Disclaimer: I do not own The 100 or any of the characters other than my own, all rights go to their respective owners.

See end of chapter for notes.


Prologue i

T-minus 532 days

The bright fluorescent lights of the Factory Station common room burned down on the worn pages of the book in Mara Gorman's hand. In the back corner, a beat-up speaker played music so softly that only half the room could hear it; an old Earth movie was projected onto a wall at the top of the room with rows of chairs, only half occupied, facing it. A large window occupied the entirety of the adjoining wall, showing the endless inky depths of space and the curved edge of the blues and greens of Earth.

Factory Station inhabitants milled around the room; a group of middle-aged friends sat next to the speaker playing with a deck of cards, an assortment of buttons and scrap fabric on the table between them as they gambled for fun. Mara's parents were among them, blissfully unaware that their world would soon shatter.

Mara herself sat surrounded by her friends, each distracted by the sights around them or the objects in their hands. Mara's legs were propped up on the lap of the boy beside her, her fingers reaching out to gently turn the page of the book she was reading.

'A high wind blustered round the house, and roared in the chimney: it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not cold…"

She stared blankly at the page, having no concept of the sound wind made nor of how it felt against her skin. The closest she had ever come to experiencing the true sensation of wind was by sitting underneath an air vent and letting it flutter through her bronze hair and across the bare skin of her freckled arms. Neither had she ever felt the sun's unfiltered warmth nor did she know how rich soil smells after it rains. One day, she could only dream, she would feel the wind and sun on her face and grass between her toes.

Lifting her gaze from her book, she stared longingly at what little of Earth she could see through the window. Tanzanite seas and peridot landscapes, obscured by marbled clouds, smiled back at her. She wondered what it was like to breathe fresh air that hadn't been recycled through filters a thousand times before it reached her lungs.

Earth looked peaceful, a dreamscape she could only imagine but never touch. The Ark was not peaceful; it hummed continuously every hour of the day as oxygen and water and electricity pumped through the pipes and wires to the twelve Stations. The Ark had orbited Earth for ninety-seven years as an ever-watchful guardian waiting for the radiation, brought on by a nuclear apocalypse, to clear.

Setting the book delicately in her lap, Mara reached up and untangled a silky green ribbon from her hair and inserted it into the book to save her page. Her hair tumbled free in waves about her shoulders and she deftly tucked it behind her ears, her fingertips brushing along the scar that slashed through her right eyebrow.

She smiled at the boy who's lap her legs were resting on. He returned her smile with ease, rubbing his hand along her legs as he continued the conversation he was having with the red-haired girl sat next to him. Mara did not love him. Perhaps one day, given enough time, she could. He was sweet to her, and shy like an infant when someone new spoke to him, and she knew that he loved her; he had told her when they lay in bed together, his sheets the only thing covering their bodies from Factory Station's permanent chill, but she had not said it back. She wanted to; his soft eyes had begged her to say it but all she could manage was to kiss his cheek and smile. It had been enough for him at the time. Being with him felt appropriate; she liked him well enough and it felt something akin to good when he touched her yet, she needed to feel a spark that was entirely missing. Maybe it was naïve; maybe an appropriate relationship would have to be good enough.

"Tony?" She nudged the toe of her boot against his thigh.

Tony's black hair caught in the fluorescent lights burning down on them and she could see a few grey hairs that had already begun to sprout along his hairline. He was a true child of the Factory.

He looked at her expectantly, but she didn't know what to say to him. Lie to him and say she loved him? End their relationship because they promise of maybe loving him wasn't fair to either of them? All she did was smile and shake her head.

"Doesn't matter."

"Did you know that Alpha Station has screens in all their Compartments?" Mako looked up from his dented datapad from where he sat across from Mara, muffled pops and whizzes soared out of the speakers from the game he had been playing.

"No, they don't," Rachel, the red-haired girl, rolled her eyes.

"They do!" Mako cried indignantly. "Amala told me."

