Chapter Four: Army Brat

She could hear her coworkers still whispering furiously into their phones as they conversed with their families. A small hand tugged onto her pants; Mason smiled brightly up at her as he showed off the creation in his hand "Look Miss 'Uno! I made a plane!"

Juno smiled falsely before ruffling the boy's short curly locks, "Good job Mason! It looks super cool!"

Shit. She hadn't even begun to think about what this would mean for the kids. Hopefully, some of their parents were still alive and were currently making their way to the daycare to get them. Juno was not going to be able to care for all twenty-five toddlers, even with the help of her co-workers, and survive at the same time. It wasn't plausible. After all, you had to keep an eye on kids at all times, and they were noisy little buggers too. They would draw all of the geeks to them if only one of them decided to throw a tantrum at the worst moment. But first, she needed to get her gun and silencer and pick off any geeks that were already too close to the daycare. Juno looked up from the cheerful faces of the children under her charge when Marcy collapsed onto the floor in tears as her body shook in barely repressed sobs.

"Marcy?" she inquired softly, placing her hand on the woman's shoulder.

The black-haired woman just shook her head brokenly as a couple of the other kids started to surround the normally strict teacher in concern, "You okay?" Janiyah asked in concern, "Miss Marcy do ya have a boo-boo?"

"Is gonna be 'kay, Miss Marcee." Mia mimicked rubbing the woman's back as well. Marcy just turned her body away into Juno's arms as she tried to hide her tears.

"Wha's w'ong?" Emma asked, "Ma'cee sad?"

Juno looked up from the broken woman to see that they now had the attention of the entire room, "Yeah." she replied after clearing her throat.

"Why?" Ethan asked, his head tilted to the side curiously.

"She just is." Juno muttered, "Go back to playing with your blocks okay, Miss Juno is going to take care of Miss Marcy's boo-boo and if you guys are a being good and not too noisy we'll watch an episode of Barney, okay?"

"Okay Miss 'Uno!" the majority of the room chorused as they turned back to the colorful building blocks. She pulled the heartbroken woman to her feet before gently pushing her into the other room.

"What happened Marcy?"

The woman shook her head again brokenly, "My Stanley is dead, 'eard it on the phone. We were talkin' when those things broke in ta his office, an-an' I could 'ear 'em kill'ng him."

"I-I'm so sorry Marcy," Juno whispered hugging the woman fiercely.

"I-I am too." she whimpered, "What 'bout you?"

"My family is okay for now. They haven't heard from brother-in-law since this morning and my little brother is AWOL... but otherwise they are all together at my parent's house."

The woman nodded, "Tha's good, I'm glad nobodies hurt."

Juno nodded in agreement, "Me too... although, I don't think I'm going to be able to see them again for a long, long time." she whispered softly as she tried to mask the despair in her voice.

"Oh, darlin' I'm sorry." Marcy's words were soft and empathetic as she wiped the tears from her eyes, "We're gonna have ta take care of each other for now." Juno nodded as she accepted a hug from the older woman.

"Yeah... and we're going to have to look after the kids as well. God, I hope their parents are all on their way to come and get them." Juno prayed for that internally once more before looking at the oldest woman out of all of her co-workers seriously, "I need you to watch the kids while Kathy and Ashley are still on their phones. I need to get my gun from upstairs."

"What!" Marcy exclaimed, "You can' go out there!"

Kathy poked her head out to look at them in concern, "Who's goin' out there? Ain't nobody is goin' outside!"

"Juno is!" Marcy proclaimed, pointing at Juno in a juvenile manner as if she was telling on her to their parents, "She's crazy, said she wants ta go out there and get 'er gun!"

Their blonde supervisor looked conflicted as Ashley finally made an appearance, but before she could get a word in Juno explained herself, "I'm just going to go upstairs real quick and get my gun. The geeks won't be able to see me since the whole backyard and the stairs are covered. I'm going to go up onto the roof and see how many of those things are out there... and if I can, I'm going to take out any that are too close to us, okay?"

"Since when have you had a gun in the first place?" Marcy asked.

"You're going to draw them all over here if you start shooting from the damn roof." Ashley hissed.

