On the Run ~ON HOLD~

Chapter 20 Can't Stop Running

Thea awoke to a pounding in her head. She sat up, groaning as she felt the back of her head. Pulling it back to look at it, she saw that her hand had a red, sticky substance covering it. Blood.

Looking around, she realized that Bellamy was nowhere to be seen. Scrambling to her feet, she grabbed a gun and rushed up the stairs. Her head spun as she crashed her way to the open air.

And what she saw made he breath catch in her throat. Bellamy was laying on the ground while a boy, Dax, she believed his name was, was standing over him with a gun pointed at his head.

"Nothing personal," Dax said as the gun clicked but didn't shoot.

Bellamy held up his hand like he was holding a gun but there was nothing there. He was hallucinating, she realized. Just like she had been before Dax knocked her out.

"Drop it," she growled once she was directly behind Dax, pointing her own gun at his head.

He turned around, "You should've stayed down there, Thea. I tried not to kill you, but here you are and Shumway said no witnesses."

"Shumway? What is he talking about?" she asked a still disoriented Bellamy.

"Shumway set it up," Bellamy replied, "He gave me the gun to shoot the chancellor."

"Walk away now and I won't kill you," Dax said, pleading with her with his eyes, telling her that he didn't want to have to kill her.

"Put. It. Down." she enunciated each word, letting him know that she wasn't messing around.

"Your choice."

Thea pulled the trigger on her gun, knowing if she didn't kill him first, he would kill her and Bellamy. But her gun only clicked, the useless bullet inside too damaged to shoot.

Her eyes widened as Dax's finger moved towards his trigger. She didn't have a second to react before he was pulling it and she was forced to dive behind the nearest tree.

"No!" Bellamy yelled, tackling the boy as he continued to shoot towards Thea.

The two fought as Thea desperately tried to release the jammed bullet from the chamber of her gun. When it refused to come out, she tried a different tactic.

"Get the hell off him!" she yelled as she ran towards Dax, swinging he butt of her gun towards his head.

He was faster however, and managed to swing his own gun into her ribs, knocking her to the ground. She was unable to move, the air had been knocked out of her and she could tell the wound on her head had begun bleeding again. Her vision blurred as she watched Bellamy stab something into the side of the other boy's neck, killing him.

Bellamy breathed heavily for a few seconds before getting up and rushing over to her to try and help. She managed to get herself leaned up against a tree and Bellamy stumbled over, placing a hand on her knee as he lowered himself to the ground beside her.

Her breathing was choppy and uneven but she managed to stutter out a few words to the boy sitting next to her.

"You're okay."

"No, I'm not," he answered.

She looked up at him, even sitting, he was still much taller than her.

"My mother," he began, "if she knew what I had done, who I am. She raised me to be better, to be good-"

"Bellamy," Thea gasped.

"-and all I do is hurt people. I'm a monster," a single tear ran down his face.

Thea was trying to control her own tears, remembering what her own mother and father had said in her hallucination only minutes ago.

"Hey," she started, "you saved my life today," she took a moment to try and catch her breath, "And you may be a total ass half the time, but-" she paused, remembering the way his face had looked when he had said those words. Those four awful words that continued to ring in her head even as she told herself it wasn't real.

"-I need you," she finally finished, "We all need you. None of us would've survived this place if it wasn't for you."

He looked away, not believing that what she said was true.

So she continued, "You want forgiveness? Fine I'll give it to you, you're forgiven, okay? But you can't run, Bellamy. Trust me I've tried," she let out a humorless laugh, tears falling from her eyes, "I've tried so many times to run away, and it never works. The things you're running from only find new ways to get to you. You have to come back, Bellamy. You have to face it."

He looked at her, studying her for a moment, seeing the pain clearly displayed on her face. Seeing how she couldn't look him directly in the eyes.

It was silent for a minute until he asked the one question that she had hoped he would never ask.

"What did you see? The berries, they're hallucinogenic, what did they make you see?"

Thea's breath caught, she bit down on her lip to stop the tears from breaking free. Her shaky breathes continued as she tried to make the words leave her lips, making a split second decision that she was sure she'd regret later.

"I- I saw my father. And my mother. We were together again, a family. We were happy," she lied.

He nodded, looking away from her to hide the pain behind his eyes. She didn't bother asking him what he had seen, the look on his face showing that he didn't want to have that conversation.

They sat in silence for a while before Bellamy spoke up, "Jaha will kill me when he comes down," he said, not taking his eyes off the night sky.

Thea sighed, "Clarke won't let that happen. I won't let that happen. We'll figure something out," she assured him.

He let out a humorless laugh, "Well can we figure it out later?"

Thea nodded, painfully leaning herself back against the tree, her arm brushing Bellamy's as they looked up at the sky that they used to call home, "Whenever you're ready."