That Never Was - 3

by lileb

Aggie is no longer alone in her careless dances with fate; and if there's one thing that life is reliable for, it's giving you chances to teeter on the edge of death. Some chances, not even distance can save you from. Book three in the series: The Ghost

8. Chapter 7 - Twelve Disciples

Day 148 – Feb. 7

Tired hazel eyes stare through the darkness at the wooden ceiling above her. Slow, deep breaths echo from the dark brown-haired teen sleeping beside her. The words uttered by the brother of the girl in Myles' bed the day before are stuck firmly in the redhead's mind, chasing away sleep for the last few hours of the night. Sighing, Myles turns her head to glance out her window at the dark early morning sky.

Carefully sitting up, the red-haired teen presses down with her hands on her bed to regulate the slow lifting of her weight off the mattress. Silently, Myles crosses the room and slips out of her bedroom door. Instead of walking elsewhere in the house or leaving completely, the redhead walks across the hallway to the door to Jasper's room. Quietly pushing the handle made of melted scrap metal down to open the door, Myles steps inside.

Finn sleeps on a makeshift bed on the floor in the middle of the room, dead to the world as Max lifts his head from the foot of Jasper's bed and wags his tail excitedly. As she gently closes the door, a wide awake Jasper props himself up on his elbows. Her best friend is already scooting over on his bed to make room for Myles before her hand ever leaves the door handle. Myles' sock-clad feet pad over the wooden floor to Jasper's bed, scratching at Max's fur when he stands to greet her.

"Can't sleep, either?" Jasper whispers when his best friend flops down to lie beside him.

"Nope," Myles answers just as quietly, and Max walks up the slim gap between the two teens bodies to lie down against their sides. Both teens scratch at the small calico coloured dog's head and Myles turns her head to look at Jasper in the pale moonlight. "Why can't you sleep?"

"It's Mount Weather all over again," he murmurs disdainfully, "Pike's like Cage. A vulture who thinks he deserves nothing less than everything on Earth. Doesn't matter how many innocent people he has to kill for it all."

Myles doesn't reply straight away, thinking over the words. While there are similarities in the overall thinking of the two men, that's as far as the situations alikeness goes. It doesn't stop almost every bad scenario they find themselves sucked into from being twisted and compared to what happened inside of that mountain, however. Maybe it never will, and the dark cloud of its memories that follow the two best friends and constantly plague their thoughts might just be destined to remain so deep a scar that it never truly heals, even after years.

This warped thought process takes a turn in Myles' mind that Jasper hasn't even considered in three months. Bellamy's words echo in her mind, making her head throb with each syllable she remembers falling from his lips. Myles' heart still aches from the torn look in his eyes, like he'd been wanting to say the words for a while but regretted them the second they left his throat.

"That's what Bellamy thinks I do," Myles breathes out, getting Jasper to whip his head to face her and stilling his hand on Max's head. "Kinda."

"What are you talking about?" Jasper quizzes lowly, propping himself up on his elbows. Myles stays silent, not meeting his eyes and instead staring blankly at the ceiling. "You didn't tell me what happened with him."

"You didn't tell me what happened with Greenie," the redhead counters in a hushed tone.

"That's different," her best friend reminds her softly, turning his body to face her when his neck cramps up. "And, as your best friend, I'm obligated to kick Blake's ass if he said anything even remotely like you're like Cage."

"He didn't," Myles amends dejectedly, sighing harshly as the man's words swirl around her mind.

Jasper waits patiently, before gesturing with the arm he's no longer using to hold himself up. "Well?"

"He, uh," the red-haired teen hesitates, "said that I'm not in charge anymore, and that it's a good thing, because all I do is get people killed."

"Bellamy Blake said that?" Jasper asks lowly, and hazel eyes lock on her best friends infuriated brown. "Bellamy Blake, who tried to walk through the Azgeda army, alone, to get to you, said that?"

"Yeah, well," Myles shrugs lazily. "Apparently it wasn't the wholesome, romantic gesture we thought it was."

The empty air that follows her words is thick and heavy, but it's her best friend's silence that speaks volumes to the redhead.

"I'm going to fucking kill him," Jasper declares slowly, his tone dangerously low.

"JJ," Myles drawls out, flicking her gaze between his eyes worriedly.

"Don't try and justify that," the brown-haired teen implores, the angry look never once leaving his eyes. "You walked into a wall in Polis yesterday and you apologised. To the wall."

"He's lost," the red-haired teen informs him quietly, her eyebrows turning up in a worried frown. "What happened in Mount Weather doesn't just affect us. It hurt him, too."

"So, what?" Jasper scoffs softly, "that makes gunning down 300 people who were sent to help him okay? Makes telling you all you do is get people killed okay?"

"Rule fifty-eight, JJ," Myles sighs deeply, and the teen beside her, though still pissed, relaxes slightly.

"'If you start making adult decisions'," Jasper recites, "'keep making them'."

"He's trying to come to terms with what pulling that lever meant," the redhead whispers, "it all looks like the same decision to him. He's lost."

Jasper clenches his jaw before lying back down on his back. His hand brushes through Max's fur again as his head tilts towards his best friend.

"Do you think…" Jasper mutters hoarsely after a moment, "if I stayed… I'd still be as lost as him?"

Myles tilts her head to meet his eyes, thinking it through.

"I don't know," Myles answers in a hushed tone, "maybe. You'd probably be too drunk to shoot a gun."

A halfhearted snort-laugh bubbles from Jasper's throat, making Myles let out a small giggle before clamping a hand over her mouth to stay quiet.

"You're probably right."

The morning sun has barely peeked over the horizon, brightening up the land in front of the two teens enough that they don't need their flashlights to see. Hazel eyes are glued to the greenery in front of her, the vibrant colours glaring through the last few weeks of winter. Her centuries old worn and splotchy leather tactical boots seem dull and lifeless amongst the intensity of the green grass beneath them. Tight distressed black jeans are covered in rips and holes that have been lazily patched with an array of different materials, her weapons and their leg braces having to be strapped over top of the tight clothing.

A glimmer flickers in the slowly rising sunlight, and Myles changes direction to walk up to it. Despite the tight jeans, Myles can move freely and comfortably in them as she crouches down to brush her glove-clad fingers through the grass. Over the edge of her gloves are the long sleeves of her fairly intact dark brown shirt; the only signs of its age are its frayed edges and dull colour. A tank top is layered underneath of it, and the layer on top of them all is what's left of a leather jacket.

Once black leather has been bleached with age, taking on splattered and uneven brown tones now. It has no sleeves anymore, Myles had gotten sick of continuously sowing them back on and now only wears it as a vest.

Turning the small shards of glass over in her hand, Myles doesn't stand when she calls out.

"Over here," the redhead states loudly, scanning her hazel eyes around the grass and moss covered area. "I think I found it." Immediately, the sound of her best friend's boots and Max's little paws start heading towards her. "Careful, there's glass everywhere."

"Max," Jasper commands the dog, "sit."

Jasper's worn brown leather boots are what Myles sees of him first as he leans over her shoulder and eyes the grass with her, both looking for the same thing. His form-fitting jeans were once a light blue, years and years ago, but now they're various shades of muted green, grey and brown with age and discolouration. Brown pockets with weapon straps made from scraps of material litter across his jeans, giving his patchwork repairs more than just one purpose.

Standing up, Myles spares a glance at her best friend as she moves to look around more. His long-sleeved dark grey shirt is slightly baggy, lighter shades of grey speckled over the material from age and wear. Long splits run down both his arms, thin black and tan braided thread crisscrossing all the way down does nothing to hold the two pieces of material back together again. Large gashes and tears in his shirt has been patched with strips of material that's several shades lighter than the rest of his shirt, with noticeable holes on his shoulders and elbows having been patched with leather. His flaky black leather jacket covers his sleeved arms and hides the weapons hidden in braces under his sleeves and gloves.

"Are you sure this is where it would've been?" Jasper asks after a few moments of finding nothing more than scattered glass shards. "Hardly any glass for a huge building."

"I found it in the background of, like, three different brochures," Myles explains, shrugging. "It's been two hundred years. It's probably all buried or been jacked."

"How are we supposed to find an entrance then?" Jasper enquires, lifting his gaze from the dirt to the trees and wildlife surrounding them. "Were there any other landmarks?"

"Only other buildings," the redhead sighs, "it was a built-up city. Just look for an old elevator shaft or stairwell. Should lead us straight down."

Their gazes remain fixed on the ground beneath them, shifting foliage with their boots and squinting to see what's there in the dull light the rising sun provides them. A metallic thunk catches their attention, and Myles whips around to look at where Jasper just stepped. Crossing to him instantly, Jasper bends down to lift up a long sheet of heavy metal panelling, completely cloaked with vines and moss. The bright green shades of life don't give either teen even a glimpse of the blue-grey metal it hides and lifting it the slightest bit reveals a dull and dead patch on the ground it had been laying over for a century.

Myles joins him, her gloved fingers slipping over the thick moss covering the top and sides of the metal and grunting to flip it over, trying to get a good look at what's underneath it. Dead leaves, more dense green moss and long, skinny sticks lay across the ground in a square shape, and both teens brush away them all. Another large sheet of metal is under the thin layer of sticks, this one almost bare of any touch of green, only a grimy texture and tinted discolouration painted over it in certain spots.

Both Arker's stomachs drop at the nothingness that is revealed by lifting the last metal sheet. Shoving it over to crash loudly on top of the other metal, the thick scent of musty air chokes their lungs. Coughing at the sudden gust of thick and stale air, Myles pulls a flashlight from her waistband and clicks it on.

They can't see anything down the elevator shaft, not even when Jasper clicks on his own flashlight and shines his white beam down there with Myles'. Despite the smell and the pitch blackness that greets them, excited hazel eyes gleam when they lock on Jasper's shining brown.

"Told you," Myles gloats, clicking off her flashlight and turning to walk back over to a patiently waiting Max.

"Bold words," Jasper jokes, "for someone who's going in first."

Myles stops, turning her whole body around to stare at her giddy best friend in exasperation.

Clipping their last locking hook onto the chassis under the front of the rover, Myles stands back up straight and steps back.

"Alright," the red-haired teen calls, nodding to Jasper and Max inside of the rover. "Hit it."

Jasper replaces one foot on the clutch with another on the accelerator and the tires spin in the dirt, pulling the chain tight and slightly swaying the three tall trees they've tightly anchored the hoist to. They both give it a few seconds of Jasper flooring it in reverse to test the strength of how they rigged up their hoist to the trees before Myles nods contentedly and Jasper stops the rover.

"That look good?" Jasper quizzes through the slits in the metal covering the driver's window.

"Yeah," Myles answers distractedly, leaning forward and unhooking it from the car. "It'll hold."

"Sweet," the brown-haired teen mutters, reversing a tad before stopping the rover a metre away from the hole.

Jasper and Max get out of the rover, coming over to Myles as she tugs the chains hanging from where they have secured them to the trees towards the ground instead of directly over the hole in the Earth.

"Okay," Myles mutters to herself, pulling out her flashlight and clicking it on before holding it in her mouth.

Twisting the loop of chain with several locking hooks on it around her right boot, ankle, thigh and left arm half a dozen times before reaching over and hooking the giant loop of chain with no hooks around the back of her right hand to grasp in her palm. The hoist is a very simple pulley design, the large, ugly looking diamond shaped metal box houses a big reel of chain with a heavy clamp to keep the chain from shifting when they don't want it to. Yanking hard either side of the second loop around will either lift or lower something or someone that's attached to the loop with hooks. Even though they've used it hundreds of times in the last three months to move things that weighed too much for the teens to shift and to travel up and down ridiculous heights, using it to descend into complete blackness still makes Myles' stomach feel heavy with dread.

Her left foot skitters over the grass before Myles shifts her body weight to make her fall into the elevator shaft. The chains hold her up, but Myles has to wait for herself to stop swinging before she lowers herself down. Jasper reaches out with one of his hands to help her stop swinging, and his touch doesn't leave her until she's still. Cold metal pinches into her skin through her clothes from the chains being held tight around her, and fear prickles at her heart from looking down at the hole she hangs over. Myles' right foot shakes on the chain it balances on, but the length of it wrapped around her leg and arm keeps her held up steadily.

