chapter four
SECRETS NEVER STAY SECRET
"and let my change of heart occur."
"The grounders cauterized the wound. It saved his life." Clarke said, changing Jasper's bandages. Finn walked in circles around the room, "Yeah, saved his life so they could string him up for live bait."
Evelynn yawned as she pressed a cool cloth to Jasper's head in attempt to keep his fever down. She had been doing the same thing for three days straight with barely any sleep in between. Nobody could ignore the fact that Jasper wasn't exactly getting any better, but as long as he was breathing, they had hope.
Clarke's voice quickly became serious. There was a lot of that going on lately, "This is infected. He could be septic."
"Any progress on using the wristbands to contact the Ark?" Monty's mind was clearly somewhere else as he stared absentmindedly at Jasper. "Monty?"
He blinked and checked back into reality, "That would be a firm no."
Clarke ran her hands through her hair anxiously, "My mom would know what to do."
Evelynn put her hand out to grab Clarke's, "You do know what to do,"
Clarke looked into Evelynn's eyes knowingly as Wells showed up, "How can I help?"
Clarke didn't look at him, "Help hold Jasper down."
Finn knew what was happening as well and put a knife in the fire. Monty looked between everyone frantically, "I'm not going to like this, am I?"
Finn handed Clarke the red hot knife and everyone gathered around to hold Jasper down. As soon as the knife hit his flesh, Jasper let out a heart wrenching scream that sounded through the whole camp.
Evelynn quickly checked Jasper's pulse as he stopped screaming and his head started to fall to the side.
Clarke yelled out through clenched teeth, "Hold him still! I need to cut away the infected flesh."
Octavia burst through the dropship within second sliding next to Clarke, "Stop it! You're killing him!" Finn jumped in quick, "She's trying to save his life."
"She can't," the voice of Bellamy Blake rang out through the dropship. Evelynn felt her blood boil. To put it lightly, every single time Bellamy Blake uttered a word, she wanted to rip his head off. From his constant power trips these past three days to his tyrannical ways of dealing with camp, Evelynn was so done with his selfish ass.
Clarke spoke up, anger in her voice. "We didn't drag him through miles of woods just to let him die."
Bellamy ran his mouth again, "The kids a goner. If you can't see that, you're deluded. He's making people crazy."
Clarke lost her temper, "I'm sorry if Jasper is an inconvenience to you, but this isn't the Ark. Down here, every life matters."
Bellamy lowered his voice causing Evelynn to shutter, "Take a look at him. He's a lost cause."
Evelynn glared daggers, "You're accomplishing nothing by being here, Bellamy. Go away."
He looked at her straight in the eyes before leaving the dropship, "Fine. But if he's not better by tomorrow, I'll kill him myself."
Evelynn bit the inside of her cheeks as her anger towards Bellamy built inside her. She didn't really like hating him, sometimes he seemed like a decent guy. But most of the time, Evelynn saw him as the self-centered jerk who is very vocal about all his wrong opinions.
Besides, every good story needs a bad guy.
When Bellamy left, Evelynn audibly sighed and closed her eyes, exhaustion catching up to her. Nerves from Jasper's condition and anger about Bellamy's existence where causing her more stress than she cared to admit.
She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder, It was Finn, "You need to take a break," Evelynn would usually protest, but she was in no mood to spend another second in the stuffy dropship, so she mindlessly nodded left without another word.
When she stepped into the sun and sucked in a deep breath, she instantly felt better. Evelynn scanned the perimeter of the camp confused when she noticed the lack of Bellamy and his group of dimwits, but she wasn't complaining.
She ran up to a boy that she recognized from school years ago, Atom, who she found grabbing a knife from a box near the forest. "Hey, where are you going?"
He looked at her suspiciously, "Did Octavia send you?" Evelynn laughed a little and shook her head 'no'. She found Atom and Octavia's sudden infatuation almost entertaining.
"I'm going hunting with the group." He smirked as he took his knife and dangled it close to her face. Evelynn quickly snatched the knife and dangled it in his face like he did to her before he could react, "Can I come?"
Atom let out a breathy laugh, "With reflexes like that, hell yeah." Evelynn smiled with pride and followed him as they ventured deeper into the forest.
"What the hell is she doing here?" Bellamy asked Atom when he noticed Evelynn approaching, speaking as if she wasn't there.
Evelynn liked that she was getting under his skin, so she happily bounced on her heels, "I'm hunting,"
Bellamy scoffed, "Just stay out of my way and let the real hunters do the work, okay?"
Evelynn scoffed, "You say 'real hunters' as if you've done this before."
Atom laughed and turned to her as she continued, "Hello, reality check: We've lived on the Ark our whole lives, no one has ever hunted before."
Atom laughed as Bellamy clenched his jaw and glared Evelynn down.
