Chapter 7
Clarke would never admit that seeing Wells alive was comforting. She had never expected the people on the ground to be hostile. They hadn’t done anything to the Grounders, though she supposed they invaded their territory, but that was the worst of the damage!
Bellamy clearly hadn’t thought of the possibility that there would be people on the ground because the moment Octavia told him about Jasper, he nearly fainted. Clarke couldn’t completely blame him. The Ark had been adamant and insistent that they were the last of humanity.
“What do you mean you knew people were on the ground?” Bellamy hissed down at Clarke as the six of them huddled out of earshot of the rest of the delinquents.
Octavia rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t matter what we knew or didn’t know. Jasper is dead and there are people between us and Mount Weather.”
Bellamy crossed his arms, scowling down at the smaller girl. “We need supplies.”
Wells cleared his throat, shrinking slightly at Clarke’s intense glare. “I was looking at the map, and there’s another bunker nearby, this side of the river. Maybe we can scavenge whatever’s left from there?”
Finn nodded empathically. “Let’s do that. It’s our best shot.”
“We need to secure camp better, if there are hostile people out there, we have to protect ourselves.” Bellamy grunted. “Tomorrow we start building a wall, put together weapons.” Bellamy eyed the adolescents before him, daring them to argue. “I’ll go tomorrow with Wells to the bunker. We’ll scavenge what we can, and get back before sundown.”
“Why you?” Octavia scoffed.
“Gun,” Finn jutted his chin towards Bellamy’s holster. “If they run into someone, Bellamy will be able to defend them.”
“Fine.” Clarke agreed primly. “We need to scout the area out, though. We need to know what’s around us, and who.”
Octavia grinned. “I’ll come with you then.”
“Octavia-“ Bellamy warned.
“That makes three. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at cartography.” Finn grinned.
“And what about me?” Monty spoke for the first time. Clarke knew he and Jasper were close, and she felt a surge of sympathy for the boy.
“We need you to find a way to get in contact with the Ark.” Clarke patted his shoulder in an attempt to reassure him. Though, she was sure it didn’t work.
Monty shook his head. “The system is totally fried from reentry. I checked it before we left.”
Bellamy cut in. “We don’t need the Ark.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Clarke demanded. “They sent us down to see if Earth is survivable. It is. So now we need to make sure they know that.”
Bellamy rolled his eyes. “Why should we care about them? They sent us down like lab mice. Now’s our chance to live our lives. Half of us were going to be executed by the Council anyway.”
Clarke made eye contact with Wells, and the boy gave her a nod. “The Ark is dying.” She murmured. “My father-“ her voice cracked. “Before he was floated, found an error in the oxygen system. They have only a couple of months left to live before the air runs out.” Bellamy paled significantly. “Yeah, if they don’t make a connection with us and find out that we’re alive and thriving, hundreds of people could die.”
Wells cleared his throat. “Last I talked to my father, he mentioned something about the possibility of a culling. Kane was pushing for it to buy time.”
Monty clenched his jaw and nodded. “Then I need to find some sort of way to transmit up to the…” He snapped his fingers. “The bracelets. I’ll need a couple of bracelets, I can take them apart and maybe find a way to communicate using Morse code or something.”
Bellamy shrugged awkwardly. “Murphy has been taking off bracelets all day. You can have those.”
“You’ve been taking them off?” Clarke snarled.
“Look, Princess, I didn’t exactly know about the top secret shit going on up there, I was a janitor remember? My parents weren’t members of the council.” Bellamy snapped bitterly. He glared at Wells and Clarke respectively. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. There were only a dozen or so kids that wanted them off right now anyway. But they’re uncomfortable. That’ll change soon.”
“Then make them stop.” Clarke ordered.
“No,” Bellamy hissed. “This isn’t the Ark. If they want to do something, then let them do whatever the hell they want!”
“What we do down here affects what happens up there!” Clarke argued. “I’m not going to sit here and let you sentence hundreds of people to death just because you’re bitter that you lost someone!”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” Bellamy shoved past her.
