by Max Lockwood
The plan made, Clara followed Dante outside. He gave her a speculative look but didn’t stop her. Michelle was mad. Clara knew that she practically hated her. But hopefully, the other woman would see the sense in this. If those women came back, there was nothing to say they would leave the other houses alone. They hadn't last night.
Clara watched from a few feet away as Dante knocked on the door to his house. It was a moment before Michelle answered, and Clara was braced for a blow-up. But Michelle was calmer than the previous times they’d seen one another.
Clara let Dante explain what happened, the danger to the town and the incident from last night, as Clara stood off to the side and listened, Michelle having not yet noticed her.
"Why would it involve me?" she asked stonily.
"Even if we're not together," Dante retorted, "I care about you and want to protect you, the kids, and my property. They said they would definitely be coming back, and if no one stops them, we're going to be living with this shit for who knows how long."
There was a short silence as Michelle looked at him, her eyes narrowed in deliberation. But then her gaze shifted, and she spotted Clara. The change in her was obvious, her expression darkening to one of anger as she sneered. Clara wanted to shrink back from the look, but after last night, Michelle seemed less dangerous and Clara didn’t have to defer to her.
Still, when she stepped aside to let Dante through, they were both surprised. It didn’t hold Dante long, he rushed in, leaving Clara outside with Michelle.
Chapter Two
Clara stood awkwardly outside Michelle's front door while Dante went to fetch his gun.
Her first instinct was to turn tail and run back to her house, but her reason for being there was too important. She would have left since she still hated confrontation, plus, she really didn’t like the way Michelle was eyeing her.
She had slept with the woman's husband secretly. Hell, she had even babysat their five-year-old daughter.
From the way she'd blown up at them, Clara wondered if Michelle had guessed what was going on; or if it was just jealous paranoia. Clara wondered if they had ever been careless with their affair. She didn’t think so, but maybe Michelle turned out to be sharper than they thought.
But, her suspicions were justified after all. In Michelle's eyes, Clara had dealt the first blow.
She wasn’t sure exactly what had pushed Dante to start an affair. Clara knew that Dante and Michelle met just months before she got pregnant with their first daughter. Dante married her because of the pregnancy, though he wasn’t that much older than Clara. Michelle was nearly a decade older.
Michelle was the breadwinner in their family. She had no idea what Dante had been doing before he met Michelle, but his hobby was working out, and his only job was taking care of his kids while his wife worked.
Michelle owned a salon where she went to work every morning. It was a job she liked, and was successful enough that Dante didn’t need to work. Clara wondered if Dante hadn't gotten tied to Michelle because he was careless; if he'd wanted to do more besides becoming a house husband.
He was good at it, though. The way he tended to act around her, she often forgot that. Michelle had given birth to their second daughter about a year ago, so their relationship appeared to still be an intimate one. Clara had seen him interact with his children. He was so good with them. His first daughter, Abigail, may have been a mistake, but he cared for her—for both of them—a lot. And the girls adored their father.
It was strange. Most children were closer to their mothers, but the Townson's children preferred Dante. More than that, little Abigail Townson seemed afraid to sit with her own mother. Actually, one time when they came over to Clara’s house to share a meal, Abigail had seemed more attached to Clara than her own mother. Clara thought the other woman hadn't noticed, but maybe she did?
After that, Michelle started getting paranoid about her husband trying to run away with Clara. It must have snapped her out of her pleasant attitude.
Clara didn’t want to be in the middle of a family squabble, but she still felt some guilt for what she'd done. Dante had approached her and she had been flattered when such an attractive man had focused his attention on her. She had let that cloud her mind and she fell for his seduction.
Once would have been bad enough, but they hadn't been able to stop. Her life was so unfulfilling that she kept seeking Dante out when she was on the edge of desperation. She'd had a dream, once. To marry and start a family of her own, but most of her relationships were more of a means of stress relief than anything else. And when Dante flattered her with some attention, she got attached to him.
Then her feelings changed. The guilt she had always felt grew worse. Dante felt like a drug, a quick fix which didn’t last long. Immediately after, she would feel so empty that it had scared her a few times.
Then everything went south, and she finally made the decision to end it with him and to focus on her family. They never really engaged in meaningful conversations and didn’t know each other except as long-time neighbors. During their trysts, they made inconsequential small talk before getting down to business.
Recently, Dante and Clara had been spending a lot more time together since he'd also taken up volunteering for the town. They'd had to work together a couple of times. The first of those times when she went with him alone, had been the catalyst for Michelle getting mad at them as well as leaving her to care for the children.
Still, Clara knew Dante better now. Before, she had stereotyped him, but since they had gotten a chance to actually talk, she was made to face some truths about her neighbor. She hadn't really liked him before, but now she considered him a friend of sorts. She didn’t want to make things harder for him and his wife to reconcile.
But Michelle didn’t do anything except stand there, several feet away from her, glaring silently.
