Rupture | Bellamy Blake ² [Discontinued]

❉| chapter twenty-four

❝crushed and broken. just the way women like 'em.❞

-gansey, the raven boys

♛

WE DECIDE TO SPLIT up into two groups. Since Raven remembered that ALIE had downloaded herself into the Ark mainframe and suggested she could find a back door, that left the science people to stay with her. Miller, Harper, and Bryan offered to stay to watch their backs as they worked. It leaves a much smaller group of us to retrieve Luna.

I'd felt a small smile tugging my lips when, after I'd hugged Caleb, Bellamy had been the one to pull him in for an embrace right afterward. It had left the taller boy looking shocked. However, it melted into a smile as Bellamy ruffled his hair and pulled back.

The only one not to hug me was Monty, though it was expected. He was still badly shaken about the ordeal with his mother and so he turned away before any of us could get close to him. I hoped that spending time away from the action would give him time to heal.

Bellamy drives the Rover this time, the long ride to the ocean proving to be enough to lull me to sleep. I slumber easily in the back of the vehicle. Due to the exhaustion from the past day, I suppose I could have slept anywhere. The gentle jostling of the automobile as we drive through dirt paths is somehow comforting instead of annoying.

Clarke sits in the passenger seat beside Bellamy. She's been turning the Flame over in her hands for hours as if she can't bear to part with it for more than a second. Jasper is beside me, Octavia across from us and her eyes trained on the barred window in the back doors.

A harsh bump causes my eyes to immediately snap open. It takes me a few minutes to become fully comprehensive, my limbs sluggish and aching from sitting for so long. Jasper's head has flopped onto his shoulder as he sleeps. Soft snores come out of his mouth every few seconds.

We've been following Lincoln's map that he'd drawn in his journal, but it feels like we're moving aimlessly through lifeless forests. We've passed several ruinous landmarks. They've been chipped away and destroyed by the war; I wonder what they used to look like before they were half-destroyed.

Two nearly silent hours later, Jasper is awake and holds the journal open in his hands. I feel my heart clench as I peer over his shoulder to see the small sketches and notes written in Lincoln's handwriting. The drawings he'd done of the landscape are elaborate, adding tiny details and shading done in charcoal.

"It's been an hour since we passed the airplane wreckage," he informs the rest of us, tracing his finger along the rough pages. "Seeing as we're using a map without any distances, it could be days before we reach Luna's village."

"At least we know we're going in the right direction," Bellamy says optimistically.

"We're running out of daylight," Jasper points out, which is true. The overcast sky above is already starting to darken once more as twilight approaches. "We should stop in the sun and recharge the battery."