by Cal, Sarah
They had comforted her when she lost her deal with Williams, but that hadn't necessarily meant they would keep trusting her to be of use. Even though no one had said it directly to her face, Emma was pretty sure some people that hadn't been there, or hadn't been aware of the full situation, had definitely blamed her for what she'd done wrong. It only made her more determined to win their trust back and keep working to help out.
"All right," he agreed. "I'll let you go. I do ask that you set out the next day. Just come back here tomorrow and try to be early, okay? You'll get a few more details then."
She nodded brusquely, then got up and left. If they were sending her off so soon, then they must have been thinking about it for a while, and putting it off while they decided on who would take the trip. She wondered if they had everything ready, but probably not. He had said they were still looking for a car. Hopefully, they'd prepare to have her go out.
There was a skip in her step as she went home. She found Chase in the living room, alone, and wondered where everyone else was. He smiled when he saw her, though, so she knew everything was fine.
"Hey. You're back earlier than I thought."
She answered his smile with one of her own, moving so she sat next to him on the couch.
"I don’t have anything to do right away, so I thought I might as well. It's another trip outside, just longer."
"Did they give you any details?"
She shook her head. "Not a lot, just that I will need to be away for a while. They're trying to find out the extent of the effects of the EMP. Other people were already sent out to other towns and they appear to be in the same situation, so they're looking to go farther."
Chase looked thoughtful, nodding slowly. "I imagined they'd have to. This thing attacked all the closest big towns to here, it must have gotten far. We can't expect help from outside so it will take them a while just to figure out how far this thing goes. It could very well be the whole country..."
Emma knew that was what everyone was worried about. If this had affected the whole country, then it wouldn’t be as easy a problem to fix as people hoped. Even worse, there would be no help for them, ever, with the way things were going. It at all, it was a long way off. But no one wanted to write it off completely, because then they'd have to admit to themselves just how impossible the situation they were in was. There would be chaos if everyone just admitted defeat instead of looking for a way out of it.
"I wanted to ask you to accompany me on the trip," she admitted.
Chase frowned and looked towards the stairs. "Who will look after Janice and Merry if we both go? I thought you didn’t like leaving them alone by themselves."
"I asked Karen to help out," she explained. "She's a nurse and one of our neighbors. I asked her to help out with Janice and Merry and in return we can share food with her and her kids. I thought she came around?"
Emma had left the house pretty early, but Karen had promised to come by. Come to think of it, it was barely noon and Karen and her kids were nowhere to be seen. But Chase nodded, and that made her relax a bit.
"Year, but I told her she didn’t have to stick around the whole day. One of her kids wasn’t feeling well and she had to go back. But are you sure she can handle it? Is it even a good idea to have other people coming here?"
Emma wondered, if he meant it was a good idea to let others see just how much they had in their supplies. It was dangerous, in case they somehow made their way out to the shed. They could sell them out to the police for keeping all that food, or blackmail them for more supplies. Or, they might attempt to just outright steal without them noticing. Emma didn’t want to think that of her fellow human beings, but they were desperate times.
It was necessary, though. She wouldn’t risk anything happening to her family just because she was worried. Somehow, the situation just had to be okay.
"I don’t like it either, but I know she's a qualified nurse, and Merry needs all the help she can get. I can't just let her do as she wants, and none of us know how to handle her that well, not even me. We can't leave them by themselves."
She sighed and looked down. "I need to be doing things to keep me occupied," she confessed, reaching for both his hands and squeezing them in hers, and then peering up at him from under her lashes. "It's going to be the longest trip yet, I don’t even know how far we'll be going, or how long it will take to make it there and get back. And I want you there with me."
Chase blushed. It surprised her for a moment, seeing his olive skin darken with blood rushing to his face, but her surprise was replaced with a smile at the next words he said.
"I'll go with you," he agreed, like she'd hoped he would.
Chapter 5
As Emma and Chase were leaving the next day, Karen approached the house with her kids.
They were a boy and girl of about ages eight and twelve. Emma waved a hand at them awkwardly. She liked kids as young as Brian and Kellen's daughter. But she had known the other girl longer.
The boy was at least only slightly older, but already beyond the age group that Emma could deal with. Of course, it helped that she'd been around Brianna Wright since she had been a toddler, and Brianna was familiar with Emma as well. The girl reminded Emma too much of the freshmen that usually came into her school, even though she was about a year or two behind. Through her work at the school, she'd come to realize that she dealt with teenagers the worst.
She had already stopped by the station earlier to get more information of the new task, so they just needed to be on their way. If Karen hadn't shown up, they would have had to stop by the nurse's house to speak to her and get them settled at the house, so this was convenient.
The first thing Emma had learned, was the police didn’t have a car yet. They were still determined to look, but they couldn’t find anything in the time before she had to leave. So she and Chase would have to go by bike. It lessened the time and distance they would have to go, actually, because no one expected them to go that far on just bikes. She supposed it was safer than a car, it would undoubtedly bring attention to them, but she imagined how exhausting the trip would be. Although, they couldn’t entirely escape calling attention to themselves, anyway.
