⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 ASKING FOR IT      ╱    
The Calm After The Storm.𖥔˚
chapter SEVEN

          No one tells you about the calm after the storm. Far and wide, one will hear of the mysterious and eerie calm before the storm━━━but no one had warned the five souls with too tight muscles and a ghostly feeling of wind on their skin of the calm after.

For too long, they sat attached and hunkered down with the pipes in their little pocket of safety, untrusting of the silence and dead night air. It was only after the child, the most resilient of them all, looked up to her mother and asked, "Can we go now?", that Tyler moved. 

He had made them all promise to wait for him to say it was okay━━━well at least, had tried to━━━but when Carmen had picked up on even the slightest hitch of his breath, she had moved to stand beside him and reclaimed the hand that hers was starting to mold to.

Soon after, the other three began to move as well. At this point, tragedy was known. Engines roared and sirens blared, and strobing red and blue slid up to them and took control of the moment. Circling them all, they ushered the mother and daughter to the first ambulance, and the three of them stayed huddled together in silence as people and voices milled around them.

After a moment, cracked lips part and she mumbles, "I'm sorry."

Rearing back as if a blow had connected with them both, Kate and Tyler stare at her in confusion. "What the fuck for?" The latter finally asks, eyes comically wide.

"The rodeo was my idea," she laughs weakly, all traces of humor washed away somewhere she can't remember right now. "If we'd just stayed at the motel..."

"Don't," Kate bites, stepping forward and folding her into her arms, "finish that sentence. Carm, you couldn't have known. It's not like you brought us out here on purpose. Please, don't do this to yourself." Leaning her head on her shoulder and sighing, she mumbles for only her friend to hear, "I know what that's like, and you don't deserve it."

Biting her lip, she forces her arms around Kate and sighs. "Neither do you."

"Kate! Carmen!" At the sound of the shout, the two pull away and turn their attention to the body hurtling toward them, as they move toward him Javi comes into clear focus. "Kate," he mumbles into the girl's shoulder, taking her into his arms first before doing the same to Carmen. He doesn't linger nearly as long there. 

"When I saw the size of it on the radar and... and where it was headed, all I could think was..." He doesn't have to finish the thought he's let hang in the air. All three of them are too uncomfortably aware of where it was going. Instead, they tell him what he really needs to hear.

"I'm... I'm all right," the blonde mumbles, while Carmen nods. "We're okay."

Javi nods, looking around with wide eyes━━━assessing the damage and destruction so close to them. The destruction that no doubt affected them━━━that could have been them. As he scans it all, his eyes snag on something behind them, and he frowns. "You've been with Owens the whole time?"

"Yeah." The brunette turns around, wiping the hair off her face that whips her cheek as she does. Her eyes catch on Tyler's like he'd been waiting, and she smiles weakly when she sees his friends have joined him. After he smiles back, she turns around again. "Why?"

Despite opening his mouth, it's Scott's voice that fills the space instead. "Javi." She frowns, not having realized Scott came with Javi. Crossing her arms over her chest, she's unable to wipe the sour feeling in her chest. "Apparently, this, uh, place was family-owned, so I'm gonna start working up some numbers. Riggs is gonna want those first thing."

At the mention of Riggs, and the idea of numbers and family-owned, Carmen rolls her eyes so hard her head spins. "Jesus," she scoffs, looking from Scott to Javi. "Maybe next time just ask the damn people while the tornado's happening. I mean," she throws her hands out, "what's the difference?"

"Carmen?" Javi asks, words tinged with a hurt she can't be bothered with. Scott, on the other hand, spares her no second glance and just turns back toward who must be the owner. She wonders briefly if anyone's told him his employee got swept up in a storm too powerful to stop. "What does that mean?"

Glaring, she waves a hand around at the rubble all around. "The ground hasn't even dried from the rain that came with a goddamn tornado passing through here━━━ripping people's lives to shreds━━━and you're already ready to sweep in and make a profit. Aren't you, Javi?"

"That's not..." Javi stumbles, shaking his head and looking stricken. "I don't know..."

"Javi...what is Riggs getting out of all your data collection?" Kate speaks like she's also come to learn something in the evening hours between Tyler's words and being faced with the evidence firsthand.

"What's... what's it matter?" His words and the shift of his feet make it clear he knows they wouldn't like the answer, and it's unclear if it's smarter or dumber that he doesn't say anything else. It's enough of an answer in itself, at least.