Clarke was livid. She lost her father trying to save the Ark, and everyone on it. Of course Bellamy would ignore any sacrifices and pain she’s felt in favor of his own selfish need to pity himself. Clarke gritted her teeth, it’d be best if she didn’t show outright aggression to the man most of the delinquents looked to for leadership.
“Clarke-“
“Leave me alone, Wells.” Clarke snarled at the taller boy. “I don’t want to hear what you have to say.”
Finn cleared his throat awkwardly. “Well, at least we have a plan. Let’s go get some rest, yeah?”
Octavia grinned at him, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Yeah, we’ll need plenty of rest for tomorrow. Maybe we’ll find more two headed deer. Do you think that’s normal around here? What if there’s entire herds of them?” Octavia followed after Finn as the two chattered excitedly about what tomorrow might find, conveniently ignoring the danger they’d be putting themselves in.
Bellamy and Wells marched through the forest in a line, Wells before Bellamy, gun out and ready to fire on anyone that posed a threat. Bellamy watched the boy in front of him as much as he watched their surroundings. Wells, even though Clarke seemed to hate him, was obviously loyal to the blonde. Clarke was angry yesterday, and so Bellamy needed to watch his own back to make sure she hadn’t asked Wells to kill him.
“We should be there soon.” Wells broke the silence between them.
Bellamy grunted in response, brushing aside hanging branches scratching at his forehead.
The two stepped into an overgrown clearing, kudzu climbing up the trees and covering the ground with a leafy blanket two feet deep. “This is it.” Wells mumbled, glancing down at the wrinkled and yellowed map in his hands.
“Look for an entrance.” Bellamy ordered, stepping forward and grabbing a handful of the vines and yanking them up.
A few minutes later, “Hey Bell! I found a spider!”
Bellamy wanted to ignore Wells’ boyish excitement, but he couldn’t help it, spiders didn’t exist on the Ark, so he jogged over to see it. Wells had a fascinated smile on his face as he watched a rather large arachnid climb over a vine he held. Even from a slight distance, Bellamy could see each of its eyes. The thing was the size of his fist. “You know what? We should leave it alone.” Bellamy stopped, shifting on his feet as the spider slowly climbed closer to Wells.
“But most spiders are harmless.” Wells laughed, shifting the vine. “They feed on insects, and some spiders have mouths so small that they couldn’t bite humans even if they cared to. Plus, like scorpions, the bigger the spider, the less dangerous.”
“Look man, I get that you’re really into Earth studies, or whatever, but if the radiation creates things like glowing butterflies and moss and two headed animals, it can make cannibalistic spiders. Just saying, our information is a little out of date.”
Wells chuckled and set the vine down. “If you say so. Still cool though.”
Bellamy swallowed the uneasiness and turned away, before nearly immediately tripping over a metal object hidden in the foliage. Bellamy shoved the vines away from the rusted metal, cringing at the smaller spiders scattering at the disturbance of their nest, and revealed a metal wheel, likely a bunker entrance. “Wells, found it.”
The other boy perked up from his place on the other side of the clearing and trudged toward Bellamy as he began to yank on the rusted wheel. “Lemme help.”
Together, the two managed to wrestle the grate open and reveal the dark maw of the bunker. “Smells awful.”
Wells shrugged. “Water probably found its way in and spoiled. Stale air and everything like that.”
Bellamy grunted. “Let’s go.”
The two slowly made their way down the ladder, silently hoping that it wasn’t so rust rotten that it turned to dust beneath their feet. As predicted, Bellamy’s first step in the bunker was into a puddle of foul smelling water.
“Look around for anything that we can use, food, blankets, weapons.”
The boys split up, one taking each wing of the bunker. They were mostly quiet as they fumbled around in the dark before Wells finally found some flashlights with working batteries. Wells found blankets, but Bellamy found two barrels of automatic rifles packed in grease.
