Clarke

Elody was not a person Clarke would claim to understand, or even begin to know. She tried, with growing desperation, to figure out exactly how to find some kind of in with the queen, how to befriend her or at least interest her enough to make the torture stop. But even if the torture did have to continue, she wanted to at least keep herself alive.

She had no reason to think that any of her friends or even her mother would be looking for her, since no one would even know she was in trouble. Therefore, she knew she would have to rely on her own wits to get her out of this, and so far she had not found a way to get on the queen's good side. Other than the one comment Elody had made about finding Clarke more interesting than Costia, the only content to their conversations were the queen's endless questions.

Today she asked, "Why were you all alone in the wilderness, without even a weapon or a bedroll?"

Clarke closed her eyes for a moment, gathering her patience before she replied, "I needed to be alone… to think."

"Think," Elody repeated, clearly unimpressed.

Even though she didn't want to give her any kind of reaction, Clarke felt her face grow hot. She knew, now, how childish it seemed, to go running off from her people because she was guilt-ridden. She thought of Bellamy and felt a rush of shame, thinking of how she'd abandoned him to look after the others because she couldn't face what they'd done inside Mount Weather. Now she wished that she could just go home and see all the faces she had sworn she couldn't bear.

"I felt guilty," she said finally, softly. All of Elody's questions felt like she was poking at tender bruises, painful and intrusive.

"About your role in the destruction of Mount Weather," the queen said.

She drew in a deep breath and let it out again. "That's right."

"Tell me more about that," the queen said. "You said that it was a team effort, but that Lexa was not involved."

Clarke couldn't believe how many days it had taken to circle back to this. Slowly she nodded. "The Mountain Men had taken our people and Lexa's," she explained. "We had a plan to take them down, but at the last minute Lexa made a deal with the Mountain Men behind my back. Her people were freed, but mine weren't."

"Yes," Elody said with a nod. "The mountains have taken many lives."

Clarke started to nod, but then suddenly she frowned. "Wait, what?" She blinked at the queen, thinking she might have misheard her. "Did you say 'mountains'?"

For the moment Elody didn't seem to mind her asking a question of her own. "I did," she agreed with a nod.

"Mountains, plural?" Clarke insisted, still not understanding.

"Do you not know of the network?" Elody asked, seeming a bit surprised, or maybe amused. It was hard to tell.

"No," she answered. "No, I have no idea what you're talking about. What network?"

For a few moments the queen seemed to toy with the idea of answering her, but then she just said, "Tell me more about what happened inside Mount Weather. How did the mountain come to fall?"

Clarke's heart was racing, but she knew it was important that she pretend not to care. She couldn't look eager about anything or she knew Elody would use it against her and she couldn't bear to give her any more ammunition. Carefully she said, "Part of our plan had been to have an inside man within Mount Weather to coordinate our attack… to disable the acid fog, mainly, and communicate to us what was going on inside. We were going to distract them while he snuck the prisoners out the back door, through the tunnels. But-"

"How did you intend to bypass the Reapers?" the queen interrupted suddenly.

Clarke hesitated. She tried to think if there was any harm in telling her about the tone generators, but after all, the Reapers were gone- either healed or dead from withdrawal- so she couldn't see why she should keep it a secret. "We found a way to duplicate the technology that Mount Weather used to control them. But it turns out we didn't need them. The Reapers weren't there."

"Why not?" Elody pressed.

"I don't know," Clarke admitted. "They just weren't. Maybe they thought everyone had retreated when Lexa's army was withdrawn."

"And then what happened?"

Clarke didn't want to give Elody anything that would give her ammunition against anyone else that she cared about. She wanted to leave Octavia, and also their conversation in the caves, out of the story, so she just said, "I got in the back door, and I irradiated the facility."

"Come now, Clarke," she said with a small smile. "You and I both know there is much more to that story."

"We got lucky," Clarke answered tactfully.

"And who is 'we'?" Elody asked. "Who helped you? Who was part of your 'team effort'?"

"Maya," she said, knowing she had to offer something. "A girl from Mount Weather, she helped my people when they were inside and they helped me when I went in too."

"Your inside man?" Elody asked.

"Yes," Clarke replied, relieved that it looked like she was going to accept that answer. "She and her father were against the harvest… they wanted to help us."

"Tell me about the harvest," the queen said. "I know that the mountains require our blood to survive. But why were they so intent on harvesting your people in particular?"

Again, she'd said mountains, not mountain, but Clarke knew she couldn't ask. She took a deep breath and started to answer, but then she balked- she realised that if there was even the smallest chance that there were more Mountain Men out there, she couldn't possibly tell Elody how important their bone marrow was. She just had no way of knowing what she would do with that information.

Finally she said, "I don't know."

"Alek," the queen said sharply. Clarke looked at her and her entire face had change; she looked enraged. "She is lying to my face."

For the first time, Alek selected a dart that was a colour other than yellow. This time, the dart he inserted into her hand was purple. Clarke had thought she'd understood pain before, but the yellow darts were like a tender kiss compared to the purple. She gasped as the pain radiated through not only her hand but also her arm, and then gradually spread over her entire body. It was as though whatever solution the dart had been dipped in was ten times more potent than the one used on the yellow darts.

Clarke tried desperately to get her hand out of Alek's grip, but she couldn't budge. Her forehead broke out into a sweat, she felt her other hand shaking, and her knees felt weak. She felt herself collapsing, but she only realised that she'd passed out from the pain once she came to again, lying on the floor of the dining chamber. Alek hauled her to her feet and placed her back in her chair, and only then did she see the pool of vomit on the floor next to where she'd been laying. She watched Alek mop it up.

Elody pushed a bowl of scented water toward her and handed her a cloth. Clarke dipped the cloth into the bowl and wiped the vomit from her cheek, feeling the burn of it in the back of her throat. Next Clarke was handed a cup of water, cool and fresh and just a little sweet. She drained the whole thing, trying to wash out the bitter taste in her mouth. At least the pain was blissfully gone, and the dart was no longer between her fingers. Now it was fear that made her hands shake.

"The yellow darts cause mild pain," the queen said calmly. "The purple are medium. Red is severe. The green darts will keep you from passing out. Are you sure you wish to keep lying to me?"

It took all of Clarke's strength not to panic, not to scream. Knowing that there was a step above what she'd just experienced, and not only that but also that there was a way they could prevent her body's biological protection of unconsciousness- it terrified her. She didn't even want to imagine what the black and blue darts might do.

"Clarke," Elody said, and something in her voice was surprising, made Clarke look up into the woman's dark eyes. It was gentleness maybe, perhaps even empathy. "It's just you and me in this room. There's nothing wrong with telling me the truth, in saving yourself from pain and suffering. There's no shame in it."

It was eerie, the kindness with which Elody spoke to her now, while at the same time she was the one responsible for the pain and suffering they were discussing. Clarke couldn't bring herself to speak, to admit out loud that she would now answer anything she wanted, but she knew it was true. They both did.

"Alek," Elody said quietly. "Take Clarke back to her room. The two of us will speak again at breakfast. I believe tomorrow will be a better day."

Only once she was back in the safety of the four walls of her cell, on her straw mattress, wrapped up in the darkness, all alone, did Clarke allow herself to break down and sob.