by Kass Morgan
In the distance, Max raised a hand, and the excited buzz of conversation died down enough for Glass to hear. He welcomed everyone to the feast and explained that while the tradition had evolved over the centuries, it’d always been a holiday for giving thanks. “And so, let us all take a moment to think about our blessings, to feel gratitude for what we see before us now, and for the gifts that enriched our pasts.” His voice cracked and he paused, sending a jolt of pain through Glass’s chest. She hadn’t known Sasha well, but she knew the agony of grief. Every night, just as she was drifting off to sleep, an image crept out of the recesses of her mind: her mother, throwing herself in front of Glass on the dropship to protect her, blood blooming bright on her shirt and spreading and spreading until the light dimmed from her eyes.
Max’s voice was suddenly drowned out by applause. So many people were standing up, it was hard to see what was going on, but it looked like he was hugging Wells.
Glass took a breath and began walking toward the gathering. If she couldn’t be helpful, she might as well join in the festivities. As she neared the tables, a large pinecone dropped from an overhanging branch and landed at her feet. Without thinking, she kicked it away like she did when playing with the children. It bounced once and landed a few meters away, then burst apart.
The light hit Glass first, a blinding flash that seemed to reduce the entire world to searing brightness.
Then came the wall of air, and the shuddering of the heaving earth. She barely had time to process the thunderclap of sound before it was replaced by a piercing whine in her ears.
Her face was in the dirt. Glass wrenched a gasp, and the air that she tasted was smoky and thick and wrong. She pushed herself upward with a feeble groan, her body trembling.
The camp was on fire. She brushed a hot ember off her cheek seconds before another explosion rocked the far side of the clearing, near where the guard tower was. People were shrieking, running. Glass scrambled to her knees, stretching her arm along the ground to pull up whoever was on the ground beside her… and realized a second later that it was just a hand. Attached to nothing else.
She shrieked and recoiled. Vomit rose in her throat, but she swallowed hard and fought to stand, screaming, “Luke! Luke!”
She couldn’t get her bearings and spun three times before she realized why. The landmark she was searching for, the guard tower, was gone. It was no more than a smoldering mound of wood, the whole area around it scorched.
The building Luke had been in was destroyed.
Glass staggered toward the ruins, numb to the protests of her battered body. The only thing she could feel was panic flooding her veins. She tried to scream, but was unable to produce any sound.
Just when she thought she might collapse from the dizzying whirl of fear and grief, she spotted a familiar shape emerging from the cloud of smoke. Luke. He was fine; he hadn’t been in the building after all. From across the clearing, their eyes met, and she was sure the relief she saw on his face was mirrored on her own.
But then he looked over her shoulder and his eyes widened in fear. She couldn’t hear his words, but she was sure he’d said, “Run.”
Glass turned around and got a brief glimpse of a tall man striding toward her. He had a shaved head and was dressed in strange white clothes.
And then he jammed a needle into her neck.
The world went from red-hot to spotty white and then black. As if from a great distance, Glass felt herself falling into nothing.
CHAPTER 4
Bellamy
As people screamed, fled, and fell all around, two thoughts occurred to him:
This can’t be happening.
And… I knew it.
They’d never be safe on Earth.
Then more pressing thoughts sliced through the fog. Clarke. Octavia. Wells. From his position at the Council’s table, Bellamy scanned the smoke-filled clearing, but his eyes were burning and he could barely make out anyone’s face. “Octavia!” His sister’s name tore from his throat, but the sound was lost in the din. “Clarke! Where are you?” He lurched forward. He had to keep moving until he found them.
A bone-shattering sound pierced the roar of frantic screams. Gunfire. Even half-crazed with panic and fear, Bellamy registered the strangeness of it. The Earthborns who’d attacked them last time didn’t have guns.
“Bellamy! Get down!” A forceful hand wrapped around his wrist, wrenching him to the ground. Felix was crouched under the wooden table alongside five or six other trembling figures. “It’s coming from the woods… oh my god… oh my god.” Felix gasped. “Eric is out there. He was bringing supplies from the village. Can you see him?”
