Branches whipped past her face as Lily ducked under another low-hanging limb, boots thudding hard against the forest floor. The shadows between the trees seemed to shift and close in around them, and every crashing step behind her sounded too close.
Bellamy was just ahead, cutting a path through the underbrush. His silhouette was sharp and urgent, and every so often he glanced back.
A shape moved to her right—close, too close. Lily's stomach dropped, and she threw herself sideways just in time to avoid what might've been an arm, or a branch, or something worse. She hit the ground hard, rolling once, the knife at her hip jabbing into her side.
"Lily!" Bellamy's voice snapped through the trees as he skidded to a stop.
She didn't answer—just forced herself to her feet, lungs burning. A hand gripped her wrist—strong and rough—Bellamy's, pulling her forward before she could find her balance.
"Come on, come on!" he shouted urgently, his voice hoarse. His fingers let go only when she was running again.
They broke through a patch of thick undergrowth, the branches clawing at Lily's jacket and face. Finn and the others were running ahead. She stumbled, caught herself, and kept going. Bellamy stayed close, his breath just over her shoulder, quick and uneven.
Another silhouette blurred past in the trees to their left.
Were they being surrounded? She couldn't tell anymore.
Bellamy grabbed her arm roughly, shoving her behind him as they cleared a fallen log. His pace never slowed, but his movements grew sharper, more reactive.
Someone shouted to the right—Diggs' voice, panicked.
"Let's go! Let's go!"
Then came Jasper's voice, breathless but alive: "What are we gonna do? They keep heading us off!"
"Where?" Lily asked, even though she wasn't sure who she was talking to. If what Jasper said was true—if the Grounders were trying to push them somewhere—then where exactly were they being herded to? Her eyes dropped instinctively to the forest floor, scanning even as she ran. Clarke had once almost died in a trap hidden in the ground, and Lily hadn't forgotten that.
"Just keep running!" Finn shouted, leaping over another log just ahead.
"I can't run much longer!" Jasper gasped. The sound of his voice made her chest tighten. He was still recovering, still weak. He'd been hit in the chest—what if he collapsed?
"I'm not stopping for him!" Diggs snapped, charging forward.
Lily felt her anger spike like a jolt of electricity. "Are you out of your mind?!" she shouted, already starting to turn back toward Jasper—but Bellamy's hand grabbed her arm again, firm and unyielding.
"No," he said through gritted teeth. She opened her mouth to argue, but his gaze wasn't on her—it was fixed on the trees. "I'm sick of running anyway," he muttered, and the look in his eyes made her heart drop. She'd seen that expression before—determined, reckless, and dangerously focused. It always meant he was about to do something reckless.
Lily moved instinctively, pressing a hand against his chest as if that alone could stop him. "This is madness. You can't do this!" She exclaimed, her voice trembling with something closer to fear than frustration.
"What are you doing?!" Finn yelled from up ahead, his expression livid as he turned back toward them. "We need to move!"
"They know where she is!" Bellamy barked, eyes flicking between Lily and Finn, his voice rough with desperation. But Lily didn't back down—she shook her head, her words rising with urgency.
"They'll kill you, Bellamy!" she shouted, and for a second, he didn't respond.
Then Roma's voice echoed through the chaos, calling for Diggs as she sprinted forward, and Finn turned to follow her, yelling after them. Lily spun, scanning for Diggs—but instead, her eyes locked on a figure charging through the trees. A Grounder. Fast. Silent. Armed.
"Let's go!" Finn shouted again, and suddenly they were all running, fear kicking back in like fire through their veins. Lily's lungs burned. Her legs felt heavier with each step. She could feel her body beginning to falter, every breath sharp and ragged, but she didn't stop. She couldn't. If she slowed, she would fall behind—and if she fell behind, she wouldn't survive.
Suddenly, Roma's scream cut through the trees like a blade, sharp and terrified, making Lily's blood run cold. The sound jolted everyone into stillness. Bellamy stopped short, spinning toward the source. "Roma!" he shouted, already moving.
