"Finn." Aerrow asked suddenly, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over the two as they drifted into their own minds. Well over an hour must have passed since they'd regained consciousness and there was still no sign of whoever had brought them here, and with each passing minute they lost themselves further and further in thoughts of just what was going to happen to them.
The other boy jerked his head up at the unexpected address. "What?"
"Why are you here?"
Finn frowned.
"Why did you come back I mean? To help me-"
"I don't know!" Finn grit out in response, "Now that I'm here I'm starting to wish I hadn't."
"If you hadn't come back then I would be dead…" Aerrow pointed out neutrally.
Finn scoffed. "And if I hadn't we might both have been." He returned, "I have no idea if the others made it or not."
Aerrow felt his heart seize briefly at that notion, the thought of anything happening to Octavia or even Sienna as a result of his failure made his stomach twist with nausea.
"It was the safer option." He told Finn with a shrug, trying to convince himself of their safety as much as Finn, "You had every reason to take it."
"Well I didn't and here we are." Finn slammed his chained hands against the ground and looked away, not wishing to face the consequences of his decisions. Aerrow however held his gaze upon the spacewalker, amethyst eyes unwavering.
Finn shifted uncomfortably under the weight of the look before eventually shaking his head in frustration. "I came back because… because…"
He sighed. "Because you had as much right to leave us as we had to leave you." He admitted, "And yet you didn't. You never have…"
Aerrow remained silent.
"After that trial, you had every chance to leave us to fend for ourselves, like you said you were going to. But you came back anyway, despite what we all think of you. Bellamy practically threw you out himself, and you still went out there looking for his sister. And even after what happened between us…"
Finn sent an awkward glance his way.
"You were still prepared to fight the grounders off to let us get away… And I guess I just never realized all of that until I was running the opposite direction. Like you said… It was the right thing to do."
"I guess we'll find out if that's true or not…" Aerrow murmured off-handedly.
Finn watched on as he closed his eyes and seemingly settled back against his chains. He had no clue how he could seem so calm in the face of their predicament. So… together…
Then he remembered just how long the boy had spent in solitary confinement, and what he was sent there for and the troubled, uneasy feeling he got in the pit of his stomach whenever he'd been around him previously returned.
"Yeah… I guess we will…" he answered awkwardly, and silence fell again.
"Can I ask you something?"
Finn furrowed his eyebrows at Aerrow's blurted question, but a moment later nodded his acquiescence all the same.
Aerrow gave him a sad, sorrowful look. "Why do you hate me?"
Finn blanched involuntarily, not having expected that at all. "I don't-"
Aerrow cut him off with a snort. "Oh please, don't get all chivalrous with me. We're probably going to be dead by dawn anyway… May as well be honest."
"Why do you want to know?" Finn queried.
Aerrow gave him a wry smirk. "Give me an answer and I'll give you one in return."
Finn looked away, bowing his head in something that seemed along the lines of guilt.
"Because you're a murderer." He said eventually, looking back up and locking his eyes with Aerrow's – an act the older boy both appreciated and respected.
Aerrow nodded silently, sensing there was more he wanted to say.
"I mean… I know you're not the only one among us down here… but what you did? Killing your girlfriend? Your family? I can't even comprehend that. It sickens me. I don't understand how you can kill so many people you claimed to love."
A sad, involuntary smile crossed Aerrow's lips and his eyes went vacant, transported back to that time on the Ark.
"I did love them…" he whispered distantly.
"So why did you kill them?"
It was Aerrow's turn to look down guiltily. The chains around his wrists were now oddly comforting. They reminded him of solitary confinement, and it was back to that place that he found himself retreating. The isolation, the silence, the separation.
He knew he could so easily tell Finn the truth, just as he had done to Sienna, and Clarke to an extent, yet he held his tongue. It was what was familiar, what was comfortable. Finn might have been in a position to listen to him, might even believe him, but in no way was the spacewalker ready to understand him.
