Lightning Only Strikes Once - Clexa

Chapter 71: Crash and Burn

When Clarke wakes up, her back and side are pressed against a hard, cold surface, which seems to be vibrating. She can feel that her hands are bound in front of her – no, metal, not rope. Handcuffed. It feels like her wrists are encircled with ice. She's shivering. Judging by the feel of it, she must have been doing that even while still unconscious. She's still wearing her pants and her top, but no other layers, and it's freezing – north, she thinks. For it to be this cold, we must be going north.

Clarke doesn't open her eyes and look around, not right away. If someone's watching her she needs to be able to surprise them, which means she can't let them know she's awake until she's ready to do something.

This place smells of fuel and grease – one of the vehicles, she realises. That explains the vibrating floor, the noise of the engine. Since she's lying down and stretched out, it can't be one of the Jeeps, it must be the military truck. So she's in the truck, tied up, heading north, captured by Diana Sydney's people, using Mount Weather sleep darts.

Lexa's too clever to have let anyone sneak out Maunon weapons after they took the Mountain. So they must have been taken from the Mountain earlier. Either the Mountain also made a deal with Diana Sydney's people – unlikely – or they gave Nia some weaponry and she traded it to Diana Sydney's people. Or maybe she didn't trade it, maybe she just outfitted them for a mission to capture Clarke, because Clarke can't see any reason why Diana Sydney's people would want her. Nia, on the other hand... Nia might want her.

She opens her eyes just slightly, so that she can barely see anything through her eyelashes. It takes a minute to adjust to it, and then she can see the room, albeit blurry. There's something very big right in front of her, tied down but still taking up nearly all the space. She realises what it is almost immediately – the nuclear missile.

Shit.

There's also a guard standing beside it, sleep dart gun pointed at the floor as he leans against the wall. He's not paying much attention to her though.

Several thoughts go through her mind quickly. The back of the truck opens from the outside, or can be opened from the cab – it was probably used to carry prisoners or something back in military days, just like it's being used now. Maybe she can get it open, but if she can she still can't jump from a vehicle moving at this speed – even if she survived she'd be too injured to get away effectively. That doesn't change the fact that she has to get out of here soon. They might not be in Azgeda territory yet. Once they're in Azgeda territory, her odds of survival go sharply down. Not just because of enemies, but because without her outer layers of clothing, she'll freeze. She needs to be close enough that she can reach TonDC before that happens.

She lashes out with her foot, sweeping the guard's legs out from under him so he hits the floor hard, then grabs desperately for his gun as he yells out. Her handcuffed wrists make it much harder, and he's determined to hold on. He grabs her hair with his other hand, trying to yank her away. Clarke ignores the tears of pain that come to her eyes and manages to pull her head forward enough to bite savagely at his wrist. He cries out in pain and lets go of both her hair and the gun. Clarke scrambles backwards, nearly fumbling the gun in her bound hands, but manages to pull the trigger and hit him in the leg with a sleep dart. He collapses.

"Jase? We heard a yell. Everything okay in there?" Someone calls out from the cab. Obviously, there's no reply. Clarke can hear some urgent conversation in the front and then someone opens the hatch to look through. Clarke shoots him calmly in the forehead with a sleep dart and he keels over. The hatch slams shut again but rebounds open an inch because they used too much force, and the truck swerves hard, then stops.

They're coming back here to check, Clarke thinks, almost amused by their stupidity. In their place she would have kept going and just left the hatch and doors shut, limiting the threat to the one unconscious guard in here. She looks at the gun. One sleep dart left. She finds the keys to the handcuffs in Jase's pocket and undoes them.