by Cal, Sarah
Could their situation really have been so much more horrible than Emma's hometown, and any of the other places they had come into contact with? Granted, Emma only knew of two, and neither had been dealing well when she visited, but she hadn't seen anything so bad. Mass hysteria came to mind. She hadn't seen far enough to tell if they'd had any big accidents like in her town, but she didn’t think so.
"Expect more of that in the near future," Carol said, her voice solemn. "No one wants to admit it, but it's going to be happening all over the place."
Emma didn’t have to say that she was expecting it now. It was exactly what had her so worried.
Chapter 16
Emma finished up at the hospital and walked alone across the square.
She could have taken a different route, but she was curious now, morbidly so. Her feet moved in the direction without her thinking. She didn’t do more than make a cursory look of the area. Scavengers would have been all over the place, all those people the police were worried about breaking into stores and stealing. They would have looked into the cars not destroyed by the plane, might have made their way through the broken plane. Emma could only imagine what they had seen in there. The rescuers would have gone inside to see if there were any survivors in the plane, and she imagined not a lot of the passengers had survived, so it must have been full of corpses.
Emma shuddered and turned her back to it to walk away. She hadn't gotten too close to the plane. Since the day she watched it come down on them as they waited in traffic. She hadn't considered what the people inside would have been feeling. She at least had the option of getting away. The people in that plane didn’t have that, when it nosedives suddenly without warning. She pushed the thought out of her mind as bile rose in her throat.
She had stayed at the hospital a lot longer than she'd thought and it was starting to get dark. She had a jacket, but she still felt the bite of the cold and she wrapped her arms around herself to hold back a shiver. Or it could have just been the atmosphere of the area. Maybe it was just all in her head, remembering the screams she heard that day and imagining what it would have been like to be in the falling plane and not inside a car on the ground.
She cursed in her mind, hunching her shoulders as her body shivered in the evening air. This was why she disliked going to the hospital. Her thoughts turned morbid and disturbing and she couldn’t help herself from thinking about herself dying in the plenty of times she had come close since the day of the crash.
It wasn’t just the cold that had her shivering, though. It was late, and she was by herself. There didn’t seem to be any people around as she walked, only instead of making her feel better, it only made her panic. When she thought about it, the last time she had been out alone was the time she went out on patrol. Even then, it was still light out and she didn’t stay out or alone for long.
She found she was more nervous now that she didn’t have a weapon to defend herself with. She had gone to the station with the gun and left it with someone before heading out to do her task. She wasn’t sure she would have carried the weapon to the hospital, anyway, but somehow just knowing it was gone had her heart squeezing in anxiety.
But, she decided that it was for the best. Because it was, even though she couldn’t remember right then. She didn’t want any more accidents to occur because of it, and was having a gun really all that useful when she didn’t know how to use it?
Then Emma heard voices, and she stopped in her tracks, her heart beating harder in her chest. It wasn’t dark yet, it was still twilight but it would be full dark soon. She pushed her anxiety aside so she could hear beyond the rush of blood in her ears. She listened closely to get an idea of how close the voices were, and if they were hostile. She was surprised when she recognized Merry's voice right away.
Her fear washed away, shock taking its place. What was her sister doing outside again? But even the shock died because it wasn’t so surprising for Merry to be outside now, she'd been out once before, with a much bigger crowd than Emma could hear now. Still, it wasn’t something she expected. Not with how unhinged Merry had looked just yesterday,
What was her sister even doing outside? It couldn’t be the same as what she was doing the last time Emma found her outside, could it? For one, the voices she heard were a lot fewer than last time, and Merry wasn’t speaking too loudly, just enough that Emma could hear from a distance. Why had she been allowed to leave home in the first place? Or did no one realize she had even left.
Still, what was her sister thinking?
Feeling exasperated, she ran towards Merry's voice. She wasn’t far away, just around a building and out of sight from where Emma had been standing. She was surrounded by people that looked at her with expressions of almost awe on their faces, mixed with concentration. She didn’t hear the words Merry was speaking, but she really didn’t need to.
"Merry!"
At the call of her voice, the small group turned to see her approach. Merry scowled while the others just looked on curiously, crossing her arms defiantly across her chest.
"Stop whatever sermon you're conducting," she told her sister once she was close enough, taking hold of her arm. "It's late, Merry. You should be at home."
She didn’t need to get into more trouble with the police after they'd just released her. She was pretty sure whoever met them would just give them a warning and tell them to go off, but Merry was confrontational when she wasn’t allowed to do whatever she wanted. She didn’t do things just because people told her to if she didn’t feel like it.
But her sister didn’t seem to realize she was doing something wrong, or she didn’t care. She just sneered and looked away. Emma sighed, feeling annoyed, and tightened her hand around her sister's arm. She shoed away Merry's followers. Being in a large group attracted way more attention.
"You should all go back to your homes. There's still a curfew and there should be patrollers coming around soon. No one needs to be caught out at night."
She didn’t mention that they could meet patrollers just as easily as it could be people with nefarious purposes. They hesitated a moment, but then slunk away, throwing glances back at her and Merry as they left.
