Day 161 – Feb. 20
Myles' body jolts, forcing her awake. Thin metal shaped into cans with small rocks inside clatter and clash, interrupting her peaceful slumber. The sound immediately makes her alert, sliding her bare legs over the edge of her bed as her hand yanks away the blanket. Her rapid heart thumps harshly under her skin, rivalling the beat of her sock-clad feet thundering on the wooden floor. She races across the floorboards in her room to reach her weapons on her desk, steady hands shooting out. A soft burn throbs away at the stitches covering her four-day-old bullet wound, increasing the tempo of its persistent ache.
Grabbing only a pistol and a flashlight, Myles rushes over to her bedroom door and wrenches it open. Jasper bolts from his room, both teens flying out in a similarly disheveled fashion. Lincoln stands in the middle of the house with Max and Finn, staring out of the empty window frame with squinted eyes.
"What was that?" Lincoln quizzes when he hears the two best friends sprint into the room.
"Alarm," Myles rushes out, not slowing her steps to get to the back door.
Max is by her bare legs when she reaches the door, his small body vibrating as he growls. As soon as the redhead swings open the door, the calico-coloured dog squeezes between her pale legs and the door to beat her outside. Jasper's hand brushes against Myles', his body heat warming her cold legs pleasantly as he follows close behind her. The red-haired teen has to slow down when she reaches the edge of the balcony, only a metre away from the door. Stretching a goosebump-covered leg out, Myles rests it on the small wooden level of the drop pulley.
"Max," the redhead whispers with her hand grasping the rope of the pulley, feeling her stitches pull at the movement.
Obediently, Max steps between the rope and onto the level with Myles' hand guiding him to make sure he doesn't fall off. His weight immediately makes the small platform descend, and the redhead shifts her weight to accommodate the drop. The pulley jolts to a stop a step above the ground, and Max hops off as quickly as he got on it, leaping off in the pitch black dead of night. Myles steps off of the platform, letting it shoot back up to the trees with no weight on it to bring it down. She doesn't wait to see the others get down, instead following her dog through the dark woods with hasty, quiet steps.
Her stitches tug unpleasantly, making the skin feel like it's tearing under the heavy and urgent thumping of her heartbeat. Baggy long sleeves threaten to catch on tree branches, tempting the risk of alerting the intruder as Myles uses them to disguise her dark shadow. Max warns them he's found the intruder, his bark loud, ferocious and unceasing in the empty woodlands. It lets the Arkers know the culprit that set off the alarm is human, and not another animal accidentally running into it.
They had received word the night of Pike's death that Ontari had fled before her trial. Lexa has handpicked warriors from every clan to go out scouring the earth looking for her, but they haven't come back with any news. After the interactions Myles has had with Ontari, she expects the Azgedian to be the disruption that's woken them all from their slumber. It makes her heart race and veins crackle with jittery anxiety, knowing that a woman capable of slaughtering seven innocent kids and delivering their heads to their guardian's feet is sneaking up to her home.
Forcing herself to go quicker for the last few metres, Myles swerves to the left of the barking to come out around a tree for protection. Behind her, beneath the sounds of Max's loud and harsh barking, are the soft rustling sounds made by near silent footsteps running towards them. Finally slowing her pace down, Myles swings her arms up and halts half behind a tree. Coming to a sudden stop reminds the red-haired teen why she'd gone to bed without pants on. The air no longer feels cool against her pale skin now that she's stilled, but thick and uncomfortably warm in the windless night.
"Hod yo op!" Myles orders, clicking on her bright flashlight with her tone hard and authoritative. "Chit yo - ?" [AN: "Stop! What do you - ?"]
"Gyon yo meika op!" Jasper's rough voice demands, not registering his best friend's sudden halt. [AN: "Raise your hands!"]
"Chil yo au," Indra's steady and unfazed voice calls from the darkness, one arm in a sling and the other holding onto her horse's neck. [AN: "Calm down."]
"Indra?" Lincoln breathes in surprise, and Myles shines her light onto the familiar woman standing beside the dark-skinned warrior with her own horse.
"Maks," the red-haired teen commands slowly. Myles lowers her arms partway, pointing her gun and flashlight to the ground but her arms don't fall to her sides. "Shof op." [AN: "Max, be quiet."]
"My apologies," the familiar woman standing to Indra's right amends, a shake wobbling the warrior's tone. "I did not mean to frighten you."
"It's okay," Jasper accepts readily, stepping forward to shake the chieftain's hand. "Wocha Gresi, sha?" [AN: "Chieftain Gressy, right?"]
"You're a long way from Inera," Lincoln states, stepping forward to shake her hand.
"Inera?" Finn echoes, coming to stand beside Myles. "That's out west, yeah? Past Corco?"
"Yes," Gresi confirms, nodding and shifting restlessly. "That is right."
"Wocha Gresi has come very far," Indra interjects, staring the Arker's down. "Heda recommended we meet with you when she arrived at Polis before sundown."
"How is Heda?" Myles asks, a pit of dread tainted with grief swirling in her gut.
"Troubled," Indra reveals, "the loss of the Natblida and her Flamekeeper weakens her, leaving her open for attack."
"That's not why you're here," Lincoln reminds them, his voice drawled out with curiosity.
"Coming from the Capitol in the afternoon and arriving in the middle of the night," Jasper continues. "You had to be going fast. Must be important?"
"Yes," Gresi nods, her tone wavering as if rippling in a lake of unease. "I hear Wanheda Pramblida and her people find those lost." [AN: "The Commander of Death" "First red-blooded Commander."]
"Unfortunately," Myles grumbles through clenched teeth, the painful pit in her gut deepening.
Her mind plagues her with the memories of what happened last time someone asked them to look for a missing person. Myles diverts her gaze, only lifting her eyes to search out her best friend's. Jasper's shining brown eyes are already on her, a sea of regret mirrored in them.
"Chon yo don drop of?" Lincoln enquires, stepping towards the chieftain with evident concern. [AN: "Who have you lost?"]
"Gada," the warrior answers, and the redhead can't help the instinctive hesitant step back she does. [AN: "A girl."]
"No offence," Jasper mutters, "but the last lost girl we found was dead. We haven't got a track record of happy endings."
"She's six," Indra's hardened voice divulges, making all four stiffen and the best friends' hardened resolve crack.
Myles wouldn't be lying if she said she has absolutely no shred of inclination to find the girl if this is anything like last time. Finding Acha's rotting body sticking out of her very shallow grave is not something Jasper and Myles are eager to experience again. Especially if they're looking for a six-year-old. They're doomed without the advanced law enforcement they had on the Ark, which was no comparison to the revolutionary high-tech equipment they had before the bombs.
On Earth, besides the armies and warriors most villages raise, there's no law enforcement. Here, they tie their doors and windows shut and hope it's not hot enough to warrant leaving one propped open. The rich make large wooden locks with randomly placed small blocks of wood in holes to prevent a locking bar from being pulled out. Only those with a stick that have vertical bars in the exact same pattern can unlock them by pushing up the blocks and freeing the locking bar.
It leaves most crimes unavenged and unsolved. They don't have a way to track someone down if they don't leave footprints; they have no way of finding and comparing fingerprints or DNA. The knowledge needed to find the perpetrators has almost entirely died out, leaving only common sense and witness testimonies to put the pieces together.
"Six?" Finn demands, "how the hell does a six-year-old go missing, and the Commander sends you here instead of out there to look for her?"
"Because she didn't go missing," Myles supplies slowly, watching Gresi's haunted expression.
"The night was normal," Gresi explains, "but she was not in her room when the sun rose."
"How long ago did this happen?" Lincoln presses, antsy with the chieftains shaken demeanour.
"Last sunrise," Indra replies steadily, patiently waiting for the Arkers to accept the task.
Dipping her flashlight down to the ground subconsciously, Myles looks back over at Jasper. His vague silhouette doesn't move, and the redhead questions for a moment if he's already looking at her. Finally, his body rocks forward twice before his head turns toward her. She can feel, even with Lincoln and Finn between them, that he's hesitant. Haunted with the memories of how everything else they've thrust themselves into has ended.
Thieves they catch are subjected to a thief's punishment, varying slightly from clan to clan and ranging from cutting off hands to cutting off heads. Most thieves get blamed for other thefts without proof or much reason to believe they're the same culprit, simply because they've proven to steal in the area before. Murderers and those committing assaults pay with their lives, the circumstances of their crimes and the clan's diversifying capital punishment laws deciding on how much they should suffer first.
Jasper and Myles have seen a lot of these punishments be dealt in the last three months. Using their ability to snoop around and converting their thieving ways into investigative tools was supposed to be easy. It was supposed to right the wrongs they've been a part of; to clean the filth they've found themselves covered in. Finding stolen belongings, dead teenagers and uncovering a perverted man's disgusting indiscretions seemed like they were doing something good... Until their screams started.
The screams and cries of those who've done wrong and gotten caught with the help of the two best friends echo loudly, piercing through their skulls. It's avenging the victims, sure, but it's an empty justice. A life for a life, an eye for an eye, a hand for a loaf of bread.
Even so, there's the same desperation, the same need for validation burning under both of their skins and crackling in their veins. A selfish need to be self-less, to prove they are worth their place in the universe and to cure the never-ending ache of hopeless loss that only continues to grow. So, Myles tips her flashlight in a halfhearted attempt at conveying a shrug and raises a delicate red eyebrow even though Jasper can't see it.
"It's not been twenty-four hours," Myles reasons, a dark, twisted sense of liking the pain and hardships this inflicts bubbling over her reluctance. This pain is good because it distracts her from the rest of her pain. "Could still be alive."
"Let's also hope no one's been through the house, then, if we're being that blindly optimistic."
"Non," the little girl's mother's voice wobbles, a hand holding her swollen, pregnant belly, "bet non. Osir jos. Rundo don gaf in mou granen, osir nou don gada in toli taim." [AN: "No one. Absolutely no one. Only us. Rundo's needed to take on more work, we haven't had much time."]
Hazel eyes scan the wall down from the open windowsill to the floor. She notes every chipped log and groove and checks to see how it lines up with the hardened and scorched mud fusing the walls together. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, her gaze flicks up to look at Jasper's back. He sticks his head around the fabric hanging from the ceiling that acts as a door to one of the rooms in the hut, peering inside. It's a small family and a small house to fit the three of them. The main area of the home is on an open plan, not leaving much room for someone to hide. No walls or doorways separate the kitchen from the living areas, the only 'doorways' being the rooms blocked off with a wall of long fabric.
"Yo don gada in eni hanga kom nau?" Lincoln asks, staying with the dishevelled and heartbroken couple in the centre of the house. [AN: "Have you had any visitors recently?"]
"No," the father answers, his gruff tone as thick as the air and Jasper pulls his head out of the doorway to look past one of the other two across from it. "Nou na kom yeson. Bida osir lukot don sen raun kom osir." [AN: "No. Not until yesterday. Some of our friends came to sit with us."]
"Emo don min op em wogeda?" Myles interjects, scanning the walls to make sure no one could've squeezed through anywhere. [AN: "Did they go into her room?"]
"No," the mother wavers, and the redhead looks back at her, "jos wocha Gresi. Osir nou don gada in jova-de gon kom daun der nodotaim." [AN: "No. Just chieftain Gressy. We didn't have the courage to go back there again."]
