Fending Them Off

by Max Lockwood

  Clara blushed and touched a hand to her cheek. Cooper had been doing that for some time now, making shows of affection out of nowhere. They made her happy as much as they confused her. Neither of them were in a hurry to talk, though, so things were staying as they were, and Clara was honestly fine with that. Tessa gave her an unimpressed look, and Clara blushed harder.

  There was a giggle behind them, and they both turned to find Jackson grinning at them. He clenched his teddy bear to his chest. Clara had cleaned it thoroughly and let it dry out in the sun, though he’d been a little sulky without it close. It obviously meant a lot to him, and Clara wondered if he was clutching onto his last memories of his parents, or if it provided some form of security for him. Probably both.

  “Hey, Jackson,” she said gently. “This is my siste,r Tess, you met her before and she scared you. Do you remember?”

  He peered at Tessa and nodded, but he only looked curious, and Clara was proud of the progress he’d made since he came to stay with them.

  “She’s really sorry about that,” Clara said, and turned to give Tessa a look. Her sister nodded reluctantly, and it was probably the best she could ask for. “She’s here because she wants to tell you a story. Is that okay?”

  “Yeah!” he exclaimed happily, his face brightening.

  There was some more hesitation from Tessa, but she went and took the seat Cooper had left, while Clara remained standing. Clara watched as Tessa told Jackson an elaborate version of Little Red Riding Hood, using her hands to create the characters. Clara had never seen it, but her sister was a good story teller, too, it seemed.

  Jackson started to giggle and Clara was shocked at how well the pair of them got along so quickly, especially with all her sister’s protests. Tessa seemed to grow in confidence as she continued the story, and started to enjoy herself.

  Later when Cooper return to Jackson’s side and Tessa talked to Clara, Tessa said, next line needs to be moved up here“I might be able to get used to Jackson being part of the family.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Clara and Dante were out on patrol.

  She kept herself pretty busy with Jackson, but now that he was starting to ease up around the others, she felt a little better about continuing her duties. She knew she had been cutting back a little and felt ashamed that she wasn’t pulling her own weight. No one had mentioned anything, but she still felt bad.

  When she was ready to leave, Dante was the only one available. There was some hesitation as she remembered the last time she had spent time alone with Dante.

  He grinned, like he knew what she was thinking.

  “You don’t have to worry, she isn’t going to get mad this time.”

  Clara’s smile was wry. “Sorry for being a little cautious. Where is she, anyway?”

  “She’s upstairs bathing the kids. I think they’re all pretty much up there.”

  Clara knew Jackson would be with Tessa, or out in the field with Cooper, so she didn’t have to worry about him.

  Still, she couldn’t forget Michelle’s reaction the last time she caught Clara and Dante alone. Clara had been more annoyed than terrified of her, but she didn’t want the other woman to be mad at her this time.

  Dante, seeming to read her hesitance again, rolled his eyes. “Come on and let me keep you company. I see you going off alone way too often, you know.”

  He was right about that. When they went out on patrol, Clara usually went on her own. The official reason was because it would even up the numbers for everyone else and she could manage by herself. Plus, she usually ended up doing more than one thing, patrolling and helping with the fields when she came across the group doing the tending. So at least they knew she wasn’t slacking off when she went off alone.

  But the truth was, she didn’t want to partner with someone she didn’t know well. Most of the people in her team ended up doing the tending, with Felicia and Cooper occasionally going on patrols. But even when it was them, Clara still liked her solitude.

  She kind of missed it. Before the EMP attack, she used to take a jog around her neighborhood in the mornings before preparing to go to work. The runs were to keep fit, but also to help her work through the stress.

  It wasn’t something she could do out here, considering how dangerous it was. She didn’t get a lot of exercise anymore. To compensate, she walked around alone while doing the job laid out before her.

  She shrugged, and said simply, “I’m pretty okay with being by myself.”

  Dante gave her a droll look. “Whatever you say. Not for today, though. There’s some food in the kitchen. You can have something to eat and I’ll wait here for you.”

  She watched as he fell onto the couch and lay down with an arm under his head. She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “Or, you could be a good sport and just go on and start your shift now.”

  He just grinned at her and didn’t move. So Clara sighed and went to do as he’d said. Someone had left some food out for her, and she ate gratefully.

  It wasn’t like she was really mad, anyway. It was still odd for her when people other than Tessa and Cooper were worried for her, and, usually with her sister, it was the other way around. But if Dante was just worried about her, she couldn’t get mad at him for it.

  So they ended up walking through the fields together.

  It wasn’t terrible. He kept quiet when she did, and she had a feeling he wouldn’t be starting a conversation unless it was her move first. She’d long since stopped feeling uncomfortable being around him. A part of her was curious about how he’d been doing, since he’d helped her out quite a few times.

  She had been surprised when he’d volunteered to go with her when she brought up the suggestion that they go to Mawdsley to get revenge for her grandmother, and it was the one that immediately came to mind, but there were plenty more.

