Raven kept her posture straight; well, as straight as she could. It was hard to achieve with her newfound soreness because of the small squabble she’d had with a grounder. But, her eyes were narrowed and her stomach lurched when his fingers ran along one of her radios, “Don’t touch anything.”
Raven was smart enough to know that ‘moment’ in the dropship was a one time event. She knew better to act on it.
“I wasn’t trying to be funny,” she seethed, watching him eye the gunpowder on her workbench. She was taught to analyze and make note of little details all her life; this wasn’t an exception. She slapped the lid on the tin, making a show of effort when she pulled it towards herself to keep it more on her side. “Why should I fix it for you?” Her arms were crossed and her chin was tipped up slightly, in legitimate wonder regarding why he’d want her to fix anything for her.
Both teens knew that the hole in the Dropship was a once-off act of desperation. Cornered animals tend to bite. Still, a small scoff escaped Murphy’s lips as Raven slapped the lid back
on the tin of gunpowder. Her affront was actually kind of hilarious, but Murphy did want that device to be fixed, so he
suppressed his laughter. Anyhow,
Murphy blinked down at her, all teasing chatter silenced— if
there was one thing he had learned on the Ground, it was that his motives would
always be questioned. “I found
it in a bunker,” he said, shifting a little against the table, his
expression unreadable. His gaze fell back to the device. “It reads stuff. Who knows, it might be useful.”
The tons and tons of extra bullets were sitting in front of her, taunting her as she was forced to shove gunpowder back into each little capsule. It was tedious and boring, but it’s something she had to do. Especially now. With the war coming, she was in need of another thing to keep her hands busy. It was absolutely boring until she heard the door slam open, shooting the intruder a stern look.
Murphy.
Raven scoffed before flicking her eyes back down to her task. She was already focused on splicing the bullets, not the man who shot her. The mechanic rose an eyebrow when she realized that he was still standing there.
“You gonna explain to me why you’re loitering in my workroom?”
Raven spoke with a scoff that made Murphy itch to strike
her; but he could not, not now, lest
he fuck up his own plan and be cast back out into the wild. Instead, he rolled
his eyes and crossed the room with blatant ease. He stopped and fiddled with a
radio on the way, if only to annoy Raven; Raven whom Murphy had once, for a
brief and stupid period, believed to be a friend.
He would not make that
mistake again; friendship was for fools.
“Yeah, funny,”
said Murphy from the right side of the table. “I need you to fix this.” He placed
the broken broken device down, right next to the open tin of gunpowder. He eyed the substance with
a slight smirk, hoping Raven wouldn’t notice; she knew exactly what he could achieve with gunpowder, if the hole in the
Dropship was evidence enough.
Murphy swung wide the door of the Workshop, slipped inside,
and took in the smell of plastic and metal, the zest of running currents, the
tang of rust. There was only one person inside, standing at the far end of the
room. Murphy bristled and froze by the entrance. It was Raven. Shit, he’d hoped to see Wick; at least he hadn’t put a
bullet in that smarmy jackass.
He was in the workshop for a reason. Prior to leaving the
Lighthouse, he managed to grab some non-essential items – one of which was device
that read books aloud. Murphy loved it all at once. The first book he listened
to was Lord of the Flies. Mostly because it had a cool title, but
then it turned out to be about being wild and angry and afraid and far away
from fucking everything. He laughed at the irony of it and listened to it over
and over until he had to leave the Lighthouse.
It came as no surprise to Murphy
that the device didn’t survive the trip back to Camp: the Dead Zone wasn’t particularly
forgiving. However, he’d hoped to rectify that – he wanted the damn thing to
work, and he hoped that one of the brainiacs would fix it for him.
