Amery is not supposed to be on the dropship.
She isn't one of the hundred delinquents being sent down to a radiation-soaked planet. She's just a Zero-G mechanic making some last-minute adjustments to a project nobody will tell her anything about.
I...
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✧】xv. so much for unity【✧
[ day trip — unity day ]
"LET THE GROUNDERS come," Bellamy calls, that authoritative voice of his washing over the panicked crowd. He and Clarke emerge into the center of a circle of frantic campers bathed in the glow of firelight. Amery leans against the side of the dropship, Monty beside her, both having scrambled down from the dropship roof at Miller's shouting.
"We've been afraid of them for far too long, and why?" Bellamy and Clarke both have heavy packs slung over their shoulders, and Amery blinks as she notices crusted blood down one side of Bellamy's face. "Because of their knives and spears."
"What happened to them?" she mutters, and Monty shrugs, catching Jasper's eye from across the crowd. His brow furrows in concern. Jasper's got more reason to be afraid of the Grounders than any of them, really. Knives and spears, indeed.
Suddenly Amery knows exactly what Bellamy and Clarke's new cargo is.
"I don't know about you," Bellamy says, "but I'm tired of being afraid." He shares a glance with Clarke, and together they reveal the loads of guns slung over their shoulders, letting the metal clatter against the ground. They weren't packs at all, but weaponry tied together with rope, salvaged from who-knows-where.
Monty frowns, and Amery finds herself strangely uneasy at the prospect of the guns. It gives them a major advantage against the Grounders, but...
She looks around the camp, the rows of murmuring kids with dirty hair and ratty clothing, some afraid, some excited—some too excited.
In the chaos of adjusting to life down here, Amery seems to have forgotten that a number of the campers are actually convicted of things far worse than stealing trees or being born. Some of them are murderers. Actual criminals. And they're about to be armed.
But if it comes down to people like Dax and Murphy or a bone-helmet-wearing Grounder... she knows who she'd choose.
As if reading her mind, Clarke launches into a speech about the importance of using the weapons safely. Amery's mind is elsewhere, trying to figure out where they're going to get enough ammunition for all these new guns, what valuable parts she might be able to pry out of one if she dismantles it right. Monty drums his fingers against the metal of the dropship, eyes distant, and she thinks he may be thinking about the same things.
"I can't shoot one of those," she mutters, and Monty grants her a small smile.
"Pretty sure you can do whatever you decide you want to do, Red."
"Miller can still kick my ass with his eyes closed and his ankles tied together. I don't think he'd call me ready for the heavy shit."
The firelight plays off the metal of the guns, dancing across surfaces and bouncing back into the darkness in a strangely beautiful routine. Lethal things shouldn't be so pretty, she thinks. Fire. Metal. Storms.
