"Right, let's move, people," Jason commanded, "We're burning daylight, and we're sitting ducks out here."
He was relieved, genuinely relieved to have Clarke back. But the thought of the 'Mountain Men' and those starving Reapers still lurking in the bowels of the earth sat like lead in his stomach. He glanced back at the dark maw of the tunnel they had just sprinted from.
'I wish I had enough explosives to cave this whole mountain in,' he thought darkly. The lack of demolition gear made his mood plummet instantly. Without a way to seal the door, the threat was still very much alive.
He looked over at Octavia and Anya, giving them a few precious seconds to recover. Octavia rolled onto her back, her chest heaving as she stole a glance at Clarke. In the unforgiving clarity of the sun, Clarke looked like a ghost. She was covered in a thick layer of tunnel filth, her rugged clothing torn and stained with God-knows-what.
'Well, she did just crawl out of a literal dump site,' Jason mused.
Even as he processed Clarke's condition, his eyes never left Anya for more than a second. He didn't trust the Grounder leader, not one bit. He watched her every movement, his hand resting near his weapon. If she so much as twitched toward Clarke or Octavia, he was ready. 'Just give me an excuse,' he thought. 'Please, give me one reason to make sure there's one less person producing carbon dioxide in this forest.'
Clarke pushed herself into a kneeling position, wiping a streak of grime across her forehead. "What now?" she asked, with her raspy voice.
"We will try to meet up with the others as soon as possible," Jason replied. "We get out of these woods and back to the Ark station. We need walls and we need numbers."
As he spoke, he really looked at her. There was a haunted quality in Clarke's eyes that hadn't been there at the dropship. Her wide, bloodshot irises were ringed by dark, heavy circles, and she carried a tension in her shoulders that looked like it would snap if touched. Her face was a blank, emotionless mask.
'What the hell were they doing to you in there?' he wondered. He knew about the blood-draining, but the Mountain Men were clearly more than just sophisticated vampires. The gear he'd seen, the rifles, the hazmat suits and the precision of their technology meant they were an advanced, disciplined military force.
"It's dangerous staying here," Jason said, his head snapping toward the treeline. He oriented himself, picking the direction he had come from. "We need to keep moving. More will come, and they won't be as easy to trick next time. We have to put miles between us and this place."
Clarke nodded breathlessly, groaning as she forced herself to stand. "Ok."
Jason began to lead them at a pace they could maintain, but his eyes were constantly scanning the canopy and their rear.
"What's wrong?" Octavia asked, noticing the way his jaw was set like granite.
"Think about it," Jason muttered, not slowing down. "It couldn't have been easy to capture our people at once and leave zero traces. Whatever tech they used to take them from the camp... it's not something I want used against us in the open. We're vulnerable out here."
————
Raven skidded to a halt at the edge of the ravine, several bodies of another ark station by the look of their dress, lay sprawled on the rocks broken and unmoving. It looked like a scene from a charnel house. "Jesus," Murphy muttered before peering over the edge to see more bodies, "That's a long way down to realize you can't fly."
Raven scanned the carnage, "I doubt there are any survivors," she said, her voice tight. "We need to keep moving if we're going to meet Jason at the rendezvous."
"Help! Please!"
A high-pitched, desperate female voice tore through the air. Everyone froze. Bellamy was the first to react, rushing to the very lip of the cliff again. About twenty feet down, wedged into a precarious crevice and clinging to a gnarled, dying branch, was a girl from tye ark.
"No way," Bellamy breathed. "There's something down there?"
"Oh my god," Raven gasped, her eyes widening. "We've gotta help her. She's still alive."
Murphy stepped up beside them, looking down with a cold and detached stare, "We can't. Look at that branch, Raven. It's already splintering. There isn't any time here, she's as good as dead."
Raven snapped her head toward him, her jaw dropping. "What?"