  She was surprised to realize it had been some time since she’d been around him, or it was just the two of them. She was glad to find her feelings for him were more along the lines of friendship. As it were, their affair might as well have never happened.

  But that wasn’t to say that Clara could forget what she’d done—what they’d done.

  She was ashamed of herself, thinking back on it now, and she wondered if he felt the same.

  Clara had wanted an escape from her life. She went to a job that didn’t make her happy, and returned to deal with her grandmother slowly forgetting who she was and her sister talking crazy and just being difficult.

  Dante had married an older woman, and he probably hadn’t loved her when he did it, but Michelle had gotten pregnant. Clara didn’t know if Michelle had pressured him, or if he’d been pushed by his own sense of responsibility. He’d been unhappy with Michelle, who acted as the breadwinner for the family while he stayed at home and took care of their child.

  He’d seduced her, and she’d fallen into him gladly. Even with her regret after the first time, she couldn’t help herself from going back for more. Dante even deluded himself into thinking he’d developed feelings for her, while Clara grew desensitized to him, since the one thing that appealed to her in the beginning was that someone attractive had been actively pursuing her.

  It made her unhappy. But she didn’t stop, even though she thought of it often, until after the EMP attack. Dante got mad at her, but they worked out their differences. But then Michelle got mad at her, then Cooper, after he found the two of them in bed together.

  Clara cringed just remembering all the people she’d hurt because of her thoughtless actions.

  “How are things going between you and Michelle?” she asked, because she really wanted to know, and because the silence was starting to get to her. She needed to stop her thoughts before she depressed herself. It wasn’t why Dante had come out with her. “You’ve both been looking fine, so I’m assuming you fixed your problems from before?”

  She had meant to ask, but she realized that with everything that had happened, this was the first time she’d
gotten the chance.

  While Clara couldn’t claim that she and Michelle were friends, they had been friendly, what with Michelle being her neighbor for years. But Clara had found new respect for the woman.

  After the first night when their neighborhood was attacked, Clara had wanted to fight back when their attackers promised to return. Cooper had been against the idea, but Dante had offered her a gun. And when they went back to his house to retrieve it, Michelle had been the one to pull out her own gun and walk with Clara up and down the street, knocking on doors to get the whole neighborhood involved, and thought about talking to the police.

  Clara wouldn’t have considered it all on her own, not in time to take care of the problem, since she’d expected to have to wait a few days, and the culprits came back the same night. If not for Michelle, so much could have gone wrong that night, and Clara felt she owed the other woman for that, aside from what she owed for what she’d done behind her back with her husband.

  Dante smiled at her. “Things are pretty good—we’re on speaking terms, and trying to make our friendship work for the sake of the kids. We figured our marriage was all over, you know? Maybe we might work up to it later, but for now, all four of us are happy with the way things are.”

  She knew the couple had opted for all four of them to share a room, and a bed, probably because having their children with them reduced some of the awkwardness that could have grown between them and pushed them further apart.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” she said honestly, sending a smile his way. “You know, I still feel kinda bad about what we did. It was wrong, and we both knew it, but stopping…”

  “Yeah,” he finished. “Stopping was a problem for both of us. But I blame myself.”

  “I deserve at least some of it,” she said insistently, but he shook his head.

  “I was the one to start things between us in the first place, so if it weren’t for me, the whole thing would never have happened. I’m lucky that Michelle is being so nice. She could have decided to keep the kids away from me for forever, or until something happened that split us up for good.”

  Clara could have told him it wouldn’t have gotten that far. Michelle was clearly a sensible woman. At the first sign of trouble, she would have done what was best for her children instead of holding onto her broken pride. Clara’s thoughts hadn't been so nice before, but she was pretty sure of it now.

  Also, it was true that Dante started the whole thing. It didn’t absolve her of guilt for going along with it, though. She could have decided to ignore him, and she hadn’t.

  “I insist we’re both to blame, though,” she said seriously. “We both should have known better, should have thought things through more.”

  Actually, if she thought about it, Dante probably had thought things through, even if he decided to go with the wrong decision in the end. She didn’t know his reasoning, and this late she didn’t think she needed to know. All that mattered was that he regretted it, and Michelle knew.

  Looking at his face and the grim look he had on, she knew that he did.

  Then Dante chuckled. “Michelle talks nonstop about you, saying how she admires you so much. It’s a totally different tune from the one she was speaking before.”

  Clara smiled wryly, thinking Michelle might have fantasized about killing her. She had threatened to hurt Clara when she went to her house to shout at her over their affair, when all they’d done was hug because Clara had been crying and Dante was trying to be nice.

  “That’s a little odd, considering the way I betrayed her.”

  Dante shrugged and said, “Everything that happened in the old world is forgotten now, or I guess you could see it like that. Michelle herself might as well be a new person, she was never like this for all the years we were married. Michelle admires how you kept everyone going and taking Jackson under your wing. She’s still struggling a little with ours, though they’ve definitely warmed up to her by now.”

  He sounded proud, and he had a reason to be. Because Michelle had been the one working, she hadn’t left that much time for her family, and Clara was glad to know that was no longer the case, even though the circumstances that brought about the change could have been better.

