“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.