Bittersweet ━━ Bellamy Blake

𝟬𝟮. to be or not to be

CHAPTER TWO
leading me to do their dirty work

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     𝐄lliot knew she was back home when she felt the same familiar chills down her spine again. The cold had always been relentless. They slowed down just by the border and Octavia set her horse near them. Elliot knew the area like the back of her hand. She could still remember every little she had done on these grounds. Death. So much death that no one could take back. Not even God himself.

     She stepped out of the rover, her hands hovering above her swords, watching their surroundings with cautious eye. She could never be too sure. Especially in this godforsaken land. Everything was a threat to the girl who once lived there. She was one of them. The threat that looms over the darkest corners of the Ice Nation.

     "These woods must be the border," Bellamy said as he led the group further into the unfamiliar barren land.

     "So where's all the ice?" Jasper questioned.

     Elliot had the urge to drag him back into the vehicle. He didn't seem like he was in his right mind right now. They shouldn't have brought him with them. He was a liability. She did not like liabilities. It wasn't that she didn't like Jasper, but their lives were at stake the moment they stepped into the land of the cold.

     "Much further north," Elliot muttered from behind them. No cloth covered her face but she still tended to hide her face in the shadows. "Azgeda stretches for a thousand miles."

     "Good thing we only have to go two hundred meters," Monty said, his focus on the tracking device in his hand, not looking at where he was going.

     "Slow down." Bellamy placed his arm out in front of the eager boy which made him stop in his tracks. "Remember, rules of engagement are nonlethal force. Tight formation on my command." Then he glanced at Raven and told her to get back inside the rover, which she did not do as she stood stubbornly by their side.

     "We need every gun we've got," Octavia told him.

     "They're coming," Monty said eagerly. Bellamy pointed his rifle in the direction of where the Farm Station beacon was alarmingly getting closer and closer. "A hundred-twenty meters... One-ten."

     Elliot rolled her eyes and swiftly grabbed her swords out, subtly being hidden by their figures as Bellamy stopped Monty from walking forward. She didn't trust them enough not to engage if these were Azgeda, and what more could the damage be if they saw her? She was pretty much wanted in her clan. They would get every chance they got to take her head.

     "They're our people," Monty exclaimed at the sight of their rifles. "What are you doing?"

     "We hope they're our people," Bellamy retorted just as his sister pulled out her own sword. "On my command."

     After hearing the neighs of white horses and rough voices with even stranger language, she concluded it wasn't the sky people as the sight of a few Azgeda warriors came into their vision. Her jaw clenched, realizing just how long she had been cast away from her clan. They were no longer her people. Briefly glancing at the others with her━Elliot decided to raise her swords for them instead.

     "Ice Nation?" Bellamy asked quietly.

     "Yes. White war paint," Octavia muttered uneasily before she sauntered towards them.

     "Stay calm," Elliot warned behind them, making sure not to make herself known unless she had to. She might provoke other violent reactions from these warriors and she was not getting these people in that mess.