Homecoming

by Kass Morgan

  “Wells, I wish there was something I could say,” Clarke finally said.

  “There’s nothing,” he said flatly.

  She placed her hand on his arm. Wells flinched, and Clarke made like she was about to pull away but she increased the pressure with a squeeze. “I know. I’ve lost a lot of people too. I know the words don’t make any difference.”

  Wells didn’t meet Clarke’s eyes, but he was glad she knew better than to start babbling about how Sasha was in a better place. He’d had enough of that when his mother died. But at least then there’d been a part of him that had managed to believe it. He’d imagined his mom on Earth, her spirit returning to humanity’s real home instead of being sentenced to spend eternity among the cold, unfeeling stars. But this was different. Sasha had already been where she belonged. Now she was nowhere, exiled from the world she’d loved far, far too soon.

  “I’m so sorry, Wells,” Clarke whispered. “Sasha was incredible. She was so smart, and strong… and noble. Just like you. You made an inspiring team.”

  “Noble?” The word tasted bitter in Wells’s mouth. “Clarke, I’m a murderer.”

  “A murderer? Wells, no. What happened to Sasha wasn’t your fault. You know that, right?”

  “It was absolutely my fault. One hundred percent.” Wells rose from the bed and began pacing the room like a Confined prisoner counting down the hours to his execution.

  “What are you talking about?” Clarke watched him, her eyes full of confusion and concern.

  “I’m the reason all of this is happening. I’m the selfish bastard who leaves a trail of destruction behind him wherever he goes. Everyone up there”—he jabbed a finger skyward—“would be alive today if it weren’t for me.”

  Clarke rose from the bed and took a few hesitant steps toward him. “Wells, you’re exhausted. I think you should lie down for a few minutes. You’ll feel better after you’ve had some rest.”

  She was right. He was exhausted, but it wasn’t entirely from the strain of watching the girl he loved die in front of him. The effort of holding in his terrible secret was what had truly drained every last ounce of strength. He dropped back onto the bed. Clarke followed, and wrapped her arm around him.

  He had nothing left to lose. He already despised himself. What did it matter if he made everyone else despise him as well? “There’s something I haven’t told you, Clarke.”

  Her whole body tensed, but she remained silent and waited for him to continue.

  “I broke the airlock on Phoenix.”

  “What?” He wouldn’t look at her, but he could hear the confusion and disbelief in her voice.

  “It was already faulty, but I made it worse. So that the air would leak faster. So that you would get sent to Earth before your eighteenth birthday. They were going to kill you, Clarke. And I couldn’t let that happen. Not after what I’d already done to you. I was the reason you were Confined in the first place.”

  Clarke still said nothing, so Wells went on, a strange, numbing combination of relief and horror spreading through his limbs as he voiced the words he’d feared ever saying out loud.

  “I’m the reason they had to abandon the ship so fast, and the reason so many people got stuck up there, suffocating. I did that to them.”

  Clarke still hadn’t spoken, so finally, Wells forced himself to look at her, bracing for the look of horror and loathing. But instead, she just looked sad and scared, her wide eyes making her appear younger, almost vulnerable.

  “You did that… for me?”

  Wells nodded slowly. “I had to. I overheard my father and Rhodes talking, so I knew the plan. They were either going to kill you or send you to Earth, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let it be option A.”

  To his surprise, when she spoke, there was no rancor in her voice. Just sadness. “I would’ve never wanted you to do that. I would’ve rather died than endanger so many lives.”

  “I know.” He placed his head in his hands, his cheeks burning with shame. “It was insane and selfish. I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if you died, but I can’t live with myself now, anyway.” He let out a short, bitter laugh. “Of course, now I realize that the right thing to do would’ve been just to kill myself. If I’d thrown myself out of that airlock, it would’ve saved everyone a lot of pain and suffering.”

