DAY 007

Bullets tear through the night sky, and all hell breaks loose.

Charlotte jumps, dropping her blade, and Wells stares in shock at the scene before him. In seconds, a stampede of footsteps fills the clearing, teenagers drawn by the sound, their shouts and questions mixing in the air. I stand, rifle drawn at my side, watching them approach.

"What the hell was that?" Clarke pushes through the crowd, sleeves rolled up, her hands bloody from whatever she'd been doing. An equally stunned Bellamy stands just a foot behind her, his hand instinctively gripping his useless, bulletless gun.

"Marbles? What are you…?" Wells trails off, his expression a mix of disbelief and anger as he looks between me and Charlotte, who's gone white as a sheet.

I meet her gaze with an icy glare. "She was about to kill you, Wells."

Bellamy's eyes flick to the rifle in my hands, narrowing. "Where'd you get that?"

I shrug, throwing the gun across my shoulder as I take in their faces, shadows cast across them by the firelight. The smell of meat hits my growling belly. "There's a few more of these where they came from," I say. "But I'm not arming a bunch of criminals who don't have a damn clue what they're doing." My words send a ripple through the group, some murmuring in surprise, others just staring.

Murphy lets out a laugh, his eyes gleaming with a perverse satisfaction. "In case you haven't noticed, we're all criminals, including you."

I brush off his comment and reach into my satchel, retrieving the grounder's notebook. I toss it onto the ground, where Clarke picks it up carefully. She flips through it, her face growing tense until she reaches the last page—the one filled with a detailed drawing of the dropship and tally marks tracking our numbers.

"I don't care what any of you think you're doing here," I say, my voice cold. "They're watching us. Counting us down, like lambs to the slaughter."

"If the grounders don't get to us first, we'll kill each other one by one," I add, my gaze shifting to Charlotte, who shrinks under my stare. Beside her, Bellamy's jaw tightens as he watches the girl to whom he'd given that fatal advice—fight your demons.

Wells steps forward, grabbing the notebook from Clarke's hands. His fingers shake as he examines the pages, his voice wavering. "H-how did you get this?"

I cross my arms, my voice steady. "I captured a grounder," I reply, watching their faces for any sign of comprehension. "While you all were busy playing make-believe, I found one of their bases."

Clarke stares at me, stunned. "And you just… went off on your own?"

"I didn't have time to ask for permission. Not when they're already tallying us like cattle."

The crowd is silent, the gravity of my words sinking in. Even Murphy stops smirking.

"What did they say?" Bellamy's voice cuts through the silence, sharp and demanding.

I frown. "She didn't say anything to me," I reply, glancing down at the notebook Clarke just handed back, my fingers brushing over the worn cover. Her gaze shifts from the notebook to the satchel, then to the wound on my cheek and the darkening bruise around my eye.

"Did the grounder do that to you?" she asks, reaching out, almost like she's about to check it herself.

I catch her arm before she can touch my face, locking eyes with her steady blue gaze. "They spoke English," I announced to the crowd, my voice clear and cold. "They've got at least a hundred more out there, spaced miles from here."

A ripple of shock moves through the group, silence settling over them as they absorb my words.

"We're surrounded," I continue, the weight of the truth hanging in the air. "On all sides."

-

My blanket stinks of firewood, and my yawn breaks through the early morning. My tent is made of parachutes tied together, but it serves as the only privacy in the small camp.

I can feel the stares at me even now, if i hadn't made myself known already, it was obvious now. The camp is alive despite the early hour, a full meal settling in their bellies had made the teenagers come back with renewed vigor. 

My breath tastes like acid as I stretch my aching muscles, and in the distance, I can see wells perched on a log, fiddling with a panel from the dropship.

There's a theory that says, a butterfly flapping its wings in the amazon forest triggers a tsunami halfway across the world. Why I saved wells was a question I had no answer to. Whether it was my moral conscious digging at me or the simple fact that killing wells was like a stack of dominoes tittering to an edge.

I push through the dropship's entrance. Inside, I don't expect to find Bellamy and Clarke, locked in a heated argument. At my arrival, they turn; Clarke's arms are crossed tightly over her chest, Bellamy's gaze hard and assessing, holding a conviction that wasn't there before.

"Then ask him," Bellamy says, throwing Clarke a glance. She fiddles with her bare wrist where her bracelet used to be.

"When you said there were Grounders east of here, where exactly did you mean?" Clarke asks, her blue eyes glistening with what I can tell are unshed tears.

I raise a brow. "You got a map?" She nods, reaching into her back pocket and unfolding a small, creased square onto the table between us. The coordinates look aged, like they'd been salvaged from a century ago, but they're clearer than the Grounders' map. I point to a spot near the river. "If we head east from here," I say, looking up, "we'd reach them in about thirty minutes."

I glance at Bellamy, his face hard with determination. "You're not planning on doing what I think you are, are you?" Clarke's gaze drops to the ground, her fingers fidgeting with her wrist.

My eyes narrow. "What are you planning to do?" I demand teeth gritting as I look at Bellamy.

"You said it yourself: if we let the Grounders get to us first, we're dead," he replies, arms crossed. "But if we reach them first, that's another story."

