OUT OF MIND² ━━ Bellamy Blake

𝐗𝐕𝐈𝐈: Memento Mori

"You know, I was killed in your world. . . but you will live in mine."

     It is the same voice that has been haunting her. Smiling, sultry, smooth like glass, and yet twice as sharp. Bile rises in Lyra's throat at the threat and she fights back her panic. Very slowly, she tilts back her head to glance up and find Alice's manically calm stare boring into her like the stare of a hungry wolf. Her hands are clasped in front of her blood-red dress, her crimson-stained mouth pulled into a thin line. Her eyes ━━ dark and void as twin black holes ━━ are scrutinising.

     Lyra's heart kicks feverishly in her chest. She tried several times to open her mouth, but finds that she cannot. The haze still veils her vision. Lyra feels her body moving. The ground shifts. She must have stood up.

     No, no, no. . . but even thinking that much is difficult. It all feels like a fever dream.

     "Go float yourself," Lyra somehow manages hoarsely.

     "In case you didn't get that, you genocidal and psychotic motherfucker, it's code for go kill yourself. Preferably in a brutally horrific and painful way that starts and ends with maiming and torture."

     Lyra's startled gaze meets the furious one of Noah Jupiter as he stalks across the city street. How. . . ?

    "I cannot feel pain," Alie states.

      His eyes narrow. "I'm sure I can figure something out. Now let my daughter go."

Alie cocks her head with baffling casualness. "I'm afraid Lyra's taking the back seat for now. I haven't finished with her yet — we have work to do."

"Last time I heard those words, you slaughtered billions of people."

This time, Lyra really does nearly leap out of her skin. This voice is just as sultry and smiling as Alie's, sleek as glass, and yet there is something undoubtedly human in it. Alie pivots to face the woman who has approached them and Lyra finally has it in her to straggle to her feet. A lithe woman with raven hair pulled into a sleek ponytail, neat brows arched as she regards them with dark eyes.

Lyra swallows back a gasp. Alie looks like her mother, it is true. But there is something artificial about Alie. There is nothing artificial about the woman ━━ Alie's doppelgänger ━━ standing right in front of her.

She falters. "Becca Franko?"

"In the flesh." Becca graces her with the tiniest of smiles, her murderous glare briefly flitting from Alie to Lyra. "Or, as close to flesh as any of us can be."

For the first time, Alie looks fazed. "How are you doing this?"

"Clarke took the Flame and the chip." Becca juts her chin out defiantly at Alie. "Trust me, I don't want to be in your pathetic City of Light either. But Noah somehow found me and told me that we needed Lyra to stop you. It didn't take much convincing after that."

Noah eyes Alie smugly. "Told you I'd figure something out."

"Yes," says Alie as simply as though she is asking to borrow a cup of sugar. "You have. And I suppose it'd be rude of me to mention how you only found Becca because you first mistook her for your wife? Tell me, do you like knowing that your wife's last memories of you are as an unstable, alcoholic, deadbeat father who left her?"

Noah stiffens.

"Fuck you," Lyra spits out before she can stop herself. "You don't know what you're talking about."