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STORM WALKER
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[ tw: self-harm (ish? i think it counts),
also torture,
we all know what happens
this episode 🙃 ]
THE DROPSHIP HAS BECOME a world of its own; the air rusty and the walls of tombstone-grey smothering its inhabitants.
As the spacecraft shudders like a leaf ruthless wind, the hurricane continues to unfurl and bear down upon the ninety-three with a wrath worthy of gods. Everything stinks of stress and agitation. The heat is smothering. Every little movement sends the air screaming feverishly. Lyra was made for the unbound vastness of the stars, not this raging dropship, and her body reacts so violently that she screws her eyes shut and prays she won't vomit. It's a horrid climate and one that seems to eat her to her very bones.
Sweat plasters her damp hair to the nape of her neck. Breathing shakily through her chapped lips, trying to ignore the sandpaper tongue that's leaden in her parched mouth, she tightens her ponytail. Anxiety is churning in her belly. Both her head and her heart pound equally loudly. She's rapping her foot to the rapid staccato of her heart, not caring about the echo that's muffled in the damp air. She can only predict how any of this is going to end. Bellamy's dragged the Grounder to the third floor to do whatever, meanwhile Finn's life has been placed entirely in the hands of a bunch of teenagers.
One, two, three, four. She counts each breath feverishly. Five, six, seven, eight. . .
"The blade is at a sharp upward angle," Clarke announces shakily from the makeshift surgical table. "Between his sixth and seventh rib."
. . . twelve, thirteen, fourteen. . .
Abby's voice crackles from the poor connection. "OK, how deep?"
Lyra chances a glance at Finn. If anything, he's only gotten worse. Clarke's been relaying her mom a thorough analysis of his condition ever since the radio strengthened, every word well-thought out in her graphic descriptions from the discolouration of his skin to his erratic breathing. Beads of sweat gather across his pale chest as it heaves unevenly, a hasty huff of hair exhaling from his dry lips.
. . . forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty ━━ someone bumps into shoulder. A boy behind her breathes through his mouth noisily. She fights the urge to scream.
No, no, no! It's all fucked up now. You have to start over.
Her mouth feels tight and she exhales hastily before starting again.
One, two, three. . .
Her head is pounding. She feels like she's falling into mind-numbing chaos. Lyra might be a STEM super-genius, but she knows fuck-all about medicine. The fact that she can't help anyone right now, doesn't have anything to distract herself with, and is entirely useless while a boy is dying isn't great for her. Which is beyond annoying. First having structure felt like a prison. Now that she has no structure, she's descending into executive dysfunction.
(Seriously, why is she like this?)
"I can't tell how deep it goes."
"That's alright. Just don't remove the knife yet."
When are they actually going to start doing anything? She forces herself to swallow, overwhelmed with impatience. This is taking too long. At the rate they're going, Finn is going to die.
. . . thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five. . .
Raven paces back and forth restlessly. Almost animalistic, like something wild that's been caged. She drags her eyes back and forth from Finn, unable to look at him any longer than a heartbeat. But each time her eyes do snag upon him, she rolls in her lips, as if each new glance is a reminder that this is real, bold reality crashing through her bones.
Fifty. Keep going. Halfway there.
"Hey, here." Clarke seems to have noticed the way Raven seems to drown in her own thoughts, and the blonde thrusts a canister of Monty's moonshine out to her. "Sterilise your hands."
. . . fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight. . .
Swiftly ripping her fingerless gloves, Raven throws them carelessly through the air and one of them almost hits Lyra. She doesn't seem to notice. Throwing her head back, midnight strands sticking to her glistening skin as her dark lips part, she gulps the fiery liquid and grimaces only slightly when it burns her throat. Pouring it over her hands, she then slams it down against one of the metal tables with a sharp clang! that makes Lyra jump. Raven's eyes blister with feverous intent.
"Clarke, do you see any fluid?"
"Hey, watch it!"
Alarm sweeps Lyra's features as she jerks her head towards the fight that's brewing between two boys. One of them shoves the other back so hard that he goes staggering backwards, nearly crashing into Clarke.
As if performing a life saving surgery at seventeen wasn't hard enough already.
"Damn it!" Clarke's head bolts up, restless at the distraction and she rakes hair behind her ear furiously. "Clear the room!"
This seems enough to kick Raven back into the present, her features contorting.
"Everyone, upstairs! Now! Let's go - no, not you, Lyra!"
Already halfway up the ladder, Lyra freezes.
The mass of people that's swarming around the ladder grumble in complaint as they're forced to straggle, but Raven exhales sharply, ignoring all of them, looking completely drained of energy to even muster enough to care.
"You've still got work to do!"
The message in her words is clear: Please don't leave me alone down here.
