36. Screw Fate
Clarke walked down the hallway, while being surrounded by guards on every angle. They were being overly cautious, in her opinion, especially when the two guards who standing on each of her sides held her arms so tightly that she was sure that their grip would leave bruises. It hurt of course, but she kept quiet because she wasn't sure what she could say that wouldn't make the situation worse than what it already was. Unfortunate for her, the situation turned to the worse when the guards reached at the end of the hallway and stopped in front of a metal door. Then she heard a distinctive click from the door from the locking mechanism and the door opened and the guards forced her inside.
Inside she found herself in a room surrounded by computers that was overlooking everything that was happening inside and outside the mountain premises. And she was thankful that there weren't any cameras overlooking the sewers and the river that was flowing away from the mountain, because that would mean that they couldn't locate the kids that easily and if Bellamy and the others were in place then the kids would be safe for now at least. However her joy was halted as her gaze turned to the figure of President Wallace's only son, Cage. The man appeared to be in his late thirty's or early forty's and was of average height, and had dark brown hair with dark brown eyes to match. Although his hair was longer towards the back of his head, he was like most other Mountain Men, with very pale skin. Still those traits were unimportant at the moment since she saw the familiar untrustworthy smile on his face.
"Well, I should be surprised by this prison break," Cage said with humorous tone in his voice. "But that wouldn't be the truth, would it? I knew for the start that we shouldn't have let you and your people to be in contact with each other, giving you opportunities to plan this, but my father believed that you wouldn't do it and ordered us to stay back. Guess he was wrong about this?"
Clarke didn't answer; she wasn't even looking at the man directly until Cage gave the guards the signal and forced her on her knees. That definitely hurt to have your knees forced to buckle against the hard metal floor with great power. Still she held her calm and unreadable expression on her face, refusing to show this man and his goons the pleasure of seeing her in pain, and turned her gaze towards the floor. However Cage didn't accept his attitude of hers, so he grabbed her by the chin and forced her to look at him.
"It has been a long time, Clarke," His tone was still light and humorous, but she wasn't a fool to notice that his words held no sincerity towards her. "Do you remember the last time we saw each other?"
Of course she remembered, how could she not remember? The man had watched her when they had been torturing her. The last thing she saw before they inflicted this immensely pain on her back and gave her the burn mark, however the thing that made the memory even more worse was that the entire time he was there he had the same untrustworthy and sinister smile on his face and genuinely looked like he enjoying every minute of her being in pain. It was from that moment she knew that there was something terribly wrong with this man, even more than what was considered normal with the Mountain Men, and made him possibly more dangerous and a bigger threat to everyone than what she had first assumed.
"What are you going to do with me?" Clarke asked instead, not wanting to relive or take a trip down memory lane for this man. She was no longer the same girl they had tortured to the point where she wanted nothing more than death just to escape their grasp. No, she was the Clarke that survived against the odds and had people who care about her to have her back when the situation called for it.
Cage smirked at the question before he let go of his grip on her chin and took a few strides away and turned his back towards the monitors. She only observed him with suspicion and caution as she prepared herself to be attack with the unexpected. However the attack never came instead Cage only chuckled before he turned around and said simply, "I'm going to remind you what happens with people who defy and try and escape the mountain because you might have been able to escape once, but trust me I'm not going to let you do it twice. And then I'm going to use you for Dr. Tsing and mine's experiment, so I'm not going to give you the pleasure of death either and after what you're going to go through you are going to wish you were dead."
Her eyes must have widen in the shock from hearing those words, which he took as a signal and ordered the guards to take her to the deepest and darkest place of the mountain, where all prisoners and traitors were sent to be punished for their actions. In other words it was for Clarke, the center of her personal hell and if she categorized between that and things before being locked up in a white room was like heaven. Fear was filling up her stomach and she tried to struggle out of their grasps in attempt to get away and more importantly to not getting closer to that place. However resistance was futile and their grip only tighten to the point where she wanted to scream in pain, but before she had the chance to react to the pain on her arms she felt a light smack on the back of her neck. Then everything around her turned dark and she slipped into the realm of unconsciousness.
He and the others were spread across the river. Some was standing by the sides of the river on the dry land while others were carefully standing on the rocks that were residing under water giving them some ground and not being swept away by the water. Although most of them kept to the land, seeing as none of them really could swim and it would be bad if they drowned before they had gotten the chance to retrieve, Bellamy and Lincoln were one of the few who took the chance and watch out for bodies coming down the river. Octavia had tried to do the same, but he was thankful that Lincoln supported his opinion and wouldn't allow her to do so. Of course Octavia didn't appreciate that she not only had her older brother being overprotective over her anymore, but now Lincoln as well. She had argued that she could handle herself, which both men knew very well that she could, but they wanted to be on the safe side. So Octavia huffed in a frustrated manner and reluctantly did what she was told, although both he and Lincoln knew that she was going to give them hell about it later, but right then they had more important things to worry about than sibling bickering.
They waited for hours every day, but nothing seemed to show and people was starting to become tired from standing still and watchful for many hours for the last few days. Even his limbs were stiff and tired, but he didn't take much notice of it since his mind was strong and focused on finding Clarke and the other delinquents. Sure, he knew that Clarke had not been specific on when the plan would be placed, but he continued to believe that they weren't too late or that something had gone wrong and the kids were dead.
