Clara knew they couldn’t be far from home. She recognized the landmarks they'd passed along the way. But at this point, she felt like giving up. It was evening already, and they had been moving since before the sun even rose, so they had been walking for maybe twelve hours, if not longer. The only thing that kept her moving was her determination to get home.
Walking was one thing. But with no food or water, their journey had become even harder. All the sweating she'd done before, though they'd made a point of moving under the shade, had left them all dehydrated. Her throat felt so dry, and the cold air on all the cooling sweat made her shiver. The hunger pangs weren’t as bad, but her stomach felt so empty, and she felt a little sick.
She thought of getting home to Viola and Tessa, thought of Alice leaving them alone once the three days were over since that was as long as she had paid her for. Viola would have made sure she and her children kept fed while they were over, and she would have kept the food Clara gave her for herself and her kids, which meant she likely got even more than what Clara gave her. She wouldn’t put it past anyone at this point. But thinking of getting back to her family got her through.
Several miles out of town, Dante stopped suddenly in his tracks and almost pitched forward onto the ground. He was right beside her, and it was the only reason she even realized. She reached for him, even as he stopped from falling forward, but curling around his stomach with his hands on his knees. Cooper stopped with them on Clara's other side.
"Dante, what is it," she breathed, coughing a little to clear some of the hoarseness in her voice. Even that was weak, though.
"Stomach cramps," he said weakly. "I don’t think I can keep moving."
No. They were so close. After all the walking, they'd done, they couldn’t just stop. They were so close to town, to getting home. To finally letting themselves get some rest, food, and water. Besides, she and Cooper were hungry too, so if they could do it, he should have been able to go on. They were maybe an hour away if they picked up their speed a little.
Then she remembered that he had been out of his place for a few days. She wondered if he had eaten in that time and winced. He probably hadn't, so there was a possibility he could be worse off than the both of them. She remembered him devouring his rations earlier and felt a spike of anxiety.
Clara desperately turned to Cooper. She wasn’t stopping, but they couldn’t just leave Dante.
"Can you help him?"
Cooper sighed but reluctantly reached for him, slinging Dante's arm around his shoulders and helping him as they carried on. It would slow them down, but it was still better than looking for some place to spend the night when she could practically see their destination. It wouldn’t be safe to be out once it was night, anyway, not this close to people. They hadn't met any others yet, and she didn’t plan on meeting anyone this far out.
"Thanks," she heard Dante tell Cooper.
Cooper just grunted in response, but Clara was glad they finally seemed to support one another again. It was a far cry from being friends again, but if he still felt such a grudge, Cooper would have put up more of a fight about helping and tried to get Dante to get over it and move.
They went ahead, and Clara almost cried when she realized she could see home, they might as well have been within the town limit.
As they approached the town, she got Cooper's attention. "I'll make the final push and get some help for Dante. I know it's exhausting for you to drag him around."
They were closer to town, but it was still a bit before they could get home. Dante was moving in a shuffling walk, and she could see the strain in Cooper as he practically carried the other man. They were probably around the same size, so it must not have been easy for him to take on the extra weight in his current condition. It was a testament to how bad he felt that he didn’t argue.
Clara forced her burning legs to keep moving, faster, though she felt on the verge of collapse herself. The pain in her head and her face had settled in a low ache, but she still felt it. She was physically and mentally exhausted, but she was so close. Too close. She'd take care of how she got back home after.
Finally, she made it to the police station. She practically crawled up the steps to get inside, since there didn't seem to be anyone around outside. There weren’t as many people around, either.
"Help us," she begged of the first person she came to, her voice low and reedy. She didn’t know him, and he almost seemed to jump, freezing for a moment, before rushing to help her when she stumbled and nearly fell. She held onto him weakly, forcing her voice to work. "Please. My friends and I, we're all weak from hunger."
She was led to a chair and allowed to sit, and she almost groaned at the relief of getting off her legs. When she got home, she was going to spend the next twenty-four hours in bed. But when he tried to move away, she clutched at him with what was left of her strength.
"Can someone go take a look at my friends? I came here to get help, one of them is in really bad condition. He can barely move on his own."
He nodded and she let him go. She listened in, barely hearing as scouts were sent out to pick up Cooper and Dante as per her request. She watched as one of the officers broke open their little vending machine and took out some snacks for her. She was already reaching for them before they got back to her.
Clara ate the snacks greedily, not caring how it made her look. Her stomach growled as she forced the food, only partially chewed, down her throat. She only had the food in her mouth long enough to make it easier to swallow. It might make digestion painful later, she knew it could make her sick, but she didn’t care, as long as she was no longer hungry. She then drank about a liter of water, not quite in one go, but close to chase down the food.
After the water and the food were gone, and her breathing had slowed down, one of the officers dragged a chair closer to hers.
"Can you tell us what happened, ma'am?"
She nodded weakly and explained to them all that had happened. The trip there, getting to the town and what they saw. She mentioned having their bikes and supplies taken, getting hit when she protested and blacking out. Then waking up hours later and the long trip back.
