Conflate | Bellamy Blake ¹ ✓

✯ | chapter twenty-five

❝intense.❞

-mason hewitt, teen wolf

♛

I HONESTLY DON'T KNOW how Bellamy is still carrying me up to this point. Even as we make our way to the command center with my directions and no help from Dante whatsoever, his arms haven't started shaking yet.

Clarke turns the next corner hesitantly, gun at the ready and shoulders stiff. Dante follows behind her almost boredly.

"I told you," he sighs, "there's no one here."

"Sorry if we don't take your word for it," Bellamy retorts sarcastically.

"Why aren't you with your people on Level Five?" Clarke questions.

"After what I've done, they can be free," he responds. "I can't. Deliverance comes at a cost. I bear it so they don't have to."

Clarke gives him a thoughtful glance. I shift my eyes toward Monty as he picks his way through the key card slot with a heavy feeling in my chest.

"It wasn't Cage," Bellamy realizes. "It was your idea to make the deal with the Grounders."

Dante opens his mouth to speak, but closes it and nods instead. I feel something like a glass shard wedge itself in my stomach.

"Bell," I whisper, "put me down."

"No," he declines shortly.

"I promise I'll sit down in there," I tell him. "Just let me stand."

He sighs reluctantly before carefully setting me down on my feet. I grit my teeth at the flare of pain in my hip, steadying myself using his arm. Discomfort prevents me from moving around too much.

"We're in," Monty announces. "Got them."

Immediately, Bellamy pushes the door open and raises his handgun. Even though I'm still clinging onto him, Clarke takes my other arm and wraps it around her shoulders. She gives me a wobbling, closed-lipped grin of encouragement as we step inside the empty room.

I can almost see Cage with the video camera in his hand. Emerson's shadow seems to be lurking around the computers. I suddenly feel the roughness of his hands on my back, holding me down and preventing my body from thrashing. A sharp inhale comes through my mouth that I try to disguise as a cough. Clarke shoots me a worried look.

"It's clear," Bellamy says. "He was telling the truth."

"Let's get the monitors up," Clarke suggests, holding the door open for Monty. He immediately starts dashing for one of the computers at the center of the dark room.

Clarke and Bellamy guide me toward the nearest chair and all but force me to sit down in it. The material is scratchy on my bare legs; I've forgotten what I'm wearing, but I don't feel embarrassed like I had before.

Both of them hover over me like flies. Despite the fact I continuously tell them I'm fine, they keep flinching at every wince or single movement I make. It's as if they expect me to drop dead at any given moment.

Dante doesn't even try to run. It's strange how calm and compliant he's being, really. There hasn't been a spark of resistance in him thus far, though it may be because he knows he's outnumbered. His presence still sets me on edge anyway.

I glance up toward the series of monitors on the wall when a few dings catch my attention. The screens blink to life, displaying the various camera angles around the mountain. A few graphs and stats are mixed in as well.