Free When the Lights Go on Again by Annie Groves Page B

heart.
    ‘I hate this war. I hate it and I just want it to be over, before it can take Bobby from me,’ Sasha burst out.
    In a flash Lou was pushing back the bedclothes and getting out of bed, her one thought to comfort her twin, as she ran across the space that divided their single beds.
    ‘Oh, Sash, I’m so sorry.’ Lou reached out to put her arms around her twin.
    ‘No you’re not. You’re enjoying this war, like everyone else: Mum and Dad, and Grace and Seb, and…and everyone. Well, I’m not enjoying it. I hate it. I hate everything about it, everything.’
    Sasha had torn herself free from Lou’s embrace before Lou could stop her, snatching up her toilet bag, obviously intending to go to the bathroom.
    Lou watched her go, her heart aching for her twin, knowing instinctively, because they were twins, that what Sasha had really wanted to say was that she hated everyone involved in the war rather than merely everything.
    Poor Sasha. Of course her twin must be worried about Bobby, especially with him having such a very dangerous job. Lou wasn’t in love herself so she felt that she couldn’t truly appreciate how it must feel to know that the person you loved and wanted to spend the rest of your life with might be taken from you. On the other hand, she did know girls who were engaged and married, and whilst they were naturally anxious for their loved ones their feelings about the war did not match Sasha’s. Feeling very troubled and concerned for her twin, Lou went back to bed.
    Sasha was an awfully long time in the bathroom. Because she was upset or because she was hoping that Lou herself would be asleep by the time she returned, Lou wondered. If that was the case, perhaps right now the best thing she could do for her twin was grant her that privacy, Lou accepted tiredly as she stifled a yawn. It had beena very long day and hopefully there would be time for them to talk properly to one another tomorrow, when Sasha was feeling calmer.
    When she opened the bedroom door and saw that the room was in darkness, Sasha let out her pent-up breath in shaky relief. There was no point in her trying to explain to her twin how she felt. Lou simply wouldn’t understand.
    Putting her wash bag on the dressing table, Sasha felt in the pocket of her dressing gown for the familiar reassuring security of her small torch. She had bought it and its batteries on the black market, and it and Bobby’s engagement ring were her most precious possessions. Both of them gave her comfort and helped her to feel safe.
    Very carefully she put the torch under her pillow and then quickly removed her dressing gown. If she concentrated and didn’t think about the dark and the ice-cold shudders of fear it sent crawling down her spine, she could be in bed and reaching for her torch before it had the chance to take hold of her. What she must not do once she was in bed was think about how the weight of the bedclothes reminded her of being trapped in the bomb shaft, knowing that if Lou let go of her she would slip completely beneath it, swallowed up by the darkness, and the weight of the bomb and the earth around it pressing down on her smothering her.
    She was in bed now but she was trembling so much she couldn’t get hold of the torch. A cold sweat was filming her forehead, panicky nausea gripping her stomach, her heart pounding and herlungs refusing to expand to take in air. A horrible choking sensation tightened her chest, as the seconds ticked by, her panic only releasing her when she finally held the torch and switched it on. Light. It made her feel so much safer and calmer. With the little torch on she knew she wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night fearing that she was still trapped beneath the bomb and that she was going to die.
    It had all been so different when she had first been rescued. She had been so happy then, so grateful to Lou for staying with her, and even more grateful to Bobby for taking her twin’s place and then her own