#beraiah. — who is a good boy?

[biighearts]

inspo + aesthetics for characters.

untagged triggers. sideblog. 21+ only.

[mtnsedge]

「  @propheresy​​​ said,   “ PEOPLE ARE GONNA COME LOOKING FOR ME. ”  」

“Will they?”

A ache blossoms in his chest as he sits in front of his niece. The pain is nothing sentimental, rest assured — a pinched nerve somewhere in his shoulder, or perhaps too much strain placed upon his lungs. He imagines Joseph would prefer it if he softened his heart to her, this girl he thought he’d killed years ago, tubes pinched between his wavering fingers in some hospital down in Georgia. He’s heard the tale before, half-confession and half-decree. God spoke, and so his brother obeyed. 

Jacob wonders even still if it were some backhanded response to his own defiance, rather than guilt, that prompted the Father to recount the slaying. A threat that none were safe if his daughter wasn’t.

Botched slaying, Jacob thinks with some measure of derision. 

It’s terribly ironic, poetic in the way his brothers love but Jacob hates; success would have prevented this. He doubts Joseph would have been so lax as to let either of his brothers escape, had God condemned them as He had his daughter. 

Regardless, she is a present threat to be dealt with, not a past memory to dwell upon. 

“When will that be, d’you reckon? It’s been...” Jacob pauses, mulls the passage of time. Beraiah, ever faithful, ever steadfast, had dutifully plucked her from the bosom of the Valley within hours of his handler ordering the capture. 

Five days ago. His boy works fast, can scent a heretic better than any of his wolves. She is not here in their clutches because of any negligence on her part. She is here because the Father willed it, and his soldiers obeyed.

“Five days. Nearly a week of shittin’ in the corner of that cage, pissin’ your trousers, sleepin’ in the cold. When d’you think all those good, kind people you helped save will break you outta this kennel?”

A redundant question, he knows. It’s half the reason he’s asked it. Abandonment protrudes from her chest like a hunting knife, and Jacob takes his time twisting it. 

“That ‘resistance,’ those Cougars at the prison, the Whitetails...” Scorn drips from his words, not least of all when the final epitaph passes his lips. Some militia. Eli’s frightened band of pretend-soldiers, cowering in their bunker, wondering who among them will turn when the right tune passes through their ears.

“You’d ‘ve heard the gunfire. It echoes in these mountains. Not a peep. They’re all sittin’ around with their thumbs up their asses. They know where you are. I don’t bother to hide it.”

Jacob reaches through the bars of the cage, grabs Miriam by the jaw and squeezes. “So when the fuck’re they comin’ ?”

He halfway expects her to snap at his fingers like the feral mutt she is. A gnarled hand shoves her away as he leans back in his seat, the ache in his chest spreading to his sternum. God damn his lungs for their tender flesh, and God damn the military for pumping chemicals into it in hopes that he would die in some desert before he could complain about it. 

“You know just as well as I do. No one’s comin’. Not those fuckin’ hicks down in the Valley, not those pretend-soldiers Eli sends out to die every day. Not that little friend of yours, either. One of Faith’s Angels, fella with the flesh rottin’ off his face.” A dry, flat laugh rasps out past his cracked lips, the sound turning into a heavy cough. 

Well, that describes all of Faith’s zombies, doesn’t it?

“Had quite a look to ‘im when he first came to us. All his hair, his guitar, head hangin’ down low ‘cause he’d lost his way.” Jacob wipes his mouth with a cloth caked in dirt, olive-drab and spackled with the rust of his own organic decay. “What’s his name, again? Michael?”

Jacob swipes at his mouth again and tastes iron on his tongue. 

“He ain’t comin’ here to help you. Reckon he’s thrilled you’re with us, gettin’ to know the family. He’s been a good boy, your Michael. Maybe you ought’a join ‘im here.”

He says it as if his first impulse isn’t to shoot her dead. 

“Or is it John you want?” 

Ah, his baby brother. Had Joseph let him order his Chosen to kill the bitch dead, John never would have spiraled into this obsession with the girl, tethering his salvation with hers. In part, Jacob’s hunt had been to sever the cord between them. But the knife needs to be twisted further. Miriam is just as stubborn and degenerate as any Seed that came before her.

“No, no...” Jacob shakes his head, glares down at his captive. “Johnny ain’t gonna be seein’ you for a long time, niece.”