by Max Lockwood
"Don’t think about how many we need. There has to be an advantage, so we need as many as possible, which means we need to inform everyone in the neighborhood. We can always use more help."
Maybe, but Clara didn’t usually like to ask for help. It wasn’t entirely a pride thing, either. She was just used to handling everything on her own. She'd taken up looking after the family, because their grandmother was aging and had arthritis and Alzheimer's, and her older sister had been declared unfit for work. Part of the unwillingness to ask for help was because she just didn’t usually talk to strangers. She was introverted and had been so used to being alone. Besides her family, Cooper was her only real friend. Of course, she'd been opening up recently because the situation required it, but her first thought was rarely ever to ask for help.
After some time, Clara and Michelle headed for the police station in silence, hoping to get the support of some police officers on their mission.
They'd knocked on the doors of quite a few houses on the street. A goodly number of them had been robbed the night before. Although most were lucky enough to be sleeping at the time. Those that weren’t as lucky merely kept out of the robbers' way and got the scare of their lives in exchange, but no one else had been hurt, at least. They just got up in the morning to find their things gone. Clara had explained the situation, what her family had faced.
She got expressions of sympathy from whoever she told, and though she did appreciate it, she didn’t tell them that their information really didn’t help anything. She thanked them either way, giving assurances that she and her family were all right, they would get over the experience if only they could receive some help to make things safer for them. They left every house they stopped at with a warning for what was probably to come.
Clara felt some guilt. The women would be coming back because of her. Her stupidity meant her family would be attacked again, but like Clara had said, they weren’t the only ones that could be targeted. It involved the whole neighborhood, and Clara, instead of letting it blow over, had given them a reason to return, soon.
But, what if they had come into her house anyway, even without her unlocking the door for them and going outside? Cooper and Dante had both been sleeping in the sitting room, and what if the women breaking in woke them up? They might have gotten hurt anyway, their stuff might still have gotten stolen.
Clara sighed. She put it out of her mind because she couldn’t tell now if what she'd done had been a good or bad thing. Thinking of all the possibilities meant nothing, considering what they were going to face in the near future.
Those they'd told would either spread the word or lock themselves up in their homes and prepare for the worst. It wouldn’t protect them, though. If the women had a way to get into the houses, locks wouldn't stop them a second time. Going to the police was actually a good idea, even though part of Clara would rather not have them involved in the case at all.
It was Michelle's idea to go to the police. It was faster than knocking on all the doors in the neighborhood themselves and hoping more of them would have guns in their homes, but Clara hadn't thought of it before because of the complications. If they asked the police to help, and all the food they had in the shed was discovered, her family would be in big trouble.
The town was having a food crisis—who wasn’t, in their situation? Unless they lived on or near a farm—to the point where they kept sending people out to barter their resources with other towns. She had gone herself, only her deal had gone south because she was dealing with a corrupt mayor who wanted to give them food that was already going bad, and she'd dared to ask for more. He refused the deal in the end, and some people had held Clara responsible.
Yet, they had enough food stored to feed everyone in town. Although, if they did that, it would only feed them once, and it wouldn’t be a fulfilling meal, and they'd be back to starving. But how the town saw it—and more importantly, the police officers who had become the head of the town in the absence of other higher officials—it was her duty to hand the food over the second she realized it was there. But it was her sister's store, not hers, and Tessa had trusted her enough with the secret and told her not to tell anyone else. She had already told Cooper, but he lived with them.
Besides, she wasn’t willing to compromise her family for the town. She felt so guilty when she realized that, but not enough to stop.
Still, she couldn’t deny going to the police was the best way to go if they wanted more guns. They had plenty, after all, not to mention they had the skills she didn’t even if she could get her hands on another gun. If she and Michelle could get them on their side, then this was a fight they would definitely win, with as few casualties as possible.
"I don’t blame you."
Her head swung around to stare at Michelle, wide-eyed. They hadn't talked to each other much since leaving the other woman's doorstep and only about the plan, so it was a surprise that Michelle was talking to her at all. And what she'd said… there was no way it could be true.
In Michelle's eyes, Clara had ruined her family. Clara didn’t think that was a fair assessment. It wasn’t like, just because she was the outsider, it left the spouses blameless in what happened. Why did she have to take all the blame? She didn’t seduce Dante; it was the other way around. She just fell for it and kept going back, because she wasn’t emotionally stable.
But she couldn’t absolve herself either. Because she had known what she was doing was wrong, she was just too weak emotionally and mentally to stop before it went anywhere. To give in at all had been admitting she was weak, no matter how charming Dante had been, how starved she had been for the attention of someone like him at the time he first approached her. It ended up being the worst mistake of her life, but in the beginning, she'd been gullible.
It was only fair that she got punished for it now. But it hadn't been that long, yet here was Michelle, telling her that she didn’t blame her?
