The bright blue skies nearly blinded me and it took a few seconds for my pupils to adjust to the drastic change. Other than the heavily armed soldiers surrounding the building at regular intervals while holding automatic weapons at the ready, nothing looked different at all. As we drove through the quiet streets, I could see signs plastered on the fronts of every business instructing people to stay inside their homes and follow instructions on the news until further notice. Citizens were informed that anyone caught outside would be immediately transferred to a medical facility to seek radiation exposure medication.
"I thought it would look different," I said absently, reading each sign I could. If I was actually expecting one to say something different, I would have been let down. We passed the skate park and the emptiness was sad. It was too early for the kids to be there hanging out, but I still couldn't help but wonder where they all were now. Atom was supposed to be working at the plant, but I held out hope that he'd partied too hard and slept too late to make it on time for his first day. It wouldn't have been the first time he blew off employment. And who knew where Murphy was. I just prayed he wasn't with his brother for some stupid reason.
Bellamy agreed with me and added, "Something isn't right about this, I just know it."
I didn't want to argue with his stupid conspiracy theories again, so I decided to pilfer through my bag, looking for gum or mints. I hadn't brushed my teeth in a day and a half and I couldn't begin to imagine how horrible my breath must be right now. On the top of everything was a scrap of paper that had my father's hurried writing scratched on it.
If you make it out of the hospital, stay at the house until I come get you, no matter what anyone says. Talk to no one. Take Bellamy with you. Hide if you have to. I love you. Dad
I held it up and showed Bellamy. His eyes bounced back and forth between the road and the note until he'd read the whole thing. "Looks like we did the right thing getting out of there?" By making it a question instead of a statement, I could tell Bellamy wasn't sure how to respond.
I nodded and stared straight ahead, swallowing hard and forgetting about the gum.
Maybe Bellamy wasn't just paranoid.
Or maybe my father had just been hanging around him for too long and it was contagious.
Either way, I figured the smartest thing we could do was follow his orders. "My mother said you have to go back to the hospital. Are you going to run?"
Bellamy's fingers started nervously drumming on the steering wheel. "I have to get to my family. I can't help them if I'm stuck in the lab."
"Do you think Dad wanted you to stay at the house, too?"
I didn't wait for him to answer. Instead, I grabbed the satchel from behind his seat and opened it. Sure enough there was a note was shoved into Bellamy's bag.
Do anything you can to get out of the hospital. Take Clarke with you and keep her safe. I'll be in touch as soon as I can. I know I can trust you. Jake
I held it up for Bellamy to see and could see his mind was racing.
"How am I going to explain not going back like your mother instructed? She seemed pretty insistent on it." My own mind joined in the contest to see who could come up with a better answer first. Apparently, Bellamy was winning. "Is the prescription she gave you for sleeping?"
"Mida-something." I rustled around in my bag to find the brown bottle.
"Midazolam, right? That will knock you out cold. They use it to sedate patients before procedures sometimes. Maybe I could call her and leave a message that you needed supervision or something?"
"Do you really think she'd care about that? The woman doesn't have a kind bone in her body."
Bellamy shot me a shocked look. "She's your mother! Of course she cares!"
I shook my head slowly. "No, she knows exactly what the effects of this drug are. She wanted me to be so sound asleep that I wouldn't bother her anymore. And she clearly doesn't give a crap about your well-being either, or else she wouldn't want you to take a second trip through the radiation to go back to the hospital. She would've told you to stay put, too. The potassium was Kim's idea, not my mother's."
Bellamy got quiet and didn't say anything else for the next few blocks that it took to pull into my driveway. I hit the garage door opener on my father's dashboard and waited with bated breath while Bellamy eased the SUV inside. Part of me expected there to be something awful waiting for us inside, but what I saw looked like every other time I'd seen the inside of my garage. Nothing was out of place.
Great, I thought to myself. Now Bellamy's paranoia was getting to me, too.
When we got inside, I flipped on the lights which flickered to life immediately. At least there were no power outages. Of course we had power, I scolded myself. The garage door wouldn't have opened if we didn't. I needed to calm myself down so I could at least think clearly. I sat my bag down on the counter and turned on the television that was mounted on the wall. The news came on and I saw a wide eyed, frightened news anchor.
