Coming Back Down

The Gospel of Josephine

  "You're being messy!" Enan declared while standing on the bench next to me. Roan scoffed, and my son grabbed my face with one hand while using the other to wipe a napkin across my face.

  "Isn't this supposed to be the other way around?" I managed to say, somehow making Enan giggle as he finished wiping the crumbs off my face.

  "Pakstoka." Gaia stood at my side, and I immediately noticed her worried expression that bordered on even fear. "Roan." She nodded to the man out of politeness before continuing on. "Clarke is taking Madi to school."

  "What?!"

  "They gave Clarke a bodyguard for being a Nightblood, and she's just leaving Madi by herself." Gaia waved her hands, clearly frustrated due to the possible danger and the situation we were in.

  "I wanna go to school, too!" Enan hopped on the bench until I put a hand on his shoulder.

  "Not today, Enan." I told him before turning back to Gaia. "I can't take Madi out of school. That would be more suspicious than anything."

  "Then I'm going with her." Gaia readjusted the backpack hanging off her shoulder. "It won't be strange for me to be around."

  "Be careful." Roan said.

  "Clarke is going to get us killed." I sighed as Gaia quickly walked away. "Enan, finish your food. I can clean my own face, thank you."

~

  Roan and I jerked our heads up when Gaia rushed into the room, checking behind her frantically to make sure she hadn't been followed.

  "Gaia? What happened?"

  "They're using Nightbloods." She hissed, keeping her voice low to keep from waking up Enan. "The Primes found a way to use their flames to become immortal." Gaia explained. "In their temple is-is a room full of skeletons tracking their lives and a lab to implant themselves into the next host."

  "And we have to keep low or they'll figure us out...." I muttered.

  "Enan is safe for now, the process will only work with a fully developed brain. But that doesn't mean they won't raise him just for that purpose."

  "Do they know about us or do they just know about Clarke?"

  "As far as we know, they're only aware of Clarke being a Nightblood." Gaia shifted on her feet while looking pale. I couldn't tell if it was from something she had witnessed or just the fear of what might happen. She was close to Madi, so she was no doubt frantic about the girl's safety.

  "Should we start keeping Madi with us?" I offered, and Gaia shook her head.

  "It's too risky, and you know Clarke wouldn't allow it. It would also raise questions for her to suddenly stay with you instead of her own mother."

  "Is there anything else you know?" Roan questioned, and Gaia swallowed.

  "Just do your absolute best to keep from bleeding."

~

  "Clarke, you realize staying says we're okay with what they're doing?" Madi stated.

  "Yeah, and what's the alternative?" Murphy popped off while setting down his drink. "Go back to space? Sleep for another hundred years on our way to a planet even less likely to support life?"

  "Build our own compound." Bellamy suggested.

  "We'll not last out there on our own."

  "Emori, Echo, and Raven will be back in the morning. They'll know everything we need to build a radiation shield. After that, it's just hard work."

  "Over how many lifetimes? No, seriously, how many eclipses? How many swarms? How many terrorist attacks? Sure, we've got Viper to protect us, but the first Red Sun on our own, and who's going to protect us from her?" Murphy waved his hand in my direction while scoffing. "We wouldn't even be alive now if we didn't have those sedatives when we came down."

  "I agree with John." Clarke spoke up, and we all looked at her. "I don't like who they are either, but we need them to survive."

  "They're murderers, raising people to give up their bodies, brainwashing them into believing they're gods." Jordan furrowed his brows as he spoke.

  "He's right. It's a perversion of everything Bekka Pramheda believed. The flame was about passing wisdom on to the next line, not keeping it all to yourself."

  "Yeah, well, no offense, but Becca wasn't a god either. She was a scientist who made herself a Nightblood in a lab the same way Abby did to Clarke and Viper."

  "Abby didn't make me a Nightblood."

  "Okay, yeah, Luna stabbed you with the stuff. Way to get me on a technicality." Murphy rolled his eyes.

  "So much for doing better." Madi shifted in her seat.

  "Then, like John said, we have Viper protect us." Clarke gestured to me, and I laughed.

  "First of all, fuck you, I'm still pissed at you. Secondly, I'm not a bodyguard."

  "Well, assassin, bodyguard, what's the difference?" Murphy popped off while picking up his drink.

  "I'm not an assassin, either."

  "Tell that to the people you've killed."

  "You weren't complaining when I saved your ass."

  "Not complaining now, either." He smirked while raising his glass.

  "Hey. Hey, hey!" Bellamy quickly got up after Jordan shot out of his seat to go straight toward Delilah. Murphy was quick to follow to help de-escalate.

  "I guess he's not gonna finish this." I grabbed Murphy's drink and downed what was left of it.

  "Viper, why are you still pissed at me?" Clarke crossed her arms, and I looked at her like she was an idiot.

  "Oh, I don't know, maybe because every time I turn around, I'm having to clean up your mess, you put my son's life in danger, Madi's, and everyone else's with the shit you've pulled, then wanted me killed on multiple occasions, and can't possibly forget how you reacted to finding out I was Dia of Death." Standing up, I rose my eyebrows at the blonde. "So you can just go fuck right off and thank Madi for being the reason you're still alive."