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The girl is too close. So close the light from the fire and fading sky makes her hair glow, until it burns to look at her, like she is crowned in a brilliant slice of daylight. She keeps staring at me and I stare back, feeling a low growl start deep in my chest.

"Bellamy?" she repeats that strange name, like a hope and a sentence rolled into one.

I lunge for her.

Almost before I've moved a step, a pain erupts in my back and I look sideways. I'm with a long wooden shaft, sticking from my shoulder. The girl is shouting and a force slams against me, tossing me into the dirt, I scramble up but a pressure on my hand stops me. There's a boot over my fingers and the heel of it stamps down, enough to make my joints scream and for my hold over my blade to loosen. The club is next.

The pain in my head is getting worse, right at either side of my temple, drilling through my cranium and pushing through the other side.

The men do not lower their weapons and I cast a glare around them, daring those gleaming points to puncture something. Start this war and give me a door to unleash this torrent of fury on. It builds beneath my skin until I'm clenching my hands in the dirt, so hard the knuckles crack.

That bow is still nocked, but the arrow does not fly. The girl makes sure of it, stretching a hand out to the others in warning, as if they're the threat. Insolent creature this sunshine girl is.

"You're not killing him!" she barks at a burly man swathed in furs, raising a blade despite her protest. But a moment later, the man lets out a ragged cry, his hand drops, and the blade clatters to the dirt. Another strike, and he is on one knee before me. Another girl stands behind him, miraculously dark haired. It's done in a complex braid and her clothing is like the other villagers, eyes the color of a red sky. There's a furious expression on her face as she pulls back the man's head by his own braid and glowers. "I'd listen to her if I were you."

Then this girl is looking at me too, with that same incredulous, horrified expression. Slant eyebrows pulled together. She releases the man with a shove and takes a step forward. "Bel?"

That growl finds its way through my lips and though the girl pauses, she doesn't stop. She moves forward, too close, but not close enough to snag on my blade. She toes an invisible border, just maddeningly out of my reach. She stretches out a hand and on instinct, I recoil. "What did they do to you?"

"I wouldn't get too close, Octavia," says the sunshine girl, her voice holding a warning. It doesn't waver anymore; it's strong again, which makes my fury grow. Stronger things are harder to break.

I think for a heartbeat that name sounds familiar. Octavia. A distant thought. A fading dream. A voice dying on the wind. But then it's snatched away, and it means nothing to me.

The girl doesn't look back but she pauses, staring at me with big eyes that remind me of a child's. "Bel, it's me." She scrutinizes my face, as if expecting some sign of recognition. But she gets none; I've never seen her before. There never was a before.

When she isn't satisfied, her face hardens and a flash of loathing that nearly matches my own crosses her eyes. "He's one of them," she murmurs. "A reaper." She heard the alarms. She already knows this, but acts as if she has to say it for it to be true.

Behind her, the sunshine girl does not even nod. "I know."

Without looking over her shoulder, this one named Octavia asks, "What do we do with him?"

"We"—

The girl twists on her heels so fast any chances of attacking her slip through my fingers. She whirls on the blonde girl. "We have to cure him. There has to be something."

"There is nothing that can be done to save a Reaper," says one of the men, the one still holding the bow aloft, its point trailed on my heart. This answer fuels the girl Octavia and she turns on him instead. "Then you haven't tried hard enough! We're not killing him," she echoes the other's earlier words.

"No we're not," agrees the blonde girl, in that same commandeering tone. It reminds me of the suited man, and how he handles the suits. "We'll sedate him, and remove him to someplace else, until we figure this out." She cocks her head in the direction of the bowman. "Are you sure you've tried everything to save a Reaper?"

"They are our people," the man replies sharply, dark eyes blazing. "Some of us have families with Red Eyes. What wouldn't we try if it meant restoring them as they were?"

The sunshine girl seems to consider this and gives a curt nod. A strand of blonde falls over her left eye. She does not brush it back. "And how did those you tried to save end up?"

The man's gaze flickers from her to me, those eyes like coals. "They died screaming."

I wake not in a stone room, but a metal one.

All I remember is a force connecting at the back of my head, enough to make the blood roar in my ears. Then the world grew fuzzy, the dirt beneath me blurred, and the ground rushed up to me, wrapping around me like a blanket that smothered my eyes and made the world go dark.

It's still dark, other than a grated light coming from the wall to my right, like the sun is trying to claw its way through to me. It fails. Shadows decorate the room and splash over half of me. Something tight bounds my shoulder and I glance down only to find a thin cloth wrapped around it. I try to tear it off with my other hand but it won't come to me. My wrists are bound in metal shackles that hang down from the ceiling. The floor holds another pair that grips my legs. There's no slack for movement and the disorientation clears, dried up from the heat of my sudden rage.

