She stopped before her words could start to grow really desperate. Not that he looked moved. If anything, she could imagine his eyes accusing her of committing a crime herself. Clara firmed her jaw.
"I didn’t just take myself out there for my own amusement. I left a family at home that I was supposed to look after. I was put out on the street, as a volunteer, to protect this town," she reminded him. "I came here for a job, and I was told to go out on patrol, I was also told to arm myself when I went out. And that was what I did."
There was another long silence, but she refused to be cowed this time. She held his gaze, didn’t even blink, until he leaned forward, hands pushing down on the table, preparing to stand as his gaze lowered.
"I've heard enough."
He got up and gestured her to get up as well. Clara watched him intently, but nothing in his expression gave anything away. She wondered in frustration what he was thinking. If he still felt like she was guilty. She didn’t think they were going to let her go, though, or else he would have told her, and she clenched her fists at her sides so she wouldn’t give into her anger.
The other officer was nowhere to be found, but her interrogator took her back to her cell himself, closing it behind her and then leaving her alone. She didn’t try to ask for anything this time, she was sure he would ignore her like the last guy, anyway. She just watched his back as he left her there, before she slowly sat on the bench, and then moved so she was lying down, even though it was uncomfortable.
Clara contemplated what her future would be.
Chapter Eleven
After a while that seemed like forever, Clara heard the door open.
She bolted upright, cursing internally when she nearly pitched to the floor for rushing and sat upright to see who her visitor was. Cooper would have noticed something was up when she didn’t make it home. It was still early, but Clara expected to see him today. He would be worried, so he'd come to the place where she'd been last.
But it wasn’t him, and she felt disappointed. She had so much she needed to know from him. Was Dante all right? Had they both made it home? She wanted to ask him how her family was doing; if they noticed something was wrong. What she didn’t want was him seeing her locked up in prison, but he would find out anyway because she knew he wouldn’t just sit still and wait for her to get back in her own time. She had been surprised he hadn't come back the other night when she didn’t make it home, but he must have been exhausted.
Her visitor was someone else she didn’t know, and she wondered just how many police officers there were that she hadn't met yet in the time since she'd been coming here. Also, if it was deliberate that none of the ones she had seen since yesterday were familiar. Did they even know she was locked up there? Besides her meeting with them to be given her volunteer assignments, there was no relationship between them, but she liked to think they'd look in on her if they knew.
She scoffed internally. She was thinking naively again. She might know them and vice versa, but they had no obligation to her. She was just one of the many people they met while carrying out their duties. It was ridiculous of her to think she was somehow special as if she had done more for the town than anyone else. Thinking along that vein, there were others who had done more, seeing as none of the tasks she had ever done ended in successes. The only thing she could rate differently was her first task when she helped out at the hospital, but she knew she hadn't been much help there, and she ended up running away in the end.
They probably just spent all their time talking to people coming in, dealing with their problems and doling out more jobs. She wondered why she was the only person even in custody unless they had other cells. She didn’t think the town was so calm that no one else would have been caught committing a crime. If she came across someone on patrol, surely others would have as well? Hell, if she had reported that woman like she was supposed to, she might not have been the one put behind bars, or not the only one.
But then, she might not have been there to get Tessa home, and would her sister have made it back by herself, without attracting attention or without getting caught out by others out on patrol? Tessa might have ended up in prison herself for doing something stupid. Clara put the pointless thoughts out of her mind. She got up and moved to the bars as the guard walked further into the room.
"Excuse me?" she said politely. "Could I please trouble you for a glass of water?"
She hadn't gotten anything, not to eat or drink, since they locked her up, and she wondered if they planned to feed her at all. She wasn’t hungry yet, her stomach was still upset at her from yesterday, but she could definitely use some water right about then. She would worry about getting food in her stomach later.
He paused, still a bit away, before he was moving forward again. His gait changed, just slightly, so it looked almost like he stalked forward, and Clara felt a frisson of unease crawl through her body. It confused her, but she was on her guard, and she kept a closer eye on the man.
"I won't give precious water to someone who tried to kill an innocent woman."
The words were said matter-of-fact, almost blandly, but to Clara, it almost felt like a punch to the gut. For a moment, all she could do was stare dumbly at him, until he was close enough that she could see the look in his eyes. Though his face was neutral, his eyes weren’t. They were lit up in dark amusement, almost cruel. He was there to make fun of her, not help her.
Clara felt her back straighten and a curl of anger began to grow in her stomach. Was this man sent to be her guard, or did he volunteer just so he could watch her humiliation? She had no problem envisioning the latter. He saw her situation as funny. Clara wasn’t in the mood to be taunted.
"You don’t know anything," she hisses at the guard.
Keep your mouth shut.
The words floated in her mind but too late. She remembered the last time she spoke out of turn to someone in a position of power she did not have. He didn’t have a gun anywhere on him that she could see, but she was still the one locked up here. It had only been a couple days ago, after all, and she felt a flash of déjà vu. This man might look more reserved, but she imagined he wasn’t any better than those men had been; it just meant he kept the crazy locked up pretty well.
