by Max Lockwood
Clara could have told him not to worry, but she feared she would have to shout to be heard, and she didn’t want any of the women in the van focusing on their location. Her heart was beating hard, more in fear than excitement, and her limbs were frozen in place. There was no way she would move away from safety and end up having her body riddled with bullets. She wasn’t that stupid or desperate for revenge.
Still, his hand on her arm was a little tight, and she felt like he had cut off the circulation in her arm. Since she was holding the knife in that hand, she touched the back of his hand and got him to let go. She rubbed at her arm, clenched and unclenched her hand around the knife handle. She held herself at the ready, prepared for the moment she would have to jump into the fight. But the noise kept distracting her.
She remembered the first time she'd heard a gunshot. A situation in which she'd found herself locked behind bars and put under trial in the first place. She had been volunteering services for the town and got sent out on patrol. So, while on patrol, she'd ended up accidentally firing a shot from a gun at someone trying to do a bad thing. A gun that she shouldn’t even have had. She'd tried to hide it until the woman met her again and tried to blame her completely for everything.
The situation had been resolved eventually, even though the woman had come after her with a knife and she'd had Tessa outside with her at the time. There had been other situations, like the time she, Cooper, and Dante went to visit a different town to find out what their situation was, only to be chased off by gunshots. But she barely heard those, because she'd been knocked unconscious from a blow to the head at the time.
This time, there was no way to hide from it. Shots came from their side, from the women, in all directions, and Clara found herself afraid to move from her spot, in case she got caught in the crossfire.
She found she was useless—she knew she couldn’t run out and use her knife without being shot. Considering there were other people around actually doing something worthwhile, made her feel just as bad as she had last time, worse even.
What was she even doing there? This had been her idea to begin with and yet all she could do was watch? She might as well have stayed inside the house then, and watched the whole thing from the window upstairs. It wouldn’t make her feel better personally, but it made her feel good to be closer to her sister and grandmother in case they needed anything.
When she couldn’t take the sound anymore, all she could do was cover her ears and watched the scene unfold.
Several of the invaders had already been shot down, but more were coming out of the van and she couldn’t see any casualties on their own side yet. She itched to move, to do something, but self-preservation kept her where she was. Cooper stuck close to her side, and she could also sense restlessness inside of him. Knowing him, he'd want to do the rational thing and run into the house instead of closer to the danger.
Not long after, she got her chance, and it had everything in Clara freezing and slowing to a stop. If she'd stopped paying attention, let the noise overcome her, she might not have noticed until it was almost too late.
One of the invaders took a run at Clara's group, probably in some desperate attempt to find a hiding place; she didn't think the woman had caught sight of them yet. Clara was almost surprised the woman didn’t get shot down before she got too close. Their van was parked closest to her house, and they must have been aiming for her place because she thought she recognized this woman from last night.
When Clara caught sight of her face, the shock, and surprise of seeing someone run at them suddenly washed away. She remembered the woman as one of the ones that searched her house and pointed a gun at her sister and grandmother. She pulled her hands from her ears as time seemed to slow down. A burst of adrenaline in her blood had her body vibrating, and her hand tightened on the knife.
This was her chance, the reason she had wanted to do this. To look at these people as they fell, after what they'd done to her family while smiling and having their fun. She wanted to see them suffer, and she was, but she hadn't done anything to contribute to it, and even with her fear, the thought grated on her mind.
Clara saw her opportunity to get involved as the woman drew near, and she readied herself to strike. She'd never attacked someone with a knife before. She also didn’t have any combat experience at all, but she moved almost on instinct as the woman came so close she could have touched them. She had her gun clutched in her hand, but she wasn’t aiming, leading Clara to think she hadn't seen them yet. Clara stabbed at the woman's legs, putting as much force into the swing as she could and concentrated on her accuracy. She felt the knife connect, and at the same time, someone shot the woman in the back. There was a short scream, as Clara stabbed the woman, it broke off in a gurgle.
She knew the woman was going to fall. Clara had never seen someone get shot before, but the woman’s legs were stumbling, her whole body looking like a puppet that suddenly had all its strings cut. The body fell on top of Clara; body because she knew the woman was dead as the weight was pinning her down. She struggled to move the woman off, feeling blood staining her shirt, nose crinkling at the scent. She'd lost sight of Cooper, he was supposed to be beside her, she didn’t give him more than a passing thought, really.
The smell of blood was familiar from her time at the hospital, though nowhere near as overwhelming. It wasn’t enough to put her down as she crawled out from under the body. Her determination renewed as triumph lit up in her chest. She might not have delivered the killing blow, but she had done something, had been useful, and she was going to ride on the success of that for as long as the fight lasted.
She wasn’t going to think about the body she'd tossed off herself, the sticky blood soaking through her shirt to her chest and smeared on the top of her arm as she'd slid the body off to the side, until she absolutely had to.
