I was relieved when I went back into my tent and found Bellamy's jacket lying in the corner of the room. It was a little dirty from being on the ground, but I was just glad to have a piece of him with me. The sleeves covered my freezing hands while the rest of the jacket hung on me like a dress. Bellamy had always been very tall and muscular, which was something that I loved about him. He was the perfect height to kiss my forehead and lift me into the air. I hugged the jacket to my chest and soaked in the smell of him that was starting to coat my skin. When I closed my eyes, it felt like he was still there with me, holding me tightly and assuring me that we could make it through this.
"Clarke? Can I come in?" Raven asked.
"Yeah, come in." I replied as I sat on the mess of blankets I was too lazy to fold.
"Are you going with them to find Octavia?" She asked me. I knew she was staying behind to keep the radio going and help Monty make more bullets, but I wasn't sure if I was going. Either Miller or I would have to stay behind to make sure the camp was protected. If Bellamy had a choice in this, he'd want me to stay behind and stay safe rather than possible lose me and his sister, but he wasn't here to help me make this decision. Octavia was one of my best friends, and I'd do anything to keep her safe. The odds were that she ran off to search for her brother and ended up getting lost. I was the only person in this camp that knew where the grounders were keeping him.
"Yeah, I'm going." I decided. Raven nodded, probably expecting my answer.
"Well the group is heading out after breakfast. Do you want anything?" She asked. I hadn't eaten since I returned and if I was going to go out and look for Octavia, I'd need to have a full stomach.
"I'll grab an apple." I replied as I stood up. My pack was sitting near the tent flap, already packed from my last trip. Bellamy had packed it for me before we left. He even snuck in a couple extra rations for me just in case I got hungry...God I missed him.
I put on a brave face and stepped outside of my tent with nothing but my gun, knife, and pack. I rolled the sleeves of Bellamy's jacket up so that I could hold my gun easier. It was damp outside, and the clouds rolling in suggested that there could be a storm coming.
"Clarke! Are you coming with us?" Jasper asked.
"Yep. I'm ready when you are." I replied. So far it was Jasper, Roma, Monroe, Mbege, Finn, and a few other boys that I didn't know the names of off hand. It was a good sized group, and it didn't surprise me that this many people would be interested in going along to find Octavia; everyone loved her.
"Let's get out of here." Finn said.
"Lead the way, tracker." Mbege replied. Finn stepped forward and motioned for Miller to open the gate. Once the gate was open, the group filed out one by one, leaving me in the back.
"Clarke, wait." Murphy said faintly as he grabbed onto my wrist. I turned around and noticed that he looked far better today than he did about a week ago, but that didn't mean I wanted to talk to him.
"Get the hell away from me." I said, snapping my arm out of his grasp. I knew it was wrong to blame Murphy for what happened to Bellamy and I, but I couldn't help it. He told the grounders who I was.
"What's wrong, princess?" He asked insincerely. I cringed when he used the nickname as an insult.
"The grounders took us because you told them that I was your leader. How could you be so selfish? Bellamy's going to die because of you and I saved your fucking life!" I screamed, alerting the camp of what was about to go down between us.
"Don't go pointing fingers, princess. The grounders took you because that's what the grounders do. It's your own damn fault for being out at night." He argued. A circle of members of the 100 gathered around us, all curious to see how this would end.
"The grounders recognized me because you were a coward who was willing to trade my life for your own. Bellamy was your friend, and we risked our asses to get you out of that tree and save your life. This is all your fault!" I screamed, pushing his chest. Murphy smirked and wiped the sweat off of his brow.
"You wanna go, princess?" He edged me on. I was in a very, very fragile and aggressive state right now. I was grieving Bellamy and my father, and he did not want to mess with me.
"Hey, maybe this is a good thing. Bellamy can do better than you. Maybe he'll get a little grounder action while he's down there-"
That was it. I tossed my pack to the side and lunged at him, slamming him straight into the ground. Everyone hooted and hollered as I pinned him to the muddy surface and punched him in the jaw. For a moment, Murphy took the upper hand and grabbed a hold of my neck. I squirmed in his grasp, fighting for air, until I was able to position myself so that I could knee him in the balls. He let out a high pitched yelp and released my neck just enough that I could grab his arms and pin them behind his head. I punched him over and over again until he got his strength back. I winced as he used his legs to knock me onto the dirt and kick me in the stomach. The next thing I knew, he was on top of me, punching me in the cheekbone and chin. I accidentally bit down on my lip, causing it to split open and the taste of blood to trickle into my mouth.
