Octavia yanked her hand out of the warm soapy water, a reflex to get her hand as far away from that knife as possible. It was a little cut on her fingertip, nothing too serious but bad enough to pay attention to it. Calling out for her brother, she wrapped her it in the last clean dishtowel and asked him to bring the superglue and some tape.
Even though they had different fathers (and who really knew either identity? Surely not their mother…), you would think they would resemble each other a little bit. They didn't. Bellamy was tall; an inch under six feet but his sister was barely five and a half feet tall. He was muscular and bulky whereas she was lean and slight. His eyes were so dark brown it was hard to tell pupil from iris unless you were close. Octavia's eyes were a beautiful shade of green that you can't imitate with contacts or paint if you wanted to. She had a smooth ivory complexion that never had a blemish and tanned so perfectly that she wore a constant glow every summer. His was olive toned and covered with freckles. The only thing physical that they had in common was their hair color. Both of them had thick, dark as night hair. Of course hers was so straight and sleek that Cleopatra would've been jealous but his grew out with curls so wild it was a task to tame them. Most often he didn't even try.
Bellamy sat down on one of the bent metal chairs that had been pushed up to the kitchen table. Octavia pulled the other one over so that she could sit right in front of him. He held the towel tightly until the bleeding stopped and then gently pulled the fabric away, careful to make sure he didn't aggravate the wound again.
"I thought you knew better than to throw knives into the dishwater." He scolded as he pulled the thumbtack out of the superglue tube. He pinched the underside of her finger to distract her a bit from the chemical burn as drops of the glue fell into the cut.
Octavia drew in a sharp breath but held steady in her brother's grip. After he'd filled the cut with glue, he pressed the edges together and cut tiny strips of duct tape to make small butterfly bandages. It burned like hell, but she knew there wasn't money to go to the emergency room for stitches so there weren't any other options. She was just glad knew how to take care of themselves without having to depend on anyone else. She didn't want to address the knife issue. She knew she'd messed up; there wasn't a need to hash it out. "Dinner should be done soon."
He nodded and went to the sink to finish the dishes while his sister tended to the pot on the stove. Through the window, he had a direct line of vision into the neighbor's house. Their kitchens faced each other but theirs was bigger and brighter, their window larger with double French doors opening up to a beautiful three-tiered deck outside. Inside the house, he could see the blonde girl standing at the sink. She was facing him but her head was tilted down just a bit; low enough that she didn't see him, but not too far that he couldn't see that one side of her face was red and she was crying. Through the French doors, he could see her mother with her perfectly coifed hair and neatly pressed business suit leaning against the oak table with her arms crossed in front of her body. He couldn't hear a word she was saying but he could see the look of anger on her face and saw her mouth moving as though she were spewing a tirade fit for… Hell he didn't know who would deserve being yelled at like that. He turned his attention back to the dishes and finished them up just as his sister wrapped up dinner. They quickly ate and he made sure she was settled for the night before he left for work.
~*X*~
Bellamy never had a hard time staying awake in class even though he didn't get off work until around one in the morning on a good night. The only thing he loved other than his sister was learning. It didn't matter if it was history, math, or science. His mind yearned to soak in whatever it could. His blonde neighbor was two years younger than him by age but shared a few of his classes. She remained quiet unless the teacher called on her and then she always, always had the correct answer. Today she spoke with a more timid voice, but maybe if he hadn't seen her crying last night he wouldn't have noticed the difference.
When study hall came, he slid into the empty seat next to one of his few female friends. "Hey," he said quietly.
She turned her head toward him, pushing her long brunette hair out of the way and smiling, bright gray eyes sparkling under the florescent lights. "Hey. How was work last night?"
Bellamy smirked. "Crap tips. Made about thirty after I paid for gas. How'd you do?"
"Well after Jasper accidentally made the wrong pizza for my table for the third time, I got stiffed but then I had four other tables that left me a couple bucks. Maybe twenty which wasn't too bad for a dead Tuesday night." She shrugged and pulled out her history book. "You've got that look still."
"What look?"
She grinned and gave him her own version of the Bellamy smirk. "Something was bugging you when you got to work last night and it's obviously still on your mind, so spill it. What's going on?"
"I heard you dated Clarke Griffin once." He raised an eyebrow, fishing for information and at the same time daring her to lie.
