Lightning Only Strikes Once - Clexa

Chapter 108: From Bad To Worse

The tunnel is long and narrow, just as Clarke said. She did not mention there was a split to it.

"I will go that way," Assan suggests, "And you can go that -"

"No," Lexa snaps in a low voice. They're moving quickly and quietly through the tunnel, Assan in front. "Quiet." No one has heard them yet.

Even as she thinks that she sees a guard just ahead, walking down the tunnel split to the left. She gives Assan a hand signal and he nods and flattens himself against the side of the tunnel just as she does, so that he cannot see them from his current angle. Then he's walking in front of them, gapes at the sight of intruders, and taken aback for just a second too long as Assan slashes his throat. Assan turns back to Lexa as if expecting another attacker from behind them, sword still raised, then stops when he sees she has her own out as well.

"I expected many more," Lexa comments. She wonders if Nia has sent her warriors to the lake, to find out what has happened, or if Roan, Gustus and Clarke killed so many on their way out she has been left shorthanded. Perhaps both. Lexa glances down at the gona and then sniffs the air, though the cold makes her nose run and she is barely able to smell. "Straw on his boots, smell of horses. That way's the stable. Clarke mentioned a stable, I should have realised it must also be under here."

Assan frowns. "Separate from the rest, though? Risky. They would need their horses -"

Lexa smiles grimly. "Nia would not be able to tolerate the smell, it would not seem queenly enough for her. The arrogant branwada." Assan inclines his head in agreement.

They go the other way. Another gona sees them and opens his mouth to yell a warning, only to choke when Lexa's dagger strikes him in his open mouth, stabbing through the back of his head and killing him instantly. She would normally have aimed for the throat but he had a metal piece there – a wise precaution. She takes her dagger back as she passes him to be used on the next.

Soon she sees it. The tunnel carved out of snow and ice giving way to stone and rock. The air almost seems visibly warmer ahead. There is a wooden door after a few feet of the stone. Lexa decides it is not worth the risk of going that close, though, and puts the bomb down. "I will set it now. Warn me the moment any gona appear," she orders Assan, and bends over her task.

There is a pad with numbers to set the time, but first she needs to do something called 'inputting a passcode' – Raven's way of ensuring that enemies who get hold of her devices cannot just use them immediately. She referred to it as making them less 'user-friendly', just like the encrypted radios. Lexa hopes this works out better than that.

Numbers could spell words, Raven had told her when they originally discussed the bombs while at Prison Station, and that was how she had chosen her passwords. Raven had been unable to really explain how numbers could become letters so Lexa had just memorised the actual numbers instead. Raven used 2692 as the code for all the recent devices, and 3466 for all the older ones. This one is newer, so Lexa types in 2692 slowly and painstakingly, not wanting to get it wrong, then presses the green button.

A set of angular zeroes flash up and blink at her, and Lexa stares at them, quietly marvelling at Raven's skills. Then she looks around and types in 3, 0, 0, which places the timer at three minutes, and presses the green button again.

2:59. 2:58.

Lexa opens her mouth to tell Assan it is time to go, and shifts her weight so her centre is a little lower, the better to start sprinting from.

Shifting her weight means that the blade goes through her shoulder instead of her heart.

It is more painful than anything Lexa has ever felt – more painful than a bullet in the stomach, even. When the sword slides through her upper left shoulder it is as cold as if she were being stabbed with a sword made of ice. The aftereffects slam through her body, tendrils of fierce, icy pain shooting out, every part of her connected to her upper body, every part of her connected to the pain. Black blood drips down, staining her shirt, oozing its way to the ground. Lexa stares, uncomprehending.