Hey everyone! Hope you're all still with me (and Vanessa, too) so here's the next part...
To this day, I have no idea how on earth we made it out of Jordan Tower alive. I remember being terrified that the slightest wrong move would send a group of uniformed guards running after us, guns and black bags at the ready. They'd pull the black bag over the heads of both the unconscious woman and I, and haul us off to the interrogation/torture room before I could blink.
And as for V….I didn't even want to think about what they would do to him.
I remember being hustled by V through grey alleyways, down a length of crumbling stone steps, and into a long tunnel, all the while carrying the woman along with him. All the while, I was looking over my shoulder, feeling that at any minute, the dark shadows of trees and buildings would come to life and spring at us.
I lost count of how long it was before suddenly, I was standing in the middle of a large stone room. There were no windows, I noticed. The light that did illuminate the room was from the chandeliers, hung from the ceiling. But the most unusual things was that the whole room was like a museum. My gaze flicked around the room, trying to take everything in. A large wooden bookshelf stood in one corner, almost overflowing with the amount of books piled in it. Medium-sized marble statues and wooden ornaments were placed in nearly every corner. Large oil paintings A red Persian rug lay in the centre of the room.
"Welcome to my home." V turned towards me, making a small sweeping gesture with his hand. "I call it the Shadow Gallery."
"You live here?" I tentatively took a few steps around the room, forgetting just for a moment the situation I/we were in. "How did you get all this stuff?"
The tone of V's voice was mysterious. "By and by. You could say that I borrowed it and forgot to give it back."
"But how did–"
V shook his head at me, indicating that this wasn't the time for questions, and walked towards a large stone archway, which I presumed to be the hall. He was gone only a moment, then reappeared, without the woman. He had probably taken her to lie down somewhere.
"Do sit down." His voice was comforting. "I assume that we have much to talk about."
In an instant, all the memories came rushing back to me. V on the giant TV screen. Fighting my way through the crowd of people at Jordan Towers. Watching V fight the man with the gun. The last time I saw my mother, as she left for work, telling me to have a good day.
Mum.
I had this sudden overwhelming urge to cry. Would I ever see her again? I pictured her, frantic with worry because she was home, but I was nowhere to be found. She'd probably guess that I had seen the broadcast, and gone to look for her, but would think that I had been either kidnapped, or shot and killed by the 'terrorist'.
I had to go home.
"Please–" My throat constricted. "V–I need to go home."
V said nothing for a couple of seconds, then slowly shook his head. "I'm afraid that that would not be wise, Vanessa."
"What?" I stared at him, shocked.
"It would be folly to let you go now, after what has happened. They will be looking for all three of us, and I can assure that whatever the outcome would be, it would not be good."
"But–" I said desperately, though a sinking feeling in my stomach told me that V was right. "I need to get a message to my mother, tell her that I'm OK. She'll be worried about me, I need to tell her what's happened, where I am–"
"Vanessa." The tone of V's voice stopped me short. "At this present state, there is simply nothing you can do." His voice sounded sorrowful. "I'm very sorry."
"But–" I floundered, before suddenly remembering that I still had my phone with me, in my jacket pocket. My phone! I could call my mother! I quickly felt about for my phone in the pockets.
Both of them were empty.
And I came to a sudden, crushing realization that since my phone (and keys) had probably fallen out of the pockets when I was at Jordan Tower, and I had lost the two and only items that guaranteed me any sort of contact with the outside world, V was right. There was nothing I could do except sit back and watch the world crumble around me.
"When will I get to go back home?" I asked quietly, knowing full well that I wouldn't be at all surprised if the answer was never.
V sighed. "I am afraid that I know little more about that than you do."
"And so you expect me to just stay here?" I asked, incredulously. "For God knows how long?"
He didn't say anything, just nodded.
I didn't wait for him to say anything more to me. Instead, I strode from the room, my head held high, my eyes starting to fill with tears.
It was about an hour later that I began to hear voices emitting from the main 'living room'. For the last hour or so, I had been alternating between fits of crying and from trying to stop myself from smashing one of V's breakable possessions in a fit of anger. Uncurling from my position from where I had been lying on a single bed in a medium-sized stone room, I made my way across the room and quietly began creeping along the hallway.
"God, what have I done?" The woman's voice sounded faint, but full of disbelief. "I maced that detective, why did I do that?"
"You did what you thought was right." V sounded calm, unconcerned.
"Oh no, I shouldn't have done that." I was at the end of the hallway now and could see the two of them, the woman's back to me. "I must have been out of my mind."
"Is that what you really think, or is that what they want you to think?" V asked her, as if cynically.
Before I could make my way back down the hallway, V looked past the woman and saw me. "Ah, it looks as though we have a visitor."
The woman turned round and saw me, her expression changing to one of surprise and shock as she stared at me. Somehow, I suddenly knew who she was without her having to tell me.
