Fourteen year-old Rose Carter sat in the backseat, knees hugged to her chest, her parents' muffled argument drifting forward over the roar of the rain. Her father's knuckles were white on the steering wheel. Her mother kept glancing at the clock as if time itself could stop the storm.
"Maybe we should pull over," she whispered from the back seat. Her voice was small, swallowed by the hiss of the storm.
Her father's jaw tightened. "We'll be home soon dear."
Her mother reached over, her hand trembling as she rested it on his arm. "James please slow down"
She hadn't finished the sentence when headlights flashed across from nowhere. The horn of a truck blared and her mother's scream was swallowed by the violent impact as metal slammed into metal.
Glass shattered and the world spun sideways.
When she opened her eyes, everything was tilted. Rain pelted her face through the broken window as her vision cleared to the view of her father's knuckles tightly wrapped around the steering wheel. He wasn't breathing. Her mother lay half-turned, hair across her face, unmoving.
Rose's head struck the window. For a moment there was nothing but blackness, then pain, sharp and distant, like lightning under her skin. The car was tilted at an impossible angle, rain pelting through the shattered windshield.
"Mom? Dad?" Rose whimpered shakily. She unbuckled and crawled forward between the seats, her hands slick with blood. Her mother's hair lay across her face like a curtain, and she wondered why they were both so still.
"Where… where are they?" she said through tears, and when she couldn't hold it anymore, she screamed "MOM! DAD!"
No one answered. The sound of the rain swallowed everything.
Somewhere far away, sirens wailed.
She tried to shake her father's shoulder. "Daddy, please wake up! Please…" Her fingers slipped. The dashboard light flickered, painting everything in a sickly glow.
"Mom?" Rose's voice cracked. "Dad?"
Silence.
She scrambled forward, her hands slick with something warm. "Wake up! Please…" She tugged at her mother's sleeve first, and then at her father's shirt. "Why aren't you saying anything?!" she sobbed. "Don't leave me!"
A man's voice cut through the noise of the pattering storm, "We've got a little kid!" and before she knew it, strong arms lifted her away from all of it. "Easy, sweetheart, stay with me!"
"No! They're not moving. They're not saying anything. Help them!" Her words dissolved into choking sobs. She fought against the paramedic until the cold rain stole her strength.
Sirens. Lights. The whole world blurred.
The hospital waiting room was too bright and the air smelled of disinfectant and wet wool. Rose sat wrapped in a blanket that didn't warm her as a clock ticked somewhere. She watched the second hand of the object tick around its sphere, knowing her world had long stopped.
A nurse crouched in front of her then, eyes saddened and, somehow, she knew what was coming next. "Honey…I'm so sorry."
Rose stared at her hands. "They'll be okay. My dad- he's always so strong." Her voice cracked
But the nurse didn't say anything.
"They said…" Her throat closed. "They said you have no family left.. but an uncle?"
Rose's stomach lurched at the statement. She had only heard stories of his distance and never thought he would have been an option. She felt very lonesome at the thought. "I don't… I've never even met him."
Rose stared at the floor. She couldn't even remember his face from her dad's old photographs. She didn't want to go anywhere but home.
*
Two days passed when a black Mercedes drove up to the centre. A tall man with streaks of gray at his temples stepped out, signing papers with impatient strokes. "Rose?" he said, not unkindly but without warmth. "I'm your Uncle Albert."
He smelled of expensive cologne and rain. "Get your things. We're leaving."
"Where?" Rose's voice was a whisper.
"You'll stay with me…for now. Until we have something figured out." He spoke with such precision that it almost stung.
Home. The word felt wrong, but she followed because there was nowhere else to go.
The car carried her through gates of iron into a world of dark trees and stone. Silence hovered thick in the airless car as the mansion rose out of the mist, three stories of gray walls and cold windows. Statues lined the drive, with their faces hidden under rainwater.
Inside, the marble floor gleamed like ice. A woman waited at the foot of the staircase, her arms folded, with a look so cold and inhumane. Beatrice. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun, and her lips were painted a shade too dark. She looked Rose up and down as if inspecting damaged goods.
"You're not welcome here," she said with more curtness than the uncle. Her voice, smooth and sharp as a blade.
Rose flinched. "...I..I'm sorry…"
"Either way, you're here, aren't you?" Beatrice's voice was like ice. "You'll stay out of the way. You'll follow the rules. And you'll be grateful for a roof over your head."
Albert cleared his throat. "Beatrice…"
She turned to Albert. "She needs to understand this early. Anyway, where will she sleep?"
"The east wing," Albert said. "It's quiet."
"Good," Beatrice replied and turned to Rose. "Dinner is at seven. Don't be late."
From the staircase came the sound of whispers. Two figures leaned over the banister: a girl about Rose's age with glossy dark hair, and a boy a little older with a crooked smile. Their eyes were bright with curiosity and something meaner.
"Who's the stray?" the girl asked loudly enough for Rose to hear.
"The orphan "