"You good?" Jasper enquires, his eyes looking from her to the hoist reel above their heads as Max whines and shifts anxiously behind him.

"Peachy," Myles retorts, the word muffled and unrecognisable through the flashlight in her mouth. Yanking down with the side of the loop her right hand is holding, the chains lower her with a jolt. Gripping the loop tightly, Myles keeps her right hand still after each harsh tug to make sure the clamp holds her up instead of letting her fall all the way down. "See you in a minute."

"I have no idea what you just said," Jasper informs her, watching her lower herself until her head is past the level of ground he stands on before turning to take the crates out of the rover.

Even with the sun almost fully up and over the horizon, it isn't until several metres down that Myles sees the concrete floor beneath her dangling form and she halts suddenly. Jasper must hear her hesitation, because his worried voice calls down not even a second later.

"You still good?" Jasper calls down loudly, his voice echoing off the concrete walls.

"Uh-huh," Myles blandly replies, starting to lower herself again with her gaze locked on the two skeletons directly under her.

When her hazel eyes see nothing else that could cause alarm on the floor, she tilts her head to sweep her light around her as she nears the bottom of the elevator shaft. It's no different from any other underground parking garage that they've seen. Hundreds of cars parked neatly in their designated spots with everything in sight made of concrete; the floor, the ceiling, the elevator shaft walls, the pillars and columns. Faded strips of blue, yellow, and white paint mark up the columns and floor, rusted and leaking pipes lining the two metre high ceiling.

Myles stops yanking on the chain when her left boot can graze the ground, and she hops to find her balance a step away from the two skeletons at her feet. Carefully untangling herself from the chains, Myles pulls the flashlight from her mouth and flicks it between the metre wide gap in the concrete shaft she's in. Critters scatter, having found their way in somehow, but the air is thick and reeks of mould, billions of tiny flecks of dust and dirt dancing in the white beam of the redhead's flashlight.

"Made it," Myles states loudly, hearing her voice echo back several times with the repeating sounds of Jasper readying the crates. Her curious hazel eyes scour the rows of cars through the cluttered air, already working out a plan in her mind. "Careful when you come down, looks like they covered it for a reason. Two friends at the bottom."

"Gross," her best friend utters, and Myles puts the flashlight back in her mouth to yank the other side of the loop to raise the locking hooks towards the surface again. "How bad is it?"

"Uh-uh," the red-haired teen unhelpfully supplies loudly, turning her head to glance around her again as the sounds of bugs rustling around reverberates off the walls.

Myles stands under the elevator shaft, her flashlight in her mouth and her hands held up to grip the chains wrapped around their sixth, and last, crate. The wooden box is just short of a metre in width, length and height, and is remarkably heavier than the other five of its same size when she tugs it towards herself to avoid the bones on the ground. Jasper's flashlight lifts up and peers down the edge of the box he and Max stand in, staring at the bones.

"Jesus," Jasper murmurs, looking back up at the entrance. "Some fall." Myles grunts in agreement as the crate drops on the ground. Max jumps up, his front paws resting on the top edge of the crate, his nose excitedly sniffing around at the new smells. Jasper lifts the small calico dog up and gently leans over the crates edge to help him on the concrete ground. "Out you go."

Max is off, sniffing everything he can reach and his little paws click softly as he walks around. Myles bends down to unhook the crate from the chains and drag it backwards towards the others after Jasper jumps out. Standing back up, the redhead reaches into the crate for the folded up pallet trolley, setting the two wheels on the ground before clicking the long feet up and pulling out the pole to drag it around.

"I'll take A3," the brown-haired teen offers, leaning back over the crate to pull two almost empty backpacks out and pass one to his best friend as she pulls the flashlight from her mouth. Hazel eyes glance from the chipped and dull orange painted 'G1' on the outer brick walls of the elevator shaft to look at the row of cars to its left labelled with a hardly there blue stripe and 'A3' painted on the columns that are erected between every three cars. "You want A4?"

"Yeah," the redhead nods, flicking her flashlight to the row across from 'A3' to find the row for 'A4'. "I got it." Shrugging the backpack strap over her head to hang to her side so she can easily reach it, Myles walks alongside Jasper to the end of the rows of cars, gradually adding space between them. "So," Myles calls out, swiping her sleeve through the dust on a red car's window so she can see the inside of the door when she holds the flashlight to the glass. "How do you think Finn'll do with Ray's room?"

"Good," Jasper answers, mimicking her actions on a different car across from her. Myles pulls a metal rod with a short, sharp bend in one end and a small crowbar like screwdriver out from her bag. Putting the flashlight in her mouth to see what she's doing, Myles jams the screwdriver in the tiny gap between the car door and the body of the vehicle. "It'll be good for him, too. Give him something to do."

"Mm," Myles hums out distractedly, wrenching the screwdriver to pry open a small gap in the door. The red paint scratches off from the manoeuvre, and the second there's a slight opening, the redhead feeds through the hook end of the metal rod. Hooking the kink at the end on the interior door handle, Myles pulls the rod back towards herself and the door clicks open. Resting the rod and screwdriver on the roof of the car, the red-haired teen pulls the flashlight from her mouth as she crawls into the abandoned car and unlocks the other doors. "It helps everybody."

Somewhere in the garage, Max sneezes loudly and the sound echoes to them. Shining the flashlight around the interior of the car reveals it to be mostly clean and organised. The only signs of disarray are the papers on the passenger seat, the books and umbrella in the back footwells and the coins scattered inside of the empty cup holders between the driver and passenger seat. Scooping up the coins, Myles sticks them in the backpack for safekeeping as she noses around the papers.

The faded ink reveals they're invoice notes for the rental car she's in and the booking confirmation for the hotel that used to be standing above them. Opening the glove box reveals nothing, just leaflets and booklets for insurance and the rental company. Myles reaches her arm down to feel under the front seats before she grabs the books and umbrella from the back and starts to climb out of the car.

"Isn't it kinda funny," Jasper starts, ducking out of the open driver's door and opening the back door of the car he's raiding. "That everyone keeps leaving Arkadia?" Myles pulls the levers for the trunk and bonnet of the car before shutting the front door. "And coming to us? Literally straight for us."

"Clarke's not with us," Myles reminds him, dropping the three rotting novels and the umbrella onto the trolley to pull open the trunk. "Got a handbag."

"Anything good in it?" Jasper quizzes from the backseat of the car he's in. "And she is with us, she's just staying at Polis."

"Cash," the redhead lists, rifling through the contents of the handbag and mindlessly chucking the two hundred-year-old makeup, mints and gum into the empty trunk while sticking the dull and faded cash and wallet into her backpack. "Mints, passport, hotel keycard, sunglasses. She's staying at Polis with Lexa now."

"Only for a little bit," the brown-haired teen compromises, climbing out of his car and popping up the trunk. Jasper walks over to the trolley, dumping a sunhat, a pair of running shoes and a pair of fancy flats before going to the trunk. "She'll be back."

Myles shoots a skeptical look to her best friend's back, "I don't know." Lightly tossing the almost empty handbag with only the two pairs of sunglasses and a pair of prescription glasses left in it to the trolley. Shutting the trunk and walking around the car to get to the bonnet, the redhead continues drawling out her response. "You saw the looks they were giving each other."

"Do you think she's staying in Polis," Jasper starts, pausing for half a second as his focus is on whatever he's looking at. "Because Finn's staying with us now?"

"I think it's that, and," Myles agrees, yanking out the car's battery and setting the heavy box on the ground by her feet. Reaching back in, the redhead retrieves anything she can sell, which includes all the gears and chains she can see and pulling out short pipes and hoses. "She wants to see if she can really trust Lexa. Make sure she keeps her word."

Myles slams the hood, dragging the junk over to the trolley as Max's clicking steps trot over to them. Grabbing the rod and screwdriver from the roof of the red car, the redhead moves to the car beside it.

"All that," Jasper concedes, shutting the trunk and moving towards the trolley. "And Lexa is hot."

"I'm just saying," Jasper counters as Myles huffs through the flashlight in her mouth. Her red eyebrows draw together in concentration as a black garment bag hanging from the safety handle above the window obstructs Myles' access to the door handle. After fiddling with the rod for another short moment, the door clicks open. "Maybe it'd be better if we went around them this time."

"And you don't think that'll look worse?" Myles quizzes after pulling the flashlight from her mouth, dumping the screwdriver and rod on the roof before zipping open the garment bag.

"No," her best friend reasons as the redhead lets out an amazed breath. "I think the looks on their faces will look worse."

"Fine," Myles breathes out in a daze. "We'll go around Achon and Dunvi. Come look at this."

Jasper looks up from his car across from her, putting down whatever he'd gathered on the backseat and making his way over to her. They've made a lot of progress; they'd finished their first rows and are now almost finished with their second. The parking garage has another level below them, but they're far from being ready to venture further down. Two of the crates are full of mostly junk or scraps that they can sell, and the weight in Myles' backpack is making her shoulders ache from all that she's found for themselves.

A low whistle ricochets around the concrete structure they're in, gaining Max's attention.

"That's real fancy," Jasper muses, looking at the suit. "Woah."

It's a navy blue cashmere tuxedo suit, in perfect condition, albeit a bit faded. A silky white undershirt is peeking out from under the dark blue blazer, the folded over collar appears to be made of velvet. Hung over the shoulders of the pressed suit is a tie with even diagonal stripes of baby blue and burgundy. Tucked into the pocket over where the wearer's heart would be is a handkerchief, folded over to display the pale, dusky pink and blues of the ombré coloured material.

"There's more," Myles points out, walking around the sleek car to get to the passenger's door.

A garment bag hangs over every door's window, several more lay carefully on the backseat and their footwells. Jasper zips up the suits garment bag as Myles unzips the bag hanging in front of the passenger window. The dress inside is burgundy coloured, the skirt of it long and made of silk to flow and float through the air. Over the bodice is lace that stretches up to cover the shoulders, cinching the flowing material to accentuate a thin waist.

"Must've been for a wedding," the brown-haired teen muses, peeking through the dozen garment bags in the back. "Thirteen different bags."

Myles zips up the garment bag to join Jasper in looking through the ones in the back.

"Must've been a big one," Myles adds, furrowing her brows when the math doesn't add up. "Where's the match for the drivers suit?"

"What?" Jasper asks, looking back through the bags.

"There's six dresses and seven suits," the redhead lists, "three of each in different shades of pink and the others in shades of blue. They all have a matching partner but the drivers suit. Where's the other spouse?"

"Maybe they didn't keep it in the car," her best friend theorises, before both teens halt and lock eyes.

Immediately, both of their gazes break from each other's and they both swing their flashlights to shine on the backseats they're leant over. It's in the trunk.

"I'll pop it," Jasper offers when they both climb out of the car doors.

"Thanks," Myles calls back, walking around to wait at the trunk. Jasper pulls the little lever and the trunk clicks up, allowing Myles to swing it open and peer inside. "Got a bag."

Myles waits for Jasper to come join her before she unzips the bag that lay draped over several plastic boxes, and the beautiful dress inside takes their breaths away. The only pure white on the gown is the bodice and the small flowers and swirls in the lace that drapes over it all, making sleeves that start in the middle of someone's upper arm. Almost translucent and silk mesh-like material disappears, the only way of telling it's there is the patterned lace scattered around. A veil made of the tinted lace material extends the entire length of the gown, several little jewels lining the fabric. The clip is covered in delicate jewels that are shaped like leaves and petals, stretching across in a small strip.

Underneath where the gown tightens and clings to the wearer's waist, the material opens up, fanning out and falling to sit in a dense and wide circle. Bright, untouched white slowly tints with pale dusty pink under the hips, before turning into a pale baby blue at the very bottom. It's subtle and gorgeous, a gown that could never even be imagined in the most intricate fantasies on the Ark or in the villages around them.

