NOTICE; I will now be updating only every three days. However, any review given on a chapter will bump that date up one day. (I.E. I'll post chapter 9 on Friday. If one person reviews, it'll be Thursday. Two, and its Wednesday. If three, then I'll post it as soon as I can that day.)
Shout out to apaperheart. You can all thank her for me posting so soon.
Being around Reed had never completely mended the broken feeling I got when I'm away from Murphy, but it did help considerably more than other people. Monty had changed the topic away from the bed as quickly as he could, and brought us back to the plants Reed had picked up today with Sterling.
It was always amusing to watch how rudely Monty could spit Sterling's name out. It started out as sour distaste, and as Reed forced us all out of the tent and over to the fire to look at the plants, it grew into complete repulsion. I knew Monty's only problem with Sterling however was that Sterling got to spend the day hunting for plants with Reed. Monty spent the whole day trying to connect to speak with the ark, but apparently it didn't work out. He probably wished he had given up that morning and went with Reed.
We all sat down at the fire, dismissing June and Octavia from their firewatch duties. June seemed relieved, and gave me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder as she walked by, telling us that if anything happened, she wanted to be woken up instead of Bellamy. Octavia avoided eye contact with me, quickly matching June's stride and leaving without a word.
I don't think Octavia had ever expected her one comment to be fuel to a murderous fire this morning, and therefore I knew I shouldn't hold it against her. But I had decided that I had needed to hold it against her for at least the first 24 hours. Seemed fair to me considering I had nearly died.
Reed had picked out some really great plants, at least according to Monty. She managed to find Lavender, Patchouli, Sandalwood, and Wolfsbane. (He didn't actually think the last one was good. He almost acted like he was going to yell at her, but instead made her go wash her hands. I told him I'd dispose of it, but instead I grabbed Reed's gloves and hid it in my tent. You may never know when you will need an extremely poisonous plant.)
Once everyone's hands were clean, and the plant was 'disposed of', we settled back at the fire and Monty started teaching us what we could use each plant for, and how to do so. To be honest, I was quite impressed with Monty's knowledge. Not as much as Reed was, though. Reed seemed to be in a constant state of nearly jumping in joy the whole time he spoke. Not that I blame her though, I'm sure I've acted similar around different people. We spent hours crushing Lavender and talking about what we had succeeded to do on earth that would've never happened on the ark.
We started off with tame accomplishments like watching the sunrise, and feeling a river under our feet. Slowly, as it grew closer to daytime, the accomplishments got slightly more impressive. I made out with Murphy, Reed had forced Sterling to give her a piggy-back ride, and Monty had been an ace wingman for Jasper.
After we all fell into a comfortable silence, I lifted my head up and looked at the stars. It was nearing dawn, but the sky was still mostly dark. I had started wondering about my life. I wondered what it would've been like if I had been braver. I had known why I took the wolfsbane from the very start. I didn't want to be weak anymore, and since the only muscle around me got himself banished, (refer to Murphy) I had to find some way to defend myself. And considering I wasn't going to be able to build enough muscle fast enough, I knew I would have to go another route.
Connor had only stopped harassing Reed after Murphy stepped in. Reed didn't even have speed on her side. She had tried running on the treadmill one day on the ark, but after a few minutes she found herself out of breath and decided to go read some books instead. Monty wasn't enough, especially considering his lack of fighting skills. And I wasn't going to let anyone mess with Reed or myself.
It was peaceful, to look up at the stars. They reminded me of the ark however, so it wasn't nearly as peaceful as it could've been. From north came a bright star, and it started making its way towards the south. Excited, I had pointed it out to Monty.
Monty was such a freaking downer. He started shouting, and ran into the dropship and found June and Octavia. June smiled, and ran into Bellamy's tent to alert him.
Screams erupted from Bellamy's tent. A mere few seconds after having ran into the tent, June ran out with a disgusted look on her face.
"Do I even want to know what you saw?" Octavia asked June, and June shook her head before the two of them went off to wake up the rest of camp.
At this point it's safe to say I was clueless. Well, maybe not clueless. Just hopeful it wasn't what I had thought it was. Unfortunately, Monty decided to disappoint me by explaining that the falling star was most likely from the ark.
Bellamy came out of his tent with two women, which explained June's disgust. I wanted to be grossed out as well, but everyone in the group seemed happy with their choices, so Reed and I exchanged glances with each other and I shrugged. She shrugged back, and then handed me more Sandalwood to chop up. Ironically enough, I was using one of Murphy's knives to do so.
Holding any of Murphy's possessions felt like I was faintly holding his hand. I imagined the warmth of the knife not being from myself, but being from Murphy having just held it. Cheesy, right?
I wanted to close my eyes and pretend I was back in that meadow, laughing and learning how to defend myself. Perhaps if I had known what would happen a day later, I would've taken the training more seriously.
LINE BREAK
Reed, Monty, Jasper, and I got a nice break once the sun came up. Everyone left to find the ship that had fallen. Octavia, June, and Bellamy all disappeared earlier than the rest. I honestly never cared enough to know what was going on with that trio. They all seemed to have some sort of drama surrounding Bellamy's choices.
Not to say there wasn't always drama in my circle for what Murphy did. But, clearly Bellamy had felt the need to correct that. I wasn't quite sure if I could ever forgive him for that. Or even look at him straight in the face.
Everyone came back too early in my opinion, and this time we were joined by a girl named Raven. Raven didn't really get introduced to us, and instead stole Monty and Jasper away from us to help her build rockets to communicate with the ark.
I was starting to feel goddamn helpless. Not saying I would've been helpful at building rockets, because in all honesty they had made the right choice there. But it would've been nice to be wanted.
I looked up at the delinquents as they continued working on the rockets, and Diggs' eyes met mine. Suddenly, I no longer wanted to be wanted. Actually, I now had wanted to dig myself a grave. Diggs smirked at me, obviously he enjoyed the cop-a-feel he took yesterday. I didn't.
Feeling Diggs hands on me yesterday; grabbing my waist and my bum in too close to an area of his body that was getting way too hard at the idea of murdering Murphy, and probably gang banging me made me want to vomit.
Bellamy watched as Diggs started slowly closing in on Reed and myself, and I could tell he was waiting for me to ask for his help. That is, until someone distracted him and he went off to help. Quickly, I excused myself from the fire, telling Reed I needed to get water. She nodded, her eyes never leaving her work. She hadn't even noticed the sack of water next to me was still full.
I didn't have time, and I ran into my tent. And by my tent, I mean Murphy's. Throwing the gloves on, I grabbed the wolfsbane, rolling the petals up between my hands. I opened the water sack, and let some of the petals fall in. I quickly closed it back up, and shook it around.
I didn't know enough about wolfsbane, I just knew that it could make Diggs feel worse than how I was feeling. Sure, even more could definitely kill him, and I knew someday that could be a possibility.
As I opened the sack and grabbed the very same pliers Murphy had used to take off my wristband, I quickly removed the petals. I'm sure realistically the water should've turned colors slightly, but the water we were drinking already wasn't the cleanest.
As I capped the sack and shook it up again, I realized that being around criminals was turning me into someone just as bad as them. That was until Murphy's horror-stricken face seared itself back into my mind, and his muffled screams echoed through my brain as he dangled from the noose. Then, I realized I no longer cared if I was becoming bad.