#BUT AFTER THAT is another interlude where we check in on augustine :D and he meets joe :D

[direwombat]

last line tag/wip weekend/sentence sunday/whatever

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tagging: @adelaidedrubman, @henbased, @sstewyhosseini, @confidentandgood, @aceghosts, @poetikat, @purplehairsecretlair, @josephslittledeputy, @euryalex, @clonesupport, @jacobsneed, @neverthesameneveranother, @trench-rot, @voidika, @madparadoxum @strangefable and a blanket tag for anyone else wanting to share something!

been working on the intro (things i always struggle with lmao) to ch 4 of katc, so here's that. it's still rough. but it's something.

Hope County, MT. September 13, 2018. Seed Ranch. 4:35pm.

Sybille should have known that the plane was heading towards John's ranch. There are only so many places in the County that have enough room to land a plane, and aside from Nick Rye’s airstrip, Seed Ranch is the only other property in the Valley that has an actual runway.  She’d seen it the one and only time she and Joey had responded to a noise complaint out there. 

Someone had reported screams coming from somewhere on the estate. They hadn’t found anything when they went to investigate, and John had even allowed them into his home to assuage any suspicion. She hadn’t been a fan of his squirrelly  eagerness — it put her on edge, made her feel like he was hiding something — but with no obvious source to the noise, they’d just written it up as a yowling cougar wandering a little too close. 

But as she drove, she couldn't ignore the ball of dread roiling in her gut that the Sheriff’s department failed to save someone that night, and missed an opportunity to stop the Cult before everything went to shit. She flexes her grip around the wheel and eases her foot down on the accelerator until she’s flooring it, speeding towards John’s ranch. 

When she had arrived at the airstrip, she’d found Nick Rye pinned down, desperately shooting from his own garage. Just one man against a slew of Peggies. She had circled around the cultists, emerging from the brush to mow them down by shooting them in their vulnerable, exposed backs. Dishonorable, to be sure, but quick at the very least. They never saw her coming, and maybe that in itself is mercy enough for her absolution. 

Nick had been grateful for her help. There’s no way he could have held them off all on his own. Not long enough for both him and his wife to escape, anyways, and with their plane in the hands of the Cult, their chances of escaping the county go from slim to zero. 

She chooses to help them. Any heavy artillery she can take from the Peggies, the better, and while she’d much rather have that artillery in her own arsenal, she’d also seen just how far along Kim was. The Ryes and their unborn child aren’t safe here, and if they can cross the county lines and call in the fucking National Guard, it just means that this shit will be over sooner.

Which is what leads her here, screeching to a halt right in front of  the garish and tacky billboard marking the private road leading to the ranch. It’s sun-worn and fading, but the image of John Seed’s placid smile is no less visible.

We love you and we will take you.

The menacing verbiage has to be intentional. She never gave it much thought driving past it before. She’s seen so many accidentally sinister welcoming signs from other churches — there is something terrifying about the concept of surrendering oneself to God’s love and embrace. But John Seed is nothing if not deliberate in his choice of words. Almost infuriatingly so.

The vein in her jaw throbs as she clenches her jaw. How many years has John had this sign up? How long has he been taunting the Sheriff’s Department — how long has he been taunting the entire fucking Community — laughing in their faces, mocking them while he all but confesses to being behind the kidnappings and disappearances plaguing the County?