Page 143 of Uprising

“You wouldn’t have let him do that.” She says back, her lips brushing against my tips as she replies.

She’s right. I wouldn’t have. If that’s what it took, I would have taken Hastings on, taken the President on. Taken everyone on. I fought for six years to get back to her, fought for months to save her and my child.

I’m not going to back down now.

I’m not going to stop until this is ended. Until Darius is taken care of.

And until everyone who wronged us has paid their dues.

Rose

Being in this house feels like a transformation.

Lara seems to come to life. Being outside, being out of the tunnels, and being around us both.

I get up each morning, and she and Roman are already downstairs, eating breakfast, and she’s chatting away.

My heart swells when I see them. It feels normal. It feels right.

Roman and I are technically sharing a room, though he’s doing his best to give me space. I want him there, next to me, holding me, cuddling me and yet whenever he gets closer my head panics and I can’t stop the fear taking over.

Each night he sleeps beside me in a bed so big we can both lay out without touching.

I swear neither of us has gotten a decent night sleep because of my nightmares but he doesn’t say anything about it, he just acts like this is normal, like he expected it.

Only I didn’t. In my head, as soon as I was free this was all meant to stop. It was meant to be like it was before, in the Montague house. For those few precious weeks we had before everything collapsed around us.

The first week here goes in a blur. That is after the shock of Hastings visit and what we discovered. We spend our time making this house ours, moving furniture around, buying things, ensuring that Lara’s bedroom in particular is how she wants it, though more often than not she’s sneaking into ours to sleep after her own nightmares wake her up in the night.

When I wake and dress on the eighth day here I come down to find the scene outside completely white.

“It’s snowed.” Lara says with the biggest grin on her face.

“I can see that.” I reply. Thank god Roman got us all warm clothing, that he made such a big deal about it while I thought he was just being overprotective.

Roman meets my gaze with a smile.

I almost kissed him this morning.

He doesn’t know that. He doesn’t realise. But when I awoke and he was there, asleep, looking more irresistible than ever I wanted to lean over and kiss him so badly.

But I didn’t. I just lay there instead, and then he opened his eyes and Lara bounced into the room and the moment passed.

“Shall we build a snowman?” I ask Lara.

She frowns looking from me to her dad. “What is that?” She asks.

My eyes widen, I swear my jaw drops.

“You don’t know what a snowman is?” Roman says quietly.

Lara shakes her head looking at us like she’s trying to figure out if we’re pulling her leg or not.

“I think this is the perfect opportunity to show her.” I say.

Roman gets up, walks out of the breakfast room and comes back with a handful of coats and scarves in his hands.

Lara is still looking like she has no idea what is going on so I put her coat on, wrap a thick woolly scarf around her neck and then get myself ready.