Disclaimer: Do not own Marvel or The 100

Trigger warnings for manipulation, violent tendencies, manipulation and murder.

For plot reasons, Clarke is angry in this. Really angry. Arguably, irrationally angry. (There's an explanation for this, I assure you)

An unforgiving deceit

Chapter one

The move to the new place

Abby Griffin was certain that there wasn't any trip that you could make more lagging and exhausting than this one.

Driving across the country in her old, beat up, grey BMW, a car which honestly, Abby was astounded at having survived for as long as it had, Abby tried to make light of the trip, smiling and telling her oldest daughter seated in the passenger's seat, glaring out the window, that this would be fun.

Clarke Griffin was currently unresponsive-physically, mentally and really, in all ways, unresponsive.

Even without the danger of crashing into another car or a truck or something, Abby didn't have to look at her oldest daughter, to know that Clarke was furious, was filled with anger right now.

The younger two of Abby's daughters, Harper and Charlotte, were talking quietly in the backseat.

Charlotte was humming happily, talking about how great it would be to live in their new place. Harper was making small talk with Abby.

Next to Abby, Clarke Griffin seethed. Absolutely seethed.

If anyone drove by and saw the small family, they'd question why the oldest daughter was in such a rage.

But Clarke was happy to tell you, you know? The story was this; her parents had separated. Her father, Jake Griffin, if anyone asked Clarke, the greatest man who ever had lived, now was living in Phoenix, Arizona.

Living in the city. A fucking great city as far as Clarke could tell. And her? She had to live with her mother for another year, per the court order that had been given. And her sisters seemed fine with that.

But Clarke wasn't.

Clarke hated her mother. Loathed her. Unlike anyone she had ever hated before in her entire life.

Her mother had made sure that Clarke couldn't be with her father.

Clarke was almost eighteen. She planned on leaving for Phoenix, Arizona, as soon as she turned eighteen,

Jake now was living with his girlfriend, Callie Cartwig, who as soon as she saw Clarke, clearly adored her.

It might be a terrible thing to say, but Clarke had felt more loved by Callie Cartwig, than she ever had by Abby Griffin.

Everything about Abby was condescending and controlling. Everything about Callie and Jake? Wonderful. Loving. Affectionate.

It was even more so, by Callie's sister, Carmen, who also loved Clarke. Had outright said to Callie that if Callie and Jake didn't want Clarke to live with them, Carmen was happy to have Clarke as her daughter.

The only reason why that idiotic judge back in Fulton, Illinois, decided that Clarke and her sisters had to live with her mother, the fucking piece of shit that Abby was, was because there was actual evidence that Jake had been in a relationship with Callie, while married to Abby.

But in the meantime? Abby had been cheating too.

She had been cheating on Jake with the man that they'd now be living with, Marcus Kane, for almost two years now.

The problem was? Both Kane and Abby had been too careful to be caught.

Clarke hated Abby. And she hated Kane.

She loved her father, and was positive that she'd love Callie and Carmen too.

But of course, because her father's cheating was the only affair that could be found to have actual evidence, her father was the enemy and her mother somehow was the good guy in all this.

Clarke had spoken up at the court, that she knew that her mother had been cheating on her father too, that if they wanted to keep Clarke and her sisters from their father, they would have to find some other reason, besides cheating.

But there was no evidence to support Clarke's claims.

And Harper and Charlotte? They had seen Abby together with Kane, but to them? Their father was the bad guy. Because he had decided to try to leave and bring the kids with him.

No, Jake hadn't intended to keep the children from Abby. He just had thought that they'd be better off in a city setting than an isolated place like where Clarke, Abby and the other girls were currently going.

In Harper and Charlotte's eyes? Jake was the one that had tried to split the family up, even if Abby had been cheating long before any of this.

That was fine with Clarke. Harper and Charlotte wanted to live with the bitch that was their mother? That was their own business. But as soon as Clarke turned eighteen? She would move in with her daddy and with Callie and Carmen, too.

And she knew she didn't have to wait all that long. She was seventeen. It was only about eight months, till she turned eighteen.

Then she'd be free to leave from this town in California and go to Arizona. She had looked on the map.

California wasn't that far from Arizona. In fact? Given how California was positioned, it was right next to Arizona and Nevada. And the place where Clarke, Abby, Harper and Charlotte were going? Was in far southern California. She'd just have to get to Arizona from there. Hell, she might not even have to spend that much money to get to Phoenix, Arizona.

That was just great.

All she had to do was suck it up and tolerate this shitty place, for eight months.

Clarke tried not to think about all the postcards that had been sent to her from Arizona.

The writing in her father's hand and sometimes in another's hand-most likely, Callie's, and at other times, Carmen's, telling her usually the same thing.

That they wanted her there. And that they wanted her to join them, as soon as she was able to join them.

"As soon as you turn eighteen, kid," one of the postcards from her father, had said, "We got a room ready for you. And you can have as many pets as you want."

Just the mention of "pets," had made Clarke overjoyed. Clarke had always wanted pets. But Abby had been against them even owning a dog or a cat, let alone what Clarke wanted.

Ever since Clarke had been small, she had adored lizards. She had always wanted a bunch of pet lizards, of all sorts, as many of the breeds as the laws in the United States would allow.

But Abby would never, ever hear of it, you know?

Another reason why Clarke would always favor her daddy and Callie over Abby and that piece of shit, Kane.

Clarke had made sure to keep those postcards piled up and tied securely and kept away from the eyes of Abby and her sisters, for a while now.

