CHAPTER FIFTY
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IF THE MOUNTAIN WAS LOOMING with an army of thousands behind her, it was certainly threatening with her and Clarke standing alone.
There was no plan, no idea what to do next. Clarke and Taylor ran through the mines, hoping maybe they could get in somehow through the back. That was where everyone was supposed to be rescued to begin with, anyway.
It felt ironic, running back in when they had done so much to get out.
As they turned the corner, Octavia was there, ready with her sword. She lowered it when she saw the two come to a halt in front of her.
"Octavia, you stayed," Clarke said breathlessly. Octavia turned around to the door that she had been waiting at and shook her head.
"Screw you," she snapped. She whipped around and faced Clarke angrily. "Of course I stayed. I know where my loyalties lie."
"We have to get in there," Clarke rushed out, ignoring Octavia's small outburst and making her way to the door. Octavia grabbed her arm and stopped her in her tracks.
"If that was possible you think I'd still be out here?" Octavia pointed out, making Clarke look at one of the carts that the bodies were disposed in. Taylor stepped forward and covered her mouth.
"Fox. Lana," she whispered, tears threatening to fall at the sight of their lifeless forms, discarded to the bottom of a minecart like nothing.
"Why did Lexa sound the retreat?" Octavia demanded, looking between the two of them.
"Lexa screwed us over," Taylor responded immediately, following Clarke on her way over to the door.
"She made a deal with Mount Weather," Clarke elaborated, the wound still very fresh. "Freed the Grounders. Now we're on our own."
Taylor tightened her grip on her gun and stood behind Clarke as she started banging on the door violently.
"Stop! They'll know we're here!" Octavia objected, pulling Clarke away from the door. "What about Lincoln? There's no way he would've gone along with a plan like this."
Clarke was breathing heavier and she looked away from Octavia, Taylor, and the door. "He didn't," Clarke explained. "They took him."
Taylor looked over every inch of the door and desperately tried to think of a way they could get in. Clarke aimed her gun at the keypad and Octavia pushed her arm down roughly.
"What's wrong with you?" she demanded.
"I am getting through that door!" Clarke shouted, staring Octavia down directly now.
"And that's your plan? Bellamy's counting on you. Everyone's always counting on you!" Octavia rebuked, looking at Clarke in disgust.
"What do you want from me?" Clarke yelled, the pressure finally cracking her.
"Trusting Lexa. You let a bomb drop on Tondc! I bet you didn't know about that one, did you Taylor? You let all those people die," Octavia fired off. Taylor stood and watched Octavia in shock.
"I am doing the best I can!" Clarke said loudly, tears brimming in her eyes once more.
"Well it's not good enough," Octavia snapped, quieter now.
"Octavia, stop! I did know about the bomb but is that helping us now? No! Just because you're a Grounder now doesn't mean that we aren't trying our damndest to get those people out!" Taylor interjected, getting louder as she went on. "Clarke has done more than anyone has, you have no right to say all this wasn't trying hard enough."
Octavia was at a loss for words, both of them facing Taylor whose back was to the door. There was a sudden electronic click and everyone's weapons were out.
Taylor whipped around and found that she was pointing her gun at Bellamy. Bellamy. Octavia rushed forward and enveloped him in a hug and Taylor watched on in shock.
Jasper and Monty weren't far behind him, and it felt like even longer since she'd seen them.
The moment Octavia let go of Bellamy, he stepped forward and Taylor hugged him harder than she had probably ever hugged anyone in her life.
"I'm so glad you're alive. Thank you for not dying," she whispered, tears forming in her eyes.
"Hey, you didn't do such a bad job yourself," he let out and she smiled, pulling away and letting out a breath she didn't know she was holding.
He moved forward to speak with Clarke and Taylor rushed forward to envelop Monty and Jasper in their own bone crushing hugs.
"Long time no see," she said, eliciting smiles from both of them.
"A little too long, I'd say," Monty commented with a minimal laugh.
Octavia started backing up at the sight of two other faces, one of which was in a hazmat suit.
"It's okay, they're with us," Jasper assured.
"Maya," Taylor recognized, eyes flitting to the two other people. "Leo. Thank you. Thank you both."