  “Wells, don’t talk like that.” Clarke had scooted back in order to face him, and was looking at him with dismay. “Yes, you made a mistake… a big one. But that doesn’t negate all the incredible things you’ve done. Think of all the people you saved. If you hadn’t messed with the airlock, every single one of us would’ve been executed instead of being sent to Earth. Not just me. Molly, Octavia, Eric. Even more, you’re the reason we all survived once we got here.”

  “Hardly. You’re the one who saved everyone’s lives. I just chopped some firewood.”

  “You turned a wild, dangerous planet into our home. You made us see our potential, what we could achieve if we worked together. You inspired us, Wells. You bring out the best in everyone.”

  That’s what he’d loved about Sasha, the way she’d made him want to be a better person, a better leader. He’d failed her—there was nothing Clarke could do to convince him otherwise—but that didn’t mean he should stop trying. He owed her more than that.

  “I… I just don’t know what to do now,” he said quietly.

  “You could start by forgiving yourself. Just a little bit.”

  Wells had no idea how that even worked. He had spent his entire life in the right place at the right time, doing as he was told, doing as he was expected to do. He had always taken the high road, made the right choice, regardless of his own feelings. But at the most crucial moment of all, he’d faltered, and thousands of people had suffered. It was unforgivable.

  Clarke knew him so well. It was as if he had spoken all his thoughts out loud. “I know better than anyone that you don’t like to show your emotions, Wells. But sometimes you have to. You need to take all these feelings and use them. Be human. It will make you an even better leader.”

  Wells took Clarke’s hand and gripped it tightly. Before he could reply, a commotion rang out through the corridor. They both hopped to their feet and hurried out of the room, following a steady stream of people down the hall.

  Max stood at the front of the large, cavernous space that’d become their center of operations. His face looked ravaged, and his shoulders stooped on his gaunt frame. The fire was gone from his eyes.

  “We have visitors,” he announced, beckoning toward someone out of sight. As he spoke, hundreds of heads shot around to see who had entered the bunker. “Don’t worry—none of them are armed. We checked.” Wells and Clarke let out a loud sigh of relief as they recognized the dozen or so members of the hundred filing inside. Eric and Felix led the pack.

  “Did Rhodes send you?” Max asked. The entire room held its breath, waiting for their answer.

  “No,” Eric said, shaking his head, his voice as steady and calm as ever. “We came to join you. We want nothing to do with Rhodes or the other Colonists anymore.”

  Max eyed them shrewdly, his years of experience had clearly sharpened his ability to assess people’s character. “And why is that?”

  Eric met his eyes without wavering. “They’ve completely taken over. It’s not the home we built anymore. There’s no discussion, no cooperation. Rhodes tells everyone what to do, and the guards make sure they do it. It’s just like being back on the ship. The prison cabin they built for Bellamy is already full, and the guards beat one woman up so badly I’m not sure she’s going to be able to walk again.” He paused and turned to face the Earthborns, who were staring at him uneasily, then scanned the crowd until he spotted Wells. “Everything was so much better when you were in charge, Wells. You stood for something, something worth fighting for.”

  The grief that had lodged in Wells’s chest loosened its grip, and a faint glimmer of hope flared up in him.

  Max cleared his
throat, and all eyes turned to him.

  “You’re welcome to stay with us, then. We’ll help you get settled shortly. But first, do you have any insight into what Rhodes might be planning?”

  “We do,” Felix said, stepping forward. “That’s why we came when we did. I volunteered to work with the guards, so I heard their discussions. They don’t believe there are two separate groups of Earthborns. They think you’re dangerous, and we couldn’t get them to believe that you aren’t. They think you’re all working together.”

  “They’re planning an attack,” Eric interjected. “A big one. And they have more weapons than we realized at first. We discovered that they’ve been hoarding guns and ammo in a secret cache in the woods.”

  The room filled with whispers and anxious murmurs, but Max hardly flinched. His old bearing had returned, and some of the light had returned to his eyes. “Are you willing to fight with us?” he asked the newcomers.

  Eric, Felix, and the others nodded vigorously. Gratitude and pride surged in Wells’s chest.