When the realization came, she was already moving away from the bars. He was too close, and she wanted to be as far away from him as possible. But he was faster, probably seeing her intention, or catching some sign in her that showed she was retreating, because he jumped forward suddenly. He reached in through the bars before she could go far, moving a lot faster since he wasn’t hampered by weakness.
The guard slapped her across her swollen face, getting her right over the injury she'd gotten only two days before. The force of it was surprising, she hadn't thought he could hurt her that much from behind bars, but she felt the full impact of it, and it was almost as bad as the last time she got hit.
She cried out as she stumbled back, a wave of dizziness hitting her as the headache and the ache in her face, came back full force. She held her hand up to her face without thinking, hissing and pulling the hand back when it just seemed to make her face throb more.
The eye above the injury squinted in pain as she looked at the guard, noticed the almost there look of satisfaction on his face, and felt a wave of hate so strong her eyesight blurred.
"I hope they let you stay in here longer," he said. "Maybe I can come back here and play with you again." He grinned. "You deserve it, anyway. You're scum."
Clara felt a chill crawl up her spine at how he spoke. She could only imagine what he meant when he said 'play,' obviously, it wouldn’t be fun for her. She wanted to scream back at him for hurting her, but she had an idea that it would only make her hurt more. Besides, if she gave into the provocation, he just might outright laugh at her. She could say whatever she wanted, he wouldn’t think he was in the wrong. Clara had only ever heard about guys like that existing in the police force, and she figured the only way to avoid more pain an
d humiliation was to ignore him, no matter how much it grated.
After delivering his parting shot, he moved out of sight. She heard him chuckle before he stepped out of the room, and looked over to see him shoot her a smirk that made her grit her teeth.
She held herself stiff, until she heard the door close behind him, with a loud thump that made her head throb.
Clara wanted to hit him. If the bars hadn't been in her way, no matter how pointless it would have been, she would have hit him. How many times had she been in that situation since the EMP? Too many to even think about. Just because she was a woman, just because she looked weak, people kept looking down on her. Even that woman had done it, while Clara held a gun aimed at her. And now this, after getting locked up here in the condition she arrived in.
Was that what she had to look forward to if she stayed locked up? She was lucky this time that he hadn't thought to open the bars. There was no way Clara could overpower that guy. He wasn’t quite as big as Cooper, but he was still a lot stronger than she was. She had felt it in just that one slap, and she had a bad feeling it wasn’t even the extent of his strength. If he really came at her, there wasn't much she could do to defend herself.
Then, the anger was just suddenly gone, and tears sprang to her eyes as she started to cry. Tears of pain, of frustration over her situation.
It was an accident! She wanted to scream the words, to defend herself, but would they even listen to her now? She stumbled over to the metal bench and sat down, ignoring the sting from the tears touching the bruise on her face. She felt something wet, but thicker than tears on how swelling cheek. She looked at her hand, the one she had touched to her face, and saw a few drops of red on her fingers.
Her face was bleeding. She just stared at the spots of blood on her hand, not sure what she was feeling just then. Her tears blurred her sight, and she blinked them away only for more to come. How long would she have to be there? It hadn't even been that long, yet it felt like it had been ages. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could survive before she broke down, not when it was starting already.
"Are you okay?" she heard a familiar voice asking.
She looked up, surprised to see Cooper there. She hadn't heard him come in. He must have walked in not long after the guard had left, but how had she not noticed? Not that it even mattered. She was just happy to see him.
He stood close to the bars, catching hold of them with his hands like he wished he had the power to bend the bars and get her out of there. His eyes moved over her face, narrowing slightly on her cheek in anger, before meeting her eyes, his expression melting into anguish when he saw the tears still leaking out of her eyes.
"Cooper," she croaked. Her voice was barely recognizable.
She stumbled to her feet, ignoring the pain in her head as she rushed to the bars, so glad to finally see a familiar face; and of all people, it was Cooper. He reached for her the same time she reached for him, clutching at his hands through the bars, wishing they weren’t in the way so she could hug him tightly and draw more comfort from him. The tears only came faster, seeing him there. She'd worried for a second that her mind was gone and she was just imagining him, but he was really there.
"Clara, what the hell happened? Two cops found me and Dante and gave us food and water last night, and then told us to get home. I figured you'd be right behind me, but then I woke up and you weren’t there. Why are they keeping you in here? No one would tell me."
She took in a breath that wobbled slightly as the tears continued to fall. She should have told him a long time ago. Why had she even waited? This was Cooper. He wouldn’t have held the action against her. He would have been angry on her behalf that she had been pushed to that point.
But maybe that was the why. She had needed to blame herself for what she did. Because she didn’t want to repeat it again. Just thinking she was capable of it made her hate herself a little, and hearing him tell her that she shouldn’t blame herself would have only made her feel worse than she did from committing the act.
