by Cal, Sarah
“She’s upstairs washing up the kids. I think they’re all pretty much up there.”
Emma knew Jackson would be with Merry, or out in the field with Chase so she didn’t have to worry about him.
Still, she couldn’t forget Kellen’s reaction the last time she caught her and Brian alone. Emma had been more annoyed than terrified of her, but she didn’t want the other woman to be mad at her this time.
Brian, seeming to read her hesitance again, rolled his eyes. “Come on and let me keep you company. I see you going off alone way too often, you know.”
He was right about that. When they went out on patrol, Emma usually went on her own. The official reason was because it would even up the numbers for everyone else and she could manage by herself. Plus, she usually ended up doing more than one thing, patrolling and helping with the fields when she came across the group doing the tending. So at least they knew she wasn’t slacking off when she went off alone.
But the truth was, she didn’t want to partner with someone she didn’t know well. Most of the people in her team ended up doing the tending, with Carol and Chase occasionally going on patrols. But even when it was them, Emma still liked her solitude.
She kind of missed it. Before the EMP attack, she used to take a jog around her neighborhood in the mornings before preparing to go to work. The runs were to keep fit, but also to help her work out through the stress.
It wasn’t something she could do out here considering how dangerous it was. She didn’t get a lot of exercise at all, anymore. To compensate, she walked around alone while doing the job laid out before her.
She shrugged, and said simply, “I’m pretty okay with being by myself.”
Brian gave her a droll look. “Whatever you say. Not for today, though. There’s some food in the kitchen. You can have some to eat and I’ll wait here for you.”
And she watched as he fell into the couch and lied down with an arm under his head. She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Or, you could be a good sport and just go on and start your shift now.”
He just grinned at her and didn’t move. So Emma sighed and went to do as he’d said. Someone had left some food out for her, and she ate gratefully.
It wasn’t like she was really mad, anyway. It was still odd for her when people other than Merry and Chase were worried for her, and usually with her sister, it was the other way around. But if Brian was just worried about her, she couldn’t get mad at him for it.
So they ended up walking through the fields together.
It wasn’t terrible. He kept quiet when she did, and she had a feeling he wouldn’t be starting a conversation unless it was her move first. She’d long since stopped feeling uncomfortable being around him. A part of her was curious about how he’d been doing, since he’d helped her out quite a few times.
She had been surprised when he’d volunteered to go with her when she brought up the suggestion that they go to Brassville to get revenge for her grandmother, and it was the one that immediately came to mind, but there was plenty more.
She was surprised to realize it had been some time since she’d been around him, or it was just the two of them. She was glad to find her feelings for him were more along the lines of friendship. As they were, their affair might as well have never happened.
But that wasn’t to say that Emma could forget what she did—what they did.
She was ashamed of herself, thinking back on it now, and she wondered if he felt the same.
Emma had wanted an escape from her life. She went to a job that didn’t make her happy, and returned to deal with her grandmother slowly forgetting herself and her sister talking crazy and just being difficult.
Brian had married an older woman, and he probably hadn’t loved her when she did it, but Kellen had gotten pregnant. Emma didn’t know if Kellen had pressured him, or if he’d been pushed by his own sense of responsibility. He’d been unhappy with Kellen, who acted as the bread winner for the family while he stayed at home and took care of their child.
He’d seduced her, and she’d fallen into him gladly. Even after her regret after the first time, she couldn’t help herself from going back for more. Brian even deluded himself into thinking he’d grown feelings for her, while Emma grew desensitized to him, since the one thing that appealed to her in the beginning was that someone attractive had been actively pursuing her.
It made her unhappy. But she didn’t stop it, even though she thought of it plenty, until after the EMP attack. Brian got mad at her, but they worked out their differences. But then Kellen got mad at her, then Chase after he found the two of them in bed together.
Emma cringed just remembering all the people she’d hurt because of her thoughtless actions.
“How are things going between you and Kellen?” she asked, because she really wanted to know, and because the silence was starting to get to her. She needed to stop her thoughts before she depressed herself. It wasn’t why Brian had come out with her. “You’ve both been looking fine so I’m assuming you fixed your problems from before?”
She had meant to ask, but she realized that with everything that had happened, this was the first time she’d gotten the chance.
While Emma couldn’t claim that she and Kellen were friends, though they had been friendly what with Kellen being her neighbor for years. But Emma had found new respect for the woman.
After the first night when their neighborhood was attacked, Emma had wanted to fight back when their attackers promised to return. Chase had been against the idea, but Brian had offered her a gun. And when they went back to his house to retrieve it, Kellen had been the one to pull out her own gun and walk with Emma up and down the street, knocking on doors to get the whole neighborhood involved, and thought about talking to the police.
Emma wouldn’t have considered it all on her own, not in time to take care of the problem. Since she’d expected to have to wait a few days, and the culprits came back the same night. If not for Kellen, so much could have gone wrong that night, and Emma felt she owed the other woman for that, aside from what she owed for what she’d done behind the other woman’s back with her husband.
