Homecoming

Wells paused. He’d been so fixated on the immediate challenges—rescuing Bellamy and then staving off Rhodes—that he hadn’t really stopped to think about what would happen after. He couldn’t go back to the camp. That much was clear. He’d never wanted to set sights on Rhodes again, even if that meant abandoning everything he’d worked so hard to build. But could he stay with the Earthborns forever? What would he do? How would he make himself useful? But as his eyes met Sasha’s, he knew he wasn’t going anywhere. He wanted her face to be the first thing he saw every morning, and the last thing he saw before he drifted off to sleep every night. New images flooded his brain, ideas he’d never even thought of in passing, but that somehow made sense when he was looking at Sasha. Maybe someday they’d have a cabin of their own in the Earthborns’ village. The thought made his chest tighten with a fierce longing he’d never felt before. This was the life he wanted. This was what he was fighting for.

“Yes,” Wells said, reaching out to stroke her cheek. “I’m staying.” Then, afraid that she’d somehow sensed the vision playing out in his head, he smiled and joked, “Your prisoner isn’t going anywhere.”

“Good.” She grinned, rolled to the side, and slipped out of the bed. “So you won’t object to staying here for a little bit.”

Wells watched as she started to pull on her shoes. “Where are you going?”

“It turns out there’s not as much food down here as we thought. I’m just going to run back up and grab some more from the storeroom.”

“I’ll come with you,” he said, swinging his legs out of the bed.

“Absolutely not. If any of the Colonists see you out there, they’ll be able to follow you right back to Bellamy. Besides”—she grabbed on to Wells’s shins and hoisted his legs back onto the bed—“you should try to get a little sleep. We need our General at his sharpest.”

“What are you talking about? You’re the real brains of this operation. You’re not going alone though, right?”

“I’ll be faster and safer on my own. You know that.” She smiled and kissed his cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

Wells spent the morning sorting through dusty old weapons that had been kept in a storeroom in Mount Weather. The Earthborns had only a few guns between them, and those had already been distributed to the best-trained fighters, but the more people they could arm, the better. Most of the blades were too dull to use, but there were some worth distributing to the Earthborns when the time came.

At lunchtime, he dropped his achy body onto a hard bench and chewed slowly on his small ration of fibrous dried meat. Where was Sasha? He scanned the cafeteria, expecting to see her bright eyes and jet-black hair everywhere he looked. She wasn’t there.

Clarke and Bellamy sat close together at the far end of the table.

“Hey,” Wells called down to them. “Have you seen Sasha?” They shook their heads, and exchanged a quick, confused glance.

“Where’d she go?” Clarke asked, starting to rise to her feet. “I’ll go look for her.”

“Never mind,” Wells said quickly. He stood and hurried over to the next table, where Max was poring over something that looked like a blueprint. On any other day, he would have been excited to see an artifact like that in person, but at the moment, there was only room for one thought in his mind.

“Excuse me, Max? Did Sasha come back yet?”

Max’s head shot up. “Come back from where?”

Wells opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again, not sure what to say. He was confused—didn’t Max know Sasha was going to get food from their village? Hadn’t she checked in with him before she left?

Max pushed back his chair and jumped to his feet, his whole body tensed. “Wells, where did she go?”

“I thought you knew,” Wells replied, his voice a hoarse whisper. “She—she went back to the surface. To get more food.”

“She what?” Max banged his fist on the table, making a number of people jump. He spun around and called out to everyone in the room. “Sasha left Mount Weather. Did anyone see her come back?” Dozens of eyes went wide, and everyone within earshot shook their heads, murmuring.

“God damn it,” Max muttered under his breath before turning back to Wells. “I should have known she would try to fix this on her own. We were going to send out a group tonight, after dark. But she was worried people would be hungry before then.”

“I’m so sorry, Max. I didn’t realize—”

“It’s not your fault,” Max said curtly, clearly keen to end the conversation.

“Sir?” a man called from the doorway. “Everyone else is accounted for. She must have gone alone.”

Max paled, and his face fell in a way that shot like an arrow through Wells’s heart. But he composed himself just as quickly and began giving orders, putting a woman named Jane in charge while he went up to find Sasha. He strode purposefully toward the door. Heads turned as he made his way through the cafeteria, and a few people jumped up to follow him.