He was simply too naïve, too innocent. He couldn't possibly comprehend what Aerrow had gone through because he'd never tasted such hardship himself.
And that was all that mattered to Aerrow. He didn't give a shit whether he was believed or not. But being understood? That was everything. That was why he'd allowed Clarke to work things out for herself, and only after learning what Wells had hidden from her. Why he'd been so quick to open up to Sienna upon learning of her own connection to Arianna, and why he'd been overwhelmed with an unfamiliarly intense feeling of relief to bond with her over their shared past.
It was why he was still so hellbent on seeing Dylan landed on the ground, and on returning every ounce of pain and misery his former friend had inflicted on him. Because while some things could be understood through words, or through mutual feelings, others could only be understood through pain and suffering…
"Have you ever been in love, Finn?" He lifted his head and asked, his voice even raspier than usual.
Finn frowned again, once more caught off guard by the unexpected question. "Sure I have-"
"No I don't mean that kind of love." Aerrow cut in. "Not the kind that can be so easily admitted with a shrug and a frown. I mean real love, lasting love. Love that can't even be defined…"
His voice grew quieter, his eyes dropping low and withdrawn.
"Love that just… feels like a part of you, like an arm or a leg. That fills your chest like each breath of air and swirls around you with every heartbeat. That lulls you to sleep at night and pulls you from your dreams in the morning."
Finn looked at him long and hard, an involuntary frown creasing his face at the depth and intensity of Aerrow's words. Shit… he truly sounded like someone who thought he was about to die. A cold shiver shot through him at that thought.
"I- I can't say. I don't really know. I never really thought about it that way." He admitted, pulling his mind from his darkening thoughts to focus back on Aerrow.
Aerrow let out a soft, sardonic snort. "Of course you haven't." he chuckled blankly, eyes darting up to stare at the ceiling.
"No one does… not until the feeling goes missing. It's… It's everything. And then when its gone it's like… it's like-"
Aerrow sniffed involuntarily. Finn watched on as a trail of water leaked its way slowly down the murderer's cheeks.
"It's like someone's just… ripped their hand down into your chest, grabbed your heart and squeezed out all the life that once beat through it, tore it out for the rest of the world to see and then just… left you there. To suffer. And all you can do is exist, not entirely dead but not truly alive either. Just a physical body no longer hosting a soul, watching as the world moves on around you, forgetting you, never knowing how you felt and never bothering to understand why you feel no longer."
Finn struggled to comprehend what Aerrow was saying, much less formulate it into a way that would explain why he had so suddenly killed his loved ones.
"So… what? You just… stopped loving them? You felt nothing anymore and that's why you killed them?"
Aerrow sniffed again, this time leaning back against the stake buried in the rock behind him and titling his entire head towards the ceiling in a bid to dry his eyes. "In a way…" he murmured.
His confusion intensifying, Finn struggled to form a response, his tongue twisting inside his mouth in search of words that refused to form.
"Think about Raven." Aerrow asked, "Think about how you feel for her. If she were here now, and you were back at the drop ship, would you go after her? Do you love her enough to die for her?"
"I went to the Skybox for her." Finn answered immediately, and this time it was Aerrow's turn to still.
"I wasn't the one who went on the spacewalk." He admitted quietly. "She was."
Aerrow raised an eyebrow at that, but there was no sense of mocking or amusement in his expression, merely an implication to continue.
"She got rejected from a position on the zero-g mech crew." Finn explained. "Heart murmur or something, it was bullshit. So I stole the spacesuit and bought us some time in an airlock. I just wanted her to know what it felt like… just once. But of course we got caught. She was already eighteen, they would have floated her on the spot but I… I wasn't. So-"
"So you let them think it was you." Aerrow finished knowingly, his eyes flashing with something along the lines of empathy, something Finn never expected to see from him.
"Yeah…" the so-called Spacewalker nodded. "I would have had a review at least. Don't know what chance I would've stood of being cleared but it was better than the alternative so… yeah, I guess I would die for her."
