Chapter 15
Raven had watch duty first tonight, but she knew nothing was likely to happen. Those drones were almost certainly fried. But camp would feel better if they kept watch anyway, and personally, Raven wouldn’t want to get on Lexa’s bad side. The girl was intense.
Luckily for Raven, the light from the fire was enough for her to make some adjustments to her brace. Unsurprisingly, the piece of junk was falling apart already. That’s to be expected when you make a critical and frequently used piece of hardware out of scrap parts and no ability to weld. Raven was just lucky that she’s a genius.
Of course, she was beginning to run out of ways to keep the thing strapped to her thigh. The brace had to go completely down her leg, keeping her ankle completely rigid, and then stabilizing her knee so that she didn’t collapse because she couldn’t keep her knee extended on her own. But her brace was loose at the ankle again and that meant that she ran a very high risk of rolling her ankle and breaking the damn thing.
If she broke it, it’s not like it’d hurt, but she ran the risk of infection or serious disfiguration that would make wearing a brace even more difficult. But that didn’t mean that the brace was making it any easier for her.
She barely registered someone sitting beside her, she was so focused on adjusting the twine knots keeping parts of the brace together. After the third time the knot slipped from her fingers, the presence spoke.
“Need help?”
Raven turned to send some snarky remark back, but Anya leaned forward and pressed a single finger onto the twine where the knot kept slipping. Two seconds later and Raven had the knot exactly where it needed to be and her ankle no longer moved within her brace.
“Thanks,” Raven bit out, she always had issues with being nice. At least, that’s what Clarke said.
Anya shrugged. “No problem.”
Raven crossed her arms, glaring at the brace. Usually she could think of a million ways to make anything in front of her more efficient, but now that she’d tighten the one knot, everything was blank. It’s not to say that there was nothing to do to improve the brace, that it was perfect, but there was nothing Raven wanted to do. She wanted to strip the damn thing off and maybe go for a jog.
Of course, she can’t.
“I hate this damn thing.” Raven grumbled.
Anya shrugged her good shoulder. “At least you can walk.”
Raven rolled her eyes. “Barely.”
“That doesn’t matter. You aren’t confined to a wheelchair, and you’re alive. There are dozens of others on that plane that can’t say the same.” Anya scoffed. “You should be grateful for what you have and forgive yourself what you don’t.”
Raven shrugged. “Easier said than done. You don’t have limited mobility.”
“I can’t shrug the way you can.” Anya rolled her eyes. “I can’t lift my arms or roll my shoulders. Movement of any type that could jostle my injury, I can’t do. That’s not going to stop me from doing what needs to be done.”
“My leg isn’t going to stop me from doing anything!” Raven hissed.
“Fine, but when the time comes will you be able to run?”
Raven practically growled. “Who’s side are you on?”
Anya rolled her eyes. “It’s not about sides, Raven. It’s about getting over your pride and learning to accept yourself. We’ve all been through a traumatic event, still going through it, and we’re all different for it. Now it’s time to accept the physical change you’ve gone through thanks to this shithole.” Anya paused and scoffed once again. “You’re never going to be the same again. Better get used to it now, because if you don’t it could get us killed.”
Raven sighed. “Yesterday, I found bruises up and down my shin. I hadn’t even known they were there, and when I pressed into the worst of them, there was no pain whatsoever. That kind of bruise should have me fucking howling in pain. But nothing.”
“You’re right.” Anya was gentler now, Raven would never describe Anya as gentle, but that’s what she was at the moment. “It is easier said than done. But that doesn’t mean you can give up.” She put a hand to Raven’s shoulder a squeezed. “Yu ste yuj, you’re strong. Don’t pussy out now.”
Raven smirked and allowed a silence to settle between them, calmer and relaxed. Anya let her hand drop back to the ground. The trees rustled with the wind coming off the water, and though her back was to the fire and she had a jacket to cover herself, Raven shivered. She glanced back to see Lexa and Clarke whispering back and forth, practically draped over each other. “They really hit it off huh?”
Anya nodded. “I haven’t seen Lexa so comfortable with anyone not directly related to her in a very long time.”
Raven shrugged. “Clarke’s a flirt, but this is a completely different level. Like for fucks sake, we’re stranded on an island, stop eye-fucking.”
Anya laughed, like honest to god laughed, and Raven had to hold back her own laughter just to say she witnessed it. Anya’s laughter was short-lived, though, because the shaking of her shoulders and the vibrations of her chest aggravated her wound and the sound tapered off into a grunt of pain. “They’re rather oblivious.”
