Rebellion (The 100 #4)(48)

“Sure you can,” Graham said, a slight tremor in his whisper betraying the fear underneath it. “I’m giving you permission. Your conscience is totally clear.”

Wells’s hands were slick with sweat against the cold metal of the gun. He glanced down at it, and then back up at the other boy. Graham’s cheeks were wet with tears.

“I never told you what I did back on the ship, did I?” Graham asked, his whisper cracking like a bad radio signal. “What they confined me for?”

Wells watched wordlessly as Graham raised his eyebrows and fell to his knees, until he was peering up at Wells through the darkness, his jaw set and eyes streaming.

“I’ve done bad things, Jaha. You don’t even know how many bad things. Let me do this one noble thing now. Please. Please just let me.”

Wells could hardly look at Graham, his longtime enemy’s forehead contorted with pain as he pleaded… not for his life, but for his own death. There was no trace here of the smirking, strutting Phoenician boy Wells knew. That Graham was already gone.

But this one was well worth saving.

“No,” Wells said, certainty cementing in his muscles. “We’ll find another wa—”

Graham’s hand darted out for Wells’s trigger before he could so much as blink. The blast rang out through the forest, through the air, through Wells’s head and heart and bones.

He stared at the smoking barrel, and then at the spot where Graham had been kneeling, and then, last and longest, at Graham’s lifeless crumpled body, his blood pouring in rivulets over the blanket of leaves beneath him.

Thoughts broke through the cloud of horror surrounding Wells.

Graham could have run. He could have been selfish. Anybody would have in his position.

He died to save us.

Minutes, hours, days passed, Wells hardly knew… and then a hand gripped his shoulder. Wells flinched, closed his eyes, and turned to see Oak staring at him with solemn pride.

“You’ve learned,” the Protector said. “Well done, son. Let’s go home.”





CHAPTER 25


Bellamy


It felt amazing to be roaming through the woods again. Jumping lightly over fallen logs, taking care to stay in the shadows of the trees, Bellamy could almost pretend he was out on another hunting trip. Even Luke’s presence next to him felt familiar. As his leg started to heal, he’d begun to join Bellamy on some of his outings. Normally, Bellamy resented having someone with him—most people moved slowly, or loudly, or felt the need to fill the silence with mindless chatter. Yet Luke was content to spend hours in the woods barely exchanging a word, communicating with just the odd nod or hand gesture when one of them spotted a target.

But he and Luke weren’t looking for a deer to bring back to camp. They were about to sneak into a fortress full of weird, white-clad murderers and steal their bombs.

“We’re getting close, right?” Luke asked quietly, finally breaking the silence. “This all looks a little different to me in the dark.”

“Yes. The entrance Felix and I found is just through those trees.” He pointed to a spot where the trees thinned out, revealing glimpses of a crumbling concrete wall.

As they got closer, they both grew quieter, until they were moving silently across the damp leaf-covered forest floor. He motioned for Luke to take cover behind one of the trees nearest the wall, and he did the same. For a long moment, they stood there, straining their ears for any sign of activity. But nothing came.

Bellamy crept forward, taking a few steps onto the grass path that formed a narrow perimeter around the five-sided fortress. He turned from side to side, and when he was sure the coast was clear, he beckoned for Luke to join him.

The air buzzed with an electricity Bellamy couldn’t quite identify, as if, at any moment, a sea of white-clad men with shaved heads would flood out of a hidden door, bullets flying. Yet as they hurried along the wall, nothing disturbed the silence except the sound of their own breath.

A few moments later, he found it—the hole in the ground that led straight down into their armory, or whatever the hell those cretins called it. After he and Felix had discovered it the other night, they’d covered the hole up with some debris—planks and rocks that were strewn about the field—to keep light from streaming inside. That was probably why none of their guards had noticed it. It never would’ve escaped Bellamy’s eye, though. He never overlooked any detail that could possibly signal danger. He couldn’t help it. It was in his DNA. It’s what kept him and his sister alive all those years they were in hiding. That’s why he’d noticed the strange pile of leaves, the one Clarke had dismissed.

If only she’d listened to him. If only he’d trusted himself enough to make her listen.

Gently, Bellamy picked up some of the planks and pushed them aside. Then he got down on his knees and put his ear to the ground. There were no sounds coming from below; the armory was empty. He lowered himself into the cellar. Then he blinked, trying to force his eyes to adjust to the dim light as quickly as possible.

By the time Luke was scrambling to his feet next to him, the shadowy shapes were coming into focus. There was the cart that he’d spotted the other night, still full of weapons. Guns, knives… and grenades.

“You ready?” Bellamy asked Luke. Luke nodded solemnly.

They’d planned this out in advance. There was one cart’s worth of supplies, and if they worked quickly, they could take it all. Bellamy and Luke had brought empty sacks with them from their campsite and carefully filled them up. Then they pulled themselves out of the hole in the ground and ran quietly back to the woods.