"No, no - go!" Clarke calls out, the overstrung blonde just barely tearing her distressed eyes to shoot Lyra an apologetic glance. "Raven can adjust the radio. I'm sorry, but your pacing back and forth isn't helping me. Neither is your counting out-loud."
I did that out loud?
Acknowledging Clarke's brusque with a sharp jut of her head that sends a new pain shooting through her temple, Lyra shuffles up the rungs. Part of her seems to wither. She's been brushed away, overlooked. Easily. As if she's not born from stars but instead from dust or even dirt. A burning out chord against wires alive with electricity. Useless. Chaos with skin.
She trails into the gloomy second level of the dropship. This is where the one hundred first met death, where the first two boys died.
There's no time to drift through her hellish aimless thoughts about life and death. Surging upwards are dozens of others. Bodies pushing against each other, people clamouring incessantly. Buzzing in her ears. They whine, they complain, they whisper fearfully with their hearts in their throats ━━ there is no where else for them to go. They pack inside of the second level so tightly at Lyra almost erupts from her skin, struggling to catch her breath. The air is suffocating.
Drowning in the sea of people, Lyra's salvation comes in the form of Wells and Octavia. Her two friends hurry towards her.
"If Bellamy thinks I'm going to sit down here quietly, he's an idiot," Octavia breathes, her eyes as electric as the storm battering the dropship. "I will not let him kill him."
"Didn't that guy, like, kidnap you?"
"He saved my life," Octavia snaps.
Lyra throws her hands up in surrender. "Hey, if this is what we're doing now, then I'm cool with it."
Anything to distract herself.
"I'm with you guys," Wells says, his jaw clenched with an unusually fierce determination.
Octavia glances between the two of them, looking half stunned. Struck by the way they both agreed so easily, without putting up a fight. Without hesitation. Then a brief and unbounded relief flickers across her features, for hardly a heartbeat, and then a single word rough-edged with ire falls from her lips:
"Good."
"Woah - he's awake!" A disembodied voice echoes from the third floor.
"Hey, tie him - tie him!" Bellamy's distinct baritone orders in response. "Last thing we need is this bastard getting free because you screwed up!"
Unravelling herself from the unspoken oath that roars between the three of them, Octavia bolts up the ladder. Lyra exchanges a glance with Wells, his own expression heavy with something she can't quite comprehend, so she just shrugs casually as if to say, Just another day on the ground, and then hurries up the ladder behind Octavia.
Something is rotting.
Though the air here is cooler, it's blackened by corruption. It burns Lyra's nostrils the very heat she emerges from the dark hollow of the second level and onto the filthy third level.
The Grounder is strung up in the center of the room. His arms and legs have been drawn apart by tent wire, seatbelts, and fraying rope. Drew, Miller, and Jones tighten his restraints, but Lyra hardly thinks it'll be enough. Though the man is still wearing black pants and an olive shirt, any armour he'd had on earlier has been completely discarded to reveal his taut muscles. Obsidian tattoos slice across his collarbone and dip beneath his shirt, glinting in the dim light. He thrashes violently, muscles rippling, sweat gleaming against his brow.
All at once, Lyra realises why the air is so different up here.
It's stench of slaughtered peace.
From behind her, Wells mutters, "Oh, because we don't all already have enough nightmare fuel."
She decides to get the full picture before making any snap judgements. Feigning causality, she blinks almost dottily. "So. What's going on up here?"
"Torture," says Miller flatly.
Bellamy's murderous scowl rakes over the trio. "Get out of here."
Somehow Octavia manages to maintain her persona as she steps forward, and Lyra wonders exactly what her friend had been through in that cave to stay so poised.
"I told you, he was protecting me. You didn't have to do this."
The Grounder stills upon catching sight of her.
Now Lyra really wonders what happened in that cave.
"This isn't about you," Bellamy retorts, his curls still smothered with rainwater. "I'm doing this for all of us."
"You did that for all of us?" Octavia jerks her head towards the bloodied and bruised Grounder in barely tamed disbelief.
Bellamy follows her gaze and his eyes harden. "I did that for Finn and Jasper and John and Diggs and Roma."
"It wasn't even him - "
"You don't know that!" His cry is a smear of malice in the sickly air, an enraged scowl crawling onto his face. "We need to know what we're up against! How many there are and why they're killing us." He whips his iron eyes upon the Grounders and begins to stride towards him. "And he's gonna tell us - right now."
"No!" She protests, lunging to snatch his arm back. "Bellamy, please!"
"Drew, Miller!" He shrugs her off from him with chilling indifference, leaving his cronies to deal win her. "Get her out of here."
"I was there, I - hey! Get - get off of me!" Octavia cries out sharply and then shoves the two boys grappling with her arms off from her, giving her brother one last withering glare. "I don't even think he speaks English. He won't understand you."
She vanishes down the hatch.
Bellamy's dark eyes narrow on the Grounder. "Oh, I think he will."
