Stay
verb
1. remain in the same place.
"i'm gonna stay with you"
2. remain in a specified state or position.
"to stay in love with you"
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Luna.
It was breathtaking. The arc was like an iron fist rising up and out of the earth, it's gleaming metal a stark contrast to the forests around it. It seemed unfathomable to me that this monstrosity could've ever been airborne, could've ever lived in space.
But it's true. And now it's here, cracked open to reveal a buzzing nest of sky people.
The guards pulled us from the treeline and into the scorching sun, into the line of fire. There were sky people crawling all over the place, moving things into place but when we approached, everyone stopped what they were doing to look at us, or more specifically me. It didn't take a genius to know that I was different to the others, that I wasn't one of them. Also the fact that the had me in chains didn't help.
I was shoved roughly forward, toward the entrance of the ship- an obvious display of power to the onlookers. It made my eyes roll but I complied all the same, I don't want them to think I'm a danger to them.
I couldn't help my curiousity as we entered the arc. It was strangely beautiful the way the metal had warped and twisted to form the high arching corrdiors. I almost was too busy admiring to notice that they were pulling Bellamy and I in different directions, down different corridors.
Panic suddenly clawed at my heart.
"Wait what? Where are you taking her?" Bellamy's voice cried out behind me and I turned to see his distressed face turned toward me too.
"That's really none of your concern, Bellamy." The leader they called Kane spoke up.
"The hell it is! Where are you taking her?" He shouted, fighting against the guards, but there were too many of them and he was too weak after what he'd been through.
"To her cell. Where she'll stay and we'll be safe." Kane barked back.
Ouch, that one stung.
"Safe? You have no idea what you're talking about! Luna!" He cried out, straining to keep me in eyesight, as the guards fought to get us around the corner.
I didn't say anything, I was smart enough to know that I needed to keep my mouth shut if they were ever going to see me as anything other than an enemy. But that didn't stop me from straining against their hold to catch a glimpse of him one last time before we rounded the corner and I was thrown into what they called my cell which was a small room off of the corridor with doors that locked with final 'clink'.
And that's where I stayed, for a very long time. I tried to hold on to time but I couldn't. I lost track after the first day or the second. I'm not sure. I just accepted the loss of time and let my mind wander- too often to Bellamy and what everything meant, our almost kiss replaying over and over in my head.
It seemed as if both years and no time at all had passed when the doors opened and Kane walked in. I was bound to the chair against the wall but he still brought two guards with him.
"Okay, grounder. I need you to answer a couple questions." He began, his words ringing with finality. It was an order.
"Bellamy has given us all the intell he can but we're still in the dark about where we stand here. We need you to shed some light." He continued, pulling up a chair.
I nodded, once, then look at him expectantly. he eyed me with a certain hesitation, a wariness before he spoke.
"Bellamy said there were hundreds of grounders that attacked. Two? Three?" He began.
"I don't know. I wasn't part of the attack." I told him, and they all started at my voice, as if they weren't expecting it to come. "From what I could see, two but close to three. They wouldn't have come with any less."
Kane nodded, his brow scrunched in thought.
"You were captured in the first couple of days after landing, weren't you?" He asked and I nodded grimly. I shouldn't have been, it was my own people too desperate to spill blood that caused me to be taken.
"Were you alone?" He prompted and I shook my head again.
"No, I was part of the scout team." I replied.
He cocked his head, "scout team?" he echoed.
"A group of bout five, no more than ten who scout the enemies location and report back the details to the commander in order to gain the upper hand. That way we know what er're dealing with in battle."
It was the truth but as soon as the words left my lips I wanted to take them back. Kane's eyes hardened at the word battle.
"So the attack was inevitable? You had already decided death was the only way to move forward even before seeing them?" He barked, his gaze hot and demanding.
My cheeks burned. "Yes." I said quietly.
"Why?" He shouted.
"Grounders are territorial even among their own people, but sky people? When we saw the dropship come down there was an uproar, people were furious at the idea of giving away precious land to you after you deserted earth in the first place. They belived there was no way we could move forward together, in peace." I told the truth.
Kane scowled.
"That's enough. I've heard enough."He spat and got up to leave, but I wasn't finished. There was more I had to say and the words bubbled up inside of me.
"But we were wrong!" I cried and he stopped in his tracks.
"I know that now. I didn't before but I do now. If I wasn't captured, that would've been me leading the attack but after seeing all that I have, couldn't." I couldn't stop the words now once they had started they couldn't stop.
"Peace is not only possible but it's paramount! For weeks I have watched your people and I have fallen in love with them. I believe in the hundred, I believe in the sky people!"
He didn't turn around, but his head tilted slightly toward me. Then he was gone again, moving out of the cell and letting the doors shut behind him.
I let out a long breath, slumping back against the wall. I needed to say that, they needed to know I wasn't a threat. I would say it over and over if that's what it would take to get me back to Bellamy.
Suddenly an air-piercing scream, filtered through the cracked skylight and I knew that voice, that scream. I had heard it before.
Raven.
I pressed the palms of my hands into my temples, shut my eyes and tried to block it out. I wanted to kick and scream at the door but I wouldn't allow myself that luxury. It would only get me killed.
