Mara roared with laughter when she heard Nathan huff in indignation.
"Oh, come on! That impression was terrible!" Mara teased him through the wall.
"No, it wasn't."
"Have you ever even heard a Scottish accent before?"
"Yes! That was the best impression you are ever going to hear," Nathan shouted through to Mara.
Her retort was interrupted by her cell door opening and two guards marching inside. She looked at them curiously, knowing she wasn't due a visit from her father so soon after his last one. She wasn't turning eighteen for another two days either, so the guards weren't there to take her to her review.
"Prisoner 117-" the guard didn't need to finish his command before Mara was standing from her bed and turning to face the back wall of her cell. She had been locked up for long enough to know the drill. "Hold your right arm out," the guard spoke gruffly.
This is new, Mara thought; they've never made me do this before. She glanced over her shoulder and spotted one of the guards opening the small box in his hands. She couldn't see inside the box but she could instinctively feel that it wasn't anything good.
"What's going on?" She heard the guard not holding the box sigh as he rolled his eyes.
"Prisoner 117-"
"Yeah I know, put my right arm out. I'll do it, just tell me what's happening. My birthday's not for another two days so it can't be my review."
"Everything will be explained to you in due time. Hold out your right arm."
She narrowed her eyes in suspicion but he only nodded his head at her right arm, hoping she wouldn't put up a fight. She cautiously did as he asked and noticed the guard holding the box advancing towards her. He pulled a metal contraption out of the box and Mara glanced at it worriedly. Before she could react or pull away, the contraption was snapped shut over her wrist. Pain shot through her arm and she hissed at the odd sensation, yanking it away from the guard. Mara looked at the wristband distrustfully, wondering what the flashing light at the top of it meant.
"What's this?" She asked the guard who had put the wristband on her but he completely ignored her and began pulling her from her cell. "What's going on? Where are you taking me?"
Panic was bubbling inside her and when they exited her cell, she noticed all of the other one hundred prisoners being hauled out of their cells. Fear began to take over. Some of the prisoners were struggling against their guards, some were screaming, some were unconscious and being dragged along the floor while others calmly accepted their fate and walked peacefully alongside their guards. Mara had never heard the Sky Box so loud. There was usually a heavy silence over the prison but the calm had been shattered as everyone was moved from their cells. Mara quickly looked over her shoulder to Nathan's cell and saw that his door was wide open but no one was emerging from it.
"What's going on?" Mara demanded again, the panic coursing through her blood was evident in her voice.
"Everything will be explained in due time," the guard holding her upper arm spoke in a monotonous voice that grated on her nerves.
"Is this some sort of mass floating?" The guard remained silent. "It is isn't it? You can't do that! Everyone here is under eighteen!" Mara shrieked, her voice becoming more hysterical the closer they got to the guards' intended destination.
"It's not a mass floating."
"Then what is it?" she demanded of him, her tone filled with exasperation. The guard gave her a look out of the corner of his eye and she knew that she wasn't going to get any information out of him. "You know what? Fine! I guess I'll just find out in due time." She mocked his words and heard him huff at her.
They approached a loading bridge onto a dropship. Mara looked at it in fear and noticed that the other prisoners were being dragged into the dropship. She turned an accusing glare at the guard but couldn't find the words to tell him just how angry she was at him for lying to her. He noticed the look she was giving him and shot her a look of his own.
"It's not a mass floating," he insisted, no longer monotonous but adopting the same level of exasperation as Mara.
"Hurry up," the other guard, who had remained silent throughout the exchange, suddenly demanded and picked up the pace he was marching Mara at.
She was dragged into the dropship and rushed towards a row of seats on the first floor. The guard who had only said two words to her the entire time pushed her roughly onto one of the seats and began strapping a harness around her shoulders and waist. He tugged it and Mara found it difficult to breathe properly from how tightly she was strapped in. The guard sent her a glare and quickly exited the dropship. She was used to that kind of treatment from the majority of the guards who regarded the prisoners as the scum of The Ark. The other guard, however, took a second look at her before leaving the dropship and tried to reassure her that she wasn't about to be a part of a mass floating.
Mara sat alone for five minutes as the other delinquents were filed into the ship. Some were seated on her floor while others were marched to the second level. Mara suppressed a laugh at the sight of the guards trying to pull an unconscious blonde girl through the hatch to the second floor. Mara wondered why they didn't just sit her on the first floor but she wasn't about to make a suggestion that would make their job any easier.
