Chapter Seven

"Love without reason lasts the longest." - Unknown

Clarke throws herself into her work, leading and working and healing people. She pushes aside sleep and trades it for excuses. I need to take inventory. I need to check on Warren.

She tries to ignore the impending doom, that terrible voice in her head. But it's inside her mind, and she thinks about it all the time.

Good morning, he says when she wakes one morning. Your shoelace is untied, he tells her a few minutes later.

"Shut up," Clarke says, bending down to lace her boots, but the voice does not listen. She curses, but not out loud.

The man laughs. Those aren't fit words for a princess.

That was how Clarke discovered she could communicate with him through her thoughts. She swallows, and steps outside of her tent.

She should tell Bellamy about this. He would want her to. So she goes to him, and she ignores her embarrassment, and she walks like a coward to the comfort Bellamy always offers.

You fear me, the man says. That's good.

As unnoticed as is possible, she manages to pull Bellamy aside. Clarke explains her discovery quickly, watching Bellamy's brow furrow as his jaw tightens.

"He can hear your thoughts," Bellamy states, the words sinking in. "How?"

Tell your friend it was science. Clarke obeys.

"Is that what he told you? Clarke, we can't trust him."

She nods. She already knows this. But then she has a terrible idea. What if the man inside her head didn't lead this plan, this thing that is happening to her? What if he was just a pawn in some game?

You are smart. You are getting closer to the truth every minute, and looking at each possibility. But you are ignoring the impossible, the man says, as though taunting her. He speaks in riddles, and frankly, Clarke doesn't particularly appreciate it.

Meet me in a week at the stream.

Get out, Clarke tells the man while looking at her very laced boots. Go now.

You will regret this, the man tells her.

I doubt that.

Ten, the man replies cryptically. A screech. And then he's gone. But he'll come back the next day.

"Is he gone? Did he leave?" Bellamy has been staring at her for the past few minutes, patiently waiting for her to finish.

Clarke can't speak. She is too focused on the number. She looks at her laced boots, and she swallows.

She can feel Bellamy's eyes on her. So she lifts her head up at last, and stares at him with her wild, broken eyes.

"He said ten. He said ten, and then he left." Clarke pauses, and chokes on the words, and covers her mouth with her trembling hand. "He said ten."

And then Bellamy realizes. "No." And then Bellamy turns and runs, and Clarke runs after him.

The camp is chaos. "He just collapsed! He just sank to the ground, and there was an axe in his back," someone tells the leaders.

He said ten.

"The axe came out of nowhere, Clarke! Can you fix him?"

He said ten.

The ninth person had died just a few days before. Drowned in the river. At least, that's what they thought had happened.

He said ten.

Clarke collapses at the boy's side, tearing his shirt, and pressing the cloth around the axe. "It's deep! Monty, clear the table." She curses, and someone appears at her side.

"Help me carry him," she says to Bellamy without turning. She knows it's him.

He said ten.

Fifteen minutes pass, but the axe is too deep. It punctured his heart, and the wound was all too intentional.

The man said ten. The man said ten, and he was correct.

*

They bury the boy with the others. Bellamy stands beside Clarke, and they are the closest to the grave. Clarke holds the shovel. She hasn't let it go.

Bellamy pries it from her hands, and Clarke at last lets her tears fall. Bellamy pushes the shovel to the ground, where it lands with a clatter next to the grave.

Clarke is suddenly pulled into his chest, where she can hide her tears and the people they lead cannot see her weakness. She won't cry in front of them.

"Don't let them see you cry, Clarke Griffin." Bellamy speaks in a husky whisper, his voice tinged with desolation. "Don't you dare cry in front of them."

Clarke shudders, and her tears are silent. But somehow his harsh words wake her up, comforting her more than the simple it will all be okay.

"I won't," she whispers back, and that's when her tears stop.

Bellamy holds her closer, where she can't see the grave. "Don't you dare cry," he says again. "I'm going to slay your demons for you."

That sounded awfully like the beginning of a tragedy to her.

AN: Hola, peeps! Hopefully, you enjoyed this. I want you all to notice the slight character developments. I hope they are satisfactory. Lol.

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