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Kendall was the first to break the silence. “So, Wells, when’s the next dropship coming?” Bellamy snorted at her transparent attempt to lure Wells into a conversation. A number of girls had been paying a lot of attention to Chancellor Junior lately.
“Who cares?” Lila interjected as she rejoined the group, making a show of stretching her arms over her head. “I’m not in any rush to have guards around here, acting like they own the place.”
Bellamy silently agreed, although he’d never give Lila the satisfaction of saying it aloud. He had the most to lose of any of them. While his insane plan of posing as a guard had gotten Bellamy onto the hundred’s dropship, the Chancellor—Wells’s father—had been shot in the ensuing chaos, taking a bullet meant for Bellamy. Even if the other members of the mission were pardoned for their Infractions, Bellamy would be considered a criminal. For all he knew, the guards had orders to shoot him on sight.
“But the Council has to know it’s safe by now,” Kendall said, gesturing to the monitor on her wrist, the one that was meant to send vital signs back up to the ship.
“Safe?” Lila repeated with a bitter laugh. “Yeah, Earth seems real safe to me.”
“I meant the radiation levels,” Kendall said, shooting a look at Wells, clearly hoping he’d back her up. But he was just staring out into the trees. Something had caught his attention.
Bellamy jumped to his feet, grabbed his bow, and jogged over toward Wells. A triumphant cry filled the clearing, and Bellamy exhaled. It wasn’t the Earthborns. It was Graham.
He crashed through one of the bushes that grew near the tree line with a spear in one hand, and something dark and bulky in the other. Something dark, bulky, and furry. The bastard had actually killed something, Bellamy realized, not sure whether he was more relieved or annoyed. It would be great to have help hunting; he just wished it could’ve come from anyone besides Graham. “Look what I have,” he crowed, letting his kill fall to the ground with a thud.
“Graham, it’s still alive,” Priya said, stepping forward while the others backed away in fear and disgust.
She was right. The creature was twitching. It was larger than the rabbits Bellamy had brought back, but smaller than a deer. It had a long snout, slightly rounded ears, and a bushy, striped tail. He peered over for a closer look and saw that the creature was bleeding from a deep wound in its stomach. It would die eventually, but its death would be long and painful. Wells reached into his pocket and pulled out the small knife he always carried with him.
“You need to shoot it through the heart,” Bellamy said to Graham. “That way, it’s a clean kill, and the animal dies right away. Otherwise, slit its throat.”
Graham shrugged, as if Bellamy were chastising him for not closing the supply tent properly. “It’s a fox,” he said, nudging the animal with his toe.
“Actually, it’s a raccoon,” Bellamy said. At least, he thought it was. It looked similar to the raccoons he’d seen in photos, except this creature had something growing out of his head, something that glowed. A circle of light danced on the dark grass as the animal thrashed from side to side. It almost looked like it was wearing a headlamp, like the engineers used to repair the outside of the ship. Bellamy had a vague recollection of watching a video of a fish with a similar apparatus, a light it used to attract prey at the bottom of the ocean.
“Hold on. Were you hunting by yourself?” Lila asked, her voice a mixture of pride and censure. “What if the Earth people are still out there?”
“I hope they’re out there. I’ll make them wish they had gone extinct during the Cataclysm.” Graham laughed as he tossed his spear into the air and caught it one-handed. “We’ll be their Cataclysm.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Wells snapped, his patience evidently wearing thin. “There could be hundreds of them. Thousands. If it comes down to a real battle, we don’t stand a chance.”
Graham lifted his chin. “I think that all depends on who’s leading us, don’t you?” he said, his voice suddenly quiet. He and Wells stared at each other for a moment, then Graham broke away with a grin. “Now, who’s going to skin this thing? I’m starving.”
“Step one, wait until it’s actually dead,” Bellamy said. He looked over to Wells, who was still holding his pocketknife in his hand.
“It’s dead,” Kendall piped in cheerfully. She was crouched on the ground next to the raccoon. “I just broke its neck.”
Bellamy thought she was joking, but then he noticed that the creature was still and the strange glowing light had gone out. He turned to Kendall, slightly startled, but before he could ask where she’d learned to do that, the sound of footsteps pulled his attention toward the middle of the clearing.
Clarke was running toward them, dragging the Earthborn girl by the arm. “Guys!” she shouted, breathless. There was a light in her eyes Bellamy had seen only a few times before, when she encountered something new about Earth that set her scientist mind ablaze. “You’re not going to believe this!”
Everyone jumped to their feet, clustering around Clarke and the girl. “What is it?” Bellamy asked.
Clarke’s eyes darted to him, before turning to the prisoner. “Tell them,” Clarke urged her. “Tell them what you told me.”
So, he thought, the girl did understand English.
It was the first time most of the group had seen the girl since they’d captured her. Some were staring at her in fascination, jostling their neighbors for a closer look, while others backed away nervously. Bellamy noticed that Wells had quietly returned to the campfire and was watching Clarke and the Earthborn girl with interest.
The girl said nothing, her eyes wide with fear as she surveyed the crowd. “It’s okay, Sasha,” Clarke prodded.
Sasha? Bellamy bristled. Clarke knew her name? What the hell had happened while he’d been out hunting?
Sasha cleared her throat, and the whispers that had been rising up from the crowd vanished. “I… I told Clarke that you’re not the first group to come down from the Colony.”
A stunned silence descended over the clearing. “That’s impossible,” Wells said, stepping forward. “How would you even know?”
Sasha’s face hardened, and she raised her chin to look directly into Wells’s eyes. “Because,” she said, her voice calm, “I met them.”
The group erupted in chaos, everyone muttering their own theories and fears all at once. Wells put his fingers to his lips and whistled sharply, an uncomfortable reminder of the painful years Bellamy and his mother spent hiding Octavia from the guards. A whistle had been her signal to hide. Finally, the group quieted down. “You met other people from the Colony?” Wells prompted, clearly skeptical.
“Yes. I knew them. We let them live with us after their ship crashed.” Sasha gestured toward the remains of the hundred’s charred dropship. “You people haven’t really figured out graceful landings, have you?”
Bellamy couldn’t take this anymore. “Why don’t you save the history lesson for later and tell me where I can find my sister?”
“I don’t know anything about your sister,” Sasha replied. “I’m sorry.”
“We’re not idiots, you know.” Bellamy saw Clarke flashing him a look of warning, but he ignored it. “You killed Asher, and you took my sister. You’d better start talking, now.”
“Bellamy, let her finish,” Wells said, sounding more like the Chancellor than he had any right to. He turned back to Sasha. “Just tell us what happened,” he went on in a gentler voice.
Sasha shot a quick glance at Clarke, who nodded encouragingly. “Another group came down, a little over a year ago. They lost most of their supplies when they crashed. We took them in.”
“How many people were there?” Graham asked, surveying Sasha suspiciously.
“Ten. Although only seven survived the crash.”
“And how many of them did you shoot through the neck?” Graham added under his breath, but loud enough for everyone to hear.
Sasha flinched, but continued. “Everything was okay at first, though it was strange having new people around. The rest of us have known each other our whole lives, and it was our first time meeting outsiders. But we did our best to make them feel welcome.” Her face darkened, and her voice grew cold. “They didn’t treat us with the same courtesy, so they had to leave.”