"Excuse me?" she mumbled when she could use her voice again. "You said something, but I think I must have misheard…"
Michelle shot a glance at her before deliberately looking away. "You heard me fine, Clara, just… please listen. This isn’t exactly easy for me to say." She stopped to take a breath, and Clara kept her mouth shut, willing to cooperate. It was more than she could have asked for so soon, but she would take it. "I'm not going to lie and say that I'm over it because I'm far from over it. Honestly, I don’t think I ever could be. But… I don’t blame you for going after Dante—he's handsome, sporty, and fun…"
Clara winced. That was what Michelle meant. What else had she expected? Though Michelle was only partly right in whatever she was imagining. Yes, Clara had been drawn in because of all those things, but that alone wouldn’t have been enough to go as far as she did. Dante just offered her something she needed, something that, at the time, she could not refuse, and that was the end of it. Even after the guilt she'd felt for giving in once, she couldn’t not go back to see him, and soon it became a regular thing, almost routine.
Before Clara could respond, Michelle spoke again.
"I should have expected something like this would happen. To be honest, it's been on my mind for a long time. I could never keep him, I always knew that. He's too young for me; I knew that when I met him. But I saw what I wanted and I reached for it without thinking twice. It's a wonder we lasted this long." She sighed.
Clara knew it was because of their kids, but she didn’t bring it up. She knew Dante and Michelle had been together until Michelle got pregnant, then they had a shotgun wedding. Clara was sure, if it hadn't been for their child, their relationship would have run its course. She'd had revelations about Dante that had her thinking of him differently, and though she hadn't liked him in the least, even as they carried on their affair, she was sure his children mattered a lot to Dante, even if Michelle didn’t mean anywhere near as much.
"I really don’t want to keep fighting this, you know? I was hurt, very badly, by the whole thing, but I'm
not entirely unreasonable. Making him hurt even a little bit of what I did was fun at the time, but the children miss him, and hurting him doesn’t really serve me any long-term purpose, especially considering how things are…"
Her expression looked almost lost, and Clara felt sympathy for her. It was partly her fault, to begin with, so she couldn’t even reach out to her and upset her again. Michelle opening up like this could only mean good things, and Clara didn’t want to ruin it.
"I'll allow Dante back in the house to care for my kids," Michelle continued. "He was always better at taking care of them than I was. But you're welcome to Dante if you want him. I'm not going to keep holding him back by being selfish, or we'll just both end up miserable, and make our kids miserable as well in the end."
She said the words so easily, almost blankly, but Clara could detect the slight trembling in her voice. She was trying to act mature, and Clara had the feeling it was costing her a lot. This wasn’t something Michelle wanted. Clara still didn’t know if she loved her husband or not, but she must feel something if she was willing to do this despite how she felt about the whole situation.
But Clara had to clear up the misunderstanding before it went any further. She'd done so with Dante, and now it was Michelle's turn.
"Dante and I aren’t an item. I am sorry, for what went on between us, but I don’t feel for him that way, and neither does he for me. If you had listened to me before, I would have told you all of this. I am… ashamed to say this, but Dante was convenient, at a time when I needed something, and I didn’t care if it was something destructive. Nothing more."
"Are you interested in Cooper?" Michelle asked.
Clara was surprised. She hadn't expected that comeback. But maybe she should have. The times Michelle caught sight of her in the morning on her way to work, Clara was getting picked up by Cooper. And now, he was living in her house, with her family. It was an obvious conclusion to make. It was also probably why she hadn't brought up her suspicions about her and Dante's affair before.
"I'm not sure what's going on with us," she found herself answering honestly, "I'm more focused on keeping me and my family alive for now, so I don’t really like to think too much about it. He is my closest friend, and I care a lot about him, but anything other than that is a distraction right now."
She would have to think about it eventually or risk losing him, something she wasn’t quite ready for. If he stayed, she could lean on his strength when she felt she needed it. He always offered it so freely, and Clara had gladly taken advantage of his kindness before. She had a feeling she would continue to do so in the near future, with the way things were going.
"I admire you, you know. That you have your head and heart in the right place. I used to envy you sometimes, before, until I realized I was just being stupid."
It wasn’t the first time Clara heard about envy. Her own sister had felt the same way for some reason, but Clara didn’t agree with their reasoning. At least Michelle came to her senses, Clara was sure her sister still held some hatred towards her.
But Clara could sense that she and Michelle were beginning to mend their broken relationship, so she didn’t say anything about it. This woman was her neighbor. She had known her since before she got married and had a child. Clara's feelings toward her may not have always been positive, but anything was better than the open hostility of before.
They finally got to the station, and Clara led the way inside. She looked around for someone she knew, and the first person she recognized was a female officer, one of the officers to see her upon release from prison.
"Excuse me, ma'am?" she said tentatively, Michelle coming up behind her.
