Zero Power (Book 2): Trying To Survive

by Lockwood, Max

  Clara just told them she didn’t know how else to act because unlike her sister, she didn’t remember. Then there were the geniuses that said she was just pretending not to remember, and Clara had to keep saying that she didn’t remember witnessing the accident. She didn’t know much about it, and at the time, no one really bothered to tell her much, because they thought she was too young to handle it. She put it out of her mind because it was so much easier than trying to process it.

  "Not much changed for me," Clara said dryly. "I didn’t get along with people before or after it happened. I was always lost in a book, or a movie, or a song. I just took to that, after. The biggest different was that I no longer had my parents around, but I had my grandmother and my sister and new responsibilities around the house, that only grew as time went on. I couldn’t afford not getting my act together. Tessa… closed in on herself. Refused to see her friends, refused to leave the house. Gave up nearly everything that had been her life before the accident. She'd have nightmares all the time so she was barely sleeping, and then she lost her appetite so she wasn’t eating enough, either. It's gotten worse recently."

  Barbara nodded slowly, her lips pursed. Clara waited for her to think, clutching her hands together in her lap and leaning forward slightly, willing the other woman to speak.

  The best case scenario would be that she knew what was wrong with Tessa and how to help her. Clara knew it was nothing but a fantasy, though. It wouldn’t be that easy. The hospital had claimed they could help her if they put her in psychiatric care, but they had estimated months, if not longer for Tessa to get better. Having a specialist now would be helpful, but Clara couldn’t allow herself to believe one woman could make everything all right that had been wrong for a decade and was only getting worse in the space of a few hours.

  Barbara didn’t deserve having that responsibility put on her shoulders when she was there to offer help for free.

  "Can I speak with Tessa?" she finally asked.

  "Of course. Just let me go call her."

  Clara jumped off her chair, wondering where to begin to look. Tessa could have gone to her room when she woke up. But it was bright outside, and her room got a lot of sun during the morning hours. Would she have been able to go back to sleep? If she woke up before Clara did, would she have wanted to? Clara was concerned that she had had another nightmare. She hadn't heard anything, but Tessa's nightmares weren’t always the kind that had her waking up screaming. Sometimes she just cried silently, and Clara wouldn’t know if she didn’t check on her sister occasionally. Often she would when she got up before dawn and went out for a jog before school.

  Resolving to look upstairs last, she went into the kitchen. Tessa had mentioned being hungry. They had food, but along with everything else, her appetite had grown poor, and the situation only made it worse. When she could, Clara made sure Tessa had something to eat, no matter how little, but she still wasn’t sure what had happened in the near week she had been away. But Tessa wasn’t in the kitchen, though the back door was open and she stepped outside to find her in the garden.

  She was just sitting down with her legs crossed, staring off into space. As Clara got closer, she saw some dirt on her hands, so she must have been working on the garden before Clara got there. How long had Tessa been awake? How long had she been out there? Clara eyed the threadbare clothes she wore and worried about her being cold.

  Tessa must have noticed someone else was nearby because she looked up and met Clara's eyes. Her expression was blank, but she looked calm. Clara approached her with a small smile.

  "Hey, Tess. Could you come in for a sec? I have someone in the living room that's come to see you and she wants to talk to you."

  Tessa gave her a long stare. But instead of arguing or going back to whatever she had been doing, she wordlessly got up and followed Clara inside. She was practically docile, and as much as it made things easier, it was so unlike her usual self that it worried Clara. She couldn’t read anything from her sister's non-expression, which hadn't changed. But when she walked in the living room and caught sight of their guests, her eyes narrowed slightly. If Clara hadn't been watching out for it, she would have missed it.

  They sat down, Tessa hunching in on herself a little, but she kept her gaze steady on the other two women in the room.

  "Hello," she said, almost pleasantly, only there was no inflection in her voice.

