IN MY HEAD¹ ━━ Bellamy Blake

𝐗𝐗𝐈𝐗: Undead

There was no one else he really cared about seeing ever again.

Then he'd seen Lyra that night in the forest. Their twelfth day on the ground. It had been startling to see someone else among the trees, which he'd come to think of as belonging exclusively to him. But the flash of irritation he'd been expecting never came. Haloed in moonlight, starlight glistening across her skin. More supernova than girl, a beam of pure light, galaxies in her eyes, a mystery that he yearned to solve.

And suddenly he wasn't so sure.

But he'd put Octavia first that night. He'd had to. Bellamy was so done with all of the Ark's bullshit ━━ the punishments, the stations, the systems. He was through following other people's rules. He was sick of having to fight to survive. Living alone on the little blue planet wouldn't be easy, but at least he and Octavia would finally be free.

Of course, that didn't go exactly as planned.

But that's just life on the ground.

Lyra's moonbeam smile, the sweet chiming of her laugh, the taste of her lips, it bolts through his mind like a shooting star. He'd been so furiously attentive on the chase for the first Grounder that had tracked them that he hadn't even seen her vanish. He'd turned around and she was gone, just like that, like a star fizzling out into ash.

Mid-sprint, his grip on his spear tightening, his eyes rake the murky evergreen woods.

"Lyra?" Bellamy calls much louder than he should, not caring if Grounders can hear. "Lyra!"

No answer. He has to keep moving.

     Enshrouded in opal mist as he hurtles through the rain-drenched forest, two thoughts occur to him:

     This can't be happening.

     And. . . I knew it.

     They'd never be safe on Earth.

     Armed with only a wooden spear and his frustrations, he swerved around a tree. . . and then Bellamy crashes into something painfully solid.

     At first he thinks he's collided straight into a Grounder and thrusts the spear forward, but then he lifts his eyes and sees that it's no Grounder at all. His chest sags in bewildered relief as he blinks stupidly at the boy opposite of him.

     "Wells?"

     Wells seems equally as startled and relieved. "Bellamy?"

The Chancellor's son looks a far cry from the privileged boy on the dropship. His cheeks had been soft, undefined, skin a faultless sable with clothes clearly seamless, making him stand out at once against the other impoverished delinquents. Yet now he's hard-muscled like a soldier, his face and clothes streaky with half-dried mud. His dark mouth is blurred by a great crimson smudge.

Yet most noticeable of all are the thick, pink bands of skin slashing through his neck. Hideous scars marring his flesh. All thanks to Charlotte.

     Swallowing, Bellamy tries not to look at the scars and instead focuses on the boy he once hated.

     "Christ," Wells mutters. "You look like hell."