"Wait—!" Finn barked, as his eyes searched for Roma, "There could be more!"
But they had already broken through the underbrush—and then they saw it.
Diggs.
He was only a few feet ahead, suspended grotesquely in midair, his body caught in a Grounder trap—a sharpened metal pipe driven straight through his torso from beneath. His legs hung limp, his arms frozen mid-motion, as if he'd barely had time to react. His mouth was slightly open, and a thin trickle of blood ran from the corner of his lips, bright red in the daylight. His eyes were vacant. Unmoving.
Lily stopped so abruptly she nearly tripped, skidding on loose dirt. Her breath hitched painfully in her throat. The sight of him—so suddenly and horribly still—was worse than anything her mind had prepared for.
Finn froze beside her, eyes wide, lips parted but speechless. Bellamy came to a halt just ahead, staring at Diggs as if his mind couldn't process what he was seeing. His expression tightened, disbelief slowly hardening into something colder, heavier.
Lily took a slow step forward, unable to stop herself. "No…" she whispered, barely audible.
There was no doubt. Blood soaked Diggs' shirt, seeping through the fabric in thick, spreading stains. His body was limp, heavy with death. And that small line of red at his mouth—fresh, final—left no room for hope.
Lily's stomach turned, her hand moving instinctively to her side as if steadying herself. Her eyes burned, but no tears came—just the cold, sharp weight of another name added to the list.
"They were leading us here," Jasper said, looking around in the woods. "It's the only direction we could run in."
That was not a hole in the ground with spikes. That meant that there were many other kinds of traps that the Grounders had set. What could they do? If they kept running, the grounders would have pushed them more and more where they liked, and they would have probably ran straight into another trap. But if they stopped, could they fight against those people?
"Hey," Finn said, a confused frown appeared on his face. "Where'd they go?"
Lily turned abruptly, to look at the trees. And he was right. The grounders that were running after them just a few moments ago, have now disappeared.
"Oh God," Bellamy whispered from next to Lily, his eyes wide as he looked around, "After Roma." And as the realization hit him, he sprinted forward. Lily's eyes widened.
"Bellamy, wait!" she called after him, but her legs sprinted anyway. They had to be together. But could being together save them from the traps?
It must be so, she lied to herself, but she needed to believe that they could survive somehow. They kept with their fast pace, trees rushing to their sides. But suddenly Finn called for them.
"Wait, wait!" he said, his eyes fixed on the ground. "I think she might have gone this way."
Bellamy did not waste a moment, "Alright–"
"Stop!" Finn said, making him turn with wide eyes. "They've set traps," the tracker said catching his breath, "We can't run, we have to be careful." That was true, Lily had not thought about that. Running would make it easier for them to fall into the Grounders' traps.
"Bellamy," Lily called getting closer to the boys, "Finn's right, they want us to run."
"I'll lead, following the tracks," Finn suggested, looking at the ground once again. Bellamy had laboured breath due to the running and the panic, but he did not argue with them. Instead he turned to the others.
"Stay close, and keep your eyes sharp," nobody was disagreeing with him and after a last look between Lily and Finn, the boy started to lead them
into the woods.
This time their pace was calculated and slow. Their eyes darted both on the ground in search of possible traps, and on the trees, afraid that the grounders would reappear once again. Lily did not know if she preferred running at this point, because that kind of tension made her heart beat so fast that it seemed like it was about to explode.
She had no idea how long they walked in the woods, but suddenly she heard Monroe give out a sign of relief. "There she is…" Lily could hear the smile on her voice, as she looked toward a tree not far from them. From where they were they could see someone hid behind it.
"Roma!" Monroe called happily, but strangely the person did not move.
Bellamy did not lose time as he passed by Finn to reach the tree, they all followed him but the sense of uneasiness only grew. Why was she not moving?