"How would Amala know?" Tony asked, patting Mara's legs so she would lift them to let him sit up straighter.

"Because she works in the laundry," Mako clicked a button at the top of his datapad and the whizzing and popping of his game abruptly silenced.

"I thought she delivered to Mecha," Mara asked, sliding her legs from Tony's lap and shifting out of her slumped position, being careful not to drop her book.

"Normally, but she had to do Alpha today and she said that all of the Compartments have screens," said Mako.

"That's bullshit!" Rachel huffed, flipping her hair behind her shoulders with her slender fingers.

"It's true!"

"No, not that," Rachel protested. "Why don't we get screens?"

"You know why, Rach," Tony sighed, running a hand through his thick hair.

Rachel opened her mouth to speak, her pink lips puckered with the imagination of a sentence she would never say for the stereo in the back corner of the room had suddenly silenced. The cardplayers stopped checking their hands, the movie-watchers stiffened in their seats, and the four teenagers felt their hackles rise. Three sharp alarms blasted from the speaker, the green light above the door flashed red, and a collective groan rippled around the room.

Mara sought her parents out amidst the scrapping of chairs and muffled groans of annoyance. She found them; her mother had wrapped her thin blanket tighter around her frail shoulders and her father's coal black eyes had blazed into the rebellious fire that had sparked in his youth. They knew what was coming.

The book in Mara's hand became a bright red target and she wished that she had left it in the Archives. Yes, there would have been the chance that someone else would have taken it before she could return to it and read the next chapter, but it would have meant that the guards wouldn't zero in on her.

The stomping of boots vibrated off the floor, and Mara shifted the book to one hand, so she could fish her ID card from the back pocket of her faded grey trousers. She placed the card on top of the book and waited.

Tony shifted on his feet and Mara knew that he was angling to stand in front of her. She wished he wouldn't.

Six guards streamed into the room one after another, their black uniforms stripping them of their individuality and turning them into one frightening horde.

"Tomas Nilsson," a member of the guard broke from the back, his voice thundering around the deathly quiet room. "Has anyone seen Tomas Nilsson?"

No one spoke. No one moved. No one so much as breathed.

"Let's make this easy, folks." The same guard spoke again, and Mara felt a shiver run through her body. "We just want to know where he is. You help us, and we'll help you."

They had all heard that before, guards promising to help them in return for a favour, but it never ended well. Mara shifted uncomfortably on her feet, squeezing the book tighter to her chest as if she could push it through her skin and bury it between her lungs.

The guard sighed long and slow, and the sound dripped with menace.

"Search them," he ordered, and the five other guards sprung into animation.

It was worse when the guards were like this: coiled like a tight spring, waiting for any excuse to burst. Tomas Nilsson had killed a guard and they were out for blood.

One guard, short and full of toxic bravado, scanned the room quickly to choose his victim. His eyes landed on Mara and she tensed on instinct, her heart screaming at her to run for the nearest exit even though she had done nothing wrong.

"Why do you have that?" He thundered in a voice that told Mara that it was more of an accusation than a question.

"I…" she coughed, clearing her throat before beginning again in a stronger voice. "I checked it out of the Archives."

"Who gave you permission?" He stomped over to her, brushing past Tony, and standing with his legs shoulder-width apart in what he assumed was an intimidating stance. He was not wrong.

"Mrs Pilcher." Mara's English teacher had wanted her to read broadly and embrace her potential; all it had done was land her in scalding hot water.

"So, we can't read books now?" Logan, Mara's father, shouted across the room. He, like the guards he had once fought, was coiled tightly. "Are you going to take them from us too?"

"Check my ID," Mara shot her father a look that said please don't make it worse. "I swear I have permission."

She wanted to say more, to ask if the guard if he would have accused her of theft if she had been from Alpha Station, but her mother's warning to never talk back to a guard stopped her.

