No Going Back [Bellarke]

Chapter 3: The Grounders

Clarke:

"Clarke." It was Finn. I kept walking as if I didn't hear him. "Clarke! Please! I need to talk to you." I sighed and stopped dead in my tracks, causing Finn to crash into the back of me.

"Watch it! Now what do you want?" He looked down, obviously still "feeling bad" about our whole situation.

"Listen, about the other day. . ." And suddenly, I was pissed.

"Drop it Finn! You've made your choice. Raven's here and you don't need me anymore. " He looked at me with an open mouth, hurt.

"What? No! Clarke, it's complicated."

"Yeah? Well not for me." I turned on my heels, storming toward the front gate. Finn chased after me, grabbing ahold of my arm, tightly. "Ow! Finn let go!" I tried to pull out of his grasp, but he was too strong, tightening his grip. I gasped as my arm started to throb and ache.

"I'm not letting you leave. It's not safe." I squirmed under his hold, but he continued to grip my arm.

"Finn, seriously! STOP!" I continued to struggle until Finn pushed me up against a wall and tried to kiss me. I slapped him hard across the face with my free hand. Suddenly Finn was drug backward and thrown to the ground. I looked over him to see Bellamy coming my way. I turned and bolted through the gate, hitting a sharp piece of metal with my thigh on the way out and tearing my jeans and the skin underneath. I looked down as I ran, seeing the blood start to seep through the untorn portion of my pants. Still, I didn't feel the pain. In my rage, I hadn't remembered to grab a weapon on the way out. I could hear someone following me, probably Bellamy, and I pushed forward faster, away from him.

Bellamy:

I ran after Clarke when she ran from camp. It was getting darker when Clarke fell. I pushed myself to run faster and catch up to her, unable to see why she'd fallen. When I got a little closer, I could see a large dark stain on her pant leg. Blood. I took another step and froze as a large figure reached down and picked her up, carrying her away. My breath caught in my throat as I quietly followed the figure, staying a safe distance behind it. I stopped and jumped behind a large tree when a gate opened to reveal a large fire in front of the figure. I could see with the light that the figure was human and wearing different fur pelts as clothing, carrying a rugged-looking knife on its belt. So there had been survivors of the war? They were human, but they were big, much bigger than the people we brought with us.

I crept up right next to the gate before it closed, and looked inside. Not seeing any others, I slipped inside as the gate began to shut, hiding behind a pile of firewood and watching where the grounder, as I had come up with to call them, took Clarke. I watched as he carried her into a cave-like structure and dropped her onto the floor. I could hear her hit the stone floor from where I was standing, at least fifty feet away. I cringed as I watched her stir at the pain of the impact. The grounder knelt over her for a second, cutting something into her upper arm. I stood watching until someone grabbed me from behind and hauled me to the same cave where they were keeping Clarke and throwing me in beside her.

I crawled over to Clarke, gently pulling apart the fabric over the gash in her leg. It didn't look very deep, not even bleeding anymore. I replaced the fabric and moved to her arm. The grounder had carved a half-moon shape into her upper arm, carefully so it wouldn't bleed for long. By the time I got in there, it was still bleeding though. I put pressure on it, hoping to stop it faster than it would originally have stopped. It worked just as planned and the shape quit bleeding quickly.

It wasn't more than an hour later when Clarke woke up. She was immediately frantic, her breathing heavy and quick. She looked over to see me and barely calmed down. "Where are we?"

Clarke:

When I woke up I had absolutely no idea where I was or how I got there. My arm and leg hurt like hell. "Where are we?" Bellamy was sitting beside me and we were in a small cave, barely large enough to stand up. I jerked my head around, momentarily panicking until I felt Bellamy's arms slide around my shoulders and one of his hands move up to the back of my head.

"It's okay, Clarke. You're not alone here. We'll find a way out." 'You're not alone.' That's what I'd said to Finn the night I slept with him. The sound of the phrase almost made me flinch. I took a deep breath and nodded, trying to stop shaking and calm myself down. I leaned my head on his shoulder and fell asleep pretty quickly.

I woke back up later on, but I didn't know right away how long because there was no way for light to get into the cave. Bellamy felt me wake up. "Hey, princess. Sleep well?" I smiled, knowing he probably couldn't see my face.

"How long was I out?" Bellamy shifted a little and slid us backward until we were leaning against the wall.

"Probably about five hours. I was really bored without you."

"Five hours? Why didn't you wake me up?" I could feel him shrug when his shoulder lifted my head then dropped it down again.

"You needed the sleep, and I had no real reason to wake you." I smiled again, still aware that he couldn't see me very well. I started shaking again, but not because I was scared or panicked, but it was starting to get really cold. Bellamy rubbed his hands up and down my arms quickly to help warm me up, which helped a lot. I was still cold so I buried myself as close as I could get to Bellamy's chest as he rested his chin on top of my head. I sighed, wondering if anyone had noticed that we were gone.

"So what's the plan for getting out of here?" Bellamy squeezed me around the shoulders.

"I don't know yet, princess. I don't really have one yet."