Page 66 of Uprising

“I knew you’d come back daddy.” She says.

I give her my best smile. “I’m sorry it took so long.”

She shakes her head. “It’s okay.” She murmurs but I can see it’s not. I can see the way she is now, that old spark is dimmed. My daughter is not the same as she was.

“Who hit you?” I ask.

She scrunches her face up. “My tutor.”

I raise an eyebrow. It doesn’t look fresh enough to be from the school. What kind of school would hurt a child anyway?

“Mummy killed him for it.” She says.

Ben chokes. I swear Holden almost swerves off the road at the way she just says it so calmly. So matter of fact.

“Mummy did what?” I ask trying to act like this is all normal. A perfectly natural conversation between a father and his child.

She looks at me frowning. “She punched him daddy. She punched him until he was dead.”

Fucking hell. Rose did that? My Rose? I don’t know what to think, on one hand I’m so proud of her, that she’s protecting our daughter, but on the other hand, she beat a man to death in front of Lara. What the fuck?

“She said she wanted them all to know.” Lara says studying my face.

“Know what?” I reply.

She juts her chin, a look of defiance so reminiscent of her mother. “What happens if they hurt me. That she’ll kill them all. She said she’d rip their eyeballs out daddy.”

I gulp. Jesus fucking Christ. I don’t know why I’m so shocked. I know I’d do the same, I’d act the same and yet to think that my Rose is, it’s unnerving because what the hell has she gone through to become like this, to act like this?

I wrap my arms around her tighter. “It’s over Sweetpea. You never have to see any of that shit again.”

She buries her face into me and I can feel it, her relief. But she’s not relaxed entirely. In truth she feels like a rocket about to go off at any moment.

“Are we getting mummy now?” She asks.

Holden and Ben exchange a look. I feel my heart sink because how do I explain to my child that I’m knowingly letting her mummy stay in a place like that? That I’m not saving her too.

She looks between us pushing her body off of mine.

“I want mummy.” She says.

“I know Sweetpea.” I say as gently as I can.

She shakes her head, her eyes filling with tears as she realises we’re not going to get Rose right now. “I want my mummy.” She says louder. More forcefully.

I try to hug her again but suddenly she’s screaming, having a full on tantrum.

“I want my mummy. I want my mummy.”

She’s screaming it over and over. I can’t calm her down, I can’t do anything as she completely loses control, slamming her fists into me, into the seat, into the metal of the frame.

“It’s okay.” I try to say but she’s so far beyond any form of reason.

I can’t reach her in this moment, I can’t even get close.

Roman

By the time we get back to the tunnels Lara has cried herself into exhaustion. She’s slumped against me, the tears still streaming down her cheeks, but she’s stopped screaming now.