Day 21

Without a word, she pulled her sweat-soaked shirt over her head, kicked off her boots, and stepped out of her dirt-and ash-streaked pants. She spun on her heel, wishing she could see the look on Bellamy’s face as he watched her step into the lake wearing nothing but her bra and underwear.

The water was colder than she’d realized, and her skin began to prickle, although she wasn’t sure if it was from the night air or the sensation of Bellamy’s eyes on her.

She waded forward, yelping as the water swirled around her shoulders. Water was far too scarce on the Colony to justify baths, and this was the first time Clarke had ever felt her entire body submerged. She experimented with lifting her feet out of the mud and trying to float, feeling strangely powerful and vulnerable. For a moment, she forgot that a fire had taken her best friend’s life. She forgot that she and Bellamy had lost Octavia’s trail. She forgot that her improvised swimming outfit was going to be see-through whenever she emerged from the water.

“I think the radiation must’ve finally scrambled your brain.”

Clarke twisted around and saw Bellamy looking at her with a combination of surprise and amusement. His familiar smirk had returned.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and ducked under the surface, popping up a second later with a laugh as water streamed down her face. “It’s fine.”

Bellamy stepped forward. “So your keen scientific mind knew instinctively that the water was safe?”

Clarke shook her head. “No.” She lifted a hand into the air and made a show of examining it. “I could be growing flippers and gills as we speak.”

Bellamy nodded with mock solemnity. “Well, if you grow flippers, I promise not to shun you.”

“Oh, trust me. I’m not going to be the only mutant.”

Bellamy raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Clarke cupped her hands, filled them with water, and splashed it at Bellamy with a laugh. “Now you’ll grow flippers too.”

“You really shouldn’t have done that.” Bellamy’s voice was low and menacing, and for a moment, Clarke thought she might’ve actually upset him. But then he grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head in one swift motion.

The moon was so large and bright that there was no mistaking the grin on Bellamy’s face as he reached down to undo the button on his pants, tossing them aside like they weren’t the only pair he had on the planet. His long, well-muscled legs were pale in his gray shorts. Clarke blushed but didn’t look away.

Bellamy plunged into the lake and closed the distance between them with a few powerful strokes. He’d boasted about teaching himself to swim during his treks to the stream, and for once, he hadn’t been exaggerating.

He disappeared under the water, just long enough for Clarke to feel a flicker of worry. Then his hand grasped her wrist, and she squealed as he spun her around, expecting him to splash her in retaliation. But Bellamy just stared at her for a moment before raising a hand and running his finger along her neck. “No gills yet,” he said softly.

Clarke shivered as she looked up at him. His hair was slicked back away from his face, and water droplets clung to the stubble along his jawline. His dark eyes burned with an intensity that was worlds away from his usual playful grin. It seemed hard to believe he was the same boy she’d carelessly flung her arms around in the woods.

Something shifted in his gaze, and she closed her eyes, sure that he was about to kiss her. But then a crack sounded from the trees, and Bellamy’s head whipped around. “What was that?” he asked. Without waiting for Clarke to respond, he took off for the shore, leaving her alone in the water.

Clarke watched Bellamy grab his bow and disappear into the shadows. She sighed, then silently chastised herself for her foolishness. If it’d been her family they were seeking, she wouldn’t waste time playing in the water either. She tilted her head back, sending drops of water trickling off her face as she stared up at the sky and thought about the two bodies drifting among those very stars. What would her parents say if they could see her now, here on the planet they had always dreamed of calling home?

“Can we play the atlas game?” Clarke asked, leaning over her father to peer at his tablet. It was covered with complicated-looking equations that Clarke didn’t recognize. But she would someday soon; even though she was only eight, she’d recently started algebra. When Cora and Glass heard about it, they’d rolled their eyes and whispered loudly about how math was pointless. Clarke had tried to explain that without math, there would be no doctors, and no engineers, which meant that they’d all die of preventable diseases… if the Colony didn’t burst into flames first. But Cora and Glass had only laughed and then spent the rest of the day giggling every time Clarke walked past.

“In a minute,” her father said. He frowned slightly as he swiped the screen, rearranging the order of the equations. “I just need to finish this first.”

Clarke brought her face closer to the tablet. “Can I help? If you explain it to me, I bet I can figure the hard part out.”

He laughed and ruffled her hair. “I’m sure you could. But you’re helping me just by sitting here. You remind me why our research is so important.” He smiled, closed the program he was working on, and opened the atlas. A holographic globe appeared in the air just above the couch.

Clarke swiped her finger through the air and the globe rotated. “What’s this one?” she asked, pointing to the outline of a large country.

Her father squinted. “Let’s see… that’s Saudi Arabia.”

Clarke pressed her finger against the shape. It turned blue and the words New Mecca appeared.

“Ah, that’s right,” her father said. “That one changed its name a number of times before the Cataclysm.” He rotated the sphere and pointed to a long, narrow country on the other side of the globe. “What about that one?”

“Chile,” Clarke said confidently.

“Really? I think it feels pretty warm in here.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Daddy, are you going to make that joke every time we play?”

“Every. Single. Time.” He smiled and pulled Clarke onto his lap. “At least, until we’re actually in Chile. Then it might get old.”

“David,” Clarke’s mom warned from the kitchen, where she was tearing open protein packets and mixing them in with the greenhouse kale. She didn’t like it when Clarke’s father made jokes about going to Earth. According to her research, it was going to be at least another hundred years until the planet was safe.

“What about the people?” Clarke asked.

Her father cocked his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“I want to see where all the people lived. Why aren’t any apartments on the map?”

Her father smiled. “I’m afraid we don’t have anything that detailed. But people lived everywhere.” He traced his finger along one of the squiggly lines. “They lived by the ocean… they lived in the mountains… the desert… along the rivers.”

“How come they didn’t do anything when they knew the Cataclysm was coming?”

Her mother walked over to join them on the couch. “It all happened very quickly,” she said after she’d sat down. “And there weren’t many places on Earth where people could hide from all that radiation. I think the Chinese were building a structure here.” She zoomed out the map and pointed to a spot on the far right side. “And there was talk of something near the seed bank, here.” She traced her finger to the top of the map.

“What about Mount Weather?” her father asked.

Clarke’s mother fiddled with the globe. “That was in what would’ve been Virginia, right?”

“What’s Mount Weather?” Clarke asked, leaning in for a better look.

“Many years before the Cataclysm, the United States government built a large underground bunker in case of nuclear war. The scenario seemed unlikely, but they had to do something to protect the President—he was like their Chancellor,” she explained. “But when the bombs finally fell, no one made it there in time, not even the President. It all happened too suddenly.”