20.

Paranoid is one word that kept coming up whenever Bellamy had to deal and work with Clarke on police cases, and it never seems to change whether it was in past or the present, and that is why he always had this nagging itch to be irritated with her whenever she found something and demanded that he would have to drop everything and rush to her side. But the worst part about her paranoid tendencies, that apparently hadn't been there before she left town, was that she asked him and Miller to come down to her gallery and work the case from there once she showed what she and Lincoln had discovered. And here's the real kicker, she didn't want Pike or anyone else in the police department to know.

He and Miller walked into the gallery, annoyed enough that he skipped the normal formalities, and literally exclaimed out, "What is the meaning with you demanding to see you about a new clue and then give an ultimatum that my boss and the rest of the precinct can't know about?"

Clarke came down halfway of the stairs, her left hand on the banister, and responded with the same exasperation. "Put a cork in it, Bellamy! I have something you want, and if you really want it, then you have to do it my way."

Still exasperated, he scoffed at her reply and looked at her with a sarcastic expression on his face. "You are aware that withholding information in a police investigation is a crime, right? I can arrest you."

She shook her head and walked last few steps down the stairs and approached him like a she was a woman on a mission. Once she was close into his personal space, she stepped on her toes and whispered softly in his ear, "You're interested in using your handcuffs on me? Kinky."

Playful flirting. Just like old times, except she never would have done it while working a case or my partner was right next to me. Bellamy thought, barely managing to contain the smile from appearing on his face. Feeling incredibly embarrassed, he murmured back. "You're playing dirty, Princess. No flirting or sexual innuendos when my partner is around."
"Whatever you say," Her eye was literally blinking with shameless flirting. "I'll just save it for later then."

God, this woman is going to be the death of me. He coughed awkwardly, and mumbled not as confident as he would have liked. "Show us what you found. You made it sound very important when we talked on the phone."

"Because we found one possibly link between the two victims and me," Clarke answered, and began walking up the stairs again. She didn't ask or check if they followed, just assumed that they would, which they did as frustrating as it was.

When they came up to the second floor, which appeared to be one of those art studios you see in the movies, although this art studio had more of a homey vibe that somehow suited perfectly for both Clarke and Lincoln than those fancy pansy art studios he has seen. However the interest in the room itself quickly vanished away when they saw a specific canvas displayed next to a whiteboard that held information about the two murders.

Oh God, how much free time has she had on working with this? That was Bellamy's fist thought when he saw the whiteboard. And apparently those were Miller's thoughts exactly since he said, "You have obviously been a busy little bee."

Clarke didn't see the humor in his comment, rather the annoyance being called an insect, and rolled her eyes. "Yes, I have. But that's not what I wanted to show you. Take a look at the canvas next to the whiteboard, that's what is really interesting. Do you boys recognize it?"

Bellamy turned his focus on the canvas and took a long and careful gaze on the painting, slowly realizing what the point for Clarke's call. "Oh my God. That's one of the victims, Niylah."

"Bingo." Lincoln chuckled, which surprised both him and Miller because they had somehow managed to his presence in the room. Something that neither of them thought was possible considering how big and intimidating this guy was. "Apparently before she came here, she posed as one of our models back when we worked in Nevada."

"How come you didn't recognize her when we found the body?" Bellamy asked Clarke. Does she have a motive for hiding her knowledge? Is there something else she hasn't been forth coming about? Bellamy didn't want to suspect her, but with this new piece of evidence he had to disclose any chance that Clarke is involved with these two deaths. Hopefully the connection between her and the second victim didn't go any further than artist and model relationship.

"I thought she looked familiar, but I couldn't place it." Clarke crossed her arms against her chest. "And besides, I wasn't the one who hired and painted her, Lincoln did. I was never in direct contact with her."

"So how would you known about her?" Miller asked.

"I gave Lincoln inputs and suggestions during his painting process, but those meetings were just between him and me. So I never really met Niylah up and personal until she was dead."

Bellamy nodded his head. That means that at least one victim is indirectly tied to Clarke, who seems to be the main key to this whole mystery due to her name being written on the victims' bodies. And we still don't know what it really means and why it is so important.

He ran a hand from his forehead and up to his hair. "Okay, let me call Monty and see if he has gotten a hit on the victims' identifications. Maybe then we can find the explanation to why these women was killed and why you keep popping up in my case?"

Clarke knew that she was being crazy, paranoid even, but at this point she felt like there wasn't a whole lot of people she could trust about this big case, especially cops besides from Bellamy and Miller that is. However without any proof that her suspicion is correct she might as well just continue digging a hug hole to the ground and never find the bottom where the answers she sought lies. Hence why she in desperate times in desperate measures, decided to approach someone who could help her discovering the truth. The only catch was that the person of interest wasn't going to be very cooperative in wanting to help her.

That is why, with Lincoln's help and presence, she was standing outside the Blake siblings' apartment hoping to get Octavia to help with the investigation.

"She's not going to help me," Clarke tried to explain Lincoln for the hundredth time since they left the gallery. "I think she rather scratch her eyes out and feed them to the dogs before even consider helping me in a case or have anything to do with me in general."

Lincoln continued to remain perfectly firm about his notion on the matter. "You don't know that. Besides, we need all the help we can get. And while Bellamy and Miller is going to talk to Monty and Raven about the victims' ID, we're supposed to learn what caused these innocent women to die and in order to do that we need Octavia."

No, we really don't. Clarke thought to herself, as she knocked on the door and waited for her former best friend to open the door. I could have easily gone to the coroner's office alone, although I have to admit that sneaking past a few policemen would be difficult, but at least it would be hell of a lot easier than asking Octavia for help. Even if she used to be my partner-in-crime back in the day.

