CHAPTER ONE
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TAYLOR FLYNN WAS a cautious person. She never took risks unless she knew that it would end up working out in the end. But when it came to certain people, she threw caution to the wind and did things that she would never see herself doing otherwise.

It was a day that started like all of the others, but soon enough it had become something much more. She sat at a small table in her home with her mother. Her father had been gone for almost a year now, all for helping a family that was hiding more than just one child. A frantic knocking at the door pulled them out of conversation. Taylor told her mother that she would get it and Elara nodded, telling her daughter that she needed to check on something anyway.

The area soon became quiet, her footsteps and the sound of her opening the door echoing through the almost empty space. Her brows furrowed when she saw a familiar face looking back at her with a tense, nervous demeanor.

"Hey, what's —  " He stepped into the flat quickly, his anxious attitude becoming even more visible to her. She became even more confused when she saw what he was wearing. A guard's uniform? He wasn't a guard, at least not anymore. "Why are you wearing that? Bellamy, is everything okay?"

He had been extremely focused on the floor until she had spoken a second time. Bellamy's gaze snapped up to her and he finally looked at her with a straight face. "They're sending them to the ground, Taylor," he finally said, leaving her with even more questions. "The prisoners."

She looked behind her to make sure that her mother wasn't still there. "Why? Is Octavia...?" He answered her second question with a nod.

"All of them," he rushed out. "And I have a way to go with them. Both of us."

She looked down for a moment, not exactly knowing what to do. What if it was just an execution and they all ended up dying? What reasons could the council have for this? She knew that Bellamy wasn't going to stay on the Ark. He wouldn't leave Octavia. And Taylor wasn't going to leave either of them, despite how scared she was.

"Taylor? Who's at the door?" Elara called out from the other room.

"Uh, no one! It's just Bellamy stopping by!" she called back. She faced him again and lowered her voice. "How soon?"

"We need to leave right now," he answered, trying to urge her to come with him more quickly. Taylor nodded and walked over to the small counter. She grabbed a ripped scrap piece of paper and a worn, tattered pen. Quickly scribbling out a note to her mother, she set it on the table that they had been sitting at and met Bellamy back at the open door.

"What was that?" he questioned.

"Just a quick note," she explained. Bellamy looked at her almost disapprovingly. She suspected that it was because this mission to the ground was supposed to be covert. Taylor herself had no knowledge of it until just minutes before. "It was only what she needed to know. I won't let her think I just left without a reason."

He nodded in understanding and they stepped outside. Taylor took one last glance at the flat and shut the door behind her. From that point on, they ran like there was no tomorrow. They had to be quick and unnoticed in order to get there on time and slip past other guards successfully.

It was apparent that they had made it to the boarding area when they caught sight of a winding line of teenagers shuffling slowly to the entrance of a ship. "You have a plan, right?" Taylor asked. "If we get caught, they'll float us." She voiced her worry because she genuinely was. There was no doubt that they would be killed if they weren't successful. They wouldn't even have the chance to be prisoners, both of them being over eighteen.

"Of course I have a plan," he smirked as they walked beside the line. His face then took a more serious look and he grabbed her arm gently, ushering her forward.

Some council members were watching as the teenagers entered the ship and guards were leading them onto it. The entire area was crawling with Ark officials desperate to keep the entire thing quiet.

"Come on," Bellamy ordered, yanking her forward a bit for show. Taylor tried to look as bitter about being dragged onto the ship as possible. They swiftly cut in front of the main line and Bellamy was directed by another guard to the first floor of the dropship.

They carefully made sure that their seats were somewhat hidden from anyone checking the ship last minute; nobody would be able to tell that they weren't prisoners. She buckled herself in, Bellamy doing the same thing.

"This is really happening. We're going to the ground. We could totally die, but we're going to the ground!" she exclaimed breathlessly. The reality of what was happening was finally starting to dawn on her and she was having a hard time believing it.

Bellamy allowed himself to let out a small laugh and he shook his head slightly. His mouth opened as if he was going to say something, but the doors to the ship closed and a deep rumbling resounded.

Then they were falling. Taylor's stomach dipped and twisted in ways that she did not enjoy in the slightest. One would think that living in a place so high, she wouldn't have a problem with falling. But she did. And she could feel panic bubbling in her chest as the ship shot down to the toxic earth.

She closed her eyes tightly and without even thinking about it, she grabbed Bellamy's hand and squeezed it for dear life. She needed something to hold on to. He squeezed back, telling her that he was there, which she appreciated.

The ship shook even more violently when they hit the atmosphere. Taylor's eyes shot open. Lights from above flickered on and several screens began to show a message from the chancellor. "Prisoners of the Ark, hear me now," Jaha announced in an annoyingly calm and condescending tone. She immediately tuned out the minute that she heard his voice.

