"We're here, and then we're gone, and it's not about the time we're here. But what we do with the time."

8.

"Hey, is that it?" Finn says running ahead of me and Clarke. It's daylight now and my feet are killing me.

"We found it!" Finn shouts enough for us to hear but not too loud for anyone further to hear. Me and Clarke walk up to him while he scans the area to make sure there's no grounders lurking. We open the handle of the door and see a dark haired girl either passed out or dead. I recognize her once I get a clear view of her face, her name is Raven. Me and her shared a mechanics class. Although I only stayed in that class for a month I still learned some things and I knew her. From the blood I want to say she's dead but I put my fingers to her neck and there's a pulse. I also take notice that she's breathing slightly. 

"Raven. Raven, wake up." I shake her a little and she starts to move. Me and Clarke share a look and she opens her eyes.

"I made it?" She gets up a little slowly and me and Clarke move out of her way so she can get out. She steps out of the pod and looks around and takes it all in.

"I imagined it would smell like this." She smiles and I smile at her. I was her two weeks ago, taking it all in for the first time. Everything seemed so simple two weeks ago. We were just kids stepping foot on the ground and breathing it all in, and now. Now we have grounders to worry about and poisonous fog.

"There's no one around." Finn says walking up and his eyes widen at the girl.

"Raven?" He questions and Raven turns to him and smiles and runs and jumps on him.

"Finn." She says and kisses him. Oh god. I look over to Clarke and she looks hurt. I know they had something going, it was so obvious. The little touches they shared and sometimes at night I would see him go into her tent.

"Are you okay?" I ask her and she nods. Raven and Finn both walk up to us.

"She needs to put pressure on her wound." Clarke tells them and gets out a rag and hands it to her.

"Thanks." Raven says and takes it from her. Finn introduces me, and Raven even says she recognizes me from our class we had together. Then he introduced Clarke and Raven's eyes widen.

"Clarke? This was all because of your mom." She tells her and Clarke looks confused.

"My mom? This was all her plan?" She questions Raven.

"We were trying to come down here together. If we waited oh, my God..." She pushes past us and starts looking in the pod for something. The radio.

"The radio is gone. It must have gotten loose during reentry." She explains to us groaning.

Finn shakes his head, "Someone got here before us."

"We need to find him." I say. Bellamy has taken this thing too far.

"Three-hundred people are going to die to save air if we don't get in contact with the ark." She explains and my heart drops. I couldn't hate Bellamy more if I tried to right now. Three-hundred innocent people are going to die because he swiped the radio.

We go in the direction we came from and soon up ahead we see Bellamy. We get closer to him and he turned around surprised to see us all here.

"Where is it?" I step up to talk to him. He looks into my eyes and I almost want to look away but I don't.

"Hi, princess." He speaks. I don't change my expression.

"You taking a walk in the woods?" He asks me. He knows we know, he's just playing stupid. My fists clench and it takes everything I have in me not to punch him. I don't know how I have more self control over punching him than I did with Murphy. I guess it was because I didn't have a big ass crush on Murphy like I do Bellamy. But right now it seems impossible to even think about liking him.

"They are getting ready to kill three hundred people to save oxygen." I tell him and his demeanor changes for a second but then his face goes blank again.

"And I can guarantee you it won't be council members. It'll be working people. Your people." I point at his chest and he stays quiet while looking down on me.

"Where's the radio?" Finn tries since he obviously isn't listening to me.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He says still staring at me. Our gaze holds and I want to tell him that he doesn't have to do this, that he's better than this, but I can't because my anger is getting the better of me.

"Bellamy.." I warn.

"Bellamy Blake? They're looking everywhere for you." Raven walks up to us. Oh no. She's going to tell them. I guess it's what he deserves after being such a dick, but I know the reason he did it. I just hate what he's doing now because of it.

"Shut up." He says through his teeth.

"Looking for him, why?" Clarke asks the girl.

"He shot chancellor Jaha." She says making me cringe. Now it's out. I see Bellamy looking at me almost pleading for me to do something but there's nothing I can do, it's out now.

"That's why you took the wristbands off." Clarke says, realization hitting her.

"Needed everyone to think we're dead." Finn comments.

"And all that, whatever the hell we want? You just care about saving your own skin." Clarke scoffs. She looks to me waiting for me to say something but I already knew.

"You knew. You knew and you didn't care to share?" Finn scolds. I glare at him.

"It wasn't my secret to tell, now back off." I turn back to face Bellamy and he's staring again.

"Hey, shooter, where's my radio?" Raven gets in front of me and gets in his face. I'm not a fan of it but if it can get him to give us the radio then It's fine by me.

"Get out of my way." He tells her as he tries to walk off.

"I should've killed you when I had the chance." He said. Disappointment flooded through me, that's not the Bellamy I know.

"Really? Well I'm right here. Where's my radio?" She yelled and he pushed her up against the tree pushing her neck with his arm

"Okay, stop it." Finn comes up pushing Bellamy off of Raven.

"Jaha deserved to die, you all know that." Bellamy straightens out his jacket.

