But then he glanced over at Clarke, who was leaning over to breathe in the scent of a bright-pink flower, the sun catching the gold strands in her hair, and suddenly he wasn’t so sure.
CHAPTER 15
Clarke
Bellamy led Clarke down a steep hill bordered by slender trees whose branches wove together to form a sort of archway. The silence felt ancient, as if even the wind hadn’t dared to disturb the solitude of the trees for centuries.
“I’m not sure I ever thanked you for what you did for Octavia,” Bellamy said, breaking the spell.
“Does this count as a thank-you?” Clarke teased.
“I think it’s the closest you’re going to get.” He shot her a sidelong look. “I’m not the best at stuff like that.”
Clarke opened her mouth, but before she could launch a retort, she stumbled over a rock. “Whoa there,” Bellamy said with a laugh, grabbing Clarke’s hand to steady her. “And apparently, you’re not the best at stuff like walking.”
“This isn’t walking. This is hiking—something no human has done for hundreds of years, so give me a break.”
“It’s okay. It’s all about division of labor. You keep us alive, and I’ll keep you on two feet.” He gave her a playful squeeze, and Clarke felt her face flush. She hadn’t realized she was still clutching his hand.
“Thanks,” she said, letting her arm fall to her side.
Bellamy paused as they reached the point where the ground flattened out again. “This way,” he said, gesturing to the left. “So, how did you end up becoming a doctor?”
Clarke’s eyebrows knit in confusion. “I wanted to. Didn’t you choose to…” She trailed off, realizing, to her embarrassment, that she had no idea what Bellamy had done back on the ship. Clearly he hadn’t been a guard.
He stared at her, as if trying to determine whether or not she was joking. “It doesn’t work that way on Walden,” he said slowly, stepping deeper into the green-tinged shade. “If you’ve got a great record and you get lucky, you can become a guard. Otherwise you just do whatever job your parents had.”
Clarke tried to keep the surprise from registering on her face. Of course she knew only certain jobs were available to Waldenites, but she hadn’t realized they had no choice at all. “So what were you?”
“I was…” He pressed his lips together. “You know what? It doesn’t matter what I did back there.”
“I’m sorry,” Clarke said quickly. “I didn’t mean that—”
“Hold on,” Bellamy whispered, reaching out a hand to block her path. In one fluid motion, he pulled out one of the arrows tucked into his sling and raised his bow. His eyes fixed on a spot where the trees were so dense, it was almost impossible to distinguish the shrubs from the shadows. Then she saw it—a flash of motion, a glint of light reflected in an eye. Clarke held her breath as an animal emerged, small and brown with long, tapered ears that flicked back and forth. A rabbit.
She watched the creature spring forward, its tail almost twice as long as its body, twitching curiously. Aren’t rabbits supposed to have little, fluffy tails? she wondered. But before she could remember her old notes from Biology of Earth class, Clarke saw Bellamy’s elbow draw back, chasing every thought out of her head.
Her gasp caught in her throat as Bellamy’s arrow shot forward, landing with a terrible thwack right in the creature’s chest. For a second, Clarke wondered if she could save it—run over, remove the arrow, and stitch it back up.
Bellamy grabbed her arm, squeezing it just hard enough to convey both assurance and warning. That rabbit was going to help keep them alive, Clarke knew. It would give Thalia a little strength. She tried to close her eyes, but they remained locked on the animal.
“It’s okay,” Bellamy said quietly. “I got it through the heart. He won’t suffer for long.” He was right. The rabbit stopped twitching and slowly fell to the forest floor, then went still. Bellamy turned to her. “Sorry. I know it’s not easy to watch someone suffer.”
A chill passed over her that had nothing to do with the dead rabbit. “Someone?”
“Something.” He corrected himself with a shrug. “Anything.”
Clarke watched Bellamy jog over to the rabbit, extract the arrow, and swing the creature over his shoulder. “Let’s go this way,” he said, inclining his head.
The tension seemed to have drained away, Bellamy’s mood visibly bolstered by his successful kill. “So, what’s the story with you and Wells?” he asked, shifting the rabbit over to his other shoulder.
Clarke braced for a rush of indignation at his nosiness, but it never came. “We dated for a little bit, a while ago, but it didn’t work out.”
Bellamy snickered. “Yeah, well, that part was obvious.” He paused, waiting for Clarke to continue. “So,” he prodded, “what happened?”
“He did something unforgivable.”
Instead of making a joke or using the opportunity to make a jab at Wells, Bellamy grew serious. “I don’t think anything’s unforgivable,” he said quietly. “Not if it’s done for the right reasons.”
Clarke didn’t say anything, but couldn’t help wondering whether he was talking about what Octavia had done to be Confined, or something else.
Bellamy glanced up, as if the treetops had caught his attention, then looked back at Clarke. “I’m not saying he didn’t do something terrible, whatever it was. All I mean is that I sort of understand where he’s coming from.” He reached out to run his finger along the bright-yellow moss spiraling up the trunk of a tree. “Wells and I are the only two people who chose to be here, who came for a reason.”
