by Cal, Sarah
"I need to get up and go into town to begin preparations for the next attack." Judging by the lightness of the room, she must have been sleeping for a while, so she should probably already be on her way.
Chase sighed. "I wish you'd just relax. You finally got your first good sleep in a while, you realize that? You're always on the go, either too calm or to stressed, and it hurts just watching you sometimes."
She touched her fingertips to his side in apology before pulling her hand back quickly.
"I'm sorry about that." she chewed on her lip. "It's not like I'm trying to neglect myself, you know. It's just that there's so much to do, and I don’t..." she stopped, frowning when she noticed he was looking down at her with a look of amusement. "What?"
"I understand. You can't just sit back and let things run their course, you always have to interfere if you can help somehow."
"Not always," she muttered, remembering last night and the argument between her sister and grandmother. She hadn't done nearly enough in that situation, not as much as she should have. Chase gave her a confused look, and she smiled up at him. "Never mind. And I really should be going now. Don’t want to be late."
"Do you want me to go?" he asked.
She sent another smile up at him, more sincere this time. "I do, but I need you to stay at home with Janice and Merry. I know it's because of me, but I don’t like how they ended things last night. I don’t want them to be left alone for the time being. And they still need someone to look after them."
He sighed and leaned back against the headboard, his head falling back with a light think. She got out of bed to grab some clothes so she could change. She moved to the bathroom, where she kept some water for a quick clean up, then changed and was back in the room quickly. Chase hadn't moved, but when he heard the door, he raised his head to look up at her. Then he stood up as she got closer.
"I'll fill you in on everything when I get home."
It was too tempting not to touch him at all, if only for comfort instead of anything more. She reached out her arms, and he held his own open for her to walk into them. She sighed as his arms wrapped around her, burying her face in his chest and closing her eyes. They shared a long hug, before she thought it was time for her to leave and made herself pull away.
"I'll see you later," she told him as she left the room, and the house.
In town, they met in the same location as last time, only less people were present, most of them representatives from their areas and different streets. Everyone was trying to come up with ideas of how best to protect their town.
Emma mostly just listened. She was thinking up solutions herself, but it wasn’t like she had any definite plans. This wasn’t her forte, not quite. Back when she'd been a simple high school teacher, she'd found it hard to control a bunch of high school children, and this was nothing like that.
Were they even taking this seriously? Because all Emma could hear was them trying to talk over each other, and the words that she did distinguish didn’t sound like any solid plan that they could actually carry out. If everyone in the town that could lent a hand, they could have good numbers, but they didn’t have enough weapons to build an army, considering they were up against people who already had several advantages over them. They had people, weapons, a vehicle, and had already succeeded in putting fear into a lot of the people in town. They had to catch up somehow, so Emma didn’t think she had to tell these people how serious they needed to take their current situation. But she felt tired, so she was keeping quiet, sitting out of the way of everybody else.
"How about everyone moving into the school with all of their belongings," someone suggested, speaking above the noise. "Logically, if we're talking defense, wouldn’t it be easier if we were all in one closed off location? It would be easier to defend than trusting a few people every street when we don’t know where or when they'll appear next."
The murmurings were low, before picking up as everyone voiced their considerations with the idea. It was the first thing anyone had said clearly, and Emma had hope that at least there were people that knew their position and were taking it seriously. Of course, they should be having a discussion, not everyone going off on their own tangent, but maybe this was a step in the right direction. No one was willing to speak in its favor, though.
Emma thought of it. While it did have merit, she didn’t like it. Being closed off, in particular, even if it would be easier to defend everyone that way and save even more lives. If they got themselves surrounded, it could be trouble. But then, they couldn’t exactly rely on their current strategy, everyone fighting in their different areas and getting help when problems came. They didn’t have speedy transport, or a way to communicate over distances, so there were many holes with that plan.
But then Carol stood up with her own objections, pointing out, "We can't lead anywhere near a normal life when living all cooped up together. Also, it would be a lot of hassle getting everyone there."
Well, that was true. Emma herself wasn’t really willing to leave her home. Getting her supplies mixed in with everyone would be... a bad idea. Really, it would probably just have people start fighting a lot sooner, because too many people all high strung living together were all too likely to explode, and she didn’t want to be a part of it.
Several more suggestions were throng around, which no one really took to. She listened idly as her mind worked, thoughts circling and overlapping each other.
"I have an idea," Emma piped up. The noise went down as everyone focused on her. She'd been trying to avoid it, but she straightened her spine instead. "How about we each have a patrol on our street, night and day, per street?" she suggested. "There should be a minimum of ten people per street helping out at any one time and they should all be armed just in case.
It would take care of a lot of the holes present in most of the other ideas. It would be hard to conform to. At that point, everyone was expecting an attack at any moment. If the invaders took too long and people grew lax, it could be disastrous. But having people, several of them moving separately, on all the streets would be the best way to go. That way, there could be some to go and call for help while the others stalled for time with their weapons.