Estimated time was around three days because of the shortened length of the trip. So Emma had prepared a bag of food to pay for the three days she planned to be away for. It was a lot safer that way, seeing as she was sure Merry wouldn’t go ahead with the plan, and she wasn't sure their grandmother even remembered what they had out in the shed. It would be safer if Karen and her kids didn’t notice they had more than what was in the house.
Really, she just didn’t want news of all the food they had getting around.
Leaving her sister and grandmother alone still made her anxious, but she felt a little comforted knowing they wouldn’t be by themselves.
Emma handed the prepared bag of food over to Karen. She nodded at the other woman's inquisitive look, that was quickly followed by one of relief.
"We should be gone for three days, max. If it takes longer I might add you more when I get back. My sister is awake and sitting in the living room, though she'll probably be moving to her bedroom soon. She spends most of her time there. You'll find my grandmother in the kitchen or out in the garden. If she wants to work out there then let her, just remind her she needs to eat."
Karen nodded along as Emma talked, clutching the bag of food and urging her kids closer to the house. Two sets of curious but cautious eyes looked up at the two of them as they moved away. Emma didn’t pay them much mind. Though she loved her other neighbor, Kellen's daughter, she had known the little girl for years. These two didn’t even look like they wanted to be friendly.
When she had no more to say, she stepped away, feeling Chase's comforting warmth beside her as anxiety nearly overwhelmed her.
It's all right. They're in the best of hands. The kind of professional help none of them would have been able to afford before. She just had to trust that Karen knew what she was d
oing. At least Janice would be glad for the companionship.
"Have a safe trip," Karen called out to them.
Emma watched as she knocked to be let in. Merry was the one to open the door and warily let her inside. Emma saw her sister shoot her and Chase a sharp look before she closed the door hastily. Emma knew she wasn’t happy, but she wouldn’t do anything about it. In spite of how she acted, how she let herself look, Merry wasn’t actually a bad person, no matter how bitter she got.
If she didn’t want to talk to anyone, she kept to herself, and it was the best that Emma could hope for. They hadn't talked at length about what having someone else in the house they didn’t know very well meant, but Emma was sure Merry would be even more aware than she was, and she would be careful.
"So, where to now?" Chase asked, conversational.
She shot him a look. "Well, I was told they had some bikes for us, so we have to head back into town to pick them up."
At least they didn’t have to go with her parents' bikes. After losing both hers and Merry's bikes, she couldn’t risk those as well so soon.
She could have told them she had the bikes in her place, but she had been dismissed because they were busy that morning, and she gladly left without mentioning it. Emma had almost asked what else had gone wrong, but then decided she really did not need to know. She had more than enough to worry about currently without taking more on her shoulders.
They walked in silence, not hurrying their pace. They would be gone for a while, and now that she was about to leave, Emma was experiencing some reluctance. She wouldn’t allow it to make her pull out of the trip, but she would miss being home. This was the first time she would be out at night for as long as she could remember, not to mention she was anxious about leaving Merry and Janice behind. They had someone to look after them, and it made her feel a bit better, but it wasn’t enough to completely eliminate her anxiety.
As they walked to town to pick up their bikes, though, Brian caught up to them. He called out to them, and she couldn’t confuse his voice with anyone else. They both stopped and turned around to see him approach.
Emma was surprised to see him at all. Though they were next door neighbors, after the last time she'd ventured out of town and taken Brian with her, he'd all but disappeared. Emma knew it was because of his wife, Kellen. She'd all but forgotten the woman's anger at her at their disappearance, even though they were only gone for the day. The other woman had assumed they were running off together, she even stopped them outside to have a one-sided shouting match. Something Emma had never expected she would do, because it would air her family troubles to the entire neighborhood.
Her own family was private, and thought Kellen was not, she was careful of the image she displayed before others. She liked attention, the positive kind, so while she gossiped about others, she made sure when they gossiped about her it was about how perfect her life was. Still, getting accused so publically about running off with another woman's husband had been humiliating for Emma. She was just too exhausted at the time from the long trip to care.
It was a ridiculous idea, but not entirely unfounded. Emma did have an affair with her husband, even though Kellen didn’t have any proof. Her reaction that day meant she at least had suspicions, or she was just that possessive over her husband. Emma felt the guilt swimming in her chest, knowing that Kellen still had no idea and feeling glad of that.
"Hey, sorry I'm late," he panted lightly as he jogged the last few feet to them.
Emma's eyebrow shot up in her surprise. She had no idea what he was talking about. "I'm sorry? Late for what?"
Brian looked confused for a moment, before the look cleared, replaced by one of understanding. "I guess they didn’t tell, then. I'm going on the trip with you guys."