Clarke started to reply, but realized tha t rg his t she wasn’t sure what to say. They were so different on the surface—Wells, whose belief in structure and authority had resulted in her parents’ execution, and Bellamy, the hotheaded Waldenite who’d held the Chancellor at gunpoint. But they were both willing to do anything to get what they wanted. To protect the people they cared about.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said quietly, surprised by his insight.
Bellamy paused, then increased his stride, suddenly excited by whatever he saw. “It was up here,” he said, pulling her up another shallow slope into a clearing. The grass was dotted with white flowers, except for a spot about halfway down that was burned black. Pieces of the dropship lay scattered about like bones. Clarke broke into a run.
She heard Bellamy call her name but didn’t bother to look back. She stumbled forward, hope blooming in her chest. “Come on, come on, come on,” she muttered to herself as she began rummaging through the wreckage with a manic frenzy.
Then she saw them. The metal boxes that had once been white but were now discolored by the dirt and flames. She grabbed the closest one and held it up, her heart pounding so fast it became difficult to breathe. Clarke fumbled with the misshapen clasp. It wouldn’t open. The heat had welded the hinges shut. Frantically, she shook the box, praying that the medicine had survived.
The sound of pill bottles rattling around inside was the sweetest thing she had ever heard.
“Is that it?” Bellamy asked, skidding to a breathless stop next to her.
“Can you open this?” Clarke shoved the box at his chest. He held it up, squinting at the clasp. “Let me see.” He removed a knife from his pocket, and with a few quick movements, pried the chest open.
Exhilaration fizzed through Clarke’s body. Before she realized what she was doing, she had thrown her arms around Bellamy. He joined in her laughter as he staggered backward, and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her up and spinning her through the air. The colors of the clearing swirled, green and gold and blue all blurring until there was nothing in the world but Bellamy’s smile, lighting up his eyes.
Finally, he set her down gently on the ground. But he didn’t loosen his hold. Instead, he pulled her even closer, and before Clarke had time to catch her breath, his lips were on hers.
A voice in the back of her brain told her to stop, but it was overpowered by the smell of his skin and the pressure of his touch.
Clarke felt like she was melting into his arms, losing herself in the kiss.
He tasted like joy, and joy tasted better on Earth.
CHAPTER 16
Glass
“I don’t know,” Sonja said slowly, squinting at her daughter in the dim light of the bedroom. “What if we take the skirt off that one and combine it with the green bodice?”
Glass forced herself to take a deep, calming breath. She’d been trying on gowns for two hours, and they were no closer to picking one for the comet viewing party than when they’d started. “Whatever you think, Mom,” she said, hoping her smile didn’t look as strained as it felt.
“I’m not sure.” Glass’s mother sighed. “It’lle thaors of the be hard to have it ready in time, but we’ll just have to do our best.”
Glass reminded herself that her mother was only trying to help. She saw the comet viewing party as the perfect moment for Glass to reenter Phoenix society, armed with the official pardon and dressed to perfection. Glass knew the Vice Chancellor would be there, and that it was essential to play her part; she’d gotten back her life in exchange for giving him a better image, which was a more than fair trade-off. Still, Glass felt anxious about making herself the center of attention.
“Or maybe we should go back to the tulle?” Her mother gestured to the pile of discarded gowns. “Just put it back on and we can—” She was cut off by the beep of a message alert from the kitchen.
“I’ll get it,” Glass said quickly, hurrying from the room before her mother had time to protest. It wouldn’t be for her, of course. Her friends only contacted each other via chips; message screens were generally reserved for pointless updates from sanitation, or slightly more ominous alerts from the Council. But it would at least provide a brief respite from dress talk. Glass projected the message queue in the air in front of her. Her breath caught in her chest as she saw the blinking name at the top. It was from Luke.
Dear Miss Sorenson,
Security recovered a missing item of yours near the solar fields. It will be held at the checkpoint until 1600 today.
She had to read it several times before the message sank in. She and Luke had created this system long ago, before she got her chip, in case her mother ever snooped through her messages. He wanted her to meet him by the solar fields that afternoon.
“Glass?” Sonja called from the other room. “What was it?”
She deleted the message quickly. “Just a reminder about the comet viewing, as if we could forget!” She glanced at the clock and sighed. It was only 1015. The next few hours were going to pass more slowly than they had in Confinement.
“Oh,” Glass’s mother gasped when Glass stepped back into the bedroom. “Maybe this is the one after all. You look beautiful.”
Glass turned hesitantly toward the mirror. She saw what her mother meant. But it wasn’t the dress. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright with anticipation.
She looked like a girl in love.
At 1540, Glass climbed the endless flight of stairs up to the solar fields that covered the top of Walden. The plants themselves were off-limits to everyone except scientists and gatherers, but there was a small, enclosed deck overlooking the fields. It must’ve been designed for supervising the workers but had fallen out of use and was almost always empty.
When she reached the top, Glass moved to the edge of the platform and sat down against the railing, her legs dangling over the side. She felt her body relax as her eyes traveled over the rows of plants stretching their leaves toward the solar panels. The far side of the field was bordered by an enormous window that made it look as though the crops were growing right out of the st old fortars. She and Luke used to meet here all the time. It was safer than him sneaking onto Phoenix, or having Glass wander through his residential unit.