by Cal, Sarah
"When everything shut down, electricity, cars, there was heavy traffic down the highway, and a plane came down right in the middle of it. A lot of people didn’t walk out of that accident, a lot of the ones that did, and are still alive, were heavily injured. Medical supplies are dwindling, but that isn’t even the biggest problem right now.
"Food shipments that were supposed to come in didn’t make it, so right now we're worried about keeping everyone fed. Some stores were broken into, food stolen, but the police are doing something to try and reduce the damage. Our biggest problem is that we're too small. We don’t have any big food reserves, and we're looking for support from other towns. We were sent here, but I'm sure others were sent to other neighboring towns."
He nodded once she'd stopped talking. "You do realize, miss, that as much as you need help, I have put my own people first. We have food supplies, yes, but we also have more people. There weren’t any big accidents around here and that just means more people to feed. We have no idea how long this situation will last, so depleting our own resources to help yours, won't be of benefit to us in the long run."
It was cold hearted, but she could understand the logic. It didn’t make her happy that he was right.
"But we won't just be taking for free. I'm sure we can find things to trade."
He raised a sardonic eyebrow. "Like what?"
"Cars unaffected by the EMP will still run," she pointed out. She didn’t mention how she'd only overheard this conversation from some officers at the station and had yet to see it herself. "My town would be willing to open the use of our gas stations to you in exchange for food. We have a lot of it and we're not currently using it for much."
That was something she was sure of. A lot of the fuel that was still in use was going to fuel lamps, but not many people had them, and the police station only had a few of them.
Mayor Williams stared at them for a moment as he deliberated, his fingers tapping lightly on his desk. "And how exactly would this benefit me?"
"You would have more access to easy transport, and may be able to trade further with other towns if you have the use of vehicles."
He looked away from them, staring down as fingers of both hands tapped on his desk. She assumed he was considering the proposal by the furrow growing on his brow. She counted down in her mind the seconds before he looked up with a heavy frown that seemed to age his face.
"All right," he accepted. But held up a hand before either of them could think to be happy about it. "I will give this idea a trial run. This weapon, if that is what it is, clearly took out anything that worked with electricity. A lot of modern cars depend on it, but I will have some of my people look for older models that might be able to run. But—" he cut them off again with a hand, when she opened her mouth to say something.
"Let's get something straight. This is on trial only. I won't give you anything right now. The deal may be on, but I will cut it off if there are any issues, or if our own supplies begin to run low. I am willing to exchange a truck full of food for a full tank of gas. If this is disagreeable, you can both walk yourselves out."
She held back from showing her how giddy she felt. It was a good enough deal and they were desperate enough to take it. She stood up, Brian following her lead, and she stepped forward, offering her hand to the Mayor.
"You have a deal, Mayor Williams."
His face was closed off as they sealed the deal with a handshake.
"A vehicle will arrive the next day to collect the gas and drop off a supply of food."
She gave a sharp nod and left the office with Brian on her heel. She walked fast until they got outside, and she let herself drag in deep breaths.
"We actually did it," she muttered to herself. "We got a deal."
"No, Emma. We didn’t do anything, it was all you in there. I didn’t even say anything, I kinda feel bad for being useless here."
"No," she protested. "It was good having you there, I don’t think I could have done so well if I was by myself."
She was too easily intimidated. It might have lessened when her life changed, but it hadn't changed that much. He might be a greedy bastard, but Williams had proved he'd earned his position, even though he stood for pretty much everything she disliked about politics and politicians.
Brian didn’t look like he believed her, but he didn’t argue. It was true, though. Having him there wasn’t as good as having Chase, but she wondered how ready the Mayor would have been to listen to her if she'd just been a single woman on her own, far away from home and trying to play at being a shark.
"Fine, but you did well to handle yourself, and you're saved your townspeople for a little longer."
Yeah, that would still be a problem. How long would the supply last? How long would Williams be willing to trade? Even with this, they would need more. She couldn’t be as optimistic as Brian, because she knew it was only putting off the bigger problem.
"The deal won't last long, Brian. Not when food becomes the main priority for everyone. This is only a temporary fix."
How long was temporary was their new big problem. And besides that, she didn’t trust Williams. When she'd mentioned exchanging for gas, he'd acted like he wasn’t aware of any running cars. But they already had a truck that would bring the food over to them? Either he was really confident one would be available, or he was manipulating them. She was more worried about the latter idea, but it was bad either way.
Vaguely, it felt like making a deal with the devil, and she wondered how long it would be before he stopped playing nice. What really worried her, though, was when his obvious greed would come in.
Brian shrugged and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "We'll figure something out later. For now, we should go home. It's getting late and we have a long way to go."
Right. They didn’t want to miss curfew. Emma put her anxiety aside for the time being as they collected their bikes and headed for home.
Chapter 20
It was late evening and growing dark when they finally made it back.
Both Emma and Brian were exhausted, since they'd had to stop by the station to report on their success and the trade, and leave the bikes to walk back home.
