Day 31 (Continued)
A community bathroom was linked to their dorm by a door. Clarke had shown her to it after they left the mess hall, letting Cheyenne know where to find the feminine products and how much blood to expect over the coming days. She was concerned when the younger girl had shown no outward sign of being upset. Then, they sat on Clarke's bunk where she marked up a map with the knowledge she had of the building.
"This place is like the Ark, only up and down instead of in all directions," Cheyenne remarked, looking closely at the map. "I couldn't find my way around up there for shit. Not like I could in the forest, at least."
"I figured that would be the case." Clarke furrowed her eyebrows as she focused on the map. "No offense," she amended absently. She did a double take when she noticed Cheyenne was staring at her. "What?"
"I lost my fucking mind when you went missing, Clarke. I couldn't handle it. And now –" Her voice broke with the effort used to keep it steady. "And now, I feel that way about Bellamy, and I…"
"Hey, hey, it's okay. He's fine. He and Finn are both fine. I can feel it," Clarke assured her. She put her hand on the other girl's knee. "Annie, I'm going to get us out of here. We're going to get him, I'll bring him back to you."
A few tears slipped out of Cheyenne's eyes, but she didn't cry, all too aware of the eyes and ears around them. Her voice was a whisper when she finally found it. "That's almost what he said to me about you before you walked through the gate at camp." She sniffed and hardened her gaze. "I'm going to kill her."
Clarke leveled her with a serious look. "You might need to."
Clarke and Cheyenne laid down next to one another in the bed, reminiscent of the day Raven had come down in the pod. Cheyenne found her hand in the darkness of the dorm, just like she had in Bellamy's tent, only this time she wasn't surrounded by his smell or confident that she would see him again soon. This time, she fell asleep to the steady sound of forty-eight other campers breathing around her, surrounded by the enemy. The fragile threads holding her mind together, threads that Bellamy and Clarke had strung together in her head, were fraying at the edges and getting ready to snap. She knew when they did, there would be nothing left of her.
Day 32
Cheyenne was immediately aware. The sensation was nothing like waking up. Waking up was slow, fuzzy, and warm. Her green eyes opened to the ceiling of their dorm in Mount Weather and there was nothing slow, fuzzy, or warm in her head. After a trip to the bathroom, she was back with Clarke looking over the map. They had stretched out on the top bunk together.
"It's not bad," Jasper said from over Clarke's shoulder. "Maybe they'll hang it on the walls here one day."
Before Clarke could reply, there was a voice shouting Miller's name. Cheyenne's head shot up over the edge of the bunk to see him walking next to an unfamiliar girl. Clarke sat up on the bed, but Cheyenne slid down to the floor. She pulled Miller into a tight hug, surprising them both.
"It's good to see you breathing. No one's there to keep me company while I'm lazy if you're dead," she teased dryly. Miller laughed.
"Miller," Clarke greeted. "I'm glad you're okay."
"Yeah, it only took what – three surgeries? I hear you're fitting right in." Miller watched an awkward silent exchange between Maya and Clarke.
Maya handed him a bottle of pills with instructions on how to take them before she walked away with Jasper. Miller put the bag Maya had given him along with the pill bottle on the bottom bunk. Cheyenne stood at the end of the bed, watching the girl with Jasper.
"Who is that?" she asked, looking to Clarke for an answer.
"I held her hostage when I first woke up. Busted out the glass in my door and used a piece of it," Clarke explained awkwardly.
Cheyenne made a noise, but there wasn't much for her to say. Clarke should have killed her. An alarm began wailing overhead and Clarke hopped down from the bunk to intercept Maya.
"What's going on?" she demanded.
Maya didn't hesitate to answer. "That signal means a surface patrol is back and someone needs medical attention. I have to go to quarantine."
