Lilly held up the platter of cakes she’d stolen from the distribution center. They were meant for some Commitment Ceremony on Phoenix, but now they were about to be committed to Bellamy’s and Lilly’s stomachs.
Bellamy grinned. “I’ve really been a bad influence on you, haven’t I?”
“Please. Don’t give yourself too much credit.” Lilly popped an apple tart into her mouth. She picked up a vanilla cake—Bellamy’s favorite—and handed it to him. “I always had it in me.”
Lilly raised her eyebrow in a way that was so adorable, Bellamy was seized by a sudden, mad desire to kiss her. But he knew better. He’d kissed girls before, and it had never done anything except scramble their brains, turning them into a walking mass of giggles who always wanted to hold his hand. Lilly was his best friend. Kissing her would most definitely be a mistake.
“Save this one for Octavia,” Lilly said, handing him a cake garnished with Venus berries.
Bellamy set the cake carefully on the step next to him, then went back to devouring his own. He knew from experience that it was always best to get rid of stolen goods as quickly as possible.
Lilly laughed, and he looked up at her with a grin. “What?” Bellamy asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Don’t you dare criticize my table manners. We’re nowhere near a table.”
“I’m actually curious,” she asked with faux sincerity. “How did you manage to get so much cake on your face?” He swatted at her, and she laughed. “I don’t think I could get that much cake on my face if I tried.”
“Challenge accepted.” Bellamy reached over, scraped the frosting off one of the cakes, and smeared it across her chin and mouth. She shrieked and pushed him away, but not before he managed to put a second dollop on the tip of her nose.
“Bellamy!” she exclaimed. “Do you know how much we could have sold that for?”
Bellamy smirked. It was hard to take someone covered in icing very seriously. “Oh, trust me, this visual is priceless.”
Lilly’s expression shifted to something he couldn’t quite identify. “Is it?” she asked softly. He closed his eyes, bracing himself for icing all over his face—and felt Lilly’s lips on his. He froze for a moment in surprise, then kissed her back. Her kiss was soft, and tasted like sugar.
When she finally pulled away, he searched her face, wondering what had just happened. “Oh,” she said. “I think I forgot something.”
“What?” Bellamy shifted awkwardly. He knew it was a bad idea to kiss his best friend, he never should have—
“I missed a spot,” Lilly murmured, pulling him forward and kissing him again.
Clarke sat up so quickly, her head bumped against Bellamy’s chin. “Whoa,” he said, taking her by the shoulders. “Clarke, it’s okay. We don’t have to do anything right now.” He rubbed his hands in slow circles on her back. Her skin was cold through her thin T-shirt.
“It’s not that,” Clarke said quickly. “I just… I have something I need to tell you.”
Bellamy took Clarke’s hand and interlocked her fingers with his. “You can tell me anything,” he assured her.
She pulled her hand away, bringing her knees to her chest and hugging them tightly. “I don’t really know how to say this,” Clarke began, almost more to herself than to him. She stared straight ahead, unwilling—or unable—to meet his eyes. “I’ve only told one person before, and it didn’t end well.”
He knew instinctively she was talking about Wells. “It’s okay.” He reached an arm around her shoulders. “Whatever it is, we can figure it out.”
She finally turned to face him, her expression stricken. “I wouldn’t promise that.” She exhaled, seeming to deflate, and then, haltingly, began to speak.
At first, Bellamy thought Clarke’s story about the testing was some kind of joke. He couldn’t believe what she was telling him—how her parents were researching radiation, how they were forced by the Vice Chancellor to conduct experiments on unregistered children. But one look in Clarke’s eyes and he knew that this was all terrifyingly real.
“That’s monstrous,” Bellamy finally interrupted, praying that she’d say something to make it all make sense, to explain why she was telling him all of this now. Suddenly, another thought made his blood run cold. “Octavia was unregistered,” he said slowly. “Was she next in line for your little experiments?” He shuddered in horror, imagining his sister locked in a hidden lab where no one would hear her cry—where no one would know she was slowly being poisoned to death.
“I don’t know,” Clarke said. “I don’t know how the children were selected. But it was terrible. I hated myself every day.”
“Then why didn’t you stop it? Why did your parents kill innocent children? How evil were they?”
“They weren’t evil. They didn’t have a choice!”
She was on the verge of tears, but Bellamy didn’t care. “Of course they did,” he spat. “I made a choice to do everything I could to protect Octavia. But you made a choice to stand by and watch a bunch of kids die.”
“I didn’t always stand by.” Clarke closed her eyes. “Not with Lilly.”
It took a moment for Bellamy to understand what Clarke was saying. “Lilly? That’s how you knew her? Lilly was one of your… subjects?” Clarke nodded, wincing, and Bellamy’s voice rose in anger. “She didn’t die from some mysterious illness. She died because your murderer parents performed experiments on her.” Lilly. The only person on the ship who’d cared about him, aside from Octavia. The only person he’d ever loved.
He paused as Clarke’s words sank in. “What do you mean, you didn’t always stand by?” When Clarke said nothing, he pressed on. “You mean you helped her escape? Is she still alive?”
“She was my friend, Bellamy.” Tears were streaming down Clarke’s cheeks, but Bellamy ignored them. “She told me how to talk to boys, and made me promise to wear my hair down once a week. I used to bring her books, and she would read them aloud in all these funny voices, until she got too sick, and then I read them to her. And then, when she asked me to help her, I did it, I had to, she didn’t give me a choice…”
“Help her how?” Bellamy asked, his voice low and dangerous.
“I… She begged me to make the pain go away. She asked me—” Clarke sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand, her voice breaking. “To help her die.”
“You’re lying,” Bellamy said, feeling nauseous. An hour ago he would have insisted that Clarke was incapable of something like that, would have defended her honor to the death. But now the girl in front of him looked like a monstrous stranger. Lilly, though, he knew. “She would never have said that,” he snarled, rising to his feet. “She would’ve done everything possible to survive your sick game.”
“Bellamy,” Clarke started weakly. “You don’t understand—” She broke off as a sob rose in her throat.
“Don’t you dare tell me what I understand,” Bellamy cut her off. “I never want to see you again. Maybe you can offer yourself up to the Earthborns. Wouldn’t that be fun? A whole new population of children to experiment on.” He spun around and strode off, leaving Clarke alone and trembling in the woods.
He tore through the forest blindly, blinking back tears. He never should have trusted Clarke, never should have let himself get close to her. He’d learned long ago that the only person he could rely on was himself. And the only person who mattered to him was Octavia.
He’d wasted too much time already. It was time to get his sister back.
He was done playing nice with the Earthborn girl. He was done playing at all.
CHAPTER 16
Wells
He’d been worried about how to sneak back into camp without being spotted, although at least this time, he and Sasha weren’t carrying food—only the memories of the ruined house that clung to his mind like a fine film of dust.