Fireheart | Raven Reyes [O.H.]

12 | trip down memory lane

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chapter twelve!
TRIP DOWN MEMORY
LANE
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IN THE DAYS since the torturing of the Grounder on the third floor of the dropship, a plethora of things have changed. For one, as the air gets crisper and the delinquents find themselves huddled around bonfires at night to keep warm, Ares finds it laughable that he had been sweating buckets in the dropship earlier that week. Now, the atmosphere is cooler and he's glad that he'd stolen the fingerless gloves— they protect his palms from the brunt of the cold while still giving him full operation of his hands. He starts to see his breath in clouds when he exhales or speaks. It's mystifying at first, and the teenagers had spent several minutes breathing out in the open air and staring wide-eyed at the puffs of white that would travel up into the overcast sky, disappearing into the clouds.

Second: Nate has been put on watch duty to make sure Octavia doesn't try to visit the Grounder. Ares has seen a lot less of him because of it— Blake hadn't assigned Ares to do any of the babysitting, probably because Ares had scarred the guy and Blake doesn't need that happening again.

In terms of the Grounder, nobody is actually sure what to do with him. They can't release him because he knows too much and he'll probably gather up his other Grounder amigos to come and kill them all. Clarke had cleaned his wounds in order to prevent infection and keep him alive. For now, he's been under careful surveillance by Blake, Nate, and a few other kids. Blake hadn't asked Kiernan because of something like, "He's too non-threatening to intimidate someone." Ares disagrees — he's seen what Kiernan is like while hunting — but it keeps one person around that he tolerates, so that's a plus.

Ares' wonderful tech skills had been put to good use when he and Raven spent an entire day transporting the radio to a separate tent, hooking it up to a camera, and wiring it to a screen so they can communicate face-to-face with the Ark. It's a relatively poor connection due to the many miles between them, but Ares remembers how proud of himself he'd been. Proud that he'd managed to actually fix something instead of breaking it. Proud that Raven had seemed grateful for the assistance and he'd been able to provide it. And then Thelonious Jaha's face had crackled onto the screen and Ares had to walk away to keep himself from punching the glass and ruining everything.

Now his wonderful tech skills are being used to crack open the shells of different types of nuts that a gathering team had collected. As he breaks the rough exterior with a large rock and digs the edible portion out with his fingers, he wonders what it would have been like to be part of the group who had found these. Clarke and Blake hadn't let him go — something about, "He'll never come back," which is untrue, though he'd certainly be tempted — so now he's left to deal with the aftermath of their success. Each crack of the stones slamming into the shells makes his jaw clench a little tighter. It's all he's been hearing for hours — that, and Jasper and Monty's constant stream of conversation.