Rebellion (The 100 #4)(2)

Bellamy’s pace slowed as he entered the clearing, scanning the camp. Even after everything they’d been through together, knowing that he was looking for her made Clarke’s heart flutter. No matter what this wild, dangerous planet threw at them, they’d face it together, survive it together.

As he came closer, she saw the bundle hanging on his back. It was an enormous bird with splayed neon feathers and a long, spindly neck. By the looks of it, it would feed half the group tonight. A surge of pride fizzed through her. Although their camp had grown to more than four hundred people, including a number of the Colony’s well-trained guards, Bellamy was still far and away the best hunter.

“Is that a turkey?” Clarke’s father asked, nearly knocking over a table in his hurry to get a better look.

“We saw them in the woods,” her mother said, appearing at Clarke’s side. She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she watched Bellamy approach. “Northwest of here, last winter. I thought they were peacocks, with those blue feathers. Either way, they were too wily for us to catch one.”

“Bellamy can catch anything,” Clarke said, then blushed when her mother raised a knowing eyebrow.

Clarke had been a little worried about introducing Bellamy to her parents, unsure how they’d react to anyone other than her upstanding Phoenician ex-boyfriend, Wells. But to her relief, they’d warmed to Bellamy right away. Their own traumas made them sympathetic and even protective of Bellamy when he spent the night in Clarke’s family’s cabin, plagued by debilitating nightmares that tore him from sleep, rendering him a trembling, sweating mess—dreams about firing squads, blindfolds fused to his face, hearing Clarke’s and Octavia’s screams rattle his bones. On nights like those, her parents scrambled to mix herbal drafts to help him sleep while Clarke held his hand, neither of them ever uttering a word of caution to Clarke.

Both were waving cheerfully to Bellamy right now, yet Clarke felt her shoulders tensing. There was something off about his step. His face was pale and he kept looking over his shoulder, eyes wild and panicked.

Clarke’s father’s smile fell as Bellamy drew close. He reached for the bird and Bellamy dropped it into his outstretched arms without so much as a thank-you.

“Clarke,” Bellamy said. His breath was ragged, as though he had run here. “I need to talk to you.”

Before she could respond, he grabbed her elbow and pulled her past the fire pit to the edge of the ring of newly built cabins. She stumbled slightly on a jutting root and had to catch her balance quickly to keep from being dragged behind him.

“Bellamy, stop.” Clarke wrenched her arm free.

The glassy look briefly left his eyes. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?” he said, sounding momentarily more like himself.

Clarke nodded. “Yes, fine. What’s going on?”

The frantic look returned as he surveyed the camp. “Where’s Octavia?”

“She’s heading back with the kids right now.” Octavia had taken the younger children to play at the creek for the afternoon, to keep them from interfering with the preparations. Clarke pointed to the line of children holding hands while they crossed the clearing to the tables, black-haired Octavia leading the pack. “You see?”

Bellamy relaxed a fraction at the sight of his sister, but then, as his eyes met Clarke’s, his face darkened again. “I noticed something strange while I was out hunting.”

Clarke bit her lip, stifling a sigh. This wasn’t the first time he’d said those words this week. It wasn’t even the tenth. But she squeezed his hand and nodded. “Tell me.”

He shifted his weight from side to side, a bead of sweat trickling out from underneath his dark, tousled hair. “A week or so ago, I saw a pile of leaves on the deer path, on the way to Mount Weather. It seemed… unnatural.”

“Unnatural,” Clarke repeated, trying her best to remain patient. “A pile of leaves. In the woods, in autumn.”

“A huge pile of leaves. Four times bigger than any of the others around it. Big enough for someone to hide in.” He started pacing, talking more to himself than to Clarke. “I didn’t stop to check it out. I should’ve stopped. Why didn’t I stop?”

“Okay…” Clarke said slowly. “Let’s go back and look at it now.”

“It’s gone,” Bellamy said, running his fingers through his already unruly hair. “I ignored it. And today, it’s gone. Like someone was using it for something, but they don’t need it anymore.”

His expression, a mixture of anxiety and guilt, made her heart ache. She knew what this was about. After the dropships had landed, Vice Chancellor Rhodes had tried to execute Bellamy for crimes he’d supposedly committed back on the ship. Just two months ago, he’d been forced to say an agonizing good-bye to the people he loved before being blindfolded and dragged out to meet a firing squad. He’d looked death straight in the eye, believing he was about to abandon Octavia and destroy Clarke. But his imminent execution had been derailed by the sudden, brutal Earthborn attack. Though Rhodes had pardoned Bellamy, those events had taken their toll on him. The bouts of paranoia that followed weren’t surprising, but instead of getting better, Bellamy seemed to be growing worse.

“And then you add this to all the other stuff,” he went on, his voice louder, more frenzied. “The wheel ruts by the river. The voices I heard in the trees—”