Of course, it was also risky. But everything involved some level of risk anyway. The problem was whether people would truly go along with it even knowing that. She would, without a doubt, and probably plenty would. But that many people per street, going on rotation day and night? Getting people to work in the night time would be the hardest especially. And they would still have to negotiate getting weapons to civilians from the cops, or finding more people with guns.
But well, they could always think about that after the others determined whether or not the idea was worth looking into.
"Breaking down the help per street," she continued, "it would be easier to defend, and also easy to call for back up from nearby streets."
There was some more murmuring, more excited this time, when one of the police officers present spoke up.
"We think it's a good idea, and also doable if everyone is willing to help out. We will, of course, be doing our part."
"We also need to send a search party to every house to check that everyone is okay," she continued to suggest, "and to take supplies from empty houses. There should be someone to lead the team on each street. I volunteer to lead the team on mine."
From there, everything dissolved into excited chatter, but Emma felt somewhat confident now that this could work out, even just a little.
Chapter Seventeen
Things progressed quickly once everyone was decided. The few voices that still protested were overruled, for the sake of the whole town. Her self-defense lessons with Chase went on, since she had even more determination now than before.
The police had offered their support, sending in more officers to help while they were finalizing their plans. There were only a few more meetings before they decided to stop having them so frequently. A decision had been ma
de, instead of trying to set up meetings at sent intervals, all reports could go through the police station and would be spread from there. They would only have the meetings again when it was deemed necessary. It was probably a way for the police to take control of the whole thing, but Emma didn’t mind, as long as what they were doing was useful in the end.
Several days later, Emma walked down the street, a gun slung over her shoulder. Her neighbors were stationed up and down the road on patrol, also armed.
Once the plan was agreed upon and spread out to everyone, it had been a lot easier than she'd first thought to set it up. People were almost eager to join in, and the police had agreed to handing whoever didn’t have them weapons to use on patrol. She'd been worried they'd refused, but in their eyes, it was only logical that the patrollers gained weapons. The cops even sometimes sent one or two of their own people out to help on the patrols.
Nothing had happened, yet. Everyone was still high strung, but it had calmed down. At least no one was too eager to start firing at shadows, or so relaxed that they would hesitate. She would have to see just how long they could all last in this state before things changed. Either way, she was happy with how things currently were.
Well, not really. She wondered why they hadn't made a move yet, those bastards, after how confident they'd been before. It gave her a bad feeling that just wouldn’t go away. After their first two near consecutive attacks, it was like they'd fallen off the face of the earth. Only, instead of making her relax like it did some people, it only stretched her nerves tighter.
She didn’t think they had given up. She'd heard some of her neighbors talk about it, the ones she was on patrol with. They thought that because it had already been this long, maybe there wouldn’t be any attacks in the near future. Emma thought differently. For her, the longer they didn’t come, simply meant it was getting closer to a day where they would launch an attack.
They would come back, eventually. They would find they needed something, and since they had conveniently already swiped things from their town without much problem, they would come back to them for more stuff. They would probably expect them to have done something, come up with some defense or decide to play weak when they returned, but there was no doubt in her mind that they would definitely find it useful to return to their town.
They would definitely return. And the invaders would find them prepared.
Emma came across one of her neighbors as she strolled down the street, and she waved a hand at them in greeting. She didn’t personally know them, but she didn’t remember them from the last time she'd rallied the neighborhood.
"Hey, there," she said amiably, "how is your day looking?"
She glanced around before meeting their eyes. She found it a lot easier to talk to people now, or at least these people in particular because she'd fought with them before.
"There's nothing to report. Everything's been way too calm, actually."
Of course it was calm. The people not out on patrol were being cautious. It was unusual not to see people outside when they weren’t armed and therefore part of the patrol team, most of them preferring to keep inside. Not that there had been a lot of people walking around outside to begin with, but this was different. Some still left their homes, but they didn’t stay out long.
Emma said goodbye to the other patrollers and continued walking home. It was growing into late evening, meaning it would shift to night duty soon. There were enough people still out waiting for their replacements that she felt she could go back home a bit early.
Chase was at home to greet her, she almost bumped into him as she walked through the door. He eyed the gun slung over her shoulder, and she winced. She usually took it off and put it aside in a safe place where he couldn’t see it. Because she was team leader in her street, she was allowed to keep the gun with her at all times, as long as she kept up her responsibilities well. She'd made sure not to make any mistakes, so she was okay.
He didn’t agree, though. He never mentioned anything, but when he looked at the gun, and she saw the emotions in his eyes, she imagined he hadn't forgotten either, how a gun had gotten her into so much trouble last time.
"Do you really need that?" he finally asked.
She rolled her eyes. She'd known he wouldn’t be able to help himself. Chase was leery of guns, anyone would be. In the beginning, Emma had been, too, but you couldn’t fight armed enemies with your bare hands if you wanted to survive.