"Can you even imagine what this will sell for?" Myles mutters in astonishment, her gaze still adoring the stunning gown.

"Sell for?" Jasper repeats in bewilderment. "Why in the universe would we sell it?"

"You want to keep it all?" Myles questions, looking at the teen beside her.

"You want to sell it all?" Jasper counters in shock, "come on. Don't you see us, walking down the aisle with the loves of our lives in these?"

"I can see you doing that," the redhead appeases, zipping up the wedding dress before the dust-filled air can ruin it.

"But not you?" Jasper enquires curiously, carefully picking up the garment bag and putting it with the others in the backseat.

"Not in anything like that," Myles scoffs a laugh, looking up from the plastic boxes and bags to glance at her best friend as he stands from the back seat. "If it ever comes to it, I'd want something calm and unsuspecting… you know, normal."

"You know," the brown-haired teen mocks kindly, "this used to be normal."

"Well," the redhead drawls out, unzipping the duffle bag to reveal a slew of tall high heels in different shades of the main two colours of the outfits and simple men's dress shoes. "It's been two hundred years. Now they paint themselves and tie literal knots and wear their best dresses and robes."

"Aggie," Jasper replies, "these are now our best dresses and robes."

Myles levels the teen with a short exasperated look before zipping closed the shoe bag and helping Jasper rifle through the plastic boxes of expired makeup for anything useable.

"Okay," Myles sighs, "we'll keep them, but one of us is going to have to take them up now because we'll run outta room."

Jasper stops, looking at her for a moment, then spinning to glance at the full crates behind them, the two that are slowing being filled up and the last empty one. His flashlight's white beam sweeps around to the ramp that leads to nothing but rubble and the collapsed concrete ceiling. There's nothing useful in any of the makeup, so Myles tips it all out and keeps the hair clips, ties and brushes with the plastic boxes.

"Oh, please," Myles huffs, leant over another car's open hood as she yanks parts of the engine out. "I'm not that worried about it."

"It devastated both of us," Jasper reminds her, shutting the hood of one of the cars across from his best friend.

"No," the redhead drawls out with a lighthearted giggle, "it didn't. It was a colossal pain in the ass, not a devastation."

Jasper grunts when he lifts the heavy car parts he carries over the edge of an almost full crate, letting out a breath before replying.

"You really expect me to believe," the brown-haired teen goads, walking over to grab his rod and screwdriver and turning to the untouched car beside him. "That when you saw the drop step and the bridge, your first thought wasn't vengeance?"

"Revenge," Myles sighs dramatically, slamming the hood down. "Is beneath me." The red-haired teen bends down to pick up the junk she'd dumped on the ground. "Conspicuous accidents may be on the horizon, though."

"I knew it," Jasper states enthusiastically, standing up straight and looking at her after the door he was prying at clicks open. "Whatever you got planned, you better keep me in the loop. Project Squadriga has been dormant for too long."

"Project Quadriga is us three," the red-haired teen corrects in a strained voice, heaving the heavy car parts up and over the edge of a crate. Jasper stops where he'd started ducking down to look in the car, straightening to keep his eyes and flashlight on his best friend as she walks back to grab her tools before turning to another car. "And squadriga sounds like an aquatic mammal."

"Quad sounds like four," her best friend explains with a chuckle wavering in his voice from a memory Myles must've missed while she was in the Skybox. "Squad is wittier and cooler."

"You're right," Myles relents, her words muffled and unrecognisable through the flashlight held in her mouth. "But it's still stupid."

"I have no idea what you just said," Jasper informs her, and Myles takes the flashlight from her mouth when the door she was jimmying opens. "But if it was an aquatic mammal, do you think it'd be a humpback whale or a really fat sea lion?"

"A beluga whale," the redhead answers without any hesitation, climbing onto the front seats and looking through the pristinely clean inside of the car.

"A beluga whale?" Jasper repeats in disbelief. "We are not a group of bel-loser whales."

"Oh, please," Myles counters playfully, her voice slowing down and her red eyebrows pulling together when the search for absolutely anything in the car turns up fruitless. "Only the cool kids…" the red-haired teen cuts herself off with a grunt as she awkwardly crawls backwards from the back of the car to kneel on the front seats again. "… can change the shape of their foreheads by blowing air around their sinuses."

Pulling the little lever on the glove box in front of the passenger seat makes the door drop down, and Myles' flashlight reveals nothing but papers and booklets. Reaching a hand in and yanking out a handful to flip through with a defeated sigh, the redhead drops them down on the seat to shove shut the glove box when a glint catches her hazel eyes. Hidden under a thick booklet of information about the car, a single gold ring sits untouched.

The ring is smooth and intact, having been protected hidden away in this underground parking garage. Myles' slender fingers pick up the piece of jewellery carefully, the cool feel of it strong enough to be felt through her gloves. It's too large for her fingers, and as she twists it around in her hands, an engraved message on the inside of the ring makes her clench her jaw.

'I will love you forever – S 07-10-38'

Closing her fist around the ring, Myles climbs back to the driver's seat and pulls the levers for the trunk and the bonnet. Her ears finally recognise the silence that's fallen over her and her best friend, and her flashlight's beam swings over to Jasper across from her. Myles can hardly see him in the backseat of the SUV, even as she exits the vehicle completely.

"You good, JJ?" Myles asks, closing the car door, the sound echoing with Max's happy panting.

"Yeah," the brown-haired teen answers distractedly, "this is sad."

"What is?" Myles queries, changing her course from the trunk of her car to walk up to his. Max perks up when the redhead walks towards him again, standing and jumping to bump his head against her hand. Myles instantly bends down to pat him as she walks across, and the sight of the backseats of the SUV sends a cold pang through her chest. "This is sad."

Small screens on the backs of the front seats headrests have a cord that reaches to the radio in the dash, a pair of headphones each hung up over the screens. Underneath the screens are three rows of pockets, instead of the usual one. The first row is several small pockets and holders, each one occupied by something. Bottles filled with coloured pencils, pens and highlighters live on the first row, the second has a tall sippy-cup with a lid, a stack of paper towels and a slim brick shaped item and a plug with a long cord. In the large car seat pocket are several kid's books, ranging from puzzles to colouring in activities to stories.

Jasper flips through a short circular case, discs of different movies and TV shows filling the clear plastic sheets inside. Stuffed toys, dolls, and little cars are shoved into random pockets or laying across the seats and floor.

It's a startling reminder of exactly what was lost in the war. A simple family with young kids whose belongings only survived because they happened to stay in a hotel with a solid underground parking garage.

"You think these will still work?" Jasper enquires, gesturing to the screens with the DVD case.

"I don't know," the red-haired teen mumbles back, reaching over his shoulder to pull out the slim brick object in one of the pockets.

The back of it has small engraved writing that's worn away, and the top has a skinny rectangular slit that has a small card inside of it. Opening it, the device folds out to open almost flat. A large button of arrows sits on one side, and on the other is four buttons of letters. Three other buttons are labelled down the bottom of the two screens that are down the middle of the device, but one button in the top right isn't labelled at all.

"Interesting," Myles mutters, closing the device and tucking it back into its pocket with the long cord.

"Man," Jasper breathes out, shining his flashlight over it all. "We're gonna make some kids very happy today."

"Well, we better hurry up, then," the redhead says after a long sigh, leaving Max and Jasper to walk back over to her car. "We're almost filled up, anyway, and we've still gotta do our checks on the Haven's."

Pulling the unlocked trunk up to look inside, Myles is pleasantly surprised to see a pillow, a full duffle-bag and two thick dark green fabric satchels about a metre long and half a metre tall.

"They should be fine," Jasper waves off dismissively as Myles puts her flashlight in her mouth again, "we haven't had to make any more adjustments since Foxtrot a month and a half ago."

"Yeah," Myles' muffled voice drawls out while her hands unzip the large satchel. Her thought is cut off at the sight of the contents of the bag. Taking the flashlight from her mouth, "Jasper, I just hit the jackpot."

"What'd you get?" Jasper quizzes, climbing out of the car across from her to stride over to his best friend. Max follows him, jumping up to bump against Myles' hand and sniff at the contents of the trunk. "Woah."

Inside the heavy duty garment bag are several full sets of camouflage long-sleeved shirts, pants, a khaki green jacket, and vest. On the shirts are stitched on patches and a name tag that reads 'STEWART' in black lettering, with 'U.S. ARMY' across from it. The United States of America flag is on one sleeve, the colour appearing faded, but still wholly recognisable.

"How much more is there?" Jasper asks, reaching over and unzipping the other garment bag to find the same equipment packed the same way.

Myles unzips the duffle-bag, finding two pairs of boots that are the same size, a camouflage helmet, khaki and camouflage belts, weapon holders and sheaths, flask holder, thick goggles, knee and elbow pads, and casual solid khaki coloured short and long-sleeved shirts. Excited hazel eyes lock on Jasper's ecstatic brown.

"Dude," Myles breathes, "this will outlast all of us. This is military grade, war shit."

Slowly creeping the rover forward and into the village, familiar warriors stand on guard but they wear friendly expressions. The underlying grief that taints their faces is a painful reminder of what was wrongfully stolen from them by Pike and his men. Myles is almost surprised that they're not ready to gut them upon arrival for the atrocities their people carried out just yesterday morning. Instead, familiar faces of people they've visited and brought supplies to before greet them with welcoming smiles and relaxed postures.

Pressing her foot on the brake a bit more, the rover comes to a complete stop at the usual drop off point between the chieftains delegation hut and the healers house. The supplies have already been organised by the two teens, separating what they want and what Arkadia usually gets. Myles had left then, gone off with her bow and a slew of knives to bring fresh meat to the villages. While she was gone, Jasper had separated the rest by himself, stashing their stuff from their backpacks to fill them both with additional junk to offer the grounders. Between each drop off, the two of them will need to go hunting again to make sure all the meat they offer them is fresh.

Myles lifts her dark brown tinted sunglasses to rest on the top of her head, locking her eyes on Jasper's as they both slip out of their doors. Jasper shuts his door immediately, but Myles waits a beat for Max to jump out.

"Monin yo," the chieftain of this village, Sauri, greets giddily, "yo's snaptaim deyon!" [AN: "Welcome back. You're early today!"]

"Sha," Myles confirms, smiling widely at the familiar man as she meets Jasper at the back of the rover. "Hofli daun bilaik ait." [AN: "Yeah, we hope that's alright."]

"Osir don gada in kamp raun saut," the brown-haired teen tacks on, climbing into the back of the rover after Myles opens the door. "Osir na granen trei thru op." [AN: "We had to go south. We're working the way up."]

"Ou, nach," Sauri nods understandingly, turning to the warriors beside him to direct them over to the teens. "Sis emo au." [AN: "Oh, of course. Help them."]

"Chon kom disha laik oso?" One of the warriors asks, his hands hesitating in reaching out for the heavy crate Jasper is pushing across the rovers floor. [AN: "Which is ours?"]

"Dison," Myles answers, leaning in through the door and helping pull the wooden crate from the ground. [AN: "This one."]

Two warriors lean in, squishing together as they strain from the weight. When the large wooden box is hanging over the edge of the rover, all hands and positions change to allow for a slow descent to the grass beneath their feet.

"Yo otaim don os gifa gon osir in," Sauri gushes politely, doing nothing more than watch as the group grunts and the crate touches the grass. "Osir don ogud bida osir bomas sawajus, osir ponis nou ron op bitam bushgiva… ba osir gada bida in gon yo. Osir na gada in moubeda taim wintam o – " [AN: "You always take good care of us. We have prepared some of our finest wine, our farm hasn't given many vegetables… but we have some for you. We will have more when winter – "]

"En's ait, wocha Sauri," Jasper laughs kindly at the rambling man, hoisting the bloodied duffle bag with a dead panther in it towards Myles at the back door and passing her the two backpacks. One has miscellaneous junk they didn't know how to sort and split between the villages and the other has the dead squirrels and a wild turkey for the butcher. "Swega klin, you." [AN: "It's alright, chieftain Sauri. I promise."]

