whatever the hell we want || j. jordan

~ chapter 4.5 ~

"I don't know," Kane admitted. We had stepped out of the Ark, watching our
people — no, not my people — shove Ilian to the ground and hand Octavia the gun.

"Octavia," I pushed through the crowd. "Stop this. You're not a murderer."

"You're wrong." She said, gritting her teeth. The crowd cheered, going on about justice and such, when an alarm started blaring. Black rain.

"Black rain!" Kane yelled. "Everybody get inside! Go, go, go!" Everyone scrambled to the Ark. Everyone but Octavia, Ilian, Jaha, and Kane. I knew Kane would handle the Octavia situation, so I helped push everyone inside. No rain came. I knew instantly it was a set-up. I waited a few minutes, peeking out of the door. There were no clouds in the sky.

Octavia and Ilian were gone, and Kane nodded slightly to me to let people back outside. I went back to find that moonshine Monty had taken from me. I knocked it back, then made a face.

Bellamy was returning, so Harper called me out to help her direct the rovers in. Begrudgingly, I went with her. The moonshine was hitting, but Monty had been making it for years. At this point, I'd learned how to hide it. Still, it wasn't ideal to be actually working.

Bellamy hopped out of his rover and everything was holly jolly, then we heard the thunder.

One drop. Ow, geez. Rain isn't supposed to hurt.

Five drops.

"Everybody inside! Black rain, sound the alarm!"

Ten drops. Everyone was sprinting and pushing past people. I had no idea where Jasper was. Hoping he was inside slacking off, I decided to worry about something else that wasn't Jasper for once in my life. "This is not a dril!" I held the door open, ushering people in. "Get inside!" I felt every drop hit my neck. The jacket I held above my head wasn't enough.

It was down-pouring, and the door was getting clogged up with bodies. People were shoving past each other, knocking each other over.

Once we all finally got inside alive, everyone started to strip down. We knew the drill. There were buckets of water all along the hallway to douse yourself in.

Bellamy was right next to me, and Kane approached him. "Someone's still outside."

They both ran outside to get him, and a few of us waited at the door to take him. I knew who the man was, but we never interacted before just then.

"I've got you Louis, let's go."

He was wailing in pain. We dragged him off to a spot where there was space for him to lay down. I had hardly even rinsed myself off except for my hair, but I was fully stripped down. So, so great for me just then. Coating Louis with water and stripping him down while also half naked and almost drunk. He was still screaming, and the water was hardly working. When he was finally mostly okay to be lifted, we moved everyone.

He was laying down on the ground, both of us clothed again, in the loading dock on a mattress, next to dozens of other people. There was no room in the med bay for anyone else, even though he had possibly taken the worst of the rain. Harper was helping me out, because she had shaken him off of her outside and blamed herself for his burns and blisters. Kane came by, and Harper stood to talk to him.

"You'll be okay, Louis, just lay still." He was coughing and gagging. I knew he wouldn't last the night.

Bellamy stormed by me in a duct tape suit. There was no way he was going out in that. But he was moving too fast to talk to him and he wouldn't listen anyway.

I wiped Louis's face, I rinsed his blisters again and again, but none of it worked. Within the hour he was fading. Harper cried out when he let out his last breath, but I tried to keep it together to keep a level head for one of us. I didn't even know him, but I had failed him.