Clara was hit with a surge of adrenaline and she finally came out of her hiding place. She didn’t notice Cooper reaching for her, or hear him calling after her with all the noise. She wasn’t the only one out and fighting in the open either. By now, a few people on her side had come out of hiding while still shooting, the realization only made her move faster.
The invaders seemed to have realized they were cornered. She glanced at them through the broken window of their vehicle and caught a few panicking faces, but she didn’t stop. A few of them were still left in the van, but the rest must have been hit with the desire to run, only to realize they had nowhere to go and were trying to avoid getting shot as they returned fire.
In that moment, Clara didn’t feel afraid. She should have, considering what she was jumping into, but her feet only moved faster. It was a short distance to cross from where she'd hidden to the van, but it felt like it took more than a minute to make it there, an effect of the adrenaline she assumed.
After what these people had done, and what they had come back to do, there was no way Clara was going to show them mercy. A voice in the back of her mind whispered that they knew her secret. She wasn’t sure how many of them, but she didn’t need the police investigating her house. If this all ended here, she would be all the happier for it and go home feeling so much safer.
She paid no attention to her thoughts as she ran out into the thick of the fight. She didn’t need to know how to fight, because none of the women even paid her any attention, too focused on the threats from those who had guns. She managed to stab at someone before they could shoot another civilian coming out of their hiding spot. There was a scream, as she pulled her arm back and stabbed forward again, feeling resistance in her hand as the knife connected again and broke through the skin.
Clara felt hot blood pour over her hands and was snapped back to the real world. It was warm, and it made her hold on the knife a little slippery, even as she tightened her hand around the handle. None of the enemies had noticed her yet, but there wasn’t anyone else on the outside still standing for her to stab, and even hyped up on adrenaline, she wouldn’t get near the van.
"Clara! Get out of the way!"
She didn’t know who shouted, but she could suddenly hear things besides the gunshots, shouts, and yells.
Clara didn’t stop to think, just listened to the voice, and that alone should have told her who it came from. She dove for her front lawn as someone shot at the van. She could hear the impact of the bullets on the metal of the van before she was too far away. She could hear more glass breaking behind her, but she didn’t turn to look as she crawled away on hands and knees to get further away. She didn’t know what they planned to do, but instinct told her it was going to be something she didn’t want to be too close to.
There was more screaming, and shouting, and yelling coming from all sides. Clara could see more of her out in plain sight. Nearly everyone had left. When she looked over her shoulder, she could see more of the women that had been shot down, some of them a distance from the van like they'd attempted to run away. The few still in the vehicle had nowhere to go. They were backed into a corner, but still, none thought to start the van and drive away, as it was riddled with bullets and no windows or windshield.
From her safe vantage point, Clara watched it all happen. She couldn’t tell how many women were still in the vehicle. She could see at least three and although they were mostly hidden, at least one of them still attempted to shoot.
Rapid gunfire sounded from several directions, aimed right at the van, and Clara watched as it went up in flames, killing the remaining attackers.
The force of it felt like she'd gotten too close to the naked fire, the heat was unbearable on her skin, and her eyebrows might have been singed. The sudden brightness made her throw her arm over her eyes for protection. She didn’t look away, though. She wanted to see this. Needed to assure herself it was all over, and the enemy was gone.
Clara was stunned by the sudden silence after the attack. The fire from the van had burned down some, and there was a low roar coming from the flames as it burned. But with no more shots being fired, Clara was left a little disoriented.
She looked down at the bloody knife in her hand, at her soaked shirt. She let go of it, wiped her hand on her chest, and pushed it out of her mind. Even though, with everything quieting down, she felt a little sick because of the warmth and stickiness of the blood on her skin, making it somewhat difficult to ignore. But she would have time to groom herself and clean up later.
Her legs shook as she stood up, her ears ringing as she surveyed the scene. There were bodies littering the ground, and she let her eyes pass over each one, seeing their stillness and dismissing them as dead or beyond her help. Besides, they weren't who she was worried about.
She went around to look for any injured. The adrenaline was still flowing through her, and she had to keep on moving. If she stopped, she would start to think, and she didn’t know what would happen then, but she wanted to be alone when it happened. Besides, she would crash eventually. While she still had energy, she would continue to lend some aid.
There were only two people injured on their side, and both suffered only minor injuries. She had to admit, considering the numbers they had been up against, and how many people had left, it was something of a miracle that it hadn't been worse.
Clara found a couple of people standing around, looking lost about what to do and caught their attention.
"Would you be able to go into town?" She waited patiently for a nod. "All right. Can you make your way to the hospital and ask for a woman named Felicia? Also, one or two other nurses to look after the injured."
She relayed the instructions slowly, watching their faces to be sure they got the message and then turned to other work to keep herself busy once they were off to fetch Felicia. But inside, she was rejoicing over their victory.
Chapter Six
Clara had a feeling she was going to lose sleep for the second night.