She scoffed. "Oh no, Lexa Kru never dated Clarke Griffin. She wanted to date Clarke Griffin, but Clarke Griffin doesn't date anyone. She doesn't have friends and doesn't go to parties and doesn't hang out at the mall or go to football games. In fact, no one gets invited over to Clarke Griffin's house or helps her with school projects or dares to ask her to come to a sleep over. And I can promise you that nobody would ever dare to tell Clarke Griffin that she's pretty or give her other compliment. So, no my friend; I never dated Clarke Griffin."
Bellamy looked across the library and saw his blonde neighbor sitting by herself, completely immersed in some textbook, furiously scribbling notes. "She wasn't always like that you know. Octavia used to hang out over at her house all the time. If she wasn't there, Clarke was at our house. It was like having two sisters for a while. We were all like best friends, like family even. She just disappeared overnight."
Lexa didn't bother looking in the direction of the topic of their conversation. "Well, I can guess that wasn't by her choice. The day back in grade nine I was at her house working on the science lab with her and her mother came home from work early… I didn't want to leave just because I was scared."
Her words trembled a bit and made Bellamy sit up a little straighter. "You were afraid of her mother?" Lexa Kru was one of the toughest girls at their school. She wasn't afraid of anyone or anything.
Lexa nodded. "Not that she would do anything to me, but to Clarke. I don't know what happened." She sighed so deeply that Bellamy could see her entire body rise and lower. "All I can tell you is that she has never said a single word to me since. Not even here at school or places where her mother is nowhere around. I haven't seen her talk to anyone unless she was answering a direct question from a teacher. She won't even respond when one of us asks her something or even says hi. Just keeps her head down and tries to blend in with the floor."
"I think she hit her last night. Not the first time, either." Bellamy muttered.
"There's nothing we can do about it though. Abby Griffin is the mayor of Arkadia, which makes her the Police Commissioner as well. She's untouchable."
"No one is invincible, Lexa." He stood up and gathered his things. "Can you do me a huge favor?"
"Possibly, so long as it doesn't get me arrested."
His trademark smirk returned. "Give O a ride home after school today? And grab me a copy of the lab in eighth hour? I'm not feeling too great so I'm gonna go home and catch a nap. Maybe I'll feel better and be able to make it to work tonight."
She shot him a puzzled look but agreed as he left. She noticed he took the long way so that he had to walk right past Clarke. She didn't lift her head as he neared her, but her eyes followed him regardless.
~*x*~
It didn't take long for Bellamy to gather together everything that he needed. A quick stop over at his buddy Raven's place to borrow her GoPro and some various wires and zip-ties, as well as a crash course on how to use it, and his plan was set in action. Before anyone had a chance to come home to the Blake or Griffin households, Bellamy was crashed out on the couch, taking a nap as 'planned'. His sister walking in and smacking the bottom of his boot woke him with a start and he jumped up to quickly change into his Pizza Joint t-shirt.
"I'm off at eight tonight, O. I'll bring you home a pizza for dinner if you want."
"Can I just go over to Harper's and hang out and do homework? Maybe spend the night?"
He walked into the living room where she'd taken residence on his abandoned spot on the couch. "That depends. Is Harper your code word for Lincoln?" He watched as his little sister blushed harder than he'd ever seen. "Yeah, not so dumb and oblivious after all, am I?"
"Okay, yes. I've been seeing Lincoln. But we've never gone past first base and he's super respectful of that. And if you got to know him, you'd like him and I swear you'd trust and approve of him. But tonight is really all about Harper. Lincoln is going out of town for the weekend."
"First of all, I didn't ask about your sex life, so don't ever tell me anything like that again. Just don't ever have sex any time for the rest of you life, okay? And fine. Go to Harper's but we're busy tomorrow night so be home by noon and don't make plans for the rest of the weekend, okay?"
Octavia gave him a confused look. They never made plans on a Saturday night. At least, not since their mother went to prison over two years ago. "What are we doing tomorrow? She asked, the question loaded and ready to fire if necessary.
"Blake family night."
Octavia started laughing hysterically as she got up and made her way to her bedroom. As she gathered together everything she'd need at her friend's house that night, Bellamy could still hear her occasional burst of hilarity. Eventually, she left and he picked up his cell phone to call into work for the first time in his semi-adult life.
Snacking on a peanut butter sandwich, Bellamy sat in complete darkness. He'd pulled a stool over to the kitchen sink and was watching through his neighbor's window. Sure enough, even though it was a Friday night and all the other kids were off doing whatever it was that typical teenagers usually did, Clarke Griffin was sitting at the dining room table working on homework. Her wet hair hung limply down her back, a curtain blocking her face from his vision. After a while, she pulled it up and threw it into a messy ponytail holder. Bellamy's heart sank and he picked up his binoculars to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was before he clicked the remote to start recording on the GoPro that was strapped to the tree right outside of their house.
