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. 

My brother remains silent. This whole camp has figured out that it's probably better not to get in each other's way when it comes to Bellamy and myself. All we ever seem to do is fight and then we try to protect each other only seconds later. Honestly, I'm confused about Bellamy. We're not friends because friends don't constantly yell at each other and try to punch each other. Friends definitely don't kiss each other either.

What the hell are we?

Jasper gently dabs the damp cloth to my bloody knuckles, earning a soft hiss from me. "Are you okay?"

I lift my head up from where it was angled downwards to look at my hand. "What?"

"Are you okay? There's a lot that been going on lately and you seem to be putting all of the weight on your shoulders." Jasper holds my right hand in his to clean it better. "I don't want you to take on too much."

I grimace at the pain in my knuckles. The feeling of the wet cloth brushing against the raw skin of my knuckles is enough to make me want to yank my hand away from Jasper. "I'm fine."

"Really?" Jasper raises an eyebrow. "Because you kind of had a breakdown the other night and-" He avoids my gaze as he says, "It's not the first time you've had one either."

Jasper has been paying closer attention to me than I thought. He's more observant than people give him credit for. I wait until he finishes cleaning my knuckles and wrap an extra piece of cloth around them to keep them from getting infected. 

"If I don't take on all of this pressure then Bellamy will be in charge of everything." I lower my hand to my side. "And we've already seen what he did with the Grounder. Sometimes, taking on a little more than one person can handle is a risk that needs to be taken when leadership could end up in the wrong hands."

Halfway through talking, I notice Jasper's gaze floats to something over my shoulder. My brow furrows when I finish talking and see that he almost has a worried look in his eyes. I crane my neck over my shoulder to see nothing behind me. What is he looking at?

"Jasper?" I call out his name. 

Nothing. No response. 

I snap my fingers in front of his face. "Jasper!"

Blinking several times, Jasper jumps backwards slightly and his eyes fall back onto me. "Um, what?"

"What were you looking at?" I turn my body sideways to see him and the direction that he was originally looking at. 

"What? I-I wasn't looking at anything." Jasper stumbles over his words. His skin flushes and he tries to avoid making eye contact with me. Now, he's lying to me. "I, uh- I have to get back to counting nuts."

"O-Okay." I step out of the way when he rushes out of the room. What the hell is going on with him? I shake my head and step out of the room. I watch as Jasper's retreating figure joins back up with Monty and he pops a few of the nuts in his mouth. 

Monty laughs hysterically at something my brother said. His head is thrown backwards and he uncontrollably laughs, which only makes my brother join in. Okay. They are acting weirder than normal. 

I pass by the two of them and step inside of the dropship. Octavia is still sitting down in the seat that she planted herself in last night. She says she has no intention on moving until she's allowed upstairs to see the Grounder. We need to get him out of here, but with Bellamy, that's not going to happen. 

"He's still dangerous." Bellamy's voice comes from the first floor of the dropship. 

I quietly groan when I see him standing in front of Octavia. I could not have picked a worse time to walk in here. 

"Only because of what you did." Octavia replies back. 

I awkwardly walk up to the two siblings. Of course, they would be talking about the Grounder upstairs. Bellamy and Octavia fighting is nearly as bad as when I fight with Bellamy. I completely understand why people avoid us now.

"Whatever twisted connection you think you have with that animal, forget it. You don't get to see him and neither do you." Bellamy jabs his pointer finger in the air towards me. "End of conversation."

I poke my tongue against the inside of my cheek. "You're not in charge of me, Bellamy." I walk past him to Octavia just as he tries to walk out of the dropship.

Octavia leans forward in the seat. "Why do you even care if I ruined your life? You should want me to go up there. Maybe you'll get lucky and he'll kill me, problem solved." She slumps backwards in the seat and stares forward. 

Bellamy  stops walking, "Octavia, you know I didn't mean that."

"You tend to say a lot of things you don't mean Bellamy." I fold my arms over my chest and stand near Octavia's seat. The two of us have definitely grown closer since this whole Grounder thing. She seems to be the only one who understands me.

Clarke steps into the dropship. "Bellamy."

"The answer is still no. I'm not talking to Jaha." Bellamy shoves his hands in his jacket's pocket and strides to exit the dropship.

