Day 21

by Kass Morgan

  “Dad.” Sasha stopped in front of him. “These are the Colonists I told you about.”

  “I’m Clarke.” Clarke stepped forward, extending her hand without thinking about it. She still didn’t know whether she could trust these people, but something about the man compelled her to be polite. “And this is Bellamy.”

  “Max Walgrove,” he said, shaking her hand firmly, then reaching over to do the same to Bellamy.

  “I’m looking for my sister,” Bellamy said without preamble. “Do you know where she is?”

  Max nodded, his brow furrowed. “A little over a year ago, a few members of our community broke off, believing that they’d be better off living by their own rules. They were the ones who took your sister—and most unfortunately, killed those two kids.”

  Next to her, Clarke could sense Bellamy growing frustrated. He clenched and unclenched his fists, and when he spoke again, his face strained with the effort of keeping his voice steady. “Yeah, Sasha keeps mentioning this other ‘faction’ you have running around. But so far, no one’s been able to tell me how the hell I’m supposed to find my sister.” He crossed his arms and surveyed the Earthborn leader through narrowed eyes. “And how do I know you’re not the one who took her?”

  Clarke tensed and tried to give Bellamy a warning look. But Sasha’s father seemed more amused than insulted by Bellamy’s accusatory tone. He turned to glance over his shoulder at a field enclosed by a wooden fence. On the far side, a group of children seemed to be playing tag. Max raised his hand in the air, and they all began running toward them.

  As they came closer, Clarke realized that they weren’t all children. An older girl was with them, her long dark hair streaming behind her as she ran, laughing, across the field.

  “Octavia!” Bellamy broke into a sprint, and in a flash, he’d swept her into his arms. He was too far away for Clarke to hear, but by the way his shoulders were moving, he was either laughing or sobbing. Possibly both at the same time.

  A strange mix of feelings welled up in Clarke’s chest as she watched the reunion. She was overjoyed that Octavia was safe, but part of her ached thinking about the reunion that she might never get to have.

  Blinking away tears, she turned back to Max and Sasha. “Thank you,” she said. “How did you find her?”

  Max explained how he’d sent a team to keep watch on the rebels. When he learned that they had kidnapped a Colonist, they staged an attack to get her back. “We just rescued her last night,” he explained. “I was going to escort her to your camp myself today, but then you found us.” There was a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, as though he was trying to keep from smiling.

  “I don’t know how I can ever thank you enough,” Bellamy said, walking over with Octavia. “You saved her.”

  “You can thank me by keeping your group in line this time, and by keeping to yourselves. Sasha’s told me that you’re good people and that you treated her well, but I can’t risk another tragedy.”

  “What happened last time, exactly?” Clarke asked tentatively. She was desperate to ask about her parents, but she needed to hear the whole story first.

  “A little over a year ago, one of your dropships crashed about ten kilometers from here. We’d always known about the Colony, but there’d never been any way to communicate, so coming across strangers from space was a bit… startling. But they were in bad shape, so we tried to help the survivors. We gave them food, shelter, access to our hospital—whatever they needed. They’d been sent to this location because they knew about Mount Weather, which they hoped would provide shelter and supplies. Of course, they hadn’t expected anyone to be living here.”

  “Do you know what brought them to Earth?” Clarke asked. “The mission was secret. None of us knew anything about it until Sasha told us.”

  Max nodded. “They’d been sent to test Earth’s radiation levels, to determine if the planet could support human life again. We made that part easy for them, of course.”

  “Who were they?” Clarke cut in. “Were they volunteers, or scientists, or prisoners like us?”

  Max frowned, but to his credit, he answered her question without pressing the point. “Most seemed hesitant to discuss their pasts, but I gathered that they weren’t exactly model citizens. Not criminals, exactly, or I suppose they would’ve been killed. Or floated—as I’ve heard it.” He grimaced slightly, then continued. “More like people who could disappear without causing much attention.”

  Clarke nodded, taking the information in. “And after they arrived here?” she prompted.

  “In the crash landing, they lost the ability to send messages back to the Colony. None of them had ever imagined they’d be separated from the ship indefinitely. So I suppose tensions started to run high. We hadn’t planned on making them permanent members of our community, and they certainly hadn’t counted on staying here forever.” He paused for a moment, and then his face hardened. “I still think it was an accident, what happened with the child. But not everyone saw it that way. All they knew was that one of our children—a little boy—had taken a few of the Colonists fishing. He volunteered to show them our best fishing hole, proud to be useful, but when they finally came home at dusk…” Max winced at the memory. “They were carrying his small body between them. He’d drowned, the poor boy.” He sighed. “I’ll never forget the sound of his mother’s screams when she saw him.”

  “It was an accident,” Sasha said hollowly. “I know it was. Tommy slipped off that rock, but none of the Colonists knew how to swim. They tried to save him. Remember how wet they all were? They said that blond woman practically drowned herself trying to get to him.”