“Perfect.” Bellamy smiled over to Wells. “Just what we need to defend ourselves.”
“You think we should be giving all of the kids guns?” Wells debated. “They’re scared, kinda angry at each other and the Ark. It could be dangerous.”
Bellamy frowned. “What? Afraid someone will hurt you because of your daddy?”
Wells shrugged. “I’m right to be. You don’t think Murphy wants me dead? He made it clear while we were up there in the box. I’m just saying, if you give a bunch of scared delinquents deadly weapons bad things are going to happen.”
Bellamy furrowed his brows. “We’ll give them to those on guard duty and take them back when they come off.” Bellamy decided. “We’ll secure them in the dropship away from everyone else.”
Wells nodded. “That’s sound. Let’s get back-“ Wells was interrupted by a clap of thunder. “Or maybe not.” He jogged through the damp bunker and scrambled up the ladder to poke his head from the door. “Yep, storm rolled through while we were down here. Too dark to go anywhere.”
Bellamy growled. “We need to get back today. Especially now that we have guns.”
“Listen, Bell, we’re going to get lost out there with a storm going on and at night.” Wells climbed back down the ladder. “It’s just downright idiotic to go out there now.”
Bellamy lashed out at the overturned barrel, the sound of metal clanging on metal and concrete echoing throughout the bunker. Wells rolled his eyes and meandered through the bunker. “At least there’s cots here. Smells, but we’ll survive the night.”
Bellamy and Wells spent most of the following few hours in near complete silence. The two boys didn’t have much in common to talk about anyway, and besides, neither of them were in much of a talkative mood. But the silence was starting to choke him, so Bellamy looked over to the other boy.
“You in love with Clarke or something?”
Wells startled and whipped his head to look at him. He must have caught Wells off guard. “Eh, no. I’m not like, in love, with her. But she’s my best friend and I love her. Why?”
Bellamy shrugged. “She hates you and you’re still off doing everything you can for her. Seems like a waste of energy to me.”
Wells shook his head. “It’s complicated. If she knew the truth she wouldn’t hate me, but she’d be alone.” He shrugged. “It hurts me, but I know that if she knew the truth she’d be in even more pain than now.”
Bellamy was silent. “What happened?”
Wells was quiet for a moment. “You can’t tell her.”
“I won’t. Honestly if I tried to talk to her she’d probably try to punch me.”
“I don’t blame her.” Wells sent a half smile to Bellamy. “You’re an ass.”
Bellamy shrugged. “I’m working on it.”
“Are you?”
“Tell me.”
Wells sighed. “Her father discovered the fault in the oxygen system and went to tell her mother, Abby. Clarke overheard and told me, made me promise not to tell my father.”
“Seeing as Clarke is here and her father is dead, I’m assuming you did.”
Wells chuckled darkly. “Except I didn’t. Abby did.”
“So her mother killed her father.” Bellamy furrowed his brows. “And she doesn’t know?”
Wells shook his head. “She and her father were close. She needs Abby, you know? I’ll let her believe it was me so that she can keep at least one of her parents. You know? She needs someone.”
Bellamy sighed. “You’re better than I am. I don’t think I could do that.”
Wells shrugged. “We grew up together. It’s what you do for the people you love. You make sacrifices.”
Bellamy nodded. “I grew up on half rations. I’d give half of my rations to Octavia in the morning, and my mother would give half of her rations to Octavia in the evening. I hated mornings.”
Wells laughed. “So did I, but not for the same reasons, obviously.”
Bellamy grunted. “I was going to be a guard, but then Octavia got caught, coincidentally because of me. Then I got fired and went on to be a janitor.”
Wells furrowed his brows. “How did you get on board the dropship wearing a guard uniform?”
“I did a favor for Commander Shumway.”
“What kind of favor?”
“What did you do to make your father put you in the Skybox?” Bellamy shot back.
