CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
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THE ROOM THAT THEY WERE USHERED INTO, under the careful watch of the two guards that had accompanied them into the elevator, was very reminiscent of Dante's office and Taylor assumed the same ancient look was recurring throughout the whole mountain.

A group of people stood huddled around a young woman that spoke to them, Taylor unable to see her clearly as a result of the crowd. Both she and Clarke looked around in confusion, giving each other skeptical glances.

"Your packet contains everything you need to know about Mount Weather. Which, I promise, isn't as confusing as the map on page one makes it out to look. You came from level three, which houses our medical facility, including quarantine —" the woman was announcing to those watching in front of her.

     "Clarke! Taylor!" a voice from the crowd rang out, interrupting the explanation of the place that they were entrapped in. Monty broke away from the crowd and wrapped Clarke in a hug, the rest of their people following suit. Jasper greeted Taylor with his own hug and she could feel herself let out a breath of relief at the sight of all them alive.

     After Jasper broke away to hug Clarke, Monty and Taylor traded a relieved one themselves. Taylor found herself smiling genuinely, until Clarke mentioned something that she had been trying to avoid thinking about.

     "Finn and Bellamy?" she questioned, looking at the others with hopeful eyes. Taylor looked at the ground intensely, trying everything in her power to think about anything else.

     "Clarke, they, uh...they didn't make it," Jasper responded quietly, pausing to look at the others with uncertainty. Clarke looked at him blankly for a moment before shaking her head slightly.

     "We don't know that," she denied softly, looking between the two in front of them. The others of the crowd had broken away into their own groups, leaving this conversation for only the four of them. "What about Raven?"

     Dead silence was the only response, giving them the all the answer with none of the words. Taylor wiped the tears from her cheeks quickly, in time for the woman who was standing at the front of the crowd to push through Jasper and Monty with two binders in her hands.

     "Welcome, Clarke, Taylor. If you have any questions, I'm Keenan," she greeted with a friendly smile before walking away again. Taylor's fingers tightened around the plastic edges of the binder, trying to ignore just how uncomfortable she felt being there.

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     At dinner later that night, Taylor stared at her uneaten plate of food pensively while Jasper and Monty fought over cake. She wasn't sure exactly what they were doing, she had stopped paying attention when they started swapping deserts.

     "Oh, hey Clarke," Jasper welcomed as Clarke took a seat with her own binder next to him across from Taylor.

     "Sit down and pretend you're happy to see me," she told them in a low voice, attempting to fake a smile as she cast a glance in the direction of President Wallace.

     "We are happy to see you," Monty told her cheerfully, offering up a plate of barely touched cake. "You have to try the chocolate cake."

     "Oh, it is so on," Jasper challenged, referencing to whatever fight they had been having over said cake just a few seconds before Clarke had arrived. "At least give some to Taylor, she looks super bummed."

     "I'm not eating their food," Clarke refused as she flipped through the pages of her binder. "And I don't think Taylor wants to either." She gestured to the uneaten plate of food that she had been given by the two other boys, insisting that the food was delicious.

     "Look, they gave us a map with no exits," she went on, pointing to the first page. "I need you to tell me everything you've seen. Every room. Every hallway. Every way out."

     "'Way out'. Look around you, Clarke. There's no one hunting us here. First time in our lives we're not hungry. Why would we wanna leave?" Jasper asked, a nervous sort of look on his face at Clarke's behavior.

     "The first thing they did when I woke up was sedate me. Sorry if I'm not as trusting as you guys are," Taylor finally spoke up, glancing between the three others.

     "We have friends out there who need our help," Clarke added, looking at Jasper earnestly as if she couldn't believe that there was any reason he would even want to stay.

     "They're looking for survivors," Monty assured, leaning forward as a precaution. It wasn't exactly a cheerful dinner table discussion, and Taylor didn't like the prospect of anyone overhearing them. "And they're way better equipped to find them than we are."

     "And if they find survivors? They bring them back to live here and then what? We live here forever?" Taylor inquired, trying her best to keep her voice low despite the obvious edge in it. There was only so long that she could pretend that she was okay with being there.

     "Would that be so bad? We won't starve, or get killed by Grounders. We finally won't have to worry about surviving all the time," Jasper said, his voice calm like he was begging them to agree and feel the way he felt about it.

     Clarke looked away and at the rest of the people eating their dinner and chatting merrily. "This place is too good to be true," she asserted in a whisper.

     "You're bumming me out, I'm gonna get more cake," Jasper replied in a happy tone that sounded like he was trying much too hard to sound cheerful. He wandered off to the table that the cake was placed on and Taylor could see Clarke's gaze drift over with a look on her face that indicated that her mind was somewhere else completely.

     "Taylor, come with me," she spoke suddenly, not even glancing at the girl across from her before standing up from her seat abruptly. Monty and Taylor exchanged a skeptical look before she shrugged and followed her.

     Jasper was sitting at a small table with cake in front of him, talking to a pale girl with dark hair. With their arrival, their conversation died quickly and both turned to look at the two who had approached uncomfortably.

     "Hey," Clarke greeted, seeming genuine about wanting to be nice to the girl, at least. She set down the binder that she had been carrying around on top of a few of the books already placed on the table. "It's Maya, right? I just wanted to say sorry for this morning. I was scared and worried about my friends. I hope you can understand that."

