Chapter 60
The walk to the dorm they now use as the operation room isn't very long, but it feels like the longest I've ever taken. I don't question my decision, though I'm terrified. There is a million ways in which things could go wrong, and I'm absolutely horrified at the thought of what I might find and see once we're taken inside, but Jasper could use back-up, and I could try and do something in the commotion should he fail. I couldn't have let him try and do this on his own, but that's not quite the reason I'm doing this walk of horror. I need to see. Should all go to fucking hell, I need to see them, all of them, their faces, alive, and I need to see if my father is among them.
My teeth are completely numb by the time we reach the door, from all the oxygen I'm deeply inhaling trying to steady myself. My heart thumps like mad. I don't know about Jasper, but I am not ready for what's behind that door. Maybe he is. He's probably seen his fair share of Mount Weather horrors. The image of Fox's corpse flashes before my eyes and suddenly I want to be anywhere else but here but at the same time I wouldn't run in a million years. Some things have to be done, no matter how terrifying.
And I wasn't ready, I know it the moment I step in. I see familiar faces, but it's like I hardly recognize any of them, distorted in fear and pain. My eyes scan the faces of those chained to the walls, but they don't stop on anyone. Nathan's eyes widen when he recognizes me, but I can't react to anyone. It's like I've zoomed out of this reality. Lee takes us to our places on the wall, to chain us, but we won't really be chained, just like my handcuffs will click open the moment I want them to, but I'm still in a daze. I can see Cage across the room, looking over the process, and it's only now that I realize Abby's on the table. Someone's taken a whole lot of blood out of her with a fresh syringe, and something hitches in my throat. She looks barely conscious, barely holding on, but then my eyes travel farther, and I see bodies lying on the floor, and the first person I see is Raven, quite obviously in agony, and not far from her - my father.
My first instinct is to rush to him and cut down anyone standing in my path, but I remember the plan the moment I make my first tug. I can't be reckless. Being reckless now would mean all of our deaths. And we've come so far, so damn far. We're close now. We stand a chance. I look to them again, to make sure they're alive. Raven is in too much pain to mistake it for anything else, but my dad isn't moving, still as a statue in that corner on the floor. And I'm terrified, and I want to cry out, scream, start cutting throats, but I can't do anything. I look at Cage. He's still in his place, observing, uncaring, all his defences down, safe and invincible as he surely feels. Then I turn to Jasper.
His face is barely an inch away from mine. I can feel his breath on my face, feel the fear in his bones radiate. The tears stinging the corners of his eyes must reflect my own. His breath is shaky, but he himself does not tremble. He's managed to turn his body into stone, made his determination dwarf his fear. And it's like all our lives, both his and mine, have led up to this point. It's like we were meant to be here, joined by one fate, both having been through so much, having lost so much, and still having so much to lose. In this moment, I don't think our hearts beat separately as two - he is me and I am him and whatever comes of this, we will share. Together. I don't have to tell him any of it, I know he knows. And I know he knows what it means when I give him a small but firm nod. His handcuffs unclasp, and he turns around. Harper stares at him wide-eyed, then at me, even more terrified than before.
Jasper takes one step ahead, and takes out Octavia's knife. I can see the blade glisten - Octavia always keeps her blades perilously and flawlessly sharp - but it doesn't stick out as the edges of his sleeves fall low. He might just do this, I think as I stand ready, adjusting my wrists more comfortably. Jasper takes another step ahead, but this time it doesn't go unnoticed.
''Restrain him!'' Cage orders when he turns around and sees Jasper free, and then everything happens so fast. The guards turn on him, a dozen of them, all armed with rifles clicking ready, all aiming at him, and I know now is the time to act if there ever will be a time, but I'm rightfully terrified of doing anyhing sudden, making the slightest move that could set off just one of the guards and send Jasper to his death. Or me. Or both of us.
Jasper takes another step like a fool, or the bravest person I've ever known, and this time the guards raise their rifles just a bit to show they actually mean business, but Jasper doesn't care. Carefully and slowly, my wrists go free and I manage to take out one of my knives from my left boot and slip it into the sleeve of my jacket without anyone noticing. When I straighten however, two gun barrels turn toward me. Now they know Jasper and I are planning something, and it's now or never. Cage is still a way off behind the guards, but he's still a clear un-moving target if I could just make that throw. Throwing knives is a tricky business, and every blade is a world of its own, and just when you think you've mastered it, the next blade you take hold of might prove you wrong. So I don't like this idea, because I never was too good at knife-throwing in the first place, and this time everything is at stake, my life included. If I don't make that throw, I'm dead. I might end up dead even if I do. But I have to do it, and that settles it.