They looked horrified when she mentioned the state they had found the town in, but as she spoke of what happened to them, they seemed to have some sympathy for her.
"You can relax now," one of them told her, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder. "Your friends will get some help once they get here, and then you can all go home."
She nodded, feeling relieved.
It was short-lived, though. Because just then, a woman with bandages over her arm left the police station office, with the Sheriff right behind her. She spotted Clara, and Clara recognized her right away—it was the woman she shot.
All she could do was sit there, stupefied, looking at the other woman. She watched as the woman pointed, feeling the inevitability of it, doing nothing to fight it. The ringing in her ears was back, but she heard what the woman said loud and clear.
"That's the woman that tried to shoot me."
Clara was too exhausted. Her body was wiped, she didn’t even feel the adrenaline rushing through her blood at the thought of getting caught. She didn’t try to refute the statement, didn’t even think of running.
There was no point.
People around her moved, and then there were people moving her. She didn’t resist as if she even could. She had a moment to think, she was glad Cooper wasn’t there to see it. He would have argued, thrown himself into the thick of things without thinking, and gotten himself taken in with her. that was the last thing she wanted—going home had been a goal, one she wouldn’t achieve, so Cooper had to go look after her family for her. She had a moment of dissociation, where it felt like all this was something she was watching, not experiencing first hand.
It was her life, though, not someone else's.
Clara was placed under arrest.
Chapter Ten
Clara was placed in a cell for the nig
ht.
She went in when she was told to, just happy to have the hands let go of her. She hadn't seen anyone she knew yet and wondered if they all left early because they were around a lot from early in the day. Hearing the metal door slide closed behind her, though, brought some reaction, her heart beating out a little faster.
They were locking her up.
She had known that, of course. She walked inside of her own will, but it hit her just then that they weren’t going to let her go. She wouldn’t get to talk to Cooper, and she knew he would worry. And when she didn’t go home with him, so would her sister and grandmother. But what could she say that would make them let her out? If she could just get home and see for herself that they were okay…
"You'll be questioned in the morning," the cop that had dragged her into the room told her brusquely as he went to leave.
The breath left her, and almost immediately she was sucking it back in, rushing for the bars, hands reaching through to get him to stop.
"Wait! Please, can I at least get to see my family? I was supposed to get back today! I just need to make sure they're okay. Please!"
He didn't stop, though, even as she continued to beg, locking the door on his way out. He acted like he didn’t hear her at all, even though she was shouting. She wondered, idly, where the sympathy from a few moments ago, after seeing her condition and hearing what she'd gone through, had disappeared to. But mostly, she was left stunned at how quickly things could go to hell.
Cooper. Would he even hear about this, or just head home expecting her to followed behind him?
Dammit! Why hadn't Clara spoken up when that woman accused her! Clara hadn't been trying to shoot her, it was a stupid accident, and it wasn’t like the woman was innocent either. Thinking about it now, she knew the other woman wouldn’t have told them about what she'd been doing when Clara came across her, the reason Clara had pointed a weapon at her at all.
Clara had missed her shot at making it home for the night. It was a long shot that they would just let her go with such an accusation, but if she had tried, if she had just explained her side of the story, she could have avoided this. She wanted to hit the bars in her frustration, but it would only hurt her. She reined in her anger, knowing she couldn’t just allow herself to give into it.
She was back in her right mind, a little energy back in her body now that she was fed and hydrated, but what good would it do her? There was no lighting in the cell, save for one tiny barred window, and it was getting darker by the minute. The only thing she could consider herself lucky for was that she was the only one in here.
But then she glanced around and thought about staying the night. There was nothing in the cell, not a blanket, nor anything she could comfortably sleep on. The room was already cold, and she could imagine it would only get colder. She might just freeze to death before it was even morning.
She began to cry, tears stinging her eyes then overflowing. She tried to hold them back, but it was a losing battle. The tears fell faster, and she could hear her breathing grow ragged, feel her chest start to heave with heavy, loud sobs. She was unsure how she managed to get herself in such a mess. Exhaustion still tugged at her, her legs trembling with the effort to keep her standing, and she felt her knees would give out soon, so she moved.
The space was bare, she realized as she glanced around. There wasn’t even a cot for her to sleep on or anything, and she didn’t feel like sleeping on the ground anymore. It would be different from sleeping outside, even worse. So, she moved to the only other place she could, stumbling a little.
Clara collapsed on the metal bench in her cell, then lay down on her side, and slept.
She was woken in the morning by a police officer. He was banging on the metal bars, and the loud ringing had her squinting her eyes open. She felt uncomfortable, could barely feel her legs and almost stumbled when she got off the bench. Her stomach ached a bit, making her wince and press a curled fist into her abdomen until it died down. She looked up at the hard face of another officer she didn’t recognize.
"Get up. Now. They're ready to question you," he told her, sounding bored.
