Chapter 15
''No, no, Tasha, stop. Listen. Stop!''
It's Finn that grabs me, stops me from running off into the woods mindlessly. I really don't care. I don't think. All I can think about is that Drop-Ship, and the fact that I need to be there instantly. I can't sit and wait, and I can't cry either. I can't even be around anyone anymore. So when they tell me no one's leaving camp until we've rested and recollected ourselves, I just tear off into our Drop-Ship and sit right on the hatch of the upper level hoping no one would come after me. I am suffocating.
I fall asleep after a while, somehow, curled up on a cot in the corner. Usually I can't just fall asleep, but I probably never realized just how tired both my mind and body have become. It creeps up on me. And I wish I hadn't fallen asleep as soon as I wake up, because all I've had are nightmares.
I was on the Ark again, and dad was crying because mom wasn't feeling so well, thinking I couldn't see him in their room, but the door was ajar. And I snuck right out of our place, and found my way into the medical repository as only I could; I was there for the hundredth time - I'd been there since the beginning of time and space and all existence. And the small warehouse suddenly turned huge, thousands of aisles that seemed to stretch through space, and I tried to find my way out but I couldn't, because suddenly there were guards everywhere, hundreds of them, and they were all trying to get me, and there was nowhere to run, just endless aisles everywhere that led to nowhere. And then the medicine I'd been carrying was suddenly a gun - the M16 Miller had handed me - and it was only mildly confusing because Miller didn't exist and I knew exactly how to use the gun I'd never held before in my life. And I was forced to start shooting my way out - I was so scared they'd hurt me, try to rape me. But it didn't matter, because they caught me anyway, covered in their blood, but they caught me, and the next thing I knew I was locked up. John Murphy was in the cell opposite of mine, and he was bruised and bloodied the way he'd been the day he left the camp, but that made no sense, because the camp didn't exist. The hanging never happened. When was he hanged? He looked at me with spite, hatred, anger. ''You betrayed me,'' he said, and suddenly I could see the marks on his throat - they burned red. ''You betrayed me!!'' I shouted, and then I was crying, and when I wake up my cheeks are wet. Raven is there. She has shaken me awake, a worried look marring her pretty face.
''Nightmare?'' she asks.
''Something like that,'' I sit up - I never wanted anyone to see me like this, ''When are we going?''
''Soon. Might wanna start gearing up,'' she says as she gathers up some tin cans, only to stop and look at me, ''You sure you wanna go?''
''Yeah, I'm sure,'' I say, ''I need to see.''
She just nods in acceptance, and doesn't argue. It takes me only a couple of minutes to eat something - force it down my throat, more like - and get ready. The group is already formed and ready to leave by the time I'm down.
''Neither of you should go,'' Finn tells me and Clarke. I'm still in half-shock, just sort of looking through him. None of these people seem really here; I'm not really here either. It's all like an old movie I'm watching from the outside.
''They want answers,'' Raven tells him, ''They deserve them.''
*
A hand gently - tentatively - lands on my shoulder as we walk through the woods. I know it's Bellamy before I turn around to see. I can by now tell apart the way all of our footsteps sound, but the proximity of his presence in particular is something I could always recognize.
''You okay?'' he asks me.
''Do I look okay?'' I ask back, still looking ahead. I don't mean to sound cold. I can't help that I'm hollow. What I really want is to hug him for a few moments, but if I do that, I might break down.
''No one can really tell with you,'' he replies to my question, his hand falling back against his body. I feel the loss of it immediately, and almost on a spiritual level. Like that hand tethered me away from complete pain for a while.
I think about what he said for a second and how right it is. I never show much, unless I really want to. Yet most of the time, he somehow comes through the cracks. It goes both ways, too.
''We don't really have time to not be okay,'' I say, instead of everything else I want to tell him. It's not a lie, either. He doesn't press on.
*
It isn't too long a walk to the crash site, or maybe we've just gotten used to long hikes by now. The Drop-Ship is completely destroyed. I know that no one has survived that the moment I see the place - I don't have to see the burnt carcasses. Yet it still doesn't quite sink in. Like my brain's not processing it.
''Find me the black box, hard drives,'' Raven orders around, ''Anything that will explain why this ship crashed."
''Stay sharp,'' Bellamy reminds us all, ''Grounder retaliation for what happened on the bridge is coming, just a matter of when.''
"Can you blame them?" Finn asks.
"No. I blame you,'' Bellamy retorts.
''Stop it,'' I growl. Their bickering is the last thing I want to hear right now.
"Maybe if you didn't bring guns-,'' Finn starts.
"If we didn't bring guns, we all would've been killed,'' Raven spits.
"Why they're coming doesn't matter anymore. It's our job to be ready when they do,'' says Bellamy, ''We're on our own now.''
"Oh!" Clarke runs toward some sort of colored liquid leaking out of the remains of the shop, ''Rocket fuel?''
"Clarke, stop!" Raven all but screams, making Clarke freeze on spot, "Hydrazine. Highly unstable in its non-solid form. If this stuff meets fire, we're all pink mist."
''Can we use it? You know, harness it?'' I ask immediately.
"Fire in the hole!" Raven shouts in reply, throwing some of the stuff further away. A small, contained explosion follows.
"We need to clear the area,'' she says.
*
Most of the remains of the Drop-Ship are practically unapproachable. It's pretty dangerous to even move around them, and we barely get to take even scraps out. Those who died in it have turned to pieces and dust, never to be buried. That thought doesn't exactly sink in either. Neither does it sink in for Clarke apparently, but at least she's cried some of it out. I know my state of shock will have some pretty bad aftermath. I want to say something to Clarke, but I don't know what, and I don't dare.
