by Kass Morgan
“He sounds nice,” Clarke said vaguely as her eyes flitted toward the bald patches on Lilly’s head, which were becoming difficult to ignore.1">“Hnt>
“Anyway,” Lilly said, her voice strained, “I want to hear about your birthday. What are you going to wear?”
Clarke had almost forgotten that her birthday was next week. She didn’t feel much like celebrating. “Oh, you know, my best scrubs,” she said lightly. “I’d rather hang out here with you than go to some silly party, anyway.”
“Oh, Clarke,” Lilly groaned in mock exasperation. “You have to do something. You’re starting to be seriously boring. Besides, I want to hear about your birthday dress.” She winced suddenly, doubling over in pain.
“Are you okay?” Clarke asked, her hand on Lilly’s fragile arm.
“It hurts,” Lilly gasped.
“Can I get you anything? Do you want some water?”
Lilly opened her eyes, which were now pleading. “You can make it stop, Clarke.” She was cut off by a groan. “Please make it stop. It’s only a matter of time.…”
Clarke turned her head to the side so Lilly wouldn’t see her tears. “It’ll be okay,” she whispered, forcing a fake smile. “I promise.”
Lilly whimpered before falling silent again, then leaned back and closed her eyes.
Clarke pulled the blankets up over her friend’s chest, trying to ignore the demon that was clawing its way to the front of her mind. She knew what Lilly was asking for. And it wouldn’t be difficult. She was so frail at this point, it would take just a few well-combined painkillers to ease her into a coma. She’d slip away painlessly.
What am I thinking? Clarke asked herself, drawing back in horror. The blood on her parents’ hands had spread to her own. This whole nightmare had infected her, turned her into a monster. Or maybe it wasn’t her parents’ fault. Maybe she’d always had this darkness inside of her, waiting to rise to the surface.
Just as she was about to leave, Lilly spoke again. “Please,” she begged. “If you love me, please.” Her voice was quiet but contained an edge of desperation that terrified Clarke. “Just make it all stop.”
Bellamy was chopping wood on the far side of the clearing. Although the morning was cool, his T-shirt was already soaked through with sweat. Clarke tried not to notice how it clung to his muscular chest. When he saw her running toward him, he lowered his ax to the ground and turned to face her with a grin.
“Well, hello there,” he said as she came to a stop and paused to catch her breath. “Couldn’t stay away, could you?” He stepped forward and placed his hand on her waist, but Clarke swatted his arm away.
“Where’s your sister?” she asked. “I can’t find her anywhere.”
“Why?” Urgency shoved the playfulness out of his voice. “What’s wrong?”
“The medicine we found is missing.” Clarke took a deep breath, bracing herself for her next words. “And I think Octavia took it.”
“What?” His eyes narrowed.
“She was the only other person in the tent last night, and she seemed really fixated on the drugs—”
“No,” Bellamy snapped, cutting her off. “Of all the criminals on this goddamn planet, you think my sister is the thief?” He stared at her, his eyes burning with anger. But when he spoke again, his voice was quiet. “I thought you
were different. But I was wrong. You’re just another stupid Phoenix bitch who thinks she knows better than everyone else.”
He kicked the handle of the ax, then pushed past her without another word.
For a moment, Clarke stood rooted to the ground, too stunned by Bellamy’s words to move. But then she felt something inside her tear, and suddenly she was running toward the trees, staggering into the shade of the forest canopy. Her throat raw, she slumped onto the ground, wrapping her arms around her knees to keep the anguish from flowing out of her chest.
Alone in the shadows, Clarke did something else on Earth for the first time. She cried.
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CHAPTER 19
Bellamy
Bellamy paused to adjust the bird that he’d slung over his shoulder. The confrontation with Clarke had left him so agitated that he’d grabbed his bow and stormed off into the woods without a second thought. Only after shooting this bird near the stream had he started to calm down. It was a good kill—his first bird, much harder than animals on the ground—and its feathers would be perfect for the new arrows he’d been working on, to take with them when he and Octavia headed out on their own. As he stepped back into camp, he realized that he hadn’t seen Octavia since early that morning, and felt a twinge of concern. He should have checked on her before he left.
The fire was already built up, and a dozen faces turned to look at Bellamy as he approached. But no one was smiling. He shifted the bird over to his other shoulder to give them a better view of his kill. Why the hell were they staring at him like that?
An angry shout pulled his attention to a group at the far end of the clearing, near the wreckage of the dropship. They were clustered in a circle around something on the ground. He inhaled sharply as the shape on the ground moved.
Then he saw her, and his confusion erupted into a rage unlike anything he’d ever felt.
It was Octavia.
He threw the bird on the ground and broke into a run.
“Out of my way,” Bellamy shouted as he forced his way inside the circle.
Octavia was on the ground, tears streaming down her cheeks. Graham and a few of the Arcadians stood over her, a deranged gleam in their eyes.
“Get away from her,” Bellamy bellowed as he charged forward. But before he could reach Octavia, an arm hooked around his neck, nearly crushing his windpipe. Bellamy wheezed and looked around frantically. Wells was standing in front of him, his expression cold and firm. “What the hell?” Bellamy sputtered. “Get out of my way.”
