Octavia pov
I've been following them for days. When Lincoln left and his friend helped me I assumed the worst. I tried to threaten to kill their healer If they didn't return him. I couldn't lose him. He was the last person I had. If Bell, Robby, and the others were dead, I'd at least have him.
"We strike from the shadows when they take our bait," the lady instructs her warriors in a harsh tone that demands respect.
"So I'm the bait?" The grounder boy named Artigas responds in a bitter tone.
"No. You are a warrior. She is the bait," the lady responds in her usual harsh tone and turns to look at where in hiding.
I have no choice but to poke my head up and reveal myself. I hold up my sword with shaky hands. However, the image of Robby, Bellamy, and Lincoln's bloody corpses flashes through my mind and I do my best to swallow my fear.
"I am not afraid," I say trying to sound confident, but the shakiness of my voice gives me away.
"You will be," the woman responds with venom.
"What's the plan?" I ask suddenly regretting it.
I get no answer, but they cover me in dirt and rip apart my clothes. They then gave me lay in the middle of a dirt path. I lay there being as still as possible and trying not to shiver from fear. When I blink and open my eyes, I'm in a different environment. What used to be trees is now walls and a lamp. I'm in a bed. I suddenly realize I'm back in the bunker Robby and I spent those two nights in. As in processing everything I hear a voice.
"It's funny isn't it?" the familiar voice says.
I turn my head to see Robby laying there next to me. Shirtless and clean like after our swim on that amazing day.
I furrow my brow in confusion, but he just chuckles.
"Everyone's putting their asses on the line for you. Your brother risked his ass to come to the ground to protect you. Lincoln risked his life to heal you. I potentially died fighting the people you are now working with. Nothing but filthy savages," he sneers at that last sentence.
"You don't mean that," I whisper.
"Really? Because it seems to me like it's all about Octavia Blake. Her brother, her life, her desire to make a name for herself. However, all you do is get people killed," he says scowling at me with a death glare.
What was his perfectly sun kissed complexion flashes into a deathly pale bleeding face and back again.
"No," I say as tears leak out of my eyes.
"No?" He taunts as his body flashes into a mangled corpse again except this time for longer.
I suddenly hear screams. I hear His, Bellamy's, Jasper's, Monty's Finn's, Raven's, and Clarke's screams overlapping as I see the burning camp and their corpses littering the camp grounds.
"It hurts being the one everyone cares about, right?!" Robby yells as I turn to face him as he slowly walks toward me covered in blood with two gaping stab wounds to his abdomen and chest.
"No... NOOOO!" I scream and slash my sword with my eyes closed and tears blurring my vision.
I shake awake as I feel a foot kick my side lightly and say something in trig. I attack the person who hisses like an animal when I spring to life. Suddenly, a spear pierced his chest and he falls dead. I get up and unsheathe my sword and grit my teeth in anticipation. A reaper charges me and outmatches me quite easily, but arrows fly through his chest. I battle it out with the next reaper and it ends when I stab him through the heart. Due to sparring with Robby and Lincoln I can hold my own quite well in a fight. Lincoln taught me how to use my smaller size to maneuver and use speed to my advantage. Robby called me speedy until I knocked him down and shut him up. As I'm lost in my thoughts, the woman in charge battles with the last reaper. He kicks her to the side and I sneak up and slit his throat. The lady looks at me for a second and I turn around and go toward the prisoners who have bags over their heads.
"I can't lose anyone else. I can't lose anyone else," I repeat in pure panic as I rip the bags off their heads.
The last bag is the healer I almost killed.
"Where is Lincoln?! Please was Lincoln with you?! I ask in pure desperation.
He gives me a sympathetic look and shakes his head. My heart falls and I take panicked breaths. I feel the walls under the floorboard that trapped me all those years ago. Alone, cold, and afraid. I always had family and even when I thought I was alone I never was. The thought of not only Bell and Robby, the two people I loved more than anything, but also Lincoln being gone forever was too much for me to handle. The feeling of true loneliness is one of the worst. I look to the sky and scream as loud as I possibly can as the woods echo my misery.
Robby pov
I sit thinking about Murphy's words. It sucked because he was right, I was truly alone right now. I remember when things were so simple at the dropship. Sharing jokes with Jasper, Monty, and Finn. Having late night deep conversations with Clarke or Raven, listening to Bellamy bark orders and shoot me death glares, and the best part was being with Octavia. We would cuddle late at night in our tent and get lost in each other's warmth or we would just talk all night. We talked about everything, life as a whole, something crazy that happened on that day, things we were happy or sad about, and even our future together after all the madness was over and we could finally stop fighting. I realized what I craved and still crave is freedom from everything and the desire to live my life however the hell I want. Freedom was something I never had on the ark and I realized why earth made me feel whole for once. I was finally free. Earth did have its share of problems, but earth was wonderful in its own way. Home is where the family is, but my family was gone. Clarke and the others were at that grounder village getting tortured or killed, my father was barking orders at camp and preparing to engage grounders, Octavia was still missing, Finn was going completely insane, and Raven was laying in a hospital bed. I grunt loudly as my anger gets the best of me.
"You wanna hurry that up?!" I yell at the grounder who is still drawing the map.
He just scowls at me.
