Chapter Twenty: Packing up

Lukas was clingy when he finally woke up. Not that Martina really blamed him. The bad feeling from last night had only intensified after the soldiers came and tried to detain her and Nick. Whatever was happening out there, that was making all of the military men and women patrolling the neighborhood look so antsy wasn't a good thing. One thing was true, Martina was grateful that she had never fully unpacked the car. After their morning shower, Martina instructed Lukas to pick up all his toys and get ready to bring them back to the SUV.

Martina worked in the same efficient manner she always had as she packed the small number of clothes hanging around the house into their duffle bags and dumping them into her trunk. With Nick temporarily taken, because despite all of the qualms he had with his mother Madison would never actually give up on her son, Martina decided to pack him up a bag too. She stuffed his underwear, socks, two Capri-shorts, a pair of blue jeans and seven shirts into a camping bag. This time Lukas joined her to the trip to the car as the siblings loaded their goods into the vehicle.

"What are you doing?" Chris asked.

Martina stared at the younger teen consideringly, "Preparing. Just in case we have to bug out. Your dad and well, Madison are not going to take this lying down. And the soldiers, they've been acting different... I just don't want to be caught unaware."

Lukas tugged onto Martina's hoodie, "Are we getting Nicky?"

"Soon." Martina promised her brother, "Let's get everything ready first."

"I'm going for a walk," Chris mumbled as he passed by them and went down the street. Martina only shrugged before leading Lukas back inside where Madison was now standing in the kitchen with a conflicted expression on her face.

"Is something wrong?" Martina asked hesitatingly.

The blonde's head snapped to look at her, "Saw you packing up the car."

"Yeah." Martina nodded, "Something's not right, I figured it'd be safer to get all of my things together in case we have to leave. After- last night, I just, I mean I didn't feel very safe before, nut now?"

"I get it." Madison nodded, "It's not a bad idea. Do you mind helping me get some things into the car."

"No." she agreed as the former counselor led Martina into her bedroom where the woman's camping gear was still on the floor.

"If you could just get this into the trunk of my blue car that would be extremely helpful, wait, that's not too heavy for you, is it? With the baby." Madison asked in concern.

Martina crouched down and grabbed two of the bags, they were a bit heavy but the weight wasn't too bad, "No, I'm fine. Is your car unlocked?"

"Yeah." Madison murmured, "I'm gonna start collecting our supplies from the kitchen."

The two of them, and Lukas, spent the rest of the morning hoarding supplies into the cars before they ran out of useful items to pack. "Um, Madison?" Martina piped up, "I- I don't want to sound insensitive, but, um, your neighbor's house. The Trans? Do they have any canned goods or medicines we could take?"

The blonde woman startled at this suggestion, as if she had never thought of scavenging for supplies at the house of her deceased friends.

"If you don't feel comfortable doing that, I understand. But maybe I can go-"

"No!" Madison gasped out, "No, that's alright, I know the layout of the house really well. I'll collect what we need, you just wait on our side of the fence and I'll pass you stuff."

Martina nodded somewhat warily at the woman's outburst, was there something going on in the Trans house that she didn't want her to see? She had seen Ofelia and even Daniel go over the fence and enter the house earlier in the morning, but Ofelia had long since returned from the other side of the fence and was moping around in Alicia's room. Martina ignored the slightly twitchy woman as she hopped over the fence before going inside to grab the laundry basket and some rope. Once she was back outside, Martina created a pully of a sort with the laundry basket so that she would be able to pull up the supplies Madison would start appearing with.

Lukas was playing somewhat carefreely with Pingu in the backyard as he threw a green tennis ball for the german shepherd to fetch. The dog was relentless in his pursuit of the slobbery ball, but it made her little brother happy, so that was all that mattered. It took about half an hour for Madison and Martina to finish gathering supplies from the Trans house and call it a day. Martina made grilled cheese sandwiches for herself and Lukas for dinner before telling Madison that she was going to take a quick nap with her tired brother.

The six-year-old only protested for a moment before giving in and cuddling against Martina on Nick's bed. Even Pingu was exhausted from fetching the tennis ball all afternoon and passed out on the end of the bed. Martina's back ached something fierce, and she had a feeling that she may have over-did it today. The dying rays of the sun created shadows on the dark blue walls before sleep overtook her.

Martina woke up to a scream.

This was starting to become a trend. Waking up to a disaster occurring. She did not like it. A door slammed.

"Maddy! Maddy." Travis, who had been gone for most of the day, shouted throughout the house. Martina languidly got up before opening the bedroom door open by a crack so that she could hear what the couple was saying.

"Thank God you're okay." Maddison croaked out.

"Did you know what he was gonna do?" Travis ignored his girlfriend's platitudes, the woman was silent, " You didn't know? Tell me you didn't know!"

What the hell was going on now?

"Are you kidding me, Maddy! That's a human-being that Salazar's torturing!" Travis raged.

Oh.

Madre de Dios.

Ofelia's boyfriend. That was the only person Martina could think of Daniel getting close enough to trap. What if the other army men had noticed that the Corporal was missing? Shit. Shit. Shit. Luietnent Moyers would not let that slight go.

"What other choice did we have Travis!" Madison retorted as a chair clattered, "They took Nick! Griselda! Besides, you need to hear what Daniel learned! The soldiers have been hiding something important!"

"I don't care about what you learned! God, Maddy, this is so wrong!"

"Travis!" Madison shouted, "Where are you going? Travis!"

"To put an end to this!" Travis's voice was fading away as the back door was slid shut behind the angry couple.

This was not going to end well.

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