I let out a bitter laugh, disbelief cutting through my words. "You and what army, Bellamy? In case you haven't noticed, we'd be slaughtered before we even had a chance."

Disbelief laces my voice as I turn to Clarke. "Are you seriously considering this?"

She avoids my gaze. "I don't love the plan either, but the Ark isn't getting here anytime soon. Monty's already tried…" She trails off, forcing herself back to the present, her expression stealing. "At least we could delay—"

Bellamy's gaze hardens. "That's why we need your gun, and the hundred others you mentioned."

I let out a disbelieving laugh, planting my hands firmly on the map, leveling him with a glare. "Like hell I'd give that to you. I'm not launching a war because you're scared!"

How the hell had they survived this long? I wonder.

"And what's your plan, genius? Let them march over here and kill us all?" Bellamy shoots back with a sneer. "People are already missing. Since yesterday. I'd bet my life they didn't just wander off."

I grit my teeth. "Do you realize the gravity of what you're talking about?" My voice rises. "You preach about change—" I turn to Clarke, "about a life free from a Chancellor's execution, and now you want to declare war?"

Clarke shakes her head, voice quiet but steady. "Then what are we supposed to do?"

"We broker peace!" I shout, the words fierce. "You idiots—do what your parents couldn't. Isn't that why they sent us here in the first place?"

Bellamy's face hardens, his tone steely. "The Chancellor didn't send you down here to live; he sent you here to die. He sent my sister down here to suffocate in a wasteland." His eyes flash with anger, a cold determination in his voice. "I'll be damned if I let the Grounders rob us of whatever little freedom we have left."

He steps closer, and the sharp scent of gunpowder fills the air. My eyes narrow as I feel the press of a barrel against my stomach. "You're out of bullets," I murmur, holding his gaze, trying to keep my voice steady.

A dangerous smile plays on his lips, sending a chill down my spine. "Yeah, but you aren't." My breath catches—my gun is back in my tent, completely unguarded. I hadn't thought I'd need it here.

Clarke avoids my gaze, and I sense movement beside me. Murphy is grinning, a twisted smile that speaks volumes, while another girl beside him quickly hides a knife in her sleeve. Bellamy's voice is low, laced with a fierce resolve. "You're taking me to that bunker, whether I have to cut off your hand to get there." He pries my satchel from my shoulder, and though I don't resist, his gun remains pressed to my stomach.

"Don't kill him," Clarke murmurs, her voice barely audible. Her face is tight with something I can't quite read, and her eyes are bloodshot. A flicker of something passes through me—betrayal? I push it down. She owes me nothing, none of them do. And yet, it stings more than I'd like to admit.

I'm shoved away from the mechanized door and into the open air, the gun barrel pressing down onto my back. And my head calculates a dozen possibilities. 

Bellamy isn't a killer, he had had the chance to kill Wells, and the guilt at supposedly killing the chancellor was eating him alive. And yet he wanted to go arming a bunch of guns at an innocent village? At what cost?

To the rest of the camp, it must look like a casual stroll—just a handful of us slipping away. But Murphy's smug grin gnaws at me, and every step I take is weighted with dread.

Behind me, Clarke trails like a shadow, hanging back with an unease that feels almost cowardly. I taste the bitter sting of blood on my lips, and the thought cuts deep—was this the price of playing hero?

"Keep moving, Marbles," Murphy sneers. Bellamy walks ahead, leafing through my notebook, my gun now strapped securely to his back.

When we're deep enough into the woods, I finally steady my voice. "I'm not taking you to it."

Bellamy glances over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. "You won't need to, Maddox. Even if you're a crap artist, I can still read this map well enough."

My jaw tightens. "Then why drag me along? You could've left me unconscious with Jackson back at the dropship. So why?"

Bellamy exchanges a look with Clarke, and it's her who speaks, her voice low. "We need them to think you're coming after them."

A chill grips me, spreading slowly as her words sink in. Who? No—surely they wouldn't—

Bellamy's smirk says it all. "They strung Jasper up like a puppet, but they didn't kill him. They're waiting for something."

Real fear, sharp and urgent, tightens in my chest. They were using me as bait. I turn to Clarke, searching her face for any sign of reason. "Why?" My voice cracks, desperate. "Why?"

Clarke looks away, the guilt in her eyes unmistakable. "It's the only way."

Realization settles in me. Her moms actions were already enough of a catalyst and now she was letting bellamy string her along because she was afraid.

"Do you know?" i ask, my voice drowned by the brushing of twigs and trees. Clarke looks at me in confusion, "know what" she asks.

"What he did to get here? " bellamys back stiffens, "He wasn't one of the hundred, he wasn't supposed to be on that damn ship."

Clarke looks at bellamy, confusion in her eyes, and then she turns to me, "he snuck onto dropship after he shot the chancellor."

I say with such calm it surprises me, but the fury in me ignites. She stands there, mouth agape, even Murphy lets out a whistle.

Bellamy turns around, ready to load a bullet through my stomach when a soft whistle reaches our eras.

It isnt murphys, no, he looks up. And what we see above our heads is a shooting star, in the dead of day.

"What is that?" the other girl beside Murphy asks, hands shielding her eyes as she looks up. 

But i frown, shes too early.