Brian smiled at her. “Things are pretty good—we’re on speaking terms, and trying to make our friendship work for the sake of the kids. We figured our marriage was all over, you know? Maybe we might work up to it later, but for now, all four of us are happy with the way things are.”
She knew the couple had optioned for all four of them to share a room, and a bed, probably because having their children with them reduced some of the awkwardness that could have grown between them and pushed them further apart.
“I’m glad to hear that,” she said honestly, sending a smile his way. “You know, I still feel kinda bad about what we did. It was wrong, and we both knew it, but stopping...”
“Yeah,” he finished. “Stopping was a problem for the both of us. But I blame myself.”
“I deserve at least some of it,” she said insistently, but he shook his head.
“I was the one to start things between us in the first place, so if it weren’t for me, the whole thing would never have happened. I’m lucky that Kellen is being so nice. She could have decided to keep the kids away from me for forever, or until something happened that split us up for good.”
Emma could have told him it wouldn’t have gotten that far. Kellen was clearly a sensible woman. At the first sign of trouble, she would have done what was best for her children instead of holding onto her broken pride. Emma’s thoughts hadn't been so nice before, but she was pretty sure of it now.
Also, it was true, that Brian started the whole thing. It didn’t absolve her of guilt for going along with it, though. She could have decided to ignore him, and she didn’t.
“I insist we’re both to blame, though,” she said seriously. “We both should have known better, should have thought things through more.”
Actually, if she thought about it, Brian probably had thought things through, e
ven if he decided to go with the wrong decision in the end. She didn’t know his reasoning, and this late she didn’t think she needed to know. All that mattered was that he regretted it, and Kellen knew.
Looking at his face and the grim look he had on, she knew that he did.
Then Brian chuckled. “Kellen talks nonstop about you, saying how she admires you so much. It’s a totally different tune form the one she was speaking before.”
Emma smiled wryly, thinking Kellen might have fantasized about killing her. She had threatened to hurt Emma when she went to her house to shout at her over their affair, when all they’d done was hug because Emma had been crying and Brian was trying to be nice.
“That’s a little odd, considering the way I betrayed her.”
Brian shrugged and said, “Everything that happened in the old world is forgotten now, or I guess you could see it like that. Kellen herself might as well be a new person, she was never like this for all the years we were married. Kellen admires how you kept everyone going and taking Jackson under your wing. She’s still struggling a little with ours, though they’ve definitely warmed up to her by now.”
He sounded proud, and he had a reason to be. Because Kellen had been the one working, she hadn’t left that much time for her family, and Emma was glad to know that was no longer the case, even though the circumstances that brought about the change could have been better.
“I’m more impressed with Merry’s improvement—spending time with Jackson has made her calmer and happier.” She smiled. “I often catch Merry playing with Jackson when she thinks I’m not looking. After how she initially acted around him, I’m glad.”
Brian sent another smile her way. “I’m happy for your family. You deserve to not be miserable.”
“I wouldn’t say I was miserable, Brian.”
“Yeah you wouldn’t, but I am.” Then he arched a teasing eyebrow her way. “You and Chase have been doing well recently,” he commented innocently, and Emma rolled her eyes.
But then she smiled happily. If other people were noticing, then it was just her imagining things.
“I think I’ve found ‘the one,’” she admitted.
They were quiet for a while, and then Emma noticed Brian tense up and his head snapped in a different direction.
“I can hear engines.”
In spite of his claim, Emma couldn’t hear a thing. She listened out, wondering if he was imagining it. After a few minutes, thought, she started to hear it too. They exchanged grim looks. Unless Harry had another child unexpectedly showing up, enemies had finally come to the farm.
Emma felt glad that she hadn’t let herself let her guard down completely, or she would have been disappointed and beside herself with what to do.
“Get ready,” she told Brian, and they rained their guns on the road.
Her body tensed up, and her eyes sharpened, staring at the space in front of her. Her mind cleared of all thought as she entered the space that allowed her to shoot and kill without flinching.
A single car appeared, and as it drew closer, Emma felt her eyes widen in surprise.
She swore she recognized the man in the car. Then it dawned on her—it was someone from Brassville.
Chapter Twenty-Two:
The car drew up out front and the men got out, holding their hands up to show they had no weapons.
But she didn’t care. Emma wanted to shoot them on sight.
How dare they...
It took her a moment to realize she was literally shaking with all the fury that suddenly washed through her. But she couldn’t exactly help it.
How could these people just show up here and pretend to be harmless, as if they didn’t know them and what they’d done? Well, Harry and Mercy wouldn’t know, and Emma didn’t think Brian had recognized them.
But Emma looked closely at the both of them, her eyes always straying back to the one as she thought back to where she could have seen him before. It took her a moment, but her mind found the moment.
She definitely knew the guy. When their town came under attack, not long after the attack on her neighborhood, she’d been working at the hospital with Carol. Several patients had come in after their street was attacked by outsiders. Then, they went to the hospital.
