i. the queen of thieves
pilot

AN ANNOYED groan ripped through the lips of Sawyer Wesley. Her long, chestnut toned hair hung around her in a sheet of frizzy strands, while thick red straps held her body in place as it jostled from side-to-side. A sharp pinch eradiated throughout her left wrist and alerted her to a thick metallic band wrapped around the soft flesh. She hissed, lifting her head to take in her new surroundings.

     Sawyer appeared to be an old version of a dropship. The steel structure rocked in a harsh manner, causing the lights to flicker at a rapid pace. Immediately, she noticed that there were others restrained in a similar fashion. Dozens of juvenile criminals, who Sawyer had known for a better part of her life, were scattered throughout the level of the dropship. All of them sported varying expressions of boredom and excitement and anger. She could relate.

     "Well, well, well, if it isn't the queen of thievery herself," a familiar voice quipped adjacent to her left.

     Sawyer shifted her gaze to find one of her many allies that helped contribute to her lawless ways. "John, what a surprise? Set anymore fires since I've seen you last?"

     John Murphy scoffed. "Wish I'd had time to set Jaha on fire before we were forced onto this thing." He motioned to the straps placed across his chest.

     Sawyer chuckled. "Damn, that would be a sight. Do you think they would have floated him for using too much water to save his ass?"

     Someone to her right laughed. "Please, they probably float his savior before him." The dark haired boy was none other than Nathan Miller, he was what most would call Sawyer's second in command. At least, when in came to ring of delinquents that robbed the Ark on a daily basis before they were apprehended.

     Sawyer smiled. "Very very true, babe. They'd be dead before he hit the floor."

     A sudden bang resonated throughout the hull of the dropship. The nearly ancient structure shock harshly, causing many of them to yell and shout at the action. After a tense moment, screens that were positioned near the ceiling of their level blinked to life and shone the face of the last person they ever wanted to see.

     "Prisoners of the Ark, here me now," Thelonious Jaha droned on his monotone voice. "You've been given a second chance, and as your Chancellor, it is my hope that you see this as not just 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. If the odds of survival were better, we would've sent others. Frankly, we're sending you because your crimes have made you...expendable."

     Sawyer rolled her eyes, while others sneered at the man's image.

     "Your dad's a dick, Wells!"

     Sawyer's attention snapped toward the direction of the voice. It sounded faint, which meant that the culprit was a floor lower than their own. A devious smirk spread across her lips, as she turned her gaze toward Murphy. "Did you hear that?"

     He mirrored her expression. "Seems like the prince has gotten himself on daddy's bad side."

     "Those crimes will be forgiven, your records wiped clean," the Chancellor continued on, as if any of the juvenile offenders were listening to what he had to say. "The drop site has been chosen carefully. Before the last war, Mount Weather was a military base built within a mountain. It was to be stocked with enough non-perishables to sustain three hundred people for up to two years. Mount Weather is life. You must locate those supplies immediately. Your one responsibility is stay alive."

     The dropship began to rock harder with a force that knocked many wires loose and sprayed many of them in white hot sparks. Sawyer braced herself against the cold, metal seat pressed into her and braced for the impending crash landing they were about to endure. People screamed and engines whirled as the structure lurched with a resounding crash.

     Silence soon encased the densely packed level of the dropship. Sawyer craned her neck to glanced around the space and found everyone still alive. She quickly took hold of the silver buckle that kept her secured in place and unlatched it.

     Without any acknowledgement to the others around her, Sawyer made her way toward the hatch that connected their level with the rest of the dropship. She lifted the heavy steel slab and made her way down the ladder, along with several other individuals rushing toward the exit. When she arrived at the bottom, she found herself in the middle of a dispute between a pale blonde girl and a taller brunet boy.

     Sawyer recognized the former. Clarke Griffin, arrested for treason and sentenced to life in solitary until her retrial on her eighteenth birthday. Sawyer huffed at her demanding tone, which interrupted a beautiful reunion of the only set of siblings on their hellish space-station. Octavia and Bellamy Blake.