"You son of a bitch!" I screamed as I took my free hand and punched his spear wound. He let out a blood curdling scream and fell off of me. I felt the rush of adrenaline boiling throughout my veins. I was angry at everything and I just needed to let it out. I didn't have Bellamy, or my dad, or Octavia anymore, why should I care? What did I have to live for?
"Clarke! Get off of him!" Finn shouted, grabbing me by Bellamy's jacket and hoisting me off of Murphy. Murphy was laying in the mud, clinging to his chest where the spear wound was split open again.
"What the hell are you doing?" Finn gasped as he pulled me away from the crowd. I watched as several kids ran to Murphy with the seaweed poultice I'd used to save him. I was sure he'd be fine, but that didn't excuse what I did.
"You know what, it doesn't matter. Let's go." Finn said as he took me by the hand and lead me out of the camp. Miller shook his head at me in disapproval but I just avoided his gaze. I needed to hate someone and Murphy was giving me so many reasons to hate him.
They say there are five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance; maybe I was on the anger stage? Regardless, I was livid at the world and just wanted to blame someone.
Finn pulled me towards the rest of the search group. They were waiting for us a few hundred feet away from the camp's walls. They hadn't seen what happened, but by my tattered clothes, muddy hair, bloody face, and weak limbs, they knew.
"I have to go up ahead and track. Stay back here with Jasper." Finn said to me, handing me my pack and weapons back. I rolled my eyes and hugged Bellamy's jacket to me as Jasper fell back into a step with me.
"I'm sorry about everything you're going through, Clarke." He said softly, "But we will get them back, I know we will."
I gave him a fake smile. I wanted to believe that everything would work out well in the end, but that was never really the case in this world. People died, and we just had to learn to live with that. I'd lost all of my hope. This would turn out exactly the same as it had the last time, so what the hell was the point?
"Don't shut down on us, Clarke. I'd hate to see you lose what makes you great." He added.
"Thanks Jasper." I whispered.
"Hey, maybe we can get Bellamy back while we are out here! We could turn it into a double mission." Jasper exclaimed.
"It's not that simple. Bellamy made a deal with the grounders, if they let me go then he'd talk. They are so distracted by him right now that they aren't attacking us. If we provoke them, all we will do is end up getting Bellamy killed. Our best bet is to wait it out." I replied. Jasper nodded, understanding and then adjusted his goggles on his forehead.
We walked in silence for awhile, which was my fault. I didn't really have much to say to anyone anymore. I just sunk back into my own little world and let my mind wander about Bellamy, Octavia, and my father. Our group would stop every once in awhile when Finn found a clue, but other than that we pressed on through the woods.
I had no idea what to expect with this trip to find Octavia. The last time she went missing, Bellamy was the one who lead out a search party while I went to the art supply store with Raven to get something to help power the radio. Raven was probably back at camp now communicating with the Ark and helping them prepare to bring the whole ship down to the ground. I wasn't worried at all about them, they'd be fine, just like the last time.
We reached a steep ridge and lost the trail. Finn groaned while Mbege shined his flashlight down to the bottom. It was pretty steep, but not too steep that we wouldn't be able to climb down.
"Do you see that?" Someone said. I glanced down at the object hanging off of a plant.
"That has to be Octavia's!" I gasped, "I'm going down there."
"Clarke it's steep." Finn warned me. I rolled my eyes because the last thing I was worried about was my life.
"Hand me a rope." I ordered. I took the rope and tied it to the my waist. Then, I slowly climbed down the hill until I reached the branch that the object was dangling on.
"It's hers! I'm going all the way down to the bottom." I shouted to the top. The rest of the group looked wary, but Jasper was quick to hand his torch over to Finn and follow me. He really did love Octavia, and I was glad to have him by my side.
When I got to the bottom, I flash of blood caught my eye, it was definitely recent. Jasper arrived shortly after me and crouched down next to me to get a good look at the blood. After him came Finn, and then the rest of the group.
"Lincoln!" I gasped, pointing to the trail of large foot prints ahead of us.
"The prints are deeping going that way." Finn added. I took a look, and realized that he was right. "They were carrying her."
"If they took her she's alive. Like when they took Murphy." Jasper said. I looked at Finn and Jasper before standing up again and following the trail. I had to find Octavia, it was the only thing I had control of and I wasn't going to let her slip away from my grasp.
