"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.copy right hot novel pub