“It’s awful.”
“Bets on when they kiss?”
“You’re on. Two weeks, and it’s during a fight.”
Anya whistled low. “Alright, I give it a week, and it’ll be soft and sentimental, after a confession, there’ll be no witnesses, but they won’t be able to stop blushing at each other so we’ll all know immediately anyway.”
“Right,” Raven rolled her eyes. “If you say so.”
“What will I win then?” Anya smirked.
“You think you’re winning. How sweet.”
“Cocky aren’t you? But I know my cousin, she’s a born romantic. Can’t be aloof to save her life. She tries but she’s just too gushy. She’s practically a valentine’s card come to life, only without the cheesy lines. She’s a gay puddle with no game, that kid can’t function around pretty girls. I’m surprised she hasn’t short circuited with all that cuddling over there.” Anya snickered. “She was born to be the
Commander of the Trikru, but really she’s a love-sick teenager.”
“Commander huh? How does that work? She’s so young.”
Anya shrugged her good shoulder. “It’s another term for Chieftain, I suppose. Commander is just the closest translation to English from Trigedasleng. Her title is really ‘Heda’ but it’s difficult to translate the full meaning.”
“Why not try?”
“Why bother?”
“I’m bored, we have plenty of time, and it’s better than thinking about terrorists and killers and nuclear bombs.”
Anya furrowed her brows as she stared out across the forest. “How about this, for everything I share about me and my people, you share about you.”
“Me? I grew up in the same place as Clarke. There’s nothing to tell.”
Anya shrugged again. “Sure there is. You have a family, friends. A community, it’s no different.”
Raven nodded slowly. “Okay. One for one, shoot.”
Anya paused. “I have no siblings, but Tris and Lexa are my cousins, we were raised together as if we were siblings.”
“No siblings, just my mom and I. But Clarke and Abby came into my life later on when I met Clarke.”
“I spent a majority of my life on the reservation, but when Lexa wanted to go to school off reservation, her father begged me to go with her because he was worried for her safety. Tris followed shortly after.”
Raven smiled. “I’ve lived in Baltimore my whole life. Worked several car shops and ‘car shops’ as a kid and then teenager. I’ve made a decent name for myself and I’m working on a degree at a school just outside of Baltimore, but the goal is NASA.”
“My uncle, Lexa’s father, is the current Heda of the Trikru. He’s a good man, but protective, sometimes overly so. He keeps a lot of the children from going off reservation as much as possible. And he makes sure that we only hunt during certain seasons.”
“Really? Why?”
“Abandoning the game so soon?” Anya teased.
Raven shrugged, entirely unfazed. “I want to know more about your people. Clearly it’s a small tribe.”
Anya nodded. “My clan is very small, and a majority of the people living on reservation right now are very poor and rarely leave because of it. It’s not our fault, it’s very difficult to make a living with that ‘redskin’ label, you know?” Anya sighed. “We were pushed into a box so small we can barely sustain ourselves on it. There’s almost no room for farming if we don’t want to completely destroy the forests we have left, but that would take away all of the game we hunt. The food shortage is something we all felt growing up. Even Heda sometimes couldn’t put food on the table for Lexa.
“Then, Lex, Tris, and I, manage to get off the reservation, we had barely any money. In fact, we were homeless for a few weeks before we managed to scrape up enough for an apartment. Often, when we applied for jobs and they asked us where we lived and what our experiences are, it was all from a reservation. They just assumed we knew nothing about technology or the global world. I’m not a brilliant computer programmer, but I know how to work a cellphone. Granted, Lexa could kill a computer just by looking at it, but the rest of us are just as adept at Google as any white kid around.”
Raven was enthralled. “I can’t even begin to tell you how many people ask me if I’m legal, or if I need a translator.”
