Thank you all so, so much for reading this series. I don't own this story or any of the characters besides Trisha/Sweetheart.
There was a slightly sweet, yet musky scent in the air and an unsteady warmth danced around me as if it were mocking my skin and then running away. My eyes were closed but I could tell I was bouncing up and down just a tad. I wasn't on the ground. Wait, was I being carried? My eyes pried open and light unleashed itself to blind me. They immediately closed and I turned my head to the right but it slammed into something. A chest. A seemingly familiar chest. No! I was being carried by that man. I looked up to identify the face of the man who had saved me from Jasper. A halo of light surrounded him and peaked through his velvety, midnight curls. It was a contrast of night and day. His broad shoulders seemed to be highlighted by the light with great definition. Seeing that I was awake, he looked down at me and a smile curled his lips.
"Good morning, Sweetheart." He winked playfully as blood seemed to rush back into my face. How long was I sleeping for? My eyes squinted as I observed my new found surroundings.
Every once in a while the guards would allow me walk outside, but I had only been a few yards away from Mount Weather. I could be miles away from home. The trees were laced with bright green moss that seemed to creep up the drunks like blood pulsing through veins. Every leaf seemed to be slightly different as the slowly rattled in the wind. The ground was like a scavenger hunt. Every object was peculiar and original. There were various mushrooms and each branch and twig was of different sizes and shapes. There were leaves on the ground that couldn't be identified to any of the trees that soared high into the sky. The trees watched over a little chipmunk that ran away as the man stepped on a log and hopped back down. He seemed unfazed by the fact that he was having to hike through the forest while carrying me.
"You can put me down." I looked back up at him apologetically, but the words that came out of my mouth were awkward and unnatural. He seemed to be amused by how uncomfortable I was.
"Why? So you can pass out again or so you can seek revenge on my people?" I didn't know how to respond to that. He seemed to be joking at the same time he was questioning and accusing me of being vengeful. The man smirked at me. I was dumbfounded and could only manage stammered nonsense. He had saved my life and convinced Jasper that I was innocent, yet he wasn't convinced himself.
"Bu-but…" that was about all I could put into words. He laughed readjusted his grasp on me. Did I seem that pissed off that they killed hundreds of innocent people? Slightly innocent people. I should be, right? I should be furious and livid and I should be vengeful. But there was a swell of another feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was happy, no, I was grateful, "Thank you..." He stopped dead in his tracks and his eyebrows furrowed together. He appeared shocked as if I just told him that he didn't kill everyone in Mount Weather, I did.
"What game are you playing at, Sweetheart?" His face seemed to darken and I looked away nervously. I rifled through various explanations that I could give him, but just decided to act normal because nothing I could say would make sense to him. Especially since none of it made sense to me at the moment.
"Thank you for not letting Jasper kill me, and thank you for not killing me yourself." It was an honest confession of appreciation on my part, and that seemed to soften him up. He nodded and started walking again.
"There were enough deaths today," He looked down at me with a shame skimming his face, "On both sides," my body went cold. What had happened when I was locked up? "No reason for a pretty face like yours to turn blue. You've made it this far already." I desperately thought of a way to change the subject as some people in front of us started to push past some trees.
"How far are we from Mount Weather?" He laughed at my question for some reason. With a shake of his head and a lopsided grin he responded.
"Not nearly far enough, but the twenty mile hike makes it seem like we travel across the continent." My eyes went huge and he chuckled again. That's the farthest I had ever been away from home. Twenty miles from the only room I had ever known.
"I've never been anywhere else. I don't know what I'll do now. I thought I knew…" I didn't have my bag and even if I did, I didn't know how to survive. I was running off of excitement and adrenaline before, but now that it had faded I was just confused and lost.
We walked through a gap in the trees and he paused. I squinted and examined the clearing. There was what seemed to be a gate and some big metal thing.
"Welcome to Camp Jaha," He actually sat me down on my feet. I held onto his arm to steady myself, "Now follow me to your room," He started walking but my feet were glued to the ground. I had a feeling that I wasn't going to like this room.
