Risk: Chapter Thirty-Four

Rose awoke some time later to the sound of the shower running. Groggy, she pushed herself up from her bed, combing her long, untamed hair away from her face and the front of her.

She heard the shower cut off from the bathroom, and she approached the bathroom, knocking on the door. "Levi?"

Unexpectedly, he threw open the door, and she found herself falling forward, nearly onto her face.

"What are you doing?" he questioned her, bending down to help her up by hoisting her back to her feet by her arm. He lifted her like she was made of paper; sometimes she forgot just how strong he was.

"I was just –" Her eyes met his, trying her best to focus. He was in nothing but a towel, his hair dripping wet, and for the first time ever, she noticed there was a slight flush to his cheeks. "I was checking on you."

Levi's eyes narrowed, as if suspicious of her answer. "Am I suddenly not capable of bathing on my own?"

"It's not that –" She averted her gaze, feeling shy all of a sudden. "Do you need clothes?"

"From your dead uncle?" he asked flatly, expression revealing he found that question less than ideal.

She sighed, rubbing her arm. "Well, I wear Petra's clothes all the time and no one says anything."

Levi didn't seem to have a quip for that; Rose realized that it might have been a bit of a low blow, mentioning a dead comrade like that.

"I'm – " she began, but he held a hand up to interrupt her.

"I'll take whatever," he relented, his voice soft, almost sweet. With that, he shuffled around her and headed to her bedroom, perching on the edge of the bed, watching her expectantly.

With that as permission, she reached for her uncle's bedroom door to the right of her own – then stopped, hovering over the knob. What would she find inside? Would it be clean? Had he picked up at all before he had gone off on his last venture? Had he done laundry recently at all? What else did he leave in there? She remembered that she would have to rifle through his belongings – and she guessed that sooner rather than later would be best.

One quick, yet long, breath later, she opened the door. Beyond the doorway revealed a tidied, very neat room. Clothes were folded on the bed, meaning he hadn't had a chance to put them away yet but they were, at least, clean. She rummaged through them for a plain shirt – she found a black t-shirt – and a pair of pants – she opted for sweatpants – before exiting her uncle's room, not bothering to shut the door behind her as she did have intentions of returning.

"Took you awhile," Levi commented, not as if he was accusing her of anything, but just as if he was making an observation.

"Sorry. I was just thinking… I have to go through his things. So… you get dressed. I'll… be doing that."

Before he could protest, she disappeared from her bedroom, entering her uncle's room once more and looking from one end to the other. She wondered just where to start. She found a jewelry box, and found herself deathly curious; she had never seen him wear jewelry before. It sat on his short, black dresser, a dark mahogany wooden thing lined with gold. Was this his? Did he steal it?

The more questions she asked herself, the more she realized she didn't know her uncle all that well.

She knelt down to open it, searching within at its contents. A couple of gold chains, bracelets, and a lot of rings of various sizes. Rose picked each one up, putting them on her index, then middle, then ring finger. There was one particular ring that appeared to be a wedding band, a silver band lined with small white diamonds around half of it. Rose put it on her ring finger and lo and behold, it fit perfectly.

This couldn't have been his; who did it belong to? Was he married? She would have known, though; she'd been living with him for the past thirteen years, after all, and she'd known him her short life before she'd started bunking at his house.

"What is that?"

Cheeks instantly reddening, as if caught with candy she'd stolen from a baby, she pulled the ring off her finger, though she didn't set it down yet. "I… just found it. I was thinking about who it could've belonged to."

"Your… uncle," Levi guessed, sounding as if the answer was obvious.

"No, it's too small. It fits on my finger." She looked at the inside of the band closely, turning it around to see if there was any indication of who had ownership before Uncle Charles. Finally, the initials S.A. shone in the light, and Rose gasped. "Oh!"

"What?" Levi leaned over her, as if he could see the small imprint from where he stood.

"It's… my mom's." She added, "Not Clem, but Sarah." Rose smiled softly. "I can't believe he kept this. With how much we struggled, I figured he would have pawned something like this off."

"Maybe he had every intention of giving it to you."

"Yeah, maybe…" Her voice trailed off as she stared at the small ring, then, almost like an afterthought, she reached behind her neck and unclasped her necklace. She slid the ring onto the chain, then hooked the necklace back together, adjusting it so the flower and the ring shone on her front. "There. Now I have a piece of both of my moms with me."

Levi didn't comment on the sentiment, but his gaze was rather serene as he regarded her. For the remainder of the evening, they went through her uncle's belongings, sorting through what to keep, what to throw away. She opted to keep the clothes, lest Levi did come to visit. Levi insisted that wouldn't be necessary, but she did remind him about the fact she would be buying a house, and thus he needed clothing for anytime he came to see her here. He didn't argue with her on that point. As the night went on, she ordered food for them, just some fast food – "That greasy shit? Won't that kill you one day?" – but he ate it anyway. And by midnight, Rose was ready to crawl back into bed, but she knew she needed a shower herself first.