Sure enough, there was a purpling bruise wrapped around Clarke's neck. Bruises peppered her face, in various sizes and shapes; different places that she'd been hit at different times. Even her arms had evidence of prior injury to them. The one that scared Bellamy the most was on her neck though. If she had a bruise like that, her mother must have choked her pretty bad. He didn't want to think about how far Abby Griffin was willing to go.
He opened the program on the tablet Raven had given him that connected to the camera. Zooming in, Bellamy made sure he was getting clear shots of as many of the bruises he could. Clarke was wearing a white t-shirt and there was a bandage on her chest, right below her collarbone. He hated to wonder what was underneath it or how it happened. He took several still shots and then ran the program to video. There was a microphone but the tree wasn't very close so he didn't know how well it would pick up anything. Besides, Clarke wasn't exactly making too much noise at the moment, so there wasn't any audio to pick up anyway.
It took less than an hour for the dark haired woman to walk in. She didn't even say hello to her daughter. Instead, she approached the table like a drill sergeant and grabbed the paper that Clarke was working on. Scanning it quickly, Bellamy could see her saying something but couldn't hear it. Whatever words she used made Clarke's head droop in shame. Abby's hand smacked the back of her daughter's head so hard Bellamy was surprised it didn't make contact with the table. With one hand, her mother gathered all of the pages the girl had written. In the other hand, Abby pulled Clarke up by her hair and led her to the garbage can. Shoving the pages into Clarke's stomach with the force of a punch, she made her daughter tear the paper into pieces before they rained down into the trashcan. Once that was over, Abby drug her back to the table and pushed her back down so forcefully that Clarke ended up on the floor instead of the chair. Her mother kicked her in the back, hard. Bellamy jumped up, his breathing labored. He hated the fact that he couldn't intervene yet. He needed enough evidence that she'd never be able to touch herm again.
Clarke's body arched away from her mother's foot. Once, twice, three times she kicked her. Each time had to have felt worse than the first. By the time the third impact came, there was no arching. She didn't move an inch, even as badly as she surely must've wanted to. Bellamy wondered if she was conscious. Abby grabbed the hair again and pulled her daughter up. Clarke's hands gripped her mother's wrist and sat in the chair, slumped over the table. Abby thrust a blank sheet of paper in front of her and forced the ink pen back into Clarke's hand. Bellamy could see angry words coming out of Abby's mouth again as she banged on the table. Clarke didn't bother making eye contact; instead began writing feverishly. He could see that the grip on her pen was tenuous at best and it slipped out of her grasp a few times. Each time she would grab it a little tighter, the knuckles on her fingers turning white with effort and determination. Her face was blank of all emotion, lips pressed into a straight line, sucking her bottom lip inside between her teeth and blinking quickly to make sure that not one single tear could fall against her cheek.
As Bellamy watched Abby walk out of the dining room and head toward the stairs that led up to her private rooms, he'd had enough. Clarke was still sitting at the table, shaking and struggling to rewrite the pages that her mother made her destroy when Bellamy's knuckle lightly rapped on the French door. Clarke's eyes shifted quickly toward the stairs and then to the door but her body didn't move; either because she couldn't or because she was afraid to. Bellamy figured it was a bit of both. He slid the unlocked door open quietly and held his hand up, signaling to her that it was okay, at least, that's what he hoped to convey.
"It's okay, Clarke. She won't even know I was here."
Clarke slowly turned her head toward the upstairs. Bellamy could hear the water running and assumed her mother was in the shower. He approached Clarke and gently took her hand in his. "It's over, Clarke," he whispered. "Can you stand up?"
She tried to move in the chair and winced, biting down on her lip so hard she drew blood. It was better than crying out though.
Bellamy wanted to cry on her behalf. Instead, he slipped an arm underneath her thighs right behind her knees. The other arm went around her back. He knew that one would be that most painful for her since that's where her mother had done the most damage only minutes ago. "Hold onto me if you can so that my arm doesn't press into the bruises, okay?"
He didn't hear a reply, but he could feel her weight shift against his chest and she nodded. Very carefully, but as quickly as he could, he hurried out the door and across the yard. He didn't stop until he was safely inside his own house and she was deposited into another pair of strong arms. Bellamy saw that she didn't bother to look to see who had her now, but he trusted his friend. Introductions would happen later. "No one comes in this house but me, got it?"
"Not a problem," came the deep voiced, gruff reply.
