A/N:Happy new year, readers! Hope this update is a good start to your 2017! Let me know what you think and thank you to everyone that has been reading and commenting thus far.
Walking behind the thief girl was almost as awkward as standing in front of her. Besides the fact that Clarke couldn't see the girl's face, the experiences were quite similar. Clarke could still see her hands clench in anger every few seconds- hell, she could practically see the smoke rising from the brunette's ears. The swift stride they walked with only added to the tension in the air; each step serving as a reminder of the bombs that were probably hurdling towards Earth by now. It was obvious that Clarke was not going to be welcomed warmly into the hidden shelter (wherever it was), which made the position she was in even more perplexing. The girl was helping Clarke, but seemed as if she hated the fact that she had agreed to it.
Unfortunately, Clarke wasn't sure if she cared. After all, she was gaining shelter, even if that meant the shelter would be shared with a particularly strange brunette.
I guess you will be getting that food back. Clarke let a tiny smile curve through her lips until the girl started to slow down. Clarke took in her current surroundings, sure that she had passed through the same place when she was lost.
"Where's your place?" Clarke finally broke the silence, not seeing a house of any sort in sight.
"Who said I had one?" The brunette spoke, stopping her pace completely. Something told Clarke those were purely empty words. Their earlier conversation had confirmed that. Clarke rolled her eyes at the snarky question, staring at the underbrush below her to avoid the girl's glances.
Surprisingly, the girl didn't continue to walk. Instead, she used her heavy shoes to brush away a non-suspicious pile of leaves while simultaneously reaching into her pocket and revealing a set of two keys. Clarke watched, puzzled by the unorthodox actions. The confusion lingered until streaks of metal began to peak through the leaves being brushed away.
Oh.
The reason Clarke hadn't been able to find the shelter on the previous day suddenly became clear. The shelter wasn't in plain sight.
The metal door in the dirt was sealed with a lock that Clarke assumed was unlocked by one of the two keys. The girl squatted down and fumbled with the keys, making Clarke wonder if she was purposely unlocking it at a sluggish pace. The blaring alarms may have faded from Clarke's hearing but the noises still played dauntingly in her head, reminding her of the certain doom that could come any minute- any second.
The lock clicked open and the girl continued to mess with a few various handles and knobs on the metal. Clarke craned her neck to see a glass section of the door- was it even a door?
Either way, the metal separated from the dirt, revealing a dark room below it. The brunette held it open and turned to look at Clarke, who was suddenly sporting a look of suspicion. After all, the girl who had just recently robbed her at gunpoint was ushering her into a dark hole in the ground. Clarke supposed she had the right to be skeptical.
The girl rolled her eyes at Clarke's expression and descended what must've been a ladder, first, to prove that it was not some sort of trap. Clarke stepped forward and peered into the seemingly endless hole and squatted down to grab the ladder (it was, in fact a ladder, as she had thought).
She counted the steps as she climbed down, getting to twelve before she saw light fill the room. Four more and she was on standing on solid ground, staring at what seemed to be cement walls. She spun around and all but gasped at the room in front of her.
It was massive- well, massive compared to what she had always expected an underground shelter to look like. There were shelves on each wall, containing foods and supplies (some of which Clarke recognized to be hers) and under the shelves were various other items, such as barrels, boxes, mats, and blankets that Clarke was sure had some purpose. In one corner was a bed-like structure surrounded with papers, pencils, and weird homemade contraptions that Clarke stored away as questions for later.
Her eyes finally landed back on the other girl in the room and she forced herself to hide the doe-eyed impression she was giving off. The girl had taken to climbing back up the ladder and pulling the hatch shut. The lock that had previously been on the outside of the door was now in her hand and looping onto the inside of the door. It clicked shut and she dropped back to the floor before turning to address Clarke.
"I'll need that bag back," she stated calmly. Clarke raised her eyebrows and blinked a few times, as to question the girl's words.
"What for?"
The girl answered the question by simply turning her head to look at a familiar crossbow leaning against a wall. Clarke followed her gaze, and upon seeing what the girl had been looking at, handed the bag over without more than an irritated scowl. The girl smirked at the reaction she evoked from Clarke and grabbed the backpack (for the second time in under two days), turning to face the shelves of food and water.
One by one, she pulled the cans and bags off the shelves and piled them into Clarke's backpack, leaving Clarke to wonder what was happening. After the bag reached its capacity, the brunette pulled out her set of keys and unlocked a cabinet on the wall, pushing the sack of food inside, and going back for the rest if the food. She didn't stop until the shelves were empty and the cabinet was returned to its formerly locked state.
Again, Clarke gaped at the girl, perplexed as to why she had just secured all the food into the cupboard. She felt incredibly awkward standing in the center of the room, but also felt too unwelcome to sit down anywhere.
