15.
It was a three-day journey.
A three-day walking journey from inside the walls of Arkadia to so far beyond them that Clarke had no sense of direction whatsoever.
The atmosphere felt different. The landscape was like something out of the oldest books buried in the depths of the Arkadian Library that required not only another person present when searching and reading the books, but also a series of complicated passphrases that allowed you to even access such books.
She should have known how sketchy their history was. How untrue and fabricated it was considering that a simple, paper packaged book can cause such drastic measures to be taken.
Before her was the image of a scene which she kept in the deepest corners of her mind. A scene she tried to replicate time and time again but could never capture it just right with her pencil crayons or even her paint sets.
The trees were an emerald shade of green that beamed against the sunlight, which also shinned like a crystalized glass chandelier, blinding anyone stupid enough to look directly at it. Although, with the way the rays framed her face, grazing her cheeks, and heating up her entire body from head to toe, it felt impossible not to sneak a peek.
The aroma was different too. It wasn't industrial. It didn't feel like she was suffocating anymore but like she was floating on a fragrance cloud, dipped in lilies, and lavender, and something that smelt a lot like victory. She was slightly disturbed by it. The erupting feelings it blossomed were dangerous. To know that such a place existed like this in her world was just as dangerous, and if she let herself trust it, hold on to it, well it's not just dangerous. It's pathetic.
After her conversation with Bellamy, they walked from deep inside the forest back out to the clearing where almost everyone around them was fast asleep, except for a few of Alpha Squad who were patrolling the area with blinking eyes and drowsy expressions. Her wrist a thin line away from his was lost under the oversized sleeves of his jacket. When she went to shrug it off and hand it over to him, he placed a flat palm on her right shoulder, stopping her.
"You'll be cold." She tried.
"I'll be fine."
She didn't have the energy to argue. With one swift acknowledgement, she turned her back to him and walked in the opposite direction where Harper was leaning against Monty's shoulder, eyelids half open.
"Hey," Clarke whispered over the heads of some of the sleeping girls, "I'll take first watch." She touched her knee gently.
Harper's eyelids drooped shut almost immediately. Monty gave a half-assed thumbs up in thanks. Clarke bid them a hushed good night, going to find a spot herself where she could swallow up her disgust and watch over the hundred or so heads that may not live to see next week.
From her place between the large grey boulder, and the rosebushes without any roses, she turned over Bellamy's words. What had he meant when he said people like her fought for people like him?
Chancing a glance over at him, she saw he was back to gazing up at the stars. A part of her wanted to let loose the chuckle building inside her, but the other part wanted to watch him watch the twinkling lights up high.
It was sad that the moon wasn't out. The path of light sprinting out from its glory presence would have reflected the freckles on his cheeks perfectly. But it hasn't come out in many nights actually. It probably knew what was coming.
Like clockwork, he directed his stare down to her. Gliding it so easily over the bodies, the trees, the dirt around him until they found hers and locked in place in a matter of seconds.
Blushing under his gaze, she was thankful for the blanket of black wrapped around her. It didn't hide the terrifying questions she had though. The ones that wondered what he knew, and what would be her undoing? What would kill her?
After everything she'd seen thus far. There was really little that could cause any more damage to her already withered soul. Bellamy's brown eyes were whispering to her in a way no one has ever, somehow it relieved her mind to stillness, and her stiff shoulders plummeted like a sigh.
Now, three sunrises later, she was surrounded by a wild world she didn't know could exist. She felt like she had fallen down a rabbit hole into a far far away mischievous land where true beauty lied and the sense of deception was close by.
In other words, it was too fucking good to be true.
"Where the hell are we?" Monroe asked, coming to stand right next to Clarke.
Harper, who was a few paces ahead of them, gave them a sharp look over her shoulder and as solemnly as she could, said the words that were their salivation.
"Safe."
Almost like it had appeared out of thin air, an ivory white, like a fresh blanket of snow, building stood tall and proud before them. Only it wasn't really a building. The Dropship was a building; City Hall was a building. This right here, standing in all its glory, was a castle.
