There was an intense rushing in my ears as I stood in shock, unable to grasp what has just happened. One minute we were cheering in joy, the next we were gasping in horror. 

At one point, a hand grabbed onto me and pulled me away from the rocks. Spinning around with wide eyes, I met the terrified face of my brother who was trying to drag me away from the riverbank. "Avery, we've gotta go."

I shook my head, trying to free myself from Finn's grasp. "We can't just leave him!" I argued, my eyes staying locked on Jasper who was laying on the ground across the river, moaning in pain as the spear stuck out of his chest.

"Avery, we can't stay here. We have to go." Finn said once again, this time more forcefully. He wasn't debating this issue. 

A mangled cry fell from my lips as he finally managed to tug me away from danger. As the group of us took cover behind some rocks, I looked around at the equally as scared looks that every body else wore.

"We're not alone." Clarke whispered, her eyes wide and face pale. 

I looked around at the other four, heart hammering in my chest. "We—we have to go get him." I stuttered, stumbling over my own words. 

"It's not safe." Clarke argued instantly, giving me a firm shake of her head. 

"She's right." Finn agreed with Clarke, turning his head as some noise was heard across the river, "We have to go."

The other three numbly nodded as they took off into the forest, putting more and more distance between themselves and then river. But I couldn't move. My every nerve ending was buzzing with shock, it felt like I couldn't even move by body if I wanted to. 

 "Now!" Finn yelled, gripping onto my arm. 

I looked to him with a shake of my head. "Finn—"

"Avery, if we stay here we end up like Jasper and then we're no go for anyone, okay?" Finn reasoned as he grabbed a hold of my hand, pulling me up and dragging me after him. I hated to admit it, but my brother was right. 

With my heart still rapidly pounding in my chest, we ran through the uneven ground of the forest. The only thing I could hear was my laboured breath and the loud pounding of our feet hitting the ground.

Suddenly, Finn came to an abrupt stop in front of me as Monty tripped over something, tumbling to the ground.

 "Monty come on!" Octavia rushed as her and Finn attempted to pull him off of the ground, but he was focused on something else.

My eyes followed his, landing on a set of bones. I let out a gasp as my brother noticed them too, "Who are they?"

Clarke bent over and picked up the skull, holding it up to reveal its odd shape, "What are they?"

"We're so screwed." Octavia whispered.

I opened my mouth to say something, but before anything could come out a loud pain filled scream came from the area we had just left.

"Jasper!" Clarke gasped, "He's alive." she announced, taking off back towards the river. 

Finn was already protesting as I thoughtlessly joined Clarke in her pursuit of Jasper. If he was alive, there was really no way we could just leave him. 

"Wait!" Finn demanded as he caught up to us. He grabbed onto my arm and yanked me back before lightly doing the same to Clarke. "Stay in the trees."

My eyes frantically searched the area for Jasper, but he was nowhere to be seen. The place I had last seen him was now empty.

"He was right there." Monty exclaimed, "Where is he?"

"They took him." Clarke responded with a defeated sigh. 

That was the last thing that any of us wanted to believe.

-----

"We have to be getting close." Clarke promised as we trekked back to the camp. After realizing that Jasper was taken we knew we had to get back to camp as soon as possible. The more people we had helping us, the less chance who, or whatever these things are, would come after all of us. 

I walked beside Monty who was looking down at his feet in sorrow. I couldn't imagine how he felt losing his best friend on day two in our new home.  "We'll find him." I comforted, grabbing his hand and giving it a light squeeze.

Monty gave me a sad smile, "He just had to show off and go first didn't he?"

As the words left his mouth, something clicked in my mind that made my heart clench.  Finn was supposed to go first, but Jasper jumped in. That would have been my brother laying on the other side of the river with a spear sticking out of his chest.

A wave of sadness washed over me as I looked over at my brother who was walking ahead of us with Clarke. I didn't know what I would do if I lost him. I wasn't sure I could even handle the thought. 

"Do you hear that?" Clarke asked, causing all of us to stop and listen. A loud commotion could be heard coming from where we had left the rest of the group at the DropShip. 

