Homecoming

CHAPTER 19: Wells

Wells hadn’t slept all night. He’d tossed and turned for hours on the hard mattress. It wasn’t so bad for an underground bunker, and it sure beat the ground back at camp, but his mind had been running nonstop, and he felt every bump and wrinkle beneath him. Two upsetting pictures jostled for control of his exhausted brain—a no-man’s-land waiting to be claimed by the most terrifying thought. The first was an image of Bellamy’s still, cold body alone in the woods, the moss stained red with his blood. The second was no better: dozens of Earthborns, sprawled out in the grass and on their front porches, many of them children, massacred by Rhodes and his men.

He must’ve drifted off at some point, though, because when he opened his eyes, his head was on Sasha’s stomach, and she was running her fingers through his hair. “Are you okay?” she asked softly. “You were having a nightmare.”

“Yeah… I’m fine,” he said, though that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Wells couldn’t bear the thought of giving up his friend and brother, Bellamy. He would rather die himself than hand him over to a man like Rhodes. But he couldn’t come to grips with the terrible risk the Earthborns had assumed by protecting Bellamy. As with so many decisions he had seen his father face, Wells knew there was no easy answer.

Sasha let out a long sigh but didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Wells loved how they could be on the same page without having to say anything at all. “It’ll all be over soon,” she said, still playing with his hair absentmindedly. “We’ll scare Rhodes off, and he’ll decide Bellamy’s not worth all the trouble. And then everything will go back to normal.”

Wells pushed himself up so he was leaning against the back of the bed, next to Sasha. “And what exactly does ‘normal’ mean for us?” he asked with a slightly embarrassed smile. “Until recently, you were locked up in our camp as a prisoner.”

The hundred had caught Sasha lurking near the clearing when Octavia was still missing, and had mistaken her for one of their enemy’s spies.

“I guess that means we get to choose a new normal. You’ll stay here, teach us all those useless things you learned in space, and we’ll teach you how to not die.”

“Hey,” Wells said, feigning hurt. “We had done a pretty good job not dying before you came along.”

“Fine, Mr. Big Shot. In that case, maybe it’s time to even the score and make you my prisoner.” She swung one leg over so she was facing him, then pressed her hands against his chest.

“I’d happily spend the rest of my life as your prisoner if this is what it entails.”

She smiled and hit his shoulder playfully. “I’m serious, though. You’re going to stay here with us, right?”

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.

Just before he left the dining hall, Max turned back to Wells. “Stay here,” he commanded. “It’s not safe out there.”

Wells sank onto a bench, too stunned to think for a moment. Clarke and Bellamy approached, but he didn’t look up. “We’re going to go see what we can do to help,” Clarke said. Wells nodded, and they slipped out of the room.

After a moment, Wells raised his head and was surprised to find himself alone in the dining hall. Suddenly he couldn’t sit still a moment longer, not while Sasha was in danger. Max had ordered him to stay inside Mount Weather, but there was no way he could just sit here and wait for Max’s men to return. He didn’t care what anyone had to say about it—he was going after her.

Wells jogged down the empty corridor. He could hear voices around the corner and the clatter of people arming themselves with bows, arrows, and spears. He ducked down another hallway and started to run up the steep, twisty stairs before anyone saw him.

A few minutes later, he stepped into the sunlight and blinked as his eyes adjusted. The woods around him were silent—unnaturally so. He studied the spaces between the trees, something Sasha had taught him to do. He saw nothing except more brush and foliage. He moved forward, toward the settlement as quietly as he could.

The village was ominously still. No smoke curled from the chimneys, no children ran across the yards. Wells stopped to make sure it was safe to go further. From his vantage point, he could see that it looked exactly as it had when the Earthborns left—as if they had simply put down their belongings and disappeared.

He was halfway down the sloping path when he heard a sound from the bushes off to his right. He froze, his heart beating a hard rhythm against his ribs. The sound came again, louder this time.

“Help,” a shaky voice pleaded. “Somebody, please.”