But before he can do anything, Lyra's soft and sudden voice emerges in the dusty darkness. "What's the plan, then? Kill him?"
"No. Torture him, make him tell me everything. Then kill him."
She frowns. "So... yes kill him?"
Wells snorts. "I really appreciate the extraordinary amount of thinking you put into this plan. There's clearly a lot hidden in the fine details. I'm one hundred percent sure it's going to fail spectacularly."
Bellamy frowns at him. "What the hell are you even doing up here, Wells?"
He goes to respond, but Monroe pokes her head through the hatch. She looks faintly alarmed at the sight of the Grounder strung up, then swallows and ignores it. "Uh, Wells, Clarke wants you on the bottom floor. She needs help with Finn."
Wells' forehead creases, and briefly he looks at war with what to do. Eventually the notion of saving a life instead of arguing with Bellamy not to torture someone else to death seems to win out and he gives him a sharp glare before dropping down the hatch.
White lightning flashes somewhere outside the dropship. The lights flicker in response. Rain continues to heave itself upon the metal.
Lyra looks at Bellamy. "You know technically this is a war crime, right?"
"Spare me from the humanitarian speech and give it to someone else, angel," he sneers. There's a fury beginning to creep into his words. "This bastard deserves it and we both know that."
"Octavia said he saved her life - "
"She doesn't know what he's talking about!" Bellamy spits, fists clenched, words slick with venom. "And neither do you! You weren't there! You didn't see the way they all died!" He chokes on his words, his voice thick with anger and despair. "Roma, Mbege, Diggs - they didn't deserve to die!"
"Don't do this." Umber coals smoulder in her eyes as she narrows her eyes at him. "This is a line you can't uncross, Bellamy."
Lightning flashes but roar that comes after does not shake the sky. Instead his fists tighten and his features are warped with thunderous rage.
"I've already crossed it."
When she fails to move, he drops his eyes from her and turns to Miller and Drew.
"Get her out of here. I don't want her to see this."
Lyra is helpless to stop them as they march towards her, each wrestling an arm down, Drew on her right and Miller on her left. They push her towards the hatch, halting just before she falls down it. Miller pushes her towards the edge unceremoniously, though Drew balks at the edge.
"Sorry, Jupiter."
She glances at Bellamy. "Me too."
Then she descends back to the second level.
Climbing down the freezing rungs, she drops into the throng of anxious people. Harper walks back and forth with glass stretching over her irises. Connor and Myles sit back to back wordlessly. Then Lyra finds Octavia, ruby red still smeared across her forehead. Her lips are pulled into a frown and her eyes are practically murderous as they dart around. But when her eyes snag on Lyra, distress flickers somewhere deep beneath the waves of her ocean irises.
"What's going on up there?"
"Nothing terrible."
"Yet," Octavia snaps.
"Hey, hey," says Lyra, but it's hard to keep her voice steady. Everything is too much. "I'm sure Bellamy's not gonna do anything crazy - "
The ship shudders violently.
Staggering backwards, Lyra cartwheels her arms to keep herself upright, but it's no use. She falls, slamming her skull against the metal ladder and there's a shrill ringing noise that pierces through the fog in her brain as she crashes against the floor. Someone on the first level screams.
Stars soar through her eyes. She lays there, gasping for air. She can barely feel her fingers. Vaguely she's aware of everyone around her letting out sharp cries, trying to figure out what's happened.
Someone is helping her to her feet. Octavia, she thinks, but she can't be sure.
She squeezes her eyes shut. Her vision has gone all fuzzy and her head hurts.
"The radio - " Lyra mumbles suddenly, snapping her eyes open to find Octavia peering at her in concern. "The radio - Clarke! Raven! Wells! Is the radio - is the radio - ?"
"Radio's fine!" Raven's voice hollers back and the bewildered laugh that follows her words startle Lyra. "Clarke got the knife out!"
There's a smattering of applause from the disheveled teenagers on the second level. Most of their eyebrows are drawn forward apprehensively as they look around as if expecting the dropship to jolt again, but they find it in themselves to cheer dishearteningly for Clarke's triumph.
"Are you OK?"
Octavia's stands over her. Her features are soft, but a grimace pulls at her lips, eyebrows knit together in concern.
"Probably not," Lyra manages to rasp.
One, two, three, four ━━
"What's wrong?"
Honestly, Lyra's sure she'll break down into tears if she even tries to begin explaining any of it, so she shakes away Octavia's hand and gives her the best wavering smile she can. She does so hate to lose the starlight of her spirit.
"I think I might be claustrophobic," she admits. "Symptoms of - "
" - our life," finishes Octavia almost glumly. "Yeah, I get that."
Lyra turns her head to the side to observe her friend, hearing the pain wreath her voice like a mist, like acid fog, consuming the good humor. Her eyes are benevolent, but worry flickers there.
