Chapter 17: Biological Warfare - Part 2
POV: Alec Morgan
Morning brought death. Two bodies lay beneath bloodstained tarps near the dropship, silent testimony to the virus that was systematically dismantling our population. Harper, who'd laughed at my terrible jokes just days ago. Monroe, who'd volunteered for every dangerous mission with the kind of courage that made heroes of ordinary people.
Now they were statistics in a biological war we'd never chosen to fight.
I sat up slowly, performing the careful movements of someone fighting illness while my adaptive immunity celebrated complete victory over viral proteins that had killed stronger people in half the time. My temperature was normal. My energy levels were returning to baseline. My body had systematically dismantled biological warfare designed by people who'd spent generations perfecting methods of killing their enemies.
But I had to pretend otherwise.
"How many more will die before this ends? How many lives is my secret worth when I know exactly where to find the cure?"
"How are you feeling?" Raven asked, her voice hoarse with fever and exhaustion. She'd been fighting the virus for eighteen hours now, her brilliant mind reduced to confusion and delirium by pathogens I'd already defeated.
"Better," I lied, then quickly added, "Still weak, but the worst seems to be passing."
She nodded without questioning why my recovery was progressing faster than anyone else's. Fever made details blur together, made impossible things seem merely unlikely. But when her mind cleared—if her mind cleared—she'd remember the timeline and start asking questions I couldn't answer.
Across the camp, Clarke worked with desperate efficiency, moving between patients with medical supplies that were proving entirely inadequate against biological warfare. Her movements carried the controlled panic of someone watching people die while lacking the tools to save them.
"She needs the answer. She's smart enough to figure it out if I point her in the right direction. But I have to make it seem like logical deduction, not impossible foreknowledge."
I struggled to my feet, maintaining the careful weakness of someone still fighting infection, and approached her makeshift medical station. Clarke looked up from Jasper's unconscious form, her face haggard with exhaustion and growing despair.
"Any progress?" I asked, keeping my voice appropriately weak.
"None." She set down her stethoscope with hands that trembled slightly from stress rather than illness. "It's viral, highly contagious, hemorrhagic fever that kills through organ failure and internal bleeding. I've tried everything—supportive care, symptom management, improvised antiviral protocols. Nothing works."
"What if the Grounders have immunity?" I suggested carefully, making it sound like desperate brainstorming rather than certainty. "They weaponized this, which means they've been exposed before and survived. Maybe they have natural or developed cures?"
Clarke's eyes sharpened with the first hope I'd seen in hours. "Immunity through prior exposure," she repeated slowly, her medical mind engaging with the possibility. "If they've encountered this pathogen before, they might have developed treatments."
"If I were them, I'd keep medical supplies centrally located," I pressed, thinking of the healer's camp I knew existed six miles northeast of here. "Like a healer's camp? Somewhere protected but accessible to multiple clans?"
"You think we could find Grounder medical facilities?" Clarke's voice carried dangerous hope, the kind that led to desperate decisions and impossible missions.
"Maybe." I shrugged, aiming for uncertain optimism rather than suspicious confidence. "If they're using biological warfare, they must have countermeasures. Otherwise they'd be killing themselves along with their enemies."
POV: Clarke
Clarke stared at Alec, processing his suggestion through the filter of medical desperation and strategic calculation. The logic was sound—any group sophisticated enough to weaponize hemorrhagic fever would need protection against their own biological weapons. Which meant treatments existed somewhere within reasonable distance of their territory.
"It's worth trying," she decided, already calculating mission parameters. "Small team, surgical strike, in and out before they can organize a response."
"I'm coming with you," Alec said immediately.
"You're sick." She examined his face, noting pallor that suggested ongoing illness despite his apparent improvement. "You shouldn't be taking risks while fighting off the same virus that's killed two people already."
"My symptoms are mild compared to others," he replied, which was technically true even if it understated the degree of his recovery. "And you'll need someone who understands plant identification, medical applications, how to recognize treatment facilities."
The offer was tempting despite her medical concerns. Alec's botanical knowledge had already saved lives, and his tactical awareness had proven valuable during dangerous expeditions. But taking a sick team member into hostile territory violated basic medical judgment.
"He has good instincts for finding things," Bellamy interjected, approaching their conversation with the focused intensity that meant he'd been listening and calculating. "We need that."
The endorsement carried weight beyond its practical value. Bellamy's trust wasn't given lightly, especially when it involved risking people's lives on unproven capabilities. If he believed Alec's knowledge was worth the risk, Clarke was inclined to defer to his tactical judgment.
"Fine," she decided. "But if you slow us down or collapse from illness, we're leaving you behind."
"Understood."
They spent the next hour assembling a strike team—herself for medical expertise, Bellamy for tactical leadership, Finn for his apparent woodland skills, and Alec for botanical knowledge and pattern recognition that had already proven invaluable. Small enough to move quietly, capable enough to handle resistance, desperate enough to attempt something that bordered on suicide.
POV: Alec Morgan
Before the mission departed, I found myself beside Raven's makeshift sickbed, watching fever consume someone whose brilliant mind had become my anchor in this world of impossibilities. She was barely conscious, her temperature spiking to dangerous levels while her body fought a war it couldn't win.
"Don't you dare die out there," she whispered, her hand finding mine with desperate strength. "I like my weird farm boy alive."
The words hit me like physical blows, love and fear and acceptance wrapped together in a plea that made my chest tight with protective fury. She was dying from biological warfare I could have prevented, suffering because I couldn't explain how I knew what was coming.
"I'll come back," I promised, kissing her forehead with lips that tasted like salt and desperation. "With medicine. You're going to be fine."
"You always know things," she murmured, her fever-bright eyes trying to focus on my face. "How do you always know?"
The question was delivered without suspicion, just the wondering of someone whose illness made mysteries feel normal. But it cut straight to the heart of everything I couldn't explain, everything that made me different from the people I was trying to save.
"Because I've watched you die before. Because I know exactly how this ends if I can't find the courage to act on knowledge I shouldn't possess. Because loving you means lying to you about everything that makes me capable of keeping you alive."
I couldn't answer, just held her hand until Octavia gently pulled me away for mission preparation. As we moved toward Grounder territory, my combat instincts were already screaming warnings about every shadow, every movement, every possibility for ambush or discovery.
But the alternative was watching Raven die while I possessed knowledge that could save her.
Some risks were worth taking, even when they led straight toward exposure and all the consequences that came with being discovered.
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