Fearless (Bellamy Blake - Book 1)

Chapter 69

Despite wishing to sleep off the previous day's events, my mind clearly had no intention of doing so as my father's words rattle through my brain the entire night, only angering me further.

The silence in my tent had gotten so aggravating that before dawn I was already sitting outside the wall, my back against a tree trunk as I watched the sunrise through the trees. 

Being outside the camp, even a mere few feet away, managed to clear my head considerably, and it made things seem much more clear.

We are now at war.

Whether I am a leader or not, I'll be damned if I let the Grounders take away our opportunity at living on Earth. They may have been here first, but that doesn't give them the right to claim the entire goddamn land and treat us as the enemy without even trying to compromise. 

As the sun continues to rise through the trees, the camp behind me comes to life. Chatter is heard amongst the delinquents as people start their daily jobs of manning the wall and repacking the winter rations.

"It isn't safe out here, Trouble."

My eyes move to follow Bellamy as he stands beside me in my peripheral vision, but aside from that I barely move.

"How are you feeling?"

I take a few moments to answer him, and when I do my voice is hard and monotone.

"Fine."

"Your head hurt?"

I shake my head. 

"Good," he nods unconvinced and eyes me up. "How 'bout your ankle? Can you walk on it?"

"Well I made it out here, didn't I?"

"Alright, what the hell is your problem?" Bellamy snaps, angling his body towards me, his caring mode disintegrating.

"Me?" I round on him, eyes narrowed as I quickly stand to face him. "I'm not the one who had his mind set on leaving this place no less than twenty four hours ago."

Bellamy's face quickly falls, guilt washing over him. He clearly hadn't realised that I knew.

"Clarke told you," he says quietly.

"She thought I deserved to know," I tell him, voice cold. "At least someone did."

"You did. You do." Bellamy nods. "I'm—"

"Don't say that you're sorry," I seethe, turning away from him and mumbling, "because you're not."

"I am." He sighs, "I thought that everyone would be better off without me."

I scoff lightly but say nothing in response.

"Octavia hates me. This camp isn't safe because of the decisions I made."

"You mean the decisions we made." I clench my jaw, "I thought we were in this together."

"We were," he confesses, "at the start. But then--"

"But then?" I cut him off abruptly. "But then, what? Huh, Bellamy?" When he doesn't answer I narrow my eyes into slits at him, my temper rising. "You don't just get to give up when things get hard."

"I know that," he says firmly. "I grew up raising a child, Carter, okay? I know that when things get hard you can't just walk away."

"Then what makes you think being a leader of that camp is any different? Bellamy, those kids," I point to the campsite behind us, "they look up to you."

"They look up to us," he quickly interrupts but I disregard it.

"You're not just raising one kid anymore...you're raising a hundred of them, and you need to put them first."

"I didn't want to leave," he says quietly, shaking his head. "I didn't want to. But I thought they would kill me, or lock me up for the rest of my life and I couldn't..." Bellamy sighs, "I couldn't do that to Octavia. Whether or not she hates me at the moment, I don't care...I couldn't leave her."

I look away from him, the feeling of Octavia's betrayal to us burning in the back of my mind.

"And are they?" I ask, ignoring his previous statement. "Killing you? Locking you up?"

Bellamy shakes his head and gives me a ghost of a smile, lifting his arms up slightly. "I'm a free man. Jaha pardoned me."

I breathe out, genuinely relieved for him. A brief silence passes over us before I say, "does it make you feel better?"

Bellamy looks at me, right into my eyes, so I can see the hurt in his, and that's the only way I know he speaks the truth when he says, "no."

I nod and look away.

We're both silent for a while, soaking in the atmosphere behind us before I take a deep breathe and turn back to Bellamy, burying down my emotions. 

"You look like crap, by the way." It's true, he looked like he got punched in the face with one of those rifles. "Clarke told me about Dax."

"The bastard tried to kill me," Bellamy shakes his head, "I'm not sure what Shumway promised him but it's worthless now."

"Shumway?" I make a face at the new information, "why would he want you to kill Jaha?"

Bellamy shrugs, "who knows."