Chapter 7
“You can’t be serious.”
“No guns, none. Not a single one.” Maya’s eyes gleamed in something akin to triumph and amusement.
Raven cackled from her spot on her cot next to Maya. Abby stood dumbstruck. “That’s impossible, they have to have guns.”
Maya shrugged. “This is a planning facility. Cage may have a pistol, but Dante doesn’t believe in violence.”
Rashid smiled a winning smile at Maya, perhaps intent on charming her, but her focus was on elbowing Raven in a poor attempt at shutting the girl up. “That is good news.”
Pike scoffed. “Then we fight our way out. If he’s not willing to fight, we should show that we are.”
Maya’s amusement sobered a little. “Shouldn’t we avoid hurting anyone?”
Raven wiped the tears from her eyes and straightened a bit. “This means we might as well just walk the fuck out. Let’s go.”
Abby sighed, rubbing at her brow. “It’s brilliant, keeping us here with mystery and misinformation.”
Maya cleared her throat. “Dante is leaving the island tomorrow and coming back in two days. He’s leaving Cage in charge, but I expect he’s making a supply run to Fiji. It’s a long flight, but I’m sure he’s had everything delivered there already.”
“Fiji? I thought we were closer to Japan.” Abby demanded. “That’s where our plane was heading.”
Maya stared up at them. “No, I mean, we’re far out from anywhere inhabited don’t get me wrong, but your plane must have been seriously off course if you were heading to Japan and ended up here.”
Raven let out a defeated breath. “So what the hell was happening in the cockpit?”
Pike shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. What matters right now is that we get the hell off this damn island and we take as many of these terrorists out as possible.”
Rashid nods excitedly. “We should fight.”
“No fighting.” Abby snaps. “We get out of here with as little violence as possible. In case you two haven’t noticed, half of us are too injured to run, let alone fight.”
Raven looked down at her leg. She could feel their eyes on her, she didn’t need to see to know they pitied her. Raven clenched her good fist tightly. “I can get control of the elevator, no problem. Shut it down so that the only way in or out is the stairs, it creates a bottleneck for the guards, put Pike and Rashid at the front, two big dudes fight through the responding guards, then we make a run for the trees Maya told us about, yeah?”
Maya nodded emphatically. “I can get us supplies and hide them in the forest. I go on a walk across this nice little trail every night. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. We pick up the supplies there and head south. I’ve been doing some info gathering and there’s a tip of the island that’s out of range of the drones. We go there and set up camp and contact help with a radio.”
“Now that’s a goddamn plan!” Raven smiled, bumping Maya’s shoulder with her own.
Maya beamed back and stood to her feet. “Two days, give me two days to gather supplies and hide them, by then Dante will be shipping in, he takes a boat back, and everyone will be distracted with unloading the shipment rather than worrying about making sure you guys are behaving.”
“And the pilots?” Pike interrupted.
Maya sighed. “Thelonius and Marcus are still downstairs.”
“We should bust them out too.” Raven piped up.
Maya nodded. “When it’s time to go, I’ll visit them, take them up here, when we show up, you disable the elevator and we get going.”
Abby shook her head. “And the two that can’t even walk? Raven you don’t honestly think you can run?”
“I’m not some sort of cripple, Abby!” Raven snapped.
“I know that!” Abby snapped back. “You know that I don’t mean to belittle you, but there are things you just can’t do when your leg has been disabled! It’s a fact of life, Raven, you still have stitches in your back and you have to walk with a brace. That doesn’t mean you’re less of who you are, it just means that if our plan hinges on our ability to run, you’ll be the first to die!”
Silence fell over the group as Raven and Abby stared each other down. “I can do this. I have to.”
Abby practically growled, but she forced herself to back down, angering Raven would only make her more stubborn. “Fine, but we still need to decide how we’re going to move those two passengers.”
Maya shook her head solemnly. “They haven’t woken up yet. The doctors that have been checking on them say that they might not make it anyway. I’d say they’re a lost cause.”
Abby opened her mouth to argue, but a large hand landed on her shoulder. Pike stepped forward and heaved a sigh. “Hard decisions have to be made, Abby. We can’t risk our lives for two people who may not even survive anyway. Besides, they’re at least getting medical treatment here. We’re heading off to the jungle. They’ll almost certainly die out there.”
Abby shook her head. “I don’t believe in lost causes.” After a moment she ran her hand through her hair and gave a reluctant nod. “But we can’t get them out without guaranteeing our own deaths.”