     A remark about the younger sibling's upbringing had been made and prompted a reaction that was stopped by her older brother. He grasped her arm pulling her away from the incredibly rude delinquent. "Octavia, no. Let's give them something else to remember you by."

     Octavia gave him a flat look, snatching her arm away. "Yeah? Like what?"

     Bellamy just smiled and took hold of the lever that controlled the entrance of the dropship. "Like being the first person on the ground in a hundred years." He pulled the object down, forcing the gears and locks to whirl as the towering hatch lowered to the uncharted land.

     Bright, blinding light streamed into the dropship when the airtight seal broke and allowed in the shockingly fresh air of the radioactive Earth. Sawyer's eyes widened at the sight before her. Vibrant green trees and other vegetation spread across the surface of the forgotten planet, while a pale blue atmosphere hung high above the landscape in a protective shield from the rays of the sun.

     Octavia was the first to act, taking step after step toward the end of the lowered hatch. She stared at the strange environment in complete awe and sucked in an exaggerated breath, before she leapt to the dirt covered ground. With arms raised above her head, the Blake girl shouted to the heavens, "we're back, bitches!"

     Sawyer smiled as the rest of the juveniles cheered and hollered, rushing from the entrance of the dropship. Instead of following after them, she stayed behind on the hatch and watched the her people explore the new world. As soon as they disappeared through the thick foliage, she noticed that Bellamy had also remained on the opposite side of the open lower level.

     "Ninety-seven," Sawyer spoke, crossing her arms over her zipped jumpsuit.

     Bellamy turned to her with furrowed brows. "What?"

     "It's been ninety-seven years, not a hundred," Sawyer said with a light upturn of her lips.

     Bellamy huffed. "Whatever. It worked didn't it."

     Sawyer shrugged. "For now. You obviously aren't from lockup." She faced him with an accusatory stare. "A guard's jacket, but you're not one of the actual guard. Too old to have been formally placed on the ship, and you have no fancy wristband," she scrutinized, bringing his brows to furrow.

     "How do you know that?" Bellamy questioned, taking a threatening step toward her.

     Sawyer almost smiled at the action, but she kept her expression placid. "Years of practice. Keeps you alive when otherwise you'd be floated into the great beyond." Her boot clad feet propelled her forward as she started down the slight decline of the lowered hatch. "You have a lot to learn, pretty boy."

     _______

     It was hard to believe that just mere a few hours earlier they were all locked into cells awaiting their imminent death. Now, the ship's drop site was teeming with restless teenagers surveying their new home. They had a second chance. They were no longer subject to the Chancellor's strict laws and ridiculous guidelines. They were free to make their own choices, however reckless they may be, and would live long enough to see their nineteenth year of life.

     Sawyer beamed as she stood with a group of young criminals that caused the Ark so much grief. Their cunning thievery spread throughout several stations and caught the attention of the Council from time to time. It was a miracle that they were not caught before they were, but even then, the circumstances in which they were arrested were vastly different.

     Sawyer befriended many of the juveniles in Lockup well before her imprisonment, and continued to do so afterward. She created a network of communication between their cells and mandatory Earth Skills classes, while also connecting with the remaining members of their group of amateur thieves that persisted around the Ark. Many referred to her as the Queen of Thievery, which she gladly accepted.

     Her short conversation with her friends was rudely interrupted by a shuffle between Wells Jaha and a low ranking offender, Jasper Jordan. Sawyer shifted her narrowed gaze toward the Ark Prince and then turned to a boy at her side, giving him a nod.

     Soon, the group of teenagers approached Wells, who had proceeded to almost shove Jasper to the ground. "Hey, hey, hey, hands off of him. He's with us," one of the boys, John Mbege, exclaimed helping the google wearing boy remain steady on his feet.

     Wells scoffed. "Relax. We're just trying to figure out where we are."

     "We're on the ground," Bellamy's deep voice called out from across the dense crowd of juveniles, who began to form in front of the dropship. "That not good enough for you?"

