"there's a story there"
We walked through the woods, Clarke and Wells walked in front of the group, Bellamy and Murphy at the back of the group and I was kind of just stuck in the middle.
"What's the rush? You don't survive a spear through the heart." Bellamy asked, waving his pistol around carelessly.
"You wanna repeat that?" I dared, stepping in front of him.
"Hey, put the gun away, Bellamy." Wells spat.
"Why don't you do something about it?" Murphy shoved the Chancellor's son.
"Jasper screamed when they moved him. If the spear struck his heart he'd have died instantly." Clarke stepped in. "That doesn't mean we have time to waste." Maybe Blondie wasn't so bad after all. She's the only one here who seems to give somewhat of a shit about my brother.
Before she could walk off, Bellamy grabbed her wrist. "As soon as you take this wristband off, we can go." He quipped.
Clarke ripped her hand away from his grasp. "The only way the Ark is gonna think I'm dead is if I'm dead. Got it?" She snapped.
"Brave princess." Bellamy taunted.
"Hey, why don't you find your own nickname?" Finn, the 'great adventurer' approached us. "You call this a rescue party? Gotta split up, cover more ground. Go in pairs. Clarke, you're with me."
"Better late than never." Clarke muttered as she walked away with Finn.
"Jaha, you're with me." Said Bellamy. Great, that means I'm stuck with Murphy.
"You're seriously gonna leave me with her?" Murphy gaped at Bellamy.
"Try not to sound so excited." I said, shoving past him and leading the way.
***
"So, Goggle Boy's your brother?" Murphy asked, trying to make conversation.
"Twin brother." I corrected bluntly. By now, the others were out of sight and we were just walking somewhat in the direction Clarke told us to.
"Twins, huh? Thought that was supposed to be impossible." Said Murphy, sounding surprised. It was supposed to be impossible. When a woman was pregnant on the Ark, if they discovered twins, one of them would have to be terminated. But in my case, they didn't know I existed.
"Apparently not." I replied, pressing my lips into a firm line. I really could not care less about making conversation with this boy right now. All I wanted was to find my brother. "Can we just not talk about my brother. Please."
"Fine. Whatever." Murphy agreed nonchalantly. "How about you take that wristband off?"
I knew that the odds of us surviving would be better if more of us left our wristbands on and the Ark came down to help us. But then again, I wasn't too fond of the idea of those jackasses that floated my mother and locked me up for being born coming down here and be in charge again.
Murphy could apparently sense my hesitation. "You really wanna help them? After everything they did to you?" He asked as if the answers were obvious.
"No. But I wanna survive. And if letting them come down here to help us against whoever is out there, then so be it." I shot back. "How'd you get locked up?" I asked, changing the subject. Maybe a conversation would help me get my mind off Jasper.
"Arson." He answered simply.
"There's a story there." I assumed.
"Guard floats my dad. I set fire to the guard's quarters. Guard dies. I get arrested. Here I am." He answered simply.
"How long did you have left? Before you got reviewed?" I asked.
"About nine months, give or take. How about you?"
"A year and two months. Guess we kinda got lucky getting sent down here. At least we're free. If we don't survive, at least we wont live our last days in a cell." I said, thinking aloud.
"Well, you are quite the optimist, aren't you, Jordan?" The green eyed boy smirked.
"Whatever. Let's just find my brother." I adjusted the strap of my pack and continued walking at a faster pace.
***
"Guys, we found something." Clarke and Finn emerged from a different path. In Clarke's hands were a pair of goggles. Jasper's goggles.
I snatched them from her grasp, almost rudely. "Where did you find them?" I asked swiftly. I had given Jasper the goggles as a birthday gift on our ninth birthday. I snuck through the vents of the Ark to steal them. He wore them every day since.
"Near a stream a while back. Next to a trail of fresh blood. They took him somewhere." Finn replied.
Bellamy and Wells met up with us a couple minutes later and we all followed the 'trail'.
