Chapter 52

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Addison

With quick and quiet feet, Addison headed straight for the nearest foxhole that would get her back behind the walls of camp. Exiting the foxhole, she gets to her feet, eyes wide when she witnessed the gate come crashing down.

"Oh, no . . ."

Addison hops into a sprint until an explosion goes off from the gate, causing Addison's ears to ring. She snaps her head back to the gate in time to watch a few of the Grounders fan out from the aftermath of the grenades Raven had built.

Yelling from the dropship draws her attention away from the front gate. Clarke is at the top of the ramp, hollering for everyone to get inside.

Addison hisses, dropping for cover behind a nearby rock. She holds the upper part of her right bicep, the adrenaline that pulses through her veins masking the pain she'll feel later from the arrow that nearly stuck in her.

She glances down, the part of her jacket where the wound resides soaked in her blood.

"Addison!"

She snaps her head to the dropship. Dawson waves from beside Clarke while she and Finn urge Bellamy, then herself. "Addison, Bellamy, run!" Clarke yelled.

Addison wastes no time in pumping her legs for the dropship. She takes an occasional peak over her shoulder, firing all her rounds into two Grounders that had headed straight for her.

The two fall to the mud, limp. She lifts her foot up enough to grab the knife Octavia made her from out of her boot, then looks up. A stray Grounder does his warrior call, his sword raised straight in the air as he sprints towards her.

Addison freezes. She has no more ammo and she can't outrun him. What's a little knife going to do to a Grounder? Her life seemed to flash in the two seconds in takes for him to be in her personal space. Her mother's contagious laughter echos in the back of her mind, her father's kind eyes blurring her vision for a second. Liam's aggravated and annoyed expression every time she poked the dark mole that sits near Liam's lips when they were kids. The freckles that littered Natalie's face, and lastly, every detail of Octavia.

The greenness of her eyes and the way they lit up when she talked about something she loved —like her Rome history— or how the light from the glowing butterflies in the field gave her face a soft glow Addison found to be the most beautiful thing.

Her giggles when Addison made a fool of herself, the way Octavia's lips felt against every inch of her skin.

Addison jumps when the Grounder falls on top of her. She screams, eyes wide, but the Grounder was lifeless. She snaps her eyes behind him and meets Bellamy's eyes, his rifle aimed in her direction.

"Bellamy!" she shouted when she sees a Grounder make a b-line for him, but his gun clicked. She took note that he has her rifle.

"Addison!"

"Liam," she breathed out in relief as he slides to her side, helping her push the Grounder off her.

"Come on," he pulls her up by her elbow. She passes Clarke and Finn, starting the sprint up the ramp.

"We have to help him. We can't leave him behind," Addison rushed.

Liam releases his hold on her, "I'll help him. Go. I'll meet you in there."

"Liam—"

"I'll be right behind you with Bellamy," he cut. She searches his eyes before she wraps him in her arms. Liam encloses his arms around her and presses a kiss to the top of her head before he releases her and joins Clarke and Finn.

Addison spins and finishes the sprint until she's inside. She immediately sets her sights on Raven; she's paler, more lifeless looking.

"Raven .  .  ." she breathed out, taking hold of her hand when she reaches her side, ignoring some of Raven's blood that had gotten on her hands and mixed with Octavia's.

Raven smiled weakly, "Hey," she croaked, voice raspy and full of exhaustion.

"Raven, stay with me." Addison intertwines her fingers with hers, tightly. Tears were already in her eyes.

Addison looks at the entrance when she sees movement. Clarke stands by the lever, a sad and broken look on her marked features when their eyes meet, Miller hurrying in behind her.

Clarke rests her hand on the lever, prepared to close the door. "Clarke, no!" Addison released Raven's hand to shoot to her feet, the distance between her and Clarke closing. "Our friends are still out there. Liam and Bellamy are still out there!"

Clarke shakes her head, eyes glossy. "I'm sorry, Addison .  .  ." she pulls the lever up, the door slowly starting to enclose what's left of the delinquents.

"No, Liam!" Dawson grabs ahold of Addison before she could get pass the tarp, bringing her deeper inside the dropship once again, no matter how much she thrashed.

"Addison, stop. Stop!" she stops, tears pooling in her eyes.

Liam, her best friend, her brother. She left him to die out there. She knew she shouldn't have let him go, or at the very least, she should've gone with him. "Liam .  .  ." her voice cracked, the cut on her cheek stinging from the salty tear.

A woman's war cry enters the dropship that had just closed. Addison's sad eyes widen, instantly recognizing the woman as the Grounder's leader, the one that Clarke met up with on the bridge to discuss a peace treaty of some sort that ended up backfiring. Her sword's out, readying to spill all of their blood.

"Anya?" Clarke called, surprised.

The gunners that still had ammo pulled the action back on their rifles, loading a new clip of bullets into the chamber. Addison froze at the sound of hollering from Anya's people and the scraping of their weapons against the side of the dropship.

Clarke spins around and orders, "Jasper, now."

He turns a knob and clicks up on the small stick like switch on the small, thick rectangular control panel in his hands, but nothing happened. He repeats the action and the outcome is the same.

Jasper fumbling with the switch again, aggressively moving it up. "Anya, you can't win."

Anya holds Clarke's eyes, until she raises her sword and prepares to attack Clarke. At the motion, Addison shoved Dawson off of her and goes straight to Raven, ready to protect her at any cost, no matter what.

