❝how am i supposed to find one bullet? they have a million. this house is like the freaking walmart of guns.❞

-scott mccall, teen wolf

♛

I'M SLIGHTLY WEARY OF what Bellamy is having us do. He had taken three guns out of the pile and wiped them down with a giant red piece of fabric that he found somewhere, then drew a giant "X" on that same cloth. He wouldn't answer any questions from Clarke and I the entire time he was doing this.

"This changes everything," he says as he hangs up the fabric on a support beam. He seems much more pleased now that we found rifles. "No more running from spears. Ready to be badasses, Princesses?"

He pops one of the nuts in his mouth with a smirk on his face. I hold out my hand and he pours a couple from the pouch into it. I shove them all into my mouth at once, discovering that they don't really taste like anything at all. I chew with distaste.

"Look," Clarke begins as she examines her gun wearily. "I'm not gonna fight you on bringing guns back to camp. I know we need them, but don't expect me to like it."

"We're lucky the rifles were packed in grease," Bellamy says. "The fact they survived means we're not sitting ducks anymore. You two need to know how to do this."

Bellamy walks around Clarke after she nods in understanding, helping us make sure we know what we're doing. Clarke aims her rifle, ducking her head down to see through the optical sight.

"So I just hold it on my shoulder?" she asks kind of awkwardly.

"Yeah," Bellamy confirms, hoisting it up a fraction of a bit more. "Just a little higher. Fallon, you alright?"

"Peachy," I respond with a bit of a smug smirk on my face. He has no idea what's coming. The gun is positioned on my shoulder just how Clarke's is, though I'm much more relaxed than she is. I can tell just by how stiff she is that she's nervous.

"Watch and learn." Bellamy stands right between us, aiming his rifle. He pulls the trigger and it merely clicks. I raise my eyebrows at him in amusement as he sheepishly reloads the weapon and tries again. Another click.

"You're great at this," I comment sarcastically with a grin on my face. Clarke chuckles at him.

"My bullets are duds," Bellamy defends as he loads his gun again with a shrug. "Try yours."

Clarke steps forward first, slowly aiming her gun the way Bellamy had shown her. Her shaking finger rests on the trigger. The bullet fires at the red fabric, ripping a burned hole about half a foot to the right of the bottom of the X. It's not a horrible shot, especially for a beginner.

"That. Was. Amazing," Clarke breathes in awe, eyes widened at her own accomplishment. She laughs in disbelief at what she did. Her eyebrows crease as she turns to Bellamy. "Am I horrible for feeling that?"

Bellamy shakes his head with a smile on his face. "Alright, Amazon. You're up."

Clarke steps back and allows me to take her place before the target. I position my rifle on my shoulder, turning my head down to look in the optical sight. The center of that aligns with the front sight to make sure I have a clear target. I release a deep breath and steady my hands before pulling the trigger and firing the gun. The bullet moves too quickly for me to see it, but there's a newly made hole in the fabric just two inches below the center of the X.

Clarke's eyes go wide as I lower the gun and turn on the safety. "Woah."

"Where'd you learn to shoot a gun?" Bellamy questions, a crease forming between his eyebrows. His gaze is locked on the bullet hole.

"I didn't," I reply and shift my weight onto my other foot. "When I was fifteen, I stole a gun from a guard."

Bellamy's eyebrows crease even further as if he's thinking back to something. He blinks once, twice, three times, then directs his line of vision to me with an astonished expression clear on his face. He makes somewhat of a choking sound. "That was you? I had to tell them I lost it while patrolling Arcadia."

I thought back to the day I had brisked past the guard, wished him a good day, and slipped the gun from his belt before he could even reply. I hadn't gotten a good look at his face, but Bellamy's recounting brought back a memory and sharpened the milky, faceless head of the man back into my brain. His features sharpened, and I saw short, dark hair brushing into coffee-colored eyes as he nodded at my greeting while I stole the gun. The guard had definitely been him.

"Wait." Clarke blinks, trying to process it. She speaks slowly and pointedly like a mother would. "You stole a gun from a guard?"

I shrug. "Yeah. I mean, I gave it back."

Bellamy chuckles and aims the rifle he took from Clarke. He barely takes any time before shooting it, the bullet ripping a third hole into the fabric to the right of the center.

"You left Miller in charge of the Grounder," Clarke says to him, clearly changing the subject. "You must trust him."

