Risk: Chapter Eighteen
"What do you mean, we can't go get her out?"
Rose was on the verge of angry tears at hearing such news. She was feeling rather helpless and hopeless, knowing that her mother that she'd barely come to know might be put to death for, pretty much, telling her the truth.
"It's our fault she's in there," she added, pleading with the three higher up officers in the room, now in Erwin's office.
"What if I go in her place?" Lily offered, to which there was a collective 'no'.
"There has to be something we can do," Rose said, slumping against the wall, feeling utterly defeated. "She doesn't belong in jail. She belongs at home, making tea and bread."
"Wait – who did she say knew about this… this Heart of Titan stuff? Our Uncle Joseph?" Lily offered, going over to Rose and bending down a bit to be at eye level with her. "What if we find him and ask him for help?"
"What do you think he could do?" Levi asked, arms crossed over his chest as he looked between the two young women.
"He could, for one, tell us how to use our ability," Rose retorted, a bit of acid in her words. She didn't mean to take anything out on him – she was just frustrated with the situation. "And maybe we could use it to get her out –"
"What if you end up getting yourself killed, Rose?" Hange said, their voice soft as they now approached the two of them. "I don't think we could afford to lose you."
"No, we can't," Lily agreed, instinctively reaching out to grab her sister's hand, then quickly stopping herself. "But I can't lose my mom, either. I know I have Uncle Joseph, but I don't know him. I just know he looks like my dad." She shrugged. "Other than Rose, mom is all I have."
Other than Rose. A knot formed in the shorter woman's throat at the sound of that, but she wouldn't start crying now. Not when something so serious was going on.
"Why don't you sleep on it, for now?" Erwin finally said, and by the tone of his voice, that was their final decision.
The two women looked at one another, then sighed. "Yes, sir."
Rose waited until almost midnight, when the house was eerily quiet, before she snuck out of bed, through the short corridors leading to the front foyer – only to be caught by Hange.
"I knew it," they said with a grimace on their face.
"Don't bother stopping us," she said, heading toward the door, barely looking at them.
"I wasn't going to," Hange said, following after her. They reached around her to open the door, revealing Lily – and Levi next to her.
"Oh?" Rose was now thoroughly confused. "What's going on?"
"Well, we were going to sleep on it, but figured you girls were going to be too stubborn to do such a thing."
"And we were right," Levi added, eyes narrowed at either of them.
Rose wanted to bring up the fact that Levi didn't, in fact, sleep at all, but she didn't think now was a good time for jokes. "So… you're going to help us? Even if it gets you in a ton of trouble?"
"We're always in trouble. What else is new?" Hange shrugged. "Let's get moving."
They stealthily moved through the night until they reached the courthouse. Being a group of four was rather risky, they knew, but they knew it was probably also best to stick together – and stick close to the girls – lest they ran into trouble. Everyone of them, except for Rose, had combat experience anyway, so they were ready for a fight if it came down to it.
And the girls were ready to use their powers, should they need to.
They didn't know how to control them yet, but Rose and Lily had gone over for the most part what it would probably entail if it came down to using the "Heart" at any point. And they agreed they would use their powers for just a few seconds, hopefully long enough to incapacitate their enemy, and not full-on kill them.
They entered the dungeon, their first obstacle being two MPs. The girls looked to one another, simply nodding once, then grabbing each other's hand. The lightning shock ran through them rather quickly this time before the warmth took over, and they were in each other's head. Then they made their way forward, the MPs turning to face them. "Hey!" one of them called, but the girls didn't stop. Once in front of them, Rose reached for his head and started to "pull" at him – almost like she was pulling at his soul. Then she quickly let go, watching him fall to the ground.
Still breathing. They did it.
"What – what did you do to him?" demanded the other MP, backing up to run away. They crossed the short distance and did the same thing to him, moving back as he fell first to his knees before landing face first onto the cobblestone.
At last, they released their hold on one another, and it was like they could finally breathe for the first time. Rose nearly collapsed to her knees, trying her best to get as much air in her desperate lungs as she could.
"Rosemary," she heard someone say from behind her – it was Levi. He helped her back to her feet, putting one of her arms around his shoulders. "We don't have time for you to rest. We have to hurry."
She appreciated the assistance, and she tried her best not to think about the lack of distance between them as they moved forward. They stopped just before a singular jail cell – that had to be the one holding their mother. An MP was guarding it, but he appeared to be asleep.
"These Internal Police really are useless," Levi said under his breath, releasing his hold on Rose and setting her against a nearby wall. "Hange and I are going to take care of this part, stay here. Both of you."
With no strength to argue, Rose watched as the two of them approached the slumbering MP, Levi deftly taking the keys from his side and Hange keeping an eye on him as Levi went to unlock the cell. He went within, and then after a few seconds, came out with Clementine in tow.
"Let's get the hell out of here," he demanded in a whisper.
Clementine kissed and hugged her girls over and over as soon as they entered her small cottage home. It was like she hadn't seen them in several years, instead of just a few short hours.
"Mom, you have to go," Lily said, clearly choking up at the words.
"I know, my love," Clem said, leaning away to look between the twins. "I just want to bask in this just a little while longer." But a little while turned out to be just a few seconds, as she seemed to understand the urgency of the situation. She moved to begin packing a small knapsack, then moved to the door. Turning to Hange and Levi, she said to them with tears brimming her eyes, "You take care of them."
"We will," Hange promised, doing a soldier's salute.
That seemed to be enough for Clem; as the next second, she was gone into the night.
The following day, the MPs approached the Scouts, especially Lily, and questioned the whereabouts of Clementine. Lily acted shocked at her mother's disappearance, and even accused the Military Police of being negligent in their care of her. Lily seemed to have been coming out of her shell within these last few weeks, Rose had to give her that, and it really showed.
Then they questioned Rose.
"Do you know the location of Clementine Simpson?"
"The… dungeon?" Rose answered, playing as stupid as possible.
"Don't try acting cute," said one of the officers. "We have reason to believe that you helped smuggle her out of jail last night."
"How? I don't have any military experience. I'm just… here."
"That's true…" Then the MP asked, eyes narrowed suspiciously, "What are you doing here, exactly?"
Crap. She'd said too much, obviously. "I'm… training in the infirmary."
"I see." Something about his tone told Rose he wasn't buying that excuse, but what choice did he have? She wasn't really lying, he could check that himself. "You're good… for now. But don't go anywhere in case we have more questions."
"Yes, sir," she said, nodding at them as they left. Once they were gone, she heaved a sigh of absolute relief. She narrowly – narrowly – avoided messing that up.
Hange came in a few minutes later, a small smile on their face. "Let's go, we have somewhere to be."
"Huh? Where?"
It turned out to be Levi's new headquarters with his new squad. They were to protect Historia and Eren here, from what, Rose could only imagine at this point.
They'd made themselves an enemy over and over again.
Lily was even here, hanging up wet laundry. Rose decided to join her, happy to see her sister amidst all the younger folks. They weren't too much younger than her, she knew, but young enough that she didn't feel like they had anything in common.
The immense amount of military training and titan fighting kind of built a gap as well.
"Hey, Lily, Captain Levi wants us inside!" called Sasha Braus.
"I'll finish up here. Go ahead and take care of business," Rose said, waving her sister away. With a nod – no smile still – Lily did as she was told.
Rose's hands grew a little pruny from all the wet linens, but she powered through it. After a few minutes, however, she felt a presence behind her, and she turned around to see a tall man looming over her.
"Can I help –"
"Shut up." Then she was hit – hard – in the back of the head, causing her to completely black out.
