The once peaceful forest passed Lyra by in a blur of green and brown. Jasper had just been hit. They weren't safe anymore.
Lyra wanted to be as close to Finn as she could, but the promise she made Bellamy kept running across her mind. She helped Octavia limp along but soon realized it would be easier if the petite girl climbed onto her back. "Hop on Octavia."
The limping girl looked to her in confusion, "What?"
Lyra let out a frustrated sigh, "We don't have time Octavia. Get on."
Realizing how pressing the situation was Octavia jumped onto the older girls back and they continued running. Without warning, Lyra heard Finn shouting behind her, "Clarke, come on."
"Finn, let's go!"
The group of five ran as fast as they could and Lyra could feel the beads of sweat forming on her forehead. Carrying Octavia wasn't an easy task but she pushed on, she would allow fatigue to set in later.
"Monty!" Noticing the boy had fallen, Clarke and Finn raced to catch up knowing that the two brunettes couldn't help him up off of the forest floor. "Come on! We got to go!'
Octavia called to the frozen boy behind her, "Monty, get up!"
Looking behind her Lyra finally noticed what had petrified the fallen boy, a skeleton. Lyra's heart pumped faster in her chest, whether it was from the running or from the bones, she didn't know. The rest of the group had finally taken notice of the skeletal frame lying before them.
"Who are they?"
"What are they?"
Lyra huffed as her eyes darted around the woods surrounding them, "I don't know but let's not stick around to find out."
As the group made to move again, a scream echoed throughout the forest. "Jasper. He's alive." Clarke sprinted ahead of the group, trying to make it back to Jasper.
"Clarke, wait. Wait!" They followed after the impulsive blonde, rushing through low hanging branches and careful not to trip on the large roots. "Wait. Stay out of the trees."
Crouching down next to her brother, Lyra noticed that Jasper was nowhere to be seen. "Where did he go?'
"He was right there."
"No. Where is he?" Lyra looked to Monty, sadness coating his face, he had just lost his best friend.
"They took him."
Knowing that they shouldn't be wasting time milling about the place Jasper had been hit, Lyra spoke up, "We have to go. Now."
Clarke looked to the chocolate brunette in disbelief, "We can't just leave him."
"We need to warn the others that we aren't alone. We can come back for Jasper when we're better equipped. C'mon." Knowing they couldn't do much more for their friend the rest of the group turned to follow Lyra, who still had Octavia securely on her back.
After a long trek through the sinister woods, the remaining five had made it back to camp. The small relief that Lyra felt was tossed away when she heard Clarke shouting up ahead, "Wells! Let him go!"
"Oh, what now?" The two brunettes finally came upon the camp and saw Bellamy holding back the same hook-nosed boy who had been fighting Wells the day before.
"Whoa. Hey! Enough, Murphy." Noticing that Lyra had been carrying Octavia on her back, Bellamy ran to them, relieving Lyra of the extra weight. "Octavia. Are you all right?"
"Yeah."
Bellamy looked to the group of disheveled teens, "Where's the food?"
The panting teens exchanged looks. Finn sat down on a nearby log, Lyra sitting next to him, "We didn't make it to Mount Weather."
"What the hell happened out there?"
Lyra let out a dry laugh, "Want us to start from the beginning or just today?"
Clarke spoke up, "We were attacked."
"Attacked? By what?" The concern for his friend was clear in Wells' voice.
"Not what. Who. It turns out, when the last man from the ground died on The Ark, he wasn't the last Grounder." Lyra bent over as much as her injury would allow and clasped her hands together, staring at the soft ground that was wet from the rain.
The tension in the air was palpable and thick, "It's true. Everything we thought we knew about the ground is wrong. There are people here, survivors." Nervous murmurs broke out among the delinquents. "The good news is, that means we can survive. Radiation won't kill us."
Lyra looked up letting out a scoff, "Yeah but the Grounders will."
Wells briefly scanned the area around him, noticing the group of six had become five, "Where's the kid with the goggles?"
"Jasper was hit. They took him." Noticing Wells' wristband was missing, Clarke grabbed his arm. "Where is your wristband?"
Ripping his arm from her Wells turned to Bellamy with a menacing glare, "Ask him."
Lyra glanced between Bellamy and the blonde, "How many?"
Murphy answered the fuming blonde with a smug grin, "Twenty four and counting."
Feeling her anger rise Lyra spoke up, "Leave it, Clarke, we have bigger things to deal with."
Her warning fell on deaf ears, "You idiots. Life support on The Ark is failing. That's why they brought us down here. They need to know the ground is survivable again, and we need their help against whoever is out there. If you take off your wristbands, you're not just killing them. you're killing us!"
Lyra held her head in her hands. She wanted to get to Jasper, they would have time for motivational speeches later.
