→ HOSPITAL

← SEWAGE TREATMENT

← COMMUNICATIONS

→ CABINET ROOM

→ GENERATORS

→ CREMATORIUM

“Crematorium?” Bellamy read aloud, suppressing a shudder.

“I guess it makes sense. You can’t float people on Earth, and you certainly can’t bury them in solid rock.”

“But where do they live?” Bellamy asked. “How come we haven’t seen anyone yet?”

“Maybe they’re all sleeping?”

“Where? The crematorium?”

“Let’s keep moving,” Clarke said, ignoring his quip.

To the right, a red light began flashing. “That’s probably not good,” Bellamy said, tightening his grip around Clarke’s hand, ready to pull her into a run.

“It’s fine,” Clarke said, though she’d already begun to move away from the light. “I bet it’s on a timer or something.”

The sound of echoing footsteps made them both freeze. “I think someone’s coming,” Clarke said, her eyes darting from Bellamy to the end of the long hall.

He pulled Clarke behind him, slid his bow off his shoulder, and reached for one of his arrows.

“Stop it,” Clarke hissed, stepping to the side. “We need to make it clear that we’ve come peacefully.”

The footsteps grew louder. “I’m not taking any chances,” Bellamy said, stepping in front of her again.

Four figures appeared at the end of the hall. Two men, and two women. They were dressed similarly to Sasha, all in black and gray, except that they weren’t wearing fur.

And they were holding guns.

For one excruciatingly long moment, they stared at Clarke and Bellamy, seemingly bewildered.

Then they shouted something and began running toward them.

“Clarke, go,” Bellamy ordered as he drew back the bow and took aim. “I’ll hold them off.”

“No!” she gasped. “You can’t. Don’t shoot at them!”

“Clarke! Move it!” Bellamy shouted, trying to give her a shove with his shoulder.

“Bellamy, drop the bow.” Her voice was frantic now. “Please. You need to trust me.”

He hesitated, just long enough for Clarke to slip under his arm and stand in front of him, her hands raised in the air. “We have a message from Sasha,” Clarke shouted. Her voice was loud and firm, though her whole body was trembling. “She sent us here.”

There wasn’t even time to see whether the name registered on the Earthborns’ faces. A strange whooshing sound filled the air, and Bellamy felt something sting his upper arm.

Then everything went black.

CHAPTER 26

Glass

Hundreds of bodies were packed onto the launch deck, with hundreds more pushing against them from the ramp. In total, there were more than a thousand people shoved into the bottom of the ship, filling the air with a choking mix of sweat, blood, and fear.

Glass and Sonja had made it onto the deck, but just barely. They were standing all the way in the back, pressed up against the ramp. Sonja couldn’t put any weight on her ankle, so Glass had her arm around her, although it was hardly necessary. The crowd was so dense, Sonja could lose her balance and she still wouldn’t fall.

Every few moments, the sea of bodies would surge in one direction or the other until the anxious Phoenicians, Arcadians, and Waldenites seemed like nothing more than a tide of flesh.

Rising up onto her toes, Glass could see people trying to force their way into one of the six remaining dropships. They were already crammed far beyond capacity, and bodies kept spilling back out.

Glass tried to blink away the tears obscuring her vision to count again. Six. There were supposed to be seven dropships. The one she’d escaped from, that had supposedly carried Wells and the other prisoners to Earth, was gone, of course. But what had happened to the seventh?

Even if there were a dozen dropships, Glass and her mother wouldn’t make it off the Colony unless they kept pushing their way toward the front. But Glass felt weak and immobile. Every time she moved, pain ripped through her as she thought of the look of disgust on Luke’s face, and the pieces of her heart she was trying so hard to hold together would slip from her grasp.

But as she turned to look at her mother, Glass knew she had no choice. She couldn’t think about what had happened with Luke, not now. Sonja’s own heart had cracked long ago, but the difference was that she hadn’t bothered to catch the pieces. Glass had done it for her. Without Glass, her mom wouldn’t fight for a spot on the dropship, and Glass wasn’t going to let that happen.

She tightened her hold around her mother’s waist. “Come on. Let’s keep moving. One step at a time.” There was nowhere to move, yet somehow, Glass and Sonja managed to wedge themselves between shoulder blades and around elbows.

Glass gasped but didn’t look down when she stepped on something fleshy. She kept her eyes fixed on the front of the launch deck, and gripped her mother’s hand tightly as they carved a path through the wall of bodies.

They slid alongside a woman whose dress was damp with blood. From the way she clutched her arm, Glass guessed she’d been hit by one of the guards’ bullets. Her face was pale and she was swaying back and forth, although there was no room for her to fall.

Keep moving.

Glass swallowed a cry as she shoved past the woman and felt her bloody sleeve brush against Glass’s bare arm.

Keep moving.

A man was holding a little girl in one arm and a bundle of clothes in the other, rendering him too bulky to navigate through the crowd. Drop the bag, Glass wanted to tell him. But she said nothing. Her only job was getting her mother on the dropship. That was all she could afford to care about.

Keep moving.

A young boy, hardly older than a toddler, sat on the ground, too shocked and scared to do more than whimper and wave his chubby arms in the air. Had he been jostled out of his parent’s grasp? Or had he been abandoned in a moment of panic?

She felt a tug deep inside her chest, a jolt of pain in the empty space behind her heart that never fully healed. Glass tightened her grip on Sonja, and extended her other arm toward the little boy. But right before her fingertips brushed against his outstretched hand, there was another surge, and Glass found herself being swept in the other direction.

She let out a gasp, and scrambled to find her footing. When she turned back to look for the boy, he’d disappeared behind a wave of bodies.

Keep moving.

By the time they made it to the center of the launch deck, the nearest dropship was overflowing with bodies, far more than it was meant to accommodate. People were standing in every centimeter of available space, packed as tightly together as they could fit around the seats. Glass knew that jamming people in like that was extremely dangerous—anyone who wasn’t strapped in would be thrown violently against the walls during the descent. They’d certainly die, and would probably end up killing some of the seated passengers as well. But no one was stopping them, or forcing the extra passengers off the dropship. No one was in charge.

A new sound joined the chorus of wails and shouts. At first, Glass thought she was imagining it, but when she glanced over her shoulder, she spotted the musician from earlier standing at the top of the ramp. He’d tucked the violin under his chin and was drawing the bow across the strings. With nearly one thousand people between him and the nearest dropship, he must’ve realized he wasn’t going to make it. And instead of succumbing to panic, he’d chosen to end his life doing what he loved best.

The man’s eyes were closed, rendering him oblivious to the confused stares and angry jeers of everyone around him. But as the melody dipped and soared, their faces softened. The bittersweet trills swept the pain out of their chests and into the air. The crushing fear became a shared burden, and for a moment, it felt like something they could bear together.

Glass turned from side to side, searching desperately for Luke. Growing up on Walden, he’d never attended a Remembrance Day concert, and she wanted him to hear this music. If he had to die tonight, she needed to know his last moments would be marked by something other than heartache.

A loud beeping suddenly echoed through the room, breaking the spell of the music, as the door on the farthest dropship started to close. The few people who’d been trying to force their way inside began to frantically claw their way forward, desperate to get on the ship before it launched.