The sound of distant voices reached her ears when Calliope awoke. Memories of the rough descent were fresh in her mind. Assuming that she had been knocked out during landing, she lifted her eyes to view the area around her. All of the seats were empty and the door was opened.

Fresh air tickled Cal's nose, and she breathed in deeply. There was no smell of stale air. Smells that were unfamiliar to her beckoned for her leave her seat and venture into the unknown. Heeding the call, she unstrapped herself and stood. Everything was different. There was no machine hum, no marching feet of guards patrolling the halls, and no cries of grieving families who had watched their loved ones get floated. In that moment, there was only peace.

Then as quickly as the calm enveloped her, it fled. Angry voices came from outside the ship. Cal placed her hand on her holster only to find that her weapon was missing. "No!" she growled as she looked to see if it had fallen out in the landing. The gun was nowhere in sight. The voices outside continued to grow louder. Abandoning the missing weapon, she rushed through the doorway and into the unknown.

Immediately, she focused on the cause of the commotion. John Murphy and Wells Jaha were in the midst of a confrontation. She rushed forward to stop the two but was cut off by another male. This one happened to be Finn Collins, the boy responsible for an unauthorized space walk and the waste of precious air. He immediately placed himself between the two boys and stopped any more unnecessary violence.

"The minion's awake!"

Cal turned to see who had spoken only to find several males with whom she was unfamiliar. All eyes focused on her where she stood at the bottom of the ramp.There was only one word to describe the overpowering aura that radiated off almost every person in the clearing: hatred.

"What's a guard doing on the ground?" a young male asked as he sneered at her.

Ready to explain her presence, Cal stepped toward the group of teens only to be shoved to the ground by John Murphy. Immediately, she reacted by catching the back of his knee with her foot and knocking him down with her. "I'm here to protect you," she snapped as she stood to her feet once again.

The crowd parted as a tall male entered the circle that had formed around her. Cal knew in a moment that he was never supposed to be on the drop ship. Bellamy Blake had been a cadet with her before he was dismissed for keeping his sister's existence a secret. He was forced to leave the guard and work as a janitor. By all rights, he was supposed to be on the Ark, but instead he was standing before her in a guard's uniform. "We don't need or want the protection of one of the Council's minions," he said as he scowled at her.

"What are you doing here, Blake?" she demanded. Her entire body was on edge from the moment he stepped forward. There was no good reason that he would be on the ship. No one outside of the guard and Council knew of the plan to send the hundred to the ground. If he were here, there was a leak in the guard.

Bellamy Blake seemed to be assessing Cal as he let his eyes rove up and down her body. It was almost as if he were sizing up a target. Crossing his arms over his chest, he narrowed his eyes as he looked at her. "I came for my sister," he stated with no emotion in his voice. His eyes, however, darted to his sister who was standing in the crowd.

"That's not what I meant," Cal growled as she stalked toward his. Stopping only a hair's breadth apart, she stared into his defiant eyes. "No civilians were to know of the plan to send the prisoners to earth. How did you hear about it, and how did you get you hands on a guard uniform?"

Cal's lip curled when Bellamy answered. "I guess being a janitor comes in handy. You never know what you might hear." Bellamy shoved the brunette away from him and matched her scowl with one of his own. "You're not welcome here, Calliope. We don't answer to you or the Ark. Everything we do from now on is what we want!"

The crowd cheered at his declaration and threw their arms up in agreement. Bellamy grinned at the people around him, but the smile faded as he turned his gaze back to her. He jerked his head to the right and motioned for her to follow him.

Cal followed him from a distance as he led the way through the crowd and into the forest beyond the clearing. She ignored the shoves that she received from several of the teenagers as she followed the man. Once they were out of earshot, Bellamy turned on Cal. "Why in the world would you come down here, Cal?" His tone had softened some and Cal shook her head to rid herself of memories from the past.

"I couldn't stand by and let them send a hundred teenagers to their deaths," she said clearly. "This is wrong. I can't just turn a blind eye. I had to do something."

"So you would just throw away your life for a bunch of people who would just as well see you dead?"

Cal shook her head and stepped away from the man. "I don't expect you to understand, Bell."

"No, I understand better than you think I do," Bellamy argued and pointed back toward the dropship. "Everything you said to them just now was an excuse. You jumped on that ship to get away from your father. How much do you hate him that you would risk dying down here to get away from him?"

"He killed Peter!" Cal screamed as she slammed her fist into the tree beside her. "He watched as they flipped the switch, and he did nothing."

Bellamy stared at the woman in front of him as she visibly vibrated with anger. Her fists clenched at her side as she tried to control her raging emotions. He waited a moment before asking, "Why was Pete floated?"

A tear slipped down her cheek, and Calliope roughly brushed it away. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. "He ran some tests for Jake Griffith. They discovered some faults in the Ark's system and were going to go public. They were floated for treason." Cal looked up at Bellamy. He reached toward her but stopped when a commotion was heard from camp once again. Neither spoke a word as they hurried in that direction.