On the Run ~ON HOLD~

Chapter 2 The Wrong Damn Mountain

Thea awoke to the noise of rattling metal. She sat up straight, suddenly alert, and took in her surrounding.

She was strapped into a chair on what looked like a small dropship with dozens of other kids who looked to be about her same age. She recognized some of them and realized that they too, had been criminals held in the juvenile lockup on the Ark.

There were also many faces she didn't recognize, the most notable being the one directly to her left, staring at her curiously. She turned to look at him with raised eyebrows.

"Can I help you?" she asked, her tone laced with sarcasm.

"Oh, right. Sorry. I'm Jasper and this is Monty," he gestured to the dark-haired boy sitting next to him.

"Hi," she muttered quietly, still unsure of what was going on.

"And you are..." Jasper prompted, trying to get the nervous looking girl to introduce herself.

"Thea," she replied quickly, "What's going on? Where are we?" she questioned.

"Oh right, you were still knocked out during the chancellor's announcement. We're going to Earth!" Jasper said excitedly, as though he had no idea of the possible danger that the ground may hold.

"What?" Thea jerked upright in her seat, staring at the boy next to her.

"They're sending us to the ground to see if it's safe," this time it was the other boy, Monty, who spoke, leaning forward in his seat so he could see around Jasper.

"Yeah," Jasper interrupted his friend, "Jaha said it's a second chance. If we survive, when the rest of them come down, we'll be pardoned of our crimes."

Thea scoffed, she highly doubted it would be that simple but she didn't comment. She looked around again, analyzing the many faces.

"So how many are here with us?" she asked, leaning back in her seat to look at Jasper and Monty.

"A hundred total. All under eighteen. All criminals."

"Great." Thea muttered. She knew some of these kids were locked up for trivial things, stealing supplies for their hungry or sick families or assaulting a guard in a grief-stricken panic as they witnessed a loved one being floated.

However, she knew that some of these kids truly were criminals. There were murderers on this ship. And she wouldn't for one second, trust any one of them in a life or death situation.

"Hey, you still with us?" it was Jasper again, apparently the talkative one out of the two.

"Yeah. Sorry, I was just thinking."

"About what?" the boy asked, always willing to start a conversation.

Before she could answer him, there was a commotion at the other end of the small ship.

"Spacewalk bandit strikes again!"

"Go Finn!"

"Check it out!"

Several kids shouted different things as a boy with hair nearly down to his shoulders took advantage of the lack of gravity and floated out of his seat. 

So this is the famous Spacewalker. Thea had heard of him. He had wasted a month of oxygen on an illegal spacewalk and had been locked up for it.

She watched as the boy floated over to another, darker skinned boy and floated in front of him with his arms crossed.

"Hey Wells, looks like your dad floated me, after all," Finn spoke, smirking at the chancellor's son.

"You should strap in before the parachutes deploy," the other boy said seriously.