Content there's nothing in the main room that she could see herself breaking in through, Myles looks to Jasper and takes a slow step towards the parents and Lincoln. Jasper ducks his head back out of the fabric acting as a door to look at the others in the house. His brown gaze lingers on Myles' before sending a pointed look at Lincoln to make sure he's on the same page.
"Osir na chek au em wogeda nau," the dark-skinned man tells the parents respectfully, "taim daun bilaik kei?" [AN: "We're going to look through her room now, if that's alright?"]
"Sha," the father agrees readily, hurrying forward to reach the doorways where Jasper stands. "Auda – " [AN: "Yes, through – "]
"Em's ait," Lincoln tells the man, resting a hand on the frantic father's shoulder. "Ai bro." [AN: "It's alright, my brother."]
"Osir nou na toch won diyo op," Myles assures the heartbroken parents, watching the helpless slouch in their shoulders fall down even deeper as they step close to each other for support. "Ai swega yo klin." [AN: "We won't touch a thing, I swear it."]
They don't say another word, nodding and gripping each other's arms as their weary expressions follow the three guests moving around their home. Jasper waits by the third doorway with his hand on the fabric hiding the missing girl's, Paipa's, room. Once Lincoln and Myles approach, the brown-haired Arker lifts the long sheet of fabric up for them all to peek in.
It's simple and modest for the small family, a small dresser in the room's corner and a crate full of handcrafted toys. Drawings on scraps of parchment and thin bark are pinned to the walls, much like the rest of the house. The small bed is covered by a hand-woven blanket, and it's nicer than anything else they've seen in the house. A skin of a bear lines the floor like a rug, shifted to lie on the half of the room closest to the door.
In the centre of the room beside the bed and in front of the closed window is a track of carved out sticks and small bits of wood fashioned together with vines. Disc shaped and almost spherical pebbles sit on the floor, one lone round rock sitting at the end of the elaborate track. With the window closed, the room is dark, and Jasper pulls up his flashlight to turn it on and shine it over the room. Besides the unmade bed that looks as if someone rolled out of it, nothing seems amiss.
As the Arker is moving his flashlight's white beam around slowly, specks of something that stands out as out-of-place draw Myles' attention.
"Bring the light back under the window," Myles implores, furrowing her red eyebrows and waiting for the beam to obey her request.
The parents shift, hesitant steps inching forward at the foreign language but they stay back.
"What is it?" Jasper implores curiously, obliging the order and allowing the hand holding up the curtain to dip down.
"They must've been watching her," the redhead ponders, cogs whirring in her mind to align the pieces.
"How do you know that?" Lincoln queries, bewildered intrigue bubbling over his words.
"Because he came through that window," Jasper answers, his brown eyes finding what caught his best friend's hazel. "And only that window."
"See the dirt?" Myles prompts the tall grounder, tilting her head back to talk to Lincoln. "They knew that this was her room. They didn't have to look around. She was targeted."
Jasper gives his flashlight one last cursory glance around the room before stepping inside of it and returning the beam to the tiny clumps of dirt on the floor between the window and the girl's bed. Lincoln and Myles follow him in, and the red-haired teen surges forward to open the window, avoiding the traces of dirt on the floor. Lifting the wooden slab reveals the looped vine is large, allowing the slab to move around easily instead of securing it shut on a peg in the wall above the window.
This would've made it ridiculously easy for the intruder to enter the room, and he or she wouldn't have struggled to lift it open. The window's slab falls outside, the redhead's hand guiding it down to rest against the side of the house. Myles scrutinises the windowsill as Jasper crouches by her boots, feeling Lincoln peer over her' shoulder. Lifting a gloveless hand, her fingers brush over the coarse wood of the windowsill as she leans her weight on her gloved hand on the wall. Her bare pointer finger slides purposefully up and down a short, deep scratch carved in the wood.
It starts out with a sharp indent and teeters out as it swipes into the girl's bedroom, like something had dug in when coming inside and not on the way out. If it was a blade, Myles would expect to see a long scratch and not the short flick that's there. The girl could've awakened when the kidnapper climbed in, forcing them to pull the weapon quickly to ensure Paipa's silent compliance?
"They had to pull themselves up," Lincoln muses, running his palm over a small curled scuff mark.
"Maybe someone did see something after all," Myles seconds, leaning out over the windowsill to look at the mess of light brown dirt under the window.
"I'm no Greenie," Jasper announces, and Myles leans back into the room from peering over the windowsill. "But I don't think it rained here the other night."
"It didn't," Myles agrees, crouching down and a painful pull in her very tender abdomen. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"The dirt's stuck together like it's wet," the brown-haired Arker tells her, and Myles curiously reaches out to pick up a small dot of the dirt and roll it between her bare fingertips.
The dirt is dark brown and flakes apart when she rolls it; the feeling cool and damp, even after about 24 hours.
"A farmer?" Lincoln inquires, bending over to look at them. "It's different to the dirt outside."
"Okay, Ghost," Jasper declares, standing up with a sigh and looking down at his best friend. The red-haired teen is still crouched over the small clumps of wet, dark soil, her red eyebrows furrowed. "Walk me through it. How would you do it?"
"Leave work," Myles mumbles, looking up from the dirt on the floor to look at the glassless hole in the wall that is the young girl's window.
"The farm," Lincoln follows her train of thought, shifting his weight from his left leg to his right.
"They wouldn't have lifted the window," the redhead continues, standing up and pulling the slab inside to show the other two how loose it is. Hooking the long loop on the peg on the inside wall above the window, Myles only lightly pushes on the top of the slab. Instantly, it falls outside, knocking against the mud-slathered wooden wall of the house loudly. "They knew it was loose. They would've been ready to catch it."
"Scuff mark," Jasper acknowledges, "part of their shoes had to be leather. What's that?"
"Don't know," Lincoln answers, referring to the small scratch and Myles pulls the bag slung over her head to her sore stomach to pull out their notebook. Lifting a small cylindrical object wrapped in cloth, Myles licks the sharp tip before putting it to her parchment. Scribbling down with the pointed end of a thin stick of charcoal wrapped in a cloth and tied together with twine, the grounder continues. "Might be from a struggle. Paipa tried to get back inside and they grabbed her with the hand holding their knife?"
"We should check outside," Myles advises, her delicate red eyebrows furrowed as she details their observations in her book.
"They left a mark on the window," Jasper agrees through a deep breath, knocking his knuckles on the windowsill once. "There'll be a mark down there."
Hazel eyes quickly flick over the words she's jotted down, checking if she's missed anything as Jasper and Lincoln brush past her gently. Everything's there on the paper in her soft, looped letters that glide across the dark tan coloured parchment. Their thoughts contained in neat, sloped words from the awkward angle and her hasty writing. The sound of the parents' wobbly and nervous voices make Myles look up, closing the hand-stitched notebook. She shuts it with her finger still inside, protecting the charcoal from smudging while it dries.
"Chit yo don dig au?" The mother queries urgently, a strangled wobble in her voice. [AN: "What did you find?"]
"Osir nou don sen yo klin," the father explains, his tone as grave as his wife's. Myles steps forward, ducking under the fabric acting as a door to join her friend's with the parents. "Osir nou get Gonasleng in." [AN: "We didn't understand you. We don't speak English."]
"Osir hofli gada in bida figon," the brown-haired Arker divulges kindly, "kom weron gon chek au." [AN: We might have a few ideas of where to look."]
"Em bilaik kei osir gon chek au mounsad kom yu hou?" Myles appeals, keeping her expression soft. [AN: "Is it alright if we check the outside of your home?"]
"Sha," the woman nods rapidly, quickly wiping a hand over the wet tracks under her red and puffy eyes. "Sha, yo na dula daun op." [AN: "Yeah. Yes, you can do that."]
"Mochof," Lincoln replies, the man of little words walking around the distressed parents with a nod. [AN: "Thank you."]
Giving the couple an awkward, sad smile, Myles follows the tall grounder to the front door, pausing behind him when he opens the door to look at Jasper. Her best friend is right behind her, and he takes the silent cue to turn to the parents. Slipping out the front door, Myles steps down the flat side of the large chopped rocks that make up the three stairs to their house. The rocks wobble at her weight, but the movement is so subtle and slight that the redhead doesn't pay it any mind.
"Mochof don teik osir in kom chek raun op," Jasper's voice floats down to her, but Myles tilts her head back to look up instead of at him. [AN: "Thank you for letting us look around."]
The air is thick and sticky, warming their skin and tightening their chests. Above them, the morning sky plagues the village with various shades of grey. Clouds block the sunlight, giving the daylight a dark, glum grey tinge. Finally stepping off the last step and onto the dry brown dirt beneath her, Myles looks to her right to see Lincoln. He's waiting past the corner of the house, and she can tell from the tense skin on the back of his bald head that he's glaring intensely at the dirt.
Walking up to the tall grounder, she purses and smacks her lips to get Max's attention, hearing the rock stairs wobble under her lanky best friend's weight. Max happily trots over from the kids down the scraped dirt path to the two best friends, coming to walk alongside the redhead's right leg. His calico-coloured shaggy fur brushes against Myles' tight jeans, rubbing against patches of different shades of black. Myles' fingers scratch lovingly at his head when he lifts it up to bump against her hand, huffing a happy breath.
If it will rain, whatever prints they left behind will be gone very shortly, but judging from Lincoln's tense posture, it wouldn't make a difference. Once the dirt that runs along the sides of the house come into view, though, Myles stops, perplexity taking over her delicate features.
There are footsteps left, but they're almost undistinguishable. You can't see where one ends and the other begins; just an endless slew of boot prints mingled and smeared together. Curious hazel eyes scour them, looking for any sign of the little girl and finding none. It's not a surprise she doesn't see any, only a fool would snatch a young child from her room and bring her out into the middle of the village. Stepping forward with a few cautious steps, Myles bends over to get a closer look at the dirt. Edging around it, the redhead keeps close to the neighbouring structure to not disturb the dirt or grass.
"Max," Jasper calls to the dog, and Max obediently turns to him, stopping where he stands. "Stay."
Max sits, watching the three of them attentively and not moving from his spot. Myles walks around the side of the house, turning the corner in a large circle to avoid any boot prints that might be pertinent. Lincoln is the first to follow her, sticking close behind her and looking over the dirt at their feet with the same focused yet skilled expression. Jasper copies his red-haired best friend, leaning over to scrutinise the ground, making Max whine and fidget with the itching desire to follow them.
Coming around the back of the house, the grass obstructs the dirt, making all three need to crouch to get a good look. The dirt is dry and smudged, boot prints blurring together and stepping over each other. Red eyebrows furrow even deeper, her hazel eyes staring hard at the soft impressions on the dry ground and trying to piece together a route.
A loud rumble of thunder cracks through the sky, booming in their ears. Myles looks up, parting her lips in frustration before looking back down with a nervous haste to find what she's looking for before it rains.
"There," Lincoln points to the ground directly under the little girl's window.
Small footprints mark up the ground in three places only, disappearing almost instantly. They're somewhat fresh, most of them still intact from the morning before. Hazel eyes snap around, glazing over the sharp downward scuff mark on the house's wooden wall and turning her attention back to the ground.