"He's not my favorite person either, but he's not dead." Raven says and my eyes widen. Jaha is not dead. Bellamy didn't kill him, this just proves all the more that Bellamy isn't a killer. He never was.

"What?" He asks, shock taking over his features.

"You're a lousy shot." Raven shrugs.

"Bellamy, don't you see what this means? You're not a murderer." I walk up to him and place my hand on his arm. I might still be mad at him for what he said last night and for jacking the radio but I know what he needs to hear right now.

"You always did what you had to do to protect your sister." I say looking in his eyes.

"That's who you are. And you can do it again, by protecting three-hundred of your people." I tell him.

"Where's the radio?" Clarke asks him softly.

"It's too late." He breaks his gaze with me and looks away.

"What do you mean?" Finn questions him. Bellamy meets my eyes again.

"I threw it in the stream." I take my hand off his shoulder and step back right away.

"Taylor..." He tries.

"Show us." Is all I say. He sighs and nods. He leads us to the lake and points in the direction in which he threw it.

"Help us find it." I tell him, he nods. All of us four walk into the steam searching around for it. Me and Raven go off one way and the others split up.

"Well you seem to have him wrapped around your finger." Raven says when we're far from them.

"What are you talking about?" I ask her as I reach down into the water thinking I found it but it's just some moss.

"He listens to you." She tells me and I shrug.

"Not really, he just knows that he messed up. Bellamy will do something if he knows it's the right thing to do, he just needs an extra push sometimes." I explain to her.

"And that person who pushes him is you." She states.

"Guess so."

"Are you guys... you know..." My eyes widen at her and she laughs.

"Oh my god, no!" I groan in frustration. Why does everyone think me and Bellamy have a thing?

"Whatever you say." She says letting it go. Thank god. I think I've had enough Bellamy talk for one day.

"I found it!" We hear Finn shout and we run over to him. Raven snatches the radio out of his hands and looks at it.

"Will you be able to fix it?" Clarke asks Raven as she inspects it some more.

"Maybe. But it'll take half a day to dry out the components to see what's broken."

Bellamy cuts in, "Like I said, it's too late."

"Do you have any idea what you did? Do you even care?" I yell shoving him but he barely stumbles back.

"I helped." He clenched his jaw.

"After you threw it in the stream! I told you nothing good could come out of keeping them from coming down here, now innocent people are going to die! That's on you." I scream at him and walk away in the direction that we came from to head back to camp.

"Taylor..." He says. I don't turn around I just keep walking forward. I want to get back to camp and I've got a long walk. There's no way in hell I'll be able to walk with him.

I think I'm almost 5 miles away from the camp because I started noticing things we passed on our way to the pod. It started to get a little dark but only because the sun was being blocked by clouds and trees. As I'm walking I trip on a tree root and I go flying down a little hill. I land on some rigid rocks and a sharp sting in my leg makes me look down. A rock had snagged my skin and it looked deep enough to have to get stitches. Blood was oozing out and I started to feel dizzy. My eyes started to droop and before I knew it everything was black.

"Taylor. Taylor, wake up! Come on, Taylor, please wake up!" I feel someone shaking me. My eyes open. I see that I'm lying on a floor in some cave? I slowly get up and turn to my side and see Octavia.

"Octavia? What happened? Where are we?" I ask her. Looking around some more I try to get up but something restricts me. It's a chain on one of my hands and one of my feet. I start to panic as I struggle to get out of them.

"Taylor, stop. I've tried everything. Stop." She begs for me to stop and I do.

"He brought you in here an hour ago, I've been trying to wake you up since." She tells me.

"He who?"

"A grounder." We're so screwed.

"He's coming." I hear her whisper and I keep my eyes focused on the entrance. All of a sudden a tall African decent of a man walks in. I swallow hard. There's an actually real life grounder right in front of us. He notices I'm up and he turns around and grabs a cup from the table in the corner. I notice the many tattoos he has and if we weren't in this situation I would actually be admiring them.

He walks over to me and offers the cup to me. I look at Octavia and she nods her head. I take the cup and drink the water. It's pretty cold and it feels so good going down my dry throat. He takes it back and fills it up with more water and offers it to Octavia. She grabs it and drinks and he puts it up. Then he goes and grabs a jar full of some type of jelly substance and walks over to me. I flinch when he reaches toward my leg but he continues anyway and rolls up my jeans. The gash that I had is still there but it seemed to stop bleeding. He opened up the jar and put some of the substance on his fingers and then started to rub it around my gash. I cringe at the pain and burn the gel brings but I don't say anything too afraid that he could kill me at any moment if he wanted to.

He rubbed it in till it was almost nothing and then he got up and put it away. I saw him grab the knife and my heart dropped. Is he going to kill us now? He looked at me and then walked over to the fire and stuck the knife in it. He waited awhile till the knife was blazing orange and I knew what he was going to do. He was going to close the gash up for me. But I didn't want it like this. Why is he helping us? Why can't he just let us go if he's trying to help us. He comes toward me with the knife and I shake my head.