Mara's eyes widened in surprise when a young girl was strapped into the seat beside her. The girl put up no resistance to the guards but Mara couldn't believe that the council would allow a little girl to be included in a mass floating. The girl closed her eyes and appeared to be in deep concentration, trying to block everything out, Mara guessed, so she left her to her thoughts.
Once the dropship was filled, the door rose to a close with a resounding bang. Mara closed her eyes and took a ragged breath. When the door closed, the reality of what was about to happen set in. They didn't let her say goodbye to her father one last time before they floated her. Does he even know? The thought broke Mara's heart; the memory of him standing alone after her mother was floated crept into her mind. This is going to kill him, she thought. She took another deep breath through her nose and shook her head to try and clear her mind.
Suddenly, there was a jolt and a whirring of machinery, lights flickered and a strange feeling of falling entered the pit of Mara's stomach. The dropship had detached from The Ark. Mara heard a scream coming from the floor above and closed her eyes to attempt to control her rapidly beating heart. There was a crackling static noise and Mara opened her eyes in curiosity, trying to find the source of the sound. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a screen blinking to life and Chancellor Jaha's face appeared.
"Prisoners of The Ark hear me now," Jaha's voice filled the dropship. The delinquents fell silent but a few sent glares in his direction. The phrase 'if looks could kill' entered Mara's head as she studied their expressions. "You've been given a second chance and, as your Chancellor, it is my hope that you see this not just as a chance for you but a chance for all of us. Indeed for mankind itself. We have no idea what is waiting for you down there."
Mara's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. A part of her thought the Chancellor was talking about sending the prisoners to the Earth but that only confused her even more. After the nuclear war that had forced the Earth's inhabitants to seek refuge on The Ark, the Earth was deemed a radioactive wasteland. Scientists had told everyone that the Earth wouldn't be habitable for one hundred years after the end of the war. Only ninety-seven years had passed. However, Mara decided, if it really wasn't a mass floating, then she owed the guard an apology if she ever saw him again.
"If the odds of survival were better," the Chancellor continued, "we would have sent others. Frankly, we're sending you because your crimes have made you expendable. If, however, you do survive those crimes will be forgiven, your records wiped clean. A drop site has been chosen carefully. In the last war Mount Weather was a military base built within a mountain and was to be stocked with enough non-perishables to sustain three hundred people for up to two years. No one ever made it there."
The prisoners on the first floor glanced around at each other, worry and fear filling their eyes. Mara gritted her teeth together to stop her jaw from shaking. They were being sent to the Earth, the same Earth that was supposed to be filled with radioactive material. The thought that there were food and supplies waiting for them on the ground brought Mara little comfort.
"Be-because we could sp-sp-spare you no food, y-y-you," the screen began to cut in and out, the Chancellor's voice jarring and becoming difficult to understand, though his final words were strong before the screen turned black. "You have one responsibility: stay alive."
The dropship gave a particularly violent shake and Mara was flung forward in her seat only to be stopped by the harness. She knew that her shoulders were going to be severely bruised. She heard shrieking coming from the floor above and the sound of something crashing.
"Fuck," Mara breathed out and clasped her shaking hands together.
Adrenaline pulsed through her limbs as her heart picked up an alarming rate. Her breath came out fast and shallow as she tried to get more air into her lungs. The dropship was brutally shaking and Mara felt like her bones were rattling against each other. There was an almost unbearable pressure on her head and her ears had popped, muffling the sounds of the dropship falling apart. Mara's eyes were flung open when she heard the girl sitting next to her screaming, remembering just how young the girl had looked. The little girl sitting beside her had wide doe eyes filled with terror and her bottom lip trembled. Mara could hear every ragged breath the girl took.
"What's your name?" Mara shouted over the noise of the descending dropship, hoping that her voice came out calmer than she felt.
"Charlotte!" The girl turned her terrified gaze to Mara.
"I'm Mara! It's going to be okay, just try to breathe!"
Charlotte nodded her head once and gripped the straps of her harness tighter, the fear in her eyes intensifying when the dropship gave a particularly violent jolt. Mara thought she heard Charlotte shout "I know!" but there was too much noise to be certain. Mara's heart went out to the little girl who could be no older than thirteen. She reached out and grabbed the little girl's hand and tried to give her a reassuring smile, though Mara was sure that she wouldn't have believed the smile either. Mara was surprised by the strength of the girl's grip when she intertwined their fingers together.
