“Wait!” a woman screamed, breaking free from the crowd to run toward the door. “My son is in there!”
“Stop her!” another voice bellowed. A few people rushed forward to grab the woman, but it was too late. She slipped into the airlock, but didn’t make it into the ship. When she realized what had happened, she spun around and pounded frantically on the sealed airlock door. There was another, louder beep, then silence.
Behind her, the ship detached from the Colony and started toward the blue-gray orb of Earth. Then a wave of horrified gasps rippled over the crowd.
The woman was floating past the window, her face contorted by a scream none of them could hear. Her arms and legs thrashed wildly, as if she thought she could grab the ship and pull herself back inside. Yet within a few seconds, she stopped moving, and her face turned a deep purple. Glass turned away, but not quickly enough. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a sickening glimpse of an enormous, swollen purple foot before the woman drifted from view.
Another beep sounded as the next dropship began to launch. Now only four remained. The frenzy of the crowd had reached a fever pitch, the launch deck echoing with the sounds of death and grief.
Gritting her teeth, Glass pulled her mother forward just as the sea of bodies swept them even closer to the ramp. The third dropship detached from the ship and launched. A redhead shoved past them, and it was only after she was gone that Glass realized it had been Camille. Did that mean Luke was close by? She started to cry out his name, but the shout died before it even left her throat.
“Glass,” her mother’s voice came from behind her. It felt like an eternity had passed since the last time Sonja had spoken. “We aren’t going to make it. At least, not together. You need to—”
“No!” Glass cried, seeing a break in the crowd and moving toward it. But just as she did, she saw Camille push a skinny boy off the dropship and take his place. His shocked mother’s anguished wails echoed through the deck as the doors closed with a final click.
“Move aside!” a harsh voice shouted. Glass spun around and saw a line of guards jogging down the ramp, their boots thudding in perfect unison as they escorted a handful of civilians onto the launch deck. One of them was the Vice Chancellor.
No one heeded the guard’s orders. The mass of bodies continued to push toward the remaining dropships. But the guards continued to surge forward, pushing people aside with the butts of their guns to clear a path. “Move it!”
They shoved right past Glass and Sonja, pulling their charges alongside them. As he was led past, Vice Chancellor Rhodes’s eyes settled on Sonja, and a look Glass couldn’t quite identify came over his face. He stopped, whispered something to a guard, and then motioned toward Glass’s mother.
The crowd parted as three guards stormed toward them. Before Glass had time to react, they’d grabbed her and Sonja and were herding them toward the last dropship.
The angry, violent shouts that followed sounded very far away. Glass could barely register anything but the sound of her own frantic heartbeat and the feel of her mother’s hand holding tight to hers. Were they really going to make it? Had the Vice Chancellor just saved both of their lives?
The guards pushed Glass and Sonja onto the final dropship with the Vice Chancellor. All one hundred seats were full save for three in the front. Rhodes beckoned them forward. Glass moved like someone in a dream as she seated Sonja next to the Vice Chancellor, then sat down in the last seat herself.
But Glass’s relief was tempered with a sharp, aching sadness at the thought that Luke probably wouldn’t be on Earth with her. She couldn’t be sure he wasn’t on one of the earlier dropships, but she didn’t think so. Luke would no sooner have knocked someone out of his way for a spot on the dropship than he would let a friend die for his own crime.
As the final countdown began, Sonja clutched Glass’s hand. All around them, people were crying, muttering prayers, whispering good-byes and apologies to those they were leaving behind. Rhodes was helping Sonja with her harness, and Glass began to fumble with her own.
But before her trembling hands could lock the buckle into place, a guard appeared in the door. His eyes were wide and darting madly as he held his gun in the air.
“What the hell are you doing?” Rhodes shouted. “Get off! You’ll kill us all!”
The guard fired a shot into the air, and everyone fell silent. “Now, listen up,” the guard said, looking around. “One of you is getting off this dropship, or everyone dies.” His terror-filled eyes settled on Glass, who still hadn’t managed to lock her buckle into place. He took a few steps forward and aimed the gun at her head. “You,” he spat. “Get. Off.” His arm was shaking so violently, the barrel of the gun almost scraped against Glass’s cheek.
A disembodied voice filled the pod. “One minute until departure.”
Rhodes fumbled with his harness. “Soldier!” he snapped, in his most commanding military voice. “Stand to attention!”
The guard ignored him, grabbing Glass’s arm. “Get up or I’ll shoot you. I swear to god I will.”
“Fifty-eight… fifty-seven…”
Glass froze. “No, please.” She shook her head.
“Fifty-three… fifty-two…”
The guard pressed the muzzle of the gun to her temple. “Get up or I’ll shoot everyone in here.”
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, but somehow, Glass was rising to her feet. “Bye, Mom,” she whispered, turning toward the door.
“Forty-nine… forty-eight…”
“No!” her mother screamed. Suddenly, she was at Glass’s side. “Take my seat instead.”
“No,” Glass sobbed, trying to push her mother back into her seat. “Stop, Mom!”
The man waved the gun back and forth between the two of them. “One of you better get the hell out of here, or I’ll shoot you both!”
“I will, please, hold your fire,” Glass pleaded, shoving her mom down and turning toward the door.
“Stop!” A familiar form came barreling forward, jumping onto the ship at the last minute.
Luke.
“Thirty-five… thirty-four…”
“Drop your weapon,” Luke shouted. “Just let them go.”
“Get back,” the guard spat, trying to shove Luke away. In a flash, Luke had jumped onto the man from behind, locking his arm around the man’s neck and wrestling him to the floor.
A deafening, bone-shuddering crack filled the dropship as the gun went off.
Everyone screamed. Everyone except for one person.
“Thirty… twenty-nine…”
Her mother was slumped on the floor, a dark red stain blooming on the front of her dress.
CHAPTER 27
Clarke
For the first few moments, she couldn’t remember where she was. Clarke had woken up in so many different places over the past few weeks—her cell during her final days in Confinement, the overcrowded infirmary tent where Thalia had taken her last breaths, curled next to Bellamy under a star-filled sky. She blinked and listened intently, waiting for something to come into focus. The shadowy outlines of the trees. The sound of Bellamy’s even breath.
But still there was nothing. Only darkness and silence.
She started to sit up, but winced as the small movement sent shooting pain through her head. Where was she?
Then it came back to her. She and Bellamy had wound their way deep inside Mount Weather. Those guards had come after them. And then…
“Bellamy,” she said hoarsely, ignoring the pain as she jerked her head from side to side. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, her surroundings came into focus. She was in a small, empty room. A cell. “Bellamy!” He had aimed an arrow at the guards. Could they have determined he was too much of a threat? Her stomach roiled as she remembered the guns they’d been carrying.
Something groaned a few meters away. Clarke rose onto her hands and knees and crawled toward the sound. A long, lanky figure was stretched out on the stone floor. “Bellamy,” she said again, her voice cracking as relief swept through her. She slumped back down on the ground and cradled his head in her lap.