The pillars, thick, round and white were on either side of the tower, decorated with twined vines of red, green, and orange. Windows, clear glass glistening in the sunlight, were on every single surface available to them. The roof was a shape unlike she's ever seen before. Dodgy, pointed, and epically edgy, was tainted with red paint giving the overall feel of a modern day fairy-tale castle.
Gasps and sounds of approval roared among the crowd, both in front and behind her. She scanned through quickly, finding Raven, Jasper, and Octavia all looking up in awe. A gust of guilt flew through her as she relished in their bewilderment. It seemed that they haven't seen this place before either. It felt good not to be the only one out of the loop for once.
"There's something you need to know," came the familiar bellow from the middle of the mass. Like moth to a flame they gathered around him in a circle, anxiously heeding to his next words.
"This place, it will keep you safe. For most of you," he paused, glancing around at his crew, his people. "For most of you, this isn't your fight. No matter how much you think it is, it's not. Your fight ended long ago, the day each of you came to the Dropship, that's when your fight was over."
"What about the numbers? Arkadia has way more soldiers than we do." A shout from the left side of Bellamy called out to him.
"That's not your problem. You do not and will not take part in this war. This place will shelter you. It will shelter all the people who are refugees, and escapees of a war that's between me and Arkadia."
Clarke bit back the urge to shut him up. His ego was bursting at the seams if he thought that it was his fight alone.
"For those of you in Alpha Squad, and the other Squads," he faced them in acknowledgement, "you can decide whether to join me and the Grounders in battle or to stay behind. It was never my intention to shove you into this. You were looking for a place to belong," they locked eyes, "and the Dropship gave you that. Now you're looking for safety, Mount Weather will give you that."
A sea of murmurs echoing around her grew louder and louder until he spoke again.
"When the war is over, I hope that you can leave this place and live your lives as you should. If that doesn't happen," time stood still, "then I hope you can continue to find yourselves within those four walls. For those of you willing to fight, we leave in two days' times to make the journey back to Polis and the twelve clans."
The turmoil was running frantic as her thoughts tumbled on each other. Mount Weather Woods, she was familiar with. Mount Weather…Castle? She was not.
She caught sight of Finn as if to confirm that such a place existed. His eyes were hooded under his flop of russet hair, hands shoved under his armpits, crossed at his chest.
Why the fuck was this place called Mount Weather?
Everything, large to miniscule, halted. For a split second, she even thought that the world had stopped turning. The double doors, encrusted with oak, had a deep contour of a large circle, with two circle overlapping inside of it and a smaller dot right in the center. Her blood froze while her fingers shook with apprehension.
She knew that symbol. She watched her father build that thing for hours when all she wanted was to sit in the garden bench with him and her mother, with only their company as her muse. A choke threatened her esophagus when the doors shuddered open and a figure walked through the darkness and into the open air.
Marcus Kane.
No one spoke. Whether it be in shock, or fear, or both, it wasn't known. All that she knew was, for what felt like hours, a strong silence washed over them.
Then, when she thought the silence couldn't end any sooner, the bitterness that trickled was enough to shove, even her, out of her trance.
"We're here. Take them in, then we discuss the rest."
Marcus gave a short nod but a smile so twisted, playing on the edge of his lips parted to say, "Of course."
Once Bellamy's feet began moving, everyone else took it as an invitation and followed him stepping, carefully, exactly where he stepped.
If she thought the outside of this castle was glorious, she surely hadn't seen anything yet. For the inside was much more grand, and extravagant. Jewels hung from the ceilings, diamonds edged with gold trimmings. The arches expanded from wall to wall giving off the illusion that they were in some ancient tunnel over top of a running channel. When in fact, they were nowhere near such a thing.
The air was thinner, sweeter. It held onto possibility like it was their salivation and only it alone can achieve the unknown.
Again, too dangerous of a place to get used to. Too dangerous of a place to believe in.
The swirling howls of the wind taunted Clarke. She was the only one who could hear the cry of warning. She was the only one, it seemed, who had enough wonder to question how such a place can exist compared to the hell she grew up alongside of, and why it was so miraculously hidden all these years.
Working up enough of herself to speak the words out loud, she was interrupted by a welcome speech from the devil himself.
