┍━━━━ ⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆ ━━━━┑
(DON'T FEAR)
THE REAPER!
┕━━━━ ⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆ ━━━━┙
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EVEN AFTER HER TEARS DRY, her hands are still wet and sticky with his warm blood.
After she'd done it, she'd twisted onto her stomach, then pushed herself to her feet. Her eyes were closed shut the entire time. She didn't open them until she'd started running and she hasn't looked back since. She'd been unable to hold the knife any longer, so she dropped it.
She cannot bear to look at what she's done.
She'd slit the throat of her friend. Never mind the fact that she'd only done what he'd asked her to do, that Wells was dying anyways, that this was what he wanted, what he begged her for. Lyra still cut into him. Ruby sin stains her soft cheeks, innocence curdling across the star-girls sun-kissed features like curdled milk. How many times has she fought so that her friends could live? How many times has she defied the stars so that she and her friends ━━ children marked for death ━━ could survive?
And yet now it feels like it was nothing at all. Half of her friends are trapped in a mountain like pigs waiting for slaughter. The other half are a world away from her ━━ she is lost beneath the earth.
The mountain tunnels miles above her head, sprawling in every direction. Pale torchlight sliced down from alcoves in the rock, shadows poisoned black. Everything is delirious as she lurches through the sticky shadows, blood buzzing on her mouth, oozing across her fingertips. Scarring scarlet, red as the blood splattered meadows that cradled the members of the one-hundred who'd died in battle. Childhood's slow death. Lyra's lungs burn with incarcerated sobs, her throat scream-scorched as grief and sorrow and guilt and sickness of it all threaten to consume her. She persists through the chest-crushing gloom, yet in her own head, she is crumpled against the earth. In her own head, she is curled into the blood-drenched earth instead of wading through this fever dream.
Do you not have the heart for this, Miss. Jupiter?
Her head rings with soundless voices.
We all have great expectations for you, Miss. Jupiter!
Her blood stained palms shiver.
We're made out of stardust, kid. I'm just going home.
Lyra is not the first to kill on the ground. Raven burnt three-hundred warriors alive. Bellamy slaughtered Dax in the afternoon sun. Octavia had torn across a battlefield with a wildfire in her heart and a sword in her hands.
But none of them have done something like this.
You did what you had to do, she tells herself. There was no other way this ended.
But as she continues running, her legs moving eventually as her lungs burn, the panic does not fade. She has the hands of a murderer.
Eventually, the passageways become silent. Only her breath echoes noisily off the rock. She'd outrun whoever it had been behind her, and now she wants nothing more then to sleep for a few days. But if there's anything she's learned about these tunnels, it's this: Never stop running.
And then she comes upon a steel door.
It's iron-thick and practically rusted shut. It takes nearly all of her strength to pry it open, and when she steps inside the next cavern, it slams shut. The deafening thud echoes through the Reaper Tunnels.
This new cavern is an exoskeleton of concrete. Utterly silent. It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust to this gloom that is even murkier than the tunnels; there are no torches here. But when it does, her eyes widen in surprise.
It's a car garage.
There's nothing outright special about this fortress swimming with gloom, grainy walls and desolate halls. Everything is swamped with shadows and yet Lyra walls between mutilated vehicles with eyes globular in wonder. She's never seen a car before and now she's faced with dozens of them. Meandering between the abandoned vehicles, she kicks aside rubble and rotting wood, her eyes wandering the collapsed cavern beneath the earth the crumbling obstacle course. It really does seem as if no one's stepped foot inside this cavern out of time since the bombs went off ━━ it's a ghost town.
Propping open the hood of the nearest one, a silvery Mercedes along the front, she examines the engine in awe. It's everything she's ever read about; a cylinder block, a piston, a valve, a fan, a cylinder head, a sparking plug, blah, blah, blah. Nothing anyone else but her would be interested in.
After a few minutes poking around the transmission, she finds herself in the drivers seat.
Then her eyes snag on the radio system.
Huh. It must still have usable parts, right? Taking a pair of pliers out from her backpack, Lyra starts to jostle it around. She moves her backpack to the passengers seat. There's a few plastic dishes that crumple and then fall, labeled Panda Express. She frowns. Did people, like, eat pandas or something before the bombs went off?
Before long, she's got the Walkman back out all over again, trying to adjust the cassette tape. The tech is much more ancient then whatever she's used to and it's harder to work with, but she doesn't really mind. She's always liked a challenge.
