A Whole New World | Octavia Blake [1]

Chapter 38

~~~~~~~~unedited~~~~~~~~

    Addison

She couldn't think straight. The image of her father's burnt and charred head her mind had created imbedded itself so deep, she can't even bare to look at anyone without seeing him. It didn't matter if it was Liam or one of the gunner kids next to him, her father's face was there— on their body's, just not as burned or blackened as it appears every time she spared Bellamy the tiniest of glances.

"Where is he?"

Bellamy's demanding and angry voice snaps Addison out of her daze. She looks up in time to see his figure quickly disappear into the dropship, Clarke on his trail, and she follows after them with Liam and Finn behind her at a quick pace. She flips the mental switch on in the back of her brain that brings her guard back up, mirroring Bellamy's posture as she enters; her rifle tucked securely into her shoulder with a tight grip.

She comes to an abrupt stop on Bellamy's unoccupied side, her gaze falling to a beaten and tortured John Murphy. His face is bloody and cut up, body shaking and hands trembling that are tainted in his own blood, with bruised lashes that evenly cover his arms.

"Everyone but Conner and Derek out..." no one moves at Bellamy's order. "Now!" he shouts, his voice booming off the wall's of the dropship that has the others exiting.

Addison's gaze remains fixed on Murphy. The last time she saw him he was on the ground cowering behind his hand in fear of what she'd do to him after Charlotte had sealed her fate--because of him.

The memory is enough to have her aiming the barrel of her rifle at him with a hard gaze in place as he shrinks down more, and covers his face. She ignores the multiple protests and calls, too blinded by rage to stop. "You were warned about what would happened if you came back . . . and now here you are . . ." she trails lowly, no ounce of sympathy for him in his state.

As soon as her pointer finger finds the cool metal of the trigger, she squeezes it without hesitation. The gunshot goes off, but the barrel of the rifle gets pushed and aimed up at the middle level in time for the bullet to barely miss Murphy.

The rifle is ripped from her grasp, the clinking and clattering of her rifle being tossed on the floor of the dropship sounds the same time the girl's name is being shouted in surprise and disbelief. "Addison!"

She snaps her eyes to Liam's unreadable puppy eyes with her hard one's, "What the hell, Liam!"

"We are not killing him."

"The hell we are!" Addison gets in his face, "We made it clear what would happen to him if he came back," she refers to the night on the cliff when Clarke and Bellamy had banished him from camp.

"Addison, listen to me—" Liam starts, but she doesn't let him finish.

"No, you listen, Liam." She grits her teeth together and jabs a finger into his chest. Hard. "You weren't there when we banished him. You didn't see Charlotte die like we did..."

Liam remains silent, the fury in his best friend's eyes not once dimming, nor the disbelief at her actions etched across his features and eyes.

"He claims he was with the Grounders," Derek informs to fill the awkward silence Addison had created.

"We caught him trying to sneak back into camp." Conner elaborates, the two quarrelling best friends still locking eyes in their own silent showdown.