"As I'm sure Bellamy told you, this will be your home for the next couple of months. Or until we win this war." He smiled brightly at each and every one of them. His swollen eyes lingered for a few beats on her dishevelled look, her unkempt hair that remained a problem, before gazing past her as if he didn't even know she was standing there.
"I am Marcus Kane," he began, only to be welcomed by silence. Those of them that knew who he was already didn't need to comment, and those who didn't, well they couldn't be bothered to comment. Why should they? He did leave them at the hands of a notorious leader who couldn't even hold himself together.
Clarke chanced another glance at him to find his jaw locked, twitching, and ready for the kill. She shut down the shiver that came through her.
"In harmony, together, with the people of Arkadia who believe in equality, and the people of Polis who have been exiled to a life so harsh, we can beat this war. Those who took from us. Who killed us. Who showed us no mercy when we begged and pleaded. They will pay. They will not only suffer what we suffered, but they will watch as we take the hope they have, and crush it beneath our feet like the rubble we walk on. Like the ground they believe is theirs and theirs alone."
One person clapped. Just once. Soon, the rest followed.
She did not.
Narrowing her eyes at them, at the man who calls himself the founder of peace and equality among the people on this earth. His speech was bullshit. Arkadia is many things. All that he mentioned hit the target but they are not the only ones to blame.
Was it not Lexa and her people who took in Murphy and tortured him no matter how much he pleaded and begged? Was it not Bellamy who ruthlessly fought against Arkadia, killing anyone to save his sister? Was it not Marcus Kane who turned his back on his 'people' leaving them to fend and fight for themselves?
"Coward!" she yelled out loud before she can bring herself to even comprehend what she was doing. Every head in that room snapped towards her.
"You're a coward. You hid behind your inspirational words. Inside your beautiful, porcelain castle. You let them bomb the Dropship. The place you claimed was meant to protect us. You let a twenty-four-year-old lead when he lost so much already he doesn't know left from right. You tricked, betrayed, and continuously dragged us into your false hope only to remind us who we are fighting against. The enemy is not only Jaha, Arkadia or the people who inhabit it and live by the rules set years ago. The enemy is all of us." She paused, well aware of glowing brown eyes piercing right into her soul. "It's the ones who cause harm, and suffering, and discrimination. It's the person who goes so far as to tell us who to fear, leaving himself out of it when really he's the one to watch out for."
"It's all of us. Every single being who trusted you, who trusted Arkadia, and who actually thinks we can achieve peace by war. I was a fool to think that way. I was stupid to let you trick me into thinking that way." Turning to finally face her peers, the group of kids she patched up, she walked alongside of, she risked her life for when she sought shelter against the bombs, and again every time she ventured off beyond the wall. She looked at them.
Finally, when she met their eyes, willing them to understand her words. She focused on Bellamy Blake. Now she knew what he meant. Now she lived it.
People like her, will always fight for people like him.
"When we fight, whenever we fight" she corrected, "it will be to make sure people like Kane, Jaha, and my father," she swallowed hard, "don't exist."
"That was something."
"Shut up."
Raven shook her head in astonishment, but a wicked grin teased Clarke. Rolling her eyes, she slouched further on the fluffiest bed she had ever had the honor of slouching on.
The room was as luxurious as the rest of the palace. The ceiling high, dusted with color stained glass making an elaborate and quite dysfunctional pattern. She was sharing a room with the same strong-willed, slightly limping girl who had somehow managed to make the trip here.
Like the rest of Skicru on their walk, she pretended she didn't notice when Raven took a second longer than the rest of them, or when she paused abruptly to press her fingers deep against her flesh, aching to relieve the pain. The only other person who had paused when she did was Wick.
It dawned on Clarke how much the engineer cared for his mechanic. It also dawned on her how the floppy haired carrier of peace and adventure didn't so much as bat an eye when her breaths grew heavy, and her paces slowed down.
It's truly a wonder how you can have a perfect image of someone, whether it be good or bad, just to watch it disparate into something else completely. The opposite of all your thoughts of them, of who you believed they were.
