“Have you been down here before?” Milly asked, glancing around the bunker.
We were sat almost in pitch black. Only a small bulb hanging from the ceiling illuminated the room
in a dull grey glow and being ten foot underground, there certainly wasn’t any opportunity for the
moonlight to shine in.
“No,” I said clutching Stefano in my arms.
The rest of the kids were huddled by my feet, wrapped in the thick woollen blankets that Leo kept
stashed down here. They held each other and my legs, not a single one asleep despite it being one
in the morning.
“The night I met you I was supposed to be,” I said looking around at the concrete walls, concrete
floors and thick reinforced doors, “But Haden’s men got to us before they could get me to safety so
I ended up in the heart of the war. It was terrifying but this is hardly a comforting alternative.”
She nodded and continued her 10th lap of the small confined room. We’d been here twenty
minutes and she was yet to sit down. We were all anxious and scared for the people above the
ground that we loved but she seemed particularly uneasy. Agitated, skittish…cooped up.
After the explosions, Max had piled us all quickly into the back of a military truck, all eight kids still
in their pyjamas, and driven through the smoke and burning to get here. The kids had only had a
seconds each to say goodbye to their father and there had been no time to explain to them what
was going on until Max had slammed the three-foot iron door shut and we’d listened to the clunk
of every single bolt echo around the concrete bunker. We’d stood in silence for a few moments
before I ushered them further in, found the switch to the unimpressive light and at least tried to
settle the distress and confusion.
They were already scared and explaining to them was difficult, especially with Cato’s probing
questions. He was far more developed than his younger siblings and he knew there was more than I
was letting on to.
But all I could bring myself to tell him was that we had to stay down here until Daddy says it’s safe
and that he is up there doing everything he can to make that happen. I told them the fires were set
by that bad man we talked about before but they couldn’t burn forever. When the flames have died
and the ash has settled, everything will be okay.
But Milly was seventeen and she knew the full situation as much as I did. My soft words didn’t stand
a chance of settling her.
“Why don’t you sit down, Milly?” I suggested, there’s plenty of room.
She shook her head, “I can’t,” she said clenching her fists, “I just…”
She tilted her head back and contorted her face in what looked like pain.
“Just what?”
“Somethings not right. I can sense it,” She replied, “Those books we’ve read about my magic and
Hecate. They all talk about how I should be able to see the future. I’ve never been able to hone that
power. Occasionally I have visions but only in dreams and they’re weird and hard to interpret. But
there are feelings that I get. Like preemptive emotions for what’s about to come…”
She then turned to me. Her face was grave, her bottom lip quivered a little as she pressed her nails
into the palms of her hand.
“..and what emotions do you feel now?” I asked.
“Panic, suffering, chaos, anger, fear…” she said, “And then this one emotion that I could never have
imagined. It’s like nothing I’ve felt before. It’s cold and empty and dark and…” she glanced down to
my children in a split second before continuing in a hushed tone, “..It’s like death, Ella.”
Now my lip trembled too.
“Whose going to die Milly?” I asked.
She clenched her fists even tighter as she just stared into my eyes, her face plastered in pure dread.
“Us and everyone we hold dear.”