Chapter 8
Anya had trained for years not to show her emotions. Showing emotion was a weakness that she couldn’t afford to allow her enemies to see. See, when it comes to fighting, emotion is dangerous. Very, very dangerous. Anger makes you powerful, but sloppy, and sloppy gets you killed. Fear makes you quick, but idiotic, mistakes are made when you are afraid in a fight. So, warriors like Anya, they train their entire lives to tamp down any sort of emotion, simply to maximize their chances of surviving any given fight. Stoicism and calm was the only option.
Even then, separating her emotions from her duty did not prevent Anya from feeling. So, watching the metal star fall from the sky and feeling pain blossom across her body corresponding with each twist and turn, Anya had no way to prevent all the blood draining from her face. None of her methods were working to slow her racing pulse, and no amount of pinching or shifting made her feel any less faint.
Her Keryontai has fallen from the sky.
She couldn’t dwell on this for long, of course. Duty came first. If Lexa could put aside Costia’s death and lead the Coalition, then she could ignore the call of her Keryontai and lead her own people.
“Anya,” Indra called in that clipped tone she used with everyone. “They are beginning to drift closer to TonDC.”
“Hold the border as Heda has ordered, kill those who cross it, but do not follow them when they retreat. She will arrive later today.” Anya ordered. “Have they tried to contact the Maunon again?”
“No, but it is only a matter of time.”
“String the boy up. A scarecrow of the dead should warn them off for now. They’re still weak. What of the two venturing southwest?”
“They’ve returned to camp. They have fayoguns.” Indra hissed. “They don’t function well, but they are still dangerous.”
“We will not march on them unless Heda orders it.” Anya warned. “What of the Maunon movements?”
“Ripa movements remain the same, but there have been the flying scouts moving towards the Skaikru base.” Indra reported.
Anya jutted her chin towards the column of smoke drifting towards the sky. “They have more people.”
“It landed within the border Heda has ordered.”
Anya’s stomach dropped. She wanted a reason to retrieve the metal star. “We leave it. Heda is not to be disobeyed.”
Indra practically snarled as she stalked away.
Anya’s entire body ached, but the sharpest pain was in her forehead. It meant her Keryontai survived the fall, but for all she knew, her Keryontai could be incredibly dangerous and allied with the Maunon.
Her spine was rigid as she turned back to her squadron of gona. “Send a scout to watch them. I want to know what and who is in that box. Do not be seen, do not be heard, do not attack.” Anya snapped. “Linkon, keep an eye on the Skaikru scouts drifting towards TonDC. Be on their tails, do not reveal yourself. Try to herd them away. I want eyes on the Skaikru camp. We need to know everything going on. Two gona will accompany me to meet Heda.”
The squadron split immediately, each person going in a separate direction to fulfill their orders. Anya turned back to the smoke column. She hoped that the Skaikru turned out to be helpful to Lexa. If they turned out to be enemies, then she and her Keryontai could be on opposite sides of a war.
That train of thought brought unwanted images of Anya slaying her own Keryontai, or the other way around, so she turned away and focused on the task at hand.
Raven’s head pounded with every beat of her heart, her ears rang, and every muscle in her body screamed.
She’d never felt better in her life.
No, that was a complete lie, she felt fucking awful.
She was roused by someone shaking her shoulder. They were fucking loud about it too, though that might just be the concussion speaking, but Raven didn’t care what it was, just that it hurt.
“Hey, wake up, c’mon.” Raven groaned and turned her head, face to face with a blonde cutie with a mole on her lip. “Wake up. It’s not safe here, we need to go.”
Raven blinked a few times before she lurched from the drop ship and stumbled into the fresh air, and what was that feeling on her face? Was that water? Just falling from the sky? It was raining. It was raining!
Raven threw her head back and laughed. “I’m on the ground.” She whispered to the sky. “I’m alive.”
“Do you have a radio? How’d you get down here?” The blonde demanded.
“Raven?” Raven’s head snapped to the voice along the tree lines, and her grin nearly split her face.
“Finn!” She rushed to his waiting arms, a bit of a sloppy kiss, she had to admit, but they were both smiling a lot and there was rain, and Raven had just landed. Really, she had a litany of excuses at her disposal.
“How did you get down here?” Finn smiled, holding her to his chest.
“Abby Griffin sent me down to check on everyone, deliver a radio and save your asses.”
“Abby Griffin?” The blonde interrupted.
“You’re Clarke right?” Raven grinned.
The blonde nodded. “When does everyone else come down?”
“That’s the thing.” Raven shrugged. “The Ark lost connection with you guys and then you people started taking off the bracelets. It looked like radiation poisoning.”
“Do you have a radio?”
