*****
The following morning, Anita woke up and immediately sat bolt upright, the pain hitting her like an express train. She hadn’t been able to feel it the night before, but now it was so strong she felt like she might faint. She froze and waited for the pain to abate a little before more gingerly swinging her legs onto the floor and carefully standing up, testing that her legs would take her weight before fully committing. Another shot of pain stabbed at her chest, but this time she was expecting it, which somehow made it more bearable. She hobbled to the door and made for the stairs, but Cordelia heard her footsteps and headed her off before she could reach them.
‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you feel well enough to walk, but what exactly do you think you are doing?’
‘I’m going to my bedroom,’ Anita said weakly, it was taking all the energy and concentration she could muster to make it to the stairs.
‘May I ask why, when you have everything you need down here?’
‘I want to be alone,’ she said, now tackling the stairs, one painful upward step at a time.
‘Alright. I’ll bring you some water and some breakfast. You need to get some food in you.’
Anita didn’t answer, she knew it would be futile to argue and was more concerned with reaching the top of the stairs on her own than with Cordelia bringing her food. She reached the top and paused to let the pain lift a little before pressing on to her room. Luckily, given the size of the cottage, this didn’t present too much more of a challenge. She reached her bed and climbed carefully on top of the covers; it seemed like too much effort to crawl under them. She curled up, bringing her knees to her chest and began to cry.
Anita stayed in her room, refusing to see anyone but Cordelia for a full week. She fluctuated between sobbing uncontrollably and staring blankly into space for the first two days, the sobbing doing nothing to help the pain in her ribs. When she slept, she had flashbacks of Amber torturing her and Austin’s cruel face seemed to loom in the back of her consciousness. When she was awake, she was consumed by her stupidity at not seeing through Helena and her guilt at having lied to Marcus. She didn’t love him, not yet anyway, and Amber had been right, she had been manipulating him. She heard Marcus and Cleo downstairs demanding to see her, but Cordelia sent them away day after day, saying they had to do this at Anita’s pace; they couldn’t force her to do things she didn’t want to do. Alexander’s visits were different, instead of demanding to see her, he asked if she wanted visitors and asked questions about what she was eating and if she seemed to be getting her energy back. Anita’s energy was coming back slowly, however it was nowhere near its normal level. She heard Alexander explaining to Cordelia that it would probably take a while for her to recover, given that she was a Body and currently unable to exercise, something that would normally lift her spirits. He suggested to Cordelia that she could encourage Anita to meditate instead, as this may help with her psychological healing.
Cordelia was careful to always speak to those who came at the bottom of the stairs, so Anita could hear what was said if she wanted to listen. That way, Anita would know what was going on and could decide for herself what she wanted to do and not do. Taking Alexander’s advice, she began to mediate after a few days and it did start to help clear her mind, her anger at herself fading and becoming less consuming.
After a week confined to her room, Anita ventured out and headed downstairs to the kitchen, the pain in her ribs having mellowed, the cuts and bruises starting to heal, and the swelling in her face gone. She made herself a sandwich and took it to the sitting room, where she sat down by the fire. As she finished, the first whole meal she’d eaten since she’d been freed, there was a knock on the door and she heard Cleo’s voice calling to see if Cordelia was around.
‘Cleo,’ Anita called out, her voice cracking as she spoke. Cleo heard her and came rushing in, embracing Anita when she saw she was alright. ‘Ouch,’ said Anita, Cleo a little overzealous with the pressure of her hug.
‘Sorry, but I’m so happy to see you up and about. I’ve been so worried about you, we all have, Marcus, Alexander, Bas, Cordelia, Alistair, everyone. How are you feeling?’
‘I’ve felt better, obviously, but I’m getting there. My energy seems to be properly picking up now. That’s been the worst thing really, I just haven’t had the will to get out of bed. Until this morning I felt either totally empty, or full of anger and loathing, but for some reason, today I woke up and started to feel a bit better. It’s really good to see you Cleo. Thank you for all your help, it must have been terrifying trying to get out of the Archives.’
Cleo laughed. ‘Probably not as terrifying as being tied up and tortured,’ she said frankly, then, realising what she’d said, quickly followed it with, ‘sorry, didn’t mean to bring that up quite like that.’
Anita laughed. ‘It’s alright. It is what happened after all. So, what’ve I missed in the last week?’ she asked, changing the subject. ‘Fill me in on all the gossip.’
‘Well, to be honest, everything pales into insignificance next to what happened to you, but Marcus and Alexander seem to have kind of made up, or at least they can tolerate spending time together now, so that’s good I suppose. A couple of Council kids had a party and trashed their dad’s three hundred year old energy metre; it was a particularly fine piece apparently. Austin and Amber have gone to Kingdom and everyone’s speculating as to why, sorry, didn’t mean to bring them up again.’ She paused. ‘To be honest Anita, I’m more concerned with how you’re doing and if there’s anything I can do to help?’
‘Not at the moment. I need to work out what to do about Marcus and Alexander, but I can’t face them at the moment. You could come for a walk with me though? I’m dying to get out of the house and do some exercise.’
Cleo jumped at the offer; she’d felt entirely useless for the past week, desperately searching for something she could do that would be helpful, so she wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity like this.