Following the Stars

Chapter Eight

I laughed a little, "How stupid do you think I am?"

"What?" The Prime frowned.

"Shut up, Ryker," Josie growled, then adding, "What?"

Smiling, I informed her, "All you need to do to get out of Clarke's head is hop inside that mind drive and let someone remove it. You need the EMP to fry the A.L.I.E. chip inside your head that kept Clarke alive."

"How did you-" she turned to Emori.

"Oh, it wasn't her," I laughed a little more, "It's simple. If the A.L.I.E. chip wasn't removed from Clarke's brain, she would have used it to stay alive. And she told us in morse code."

Josie looked down at her twitching finger and read out what Clarke was saying.

"Who's the fox now?" Josephine smiled at Clarke's message as she looked up at me, "You still have to get me out of her head."

"Simple," I said, "I remove the mind drive. You either stay on it and live until there's another host, or you remove yourself from it, Clarke kills you in her mind, and you die."

Ryker glared at me, "You have no right to speak to Josephine Lightborn that way."

"Why?" I asked, "Because she murders people to achieve immortality? Because people think she's a god?"

"Exactly."

I laughed a little before meeting his gaze, "Sheidheda, the dark commander, tried that back on Earth. Murdered everyone who wouldn't kneel before him, accept him as a god. He ended up dead because his teacher and best friend saw what he had become. And they accepted that friendship wasn't worth destroying humanity for. Jus drein, jus daun."

"What does that mean?" Josephine asked.

"Blood must have blood," Emori said, "The reason I hated most people on Earth."

Murphy nodded, holding up Emori's hand, which was morphed into a claw. It was a birth mutation, and kind of cool.

"Bet you can't wait to get rid of that thing," Josie raised an eyebrow. I stopped Murphy and Emori from retaliating.

"What do you want from me?" I asked.

Ryker frowned, "Your mind. You're a host. If anything happens to Josie in Clarke's mind, you're her next host."

I rolled my eyes and turned to leave. Ryker grabbed my wrist. I turned to look at him, "Bad idea."

Twisting my wrist around, I shook off his grip, then elbowed him in the ribcage, the back, and kicked him over. The others looked at me in astonishment and anger. I grinned.

As I turned to leave again, Josie used some of Clarke's dagger throwing skills. I heard the dagger coming, so I whipped around and caught it between my hands. The blade came to a stop before my nose, but I didn't flinch.

"You idiots realize you just made me even more dangerous?" I held up the knife and walked out.

Aware that they were following me, I jumped up to a small ledge just above the doorway so they couldn't see me. Ryker walked outside and looked around. There was no one else in sight. He walked back in again. I heard Josephine's shouts of rage as she ran outside as well.

I also saw Emori run out the back, where I jumped to meet her and help her carry the EMP. We carried it all the way to the radiation shield. Bellamy was waiting.

Motorbikes sounded behind us.

"They're coming," Emori said quietly.

"Really?" I asked sarcastically. It was a type of joke I'd been working on since they arrived. I could make sarcastic jokes, but I wasn't too good at interpreting them.

Bellamy shook his head, "Josephine's coming."

"We have a day to get Josephine out of Clarke's mind before they both die," Emori said.

"I sincerely hope you have a plan," I said, "For all our sakes."

Bellamy nodded, "Find the children of Gabriel, who hate Primes, then find Gabriel, and get him to fix Clarke."

"You do that," I said, "I'll make sure the others don't do anything stupid."

"You're a nightblood," Emori protested, "They could-"

I nodded, "And to the children of Gabriel, I'm just another host they can kill to destroy the Primes. So I'm going to make sure they have an alternative option from Madi, and if they try to kill us all, I'll kill them first."

Josephine arrived with a knife at Murphy's throat, "If you use that EMP to destroy the radiation shield and get out of Sanctum, I slit his throat."

"Here's where you're mistaken," I smiled, "We're taking you with us."

I ran forwards to grab her, but she used the knife to slice Murphy's leg, throwing him at me. I caught him, passing him to Emori.

Josephine lunged at me with the knife, but missed. I gripped her arm, twisting it back over her shoulder. She cried out in pain and dropped the knife.

"I know Clarke can feel this too," I said, "And I know she can hear me when I say I'm sorry about that."

I grabbed the knife and slid it into my boot, along with the dagger she'd thrown at me in Ryker's workshop.

"Take Clarke and go," I told Bellamy, "I'm staying."

"I don't want to leave without you guys," he said. That much was obvious.

I pulled him into a hug, "Mebi oso na hit choda op nodotaim."

He used the EMP and ran through the radiation shield, "May we meet again."