Responsible for survival

Waiting

BELLAMY'S POV:

The shower burns fire on my back, my neck, my face. My skin itches in anger, and the carefully applied black and white paint runs off my face, into a swirling grey puddle at my feet. I tug on the sharp metal collar, trying to escape. Monroe's guard never mentioned burning the grounders beyond what is surely survivable. The man opposite me squints through his jets. He's already working out I'm not one of them. I hope that he knows we're allies with all the clans, not just trikru. I look up, into the stream of water. It's rapidly cooling now, and soon I'm shivering, nose numb. The showers flick off. The silence is deafening. People in hazmat suits roughly scrub us with white towels. My skin screams, tender and aching from the trauma of the shower. We are roughly thrown into a little white room. Silver benches line two walls. 'Males' is written in curly letters on one wall, and 'Females' on the other. The group splits, and I look away from the woman opposite me, cheeks red, thinking of Clarke being put through hell like this. Small boxers are thrown onto my lap. I bite down the snort that wants to rise. They're tiny. The women pull on the bras, and help each other with twisted straps. A guard hits them. "No contact." The deep voice bellows.
"Now, now." A soft feminine voice calls. A young woman, not much older than Clarke, shuts the door behind her. "We're not being aggressive without warrant, are we?" She laughs, it's high and tickling and unsettlingly familiar. The guard snorts. The girl passes him a shiny metal suitcase. As she steps closer to the women, I see she's not exactly tall, almost the same height as Harper. And it clicks. Maya. She crouches in front of the first woman, the one opposite me. Maya gently takes her hand with one of her own, whilst holding out her hand the man in the hazmat suit. He passes a small, empty syringe with a silver plate halfway up it. The woman starts to wiggle, and pull away. Maya holds her hands tighter. "It's alright." She whispers. It's definitely Maya. "I'm not going to hurt you, I just need a blood sample." Her voice is slow but it carries through the room.
"No." The man two down from me shouts. "You touch her and I'll kill you." Maya turns her head and looks at the guard. She stares at him, and he stares back.
"Are you going to do your job or not?" Maya questions. I can see why Jasper likes her. The guard snaps the suitcase shut, and handcuffs the male grounder to the bench. He raises a gloved hand, balls it to a fist. "You do that and I'll get you fired as well." Maya calls, not even looking. The guard steps away, but I can see his burning red cheeks through the front of his suit. Maya plunges the syringe into a vein in the arm of the girl. Bright red blood fills the tube. Maya presses a cover on the end of the needle. The guard passes her a box. She lightly presses the syringe into the box, then flicks a switch. Whirrs begin to fill the silet room. Everyone stares at the box in silent horror. She steps from grounder to grounder, changing where she puts the syringe in each time. She reaches the chained grounder, and I can squint at the labels on the box. 'AE97'. As she flicks the switch a small green screen shines, and numbers begin to rapidly flick through. AE98.
Maya crouches in front of me. I meet her gaze, eyes boring into her. One of her eyes squints, and she searches for my vein on my neck. "Solar flare?" she whispers, plunging the syringe it. It burns. I look her in the eye and blink twice. AE99. The green box flashes.
Maya stands in the corner, reading the results from each box. She closes the lids and the lights die. "Row V, side 4." She points at the woman. "Row V, side 2." She points at the grounder who defended her. She points and the guard rapidly scribbles it down on a shiny grey clip board. She stops at me. "Row A, side 1." The guard doesn't write it, just stares at her. Maya sighs theatrically. "The amount of Vitamin D will be extremely beneficial for the children." Maya rolls her eyes. "Write it down." The guard scribbles it down. Maya walks out, daintily shutting the door behind her. The lights flick out.

The room is cavernous, the biggest thing I have seen, with cages streaming high above me. One by one grounders are pushed away, down darker corridors of cages that seem to stretch eons into the abyss. I am alone with the last guard, shoved roughly closer and closer to a blue lit station.

A body dangles. Feet tied up high against a silver pole. Empty tubes flow out of the body, shining crystal in the dim. I am yanked backwards, eye to eye with a hard faced girl, with wide eyes that seem to throw daggers. I am thrown into the cage next to her. The guard walks out, followed by the others. There's a moment of silence, then the girl turns to me. "Skaikru?" she hisses, leering against the cage wall between us. I nod. She spits on me.
"No one told you we're allies?" I growl. "I'm here to break you out." She tilts her head, before cackling and leaning back against the wall of her cage. The door opens and all the other noises stop. Maya shuts it again. She walks over to a large electronic board that's casting the blue light. She clicks around, then looks up. She hurries over to me. "Bellamy?" she asks, wrapping her fingers cautiously round the wires.
"Maya?" she nods, breathing a laugh of relief.
"They're taking the first one tomorrow. Dante's dead. No one dares oppose Cage openly. They're refusing to tell me who, they know I'm dating Jasper." Maya's eyes blossom with tears that don't fall. The girl audibly rolls her eyes, and pushes herself into the the corner closest to Maya.
"The first what?" The grirl laughs, high and scratchy. "You have taken thousands of us. There were 40 of us from my clan. I am the last one." She hisses. I glare at her.
"Skaikru." I hiss, mimicking her disgust. But the 40 makes me think of Roan. He said he'd lost 40 people in their raid, his second one of them. Is this Echo? "They're inside the mountain. They're going to take their bone marrow and inject it into themselves."
"They're then leaving the mountain, starting war." Maya sighs.
"What?"
"Most of the time they just use blood." Maya growls, "But in order to leave the mountain we need the marrow. That's how they have the foot armies. 30 people, mainly men, were exposed to radiation. 4 died instantly, 24 took the bone marrow of three eight year olds. I was the other. I watched them kill three eight year olds. I'm not watching it happen again." Echo and Maya glare at each other. "I'll get you out as soon as I can-" The door opens and Maya leaps away from the cage. Echo remains perfectly still, holding her breath.
"Maya?" The guard calls. She struts towards him.
"Yeah?"
"Your boyfriend is looking for you." She skips, ever so slightly, when he says boyfriend.
"Thank you. And remind Doctor Tsing that even with the treatments she still needs to remove the bodies every four hours." She casts a sideways glance at the body. The guard nods, and the shadows dance on the fear on Echo's face. The door snaps shut. She breathes out, and sinks back into her cage, looking at me.
"When we get out, I'll kill everyone in this mountain." She hisses.
"You can't. There are kids here."
"THEY kill kids."
"And you don't?" I laugh, achingly thinking of wells. I wasn't exactly nice to him. "Besides, we have a plan. As soon as I'm out-" The door opens again and I stop.