[C H A P T E R S E V E N]
Life is Unfair
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ROSELINE'S FIRST TWO DAYS ON Earth were nothing to what she expected. Though her expectations weren't high to begin with, she still had better hopes than the ones she had received. With Jasper being speared and Bellamy almost getting mauled by a panther (she had made an educated guess on what exactly it was), Roseline was ready to call it quits and give up on the glamorous idea of Earth. She had to remind herself that coming to Earth was a dream only few could achieve and that her parents would be ecstatic to know that she had survived her first day.
The thought of her parents ripped a hole in her chest. She wondered if her mother and father were thinking of her, missing her like she was with them. Roseline had never experienced this sort of loss before, she had always been happy. She never had a best friend to lose, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, or even a grandparent. Her whole life had been nothing but average. But now with Grounders out for blood and radiation-amped creatures scouring for their next meal, Roseline's life was soaring out of the ordinary.
Walking out of the drop-ship, the scientist-to-be glanced around, wondering what she should do now. She hated the feeling of not being useful to anyone. Her caramel brown eyes spotted a group of four campers by the exit of the wall. Seeing that Nathan and Bellamy were among them, Roseline meandered over with nothing better to do.
"What are you guys doing?" she asked, taking notice that the team was packing up bags with food and supplies.
"Packing," Murphy glared as he continued.
"Oh, well, where are you going?" she directed the question to Nathan instead.
"Out," Bellamy said curtly before Nathan could respond.
"Why?" she questioned curiously.
"Food and water," the other boy, Atom she believed, replied. Roseline shifted her feet and fiddled her fingers.
"Can I come with?"
Murphy laughed and shook his head. "We'll pass, thanks."
The girl frowned. "But, I know everything about Earth and the plants, and what's safe to eat and what's not, and how to track and --"
"I thought you were supposed to be with the other guys, saving that kid who got speared," Murphy interrupted her frenzy of words.
Blotches of pink painted themselves on Roseline's cheeks.
"Oh, well, they said I could take a break," she trailed off and Bellamy gave her a quizzical look.
"Why?"
The girl's pink cheeks became bright red.
"I think I gave them too many fun facts..." Roseline bit her lip as the group roared with laughter.
"Okay, wait," Murphy held up his hand, still cackling. "So you're telling me that you got kicked out of the privileged party because you were too annoying?"
"I wouldn't put it like that..."
"Alright, I'll tell you what," Bellamy started. "you can come with us if you can tell us a fun fact."
"Okay, what do you wanna know?"
Murphy snickered as he packed his bag to the brim. "The fastest way to leave us alone."
Roseline ignored the boy's rude comment and squared her shoulders. "Fun fact: socially isolated people have a twenty-six percent greater risk of dying."
Murphy rolled his eyes as Bellamy, Nathan, and Atom laughed at her remark. Bellamy zipped up his backpack and handed it to Roseline who beamed with excitement.
In the dense forest, birds chirped and various animals scurried about as the five campers marched away from the safety of the drop-ship. Bellamy, with his tough and broad posture, led the group with ease, despite Roseline's attempts of taking charge. Alongside his left was Atom, holding a makeshift spear with an iron grip; and on his right stood Murphy, kicking pine cones and occasionally giving a cold stare back at the earth scientist. Nathan walked with Roseline, lost in his own little world. She guessed it had something to do with his father or boyfriend due to the faint grin he wore as he trailed along.
Roseline, with a bag larger than her torso strapped on her back, hopped around the forest with glee. Her eyes danced to each flower and tree, immediately coming up with the names and what they were useful for. She would excitedly point out a few of her personal favorite plants and tell the group an interesting fact about it, which slowly began to get on everyone's nerves; especially Murphy's highly delicate ones.
After two long and tedious hours, the occasional small, bitter comments Roseline and Murphy would make to each transformed into constant bickering. The other three boys tried to calmly pull them apart but the pair still found a way to push each other's buttons.
"We all got the same education!" Roseline exclaimed for the third time. "Intelligence doesn't come from privilege."
"Oh, bullshit. I bet all you kids from Alpha got into some sort of smarter program," Murphy scoffed and flung a low branch so it would hit Roseline in the face.
"Or it could be the fact that---ouch!---we actually paid attention to what they taught instead of screwing around and getting ourselves arrested," Roseline retorted, swatting away the branch that made contact with her cheek. In less than a second, Murphy swiveled around, stalked toward the girl, and held his drop-ship knife to her chest.
"I've had enough of your stupid little--"
The other three abruptly stopped and Bellamy was quick to Roseline's aid.
"Alright, hey, back off," Bellamy ordered, pulling Murphy away from a wide-eyed Roseline.
"Oh, c'mon Bellamy, you know damn well she's been getting on your nerves too."
Roseline rolled her eyes. "Oh, and you haven't? You're so full of yourself--"
"No, I've had enough of both of you getting at each other's throats, literally," Bellamy glared at Murphy. "We're splitting up. Miller, Atom, take Murphy that way to cool off. Rosie, you're with me. We'll meet back in the middle, got it?"
Simultaneously, both Roseline and Murphy huffed in annoyance as they parted their separate ways. As the two groups walked away from each other, Roseline could hear Murphy muttering obscenities under his breath, and Bellamy had to physically guide her away before she could give the boy a piece of her mind.