The footprints lead us to a side entrance of a grounder village. There were skeletons hanging in the trees as a way to scare off any intruders, and they were definitely doing their job. The group behind us murmured about turning back, but that wasn't an option for me. If we could find Octavia, then we'd find Lincoln and Lincoln could help us get Bellamy back peacefully.
"Anyone who's afraid can go back. I'm going to get Octavia." I said as I started to walk through the entrance. The majority of our group turned back, but Jasper and Finn refused to give up.
We followed the trail for another few hours in the dark before everyone started to complain about being tired. I sighed and decided that a few hours of rest couldn't hurt. I ended up falling asleep in between Finn and Jasper. At some point in the night my head ended up on Jasper's shoulder while Finn's head ended up on mine. I was careful not to wake either of them up so I wouldn't have to deal with the awkwardness that would ensue if they knew we'd had a three-way-accidental-cuddle-session during the night.
While I was eating my apple, the rest of the group woke up within minutes of each other. We casually talked over bites of fruit and protein bars until we all felt ready to start the search again.
Finn lead the way, but I could tell something was wrong by the way he furrowed his brow. After another twenty minutes, he finally stopped and groaned.
"I got nothing." He admitted. I pursed my lips and tried to stay calm. I had no idea how this day was supposed to go. All I knew was that they found Octavia the last time and brought Lincoln back to torture him for information.
"We lost the trail." Finn sighed. I rolled my eyes and headed off in a different direction from the group. We all silently decided to split in twos so that we could find the trail again.
"Wandering around aimlessly isn't the way to find Octavia, we should back track-"
"We aren't going back. Keep looking." I snapped as I kept my eyes on the ground.
"Hey, where's John?" Roma asked nervously. This was the first time I'd heard her talk since we left camp. I glanced behind me and didn't see him anywhere. The trees rustled above us, but there wasn't a breeze that would have caused them to move.
"I just saw him a second ago." Jasper said shakily. I knew this couldn't be good, but weren't the grounders preoccupied with Bellamy? They were supposed to leave us alone...unless we just crossed a boundary and we were in their territory now.
Just then, a loud crash startled us all. Mbege's body had fallen out of the trees with his throat slashed open. I covered my mouth to keep myself from screaming while the rest of the group scanned the trees in horror.
"They use the trees." Finn said, stating the obvious. I rubbed my temples hating myself for not making a deal with the grounders before Bellamy. If he was here he could prevent all of these deaths. He'd lived this moment before, I hadn't.
"We shouldn't have crossed the boundary." Diggs said nervously.
"Now can we go back?" Roma panicked.
We all stood in silence for another moment, until a grounder in the distance caught my eye. Jasper saw him too, and tried his best to stay calm.
"There, there!" Jasper whispered.
"Another one." Diggs gasped. I had absolutely no idea what to do, we were surrounded. I followed Finn's gaze to an opening in the direction that we were headed.
"We should run." He said hastily, I nodded, agreeing with him and then took off running with him by my side. The rest of the group followed us as the grounders ran parallel to us.
"Let's go! Let's go!" One of the boys shouted. I was too panicked to know who's voice it belonged to, but it didn't matter. The grounders kept cutting us off so we all started to run separately.
"What are we going to do? They keep cutting us off!"
"Just keep running!"
I was starting to run out of breath, and that made me realize that this was exactly what they were trying to do. They wanted to tire us out so that they could kill us. We had to stop running and fight back.
We only had one gun with us because we left most of them back at camp so that the drop ship was protected. There had to be a way we could get out of this without dying.
"I can't run much longer!" Jasper cried out.
"I'm not stopping for him!" Diggs shouted breathlessly. We were turning on each other, all the more reason why we needed to all stop together and fight back.
"This isn't working! We have to stop." I said, stopping abruptly. Finn held onto my arm, concerned.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Finn panted.
"We can't out run them, we have to fight back or we are all going to die." I breathed. Finn squeezed my arm to tell me that he agreed. I glanced around the group, making sure everyone was there.
"Diggs! Where are you?" Roma screamed before she abruptly ran off after him. I took a deep breath and tried to recollect myself before I lead the rest of the group after Diggs and Roma. I had no idea what was about to happen, but we had to stick together. I wasn't about to let anyone else die on me, not today.
"Wait, Roma, Stop! There could be more!" Finn shouted as we caught up with her. She screamed at the top of her lungs and took off in the other direction. That was when I noticed Diggs' body impaled by a grounder trap.
"Holy shit." I gasped. We all took off after Roma, realizing that the grounders must have been following her. For a moment, we lost her, but then her screaming lead us straight to her. When we found her, she was pinned up against a tree with a spear through her heart. I couldn't even look at her.