"Are you OK?" Lyra asks her.
"Probably not," Octavia shrugs, features are swamped with azure shadows.
"Well, I'd be worried about us if we were OK," says Lyra finally, chewing on her lip as her foot bounces. She tries to ignore the mass of bodies surrounding them and gives Octavia a tentative grin. "What kind of friends would we be if we didn't have the same trauma?"
It's Octavia's turn to grin. "Pretty shit ones."
Just then, a head of blonde hair pops up from the hatch and up climbs Clarke. Her eyes have hardened as she stalks across the chattery room, going straight for the ladder to the third level.
"Careful!" Lyra calls as she passes her. "People are a little tied up, up there."
Clarke doesn't even bother looking at her, just snapping, "I'll be fine."
"It was just a heads up," says Lyra weakly as Clarke disappears into the upper level and the hatch door slams closed again with a groan of rusted metal. "OK, fine. Tough crowd. I get it."
At the same time Lyra says that, Octavia rolls her eyes. "Maybe someone should stab her."
"Octavia!"
"OK, fine," Octavia's grin wides as her shoulders shrug teasingly. "Tough crowd. I get it."
"That's not funny," says Lyra.
"Really? Because I thought - "
"Clarke!" Raven's terrified scream cuts through the dropship. "He's seizing!"
Not even a heartbeat passes before the hatch door is thrown open and Clarke is scrambling down it. Sprinting across the second level to get to the hatch, the entire crowd presses backwards to make room for her and she descends to the first level hastily. She leaves the hatch door wide open and Lyra rushes towards it before anyone can get in her way.
"He was fine, and then - "
"Get my mother on the radio, now!" Clarke orders, fear hardening her voice. Lyra assumes no one does anything because after a beat, she yells, "Raven, now!"
"The radio's dead!" Raven practically shrieks. "Interference from the storm!"
Lyra's stomach drops.
Oh, fuck.
Crouching over the hatch, Lyra is woozy as the dropship shudders again and all the blood rushes through to her skull. Her head dangles through the hole and she can only imagine how dumb she looks from their perspective as she tries to get an idea of what's happening even though she's upside down.
"Have they tried turning it on and off again?" Someone, Myles she thinks, mumbles unhelpfully from somewhere behind her.
Finn's body entire body is spasming erratically against the table, all his limbs slamming into it again and again and again. Clarke struggles to thrust his hands to the table, Wells rushing to do the same with the lower half of his body. Raven stands a few feet away from the table in horror, as if she can't bear to be any closer to Finn. Lyra doesn't really blame her. It must be so scary, watching someone you love do that.
"What happened to my radio?" Lyra asks loudly.
"Everything's connected!" Raven shouts up to her, fists clenching and unclenching rapidly. "It's the storm! We can't fix it, not when the storm's right on top of us!"
Then then Finn seizes again and she withers, her voice tiny and timid and defeated when she looks at Clarke desperately. "Please don't let him die."
Lyra sits back onto her heels, nearly falling over when she does. Peeling herself off from the floor ━━ with Octavia's help again ━━ she staggers to a standing position.
"God, he's burning up!" Clarke cries out from the first level.
"Fluid in his lungs," Raven's voice cracks in hysteria and Lyra can only assume she's repeating something Clarke told her. "Does that mean the knife hit something?"
"No, we would have noticed," says Wells firmly, and then, in question, "Right?"
"This isn't blood - it's something else. I did - I did everything she told me!" Clarke's voice rises in near-hysteria and Lyra can only imagine she's forcing herself to focus as she starts to list symptoms. "I've seen this before. Shortness of breath, fever, seizing. It's poison."
Lyra starts to glance around. "We had poison on the Ark?"
Myles shrugs and her voice rises shrilly.
"Who the fuck is getting poisoned on the Ark?"
He shrugs again.
OK. Whatever. People on the Ark get poisoned. Cool. That's news to her, but apparently not to everyone else. Cool, cool, cool. Not that it matters right now. Right now all that matters is that Finn's been poisoned and the radio is dead and Lyra is going to have to do something about that.
But what can she do?
Brushing her bangs sticky with sweat from her forehead and tightening her ponytail, Lyra wipes her slick hands on her pants and strides towards the ladder. The freezing metal feels soothing against her feverish skin, but she's got no time to think about that. Her converse smack against the metal and people stare at her as she pushes herself towards the hatch.
"They locked the hatch!" Octavia calls after her.
Pushing up against the icy metal hatch, Lyra finds that Octavia's right, the opening only giving way slightly. They must have shoved something overtop of it.
"Bellamy!" She calls, hoping she can be heard through the floor. "Bellamy, I need to get up there, please!"
His muffled voice calls back to her, "Little bit preoccupied right now, Angel!"
