Wells had never felt such raw, pure loathing for anyone, or anything, in his entire life. “That’s not what my father would say, and you know it.”
Rhodes narrowed his eyes. “Your father isn’t here, Wells. And in case you were too busy seducing other little criminals”—he shot a glance at Clarke—“to pay attention during your civics tutorial, the Chancellor’s son doesn’t factor into the chain of command. I’m in charge, and I’ve sentenced the three of you to die by firing squad at first light.”
Wells heard Clarke gasp next to him, and his whole body went numb. He waited for another surge of fear or anger to kick in, but neither came. Perhaps there was a part of him that had expected this to happen. Perhaps there was a part of him that knew he deserved it. Even if Rhodes had no idea what Wells had done back on the ship, Wells was the reason their friends, their neighbors, were all slowly dying of oxygen deprivation. At least this way, he’d never have to face what he did. He wouldn’t have to look up every night, trying to picture the ship that would soon be filled with silent, still bodies.
“Oh my god, Bellamy!” The sound of Octavia’s voice pulled Wells back. She was running toward them, her face streaked with dirt and tears. Two guards stepped in front of her, blocking her path and holding her back. She fought against them but couldn’t get through. Bellamy called her name and lunged toward her, but a guard jabbed a gun to his ribs and he keeled over. “Stop it,” Octavia sobbed. “Let them go, please.”
“It’s okay, O,” Bellamy said hoarsely, struggling to catch his breath. “I’m okay.”
“No. I’m not going to let them do this to you.”
Other people had begun to gather around them. Lila walked up next to Octavia, and for a moment, Wells thought she was going to pull her away, but instead she put her arm around the younger girl and glared at the guards defiantly. She was joined by Antonio, Dmitri, then Tamsin and others. Even Graham came over to stand among them. Soon, there were nearly fifty people standing in a large semicircle around the prison cabin.
“Everyone, back up,” Rhodes commanded. When no one moved, he signaled to the guards who stepped menacingly toward the crowd. “I said move.”
But no one retreated. Not even when the guards raised their guns to their shoulders, half of them aiming at the prisoners, half out into the crowd. Some of the younger ones looked nervous, but most of them were staring at Wells, Bellamy, and Clarke with a mixture of rebellion and something else. Something like hope.
No matter how this ended, they needed to see how a real leader bore defeat. Wells would be honored to sacrifice himself if it meant no one else got hurt, and he certainly wasn’t going to face death like a coward. Wells turned back to Rhodes, raised his chin, and fixed the hateful man with his stare.
Bellamy moved even closer to Wells and stood shoulder to shoulder with him. Wells could tell by the set of Bellamy’s jaw that he was thinking the same thing. Clarke moved next to Bellamy, and the three of them stared down the Vice Chancellor together. Wells pushed away an image of the three of them lying bloodied on the ground, taking their last breaths in unison. Bellamy and Clarke both looked at him. Bellamy’s muscles were tensed, his body charged with energy. He was the embodiment of a resolve and strength Wells had never seen before. Clarke’s eyes were practically alight with emotion. They were filled with a fierceness and determination that stunned him.
“Okay, get moving,” a guard said. Someone reached from behind and tied a blindfold around him. Guards grabbed on to Wells’s arm and began to drag him away.
“Where are you taking me?” Wells grunted, digging his heels into the ground. With the blindfold covering his eyes, he focused as hard as he could on what he could hear, but the grunts and shuffling sounds told him nothing about what was happening to Clarke or Bellamy.
Wells struggled against his captors, but there was nothing he could do. He gritted his teeth and fought against the panic flooding his body. At least the last thing he’d seen were Clarke’s and Bellamy’s brave faces—that would be enough to get him through the next few hours. Wells knew he’d set sight on Earth for the last time.
By the time they removed the blindfold, there would be a bullet in his brain.
CHAPTER 26
Bellamy
There was no way to know if Rhodes had waited until dawn to send for them. With the blindfold on, Bellamy couldn’t tell if the sun had risen, though by the scent of dew clinging to the grass, his guess was that it was still dark out. Apparently, Bellamy had already seen his last sunrise. By the time the sky turned pink, he would be dead. All three of them would.
Bellamy had spent a hellish, agonizing night straining his ears for any sign of Clarke, who’d been locked away somewhere else. He wasn’t sure what would be worse: listening to her scream in pain or cry out in despair, or hearing nothing but silence and wondering whether she was already gone.
The quiet had turned out to be unbearable, as Bellamy’s brain filled it with horrific sounds of its own: Clarke sobbing as she felt her last hours slip away, knowing that she’d never set eyes on her parents again. The sound of a gunshot ripping through the silence, tearing apart Bellamy’s heart.
With a guard on either side of him, Bellamy was marched to what he assumed was the center of the clearing and pushed up with his back against a tree. A tiny, twisted part of him almost had to laugh. After all the near misses he’d had in his life, all the rules he’d broken, this was how it was going to end. He should have guessed it’d be something dramatic, like a public execution on a dangerous planet. Nothing boring for him. His only regret was that Octavia would have to see this. It was hard enough to think she’d have to go on without him, but she had proven her grit in the last few weeks. He knew deep down she could take care of herself now. No, mostly it was that she would have to watch. Bellamy could hear the guards moving through the camp, dragging everyone—adults and kids—out of their cabins to witness what Rhodes probably viewed as the most momentous event on Earth in three hundred years. The moment order would be restored to the wild, untamed planet.