W E ’ R E
B A C K,
B I T C H E S
NINETY-SEVEN YEARS HAD PASSED since the nuclear war on Earth had domino-effected into twelve nations scurrying up to the space stations they hoarded above the radiation-oozing atmosphere. The dozen nations came together to form what they now called the Ark. Citizens of the Ark had another century of living inside the enormous hunk of space junk until Earth could finally be reconsidered as a habitable planet. Just like the human race had done in the previous millennia, people committed crimes and were henceforth punished for such crimes.
As Lilly peacefully allowed herself to be led through the endless halls upon the Ark, she thought about her own crime in great detail. She'd been doing so ever since she was put in Lockup three months ago. Even after all that time, she easily recalled each memory of how her pale fingers looked when they were caked in blood. Her clothes stained with the same blood. Her skin crawling with the grimy touch of Austin Rogers, a man meant to mentor her in the Engineering Station. He had deserved to die, of course, but the memories still mocked her with malicious intent. She couldn't remember the last night she'd slept peacefully.
And today, Lillian Grace Kane would be floated for her crimes.
One of the guards leading her—whose name she now knew to be Ian—was the same one that had threatened her the evening she'd been sent to the SkyBox. The other was a guard she'd yet to meet until now. Ian had made sure to follow through with his threat...several times. Bruises still covered her torso from where he'd repeatedly kicked her. Lilly had developed a nervous tick at the sight of the tasers they carried after being tortured with one so many times. Ian had been best friends with Austin Rogers and held a hate for Lilly Kane that ran so deep, she was practically counting down the days until her eighteenth birthday.
And here it was.
The door to Chancellor Thelonious Jaha's office slid open as they approached, the guards leading Lilly inside. "Ah, Lilly, it's been a while." Chancellor Jaha said, waving her in and telling the guards to stay standing outside. Though there was still rumor of an assassination, Thelonious wanted to try to get Lilly to confess the events leading up to her crime without prying ears. Maybe her time in the SkyBox made her miss her life on the outside.
Although Chancellor Jaha waved her in, Lilly didn't move. "I'm not going to plead or give you my story, Chancellor." She announced matter-of-factly. Her intentions with this meeting were not to unload her troubles, but rather to get things over with quickly. If she'd had it her way, Lilly would've jumped ship the moment they put her in Lockup. Her tone left little wiggle room for the Chancellor to convince her to think again. "Do what you must," she continued, "but I request that I be floated as soon as possible."
"Lilly—,"
"You heard what I said, now do it." Lilly snapped, interrupting the Chancellor. She didn't allow him time to argue when she turned on her heel and walked out to where the guards were waiting to take her back to the SkyBox.
With a sigh, Chancellor Jaha called for the girl's father to meet with him as soon as possible. It didn't take Marcus long to arrive in Thelonious' office.
"Chancellor," Marcus greeted, his tone rushed. He had much work to get done, with the Exodus ship leaving in a few hours.
"Marcus," Chancellor Jaha greets in return, motioning for the Councillor to sit across from him. Marcus immediately declines and insists that he "get on with it"—the interaction reminding Thelonious where Lilly got her stubborn attitude. "I just spoke to Lilly." Marcus Kane didn't have to ask what this meant. Lilly turned eighteen today and she'd had a chance to speak with Chancellor Jaha before her fate would be decided.
"And?" Marcus pressed, suddenly considering taking a seat.
"She refused to speak to me about it." The Chancellor answered grimly. It was the last thing he wanted to say to Marcus, but it was the truth and he wasn't going to lie about the interaction.
Marcus' face dropped. Like the Chancellor, he'd hoped that her time in the SkyBox would make Lilly talk about what happened. It's not like he and Thelonious didn't already know—the latter being the one to figure it out. "Okay, well, thanks for telling me. If it's okay with you, Chancellor, I'd like not to be there when... You know, you have her—,"
"However," Thelonious interrupted as he gave Marcus a pointed look, continuing to explain the point he was trying to make, "I care about her as much as you do. Her and Wells have been friends for a long time. Seeing as the Exodus ship will be leaving any time now, I thought I'd offer to put her aboard, or forgive her crimes." He watched Marcus begin to consider the offer. "Ultimately, it's up to you, but I'm happy to go along with whatever you think best." Marcus nodded in understanding, continuing to think.