Jasper and Monty pushed forward to hug Clarke, but were interrupted by the sound of Maya's suit beeping.
"Thirty minutes," Jasper read. He leaned back up to face her, confused. "We just changed it, that can't be right. Um, this is her last tank."
"We'll find you another one," Clarke assured, stepping forward until she was in front of Maya.
"All of the oxygen is on Level Five," Maya explained, shaking her head.
"Then we have to get you to Level Five," Jasper decided, the desperate tone in his voice evident.
"Level Five isn't safe for any of us," Maya denied.
"We'll take the trash chute again, it'll work," he maintained, looking her up and down in worry.
"Maybe to get in, but Maya's right, every soldier in this mountain is there," Bellamy said, Taylor gathering that their cut of power had centralized everyone to one place. "We'll never make it out."
"We can do this," Jasper persisted. Taylor sort of believed him. She'd never seen him so sure of something. "We'll split up."
"Wait," Clarke said suddenly. "Why doesn't Leo have a suit?"
"They made me take the treatment. They weren't sure the marrow would work, so if I died it wouldn't matter. But it did work," he explained quickly, guilt plaguing his every word.
"That's not important right now," Octavia diverted, looking around at everyone. She looked at Taylor, Bellamy, and Monty. "You guys go for Dante. We'll help Maya."
Everyone nodded along and shuffled back into the door from the mines. The door shut behind them with a loud clang.
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His room was unguarded when they arrived. Clearly, the Mountain Men were confident they had won. Taylor stepped into the sheer white room, much like the one she woke up in when she first arrived.
Dante Wallace sat on the bed, looking at a wall. He turned when he heard their footsteps, standing up fully at the sight of them.
"Hello, Clarke," he greeted, catching sight of Taylor and adding, "Taylor."
"Sir, we need your help again," Bellamy told him.
"It's okay, I took out the camera from the junction box from the hall. We can talk freely," Monty explained.
"No one's watching anyway. Thanks to you, they're all on Level Five."
"You're not," Clarke pointed out, looking at him suspiciously.
"No, I'm not," he confirmed.
"Please, we don't have much time," Bellamy interrupted. "We need a way to get our people out of this mountain without killing everyone."
"How are we going to get help from him if he took the treatment?" Taylor voiced, the questioning bobbing around in her mind ever since they had entered the room.
"He's not gonna help us," Clarke agreed, regarding the man with a cold stare.
"You cut the power, risking the lives of everyone in this mountain. My people. Even the ones who helped you," he justified, having the audacity to look at them in disgust. Clarke, having little time for this sort of talk, stepped forward to get in his face.
"We knew they'd be safe on Level Five," she shot back. "We made sure not to destroy the turbines so you could repair them. We're the good guys here, not you!"
"Tell me, if we released your people and theirs, what would've happened to mine?" Dante questioned, arching an eyebrow as if he had defeated them with that somehow.
Taylor simply just couldn't find enough sympathy for him.
"Can you get us into the command center?" Clarke asked Monty, fully disregarding Dante. "We need to see what's happening on Level Five."
"No problem," Monty confirmed with a short nod.
"Come on," Bellamy told Dante, grabbing him by the shoulder and yanking him to the door. "You're helping us whether you like it or not."
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They rounded the corner on their guard, all guns out. "I told you there's no one here," Dante repeated as soon as they were greeted with nothing.
"Sorry if we don't take your word for it," Bellamy replied, glancing behind him with precaution.
"Why aren't you with your people on Level Five?" Clarke asked.
"After what I've done, they can be free, I can't," he explained with little hesitation. "Deliverance comes at a cost. I bear it so they don't have to."
They stopped at the door to the command center, Monty beginning his work on the door fervently.
"It wasn't Cage," Bellamy suddenly realized, looking up at Dante with furrowed brows. "It was your idea to make the deal with the Grounders."
Dante nodded wordlessly and Taylor tried to suppress the burning anger that was building up inside of her at the confession.
The door clicked and Monty announced, "We're in."
Bellamy led them in with his gun raised. Taylor didn't hear what he said next as she followed last behind Monty — a gunshot from the other end of the hall rang out.