"You scum," I seethe in rage as I look at his filthy clothes and scarred face.
"Robby, calm down" Bellamy says putting a hand on my shoulder.
I aggressively brush his hand off. He looks at me sympathetically.
"Bellamy, I tried to see grounders as people like us. I really did, but ever since we landed these filthy savages have done nothing but torture, kill, capture, and start wars with us. And for what?!" I yell and turn to the grounder during my last sentence.
"You don't mean that," Bellamy says starting to look sad.
"Oh really?" I say challengingly.
"Yes, I know you don't. You were the person who proved that grounders could be good. You and my sister showed me that they are people just like us. Aren't you the one who put a knife to my throat in order to get me to not torture Lincoln who became a brother to you," Bellamy says folding his arms and looking me in the eye.
I sigh in frustration and put my hands on my head. I try to get the anger out of my system because every time I lose my temper I screw up and the things I do come back to bite me.
"Gather up your gear. We're leaving," Bellamy announces to the group.
"What about him?" Sterling asks gesturing to the grounder.
"For now, we leave him. We'll deal with him when we're done," Bellamy answers.
"What if he escapes? He knows exactly where we're going," Murphy says to Bellamy.
"We're not killing him," Bellamy demands.
"I'm not really seeing another option here. If we don't take care of this now, this is gonna blow back on us and you know that," Murphy says annoyed while raising his voice.
"We can't kill him while he's unarmed," I say.
"He's a grounder," Murphy replies.
"He's also a human being. He's a stubborn son of a bitch, but he's a person," I say looking at Bellamy.
My mind is starting to return to normal. I didn't know what came over me. I guess part of it is the stress from our days on the ground and missing Octavia. It's all finally starting to take a toll.
"Oh come on. Tell him," Murphy says to Monroe.
"I don't know," she says.
"You don't know what? He's gonna tell his people everything. We're as good as dead. Our friends to," Murphy says beginning to get stressed out.
"We're not doing this. End of discussion. You want him you gotta go through me," Bellamy says determined.
"What happened to you huh? You're talking like you've never killed a grounder before," Murphy says getting in Bellamy's face.
"That was in battle. This would be an execution—" Bellamy begins to say.
My anger is starting to come back. I'm so fed up with listening to people argue I want to kill both of them just so I won't have to listen to them argue for the hundredth time today.
"Both of y'all shut the fu—" I interrupt before a gunshot makes everyone jump.
I slowly turn my head dreading what I'm about to see. I try to mentally prepare to see my best friend standing over the grounder he just shot, but it doesn't help. I want to shut my eyes and believe the old Finn is still in there somewhere, but I truly think the darkness is winning.
"Let's get moving," he says with no emotion whatsoever.
I look from Bellamy to Murphy. Murphy just shrugs slightly and follows Finn out the door. Bellamy looks down and walks out the door. I sigh and follow. We begin running toward that village once we exit the bunker.
"Everyone, eyes peeled. We're in grounder territory," Bellamy instructs to all of us.
"Everything is grounder territory, all right? I can't keep running. We done even know if the guy Finn killed is telling the truth," Murphy says and stops to catch his breath.
Finn storms up to Murphy and grabs his collar.
"Keep moving," he hisses.
"Hey," I snap as I push Finn off of Murphy.
"We can give him a minute," Bellamy says trying to calm Finn down.
"No we can't! You heard what that grounder said. 'They'll outlive their usefulness," Finn responds.
"I heard what he said when you had a gun to his head," Bellamy jabs getting in Finn's face.
I hear Murphy panting like a dog due to fatigue. I'm tired also, but the thought of our friends locked in kennels drives me forward.
"Look it's alright. It's just a little longer. Then once we get back to Camp Jaha we can rest," I say to Murphy.
"The grounders killed them," Murphy says to me.
The reason I'm talking to Murphy is so I can tune out Finn and Bellamy's argument.
"Have a little faith won't you," I say to Murphy arching my brow.
"As someone who knows what they are capable of. I know faith is overrated," Murphy says in a snarky tone.
"Is there anything you can say without sounding like a smartass?" I say giving him an annoyed look.
He just smiles dickishly and is about to respond when Monroe gets our attention. We all turn to see a bunch of dead bodies.
"Where the hell did they come from?" Murphy asks.
"From the ark," Bellamy answers.
I want to punch the ground. I'm so tired of dead bodies I just want to scream. Bellamy gets his gun out and we continue to walk through the wreckage.
"I don't think the grounders did this," I theorize.
"Then who did?" Finn asks.
"The crash," I answer
We continue to walk in silence as the only sounds we can hear are the crunching of our feet on the grass and the insects buzzing. We approach the cliff and see the wreckage of the ship that hit the side of the cliff.
"Rough landing," Murphy remarks.
"Seriously?" I say giving him a death glare.
"theres nothing we can do for these people. We have to go," Bellamy says solemnly.
We turn to walk away when we hear someone whimpering. We all freeze in our tracks.
"Help!" We hear a woman call from the bottom of the cliff.
Author's note: I apologize for the lack of updates. School and life in general have been extremely busy and I promise the story will continue. I'm finding pockets to work. Stay tuned and I'm doing what I can to make sure I update as much as possible. Happy reading!