“When the outside starts to crisp and the inside turns pink,” Bellamy called without turning his head.
Graham snorted, but Wells nodded. “I think you’re right.” After the meat cooled, they chopped it into smaller pieces and began passing it around the fire. Wells carried some to the other side of the circle, distributing it to the crowd.
He handed a piece to Octavia, who held it in front of her as she looked up at Wells. “Have you tried it yet?” Wells shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Well, that’s not fair.” She raised her eyebrows. “What if it turns out to be disgusting?”
He glanced around the circle. “Everyone else seems to be okay with it.”
Octavia pursed her lips together. “I’m not like everyone else.” She looked a { Sh/fontt him for a moment, as if waiting for him to speak, then smiled and pushed her piece toward him. “Here, you take the first bite and tell me what you think.”
“I’m okay, thanks,” Wells said. “I want to make sure everyone else—”
“Come on.” She giggled as she tried to slip it into his mouth. “Take a bite.”
Wells snuck a quick glance around the circle to make sure Clarke hadn’t been watching. She wasn’t—she was caught up in conversation with Bellamy.
Wells turned back to Octavia. “Okay,” he said, taking the piece of meat from her hands. She looked disappointed not to feed it to him, but Wells didn’t care. He took a bite. The outside was tough, but as his teeth sank in, the meat released a flood of flavor unlike anything Wells had tasted before, simultaneously salty and smoky and faintly sweet. He chewed some more and then swallowed, bracing for his stomach to reject the alien substance. But all he felt was warmth.
The kids who’d eaten first had risen from the fire and begun milling around the clearing, and for a few minutes, the soft hum of their conversation merged with the crackling of the flames. But then the sound of confused murmurs began to rise to the surface, making the skin on the back of Wells’s neck prickle. He rose to his feet and walked over to where a group was standing near the tree line.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Look.” One of the girls pointed to something in the trees.
“What?” Wells squinted into the darkness.
“There,” another girl said. “Did you see it?”
For a moment, Wells thought they were playing a trick on him, but then something caught his eye. A flash of light, so brief that he might have imagined it. There was another flash a few feet away, then another, this one a little higher up. He took a step toward the edge of the clearing, which was now ablaze with glowing lights, as if invisible hands had decorated it for a party. His eyes landed on the closest orb, a ball of light hanging from the lowest branch of a nearby tree.
There was something moving inside. A creature. It was some sort of insect, with a tiny body and disproportionately large, delicate wings. The word fluttered to Wells’s lips. Butterfly.
Some of the others had followed him into the forest and were now staring in wonder alongside him. “Clarke,” he whispered into the darkness. She needed to see this. He tore his eyes away and spun around, ready to go run and find her. But she was already there.
Clarke stood a few feet away, utterly transfixed. A soft glow lit up her face, and the tense, worried expression that had clung to her features since the crash had fallen away.
“Hey,” Wells said softly, not wanting to disrupt the stillness. He expected Clarke to scowl at him, or silence him, or walk away. But she didn’t move. She stood right where she was, staring up at the luminous butterflies.
Wells didn’t dare move or say another word. The girl he thought he’d lost was still in there, somewhere, and in that instant, he knew: He could make her love him again.
CHAPTER 14
Bellamy
Bellamy didn't know why the ancient humans even bothered doing drugs. What was the point of shooting junk into your veins when walking through the forest had the same effect? Something happened each time he crossed the tree line. As he moved away from the camp in the early morning sunlight, setting out on another hunting expedition, he began taking deeper breaths. His heart pounded with strong, slow, steady beats, his organs marching in time to a pulse in the ground. It was like someone had hacked into his brain and cranked up his senses to a setting Bellamy hadn’t known existed.
But the best part was the quiet. The ship had never been completely silent. There was always a low hum of background noise: the drone of the generators, the buzz of the lights, the echo of footsteps in the hallway. It had freaked him out the first time he entered the forest, not having anything to drown out his thoughts. But the more time he spent here, the quieter his mind became.
Bellamy scanned the ground, his eyes skipping over the rocks and damp patches as they searched for clues. There were no tracks to follow as there’d been yesterday, but something told Bellamy to turn right, and go deeper into the forest where the trees grew thicker, covering the ground with strange shadows. That’s where he would go if he were an animal.
He reached behind his shoulder to grab one of the arrows from the sling he’d constructed. Although it was terrible to watch them die, his aim had vastly improved over the past few days, so he knew the animals didn’t suffer much. He’d never forget the pain and fear in the first deer’s eyes as it staggered across the ground. Yet shooting an animal was less of a crime than a lot of the crap the other kids had done to end up here. While he might be cutting the creature’s life short, Bellamy knew that it had lived every moment of that life completely free.
The hundred prisoners might have been promised their freedom, but Bellamy knew he wouldn’t be afforded the same privilege, not after what he’d done to the Chancellor. If he was still around when the next ship landed, the first person off it would probably shoot him on the spot.
Bellamy was done with all of it—the punishments, the stations, the system. He was through following other people’s rules. He was sick of having to fight to survive. Living in the forest wouldn’t be easy, but at least he and Octavia would be free.
Holding his arms out for balance, he half shuffled, half skidded down the slope, trying his best to not make any noise that could scare an animal away. He landed at the bottom with a thud, mud squelching under his tattered boots. Bellamy winced as water sloshed through the gap above the soles. It would be uncomfortable walking back to camp with wet socks, something he’d learned the hard way. He wasn’t sure why that wasn’t mentioned in any of the books he read. What was the point of knowing how to build a snare out of vines, or which plants to use to treat burns, if you couldn’t walk?