"We still have no idea how widespread this disaster will be, so again, I urge everyone to stay inside their homes. Anyone who has a fallout shelter should contact your local police department and report your rations so that the government knows who needs supplies." Her co-anchor added, "Clearly they want to make sure that those who are without get help first. Citizens with shelters will be contacted once those who are in dire need are helped first."
I noticed Bellamy standing at the sink, dumping the water bottles that Kim gave me down the sink. I was so tired, from lack of sleep and nightmares when I did manage to get some rest. All I wanted to do was crawl into my comfortable bed.
"I'm gonna take a shower. There's another bathroom in my parents' room if you want one too."
Bellamy placed the empty bottles on the countertop and followed me upstairs. I directed him to the master suite and showed him where to find towels before heading to my own room. Once inside, my eyes were immediately drawn to the bed. The comforter was still pulled back and disheveled like I'd just crawled out of it only moments before. It was hard to believe that I'd spent so many hours away from home. Every minute that passed, it was even more difficult to gauge the passing of time correctly. I didn't even notice that the shower felt good or that all of the conditioner got rinsed out of my hair. The soft down of my pillow wrapped around my head like a comforting hug. Before I knew what happened, blackness surrounded me.
I don't know how long I was asleep, but I woke up to the feel of Bellamy roughly shaking me.
"Wake up, Clarke." He spoke in a frantic whisper. "Clarke. Come on."
It took a few seconds for me to realize this wasn't part of a dream. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes didn't help clear my vision at all, but as I sat up, I felt cool air hit my bare skin. I grabbed the blanket quickly so that I didn't flash him and wrapped it around my torso. "What's wrong? Is Dad here?"
Bellamy shook his head. "No, it's soldiers. They're going door to door checking all the houses."
My heart leapt into my throat. "They're here?"
Bellamy moved over to my dresser and pulled open several drawers. I watched with confusion while he pulled out handfuls of clothes and scattered them around the room. He grabbed a duffel bag and started shoving clothes into it. Almost like it was an afterthought, he tossed a pair of jeans and a tank top onto my bed.
"Get dressed," he ordered before going into my bathroom. As I pulled the shirt on, I could hear him rifling around in drawers and cabinets. My bedroom had never been the tidiest of places, but it now looked like I'd been robbed or something.
"What are you doing?" I hopped off the bed and was buttoning my jeans as I half ran into the bathroom.
"Dr. Griffin said to keep you safe and hide. That's what we're doing." He didn't bother to look away from his task. I could see a few towels and soap had been tossed onto the top of my clothing. He pushed my make-up bag to the side and opened my medicine cabinet. I had a few months' worth of birth control pills that he tossed in before he moved on to the cabinet under the sink. Embarrassment crept up my checks when he grabbed the two boxes of tampons and tossed them in as well.
"What are you doing?" I repeated through clenched teeth.
He stood straight up and looked at me. He didn't look like some dork in the high school gym anymore. Bellamy was impressive and in complete control. "It might be a while before you can come back here. You don't think you might find a need for this stuff? I hate to break it to you, but I doubt WalMart is going to be open for a while."
I definitely wasn't used to a boy talking so matter-of-factly about stuff like this. Once when Murphy was looking for a lighter in my purse, he accidentally picked up a tampon and dropped it like it was on fire. He expressed several sentiments of disgust before letting the embarrassing subject drop.
"Put on your boots," Bellamy ordered, brushing past me with my overstuffed bag in his hand. I sat on my bed and laced them up tightly.
"Where are we going?"
"I don't know." He opened my closet doors and shoved the hangers out of the way. Shoe boxes stacked up against the back wall along with boxes of school memorabilia that my father insisted I keep 'just in case I'd want them when I was grown up'. He shifted them to the side, deposited my duffel bag in the back corner and quickly stacked everything to hide it. To add to the destruction of my room, he pulled a few clothing items off hangers and let them fall to the closet floor. "Where is the attic?"
"We don't have one," I grumbled, confused about what his plans might be.
Bellamy rolled his eyes. "Basement?"
"Crawl space?"
Now he started pacing, running his hands through his damp hair, muttering words that were only audible to himself. "What about a closet or something small enough that they won't look inside, but big enough that you can fit into?"
