Thankfully, it didn't take as long a time as they did with Clarke and the bear trap.
They had managed to reach the truck in record time, which was, at the very least, shorter than what happened during the entire bear-trap debacle. Unfortunately, it had taken even longer due to the broken wheelchair that was laid in the bottom of the fissure.
After leaving Lexa in the truck, Clarke had left with a rope from the truck back to where the freak fissure was, and securing it to a nearby tree trunk, she had descended into the fissure to retrieve the remains of the broken wheelchair. After a few more descents, and even more parts-transport with a furiously hard-working Madi, they had finally settled into the truck nearly an hour after dark, amid with some grunts, sweat and groans.
And it was then, when they were breathing long and hard and Clarke switched on the truck's lights, that Lexa contemplated Clarke's words. She thought I had been taken.
''Taken?'' Lexa questioned, after gratefully taking water that was offered by Madi.
Clarke swallowed. She couldn't—didn't want to think about it, not right now, not only when she had gotten Lexa back after she thought she was lost. ''Yeah. By him. The Maunon. Carl Emerson.''
Madi made a strangled sound in the back of her throat. Lexa seemed puzzled as she looked at Clarke, but Madi's response went unnoticed. ''Wouldn't he be dead? Crawled off to die somewhere in a cave after we let him go?''
Clarke let out a small, disbelieving laugh. ''Yeah, well, he's still alive, somehow.'' And then, troubled, because the shadow she saw—the shadow that appeared among the woods, taunted her like a ghost, was real, right? It couldn't be her imagination. ''He has to be. He had to have made that trap. W-what else?'' she ended on disbelief.
Lexa seemed concerned. ''Clarke... are you sure you're not seeing things?''
Clarke blinked. ''What?''
''The Maunon are extinct, Clarke. They had all died when you chose to pull a lever—'' and at this, Clarke stiffened. ''—the choice leaders would make for their people. He was the last of his people, and he cannot be alive—not after everything. Not after all we've done.''
''Why can't he?'' Clarke scoffed, and let the memories at Becca's Lab envelop her. Of how they found him, scarred all over by Praimfaya's radiation. Of how they decided to use him as a lab-rat, and injected round after round of Nightblood serum into him. Of how he survived, and they decided to let him go. ''We gave him life, Lexa. Using the serum, with your bone marrow. I don't see why can't he be alive.''
And the respirator. Oh god, if that wasn't anything but about him, then who else could it be?
''Because—'' and at this, Lexa felt her throat constrict, ''—he was exposed to Praimfaya radiation that would've killed even my strongest warrior in a week's time, not to mention him.''
''I'm still alive,'' was all Clarke had to say. Then, angrily, she slammed a fist into the side of the truck. ''Goddamnit! God-fucking-damnit! I should've killed him when I had the chance!'' She breathed in, loud, hard, angry, and hit the metal once more as it rattled from the impact. ''Why didn't I kill him?!''
Because we didn't want one more death on our consciences, Lexa thought, but didn't voice. Not when we were the only ones left on the face of Earth then.
''Clarke...'' Madi jutted in. ''Please don't break the truck.''
Slowly, Clarke pulled her fist away from the side of the truck. She breathed in shuddery breaths, and as she thought of the first few weeks of the Death Wave—the weeks she had tucked away into the dark recesses of her mind, the weeks she swore to forget and never remember. And she realised—it would never truly leave her, however much she wanted to. After all, all the ghosts she'd left on her road only came back to haunt her, no matter how much she wanted to forget of the apparition.
