27
Burning and Itching
CLARKE
Clarke's arms were burning, shaking from her biceps to her foreams to her fucking fingertips. She could already feel the blisters bubbling up along the edges of her palms, where each rusty rung of the ladder rubbed and pulled at the tender skin. Her legs were just as wobbly as her arms and the flashlight she gripped between her teeth made it hard to breathe. And the worst part of it all was that she had no idea how much further she had to go. She had long lost count of the rungs below her, and the rungs above her only disappeared into further darkness.
She wrapped her cramping hand around another rung and pulled. Again and again... Wrap and pull and wrap and pull, and wrap...
Suddenly the rusty rung broke free of the ladder's sides and Clarke shrieked as she lost her balance and her feet skidded down the ladder. The flashlight slipped free of her lips as, terrified, she cling to the ladder with her remaining hand. She felt Bellamy's arm wrap around her shins and boost her up as the metal clang of the flashlight smashing to pieces echoed through the tunnel from a long ways down.
"It's OK." He said. "I got you."
"Fuck... Fuck... Fuck..." Clarke muttered under her breath even as she tried to catch it, wrapping her elbow around a rung and clinging to it. Against her better judgment, she glanced down. Beyond the dim outline of Bellamy was only black, empty space. She had never considered herself particularly afraid of heights or of the dark, but then again, she had never climbed a shoddy old ladder through an endless abyss of black.
"We can take a break if you need it." Bellamy offered as he pulled a glow-stick from his jacket, cracked it and gave it a good shake. It filled the space between them with an eerie yellow-green glow. He pressed it between his own teeth so that it illuminated his face like some kind of monster from the deep or an alien from the unknown.
"No... I'm OK." Clarke breathed. "We can't waste time sitting around. Plus I don't see any benches around here, do you?" She tried to laugh, but her throat was still tight from the sudden rush of fear and adrenaline and it came out as some kind of wild noise. "Just watch your step on the fifth rung up..." She muttered sarcastically. "It's a little loose."
And she took a deep breath and started again. Wrap and pull... Wrap and pull... Fucking wrap and fucking pull.
By the time Clarke ran out of rungs to wrap her fists around every muscle in her body was screaming with the effort of staying attached to the ladder. Her fingers had cramped themselves into tight C's like lobster claws and she doubted whether she'd ever be able to give Raven another proper high five.
She paused at the top as Bellamy dug through the folds of his massive jacket with one arm, clinging confidently to the ladder with the other, like some kind of monkey. He handed her her gas mask and she reluctantly pulled it over her nose and mouth, feeling ironically like she might suffocate in its tight embrace of her face. Bellamy pulled his own mask on and Clarke tried not to look at him because all she could see was a Mountain Man and it made her think of skin melting off of bones and drill-bits driving into flesh, and levers, and the terrible loneliness in the empty space beside her then, and beside her now. The space that Bellamy had tried to fill for her then, and was still trying to fill for her now. The space that was only ever meant to be filled by Lexa.
Bellamy pulled the gas bomb that Arkadia had scrounged, courtesy of the Mountain Men, before the entire mountain had been destroyed, courtesy of Azgeda, from his cloak and handed it to Clarke. Clarke clutched it in her lobster claw, half expecting Bellamy to pull a battering ram from his coat next. Instead, he pulled out a small crowbar and wedged its tip between the closed elevator doors. A crack of flickering light assaulted Clarke's pupils and she blinked against it as she gripped the gas canister's ring between her shaking thumb and forefinger. Then, despite the mask on her face, she held her breath as she pulled the pin and tossed the erupting can through the crack. And she did not breathe again until Bellamy pried the crack open enough to squeeze through and reached out a solid hand to pull her through.
...
OCTAVIA
The pounding of the war drums cannot keep pace with the rapid pounding in my ears, the drumbeat of my own heart. The drums are growing louder, drawing nearer and as I wait, I feel like every inch of me is itching, just below the skin where my nails cannot reach. Helios's tail whips anxiously back and forth. He tosses his head side to side. I wonder if he is itching too.
The drumbeat echoes through the forest but I have yet to catch a glimpse of the approaching enemy. I imagine they are flooding the forest, washing through it like a wave, swirling around the trunks of the trees, parting and coming back together again like water. And I know Trishana is perched in the branches above them like owls silently watching their prey scuttle across the forest floor. And I wonder if Malika sits with an arrow drawn, battling her desire to release it, fighting against the itch. But Trishana has patience and they allow the wave to crest. They are luring the enemy in.
I see the flickering orange-yellow glow of patches of fire first. And I'm struggling to make sense of what I assume must be torches, when faces finally appear between the trees. Faces, faces, and more faces. I am reminded of the night Trikru massed against the dropship and the paltry three hundred warriors surrounding us seemed like an endless ocean. Now I stand amongst Trikru and our numbers are more than three hundred, and still I have the same feeling of smallness, like standing on the edge of the sea. Because, once again, my crew is hopelessly outnumbered. But we stood against the three hundred and now we stand again against the countless.
The sea of faces spills from the trees and pauses, forming a wall on the edge of the forest. The drumbeats rise to a deafening crescendo I can feel reverberating in my chest, vibrating through the soft spots between my bones.