     "We need to find Mount Weather," Wells continued. "You heard my father's message. That has to be our first priority."

     "Screw your father," Octavia sneered toward the boy. "What, you think you're in charge here, you and your little princess?" She pointed to the blonde at his side.

     Clarke, the princess in question, stepped forward. "Do you think we care who's in charge? We need to get to Mount Weather not because the Chancellor said so, but because the longer we wait, the hungrier we'll get and the harder this'll be. How long do you think we'll last without those supplies? We're looking at a twenty-mile trek, okay? So if we want to get there before dark, we need to leave now."

     "I got a better idea," Bellamy proclaimed. "You two go, find it for us. Let the privileged do the hard work for a change."

     The rest of the crowd roared in agreement. Sawyer watched on anticipating the events that were about to unfold.

     "You're not listening!" Wells shouted. "We all need to go."

     When Murphy strode toward the Chancellor's son, Sawyer knew the interaction would not end well. But, she reframed from stepping in. At least, just yet.

     "Look at this, everybody...The Chancellor of Earth." Murphy smirked, standing before the boy.

     Wells growled, "think that's funny?" He stomped forward and placed his hands on Murphy's chest to shove him toward the ground.

     Sawyer stared at the Ark Prince wide eyed, before Murphy climbed to his feet. There were few who protested against the boys' behavior, which led her to allow the scene to unfold before her. The junior Chancellor needed his ego knocked down a notch.

     Murphy rushed forward colliding with Wells and proceeded to propel him to the ground with a thud. "No, but that was."

     _______

     The next few moments were a blur as the group that surrounded Sawyer and the rest of the juvenile crowd advanced toward the downed boy. Only his ankle had been injured when he was rescued by a kid with long dark hair. Many referred to him as Spacewalker, which had been what led to his arrest a year prior, but Sawyer remember his name to be Finn Collins.

     Clarke and a small band of teens soon left the drop site in search for the military bunker inside Mount Weather. The rest of the delinquents continued to investigate the surrounding landscape for anything they could use as shelter, or for a spring so they could have fresh water. Although Sawyer hated to admit it, Clarke had been right when she exclaimed that their survival would on Earth would be difficult.

     At one point, in what could only be the afternoon, Sawyer spotted Bellamy talking with Murphy and a few of boys who flocked with him toward the dropship. She did not know what the conversation was about, but she knew it could not be good. When she approached, her attention caught onto the end of their discussion.

     "Right, and if we do, I mean, what's in it for us?" Murphy inquired toward the fake guard.

     Bellamy simply smirked. "Someone has got to help me run things." The boys began to chuckle, bringing a confused expression to his features. "What's so funny?"

     "You," Sawyer exclaimed striding toward the small group. She had long since unzipped the top half of her jumpsuit and tied the dangling sleeves around her waist. Her upper body was left in a thin black tank-top, while her waist length hair slightly covered her bare arms.

     Bellamy snorted through his nose. "Me?"

     Sawyer nodded as she came to a stop a few feet before him. "You think that they're going to listen to you? All you've done so far is show up with an estranged sister and a guard's jacket speaking up against a teenage girl about our survival. What qualifies you as our leader?"

     Bellamy's jaw clenched a bit as he glared down at the shorter girl. "Are you saying that you could do better?"

     Sawyer smiled. "Oh, I know I can do better. I've been doing it for the last seven months in lockup. They know me, and I know them. I'm the reason they have been able to keep in contact with their families, and make sure the ones they left behind did not starve." Her expression dropped when she took a step in his direction. "You have no idea who I am, Blake, so I suggest that you back off and let me continue what I've started." She then turned on her heel and strode off to find the rest of her friends.

     Bellamy stared after the girl in a mixture of annoyance and disbelief. "Who the hell is she?"

     Murphy snorted. "Queen Sawyer Wesley, the ruler of all that is crime and treachery. Good luck trying to take away her reign, you're gonna need it."

     _______

     "It's a terrible idea."

