Episode One, Part 2: 
Redemption of the Heart

Life makes love look hard.

Sol hesitated after what Kodiak said, inclined to listen to him because he was her best friend; he was her family, but nothing he could say was more important than getting Chessca the combination. Elara was right next to him, so Sol knew that he didn't need it for her, but she was still left the question: why the hell did he need it so badly?

"Kodiak, I don't have the time to discuss this. Chessca is dead!" She told him with a huff, turning her attention back to Fenn as she continued to pass him the drug.

"NO!"

Suddenly, everyone froze again. They all knew the person the voice belonged to, but what they recognised more anything was the fear in the voice.

There was no one they had known to suffer more than Elara; no one whose crying or suffering could strike them quite like her's.

Although Sol didn't want to face Elara and see the look of misery that she wore all too well, she had no choice.

Elara appeared as though she could barely keep herself standing and, if it wasn't for Kodiak's hands holding onto her, she might have even crumbled to the ground under all the pressure she was bearing weight to.

Tears poured mercilessly down her cheeks but given how red and swollen her eyes were, Sol knew she had been crying for quite some time - longer than she wanted to imagine.

She shot the younger girl a look that asked, 'what is it? What is so important that you need to take this away from me? Because Chessca is dead and I can't live without her.'

There had to be a reason why she sounded so distraught; why she sounded as she had done when Ares died, or when they moved into the Bunker and she broke down after realising Kodiak wasn't inside. There had to be a reason why they were hearing that same pain in her now.

"It's Izzy!" She revealed, impossibly sounding a little more weaker as she said her name.

Sol felt her heart drop in her chest. No. No, something couldn't have happened to Izzy. That wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that Sol might have to choose between saving Izzy or Chessca, and it wasn't fair if that young, precious little girl had lost her life...

"Izzy's hurt?" Fenn asked, clearly feeling conflicted about whether or not he could to take the combination from Sol.

Elara screwed her eyes shut and debated whether or not to answer. If it wasn't for knowing the state Chessca was in, she would have let them believe it, but she couldn't find it in herself to lie.

"No, I think she's fine," she admitted, watching as Sol immediately turned around and shifted her attention back on Chessca, having very little strength left to focus on anything.

"But if we don't get the combination, we'll never see her again!"

"What are you talking about!?" Dreea joined in, desperate to get to the bottom of things and hurry the conversation along so they could save Chessca. "Kodiak, what's-"

"Ivy's dead," Kodiak answered her, sounding short of breath but his words were full of urgency. "And Izzy's in the shelter. If we don't give Tobias the combination so he can bring Ivy back, he's never going to let us see Izzy again!"

Rage filled Dreea and she jumped to her feet, momentarily finding the courage to leave Chessca's side for the potential of defending Kodiak.

"You traitor!" She yelled at Tobias, pulling out her blade and holding it out towards him, barely giving a second thought to stabbing her weapon straight through his chest at the mere idea of him threatening Kodiak, but her hands - still soaked in Chessca's blood - shook tremendously to the point of her barely maintaining her grip on her blade.

She looked down in disbelief at her own weakness, but the horror soon took over. She wasn't strong enough to fight. She wasn't strong enough to lose Chessca, but she wasn't strong enough to help Kodiak, either.

"Tobias, Izzy is a child!" Sol growled, unable to take much more of the back and forth. "An eight year old child. Like hell are you going to keep her away from her family!"

Despite Dreea also being away from Chessca, Sol couldn't allow herself to sit idly by and let Tobias to try and tear apart Kodiak and Elara right in front of her. She pushed herself to her feet, grabbing the blade from Dreea's hands and began to move closer towards Tobias, but he had other ideas.

As if knowing that despite their history, Sol wouldn't hesitate to kill him for the sake of protecting her family, Tobias took everyone by surprise and reached out for the nearest person which just so happened to be Elara.