Mara could hear screams coming from the floor above them and briefly wondered if Nathan was on that floor. The thought quickly vanished from her mind as the dropship jolted again. The vibrations of the ship pulsed through her body and just as she thought she couldn't take much more, everything stilled. The screams died out and there was no machine hum to be heard. Mara looked at the other delinquents on her floor, waiting for something to happen.
"Have we…have we landed?" A boy, little over a year older than Charlotte, tentatively asked.
"Holy shit," Mara could hear someone whisper behind her.
There was a second of pause as everyone gathered their breath before noise erupted once more as people began scrambling to release the buckles of their harnesses. Mara's opened with a soft click and she began to make her way to the door with the other delinquents before she noticed Charlotte struggling to get out of her seat. She doubled back and crouched in front of the girl. The buckle of the harness was jammed and Mara cursed to herself.
"We'll get you out in a minute, okay," she smiled at Charlotte so that the girl wouldn't worry.
She glanced to where the other hundred delinquents had gathered when she heard someone shout about a girl being hidden in the floor of The Ark. Something clicked in Mara's mind. She remembered Nathan telling her about a girl who had been born as an illegal child (only one child was allowed per family on The Ark). The poor girl had been hidden under the floor for sixteen years before she was discovered. Mara had no idea how Nathan had found out about the girl's arrest but then again, Nathan always seemed to know everything that was going on in The Ark.
Mara returned herself to the task at hand and began yanking on the straps of Charlotte's harness. Mara huffed in frustration when it refused to budge. She glanced around the floor of the dropship to find something sharp she could use to cut the straps with. She spotted a nail that had been dislodged from the wall during their descent. As she reached for it, she was momentarily distracted by a loud screeching sound as the dropship door was opened and lowered to the ground.
White light burst into the dark ship and Mara was momentarily blinded by the sudden brightness. Everyone fell silent; the whispers that had been polluting the dropship vanished as if everyone was holding their breath. Mara wondered why no one was rushing forward and out of the dropship. Her thoughts were clarified when she heard soft footfalls descending down the ramp. They were letting the illegal girl be the first on the ground. Mara couldn't stop the smile that spread onto her face. If anyone deserves the first taste of Earth, the first taste of real freedom, it's the girl who's basically been a prisoner her whole life, Mara thought.
"We're back bitches!" The first person to step foot on the Earth in ninety-seven years screamed. Mara smiled at the thought of future historians having to write that those were the first words spoken on Earth after ninety-seven years in the history books.
She couldn't stop the laugh that erupted from her throat as the hundred cheered and ran from the dropship, shouting and laughing as they went. Mara was desperate to join them but she wasn't going to abandon Charlotte. She grabbed the nail from the ground and crossed back to the little girl, who had a wide grin plastered on her face. Mara pushed the nail into one of the straps and tugged it across. The strap resisted slightly but soon the sound of ripping filled the air. Mara moved to the other strap and repeated the process but caught a piece of Charlotte's shirt, ripping it along with the strap.
"Shit," Mara cursed then, realising what she had said, clamped a hand over her mouth and looked at Charlotte with wide apologetic eyes. "Sorry," she muttered to which Charlotte giggled. "We'll fix your shirt later. Are you ready to see Earth?"
She rose to a stand and winked at the girl, holding out her hand for the girl to take. Charlotte placed her hand in Mara's and bounced to her feet, excitement vibrating through her tiny frame. They grinned at each other and made their way to the exit. Anticipation bubbled inside Mara and grew with intensity the closer they got to the door. Mara couldn't help but feel a little nervous. They were the first people to set foot on the ground in ninety-seven years. Mara just hoped that the radiation from the nuclear war had vanished. Too late now, Mara thought to herself.
"Ready?"
"Ready."
They took a collective breath and turned to face the open doorway. There was a silent countdown in the air before they stepped onto the ramp and into the open air.