Gritting her teeth, she thinks briefly of Finn dying on the level below her. Something about the idea of a life ending when she can save it unearths a courage she didn't know she had inside of her and she does not desist. Without warning, she violently bangs against the hatch with all of her strength.
"Bellamy Blake, you let me up there right now!"
In response, the hatch creeps open and Miller blinks back down at her. Waiting for some inaudible command, presumably from Bellamy, he finally opens the hatch up all the way. Clarke, whom Lyra hadn't even realized was following her scrambles up behind her, and then shoves past Miller as he tries to block their vision.
"Get out of my way, Miller," Clarke snaps in command, pushing him back.
At the heart of the third level is the Grounder, eyes unseeing and death lingering around him.
He's been beaten. One of his eyes has swelled, a terrible indigo color shadowing it.
Lyra feels sick to her stomach. This is vicious. This is cruel.
Do you not have the heart for this, Miss. Jupiter? Pike's snide voice hisses like a serpent in her ear.
Wells was right. This is a declaration of war. But they're just a bunch of kids. How could they possibly have any chance at surviving if the Grounders are all built like this, like soldiers who live and die by the blade?
Marching forward, Clarke's boots slam against the ground like war drums. "What's on this?"
Bellamy follows her gaze, his brow furrowing as she thrusts them knife to where the Grounder can see. "What are you talking about?"
"He poisoned the blade - all this time he knew Finn was going to die no matter what we did!" Clarke snaps and her words rage with hellfire as she rounds upon the Grounder in a rampage. "What is it? Is there an antidote?"
"Clarke," says Octavia and her voice quavers only slightly. "He doesn't understand you."
"The vials," Bellamy speaks up suddenly, pivots around to a small box that sits atop one of the cargo cases. "It's gotta be here."
"They'd have to be stupid to have a poison around this long without an antidote," ridicules Clarke with a trace of scorn in her voice as she leaves the knife on the cargo and seizes the vials. She whirls around to face the Grounder. "Which one?"
Several terrible moments pass by.
The Grounder says nothing.
"Answer the question!" Bellamy's snarl startles Lyra, his voice shuddering with wrath.
"Show us," the words croak from Octavia and into the dusty darkness. She seems terrified of what might happen. "Please."
"Which one?" Clarke cries out, a thunderstorm clawing at her words. "Our friend could be dying down there!"
Lyra forces herself forward. Her limbs are waxen.
"Please," she whispers, heart rampaging inside her ribs. "He's just a kid. Don't let him die. We're all just kids. Please."
The Grounder lifts his chin unsteadily to look at her and she swears something like recognition flickers in his dark, tortured eyes. But he looks away too soon for her to tell.
Bellamy pushes forward rashly, nudging her out of the way in his rampage. Every part of his face is shadowed with wrath. "I'll get him to talk."
"Bellamy, no!" Octavia bursts out.
"He wants Finn to die, why can't you see that?" Bellamy spits, a poison creeping in his tone as he pushes her backwards. Then he looks to Clarke, as if unable to proceed without her verdict. "Do you want him to live or not?"
"Clarke!" Octavia cries out. "You even said it yourself, this is not who we are! He was protecting me! He saved my life - "
"We're talking about Finn's life!" Bellamy spits.
Clarke nods jerkily. "Do it."
All at once, Lyra realizes what they're planning.
"No - no!" She shouts rashly, grabbing onto Bellamy's arm frantically. She feels almost savage with despair.
"Don't bother, Lyra," says Bellamy darkly, shrugging her away. "I've made up my mind."
"Forget the fact that this is barbaric," Lyra urges desperately, her heart howling so terribly that she thinks it might burst. "The - the US Army field manual states that torture is a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the interrogator wants to hear - "
Upon realizing she's almost babbling incoherently in her desperation, she rushes out the next part.
"It won't work!"
Bellamy looks at her and for a beat, she thinks he might listen. Then, fiercely, he says, "It's our only option."
"No!" Octavia shrieks. "Just tell us!"
Miller strides forward, grabbing Octavia and holds her back. Drew moves to snatch Lyra away from the midst of what's happening, but she backpedals, almost stumbling in her desperation to get away. His entire body rigid, Bellamy seizes a knife and shreds the Grounders shirt down the middle. He holds a seatbelt in his hands as he stalks towards the Grounder, a trepidation leaking into his jerky movements.
"Show us the antidote or you'll wish you had."
The Grounder doesn't surrender.
Bellamy casts one last glance behind him. "Lyra, you won't want to see this."
"I know." As her heart thrashes, she tries to make herself braver. "But I have to."
Almost instantly, she regrets that choice.
The seatbelt tears through the air with a howl before lashing against the Grounder's chest in a roar. Fists coiling, she begins to press half-moon crescents into her skin. Then, when Bellamy beats him twice more and molten ruby begins to trickle down his chest gleaming with sweat, she can't take it anymore. Squeezing her eyes shut, she retreats back into the safety of her mind.