"Those boots," Myles mumbles, reaching an arm out to help balance her weight so she can get as close to them as possible. "Face the window, coming from the left, leaving to the left."
"They're deeper leaving," the grounder corroborates, nodding his head and Myles creeps forward in her crouch.
"He carried her away," Jasper says in a sigh, standing up and stepping towards the mark on the house's wall. "The mark is thick. Boot's soles are layered."
"Lilo," the redhead mutters, ducking her head down low to inspect the prints with careful eyes. "Do you see this?"
Lincoln hovers over her shoulder, his crouched posture still taller than her, reaching a hand out to rest his weight on two fingers on the ground.
"You can't see it on the tracks coming in," Lincoln announces, getting Jasper's attention.
"Can't see what?" Jasper asks, stepping up behind Lincoln's shoulder to get a look.
"You can," Myles denotes, "but only on those sides. See the stitching, JJ?" Jasper leans over, casting his vague shadow over their shoulders. "You can see it all the way around when he's leaving, not when he's coming in."
"She's small," Jasper reminds them, "wouldn't weigh much."
"It's not her weight," Lincoln corrects. "It's the stitching."
"They've gone over the outside edge of their boots so much," Myles elaborates, "you can see that side of the stitches clearly."
"Okay," the brown-haired Arker declares, standing up straight. "We're looking for someone who works in the farms late, has layered leather soles, and walks on the outside edge of their feet, which are heavily stitched." Myles looks up at him at his tired and sarcastic tone, and her best friend lifts his arms exasperatedly. "If only they'd carved their name in the bottom of their shoes."
Rapping her knuckles on a door to a small house in the village made from half destroyed and rusted metal sheets and a car door, Myles takes a deep breath in. The air is heavy and hot, sitting in her chest thickly and her sweat making her thin bandages stick to her stitches uncomfortably. Silence follows for a beat, and Myles turns her head to glance through the weaving mud-hardened houses to search out her two best friends.
As if sensing her impatience, the door scrapes open, only some rope and twine acting as a hinge on the stacked wooden logs halves.
"Heya," Myles greets the man with a wide smile, "ai laik Maiyls, en ai don kom op hir gon kof yu op shika doteip en haka yu op brana shika. Yu bilaik ste gaf in?" [AN: "Hello. I'm Myles, and I've come to offer you boot repairs and to make you new boots. Are you interested?"]
"Shika doteip?" He queries slowly, shock colouring his features. [AN: "Boot repairs?"]
"Sha," the red-haired teen confirms brightly, "jos lid ai in ogeda yu shika en ai na doteip emo op." [AN: "Yep, just bring me all your boots and I will fix them up."]
"Ai bilaik gada bida in," he decides hesitantly, sizing her up for a moment before starting to turn away from the door. "Hod op won tika." [AN: "I do have a few. Wait a moment."]
"Nach, ai lukot," Myles replies, the smile slipping when the man turns away. [AN: "Of course, my friend."]
As the man walks away, Myles pulls her notebook from the bag hooked over her head and resting against her side. Flipping it open, her hazel eyes scan over the list of names she's already promised some kind of service for their boots. A promise that she will now have to uphold somehow. They'd decided to go this route, instead of using the chieftain to force their hands because they didn't want to risk spooking the kidnapper. With a storm hanging thickly in the air, they don't need any more evidence getting destroyed.
Besides, who wouldn't want a free pair of shoes? Especially if they have a long history of destroying a part of their shoes so bad that the stitching is prominent in their tracks. Approaching footsteps drag the redhead's attention back up to the doorway, her bright smile reappearing.
"Disha laik oma shika," the man informs her, coming back to the door with three pairs of boots in his hands. Myles tries not to let the overwhelming weight of dejection and hopelessness show on her face, slipping the hand-stitched notebook back into her bag. If they find Paipa and she ended up the same way as Acha, the red-haired teen doesn't know how she'll be able to handle that again. And then she'd still have to go on to make all these damn boots. "Dison ste gaf fisa in." [AN: "These are my boots. This one needs patching."]
"Yu na teik ai in gon chek emo au?" Myles implores, lifting a hand halfway to gesture at the shoes halfheartedly. "Ai gaf in gon get in chit ai na gaf gada in kom Leygeda." [AN: "Can I look at them? I need to know what I will need to get from the Market Festival."]
"Sha," the man nods, lifting his arms with the boots in them off his chest invitingly. "Dula op bilaik yu souda." [AN: "Yeah. Do what you must."]
"Chof," the red-haired teen smiles, reaching forward with her gentle hands and grabbing a pair from his arms. [AN: "Thanks."]
Hazel eyes scour the leather sole, already knowing it isn't thick enough to make the scuff marks on the window and wall of Paipa's house. Still, she turns them both over, checking the stitching on the bottom of the soles to see if they match the imprints left on the kidnappers tracks. The wear on the bottom of the shoes is normal, the boots in good condition for a woodworker.
"Dison laik os," Myles commends, masking her disappointment with a fake smile. "Don pudon op kom gifa in." [AN: "These are good. Worn with care."]
Heaving a heavy sigh, Myles knocks loudly on the door again. Silence follows once more, and the redhead peers around the side of the house to hear or see if someone is home. Finding no signs of anyone home, the red-haired Arker takes a step back, looking to the sound of nearby chatter and splashing water. Three women and two men are washing laundry in a very large rock-brick tub, scrubbing the garments against a flat stone. After scrubbing them, they drop them into buckets of cleanly boiled river water to soak overnight.
With one last glance at the house in front of her, Myles pivots and heads towards the washing pit. Easy chatter and rough grunts from exertion float through the air, only calming lightly when one of the women looks up and spots the Arker. Plastering another friendly smile on her face, the redhead approaches them.
"Hei," Myles greets, "ai ste lufa Rinou au. Em laik raun?" [AN: "Hi. I'm looking for Rinou (Reno). Is he around?"]
"Ma…" the woman who noticed her drawls out, "ai nou mema in bilaik ai sin em in deyon." [AN: Um… I can't remember if I've seen him today."]
"No," one of the men huffs out, wringing out the garment and turning to dump it into the bucket of clean water to soak. "Em don gon Yujleda we. Emo kof op tona fisa prepon moubeda kom Leygeda. Kawalin otaim kof raun toli os, sei em nou komba raun gon bida sintaim." [AN: "No, he went to Yujleda (Broadleaf clan). They offer many more healers supplies at their Leygeda (market festival). Kawalin always pays very good, so he won't be back for some days."]
"Aa," the redhead mutters, smirking gratefully. "Mochof." [AN: "Ah, thank you."]
Turning on her heel, Myles reaches for her bag again to make a note beside his name when whispers behind her halt her momentarily. Her footsteps continue to walk away, but her hands have stilled on the notebook, only holding it half out of the bag. Their whispered words are unintelligible, all except for one. A very clear 'Skaikru' tells Myles exactly what's happened, forcing a sigh out of her lungs at the hint that maybe their intel wasn't entirely honest.
Pulling out her notebook and charcoal pencil, Myles licks the now dull tip of the charcoal. Flipping open the hand-stitched pages, she stops when she lands on the list of names she offered to visit. The redhead puts a cross beside his name, scribbling down in delicate handwriting that Rinou hasn't been in the village since Leygeda. Shutting the book with her finger trapped inside to keep the pages from smudging, Myles shoves them back into her bag and looks around.
Standing in the distance to her left is Lincoln and Jasper, Max lying on the ground by their feet. They're talking to each other, occasionally looking over to the redhead to see how she's fairing. If Myles were to guess, she'd guess they had finished their rounds already and were waiting on her. Picking up her speed to a lazy and slow jog, the red-haired teen goes up to them with a relieved sigh.
"Any luck?" Myles asks, switching her hazel eyes between the two and scratching at Max's head when he stands to bump her hand with his head.
"Nope," Jasper announces loudly. "I'm afraid we were disgustingly wrong about how easy tracking down these shoes would be."
"Two aren't here," Lincoln adds, his friendly tone and demeanour stunted by the subtly of his short words.
"Make it three," the redhead sighs, looking up as a loud crack of thunder rumbles the darkening late morning sky. "Rinou," Myles continues distractedly, before focussing her attention back on them. "Is in the Capitol of Podakru, selling his goods from Leygeda at a much steeper price."
"Ah," Jasper clicks his tongue, looking at Lincoln with a deathly serious expression. "The life of a corrupt businessman. No matter how bad life gets, you're always rich on Lake People land."
"Who are you missing?" Myles enquires, scrunching together her eyebrows in thought.
"A late night woodworker," Lincoln supplies with an amused smile and a small shake of his head. "And someone from the farms."
"Well," the red-haired teen huffs out, frustrated. "I'm all out of dark soil areas."
"Maybe they were passing through," Jasper offers, "and the dirt is from one of the paths."
Myles brings a hand up to her head, holding the heel of her palm against her temple as she turns to look towards the village borders. Jasper's used to this, this hopeless dejection of an impending downward spiral already starting, but Lincoln isn't.
"We'll stop," the grounder decides, resting a hand on the anxious redhead's shoulder. "Have lunch and wait for them to come back."
"What if they don't?" Myles questions worriedly, her red eyebrows lifting dramatically. Dropping her hand from her head, Myles shakes her head back and forth, feeling her shoulder-length, wavy red hair swaying. Hazel eyes find Jasper's knowing and mentally drained brown, her head still shaking. "If this ends up like Acha, I… I can't do that again. It's too much death. I can't do it again."
"Someone's gonna die anyway," her best friend morosely tells her. "This time it won't be the kid."
The redhead doesn't say anything, but her haunted hazel eyes gives her disbelief away. Lincoln steps forward, gently using his hand on her shoulder to guide her away.
"We'll have lunch and wait it out."
"They don't trust us," Myles mutters, her hands hovering over her flat, wooden plate on her knees and pulling apart some of her leftover bread.
"They trust you," Lincoln corrects. "It's me they don't trust."
"They're people," Jasper drawls out, leaning back on the wooden log he's sitting against. "They'll kick dirt at you and call you a traitor, but whenever they need something..." Hazel eyes swivel to her best friend, quirking an eyebrow at him as she drops the bread to pull her shirt from her sweaty chest and fan herself. "Any help is good help, right?"
"I've seen what your people can do," the grounder divulges. Myles looks around absentmindedly, her gaze flicking over to the gate constantly to check for people coming in and out. "The technology they have. Your help is the best help."
"Our help," Myles corrects, locking her determined hazel on his brown. "Our people."
"Octavia," Lincoln grits out after a moment, his jaw clenched. "Was my people. I never fit in anywhere else."
"And you think we do?" Jasper quips, gesturing between himself and his best friend. "The booze-loving chemistry dork with two left feet and the generous kleptomaniac with an unquenchable thirst to solve everyone's problems?"
"We're outcasts," the redhead labels, looking down at her hands before looking around them again.
"You attract people," Lincoln tells her seriously, looking to Jasper. "Everyone likes you," looking back at the red-haired Arker, "and everyone listens to you. You're the first Rouzblida Commander. That isn't a title our people give out easily." [AN: "red-blooded/roseblood"]
Myles snorts obnoxiously and a bright, crooked smile stretches across Jasper's face.
"They should've called you that," the brown-haired teen decides, lifting his water-skin to his mouth. "Instead of Wanheda."