The only reason the delinquents from the SkyBox were being sent to Earth was because the Ark was running out of oxygen. The longer they waited for the Exodus ship's departure, the less time those remaining would have. Was he willing to risk sending Lilly to the Ground with no way of knowing the repercussions, or was he more willing to risk keeping her on the Ark awaiting possible symptoms of oxygen deficiency? Marcus had the feeling Chancellor Jaha would offer this ultimatum and asked Abby Griffin what an oxygen deficiency could lead to. He wasn't ready to watch his daughter go through any of it. There was no good choice here—no easy choice, at least. It wasn't easy to be the one who decided how his child would suffer. Finally, he spoke. "Is there another option?"
The Chancellor sighed, "If she didn't go on the Exodus ship and I don't forgive her crimes, I'd be forced to float her." That's the last thing either of them wanted to do.
Marcus sighed this time with his decision in mind. "Alright," he said, "send her down with the others. I've got to go check on some things." Similar to Lilly, Marcus left without giving Chancellor Jaha a chance to respond as he exited the man's office.
×××
Lilly was growing more and more aggravated. She hadn't been floated yet, and the guard of her nightmares, Ian, had visited her just moments ago, claiming to be more angry that she had yet to be floated. "Not as angry as me, I assure you." She'd told him. Currently, she was pacing the length of her cell wringing her hands with anxiety. There were people outside shouting. It could be a fight that broke out, but there were way too many people shouting for that to be a realistic guess. She got her answer when her cell door unlocked with a loud CLANK, the sound echoing against her eardrums.
"Stand against the wall." The guard said. Lilly was visibly surprised to find that Ian was not standing there with his taser out. "Now!" The guard ordered loudly, his hand going to his own taser. A muscle in her neck twitched. The guards didn't care one bit upon noticing her head twitch to the side. Lilly listened to their instruction and stood against the wall closest to her. This must be it, she must finally be on her way to get floated. Her natural instincts were screaming at her to run away from the prospect of death, but she was using all of her willpower to welcome it with open arms, like an old friend.
Chancing a glance at the door, Lilly noticed the guard who hadn't spoken yet was holding his taser at the ready. Like he was daring her to make a run for it. Daring her to say or do something wrong so he could use it to send thousands of volts through her muscles and watch her twitch. Not all guards were like this one or Ian, some of them were okay. Though, looking passed the guard in the door, she noticed a lot of guards chasing after prisoners of the SkyBox, tackling them, drugging them, anything to drag them towards the exit. "What's going on?" Lilly asked nervously. Were they floating everyone?
The other guard pulled something out of a metal box, stalking towards her. "You'll find out eventually." He sneered. "Hold out your right arm."
When Lilly did not immediately comply, the short guard at the door stepped towards her. "Are you dumb? Hold out your arm!" With every intent of using the device, he activated the taser, making Lilly's neck muscle twitch at the thought. She didn't know what she was in for when she would enter the floating chamber, but she knew being tased beforehand wouldn't add any comfort to the situation. So, she held out her right arm.
A metal bracelet was snapped around it, a few points on her skin being pricked with tiny needle-like pains. Lilly quickly pulled her arm close to her chest as though that would stop any more pain being dealt from the device. "What's this thing even for?" She asked, turning back around to face the guards. Neither guard answered her question, both grabbing one of her arms and pulling her towards the exit. There, she got the full picture of what was happening. Her fellow prisoners were running for their lives, it seemed. The shouting voices reverberating off the metal walls. "Okay, what the fuck is going on?" Lilly snapped, the guards pulling her arms harshly. She began to thrash around in their hold. "Let me go!" She kicked at their shins, missing. She yanked at their grip on her arms, to no avail. She even attempted to headbutt the shorter of the two. They didn't like this one bit.
