CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
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    "THEY'RE GOING TO KILL HIM," Taylor rushed out, Clarke nodding absently as her attention drifted off toward something behind them. Finn was approaching fast, and Clarke's eyes widened as she commanded the guards to shut the gate on the Grounders waiting just outside, presumably for them to hand Finn over.

     "That's why we can't let it happen," she mumbled, grabbing Finn by the arm and lowering her voice even further. She told him quickly that he couldn't be there. At that point Abby had approached with Elara in tow and their fellow people were demanding to know what was going on.

     Abby wrapped her daughter in a quick hug and asked her quickly, "What did she say? Is there a chance for a truce?"

     Everyone gathered around Clarke with bated breath, Bellamy and Taylor exchanging uncomfortable glances. There had to be a way around it. There had to be.

     "Yes," Clarke replied, trying her best to steel herself for the backlash that would come with the decision. More so from the people that were closest to him. Taylor, for one, was not ready to just sacrifice one of her closest friends to his certain death.

     "What's wrong?" Finn questioned, knowing that Clarke wore the look she always had on when she was about to deliver bad news she didn't want to deliver.

     "They want you," she revealed without missing a beat, staring at him directly. Bellamy looked down and Taylor looked off to the side, the torches of the Grounders on horseback still glowing near the gates threateningly. "If we want a truce, we have to give them Finn."

     "What the hell are you talking about?" Raven interjected, looking confused and mostly in denial.

     "That's their offer," Clarke affirmed. She was fully detached now. Or trying to detach herself from the situation. Taylor knew the feeling well.

     "That's not an offer —" Raven began, only to be cut off by Finn.

     "It's a punishment," he realized. "For what happened at the village. Blood for blood."

     "If we refuse?" Abby ventured, raising her eyebrows.

     "They attack," Clarke told her.

     There was no way out. They had done it, gotten their truce, but at what cost? Taylor shifted nervously next to Bellamy and her mother caught her eye, which she quickly glanced away from.

     "I say we give him up!" someone from the gathering crowd around them called. More people screamed in agreement, and Taylor felt her stomach lurch. Mob mentality was one of the worst kinds of mentality she had ever seen.

     "Give him to the Grounders," a man approaching them said angrily.

     Raven stepped toward him, ready to push him away violently. "Back off!"

     Bellamy stepped in a pushed the man away before he could react, and Clarke held Raven back and pulled her aside to speak to her. The crowd was getting more restless by the minute, most of which were completely ready to throw Finn right into the hands of the Grounders.

     Finn's eyes darted around nervously while Clarke assured Raven he would be okay. "I'm not dying for him," another man from the crowd told him. "Spacewalker burned three months worth of oxygen from the Ark, we should have floated him a long time ago!"

     Raven stepped forward and punched the man in the jaw, knocking him over onto the ground. A few of the guards attempted to stop her, but she knocked one of them onto the ground next to the man. The next few moments consisted of her being dragged away by multiple guards.

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     Finn was sitting with Murphy by the main ship when Bellamy, Clarke, and Taylor approached him.

     "Hey," Bellamy greeted gruffly. "We're reinforcing all of the defenses. Doubles on the perimeter. No one's getting past that wire."

     Luckily the crowd had died down, but Taylor fully expected it to ramp up again. People wanted to survive, and if Finn got in the way of that then it didn't matter what happened to him. It was how the Ark ran and it seemed to have carried down to the ground.

     "I'll see where they're thin," Finn replied, standing up to look at them. Taylor looked at him questioningly.

     "No, you should head inside," Bellamy deflected immediately. "B Corridor will be easier to defend if it comes to that." Taylor had quick images in her mind of the last time their gates had been broken down and Grounders came rushing in, ready to kill them all. It couldn't come to that.

     "I'm not gonna hide," Finn disagreed, shaking his head as he looked between all three.

     "Right now, we have to think about keeping you safe," Clarke told him. "I'm going to talk to Lincoln."

     Finn didn't say anything in response. "Come on, Taylor and I are going to take you there," Bellamy said, gesturing toward the ship. When he didn't do anything to move, Bellamy tried again with more emphasis. "Finn."

     Begrudgingly, he followed. Taylor's hand twitched uncomfortably on the gun that she now held, now a necessary defense in case things did indeed go south on them. They escorted him into the ship on either side. The minute they got into the corridor he stopped.

     "I can't do this," he admitted, crossing his arms and shaking his head once again.

     "What do you mean?" Bellamy asked, sighing and turning around to face Finn as him and Taylor came to a stop.

