Homecoming Page 4

  Clarke turned away quickly so he wouldn’t see her, stalling for time by taking inventory of her bandages while she racked her mind for the guard’s name.

  Scott.

  Scott had often been assigned to medical center patrol during her apprenticeship, and Clarke had come to dread their frequent encounters. Although the guards typically didn’t interact with the doctors and apprentices unless there was a security issue, Scott had been an expert at making his presence known. He wasn’t much older than she was, and there was something snide and officious about him. He never looked at the patients when he was in the room—only at the doctors or other guards, like he was too good for anyone else. But what had really bothered Clarke was the way he acted when he was alone with her, and the lengths to which he seemed willing to go to make that happen.

  Clarke had to force herself not to break into a jog as she walked swiftly down the corridor toward the medical center. She was nearly twenty minutes late for her rounds shadowing Dr. Lahiri, but the punishment for “hazardous behavior” was even harsher than that for tardiness. Being late meant that she was in trouble with her supervisor. Breaking one of the ship’s rules meant facing the Council. It was rare for guards to write someone up for running, but the boy who’d been patrolling the medical center recently had quickly gained a reputation for being a power-tripping bully.

  Clarke turned the corner and groaned. She’d hoped to slip into the medical center unnoticed, but Scott was standing in front of the checkpoint. His back was to her, but she recognized his broad shoulders and slightly greasy blond hair that always looked to be longer than was typically allowed by guard regulations.

  Clarke could tell he was in the middle of some kind of confrontation, but only as she drew closer did she realize he was holding a woman by her wrists. He had them pinched together behind her back. She was a sanitation worker from Arcadia, and based on the loud scolding Scott was doling out for everyone to hear, she had simply forgotten her pass. Most guards would have let her off with a warning, but not Scott, who was making a big show of slapping restraints on her wrists. The poor woman had tears in her eyes and could barely raise her head when Clarke slipped past.

  Indignation and disgust curdled in Clarke’s stomach, but she didn’t dare look back. She stood to gain nothing by intervening. If she tried to get in the middle, Scott would probably threaten the woman with even more severe repercussions, just to prove his power to Clarke.

  By the time Clarke started seeing patients, she’d pushed the incident out of her mind. That was one of the things she loved about being a medical apprentice, the way her mind could be one hundred percent focused on the task at hand, leaving no room to worry about anything else in her life. Not about her parents, or Lilly, or the terrible secret she was keeping from Wells.

  However, later that day, while she was busy cleaning a five-year-old girl’s cut knee, there was no avoiding Scott when he strode unannounced into Clarke’s exam room.

  “What do you want?” Clarke asked, not bothering to hide her irritation. It was one thing for him to strut down the halls like he was Chancellor of the corridors. It was another for him to barge into her exam room when she was with a patient.

  He waved a bruised and swollen finger in front of Clarke’s face and smirked. “You won’t believe it, but that bitch actually bit me when I was cuffing her.”

  “Watch your language, please,” Clarke hissed, shooting a glance at the little girl staring at Scott wide-eyed from the exam table.

  He laughed unpleasantly. “I’m sure she’s heard worse. She looks like a Waldenite.”

  Clarke narrowed her eyes. “Aren’t you a Waldenite?” she asked, doing her best impression of Glass and her snooty friends.

  He ignored the jab and took a step closer. “I’m in need of your services, Doctor,” he said in a voice that somehow managed to be both mocking and vaguely threatening.

  “If you’ll just take a seat outside, I can look at that for you after I’m done with Cressida here.”

  “Well I’m sure little Cressida”—he tilted his head in the girl’s direction—“would understand that a member of the guard suffered a painful injury while subduing a threat to the Gaia Doctrine this morning. And that I am in a hurry to get back to my work protecting this ship.”

  Clarke fought the urge to roll her eyes. She just managed to keep her expression neutral while she sprayed a skin regenerator on Cressida’s knee, gently affixed a bandage over it, and patted the girl on the leg. “You’re all set. Just keep it clean and dry until tomorrow, okay?”

