ATARAXIA • BELLAMY BLAKE

[ 4 8 ]

"Fox, you stay here with Vincent for now," I tell her when she walks into the living area looking helpless.

I wouldn't say Vincent has grown much fonder of us overnight, but he's significantly less hostile and seems to respects our cause. He even shared an acknowledging handshake with Bellamy this morning and introduced himself properly.

Bellamy and I had been awakened by the sound of his Mount Weather radio going crazy. Cage and his men have been communicating back and forth about their next move to get a hold of our friends, who I learned killed ten of their people yesterday thanks to Bellamy getting a gun in there beforehand and urging them all to fight back.

As soon as we heard their plans, we jumped back into making our own. It's clear as day that we need to get our friends out of here now more urgently than before. Buying them time doesn't cut it anymore. We can't wait until we disable the acid fog, or for Clarke and Lexa's army to march on the mountain—if they're even still alive after the missile strike, which Raven still has no updates on.

"Lovejoy's keycard will get you into the armory," Maya tells Bellamy as the three of us walk out the door, towards the stairwell where Bellamy and I will be splitting off, him to steal guns to arm all of our friends, and me to sneak into their dorm through the vents to present to them our plan for when the Mountain Men inevitably strike back even stronger. "The guns are locked, but the guard has the key. I can lure him away if—"

"No, there's no time," Bellamy cuts in. "Once I get the guns, how do I get them to level five? They're watching every door."

"Maybe not," Maya says in thought, stopping her walk. We follow suit. "The mess hall has a trash chute."

"A trash chute?" I repeat.

"There's one on every level. Best part, no radiation alarms," she explains. "The hatches leak like crazy, so they put in airlocks to be safe."

"You find a way through to get to the others and prepare them?" Maya asks me.

"Yeah," I nod my head, patting my pocket containing my map of the vent system. "I've marked down several routes."

"Okay then." Maya turns to Bellamy. "You get the guns, I'll get them into the mess hall."

"Meet back here in thirty minutes," Bellamy tells Maya. She nods her head and heads down the hallway, leaving Bellamy and I to go the opposite direction.

"She's a natural born revolutionary," Bellamy says with a slight smile on his lips as we move at a brisk pace.

"Got that right," I agree.

I'm nervous to be seen, but Maya's home isn't far off the locked stairwells so I'm not exposed for too long. Bellamy scans Lovejoy's keycard and the mechanic lock flashes green before the door snaps open.

We both hurry up the stairs until we reach the point where I have to jump into a vent and Bellamy has to continue upwards.

Bellamy helps place the vent cover back on once I crawl inside and resumes his quest while I pull out my map and skim over my marked options, choosing the route I deem the most direct way to a vent located just above the dorm on level five.

We haven't heard from Raven in a couple of hours. She missed our last check in, which is unusual, but we didn't have any time to dwell on it.
I've only been navigating for a couple of minutes when suddenly Bellamy's voice is in my ear.