Conflate | Bellamy Blake ¹ ✓

※ | chapter twelve

❝take my hands and take my strength, too. whatever of it you can use to keep going.❞

-alec lightwood, the mortal instruments

♛

I FORCE MY EYES to stay open. They droop and seem to be filled to the brim with sand. The sun came up hours ago, and we have long since passed the entrance into Grounder territory. We have yet to endure an encounter with them, but we also haven't seen any more clues for a long while. I'm beginning to lose hope that we'll find Octavia. Worry is consuming me from head to toe, making me feel miserable.

Finn sighs and crosses around a tree to Bellamy. "I got nothin'. We lost the trail."

Bellamy's head gives a little shake of disbelief that's barely noticeable. He steps around Finn, who has stopped to examine the area more accurately. "Keep looking."

Finn rolls his eyes and follows after Bellamy. I stay close to Jasper, whose head constantly swivels around to survey his surroundings. His tousled raven hair falls messily in his eyes and the red welt near his eye has gone down considerably since I last remember taking a close look at it. He catches my stare and gives me a weird look, wondering why I'm watching him.

I shrug. "Just making sure you're okay, Jas."

He sighs. "I'm fine."

I purse my lips and avoid walking into a particularly thick tree trunk. "Whatever you say."

Finn hurries after Bellamy and attempts to get him to listen. "Wandering around aimlessly isn't the way to find your sister. We should backtrack--"

"I'm not going back," Bellamy cuts in harshly, coming to a stop suddenly. He narrows his eyes into slits at Finn, lips pulled into a small frown.

"Hey, where's John?" A girl named Roma questions nervously. She has long, dark hair pulled back by thin cornrows and a narrow jaw that makes her face appear long. Her small eyebrows are creased together in worry.

When I look around, I notice that John is missing from our group. The rest turn their heads in search of him as well.

"I just saw him a second ago," Jasper whispers as his head snaps around. His body tenses and his knees stay slightly bent like he's ready to run at any given moment.

"Spread out," Bellamy orders. "He couldn't have gotten that far."

Just as he finishes, something falls from the treetops and lands in the center of our wide circle. I turn and feel my heart go cold. There lies John's lifeless body, completely still with his throat slashed and unfocused eyes staring at space.

Finn runs over to the body, accompanied by Bellamy. The former glances up at the leaves with a panicked expression. "They use the trees."

A bird shrieks nearby. My neck turns up to view the seemingly empty branches of the trees surrounding us, carefully but swiftly searching for anything unusual.

"We shouldn't have crossed the boundary," one of the guys says, deep voice wavering. I think I remember people calling him Diggs.

"Now can we go back?" Roma asks anxiously, seemingly even paler than before. The loss of color gives her a washed-out, ghostlike appearance.

"There." Jasper uses his weapon to point in the distance. I turn to my left and notice a black figure standing, frozen in place, about a quarter of a mile away. "Right there."

Diggs stands near the long-faced girl, breath shaking. "Another one."

My heart begins to pound intensely as my gaze flickers between the two Grounders. I wring my cold hands together. The feeling of fatigue has completely passed over me now.