One, two, three, four, five, six. . .
The Grounders is whipped thrice more.
. . . seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. . .
Again and again the Grounders is whipped.
"We're running out of time," breathes out Clarke shaking. "Which one? Which one is it? If you tell us, they'll stop! Please, tell us which is the antidote and they'll stop this!"
Pleading as if this isn't her doing. As if she hadn't banished Murphy for following Bellamy's Whatever the hell we want rule, as if she hadn't given permission for the beating to begin. Somewhere deep inside her, Lyra can begin to feel disgust and innocence curdling.
. . . Sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy -
"If that doesn't work, maybe this will," utters Bellamy lowly, his voice distorted and manic.
Seventy-one, seventy-two, seventy-three ━━
"Last chance," Bellamy breathes raggedly.
Lyra squeezes her eyes shut tighter.
. . . Seventy-seven, seventy-eight ━━
A low growl of pain escapes the Grounder. Octavia cries out. Lyra opens her eyes.
A metal spoke has been stabbed straight through the blood and bone of the Grounder's right hand. She doesn't even have to ask to know who did it. Her cheeks are sodden with saltwater as she chokes back a sob of misery.
Torture isn't just cruel, it is inhumane. They are literally ripping this Grounder not only limb by limb, but in his very soul. It's a violation of every single human right Lyra can think of. They are destroying his mind, shredding every fiber of him both inside and out to ribbons.
Just then, Raven's voice calls up the ladder, "What's taking so long?"
Emerging from the hatch, she wipes her hands against her pants. There is something unnaturally calm about her neutral expression. It is unnerving.
"Finn stopped breathing," she states.
Clarke pales. "What?"
"Wells handled it, but next time he might not."
Clarke's brow furrows in distress. "He won't tell us anything."
Raven's gaze drifts from the distraught Lyra to the disgusted Octavia, Miller's lip curled uneasily as he still holds her back. Her eyes finally land upon the Grounder who is half-doubled over in what Lyra can only imagine is unbearable pain and Raven's pupils seem to harden as she marches forwards rashly.
"Wanna bet?"
Surging forwards, she captures two cerulean wires Lyra has rigged to the solar panels on the roof. Planting her boot against the wall for leverage and power, the muscles in her arm bulge as she pries them apart. They snap with an electricity that almost has Lyra flinching, except they illuminate something sitting right behind Raven.
The spacesuit.
"What are you doing?" Bellamy asks gruffly.
Electricity jolts as Raven brushes the two live wires against each other. "Showing him something new."
"Wait!" Lyra shouts, surging forwards. "I can get the radio working again. I know I can."
A beat. "That's not a risk I'm willing to take," says Raven at last.
Something inside Lyra withers.
Before she can protest any further, Raven explodes at the Grounder like a wrathful demon straight from the underbelly of hell. She thrusts both ends of the live wires into the Grounder's chest. A real howl of agony is ripped from his throat as he writhes. But Raven is insatiable. She drives the wires further into his flesh, practically half-crazed as firestorms seem to lick at every inch of her skin. Tears streaming down her face, she screams in a great roar of rage:
"COME ON - HE'S ALL I HAVE!"
It's not so much of a moral obligation but an impulse. She was not shackled to the boy dying downstairs, she owed him nothing at all, but still she abandons every inch of her humanity for him as if it is nothing. It's as if a part of her is living inside of him, as if the poison that creeps through her veins is killing her as well.
It must be the same way Bellamy feels about Octavia.
Bones aching like storms have burst there, Lyra keeps her words to herself now. She cannot even begin to fathom what that must feel like.
"We have to stop this," Octavia spews almost incoherently at Lyra. Miller must have let her go. "You said you could stop this, do it - "
"It'll take too long!" Lyra almost chokes on her words. "I - I - "
"What?" Octavia asks frantically. "What?"
Through her tears, Lyra manages, "I think I can, but... but you won't like it."
"I don't care." Conviction snarls in Octavia's tone, her eyes steely with determination. "Do it."
A civil war raging inside of her, every rational thought she's ever had begging her not to go through with this, Lyra moves like a crack of lightning. Capturing the poisoned blade in her palm, she forces herself forward and into the heart of the war raging in front of her.
"Enough," she says softly.
It's enough to kill the chaos.
"He's letting Finn die!" Raven half sobs at her.
Lyra forces herself to look away as her heart quivers in despair for the girl. Octavia's right beside her and Lyra turns the knife over in her shaking hands. "Do you trust him?"
Octavia doesn't hesitate. "With my life."
Praying that she isn't wrong about this, Lyra ensnares Octavia's porcelain wrist and then slashes the tip of the knife across it. Scarlet rivulets trickle from the open wound and Octavia shudders, but she does not cry out.
