"show em' you give a damn"
Change of plans, Bellamy wouldn't let me come. Even though I spent a good ten minutes arguing that Clarke cleared me medically, Bellamy wouldn't hear a word of it. He kept arguing that there were already enough people going and that I needed to stay here and make gunpowder. I will never understand why that guy doesn't like me, but even Octavia was somewhat against the idea of me coming with them. They suggested that maybe I should help Jasper make gunpowder, but I didn't really wanna be near him right now, so I decided to take a nap instead.
After a long day of hunting, I deserved this sleep. But it didn't last long. Ever since what happened with the Grounders, I haven't been able to get a decent sleep. Nightmares or just thoughts of what happened keep me up every night. Most nights I'll wake up in a cold sweat and then won't be able to go back to sleep. It sucks, but life goes on, even if I'm tired.
I got maybe an hour of rest at most. It was still dark out and Raven, Bellamy, Monty, and Octavia were all still out looking for Clarke and Finn. I decided to make myself useful and make some more gunpowder. Jasper isn't the only one who knows the recipe. I got some charcoal that Finn found from the 'art supply store', some sulfur that Jasper miraculously extracted from somewhere and some potassium nitrate, which no one wants to know where it came from. After an eternity of sitting in my tent, mixing the ingredients and trying not to blow myself up, I finished one batch.
One batch.
One batch isn't enough. One batch won't save us from the Grounders. One batch isn't good enough.
I'm just so mad. Mad at Jasper, mad at Bellamy, mad at the Grounders, mad at the idiot who burned down the smokehouse but mostly mad at myself. I'm mad at myself for yelling at Jasper, even though he was just being protective. I'm mad at myself for not being able to make this gunpowder fast enough. I'm mad at myself-
"Shit!"
I'm mad at myself for blowing up the gunpowder and covering my face in ash.
So we now have one and a half batches because my dumb ass thought it would be a good idea to cut corners and do multiple batches at once. Awesome.
I stole a cloth from Octavia's side of the tent before stepping outside to go wash my face off in the tent where the water dispenser was.
"You fulfil your lifelong dream of becoming a chimney sweep or something?" Someone said as I entered the tent.
"Shut up, Murphy." I replied, definitely not in the mood for his stupid, snarky comments right now.
"What's got your panties in a twist, Sunshine?" He replied amusedly. I said nothing and dipped the cloth in the bucket of water under the tap. I wiped it over my face to get the soot off, the cool water feeling refreshing on my skin.
"Why are you even in here?" I asked in a bitter, annoyed tone.
"Had to get all the fish guts off my hands," He replied, wiping his hands off with a damp rag before carelessly tossing it into a crate with some other cloths and rags.
"So that's what that smell was. Thought it was just you." I commented, wringing the rag out that I had used for my face before hanging it to dry.
"You missed a spot, doll." Murphy noted, his eyes narrowing slightly with a small, lopsided smirk, somehow managing to ignore my comment.
I wiped over the spot on my cheek he was looking at with my sleeve before trying to shove past him and out of the tent. But Murphy stopped me, holding my arm and bringing me back to face him.
I studied his features as he released my arm and bought a hand to his mouth, dampening his thumb with his tongue. Again, his eyes stood out the most to me. They were a beautiful stormy blue, almost grey. His pupils wide as he looked into my own. He moved his thumb to my cheek, with a slight pressure, gliding it across my cheekbone, his index finger resting under my chin in a curl. "Got it."
When he moved his hand away, for a split second, neither of us moved. For a split second, we just stayed there, in the middle of the tent with nothing but the comfort of each other's gazes. But it didn't last long as I snapped out of it like a switch was turned on and shoved past John and out of the tent.
What the fuck just happened?
Anyways...
"Open the gate!" I heard a kid yell. That could only mean that Monty, Bellamy, Raven and Octavia were back, hopefully with Finn, Clarke and whoever else they were with. As expected, Octavia, Raven and Bellamy came through the gate, but they were carrying a boy named Myles on a stretcher. I couldn't see Monty.
The looks on their faces told me something was off.
"Where's Monty?" I approached Octavia, who was helping Bellamy carry the stretcher as they took Myles into the drop ship.
"We don't know." Bellamy answered when his sister fell silent, not wanting to hurt me even more.
"What do you mean 'you don't know'?" I exclaimed. How do they just lose a person?
"We split up, and he got lost in the woods," Bellamy explained sternly, trying to suppress his anger.
"Well, we have to go after him." I declared, my worst fears coming true. If the Grounders get to Monty first, I'll never forgive myself. "Get Myles inside and let's go."