     Taylor was fully aware of what had happened when Clarke had escaped her quarantine, they had filled each other in on everything that had happened to them from the minute they woke up in order to be more thorough in their assessment of the mountain.

     "And I came to let you know that we're grateful to be here, despite all that," Taylor added, smiling at Maya while still unsure of exactly why Clarke had brought her. Maya tried a smile while nodding slightly at them. A boy that bore a striking resemblance to Maya strode over and put his hand on the back of her chair, eyeing Clarke and Taylor warily.

     "Problem here?" he questioned with his brows slightly elevated. Clarke smiled at him with the same one that she had given Maya before shaking her head and picking up her binder.

     "We were just leaving," she replied calmly before the two quietly left the table without further issue. Taylor was about to ask her what exactly the purpose of that was but Clarke beat her to the punch, simply flashing a small keycard in her hands for Taylor to see before placing it in her pocket.

     When they left the main dining area is when Taylor began to question Clarke's plan — if there even was one — slightly in her mind. "What are we doing? What if it doesn't get us out?" she asked as their pace picked up through the empty grey halls of Mount Weather.

     "There has to be a way," Clarke dismissed, her eyes scanning the area with determination. Immediately after those words, the blaring sound of alarms reverberated through the hall and orange lights began to flash around them.

     "Alert. Code five," a woman's smooth voice echoed over the intercom system. At the sudden noises and lights, both of them glanced around in sudden panic at the thought of being caught.

     "Not prisoners, huh?" Clarke mumbled with a short glance at Taylor, whose eyes narrowed at her words, before both of them took off in the direction they were originally headed in. They came to an intersection of multiple halls, guards blocking them on all sides and charging at them with weapons.

     "Clarke! Plan!" Taylor managed to shout over the alarms and footsteps, the very real possibility of them not making it due to unpreparedness dawning on her. They reached a door that read 'Authorized Personnel Only', that making no difference when Clarke swiped Maya's keycard and granting them easy access to what was beyond.

     Shutting the door behind them, they came out to a cave-like system of stairs that seemed to Taylor like it could most definitely be their way out. "This seems like a pretty solid one," Clarke finally responded, shrugging at Taylor before ripping electrical wires off of the door, effectively ruining the functionality of the keycard access panel.

     The only thing that Taylor could hear was the echoing sounds of their footsteps on the metal stairs and her labored breaths. A sign next to the stairs told her that it was the emergency evacuation route, which only pushed her to go faster. There was no way she was going to stay trapped in that mountain another minute.

     When they reached the top of the stairs, the end of the hallway was home to a large door with hazmat suits beside it. "This is it," Taylor coughed out, leaning over slightly to catch her breath.

     "Come on," Clarke urged, grabbing her arm and leading her to the end of the hall quickly. Each one of them tried the levers, one beside the door and one on it. Clarke's on the side wouldn't budge, but Taylor's began to turn slowly, her nodding at Clarke for assistance. Both of them managed to turn it all the way, Clarke returning to her original lever and prepared to pull it.

     "Clarke, Taylor, stop!" Jasper's voice snapped from behind them. Maya and the boy from earlier stood beside him, staring on anxiously. "If you pull that lever, these people will die! Even a little radiation can kill them."

     The boy was already walking off to the side and emerged with a gun, pointing it directly at Taylor's head. Maya followed suit, pointing hers at Clarke. "Don't make me shoot you," Maya told her, looking quite upset with a gun in her hands but her finger hovering over the trigger nonetheless. "Leo won't hesitate, either."

     The boy, Leo, nodded in confirmation beside Maya though he looked just as hesitant as she was. Jasper stepped out in front of the two and held up his hands, pleading with them to wait for a moment. "Clarke...don't do this," he begged softly, approaching her carefully. Taylor still had her hands raised and was looking between Maya and Leo suspiciously.

     "I don't believe them," Clarke choked out, tears gathering in her eyes slowly.

     "Why would they lie?" Jasper questioned softly. Clarke looked back at the two with guns, fingers tightening on the lever when Maya inched forward ever so slightly. "Listen to me. We are safe here. Because of you, we're safe."

     "Not all of us," Clarke whispered hoarsely, Taylor remembering once again what they were all living without. Taylor buried her face in her hands for a moment and wiped the tears away from her cheeks, taking small steps closer to the other two.

     "I'm the one who fired the rockets," Jasper said, his voice thick with emotion and his face wet with moisture. "Should I not have done that?"

     "We did...what we had to do," Taylor finally spoke up, looking between her upset friends, finding herself thinking of Bellamy. Even the thought of his name made her want to disappear in a wave of sobs, but she knew that it wasn't the time or place.

     "And this isn't something we have to do. You saved lives when you pulled that lever. Don't throw that away by pulling this one," he told her shakily. Clarke faltered and took several deep breaths, her hand slipping away from the lever. Just as she finally surrendered, a detail of guards rushed into the area.

     "There they are!" one of them shouted. Before she knew it, Taylor was being shoved onto the cold concrete floor with her hands being handcuffed tightly behind her back. She stared off at the dark wall that she was forced to look at now that her head was pressed up into one position on the ground.

     She didn't care if they were lying to them or not. Whatever it was, it didn't feel honest. What she did know was that the Ark fell and more of their people were still out there, regardless if those people weren't Bellamy and Finn. A few more tears escaped her eyes, landing on the ground and staining the floor with small droplets of water. Gritting her teeth, she promised herself that there was no way that she was going to stay in that place.