"You better calm down," the shorter guard threatened, taking his taser out again. Her neck muscle twitches. Despite the threat of being tased, she continued trying to get free. When she did, she used the free arm to shove the guard who had yet to realize her arm was free. With his lack of attention, he fell forwards. Moving as quickly as she could, she turns to the shorter guard once more, this time successfully headbutting him. He was a bit taller than her, though, so she really just hit his chin with her forehead, but it was still a win in her book when his head jerked back and he let go, grabbing his chin. Lilly only managed to take a few strides in the other direction before one of the guards had regained their composure and stuck their taser to her back. She fell forward and spasmed for a few moments as the unrelenting electrical current ran through her, while the other guard regained his footing and hauled her back to her feet. Holding her arm with an iron grip, he whipped out his own taser, sticking it to her stomach and making her convulse once more before she could figure out what had happened. He did this a few times until she pleaded for him to stop, no longer able to take it anymore. It's useless, she thought as she gave in.
Then, they dragged Lilly to the Exodus ship. The two guards seat her besides a boy who looks to be around her age. He resembles someone that Lilly is sure she once saw in her classes, back when she still went to school. They both study the other while the shorter guard stays to buckle her into the seat. It was something several guards seemed to be doing, as though they didn't trust the delinquents to do it correctly if left to do it themselves.
"Finn," the boy introduces himself finally, breaking the ice as he reaches his hand for her to shake. She accepts it and responds with her own name. When they dropped their hands back into their respective laps, the guard buckling Lilly into her seat had finished his job. He hadn't left, though. "Can we help you?" Finn said, giving the guard a mocking smile. The short man didn't seem to like his attitude very much, his feelings shown when he touched the end of his taser to Lilly's stomach, activating it and prolonging his eye contact with the boy. "Hey, man, leave her alone! She didn't do anything!" Finn shouts, angrily grabbing the taser and breaking the connection between electricity and skin. The guard looks between Finn and Lilly for a moment as the latter attempts to regain her bearings.
"Have fun down there, kid." The guard says, looking Finn dangerously in the eyes as he presses the taser to the boy's stomach for a short moment. Before either teenager can do anything about it, he's already strutting away.
"Thanks for that," Lilly says quickly as soon as the guard is out of ear shot. "And sorry."
"No problem. You okay, though? You don't look too great." Finn tilted his head to the side, taking in her appearance. She had a black eye—courtesy of Ian from a few hours before—and her dark hair was a bit messed up.
"Yeah," Lilly answers, brushing off the incidents prior to meeting the boy beside her. "I'm used to it. Thanks, though...again." She chuckles softly at the fact that she'd now thanked him twice for the same thing.
"Anytime." Finn said, giving her a smile that was both kind and cocky.
The remainder of the time it took to load the delinquents onto the ship, the two teenagers spent in comfortable silence, occasionally speaking up to introduce themselves to any conscious newcomers near them. Lilly was honestly surprised to see more than a handful of her fellow prisoners unconscious. Maybe she was lucky. At some point near the end, Lilly let out a gasp of surprise to see Wells Jaha—conscious—and Clarke Griffin—unconscious—loaded onto the Exodus ship. They were seated near one another not too far away. She was almost equally surprised when she saw Abby Griffin, Clarke's mom, following her daughter's limp body onto the ship. After watching the woman buckle her daughter safely, she watched her look around. Abby's eyes landed on Lilly and she began walking closer.
"Lilly, are you okay?" She asked, stopping in front of the dark haired girl. "What happened to your eye?" She gasped immediately after, taking in the dark bruise.
"A guard," she answered simply, curious as to why Abby was here at all. Besides Clarke, of course, but she was the only parent Lilly had seen with whom she had any kind of relationship.
"Oh, well, I'm sorry." Abby said, unsure of what she could do about the situation now. "Your dad was hoping I'd see you."
