Chapter 17

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She couldn't do anything to save her. She tried, but fail. She could've stopped her, but Charlotte outsmarted her by slipping out of her jacket.

"CHARLOTTE!" Addison screams at the top of her lungs, her eyes wide as her figure disappears down the cliff in slow motion. Addison clutches Charlotte's jacket in one hand and her knife in another, her eyes darkening as she slowly turns to face Murphy.

"No, no, no! No!" Clarke cries, getting out of Murphy's grip and passes Addison, kneeling down besides Bellamy, gasping.

"Addison..."

She lurches forward, her knife raised up and ready to strike Murphy as Finn's attempt goes ignored. "You son of a—let me go!" Finn pushes her back then pins her own arms against her body from behind, the knife falling from her hands and to the rocky ledge underneath her feet with a clink. "Let me go, Finn! He deserves to pay the same way she did, and if it wasn't for him, she'd still be here!"

Murphy's lips part in shock, but Addison wasn't buying it. His shock and almost saddened eyes move past her. "Bellamy."

He quickly rushes past Finn and Addison, shoving Murphy to the ground and beats him, grunting and screaming in anger.

"Bellamy, stop! You'll kill him!" Clarke yells, her fresh tears still spilling slowly.

"So, what?" Addison questions in a hard voice, her own fresh tears spilling as she continues to struggle in Finn's grip.

The boy presses his lips together, his eyes flickering between Addison and Bellamy, before he pushes her to the side and grabs Bellamy, "Get off me! Uhh!" Bellamy yells as Addison stands up, marching her way to beat Murphy up too, but Clarke stops her.

"Addison, please...no more," she whispers, her voice cracking as their tear glistened eyes stare at each other in pain and sadness.

"He deserves to die!" Bellamy continues.

Clarke jumps in front of Bellamy, leaving Addison's side as her eyes follow the blonde girl, "No!" She yells in his face, glancing between him and Addison, "We don't decide who lives and dies. Not down here."

They remain silent, Addison averting her gaze down to a bloody and beaten Murphy with a softer, much less harder look than before. There was no one to blame for this but Murphy, but Addison knows Clarke's right, too. There needs to be some sort of system, a set of rules.

"So help me god, if you say the people have a right to decide—"

"No, I was wrong before, ok?" Clarke cuts Bellamy off, Addison and Murphy connecting eyes. Neither delinquents eyes murderous like they were mere moments ago. "You were right," she says more softly to the eldest Blake. "Sometimes it's dangerous to tell people the truth. But if we're gonna survive down here, we can't just live by 'whatever the hell we want.' We need rules."

Addison turns her attention away from Murphy, a tear sliding down her cheek as she does so. Bellamy rubs a hand on his forehead at Clarke's words. "And who makes those rules, huh? You?"

Clarke takes a step closer to the boy, "For now, we make the rules." She answers, referring to her and Bellamy as the rule makers. The leaders of the first group of Ark civilians that landed on Earth.

"So, what, then? We just take him back and pretend like it never happened?" Bellamy raises his voice, this time taking a step closer to Clarke.

"No!" Clarke yells, flickering her eyes to Murphy.

Addison averts her eyes to Murphy, "I say we kick him out."

She then meets Clarke's eyes, her blue eyes lighting up as a light bulb goes off. "We banish him." Silence engulfs the group. "Bellamy, stop!"

He yanks Murphy up by the collar of his shirt, "Bellamy," the brunette says softly, tired of arguing as he drags him to the ledge and dangles him over while still grabbing his shirt.

He speaks lowly, but she can't hear him. Bellamy soon shoves Murphy to the ground in front of him. "As for the four of you, you can come back and follow me, or go off with him to die. Your choice."

Addison stays behind a second longer eyeing Murphy. She slowly bends down and grabs the knife Octavia made her, still keeping her gaze on him. His eyes widen, shifting his eyes down to the knife. She grips the handle until her knuckles turn white and her hand's trembling along with her body as her nostrils flare in a mix of anger, sadness, and guilt—guilt of failing to protect Charlotte.

Murphy cowers behind his hand, his body curling into a defence ball. She storms off, passing Murphy's begging body. A new wave of tears threaten to spill out of her sad brown eyes as she trudges through the forest. She stops, her breaths heavy and deep as she searches for air, her throat burning and aching.

She squeezes her eyes shut, clenching a fist as her other hand tightens around the handle of her knife again. With a swift swing, she stabs the knife into a tree, yelling as she breaks down. Her fists pound into the tree, repeating the actions. At first, the pain was there, but the more times she hit it, the more the pain faded until she couldn't feel anything. The only thing she could feel was the blood starting to trickled down her forearm and into the dirt, but she still didn't stop. She stopped until she physically couldn't continue anymore.

Addison inhales deeply, rocking her head back and looks into the sky that pokes through the trees. They would've figured out another way, a way that didn't involve her dying, but Charlotte sealed the deal herself. Too much death has happened in the last few days, and now it's starting to take its toll on her. She hisses, looking down at her wristband as it makes a clicking noise.

She shakes her head, ignoring and sighs softly, closing her eyes in sadness as a tear slides down her cheek and her head hangs low. Her hand grips around the handle of her knife that's in the tree and rips it out, tucking it in the waist band of her pants as she continues down the path. She sits on the familiar log, watching the bright blue butterflies that live in the small field, the same butterfly field that's been permanently marked as her and Octavia's secret spot. Just watching the tiny creatures fly about made a small, very faint smile appear on her lips. Some landed on her, their microscopic legs tickling the hairs on her arm as they land softly.

A bright, fiery thing shoots into the soil from the sky, scaring the butterflies when it crash lands. Addison snaps her head in the direction it came from and quickly rises to her feet in alarm. Without a second thought, she's running in the general direction of the crash landing, wiping away her tears.

Had Monty got her wristband idea to work? Did the Ark send some people in a dropship as well to join them? Was her dad among them? Was Liam's parents? So many questions run through her mind as fast as she's rushing to the site with heavy breaths. She soon spots the flames of the small fiery wreck from the trees, her pace picking up in worry.

Finally, she breaks the tree line, spotting the wreckage. It wasn't a dropship, but a pod—a pod only carries two people, she knew. Her and Liam use to joke around about secretly fixing one up and the two of them would go to Earth. She jogs to the pod and lifts the door up, finding someone in a spacesuit knocked out cold from the harsh landing.

Addison gets to her knees and leans into the pod, shaking the person. "Hey. Hey, wake up." No answer. She quickly takes their helmet off and presses two fingers just under, who she knows is a girl now, jaw to find a pulse, and luckily for her, she does. She sighs in relief before retracting her hand to her lap.

Addison puts her hands back on the helmet to move it further away, but her fingers freeze, feeling a familiar think liquid. She squints her eyes, moving the helmet in the faint glow of a small light. Blood. Addison glances up at the patch of blood on the girl's forehead.

She's not going to leave her alone in a forest with an injury like that and a forest full of deadly Grounders, not to mention a now loose Murphy, so she goes to her butt and leans against the pod, wanting patiently for the girl to wake up.