Episode 3, here we go

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The morning came slowly. I had woken up at least eight times throughout the night, half due to Jasper, the other from just being unable to sleep.

Monty had been working tirelessly through the night trying to get the wristbands to work. As far as I knew, he was yet to have any luck.

Clarke came by early that morning to help redress Jasper's bandages. As she was cleaning him up, she looked concerned about something.

"Clarke? What's going on?" I asked, feeling my anxiety grow.

She glanced over at me, "The Grounders cauterised the wound. Saved his life."

"Saved his life so they could string him up for live bait," Finn tacked on as he walked into the room. "Garden of Eden this ain't."

They both had a point. Why were the Grounders playing games with us like this? If they wanted to kill us, why not just kill us?

I mean, they had multiple chances to kill Jasper while they had him captive, but they didn't. And then they had the chance to kill us while we were saving Jasper and they didn't. So what was their end game?

Clarke continued to clean his chest wound, "This is infected. He could be septic."

Septic. I'd heard the word thrown around during my times in the medical wing. Something to do with organ damage due to infection causing problems with blood pressure. In short, not good.

I gripped the back of my neck, my anxiety getting the better of me. How were we supposed to treat something like this in the middle of nowhere with no medical supplies?

"Any progress on using the wristbands to contact the Ark?" Clark asked Monty, swaying the conversation.

The boy didn't reply, just stared at his friend's chest rising and falling slowly as he breathed, groans escaping his lips. Monty was just as devastated as I was.

"Monty?" Clarke said a bit harsher, trying to snap him out of his stupor.

Monty cleared his throat, sliding his eyes over to Clarke. "That would be a firm no."

Clarke sighed, "My mother would know what to do."

"We believe in you, Clarke," I attempted to reassure her. "Just. . . do what you can. Please."

Wells appeared, kneeling down beside Clarke. "How's he doing?"

"How does it look like he's doing, Wells?" Clarke responded rather harshly. Even I wouldn't have answered like that.

"Hey, I'm just trying to help."

Clarke pressed on the wound with a cloth, only for Jasper to groan again. I was surprised that he was still half-comatose through all this. I'd be screaming bloody murder.

"Right. You want to help?" Clarke asked, losing some of her bitter tone. "Hold him down."

She avoided eye contact with Wells the whole time, before picking up a blade and holding it over a small flame we had been using to give us some more light, as Finn and Wells came over and held Jasper down.

Monty got to his feet, his eyes racing over everyone in the room, "I'm not gonna like this, am I?"

I sat down beside Jasper and grabbed onto his hand, holding it in mine. I wasn't too worried about him gripping it too hard; Jasper wasn't overly strong. Plus, I wanted to help him get through this.

Once the knife was hot enough, Clarke brought it over to Jasper. Slowly and precisely, she began to cut into him. He screamed in pain, his face twisting in agony and his hand squeezing mine.

The screams were so much louder than the groans, I was surprised we hadn't had any of the other delinquents telling us to kill him yet.

"I don't know how much longer he can do this, Clarke," I held on tight to his hand, but there was nothing that I could do to ease his pain. That made it even harder to watch.

"Hold him still," Clarke told the boys. "I need to cut away the infected flesh."

Jasper's screams died down as his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he passed out. Grabbing the cloth I wiped the sweat from his brow, trying to remind myself that he was strong and that he would be fine.

"Stop it!" A voice shouted. Octavia appeared at the top of the ladder, rushing over to stop us. "You're killing him."

"She's trying to save his life," Finn told her as she knelt beside me.

I let go of Jasper to hold my hands up and stop her from trying anything. "It's true. You know what Jasper means to me, Octavia. I would never let them hurt him. Clarke's going to help him."

She seemed hesitant at first, but didn't try to stop Clarke from what she was doing.

Just as we had everyone in the room having some sort of faith, Bellamy just had to come and ruin everything. "She can't."

Wells stood up before I got the chance, stepping in front of Bellamy, using his height to look down on him. "Back off."