  “Very well, then. I think we may have an opportunity now that we have your support.” He shook his head grimly. “We might’ve started this to help your friends, but it’s clear this conflict was inevitable. It was just a matter of time before Rhodes drew us into a fight. Better we deal with it quickly, before”—he took a deep breath—“before even more people get hurt.”

  Bellamy ran over to Eric. “What about Octavia? Did she come with you? Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine, but she didn’t come with us. It was a tough decision, but she felt she had to stay with the kids, especially now that things have gotten more and more dangerous.” Eric’s face softened, and he placed a hand on Bellamy’s shoulder.

  “Don’t worry,” Wells said. “Once we kick Rhodes’s ass, we’ll be able to bring them all here. Octavia, the kids, and anyone else who wants to join.”

  Bellamy nodded, the wistfulness in his eyes hardening into resolve. Wells could tell he was gearing up for a fight. They all were.

  Max was already deep in conversation with his deputies, and it was clear they had already started discussing battle plans. He looked over at Wells, who averted his gaze, still unwilling to meet Max’s eyes. Certainly, the last thing Max needed was a reminder of the boy who got his daughter killed. But then, to his surprise, Max called his name. “Come over here, Wells. We need you.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Clarke

  Clarke had been spending every free minute in the radio room, and today was no different. After their strategy meeting with Max, they had gone their separate ways to prepare for battle. Eric had told them that Rhodes was preparing his guards to attack just before dawn the next morning. That was eight hours from now.

  They had all agreed it was best to wait for the Colonists to come to Mount Weather, where the Earthborns would have the advantage. They had their solid bunker, protected by the rock formations surrounding them on all sides. They also had intimate knowledge of the terrain, which Rhodes and his men did not. A group of Earthborns had already been dispatched into the woods, climbing high into the trees where they would be invisible to anyone on the ground. As soon as the advancing Colonists passed below them, the Earthborn fighters would drop down from the trees. The Vice Chancellor and his men would be trapped between the Earthborns outside and the ones waiting to attack from inside Mount Weather.

  It was a shaky plan, at best, but it was all they had. They would have to rely on the element of surprise—and a lot of luck. While the others paced the hallways anxiously, waiting for the signal to get in position, Clarke sought the solace of the radio room. She could almost feel her parents there, and that gave her comfort—and hope.

  The quiet also gave her a chance to try and process everything Wells had told her. Never in her wildest dreams, or most unsettling nightmares, would she have imagined Wells was capable of such a thing. He endangered the lives of every single person on the Colony, just to give her a fighting chance of seeing her eighteenth birthday. A wave of nausea crashed over her, nearly bringing Clarke to her knees. All those people—practically everyone she’d ever known—dead, because of her. Because of what Wells had done to save her. But then, God knew she was in no position to judge him. When Clarke had discovered that her parents were conducting radiation trials on unregistered children from the care center, she’d done nothing to stop them. More than anyone, Clarke knew what it was like to put the people you loved ahead of everything else. She’d spent so much of her life seeing the world as black-and-white, separating right from wrong as confidently as she sorted plant cells from animal cells during a biology exam. But the past year had been a brutal crash course in moral relativity.

  Clarke fiddled with the dials and switches as these thoughts ran through her head. A loud, steady hiss filled the room, bouncing off the stone walls. She tried a new combination, and the hiss deepened in tone. Then a high-pitched whine kicked in. She sat forward in her chair. That was a sound she hadn’t heard before. Gently, Clarke nudged the dial a hair further. The whine dropped out, and for a beat, there was just the sound of static. Clarke’s heart sank.

  Then she heard something deep in the hiss. It was so faint, nothing more than a whisper into the wind. It was unidentifiable, yet somehow oddly familiar at the same time. The sound grew louder, as if it were moving toward her. Clarke tilted her head toward the speaker, straining to listen. She wasn’t sure what she had heard. Could it have been…? She shook her head. She was probably imagining things. Was her desperation making her go nuts?