     "Everyone's in danger because of me," Finn explained, looking at each other them in turn. Taylor began to realize how much she really had been avoiding his eye - she couldn't remember the last time she had actually looked at his face. Suddenly she was filled with immense guilt. "Because of what I did. I can't stay here."

     There was a moment, of silence, and Taylor looked at him for a moment almost holding her breath in the process. "Okay," she said. "This is going to work if you don't want to be here."

     Bellamy looked at Finn, and then at her, and then at Finn again. He nodded. "Maybe it'll buy us more time," he offered, Taylor not even very convinced by his statement. Finn turned around and left the corridor as soon as he quit speaking, and Taylor quietly wondered if that might be the last time she saw him.

     "Why?" Bellamy inquired in a small, tired voice. "Why did you want to let him go?"

     "Every time I look at Finn I see guilt in his eyes. That's all I see. If this is his chance to make peace with that, I'll let him try," she iterated, turning away from where Finn disappeared down the hall to him. "Plus, you let him go too. I'm sure you had your reasons."

     He nodded slowly and then his eyes darted away, a new sound distracting them fully. A loud, collective chanting reached their ears and the two of them hurried outside to find the source of the noise.

     From the ship's entrance, they couldn't see the thousands of Grounders that were positioned in front of their camp, but they could hear them.

     "JUS DREIN, JUS DAUN! JUS DREIN, JUS DAUN!" they yelled together, the sound rolling over their gates menacingly. Chills ran down Taylor's spine in a disturbing manner. Clarke approached, pushing Finn toward the ship lightly, clearly having caught him on his way to leave. Once he was inside of the ship, Clarke stood in front of the entrance while a few guards stood in front of the ship with guns, accompanied by Bellamy and Taylor.

     "They're trying to scare us," Bellamy dismissed, still holding his gun high, ready for an attack. Abby ducked out of the ship and took her position next to Clarke.

     "I think we should pull back and go into the station," Abby suggested, looking from the two Grounders at their gates and back to her daughter nervously.

     "No, we need to prove we're not afraid," Clarke dismissed with a confident nod.

     "What if I am?" her mother questioned, not completely looking her in the eye anymore.

     "Fake it," Clarke replied simply, yet reassuringly. She reached over a squeezed Abby's hand with a nod and she steeled herself quietly before stepping forward and approaching the growing sounds of the mob of Grounders.

     "Where's the boy?" one of the Grounders asked when she arrived at the gates.

     "We're not giving him up. We're ready to fight," she announced confidently, her expression not faltering in the slightest. "If that's what it comes to."

     Rearing up their horses, the riders turned around and disappeared without another word, and Taylor clenched her fists and took in a deep breath at the sight.

     "Watch the woods! Watch for movement!" Bellamy called out, their own guards following his orders with little issue. Bellamy had his own gun raised and aimed in the direction of the trees, Taylor keeping hers at a comfortable position near her side. 

     "Bellamy," Clarke nudged in shock, her eyes fixed on a position of movement within the branches. Bellamy lowered his gun and squinted at the sight skeptically.

     "Don't shoot!" an emerging figure from the trees pleaded, hands up in utter surrender. Another one emerged directly behind him, hands also raised high above his head.

     Marcus Kane and Cyrus Myers stood before them, looking worse for wear after a prolonged disappearance. Taylor's heart started beating faster and she found it harder to breathe at the sight of the second man.

     "Marcus," Abby addressed exclusively, her gaze not drifting very far past him and him alone.

     "Chancellor," Kane greeted with reverence, smiling slightly at the title.

     "I was afraid that I wouldn't see you again," Abby admitted honestly, still fighting off a small smile at the sight of the man.

     "I had those fears myself," he agreed, looking completely relieved to be back and near the people that he knew. "It's good to see this place again."

     "Oh yes very good, I'm doing well Abby, thank you for the concern," Myers interrupted, crossing his arms slightly and looking unimpressed with the lack of greeting he received.

     "It's good to see you again, too, Cyrus," Abby assured to his reluctant appreciation, signified with a nod.

     Taylor followed Bellamy and Clarke absently as they approached the group, something in the back of her mind begging her to stay away. "Can't be out in the open," Bellamy told them monotonously. "We need to get somewhere safe."

     Kane smiled at the three of them. "It's safe," he confirmed. "For the moment. I managed to buy us a bit of time."

     "With some help," Myers stressed, looking at Kane with his eyebrows raised. Kane simply continued to smile and nodded.

     "Come, we need to talk." Kane, Abby, and Myers stepped away and back into the ship. Bellamy, Clarke, and Taylor watched, completely powerless.