In the Willows

Chapter Fourty-Nine: Guess Who's Back

Please read this is a brand new completely changed chapter from before. Hopefully this is a better chapter than previously, I'm sorry for the wait.

Five years later, Kai's POV: Berkeley University

You sit inside a command tent, steam rising from your skin as blood seeps through the cloth pressed against your shoulder. Marrow, once a Valkyrie and now a part of Vanguard, braces you with one hand and works with the other.

"The barbs are forward," she says. "I have to push it through."

You nod. You've had worse. What's one more scar?

Her fingers don't tremble as she drives the iron-tipped arrow through your flesh. You grunt but don't yell. The pain hits like fire, bright and savage, then fades into something duller.

The flap opens. Emory steps in, helmet tucked beneath her arm, fresh scar across her cheek from the last raid.

"Got news," she says. "Berkeley's lab was stripped. Looks like they had something, but we missed it. We lit it up."

You look to Marrow. She sews your skin closed, working fast.

"What about Fox, any word?"

"Yeah. Four suspicious travelers picked up moving outside Chico. Not locals. Not settlers." 

"Alive?" you ask.

"Alive," Emory says. "Quiet. Didn't resist much."

You stare at the fire pit in the center of the tent. Something stirs in the back of your skull. The silhouette appears briefly before disappearing. 

Marrow finishes the last stitch.

"They get any names?" you ask.

"Louis. Seemed like he was the leader." replies Emory.

"I'll take the boats back to Fairhaven," you say. "We'll decide what to do with them once I've seen them myself."

"You want to interrogate?" Emory asks.

You shake your head. "Not yet."

She frowns. "You think they're G.R.A.D.E.?"

You don't answer.

Clementine's POV: Jackson

You stare down at the suspension form with a headache already brewing behind your eyes.

"Ms. Everett," Principal Hargrove says. "This isn't the first time."

"I know," you reply. "I'll talk to him."

"I'm not sure you understand. He's suspended—for a week."

You glance out the window. The snow hasn't let up in two days. "He punched another student?"

"Punched would be an understatement. A black eye. Bruised ribs. Almost took two teachers to break it up."

You sigh. "I'm taking him home."

You shut the door before he can finish whatever moral lecture he had waiting. Jonathan sits outside the nurse's office, backpack half-zipped.

"He deserved it," he says before you can ask.

"A week, Jonathan. Are you kidding me?"

"He called you a slut, Mom."

You blink. Look down at him. There's no regret in his face. Just fire. Reminds you of his dad, rest in peace.