“Yeah? You know, like ants in my pants, uncomfortable and waiting for something to go wrong.” He shifted from foot to foot, trying to convey the mental picture. She continued to stare at him, eyebrows raising and one corner of her lip quirking up. The look could almost be read as amusement.
“Heebie jeebies.” She said again, still questioning.
“Is the phrase really that strange to you?”
She didn’t answer, instead walking into the kitchen. She flicked the light switch, but nothing happened. Carver wasn’t surprised. While news may have not reached them of the towns being abandoned, it certainly wasn’t a recent enterprise.
“We should find a bed and crash.” Carver said, inwardly cringing at the fact he said “a bed,” and not “beds.”
He fully expected Clara to either clarify his statement or give him a hard time for it, but instead her voice remained soft as she replied, “Don’t you want to know what happened to everyone?”
“I mean, yeah, but an empty kitchen won’t tell us that. Unless the walls start talking, there’s not a lot of investigation we can do here.”
She straightened, and he realized how harsh his tone had sounded. “You’re right. Let’s find somewhere to sleep.”
She rushed past him, and Carver immediately wished he had fostered her curiosity. Yes, it would have been pointless, at least if the point was finding out what happened. But had the point been making himself less of an enemy in her mind…helping her would have accomplished that nicely.
19CLARA
Clara kept her posture neutral as she searched the house for a bedroom. What she actually wanted was to slip the brass knuckles out of her bag and see how well Carver could talk after a solid hit to the jaw. But she kept her hands unclenched, by her sides, hopefully the picture of innocence.
Thankfully, after his last comment, they fell into silence. The first room she walked into was a dining room; she walked out of the other side to see a bathroom and under-the-stairs closet.Upstairs then, she decided.
Her footsteps, while soft on the steps, echoed throughout the house. She was too tired to care, and no one was around. She was a little miffed at how soundlessly Carver trailed. She couldn’t even hear his breaths. While her soundlessness required a lot of mental focus, his seemed to be entirely natural. It was unnerving.
The first room was decorated in shades of pink, a crib centered on the far wall. For a moment, she forgot Carver was behind her as she trailed her fingers gently over the baby blankets left behind. The life she once dreamed of flashed before her eyes. She could have decorated a room like this. Could haveheld her baby close to her chest, rocked her to sleep in the rocking chair.
She closed her eyes for only a second before reality launched back in. That life was no longer something she could have. She worked too hard, was promoted too high to ever just up and leave. There would always be prisoners, always new assignments, always battles for Clara to fight, and she wouldn’t drag a child into that.
Carver cleared his throat, rather awkwardly she thought, behind her. “It’s interesting to see how people live,” she explained softly.
“You know how people live.” The confusion in his tone was clear, but she didn’t have an answer.
It was true, she realized as she walked into the next bedroom. She did at one point have a normal family. Lived a relatively normal life. Both parents loved her, home life was stable, everything was in its perfect place. But things changed suddenly, and the idea of that kind of normality now felt foreign.
The second bedroom had vehicles painted on the walls, and sported a single twin bed. “If we don’t find anything better, you can always stay here,” Clara said with a grin.
Carver lifted an eyebrow at her, proceeding to motion to his 6’ frame. “I don’t think I fit in a child’s bed, Clara.”
“Ohhhh, you only think like a child.” She bobbed her head smiling, “Makes sense.”
“You’re such a brat.” He snapped, “Can we speed this up? We need to get some rest if we’re going to make it to the festival in time. That means you can’t pause and observe every single thing in every single room.”
She scoffed, her smile instantly falling, and stomped into the next room. It appeared to be a guest bedroom, and had one full size bed. “Dibs.” she immediately said.
“Not how this works,” Carver droned. He was exasperated with her, and Clara was loving every minute of it. Good, let him be at least a little miserable. He deserved it.
She sat her bag on the floor, and plopped on the edge of the bed stretching her hands across the comforter to either side as she leaned forward. “Is that so? Looks like I’m here. I’m sure there’s a master bedroom you can take over somewhere. Or the car room looked like it would be a good fit, at least personality wise.” She watched him in the dim light of the flashlight, the shadows creating even harder lines for his figure.
He clenched his teeth, a muscle in his jaw flexing as his eyes flashed. She wondered what he was thinking about saying back. Was he considering breaking the rules? She had considered violence more than once already, had she driven him to the same point? If he was allowed, after all these years, would he tell her the truth of how he saw her? Or would he continue to lie to her face as if she couldn’t see through it?
“Fine. Sleep well.” He muttered and continued down the hallway.
Clara’s shoulders dropped, from relief or disappointment? She wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t believe the latter to be true. She didn’t want Carver back. She didn’t trust him, didn’t need him, couldn’t be herself with him, and didn’t love him. The last one might have been a lie, but it was too late at night for her to decide for sure.
She rolled her neck, stretching out the places of her body that were sore from their trip thus far. She didn’t want to wake up unable to move in the morning. She aligned her breathing to each movement, determined to be calm and go to sleep easily. Carver didn’t get to disturb her sleep. She might not be able to control her dreams, yet anyway, but she could at least control her thoughts. Most of the time. On a good day.
“Clara,” she heard him whisper sharply, and waited as his silhouette appeared in the doorway. The windows streamed moonlight and provided a slightly creepy back light. The shadows entirely obscured his face, and it bothered her that she couldn’t read him.