He pulled the young girl against his chest, wrapping one arm around her so she couldn't escape - not that she even had the physical strength to - and used his other to pull his own blade out of his pocket, hovering it above her stomach.

"This is where it is, right?" He asked. "This is where they hurt you last? It would not take much; just a small scratch and it could tear a couple of the stitches."

"Leave her the hell alone!" Kodiak growled, stepping upwards to try and do something but Tobias emphasised his power, shifting his blade closer against Elara.

"I do not want to hurt her," he admitted. "Honestly, I mean that, but I will if you do not give me the combination. I will hurt her if you are the reason I lose Ivy-"

"Calvin is the reason you lost Ivy!" Kodiak yelled, barely able to stand the sight of Elara in danger. "Elara's done nothing wrong. Let her go!"

"Kodi," Elara whimpered, not wanting him to do anything reckless. They had been here too many times before. They had lost each other and come close to, more times than she wanted to remember, but she never thought it would happen again.

Truthfully, Elara wasn't all that scared for herself, she was scared for Chessca who she knew that even with the use of the combination, might not make it out alive. She was scared for Sol, Dreea and Kodiak as they were now in an impossible situation against each other and she knew that either way, one of them was bound to suffer. But most of all, she was scared for Izzy. For the little girl she loved beyond comprehension, unable to imagine the suffering she would feel if after losing her father, she lost her and Kodiak, as well.

"Kodiak, I'm going to be fine," she found her voice again, not wanting him to panic. "Take a moment to figure this out. I know you'll figure this out. You guys always find a way to save everyone."

"I am not giving you a choice," Tobias reminded them. "If you make me live without the person I love the most in the world, I will make you live without your person, too," he narrowed his eyes at Kodiak, certain that it would persuade him into getting the combination.

"If Ivy's been there all this time, there's nothing any of us can do!" Kodiak tried to reason with him. "Chessca only stands a chance because our doctors over there are keeping her body alive; stopping her bleeding, giving compressions," he said. "And it was the same for Ell: she was put on a ventilator and taken into surgery right after she was shot. She wasn't lying in the middle of a forest for-"

"You are making all of this up!" Tobias yelled at the Sovereign, squeezing tighter on Elara which caused her to visibly struggle.

Kodiak could see that the arm around her neck was making it difficult to breathe and he didn't want a repeat of what had happened when Diego had been the one strangling her after their conversation to form an alliance with Blood Riders. Elara had been traumatised by Diego and barely able to speak for days and if Tobias didn't let go of her soon, Kodiak feared that something far worse was going to happen to the already-wounded girl he loved.

"I'm not," Kodiak took a step forward. "Look, I was a guard for those people that hurt Elara," he told him. "I was there for six months and worked with them all that time to figure out how to make the combination possible and the only reason it worked was because I managed to make sure that they kept Elara's body alive because I knew how fundamental that was to her surviving. I'm sorry, Tobias, but Ivy is-"

"Ahh!" Elara winced, feeling the tip of Tobias' blade begin to poke at her stomach. It wasn't enough to do any damage, but it was an uncomfortable feeling given how raw and sensitive she already was, and her screwed-up, terrified expression filled everyone up with rage.

"Make one more move and this goes straight through..." Tobias warned, already halting the movements of the three Sovereigns as they tried to creep nearer.

They all wanted to do something to free the young girl, but without any of them having a gun at the ready, they knew they wouldn't be able to get a clear shot at Tobias with their blades without posing risk to Elara.

"Please!" Kodiak begged. "Please let her go. We'll figure this out."

"Why is it fair to you that Chessca has to die!?" Dreea demanded an explanation. "Why does she have to lose her life to make this right? She matters," though her voice was firm, it full of emotion that Dreea barely knew how to carry; one that she could feel wearing away at her with every second that passed. "Chessca's worthy of being here; she makes a difference; she keeps our world held together. Don't force the same defeat that you're feeling onto all of us. Don't force it onto Izzy, either."