Leaning back in the drivers seat, she realizes she is still trembling. The blood is still on her hands. There is so, so much blood on her hands.
At the far, far end of the parking garage, a steel door shudders open.
Uh-oh.
Shrinking into the seat, Lyra struggles to squint over the dashboard. Whoever used to drive this car must have been tall; the seat is pushed way too far back.
The bunker is startlingly vast. She hadn't realised the gloom stretched on hundreds and hundreds of feet away. White light spindles as footsteps scuffle against the pavement and the dark passageways shudder with life. Her breath snags in her throat at this new enemy and her heart sinks in her chest .The entrance she'd came in through gapes three dozen yards away, but she won't be fast enough to make it without being seen. Lyra is sure escaping will not be so easy; she will have to fight her way out.
A few very tense minutes pass as the unit splits, veering into two different directions. They're sweeping the entire garage.
She forces herself to go as still as possible. Her breath comes in very short, very quiet spurts.
In her clammy palms, the cassette begins to spindle within the Walkman. And then ━━
And then it whirs to life.
"Morning! Today's forecast calls for blue skies."
Notes begin to crackle through the shitty speakers after the male speakers announcement. They're light and bouncy, as if Lyra is fairy frolicking inside a meadow instead of a murderer hiding from a bunch of cannibals and people trying to drain her blood inside a ninety-seven year old parking garage.
"Are you kidding me?" Lyra wails in a whisper, glaring at the Walkman.
As if in response, the Walkman begins to sing:
"Sun is shining in the sky, there ain't a cloud in sight. It's stopped rainin', everybody's in the play, and don't you know, it's a beautiful new day. . . hey, hey — "
Shouting from whoever the hell has found her is muffled by the song as she struggles to shut it off. Footfalls thunder towards her and she goes pale.
"Fuck," mumbles Lyra.
"Running' down the avenue, see how the sun shines brightly in the city, " sings the Walkman mirthfully.
Lyra whips around wildly, fumbling through her pack for some sort of weapon. There is nothing. Her gaze flickers back to the Panda Express, where there is a plastic fork. . .
It'll have to work.
The door bursts open. She jerks the fork up with both hands, holding it like a gun.
"Octavia?"
"Lyra?"
"Octavia!"
Almost immediately, Lyra's arms are sliding around Octavia's shoulders. Her fingers are tangled in Octavia's obsidian locks, half of which are braided back in what must have once been tight strands. Now they are very loose, falling apart, though Lyra hardly notices this. She is hugging her best friend as tightly as she can.
"You have no idea how much I've missed you," Lyra mumbles into her shoulder.
"Yeah? Me too." Octavia squeezes her shoulders before pulling back. "First I lost Lincoln, and then finding out you were gone, too. . . "
The girl trails off miserably.
She sniffles. Then, "Your hair smells like strawberries."
"Yours kinda smells like blood and depression."
Octavia hits her on the shoulder. Laughing, Lyra winces a little, slightly startled. Octavia hits harder than she thought she did.
"Octavia?" A familiar voice rumbles from the depths of the gloom. "Who the hell are you— Lyra!"
Before Lyra can so much as breathe, Bellamy is sweeping her into a crushing embrace.
"Goddamnit, Jupiter," he mumbles.
Relief floods her veins as she grabs fistfuls of his rough jacket, burying her face into his chest. Words jumble up in her throat like ashen honey; she cannot speak, she can barely breathe. Bellamy is alive. Bellamy is safe.
Bellamy and Lyra cling to one another as if they've been separated for one-hundred years, swaying in the sticky shadows without thought of the fact that Octavia is behind them or the fact that they are in imminent danger.
Octavia clears her throat loudly.
"I knew you'd figure out a way to escape," he says as Lyra takes a tiny step back, her cheeks pink. "How many are with you?"
He glances around as if half-expecting Jasper and Monty to emerge from the dim.
Lyra swallows. "I got out with Wells, but he. . . "
"Wells?" Octavia interrupts, brow furrowing. "He went missing just after we found Clarke. She's been worried sick for him."
So Clarke did get out. Lyra's grateful, but there's no time to dwell on that small victory. . .
And oh, god. Oh, god. . .
. . . what is she going to tell Clarke?
Her throat feels like it's swelling shut as she tries to find the words to explain what the hell she's been through ever since her break in to Dante's office with Nate. God, Nate. He could be dead by now, along with Jasper and Monty and Harper and the others. Who knows how long she was stuck in the tunnels with Wells?
Wells, their friend, the boy she killed.