Myles quickly slips the straps of the heavy bags of dead animals over her head to lug them around, and Jasper slips from the back of the rover to plant his feet on the grass. Ecstatic hazel eyes lock on Jasper's disappointed brown as he hooks the bag of junk metal scraps over his head and swings the back door shut. The bitter look does nothing to dampen the gleam in the redhead's eyes or the bright smile across her face.

"Ait," Myles happily announces, turning to clasp Sauri's hand and smile widely at him. "Moba, wocha Sauri, ai souda lid disha in gon steikshou-de, ba Jaspa gada in bida diyo gon Akban na sad kom in." [AN: "Alright. I'm sorry, chieftain Sauri, I have to bring these to the butcher, but Jasper has some things for Akban to choose from."]

"Nou bida sich, ai isocha," Sauri promises, smiling and continuing to shake her hand happily for a long, awkward moment. "Gon ai yu op bilaik komfi, nodotaim. Osir na chichplei nestam." [AN: "No problem, my dear. It's a pleasure to see you again. We'll talk next time.]

"Laudnes bilaik strat," the red-haired teen agrees, trying to step away from the man still shaking her hand with the friendliest and most appreciative smile she's ever seen. "Leidon, ai lukot." [AN: "Sounds like a plan. Goodbye, my friend."]

"Leidon, ai isocha," the chieftain echoes, letting go of the teen's hand finally to allow her to fully turn away. [AN: "goodbye, my dear."]

Myles tosses over her shoulder to the group helping Jasper lift the crate as she walks away, "mochof, yo." [AN: "Thank you, guys."]

Just before looking away again, Myles flicks her eyes to Jasper's as they all bend down to lift the crate from the grass. Chieftain Sauri starts kindly talking away about how nice they are to go to this effort, and her best friend's brown eyes shift to lock on hers. Underneath the straining from the heavy weight of the crate and the polite smile plastered on his face, his bitter glare shines through. The redhead's smile only broadens sarcastically, and she lifts a hand to salute to him before turning to face in front of her and finish the task in hand, Max trotting along by her heels.

Myles forces her tired brain to drift back into work mode when the village starts peeking through the green trees in front of the rover. Jasper slows the vehicle down as they approach, inching the rover forward carefully and dramatically slowly once the warriors standing guard open the gate for the familiar teens. Heads snap to them, some of the adults giving them judgemental stares and watching the rover wearily as the brown-haired teen keeps the vehicle on the outskirts. Kids run around the overgrown path, and Jasper makes sure he's going slow enough to stop anything bad from happening.

The slow pace they're moving gives the people ample time to warn the chieftain of the village of the Arker's arrival. Not far from them, chieftain Garak leaves a house and makes eye contact with the teens, his emotionless expression giving away nothing. He walks around the weaving houses, huts and paths to come to a stop behind the banquet hall to wait for them. As he stands there with two of his men, Garak watches the rover with an intense yet reserved stare. It makes the hair on Myles' arms and the back of her neck stand on end, electrifying her veins with simmering anxiety.

"You know what?" Myles asks lowly, trying not to move her mouth too noticeably and glancing at her best friend. "I think this is the happiest I've ever seen him."

Jasper barks out a laugh, quickly slapping his hand over his mouth and resting his elbow on the door to appear nonchalant. Sneaking a glance at his best friend, the brown-haired teens expression only brightens when he comes up with his next words.

"You think he crawled up a chickens ass and finally got laid?" Jasper jokes, hiding his smile behind his hand.

A red eyebrow quirks up, and a smile threatens to curl up the edges of her pursed lips. Unable to hide the smile anymore, Myles mirrors her best friend, holding a hand up and attempting to seem like they're not having this conversation.

"Looks like the chicken is the one who crawled up his ass," the red-haired teen giggles, trying to suppress the laughter bubbling up inside of her.

Snickering, Jasper replies with both eyebrows raised and smile still in place, "yeah, good luck with that."

The words instantly sober Myles up, and her head snaps to look at him. A look of utter betrayal crosses her face, anxiety only amplifying her worry.

"No, no, no," the redhead pleads, staring at the side of Jasper's face. "You can't leave me alone with Garak. He's a team job."

"You left me alone with Sauri," the brown-haired teen counters, his tone still lighthearted.

"That's different!" Myles refutes, "Sauri's so nice."

Brown eyes lock on hers, holding her stare for a moment before flicking back to look in front of him.

"He spent three solid minutes telling me how happy he is every time we visit," Jasper deadpans, flicking his completely serious gaze to her frequently. "Three. Three solid minutes, in a row, of only him talking, and of only the exact same phrase fifty other ways while you waited in the rover."

"That's so nice," the red-haired teen tries again, leaning her head back against the chair and forcing a smile to sway his opinion.

"Sauri," her best friend emphasises, "is a team job. It is impossible to escape his blabber alone. Garak is the complete opposite."

"JJ," Myles whines, never once tearing her eyes away from him. "It's noon, do – "

"Yeah, it's noon," Jasper chuckles, "because someone left me all alone with Sauri." Myles pouts over-dramatically, but Jasper isn't phased when he catches sight of it. "I had to listen to why that necklace with the broken off squirrel pendant looked like a chestnut, and 'did you know? The chestnut symbolises the balance between good and bad, life and death?'" The redhead's lips purse with the strain not to laugh, and her best friend sees it, laughing. "Exactly. You get cranky today."

Myles stays silent, her face frozen in a pinched expression to keep herself from laughing as the rover slows to a stop. When Jasper cranks up the handbrake, the redhead cracks.

"Did he take the necklace?" Myles queries, her smile taking over her face.

Jasper looks at her, unbuckling his seatbelt while Max stands excitedly in the back from the movement.

"Yes," the brown-haired teen laughs, drawing out his best friend's laughter. Myles' hands finally start moving to unbuckle her seatbelt as Jasper opens his car door and slips out. "Apparently, it's Fria's birthday soon."

The statement makes Myles cease all movement and start laughing a wheezy, almost silent laugh. Jasper looks back at her when his feet hit the ground and he still has yet to hear her door open.

"What does that say," Myles laughs noisily now, her melodic giggles gliding through the air. "About their marriage?" Her best friend barks out a laugh with a shake of his head, and the redhead continues as she slowly pushes her door open. "Is that good… or bad?"

"I have no idea," Jasper answers through a sobering chuckle that dies far too early.

Curiously, hazel eyes flick over to her best friend and see he's walking up to chieftain Garak and his men. Garak looks bitterly at the two, like their laughing and lighthearted demeanour has somehow offended him. Max is already out of the rover and sniffing at the ground both he and Jasper walk through. Shutting her door and sobering up, Myles walks up to the men as Jasper shakes the chieftain's hand.

"Heyo, wocha Garak," Jasper greets politely, "yo hef. Shopta?" [AN: "Hello, chieftain Garak, men. How are you?"]

"Bos gon ai yo op," Myles adds with a kind smile, hurrying her steps to shake Garak's hand when Jasper steps back. [AN: "Good to see you."]

"Yo laik krakas," Garak states instead, his voice dull and his face expressionless. [AN: "You're early."]

"Osir don gyon saut au," the redhead explains, stepping back awkwardly to subtly inch towards the rover's back door. "Hofli daun nou bida sich." [AN: "We had to go south. I hope that's not a problem."]

"Chit yo gada in?" Garak asks bluntly, and Myles turns at the question. [AN: "What do you have?"]

"Otaim prepon," Jasper answers, following his best friend to the back of the rover and turning back to the men when Myles opens up the door. "Weron yu gaf sen em daun?" [AN: "The usual supplies. Where do you want it?"]

"Raun digongeda," the grumpy man grunts out, nodding for his men to step forward as Jasper jumps up into the rover to drag one of the three crates left to the door. [AN: "In the banquet hall."]

Jasper's gleeful brown eyes lock on Myles' tired hazel, the giddy vengeance in her best friend's eyes only increasing the redhead's exasperation.

"No," Garak answers firmly, his hard and bland tone emphasised by the words harsh short 'o' sound. [AN: "No." ('Nou' sounds more like the English no know, 'no' in trigedasleng is a harsh 'noh' sound.)]

"Ahhh," Myles drawls out awkwardly, shifting on her feet uncomfortably inside of their large banquet hall. [AN: "Uhhh."]

Tondc's banquet hall had been an underground cellar, but the one in this village was hand-erected by their people. A mishmash of scavenged materials, chopped wood and variously sized, hand sculpted clay bricks that have been scorched in a fire to harden them. The furniture in the room is the nicest in the village, designed and crafted specifically for special occasions and special guests. Carefully carved wooden cabinets and chairs, wooden tables with cloth draped over them, candles littered around the room, and large animal skins on the floor to act as rugs.

"Yu laik get klin?" Myles continues, shifting her hazel eyes away for a moment. "Yu seintaim nou gaf chek emo au?" [AN: "Are you sure? You don't even want to look at them?"]

"No," the chieftain replies shortly, squinting his eyes at the redhead. [AN: "No."]

"Ai – w – ahh… pshh," the red-haired teen stutters, trying to comprehend the situation and find a way that this ends with the teens in Garak's good graces. "Yu nou gaf in eni yong ayon?" When all the man does is stare at her expectantly, Myles quirks her eyebrows and tries to keep the polite smile plastered on her face. "O bida fleti?" Awkwardly drawling out when Garak's silence thickens the air. "O sesori?" Nothing changes, the weight of the atmosphere around the two suffocating her. "O… geines?" [AN: "I – w – uhh… pssh. You don't want any fresh metal? Or some glass? Or jewellery? Or… happiness?"]

"Dula yu gada geines in ona kram?" Garak enquires dully, and the frustrated sarcasm in his voice is the most she's gotten emotions-wise from the man. [AN: "Do you have happiness in the box?"]

"Mebi," Myles supplies, her eyebrows raised high. "Yu na kof emo op gon kapla?" Silence, only a dead stare in reply. "Em na bilaik stoda kofgeda kom Korkou gon Leygeda." [AN: "Maybe. You could sell them for money? It could be the start for Korkou's (Corco) stall at Leygeda ."]

"Dison wintam don bilaik sou foto ai don otaim ai op," the man divulges gruffly, "ba osir ste kik thru. Osir nou gada in gaf rein gon Leygeda." [AN: "This winter has been the worst I've ever seen. But we survived. We don't have a need for a place in Leygeda."]

"Ai don nou sei yu sou gaf in kofgeda," the redhead explains, her gaze leaving his to quickly glance around the banquet hall. "Jos… mebi em na teik yo gran thru moubeda fleim em au." [AN: "I didn't mean you need a stall, just… maybe it can make your hard work more worth it."]

"No," Garak shoots down simply, "dula yu op gaf sis au gon lid yu prepon in ona rouva-de?" [AN: "No. Do you need help getting your supplies to the rover?"]

"Mochof gon yo sis au," Myles huffs as she steps back from the back of the rover, smiling at Garak and his right-hand man, Ridan. [AN: "Thank you for your help."]

"Pro," Ridan assures kindly, and the redhead can see Jasper and Max round a bend and walk down the path towards them a dozen metres away out of the corner of her eye. "En's otaim os gon ai yo op." [AN: "You're welcome. It's always good to see you."]

"Sha, gon osir seintaim," the red-haired teen adds, waiting for Jasper to get to her so they can leave. Smiling brightly and reaching a hand out to clasp Garak's hand, Myles shakes it gently. "Mochof, wocha Garak, gon teik osir in." [AN: "Yeah, for us, too. Thank you, chieftain Garak, for having us."]

"Pro, skaigada," the man replies, someone stumbles out of a house just as Jasper reaches it and Myles pulls her hand back. Quickly sparing a glance towards them, Myles sees her best friend and Max awkwardly stepping back to keep out of the way of the disoriented blonde man and the woman worriedly chasing after him. Writing it off as a drunk man, Myles turns her attention back to the chieftain when he continues. "Mochof gon otaim lid prepon in, moba osir nou na ron yu bida op, seintaim. Taim wintam ste odon, osir na raitfou kof yo raun." [AN: "You're welcome, Skygirl. Thank you for always bringing supplies, I'm sorry we couldn't give you some back. When winter is over, we will pay you what you're owed."]