When Wells didn’t move, Bellamy gritted his teeth and lunged at him, but someone else had a hold on his collar and jerked him back. “Get off of me!” Bellamy spat, p wid He shooting his elbow back with enough force to make whoever was behind him grunt and let go.
Octavia was still on the ground, her eyes wide with terror as she looked from Bellamy to Graham, who was standing over her. “You better tell me what’s going on, right now,” Bellamy said through clenched teeth.
“I heard you and Clarke talking about the missing medicine earlier,” Wells said with infuriating calmness. “No one besides Octavia knew about it. She must have taken it.”
“I didn’t take anything.” Octavia sobbed. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and sniffed. “They’ve all gone crazy.” She rose shakily to her feet and started to take a step toward Bellamy.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Graham snapped, grabbing Octavia’s wrist and wrenching her back.
“Let go of her!” Bellamy bellowed. He dove for Graham, but Wells stepped in front of him, and someone else wrenched his arm behind his back. “Get off of me!” Bellamy thrashed wildly as he tried to wrench himself free, but there were too many sets of hands holding him down, locking him in place.
“Look,” Bellamy continued, trying in vain to keep his voice steady, “she’s been injured ever since we landed. Do you really think she was up to stealing medicine and dragging it off somewhere outside of camp?”
“She was up to following me into the woods yesterday,” Wells answered calmly. “We walked pretty far together.”
Bellamy thrashed against the arms holding him, unable to quell his rage as the implication of Wells’s words sank in. If he so much as laid a hand on his sister…
“Just take it easy,” Wells said. He nodded at a Walden boy, who stepped forward with a coil of rope.
“Then tell that creep to take his disgusting hands off my sister,” Bellamy spat.
Clarke suddenly appeared, pushing her way through the crowd. “What’s going on?” she asked, her eyes wide when they land
ed on Octavia. “Are you okay?” Octavia shook her head, tears streaming down her face.
“We just need Octavia to tell us where the medicine is,” Wells said calmly, “and then we’ll get this all sorted out.”
“I don’t have it.” Octavia’s voice had grown ragged.
“We know you’re lying,” Graham hissed. Octavia yelped as he tightened his hold on her wrist, and Bellamy struggled against the hands that held him. “You’re only making things worse.”
“So what are you going to do?” Bellamy spat at Wells. “Keep us both tied up?”
“Exactly,” Wells said, his jaw tightening. “We’ll keep Octavia locked up until she tells us where she hid the medicine, or we find evidence pointing to another suspect.”
“Lock her up?” Bellamy made a show of looking around the clearing. “And how do you propose to do that?”
Clarke stepped forward, a tense look on her face. “I spend most of the day in the infirmary tent, anyway,” she said curtly. “Octavia can stay there. I’ll keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn’t sneak off.”
“Are you serious?” Graham snorted. “She stole the medicine from under your nose, and your plan is to keep an eye on her?”
Clarke turned to Graham with a scowl. “If that’s not good enough for you, Graham, youu, , an can post a guard outside the door.”
“This is ridiculous.” Bellamy’s whole body was beginning to shake as his anger smoldered into exhaustion. “Look at her,” he said weakly. “She’s obviously not a danger to anyone. Just untie her and I promise I won’t let her out of my sight.” He scanned the crowd that had assembled around them, scouring the audience for a sympathetic face. Surely someone else saw that this whole thing was complete bullshit. But no one was willing to meet his eyes.
“You’re all insane.” His mouth curled into a snarl as he turned back to face Graham. “You set her up. You stole those meds.”
Graham snickered and shot a look at Asher. “I told you he was going to say that.”
The sky was growing dark, the clouds weaving into a blanket of gray. Bellamy took a deep breath. “Fine. Believe whatever you want. Just untie Octavia and let us go. We’ll leave camp for good. We won’t even take any of your precious supplies.” He glanced at his sister, but she didn’t look happy at the idea; her features seemed frozen in shock. “You’ll never have to think about us again.”
A fleeting look of pain crossed Clarke’s face before she retreated behind her mask of steely resolve. She’ll get over it, Bellamy thought bitterly. She’d find someone else to go traipsing through the woods with her.
“I don’t think so,” Graham said, sneering. “Not until we get back the meds. We can’t let anyone else die just because your little sister’s a drug addict.”
The accusation made every nerve in Bellamy’s body sizzle until his fingers itched to close around Graham’s neck.
“Enough,” Clarke said, shaking her head at Graham and raising a hand. “I want the medicine back more than anyone, but you’re not helping.”
“Fine,” Bellamy snapped. “But I’m taking her into the tent. And no one is going to put their hands on her again.”
He wrenched free from his captors and strode over to Octavia, grabbing her hand as he locked eyes with Graham. “You’re going to regret this,” Bellamy said in a low, dangerous voice. He wrapped his arm around his trembling sister and led her toward the infirmary tent, a grim determination overtaking him.
He’d do whatever it took to protect her. He always had.
It was the third guard visit in the last few months. They had been coming more often that year, and Octavia was getting bigger. Bellamy tried not to think about what would happen next time, but even he knew they wouldn’t be able to hide her forever.
