They'd been walking in silence for quite some time now.
The taller brunette seemed hell bent on ignoring Clarke and Clarke was too stubborn to cave in to the silence first. Two could play at that game. So they trekked onwards wordlessly, with Anya leading in the front and Clarke following with no idea of their destination. However, as the minutes dragged on longer and longer and the sun dropped lower and lower into the horizon, the need to know where they were going eventually won out.
Clarke bit back a sigh as she eyed the rigid back of the Roman woman who still refused to acknowledge her. "Do you even know where we're going or are you just walking around randomly?" she asked, letting her annoyance seep into her tone, not caring if Anya minded. She knew her actions were akin to poking a sleeping dragon, but she was starting to get bored ( antsy ) and trees made for poor companionship. "Because I swear we passed by that exact tree like ten minutes ago."
Her efforts of a conversation were met with silence.
Fighting down a wave of frustration, Clarke trudged forward, angrily glaring at Anya's back hoping that if she stared hard enough perhaps the girl would feel the burn of her gaze and turn around. "Don't tell me you're lost," Clarke tried again to get a rise out of Anya.
Still no response.
"At least tell me you have a plan, because our friends are missing, we were supposed to be back at Camp hours ago, and who knows what else is lurking within these trees," Clarke called out to the girl exasperatedly.
Once again, Clarke was ignored.
Clarke huffed to herself. It seemed that she underestimated the infamous Roman stubbornness she'd heard so much about. If Anya won't talk to her, then Clarke will just have to make the girl acknowledge her presence.
Annoyance and mischievousness were never a good combination. Fed up with Anya's cold shoulder, Clarke summoned a bone from the ground directly into Anya's path. She then watched gleefully as the normally attentive and graceful warrior tripped over the foreign object. Only Anya's refined reflexes as a proud Roman legionnaire prevented the girl from face planting head first into the dirt.
A snort escaped from Clarke before she could hold it back. Anya stilled and Clarke found herself rooted to the spot, waiting for the Roman's reaction. It was like waiting for a ticking bomb to explode.
Slowly, Anya turned her head to the side, shooting Clarke the deadliest glare over her shoulder.
" Very mature," Anya spat at Clarke, before turning back around and continuing her mission to put as much distance between her and the blonde Greek as possible. "Try that again and you'll end up like that gorgon. Dead."
"Yes, threaten the child of Hades with death, that'll scare them." Clarke shrugged nonchalantly, as she followed behind the fuming Roman, grinning to herself. Anya may have been furious, but at least she wasn't being ignored anymore.
Or perhaps Clarke spoke too soon.
Anya was back to ignoring her.
Clarke sighed inwardly. It seemed that she needed to up the ante a bit if she truly wanted to break that Roman stubbornness of Anya's. Secretly, she summoned a whole skeleton hand from the ground and forced it to grab onto Anya's foot. She watched with a smirk as Anya doubled over, nearly face planting, before righting herself again with an impressive show of extreme athleticism and balance.
"Gonna keep ignoring me?" Clarke asked teasingly with a hint of annoyance. "There's plenty more where that came from."
Anya whirled around completely this time, with her sword drawn within half a second, pointed at Clarke. Clarke made a point to glance at the sharp pointy blade before looking back up at Anya's face.
And by the gods, did Anya look devastatingly murderous, but Clarke flirted with danger.
"You'll pay for that, Graecus," Anya growled. Clarke reveled in the way the vein in Anya's neck bulged with anger. "Soon you'll find yourself summoning your own bones from the ground," Anya snarled, looking every bit like she was completely serious about carrying through with the threat.
Clarke's eyes caught the way Anya's hand tightened around her sword and Clarke knew she only had a few precious seconds to do some major damage control before Anya skewered her alive and she was sent to her father's realm with a coin on her eye (Or maybe without. Perhaps Anya would find it as part of her revenge to torture Clarke in her afterlife too).
