Powerless | Book 2 | Aftermath

by Roberts, S. C.

  "We've talked to some other officers and learned that you've been helping out, volunteering services for the town, and that does lend some weight to keeping you out of prison. You won't be locked up, but rather you'll have to do some community service as punishment, because we can't completely let you off. As much as you felt you were doing your part as a volunteer, harming people isn’t something we can just let go. It is more or less what you've been doing so it shouldn’t be too difficult for you."

  Emma nodded along, slumping back in her chair in relief. They were going to let her go, finally. She was more than ready to get out of there and go home. Then the first officer spoke.

  "You will need to turn in your weapon, especially since you're not registered to use the gun, and you will do this the soonest possible. It's just too dangerous to have civilians walking around with firearms. You will be required to give a full report on how you came to receive it when you give it up."

  The gun that the crazy woman gave her. When, after the crash, she and Chase had been going to look for survivors that they could help, and the woman that she hadn't seen coming that was behind them with a gun and talking about the apocalypse. She remembered that day and shuddered, wondering what had happened to that woman.

  She didn’t agree with the cop wholeheartedly, though, about the civilians with firearms thing. Even the cops couldn’t be trusted, especially if they had men within their ranks like that bastard that hit her. The world was going to go to hell soon, and Emma wanted to have the protection.

  But after nearly killing someone, she feared having the gun with her. Hell, she had put it away without meaning to ever pick it up again after that night. Though part of her didn’t like to have their only line of defense gone, another part was relieved that they wouldn’t have it on hand. When they seemed to be waiting for her answer before they continued, she nodded.

  The last cop spoke. "Take this as a warning, ma'am. I understand the position you were in, we all do. We understand that you only intended to do the right thing, but keep in mind that any repeat offences like what we saw here will lead to much more serious punishments. We're in a bad situation—the whole town is in a bad situation—and that is the only reason you are getting off so lightly this time."

  She nodded again, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes. But she just sniffled and held them back. She was just glad to finally be able to leave, she was a little anxious to get on her way already. She tapped her fingers on her thigh, feeling restless, but she tried not to let it show.

  "Thank you," she murmured, grateful for their kindness, squeezing her fingers on her thighs. "I will do anything to redeem myself. And I will bring the gun here as soon as possible."

  "Part of your punishment will also be a ban on leaving the town for several weeks," an officer told her, almost gently, "despite your usefulness in the past few weeks, we thought it would be best that you stay within the town limits. In any case, you need to have your injury looked at, do your community service and get sufficient rest, so you won't have time to be going anywhere."

  That made her freeze in her seat, but she clamped down on the automatic protest. Emma wondered if they were worried that she would run away of given the chance. She could have tried to convince them she wouldn’t, but she doubted it would be enough to lift the ban. It was meant to be a punishment, so she didn’t think anything she would say would make the situation any better. It still rankled.

  She was upset about it, but she knew she couldn’t have expected a better outcome from the trial. Technically, even though the other woman had lied, Emma had still hurt her. in the normal course of events—though if things had been normal, she never would have ended up in such a situation in the first place—the outcome would have been so much worse. She should consider herself lucky, even. Because the gun wasn’t even hers, she didn't have a license for it. That would have been enough to have her kept behind bars for a few months, at least.

  The female officer stood up with her hand held out, and Emma followed suite.

  "You're free to go now, and you should be ready to commence your community service tomorrow."

  She just nodded again, shook the police officer's hand firmly, and left the room.

  Emma wanted to run all the way out, revel in her freedom, but the rest of the station was still filled with people. It was a bit of a surprise, seeing how many people were there when she had been kept in isolation the past few days and nights. She would have thought that the place was deserted. So instead of outwardly displaying her excitement, she moved through the room almost meekly.

  She felt almost self-conscious when a lot of the people in the room turned to look at her. Now that she was leaving and would be around people again, she wondered what she looked like. Her hair was a mess, she hadn't showered or had a change of clothes in seven days, not to mention the swelling on her face. She felt utterly disgusting and uncomfortable in her own skin. But instead of paying them too much mind, she rushed forward, head ducked down and her eyes on the exit.

  Chase was outside waiting for her, and she let a full blown smile cross her face, dropping only slightly when it pulled on her cheek. Chase just stepped forward to give her a long hug, careful of her injury, and she hugged him back fiercely, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes again. Not that she would let them fall, now that she was out of her cell.

  He pulled back to cup her uninjured cheek, and she could see the light sheen of tears in his eyes that told her he wanted to cry, too, that he was as happy as she was now that she was let out. It had only been three says, but it had felt like way too long.

  "I was so worried, you have no idea. And I wasn’t the only one. I wanted to leave Brian and follow after you but they told me you'd follow right behind me after you rested a bit. I can't believe I just took their word for it. I waited for you, but I must have fallen asleep, and I woke up and you weren’t there..."

