Love to Hate [1]

Light it up like we're the stars of the human race.

Song: Burn // Ellie Goulding

Nessa's POV

I felt like shit. Not for what I said to Bellamy - that was completely warranted and I meant every word - but for not trying harder to stop him from getting to the pod before anyone else. Not that I would have been able to put up much of a fight against him, but still. He had gotten to the pod and, being Bellamy, had disconnected the radio and thrown it in the nearby stream. 

Which is why, hours later, we found ourselves knee deep in water wading through the stream, trying to find the radio. I was probably not actually contributing anything to the search with how slow I was moving but I had insisted on coming. Anything to make up for not stopping Bellamy when I could have. I could feel his eyes on me as I moved slowly through the water. I had not spoken to him, acknowledged him, or even looked in his direction since our last confrontation. I had given him every opportunity to prove me wrong and he failed every time. It wasn't worth my time to try any more when it was obvious he wasn't ever going to change. 

As I walked forward I put my foot on an unstable rock and slipped, landing hard on my left knee. I gasped as pain racked my body. 

"Nessa, are you okay?" Someone called out.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm-," I saw it was Bellamy who had asked and stopped, giving him my best death glare. Then I turned back to the water and saw something reflecting the sunlight back at me. It was the radio. "Hey, hey guys!" I called out. "I found it!" I grabbed the radio and stood up. Everyone rushed toward me. The girl who had come down in the pod - Raven Reyes, a mechanic - grabbed the radio. She ran to the side of the stream, shaking the water out. We all gathered around her. I could feel Bellamy standing behind me. Way too close for comfort. 

"Can you fix it?" Clarke asked Raven. 

Raven shook her head. "Maybe," she said. "It'll take half a day just to dry out the components and see what's broken."

"Like I said," Bellamy chimed in from behind me. "It's too late."

Clarke was furious. "Do you have ANY idea what you've done," she shouted at him. "Do you even care?" No, he definitely does not. Why are you surprised about this?

"You asked me to help," Bellamy said stubbornly. "I helped."

"Three hundred people are going to die today because of you," Clarke responded. Wait, what? Three hundred people were going to die? On the Ark? All they told us was that they needed help finding the radio Bellamy threw in the river. I glanced at Finn in confusion but he had the same angry look as Clarke. 

"Hold up," Raven interjected. "We don't have to talk to the Ark. We just have to let them know we're down here."

"Yeah, but how do we do that with no radio?" Finn asked.

Raven smiled. Well, she definitely had a way.

- 

Bellamy's POV

I felt like shit. Not just for throwing the radio in the river and possibly causing three hundred people on the Ark to die - Raven had a plan to stop that - but for what I had done to Nessa. She was finally starting to not totally hate me. And I completely and royally screwed it up. I hadn't had time to apologize with everyone running around and trying to put the rockets together to signal to the Ark we were alive down here. But she had also made it very clear she wanted nothing to do with me. I sighed down and put down the piece of metal I had been carrying where Raven told me to put it. I looked around for Nessa. She was sitting on top of the drop ship, watching everyone work below her. Clarke and Finn had both insisted that she wasn't allowed to help with building the rockets in her condition, and besides she had been the one who found the radio. I made myself swear that the minute this was over I would seriously apologize and explain everything to her - if she let me that is. 

It was getting dark. Everything was in place. The rockets were set up, propped up on pieces of wood, ready to launch into the sky. Raven pressed a button and they shot up, trailing streams of purple sparks. They actually looked almost - pretty. I stood next to Clarke. "Do you think they can see it from up there?" I asked her. I prayed to god that they would. I was already responsible for so much pain. I felt sick to my stomach at the thought of being the reason 300 people were unnecessarily killed. 

"I hope so," Clarke answered. "Can you wish on this kind of shooting star?" she asked. I shot her a look. "Forget it," she sighed.

"I wouldn't even know what to wish for," I responded. I looked over at where Nessa was standing watching the fireworks, her face lit up by the purple light. "What about you?" I asked Clarke. She didn't answer.

-

Nessa's POV

Octavia was missing. A search party had been made to look for her. I was worried - no one had seen her since before all the drama with the pod and the radio. Bellamy was even more worried, asking everyone that could to go out and look for her. For Octavia's sake I wanted to help, so I ignored Clarke's protests and packed some things in a backpack and sharpened my arrows. All of a sudden I heard whispers around me. Everyone was looking and pointing at the sky in wonder. I looked up and saw what looked like hundreds of stars falling, burning up - it was beautiful. But definitely not natural. The sight filled me with dread and I wasn't sure why.

"They didn't work," Raven said dejectedly. "They didn't see the flares." How did she know that? Unless...no...

"A meteor shower tells you that?" Bellamy asked. 

"It's not a meteor shower it's a funeral," Clarke said, her eyes watering with tears. "Hundreds of bodies being returned to the Earth from the Ark. This is what it looks like from the other side." No. We had been too late. Three hundred people. A wave of nausea swept through me as I looked at the sky. This is what my father had looked like. What my sister had looked like. I stumbled a few steps back. I couldn't take it anymore. As an argument broke out between Bellamy and Raven I slipped away into the woods. I limped right outside the front gate with only a backpack and my bow and arrow. Let the Grounders find me. I didn't care anymore.

The group looking for Octavia left not long after I did. I heard them behind me - not more than twenty people but it sounded like twice that number with all the noise they were making. Veering to the side I stayed hidden in the trees behind them, following their torchlight. I still wanted to help Octavia but I couldn't deal with being around people anymore. All they did was hurt you and let you down. After we found Octavia, I was going to leave camp. Not for good, but for a while. I was sure I could handle myself against Grounders. It would be easier than handling the assholes back at camp. Rage coursed through me as I thought again of Bellamy. My only comfort was that he was going to have to live the rest of his life with the knowledge that he caused the deaths of three hundred innocent people. But, knowing him, he probably wouldn't care. He had done what was best for him without thinking about the consequences.

I heard yelling from the group ahead of me. They had found something. I waited a few yards back as someone went down into a steep hill to check out whatever they had found. He was followed by two more people - it was too dark to see who they were. Eventually everyone made their way down the hill. I waited a few minutes before following after them. When I got to the bottom of the hill I crouched down to try and find what they had seen. A few blood droplets glistened on the rocks, and a horde of footprints showed they had gone east, probably following an original set of footprints. I jogged to try and catch up to them again, wincing in pain as each step sent a jolt through my side. After a few minutes I caught up the group. They had all stopped for some reason. Peering ahead through the trees I saw why. Human skeletons hung from various points in the forest ahead. 

Huh, I guess Grounders aren't too keen on visitors.