Emma and Chase trekked back home. The sun had already hit the horizon, turning the sky and the clouds into various shades of flame around where it was sinking. Soon, it would go down, and then darkness would come in.
There was little hope of them making it back before nightfall, but she still sighed when she realized it was going to be full dark in a matter of minutes and they weren’t even close. Emma was tired already from little sleep and her heavy backpack, considering the way was longer than it had been from the store, her weight this time heavier, too.
But she kept her thoughts to herself. She didn’t want to complain when Chase had more on him than she did. She shifted the straps on her shoulders again so they were settled more comfortably. It didn’t change the weight of it, though, and she thought it would break her back before they made it back. She put her arms under the bag and pushed it up so it wouldn’t weigh so much on her shoulders. The instant relief made her sigh again, though she knew she couldn’t keep it up for long.
Chase had been quiet too long, and she almost smacked herself when she realized. She looked sideways at him, then fully when she saw his eyes roving around the terrain. He seemed... nervous. She frowned and looked around, wondering what he was looking at, or looking for.
"What is it, Chase? What's wrong?"
He spared her a quick glance before he was looking around again. He even checked behind them, turning completely around, and then facing forward again.
"It's nothing."
She scowled, wanting to smack him. He glanced at her again and noticed her expression.
"Okay, so it isn’t nothing. It's getting late and the bikes were already taken from us. I just... don’t think the streets are safe. Not anymore."
Dammit!
Somehow, Emma had forgotten. Of course the streets wouldn’t be safe, especially after dark. She'd had the thought yesterday, after the crash and the aftermath. When she'd thought about one of them getting attacked for their stuff before, when they saw their bikes getting taken away, she had assumed they'd be okay as long as it was two of them.
That wasn’t true, though. They were carrying a lot of luggage and they had a distance to go. Already she felt exhausted, and she didn’t think Chase was too far off. Neither of them knew how to fight, at least she didn’t, though Chase didn’t strike her as the kind of guy that went around throwing punches.
Emma became more wary, nervous that someone might try to attack them. She pulled her arms out from under the bag on her back, knowing she'd need her hands, whether or not she could do anything with them. Instead, she held onto the straps in a tight grip, looking around as cautiously as Chase did.
As they reached the site of the plane crash once more, they heard a commotion coming from across they town square. They glanced over at each other, silently agreeing to go investigate the sound. They discovered a group of young boys, just like the two that took their bikes, were breaking into the store Emma had stopped at just that morning.
She remembered the store owner, how the man had warned her about the lack of supplies and felt concern. He might still be in there, and she felt immediate concern. When she took a step forward, though, she felt a hand grip her shoulder to keep her still. She looked up to Chase who was frowning down at her, but she knew he was just concerned.
"Emma, we can't," he murmured, keeping an eye on the boys, but holding tight to her shoulder.
They couldn’t have been younger than the kids that went to her high school, but there was a relatively large group of them—they were more than two, and that alone made them a large group. She could understand his caution, but she firmed her jaw.
"We can't just let them get away with it. It's not their stuff to just take. And what if there's someone in there and they hurt him?"
"Emma," he said insistently, leaning closer and speaking rapidly. "I want to help, believe me, I do. But this isn’t a fight we can win, we should just move on. There are more of these boys than there are of us, and they don’t have all the stuff we're lugging around."
Emma just slid out from under his hand and he thinned his lips in disapproval.
"They can't get away with stealing, Chase. We haven't done that and its only day two of whatever the hell is going on. The man that owns that store may have a family, like I do, and he's going to want to look after them. Look at those boys and tell me they're doing this because they're starving."
Chase looked at them, anxious, but she knew he saw what she did. Those kids wanted to break in there because they saw an opportunity to get things without having to pay for them. They were all well dressed and probably had families of their own. They could have been lost to the crash, but Emma didn’t think they would be out here if that was true.
She decided to intervene, because how could she not? If people were deteriorating this quickly, it would be every man for himself soon, but not yet.
"Hey! You guys."