Clarke spins around to face him on his way out. "Hey, relax." She waits until he turns around to face her. "That's not why I'm here." Clarke's head twists around to nod for me to join the two of them. 

I walk over to them while giving Octavia a confused look. Why does she want to talk to Bellamy and myself?

"What, then?" Bellamy demands.

"The Ark found some old records that show a supply depot not too far from here." Clarke shares with both of us. 

"What kind of supplies?" I ask her. From my peripheral vision, I see Octavia angle her head just enough to listen in on our conversation. 

"The kind that might give us a chance to live through winter. I'm gonna go check it out. I could use backup." 

Bellamy narrows his eyes at the blonde. "Why are you asking me?" 

Clarke tilts her head to the side. "Well, because, right now, I don't feel like being around anyone I actually like." She nods her head at the two of us. "And, believe it or not, even when you two are screaming at each other, you guys work better when together. I figured my best bet to finding it would be to have both of you join me."

Bellamy and I side glance at each other. She's not wrong. Bellamy and I do work better when we are together. We just seem to click and know that we have each other's back, even when we are fighting. 

"Fine." I nod my head. "I'll grab my stuff and meet you in ten."

"Ten minutes." Bellamy states before stepping out the dropship. 

A few seconds later, I step out of the dropship and make my way back over to my brother and Monty. I need to let him know that I'm going to be gone for a little bit. By the time I reach the two of them, I see Monty toss a nut into Jasper's mouth and the two of them do a weird handshake. 

"You two are such dorks." I chuckle at the two of them. I rest my hands on the table. "I'm going to be gone for most of the day. There's this little mission that the Ark is sending us on. Clarke recruited me and Bellamy."

Jasper raises a brow. "You and Bellamy? Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Clarke said we work better when the two of us are together, so I guess so." I shrug my shoulders. I eye the nuts that are being sorted. One of the guys down the row nearly trips over his own feet and has a dazed look on his face. I glance back down at the nuts. "What kind of nuts are these?" 

Monty shrugs, "I don't know, but they are delicious." He laughs and pops another in his mouth. He holds out his palm with a few nuts in it. "Want some?" 

Jasper has that strange look in his eye almost, like, he's seeing something that's not there. 

A smile tugs on my lips. "Sure." I hold my hand out for Monty to drop them in. "Anyways, I'll be as soon as I can." I eye my brother. "Keep an eye on each other." 

Clarke and Bellamy pass by me and I hold up one finger. I jog back to the dropship with the nuts held in my hand. My eyes examine the room to make sure no one else is in here. I drop down to my knees beside Octavia. 

"Look, I don't have much time, but take these..." I drop the nuts in Octavia's hand. "I know you heard about the trip. It's going to be a day trip."

"Okay, but what do these have to do with-"

I cut Octavia off. "These nuts- or whatever they are- I think they are giving people hallucinations. Jasper was talking to me before and he kept staring at nothing, like there was actually something there. I saw some guy trip over thin air, like he was drunk." I quickly explain to her. 

Octavia glances down at the nuts in her hand. 

"Give these to Miller." I point to the nuts. "The whole camp is starting to eat these nuts, which means everyone is going to be losing their minds soon." A smile spreads across my lips. "With these nuts, we can get the Grounder out of here without anyone ever knowing it was us. Bellamy's going to be gone and the whole camp is going to be out of their minds." 

"It's perfect." Octavia breathes in excitement. 

"I'll keep us out for as long as I can, but you have to be the one to sneak him out of camp." I tell her. 

Octavia stands up with the nuts clenched in her hands. "This is brilliant, Wren." 

I hold up a hand. "Just promise to keep an eye on Jasper for me while I'm gone. I'm not quite sure what the nuts will do to him and he's already acting strange."

"Of course." Octavia promises. 

"Okay, I have to go, but get him out of here safely. No one will know it was us." I start to back away from her and towards the exit. "Good luck."

"Good luck, Wren." Octavia grins.

XXXX

Wren and Octavia being friends and working together is giving me life. I like the two of them being nice to each other. Wren's going to keep an eye on Bellamy and Octavia is going to help the Grounder escape.

Wren is quite devious and I love it. 

The next chapter will probably be pretty intense. We'll see how that goes. 

Question: What did you guys think?

So, yeah!