She looked up from whatever she'd been doing and blinked at Clara. She was, technically, supposed to be doing community work, and hadn't come back since it started. She hadn't been going in to work, either, and for a moment she worried the officer knew about it. Her friend, Felicia, a nurse at the hospital where she was supposed to work had promised to cover for her because there wasn’t much left to do, and she'd been at home looking after her sister as she took some medications.
The officer only looked surprised, though.
"What can I do for you, ma'am?"
She moved to where the three of them could sit down for their chat, though with how anxious she felt, Clara would have rather remained standing.
"We actually came to report something that happened in our neighborhood last night," Michelle said, giving Clara a meaningful look.
She nodded and spoke up. "Late last night, I can’t be sure when I woke up and heard a car outside on the street. My sister woke me up when she had a nightmare, and when I saw the car, I thought I might go investigate why it was there."
The officer nodded along with her story, taking a notepad and pen and jotting things down.
"Then what happened?"
"Well, I'm staying with two friends of mine, my sister, and my grandmother. My friends were sleeping in the living room, so I went to wake them up so we could check out what was going on. We… there were women there, with guns, and they threatened us. I'm sure there were others going through other houses, but we had come outside and they forced their way inside and went through our things, stole our food and some other supplies."
There was more nodding from the officer. "Were any of you harmed?"
"Um," Carla murmured, her throat tight, before forcing the words past her lips. "My friend tried to tell them we didn’t have anything to give them, and they hit him. There were a lot of them, too, at least ten that went through my house, though I think there were others that had gone out to other houses in the street. Every single one that I saw was armed. They also... said they'd be back soon to take more stuff."
"I'm sorry for what happened, ma'am. We can send a few officers to you to check the situation with your neighbors, see if any of them can be offered food to replace what they lost."
Clara and Michelle exchanged another look.
"We did talk to a few of our neighbors before we came here," Michelle said, taking the reins again. "We didn’t feel it would be right to just wait for this to happen again, so we were hoping for some support to fight them back."
The officer arched her eyebrows in surprise, taking a closer look at the both of them and their determined faces. She sighed. "Ma'am, you realize how dangerous something like this would be?"
"We've talked to some of the neighbors and they were willing to join in," Clara said quickly, pleading for help in their cause. "We do lack the weapons, but that was why we thought of asking for police support since we can't entirely do it all on our own. But we can't let them come back and steal from us anymore, and scare us for their amusement. I can't be sure when, but they will be returning, to our neighborhood because they didn’t get all of the houses yet."
She, of course, had to keep her family's involvement as quiet as possible. The officer didn’t need to know they would be aiming for her house specifically.
The officer looked like she was considering their words, tapping the end of her pen on the notebook. Then she set both down and gave them a tight smile.
"It would be our honor to help you out and have a purpose in protecting the town since that is what we're here for. As this involves you and your family, I can't keep you out of it. However, despite not being allowed a ranged weapon, as part of your punishment, we'll grant you use of a knife for the fight."
Clara just nodded in agreement, knowing it was the best she could get. At least she still had the permission to join the fight, knowing she wouldn’t have reacted well if they'd told her to stay out of it entirely. They were still minimizing her involvement, but she thought it would be enough just to be there, and see those women get what they deserved for the deeds they'd done.
She would have to take steps to ensure she didn’t get an even worse punishment. That they were allowing her in the fight at all was a testament to how much things had changed. The police were no longer the sole reigning authority. With t
heir resources limited, their numbers were just too few.
"We promise to send a few people over in the late afternoon. Your address was marked down when you volunteered so don’t worry, they'll know the way."
"Thank you so much," Clara said sincerely. "I can't tell you how much this means to all of us."
The officer made a sharp nod as she stood up and offered a hand to them both. "No problem. We are here to help the town."
With the deal done, they left the station.
She felt relieved to have the police backing them, though her anxiety didn’t entirely disappear. But with this, Clara thought they would have enough when the time came. She almost grinned, wondering how their attackers would react when they drove themselves right into an ambush. If they did come back, then they deserved what they had coming to them.
Clara and Michelle went to round up the rest of the street for the confrontation. With the police in on it, they were sure some of the more reluctant ones would come out and lend a hand.
Chapter Four
They had a lot to prepare for, and they got to it once they got home. Clara went home first thing to relay the information to her family. She had them sit down in the living room—well, Cooper and Tessa, who she wasn’t sure was even listening.
Cooper didn't look happy, but there was nothing Clara could do about that.
"Something is going to happen soon," she stated, getting right to the point. "We were attacked last night. I don’t know when, but we'll probably be attacked again soon."
"Because they saw the food, right?" Tessa spat. "They'll be coming back for more of it."
She folded her arms in defiance, looking away from the both of them. But Clara could tell she was afraid too. She had been the one to wake up screaming and say they had to leave because they were all in danger. Clara still didn’t know what she'd dreamt about, she didn’t think it would be a good idea to ask and give Tessa any more fuel for her anger.