After a few minutes, Roseline sighed. "I'm sorry about splitting us up, Murphy just makes me so angry and--"
"It's fine," Bellamy murmured, keeping a steady two steps ahead of the girl. She frowned and jogged up to match his pace.
"No, it's really not. I mean, I shouldn't have let him get to me like that and it was super immature of me to --"
Bellamy stopped, causing Roseline to awkwardly stop three steps ahead of him before turning back to face the janitor.
"Rosie," he cut off, scratching the base of his neck. "It's okay not to like someone. Not everyone you meet is going to be the perfect definition of a good human. And not everyone is going to deserve your niceness."
The two locked eyes for a long moment and Roseline felt like there was an underlying meaning to his sentence, but she couldn't quite place what it exactly was.
"Everyone deserves kindness, Bell. There's already too much hate that goes around, so why should I contribute to it?"
He shook his head and began his pace of two steps ahead as Roseline tried to keep up.
"Like I said, Rosie, not everyone deserves your niceness."
The air between the two fell quiet and everything was fine. That is until Roseline became hyper-aware of her surroundings. She was ready to go insane. Her mind could hear every little thing that made noise in the woods and the crunching of leaves beneath her feet was becoming too much. So, with Roseline being herself, she decided to strike up another conversation.
"You know, if I had a bottle of bleach and you had a mop, this would be just like back on the Ark," she joked, cracking a smile and jumping over a large log.
Bellamy scoffed but stayed silent, leaving the girl to ramble, for fear of listening to her own thoughts.
"Speaking of the Ark, shouldn't you be up there? I mean, it doesn't make sense. If you're down here, you should have done something to get locked up. But if you did do something bad, then they would've floated you. Did they grant you a pass? Or did they decide that you should go down anyways to watch the prisoners? But wait, you're just a janitor, so how would that work?" Roseline stopped and gasped, getting lost in her theories. "Oh my gosh, did you sneak down here?"
Bellamy spun around and walked toward Roseline with an obvious scowl.
"How did you get down here, Rosie? Last I checked, you're too good to break the rules, and even if you did, you're over eighteen. So, what's the secret?" Bellamy waited for her to say something.
She took a deep breath. "Okay, can I tell you something in confidence?"
He nodded with a curious look.
"I don't actually know how I got down here. I've just been telling everyone that I don't remember my crime or that I didn't wanna talk about it. But really, I don't even think I even got arrested."
Bellamy frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that a couple nights ago, I went to bed in my room stressing out about the placement test and when I woke up, I was in the drop-ship. And I don't wanna say anything to anyone down here because they might harass me or something. Course, that didn't really work out because people are doing it anyway."
He gave a thoughtful look then shrugged and continued the journey across the forest floor.
"Wait up!" Roseline called, running to catch up. "You never answered my question! How did you get down here?"
"Don't worry about it," he replied, walking a bit faster when he saw her out of his peripheral.
"Unfair! I told you my secret, now you tell me yours."
"Life's unfair, Rosie. Get used to it," he shot back, stopping to pick a few berries off of a bush. Roseline groaned in annoyance and glanced around for more berries. Spotting a clump a few yards away, she made her way over, stomping on every branch she could find along the way.
The two were silent as they picked tayberries off of bushes, unknowingly getting farther away from each other. Roseline was beginning to feel restless with the silence, but she heard something above her which dismissed the bored thoughts instantly. Pausing her actions, she looked up into the trees near her only to see nothing out of the ordinary. She went back to pick her berries, but a cold blade against her neck halted her movements. She slowly stood up straight as an arm wrapped itself around her torso, the blade coming closer to her tan skin.
"Bell," she whimpered just loud enough for him to hear. He turned around in confusion, and his face fell pale seeing Roseline being held captive by some greasy Grounder. He went to reach for his knife, but the Grounder dug the blade into the girl's skin more, causing her to take a sharp breath as warm blood spotted around the cut.
Another Grounder appeared and stuck a dagger against his neck as well, leaving the two Sky People trapped and defenseless. The Grounders began to walk them away from the patches of berries and to someplace Roseline was too scared to even imagine. She suddenly felt her captor fall to the ground, shocking the other Grounder and Bellamy. Roseline whipped her head around to see an arrow lodged into the Grounder's throat with blood oozing out of the wound. Using the distraction wisely, Bellamy kicked his captor in the shin, elbowed his ribs, and then grabbed his own knife to stab the Grounder in the stomach.
The pair heaved heavy breaths, sweat covering every inch of their skin. Bellamy took a few steps forward to get a closer look at Roseline's new injury on her neck.
"You okay?" he asked gingerly. Roseline nodded, not really focused on his question, but more on the dense wilderness around them. She was terrified of what had hit the Grounder with such a precisioned shot.
"What the hell just happened?" Roseline whispered, finally facing the man.
"Not a damn clue. But from now on, we're sticking together." He tugged her arm and led them back in the direction of camp, a troubled look glued to his face. Out of the corner of her eye, Roseline spotted a dark-skinned man darting from behind the trees and leaving in the opposite direction. She wanted to mention it to Bellamy, but then decided that she didn't want anything else to do with Grounders, so she watched the mysterious man run away with a bow locked in his hands.
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A/N: i love writing scenes w rose and murphy. they may hate each other but i love it when theyre together!! maybe im just a sucker for ppl arguing and bickering lol!!
anyways happy reading!!
-kate