It's the only thing I feel, other than the terrible ache in my temples, screeching nails raking down my skull. I want to pull my head apart if it means letting it out.

"You're awake."

A jolt runs through me and I shudder against my bindings, looking over to a pocket of darkness. The sunshine girl emerges, and the light catches in her hair again, like the two are magnetized to each other. I instantly yank on my wrists, ignoring the bursts of pain that shoot up my arms. It doesn't faze her and she steps closer, until she's right there. Right in front of me. If my arms weren't bound, I could reach out and touch her.

"Bellamy," she says, and an involuntary hiss escapes me. I wish she'd stop repeating that. It's like an annoying itch. An itch content on making itself bleed.

She shifts her feet, staring me straight in the face. Her eyes, like the rest of the world, are a washed out red. "Do you know who I am?"

I open my mouth and gnash my teeth at her.

She flinches back and inhales through tight lips. Her jaw tightens. "I know what they did to you," she says slowly, watching me. "You were turned into this, and I'm going to find a way to fix it."

I want to break the metal holding me and launch myself at this girl, if only to cut off her words. They're annoying gnats swarming by my head, exacerbating the pain in my temples. I twist in an effort to release some of the tension, as if it will help. The movement catches the girl's attention and her gaze pauses on my neck. She leans forward.

I snap at her.

She clenches a hand. "That's the injection area," she says, as if to herself, and peers closer.

I throw my weight against the shackles, making the chains tethering them to the ceiling rattle. The sunshine girl bites her lip and shakes her head, turning her back on me for a second. I hear her drag in a heavy, hitching breath.

Then a creak sounds, and a circular piece of floor flips upward, letting in more unwelcomed light. I hiss and snarl as the other girl, Octavia, ascends into view, until I can see her from her torso up, still dressed in that different gear. Her dark eyes land on me and her expression goes tight, all pinched eyes and pursed lips. After a moment, she asks, "Any change?"

The other girl has turned back to me and gives a small shake of her head, causing a stray lock to fall over her shoulder. "No. But it's only been twenty four hours."

"How long til the drug is out of his system?"

"I don't know. A couple days, maybe."

This doesn't seem to curb the girl and her lips pull back a bit. She trudges up the rest of the way until she stands on the metal floor, keeping the hatch open. "Is there a way to speed it up?"

"I'm not willing to risk it," says the blonde girl. "He should metabolize the last dose quickly. Then we'll go from there."

"Three days," the Octavia girl mutters, voice low. It draws the blonde's attention. "What?"

"That's how long the others said," she clarifies. "They all died after three days."

If this fazes the blonde, she doesn't let it show. "I guess we'll have to wait. There's no saying how Bellamy's body processes the drug. The Ark could've affected him differently than the grounders."

"You don't sound very certain."

"That's because I'm not." The blonde rubs her temple. "About any of this. But I believe he's still in there, Octavia. Somewhere." And then, in a lower voice, "He has to be." She looks back at the girl. "Did you get-?"

"Yeah." Octavia steps forward and extends something small that I think is a glass bottle of something, along with a hollow tube sealed in a clear package. "Your mom couldn't spare more than two doses of propofol. That's what you needed, right?"

The blonde girl takes the items and nods. "Yeah. Two doses should be fine. I just need to check his shoulder. The last thing we need is him getting sepsis during withdrawal, but he won't let me near him." She tears open the package and pulls out the tube, along with the thin, wicked point of a needle. She connects the two and injects it into the small bottle that glimmers in the grated patches of light. I watch the tube fill, feeling my anger grow and I strain against the shackles, ignoring the metal that bites into my wrists.

The girl pulls out the syringe and flicks it twice. Then she takes a step back up to me, resuming her earlier position. I bare my teeth at her.

The blonde looks over her shoulder, back to Octavia. "I need a distraction. After he's out, I need you back downstairs."

The other girl's eyebrows raise, in what I think is disbelief. "What? No, Clarke, I'm staying here."

The sunshine girl's expression, the one named Clarke, doesn't change. "I don't know how long the effect of this will have on him, or how quickly his system will burn it off and I don't want you in the room if something goes wrong."

Octavia glares. "Clarke-"

"You being here could be causing greater mental and emotional stress," she replies robotic ally, voice impassive. "The lesser people in here the better."

Beyond my anger, I think I hear a lie in the sunshine girl's words.

"Then let me stay."