Lieutenant Evans, the guard's name tag read, frowned at her, his eyebrows creasing with distrust. Mara wanted to snap at him, to rail against him like Logan had done in the violent riots that had broken out in the months before her birth, but she kept her mouth shut and calmly handed him her ID.

Evans pushed the ID into the slot at the top of his datapad, and Mara waited in anticipation for his screen to display that she was telling the truth. Her foot began tapping a nervous rhythm and a thousand thoughts whirled around her head as she waited for what felt like a decade.

The datapad sounded a soft beep and Evans scanned the information displayed on his screen. Mara couldn't read it, but she could see Tony's shoulders slumping in relief from where he stood behind Evans.

Evans hmphed, his desire to arrest someone, anyone, squashed by the information splashed across the screen.

"Alright!" The lead guard called, as the four other guards finished checking IDs. "If anyone has any information, you know where to find us. If anyone does know where Thomas Nilsson is but doesn't come forward, they will be charged with harbouring a fugitive. I don't need to remind you what the punishment is."

The threat hung like death in the air. Evans glared at Mara once more, scanning her up and down like she was nothing, and joined the rest of his unit as they marched from the room.

Mara breathed, relief filling her lungs, and finally let her body relax from its tense stance. Logan and Tony were at her side in a moment, both asking her if she was okay and offering words of comfort that she did not need. All she had done was read a book.


T-minus 520 days

"How many compressions in a minute?"

"One hundred to one hundred and twenty," five of the bored teenagers answered their teacher.

Mara sat in the centre of the room, her cheek resting in her right hand and her legs swinging beneath her. The screen behind the teacher was showing a looped animation of how to give CPR but no one was really paying much attention.

"How many compressions in a minute?" Mr Pike asked again, his voice louder than before.

"One hundred to one hundred and twenty," more of the class answered this time.

Earth Skills was one of Mara's favourite classes, but they had been going over the basics of CPR for half an hour and her patience was beginning to wear thin. She twiddled her stylus between her fingers and glanced at the clock above Mr Pike's head. Smiling when she realised the time, she began counting down the seconds in her head and clicked her stylus into its home at the top of her datapad.

Three sharp rings sounded from the clock and the teenagers swarmed as one as they switched off their datapads and clambered out of their seats, each more eager than the other to be the first to escape.

"Did I say you could leave?" Mr Pike asked, his arms crossed over his chest as he blocked the exit. "Remember: you need to fill out your class choices for next year. The forms have been sent to your pads, so I don't want to hear any excuses for not handing them in on Monday. Understood?"

Mr Pike stared the class down until they all muttered their agreement.

"Okay. Now you can leave." He smirked as the first student whizzed past him to freedom. "Miss Gorman, a word."

Mara's shoulders slumped as she stood from her seat and weaved her way through the sea of students. She still hadn't decided what classes she would be taking and knew that she wouldn't be able to answer any questions Mr Pike had. Earth Skills would most likely make her list alongside English; history was also an option, but she didn't know how useful it would be unless she planned on working in the Archives; she was no good at mathematics, but it would be handy to have some qualification in it; she could rule out chemistry and physics, but maybe keep in biology –

"I heard about your mom," Mr Pike interrupted her thoughts.

"Oh," was all Mara could say, mild surprise etched on her face.

"When was she diagnosed?" Mr Pike pulled a vacant chair to his desk and gestured for her to sit while he did the same behind his desk. She did so reluctantly, she would rather talk about her class options than her mom.

"A couple of months ago," Mara stared at her hands, glad that the class had emptied out, "but it's advanced."

The two sat in awkward silence. Mr Pike cared, all his students knew that he cared, he just had a funny way of showing it. Once, he had created a simulation in which the entire class had to pretend to be stranded on Earth with only a few survival tools to scare them into paying more attention to his lessons. The only good that came out of it was that Mara had learned how to make a sling when Mr Pike had changed the simulation and they had to pretend that one of the students had broken their arm.

"There are counsellors you can talk to if you need." He slid his datapad across the desk. On the screen was the information of where Mara could go to speak to a counsellor.

