Ready, Aim, Fire

Chapter Eleven

Trying to sleep after Bellamy left for Mount Weather was harder than I thought it would be. The worry and anxiety for his safety caused me to toss and turn the whole night, so when Clarke woke me up and said that the Commander wanted to see both of us in Tondc, I was already wide awake.

The ride there seemed to take no time at all. We discussed more strategies about what we would do once Bellamy turns off the acid fog, and Clarke and I decided that we should go back to Camp Jaha. The ride back seemed to take four times as long.

I ride next to Clarke while our mother and a few Grounders ride behind us. Our mother calls for us to stop, and Clarke and I shared an annoyed look as we both swing off our horses and walk up to her as she stands from filling her water bottle.

"Mom, why are we stopping?" Clarke asks as I tap my feet and play with my fingers anxiously. I've been away from the radio for too long, Bellamy could've made contact by now. "You need to drink too. Both of you." Our mom says, holding out the water to Clarke. "We're fine." Clarke says, and I nod in agreement. "We're almost home, and I need to see if Bellamy has checked in yet." I say, turning to climb back on my horse.

The horse is a chestnut brown color with a white spot on it's forehead and white legs. I've decided to call him Brego. I remember reading it in a book once. "Our scouts patrol these woods. Be careful where you shoot." Clarke tells the Grounders, walking towards her horse.

Clarke says a few words with our mom before ordering the Grounders to mount up. I pat Brego's head, lovingly. Clarke told me not to get too attached because Lexa might want the horse back after all of this. Too late.

"Let's move out!" Our mother calls, and Clarke gets on her horse to my right. I turn and give her a tight smile, knowing that she is just as anxious to get back to the radio as I am. Clarke opens her mouth to shout out an order, but something hits me in the shoulder, knocking me off my horse towards Clarke. I land in the mud with a thud, and it takes a second for my shock to pass and my arm to explode in pain. I've been shot.

"Carter!"

My mother and sister run towards me, and I place my hand over the pained area, crying out at the pain grows and feeling the familiar wetness of blood. Clarke rides off, and I hear my mother yell for someone to go with her as my mother moves my hand out of the way and applies pressure to my new gunshot wound.

Clarke comes back and explains that there were two Mountain Men, waiting for Clarke, Lexa and I to come so they could kill us. I swallow hard, and my mother says that the bullet only grazes my upper arm and that it's nothing too serious. She patches up the wound, and two Grounders help me get back on Brego, my shoulder screaming in pain as I try to pull myself up. We all head off towards Camp Jaha again, this time the pace is faster and we have a Mountain Man with us.

We run through the gate, and I ignore the yells of my mother for me to come to Medical and go straight to Engineering, where I know Raven in listening for Bellamy. "Anything?" I ask, rushing through the door, slightly breathless from running all the way from the front gate.
Nothing yet." The mechanic answers, sadness and anxiety clear in her voice. Octavia runs in shortly after that.

Raven eventually leaves, leaving Octavia and I in charge of the radio. With about ten minutes of us sitting there silently, my mother walks in with a medical bag on her shoulder. "I thought I'd find you here." She says, giving a brief nod to Octavia. "How are you feeling?" She asks, and I shrug my shoulders, ignoring the flare of pain in my shoulder from the movement. "It hurts, but it's nothing I haven't already felt before." I say without taking my eyes off the radio. "Carter, someone tried to kill you today." She says, causing my to shrug again. "Just another day on the Ground. You get used to it after a while."