DANGEROUS LOVE | twd au

Chapter 4:: You again

It takes the water about a minute to get to a warm temperature while Tara waits impatiently. She runs her hands through her hair slowly, stroking her skull in the hope that it will make her brain work better. What on earth happened yesterday? Sleeping it off has not done the job she hoped it would, it was not just a dream. There is no escaping the dozens of news anchors and their mysterious stories on the virus outbreak; even during the walk from her bedroom to the bathroom, Tara was able to hear the now familiar sound coming from the living room downstairs. Yet all she can think about every second she is awake is Rosita Espinosa. The rest of it all seems so far away, but Rosita Espinosa has left her mark on Tara's mind. 

The shower stream finally feels warm to the touch and Tara steps into the shower cabin. She releases a deep sigh underneath the comforting hug of the droplets. There is nothing capable of washing your worries away as well as a shower does it, even if just temporarily. 

Suddenly, the water stops running and the sound of the last drops falling echoes through the bathroom. Tara tries to turn it back on, but nothing works. She steps out of the cabin and wraps herself in a towel before she calls for her sister. 'Lilly!'

Within a second, Lilly's head pops through a small crack in the door, she must already have been on her way. 'Hey, does the light work here?' She switches the light button on and off, but the lights stay out.

'The water doesn't work either,' Tara complains.

'You're kidding.' Lilly frowns and walks away again. 'Dad!' Tara hears a muffled call to their father. 

Tara closes the door behind her sister, who left it open. 'I'm not!' she adds, knowing that Lilly won't hear it. She starts to dry off her barely wet body when she notices something in the corner of her eye. 

In a small little corner of condensation on the window, blooms a rose. A tiny rose, as if drawn on carefully by an elegant finger. 

Tara shakes her head, rubs her eyes, and looks again. The rose is gone.

• • •

'Power back on yet?' Tara breaks the silence she walks into upon entering the living room. 

Her dad is in his sitting chair, watching Lilly, who watches Meghan drag colored pencils over a piece of paper. 

'No, nothing.'

'Do you think it's an outbreak?'

Lilly's eyes widen as her eyes shoot up to Tara and then down to Meghan again. Lilly does not want to scare her daughter, yet when her father needs the volume on the news to be loud enough to hear it, she does not comment on it. 

Tara shrugs. 'Well, I think I'm about to find out.'

'What do you mean?' Lilly asks.

'My appointment in the city. At the police station. Why else would I be up this early?'

Lilly hangs her head down. 'Right. Do you need me to drop you off? You can't be going alone, I have a weird feeling about all this.'

Tara assures her that she'll be fine. For starters, if things haven't changed then the police and military are present downtown. After Espinosa's escape, they must still be looking for her. 

Tara pushes the thought of the freaks out of her head. She'd seen it with her own eyes, hadn't she? The changed people; the blood and the growling. No source has confirmed what the virus looks like, but maybe that's because they refuse to acknowledge how terrifying it is. Either that or there is a much bigger threat than that virus waiting. And it isn't just the power and the water shutting off.

• • •

On Tara's route downtown, it seems as though she is the only person moving in that direction. On her bike, she's able to slalom her way through the lines of cars and walking people. It's a funny sight, just one fish fighting back against the stream instead of going along with it. 

The people are carrying luggage and traveling with their families. They could be evacuating, or hurrying to the airport for a spontaneous vacation. All that is clear is that the widely spread inhabitants of these suburbs are now sharing one mind. 

The alarm bells in Tara's head finally start ringing loudly when from around a corner a large crowd of screaming people comes running towards her. Tara steps off her bike and squints her eyes, trying to make out what is happening. A few people violently bump into her and she loses her grip on her bike, seeing it fall onto the pavement now. Yet she can't take her eyes off of the approaching crowd, not until the crowd is followed up by machine gunfire and explosions. Why are those people being fired at?

A gloved hand wraps around Tara's arm, like a fishhook making a catch in a school of chaos, and before she knows it, she's being pulled off the street and toward the houses. Tara suddenly realizes how fast and close the crowd is moving towards her, and feels her legs kicking in and cooperating with the person steering her. She can't find any words and her attention is locked on the crowd until the view of the street is blocked off by a garage door dropping down in front of her. It all happened so fast. 

Tara pants, she turns around. 

It's Rosita Espinosa that she meets eyes with. 'Hi again, Tara.' She remembers her name.

Tara backs up against the garage door, getting some distance between her and her murdering acquaintance. Tara opens her mouth to speak but is cut off by more noise from outside. Screaming, firing, growling, bombing. She covers her ears and crouches down with her back against the door.

Espinosa stands halfway across the room from her, staring alertly out of the half-opaque garage door windows above Tara's head. Two hands are ready to free her gun from her holster when needed. Her eyes shoot from different points outside whenever a banging noise is heard. She keeps her head slightly low, and her body and face still and tense. 

A minute of hiding in this trench passes by before the noises quiet down a bit. The guns quit firing and the explosions have long stopped; it's only human noises that keep on going. Some faraway cries and growls are to be heard clearly now.

Tara finally dares to continue panting when Rosita breaks the silence. 'Yep, they lost.'

Tara frowns at her.

Rosita shakes her head and raises her voice as if shouting feedback to the people outside of the garage. 'Just shooting as many bullets as you can is not gonna do shit against those, you dumb motherfuckers!' 

Tara looks at her cluelessly. No information was to be taken from the criminal's theatrical remark. But given the level of comfort Espinosa now shows, Tara guesses that a lot of people just died out there.

'I guess it's for real now,' Rosita states. 

Tara blinks, everything completely frozen. 'I need to go home.'

'No way,' Espinosa says quickly, almost smiling. In a single, smooth movement she pulls out a pair of handcuffs from somewhere behind her back, grabs ahold of Tara's wrist, and cuffs her to one of the handles on the garage door. Tara struggles but Espinosa is too strong and it's too late. The element of surprise does not fail.

'What the hell!' Tara yells out, pulling on the restraint.

The woman across her readjusts her hat and wipes her face with the back of her hand. 'You go out there and you're dead,  and it won't be me who kills you.'