"I'll see you all soon," Merry called out to them as they left, "and remember what I said!"
Emma held her tongue until they were gone. She was curious about what her sister had to say this time, but at the moment it didn’t matter. What did, was Merry's fast turnaround. After the last time she saw her, she hadn't believed her sister could possibly just walk outside and act so level headed around people she didn’t know.
Once they were alone, Emma told her off.
"What the hell, Merry? You're supposed to stay at home! I don’t know why you suddenly have any interest in the outside world, but repeating your behaviors doesn't help anybody. I don’t mind you leaving the house, Chase is at home so he can look after Janice, but don’t be out at night. And don’t do whatever it is you're doing. It's dangerous."
Merry just stood still through her rant, watching her with unreadable eyes. She looked a lot better than she had just yesterday. Her hair was almost tamed, and she had cleaned her face. It didn’t hide her pasty skin or the dark bags under her eyes, but she didn’t look as crazed as when Emma got home the previous day.
When Emma didn’t continue, she arched her eyebrows. "Oh, are you done?"
Emma gritted her teeth at the sarcastic words.
"Do you know the meaning of dangerous, Merry?" she bit out harshly. "Anything could happen to you out here! You don’t know as much as you think you do because you're always locked up inside. I'm the one always outside, experiencing what goes on around the world, not just seeing it in 'visions,'" she hissed venomously. Merry looked unmoved. "Don't you get it? You could get hurt, or get killed, or get into all sorts of trouble when you leave the house. You need to go back, now."
Her sister needed to understand. She thought she knew, but she really didn’t. Even Emma couldn’t claim that she knew; she
was just going by what she had experienced. Merry didn’t seem to be talking her warning seriously, though. If anything, she looked almost amused. Emma fisted her hands on her hips and glared at Merry, who just snorted and waved a dismissive hand her way.
"Stop being patronizing, Emma—you're younger than me, and you don’t understand the world as much. Not to mention how naïve and self-centered you tend to be. You can pretend all you want, but you really don’t know nearly as much as you seem to think you do.
Emma gaped at her sister for a moment, before narrowing her eyes. How dare Merry just wave away everything she had experienced like it was nothing. Nearly getting killed, watching people die. Seeing the states people out in the world were in while her sister stayed at home and drowned in her nightmares. Did she think reality was somehow so much better than what she saw, that what Emma had witnessed so far was so insignificant?
She was furious, and she grabbed Merry's arm, trying to march her away. They needed to get home, and it was still a bit of a distance away. If they were going to have a shouting march, it wasn’t going to be out in the streets. Merry had been getting out of hand for too long, and Emma planned on setting her straight as soon as they had some privacy.
"You're hurting me," Merry hissed, tugging back, refusing to be moved.
But Emma wasn’t paying attention to her. Even her anger had died down, almost as immediately as it had risen up. She was distracted when she saw a figure standing ahead of them in the road. It wasn’t full dark, but it was dark enough that she couldn’t tell who it was in front of them. Her hand clenched involuntarily, loosening a little at Merry's resulting hiss of complaint. But a bad feeling had begun to grow in Emma's chest, and she stuck close to her sister.
As the figure approached them, the feeling grew worse, especially once she realized the figure was holding something—it was the woman she shot at, and she had a knife.
She never thought she would have to meet this woman again, after all the grief this one person had caused her. And certainly she never would have thought it would be like this. The woman looked like she had been looking for her, and Emma wondered if it was a coincidence that she was here. It wasn’t so far from where they had met the first time, but she couldn’t possibly just have been hanging around, hoping Emma would show up.
Emma was reminded of the last time she had seen that face. She had on the same angry, almost crazed expression on her face. The woman advanced on Emma and she stood in front of Merry to protect her, her eyes tracking the knife before looking up to meet the other woman's eyes, holding her arms up and out, not sure what she planned on doing, but knowing she had to do something.
"You're making a mistake," she said lowly, trying to reason with the woman. "We're out in the streets. We both just got out of trial a couple of days ago; we don’t need any more problems with the police and patrollers could come by any minute. Please just go home, and we'll do the same, we don’t have to see each other again."
The woman didn’t seem to hear her at all, though. Merry stuck close to her back so there was nowhere for her to go, and the woman moved steadily closer.
"I can't believe they just let you off after you attacked me," she muttered, sounding bitter and angry. "Not only that, I even get punished for it. Like I asked you to shoot me!"
Dammit, Emma didn’t even know the woman's name. Maybe it could have helped somehow to get through to her, but no one had mentioned it and she hadn't bothered to ask.
"I was just trying to do the right thing," Emma said insistently. It was like the woman forgot she had been doing something wrong, something against the law. Maybe the shooting had been a little overkill, but Emma hadn't meant to do it.
But her statement only seemed to make the woman angrier. She was still a short distance away, but Emma noticed when her stance shifted as she began to chase them. Her eyes opened wide as she whirled around, grabbing for her sister.
"Merry, run!"
Her sister didn’t seem to hear her, eyes locked on the woman over Emma's shoulder. So Emma pulled her away, trying to make her keep up as she took off in a fast sprint.