The group of us took off running without even so much as a discussion. We had been gone for a day, how could things have already gone so wrong? If I could hedge my bet, I was guessing that pale face Murphy kid was at the root of the problem. 

Clarke and Finn were first to the camp, Monty and I followed behind with Octavia in between us, her arms draped around our shoulders. I shifted Octavia's weight slightly as we neared the centre of camp. 

Once close enough, I could see that my guess was correct. Wells and Murphy were at each other's throats—literally— Wells had a knife held to Murphy's throat. 

"Wells!" Clarke shouted, "What are you doing? Let him go!"

At Clarke's demand Wells let Murphy go, shoving him hard to the ground, which inevitably pissed Murphy off. In seconds, he was back to his meet, lunging at Wells. 

"Hey!" Bellamy shouted, finally deciding to do something as he stepped in between the two, "Murphy! No!"

Murphy adhered to Bellamy's demands, shooting Wells one final glare before backing off. With a small smirk on his face, Bellamy turned to the group of us who had just arrived. 

The smirk instantly fell when he noticed his sister standing in between Monty and I. "O!" He gasped, taking her from us before leading her to sit down on a nearby rock. "Are you okay?"

Octavia grunted as she slowly lowered herself into a seated position. "Yeah. Great, actually."

Upon receiving the validation that his sister was okay, Bellamy turned to the rest of us, "Where's the food?"

The five of us exchanged a look, "We didn't make it to Mount Weather." Finn explained, his voice showing his exhaustion.

"What the hell happened out there?" Bellamy demanded as nervous chatter began to flutter around the group. 

"We were attacked." Clarke answered, a nervous tone to her voice.

Wells furrowed his brow. "Attacked? By what?"

"Not what" Finn started, "Who. Turns out when the last guy from the ground died on the Ark, he wasn't the last Grounder."

More quiet mutters began circulating around the camp, everyone turned to the person beside them with a mix of worry and confusion on their faces.

"It's true." Clarke validated "Everything we thought we knew about the ground is wrong. There are people here, survivors. The good news is, that means we can survive, radiation won't kill us."

"Yeah the bad news is the Grounders will." Finn added, instantly crushing any seed of hope that had just been planted in everyone's mind.

"Where's the kid with the goggles?" Wells suddenly asked.

"Jasper was hit." I announced, giving everyone a minute to register the news before speaking again, "They took him."

Clarke, who seemingly had a small attention span looked down at Wells' wrist, "Where's you wrist band?" she demanded, grabbing a hold of his arm.

Wells lightly tugged his arm back before nodding towards Bellamy, "Ask him".

All of us turned to Bellamy who tried to avoid the stares he was receiving "How many?"Clarke barked.

Murphy, who was standing just to the side of Clarke, wore a smug look on his face, "24 and counting."

"You idiots." Clarke whispered, "life support on the Ark is failing! That's why they brought us down here. They need to know that the ground is survivable again and we need their help against whoever is out there. If you take off your wrist bands you're not just killing them, you're killing us."

As everyone began to take in what Clarke said and actually consider the fact that she was right, Bellamy spoke, "We're stronger than you think. Don't listen to her, she's one of the privileged, if they come down, she'll have it good. How many of you can say the same?" Bellamy asked as murmurs went around the camp,"We can take care of ourselves. That wrist band on your arm, it makes you a prisoner. We are not prisoners anymore! They say they'll forgive your crimes. I say, you're not criminals! You're fighters, survivors, the grounders should worry about us!"

A chorus of loud cheers went around the camp as people voiced their pleasure with Bellamy's ideas.

My blood was boiling as I watched him smile in triumph, this idiot was going to get us killed. I didn't care if he was my best friend's brother, Bellamy Blake was a certified ass. 

"Don't you guys get it?" I began, causing the yelling to quiet "We need all the help we can get. You weren't out there today, you have no idea what we're up against, quite frankly neither do I. But what I do know is they—" I paused, pointing up into the sky, "—can help us. As much as we hate them for what they did to us, having some more people on our side against whatever is out there might just be what keeps us alive. So if you want to take off your wrist band, go ahead, but just think about it for a second."