  "Hey," she murmured, patting his chest, stopping his fast flow of words. She could barely keep up, but she didn’t need any kind of explanation from Chase. She knew he had a good reason—hell, she had been with them, up until she rushed to the station by herself, so she had some idea. "It's okay. It wasn’t ideal, but I'm fine now. I guess it helped that the woman was clearly lying and she couldn’t control her temper." If she had kept up her act instead of showing her true colors, Emma was pretty sure she would still be back in her cell. "And Carol, the woman I met at the hospital. I owe her for speaking up for me."

  "I talked to her after we left, after your trial. She told me she was impressed by you, she didn’t even blame you for not going back. She's a good friend to have."

  Emma chuckled, low, at the note of appreciation in his voice. She knew Chase appreciated strength more than anything, and Carol might not have looked like much compared to his size, but she had to have a lot of strength to still keep doing what she was doing without losing herself, or her mind, in it. Emma was going to have to look for the older woman at some point and thank her personally.

  "Thank you."

  His eyebrows shot up. "For what?"

  "For getting me out."

  He smiled crookedly, looking sheepish. "I can't take full credit for that. All I did was worry about you and make noise for some of the officers. I got myself kicked out of here the other day when I came to visit you."

  Her eyebrows shot up. "Really?"

  Though she hadn't known Chase to be the aggressive type, well, the past few weeks since the world went dark had definitely shown her a new side of him that said he was certainly capable of it. Still, she couldn’t imagine Chase, of all people, starting a fight with the police to the point he would get himself thrown out.

  "Yeah. At least they listened to me about that guy hurting you. I'm not sure what they did about it, but they told me that they did do something."

  His expression darkened as he remembered, and Emma felt her own happiness dim slightly. She shuddered and pushed the thought away. She was leaving, and hopefully, she would neve
r have to see the man again.

  "Forget about that. Even if you feel you didn’t do enough, I believe that you did. The process could have just as easily taken longer if you hadn't done anything, which I know you must have done. Don’t try to play modest with me."

  He smiled, soft. His hand dropped from her cheek, sliding down her arm until he took her hand in his and gave a light squeeze.

  "Then no problem."

  He turned, pulling her behind him, and they walked home together with their hands entwined.

  Chapter 14

  They walked home in silence, holding hands all the way there. Emma felt serene, even though she felt the aches all over her body the longer they walked. Home wasn’t far, but her body protested every step of the way with the poor conditions she'd been left in for the past several days.

  Still, she was happy. She felt like she was walking on air, she was that excited that she got to go home with Chase. She'd have to return the next day to leave the gun and get news on whatever job she was supposed to be doing now, but she could think of that when tomorrow came. It was still early in the morning, but she planned to go to sleep in her bed as soon as she felt tired, and she wouldn’t leave for a long time.

  She day dreamed, as she walked, of getting home, filling a tub with hot water and sliding in it for an hour or longer to wash off the muck on her body. It was a luxury she had never allowed herself before and wished she could have now. She knew better, though. They were still worried about water, she was pretty sure it was going to have to be cut off at some point. There was no power so they would need to find a way to get clean, filtered water after the generators went out. They already had some stored in tanks, but it wouldn’t last long once the water supply was cut off, so it was another worry to look forward to.

  The few luxuries they did have might not last all that long. Still, she dreamed of it and let that be enough for the moment.

  When she arrived home, Janice was waiting at the door for them. It reminded Emma of the day of the crash, when she left the crash site at the end of the day to find her grandmother waiting for her just like this when she eventually made it home. She released Chase's hand, rushing ahead, and just like that day, Janice greeted her with a long hug. Though thankfully, this time there were no tears.

  "Oh Emma, you have no idea how badly we wanted you to get home," she whispered. Then she pulled away, and Emma noticed just how drawn she looked, even if she wasn’t crying.

  "Grandma, what is it?"

  She threw a look at Chase, before turning back to Janice. She had forgotten again to ask what was going on at home. She felt a little ashamed of herself of forgetting her family like that. She hadn't thought much about them at all since the day she left town, not as much as she should have anyway. And to come home after being away for so long to see her grandmother this distraught...

  "Everything had fallen apart here ever since you left. The neighbor you had come to look after us, I didn’t want to let her stay here after the first day, and it was so bad, Emma. I don’t think it's ever been that bad before."

  She frowned, growing more worried at her grandmother's unintentionally cryptic words. "What happened? Please just tell me."

  Her grandmother leaned close and whispered, "Merry is more of a mess than ever. I don’t know what's wrong, even Karen didn’t know what to do. She came part of the other days you were gone, but your sister wouldn’t behave so I kept sending her back early. Merry no longer listens to anyone and her actions the past days were just so unlike her, I don’t know what happened. You really should go and calm her down, please?"

  Emma sighed, shooting a glance at Chase as she led her grandmother inside the house with an arm around her shoulders, murmuring soothing words to the distraught woman. Just what had happened with her sister to have Janice so unsettled? From what her grandmother was saying, Merry was acting crazier, more unstable than before. Did that mean her condition was getting worse? Emma felt her heart clench. If that happened, what could she possibly do about it?

  She got her grandmother to sit down in the living room and got her a glass of water to drink. She had Chase stay with Janice to calm her down, and then reluctantly headed upstairs to speak to Merry.

