The One Who's Fallen

Chapter 61

"I do not want to leave them." Lexa murmurs, glancing back every few seconds at the cages behind us.

She's leaning on me more than she probably realizes, but I'm not complaining. Frankly, I'm surprised she can stand, let alone walk. I mean, she was locked up in a cage for a week and had her blood drained.

"I know, Lexa. But we have to get out of here and regroup." I remind her gently.

"Do you know where we are going?" Lexa asks.

"Kind of. A girl told me about how we can escape."

"A Maunon? How do you know she is not lying to you and leading you into a trap?" Lexa questions. If that came from anyone else, I'd be offended.

"I trust her. Ah, there's the double doors she told me about!" I say, gesturing toward metal doors.

We make our way over and Lexa gradually regains strength, relying on me less and less. I stay close and she still holds onto me. I frown at the door. It doesn't even have handles to open it. It'll be a pain in the butt to open.

"Lean against the wall, babe." I say. "I'll open the doors."

Lexa hums in response and flops against the wall, yawning cutely. Man, I just realized I haven't kissed her in a week. I'll have to fix that soon. I put my fingers in the crack separating the doors and I pull hard. The metal groans and slowly opens, but it stops after the gap is two feet wide. The room beyond the door is small and has a straight crack along the bottom.

I walk into the room, gesturing for Lexa to wait. I walk inside and look around for cameras or traps. There's nothing but rusty metal walls and the weird floor that's almost all red. I move my foot back and forth, alarmed when the "paint" flakes away. Float me, that's not paint. The floor is red with blood.

"Lexa, the floor is covered in blood. Some of it looks fresh." I say.

Lexa walks into the room and crouches down, studying the floor. "There are a lot of smudges, like something covered in blood slid down the floor."

There's a thump that makes us flinch and I watch in horror as the doors close behind us. The floor creaks unnaturally and then falls open. We fall down a metal tube that's obviously not built for comfort. We fall silently, the only sound coming from us hitting the sides of the tube. Quickly we're spit out into a bin of things that are both hard and soft.

I groan and sit up, seeing Lexa with a murderous, pained expression on her face. I look down and nearly yelp. We landed on people! I check for pulses on a few and find none. There's some armor and clothes and weapons in a cart attached to this one. Maybe that's where our stuff ended up.

"They're dead." I state.

"I will kill the Maunon." Lexa spits out, getting out of the cart and roughly running a hand through her hair. "They not only butchered my people but they put them down here as though they are garbage to get rid of."

Lexa trails off after that, looking like she's too angry to speak. I get out of the cart and wrap my arms around her. She stiffens at the touch at first then slowly starts relaxing. She rests her head on my shoulder, trembling and letting out a shuddering breath. I don't murmur reassurances because there's nothing I could say that could make this less painful for her. Lexa loves her people with all of her heart. I mean, she devoted her life to them. Seeing this... It breaks my heart because I know hers is breaking too. We stay like that as long as it's safe, Lexa in my arms trying to hold back tears.

"Come on, hodnes (love). Let's look through the other cart and see if our clothes are there." I suggest softly.

Lexa nods against my shoulder and pulls back. I immediately want to hug her again when I see the redness around her eyes. This week has undoubtably taken a toll on her. She's been through hell.

I begin looking through the clothes and weapons. By some incredible luck, I find our armor and weapons. I hand the clothes to Lexa and get dressed myself, feeling incredibly uncomfortable in the Maunon guard's clothing.

Lexa relaxes a bit when she's rearmed and has her armor on but that relief doesn't last long. The sound of metal hitting something comes from somewhere down the tunnel and I freeze, remembering what Maya said is down here.

"Maya said there are Reapers in these tunnels." I whisper. "And I think the Maunon probably have access to them too. We'll have to be careful."

As if on cue, an alarm starts ringing and an intercom comes on through hidden speakers. A familiar voice filters through and I recognize it as Cage's, the guy who the guard said was stuck up (in less polite words, though). "Warning, there are two extremely dangerous savages in the Reaper tunnels. Teams, be prepared to move out. They can't escape from here."

"There's got to be some way out." I say, only now noticing the faint sound of rushing water. Wait. Rushing water? We're underground. "Do you hear that?"

"The water is coming from the right and the sound of running in boots is coming from the left." Lexa observes. "We should go right."

We start running, and I dread the thought that the Maunon may catch up to us. There's shouting coming from behind us and we push ourselves harder. We turns a few corners, I just follow Lexa, who seems to be following the sound of water. Lexa's a few feet in front of me when she suddenly stops. I nearly crash into her, stumbling.

Crap. We're at a dead end. There's a waterfall and a small lake below us. But sadly, it's like a hundred feet below us. And judging by how loud the sound of running boots are, we're trapped.

Ooo... What will happen next? You might've noticed that I'm taking some of this from the show. I like this part, right up until Anya was killed :( No worries, here Anya and Luna will stay alive! Thank you all for reading and for your amazing comments! Stay awesome!