Nothing happened until the fifth day they had spent watching the river. It had been later afternoon when Miller yelled out that he thought he saw something in the water. His words had caught everyone's attention as they immediately became alert and were solely focused on what was coming down river. At first only two kids appeared and where quickly gathered, both thankfully alive although sort of shaken up from being in the water, but moments later more and more kids appeared. Each one of them were picked up and the number increased as they were up till seven kids, unfortunately two of the kids didn't make it, but they were retrieved anyway because they deserved to be at least buried properly instead being washed away. Jasper and Monty was the last two that showed up and were taken to dry land. Bellamy took a head count and saw that there were still one missing from the captured group.
"Where's Clarke?" He asked, looking at the kids with worry. Most of them turned to look at each other before shaking their hands and began murmuring between each other since they had no clue where she was. Jasper and Monty were the only one who didn't response and kept their gaze shamefully on the ground, not willing to look at him. He took that as a sign that they knew the answer, but were terrified to tell him.
So he stood in front of them, leaning lower to catch their eyes and asked once more in a careful manner, "Where is Clarke? You two know since you were the last one to see her, am I correct?"
Both Jasper and Monty nodded, but still didn't say anything. A horrible feeling started to build from the pit of his stomach. Whatever they weren't telling him had something to do with her, and something had obviously happened to her seeing as she wasn't here.
"What is going on?" This time he was more forceful and almost made them squirm by the sound of his voice, but at that moment he didn't care because his concern for his princess was taking over. The duo remained quiet for a moment until Monty answered quietly, "She…She stayed behind."
He was taken back, could barely say out loud, "What?" Because that wasn't the answer he had expected to hear. Why in the world would she stay behind when there were no more of their people inside?
He licked his dry lips and placed a hand over his mouth to cover his anger and shock for a moment before he asked the same question again, "What happened?"
Both Jasper and Monty took turns explaining what had happened inside the mountain and how she had managed to ensemble an escape plan together. They went over the details how each other them had escaped through the sewer system of the mountain and was swept away by the river, but they became flustered and ashamed when they told him the part about Clarke's sacrifice.
"The guards were coming closer, having us surrounded and with no time for us all to escape," Jasper said until he halted. This was obviously the hard part for them to say, but he had no idea it was probably the hardest thing they had to ever tell him. Monty stepped in when Jasper didn't continue and said sadly, "She made the decision and forced us down the hatch, sacrificing herself in order to let us escape. No matter how much we yelled and begged her not to do it she did it anyway and locked the hatch…"
Then Monty stopped as well and turned to Jasper for some support, meanwhile Bellamy wasn't sure what could be more horrible to hear than that his girlfriend stayed behind for the other kids to have a chance to get away, leaving her behind with those monsters who hurt and tortured her before.
"Before she locked the hatch she asked us to tell you that she was sorry," Monty said dejected, and Jasper with the same voice completed the sentence, "And that she loves you."
That broke him. Something just snapped or shattered he wasn't sure, but either way his world fell apart. Her final message to him was that she was sorry and that she loved him, but the meaning behind the message was that she was sorry for leaving him and that she loved him even though she was probably never going to see him again. It wasn't final message before she had been captured; no it had been a goodbye message where her fate was sealed and would probably never see him or the others again.
Without him being aware of it, tears built up from his eyes before they streamed down his face. His sister tried to talk to him, but everything around him was gone. His world was no longer complete because he was missing a huge part of his that mainly belonged to her. What was he going to do?
He snapped out of his turmoil for a moment and clenched his fists before he walked away to the nearest tree and punched the wood with his entire force. Everyone was screaming and yelling at to stop, but it went by blind ears and he continued punching the tree until he saw and felt the blood and pain in his right hand. He stopped and looked at his injured hand, thoughts on Clarke and how she would be reprimanding him for being careless with his body. It hurt to think about her and how her fate was sealed, but he couldn't help wondering if he was going to let things stay like this. Was her fate sealed as he thought? No, it wasn't because he wasn't going to let it be her fate. It was fate that brought them all together, but he was sure as hell no going to let fate separate them. Screw fate, he was going to get her back. And She was going to live and be once again in his arms where she belonged.
"Lincoln," His voice was hollow. "Tell me how you managed to enter the mountain the first time to rescue Clarke."
Lincoln's eyes blinked, confused to what he was trying to say, meanwhile Octavia asked concerned, "Why do you want to do? What are you planning to do?"
He chuckled sadly by her question before he answered her, "Isn't it obvious? I'm going in to that mountain and get her back. I'm not going to give up and let her die inside that damn mountain."
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Thanks again for the amazing response I have been receiving. I hope you guys like this chapter. I'm planning on releasing the next chapter on Monday instead of Sunday, seeing as I have been working on my stories and releasing constantly the last few days I need a little break. Although I'm not planning on a hiatus, not now with the story going this far, but I need my breaks. Hope you guys understand and continue showing patient and support.
Anyways continue giving me reviews, favorite and/or followings, I really appreciate it, and the next chapter will be out on Monday.
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