It had been a while since Emma had ridden a bike for prolonged periods of time. Brian looked slightly better off than her, while her legs ached from all the exercise. It took longer than it should to walk back home, and the silence didn’t bother her as it had that morning. In fact, she welcomed it, focusing on making her feet work, wincing every now and then when the muscles in her thighs protested. She kept fit herself, and it was probably the only reason her legs hadn't given out on her.
Finally, they arrive back, and Emma breathed a heavy sigh of relief as she moved to get to her own house. She was more than ready to sit down and rest her muscles, though if she didn’t want the ache to be worse the next day, she'd have to keep stretching her legs. Which meant just going home and lying down would be a bad idea.
A door opening had her head popping up. It was Brian's house, Kellen practically exploding out the door and staring hard at them.
Emma nearly flinched at the glare aimed at them, wondering what was wrong. Her face was flushed, her chest heaving with harsh breaths, as if she'd just run down a flight of stairs. Brian was startled, but he only faltered for a moment, before he was hurrying over to her, arms held out to pull her into a hug.
"Kellen? What's wrong, did something happen with the kids?" he questioned, sounding frantic.
"Don’t you dare touch me!"
The shout startled them both, Brian stopping mid-stride and rocking back on his heels. Emma had never seen the other woman mad before, had never imagined it could happen. When she got annoyed, it rarely lasted long. She was the cheerful, perky type that Emma didn’t particularly like, except she was also genuinely nice.
Seeing the woman in front of them made her wonder if she'd imagined all of that. Because the woman standing in front of her didn’t look like the same person she'd
known for years, had seen not all that long ago, though they hadn't met again since the family was over for dinner.
This Kellen looked like she wanted to strangle the both of them, and would be laughing all the way.
"Kellen?" Brian repeated, voice sounding cautious as he took a step away from her. "What—"
"Where the hell have you been!"
He flinched back at her shout, taking another step back. "I left this morning, you knew I was going—"
"You didn’t say anything about being gone the whole day. You came home a lot earlier yesterday."
"That's because I got a different task today and it took longer—"
"Well, why the hell didn’t you tell me—"
"Because I didn’t get the time to—"
His own voice was climbing, Emma staying away from it as the two of them started a shouting match out in the street.
It was surreal to see, because neither acted like they were capable of it. Emma couldn’t say they'd always looked happy together, she could count on her hands the many times she'd actually seen them together and have fingers left over, but they didn’t argue. At least, Brian had never hinted that they did, and neither had Kellen the times she stopped for a chat in the morning.
And then, she said something that made Emma's heart stop for a second.
"Did you intend to run off with Emma?"
Shock was an understatement for what she felt just. A cold feeling was making its way through her body, and Emma wondered if that was what true dread felt like.
Did Kellen know about the affair? But they'd been so careful! Emma had made sure they were, no matter how much Brian pushed. She was already feeling guilty with all the sneaking around, but she didn’t want to get caught. It had been going on so long it was a wonder the other woman hadn't noticed earlier, but what if they'd been fooling themselves, and she had known?
Also, if Kellen had known, how could Emma not have noticed? They didn’t talk often, but Kellen dragged her family into Emma's home just a day ago. Why would she have done that, if she knew? It made Emma nervous, because if she had known and said nothing about it before just then, it made her wonder what her motives were. Did she just not care, or had she been planning to humiliate them both somehow to get back at them?
Emma shrunk in on herself, trying to remain unnoticeable.
Brian had been gaping at his wife, and tried to get ahold of himself. His expression was a little guarded, but Emma thought he was pretty good at playing clueless.
"Why would you even think I would run off with Emma?"
"I see how you look at her, Brian, I'm not stupid."
Emma breathed a silent sigh, relieved, and then felt bad for doing so. Not that she was going to inform Kellen of their sneaking around her back if she didn’t know. Emma was worried, in her current state, just what she would do.
She wasn’t laying off Brian, though. She was also standing in Emma's way to her house. She could have gone around them, excused herself from this discussion, because neither were paying attention to her and she didn’t want to get involved. One look at his face made her stay, though. She couldn’t just leave him like that. Lie to herself or no, she was part of the problem here. And he had been a big help, staying in the room with her when she negotiated with the Mayor.
Feeling a little sorry for Brian, Emma tried to offer some help, to try to get Kellen to calm down so she could cool off.
"Look, Kellen, I swear it wasn’t like that—"
She cut off when the sharp glare was aimed at her, eyes falling to the finger pointing right at her. "Don’t you dare lie to me. I see the way you look back at him—"
Emma just looked on, more confused than worried. How did Kellen imagine Emma looked at Brian? She did her best not to look at him at all these days, the past two days notwithstanding because of uncontrollable circumstance.
"I don’t look at your husband in whatever way you're thinking, so ease off. We've come a long way and we're both tired so can we table this discussion for another time?"