  Cressida nodded and hopped down from the table, running out the door to her mom, who waited just outside.

  Clarke turned to Scott and held out her hand. He placed his wrist in her palm and winced as she uncurled his swollen finger. “You’re going to need to see the actual doctor for this,” she said, releasing her hold and stepping back.

  He raised his eyebrows and gave her a humorless smile. “Who? The old guy you follow around all day? No thank you.”

  “Dr. Lahiri is the most respected doctor on the ship.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s not who I want checking out my other injury.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That piece of Arcadian trash also tried to kick me. I knocked her down, but she managed to knee me in a rather sensitive area, if you know what I mean.”

  Clarke sighed. “Is there bruising?”

  “I haven’t had time to look,” Scott said with a smirk. “Don’t you want to do the honors?” He reached for his belt buckle as he stepped toward Clarke.

  “I should call a nurse,” Clarke said, moving toward the intercom.

  “Now, just hold on a second.” Scott grabbed Clarke’s arm with his good hand and pulled her back. “I don’t need a nurse. I just need you to do your job… Doctor.”

  Before he could utter another word, the door behind him banged open, and Wells strode in, looking even taller than usual in his officer’s uniform. Scott snapped to attention, his gaze locking on the floor. Clarke couldn’t help but smile at Wells over Scott’s shoulder.

  “I’m sure you’re not preventing this medical apprentice from getting her work done, are you?” Wells asked, his voice stern, but his eyes playful.

  “No, sir,” Scott said stiffly.

  “Glad to hear it, Guard. Carry on with your rounds.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Clarke stifled a grin until the door clicked shut behind Scott, then stepped over to Wells and wrapped her arms around him. He tilted her chin up and kissed her softly on the lips.

  “Thank you, Officer Jaha.”

  “You’re welcome, Medical Apprentice Griffin.”

  Clarke was exhausted. She hadn’t eaten anything since the previous evening, and all the food they’d taken to the crash site had gone to the survivors. The team had taken turns leading the survivors back to camp, and there were only a few injured left to deal with. She had put it off as long as she possibly could, but there was no way to avoid treating Scott. He sat on a log at the edge of the clearing, looking up at her as she approached.

  “I thought you’d never get to me,” he said, his lips pressed together into something resembling a grin.

  “I’m sorry about the wait,” Clarke said, hoping that maybe he wouldn’t recognize her after all the months she’d spent in Confinement and her weeks down on Earth.

  “It’s okay, Doc. It took me this long to come to Earth just so you could finally show me your bandaging skills. I believe we were interrupted last time.”

  Clarke’s heart sank. Scott knew exactly who she was, and he hadn’t grown any more charming since she’d last seen him.

  “Let’s see what’s going on here.” She gestured for him to show her his wrist. He held out his hand to her, and she took it, her stomach churning in protest as she made contact with his clammy skin. She turned his hand over, moving it gently back and forth and from side to side.

  “So you’re a real doctor finally?” Scott sa
id. “I guess that means you can’t afford to get all squeamish during examinations now.”

  “Not exactly,” Clarke replied without looking up. “I never finished my training, but I’m the closest thing we’ve got down here.”

  “Well, doctor or no doctor, you’d better do a good job.” He wiggled his fingers in her palm. “That’s my shooting hand after all.”

  Clarke pulled a bandage from her supply bag and began winding it around his wrist and hand. “It’s not broken,” she said matter-of-factly, hoping to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible. “But you’ll need to limit your use of this hand for a few days to allow the swelling to go down.” She inhaled deeply and looked him directly in the eye. “Which shouldn’t be a problem, since we hunt with spears and arrows here, not guns.”

  Scott met her gaze with a glint in his eye. The skin on Clarke’s arms rippled with goose bumps. “I wasn’t talking about shooting animals,” he pronounced coolly. Before Clarke could ask him what he meant, he cocked his head to the side and surveyed her with the same expression that used to make her want to shower as quickly as possible. “So, why didn’t you finish your training?”