Anya smiled. “Exactly. Anyway, after we each got jobs, we were able to at least live on our own for a while. We lived near the university Lexa was desperate to get into, and just about every other day she was in the financial aid and admissions offices trying to get in. But they had a really nice soccer field that we could get to without having to show university ID’s. So on the weekends we’d go and play soccer, it’s what we grew up playing, Lex especially loves it, and it was a nice little break from our daily grind you know? But one day, we were playing a pretty nasty match, Tris on goal keep and I was playing defense and Lexa forward. It was pretty nasty; I think we danced around each other with that ball for thirty minutes without moving out of a five-foot radius circle in the center of the field. Tris was starting to get bored and I wanted to wake her up a bit, but Lexa wasn’t having it. So she did a fucking rainbow kick on me. Of course, I’m on it, because I’ll have you know I’m the next Marta, but Lexa is a bit faster. She beams it towards Tris. Tris saves it, tosses it back to me, and as Lexa is barreling towards me, because I’m pissed off, I do the rainbow right back and this time, I score.” Anya’s eyes are bright, and her smile is something so primal, Raven would expect her to be talking about sex itself. “We’re having a good time, but apparently we were starting to cut in on the varsity soccer practice, because the coach comes storming over and demands we come with him. The team is watching us like we’re gods or something, which I guess is reasonable, but this coach is pissed the hell off. So Gustus leads us through campus and right into the admissions department and demands we be enrolled the next semester and he didn’t care how many hand jobs he had to give we were going to be given full rides and spots on the soccer team. He told us he’d seen us around and been impressed, but that time he’d been watching us the whole time and was so blown away he wouldn’t accept anything but our uniform sizes.”
Raven grinned. “I got a full ride at UMBC for mechanical engineering. Something about being a robotics genius.” She winked and Anya huffed a quiet laugh. “Brains over brawn.”
“I’m studying history.” Anya smiled. “The kinds of things I didn’t get the chance to study on the reservation. It’s whiter than what I learned, but it’s interesting, and free.”
“It was just me and my mom growing up in Baltimore. So I did a lot of working on cars and things while avoiding her. Just kinda expanded from there.”
Anya nodded, a content smirk on her face, watching the forest. Raven didn’t want to tear her eyes away from the older woman’s profile. Anya had these sharp cheekbones, high on her face and catlike eyes that made her look far wiser than her years. But the upturn of the corners of her lips softened her just enough, Raven could see under her cold façade.
And it shouldn’t have been peaceful, not with the way things had been going on the island. But it was and Raven felt the peace settle gently around them. A soft breeze, the crackling of the fire, the clicking of the insects in the forest before them and the crash of waves behind them relaxed Raven. She didn’t mind the sand all that much, and now that it had cooled down some the heat wasn’t bothering her either. Really, it was just the stench of a dozen terrified and injured adults, unbathed for longer than a week that got to Raven. “I could really use a shower. A real one, with soap. And a razor.”
“Yeah you could.”
“You’re worse than me!”
“Please,”
“Shut up,”
“Make me,”
The survivors eked out a routine in the following days. With just Lexa, Tris, and Aden entering the forest every morning to retrieve breakfast and then back out at noon for dinner, they were able to keep away from the drone perimeter and avoid further losses. Most of the time, the traps didn’t have much in the way of food for dinner, but Pike and the fishing group brought enough to feed everyone a second time. Clarke supposed they likely had about a quarter to half of the necessary calories to maintain their weights every day. Which meant that they’d drop weight like an anchor in the bay, but they’d be alive and have enough energy to get through the day and survive to the next. Lexa ferried off a few of the smaller animals and dried out their meat to keep in case they needed more food than they had, but at least no one went to bed without food to eat.
Clarke certainly noticed the way Anya and Raven followed each other around, how could she not? They argued constantly. They probably got off on it or something, but it was annoying to everyone in camp.
Anya’s wound was beginning to scar over. Abby deemed her out of danger for infection, which Anya took as “completely fit and ready for strenuous exercise.” Clarke spent a good deal of her day lecturing Anya on the dangers of stressing her still healing chest. Raven proved useful in giving the older girl something to do while she waited for a clean bill of health. Though Clarke suspected that went beyond tinkering with scraps of metal and arguing over Jason Bourne movies.
Clarke sat next to Raven beside the fire just before the first watch of the night began. Lexa and Bellamy were working together to fix up a partially collapsed hut at the last minute. Raven grabbing the designated poking stick to play with the coals of the fire, smiling at the flare ups in the flame. Her smile disappeared in seconds. “Holy shit what am I doing?” She whispered, eyes widening. “I’m an idiot!”
Raven jumped up from the fire and ran towards the ditch they used to relieve themselves downwind of camp. Clarke heard a muffled scream of joy before Raven returned, beaming. “Clarke, I know how we’re getting off this fucking island!”
Everyone perked up at this, and all of the sudden, the camp erupted in cheers and questions and excitement. The first stroke of happiness in weeks.
