Chapter XXX

THOMAS SHIELDED HIS EYES from the blinding light that reflected off the snow. Thankfully, it only took a few seconds for the light to die away, but his heart pounded as he jerked his head towards Joey to find her lying on the ground, strands of her brown hair draped her face.

"Joey!" He struggled to regain his feet as his boots slid in the snow, and he ended up half-crawling to reach her. His knees pounded the snow, and he lifted her head off the ground. She felt heavy in his hand, and he pushed the loose strands of her hair back—he could see her peaceful face clearly as the animatronic sun began its ascend.

"Joey?" He shook her roughly trying to get her to wake. When she didn't, he lowered her back to the ground and laid his head on her chest listening for a heartbeat. His eyes widened and the the blood drained from his face when he didn't find one.

Sitting back on his heels, his head slowly turned up towards David. Glaring at the younger boy's shock, Thomas shouted. "What did you do?" Anger boiled his blood as David stared down at Joey's still body.

David shook his head as he took a step backwards, and glass crunched beneath his boot. "I-I didn't—"

"I told you to wait!" Thomas shouted. He peered down at the shattered glass beside David's boot and he pointed. "What was in that?"

David blinked and swallowed before stealing a quick glance down. "Uh, I don't know. I just—"

Thomas jumped up and clenched his hands into fists, feeling the cut in his skin as his ice shards descended from the knuckles in both hands. He didn't have the patience to listen to David's excuses.

David took a couple steps back, and his voice shook as he spoke, "Now, wait a minute, Thomas."

"Wait like you did for Joey?" Thomas interrupted through gritted teeth. His voice rose as he stepped closer to David and wrath laced his voice. "She was doing the best she could with a bad situation."

"I didn't know this was going to happen to her!" David fired back. "I thought I was freeing her! Joey had lost her mind! You saw that! That thing was destroying her, and if I had waited any longer, she was going to hurt one of our—"

"I was getting through to her!"

"It was taking over!" David exclaimed. He stuttered and cleared his throat. "W-what I did s-saved her from being consumed by its power."

"But you didn't save her!" Thomas screamed. "She's dead!"

David's ice form immediately melted as his jaw dropped in a small gasp. "No," he said softly, shaking his head. "Th-that wasn't supposed to happen. You're lying!"

Unable to control himself, Thomas let out a shout of anger and charged towards David with his shards aimed directly at David's torso. He swiped his left hand sideways intending to slice David's abdomen, but David quickly leapt back out of the way.

"Thomas, stop!" David recalled his ice, his appearances swiftly reverting back to his ability, and he threw both hands forward. A strong force of snow and ice shot forth and pummeled Thomas.

Thomas raised his hands in front of his face to protect himself, but winced as the sharp edge of a piece of ice left a small gash on his forearm. He lowered his hands to the side and growled. "You'll pay for what you did."

David grimaced as he lowered his arms—a clear sign that his triceps were in pain. He held his right hand out to the side and a sword of ice appeared. Grasping the handle with both hands tightly, he steadied his feet. "I don't want to fight you, Thomas."

Blood thumped in Thomas's ears. "I wish I could say the same." He charged forward, and David raised his sword for protection as Thomas's shard smacked hard against his blade.

David's arms shook as he held Thomas at bay. "We're not each other's enemy!" he exclaimed. "This is Lucinda's fault. She gave Joey the compass to begin with." With a grunt, he shoved Thomas back.

Thomas swiftly regained his footing and spat, "We were handling it, but you couldn't trust her!" He advanced on David, ducking quickly under his swing. With a jab, David thrust the tip of his sword at Thomas who immediately knocked the sword aside; the clash of ice on ice made a brittle smack sounding throughout the forest.

David swiped Thomas's shards to the side, and rammed his shoulder shoving him away. David yelped and winced, but released a hand around the sword and formed a small dagger in his free palm. With a quick swing of his arm, he launched it, but Thomas rolled out of the way of the blade just in time to watch the dagger stick straight up into the thawing ground.

Quickly, David grasped his sword in both hands once again, and as Thomas rushed forward, David's gaze was drawn behind Thomas and the tip of his sword lowered.

Thomas used the distraction to his advantage and pounced on David. David toppled backwards, Thomas on top of him, and they rolled in the mud; a vast amount of vapored poured off David's body as they tumbled, keeping Thomas from being able to see his opponent clearly.

After wrestling with David, Thomas landed back on top and pinned David to the ground. He buried his knees on David's forearms with one hand pressed against his shoulder keeping him down. With his free hand, he aimed a shard down at David's face, his fist shaking with anger. "This is for Joey." His shards glistened from the rising sun as they were inches away from David's cheekbone.

Unexpectedly, David pulled his knees up to his chest, and with his legs lifted Thomas over his body in a full sweep.