Lily feared to know the answer, even if she wished with all her heart to be mistaken. She really hoped that Roma was just scared, and maybe she had not realized that they were there. But again she knew she was lying to herself.
A gasp left her mouth as she followed Bellamy around the tree, to see Roma pinned against the bunk by a spear in her chest. Her eyes were opened and void and her nose and mouth were covered in blood.
"They are playing with us," Lily heard Finn say, as she observed Bellamy reach out so that he could close Roma's eyes.
"She only came because of me," he muttered, his gaze never leaving the girl. Lily let out a shaky breath, taking a few steps towards him. She did not know what to say. She did not know what to do.
"They can kill us whenever they want," Finn's voice brought her back to reality. Finn was right, they were out in the open, in a territory they knew nothing about. They were vulnerable there.
"Bellamy," she whispered, her hand reaching gently for his forearm, "We need to go." At her touch he turned to her, and she could see all his sorrow in his eyes.
"Or maybe they should get it over with!" Jasper yelled, making all of them turn to him with wide eyes. Lily immediately looked around, afraid that someone could have heard him for real. Finn ran back to him, trying to stop him from screaming, but he didn't stop.
"Come on!" He was shouting, as Bellamy moved to make his way to Jasper and Finn, "We know you're out there!"
Something, though, got Lily's attention. From the woods she noticed a dark figure appear in between the tall grass. Huge and armed, he was running towards them faster than she thought.
"They're here!" she yelled with fear, moving to get closer to the others.
"Bellamy!" Monroe yelled, looking in another direction, where another grounder was charging towards them. Lily let out another shaky breath as she stopped next to Bellamy, they both noticed another grounder coming from another direction.
"Oh God, they're surrounding us," Lily whispered, feeling tears filling her eyes. Were they going to die?
As they moved closer, Bellamy pushed her back toward Finn, putting himself in front of her, his eyes fixed on the grounder running towards them. Lily did not move back though, she grabbed his arm, pulling him with her to stand closer to Finn.
But then suddenly the sound of a horn echoed in the woods, and strangely enough the grounders stopped on their tracks to look around. Lily frowned observing them, they seemed worried, or scared. And forgetting all about them, they ran back from where they came from.
"They're leaving…" Bellamy said, a hint of relief in his tone.
"They're running," Lily whispered, still feeling her limbs tremble.
"The horn," Jasper said, his eyes wide as he looked around. "What does it mean?"
Finn was the one that answered, "Acid fog!"
Lily trembled once again. They were not safe. If anything they were deep in danger.
"We have to run," Monroe said, voicing what they were all thinking. But Finn shook his head as he took something from his backpack.
"What are you doing?" Bellamy asked with a frown on his face, observing the other boy unrolling a thick cover on the ground.
"We'll cover with this," Finn answered as he kept looking around for the fog.
"Can it work?" Lily asked skeptically, could a cover be enough to protect them from a fog?
Finn turned to her with worried eyes, "We have no other choice." Sadly they all knew that he was right, there was no place to hide there, and they had no time to search for one.
"Alright," Bellamy said gently pushing Lily towards the cover, "Let's get under that, quick!"
They all followed the orders, laying on the ground next to each other and Finn covered them all, telling them to try and keep the cover as close as the ground as possible, so as not to let the fog enter, then he laid as well.
Lily was in between Jasper and Bellamy and her hands trembled as she tried to keep the cover close to the ground. She had seen what the acid fog could do to people, the image of Atom flashed in her mind. The way his skin had been burnt, the way he was suffering, the way he wished he was dead. She did not want to die like that, she did not want to die at all. And now all she could do was wish that that shelter was enough to protect them from such fate.
She must have been trembling because at some point someone grabbed her wrist with a gentle hold.
"Hey," Bellamy's voice reached her, making her turn towards him. "It's going to be alright," he said, and she knew he was lying, but she felt a little relief as she observed his dark eyes and she felt his fingers on her wrist.
There was not much they could do now, but to wait and hope.