  “Perhaps,” Max continued. “But they seemed more defensive than sorry. And that’s when the fighting started. A number of our people—the family of that boy, the same group who came after your group as soon as you landed—refused to give them any more food, said they needed to go fend for themselves. I suppose the Colonists got scared, but they went about it the wrong way. Started stealing, hoarding, even threatening people with violence. At the end, I didn’t have a choice. They had to be banished.

  “It was a… difficult sentence to carry out. I knew most of them were good people. And I knew they didn’t stand much of a chance out there on their own. But I never thought that when I delivered the sentence, they would fight back. And of course, after that, I had to defend my people. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “So they’re all dead?” Clarke asked quietly.

  “Except for the couple, the doctors. They left before things got bad, said they disapproved of the way the other Colonists were behaving. They wanted to strike out on their own, see as much of the planet as possible.”

  “Doctors?” Clarke repeated, forcing the word out as the air drained from her lungs. She reached out for something to grab on to and felt Bellamy at her side, steadying her with his strong arms.

  “Clarke, are you okay?” he asked.

  “Were they… do you remember their names?” She closed her eyes, suddenly afraid to see the look on Sasha’s father’s face when he heard the question. “Was it Griffin?”

  But she had to look. When she opened her eyes, the Earthborn leader was nodding. “Yes. David and Mary Griffin, I remember.”

  Clarke laughed, then gasped as the weight that had been pressed against her chest for the last six months broke apart. Her face was wet; she reached up a hand and realized that she was crying. She wasn’t alone on Earth.

  Her parents were alive.

  CHAPTER 28

  Glass

  She couldn’t hear the countdown.

  She couldn’t hear the screams.

  All she could hear was the sound of her mother’s ragged breath.

  Glass was on the floor, cradling her mother’s head as blood blossomed on Sonja’s chest, turning her shirt a deep red Glass had always tried and failed to achieve with dyes.

  The deranged guard was shouting something at Glass, but she couldn’t make sense of it. There
was a flurry of movement as Luke locked his arms around the man’s neck and dragged him off the dropship.

  “It’s okay,” Glass whispered as tears streamed down her cheek. “You’ll be okay, Mom. We’re going to make it to Earth and then everything will be fine.”

  “We’re running out of time!” someone shouted. In the back of her mind, Glass registered that the door was about to close, that the countdown was somewhere around thirty seconds, but she couldn’t process the implications.

  “Glass,” her mother said hoarsely. “I’m so proud of you.”

  She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak.

  “I love you, Mom.” Glass forced the words out of her mouth and clasped her mother’s hand. “I love you so much.”

  Sonja squeezed it back, just for a moment, before she sighed and her body went limp.

  “Mom,” Glass gasped as a sob tore through her. “No, please…”

  Luke reappeared at Glass’s side. Everything that happened next was a blur.

  Her mother’s last words rang in her head. Louder than the screams and shouts from outside the dropship. Louder than all the alarms. Louder than the frantic thud of Glass’s broken heart.

  You’re so brave, so strong.

  I’m proud of you.

  “Want me to walk you back?” Wells asked, shooting a nervous glance at the clock. “I didn’t realize how late it was.”

  Glass looked up. It was close to midnight. Even if she ran, she still wouldn’t make it home before curfew. Not that she would run—that was a surefire way to catch a guard’s attention. “I’ll be fine,” Glass said. “None of the guards really care if you’re out past curfew, as long as you don’t look like you’re up to something.”

  Wells smiled affectionately. “You are always up to something.”

  “Not this time,” Glass said, slipping her tablet into her bag as she rose to her feet. “I’m just an overworked, studious girl who lost track of time doing her math homework.” In the old days, before her dad left, Glass would never have been caught dead studying. But now, it was one of the only chances she had to see Wells. And, weirdly, it was kind of fun.

  “You mean, you lost track of time watching me do your math homework.”

  “See? This is why I need your help. You’re all about the logic.”

  They were sitting in Wells’s living room, which was even neater than usual. His mother was in the hospital again, and Glass knew he wanted to make sure the flat was in perfect condition whenever she came home.

  He walked Glass to the door, then paused before he swiped it open. “Are you sure I can’t walk you back?”

  She shook her head. If Glass were caught breaking curfew, she’d be given a meaningless warning. If Wells were caught, it would mean weeks of frosty treatment from his father—hardly what he needed right now.

  She said good-bye and slipped into the dark, empty corridor. Glass was glad she’d gotten to spend some time with her best friend, even if they had been studying. She barely saw him anymore. When he wasn’t at school, he was with his mother at the hospital, or at officer training. She’d see him even less when they finished school and Wells became a full-time cadet.

  Glass moved quickly and quietly down the stairs and onto B deck, which she’d have to cross to get to her own residential unit. She paused for a moment as she passed the entrance to Eden Hall. Remembrance Day was coming up. While she’d spent the past few weeks agonizing over her dress—she had to work so much harder to find something, now that she and her mother were living off their own meager ration points—she’d made very little progress in the date department. Everyone assumed she would go with Wells. If neither of them found a date, they probably would end up going together, but it would just be as friends. She could no more imagine kissing him than she could envision moving to Walden.