Mara was immediately assaulted by the sight before her eyes. She had never seen anything so bright or vibrant in her life, it was a stark contrast to the monochrome colors of The Ark. The dropship had landed in the middle of a forest, the trees were so tall they seemed to pierce the sky and the rough bark was the most beautiful mixture of browns she had ever seen. There was a small cluster of flowers near the dropship and Mara stared at them in wonderment, entirely entranced by the swirl of different shades of purple on the petals. There was nothing like it on The Ark. Sure, they had a small tree kept in a pot that some people worshipped like a religion but it was nothing compared to what Earth could offer. The smell of Earth surprised Mara, it was so fresh and pure though it mingled with the scent of the burning trees they had landed on. She could see a few delinquents putting out the small fires. Good, better to not start a wildfire on our first day, Mara thought. She took in a deep breath of Earth's air and found herself thinking that this was the first time she had felt alive, truly alive, in her entire life.
She felt Charlotte tug on her hand and together they stepped off of the ramp and onto the ground, the last of the hundred to arrive. The Earth was surprisingly soft beneath Mara's feet. She was used to walking on metal so she let out a surprised squeal when her feet sank slightly into the ground. She had the sudden urge to take her shoes off and walk barefooted on the ground, to feel the dirt between her toes. Charlotte tugged her forward once more and grinned at Mara's shocked expression. Mara returned her grin and the two broke out into a sprint as they joined the other delinquents still hooting and hollering.
Mara was shocked by the sudden warmth she felt on her face when she ran from the shadow of the dropship and into direct sunlight. The Ark was well protected and, though they got the light, they were never truly affected by the sun's heat. Mara laughed the first truly light-hearted laugh in a long time and felt her eyes begin to water as she ran alongside Charlotte. She blinked the tears away. They were on Earth; there was no need for crying.
The two girls ran for as long as they could before they collapsed to the ground in a fit of laughter. Mara had never felt so light. They lay with their backs on the ground and watched the fluffy white clouds drift by overhead in silence. Mara wasn't sure how long they lay there, all she knew was that she was truly enamoured with Earth. She knew that she would remember that moment, lying on the ground with Charlotte, for as long as she lived.
Mara rolled her head to the side and noticed the rip in Charlotte's shirt, remembering that she had promised to fix it. Mara rose to her feet and dusted herself off, her limbs aching as she did so. She should have taken it easy and not pushed herself so hard as being locked up for a year and a half didn't give her much room for exercise.
"I'm going to try to find a needle and thread to fix your top. Do you want to come with me or wait here and I'll come back for you?"
"I'll wait here," Charlotte smiled and closed her eyes, soaking in the sun.
As Mara headed back the way she came she saw a group of five heading away from the dropship and the rest of the hundred. She briefly wondered where they were going but quickly found that she didn't really care. She looked through the people lingering around the dropship looking for Nathan but she realised that she could be looking right at him and wouldn't know it was him unless he spoke. She slipped through a group of boys blocking the entrance to the dropship. Her steps faltered when she heard the voice of the boy the others were listening to. She glanced at him briefly and decided that he could not be referred to as a boy at all. He was a man, she realised, too old to be regarded as a boy though he was still young, probably in his early twenties. He was wearing a guard uniform but there was something about the way he held himself and the way he spoke that let Mara know he definitely couldn't be a member of the guard. Besides, why would the council send down one guard to monitor one hundred delinquents? Mara thought.
She left the small group and stepped onto the ramp. She felt her heart sink at the feeling of the metal beneath her boots; it was far too similar to The Ark for her liking. She pushed the thought aside and entered into the quiet of the empty dropship. She glanced around the metal container, wondering where a medical kit would be kept, assuming that that would be the best place to find a needle. She couldn't see any storage space on the first floor and when she poked her head through the hatch to the second floor she found that it was just the same. She huffed in frustration and began searching beneath the seats. She eventually found a small green box with a white cross on the lid. She pulled it out from under the seat and opened it. There was one pack of antiseptic wipes, a small roll of gauze and twenty Band-Aids.
"You've got to be kidding me," Mara groaned to the empty dropship.
She searched under every seat on the ship but found no other medical kits. She glared at the box in her hands and threw it onto the seat in front of her, placing her hands on her hips.
"Well, you're no use to anyone," she scolded the box.
"Who are you talking to?"