The thunder of gunfire paused, leaving Bellamy’s ears ringing. Their attackers were reloading.
“Everyone, stay down!” Max’s voice bellowed from somewhere nearby. But it was too late. As the smoke began to dissipate, Bellamy saw an Arcadian woman he recognized crawl out from under a table and sprint toward the cabins. There was another spray of gunfire, and she fell backward, blood spurting from her neck.
A moment later, Clarke’s mother jumped up and was at the woman’s side, pressing her hand against the woman’s neck. A new round of bullets tore through the air and she flattened herself against the ground.
“Mary!” Bellamy shouted. “Come back!” But he knew he was wasting his breath. Whatever gene kept most people from risking their lives to save others, the Griffin women didn’t have it. His heart lurched. Clarke. He needed to find her before she did something well-meaning and reckless.
Bellamy gritted his teeth and began crawling forward on his stomach. He glanced up and saw Wells and Eric sprint out of the forest. They grabbed an injured Earthborn from the ground and dragged him toward the edge of the clearing to take shelter in the trees. Bellamy sprang to his feet and ran over to them, crouching next to Eric and Wells behind a large tree.
“Have you seen Clarke or Octavia?” Bellamy asked hoarsely.
Wells shook his head.
“Has anyone seen Felix?” Eric asked, leaning forward to peer into the clearing.
“He’s hiding under a table,” Bellamy said. “I was with him a moment ago. He was okay.”
Eric let out a long breath. “Thank god.”
“What the hell is going on?” Bellamy asked, the words spilling out though he knew he wouldn’t get a real answer. He could see his own confusion and terror mirrored in Eric’s and Wells’s faces.
“I don’t know,” Wells said, a note of anguish in his voice. “Wait… look there…”
On the opposite side of the clearing, people emerged from the shadows of the forest. There were at least two dozen of them, all male. They had shaved heads and wore all white. And they were marching.
Bellamy’s blood turned to ice as the figures moved closer, their expressionless, masklike faces coming into chilling focus. But nothing was as terrifying as the guns glinting in the late-afternoon sun.
As they moved toward the center of the clearing, a few of the men broke from formation to yank Colonists and Earthborns out from under the tables. They dragged the people away by their arms and legs, and headed back toward the woods with their captives.
“What are they doing? We can’t let them take anyone,” Wells said. He stood up and lunged forward, but not before Bellamy and Eric each took hold of a shoulder.
“Are you crazy?” Bellamy hissed. “They’ll kill you.”
“We can’t just hide. Look what they’re doing!” Wells wrenched away from Bellamy and Eric, and pointed with a shaking hand. Another group of the white-clad men marched out of the supply cabin, carrying large canvas sacks. The bastards were taking all their supplies, their food, their wood stores. Even the weapons they were using looked familiar, and for good reason. The intruders had stolen the Colonists’ rifles to use against them.
A hand on Bellamy’s shoulder made him jump. It was Clarke’s father, ashen and trembling. But it wasn’t his pale face that made Bellamy’s pulse stutter. He had one
arm wrapped around his wife, who was clutching her side, her hands drenched in slick red.
“Are you okay?” Bellamy asked as Wells hurried to take her arm.
“I’m fine,” Mary said, though her face was contorted in pain. “But I’m worried about Clarke. She was on her way to the infirmary when the explosions started. I don’t know…” She trailed off with a grimace.
“I’ll find her.” Bellamy reached out to squeeze her uninjured arm. “I promise.”
“I’ll come with you,” Wells said.
“No, you stay with them.” Bellamy nodded toward Clarke’s parents. “Then you’ll be closer to the injured people.” He prayed that there’d still be people left to help when this thing was over.
The expressionless, white-clad men had spread out through the clearing. Some kicked the bodies on the ground, searching for signs of life. It was unclear to Bellamy who they were looking for, what determined who they left and who they dragged away. Every few moments, another ear-ringing shot ran out, followed by screams, or worse, silence.