  Then again, Glass had never spent much time thinking about kissing anyone. The real fun was in making the boys want to kiss her. Picking out a dress that was sure to send a boy’s heart racing was far more fun than letting him drool all over her face, like Graham had that one time he’d cornered her at Huxley’s birthday party.

  Glass was so absorbed thinking about her outfit for Remembrance Day that she didn’t even see the guards until they were right in front of her. There were two of them, a middle-aged man with a shaved head and a younger man—a boy really, just a few years older than Glass.

  “Everything okay, miss?” the older man asked.

  “Yes, fine, thank you,” Glass responded with a well-practiced mixture of politeness and indifference, as if she had no idea why she’d been stopped and couldn’t be bothered to find out.

  “It’s past curfew,” he said, eyeing her up and down. His gaze made her uncomfortable, but she knew better than to let him realize that.

  “Is it?” she asked, flashing him her warmest, most brilliant smile. “I’m so sorry. I lost track of time studying at a friend’s flat, but I’m on my way home now.”

  The older guard snorted. “Studying? Yeah, what were you studying? Brushing up on your anatomy with one of your boyfriends?”

  “Hall,” the younger guard said. “Cut it out.”

  His partner ignored him. “You’re one of those girls who thinks the rules don’t apply to you, aren’t you? Well, think again. All I have to do is enter a record of this incident, and you’re going to find yourself in very different circumstances.”

  “That’s not what I think at all,” Glass hurried to say. “I’m sorry. I promise that I’ll never break curfew again, no matter how hard I’m studying.”

  “I wish I could believe you, but you strike me as the kind of girl who loses track of time about as often as she takes off her—”

  “That’s enough,” the younger guard said in a commanding tone.

  To Glass’s surprise, the bald guard fell silent. Then he narrowed his eyes and said, “All due respect, sir, but this is why they don’t have members of the engineer corps patrol the halls. You might know a lot about spacewalks, but you don’t know much about keeping the peace.”

  “Then you’ll have to make sure you don’t end up on another one of my patrol shifts.” The younger guard’s voice was light, but his gaze was intense. “I think we can let her off with a warning this time, don’t you?”

  The older guard’s mouth curled into a sneer. “Whatever you say, Lieutenant.” The title spoke louder than his bitter tone. Clearly the younger guard outranked him.

  The younger one turned to Glass. “I’ll escort you home.”

  “I’m fine,” Glass said, unsure why she was blushing.

  “I think it’s best if I do. We don’t want you to have to go through this same process again five minutes from now.”

  He nodded at his partner, then set off with Glass. Perhaps it was because he was a guard, but Glass was acutely aware of his movements as they walked down the corridor. How he seemed to shorten his naturally long stride to match her pace. How his sleeve brushed against her arm when they turned the corner.

  “Do you really do spacewalks?” Glass asked, eager to fill the silence.

  He nodded. “Once in a while. Those kind of repairs don’t happen very often, though. They require a lot of preparation.”

  “What’s it like to be out there?” Glass had always loved to stare out the ship’s small windows, wondering what it would feel like, to go into the stars.

  He stopped and looked at Glass—really looked at her, not the way that most guys did when they gave her a once-over, but as if he could see what she was thinking. “Peaceful and terrifying at the same time,” he said finally. “Like you suddenly know the answers to questions you never even thought to ask.”

  They’d reached Glass’s door, but she found that the last thing she wanted to do was go inside. She fumbled with the thumb scanner clumsily.

  “What’s your name?” she finally asked as the door opened.

  He smiled, and Glass realized that it wasn’t the fact that he was a guard that was making her chest flutter.r />
  “I’m Luke.”

  Luke never let go of her hand. Not when the dropship detached from the launch deck with a violent shake that made most people scream. Not when the beeping alarm and rumble of the thrusters gave way to a startling silence. Not when Earth began to approach, closer and closer, until the window filled with gray clouds.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, raising their interlocked hands to kiss her fingers. “I know how much you loved her. How much she loved you.”

  Glass nodded, worried that if she spoke, the tears would come again. The pain was so new, so raw, she hardly knew what shape it would take, what sort of scars it would leave. If her chest was going to burn like this for the rest of her life.

  But she would have a life—a life filled with trees and flowers and sunsets and rainstorms, and best of all, Luke. She didn’t know what would happen to them once they reached Earth, but whatever it was, they could face it, as long as they were together.

  The dropship began to rumble, and Luke squeezed Glass’s hand a little harder. Then the entire ship began to thrash and careen to one side, unleashing a torrent of screams.

  “I love you,” Glass said. It didn’t matter that Luke couldn’t hear her. He knew. No matter what happened, he would always know.

  CHAPTER 29

  Wells

  Once he’d packed, Wells walked quietly toward the little cemetery to pay his respects. Night had fallen, and the flowers draped over the headstones were glowing. Wells was glad Priya had thought to decorate the graves with living plants. Growing up on the ship, none of them had ever known true darkness, and this way, their dead would always have some light shining down on them.

  But as he crouched down next to Priya’s marker, Wells shivered. Had she sensed that she’d soon join the others?