"I'm fine," Mara pushed the datapad away.

Mr Pike hummed unconvincingly, "Your mom has terminal cancer, Mara."

"I know," she growled out harsher than she intended and had to reign herself in, "but I'm fine. I'm dealing with it."


T-minus 518 days

Mara was, in fact, not dealing with it.

Factory Station Compartment B-22 was small and grey and would have been depressing if not for the small personal touches scattered across it. The stacked beds that Mara and her parents slept in were nestled in an alcove in one wall, hidden by a thin curtain drawn across them for privacy. On the top bed that Mara slept in, a small tattered teddy bear was stuffed in the corner next to her worn and lumpy pillow. A small metal table and chairs sat in the centre of the room, Mara's dad's jacket hung off the back of one of them and her mom's shoes were tucked neatly under the other. A shelf jutted out from the wall across from the beds, holding the books Mara had checked out from the Archives, a bottle of perfume that smelled like synthetic roses, and the family datapad. The bathroom door was closed next to the shelf and the sound of the shower running could be heard throughout Compartment B-22.

Mara sat on the floor of the shower, her knees pulled up to her chest and her hair saturated with a scent-free shampoo and conditioner solution. Water pounded down on her back and slowly began to wash the product from her deep brown hair. She only had five minutes before the water automatically switched off.

Five minutes were more than enough. She let herself cry, safe in the knowledge that the shower would drown out the sound of her tears. Her mother was dying and there was nothing she could do to help.


T-minus 517 days

"How are you feeling?" Mara held her mom's hand as she knelt on the floor by the bed.

"I'm doing fine, don't you worry about me," Madeline Gorman tried to smile, but was interrupted by a coughing fit and a wince of pain.

Madeline wiped her mouth with her free hand, clearing away the bit of spit that had come up with her cough. Her skin had taken on a pasty sheen and she had lost more weight than she was comfortable with; her cheekbones jutted out, sharp as knives, and her collarbones protruded from her skin as an ever-present reminder that she would not be getting better.

"You're not fine, mom," Mara argued, squeezing her mother's hand tighter.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" Madeline changed the subject, this time succeeding in smiling without coughing.

"No…" Mara lied.

"Logan?" Madeline called to her husband sitting at the table beside the two. "What day is it?"

"Monday," Logan answered, looking at his two girls over the top of the datapad in his hands.

"Hmm," Madeline hummed, a mischievous glint in her eyes that the cancer could not suppress. "I could have sworn Mara always has somewhere to be on a Monday."

Logan smirked from the table and Mara ducked her head to avoid their eyes.

"Go to school, baby," Madeline laughed before her eyes widened and she began coughing in earnest.

Logan jumped from the table and crossed to Madeline's side in an instant, helping her sit up and rubbing her back in soothing circles. Mara rushed to the bathroom and grabbed the cup they housed their toothbrushes in. Chucking the toothbrushes in the sink unceremoniously, she ran to the tap and filled the cup with cool clear water as quickly as she could. In her haste to get back to her mom's side, some of the water sloshed out of the cup and spilt onto Mara's green sweater.

"Here," Mara thrust the glass into her mom's shaking hand and watched as Madeline gratefully slurped down the soothing liquid.

"Thank you," Madeline handed the cup back to Mara, her eyes red and her voice raspy.

Mara couldn't speak as she looked down at the glass. It was now almost empty, but the few mouthfuls of water left were tainted pink with Madeline's blood.

"I'm not going to school today."

"Yes, you are," Madeline sighed, letting Logan help lower her onto her back.

"But-"

"No. You are going to school," Madeline shot Mara a look that said that she would not be argued with.

Mara sighed and bent down to kiss her mom's cheek.

"I love you."

"I love you too," Madeline's words were cut off as she shifted in bed and grimaced.

"C'mon, Spud," Logan said as he pulled his jacket on over his grey overalls. "I'll walk you halfway."

