Red Lighter ✧ John Murphy

XXXVIII - Defiance

May 7th, 2016

This is so short and boring I'm sorry but for future reference iT IS A BAD IDEA TO WRITE THREE STORIES AT THE SAME TIME OKAY

HOE DON'T DO IT

YOU WILL REGRET IT

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Chapter Thirty-Eight

We managed to get Clarke back to Polis, and to Lexa. They now understood that this problem was something that we needed to handle on our own while they dealt with their other issues. And we would deal with it in the only way we knew how, through surveillance and defiance.

Octavia and I were watching the people that Pike had sent out, and were now watching as they continued to get soil and water samples from a fairly wide radius of Arkadia. Octavia informed Kane through a microphone attached to her ear, and I soon realized that something was wrong.

"Octavia," I whispered, then pointed to what I was watching.

"Crap," Octavia said. "There's a grounder kid. Hang on."

Monty's mom, Hannah, suddenly looked over and saw him.

"Hello there!" she shouted to the child, who seemed extremely cautious. He was right to be. "Don't be scared!"

"We can't let him go," one of the men said, raising his gun. "He'll tell his people he saw us."

Hannah seemed unconvinced, and for a moment, I thought she actually had a heart. I was wrong.

"Hannah!" the man hissed, and a moment later, she turned to him and nodded.

He raised the gun and aimed, but the boy bolted. He ran, and they went after him. So we, in turn, followed.

"They're going after the kid, we're gonna try and cut them off," she said into the mic as we both ran through the forest.

We heard a gunshot, along with a grunt, and it was right beside us.

"Come on!" I said to her, and within moments, I had jumped in front of the boy.

I grabbed him, and though he was a fighter, I had soon caught him and tackled him to the ground behind a nearby tree. Octavia stayed close as well, and she took him from me once we were safe.

Hannah told her men that he couldn't have gotten far, and to keep looking. Then she told them to double back towards the river.

"Shh," Octavia said to the boy.

I heard a hiss come from her, and I looked to see that the sap from the tree they were leaning against was dripping onto her forehead. It was sizzling and burning her. She hissed from the feeling of the sap hitting her skin, and I knew that she was in a lot of pain because of it.

I reached up and put my arm above her forehead, my bare skin being soon infected by the sap as well. I protected her from it, though, and that was good enough for me. I clenched my teeth, swallowing a little. I bit my lip hard enough that the inside began to bleed, but I ignored the taste of iron.

Hannah eventually left, and I was relieved when she did. Octavia let go of the boy and the two of us quickly wiped off the sap, unfortunately causing the boy to run while he had the chance.

"You're welcome," Octavia growled, then looked to me.

"I hate people," I hissed.

"Me too. You okay?" she asked me.

"Of course, it just burns like a bitch," I muttered.

"Agreed," she said, then went back to the mic. "Hey, I'm here."

He said something that I couldn't quite make out.

"We're fine," she said. "You need to find out what Pike is up to, right now. Whatever it is, they were willing to kill a kid to keep it quiet."

We headed back to the cave, and it wasn't long before we heard something else. Well, Octavia did. She stayed quiet for a moment, stopping and listening. I didn't ask what was wrong, she needed to listen to whatever the hell Kane was telling her.

She finally turned to me, her jaw dropping. "They want to destroy a village to get more land."

"They want to kill MORE people? Are you serious?!" I shouted, my jaws now clenching.

"We need to go," she said, swallowing.

We both ran to the cave as fast as we could, hoping and praying that we would be fast enough. They were going to attack at night, when there was only darkness and the villagers would not expect them.

Once we got there, I began to sharpen my knife and sharpen my sword. And apparently, thinking. A lot.

"You need to go to Polis," she said, seeming nervous to bring it up.

"What? Why?" I asked, almost dropping the rock I was sharpening the blade on.

"Because someone needs to tell Lexa that we did try and stop this if it doesn't go down the way we hope it will."

"Lexa doesn't trust me. Do you really think she wouldn't be willing to kill me if this plan doesn't work?"

"She does trust you," she said. "When you drank that stuff at the meeting, you were putting your life on the line to protect someone you cared about. That is something that Lexa can relate to, she proved that when she risked everything to save her people. Even if she doesn't trust you, she understands you. That's more than I can say for any of the rest of us. Now when Miller gets here, you need to take a horse and get your ass to Polis or else we're all screwed."

My lips parted, and after contemplating it for a minute, I slowly nodded. "Fine. I'll try."

We heard a sound from outside the cave. A vehicle, I was sure. Maybe something else.

"Finally! Where's the horses?" Octavia asked, running to the entrance to meet Miller there with me right behind him.

"Outside, nice to see you too," he said as Octavia walked past him. "Octavia, wait a second!"

She turned to look at him, annoyed that he would risk losing more time.

"Do you actually think that a bunch of grounders are gonna give up their homes because you asked them to?"

"If it's that or be wiped out, maybe," Octavia said.

"Okay, then what if they don't leave? Then we're leading our people into an ambush. Maybe if you just talked to your brother-"

"Bellamy is on the wrong side," I said coldly, grinding my teeth a little. "He won't help us. You should know that by now."

"So what, then we don't even try?"

"What do you think happens when Lexa finds out that Skaikru massacred another grounder village?" Octavia asked him.

"War. More dead friends."

"Exactly," I said.

Octavia nodded. "Stop the attack. Stop a war."

We both left, going outside of the cave and mounting our horses. Octavia looked to me, biting her lip a little. "Good luck, Ven."

"You too," I said, and she looked down a little, taking a shaky breath. "Hey," I said, and she looked up to me. I nodded to her. "You can do this, O. I know you can."

We both nodded to each other, and went our separate ways. I could only hope that no one else had to die today.