"So," Clarke broke the tense silence surrounding them. "I don't get to eat?" She asked slowly, hoping not to anger the girl. She spun to face Clarke again and crossed her arms loosely over her chest.
"You will, but based on my observations of your eating habits, I'd say it's best if I keep the food stored away." She explained dryly. Clarke's mind flashed back to sitting in the forest and gorging herself on sweets and her face immediately flushed red. Thankfully, the brunette turned away before the redness deepened too much. The girl's hands interlocked behind her back as she stared at the corner of the room with the bed.
"You'll be sleeping on the ground. I can offer you blankets as a mattress and I suppose I could spare a pillow to you, but other than that," Her voice trailed off. Clarke felt her eyes narrow in further irritation, but forced herself to be grateful. The girl took to opening a different, unlocked cabinet and pulling out a few blankets. She unfolded them along the wall opposite of her own bed, spreading them on the ground. She grabbed one of the three pillows in the room and threw it on top of the blankets before returning to her own bed. Clarke stepped forward, taking the gesture as an invite to make herself comfortable.
She took a seat on the blankets and did another visual sweep of the room in front of her. She stared a moment longer at the food cabinet than she did at anything else, sending an aftershock of embarrassment through her cheeks. Despite this, Clarke couldn't help but feel lighter, as if finally having a place to stay had lifted all the weight of worries off her shoulders. She stared down at her crossed legs, letting a sad smile come to her lips. The world may be ending, but at least she had a good chance of sticking around.
Remembering the sole reason she was safe, she glanced at the brunette sitting on the bed and sighed silently.
"Thank you," she said, making sure it was loud enough for the other girl to hear. She definitely heard and sent Clarke a look that said 'I find your gratitude annoying.'
"I'm going to bed." The girl muttered back, flipping a switch on the wall to turn the lights off. Clarke sighed again, much louder this time, and pulled her shoes and jacket off, getting under one of the blankets to keep warm. She heard the other girl shuffle in bed for a few minutes before she fell silent.
The floor Clarke was laying on still seeped coldness despite the layer of blanket beneath her, sending chills up her arms and legs. She readjusted herself countless times before her body generated enough heat under the blanket to quell her shivering. When warmth finally made its appearance, Clarke felt her eyes fall exceptionally heavy, reminding her of the great amount of activity that had consumed her day. Her legs ached slightly from the excessive bike riding, adding to her overall exhaustion. Eventually she let her eyes close; she fell asleep instantly.
Clarke was awoken by the sound of mechanical buzzing. She sat up in confusion, rubbing her eyes to adjust to the morning light. The room was surprisingly bright for the lights still being off and when her eyes focused, she found the light to be coming from the window in the door. Her eyes fell upon bizarrely unfamiliar brown hair. For a moment, she thought the girl in front of her was someone she had never met until the figure reached down to grab what had made the loud noise and exposed her face to Clarke.
It was, in fact, the same girl, but something was different. Clarke's newly awake mind had a hard time analyzing the difference until she reverted her gaze to the hair, setting off a metaphoric lightbulb. The girl's hair was not in tight braids any longer. Instead it hung freely in thick, wavy curls that fell perfectly around her cheekbones and jaw- not that Clarke pondered on this perfection; she just had an eye for nice facial features, because she was an artist, and artists noticed those kind of things.
The noise was made from one of the homemade contraptions beside the other girl's bed, Clarke had managed to decipher after a few moments of being awake. The girl shot a worried glance towards Clarke, but hurriedly turned away when she saw the blonde was, now, awake.
Clarke unwrapped herself from her blanket and reached for her jacket, hissing in pain when her back immediately disagreed. She guessed sleeping on hard ground for two days was the main cause of the discomfort.
Clarke zipped herself into the coat, hoping to hold some of her heat inside it. She could hear another loud buzz of white noise from another part of the room, breaking her from her thoughts and making her jump.
"What is that?" Clarke croaked, rolling her shoulders to try and break the knots forming in them.
"Nothing," the brunette responded, not exactly answering Clarke's question.
Clarke glimpsed at the window again, realizing the world above them still seemed in good shape. She didn't remember waking up to the sound of fiery explosions as she had expected to.
"The bombs?"
"Haven't hit, yet."
Clarke took to standing up and craning her neck to get a better look at the contraption in the girl's lap. It looked like some sort of radio, but Clarke couldn't be sure.
Before she had a chance to ponder on the machine any further, her stomach let out an obnoxious growl, reminding her that she hadn't eaten anything since the previous afternoon. Thankfully, the static noise prevented the other girl from hearing and spared Clarke the embarrassment.