"Just tell me what our plan is," Clarke insisted pacifyingly, but unable to hide her amused grin. When Anya's eyes only glinted dangerously, hinting at more pain for the blonde in the future, Clarke switched tactics. "Look," she said, more seriously. "We're stuck with each other, whether you and I like it or not. We have bigger problems. It's been at least an hour, judging by the sun, since we've separated from our friends and there hasn't been a single trace of them."
"Titus is not my friend," Anya retorted lowly. She had yet to lower her sword, Clarke noted.
She rolled her eyes. "Good. Otherwise I would've doubted your judgement," Clarke quipped, earning herself a dark but amused huff from the other girl. She took it as a good sign and continued on.
"Either way, we're stuck with each other. Our - ," Clarke paused looking for the right word. "Campmates," - She grimaced. That term seemed way too distant to describe her relationship with Raven and Octavia, but she doubted Anya shared the same sentiment towards Lincoln and Titus - "Are who-knows-where in this forest. Gods know if they're safe or in danger," - Clarke's eyes flashed with an unreadable hardness at the thought of her friends being hurt - "and if you'd just tell me where we're headed or what our plan of action is, I can help you and we'll be back at Camp Jupiter much faster, where I'll finally be out of your hair."
Anya eyed Clarke for a few seconds, probably mulling over the pros and cons of just killing the blonde right here and right now as opposed to working together. Eventually however, Anya turned around and resumed her fast pace.
"We're heading back to the pegasi," Anya stated finally. "If your friends are smart, they'd do the same."
Clarke nodded as she considered the plan. That was where she thought they were headed. "Makes sense. If not, searching for them from the skies would make things quicker." She hurried after the girl. "How much longer then? It can't be too far now."
Anya however went back to ignoring the blonde. Fighting back a frustrated groan, Clarke relented to walking in silence.
"Málaka," Clarke muttered under breath in Greek. Anya gave no indication of having heard or understanding her.
They walked around five more minutes before coming into a clearing of trees that Clarke actually recognized. She did a quick sweep of the area, but to her sinking dismay, the clearing was empty. The pegasi were gone.
"Well there goes that plan," Clarke noted with a cynical sigh, resorting to humor to hide the growing concern over the absence of her friends. She scanned the clearing for any signs of struggle but found none. Clarke wasn't too sure what to make of that.
Either her friends had beaten them here and taken the pegasi back to Camp (the fact that they hadn't left at least one pegasus for Clarke and Anya made this rather unlikely) or the pegasi had fled. Something or someone had spooked them.
Anya cursed under her breath before she turned on her heels and stomped back the way they came. Clarke hurried after her, acutely aware of the high strung tension rolling off the Roman like waves.
"What now?" Clarke asked, desperately trying to keep up without tripping over the exposed roots - it helped that she had something to focus on as opposed to the worst-case scenarios her mind insisted on conjuring up against her will.
"We go to a bunker," Anya answered hastily. If Clarke didn't know Anya better, she'd have thought the girl was almost anxious. "They have built in communication devices. We might be able to figure out if the others are safe. If not, at least we'll be able to contact Camp," Anya told her. "Keep your eyes peeled though. There aren't any bunkers this far out, since there never was a need for it, meaning we have to get closer to the Mountain."
Clarke looked up into the distance and could just make out the shape of the mountain peak against the sky blue backdrop. A shudder ran from the top of her spine all the way down to her toes. She clenched her jaw as she fought the urge to shiver in the rest of her body. The Mountain gave her a bad feeling, which, considering everything she'd heard about it, made sense, but still, Clarke couldn't help feel something was terribly off about the Mountain.
"Great," Clarke swallowed, dismissing the apprehension away as mere war jitters. "So how do we find a bunker?" Clarke questioned, averting her eyes from the Mountain and focusing them on her surroundings instead. Anya had picked up the pace, and they were practically running now instead of walking.