"Rouzheda," Lincoln tries, shaking his head. "Doesn't have the same ring to it. Wanheda, Heda Pramblida." [AN: "The Commander of Death, the first Commander with red-blood."]
"Lilo," Myles smiles kindly at the young man, bringing the conversation back to where it started. "You'll always fit in with us. You'll always be our people."
She sees it in his dark brown eyes, the flash of recognition. Lincoln remembers hearing those words from the redhead twice before. Once when they were chasing the sniper taking potshots at Tondc, and once when they were out front of Mount Weather, watching their army retreat. It's not the words that hold a dear meaning to him, but a promise hidden under them. A promise of a family. No matter how big or small, and even after three months of separation, the promise still stands.
"You'd say that about him," the dark-skinned man nods his head to a stranger passing by, "if he asked."
"Then you shouldn't say you have no people," Myles doubles down kindly, watching the stranger walk away before flicking her hazel gaze back to the gate. Locking her eyes on Lincoln's and quirking her eyebrows sarcastically, the redhead mimics his nod to the same stranger. "You've got him."
Lincoln huffs an amused breath through his mouth, an easy smirk turning up the left side of his face as he looks down at his hands.
"Aw, look at us!" Jasper exclaims rather loudly, a blindingly bright, dopey smile across his face and he leans forward to clap a hand on one of each of their shoulders. "One big, awkward and suffering family!" The brown-haired Arker shakes his hands, rocking both Lincoln and Myles for a moment. "Surviving with our hands tied behind our backs and using only pure luck and stupid decisions."
"And disastrous solutions," Myles adds, lifting a hand to Jasper.
Jasper mimics her movement, raising a hand as if to high five each other, but instead they high five themselves. Thunder snaps loudly through the air around them, the dirt underneath their feet rumbling at the long sound. Max lifts his head up from the ground, looking up at the sky the same way most everyone left outside does. People buzz about, putting coverings of cloth and wood over small buildings and fire pits. Workers drag tools, supplies, tables and chairs under cover, tugging coverings over open walls and doorways. Market stalls, butchers and linen shops all copy the home-owners by shutting their windows to keep the nearing rain out.
"The storm is almost on top of us," Lincoln states distractedly, his eyes still turned up to the dark grey midday sky.
Movement behind Lincoln draws Myles' attention away from the dreary clouds floating heavily in the sky. Turning to him, hazel eyes flick over to look at the man riding in through the west gate. He's completely dry, only one rough streak of dark mud with grey flecks in it is up the front of his light brown long-sleeved shirt.
"Mustn't be coming from the west," the redhead states slowly, watching the man curiously as his horse trots towards the stables.
"Okay," Jasper drawls, "I know I'm usually the one with no idea what's going on, but if you're seeing that from the clouds and I'm not, then I need to quit drinking. And maybe muffins, too."
"Not from the clouds," Myles corrects, reaching out a leg when Lincoln meets her eyes and turns to follow her gaze, but Jasper doesn't. Knocking her boot against her best friend's to get his attention, she tips a small nod to the man. "He's dry."
"What's that on his shirt?" Jasper asks, the dead seriousness in his voice making Myles' hazel eyes flick up from the distant man's boots instantly. "Right breast pocket."
"I don't know," the red-haired Arker mumbles, staring with furrowed eyebrows at the shiny piece of metal attached to his shirt.
"Looks metal," Lincoln describes, "sharp points."
"He would've had to pull himself up through the window," Myles reminds them, standing up. "That could've left the scratch."
The strides the redhead takes makes the fawb glove covering her left hand and the weapon braces on her body stick and unstick from her skin wetly. Jasper and Lincoln match her determined pace easily, their walk becoming more brisk when the man disappears into the stable. The man and his horse turn to enter the stable, showing a similar streak of dark grey is up his back, light grey gravel seeming to stick on top.
Hastening her pace to an urgent jog, the redhead only slows down again when she swerves in through the stable doorway. Myles' steps falter when her hazel eyes don't immediately find him again, panic rising in her chest. Lincoln and Jasper come up by her side as her gaze lands on the man, watching him slide off of his horse in a stall. Plastering on a smile, Myles channels the Ghost once more and walks over to stall he's rode his chestnut coloured horse into.
"Heya," Myles greets, smiling even brighter when the man turns to her in acknowledgment. His expression hardens on the red-haired teen, not lightening or loosening up as he casts his gaze over the other two with her. The brooch pinned to his shirt glistens in the lowlight of the incoming storm, the thin and pointed petals of a flower rusted with age. "Osir ste lufa au kru kom gada shika in gon doteip emo op. Yu bilaik ste gaf in?" [AN: "Hello. We're looking for people with boots to repair them. Would you be interested?"]
"Os Wanheda-de gaf doteip shika op?" The man scoffs, taking the crudely made leather reins from the horse's mouth. Turning to hang them up on the stall wall, the man continues as he moves to shove past the three in the stall doorway. "Ai nou wich yo in." [AN: "The Great Wanheda wants to repair boots? I think not."]
"Mebi yu na gaf huk osir op gon chip?" Jasper prods, pulling a thoughtful face sarcastically. "Osir neson prepon throu in na gada leda in… taim yu gaf bida in… nau bilaik taim-de." [AN: "Maybe you want to give it to us for free? Our next supply drop has leather… if you want some… now's the time."]
His brown eyes flick around them for a moment, his resolve only hardening and Myles knows exactly what he's about to do. Raising a delicate red eyebrow in a silent challenge, Myles shifts her feet to be ready to chase after him. Taking the bait, he pretends to shrug, stepping back a step. Abruptly, he bolts to his left and jumps through the open space between the separating stall wall to get into the stall to his left.
Myles and Lincoln dart over to meet him there before he has the chance to hop the gate, Jasper instead opting to race to the stable doorway. The man gets a hand and foot on the gate in the new stall just as Lincoln and Myles reach him, and he tries to pull away quickly. Lincoln doesn't let him, abandoning Myles' hands on the man's leg to reach in and yank the brown-haired man over the gate by his muddied shirt.
He doesn't come easy, shouting wordlessly as Lincoln throws him to the ground and kneels a knee on his back to keep him down. Myles immediately goes for his feet to grip his boots, but the man kicks at her frantically. Clambering on top of his rapidly moving legs, Jasper appears beside her to hold his legs down for her.
"Sis ai au!" The man bellows, his voice coming only a second after another clap of thunder. "Sis au! Skaikru ste jomp ai op!" [AN: "Help me! Help! Skaikru are attacking me!"]
"Ste hoden!" Myles barks out through struggling grunts, tearing away the cloth that wraps around his leather boots to secure them to his ankle. [AN: "Stay still!"]
"Hod yu gonplei op!" Lincoln orders assertively, one hand pinning the arm he's not knelt on to the ground, and the other holding the back of his neck. [AN: "Stop fighting!"]
Pulling off a boot, Myles quickly flips it upside down, already knowing the thickness of the sole is exactly what they're looking for. The same gravelly substances that's swiped up his front and back are on the bottom of his shoes, and Myles wipes it away from the stitching to see it clearly. Dark grey, almost black small rocks are sharp and hard, very rough to the touch of her gloveless right hand. Yet, the small grains of light grey crumble from her slight pressure.
Hazel eyes scan the stitching, her heart thundering in her chest as a distant rumble in the sky suddenly becomes a deafening roar above them. The white flash of nearby lightning flashes over their faces, mirrored in Myles' best friend's eyes. Holding up the bottom of the boot for the other two to see as the man continues to flail under their weight, Myles pulls off the other boot. Looking down, the redhead can feel how both of her friends freeze at the boot, allowing for the man to jostle them harshly.
Quickly swiping a gloveless finger over the stitching around the edge of the sole, hazel eyes glance back up to her two friends. Her pale finger can feel the thick stitches, even through the grit. They're exactly the same as the prints.
"Oso nou na as yu op nodotaim, Jiou," wocha Gresi warns the man sitting directly in front of Myles. [AN: "We aren't going to ask you again, Jiou." NOTE; Jiou is the Trig spelling, the English equivalent would be 'Geo' from 'geographic'.]
It's déjà vu, at least, it is to Myles. Almost. Somehow, her world keeps repeating itself, sending her back and forth as if to rub in her face how wrong she was, how bad she did. Sitting directly in front of her, so close their knees touch, is the man who was wearing the shoes the kidnapper wore. His name is Jiou, and he's tied in chains that pinch his skin to the chair he's sitting in. Myles is sitting in a chair in front of him and staring him down in the chieftains tent. Adrenaline pumps uncomfortably around her stitches, burning through her veins in a way she can't ignore.
Rain has yet to break through the dark clouds looming above them, but the air is finally lightening, feeling cooler to the touch. It does nothing to calm the tension rising in the tent as all Myles can think about is how similar of a predicament this is to Carl Emerson. A wild wave of panic and doom crashes inside of her, the urgency of the situation only escalated with the stormy weather.
If she's still alive, she could freeze to death in the late winter thunderstorm. She could be out there, lost, hurt and afraid.
The last time Myles was in this position, she let Carl Emerson go, which turned out to do nothing but become a giant hinderance. It still is. The burden still sits on her heart with the knowledge that his still beats, pumping genetically engineered blood from the marrow drilled out of Myles' friends. That was a mistake, and she won't make that same mistake again. She can't make that same mistake again.
"Ai nou get in," Jiou insists, his arms jolt in his chains, a movement his body doesn't sing with. "Ai don lufa em au, seintaim bilaik yo ogeda." [AN: "I don't know. I've been looking for her, same as all of you."]
"Weron yu don gada in moka?" Myles quizzes, her tone as void and empty as her hazel eyes that bore into him. [AN: "Where did you get the mud?"]
"Ai don slip daun ai gapa," he answers quickly, his voice clipped short. [AN: "I fell off my horse."]
"Tu taim?" Jasper implores incredulously, "yo ste fleim klin daun-de kom au, jos nou sha?" [AN: "Twice? Don't you just hate when that happens?"]
"Spicha," Myles accuses, leaning forward to get even closer to him. [AN: "Liar."]
It's self-preservation, Myles knows it is. A desperate need to be seen as a force to be reckoned with instead of a victim or a target. Just one more thing her father instilled in her, this masochistic longing for a fight so she doesn't feel like a victim – like the only victim. Perhaps that's another dark and selfish reason she became the Ghost. A want to be seen as something more than the bruises and scars her father left on her pale skin. To see how bad others have it, so she could know she wasn't the only one suffering.
"Jos tel osir op," Gresi commands strongly, and the man looks away from Myles' dark and stormy hazel eyes to look at the warrior. "Ai laik yu wocha, em bilaik ai hedplei." [AN: "Just tell us. As your chieftain, I command it."]
"Ai nou get in hashta chit yo ste chich op," Jiou claims, feigning innocence with a smug smirk and half shrug. "Ai nou na wan op kom kripon ai nou sin thru." [AN: "I don't know what you're talking about. I will not die for a crime I didn't commit."]
"Sen ai in," Myles rumbles out threateningly, her harsh gaze boring into the man's dishonest brown. "En sen in toli kefon. Ai jos gaf get in weron Paipa kamp raun. Tel ai op dei, en yu raitness nou laik torchplei." [AN: "Listen to me, and listen very carefully. I only want to know where Paipa is. Tell me that, and your justice won't be torture."]