Bellamy hesitated, one last concerned look at his broken friend, before tearing out of his house and running back into the Griffin's. Replacing Clarke at the dining room table, he kicked his feet up onto the antique oak and pulled out his phone to text Raven.
"I'm here. Jam now." He'd already arranged to have Raven use his location services on his cell phone to find any wireless signals and jam them while he was having a little 'chat' with Clarke's mother.
"Will do. You'll be dead in 5 seconds. Have Nyko alert when to go live."
"Ok." Not two seconds later, Bellamy's phone lost signal. With any hope, so did Mrs. Griffin's and any kind of security monitoring she had going. Just in case though, he'd stay put in this room. After all, they'd never witnessed any abuse happening in any other room. There's no way Abby Griffin was dumb enough to allow a recording of it to happen, so there's no way a security camera was facing this direction.
"Clarke," Abby called from upstairs. "Start dinner now." When she got no reply, she called down again. Apparently, the woman didn't like asking twice, and she refused to bark orders a third time, so hurried footfalls came stomping down the stairs. "So help me God, I am in no mood to deal with you toni…"
She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Bellamy, his long legs and filthy boots propped up on her expensive furniture. She looked into the kitchen, as if Clarke would be standing around the corner or something, then glared at Bellamy. "Who the hell do you think you are?"
"I came to borrow a cup of sugar. It's a neighborly thing you know." He tapped his fingers together in front of his face, elbows resting on the arms of the chair that Clarke so recently had been thrown out of.
"Where is my daughter?"
"So that's a no on the sugar then?"
Abby picked up the house phone and started to dial. "Get the hell out of my house you piece of shit. You Blake's are all alike. All worthless sacks of…"
She didn't get the rest out before Bellamy wrenched the hand piece from her hand and hung it back up. "No signal. If you'd bothered to listen to it, you wouldn't known you were wasting your time."
"Where is Clarke?" she repeated.
"Somewhere safe. Which should make you happy." Bellamy went back to the table and leaned against it, crossing his arms against his chest. "That's really all a good mother wants for her child, right? Safety and happiness?"
Abby glared again, holding her own and refusing to take his bait.
He smirked at her. "You're a special kind of mom though, aren't you? You don't want that, do you? You want bruises and intimidation. Maybe fear? Is there something else? Control? Well… I'm not afraid of you. And you aren't ever going to give her a reason to fear you again."
Abby laughed at him. "You're a kid; a kid whose mother is in prison because she's a whore. Not a very good one either, because she got caught."
Bellamy nodded in agreement. "Technically, I'm eighteen, so I'm not a kid. Also, my mother was arrested for prostitution on the same night that your husband was arrested for pandering. Tell me, Madame Police Commisioner, how much coincidence was involved there? Or were you just pissed that you couldn't please your husband so he went running to his neighbor to find out what a real woman was like instead?"
Abby raised her hand to strike him across the face but he caught her by the wrist. "You're done hitting you stupid bitch. Now have a seat because we're going to talk and you're going to want to take notes." He shoved her down, the same way she shoved Clarke into the chair earlier. He almost felt bad when her hip cracked against the arm of the chair. He knew it would leave a huge bruise but he didn't care. In fact, he hoped it did.
"What do you want?" She looked up him and he liked the fact that he knew she had to feel out of control for once.
"Every time you've been using Clarke as a punching bag, I've been recording it."
She pinched her lips and looked away with a roll of her eyes, obviously not believing him. He pulled out his cell phone and hit play on the video that he had cued up. Raven had set up the GoPro so that it automatically sent the recording to the tablet he had at his house, her main computer in her lab, and his cell phone. He turned the phone around so that she could see the screen and the smirk returned to his face while all of the color left hers.
"What do you want?"
"You're going to go upstairs and pack a bag, enough clothes for Clarke for a week. Sometime in the next couple of days, she will come and get the rest of her stuff. She'll never come back here, not until she is healthy enough to make that choice on her own. You will not try to contact her, or her teachers, her school, her friends, anyone. If you see her in public, you will turn around and walk away. You will use your influence as Mayor to get the convictions of my mother and Jake overturned."
"And how exactly am I supposed to do that?"
"The state only had two solid pieces of evidence. One was your verbal testimony and the other was your bank records. You need to confess that you perjured yourself, falsified the documents and lied on the stand."
"I'll lose my job and probably go to jail."
Bellamy hit play again. "What kind of prison term do you think this shit gets?" The look on his face was complete boredom. "Face it, I own your ass, and it's time for you to start paying."
"What else do you want? Money?"