     Were the first words spoken by Sawyer after Murphy and Mbege relayed the plan supplied by the stowaway, otherwise known as Bellamy Blake. The young man, who had posed as a guard to gain access to the dropship, revealed that there was a way to get back at the people who treated them as if they were nothing more than expendable science experiments. A plan that Sawyer believed to be incredibly ignorant.

     Murphy huffed in slight annoyance at the girl's stubborn nature. "You're just saying that because you don't like the guy."

     Sawyer scowled, crossing her arms over her chest. "That's not why."

     Mbege scoffed with a mocking grin on his lips. "That's totally why," he quipped and shared a look with Murphy.

     While they shared a chuckle, Sawyer narrowed her gaze. "Getting a hundred teenage criminals to agree to do one thing is hard enough. Getting them to agree to the exact same thing is down right impossible."

     "Yeah, but when it comes to giving a royal fuck you to the Ark, they'll all fall in line," Murphy exclaimed.

     Sawyer pursed her lips in thought, before she shifted her gaze to look between the boys. "The both of you just really want to take these pinching bracelets off, don't you?" she questioned lifting her left wrist to reveal the metallic device imbedded in her flesh.

     When they nodded enthusiastically, Sawyer simply shook her head and allowed an amused smile to form on her lips. "Fine. I'll tell Blake to set things in motion," she stated, causing both boys to beam at her declaration. "Don't get used to this. I still don't trust him."

     Murphy tilted his head as he retorted, "we're not asking you to be best friends. That's Miller's job."

     Sawyer laughed and reached out to playfully punch the boy on the chest. "Shut up and try to find some water or something. The last thing we need is to die of dehydration before we give that royal fuck you to the Ark."

     Once the three departed from one another, Sawyer searched for any sign of the eldest Blake sibling. Her gaze flicked over the dropship's crash site and found many of the delinquents continuing to explore the new land around them. Few of them began to rip the large red and white parachute that slowed the massive ship's descent to the ground and proceeded to section off the cloth to create makeshift shelters, per Sawyer's request, while others did nothing but goof off and revel in their newfound freedom.

     Sweat started to form on Sawyer's brow as she strode across the uneven landscape of the radiation soaked planet. The sun's warm rays scorched her exposed arms through the canopy of trees that towered above the ground. She grew more frustrated the longer she searched for the Blake man. She was about to abandon the entire plan when Bellamy emerged from the dense tree-line with a proud smirk on his lips. Sawyer opened her mouth to speak until a dark haired delinquent followed after him. She raised a brow toward them, which brought a deep blush the girl's cheeks.

     "Well, now I see what you do in your spare time," Sawyer exclaimed and shifted her gaze to the female at his side. She recognized her as Roma, arrested for assault against her ex-boyfriend. "Hello, Roma."

     Roma looked toward the shorter girl in front of her with a sheepish expression. "Sawyer."

     "Why don't you go help Shauna and Harper with the tents? I mean, unless you want to continue letting Blake get in your pants," Sawyer quipped with a tight taunting grin.

     Roma quickly shook her head and sped away from the scene without a second glance.

     Once she was out of ear shot, Sawyer set her attention on the young man in front of her. She ignored his look of pure annoyance and crossed her arms over her chest. "That idea you had to remove all the wristbands, I think we should do it."

     Bellamy's brows raised in surprised, before his arrogant smirk returned. "Really? So, you're agreeing with me now?"

     "Don't think so highly of yourself." Sawyer scoffed with a roll of her eyes. "I thought the idea through and I agree, sending a message to the Ark is the best thing we can do from here."

     "Well, since you're so..."

     "Ah, ah, ah – I'm not finished." Sawyer held up a hand to halt his words. "We still need to find a way to survive down here without them. And as much as a hate to say it, Clarke had a good point earlier." Bellamy grimaced, but she kept going. "Before you start, we have to have some order in the chaos. Even us criminals know our limits."

     Bellamy pondered the thought. "You think a bunch of juvenile delinquents are going to listen when they've been dropped on an inhabitable planet with no laws, no one to stop them from doing whatever the hell they want?"