Jiou's jaw shifts strangely, and then he spits. Thick, warm saliva lands on the side of Myles' nose and her eyes instinctively close. Jasper calls out something, shoving forward to yank the man's shoulder back against the chair he sits on. Calmly, the redhead raises her left hand to wipe the spit that slides down her face off with the cloth of her fawb glove before opening her fiery hazel eyes.
"Skaikru nou get raitnes in," the man sneers, matching the fury in the red-haired Arker's eyes. [AN: "Sky People don't know justice."]
It hardens Myles' already forming resolve. They need answers, and they need them now. Once it starts raining, all bets are off, they'll never find her body. Marcus and Abby stopped Myles from getting the answers they needed from Emerson, she won't make that mistake again.
"Clarke," the Blake brother leans forward and takes the bloody spike out of her hands. Clarke stops and turns around to face the two, listening to what the tall man has to say. "Who we are, and who we need to be to survive are very different things."
Without breaking eye contact with the man, Myles reaches the fingers of her right hand to her wrist, slipping a knife from the weapon brace strapped there. In one fluid motion, the redhead stabs the blade into his thigh. She can't see Lincoln's reaction, only able to see that Gresi and her two bodyguards don't flinch. Jasper does, however, but Myles can't tell if it's from the action, or the shocked yell the man belts out as he flings his head back.
"Yu koken nomonjoka!" Jiou shouts, bringing his head back forward to look between his leg and Myles' eyes with his wide brown gaze. [AN: "You crazy motherfucker!"]
"Osir don tel yu op," Myles reminds him darkly, her chest already heavy with remorse and her mind becoming fuzzy with detachment. "Osir nou na as yu op nodotaim." [AN: "We told you. We won't ask you again."]
"Taim ai tel yo enthing," the man remarks, breathless from rage. "Ai na wan op. Ai nou na wan op wamplei-de kom natrona." [AN: "If I tell you anything, I will die. I will die a traitor's death."]
"Yu nou na," Jasper agrees, knowing his best friend enough to see her beginning to spiral. [AN: "You won't."]
"Ai swega yu klin," the red-haired teen tries, her voice all but pleading for him to tell them so she can stop. "Ai na ge foshou yu raitnes ste snapnes en nolaudnes." [AN: "I promise you. I will make sure your punishment is swift and painless."]
"Yu nou na swega daunde klin," Gresi interjects loudly, her tone hard as stone and slicing through the air icily. Hazel eyes slip down from Jiou's in frustration, glaring at her blade imbedded in his thigh and his red blood seeping around it. "Chon don gada yu in gon let thru hir?" [AN: "You cannot promise that. Who here gave you that authority?"]
Flicking her exasperated eyes up to the chieftain, it takes everything in Myles' power not to freak the fuck out. Jasper hangs his head in the corner of hazel eyes and Lincoln huffs with the same annoyed energy the redhead expels.
"You need to offer him something," Lincoln advises the warrior in a clipped tone, "in exchange for information."
"We have all the information we need," Gresi decides, and fear prickles at Myles' heart. Hazel eyes snap back onto the man's brown, the crazed urgency to bring this girl home tainting the hostility that was there. "The crime he bears witness to was of a child."
"Don't you want to bring her home?" Jasper enquires hotly, "give her a proper Trikru burial, or is it more of a convenience thing to you? Oh, I can't see her, fuck the family?"
"This is our way," the chieftain finalises, and Myles' heart pumps harder in her chest. "He will never tell us, knowing the laws he has broken."
"Wanna bet?" Myles snarks dully, steeling herself once more. Flicking her hard hazel eyes between his two stubborn brown, the redhead's hand clenches on the handle of the knife in his thigh. "Em laik kiken?" [AN: "Is she alive?"]
"Yu laik son swima op ona rein," Jiou smirks, and Myles twists the knife. [AN: "You waste your time."]
Jiou clenches his jaw tightly, tipping his head back and grunting loudly. Myles stills the knife, letting the breathless man huff in relief before she asks her next questions.
"Weron yu don slip daun ona moka?" Myles questions, her voice thick through the icy chill of the hurricane smashing through her chest. Jiou's enraged brown eyes lock on her hazel as warm, thick blood touches her fingers. "Yu don slip daun, o Paipa don gon yu op seintaim?" [AN: "Where did you fall in the mud? Did you fall, or did Paipa fight back?"]
He doesn't answer, only clenches his jaw stubbornly and Myles twists the knife again. Jiou throws his head back, grunting through clenched teeth and Lincoln places a hand on a steadily spirally Myles' shoulder.
"Yu don biyo em yuwas," Lincoln interjects over the man's strained and muffles noises of pain. "Yu ste wan op idowe. Tel osir op." [AN: "You said it yourself. You're dead anyway. Tell us."]
Myles can't take it anymore. Can't take causing him pain and it not getting anywhere. It's not working; she's failed again. The image of a body much smaller than Acha's flashes through the redhead's mind, the faces of Paipa's distressed, pregnant parents echoing mercilessly. She's let them all down, again.
Hot panic and piercing hopelessness explode in Myles' chest, her heart heavy with remorse and self-loathing. Her lungs constrict, making it hard to breathe and her urgent heart jumps up to her throat. The red-haired Arker yanks her knife out of the man's thigh to stand, quickly striding out of the chieftain's tent. Jasper says something, but it sounds far away and muffled under Jiou's grunts as if they were water. The world smears and slurs together, Myles' body feeling overwhelmingly far away yet the pain is so vivid her stomach churns with nausea.
Flinging the tent flap out of the way, the dull grey light the stormy sky casts on the world is blinding. It blurs over the colours of the village, or maybe it's just Myles' stumbling steps veering dizzily off to the side? The feeling of her best friend's hands steadying her reaches her before his or Lincoln's worried words do, their voices dying unheard in the still air. A block of colour passes in front of her, and Myles reaches a shaking hand out to use it to balance herself.
Instead of keeping herself steady, the hyperventilating red-haired Arker falls onto the arm she reaches out, her side colliding with a log wall. Max's hurried and urgent barks float in through the hazy fog loudly, sounding as if he's doing it right by her ear. A second after the sound breaks through the static occupying her mind, the calico-coloured dog is in front of her, desperately trying to stand in her lap.
When did she get on the ground? Feeling his small, calloused paws standing on her legs, his soft, shaggy fur brushing against her chin and the wetness of his nose against her neck comes almost too quickly for her sensitive senses. It does the job, though, reminding her of her two friends' hands that had followed her out of the chieftain's tent. Lifting her trembling and heavy hands to wrap around Max and anchor herself, her dizzy hazel eyes sweep over to the two crouched down with her.
"You're okay," Jasper insists strongly, his voice soft with care and love for his best friend. Understanding those two words breaks the panicked spell that keeps all human sounds hidden. The static and fuzz in her mind isn't static or fuzz, it's her own erratic breaths sounding deafening to her own ears. "Tell me something true. Tell me something real."
"Breathe, Myles," Lincoln urges kindly when only panicked breaths escape her mouth, placing a hand on the back of her neck to keep her present with them.
"I don't – " Myles starts, her voice cracking breathlessly. "I can't – I – "
"Tell me something real," her best friend repeats, not understanding the distressed swirl in her mind isn't because she got trapped by old memories.
"I failed," the redhead whimpers out immediately, shaking her head and feeling Max's soft fur rubbing against her wet chin.
"You didn't fail," Lincoln asserts, his words heard over Max's loud whine as he shifts on his feet in Myles' lap, rubbing against the redhead.
"You offered him something better," Jasper insists. "You did the right thing, and he didn't take it. We tried everything else."
Thunder rumbles through the sky above them, and Myles sucks in a greedy breath to try to steady her breathing.
"We need to find the mud," the red-haired teen decides shakily, nodding to herself and rubbing her hands up Max's fur lovingly.
"Once it starts raining," Lincoln agrees, "we'll never find the tracks."
"Okay," Jasper breathes out, looking up at the sky and standing up after squeezing Myles' arm kindly. "I'll go tell Gresi and her musclemen."
Myles takes a hand off Max's side to rub at the wet tears that had slipped from her eyes. Jasper turns away, and the young calico-coloured dog pulls his head from under her chin at the movement. He lifts a paw with a high-pitched whine, tugging the redhead's hand away from her face before pressing the flat top part of his head into her cheek. Smiling and huffing a laugh, Myles pats down his head before scratching behind both of his ears.
"He's very well trained," Lincoln commends with a smile, reaching out and rubbing the dog's fur fondly.
"Nah," Myles brushes off, swiping her thumbs out to slide up and down the dog's cheeks. "He was a good dog before we found him." Pulling her head back to look Max in the eyes. "Weren't you, bud?"
Myles remains bent over, her hazel eyes scrutinising the dirt she walks over to the left of the rover slowly crawling between her and Lincoln. The horse tracks are bountiful, and there's no way they could discern which is from Jiou's horse, and which is from someone else's. What they're looking for is offshoots, places where only a few branched off to go somewhere that wasn't on this path. Jiou came back after he left with Paipa, and then he left again early this morning, so there'd be at least four sets of prints.
A deafening thunder clap lights up the sky with a flash of lightning, the clouds roar drawling out quietly before booming loudly again. It makes Max pause in his careless trotting beside the rover, his little head looking up at the sky. His ears twitch back and his wagging tail dips, halting before whipping back and forth happily again. Harsh and freezing winds blow through the trees, making the wood bend tauntingly. Myles can't help how her feet stutter when the wind knocks past her, her sore body weak and tired from the panic attack earlier.
Stress and exhaustion accentuates her senses, emphasising the pain from her bullet wound. Feeling irritable, Myles huffs dramatically and flings her arms up.
"This sucks," Myles mutters, looking up as another rumble echoes in the sky and little wet spits of rain start to gently fall on her pale skin. "It's about to start raining. This double sucks."
"The rain will wash away any tracks," Lincoln reminds them again, and Jasper stops the rover.
"Should we give up on the tracks?" Jasper inquires thoughtfully, "or is it fuck-this-shit-o'clock already?"
"Splitting up might buy us some more time," the red-haired teen suggests, looking around her.
"Splitting up sucks," her best friend complains. "You're triple sucking us needlessly."
"Yeah," Myles agrees distractedly, nodding to herself and not listening to the brown-haired Arker. "Give up on the tracks. Look for the two types of gravel."
"I'll take the north," Lincoln offers, already turning and walking away. "We'll meet back here in a few hours."
"Alright," Jasper huffs, moving the rover off the path. "I'll stick with west, but I'll have you know this plan quadruple sucks. We'll all get soaked."
"We've got 200-year-old whiskey at home," Myles tells her best friend as he slides out of the driver's door.
"That, my paranoid, red-haired best friend," the brown-haired Arker states dramatically, walking west with Max by his heels. "Is what I call; worth it."
"See you in a bit, JJ."
If Myles didn't know any better, she'd think it is hailing with the sharp, piercing force the rain belts down on her with. It's blinding; the hand she holds up against her red eyebrows to protect her eyes does nothing except provide a convenient ramp for freezing cold water to run down her face. An unending stream of thumping raindrops obstructs everything, making the world in front of Myles unrecognisable. She's shivering from the freezing cold rain she's drenched in and the strong wind that accompanies it, everything much too icy for the end of winter.
