Chapter 95: Ash

I can't believe Lexa went back without me. How am I supposed to watch her six when she does something this reckless and impulsive? Up until that point, the mission was going pretty smoothly. The only problem being the fact that there were so many women and children. I don't think anyone thought there would be this many. How am I going to explain to Clarke that I left Lexa by herself?

I speak into my coms, "Lexa, can you hear me?" There was no answer. "Lexa, answer me, damn it!" This time nothing but static. Then I hear between the static We…static…taking…static…fire… Then I hear an explosion, then nothing. "Lexa!" That was all I received. I can only assume that they were taking fire and were hit. I yell, "Fuck! Reed, we have to go back."

He replies, "Ash, you know that we can't. We are almost to the island. We need to follow Lexa's plan and trust that she will make the secondary pickup point. Once we get everyone situated, you and I will take the fishing boat and a tent to the location and wait for her as long as it takes. But we also need to come up with another plan to get all of them out of here. I don't know if we will be able to smuggle this many pregnant women and children even with passports for all of them."

"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Maybe Pav will have some ideas."

It takes us around thirty minutes to make it back to the camp. Luckily, we weren't followed. I just hope that luck holds. As we are beaching the boat, I see Clarke running towards the pontoon. I take a deep breath, trying to steady myself for what is about to happen.

When she sees me, she says, "Ash, where is Lexa? She wasn't on the fishing boat. Is she with you?"

I can't look her in the eyes, so I look at the ground. Then, finally, I start to speak, "Clarke, N-No, she's not with me. S-she…"

Clarke interrupts me, "What do you mean, she's not with you? Where is she? Something doesn't feel right. I need to find her."

I can tell she is on the verge of a breakdown, so I wrap her in my arms and whisper, "S-she went back for…she jumped off the boat at the last minute to go back for someone. She-She told me to tell you that she loves you and she will see you soon."

She breaks down sobbing and hitting me, screaming at me, "How could you let this happen? I thought you were supposed to always have her six. I knew something was wrong. I could feel it!"

Abby comes rushing over, "Clarke, honey, what's wrong?"

Clarke tries to reply but can't, so I tell Abby what happened. Abby hugs Clarke and says, "Come on, sweetie, let's get you to bed."

Once Abby gets Clarke situated in bed with a sedative to calm her down, I tell Abby about the last communication I had with Lexa. Kane is working on his computer, trying to locate her tracker, but apparently, it's offline. While Abby gives the women a quick once over, I ask Kane about Shiloh's tracking devices. "Is there a way to disable them until we can get to a safe location and extract them for good?"

Kane replies, "We could use an EMP to short them out temporarily, but it would only last a few hours at the most. How many are we talking about?"

"I'm not sure, but I can find out."

I walk outside to a group of the kids and find Shiloh. "Earlier, you mentioned that you all have trackers implanted in your arms. How many of you have them?"

She replies, "Anyone eight years or older. Why?"

"We are trying to figure out a way to disable them until we can remove them."

"Can you gather up all the ones that have trackers and come down to the beach by the houseboat?"

She nods and wanders off. I go back and tell Kane what I have found out. He says that he can use a small EMP to disable them, giving Abby time to remove them since there are only about ten of them. I find Abby as she is finishing with the last woman, "How are they looking?"

"Fine for the most part. Most of them are drugged and don't really know what is going on at the moment, but I think that once the drugs wear off, they will all be fine. Pav found three of the six women he was looking for and will take them back to Kyiv tonight to their families. He's taking the photos for the passports as we speak."

"Great, I need you to go help Kane with removing the trackers out of some of the kids. After that, I'm going to go have a look and see if Natalia is in the group and come up with a backup plan."

As I start to walk away, I pull out my phone and call Callie. She answers on the second ring. "Hey, are you okay?" She asks.

"I'm fine…but I don't know about Lexa. She ran off to help someone and was separated from us…and her tracker is offline, and Clarke is a mess."

"Ashley, if anyone can survive and get back to you, it's Lexa. You just need to trust in her."

"I know, but…what-what if she doesn't make it back? How will I ever be able to face Clarke knowing that I didn't protect Lexa like I promised I would?"

"Baby, you can't think like that. You have to be positive for Clarke and yourself."

"Thanks, I love you. I will call you soon."

"I love you too, Ashley. Be careful."

When I find Pav, he is talking to one of the women. She's tall, with blonde hair and a very pregnant belly. He sees me approaching and says, "Ash, this is Natalia. She says that she was working for the CIA when she was captured."

"It's nice to meet you. I know Anny will be thrilled to know that you are alive and well. Can you tell me what happened?"

She replies, "You know Anny? Is she okay?"

"She's fine, just worried about you. She helped us a great deal in finding you and the rest of the group. Would you like to talk to her?"

She starts to cry, "Yes, please."

I take out my phone and dial Anny's number. After two rings, she answers. "Ash, is everything okay?"

"For the most part. I will fill you in later. Right now, I have someone that would like to talk to you…hold on…." I hand the phone to Natalia.

Natalia says, "Anny, honey, is that really you?" She hits her knees, crying as Pav and I walk away to give her some privacy.

I look at him and say, "When you take your three girls to Kyiv tonight, I need for you to take her with you and make sure she gets to Anny. I also need you to scout the airport to see if we will be able to use it to leave. I feel that we are going to need to split up into smaller groups to not draw attention to ourselves. I had no idea that we would be able to rescue this many people."

He replies, "Will do. I also have my men monitoring all radio frequencies for anything related to what we just accomplished. It may be smart to send a couple of the women and babies back tonight, along with Morrigan and Lincoln. Just in case, I would have the others in your group go-ahead to the airport and board the plane around noon today instead of waiting until tonight. That way, we can at least get the plane out of Kyiv quickly if need be."

"That is actually a great idea. I will call Callie and have her relay the message to everyone. Then, hopefully, I can talk Clarke into going as well."

Around ten am, Pav loaded up the boat with the ten babies, four women, and four older kids. I talked to Callie earlier, and everyone was already aboard the plane waiting. She said so far, she didn't see any added security. I gave Pav the trackers that Abby extracted from the children. He will drop some in the river on the way to Kyiv. Then place some around the islands furthest away from ours to throw off whoever comes looking for the kids. I just hope that our luck holds out. But, of course, I couldn't talk Clarke into leaving. In fact, she made me promise to take her with me to the rendezvous point to wait for Lexa. Kane still hasn't located her tracker either, which just adds to the tension in the camp.

Late afternoon, Pav arrives back on the island. He says that he got everyone aboard the plane without any issue, and they were scheduled to fly to Minsk later today and wait for further instructions. Apparently, one of his contacts thought it would be better this way.

After brunch, Bellamy, Jose, Reed, Pav, and I brought out a map to find an alternative way out of the country. Pav points to a location on the map and says, "We are going to take the boats up the river to here. This road, P56, is pretty much abandoned most of the time. There will be two tour vans waiting for us there, driven by friends of mine. About twenty miles east of the river is a heliport that some tours use when coming to Chernobyl from Minsk or Russia. I have access to two choppers. Ash, I need you to call Morrigan and tell her and Lincoln to meet my contact in Minsk. He will show them to the choppers and give them the coordinates for the heliport. They will then meet us there and take us to Minsk, where we shouldn't have any trouble loading everyone onto your plane. I have the passports, and we will leave camp at midnight."

"That sounds great except for the fact that we still haven't had any contact with Lexa. I will not leave here without her."