Right Hand Woman (Jacob Frye)

Chapter One: A Champion

Jacob Frye sat on a green love seat, his legs spread apart ungentlemanly and boots resting lazily on their heel, toes pointed towards the ceiling of the slightly bumpy and frowzy train. Jacob took his leisure to look around and admire his surroundings that Agnes MacBean had added to the train. The loveseat had a red cloth draped across the black leather, the walls and cabinets that were pushed against the sides of the carriage were a nice wood, and the wooden floor was newly polished. He looked to the window and saw green curtains decorating the foggy glass. He looked to his left and saw Isabelle Dawney reading at a desk, and what a sight she was.

She was one of the few Rooks that had ever caught Jacob's attention in the gang fights with her outstanding capabilities, and she had been upgraded to head Rook some time ago. While Evie had searched for the piece of Eden, and Jacob the take over of London from Crawford's grasp, Isabelle was his right hand woman in assisting him for every gang related task; even running missions on her own or as a leader with a couple of other Rooks working under her. Now, Crawford Starrick was dead, and piece by piece, London was on a fast pace to being consumed and operationally run by the Rooks.

Jacob smiled thinking of a time on his strolls through London when he had heard many carriage hooves slamming against the stone floor in a general direction behind him. When Jacob whipped his head around behind him he saw numerous perilous carriages running after one another hastily in his direction from around a street bend. In the leading carriage was Isabelle, and when their eyes had locked, a mischievous smirk appeared on Isabelle's face as she saluted Jacob with two fingers in a cheeky fashion before disappearing past the buildings with nearly four Blighter carriages pursuing her as they tried to thwart her.

"What a fine evening it is. Care to attend the Fight Club with me?" Jacob suggested, his head on a lazily tilted angle as he gazed at Isabelle, showing he was bored. "Whatever for? Its nearly sunset." Isabelle said, her eye brow knotted together slightly. "Why not?" Jacob asked in a mischievous tone, thinking about how good this formidable woman looked sweaty and swedging. "That seems as good a reason as any." Isabelle chuckled, standing from her position at a desk chair and throwing her cloak around her shoulders. "Let's get going then." she said.

Jacob opened the door and bowed slightly, his free hand motioning for Isabelle to walk in first. "Thank you." she grinned sheepishly, not expecting now of all moments- outside a fight club- for Jacob to act gentlemanly. It was a wonder he wasn't pushing civilians out of the way to rush in there and begin fighting anyone who dared to look in his general direction. As she now recalled, though, Jacob had always been a gentleman. In gang fights he'd let her throw the first knife, he would pursue enemies that had tried to run away from the fight and drag them back to Isabelle, forcing them on their knees so she could finish them off. They may have just been cooperative acts, but nether the less, they were gentlemanlike. Isabelle noticed she had always overlooked Jacob's politeness as encouragement as a member of the Rooks.

The underground room was dark in its corners and the main ring in the middle of the room was well lit; enough to see the two men in the middle of the ring wearing distressed and determined faces. Isabelle looked to the bar to see it lit up fairly well, most of the smell coming from the alcohol that was set in the wood of the counters and in the blood of the rowdy men in the room. They had all been shouting, drinking, arguing, placing bets and sweating- which was also the other prominent smell in the room. Jacob breathed in loudly beside her. "Ah, the smell of freedom." he said, turning his head to grin at Isabelle.

Before Isabelle could scold him, a man approached the two and spoke loudly, "And what do we 'ave 'ere? A woman? Bah, you should be in 'e household cleanin' and cookin'." he laughed. "As small as she may be, she's feisty. I wouldn't want you to lose an eye, good sir." Jacob said, standing between the two. Jacob often did things like this, Isabelle realised. Jacob would stand between Isabelle and an enemy and use his sarcastic silver tongue to ward off the enemy, and if the enemy didn't leave, Jacob would fight the enemy before they could get close to Isabelle.