Her throat is all scratchy and hot. She blinks furiously. How does she tell that to Bellamy? How does she explain that she's taken the life of one of their friends?
Fate spares her from answering.
There's a scraping noise at the other end of the cavern. Then a low, guttural groan
"Hey you with the pretty face," the Walkman's voice cuts through static and silence eerily. "Welcome to the human race!"
Someone screams.
Bellamy and Octavia both fall into defensive stances on either side of Lyra so that she's sandwiched between the two Blake siblings (it's probably inappropriate to grin, but Lyra does anyway, because it's come on, it's little funny).
Raising the blinding white beam of the flashlight mounted upon his rifle, Bellamy drags it across the opposing walls clogged with shadows.
The trio creeps forward. Daring a glance at Bellamy, Lyra watches anxiously as a scowl creeps over his face. He rakes his eyes over the hollows in the walls before his shoulder stiffens and he holds out a hand for them to halt.
She obeys nervously and he shines his light at the pavement. There's a small pile of firearms. Lyra peers upwards anxiously, and then her limbs begin to quake; she swears she can see something moving in the shadows ━━
"Bell. . . " Octavia's voice is barely a whisper as she gazes into the dark. "What's that?"
There's an odd, rotting stench. It razes Lyra's nostrils. The air reeks like festering flesh, like something's been slaughtered here. She clutches her plastic fork tighter.
Bellamy raises his light, a smudge of blinding white in the suffocating obsidian.
Hunched over with limbs contorting at odd angles, the warriors huddle over some sort of mass. Slabs of meat slumping to the ground, lumps of foul, festering flesh that have a noxious smell. Crumpled against a concrete support beam is something carved from breastbone to groin as the human doubles over it, shovelling the strange decapitated bones aside as hideous scarlet disfigures their features.
Lyra is so shocked that she almost cannot be disgusted. They're eating him.
Octavia swears loudly; "Reapers!"
The Reapers grunt and scatter, driven towards them by a wild bloodlust. They do not get very far. A round of bullets explode from Bellamy's rifle, flashing blindingly in the darkness. Two of the Reapers collapse to the ground.
"Wait!" Lyra shrieks, remembering Lincoln. "You might hit him!"
"That's kind of the point!" Bellamy retorts loudly. "This is no time for your ethical bullshit, spacewalker!"
Thinking of Wells, she winces.
"O," continues Bellamy lowly.
"What?"
"Take this."
He offers a pistol out to his younger sister, which she accepts in distaste. Then he begins to pull Lyra behind him. She gestures to the fork, and he looks exasperated.
"What're you gonna do, fight them off with a plastic fork?"
There's no time to respond. There's a violent gurgling noise and in an instant, Bellamy's reloading his rifle with a sharp click and preparing to take the shot. Yet before he can, Octavia's arm jerks out to stop him.
"Don't."
Slowly, this last Reaper turns his inhuman black eyes upon them.
It's Lincoln.
Bile blazes at the forefront of her throat as Lyra takes in this new Lincoln. A man wearing an Ark guard uniform has been battered until his blood runs blue, his body contorted at an impossible angle beneath this beast. It's barbaric. There is a hideous sneer twisting across Lincoln's monstrous features as he chews away at the flesh, frothing at the mouth.
"It's Lincoln," breathes Octavia as she lowers her firearm. "Lincoln, it's me — "
"Octavia," chokes out Lyra in horror as her friend starts to inch forwards. "Octavia, don't. That is not your Lincoln."
But Octavia ignores her, almost manic with despair. "Lincoln, it's me. Octavia — "
Lincoln charges across the pavement like a demon from hell, quivering all over as if he has been driven to insanity by bloodlust. He batters Octavia to the ground as if she is nothing and the girl shrieks loudly, her sword clattering against the stone. Great roars of anger blast from Lincoln's lips as he lunges for Lyra, but she manages to dart out of his reach.
"Octavia!" She cries out frantically.
A gunshot cracks from Octavia's direction. Lincoln screeches as he begins to stumble. Without hesitation, Bellamy bursts forwards and slams the back of his rifle into the former peacemakers head.
Lincoln crumples to the ground. He does not get back up.
Sprinting forwards, Lyra hauls Octavia from the hood of a car. The other girl is gasping for air and hardly protests as Lyra starts to force her across the pavement, but they're moving agonisingly slow. Bellamy is with them the next moment, helping them across the concrete.
"Come on," he says hoarsely, gaze darting across the gritty darkness. "We need to get somewhere safe."