"Hey you two, stop bickering and shut up," a voice called out in a whisper-yell. The boy, Jones, pointed to a wild boar walking through the grass.
Bellamy crouched down and readied himself to attack, shushing everyone as they stepped on branches. Evelynn got up near him and whispered with her knife out, "Move over, freckles,"
He stared at her incredulously, "And what the hell do you think you're doing, Ortega?"
She looked at him again innocently, "Hunting. Come on Bellamy, we've been over this. Try to keep up."
He tried so hard to ignore her teasing, but it was obvious that he was heated by her comments. They were both on the verge of throwing their weapons at the boar when a twig snapped loudly behind them.
Evelynn dropped her knife with a disgruntled sigh, barely missing her toes while Bellamy managed to turn himself around, throw his axe, and strike a tree right next to a young girl with fear in her eyes.
Evelynn followed Atom and Bellamy as they approached they girl while the others chased the boar.
"Who the hell are you?" Bellamy's voice was almost intimidating.
The little girl didn't react, "Charlotte,"
"I almost killed you," He emphasized, but she still didn't seem fazed, "Why aren't you back at camp?"
"Well with that guy who was dying—" Evelynn gritted her teeth at the mention of Jasper, "I just couldn't listen anymore."
"There are Grounders out here, it's not safe for a little girl," Atom said.
Charlotte turned to him with venom, "I'm not little,"
Evelynn watched Bellamy's face soften, which seemingly was a very rare occurrence, "Okay then," he pulled out a knife from his pocket, "but you can't hunt without a weapon."
Charlotte grabbed the knife gingerly. Bellamy continued a smile on his face, "Ever kill something before?" Evelynn elbowed him in the ribs. Who asks that kind of question?
Charlotte shook her head 'no' and Bellamy smiled again, "Who knows? Maybe you're good at it."
They walked further into the woods to continue to hunt with Charlotte quick on their heels. Evelynn quickly ran up to Bellamy, "'Ever kill something before?'" She spoke in a deep tone mocking his voice, "Jesus, Bellamy! You give little girls stuffed toys and hair accessories, not knives."
He looked down and smirked, happy to be the one teasing her now, "Welcome to the Ground, sweetheart."
»»————- ★ ————-««
Hunting wasn't going very well, to say the least.
Charlotte was the least stealthy person in the group, stepping on every twig or dry leaf that she could, as if she was trying to make their lives impossible. But Bellamy couldn't get mad at her.
Evelynn walked along side Charlotte watching as she twirled her knife in her palm. "Careful," Evelynn warned, "You don't want to hurt yourself." Charlotte looked up at her with another blank stare, "I'm 12, not 2." Bellamy let out a loud laugh to which Evelynn just rolled her eyes.
"Hey, check it out," Jones pointed at the ground. By their feet hundreds of little bugs and beetles and small rodents scurried quickly past them. A few seconds after, hundreds of birds swooped down flying past them in a frenzy.
In the distance they could all see some sort of yellow fog coming straight towards them. Evelynn's heart plummeted, fear taking over her body. Her voice broke as she tried to speak, "Um, guys—"
Bellamy's voice was quiet at first, "Run," but no one moved, so he spoke again with more urgency and volume, "Run!"
Everyone started sprinting as fast as they could trying to outrun the yellow storm that followed them. "There are some caves this way!" Bellamy called out to the group pointing up a small hill.
Bellamy fell back for a second to grab Charlotte and Evelynn's shoulders to push them in front of him so he could make sure they were okay.
Not too much later they found the cave. The air in front of Evelynn began to look yellow and the next breath she took stung her throat and she started coughing. She quickly pushed Charlotte into the cave and turned to find Bellamy standing still.
"Bellamy, get in!" He still didn't budge. Then she heard someone's voice calling out for him.
He pointed out, his hand going straight into the fog, "Someone's out there!"
Evelynn felt her heart squeeze, she didn't want to leave anyone out there anymore than he did, "I'm sure they'll be fine," she pulled on his arm to get him to come into the cave, her tone desperate, "Bellamy, you can't help anyone if you die in the fog."
He gave in and let Evelynn pull him into the cave. When he was finally inside, she let out a relieved sigh, her breathing labored and wheezy as she sat down immediately.
Bellamy looked at her with concern, "You alright?"
Evelynn attempted to take in another breath with her hand on her chest, "Yeah, I'm fine."
He nodded, not exactly believing her, but he turned his attention to Charlotte who looked shaken up. Evelynn focused on steadying her breathing and ignoring her stinging throat while Bellamy told Charlotte to rest.
She watched as he took off his jacket and placed it over her gently. She smiled to herself. But her smile quickly fell when Bellamy used his hand to sit himself down against the wall and he hissed in pain.
Evelynn shot up and moved over closer to him, "What happened?"