A jolt of cold fear sizzled through Wells’s body, far worse than anything he’d felt during his terrible nightmares.

It was Sasha.

Wells dove into the brush in the direction of her voice.

“Sasha!” he called out. “It’s me. I’m coming!” Wells thrashed through the trees, tripping over vines and roots as he made his way deeper into the knot of foliage.

None of the horrific images that had haunted him all night could’ve prepared him for what it felt like to find her. She lay on her side on the ground, curled up and covered in blood. “No,” he bellowed, the sound ripping through him like a knife. He flung himself on the ground next to her and grabbed her hand. Her stomach was stained a deep red. He raised the edge of her shirt and saw a deep wound in her abdomen.

“Sasha—I’m here. You’re safe now. I’m going to get you back home, okay?”

She didn’t answer. Her eyelids fluttered as she slipped in and out of consciousness. He picked her up carefully. Her head lolled to one side, bouncing as he ran back up the hill and toward the main entrance to Mount Weather.

Wells moved as quickly as he could, panting and ignoring the painful stitch in his side—and the risk of attack by Rhodes’s men, who were certainly still in the vicinity. Come and get me, Wells wanted to scream. Come and try to hurt me so I can rip you to shreds.

Several meters out, he heard someone call his name. A troupe of Earthborns materialized from the woods around him. They had been on their way out to find Sasha.

“She’s alive,” Wells said to them, his voice desperate and strained. “But we need to get her back inside, fast.”

The Earthborns formed a circle around him, jogging at his side with their weapons raised. They approached the rock face that concealed the heavy front door to the bunker. One of them flung it open, and Wells rushed inside.

Max stood just on the other side of the door. His face lit up with hope when he first saw Wells, then crumpled when his eyes fell on his daughter.

“No,” Max whispered, reaching out for the wall to steady himself. “No, Sasha.” He staggered forward and placed his hands on either side of her face. “Sasha, sweetheart…”

“She’s going to be okay,” Wells said. “We just need to get her to Clarke.”

One of the Earthborn women sprinted ahead while Max helped Wells carry Sasha down the stairs. He felt as if he was moving through a dream or watching from above as he carried Sasha along the corridor. Light and sound seemed far away, at the end of a long tunnel. This couldn’t be happening. This had to be one of Wells’s nightmares. In just a moment, he’d sense Sasha smiling over him, her long hair tickling him awake as she whispered good morning into his ear.

“The old hospital’s just around the corner,” Max said, panting as they ran.

They turned a corner, and Max shoved the door open, holding it as Wells rushed inside and laid Sasha down on an operating table. While Max ran to turn on the lights, Wells gripped her hand. It was cold. Frantic, he lifted her eyelids—something he’d watched Clarke do a hundred times in the last few weeks. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Her breathing was shallow and rough.

“Sasha,” Wells pleaded. “Sasha, please. Stay with us. Sasha—can you hear me?”

She gave a slight, weak nod, and Wells felt something inside his chest crack open, flooding his body with relief. “Oh, thank god.”

Max ran over and grabbed hold of her other hand. “Just hang in there. Help is coming. Just hold on.”

“We need to keep her conscious,” Wells said, turning to the door, as if his eyes had the power to pull Clarke there faster. “Keep her talking.”

“What happened?” Max asked, pushing her hair back from her pale, sweat-covered brow.

Sasha opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Max leaned over and put his ear close to her lips. A moment later, he looked up at Wells. “Snipers,” he said grimly. Sasha tried to speak again. This time they could both hear her.

“I was at the storeroom. I never saw them coming.” Her voice was ragged.

Clarke sprinted into the room, her blond hair streaming behind her. A moment later, Bellamy ran in after her. Clarke crossed to the bed in two steps, reached for Sasha’s wrist and checked her pulse. She didn’t say anything, but Wells could read it in Clarke’s eyes. He knew it was bad. Clarke lifted Sasha’s shirt and exposed the deep wound in her gut.