"All of you owe so much to Ivy," Tobias declared, trying to bite down on his lips as they violently trembled. "You think any of you would have made it this far without her? You would not have secured an alliance with Terra Firma Tribe if it were not for her, and Calvin would have slaughtered all of your people if she had not persuaded him into your plans. She saved all of you! Now it is your turn to save her!"

Kodiak dropped his head, understanding that everyone was running out of time and if he didn't come up with a resolution soon, all three of the girls could end up losing their lives. Ivy was already gone and without any efforts to have kept her alive since Calvin killed her, there was no chance of the combination working on her, whereas there was hope for Chessca if only Fenn could use the drug on her without Tobias hurting Elara. But even if he could - even if Fenn was already secretly working on injecting the medicine into Chessca's brain, Elara was still consumed in a chokehold by Tobias and after all of the recent trauma her body had been through, a matter of seconds could mean the difference between life and death for her...

"If Chessca doesn't get the combination soon, it's not going to work on her, but since none of us can come to an agreement, there's only one thing we can do," he said, somewhat relieved that everyone, including Tobias, seemed to be listening to him.

"Which is what?" Tobias asked.

"We let the person who the combination belongs to, decide what to do with it."

"And that is?"

Sol swallowed a nervous gulp, the realisation seeming to terrify her more than she thought it would have done.

"Wynn..." She said. "Wynn is the one who will decide." 

One // Part Two
Wynn is the one who will decide.

Oh no... Wynn has to chose whether to give his sister the combination to save Izzy, or where to give Sol the combination to save Chessca. How the heck is he going to be able to choose between Sol and Elara? They're literally two of the most important people in the world to him and whoever he doesn't chose is going to suffer an immense loss??? I wouldn't want to be him in this moment.

I kind of like the way this season is starting off as an immediate continuation from the previous one - exactly like Season 4 & Season 5 (which were originally supposed to be 1 book). Speaking of which, it was a year ago yesterday that I finished writing Season 5 and it's so insane that within a year, I have written 4 (larger than) novel size books or 620,000+ words.

I wonder what I'll have accomplished this time next year. Hopefully this series will have been edited and I'll have taken the first steps to getting it published, but I also want to have finished my Counterfeit series (set 20 years before The Boy from the Bunker (in the same world)) and maybe even have started my other trilogy that I've literally had planned since 2015, The Numb.

But, before all of that, I probably need to finish the plan for the last 3/4 of this book as I still haven't done that... I'm low-key stressed, but I didn't finish planning Season 9 (until I reached the end of the notes I had made and had no material whatsoever of what to write for my next chapter) until I had written 2/3rds of it, and that ended up being my longest book yet, so that leaves potential for this book to be a success (although I'm just saying, I don't think this book will get over 100K).

Sorry there was a bit of a delay for this chapter! I have literally been ill for 2 weeks and then I got the vaccine two days ago and I had a bad headache all day from that, so it's been a rough time. Today is the first day that I'm actually feeling okay, so hopefully I'll get more writing done!

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I have actually been writing this week (but it wasn't for TBFTB). I've started writing reviews for my new favourite show 'Cruel Summer' which stars FROY GUITERREZ A.K.A KODIAK ZORA (a.k.a Ammon Zontanós lol) and have already got a review up for the first three episodes! They range from 16-27 minutes reading time (because I am that passionate about it and also, the show is so complex and there's so much depth to everything), and if you want to read them, I'll post the link to my blog here!

Also, you can watch Cruel Summer on Tuesdays (if you live in America) at 10p|9p on Freeform, or the next day on Hulu. You can also watch it on Amazon Prime! I'm not just being bias here because it's Froy, but it really is an amazing show and all of the actors are phenomenal. It is also Freeform's most watched debut series ever, so there you go!

Anyway. I'll try and get a new chapter out soon!

01/05/21.
Happy heavenly 15th birthday, Gianna. ♡