My mind raced. There wasn't anything that I could think of right away. I heard a high pitched scream coming from outside of the house. Looking out the window, I could see my neighbor crying out as the soldiers forced her son into a large black van. There were at least a dozen soldiers wearing black and brandishing those awful guns headed straight for my house.
I grabbed Bellamy's hand and ran for my father's bedroom. In their bathroom was a tall linen closet. The bottom three shelves came out to give access to the water lines behind the shower. "I used to hide in here when I was little. It'll be tight..." Carefully, I pulled out the linens and removed the shelves. With little effort, the back wall popped free and I waited for Bellamy to crawl inside.
I couldn't see him, but I could hear him bumping into a pipe and quietly cursing. Replacing the shelves and linens, I squeezed through the small space left open at the bottom before trying to stand up to replace the back wall. It was stifling, with barely room to breathe, let alone move. It took both of us acting like contortionists to slide the wall back into place.
Our bodies flattened against each other, his hands resting lightly around my back while mine were against his chest. My face pressed against his chest, I could hear his heart beating fast and strong. Bellamy's chin was right against the top of my head, and for a minute, it was almost like he was hugging me, the way Noah used to. I closed my eyes, wanting to relive my memories for just a minute. I hadn't allowed anyone other than Murphy to hold me for so long and for once, it felt good to be in contact with another human being.
The moment ended quickly when we heard the front door below us get smashed in. I could hear the heavy footsteps of the soldiers as they clamored up the stairs. Doors were opened and slammed, I could hear things banging to the floor and against walls. When the sounds came closer, I could feel Bellamy's grip around me tighten. His heart raced even faster and I prayed the soldiers outside couldn't hear it. I held my breath when the bathroom door opened.
The voices sounded muffled, as if the soldiers were wearing masks or something. I couldn't tell what they were doing, but I could hear cabinet doors opening and closing. A single tear fell from my eye when the door to the linen closet we were in opened.
"Nothing." One of the soldiers growled.
"They said she'd be here," another replied.
It was my turn to have a heart beat so loud the world could hear it. Bellamy pulled me into him even tighter if that were possible. I could feel his fingertips making small circles on my lower back, trying to calm me down.
"Well she's not!"
Another voice joined the conversation, a woman this time. "Her room is trashed. Looks like she took off pretty fast."
"Couldn't have been very long ago," the first man said. "The shower is still wet in here."
"Her bathroom has been used recently as well. Do you think they are together?"
"I doubt the little brat can manage on her own," the woman replied with a laugh. "I'm sure she is with him. He's the one that's smart enough to find a way to survive out there, not her."
My body stiffened. Anger seeped from every pore. How dare she assume I'm weak and useless? If Bellamy hadn't squeezed my hips, I probably wouldn't bolted from my hiding spot just to smack the bitch.
"Put out an alert. We're looking for Blake and the girl then."
"Did you find her?" I could hear the breathless voice of my father rushing into the large bathroom and joining the conference. "She didn't take my truck."
"No, sir," the woman replied. "She can't be far though."
"Please," my father begged. "You have to find her before she gets the sickness."
"We will do our best. Where would she go?" The tone of the woman's voice reminded me of a concerned cop from a bad television show.
"Bellamy once told me that he wanted to go to Colorado." My father seemed genuinely interested in helping these people hunt us down. "He once accidentally slipped that he hated being trapped here taking care of his aging grandmother and disabled sister. He's got some old friends or something out there and always wanted to go to the mountains."
The woman chuckled a little bit. "From his file, he doesn't seem like the ski-bunny type."
My father interjected his own thoughts on the matter. "I'm not sure skiing was his goal, escaping his life is. My daughter is impulsive and irresponsible enough to convince him to take her with him."
"Any specific place in Colorado? Did he mention any names or specifics?" The woman's voice got a little quieter as she spoke, as if they were leaving the room. I could hear my father respond, but couldn't make out the words anymore.
It wasn't until I hear the bedroom door close that I felt safe to breathe again. We stayed pressed against each other and silent for several minutes. Listening closely, we could hear footsteps clomping down the stairs and eventually, the front door opened and closed leaving the house in stillness. My legs were tired from standing so still for so long. I tried to crouch down to move the wall again, but Bellamy grabbed me again.
