CAL

I woke up in a bed, groggy. It wasn't until I rolled over and the bandages across my chest pulled that I remembered where I was. Floating in Eligius IV above a new planet, 125 years removed from Earth and the woman who'd shot me.

I glanced around the room and found Gav in a chair. His head was leaning against the wall, eyes closed, mouth hanging open. "Some babysitter."

I pushed myself out of bed, grunting as I did so. Cryosleep had a funny way about healing. It didn't feel as if I'd been shot yesterday, but I was nowhere near 100%. I still had time to go before I could be back in the field where I was needed.

I left the room, being careful to close the door quietly as to not wake Gavril from his nap. Then I headed down the hall toward command. I wanted to look at Alpha. Somewhere down there Kenna and Alex were exploring a whole new world. I hoped they weren't giving Maia too much trouble.

But before I could make it to the bridge, I had to pass the infirmary. Inside I could make out raised voices. I slowed down, not sure if I should pass the open door.

"Everything I did in that bunker, I did for my people." I was fairly certain the voice belonged to Bellamy's sister. "Am I a monster? Is that it? Then so are you."

"You didn't have to wage war. You didn't have to burn down the farm." It was Kane, the man who'd betrayed us to Paxton. The reason four hundred people died in the gorge. "You were lost." Kane tried to continue but his words were broken up by coughs. Then Abby was yelling for someone named Niylah to help.

Octavia walked out of the room and in the opposite direction without looking back. I looked in the room for a moment. Kane was lying on the bed, coughing up blood. Maia had told me about their last conversation, that she hoped he lived long enough for them to make amends. It didn't look as if he'd even make it through the night.

I followed Octavia down the hall. After a few moments she turned around to face me. "You're Maia's friend, right?" She asked. "The one who took a bullet for her?"

"Cal Malikov," I said by way of introduction. "And you're her not-quite-sister."

"Now that that's cleared up…" She turned back around and continued to walk away.

"Wait!" I called. She stopped, but didn't turn back around. I picked up my pace to catch up with her. "She talked about you, you know? Not a lot. But, I mean, she tried not to talk about any of you a lot."

"Maia doesn't know me anymore," Octavia said flatly. "Maybe she doesn't want to. She left me in cryosleep, after all."

I shook my head. "Maia loves you," I assured her. "When she talked about bringing Wonkru to the valley, she never even considered a compromise. Charmaine said she'd take everyone as long as they left you, but that wasn't an option for Maia. She wanted to fight for you, even if it cost her life."

Octavia let out a humorless laugh. "That does sound like my sister." She shook her head. "Maia's always been so damn loyal. To a fault, if I'm being honest. I love her, but sometimes…sometimes it scares me how much she cares. Like I have to always be worried about her, make sure she doesn't fall in too deep."

That did sound like Maia. She carried so much pain with her, wore it like armor and refused to let it go. But I wasn't much better. "She's okay. We're watching out for her now too."

"Yeah, sure." She didn't seem convinced. "Don't get me wrong; I'm glad Maia found a place with the Shadows. But if you take advantage of her, I'll finish the job that crazy bitch started."

I held up my hands in surrender. "I believe you." Octavia looked at me for a moment before backing down. "Can I offer you some advice, as a friend of a friend?" She shrugged. "I know a thing or two about family drama. I spent a long time resenting my brother, and believing he hated me. But at the end of the day, he was still family and I wish more than anything that he was here with me now."

"Don't make the same mistake I did," I told her, shaking my head. "If you want your brother back in your life, don't give up. He loves you, he just needs time."

Octavia sighed. "That's basically the same thing Maia said."

"You have to forgive yourself for everything that happened in that bunker," I told her. "If you want to more forward, that's the first step."

She narrowed her eyes. "Everything I did, I did to save my people. I don't need to forgive myself. I made the right choice."

I shrugged. "Sometimes the right choices are harder to live with than the wrong ones."

Octavia shook her head, clearly skeptical. "If you say so."

MAIA

Dawn came as we were making our way up the mountain in the center of the enclave. The view from up high was beautiful. Inside the perimeter there were fields of plants in a variety of colors. But it was difficult to be excited when Shaw's death hung over us all.

Stairs led us to the summit, where we found a colorful village. It had to have been created from spare junk, leftovers from Eligius III that had brought them here. Shipping container houses and mismatched parts came together to make eclectic architecture.

