Shallow Valley

18.Back In Black

18.

I've been too long, I'm glad to be back
Yes I am
(AC/DC-Back In Black)

Roan woke up and stirred. It was just three in the morning and he had no time to lose. He got up and, worn his shoes, he walked to the bathroom in the corridor. He had settled in an old and filthy motel on the highway. He was desperately trying to follow Ontari, but it was so difficult. That woman was really clever. She probably ignored that Roan was behind her, at least this was what the man hoped for, but she was smart enough to cover her tracks. After Titus' visit, the man had immediately started to look for Lexa, but he had soon understood that he couldn't do that on his own. He was out of the game since too much time now and he needed to follow Ontari and find a way to anticipate her moves. Funny, he had to thank the woman he was supposed to save for that. Lexa and he had been friends since childhood. He had never cared about Nia's hate for her and, for a brief period of time, he also had developed a crush for her, that had soon become a strong feeling of affection when Lexa had come out as a lesbian. He had loved her as a sister, he had considered her his family, he had stood against his mother for her and everything he had gained back had been the worst of the betrayals. When Nia had asked Lexa to kick Roan out of the Grounders, she agreed and did it. That woman was the reason for his fall into disgrace and now he had to save her. Roan, you're a perfect idiot , he thought while peeing. He closed his zipper and, after having washed his hands, he collected his stuff and headed to the motel's parking lot.

"Hi baby, I hope you slept well" he said, caressing his motorbike, a black and beautiful Harley-Davidson softail with white tails. He wore his helmet and zipped his black leather jacket. He got on the motorbike and started it.

"Showtime." he whispered and started driving. The highway was desert and the dark and cold gloomy night was a perfect companion for his journey. So, where are you going, Ontari? , he wondered, trying to resonate. He was almost sure that the woman was looking for all Lexa's close friends, in order to understand where she had gone. However, it wasn't easy to find all of them. Most of Lexa's friends lived far from Polis and, apparently, none of them had seen or heard from her. Some of them, then, had vanished after Ontari's visit and Roan had started to suspect that she had killed them. She was capable of doing actions like that, she was a psychopath and a really cruel woman after all. Also, not only the disappearance of Brell and Ilian had really affected Roan, but it also had caused him to lose Ontari tracks for a while. Fortunately, he had found her again at Kahlan's, one of Lexa and him's closest friends, but he had not been able to really help him. C'mon man, where would she go? , Roan questioned himself. Suddenly, he got an idea. He should have thought about it before.

"Lake Nopar, here I come." he said, turning up the volume of his radio. Back In Black started playing and Roan couldn't help, but smile.

"God, I love this song.". And, having put the pedal on metal, he sped in the night.

________________

Lake Nopar was a place lost into nowhere, famous only because of an old dismissed refinery that it was said to host ghosts. It wasn't true of course, but people's imagination can be stronger than everything else and a lot of parents used that story to scary their children and convince them to obey. Go to bed or I will leave you at Lake Nopar or Eat your lunch or I will send you to the old refinery were common threats that a lot of adults usually told their kids. However, there was some truth in these stories. The refinery hosted in fact someone. And they weren't ghosts, but real people, in skin and bones. Floukru was one of the twelve Grounders' clan but, differently from the other eleven, it had some internal problems. The leader's daughter, Luna, had indeed split the clan, claiming that she would have still served Kongeda and the Heda , but using violence the less as possible. So, she had decided to occupy the refinery and settled there with her companions. They didn't want to redeem themselves, they just didn't want to kill anymore.