He opened the doors, gestured for her to head out. He didn’t help her although she stumbled a couple more times, the ache in her legs from all the exercise the past few days, and the uncomfortable position she'd slept in making her legs feel like jelly.
On the one hand, she was grateful he didn’t touch her. She would probably scream and make matters worse for herself if he tried to. She was jittery, the feeling growing worse as her mind woke up further. But part of her knew it was a bad sign. He wasn’t showing any sympathy, and though it could mean nothing more than she got stuck with an asshole cop, it could also mean they really thought she was guilty.
How could she get herself out of this mess? Why had she thought doing nothing was the best idea? The woman had been at the station, so did that mean she had been there to report on the shooting? Clara had been worried about running into the woman, she should have thought about this more. She would never have imagined the woman would sell her out, though. Not with the way she had been acting, after she got injured, falling over herself to apologize for losing her head and sounding so sincere.
Had all that been an act? It had to be. It was the only thing that made sense in this situation.
Clara was put in a questioning room and someone else, a serious-looking officer stepped in the room with her. She was seated at a small metal table, and when he met her in the room, he took the chair opposite her, and they sat in silence. It unnerved her, and she was still trembling, with the cold, the slight pain in her stomach, and the anxiety, but she did her best not to let her unease show.
"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" he finally asked.
Clara wondered if she should keep her mouth shut. She already knew they wouldn’t like her story. If she had any thoughts things would end well, she would have taken the woman over to the hospital herself, walked over to the station instead of going back on patrol, and reported on what happened. It wouldn’t have absolved her of guilt, but it would have put her in a better spot than she was in now.
Attempting to run away from it had been one of her worst ideas to date.
But there was nothing she could do about that now. She had made her decision and too much time had passed. If she kept her mouth shut, it would be like admitting her guilt without even trying to defend her actions. Because, as much as she knew she was in the wrong, she wasn’t the only one. Speaking up might not get her out of the trouble she found herself in, but if she had to be in trouble, she was going to drag that woman with her for getting her into this position in the first place. It was spiteful of her, but Clara didn’t care at that moment.
She was the only one that got arrested. That meant the woman was keeping her own involvement silent. She deserved it, and maybe, if Clara could make them see the woman was leaving gaps in her story, it might offer better support for her case.
Since she had already been exposed, she came to the conclusion the truth would come out eventually anyway. Besides, there’s no way Clara would let that woman get away with trying to steal and then accuse her of murder. Clara was miserable because of it, why did she get to run away from the consequences?
So, Clara took in a shaky breath and folded her arms over the table.
"It's not like I went out of my way to find this woman and shoot her," she explained. "I'd been doing some volunteer work, and I was told to go on patrol that day. I found her breaking into a shop around the time for curfew. She had a bat, and she was trying to break the window to get in and likely steal the food. I told her not to; I had the gun aimed at her, but she wouldn’t stop. I didn’t even mean to shoot. It was an accident, and the shot went into the glass behind her, and some of the glass cut her arm."
She stopped the now-rapid flow of words, taking a breath and trying to calm herself again, to stop her body from trembling with her anxiety. There was another moment of silence where the cop
just watched her with cold, assessing eyes.
"Do you believe your actions to be somewhat extreme for petty thievery?"
She almost barked out a laugh, and barely held back in time. Everything about the world they currently lived in was extreme, or she wouldn’t have found herself in this position. He wasn’t trying to be funny, and she doubted that humor of any kind, even the grim kind, would have been taken well.
"How else was I supposed to react? I don’t get into a lot of similar situations." Though if she was honest, it was the second time. But he hadn't asked, so she didn’t tell. "I didn’t know how to act; my first instinct was to defend myself. I was scared and I wasn’t thinking straight."
"Did the woman you shot threaten you?" the officer asked next.
Clara winced at how bluntly he said it. She wanted to correct him, say she shot at the woman, since no bullet actually hit her, although she still ended up injured. She was pretty sure that wouldn’t be taken well either and decided it was better not to make the distinction.
When Clara thought back, though, she realized the woman didn’t explicitly threaten her. Well, not in words. If anything, she had been goading Clara on, laughing at the gun, telling her she wouldn’t shoot. Clara had thought the woman was taking a step forward, trying to come at her with the bat in hand, even as Clara held a gun aimed at her. But she realized that the woman could just as easily have stumbled the step without meaning to take it. In any case, it hadn't happened since the gun went off before she could move too far, so Clara couldn’t use it.
Instead, she argued, "I was under pressure. She had a bat, I told her to stop. She saw the gun, but even then, she didn’t stop. She didn’t act like she was in her right mind and I didn’t know how to respond. She was stumbling toward me, but I can't exactly say that was a threat. I didn’t even mean to shoot, she just freaked me out and my finger squeezed the trigger a bit. I didn’t expect it to be so sensitive because I'm not used to guns. I just didn’t want her getting too close to me."
Zero Power (Book 2): Trying To Survive Page 8