All of these thoughts pass through my mind in less than a second, but time's at a stand-still. And the last thought that crosses my mind before the knife slips from my sleeve into my hand is - ''Bellamy would have made that throw blindfolded.'' And suddenly I want to make him proud, and I'm ready.
But then the alarms start blaring.
They take me by surprise, wake me from my daze. I look around to meet confused faces, all of us, friend and foe, but it only takes a moment for all of us to realize. Redness turns to blisters, blisters turn to wounds, and wounds turn to scorched flesh so irreparable that the men are dead even before they are. The radiation is melting them down before our very eyes, and it's so disgusting and terrifying but also so morbidly mesmerizing that none of us can look away.
Cage isn't dying though, he's obviously had his treatment. But he will die soon enough, I'm to make sure of that. He storms out before I can realize though, and then Jasper's out the door, and the alarms are still blaring, and it's like for the first time since I came here I fully realize where I'm standing. Because it's just me now, hands free, standing in a room full of tortured souls. Friends and family. And it's suddenly too much, and I need to find my breath and find my feet. The first deep inhale almost hurts my lungs, and then I make myself move, because Harper is crying, and Kane is trying to tear himself free, but dad is my first priority, and Raven next to him. I almost run across the room, slide down onto my knees, almost throw myself over them. Pressing against my father's neck, I manage to find his pulse, but it's so weak and so far apart it's like his heart is barely beating. Still, it's relief enough for me to be able to move some more. Raven is half-conscious and still in terrible pain so all I can do is put her up on a spare bed until I've somehow freed everyone else.
Octavia scares the living crap out of me when she storms in, and she comes at the right moment. ''Get the keys from the guards!'' Kane begs, and the next thing I know we're both digging for keys on two irradiated corpses. Octavia hurriedly starts unlocking on one wall, I on the other. My hands don't feel quite like my own, almost numb, and two times I almost drop my keys before I can unlock the handcuffs, but I manage to do it, one after the other, kids I haven't seen since the Drop-Ship, kids I know and kids I don't, kids who've become my friends, then my family, Monroe and Sean right next to each other, and Wick who rushes to Raven the moment I free him, and Nathan whose arms immediately go around me with such force and fervor that I start crying. He pulls back quickly so I can proceed, and I swallow everything back, but tears won't stop streaming down my face. When everyone is free, I go back to where my dad is lying unconscious, and now I can't stop weeping, crying so hard it's almost obstructing my breathing. I'm so sorry. I'm so so so so sorry. I can't think about anything else, and maybe I say it out loud as I cry holding his hand. People are around me, holding each other, helping each other, but all I can do is weep.
When I feel someone hug me from behind it makes me cry even harder, knowing it's Bellamy. He kisses my temple and says: ''Let's get him home.'' And I'm not even sure we have a home, that it can be a home after so much has happened, and most of all I'm not sure dad will make it back home. But then Nathan and David Miller bring a makeshift gurney and offer to help me get him back and I am torn apart because I am so irreparably broken even this sudden surge of affection hurts. I love my people. That is all I can think now - I love each and every soul in this room, even those I don't truly know well. I am now forever united with them, united by pain and loss and catastrophe so terrible it can do nothing but bind its victims tight together. But how do I put myself back together?
Some of our people meet us halfway on our way back home. Dwyght is among them, getting a hold of dad's gurney immediately, the bear of a man. He barely says a word to us all, and I think it's for fear of breaking into tears. Everyone helps with the injured; Sinclair and Jackson are the first faces I see after Dwyght, and Jonas and the other guards swoop right in to relieve us of some of our burdens. Wick won't give up Raven though; he's intent on carrying her back himself down to the very last step into the medical ward.
I can hardly think of anything anymore. When there's so much to think about, the brain shuts down to a blank. It's kind of a blank fog in my mind right now. I know my dad isn't in the best state, and Dwyght and Sgt. Miller are carrying him in front of us, and I can only pray now. I know Raven's going to feel this more than most of us, and I can't even imagine what the aftermath will be for her. I can see Harper, and Sean and Monroe, and Jasper walking ahead of them, and I know Jasper's going to feel all of this worse than any of us, for a good long while. It's terrifying to think about, but he's not okay, and he won't be okay, and I remember what happened to Finn when he thought he'd lost Clarke and I shudder. We won't let that happen to Jasper. I am determined to not see it happen again.