"Paipa!" Myles screams out through chattering teeth, using her left hand to steady herself on a tree as the brutal wind shoves her around in the slippery mud. Nothing but long bouts of thunder answer her, lightning snapping through the sky brightly. Even louder crashes of thunder follow shortly after the white flash, the loud volume only threatened by the merciless pellets of rain. "Paipa!"
Ice cold wind knocks her back, sending her slipping backwards a few steps before she steadies herself in the sloppy, wet dirt. Forcing herself forward feels like she's pushing against someone's arms, but it's only the invisible grip of the wind. Her stomach throbs, keeping the wound present in her mind as water bullets shoot down at Myles. Chattering teeth and blue tinted lips part again to scream the young girl's name, trying to yell over the thunder and deafening rain thumping down around her.
"Paipa!" The redhead bellows, continuing to step forward and look around her when her boot slips into a shallow dip in the uneven ground.
In a panic, Myles' right hand tears away from shielding her eyes to catch her fall as her left arm flails in the air to balance herself. Her fingers land in the same slippery muddied-dirt her boot slid in, the liquid gunk thick and cold on her pale fingers. The strong winds find her again, pushing her to her left and sending her left hand onto the wet ground to stop herself from falling on her ass. Gritting her teeth, Myles waits, knowing that if she tries to stand up now, she'll probably end up falling into the mud.
After a moment, the sharp wind starts to die off, and the red-haired Arker uses her hands in the wet mud to push herself up. Stepping forward with careful steps, Myles wipes her muddy hands on her soaking wet jeans and walks back out of the uneven patch of dirt. Bringing her hand up to protect her eyes again, her walking pace stutters as she looks around her to try to see through the curtain of pouring rain. It's not even three more steps forward when she slips again, and her panicked flailing doesn't catch her fall.
This hole is deeper, and Myles slides her side down the short side of it. Her wet shirt and soaked bandages stick to the mud, riding up and making her side sting as it grates across the ground. Hissing to herself and staying lying in the muddy dirt for a moment, the redhead can't help the endless loop her mind goes in. Screaming to herself in her head 'holy shit, that fucking hurt' while the throbbing in her stinging side and tender stitches intensifies.
"Fuck," Myles barks out, tilting her right hip off the mud to let the rain thump down on the scrape around to her back to clean it. "Oh."
The sight stops her. It's not a bad injury, certainly not the worst one she currently has, but it will bruise. No, what stops her is what washes away with the small dots of deep red blood the shade of her shoulder-length hair. Unnaturally dark dirt muddied with the rain is what she's slipped in and what coats up the back of her. If it were just the dirt, Myles would probably walk away from this area and continue to move on, but the dirt isn't alone.
In the mud is small, sharp dark grey, almost black shards of rocks. Exactly like what was in the single mud streaks up Jiou's back and front. Gently pushing herself up to sit up straight in the dirt with a pained cringe screwing up her wet face, Myles wipes her right hand on her soaked jeans. Holding her hand up to her eyes, her hazel eyes scan the surrounding mud, finding the very dark grey shards littered loosely around her.
Dirt dips and creates warped holes, small and incredibly large immediately around her, no seeable stretch of the earth level. It's all jagged and rough, dipping and swerving in a way Myles has only seen in a few places. The sight makes the realisation dawn on her suddenly; it isn't gravel. This must've been where some of the heaviest fallout of the bombs and missiles dropped, sending bits of roads flying.
It's not gravel, it's bitumen from a road. Which means the light grey bits of gravelly rock came from the same place. She's close. Stumbling to her feet with clenched teeth, the red-haired Arker whips her head around to look through the blinding rainfall. The dark grey rocks are scattered across the mud, but where Myles had just fallen moments before hadn't had any, so she keeps going forward.
After walking and sliding through the gritty mud a dozen metres, the Earth dips inwards as if a creek was there. Instead of a creek, there's only a tiny trickling of muddy water that the redhead is almost convinced is from the rain. Whatever had once flown through here has either long dried up or been redirected elsewhere. An itching feeling in her gut makes her stop, looking around the dirt in the near empty creek bed.
Flashing through her mind is pictures of roads from books on the Ark. Sometimes, if there was flowing water or an uneven path where they wanted to put a road, they'd have to level it. They made small bridges to protect the water from cars and constant travellers, leveling large stretches of terrain to build a road upon. The crumbling light grey rocky substance could've been gravel, or it could've been 200-year-old cement.
Deciding she's come this far, Myles turns to follow the dip of the empty creek-bed. Fighting the freezing wind and heavy rain makes the short walk seem like an eternity. Myles' boots slip and slide in the slowly filling creek-bed, the mud having already washed off her sopping wet clothes from the beating rain. The rainwater collecting in the small creek pit flows back towards the redhead, hard rainfall splashing up on its surface.
Myles sees why almost immediately after that fact registers in her mind. The dirt of the creek-bed has suddenly flattened to sit at an even height with the dark dirt around it. Puzzled hazel eyes flick up, her struggling pace stuttering in shock. What was once a dramatic crater in the earth made from a bomb's blast is now a subtle, wide hole. Its edges have softened in the two centuries since it was made, life walking through it aiding in nature's gradual overgrowing process.
Light grey concrete in a thick block has been blown up, scorched and shattered all around her, falling into the subtle crater. It spread both little and large chunks of the crumbling cement out on her side of the hole, tiny flecks of it sitting amongst the small bits of bitumen. Dread bubbles up in her, pumping rapidly through her chilly veins and warming her up.
Jiou didn't fall off his horse or slip when fighting the child; he was in the massive pit of rumble. Jasper was wrong, there is no hope for the girl. Paipa is dead, and Myles is about to find her small body. Stopping at the edge of the large crater, Myles drops her right hand from her eyebrows. Her eyes stare over the broken concrete, dreading and begging for a hint of where the child's body lay hidden. With her chest heaving dejectedly, the redhead lifts the edge of her drenched shirt to press the transmit button on her walkie-talkie.
"I think I've found where he took her," Myles calls through the radio, raising her voice to compete with the raging thunder and the pouring rain's volume. "An hour and a half walk southwest of the rover." Static cracks in her earpiece, the rain on both ends rendering whoever's voice just came through unintelligible. Red eyebrows furrow and Myles pulls the walkie from her belt when the radio transmission of a voice is drowned out by loud rain and thunder. "I can't hear you. Come again?"
"Shit," the red-haired Arker curses to herself when the earpiece clicks and tries to deafen her with the sound of the storm from one of her friends. Their voice is still undistinguishable, so Myles uses their own version of Morse code to tell Jasper, silently hoping he'll go get Lincoln. "H," Myles mutters to herself, pressing the transmit button in two dashes. "E," one dash, "R," dash, dot, dash, "E."
Slowly slipping down the sloppy crater, her earpiece crackles with Jasper's response.
"F," the red-haired Arker mumbles after hearing two dashes, a dot and then another dash, catching herself from falling when another gust of wind barrels into her. "A," dash, dot, "R," dash, dot, dash. 'Far'. Stopping and looking back to see how far off she veered, Myles thinks hard before she replies with 'HR' for 'hour'. "H… R…" Turning back to look at the mound of concrete rubble and exhaling heavily, Myles adds on 'hole' so they know what to look for. "H… O," pressing three dots, "L," then a dash, dot, and two dashes, "E."
The reply is almost instantaneous, the two letters 'RD' to signify he's understood and is on his way. Breathing in deeply despite her sore stomach and back, Myles keeps descending the crater until the concrete chunks prove to be an obstacle. It's like it was all stacked on top of one another, and the whole pile was knocked over to the side Myles is approaching from. The debris had been thrown away from the centre where the explosion started, its forceful wave blowing it over to one side.
Unable to get any closer on this side for fear of tripping or being pushed by the wind into the chunks of concrete, Myles walks around it. One end of the small, broken bridge is flat and protrudes from the side of the crater as if it could still be functional. Stepping up onto the flat concrete that's on a bit of an angle, the destroyed bridge holds her weight easily, allowing her to walk on it without it wobbling.
Carefully walking to the edge that crumples in on itself, Myles peers over with her arms held out to try to counteract the harsh wind. Panicked, blurry eyes search through the heavy rainfall for any signs of the concrete being shifted, any signs that someone was here to bury a body. Anything that would've been here is already washed away, all traces of foul play being long gone. Getting to the edge, Myles sits on the concrete before stepping off onto the ground, even though the bridge isn't too much higher than the dirt.
Sighing heavily in frustration, tired and dejected hazel eyes flick around the concrete. Nothing jumps out at her as pertinent, there's no clue, no tracks – nothing. Moving to turn around, the red-haired Arker stills. At the flat end she had walked on to get to the other side of the small concrete mound, there's a small gap. It's thin, but it's enough that Jiou would've been able to slide in and out.
Nausea swirls in Myles' stomach, queasy with the thought that she had walked over the exact spot where the six-year-old's body had been left. Hesitantly moving towards it, the redhead crouches down to peer in. It's dark, and when Myles pulls her flashlight and clicks it on, the first thing she sees is the streak of gritty mud on the top of the concrete ceiling. Jiou didn't get the mud streaks from falling; he got them from crawling.
"Ah," Myles grunts to herself, putting the flashlight in her mouth and gingerly lying on her stomach in the mud puddles under her boots. "Fuck me."
The fresh scrape up her side and around her back stings harshly at the thundering rain pounding down on her, but Myles persists. Using her legs and her forearms, Myles edges her thin, wounded, and tired body through the small gap. It's a bit quieter once her head is under the cover of the concrete bridge, the sound dull and muffled instead of deafening. She can hear her own rough breath huffing past the flashlight in her mouth, intensified by the sharp bursts of pain crawling plagues her with.
A dark feeling chokes her lungs for a moment in the dark undercover area, the light the gap would spill inside of it being blocked with her skinny frame. The flashlight beam on the collapsed chunks of concrete to her left is the only thing keeping her mind present. It's the only thing stopping her from spiralling. Phantom pain haunts her body and the small, dark enclosed space threatens to send her into a fit of panicked madness.
It's too reminiscent of the aftermath of the battle at the dropship four months ago, the day the Mountain Men grabbed her. She'd gotten pinned under one of the tunnels with a support beam through her abdomen and had to claw her way out, covered in her own thick blood. The memory of that day and everything that happened in Mount Weather after it keeps her on alert as she crawls her way through the mud and slosh inside.
Shifting to her right makes her still halfway inside of the gap. Several things rush through her paranoid mind, halting her ears from being able to discern what kind of sound it was. It could be the concrete shifting in the wind, 200 years of people and storms weakening it just enough for it to collapse on her today. It could be wild animals, their scavenging noses bringing them to the scent of fresh death, and they view the redhead as a threat to their meal. It could be the murderer, whether it's Jiou after somehow escaping his fate in Inera or someone else that they didn't even consider. They could be sitting in here, having come to move the body once the Arker's and Lincoln started sticking their noses in, but the storm thwarted them.
