Triple Point

Chapter 83: Birthday Wishes, Part Three

Elsie

May 14, 34 AE, 11:46 PM

30 miles east of Port Alsworth, Alaska

An icy breeze rushed by, and Elsie hugged herself a little tighter. It may have been spring, but they were also in Alaska, outside, in the mountains, in the middle of the night. In Elsie's opinion, they might as well have been in the dead of winter.

But even though Elsie could barely feel her fingers, she refused to go inside the mountain hideout where it was relatively warmer. For one, she would rather not be surrounded by Exodos members who definitely hated her guts. While she knew being just outside the camp didn't make much of a difference, and it didn't change the fact that she was essentially their hostage while some of their members had accompanied Elsie's friends to raid Farallon, the physical distance at least gave her a chance to breathe in peace.

Elsie's main reason for waiting outside was that she wanted to be as close to Camilla as possible. She knew it was ridiculous, and it didn't matter whether she was several dozens of yards closer or not, but she couldn't help it.

It had been two months since she had last seen Camilla, and now that it would only be a matter of hours or even minutes before Elsie would see her again, she was getting restless and impatient. It felt like ages ago since she had overheard that the raid team had managed to rendezvous with the transport in the Pacific, but they had decided to cut off communications to avoid detection by the Org scouts that were patrolling the skies. They were hours late already, and Elsie was freaking out.

As if right on cue, Elsie saw a cluster of small planes navigating their way through the dark mountains in a tight formation, illuminated only by the moonlight. At the same time, people began rushing out of the camp behind her, chattering excitedly. Amongst the noise, Elsie managed to pick out the most important detail: they were back.

The mountain range forced the planes to make a normally impossible vertical landing, and metas both in the planes and on the ground helped ease each of the five tiny aircrafts safely down. As soon as they did, the raid team and Farallon captives began pouring out of the planes, greeting their loved ones on the ground with tight embraces. At the same time, Exodos healers rushed past them in search of the injured that needed to be tended to. But amongst the flurry of people, Elsie couldn't see Camilla, or any of her friends.

She squeezed through the crowd that had formed around the planes, her eyes darting back and forth amongst the dozens of Exodos members, searching for familiar faces. There wasn't much activity by the furthest of the five planes, so Elsie inched her way there, ignoring the cold looks and snide comments that were directed at her. None of that mattered to her, not now.

But when Elsie finally broke free of the crowd, her body went rigid and she froze in her tracks. In front of her, Mack and Finn were slowly emerging from the last plane, carrying a small, limp body between them. Hitomi was with them as well, looking like she was about to pass out at any moment, but she continued to clench on to one of the body's frail hands as if both of their lives depended on it. At first, Elsie couldn't tell who it was beneath layers of blood and burns, but when recognition finally hit her, she felt her heart drop.

It was Camilla, unmoving and looking as fragile as glass.

Elsie stumbled up to them, unaware of everything happening around them except for what her eyes could see directly in front of her. By the time she managed to reach them, they had set her gently on the icy ground, and Mack immediately placed his hands on one of her shoulders, gritting his teeth as he encompassed Camilla in a warm but faint glow.