IN MY HEAD¹ ━━ Bellamy Blake

𝐗𝐗𝐗𝐕𝐈: Crossroads

His small forehead creases with worry.

Bellamy looks helplessly to Maya, but she just lifts her shoulders into an anxious shrug. "I dunno. He could've found her at a mealtime, or something."

Before Bellamy can stop himself, he kneels down to the little boys height.

"I'll let you in on a little secret," he tells him. He has little experience with children, but looking after Octavia taught him how to elicit a smile. "I've seen Lyra. And I know for a fact that she never, ever breaks a promise. She'll come back to play cards with you."

"I thought she was an angel when I first saw her," the little boy informs him, eyes shining. "She's really pretty. And she fell from heaven."

"She fell out of the vents," Maya whispers to Bellamy.

Bellamy hides a snort. That sounds exactly like something Lyra would do.

"You need to go to class now, Eric," Maya says lowly, gently. "And I need you to do me a favour, OK? Don't tell anyone you saw Bellamy."

"Bellamy is Lyra's friend," says Eric, scrunching up his face. "I won't tell anyone. I promise."

The little boy pats Bellamy on the cheek, then begins to toddle off. Rising to his feet, Bellamy feels his blood turning to slush, his bones seeming to liquify. A strange sort of warmth oozes through his veins like golden honey as he watches the little boy teeter towards his classroom. But the feeling does not last and Bellamy suddenly feels as if he has been doused with a bucket of ice water.

Across the little boy's backpack is stitched Lovejoy.

When he closes his eyes, he can see it again. His intestines convulse with nausea as he recalls the flash of red. The way the corpse slumped to the earth. Wilted, shadowed with almost beastly purples. The silence that followed. That terrible, terrible silence

He forces himself to stay upright, even as the earth seems to dip beneath his feet.

"They're just kids," he manages to whisper.

"What'd you expect you'd find here?"

He doesn't know. He doesn't know, so he doesn't give Maya an answer. He holds his breath and waits until he's sure his voice won't break before speaking;

"Just get me to the radio."

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ENGINEERING IS WARMER than the rest of Alpha Station, just the teeniest bit, and it's not something you would notice if you were just passing by, but Lyra's spent most of her time in this sector of Alpha Station both in space and on the ground. She notices the fraction of a temperature increase as soon as she sets foot into the room, throwing her jacket haphazardly to the side and exposing her slashed arms to the world as she quickly asks Raven for a rundown of the tone generator. Clarke's not here yet; where the hell the blonde ended up after that catastrophe at the southern airlock is unknown to Lyra, she's not going to push it. She just wants to be here, by the radio.