“She’s been shot,” Clarke said. “And she’s lost a lot of blood.” Max clenched his teeth but said nothing. Clarke spun around and began pulling open drawers, riffling through them. She pulled out a vial and a syringe and quickly filled it. She injected the clear liquid into Sasha’s arm. Sasha’s whole body relaxed instantly, and her breathing evened out. Clarke examined Sasha’s abdomen more closely. Wells loosened his grip on Sasha’s hand. Max stood silently, his head hanging.

“She’s comfortable now,” Clarke said slowly as she turned to Max and Wells.

“So what’s next?” Wells asked. “Are you going to try to remove the bullet? Or did it go all the way through?”

Clarke said nothing. She just stared at him, her eyes filling with tears.

“Let’s go, Clarke,” he snapped. “What’s the plan? What do you need to fix her?”

“Wells…” She walked over from the other side of the table and placed her hand on his arm. “She’s lost a lot of blood. I can’t just—”

Wells jerked away, out of Clarke’s grasp. “Then get more blood. Take mine.” He rolled up his sleeve and placed his elbow on the table. “What are you waiting for? Go get a needle or whatever you need.”

Clarke shut her eyes for a moment, then turned to Max. When she spoke, her voice was shaky. “Without life support equipment, Sasha wouldn’t last more than a few minutes if I tried to operate on her. I think it’s better… this way. She’s resting comfortably, and you’ll be able to spend some time together before…”

Max stared at her. Stared through her, really, his eyes wide and blank, as if his brain had cut the feed to protect him from the horror playing out in front of him. But then his expression shifted, and he locked eyes with Clarke. “Okay,” he said, his voice so quiet, Wells might’ve just imagined it.

He leaned over to face Sasha, still holding her hand while he smoothed back her hair. “Sasha… can you hear me? I love you so much. More than anything.”

“I… love… you,” Sasha breathed, her eyes still closed. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Max’s voice cracked as he choked back a sob. “My brave girl.”

“Wells…” Sasha called his name hoarsely. He ran over and grabbed her other hand, interlocking his fingers with hers.

“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

They stayed just like that as the minutes went by. Clarke stood off to the side, at the ready in case Sasha needed more painkillers. Bellamy stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her. Wells held vigil on Sasha’s right side, holding her hand and brushing her hair back from her forehead. Max held her other hand and leaned down to whisper in her ear. Tears streamed from his eyes onto her cheeks. Sasha’s breathing slowed and became intermittent. Her body was shutting down, and they stood by as witnesses, powerless to stop it.

If Wells could’ve reached into his chest and ripped out his own heart to replace her fading one, he wouldn’t have hesitated. That pain couldn’t be any worse than what he was feeling right now. With each labored breath, Wells’s own chest tightened, until he was sure he would black out. But he didn’t. He stayed just where he was, his eyes locked on Sasha, taking in everything from her long, trembling lashes to the freckles he loved so much. The freckles he’d thought would be a part of his life forever, as constant as the stars.

He might’ve only known her for a few weeks, but his whole life had changed in that time. When he’d met her, he’d been lost and scared, pretending to be in control but really feeling like a fraud. She’d believed in him; she’d helped him become the leader he was always meant to be, and served as an example for him to follow—showing him what it really meant to be brave, selfless, and noble.

“I love you,” he whispered, kissing her forehead, her eyelids, and finally her lips. He exhaled, wishing more than anything that he could pass his breath into her body. He would’ve gladly taken a thousand bullets if it meant Sasha could have escaped just this one. If it meant he could have spared Max this pain. And he knew he would never, ever forgive himself or the men who had done this to her.

Sasha let out one gasp, then her breathing stopped. Clarke broke away from Bellamy and ran over to start performing CPR while Max and Wells looked on in silent agony. After the longest few minutes of Wells’s life, Clarke brought her head to Sasha’s chest, held it there a moment, and looked up, tears streaming down her face.

“No,” Wells moaned, unable to meet Clarke’s face, unable to look at Max. It was over.

Someone—maybe Bellamy—put an arm around him, but Wells could barely feel it. All he could feel was the weight crushing his chest, as his rib cage caved in on itself. And then everything went black.