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“Let goof her!” Bellamy bellowed. He dove for Graham, but Wells stepped in front of him, and someone else wrenched his arm behind his back. “Get off of me!” Bellamy thrashed wildly as he tried to wrench himself free, but there were too many sets of hands holding him down, locking him in place.
“Look,” Bellamy continued, trying in vain to keep his voice steady, “she’s been injured ever since we landed. Do you really think she was up to stealing medicine and dragging it off somewhere outside of camp?”
“She was up to following me into the woods yesterday,” Wells answered calmly. “We walked pretty far together.”
Bellamy thrashed against the arms holding him, unable to quell his rage as the implication of Wells’s words sank in. If he so much as laid a hand on his sister…
“Just take it easy,” Wells said. He nodded at a Walden boy, who stepped forward with a coil of rope.
“Then tell that creep to take his disgusting hands off my sister,” Bellamy spat.
Clarke suddenly appeared, pushing her way through the crowd. “What’s going on?” she asked, her eyes wide when they landed on Octavia. “Are you okay?” Octavia shook her head, tears streaming down her face.
“We just need Octavia to tell us where the medicine is,” Wells said calmly, “and then we’ll get this all sorted out.”
“I don’t have it.” Octavia’s voice had grown ragged.
“We know you’re lying,” Graham hissed. Octavia yelped as he tightened his hold on her wrist, and Bellamy struggled against the hands that held him. “You’re only making things worse.”
“So what are you going to do?” Bellamy spat at Wells. “Keep us both tied up?”
“Exactly,” Wells said, his jaw tightening. “We’ll keep Octavia locked up until she tells us where she hid the medicine, or we find evidence pointing to another suspect.”
“Lock her up?” Bellamy made a show of looking around the clearing. “And how do you propose to do that?”
Clarke stepped forward, a tense look on her face. “I spend most of the day in the infirmary tent, anyway,” she said curtly. “Octavia can stay there. I’ll keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn’t sneak off.”
“Are you serious?” Graham snorted. “She stole the medicine from under your nose, and your plan is to keep an eye on her?”
Clarke turned to Graham with a scowl. “If that’s not good enough for you, Graham, youu, , an can post a guard outside the door.”
“This is ridiculous.” Bellamy’s whole body was begi
“You’re all insane.” His mouth curled into a snarl as he turned back to face Graham. “You set her up. Youstole those meds.”
Graham snickered and shot a look at Asher. “I told you he was going to say that.”
The sky was growing dark, the clouds weaving into a blanket of gray. Bellamy took a deep breath. “Fine. Believe whatever you want. Just untie Octavia and let us go. We’ll leave camp for good. We won’t even take any of your precious supplies.” He glanced at his sister, but she didn’t look happy at the idea; her features seemed frozen in shock. “You’ll never have to think about us again.”
A fleeting look of pain crossed Clarke’s face before she retreated behind her mask of steely resolve. She’ll get over it, Bellamy thought bitterly. She’d find someone else to go traipsing through the woods with her.
“I don’t think so,” Graham said, sneering. “Not until we get back the meds. We can’t let anyone else die just because your little sister’s a drug addict.”
The accusation made every nerve in Bellamy’s body sizzle until his fingers itched to close around Graham’s neck.
“Enough,” Clarke said, shaking her head at Graham and raising a hand. “I want the medicine back more than anyone, but you’re not helping.”
“Fine,” Bellamy snapped. “But I’mtaking her into the tent. And no oneis going to put their hands on her again.”
He wrenched free from his captors and strode over to Octavia, grabbing her hand as he locked eyes with Graham. “You’re going to regret this,” Bellamy said in a low, dangerous voice. He wrapped his arm around his trembling sister and led her toward the infirmary tent, a grim determination overtaking him.
He’d do whatever it took to protect her. He always had.
It was the third guard visit in the last few months. They had been coming more often that year, and Octavia was getting bigger. Bellamy tried not to think about what would happen next time, but even he knew they wouldn’t be able to hide her forever.
“I can’t believe they looked in the closet,” his mother said hoarsely, staring at Octavia, whom Bellamy had carried to the couch. “Thank god she didn’t cry.”
Bellamy looked over at his toddler sister. Everything about her was miniaturized, from her tiny sock-clad feet to her impossibly small fingers. Everything except her round cheeks and enormous eyes, which always glistened with tears she never seemed to shed. Was it normal for a two-year-old to be so quiet? Did she somehow know what would happen if someone found her?
Bellamy walked over and sat down next to Octavia, who turned her head to stare at him with her deep-blue eyes. He reached forward to touch one of her dark, glossy curls. She looked just l lo his cike that doll head he’d found while scavenging for relics in the storage room. He’d thought about taking it home to Octavia, but decided the ration points he’d get for it at the Exchange were more important. He also hadn’t been sure whether it was right to give a baby a disembodied doll’s head, no matter how pretty it was.
He gri
“It was too close,” his mother was muttering to herself as she paced back and forth. “Too close… too close… too close.”
“Mom. Are you okay?” Bellamy asked, feeling his panic return. She walked over to the sink, which was still spilling over with dishes despite the fact that this morning had been their water hour. He hadn’t been able to finish before the guards came. It would be another five days before they’d have the chance to wash them again.
There was a faint crash down the hallway, followed by a peal of laughter. His mother gasped and looked around the flat. “Get her back in the closet.”
Bellamy put his arm in front of Octavia. “It’s fine,” he said. “The guards were just here. They’re not going to be back for a while.”
His mother took a step forward. Her eyes were wide and full of terror. “Get her out of here!”
“No,” Bellamy said, sliding off the couch and standing in front of Octavia. “That wasn’t even the guards. It was just someone messing around. She doesn’t need to go back in yet.”
Octavia whimpered but fell silent as their mother fixed her with a wild-eyed stare.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” their mother was muttering, ru
Bellamy glanced at Octavia, then walked slowly over to his mother, kneeling carefully beside her. “Mom?” A new kind of fear welled up inside him, different from what he’d felt during the inspection. This fear was cold and seemed to be creeping out from his stomach, turning his blood to ice.