When Songbirds Fly | Bellamy Blake

Chapter Sixty-Three: The Chosen Ones

It doesn't take long for chaos to begin.

Screams bounce off the walls, seeming to surround us on all sides. People are terrified, desperate. This is it. We don't have any more time.

I follow the others out of the office despite Abby and Bellamy's warnings to stay seated. Realising that I'm not going to listen, he begrudgingly wraps an arm around me and helps me to limp out onto the walkway. It overlooks the hall below like a balcony, supported by thin railings. A sea of faces ripple beneath us.

I make eye contact with one of them. Murphy.

He doesn't look any different from the last time I saw him. Eyes scanning over me, they come to a stop on the hand that struggles to cover up my bloody shirt. His brows furrow, his lips parting slightly in an inaudible murmur. The girl stood next to him also frowns, seeming almost wary of me.

'That's everyone.' The shout of a guard quickly draws my attention away. 'Close the door! Close the door!'

A wave of movement begins, bodies surging towards the sealed exits. Yells and thuds fill the space like the booming of thunder.

'Three out of four of these people are going to die tonight,' Jaha hisses. 'You still think you made the right choice?'

—

Opening the door to the study, Bellamy, Clarke, Jaha and I enter quietly. Abby is already sat at the desk with my father standing over her. There's something in the way he looks at her, a cautious fear. Something isn't completely right.

Jaha sighs heavily and closes the door behind us. 'Our people are scared, Marcus. We need to tell them something.'

'We just spoke with Raven,' he replies. 'When she gets here, we'll have all our essential personnel.'

It still seems bizarre that Raven is still on Becca's island. All I know from the others is something about a rocket and seizures. Whatever is really going on, Abby doesn't want to worry us.

Shifting uneasily, Clarke looks to him for an honest answer. 'How many spots does that leave us with?'

'Including the essential personnel and the places that we're holding for the children under sixteen, that leaves us with eighty.'

'Eighty.'

Suddenly it doesn't sound like such a big number. That's only about eighteen percent of our people.

I sink down onto the couch, my gaze fixed on the floor. This is ridiculous. This is impossible. There's no way we can sentence all those people to death. My stomach twists, nausea seeping into my body again.

Jaha stares at Abby, bewildered. 'I can't believe we're talking about sending 364 of our own people to their deaths.'

I can't help but look to Bellamy and Clarke. Is this how they felt when they pulled the lever in Mount Weather? Is this what it felt like? Is this the burden that he kept a secret for months?

'We're lucky they're giving us any space in this bunker at all,' Clarke says.

Kane nods again, his fingers gripping tightly onto the edges of the desk. 'Look, I don't like it any more than you do.'

'Then let's fight this.'

'No,' he snaps. 'Any sort of resistance will cost us all our lives. Our best course of action is to hold a lottery for the remaining spots.'

Now faced with the decision that he himself had made mere weeks ago, Jaha doesn't seem as certain as he had then. His face remains stony, petrified. 'It's not going to work, Marcus.'