ATARAXIA • BELLAMY BLAKE

[ 2 3 ]

Freya dipped the dirty mop into the bucket before starting to clean one of the long hallways on Mecha Station. It was only her second day working as a janitor, but she couldn't be any more miserable with the job. Though it was probably better than sitting at home wallowing in her own misery like she had been the entire night before.

"Where have you been?" asked a far too familiar voice from at the end of the hallway. Bellamy dropped the bucket he had been holding, which contained all the supplies needed to clean a toilet, and rushed over to where Freya stood. She ignored him and continued mopping the floor.

"I came to your quarters last night. And a few days before that as well. You didn't answer." When Freya didn't look his way, Bellamy rested a hand on her back. "Are you avoiding me?"

Freya immediately stepped off to the side to escape his touch, and Bellamy flinched at her sudden action. He was wearing a uniform identical to her own along with a very confused expression. Then it dawned on him.

"Look, I'm sorry I got you fired, but I've really needed you," he said, his voice breaking. "My mom was floated, Octavia was imprisoned, and you were nowhere to be found."

"Don't give me that," snapped Freya. She could feel the tears start to sting her eyes. "Don't you throw any of that in my face when you're the reason all of it even happened." She clutched he mop tightly in her hand. "You took everything from me. From all of us."

Bellamy looked stunned beyond belief at her words. "I never meant for any of this to happen, Freya—you know that, I—I was just trying to help Octavia live an actual life for once."

A tear escaped Freya's eye. "Yeah, well you tell yourself that in two years when she gets floated just like your mom." Freya's voice wobbled as she spoke. "You didn't help her live, Bellamy, you sentenced her to death. Now leave me alone."

Bellamy looked like he had just been smacked across the face. But soon, his hurt expression was wiped right off and something entirely different took over him. "Fine. Want to talk about killing your mother? Then let's talk about yours, shall we?"

Freya looked at him in shock. "I didn't—It wasn't...My mother was sick. She didn't know who I was." Her hands were starting to tremble. She hadn't thought about that day in forever. She suddenly was reliving the way her mother had screamed at her, begging her not to take her, thinking her five-year-old was an agent sent to kidnap and torture her for information.

"Sick or not, your mother would have lived if it weren't for you." Bellamy's words cut through Freya like a knife.

Following Freya's mother's death, her father had spent every day reminding her how it had been her fault, and her fault only, that she was gone. It had taken Freya years of knowing the Blakes, and a few weeks of officially living with them, to tell them what had happened, and Bellamy and Aurora had spent months trying to convince Freya that it wasn't her fault before she had believed them.

"You son of a—" Freya stopped herself before the last word could leave her mouth. A heavy silence followed.

"No, by all means, finish that sentence. Keep talking shit about the woman who raised you." He waited for a response, but received no such thing. Freya merely stood there, tears now staining her cheeks, her expression a mix of endless hurt and fuming anger.