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The chains are tight around Clarke’s wrists, the irons biting into her skin. The cave is dim and cool, but despite that, sweat is budding on her forehead. She can feel the slick of fear, curling down her spine. She wants to wipe her arm across her face, or attempt to wriggle free from her restraints, but her muscles won’t comply. Her muscles aren’t much for listening to her, these days.
She considers asking Josephine, but knows it isn’t worth the asking, or the inevitable ensuing argument. Beside her, Bellamy sits in relative silence, his face pale and worried. The restraints and hostility were not part of the plan. It’s been quiet since Josephine summed up and dissected their relationship- and wasn’t that an accurate analogy for Josephine, Clarke thought: dissecting and cutting apart just for the mild amusement it brought her. Every so often, Bellamy shoots her a worried glance, conscious of the dwindling time remaining to her: as if waiting for her body to betray her; for her to fall; for the battleground that two souls fight over to collapse beneath their feet.
“Man.” Josephine says blandly into the silence. “Makes you wish we had a deck of cards or something, huh?”
Bellamy doesn’t respond.
“Course, that wouldn’t do much good; what with these pesky chains. Don’t suppose you’ve got anything to help a gal out?”
Bellamy sighs, apparently resigned to conversation. “If I did, don’t you think I’d have already done something already?”
Josephine smiles with Clarke’s lips. “Well, can’t blame a girl for trying. It’s just so boring up here, is all. Clarke’s head is a pretty depressing place to be. She’s got these nasty memories all a-circling. Round and round and round. This girl has problems, I’m telling you.”
Clarke is pretty bored at this point- she is fully aware of her problems, thank you very much- and tries to tune out of the conversation, but Josephine’s ears are her own, and she can’t control what to pay attention to. She briefly wonders what’s going to happen when the children of Gabriel get back, and they learn there are two people rattling around in this head of hers. Maybe a lobotomy. She thinks it would be worth it, just for a little peace and quiet.
“Tell you what though, if I didn’t want to scrape Clarke out of her skull with a spoon, I think we’d maybe get on. She seems pretty reasonable- actually capable of making the nasty decisions when no one else will. I mean, I bet the primes wouldn’t be dying out if my father had half her brains-“
Shut up. She thinks at Josephine, probably futilely.
“Please shut up.” Bellamy says tiredly. If she could’ve, Clarke would have smiled.
Josephine rolls her eyes, but acquiesces. She makes a show of yawning, and stretching, relaxing against the wall. There is a clatter of noise from outside, and she tenses up immediately, her façade of ease shattered, hackles raised like a scared cat. Bellamy scrambles to his feet, as arguing voices come closer, and the masked people appear.
“Get off me!” Josephine- and Clarke- struggle against the rough hands at her arms, and doesn’t see the blow coming until it whips across her face, sending her sprawling.
“Clarke!” Bellamy shouts, seemingly without thinking about it, panic lacing his voice. Clarke feels the black blood at her lip as she is hauled to her feet.
There is a shout: “She’s got the blood!” Clarke feels her body being shoved forward; a calloused hand yanking up her hair. She knows the scar they’ll find there. “She’s a prime!”
More shouts; more angry hands. “Kill her!”
She is pulled from her chains and dragged forwards, struggling all the while, but Josephine’s movements are uncoordinated and weak, and she cannot get free.
“Wait!” Bellamy is speaking too, keeping his voice pitched low and pleading. “The prime is Josephine!”
Despite it all, Josephine takes a moment to roll her eyes. “That’ll help.”
Bellamy keeps talking, with his voice the same cadence that has brokered treaties and demanded peace. “If you keep her, you have leverage against Russell!” He is ignored; a sword is raised, (“Clarke!” he shouts) and that’s when Clarke feels it; a fluttering against the wall of her mind; a sigh almost. Well, Josephine thinks, if you must. It is just as she is about to let go that Bellamy surges forward- Josephine’s control snaps back in surprise- he ducks a punch from a masked man, lands one of his own, takes an blow to the face- then snatches a sword from a belt and makes a lunge for the leader.
The leader spins back, and Bellamy reaches the limit of his chain with a crack and a grunt of unmistakable pain. A thin red line has appeared on the leader’s cheek. He takes a moment to wipe away the small trickle of blood, then surveys Bellamy with new eyes.
“Kill him first.”
“No!” Josephine- or was that Clarke?- shouts.
“Look.” Bellamy says desperately. “This isn’t what you think! The host is still alive; that’s why we need to see Gabriel; we don’t want to hurt anyone; we just want his help! Please!”
The leader approaches Bellamy. Takes the sword from his unresisting hand and lays it to one side. Kneels beside where Bellamy has fallen to his knees.
“I’m sorry.” He says, almost kindly. “But I don’t care. That’s a prime. It needs to die, and if you defend it, so do you.” Courtesy done, he stands, and considers the blade in his hands. Clarke sees the muscles in his back bunch- he pulls the sword back in preparation for the killing blow- and Clarke snaps. She punches through the wall between her and Josephine- if before she had crept into Josephine’s space, she now blazes straight through, fear and desperation lending her strength. She does not demand control of her body, but rips it from Josephine’s hands, and before she has a chance to savour the sensations now running through her, she is moving.
She launches herself forward, snapping an elbow back as she does. There is a sickening crack as it connects, but she is already lurching to the side, ducking as the leader now swings the blade wildly towards her. It hisses above her, then whilst he is off balance she lands a blow to his face, then to his solar plexus that forces the breath from him; he stands for a moment, wheezing, then falls to his knees.
Clarke rips the sword from his hands, then whirls and plants herself in front of Bellamy in an animalistic crouch.
“Back off!” She snarls at the remaining assailant. He hesitates for a moment, then turns tail and runs. Clarke takes another second to make sure there is no one else who wants another shot, then pulls the keys from the leaders unresponsive body. She kneels before Bellamy, who is looking at her with dawning wonder.
“Clarke?” He breathes, blood still on his face, as she quickly sorts through the keys to find his. “Josephine let you have control?”
Clarke smiles grimly as she finds the right key. “I didn’t give her much choice.” They both freeze as the sounds of more voices and footsteps reach them.
“We don’t have time for this Clarke; you have to go!”
“No.” She snarls with absolute determination. “I’m not leaving you. Not again.” She undoes his chains with a victorious click, and he shucks them off quickly.
The caves are pretty easy to navigate- they came downhill to get here, so they follow the passages sloping upward, and soon see daylight. By then they are running- the sounds of pursuit are clear. They dodge through the trees and despite it all, Clarke lets herself smile as her muscles obey her commands instantly, bunching and releasing, launching her over tree stumps and exposed roots.
Mine, she thinks, as her body obeys her slightest thought. Bellamy is running next to her; he offers a hand to help over a steep ridge. Mine.
Josephine is still there- Clarke can feel her; a low pressure at the back of her head. For now, though, she had been silenced, and Clarke savours the solitude.
Bellamy thrusts out a hand to stop her, and then pulls her behind a tree as the sounds of pursuit approach, then continue past them. They breathe out.
“Alright?” Bellamy asks. Then, more guardedly; “Still you?”
There is something fierce, something feral in her reply. “Yeah. Still me.”