ATARAXIA • BELLAMY BLAKE

[ 2 7 ]

"Hand me that, would you?" Raven asks with an extended hand. I grab the thin metal wire from the ground and place the end in her palm.

"Come on. These foxholes aren't gonna build themselves," Bellamy orders a group of guys around while Raven drags the wire across the ground to where Jasper is burying the land mines. The idea is that the mines will detonate when a Grounder, hopefully, walks into the tripwire that we're installing and sets it off.

I head over to help Jasper cover it with dirt. "You better hope those land mines work. With all the gunpowder we're wasting we could be making more grenades," Bellamy says from behind us.

"You wanna come over here and test one?" Raven snaps without turning his way, and I snort out a laugh. Raven smirks at my reaction.

"Cute," Bellamy chimes with an unimpressed tone. "I need this entire section mined by morning. Then we finish the south field."

I sit up straighter at his phrasing. Raven must have caught it too, because her head snaps around. "Hey, we told you. We're going after Finn, Clarke and Monty in the morning."

"And I told you," Bellamy says, his eyes switching from Raven's to mine. "Nobody leaves this camp."

"We had a deal," I say while getting up to my feet with Raven copying my action.

"No, you two had a deal." He points a finger in between Raven and I. "I never agreed to anything. We need everyone at camp. The Grounders are coming."

Suddenly a loud gunshot sounds, catching everyone's attention. I jump with surprise and Bellamy is quick to charge straight towards where it had come from.

"Hey!" he yells just when I catch sight of the boy fumbling with a gun at his post. "What the hell is the matter with you?"

"I'm sorry, man, I fell asleep. I've been on watch all day," he apologizes, looking just as surprised as the rest of us.

"We've all been on watch all day!" Bellamy yells, grabbing the boy by the collar of his jacket.

"It was an accident," I say while walking over to see the boy have guilt written all over his face. "The guy's exhausted, give him a break," I say, seeing the dark bags under the boy's eyes.

Bellamy's meet my eyes from over his shoulder and lets go of the boy's collar with a shove. "That bullet was one less dead Grounder!" he yells out to address everyone. "The bomb on the bridge bought us some time to prepare, but that time is up! The Grounders are out there right now waiting for us to leave and picking us off one by one when we do."

Then he turns to look me dead in the eye as he continues, "Clarke, Finn and Monty are gone. Probably dead. And if you wanna be next, I can't stop you. But no guns are leaving this camp. This camp is the only thing keeping us alive!"

He pauses to look around at the teens and then nods once. "Get back to work!"

Raven crouches down to continue her work with the tripwires, radiating anger. I crouch next to her. "I'm going after them."

"What?" her head whips around to look at me. I cast a glance over shoulder to where Bellamy can be seen walking off.

"Do you have any extra walkies?" I ask. When she sends me a confused look, I elaborate, "If I find them, I'll radio and you'll talk Bellamy into sending backup. He won't have a choice."

It's a long shot, but it's also the only chance we've got of getting them back. "I might have some in the drop ship, but they still need to be set up, and I don't have the time," she says.

"That's okay, just tell me how and I'll do it myself," I say.

Raven smiles slyly. "All right."

She starts explaining to me where to find them on the third level of the drop ship as well as how to work the mechanics of it all. She's dumbing her wording down for me, and I'm grateful, because it actually does manage to make a little sense to me.