  “I was Confined before I completed it,” Clarke said flatly, not meeting his eyes.

  “Confined? You?” He paused for a moment, then snickered. “Little Miss Perfect, Confined. You know what, though? I don’t mind being treated by a convict. I kinda like knowing that, all that time, there was a bad girl hiding under those scrubs.” He lowered his voice as a woman in an officer’s uniform strode past, talking urgently with a man Clarke vaguely recognized. “I hope you brought those scrubs to Earth. I always liked the way that they made your—”

  “You’re all set,” Clarke said with exaggerated cheer as she secured the bandage and gave him an extrahard pat on the wrist, ignoring his grimace of pain. “I’ll see you around.”

  Without giving Scott another look, Clarke hurried away, shuddering as if to throw off the weight of his heavy, lingering gaze.

  CHAPTER 4

  Wells

  Wells winced as he trudged up the slope toward the lake for the eighth time that day. He’d walked nearly twenty miles trekking back and forth, leading survivors to the camp and then heading back for another group.

  There were more adults than kids in the clearing, a sight that seemed almost as a strange as the two-headed deer they’d spotted their first week on Earth. Their presence was made all the more conspicuous by the fact that they could do nothing more than stare in wonder and shock at their surroundings while, all around them, teens who’d been rotting away in a detention center just a few short weeks ago were barking out directions.

  Wells had also been struck by the lack of happy reunions. He’d only witnessed two of them finding any relatives, and they were both Phoenicians. None of the Waldenites or Arcadians had any loved ones on the ships.

  “I can’t believe I made it.” A young woman panted as she gratefully accepted Wells’s assistance climbing the steep slope.

  “You had a pretty rough landing there,” he said, shortening his stride so it’d be easier for her to keep up. Although it’d been only a few weeks since his own arrival, he’d forgotten how unsteady he’d felt at first.

  “Not the landing,” she said, stopping to look up at him. “On Phoenix. It was… terrifying.” She turned to glance up at the sky, then sighed and shook her head. “They don’t have much time left.”

  Her words were like a fist to Wells’s gut. Before he could ask what she meant, though, Eric stepped in to lead the young woman through the woods to the camp, freeing Wells to return to the lake.

  A hot coil of guilt tightened around Wells’s stomach. He didn’t need to know the details to understand that he had probably been responsible for whatever grim fate lay ahead for the people still on the Colony. He may have become a leader down here on Earth, but he was still a coldhearted murderer back on the ship. Wells could almost feel the cool metal of the airlock at his fingertips as he opened it, just a little, allowing precious oxygen to leak out of the ship. He had only been trying to speed up the inevitable so Clarke could travel to Earth before her eighteenth birthday—before her certain execution. But, he knew now, he had also hastened the demise of thousands of innocent people still trapped on the Colony.

  As he got closer to the lake, he wrinkled his nose at the now-familiar smell of the crash site. Under the acrid scent of smoke and the metallic tang of blood and sweat, he sensed something else. It took him a moment to place it, but as soon as he did, his heart began to pound: It was fuel. The smashed dropships were leaking it into the grass, dirt, and water all around them. Most of the flames had started to die out, but all it would take was one spark in the wrong place to turn the whole place into an inferno.

  Then, like a scene out of a nightmare, Wells saw it happen. About a hundred meters away, an enormous flame shot out the top of one of the charred dropships, hurtling chunks of flaming wreckage into the air. “Watch out!” Wells shouted, breaking into a run. “Everybody, move.”

  Luckily, the injured had all been triaged in another area, but there was too much smoke in the air to confirm that the others had moved to safety. Wheezing, Wells ran forward, coughing and wiping his eyes with his sleeves as he called out for anyone who needed help.

