No Going Back [Bellarke]

Chapter 7: Ashes and Metal

Clarke:

The smell of burnt flesh and wood filled the air as the door to the dropship lowered slowly. I gently covered my broken nose, blocking out as much of the stench as possible. I took a shaky step toward the open door, Bellamy sticking his arm out to stop me. "Stay here, Princess. I'll come back for you after we check it out and make sure it's safe." I sighed but reluctantly agreed, not feeling up to arguing Bellamy over this. He turned, taking my hand and placing his other arm around my waist, supporting me and leading me to the table in the center of the lowest level of the ship, where I worked on Finn when Bellamy almost killed him.

"Hurry back, okay?" He leaned down, kissing the top of my head and whispering into my

hair.

"Always." Then he turned back around, stepping quickly out the door and down the ramp to survey the damage. He returned in less than a minute, much faster than I'd expected. He walked slowly over to me with his head hung slightly, taking my hand in his and sighing. "I need you with me out there, Princess, it's bad." I looked down to the floor, nodding and looking back up to Bellamy.

"Okay." He placed a hand on the small of my back to steady me as I slid carefully off the table. I put on hand on my side and wound the other arm around Bellamy's waist, letting him lead me out of the dropship. As we stepped outside, the burnt odor intensified, but I hardly noticed out of shock at all of the scorched bodies lying lifeless all over camp. Or what was camp. Our walls had been almost completely destroyed. I watched in horror as Miller lightly touched one of the walls and it crumbled and fell. The sun was right above us. We'd spent the night in the dropship to let the ground cool off. We were each assigned a perimeter edge to check, Bellamy refusing to leave my side, as I couldn't keep my balance well with the beating my head and face took. We got the north edge of camp to search. As we walked farther and farther, I kept seeing something shiny reflecting the light in the distance. I pointed it out to Bellamy. "What's that?" He squinted, shaking his head and looking at me.

"What's what?" I pointed again.

"That."

"I don't see anything." I shook my head and stayed quiet as we walked, finally reaching the spot where I saw the object. I recognized it right away. I began to collapse as the gravity of the realization hit me. Bellamy caught me and lowered me slowly to the ground beside the object. My heart beat out of my chest as Bellamy sat down next to me. I stared in disbelief at the small, metal, two-headed deer, wedged between fingers blackened by fire. It was the figure Finn had made for me the day we spent the night in the secret room. I'd thrown it at him during our first conversation after Raven arrived on Earth. He'd kept it and had been holding it when he died. I scanned the area around him, my eyes finally falling on a shred of the red material of Raven's jacket. Neither of them had made it out alive. They'd been burned to death along with all of the grounders. I couldn't understand why they hadn't made it out in ten minutes. It should have been plenty of time for them to get out. I noticed a chain wrapped around each of their waists, running to a large tree. They'd been caught and tied up.

"Bellamy. . ."

"What?"

"The grounders. . . "

"What about them, Clarke? What happened?" I looked up a him, my voice shaky.

"Finn and Raven would have made it out of here, but the grounders chained them up and let them burn." Bellamy looked down.

"That's just sick." I nodded, letting Bellamy pull me to my feet and gently lead me back to camp. On the way back, he did his best to take my mind off of Finn's and Raven's burned bodies lying lifeless outside camp, chained to a tree. "We need to start packing what we can from the dropship and get to leaving camp. Who knows how many more grounders are out there." I couldn't bring myself to do anything but nod, I was only half-listening anyway. I couldn't focus. I was too busy focusing on why the grounders would just chain them up to have them killed. Then it came to me. The grounders didn't know we were going to fire up the boosters to burn them to death. They must've been getting ready to take Finn and Raven back to their camp as prisoners. I couldn't imagine the fear they must have been feeling. They knew what we were going to do and knew they weren't far enough away to miss it. I hoped that Raven hadn't told Finn that they weren't far enough away. She could have spared him some of the fear. She would have known, she was an engineer, after all, but Finn may not have figured it out. We got back to camp faster than I expected.  I immediately set to packing every last jar of medical supplies that I could carry into one of the duffel bags from the Ark. We'd definitely need them for the trip to wherever we would be going. I didn't notice the tears running down my face until strong arms wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me into a hug. "Princess. . ." I turned, burying my face in Bellamy's chest, sobbing uncontrollably. He rested his chin on top of my head and squeezed my shoulders, bringing me closer to him, which I thought was impossible at the moment.

I composed myself mostly and dried my eyes on the back of my sleeve, pulling out of Bellamy's grasp. "Did you get everything you need? We should get going soon." He nodded, lifting a green duffel to his shoulder and heading for the door. I heard him call to the others as I followed. 

"TIME TO GO EVERYONE! GATHER WHERE THE GATE WAS." Within minuted everyone had congregated and not a single person was left without something to carry. Bellamy and I led the pack out of the camp-turned war zone and into the unknown.