Conflate | Bellamy Blake ¹ ✓

※ | chapter twenty-two

❝remember, we're madly in love, so it's alright to kiss me anytime you feel like it.❞

-peeta mellark, the hunger games

♛

I SQUINT TO SEE in the pitch-black forest. The gun is secured firmly in my arms a second time in one day, but this time for a different reason. We're out looking for a boy named Myles, along with Clarke and Finn. All three of them had gone out together and all three of them haven't come back.

That's the reason why I'm with Octavia and Raven, with Bellamy off somewhere else because I absolutely refused to go with him. Octavia had looked confused at that, while Raven simply had an expression of guilt on her face that made me feel even worse. I've tried telling her time and time again that it's not her I'm angry at, but she doesn't seem to believe me.

Monty had finally fired up the walkie-talkies just in time for our rescue mission. One sits clipped to my jeans and is obscured by my jacket in case we have a run-in with a Grounder. They aren't fashionable by any means, but they work, and that's all we need.

"Where are they?" Raven whispers in a semi-harsh tone as if she's trying to force them back just by asking that. Her gun is pointed at the ground, a sign that she's not very worried about an attack.

Octavia, however, has hers at the ready. "We'll find them," she replies in an assuring tone.

I sigh as I step a little bit in front of them. I sure hope so.

So many emotions are still whirling inside of me that I have the vague feeling that I'm going to be sick from all of them. I still have the heavy burden of that same stab of hurt, but I can't exactly figure out why. It may be because I'm disappointed in Bellamy. Another part of it is fear.

Despite my love for writing and poetry, I know that there is no poem a human being could write that can describe what's going on inside of me. I feel like my heart has been ripped out and haphazardly stitched back in by someone who didn't think it would still work. But I feel worse than that. There are a trillion shards of glass stuck in the organ as well. The fear and disappointment are warring against each other for dominance using the most violent gunfire and methods of destruction they can. There's no way anyone can make those sound poetic, because they're not.

"This morning, all I could think about was how much easier this would all be if Finn was just..." Raven trails off in a thick voice.

"Dead?" I ask, my voice sounding a lot smaller than usual. It cracks as I speak the word and fades into barely a question.

Raven pauses, then nods with her eyes cast down onto the ground beneath us.

"You didn't wish this into being, Raven," Octavia sympathizes. "Stop torturing yourself."

Raven's eyes briefly flicker to me before they cast back down. "It's hard not to."

A strange quivering sound starts coming from the walkie, and my heart leaps into my throat at the sudden noise. Partially because it scared me, partially because I'm worried that someone else out here will hear it and our cover will be blown.

"Is anyone else hearing this signal?" Monty's voice questions from the mini radio. I unclip it from my belt loops and bring it up to my mouth, pressing the button on the side.