"Ba'm eintheing," Myles waves off, "osir laik shanen – " [AN: "It doesn't matter, we're happy – "]

Shocked screeching, Max's urgent barks and calls for help cut Myles off, and her head snaps in the direction of the commotion. Jasper bellows her name, but her feet are already darting over to the rover to yank open the front door and grab their first aid kit, counting the seconds in her head. Quickly jumping back out of the rover, Myles bolts over to the blonde-haired man who had stumbled out of the house and is now convulsing violently on the mossy path.

"Nou stil em!" Myles barks out, sprinting towards them. "Non toch em op!" [AN: "Don't restrain him! No one touch him!"]

"Yo don sen em in," Jasper calls out loudly, gesturing to the gathering crowd as Myles falls to her knees beside the violently seizing man. Her hands lift the man's head carefully to keep it from the hard path under him, the shaggy blonde hair rubbing against her gloves harshly with his forceful jerking. Awful gargled choking sounds belt from the man, but that's not what's worrying the redhead. White foam bubbles from his lips, the fluid in his lungs not only heard, but seen, and not slowing down. "En bak op! Nau. Teik em bida mouda!" [AN: "You heard her. Everyone back up. Now. Give him some space!"]

"Dison kom au fou?" Myles asks, flicking her gaze up to the hyperventilating woman that followed him out of the house. [AN: "This happen before?"]

"No," the distraught brunette answers immediately, shaking her head and staring wide eyed at the man. Jasper kneels down on the other side of the man, looking everywhere to make sure there's nothing nearby that the man could hurt himself on. "No, em don stomba yeson op haken. Em don bilaik ku, ba em don hon in foto las nat." [AN: "No. No, he woke up yesterday sick. He was fine, but he got worse last night."]

"Maks," Jasper chastises the barking dog, "shof op." [AN: "Max. Quiet."]

The dog obediently falls silent, allowing the murmurs of the crowd to be heard clearly with the convulsing man's thick choking. Anxiety prickles at Myles' skin when the first minute bleeds over to two and the shaking man shows no signs of his seizure ending.

"Why isn't it stopping?" Jasper questions worriedly, and Myles shakes her head frantically, wide hazel eyes staring at the man's head cradled in her hands.

"I don't know," Myles breathes out, her heart rate going up with every agonising moment this man struggles.

"Chit osir dula op?" Garak quizzes, and it's the first time either Arker has ever heard him concerned. "Chit osir dula op?" [AN: "What do we do? What do we do?"]

"Non," the red-haired teen answers quietly, her voice being drowned out by the crowd's whispers, the man's choking and his brunette friend's sobs. [AN: "Nothing."]

"Non na hod em op," Jasper elaborates, sitting back on his heels and looking at the chieftain. "Ogeda oso na dula op laik set raun." [AN: "No one can stop it. All we can do is wait."]

"Come on," Myles murmurs to the man seizing under her. "Come on. Come on."

"Chit don kom au?" Garak's authoritative voice booms out, and the brown-haired woman standing near them only weeps louder. [AN: "What happened?]

"Ai nou get in!" She cries, her shaky voice rapidly trying to explain. "Em don fiyon sou foto, em ogeda don kom au sou snap! Em nou don drein daun enthing kom yeson. Ai don hon em in woda, ba ogeda em don biyo laik em don fiyon sou foto!" [AN: "I don't know! He was feeling so bad, it all happened so fast! He hadn't drunk anything since yesterday. I gave him water, but all he said is he was feeling worse!"]

"Em nou don slip daun?" Myles asks, her quick words not stumbling like the woman's had. "Wak em melon op?" [AN: "He didn't fall? Hit his head?"]

"No," the distraught woman doesn't hesitate, not even for a second, shaking her head frantically. "No, em don kamp raun ona bag." [AN: "No. No, he stayed in bed."]

"What's that face?" Jasper whispers to his best friend, and hazel eyes sweep up to his.

Shaking her head, "I don't know." A harsh breath is released from the redhead's lungs, her gaze sweeping over the seizing man. "I don't know. It's been three minutes; it should've stopped."

"Epilepsy," the brown-haired teen lists off thoughtfully, "head trauma, fever. What else causes seizures?"

"A lot of things," Myles stammers nervously, "withdrawal, heatstroke, severe infections, kidney failure, not having enough electrolytes." Whipping her head back up to the shaken woman. "Em don gada in agrou got?" [AN: "Has he had an upset stomach?"]

"Em don fiyon sishaken," her voice wobbles and quivers, "ba daun's em." [AN: "He felt nauseous, but that's it."]

The blonde man finally stops seizing, his violent shaking coming to an almost complete stop. Quickly, Myles moves one of her hands from his head to help Jasper's hand roll the man onto his side. No more gargled groans and grunts escape his throat, but cream coloured foam pours from his lips onto the moss-covered path under him. A collective breath is let out throughout the crowd, the sound echoing in the now still atmosphere. Red eyebrows knit together in thought as the sounds play over in her head and somehow feel wrong.

Jasper starts to say something to the people around them, but Myles shifting her hands from holding the man in the recovery position halts him. Squeezing his cheeks gently, his rigid and tense jaw makes it difficult for Myles as she ducks down to see if there's anything obstructing the man's throat after the foam slowly bubbles to a stop. Nothings there, and her hand on his tensed face makes her realise what else is wrong.

"What are you doing?" Jasper quizzes in confusion when Myles pushes the unconscious man back onto his back.

"He's not breathing," Myles answers quickly, feeling for a pulse before swearing under her breath. Placing the heel of one of her palms on the breastbone in the middle of his chest, the redhead places her other hand on top and presses down with her upper body weight. "One… two… three…"

"What are you doing now?" Garak demands, stepping forward hastily.

"His heart isn't beating," Jasper supplies, and the few members of the crowd who understand English gasp. "She's beating it for him."

When Myles gets to thirty, she swipes the bottom of her shirt over his face to get rid of the frothy bile and tips his head back to open his airways. Breathing a breath into his sour and bitter mouth, his chest rises and falls with the air. Doing compressions again, Myles wipes her mouth on the shoulder of her sleeveless leather jacket and repeats the process. This lasts several minutes before Jasper leans over and presses his fingers to the man's throat.

"Aggie," her best friend breathes out quietly, but Myles won't look up at him or cease her movements. "He's gone."

Shutting her eyes, Myles stops pumping the heel of her palm into the man's chest. Breathing out a long breath, the redhead sits back on her heels and removes her hands from the man. Flicking her drained hazel eyes up and locking gazes with her best friend, the woman hovering over them starts wailing in grief.

"Sis osir au!" A man shrieks behind Jasper, dragging a violently seizing teenager from the hut he was inside. "Sis au!" [AN: "Help us! Help!"]

Jasper follows his best friend's gaze, looking behind him at the screeching man and the teen having a seizure. Red eyebrows remain knitted together but raise slightly at the scene, dread twisting her gut painfully.

"Em laik stedaun," a woman wails from somewhere behind Myles, and Jasper whips around to look at the new voice. [AN: "He's dead!"]

Chaos breaks out, people clamouring as another man calls for help across the village.

"Jasper," Myles calls out, staring wide-eyed at the brown-haired teen. Jasper looks at her, and the redhead pulls the collar of her shirt up to cover her nose and mouth. "Did you touch him?" Her best friend pales, remembering the sickness the grounders intentionally gave to the delinquents and Myles scrambles back. "Quick, douse your hands. Don't touch anything. Cover your face."

"Kei," Myles drawls out, holding a cloth over her mouth and nose and lifting up the small pen flashlight from the medkit. "Kep in yu blinka au en chek ai au." [AN: "Okay. Keep your eyes open and looking at me."]

The short black-haired woman does as told, and Myles flicks the little light between her eyes. Both brown eyes respond normally, no signs of sluggishness or over-sensitivity. Pained grunts echo in the dimly lit room repetitively and worry chips at the red-haired teens chest.

"Os," the redhead nods, and the woman calms slightly. "Slak yu spika." [AN: "Good. Open your mouth."]

Her mouth opens unrestrictedly, revealing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

"Daun's os," Myles announces, clicking off the small flashlight and using the back of her ungloved hand to feel the woman's face and neck. "No mesej kom haken-de." [AN: "That's good. No signs of the sickness."]

"Maiyls," a man calls from across the room, sitting beside his wife with his arm around her. The dirty-blonde haired woman twitches violently, uncontrollable jerks and spasms affecting her body so strongly that Myles can see the muscles under her skin clenching. Gruff grunts escape her clenched jaw, dazed blue eyes staring blankly in front of her with dilating pupils. Her jacket's been removed, her heavily pale skin clammy and sweaty from her fever. "En's kom au mou foto." [AN: "It's getting worse."]

Standing up from her position crouched in front of the black-haired woman, Myles stalks across the dimly lit room. The house is packed, everyone who had contact with the sick and deceased crammed into the room. People sit on the floor, but almost every single person is against a wall, desperately trying to put as much distance as possible between them and everybody else. Some people have the same uncontrollable muscle spasms, varying in intensity and distress.

"Kei, Wikga," Myles greets, crouching down in front of the couple seated on the floor. The woman's unfocused and dilating eyes look to the redhead, pained grunts and groans belting out of her unceasingly. Myles doesn't lift up her flashlight for her to check her eyes or throat, the last three with these symptoms started seizing at the first sign of stimulus and the redhead is trying to keep that from happening again. No one of the sick have come out of a seizure alive today, and Myles needs to figure this out before the body count rises again. "Yu ste hoden kom oso?" [AN: "Okay, Wickga. You still with us?"]

"A – muh – sh – a," Wikga grunts out through her tightly clenched jaw, demonstrating she's still conscious and aware. [AN: "Yes."]

Wikga's head jerks continuously, her facial features twisting and pulling with her uncontrollable twitching. There's not a muscle in her body that isn't spasming painfully, torturing the poor woman slowly. Between her twitching and jerking movements, the redhead sees something that makes her red eyebrows furrow in confusion.

A grin is on the dying girl's face, and the cogs in Myles' brain whir faster and faster. Is she grinning because her face is twitching up into a grin? Or is the twitching covering up the grin?

"Aggie," Jasper calls through the door, knocking shortly. "You okay in there?"

"Ai na komba raun," Myles tells the couple, "taim em ste mou foto, sen em daun ona graun." [AN: "I'll be back. If she gets worse, lay her on the ground."]

Standing back up straight, Myles strides across the room to reach the door Jasper is on the other side of.

"I'm fine," the redhead huffs, "we're not making any progress in here. How's it out there?"

"We've lost four more," Jasper answers, and Myles' eyes slip closed. "The quarantine isn't working."

"It might work better if we knew what we were up against," Myles counters. "It's not like the thing we had at the dropship. It's not transferring with touch."

"What does that mean?" Garak asks frustratedly, his gruff tone thick with his accent.

"It means people aren't getting sick by being around other sick people," her best friend explains. "Aggie, you think it's in the air?"

"I don't know," the red-haired teen sighs. "Maybe? What'd the four you lost eat in the last 24 hours?"

"One had chicken," Jasper lists, pausing as he either checks something or thinks back. "One parsnip soup with leek, one bread and lamb, and the last one had an onion stew because they 'had a headache'."

"All different families?" Myles quizzes, red eyebrows scrunching up.

"Yeah," the brown-haired teen confirms, "only two of those had contact with each other, and one of them had contact this morning with one of the dead."

"The dude with the headache," the redhead starts slowly, turning over the info in her mind. "He the only one with symptoms from before today?"

"She's the only one that had symptoms at all," Jasper informs her. "Everyone else was fine until the twitching."

"That means," Myles drawls out thoughtfully, looking behind her at the room of people. "There's only been three deaths of people who had symptoms before the twitching and fever."

"We have two with twitching," Garak adds, "and three more who think they are sick."

"I can fit two more in here," the red-haired teen offers, looking back at the wooden door.

"We've already put them up somewhere else," Jasper quickly skates over. "We need to stop the spread."

