The Deputy couldn't move her arms.

She groaned through a cloth gag that had been stuffed in her mouth and tried to rub her head but her wrists didn't move, or rather the ropes tying down her wrists stopped her. She tried to move her legs but she ran into the same problem. When she opened her eyes she saw that she was laying in a dingy room on a rickety metal bed.

Her ears were ringing but her body felt weird, like she knew she was in pain but she couldn't feel it? She blinked and realized why, she was on Bliss. Sparkles faded in and out of her vision and her vision lagged. Despite her groggy state, the Deputy tried to yank the ropes loose. The sound of something getting broken outside her room made the Deputy flinch.

A muffled voice came from behind the heavy door. The ringing in the Deputy's ears and the Bliss made it hard to focus on it but she certainly tried. "What did I ask you to do?" It almost sounded like Jacob's voice.

"You asked me to find the Deputy sir." A meeker voice was barely audible.

"And?"

"And you asked me to bring her here for another trial."

"You went through the trials, didn't you Perry?" Jacob's voice was dangerously calm.

  "Yes of course sir." That must be Perry.

"The trials are put in place to not only test your worthiness of being part of Eden's Gate but to also test your physical strength, right Perry?"

"Uh, yes sir."

"So what condition do you think I want the Deputy to be in when I trust you to bring her here?"

"Um, incapacitated?" Perry answered, the Deputy could feel the fear in his voice.

"That's right, incapacitated. Did I ask you to beat the Deputy so bad that running the trial would almost kill her?" Jacob asked, not rhetorically.

  "N-no sir. When my men took her captive she appeared fully capable of running the trials."

"The trials are hard, I'll give you that, maybe you didn't beat her as bad as I was led to believe. Let's go see shall we?" The sound of Jacob's footsteps coming closer to the door made the Deputy react and struggle against the ropes that bound her to the bed.

She was able to just barely sit up on her elbows but her back and chest ached too severely to stay there very long. The ropes didn't budge around her wrists or ankles, keeping her fixed in her spot. Just the activity of struggling was enough to make the Deputy lightheaded, or was it the Bliss? She couldn't even tell.

The heavy door opened wide, letting dingy light flood the room. The Deputy squinted, her eyes not adjusted to the bright light. Jacob walked through the door followed by a hunter. He wore the same uniform as every other hunter of Jacob's but he wasn't wearing his face cover. The Deputy couldn't recognize his face, but she could recognize his voice.

Jacob walked over to the Deputy's bed while pulling out a knife. The Deputy tried to protest through the gag but it didn't do anything. Besides, Jacob wasn't trying to hurt her, he was cutting the ropes around her wrists. He cut the ropes and tossed them aside, not saying anything to Perry.

"Uh sir, what are you doing? Do you know who that is?" Perry questioned, reaching for his bow.

"I know more than you do." Jacob snapped at him. Perry's hand lingered over his bow but a quick look from Jacob put his hands right back to his sides. Jacob cut the ropes around the Deputy's ankles and stood up. He irritated the Deputy because he knew that she was too weak to do a damn thing. She took out the gag and coughed, trying to catch her breath. Jacob folded his arms over his chest while watching her.

The Deputy wanted to have more fight in her but she just couldn't muster any. Her whole body had the ghost of pain zapping her energy. "Come on Deputy, get up. Prove to Perry that you're fine." Jacob coaxed, still not looking at Perry.

The Deputy panted as she forced herself to stand up, she was able to get her footing for a second before her knees gave out again. Moving impossibly fast, Jacob had one hand under her arm as to not let her fall the whole way down. He held her there, half collapsed and gave her a shove closer to Perry.

Jacob's grip was firm, making the Deputy's arm sore where his fingers curled into her skin. "Does this look like she's fucking fine, Perry? Does it? Why don't you take a closer look?" Jacob adjusted his grip on the Deputy's arm and tilted her bloody and bruised face up to look at Perry.

It was obvious where she'd been hit with a pipe because of a huge gash that stretched from her cheek to her nose. One of her eyes had swollen to the point where it was almost shut and her face was a disfigured mess of black and red bruises.

Perry was obviously trying not to look disgusted while the Deputy tried her best to grit her teeth and look hostile. "She uh, she was resisting sir, my men had no choice but to-"

Jacob cut him off. "Was she fine or did she resist? If you want to make something of yourself you're going to have to learn the difference." He let go of the Deputy's arm, letting her drop to the floor. The impact of the floor wasn't severe but it was enough to make the Deputy groan. "You are walking on a fine line, Perry." Jacob walked closer to Perry, the anger in his voice was evident, even causing the Deputy's stomach to turn.

"You have been a good soldier, you listen to your orders, but this was not my fucking order you understand me? You ever pull something this stupid again and we'll have to let the Judges decide your worth, now get out." His voice was unwavering and the Deputy heard Perry shuffle out as quickly as possible.

The Deputy pushed her body up onto her forearms, pressing her forehead into the concrete floor. She grit her teeth and forced her legs underneath her. Jacob took a moment to dispel his anger towards Perry the realized what the Deputy was trying to do.

Her body shook as she stood up, using the bed frame as a support. She was hiding just how painful everything was, not well but she wasn't showing how weak she was. Every breath hurt, the more she moved the more her body shrugged off the Bliss and that meant she could feel more.

"What are you doing?" Jacob asked as the Deputy half fell back onto the bed, she moved so that she was flat on her back, hoping that would relieve the pressure on her ribs.