“Do I have- are you kidding?” Raven laughed, jogging to the dropship, only tripping a little on the overturned dirt thrown from the crater she created. “Of course I have a radio! What do you take me for? An engineer?” Clarke blinked as Raven yanked the box from the dropship and showed them. Raven laughed. “This baby is going to get us talking to the Ark, then we can tell everyone that the ground down here is just fine. Oh! And your mom says hello.”
Raven absolutely adored the stunned look on the blonde’s face.
Anya had forgotten how intense and regal Lexa looked atop her black stallion, war paint running down her cheeks. It was hard to remember that the girl was only twenty summers or so. But staring down at her warriors with those narrowed green eyes, even Anya’s stomach flipped, and she had practically raised the girl.
“Anya, report.” Heda barely spoke above a murmur, but everyone was so quiet, that her voice sounded like she yelled.
“A hundred, they’re somewhere between adults and children. A dozen have been killed, and Linkon has been taken prisoner. They tried twice to reach the Maunon. Once, we killed one of theirs, the second, they discovered his scarecrow of the dead. They haven’t mentioned the Maunon since. Another ship landed earlier today, only one person was in it. They have tek that talks to the sky. They have more people, gona, coming soon. They try to hunt, but they’re too loud, like children or branwada. They’ve been scouting the area, but they don’t go far out of fear.”
Heda furrowed her brows. “Who is their leader?”
“They have two. A man, older than the rest, but a branwada, he takes charge sometimes, but mostly refers leadership to a girl, Clarke. They have a few deputies, including a thug who abuses his subordinates.”
“Have they spoken of the City of Light?”
Anya tilted her head. “No, Heda.”
Lexa seemed to pause at this. “Nothing of Becca? Or Alie?”
“No, only of the Ark.”
Lexa nodded once. “They have fayoguns?”
“Sha, Heda.”
“Onto the kidnapped gona. Who is he? How was he taken and where is he held?”
“Linkon is a gona assigned to my squadron from the gona among TonDC. I sent him to follow the Skaikru scouts venturing towards TonDC and then the fog hit. The other scouts lost track of him and one of the Skaikru. Next time we see him, he is being led into Skaikru camp by Clarke and her deputies with fayoguns pointed at him.”
“Indra, his loyalties?”
“Firmly with the Trikru, Heda.” Indra reported. “Even under torture he will give nothing up.”
“Good.” Lexa turned back to Anya. “What do we know of the Ark?”
“The Skaikru here do not like the Ark. The people on it are not good to them. But Clarke insists they must come down. The Skaion that arrived today is their messenger.”
Lexa sat back on her horse, glaring off into the distance, lost in thought, before she turned back to Anya. “Tomorrow, we will make contact with this Skaikru, and attempt to broker a deal to recover Linkon, if not peace.”
“Peace? Heda, they have invaded Trikru territory!”
“That will be negotiated and atoned for later.” Lexa tamped down on Indra’s protests immediately. “For now, we must alleviate the immediate threat, and that is the fayoguns and the gona prisoner.”
Indra’s mouth snapped shut with a click. Anya nodded once. “I will make contact with them personally, Heda, come tomorrow morning.”
Lexa nodded in return. “Good. I will brief you and give you your orders then. As for now, we eat, we rest, and we wait.”
“Clarke, we have to release him.” Octavia hissed, her hand an iron vice around Clarke’s bicep. “Now.”
Clarke had never seen Octavia panic. Not when the river snake was seconds away from killing her, not when there was a spear in Jasper’s chest, not when Octavia was kidnapped by the very Grounder she was talking about. “Octavia, he kidnapped you. Besides, he has information about the Grounders that are killing us off.”
Octavia’s jaw flexed with irritation. “I don’t care. He saved me. Now release him. Maybe this is our opportunity to connect with the Grounders.”
Clarke took Octavia’s hand from her bicep, massaging the knuckles before letting her hand drop. “Listen, we need the information he has.”
“Bellamy will torture him.” Octavia was close to tears. “We can’t let that happen.”
Clarke shook her head. “And let him get away with stabbing Finn?”
“I will not let you hurt him.” Octavia shoved Clarke’s chest. “Either you’re with me or against me. Do you honestly want to be the person that tortured a man for saving my life?”
Clarke paled, her heart was pounding already but the way Octavia was acting… it didn’t make sense. “Octavia, what’s really going on?”
The sharp inhale told Clarke everything she needed to know, even before Octavia said it. “He’s my soulmate.”
Clarke stared for a moment. “How do you know?”
