"Come With Me Now"

Lucawindmover

Chapter Two

"Follow Me"

Bellamy stopped at the top of the hill and shielded his eyes from the midday sun as the rest of his people filed by. There, at the bottom of the hill, was a new stretch of trees. He sighed and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He'd never expected the sight of shade to be so welcome. He found himself wishing he could just race down the hill and collapse under the trees.

Hot was an understatement. Lincoln had once tried to explain what the summer season was like in this area but—just as he hadn't been able to really prepare them for the first snow back in January-the intensity of the mid-June sun also hadn't been accurately depicted. It would have been nice to know that their skin would burn in the sun, that the air would be almost too humid to breathe, and that clothes would become optional. Bellamy wasn't the only one feeling it, he noticed. It seemed everyone in the group had sweat-drenched faces. Shirts clung to the skin of those who hadn't shed their garments already.

Clarke stopped beside him, holding her hair off her backwith one hand, the other hand fanning her face.

"You gonna make it there, Princess?" He asked, letting his eyes linger on the shapely line of her neck for a moment before turning back to the slope before them.

She sighed as the last of their group plodded by. "Lexa says the festival grounds are inside that copse of trees," Clarke said with a gesture to the forest below. "I think I can make it that far at least."

Bellamy chuckled and the two of them started down the dry, grassy hill at the back of the line.

He could feel Clarke eyeing him and he raised an eyebrow. "What?"

She shrugged. He couldn't tell if she was blushing or if she was sunburned. "I'm just kind of surprised you don't have your shirt off like the rest of the guys."

"You know, if you wanted to see me shirtless, all you had to do was ask."

"Pffft," Clarke scoffed. "As if that's something we haven't all seen a hundred times."

Bellamy frowned. Clarke noticed his expression and she laughed as if she couldn't help herself.

"You are almost never wearing a shirt," she managed through her merriment. "There's not an ab or dimple from your waist up that I haven't memorized."

Bellamy smirked and turned his eyes back to the path they were following; he was pretty sure she didn't realize she'd just admitted to watching him shirtless. However, her words had brought a question to his mind that he couldn't help but ask. "Dimples?" he asked, as innocently as he possibly could because if he embarrassed her too much he knew she wouldn't answer and he was genuinely curious. "Where do I have dimples?"

Clarke held up her hand and started ticking them off on her fingers. "Well, there are two in your cheeks when you smile like that," she answered, pointing at the grin he was currently sporting. "And the one on your chin. And then the…uh…two…uh…"

Bellamy glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and decided that, sunburned or not, she was definitely blushing. Her neck had not been that red a moment ago. "Two where?"

"Right…uh…" she trailed off again and swallowed hard, forcing her eyes forward. "You know what? Never mind."

He laughed and let it go because it didn't matter; he knew exactly which dimples she was talking about, the ones he had just above his ass on either side of his spine. They only showed when his jeans slipped on his hips a little. Several girls had commented on them of the last few years, so he knew they were there. The fact that Clarke had to have been watching so intently was incredibly satisfying.

"There's supposed to be a swimming hole," Bellamy ventured after a few minutes of strained silence, steering the conversation toward a more benign topic.

"Oh, well that's just what we need," Clarke said with a huff. "A bunch of drunk kids who don't know how to swim jumping into a river."

"Nobody's drunk," Bellamy countered.

Clarke folded her arms across her chest."Yet. Not yet. But they will be! And then what do we do? Hmmm? Just wait for them to drown?"

Bellamy rolled his eyes and ran his hands through his damp hair. He would have loved to argue with her on this one but he knew she was right. It wouldn't take much for drunken swimming to claim a life. Hell, sober swimming might kill a few of them, considering their lack of experience.

"Look," Bellamy started as they finally closed in on the line of trees before them. "Would it make you feel better if we checked out the swimming hole before hand? We could see how deep it is. Make sure there's no man-eating snakes?"

Clarke nodded. "And if it's shallow enough and the current isn't too strong we could let the others go."

Bellamy was pretty sure there would be no stopping the rest of their friends regardless of how deep or swift the water was but he wasn't about to tell Clarke that.

"So we get to camp, settle everybody in, and go check the place out."

"Just the two of us?" she asked. "Alone?"

Bellamy sighed as they finally stepped into the dappled shade of the trees. It wasn't much cooler under the branches but the shelter from the steady sun was a welcome relief. "You got a problem with that?"

Clarke mumbled something unintelligible and uncrossed her arms, hands clutching at the strap to her backpack instead.

With a hand on her elbow, he stopped her in her tracks, taking in her frown and the crease between her brows. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Nothing," she grumbled, pulling her arm out of his grip.

"Tell that to your face," he replied.

Clarke crossed her arms again, almost as if she didn't know what to be doing with her hands. "So you think you can read me, huh?"

"I don't just think," he said with a grin. "I know."

"Okay. You think you know me so well, you tell me what's wrong," Clarke challenged. She raised an eyebrow and waited for his answer.

Bellamy let his eyes dart to the last of their caravan disappearing in the distance for a moment, assuring himself that they wouldn't be overheard. "You're pissed because you admitted that you find me attractive."

Clarke laughed but Bellamy could see that telltale blush along her neck deepening. "I said no such thing."

He shrugged. "You said you memorized my dimples."

"I memorize a lot of things," she argued. "One of the perks of a good visual memory."

"Visual. Meaning you were looking."

"Of course I was looking," Clarke said with a roll of her eyes. "How could I not look?"