"They're hidden," Anya stated. "Otherwise the Mountain Men would be able to find them. Only members of the legionnaire know of their locations." She threw a look of dislike towards the blonde as she said her last sentence.
Clarke sighed, the edginess in Anya's voice making her weary. "And I'm guessing you're not going to tell me how to locate them either? Even though we're supposed to be allies?"
Anya shot her a dark look over her shoulder. "We may be allies, but I do not trust you."
"Yes," Clarke tilted her head lazily in acknowledgement. "You've made that quite clear."
The two continued to run in silence until Clarke broke it, Anya's last statement still in her mind.
"You're going to have to eventually, you know," Clarke pointed out. "Alliances can't work without trust."
"Yes they can," Anya insisted with a hard stubbornness that Clarke was growing accustomed to. "Out of necessity."
"Well we don't exactly need you," Clarke pointed out under her breath, just loud enough so that Anya could still hear. "You're the ones that asked us for help. So this alliance is rather one-sided."
"Which is why I don't trust you, Graecus, " spat Anya. "What do you get out of this? Why are you helping us? You're really going to fight for a war that doesn't involve you all because Lexa asked you to?" Sharp eyes cut into hers and Clarke found herself staring back with just as much callousness.
"Lexa may have reached out this time, but it was the gods who first told us we needed to work together. Besides, I know that your Camp has helped mine out in our times of need. As a good ally, " she emphasized the word, throwing a look in Anya's direction to really get her point across. "We should repay the favor. Besides, according to the gods a ' great disaster will befall both camps' if we don't work together and if there's anything the gods are usually correct about - it's impending danger and doom," Clarke retorted. "That's the only reason they could've had to make our two camps allies."
"And you trust your gods?" Anya asked pointedly, eyes flashing with some unreadable expression.
"You don't?" Clarke shot back, barely able to hide her incredulousness.
Anya averted her eyes, choosing not to answer.
And Clarke honestly didn't know what to make of that.
Before she could dwell on it for too long though, Anya slowed her pace.
"We're near. It should be around here somewhere," Anya announced, scanning the ground near them. Clarke just stood there watching Anya search. She would've helped, if only Anya hadn't been so distrusting and just told her what they were looking for but alas.
She probably could've helped anyways, with her innate sense of anything that had to do with the underground - another gift she had as a daughter of Hades. As Hades ruled the Underworld, she had an incredible sense of underground navigation, a skill that came in handy when she had to find her way through Daedalus' labyrinth.
In fact, she had a pretty good feeling she knew exactly where the bunker was located but she wasn't going to spoil the fun. She enjoyed watching the Roman prowl around like an animal looking for scraps to eat. Instead, she went to stand right atop the bunker entrance and waited, putting on her best innocent face as Anya eventually stopped in front of her at the end of her search.
"You're standing on the entrance," Anya's eyes flashed dangerously at Clarke as she shoved the Greek off and revealed the intricately hidden trapdoor in the ground.
"Oh my," Clarke faked surprise, bringing a hand to her mouth. She didn't even mind that Anya pushed her. This charade was far too entertaining. "What a coincidence."
She might've overdone it because Anya paused, giving Clarke a suspicious glance over.
"You-," Anya began to say until Clarke interrupted her.
"Don't move," Clarke said suddenly, her body going on high alert.
Anya only scowled at her. "Don't tell me what to do, Graecus."
"Anya, shut up," Clarke hissed, all signs of playfulness gone. Her eyes darted back and forth around their surroundings.
Anya must finally sense something was wrong because the girl's expression molded into one of careful guardedness, mirroring Clarke's body language.
The Roman glanced at her. There was no dislike in her eyes, only urgent questioning and Clarke was glad to see that when it came down to it, Anya was all business.
"There's something here," Clarke stated quietly with a frown. She quickly scanned their surroundings, eyes darting back and forth between the trees. The grip on her sword tightened almost imperceptibly and her muscles tensed - she was like a stretched out rubber band, ready to pounce at any sign of danger. The two waited in bated silence as they continued to look for any signs of possible threats.