Bellamy looked more pale the instant the chancellor's image appeared on the screen. "Are you okay?" she asked him. He nodded in assurance but she raised her eyebrows at him. "You aren't. What's up?"

"I'll tell you later," he told her, avoiding eye contact at all costs. This made her wary, but she nodded in agreement anyway. She knew that he wouldn't tell her if she kept pushing him to do so.

A few more minutes of rumbling occurred and Jaha's transmission was cutting out. "The dropsite has been chosen carefully. Before the last war, Mount Weather was a military base built within a mountain," he explained. She couldn't hear the next part since the ship was making so much noise. All she could hear after that was the words 'no one ever made it there'.

He continued to talk about the importance of getting supplies right away, but Taylor had decided to not listen once again. She was more focused on the paralyzing fear traveling through her as they continued to fall.

The funny thing about falling was that you always landed. No matter from how high you fell or how hard, there was always something to hit once you got to the end. The ship jerked up violently, the parachutes having deployed themselves.

Large crashes rang out from the upper area of the dropship. It was clear that something had gone wrong when the lights started to flicker rapidly, like they would go out at any moment. There was one last crash and a surprisingly soft thud before they stopped moving entirely.

Taylor unbuckled herself from the chair and finally let go of Bellamy's hand, following him towards the front door of the ship. It was a matter of seconds before a crowd of prisoners had swarmed towards them, eagerly pushing their way to the front so that they could see Earth for the first time.

"Hey, just back it up guys," Bellamy told them, trying to control the crowd that had already almost packed the entire first level of the ship. She turned to him and gave him a small smile and a nod and he gave her a smile in return, reaching for the lever that would open the doors. The lever that would finally show them the ground after one hundred years of waiting.

"Stop!" a blonde girl who was just now descending from the ladder to the first floor called out. She pushed her way to the front where Taylor and Bellamy stood, a pleading look on her face. "The air could be toxic."

"If the air's toxic, we're all dead anyway," Bellamy told her with a somewhat impatient voice before turning back to the lever again. Taylor wanted to reason with the girl more herself since she didn't look very convinced. But she decided to let it slide, her simultaneous excitement and anxiety about seeing the ground becoming her top priority.

"Bellamy?" another voice sounded from the ladder. This one was a familiar one. "And...Taylor?" Octavia pushed her way through the crowd, whispers coming from all sides of it. It didn't phase her, however, because she'd been dealing with that for longer than anyone should.

Taylor stepped to her right and allowed the two to have their reunion. "My god, look how big you are," Bellamy commented with a smile. Octavia pulled him into a hug and Taylor found herself smiling brightly at the pair. She pulled away and her expression fell when she saw Bellamy's clothing.

"What the hell are you wearing, a guard's uniform?" she demanded. Octavia had a certain distaste for guards that Taylor couldn't blame her for.

"I borrowed it, to get on the dropship," he explained. Octavia rounded on Taylor and smiled.

"I can't believe you're both here," she said as she pulled her into a tight hug.

"Someone has got to keep an eye on you," Bellamy said, grinning. Octavia pulled away from Taylor and pulled Bellamy into another hug, letting out an airy laugh.

"Where's your wristband?" the blonde girl asked seriously. Her eyes fell onto Taylor's wrists and clearly realized that she wasn't wearing one either. "And yours too."

Octavia turned around, an annoyed look on her face. "Do you mind? I haven't seen my brother in a year," she snapped.

"No one has a brother!" a boy near the back called out in incredulity.

"That's Octavia Blake! The girl they found hidden in the floor!" a girl announced from near the back as well. An anger seemed to sweep over Octavia and she lunged forward, not having a certain aim as to who she was lunging at. Both Taylor and Bellamy grabbed her and held her back.

"Octavia, no!" Bellamy cautioned. "Let's give them something else to remember you by."

"Yeah, like what?" she asked as she pulled away from the two, not looking like she believed that anyone could possibly remember her for anything else other than what she had gone through.

"Like being the first person on the ground in a hundred years," Bellamy grinned. Octavia was hanging on to every word that he uttered, her eyes lighting up in satisfaction and excitement. All three of them turned to the doors and there was not a single person in the entire ship who wasn't watching.

Bellamy wrapped his fingers around the lever and paused as if he was fully appreciating the fact that this was the moment that they would all see Earth for the first time. Octavia took in a deep breath and Bellamy pulled down the lever. Smoke rushed up from the bottom of the ship, depressurizing as the door lowered itself to the ground below.