"Is profiting off of people's tragedy part of your business plan?" The blonde demands, a familiar fire burning in her eyes and blazing him down. "Why are you doing this?"

"Wait, hold on." Ready to soothe them like their children overreacting about a simple debate, he holds his hands up and gives them a look as if to say, There's been a misunderstanding. "Riggs is offering these people a way to move on with their lives."

"Bullshit," she scoffs, the sound pulled from deep in her chest. Stepping away from Javi, she looks at him in a way she hasn't yet let herself. He clean cropped hair and done up polo with smart shoes. When did she stop recognizing who was looking back at her? How could she let herself not notice? "You are fucking lying to yourself, Javi, and you know it."

No promise of a chase was worth this, the tear in her fundamentals of who she is.

"He's swooping in and taking advantage of people who have just lost everything." Her best friend is looking at Javi like she can still get him to see the reality of the situation. Like he doesn't know it and has just chosen to ignore it because no one's called him out on it yet. "You... you have no idea what that's like."

"I don't know what that's like?" Javi repeats, disbelieving and so clearly hurt. His entire being shudders. "How about losing three of my best friends while you were trying to land a big, fat grant for your science project?"

"Fuck you," Carm spits before the final words have even been let into the air. The sting of the words cut into her like a thousand little paper cuts, and she can only picture the feeling ripping through Kate. Her arms drop from her chest and she pushes at Javi's chest harshly, needing to see him stumble. "Fuck you. You asshole! What the fuck is wrong with you?"

The man doesn't even look at her as she attacks him, instead his eyes follow the person rushing from her side. "Kate. Kate, I didn't..." Turning to see Kate making a dash for it, she lets Javi go and starts after her━━━his cries a distant sound as they climb into his truck and make a break for it. "Kate! Kate. Wait, wait. Don't leave like this. Look. Kate!"

At that moment, as they sped away from Javi and the echo of a night torn apart by something they both loved with a ferocity so grand, it was clear what exactly this storm had done. It had ripped the cracks in them far enough apart that it was impossible to not see what was hiding behind them.

After a long time driving and stewing with thoughts neither of them should have been left with, Carmen turned in the passenger seat. Her legs were curled up and pressed against her chest tightly, and she set her chin on the knobs of her knees. "How'd you know?" She finally asks, after much debate about how to start the conversation.

She's let Kate have her silence, but it's her turn to need something. Right now, she can't imagine much else would help other than Kate talking to her. The roads beyond them were dark and empty, and she had no idea where they were going━━━wasn't even sure if Kate knew━━━but she let the tamer lead them wherever it was she needed to go.

"After what Tyler said, earlier today, I couldn't stop thinking about it." Her eyes don't leave the darkened road she's chosen as their path. "Back at the motel, while I was waiting for you, I looked Riggs up. Found out who he really is." Her words are delivered with a sort of numb feeling that rubs at Carmen, and she reaches out to squeeze Kate's arm.

Briefly, her eyes flicker to her, and a weak smile presents itself before fleeting again. "Tyler told you, I'm assuming?"

"Yeah." She flinches as she remembers the way they hightailed it out of there, not saying a word to anyone, par the argument with Javi. It was decidedly shitty after the night they just endured with Tyler━━━who'd been there every step of the way━━━but there was no way she could've let Kate flee on her own. Of course, she would've only gotten as far as her own truck before she took off after her, but it made her feel better that she never even got that far away.

Kate had a habit of running. Fear of getting too close to something and losing it the way they did so terribly all those years ago, and hatred of the reminders clear in the air around her driving her every time something hit the fan. Truthfully, with the way this week was going, it only seemed to make sense that she'd hit her limit.

Yet, it also made it more confusing on where they could be going. Kate was driving to get away, and the last time she did that, she fled as far as New York fucking City.

"He's going to go insane, you know that right?"

Blinking, she pulls her eyes back up to Kate from where they fell to the dashboard. "What?"

"Tyler," she clarifies, a tentative smile stretching across her lips. "He's going to freak out because you've disappeared. After all of that? He barely wanted to let you leave his side. Now that you're out of sight?" Kate laughs as if the image she's conjured up in her mind is that good.

"It'll be fine," she deflects, hoping it's dark enough in the cab that Kate can't see the flush warming her cheeks. "There was a lot going on, is all. I think he'll be fine now that everything's calmed down."