All I could do was wait and wait I did.
But I could never have expected who could've walked through those doors next.
Finn and Murphy and the two kids I met in the woods and Bellamy.
He pushed through the others and rushed towards me, his dark eyes searching my entire body for new wounds.
"What's going on?" I breathed and he responded by cutting through the cables that held me and crouched in front of me.
Hi slips curved into one of those rare lopsided smiles I loved so much.
"We're going rogue." He told me and I smiled back at him.
He helped me to my feet, his touch searing hot through the thin fabric of my top.
"I can't just sit on my ass while our people are still out there, god knows where." Finn continued and I could hear the words he wasn't saying; "while Clarke was still out there'.
"Are you sure you want to take me? They're gonna notice eventually and after this they may never trust me." I asked and Bellamy shook his head.
"They're not gonna trust any of us after this, you're coming." He dismissed me immediately and I felt warm.
"Okay then." I bounced on the balls of my feet suddenly excited, rearing to get back out there.
It was dark out by the time we emerged from the ship and after a ling hard days work securing the camp, there weren't many people still out.
We easily slipped past, out into the forest and I could just feel my body relax as the forest enveloped us.
"I don't think anyone saw us," Bellamy whispered under his breath but Finn was still way too stressed and shushed him sharply.
and he was right to because we'd barely gotten three meters into the forest when white light captured us, shining into our eyes.
Panic ripped through me, we were so fucked or more accurately I was so fucked. They'll kill me for this. But then the flashlights lowered and the guard wasn't alone, Abbey was there too.
"You're late." She stated.
"Bellamy decided to bring friends." Finn deadpanned.
"He's the only one that's been in their camp." Bellamy sighed and Abbeys eyes then turned to me.
She didn't look at me the way kane did but rather with a clinical gaze, a doctor's gaze. Bellamy stepped closer to me, grazing a hand over my arm.
"She's the best tracker I've ever seen." He said gruffly and Abbey nodded.
The flashlight moved again, shining on a gun that she then passed to Finn, along with a second one and then a third.
The guard reached over and handed a larger gun to Bellamy, "Find my son. His name is Nathan Miller." He said and a wave of shock went through me and I could see through bellamy aswell. Miller.
Abbey looked at me again and then motioned to the guard who took two long knives out of his holster and passed them to me.
My mouth parted in sutprise but I took them gratefully. I had always been more of a dagger girl and was lethal at throwing them so I was thankful tucking them into my boots.
Abbeys eyes moved across us all.
"Bring them home." She said.
In the darkness, Bellamy's hand found mine.
And then we moved.
~~~
We moved through the night, never stopping, never tiring. Murphy and I painstakingly worked together- him describing the camp he'd been taken to and me working out how to get there.
I set us on course and after that it was just the time it took to get us there.
Finn took point, focused intently on getting us there and the two kids who's names I found out were Montgomery and Stirling kept a close watch on Murphy and I pulled up the rear, Bellamy falling into step with me.
"He didn't hurt you, did he?" He whispered to me after a while.
"What?" I asked.
"Kane. He didn't hurt you did he? In the interrogation? Because if he did I swear to god-" He continued, his voice rough and angry but I cut him off, placing a hand on his arm.
"Bellamy." I called his name, and afterwards was angry with how much of a sigh it sounded like.
"I'm okay. He didn't hurt me." I told him and I felt him relax.
"Okay." He murmurred and in the halflight I could see him looking at me, his eyes and endless abyss. Even if I couldn't see, I would feel it, the heat washing over me as it always did.
Then I was angry at myself again. I took my hand off of his arm and wanted to throttle myself with it.
I have never in my life, felt what I'm feeling and acted the way I'm acting.
There have been others, of course but not like this. My people have a physicality about them that expands across our relationships.
We don't like each other, we fight.
We like each other, we fuck.
It's the way it's always been. Physical. And that's never changed...
until now. Sky people were so different in the way they related to each other because they are rued by their emotions. They consider every action in the way it makes others feel an that's why they seem so alien to us.
I suppose you could say, after the wars were over and the radiation subsided and the sky people fled to the sky, we lost some of our humanity.
Just surviving became a battle and we forgot what it meant to live. perhaps that's why I've come to feel for the sky people so much, because they remind me that there's more to life than just surviving.
Bellamy reminds me that there's more in life than just surviving.
And it's terrifying. It's utterly terrifying because I'm standing in this forest feeling so intensely for this boy who has the power to shatter me.
It makes me want to stop everything and go, to disappear into the woods so he doesn't have the power to hurt me anymore.
But I don't.
I stay.
I stay because leaving would hurt more.
~~~
AUTHORS NOTE
Whats up? It's ya girl who disappeared for an eternity but great news everyone I'm back for good!!
I learnt the hard way expecting yourself to write two books at the same time was unrealistic and it didn't work! But I have finished my other book and can now throw myself completely into writing this one!
THANKS FOR STICKING AROUND IF YOU'RE STILL READING YOU'RE THE BEST AND I LOVE YOU.
Don't forget to vote and comment what you think about the new chapter!! It means the world to me!!
*big loves*
-J xx