“I can’t believe they looked in the closet,” his mother said hoarsely, staring at Octavia, whom Bellamy had carried to the couch. “Thank god she didn’t cry.”
Bellamy looked over at his toddler sister. Everything about her was miniaturized, from her tiny sock-clad feet to her impossibly small fingers. Everything except her round cheeks and enormous eyes, which always glistened with tears she never seemed to shed. Was it normal for a two-year-old to be so quiet? Did she somehow know what would happen if someone found her?
Bellamy walked over and sat down next to Octavia, who turned her head to stare at him with her deep-blue eyes. He reached forward to touch one of her dark, glossy curls. She looked just l lo his cike that doll head he’d found while scavenging for relics in the storage room. He’d thought about taking it home to Octavia, but decided the ration points he’d get for it at the Exchange were more important. He also hadn’t been sure whether it was right to give a baby a disembodied doll’s head, no matter how pretty it was.
He grinned as Octavia grabbed his finger with her tiny fist. “Hey, give that back,” he said, pretending to wince. She smiled but didn’t giggle. He couldn’t remember ever hearing her laugh.
“It was too close,” his mother was muttering to herself as she paced back and forth. “Too close… too close… too close.”
“Mom. Are you okay?” Bellamy asked, feeling his panic return. She walked over to the sink, which was still spilling over with dishes despite the fact that this morning had been their water hour. He hadn’t been able to finish before the guards came. It would be another five days before they’d have the chance to wash them again.
There was a faint crash down the hallway, followed by a peal of laughter. His mother gasped and looked around the flat. “Get her back in the closet.”
Bellamy put his arm in front of Octavia. “It’s fine,” he said. “The guards were just here. They’re not going to be back for a while.”
His mother took a step forward. Her eyes were wide and full of terror. “Get her out of here!”
“No,” Bellamy said, sliding off the couch and standing in front of Octavia. “That wasn’t even the guards. It was just someone messing around. She doesn’t need to go back in yet.”
Octavia whimpered but fell silent as their mother fixed her with a wild-eyed stare.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” their mother was muttering, running her hands distractedly through her already disheveled hair. She leaned back against the wall and slid down to the floor, landing with a sharp thud.
Bellamy glanced at Octavia, then walked slowly over to his mother, kneeling carefully beside her. “Mom?” A new kind of fear welled up inside him, different from what he’d felt during the inspectio
n. This fear was cold and seemed to be creeping out from his stomach, turning his blood to ice.
“You don’t understand,” she said faintly, staring at something just behind Bellamy’s head. “They’re going to kill me. They’re going to take you and they’re going to kill me.”
“Take me where?” Bellamy asked, his voice quivering.
“You can’t have both,” she whispered, her eyes growing even larger. “You can’t have both.” She blinked and refocused her gaze on Bellamy. “You can’t have a mother and a sister.”
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CHAPTER 20
Glass
Glass swept up the final flight of stairs and turned into her corridor. She wasn’t worried about being stopped by the guards for violating curfew. She felt like she was floating, her steps featherlight as she skimmed silently down the hallway. She raised her hand to her lips, where the memory of Luke’s kiss still lingered, and smiled.
It was a little after three in the morning; the ship was empty, the lights in the hallway a dim glow. Tearing herself away from Luke made her ache with an almost physical pain, but she knew better than to risk getting caught by her mother. If she fell asleep quickly enough, she might be able to trick her mind into thinking that she was still with Luke, his warm, sleeping form curled up next to her.
She pressed her thumb against the key panel on the door and slipped inside.
“Hello, Glass.” Her mother’s voice
came from the sofa.
Glass gasped and started stammering. “Hi, I was… I…” She fumbled for words, trying to come up with a plausible reason for why she’d been out in the middle of the night. But she couldn’t lie; not anymore, not about this.
They stood in silence for a long moment, and although she couldn’t make out the expression on her mother’s face, Glass could feel her confusion and anger radiating through the darkness. “You were with him, weren’t you?” Sonja finally asked.
“Yes,” Glass said, relieved to be telling the truth at last. “Mom, I love him.”
Her mother took a step forward, and Glass realized that she was still wearing a black evening dress, the outline of faded lipstick on her mouth, dying traces of her perfume in the air.
“Where were you tonight?” Glass asked wearily. It was like last year all over again. Ever since her father had left them, her mother had barely been around, staying out all hours of the night and sometimes sleeping through the day. Now Glass didn’t have the energy to be embarrassed, or even angry, about her mother’s behavior. All she could feel was a faint pang of sadness.
Sonja’s lips twisted into a gruesome approximation of a smile. “You have no idea what I’ve done to protect you” was all she said. “You need to stay away from that boy.”
“That boy?” Glass cringed. “I know you think he’s just—”
“That’s enough,” her mother snapped. “Don’t you realize how lucky you are to even be here? I’m not going to let you die for some Walden trash who seduces Phoenix girls and then abandons them.”
“He’s not like that!” Glass exclaimed, her voice growing shrill. “You don’t even know him.”
“He doesn’t care about you. You were ready to die to save him. While you were in Confinement he’d probably forgotten all about you.”