Clara realized this was the first time the other woman wasn’t happily chattering her ear off—or, more recently, shouting obscenities at her. Michelle usually had such a bubbly personality, that the change still left Clara reeling. But she'd seen the woman consumed with anger and trying to attack her, so the cold reception wasn’t exactly a shock.
Not that Michelle had come close to forgiving her transgression, and Clara wasn’t sure she would. Clara didn’t blame her for her anger. She couldn’t. Because even though Michelle didn’t have any proof, Clara and Dante had been sleeping together for a long while. No real feelings were involved. They both used each other as an escape from drudgery. Not that it made it any better. It was such a selfish reason.
Though it was wrong, they hadn't stopped. At least, not until looking after her family and their interests—and a large scar from the crash that nearly took hers, Cooper’s, and many others’ lives, became more important than an affair with Dante.
Michelle still didn't have proof, but a few questionable situations were all it took to raise her suspicions. Hell, even Cooper had been hurt unintentionally, because she had been so self-absorbed. Sure, Cooper had been advocating for her to end it when he found out about it. Especially since she didn’t even particularly like Dante. Liking Dante was not necessary to sleep with him. She hadn't known Dante and Cooper had been friends before the affair started or that the friendship had been damaged over her.
Clara had been pretty close to losing everything because of her stupidity. She had to choose between her best friend and the comfort of having Dante. Cooper meant a lot to her, and he helped her out a lot, but not like Dante. She'd never thought of a romantic relationship with her best friend before.
But she and Dante were truly over now. Clara didn’t even think about the decision to end a choice made when she was weak mentally. If anyone in the family had needed that kind of help, it would have been her sister and grandmother. Besides, she just didn’t have good memories involving therapists.
There was no way she could allow herself to give into weakness now though, and that meant never going back to Dante
, no matter how familiar.
Time passed in silence, with Clara feeling increasingly uncomfortable as Michelle continued to glare at her with contempt. It probably hadn't been long, but she was getting more anxious. She had bigger problems than having her neighbor’s anger. Still, it bothered her.
This situation was just too awkward. Clara couldn’t say anything without Michelle glaring at her. She even tried to apologize through eye contact a couple times with her head held high but gave up when Michelle wouldn't meet her gaze. Clara fidgeted in place but didn’t go home even though it was only a few feet away. This was too important to turn her back on because she was uncomfortable. Michelle stayed beside the door, leaving Clara with a feeling of censure.
Finally, Dante returned with a shotgun, breaking the awkward silence between the two, allowing Clara to relax a little. Having Dante there just heightened Michelle’s tension instead of lowering it.
When Clara saw the gun he held, suddenly her focus changed. She almost forgot Michelle as she felt the build-up of excitement in her chest.
This was it, the means to get what she wanted. This gun was going to be their first line of defense against the women who attacked them when they came back for more of their food. One gun simply wasn’t enough, not against the many women they'd been threatened by before, but it was a start.
Her excitement died quickly though, when she remembered that their attackers had more people, more guns. They were also ruthless. They hadn't shot anyone, but Clara felt it was to save bullets. They pistol whipped Cooper in the face for talking back and trying to get them to leave. Then when Clara tried to go help him as he fell, she'd been warned to leave him on the ground or risk being shot herself. Of course, she had stayed still, feeling scared and on the verge of tears.
Just remembering it made her blood boil, at the same time it reminded her just what they were up against. Having the one gun was better than being completely unarmed, but not that much better. She wanted to curse at how unfair it was. She didn’t want to believe that Cooper had been right, that they should have stayed out of the women's way and done as they said. Dante had offered her a weapon. They were of the same mind, that they had to fight. But seeing it, Clara began to fear to fight against such a huge difference in power.
What the hell.
It was a heck of a time to see more clearly. Her rage hadn’t fogged her mind so much that she was suicidal. This fight would involve many more people than just her, including her family and Cooper. She couldn’t be so careless as to throw away their lives because her pride was hurt when the women came and took her things at gunpoint.
She wasn’t changing her mind, but just one gun? She didn’t know how well-armed their enemies were, but they surely had more than one gun.
"Dammit!" she cursed under her breath. They would need a lot more, but Clara could feel the frustration building again as she wondered where they were going to get more guns. She'd had one at some point, but she had been careless with it and it had been taken away from her. They didn’t keep guns in the house…
"What's wrong?" Dante asked, extending the gun for her inspection. "It's a little old, but I take good care of it and I have some ammunition for it."
She shook her head. "That's not it, it's just that this won't be enough. Think about it, Dante, how many people did we face last night?"
"I didn’t count everyone, but there were ten that I did see," he murmured, frowning. "I know it isn’t good enough, but it's better than nothing, right?"
She nodded. "For a start, yes. But where do we get more? One shotgun is going to be useless against ten armed women and there could be more, but there are only so many of us, even if we all took up weapons. I don’t have any worthwhile weapons except knives at my place."