There it is, Lilly thought, realizing that was why the woman stood in front of her. "Whatever he wants, I don't want to hear about it." The Kane girl still had walls up around her heart when it came to anyone involved in that dreadful evening. Including, but not limited to, Marcus Kane.
"He told me to tell you to be careful down there." Abby said, not realizing Lilly had no clue what that meant. "He also said to tell you he—,"
"I don't want to hear about it," Lilly seethed through gritted teeth. Beside her, Finn watched the conversation finding himself full of curiosity. Taking a deep breath, Lilly added, "What's going on?"
"You're going to Earth." Abby answered, lowering her voice so that it wouldn't reach prying ears. Lilly was left with wide eyes and more questions as Abby was pulled away off the ship.
She looked at Finn who seemed to share her expression. "We're going to Earth? Are they insane?"
"Probably," Finn responded, no trace of amusement in his voice now.
×××
The Exodus ship jerked violently as the lights above flickered off and back on. When the ship stopped shaking, Lilly was sure they'd entered the atmosphere. She gripped her seat tightly, afraid that at any moment, they'd burn up in the radiation-filled ozone. As she held on for dear life, screens around the delinquents flickered to life, Chancellor Thelonious Jaha's face watching them. "Prisoners of the Ark, hear me now." The Chancellor says, speaking to the hundred or so teenage and children criminals. Lilly groans as she thinks, why can't you just leave me to die alone, Jaha? This doesn't stop the recorded speech he has prepared, sadly. "You've been given a second chance, and as your Chancellor, it is my hope that you see this as not just a chance for you, but a chance for all of us, indeed for mankind itself. We have no idea what is waiting for you down there. If the odds of survival were better, we would've sent others. Frankly, we're sending you because your crimes have made you expendable."
At the Chancellor's comment, one of the prisoners that seemed to have noticed Wells Jaha shouts, "Your dad is a dick, Wells!" Lilly looked sadly in her friend's direction, now noticing Clarke was awake. With Lilly's dad being a councillor on the Ark, she'd grown up being good friends with the Jaha family, as well as the Griffins. When Clarke had been sent to the SkyBox, it was just Lilly and Wells for a long time...until she too got put in Lockup. Come to think of it, Lilly realized, when I left, Wells was still a free person. She made a note to talk to her best friend when they landed and she wouldn't have to shout for Wells, and the other teenagers, to hear her.
"So," Finn began to say beside her while Chancellor Jaha continued to talk around them. "Who was that lady you were talking to before we left?"
"A friend's mom. No one important." Lilly kept her response short. She didn't want to think herself to be close to any of the people her dad worked with. Especially after the last interaction she'd had with the man.
"Why was she talking about your dad?" Finn continued to question her. He wouldn't bet on it, but he was sure he knew who Lilly was. He'd seen her before. If he was right, he'd definitely seen her dad. If he was right, Finn was sure Lilly Kane would want to keep quiet about who her dad was.
Here was Lilly's dilemma: so far people treated Wells, well, not great. A few people had cussed him out, a few threatened him, then there was that kid who'd just insulted the Chancellor. Marcus Kane was not Chancellor, but he was a council member and partially responsible for a lot of people being floated. If her peers treated Wells as they had in the short time they'd been on the dropship, how would they treat her knowing who her dad was?
"She probably thought it'd make this whole situation better." Lilly lied. She was sure her dad had told Abby Griffin to relay his messages. It may have seemed hypocritical, but she couldn't help feeling hurt that before she was being sent to the Ground, of all places, he couldn't buck up and come say goodbye himself, or at least happy birthday. Then again, maybe it was best that he didn't. At least now she had the choice to lie about who she was, and hope nobody connected the dots.
"Why didn't he just come himself?" Finn asked next. He was sure he was pushing his limits with her, but he hoped he seemed trustworthy enough to divulge her family name. Lilly's eyes flicked to him, a hint of anger etched on her face. He was definitely pushing the limit.
