Bellamy Blake ۵ Protector (Rewriting 2024)

echoes I

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We moved down the last flight of stairs as a group, Bellamy in the lead. Clarke and I followed close, Iko trailing behind us.

When we made it out of the tower,  everyone froze in place at the carnage: Blood covering the streets. Corpses with unseeing eyes, faces frozen in agony. Women and men screaming their pain and fury.

More dead bodies than alive.

A wave of nausea fell over me. I hadn't stopped ALIE fast enough.

I watched as a woman hovered over a man's lifeless body, screaming her sorrow into his chest. If I'd gotten to the kill switch earlier, maybe I could've saved him.

Bellamy drew back, yanking me into his chest. "You did everything you could." He took me by the shoulders and spun me around, steadying me in front of him.

"I don't understand," Clarke said. "I thought the mega reactors were built to withstand any disaster, even a nuclear attack."

"They were," I told her. "If they were maintained. ALIE told me there are more than a dozen at-risk plants around the world and 7 are currently burning. According to A.L.I.E.'s calculations, 96% of the Earth's surface will be uninhabitable in less than six months, even for us."

"How does the AI know this?" Iko asked me.

"She detected them using her drones."

"Enough questions," Bellamy said. "We need to get our people out of Polis and figure out if ALIE is telling the truth."

"She is," I looked up at him.

Clarke looked around. "We need to tell our people and stop this."

He shook his head. "No. We keep it to ourselves until we know what we're dealing with and how to stop it."

"You're afraid of how people will react." Clarke noted.

Bellamy was right. When we found Murphy's knife next to Wells fingers, he wanted to keep it quiet. But when Clarke went public with it, the camp broke out into chaos. How distant that memory felt now.

Iko looked around. I followed his gaze, noting the stares and weary glances we were getting. Bellamy seemed to notice too, I felt him tense behind me.

"We have a bigger problem," Iko grated, growing anxious. "Analia possesses the flame. We won't have long before others find out."

"Wait." Clarke looked between us. "If Analia is a nightblood, she can take the throne and become commander. Unite us all. We can find a way to stop the death wave together."

Iko shook his head and held my gaze. "It will never happen that way. They blame skaikru for bringing the AI here. They will never accept an untrained natblida unless she fights— and wins against each person who challenges her."

I chanced a glance back around. Had more people moved towards us? A frail woman was glaring right at me. I remembered seeing her in the city of light. . . and she remembered me too.

To Iko, Bellamy said, "Tell Octavia we're leaving. The Rover's in the North woods."

Iko nodded.
As if by unspoken agreement, they were getting along. Their dynamic was changing. It had started when they'd work together to keep me alive. It'd continued evolving as we worked to stop the nuclear reactors from melting down. Their mutual protectiveness over their people had seemed to blunt their hatred of one another.