“That’s why he saved me. He saw us scouting, saw me fall while we were running from the fog, he showed me when we took shelter. You know, pinched himself, and I felt it.” Octavia whispered. “Clarke, I can’t just let Bellamy-“
Clarke raised a hand to stop her. “We won’t let that happen okay? But listen, I need to make sure Finn survives. Once he’s stable I’ll have him released.”
Octavia wrapped Clarke in an unexpected hug before dashing off into the drop ship once more. Clarke heaved a huge sigh and followed her in. The dropship had a metallic scent to it, the blood Finn had lost, and Clarke was afraid that she might be getting used to the smell.
The knife had been removed, thought the extraction nearly killed Finn and Raven spent the entire procedure pacing annoyingly around Clarke. But Finn survived it, and the game was to wait for Finn to wake up. Once Finn was awake his chances of survival would go up.
Clarke stopped to check Finn’s vitals, well, his pulse. She didn’t have any of the necessary machines to tell her anything else, but the pulse comforted her as a medic. Raven lifted her head up from where she had curled up next to him. “Are you sure he’s going to be okay? He’s so hot.”
Clarke nodded. “He’s feverish.” She frowned. “And pale.” She bent over his face, peeling his eyelid up to look at his pupil. “Pupils blown.”
As if on cue, Finn began to convulse. “What the fuck, Clarke, fix him!” Raven jumped away in panic.
Clarke got to work. The seizure only lasted a few seconds, but he was foaming at the mouth and his muscles spasmed randomly. “The dagger was poisoned. We need the antidote.”
Raven shot up the ladder almost too quick for Clarke to react. Clarke had to get to her.
On the second floor of the dropship, Bellamy, Miller, and Octavia were stood in a half circle around the Grounder, chained standing upright, in the center of the room. Raven took three large strides to reach the man before anybody could stop her and slapped him across the face. “Where is the antidote?” She snarled.
Octavia looked like she had been struck, though Clarke supposed, that wasn’t far from the truth.
“Raven,” Clarke rushed forward to physically pull her back. “That’s enough.”
The man was unimpressed. He hardly reacted, despite the large red welt already forming on his face. Though, compared to the bruises marring the rest of his shirtless body suggested that perhaps this wasn’t the worst he had been dealt today.
“What the hell?” Octavia demanded, stepping forward.
“He poisoned Finn!” Raven shouted, lunging at the man again.
“Octavia, we need the antidote.” Clarke murmured under her breath to the younger girl. “You’re the one most likely to get it.”
Octavia stared with wide eyes. There was a moment’s hesitation, but it was gone once she set her jaw and moved towards the man. “The antidote?”
The man said nothing. Octavia whirled around, eyes landing on the bag they had confiscated from him when they had captured him. She rushed forward and dumped the vials onto the floor of the dropship. “Which one?” She hissed, looking at him pleadingly. “Please?” Octavia was begging now, but she was desperate. Clarke knew that if he helped them again, she had a better argument for his release immediately after. “Please?”
The man winced in pain for the first time Clarke had seen, and shuffled his foot further to point at one specific vial Octavia had dumped onto the floor. Clarke swooped forward and grabbed the vial, looking up to nod her thanks once and disappeared back down the ladder towards Finn.
Bellamy was pissed. This bastard kidnapped his sister, stabbed his friend, and kept a notebook of everyone in the camp. Yeah, this Grounder deserved the shit he got.
But Octavia was attached to him for whatever reason.
Octavia wouldn’t leave him alone about releasing the Grounder. But she knew exactly why he couldn’t do that. He’d bring back all of his Grounder friends and get them all killed. So instead he left the dropship to take a walk around camp.
Murphy was getting to be a problem, he made a lot of enemies out of the delinquents, and whenever Wells tried to temper him, tension rose between them to the point that Bellamy feared a fight would break out entirely.
So far, Bellamy was capable of tamping down most of the fighting among the kids, but they were criminals, rebels, and free, there was only so much he could do. It would help if Wells hadn’t been avoiding him.
Then again, Bellamy understood why, he kind of shot his father.
Bellamy ran a hand down his face and watched silently as Murphy yelled at some kid for not working. They’d been building a wall for a couple of days now, and it was mostly finished, but the kids were hungry, tired, and scared. Murphy was not helping.
But that’s when Wells stepped in. “Murphy, give the kid a break.” Wells snapped angrily. “They’re not your slaves.”
“Why don’t you shut up?” Murphy snarled. “This ain’t the Ark, Daddy isn’t here to protect you. You mean nothing down here.”
Wells flinched. “My father doesn’t matter; what matters is that you’re treating these people like they’re your slaves. So knock it off!”
