We made it back whole, though I hardly felt like my foot was going to stay on my foot for any longer. When we arrived back at the camp, it was dark again. As they carried Finn into the drop ship, I flopped down on a log and lifted my foot up. From the light of the fire, I could see that the wire was still tight underneath my skin.
“Why were you defending him?!” Bellamy yelled at his little sister.
“He saved my life.” Octavia growled back, turning to leave the camp.
Bellamy grabbed her and pulled her back, “You can’t keep me locked up forever.”
Bellamy mentioned something about Finn being stabbed being her fault and it tipped her over the edge.
“Stop blaming me for YOUR mistakes!” She yelled, “If we had just left like I said, Finn wouldn’t have been stabbed. It’s your fault mom died! If you hadn’t made me go to that stupid dance she’d still be alive!”
“Mom died because she had you.” Bellamy struck back, “My life ended the day you were born.”
Sibling feuds were usually not so heated, but I could feel the tension from over here on my log, warming up by the fire. I averted my gaze; Octavia’s birth was not Bellamy’s fault, and I knew that he would go to the end of the world to save her. In fact, we pretty much just did. Octavia couldn’t see that in her rage, but I also understood her side of this as well.
Octavia, who was wounded as well, hobbled up to me.
“I can’t do this, Ava.” She sighed, her voice higher pitched than normal; I could see her eyes were filled with tears, threatening to fall.
“Whatever happens, he loves you.” I said, though she knew it. “But right now you two are butting heads, time apart is the best thing.”
“He’s going to kill that Grounder.” She continued. “He’s going to go out there and bring him back… torture…” She trailed off.
“Is that bad thing?” I wanted insight on the Grounders, and this one in particular. On our way back from his living quarters, Finn had muttered something about him having a horn, that he blew it and saved all of our lives.
“He saved my life, Ava.”
“Tell me more.” I said, looking at my bloodied ankle. Reaching behind me to the wash basin, I grabbed a rag and began dabbing at the blood, cleaning it up before doing the dirty task of digging the wire out.
“The morning we were going after Bellamy, to find the drop ship, I took a tumble and hit my head. When I woke up, he was there. All I can remember was that I woke up in his… home?” She paused, trying to remember it all. “My knee was in a bloodied state and he cauterized it, fixing it for me. Even after I escaped, he found me and saved me from the other Grounders. He saved you, and Bell… by blowing that horn that warns them of the acid fog.”
I remember the horn blowing, and the dragging having stopped by that point. “If he had been even moments later, I would have been dead.”
“Exactly.” She grabbed the cloth from me and cleaned up the back of my ankle, making a face at the wounded Achilles tendon. “You won’t be able to walk on this…”
“I know.” I said, “If he saved us, why did a Grounder try to kill Jasper?”
“I don’t know…” She sighed, “This one is different.”
For some reason, I believed her. There wasn’t much evidence pointing at him as a bad guy, so I had no reason to think he was trying to kill us. Though he had stabbed Finn, he had also saved all of us. Self-defence perhaps, when it came to Finn. Though, it did him very little good as he was lying unconscious in his home, surely planning revenge when he woke. Octavia had confirmed that Bellamy had not killed him, and perhaps he would spare them by not bringing it up to the others, but the chance was small in my mind.
Nothing could be determined just yet; Octavia told me that he hadn’t spoken a word to her the whole time she had been with him. I wondered if they would have kept English as their language of choice; if they were descendants of survivors from the war, living in America, I believe that they would know English. However, they were many languages spoken in America and Canada; any one could have prevailed, or a new one could have developed over the years.
I myself was of Canadian descent, one of space shuttles they had in orbit was now part of the Arc. Though the Arc meant everyone was of one nationality, I still held pride in being Canadian.
“Bellamy will rip him apart.” I said as lightly as possible, “For taking you. He won’t see that it was to protect you. If he retrieves that Grounder, he is as good as gone, and we will have started a war.”
Octavia shook her head; her long brown hair swaying over her eyes until she flung it over her shoulder, dropping them.
“Can you get it out?” I asked, pointing to my ankle.
“I’ll need something sharp, tweezer-like.” She said, “And then I’m going to have to cauterize it.”
“You sure you can do that?” I asked.
“He did it to me.” She said, looking over her shoulder towards the forest. “I know I can.”
I could see something in those eyes of hers; something I had never seen before. Though she was sweet on Jasper, and had something with Atom, nothing compared to what I could see in her eyes as now. The way she was worrying about the Grounder, the way she was defending him, and the way she talked about him; it all added up to something much more than wanting to keep him alive because he saved her. I wondered if I had had that same look in my eyes when I had first gotten to know Bellamy. I had fallen hard for his bad-boy persona, and even harder for the soft side that he seldom revealed.
I wondered what Octavia knew about the Grounder; he obviously had a soft side to him that she had seen, as he had kept her alive and even mended her wounds. He obviously had a bad-boy side that Octavia had been intimidated by, and yet entranced by as well. I worried about her as if she were my own sister, though we were almost the same age, me her senior. I knew nothing much about this Grounder, but something told me to trust him.
“Don’t let Bellamy find him.” She pleaded for me.
I've been so damn busy lately! I haven't written in days! Please comment and vote! :D