"Do you think of Finn?" Clarke's filter had clearly run away from her. Raven halted for a split second before resuming her actions of rummaging through her knapsack.
"No."
"You were so close."
"Keyword, were."
Clarke raised an eyebrow. Raven matched it without mock.
"Fine," the brunette sighed deeply. "I don't think of him the way I used to. Not for some time now. But…I do wonder about him. If the kind of person, he is now, is the person he's always been. I wonder if he's okay, if he's happy."
"Even after all he's done?"
"Even then."
"What about the other girl?"
Raven's fingers went loose. Her eyes met Clarke, holding them there. With a soft exhale, she replied, "she died." A pause, "With Bellamy's girl as well."
Something, almost like a shuddering flash of lightening, met Clarke's abdomen. The feeling of grief mixed with shame trickled its way around her neck tighter and tighter.
Clarke didn't dare utter another word. So Raven graciously continued, "The bombing that happened weeks ago wasn't the first to ever hit. There was a massive explosion on the other side of the wall. Miles beyond the barrier. Some of Skicru were there, living there with the Grounders. It was in preparation for the war."
"Arkadia hit them?"
"Yeah. They dropped three explosives that landed directly on top of them. Killed everyone there in seconds."
Clarke pulled her knees to her chest, hugging them tightly as she let Raven's words roll over in her mind.
"And Bellamy's girl," she struggled with the word, but struggled more with shoving the shameful envy aside.
"Gina," Raven supplied, she plopped down on her own bed. "She was another innocent caught up in Arkadia's shit. Found her place here, slowly fell in love with the asshole leader, who clearly didn't deserve her, and he fell in love with her."
Clarke's eyes went suddenly dry. The pain twined its way until tears threatened to surface and glaze over them.
"What's weird though, is that no one had any clue it was happening. Like, when it happened to us, some people said they heard the propellers of the crafts that flew by, or they saw something dark flash through the sky. But when we asked some of the Grounders, the tribes in that area, they said they saw and heard nothing out of the ordinary."
"What if they're lying?"
"Why would they?" Raven shrugged, going back to tossing the contents of her bag onto her bed. "They have no one to fear, especially not Arkadia, so why would they cover for them?"
Clarke returned the shrug. Maybe the Grounders didn't fear Jaha, but there was another ruthless leader with a thirst for vengeance that they did quiver at the sight of. Watching Raven scramble to find some tool she misplaced that was supposedly meant to connect all radio and satellite signals from Arkadia to the ones here, at Mount Weather. Clarke flushed at the discomfort of calling this place, this magnificently flawless place after a dreadful, and dead filled patch of trees felt utterly wrong.
"Where are you headed?" Raven quipped from her crouched position, nestling her healing leg under the covers while her eyes wandered their surroundings.
Pausing just at the threshold, Clarke picked up a thick leather jacket, and flung it over her forearm.
"I'm going to get some answers."
There were a lot of times where Clarke was grateful for her friendship with Raven. In the beginning she didn't let herself indulge in it. She forced the thoughts of friends, out of her mind. And then with every secret possible hidden under her brilliant mind, Clarke felt she had a right to hold everyone off at arm's length. If they so easily shut her out, she can for sure do the same.
Yet, something in the way those long lashes curled, those eyes pleaded with her in silence, Clarke was more than just grateful.
"I hope you find everything you're looking for."
Smiling softly, Clarke bid her goodbye, claiming she will see her soon. However, the night hadn't fallen yet. There was so much to left to hear, so many questions to ask and if she was being honest, she hoped that she wouldn't see Raven so soon. At least not before she could finally rest in bed, soundlessly and serenely.
The wide, and very long corridors took her to the main floor where room after room stood still, awaiting visitors. The Dropship was bad enough, she still couldn't fully navigate her way through but this would take her a lifetime to solve.
She really didn't have that kind of time, for if she did, she wouldn't waste it trying to figure out the layout of this place. Finally spotting sight of another life, she quickly whizzed past a fantastical piece of furniture covered in the kinds of flowers she couldn't have ever dreamt up.