Before she could make another move she felt a burning pain in her leg and clutched it, blood running down to her ankle. She raised her gun and aimed it at the guard as he approached and pulled the trigger with little hesitation. He fell to the ground, his stomach blossoming with blood.
She pulled the trigger again and dipped into the room, everyone already inside and looking concerned. Clarke closed the door and locked it securely and Taylor looked down at her leg.
"Are you okay?" Bellamy asked, approaching her as she sat down on a chair.
"I'm fine, we need to figure this out first. It only grazed me. No big deal," she played down, as Monty typed away on the keyboard. The man fell to the ground, blood pooling around him, over and over again in her mind.
All of the screens came to life and attention was immediately drawn to what they saw.
In a room, their people were chained to the walls with one central table being where they performed the procedure.
"Is that Raven?" Bellamy asked, his gun now pointed at Dante lest he try anything on them.
"Mom?" Clarke asked in horror, seeing that her mom and Kane were both there despite never even having marched on the mountain. And Taylor saw something even more horrifying. Her own mother was there, right beside Abby and Kane.
"No, how did that happen?! They weren't even with us," Taylor said, shaking her head and looking at Dante expectantly.
"Tell them to stop, now!" Bellamy ordered, grabbing a radio from a charging station and holding it out to Dante.
Clarke looked at the footage for the other parts of Level Five and grabbed the radio herself.
"Carl Emerson, Mount Weather security detail, come in," she hissed into the radio, watching as he picked it up on the screen.
"Who is this?" he asked.
"You know who it is," Clarke responded powerfully. There was pause. She took her chance. "Give the radio to the president."
"They're moving," Bellamy pointed out as they watched both Emerson and Cage move out into the hall.
"I'm pulling it up on the main monitor," Monty said, finishing his typing with flourish as the video feed came up on the biggest screen.
"This is President Wallace," Cage confirmed as they watched him bring the radio to his lips.
"I have your father," Clarke informed, cutting directly to the chase. "If you don't let my people go, I'll kill him."
They were truly grasping at straws now, but Taylor didn't object to her threat. There was no other choice. And if it worked, then nobody had to die.
"How do I know you have him?" Cage asked, unbelieving of her threat. Clarke held the radio out for Dante and he pressed the button while it was in her hands.
"Stay the course, Cage," he encouraged, but on the screen it looked as though it had definitely affected him.
"You won't do it," he called out, trying to get Clarke to fumble on her bluff. Except with everything at stake, it was no bluff.
"You don't know me very well," she told him, and his hands on the radio shook uneasily. "This ends now. Release my people."
"I can't do that."
"It would mean the end of our people, Clarke," Dante furthered. Clarke had paced to near the back of the room, and turned around, her gun pointed at Dante.
Bellamy immediately moved to the side and Monty and Taylor stood up, suddenly hyper aware of what was about to happen.
"Clarke, we need him," Bellamy reasoned, looking between her and the man she was about to shoot.
"And I need his son to believe me," she countered, feeling shifting back and forth in hesitancy. She raised the radio to her lips again. "Don't make me do this."
"Dad," Cage started, looking directly into the camera now. "I'll take care of our people."
Dante's eyes were wide but he turned away from the camera and shook his head. "None of us has a choice here, Clarke," he said, still maintaining his previous statements. Though, nothing he said now could save his life.
"I didn't want this," she told him.
"Neither did I," he said. Those were the last words he said before she pulled the trigger and Dante leaned over in pain, a bullet in his chest.
Clarke's finger was pressed over the radio button, ensuring that Cage heard all of it. Her eyes were tearful as he fell to the ground, his groans of pain the only sound in the room.
"Listen to me very carefully. I will not stop until my people are free. If you don't let them go, I will irradiate Level Five," she threatened. Cage was now relying on a wall for support, leaned over and speechless. "Cage, listen to me. I don't want anyone else to die. Stop the drilling and we can talk. There must be a way to get us all out of this."
"Clarke," Taylor struggled, limping over in her direction.
"Emerson's coming for us," she warned, looking at the screen as Emerson headed out of the frame.
"They deactivated my keycard. Can you do that to his?" Bellamy suggested quickly. Monty nodded and started typing again when Bellamy noticed something else on the screen. "Where's he going?"
