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hey you beautiful, girl you knocked me down.
As Clarke stops in front of the house, she has no idea why exactly she’s doing this. She hates being scared. Just hates it.
“Remind me again why we’re doing this?” She asks Raven, who’s standing next to her.
“Because you love me.” The slightly older girl answers. “And because you owe me.” She takes Clarke’s hand and drags her towards the ticket booth.
Clarke sighs, paying for both tickets with a frown on her face. “You owe me after this.”
Raven grins. “I promise, it won’t be that bad. Everybody loves a good scare, right?” She winks at Clarke.
“I swear to god, if you leave me alone in there, I’ll kill you afterwards.” Clarke ties her blonde waves back into a pony tail with shaky hands.
Raven laughs again. “Seriously, Clarke, it’s either this or family dinner with your mum and Kane.”
“Fine, fine.” Clarke rolls her eyes. “Let’s do this.” They walk over to the guy standing guard at the entrance.
The Haunted House is located in the middle of the fall fair or Arktown. It’s basically the center of the entire thing. Up until now Clarke has managed to avoid it every single year but when her mum has told her deputy mayor Kane is coming over for dinner, she has called Raven immediately to save herself.
Unfortunately it was the night before Halloween and Clarke hasn’t been able to convince her best friend to do something different with their evening.
Apparently Raven has been going to the Haunted House the evening before Halloween every year since she can remember. And usually she would’ve gone with Finn but after the situation last year which none of them likes to talk about, she was planning to go alone. Until Clarke called and sealed her faith.
“Are you trying to break my hand?” Raven teases her while the guard checks their tickets.
Clarke knows him from school. His name’s Miller or something. She thinks he’s on the football team. Not that she has a lot to do with them. She belongs to the geeks, how Raven likes to call them teasingly. The scientists who spend their lunch break in the chemistry room, blowing up things. Or studying to get into an Ivy League college like Clarke. She’s seen Monty and Jasper earlier at the shooting range, failing miserably.
“Ha ha” Clarke laughs drily, trying to hide her nervousness but Raven sees right through her.
“Clarke, relax! Those guys in there aren’t even allowed to touch you. It’ll be fine.” She soothingly talks to her best friend while they step into the Haunted House. “Right, Miller?” She turns around to get confirmation from the dark skinned boy who nods along. “See, everything’ll be half as bad!”
Clarke nods, feeling a little bit better. And the first few rooms aren’t that bad. Because Raven’s there and the costumes look ridiculous. Nobody could lose as much blood as the guy jumping out of the closet and still live.
Everything’s good, until they walk into a room full of mirrors and within seconds Clarke loses sight of Raven. The dark haired girl is just gone and immediately the fear is overtaking Clarke. She’s yelling Raven’s name again and again but the only thing she hears is creepy laughter and her own echo.
Biting back tears, she starts to look for the way back. She’s already seen all the scary things there. They won’t be as scary the second time around, even when she’s alone. Seeing her own reflection multiple times in the mirrors doesn’t help though. There’s panic written in her eyes and her pony tail is a mess and she’s as pale as a sheet of paper. Her heart beat escalates and Clarke yells for Raven again but again there’s no answer and this isn’t funny anymore. Her best friend can’t be gone suddenly.
She contemplates curling up on the floor and to wait until someone finds her and gets her out of here. But then she thinks about what happens if nobody comes looking for her. What if they lock her in here? That’s basically the perfect premise for every fucking horror movie and no, she will not sit down and wait.
She’ll find her way out of this. With newfound spirit Clarke picks up her search for an exit out of the mirror room.
It feels like it takes her hours when in reality it’s probably just minutes until she reaches a doorway. Not caring if it leads on or back to the start, she makes her way into the corridor. She just wants out of there.
The hallway is completely dark. Slowly Clarke extends her arms and slowly makes her way forward. Step by step she walks towards the tiny light at the end of the corridor. Her heart beats seems like the only sound in the house right now, booming in her ears and she’s not sure if she’s ever been so scared in her life.
“I can do this. The people can’t touch me. This is all just a joke. Just a joke. It’s funny. Really funny.” She murmurs to herself, repeating the same phrases again and again, trying to get back some of that spirit from the mirror room. She will not die here. This is not the premise of a horror movie. She’ll be fine.
The little light is growing bigger, finally illuminating the hallway. Clarke’s path seems clear and she even lets out a breathless laugh because that wasn’t so bad, was it? And she did it all on her own and apparently this is the exit because it looks like a door and there are trees behind it which look suspiciously like the ones on town square.
She quickens her footsteps, actually smiling now and then everything happens at once.