The Ark was a vast expanse of winding hallways and identical doors that opened onto nearly identical rooms; it would have been very easy to get lost in, but Mara and Logan navigated the walkways with ease. The entrance to the B Compartments shut with a mechanical whoosh behind the father and daughter.

Mara and Logan were cut from the same cloth. Both had the same shade of deep brown hair – though Logan's was streaked with grey – and they had the same sloping nose and full lips. Mara was born with her mom's eyes: a dark chocolate brown that sparkled when she laughed. She was short like her mom and lean like her dad but, as father and daughter walked together, Logan couldn't help but think that she was more like Madeline than she would ever be like him.

As the duo rounded a corner, they came to a crossroads. One path would lead Logan to the production line he worked on, the other would take Mara to school, and the third path headed towards the rest of The Ark and, more importantly, the Medical Bay.

The pair stopped off to the side of the junction, neither wanting to leave the other. Mara, certainly, didn't want to go to school. She had filled out the form that would decide the classes she would take in the next school year and had already sent it away to Mr Pike for review; she had completed her homework and had it stored in organised files on her datapad, but she couldn't get the image of her mom's frail body out of her head.

Madeline Gorman was dying and there was nothing Mara could do about it but maybe, just maybe, she could do something to alleviate her mom's pain. Madeline had used up the last of the pain medication the doctors had rationed for her and they wouldn't give her any more no matter what. Medication was, after all, a finite resource on The Ark.

It wasn't fair. None of it was fair.

By no means was Mara a reckless person: she hid in the shadows when things were dangerous, she cried in the shower to avoid a confrontation but, on that fateful day, Mara was feeling reckless.

"Mom's getting worse," she whispered conspiratorially to her dad.

"I know, Spud," Logan wrapped an arm around his daughter's shoulders and hugged her to his side. "We just have to be there to support her."

The two moved to the side of the hallway to allow morning commuters to pass easily and stood in silence for a long moment. Mara wished she knew what her dad was thinking as she looked up at him. He had aged, she noticed for the first time. Stubble had sprouted along his jaw and the bags under his eyes had grown darker; his lips, that used to be quirked in a permanent smile, were now downturned as if he was only holding himself together for her sake.

Mara looked down the third path. She could do it. She knew she could.

"I'm not going to school," she decided.

"Spud," Logan sighed tiredly, taking his arm from around her shoulders and turning to look at his daughter fully. "We're not having this argument here."

"Dad, I know how I can help mom."

Logan followed Mara's gaze to the sign across the junction that informed how long a journey it was to each Station of The Ark. The closest, by far, was the Medical Bay. Logan felt his blood freeze in his veins.

"Whatever you're thinking, stop," he warned.

"I'm not thinking anything," she lied defensively.

"Mara," he pulled her further against the wall so that they wouldn't be overheard, "don't do anything stupid."

"It's not stupid. Dad, she's in pain," her voice cracked as she looked up at him and he wished she hadn't been born with her mom's eyes because they were eyes that he found impossible to say no to.

Logan sighed, "Be careful."

He brought her into a hug that he wished could never end.

"I can't…" he began, trailing off mid-sentence. I can't lose you too, he thought but never had the courage to say aloud.

"Go to work," Mara laughed, pulling out of his arms and shooing him away.

"Alright, alright," Logan laughed too and held his hands up in surrender.

If only they had known how the day would end.

Mara watched her father walk away. His overalls were far too short, the legs only just skimming his ankles, but they lived in Factory Station so the chance of Logan receiving new ones was slim. If they had lived in Alpha Station Logan would have had a uniform that fit him and Madeline, most likely, would have been slipped extra painkillers under the table by one of the many Alpha Station doctors. No one cared about Factory workers as long as they kept producing.

With a fiercely determined heart and shaking legs that gave away her true fear, Mara began walking down the hallway that would lead her to the Medical Bay. Her boots clanged along the metal floor in time with the frantic beating of her heart and she had to make a conscious effort to slow down. It would be suspicious if she charged into Medical guns blazing. She had to be smart about it and formulate a plan that wouldn't result in her immediate arrest.