Nathan must have felt that shudder, because his hand around mine tightens, and his fingers interlace with mine instead of clasp, and we only share a look, and no words are needed. My head rests against his shoulder as we walk, and his arm goes around me so his hand can rest on my bicep. He rubs me there comfortingly, before the hand rests again. David Miller turns around and gives us a brief smile. We smile back, and for a moment I feel better. Like everything hasn't quite gone to shit.
Bellamy is walking right behind me, Clarke and Monty by his side, keeping to us, but also keeping apart. I know they shared something terrible back there, something that especially binds them together forever now. It has to be a hundred times stronger than what Jasper and I shared in that moment in the dorm, and they need their privacy with it before we all step back through the gates of Camp Jaha and have to face it.
I know I'm going to have to be there for Bellamy in the days to come - what he's done since the moment I said goodbye to him in front of those tunnels will stay with him forever. I feel a kind of duty to be there for Jasper, too. But in all thruthfulness even now I have no idea how I'm going to be there for myself. Because even as we're walking back home, I'm dreading the arrival.
When we do arrive, the Camp looks the same, but it also doesn't. It certainly feels different. Maybe because we were all different people the last time we were all here. Most of those who were in Mount Weather never even got to see the Ark on the ground in all it's reparable glory. So it must feel even less like home to them than it does to me.
I help get all of the severely injured into the medical, and I'm thankful when Jackson gets to my dad first, seeing as he's among those in critical state. When I walk back out, too exhausted to think, Bellamy greets me and tells me Clarke's gone. She's gone and she probably has no plans of coming back and he's not sure even she knows where she's going. He doesn't explain it too much; he seems too broken himself. So I don't ask him anything more about it either. I'll have plenty of time to have an opinion and have feelings about it, so instead I just snake my arms around his neck and relax into him as his arms go around my waist.
It's comforting now, but soon everything's going to start kicking in, and we're all going to do our best to keep everything together and keep living as best as we can, but I don't know how. Clarke's gone, and she's left it all on Bellamy's shoulders to bear, and I should be there for him, it's going to be hard for him in the days to come, but I know that the moment I pull back from this hug, he and I won't be the same either. How could we? Every time he looks at me, he'll be reminded of what he's had to do, and every time I see him I will want to protect him from what haunts him and I won't be able to, knowing I'm a part of it, knowing he's a part of what haunts me. Because just like we're bound by what we shared in that Mountain, we're forever changed by it too. How can I ever look at him again and not remember the Mount Weather guard uniform? Maya in her hazmat suit, walking up behind him?
Maybe I'm wrong. But I'm afraid to let go of him.
''I'm going back tomorrow,'' I say when I pull back - he frowns, ''We need to get Fox and Maya, bury them properly.''
''We'll bury them. You have to rest first. We both do.''
I agree so I nod, and start walking back in, and he walks with me.
''We're going to be alright,'' he says.
''I hope so,'' I say honestly, ''But whatever happens from here on out... If this is the end of life as we've known it,'' I pause to sigh, gathering my words, ''Well, then I'm glad I'm with you, Bellamy Blake. Now, here, at the end of things.''
He turns to me then, looks me in the eyes, before he gives me a small smile. His eyes look sad though, and of course they would. His arm goes around my shoulders as he pulls me into him.
''Not the end of things, sharpie. Not quite the end.''
And there it is. A whole age of humankind has ended, or maybe it's begun. We have survived, defied death, stared the four riders of the apocalypse right in the eyes until they galloped away. We've won, but at what cost? It's been months since we've come to the ground, but it feels like decades.
And now we're home again. Or at least, we're back at a place we're yet to turn into home. But how do you go on? ''How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend, some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold.'' I could laugh at the most appropriate time to remember those lines, the irony of life. And I think of John Murphy, and send a silent prayer into the universe.
Our story isn't over, I know that. My story isn't over. But I hope with all the spirit I have left that the remainder is peaceful. Because I honestly don't know if we'd be able to endure anything more any time soon. We need time to heal, to put ourselves back together. Because I know I'm shattered. And I cannot always be torn, I will have to be one and whole to be able to live in the times to come. Because, despite all, I haven't died - we haven't died - and that has to mean something, there has to be a reason.
There must be something for us down at the end of the road.
END OF BOOK 1