Homecoming

“That’s not what happened,” Glass cried. “We didn’t know… there was no way to communicate with them. But there are no more of us coming, I promise.” Her voice broke, both from fear and from the sad realization that it was true. Whoever hadn’t made it onto one of the dropships was gone forever.

The Earthborn woman sneered at Glass. “You promise?” She snorted. “We learned the hard way what happens when you trust outsiders.” She nodded at the man, who raised his arm and aimed his spear directly at Luke’s heart, cocking his arm back.

“Don’t move!” Luke shouted. “Please. I don’t want to hurt you, but I have a gun. Don’t force me to use it.”

The man paused, as if considering Luke’s words, but only for a moment. Then he took another careful step forward.

Glass’s ears rang with the sharp crack of the bullet. It echoed off the tree trunks and bounced back at them. Luke had fired into the sky, pointing the gun away from the Earthborns, but it had been enough to scare them. They jumped and scattered, disappearing into the darkness.

Glass was so relieved to see them retreating that at first she didn’t realize what had happened. There had been a little flurry of motion right as Luke fired the shot. Had one of them thrown something? She turned back to Luke, and her blood froze in her veins. He stood facing her, his eyes wide and startled. His mouth was open, but no sound came out. She ran her eyes down his body, following his arms down to his hands, which grasped his left leg tightly. Blood poured out from between his fingers. A wooden spear lay on the ground near his foot.

“Luke!” she cried. “Luke—no!”

Luke sank to his knees.

Glass ran to him, throwing herself on the ground next him. “Luke!” She grabbed his arm, as if trying to keep him with her, to stop him from slipping away somewhere she couldn’t follow.

“You’ll be okay,” she said, willing herself to push the panic from her voice. Luke needed her to stay calm. He needed her to figure something out. “Let’s just get you inside.” She looked down and blanched. Even in the faint moonlight, she could see the grass around Luke’s leg turning dark red.

She reached under Luke’s arms and gave an experimental tug but stopped abruptly when he let out a cry of pain. “Just help me up,” Luke grunted through clenched teeth. “We’ll deal with the rest when we get inside.”

Uneasily, he rose onto one leg. She tried to keep her breathing steady, tried to forget the fact that they were two days’ walk from medical help. How could they have been so foolish to go off on their own?

“Don’t worry,” Luke said, wincing with each awkward hop. He twisted around, scanning the dark trees for signs of the Earthborns. “It’s not that bad.” But even Luke couldn’t keep the fear out of his voice.

They both knew he was lying. And they both knew what would happen if he didn’t get better.

Glass would be entirely on her own.

CHAPTER 18: Clarke

The mood in the Earthborns’ camp had shifted dramatically. As the sun sank, so did the fevered excitement that had made everyone’s blood run fast and hot during the confrontation with Rhodes’s men. They were still committed to protecting Bellamy—if anything, the encounter had made it clear how dangerous it would be to acquiesce to the Colonists—but their faces had grown grave, their voices hushed and urgent as they herded their children into their homes and bolted the doors.

Clarke was sitting outside the cabin, racing against the fading light as she prepared to repair the stiches Bellamy had torn during the escape. “Take off your shirt,” she said as they settled onto a patch of grass that lay beyond the lengthening shadows.

Bellamy looked taken aback as he turned his head from side to side, scanning the dirt road for people. “What? Here?”

“Yes, here. It’s too dark inside the cabin.” He hesitated, and Clarke raised an eyebrow. “Since when does Bellamy Blake have to be asked twice to take his shirt off?”

“Come on, Clarke. They already think I’m some insane fugitive who’s going to get them all killed. Do I have to be an insane, shirtless fugitive as well?”

“Yes, unless you want them to see you as an insane, dead fugitive. I need to fix those stitches.”

He sighed dramatically and, with his good arm, grabbed on to the edge of his shirt and pulled it over his head.