Cork in mouth, I bit down hard, feeling the indents that my canine teeth were surely going to leave. While Octavia held my leg down under all her weight –which wasn’t much- Bellamy held a long metal prod, the end of it bright orange. There was a lot of open flesh to close up, and it was going to be a very painful location. The healing time was going to take a good while; though, I doubted we had a while.

                “You ready?” Bellamy asked.

                I could see in his eyes that the man wanted to be hunting the Grounder that took his sister captive; but he was tied up in my situation first. I had already risked infection and possibly blood poisoning, and my wounds wouldn’t wait any longer. He had rushed down when Octavia couldn’t do the deed of cauterizing my bloody ankle, taking over the skill-requiring task, though no one here truly had the skills to do it aside from the Grounder and possibly Clarke. The latter was busy with a wound threatening the life of the man she possibly loved.

                I spoke with a tumble to my words, talking through the cork, “Just do it.”

                Bellamy half smiled at my braveness, and then placed the red-hot prod on my ankle, burning a large portion of my skin. A few inches of the wound seemed to heal- so to speak- and he pulled the metal prod away. There was at least three more sections to do before my whole ankle was sealed. Each time, Bellamy had to put the prod back into the embers, waiting for it to heat up again to the perfect temperature. As he pressed down for the last time, I dug my nails into the dirt below me, biting the cork and whimpering as the pain became too much for me.

                The first few attempts were not as bad, as the adrenaline had been pumping; but by the last go, all my energy had drained and withered down to nothing. I had sat through hours of tattoos, but nothing had been as painful as burning the open, fresh, filthy wound. 

                Breathing hard with my heart beating rapidly yet unevenly, I spat out the cork and gasped at the pain that lingered when Bellamy was done. Octavia quickly bandaged the wound, wrapping it with the cleanest fabric she could find and spare; people weren’t so fond of giving things up for others even though that was how we were taught to live on the Arc. People shared upon need.

                Bellamy crouched down and tilted my chin up as to look into my eyes, “You need rest.”

                “No shit.” I growled; the anger was not meant to be directed towards him, but the pain that coursed through my leg was too much for me to fake a smile and chipper tone.

                With ease, Bellamy scooped me up from the ground and held me in his arms, carrying me towards my shared tent with him. His tent was large enough for ten people to sleep comfortably, but somehow he had managed to claim the whole thing for himself; and in the condition I was in, I didn’t mind so much that no one else would be around. Prior to our little agreement of ‘no one else’ I had slept in a tent with a few other people, and I knew that he had brought other women into his bed at night to keep him warm.

                But that was the past.

                Bellamy placed me on the relatively comfortable ground and I rested my eyes, breathing out a sigh of great relief. The dark haired man looked down over my entire body, landing on my face and revealing nothing about what he was thinking in the process. There had to be much running around his mind, endless thoughts of how to keep those he loved safe, yet without scaring them away. We both knew that Octavia wouldn’t stand for it if the Grounder was killed by Bellamy’s hand; though I wasn’t sure that was going to stop him.

                “Stay.” I said to him quietly.

                “I can’t.” He replied.

                “We haven’t slept in days.” I growled, “Get your ass in bed.”

                “The Grounder.”

                “Shut up about the damn Grounder and get in bed.” I said, angry, but the tone lightened by a soft chuckle.

                “What are you going to do to keep me here?” He asked testily.

                “Fine.” I said, “Leave and go back to find the Grounder, but I won’t be able to help you when you pass out from lack of sleep.”

                He knew I was right; we had spent nearly two full days searching for Octavia and lost a lot of energy in that time. It was constant hiking and survival, and now was the time to rest. The Grounders knew about us, and they knew too much now that they had seen how weak we were out in the forest. If we tried to keep our eyes peeled for the rest of our limited days on Earth, we wouldn’t last another week.

                “He helped us, back there in the forest.” I attempted to put his mind at ease, nodding to my ankle, “He stopped whatever I was being pulled towards.”

                Before he could say anything to argue with me, I grabbed his wrist and tugged. With a slight stumble, as he had crouched down and his weight was uneven, he fell to his knees, a playful smile on his face. It always brought pleasure to my core whenever I could get Bellamy Blake to smile. He was always playing the leader, the boss, but in reality he wanted someone to be able to tell him what to do. With a shake of his head, and a light sigh, Bellamy slipped off his boots, pants and shirt, crawling into the bed with me.

                His warm skin caused me to instantly move closer, trying to absorb all of him. Gently, the man placed his lips to my forehead and held them there for a long while. His arm wrapped around my petite body, slipping up under my shirt so that we were skin on skin. Though I began to drift into a dream-filled sleep the moment he held me there, I knew that the dreams were not going to be pleasant ones even with Bellamy’s arms keeping me safe. I’d seen too much carnage in the last few days to sleep blissfully.

                Before I fell asleep, Bellamy distracted me with his body as we came together as one; our sweet sex causing us to forget everything that had happened in the world outside of the tarp-tent walls. But even that didn’t save me from seeing the dead in my dreams; Roma, Diggs, Wells, Charlotte, and the rest.

Ugh, finally got a minute to write! Part way through chapter twenty-eight, please keep up the great comments! I always feel inspired to write when I see such lovely words!