He tucked his hand under his other arm, "Nothing,"
Evelynn looked at him, eyebrow raised, "Bellamy,"
He shook his head, "I'm fine, it's you I'm worried about."
She rolled her eyes, "Watch." She sucked in a nice deep breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth, "See? I'm totally fine."
"Good," is all he muttered.
Evelynn moved herself right in front of him sitting on her knees. "Bellamy, let me see your hand."
He was stubborn and shook his head again, but Evelynn was even more stubborn, "Bellamy. Hand. Now."
He sighed and laid his injured hand on top of her open palm, "You're pushy,"
She laughed quietly, "You make me pushy."
Evelynn winced as she saw that his hand was pretty red with a couple of blisters already forming. Evelynn sighed, "I don't have any bandages—"
She was cut off by the sound of Bellamy ripping off the bottom fabric of his shirt. "Or we can just do that."
Evelynn pulled out her canister of water and lightly soaked the fabric. She grabbed his hand in hers again and very gently wrapped the makeshift bandage over the burns.
»»————- ★ ————-««
The moon was now in the sky but there was still some acid fog floating by the cave. Evelynn was absolutely exhausted and could feel her eyelids drooping, but she didn't want to let herself fall asleep. She needed to be awake in case something happened.
She snapped out of her sleepy daze when Charlotte started screaming. Bellamy jumped awake and was right next to Charlotte within seconds. He shook her a bit, "Hey, Charlotte, wake up,"
As soon as she realized it was a dream she sat up embarrassed, "I'm sorry."
Bellamy spoke softly, "Does it happen often?" Charlotte let out a distressed sigh, but that was answer enough. "What are you afraid of?" There was a pained look on Charlotte's face so Bellamy cut her off, "You know what? It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what you do about it."
Charlotte stared at him as if he said the dumbest thing she had ever heard, "But, I'm asleep."
Bellamy lightly chuckled, "Fears are fears. Slay your demons when you're awake, they won't be there to get you when you sleep."
She narrowed her eyes, "Yeah, but how?"
Evelynn sat back on the wall, very content watching Bellamy talk to Charlotte.
"You can't afford to be weak. Down here, weakness is death. Fear is death." They sat in silence letting the blunt truth of his words sink in. A smile returned to his face, "Let me see that knife I gave you."
Charlotte handed over her knife and watched Bellamy hold it tight, "Now, when you feel afraid, you hold tight to that knife and you say, 'Screw you, I'm not afraid.'"
He handed the knife back to Charlotte who copied his movements, speaking very softly, "Screw you, I'm not afraid." Bellamy gave her a look, raising his eyebrows and smiling, she repeated with more confidence, "Screw you, I'm not afraid."
Bellamy patted her knee satisfied, "Slay your demons kid, then maybe you can get some sleep." Charlotte nodded and laid down again, almost instantly falling asleep, knife in her grip.
When Evelynn heard her soft snores, she decided to speak up, "You're really good with her."
Bellamy turned to face her, confused, his statement coming out as more of a question, "Thanks."
"Were you like that with Octavia?" Evelynn asked, genuinely curious.
Bellamy gazed past her thoughtfully, "The circumstances were very different, but for the most part, yeah."
She nodded, "What is it like? You know, having a sibling?"
Evelynn watched as his jaw visibly clenched before he spoke, "Scary, because I was always worried about her, being the second child and everything. But it's rewarding too. I owe Octavia my life."
"That's really sweet," Evelynn said.
He turned back to her with a nod, "It's really true."
She smiled at him for a second longer than normal. He knitted his eyebrows together in confusion, "What's wrong?"
Evelynn just laughed, "Nothing's wrong. It's just nice, you being so... gentle."
He smirked almost mockingly, "Gentle?"
She laughed again, "I just mean, it's nice to see you when you're not yelling orders and without your 'tough guy' attitude."
He nodded, "It's nice to see you not glaring daggers at me."
"You noticed that?" She replied sheepishly.
"Please. If looks could kill, I would've been dead days ago."
»»————- ★ ————-««
Maybe it was the way he acted around Charlotte or the quiet and kind demeanor he held as they were alone in the cave, but Evelynn found herself confused.
He seemed like an almost completely different person.
She was still trying to figure out who he was and what caused him to act the way he did, but she thought she had at least one piece of the puzzle.
Evelynn always had a good eye for detail. She was able to figure out things—people—as if solving a puzzle.
She learned the skill when she was young, as it seemed as if no one would tell her things straight. She figured out that her parents would spell words in front of her when they didn't want her to know what they were saying. When she figured out that her mom was sick.
This puzzle was a lot harder.
The gun, the guards uniform, keeping his head down on the Ark, taking control on the ground, the wristbands.
"I think I figured you out." Evelynn broke out randomly moving to the other side of the wall to be able to see Bellamy's face.
