Weathered Angel

○Twenty Eight○

I did everything I had been instructed to upon arrival. I stood in an airlock to be decontaminated. I stripped and disposed of my clothing. Fog filled the room again then disappeared. I showered and dressed.

Now I sat in the command room with Emerson waiting for Cage to arrive. I kept fidgeting and running my hands through my hair. At one point I had to tie my hair up and fold my arms.

Emerson noticed my discomfort and kept an eye on me. Not in a concerned way, more in a way that told me he'd expose any odd behaviour in a heartbeat. After all, he had been the one to find me trying to break out Monty and Harper.

"Why do you keep staring at me?" I questioned. It was driving me mad.

"I'm just keeping an eye on our most valuable asset. Although, you and I both know you're not that valuable." Emerson fiddled with some controls. "You're a waste of resources if you ask me."

His words struck a chord or two, as usual I didn't let it show instead biting back, "Good, cause I didn't ask. And neither will Cage, because your opinion holds no weight."

"You'd be surprised, Taylor." Emerson smirked.

The door to the control room clicked open and in came a relaxed looking Cage. He had a light smile on his face. Emerson and I stood from our seats.

Cage fixed his shirt collar while letting his eyes sweep around the room and over us. "My two favourite people right now." Cage sat down and we followed. "I hope you're both well. Eden why don't we start off this meeting with you. I'd like a debrief of what happened at Camp Jaha when you're ready."

In other words, he meant right this instant. "You were right. The Outsiders struck a deal with the Sky people. They follow Indra who takes orders from their commander Lexa."

"And?" Emerson urged.

Cage swivelled his chair to glance at him before giving me his full attention. "Did you kill her? Lexa. Did you kill her?"

"No. She wasn't there." I held eye contact. I wanted to see Cage's reaction. Every twitch of his lip, a scowl or a frown. I wanted to see whether anger, annoyance or disappointment lit up his dark eyes even for a second. He did none of that. His expression didn't shift, but his arm that was propped up on the table by his elbow tensed as his hands closed to a fist.

"Where was she? Do you know?"

"No."

"What do you know?" Emerson scoffed.

I had a choice. I could tell the truth, so that the mountain could prepare for any sort of attack and put any grain of faith I had left in Cage. My other option was to lie and side with the Sky people, protect my dad, Monty and Jasper. I could omit something key that would render the mountain useless and leave. The problem was I didn't know what I wanted to do. It felt like there were too many variables and possible outcomes and most ended up with me killing everybody or dead.

I shouldn't trust the mountain and realistically I knew I had to be wary of Cage. Then I couldn't trust that the Sky people wouldn't kill me the next time I saw them. I had done too many things they thought were bad, cruel, even evil, but I couldn't fully see their point of view. I understood and yet a large part of me just didn't care. By some massive change of heart, if I did suddenly want to be one of them again then I didn't see a way for them to accept me back.

All paths lead to bad outcomes. It was a head-fuck that kept my heart in a constant accelerated loop and my nerves shot. That could have also been down to the shortfall of drugs that had been trickled into my system on arrival.

In the pit of my stomach I knew I shouldn't have accepted the purple drug, however I didn't object because my body craved for it. They hadn't given me enough which was making things harder.