"I'm not!" she retorted, "I'm going to jump onto Mr. Arnold's roof and take them out from there. Besides I'll have my silencer in place, the geeks won't be able to hear the gunshots. With the silencer in place, it sounds more like a small pop rather than a loud gunshot."

Kathy looked at her dubiously, "Can you even shoot Juno?"

Juno could grudgingly understand their disbelief. After all, the Colombian-American girl was raised in New York, and her short petite figure was hardly intimidating. But she was an army brat. She knew what she was doing. There wasn't a weekend when her father wasn't taking them out to the shooting range to practice on their forms, then there were the hunting and camping trips during the holidays. In a way, both of her parents had prepared their children for such a world. Her mother was a botanist, and she'd taught them all how to identify plants and what herbs made good remedies for medicinal purposes and how to keep a garden alive even in the toughest weather and environments. Her father had not only taught them how to hunt and track animals but how to skin and gut their prey after catching them. They taught them how to survive in the wilderness, how to be quiet and still be able to talk to one another through hand gestures. How to kick a bully's ass and then how to patch them up.

Then again... the other teachers in the daycare didn't really know anything conclusive about her past. Don't get her wrong, they knew that she had three siblings altogether (they knew José from personal experience from whenever the twenty-four-year-old decided to come down and bug her for a few days), they knew that she had a niece and that her parents were both alive and happily married living in New York. They knew that she could speak Spanish and ASL (after all, she was the only one who could 'speak' to Liam's deaf dad) and that her family originally came from Colombia. But that was pretty much it. Juno hadn't moved to Pogonip to make friends but to escape from as many bonds as she could. She had cut ties with all of her old friends and the only people she kept in contact with her immediate family.

"My dad was military." she stated bluntly hoping that the dry and plain facts would ease the women, "He taught me and my siblings everything he knew. I've been shooting since I was a little girl. The rooftop is an isolated and most importantly concealed area to shoot from without worrying about getting spotted."

"I didn' know that your dad was in the army..." Ashley mumbled.

She snorted, "We never really talked about non-related work things."

"Yeah, but still-"

"Tha's not important right now Ashley," Kathy interrupted her, "Are you sure 'bout this Juno?"

"Yeah," she stated firmly, her father's words still echoing in her mind. Pogonip was a stronghold. Now they just needed to make it safe.

The blonde sighed before nodding, "Alright."

"You can't be serious!" Marcy exclaimed looking like she wanted to wrap Juno up into her arms to prevent her from going out. It was a little strange considering that Juno had never been particularly close with the woman despite knowing her for three years (a reason that Juno suspected had to do with the fact that she'd told the woman to her face that she didn't believe in god after Marcy had invited her to a prayer group meeting for the eighth time despite her answer never changing).

Kathy steadily ignored her, "How do we know when you're ready to get back in?"

She loved Kathy.

Juno could always count on the blonde woman to not dismiss her ideas and instead immediately start to plan.

Words 1547

(Guest1/30yrsoldgirlie: Thanks! Juno is pretty different from Esme not only appearance wise but personality-wise too. They both have some core similarities but they both grew up very very differently and that is going to be pretty apparent as the story progresses.)

(DarkFireNyx: Thanks. LOL, I'll try to update more frequently.)

(itsprettyboy: Thank you!)

(time-twilight: Thanks! She won't be meeting Daryl for a while, but probably between Season 2 and 3 or more towards Season 3. BUT she will be meeting someone else FIRST.)

(Beachgirl25: LOL. I laughed for a good five minutes after I read your review. Yeah, this fic is going to be similar and different from the other one. I have a huge soft spot for Hank, the guy in wheelchair, and I think everyone is going to really like him as well. This fic has a lot more OC's than the other one which was the reason I hesitated in posting it, but I figured why the hell not. If people don't like it they simply don't have to read it. LOL. I'm excited to write more about this little town!)

(Terri Hooker: Thanks! I'm not going to spoil anything, but her brother is a pretty interesting character! I hope you enjoyed the update!)

(RochuRobalo: Gracias! Odio el autocorrector... en mi otro cuento ni siquiera me estoy preocupando con so. La pereza siempre ha sido mi poor enemigo... LOL. Esta enfermedad esta en todas parts, cuidate!)

(Guest2/Lola: Thanks!)