Who could possibly sleep when there was so much to do? The nurses were just coming in to help the injured, giving a wide berth to the guys clearing up the scene. But once they arrived, there wasn’t much she could do, because the officers sent everyone that didn’t need medical care back to their homes. She didn’t think she could sleep now, but she had to find something to keep her occupied. She dragged her feet reluctantly all the way to her house, though it was only a few feet away.
There were those that went freely, obviously relieved to have the whole thing resolved already. Everybody else was probably exhausted, after the time they'd spent waiting, but also because of having the tension broken after the intense fight. Clara wished to stay and help more, but it was an order, so she couldn’t exactly ignore it.
She was still expecting to crash from the adrenaline at some point, but besides a slight trembling in her limbs from all the excitement, she felt fine. She didn’t think she was going into shock, but after what she'd just gone through, she felt like she should have.
Now that it was all over, Clara didn’t know what to think. This had been burning in her chest ever since those women had left her house last night, and now it was all over. There might be a chance that some of them weren’t there, and were replaced by the extras that decided to join—though it was a stupid move on their part. They'd left stuff before because they didn’t have room, but they decided to bring more of them while considerably reducing the space available? She was getting side-tracked. Maybe they didn’t get them all, but they did get most of them, and Clara got to see one of them fall and be a part of it herself. She probably shouldn’t be so flippant of murder, but there was some relief that the whole thing was over now.
It was something to worry about, though. At least with this, the word would spread that they had a fighting chance if any other invaders come to their town. Because the attack had opened up the possibility for them. It was entirely possible the women were part of their town, but Clara didn’t think so, or someone would have known about the working van already, and the last time she checked, the police didn’t have any.
Well, whatever. The situation was taken care of, so she put it all out of her mind and went looking for better things to do. The police would do their own investigation into the matter later.
Suddenly she remembered Cooper and wondered where her best friend gone off to. It surprised her that she had taken this long to even think about him. She walked over to where they had been hiding, but he wasn’t there. She searched the faces of the people still milling around outside.
She didn’t see Cooper or her neighbors anywhere, but then she remembered. Her sister and grandmother were still in the house, hiding... probably scared and waiting to know everything was all right.
Clara cursed herself. How could she have forgotten to go back and tell them? Viola hadn't liked that she would be going out at all to do something so dangerous and had only agreed when she told her Cooper would be with her. Tessa had acted completely unaffected, but Clara had seen how she'd trembled as she sat with their grandmother.
Even though it was quiet all over their town, it would probably be a good idea to go home and give them some reassurance. They might not have been able to sleep with all the anxiety. Clara didn’t feel like sleeping, but her grandmother and sister probably would. Maybe they could manage now that the danger was over. It would be good for them, after the stress of the past couple days to actually rest.
With a new purpose, she hurried to the house and up to the largest bedroom where her sister and grandmother were hiding. Clara knocked on the door quietly and waited for a beat before slowly opening it.
"Hey, guys, it's me," she called out softly so as not to spook them. "Don’t be scared, all right? Everything's okay now. You can come out."
She felt like she was talking to children and not two grown women, but after what they had been through, Clara was going to have find some way to make it up to them. Not that she needed to, but because she wanted to. She could just imagine the mental distress the two of them had been under when they heard all the shooting and shouting outside, and the loud noise when
the van exploded. It would have scared anyone, and Clara was sure it had scared a lot of people that had been present for the whole thing.
Clara peeked inside the room with just her head through the door and saw a head pop out from the side of the bed hidden from the door. She sighed, relieved to see Tessa stand up, pulling their grandmother up with her with some difficulty. She stepped up to go help, Tessa with her thin body would have a hard time with it. They sat Viola on the bed and picked up the pillows and blankets they'd laid out on the floor.
"Are you two okay?" Clara asked anxiously.
Why had they been hiding on the other side of the bed, when they could have just lain on it? It wasn’t exactly good for Viola's aging body, but it had probably made them feel safer, so Clara couldn’t even chastise them. She had left them to find whatever comfort they could while she went out to fight.
"We're fine, Clara," her grandmother replied. "It's just… been a long night."
She could tell, though, by the light tremble in her voice that she had been anxious. Clara felt like a heel. The fight hadn't been over for a while, but she should have remembered to come back immediately and check out her family's situation first. Tessa looked none the worse for wear, though, remaining standing next to Clara.
"What happened?" she asked, almost frantic. "We heard everything go quiet. Is it all over?"
Clara informed them, "All over, Tess. You don’t have to be afraid anymore—we've forced the enemies away and they won't be coming back."
She couldn’t just come right out and say they'd shot them all down like dogs and their bloody, dead bodies were still out on the streets. Come to think of it, there had been the body she'd left in her hiding spot, near the house. She hadn't seen it when she'd gone to look for Cooper, so she hoped it had been moved. She'd have to check it out later just to be sure.
She couldn’t tell her family the whole truth, and she didn’t feel guilty about the little fib. It would only upset them—well, their grandmother more than Tessa, but still. She didn’t need to give her sister more nightmares to keep her up at night, either. They might know she was lying, but they wouldn’t call her out on it. They pretended it away.