Clarke and Cheyenne locked eyes when Maya sidestepped the blonde. The younger girl nodded, moving to follow Maya alongside Clarke. She didn't stop when Clarke's arm was grabbed by Jasper. Instead, she kept pace a few strides behind Maya until Clarke caught up with him on her heels. Cheyenne tried to keep track of the way they went, but ultimately, she was lost. Out of breath when they came to a stop, she tried to regulate her breathing while Clarke started to demand answers. Phantom pain lingered again in her lower abdomen sending another wave of rage into her. Clarke snatched a keycard and they were off again running.
"Clarke, slow down!" Jasper called as they slid around a corner. "Stop pushing so hard, these people are –"
"Are lying to us," Clarke snapped. She was bent over a body, inspecting a gunshot wound. "That's a bullet wound. Grounders don't use guns."
"Unless the grounders got the guns from us." Jasper didn't sound convinced of his own words.
"Incoming," Cheyenne warned from the doorway.
"I don't think so. I think our people are alive out there." Clarke's voice was breathless and hopeful.
A surge of that same hope bloomed into Cheyenne's stomach. Then Dr. Tsing's voice sounded in the room. She stared at the woman, hate buzzing under her skin and in her head like white noise.
"Get them out of here!"
Three others in hazmat suits were leading a man covered in radiation burns into the room.
They were escorted out of medical and back to the dorm. The rest of the campers were already at breakfast, and Jasper went ahead to follow them. His attitude toward Clarke's suspicion made Cheyenne angrier than she already was. The dark, shadowy corners of her mind fed off the anger and pain she was amassing. She could see flashes of gray in the corner of her eyes, reminding her of the pain the Ark had caused her and the blood that dripped from her hands. She paced along one of the bunk beds, wiping the palms of her hands against her pants.
"I'm going to talk to Wallace," Clarke finally said. She stood from the bunk she'd been thinking on.
"Alone?" Cheyenne stopped pacing to pay attention.
"Yeah, I want to go alone. Go, get something to eat. I'll be back soon, hopefully with some information."
Cheyenne stopped Clarke by grabbing onto her hand before she could get too far. "Clarke…" Panic was surging into her chest at the thought of being alone. The walls were already pressing in against her, shoving her in all directions. She wanted Clarke to stay. She wanted Bellamy. It wasn't healthy for her to be alone.
"Annie, it's going to be okay. I'm going to make it okay." Clarke put a hand on either of Cheyenne's arms and gave her a strained smile. "You'll see me again and you'll see Bellamy again. You're still something, I promise."
If I'm not his, then what am I? Her own words slammed around in her head, pinging around like an antique pinball game she'd seen at the exchange back on the Ark. Tears welled in her eyes. Cheyenne nodded, letting Clarke know she'd heard her loud and clear. Clarke was her best friend. She could trust her, just like she could trust Bellamy.
The older girl left to talk to Dante, but Cheyenne couldn't bring herself to go to the mess hall. Instead, she pulled herself onto the bunk she'd shared with Clarke the night before and stared up at the ceiling.
Campers filtered into the dorm, talking and horsing around, once breakfast was over. Instead of infiltrating himself into the madness, Miller pulled himself up onto the bunk with Cheyenne and sat at her feet. They were quiet for so long that he was beginning to think she had been sleeping with her eyes open. Finally, she spoke so quietly that he had to strain to hear her.
"I think they killed my baby."
"What?" Miller's entire body jerked at her words as if they physically slammed into him.
"I think Dr. Tsing killed my baby," Cheyenne reiterated. Her voice and face were void of emotion. She had been thinking about it since she'd left the decontamination floor.
"You were pregnant?" Miller asked incredulously. "How is that even possible? I mean, I assumed you were sleeping with Blake, but –"
Cheyenne pulled herself up to sit with her legs crossed. Miller mirrored her, leaning forward so their heads were close together. She didn't want to talk to anyone but Clarke about this, but Clarke had to focus on getting them out. Cheyenne had to get this out of her head, needed someone to validate her thoughts. She felt unhinged without Bellamy at her side to guide her or hold her in the night. She hadn't seen him in three days and already she felt like she was losing the bits of herself he'd given back.