"Not yet," he whispered.
"They're gone," I protested. I wanted to get out of here. The dark, tight quarters were starting to unnerve me almost as much as the soldiers did.
I could feel the ends of Bellamy's hair brush against my face as he shook his head. "I watched them leave, but go back inside a few minutes later to catch anyone who was hiding. We have to stay put."
I started to protest again, but he shushed me. "Just for a little while longer," he reassured me.
We stayed, frozen in place, for what seemed like forever. Just like he predicted, a few minutes passed and then the footsteps came back. This time it didn't sound like there were as many soldiers, but they were sweeping the entire house.
I held my breath again and buried my face in Bellamy's chest when they came into the bathroom. My muscles cramped from being so tense, and when the soldiers left again, I couldn't move if I wanted to.
Once Bellamy was sure they were gone, he moved his hands off of me and reached for the wall. We had to twist and turn, but finally, he got the wall to move out of the way. My elbow slammed against the pipes and I cried out with the nerve spasm. Bellamy slowly turned and manipulated my body so that I could crouch down and climb out of the tiny space. When I emerged into the dark bathroom, I took a deep breath of fresh air and waited for Bellamy to get out. When he finally stood up, there was cobwebs stuck in his hair and several scratches on his cheek. One of them was deep enough to allow blood to drip down to his chin.
I grabbed a washcloth and ran it under warm water while he replaced the wall, shelves, and linens so that no one would notice there was a space back there if they ever came back inside. When he finished, I instructed him to lean against the counter so that I could clean the cuts.
Bellamy's arms crossed in front of his body tightly, as if he was fighting the urge to shrink away from the contact. I ignored his unease and cleaned his wounds slowly, taking care to make sure there weren't any rust flakes or dirt left in his skin. After applying some antibiotic cream and a bandage, I started to put away the supplies and then re-thought it. We might need this too, wherever it was that we ended up going.
Before I could put away everything, Bellamy grabbed the washcloth and rinsed his blood from it. Pressing it against my elbow, he pointed out the fact that I was bleeding, too. I washed off the area tossed the rag into the laundry hamper. "Now what?"
Bellamy shrugged and headed toward the door. "Now we decide where to run to."
"I take it Colorado isn't on the short list anymore?"
Bellamy didn't bother responding. Instead, he went into my room and walked straight to the closet. He didn't bother to be careful when he knocked over the stack of boxes to get to the duffel bag he'd hidden earlier. I went to the window and watched as the soldiers were continuing down the street. My father was walking down the street away from the house, talking to someone who looked like he was in charge.
"Dad is still here." I pointed out the window and Bellamy cautiously peeked through the curtains. "Should we go back to the bathroom?"
"No," Bellamy replied quickly. "He's up to something. I just don't know what it is yet."
I stifled a sarcastic laugh. "Yeah, he's trying to help them find us no doubt."
"Your father warned us. He's not the bad guy here."
"So he made up the whole Colorado thing just to throw them off?"
Bellamy's entire body stiffened, his expression falling sadly, but didn't reply. Instead, he quietly watched as the soldiers moved farther and farther away from my house. Eventually, the skies began to grow dark and the only sign of them was the fading taillights of the black vehicles they drove.
I was sitting on my bed, wondering what was next. Normally, I was in complete control and didn't think too far ahead of the heat of the moment. This time, I knew I couldn't be casual about my actions. I'd prove my father wrong about my impulsive irresponsibility if it was the last thing I did. Finally, I couldn't stand Bellamy's silence anymore.
"I'm going to find Murphy." I headed for the door and Bellamy's fingers wrapped around my arm tightly. I hadn't even noticed his movement, but with his long strides, he'd easily reached me before I could leave the room.
"I know he's your boyfriend and you're really worried about him, but you can't just go out there and look for him when you have no idea where he is."
I glared up at his face. "He's not my boyfriend. He's my best friend. You wouldn't know anything about that though would you? How many friends do you have out there to worry about?" I watched his face crumble as he let go of me.
"Your father instructed me to keep you safe, and that means you aren't leaving this house until we have a plan." He walked out of my room and down the stairs before I could register a protest.