When he realized I wasn't following him he turned and gave me a sarcastic look, "Look, Sweetheart, we can do this the easy way or the hard way." I wasn't very certain I was safe with him, but he didn't seem completely dangerous at the moment. I slowly walked to the camp.
Everyone was having an emotional reunion and it was heartbreaking to watch, but it made me feel hollow inside. I would never have this type of connection. This bond of family and friends was more powerful than I could probably imagine. Every book, movie, and song I had heard of was based off of various forms of love, but I never fully understood it. Even non-human animals had more of a connection to one another than I had ever had to anyone.
"Octavia, take her to the room," The guy brought me over to a girl dressed in odd clothes with black smeared on her face. She nodded curtly and motioned with her hand to follow me. I walked around parents hugging their children. They only to stop and give me a glare when I looked at them. Did the man say something to everyone or did they instinctively blame me for their sorrows because I was a stranger.
"Who was the man? The one who carried me here?" She seemed annoyed with my question. Octavia purposely and silently navigated through the maze of people.
"That," she took a breath as if to second guess whether or not to even talk to me, "is my brother, Bellamy." She easily picked her sentence back up, but cut it off at the end as if to make a point for me to not ask more questions. Octavia stepped into the metal building and I followed her. She led me down a hallway and into a dark room.
"Sit." She motioned to a chair as she stood in the hallway waiting for me to sit down. I sat down and brushed a brown curl away from my face. "He should be here in a second, but right now he's talking to our…leader," She said that last word in disgust. The corner of her lip pulled up in distaste and she rolled her eyes to look away. She crossed her arms, "But when he does get back he's going to have some questions for you, and for your own sake I suggest that you answer them with honesty."
Before I could say anything in retort she walked away leaving me sitting in metal chair. I didn't know what was going to come of me. Even if I could escape, I didn't know where my survival bag was. There was no way I could live for more than a week. It was already getting cold. I could feel the metal chair start to numb my skin. I looked down to see bumps that ran up my pale arms in response to the temperature. Was this what they called winter or fall? It seemed so much warmer in Bellamy's arm with the sun hitting my skin.
"Hello again, Sweetheart." I jumped a little at the unexpected noise. He leaned in the doorway with a coy smirk.
"Hello again, Bellamy." I responded trying to mimic his tone. His face became expressionless and his breath seemed to hitch in his throat, but he quickly put on a smirk again and started walking further into the room.
"You know, it's kind of rude that you know my name and I don't know yours. I mean," he leaned close to me, one hand on the back of the chair while the other came at me and tilted my chin up. My hazel eyes locked with his dark brown eyes, " 'Sweetheart' does fit you," he searched my face for something, "but I feel like your real name is even more beautiful than that blush on your cheeks." I jerked away. Dang it. What sort of interrogation was this? It felt more like a game of cat and mouse.
"They didn't give me a name," I looked back at him and try to keep my composer, "I can only tell you as much as I know about myself." I stretched and yawned in attempt to feign boredom. Bellamy's eyes narrowed.
"Then what do you know?" I sighed and rubbed my hands together as I leaned forward. I gave him an exasperated look, but started slowly.
"President Dante took me in when I was a baby because the outsiders left me to die. He kept me safe and locked up because he was afraid the rest of the community would harass me due to possible radiation exposer, or maybe they would fear me because they thought the outsiders were harmful," I took a deep breath and met his gaze. He seemed transfixed with my story, "He was right. When I was twelve I escaped my room and there was a panic. They had never seen an outsider before. One thing led to another and I got hit. It was bad enough that I don't remember anything before the day I woke up again. It had been two months. I was in a coma," I didn't feel comfortable telling him this. I had never told anyone this story. Every word from my mouth was slow and carefully deliberated, but I could tell he wanted me to tell more, "I hadn't really been out of my room very much after that. But in case of an overexposure of radiation the door to my room automatically opens. I was told to take a red bag of emergency supplies over to mechanics and engineers in order for them to fix the air systems. Apparently they just wanted me to leave. I looked inside the bag before I went to level five," He nodded and agreed with me. He must have searched the bag while I was unconscious, "But yeah, no one ever talked with me about blood transfusions because I didn't need it, I suppose. I can survive radiation on my own. Happy?" He still seemed confused, but he could tell that I was being honest.