"You two should keep him close," Bellamy responds as he turns on the safety. "The others listen to him."

I remember how Miller had taunted the Grounder, smearing berries onto his face and causing the prisoner to knock him out with his own head. I'm not sure if I want to keep someone like that close to me.

However, Clarke seems to have caught on to something that I haven't. "We should keep him close? Bellamy, what's going on? You've been acting weird all day." There's a pause in which Bellamy doesn't look at her. Clarke glances at his stuffed bag, then back at him. "All the rations you took. You're gonna run. That's why you agreed to come with me. You were gonna load up on supplies and just disappear."

My body gives a jolt of surprise and my head snaps up to look at him. My eyes harden. "Bellamy, is that true?"

"I don't have a choice!" he exclaims in defense of himself. "The Ark will be here soon."

"You're going to leave Octavia?" I ask, wondering how in the world he could just take off and leave his own sister behind. There is nothing in the world he loves more than her. I'm pretty certain she's the only person he loves.

"Like you said yourself, I can't babysit her forever," Bellamy retorts. "Octavia hates me. She'll be fine."

Clarke shakes her head in disbelief. "You don't know wha--"

"I shot the Chancellor!" Bellamy yells above her voice. All three of us fall silent for a few moments. He doesn't look angry, but seems more out of it than anything, like he really doesn't think he has a chance against Jaha. I've never seen him act like this. "They're gonna kill me. Best-case scenario, they're gonna lock me up with the Grounder for the rest of my life, and there's no way in hell I'm giving Jaha the satisfaction."

"Bellamy," I say sharply, causing him to look at me. My voice is low and confident as I speak to him. "Like I said before, I'm not going to let that happen."

He sets down his rifle with a look of exasperation on his face. "Keep practicing. I need some air."

Without another word, Bellamy storms off with his bag, swiping the red fabric aside to get through. The pounding of his hurried footsteps on the stairs are all I can hear for a second except for mine and Clarke's breathing.

We share a glance of understanding. One of us needs to go after him. There's no telling what Bellamy will do, if he'll run off on his own in the increasing darkness, or if he'll stay.

"I'll go keep an eye on him," I sigh, dropping my rifle and quickly jogging after him, pushing the target aside and taking the stairs by two. A wave of dizziness comes over me and I nearly trip on the last step. With a final jump, I exit the depot and break into the fresh air.

My hand goes to my head as my vision swirls. I'm briefly reminded of when Murphy had hit me in the head with the log and how my sight had been off for days. The feeling I'm experiencing right now is similar to that, though there's no pain.

"Bellamy?" I call out, stumbling further from the door and nearly falling flat on my face several times. The uneven ground isn't helping my situation at all, for my legs don't seem to want to cooperate with what my brain is telling them to do. "Bellamy!"

I turn around in a circle, which only makes the dizzy feeling worse. My eyes squeeze shut and I groan as my stomach twists uncomfortably like a thousand tiny knives are being stabbed into it. A hand flies to my swimming head, holding onto my temple in an attempt to make the feeling go away.

"Fallon."

I stop and stand completely still. Slowly, my hand comes down from my head as I raise it. My eyes slowly open. Who I see in front of me is enough to make my heart almost come to a complete stop.

My dad.

Geoffrey Rivers looks exactly like I remember him. He has the same dark brown hair that slopes upward at the end, even with how short it is. His usually kind, black eyes are now full of resentment and fiery anger that burns them like coal. There's a light shade of stubble lining his prominent jawline. The moon washes out his bronze skin to a pale color. His towering height seems to have been amplified even more with how he's standing with his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

My father was floated when I was twelve, just three years after he had taught me to steal. He did so because we could've used some extra rations; Mom's job wasn't getting us enough. It was against the law for the Griffin family to supply us in any way. He had covered for me when I was caught, and it cost him his life. 

My body almost tips backward with shock, but I take a step back and balance myself just in time. My head spins with confusion. I'm barely able to choke out the word, "Dad?"

The grass and dead trees around him seem to ripple. His movements are jerky as he takes a step forward with that same hard look that turns his features into stone.

"How could you?" he questions, quietly at first, then he shouts so loudly that I jump in fright, "How could you!"

I shake my head, frozen in place where I stand. My veins seem to be filled with ice instead of blood. "I don't know what you're talking about, I--"

"Don't you lie to me, Fallon Rivers," my dad seethes, jabbing an accusing finger at me as he takes another step closer. "You let your greed get the best of you. How could you? You left your mother alone, and you have the nerve to come down here as well?"