Aerrow nodded his understanding.
"Do you love her enough to live for her though?
Finn paused. "What?"
"If they found out it was her, and she was floated. What would you have done?"
Finn frowned once again, more deeply this time. He looked positively disturbed by the concept.
"I don't know." He said honestly. "I can't answer that."
"I wouldn't expect you to." Was all Aerrow said in response, and Finn got the strong sense his fellow delinquent was waiting – no, wanting him to ask something in particular in return.
"What about you?" Finn asked hesitantly, "Have you ever loved someone long enough to live for them?"
A sad, rueful smile crossed Aerrow's face as another memory flashed through his mind.
"No…" he answered softly, "No I haven't…"
A further four weeks had passed since his failed escape attempt, bringing him to three months past his torture at Dylan's hands, and Aerrow was no closer to recovering
In fact he'd only deteriorated further.
After his capture by the guards, he'd woken to find himself locked securely away in solitary confinement and caught in the grip of a whole new layer of hell.
Cut off from the rest of the world (even his meager rations were delivered emotionlessly through a tiny flap at the base of the door), he had no escape, no distraction, no mercy from the continued onslaught of mental trauma his ordeal had wrought.
He had emaciated away to an unhealthily low weight, his previously athletic physique completely diminished, replaced instead with languid unkempt hair and sallow skin pulled far too tightly across bones that had never previously been visible.
He barely ate. He didn't sleep – unconsciousness bringing with it only painful recollections of the deaths of those he'd loved. He cursed his innately accurate memory with every fiber of his pathetic existence. He could remember each and every one of them… their faces… the look of terror in their eyes… their dying screams as life left them…
God how he just wanted to forget…
In favour of denying the memories the opportunity to torment him any further, the single, simple mattress on the side of his cell remained untouched, the blanket yet up be unfolded and the basic pillow still sat on top of it, neat and pristine. Unmarred.
He refused to allow himself that luxury – didn't deserve that luxury – and instead his nights were perpetually spent curled up on the metal floor of the cell, even when it started digging painfully into his bones, and when the freezing air turned his still-fresh scars a hideous purple and made them throb with phantom agony.
As a result sleep barely came in segments of more than a few minutes, and even then he more often than not woke up hyperventilating and screaming. His eyes had long since taken on a gaunt, sunken look – deep dark rings permanently etched around them while his once gleaming purple irises were now dull and vacant, devoid of any kind of warmth, emotion or life whatsoever.
He had long since lost the ability to cry – he had no tears left to give – and the anger and rage and hatred he'd felt towards his former friend for doing this to him had given up long ago, worn away by the grim reality that there was nothing he could do, and never would be able to.
And as such, with no other interaction and no other outlet for such intense despair, those emotions had turned around and started attacking himself instead.
Why did he have to be the promoted?
Why couldn't he have been less perfect? Then Dylan would have received the promotion instead.
Why couldn't he have been better even? Maybe then he'd have been able to do something to stop it ever happening in the first place.
Why.
Why.
WhywhywhywhyWHY?
It was horrible, inescapable agony, and the physical degeneration of his body was nothing compared to the internal destruction of his mind.
He hated himself, plain and simple. He was disgusted by his very existence and everything that had happened to him as a result of it. And with no one to speak to, no one to turn to, no one left to offer any kind of advice, sympathy or comfort, he only sunk further and further into the clutches of his own decaying mind.
He started imagining what it must have been like to be Arianna in that position. What that cursed piece of scrap must have felt like as it opened her throat up to the world – instead of just slicing across his skin. What must it have felt like to have her blood, her life force spilling across her own body. Did it feel warm? Did it feel draining? Did the unfiltered air sting the insides of her trachea?
When was the moment she knew she was going to die? Was it when she could feel her heart no longer having any blood left to pump? Or when her lungs no longer had the strength to draw breath?
