𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐭︱raven reyes, book 1

xxxix. rescue

"Easy, people!" Major Byrne cautioned everyone that started circling them, passion filling the crowd as the chants grew louder.

"Give him to the grounders!" A man with curly hair shouts, daring to step closer.

Raven spun on her heels, lower lip curling. "Back off!" She snarled, shoving his chest. He went to lunge at her, but June grabbed her arm with one hand while Clarke grabbed the other, pulling her back as Bellamy and another guard held the man away, calming him down.

"Hey, Raven," Clarke tried to grab her attention. "Listen to me. Nothing is gonna happen to him. I promise, okay?" She vouched.

"I'm not dying for him!" The man shouts over Clarke, angering Raven who seemed to start to calm down. "Spacewalker burned three months of oxygen from The Ark! We should've floated him a long time ago. Throw him out!"

Suddenly, Raven rips out of June and Clarke's grip and darts to him before either can stop her. She swings, missing when Major Byrne puts herself between them and strikes the woman instead. In seconds, guards are on her, tugging her back and pulling out handcuffs. "What?! Stop!" June calls, trying to push her way through the crowd as Raven's forcefully pulled away. "Let her go!"

"June, enough," Abby warns her with her hand up. "She's being taken to lock up."

"She's just scared!" June exclaimed in frustration, knowing how much Finn meant to Raven. Hell, she'd lash out the same if it was Clarke.

But it wasn't. It was Finn, and June felt like soon, there'd be nothing any of them could do.

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Those fears became a reality when June stood outside the camp, brown eyes locked on the outside, nearly blinded by the sunlight. She still felt a shiver crawl up her spine, feeling cold as she stared back bravely at the grounders just outside the fence. It's more than two, more than a few. There's a horde, some on horses, a few holding torches, but every one of them chanting the same phrase. "Jus drein jus daun!" (Blood must have blood.) June didn't understand the words, but she could guess easily it didn't sound good.

"Jus drein jus daun," June whispered, finger resting on the trigger of her gun. She looked over her shoulder, seeing Clarke standing beside Abby. "What's that mean?"

Clarke's tone was faint as she responded. "Blood must have blood." June slowly turned back around, feeling uneasy. She knew it was all for Finn. That these people wanted justice for the murderers at the village massacred, but she couldn't stop the fear settling in. These were people she hadn't trusted since the beginning, and she hated that they weren't getting justice for their own people killed. June pushed the thought away as soon as she thought of it, Bellamy speaking in comfort.

"They're trying to scare us." Bellamy's dark eyes flickered from June to Clarke, gun cocked, proving how brave he was. June swallowed the lump in her throat, trying to feel the same, but unable to dig up the emotion.

Both Clarke and Abby whisper to one another words June couldn't hear, before Abby was marching forward, jaw clenched but hands shaking. "Open the gate," she ordered the guards. The doors swing open with a hiss, revealing the two original riders on horses. June can't see the faces of the grounders through their masks of skulls, but she can only guess they were male.

"Where's the boy?" One demanded in a deep voice.

"We're not giving him up," Abby declared. "We're ready to fight if that's what it comes to."

As if it was on cue, a horn bellows in the distance. It reminds June of the war they faced not too long ago. Without another word spoken, the grounders nudge their horses to turn around and ride away. They gallop far from the camp, others following. "Watch the woods!" Bellamy commands snapped June out of her daze. "Watch for movement!"