Chapter 10: Lexa

Chapter Ten:
~ Lexa ~
I didn’t sleep a wink that night. Grey was curled up in my tent because he couldn’t sleep with “that thing” in his tent, and I had taken the first watch like I usually did. But instead of waking Jax and Grey up for their shifts, I just stayed up. I couldn’t sleep even if I wanted to. How could I sleep if Will was that damaged?
I had gone over the plan a million times, as I paced the corridors of sleeping people. Their minds were probably as restless as mine, but at least they could sleep. Or at least many of them had been until about an hour ago.
“What the hell, Lex?” Jax all but shouted when he saw me.
I smiled at him, trying to hide my exhaustion.
“Good morning, sleep well?”
“You didn’t wake me.” He stated, his arms crossed and his eyes glaring. He always took 2nd shift.
“Oops. Hard to keep track of time down here. I didn’t realize the time.”
Jax rolled his eyes at me. “That’s a lie, and we both know it.”
I shrugged and went back to rationing.
“Lexa. Grey is going to lose his shit, when he finds out you’ve done this again.”
“He will no-” I started before I was rudely interrupted by Grey and S, ruining my argument.
“Lexa! I can’t believe you! How do you expect to do our job if you don’t sleep? How is that helping anyone?” Grey shouted angrily.
People turned to look at us, but I just kept doing what I was doing. Grey hadn’t always been angry, but since Will left, his pain was masked with anger. He felt responsible for me. Not that I needed someone to be responsible for me. But he felt the need to try and be, since Will had always managed to keep all of us out of too much trouble.
“Wait, E, you didn’t sleep?” S looked at me with a look of concern.
“I’m fine everyone, thanks for asking.” I was trying to hold it together. But the truth was, I wasn’t okay, and I was one wrong comment away from breaking. “We have work to do. S, you’re with me.”
As I started to stand up and walk away, Grey grabbed my arm, stopping me before I could move.
“Are you sure you're okay?” He muttered in my ear, “Because you don’t have to do this.”
“I’m fine.” I answered, pulling away. “S, let’s go. There’s a lot to do.”
She nodded at me, following my lead as I walked away, leaving the boys to do whatever it was they were going to do.
“Where are we going?” S asked after we had been walking a while.
“I wanna show you something before we leave.” I told her simply.
“Okay…” She answered slowly, she paused. “Wait, we?”
“Right,” I finally stopped moving, “Stand here, on this rock.”
“Okay…” She said hesitantly. “What now?”
“Look around,” I told her. “What do you see?”
I watched her face closely.
“I see families. Little kids running around. None of them look scared.” She observed.
“That’s right, S.” I stated firmly. “They aren’t scared. Because I,” I paused. “Because me and Will and Jaxon, and Grey, have made every effort to give them every reason to believe in us. We have kept them safe this long. Our plans, from here on out cannot fail. Do you understand?”
She looked at me nervously.
“I get it, E.” She responded, sounding slightly off. “I get it.”
“No,” I replied. “No, you don’t. S, look around again. These are families. Everyone here has powers. We have practiced our powers. We are gifted. We have trained. We built this with our abilities. I’m not sick. And I sure as hell am not dying before I’m 25. Look around, most people are over 25, and we’re doing alright.”
I watched S realize what it was I was saying. I watched her face pale as she realized everything she knew or had thought she knew was a lie.
“Come on,” I continued. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
“What are you talking about?” S asked, following behind me as we once again moved through the crowd.
“You told me, Will doesn’t have a lot of time. So, what’s going to happen is we go into phase 2 of the plan.”
“E!” She exclaimed, stopping in her tracks. “Slow down a second, what are you talking about?”
I stopped, pulling her out of the way of everyone else traveling.
“I need to save Will. And as you pointed out, there is not a lot of time. So here’s what’s going to happen next, you are going to take me to Will. You are going to claim that you were soooo angry at me for kidnapping you, you decided to come after me yourself, and since I am your greatest enemy, you demand to see me through to my death. You learn the passageways. You learn the secrets that you have been only half trying to learn, and then you come back and find Grey. You tell him everything. I am going to try my best to get me and Will out, but in case I fail, Grey and Jax are going to need every ounce of information you can give them. Got it?” I was yelling in a hushed voice. I had planned it. I was ready. But I needed S to buy in. Because without her, this plan would fall apart before it even started.