"Boom! Boom! Boom-di-boom!" Then... Abrupt silence.
The sudden silence presses against my eardrums. The drums of war have stopped but the drum in my chest beats louder still and the beat still reverberates through every hollow spot within me, still vibrates in my bones.
The field of open space dividing the walls of Arkadia from the trees of the surrounding forest is all that stands between our two armies. And hundreds of eyes stare across it, waiting. Hundreds of lungs hold their breaths, waiting. We are all waiting for the same thing... Waiting, waiting, waiting for someone to step into the gap.
One moment passes and I am itching.
Two moments and I'm itching. I'm itching.
Three moments and I'm itching, itching, itching.
And the itch is more than I can bear.
So I dig my heel into Helios and it is like digging my nails into my skin and deeper still, into the bloody parts of me. I raise my sword and I raise my voice and the cry is part joy and part rage, and part pure wildness, colder and sharper than the steel. And I charge into the empty space because I have to scratch the itch.
I breathe out. And just like that, everything ends. I breathe in. And just like that, everything begins.
...
CLARKE
Bellamy shoved the lift doors shut again as Clarke reached into her own pockets and pulled out a handful of the zipties. She ziptied the elevator doors shut and followed Bellamy silently through the Commander's outer chambers, bypassing the six unconscious bodies sprawled along the floor. They would come back for them. Clarke kept her eyes fixed on the blue-gray back of Bellamy's jacket, because the walls around her held too many memories. And she couldn't let them in right now. She needed to be able to think. She needed to be able to breathe.
They paused outside the doors leading into the throne room and the bedroom beyond it, and even with her eyes focused on the blue-gray, even with the doors still closed... Clarke could see every detail of the rooms before them. She saw the massive throne that Lexa's petite frame had somehow always still managed to fill with both power and grace. She saw the spot on the chamber floor that to everyone else was only a spot, but to her was the place where Lexa had knelt before her and her own legs had nearly given out beneath her at the overwhelming depths of the gesture. She saw the chair on which she had perched as she drew the soft curves of Lexa, relishing the simplicity of the moment, like life had paused just for her, giving her a chance to breathe and just to be... To be with Lexa.
And she saw the place where Lexa had stood in the dappled golden sunlight, her hair over one shoulder, her eyes glistening with the effort of holding back the tears, and had let Clarke go, because she understood... The spot where Clarke had finally decided she did not want to go, EVER, because she belonged with Lexa, and she had closed the inches between them because even that was a distance far too great... The spot where she had finally forgotten about the needs of everyone else and had let herself have something SHE wanted, something SHE needed... The spot beside the bed in which she had lain in Lexa's arms and let herself dream.
And Clarke squeezed her closed eyes as tightly as she could until the white spots flickered behind her lids. And she shook her head. And she tried to force the memories back. Because she needed to be able to think right now. She needed to be able to breathe.
She opened her eyes again to see Bellamy frowning at her curiously. He silently handed her a second gas canister and prepared to smash the butt of his rifle into the double doors. But he stopped himself just before metal met wood, and with a small, crooked smile reached out to grasp the handles in his fingers. He gave them a gentle push and they cracked open easily. Clarke tossed the hissing canister through the crack and pulled the doors shut again, waiting, for one moment... Two... Listening for the thuds of flesh on stone.
...
OCTAVIA
I hear the pop-pop-pop of gunfire break loose behind me as I charge across the clearing, and before I reach the wall of warriors, already pieces of it fall here and there like bricks coming loose and crumbling.
A rider streaked in white rushes to greet me and I brace myself, gripping Helios's sides between my knees as I rise in the saddle and rear my sword back. Our blades collide with such force that I'm nearly thrown from the saddle. My teeth rattle and I taste blood on the tip of my tongue. The vibration bursts like an electric shock through my fingers but I grip my blade fiercely, the way Lincoln taught me to...as fiercely as if his hands were still wrapped around mine now.
Neither blade met flesh and I'm tempted to turn Helios around and pursue the rider. But he is still racing towards the gates and I am racing towards the forest. And I let him go because there are others... So many others.
Most of their warriors are on foot and they are charging across the clearing towards me and when we finally meet, it is like waves breaking against rock. I cut them down around me and the blood splashes against my arms and legs like the salty spray of the sea. I cut and I cut and I cut. I scratch, I scratch, I scratch. And every itchy inch of me feels alive, alive, alive.
The storm has come. And I am its eye. And there is chaos all around me.
I am on the edge of forest and field. Before me I see the glow of arrows raining out of the treetops, falling on the enemy like shooting stars. Behind me I hear the symphony of battle playing like music in my ears... The clanging of steel against steel like cymbals... The steady pop-pop-popping of gunfire keeping rhythm like a snare drum... The bass of pounding horse hooves... The trumpet cries of rage... And the piercing notes of pain like so many out-of-tune violins.
The music builds and swells and flows within me even as I drown it all out and all I hear is my own rapid breathing, and Helios's snorts and whinnies, and the sound of my blade sinking into flesh. I see everything around me. I see nothing but what's in front of me, at the end of my blade.