"Hi, I'm looking for Bellamy Blake," she said in haste. The woman, dressed in all white from head to toe, kept her face neutral. With ease, and what felt like slow-motion, she pointed in a direction and Clarke took off sprinting.
The fact that Marcus Kane had help here shouldn't have surprised her. That poor woman looked like she saw death, death's cousin, and the torturous path to the end that will greet them all very soon.
The direction she was given, took her through another longer corridor where Miller, Bryan and another young man from Alpha Squad, based on his stance, stood whispering at the end of.
"Clarke," Bryan said in way of greeting. She greeted each of them, as she opened her mouth to ask, all three pointed to the lonesome door right at the end of the hallway. With a small, tight lipped smile in thanks, she covered the remaining distance only to pause just a few inches away.
It felt all too familiar. It was her first time at the Dropship all over again. Begging him to take her in, to consider her a valuable player in this God forsaken game. Well aware that she had three pairs of eyes glaring at the back of her head, she raised her closed fist and knocked once, then twice on the white painted door.
It swung open. She could have been easily fooled into thinking he was waiting for her. Giving her a solid once over, he shifted his glare to the three boys over her shoulder.
"It's all set." Miller claimed. Clarke was too nervous to ask what was all set. Too nervous and slightly unsure if she even wanted to know. Then the thought of Gina and her untimely death, his face that day she taunted him about a loved one leaving his insufferable ass coated her mind, and the guilt rose up like nothing she had ever felt.
Arriving here had been a surprise, but Bellamy's message to them was not. In the back of her mind, she knew the destination was not another clan village ready to welcome them with open arms, and at the ready weapons. She knew he would not let the future of Skicru slither away like that.
"Remember our deal?" she found herself asking. Being a head taller than her was bad enough, but when he looked down at her like that. Like she carried something more, like the memory of their night in that closet-like room where she bore her fears out loud and he listen silently, was one he deemed perfect.
"Yes."
"Then you know I expect nothing but the truth. All of it."
His eyes were teasing her. His features went hard, ridged as his Adam's apple bobbed in his throat.
There was so much to hear.
Little did she know that there was just as much she, herself, had to tell.
The first thing she noticed when she stepped through the threshold was the way the color of the brick shinned in the light. They were indeed painted over, a gleaming gold shade that sent her mind wondering, once more, how such a palace could exist that even the mere coating on the walls screamed of having more class than she ever saw.
It was easy to get lost in it, and by the looks of how comfortably Skicru was making themselves here, it was like dodging a bullet. Literally.
The next thing she noticed was his bed. Untouched, with fluffed pillows and an overbearing sense of contentment that she had to yield her eyes away from. If he noticed her intently staring, he didn't mention it. For when she turned around and saw that look in his eyes, a look she was surely convinced only ever belonged to her, she was well aware what was swimming in his mind.
"Princess," his famous greeting in his gruff voice couldn't have been more perfect, had the situation been a different one.
"King," she mocked in return, only smiling when the corners of his lips tilted up.
Carefully, she placed his jacket over the white comforter, then took a seat right next to it, on his bed, with him a few steps away. With crossed arms that bulged in ways she couldn't focus on right now, he leaned his shoulder blades back until they hit the wall and grinned down at her with hooded eyes.
"Remember our deal," she reminded him. Watching his Adam's apple bob, the tan column of his throat shivering in anticipation of what secrets were about to be revealed.
With a sigh, he claimed, "I remember."
"Marcus Kane?"
"Never said he was dead," he shrugged.
She raised an eyebrow in disbelief, "Never said he was alive either, you never said much of anything."
"Four years ago, I made my own deal with Kane. If he got Octavia out—"
"Then you'll take over, you told me this."
He fixed her with a stern look. Grimacing apologetically, she gestured for him to continue.
"Jake and Kane thought out their own ten-year plan. After finding out Arkadia was looking to diminish all existence of the Grounders."
"I still don't understand why Arkadia wants to eliminate all of those people for? They already have control of everyone on their side of the wall, and those on the other side didn't provoke them, they didn't threaten them…" Clarke trailed off, eyes scanning the room as if searching for the answers to her questions.