Mara nearly jumped out of her skin as the deep voice sounded behind her. She spun around, with her hand on her heart, and found that she wasn't as alone as she had originally thought. The person standing before her was the man in the guard uniform from the group of boys. He was tall, very tall, broad-chested and held a certain level of authority and power in his voice. His dark brown hair was slicked back and there was a small splattering of freckles across his nose. His lips were tugged upwards in a smirk and his eyes sparkled with amusement.
"That pathetic excuse of a med kit," Mara answered his question once her heart rate had settled to a steady level and gestured to the small green box behind her. "It's the only one they gave us. Has anyone found the supplies yet?"
"No," he answered, crossing his arms over his chest. "They dropped us on the wrong mountain. A group has gone out to search for it."
"Seriously?" he nodded his head in confirmation. "They can't do anything right, can they?" Mara groaned and he stretched his hand out towards her.
"Bellamy," he offered his name in introduction but Mara was interrupted before she could do the same.
"Mara?" A voice sounded behind Bellamy, a voice she was very familiar with.
"Nathan?" She gasped and her face split into a smile as she looked over Bellamy's shoulder.
Nathan crossed the room towards her and pulled her into his arms when he reached her. She wrapped her arms around his torso and placed her head on his shoulder. She noticed Bellamy giving them a curious look and she smiled at him slightly.
"This is so weird," she muttered into Nathan's shoulder. His chest rumbled against hers as he laughed. "It feels like there should be a wall between us," she joked. "We used to talk to each other through the wall separating our cells in the Sky Box," she addressed Bellamy's thinly veiled curiosity. He simply nodded his head nonchalantly as if he didn't care.
Nathan pulled away from Mara and held her at arm's length, looking her over. Nathan was exactly what she has imagined him to look like. Only his eyes were slightly darker and there was a short growth of black stubble along his jawline. He had kind eyes that held a hint of mischief in them.
Nathan hadn't taken his gaze off of Mara and she began to grow self-conscious, worried that she wasn't meeting up to his expectations. While she waited for Nathan to say something, she noticed that Bellamy had moved to inspect the med kit she had found.
"I think I could fit you in my pocket," Nathan broke the silence with a small laugh. When he noticed the look of confusion cross Mara's face he elaborated. "You're a lot shorter than I thought you'd be."
"I am not that small, I'm an average height!" Mara let out a huff of indignation and heard a small scoff behind her. She turned to find Bellamy was the culprit and her jaw dropped in surprise. "Don't you two start ganging up on me," she lightly scolded.
"Okay, okay, you're not that small," Nathan pacified.
"Uh huh," Mara rolled her eyes and grinned up at him.
Bellamy cleared his throat and the two turned to face him.
"The group better come back with some decent supplies because this," he waved the med kit in his hand, "is not going to last long."
"Bellamy!" The three heard a voice shout from outside the dropship. The man in question nodded his head at Mara and Nathan and left the two alone. Mara felt Nathan's gaze on her and turned to face him.
"What?"
"It's weird."
"What is?"
"Being able to actually see you and not having to speak to a wall and occasionally wondering if the voice is actually there or just in my head."
Mara could only smile at him, completely understanding how he was feeling. She kept expecting to close her eyes only to open them and find that she was back in her cell talking to a steel wall. The longer she looked at Nathan and realised that he wasn't going to disappear, the more elated she felt. She reached out and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him to her once more. She felt his arms snake around her waist and they held each other in silence.
"I'm really glad you're here with me," she whispered into the air and felt Nathan nod his head in agreement. "Come on, you can help me find something I can use as a needle."
As it turned out, finding something that could resemble a needle was a lot harder than Mara had anticipated. Nathan had sporadically grumbled throughout their time in the dropship about making Charlotte "find her own damn needle" but he never put up much fuss. They eventually found themselves standing in front of a collection of wires that had broken free from the roof in their descent. The two stood staring at the wires, trying to figure out if they would be able to use the wiring for a needle.
"Do you think they're live?"
"No," Nathan answered cautiously. "Pretty sure the power died the minute we landed."
"Here goes nothing then," Mara reached for the wire hanging over her head but felt Nathan's hand stopping her from reaching any higher.
"You're not being serious are you?"
"You just said that they're not live."
"They could be," he tried to argue but Mara just rolled her eyes at him.
She pulled her sleeve over her fingers, hoping to satisfy him slightly. She had to admit that she was slightly worried that she was going to be electrocuted but the minute she touched the wire and nothing happened she let out a breath of relief. Nathan handed her the nail she had used to cut Charlotte's harness and she began to cut away the wire. When a small part was cut free she tried to mould the tip into a point.