"We're stronger than you think. Don't listen to her. She's one of the privileged. If they come down, she'll have it good. How many of you can say the same? We can take care of ourselves. That wristband on your arm? It makes you a prisoner. We are not prisoners anymore! They say they'll forgive your crimes. I say you're not criminals! You're fighters, survivors! The Grounders should worry about us!"
The delinquents let out cheers, Bellamy had won most of them over. Lyra stood up in frustration, slightly wincing because of the irritated wound in her side. "Enough. I don't give two flying shits about the wristbands right now. I'm getting Jasper back. Whoever wants to join, meet me in the dropship," with that she stalked off, Clarke and Monty following close behind.
***
As Lyra was forging a makeshift weapon out of some loose metal, Clarke stomped her way over. "We need to make a stretcher for Jasper when we find him. I doubt he'll be able to walk."
Lyra thought quickly, a parachute part would be useful to carry him in and a few seatbelts could hold him in place. Without a word the bright girl set to work.
Clarke looked on in confusion, "What're you doing?"
Lyra held out the cut-up dropship and seatbelts, "Voila! Stretcher a la broken dropship."
"Smart. Let's get a move on."
Before they could leave the dropship, Wells' voice bounced off of the metal walls, "There you are." Clarke turned to gather more supplies and Lyra turned to wait near the exit."When my father said they didn't leave us any supplies, he meant it." Clarke grabbed at his arm, noticing a cut from his altercation with Murphy, "It's just a scratch."
"You're making friends fast."
Lyra rolled her eyes, "Clarke, we have to go. You can criticize Wells' social skills later." Knowing Clarke would come down when she was ready, the impatient brunette made her way to the lower level of the dropship to wait for her. Not even two minutes later, Lyra saw Clarke descending the ladder.
"You came back for reinforcements. I'm gonna help."
Catching the back end of their conversation, Monty and Lyra exchanged looks, "Clarke, he's right. We need him. So far no one else has volunteered."
"I'm sorry, Monty, but you're not going either."
"Like hell I'm not. Japer's my best friend."
"You're too important. You were raised on Farm Station and recruited by Engineering."
"So?"
"So food and communication." Clarke gestured to Monty's head, "What's up here, it's gonna save us all. You figure out how to talk to The Ark and I'll bring Jasper back."
Lyra was reaching the end of her rope, "I don't care who does or doesn't come at this point. I'm going after Jasper, now."
"You're right Lyra, let's go." The two girls made their way out of the dropship when Finn walked in, "Hey, you ready?"
"I'm, not going anywhere, and neither should any of you." Lyra sighed in small relief. She wouldn't have to keep constant watch over Finn and could instead worry about Jasper. "That spear was thrown with pinpoint accuracy from three hundred feet."
"So what, we let Jasper die?"
"That's not gonna happen. Spacewalker? What a joke. You think you're such an adventurer. You're really just a coward." Lyra was offended at Clarke's comment towards her younger brother. She didn't know what he had done to feed Raven. To sneak out to see his sister. To give Raven an incredible birthday. Her brother was one of the bravest, borderline reckless, people she knew.
"It's not an adventure, Clarke, it's a suicide mission."
Clarke shook her head, "Come on Lyra, let's go."
"About time." Lyra made her way passed Finn and patted him reassuringly on the shoulder.
She was pushing past the parachute door when Finn called out to her, "Lyra? Promise you'll come back to me?"
"I promise. I always come back to you, don't I?" With a small smile, Lyra left her brother behind to join Clarke outside.
"Before we leave I need to find Bellamy." Lyra didn't have time to question her as they made their way across the trashed camp where Bellamy was cleaning his sister's wounds.
"You could have been killed."
"She would have been if Jasper and Lyra didn't pull her out."
Octavia looked up at the sound of Clarke's voice and practically jumped to her feet, "You guys leaving? I'm coming, too."
Bellamy and Lyra were quick to shoot her down, "No, no. No way. Not again."
"Yeah, not happening."
"They're right. Your leg's just gonna slow us down." Clarke turned to Bellamy and Lyra was glad she either forgot about or decided to ignore the wound in her side. "I'm here for you."
"Clarke, what are you doing?"
Ignoring Wells, Clarke got to the point of why she was holding up the rescue mission in the first place, "I hear you have a gun." Bellamy sighed, discreetly pulling up his shirt to show the sleek gun residing in the waistband of his pants. "Good. Follow me."
"And why would I do that?"
"Because you want them to follow you, and right now, they're thinking only one of us is scared." Lyra nearly chuckled at Clarke's response, it was subtly devious and she loved it.
"Murphy. Come with me." Lyra wasn't pleased with Murphy joining them, from what she had seen so far he wasn't the friendliest camper, and she really didn't want to get in a knife fight today.