Merry surprised her yet again. Though she set a punishing pace, Merry kept up with her, only stumbling a couple of times. Emma had no idea where she got the strength in her frail body. There was no time to be awed, though. She could hear the woman still coming after them, shouting obscenities at their backs. But, thankfully, she didn’t seem to be able to go too fast. She didn’t stop or fall far behind them, but she didn’t get too close either.
Emma ran for the police station. There wasn’t any other place she could think to run to, considering home had been in the other direction, blocked by the woman. It was late, but she could only pray that there were still people there that would help them. There were no other people outside, and she didn’t know if that was a good thing or bad. She didn’t want witnesses to this, but maybe there was someone that would have lent them help?
Right. Why would anyone interfere with this?
In the times they currently lived in, everyone was too busy looking out for themselves. The few people that would have done it anyway had other people to look after, so why would they risk themselves to help out a stranger? So she just kept running and praying for a miracle. If worse came to worst, she'd have to shield her sister and face this woman so Merry could at least get away. She could barely think clearly, the urgency keeping her feet moving even as her breath came shorter and the muscles in her legs ached.
When they were close enough that she could make out the building in the distance, she picked up speed and started calling out.
"Somebody help us!" her voice was hoarse from the running, but she forced it out, forced it louder. "Someone, please!"
The front doors of the station weren’t left open this late, as they were for most of the day. She slowed at the front of the station, and then came to a stop, again pushing Merry behind her as she turned to face the woman. She wanted to scream at her sister to go inside, but words were beyond her, getting stuck in her throat when she wanted to let more out. She made a distressed sound in the back of her throat, sounding like a sob, standing her ground even as her body tried to shake apart.
The woman hadn't fallen too far behind, and now that they were no longer moving, she was coming up fast. Emma felt the scream growing in her throat, and she let it out, loud, shrill, and desperate. It didn’t slow her down, if anything, her obvious terror had the woman cackling as she closed the distance between them and raised the knife high.
In the time it took the officers to answer the door, the woman almost caught up, knife ready to kill. One second, Emma was seeing that crazed face coming at her, ready to stab her. In the next, someone had jumped in front of her, and she could hear some voices coming from inside and behind her, getting closer. Emma stumbled back, heart beating hard in her chest as the officers restrained and arrested her.
It was all over in a moment, and Emma watched as the woman screamed and struggled as they dragged her away. She wondered if any of the officers had gotten hurt in the scuffle. A hard shiver worked its way through her body, and she wrapped her arms hard around herself to ward off any more.
She turned to see her sister standing just behind her. Merry's eyes were gleaming in the dark, and Emma felt another shiver coming on as she shuffled back a step from her sister.
"Well, Emma," she said with self-satisfaction evident in her voice, mouth curling up in a tiny grin. "My prediction was right again—someone wanted you dead."
Chapter 17
Emma was back at the hospital the next day.
She woke up reluctantly in the morning, after the excitement of yesterday, she wanted to stay in bed. After the woman had gotten arrested, Emma and Merry had stayed behind long enough to give an explanation to the police. They were both released to go home maybe half an hour later, but she had been reminded she still needed to do community service.
Merry had snickered at her silent groan like they were little kids. They
had walked home in the dark, Merry disappearing to their room as soon as they got back. Chase, who had been waiting up for them, had tried to talk to her, but she had been so exhausted, she just followed Chase to her room and they went to sleep.
She had a quick breakfast then left the house, making sure Janice and Merry were okay first. Merry had, for once, slept through the night. She was still sleeping when Emma went into her room, and it made her hopeful that her sister would regain some normalcy when she wasn’t plagued by nightmares every night. It was too much, too soon, to ask for but she could hope.
Karen wasn’t there to meet her as she left. She hadn't talked to the nurse, but she didn’t think there was much need to. Merry must have been out for a while before Emma even found her. She would have had to look for her followers and gather them. The group Emma found her with was much smaller than the first time she had gone to the middle of town square, but there were still quite a few people, maybe a dozen. Emma hadn't asked, but she was pretty sure Merry had acted up and Karen wouldn’t be coming back.
Well, as long as Chase had paid her, it really wasn’t still Emma's problem. She had bigger things to worry about, like looking for someone to replace Karen. Now more than ever she couldn’t leave Merry alone. Yesterday could have gone a lot worse than it did, and Merry needed to understand that it was dangerous to just do whatever she pleased whenever she wanted.
Her sister just got on her nerves. She hadn't talked to her after what Merry had said at the station, when she'd nearly gotten stabbed to death. And there Merry was, being smug. It reminded her too much of the day of the plane crash. Merry had acted the same way. Emma wasn’t sure how she could just ignore all the dangers and focus on how she was right, and still have the courage to call Emma self-centered to her face.
She made it to the hospital and met Carol already there. She got to work, but it wasn’t as hurried as it had been the first time she worked there. Most of the people had already been seen to, and she really just had to clean and re-bandage wounds and check on her patients occasionally. She had to talk to a few of them, but that was pretty much it.