Conflate | Bellamy Blake ¹ ✓

✯ | chapter twelve

❝i want to feel like we're doing something good for once. why is that so hard for people to understand?❞

-laurel castillo, how to get away with murder

♛

WE ARRIVE BACK AT camp with slightly damp hair and me wearing two jackets- one mine, the other Bellamy's. He says he doesn't want me to catch a cold. I tell him if a cold is coming in my near future, then so be it. I don't care. I've survived much worse.

We manage to sneak back into camp through the deactivated fence unnoticed. As soon as we get to the front of the Ark, however, we're bombarded by people.

"Where have you been?" Clarke demands as she runs up to us, glancing between Bellamy and I with a crease between her eyebrows. "We've been looking for you everywhere. Why are you wet? There's no plumbi--"

She cuts herself off and her eyes go wide. Bellamy and I keep our faces blank, but it's hard to fight the smile wanting to sneak onto my face in spite of myself. Her expression is so familiar- she'd given it to me countless times when we were younger.

I mentally shake my head and force the smile away. Now is no time for it.

"You snuck out." It isn't a question because she already knows the answer.

I shrug, feigning indifference. "Had to shower one way or the other."

"Hey, Blake!" One of the guards tosses Bellamy a rifle and nods to the main entrance, where Abby stands. "Be ready."

Bellamy nods and heads over to stand by the others. He looks very out of place without the protective gear the guards wear as their uniform, and it doesn't help that his lips are slightly swollen and hair still damp. I pray that nobody notices.

Clarke gives me a long side glance full of knowing. I elbow her in the side jokingly. "Like you haven't done worse."

She mimics my shrug, though her shoulders are tense. "That is true."

Together, we walk to greet Abby at the door. Her eyebrows are pushed together and her posture is stiff. Those are the only signs of her fear, however. Her lips stay pushed together as she surveys the massive horde of Grounders outside our walls.

I haven't noticed until now, but my ears are met with a chant full of anger and impatience. Their bloodlust is high; it almost makes me feel sick at how much they want to see Finn burn at the stake.

"Jus drein, jus daun!"

Blood must have blood.

A chill makes its way down my spine as I stand on the left side of Abby, Clarke on her right. My second mother lifts her lips in the tiniest grin she can manage. I simply clasp her hand in response.

"They're trying to scare us," Bellamy says in reference to the chant. He briefly glances back at us before returning forward, but it's just barely long enough for him to catch my eye.

"I think we should pull back and go inside the station," Abby suggests stiffly.

"That won't stop them from coming in here, electric fence or no electric fence," I tell her in reply. My eyes drift to the gate where the two Grounders wait on their horses, and I hope Wick already booted it up again. "They'd find a way, and I don't think they'll leave if we hide."

"Mom, Fallon's right," Clarke agrees softly. "It'll prove we're not afraid."

"What if I am?" Abby questions.