EXILE

vii • Newsflash Gravity Falls

"Everyone, eyes peeled. We're in Grounder territory." Bellamy warned the others as he led them through the woods. He had convinced Finn that too bodies were too many, but they couldn't one escaping. So Scotia was brought with them.

"Everything is Grounder territory." Murphy shot back. "I can't keep running." He halted and forced the others to wait on him. "We don't even know if the guy Finn killed is telling the truth. And she's not helping."

Finn stormed over to him, pulling him my his jacket and forcing him to keep moving. "Move."

"Give them a minute." Bellamy told him, stopping him from pulling Murphy any further.

"No, we can't. You heard what that Grounder said: "They'll outlive their usefulness." Finn reminded him.

"I heard what he said. That's what he said when you had a gun to his head." Bellamy told him. The tension rising in the team was strong and thick, like the morning fog in spring, but not as beautiful and calming. This group was boiling down to their true feelings and showing who they really were behind the lie of innocent Sky People.

"Look, you think I wanted to do that?" Finn said, still trying to see it as a lesser evil. "He would've told his people were coming. By the time we got there, our people would be dead. Maybe that's something you can live with, but I can't." Finn once again justified his actions in the name of his friends. He shoved Bellamy out of his way.

"I know you did what you think you had to do. But you are not yourself right now and I can't be out here with another loose cannon." His eyes pointed to Murphy.

"You guys." Monroe raised her gun, ready for a fight.

"Fall in." Bellamy ordered them back into line when he noticed the dead body. More kept appearing like another mystery of the world, but these people were not Grounders. Metal objects were thrown like pieces of a puzzle scattered before being placed together as a whole ship.

"Where the hell did they come from?" Murphy asked, watching the bodies as they walked by.

"From the Ark."

Still unsure of his loyalties, Bellamy was hesitant to keep Murphy loose, but Finn thought it a good idea to put him in charge of making sure the Grounder doesn't try to escape again. She hadn't proven to be an efficient guide, but some much blood had already been spilled, and leverage was always a key component in a rescue mission.

They came across a steep drop off that was laid with rocks and more bodies. "That's a rough landing." What has once been a floating mass in the sky, was now a hollowed out disaster of gravity.

"There's nothing we can do for these people. We gotta go." Bellamy told them, already heading away from the cliff.

They all stopped at the sound of a woman's cries. It certainly didn't come from any of them, but it was close enough.

"Did you hear that?" Murphy asked despite them all pausing. They all moved back towards the edge, this time they looked straight down.

"Hey. Hey, someone's down there." Monroe pointed to a tree.

"Hey!" Bellamy called down. "Up here."

"Please help me!" She cried up to them.

"Mel?" Sterling asked.

"Help me!" She begged again.

"You know her?"

"Shut up, Murphy. She's my friend. We have to do something." Sterling was already concocting a plan to help her up, but he couldn't do anything on his own.

"We can't stop." Finn pulled Bellamy aside.

"This isn't a Grounder, Finn. We have a rope." He could already see Fin beginning to reject the idea.

"You saw her. She'd never be able to hold on to it. We'd have to lower somebody down. It'll take time that we don't have. I hate this as much as you do, but our friends—" Finn's eyes were wide with some unidentifiable thing that kept pulling him away from himself.

"I know. Okay? I know." Bellamy struggled to balance Finn's uncontrollable behavior and trying to lead these misfits.

"Well, they were getting along." Murphy said, but nobody was around to listen except for the Grounder, and that was not of her own will. "I know you guys speak English." He pointed out to her. "You understand everything we say."

Scotia stayed sat on a rock, watching the madness unfold. "But what does it matter? You don't understand us." She pointed out in return.

Murphy looked between her and the two hotheads arguing. She wouldn't do anything that didn't benefit her, and she knew they gave up on the idea she could help them. "I knew you could speak English. Just really badly." He scoffed at her.

"Makes it hard—" She was cut off when she saw Bellamy turning around.

"We're moving out." Bellamy told them, but it was too late.

"Wait, Sterling!" Finn pushed them aside.

"Yeah, well, it looks like we're taking that break after all, huh?" Murphy looked between them all. As they watched Sterling descend the steep cliff, they were now forced to stay and wait for his return. The group listened to him update them as he made his way down. "I'd say he's heard one too many of your motivational speeches."

"Shut up, Murphy." Bellamy stepped back, unable to watch the boy climbing down the rope.

Scotia heard the snap before she was able to comprehend what had happened. The rope glided across the gravel and flew off the cliff at the weight of the boy. "Sterling?" Even the Grounder peered over the edge to see if they had both fallen. His body landed after striking two rocks, all the Sky People backed away before they could see him land.

"Mel! Mel, hold on." Bellamy called down, trying to distract the girl from the far fall she was soon to face. "Focus on me. You can do this."

"No!" She cried up, her legs kicked as she tried to get a hold of the steep cliff side, fearing her arms would give out soon.

"Yes, you can. You're strong." Bellamy tried to keep her focusing on talking to him.

"I'm not strong. Stubborn, maybe." She cried up to them.

"So be stubborn a little longer. Yeah. I'm not gonna let you die. You hear me?" At her weak response, they all stepped back to form a plan.

"We're out of rope." Finn told him. Still pressed about the matter of time they had to get to their people.

"So we make a new one." Bellamy said.

"Anything happens to our friends—"

"Don't know if we can save our friends! For all we know, they may be dead already. We've all thought it." He told them, finally addressing what had been in the back of their minds. "But what we do know is we can save this one girl."

Finn was obviously shaking his head, making his thoughts known, but Monroe knew Sterling. "Sterling was one of us. She was his friend. I'm in."

"How do we do it?" Murphy asked.

"We make new rope from the wreckage. Go find wires, seatbelts, anything." Bellamy instructed them and let Murphy and Monroe head out to find supplies.

"I hope you're right about this." Finn said before following after the other two.

Scotia turned away from the cliff, heading back towards the woods before Bellamy grabbed her arm, stopping her short. She tried to pull away but he was not risking her escaping.

"Vines, in the woods." She tilted her head down an animal trail that was overgrown with brush and trees. He hesitated. A month ago he would've tortured and killed her before anything else could cross his mind, but now he is seeing from a new perspective. One where Finn tortures and kills the Grounder's and Bellamy only wants peace for him and his friends.

He grabbed his knife, cutting her bonds and letting her lead him into the woods.

***

Sorry I've been kind of MIA. Cross country just ended so I have about two weeks to get some writing done.