“E, I don’t think I can do this...” S hesitated.
“You don’t have a choice.” I snapped. “If we don’t save Will and come up with another plan, my people will die. And that is not happening on my watch.”
S nodded at me, but I could tell she was scared. I was too. This was a big step. A huge risk. But it was a necessary one.
“Come on,” I said after a moment of silence as we both tried to shake off our thoughts of impending doom. “We’re wasting time. We’ll exit this way.”
S nodded again at me, before eventually finding her voice. “Aren’t you going to say goodbye to your friends?” She asked.
“No.” I answered. “They would try and talk me out of it. Say we needed to wait a day or some other bullshit excuse. But we’ve put it off long enough. It’s time to save Will.”
I heard S take a deep breath, and I wanted so badly to join her, but I was in fight mode. The one where I suppressed every little feeling I had and tried to just move.
We were close to the exit when a voice called out from just below our door.
“Thought you were leaving without a goodbye?”
To my surprise, it was Grey.
“Damn it Grey,” I rolled my eyes. “You’re not supposed to read my mind. We had a deal.”
“I knew you were up to something. I had to come to say goodbye.”
“I hate goodbyes, you know that.” I responded, but he wrapped me in a tight squeeze anyways.
“Be careful, okay?” He whispered in my ear. “Nothing too reckless, we need you here.”
I smiled a little, despite how challenging he was making it to leave.
“I’m always careful.” I whispered back, even though it was a lie. I did what I thought was best despite the consequences, always. And that wasn’t going to change. “I’ll be home soon with Will. Hold down the fort, okay?”
He didn’t answer. He just slowly let go.
“Seriously Lex.” He looked at me.
“I’ll be fine,” I told him as confidently as I could. “We gotta go. Aspen will bring back news when she can. Maybe figure out a way to communicate without having to meet. It’s an uphill journey from here. We have a lot of work to do.”
Grey nodded, and I began to climb the ladder. S right behind me, and I opened the door to my future.

The smoke had mostly subsided, so that was a plus. As soon as I noticed I wanted to go back and tell the others, but that wasn’t a choice. There was nothing left to do but press on, so we walked in silence, each lost in our own thoughts till we reached the edge of the woods.
“This is it, E…” S said standing next to me, surveying the city. “You ready?”
“Wait,” I panicked. “S, let’s talk real quick. There’s a couple things we need to discuss before we go past here.”
“Okay…” She said, “This sounds serious.”
“It is serious.” I responded, trying to shake the panic I felt.
I took a deep breath.
“First off, if it comes down to saving me or Will, you need to promise me you will save Will.” I started, but my head just felt jumbled with all the things I needed to get out.
“E…”
“No, I’m serious. If it’s a matter of who to save, you have to pick Will. And I know this could end in death for all of us, but S, I’m trusting you. I need you to do your part, so we can save Will, and the rest of my people. I need you to save Will.”
“Okay…” S shook her head. “Okay… I promise.”
“Second, I need you to know that I trust you. But in order for this to work, you need to trust yourself. I need you to be confident and fearless. A lot is riding on you. People are depending on you. There is no room for fear to have any place in your head. It will only fail you.”
She nodded only in understanding, but her facial expression became more masked.
“Good,” I stated firmly. “Third thing, Grey is not a bad guy. You need to trust him and give him every reason to trust you. Life hasn’t been easy for us. And he hides his fears with anger, but he’s a good guy, and he will help you with whatever you need. Jax too. Jax is really smart. But he’s more of a thinker, Grey is the doer.”
S looked hesitant, but she agreed.
“Okay,” I finished, “Lastly, punch me in the face and make me your victim.” I paused as S looked a little horrified. “S, I trust you. Do it.”
And with the punch, I buried any piece of fear I had left and was ready to play the devil’s game.