Thomas released a yelp as he flipped and landed on his back, but he quickly composed himself maneuvering to a crouch. He mirrored David's position, and smirked as a little satisfaction sparked at the sight of the cut on David's left cheek.

Blood trickled down David's face, but David didn't seem to take much notice. He slowly stood to his feet, and having lost his sword from Thomas's tackle, he formed another blade.

Thomas straightened his knees, balled his hands tightly into fists, and snarled. Glaring at one another, they advanced. He ducked under one of David's swings, and David rolled out of the way of Thomas's thrust.

Thomas dropped back into a crouch and swept his foot in a circle. His leg smacked into David's and knocked him onto his back. While David was down, Thomas slammed the tip of his boot into David's ribcage, and David grimaced as he wrapped his arms around his stomach struggling to catch his breath.

Repeating his movements from earlier, Thomas landed on top of David once again, only this time his knees pressed into David's thighs. David cringed, his ice form instantly melting, and he looked to be in too much pain to even move. Thomas raised his fist, his shard aimed between David's eyes as sweat dripped from his forehead. He was ready to give David the death he deserved when out of nowhere, strong arms wrapped around him and dragged him off, freeing David who rolled onto his side withering in pain.

"No!" Thomas shouted, kicking against whoever held him back. He could tell from the hold that it had to be Nathan because this grip was too strong for a normal man. He shouted angrily as Alex knelt beside David to assist him. "Let me go! He deserves to die for what he did!"

"What happened?" Ella asked as she raced to her brothers side and gripped his forearms, examining his arms.

Thomas twisted his head to the side to find Michelle and Brianna hovering over Joey's limp body. Michelle held her fingers pressed to Joey's neck, and looked up at Brianna with a whisper, "She's still alive, but barely. Her pulse is weak. Almost too weak to even detect."

"She's alive?" David asked in disbelief, as Alex lifted him to his feet.

Thomas panted as he tried to catch his breath from his racing heartbeat. He glanced between Brianna and Michelle, until a raspy whisper filtered through his ears. "She's so weak." His head jerked to the side where he found Bellamy staring at Joey, and his face had gone strangely pale.

Thomas pulled on Nathan's restraint to face Bellamy. "You have to save her," he said lowly, but quickly.

Bellamy furrowed his brow, and gave a quick glance around. "You know I can't," he replied, equally as quiet, and Thomas grunted.

"Her mind is active," Bellamy continued, walking towards Joey and kneeling on the opposite side of Michelle and Brianna. "More active than a regular brain, but ..." His brow creased. "Her body appears to be shutting down."

"What have you done?!"

A twig broke, ringing in Thomas's ear, and Michelle hopped up. Struggling against Nathan's grip, he swung his head over to find Lucinda shove in-between Kathleen and one of the twins with Evangeline and Jacob following her closely behind.

Lucinda raced towards Joey, but was halted by Chase who appeared in front of her. "Oh, you're not going anywhere near her," he stated, and Michelle came to his side.

"Cut the crap, Lucinda," Michelle said, jabbing a finger into Lucinda's chest. "What did you do to her?"

Lucinda snarled and shifted on her feet. "I helped her."

Thomas flinched as Michelle lunged forward, and grabbed Lucinda by the collar. "Fix ... her," she said through gritted teeth.

Lucinda grinned and chuckled. "I couldn't even if I wanted to, dear."

Michelle growled as she roughly released her. She flung around and glanced down at Joey with her hands on her hips. "There has to be something we can do." She glanced between Thomas and David. "What happened?"

Thomas narrowed his eyes as they darted towards David. "Ask him!"

"She-she-she." David frantically glance around at the forest ground. "She gave me that." He pointed, and Thomas's eyes shifted to the mud where a glass bottle lay shattered.

He watched as Michelle walked up to the glass and plucked a shard from the grass. "What is it?" she asked, examining the bottle.

"She told me it'd free her," David replied sullenly.

"Who told you?" Michelle glanced David's way, and he pointed towards Lucinda.

"And you trusted her?" Thomas asked, shocked.

"She did heal David," Ella answered, sticking up for her big brother.

"Kill her." Thomas's head jerked from Michelle, who had given the command, to the young twins who drew their broadswords in sync, and Brianna who jumped to her feet.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Lucinda said as Jacob shoved her behind him and his golden whips flowed from his palms.

"You said you couldn't heal her!" Michelle dropped the glass and balled her hands into fists.

"Well, that's not ... entirely true." Lucinda peeked her head around Jacob's shoulder.

Michelle grunted and took a step forward before strangely stopping, and Thomas's brow pulled together as she looked to be held back by some invisible hand. "I'm not going to say it again, Lucinda. I don't care what kinda of friends you have here to protect you," she gestured towards Jacob with her head, "but I promise you that if she dies then I will make sure you're there to follow."