"How should I know?" She said, sounding more harsh than she'd meant to, but she made no attempt to remedy her tone towards Finn. The two fell back into silence, listening to the Chancellor's recording. Then, there was movement beside Lilly. She watched in curiosity as he pulled a sharp pocket knife from his pocket. "Where the hell did you get that from?" She asked, eyes wide as worst case scenarios running through her mind.
"Stole it from one of the guards." Finn answered with a bored shrug. He flicked it open and Lilly was about to start apologizing profusely. She'd acted rashly while there were people on this ship who probably committed murder like her, only they meant to. Instead of stabbing her, though, he began to cut away at his seat belt.
"And what do you think you're doing?" Lilly asked, crossing her arms over her chest, once she realised she wasn't in danger.
"Having some fun." He answered, a confident smirk crossing his face. The seat belt was quickly cut through, being the old and fraying material it was, and Finn began floating in the zero gravity created by their descent.
"Are you crazy?" Lilly hissed. "You're going to get yourself killed!"
"Spacewalk bandit strikes again." Somebody near them jokes.
"Whoo!" Someone else further away encourages.
"Go Finn!"
The encouraging exclamations from his peers only give Finn a reason to let his smile grow as big as his ego seemed to be. "Maybe I'm crazy," he began, "but at least I'm having fun, Princess." Lilly's face turned to stone for a moment as she stared at him unblinking. She hadn't been called princess for a long time. "Oh, come on." Finn continues noticing her face. "Don't be so uptight, Princess." He emphasized the nickname this time, making her fist clench.
"The last time someone called me that, I stabbed him with a screwdriver eight times." Lilly told the floating boy. His face changed from amused to one of fear. Her response was a smirk that easily rivalled his own. That'd be the last time she'd hear that name, for sure.
Worried she might lash out and attack him despite her previous kindness, Finn floated away. In fact, he floated towards Clarke. His reasoning: she'd been the one brought in by the woman who'd told Lilly where they were going. Obviously they were friends. He'd like to find out if his assumptions about her lineage were correct. And based on the crime she'd just described, he had more reason to think that he was right.
As he talks to her, Finn starts to realize something. "You sound a whole lot like her." He states plainly, pointing in Lilly's direction. The brunette girl was not paying attention, but instead brooding and thinking about how much she was going to wish she'd been floated.
"Lilly?" Clarke mumbled, noticing her friend. Wells, catching the name and looking to where Finn had pointed, indeed found his friend sitting not too far away. While he knew she'd been put into the SkyBox, Clarke had no idea. This was a big surprise to her.
"Yeah," Finn said. "You know her?"
"Of course I do." Clarke said simply.
Finn opened his mouth to ask who Lilly's dad was when the girl in question called out, "Hey, idiots!" Finn looked back at her, thinking she was talking about him. She wasn't. Finn, Wells, and Clarke all followed her gaze to two boys who seemed to think following in Finn's footsteps was a smart idea. "Stay in your seats!" Lilly continued to shout. It was already too late, though, because just as they began to float up out of their seats, the parachutes of the Exodus dropship deployed. The ship jerked violently at the instant change in velocity. The zero gravity that had kept Finn and the other two boys afloat in midair, disappeared and all three of them flew into a wall.
By this point everyone aboard was shrieking and crying out in fear, Lilly being one of them. She may have been ready to welcome death before, but not like this. Clarke called out for Finn, worried he might've died on impact. Lilly heard the voice of her friend and her gaze instantly snapped to where the boy had been floating as if she'd just remembered he wasn't beside her. Above the delinquents, steam began billowing out of unkempt seams of the ship, pipes falling from their place on the ceiling.
"Finn!" Lilly called out, realizing the boy hadn't answered when Clarke called his name. Nothing.
Lights flicker above them, on and off and on again like a wild, uncontrolled strobe light. The dropship jerked the teens around in their seat, making many of them suddenly grateful for not having torn their seat belts like Finn.