"I'm being a realist," Murphy countered with a flat tone. "Sending someone down there is the only way to save her, and that puts a huge risk on the person going down. One slip and two people die instead of one. Besides, we have other things to do. We're supposed to be finding our people, remember?"
Raven didn't answer him and asked the girl her name which she replied was Mel. She looked back at Finn and Bellamy, expecting them to jump into action, but they remained eerily quiet. "Bellamy? Finn? Tell him he's crazy."
Bellamy sighed, his eyes scanning the horizon where the sun was beginning to dip. "Jason didn't show up at the rally point. That means something went wrong. He might be in trouble, Raven. He might need us."
"He's right," Finn added, looking pained. "This rescue... it's going to take time we don't have."
"Fine," Raven snapped, her eyes flashing with a fierce, independent fire. She began frantically searching the torn up and destroyed remains gear on the ground. She spotted a coil of industrial-strength rope and snatched it up, looking for a sturdy anchor point.
"What do you think you're doing, Raven?" Finn asked, stepping toward her.
"If no one else is going to do it, then I'll do it myself!" she shouted. She began looping the rope around a thick, ancient oak near the edge, her hands shaking with adrenaline.
"Stop," Bellamy commanded, walking toward her.
Raven didn't even look up. "Go away, Bellamy! You can't stop me! I'm not leaving one of ours to rot in a ditch!"
"I'm not stopping you," Bellamy said, his voice was surprisingly calm. He reached out and took the rope from her trembling hands. "I'm helping."
Raven blinked, her anger deflating into shock. "Really?"
Murphy rolled his eyes so hard it looked painful. "This is a waste of time and we all know it. We're playing heroes."
"Maybe," Finn said, grabbing the other end of the rope to help Bellamy secure it. "But we wouldn't be any different from the Grounders if we abandoned her down there, we don't leave people behind."
Bellamy talked Raven out of going down herself. He argued that he had the upper body strength to handle the extra weight and that they needed her up top to manage the tension. He stripped off his heavy jacket and tied the rope securely around his waist and under his arms.
"Hold tight," Bellamy said, looking at Raven, Finn, and a reluctant Murphy. "If you let go, I'm haunting all of you."
They began to lower him. Bellamy descended slowly, his boots kicking off the cliff face as he reached the girl. "Mel, look at me," he said, his voice steadying. "It's okay now. Be very careful. Tighten up your body, make yourself small. I need you to be easy to hold."
Mel reached for him, her face tear-streaked and pale. But as she shifted her weight, the terrifying sound of wood groaning filled the ravine. CRACK. The branch snapped.
Mel screamed as she plummeted, but Bellamy lunged, his hand snapping out like a whip and catching her by the wrist. The sudden, violent jerk of their combined weight sent a shockwave up the rope. Up top, the rope slipped through the hands of Raven, Finn, and Murphy.
"What the hell!" Murphy shouted, his boots sliding through the dirt as he fought to regain his footing. "Bellamy, you're killing us!"
"Pull us back up!" Bellamy roared from the abyss, his muscles bulging as he held onto the terrified girl with everything he had.
They strained, their faces turning purple with the effort. Slowly, inch by inch, the pair rose. But halfway up, the rope, chafing against a sharp rock edge began to fray. With a sickening ping, one of the strands snapped.
"The rope's going!" Raven screamed.
The line gave way just as they reached the ledge. They almost fell back into the void, but Murphy, showing a rare flash of selfless instinct, lunged forward and grabbed the remaining fibers, his knuckles turning white as he held the rope long enough for Finn and Raven to help him and hauled them over the edge.
Bellamy and Mel tumbled onto the grass, gasping for air.
Murphy stood up, dusting off his pants and looking at his raw palms. "Don't ever do something that stupid again," he grumbled.
Raven immediately rushed to Mel. "Are you okay? Talk to me."
Mel nodded weakly, clutching her leg. "My leg... I think it's broken."
"I've got you," Raven said, her hands moving with practiced efficiency as she began to tend to the injury.
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