Rupture | Bellamy Blake ² [Discontinued]

❉| chapter fourteen

❝sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live.❞

-seneca, roman philosopher

♛

NO MATTER WHAT I'M doing, either tidying up Medical or treating a patient, my mind travels back to Raven's sudden loss of pain. I paged Sinclair to ask him if Caleb could send me updates on her condition.

I tap my fingers restlessly on the table I'm sitting at. A tablet displaying one of the Ark's many medical textbooks lays before me; I'm supposed to be catching up on the readings I've missed due to all of the chaos lately. Usually I can focus fairly easily on them, immersing myself in the text to distract my brain from my problems, but now my eyes jump around the screen restlessly. I find myself unable to focus on a paragraph for longer than a few seconds at most. I've read the same sentence over and over again twenty times until the words blend together and I have to blink hard to clear my vision again.

It doesn't help that my radio sits beside the device, taunting me. I keep sneaking glances at it as if I can telepathically will Caleb into contacting me. Two sides of me are at a violent war with each other, causing utter turmoil inside of my head as they clash. The first aches for it to beep so there'll be an update. The second hopes there won't be a need to use it at all.

"Fallon."

I push my chair back from the desk, causing a scraping sound as the metal skids across the floor. A hand rakes through my hair at Abby's cautious voice. "I know."

"You should go," she advises, eyeing the radio. "It looks like today will be a slow day- Jackson and I will take it from here."

I shake my head. "No, Abby–"

"That's an order."

A defeated sigh falls from my lips as my eyes stare down at my thumbs, which twiddle anxiously in my lap. It's a habit I've been trying to adopt to keep them from shaking. It's a lot less painful than clenching my hands into fists.

"Alright," I concede quietly.

Abby watches every movement I make as I pack up my things. The tablet goes tucked under my arm while I clip the radio back onto my belt, resisting the urge to connect to Mecha as soon as I come in contact with the small device. Three clicks would be all it would take for Caleb's voice to sound from the other side with a report on Raven. Three clicks I force myself not to make.

"It's for your own good," she assures me softly. I nod in understanding, though avoid her careful gaze as I breeze past her and exit through the automatic door.

I'm unsure going to do now with the rest of the day off. With everyone still working, there aren't many people I can talk to. I'm not even convinced I can finish my reading with how sidetracked my mind is.