"Those guys aren't just bullies, Clarke. They're dangerous criminals."
"I'm counting on it." Clarke and Lyra turned their heads to make sure Bellamy and Murphy were following. The brunette had taken the lead, realizing she was most likely the best tracker out of the people present, Finn would have been better but she was all they had.
***
Lyra didn't know how long they had been traipsing through the forest, all that was on her mind was finding Jasper.
"Hey, hold up. What's the rush? You don't survive a spear through the heart."
Lyra rolled her eyes at Bellamy, "Put the gun away Bellamy, we won't be needing it yet. Hopefully not at all."
"Jasper screamed when they moved him. If the spear struck his heart, he'd have died instantly. It doesn't mean we have time to waste."
Bellamy lunged at Clarke's wrist as she turned to go, "As soon as you take this wristband off, we can go."
Clarke huffed and tore her arm out of his tight grasp, "The only way The Ark is gonna think I'm dead is if I'm dead. Got it?"
Lyra pressed her lips together, "Enough with the fucking wristbands. Can't you see that we have bigger problems right now? Once we have Jasper, by all means, continue with your power struggle but until then I suggest that you two keep your mouths shut."
They all started at the chocolate brunette, knowing she was reaching her breaking point. But Bellamy had to shoot one last comment in Clarke's direction, "Brave princess."
At that point, many thoughts were running through Lyra's head. One of them being if she should take the time to strangle Bellamy or not. Her decision was made for her when Finn's voice rang throughout the forest, "Hey, why don't you find your own nickname? You call this a rescue party? Got to split up, cover more ground. Clarke, come with me."
Lyra wasn't particularly happy with Finn's arrival but didn't say anything as they had already wasted enough time.
Finn and Clarke walked towards the front of the group and Lyra walked behind them with Murphy, it would be easier to watch over Finn this way. "So Spacewalker's your brother, huh?"
Lyra decided to give Murphy a chance, "Yep. He's my little brother."
"How are both of you alive? Because I know he wasn't locked up for being born."
The brunette gave a bitter laugh, "My biological parents wanted a boy. And when I wasn't one, they gave me away."
"Tough luck."
"There are others who've had it worse."
"Yeah, my mom's last words were blaming me for my father's death."
Lyra knew he didn't want sympathy, Raven never did and most people hated the looks of pity, "That must've been rough."
Murphy scoffed, "You could say that again."
***
Lyra was sure they had been walking upwards of three hours. Clarke and Finn had gone slightly ahead of the group and it worried her, especially when the laughter and splashing stopped.
With furrowed brows, the brunette stalked ahead to see what had happened to the previously laughing teens. She let out a sigh of relief seeing that they had only gone to examine some rocks but the apprehension came creeping back when she saw that the rocks were covered in blood. "Jasper?"
The teens looked to the older girl and Clarke held up Jasper's goggles, "He was here. We should get the others."
Finn touched the dark red blood splatter, "We're close."
***
"Hey, how do we know this is the right way?"
Bellamy let out a scoff, "We don't. Spacewalker thinks he's a tracker."
Lyra rolled her eyes, her brother hadn't taught her many things, but the one thing he did teach her was tracking. She knew she would never be as skilled as Finn, his tracking was at a different level. When they were younger they would rely on his skills to meet up with her in secret. Lyra would leave small clues for him that lead to her, and the more skilled he got the scarcer the clues became.
"It's called 'cutting sign.' Fourth-year Earth skills. He's good."
Finn, fed up with the talking, called back to the boys behind him, "You want to keep it down or should I paint a target on your backs?"
Lyra watched as her brother kneeled down after examining a broken branch, "Find something, little brother?"
"Yeah, take a look." Lyra bent down to her brother's level, careful of her wound, coating a few speckled gray rocks was a dark crimson red stain.
A distant moan of pain jolted everyone back to attention. "What the hell was that?"
Lyra stood up and looked to Bellamy, "Now would be a good time to take out that gun." With those final words, the group set off in Jasper's direction, Finn in the lead.
When Lyra reached the clearing with the rest of the group her mouth immediately flew to cover her hand, "Holy hell."
"Jasper." The goggle-wearing boy had been strung up in a tree bloodied and nearly unconscious. "Oh, my god."
The blonde girl made her way towards Jasper in a daze the group following close behind, "Clarke, be careful."
"Jasper?"
"What the hell is this?" Not a second after Clarke fell through a trap but, with Bellamy's quick reflexes she was caught. Lyra noticed that Bellamy was glancing back and forth between the struggling blonde and her wristband. Irritated she made her way over to help pull her up.
"Clarke! Get her up!"
"Pull her up, Bellamy!" With a bit of struggling the group was able to drag Clarke to safety.
