Hell and Back (The 100)

23 - Nuts

The skin on my knuckles split open again. I bite down on my bottom lip at the pain radiating in my right hand. I take a couple steps backwards, careful to not trip over a root in the ground. My left hand flies up to cradle my right hand in it. A low hiss escapes from my parted lips. 

Bellamy straightens up out of the stance he has been in the past twenty minutes. His red palms instinctively reach out towards my now bleeding hand. Before he can touch me, I hold my right hand closer to my chest. 

Bellamy softly sighs, "Just let me see your hand."

I furrow my brows and angle my body away from his. "I'm fine." 

Only a couple of days of passed since the whole kidnapping of the Grounder and Bellamy kissing me. Bellamy Blake is not capable of caring for anyone but himself and he's known to be a bit manipulative. That kiss was him probably just trying to get inside my head. That was not going to work. I'm not going to let Bellamy win. 

An annoyed look crosses his face as he steps backwards away from me. "We'll pick up on your training later." Bellamy turns his head around to see the perimeter behind us. "I have to go check on the Grounder." 

I keep my head down for a couple of seconds before snapping it back up to stare at the back of Bellamy's head. "You need to let him go, Bellamy."

Bellamy abruptly stops walking when I say his name. "We both know that's not going to happen." 

"How many times do I have to tell you-" I stride towards him. 

Bellamy sharply whips around, cutting off my sentence, "This is not who we are. Yeah, I get it." He snaps, frustratingly. "I think I heard you the first fifteen hundred times." 

"Then maybe you should have listened the first time!" I raise my voice. "How do you expect to be co-leaders when you do everything that we shouldn't do?" I throw my hands up in the air, wincing at the pain in my right hand. "I-" I glance down at my hand. "I need to get this cleaned."

Bellamy's large hand wraps around my upper arm, forcing me to spin back around. His brown eyes lock on mine with a hint of urgency in them. "Are we going to talk about this?" 

My eyes widen and I pull in my bottom lip between my teeth. "Talk about what?" I play dumb. 

His head tilts slightly to the right. "You know what."

I yank my arm out of his grasp. "Nothing happened, Bellamy." I watch as his jaw tenses at my words. "Now, excuse me." I slam my shoulder into his on my way back to wall. 

Blood drips down my hand and wrist from the open wounds on my knuckles. Everyone is carrying on with cleaning up after the storm still and working on their daily duties. I pass by Jasper and Monty attending to a large pile of nuts on a table. Cradling my hand against my chest, I try to angle my body enough to keep my brother from seeing my bloody knuckles. I exhale out of relief when I pass by them without them taking their attention off of cracking open the nuts. 

"Whoa, hey, wait!" Jasper's voice comes from behind me. 

My lips press together in a thin line. I keep up with my fast pace to the water fountain. I step through the doorway and pick up a small bucket to scoop some water in. 

Jasper bursts through the doorway with a worried look on his face. "Wren, what happened?" He snatches the cloth out of my hand and dips it in the water bucket. 

"Bellamy." I decide not to tell him that Bellamy is actually training me. For some reason, Bellamy doesn't want anyone to know and I really don't want people to think that I really am weak.