Kass Morgan: Day 21

“Bellamy, come look at this,” she said, turning to walk toward it.

There was something on the ground, scattered among the roots of a large tree. Clarke bent down for a closer look and saw that it was metal. She inhaled sharply and reached out to run her finger along one of the long, twisted pieces. What could it have been part of? And how had it ended up here, in the middle of the woods?

“Clarke?” Bellamy shouted. “Where did you go?”

“I’m over here,” she called back. “You need to see this.”

Bellamy materialized soundlessly next to her. “What’s going on?” He was breathing heavily, and there was an edge to his voice. “You can’t just take off like that. We need to stick together.”

“Look.” Clarke picked up a piece of metal and held it in the moonlight. “How could this have survived the Cataclysm?”

Bellamy shifted from one foot to the other. “No clue,” he said. “Now can we keep moving? I don’t want to lose the trail.”

Clarke was about to set the strange artifact back on the ground when she noticed two familiar letters carved into the metal. TG. Trillion Galactic. “Oh my god,” she murmured. “It came from the Colony.”

“What?” Bellamy crouched down next to her. “It must be part of the dropship, right?”

Clarke shook her head. “I don’t think so. We have to be at least six kilometers from camp. There’s no way this is wreckage from the crash.” At least , not our crash .

Clarke felt suddenly disoriented, as if trying to discern between a memory and a dream. “There are more pieces scattered around. Maybe they’ll be something that’ll—” She cut herself off with a cry as a jolt of pain shot through her right arm.

“Clarke? Are you okay?”

Bellamy’s arm was around her, but she couldn’t look at him. Her eyes were fixed on something on the ground.

Something long, dark, thin, and wriggling.

She tried to point the creature out to Bellamy, but found that she couldn’t move. “Clarke! What’s wrong?” he shouted.

Clarke opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her chest was beginning to tighten. Her arm was on fire.

“Oh, shit ,” she heard Bellamy say. She couldn’t see him anymore. The world around her had begun to spin. Stars and sky and trees and leaves swirled in the darkness. The searing heat that had been shooting up her arm faded away. Everything was fading. She fell back against Bellamy, then felt herself being lifted into the air. She was weightless, just like she’d been in the lake. Just like her parents were now.

“Clarke, stay with me,” Bellamy called to her from somewhere very far away. The darkness was rushing around her, wrapping her legs and arms in stars.

And then there was only silence.

Glass lifted her head from Luke’s chest, trying not to be frightened by how much effort it required. He smiled as she pushed herself into a sitting position and let her long legs spill over the side of the couch. Glass wasn’t sure whether the lack of oxygen was making her drowsy, or whether she was just tired from staying up most of the night. Lying in bed with Luke, the last thing she wanted to do was sleep. They didn’t know how much time they had left, so every moment was precious. She and Luke had spent the last few nights wrapped in each other’s arms: whispering their fleeting, half-formed thoughts, or just lying silently, memorizing the sound of each other’s heartbeats.

“I should probably go out and look for more supplies.” Luke spoke lightly, but they both knew the gravity of what he was proposing. Ever since the skybridge between the ships had closed, the chaos on Walden had reached a fever pitch. The Waldenites’ desperate attempts to find and hoard food had turned violent. Armed with a meager handful of protein packets, Glass and Luke had barred themselves inside Luke’s tiny flat, doing their best to ignore the sounds echoing from the corridors—the angry shouts of neighbors fighting over supplies, the frantic cries of mothers searching for lost children, the ragged wheezes of those struggling to breathe the increasingly thin air.

“It’s okay,” Glass said. “We have enough for a few days, and after that…” She cut herself off, looking away.

“You’re really too good at keeping calm under pressure. It’s a little scary. You should have been a guard.” He tapped his finger under her chin. “I’m serious,” he said in response to her look of skepticism. “I’ve always thought women make the best guards. It’s a shame girls on Phoenix never really consider it.”

Glass smiled inwardly, imagining her best friend Wells’s surprise if she’d shown up to the first day of officer training. While he probably would’ve been too shocked to speak at first, she was sure he’d have supported her. Before she met Luke, Wells was the one person who’d always treated her seriously, who believed she had talents beyond flirting and styling her hair.

“I guess I could’ve given it a shot, as long as no one tried to make me spacewalk.” The word alone was enough to make her nauseated as she imagined stepping into weightlessness.

Luke cleared his throat. “You know they don’t let just anyone spacewalk,” he said with mock grandiosity. Luke was part of the elite corps of guards who were also trained as engineers, responsible for making crucial—and dangerous—repairs to the ship. She would never forget how terrified she had felt a few weeks ago, when she’d watched Luke go outside the ship to examine a malfunctioning airlock. For twenty heart-racing minutes, a thin cord had been all that kept him from being lost in the emptiness of space. The cord, and Glass’s fervent prayers.

“Not to mention, you would’ve looked pretty cute in the uniform.”

“Want me to try on yours, to see?” Glass asked innocently.

He grinned. “Maybe later.” But as soon as the words left his mouth, his face fell. They both knew there wasn’t going to be a “later.”

Glass jumped to her feet and tossed her long hair over her shoulder. “Come on,” she said, grabbing Luke’s hand. “I have an idea for dinner.”

“Really? You managed to decide between two-day-old protein paste and three-day-old protein paste?”

“I’m serious. Let’s make it special. Why don’t we use the plates?” Earthmade relics were rare on Walden, but Luke’s family had held on to two beautiful plates an ancestor had carried onto the ship.

Luke hesitated for a fraction of a second, then rose to his feet. “That sounds like a nice idea. I’ll go get them.” He squeezed Glass’s hand before disappearing into his room, where he kept the valuable relics hidden away.

Glass went into the tiny bathroom and looked at herself in the sliver of scratched mirror above the sink. In the past, she’d found the lack of grooming space endlessly frustrating, but now she was grateful not to know what she looked like after three days in the same clothes. She finger-combed her hair and washed her face with the tepid water.

She didn’t think she’d taken very long, but when she stepped back into the living space, Glass found the flat transformed. The flickering lights near the table weren’t flashbeams—they were candles. “Where did you get those?” Glass asked in surprise, padding over for a closer look. There weren’t many candles left anywhere on the Colony, let alone on Walden.

“I was saving them for a special occasion,” Luke said, coming out of his room. As Glass’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, her breath caught in her chest. Luke had changed into dark pants and what seemed to be a matching jacket. Could it be a real suit? They rarely appeared in the Exchange. Even the men on Phoenix had trouble tracking them down.