ATARAXIA • BELLAMY BLAKE

[ 1 6 ]

I trot through the shallow end of the river, digging my hands through the mud in search of Raven's radio. We brought back a large group of people and have been at it for a while.

I've been chatting a bit with Raven in an attempt to get to know her better as well as to help pass the time, but I lost her attention at some point once she caught sight of Finn and Clarke talking a lot.

"Hey, I found it," someone yells from the other side of the river, and I rush over just as Raven takes the soaked radio from the boy's hands.

"Can you fix it?" Clarke worriedly asks, walking over.

"Maybe. It'll take half a day just to dry out the components to see what's broken," Raven says while removing some filth from the river out from the radio.

Bellamy trots up next to us. "Like I said, it's too late," he says, crossing his arms. Raven hands the radio to Finn while Clarke walks up to Bellamy.

"Do you have any idea what you did? Do you even care?" she asks, getting up close to his face.

"You asked me to help. I helped."

"Three hundred people are gonna die today because of you," Clarke yells at him.

"Hold up," Raven cuts in. "We don't have to talk to the Ark. We just have to let them know we're down here, right?" she asks, looking at around at us.

I frown in thought. "But how can we do that without the radio?"

Raven sends me a smirk, taking the radio from Finn's hands. "We're gonna need to go back to my pod."

We all do as Raven says and go back to the clearing where her pod still stands.

She's gotten the idea of sending up some flares from the pod tonight, hoping the Ark might see them and stop their plans when they realize that Earth is survivable.

Other than the flares, we're bringing back some supplies from the pod that will be useful for us at camp.

"Jesus, Bellamy, don't strain yourself." I stop my walk in order to get a better grip on the heavy control panel that I'm carrying. And when I say heavy, I mean heavy.

Although I will admit to having lost a tiny bit of my muscle mass since leaving the Guard, I'm still fairly strong. But this is a two person job—at least when having to carry it such a long way.

Finn and I were supposed to do it together, and we did for about five minutes until he ran off to do what he claimed to be 'an important task'. Funny how this so-called task came up just as Clarke passed by us.

I was fine carrying it by myself for a while, but in order to get a good and steady hold of the panel I'd need to have arms twice the length of my own. About twenty minutes in, I was well over doing this task. My arms were aching but I had continued on, too stubborn to ask Bellamy, who just so happened to be the only one not carrying a single thing, for help.

And then my arms started to shake from the weight, which is what finally made me speak up. I can't risk dropping and breaking the panel, no matter how much asking for his help makes me want to peel off my skin and die. Or something less dramatic.

Bellamy turns around, looking me up and down with a skeptic look. "What the hell do you want from me?" he asks, a bit too dramatically for my taste, as I try adjusting my grip.