"Ophelia, wait." Raven stopped in front of me as I clipped my pack around my shoulder. I was going after Monty, alone or not. And they were not going to stop me. "We think the Grounders took him."
"Yeah, no shit the Grounders took him," I spat back. "And I saw firsthand what the Grounders do to our people, so if you think I'm just gonna wait around while Monty's getting tortured, you've got another thing coming."
I tried shoving past Raven to leave camp, but she stepped in front of me again. "It's too dark and too dangerous for you to go out now. Especially alone. I promise, we'll go after him first thing in the morning. We'll get him back."
She was right. I didn't reply, giving her all the answer she needed.
Bellamy spoke up next. "Raven, you still think the minefields are a good idea?" Raven nodded. "Everyone, back to work! Those foxholes aren't gonna build themselves!" He shouted at the rest of the camp before he and Octavia took Myles into the drop ship.
"Hey. Monty will be okay. I promise. C'mon, I need you and Jasper to help me set up these landmines." Raven put a hand on my shoulder. Raven's one of the very few people right now that I wouldn't want to feed to the lake snake.
I nodded, giving in before going into mine and Octavia's tent and getting the gunpowder I had just made and some random wires that could be useful for the land mines. I saw Jasper coming out of his own tent with essentially the exact same stuff i'm his arms as I had in mine. I made a point to 'accidentally' shove him with my shoulder as we walked in the same direction towards Raven. He returned the favour, and I almost dropped the very active, very dangerous gunpowder out of my hands.
"Fuck off," I mumbled aggressively to my brother through gritted teeth.
"You first," He retaliated, his voice slightly quiet.
This obviously wasn't our first fight. All siblings fight. Well, not that I know many other people who have siblings, you always see them bickering in the old movies. But Jasper and I won't talk to each other and just argue for a few days and eventually, he'll give in and apologize and we'll be all good again.
Of course, if it's my fault, I'll apologize, but it rarely ever is.
"You two. C'mon, no time to waste," Raven hollered us over.
I know Jasper's mad too. Not only at me, but at himself and at the fact that he can't go after Monty. He couldn't keep it hidden from me if he tried, not that he was trying very hard right now.
Jasper, Raven and I worked together to assemble and bury these land mines while Bellamy had others building foxholes. I don't know when we turned into soldiers, but I wasn't liking the sound of things so far.
"Come on! These foxholes aren't gonna build themselves!" Bellamy yelled, not aggressively, but it wasn't exactly politely either.He came over to where Raven and I were assembling a land mine, standing behind us he decided to comment, "You better hope those land mines work. With all the gunpowder we're wasting, we could be making more grenades."
So of course I had to say something in reply, "Be my guest, come test one."
Raven beside me gave a small amused chuckle as we continued tying wire around the pressure plate of the mine we were working on.
"Cute," Bellamy entertained. "I need this entire section mined by morning. Then we finish the south field."
This caught my attention. I stood up as he began to walk away. "We're going after Clarke, Monty and Finn in the morning."
"You just can't be told 'no', can you, Jordan? Nobody leaves this camp," Bellamy replied, looking down at me in attempts to intimidate me.
"We can't just abandon them," Raven cut in. "You wanna lead them? Show em' you give a damn."
Bellamy's reply was cut off by a gunshot coming from someone guarding the wall. The loud bang was followed by sounds of confused delinquents.
"Hey! What the hell's the matter with you?" Bellamy demanded, marching up to the kid.
"I- I'm sorry, man, I fell asleep. I've been on watch all day," The kid replied frantically.
"We've all been on watch all day!" Bellamy replied angrily, pushing the kid against a tree and grabbing him by the collar. For a 20-something year old, Bellamy Blake sure does act like a child. "That bullet was one less dead Grounder."
"Bell, you're scaring people," Octavia cut in calmly.
"They should be scared!" Bellamy but back, shoving the kid off and moving so he was in view of the majority of people around us. "The bomb on the bridge bought us some time to prepare, but that time is up! The Grounders are out there right now, waiting for us to leave and picking us off one by one when we do. Clarke, Finn and Monty are gone. Probably dead.
"And if you wanna be next, I can't stop you. But no guns are leaving this camp! This camp is the only thing keeping us alive!" He shouted to end his speech, his breaths heavy, the crowd silent. I don't necessarily blame him for saying what we were all probably thinking. "Get back to work!"
Huffing, before I went back to work, I made a point to pass Bellamy. "If it were you out there... Clarke, Finn and Monty wouldn't hide behind these walls like a coward."
word count: 1894
a/n: hiii everyone sorry it's taken forever to get this chapter out. i thought this chapter was pretty ordinary ngl, kinda boring but next chapter should be better. lmk what you thought. stay safe, love you all xx