Cage was moving back toward the main dining hall, visibly shaken but pulling it together. On the other monitor, he walked through the doors to the dorm.
"Clarke, he won't stop," Taylor trembled, watching as he entered the room. "Just like we won't stop to get our people, he won't pass up the chance to save his. It won't end. The time for talking is over."
"Can you do it, Monty?" Clarke asked quickly, desperately. "Irradiate the level?"
"Hold on a second, Clarke. There are kids in there. People who helped us," Bellamy objected, looking over at her incredulously.
"I know. Please give me a better idea," she begged, her voice raw with emotion.
"They're not going to stop, Bellamy," Taylor repeated, gesturing to the screens where Raven screamed as they drilled into her.
Suddenly, they took Raven off of the table and replaced her with Abby, Elara and Kane visibly screaming at the development.
"What have I done?" Clarke whispered in horror, tears gathering in her eyes.
Taylor could feel her own tears streaming down her cheeks. She couldn't face anyone in that room being put on that table. It had to end.
"If we do this, there is no going back," Bellamy warned as they watched the screens. Taylor looked down at the floor and shook her head, wishing she didn't agree.
"Figure it out," Clarke told Monty, voice wavering slightly.
"Now what?" Bellamy wondered aloud, attention on another screen as two young teenagers ran in fear down a hall.
Octavia was hot on their tails, throwing a machete into the chest of one guard once she turned the corner and ripping it out to slit the throat of another.
On the edge of the screen, three times as many guards appeared and Bellamy shook his head. "They gotta get out of there."
Monty continued to work on the irradiation and a boom at the door signaled Emerson's arrival. He could be seen on the camera kicking at it from the outside.
"Jasper, they caught him," Monty announced as they watched him get escorted into the dorm by a guard.
Octavia, Maya, and Leo had made their way into the mess hall, where guards cornering them on either side in the middle of everyone.
"Why are you stopping?" Clarke demanded once Monty's typing ceased.
"Because I did it," he replied. "All you have to do, is pull this." He pointed at a lever on one of the control panels.
Everything was unraveling, screen by screen. It was either they did this, or all their people died.
"Vents will open and scrubbers will reverse, pulling in outside air," he explained quickly.
"He's gonna blow the door," Bellamy said, pointing his gun at said door.
"Clarke! We're out of time!" Monty warned and she immediately put her hand over the lever.
Hesitating, she glanced up at the monitor that showed the dorms, where Abby was still being drilled and all of their friends were still chained up.
"You're not doing this alone," Taylor whispered, placing her hand over Clarke's on the lever. Clarke nodded at her, both of their tearful eyes meeting.
Bellamy's eyes were glued to the screen where Octavia was being pinned down by several guards.
"My sister, my responsibility," he said quietly, the same mantra he had echoed for years.
"I have to save them," Clarke whimpered, trying to justify herself. Bellamy put his hand on top of Taylor's on the lever.
"Together."
And they were all pulling it back. The results were nearly instant. A steady beep echoed through the room and Monty typed furiously.
But all over the cameras, the Mountain Men began to fall, red welts appearing all over their bodies as they screamed in pain. Innocent people in the dining hall fell and there was little movement left on every camera.
Outside, Emerson realized what had happened and abandoned his efforts to get in. Yellow emergency lights flickered everywhere.
"Let's go get our people."
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It was a massacre. Taylor limped beside Clarke and Bellamy, Monty close behind as they arrived in the mess hall. People were slumped over their seats or fallen on the floor. Everyone was already dead in a matter of minutes.
"What have we done?" Taylor mumbled, tears in her eyes at the sight. They all walked forward through the bodies to find Jasper and Leo crouched at Maya's side.
Her face was burned nearly beyond recognition and Jasper's face was wet with tears as he asked, "What did you do?"
Leo sobbed violently beside him, unable to say a word.
"We had no choice," Clarke said, her voice quiet and broken.
"I was gonna kill Cage...if — if you had just given me one more minute, it would've been over!" he cried out, voice trembling over his words. Taylor could barely look at him, knowing what they'd done.
"Jasper, they never would have stopped," Bellamy explained, glancing over at Taylor with a nod, repeating her words from earlier.