Bellamy turned and ran through the woods toward the infirmary cabin at the other end of the clearing. Months of hunting had taught him to move quickly and silently, though this time, he wasn’t the hunter—he was the prey. He passed a number of people huddled behind the trees, watching him wide-eyed as he sprinted by. A few called to him, but he didn’t break stride. First he had to make sure Clarke and his sister were safe. Then he’d do whatever he could to help the others.
“Bel?” came a loud whisper. A flash of black hair tied in that ragged red ribbon. Octavia.
He skidded to a stop. His sister was crouched behind a bush near the edge of the clearing, her arms curved out to pen in as many of the children as she could, keeping them from wiggling into view of the invaders. “What do we do?” she asked quietly, her voice full of more fierceness than fear.
“Stay there,” Bellamy said quietly. “I’ll come back for you.”
Octavia nodded, whispering to the children.
Bellamy was nearly at the infirmary cabin, but he’d have to dash across open ground to get there. Thankfully, the invaders hadn’t come up this far; they were still concentrated at the other end of the clearing near the supply cabins, where the feast had been laid out.
Bellamy let out a long, ragged breath when he reached the door. The cabin looked untouched, no invaders in sight. But it was worryingly silent.
A branch cracked behind him and Bellamy whirled around, fists clenched. But instead of one of the men in white, it was a Colony guard, arms raised in surrender. Luke was almost unrecognizable, covered in gray soot from his curly hair to his boots. He held a rifle, which he lowered as he took a few steps toward Bellamy, limping more than usual.
Bellamy clapped a hand on Luke’s arm. “You all right?”
Luke looked more bewildered than scared. “I got thrown by the first blast, then somebody, one of those guys in white, started dragging me before the second one went off. I got away, got this gun, and fought them off.”
Bellamy glanced around. “Were you followed?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Good. Come on. Let’s get inside.”
Bellamy tried to open the infirmary door and found it barricaded with cabinets, medical bags, and cots. Good thinking, Clarke, he thought, even if it was keeping them out too. But they’d need to hurry. The invaders were still focused on raiding supplies from the other end of the clearing, but they’d make their way to this end soon enough. “Clarke,” he called softly. “It’s me.”
Clarke’s fingers appeared at the top of the pile, pulling objects downward. “You’ll need to climb!” she called. “I’ll make room at the top. Who’s with you? Do you have the kids?”
“They’re hiding with O,” Bellamy called back. “We’ll bring them here.”
“Go!” Clarke said, but Bellamy was already running back toward the perimeter, Luke on his tail.
Smoke poured out of the camp’s decimated buildings, and a huge gray cloud billowed over the new residential cabins. In the moments that he’d been at the infirmary, the men in white seemed to have left the clearing.
The kids must have seen Bellamy and Luke coming, because the littlest of them started to creep out from the relative safety of the woods. Bellamy cursed. The camp might look eerily empty now, but they’d been under attack just minutes ago. The boy, maybe five, ran toward Luke, sobbing, arms extended to be picked up. But they were still three hundred yards away, minimum. The other kids followed the boy in a mad rush, all order abandoned.
Bellamy broke into a sprint, pointing the children toward the infirmary as they passed him in a wave, his eyes scanning the edge of the clearing so fast everything seemed to blur.
Everything but Octavia, still too far away, stumbling as she ran. Then, like a scene from a nightmare, three tall figures in white emerged from the shadow of the woods. Bellamy could only run and run and run and watch, his eyes boring into his sister’s face.
Run, he shouted. Except that no sound came out. Not even when two of the men grabbed her, wrenching her arms behind her back, while the third pulled a syringe from his pocket and plunged it into her neck. A few seconds later, she fell limp as a cloth doll into her captors’ arms.
“No!” Bellamy screamed. “Get your hands off of her; I will kill you!”
The three figures glanced up, blandly curious; then one of them tossed something into the clearing between them—and the others carried his sister back into the woods.
Bellamy started to chase them, but Luke grabbed hold of him and dragged him backward.
“It’s a grenade. Get down!”