Bellamy waggled his eyebrows and then turned, heading down the path. He could hear Clarke trudging along behind him but he didn't look back.

"That's it?" She asked, catching up with him and matching his stride. "That's your argument? I think you're attractive because I looked?"

"You said it, not me," He replied and he could almost feel the heat rolling off of her as she realized exactly the logic he was using against her.

She stomped ahead of him, throwing one scathing look over her shoulder before she was nearly jogging in her attempt to put space between them.

Bellamy had been feeling the attraction between them for a while now, months even. There was always something to pull their focus though: another hut to build or scouting trip to go on or broken bone to splint. They didn't spend as much time together now that they had the adults to shoulder more of the responsibility and decision-making. In those rare moments that he had time to seek her out in the medbay or she wandered to his post on the wall, he knew they could both feel it. There was a pull between them that he couldn't ignore. He was pretty sure she felt it too, but Clarke was stubborn. It would take drastic measures to get her to admit what was there…

Lucky for both of them, Bellamy had a plan.

Murphy dropped the heavy sledgehammer he'd been using to the ground and pulled up the edge of his shirt to wipe the sweat out of his eyes. It was tiring work driving stakes for the tents in the heat but it was better than helping the Rivers Clan with their crates of squawking chickens. So, when Bellamy had asked for volunteers, he'd happily switched jobs.

Although they were sheltered from the scorching rays of the sun, they'd all learned pretty quickly that shade didn't necessarily mean relief from the heat. There was no breeze and the air was so thick that Murphy's shirt was sticking to him everywhere. Wiping his face with it hadn't helped much, considering that the fabric was drenched. Nearly all the other guys had shed theirs during the trip through the field.

Murphy wasn't embarrassed to take his shirt off nor was he ashamed of his scars. He'd earned every single one of them; survived each and every attempt to take his life. He'd been beaten and bled, tortured and hung and shot. The last two fingers on his left hand had been lost in an accident during the Battle of the Mountain.

Shame wasn't the reason he had remained clothed. He was just waiting for the right moment.

Several Grounder women were watching him while he worked. They weren't being particularly subtle about it either. One girl stood out from the rest with her bright red hair braided to keep it out of her face. She was dressed comfortably in a tight tank top that had been cut to reveal an enviously flat tummy. She chatted amiably in the Grounder language to the girls she stood with but her eyes never seemed to leave him. Murphy could see that she had her own scars and was likely a warrior, further fueling his interest.

It wasn't as if he had been hurting for sex. He hadn't exactly been celibate since his night with Raven. There'd been a two-night fling with one of Byrne's guards after the Battle, a kind of just-happy-to-be-alive sort of then another short tryst with the girl from Factory station, the one they'd rescued from the side of the cliff, Meg or Mel or something. He knew she'd been rebounding after Bellamy had turned her away but Murphy didn't really care. He wasn't looking for feelings anyway.

The truth was he still had some kind of stigma surrounding him. Proving himself at the Mountain helped erase some of it; keeping himself out of trouble since hadn't hurt either. But even the people who considered him a friend kept him at arm's length because of the events back during their drop ship days. Most of the time it didn't bother him. He didn't care what other people thought about him…but it did seem to affect his sex life and here was a golden opportunity to remedy that.

For the Grounders, his scars would be a mark of virility. They wouldn't cringe, they'd admire. So Murphy waited until he was sure they were watching before he pulled the wet fabric from his skin and tossed it aside. The chatter among the women immediately increased and he could hardly suppress the grin that pulled at his lips.

At least until he actually turned to look… there at the edge of the group was Raven with a wide grin directed toward him and mischief in her eyes.

Raven cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted. "Woohoo, yeah Murphy!"

He rolled his eyes and picked the sledgehammer back up, determined to ignore her.

"Looking good, Murphy! Damn," She shouted at his back. "Why'd you stop at the shirt? Take it all off!"

Someone in the group of Grounder girls spoke English, he was betting on the redhead and they were all definitely laughing and chattering among themselves now.

Murphy looked back over his shoulder to see Raven there, arms crossed and hip cocked, still watching him. The other girls were eyeing her with expressions Murphy couldn't entirely decipher; though he was getting the impression that maybe they thought Raven was competition. Which was ridiculous. He wasn't worried about them competing with one another. He'd give them each a turn, if he was what they wanted.

"You got a problem, Reyes?" He asked, propping the hammer up on his shoulder.

"Nope," She replied. "Just enjoying the show," She jerked her head in the direction of the other spectators.

"Show's not free," He said, attempting to call her bluff. "Put up or shut up."

Raven raised an eyebrow and smirked but didn't say anything else. She turned and motioned for the red-haired girl to come over. Raven whispered something in the other girl's ear before limping off in the direction of the main fire pit, drawing disapproving glares from the group who noticed her brace now that she was walking away. The redhead went back to them and the whispering and pointing began again in earnest.

Murphy clenched his jaw and went back to work, steadfastly ignoring those girls. He had no idea what Raven was trying to pull but he was determined not to let her keep the upper hand. He was going to find out exactly what she'd said to the grounders and he had absolutely no reservations about using dirty tactics to do so.

"Will you walk the line like it's there to choose?"

X Ambassadors "Jungle"

A/N: Huge thanks to Marina Black1 for taking time out of her day to help me out on this. Seriously, she is the best. And thank you guys for reviewing and getting excited about this story! Such fun stuff ahead. I can't wait to share it with you.

Luca