Bellamy's gaze ran deep, it held her in place and kept her on the edge of the most luxurious mattress she had ever had the privilege of sitting on.
"Tell me Griffin, why did you come find me?" he asked furrowing his eyebrows. Just as she was about to roll her eyes and tell him to go fuck himself with that same stupid question, he spoke once more.
"You were tired of the way the system was treating you. How they took away your father and your mother. Did you think you were the only one who felt that way?"
"I know not everyone agrees with Jaha. The kids you all but raised are proof of that, but not everyone is willing to stand up against him."
"You were."
She shrugged her shoulders, hands absentmindedly stroking the black leather sleeve to her right, "I'm one person."
"That's all it takes," his eyes followed her movement before landing on her. The two of them stilled in silence for a few beats until one of them broke contact. It took everything in her not to glance back.
"Anybody can start a rebellion. And if the cause is one that all of them agree on, well it's a revolution. It started off slow. Control the people under your power, the people who trusted you. Then control those out of your reach even when you put them there, even when you built that fucking wall that separated you and them. Until you realize that a wall can only do so much. That it can keep people from entering and leaving but it can't keep them from turning on you."
"So killing the Grounders is meant to scare the rest of us into obedience? Make people afraid and they'll work for you?"
"That's it. Fear is what built all the barriers between us and them."
"The ten-year plan was meant to break that?"
"No. It was meant to shove that wall up Jaha's ass." Bellamy shifted slightly, dropping his arms to run a hand through his hair. "The first step was to determine how many people truly felt cheated. Kane targeted the ones who were wrongly accused, used as examples strung up to die, the poorer class. Then he used their grief to strengthen their hatred for the Chancellor. One by one they all contributed what they could. They used their jobs, their status, whatever they could to help secure a place where they could meet up, discuss all the issues occurring and ways to stop the council."
"The Dropship."
He nodded. "His team grew. It expanded to inside men and women working in the government. In a few months, they had equipment, eyes and ears on every single move made by Jaha and co."
The image of Jaha calling for Kane to be executed, to be caught and brought to him for treason and his 'dangerous' behaviour was vivid and clear in her mind. It was like watching the news on her television screen five seconds ago.
"You said if Jaha sees it, we should see it," she recalled all those weeks ago on her very first trip to the now miles away engineering room. A part of her shriveled into burnt ash as the yearning to be back in that room one last time washed over her.
"We have better equipment now."
She inhaled deeply, in exhaustion, asking, "And Kane built his relationship with the Grounders?"
"That was the second step. He gained enough support on the inside before taking his chances on the outside. He spent time with the Commander, at the time it wasn't Lexa but he did work alongside her as well. It's the only reason she's keeping her end of the deal." He was met with a curiosity. "If she fought with us in this war to overthrow Arkadia, then she would be the one to kill Thelonious Jaha."
"She wouldn't pass that up," Clarke muttered. It evoked a smirk from the brooding fierce-eyed man in front of her whose entire body should be forbidden.
"No she wouldn't."
"I still don't understand how my father had to risk his life for this? Kane had everything planned out, he had both sides on one team. Why did my dad have to die for this?"
The air had shifted just like that. The loom of the heavy topic teasing them both, waiting to see who would crack first. But Clarke was not going to back down. She was promised answers, and she would get them.
The idea of Marcus Kane using innocent lives to make a point didn't surprise her as much as it should have. Using other's grief to his own advantage is smart, but it wasn't lost on her. She knew what kind of human he was when he left a twenty-four-year-old who hasn't properly seen the world, yet has seen enough of it to know what kind of damage it can cause on a soul, in charge.
In her hands, he would have wished he never started this revolution. However, if it wasn't for the mess he just created, the chaos and havoc he reigned on them… then she would still be that petite blonde girl with a needle and a future in swallowing her ambitions and passions just to please an undeserving son of a bitch.
"I want to ask you something, Clarke."
Her heart froze mid beat. The sound of the 'k' in her name fell right out of his lips like a drill to her core. It was the first time he called her by her name. Sending all types of feelings through her she was faced with the ultimate nausea of what it meant when someone uses your name when they have a serious question to ask.
