IVY GROANED AS HE LEFT, KNOWING THAT SHE HAD UPSET HIM. Clarke had wandered off somewhere, leaving her alone. She saw a ledge of wood behind her, and she moved to sit on it to rest. Once she landed on the seat, however, she was shocked when she bounced slightly.
She looked down to see that she was sitting on a white bed. She looked around in confusion and realized that she was in a room. It looked familiar, and it took her a moment before she realized that it was her room on the Ark, the one she and her father lived in before she was arrested. A deep voice startled her, and she jumped to her feet. "Ivory! Where is my lunch?"
"Coming, Father," said a voice, and Ivy whipped around to see a much younger version of herself, around 12 or 13 years old, carrying a tray toward her father's chair, where he sat, reading a book. She placed the tray onto the table in front of him. The Bishop girl remembered that moment. It was about two months after her mother died.
"What is this?" the man spat out once he took a bite of the food. He seemed like he was struggling to swallow it. Before the young girl could ask what he meant, he stood up and faced her, his face turning red with anger. "What the hell is this? You do realize we only get so many rations a week, right? And you waste it on this awful food, you ungrateful little bitch."
Young Ivy looked absolutely terrified. He backed up slightly as her head fell to her chest, not wanting to meet his eye. "I'm sorry, Father."
"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" he snapped, and his hand collided with her face, causing a loud smack to echo throughout the room. The small, redheaded girl looked up at her father in utter terror. He had never hit her before. He had yelled, grunted, and banged on the table, but he had yet to lay a hand on her. Until then.
The older version of the girl felt tears forming in her eyes, remembering the fear that coursed through her veins that had slowly turned into anger throughout the years of enduring his abuse. Her hands curled into fists, wanting to defend her younger self, wanting to hold her and tell her that it was all going to be okay.
The sound of a gunshot ringing made Ivy whip around again. Somewhere, in the blur of movement, the scene changed again. She was back in the depot, and she was standing up. She heard some yelling coming from above her, and she quickly made her way up the stairs and back to the surface.
She froze when the saw the barrel of a gun pointed right at her. One of the 100 — she believed his name was Dax — was pointing a gun at her while Bellamy and Clarke stood a couple of yards away. Clarke told him, "Put it down, Dax."
"Should've stayed down there, Clarke, Ivy," Dax informed them, and the gun shifted to face Bellamy. "I tried not to kill you two, but here you are, and Shumway said no witnesses."
"What is he talking about, Bellamy?" the Bishop girl asked, and she was still so confused. What witnesses? What the hell was happening? She judged that Bellamy was the target, based on what Dax said and how his gun was pointed straight at the man.
Bellamy sighed, running a hand through his hair like he was about to say something that he really did not want to reveal as he answered, "Shumway set it up. He gave me the gun to shoot the Chancellor."
"Walk away now, and I won't kill you," Dax told Clarke and Ivy, gesturing for them to get a move on. He raised his eyebrows in a way that told them that if they told anyone about what was happening, then there would be consequences.
Neither of the girls budged. What kind of person would just leave someone to die? Especially when that person was kind of essential to the survival of their community. "Put it down."
"Your choice," he sighed, and CLarke lifted her gun and pulled the trigger. Unfortunately for them, her gun misfired, but Dax's did not. They all dove out of the way as he fired a couple of rounds.
Ivy lunged at the boy while Clarke hid behind a tree to reload and Bellamy covered her. She grabbed the gun and tried to get it away from him, but that just ended up pulling him towards her, which kind of worked since he stumbled and she was able to sweep her leg under his foot. He fell to the ground and hit his head, and he released the weapon. She turned around, ready to throw the gun to Clarke when Bellamy yelled, "Ivy, watch out!"
Ivy did not have a second to think before an arm grabbed her shoulder, spinning her around. Dax's fist collided with her face and she stumbled backward before tripping on a rock and falling. A sharp pain shot through her side as it collided with the hard ground. She groaned as she looked up to see Dax stalking toward her.
She was ready to fight for her life until Bellamy came up behind him with the bullet that he had shot earlier. The Blake boy plunged the bullet into Dax's neck, and the boy coughed and sputtered, grabbing his throat until he fell to the ground, dead. Clarke grabbed Ivy by her arms and dragged her all the way to the tree where she had been hiding to reload her gun that never worked.
"Are you okay?" the Griffin girl asked the blonde girl, and Ivy just answered by lifting up her shirt to reveal a dark purple bruise forming all down her side and about halfway across her stomach. There were cuts along it too, and blood was dripping down toward the waistband of her pants. Her shirt was already stained red. "Ooh, that doesn't look good. I'll look at it more when we get back to camp and bandage it up."
Bellamy took a deep breath, staring blankly at the ground after he made sure that the Bishop girl was going to be okay. He felt guilty for what happened to her since Dax had been trying to kill him. "My mother...she knew what I've done, who I am. She raised me to be better, to be good."
"Bellamy—" Clarke started.
He cut her off with a shake of his head as he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. "And all I do is hurt people. I'm a monster."
"Hey..." Ivy started, wincing as she turned to face him. She hesitantly put her hand over his. He seemed shocked by the gesture, but he did not move away from her. "You have saved my life today. You may be a total ass half the time, but I need you. We all need you. None of us would've survived this place if it wasn't for you."
"You want forgiveness, fine, we'll give it to you. You're forgiven, okay, but you can't run. You have to come back with us. You have to face it," Clarke informed him after he shot the redheaded girl a grateful look.
Bellamy scoffed, "Like you faced your mom?"
"You're right. I don't want to face my mom. I don't want to face any of it," the Griffin girl admitted, leaning back on the trunk of the tree next to Ivy. "All I think about every day is who we're gonna keep everyone alive, but we don't have a choice."