In the middle of the village stood a castle, at least that was the only word I could find for it. It wasn't old and historic, or half destroyed and in ruins like the ones in books. Instead it was just as colorful and eclectic as everything surrounding it.

"It's like we walked into a psychedelic fairytale," Kenna murmured as she looked around.

"Like Alice in Wonderland," I added.

She nodded enthusiastically. "Exactly. But where's our caterpillar?

The village was dead silent. I'd seen enough abandoned buildings to know the difference. People lived here, but for some reason they just weren't home. "Where is everyone?"

"Let's go door to door, see if anyone's around," Bellamy suggested. We spread out searching for answers, but the longer we looked the more hopeless it seemed.

"This is pointless," Murphy called out. "No one's here."

"Then we wait," Clarke said. "People live here, they'll be back."

Murphy turned toward another door and kicked it in. "Or we could poke around." Clarke and Bellamy seemed less than enthusiastic, but Kenna and I followed Murphy into the home.

There was a shrine centered on photos of families in uniform. "Guess Eligius took more than just criminals," Kenna muttered. "Good for them." She poked at a bowl on the ground with her foot. "Is that blood?"

I stepped back outside. "Come on, let's keep looking."

Emori and Murphy made their way up to the castle. Clarke went to check more houses. Meanwhile Kenna and Alex took a seat on the steps to wait. After a little while, Echo joined them.

Bellamy and I sat on the swings. "Imagine if we'd had childhoods like this," I murmured. "Imagine if Octavia had."

"Maybe things would have turned out differently," Bellamy said with a sigh. "Or maybe we became exactly the kinds of people we were meant to be."

"Who we are and who we need to be to survive are different things," I muttered. Bellamy glanced over at me. "You said that. What Octavia did in the bunker to survive isn't who she is. You know that. We know her."

"What if I forgot?"

"Then you get to know her all over again," I told him. "She's your sister. You have to at least try. If you don't…"

"I'll regret it?"

I smirked. "You said it, not me." Bellamy shook his head. I held out my hand and he took it. "We can have a future here, Bell. The 412. Not nearly as catchy as the hundred, but, you win some you lose some."

Bellamy squeezed my fingers. "I hope you're right."

Murphy's yell brought us out of the moment. "No!" I followed his gaze to the sky, where the Gagarin was flying into the sky. "They're stealing our ship!"

Before any of us had the chance to reach, Emori screamed. I searched for an attacker. But Bellamy sprinted toward Murphy, and I turned to look. That's when I realized Emori was the attacker.

Echo and Miller got to them first; pulling Emori off Murphy before she could stab him. Alex and Kenna restrained her while Jackson checked if Murphy was all right. Clarke stood shocked, holding a children's book in her hand. "It's happening."

Emori was unconscious after being sedated. Clarke chained her to the wall with the restraints we'd found in nearly every building. We couldn't take the chance of her waking up before this was all over and attacking someone else.

"This is fucked up," Kenna muttered. She hooked her arm through mine as we watched Jackson tend to Murphy's wounds. I nodded my agreement.

"It's something in the plants," Clarke was explaining. The children's book she'd shown us was a cautionary tale. "At least we know why no one's here. They must have some place safe to wait out the toxin."

"If it's outside, then let's just stay in here," Miller suggested. "Wait it out."

Alex knocked on the wall, sending a metallic ringing through the room. "These aren't exactly bunker quality. The air in here is the same air outside. Even if it wasn't, we've been breathing it in all day, it's only a matter of time."

We were all quiet for a moment as the gravity of those words settled around us. It was only a matter of time before we all turned on each other. "There are restraints in every house, let's split up," I said. After some muttering, the others agreed.

After Jackson distributed emergency tranquilizers to everyone, he and Miller headed upstairs. There was only one more set of restraints in Emori's room, and Echo chose to stay behind. The rest of us headed outside to find another place to hunker down.

"There're restraints in the school," Bellamy said, motioning toward one of the larger buildings. I glanced around the group. Kenna and Alex would go together, but I couldn't imagine Clarke or Murphy would be interested in going with them. Besides, Kenna was still clinging to my arm.

I nodded toward the other side of camp. "We'll be over there."

Bellamy hesitated, glancing between Alex and Kenna before looking back at me. I raised an eyebrow. Finally, he nodded. "Be careful."

"Don't worry," Kenna said quietly as we walked away. "Trust takes time. Before you know it, we'll all be attached at the hip."