  Barbara didn’t seem to mind, giving Tessa a genuine smile. "Hello, Tessa. I'm Barbara, and this is my sister Felicia. Your sister has been telling me a few things about you, but how about you tell me something? Like, what's your favorite color?"

  Clara arched her eyebrows, surprised, but didn’t say anything. She shot a look at Felicia who just had her eyes trained on Tessa, watching her intently. Clara wasn’t sure if the small talk served any purpose, she wasn’t the expert here, but Tessa rejected it either way, as expected.

  Her sister leaned back in the chair, folding her arms across her chest. "Why do you want to know?" she countered suspiciously.

  "I'd just like to know a bit more about you," Barbara answered smoothly, her tone low and soothing. "How about a hobby, or your favorite song, that you remember?"

  Tessa sniffed and looked away. "Neither."

  That was a lie. Tessa sometimes hummed to herself. Clara wasn’t sure what songs, it was always too low for her to hear, but it definitely happened. As for hobbies, there were her drawings and paintings. But Clara didn’t interfere, firming her jaw, resolving to keep her mouth shut for once. She didn’t know what was going on, but she hoped Barbara did.

  Still, Barbara didn’t seem put out by Tessa's behavior. She continued to try and get something out of Tessa, but it wasn’t working, Tessa was rebuffing her at every turn, refusing to answer or making some snide comment. Eventually, her sister grew tired of the line of conversation.

  "Tell me something, Barbara. Why are you really here?" She turned piercing eyes to the other woman, an intelligence in her them that she usually hid.

  Barbara wasn't fazed. "I want to help you."

  Tessa's eyes narrowed some more, and she sent a look at Clara. She forced herself not to fidget, meeting her sister's calculating gaze blandly, until she looked away, back to Barbara.

  "I'm not crazy," she insisted. "Whatever my little sister told you, don’t listen to her. She doesn’t know anything, and Clara is a liar."

  Clara winced, wondering why her sister even jumped to that conclusion. As if Clara went around telling people her sister was crazy. But Clara didn’t talk about Tessa at all. Not a lot of people out of their neighborhood, even some within it, knew Clara had a sister. She hadn't even given Cooper too much of a warning when she first invited him home. He'd been surprised, and Clara had not expected him to want to stop by her house again, but he’d adjusted easily.

  She could have been angry about Tessa's words, except she had lied plenty of times. To a lot of people, her family included, so it wasn’t exactly a lie. Besides, reacting to everything Tessa said was allowing herself to be baited instead of acting like the adult she truly was. Tessa would just make fun of her for reacting, and the baiting wouldn’t stop.

  "Why don’t you let me judge that for myself once I know more, hmm?"

  Tessa held herself stiffly for a moment, before letting out a gust of air and slumping back in the seat, arms lessening their protective hold around her body, but not retreating. It was a win. A small one, but it counted with Tessa.

  "Do you suffer from nightmares?"

  Tessa grew quiet and thoughtful. She was still for a few seconds, and then she was nodding slowly. "I do," she admitted, then went on to describe her recurring dream. "I keep seeing them die, over and over. I told them I had a bad feeling about it and I asked them not to go for the trip. I didn’t want to be left behind, though, so I went when they insisted on it. I was there, and I saw everything when… it happened."

  If her face wasn’t already pasty, Clara would have worried that Tessa looked a little
sick. Her sister didn’t talk a lot about that last trip. To be fair, Clara hadn't wanted to talk about it. But then she didn’t have a lot of memories of what happened except what she was told when she woke up in a hospital and wasn’t in any hurry to remember. Tessa must have felt so alone, and had been, in her memories and her nightmares.

  "I also have visions that come to me in my sleep," she went on to explain. "Such as the coming apocalypse… I knew the crash was going to happen, and Clara was going to be in the middle of it. And there was the one where I just knew Clara would be in danger. That one is probably the most common, actually. Ever since the day of the crash, it's like… she was meant to die that day and she's been in so many positions and situations where she would have ended up dead, but so far, she hasn’t. Only, when more situations like that keep coming up, the more she evades them."