She wouldn’t mind using knives but considering their enemy could attack from a distance, she wasn’t feeling very optimistic. Even if she could get close, she could only attack one person at a time, and it would be a warning for someone to start shooting. They weren’t in some action movie where everything would end up okay despite the odds against them.
Clara ran a frustrated hand through her hair. There was no way it would be enough. They'd need more weapons, and not just any weapons—they needed guns. Even more, they would need people that had and knew how to use those guns. But where would they get more?
"Your solution is simple," Michelle said, cutting through Clara's distraction. "Stop thinking like you can take care of it all by yourselves. You just need to round up more people from our street to help fight. It's not like yours is the only house around here, you know. If these women are endangering the neighborhood, then it affects all of us."
It… hadn't occurred to her. She was so dead set on doing it on her own, with her family as support, that inviting in outside help hadn't even occurred to her. There was the fact that the women had broken into their secret stash of food, but she didn’t need to let anyone into her house, did she? They could put up a line of defense from the outside and no one would ever have to know about what was in the shed in their backyard.
Clara was so surprised that the other woman was even talking to her, she could do no more than gape at her. Even though she wanted to say it was a good idea. She knew other houses had been hit before hers, so there might be people willing to join them because they'd lost something as well.
Michelle disappeared into the house for a moment and returned with her own gun. It was a medium sized handheld. It was definitely smaller than the one Clara had had, but not too small, and it fit comfortably in her hand as if she'd held it before.
Clara and Dante gaped at Michelle. From his surprised look, Clara saw he didn't know about the gun. Clearly, Dante wasn’t the only one keeping secrets in their marriage.
"I refuse to allow anyone dangerous near my kids. That is the only reason I'm not slamming my door in your faces," Michelle warned them.
Despite their rocky past, Clara couldn’t help but be impressed by Michelle's bravery.
Clearly, Clara severely misjudged her. She could do more than work at her salon, listening to gossip. Clara had felt Michelle would be beside herself looking after her children without her husband there. Her determination to look after her family reminded Clara of her own resolve. Dante looked proud of his gun-toting wife. This was beyond Clara's expectations, and she was glad to be wrong.
"I can help you with rounding up people to fight," Michelle offered, cautiously stepping closer. "We're gonna need all the help we can get. I saw ten, but there’s a chance that some had gone into other houses, so we can’t be sure of the enemy's numbers."
Michelle didn’t react negatively, despite how she'd been glaring at Clara earlier. Her expression had reverted to the calm look she'd had before, with extra determination in her eyes as she stepped closer.
Dante watched in amazement as the two women shook hands and headed out together.
Chapter Three
Now that there was a plan and she had Michelle helping her, Clara felt they had a chance in this, and her excitement was growing again.
She wouldn’t have thought they would ever team up for anything, but she was impressed by Michelle’s taking the initiative. She also harbored some hope that this was what they needed to fix their broken relationship. They may not have exactly been friends, but she had been their neighbor for a long time and Clara had known her longer than she'd known Cooper and Dante.
But that wasn’t the priority right now. They needed to get enough people, and enough weapons, to stand a fighting chance. There was a high probability of one of them getting injured, but if that was the worst that could happen, she would take those odds.
Of course, the probability was also high that they would have to kill the women if they came back. Shooting at them might be enough of a deterrent and perhaps they would flee and leave them in peace. It was worth a try, either way, but Clara had a feeling that they would have to kill someone.
It didn’t bother her as much as it probably should
have. Why should she be bothered anyway? These were people that had invaded her town and her neighborhood. They'd snuck into people's houses and stolen their stuff while they slept. There hadn't been any noise in the neighborhood after they left, which led her to think they hadn't killed anyone, but she was sure they could have.
They had forced their way into her home, scared them, hurt Cooper, and taken their food while continuing to threaten them. After all that, even though they took enough to fill their van, they still waited while others in their group took from other houses. Clara had watched their car idle on their street for hours before they drove off, making so much noise because they were confident that no one would stand up against them. They didn’t care that they had taken from people that didn’t have much to support themselves and their families and scaring them as well.
Clara hated that. She knew there were people like that in the world, she wasn’t naïve. But actually coming across them in her town, in her house, something about how close they'd come and invaded her life made her angry.
I should have done something, she berated herself.
Only, what could she have done? Risked attacking them when they had guns and could shoot her, her friends, and family if they wanted to before she could do any real damage to them. It would have been pointless, but that didn’t change how she felt.
Just don’t think about it.
They had a plan, and she just had to follow it. She glanced over at Michelle, almost surprised that she appeared to be the more level-headed of the two of them. She really needed to get a hold of herself and get back the confidence she'd just recently started to build before those women tore it down like scrap paper.
"How many do you think would be enough?" Clara found herself asking.
It was a bit amazing that she was asking this of Michelle of all people. But in a way, she did seem to have something in mind that was a lot better than Clara's initial plan. She was helping anyway, despite how things had ended between them the last time. Even if it was to protect her own family, Clara could appreciate her help. She would trust the older woman just this once. Michelle didn’t even glance at her as they moved to another door.