After a couple more seconds of tense silence, Anya frowned. "Well we'll be safer inside the bunker anyways. It should be-"
Clarke had only just registered the existence of three hostile presences in their vicinity when it happened.
It was as if the earth had exploded. The sound was so powerful, it nearly brought tremors to Clarke's knees.
The gunshot reverberated Clarke's ears and the sound seemed to echo in her mind even seconds after. She turned to her left in horror - almost as if she were moving in slow motion - just in time to watch the daughter of Bellona fall to her knees, a hand clutching at a bloody shoulder.
"ANYA!" Clarke shouted. Fear, panic, and adrenaline pumped through her body; her muscles tense as she tried to reach her friend. She'd only just managed to take a single step towards the fallen Roman when suddenly, there was another loud crack. She ignored it though, even as her mind rang from the sound, even as her knee suddenly gave away under her and Clarke fell to the ground, nearly bashing her nose in the process.
Pushing herself up from the ground with her hands, Clarke looked down at her knees in confusion. What she saw only confused her further. There was a small hole in her armor, two inches above her right knee. A dark circle of red blossomed from the hole, growing bigger by the second.
It wasn't until the pain hit that Clarke fully registered what had happened.
She'd been shot.
" Málaka! " Clarke cursed out loud, her shock overwhelming her pain. She knew this numbness wouldn't last long however, so she continued to crawl herself over to Anya, inch by inch. She'll deal with the hole in her leg later. She could see the girl struggling to get on her feet to fight but Clarke yelled at her to stay down.
"You'll only make yourself an easier target," Clarke shouted to her. Thankfully, it seemed that Anya was more willing to listen to the blonde after getting shot, as the Roman stayed low to the ground. Though whether it was out of necessity or incapability of standing, Clarke couldn't tell.
'Get to Anya. Shadow travel away. Treat the wounds.' She repeated those three sentences in her mind like a mantra as she crawled towards the girl. 'Get to Anya. Shadow travel away. Treat the wounds.'
Clarke had almost made it to Anya when suddenly, another gunshot sounded in the distance, resonating throughout the woods.
"Oof!" Clarke found herself thrown on the ground once more. When she opened her eyes, the entire world was sideways. Anya was crumpled on the ground next to her, and in some deep corner of her mind, she registered the new searing pain in her abdomen.
She brought a hand to her stomach and the wetness on her fingertips confirmed the location of the second bullet.
Puzzlingly enough, Clarke suddenly felt the urge to laugh.
'Is this what dying feels like? This doesn't feel nice at all. Thanatos fucking lied. '
Clarke could see her vision wavering and forced herself to stay awake, but the pain soon became too much for her and her body's defenses jumped in.
The last thing she recalled thinking was, 'Simple scouting mission, my ass.'
Then, darkness.
The first sign that Clarke was coming to was the sudden regaining of feeling in her head. And by that, she meant the sudden onslaught of pounding pain in her brain - like someone was taking a jackhammer to her skull.
It was unpleasant as hell. Living truly hurt like nothing else.
Everything felt so scattered, so confounding, and the loud buzzing in her ears was not helping.
Clarke kept her eyes closed. She focused on all the sensations she was already feeling and tried to filter and single them out. As the buzzing slowly faded away until it was only a constant humming in her ears, she began to make out the muffled sounds of voices around her.
No, above her.
"This is remarkable. Look at the injury. It's practically healed itself within a matter of minutes."
Where was she? Who was there? Clarke didn't think she recognized the voices. That usually wasn't a very reassuring sign. She'd been captured enough times to know that.
"That's impossible. Do it again."
Clarke felt a small sting in her right hand.
'Ow!' She wanted to protest, but her mouth refused to move.
"Look at that level of regeneration. I've never seen anything like it."