No one paid her attention as she weaved in out and out of the people streaming through the hallways; everyone was too busy trying to get to work or staring down at the information on their datapads to notice a sixteen-year-old girl sweating like she had already committed a crime.

She could see the Medical Bay looming at the end of the hallway. There were far fewer people in the hallway, but still too many for Mara's comfort.

Maybe this wasn't too good a decision after all but, before Mara could think twice and turn back, she found herself pushing open the double doors of the Medical Bay.

It was quiet inside, save for the beeping of machines and the soft footfalls of attentive doctors and nurses. Mara hovered in the doorway, uncertainty lining her face and, she was certain, giving her intentions away.

"Can I help you?"

Mara nearly leapt out of her skin at the sudden appearance of a doctor at her elbow. She stared at the doctor, her mouth gaping open as her brain scrambled to supply the words she needed.

"I…I don't feel well," she managed to stutter out and the doctor smiled kindly at her.

"Okay, let's see what we can do about that."

The doctor led Mara past rows of empty beds until they came to their desired patient room. The doctor held the door open and Mara slipped past into the room. Her palms were sweating.

"Have a seat," the doctor gestured to the chair in front of a desk that housed a large computer. Beside the desk was a large glass cabinet, and Mara could see bottles and bottles of medication encased within.

"I'm Doctor Jackson." He was young, younger than Mara had expected of a doctor, but he had kind eyes and a warm face that Mara found comforting.

"Mara," she said, "Mara Gorman."

Doctor Jackson typed her name in the computer and pulled up her medical history. This was a stupid idea, Mara thought but it was too late to back out now.

"I…" she searched for a legitimate excuse because saying 'I'm here to steal some painkillers' would undoubtedly get her arrested. "I have really bad cramps."

She winced but hoped that that would at least be a believable excuse.

"Menstrual?"

"Um…yes," she gave a fake wince and hunched a little more in her seat, hoping that the doctor would buy her act.

"Let's see," Doctor Jackson scanned her file on the computer, most likely trying to see if she had ever been accused of using the excuse before to scam more painkillers.

"Okay, I can give you something for the pain, but I won't be able to do it every month," Doctor Jackson said as he stood from his desk and crossed to the medicine cabinet.

"I understand," Mara muttered as she watched him carefully.

He pulled a key card from his coat pocket and swiped it over a pad on the cabinet door. The cabinet opened with a click that was almost as loud as the pounding of Mara's heart in her ears. Doctor Jackson bent over the shelves, moving bottles out of the way in his search for the right one.

"Ah!" He had found what he was looking for.

A knock sounded at the door to the exam room and Doctor Jackson straightened up. He crossed to the door and leaned out into the hallway. Mara watched his back as he whispered with whoever had interrupted them and played with her fingers. This is so incredibly stupid, Mara thought again, her leg beginning to bounce anxiously.

Doctor Jackson stepped back into the room but held the door open.

"Sorry, Mara, I'll be back in a second."

"That's okay," Mara started to say but Doctor Jackson had already left by the time she had finished.

Mara sighed and turned back around in her seat when she noticed something wonderfully convenient. Doctor Jackson, in his haste to answer the door, had left the medicine cabinet wide open. Mara could have cried.

It couldn't be so simple. Yet, there was the medicine cabinet wide open and ready to be picked through.

Half rising from her chair, Mara nervously glanced back at the door. She paused and listened for approaching footsteps but, when she couldn't hear any, she jumped fully out of the seat and all but sprinted to the cabinet.

"Okay," she breathed, "let's do this."

