Kass Morgan - Day 21

Wells couldn’t imagine what his father was doing there. The only times Wells could recall him visiting the wall were during official ceremonies, honoring Council members who had died. As far as Wells knew, he’d never come here alone.

Then the Chancellor reached up and traced the outline of one of the names. His shoulders slumped, radiating a sadness Wells had never seen.

Wells’s cheeks began to burn. He didn’t belong here, intruding on what was clearly a private moment. But as he started to turn around, taking care to move as quietly as possible, his father spoke up. “I know you’re there, Wells.”

Wells froze, his breath catching in his throat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I never should’ve followed you.”

The Chancellor turned to look at him, but to Wells’s surprise, he didn’t look angry, or even disappointed. “It’s okay,” he said with a sigh. “It’s time I told you the truth, anyway.”

A chill passed over Wells. “The truth about what?”

“This isn’t easy for me to say,” his father began, a slight tremor in his voice. He cleared his throat. “A long time ago, before you were born, before I’d even met your mother, I fell in love… with a woman from Walden.”

Wells stared at him, stunned. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard his father even use the word “love.” He was so unemotional, so devoted to his job—it didn’t make sense. And yet, the pain in his father’s eyes was enough to convince Wells that he was serious.

In a halting voice, the Chancellor explained that he’d met her as a young guard, during one of his patrols. They’d started seeing each other and had fallen in love, although he’d kept the whole thing a secret from his friends and family, who would’ve been horrified to learn about his feelings for a Walden girl. “Eventually, I realized that it was foolish,” his father said. “If we married, we would only cause our families pain. And by that point, there was already talk of me joining the Council. I had responsibilities to people besides myself, and so I decided to end things then.” He sighed. “She would have hated this life, being married to the Chancellor. It was the right thing to do.” Wells said nothing, waiting for his father to continue. “And then, a few months later, I met your mother and realized that she was the partner I needed. Someone who would help me become the leader the Colony needed.”

“Did you keep seeing her?” Wells asked, surprised by the harsh note of accusation in his voice. “That… that Walden woman?”

“No.” His father shook his head vehemently. “Absolutely not. Your mother is everything to me.” He cleared his throat. “ You and your mother are everything to me,” he amended.

“What happened to her? The woman from Walden? Did she ever find someone else?”

“She died,” the Chancellor said simply. “Occasionally, I come here to pay my respects. And that is all. Now you know everything.”

“Why does it need to be a secret?” Wells pressed. “Why did you act like you didn’t want anyone to see you?”

His father’s face hardened. “There are things about being a leader that you couldn’t possibly understand at your age.” He turned on his heel, heading back toward Phoenix. “Now, this conversation is over.”

Wells watched in silence as his father strode off, knowing full well that when they sat down together at dinner that night, they would both act like nothing had happened.

He turned back to the wall, to look at the name his father had touched so tenderly. Melinda. He tried to make out her last name, but it was too scratched-over for him to read. As close as he could tell, it started with a B.

Melinda B. The dead woman his father had once loved, whose memory brought him back to the wall over and over again. The woman who, if things had been different, could have been Wells’s mother.

Wells reached down and rebuttoned his jacket, then turned back toward Phoenix, leaving the ghosts of his father’s past behind him.

“Chancellor Junior was completely out of line,” Graham was saying. “And who the hell knows what he’ll do next?”

“I don’t know,” Lila was saying, “we can’t just—”

“It’s fine,” Wells said, interrupting them. “I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll leave .”

“What?” Kendall said, startled. “No, Wells, that’s not what we want.”

“Speak for yourself,” Graham snapped. “It’s exactly what I want. I say we’re better off without him.”

Wells wondered if Graham was right. Had he done the same thing that his father did long ago, and made an error in judgment because of a girl? What would the Chancellor say, if he were here right now?

“I hope you will be,” Wells told them, surprised by the amount of sincerity, and lack of resentment, in his voice.

Then without meeting anyone’s eye, he spun on his heel and went off to pack his bag for the last time.

The stairs led down to an enormous metal door embedded in a rock wall. It had a huge, impenetrable-looking circular lock, but the door itself was ajar.

“Sort of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?” Bellamy pointed to the gap between the heavy door and the rock.

“Not really,” Clarke said, slipping past him for a better look. “Until recently, they were the only human beings on the entire planet. There was no one to keep out.”

“Can you see anything?” he asked, trying his best to keep the concern out of his voice. He’d been hoping to catch the Earthborns who’d taken Octavia out in the open. Desperate as he was to find his sister, even Bellamy knew better than to waltz right into an enemy compound in the middle of the night. But once Clarke got an idea in her head, there was no stopping her, and he had no intention of letting her go at it alone.

“Not yet.” She spun around, and her face softened as she saw the worried look in his eyes. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “For doing this. For being here with me.”

Bellamy just nodded.

“Are you okay?” Clarke asked.

“It’s just Jim Dandy.”

Clarke reached over and squeezed his hand. “Aren’t you excited? You’re finally going to meet people who understand your weird, old-man Earth slang.”

He managed a smile, but when he spoke, his voice was serious. “So, do you think they’re expecting us?”

“No, not expecting us, exactly. But Sasha said they’d be happy to help us.”

Bellamy nodded, hiding his fear. He knew that if something bad happened to Clarke and himself tonight, they’d never be seen again.

“Let’s do it, then.”

Clarke pulled open the door, flinching as the creak of rusty hinges rang out through the silent night air. Then she slipped in between the gap and motioned for Bellamy to follow.

It was dark inside, but not pitch-black. There was a strange ambient light, but Bellamy couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

Clarke took Bellamy’s hand, and they crept along what seemed to be a tunnel through the rock. After a few steps, the ground began to slope down sharply, and they had to slow their pace to keep from losing their balance and tumbling to the bottom. The air was much cooler here than it’d been outside, and it smelled different as well—damp and mineral, instead of woodsy and crisp.

He forced himself to take a deep breath and keep his steps slow. The weeks he’d spent hunting had changed the way he moved, his feet seeming to float soundlessly above the ground. Clarke seemed to do it naturally.

But then she stumbled, gasping, and he pulled her close to his chest. “Are you okay?” Bellamy’s heart was pounding so fast, it seemed like it was trying to betray him to the Earthborns.