Jackson was curled in Merry’s lap. She was astonished, eyes wide and moving from the body lying on the floor, to Emma standing above them and panting.
“You saved us,” Merry said breathily, her voice blank.
She figured the relief hadn’t set in yet. She probably thought they would die when the door opened and someone she didn’t know and holding a weapon walked in, especially after all the noise outside. She was probably still in shock. But Emma, once she saw they were safe, completely broke down.
Emma began to cry, stumbling over to them and falling to her knees before she could touch them, in case Jackson was still scared. She wanted to tell them how glad she was that they were both safe, but the sobs racking through her chest wouldn’t allow for words.
“Oh, Emma,” Merry murmured, her voice emotional. “I’m sorry for how I acted. And I forgive you for your previous mishap. Just get over here.”
She shifted Jackson to her side and reached for Emma, pulling her into a fierce hug.
“Thank you Emma, so much. This isn’t the first time you’ve saved me, I know, and I promise I’m going to start being grateful.”
But Emma pulled back, shaking her head, and getting a hold of herself enough to speak. “You don’t have to do that. You’re my sister, of course I’d save you.”
Merry turned to Jackson, who still looked a little shell shocked. “You see?” she said persuasively. “Didn’t I tell you my sister is a good person? Look, the bad man over there had a gun, but Emma saved us. Isn’t she good?”
Emma sniffled, nodding with a shaky smile. “I was only trying to protect you, I promise. The bad guys are all gone now.”
He surprised her with a hug and she sniffed, holding him close as the gunfire ceases.
Chapter Twenty-Six:
She wanted to stay with them, but with the fight over, Emma had to go and oversee the damages.
Since everybody had been looking to her as their leader, it was kind of her responsibility. She did make sure the other two were safe first, and that they would be okay. Merry had even insisted on the point.
“We’ll be all right. Just go check on everyone else.”
She’d been reluctant to pull away from Jackson when he was willingly touching her, after he’d shied away from her before. But she was genuinely worried for everyone else, so she handed Jackson over to her sister and left.
Emma went out into the yard and found carnage.
There were bodies all over, most of them visibly bleeding. They could have just been unconscious, but Emma knew that they were dead. There were a couple people walking around that she recognized from her side, and when she looked around, she noticed Carol. She was walking over to her when she got another shock.
Carol had been shot in the arm, and Emma panicked, rushing over to her and trying to remember what to do with bullet wounds. Blood trickled down her arm, and the wound looked horrifying.
But then Carol chuckled when she noticed Emma’s expression, only laughing harder at her probably comical look of surprise, but it cut off and she hissed a breath through her teeth.”
“Tell me what to do for you,” she said, frantic.
But Carol just waved her away. “I’m fine, Emma.”
“You have a gaping bullet wound on your arms! That is not the definition of fine.”
“You shouldn’t worry,” Carol insisted. “I’m a nurse, remember? I’ll have myself better in no time at all, just relax.”
Well, that was true. When Emma allowed herself to relax, marginally, she noticed that Carol was already in the process of patching up her arm, and she didn’t seem to be having trouble with it.
Actually, come to think of it, with their nurse out of commission it was everyone else she’d have to worry about, if someone else was injured. Carol wasn’t the only one that could help, but she was the most skilled by far. But no one else back here seemed to be as badly injured as Carol was, and Emma let herself relax a little. She wanted to go and check on everybody else, look for Chase and make sure he was okay, but she was as anxious to leave Carol alone in her state.
Mercy returned to Emma, covered in blood. She frowned at the other woman, before looking down at herself, and felt her eyes widen. There was blood all over her clothes, too, and her hands, and she wondered how she couldn’t have noticed before. She must have left both Merry and bloody... and it was a wonder he hadn’t hidden himself from her when he saw her in that state.
“Hey, Emma,” Mercy called out, panicked. “Do you know where my father is?”
Chase had come up behind her, and Emma met his eyes with a shared look of relief, before his eyes fell to Mercy, and they grew grim.
“Just keep calm—he can’t have gone far.”