She began searching through the plastic bottles, glad that Doctor Jackson had already made a mess of whatever organisation system they had as she was, perhaps, making more of a mess than he had. She cursed when she knocked one of the bottles to the floor and could have sworn that the resounding clang could be heard all the way back in Factory Station. Hastily scooping the bottle up, she put it back in the cabinet and began her search anew. Ever aware of the passing time, Mara could feel a cold sweat beginning to bloom on her brow and cursed herself for not thinking the plan through properly. Just as she was about to give up, her hand landed on a translucent glass bottle. Morphine was emblazoned on the label across the front of the bottle and a smile finally worked its way onto her face.

Gotcha, she thought with relief and began opening the drawers beneath the shelf. She found a syringe with ease.

Footsteps were approaching the door and Mara felt her heart begin to race at an impossible rate. She closed the drawer as quietly as possible and sprinted back over to the chair, stuffing the morphine and syringe into the inside pocket of her brown jacket as she went. Falling into the chair just as Doctor Jackson opened the door, Mara attempted to pass her odd position off as a stretch. If Doctor Jackson thought it was weird, he didn't comment on it.

"Sorry about that," he said instead and walked over to the cabinet. If he noticed that the bottles weren't in the same position as when he left them, he didn't comment on that either.

"Okay," he sat the bottle of light painkillers on the desk and began typing into the computer. "Take two every four hours, and they should help a little," he punctuated the end of his sentence by hitting down harder on the enter key and Mara watched as her medical file was updated and zipped off the screen.

"Thanks," Mara grimaced as Doctor Jackson handed her the bottle and she noticed just how clammy her palms had become.

"Hope you feel better," Doctor Jackson told her as he got up from his desk to hold the door to the exam room open for her.

Mara couldn't tell if he was being genuine or if he knew what she had hidden in her pocket, but she chose to believe it was the former.

"Thanks," she said again and ducked past him.

Forcing herself to maintain a normal pace, Mara past the rows of empty beds and headed for the exit. She chanced a look back and found Doctor Jackson still watching her. He waved goodbye and Mara returned his gesture but there was something in his eyes that told her that he knew what she had done.

Mara rushed through the exit. That was so fucking stupid, Mara chided herself, praying that she was just being paranoid and that Doctor Jackson had just been giving her a friendly wave.

She thundered down the steel hallways, her black boots banging with every step she took. Panic never left her, and only seemed to grow the further she was from Medical. Every corner she rounded, she imagined had a guard waiting to snatch her up on the other side but each time the corner was empty she just became more convinced that the guards were gathering together to catch her as one.

Reaching the fateful crossroads she had stood at not long ago, Mara took a deep breath and felt her lungs finally filling with something other than ice-cold fear. Taking the path back to the B Compartments, Mara allowed herself to feel an ounce of happiness that she had managed to accomplish her task.

Then she stopped, and her heart filled with dread once more when she noticed two guards standing at the entry to the B Compartments.

"Shit," she muttered, panic filling her once more.

The guards hadn't noticed her yet. She ducked behind a strategically placed trash compactor and pretended to tie her bootlace while she tried to figure out what to do. The guards were talking to each other, seemingly unworried about anything; Mara couldn't tell if they were so calm because they didn't know about her, or if they knew that there was no way she would be able to get away from them.

"Dammit," she hissed under her breath and, glancing around her to make sure that the coast was clear, fished the morphine and syringe out of her pocket and stashed it behind the trash compactor. She would come back for it later.

She straightened, checked that the guards still weren't looking at her and headed back the way she came. Finding herself back at the junction, she stopped and took a moment to gather herself. Her hands were shaking almost uncontrollably, and she had to fight against her instincts to run to the other side of The Ark and never return.

Anxiety was killing her slowly, and she itched with impatience, but she couldn't be caught. It would kill her parents. So, she waited. She counted down the seconds until they turned into minutes, and then she counted some more until, finally, she felt confident enough that the guards would have moved on.

Peeking around the corner, she could see straight to the entrance of the B Compartments and, blissfully, the coast was clear. Her body slumped with relief and she allowed a small smile to grace her lips. It was a smile that was still tinted with more than enough fear, but it was a smile nonetheless.