     "They will when I'm the one to tell them so." Sawyer lowered her voice and took a step toward the young man. "I've told you before, they know me, and I've done everything in my power to help them when no one else would. You just have to give them the right motivation."

     Bellamy pursed his lip. "Oh, yeah, and what's that?"

     Sawyer smiled. "A life without the Ark."

     _______

     Darkness fell over the crash site that had become the young criminals new home. A large crackling fire was built in the center of the clearing made by the dropship's landing, while various logs and fallen trees were placed around it to create makeshift seating. The delinquents were crowded around the glowing orange and red flames as they followed through with the Bellamy's idea.

     Sawyer stood next to the fire and rubbed where her wristband used to be. Her attention was set on the few individuals prying a thick metallic wristband from a young girl's arm. Fox, one of the many members of the Ark wide system of thieves, winced as the tiny needles imbedded in her skin were forcibly removed with a large tree branch.

     As soon as the band dropped to the ground, Bellamy turned toward the whooping crowd. "Who's next?"

     Before anyone could make a move to take up Fox's place, Wells pushed through the densely packed delinquents with a deep disapproving frown. "What the hell are you doing?"

     Bellamy turned toward the Ark Prince and grinned brightly. "We're liberating ourselves. What does it look like?"

     "It looks like you're trying to get us all killed," Wells voiced as they all fell silent to hear what he had to say. "The communication system is dead. These wristbands are all we got. Take them off, and the Ark will think we're dying, that it's not safe for them to follow."

     Sawyer released a bitter laugh. "That's kinda the point, Jaha Junior," she called out as she stepped forward to place herself at Bellamy's side. "We don't need the Ark anymore. We can take care of ourselves, can't we?" She raised her arms and questioned her friends.

     A chorus of agreement rang throughout the crowd in a unanimous form of excitement and rebellion.

     Wells scoffed at their actions. "You think this is a game?" he sneered toward the two frontrunners of the entire operation. "Those aren't just our friends and our parents up there. They're our farmers, our doctors, our engineers. I don't care what they tell you," he addressed the delinquents. "We won't survive here on our own, and besides, if it really is safe, how could you not want the rest of our people to come down?"

     Bellamy opened his mouth to retort, but Sawyer beat him to it. "Our people? Those people are not our people." She moved toward the boy with her features placid. "My people are already here. Your people are the ones that locked my people for simply trying to make sure their families didn't starve – that they didn't starve. Your people are the ones that killed my parents, and Bellamy and Octavia's mother for having a second kid. Your father did that."

     Wells clenched his jaw. "My father didn't write the laws."

     Sawyer released a bitter laugh. "No, he just enforced them. But not anymore. He can't touch us here." She lifted her chin and called out to the people around her, "we make our own laws now."

     The juvenile criminals yelled out and approved of the girl's words.

     Bellamy nodded at her side. "Here, we do whatever the hell we want whenever the hell we want. Now, you don't have to like it, Wells. You can even try to stop it or change it, kill me. Kill us." He gestured to himself and Sawyer. "You know why? Whatever the hell we want."

     A small hush fell over the crowd until Murphy stepped forward with a fist raised. "Whatever the hell we want!" he shouted.

     Another boy by the name of Cade did the same. "Whatever the hell we want!"

     Sawyer resisted the urge to roll her eyes as the people around her began to chant the phrase in varying degrees of excitement and cheer. Despite allying herself with Bellamy for the removal of the wristbands, she did not agree with everything the man had to say. Whatever the hell we want was not a philosophy that Sawyer wanted her people to believe. But for the time being, they needed something to hope for. Something to keep them going in the following days.

     Moments after the crowd erupted into praise for their two self-proclaimed leaders, an earthshattering rumble sounded from the sky above them. Sawyer jumped at the strange occurrence, as well as multiple others around her. She lifted her gaze to the rolling dark clouds overhead just as several water droplets began to rain from Earth's atmosphere.

     "Rain! Real rain!"

     "Check it out!"

     "It's water!"

