Chapter 12

Rose

"She's coming round!"

Doors slammed, feet thudded closer.

"Quick! Get in here."

Rose blinked. Her eyes fluttered open, then immediately shut tight, in protest at the harshness of a light, which seemed to be hovering directly above her.

Was she lying down? It felt like it. She felt like she had been out for a long time, too. The noise around her continued as she slowly became aware of her arms and legs, a slow aching washing over her body, and a stubborn throb at the base of her skull.

"Rose?" one of the voices offered, almost tentatively.

Rose felt her heart wake up and start to beat faster. Who was talking to her? Where was she? And then she remembered. The Wardens chasing her down. A surge of adrenaline zapped through her and she sat bolt upright. The light was still too bright and made her squint. She tried to stand, and instead rolled onto the floor, colliding with a set of legs that were not her own. Her own squirming, wriggling body tangled itself into this other warm mass and was gripped, wrestled and pinned down. She tried to kick and let out a faint scream of protest, hot sliding ropes of panic pulling at her throat.

"Rose?" the same voice (a woman's?) sang again, close to her ear this time. "You're safe now, Rose." But the grip didn't loosen.

Blinking, Rose continued to squint as the blurred shapes in front of her swam in and out of focus. She leant back, and the woman's grip relented slightly. Faces flew in and out , all looking at her, all emerging slowly from the shadows. Rose gulped in giant portions of air and felt her legs begin to tremble. She became aware of a faint pressure on her bladder.

How long was I out? she wanted to say. But the words wouldn't come, though she could feel her lips moving stupidly, her jaw trying to work its way round the question.

She stumbled to her feet. Then suddenly, in a shock of swinging orange light, everything came into view. Then gone again. Rose felt her knees buckle as if in disbelief at the flash of clarity. As her legs collapsed out from underneath her, a pair of arms caught her, hooked around her, palms splayed across her shoulder blades. These arms, she knew as they cradled her gently, were not the same arms that had taken her away, that had dragged (carried?) her through the vents and hidden passageways of the old school building. The arms that had thrown her body, limp with shock – with a bang to the head? – over bony shoulders, that had gripped her knees so tightly the pressure had almost made her cry out.

No, these arms were different. They were slender, but strong too, Rose noticed. Soft, tender. They knew how to hold tight without hurting.

Rose blinked and looked up, as she now knew she would, into her mother's face. Grace smiled.

"You're safe, my love," she said. "We all are. For now."

"Jem," Rose mouthed, her cracked throat making the tiniest creak of a noise.

"He's here," Grace whispered with a smile, and – was that a flicker of hurt that crossed her face? Like a fleeting shadow, gone before it could be pinned down.

"Mum," Rose creaked.

"Yes," she said, her eyes filling, a soft glow appearing in her dark brown eyes. "Like the bottom of a well," Rose remembered her father saying, "and just as mysterious." And just as life-giving, and just as full of all the other things he didn't say out loud, but which were lit up in his face and made it warm whenever he looked at her mother.

Grace knelt down beside her, and slowly eased her back on her back, onto a thin mat on the floor.

"You hit your head," she explained, in a voice that sounded like a pillow full of feathers, burst in a moment of fury, but floating down gently all the same. "When we were getting you out. But it's ok now."

"That's enough, you'll tire her out," a male voice came in, thin but somehow made strong, like brushed steel.

Rose felt tired then, when he said it, a slow drawing down of her limbs into the mat, and a slide into sleep. She heard the shuffle of feet and the swing of a door. Grace stayed and stroked her hand.

When Rose woke, she reached for her mother and asked for her help getting up. Grace scooped her off the mat and gripped her tightly. She was surprisingly strong, Rose realised. Silently supporting her daughter, Grace helped Rose to her feet and held her steady until she felt stable. They exited the tiny room through a light and loosely swinging wooden door, with a glass pane down one side of it, almost like a school door. Grace helped Rose down a long dark corridor with one flickering strip light still working, and led her into another tiny cell of a room further down. This room was laid out differently to Rose's, with a long table taking up almost half the space. Rose gaped at the neat stack of medical supplies filling the table, mentally calculating the cost of the rolls and rolls of clean white bandages neatly boxed up.

"There's a little bathroom through here," Grace told her, pushing another door opposite the one they entered. This door had been clumsily painted a dark metallic blue, including the long glass pane. Long drips of paint had hardened and set, making the door look like running water.

Rose went in and emptied her bladder. She splashed her face with the thin trickle of water than ran from the tap. She caught sight of herself in a long cracked mirror.

