by Cal, Sarah
She frowned as she considered it. She did feel well enough to stay up all night. And if they allowed her, she could go back to sleep some more, and have Chase wake her up late in the evening, just in case. She wouldn’t tell him why, of course, not immediately. He would worry and might try to stop her from going at all.
It didn’t take long to make up her mind. "Of course, I'll do it."
"Oh," one of the other officers turned to her. "If you'll be joining the night patrol, carry a weapon of some sort to defend yourself."
Emma was shocked at the advice, but then she remembered her run in with the teenagers outside a shop, when she'd gone with Chase to his place to move his things to her house. They were on their way back when they came across a group of boys trying to break into a store. Chase wanted to leave it, but she insisted on interfering, and it nearly got them hurt.
Carrying a weapon was probably a good idea. She'd have to take it without Chase noticing on her way out later.
She listened to whatever instructions were left, before she made her way back home. Chase did as she wanted, of course, probably assuming she just needed the rest. He was a little suspicious when Emma was on her way out of the house not long after he woke her up, dressed in all black. He didn’t stop her, though. She said goodbye to her family, made sure they locked up, and left.
Emma liked to stay fit and healthy. Her dwindling appetite notwithstanding, she took a jog most mornings, as well as a bunch of fitness classes that kept her up to shape. Walking around for hours was going to be tiring, but she was sure she could handle it better than biking around, though she might just have to take another day off.
While on patrol, she came across some young people trying to break into a store. She had just started, so It was a bit of a surprise to run into trouble so early. They were a small group, a lot younger looking than the last one she'd gone up against. Still, she stayed cautious, keeping her distance and whistling to catch their attention. Like before, one of them noticed her first, and then got the others' attention.
"You kids better run along now," she said sternly, trying to sound authoritative. "You don’t want to miss curfew. The police will be walking by here pretty soon."
It was a slight fib, but they didn’t need to know that. They were easy enough to chase off, though, a bunch of kids facing off against an adult. She watched them until they disappeared from sight, and walked on.
Just how long would it be, though, before she couldn’t chase them off? She was waiting for it, but not necessarily expecting it, and she knew she would have to. She wondered just how long it would be before people started breaking into houses, too. Especially where food was guaranteed. The thought just made her shudder.
She hadn't turned it into a firm decision, but Emma had given up the idea of mentioning their supplies to the police and the rest of the town. She was kidding herself, though. No way would she tell, and have people focusing on her home. Especially not after her last talk with Merry, to do with their grandmother. If Emma did her job, and did it well, then Janice wouldn’t have to leave the house, and they could just care from her there. It was the only solution they had.
As she walked along the streets, she found herself thinking about what she could be looking forward to. She hadn't thought to ask if any of the people out on patrol had gotten hurt, just been told about the increasing crime. Which, she'd already guessed as the natural progression of things. Human beings weren’t nice, after all, not when it came to protection of oneself. She felt like she was growing into a prime example of that herself sometimes.
Emma realized, as she walked, that she was frightened. Of being out on the streets on her own, trying to imagine what she could possibly face before it was morning and she could go home. Even though it was only late evening and still light out.
There was a good chance of injury, even death. She was nowhere near her relatively quiet neighborhood, someone else got to go through that area, while she was sent into the town, given the streets she was to walk through. She had signals that would help her recognize other patrol men and women from possible threats. That was it. No light beside the moon and stars to lead the way once it was full dark. She felt gratified that the moon would still be out, at least, and bigger than a crescent if she still remembered the moon cycles she'd learnt in school.
She glanced around behind her before going down a different street. She snuggled into her thick jacket, shivering at the cold. She'd eaten before she left home, at least, so she wouldn’t have to worry about hunger for some hours yet.
A sound down an alley startled her, and Emma jumped, whirling around to face the source of the sound. After a few moments of her heart beating frantically in her chest, and nothing appeared, she let herself relax. Placing a hand on her heart, she took a few deep breaths.
You can't panic. You cannot panic.
Not when she had just started for the evening. Not when she would meet someone sometime in the night, in case she ended up doing something stupid because of giving into fear and making bad, impulsive judgments. She used to be level-handed, the kind of person that planned far in advance. But lately she'd been leaning a little too much on impulse.
It was a concept so far removed from her mind it would never have occurred to her before. Doing things without thinking would have been detrimental when she found herself, day to day, fighting for control. Now, though, what she really fought for was life.
And suddenly, Emma very much wished she had told Chase what she was up to. She hadn't asked either if patrols went out as more than one, or strictly individuals. She was sure she could have convinced him to go with her, if only to watch her back—or simply have him with her to keep her company. He was even referring himself as part of her family, now, and she wanted to lean on him for help, and wanted him to do the same.
It was too late to turn back, though. She kept glancing up at the sky as the last rays of the sun dyed the sky and the clouds in burning colors, waiting for when even that would drain away and everything would start to go dark. If she thought to go back to get him, they'd be walking around in the dark. It was the idea, with night patrols, but the thought of getting Chase into trouble after the last time didn’t sit well with her.