Lucinda placed a hand on Jacob's shoulder as she stepped around him. "I could try to use my ability to see if I can fix the damage inside, but there are no guarantees it'll even work."

"You mean the damage you caused." Michelle narrowed her eyes. "Unlike some stupid members of the group, I don't trust you for a second. I let you inside her head, who knows what you could do."

Lucinda raised her hands with a shrug. "Those are your options. Let me in, or let her die."

Thomas slowly shifted his eyes back towards Bellamy, who resembled the stress of those around him. After another second, Bellamy finally caught his glare. Even though his mouth didn't move, he could tell that Bellamy knew exactly what he was asking for, but again Bellamy just responded with a slight shake of his head. Thomas gritted his teeth in anger and confusion.

"Why did you tell me that stuff was going to free her?" David asked, angered as he took a step forward.

Thomas's skin crawled when Lucinda gave a smile. "You stupid boy. Did you really think I wanted to help Joey?" Her smile dipped with rage. "Darling, I don't help anyone but myself."

David's jaw dropped as he stumbled backwards. "The whole point was to kill her?"

Lucinda winked. "You catch on fast, don't ya?"

"You used me to get to her!" David shouted, his ice form returning and condensation poured from his body with his wrath. He thrust his hands forward and a powerful force of cold wind and snow bolted from his hands and knocked those in front of him—Michelle, Brianna, Chase, Jacob, Lucinda, and Evangeline—off their feet. Michelle quickly sprang back up, and Thomas found his arms freed as Nathan was on Lucinda in seconds, restraining her.

Thomas's head darted towards David who collapsed in the mud on his knees, once again reverting to the boy with normal peachy skin. Thomas's shoulders dropped as he averted his gaze and jogged his way to Joey.

"These restraints won't hold me for long, Michelle," Lucinda said with a deranged smile, and Thomas furrowed his brow. It was obvious that he had missed some of the conversation as Nathan tightly wrapped her wrists together with a thick vine.

"They'll hold you long enough to get Joey back on her feet," Michelle answered. She eyed the other two members of Lucinda's little team. She jabbed a finger at them and said, "If you two get anywhere near her I won't hesitate to put you in the ground."

Thomas flinched as the bushes nearby began to rustle, and apparently, so did the others.

"Grab Joey," Michelle demanded, addressing Nathan. "We need to get out of here."

"I got her," Thomas answered swiftly, but was tossed back from his knees to his bottom by Nathan before he got the chance.

"You just tried to kill a member of our team," Michelle stated, now towering over Thomas with her hands on her hips. "You will stay as far away from Joey as possible until we can get this stuff sorted out."

"But I didn't—"

"I didn't ask!" Michelle shouted, marching away. "Come on, Nathan."

Nathan didn't say anything in response, but exchanged nasty looks with Lucinda before dipping down to lift Joey when Alex stepped up and stopped him.

"Let me," he said, drawing Nathan's confused expression. "Even with your strength, your arms have to be tired from carrying Popsicle around" Nathan glanced down at Alex's wound. "Oh, I'll be fine," he said, shrugging off Nathan's gaze. "Doesn't hurt so much anymore."

Nathan exchanged a glance with Michelle before nodded his head in gratitude. As he backed away, his fiery eyes returned to Lucinda until the twins poked her back with their broadswords, and Lucinda began her shuffle.

Thomas watched Alex crouch down and placed one arm under her legs and the other under her back. Surprisingly, he lifted her with ease despite the fact that Alex didn't really look like a very strong man. He was very lean, and even David had a little more muscle.

He noticed Michelle whisper something in Nathan's ear before he disappeared in a blink, and Thomas was suddenly lifted off the ground. He winced as his arms were yanked behind his back, and something tight wrapped around his wrists. "Hey!" Nathan brushed past him without a word. "What is this?"

Michelle twisted her body around to face him. "Now, tell me I have no trust, but that's two people you've attacked. I usually try to be accepting of newbies in the Dome, but you're just down right dangerous."

"But look what David did to Joey!" Thomas shouted, aggressively. "You can't just let him walk freely! He's a killer! If anyone's a monster, it's him!" Brianna shoved him forward and he stumbled.

"David may be stupid, but he isn't a killer," Michelle said, eyeing the boy who remained on his knees as Ella wiped the blood off his triceps. "So either shut up and follow, or search for the exit on your own." She turned around, and Thomas's gaze shifted to the ground.

His eyes met a pair of shoes, and even though they were all wearing the same pair, he recognized them as Bellamy's. Feeling defeated, he didn't have the strength to lift his head, but an arm wrapped around his and he was pulled along with the group.