"Maybe we're not working with one bug," Myles suggests after a short beat of silence. "Maybe it's different strains of the same bug with different presentations?"

"Maybe," her best friend agrees halfheartedly, "it could just be different immune systems. Winter could be making it move quicker. You ever seen something like this before?"

"Never," Garak denies, "headache, bad stomach, muscle pain, blood, never this."

"We could try – " Myles starts, before getting cut off by the loud shrieks and calls of the people in the room with her.

"Maiyls!" Dian, Wikga's husband, calls, "en's kom au!" [AN: "Myles! It's happening!"]

Myles rushes back over to the couple, and she finds Dian hovering over his wife worriedly as she seizes on the floor.

"En chil au!" Myles barks out, falling to her knees beside the dirty blonde-haired woman. "Teik em sin thru." [AN: "Everyone stay calm! Let it finish."]

"Teik em sin thru ste dula op non!" Dian argues over the choking sounds of his wife. "Dula som op!" [AN: "Letting it finish does nothing! Do something!"]

"Bilaik non ai na dula op," the redhead says remorsefully, looking the worried man in the eyes. [AN: "There's nothing I can do."]

"Beja," Dian pleads, sorrow twisting up his grief-stricken features. "Nou teik em wan op." [AN: "Please. Don't let her die."]

There aren't words Myles can say. She can't promise him she'll walk out of here, everyone else that has reached this point could not be saved. All she can do is keep her sad eyes on his and try to convey her comfort. After a few long moments, the seizing stops and the exhausting task of trying to resuscitate the dead woman begins. During this, her husband screams and pleads, but when Myles' hands finally stop after ten minutes, all he can do is stare down at his dead wife and stroke her hair in denial.

Heaving a heavy and tired breath, Myles leans back on her heels, fighting the overwhelming feeling of defeat and hopelessness threatening to tear her down even further.

"Maiyls," a young man, not much older than her and Jasper, calls to her. Glancing over at him, her hazel eyes instantly lock on his twitching arm and leg. "Ai laik neson?" [AN: "Myles, am I next?"]

Myles doesn't answer, but the beautiful young lady standing beside him does.

"No," the teen promises him, her voice thick as a lump forms in her throat. "No. No. Daun's nou ste kom au. No." [AN: "No. No. No. That's not happening. No."]

"Paia," the young man refutes gently, looking down at her like he's already resigned himself to his fate.

"No, no," Paia refuses, shaking her head and snapping her gaze to Myles'. "Em seintaim nou laik haken." [AN: "No, no. He's not even sick."]

Standing and walking over to her medical supplies, Myles douses her hands in alcohol before holding her chunk of cloth over her face and grabbing her small flashlight. The small beam of light shines in a skinny stream when she clicks it on, coming to a stop in front of the teens.

"Kep yu blinka ona ai," Myles orders kindly, holding up the flashlight. His dark eyes blink rapidly for a moment, unused to the invasive light. When his eyes finally calm down enough, Myles flicks her wrist and watches his pupils. They dilate, sluggishly at first, before widening and shrinking erratically when she's not moving the light. Clenching her teeth and swallowing, the redhead continues. "Os, slak yu spika nau, beja." [AN: "Keep your eyes in me. Good, now open your mouth, please."]

His throat isn't swollen, but it's instantly clear that his jaw has started to tighten and lock. Up close, Myles can see the small twitches under his skin as his muscles begin to quiver uncontrollably. It must be clear on her face when the red-haired teen pulls her flashlight away, clicking it off, because Paia becomes near hysterical.

"No," her wavering voice pleads, "no, em seintaim nou ste fiyon haken!" [AN: "No. No, he doesn't even feel sick!"]

"Chit dula yu fiyon op?" Myles asks gently, staring at him curiously. [AN: "What do you feel?"]

"Baud," the young man replies simply, "noudaun." [AN: "Stiff. Restless."]

Red eyebrows pull together in thought, and her gaze slowly turns around to search out one of few people in this room that is actually sick.

"Ha daun laik kom au?" Paia implores the redhead, but Myles is already striding across the room. [AN: "How is that possible?"]

"Blinka ona ai, Kara," Myles commands, and the sick woman obliges. Lifting up the small flashlight and shining it in the woman's eyes before speaking again. "Os, nau yu spika." [AN: "eyes on me, Kara. Good, now your mouth."]

Kara's throat is irritated, but her symptoms are nothing like any of the other sick; they're typical flu symptoms. Her mind whirs in confusing circles, desperate to figure it out. There haven't been any threats or attacks made on the village, so it must be natural or internal. If it's natural, it's not from an environmental cause otherwise everyone would be sick. What's getting them sick? What do they all have in common? It's not by touch or food, what else could be a pattern that wouldn't be widespread?

"Maiyls?" Paia calls, "chit kom au?" [AN: "Myles? What's happening?"]

"Yu don gada in eni woda deyon?" Myles quizzes Kara, ignoring the couple behind her. [AN: "Have you had any water today?"]

"Sha," the woman divulges, and Myles' shoulders slump in defeat. "Dison sonop, sef em don kom las nat." [AN: "Yes. This morning, but it was from last night."]

The rest of her answer makes the redhead perk up again, standing up straight and backing up to address the room.

"Eyon chon don gada in woda kom deyon," the red-haired teen announces, "teik au yo meika op." [AN: "Anyone who had water from today, raise your hand."]

Everyone who is symptomatic raises their hands and several friends of those who've died go pale.

"Ai don ron Loiko op bida woda disha sonop," the brown-haired woman who was chasing the blonde man before he died reveals, horrified. [AN: "I gave Loiko some water this morning."]

And then, Myles hears it. The distant clinking and creaking of the well in the middle of the village. Dropping the cloth from her face and dumping her flashlight on top of her medkit, Myles races out of the front door. She's almost at the well when Jasper catches sight of her and runs up to her with Max at his heels.

"Aggie, what the hell are you doing?" Jasper asks, concern seeping thickly through his tone.

"Nou toch op daun," Myles demands, yanking the bucket from the woman as she unties it from the rope hanging down into the well. [AN: "Don't touch that."]

The woman must recognise the redhead because she tears herself away from the Arker's and holds her hand over her face. Looking into the bucket, Myles can't see anything but ordinary water.

"What's happening?" Jasper questions again as Myles bends down to sniff the water.

"What is the meaning of this?" Garak booms, storming up to them. "You should be with the sick, or you will get all us killed."

"They're not sick," Myles supplies, dipping her finger into the water and dotting the liquid on her tongue. A very faintly bitter taste that resembles the smell of the dead's frothed bile makes the red-haired teen spit onto the ground. Turning to Jasper, she lists off the symptoms. "Fever, agitation, restlessness, violent twitches and muscle spasms, lockjaw, sardonic smile, and brain death an hour after the symptoms start."

"This is why you need be with the others," the chieftain declares as Jasper looks off thoughtfully.

Her best friend's brown eyes find hers again, "the first death, the lady said she'd just given him water."

"Everyone who has symptoms or died today has one thing in common," Myles states, keeping her eyes on Jasper's.

"They all drank water today," Jasper realises. "Someone poisoned the well."

"No one is sick," Myles repeats, looking at Garak as realisation takes over his stoic features. "They've all been poisoned."

"Omas, snap," Garak orders, turning to the men behind him. "Tel en op gon flosh klin emo woda ogeda." [AN: "Omas, quick, tell everyone to destroy all of their water."]

Immediately, the man rushes off to do his task without another word.

"How do we clean the well?" Jasper enquires, looking down into the deep well.

"Bleach the shit out of it," the redhead sighs, locking eyes with Jasper and snorting. "Literally."

"What kind of poison?" Garak inquires, pulling the bucket towards himself and sniffing it like Myles had done.

"I only know one that causes a sardonic smile," the brown-haired teen explains. "I don't know what you guys call it, but we call it strychnine."

"One of us should go get as many hands as we can," Myles suggests, "and all the bleach and saline we have."

"I'll do that," Jasper offers, stepping away from the well. "Get lots of buckets and tubs to hold enough water to last them a few days."

"Wish Monty and Clarke were here," Myles grumbles quietly. "I have no idea how to help them until you get back."

"Mugwort and mistletoe can be used to as a muscle relaxant," her best friend tosses out, "but I don't know what that'd do for this."

"Why not?" Garak demands, not understanding the complications that could have.

"People die from strychnine poisoning," the red-haired teen starts with a heavy sigh, pushing away from the well to walk towards the gate. "Because of the postictal depression that follows a seizure. It basically jolts the body enough that after the seizure, it paralyses the muscles you need to breathe or for your heart to beat until your brain dies." Locking her eyes on Garak's, "using a muscle relaxant might just make that happen faster."

"Myles?" Octavia Blake's voice faintly calls from a couple hundred feet above her.

"Down here," Myles' voice echoes loudly up the cylindric chamber she's in, bent over and scooping up the shallow water her boots stand in.

"Jasper said you needed help," the dark brown-haired girl enquires, her voice echoing as she talks down into the well. "Do you need me to come down?"

"Depends," Myles answers, standing up straight. "Do you have the bleach?"

"Yeah," Octavia confirms, making the redhead bend down again to set the bucket down, "and the saline."

"Alright," the red-haired teen sighs, "I'm coming up." Myles grips onto the short rusted rods and nooks lining straight up on one section of the well's wall, designed to act as a ladder. A twisted pit of dread forms in the redheads stomach, and Myles hopes that none off the steps will come loose or break off. Heaving herself up and over the rim of the well, Myles smiles at the Blake sister. "Not much going on at Arkadia?"

"Not when I left," Octavia states, "Finn's taking my place." Nodding to herself, Myles lifts up one of the large ceramic jugs of bleach, popping off the swollen wood they use as a plug. "What do we do?"

"Pour this in," Myles supplies, holding the jug upside down over the well and pouring the pungent liquid down the sides. Octavia mimics her, lifting up another jug of the bleach. "Make sure you get down the sides, we don't want any of the poison sticking around."

"And this won't poison them?" Octavia scoffs, but still doing as instructed.

"Nope," the red-haired teen huffs, shaking the near empty jug to make sure it's all out. "This'll kill and neutralise the poison, then we drain it, fill it with water and drain it again. In a few days, they'll drain whatever water seeps back in, then it should be safe to drink from."

"This is all you needed help with?" Octavia quizzes in confusion, shaking her empty jug before pulling it back to herself.

"Nope," Myles refutes, lifting the wooden circle that covers the well to protect the water inside. Sliding it over the top of the well with Octavia's help, Myles scoops up the two bags on the ground by the Blake girls feet. "Now, we need to use the saline to help flush the strychnine out of their blood and hope the mugwort is enough to keep them alive until it's over." Starting to walk over to the house with the poisoned villagers still in it, hazel eyes glance back at Octavia. "Then, we need to figure out who poisoned the well. Your Trig any good?"

"Lincoln's been teaching me some," Octavia tells her, her voice low and pained at the mention of her in-prisoned boyfriend. "But it's still rusty."

"Well," Myles offers kindly with a soft smile, "you're about to get some practice."

After flicking the thin homemade tube of saline, Myles rolls up her sleeves and reaches for the alcohol. Dousing her leather glove-clad hands, the redhead holds them up to allow them to dry for a moment before looking to Octavia.

"Okay," Myles sighs, "last one. Ready?"

"Yep," the Blake sibling answers, her dark brown eyebrows twitching up. Subtly, Myles glances at the man they're crouched in front of to prompt the teen to start talking. "Kei, Erson, yu ste ogud?" [AN: "Okay, Erson, are you ready?"]

"Ai fig raun den," Erson states nervously, fidgeting with his right arm laid out straight with his palm facing up. [AN: "I think so."]

The mugwort tea has softened their twitching and keeps their limbs clenched, but not so tight that they're in pain. Tanned skin is held taut, the muscle underneath tense with sluggish and muted jolts.

"Nou get daun," Myles assures in a light tone as she readies the unused and sterile needle and IV catheter. "Em jos sting yu in gon won tika, den yu na gada dauntaim in gon bida nabit." Looking to Octavia beside her, she continues. "Tairapon, beja." [AN: "Don't worry. It only stings for a moment, then you can relax for a few hours. Tourniquet, please."]

