“She’s not here. I’ve been searching for hours, but it’s been too dark. I’m going out to look for her again.”
“Wait.” Clarke reached into her pocket. “I found this in the woods. Out past the stream, toward that giant rock formation.” She placed something in Bellamy’s hand. He inhaled audibly as his fingers closed around the familiar strip of satin. It was Octavia’s red ribbon.
“Was it tied to a tree?” he asked faintly, unsure what he hoped the answer would be.
“No.” Clarke’s dirt-streaked face softened. “I saw it on the ground. It must’ve fallen out of her hair at some point. She was wearing it last night, wasn’t she?”
“I think so,” Bellamy replied, his brain frantically racing for snippets of memory. “Yes. She had it when she went to sleep.”
“Okay,” Clarke said with sudden firmness. “So that means she left the camp before the fire started. Look,” she added, in answer to Bellamy’s questioning look, “there’s no ash on it. No sign that it was anywhere near the flames.”
“You may be right,” Bellamy said softly, rubbing the ribbon between his fingers. “I just don’t understand why she would have left before the fire started.” He glanced back up at Clarke. “Weren’t you outside the infirmary last night? Did you notice anything?”
Clarke shook her head, her expression suddenly unreadable. “I stepped away for a while,” she said, her voice tense. “I’m sorry.”
“Never mind,” Bellamy said. He slipped the ribbon into his pocket. “I never got to apologize. You were right about O all along. I’m sorry.” Clarke just nodded in acknowledgment. “Thanks for telling me about the ribbon. I’m going out to look for her.”
He started to turn away, but Clarke reached out to lay a hand on his wrist. “I’ll come with you.”
“That’s nice of you, but I have no idea how long I’ll be gone. This isn’t like when we went out to find the medicine. It might be a while.”
“I’m coming with you,” she repeated. Her voice was firm, and there was a fire in her eyes that made him hesitate to contradict her.
“Are you sure?” Bellamy raised an eyebrow. “I doubt Wells will be happy to hear that.”
“He’s not going to hear it from me. We’re done.”
Bellamy’s brain buzzed with questions that never made it to his lips. “Okay, then.” He took a step forward and gestured for her to follow. “But I should warn you… I’ll probably take off my shirt at some point.” He glanced over his shoulder and saw a smile flicker across her face, so small it might have been a trick of the light filtering through the heavy leaves.
34
Glass
The Colony was eerily quiet, even for one in the morning. Glass didn’t see anyone else as she dashed through the dark hallways, lit only by the dim glow of the blue emergency lights along the floor.
She’d slipped out after her mother had finally gone to bed, and now she tried to banish the image of her mothere waking up and finding Glass gone. The hurt and horror that would contort her delicate features, just as they’d done countless times over the past two years. Glass would never forgive herself for the pain she’d caused her mother, but she didn’t have a choice.
She had to get to Walden, and to Luke.
She paused on the landing to F deck, straining her ears for footsteps, but she heard nothing except the sound of her own ragged breath. Either the guards were on patrol in some other part of Phoenix, or they’d all been banished back to Walden and Arcadia, where they wouldn’t steal any more of the air that had been reserved for Phoenician lungs.
Glass darted down the unfamiliar corridor, straining her eyes for the telltale silver gleam of an air vent. Nearly at the bottom of the ship, F deck was mostly devoted to storage. The air vent she’d crawled through after she’d escaped the dropship had led to the F deck on Walden. She just hoped that the same applied on Phoenix. Slowing to a walk, she scanned the walls for an opening, feeling dread seep into her with each step. What if she’d been wrong about the layout? Or perhaps the vent had once connected Walden and Phoenix, but it had been filled long ago?
Then a glint of metal caught her eye, and the tension building in her chest was swept away by excitement and relief. She quickly rose onto her toes, reaching for the edge of the grate, but it was too high up. She let out a frustrated sigh and turned to survey the hallway. None of the doors were marked, but they didn’t seem to be protected by retina scanners. She grabbed the nearest handle and yanked. It groaned open, revealing a dark supply closet.
Glass’s eyes settled on a small barrel, which she rolled out into the hallway. She stepped on top, removed the grate, and pulled herself up into the shadowy space.
Glass thought briefly of her last crawl through an air shaft, how the metal walls had seemed to press in on her from all sides, and shivered, reaching for her back pocket. At least this time she’d brought a flashbeam. She directed the feeble beam of light forward, but there was nothing in sight except the air shaft, stretching endlessly ahead.
It would end eventually, Glass knew. She just hoped she wouldn’t run out of air before she got there. If she had to die, she wanted it to be in Luke’s arms. The scene on Walden was different than she’d expected. The lights seemed to be functioning normally, and as she hurried toward Luke’s flat, Glass didn’t see any guards. For a moment, she felt a brief surge of hope. Perhaps her mother had been wrong. The panic on Phoenix was all a misunderstanding. But as she climbed the stairs, she felt a strange tightness in her chest that only got worse when she paused to catch her breath. Her eagerness to see Luke might account for her racing pulse, but Glass knew she couldn’t ignore the truth. Oxygen was already running low on Walden.
She forced herself to move slowly as she turned onto Luke’s floor, breathing careful, shallow breaths to keep her heart rate steady. The corridor was full of adults speaking in low voices, shooting worried looks at the children scampering up and down the hall, so excited to be out of bed at such a late hour that they hardly noticed their labored breaths. Glass wanted to tell the parents to keep the children calm and still to conserve oxygen, but that would only create more panic, and there was nothing they could do, anyway.
Glass had barely started to knock on Luke’s door before he’d efore hepulled her inside and into his arms. For a moment, all she was aware of was the warmth of his body and the weight of his embrace. But then he broke away, and she could see shock and concern warring with the joy in his eyes. “What are you doing here?” he asked, running his hand along her cheek as if needing more proof that she wasn’t an illusion. He glanced toward the closed door and lowered his voice before continuing. “It’s not safe.”
“I know,” Glass said quietly, slipping her hand into his.
“I don’t know how you even got here, but you need to go back,” Luke said, shaking his head. “You have a better chance of surviving on Phoenix.”
“I’m not going back without you.”
He led her over to the couch with a sigh and pulled her onto his lap. “Listen,” he said, as he wrapped a strand of her hair around his finger, “if the guards catch us sneaking onto Phoenix, they’ll shoot me, and then they’ll probably shoot you.” He closed his eyes, wincing. “This is what they’ve been training us for, Glass. It was never said overtly, but… we all had a sense something big was coming, and we’ve been drilled on what to do.” When he opened his eyes again, they were full of a cold fury she’d never seen in them. He must’ve noticed the worry on her face, because his expression softened. “But that’s not any of your concern. You’ll be fine. And that’s all I care about.”