"We have to go to the dorm," Clarke told them, and Taylor and Bellamy followed her past Jasper and Leo with Maya. Monty lagged behind, but for what Taylor could only assume was speaking with Jasper.
More dead bodies greeted them at the dorm, but so did their people getting released and hugging their loved ones.
"Taylor!" her mother called out at her arrival. Taylor limped over as fast as her leg would allow and met her mother in the middle, embracing her tightly.
Elara smiled at her once she pulled away and put a hand on the side of her face. "I'm sorry about everything," she apologized tearfully.
She pulled her into another hug and watched over her shoulder as everyone reunited. Clarke and Abby, Miller and his father, Monty and Harper.
They did it.
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The trek back to Camp Jaha was long, especially on her injured leg. Bellamy helped her with the limp most of the way, since she insisted that stretchers should go to those who were victims of the treatment.
When they got through the gates, they were welcomed with even more people helping them through. The injured were directed to the Ark and Lincoln had rejoined them. More rushed up to find their loved ones.
"No, I'm staying here until every last person is through those gates," Taylor insisted as her and Bellamy stood at the very front of the gates.
She removed her arm from his shoulder and watched as everyone came funneling in. Jasper, Chandler, Raven, Monty, Harper, Kane, Abby, Elara, all of them.
"Taylor, you're still bleeding," Bellamy objected, looking down at her leg that was now steadily soaked in blood.
"They've been bleeding a lot longer than I have. I can wait," she said quietly, watching as a few of the original hundred smiled at her as they passed by.
Just outside, Clarke gave Monty a hug and he retreated inside camp. Clarke didn't move. Bellamy and Taylor approached her, Taylor a little slower.
"I think we deserve a drink," Bellamy proclaimed once they came to a stop next to her.
"Have one for me," Clarke agreed, nodding.
"We'll get through this," he assured as they watched the camp.
"I'm not going in," she confessed with the shake of her head.
"What?" Taylor asked, brows creased at her words.
"Clarke, if you need forgiveness, I'll give that to you. You're forgiven," Bellamy told her quietly, glancing at her earnestly. "Please come inside."
"Clarke, I know that we haven't been on the best of terms, but I understand, okay? I understand. All of the things you had to do to get here," Taylor stressed, looking Clarke directly in the eyes. She smiled sadly and shook her head in response.
"Take care of them for me," she continued, eyes glossing over.
"Clarke," was all Bellamy said, the emotion behind it saying it all.
"Seeing their faces everyday is just gonna remind me of what I did to get them here," she explained.
"What we did," Bellamy corrected, gesturing to Taylor beside him. "You don't have to do this alone."
"I told you that before we pulled it, Clarke. I meant it," Taylor added tearfully. After all they had just been through, despite the pain and hardship and every ounce of resentment she held toward Clarke, she was willing to let it go.
"I bear it so they don't have to," Clarke echoed Dante's words.
"Where are you gonna go?" Bellamy asked, trying to find more reasons to get her to stay.
"I don't know," Clarke admitted. She stepped forward and kissed Bellamy's cheek, pulling him into a hug. "May we meet again."
She pulled away and turned to Taylor, who was shaking her head slightly. Clarke pulled her into a hug and squeezed tightly, Taylor squeezing back. They had been through too much for her to not forgive her.
"May we meet again," Taylor whispered.
"May we meet again."
With one last saddened look, Clarke turned away in the direction of the vast woods before them. "May we meet again," Bellamy finally said.
They retreated back to the gates and watched her figure get smaller and smaller the further she walked. When she finally disappeared into the woods, Bellamy breaking the silence.
"You need to get to medical," he muttered, reaching for her arm and she limped to his other side, offering the opposite arm.
"Not that arm," Taylor objected and he nodded silently. It was conversation for another time.
When they arrived in medical, the wait was long, and with reason. There were a few chairs set up outside for those waiting and she sat down in one, Bellamy sitting beside her.
She looked over at him, taking in all his features again after being separated for so long.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"What are we gonna do now?" he questioned, looking up at her with watery eyes. What everyone has just been through wasn't something so easy to recover from.
Reaching over and grabbing his hand, she interlaced her fingers with his and squeezed it reassuringly.
"Now, we're going to live."
END OF PART TWO
END OF BOOK ONE
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