As I finished speaking the whole camp was dead silent, everyone staring at me like I had two heads. I wasn't sure if it was because they finally figured out who I was or if it was because of my speech. I shifted my gaze so I was looking at Bellamy who was staring back at me with an unreadable expression.

I shook my head and turned away from the group, silently praying that Bellamy wasn't about to rebut everything I had just said.

"When did you become such a motivational speaker?" Finn teased as he caught up to me on my way to the drop ship to find Clarke who had wandered off.

I shot him a concealed smile. "I learned it from all my years of arguing with you."

He mocked surprise. "Us? Argue? Never."

Giving him a small shove, I rolled my eyes. I was glad to have my brother with me through all of this chaos. 

"You two ready?" Clarke questioned as she approached us at the entrance of the DropShip.

"I'm not going anywhere. And neither should any of you." Finn laughed as if it was obvious that he wasn't going to come. When both Clarke and I gave him puzzled expressions, he continued.  "That spear was thrown with pin point accuracy from 300 feet." 

"Are you serious?" I asked, turning to him in shock. It wasn't like him not to try and help people. 

"So what, we just let Jasper die?" Monty snapped.

"That's not going to happen." Clarke promised before turning back to Finn with a look of contempt. "Spacewalker? What a joke. You think you're such an adventurer, but you're really just a coward."

I knew I should probably step in and say something, but quite honestly I agreed with Clarke on this one.

"It's not an adventure Clarke, it's a suicide mission." Finn defended.

Clarke just shook her head as she pushed past him. I did the same, but before I could get outside my brother had my arm in his grasp, "Aves, be logical. You go out there and you die. This has bad idea written all over it."

"I'm not sure what the hell happened to you since I last saw you, but I'm pretty sure the brother I know wouldn't leave people behind and neither would I. I'm going whether you come or not."

"Avery, I'm serious, you're not going." Finn said more forcefully.

"You don't get to tell me what to do, Finn. Let go of me. Now." I ordered, pulling my arm from his grasp before following after Clarke before he tried to say anything else. 

As I caught up to Clarke and Wells, they were approaching Bellamy and Octavia, "Are you guys leaving now? I'm coming too." Octavia exclaimed, pulling down her pant leg over her wound that Bellamy was just cleaning.

"No, no way. Not again." Bellamy shot down her offer quicker than Finn runs when he sees a spider (which is very quick).

Octavia looked as if she was about to argue but Clarke stepped in, "He's right, your leg will just slow us down."

I gave Octavia a sad smile and she returned one, we both knew her not coming was in her best interest.

"I'm here for you." Clarke announced to Bellamy.

"What?" I exclaimed in shock, causing Bellamy to shoot me a dirty look.

"I hear you have a gun." Clarke continued. Bellamy tore his eyes away from me as he nodded and lifted his shirt to reveal the gun in his waistband.

I rolled my eyes as he pulled his shirt up way further than necessary. "We get it, you're ripped." I muttered, causing Wells to stifle a smile as Bellamy dropped his shirt and raised his brows at me.

"Good." Clarke commented, ignoring my remarks, her eyes still focused on Bellamy.  "Follow me."

"Why would I do that?" Bellamy asked. I was asking the same question in my head.

Clarke spun around with a challenging look on her face, "Because you want them," she said nodding towards the centre of camp, "to follow you. A right now they're thinking only one of us is scared."

Clarke turned, satisfied with her reasoning as Bellamy clearly milled over what she said, having a mental battle with himself.

Finally, he turned toward the menace himself. "Murphy, you're with me." 

Great. Bellamy and Murphy—my two favourites.

As Bellamy started barking orders at his other groupies, I turned to Octavia. "Rest your leg." I ordered with a soft smile. She nodded as she wrapped her arms around me, "Be safe."

I gave her a slight nod before running to catch up to Clarke and Wells. Bellamy and Murphy followed close behind me, their glares burning holes into the back of my head.

 This was going to be a very long walk.