"Okay, then,'' Bellamy calls, ''We move in formation, no straggling, weapons hot. We got to get back before dark."
''I gotta pee first,'' I announce, making my way to the denser forest.
''Don't go too far,'' I hear his voice in the background.
I don't go too far, but I can't exactly pee with the rest of the group in sight and earshot either. And the moment I find the spot is the moment I regret it.
How much bad luck can one person possibly have? Am I cursed? Because I've barely thought about undoing my pants when I hear it. A sound. Maybe an animal. Maybe not. But suddenly, I am alarmed.
Sounds again. Not exactly footsteps, but something alike. I can't pinpoint the direction. It's as though this forest reflects sound in a weird way. Or there are more of these things, whatever they are. Grounders maybe, my mind tells me. I hold my breath, stand in place, and scan around. Nothing.
But I can hear it again every once in a while, and I can sense movement in the apparent silence. Somewhere in the darkest corners of my peripheral vision something stirs too, and every instinct of mine screams Grounders - they could have been watching us all day, preying on us, stalking and skulking in the trees. I certainly feel like I'm being watched. Adrenaline kicks in, nervousness stirs in the pit of my stomach, my hands get a bit sweaty on the rifle. My legs are ready to tear off.
I look up. I see a squirrel. I turn around full circle, M16 still firmly in hands, scanning the trees before I can run back and tell the rest that there might be something around other than squirrels. Just a damn heads up. But when I hear that same sound again, everything suddenly goes pitch black.
I wake up gagged and tied up, headache bursting through my skull, and alarmed to the bone, if not scared. The shock of the situation doesn't allow fear to sink in yet, but every nerve in me is alerted - I am not supposed to be here. It looks like a small shack with a dirt floor that I lie on, and there is only one guard at the door, unmistakably Grounder.
How much of an insignificant threat do they think me if they've put only one man to guard me? The thought makes me realize they have my M16. Panic shoots through me instantly, and my reaction to it alerts the Grounder to my being awake. He tells me something in a language I don't understand, but by the threatening tone I can assume he's telling me not to try anything stupid and stay still. There isn't even anything I can use to cut my hands loose. It's just a squalid shack with a makeshift chair they didn't even bother to place me on.
The sun is still up, I realize, so this particular camp can't be too far away from the crash site. I wonder if Bellamy and the rest are looking for me, and though half of me hopes they are and would come save me from whatever is about to happen to me, the other half of me wants them to run as far freaking away as possible.
The Grounder at the door is huge, and I barely register all of his facial features in the shadow which he forms, but I am pretty sure I could take him if I still had my knife on me. He doesn't think me a threat at all, his guard is completely down, the way he allows me the view of his broad back most of the time. He stands almost taller than the damn door.
Then a woman appears, dressed much like the Grounder Princess that tried to stab Clarke on the bridge the other day. Her hair is blonde as well, though much shorter and lighter. The war paint on her face is painted on in a different fashion. An authority figure for sure, as she is followed by a couple of male warriors, each as big and burly as the one at the door. She says something to my guard before she walks away, and he only nods curtly before he comes and grabs me roughly off the floor. There is no point in fighting him, hands and feet tied, and even the smallest wiggle makes my headache a hundred times worse. They slammed me pretty bad.
There are a couple of long wooden posts stuck in the earth. I am to be tied to one. The moment they let my hands loose only to tie them again is a moment I instinctively use to try something stupid. I stand no chance, of course, and only get a slap in the face so hard I almost black out again. The pain that shoots through my head is enough to make me scream. They remove the rag in my mouth. Both relief and pain are released in my strained jaw. My hands are tied again, behind the post now, and I can taste blood in my mouth as I sit on the dirt, looking over the camp.
People come and people go, but there has to be dozens of Grounders, I realize, all under command of the woman that decides to indulge me with her presence after what seems like decades of waiting. She commands something else in her language - looking as cold and disinterested as a person can look, like I am just some nuisance that has to be gotten out of the way - before a couple of men seem to be carrying someone else in. Another prisoner, I realize, and that's when fear really hits me - is it Bellamy? Is it Finn? Did they get them?
As much as I strain myself to see, panic making it hard for me to breathe, I can't see anything until they've thrown the prisoner down against the post across from me. They don't even bother tying him up, the boy is so beaten down and weak there isn't really anything he'd have the strength to try.
''John?'' I ask, but my voice cracks.
He looks like he only barely hears me. But he does. And he's looking at me through slitted and beaten eyes - so beaten and bruised and bloodied and cut up I suddenly feel like I'll explode. He never deserved this. My fault. My fault, my fault, all my fault.
''What have you done to him?'' I find it in me to growl, to demand, my voice still sounding so weak against all my wishes.
''Your friend over here wasn't very talkative, so we had to loosen his tongue,'' the woman in command replies. She says it like it's nothing at all, approaching us so very casually. ''He still keeps certain things to himself, I'm afraid. Fortunately, we have you now,'' she adds.
''What will you do to him?!'' I ask, sounding more scared than I'd like.
''That depends on you,'' she replies.
''What do you mean?'' I'm almost afraid to ask, but I have to.
''He will be cut for every lie you say,'' she says, ''He will be cut for every bit of information you keep from me. He's close to his limits as it is; I'm afraid he won't withstand much. His fate is yours to decide.''
Again.