No… he was pretty sure it was when she'd locked eyes with him in pure terror as the realization settled over her that there was no escape for her, and the only thing left was for her to die…
That was how he felt now. He just wanted it to stop… he'd do anything to make it stop. All of it...
Snap! Hiss…
What?
He was pulled from his latest bout of self-indulgent despair at a sudden and entirely unexpected sound: That of the door to his cell opening, and of heavy boots striding slowly across the floor towards him.
Unlike that time in the skybox a month ago, the open door drew no reaction. He had no intention of escape, no remaining desire to find Dylan and exact revenge. Such ideals had since drained out of him.
"Attention cadet." A familiar voice barked at him.
From his position curled up on the floor, Aerrow gave no response. Didn't even bother rolling over to see who was addressing him.
His breath was violently knocked from his lungs though when one of the boots was driven roughly into his back.
The force of the kick sent his frail body sprawling along the floor and he found himself on his side, looking up – wincing in the harsh overhead light – and into the dark eyes of one of the last people he'd expected to ever see again.
"Lieutenant Shumway?" He croaked, his voice scratchy and raw from weeks of disuse.
The compact man hailing from the Japanese station started contemptuously down at him, as if he almost couldn't believe how far one of the best prospective guardsmen in the Ark's history had fallen.
"Happy birthday, prisoner 418." Shumway said emotionlessly.
Aerrow stalled. So that's how long it had been…
Time had long ago lost any meaning to him, as had the notion of anything so pointless as a birthday.
He swallowed blankly. "I thought it was Switchblade these days…" he murmured.
Shumway gave no reaction other than a strange, almost pleased smirk, though Aerrow was in no state to recognize the maliciousness of the expression.
"So you've heard the stories circulating about your imprisonment."
Aerrow shrugged. He'd heard the whispers of the guards and even the other prisoners as they passed by his cell. It meant nothing to him. As far as he was concerned, it was his fault his loved ones were dead, and he deserved any and every rumor, horror story and vicious moniker the Ark could bestow him with.
"Look at me, prisoner 418." Shumway commanded, "Just because you are no longer one of us doesn't mean regular proprieties shouldn't be honoured."
"Have you come to float me?" Aerrow sighed tiredly – ignoring the man's order entirely.
Shumway paused and cocked his head down at him. If anything, his unfeeling smirk only widened – as if he somehow knew about the veiled hope concealed within Aerrow's question.
"Of course not." He patronized, "You know it's against the Ark's charter to float anyone under the age of eighteen. You have another two years in here yet."
Aerrow clenched his eyes at the concept.
"Then why are you here?"
At that question, the man's smile became almost predatory. He stepped closer, glancing furtively around. Tapping a button on his officer's tablet, the door closed behind him and he crouched down over Aerrow's prone form.
"Because I know you didn't do this."
The words froze Aerrow on the spot, and even as a chill ran through him at the tone of Shumway's voice he couldn't stop his mouth from dropping open at the revelation.
"What?"
Shumway's stare was blank, unwavering. "Just as I know that the person who did has just received his promotion from cadet to unit placement. That unit is mine."
Aerrow remained silent for a long, long moment, too many thoughts suddenly whirling around his mind, though somehow the thought of 'how did he know?' wasn't one of them.
He was forced to swallow thickly to moisten his suddenly dry mouth. "Why… are you telling me this?"
Shumway gave no immediate reaction. His smug grin returned as he pushed himself back to his feet and paced around the cell, taking in Aerrow's living conditions and a sneer of disgust passed across his features.
"Truly a shame… to see such a talent wasting away like this…" he drawled as he stepped over Aerrow's emaciated body. "So much skill, so much… potential…"
Shumway paused and looked back down at him.
"Son of both the highest scoring academic and the youngest Zero-G mechanic in history…"
Aerrow winced at the reference to each of his parents, but Shumway paid him no attention as he continued. "The youngest cadet to ever be promoted… The fastest reflexes of anyone we've ever tested…" He mused, "You were meant for so much more than- than this."
He gestured disgustedly at the room around them.
