Pietra resisted a sigh and looked up when the person spoke again, recognizing the voice of one of the delinquents. She eyed the young man a moment, taking a few seconds to remember his name. Murphy. Or at least that’s what she thought it was, keeping up with everyone was hard, especially when she really interacted with any of them.
“I’m sorry?” she said after a moment and placed her pen down. She was bewildered as to what he could want from her, generally everyone was going to the weapons room for anything pertaining to Grounders. “Can I…help you?”
Murphy stepped away from the door while Pietra frowned at
him. Her confusion was to be expected; most of the remaining sky people wanted nothing to do with the
science division. They were too busy defending Kane or preparing for the inevitable.
Murphy, however, intended to outlive most of the skaikru – and that is why he needed poison. Sure, he loved guns,
loved how powerful they made him feel,
but he did not trust them. If either of his firearms ran out of bullets, the Grounders would eat him alive. Poison,
however, would make his dull knife much deadlier. He’d be able to defend
himself without guns.
“Yeah, you can,” said Murphy. Without asking, he leaned
against Pietra’s bench and surveyed her work. There were numerous illustrations.
They were pretty, kind of. However, Pietra’s handwriting was an
incomprehensible smear. Sure, Murphy
could decipher it if he truly focused, but the larger part of his attention was
devoted to the task at hand. “Do you know what Grounders use on their
knives?”
Pietra had made her choice to stay, she didn’t completely like it, but she trusted Aiden. Maybe they could fix this, take care of the people who were staying. Not all of them were ones who fell in line with Kane, some of them were just too scared to leave and she wasn’t going to abandon those people. However, nothing could keep her from helping those who were leaving, in whatever way she could. Pietra sat at her desk, meticulously copying her herbal research when she heard someone outside her doorway. “Not a good time,” she huffed without looking up.
It had been a very long, very irritating day. The camp was
abuzz with commotion; most residents were haggard and fraught, and bumbling
around to pack and prepare for upcoming events. Murphy idly wondered what Jaha
would think of all of this, if he was still alive – the crazy bastard was
probably still out there somewhere. Typical.
Murphy found himself wandering over to the biologist’s
workspace in pursuit of poison. He lingered in the doorway, vaguely aware that
his back ached from sleeplessness; he was used to ignoring such little pains,
along with the greater ones. He watched Pietra work, brow furrowed in contemplation,
her pen moving at a meticulous speed, jotting down something important. She sounded
less than pleased when she finally acknowledged him.
“What, do you want me to come back when the Grounders are on
our doorstep?”