Emma and Carol had both watched, helpless, as the men took away all their medicine and drove off in a truck.
Sure. They didn’t kill anyone there, but nearly every single injured patient had been because of them, and Emma didn’t get the full count of how many people had died, either.
The next attack was back in her neighborhood, when her grandmother died. And here he was, alive and well, after the last image she had burned into her mind from home.
But she couldn’t just kill them for no reason, when they didn’t even have weapons and weren’t acting hostile. But a part of her really wanted to.
Emma placed the butt of her gun on one of the men, fighting with herself not to pull the trigger on him. “Don’t move,” she told them both, her voice cold.
Brian didn’t need her to tell him, he went around them and checked the car. Emma wanted to glance at him, internally begging him for a reason to pull the trigger, but her eyes wouldn’t stray from her mark.
“There’s nothing,” Brian said, coming back to her side.
Emma held back a growl, gritting her teeth. “The two of you keep still while he goes to bring the owner of this house.” She turned to Brian, and he nodded.
She backed up so she could see them both clearly, and was disappointed when the man she recognized didn’t seem to realize who she was. She wondered if he’d been there the day they had to flee from home, and concluded he must have. The guys left over from Brassville were probably all in one big gang, and Emma wondered just how many towns they’d gone through before making it all the way out here. They had driven out for more than a couple of days, walked for a day and a half through forest ground, and yet it wasn’t far enough to run away from them.
She wondered how far would be far enough. She wanted them gone, her finger hovering over the trigger, but she didn’t shoot. Maybe, they might give her a reason to. They were following her instructions, neither had moved even an inch since she told them not to, even with their hands held up. And even if they dropped them, she knew it wouldn’t be right to hurt them for just that.
Part of her didn’t care. It was a dangerous state to be in, ready for the slightest provocation to start a fight. She knew it was wrong but her emotions weren’t calming down, either. She grit her teeth and all the words she wanted to fling at them, none of them nice.
But another part of her was keeping her cautious. If these guys had found them, chances were that others had as well. These guys had decided to approach them, and they must have known there were people on this farm. She didn’t buy their ploy of peace, but she did want to know what they were planning, and the only way to do that was to reach for a patience she didn’t feel.
Sound from behind her made her turn just enough to see the people coming, before she was looking at the two men again, reluctant to have them out of her sights while she was this close to them, in case they tried anything. Emma wouldn’t put it past them. She also wouldn’t be surprised if they had back up nearby ready to attack them, so her guard was definitely staying up. Brian was back, followed by Harry, Chase and Mercy.
She jutted her chin out at the two men, now that they had company. “Everyone’s here now, so speak up. What do you two want?”
They turned to look at the new comers, and Emma bit her tongue not to shout at them to keep their eyes on her. They were acting like she wasn’t a threat, even though she was holding a loaded gun to their faces and wouldn’t mind using it. Her finger trembled on the trigger again. It would just be a warning shot, she’d even aim it at the ground, or behind them. She was confident enough in her aim now to know she wouldn’t hit them directly unless they were her target. But they talked before she could, and she held back the urge.
Besides, there
was no reason to alert everyone when nothing had happened yet.
“We’re from the town of Brassville,” one of them announced, “and we’re scouting for trade opportunities.”
Emma gave them both a disbelieving look. “Trade opportunities?”
She didn’t believe them one bit. If they were interested in trade opportunities, they would have listened to her when she was first sent to their town as part of the volunteer work for her own. Instead, they got threatened, their things taken so they were forced to walk all the way back, and Emma got hit in the face with the butt of a gun for speaking up about them taking their supplies and their bikes.
It had been her, Chase and Brian. She was out for most of the day because of that hit, and when they finally got to trudge back, Brian nearly collapsed when they nearly reached home. Because Emma hadn't known at the time, but Kellen had kicked him out of the house, so he hadn't been eating well to begin with for days before they went on the disastrous trip.
She looked around, and let her guard just a little down because she noticed both Brian had Chase were here with their own guns. Chase’s was aimed at the ground, and Emma could imagine how uncomfortable he was just holding onto it, but Brian’s was pointed right at them, at least. Because he knew what needed to be done in such a situation. She’d have to talk to Chase about his squeamishness to handle guns.
The men continued.
“We’ve been careless with our supplies and are running out. We’ve searched pretty wide for a new source to get our supplies, and we ended up in this area. We’re pretty far from home, actually. We saw the farm and were immediately interested. We come here with absolutely peaceful intentions.”
Emma scoffed loudly at that, and noticed the curious look Chase and Brian both shot her. Even Mercy.
Not Harry, though. Actually, Harry seemed interested in doing a deal.
No way in hell.
She couldn’t let this go on with this when he didn’t have any information. These guys were widening where to get their supplies from, probably because they pillaged several other places. There had been a town Emma visited in the beginning, when she was sent out as a volunteer to search out a food deal with the mayor.