  Chase had been home while she was locked up. He might not have had enough time to, but she would have been grateful if he had warned her how bad things were at home. Her day dream seemed years away now, even though she'd had it just a few moments before. If he had told her even when he came to pick her up at the station not even an hour, she could have braced herself for this. As it was, the last thing she wanted after the what she'd just been through was to have to deal with Merry.

  You wanted to come back to this, she reminded herself with a grimace. She felt the weight of responsibility settle back on her shoulders. Merry was part of her responsibility. But, even though she wouldn’t admit it to herself, there was an edge of relief to have back the life she was used to. Coming back to her sister's condition growing worse almost negated it, though.

  Why would her condition have deteriorated so rapidly? It couldn’t possibly just be because Emma was gone. Merry acted like she couldn’t stand her plenty of the time. She had hoped she was missed, but this was out of hand if it had Janice in that state.

  Or was it something else? Was Merry's mental health really that unstable? Had Emma been gone for too long made it worse, or did it have nothing to do with her anyway, and this would have happened even if she'd just stayed closer to home? There was no way to know. As great as it was to have Karen around, clearly she wasn’t meant to look after patients with psychological issues. It only made things more complicated for Emma, because where would she possibly find someone else to help her now?

  If Merry was really that bad, now that she was back, Karen probably wouldn’t be coming back. Which meant Emma was back on square one, looking for someone to take care of her family, especially now that she would have to do community work so she wouldn’t be staying at home for extended lengths of time. She wasn’t even sure yet what they would have her do.

  She stopped at the door before she knocked. Emma could hear Merry muttering to herself in her room, and she took another moment to sigh, closing her eyes to center herself. Then she rapped her knuckles three times on the door and opened it.

  When she entered the room, she found Merry sitting cross-legged on her bed. The room wasn’t as organized as it had been last time, with clothes and things strewn all over the floor like a tornado had blown through and Merry hadn't bothered to pick things up. Though she didn’t always value cleanliness, Merry usually took better care of her things without waiting to be told. That she had left the room in the state it was in was a bad sign, and Emma felt dread grow in her chest.

  Her sister turned to her, and Emma firmed her lips when she noticed Merry's eyes looked wild and exited. She looked untamed, with wild hair, even worse than her usual, and dirt smeared on her face. She didn’t look like she had showered for about as long as Emma. If anything, Merry probably looked worse than she did, and she had been the one living in less than stellar conditions the past several days. Emma could notice the paleness beneath the dirt, though; the dark bruises under her eyes...

  She looked worse than Emma remembered from before. Even in the weeks after the accident that took their parents, where Merry was inconsolable, she had never looked this bad, and not in the time since. Just what had gone on in her absence?

  When she thought about it, Emma realized she hadn't been away from home for longer than a day in years. Definitely not in the past few weeks of the growing crisis. Had this been possible, and she just hadn't noticed, hadn't paid attention? She remembered meeting Merry outside for the first time in a decade, and wondered if it was a sign she had missed, one she should have paid close attention to and stuck around before Merry got worse.

  How had she missed seeing her sister degenerating this badly?

  It took Merry a moment to focus on Emma, and then she was grinning and holding out h
er arms eagerly, gesturing with her hands for Emma to get closer.

  "Come one, sis. Come here. Come sit with me so I can tell you about my latest vision." Her voice was hoarse, scratchy, like she hadn't drunk any water in too long. Or, hadn't spoken in a while.

  Or, had spent too long screaming until it affected her vocal chords.

  What happened the day I left here?

  Emma didn’t move, eyeing her sister. This was not the welcome she expected. No surprise she was back, no real discernible emotion besides her excitement. Yet Emma knew that was for the sake of speaking out her vision, not because Emma was back. There was no way this could have had anything to do with her, could it? Merry didn’t seem to notice her hesitation, the look of wild excitement growing in her face worrying Emma a bit.

  There was no way she could get anywhere near her sister with how she was acting. She didn’t fear for her life, exactly, but Merry was so obviously not stable. And she clearly had words that Merry wouldn’t like, that she wasn’t ready to listen to after the week she'd had. She didn’t want to be within reaching distance in case her sister decided to get violent. She didn’t think it would happen, she would back out of the room if there was even a possibility, but it wasn't impossible either.

  "Merry, you need to calm down," she said slowly, holding her ground.

  Her sister's face screwed into a scowl, and with how she looked, it only made her more frightening. She clenched and unclenched her hands in the air between them, reaching harder, but if anything, Emma shuffled back. Merry seemed to notice, her scowl darkening as she leaned forward. An image ran through Emma's mind, of her sister leaping at her, arms outstretched, hands curled into claws, before she shoved it away. Her sister wasn’t an animal.

  "I am calm," she said. "But I've been waiting for you, Emma. I had another vision, I had so many of them when you left, but this one concerns you. Don’t you want to know what it is? It's important."

  Emma frowned. She had to admit her sister sounded lucid enough. If it wasn’t for her words, not to mention how she looked, Emma would have assumed she was just fine. She didn’t speak any differently than she had before, but Emma could only take that as a bad sign.