"We didn't drag him through miles of woods just to let him die," Clarke didn't look away from Jasper, her eyes laser focused on anything but Bellamy.

I appreciated that she wasn't giving up on him. It was good to see that not everyone was jeopardising their morals as soon as they had the chance.

"Kid's a goner," Bellamy said bluntly. "If you can't see that, you're deluded. He's making people crazy."

"Sorry if Jasper's an inconvenience to you, but this isn't the Ark. Down here, every life matters."

A small smile played at my lips as I peered at her. She was a good person.

"Take a look at him," The boy's jaw locked. "He's a lost cause."

Everyone fell silent; even Clarke. Bellamy was chipping away at their belief that we could save Jasper.

"Bellamy, just stop," I said beneath my breath.

I felt my nails dig into my palms as I shut my eyes, taking deep breaths. The deep breaths was a control mechanism that Abby had taught me back on the Ark. Counting deep breaths until you were calm.
She never approved of me digging my nails into my palms, but it usually helped.

It didn't always work, but I didn't want to punch Octavia's brother again. She forgave me the first time, I don't know how she'd react if I did it a second.

Looking at my friend, I saw that she was almost in tears. Octavia really cared for Jasper. Probably also due to the fact that he had saved her life.

"Octavia, I've spent my whole life watching my mother heal people," Clarke gave her a similar speech to the one she had given me. "If I say there's hope, there's hope."

Octavia almost seemed to relax, but then her brother spoke. "This isn't about hope, it's about guts. You don't have the guts to make the hard choices. I do. He's been like this for three days. If he's not better by tomorrow, I'll kill him myself."

He walked over to the ladder, but not before addressing his sister directly. "Octavia, let's go."

I looked at her, and she seemed unsure. I needed her here with me. She was my best friend besides Jasper and I didn't want to be alone.

She wrapped her hand in a cloth, not bothering to turn to face her brother, "I'm staying here."

Bellamy left without another word, and when I went to follow, Clarke grabbed onto my arm. "He's not worth it."

"If he touches Jasper, I'm going to kill him," I murmured, hoping that Octavia didn't hear me.

"I'm with Theo. He's a power-hungry, self-serving jackass who doesn't care about anyone but himself," Monty ground out, before quickly tacking on, "No offence," for Octavia.

When Clarke let go of my arm, I sat back down beside her. We hadn't been here a week and things were already turning to shit. Why did the Council think that a bunch of kids would be able to pull this off?

"Yeah. Bellamy is all that," Finn agreed. "But he also happens to be right."

I bit my tongue as I kept all the things I was dying to say to him to myself. He was just trying to give his honest opinion, even if we didn't want to hear it.
Jasper was going to be fine; I knew he was.

Clarke was quick to redress the bandages before getting up and leaving without a word. Finn sighed, running a hand through his hair before climbing to his feet and following Clarke.

She was pissed that there were people actually willing to just let Jasper die instead of making any attempts to save him.

Wells then followed as well, anger and jealousy clear on his face. He was losing his best friend to the 'bad boy' spacewalker.

I was just glad that I wasn't the one having to deal with this little love triangle when we had bigger things to deal with. Like keeping people alive.

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Clarke had left with Wells and Finn in search of a plant called seaweed in the hopes that it would help to heal Jasper. Clarke had originally just wanted to go with Finn, but Wells knew what it looked like, so she had to take him.

I felt for her after everything that happened with her dad and the Wells, but Jasper was more important right now, so she needed to suck it up.

Octavia, Monty, Maeve and I stayed with Jasper, doing our best to keep him alive while we waited for them to return with the seaweed. I could only hope that they wouldn't take too long, especially with Bellamy's time limit that he set on my friend's life.

If he killed Jasper, I would never forgive him for that. And I didn't care what Octavia would say, I'd kill him for it.

"I'm going to take another look at the wristbands," Monty mumbled as he went to the other side of the room.

"I'll help," Maeve offered as she followed him, being quite tech savvy herself.