"You could have been the best of all of us, and yet here you are, a weak and sulking wreck. No better than any of the other wastes of oxygen locked up in this place, for something you didn't even do-"
"Lieutenant." Aerrow interrupted, his eyes suddenly sharper than they had been for months. Shumway turned and met his stare with a raised brow as he pushed himself with effort onto his side, propping himself up with an elbow against the ground.
"What do you want from me?
A new look settled on Shumway's face. A hungry look. A dangerous look.
"I want what you want." He said darkly. "Revenge."
Without giving the teenager a chance to respond, he pulled from behind him a small box, each of its sides roughly a foot long. He tossed it unceremoniously in front of Aerrow. At the boy's questioning look, he simply jerked his head down at the box. "Open it."
Aerrow did so, but not before his eyes lingered warily on Shumway. Grasping the unsealed lid with what were perpetually trembling hands these days, he looked inside and paused.
"Lieutenant?" he looked up questioningly.
Shumway simply nodded in affirmation, and Aerrow looked back down at the contents.
Tightly packaged inside, resting atop a series of books were two things he was sure were lost forever: his coandite staff and knife.
His eyes misted with water almost instantly at the sight of his weapons – memories of crafting them with his mother and showing them off proudly to his father, Arianna and his fellow cadets threatening to overwhelm him.
With a heavy sniff he removed them and set them on the floor beside him. Reaching in again, he pulled out the books and frowned.
There were six in all, each entirely dedicated to martial arts and various other forms of combat, strategy and tactics. There was even one about parkour and dynamic body movement. He recognized them vaguely as being part of his father's collection – who as chief historian had complete access to the Ark's limited literacy archives. He'd never paid any attention to them before, and he couldn't help but wonder what purpose Shumway had in bringing them to him along with his weapons.
"What is this?" he questioned in a shaky whisper.
Shumway's smirk was back in full force. "That, prisoner 418, is your chance at revenge."
Aerrow flicked his eyes up to meet the Lieutenants, his face hardening.
"In two years time, you will be floated." Shumway told him, "That is a definitive, unchangeable eventuality. But when that day comes, when they remove you from this cell, you will have a brief window to achieve what we both want, but only if you use this time between now and then to prepare."
"As of right now, you stand no chance of escaping, let alone killing graduate Joyce. But if you are disciplined enough, dedicated enough, skilled enough… Then when the day arrives for them to remove you-"
"I can kill him…" Aerrow whispered.
"Indeed." Shumway nodded victoriously. "You can kill him. But only if you have the adequate capabilities."
Aerrow looked back down at the box as the ramifications of what Shumway had said settled over him. A new, altered future began taking shape in his imagination.
"And what happens after he's dead?" he asked.
"Oh you'll still be floated." Shumway answered uncaringly. "As I said, that is a certainty. But at least you'll die knowing you took Mr. Joyce with you."
The man turned and walked back towards the doorway. "This is the only help you will get." He implored. "The rest you'll have to do on your own."
Aerrow kept his eyes on the books in front of him as a new round of images presented himself. The next two years and what they would have to involve played out in front of him.
Shumway must have seen the doubt on his face.
"Of course… if you'd rather the easy way out…" He reached into his utility belt and withdrew something else.
"Three is enough for an overdose." He said pointedly, tossing the item at Aerrow's knees.
And with that, he slid easily back through the door before it slammed down with a familiar hiss.
Left alone with his thoughts and the surrounding silence yet again, Aerrow examined the three tiny translucent brown vials Shumway had left him. His eyes shot open when he read the label.
Morphine.
Aerrow's mind boggled. How the fuck had Shumway got access to morphine? Even he knew that the drug was kept under lock and key in medical and was only accessible by the Chancellor, Guard Captain and Abby Griffin – the head surgeon. Shumway was none of these, so how he'd managed to get a hold of not just one but three doses was a complete mystery.
And he expected Aerrow to just keep them for two years before using them on Dylan-
The thought died before he could even finish it, and he whipped his head up as a new realization settled on him. A darker one.