Hastily sneaking back to where she had stashed the stolen goods, she crouched down and reached her hand into the gap behind the trash compactor only to find it empty. Both the morphine and the syringe were gone.

"What the-"

"Looking for this?" A pair of guard's boots appeared before her and Mara's eyes slid shut in despair. "You weren't being nearly as subtle as you thought you were."

Slowly lifting her gaze, Mara found herself looking at one of the two guards who had been previously standing at the entrance to the B Compartments. Up close, she could see the two white lines on the right shoulder of his uniform that indicated his status as a cadet. He was tall, with mahogany brown hair slicked back from his freckled face; he was young, only a few years older than Mara, and his eyes were a warm brown that made her think that she might get out of the situation without being arrested.

"Who is it for?" The cadet asked as Mara slowly stood from her crouch. B. Blake, she read on his nametag.

What could she do? Lie, and pretend that she hadn't stolen it? Tell the truth and hope that he would take pity on her?

"My mom," she paused, swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat. She wanted to run from him, to hide and never come out; she knew what the punishment for such a severe crime was. "She's really sick."

His eyes softened, and she wanted to beg him to take pity on her and let her go. Blake huffed a breath out his nose but didn't say anything, and Mara shifted uncomfortably on her feet.

She could run. He hadn't scanned her ID yet, so he didn't know her name or where she lived and maybe, if she hid long enough, he would forget all about her.

As her mind was racing with potential hiding places (the air vents, loosen a panel on the floor and hide in the space underneath, the broken fridge in the Factory kitchens) Blake reached out and pressed the morphine and syringe into her hand.

"Go," he whispered, scanning the corridor to make sure that no one was around. "Just promise you won't do it again."

Her mouth hung open in shock, her eyes wide as she stammered for something to say. Her hand closed gingerly over the contraband, not fully believing her luck in one of the few kind guards being the one to catch her.

"Thank you," she said, undeniable gratitude flooding her words. She would have hugged him if she hadn't been so worried about being inappropriate.

"Go," he said again but he was smiling, and she silently promised that she would never tell anyone what he had done for her.

Backing away from him slowly, Mara gripped the morphine and syringe tightly. She mouthed another thank you to him because he had done more than just let her go; he had helped her mom more than any of the doctors had, and she knew that she would never be able to repay him.

As she was walking away, Blake's eyes widened in fear and Mara felt her back collide with the person behind her. She stopped, and she did not have to turn around to know that she had landed herself in a situation that she would not be able to get out of. Blake would not be able to help her now. The person she had collided with cleared their throat and Mara reluctantly turned on her heels, feeling her pulse beginning to race once more. She was beginning to be concerned that she would have a heart attack from all the energy her heart had been exerting.

Chief David Miller stood before her, his guard uniform pristine and his boots polished into mirrors, with his hands on his hips and his eyes trained on the contraband still clutched in her hand. She should have stuffed it into her jacket pocket the second Blake had let her go.

Chancellor Marcus Kane stood next to Chief Miller, and Mara wanted to crawl into her skin. She didn't know what to say as no reasonable excuse came to her mind, for how could she justify holding a bottle of morphine and syringe in her hand in the middle of a hallway?

"I think we've found our thief."


Notes

Hi everyone!

For those of you who have been here before: welcome back, and for those who are new here: welcome!

So, I started this story when I was in my first year of university (I actually have notebooks full of planning notes that I wrote in lectures when I should have been paying more attention) and I'm now in my final year. I decided to rewrite this and shake it up a bit because I wasn't really happy with the way it was going. There will be events, and definitely some surprises, in Mara's second outing that weren't in the first one, but I hope you enjoy it anyway!

Thanks to everyone who has read this chapter! Please let me know what you think if you have the time (any feedback is greatly appreciated).

I promise not to take as long to update this fic as I did with the last one because I have much more free time on my hands now.

Thanks again for reading!

AllThatPurpleProse