"Told you it would work," Mara quirked an eyebrow at him and was met with a pointed look.
When they finally exited the dropship, night had fallen and Earth took on a new feeling. There was an air of mystery to the night as if that was when the dangers the world kept hidden came out to play. Mara cast her gaze to the black sky and noticed just how different the stars looked form the ground, like little pinpricks of light dancing on a black canvas. Mara was momentarily stunned by their beauty. She touched the star necklace hanging under her shirt and smiled at the sky. Mom would have loved this, Mara thought sadly.
After they collected some thread from the parachute that had slowed the dropship's landing, they searched for Charlotte. Someone had started a bonfire in the middle of the clearing and people were dancing and singing around it, still high from their new found freedom.
"You're doing an awful lot for a girl you've just met," Nathan remarked as they approached the fire.
"Have you ever seen Bambi?" Mara could tell that her question had caught him off guard.
"Um, yeah, but I-"
"Okay," Mara interrupted him. "Charlotte's like Bambi when he's a baby and you can't just abandon baby Bambi."
Nathan rolled his eyes at Mara's explanation but didn't argue any further.
When they reached the fire, they smiled at each other, taking in the warmth it brought to the night. Mara marvelled at the beauty of the orange flames licking the dark sky. She hadn't expected the nights on Earth to be so cold but she was glad that she had put her jacket on that morning. Mara couldn't believe that it had only been that morning that she had woken up in her cell on The Ark. It felt like a lifetime ago that she was listening to Nathan's terrible impression of a Scottish accent.
She spotted Charlotte on the other side of the fire and tugged Nathan over towards the girl. Charlotte smiled up at Mara as she approached and moved over on the log she was sitting on to make space.
"Got a needle," Mara held the bit of wire in the air. "This is –"
"Miller," Nathan interrupted and nodded his head at Charlotte. Mara looked at him quizzically, wondering why he was introducing himself with his second name. "Everyone is calling me that so I figured I might as well introduce myself that way."
"Oh, do you want me to call you Miller?"
"No, you can call me Nathan," he shrugged his shoulders.
"It'll be too dark to do it tonight, so I'll show you how to fix your shirt tomorrow. Is that okay?" Mara addressed Charlotte who nodded her head, a small smile gracing her lips.
It wasn't until Mara heard a shout of "take it off!" that she realised what was happening around the fire. Two boys were holding a girl's arm over a plank of wood and were using a piece of metal to pry her wristband off. She shared a confused glance with Nathan, wondering why people were so enthusiastic to have their wristbands removed. When the wristband was removed from her wrist, it was flung into the fire and the gathering crowd cheered in excitement. Mara saw a boy she vaguely recognised push his way to the front of the crow.
"Who's that?" She whispered to Nathan.
"Wells Jaha."
"Jaha? As in Chancellor Jaha's son? What's he doing done here?"
"No idea," Nathan raised an eyebrow at her.
She heard Bellamy's deep voice shouting over the crowd, asking for the next volunteer to have their wristband removed.
"What the hell are you doing?" She noticed the looks of distaste on the faces of the crowd when Wells spoke, questioning Bellamy.
"We're liberating ourselves," Bellamy's reply was quick as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "What does it look like?"
"It looks like your trying to get us all killed! The communication system is dead. The wristbands are all we've got. Take them off and The Ark will think we're dying, that it's not safe for them to follow," Wells pleaded with the crowd.
Mara frowned down at her own wristband. The initial pain of it had subsided and she barely noticed it anymore. But if it was true that it was sending signals back to The Ark, she didn't want to follow suit with many of the hundred. She noticed quite a few bare wrists in the crowd and understood why they would take them off. Many of the delinquents had no one on The Ark waiting to hear if they were safe, many of their parents had been floated either before or after their arrest. Mara, on the other hand, had her father to think about on The Ark. He had already lost his wife; she couldn't bear for him to think that he had lost her too. She didn't want him to be left alone. Even though she had been imprisoned for over a year and a half, her father could still visit her. If she took her wristband off, he would think that she was dead, that he would never see her again. At that moment, as the crowd cheered for Bellamy's self-proclaimed leadership, she decided that she would never take her wristband off. Not willingly at least.