Kate takes an exit off the highway with a familiar name, but she doesn't dwell on it as the blonde turns to glare at her playfully. "Don't try to bullshit me, Carmy. That man has been watching you since the first day we got here. The fact that you haven't already slept with him is more shocking than the idea that he's not into you."

"Kate!" She laughs, hiding her face in her hands and shaking her head. "Oh my God!"

Set off by the other, the blonde laughs heartily and hits her hand on the wheel as she tries to force the words out━━━demanding Carmen's attention as if they're not the only two in the truck. "Don't even! If this were any other situation, you'd be in his bed already!"

Groaning, she drops her hands and pretends to swat at Kate, never actually hitting her.

Thankfully, the other doesn't push the issue, and the rest of the ride is spent in comfortable silence until they pull up to a familiar aging home. The set of Kate's shoulders is tense as she looks at it, but there's nothing to say as they climb out of the car and make their way to the porch. 

As the blonde reaches for the hideaway key in the flower pot, the brunette lets her eyes take in what she can of the house. It's not as easy to see in the dead of night as it might've if the two made the trip out in the morning, but it was easy to tell not much had changed about it. Same peeling white shutters and cobblestone in the garden. Same feeling of home spread deep in the bones.

Slipping into the silent house, Carmen follows blindly as Kate makes her way to the kitchen. Near the end of her teenage years, the cowgirl spent more time here than she did at her own home. She could walk the halls blindfolded, even all this time later, she was sure. Yet, it wasn't her who needed to take the journey through something familiar and see that it hadn't changed past recognizing.

Leaning against the kitchen counter and letting Kate take her time, a thin smile stretched across her lips as a tread of footsteps approached from down the hall.

"Mama, it's me," Kate called in hopes of making sure poor Cathy didn't panic too much or for too long. In some ways, it had the desired effect. In other, Kate's mother came into the kitchen looking as if she'd seen a ghost.

"Kate?" As soon as reality returns to her, and she recognizes the true sight of her daughter in front of her, the woman wraps her arms around her. "What happened? What..."

Her eyes flick to Carmen then, still standing in the corner, and she says nothing more. Opening her arms again, the brunette falls into them too, and the three stand there for so long their legs grow numb.

"Well," Cathy finally mumbles, pulling away from them and throwing them back into a moment of being adults and not the children they used to be who could've called for a little more time in her arms. "Let's get you two settled."

Ushering them down the hall, she sends Kate to the shower first, while enlisting Carmen's help to clear some of the junk up out of the blonde's old room. The two work together in silence until they're joined again by their last piece.

"I am sorry there's so much junk in here," she tells her daughter, motioning between the boxes in both her and Carmen's hands. "I'll finish clearing it out for you tomorrow." Setting down whatever she'd had in her hands, she turned back to the two.

Doing the same with the cardboard box in her hands, Carmen flops onto the bed beside Kate and leans her head on her shoulder. "Oh, your friend Javi stopped by a few weeks back. Almost didn't recognize him with the haircut." Her eyes go inquisitive, and almost involuntarily, her eyes dip to the exposed skin of Kate's leg. The pink of healed scar tissue takes up the space it claimed all that time ago. "You chasing again?"

"No," Kate says too quickly, pulling the fabric of her shorts over the marking.

The older woman nods, clearly knowing that now is not the time for any kind of conversation pointed in that direction. Instead, she smiles lightly. "Do you need anything?"

"No, I'm fine." Kate's head has shut her away now, they both recognize, and Carmen frowns.

"Okay." Making her way back to the door, her mom only looks back once. "Good night, girls."

"Good night," they echo.

As Cathy leaves, the brunette stands and stretches her arms out over her head. "I'm going to shower, I think." She can still feel the ghost of dirt and debris dug into her skin. "You okay with sharing the bed tonight?"

"Yeah." Kate lays down, automatically moving to the left side and leaving the right clear for the other girl to climb into when she comes back. "'Course."

Nodding, she rummages through Kate's drawers to find a mismatched kind of outfit out of old and forgotten pieces. Feeling somewhat satisfied, she leaves Kate in the room and makes her way down the hall—close enough to hear the floorboards creak.

So while she left the blonde with her thoughts and the silence she needed to have space to breathe, Carmen let the running shower and the sound of the fan fill her brain until there was nothing more of it.

▬▬ mads speaks ╱ this chapter's mostly filler
& a little shorter than most of the others, but it also
means we're getting closer to the end!! i love this story
and i'm so excited to see it completed soon hopefully