Myles' pulse thunders with a strength and a loudness that the thunder raging on outside would be weary of, dread keeping her body heavy and frozen. Haltingly lifting her left forearm from the thick, wet mud she lays in, Myles goes as slowly as possible to keep any wild animals from attacking. Her body remains tense, seized by an imminent threat she's yet to identify but prepared and ready to fight it off. Inch by inch, her muddy left hand takes the flashlight from her mouth and slowly turns it to her right.
A concrete column that has the middle of it broken down greets her, two small bare feet sticking out just in her sight. Light hope flutters through Myles' chest, her whole body relaxing at the sight.
"Paipa?" Myles asks, already knowing the answer and shuffling forward some more to be completely inside.
"Sha?" The little, wobbly voice of the terrified young girl replies. [AN: "Yes?"]
There are no wild animals, no murderer, no dead body. Scuffed boot prints and small footprints mark up the strip of dry dirt where the rain can't reach. It's cramped, neither Myles nor the 6-year-old can stand up inside of here. Paipa is just short enough to sit without having to duck her head down, but she's alive.
"Hei," the redhead breathes out happily, quickly dragging her legs in and crawling on her hands and knees to the gap in the wall. Making sure she isn't pointing the flashlight into the young girl's face, Myles smiles in relief at the sight of a barely hurt but terrified blonde girl. Her little hands are tied to one of several thick, rusted metal rods secured deep in a block of concrete. "Ai laik Agi. Ai don kom op gon lid yu in hou." [AN: "Hi. My name is Aggie. I've come to bring you home."]
Paipa pants harshly and rapidly at the words, tears filling her blue eyes.
"Hou?" Paipa echoes, her voice breaking with Myles' heart. [AN: "Home?"]
The little girl repeats the word with far too much pain a child should ever have to feel. It's like she genuinely believed she'd never see the outside of this concrete hellhole. Myles tries with all her might not to let the comforting smile on her delicate features falter or the heartbroken tears in her hazel eyes fall.
"Sha," Myles promises sweetly, scooting inside more so she can reach the girl's binds. "Ai na teik in ban dison we, nami?" [AN: "Yep. Can I take this off?"]
"Mm-hm," Paipa nods, sniffing her tears back sharply with her harsh breaths.
"Kei," the red-haired teen mutters, putting the flashlight back into her mouth to untie the poor girl. The restraints are tight and it has rubbed her little wrists raw, the young child shivering in her sleep gown. Myles continues lightly when they fall away, letting the little girl's arms go free. "En der em laik." [AN: "Okay. There we go."]
Immediately, the child surges forward, tightly wrapping her little arms around the redhead's mud-slathered and rain-soaked waist. Despite how wet and muddy she is, Myles quickly wraps her arms around her too, holding her tightly so she knows she's safe. Pulling the flashlight from her mouth, the redhead whispers soothing words to Paipa.
"Soukei," Myles murmurs softly, holding the child close and holding the back of her head as she cries. "Soukei. Yu ste klir nau." Rocking them both back and forth, Myles reaches a hand for her walkie-talkie. "Yu ste klir." Paipa's small hands clutch the back of the redhead's drenched shirt, her little fists holding on with all her might as she sobs. "Soukei." [AN: "It's alright. It's alright. You're safe now. You're safe. It's alright."]
With the hand holding her walkie-talkie, Myles clicks out five letters in the three best friends' code. A.L.I.V.E.
Dull pokes bounce on Myles' forehead as she distractedly taps the wrapped, blunt end of her makeshift charcoal pencil against her skin. Hazel eyes scour the parchment in front of her, flickering candlelight dancing over the scribbled letters and lines. It reminds them they're using candlelight to save power since there wasn't much sun today to recharge their batteries. On the large square table they built for maps is a map of all the Dead Zone and surrounding villages. Each village that sits close to the border has a star marked next to them.
On top of it are three open hand-stitched notebooks, describing what they've done thus far. They have gotten some info on Emori's movements but very little on Jaha and Otan's in the last two days. Since Pike's death, they've been tugged from place to place with everyone else's needs, one thing after another taking up their time. After the day they've had today, they're lucky they still have time to spare after showering and cleaning up to look over all this. Myles made a promise, and no matter how exhausted she is, she plans to keep it.
They know little of Emori's movements, every new piece of info reaching the group long after the teen has fled. They've had a few sightings of Jaha and Otan, but their movements are much more eractic and vague. Jasper and Myles are working with the idea that Emori, Murphy's girlfriend, would have crossed the Dead Zone to get to A.L.I.E.'s mansion almost immediately after Murphy was taken to Polis. A.L.I.E., if Murphy's right and Jaha took something the A.I. can communicate with him through, should've coordinated a meetup point for Emori, her brother and Jaha. Strangely, their paths couldn't have strayed further from each other.
Which means, frustratingly, they can't track down Jaha and Otan, because A.L.I.E. isn't leading Emori to them. The group didn't cross the Dead Zone to try to catch up with the thieving teenager due to the fact that she had almost a week's head-start. Having been pulled away to Polis, Arkadia and the different clans has greatly diminished the group's abilities, leaving them to organise sightings to try to pinpoint where to even start looking. Their inability to find Jaha, someone who couldn't be more out of place if he tried, does not bode well for them.
Tracking down Jaha had been an easy idea when they thought of it. A Sky Person with no understanding of Trigedasleng trying to convert the villages to his death cult? He'd stick out like a sore thumb, even with Emori's brother, Otan, translating everything. They've already been to all the villages surrounding the Dead Zone, letting them know there's a high bounty if they bring the three of them to Wanheda alive and unharmed.
Now, it's just a waiting game, trying to put themselves into the mind of an A.I. to figure out their next move.
"We should check on Arlis and Emau tomorrow," the redhead mutters, making Jasper look up from carelessly tossing a ball up in the air and catching it.
"Because they're on the border to Azgeda?" Lincoln queries, leaning over to glare at the map like it'll give him the answers if he stares at it harshly enough.
"They had a rough winter," Jasper supplies, leaning back and rocking on the chairs back legs. "Vulnerability is a cult's favourite cake flavour."
"You know what makes me sad?" Myles asks out of the blue, tearing her distracted eyes away from the map to look between her two friends. "The only people in Arkadia who have ever had cake were the ones tortured by Mount Hell."
"That is sad," Lincoln agrees slowly, like he isn't sure where this is going or what pertinence it has.
"Tragic, really," the brown-haired Arker voices, throwing the ball up and catching it.
"Lilo," the redhead calls, gesturing with her hand at the man standing beside her vaguely. "What's your favourite kind of cake?"
"Berry," he answers easily, without having to think about it.
Jasper, abhorred, lets his chair fall forward on all four legs, stopping his motions with the ball.
"Oh," Jasper states jokingly. "You're one of those psychos."
"Fruit cakes are good," Myles defends in confusion. Jasper raises his eyebrows, a dopey smirk on his face that tells his best friend he's thought of something sassy to say. "Don't," the red-haired teen warns when he opens his mouth, "say it."
"Don't say it," he repeats sarcastically, "or don't… say it?"
"Dude," Myles marvels playfully, "I must've been in a whole lot of mud if it got in your ears, too."
Lincoln huffs in amusement, "you were covered in mud."
"You looked like the abominable mud-man," Jasper laughs easily, leaning back to rock on the back legs of his chair.
"Moka-Heda," the redhead giggles, "I'll be surprised if I don't find mud washing off me in the shower tomorrow."
The word tomorrow reminds Jasper of something, and he turns his head to look out the glassless window, nodding towards the shortwave radio in the room's corner.
"It's getting late," the brown-haired teen sighs out, letting his chair fall forward again. "We should check in with Clarke and Lexa before they get too distracted."
At the names, Myles stands, but instead of heading towards the radio set-up, she walks out the door. Max follows by her heels, bumping his head up for pats that the redhead gives him as she strides across their house. The sound of Jasper's chair scraping against the floor floats through their home sharply.
"You can't avoid them forever," Jasper calls out to her knowingly, a sad lilt in his tone.
"I'm not," Myles replies simply, taking the short, winding stairs two at a time.
"Aggie," her best friend tries to reason, his voice coming from the main room instead of the map room now. Myles bends down to grab her boots and leans over to snatch her jacket off the back of the chair in her room, quickly descending the stairs with them both in her hands. Jasper's eyes are sad and knowing as they watch one of his best friends, a warped and haunted understanding in them. "They don't blame you for what happened to the Nightbloods."
"I know," the redhead shrugs stiffly, yanking on a boot when she stops under the hook on the wall that holds the rover keys.
"You're still avoiding them," Lincoln informs her, his tone kind as Myles yanks on the other boot before bending down to tie them up.
"No," the red-haired teen drawls out, fussing Max lovingly before standing up straight again, grabbing the keys and stalking over to the back door. "I'm not. I'm just conveniently not home."
"We're trying to have a serious conversation," her best friend announces, trying to block her path to the door.
"And I'm trying to politely avoid it," Myles shoots back, swerving around Jasper to leave.
"Where are you even going?" Jasper enquires, following her to the back door.
"Out," Myles supplies vaguely, "I'll be back in a few hours." Stepping off the back patio and onto the drop pulley, the redhead turns and says to her friends. "If Finn radios, I'll go pick him up."
And with that, Myles drops down out of their treehouse and onto the ground. Letting the pulley reel the platform back up to the treetops, the redhead turns and makes her way over to where they parked the rover in the bushes. Tugging off the stick and leaf blanket, Myles opens the door as she bundles up the noisy and scratchy sheet. Tossing it over the driver's seat and into the back, Myles dumps her jacket on the passenger seat. Slipping into the rover, the redhead doesn't wait to shut her door before she shoves the key in the ignition and starts the rover.
She makes it ten minutes away before she slowly comes to a stop. Heaving a deep sigh, Myles locks her hazel eyes on the empty passenger seat. When she moves the rover again, she flicks the wheel and turns to head in the opposite direction.
Words cannot possibly describe how much Myles hates this place. Hazel eyes have seen too much to ever justify seeing these walls again, and yet, here she is. Leaning her back against the cool metal, she waits, like she's spent the last hour doing. She's tried at least three different times to leave, but once she walked through that door, she just couldn't walk back out of it.
So, she stays. Counting seconds, like she used to do. Waiting for a bomb that would only shake her world to detonate. Except… this doesn't scare her the same way. It ignites her blood, but not because she's afraid of him walking towards her, because she's afraid he'll walk away. Her mind continues her endless string of nervous loops until the door opens.
Bellamy Blake walks into his compartment, and Myles pushes herself off of the wall when he shuts the door behind himself. It isn't until that movement that his head snaps towards her, and his whole body stills. His hands stay frozen on the zipper of his guard's uniform, as if they're both waiting for the other to say something.
Slowly, his hands fall down to his sides and he turns his body towards her. It's in his deep brown eyes; surprise, pain, remorse. A deadly triple-threat that would break even the strongest of wills and toughest of minds. Still, though, the underlying current of that look, the one he only looks at her with that screams adoration and love, is there.
"I… uh," Bellamy starts, looking away and clearing his throat quickly before continuing in a gruffer tone. "I didn't think you'd come back."
"I wanted to make sure you and O were okay," Myles answers the unasked question, and his demeanour instantly shifts to something sour.
"Let me guess," the Blake brother snarks sarcastically, hardening himself and glaring at the wall to her right. "You came here to fix things." Myles doesn't take her eyes off him, a sick part of her knowing this was always how it'd end up. "Wanheda, the peacemaker."