She felt Chase come to a stop beside her several feet away from those boys. She wasn’t stupid enough to try and get too close, even with Chase standing beside her. A couple of them heard her and turned around, and they stopped the others that were still trying to break through the glass, all of them shifting their attention to her and Chase.
"Get lost lady," one boy sneered.
Emma resisted the urge to return the expression. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
One of them laughed and glanced over at his friends. "What does it look like we're doing, lady? Why don’t you and your boyfriend mind your own business, huh. We're a little busy right now."
She felt her hands clench at her side as the other boys let loose low chuckles at her expense. It reminded her so much of dealing with delinquent students, the kind she could never handle without help, only this situation was so much worse.
But she wouldn’t back down now.
"What you're doing is wrong."
The same boy that spoke before snorted. "Please. We're just doing what everyone will be doing soon enough," he pointed out. "We're just getting ahead of the game."
So they likely knew the situation wasn’t going to get resolved soon, or guessed—or they just didn’t care. Emma could never guess with teenagers.
"It's barely been two days," she argued back. If they couldn’t last that long, no matter what they took from that store, they weren’t going to survive on it long, but she didn’t tell them that. "You guys need to stop what you're doing right now and get home before its full dark."
"Why? No one will catch us, and what's there to go back to, anyway? There are no lights, there are no security cameras. It’s the perfect crime so why the hell should we turn back, just because some old lady told us to?"
One of the other boys stepped up, looking at them closely. "Actually, you seem to have a lot of supplies on you."
That got all their attention, and Emma felt Chase go still beside her. She could have told them it was mostly clothes and personal effects, but somehow, she didn’t think they'd care.
The boy stepped up, grinning, and Emma didn’t think she was imagining the malicious edge to it with the dying light.
"Why don’t we leave the shop alone and take everything from you instead," he suggested.
The other boys behind him didn’t seem to find anything wrong with that plan, nodding as they glanced among each other. They were easy targets after all, weighed down and seemingly unarmed.
Emma wanted to curse herself for being so stubborn. They couldn’t exactly run, and she didn’t think she and Chase could fight them all off without losing what they had and getting hurt. Chase did curse beside her, his voice low and vehement. He put a hand on her shoulder to pull her back, but she knew turning their backs to these boys would be a bad idea.
They were advancing slowly, probably having fun intimidating a couple of grownups. Emma knew the boys were toying with them, and it made her so mad she could have just tossed the weight on her back at them if it had the chance of injuring at least one of them.
But then, she remembered. When she'd been trying to help people after the accident and the area cleared, and the old woman that had stopped to talk to them. She'd handed them a gun, and Emma had handed it over to Chase.
She didn’t know if it was loaded, had no way of knowing, but it was the one thing they could use to protect themselves. Even empty, as long as those boys saw it, they'd likely go running. She glanced over at Chase, who had changed from his previous clothes, but was still wearing a hoodie. He'd worn the one from yesterday when they left her place, even though it had been warm outside. She had to believe he'd carried it. If he was worried about the streets being unsafe, he wouldn’t have left it at her house, or his flat.
Emma reached into Chase's hoodie, ignoring him when he flinched. She felt a wash of satisfaction as her hand came into contact with cold, hard metal, and she snatched it up, being careful not to touch the trigger and shoot Chase by accident. She brought the firearm up, holding it with both hands as she eased a finger into the trigger, but didn’t press down, and aimed it at the boys.
Everyone came to a standstill, the group of boys looking at the gun pointed at them in something like fear. She almost let herself grin, a fierce, not very nice thing that wanted to cross her face so badly. It wasn’t like her, though, and she managed to hold it back. She didn’t actually plan on shooting anyone, but they didn’t need to know that. Just having them afraid, after what they'd tried to do to her and Chase, was good enough.
"I suggest you boys don’t get too close."
Chase's hand, still on her shoulder, tightened its grip. It hurt a bit, and she just barely stopped herself from wincing. The boy in front of the others slowly raised his hands up, trying to take a step back only to step into the guy right behind him and go still.