"What's for breakfast?" Clarke asked loud enough for the brunette to hear her over the noise. She looked up from the- Clarke still didn't know what it was- and all but rolled her eyes at her. She clicked a button on the machine and set it aside, standing from her bed and walking towards the food cabinet. The girl pulled out her set of keys and unlocked the lock, pulling open the cabinet doors.
Clarke saw her bag and remembered the contents; the scraps of pastries, the coffee beans, the journal- her journal. The same journal that held a drawing of a certain brunette that would cause Clarke great humiliation if said brunette were to see it.
She kept quiet, though, not wanting to draw unnecessary attention to the notebook. When the girl handed Clarke one of the stale pastries she had found, Clarke accepted it with a simple 'thank you' despite the knowledge of her journal being locked away.
The pastry fell apart in her hands, leaving crumbs on the floor that Clarke hastily picked up and ate, too. All the while, the other girl continued fidgeting with the odd device, not stopping until Clarke asked another question.
"Where do I-" Clarke began, but stopped to look around before continuing. The sudden sound caught the brunette's attention and she clicked a button on the radio- Clarke had decided it was definitely a radio- to stop the static coming from it. "Where is the bathroom?" Clarke asked, still looking around, mostly just to avoid the other's gaze.
Again, she stood from her bed with a sigh and walked to the wall with the ladder on it and reached onto a shelf to grab a bucket. She grabbed the handle and swung it down, letting it drop to the floor with a loud clank. The brunette extended a hand, motioning to the bucket before returning to her bed, this time picking up some of the paper and pencils scattered on the concrete.
Clarke stared at the bucket, unable to keep her lip from curling in disgust. She looked from the brunette to the bucket and back again, formulating a plan to use the bathroom without embarrassing herself any further.
"Could you, maybe, turn away?" Obviously, her plan didn't work because Clarke could feel redness fill her cheeks before the words were out of her mouth. Clarke could practically hear the girl's eyes roll. After mumbling something in the language Clarke didn't understand (whatever was said was not said in a nice manner, so Clarke figured she was better off not hearing it), she turned her body and held a hand against her eyes, hiding Clarke from her vision.
The deed was done without any further complications and after clearing her throat to signal that she was done, Clarke returned to her makeshift bed that she assumed she would be spending a lot of time in from now on. (She was right.)
A few days passed and Clarke and the other girl had fallen into a routine, of sorts. Neither of the two ever held much of a conversation, mostly keeping to themselves unless one had a question or needed help (Clarke was generally the conversation starter). Just when Clarke thought she would die of boredom, she was reunited with her journal, providing something for her to do while the other girl busied herself with the contraptions and papers beside her bed.
Clarke had woken up to the sound of jingling keys, signaling it was time for breakfast, but when she opened her eyes to see what was on the menu, she only saw the brunette standing over her with a journal and pencil in her hand.
"I believe this is yours," she held the belongings out for Clarke to take. Inside, Clarke was praying that the girl hadn't looked at any of the contents, but outside she remained neutral, snatching the notebook from the other girl and pulling it to her chest. The suspicious smirk on the other girl's face didn't make Clarke feel any better about the situation. She didn't ever find out if her drawing had been exposed, but never heard any discussion of the topic, hopefully meaning it had not been.
Clarke still didn't know the girl's name, or anything else about her, for that matter. She couldn't complain, however, since she did have food, water, and shelter. She could live without knowing her name, even if it was a prominent question in her thoughts.
Sometimes the girl would use the cell phone that always rested in her back pocket, even though it was impossible for it to still do anything that required a network. Clarke had, on more than one occasion, stared longingly at the device, her mind filled with images of her mother and questions about her well being. She often reflected on the final texts she received from her mom and what she would give to have one more chance at responding to them, even though these ideas were useless at making her feel any better about her decisions to ignore her in the first place.
Surprisingly, Clarke's third night passed, still bomb free. Despite it being a good thing that the world hadn't been engulfed in flames, yet, the constant anxiety over when it would be only made Clarke more agitated about it. From what she could tell, the brunette was anticipating the disaster, too.
When Clarke fell asleep on the fourth night, the bombs had not even been on her mind. She had fallen asleep with thoughts of her hunger pangs lingering in her head. However, when Clarke opened her eyes at an ungodly hour to hear deafening explosions and see bright orange fire illuminating the shelter, all the anxiety resurfaced, bringing fearful tears with them.
A/N:How about a little cliffhanger for you all? I told myself over and over that Clarke would find out Lexa's name in this chapter but I couldn't fit it in. I swear it'll happen next chapter because I'm tired of always writing "the girl" or "the brunette." Hey, I guess I wasn't lying when I said this was a slow burn...
Please leave me some feedback so I know if you guys are liking it or if I need to change anything. Thanks again!