Trace

Nineteen

After hours of exhausting riding, of painful galloping and endless hoof beats, the small camp in the mountains came into view. Even in the darkness, it still glittered with golden light, from lanterns hung on the cabins and strings of fairy lights and small fires dotted around the area. The camp was inside a small cauldron of a mountain, perfectly round and accessible only through the small tunnels that the horses carrying Trace and her companions had just exited.

Her mind was at war with her heart, fighting to gain control as she swallowed fresh tears. She felt numb; it felt like a piece of her was missing, like her arm or her leg.

Or my heart.

Trace forced herself to focus on her new home, on the late night wanderers and the hodge-podge surroundings that made up the camp. Cabins lined the walls, at least a dozen or more, made of wooden beams held together by nails and duct tape. Tarps acted as tents, strung between the cabins, with blankets and sleeping bags lying on the floor in piles. Logs surrounded the small fires that contributed to the light, with cooking utensils scattered around them. Trace looked up- she could see the stars in the deep sky, which meant it was around midnight, if her father's stories had ever meant anything.

For the middle of the night, the camp was incredibly busy.

Groups of people sat around the fires, eating food, talking, laughing. Others stood guard at the entrance to the tunnels, giving them a curt nod before returning to their watch. Children chased after dogs, tripping over one another in their game. Some lay asleep in their sleeping bags, their snores adding to the noise of the camp.

The smell of sausages caught Trace's attention and her head snapped to the source, all thoughts of M taken over by hunger.

"Someone looks hungry." Glint smirked and Trace hit her in the arm.

"Like your not!"

Glint laughed and dismounted Oreo, her feet sending up small puffs of dust. Splinter and Serpent followed her lead and, regretfully, Trace jumped to the ground, patting Oreo gently on his flank. After so long riding the horse, she finally felt like there was some regularity in her life again and leaving the comfort of his presence felt wrong somehow.

A noise sounded behind them and Trace turned in the futile hope that maybe M had followed them. Instead, a girl emerged from the tunnel they had just come from, her face hidden by goggles and a bandanna. The edges of golden hair could be seen escaping the helmet she wore. She carried a bag, bulging with what appeared to be metal- Trace could see the sharp, silvery edges of a steel beam cutting through the hessian bag-, over her shoulder. Even through the goggles, Trace could tell her eyes were a deep brown, hard and cold.

The camp became eerily quiet, apart from some whispers and scuffing of feet. Great.

She stopped a few paces in front of their group, dropping the bag at the feet of Creme. "Well." she said dryly, her eyes darting from each person from behind the safety of her goggles. "Look what the cat dragged in." Her eyes moved to Splinter and Serpent, a small frown gracing her face. "I thought you two weren't coming back?"
"Did Demon tell you that, Clare?" Splinter asked.

"Phoenix, actually."

"Oh." A look of grief washed over Splinter, momentarily destroying the mask of bravado in his face. Trace wondered whether he knew more than he was letting on.

A pain stabbed her chest and Trace felt tears tickle her eyes again. That was something M would have said- or had he already said it? Her mind was a messed up place at the moment. A place of anger and fear; of pain and sorrow; of confusion and total understanding. Walls in her mind were coming crashing down- had been since M had been shot- had been since they left him there.

No. That was a lie. They'd been shattering before then. The moment she woke up in that room, with the Destiny-Child Thor, that was when the walls she had so carefully constructed over the last five years decided to start cracking and tumbling down.

"Trace?" Glint's voice sounded distant but Trace pulled her attention back to the situation, forcing the lump in her throat back down and blinking the tears away quickly.

"W-what?" She asked, praying she hadn't missed anything important.

Glint gave her a knowing look. "You okay?"

"Yeah."

"Good." Phoenix's voice sounded quieter and less demanding, less in control. And for good reason, Trace thought, considering the two guys standing beside her.

It was obvious that she had missed something while she was frantically attempting to patch up her mind and it seemed that was the arrival of these two. One of them had dark skin, his head shaved, his eyes as dark and fierce as Phoenix's but somewhat more pained. A black tattoo was inked on the bicep of his left arm, an intricately detailed rose, its petals curling under his arm. Trace wondered the significance of it, since she had never known a man to willingly ink a rose to his arm where everyone can see it.

The other man was, in one word, buff. Muscular. Toned. Manly.  However you wanted to say it. He was huge, for someone who looked like he was nineteen. Tortoiseshell hair was spiked into a messy I-woke-up-this-cool look. His skin was pale, matching his blue eyes, a blue as light as the violets that Trace remembered growing in their back yard.

Another mental wall cracked and Trace swallowed her tears, wrenching them back into the depths they had come from. Keep it together, girl. She turned her focus back to the strangers who stood beside Phoenix.

"Because," Phoenix continued, as if they had interrupted her, even though no-one had said a thing since Glint had asked Trace if she was okay. "Now I can introduce you to two very special people, Demon and Wiki. They're the one's who'll decide if your gonna become one of us- or if your gonna get handed over to the UA."