"Here," Octavia obliges, wrapping the band around Erson's upper arm above his elbow.

Myles swipes a new and unused strip of alcohol-soaked rag over the skin, positioning the needle to puncture the prominent vein she can see.

"Strik sting in," the redhead mumbles distractedly, pressing the needle into the skin and reducing the angle she's advancing it in. [AN: "Little sting."]

"Osir na gada in yu figa fou yu get em in," Octavia yabbers, trying to keep the man's attention away from the needle in his arm. A little bit of flashback blood enters the catheter tube, and Myles advances in a little bit more, knowing this means she's successfully entered his vein. "Chit yu dula op?" [AN: "We will have you better before you know it. What do you do?"]

"Ai gran op ona rench," Erson answers, and Myles pulls out the needle, securing the makeshift cannula in place with a strip of clean bandage and taking off the tourniquet. [AN: "I work on tools."]

"Daun laik ku," the Blake sister converses as the redhead carefully inserts the primed IV tube into the cannula. "Gran op ona ething krei nau kom gou, nami?" [AN: "That is cool. Work on anything crazy lately?"]

"Jos bida ponis skrish," Erson thinks on it for a short moment, watching Myles' hands screw on the tubing and secure it down by wrapping it up in bandages. The redhead unrolls the basic clamp on the tubing ever so slightly, watching the drips start to flow down the basic and repurposed tubing from the bag of clear liquid pinned up on the wall above them. "Ai don won pyudihok nou tona sintaim kom gon." [AN: "Just some farming shit. I did a halberd not long ago."]

"Ait, Erson," Myles announces, sparing Octavia who looks like she doesn't understand what he just said. "Yu na fiyon som kaina azen." [AN: "Alright, Erson, you're about to feel something kinda cold."]

Hazel eyes watch the liquid and keep her eyes plastered on the cannula to make sure nothings gone wrong, before applying a little pressure where the catheter is in his vein. The dripping saline solution slows to a stop, resuming only once she's removed the pressure. Content everything's working as it should, Myles pulls off her leather gloves and starts packing up while the sounds of the rover rumbling to a stop and its doors shutting sounds from outside.

"Ogeda odon," the redhead declares with a smile, "osi'a komba raun dena, kep yu gonz in hoden." [AN: "All done. We're gonna come back soon, keep your arm still."]

"Sha, Wanheda," Erson agrees, and Myles scoops up their bags. [AN: "Yes, Wanheda."]

The second both Octavia and Myles are out of the door; they're greeted by the sounds of water splashing. Turning in the opposite direction of the well and heading towards the sounds, the sight of Ray standing in the back of the rover and passing jugs of water to Jasper to hand down a line of people comes into sight. At the very end of the line is the two best friend's large metal tub sitting on top of a fire-pit that they're pouring the water into. Garak stands nearby, overseeing the activity before his eye find the two approaching teenagers.

Approaching them, Garak enquires, "how are our sick?"

"Good to go," Myles informs him with a tip of her head, "they've all had some mugwort tea to stop the twitching and seizures and they've all got cannulas to help flush out the poison."

"Suspects?" Jasper asks, walking up to the three of them and joining in on the conversation.

"That's actually what we've come to talk to you about," the redhead tells the chieftain, much to Octavia's surprise.

"We did?" Octavia repeats, furrowing her eyebrows and fixing Myles with a baffled look.

"What do you need?" Garak quizzes, eyeing the red-haired teen disbelievingly.

"Well," Myles continues, not batting an eye, "we've already questioned all the sick and everyone they had contact with, now we're gonna need to question everyone else."

"I will get my man to spread word," the chieftain replies, turning to seek out his men.

"It'd be best if we could have them all in the same place," the redhead tacks on quickly, hoping the warrior won't see the conspicuous words for what they are. "Somewhere we can have quick access to them all, but also be private, you know?"

"The banquet hall it is," Garak promises, "I will gather them at once."

Myles smiles, trying to hide the victorious gleam in her eyes behind a polite façade as the man walks away. Jasper steps closer to his best friend, practically vibrating with excitement at what this means. Octavia, oblivious to the hidden message behind the red-haired teen's words moves to head towards the banquet hall, but Myles gently grips her elbow to stop her.

"What?" Octavia inquires, looking perplexed. "Aren't we going to question them?"

"Not even close," Jasper reveals in a low tone, smiling widely at the Blake sister.

"What are you talking about?" Octavia questions, eyeing the two best friends coy and ecstatic smiles. "You just said – "

"I lied," Myles states honestly, "rule twenty-seven."

"What's that mean?" The Blake sibling asks again, beginning to feel frustrated with how lost she is.

"'There are two ways to follow someone;'" Jasper recites, "'first way, they never notice you. Second way, they only notice you'."

Octavia still looks completely confused, so Myles fills in the missing pieces.

"We need them all away from their homes," the redhead answers with a bright smile, "so we can search them."

"Jasper," Octavia calls into the walkie-talkie, her voice crackles through the earpieces in all of their ears, but Myles can hear her voice coming from the room across from her. "Tell me again what we're looking for."

"The easiest way to make strychnine is with seeds or bark from its tree," Jasper reminds them all, and Myles opens the handmade wooden cabinet to rifle through someone's pantry. "The bark is smooth and ashen, the leaves are smooth, shiny, and oval shaped. The seeds look like hard, flat, round disks and are dark grey and covered in hair."

"That sounds like a lot of plants," Octavia grumbles to herself, and Myles huffs when nothing but ordinary spices and herbs are in the cupboard.

"We still clear, Uncle Ray?" Myles asks lowly, walking out of the kitchen to enter another one of the bedrooms.

"Not a soul in sight," Jasper's dad tells them, and Myles ducks down to lift the stitched sack of a mattress and look under it.

"There's nothing plant-related in there," the Blake sibling informs her as she enters the room Myles is in. "Have you checked over here?"

"Not yet," the redhead admits. "I just finished in the kitchen." They rummage around in near silence, neither one of them saying much of anything until Myles reaches the clothing cupboard. Shutting the last rickety drawer, Myles drags the piece of furniture off the wall and lifts up her flashlight to shine it down the wall. "Woah," she breathes out, getting Octavia's attention. "Gimme a hand with this, please."

"What is it?" Octavia quizzes, striding across the room to help Myles lift the dresser and shift it from the wall. Moving the dresser reveals a hole dug into the hardened mud and wood wall, and both girls look to each other in excitement. "That was quick."

Crouching down above the filth and grit that lived under the cupboard, Myles holds her flashlight up again to look into the hole. A small wooden bowl is all that is squashed in there, and the redhead picks it up. Disappointment floods through her at the sight inside and sniffing it only confirms her fears.

"Don't get too excited," Myles warns morosely, "it's not strychnine, it's weed."

Placing it back in the hole with a dramatic sigh, the two girls shift the dresser back.

"Damn," the Blake sister scoffs, "there's too many people here."

"Not anymore," the red-haired teen murmurs, hooking her flashlight back onto her belt. "Come on, this house is a bust." As they're walking over to the window at the back of the house they broke in through, Myles lifts up her walkie. "Another dead end. We're moving on."

"Is Clarke going to come back," Octavia enquires bitterly, "or is she going to avoid us some more?"

"She's not avoiding 'us'," Myles divulges, "she's avoiding Finn. Huge difference."

"No difference to me," the Blake sibling gripes, earning an eyebrow twitch from the redhead. "You both abandoned us for this, for Polis."

"I didn't do anything," Myles explains lightly, carefully trying to tread over this topic. "I – "

"Exactly," Octavia announces before the redhead can continue.

Levelling the dark brown-haired girls back with a pointed stare, "I didn't abandon anyone. Jasper and I kept the alliance alive and strong until Pike and Abby wrecked it. Kept bringing supplies." Scoffing to herself, "if that's abandoning people who didn't even want me in the first place, fine. I'll wear that, too."

"Bellamy wanted you," the Blake sister declares, "Monroe wanted you, Miller wanted you, Monty wanted you, we all wanted you."

"Is that right?" Myles inquires sarcastically, meeting Octavia's imploring gaze. Dark brown eyebrows raise, her head tilting to the side as she waits for the red-haired teen to make her point. "You told me we're done." The reminder of their conversation as they were marching on Mount Weather seems to take the dark brown-haired girl aback. "And that was before I murdered a whole society to save our friends. No one wants that hanging around."

"You did what you had to do," Octavia states, her voice hard.

"Yeah," the redhead drawls disbelievingly, "lot of good that's done. We're exactly where we were, just with different people."

"No," the Blake sibling refutes, completely abandoning her task to talk animatedly with Myles. "You don't get to do all that, do what you did to save everyone, and then act like you're the bad guy. Like we didn't need our leader."

"You had your leaders," Myles reminds her, briefly glancing at her before moving away from the bedroom to look through the simple kitchen.

"We both know the only reason anyone listened to Bellamy and Clarke," Octavia starts, following the redhead. "Is because you trusted them, and everyone trusted you."

"And that worked out so well for everyone," the redhead mutters disdainfully, her heart aching painfully at the memories of everything she's caused. "Half of us died in the war at camp because I wanted to stay. People died in that missile attack because I trusted Lexa to warn her people when I could've done it myself, even with the language barrier. Everyone in Mount Weather is dead, including some of us, because I wasn't fast enough. Farm station survivors got blown up because I didn't fight Abby hard enough on not letting them in. Three hundred people, three hundred of our friends, volunteered to keep Arkadia safe from any more Azgedian attacks because they trusted us, because they knew us and were our friends."

Sighing harshly, Myles slams the cupboard door shut and leans a hand on the wooden table to steady herself as she rubs one of her aching temples.

"This is why everyone looks to you," Octavia admits after a moment of watching her, but her tone is still bitter. "You saved more people than anyone else ever wanted to. You mourned the loss of people who weren't even ours. You fought for all of us, and now you're turning us away like a coward."

"I'm not turning anyone away," Myles raises her voice, tearing her hand away from her face and staring at Octavia like she'd grown a second head. "What I did didn't just tarnish my name, but all of ours. I'm fixing that."

"You're 'fixing that' by leaving us with nothing," the Blake sister rebukes, "by running away from it."

"Okay," Myles relents, too tired and frustrated with everything going on to deal with this any longer. She'll never win this conversation; she was a monster for not saying anything before the missile dropped on Tondc, but apparently leaving Arkadia is worse. Bellamy Blake might not be so wrong after all. Getting back to work, the redhead distracts herself with the task at hand. "Think what you want."

Octavia scoffs scornfully, turning away and storming into the room she was in before.

"All clear," Ray's voice tells them in their ears, and Myles and Octavia slink forward quickly, Jasper mimicking the action across from them. Max and Ray's backs are to Jasper, allowing his son to be almost completely obstructed from the girls' view as they all sneak behind another house made of mud, sticks, hay and decaying scavenged parts of the old world. "You're good, there're no eyes on us."

Myles doesn't answer, not even when Jasper mutters a half-assed 'thanks' into his walkie. Instead, she clicks her radio twice in acknowledgement. Neither teen stops walking around the back of the home Myles and Octavia hide behind until they come to an uneven hole in the wall, only chopped logs fastened together with twine keeping the window shut. Reaching up as far as she can, Myles pushes the small wooden door to get it up enough to start tipping over.

On the inside, the top of the small wooden door is hooked onto the wall above it with braided vines, but the redhead knows how to work around this. Pushing the edge of the wood along the bottom of the window inside, Myles forces her fingers under them and shoves up. The loop of vine hooked around something on the wall above the window slips off, allowing the wood to fall inside.

Crouching down, the redhead cups her hands and holds them with their palms facing up. Octavia puts one boot into Myles' awaiting palms and uses it to step up and crawl in through the window. The thin teen's body weight makes the redhead's knees shake, but she only needs to hold the light girl up for a few short seconds. As soon as Octavia is through the window and her boot is no longer in the red-haired teen's hands, Myles brushes her gloves on her pants before jumping up to grip the windowsill. Pulling herself up quickly, Myles drags herself up onto the windowsill and hooks her legs inside.