The building we found had three pairs of restraints. We locked ourselves down and got ready for a bumpy ride. Alex tossed Kenna the key to his cuff, and she tossed hers to me. Alex held up a hand to catch mine. After a moment of hesitation, I threw it his way.

Kenna leaned against the wall before sliding down to the floor. I followed her lead, sitting cross-legged on the ground. Alex stayed standing, always ready for something to go wrong. I groaned. "Alright," I muttered. "Let's get this party started."

CAL

Alpha was beautiful, that was undeniable. Whether it was survivable was another question. We had no way of knowing what was lurking down there. And I was stuck here, on the same damn prison ship I'd fought so hard to escape from. If anything were to happen to Alex or Kenna without me there to help…

Before I could complete the thought, an alarm blared. The Gagarin had returned. They'd been gone less than a day. If they were back so soon, it only meant one thing. Alpha was not the sanctuary we were hoping for.

I hardly had time to consider what that meant for our futures when gas began leaking through the vents. A moment later the world grew fuzzy, and then I hit the ground like a pile of bricks.

I woke up to Octavia's voice. It took me a moment to remember how to open my eyes. I was in the mess hall, along with everyone else. Gavril helped me sit up. I winced at the pain in my abdomen. "I'm fine," I told Gav before he could ask. "What the fuck happened?"

"People from Alpha," he muttered. "They were ready for us, and we weren't. Whatever they knocked us all out with was enough to drag us all in here."

I looked around the mess hall again. I'd been locked in here before; it had been built for that purpose. There was no escaping. "Shit." Across the room, Octavia was planning. She approached one of guys, an engineer named James.

Before she could get very far, he ran at her. Two older men gabbed James just before he could get his hands around Octavia's neck. "You killed my mother when you burned down the farm and made us walk into a massacre." Gav and I shared a look. This was not going to end well.

Though James was subdued, tensions remained high. Jordan tried to calm everyone down with food, but there was only so much algae soup could do. Octavia wasn't helping matters. When Abby brought her food, Octavia nearly threw it back in her face.

She made her way toward the door and kicked it. Once, twice, three times. "That won't work," Gav said quietly. "One time they left us in here for three days." I remembered that day, one of Paxton's guys killed a guard and we all paid for it.

"At least I'm trying something," Octavia snapped.

Niylah took a step toward her. "Raven's out there. She'll figure something out."

"Unless they killed her." Octavia took a step toward the others. "Look at you, sitting on your hands waiting for someone to save you. I trained you, I made you warriors. And now here you are, cowards."

Before Octavia could say another word, James decked her. Blood dripped from her lips as she turned back around with a smirk on her face. She fought back, but she was just one. There were a nearly a dozen who wanted her to pay. She didn't stand a chance.

I leapt to my feet before Gav could argue. I pushed myself between Octavia and the others, and barely dodged a punch. "Beating the shit out her isn't going to solve your problems." I said, holding my hands up.

"Of course, the prisoner is defending blodreina," one of the older men said. "Bet you're the same as her, bet there's blood on your hands too."

From behind me, Octavia said, "Get out of the way, Cal. Let's finish this."

The dark-haired man in front of me moved toward Octavia and I broke his nose. "You think six years in a bunker makes you a warrior? Try growing up in the House of Shadows. I was throwing punches before I could walk. If you want her, you have to go through me."

Gavril looked as if he wanted to deck me himself, but he moved by my side anyway. The men in front of me weren't prepared to back down, but before a full-on fight could break out, Abby stood up. "That's enough."

The men started to back away. Octavia pushed past me. "You want absolution? Take it." She stumbled, blood still dripping from her face. "Please," she begged.

I stepped toward her and grabbed her by the arm. I pulled her to her feet and pushed her away from the others. "Whatever you did down there, it's over." I wiped the blood off her chin and held it in front of her face. "You can't bleed out absolution, believe me, I tried. And doing this," I nodded behind me, "just shows them you're the monster they think you are." I let go of her arm and she stumbled. "And it's fucking embarrassing."

I turned my back on Octavia and rejoined Gav at our table. I raised an eyebrow at the look he was giving me. "You can't recruit every emotionally unstable twenty-something you meet, boss."

I glanced back over to Octavia. She was sitting on the floor, staring blankly ahead. "I'm just trying to help," I said, turning back to Gav. "She needs it."