Somewhere safe turns out to be the car Lyra had hidden in earlier. She's taken her vesper-violet backpack from the backseat and now holds it in her lap in the drivers seat. Octavia is sprawled in the backseat, her entire countenance shivering. In the dim light, she looks quite pale, unnaturally so, as if just being there is making her sick.
"He's a Reaper," she whispers, though whether it's to herself or them, Lyra doesn't know. "How is it even possible, he just looked right through me? How's he just — ?"
"I don't know," says Bellamy weakly, twisting in the passengers seat to grab his sisters hand comfortingly. "Just listen to me. We'll get him back. I promise."
"I know how," says Lyra quietly.
Both Blake's turn to her.
"The Mountain Men create them," she begins, staring at her hands. Wells' blood is dry. "The process involves the use of the highly addictive Red drug in a brutal ordeal to turn the strongest captives acquired from the Harvest Protect raids on the surface. Once turned, Reapers are employed as outside guard and raiders to defend Mount Weather and bring back more captives in exchange for the Red drug. They control the Reapers with a high frequency tone that they cannot stand."
She rattles this off very fast, repeating what she'd learned word for word. With some difficulty, she swallows before continuing.
"I. . . I met the scientist who works on it," she admits faintly. "It's code named Cerberus Project."
She turns to Octavia. The girl's eyes shift in the scarce light, sapphire and sullen and pained with something she doesn't say out loud. Lyra doesn't bother to ask if she's OK.
"Cerberus, the dog from the Underworld," Bellamy murmurs. "Ideal guard dog for the Underworld, and the Reapers are the ideal guard dog for the Mountain."
"You met the scientist." Octavia fixes Lyra with an intense gaze. "Do you know how to fix him?"
"She didn't tell me anything," says Lyra, twisting her fingers together. "But. . . they're turned with the Red drug. There's a chance it could be reversible, if somehow the toxins could be flushed from their system. Unless they're somehow already dependent on it. . . "
"That's good enough for me," Octavia declares, sitting up. "We need to catch him."
͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙
LYRA FINDS OCTAVIA ahead of the charred camp walls, her back to the dropship where Bellamy is restraining Lincoln.
Octavia is motionless when she discovers her, standing with her back rigid and her fist curled around her sword. Her eyes are squeezed shut. Features pinched. The afternoon sun has only just begun to fade, bathing them both in a soft honey-gold, but Octavia's face is submerged in the shadows.
"I want to be alone right now."
"Great," says Lyra, crossing the camp to stand beside Octavia. "Me too."
Twisting slowly to glance at her, Octavia's eyelids part and she rolls her eyes, but something in her face softens. The darkness dissolves a little.
"Are you thinking about Wells?" She asks quietly.
It feels like a fist is curling around Lyra's throat. "Yeah."
"Don't," says Octavia, as if it's that easy. "It won't make it any easier. We're on the ground now, and that means we have to be warriors."
Lyra snorts, trying to appear aloof, but Octavia still sees the pain in her eyes. "I can't shoot a gun and I cry, like, all the time. I don't think anyone wants a defective warrior."
Octavia matches her grim expression. "I do."
"Lincoln's still out cold, but it doesn't look like he'll be going anywhere when he wakes up." Bellamy's striding down the metal ramp, soot and sweat staining his face. "We need to get Clarke and a medkit, but somebody has to stay here to watch — "
"I'll stay," says Octavia at once.
Lyra's rather apprehensive about leaving Octavia with Lincoln ━━ no one should have to go through this alone ━━ but something is overriding that worry. If she goes, she'll finally get to see her dad.
"Then it's just me and you," Bellamy gives Lyra a tiny glance, a smirk tugging at the edge of his lips. "C'mon."
Lyra boldly ducks into the growing shadows as twilight ensnares the forest, Bellamy by her side. She's careful not to let her eyes linger on him for too long. Lyra's mouth still burns like wildfire from the night in the butterfly field and she knows that if she lifts her eyes to his that she will lose all focus and become lost in him all over again.
And her heart hasn't forgotten what's happened since.
"So Raven's in a brace and Murphy's a good guy now," says Lyra, brushing a piece of her soft brown hair from her face. "What about Finn? Has he gotten his peace talk with the Grounders yet?"
Something in Bellamy's face shifts. "Something like that."
"Sounds like you guys had it easy out here, then," Lyra says, trying for an impish grin. She doesn't think it works. "While we were getting hung upside down and drained for our blood, you guys got to frolic through the forests and gossip with Kane."
