The Twelfth Moon || ✔️

69. The Resistance

"Vi, wake up," I heard Benjamin whisper from the other room.

He had sat me down on the yellow couch, and I kept staring ahead, feeling my world spinning harder with every moment.

"I need you to get the kids. It's time."

"What?" I heard her mumble, her soft voice still hazed with sleep.

"Sari is here. It's time to go," he repeated, and I heard the covers abruptly slip away as Vi bolted upward in bed.

"Okay," she answered, and moments later I heard her shuffling, too.

She passed the living room for a moment to head to Sam and Laura's rooms.

"Thank you," she whispered as she passed me, but I couldn't find any words to answer.

Because what could I say that would suffice, that would make this moment complete again, after I discovered I had been living in a lie?

The children protested when their mother woke them up, but soon realized the gravity in their mother's tone and nervously made their way out of the bedroom.

"Mommy, what's wrong?" the little girl asked, her eyes big and filled with fear.

"Everything's fine, hunny," Vi lied. "We're just going away for a little while, but we're safe."

Benjamin was rummaging through his closets, gathering whatever he could carry for them to be able to survive out in the open.

I heard all his coins dangling in his bag.

It's time. Is this what he had been saving for all those years? How long had he known?

"Sari, come," he ordered me, gently pulling me by my arm and leading his children out of the apartment.

We silently ran down the stairs, careful not to wake up any neighbors, all the way down to the basement of the building.

It felt cold here, and humid, and everything but safe. "Benjamin, no," I began, "you need to leave this town."

"I know," he reassured me, looking at me with expecting eyes. "We are."

"I need your help here, Benjamin," Vi called from against the wall.

Benjamin nodded his head and made his way over to her, where they were both shoving aside an old wooden closet, that - by the sound of it - was completely filled.

A rat skittered from behind it, scurrying away to the other far corner of the room where it disappeared into the wall. I saw Laura jump at the rodent in the corner of my eye, but she was too frozen to cry, or even talk.

She was only seven.

Once the closet was out of the way, Benjamin looked for a metal creak he found laying around and started tearing up some wooden planks on the floor.

I would probably get it done faster, but just like Laura, I was too frozen to be of any help.

Benjamin's forehead was covered in sweat, when a set of wooden planks came loose together, revealing a hole in the ground.

"Get in," he ordered gently. Seeing Sam and Laura's hesitation, Vi disappeared in the hole first, and after another reassurance from their father, both of them dared go after their mother, legs trembling and arms shaking.

Laura had even let go of some silent tears, and her subtle snuffling gave away her crying.

"Sari, you as well," Benjamin ordered.

I looked at him, his eyes still filled with that expectant look - as if he hadn't just wrecked my entire world - and mindlessly followed them into the ground.