Octavia and I remained by Jasper's side, watching his chest to make sure he was still breathing. She seemed to want him to survive even more than I did, and that was saying something.

"I'm sorry about Bellamy. Again."
She was staring at her hands, picking at her nails. Ever since we got here, I felt like all she was doing was apologising for Bellamy.

"You don't have to do that," I told her. "If he wants to be forgiven, he's the one who needs to ask. And I haven't known your brother very long, but from what I've seen so far, I really doubt that will be happening any time soon."

She chuckled lightly, actually smiling for the first time in days. "I'm glad I got stuck with you in the Sky Box."

"Ditto." Stretching my arms and getting comfortable, I told Octavia that I would take first watch of him so that she could rest.

She accepted, but not before telling me about something that had happened. She and Atom, the boy who was supposed to be watching her, had kissed and apparently made some connection.

But suddenly today, he wanted nothing to do with her. She thought Bellamy had said something, but she didn't have proof. I told her to give it time and maybe he would change his mind, but I couldn't be certain she wasn't right about her brother.

It did seem like something he'd do.

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Within a few hours, Octavia, Monty, Maeve and I were surrounding Jasper once more. None of us wanted to risk that something may happen and we weren't there to somehow try to stop it. Even Maeve, who hadn't known Jasper as well as the rest of us.

Suddenly, the room echoed with coughing and shouts as the Dropship began to fill up quickly.

Heaps of kids joined us, slamming the doors and windows shut as quickly as possible, none of them saying anything as they did so.

"What's going on?" Monty asked the question on everyone's mind.

"Air got thick," someone replied. "Everybody's skin started burning."

That didn't sound like anything we had learnt about in our Earth studies class.

Even after what had happened earlier, Octavia still became very on edge, her concern for her sibling outweighing any anger. "My brother's out there."

Monty hesitated before he answered, "He'll be fine. We'll all be fine."

He didn't sound confident in that answer at all, but I wasn't going to be that one to cause a riot in such a small space. As long as we all remained calm, we stood a better chance.

✦✦✦✦✦

As the afternoon went on, everyone spread out among the levels of the Dropship to find somewhere to sleep.

Because he had begun to make noise again, Octavia and I were the only ones still with Jasper. He was getting worse again. If Bellamy didn't kill him like he promised, Jasper might not make it anyway.

Unless Clarke made it back in time. For the first time in my life, I found myself praying.

His moans echoed throughout the Dropship and I could hear voices on the lower level. Not many people were happy putting up with Jasper, and that made me sick. He was a human being, and they were willing to just let him die so that could get a good night's rest.

Someone climbing the rungs of the ladder rather quickly drew my thoughts away from hating every person who wanted Jasper dead.

Monty pulled himself onto our level before beginning to shut the hatch behind him.
"Murphy's going to kill Jasper."

"No he's not."
Thinking fast, Octavia and I quickly ran over to help Monty slam the hatch on Murphy. Maeve had gone in search of Carter to make sure he'd made it in from the fog safely, and ended up staying down there with him. Now, it was just the four of us.

Murphy was already almost through the hatch, so with some quick thinking, Octavia kicked him in the head. He fell down a rung or two, giving us the space we need to shut him out.

Just when we thought we had won, Monty looked at us with wide eyes, "The lock's on the other side!"

"Don't let him in!" Octavia instructed us as she went to go and find something to help block it from our end.

I threw my arms up, "Do you really think that was going to be the plan?"

Monty and I stood on the door, using the ladder to help weigh us down so that Murphy couldn't push us off.

"I'm gonna kill him, okay?" The boy shouted from below. "Let me in! Let me in, Monty!"

"Go to hell, Murphy!" I yelled. "You're not getting anywhere near him!"

When Octavia still hadn't returned, Monty grew agitated. "No rush. We're fine here."

I looked over to see Octavia had pried a long rod of metal off the wall and was running it over, "I got it!"

Moving out of her way slightly, we made space so that she could slide the metal through the handle and one of the rungs, effectively locking it from our end. This was not good.