"Hey, how do we know this is the right way?" Murphy asked.
"We don't. Spacewalker thinks he's a tracker." Bellamy replied.
"It's called cutting sign. Fourth year Earth skills. He's good." Wells was quick to shut him up.
"You wanna keep it down or should I paint a target on your backs?" Finn cut in. He stopped at some kind of small tree, where part of a branch seemed to have been snapped off. He looked closer and crouched down, noticing a couple drops of blood beneath the tree.
A loud, groaning sound filled our ears Or maybe it was a roar?
"What was that?" Wells asked.
"Now would be a good time to take out that gun." I said to Bellamy before we all ran. I didn't know where we were going, we were just following Finn since he seemed to know.
We made it to a clearing. And in the center of the clearing, strung up in a tree... was Jasper.
"Jasper!" I shouted and immediately sprinted for my brother.
All of a sudden, the ground gave in beneath me and a hand grabbed onto my wrist to stop me from falling. I looked up and saw Murphy, holding me up.
"C'mon! Get her up, get her up!" One of the boys shouted. Bellamy took my other arm and the others all helped me up. I was breathing heavily. I could have died.
"You okay?" Clarke asked.
"I'm fine." I panted before turning to Murphy. "Thank you."
I looked down at where I had fallen. Spikes of wood and metal lied in the hole. A death trap.
"We need to get him down." Clarke declared.
"I'll climb up and cut the vines." Finn volunteered.
"Yeah, I'm with you." Wells volunteered.
"No." Finn objected. "Stay with them." He gestured to Clarke and I. "And watch him." He eyed Bellamy before looking to Murphy. "You, let's go."
"There's a poultice on his wound." Clarke noticed. It pained me to see my brother in such agony.
"Medicine?" Wells asked. "Why would they save his life just to string him up as live bait?"
"Maybe what they're trying to catch likes it's dinner breathing." Bellamy added.
"Maybe what they're trying to catch is us." Finn countered.
As Murphy and Finn cut the vines off Jasper in attempts to break him free, a bellowing noise was heard from the grass behind the tree.
"What the hell was that?" Murphy asked.
"Grounders?" Bellamy guessed.
A large creature with black fur emerged from the tall grass, pouncing at us with a roar.
"Bellamy, gun!" Clarke yelled. Bellamy searched for his gun, but gunshots came from somewhere else. Wells held the gun in his hand and aimed it at the animal, pulling the trigger multiple times.
All of a sudden, the animal stopped. Was it dead?
Nope. It pounced at Bellamy. With the one last bullet in the gun, Wells shot it.
Now it's dead.
We finished getting Jasper down and decided to take the animal back so we could eat it.
***
"They're back!" A boy yelled from camp as we approached it. By now, it was nightfall. Finn and Wells carried Jasper, who's side I refused to leave. Bellamy and Murphy carried the animal, which I learned was called a panther, in a pouch made from the parachute.
"Is he okay?" Monty asked as we approached the drop ship.
"He's alive." I confirmed.
"I need warm water and strips of cloth for a bandage." Said Clarke.
"Who's hungry?" I heard Bellamy yell from outside, followed by cheers of a crowd.
Clarke said she did everything she could for Jasper and until we could get real medicine, the only thing that could help him at the moment was rest.
I went outside to grab some food. Monty insisted that I at least try to eat something. I was just so worried about Jasper.
I walked up to the makeshift table that Bellamy and Murphy were handing out sticks of meat on. They were making kids take their wristbands off in order to get it, but I really could not care less.
I picked up a stick of meat off the table. Murphy noticed me and quickly stopped me. "Hey, what do you think you're doing, Jordan?"
I tilted my head to the side. "Whatever the hell I want."
word count: 1467
a/n: hey yall hope you enjoyed this chapter. new one will be out soon. this chapters basically all dialogue but thats okay sometimes. i wanna develop ophelia as her own character rather than just 'murphys love interest' yk? anyways, love you all xx