Just as the thought passed her mind the door opened and Octavia was there. Her facial expression lit up in joy by the sight of Lincoln, but was quickly replaced with an angry frown when she saw her.

"What are you doing here?" Octavia said defensive, clearly waiting for a fight to occur between them. Clarke mentally sighed heavily, while wishing that she were somewhere else than here, but it wasn't personal issues that was the reason why she didn't want to be around Octavia, because if she was being totally honest then she wanted nothing more than to reconnect and be friends with her again. However the last time she saw her, Octavia had made it clear that they were done and she had no interest in renewing their friendship ever again.

Now that I think about it, Bellamy is not the only one who has the ability to break my heart into tiny little pieces. Apparently Octavia seems to have the same ability too, which she has already accomplished three years ago when she ended our friendship and left a hole in my heart. So now, I'm left with these intense and smothering feelings that will possibly never go away, because losing a friend like that means the pain never goes away.

Clarke altered in her stance, putting all her weight on her left leg meanwhile her arms folded against her chest, clearly expressing a guarded and defensive posture. There many things she could have said, wanted to say to Octavia, but somehow they seemed lost the moment she opened her mouth. That is why Lincoln, who quickly understood the weird silence, intervened and said, "There's a lead in Clarke and Bellamy's case that we want to proceed with, but we need your help in order to do it."

If Clarke ever doubted Octavia's disdain and resentment then the dark scowl on her face was the perfect indicator that she didn't like the suggestion at all. Whether it was because she was involved or the fact that it was a case that needed her assistance, Clarke wasn't sure, but the idea in general didn't sit well with the younger Blake and she wasn't shy about her opinions on the matter either.

"Are you insane? Didn't I make it clear to you before? We're done, our friendship and our weird-ass partnership, and here you are asking me to help you like nothing ever happened between us, between my brother!"

She sighed, already feeling defeated and exhausted with you listening to Octavia, but seeing her again also made her feel even more determined to get Octavia to help. "Fine. Don't help me because I asked or rather because Lincoln asked. You are your own person, Octavia, and I don't want or expect you to change that for me. However think about this, if you don't want to help me then help your brother with this case and afterwards we can go back to you hating my guts and me dealing with my guilt. How about it?"

Octavia stood there, thinking over her proportion, but quickly answered rudely, "No thanks. I would do anything for my brother, including helping him with one of his cases, but seeing as he isn't the one who's asking and I honestly don't want to help you at all. So goodbye then, see you later Lincoln."

She tried to close to door, but Clarke was both annoyed and determined to get Octavia on board that she stomped her foot between the door and the doorframe, ultimately stopping her former best friend from closing the door in her face. "Okay, I'm done playing nice. Either you help us or I'm going to talk to Bellamy and tell him about the few illegal activities you and I have done that he doesn't know about or that little secret you made me promised to never tell Bellamy about."

The only dirty secret that Bellamy knew about, the one secret I kept, but can't wasn't mine to share. Octavia stared at her, with eyes widened by surprise and fury over bringing up an old promise they had once made when they had been teens and friends. "You're blackmailing me?"

Don't be so shocked. I have done it several times before; hell you have helped me in some of those cases. Did you honestly think that breaking our friendship meant you wouldn't be exposed to it if I saw no other choice? "Yes." Her response was firm and collected. "So what is it going to be, O? Help me or I tell Bellamy about your dirty secret?"

In fairness, if Octavia wanted to kill her before then it was a pale comparison to how she looked now like she was even worse scum than Murphy and the criminals he was hanging out with. However it seems like the blackmailing worked since Octavia stared at her for a minute before she realized she was defeated and only said she had to go and get her jacket and keys and then they could go.

Then Octavia disappeared back inside, leaving her and Lincoln standing there once again. Lincoln, who unsurprisingly had stayed quiet during her interaction with Octavia, leaned in and mumbled quietly, "After watching you two I have hard time believing that you two ever got along well, let alone was best friends and partners."

Clarke shrugged her shoulders. "Yeah, sometimes I don't even believe there was a time we used to close, but then I remember and interact with Octavia and it all comes back to me like whip."

"By the way, I was wondering what secret you were blackmailing her with," Lincoln asked, expressing slight confusion. "Was it about her relationship with me?"

She was taken by surprise she didn't expect that her friend would think that she would sell him and his girlfriend's relationship out to Bellamy. What kind of person did he think she was? A crazy one apparently, which was in itself crazy since I was the one to warn him about exposing his relationship to Bellamy was a volcano waiting to explode.

So she shook her head and answered, "No, it wasn't about you and her. And I will not go into details about what is it, because it was a secret I promised to keep when we were still friends and I intend to keep it despite the change in relationship status. However I can say it has something to do with her and her relationship with her father."

As soon as he learned her answer and was about to ask more, Octavia showed up and they left and headed out to the morgue.

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Thank you guys so much for the reviews, favorite and followings, and I'm glad so many of you got interested in my story. So I hope you guys like the this chapter, and the next one will be out next week.

Also I like to add that there are and will be grammar errors in this story, I had forgotten to mention before, and not a perfect writer and I don't have a Beta to fix it for me (which I have no intention on getting anyways), so if people have issues with that then you just have to live with it, okay? I write and release this mainly to entertain you guys as well release some of my creativity.

I used several references and quotes from movies, books and tv shows. So obviously I don't own them, but I will frequently use them since they fit the story somehow.

You all have asked and given me requests about more Bellarke scenes as well as progress in that relationship, Clarke/Lincoln scenes and what really happened at Mt. Weather, and I promise you that it all will happen in due time, so please be patient and hopefully I will manage to deliver your wishes to fulfill your anticipation for this story.

Review, favorite and/or follow.

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