But Emma frowned, feeling a little worried herself. Emma wouldn’t have seen anything wrong with him sitting out the fight himself, but he’d insisted on joining, because his daughter would be.
Mercy was opening her mouth to talk back to Chase, when they heard a distressed cry in the distance.
There was ice in Emma’s chest again, where her heart should have been, and they ran toward the sound of the cry. She had a bad feeling, her instincts kicking in, and she was prepared for the sight that met them, but that didn’t make it any less devastating.
Harry, Mercy’s father, the nice man that had taken strangers into his home because they were tired and hungry, was lying on the ground, blood spreading from a point where a bullet had hit in his chest.
“Dad!” Mercy cried out, running to him and dropping to her knees beside him, then cradling his head in her lap, unminding of the blood all over her clothes and hands. “Do we have a doctor in the group!” she called out to Emma, who had slowed to stay behind with Chase to give her some privacy with her father.
“Come on, Brianna,” Harry told her quietly. “You know better—I won’t survive.”
Mercy made a whimpering sound, but she didn’t try to call for a doctor again, and Emma watched as the last of her strength from the battle died. She completely broke down and sobbed over her father’s body, and Emma’s heart went out to her.
It couldn’t be easy to watch a parent die in front of you like this. Especially for her, after they’d been estranged for so long, thought she’d spent time with mostly just him since she arrived at the farm so they could catch up. They just didn’t get enough time. But Emma could see, behind Harry’s expression, the relief that his daughter was safe, his hands weakly clutching one of hers, even as Emma saw them shake.
Mercy was distraught, but Emma thought Harry looked almost peaceful.
“Come on, now. Enough crying. I’m happy that you came home and I got to see you one last time.”
Her strength showed again. Plenty of people in her position wouldn’t react well, not to say that she wasn’t taking it hard. But Emma remembered her and Merry being in a similar position, when their grandmother died, and they had both been there to see it all happen.
Merry had clutched to Janice’s hand, and Emma thought she was caught in denial. Emma understood, though, she just didn’t want to, her mind all but blocking it all in her head. She tried to be supportive for her sister, knowing the grief she had was going through while not allowing herself to feel it. It wasn’t until their neighbors came near them, probably trying to help, and Merry shouted at them to step back and give them a chance to grieve, that Emma realized Merry wasn’t in denial, or deluding herself.
She knew their grandmother was dead. And Emma had broken down with her.
But Mercy just clenched her dad’s hands, and smiled at him through her smiles, even as her shoulders still shook.
“I’m glad I came back, too, dad,” she said quietly, and went on to reminisce about their memories on the farm.
“Hold on to those thoughts,” Harry told her as his eyes fluttered clothes, then Emma noticed when his body went limp and he passed away.
Mercy’s cries were renewed, and Emma went to her, pulling her into a hug and comforting her as she c
ried.
Merry must have heard the commotion and known something was gone, because she suddenly appeared. Emma pulled away so Mercy could see it, too, as Merry said a prayer for Harry, and for the first time in a long time, Emma joined in. Mercy took and clutched tightly at her hands, and she only squeezed back, hearing sounds from around them as the others came to join them.
Then they stood in solemn silence, commemorating the dead.
Chapter Twenty-Seven:
Emma and Chase helped Mercy bury her father. They’d both been through this not that long ago with Janice.
Merry didn’t want to be out there for the burial, and Emma explained to Mercy why. She understood that their wounds were far too fresh, and Emma’s sister got to stay inside with the children.
She would have sat it out as well, Mercy even offered, but Emma didn’t think it would be very respectful to Harry after the help he’d given them. She didn’t want to think what would have happened to them, if they’d picked following the road instead of going through the forest and finding Harry’s house. Would they have met the people from Brassville, and would they have survived it? She wasn’t very confident that they would have as they had been, even armed, they were all hungry.
Harry deserved so much more than Emma just ignoring his funeral.
It took a while to clear up all the bodies, and they had tractors, so they’d attached the ruined cars with some rope and pulled them out of the way. The cars that were fine, they parked in a different place, in case they ever came in handy.