Clarke grinned, she knew Raven would get them out.
“Quiet down,” A single voice cut through the cacophony with precision. “Raven,” Lexa walked forward, brushing tree sap from her hands onto her filthy jersey. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m such an idiot, god I can’t believe I haven’t thought of this sooner!”
“Raven,” Lexa rolled her eyes. “We forgive you, now give us details.”
Raven snapped away from her ranting, eyes bright and a grin stretching across her face. “Gun powder!”
“From what gun?”
“That one!” Raven pointed towards the ditch beyond the trees. “That, over there is a gold mine of potassium nitrate!” Raven paced towards the fire. “And there’s our carbon source, we’re just missing the Sulphur! But that doesn’t really matter I can adjust the ratio and it’ll explode just fine.”
“I don’t follow.” Lexa folded her arms across her chest.
“We can make bombs, Lexa. Some really, really, REALLY crude gun powder, a couple of weeks in the sun, Monty and I can rig up some detonation system or other, and we have bombs.” Raven’s grin was contagious, and Clarke couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride sweep through her. That’s her best friend. “It’ll take a while. I can’t just extract potassium nitrate in a day, but, I can do it. That’s the point. If we have weapons, even if they’re just sticks and stones, we have a chance. And we need to take it.”
Lexa was made from stone; Clarke was convinced of it. She didn’t even breathe while they waited for the final verdict. “Blood must have blood.”
The camp cheered.
“Hold on, wait.” A man’s voice rose above the crowd. “Hold on!” He boomed. Charles Pike stepped forward. “We’re using homemade gun powder against heavily armed terrorists?”
“What would you have us do? Tase them all?” Raven snarled.
Pike raised his chin. “Raven, I wouldn’t expect you to understand, but not all of us want to sacrifice ourselves for a crudely made pipe bomb.”
“Listen here you piece of shit-“
“Raven,” Lexa raised one hand to silence her. “If not all of us agree, then we’ll sit down and talk it out.”
Clarke moved to her feet with a sigh. “Now’s a good a time as any. We’ve got a routine that keeps us alive and we’re working up a surplus. We’re already in a better position now as we were a month ago. But we can’t last here forever, we need to get off the island, see our families. I’m sure no one will argue against that.”
Bellamy grunted in agreement, standing silently behind the group. He’d become something of a sentinel among the group. He did very little talking these days, and he hung in Octavia’s shadow like a kicked puppy. But he became less abrasive towards Clarke and Lexa as they tried to keep camp in enough order to survive, in fact, he quickly became an asset and stood at Lexa’s side more often than not.
“We just banished a guy for killing someone. Now we’re starting a war?” Pike folded his arms.
“You voted for Murphy’s punishment.” Lexa snarled. “You chose to kill him. What’s the difference here? I can tell you, this time you have to look them in the eyes and pull the trigger rather than turn your back and let them die alone. This is an opportunity to save our own lives. We need to do what is necessary to survive.”
“What happened to the moral high ground?”
“What moral high ground?” Lexa retorted. “We threw that away a long time ago. Either way, I believe in fighting our enemies. Not ourselves. Murphy wasn’t innocent but he didn’t deserve what he got. And those terrorists? They’ve killed people. They’ve killed our people, and they’ve killed hundreds of thousands of others, a handful of nations have lost thousands of troops to the information leaks these people claim are for our greater good, and they’ve orchestrated at least one plane crash, who knows? Maybe there are more.” Lexa shook her head. “I’m not saying we should aim to kill them all, but I am saying that in this case, deadly force is necessary.”
“I agree with her.” Kane stepped forward. “We have no choice but to retaliate. They’ve made it clear that negotiation is not an option.”
“Abundantly clear.” Raven grumbled.
“I’m with Lexa and Raven.” Clarke stepped in. “Anybody else object?”
No one spoke. “Then we have our decision.” Lexa was calm, quiet. “We need to scout them out. Learn more about how they work and their habits and routines. Raven, get to work on the gun powder. Make a surplus.” Lexa turned to Abby and Kane. “Tomorrow we’ll discuss what you two remember from the compound and try to cook up something of a plan. Anya, you’re a good strategist, I could use your help.”
“Sha, Heda.”
“Tris, you and Aden will fetch breakfast tomorrow and take over food prep. We’ll adjust everyone’s duties as we prepare for war. But we can do this. It’s time we get off this island.”
Raven grinned. “Aye aye, cap’n.”