THE FREE FALL ⇘ Bellamy Blake. [1]

| xxxiii. VAMPIRA

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CHAPTER THIRTY THREE;

VAMPIRA.

[ content warning: body horror ]

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BELLAMY BLAKE WAS LOSING HIS FUCKING MIND. The last three days had been a headlong plunge into hell—the most excruciating, soul-scorching trauma he'd ever experienced in his twenty-two years of life. But even that couldn't adequately capture the sheer panic shredding through him right now. It wasn't just that the Grounders—relentless and bloodthirsty—were surely on their way to massacre the camp's inhabitants, or that the camp itself was unraveling from within.

        Rather, it was the cruel acceptance that it was entirely his fault.

        Every impulsive choice, every rash decision, had brought them to this precipice, and now he stood at its edge—watching the world he'd built with his own hands teetering on the brink of devastation. He hadn't meant to start war when he had kicked out the crate beneath Murphy's feet. He hadn't meant to seal Haven's fate by asking her to wait for him in the dropship. But karma doesn't care about intentions, especially not his—it collects its toll in blood, without mercy or remorse.

        Everything was his fault.

        Everything would always be his fault.

        Perhaps Bellamy had forgotten that truth when he selfishly melted into Haven's touch, dissolved in the fathomless depths of her eyes, soared blindly on the wings she'd lent to his bleeding heart. Perhaps he was foolish to think he could outrun it. The curse he carried, the one he bestowed upon those he loved and held dear was vicious and unforgiving: they were destined for ruin.

"JOHN! FUCKING! MURPHY!"

Surprisingly—it wasn't Bellamy's voice spearheading the latest verbal barrage. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't; his throat was seared raw from hours of hurling obscenities at the dropship door. His fists were a different story entirely—they'd swelled into a mottled landscape of reds and purples, the shape of his knuckles lost in a violent collage of bruises from his relentless pounding on the sealed metal. Despite his enraged efforts, the tirade hadn't accomplished jack shit, except making his threat to Murphy abundantly clear.

As soon as they found a way into the dropship—he was dead.

Orion knew it, too.