Upon casting a glance at herself in the mirror, she was slightly horrified to see she had a few bruises on her middle leading to her back. She must have gotten those when she and Lily crash-landed in Levi's office the other day, and Rose was used as a cushion for Lily's fall.

Rose was glad to have done it; it meant keeping Lily from getting any further injured, but they looked rather ugly.

So distracted, she didn't realize some time had gone by, as now there was a knock on the door getting her attention. "Hey, what's going on in there? What's taking so long?"

Right; soldiers were in and out with their showers, washing everything quickly. She'd probably spent the equivalent amount of time just looking at herself in the mirror.

"N-nothing," she called through the door. In the next second, there was the sound of something sliding against the thin, wooden door. Curious, she opened it slightly to see Levi sitting on the other side. He looked up at her, eyes widening a bit at seeing her – and she realized that she was barely covering herself with a towel. "Sorry!" she said quickly, shutting the door again and leaning against the countertop.

What the heck was she doing?

The next few days went on rather boringly. She started throwing away her uncle's useless junk. She opted not to go to school the remainder of the week, knowing she wouldn't be able to focus anyway. She was caught up on most of her assignments, anyway, all except her writing class – she was getting sorely behind on that.

She would work on that this weekend, regardless which time period she happened to be in.

Levi had forced Rose to go to the grocery store and get actual food, though she really didn't feel like cooking. She felt she did enough of that when she was in his timeline; why should she have to do it in her own, if she didn't necessarily have to? Although, the DoorDash bill was starting to grow expeditiously, and if she wasn't careful, she would be running out of that $500,000 before she knew it.

"I could pay off my tuition," Rose said. "I could cut off my student loans now, and I won't be in debt."

She was going over a budget list in her living room, sitting on the floor, wearing a large white t-shirt to bed while Levi wore long shorts and a grey shirt.

"You're in debt?" he asked, sounding truly surprised.

"Just about every student is. And the further away from the one-percent you are, the more likely you are to go into monumental debt." She sighed, tapping her pen on the notebook before her. "But I could pay off what I owe now, cut them off, and not have to worry about tuition while I'm in school."

"What about this place?" Levi asked, leaning back on the couch. "What are you going to do about it?"

"I'm… going to break the lease and give it back to the landlord, I suppose." She shrugged, grimacing. "Since I plan on just living in my own house, I don't need to upkeep this one."

"Don't you want to keep it in his memory?"

"We can't do that here," Rose explained. "Because it belongs to a landlord, it's the property of a corporation. So, although I would like to keep this place for the sake of principle, it's not really up to me."

"That's stupid," Levi commented under his breath.

"That's life."

Just as she was breaking down the taxes she would set aside, some of the savings, and how much she would like to budget on a house – she was thinking of transferring somewhere cheaper, like somewhere in the Midwest – with Zillow pulled up on her laptop, someone knocked rather loudly on the screen door, rattling it the next second.

Rose froze, staring at the front door, listening to the person on the end curse as they jiggled the barred screen door. She locked it, as she always did, as a precaution in such a dangerous neighborhood. Just as she felt a little secure, there was a loud bang, and now whoever it happened to be was messing with the doorknob of the hardwood front door.

"Come," Levi demanded in a low voice, pulling her off the floor and toward her bedroom, but not before stopping in the kitchen and grabbing a large butcher knife.

Now inside the bedroom, Rose raced toward her phone on her desk, yanking it off the charger and pressing the power and volume button at the same time, activating the emergency number to appear across the screen. Pressing call, she waited impatiently for them to pick up, listening intently at the same time for what could be happening outside her bedroom door.

"Emergency 911, what's your emergency?" asked the operator.

"Someone's trying to break into my house." She relayed her name and address quickly before adding, "My uncle was the one that was murdered a few days ago? Charles Aer?"

"Do you think this might be related?"

"I don't know."

"Are you alone?"

She glanced at Levi, whose grey eyes were focused on the door, knife at the ready. "No, my friend is with me." Knowing it was best to tell the authorities the following information than keep them in the dark, she told the operator, "He has a knife – for protection."

"He'll have to relinquish that when the officers get there, Rosemary," instructed the operator.

Just as she was about to give more instructions, Rose heard the front doorframe break, and a man yelling out the word, "Finally!"

"He's inside," Rose whispered, going to hide beside Levi. She figured being by the man with the weapon would be her best bet.

"Stay quiet. The officers are on the way. Just a couple minutes out."

"Hurry," Rose urged, though she knew the operator had no control over how quickly the cops arrived to her apartment.

As if he knew they were in there, the intruder stomped straight toward Rose's room in the back of the apartment, slamming against the door.

"He's trying to get in," Rose told the operator, just as Levi shoved her away from him and toward the closet.

"Just another minute, Rosemary."

The door crashed open then, a large man stumbling inside, head swiveling around to find his first potential victim. His eyes landed on Rose, who pushed her back against the closet.

"You better not be on the phone with cops, little missy," he said in a gruff voice, stalking toward her, having not seen Levi yet, it appeared.

"And you better get your ass back, if you know what's good for you." That was when Levi did what Levis do best in this situation: he attacked.