It's second nature to her, and she'd be lying if she said this didn't thrill her. This is what she did on the Ark, sneaking around, manoeuvring through any air vent she could see - it's what she was made for. Myles is convinced there's more of this pumping through her veins than blood, more of this in her DNA than the genetic information of either of her parents.

Slipping into a room, Myles' first target is the bed. This house has a rickety wooden bed-board; three buckets sit on the floor underneath to hold up the wooden planks that lay under the stuffed sack of their mattress. Lifting the mattress and the tied together chopped planks reveals nothing but rocks inside of all three buckets. Bending down, the redhead rifles through the buckets to make sure nothing else is in there before dropping down the bed-board and mattress. A small desk in the corner of the room is an unusual sight, and it's where Myles heads next.

Literacy went out the window almost two-hundred years ago. Whoever survived the nuclear war was forced to abandon any semblance of what they were taught in order to learn how to survive. If any books survived with them, reading them would've been seen as a waste of time due to the pressing issue of finding water that wasn't contaminated. Finding food, gathering supplies, and scavenging materials to survive in a barren and radiation soaked Earth become the only priority.

Eventually, those who survived repopulated, but the pressing need for them to also be hunters and gathers in order to survive prevailed any other academic luxuries. That's where they are now. Most people don't know how to write, and even less know how to read. Instead of writing letters to each other, drawing has become the most meaningful and common form of expression. The only people who do happen to know how to read or write have taught themselves, making their knowledge and awareness on the subject far too undeveloped to understand literature or teach others.

It's for precisely this reason the only things on this desk are drawings and attempts at spelling a name. 'Dojes', 'Doujes', 'Dujis', 'Doujs', 'Doujis', 'Dojis' and various other similar spelling diversions scatter at the tops and backs of each drawing. Charcoal smudges mark up the parchment to make drawings of animals, people, places and plants, the black powder stains soaked into the wooden desk. It's bittersweet, in a way, someone wants so badly to just simply learn how to write their own name, but society's downfall has held that information hostage.

Gently flicking through the various strips and chunks of thin parchment to look at all the drawings, Octavia enters the room behind her.

"What is it?" Octavia asks, stepping up beside the redhead and looking over her shoulder. "Drawings?"

Myles hums, unable to describe the unsettling and pressing feeling in her gut. When she starts to get to the very bottom of the scattered pile, her hands freeze. Her stiff posture gets the attention of the Blake sister who'd turned her attention to under the desk, but hadn't moved away.

"What?" Octavia enquires, standing up straight and watching as Myles drags a drawing of the well out from under the other miscellaneous sketches.

"Something doesn't feel right," the red-haired teen mumbles distractedly, red eyebrows furrowing.

"They drew a well," the Blake sibling states disbelievingly, and Myles keeps shuffling through the pieces of parchment. "That doesn't mean anything."

"It's not a well," Myles corrects, "it's this well. Theirs." The redhead's whole body deflates at the next drawing she takes an interest in, dragging it to sit above the well. Looking at Octavia, she finishes. "That's a strychnine tree."

Octavia meets her gaze, and they both instantly start searching the room with more energy.

"Okay," the dark brown-haired girl comments, scurrying through a crate of drawings and charcoal beside the desk. "Then we need proof."

"It'll be here somewhere," Myles agrees, dropping to the floor to look under the wooden dresser. Tearing open a drawer, nothing but fabrics and clothes are inside, so she moves on. When she goes to yank open the third drawer, a heavy weight sits inside on it and water sloshes at the movement, making her halt. "O."

The Blake sister rushes over to her as she carefully pulls the drawer open. Inside, large, dying leaves are cupped and curled around handfuls of almost perfectly round, flat seeds. They look like unwashed mushrooms, flattened and shrunk down to form a small disk. Short stalked and small oval shaped shiny leaves that were once a deep green shade are dying and turning brown, little funnel-shaped flowers with a pungent smell are wilted beside them. Some of the hard, ashen coloured seeds are crushed into a powder, scattered across the wooden drawer. Next to the plants is a small clay, unevenly moulded pot, quarter filled with water.

Floating inside of the water are the funnel-shaped strychnine flowers and crushed up chunks of the ashy seeds.

Locking her hazel eyes on Octavia's deep brown, Myles lifts her walkie-talkie from her belt.

"JJ, we found it."

"Gona," Garak calls, turning his head over his shoulder as they group march towards the banquet hall. "Lid fingadon – " [AN: "Warriors, bring the accused – "]

"No," Myles cuts him off, "der bilaik nou gafen gon daun." [AN: "No, there isn't a need for that."]

"Hod op," the always stoic chieftain commands the warriors trailing behind them, coming to a stop himself. When he stops, the Arker's do as well, and his attention goes back to the four of them. "I do not appreciate people going under me." A red eyebrow quirks up impatiently. "You have done this your way, I will do this mine." [AN: "Wait."]

"And if the evidence has been planted?" Jason inquires, "whoever it was left a hell of a lot behind."

"That means their intentions weren't to kill anyone," the redhead finishes, waiting patiently for the man to understand.

"How will you know, then?" Garak demands, his frustration shining through unrestrictedly. "How will you know who?"

"She'll know the second she sees them," her best friend vouches, his tone strong and sure.

"They didn't plan on anyone dying," Myles reiterates, eyebrows raised high as Octavia and Garak listen intently. "That means whoever it was is still waiting in the banquet hall. They'll be on edge, so on edge that they won't leave until they feel like they've been cleared."

"Because they'll be too afraid of looking guilty," Octavia realises, and the redhead nods.

"Rule number thirty-five, wocha Garak," the red-haired teen divulges, "'always watch the watchers'."

Turning around to walk to the back of the banquet hall, the others follow and Jasper adds.

"Statistically," Jasper reasons, "women use poison more than men, but their intents are almost always to kill. If the suspect is older, they'll be on alert, but they won't run."

"They'll feel more in control," Myles explains when the others look lost again, "they have experience, and will feel like they can control the outcome of the conversation."

"The young always run," the brown-haired teen declares, looking over his shoulder at the group. "On the Ark, down here, doesn't matter. Whenever someone young is in trouble, they always run."

Opening the back door of the banquet hall leads them into a small room. Behind one of the doorways is a set of four steps, and they continue up them to reach the dead end. It's a small little platform, slightly raised from the main floor of the banquet hall, and it's where the commander's throne would sit when she comes to visit. Hazel eyes scan the crowded room of people who've obediently waited for an hour and a half.

Most people talk animatedly or seem withdrawn and grief-stricken, some settling in-between those two types quietly. Anxiety from the day's events and the deaths of their people has affected them, making distinguishing the paranoia of a guilty person slightly harder. Red eyebrows furrow, before relaxing a bit. Tapping Jasper's arm, Myles gestures out into the crowd.

"Fidgety," the redhead whispers, "wide-eyed, alert, by himself."

"Wocha Garak," Jasper says lowly, gaining the man's attention. "Teen boy with blonde hair, in a green shirt on the left. He live in that house?"

"Yes," Garak confirms dully, nodding and the sharp movement makes the teen's green eyes look to them, his whole body straightening. "Doujis. He is the one?"

"Only if he runs," Myles murmurs distractedly, keeping her eyes on the teen as he stands and inches towards the door.

Suddenly, Doujis starts taking full steps backwards and Myles and Jasper both step down the platform's steps and into the main room. The teen turns his whole body and starts shoving through the crowd harshly, booking it for the door.

"Sis em op!" Garak's loud voice booms out darkly as Myles and Jasper break into a sprint. [AN: "Grab him!"]

"Max!" Myles shouts to the small calico coloured dog weaving through the crowd much faster than the two Arker's, bounding after the fleeing blonde teen. "Get him!"

The sun's setting, basking the two best friends in the fading orange glow as they pack their supplies into the rover. Doujis' pained groans and pleas for forgiveness echo throughout the village, coming from within the crowd around the main fire pit where their water is being boiled. Myles sighs heavily before looking down at Max lying on the dirt by their boots.

"Alright, boy," the redhead instructs gently, "up you get."

Max obediently stands up, jumping up into the back of the rover, getting praising pats from the two teens in return.

"Good boy," Jasper coos, and Myles smiles before her attention is dragged back to the teen dying not far from them. "We did good." Hazel eyes look at him in disbelief, making sure Max is out of the way so she can shut the door. "He wouldn't have accepted any other punishment. Twelve lives for one. That'll be quick. We stopped it from becoming more."

"O and Ray had the right idea to leave," the redhead grumbles, shutting the back door and leaning against it. Staring at the backs of the people in the crowd, Myles shakes her head. "He's just a kid. He wasn't trying to kill them."

"Wanting them all sick enough," Jasper sighs, leaning on the door beside her with his side against hers. "So he could be the 'hero' of the village, the only strong, 'useful' one, is what got him here."

Myles snorts as a dark thought crosses her mind, "is it just me… or does everything and everyone still sound like Hell to you?"

"I was literally thinking that as I said it," her best friend agrees, "it all sounds like Mount Weather."

"That cannot be healthy," Myles mutters, pushing off the car door and starting to walk around to the driver's side.

"No," Jasper confirms, pausing until they both reach their doors and pointing at Myles through the open passenger and driver doors. "But it's a lot healthier than being from Hell."

The redhead mimics him by lifting up her hand and pointing at him, raising her eyebrows and tilting her head as if to say 'you have a point there'. Both teens let go of their doors and raise their hands for high-fives, but high-five themselves instead.

With kind smiles, they both crawl into the front seats of the rover when a man shouts urgently from the gates of the village. Thundering hooves skid to a stop, the man's loud voice replacing them.

"Slak dou au!" A man bellows, "slak dou au! Ai gaf min op!" [AN: "Open the gate! Open the gate! I need to enter!"]

Myles hesitates with her hand on her door, but Jasper doesn't, shutting his firmly.

"No," Jasper refuses, eyeing his best friend sitting in the driver's seat. "If you don't start driving, I will. We've done more than our part. I want a long shower."

Hazel eyes look at him, and Jasper can see her give in, can see her arm relax and start to pull the door closed when the man's next words stop them both.

"Slak dou au! Ai gaf Wanheda in!" [AN: "Open the gate! I need Wanheda!"]

"Fuck," Myles huffs, pushing her door open as Jasper opens his door slowly, leaning his head on his seat and drawling out a long whine of 'no'. Standing beside her open door, Myles doesn't make a move to walk to the gate, instead calling out. "Teik em min op!" [AN: "Let him in!"]

The crowd is starting to draw nearer to the ruckus happening at the gate now, the pained noises of Doujis lessening to whimpers and groans. At the gate, the warriors on guard oblige, lifting the gate and carrying it open. A grown man on a chestnut-coloured horse barrels in, sprinting straight for the two Arker's.

"Chit yu gaf kom osir?" Jasper asks when the man skids his horse to a stop in front of the rover. [AN: "What do you want from us?"]

"Yo hon op drop diyo of, sha?" The man demands desperately, sliding off of his horse and approaching the teens with a look of absolute despair and madness in his eyes. [AN: "You find lost things, yes?"]

"Mebi," Myles replies unhelpfully, "kep op ona chit yu don drop of." [AN: "Maybe. Depends on what you've lost."]

"Ai nomfi," the deranged man pleads, "em don ge ban klin bilaik nou taim pas wintam don stot au." [AN: "My daughter. She vanished two months ago." not the literal translation, literal translation; "she vanished not long after winter had begun" – my reasoning for this is because the only way of keeping track of weeks/months/years for grounders relies solely on the seasonal weather. We'd round up and say 'in two weeks', they'd say 'in (x amount) of days after/before (notable seasonal change)'. We'd say 'two months ago', they'd say 'approx. (x amount of time) after this season ended/this season began']

Rule number 12:- Remember the Twelve Disciples; water/hydration, food/food prep, clothing, shelter/bedding, fire, first aid, hygiene, tools, lighting, communication, protection and defence