The 100

23 Bellamy

He’d start with letting the bastards starve. Then, maybe when they were all so weak with hunger that they had to crawl over to him and beg for forgiveness, then he’d consider going out to hunt. But they’d have to make do with a squirrel or something else small—no way was he killing another deer for them.

Bellamy had spent the night unable to sleep, watching the infirmary tent in order to make damn sure no one got anywhere near his sister. Now that it was morning, he’d resorted to pacing around the perimeter of the camp. He had too much energy to sit still.

Bellamy stepped over the tree line, feeling his body relax slightly as the shadows washed over him. Over the past f e w weeks, he’d discovered that he enjoyed the company of trees more than people. He shivered as a breeze swept across the back of his neck, and looked up. The patches of sky visible through the branches were beginning to turn gray, and the air suddenly felt different—almost damp. He lowered his head and kept walking. Perhaps Earth had had enough of their bullshit already and was initiating a second nuclear winter.

He turned and began drifting in the direction of the stream, where there were usually animal tracks to follow. But then a flash of movement in a tree a few meters away caught his attention, and he paused.

Something bright red was waving in the wind. It might’ve been a leaf, except there wasn’t anything else close to that shade nearby. Bellamy squinted, then took a few steps forward, feeling a strange prickle on the back of his neck. It was Octavia’s hair ribbon. It made absolutely no sense—she hadn’t been out in the woods for days—but he’d recognize it anywhere. There were some things you could never forget. The halls were dark as Bellamy scurried up the stairs to their flat. It had been worth staying out after curfew, as long as he didn’t get caught. He’d broken through an old air shaft, too small for anyone but a child to crawl through, into an abandoned storage room he’d heard about on C deck. It was full of all kinds of treasures: a brimmed hat topped with a funny-looking bird; a box that said EIGHT MINUTE ABS on it, whatever that meant; and a red ribbon he’d found wrapped around the handle of a strange wheeled bag. Bellamy had traded his other discoveries in exchange for ration points, but he’d kept the ribbon, even though it would have fed them for a month. He wanted to give it to Octavia.

He pressed his thumb to the scanner and carefully opened the door, then froze. Someone was moving inside. His mother was normally asleep by now. He took a silent step forward, just enough to hear better, and felt himself relax as a familiar sound filled his ears. His mother was singing Octavia’s favorite lullaby, something she used to do all the time, sitting on the floor and singingn theht red was through the door of the closet until Octavia fell asleep. Bellamy sighed with relief. It didn’t sound like she was in the mood to scream at him, or worse, have one of her endless crying fits that made Bellamy want to hide in the closet with his sister.

Bellamy smiled as he crept into the main room and saw his mother kneeling on the floor. “Hush, little baby, don’t you cry, mama’s gonna buy you a star in the sky. And if that star can’t carry a tune, mama’s going buy you a piece of the moon.” Another sound drifted through the darkness, a faint wheeze. Was the ventilation system acting up again? He took a step forward. “And if the moon ever loses its shine, mama’s gonna buy you—”

Bellamy heard the sound again, although this time, it sounded more like a gasp.

“Mom?” He took another step. She was crouched over something on the floor. “Mom,” he bellowed, lunging forward.

His mother had her hands around Octavia’s neck, and even in the darkness, Bellamy could see that his sister’s face was blue. He knocked his mother to the side and scooped Octavia into his arms. For one heart-stopping second, he was sure she was dead, but then she twitched and started coughing. Bellamy exhaled, and his heart began thumping wildly.

“We were just playing a game,” his mother said faintly. “She couldn’t sleep. So we were playing a game.…”

Bellamy held Octavia close, making soothing noises, staring at the wall as a strange feeling came over him. He wasn’t sure what his mother had been doing, but he was sure she was going to try again. Bellamy rose onto the balls of his feet and stretched his arm toward the ribbon. His fingers wrapped around the familiar satin, but as he tried to pull it down, he realized the ornament wasn’t just caught on the branch—it had been tied there.

Had someone found the ribbon and tied it to the tree for safekeeping? But why wouldn’t they just have brought it back to camp? He absentmindedly ran his hand down the branch, letting the rough bark dig into his skin as he traced a line from the branch down to the trunk. But then he froze. His fingers were hovering on the edge of a dip in the trunk, where a chunk of wood had been scooped out. There was something sticking out—a bird’s nest, maybe?

Bellamy grabbed on to the edge and pulled, watching in horror as the medicine he and Clarke had discovered came tumbling out. The pills, syringes, bottles—all of it was scattered in the grass by his feet. His brain raced for an explanation, anything to staunch the panic welling up in his chest.

He sank to the grass with a groan and closed his eyes.