Bellamy chuckled, "What does that mean?"
Evelynn bit down on her bottom lip, "I figured out how you got to the Ground."
He stared at her with a bit of confusion and fear, his voice gaining back a serious tone, "Continue,"
She fiddled with the red fabric of her shirt, not looking him in the eye, "You—" she paused hesitating, but continued, "—you shot someone. Someone important. Thats the distraction you caused—that's why you had the gun and why you don't want the rest of the Ark to come down here."
She glanced up at him but he was now the one looking down. Maybe it was the way he was shifting uncomfortably on the ground or the way we was chewing on his lip, but she knew she was at least somewhat right.
Evelynn didn't want to hurt him, but she also was curious. She spoke with a whisper, "Who?"
He didn't look at her, his face twisted up, "I can't tell you,"
Evelynn slowly moved to sit closer to him, "You're going to be stuck in this cave with me with nowhere to go for a while, you might as well talk to me."
He smirked slightly but it quickly faded as he looked at her as he fiddled with his bandaged hand, "You're not going to give this up, are you?" Evelynn shook her head 'no' as he looked down at his lap nearly mumbling, "I made a deal with one of the guards. He told me if I shot Jaha then he could get me on the dropship."
She blinked quickly in shock, "Jaha? Like Chancellor Jaha?"
He sat up straight now, making direct eye contact, "I didn't want to kill him. You have to know that. But I had to protect Octavia."
Evelynn nodded slowly trying to put herself in his place. She never had a sibling so it was hard to fathom. She couldn't seem to find any words so say so she stayed silent.
"You're not scared of me?" He asked as if he was surprised she didn't freak out or scream or flat out attack him.
Evelynn looked at him speaking honestly, "You did one bad thing. It was a really bad thing, I'm not saying what you did was okay. But, I get it. And Bellamy, one bad decision doesn't make you a bad person."
He put his head back against the cold cave wall. He was sure that he was a bad person, chastising and torturing himself over it. He was a monster. But now there's this girl in front of him who isn't scared. Who understands.
"Do you feel better?"
He gave her a half-smile, "Sure,"
There was a bit of silence where Bellamy contemplated talking to her about it or not, but since they were alone together, he didn't see the harm. After all, he just confessed to murdering the Chancellor.
"Okay your turn," Bellamy told her. Evelynn tilted her head in confusion. "I told you a secret, now you tell me one of yours."
"Actually, I figured out your secret by myself." Evelynn corrected to which Bellamy rolled his eyes.
"Okay, okay," Evelynn sighed, "What do you want to know?"
"I want to know what you did to get locked up."
Evelynn gulped, still not at all proud of her story, "Um well, about two years ago I guess I attacked some guards."
"Oh, you're that girl." Bellamy nodded knowingly.
"That girl?" Evelynn repeated with an edge in her voice.
"No, no, no. Not like that," Bellamy defended, "Okay, when you were arrested, I was training to be a guard. One day, three or so guards came back from an arrest all bruised and bloodied up. They said they arrested a crazy young girl. We all had a good laugh about a little girl beating them up, until the fourth guard came in with a broken nose and the fifth was stuck in the medical wing with a broken jaw. People were afraid of you. You're pretty famous actually."
Evelynn looked down at her lap, visibly ashamed of what happened, it's not really the thing you want to be 'famous' for. He sat silently and watched her before moving to sit next to her, "Evelynn, you're not scary or dangerous. That's why I want to know, what happened?"
She flinched, "No one has ever asked me that."
He smirked a little, "You're going to be stuck in this cave with me with nowhere to go for a while, you might as well talk to me."
She lightly slapped him on the knee for mocking her before continuing. She sucked in a deep breath, she was not going to get emotional. Not in front of Bellamy Blake.
"My mom had a really bad heart condition, and I went to visit my mom in the hospital everyday. And then one day I went to her room, she was—" she paused to take another breath, tears threatening to spill, but she refused them. She had never said any of this out loud to anyone, "I just lost it. I genuinely don't remember what happened, just a lot of people and a lot of yelling. And then they took me away."
Evelynn paused sucking a deep breath trying to avoid emotion. She pushed it back with a labored laugh and tucked some strands of hair behind her ear, "I've never told anyone this before. And honestly I don't know why I'm telling you."
Bellamy watched her intensely as she fiddled with her shirt fabric again, "Everyone thinks I'm crazy and dangerous, and I hate that I hurt people. But sometimes my anger and emotions just consume me."
She felt him nod beside her, "I know the feeling."
She gave a half-hearted laugh, "Maybe we're both crazy."
She looked at him looking at her, a few brown curls falling in front of his eyes, his voice soft, "Yeah, maybe you're right."
And in that moment she felt something shift.
Suddenly, Bellamy Blake wasn't the villain of her story, just another character—maybe even the good guy.