Risk: Chapter Nineteen
What sounded like a bell rung in Rose's ears as she felt herself coming to. Slowly, very slowly, she opened her blue eyes to first look at the ground, then at the area that was around her.
It was just a blank room. No windows, a single door, a single chair – that she was sitting on – and a couple of candles to light up the area. Nothing at all to write home about. Just as she'd fully woken up, panic starting to grip her, the door opened, and a singular person walked through.
It was someone from the Internal Police, it seemed. And he had a terrible smirk on his face.
"Hello, Rosemary Aer."
He knew her whole name? How?
"Or should I call you Simpson? That's your real name, isn't it?"
Her eyes widened at the realization that she wasn't just dealing with a random person – this was someone that seemed to have been following her.
"We've been watching you for some time now." He knelt down to her level, grabbing hold of her chin so she couldn't look anywhere but forward, right at him. "Been watching you jump from place to place. We thought it was strange this random… person was just hanging around the Scouting Legion, so we thought at first you were one of those titan shifters. Imagine our surprise when we discover that's not the case at all." He stood up, letting her go, and procured a notebook from his back pocket. Wasn't that Hange's notebook? "This look familiar? This has a lot of information about you and just what you happen to do. And I want to know all about it."
"There's nothing I can tell you that you haven't read," she said, her voice a little hoarse. How long had she been out?
He raised a hand suddenly and slapped her. It took every ounce of power to keep from instinctively crying. "I don't believe that's true. And you know that's not the truth. Because I want to know: just what is going on where you're from? None of that is in here. What, you don't like to share?"
Rose glared at him but said nothing.
"Oh, cat got your tongue." He reached down and squeezed her chin again – hard. "I wasn't really asking, Rosemary. I want you to tell me everything. Then I want you to find you way back and I don't want you to ever come back, do you understand?"
"If you read that whole book, you'd know that I belong in this timeline," she retorted through her teeth, earning her another slap.
"But you didn't grow up here. So tell me – what is your timeline like?"
She didn't dare say anything, just kept her angered gaze on him.
"Oh, so that's it. Fine. Maybe another nap will make you rethink talking to me."
She was about to protest, but he hit her directly in the temple, knocking her out cold.
When she came to again, she heard a lot of crashing from beyond the door. Swallowing, her heart pounding, she kept her eyes glued to that wooden door, anticipating the worst. Were they arguing about her? Were they fighting about something else entirely?
Just what was going on?
Rose struggled against her restraints, to no avail. They were tied rather tight, and the more struggled, the more they hurt her wrists.
"Where is she?" she heard a familiar voice demand, and she could have just cried at the sound of it. It was Levi. "We know she's here."
"We don't know what you're – " A gargled noise could be heard then, followed by a crash.
"Wrong answer. Where the hell is she?"
"In there," whimpered the previous voice.
A lot of stomping, like people going down steps. So she was in a basement? That would explain why there were no windows. Then there was pushing and struggling against the door, as if they couldn't open it. "It's locked!" she heard Hange yell, confirming her fear.
"Where's the damn key?" Levi was demanding, probably of the man he had been previously beating.
"Sampson has it," he answered with a whine. "He's not here."
"When will this Sampson be back? I'd like to talk to him."
Then, over those voices, Hange shouted, "Rose? Are you in there?"
"I'm – I'm here!" she yelled as loud as she could. "He's crazy! Hange – he has your notebook!"
"My notebook?" This seemed to puzzle the other person, but they didn't allow this to distract them for too long. They pushed against the door again. "Keep pushing, all of us! We might be able to get it open!"
But it appeared to be no use; after what seemed like several minutes, the door still hadn't budged. This left Rose feeling dejected.
"What's going on in here?" she heard Sampson call, then she heard him – of all things – laugh. "Guards, get these wretched people out of my house."
More fighting could be heard. There was gunfire, metal on metal, and the familiar sound of flesh getting sliced open. Rose wished she could see who was winning – if her friends were okay.
Finally, after a few more agonizing minutes, the door opened, Levi entering, looking bloodied – probably not his blood, she imagined – but for the most part in tact.
"Rosemary," he said, practically breathing her name as he approached her. "Are you okay? Your nose is bleeding."
Had Sampson hit her that hard? It had hurt pretty bad, she remembered, but she was running on so much adrenaline from being kidnapped she hadn't focused too much on that.
He went behind her and cut the ropes from her wrists, untangling them from her skin. Coming forward again, he bent down to really observe her. "You didn't answer my question."
Before she knew it, she had started shaking – actively, visibly shaking. Then, without thinking, she reached out and wrapped her arms around his neck, sobs escaping her. "I… I swear I didn't say anything." As if that was truly the most important thing they were all worried about right now.
Despite herself, as she moved away from him, she couldn't stop crying or shaking. She'd never been in a situation like this before – and for goodness sake, she'd literally been in a hostage situation not too long ago. That really did feel like a lifetime ago, to be honest.
"I don't think you can walk," he muttered, slowly moving to cradle her in his arms. She found herself wrapping her own arms around his neck again, sniffling like an idiot, trying her best to calm herself down.
She didn't dare look at what of his squad was here, or what expression happened to be on Hange's face. She didn't care, to be frank. She just felt so secure right now, and that seemed to be all that mattered.
At some point, she must have fallen asleep in his arms, as Rose awoke in someone's bed. She described it as "someone's" as it wasn't the one she borrowed from Hange, she could tell. Bleary eyed, she blinked a few times, trying to remember just where she was.
The memories of what had occurred previously came rushing back: Sampson, the mild torture, the fact that it was revealed that a group of people had been following her around and discovered her secret, and now they were hunting her down.