His eyes flitted to Chase, who had, technically, not been instructed to go, but Emma asked for permission for the both of them and it had been granted. She hadn't seen Brian at the station so she wondered when he could have gone and why they told him to tag along with her. She hadn't heard of any groups with three people, but if he was told to accompany them, Emma couldn’t just tell him to go away. So they were hopefully going to be getting three bikes for this trip, or someone would have to stay behind.
Though it wasn’t an ideal situation, she'd gone out on volunteer work with him before, and he had been helpful, to a point. She was still glad to have Chase coming with her, especially now. Once they got back, Kellen couldn’t possibly blame Emma of trying to run off with her husband. If it came down to it, Brian would be the one to stay.
She turned to go on, when she caught sight of Chase, who was staring at Brian with an almost hostile expression. Emma stopped, surprised, since it wasn’t a look she saw on Chase that often. Actually, she couldn’t remember the last time, if ever, she had seen Chase look like that. For some reason, he seemed almost angry that Brian would be joining them.
Well, she did have some idea, but this couldn’t possibly have anything to do with that, could it?
"No one mentioned you would be coming with us, Brian."
The other man shrugged helplessly. "I was looking for something and it was available, so they said I could take it since I've been out with Emma before, and I said yes. I don’t have much of a choice—I've been kicked out of my own house, so it's at least something to do."
Emma gave another start of surprise. She hadn't realized that. Sure, when she last saw him, she expected him to have some argument with his wife, but she would never have imagined it would go to this length. She looked him over, but he didn’t look like he'd been homeless for a bit. His hair was unkempt, and his clothes looked a little ragged, but he didn’t look that bad.
It would explain why she hadn't seen him in a while. She'd gone back to the police after the incident, and when the police told her Brian wouldn’t go with her because he had taken a break from volunteering, she had taken Chase with her. He must have been trying to appease Kellen, but if she kicked him out, it obviously hadn't been enough.
But why would Kellen just throw him out?
Their marriage wasn’t quite the most stable, but Emma knew Kellen was at least possessive of Brian, whether or not she loved him. And if she'd kicked him out, it meant she was stuck at home looking after and providing for two kids, a five year old and an infant. Considering she had always been the one to go off to work while her husband stayed at home with the kids, this revelation was slightly worrying, for the children's sake.
"I don't know how long she's going to keep me out of the house," Brian continued. "I've been trying to talk her down, but she isn’t budging, and the last thing I want to do is stress my kids out when the situation is bad enough as it is. I need something to keep me occupied, and this is it."
"It's your own fault for having an affair," Chase snapped, and Emma was pretty sure she didn’t imagine him moving so he was standing between her and Brian.
Brian, who suddenly looked cautious, almost upset, at Chase. "Maybe, but here's the thing, she still has no idea. It was just because I was sent out with Emma last time and she thought I had run away with her for some reason. I don’t know why she singled out Emma, because she thought it even before we came back together."
"Maybe you're just not as good a liar as you'd thought," Chase sneered. "Or Kellen was smarter than you made her out to be. Don’t you think she'll just think the same thing, react the same way, and blame Emma again for something that's your problem to begin with?"
"Not as bad, now that you're here," Brian said slowly and frowned. "Chase, calm down. What's gotten into you?"
Emma just sighed. She regretted ever having an affair with Brian, and she was sure her involvement in the matter was why Chase was so on edge. She could argue and say it was technically part her problem, but she knew Chase, he wouldn’t listen to her if she defended the other man. He wouldn’t blame her, but he definitely blamed Brian.
"Chase, just relax, okay? If he's going with us, we can't be fighting the whole way. Can you plea
se just apologize to him and let's get going?"
He looked at her with an indecipherable expression before turning back to Brian. "I'm sorry," he said flatly.
But he still seemed angry about something. Emma wanted to stay and ask what, only she couldn’t because of Brian's presence. She was pretty sure he might refuse to say anything simply because the other man was there, and she didn’t want to force the issue.
So she resolved to let it go until a later time. It was something they would have to talk about, though, so she could make Chase understand. She had been awkward whenever he mentioned it before, even though he only said some comments in passing and he didn’t look at her when he mentioned it. Things were different now, though.
She touched his hand to remind him they had things to do, and ignored it when he stubbornly stuck between her and Brian as they continued with their walk into town.
They picked up supplies from the police station—their bikes, a tent and some sleeping bags. There was, thankfully, enough for three people. Emma didn’t know anything about staying outdoors, and she doubted Brian would either. Chase, though, since he had been the physical coach at the school where they used to work before all the electricity shut down, had been out on camping trips for the school several times. He should know how to make a tent, at least, and they would worry about anything else once they came to it.
It would have been so much easier if they had just found a car, but she wasn’t going to complain about it right then. The police officer that handed them the stuff gave them some more information before they left.
"We ask that the three of you go to Vineland and see how they're doing out there. It's the farthest we've tried to reach so far, and no one else has tried to make a trip there. Try to be careful and return as quickly as you can. If you make good time, you should be back in a couple of days, maybe three."
It went unsaid that they would only make it back if nothing bad happened on the way. They could only hope.