by Kass Morgan
“Hmm. It sounds like you need some new material, my friend.” She swung to the next handle and risked a glance back. She couldn’t see the release door anymore. “How much farther?” she asked.
“You’re coming up on the skybridge, which means you’ll have to be careful not to let anyone see you. There’s a second set of handles under the bridge. Use those, just to be safe.”
“Got it.”
She moved steadily along, trying not to think about what would happen if something went wrong with her suit, which suddenly felt very fragile, a flimsy protection from the vacuum of space.
The skybridge appeared in the corner of her eye. It was still barricaded, with an airtight barrier between the Walden and Phoenix sections. Crowds of people still swarmed the barrier from the Walden side, helplessly pounding on it, hoping to break through. As she got closer, Glass saw the second set of handholds Luke had mentioned, the ones that led under the bridge instead of along the side. There was a significant gap between the last rung of the set she was on and the first rung of the next set—much too far for her to reach.
Glass paused. If she pushed off the side of Walden with enough force, she could throw herself in the direction of the handhold. Even if she missed, the worst that could happen was that she’d float for a few seconds until Luke retracted the wire and pulled her back toward the ship.
“Okay, I’ve got to jump to the next handhold,” Glass said. She twisted her body so both feet were against the side of the ship and stretched her left arm out so she’d be ready. She took a deep breath, tensed her muscles, and pushed off, grinning at the brief sensation of soaring through space.
But she’d apparently overestimated the force she’d needed, because she flew right past the handhold, her fingers grasping at nothing but empty space.
“Luke, I missed it. Can you pull me back in?” She’d started to spin and was losing her sense of direction. “Luke?”
His voice never came.
All Glass could hear was the sound of her own breath. She kept spinning, farther and farther from the ship, the wire rapidly uncoiling behind her. “Luke!” she screamed, flailing her arms.
“Luke!” she called again, wheezing as the oxygen seemed to vanish from her helmet. She’d taken too big a breath, and needed to wait for the ventilation system to readjust. Don’t panic, she told herself. But then she caught a glimpse of the Colony, and gasped. She’d already drifted too far—Walden, Phoenix, and Arcadia were in view, and growing smaller by the second. The wire seemed far too long. Should it have caught and snapped her back toward the Colony by now? Then another thought hit her, sharp as a knife. What if the cord had broken? Glass knew enough about momentum to know that unless she collided into something, she would keep spinning in the same direction. In ten minutes, her oxygen would run out, and she would die. And then her body would keep floating, forever and ever, into the distance.
She felt herself crying and bit her lip. “Luke?” she asked, trying not to use too much breath. Her head hurt from the disorienting spinning. Every time the Colony flashed into view, it was smaller. This was it.
Then there was a sharp, violent tug on the front of her suit, and the cord went taut. “Glass? Are you there? Are you okay?”
“Luke!” She had never been so happy to hear his voice. “I tried to jump, and I missed the rung, and then—what happened?” The wire began to slowly retract, pulling her back toward the ship.
“We had some… unexpected visitors in the control room, people scavenging for supplies. Don’t worry, I took care of it.”
“What do you mean?”
Luke sighed. “I had to knock them out. There were four of them, Glass, and they wanted to—” He paused. “They weren’t being friendly. You were in danger, and I couldn’t take the time to explain what was going on.”
“It’s okay. I’m okay.” Then she caught sight of the skybridge, and the series of handholds. She flexed her fingers in anticipation. There was no way she was missing it this time.
“I’m almost there,” she told Luke. The handhold was approaching rapidly. Glass stretched out her arm, fixed her eyes on it, and reached out—“Got it!” she shouted as her fingers locked onto the metal rung.
“That’s my girl!” She could hear the smile in Luke’s voice.
Glass exhaled loudly and then swung her other hand over the adjacent rung. It didn’t take her long to traverse the underside of the skybridge and make her way up toward the Phoenix airlock.