The wall next to her moves. A person all dressed in black jumps out, screaming. Clarke’s screaming, too. She feels like her heart stops right then and there. And then she’s punching the person right in the face.
Exactly how her father taught her back in kindergarten.
“Ah fuck!” The other person yells then, jumping up and down.
And Clarke’s still screaming because her heart hasn’t slowed down, yet.
“Are you out of your mind?” Black dressed guy shouts at her and suddenly Clarke’s more angry than scared.
“Am I out of my mind? Who scares people for fun?!” She yells back and crosses her arms over her chest.
“I need the money, fuck! It hurts!” The guy cries. “I think you broke my nose.”
“Let me see.” Clarke demands, forgetting all about being angry and scared and slipping into doctor mode how Raven likes to call it. Carefully she extends her fingers and peels the ski mask off the guy’s face.
“Ow, ow, ow!” The guy whines while Clarke tries to get the mask over his nose without getting too much contact with the apparently broken part of his face.
“That’s what you get for scaring people for money!” She tells him finally freeing him from the skiing mask. It’s too dark inside the hallway tough, to properly see anything and Clarke tells him so.
“Fine.” The guy shrugs and pushes back the curtain.
Behind it is a door, leading into a small alley behind the Haunted House. After spending that much time in the dark hallway, Clarke’s eyes need some time to adjust to the light.
“You screamed like a girl in there, princess.” The guy draws Clarke’s attention back to him and she’s so close to hit him a second time right there on the spot.
“And you got hit by a girl.” Clarke shoots back, effectively shutting him up.
He harrumphs, crossing his arms over his chest and Clarke’s eyes are drawn to his biceps for a second before snapping back up to his face.
“Can I?” She asks, pointing at his nose which is dotted with freckles and god, she didn’t know she had a thing for freckles up until this moment.
He grunts as a response but uncrosses his arms and Clarke takes that as an invitation to step closer and examine his nose.
“It’s not broken.” She tells him, still looking at his nose. “But you’ll get a nice bruise on your cheek.” Her dad would be proud. “It’s already showing.” She teases him.
He doesn’t answer which makes Clarke look up. Right into his dark brown eyes under a mop of unruly black curls and her heart beat picks back up. His eyes flicker over her face from her eyes to her lips over her nose back to her lips again and hers do the same. He’s beautiful. Even with the bluish color already showing on his skin. They make eye contact again and even though it’s fall, she suddenly feels terribly warm and she’s sure there’s color on her cheeks now, too, just from a different shade. His lips look very kissable. She wonders if he’d like to be kissed by her.
“I’m sorry.” Clarke blurts then because thinking about kissing the guy she just hit five minutes ago seems like a really bad idea.
And with that the moment’s gone. The guy takes a step back, chuckling.
“For hitting you, I mean.” She continues. “Even though, it basically was self-defense, I mean, you just jumped me.” When he starts laughing, she realized what she’d said, blushing furiously immediately. “I mean…”
“I know, what you meant.” He interrupts her and she’s thankful for it. “I’m sorry, too. For jumping you.” He smirks and it makes her knees get all wobbly and just then her mobile blows up.
With a quick glance at the caller ID she picks it up. “Raven!”
“Clarke! Where are you? Is everything okay? I’ve been waiting outside for minutes now!” Raven yells into the phone and Clarke has to smile at her friend’s worried voice.
The guy is awkwardly fiddling with his skiing mask next to her. “I’m fine.” She assures her best friends. “I’ll be out in a moment.”
“’kay!” Raven says before hanging up.
“Care to walk me out?” She asks the stranger then, sounding way more hopeful than she would’ve allowed herself but the last few minutes are taking their toll and she’s not in full control of her mind and body right now.
He looks at her. “Can we keep you hitting on me between us?” He asks then and Clarke ducks her head.
“As long as you keep the you jumping me and me screaming like a girl between us, too.” She answers back.
“When I jump a girl, I normally expect her to scream.” He tells her, smirking and shrugging his shoulder and Clarke hits him again. Lightly, against his shoulder.
“That was terrible.” She rolls her eyes and is about to go back into the Haunted House when his hand closes around her wrist.
“Tell me your name?” He asks her and Clarke suddenly feels all giddy.
Because there’s a cute boy, asking for her name after she punched him right in the face and maybe it’s all the adrenaline from before still cursing through her body, but she feels bold. “What’s yours?”
“I asked first.” He responds taking a step closer towards her.
“I asked second.” She shoots back, leaning even closer. They’re staring at each other again, tension building up once more. Their noses are almost touching and Clarke imagines she can feel his breath on her lips.
“Bellamy.” He says then, basically whispers.
“Clarke.” She mumbles back and a smile tugs at his lips.