  Clara felt a chill run down her spine and she stiffened in her seat. There is no way they could be real. She repeated the words over and over in her mind because they were true. Even if she had been in danger a lot of times, she hadn't died yet. And the situations she found herself in could have happened to anybody. She had sustained quite a few injuries. Her cheek had been taken care of, thankfully. It wasn’t completely healed, and she only occasionally felt a phantom ache there. Actually, it was the only time she had gotten injured.

  But I haven't died yet. There was no way Tessa's visions could be real.

  "All right, Tessa," Barbara murmured soothingly, even though her sister didn’t look to be in any form of distress. "I believe you when you say you have visions."

  Tessa snorted. "That makes you the only one."

  Barbara ignored her quip. "Going back a little, Tessa. You mentioned the dreams. Do you want the nightmares to go away?"

  It was a simple question, but it had Tessa stilling where she sat. It was a different kind of stillness, and Clara wasn’t sure how she noticed. But she turned to her sister, saw her eyes had widened a little and there was some excitement behind them. She leaned forward, slowly, until she was leaning a little forward instead of back against the couch.

  "Can you make them go away?" Tessa asked tightly, a note of desperation in her voice. "If you can, I really want them to stop. I have been having the same dream, with variations, for ten years and I just want it to stop."

  A tear slid out of one eye, and Clara was surprised and alarmed enough to lean toward her sister but didn’t touch her. She wasn’t sure what was happening, but she made herself not interfere until she had to. This was too important for her to ruin it because she wasn’t thinking.

  "I don’t want to keep seeing my parents die over and over. You're a doctor, aren’t you? Please give me something to help me," she begged.

  Clara wasn’t sure how Tessa figured that out, but watching her sister beg for anything had her heart breaking into pieces. Even though she looked frail, Tessa was good at putting up a strong front. It had been broken several times in Clara's presence, but Tessa never let it happen in front of anyone outside of the family. Sometimes, not even around Viola. That she acted like this in front of strangers…

  Maybe, they really hadn't made the best decision by not letting Tessa get help before. With how she was reacting right now, she would have appreciated it, no matter how much she protested. It could have been better for her. But there was no way to know, now, and Clara felt guilty for it.

  Barbara got up from her seat, walked around the coffee table to crouch in front of Tessa and took both of her hands, giving them a careful squeeze as she met Tessa's eyes head on.

  "I will see what I can do and return when I have a suitable drug," she said.

  They had a short staring contest, neither of them blinking or looking away. Then Tessa did blink, and she nodded slowly. Barbara looked pleased, and she gave Tessa a light pat on the shoulder.

  "Good," she said simply and pushed to her feet.

  Clara got up when she noticed Felicia doing the same thing, and followed the two women to the door. Tessa stayed behind, and Clara looked over her shoulder to find her sister had curled herself at the end of the seat, legs raised up on the seat with her arms around her chest and resting her forehead on her knees. They stepped outside the house and Clara left the door partially closed.

  "So, you can help her?" she asked hopefully.

  Barbara smiled. "You don’t have to worry—I'll start Tessa on a course of drugs that will help her out. It's best that she starts the treatment on her own, and I'm hoping because she agreed to it, that she will keep on it. If we can get rid of the nightmares, it's her biggest roadblock to recovery removed, and we can progress more easily from there. Don’t leave her alone for the rest of the day. I have some idea of what to give her, but we'll see tomorrow if I can get my hands on it or not."

  Clara nodded, feeling her eyes tear up a little at the possibility of getting her older sister back, after so many years of worrying about Tessa's condition.

  "Thank you, both, so much. You have no idea what all this means to me. I don’t know how I'll ever repay you."

  Felicia stepped forward to give her a hug. "You can start by looking after yourself and your family as best as you can. I'll see you tomorrow for work."

