CHAPTER 2

With a camera in one hand and tripod under her arm, Clarke followed Lexa into the old, abandoned building. "Wow, this isn't… incredibly dangerous or anything," she commented, looking around the decrepit factory.

"It won't take long," Lexa promised. "I just need to explain what's happened here, and then we can go."

"No problem," the blonde nodded. "Can you hold this for a minute?" She held out the camcorder for the other girl to take.

Lexa walked over and carefully took the piece of equipment, watching as Clarke set up the tripod a handful of feet from where they were going to shoot.

Back at the high school, final preparations were being made for graduation to start. Raven checked the two cameras that were sitting on tripods down the middle of aisle. While she sharpened the focus on the camera sitting up front, she saw Clarke's mother up on the temporary stage through the viewfinder. The woman seemed to be looking for her daughter, and Raven tried to turn and vanish before she was noticed.

But she was too late.

"Raven," Abby called for the teenager.

"Yeah, Mrs. G.?" Raven asked, turning to face the woman.

"Have you seen Clarke? She's supposed to be here filming graduation."

"Uh, no, actually," Raven lied. "I don't know where she's at."

Dr. Griffin sighed and shook her head. "When you see her, will you tell her I'm looking for her?"

"Will do, boss," the high schooler nodded and saluted the school board member. Beneath her breath she added, "If I don't kill her for this first."

Raven went to get her camcorder, since it was the last camera that was going to record the ceremony. The principal and vice principal, along with a few other important figures throughout the school system, walked out to take their places on the platform. She went over to join them, since she was going to get an angle from in front of the graduating seniors as well. Stairs weren't exactly a friend of her and her leg brace, but she still got up the two steps just fine and went to stand in the corner of the platform.

Clarke got a camera set up on her tripod, and had a smaller one in her hands. She and Lexa stood in the middle of the abandoned building, near an open, eight foot pit. "Watch your step," she warned the brunette.

Lexa glanced down and behind her before nodding. She faced Clarke again, and straightened out her jacket. "How do I look?"

The blonde sputtered for a moment, trying to make her brain form a proper answer. "You look-… beautiful," she managed to get out.

Lexa looked down once more, to hide a faint smile as she chuckled lightly.

Oh god, good job, Clarke, the blonde thought to herself. She was only a walking, talking disaster when Lexa Woods was around. "I mean, um… you-… you look-"

"-Thank you," the brunette interjected sincerely.

"Oh, um, yeah," Clarke responded with a smile. "Whenever you're ready, go ahead."

Raven huffed before blowing a stray strand of hair out of her face. Graduation was criminally boring – name called, student walked up, went back to their seat, repeat. Next year, her class was going to need to spice this ceremony up. Her braced leg ached uncomfortably, having stood in the same spot for the past hour while she recorded everything.

At least the sun had disappeared behind some clouds, though.

Unfortunately, the air smelled heavy with rain. If they didn't hurry up, they were going to get soaking wet, and that didn't bode well for her equipment. Stifling a yawn, her attention went to Principal Jaha as he spoke to the graduating class. The man was trying to be inspirational, but the only thing he was inspiring was blank stares.

"Today, you stand on the threshold of the future. Your path forward is your own to take, and none of them will be the same. Each of you will make your way in this world, and leave a profound impact upon it."

Suddenly, the skies opened up and rain began pouring down on them. Perfect. Just what they needed.

Jaha got the message: it was time to finish up. He spoke as he and dozens of others pulled out umbrellas. "All right, guys, stand up," he said, motioning for the students to get up. "Seniors, we salute you!"

Graduation caps went into the air and were quickly blown away by the wind. Not ten seconds after, the tornado sirens began blaring. That was all it took to instill a firm sense of panic in the crowd.

"Okay, everybody inside," the principal said as calmly as he could.

Raven pointed her camera skyward as she moved off the platform. If she could get a shot of a tornado…

Wait.

She had no idea where Clarke was. If the weather really was turning bad, she needed to warn her best friend. There was no time, however, as the crowd rushed inside while the wind whipped around them. She paused once she got into the building, turning with her camera and was greeted with the sight of a tornado.

"Oh, shit." She rushed further down the hall with Clarke's mother and took shelter as the storm ripped away parts of the high school.

In the abandoned factory, the two girls couldn't hear the tornado sirens. They did hear the rain start pounding on the roof, and the wind pick up. "That's… weird," Lexa said, looking over her shoulder.

Clarke rolled her eyes as her phone started beeping in her pocket. "Hold this?" she requested, handing the camera over to the brunette. She pulled her phone out and saw who it was. "Ugh, my mom."

"Not going to answer?" Lexa questioned, turning the camera around to face her blonde companion.

"No way," Clarke shook her head. "I missed the whole graduation."

"Oh, that's right. Your mom is on the school board. Is she going to be pissed?"

"Um… maybe," Clarke shrugged. When the phone stopped ringing, she went to slide it in her pocket. The device started going off just seconds after she started putting it away. With an exasperated sigh, she pulled it out and checked the number. It wasn't her mother's phone this time.

"Raven?"

"Clarke! Are you okay?" her mother's voice came through the other end.

"Mom? Yeah, I'm okay-"

"-Where are you?"

The urgency in her mother's voice drove her to answer with honesty. "The old paper mill. Why, what's wrong?"

Whatever answer she was meant to receive cut out badly and she could here interference. Through the mechanical noises, she heard bits of her mother's voice and she picked up a single word: tornado.

"Clarke?" Lexa asked, raising a brow at her classmate.

The blonde pocketed the phone and looked around. "We have to get out of here, she said there's a tornado," she said.

Behind them, a pair of metal panels was ripped off the building. "It's too late," Lexa stated.

The roof was quick to follow the two panels as the tornado ripped the building apart. Thinking quickly, Lexa grabbed Clarke with both hands and yanked her along as she jumped into the pit. They hit the bottom as the building collapsed around them.

"Abby! Where are you going?" Jaha called after the woman.

"I'm going to get my daughter," Abby answered, determination in her voice.

"Wait up, I'm coming too," Raven called after the retreating woman.

Abby stopped at that, turning to the camera toting teen and shaking her head. "No way. It's too dangerous."

"Come on, you could need help," Raven pointed out.

"Hey! We're coming too!" Octavia announced as she pulled her brother along with her. She'd overheard them talking about going to get Clarke.

"No. None of you are coming with me. It's too dangerous out there," Abby denied them once more.

"Mrs. Griffin, you could need the help," Bellamy went with the same argument Raven had. "Clarke is our friend and we want to help find her."

Abby pursed her lips and looked over the teens. "Fine," she agreed. "But you have to listen to me, all right? If I say to do something, you do it."

She got a round of half-hearted, semi-agreements as they all walked out of the school together. Bricks were strewn everywhere, a bus was on its side – on top of another vehicle, and there were even a few trees laying across the parking lot. It seemed they had gotten quite lucky, as far as deadly weather was concerned. Hopefully it had completely missed the paper mill altogether.

"We'll take my car," Abby told them, seeing that her SUV was one of the few that got out relatively unscathed. There were a few branches laying across it, but the windows were still intact and there wasn't a bus laying across it.

"Shotgun!" Octavia called the front passenger seat.

"O, now is not the time for that," Bellamy chastised his sister.

"There's always time for shotgun," she replied, taking a few steps ahead of him to get to the car at the same time as Abby.

The four piled into the SUV and Abby quickly got it started, turning in her seat so she could back out of her parking spot. She caught sight of Raven still using her camcorder. "Are you still recording all of this?" she questioned. "Put it away."

"Not a chance," Raven shook her head. There was no way she was going to miss any of this.