Raven looked away, staring hard at the plain walls surrounding them. “How far is the drone range?”
“Eight miles.” Maya answered automatically.
Raven closed her eyes and heaved a sigh. “I can do that.”
Lexa sat silently on the beach, back to the bonfire, staring at the tree line. Clarke had no idea what she was hoping to see, but she supposed anything was better than listening to the nervous speculations concerning the drones and the people behind them. Clarke understood Lexa’s isolation, but something about the frown tugging at her lips made Clarke uneasy, even more so than the unknown.
Clarke took a seat next to her in silence, letting the warmth of the fire wash over her back, and looked out to the jungle. “Everyone’s on edge.”
“Understandable. The river we found is within range of those drones. It makes sense everyone’s nervous.” Lexa answered blankly. “We can’t escape.”
“We don’t even know who we’re trying to escape from.” Clarke huffed. “What do you think we should do?”
Lexa glanced at Clarke before turning back towards the forest. “We set up a watch system at night.”
Clarke glared at the side of Lexa’s face. “You know I meant more than that.”
Clarke couldn’t tell if she actually saw the twitching of the corners of Lexa’s mouth or if she imagined it, but her thoughts were ripped from her when Lexa sighed. “We need to set up camp, and I mean a more permanent camp that will protect us from the weather. We have to focus on getting contact with people who can actually help us. It’s evident that the people on this island are not going to come to our aid, and obviously no one else saw the plane go down. We’re on our own out here against people we don’t know.”
Clarke could feel her whole body sag as Lexa explained the situation. “We can’t stay here, north is where the people are, west is impassable. That leaves east. You can’t see it now while it’s dark, but I thought I saw cliffs to the east that kind of jut out. It’s probably far enough away from here that the drones can’t reach us. We should move the group that way.” Clarke suggested.
Lexa nodded. “You’re probably right. However, that kind of move will take at least a day of planning, we’ll need to carry enough water for everyone, rig up a way to carry everyone who can’t walk, and find the food we’ll need to fuel us.”
Clarke hunched forward. “There’s the matter of keeping Jasper and Murphy from killing each other.”
“And Bellamy is certainly a problem.”
Clarke’s thoughts swirled with the problems she faced. It seemed fucking impossible. With everything against her, how the hell is she supposed to keep everyone alive? “This is a disaster.”
Lexa grunted. “That’s what they say about plane crashes.”
Clarke rolled her eyes and shoved Lexa’s shoulder playfully. “You and Anya, I swear.”
Lexa raised an eyebrow, a mischievous half smirk gracing her lips. “Anya’s worse than I am.”
Clarke chuckled and let the conversation die down. People had begun to drift off to sleep, Aden laid a few yards to their right, spread eagled on his back, snoring quietly. She silently nodded towards him, enjoying the quiet huff of a laugh Lexa let out at seeing her second shadow so completely exhausted.
“My mom was at the front of the plane. So was my best friend.” Clarke blurted out after some time.
Lexa turned to her, her eyebrows raised in sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
Clarke gave her a wobbly smile and shrugged one of her shoulders. “I don’t know why I said that, we’ve all lost someone. I just- I can’t stop thinking about them and how much easier this would be and what am I going to do when we get back? You know? And I’m just laying this all out on you and-“
“Clarke,” Lexa interrupted her. With a soft bump of her shoulder, she conveyed everything she needed to. Clarke understood. It’s okay. “Tell me about them.”
Clarke was at a loss. How do you describe two of the most important people in your life to someone who’s never met them? How do you convey the enormity of the impact their presence as had on you?
“My mom and I don’t really get along very well, I guess. But I love her. She’s my mom.” She choked out. Lexa let her take a deep, shaky breath. Her green eyes never left Clarke, but she didn’t push her to continue. Simply let Clarke get out what she needed to get out. “But Raven… she’s been my best friend since high school.”
Lexa watched her in silence. “What was she like?”
Clarke snorted. “Anya reminds me of her. You know, the snarky attitude, always has something to say. She can be mean sometimes but she’s been the most loyal friend I’ve ever had.” Clarke stopped for a moment. “We started out as rivals actually.” Clarke smiled, eyes skimming the dark shadows of the trees.
“How’d that happen?”
Clarke chuckled. “My junior year of high school, my father died. My mom and I, we moved away to kind of, I don’t know, get out of the place we were in, find a new way to live without him I guess. So senior year I was new to town, didn’t know anybody, and I met this guy. He was nice enough, kind of had that bad boy, rebel attitude I guess.” Clarke smirked. “You know how girls are, trying to tame the bad boy, or the bad girl, if that’s your cup of tea.”
