RYDER ▸ BELLAMY BLAKE

03 | how to save a life

"What does it look like?" Damn, he had attitude this lovely morning.

It threw me off, because he was usually a dick to everyone else, but not me. "Whoa, okay, King Kong. Why don't you take it down a notch?"

He sighed as his stature became less tense and more relaxed. His shoulders slumped and he stopped walking like a robot. "Sorry," he mumbled, "Didn't really get much sleep with goggle boy yelling all night long."

Goggle boy, I thought, Surely he had to have come up with a better name than Goggle boy. "Jasper's fighting for his life," I stated, "I think if you were in his position, you'd be yelling all night long too." He must've noticed the change in my attitude because he apologized again. "It's fine, whatever." I let it go because down here, we had bigger things to worry about than who was being a bigger dick to who. "Where's the big man, anyway?" I hadn't seen Bellamy around camp since I woke up; given, I was inside the drop ship the entire time.

"Out on a hunt. He thinks the camp's morale will go up if he finds some actual food for us to eat."

We sat down on a fallen log near the edge of camp, looking out into the forest, Murphy ready to attack if any Grounders came to play. "We have bigger things to worry about than if the campers are happy or not," I mumbled.

"Yeah, but we can't do much else until we are." He made a good point; No one would be able to fight or protect our camp if they didn't have a reason to.

I shrugged, looking over the tree line just in time to see movement. As I silently hyperventilated, a rabbit hopped out of the bush, decreasing the rate of my beating heart. I nudged Murphy with my elbow, nodding over at the mammal. "Hey, if Bellamy's not back soon, looks like we're having rabbit tonight."

He nodded, readying his blade when Jasper shouted in pain again, scaring the bunny into hopping off quickly. Murphy groaned, resting the hand with his blade. "If Bellamy's not back soon, looks like we're starving tonight," he corrected my last sentence.

I frowned, patting his shoulder before making my way over to the drop ship. Upon entering, the scene before me ensured me of nothing. It was chaotic, to say the least. Clarke had her hand placed on Jasper's bare chest while Finn and Monty tried holding him down. Wells was a hazy onlooker. Jasper kept screaming, a sound I was sure would haunt me for days on end following this situation.

"Hold him still," she commanded, "I need to cut away the infected flesh." Just hearing that sentence made me queasy. I almost debated coming in until Clarke noticed me. "Ryder, help them hold him down, he can't be moving around when this happens."

I walked over next to Monty, who gave me a weak smile, which crumbled as soon as Jasper yelled out again. I looked down to see him slowly stop, calming down a little.

As Clarke checked his heartbeat, Octavia stormed in. "Stop it," she shrieked, "You're killing him."

"She's trying to save his life," Finn responded.

"She can't." Oh, and the prodigal son returns from his hunt. Seemed empty-handed.

I groaned as Wells stood up next to Bellamy. "Back off."

Bellamy shared a look with him before looking back down at my ill best friend.

"We didn't drag him through miles of woods just to let him die." Go Clarke! I knew there was a reason I (sort of) liked her, or well, tolerated her.