A strange noise came from the trees. Wells sat up straighter, all his senses on the alert. There was a cracking sound, followed by a rustling. The murmurs by the fire turned to gasps as a strange shape materialized out of the shadows, part human, part animal, like something from the ancient myths.
Wells leapt to his feet. But then the creature moved past the tree line and into the light.
Bellamy stood with an animal carcass draped over his shoulders, a trail of blood in his wake.
A deer. Wells’s eyes traveled over the lifeless animal, taking in its soft brown fur, spindly legs, delicately tapered ears. As Bellamy moved toward them, the deer’s head swayed back and forth from its limp neck—but it never made a full arc, because each time it swung back, it knocked against something else.
It was another head, swinging from another slender neck. The deer had two heads.
Wells froze as everyone around the fire scrambled to their feet, some of them inching forward for a better look, others backing up in terror. “Is it safe?” one girl asked.
“It’s safe.” Clarke’s voice came from the shadows, and then she stepped into the light. “The radiation might have mutated the { mu ranggenetic material hundreds of years ago, but there wouldn’t be any trace of it now.”
Everyone fell silent as Clarke stretched out her hand to stroke the creature’s fur. Standing in a pool of moonlight, she never looked so beautiful.
Clarke turned to Bellamy with a smile that made Wells’s stomach twist. “We’re not going to starve.” Then she said something Wells couldn’t hear, and Bellamy nodded.
Wells exhaled, willing his resentment to drain away. He took another deep breath before walking toward Bellamy and Clarke. She stiffened as he approached, but Wells forced himself to keep his eyes on Bellamy. “Thank you,” Wells said. “This will feed a lot of people.”
Bellamy stared at him questioningly as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“I mean it,” Wells said. “Thanks.”
Finally, Bellamy nodded. Wells went back to his place by the fire, leaving Bellamy and Clarke to talk quietly, their heads bowed together.
The observation deck was completely empty. Staring out into the immeasurably vast sea of stars, Wells could easily imagine that they were the only two living things in the entire universe. He tightened his arm around Clarke. She pressed her head against his chest and exhaled, sinking closer to him as the air left her body. As if she was happy to let him breathe for them both.
“How’d it go today?” she murmured.
“Fine,” Wells said, not sure why he was bothering to lie when Clarke was pressed against his chest. She could read his heartbeat like it was Morse code.
“What happened?” she asked, concern flickering in her large green eyes.
His officer training entailed periodic trips to Walden and Arcadia to monitor the guards. Today, he’d observed them seize a woman who’d gotten pregnant with an unregistered child. There’d be no chance at lenience. She would be Confined until she gave birth, the child would be placed in the Council’s care, and the mother would be executed. The law was harsh but necessary. The ship could only support a certain number of lives, and allowing anyone to disrupt the delicate balance would jeopardize the entire race. But the look of panic in the woman’s eyes as the guards had dragged her away was burned into Wells’s brain.
Surprisingly, it’d been his father who helped Wells make sense of what he’d seen. That night at dinner, he’d sensed something was wrong, and Wells had told him about the incident, trying to sound soldierly and detached. But his father had seen through the act and, in a rare gesture, put his hand over Wells’s across the table. “What we do isn’t easy,” he’d told his son, “but it’s crucial. We can’t afford to let our feelings keep us from doing our duty—keeping the human race alive.”
“Let me guess,” Clarke said, interrupting his thoughts. “You arrested some criminal mastermind for stealing books from the library.”
“Nope.” He swept a piece of hair behind her ear. “She’s still at large. They’re forming a special task force as we speak.”
She smiled, and the flecks of gold in her eyes {d igotten pre seemed to sparkle. He couldn’t imagine a prettier color.
Wells turned his attention back to the enormous window. Tonight, the clouds covering Earth didn’t remind him of a shroud—they were merely a blanket. The planet hadn’t died, it’d only slipped into an enchanted sleep until the time came for it to welcome humanity home.
“What are you thinking about?” Clarke asked. “Is it your mom?”
“No,” he said slowly. “Not really.” Wells reached out and absentmindedly wrapped a lock of Clarke’s hair around his finger, then let it fall back to her shoulder. “Though I guess, in a way, I’m always thinking about her.” It was hard to believe that she was really gone.
“I just want to make sure she’s proud of me, wherever she is,” Wells continued, a chill passing over him as he glanced toward the stars.
Clarke squeezed his hand, transferring her warmth to him. “Of course she’s proud of you. Any mother would be proud of a son like you.”
Wells turned back to Clarke with a grin. “Just mothers?”
“I imagine you’re a hit with grandparents, too.” She nodded gravely, but then giggled when Wells playfully smacked her shoulder.
“There’s someone else I want to make proud.”
Clarke raised an eyebrow. “She’d better watch her back,” she said, reaching out to wrap her hands behind Wells’s head. “Because I’m not very good at sharing.”
Wells grinned as he leaned forward and closed his eyes, brushing his lips against hers for a teasing kiss before moving down to her neck. “Neither am I,” he whispered into her ear, feeling her shiver as his breath tickled her skin. She pulled him closer, her touch melting away the tension until he forgot about his day, forgot that he’d have to repeat it all tomorrow and the day after that. All that mattered was the girl in his arms.
The smell of the roasting deer was foreign and intoxicating. There was no meat on the Colony, not even on Phoenix. All the livestock had been eliminated in the middle of the first century.
“How do we know when it’s done?” an Arcadian girl named Darcy asked Wells.