. She wasn’t sure what yet, but it was something.
After about a minute, Rook finally took a step in the direction of the back of the bunker, heading towards working to create the best future she could, with Jacob Seed.