Just barely a minute later, the dropship seemed to have landed. The droning sound of machines whirring and the lights finally flickering back on for good. "Listen," a boy strapped against the wall said. Lilly recognized him immediately as Monty Green, a boy she knew from the Engineering Station as well as school back on the Ark. Beside him, his best friend Jasper Jordan. "No machine hum." Everyone begins to look around in wonder. Every single one of them had lived with the constant machine hum of the Ark. For the first time in each of their lives, it was completely silent.
"Woah, that's a first." Jasper said beside Monty.
Suddenly, everyone's seat belt unbuckled simultaneously, releasing the prisoners from their last stage of captivity. Lilly wasted no time ripping hers away from her limbs and running to where Clarke stood over the two boys that had followed Finn, checking their pulse.
"Finn, is he breathing?" Clarke asked, looking up at the boy who'd gotten away with, maybe, a few bruises. Lilly watched Finn shake his head and frowned, looking at Clarke for the status of the boy the two of them crouched over. "Dead." Clarke mumbled to her sadly.
"The door is on the lower level, let's go!" One of the teenagers shouts.
"No," Clarke shouts, "we can't just open the doors!" The blonde pushes through the crowd around the ladder down to the bottom. Opposite to her friend, Lilly glances back in excitement and follows Clarke. After eighteen years stuck on that God forsaken pile of space junk, Lillian Kane was beyond ready to see the Ground. She was ready to compare the view from the windows on the Ark to the real thing, even if it was the last thing she did.
"Hey," a confident male voice booms from the level below. "Just back it up, guys." Before jumping off the ladder, Lilly spares a glance behind her to see a freckled man standing in a guard uniform. He was the only thing between the delinquents and the best kind of freedom. Him, and his taser. Lilly's neck muscle twitches and so does her head. She quickly shakes it off, jumping down and pushing through the crowd as best as she could. She couldn't see the interaction, but she could hear Clarke's authoritative tone at the front as she talked with the guard about how opening the hatch could kill them all when they breathe in the toxic radiation, and how we're safer in the dropship for now.
"Bellamy?" The female voice from the ladder makes everyone turn as the brunette girl jumps down and pushes her way through the crowd. The girl seemed to know the guard well enough. Maybe they were on first name terms for the same reason as Lilly and Ian. Though, Lilly never used that soft voice when talking to her arch enemy. That couldn't be it then. She managed to push her way closer to the front, now able to see the guard, Clarke, and the brunette girl.
"My God," the guard—Bellamy—says, "look how big you are." His lips stretched into a smile and the two hugged for a moment. This only made Lilly more curious.
When they pull away, the girl aggressively asks, "What the hell are you wearing? A guard's uniform?" Lilly finds herself confusedly thinking, isn't that what guards are supposed to wear?
"I borrowed it to get on the dropship." Bellamy answers. So that means he's not a guard. This fact makes Lilly let out a breath of relief. "Someone's got to keep an eye on you." The look Bellamy gives the girl is one that only they seem to understand.
The two hug once more, only to have their special moment interrupted by Clarke. "Where's your wristband?" At the mention of the device, Lilly looks over the wrists of the other two as they pull out of their hug. The girl had a wristband, but Bellamy didn't. If he wasn't a guard, he should have one. So where is it?
The brunette spins to face Clarke with annoyance and mild fury decorating her soft features. "Do you mind?" She snaps. "I haven't seen my brother in a year."
"No one has a brother!"
This made everyone's faces strike with realization, one of the delinquents announcing what they all now knew, "That's Octavia Blake, the girl they found hidden in the floor!"
For just a moment, Lilly found herself full of a dull fear. If they could so easily pick out Octavia Blake—someone that pretty much no one ever saw—how easily would they pick up on whom Lilly's dad was? The moment that these delinquents picked up on her most valuable secret, she might as well dig her own grave. There was no doubt in her mind that Marcus Kane had a hand in most of the arrests these kids experienced.