     Sawyer smiled as the rain fell harder and faster to the ground, drenching them all through the Ark issued clothes they wore. She raised her hands to run over the damp hair that begun to stick to her scalp. She had never seen a weather phenomenon for herself, no one ever had, and it was even better then the descriptions she read about. Her arms fell to her sides as she continued to look toward the sky, water rolling down her cheeks.

     "We need to collect this," Wells spoke, interrupting the serene moment.

     Bellamy just looked toward the boy with a taunting smirk. "Whatever the hell you want," he voiced and backed away into the chaos of cheering delinquents.

     Sawyer finally did roll her eyes at the young man's behavior, but she had no intention of divulging in the Ark Prince's claims. No matter how right he was. She gave Wells one last look, before she turned toward her friends and enjoyed the rain as another clap of thunder shook the ground beneath their feet.

     _______

     The little bout of rain lasted for another hour before the clouds cleared up and the stars returned to illuminate the night sky. Sawyer ignored the delinquents for that amount of time and allowed them to have a bit of fun while they still could. Bellamy's "whatever the hell we want" attitude would not get them very far in survival, and Sawyer was not going to let her friends die because of some man with a superiority complex.

     Everyone eventually settled down for a good night's rest when Sawyer decided to have a meeting of her most trusted partners in space crime. She ushered them around the still burning fire in the center of their established camp and began the topic of conversation.

     "Alright, so I assume you all know why you are here," Sawyer voiced to the small group around her.

     Miller, who sat to her right, shrugged. "You have a problem with the fake guard."

     "And I don't really see why," Harper McIntyre, a blonde girl around the age of sixteen, spoke from her spot next to Miller. "He thinks the same as we do. He seems like he's one of us."

     "But he's not one of us, that's the problem," Sawyer exclaimed with a slight edge in her tone. "He acts like he is, but he's not. I know who he is, a former cadet in training to be a guard," she relayed her knowledge of the man to her friends. "The only reason he's not anymore is because his sister was caught at last year's masquerade. If anyone's like us, it's Octavia. Not Bellamy."

     Murphy sat on her left with creased brows. "I would ask how you know all of this, but then I remember who I'm talking to."

     Sawyer gave the boy a sarcastic grin. "I'll take that as a compliment," she said and then sighed. "Look, I'm not saying that we shun him or anything. What I am saying is that it's going to take a lot more to survive down here than 'whatever the hell we want'."

     "You know he has a gun, right?" Murphy said, causing all the group members to snap toward him.

     "What?" Harper's eyes widened.

     Murphy nodded. "It's only a pistol, so there's probably not that many bullets in it."

     "And if he stole it from a guard, then it wouldn't have had that many in it to begin with," Miller supplied to ease the tension that grew with Murphy's sudden announcement.

     Sawyer ran a hand through her still damp hair that fell down her chest. "It doesn't matter," she said sternly. "From what I've seen of him, I don't think he has what it takes to shoot someone. At least, no one here. He wouldn't risk it with his sister around."

     Harper gaped at the girl. "He still has a gun. And he thinks he's in charge."

     "Then we'll just have to make sure he knows that he's not," Sawyer stated, meeting every one of her friends' eyes.

     Murphy scoffed. "How do you suppose we do that."

     "By doing what he doing what he seems to hate the most." Sawyer grinned mischievously around the small group. "Bring order to the chaos."

<August 6, 2019>

Welcome to the first chapter of Bulletproof!

I'm so excited for this story, and I can't wait for you all to read it.

I'm not going to write my usual introductory paragraph, but I will say a few things. First, my updates will be irregular at best. I only write when inspiration strikes, and sometimes that is days, weeks, or months in between. Second, that also means that I hate when someone comments for me to update. It does not help me write faster, contrary to popular belief.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this first chapter. Sawyer is going to seem like a royal bitch at first and will clash with Clarke on many occasions, but she will evolve...eventually.

Don't forget to vote and comment.

-Jordan.

P.S. Unedited chapter. The gifs I use in this story are not mine. I get them from Google.