"It just doesn't seem right." I had a feeling he wasn't talking about how cruel it is to keep someone locked up their whole lives. The dots of Dante's story always seemed a bit fuzzy and misaligned to me, but what else was I to believe? He was the only person who talked to me, the only person who treated me like I wasn't an animal.
Bellamy ruffled his hair and paced around the room. I thought of something to say that I felt pretty sure about to help ease his mind and confusion.
"I'm twenty years old…a year for every mile that now separates me from Mount Weather." I smiled a sincere smile. Even though I was still captive, it made me happy to be somewhere new, to see a new face, and to breathe fresh air without having four men trailing behind me, prepared to use tranquilizers or sedation gas the second I broke their walking pace. He seemed to exhale in amusement.
"You remind me of my sister a bit." That puzzled me. The vibes that I got from Octavia seemed cold and distant, not anything like how I felt right now. He started to leave and then turned his head to look at me, "You can either leave or stay, your choice. I suggest for your own safety that you stay. Clarke…left. I talked with Marcus a little bit before I came in here and he said you can stay," I could hear some pain in his voice. I slowly stood up.
"Well, I don't know what you said or did, but it seems like everyone already hates me." I reached a hand to my aching neck. I hadn't noticed that it was sore. I suppose I was finally starting to calm down enough to realize that my whole body was hurting. I could feel the pain in my throat, my head, and my feet. He seemed to notice my discomfort.
"I will talk to them if you want to stay. You have pain medication in your bag, but take less than the prescribed dosage because if you are staying here we need to ration everything for the people to use too," What he said seemed fair enough, but I still didn't know where my bag even was, "Tell me your decision by tomorrow morning," As he walked away I followed him out. I didn't know where to go or what to do. I had never freely moved around any place this big.
He stepped outside and so did I. "Are you just going to follow me around like a lost puppy, Sweetheart?" I gave a sheepish grin to him.
"I don't even know where to explore first." I looked swiveled my head back and forth looking at everything.
"Hey, Monty," An Asian boy wrapped up in a grey sweater meandered over to us at Bellamy's call, "you just got the grand tour from Jackson, so why don't you show this little sweetheart around camp? Let her get a feel for what's in store if she decides to stay." Monty nodded and put a hand on my shoulder.
We started to walk clockwise around the camp while he pointed out a few jobs I could do and where to go if I needed medical help or water. Monty explained who they were and how they got to earth. The thought of a quiet boy like Monty being a criminal was peculiar, but I didn't pry. We all had our baggage.
We stopped at the side of camp and he sat down on a log.
"How did you survive?" His voice was soft, almost like a whisper. I could tell that he was worried I would tell him it was because of their marrow. The thought of his friends dying for me was probably just as upsetting to him as it seemed to be for Jasper
I gave him a shorter version of my life story, though it seemed just as long and uncomfortable to say as the slightly longer version. But Monty just sat and quietly listened. When I was done there was a quiet pause between us. I could hear birds chirp in the distance and the sound of someone chopping wood.
"I heard about what Jasper did to you." He broke the silence and looked at my throat, "It's my fault he did that. I'm the one that set up the radiation leak. I reversed the air flow." I knew what he meant by saying that it was his fault. Jasper was acting the way he did because of the girl that died.
"It's ok, Monty. I forgive you…" He didn't seem to believe me because he buried his head in his hands, "Jasper will forgive you when he calms down. It may take weeks, but he will understand that it was necessary. Survival is about sacrifice." A rush came to my head. Someone had told me that years ago. An echo of the words seeped into my mind as my heart rate quickened.
"Survival is about sacrifice, Trisha. You sacrifice enemies, you sacrifice strangers, you sacrifice yourself, and then you sacrifice the ones you love. This is a step in the right direction for our people, one day you will understand. Hopefully, that isn't the day when you are the only one left to understand." Dante looked down at me with a solemn face.
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