Three is enough for an overdose…
He swallowed grimly.
Grasping the vials off the floor, he shifted his eyes to his staff and picked it up with his other hand.
Whether he meant to or not, Shumway had inadvertently left him with a third option. The easy way out…
Gripping the cold silver coandite, he bowed his head and tried to imagine what the next two years would involve. Despite his mental state, he was no fool. He saw Shumway's request for what it was: To turn himself into some kind of human weapon in order to evade the guards long enough to do what he hadn't been able to last time: Kill Dylan.
But to get to that level… It was so much work, so much dedication, not only to read the books and understand them but to practice the skills within to the point of perfection. It was all so far away…
Too far away…
His hand tightened around the vials of morphine.
Three is enough…
He pictured Arianna in his head. Her beaming smile, the warmth of her touch, the explosion of electric energy when he'd kissed her for the first time.
An all too familiar hollow void returned in the core of his chest. It had already been three months since he'd lost her, since he'd lost his parents. He couldn't bare to endure another two years of the pain their absence had left him in.
Tears welled once more in his eyes, and this time he did nothing to try and contain them, and they instead dripped freely down his cheeks and onto the vials he now held in his lap, his staff since discarded and returned to the ground.
Kill Dylan, or die alone. That was the choice Shumway had thought he'd left him with.
In reality, he'd given him a much simpler one:
Kill Dylan, or see Arianna.
...For an overdose.
Killing Dylan, he realised now, required a certain kind of strength. A special kind. A strength he decided he did not have.
And so as he uncapped the vials and his chin began to quiver, he said a final word that echoed around the empty cell around him, heard by no one other than himself.
"Goodbye."
And then he stabbed the needles into his skin.
…
"I'm sorry."
Finn watched on as Aerrow apologised shakily, pulling himself from whatever memories had evidently gripped him.
"For what?"
"For making you hate me." Aerrow continued in a scratchy, resigned drawl. "I don't blame you for it. I hate myself too, more than you ever could."
Finn remained silent, truthfully unsure of how to respond as a detrital scoff tore itself from Aerrow's throat, his purple eyes still glazed and vacant.
"I've spent the last two years in that fucking cell, day after goddamn day thinking the same thing. Over… and over… and over again." Aerrow recounted. "Solitary isn't named because you're locked away from everyone else… It's because you're locked inside with yourself, trapped inside your own mind with only whatever happened that was fucked up enough to put you there in the first place."
He took a hasty breath and swallowed thickly.
"I'd have given anything to join Arianna… or my mom or my dad… and god knows I tried. Fuck… I tried so, so hard."
Finn saw Aerrow's fists clench involuntarily behind him while pained lines etched themselves markedly around his eyes as they squeezed themselves shut.
"But that love I once felt no longer had a conduit… I couldn't die for them, but I couldn't live for them either. So it had to become something else instead… it had to become hate, there was no other option. We all just merely think hating people is wrong, because that's what we're taught as children. Hate is bad and love is good. I'd say different, and that love is far, far worse."
It was only then that Aerrow brought his eyes back down, and as those purple irises met his own, Finn let out a shocked gasp, completely taken aback by the raw intensity burning within them, as if the heat of the contained emotions was devouring him internally.
"Hating people is what kills them." Aerrow told him in a harsh, low tone bordering on a growl. "Love? Love is what hurts them. And would you rather die, or just be hurt so badly you wish you were dead?"
And finally, Finn understood, and the realization sent icy tendrils of shock racing through him as he gasped.
"You didn't-"
He never got the chance to finish the sentence, as it was at that moment that a dull thud was heard, followed by a harsh scraping and heavy, ominous footfalls.
Both delinquents scrambled to attention, the emotion of their conversation completely discarded as they looked fearfully towards the dark tunnel that obviously led to the entrance.
They exchanged a look of horror as a figure emerged from the shadows.
Their captor had returned.
