in which a girl with a heavy burden tries to find her way through the trials and torments of the earth they've come home to.
OR
in which she must rebuild.
EMBERS
JOHN MURPHY
DEATHLIES 2016
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN T...
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T H I R T Y F O U R
"We're gonna try this one last time," Bellamy says to the grounders, trying to sound intimidating. "What're your names? Where's your camp? How many of you are there?"
"Hey, check it out," Miller says from the other side of the room. Althea turns her attention to him. Not wanting to approach she tries to look at what's in his hands from her seat. It's vials containing unknown substances. "What is all this stuff?"
"Who the hell knows with these people?" Bellamy scoffs, picking up the bound leather book. The male grounder struggles in his restraints when he sees the book, looking panicked. Althea frowns slightly, pulling her knees to her chest. "Looks like we found something he doesn't want us to see, Miller."
He flips through the notebook, his expression changing from cockiness to a frown. "It's our camp," He tells Miller, gesturing to one of the pages. "Guessing that all those marks add up to a hundred and two. Ten are crossed out. That's how many people we've lost." He exhales before turning tot he grounders and shouting. "You've been watching us ever since we got here!"
Althea swallows, shifting uncomfortably when Clarke barges in. When she sees the grounders tied up she says, "Well, it they didn't hate us before, they do now."
Bellamy rolls his eyes, making Althea's anger rise again. She stands up, leaning back against the crates. "Who cares? How's Finn?"
"Alive," Clarke replies shortly. "His people will care! How long until they find out we're keeping him? And what happens when they do, I mean when they come looking for him. They will, Bellamy."
"I tried telling him that," Althea says, speaking up. "But he's too intent on keeping them here and getting us all killed. He doesn't care about consequences until they're knocking on his door."
Bellamy's jaw clenches. "No one saw us take him. He was chained up in the cave the whole time and, thanks to the storm, you couldn't see a soul on the way back." He glances at Althea before directing his attention back to Clarke as if what Althea had to say wasn't important. He holds the book out to her. "In case you missed it, his people are already killing us. How many more of our people need to die before you realise we're fighting a war."
"We're not soldiers, Bellamy," Clarke tells him firmly, not wavering in her stance. "Look at them, we can't win."
"You're right," Bellamy says. "We can't, if we don't fight."
Althea sighs, pushing a hand over her face. At Raven's call of worry about Finn, Clarke disappears down the ladder. Bellamy closes the hatch behind her.
"I don't care how you justify it," Althea tells him, walking forward. "I still think you're making a huge mistake in keeping them here. It's wrong."
"You can think what you like, but it's not going to change anything," Bellamy shoots back, but he could see she wasn't giving up that easily.
"You'll do anything to make yourself feel better, won't you?" She says, following it with a small laugh that vibrated in his ears, mocking him like a crow. "Justifying this by saying you're going to get intel isn't going to cut it this time, Bellamy."
"You're one to talk," Bellamy retorts. In the heat and intensity of it all, he forgets the presence of others in the room like the fool Althea believed him to be and says. "You can't justify sleeping with me to try to forget Murphy. That's not how it works, Al."
Althea steps back, breathing out and looking at him in disgust. Never had she felt such a sudden wave of hatred in her entire life. It ticked her just the wrong way. "Go float yourself," She hisses, the cold wrapping itself around her as if she had become the storm itself. Her eyes brimmed with tears, but her expression was one of anger and of fury.
And in that moment, she was no longer the Althea Barnes they all knew. She was bold and willing where as the Althea they all knew was not anywhere close to what they saw before them. The Althea they knew wouldn't stand up to Bellamy like so, she would cower before him and sink into the shadows in fear of his judgement.
But maybe that part of Althea was gone and replaced with the bold and willing characteristic because the kind soul had lost too much by just cowering in the background.
It was time to grow up.
It was time to live like you're going to die tomorrow, because you might, and that was exactly how Althea saw it.