"No!" was the answer she got.
She watched the other woman gear herself up for a long, meaningless, loud, rant, and felt her already thin patience snap. She owed this woman a lot, for all the things she'd done to her. but after what she'd done for her, look after her daughter when her husband was away and she didn’t want to do it, or when she wanted some alone time away from the kid with Brian, she always dropped her daughter off at Emma's without asking if it was okay.
"Can I please just go home so they two of you can talk?" she asked.
The older woman wasn’t backing down, though. "No. I need an answer from both of you. Where have you both been, and why the hell were you together. Why the hell are you both getting back so late?"
Emma gaped at Kellen, surprised by the questioning. It didn’t last long when it occurred to her Kellen was trying to assert authority over her, not unlike her own mother would, only this woman didn’t have that right. Emma didn’t answer to her, or anyone, for that matter.
For a second, she was tempted to give the woman a nice smack to the face. She fantasized doing it, perking herself up a bit. She had nothing against her, but Emma couldn’t say she particularly liked her neighbor either. She was too caught up in herself and her needs and wants to care about her own family. She was good at her job and she loved it, she was a socialite, but she used it all to spread gossip like she was still a teenager.
The woman rarely acted her age, a mature adult in her early thirties. She acted like she had no responsibilities if they didn’t interest her. Back when Emma suffered with her own job, she had secretly, guiltily, hated the other woman for the joy she seemed to find by ignoring what she didn’t like. It was unfair, but she couldn’t stop herself from feeling it.
That anger came back to her then, and she decided she'd had enough.
"Kellen," she snapped, making her voice loud and hard so the other woman would hear and listen. "I am exhausted, and my legs ache from cycling for hours. Whatever your problem, please don’t try to drag me into it. I would like to go home. I think you and your husband should do the same, so get out of my way."
She'd never talked to the other woman so rudely, and she seemed shocked, her mouth left gaping open as her eyes widened. Emma felt good about shocking her, even for a little bit. She felt bad almost immediately, but she refused to take the words back. She could apologize later, right then, she just needed to get off her feet.
Then she seemed to take in the state Emma was in, barely standing, sweaty with wisps of her hair sticking to her forehead. Emma wondered just how much of a mess she looked, and then decided she didn’t want to know if it was enough to get through to the older woman.
Kellen's mouth snapped shut. She didn’t look sorry for blowing up at them, but she didn’t seem as mad as before, either. She turned away, back to her husband, and gave him a firm look.
"Brian. Get inside the house. You are going to explain to me what happened."
He followed the directive immediately, heading for the house with Kellen right at his heels, closing the door behind them and leaving Emma out on the street.
She wondered if the other woman would forgive her, then decided it didn’t matter. Had she always been that jealous and controlling? And Brian, the poor idiot, just kept going along with her. She had wondered how Kellen's recollection of their getting together differed from Brian's, getting herself involved with a man six years younger and making him marry her when he got her pregnant. But she'd never asked, because it hadn't been her business.
It wasn’t her business now, either.
She moved to her own house, but the door opened before she made it. Chase stood at the doorstep, looking surprised for a moment to see her.
"Hey, you're back. I heard some commotion outside and came to see what it was about."
She noted his curiosity and rolled her eyes. She stepped inside as he stood aside for her, following her as she went and dropped herself into the couch.
&n
bsp; "Kellen thought me and Brian ran off together for the night," she explained, giving Chase a dry look.
"Well, you are having a secret affair," he pointed out.
She flinched with a wince. Like she could have forgotten. She heard his use of present tense, though, and corrected him.
"You mean we were having a secret affair."
He frowned. "What?"
"It's over," she informed him gently.
It took a moment for it to sink in for him, but when it did, he seemed pleased by the news, like Emma had expected he would be. He'd been after her to end it for so long, he was probably more relieved about it than she was.
"Why don’t you go out to the garden with me?"
Emma just groaned, leaning her head back as she closed her eyes. "I was on a bike for the better part of today, Chase. I am so tired I don’t think I can still stand."
He just chuckled at her. She felt the couch shift as he pushed himself up, and took both her hands to tug her up after him. She whined in complaint, but he was stronger than her. He pulled her up and held onto her with an arm around her shoulders. She could have told him she wouldn’t actually fall if he let go of her, but she was enjoying the touch too much.
"You didn’t say no," he told her as he dragged her forward.
Not that it took much dragging. They went outside, and found Janice and Merry in the garden. Emma was surprised her sister had gotten out of the house, even though it was in their own back yard. But she probably didn’t spend all her time in the house when Emma was out working, anyway. She was home mostly early mornings and evenings, so she didn’t get a lot of chances to see Merry leave her room without prompting.
"What are you guy's doing?"
Janice looked up and smiled. She looked of sound mind, not even the slightest confusion. Both looked like they'd been outside for a while.
"Oh, hello, honey. I didn’t know you'd gotten back."
"I haven't been here long," she assured, drifting closer.