When she finally reached the entrance, she planted her feet against the side of the ship and used all her strength to rotate the heavy handle. The door slid open with a satisfying hiss. “I’m here!” She grabbed the edge and pulled herself into a small antechamber, almost identical to the one on Walden.
Luke gave a joyful whoop. “Okay, I’m on my way. Meet you at the skybridge.”
“See you there.”
Glass waited for the outer door to slide back into place, then unhooked herself and hurried toward the second door, which opened automatically. Without missing a beat, she took off the helmet, and began struggling with the suit. It took her longer to get out of it than it had taken Luke to put it on, but she managed.
There didn’t seem to be any guards in the corridors. There didn’t seem to be any people at all. Glass’s exhilaration gave way to concern as she imagined what her mother might be doing. Was she alone and panic-stricken? Or were the Phoenicians pretending that everything was business as usual, ignoring the fact that two-thirds of the Colony had been abandoned to die?
There were only two guards at the skybridge, neither of whom was paying any attention to the controls. They were both about a third of the way down the bridge, their hands on the guns at their hips, watching the partition at the middle of the skybridge. So many people were pressed against the clear wall that it almost seemed to be made of human flesh.
Men and women were pushing their faces against it, screaming, holding blue-faced children up for the guards to see. No sound came through, but their anguish echoed in Glass’s head nonetheless. She watched palms grow red from the banging. An elderly man was being crushed against the wall by the surging crowd, his face white with panic as he slid down the barrier toward the ground.
There wasn’t a choice. She had to let them through. Even if it meant less oxygen for her, for her mother, for Luke.
Glass scrambled over the side of the unmanned control booth. The switch looked simple enough. There wasn’t a great deal of nuance to the technology. The bridge was either open or closed. She took a deep breath and flipped the main switch.
By the time the alarm started ringing, it was too late. The guards spun around and looked at Glass in shock and horror as the partition began to rise into the ceiling.
An old man was the first to slide under, pushed by the frenzy of the crowd. Then a few of the smaller women crawled underneath on their stomachs. Within seconds, the partition had completely retracted, and the skybridge was flooded with people—shouting, weeping with joy and relief, taking huge lungfuls of air.
Glass rose up onto her toes, looking through the sea of bodies for the only one who mattered to her. There he was, at the other end. As Luke came toward her, a proud smile on his face, she hoped they had done the right thing.
She’d just saved hundreds of lives—and drastically shortened hundreds more. Including their own.
CHAPTER 13
Clarke
By midmorning, the cabin had mostly cleared out. After twelve hours spent jostling for room in a densely packed space that reeked of fear and sweat, everyone had apparently decided that the Earthborns weren’t so threatening anymore.
But the mood in the camp was still tense. A large group was already hard at work building a fourth cabin, so they could shelter more comfortably. Wells was nowhere to be found, so Bellamy had taken over. She could hear his voice in the distance as he gave orders about foundations and support beams.
Clarke smiled, but then felt it slip away as she walked ov
er to check on Molly and Felix. They weren’t improving. Even worse, two others—an Arcadian boy and a Walden girl—had begun showing the same symptoms of fatigue, disorientation, and nausea.
Priya was inside the infirmary cabin, helping a half-awake Molly take a few sips of water. She nodded at Clarke, then gently lowered Molly’s head back down. She walked over, still holding the metal cup. “I thought we’d use this one for the sick people,” she said softly. “In case whatever they have is contagious.”
“That’s a good idea,” Clarke said. “Though you don’t seem to be afraid of catching anything.”
Priya shrugged, then pushed a piece of her thick black hair behind her ear. “If we can’t take care of each other, then it means they were right about us all along.”
“They?”
“The people who sentenced us to die on our eighteenth birthdays. They took me from the execution room, you know. The doctor had the needle ready and everything. He was just about to inject me when he got a message on his cornea slip telling him I was being sent to Earth instead.”