"They're playing with us." Finn said. I glanced around the woods, not seeing any more of them.
"They can kill us whenever they want." Finn added. I gulped and wondered if this would be my end? At this point, I didn't really care if I died. I couldn't save anyone.
"THEN THEY SHOUlD GET IT OVER WITH! COME ON!" Jasper screamed at the top of his lungs. I held my breath, knowing that every grounder in the area knew where we were now. We were fucking screwed. Jasper was panicking, Finn was trying to process everything, Monroe was in a daze, and I had no idea how the fuck Bellamy survived this initially. Jasper kept screaming until Finn ran over to him and tried to shake him out of his panic attack.
"THEY'RE COMING!" Monroe yelled. I pulled out my gun and waited for them to get close enough to shoot. They'd been out of range this entire time but I wasn't going to let them dodge us any longer.
"Clarke! Don't kill them it won't solve anything!" Finn shouted to me while he tried to restrain Jasper. I stepped in front of the group and focused my aim on the grounder weaving his way through the trees.
"Get out of here! I'll take him!" I shouted back to them. Just because I was willing to die didn't mean I was going to take them down with me.
"Hell no!" Finn said, releasing Jasper to hold onto me. He tried to take the gun out of my hands, but I refused to let him.
"Clarke are you trying to get yourself killed?" He argued.
"Finn get out of-"
Just then the sound of the fog horn echoed throughout the trees. I didn't remember acid fog ever happening on this day, but it was a year earlier so I wasn't about to ignore it. The grounders took off for shelter, leaving us alone in the woods. I pulled out the tarps I'd packed and laid them out on the ground. Finn, Monroe, Jasper, and I all laid next to each other and seal it just in case. I was awkwardly sandwiched in between Finn and Jasper.
"How long are we supposed to wait?" Jasper whispered, breaking the awkward silence.
"Will this even work?" Monroe asked. I looked back and forth between Finn and Jasper.
I tried to listen to the air on the other side of the tarp. Normally when there was acid fog, it sounded like a howling wind storm. There was no way that there was fog right now.
I slipped out of the tarp, and confirmed my theory; someone blew the fog horn to protect us and that someone had to have been Lincoln.
"I think he's alone." Jasper whispered, pointing to a grounder running in the other direction. A smile spread across my face when I realized that it was Lincoln. He had Octavia again, which meant that she was alright and we were one step closer to getting Bellamy back too.
We followed close enough behind him that we could track him but far enough away that he didn't notice that we were there. He lead us to his cave, and we waited a few minutes at the entrance before we followed him inside. Octavia had to be in there, I just knew it.
Octavia was tied to the wall, panicking when we entered the room. Lincoln was passed out on the ground, probably because she hit him. I smiled, knowing that the warrior was still inside of her.
"Clarke!" Octavia cried. I grabbed the keys from Lincoln and unlocked her. As soon as she was free, she wrapped her arms around me and cried into my shirt.
"I thought I could find Bell, but he saved me." She whimpered. I held her for another few minutes, just happy to have her back with me. Octavia gave me a hope that no one else could. Her strength and potential inspired me. She let me go when she noticed Jasper standing in the corner of the cave.
"How did you find me?" She gasped as she ran into his arms.
"Followed him." Jasper replied, catching her in his embrace. I smiled at the two while Finn stared down at Lincoln. I had no idea where to go from here. We needed to bring him back to our camp, but there wasn't really a good way to do that.
"We should go, now, before he wakes up." Octavia suggested.
"No, we need to take him with us. He can help us peacefully get Bellamy back." I argued.
"I don't think he knows where my brother is. He's not like the others." Octavia said.
"But he's one of them and speaks their language. Just trust me, Octavia." I fought back.
Finn bent down to observe Lincoln and his fog horn. It took me a minute before I realized what was about to happen.
"Finn!" I screamed as I lunged towards him. Lincoln panicked when Finn touched him and instantly reached for his knife to stab him. Finn stumbled back in pain as Lincoln scrambled to his feet. I held my gun to him and he paused, staring at me in awe.
"This wasn't supposed to happen." He gasped. I tried to keep the gun steady but my entire body was shaking.
"You're not supposed to be here, it's supposed to be Bellamy." Lincoln added. I gently brought the gun down to my side and met Lincoln in the middle of the room.
"Lincoln...do you remember?" I asked cautiously.
"I thought the spirits were punishing me for what I did as a reaper...I've been reliving the past two years." He revealed.
"Holy shit."