She thought back on Janice's comment, about them being a couple. Emma thought back, and tried to imagine what her grandmother would have seen. But to her, her interactions with Chase had been all the same. If anything, he'd remained constant, and she'd had one different, failed relationship, that he knew about, before she started sleeping with Brian. He never changed how he acted around her, beside the occasional comment, they didn’t talk about her love life at all.
Or his, for that matter. Emma wasn’t sure if Chase dated, or had ever dated before. She knew, though, he was the kind of guy women easily fell for. Genuinely good, protective to those he cared for. She wasn’t sure if Chase was interested in a family, but they'd talked about the topic before, and he'd dropped lines that made her think that he just might.
Emma thought about what having him in her life, as part of her family, felt to her. Then she tried to imagine him gone, leaving, or having met someone else he cared for more. She was surprised, how much she disliked the idea, this fabled person that could take away someone she cared for.
She also realized, with great shock, how they would be a good match.
Oh, there was still Chase's opinion on the matter, and he might think differently from what she did. But when Emma tried to think of their interactions from an outsider's point of view, she realized it already looked like they were dating.
When they were around the same room, or area, they just gravitated toward each other. There was all the touching, sometimes to comfort, or when they were tired, but it came natural to both of them. It was like a rule, when they were in proximity, they would touch. No matter how innocent it looked to her, other people wouldn’t—didn’t—see it that way. She remembered plenty of people remarking on whether they were together, particularly at the sc
hool. A lot of it was just the kids playing games, but the staff had questioned them at times.
It was practically a relationship, just brushing the edge of platonic, but it stayed chaste. The touches were never inappropriate. Chase had kissed her cheek, or forehead, or the back of her hand a few times, but he'd never tried to really kiss her mouth. And when she invited him to stay with them, though there was the couch, and a room free, he'd been staying in her bed nights, and she'd grown accustomed to falling asleep in his arms.
Did she really want to go that route, though? Chase had been there for her a lot of times, and she was grateful for that. But was it just gratitude? She wasn’t sure she could say she loved him, as she wasn’t entirely sure how that would feel like. And even if she did, they had something good going. She didn’t want to ruin their friendship by adding dimensions to their relationship that didn’t exist.
But, she wondered if she truly had feelings for him, that went beyond friendship. Was it just Janice's comment driving her mind in that direction? Or her growing overdependence on him in this new, more dangerous world?
She couldn’t tell with any certainty and it frustrated her.
Before she could decide, though, Emma noticed a woman trying to break into a boutique. It took her mind a moment to recognize the other presence, even though her eyes were trained that way, and a few more seconds for her to realize what the woman was doing. It was enough indication that she had been day dreaming a little too much when she was supposed to be doing something more important than contemplating her love life, as it slowly grew dark.
"Hey!" She frowned when that got no reaction. "I know you can hear me. Stop, right now."
The woman just continued to ignore her.
Emma took a second to assess the situation. The woman's age range didn’t seem so far from her own, but without seeing her face, Emma had no way to know. Somehow, she had gotten hold of a bat, and was hitting the boutique window repeatedly, even when it only bounced back. Emma wondered if it would even be sufficient to smash the window of the store, like the woman clearly intended. She was likely weak, going by her swings, and might have been there a while, by how she seemed to be heaving for every breath, her arm growing slow with each swing.
Emma made to move closer. "Ma'am, you don’t look so well. So why don’t you stop what you're doing before you hurt yourself and go home? It'll be curfew soon."
"So the hell what?"
Emma came to a dead stop when the woman turned sharply and shouted back at her. Emma was more worried than frightened, though, seeing the woman sway lightly. She didn’t fall, which was a small miracle.
"So, you don’t want to go up against someone in the dark, especially when they could be armed."
She didn’t mention she was armed, of course. Or that this woman would likely meet other people with the same purpose she did, only they could be bigger, meaner, and more importantly, not by themselves.
"Ask me if I care," was the reply she got, the woman already turning back around, bat raised up for another swing.
Emma pulled her gun and took aim, hoping she was holding the thing right. "I'll tell you one last time, stop what you're doing, and walk away."
The woman turned around, seemed to do a double take at the gun, and it made her sway again. She didn’t react how Emma hoped, though, how she had expected. She was stunned for maybe a handful of seconds, and then the woman laughed in her face. Emma could feel the shock clouding her expression, and it only made the woman laugh harder until it sounded more like a mad cackle.
"You wouldn’t dare."
The words were said with certainty as the woman lurched forward with the bat, wanting to walk towards Emma, but her own instability hindering her.
It reminded her of the last situation she had been in. There were plenty of differences, she'd been facing a group then, but this woman didn’t appear cowed at all. Emma was pretty sure she would walk up with the bat, and Emma would get herself beat up.