“Nice to meet you, Clarke.” He mumbles and her eyes catch on the bruise, doctor’s mode taking over again.
“This looks really bad already. You should get some ice on it.” She suggests and is about to lean back but Bellamy keeps her in place and Clarke will not complain about it because she likes where she is right now.
“Kiss it better.” He requests then with a flirtatious smirk on his lips.
A laugh escapes Clarke and she rolls her eyes. “Terrible, Bellamy! Absolutely terrible!”
“You wound me, princess.” He tells her, clutching his heart. “Again!”
Shaking her head, she frees her hand from his. “Will you walk me out now?”
He nods then, taking her hand into his and lacing their fingers together. Clarke is surprised by the action but doesn’t protest. She’s just stares at his profile while Bellamy leads her through the dark hallway towards the exit.
As soon as they’re outside though Clarke is being pulled into a hug by Raven, separating her hand from Bellamy’s. “Oh my god! I was so scared! Where were you? What took you so long?” Raven is already dragging her away from the Haunted House, bombarding her with questions and apologies and promises of ice cream and when Clarke finally can free herself and turns around to the house, Bellamy’s gone already.
His cheek still hurts when Bellamy finally finishes his shift a little after ten. In the dressing room he throws his black clothes into his back pack changing into a pair of old jeans and a faded t-shirt from the band Ton DC. He examines the bruise once again in the mirror. Clarke. Bellamy lets out a sigh.
Arktown is too big to know everybody and the chances of running into her again are close to none. It didn’t seem like they run in the same circles. The nickname he gave her fit. She is a princess and probably way out of his league. After all he’s working at the Haunted House during the season apart from the two other jobs just to keep him and O afloat.
And she punched him in the face. He smiles then. Octavia would love her. They’d be a force to be reckoned with.
“Can you close up after the girls leave?” Miller asks him then and Bellamy nods. He texts his sister that he’ll be back in twenty minutes and tells her to order pizza.
“Blake?” Harper’s voice comes from the hallway. Shortly after her head pops up in the doorway. “Monroe and I are done.” She tells him and Bellamy nods.
“I’ll walk out with you!” He gets up from his seat on the bench and meets the two girls in the hallway.
Monroe is telling them about a girl named Fox that she likes and they leave the building together. It’s already dark outside when they part ways just down the steps off the Haunted House and Bellamy is making his way over to his bike, smiling at O’s text about something that has happened on her favorite TV show.
He’s just about to drive away when a dark figure walks up to him out of the shadows of two nearby fair stands. He tenses immediately, preparing for a fight.
“Hello Bellamy” The figure says and he knows that voice and when the person takes a few more steps forward the light of the streetlamp finally hits her and Bellamy relaxes immediately. Yet, he tenses in a whole other way.
“Clarke” He breathes out and she smiles.
Her eyes wander to the bruise. “I brought ice.” She tells him, holding up the plastic bag in her hand. Bellamy looks at her. She looks beautiful and the longer he stares at her, the darker her cheeks flush, making her even prettier. “It’s actually ice cream and I thought we could eat it here but if you don’t want to, that’s fine… I just…” She sighs. “Forget it.”
Clarke’s about to turn around and Bellamy can’t let that happen, no matter how cute she is when she’s rambling.
“No, wait!” He grabs her arm, stopping her from leaving. “I’d love to stay.” He tells her, putting all the sincerity into his words. She looks up at him then, hopeful and Bellamy’s heart starts swelling. “But I can’t.” She visibly deflates.
“Oh…” Bellamy hates the sound leaving her mouth.
“My sister has ordered pizza and she’s expecting me home.” He quickly tells her, trying to make her understand, that he’d love nothing more than to stay. Clarke doesn’t really seem convinced. Bellamy’s eyes fall back on the white plastic bag in her hand. “But I’m sure she’d like to have some ice cream for dessert. Why don’t you join us and I walk you home after?” He suggests.
As he has realized this evening Clarke is wearing her emotions on her sleeve, showing them off to everybody. Right now, she’s conflicted. “I don’t know…” She hesitates.
He takes a step toward her. “I need to introduce her to the girl who’s responsible for this bruise. Otherwise she would never believe me, I got hit by a girl.”
Clarke raises her eyebrows. “I thought you didn’t want anybody to know.”
Bellamy shrugs, grinning. “If it gets you to come home with me and makes you let me walk you home afterwards.”
Clarke ducks her head, smiling and blushing. “Okay” She breathes out and Bellamy has to restraint himself from a fist bump.
He takes the handlebar into one hand and Clarke’s into the other. It already feels natural, which is scaring him a little bit to be honest. “Let’s go then. I hope you like pepperonis.”
“I do.” Clarke tells him, smiling.