"Jaha will kill me when he comes down," the boy pointed out. The people on the Ark, especially the people in power, were not known for being very forgiving. You commit a crime, no matter how big or small it is, and you get executed, or floated. No trial, nothing. Or, if you're a minor, you go to prison until you're eighteen, and then you get floated.
The Bishop girl removed her hand from the man's, allowing it to fall to the ground as the picked blades of grass from the dirt mindlessly. "We'll figure something out."
"Can we figure it out later?" he asked, and none of them moved to get up, even though they should probably get back to camp. Ivy wasn't sure if she should tell them about her hallucination because that would mean telling them what it was about, and she would rather not even think about that.
Clarke nodded in response to Bellamy. "Whenever you're ready."
"Let the grounders come," the Blake boy announced when they got back to the camp, holding up the guns as everyone cheered. "We've been afraid of them for far too long, and why? Because of their knives and spears. I don't know about you. I'm tired of being afraid."
"These are weapons, ok, not toys, and we have to be prepared to give them up to the guard when the dropships come, but until then, they're gonna help keep us safe," Clarke explained to the group, warning them that if they wasted ammunition or used the weapons for bad intentions then there would be consequences.
Bellamy added, "And there are plenty more where these came from. Tomorrow we start training, and if the grounders come, we're gonna be ready to fight." Everyone cheered, and the three that had gone on the trip retreated to Clarke's tent to speak to Jaha.
"Mr. Blake, I've wanted to talk to you for some time now," he spoke up, and Ivy's eyes widened when she saw the screen. She had heard that they had gotten the video call to work, but this was crazy. She had not seen anyone over the age of twenty-five in what felt like forever.
"Before you do, I'd like to say something. When you sent us down here, you sent us to die, but miraculously, most of us are still alive," Clarke informed the Chancellor. She knew that he would listen to her if anyone because of who her parents were. "In large part, that is because of him, because of Bellamy. He's one of us, and he deserves to be pardoned of his crimes just like the rest of us."
Jaha seemed confused, wondering if she remembered how they did things on the Ark. "Clarke, I appreciate your point of view, but it's not that simple."
"It is if you want to know who on The Ark wants you dead," the Blake boy offered, knowing that Jaha would not be able to refuse that offer. The man froze, and he seemed very intrigued. He thought about it for a minute before speaking up.
"Bellamy Blake, you're pardoned for your crimes," he said, and Bellamy smiled, glad that their plan had worked. "Now, tell me who gave you the gun."
Ivy was in Clarke's tent once again about an hour later, but this time, she was sitting next to Enzo in front of the screen, waiting for someone to pop up. Finally someone stepped into the frame and sat down on the chair, and her eyes widened when she saw the boy in front of her. Enzo laughed out in disbelief, "Mom?"
"Oh, my God, honey. You're alive," Luisa Escobar breathed out, and it looked like she was grabbing the screen. It reminded Ivy of all of the times she came to visit and had to look through the glass at her son. It was sad, really, that she had not touched her son in a little less than a year.
The redheaded girl lifted her hand up and gave a small wave, not sure if she should interrupt their moment or not. "Hello, Ms. Escobar."
"Ivy, how lovely to see you," the woman greeted happily, a huge grin appearing on her face at the sight of the girl. She was glad that her son was not down there with no friends, and she knew that the girl next to him would make sure he was okay and that no one gave him any crap. "Are both of you okay?"
"Yeah, we're fine, Mom. It's amazing down here," Enzo told her. He was still in shock about the fact that they were on Earth, feeling soil and trees and real, fresh air.
Luisa chuckled at her son's excitement, and tears came to her eyes when she realized she missed him more than she thought she did. "I can't wait to see you again. They're working on a way to get us down there."
"Hey, I'm gonna head out," Ivy muttered to her friend, patting him on the shoulder. She stood up and offered a final wave to the woman. "It was nice to see you, Ms. Escobar."
"It was great to see you too, Ivy, and please, call me Luisa," she told the girl, and Ivy smiled at her one last time before opening the flap of the tent and stepping out.
The whole camp was quiet for the most part, and because of the time, most people were asleep or laying down. She furrowed her eyebrows when she saw a familiar figure sitting on a rock on the outskirts of their boundaries. He looked up when she walked over and said, "Well, if it isn't the free man. How does it feel?"
"It feels like a lot of weight has been lifted off my shoulders," Bellamy answered, and she took a seat next to him on the rock. He gestured to her side where the huge bruise and cuts had been before. She was not wincing as she walked over there, so that was a pretty good sign. "How's your wound doing?"
"Amazing. Clarke put some medicine that the Ark sent down with Raven on it, and I can barely feel it," she answered, and he was relieved that she was not in a lot of pain.
He nodded, and that sat in silence before he looked up at her with an apologetic look, hoping that she did not hate him for getting her injured. "I'm really sorry about that."
"Why?" she asked, confused. It was not like he made Dax punch her and slam her side into a rock. He did that on his own. "It wasn't you that threw me into the rocks."
"Yeah, but he was trying to kill me," he reminded her, and he looked back down at the ground. She realized that he was feeling guilty for her injury, even though it was not really his fault, even though he was kind of in the middle of it.
She sighed. "Hey, look at me." He looked. "It wasn't your fault that Dax was there. Yeah, maybe you shot the Chancellor, but Shumway sent him to kill you. So, it wasn't really your fault. Plus, you saved my life. If it wasn't for you, I would probably be just another body that you guys steal clothes off of."
"Thanks," he responded, and she nodded. They fell into a comfortable silence as they listened to the sounds of nature around them. Bellamy looked over at the girl a couple of times, and he wondered what she had seen when everyone hallucinated. He wondered what happened in her past that haunted her. He wondered a lot about her.