"It wasn't my choice!" I squeak out desperately, tears pricking at my eyes. I can't believe this. My hands grow cold and clammy as the sky gets darker. I think my heart will burst with how quickly it's beating. "I didn't choose to go to Earth, I was picked. If I had a choice, I'd--"

"You would take it," he finishes so sharply that I feel like he has sent a punch to my gut. "You would take it because you are blinded by how selfish you are."

"Dad," I whisper, the tears filling my eyes and threatening to spill over. A hand has squeezed my heart painfully, twisting it like it's trying to detach the organ from my arteries. All the air has left my lungs. A single tear runs down my cheek.

"Do not call me that," my dad sneers, his lip curling in a snarl. "Is that a tear I see? Are you crying?"

I furiously try to wipe it away, sputtering, "N-No."

My dad laughs, a cackle that chills me to the bone as I look at him helplessly. "I always knew you were weak. We, the Rivers family, are strong. You're not my daughter."

It's that sentence that sends me over the edge. I turn and sprint as fast as I can with how disoriented I am, darting into the woods nearby and attempting not to crash into blending tree trunks. I don't know when it had gotten so dark. The only source of light I have is the moon above me in the sky.

As I run, his words echo in my head and bounce from eardrum to eardrum. You're not my daughter. My hands fly to my skull, smack my cheeks, try earnestly to get rid of the voice in my head. I'm sobbing as I stumble on my feet, desperately trying to keep running on the loose dirt.

Weak. Selfish. The names he called me torture my brain and cause me to increase my speed. My dad seems to be everywhere at once, sometimes appearing right in front of me, beside me, or by my ear. I can feel myself breaking beneath the weight of his words and my own guilt.

I have always blamed myself for his death. Now I know it's true- my own selfishness and greed had caused my parents' grief.

"You can't run," he taunts, his voice coming from no particular source. "I'll always be with you."

"Stop!" I scream as loudly as I can in order to hear myself through the hissing in my head. I take a final step--

And crash into a boy with a gun pointed right at Bellamy's face.

He lets out a grunt as I tackle him unintentionally, knocking us both to the ground. I'm momentarily stunned as the voices immediately stop as if I've snapped out of a daze. The boy takes this opportunity to slam his gun into my face and pushes me to the ground, the barrel now pointed directly between my eyes.

I waste no time in kicking him in the shins so he hits the ground hard. With pain pulsing near my eye from where he had hurt me, I get to my knees and punch him hard in the face. He hits me back with a right-hook directly to my cheek, shoving me down beside Bellamy with such force that I hit my head on the dirt.

"Put it down, Dax."

The boy whirls around with his gun aimed to shoot. Clarke stands a safe distance away from him with her own rifle pointed at him.

"Should've stayed down there, Clarke," Dax threatens lowly. "I tried not to kill you, but here you are, and Shumway said no witnesses."

Clarke directs her confused gaze to Bellamy. "What is he talking about?"

"Shumway set it up," he replies with a look of complete shock on his pale, sweating face. His eyes are wide and filled with terror, but somehow I know that it's not because of Dax. "He gave me the gun to shoot the Chancellor."

"Walk away now, and I won't kill you," Dax threatens in his gravelly voice that makes him sound like he needs to clear his throat. He's awkwardly tall with eyes that are too far from each other and short, light brown hair. I've never seen him before in my life. "I can't say the same for your other friend, here."

"Put. It. Down." Clarke speaks slowly and in her leader's voice, glaring at him from over the front sight of the rifle.

Dax shrugs indifferently. "Your choice."

Clarke pulls the trigger. Her bullet's a dud.

Dax wastes no time in firing at her. Clarke ducks behind the nearest tree just in time, safe from his shots.

"No!" Bellamy roars as he gets to his feet, tackling Dax much like I had. He scrambles around beneath Bellamy as the latter punches him repeatedly in the face. Dax sends a powerful blow to Bellamy's head, sending him flying backward a good foot.

I'm already standing before Dax is. I pick up his dropped gun and slam it into his jaw, causing his head to snap to the side. He grabs the gun from my hands and rams the barrel into the spot just below my chin, knocking my head back. His elbow connects to my stomach and he swipes his leg beneath my feet, successfully knocking me down once again.

