{BOOK 1} I Thought We Would Be Safe - Paulkins/TGWDLM fanfic

Chapter 14 - Danger

A/N: Tom Carter and Tom Houston from Black Friday are different people! I wrote this fanfiction before Black Friday was announced so I didn't know there'd be a canon character named Tom. (I got a few comments about this so I just wanted to make it extra clear)

When Emma woke up, the sun was shining through the curtains. She was still laying on top of Paul, who had put a protective arm around her. In other circumstances, she would probably be embarrassed by the position they were in, but she just felt safe in his arms.

Paul muttered in his sleep, but Emma couldn't understand what he was talking about. She laid there for a few more minutes, listening to Paul's muttering and the birds outside.

She noticed that Paul's breathing became faster and his muttering more stressed. He was probably having a nightmare. Paul's arms wrapped tighter around her. "No, please don't, no, please, I'm begging you."

"Paul!" she screamed. His eyes opened.

"What? You were... I-"

"Paul, it's fine, it was just a dream." Emma laid her head down on his chest, listening to his breathing slowly became normal again. "Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?" Emma asked after a few minutes.

Paul sighed before answering, "I'm fine, it's just I was reliving that moment in the hospital, but this time we got separated and-" He went silent.

"It's okay, I'm here, you're here, we're alive." Paul smiled and calmed down.

After they had some breakfast with the oatmeal that they found in the kitchen, Paul came up with a plan. "I know that you don't want to separate, me neither, but we really need some food and I need a new phone. And I think it'll be faster if I did groceries by myself. Is that okay?"

Emma nodded, "Could you also get me some clothes? I don't care about what it is, as long I can wear something else than my work uniform I have been wearing for a month."

Paul grabbed a piece of paper and wrote it down, "Anything else? Do you have any allergies?"

"Nope."

He gave her an awkward kiss on her forehead and left.

So there she was, alone. She bit her nails, an old habit she had when she was stressed, but she hadn't done it in years. She just sat on the couch and winced at every sound she heard. After a while, her phone rang. She expected it to be colonel Schaffer, since she was the only one who knew her new phone number. She was right, and pressed the green button.

"Kelly!" the colonel shouted, while Emma adjusted her volume, why did that woman always talk so loudly?

"Are you at the house?" she asked.

"Yes, Paul is doing groceries, but I'm home."

There was a short silence, she heard the colonel breathe heavily. "You mean Ben. Anyway, listen to me, there is someone trying to kill both of you."

"What?" Emma interrupted.

"Let me finish. There's a guy that worked for PEIP until a week ago, when he committed a murder. He thought that if we didn't want information to leak, every survivor must die. Of course, he got fired, but we suspect that he saved the information about those people, because three days ago, four other survivors were found dead."

"So that means that"

"It means that until we caught him, you and Ben are in danger. The name of this man is Tom Carter, but we think he also gets help from his wife Michelle. I will send you a picture of them, so you know what they look like. But I have to call some other people now."

"Okay, thank y-" Emma heard something that sounded like a gunshot coming from her phone. "Colonel?" The same sound again, this time followed by the sound of the phone falling. "Colonel!" Screaming.

She heard a hysterical voice, "Colonel Schaffer! Schaffer!" The call ended.

What just happened? Was the colonel dead? And what about that man who was about to kill her? Even worse: Paul was alone, outside.

Emma started panicking. What if Paul never got back? She tried to calm herself down with the thought that the killer would be at the PEIP office, and not at the mall.

However, tears started streaming down her face.