They hadn't been joking about the bump to the head. There was a lump the size of a rock on the left hand side of her forehead, a splodge of dried blood at its centre. She could see tiny tufts of cotton wool where they must have cleaned it.

She went out to Grace, who helped her back to the tiny cell with the matt on the floor. A harsh yellow lamp hung from a makeshift hook on the wall, a long nail forced into a crack in the cement holding up the breeze block wall. The ceiling was a mess of air conditioning ducts, thin copper pipes, and dangling wires.

"Lie down, sweetheart," she heard her mother tell her. "Time to rest."

The old pipes gurgled and spat. A low rumble above caught Rose's attention. She curled up with her mother on the mat.

"Where are we, Mum?" Rose pleaded. "I feel better now. Please just tell me what's going on."

Grace held her daughter's shoulder, with a squeeze as nervous as it was reassuring. A moment passed when she said nothing at all, just clenched her jaw and drew her knees in close to her chest. Her long dark curls glistened in the flickering lamp light.

Rose snorted and retreated behind a pillow in the corner. She nestled into the concrete blocks as best she could. The mat was too thin and lumpy, but the sheets were soft and the room itself was almost cool. Rose leaned her cheek to rest against the wall. It tickled and she couldn't move for fear of scratching herself. But it was so cool. She watched as her mother tried to make herself small. But eventually, Grace answered.

"We're underneath our block of flats," she murmured quietly, as if talking to herself. "We're underground," she added pointlessly, looking up at the ceiling. She looked scared, Rose thought. Not just anxious, that was normal. But scared.

Who is 'we'? Me, you and Jem? Who else is here?

"Are we going to be ok?" Rose asked, addressing the pillow she had clasped close to her body as much as her mother.

Normally, Grace would say "Yes" without even thinking about it, even when it was evidently a lie. But all she did was turn to look at Rose and leant over to stroke her hands.

Rose had so many more questions. But her head was beginning to throb again and her eyes were closing against her will. She felt Grace pull her away from the breeze blocks and place her softly down in the centre of the mat. Sheets were draped over her, layers of forest green cotton that smelt of home.

"Sorry," Rose whispered.

She was dimly aware of the door opening, a muffled conversation, then a different presence landing next to her on the mat. But she was drifting in and out of sleep, too tired to question any more for now. From far away, she could hear a husky whisper close to her hear, but the words had all been dipped in glue. She couldn't hold on to any of them, but the low, considered hum of sound told her the whisper belongs to Jem. Her fingers fluttered, reaching out for him without thinking about it. His big rough hands slotted into hers, squeezing hard.

She woke up, too hot. There was the low, steady sound of breathing coming from the foot of her makeshift bed. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she began to trace Jem's outline, his feet stuck out before him, his chest gently rising and falling.

He was sleeping in a chair, she realised. He must have waited while she fell asleep. And he had stayed.

Rose peeled back the sheets and slowly started to undress. It felt like a strange thing to do, with Jem right there, but it was dark and he was breathing so deeply she thought he would be unlikely to wake up. She hurried to pull her t-shirt over her head, wriggling as her hair caught on the tiny buttons either side of the collar. Now for the trousers. Lying down, she stuck her hips up and took her trousers off, leaning forward to free her feet. Jem's hand dangled dangerously over the arm of the chair, making it almost impossible to avoid brushing his fingers with hers as she finished undressing. For a moment his breathing seemed to stop, then changed its rhythm.

Was he awake? Rose felt her body begin to tingle.

She sat there in the dark, free of the blanket, for what seemed like an eternity. She thought about whispering his name, taking his hand. She sat and waited to see what she might do. Part of her wanted him to speak, to let her know he was awake. Part of her wanted him to see her. Part of her wanted him to leave her in peace, so she could dress and undress at will, without worrying about what he might think.

Her throat was dry, she realised. But she couldn't get up and go for water. She didn't even know where the water was.

You could wake him up. You could ask him.

Rose listened in the darkness. Jem's breathing still hadn't returned to normal. Maybe he was having the same conversations with himself in his head as she was. Eventually, she pulled the sheets back up around her shoulders and closed her eyes. She put one arm up over her head, keeping her curls away from the aching, raw bump on her head.

Yeah, really charming, aren't you, with a giant bruise on your head. Irresistible!

As she drifted off, she thought she could hear him saying her name, a soft croak reaching out in the darkness.

"Rose?"

But the face she saw as she passed over into her dreams didn't belong to Jem at all.

"Rose? Are you awake?"