And she had to kill Wells. She tries not to think about it, but it's impossible. She can't stop. Every time she blinks, she sees his face. Hears his last words. Feels his blood on her hands.
Bellamy smiles wryly. "Yeah, but you guys got chocolate cake."
After a while, the trail begins to slope upwards into a steeper climb. Thighs burning as she narrowly swerves a ditch, Lyra wonders what it would take to fix up some of the cars in that garage. She's getting a little sick of having to walk everywhere. Besides, the Grounders get horses, so it's only fair. . .
Making their way down the slope proves to be much easier, even though Lyra has to fight the urge to just roll. When she slips on a patch of slick mud, Bellamy tightens his hold and helps her regain her balance. But the moment they reach level ground, he's jogging towards the banks of the river that sweeps through the woodland. Water sloshes gently against the pebbles as he scans the shoreline for footprints or any sign of Grounders.
Lyra hangs back for a moment, staring at the lake as wonder relieves the exhaustion that had settled in her limbs. The surface is smooth as glass and while the moon hangs in the diamond sky, a second moon is tethered to the waters and gleaming brilliantly across the surface, trembling as the gentle waves lap at the shore.
Standing perfectly still, Bellamy stares across the river of starlight with an intensity that makes Lyra shiver. Her first instinct is to step back and give him space. But then another impulse takes over.
Because, looking at Bellamy, for the briefest of moments, she forgets the horrors of Mount Weather.
A mischievous smile slinks across her face.
She pulls her grimy cream sweater over her head, kicking off the delicate boots Mount Weather had given her and stuffing her pink fuzzy socks inside of them. Gathering her hair and looping the ponytail into a bun, she ignores the few loose caramel snarls that curl around her soft cheeks.
Losing her plaid pleated skirt quickly, she spins around on her heel quickly. Her cheeks are broad with impish mirth as she starts to wade into the river, not waiting for Bellamy's reaction. Starry luminescence gleams in her glossy hair as she slips into the water wearing nothing but the lacy lavender bra and underwear set that Mount Weather had given her.
The water is cold. Colder than she expected. It feels like she's wading into pure ice and her skin prickles, but she's not sure if that's from the chill or the sensation of Bellamy's eyes watching her every movement.
If she closes her eyes, she almost feels like she is spacewalking again.
The cosmos glimmer legions above her as she leans back into the silvery waters, hair floating around her like a halo. For a moment, she forgets about Mount Weather and her friends. She forgets that her improvised swimming outfit is going to be see-through whenever she emerges from the water and Bellamy is going to see everything.
She even manages to forget she killed Wells.
"I think Mount Weather must've finally scrambled your brains."
Head half-ducked beneath the water, only Lyra's starry eyes are visible as she regards him. He's looking back at her in a combination of surprise and amusement, but her wonderful smile had finally infected his own and a grin crawls across his lips.
Ducking her head fully beneath the surface, Lyra pops up again, laughing as water streams down her face. "I feel fine."
He steps closer. "So your super-genius mind knew instinctively that the water was safe?"
"No," her roseate lips twist into a pout as she makes a show of examining her arm. "Maybe the water's radioactive. I could be growing a mermaid tail and gills right this very second."
Bellamy nods with mock solemnity. "If you grow a mermaid tail, I won't shun you. Can't make promises for anyone else, though."
"They can't shun both of us."
"Both of us — ?"
Before he can finish, Lyra kicks her legs up and splashes him. "I'm not going to be the only one with a tail!"
He wipes the water slowly from his face, his voice low and menacing. "You really shouldn't have done that."
For a heartbeat, Lyra thinks she's actually upset him, and she's frightened. But then he grabs the hem of his shirt as if it's nothing and pulls it over his head in one swift motion. His naked torso glistens bronze in the moonlight. Her eyes flicker over his body that looks like it's been chiseled from marble, then he's throwing his pants aside as if they aren't the only pair he has on the planet. Her pulse rages as she catches sight of his long, well-muscled legs clad only in black boxers and she blushes. But she doesn't look away.
Bellamy plunges into the river and closes the distance between them with a few powerful strokes. He disappears in the water for a long moment.
Then his hands grasp her naked waist and she squeals loudly as he spins her around.
"You can't get me back," she says, her heart beating so loud and so fast that she's sure he can hear it. "I'm already in the water."
He arches a brow challengingly. "Oh, really?"
Without giving her a chance to fight him, his grip on her waist tightens as he lifts her halfway out of the water. Realizing at once what he's planning, she yelps loudly and starts to thrash in his grip.