Cooper was her voice of reason, though. If she had told him what she did, he would have taken her to the cops himself so she would report it. It was so much better than waiting to get caught. Cooper would have put things into perspective for her, and she would have gone along with whatever decision he made, knowing it was the right one. She could only regret ever deciding to hide this from him. And now he had to see her like this.
"That day I went out at night, I was doing something for the cops. I was told to go out on patrol, and I took the gun with me. There was this woman. I swear I didn't want to shoot her! It was an accident and the shot went through the glass, but she got hit. She was there yesterday when I got here and she recognized me, I got arrested. I am so sorry for what I did, Cooper, I should have told you…"
Her voice grew quiet as she spoke until the words just trailed off. The crying was back full force, heavy sobs heaving out of her chest, tears falling so fast she could barely see his face before it was going blurry even as she kept blinking the tears away. For a moment, Cooper looked pained, and her heart squeezed in sympathy at the obvious pain in his eyes, knowing it was her fault the look was even there on his face. Then he was angry, and her breath hitched.
Clara made a wounded sound in the back of her throat, her heart spiking in her anxiety as she clutched at him tighter, silently pleading with him not to leave her alone, especially when he was mad. She could explain better if he just gave her the chance. She thought he was angry at her, and he had every right to be. He might have been angry enough to just leave her there in the state she was in, but she couldn’t take that, no matter how deserved. With everything else that was happening, losing Cooper would definitely be the thing that broke her.
"Shh," he murmured, clutching her hands back, no longer trying to pull away when he noticed her panic. "I'm not going anywhere, I promise. I believe you, okay? Calm down, Clara. Just relax."
He kept murmuring soothing words to her until she calmed down, his hands moving from hers, running up her arms so he wouldn’t distress her more, to grip her shoulders. His face held so many expressions she couldn’t read him right, but the pain and anger were still very much there.
"I'll speak to the police and see if I can get you out, okay? I won't leave you here long, I promise."
She didn’t want him to leave for any length of time, she wasn’t even sure how long he'd been there for, but it wasn’t enough for her. Not after the night she'd had, even though she'd slept uncomfortably through most of it.
"Please don't leave," she begged quietly, her voice barely a whisper, her hands tightening even more as she clutched his arms.
But he was shaking his head, and she could feel more tears flowing, silently this time. She knew he had to, but she didn’t want him to. She didn’t want to be alone again.
"I would stay, but I was only granted a few minutes to see you. I promise I'll get you out as soon as possible. I just need to go talk to them."
NO!
She wanted to scream the word, but she didn’t let it get past her lips. Instead, she forced her breaths to come in evenly, taking in deeper breaths to calm her lungs, trying to think rationally. She hadn't even thought of her family in all this. Someone had to take care of them. And logically, she knew that Cooper wouldn’t lie to her and just leave her there. She wasn’t sure what he could do, even if he talked to the cops, but she was sure of this much. Even if he was angry at her, he wouldn’t do that. She repeated the words to herself over and over, trying to make herself believe it again.
Get a grip already!
The sooner he got out of there and did something, the sooner she could find a way out. She nodded shakily, reluctantly releasing him as he did the same. She looked away, knowing if she was looking right at him, she'd beg him to stay again, even though it would only hurt them both because he couldn’t stay.
Cooper went away, and Clara was left feeling even more alone.
Chapter Twelve
Clara was awakened again the next morning.
She heard the door this time, before the police officer who came this morning even got close to the bars. She sat up on her bench, sliding as far from the bars as possible while eyeing him warily. His steps hesitated for a second, eyes flitting to her injured cheek, then walked slower. He stopped a bit of distance away from the bars, holding his hands up and out, palms facing her, trying to appear non-threatening.
Her eyes narrowed. Why was he acting so cautiously? Was it a trick? Or had Cooper complained about her injury and they actually listened to him? She must have looked worse than when she came in if it was so noticeable, though she didn’t know exactly who had been there to see her get arrested. This guy might just be reacting in sympathy because she was injured. Not that Clara would let herself trust it.
Seeing she had her hackles up, he held still, a few feet away from the bars, unmoving. She waited for him to say whatever he had come for, but he didn’t, eyes on her like he was waiting for something, too. She wondered what he was doing until it occurred to her. He was trying not to scare her. She still watched him in suspicion, but she let herself relax and meet his eyes with a small frown. She could see, now that she was really looking, that he wasn’t like the other guy.
"It's okay. I just came to collect you because you're needed somewhere."
Where? She didn’t want to go anywhere with a cop after the last one. But she reminded herself that she was in police custody and really didn’t have much of a choice unless she preferred prison. Though this was her second night in, she couldn’t say that she did. Besides, it would only look bad for her if she acted stubbornly. She wanted to get out of here quickly, not have them consider keeping her longer.
Zero Power (Book 2): Trying To Survive Page 9