It was true. Octavia had taken the medicine. She’d hidden it in the tree and used her hair ribbon as a marker so she could find it again. But he couldn’t think why she’d done it. Had she worried about what would happen if one of them had gotten sick? Maybe she’d been planning to take the supplies with them when they set out on their own.

But then Graham’s words rang in his ears. We can’t let anyone else die just because your little sister’s a drug addict. The boy assigned to stand guard outside the infirmary tent had fallen asleep. He barely managed to scramble to his feet and mumble a quick “Hey, you can’t go in there” before Bellamy burst through the flap. He jerked his head around, confirming that it was empty except for Clarke’s sleeping sick friend, then strode over to where Octavia was sitting cross-legged on her cot, braiding her hair.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he hissed.

“What are you talking about?” Her voice was a mixture of boredom and irritation, as if he were pestering her about schoolwork like he always used to when checking up on her in the care center.

Bellamy threw the hair ribbon down on her cot, wincing as he saw horror rush to Octavia’s face. “I didn’t…,” she stammered. “It wasn’t…”

“Cut the bullshit, O,” he snapped. “Now you can finish braiding your goddamn hair while a girl is dying in front of you.”

Octavia’s eyes darted to Thalia, then shifted down. “I didn’t think she was really that sick,” she said softly. “Clarke had already given her medicine. By the time I realized she needed more, it was too late. I can’t confess now. You saw how they were. I didn’t know what they’d do to me.” When she looked up again, her deep-blue eyes were filled with tears. “Even you hate me now, and you’re my brother.”

Bellamy sighed and sat down next to his sister. “I don’t hate you.” He grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I just don’t understand. Why’d you do it? The truth this time, please.”

Octavia fell silent, and he could feel her skin growing clammy as she began to tremble. “O?” He released her hand.

“I needed them,” she said, her voice small. “I can’t sleep without them.” She paused and closed her eyes. “At first, it was just at night. I kept having these terrible dreams, so the nurse at the care center gave me medicine to help me sleep, but then it got worse. There were times when I couldn’t breathe, when it felt like the whole universe was closing in on me, crushing me. The nurse wouldn’t give me any more medicine, even when I asked, so I started stealing pills. It was the only thing that made me feel better.”

Bellamy stared at her. “That’s what you were caught stealing?” he asked slowly, the realization overtaking him. “Not food for the younger kids in the care center. Pills.”

Octavia didn’t say anything, just nodded, her eyes full of tears.

“O,” Bellamy sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I know how much you worry about me.” She took a deep breath. “I know how you want to protect me all the time. I didn’t want you to feel like you’d failed.”

Bellamy felt pain radiating out from a spot behind his heart. He didn’t know which hurt more: that his sister was a drug addict, or that she hadn’t told him the truth because he’d been so blinded by his insane need to watch over her. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse. “So what do we do now?” he asked. For the first time in his life, he had no idea how to help his sister. “What will happen when we give the medicine back?”

“I’ll be okay. I just need to learn how to live without them. It’s already easier here.” She reached out and took his hand, giving him a strange, almost pleading look. “Do you wish you hadn’t come here for me?”

“No,” Bellamy said firmly, shaking his head. “I ju hefull ofst need some time to process everything.” He rose to his feet, then looked back at his sister. “But you need to make sure Clarke gets the medicine. You have to be the one to tell her. I’m serious, O.”

“I know.” She nodded, then turned to look at Thalia and seemed to deflate a little. “I’ll do it tonight.”

“Okay.” Sighing, Bellamy strode out of the tent and into the clearing. When he reached the tree line, he took a deep breath, allowing the damp air to seep through his lungs into his aching chest. He tilted his head back to let the wind wash over his flushed skin. Now that the sky was unobstructed by trees, it looked even darker, almost black. Suddenly, a line of jagged light flashed across the sky, followed by a violent, resounding crack that made the earth shudder. Bellamy jumped, and screams filled the clearing. But they were quickly drowned out by another deafening boom, this one louder than the first, like the sky was about to tumble to Earth.

Then something did start to fall. Drops of liquid were cascading down his skin, dripping off his hair, and quickly seeping into his clothes. Rain, Bellamy realized, real rain. He tilted his face up toward the sky, and for a moment, his wonder drowned out all the rest—his anger at Graham and Wells and Clarke, his concern for his sister, the screams of the idiot kids who didn’t know that rain was harmless. He closed his eyes, letting the water wash away the dirt and sweat caked on his face. For a second, he let himself imagine that the rain could wash everything away: the blood, the tears, the fact that he and Octavia had failed each other. They could have a clean start, try again.

Bellamy opened his eyes. He was being ridiculous, he knew. The rain was only water, and there was no such thing as a clean start. That was the thing about secrets—you had to carry them with you forever, no matter what the cost.