  But the sound grew louder and clearer—and it was definitely a voice. She wasn’t making this up. Goose bumps sprinkled her skin, and her heart began to pound in her chest. Clarke knew that voice.

  It was her mom.

  The words grew to full volume. “Radio check,” her mom said in a neutral tone, as if she’d spoken those words a thousand times before. “Radio check. Alpha X-ray radio check.”

  Clarke closed her eyes and let her mother’s voice wash over her, filling her with the most wonderful mix of relief and joy, like the sound of a heartbeat after a patient had gone into cardiac arrest. Her hands shook as she reached for the button that transmitted her voice across the airwaves.

  “Mom?” Clarke called out, trembling. “Is—is that you?”

  There was a long pause, and Clarke held her breath until her chest began to hurt.

  “Clarke? Clarke?” There was no question: It was her mom. Then Clarke heard a man’s voice calling out in the background. Her dad. It was true. They were alive. “Clarke, where are you?” her mom asked across the frequencies, with equal parts amazement and disbelief. “Are you on Earth?”

  “Yes… I’m here. I’m—” A sob tore its way out of her throat as tears began to stream down her face.

  “Clarke, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  She tried to tell her mother that she was fine, but nothing came out of her mouth except more sobs. Clarke released all the tears she’d been too numb to shed during her long, lonely months in Confinement when she’d believed she was truly alone in the universe. Her heart was so full of joy, her happiness was almost an ache, yet she couldn’t stop crying.

  “Clarke, oh God. What’s going on? Where are you?”

  She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and tried to take a breath. “I’m fine. I just can’t believe I’m talking to you. They told me they floated you. I—I thought you were dead!” She thought of all the one-sided conversations she’d had with her parents over the past year and a half, imagining what they’d say when she told them about her trial, about Wells, and, most of all, about the wonders of Earth. For eighteen months, everything she’d thought, everything she’d told them, every prayer and every plea had been met with nothing but suffocating silence. And now the silence had lifted, releasing a weight she hadn’t realized had been chained to her heart.

  “It’s okay, Clarke. We’re here. We’re alive. Where are you now?” Her father’s voice was so solid, so reassurin
g.

  “I’m in Mount Weather,” she said, grinning as she wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Where are you?”

  “Oh, Cl—” her mom began, but her words were cut off sharply as the high whine returned.

  “No!” Clarke shouted. “No, no, no!” She swiped frantically at the dials, but she couldn’t find the right frequency again. Her tears of joy turned to frustration as anxiety welled up in her chest. It felt like losing them all over again. “Damn it,” she cried, smacking her hand against the console. She had to get the signal back.

  Before she had a chance to try anything else, the door burst open, and a few of Max’s men ran into the room.

  “Clarke,” one of them said. “They’re here. Let’s go.”

  “But it’s too early,” she said, startled. “How did they get here so fast?”

  “We don’t know, but we need to move into position.”

  Her head swam as she tried to process what this meant. Rhodes and his guards were preparing to attack Mount Weather. “But we’re not ready—”

  “We have to be ready,” the man said. “Time to move.”

  Clarke jumped from her seat and wiped tears from her face, grateful that everyone else would be too preoccupied to ask why she was crying. Without a backward glance at the flashing lights and endless hiss and crackle of the radio, she ran from the room, ready to arm herself for battle.

  CHAPTER 23

  Bellamy

  Bellamy’s shoulder didn’t hurt anymore. The adrenaline coursing through his body was better than any painkiller. He hopped from one foot to the other and shook out his hands, which were itching for a weapon. He couldn’t decide what would be more satisfying—sending one of his perfectly aimed arrows right through Rhodes’s throat or thrusting a spear into his chest.

  The Earthborns were gathering in the cavernous hall that had become their command center. Many of the adults were arming themselves with knives, spears, and the odd bow, while others were preparing to lead the children and the elderly deeper into the fortress. Bellamy reached for a bow, his brow furrowing in concentration as he tested the string.