“What were you Confined for?” Clarke asked softly, sensing that it was okay for her to ask Priya the one question that was strictly taboo in their camp.
But before Priya had time to respond, the door swung open and Eric trudged inside, worry and exhaustion etched on his face. “I think we should give them the pills,” he said, abandoning any pretense of civility. Clarke opened her mouth to ask what he was talking about, but Eric cut her off. “I know about the radiation pills. I think you should give them to the sick people. Now.”
Clarke gave him what she hoped was a confidence-inspiring look. “It’s not radiation poisoning,” she said, calling on whatever reserves of patience were left after their horrific night. “And those pills will kill them if they’re used for anything else.”
“How can you be so sure? You didn’t even finish your medical training. What do you know about radiation poisoning?”
Clarke blanched, not from the insult—she knew Eric was just worried about Felix—but from the secret festering inside of her, far more toxic than any wound. Only two people on the planet knew why Clarke had been Confined. No one else knew anything about her parents’ experiments, or the children who’d suffered under their watch.
She tried another route. “If there were toxic levels of radiation, all the Earthborns would be dead.”
“Not if they evolved to be immune to it, or something.”
Clarke had no answer for that. She was desperate to ask Sasha more about the other Colonists, the ones who’d come a year ago. A theory had been percolating in her mind ever since she stumbled across the wreckage. The bits of metal were the missing link, she was sure of it. She just needed to find out more. “Don’t worry,” she said, placing her hand on Eric’s shoulder. “We’re going to figure this out. They’re going to be okay. Can you and Priya just keep an eye on everyone for a little bit? I’ll be right back.”
Eric nodded, then slid to the ground next to Felix’s cot with a sigh. Priya watched him for a moment, then sat beside him and gave his arm a squeeze. “Go ahead, Clarke. We’ll be fine.”
Clarke squinted as she stepped into the sunlight. The pain in her arm was mostly gone, and her head was clear for the first time in days. But while she felt better physically than she had since the snakebite, anxiety pooled in her stomach as she searched for Sasha. Had she somehow managed to escape under Wells’s watch? Or worse, had Graham and his buddies taken her somewhere?
She scanned the clearing, which was abuzz with activity, most of which revolved around the new cabin. A bunch of people were dragging huge pieces of wood toward the new site, while others carved notches into smaller logs so they’d fit together. A few of the older boys had begun to roll the largest logs into the ditches they’d dug for the foundation. Bellamy was among them.
He had taken off his shirt, and his skin was slick with sweat. Even from a distance, Clarke could see his back muscles contracting as he used all his weight to drag the log into position.
A curly-haired girl approached him, trailed by two giggling friends. This trio had taken the cutoffs trend to the extreme, and were now tugging at the frayed edges of shorts that barely skimmed the tops of their thighs. “Hey,” the first girl said. “We need a tall person to help us fix the roof on the north cabin. It’s caving in already.”
Bellamy barely glanced at her. “Build a ladder.”
Clarke suppressed a laugh as a shadow of irritation flitted across the girl’s face before she resumed her coy smile. “Can you show us how?”
Bellamy looked over his shoulder and made a beckoning motion. “Hey, Antonio. Get over here.” A short, stocky kid with acne and a good-natured smile came jogging over. “These ladies need help with the cabin. Can you give them a hand?”
“With pleasure,” Antonio said, his eyes widening as he looked from Bellamy to the girls, who were trying, with various degrees of success, to hide their disappointment.
Clarke smiled to herself, secretly pleased by how little interest Bellamy demonstrated toward the other, very pretty girls. He was so cocky, and so charming when the mood struck him that it was hard to believe he’d only ever had one girlfriend.
It was even harder to believe that that girlfriend was the person whose face Clarke saw every night before she went to sleep. Whose voice she could still hear when everything was quiet.
She shook her head and started toward Bellamy. “Such a gentleman,” she teased, watching the girls trudge off with a visibly elated Antonio.