"My ribs hurt." She grumbled in response. Yes her ribs hurt, but along with her ribs were her legs and her back and her arms and they hurt too. The Deputy had gotten her ass kicked before, but toss in a weakened body/immune system along with Jacob's trials? It was overwhelming.

"You can still feel the pain?" Jacob asked, a hint of shock managed to escape.

The Deputy nodded and squeezed her eyes shut. The room wobbled and twisted in her vision even after her eyes closed, it was like her body was the only things staying still. Her face was knotted up in a grimace and Jacob frowned. He shut the door that Perry walked through and pulled up a chair next to the Deputy's bed.

  "You know Deputy, you still beat the trial. You survived." He said, pulling a needle out of a random medikit. "I can give you this, it's morphine. It's stronger than the Bliss for pain, all you have to do is-"

"No." The Deputy gave her head a small shake. Jacob looked up from the needle of morphine. The Deputy was pale and sweating, her hands shook under the effort it took to try and remain calm. She didn't open her eyes, only spoke in quiet, irritated words. "I can't join you." She muttered.

Jacob let out an irritated noise. "This is no time to be prideful, Deputy." He chided but the Deputy didn't respond.

Jacob studied the Deputy. She was quiet, the only sound was the sharp pained noise she made when she breathed. He made a decision. He didn't like it, but it was a plan that would keep the Deputy alive. He muttered a curse to himself and leaned closer to her and rolled her sleeve up past her elbow. The Deputy shifted as she tried to figure out what was happening but Jacob held her arm so that it didn't move. Jacob poked the needle into her arm and injected her with the morphine.

"I said I'm not joining you." The Deputy repeated but Jacob didn't listen to her protests.

"Your judgment is clouded. I'm sure you'll come to your senses when you've recovered." He put simply and the Deputy only responded with a pained sigh. She didn't know how to react. She couldn't exactly fight him or tell him off, and the morphine would help her. But she knew he was just doing this to try and turn her over to the Peggies' side.     

Jacob closed the medikit and got out of his chair, he walked to the door and paused to look back at her before he left. He didn't bother with tying her up to anything because he knew she was no threat.

The door that led to the light actually led to a spot where Jacob does his work. It's not his office but he was there quite a bit, especially when they had a tough case like the Deputy in there. Through the door was sort of their prisoner sick-bay area, a place where they would be confined but not die from their injuries.

Jacob had a large map spread out on his table and was moving little symbols around. It was his planning map and at that moment he was planning on where to put roadblocks. He sent Pratt off to go find something for him, something that would hopefully take him a while to find. It wasn't that he annoyed him, but he did annoy him, sometimes. He was on edge because of the Deputy though, so it wasn't always Pratt's fault.

So he moved things around on his map and checked on reports talking about supply vehicles being hijacked. That is until he heard the sound of something thudding to the ground in the other room. He let out an irritated sigh and went to go see what the Deputy was up too.

When he opened the door he saw the Deputy on the ground. She was trying to lift herself off the ground but her arms weren't responding very well. She let out a groan and settled for sitting herself up against the bed frame.

Jacob crossed his arms. "What are you doing?" He asked. The Deputy took a few pained breaths, only glancing up at Jacob standing in front of her.

"Well, I was trying to escape." The Deputy wiped her arm across her forehead. "But I fell over and fucked up my ribs." She clutched her abdomen obviously in a lot of pain.

"Really? And how did that go?" Jacob asked sarcastically.

"Listen I am in...an immense amount of pain right now...and your little comments aren't helping." The Deputy's face scrunched up as she tried her best to breath without hurting herself.

Jacob studied her, his expression was unreadable. "I know you want to say something...just say it. Tell me how weak I am." The Deputy winced and let her head fall back into the bed, her tone was tired but still angry.

Jacob wanted to say something, he wanted to try and make the Deputy understand why he was working so hard to bring her to their side. But everything he said just rolled off of her, nothing got into her head.

He crouched down to her level, his cool blue eyes boring into hers. "You can't keep this up Deputy, even you should know when to quit." He said, his voice was quiet.

The Deputy shifted her weight and let out a groan. "I'm still gonna try." She promised, looking right back into his eyes.

"For someone who wants to die, you sure do fight it." Jacob said, not breaking their eye contact.

"I don't want to die." The Deputy wheezed and Jacob shook his head.

  "Then why do you throw yourself head first into any problem you find? If you don't want to die then what do you want? Praise? Attention?"

"I do it...I do it because I'm a good person. I have an empathetic moral compass or something like that." The Deputy finally decided that laying down could help take some of the pain away from her ribs. She lifted herself off of the floor, using the bed frame as her support. Jacob took a step away from her as she eased herself down onto the bed. With an arm still wrapped around her abdomen the Deputy laid back into the mattress.

"You need to stop Deputy, if you don't agree to join us then I won't give you more pain killers." Jacob tried to bargain. Even the Deputy wasn't so hard-headed as to turn away something like that.

The Deputy waved him off with her hand weakly. "I'm fine, this isn't so bad." She lied right through her teeth. Jacob was getting impatient with her. He wanted to grab her by the collar and yell at her until she understood but that was not the way to try and bring the Deputy over to their side.

Jacob sighed and went to walk out the door.

"Just so you know," the Deputy stopped him, not sitting herself up to look at him, "I'm still upset about this." She said and Jacob let out a deep chuckle.

"We'll see how long you can keep that attitude up." He shut the door with an echoing thud, sealing the Deputy back in the darkness.