She remembered something Chase had told her, basically that when desperation came into play, getting someone to stop without proving she could back her threat would be difficult. She wished, even more, that he was with her. Her thoughts were moving a mile a minute, wondering what the best of action was to take. He would have been good in a situation like this, might not have even needed to pull the gun.
Emma wasn’t Chase, though. And trying to think of what he would do in her place wasn’t helping, either. She hesitated a moment, and it happened. What she'd been afraid of when she first took the gun from the hand holding it out to her. She pulled the trigger by accident.
In that moment, when she realized her hand had flexed with her finger still on the trigger, then heard the crash, she felt like her heart was lodged into her throat. She almost dropped it, the recoil taking her by surprise. She couldn’t, though. It would be bad, if she left it out to be picked up by someone who knew how to use it and would have no problem doing so, and was not a good cop.
She regretted it right away, but that didn't change anything. What did, though, was that she'd seemed to throw off her aim. Instead of hitting the woman, the bullet hit the glass window next to her. There was a loud crash, and shards of class hit the woman. There was a silence that sounded deafening after the loud noise, and then Emma noted the woman had small bleeding wounds on her arm.
Emma panicked. She looked down at the gun, Chase had looked it over before and showed her where the safety was. She clicked it on, or so she thought, so she wouldn’t be making any more accidental shots. Then she shoved it back in the inner pocket of her jacket and ran forward.
She knew she had attacked a woman, and the woman could go tell someone she tried to shoot her. Even worse, with the window's glass broken, more people would be heading for it soon, a somewhat easy target. No one came rushing out into the open, so the area was either otherwise unoccupied, or the few people around heard and wanted to get away, but that wouldn’t last.
She dropped by the woman, who had finally given into her exhaustion, the bat fallen from her fingers as she stared down at her own arm, looking dazed. Not waiting for her to feel any pain, Emma ripped off a piece of the woman's legging, checked to make sure there was no glass in the wound then pressed the piece of cloth down. She brought the other woman's hand up and pressed down, holding tight to her shaking fingers.
"Keep pressure on this, it should stop the bleeding. And trust me when I say the streets aren’t safe at night, so unless you want it to end bad for you, and I don’t necessarily mean death, you need to go home."
The woman's gaze had shifted to hers, but Emma wasn’t sure of she'd even heard. They didn’t have time for this, though. Emma kept their hands pressing down on the wounds, until she felt the woman putting some strength into the action.
"I am so sorry for this." She scrambled into her pockets as the woman looked at her warily, but she was only pulling out the snacks she'd brought for herself. "If you're hungry, take this and go. It will be dark soon."
The woman's face had been drawn in confusion, but she took the food offered to her, clutching it in her free hand. Emma just watched her for a second, and then fell back so she was sitting on the ground.
Dammit!
At some point, she was going to have to stop screwing up. She reflected on what could have happened if the bullet had hit the woman instead. A woman who hadn't seemed to care about her own welfare, as long as she got food to eat.
Emma liked to think she wouldn’t have taken the shot on purpose, but then, what if she hadn't shot at all? The woman would have gotten to her with the bat... then what? She didn’t have an answer to that, though, at least not a good one.
She had consciously thought about it, but Emma realized just then, that the situation had gotten bad, and it would only get worse. More people would begin to act like this woman, but how many would stay sane to hold them back?
Too many questions, too little answers.
She glanced around, noting the sky had started
to darken. She got up, taking the bat with her. It would be a safer weapon, unlikely to get someone accidentally killed. Unless she met someone stronger than her and the bat was taken from her and used against her.
Emma shuddered and closed off her morbid thoughts.
She was walking away, when she heard a commotion in the direction of the town square. She debated for a second, before tightening her hand around the bat, and running towards it to see what was happening, leaving the woman who was still there. Emma vaguely thought the woman was talking, probably apologizing for what she was doing. She caught something about her claiming not to try to rob and steal again. Emma didn’t think that was true. Even if she could pretend it, she could only feel bad for scaring someone like that. She did, however, hope the woman got herself home before she came upon someone truly dangerous, but that was all the thought she spared for her.
When Emma could see what the commotion was about, she stopped, frozen, gaping with widened eyes.
Merry. Her sister, who had barely left the house through the front door in roughly ten years, was actually outside, surrounded by people, and they didn’t seem to be an angry mob.
Emma just watched the impossible sight before taking tentative steps forward to hear.
Near the wreckage, Merry stood on top of a car. She was shouting incoherently with a group of people gathered around her, but the people seemed to be listening to her, murmuring among themselves.
Emma ran toward Merry then, thinking her sister was causing a scene. As she neared, though, she realized that Merry was giving a speech. And the murmurs around the crowd were far from those of discontent. As she got closer, her sister's voice grew clearer through the noisy crowd.
"God's plan included the EMP," she was telling her audience, "the weapon that took away life as we knew it. We are being tested on how we deal with it. But we! We will not fail! We cannot fail!"