They fell beside each other on the hard ground, hands over their heads, bracing for the blast, but it was a muffled one. Bellamy peered up, seeing a wall of smoke between him and the last spot he’d seen his sister. He pulled up his shirt, covering his face and holding his breath as he tore through the fog, emerging on the other side to see… nothing.
The invaders were gone.
And so was Octavia.
CHAPTER 5
Wells
Something thudded against his head, over and over in a slow, relentless rhythm. He tried to open his eyes, but they were as heavy as sandbags and something gnawed at the back of his mind, whispering that he didn’t want to wake up quite yet. He wasn’t ready to know.
The last he could remember, he’d been in the woods with Eric. Bellamy had gone to find Clarke, and Wells and Eric were darting in and out of the clearing, grabbing more injured and bringing them to the woods, where Clarke’s father could treat them. He and Eric had just ducked back under the cover of the trees, supporting someone between them. Then there had been a sharp sting against his shoulder blade. Wells had turned to find a strange, unsmiling man with sunken cheeks. Then… nothing.
Awareness crept in. The feel of hard, cracked wood beneath his shoulders. A swaying motion, like he’d felt on the dropship before it hit Earth’s atmosphere. A sour humid smell; a weird grinding sound. Light flickered past his eyelids.
“This one’s waking up,” said a voice beside his ear, male, unfamiliar.
Wells’s eyes flew open. He was staring at a wooden wall, badly built, with gaps between the thin, rotting boards. Through one of the gaps, he could see a green blur. His bleary mind began to put pieces together, agonizingly slowly. The forest? They were moving through it. This was some sort of vehicle.
“Watch him,” came another, deeper voice, farther away.
“Where the hell are you taking us?” a familiar voice shouted. There was a loud thump, the wall rattling. A face rose up in Wells’s mind, a smug smirk, and then a name. Graham. The screaming boy was Graham.
“He’s not ready yet. Give him another shot,” came the deep voice again.
Startled, Wells shifted, but realized his arms were bound behind him, maybe his ankles too. It was hard to tell—his spine was coiled and cramped, his legs numb. He kicked, just a little, and his legs erupted in excruciating pinpricks
.
“You’re all right,” came that same, affectless voice above him. Wells managed to turn his head just far enough to see a pale boy staring down at him. “The fight’s over. You’re one of the lucky ones.”
“The lucky ones?” Wells tried to say, but his mouth wouldn’t work.
I’ve been drugged. The pain in my back… they caught me in the woods and injected me with something.
“You’re one of us now,” the pale boy said, looking away. “If you don’t scream, we’ll let you wake up.”
But Wells hardly heard the end of that sentence. He was slipping again and then gone.
It was dark the next time he opened his eyes. Someone had propped him into a sitting position, his legs stretched out in front of him, still bound by thick twine. Holding his breath, he blinked until his vision adjusted. His earlier guess had been right. He was inside a covered wagon of some sort, with tall wooden walls and high, barred windows. There was a little bench on the other side of the narrow space. Three men in white uniforms sat on it, including the pale boy and the frightening man from the woods. Wells inhaled sharply, but they weren’t looking at him. They weren’t talking to one another either, just sitting there, rocking with the movement of the cart, their eyes completely blank.
The road lurched and Wells’s shoulder bumped against someone else’s. His body still wasn’t as responsive as he wished, but he managed to turn his head enough to get a view of four people beside him. They were all bound to the wall in seated positions, all asleep, probably drugged. Wells’s heart gave a lurch as his eyes passed over their faces. Next to Graham was Eric, a deep gash on one cheek, followed by an Arcadian kid. The fourth still figure was a little older, less familiar. It was one of Sasha’s people.
Another knot formed in his already clenched stomach. No matter what he did, he continued to let her down. He didn’t know who these murderers in white were, but they hadn’t shown up on the scene until the Colonists appeared.
Wells had suspected there must be other people alive on Earth, but Sasha’s people had never encountered any others. Had they found their site because of the dropships? Had the Colonists doomed them all?