"You're Evey, aren't you?"
She nodded, not taking her eyes off me. "Who are you?"
"I'm Vanessa."
She glanced at V accusingly. "Did you drag her into all of this? She's a teenager, for God's sake! She shouldn't even be here!"
"It's not his fault!" I shook my head wildly. "I came here because I knew they'd be looking for me, all three of us now for that matter, and I didn't have any other choice to make!" My eyes sought the two dark holes in V's mask, letting him know that I knew that he had been right all along. "Neither did you."
Evey shook her head, turning away from me, walking quickly towards the archway. "I think I should go."
"May I ask where?" V replied.
"Home. I have to go home." Evey said, a trace of panic evident in her voice.
"Did you not just hear what Vanessa said?" V asked her. "They are out looking for all three of us, and if they know who you were, they would certainly know where you live."
"I could stay with a friend." she replied.
"Evey, don't you realize that if you show up now, they'll most likely interrogate and then torture you for information?" I asked quietly, trying not to imagine uniformed soldiers pulling a black bag over my mother's head, then dragging her off to be executed, even though I was ninety-nine percent sure that that wouldn't happen. "And then, they'll kill you."
"Shut up!" she yelled at me, before turning to V. "You should have left me alone!" Why didn't you just leave me alone?"
The silence that followed after the loud slam of the door was deafening.
That night, I had a very restless sleep. I tossed and turned, frequently imagining the shouts and heavy treads of Fingermen, or the wailing of sirens, signaling that we were all done for.
I opened my eyes, and knew it was the morning because the air seemed lighter somehow. Maybe because I had actually absorbed the events of the day before, letting it all sink in.
Now all I had to do was to work out a plan of how to get the hell out of there.
Dressed in a pair of black leggings and grey T-shirt that I had found in one of the cupboards, I made my way towards the door to the kitchen area, and found V, dressed in an apron, frying something at the stove. He was also wearing what looked like pink rubber gloves.
Before I could say anything, he turned round and saw me. "Hello, Vanessa." I could feel that he was smiling at me. "Please, make yourself at home."
"Hello, V." I slowly made my way over to the kitchen table and sat down. "Thanks."
"Did you have a good sleep?" he asked, turning back to what looked like eggs and toast in the frying pan.
"I–" But I cut myself off as I found myself looking at V's hands.
And I realized that he wasn't wearing gloves at all.
His hands were horribly burned and scarred. They were mottled pink and white, as if they had been covered with candle wax that hadn't been fully scraped off again.
"What happened to your hands?" I got up out of the chair and went over to him, looking up at him, gently touching his left hand. "You should go to hospital and get them treated."
"There was a fire, long ago." He lifted up the frying pan and brought it over to the table, putting what I recognized as eggy in a basket onto my plate. "It doesn't matter, not now. Do feel free to help yourself." He nodded towards my plate.
"I'm so sorry, V." I cut into the toast and egg and took a bite. "This is delicious, by the way."
"I'm glad." He turned back to the frying pan, humming to himself.
"V?"
The sound of Evey's voice made the both of us look up. She stood in the doorway of the kitchen, glancing at both of us.
"Ah, bonjour, mademoiselle." V greeted her.
"I just want to apologize for my reaction last night. I understand what you did for me, and I am grateful." She shifted her gaze towards me. "And Vanessa, sorry for shouting at you, too."
I gave her a slight smile and shrugged. "That's OK."
"Your hands…" Evey's expression was one of concern as she, like me, noticed V's hands.
V pulled his black gloves on. "That's better. Now, would you care for a cup of tea?"
Evey gratefully sat down at the table, next to me, raising her eyebrows slightly, as if to ask, What happened?
Fire, I mouthed back at her.
She nodded, biting into the toast that V served her. "I haven't had real butter since I was a little girl! Where did you get it?"
"Government supply train." V said, carelessly.
"You stole this from Chancellor Sutler?" She sounded shocked.
"Evey, it's not stealing." I remembered what V had told me yesterday. "It's more…permanently borrowing."
I could hear V's quiet laughter, muffled slightly by his mask.
"Can I ask about what you said on the telly?" Evey asked V. "Did you mean it?"
"Every word." V folded his arms and looked at both of us.
"Even the bit about blowing up Parliament?" I asked, staring at him. "Do you think it'll really make this country a better place?"
"And if anyone does show up, Creedy will black-bag every one of them!" Evey put her toast down on her plate.
It's funny how now, I look back on that moment with a much better understanding of what V's next words really meant. Back then, I was naïve enough to think that even just blowing up the Parliament building would change everything.
But now, I know that in order for his plan to work, he depended on the rest of us. He relied on ordinary, everyday people to stand up and fight for what they thought was right.
Like Evey and I.
And ever since then, what he next said has been replaying over in my mind to this day.
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
Sooo...what did you think? Please review, they are like oxygen to me...well, not quite but you know what I mean! :)