"Whoa, lady. We weren’t actually going to do anything," he blustered, and they all took a few collective steps back.
He was just lying to save his hide, though. She knew, if she and Chase had been defenseless, they would have walked away from the situation with nothing on hand and a few bruises to boot. She didn’t want to think what would have happened if one of them had been alone, or if Chase had decided to stay and she met them alone on her way back. It brought a shiver to her back before she shoved the thought away. Just in case the light trembling traveled to her hand, she slid her finger out of the trigger, worried about the gun going off by accident. She didn’t want that to be how she learned its sensitivity to touch.
She took a quiet breath to help her calm down, and motioned with the gun for them to move.
"I suggest you boys go home, right now, or I will shoot you."
Her voice brooked no argument. Terrified, the boys turned to run, a few of them stumbling before picking themselves up and following the ones in the lead. She wondered if they even knew where they were going. There was no guarantee they would actually go home, but that wasn’t her problem. She didn’t plan on running after them, so she could only hope she'd scared them enough to do as she'd told them to.
When they went out of sight, Emma released the breath she was holding on a sigh, letting her hands drop down slowly so the gun was pointed on the ground. Her heart beat came down to normal levels as she let her body relax.
It was almost worse than the crash had been, probably because the threat was at the hands of her fellow human beings, not a falling metal contraption. Considering it was only day two, she imagined the situation was going to get worse, which meant no more leaving home so close to dark, especially when they intended to go far. Also, if she ever used her parents' bikes, she was going to have to be careful not to lose them, because they were the only forms of long distance transportation they had left.
If the owner was in that store, she hoped he got himself out with a few supplies and went back home, at least until day light if he needed to get more stuff. If someone else decided to rob the place before the night was over, she didn’t think there would be anyone else to stop it, or that anyone would bother to.
Emma turned back to Chase to see him staring down at her, shocked at her behavior. His hand was still on her shoulder, and when she moved, he seemed to tighten his hand instinctively. She winced, transferring the gun to one hand and reaching up to tap his hand so he could pull it back.
He did so quickly, and winced as he watched her rub at where he'd clutched.
"Sorry."
She sighed, holding the gun out for him gingerly. "It's okay."
He stared at the gun in her hand, and then shifted his eyes to her.
She sighed again, heavier. "Chase, I know. But I couldn’t leave it, and I couldn’t let them make off with your stuff. Do you really think they would have stopped to see what was food and what wasn’t? They would have taken everything, and probably hurt us. It was necessary."
His shoulders slumped, and she hadn't realized he'd been that tensed. But he seemed okay with her justification, and he took the gun from her and hid it back inside his hoodie.
"I get it, I do, but that doesn’t mean we can go around waving this thing at people. Neither of us have ever used a gun—unless there's something you're not telling me." He arched an eyebrow at her, and she shook her head. He nodded. "We need to know how to use it. They were kids, and they were more scared than anything, so we got lucky. But it won't always work if you don’t back up a threat with action."
She shivered just thinking about it, actually firing a gun with the intent to hurt someone, or kill them. But she knew he was right. Those boys were just having fun now, but pretty soon, they or someone else would get desperate enough they won't even be thinking about the consequences. When people got desperate, it took a lot more than the threat of death to get them to behave, and she feared for the future of her family. Stores would go first, but eventually, some people were going to start breaking into houses, whether or not they had people inside, and more people were going to get hurt.
Right now, though, that wasn’t her priority. They were going to have to take things as they came, because thinking ahead to the bleak future, she felt like giving up when they'd barely started. She grabbed Chase's sleeve and tugged him along as she went ahead.
"Come on. We still have a way to go back. No harm was done to anyone today."
Chase didn’t refute her claim, following her lead as they walked back, and she wondered if he was thinking of what she was; what would she have done, if those boys hadn't stopped advancing on them? If they'd just pushed, until she had no choice but to do something, fire at them or let those boys hurt the two of them. Emma wasn’t sure she would have just dropped the gun, and that scared and worried her.
She shuddered before pushing the thought away as they continued on home.