“Stole some meds from Abby’s station at the hospital. Got caught on purpose. Big enough offense that my father couldn’t get around imprisoning me, but small enough that I wouldn’t be floated on my eighteenth.” Wells shrugged. “Your turn.”
Bellamy sat up. He couldn’t tell him; he’d be signing his own death certificate. “We’re taking turns now?”
“What else do we have to do down here. We’re going to be stuck together for a long time, and in hostile situations, might as well get to know each other, the best and worst parts.”
Bellamy shook his head. “No, you won’t like what I have to say.”
Wells scoffed. “My best friend was imprisoned for treason and I’m surrounded by thieves and murderers. I think we can agree that my tolerance for crime is rather high.”
Bellamy’s stomach roiled. “I shot your father.”
“Abby! We have to go right now!” Raven shouted as she fumbled with her space suit. “Get suited up! Screw the pressure regulator!”
“Abby Griffin you are under arrest, surrender yourself immediately!”
“Raven, go! Get to the ground, radio up to the Ark! Go without me! Go!” Abby screamed over the chaos and clatter of the guards trying to burst through the doors.
Raven glared at the older woman before throwing her helmet on and closing the dropship. “Alright, navigation, check, fuel, check, flight controls, check, everything else? Fuck it.” Raven fumbled to start up the navigation controls. “Alright Abby, let her go.” She called through the intercom in her ship. “Drop me.”
Seconds later, with two guards trying to drag her away, Abby slammed her hand down on the button that released the ship into the vacuum of space and Raven was ripped away into orbit.
Immediately, alarms sounded around her as the ship struggled to keep her alive. “Yes, yes, I know there’s a pressure regulator malfunction.” Raven snapped at the little red light blinking in her face. “A bit late don’t you think? Without this suit you’d be beeping at a corpse.”
The ship slowly drifted towards the landing zone with a bit of Raven’s guidance, but the alarms didn’t quiet at all. In fact, another one went off to her right, an alarm warning of her loss in altitude. “NASA sure built you to be annoying didn’t they? Fuck. I know I’m losing altitude I’m doing it on purpose!” Raven shouted in frustration. “This would be so much nicer if my destination was programmed up on the Ark.” She grumbled. “Shut up!”
Atmosphere reentry was frankly terrifying. But also, entirely fucking awesome. Raven felt like her skeleton was being rattled so much that her spleen might rupture just from the shaking, and her teeth clanked together, tearing a pretty decent gash in her tongue and cheek, but other than that, she kept her cool. Raven Reyes does not panic, after all.
But once she caught side of the ground, she certainly felt the adrenaline. “Fuck, fuck! You were working a second ago!” She screamed. The rocket boosters at the bottom of her craft designed to slow her fall were malfunctioning, one wouldn’t start and if she started the other her ship would turn over and she’d land upside down and dead. Her window for starting them was quickly closing. “Fuck!”
Raven punched the control panel. Because that usually worked when dealing with incredibly sensitive equipment designed to keep humans alive during atmospheric reentry.
But, this time, it did. The boosters shuttered into action and let off their fiery wonder and saved Raven’s ass. Stars, she loved rockets.
“Fuck!” She laughed. “Oh fuck, baby you should not do that again, holy fuck.”
The ship wasn’t slowing enough, but she wasn’t too worried now. It was mission critical right now, she had a small window to release the chutes she packed just the other day, and if that malfunctioned, even with the rocket boosters she was still going to be a crater in the ground.
If Raven Reyes panicked, now would be a good time. But Raven Reyes doesn’t panic.
“C’mon, baby, c’mon.” Raven mumbled through gritted teeth. “Now!”
Raven released the chutes.
Her body was jerked back as they inflated, catching resistance in seconds. Raven’s head bounced off of the control panel and back up, dazing her.
One of the chutes must have malfunctioned because the dropship was spinning and tumbling and Raven felt like she was being tossed about in a tin can. She could feel the formation of her concussion as it happened and her vision swam. She lost consciousness from the G-forces at altitude one thousand feet.