"Do you know how to treat a puncture wound through the shoulder? How to make a poultice?" She sighs. "Please, Octavia, I'll be quick, and then you can take watch over him." As if in afterthought, she adds, "Why don't you check back in with Raven? See if she's made contact with Lincoln? I'll be done by then."

The other girl looks like she wants to argue. I can see the fury in her features, eyes the color of ash. But she doesn't say anything as she turns away abruptly and retreats back to the hatch, pausing when her body has nearly disappeared through the floor and drawing the hatch door closed overhead.

The sunshine girl turns back to me, blonde hair a tangle of burnt gold and light, her mouth set in a grim line. She steps as close to me as my restraints allow, much closer than I want her. I can smell the pine from her clothes and nearly spit on her before the presence of the syringe draws me up short, and I want to do a lot more than spit. I growl and snarl and snap, so close I almost catch a strand of her hair between my teeth. She reaches my right forearm, fingers grazing my skin. They're cold and I instantly want to take her hand in mine and snap those fingers off like a bundle of sticks. It would be so easy.

On instinct, my hand loosens from its fist, gently, feigning weakness if only to draw her closer. The lines in her face smooth for a moment and her own touch inches down to my wrist. My fingers shoot forward and stretch, just long enough to wrap around her wrist. I squeeze.

She hisses in a breath and then her other hand brings up the syringe. Before I can react, it's pierced my shoulder. I don't release her and growl in rage, until I'm earned a pained cry from her.

It doesn't last. The clear liquid in the syringe has done something and against my will, my fingers fall from around her wrist, releasing her. I try to reach for her again, but my body suddenly feels very heavy. The drums in my temples gives one last resounding pound before the light falls away and the shadows descend.

The first thing I see when I come to is her, leaning so close to me her hair brushes against my cheek. Her eyes are not on me though; they're fastened on the shoulder her hands are touching, fingers coming away red. The next thing I notice is the absence of one of the chains. The hand of the shoulder she's bent over is free.

My body moves before my mind processes it.

Before the girl has a chance to move back, my hand is around her neck. It's comically small between my fingers, a combination of soft tissue and flesh and bone. I feel her pulse jump beneath my grip and hammer against my palm as her eyes stretch wide before me. She tries to scramble back but I clench my hand harder, earning a jagged gasp from her. She casts a quick glance to her side and I notice the syringe there, lying just out of her reach.

She grabs a hold of my hand in an effort to pry it from around her neck, gaze pleading at me hopelessly. After all that she's done, it's a satisfying sight.

"Bellamy," she rasps, voice muted, she practically mouths the word. She slams her hand against mine with the butt of her palm. "Bellamy, stop."

I squeeze tighter, my anger roaring like a chasm inside. My skull feels like it's being broken apart but I don't release her. I don't let the anger go. I let it fuel me.

Her eyes bore into mine. "Your name is Bellamy Blake," she chokes, the words breaking around my hands. "You have . . . a sister. Oc-Octavia." Her nails dig into the thin flesh at my wrist, her weak arms struggling to keep my fingers from crushing her windpipe. "Your mother . . . was floated. You came to the ground to . . . protect Octavia." Her fingers scrabble harder and her eyes are a storm now, brewing clouds and falling rain. "Please, Bellamy. Stop. This isn't-this isn't you."

But I can't stop; My hands don't know how to let go. I don't know how to want to let go. All she speaks are words. They fall over me like air, insubstantial and meaningless. I want to say something back, but what comes from me is a snarl, something so animalistic she cringes away.

But there's nowhere for her to go. Nowhere to run. The sunshine girl is losing her light.

"You're still . . . in there, Bellamy," she rasps. "I need you . . . to fight. Fight this, Bellamy!"

I shout at her, an unintelligible garble of sound conveying the fury inside. Fight? I am fighting, for the sweet release waiting for me beneath the mountain. And the only thing standing in my way is her. Gone do I wish this sunshine girl. I just want the Red and she is my cage, keeping me here in this prison with walls not strong enough to hold me. I will shatter it. I will shatter her. I will tear the storm from her eyes and watch it swallow the light.

One of her hands suddenly fall from me and my hold tightens. But she pulls her fist back just in time for me to watch as it hurdles forward and connects with the side of my head, just at the stabbing at my temple.

A screaming pain tears through me, shuddering all the way down my spine and I momentarily lose my grip.

I try again, but it's too late. I grab her shoulder just as she reaches for the syringe. My fingers find the hollow of her throat at the same moment the syringe is plunged into my arm. Then I'm falling again.

The last thing I see is the girl's face. For a second, the red haze clears and her eyes are no longer red, but a brilliant, unsettling blue.