When I found him again, he was rifling through my bag and pulled out the blister packs of potassium pills. He popped out two and handed one to me before swallowing one himself. "Take this, just in case this is real out there."
I swallowed it, the glare in my eyes becoming a permanent decoration on my face. Bellamy's eyes widened when a strange sound came from the garage. He grabbed my bag and we both ducked into the living room, ready to run out the back patio door.
I could hear the kitchen door open slowly, a strange grunt, and the sound of something dragging against the ceramic tile floor. I heard the door closing again before my father's voice called out for Bellamy.
He gave me a cautious look and signaled for me to stay put. "If you hear me say run, do it and don't look back. Okay?" His whisper brushed against my cheek. I grabbed the handle of the door, ready to open it and bolt at a moment's notice and nodded.
Slowly and silently, Bellamy crept across the plush carpet toward the kitchen. My father called out one more time. I could tell he was leaving the kitchen and walking toward where we were. My grip tightened, and I unlatched the lock. Bellamy glanced back at me. He grabbed the poker from the fireplace and pressed his body against the wall.
My father appeared around the corner just as Bellamy raised the weapon to strike him. He noticed the glint of metal and threw his hands up to protect his face. Bellamy's biceps bulged, keeping the weapon ready to strike, but not swinging it any farther.
"Tell me what's going on right now, or I swear to God, I'll hit you." Bellamy's voice was strong and menacing. I had no doubt he meant what he said.
"They're gone, you don't have to worry." My father took a few steps back and his eyes swept across the room. When they settled on me, he started to come over to me.
Bellamy stepped in between us, blocking his path. "What's going on?" he repeated, still poised to strike.
My father held his hands up in surrender again and looked at both of us. "I'm not the enemy here. You can put that down, son." He was calm and reassuring, but I saw Bellamy hesitate before lowering the poker. "I don't know what they are doing, truly I don't. But it's not good, whatever it is."
"Was there really a nuclear meltdown at the plant?" Bellamy's conspiracy theories were surfacing again.
Dad nodded and hung his head. "A lot of people are dead, thousands more injured. It wasn't just the Quad Cities either. They hit both coasts too."
"I saw that on the news." I walked over to the couch and sat down on the edge of the cushion. "Who did it?"
"A terrorist group has claimed responsibility already, but it's no one I've ever heard of before." Dad sat next to me and tried to take my hand in his. Instinctively, I pulled away and moved to the chair. He sighed and continued. "The National Army has been called into all areas to secure the population and search for any terrorists that may still be near."
"Why are they looking for me specifically?" I might have gotten myself into a lot of trouble in the past two years, but I was no terrorist.
"They say the group is using teenagers to enact their plans. The Amusement Park Terrorists were all under 25, remember. They said it's the same group and there are a few of your friends from the skate park that have been named. I'm sure they just want to question you, that's all."
"If that was all, why did you tell us to hide?" I was suspicious, but not of the government like Bellamy. It was my father I didn't trust right now.
My father swallowed hard. Any color that was still in his face left it while his chose his words carefully. "I was afraid when I heard about the accident. More afraid of anything in my entire life and I wanted you to be safe just in case my suspicions were right. You know the maximum security prison outside of town?"
I nodded. We'd driven past it many times on our way to the city for some reason or another.
My father continued. "When I was coming back, we were stopped at a roadblock there. While they checked all of our identification, I saw the trucks." His whole body shuddered.
"What trucks?" Bellamy asked, still too tense to sit down.
"Black ones, tactical units like the ones here that they are using to load up people. They were taking them inside the fence line. There had to be over fifty and I imagine they were full."
"There's something else, isn't there?" Bellamy pressed my father when he looked like he wasn't going to say anymore.
"I saw another truck. It was a semi with a long dump trailer on it. It was coming out. There were bodies piled so far deep that I could see limbs hanging out of the tarp." Jake leaned back into the cushions and pressed his hands against his eyes as if he were trying to force the memory away from his mind. "I think they killed the prisoners there to make room for new ones."
"What new prisoners?" Bellamy coaxed.
"Children," my father choked back a sob and looked me dead in the eye. "Kids just like you."