That famous Murphy rage made an appearance then, and Bellamy’s stomach flipped, this kid was a psychopath. “I’ve had it with you acting like you’re royalty or some shit!” Murphy screamed. Bellamy saw the punch coming from a mile away, and he was sure Wells did too, but he took the hit anyway. Murphy’s fist cracked across Wells cheek and Bellamy’s face exploded with pain.
Bellamy was too stunned to intervene when Murphy tackled Wells, pounding into his face with all of the rage he had built up over the years on the Ark as a prisoner. After the fifth blow blooming across his own face, Bellamy finally stepped forward and pulled Murphy off of the younger boy. A single, sharp punch to Murphy’s nose broke it and effectively ended the fight. Murphy stumbled backwards, cursing and spiting and wiping the blood pouring from his nose and staining his shirt.
“What the fuck?” Murphy gurgled.
“Enough, we have people hunting us as it is, don’t start fights you won’t win.” Bellamy boomed.
Wells coughed, blood splattering from his lips. Bellamy moved to help him, but Wells struggled to his feet on his own. “Thanks.” He ground out, it was clear he didn’t trust Bellamy any more than he did after he admitted to shooting his father, but it was a start.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Why so you can shoot me too?” Wells snarled. He took a breath. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that.”
Bellamy looked to the ground. “I deserve that. But I need to talk to you. It’s urgent.”
Wells nodded, deflating as he blew out a breath. “Okay, okay.”
Bellamy watched Wells walk off, head hung low, delinquents sneering and jeering as he walked past. Bellamy turned to a silently fuming Murphy. He looked positively murderous.
“What the fuck is your problem?” Murphy sneered. “Protecting him? You make me sick.”
“I don’t have to pick on little kids to feel important.” Bellamy crossed his arms. “Leave Wells alone. He’s not Jaha.”
Murphy bared his blood stained teeth and stormed away, dripping blood as he went.
Bellamy wiped his face again, his hand trembling. So Wells was his soulmate. It didn’t make sense, but then again, he wasn’t supposed to be on the ground at all.
He was so fucked.
He shot his soulmate’s father.
Bellamy took a deep breath and then followed after Wells. Wells was leaning against the back side of the drop ship, glaring at the blood dripping onto the ground from his face. Bellamy cleared his throat as he approached.
Wells looked up for a second, and in that time, Bellamy pinched his forearm, hard.
Wells’ hand jumped to his arm where Bellamy had pinched himself and stared in wide-eyed shock. Bellamy had no idea how to continue the conversation, would it be continuing if he had never started it in the first place?
“Shit.” Wells whispered, staring at Bellamy’s forearm, where the stinging patch of skin was beginning to turn red. “Shit.”
“Agreed.” A beat of silence. “I thought you were a girl.” Wells’ eyes dropped to the ground again, Bellamy could feel the beginnings of an ache in his chest, another common feeling he had growing up. Bellamy blinked before realization dawned. “That was… insensitive.”
“You think?” Wells’ laughter was sardonic, bitter, frankly horrifying.
“I assumed-“
“That’s never a good thing to do.”
“Well I’m a shit person okay?” Bellamy snapped. “I got my sister arrested, tried to bribe a guard, assassinated the chancellor, and now I’ve hurt your feelings. I get it.”
Wells rolled his eyes. “No, you clearly don’t because you’re still rolling in self-pity and claiming you had no choice, or ‘couldn’t have known’ when you definitely could have if you’d take a second and actually think about what you’re doing for once.”
Bellamy hadn’t felt so thoroughly scolded since the time his mom caught him with a hickey on his neck at fifteen. It was humiliating. “What should I have thought then? Girls have-“
“No,” Wells groaned. “No, you’re still thinking everything is black and white see? You think that because my body looks one way then I must feel that way as well. Right? But I don’t. And yeah, I’ve taken steps to make my body look as much as I feel, that’s the easy part. The hard part comes when I have to be around people like you. People who assume things, and hate me, and hurt me.” There were tears in his eyes now. “Clarke and her family, and my dad were the only people who cared to know about me rather than the ‘phenomenon’ I exemplify. Because that’s what I am to everyone else. I’m a phenomenon that should be studied and questioned and understood, but I’m a person. I like to play chess and my favorite color is green and I’ve always wanted to try oranges. But no one thinks about that. They think about my genitalia!”
Bellamy gaped in horror. He wanted to be sick. As Wells spoke the feeling in his chest magnified and grew and blossomed into agony. “I just-“ Bellamy’s voice failed. Wells’ tears were beginning to fall, cutting a streak through the muck and grime coating his skin, Bellamy hadn’t realized how filthy they all were. “I didn’t know.”
Wells shoulders drooped. “I know. You couldn’t have known.”
Bellamy looked away, brows furrowed. “Well, I know now.”
Bellamy didn’t look up when he heard Wells walk away.