Defiance • Bellamy Blake [1]

21. The Calm

I stood at the edge of the hill. I was watching, waiting to see if the grounders were coming. They weren't.

At least not yet.

"First watch is over, go relieve Monroe on the south wall. Keep your eyes open." Bellamy said from behind me. I could feel him move next to me. "Anything?"

I shook my head. "It's been two days. Maybe the bomb at the bridge scared them off for good."

"You believe that?"

"No. They're coming."

Bellamy started to walk away and I followed him.

"Jasper thinks he can cook up some more gunpowder, if he gets some sulphur, and Raven says she can turn that into land mines. So be careful where you step."

"Ha. Funny." I said.

"She asked for your help but I told her we needed you here."

"I figured."

"What I really need is 1,000 more of your tin can bombs I can roll into their village and blow those grounders to hell." Bellamy said. I stopped. "That's what they want to do to us."

"Can't believe we survived 100 years just so we could slaughter each other. There has to be another way."

"Any word from the Ark?" Bellamy asked.

"Radio silence." I told him.

"Finally ran out of air."

"Maybe Abby was lucky being on the Exodus ship. At least it was quick. No one is coming down to save us." I said, looking at Bellamy.

He looked down to the ground. How are we gonna win this war?

"A fire!"

Well that certainly won't help.

"Look, go!"

"Oh my god!"

I whipped around to see the meat shack completely on fire. I raced over there, Bellamy right behind me. Octavia was in there. When I reached the shack, Octavia was coughing and was pretty close to the shack. I ran forward and grabbed her arm, pulling her to safety.

"Are you okay?" Bellamy asked.

Octavia nodded her head. I sighed in relief.

"This is all your fault." Murphy shouted, walking up to Del, who was standing by the shack. "We told you it was too much wood."

"Get the hell away from me." Del shouted back, pushing Murphy off of him.

The two of them started fighting. I got up and pushed my way in between them.

"Hey! Hey! Hey, stop! Save it for the grounders!" I shouted, looking in between the two.

"Well, now what the hell are we gonna do? That was all the food." Octavia said.

I looked at Bellamy and Clarke once before looking back at the shack. The shack that held all our food. The shack that was now burning.

~*~

"Any idea what happened?" Clarke asked Bellamy as we approached him.

"Murphy says that Del kept feeding the fire, mostly because Octavia told him it was bad idea." Bellamy said.

"And we believe Murphy?" Clarke asked.

"I do. Yeah." Bellamy said.

"We have some wild onions and nuts in the drop ship. It's only enough to last us maybe one or two weeks." I said. "What's left here?"