"Maybe I can help," the redhead offers after she swallows thickly, expecting the worst.
"Well, I don't need your help," Bellamy retorts, and hazel eyes finally break away.
It's in this very moment that Myles understands. She understands why her mum didn't leave, didn't take her baby and run for their lives. Why she didn't do all she could to keep them safe on the finite space on the Ark. Myles also understands something about herself, too. Why she would return to the compartment she shared with her father after her mother had committed suicide.
Even after all they've done, together and apart, even after every spiteful, horrible thing that's been said; Myles can't help going back to Bellamy Blake. His love and attention is so pure and intoxicating that she'd always keep coming back, even after it's been long gone. She expects it, anyway, doesn't she? Besides Marcus Kane, this is all Myles knows love to be. It took her years to understand something was wrong, that not every kid she saw grew up seeing their mother beaten regularly. That the first thing they can remember comprehending wasn't their mother on her knees pleading to just put the baby back in the crib, she'd do anything if he just put the baby down.
When Myles lost her mother at four, she finally started to understand that this was wrong, but not that wrong. She still thought everyone had to deal with being abused, her father just took it to an absurd extreme. Myles had spent until they put her in solitary believing that every man hit his wife and kids, mistreating and betraying them in the most vile of ways. Hell, even now she still expects it in love, in relationships, because it's all her father raised her to expect.
As if feeling her eyes leave him, his deep brown eyes look at her. Myles doesn't hesitate to meet his gaze, and she can see it. Every wall Bellamy Blake has spent the last three months painstakingly erecting falls when his eyes lock on her hazel, and she can only watch. Tears glisten in his eyes, his lips parted as his tongue absentmindedly grazes his bottom lip. His expression is one of grief and remorse, the two demons dancing together on his sharp features.
"Aggie," Bellamy's voice has lost its harsh gruffness, now it dips with emotion. "I've lost her."
Myles doesn't know how to fix this, but she knows she'd do anything to ease his pain.
"Give her time, Bellamy," Myles advises softly, her expression kind and her red eyebrows raised in a worried frown.
"All she sees is the blood on my hands," the Blake brother refutes, shaking his head in distress and shrugging helplessly.
"It may be there," she promises sincerely, "but Lincoln and the grounders in sick bay know it was never going to be theirs."
"Some of them do," Bellamy murmurs morosely, "there's only two there." Hazel eyes leave his for a split second, her mind racing as she tries to find the right words. "The rest left."
"Okay," the red-haired teen relents slowly, "maybe they don't, but you didn't want anyone to get hurt." Disbelief flashes through his teary deep brown eyes, so Myles presses on. "You tried to stop it."
"Yeah, well," he mutters, looking to her right quickly before locking his sad gaze on hers again. "It's not enough."
"Jasper and I," Myles starts, knowing Bellamy well enough to know she needs to give something of herself for him to accept she's sincere. "Have spent the last three months working hand-in-hand with the grounders." A look of guilt crashes through his expression, but Myles continues. "Brought them supplies. The peacekeeping army were people we knew. People we had dinner with. Who took their kids to meet us so they could thank us for giving them warm clothes for winter. People who volunteered because we asked them to."
Myles is getting choked up, and the Blake brother takes a step towards her like he's itching to hug her but he stops himself.
"People whose families we had to break the news to," the redhead continues. "After standing in a field surrounded by their massacred bodies and having to convince Lexa not to wipe everyone here out." Bellamy looks like he's going to be sick, his deep brown eyes torn from Myles as if he's scared to see his own reflection in them. "And I forgive you for the hand you had in that."
The Blake brother's shocked eyes snap back to hers, tears spilling down his cheeks. His hand quickly swipes at them, but the look on his face says it all. Bellamy Blake has been waiting since that day for someone, anyone, to tell him they forgive him.
"What do you do," Bellamy's shaky voice begs, "when you realise you might not be the good guy?"
"Maybe there are no good guys," Myles whispers, softening her tone when she continues to assure him. "Octavia will forgive you eventually. The question is; will you be able to forgive yourself?"
"Forgiveness is hard for us," Bellamy divulges, his tone weak as another tear slides free only for him to swipe it away. Myles nods knowingly, understanding exactly what he means. There's more he needs to say, the redhead can see the words sitting on his tongue as he works up the courage to say them out loud. "I was so angry at you for leaving." The red-haired teen tilts her head the side, a heartfelt apology written all over her delicate features. "I don't wanna feel that way anymore."
It's Myles' turn for guilt to wash over her. Knowing that it caused turmoil for him makes her insides churn, but a tiny, thankful smile sweetens her sorry expression.
"Maybe my, uh…" the redhead tears her eyes away to look down at her fiddling hands before returning them to his gaze. "My preaching is a bit hypocritical. You're not the only one trying to forgive yourself."
"I hate this," Bellamy's voice breaks, his heartbroken and distraught expression deepening. "I wish I pulled that lever alone. I hate seeing you hate yourself for saving us."
Myles wants to deny every bit of what he just said. She wants to scream that she's glad he didn't have to do that alone, and wishes he didn't have to do it at all. But looking into those deep brown eyes… she just can't. She can't bring herself to look away, either.
"Who we are," Myles repeats his words from so long ago softly, "and who we need to be to survive are very different things, Bellamy Blake."
Something inside of him snaps, and the Blake brother surges forward. One of his hands cups the side of her face as he crashes their lips together greedily. His other hand is on the back of her neck, holding her to him while he pushes her back a step to press their bodies against the wall. It's a primal instinct how their lips move together and her body arches off the wall to press against his, something that feels necessary for survival. Myles' hands find themselves in his hair, tugging and pulling gently on his soft dark brown curls.
Bellamy Blake is intoxicating. His musky scent of pine and sweat is all she can smell, his soft curls and sharp features all she can feel, his full lips and warm tongue all she can focus on. Their tongues dance together as if pulling apart for even a second would kill them, their lips desperate and drunk on the other's. An endless sea of one another, no point of separation between them as thundering hearts and soft breaths flutter over their skin. Bellamy's hands slip down her neck, his touch lovingly grazing her skin and taunting her sensitive senses. They move to pull her against him by her skinny waist as he pushes her back against the cool metal wall, tightly trapping her with his all of his weight.
His hands stay there for only a fleeting moment before ducking down at the same time as his head. Parted lips only stray for a split second as Bellamy's hands slip behind her thighs to hoist her up, and Myles' head tries to chase his down. Her ankles immediately hook together behind his back, her arms shift to lock her elbows around his neck to keep him close to her. Myles can't help falling into it and tilting her head to deepen the lustful and greedy kiss even more.
Everything but the feel of his body pressed tightly against hers no longer exists, having disappeared the second they touched. The red-haired teen can't help herself from falling, can't stop herself from wondering how in the universe did she ever survive without this?
It's that thought that makes her stop. Not because of the answer, but because there is an answer, and she can't remember it with Bellamy Blake kissing her like this, holding her to him like this. Pulling her head away, red eyebrows twitch towards each other for a second as she tries to think of something other than what's happening. Bellamy tilts his head slightly, leaning forward to kiss her again, but Myles turns her head just enough that he stops. Somehow, it's too much distance for Myles, and she leans her forehead against his, their panting breaths fanning across the other's face.
Their noses brush together softly, hazel eyes blinking open to find his deep brown still closed. And just like that, she forgets again. Myles forgets what made her stop, her focus going to the soft, freckled tanned olive skin of his face. Flicking her eyes around his face to memorise it, her gaze stops on his full lips. The feeling of their needy and relaxed bodies still held flush against each other becomes normal, her new desire to just touch his face.
Slipping one elbow from its place hooked around Bellamy's neck to slide down his front, Myles' hand gently cradles his cheek. Bellamy's whole body leans into the touch, as if it was the best feeling in the world. His head tilts into her palm, rubbing his nose against hers as their foreheads stay pressed together. She glides her thumb out to brush against his bottom lip, feeling his breath slip from his parted lips onto her finger instead of just her face. It's so soft and warm and perfect that Myles can't help the small moan that exhales with her breath.
Deep brown lust-filled eyes open at the tiny sound, making her hazel eyes immediately flick back up to lock on his. Myles' eyes switch between his, something he copies. She does it to see that look in his eyes, terrified of missing a speck of it. Her heart swells at the idea that maybe he's doing it for that reason, too. And it hits her suddenly why she stopped.
"I love when you say my name," Bellamy breathes out breathlessly, Myles' thumb moving with his lips.
All there is in his beautiful, deep brown eyes is love and adoration, swirling together with the greedy need of passionate desperation. And that's it; that's where it starts, and that's where it ends. It's as if only everything from before Mount Weather travels in his gaze, everything from after might as well not have happened at all.
But it did. It happened, and she's broken because of it. She's even more damaged than she was before, she's become the new name and face of genocide. She's an anomaly that sucks in everything good and spits them out tainted.
"I, uh…" Myles starts hoarsely, swallowing through the lump that's formed in her throat. "I have to go."
Bellamy tilts his head with his forehead still pressed against hers, sadness dripping into his eyes again.
His hands twitch, his grip on her thighs tightening gently.
"Stay," the Blake brother implores softly, his voice so rough and quiet it shakes.
Myles wants to, but she just doesn't know if she can. She doesn't want to say 'yes' because she knows she doesn't mean it and can't uphold that simple promise, but she just can't force herself to say those two letters. So, she says something much longer.
"I'll come back," the redhead promises, nodding and switching her hazel eyes between his deep brown to convey that this is the best she can do. Bellamy relents slowly, his grip slipping to carefully place her feet back on the floor. There's an immediate sense of regret that fills Myles, the space between them too much, so she slips her arm back around his neck to hug him to her. She's reaching up on her toes, and when Bellamy wraps his arms tightly around her waist, he eases some of her weight off of her feet for her. His head buries in her neck, nestling himself in her shoulder-length blood red hair. "I promise."
They stay like that for a few moments, hugging each other tightly as if their lives depended on it. Neither say another word, not even when their grips start to loosen and their arms fall away from each other. Hazel eyes are soft when they look back into Bellamy's deep brown, and something heavy is in them, like he desperately needs to say something. He doesn't, though, only sliding a hand up to her cheek and cupping it gently, rubbing his thumb back and forth over her soft skin.
This time when he leans in, it's slow and deliberate, as if he's in control of his actions and not fuelled by some innate need. Myles feels helpless to stop him, frozen by his adoring deep brown eyes. She doesn't know if she wants to stop him, either, she just knows she can't risk hurting him again. When his lips meet hers it's as slow as his descent, both pairs of soft lips moving sweetly and gracefully.
Myles recognises it for what it is, the two lovers having shared far too many of them. This one is different, however, one that leaves the ending hopefully light instead of plagued with doom. Like his ears heard and his eyes saw that she was unsure, so now his lips beg and plead. It's a goodbye kiss, except it's unlike all of the ones they've shared before. It doesn't say 'goodbye' or 'I hope I see you soon'. Instead, three simple words said three different ways, all in this one kiss.
'Goodbye for now', 'see you soon', 'I love you'.
"You better," Bellamy whispers against her lips. "I miss hearing you talk."
Rule Number 13: Never get personally involved