“Well, hello there.” Bellamy pulled her into a hug. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I need to shower.” Clarke pushed Bellamy away, laughing. “Now I have your sweat all over me.”
“Well, consider it payback for when I carried you six kilometers while you were unconscious. I didn’t know it was possible for a human being to drool that much without dying of dehydration.”
“I didn’t drool on you,” Clarke protested.
“How do you know? You were passed out. Unless…” He narrowed his eyes and looked thoughtful. “Unless you just faked the whole snakebite thing so you wouldn’t have to walk anymore. That would be pretty crafty.”
Clarke just smiled. “Do you know where Sasha went?” she asked.
Bellamy’s face hardened. “I think Wells might’ve taken her somewhere. They’ve both been missing for hours.” He shook his head. “The idiot.”
“Oh,” Clarke said, trying her best to keep her voice neutral. There was no reason for her to care that Wells had gone off with Sasha. He had just as much right to talk to her as Clarke did. But for some reason, the idea of them alone in the woods made her uncomfortable.
“Yeah, I know,” Bellamy said, mistaking her surprise for disapproval. “I don’t know what the hell he was thinking. I can’t force her to help me find Octavia, but Wells can go off on a picnic with her. Makes sense.”
“Listen, will you come with me? I want to go back and look at that wreckage we found.”
Bellamy frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“We’ll be on the lookout for the Earthborns. It’ll be fine,” she said.
“It’s just… I don’t want to stray too far from camp, in case Octavia comes back. I don’t want to miss her.”
Clarke nodded guiltily. Here she was, caught up with her ridiculous theory, when Bellamy still didn’t know where his sister was or if she was even alive. When her campmates might be dying in the infirmary cabin, and she had pills that could possibly save their lives. “You’re right. I’ll go by myself.”
“What?” Bellamy shook his head. “No way. I’d rather cover myself in Graham’s drool than let you go out there on your own.”
“Let me?” Clarke repeated. “I’m sorry. Last time I checked, no one was in charge of me.”
“You know what I mean. I’m just worried about you.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, I know you’ll be fine, because I’m coming w
ith you.”
“Okay,” Clarke said, forcing herself to sound more annoyed than she felt. She knew Bellamy wasn’t trying to control her. He cared about her, and the thought brought a flush to her cheeks.
They slipped away without telling anyone where they were going, and a few minutes later, were deep in the stillness of the woods. They walked mostly in silence, both of them relieved to escape the constant questioning of their needy campmates. But after nearly an hour, a prickle of concern prompted Clarke to speak.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” she asked, after they passed a moss-covered rock for what seemed to be the second time.
“Positive. There’s the spot where I almost dropped you,” he said, pointing vaguely into the distance. “That’s where I stopped to make sure you weren’t choking on your own vomit. And, oh, look, that’s where you regained consciousness for a few seconds and told me that I had the biggest—” He cut himself off with a yelp as Clarke jabbed him in the stomach with her elbow.
Bellamy laughed, but then something in the distance caught his attention, and his face turned serious. “I think we’re close.”
Clarke nodded and began scanning the ground for anything metallic. She was determined to figure out what the wreckage was from. A dropship? A shelter the first Colonists had built?
But instead of the glint of metal, her eyes settled on a series of shapes that sent her heart rushing into her throat.
Three large stones stuck out of the ground. They might’ve once been straight, but now two were tilted toward each other, while a third teetered precariously away from the group. They were approximately the same size, and there was no mistaking that they’d been placed there on purpose. Even from a distance, Clarke could make out crude markings on the stones—letters, hastily carved with inadequate tools. Or, Clarke realized as she deciphered the shapes, carved by someone shaking with fear and grief.
REST IN PEACE.
Clarke had never heard the words spoken aloud, but she could feel them in her chest, as if the memory was stored somewhere inside her bones. Her hand reached out for Bellamy’s, but her fingers grasped nothing but air.