"You're not getting out of this one!" Bellamy laughs before throwing her back into the river several feet away.
Lifting her head out of the water as her hair sticks to her skin, Lyra tries not to grin. "You're such an ass."
He seems smug. "Yeah."
Bellamy swims closer to her boldly, his eyes glowing wonderfully, a wild yearning there. Her heart hacks at her chest louder. Enchanted, she meets his gaze at long last while his hands stretch out to hers, one running along her neck and the other ghosting her thigh. She shivers at his touch as anticipation swirls through her veins.
"No mermaid tail yet," he says softly.
He starts to duck his head towards hers. Lyra's heart is on fire, but she finds it in her to pull back.
"Wait," she says breathlessly, struggling to tread the water. "Bellamy, I can't do this if I'm just a distraction, I can't go through that again — "
One hand curled around her waist, his other tilts her chin up gently so that she's forced to meet his eyes. "Distraction?" He shakes his head gently. "Lyra, I just want you."
Her cheeks blossom. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," he murmurs, brushing back her hair. "Like you said, just you and me — until the very end."
This time, when he kisses her, she doesn't pull away. Their lips lilt against one another's softly and he lifts her upwards for easier access. Legs locking around his torso, Lyra practically melts into him. His familiar sunlight taste soaks through her mouth and and presses closer. He responds instinctively, tugging her in, the girl and the boy moving against one another in sweet synchronization.
"Oh my god — I think I'm gonna gag."
Breathlessly, Lyra breaks away from Bellamy to see Octavia watching them from the shore. Well aware of the fact that Octavia just walked in to see her best friend making out with her brother half-naked in a river, Lyra immediately tries to pull away from Bellamy, but his grip on her waist doesn't loosen.
"Via, I am so, so, so sorry — "
"Don't be." The obsidian-haired girl's expression shifts as she grins. "I've had my suspicions for a while. You guys made it pretty obvious."
"What?" Bellamy looks offended. "The first time we kissed was right before Mount Weather!"
"Yeah, but you're kind of an idiot, Bell. I figured out you liked her ages ago."
Lyra can feel her ears burning in embarrassment. "So you're not mad?"
"Maybe a little, but I'll get over it," says Octavia. "You just have to watch out. He's kind of a man whore."
"I am not!"
"Oh, you definitely are," says Octavia and, at that same moment, Lyra says, "You kind of are."
"It's not fair if both of you team up against me," he grumbles, his face rather red. But it's obvious that he isn't really upset with them. "You're taking this situation oddly well."
Octavia grins. "Because I know Lyra will pick me over you."
"Hell yeah I will!" Lyra cheers, wriggling from Bellamy's grasp and paddling towards the bank to give her friend a high five. "Chicks before dicks, sorry, Bell!"
"I saw her first," adds Octavia smugly.
"Yeah, well I was the guard who got her out of the Skybox."
"And then you held her at gunpoint that same night," retorts Octavia. "While you were going through your whole anarchy phase, Lyra and I were roommates."
"As much as I'd love to have this argument, we both know I'm winning," says Bellamy stubbornly, only for Octavia to start to laugh. He narrows his eyes at his little sister. "Why are you laughing?"
"Because," Octavia's grin broadens. "You're going to have to be the one to tell her dad."
Lyra smiles, happy to be here, in this moment. Everything is going to shit (as usual), but when she watches Bellamy splashing his little sister as the sky darkens and more stars come out, she swears that they are unstoppable.
She looks up at the stars. Her breath snags in her throat. All she can think about is Wells Jaha, the seventeen year old boy she just killed and when she glances back down at her hands, they are still covered with his blood.
And a little crude voice whispers to her, You killed Wells. You killed Wells. You killed Wells. . .
͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧
ON THE PALESTINE/ISRAELI CONFLICT ━━ I will not pretend to be well-educated on the topic. It is an absolutely deep and devastating conflict that has existed since before I was born. However, I think it is still important for me to raise awareness in anyway that I can.
Here are links to helpful articles:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/05/12/world/middleeast/israeli-palestinian-conflict-gaza-hamas.amp.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/22430488/israel-gaza-war-2021-hamas-sheikh-jarrah
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/pidgin/world-57056005.amp
AN ARTICLE FOR HOW TO HELP WITH LINKS EMBEDDED IN ACTUAL ARTICLE:
https://thetab.com/uk/2021/05/12/this-is-how-to-show-support-and-help-for-those-in-palestine-205049
5k words