  There was a faint buzzing sound, like something flying through the air. Wells looked up but couldn’t see anything but dark gray smoke. It grew louder, but before Wells could react, he felt himself flying through the air, landing on the ground with a hard thud. He tried to roll over, but something—or someone—was on top of him. After a moment, the weight moved, and Wells looked up with a groan. Just a few meters from his head was an enormous piece of smoldering fuselage. If he hadn’t been knocked to the ground, it would’ve crushed his skull.

  He turned to the other side and saw a slim figure standing over him, a girl wearing the Colony’s standard-issue thin gray pants and T-shirt. She reached for his hand and pulled him to his feet. “Thank you,” Wells said, blinking rapidly as he waited for his vision to clear. When the world came back into focus, the first thing he saw sent a wave of joy through him.

  It was Glass.

  They locked eyes at the same moment, and their faces lit up into matching giant grins. Wells closed the space between them in an instant and wrapped his arms around his childhood best friend, pulling her into a tight hug. A million images flashed rapid-fire through his brain—years of happy memories crashing together and replaying in a steady stream. He had been so focused on following Clarke to Earth that he hadn’t had much time to worry about Glass after she bolted from the dropship just before the hundred launched. The familiar smell of her hair—that particular blend of Glass and the synthetically scented shampoo back on the Colony—filled him with comfort, and for a brief moment, Wells was transported back to simpler times.

  Growing up, she’d been the only one able to forget the fact that he was the Chancellor’s son, the only one who made him feel like he wasn’t on display. Around Glass, he could be immature, or playful, or sometimes even mischievous—like the time he said he was taking her to the archives to watch a video of some boring royal wedding when his real plan was to watch a great white shark attack an orca. And in turn, Glass wasn’t afraid to show him her goofy side. While the rest of the ship saw Glass as this perfectly polished, well-mannered Phoenician girl, Wells knew that she liked to make up silly dances and that she burst into laughter anytime someone mentioned Uranus.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” Wells said, pulling away so he could look at her. “Are you okay? I was so worried about you.”

  “Are you kidding? Think about how worried I was about you,” she said. “No one knew if you guys made it. Are you okay? What’s it like here?”

  It made his head spin just thinking about how much he had to tell her. So much had happened since the last time they’d seen each other. He’d set the Eden Tree on fire to get himself arrested, been Confined, faced off with his father, rod
e with the rest of the hundred on the dropship Glass had escaped from, and spent the last few weeks fighting for his life on Earth.

  “The weird thing is—” he started.

  “Are there actually—” she said at the same time.

  “You go first,” they both said together, then laughed. They pulled away from each other, the smiles fading on their lips as the scent of smoke and charred metal reminded them of where they were, and why. Wells struggled with the question that bubbled up in his throat, and the way Glass’s face grew serious told him she knew what he was thinking. He swallowed hard and found the courage to ask.

  “Do you know anything about my father?”

  Glass pressed her lips together, and her eyes filled with sympathy, a look Wells recognized from the terrible weeks after his mother’s death. Wells braced himself for whatever she was about to tell him, just grateful that if he had to hear agonizing news, it would be from her.

  “They haven’t told anyone much,” she began, her voice soft but steady. Wells held his breath, waiting for her to continue. “But the last we heard, he was still in a coma.” Glass paused, waiting for him to absorb the information.

  Wells nodded, his mind swirling with images of his father lying alone in the medical center, his tall, broad frame looking frail under a thin sheet. He focused his efforts on keeping his expression neutral as Glass’s words sank down into his chest, lodging themselves in the deepest part of his heart. “Okay,” he said with a long sigh. “Thanks for telling me.”

  Glass stepped toward him. “Wells,” was all she said before wrapping her arms around him again, this time in a comforting embrace. Glass knew him far too well to let him get away with his stoic act. The best part of their friendship was that he didn’t mind.

  After a long moment, they pulled away from each other. There was something Wells needed to tell Glass before she got to camp.

  “Glass,” he started, “things are a little… different here on Earth than we expected.”