Lilly's attention is almost immediately brought back to the real world as Octavia lunges for the crowd. Bellamy wraps his arms around her, holding her back before she can release her anger on the girl that had announced her "crime" so rudely. She glared back at Bellamy. "Let's give them something else to remember you by." The boy negotiates with his sister. It was spoken so quietly that Lilly barely heard the words.
"Yeah?" Octavia challenges. "Like what?"
"Like being the first person on the Ground in a hundred years." Bellamy turns to put his hand on the lever that would open the hatch and, as Lilly was hoping, reveal the beauty of Earth.
When he pulls the lever, the hatch begins to lower with a hydraulic hiss. The fulcrum at the bottom makes it seem like a drawbridge. The slow movement allows the sunlight to peek through, blinding the delinquents for a moment. The heat though, the warm heat was an instant good feeling when it touched Lilly's skin. On the Ark it was always cold even though they could easily see the sun. The Ground, though, was gifted with a warmth none of the delinquents aboard the dropship had ever felt. Lilly squints her eyes against the blinding light as the hatch continues to lower, showing more and more of the scene outside. Even standing behind several people, she can tell that the view is breathtaking. She pushes herself up on her tiptoes, hoping to see more as the hatch is almost touching the ground. Everyone who can see over the heads of others, watches as Octavia takes a few steps out of the Exodus ship, taking in a deep breath of fresh air. If there was radiation, it wasn't as bad as it probably had been ninety-seven years ago. The brunette Blake walks further, stopping at the edge just before she could step down onto the earthy ground floor.
Suddenly, her arms fly up in the air as she looks up into the big, open, blue sky and shouts, "We're back, bitches!" and jumps down.
The rest of the delinquents take this as their que to start cheering loudly as they take off out of the dropship and sprint in every direction. Lilly glances at Clarke who is still stubbornly standing in the dropship, but looking out at the view in awe. "Come on," Lilly says, walking over and nudging her friend's shoulder. "Go and enjoy it. You would've been floated soon. Who cares if you die by radiation poisoning, right?" She chuckles at the joke, but Clarke doesn't find it as funny as she does.
"I care." Clarke responds shortly, her tone making it clear she was serious.
"Well, today is my birthday, so I'm gonna enjoy this." Lilly motions to the view ahead of them. Clarke, having not realized before that today was her friend's eighteenth birthday and what that meant for her, smiles and nods in agreement. Unable to wait for Clarke to follow, Lilly ran down the platform that the dropship hatch seemed to create, jumping off the end a lot like Octavia and several of her delinquent peers had done as well. Standing on the surprisingly squishy earth, she took in the deepest breath she could trying to take in the smells of the Ground before they became second nature. The sight of the moss-covered trees and ground floor surrounding Lilly made the excitement she felt grow tenfold. In the blink of an eye, Lillian Kane ran off into the wilderness, spinning and laughing like a child. She felt her mind emptying of Austin Rogers, Ian, her dad, Chancellor Jaha, everyone back on the Ark that she spent all her time worrying about for the past eighteen years. That life was finally behind her. Now, she was free to do whatever she wanted and no one could stop her.
Lilly was no longer one of the prisoners in the SkyBox awaiting their eighteenth birthday party in the floating chamber. She was no longer gloomy or distraught over the life she lived before the SkyBox.
She was free—totally, completely, irrevocably free—and it felt amazing.
This is really long and I feel like I should cut it down but if i do then its gonna take like two seconds to read. But it also sets the bar really high so I dunno. Maybe it'll stay long, maybe I'll cut it down. We'll see what happens when I revise everything when the book is completely done.
The song for this chapter is from Spider-man: Into The Spider-verse but it fits so well so fuck it!
I know I said last chapter that I wouldn't mention Austin Rogers anymore. That was kinda a lie. The ways he was mentioned in this chapter will pretty much be how it is unless I say otherwise. I hope that's ok for everyone. It's a big part of Lilly's story soooooo ye.
Thanks for reading!
Words: 5804
Published 10th May 2020
Edited TBD