"W-what is it B-Bellamy?" His name didn't roll right off her tongue as sweetly as hers rolled off his.
"When you draw, when do you decide that your art is done?"
Squinting, she tried to understand his question. When she shook her head in perplexity, he tried again.
"When your fingers," he peeked down at them sitting in her lap, "ach from moving your pencil, from creating your strokes, from shading in the lines, and you pull away from the page thinking you're done, but then you take a second look and figure that it's missing something, what do you do?"
Shooting him an amused grin still very much puzzled at his vague talk, she said, "I go back and add it in."
He let the words settle between them. She let him wait patiently until she pieced it all together. Though she tried with everything in her, she still couldn't find the connection between her father and his twisted question. The sound of her name in his voice was also causing weird images in her mind keeping her from thinking straight.
"Clarke," he said it again and this time she was sure she was on the brink of death. "Your father's death was an accident. There were some complications in the plan when Jaha sent out a warning message to Kane about his work and the rebels he's harboring but your father thought it would be best to come out and just tell everyone what they were planning."
She froze.
"The plan was never to initiate the revolution by having them kill one of our own. Jake thought if he told the people of Arkadia about the Grounders it would get them to listen, make them believe in the cause and maybe even avoid a war. But someone had their shot at him."
Cold water, ice cold water dripped through the vein that runs down her spine. The images, everything from the minute her father opened his mouth to this very minute, it was all eating her alive, clawing at her throat, chewing up her gut only to spit it back out.
"You said he died to spark the rebellion." Her voice shaking, the water pooling under her eyelids as she tried aimlessly to blink them away.
"His death did spark it."
"No," she thundered out, standing straight up, "You made it seem like he willingly took his life for this, for us."
"He did. He knew the risk of speaking out loud, of going against the original plan." Bellamy pushed off the wall, stepping a few paces closer to her. She looked on as he scanned her face now, watching her pink cheeks puff up in frustration, watched as the sadness claimed her soul. He debated his next sentence, but she noticed him make up his mind when he narrowed his eyes, and said sombrely, "Someone stabbed him, three times," Clarke shut her eyes, the tears prickling and burning her cornea. "But that's not how Kane found the body."
Her blue eyes are wide now, open and glistening under the brilliant light. Losing the ability to form proper sentences she threw together a few words in what she hoped would be comprehendible. It seemed to work because soon Bellamy was telling her how Kane left his gorgeous castle to stop Jake only to fail in reaching him in time and to find his throat slit.
The tears were dripping down her jaw, her chin and gathering up on the base of her neck right along her collarbone. She could feel his red, thick blood oozing out of him, covering her hands. The bile rose in her throat and before she knew it, a large shadow covered her senses.
"How," she fought back the urge to vomit, "how did you know he was only stabbed three times? Maybe that same person slit his throat?"
"I was there," he admitted in a voice so soft, Clarke thought she imagined it. He took a tone with her that was unlike anything she ever heard. He didn't even talk to the younger children back at the Dropship in that way. "I'm the one who shot Emerson."
At the name of that ignorant, foul son of a bitch, Clarke lost all control. Her forehead slammed against her thighs as she fell to her knees.
The barbed wired gate she put up in her mind, her own version of the wall to block out any and all remembrance of that day. She was right around the corner when Emerson pulled out the glistening red knife after plunging it in her father's ribcage a third time. She recalled how adrenaline kicked in and she rushed to his aid, not knowing what happened in the seconds that followed. She didn't even know Bellamy was there that day.
She began sobbing, loudly.
Clarke was sure the entire castle was shaking with her. Her hair the same greasy mess caught on her wet cheeks, her forehead wrinkled and her mind on overload as image after image of what occurred that night in that god awful bathroom floor replayed on a continuous loop.
A warm hand, calloused, broken and bruised gripped her waist until she was off her knees and into a burning solid chest. Brushing his touch away, she pushed and batted away his fingers as the curled into her hips, not letting her escape his hold. He was murmuring words to her, soft coos, begging her of something but she wasn't aware.
She knew about her father's body before walking into his room that evening.
"My dad didn't take his life," she said as she hiccupped. "I did."