Bellamy laughed. "I don't need your money. I do fine on my own."
"You barely support yourself and your sister. How are you going to take care of Clarke too?"
It was as if she thought adding another dinner plate at the table would convince him to leave the girl in an abusive household. He'd rather skip every meal than do something like that. "Not your concern now is it?"
"What are you going to do with that?" She motioned toward the phone.
He pulled the side of his mouth up. "I'm gonna use it to order pizza. And then I'm going to lock that special video in a private file so that no one else can see it, but that I know it's always close by. Just in case you decide I'm not deadly serious. And I really hope you heard the emphasis on the right word in that last sentence. Now go get that bag packed. And make sure she's got her makeup and all that shit that you've forced her to use so that she can go to school without having to answer questions."
With her head held a little less high than usual, Abby Griffin made her way upstairs. Bellamy didn't go with her and his heart raced the entire time. He spent the few minutes packing Clarke's schoolbook bag with the books, papers, and laptop that sat on the table. It didn't take long before she came back and handed him a leather suitcase and a white letter envelope. Inside the envelope was a short stack of fifty and hundred dollar bills.
Bellamy threw the money back in her face. "I told you I don't want your fucking money." Without another word, he stormed out of the house and made his way home.
He went upstairs to his bedroom where he found Nyko and his sister Anya sitting on his bed in hushed conversation. "Why is she here?" Bellamy asked.
"Your friend is hurt badly," Anya answered for him. Anya was an emergency room nurse. "Broken ribs, her kidney is bruised. I'm not sure there isn't internal bleeding."
"Where is she now?"
"She's asleep in your mother's bedroom." Nyko answered. "I worked third shift last night so I am beat. I'm gonna crash on your couch so nobody will get past me. Wake me up if you need anything."
"Tell Raven to turn my phone back on but leave Griffin off." Bellamy said. He watched his friend pull out his cell as he walked away. "Thanks for coming to look at her. Anything I should watch for?"
Anya chuckled. "Everything. Anything. She could have a concussion. Internal injuries. I don't know. God, she's taken a beating and then some. You know by law I have to call the police."
Bellamy grimaced and looked away. "Yeah, well, the police is the one beating the crap out of her, so go right ahead and give her a call. See how far that gets anyone."
Anya clapped him on the shoulder. "I gave her some pain killers. There's a bottle on the table next to the bed. One every four to six hours as needed. You don't know where they came from, okay? Call me if you need anything."
He nodded. "Thanks Anya, I got it from here."
She went on direction down the hall to leave and he went another toward his mother's bedroom. Inside, he found Clarke lying on her side facing away from the door. He noticed her body stiffen when he walked in so she wasn't asleep. He crept around to the other side of the bed as quietly as he could. She laid with her legs pulled up and her head resting on her clasped hands. Bellamy sat on the floor beside her, near her head, but not so close as to make her feel like he was invading her personal space.
"I brought you some stuff. Clothes and makeup and junk. Your homework and computer cuz I know how much of a nerd you are and how much you'd hate falling behind in school for a day." He tried smiling but he just couldn't.
She glanced at him, ten thousand questions filling her eyes, but not one could form on her lips.
"Did Nyko give you the tour? Or do you remember where everything is? Nothing's changed you know. This is mom's room, so you've got a private bathroom with the good party tub. Octavia isn't here tonight, but she'll be home around lunchtime tomorrow. I took the whole weekend off work but can take off more if you want company. I can also go hide in my room if you don't want company." His eyes smiled at her even if his lips couldn't. He noticed she was still looking at him but as soon as he paused his words, she'd start to stare off into space again. "You can stay with us as long as you want. We're working on a special appeal to get your dad and my mom released early. It might not work, but who knows. You have to hope sometimes, right?" Her eyes snapped back at him, so he kept going. "If you don't want to stay here, I've got money put away. We can go somewhere else. Anywhere really. We can go out to California. San Clemente is beautiful in the summer. I've got a crazy aunt you would just love. She's a hippy."
He reached up and brushed a stray hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear before lightly stroking the back of his hand down her cheek. She closed her eyes with his touch. When he rested his hand on the bed next to her, she placed hers on top of it while he kept babbling on about everything and nothing long into the night. It was well past midnight before she'd finally fallen asleep. Still not a word had been spoken, but her fingertips had entwined with his in a grip that said more than words ever could. He leaned over her, kissed her on the forehead and laid down on the floor next to the bed, making sure he didn't break the hold she had on him before allowing himself to fall asleep. He finally had his friend back, and this time, no one would ever take her away again.