"Kill her!"

"Stop! She's already down," Clarke ordered, trying to stop the delinquents from beating Anya to death.

"Raven says current flows to the magnet," Jasper muttered to himself. "We just need current." He's quick to shoot up and look for whatever he needed.

Addison glances down at Raven, ignoring Jasper's aloud thinking. "Hang in there, Reyes."

"No! Stop! We're not like that."

"Get back. Get back." Clarke started to shove delinquent after delinquent aside, away from Anya.

Addison didn't care what happened to the Grounder leader. Anya could die under the boots of Addison's people for all she cared, or even a bullet to the head. All Addison cared about is keeping Raven alive.

She failed to help Liam— she won't fail Raven.

Addison's jaw clenches as she watches her people beat Anya, still blocking Raven from any Grounder that could enter. Miller unsheathes his knife, raising it above his head, "She deserves to die!"

Clarke catches Miller's wrist before he's able to bring his knife down on Anya. "We are not Grounders!" she yelled, firmly and assertively. Every soul stopped their movements, including beating up Anya, their eyes landing on Clarke, like the realization just hit them.

Jasper finishes, the roaring of flames sounding from outside the dropship. The dropship hops for a few seconds before it plunged back to the soil that knocks Addison off balance and against a crate she caught herself on.

Once she had her balance, Addison moved to Raven's side, clutching her not so warm hand. When the sun rose, she was still by Raven's side, not once making a move after Jasper's rocket fuel trap he hooked up. Clarke and the others that could walk stand at the door behind her, desperate to see if it worked when Clarke pulled the lever down.

"Did it work?" she asked, looking up at Dawson.

"Yeah. It worked," he responded, glancing at Raven. "How is she?"

Her eyes are closed, her chest slowing rising and falling. Each time Raven's chest fell, Addison's heart jumped, afraid it'd never rise again. "Not good," she whispered, and dropped Raven's handed.

Getting to her feet, she strode pass Dawson, swiping the tarp out of her way. Addison brown eyes widen in horror. There's nothing left of camp. The ground is covered in a thick layer of ash, all of the Grounder's bodies that tried killing them blackened and charred.

She slowly walks down the ramp, the sight reminding her of the Exodus Ship crash, but not nearly as bad or as many people she saw. But these weren't her own people. They were her enemy, and her people killed them. She didn't know how to feel, but she didn't have time.

Clouds of red fog fill the already smokey air.

"Mountain Men," Anya announced in fear. What did the almighty Grounder leader have to fear from these people? Addison didn't know, but she couldn't help but think negatively at the way her stomach dropped.

Addison and Dawson start coughing.

She's already on her knees, desperate to get whatever the stuff is out of her lungs. Dawson takes longer to fall. Green lasers sweep around the thick red clouds attached to black objects Addison can't see.

Her vision blurs, the last thing she sees is Dawson falling flat on his side —like her— before she's consumed in darkness.

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"Raven, stay with me."

"Clarke, no! Our friends are still out there. Liam and Bellamy are still out there!"

"I'm sorry, Addison . . ."

Addison's eyes shoot open, a sharp gasp echoing as her body jolts upwards. She takes in deep breaths to steady her breathing and swallows the dryness that itches in her throat, her eyes frantically bouncing around every corner of the bright all white room at the same time.

The soft buzzing of electricity fills the bright white room that's littered with the same coloured objects that would make any sane person go crazy. She squints, the buzzing fluorescent lights burning her eyes. The steady beeping of a monitor finally grabs her attention.

She looks to the right of her, reading the numbers and watches the jagged line shoot up, then fall down, and shoot back up again. Addison swings her legs over the edge of the all white bed, looking down at her attire; a hospital gown, similar to the ones she and other patients have worn on the Ark.

A sharp pinching in the crease of her elbow has her arm immediately stiffening. A needle's taped down, pumping something into her that immediately freaks her out. She rips the needle out and unclips the clamp on her index finger that transmits her heart rate.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

The ear-ringing noise has Addison wincing at first before she's able to ignore it. She slowly slips down the side of the bed to her bare feet and sucks in a breath at the coldness of the floor. A white plastic band catches her eye when she feels it slide down to her hand. She looks down at her wrist where the wristband from the Ark once dug into her skin.

Anderson, Addison.

"What the—" she cuts herself off, mindlessly inching forward in confusion, taking note that each of her wrists are wrapped in thin, white fabric.

The annoying drawn out noise of the heart monitor drowns out the soft buzzing of the lights above Addison's head that she had once heard clear as day. At a slow pace, she warily patters on her bare feet to the door. Her fingers touch the rim of the small circular window as she rises to her toes to peer through it.

A complete replica of the door trapping her inside the strange room is positioned across the corridor. The same bright white that covers every inch of the room and both doors cover the corridor's walls. Addison gets back down on her heels and backs away from the door. She would rather be back in Solitary Confinement than trapped in this unknown place. At least on the Ark she knew where she was.

She has no idea where she is, where her friends are . . . and she has no idea how to escape.

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That is the end of book one, my dear readers! Thank you guys so much for your support and taking a chance on this book! If you liked following the journey of one temperamental delinquent with anger issues I call Addison and one selfless with a heart of gold delinquent I call Liam, stay tuned for book two!! It'll be coming your way very soon :)