Light was the first thing that Taylor noticed. The light outside compared to inside of the dropship was overwhelming. The bright natural lighting hit each of their faces warmly, a small breeze blowing in their direction. Every person was left awestruck in their surroundings.

Octavia stepped forward and inhaled the fresh air, a smile spreading across her face as she did so. She walked forward to the very edge of the door and jumped down, taking the first steps on the ground after one hundred years. She walked further out into the clearing that they had landed in, or more accurately, the clearing that they had created during landing, and stopped.

"We're back, bitches!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, throwing her arms up in triumph. Everyone rushed out of the ship, whooping and cheering to a new era. Both Taylor and Bellamy smiled at Octavia's enthusiasm and stepped out of the ship themselves.

Taylor lost track of the two of them in the large crowd and was too busy observing her surroundings to look for them. She ran her hands over the green plants that poked up through the dirt and laughed to herself. The place was so real, infinitely more natural than the Ark had ever been.

She turned around and spotted Bellamy, hurrying over to him quickly with a large smile on her face. "I can't believe this," she breathed. "This is much better than the horrible death that I was anticipating."

"If you thought we'd die why'd you even agree to come?" Bellamy asked with a small smile. Taylor rolled her eyes and pushed him playfully. The reason as to why she had joined Bellamy on the journey was because of one simple fact; she cared too much about him and Octavia to let them do it alone.

"That thing that was bothering you earlier...well, it's later and that's when you agreed to tell me about it," she said, changing the direction of the conversation completely. Bellamy's face fell when she said this and nodded reluctantly.

They found a place that was away from most of the group. No one would be able to hear them, especially not over all of the noise that was being made. Taylor raised her eyebrows at him expectantly, ready for him to finally spill.

"Taylor..." he trailed off, looking like he really didn't know where to start. "I did something...that I'm not proud of to get us here."

"What do you mean?" she asked, looking for clarification. That panicky feeling was rising up in her chest again. She had been beginning to wonder how exactly Bellamy had gotten them onto the ship that easily with no suspicion that there were extra people. He stayed quiet and avoided her eye again just like he had when Jaha's transmission was playing on the screens in the dropship. "Bell? What did you do?"

"I shot the chancellor," he mumbled quickly, trying to get it over with as fast as he possibly could. Her eyes widened and she gasped.

"You did what?" she inquired rather loudly, causing Bellamy to look around hastily to make sure that nobody had heard her.

"Look, it was the only way! Someone came to me and said that if I did that, shoot him, we could both get on the dropship," he explained almost desperately like he wouldn't know what to do if she didn't believe him. She was speechless. Bellamy had shot the chancellor.

"I...who gave you the gun? How did they know that you'd want me to come with?" she questioned, her mind going a million different places at once.

"Commander Shumway was the one with the gun and the offer but I don't know how he knew," Bellamy answered.

"Is he dead? The chancellor?" Bellamy's expression shifted when he heard this question. It seemed that he didn't even think that there was the chance that the chancellor could still be alive after what he'd done.

"I don't know." Taylor took a deep breath and nodded slowly. So maybe Bellamy hadn't killed the chancellor after all and everything would be fine. That's what she desperately wanted to believe, anyway. "That doesn't change the fact that when they come down here, they'll kill me."

"No, no, no. We can fix this..." she mumbled, wracking her mind for a way out of the mess that they had landed themselves in.

"How, Taylor? How are we going to fix that? I shot—  " He was interrupted by an elated Octavia skipping up to them with a satisfied smirk on her face.

"What's with the sour looks? What did you shoot?" she asked lightly, looking between both of them with a dazed smile on her lips.

"He, uh, shot his chances of ever seeing space again. Neither of us are very disappointed about that," Taylor lied quickly, laughing awkwardly. Bellamy raised his eyebrows at her and she shrugged in defense. Octavia gave them a strange look but her smile returned within a few seconds.

"God, I missed you two," she laughed along, pulling them both into yet another hug. Once they pulled away Taylor smiled and suggest that they go nearer towards everyone else to which the other two agreed.

When they arrived back near the rest of the teenagers, it seemed that a conflict was happening between the chancellor's son, the blonde girl from earlier, and a larger group of boys. "Relax, we're just trying to figure out where we are," Wells was saying, clearly trying to avoid any unneeded conflict.

"We're on the ground," Bellamy chimed in. "That not good enough for you?"

Wells sighed and started to walk towards Octavia, Bellamy, and Taylor with the blonde girl — Clarke. "We have to find Mount Weather. You heard my father's message. That has to be our first priority," Wells announced in an official and reasonable sounding tone.

"Screw your father. What, you think you're in charge here, you and your little princess?" Octavia drawled tauntingly. She had a clear grudge against Wells and wasn't making an effort to hide it. Taylor wanted to think of Wells as his own person, she really did, but having never met him before, all she could think about was his father.