She zoned back into Wells and Bellamy's debate when she heard Bellamy mention The Ark floating his mother for having a second child. That must be the floorboard girl's brother, Mara thought, makes sense why he's down here now.
Her heart went out to Bellamy; she understood the pain of having a mother floated. She understood the hatred towards Chancellor Jaha. Both she and Bellamy's mothers had been floated for ridiculous reasons. Bellamy's mother was floated for having a second child; Mara's mother was floated for being sick.
She admired the passion in Bellamy's voice as he spoke; it filled the night with power and authority and an undeniable sense of leadership. She completely understood why the other hundred had decided to follow him. Even Mara, who didn't agree with everything he was saying, hung on his every word.
"Your father enforced the laws," Bellamy spoke directly to Wells but the crowd was completely silent, listening to every word that spilt from his mouth. "But not anymore. Not here. Here there are no laws!" His voice grew louder as he spoke, addressing his entire audience, stirring them into an almost frenzy like state. "We do whatever the hell we want, whenever the hell we want." There was a chorus of agreement from the crowd and Mara found herself almost wanting to join in with them. "You don't have to like it, Wells. You can even try to stop it. Change it. Kill me. You know why? Whatever the hell we want!"
The crowd erupted into chants of "whatever the hell we want!" Nathan himself joined in and when he noticed Mara's gaze on him, he shrugged his shoulders and continued to chant. Charlotte joined in and the two stood up on either side of Mara to join in with the cheers of the crowd.
Mara looked around the fire and felt herself get swept up in the moment. She found herself chanting as part of the crowd but stopped mid-chant the minute she realised what she was doing.
A small part of her didn't want The Ark to join them on Earth. She hated the council for what they had done to her mother: refusing to treat a sick woman in pain and floating the same woman for being a waste of resources. She despised them, and Chancellor Jaha, for forcing her father to be alone, to watch his wife and daughter taken from him on the same day. She hated them for not allowing her to see her father one last time before they sent her to Earth with the uncertainty of whether or not she would survive. However, a large, almost overwhelming, part of her wanted The Ark to come down. She wanted to see her father again, to reassure him that she was okay, that she was safe, and that he was not completely alone.
She chanted "whatever the hell we want" once more because she did agree that it wasn't up to Wells to decide what they did or didn't do on Earth. However, she did think that it was important to establish some form of leadership and not one that was created by a man self-appointing himself as King.
Mara felt something drip onto her hand. It was quickly followed by another drop, then another. Suddenly water was pouring from the sky and some of the delinquents began running for cover. Rain. The word registered in Mara's head as the cool water soaked her clothes and made her hair stick to the sides of her face. She tilted her head back so that she was facing the pouring rain and closed her eyes. She smiled at the feeling of the rain splattering on her face and a small laugh escaped her mouth. The feeling was strange but not unpleasant, almost as if she were standing in a shower with her clothes on. She sensed Charlotte running for shelter but didn't follow after her; she was enjoying the freshness of the rain too much.
"Are you coming?" She heard Nathan shouting to her.
"I think I'll stay here for a while."
"Meet me in the dropship when you're ready!" Nathan shouted as he ran in the direction of the dropship and left Mara standing in the rain.
Mara couldn't believe the change the rain made to the Earth. The air seemed purer, cleaner, almost as if everything polluting it was being washed away. She could even smell the Earth better, the sheer muskiness of it filtered into her mind. It felt like her senses had been purified.
"When am I taking this off for you?" She heard Bellamy asking her as she tapped her wristband.
"You're not," she smirked as she kept her eyes closed, her head tilted to the sky, not moving from her position.
"I saw you chanting," Bellamy almost sounded confused, but Mara got the impression that he didn't want anyone to know what he was thinking.
"Yeah, because I agree that Wells shouldn't be in charge just because his dad's Chancellor, but I don't agree about taking the wristbands off."
"Why not?" There was a hint of anger but also of genuine curiosity in his voice.
"I couldn't care less about the council or Jaha but my dad's still on The Ark," she paused, unsure if she should be so vulnerable around the man she had just met. "I'm all he has left. I don't want him to think I'm dead."
Mara could sense that Bellamy wanted to argue further with her but something, and Mara wasn't sure what, stopped him. Instead, they stood side by side in silence as the rain continued to pour down on them.
They had survived their first day on Earth.