"Please, no. No. No. Please don't." I shake my head and tears started to fall down my cheeks. I knew my cut had to be closed or it could get infected but I don't want to face the burn of the knife. He looks sorry for a moment but then he regains composure and he grabs my legs.

"No! No! Stop!" I yell at him but he holds my leg down to keep me from moving and he presses the blade down on my skin. I scream out in pain. It's unlike anything I've ever felt before. I start sweating and my screaming doesn't stop. He doesn't lift off till a couple of seconds later and I almost pass out. I can smell burnt skin and it's enough to make me nauseated. Tears are flowing out from the immense pain and after he lifts the knife up it burns even more.

"Taylor, you're okay. It's okay." Octavia says. I almost forgot she was there. She grabs my hand and I squeeze her hand. The grounder gets up and puts the knife to the side and grabs a different jar. He puts whatever substance was in this jar on his fingers and gently rubs it in the burn area. For a second it stings and then it feels like ice pressed to my skin and I sigh in relief. He's helping me with the pain. But why? After he's rubbed it in he pulls my jean back down. He puts his stuff away and grabs a couple of other things and he walks out. I wait a few minutes till I know that he's gone and I speak.

"Why is he helping me?" I ask Octavia.

"He helped me too. He cleaned my cuts and put the same stuff on them for me. But my cuts weren't deep enough to have to get it closed up." She explains to me.

"I don't understand."

"Me neither, but we have to get out of here." She says and I nod in agreement.

I hope everyone is looking for us because it doesn't look like we will be getting out of these chains anytime soon without help. We hear some noise coming from the hallway and me and Octavia share a look. It sounds like more than one person and my heart beats faster, terrified that he has brought more grounders with him. But who walks into view makes me almost cry tears of joy. In front of us was Bellamy. He rushed over to both of us and looks at us probably making sure we were okay. Finn and Jasper and a guy named Jake walks in behind him.

"Get the key, hurry. He should be getting back soon." Octavia tells them and they grab the key from the table and pass it to Bellamy. Bellamy unlocks Octavia's first and she gives him a hug when she's released. He then comes over to me and unlocks my chains.

"I've never been more happier to see you in my life." I pull him into a hug and he hugs back.

"Oh, princess." He sighs and it feels nice to be in his arms.

"I still hate you." I say pulling away and I can tell he knows I'm half joking by his light smile.

"Let's go now." Octavia says but before we can leave, the grounder walks in. He goes to attack the closest person by him which happens to be Bellamy. They fight around until he's got a spear pointed at Bellamys throat and Bellamys putting all his strength into holding it from piercing his neck. I was about to do something till Jasper grabbed a piece of thick wood and whacked the grounder over the head with it making him fall to the floor. I helped Bellamy get up.

"Okay, now let's really go." Jasper says still with a look of shock on his face from hitting the grounder. We start to walk away but Finn is looking at something on the grounder. He keeps leaning in closer and before we know it the grounder gets up and stabs Finn in the stomach. Bellamy quickly grabs the wood and he hits the grounders head making him fall back down.

"Oh my god. Okay, everyone help Finn. We need to get back to camp now." I order and they all nod.

"Shouldn't we take the knife out?" Jasper asks.

"No! No! Just be very careful with him. Let's go now." I tell them. I make sure they walk in front of me so that they are the first ones out. But before I go I take the two jars of medicine he had. I'm sure he won't mind. I run out with them and we start to rush to get back to camp. Finally we get to it and the entrance opens up for us.

"Clarke!" I call for her and she comes out of the dropship eyes wide when she sees Finn.

"He got stabbed, the bleeding is minimum but he doesn't have much time if we don't get it out and close up the wound." I tell her and she nods.

"Bring him in." She tells the guys and we all enter the dropship and they place him down on the table. Me and Clarke start shouting things we need people to get for us.

"Did your dad show you how to diagnosis in a situation like this?" Clarke asks me.

"A little, we didn't cover this stuff much because it wasn't too likely for these things to happen on the ark. I know that if there's no liquid around the wound then it didn't puncture anything major." She lifts up his shirt so it can stay above the knife and we take a look. No liquid. Thank god.

"What happened?!" Raven busts in coming over to see Finn. She looks so worried and stressed and I feel extremely sorry for her.

"Raven, listen to me. I need my mom to walk me through this. You need to fix the radio. Now." Clarke tells her directly and Raven takes a moment to nod and quickly rushes to the radio in the corner and gets to work.

"What else did your dad tell you?" Clarke asks me. As I'm trying to think people start to gather in the dropship. Miller walks in and walks over to us.

"There's a storm coming." He tells us. This can not get any worse.

"Okay, gather everyone in here and shut the door." I tell him and he nods and walks out. Octavia walks through with a bottle of alcohol like we requested. She hands it to me and I take a whiff. My face scrunches up, this stuff is strong.

"Raven we need that radio now." I tell her as I hold the table steady from the grumbles of the storm.

"Please...calling ark station..the hundred are alive." Raven says desperately into the radio for the thousandth time.

"This is a restricted station. Who is this? Please identify yourself." A male speaks up and I smile.

We're in contact with the ark again.