I struggle for breath. Desperate gasps escape my lips as I try to get the air back in my lungs. Waves of pain hit me from the sore, bleeding area by my eye and beneath my chin. My neck hurts from how it had jolted back, and I can't move it without crying out in pain as it stabs at me. My knuckles are skinned slightly from punching Dax.

Bellamy struggles to get up. Dax leans over him and sends a few hits to his face as they both wrestle for the gun. Dax punches Bellamy in the nose, splattering blood and taking the gun for himself once more. He holds it at Bellamy's throat. The boy below him lets out a growl and attempts to grab it, but Dax hits him in the cheek with the rear end of the weapon.

"Get the hell off him!" Clarke shouts as she charges at him with her gun raised, but one blow to her gut sends her to the ground. Just as I'm about to get up again, Bellamy grabs the useless bullet on the ground beside him and jams it into the side of Dax's neck.

The boy lets out a strangled gasp as crimson blood drips from his mouth. I rush to a standing position and send a forceful kick to his chest, making him topple off of Bellamy and sink to the ground. His body convulses until he eventually lies still.

Bellamy pants heavily from where he still lies on the ground, eyes widened in shock from what just happened. Clarke holds her stomach and gasps in pain as she pulls herself to the base of a tree. I rush to her aid, wiping the blood from the cut by my eye and plopping down beside her.

"You okay?" I question through my labored breaths. A spike of sharp pain in my neck causes me to wince; my hand flies to the area and massages it.

Clarke grits her teeth and nods. "I think you're more beat up than I am."

Bellamy rests a hand on my knee as he rests down next to me, leaning his back against the trunk of the tree. "You're alright," I tell him, turning to face him instead of Clarke. His hand slips from my knee.

"No, I'm not," he replies as he shakes his head. "My mother... If she knew what I've done, who I am--"

"Bellamy, stop," I command strictly. "You're going to make yourself feel worse."

"Good," he says, swallowing. "I deserve it. All I do is hurt people." He shakes his head again and sniffles. He stares at the ground in front of him with a defeated expression. "I'm a monster."

A tear runs down his blood-blotched face, rendering me speechless. I never thought I'd see the day when Bellamy Blake cried.

"Hey..." Clarke trails off, adjusting her leg from beneath her. "You saved our lives today. You may be a total ass half the time, but Fallon and I need you. We all need you. None of us would've survived this place if it wasn't for you." Bellamy turns his head away as if he doesn't believe what she's saying. "You want forgiveness, fine, I'll give it to you. You're forgiven, okay? But you can't run, Bellamy. You have to come back with us. You have to face it."

"Like you faced your mom?" he questions weakly, that despondent look still in his eyes that strikes me harder than anything else could have.

Clarke chuckles at the typical response. "You're right. I don't want to face my mom. I don't want to face any of it. All I think about every day is how we're gonna keep everyone alive, but we don't have a choice."

Bellamy sniffles once more. "Jaha will kill me when he comes down."

I shake my head. "How many times do I have to tell you that I won't let that happen? You're not going to die, Bellamy. Not on my watch."

Clarke nods in agreement and settles back against the trunk of the tree with a grunt of pain. Her hands are still enclosed around her middle, making me wonder just how hard Dax had hit her.

Bellamy stares out into the night. He doesn't seem to be looking at anything in particular, but the blankness on his injured face worries me. I lean against the tree as well, shuffling to my left so I can rest my head on his shoulder. It seems like the right thing to do at that moment. Pain strikes me and I have to clench my jaw in order for it to lessen. At first he doesn't respond and only stiffens, but soon his body relaxes and I move a bit closer. A sudden leap of faith causes me to grab his hand as well. I run my thumb across his cold skin in a soothing manner, feeling the scars on his skin from our struggles on Earth. Clarke may turn to words to comfort people, but I always preferred a more physical approach.

"What's all this for?" he questions so quietly that I wouldn't have heard it had I not been so close.

"I'm really scared," I respond. "And you are, too."

Bellamy doesn't reply. He only rests his head on top of mine, but that action has a bigger impact than any words he could've spoken.

-------

now do you see why i was so excited to post this chapter? a lot happens and i hope you guys liked it!

it was fallon's turn to hold bellamy's hand and they're reSTING THEIR HEADS ON TOP OF ONE ANOTHER'S i love my ship

-kristyn