"He won't let me die," Octavia whispers, her eyes glassy as she glances past Raven.
"Lyra, Octavia - no!" Bellamy shouts, but it's all too late. Every inch of him is alert as he turns to Lyra, half-enraged. "If she dies, I'll - I'll - "
"Kill me?" Lyra fills in. She sucks in a deep breath. "You won't have to."
Do you not have the heart for this, Miss. Jupiter?
No, she thinks. Not for this.
Grip tightening on the knife, she slashes it down her own wrist. The pain is sudden and blazing. Dull crimson bubbles up over the flesh wound and she watches it stream down in rivers. It's fascinating, the way the red gurgles from the incision in her flesh and dribbles down her skin hotly.
Bellamy is rendered speechless. His entire body is quivering from head to foot, but he doesn't seem able to move. He looks as if he might be going into shock.
Meanwhile, Octavia has fallen to her knees in front of the Grounder. The small pouch containing the vials has spilled open, glass containers rolling and clanking against each other as she sloppily forces them into a line. Rapping the knife Lyra silently hands her against the ground, she nudges each vial in a similar fashion:
"This one? No? This one - good?"
A beat. Then another.
Please don't let me die, Lyra thinks.
At long last, the Grounders nods jerkily.
"Thank-you," whispers Lyra sincerely before striding forwards.
"What're you doing?" Clarke asks sharply as she takes the vial from Octavia gratefully. "All three of you need to be treated now."
"The poison took hours to infect Finn," says Lyra. She feels eerily at ease now, but she is too exhausted to let her calmness unnerve her. "I'm going to fix the radio."
"How?" Clarke demands. Lyra realizes Raven's already gone, the antidote with her.
She doesn't bother giving Clarke an answer.
Grunting with exertion, she grapples briefly with the spacesuit. A dull ache stalks through her opal bones but she does not desist, unfurling the body of it and her sore fingers, slick with sweat, slip inside the rubbery gloves. Sweat glistens on her brow, but there is something else inside of her. Some part of her is thrilled.
There's a wild cloudburst caged in her ribs, almost as if the storm outside is living inside of her. A kind of reckless hurricane, the kind that sends adrenaline spiraling through your veins as you do something so lethal that you truly feel alive. Her thirst for that sort of risky thrill, that sort of deadly exhilaration, only ever worsened in captivity; Lyra in her very untamed soul is adventurous.
"What are you doing?" Bellamy demands as she tucks the helmet into the crook of her elbow. "Lyra, what are you doing?"
"Not dying," she pauses. "I think."
Clambering down the ladder, she says "Excuse me, please," as she wriggles through the crowd of people. Then she descends down the second ladder, hardly taking notice of a fretful Raven and grimly determined Clarke dispensing Finn the antidote. Octavia watches dreadfully.
"Wells," says Lyra. "Could you please open the ramp?"
"We're in the middle of a hurricane - " begins the dark-skinned boy in frustration, then wides his eyes as he glances up and takes in her appearance. "Um. Are we playing dress up, or something?"
"Or something."
"Wells - do not open that door!" Bellamy's voice somehow travels through all three levels.
"He's not in charge of you," says Lyra quickly.
Wells looks torn. At last, he grouses, "Why do I have such a bad feeling about this?"
"Don't be so negative," says Lyra cheerily, knowing she's won him over. "There's a rainbow around every corner."
"It's what's at the end of the rainbow that scares me," he grumbles.
But he doesn't argue any further. Instead he places a hand on the lever and, before Lyra can shriek No, wait, I change my mind! the ramp is lowered and the storm explodes all around them.
Before she can stop herself, she jams the helmet onto her head. Something about the familiarity of being in a spacesuit again comforts her and she feels the least lonely that she has been ever since setting foot onto this wretched planet. Fixing the visor, she sucks in a deep breath.
And then she walks into the storm.
The hurricane is screaming. Blinding light flashes manically in the blackened sky overhead, blurred in the chaos, the wind howling in such an unearthly way that it seems to vibrate straight through her suit. The velocity is bloodcurdling. Rain pelts her like rigid bullets of frigid steel and when she squints forward, she can just barley make out the trees bending backwards as they're pummeled by the sheer force of the vortex churning at the skies. Thunder roars and the infuriated noise rumbles with the wrath of one thousand Titans, rattling Lyra straight through to the bone.
The dropship ramp closes behind her.
There is no going back now.
Ignoring the way the blackened sky hangs overhead as if sealing her own coffin shut, Lyra takes one step forward and then another. The wind and the rain fights against her every step of the way. Teetering on the dirt that seems to be ripping upwards with the sheer force of the winds that push her backwards, she grits her teeth and keeps moving. She can't stop now. She won't stop now. She has gone too far to look behind her.