When Chase dug up the grave, Emma was right there with him. Mercy had offered to help, and Emma turned her down flat.
“Why don’t you just relax? You can stay and watch us, or go inside and do something, or even sleep. This can’t be easy for you.”
Her eyes were pleading when she turned them up to Emma. “But I can’t just not do anything, can’t you see that? My father is dead, I think digging his grave is the least I could do. Please Emma.”
She understood what the other woman felt. Chase had dug the grave for Janice on her own while Emma and Merry comforted each other and dealt with the body. But this time, Carol had been the one to handle the body, because Mercy couldn’t stand to. Mercy was the one to be comforted, she didn’t have anyone she needed to comfort, so Emma could imagine all her nervous energy was left with nowhere to go.
Emma finally relented. “Then let me continue until I get tired. Then I’ll let you do it for a while, until you get tired. And we’ll continue like that until we’re done. Are you all right with that?”
Mercy nodded, looking relived.
It wasn’t much, but at least it was something they could do for her. It would take some time for life on the farm to settle down again, and Emma could only hope that the threat from Brassville was finally over.
It better be.
Emma was just so sick of the town and its people. If only they’d been waiting for Emma’s group when they went to surprise them with an attack, they would have been taken care of a long time ago.
Emma reflected on the fact that every time they had a run-in with the people of Brassville, there was a death of someone they loved and cared about.
“Well, not he firs time. When me, Chase and Brian went to the town to see how they were holding up, and they held us at gun point, took our supplies and our bikes so we were forced to take a day trip back, and the bastards even hit me. I was down for hours. It only went to hell from there, and now this.”
Her teeth and fists clenched, and Emma felt somewhat responsible, that that first meeting could lead to this. She felt somewhat responsible when she thought of it like that.
“At least dad died protecting the things he loved,” Mercy cut in, before Emma could descend into despair.
That’s right. Emma remembered when Janice died, she’d made the choice to take a bullet for Merry before Emma even knew what was going on, and all she did was shoot their attacked. But Janice had been the one to save Merry’s life that day. And while Emma wouldn’t choose between who she’d rather die between the two of them, and she grieved for losing her grandmother, she was grateful to her for taking care of Merry in the face of Emma’s incompetence. It had been Emma’s choice to take Merry with her out on patrol, even though Merry had asked in the hope of making herself useful.
“Your arrival stopped him from giving up on himself,” Anabelle continued. “And I appreciate everything you’ve done.”
“I don’t think I’ve done anything really that deserving of gratitude. We owe your father our lives, after all. Think nothing of it.”
It took them hours just to finish digging the grave deep enough. It was next to a mound of dirt that Mercy told them was where her mother had gotten buried. Then they lowered the body inside, and Brian and another of the men offered to cover the grave. Mercy insisted on putting in a few shovel fulls of dirt, enough that the sheet wrapped around her father’s body was entirely visible.
“So, what’s the next step?” Mercy asked as she and Emma walked back up to the house.
“It’s up to you—the house is yours now, after all. My group can leave now if you wants.”
It wasn’t ideal, but they had cars now, and she was sure Mercy would at least let them pick some food for the road. Emma didn’t think the betrayal from earlier could happen in this tighter group, but the wandering around with nowhere to go... not only was she dangerous, but it was also stupid. She didn’t want to be moving aimlessly around, especially not when they had children with them.
“I want you to stay and help upkeep the farm,” Mercy said before Emma could get lost in her thoughts. “I can’t protect it on my own either, and your group wouldn’t survive on the road.”
“Not for long,” Emma agreed wearily.
Mercy shot her a tired smile as they walked into the house and went into the kitchen. The whole house was empty, everyone else busy outside, and even the children had finally been le tout to play, so it was blissfully silent.
“My goal is to try and make our lives as normal as possible,” Mercy said.
“We should toast to that,” Emma said, and Mercy poured them both a glass of wine.
They drank to normality, and to Harry.
Author’s Note
This is a previously published series, now redesigned and republished under a new penname. If you already read the original series, this is not a rewrite.
Powerless | Book 4 | Last Stand Page 21