  “I’m more impressed with Tessa’s improvement—spending time with Jackson has made her calmer and happier.” She smiled. “I often catch Tessa playing with Jackson when she thinks I’m not looking. After how she initially acted around him, I’m glad.”

  Dante sent another smile her way. “I’m happy for your family. You deserve to not be miserable.”

  “I wouldn’t say I was miserable, Dante.”

  “Yeah, you wouldn’t, but I am.” Then he arched a teasing eyebrow her way. “You and Cooper have been doing well recently,” he commented innocently, and Clara rolled her eyes.

  But then she smiled happily. If other people were noticing, then it wasn’t just her imagining things.

  “I think I’ve found ‘the one,’” she admitted.

  They were quiet for a while, and then Clara noticed Dante tense up and his head snapped in a different direction.

  “I hear engines.”

  In spite of his claim, Clara couldn’t hear a thing. She listened, too, wondering if he was imagining it. After a few minutes, though, she started to hear it, too. They exchanged grim looks. Unless Jack had another child unexpectedly showing up, enemies had finally come to the farm.

  Clara felt glad that she hadn’t let her guard down completely, or she would have been disappointed and beside herself with what to do.

  “Get ready,” she told Dante, and they trained their guns on the road.

  Her body tensed up, and her eyes sharpened, staring at the space in front of her. Her mind cleared of all thought as she entered the space that allowed her to shoot and kill without flinching.

  A single car appeared and, as it drew closer, Clara felt her eyes widen in surprise.

  She swore she recognized a man in the car. Then it dawned on her—it was someone from Mawdsley.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The car drew up out front and the men got out, holding their hands up to show they had no weapons.

  But she didn’t care. Clara wanted to shoot them on sight.

  How dare they…

  It took her a moment to realize she was literally shaking with all the fury that suddenly washed through her. But she couldn’t exactly help it.

  How could these people just show up here and pretend to be harmless, as if they didn’t know them and what they’d done? Well, Jack and Audrey wouldn’t know, and Clara didn’t think Dante had recognized them.

  But Clara looked closely at the both of them, her eyes always straying back to the one as she thought back to where she could have seen him before. It took her a while, but her mind found the moment.

  She definitely knew the guy. When their town came under attack, not long after the attack on her neighborhood, she’d been working at the hospital with Felicia. Several patients had come in after their street was attacked by outsiders. Then, they went to the hospital.

  Clara and Felicia had both watched, helpless, as the men took away all their medicine and drove off in a truck.

  Sure. They didn’t kill anyone there, but nearly every single injured patient had been because of them, and Clara didn’t get the full count of how many people had died, either.

  The next attack was back in her neighborhood, when her grandmother died. And here he was, alive and well, after the last image she had burned into her mind from home.

  But she couldn’t just kill them for no reason, when they didn’t even have weapons and weren’t acting hostile. But a part of her really wanted to.

  Clara placed the sight of her gun on one of the men, fighting with herself not to pull the trigger on him. “Don’t move,” she told them both, her voice cold.

  Dante didn’t need her to tell him, he went around them and checked the car. Clara wanted to glance at him, internally begging him for a reason to pull the t
rigger, but her eyes wouldn’t stray from her mark.

  “There’s nothing,” Dante said, coming back to her side.

  Clara held back a growl, gritting her teeth. “The two of you keep still while he goes to bring the owner of this house.” She turned to Dante, and he nodded.

  She backed up so she could see them both clearly, and was disappointed when the man she recognized didn’t seem to know who she was. She wondered if he’d been there the day they had to flee from home, and concluded he must have. The guys left over from Mawdsley were probably all in one big gang, and Clara wondered just how many towns they’d gone through before making it all the way out here. They had driven out for more than a couple of days, walked for a day and a half through the forest, and yet it wasn’t far enough to run away from them.

  She wondered how far would be far enough. She wanted them gone, her finger hovering over the trigger, but she didn’t shoot. Maybe, they might give her a reason to. They were following her instructions, neither had moved even an inch since she told them not to, even with their hands held up. And even if they dropped them, she knew it wouldn’t be right to hurt them for just that.

  Part of her didn’t care. It was a dangerous state to be in, ready for the slightest provocation to start a fight. She knew it was wrong, but her emotions weren’t calming down, either. She gritted her teeth on all the words she wanted to fling at them, none of them nice.

  But another part of her was keeping her cautious. If these guys had found them, chances were that others had as well. These guys had decided to approach them, and they must have known there were people on this farm. She didn’t buy their ploy of peace, but she did want to know what they were planning, and the only way to do that was to reach for a patience she didn’t feel.

  Sound from behind her made her turn just enough to see the people coming, then she was looking at the two men again, reluctant to have them out of her sights while she was this close to them, in case they tried anything. Clara wouldn’t put it past them. She also wouldn’t be surprised if they had backup nearby ready to attack them, so her guard was definitely staying up. Dante was back, followed by Jack, Cooper, and Audrey.