When she reaches the back half of the dropship, a rumours of fear swells in her intestines and corrupts her bold blood. A narrow metal ladder someone had uncovered from the innards of the ship had been bolted against the back and it is about to become her only hope.
For a heartbeat, she thinks about how stupid this is. How this is sheer insanity, mania even, and how this is definitely another one for the list Lyra Valeria Jupiter-Franko's Top Ten Stupidest Moments.
But some part of her has never felt so alive.
And so, with adrenaline rushing through her, a raging heart and poison in her veins, the star-girl begins to ascend.
(She tries very hard not to look down.)
The entire dropship convulses as the hurricane ensnares it. Clutching the ladder with all her might, Lyra lets out a sharp cry. The ladder continues to lunge far above her head, the peak swallowed by storm clouds. As she ascends higher and higher, she tries not to think about what would happen if she falls. No one would catch her. All her bones would shatter. She'd be nothing more than a scarlet smear inside the spacesuit, a crumpled doll.
At long last, her arms gelatinous with exertion, she reaches the top. A triumphant grin blazes upon her lips as she beams, and then she remembers: This was only half of the battle.
Now she has to fix the wiring and the antenna. She has to reroute the signal, force it to be strong enough to break through the storm clouds and then the atmosphere. All in the middle of a hurricane. While an unknown poison courses through her veins. Oh, and her concussion.
Cool, cool, cool. Easy-peasy.
What could go wrong?
She's about halfway through when it happens.
The pain is sudden and overwhelming. Her entire body becomes rigid as a board and a sharp gust of stale air bursts through her teeth as agony, white-hot and volcanic, erupts across her torso. She lets go of the antennae at once, her entire body jerking. All her limbs are flailing but there is nothing she can do about it.
A seizure, she thinks blindly. I'm having a seizure.
She's plummeting down the side of the dropship, the metal slick with rain. Wind beats upon her back. Falling, falling, falling -
All at once, control slams into her. Without thought, her fingers unfurl and scrabble blindly. They latch onto a rung of the ladder. Feet dangling as the hurricane batters her like a puppet, she manages to haul herself back upwards.
Eyes seething with a concoction of tears, she forces herself to keep working.
"Almost done, Lyra," she murmurs. "Just a little longer. All you need is time."
Against all odds, she does it.
At least, she thinks she does. There's no way for her to tell. The antenna seems to cackle with electricity and the solar panels are blazing once more, but she won't be sure until she gets back inside the dropship. And, once she's there, she's not sure she'll be able to leave again.
Thoughts cloudy as the skies above, she is too tired to unravel all her worries now. Every fibre of her feels like lead. The winds howling themselves hoarse, she begins her descent back down the ladder. It doesn't go well. About five feet off the ground, her limbs quake too fiercely under her weight, and she crashes into the ground.
She's not sure how long she lays there. She doesn't even remember closing her eyes. But she must have because when she opens them, the storm is still raging all around her.
She stands. She takes one step. Then another. It takes all the energy she has left but she keeps moving, forcing herself towards the dropship.
Just a little further, she urges herself tiredly. She doesn't have the strength to move her numbed lips. Just get there and everything will be OK.
She pushes her fist against the closed ramp once.
No answer.
She does it again.
No answer.
Knowing she will collapse if she has to go again, she raises her fist once more and then -
The ramp unfurls. Shifting her weight, Lyra staggers forward and then stumbles over her own two feet, collapsing onto the steel as relief oozes like honey through her veins. Multiple pairs of hands are lifting her, hauling her inside, and the chaos dies all around as the ramp closes with an audible snap.
Lyra stands before them on shaky legs.
Barely able to pull the helmet from her head, blood stains her fingers ruby. Agony mists her eyes but she is able to make out Raven, Clarke, Wells, Octavia, and Bellamy all around her. Her cheeks insipid as white wax, she knows her hair is like a wild ocean, and she does not doubt that her eyes are crazed.
"Are you insane?" Bellamy splutters, rushing towards her.
Slowly and excruciatingly, he helps her out of the spacesuit.
"Probably," she manages, half-delirious. There's a trepidation shriveling her heart as she blinks unsteadily. "Did it work?"
"Yeah," he murmurs, more gently this time. "Yeah, you did it, Angel."
"That's good," she mumbles.
She's starting to feel the full effects of everything that's taken place. There's a thudding pulse in her skull, an aching crawling up her spine. Her eyes feel like dead weights.
Sinking towards the floor in exhaustion, she whispers, "I'm gonna take a nap now, OK?"
She doesn't wait for an answer.
͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙
felt like a bit of a bore, having lyra j cry abt the torturing and then poison herself. like obviously it's important to her and her softness, but also like ive seen it a million times in other fanfics.
which is why i decided to spice it up a bit. hope none of y'all minded or thought it was boring!!!