She sat upright suddenly, breathing heavy, holding her chest as if trying to hold herself together.
"Hey, hey," someone to her left uttered, and she turned to see Levi approaching her, kneeling beside the bed and placing a hand on her back. "You know you're safe now, right?"
"I—" Was she safe? According to Sampson, "they" had been following her around. Just how many happened to count "they"? "I don't know about that."
"You are," he reassured her, sounding a little annoyed. "There is no danger right now."
Right now. Those were the keywords. But she had to let herself be assured by them. She breathed a heavy sigh, one last big breath, before she said, "Okay, okay." She fixed her blue gaze on his icy eyes, face solemn as she said, "What now?"
"You rest," he told her, standing up, his hand moving away from her. The area in which he'd touched on her back suddenly became very cold, but she tried not to think about it too long. "The rest of us are going to be downstairs talking."
"I can't join you?" She didn't really want to be alone.
"I think it's best if you went back to sleep." He made it sound like an order, which she didn't appreciate.
Relenting, she burrowed back under the blanket, watching as he headed toward the door. "Thank you," she said just as he'd reached the exit. "For saving me."
"We couldn't just leave you there," he said, then left just like that.
They started on Eren's training the next day with his titan shifting. They wanted to see about developing hardening abilities, according to Hange. Levi was insistent that Rose stay behind, but she reminded him of the what happened the last time she was left mildly alone.
"Good point," he muttered under his breath, not seeming to want to admit it. "Stay close to me, do you hear me?"
"Yes, Captain."
She rode on horseback with him, holding onto his waist, once again extremely conscious of how close they were. She decided to watch as the trees whizzed by, her long braid hitting along her back, focusing on anything else; it helped, if only a little bit.
Once they arrived to the training site – it was the same open field they'd used for her and Lily's training – they dismounted their horses, tying them up and then got started.
Eren attempted to turn into a titan three times. And all three times, he seemed to have become smaller than before. The very third time, he was much smaller than his previous attempts, and even part of his body hung out of the titan.
"That's the end of the experiment!" Hange called, noticing Mikasa Ackerman – Eren's closest friend, Rose knew – was already making her way to his side. Hange made their way down as well, Moblit at their side, as they tried to pry Eren's steaming body from the titan.
"You'll ride back with Eren," Levi instructed Historia, who seemed to be just observing. She had the same expression as Lily: no smile, cold eyes. To Rose, he said, "Let's go, it's time to get a move-on."
"Right," Rose said, following after him, giving one last glance to Historia.
Once they arrived back at the headquarters, Rose offered to make everyone dinner while everyone else washed up. This made Sasha, at the very least, rather excited – so much so that she offered to help. Connie and Jean, however, seemed to see her through her ploy to try and eat pieces of Rose's meal prep while she cooked and pulled the young girl away.
Giggling, Rose washed her hands then began preparing the food.
"This is delicious," Sasha complimented with her mouth full.
"Chew your food," Levi demanded, going back the next instant to sipping his tea.
Mikasa was missing from the table, as was Eren – reasonably so. He was still healing. Making a plate, she left the chattering table and headed for the privates' room. She knocked softly before entering, noticing Mikasa was simply sitting there, staring at Eren, as if anticipating him to wake up and pull off all his bandages any second.
"Mikasa," Rose said softly. "I brought you dinner."
"Thank you," said the young girl. "You can set it there," she went on, gesturing to the bedside table.
Rose did so, then stepped back to stand beside her, hands folded before her. "Are you okay?"
"Huh?" That seemed to throw the younger girl for a loop. "I… worry."
"I understand – kind of. I worry about Lily when she's out fighting or doing… whatever it is Lily's do."
"She's really your long-lost twin?" Ah, so people were talking.
"Yep. Kind of a miracle story. Not as much as being Humanity's Hope, by any means, but still." She shrugged. "I'll leave you to it. Don't forget to eat, okay?"
"Right," Mikasa answered simply, keeping her gaze fixed on her friend.
As Rose left the room, she had to stop from screaming when she saw Levi leaning on the wall on the end of the hall.
"You're going to spoil them," he said, though he didn't sound like he was scolding her for what she'd done.
"I don't want her to starve, Levi," she said, approaching him. "I'd do the same if it was you or anyone else." She was smiling now. "Besides, Sasha was right: I made a good meal tonight, and everyone deserves to experience it."
"Don't go tooting your own horn, Rosemary." But she could have sworn she saw him smirk. It was gone before she could tell. "I'm making the others clean the dishes, so you're off scott-free tonight."
"Oh, lucky me." She giggled at that. "Since the last time I did chores got me kidnapped, I thought I would be free of ever doing them again."
"Don't count your luck." But at the mention of the kidnapping, Levi softened his stance, as if something about that memory hurt him a little. "Do you remember anything from that night?"
"Kind of. I got hit in the head a lot, I know that. And I remember you coming into the room instead of… Sampson." She said his name carefully, like it was a curse she wasn't allowed to utter. "Not too much else."
"You said that you didn't tell them anything. What did you mean by that?"
"Oh?" She had to think long and hard for a moment; what did she mean by that? Then it occurred to her. "Levi, I'm being followed. Sampson told me that he and several people have found out my secret – about traveling timelines."
"Wait – what – you're telling me this now?" He looked visibly angry, but not at her, but at the news she'd just divulged. "I better tell Hange and Erwin."
"If they know about my secret, they might know you guys are involved too. Just… please, be careful."
He turned on his heel to head back to the front room, no doubt to let Hange in on what he'd just discovered. "I could say the same for you."
