“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.