  Barbara gave her a wave as the sisters went down the street, and she just stood there for a moment to watch them walk away, before going back inside.

  Clara shut the door, feeling more relaxed than she had in ages, and went to take care of her sister.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Clara wasn’t sure what woke her, but when she opened her eyes, it was dark in the room, so it must have been the middle of the night. She didn’t even feel rested, and she wondered how many hours of sleep she'd gotten. Groaning, she went to move, only to be stopped by something wrapped around her middle.

  For about a second, she wasn’t sure what it was. She forgot herself and nearly panicked until her mind caught up.

  Cooper.

  They still slept in the same room, in the same bed. Somehow, after that first night, they'd just grown into the habit, and now Clara could barely fall asleep when he wasn’t there unless she was really exhausted. She had gotten too used to having him there, and if he ever had to leave, she would be devastated.

  They didn’t always end up cuddling in the night, but Clara had long since stopped feeling awkward about it. By Cooper's words, there was nothing to be awkward about. Either one or both of them would move unconsciously in the night, seeking warmth, and wake up entangled. There weren’t that many opportunities for awkward moments, anyway, since one of them usually woke up before the other and was gone by the time the other woke up as well.

  Besides, there wasn’t really any other place for him to sleep, besides the couch, and Cooper was too big for it to be comfortable for him. He didn’t offer to move to the couch, and Clara didn’t ask him to find somewhere else to sleep.

  She caught his wrist and tried to pull his arm off, only his grip got tighter the more she tugged, and she groaned again, squirming to get away.

  "Cooper?" she called softly, reaching behind her to shake his shoulder. "Can you let go for a bit? Please?"

  He murmured something that was muffled by the pillow his face was pressed into. She shook him a little more before she heard him heave a heavy sigh, then his arm was pulling away from her. Relieved, Clara slipped off the bed.

  The relief didn’t last long, and she froze, her heart going still in her chest when she heard a disturbance from downstairs. Then her heart picked up speed and she listened carefully.

  Could that have been what woke her up? She tried to remember if they had left anything, even the windows open, but she was thorough when she checked everything before going to sleep. When she didn’t lock up, Cooper did, and he was just as thorough. She glanced back at him, but in the darkness of the room, all she could see was the dark lump on his body still lying on the bed. He was lying so still, he must have gone back to sleep already. She debated waking him, but decided against it and left the room, but leavin
g the bedroom door open.

  She crept downstairs to see what had happened. Maybe an animal had found its way inside or something, and it was scavenging for food. She got part way down the stairs and found that Viola was wandering around on her own. There was enough light to see, but Clara noticed the dark shape moving around. She knew it was her because of the body shape—she was too short, and slightly plump, to be Tessa. It didn’t look like she had any direction in mind.

  Feeling relief again, she hurried back to the room. There was a candle that always slept on her nightstand, with a box of matches right next to it. After using it for so long, its size had gotten considerably smaller. They didn’t have many left, but as long as they used one for just a little at a time and went to sleep before it got too dark, they could make them last a while. They had even started using Tessa's scented candles because they were bigger and intended to burn for longer.

  She felt around for both items, lit up the candle and made her way back down the stairs. Now that she could see, Clara noticed Viola looking dazed and confused, her gaze looking up at the sudden light coming into the room.

  Clara felt her heart clench. She knew what that look meant. It had been a while since she had seen it, and she felt bad that she had ever forgotten that their grandmother had problems, too. How long had Viola been awake and on her own before she woke Clara up? And how could she even move around in the dark? She could have hurt herself.

  She set the candle down and carefully approached her grandmother, who was watching her warily, to help her back to her room and back to bed.

  "Hey, Grandma. You're up late," she said conversationally. "Why don't you come upstairs with me and we can put you back to bed, hmm?"

  She reached for the older woman to guide her upstairs, but Viola slapped her hand away.

  "Who are you and what are you doing here? Why is there a stranger in my house?"