As her brother was checking Clarke over, Lyra turned to Bellamy with a suspicious glare, "I really hope I didn't just see you contemplate letting Clarke go just so you could have her wristband."
"Not at all, sunshine."
The blonde had recovered from her fall and looked back to Jasper, "We need to get him down."
"I'll climb up there and cut the vines."
Wells looked to Finn, "Yeah, yeah, I'm with you."
"No. Stay with Clarke. And watch him." Finn nodded his head in Murphy's direction, "You. Let's go."
Before her brother could get too far Lyra called to him, "Finn?"
"Yeah, big sis?"
"Be careful." The shaggy-haired boy nodded his head in affirmation.
"There's a poultice on his wound."
Wells looked at the boy in question, "Medicine? Why would the save his life just to string him up as live bait?"
"Maybe what they're trying to catch likes its dinner to be breathing."
Lyra sighed, "Always the optimist, Bellamy."
"Maybe what they're trying to catch is us." The brunette wondered at that moment when her brother had gotten so morbid. The ground was changing them and she knew it but what she didn't realize was how fast that change was coming. "Hurry up, Murphy."
"Be careful."
A low growling sounded from the tall grass behind the group, it reminded Lyra of the low machine hum heard back on The Ark, "What the hell was that?"
"Grounders?"
"I'm pretty sure that Grounders are still human, Bellamy."
Bellamy turned to look down at the brunette beside him, "You don't know that. We can't trust anything anymore."
Suddenly a large black panther darted at the group of three on the ground, emitting a loud snarl. "Bellamy, gun!"
Lyra looked to the curly-haired man beside her, he was patting his waistband not finding the sleek weapon. "Bellamy? Where is it?"
"I don't, I can't find it." At the sound of gunfire Bellamy and Lyra looked to Wells, he had begun firing shots at the obsidian cat but was missing each one. The brunette was losing hope with every missed shot.
The tall grass beside Bellamy and Lyra began to rustle and shake with every step the panther took, seemingly shaking the ground surrounding them. In a second the grass had stopped moving altogether. "Bellamy, it stopped."
"Yeah, so?"
"That means it's gonna poun-" A thunderous roar infused with a gunshot cut Lyra off as Bellamy pulled her close and shielded her from the hungry cat. Hearing a loud thud beside them and empty clicking of a gun, the pair let go of each other to look at the now-dead panther and a shocked Wells.
"Now she sees you."
Her heart still pounding in her ears Lyra looked to Bellamy, "Thanks."
"Don't mention it. I owed you for helping Octavia."
"Lyra?" Finn called to his older sister, who was obviously shaken up, "You okay?"
"All good little brother. Just work on getting Jasper down."
***
After hours of lugging both Jasper and a dead panther back to camp, the firelight was finally in sight.
Helping Wells and Finn carry Jasper to the dropship, Lyra noticed Monty come out a worried look on his face, "Is he-"
"He's alive. I need boiled water and strips of cloth for a bandage."
Lyra set to work on ripping cloth bandages from loose fabric she had found. "This good, Doctor Griffin?"
Clarke giggled slightly as she looked over the cloth Lyra had given her, "Yeah. Thanks, Lyra."
"No problem," smiled the brunette. Lyra stepped outside after handing Clarke the makeshift bandages. She spied her brother staring at the glowing fire where everybody had gathered around. "What's happening little brother?" He simply nodded his head to Bellamy and Murphy as more hoots of happiness flowed from the fire, they had been taking off their wristbands for food, "Oh hell no. Seriously?"
At that moment Clarke walked out of the dropship, "He's stable for now, but without medicine..." Noticing what Lyra had seconds before, Clarke began to rapidly shake her head, "They're taking off their wristbands for food? No way. I-I won't do it."
"You don't have to." Lyra watched as her brother walked over to the lined-up skewers of panther meat and watched as he grabbed three.
"Whoa, whoa. Wait, wait, wait. What, you think you play by different rules?"
Finn looked at Murphy blankly, "I thought there were no rules." With that, her brother turned to leave and handed her a skewer.
"Ballsy, little brother. I didn't know you had it in you."
"I learned from the best." Finn gestured for Clarke to follow him and knowing they wanted some alone time, Lyra stayed behind, though she didn't like how close the two were growing.
Noticing Bellamy's stare she gave him a small smirk and sat on a nearby log, watching the altercation between a delinquent who attempted to follow Finn and the curly-haired boy himself. Bellamy punched the boy to the ground and stalked off angrily.
After finishing her panther meat, Lyra walked to a small clearing not far from camp. It was filled with glowing butterflies and mushrooms. She found it peaceful, laying down and looking to the stars that were once her home she began to sing.
"When a star is born, they possess a gift or two. One of them is this, they have the power to make a wish come true. When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are, anything your heart desires will come to you."