Clarke tried to stay awake to hear more, fought the exhaustion with her anger, but she was helpless and soon found herself falling back into darkness.
The second time Clarke came to, everything still hurt , just a little less. The pain was muffled like someone had tried to mute it, but still very much present and very much frustrating.
This time, instead of voices, she heard a consistent t high pitched beeping. It didn't take much for her to recognize it as her heartbeat on a monitor.
Was she in a hospital?
Clarke tried opening her eyes, but shut them immediately as bright light assaulted her vision.
The sudden onslaught of visionary stimuli had her stomach recoiling and her head reeling with plenty of regret, and she was soon knocked out once more.
Clarke continued to drift between the conscious and the unconscious, waking up and blacking out at least five more times. At least she was pretty sure it was five times. Forgive her. It was a bit hard to keep count when she could barely stay awake for more than a few seconds at a time.
By the time she finally came through, Clarke was quite done with the whole falling unconscious shit.
She tried to shift her body but she was firmly strapped to the bed by several bindings around her wrists, ankles, and waist. Unable to move, Clarke began to think.
First of all, her body was still sore and tired which was, truth to be told, quite unusual for her. As a child of The Big Three, Clark's body healed extremely fast, even compared to other demigods'. And after receiving Apollo's blessing as a gift from the Titan War, Clarke's rate of regeneration was practically godlike. Minor cuts and bruises didn't stay on her for more than a few minutes. Deeper cuts, a few hours.
So the fact that she still felt pain was still weird. Did the bullets really do that much damage?
She glanced down at her legs the best she could while being strapped down. She was wearing a hospital gown so her thighs were uncovered. No bullet hole. Just smooth skin.
So her regeneration was fine. The bullet wound had healed.
That begged another question though. What had her captors been doing to her body?
That was a scary route she was not necessarily mentally ready to think down.
Instead, she surveyed her surroundings. The room she was in was small, with white walls. Very reminiscent of a hospital room. The equipment around her - some she was attached to - seemed to all be state of the art medical equipment that Clarke recognized from spending her evenings after school waiting for her mother to finish work. Though at first glance this looked like a patient room in a hospital, Clarke found signs that gave her the impression the room was used for more research rather than surgical breakthroughs.
Clarke also took note of the position of the door in relation to the rest of the things in the room. There was only one. No windows either. Which meant one way in, one way out. The door had no visible handle. Clarke guessed that the only way to operate the door was via the panel on the wall next to it.
That made things a bit harder.
Clarke gave an experimental tug on the bindings on her wrist. They barely gave way and Clarke sighed. She'd been hoping for an easier escape.
Before she could get too lost in her thoughts however, the lone metal door suddenly slid open without warning, revealing an old, thin looking white man with white hair. He wore a lab coat and held a clipboard in his hand, though it was quickly forgotten when he realized she was awake.
"Well, well, it looks like our miracle demigod is awake. How was your nap, Daughter of Hades?" he grinned, not unkindly to Clarke though it still set the blonde on edge. It was clear he knew who she was. Not a good sign usually.
His blue eyes scanned her up and down and Clarke didn't bother to hide her scowl at the action.
"Let me guess," Clarke surmised, used to these types of situations. "You're here to kill me. But only after you use me for something." It was the only logical explanation after all. Otherwise she'd be long dead already.
The man lit up, seemingly amused by Clarke's bluntness. "Very astute. That is exactly what we plan to do with you, yes."
"Let's cut to the chase then," Clarke said with all the blase of someone who wasn't tied down to a hospital bed. "Who are you? What do you want? What's your evil nefarious plan? Which god was it this time that wronged you?"
The man chuckled. "You have many questions demigod. Allow me to return the favor and be straightforward. My name is Dante Wallace. I simply want freedom. And evil is a relative term, no? As for which god wronged me..." His eyes flashed and Clarke caught a glimpse of something darker, almost haunted.
"All of them."