She wouldn’t say she had gotten used to guns, either, because the one she was handed was one she didn’t know how to use. The last one she had, she only shoot once by accident. When she got the gun—her punishment having been lifted because of the crisis—she was only told how it worked and it was up to her to figure it out. Well, it wasn’t exactly difficult. She just needed to aim, put a finger on the trigger, and take a shot. This gin wasn’t as sensitive as the last one, so it wasn’t going to go off by accident, so it was safer in her hands.
"I got it from the police, so I'm not breaking the parameters of my punishment. If they lifted that and gave me a weapon after my trial, of course it's necessary."
He shot her a frown, telling her silently to get serious, and she sighed. She knew his hang up about her having a gun, but he didn’t have to ask something so obvious.
"Come on, Chase. You know I need it if I'm going to be out on patrol. It's for my own safety, after all. We're not just walking around outside for exercise, if something actually happens one day, I do need to be prepared."
Emotions crossed over his face so fast she didn’t have time to read them. But they settled on guarded, his eyes still on the gun. "But do you have to keep it on you at all times, even when you have to come home?
Another stupid question. He was eyeing it as his face darkened into a scowl, and she pulled it off her shoulder and went to store it away where she always left it.
"I was given it in order to protect the street," she reminded him. "I mean, I could always go out without, but do you think I would be just fine if something did happen and I was out there, unarmed? And of course I bring it home, where else do you think I could leave it?"
Besides, she felt a lot safer with it around. She had regretted losing the other one, but this was one she intended to keep. If anything happened, she knew where it was, and all she'd have to do was run for it and move to a strategic position.
His looked shifted to something lost and frustrated. Whatever he was trying to accomplish, it would get nowhere, because she wasn’t giving up the gun, no matter how he feared it.
"It's just, are you sure it's a good idea for you to have a gun after your... incident?"
She froze at the question. She really hadn't thought that he would ask that, or rather, she'd hoped. She'd thought he was worried about her, but he just really didn’t trust her, did he? She turned to him with a hurt look, and she could have sworn he flinched.
"You don’t think I can be trusted with a gun?" she asked, upset, and she winced. She frowned, feeling a little angry. "I made a mistake, remember? That time, I didn’t even mean to fire the gun, and it was problematic, but I got through it. I've moved on from it now."
Why didn’t you?
She wanted to ask, but she seriously didn’t think she even wanted an answer. Chase was her best friend, he was supposed to trust her.
"It's not that," Chase said before she could turn away. "I'm not fond of you going out every day with a gun, that's all."
She narrowed her eyes at him, having a hard time believing him. "I can care for myself."
She didn’t care how hard she was being on her best friend. But then again, he wasn’t the one going out and doing the damn job. She turned away from him and went to check on Merry. She would have to talk to him at some point and convince him that it was for the best. It wasn’t going to be right then, though.
Her sister meanwhile had been acting better recently. It was such a surprising turnaround, that she thought she would revert to her old self to normal. Of c
ourse, she took her medication, and she had been checking this time to make sure, and it helped her act somewhat more normal than she did before. She hadn't had a single nightmare and hadn't mentioned predictions once.
Emma was hopeful.
She knocked before entering her sister's room. She didn’t seem to mind, so Emma moved further inside. Merry was sitting in her room, like she usually was these days. Well, it was simply her reverting to her old habits, only there were no tarot cards or any other superstitious stuff.
"Hey, sis. Can I join you?"
Merry just glanced at her before looking away. Emma hesitated for a moment, before deciding her sister probably didn’t mind her sticking around a little. After siting in silence for a while, Emma tried to coax conversation out of her.
"Did you have a good day today?" she asked feeling awkward. She glanced around the room, trying to think of something better to say, and lit up on the books arranged on Merry's table. "Read anything good recently, maybe?"
She was too awkward, but she couldn’t help it. Did she ever just do small talk with her sister? Emma didn’t think so, or at least she didn’t remember. It was the most uncomfortable she had felt in a while, and it struck her as ironic, just a little. They could talk about the deep stuff just fine—well, not fine because it usually ended in an argument or one of them walking away. Still, she wondered how they'd ever had previous conversations and she kept coming up with question after question.
Merry wouldn’t bite.
Emma was a little frustrated. She didn’t even move, and Emma would have felt invisible, except she knew Merry knew that she was there.
Her sister had calmed down her attitude, especially towards her. She didn’t think Merry and Janice had run into each other at all since their fight. Her sister should have realized how stupid she had been acting by now, but she didn’t show any signs of trying to do something about it.
It frustrated her. She was doing her best not to interfere, spending as much time with Janice herself as she could while visiting her sister at least once every day to keep them both company. But she was going to exhaust herself that way, considering all the other responsibilities she had, and still spending time with Chase because she didn’t want to leave him out either. Bringing it up before her sister did would only earn Merry's ire, but her patience with her sister was wearing thin.