"I never got the birth control implant. There was never a need to give me one. Murderers don't get reviewed at eighteen." Cheyenne ran stiff hands through her hair, knowing the blood on them was smearing into the strands and staining them red. "I was only four weeks along."
Miller was silent. He didn't know what to say to that. He didn't think there was much he could say to that. "Why do you think she had something to do with it?"
She shrugged helplessly. "I don't know, I just… I can feel it. I just know. There's something wrong with this place."
Her eyes found Miller's and he could see the pain behind the hollow gaze she pinned him with. He believed her. He told her as much. "I don't know what we can really do about it, though. This place is a fortress."
"Clark is already working on it."
They returned to silence, letting the sound of the others filter up around them. It was a long time before either spoke again.
"I'm sorry about your baby," Miller said quietly.
"Don't be." Cheyenne swallowed hard. "I'm going to make Dr. Tsing sorry enough for everyone."
Jasper followed Clarke closely as she walked into the dorm. Miller sat on the bunk below Cheyenne, reading a book he had found while she sat envisioning the different ways she was going to inflict pain on the doctor. Clarke leaned against the nightstand next to the bunk and faced Jasper.
"Well, maybe because it is an arrow wound," Jasper said.
"Or that's what they want us to think." At his incredulous look, she made a face. "What? They could have doctored it."
"Clarke, you sound like a crazy person." His words of exasperation made Cheyenne bristle. "Why do you want to screw this up for us?"
"I don't know what this is," Clarke said, stressing "this" to get her point across.
Jasper didn't get it. "This is… safe. This is food, a real bed, clothes, and my personal favorite – not getting speared by grounders. How long do you think they'll let us stay here if you keep this up?"
"Did someone threaten you?" Clarke asked seriously, straightening up.
"No, no, it's common sense." He paused for a second before continuing. "Look, we're guests here, not prisoners. What would you do with a guest who kept calling you a liar and generally acted like an ungrateful ass?"
"Kick the ungrateful ass out," Miller chimed in.
"Right now, the biggest threat to us is you." Jasper almost walked away but turned to look at Cheyenne on the top bunk. "And you, I think."
Cheyenne's eyes met his and for once, she was glad most people found her eyes intimidating. "You want to say that again?"
"Annie," Clarke warned, "don't, please. I can't do that again."
Her jaw tightened but she looked away obediently.
The dorm emptied out a little while later. Everyone was gone to a rec room of some kind, but Cheyenne had opted to stay. Occasionally, someone would come in or out, but she paid no attention to them. All she could focus on was the death waging a war in her mind.
When she thought of Bellamy, she tried to focus on the way it felt when he kissed her, when he curled around her while they slept. She refused to let the dark shadows in her mind morph his face into a bloody mess, or his beautiful brown eyes into dead, gray sockets that were hollowing with decay.
When she thought of the baby that could have been, no image could come into her mind. She had never been able to see an ultrasound or hear a heartbeat. Clarke had told her that it was no more than a little dot, not even a baby yet, but the loss still stuffed her chest too tight, made her want to pick at her flesh and tear it away and watch herself bleed.
When she thought of Dr. Tsing, all she could see was death. She would kill her if it was the last thing she ever did.
Clarke walking into the dorm room knocked her out of the thoughts that tore at her mind. She was moving with intent, checking the edge of each bunk before coming to the one Cheyenne was sitting on. Her pretty blue eyes met Cheyenne's and the grim determination in them had the younger girl narrowing her eyes.
"What's the plan?" she asked.
Clarke pursed her lips. "Only patients are allowed in medical." She pulled off the bandage that covered the stitches that decorated her soft flesh. "I need to find out what they're doing to Langston. I need to go to medical."
Before she could talk her out of it, Clarke was dragging her stitches down the sharp metal of the bunk bed. Dark red blood welled out of the injury spilling around the sides of her forearm and dripping onto the bed below. She looked back up at Cheyenne, panting in pain. Cheyenne nodded.
"I trust you, Clarke."