Responsible for survival

Manipulating

BELLAMY'S POV

"We need someone to go IN the mountain." Lexa commands, sitting on her fabric throne. Monroe snorts, stroking Katy's hair as she sleeps on Monroe's lap.
"How?"
"I volunteer." I say. Octavia, Monroe and Raven all raise their eyebrows and drop one shoulder at the same time, glaring at me.
"Nope." Octavia states. "You're not going anywhere." Lexa crosses her arms, and Octavia leans back against the wall of the dropship, eyes cast down. But Lexa looks at me through narrowed eyes.
"No. YOU are not going."
"Why?" I cross my arms, and lean forward. Raven purses her lips, but Roan and Monroe look away, trying to hide what seem to be smiles.
"Because skaikru has exactly three leaders." Lexa crosses hers right back... more intimidating than mine, because her knife crosses with them, blade skimming her skin without cutting.
"And you're THE COMMANDER."
Lexa sighs dramatically. "I know. Yet I have seen few of your people so much as NEAR the dropship. Why?" Raven snorts.
"Because Finn would kill you all."
"WHAT?" Indra hisses.
"He blames you for Wells's death...He feels mourning for a few day relationship and doesn't give a flying fuck about one that lasted years." Her eyes bug and she slams her mouth shut, but it's already out. Indra looks at her softly and Mornoe squeezes her in a one armed hug.
"Fine." Lexa chides. "I get why your people aren't near us... But that doesn't stop you from being one of the leaders, desperately needed when your people are coming down in a matter of days." Roan's head swivels to me, like this is a tennis match.
"Screw my people." I growl. "MY people, MY PRINCESS is in that dam mountain, and there's no way I'm losing her." I stand up, and storm down the ladder and out into the open air. The click of a camera reminds me they're here, watching us. I stand still, and spin round, flipping off wherever the camera is.

Monroe lifts the tent flap, and walks in. I drop Clarke's spare shirt on the bed. She smiles softly, and points at my bed. I sit. "I'm sorry I-"
"Don't be. Me and Indra sorted it. We're getting you in through the tunnels as soon as I can get my prisoner to say the closest entrance to the mountain." She sits next to me, and our breath blurs together for a moment.
"You're amazing you know that?"
"Yeah." Monroe answers. "You won't be able to bring anything, and we're going to be dressing you up like a grounder."
"Oh... What about the camera?" Monroe grins.
"My kids are on it." I frown at her. "They're not killing them, just locating them. They're playing Marco Polo, but they'll only shout Polo when they find the camera. Then they come back, and I'll go out." She grins, but it's big and fake. "I don't want to." She whispers, tears glistening on her lashes. She swipes them away furiously and I hug her tightly. "You did what you had to do. Don't blame yourself, it was kill or be killed. It's going to get better." I whisper as I rock her.
I follow her up to her prisoner, bowing to Lexa, but ignoring them. I keep climbing the ladder.
"I'll get what I can out our prisoner." Monroe nods. "I need Bellamy as a promise of potential aggression.

"You brought brawn back with you did you?" The guard grunts. Monroe doesn't respond. "Oh come on.. It was a joke." The guard groans. Monroe doesn't laugh. She leans forward on her chair and crosses her ankles.
"What can you tell me about the reaper tunnels?" He shrugs, and she slowly stands up. With each step a new bead of sweat appears on his forehead. She's in his face. "You're lying." She hisses.
"We use them to get outsiders without wasting life. Often we send them out as our army, but occasionally we go out ourselves. Like we did with you. Because we wanted you for our mountain, not blood supply." Monroe nods, and twangs one of the ties with her foot.
"How do I get in them?"
"Get captured by a reaper." The guard laughs.
"Where?" He shrugs and grunts an 'I dunno' noise. Monroe sighs, and sharply lifts her knee to jab him in the balls. "Where can I enter the tunnels?"
"Down insanity street." He grunts, tears of pain glistening. Monroe looks at me and nods. I pull my knife out of my trousers, and walk over to the red live wire. I pull it down, the curl growing and growing. He audibly swallows. "The dam side is closest entrance. There are two entrances, one on either side of the dam. All the tunnels lead to the main mountain. At the opening where all the tunnels meet there's a big cavern, and that's where we take in our blood source. We give the reapers their dose of red-"
"Red?"
"It's liquid crack. Mix cocaine, marijuana and LSD and you've got it. Highly addictive, even in the low measures they are in the red substance. Highly mind altering."
"Okay, so what do you do with them when you've taken them?"
"Split them into who'll be harvested and who won't. You need to look strong to become a reaper, look like someone who'd kill ANYONE for a drug, the people they love... I've done the job exactly twice." Tears prick his eyes again. Monroe steps back. "One man had brought his wife, his brother, his mother and three kids..." His voice shakes. "They were crying, screaming, trying to fight. He hit his own kid so hard they died there... He didn't get his red. He was shot." The guard's bottom lip wobbles. "Those who are harvested are put in the chamber. Hundreds of cages are there, rows, dangling from walls. Most are emptied monthly."
"So the recently taken azgeda's?"
"If they seemed violent, they'd still be there until they turned docile... The docile are the ones who give up. They're easiest to take the blood from." I realise I haven't torn any casing away. I don't start again. "Before the chambers, they're cleaned, under showers, then people like Maya give them checks, basic blood ones, you know, check they're not infected. If they're infected, we throw them to the reapers in the tunnels below the harvest chamber, where they get eaten. You enter those reaper tunnels even remotely incapacitated and alone, and you're as good as dead." His eyes turn dark. "That's why Alex drinks himelf to stupor every night, and the joke you lot played wasn't funny. He'd thought they'd eaten her. When you pretended to be her he wanted to kill everyone in your camp until he found her. They had to knock him out."
"Thank you." Monroe grins.
"Why are you interested?" Monroe begins to walk toward the ladder, and I hastily follow. She nods me down first. She steps down two steps, and he asks again. "WHY?"
"Because otherwise your eight year old won't be the only dead one."