My heart jumped into my throat and Bellamy sat down limply. It took a while for it to sink in and when it did, I wanted to scream.
"They can't do this," I said.
"I told you..."
I cut off Bellamy before he could say the rest. "I have to get to Murphy. He needs to be warned so he can get out of here before they find him."
I stood up and went to the front door. I didn't care who saw me. I was fast, I could outrun anyone who chased me. Besides, they'd already left my neighborhood.
My hand was on the knob when I heard my father's quiet voice call out from behind me. "They've already got him."
I started sweating and shaking. This couldn't be true, I told myself. It was just another sick nightmare and I'd wake up soon to find everything was still like it should be. Murphy would be wrapped up in my blankets, sound asleep and safe. There was no way he was in a truck headed for a prison. I pinched my arm, trying to make myself wake up, but all I accomplished was causing an ugly red welt that matched the pain in my wounded elbow.
The two men behind me continued the conversation, forgetting all about the fact that my world was falling apart completely.
"Where is the computer chip?" My father asked Bellamy.
"It's in my apartment," he replied. "In the bathroom, hidden in the toilet paper roll."
I could hear my father get up but I still couldn't take my hand off the doorknob. It was as if I was frozen, and if I moved I might shatter.
"Good, I'll find a way to get it. I can get the two of you to your grandmother's house. Your mother used to talk about a shelter there?"
Bellamy was walking behind him, answering as they went toward the kitchen. "Yes, there are several hiding spots."
"Good, I need your help to get this upstairs."
I could hear them in the kitchen, fumbling with something that sounded heavy by the groans and dragging noises I heard. I forced myself to turn toward the living room and saw them dragging a large black bag with a zipper that ran the length of it. I swallowed hard when I realized it was a body bag. I wanted to cry out, to scream at the top of my lungs, but the shock of everything still had its hold on me. Instead of doing anything, I watched them drag the thing up the stairs and disappear around the corner headed toward my bedroom.
I left the doorknob behind, unsteady on my feet, and found my way up the stairs. When I shuffled into my bedroom, I saw them stripping the body of a young girl with blond hair. Bellamy was putting my clothes on her stiffened body. I tried not to, but there was nothing to stop me from throwing up all over the floor in front of me.
Bellamy was at my side in an instant and moved me over to sit on my bed. "Put your head down and breathe," he ordered. I shrunk away from his touch, from the hands that were just touching a dead body.
He went back over to help my father as the room spun around me. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Right before my eyes, my father and his lackey were dressing a corpse in my clothes. It wasn't real when Bellamy pulled a pair of my boots on her. I felt like I was stuck in a horror movie when my father shoved the body into the back corner of my closet where Bellamy had hidden my duffel bag only a few hours ago.
"Get me those candles," Jake ordered, pointing toward the numerous scented candles I had on my nightstand to cover up the smell of cigarette smoke. My body was stiff, cold, and unable to move a muscle. I watched them stage the closet and shove the girl's hospital gown into the bag before rolling it up into a small ball. "Go to my truck. I'll meet you down there in a minute."
Bellamy nodded and headed toward the door, only stopping when he realized I wasn't following him. He came over and took my hand in his. Again, I wanted to pull away, but I couldn't. I desperately wanted to stand up and run away, but I must've been in shock and couldn't do anything.
Bellamy crouched in front of me and took my face in his hands. Tilting my head up so that I could look into his soft brown eyes, I could see the concern replacing his determination. "Clarke, come on. We have to get out of here." I could feel his fingers tap on my cheek lightly, as if he was trying to get my attention, but I couldn't do respond with anything more than a stare. "Dr. Griffin?" Bellamy's voice registered panic.
My father moved from his task in the closet and stood over me. "Did she eat or drink anything at the hospital?"
Bellamy shook his head. "Not that I saw. Dr. Bartlett-Griffin had one of her nurses give her some Midazolam, but she just pretended to take it. I saw her spit it all back into the bottle."
From the corner of my eye, I could see my father's frantic movements. "It's more powerful than I imaged," he said.
He pulled a small penlight from his pocket and moved Bellamy out of the way so that he could examine me. The light glared into my brain, but I didn't really care enough to do more than blink it away. The more I wanted to strike out and get away from them, the easier it was to sit back and let the world spin around me.