"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 will be," Clarke spoke, looking at every person around her. "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."

Taylor had to admit that the girl had a certain flair for speaking to large crowds. When she said things, they made sense and convinced the person who was hearing them. "I've got a better idea. You two go, find it for us," Bellamy proposed, staring the two down with a certain resentment in his eyes. It was obvious that Octavia wasn't the only one who was holding grudges. "Let the privileged do the hard work for a change."

The whole crowd behind them agreed enthusiastically. "You're not listening. We all need to go," Wells tried convincing, his voice becoming more urgent the further he spoke. Taylor wouldn't lie about the fact that she agreed with Bellamy and Octavia. She had spent her whole life being looked down upon by those higher than her. She had spent her whole life watching the people she cared about being treated unfairly by those same people.

A boy named Murphy walked up behind Wells and shoved him roughly. "Look at this everybody— the chancellor of Earth," he ridiculed with a smug look. Taylor, along with the whole group of people she was standing with, laughed at the joke.

"You think that's funny?" Wells asked in disbelief. Murphy lunged forward and kicked Wells in the leg, causing him to fall to the ground and grunt in pain. Clarke rushed forward and called out his name, but was pulled back by several of Murphy's cronies.

"No, but that was," Murphy laughed. He stepped towards Wells quickly with his fists curled over and over again, giving off the illusion that he was going to punch him. Murphy's fists never actually landed on Wells, but he egged him on with that same self-satisfied look that he had been wearing before.

Before the fighting could escalate any further, a figure jumped down from the top of the dropship and landed between Murphy and Wells. "Kid's only got one leg. How about you wait until it's a fair fight?" Finn said, Murphy giving him a look of clear dislike.

Octavia stepped forward and gave Finn a dazzling smile. "Hey, Spacewalker. Rescue me next," she flirted, batting her eyes for the complete effect. Finn smiled back at her and walked away after Murphy had already retreated from the scene. The crowd cleared away and Taylor and Bellamy walked over to Octavia once again.

Taylor watched Octavia take a nice long look at Finn before she returned to reality. Bellamy was giving her a disapproving look, but Octavia had no apologies. "What? He's cute," she shrugged, admitting the glaringly obvious fact.

"He's a criminal," Bellamy objected.

"They're all criminals," Octavia defended, her voice dripping with annoyance.

"I'll just leave you guys to it," Taylor said, almost wanting to laugh at the situation and the squirmy look on Bellamy's face. But instead she walked away to let them have their conversation, which looked to be more heated than she had expected it to be.

She watched as Octavia marched off over to Clarke and Finn, stating something happily before Bellamy strode over and asked her something with that same heated look he had been just conversing with. Taylor sighed and made her way over to the group.

Clarke was grabbing Finn's wrist and asked him, "Were you trying to take this off?". The wristband had several scratches all over it, ones that would only appear if someone had done it purposely. The appearance of the wristband was a good enough answer to her question.

"Yeah, so?" Finn replied lightly. He clearly didn't care about wearing the wristband at all, but apparently Clarke did.

"So this wristband transmits your vital signs to the Ark. Take it off and they'll think you're dead," Clarke explained tensely, her voice exploding with authority once more.

"Should I care?" Finn inquired with a nonchalant tone and looking as carefree as ever.

"Well, I don't know. Do you want the people you love to think you're dead? Do you want them to follow you down here in two months? Because they won't if they think we're dying," she explained scoldingly. Finn just looked down in slight shame and didn't utter another word. Taylor glanced up at Bellamy and saw the look on his face, Clarke's words clearly having the same impact on her as they did him. "Okay. Now let's go."

Finn started off towards the forest silently, followed by two boys and Clarke. Octavia looked at Bellamy and he nodded. "Go on," he told her, nodding his head to the others. She smiled brightly and kissed him on the cheek before running off to join the group. Clarke was talking to Wells, who was clearly too injured to go searching for supplies.

Taylor rounded on Bellamy. "Whatever you're thinking about what she just said, don't do it," she told him. "I know you, and I don't like that look on your face. It looks like you're...planning something."

Bellamy simply rolled his eyes. "Can you go with them? Keep an eye on O?" he asked her, that soft pleading in his eyes that she just couldn't say no to.

"Yeah, okay," she agreed, not just because he wanted her to but also because she wanted to make sure that Octavia wouldn't get into too much trouble. She turned around to join the group but Bellamy caught her wrist before she could.

"And about what we talked about earlier...please, don't tell anyone about it —  " he began, but she put up her hand and shook her head.

"Don't worry, your secret's safe with me."