The 99

Chapter Eleven: Clarke

Clarke put as much distance the room would allow between herself and the stranger. He seemed to do the same, content with lying down in the corner farthest from her. A quietness fell over them like a blanket, but it was as hard and gelid as the floor they rested on.

Clarke didn't know when she'd manage to fall asleep, she just knew that she had when she was awoken some time later by a groaning noise. She sat up, looking across at the man who was still asleep, sweat jeweled on his forehead. He tossed, turning his head back and forth in sleep.A flurry of discombobulated words came from his chapped lips.

Slowly, Clarke crossed the room. He didn't stir at her presence, too absorbed in whatever nightmare plagued him, and she stretched out a hand and pressed it to his forehead.

The moment she touched him, the man lurched forward, his lids snapping open. Desperate eyes found hers and he grabbed her wrist, so tightly Clarke felt his nails pierce her skin. She cried out in pain, and his grip suddenly disappeared, as if he'd been burned.

"What were you doing?" he hissed, voice thick and rough with sleep.

Clarke rubbed her wrist, gauging his expression carefully. The question that had been circling through her mind before she'd fallen asleep resurfaced. Who was this man? Clarke knew he was a convict, a criminal, a killer, but those were just words. And she knew how unjustly they could be dictated to someone.

"I was-I was just checking on you." At the sound of the fear in her voice she cleared her throat. "It's time for your second dose."

He glared up at her, eyes red and weary, but fiery all the same. Clarke wondered just what he'd gone through in his life, to have a fire like that. Not one that just burned, but one that consumed. He was anger. Just sweat and blood and anger that simmered like coals in those eyes.

"Do me a favor and don't touch me when I don't know it," he admonished.

Clarke ground her teeth but pulled out the second round of Amoxicillin. "I didn't realize I needed your permission to keep you alive. Next time I'll be sure to shout across the room instead."

"Just don't surprise me," the man said, taking the pills and popping them in his mouth."I wouldn't want to accidentally kill you."

"You grabbed my wrist," she replied. "Not my throat."

His tone turned brusque. "This time, maybe. But I can't afford your life, because it will cost me mine. So I'll tell you again. Don't surprise me."

Clarke pursed her lips but didn't respond to him. Instead, she just retrieved the bandages, and tapped his shoulder, reaching over to tug at the material.

"What did I just say?" he asked, voice full of scorn.

But Clarke just shrugged. "You're lucid. Unless this is your way of suggesting you might still kill me."

He raised his eyebrows at her. "You're clearly not a big advocate of self-preservation."

"I'm an advocate of keeping myself alive for the purpose of doing what I stayed behind to do," she said. "It's why I'm bothering with this in the first place. With you."

He leaned his back against the wall, watching her with an almost bemused look on his face. "And to think, if you weren't using me for your own gain, I might have been left to rot in storage locker. You know, until some poor kid came along and found my decomposing body."

"You're doing the same thing as I am," Clarke said, as she unwound the bandages again and waited as he took off his shirt. The bullet wound didn't look much better, but it also didn't look any worse. She discarded the used bandaged, splotched with blood, and began wrapping again.