"How potent is it?" Bellamy asked.
"If she spit it out right away, this can only mean instant absorption. They've had the formula for years now. Who knows what they've done to improve it. We need to get moving. Can you carry her?"
No, I wanted to scream. I didn't need help. I was strong and independent and self-sufficient. Surely I could walk on my own. I put my feet on the floor and pushed myself up. It took every bit of determination I had in me to make my feet move, one in front of the other. It wasn't until I felt Bellamy's arms slide underneath my body that I realized I was still on the bed.
I could feel every step he took, every single time my body bounced or shifted in his arms. I could see the walls of my home, the pictures that sat on the tables, and the furniture that sat empty as though they were waiting to comfort a visitor. I saw the gleaming surfaces of the silver appliances in the kitchen and even the tiny white veins that ran through the marble countertops as we passed by. My head was heavy and I wanted to sleep. Still convinced this was just an awful dream, I let my eyes close and didn't even seem to notice when Bellamy deposited me in the back of my father's SUV.
I heard him open the trunk next to the truck I was in. I could hear him shuffling something around and a heavy thud against the concrete floor. If I listened close enough, I could hear Bellamy's labored efforts dragging the object into the house. Bile filled my throat again. It sounded so much like the first thing my father brought into the house, I just knew in my heart that it was another body. I tried to force the thought away from my mind and soon enough, all I saw was my favorite memory.
Noah was sitting on the hood of his car, watching me come out of the front door of my house. I twirled in a circle, letting the beautiful gown's fabric dance around my body. The smile I wore wasn't nearly as big as his when he pushed himself off of the car and gathered me in his strong arms. You look like a Princess, he said before tipping my chin up to kiss me. I could taste his lips and smell the cologne he wore. The warm cotton shirt collar brushed against my collarbone when he wrapped his arms around me even tighter and lifted me in the air. We have an audience, he said. I told him I loved him and that I wanted the whole world to know it. I love you too, Clarke. Forever.
Tears fell from the corners of my eyes and left a cold streak on my cheeks before spilling onto the carpeted floor of the SUV underneath my paralyzed body. It wasn't fair that I couldn't move but I could cry. The frustration built inside me, overpowered by the grief of what my new reality was becoming. My friends were probably dead or imprisoned. I had to run away and had nowhere to go. I wasn't strong, or independent, or reckless.
I was scared.
The hatch to the SUV opened, letting in cool air. The light behind them was bright, leaving only their silhouettes visible to me, but I didn't care. I pressed my face into the carpet and tried my best to stop crying. Bellamy climbed in and laid down beside me, curling his body so that our bodies took up at little space as possible. A blanket covered us from head to toe and I felt my father carefully place other objects on top of it.
I could hear that door close and then my father climbed in behind the wheel and started the engine. "I can get you to the farm, but I'll have to leave right away. You understand what I need you to do, right?"
I could feel Bellamy's words vibrate against my chest when he responded. "Yes sir."
My body shook with fear and anguish as we pulled out of the garage. Bellamy moved the blanket to expose our faces and he strained to watch out of the darkened window. In the dark outside, I could see the growing glow in the sky around us. I could smell smoke on Bellamy's t-shirt and wondered what happened. My father's voice broke the silence.
He sounded more frantic than I'd ever heard him before. "My house is on fire!" he yelled at someone. "My files, everything! You have to come!" There was silence for a few moments before he spoke again. I could tell he was on the phone with someone. "What do you mean all of the units are busy? This is my house we're talking about! Do you understand who I am?" He paused again before yelling at whoever was on the other end of the call. "Fine, but I will hold you personally responsible if I lose everything. Get that message to General Herrick."
I could hear him drop the phone onto the seat next to him. The vibration of tires beneath us lulled me into a quiet place. Even though I couldn't see what was happening, I began to understand what was going on. The bodies were replacements for me and Bellamy. My father placed them there and burned the house down so that everyone would think we were dead. Even if Murphy was still alive, he would think I wasn't, so there was no way he would ever try to find me. I sniffed back tears again and tried not to think about it anymore. Even when Bellamy gently wiped the tears off of my cheeks, I felt completely alone.