“Where were they supposed to go?” Sasha asked, shooting him a look as she rubbed dust off one of the bear’s paws. “Do you have any idea how much it cost to get to one of the launch sites during the Forsakening? The people who lived around here didn’t have that kind of money.”

“That’s not how it worked,” Wells said, an edge creeping into his voice. He took a deep breath to regain his composure. It felt terribly wrong to shout in a place like this. “People didn’t have to pay to go on the ship.”

“No? Then how were the Colonists selected?”

“They came from the neutral nations,” Wells said, suddenly feeling like he was back in a primary tutorial. “The ones that weren’t greedy or foolish enough to get caught in nuclear war.”

The look Sasha gave him was unlike anything he ever saw on his tutors’ faces, even when he was wrong. They never stared at him with a mixture of pity and scorn. If anything, Sasha looked more like his father. “Then why does everyone on the ship speak English?” she asked quietly.

He didn’t have an answer for that. He’d spent his whole life imagining what it’d be like to see real Earth ruins, and now that he was here, thinking about all the lives that had been extinguished during the Cataclysm made it difficult to breathe.

“We should get back,” he said, rising to his feet and reaching out to help Sasha. She glanced at the suitcase for a long moment, then tucked the bear under her arm and took Wells’s hand.

CHAPTER 15

Bellamy

It had taken a while to convince Clarke to head back to camp. She’d insisted on looking for more pieces of wreckage, for anything that would provide some information about the other Colonists. But as the shadows lengthened, Bellamy’s skin prickled in a way that had nothing to do with the chill creeping into the air. It was foolish to spend too much time in the woods with the Earthborns lurking about. Once their little spy told him where to find Octavia, Bellamy would go after them—spears and arrows be damned. But he didn’t want to face them until he was prepared, and certainly not with Clarke by his side.

After an hour of fruitless searching, Clarke had finally agreed that it was time to leave. “Just—one more second,” she said now, and hurried over to the edge of the clearing.

She stopped before a tree covered with white blossoms. It was fragile-looking, and seemed somehow too small for all the flowers dropping off it. Bellamy was reminded of how Octavia used to look when she put all their mother’s clothes on, layers upon layers of fabric, and paraded in front of Bellamy.

Clarke rose up on her toes, plucked a few of the blossoms from the tree, and knelt down to arrange them in front of each of the grave markers. She stood there in silence for a moment, her head bowed. Then she came and took Bellamy’s hand, leading him away from the lonely cemetery the rest of the world had forgotten.

Clarke was unusually quiet as they made their way back to the camp. Finally, Bellamy broke the silence. “Are you okay?” He extended his hand to help Clarke over a fallen tree, but she didn’t even notice.

“I’m fine,” she said, clambering over the log and landing neatly on the other side.

Bellamy didn’t reply. He knew better than to push. Clarke wasn’t the type of girl who played mind games. She would talk when she wanted to talk. But as he glanced at her again, something in her face tugged at his chest, fraying his resolve. She didn’t just look serious, or even sad—she looked haunted.

He stopped in his tracks and wrapped his arms around her. She flinched for a moment, not returning the embrace.

Bellamy started to draw back, but thought better of it and tightened his hold. “Clarke, what’s wrong?”

When she spoke, her voice was quiet. “I can’t stop thinking about those graves. I just wish I knew whose they are, how they died…” She trailed off, but Bellamy knew she was thinking about the sick people she’d left behind at the camp.

“I know,” Bellamy said. “But, Clarke, whoever those people were, they’ve been dead for over a year. There’s nothing you could have done to help them.” He fell silent for a moment. “And think of it this way—at least they got to be here, on Earth, even if it wasn’t for very long. They were probably really jazzed about that.”

To his surprise, Clarke smiled—it was a small smile, but enough to chase away some of the sadness lurking in her eyes. “Jazzed? What does that mean? Like you’re so happy, you’d be willing to listen to jazz music?”

“Willing to listen to jazz music? You must mean ‘happy because you get to listen to jazz music.’ So happy that your heart starts beating a jazz riff.”

“Like you know jazz,” Clarke shot back, still smiling. “Most of that music was lost centuries ago.”

Bellamy smirked. “Maybe on Phoenix. I found an old MP3 player with some jazz songs on it once.” He shrugged. “At least, I assumed it was jazz.” It had sounded the way he’d always expected jazz to sound—playful, soulful, free.

“So what does a jazz riff sound like?”

“It’s more about what it feels like,” Bellamy said, reaching for Clarke’s hand. He began tapping a rhythm up and down her arm.

She shivered as his fingers danced on the inside of her elbow. “So jazz feels like some weirdo tickling your arm?”

“Not your arm. Your whole body. You feel it in your throat…” He brought his fingers to her neck and tapped along her collarbone. “In your feet…” He knelt down and tapped along the side of her boot, and Clarke laughed. “In your chest…” He stood up, bringing his hand to rest lightly on top of her heart, and was very still.

She closed her eyes as her breathing grew shallow. “I think I feel it now,” she said.

Bellamy stared at Clarke in wonder. With her eyes closed and lips slightly parted, the afternoon light dancing over her reddish-blond hair like a halo, she looked like one of the fairies he used to describe to Octavia in her bedtime stories.

He bent his head down and brushed his lips against hers. She kissed him back for a moment, then pulled away with a frown. “Didn’t you want to get going?” she asked. “I know we’ve been gone for a while.”

“It’s a long walk back. Maybe we should rest first.” Without waiting for her to reply, Bellamy slid his arm down her back and scooped Clarke up in his arms, the way he’d carried her back last time. But now, her eyes were bright and focused on his, her arms laced around his neck. Slowly, Bellamy guided them both to the ground, which was covered in moss and damp leaves. “Better?” Bellamy whispered.

Clarke responded by twining her hands in his hair and kissing him. Bellamy closed his eyes and pulled her closer, forgetting everything but the feeling of Clarke’s body against him.

“Are you cold?” she asked, and he realized that at some point she had pulled his shirt over his head.

“No,” he said softly. He knew in an objective sense that it was cold out, but he didn’t feel it. He leaned back and looked at her, her hair spilling out over the grass. “Are you?”

He ran his hand lightly along her side, and Clarke stiffened. “Bellamy,” she whispered. “Have you ever…?”

She didn’t finish the sentence, but she didn’t need to. Bellamy took his time answering, kissing her forehead, then her nose, then her delicate pink lips. “I have,” he said finally. He could tell from Clarke’s telltale flush that she hadn’t, and was a little surprised, given her history with Wells. “But just with one person,” he added. “Someone I really cared about.”

He wanted to say more, but his voice faltered. All those memories of Lilly were wrapped up in pain. And the only thing he wanted to think about right now was the beautiful girl next to him: a girl he would never, ever let go of, no matter what happened.

“Seriously? You took the whole thing?” Bellamy asked, surprised and more than a little impressed. They were in the emergency staircase behind the care center—technically it was past curfew, but no one ever really kept tabs on the older kids, so it was easy for Bellamy and Lilly to meet here.