Lexa chuckled. “I like to think I was the bad girl being tamed.”
Clarke rolled her eyes. “Right, whatever you say. Anyway, his name was Finn, and he was so sweet you know? He was always really considerate. I guess I needed that after my dad. So after a couple of weeks we started dating. He was really a great boyfriend. Every once and a while he’d bring me a flower or something, goodnight texts, all the lovey shit teenagers do.” Clarke laughed. “So, one night, about six months in, and it’s cold as shit, and I’m at Finn’s place, he left to do something, I think he was making a sandwich or something, but he left his phone on the couch next to me.”
“You snooped?” Lexa smirked.
“No!” Clarke shoved her shoulder again. “I did not! I’m not that kind of girl.”
“Right,” Lexa teased.
Clarke scoffed, flipping her hair indignantly. “Anyway, Finn’s phone kept going off repeatedly with texts. I glanced at it to see who was blowing up his phone and all I saw was Raven Reyes texting Finn and the last one said ‘Finn, respond goddamn it it’s an emergency,’ so of course I was concerned. I picked up the phone to take it to him when she started calling him, so I answered it.”
Lexa hissed in sympathy. “This won’t end well.”
“Just wait. So I asked what was wrong, and she starts launching into how it’s snowing, something about Satan’s asshole, and her car broke down and she didn’t have all the parts she needed for the fix and she needed a ride. So of course I’m like, sure no problem, a friend of Finn’s needs help, but I guess it took her a minute to realize she wasn’t talking to Finn. She asked who I was and I told her that I was his girlfriend. That of course started the whole ‘no you can’t be his girlfriend I’m his girlfriend’ argument.”
“I can imagine.”
“So in true Raven form, she swears a lot, starts yelling about how her boyfriend of two years has been cheating on her with some other girl for the last six months, and fuck it’s cold outside. I’m pissed off at everything, so I just leave his house. He’s making a sandwich in the kitchen and has no idea what’s just happened, and I start driving. But I felt really bad because I’m the homewrecker that ruined this poor girl’s relationship, so I pulled off to where she was, still out on the side of the road, so much angrier than before and offered her a ride. She accepted and I apologized a couple of times before I heard her muttering something about ‘of course she has to be a cute blonde’ and I just started laughing. After a bit she joined in and we started planning our revenge. We’ve been practically inseparable ever since.”
Lexa smiles, wide and white. “That’s quite a story. What’d you end up doing to the boy?”
“I don’t even remember. But he tried to get us both back a few months ago, caused a whole big thing within our circle of friends, a big mess. I can’t really imagine life without Raven though.”
Lexa’s smile slowly dims, but a part of it stays, leaving her face painted with a hint of amusement before finally it drops off. “When I first left the Trikru lands, the reserve, I met the most incredible woman. She was intelligent, smarter than anyone I’ve ever met, and happy. Everywhere she went she just, lit up the room. Two years ago, she was killed in a car crash.” Lexa gave a half smile in a poor attempt at hiding her sadness. “I loved her very much.” Clarke could hardly breathe through the silence that fell between them. “I understand how it feels to lose someone so close.”
“What was her name?” As soon as the question left her lips, Clarke regretted it. She shouldn’t be asking all of these questions about this near stranger-
“Costia,” Lexa smiled, as if the taste of her name was enough to brighten her world. Lexa rummaged in the pocket of her jeans, pulling an aged, worn leather wallet out. Out of the wallet she produced a creased picture of a girl, smiling brightly at the camera. Clarke had to admit, this girl was beyond gorgeous, caramel skin, deep brown eyes that fucking glittered, her braids thrown over one shoulder and reaching past her elbows, Lexa hadn’t exaggerated in her descriptions. “She got me into law actually.”
Clarke smiled gently, it was only fair that she listened to Lexa’s nostalgia after Lexa listened to her. Besides, she was curious to learn more about the girl keeping them alive. “Is that so?”
Lexa chuckled, fingertips tracing the picture softly. “I was hopelessly infatuated with this girl I ran across in an elective, so I switched my entire major in an attempt to see her again. Luckiest thing I’ve ever done, I got the girl, and found I had a talent for law.”
Clarke couldn’t stop the grin that stretched across her face. “That’s the dorkiest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”
Lexa nodded. “Yeah, to this day I still don’t know why she loved me back.”