She also made sure to keep all the money she had in coffee cans in her backpack, secret.

If she needed money to use the bus to get to Phoenix, she'd do it. And she wouldn't let Abby or her sisters stop her.

She was going to be reunited with her dad, one way or another.

Clarke also got a postcard from Callie, telling her startling news that had left her at first, feeling heartbroken, but later as she read the postcard, hopeful.

Apparently, Callie had been pregnant with Jake's babies. Yes, babies. Triplets. And the baby boys and baby girl had been born five months ago.

At first, Clarke had felt despair. Because now? Now, she was sure that her dad and Callie wouldn't want her.

But in that same postcard, and in all the postcards since then? Callie and Jake kept referring to their baby sons, Michael and Sean, as Clarke's "baby brothers," and their baby daughter, Pauline, as Clarke's "baby sister."

It was clear, Callie and Jake wanted Clarke to live with them, still.

And they wanted her to meet her baby brothers and baby sister. For her baby brothers and baby sister to know her.

Clarke had done the math, too.

In eight months, the triplets would be only thirteen months old. Just a year old. Still plenty of time for them to get to know Clarke.

Clarke sent a venomous stare to Abby.

She was sure that Abby didn't know about the babies.

Or if she did? She had told herself that it was a sure sign that Jake didn't feel like he "needed" Clarke in his life anymore as his child.

There were so many times when Clarke had silently prayed to some invisible force that may or may not exist, that Abby die in some horrible way. Either from cancer or falling down and breaking her neck or even being murdered.

But of course, nothing like that happened.

As for Harper and Charlotte? Again, they always took Abby's side. Always.

For them, Abby could do no wrong. And Jake Griffin was the bad guy and the only reason why Clarke wanted to live with him? Was because Jake was a bad influence on her and so, she shouldn't be listened to.

Clarke wasn't going to lie, there were more than a few times when she had fantasized about punching all three Harper, Charlotte and Abby herself, square in the face.

But she had always reined in that impulse.

Doing something like that would definitely get her ass put in jail, and it would be years before she ever got to see her father, Callie or her baby brothers.

Abby caught Clarke staring daggers at her and Abby sighed, but Clarke almost smirked at how Abby looked away, clearly shuddering at the heat in Clarke's glare.

She was happy to see that Abby was disturbed by Clarke's anger. That was satisfying to watch.

Clarke looked back out the window, mentally trying to think of all the ways she could be a pain in Abby's ass, and getting away with it, simultaneously, picturing all the pet lizards she'd get.

She had always wanted a lot of big lizards. She'd have to be careful with two small children in the house, but she could get the bigger lizards when Pauline, Michael and Sean were older. Because even if big lizards could be pets, it didn't necessarily mean that they were safe around very small children, let alone, babies. Very large lizards did eat a great deal of meat, after all. Maybe when they were around thirteen or something, she could get the bigger ones.

She also knew that Jake had a good deal more money than he used to, working at the big engineering job that he had and Callie, being a big time lawyer that she was, they both were pretty damn rich.

And Carmen, given her own position as an engineer, she also was damn rich.

That meant that they could afford the food and the enclosures that the large lizards would need.

And yes, Carmen had made a point of mentioning this in the postcards.

Honestly, there were times when Clarke was convinced that Carmen would try to adopt her, instead of letting Clarke live with Callie and Jake and the three babies.

Abby didn't know this, either, but Clarke was also regularly in contact with all three Callie, Carmen and Jake, via texting. And calling when Clarke wasn't around Abby or Harper or Charlotte.

It made Clarke happy that she password secured her phone. No one could get into it, except her. And Abby and Harper and Charlotte and Kane? They'd never know about her contact with her dad and with Callie and Carmen.

There was another reason why Clarke really, really didn't want to go to the place in California, where Kane lived.

Or rather, two other reasons.

Apparently, before Kane had met Abby, he had been in a relationship with another woman. Named Aurora. Aurora Blake. The woman had two children. One from a previous relationship and one from her relationship with Kane.

The older child that Aurora Blake had had from her previous relationship, a boy named Bellamy Blake, from what Clarke had heard about him, was a self-centered asshole.

The daughter that was the product of Aurora Blake and Marcus Kane, Octavia Blake? Didn't sound that much better.

And here Abby was, hoping that Clarke would see these two shitty people as her siblings?

Again, Clarke wasn't convinced that Abby wasn't out of her mind.

Scratch punching Abby in the face, there were times Clarke wasn't sure how she hadn't tried stab her mother yet.

Clarke clenched her teeth as tempting, oh, so tempting mental images flooded her mind.

Images of her grabbing Abby by the back of her head and ramming Abby's face against the driver's wheel, Clarke reaching into her pocket, pulling out her pen knife, which she had purchased two weeks ago and jamming into the right side of Abby's neck, which was the side of the bitch's neck Clarke was closest to.

There were so many times when Clarke had hoped Abby would die.

And at one time, she had thought maybe that made her a terrible person. But by this point, she had come to terms with that.

If she was a terrible person for wanting Abby Griffin dead? The woman who had given birth to her?

Then fine. That was fucking fine with her.

Because as far as Clarke could tell? Abby had betrayed her first. Multiple times.

Then there was the matter of Harper and Charlotte. Clarke knew that she couldn't let those two come anywhere near her to Phoenix.

No, Phoenix was going to be her city. No one else's.

Not Harper's, not Charlotte's, not Kane's, not either of the Blake siblings' and definitely not Abby's.

Phoenix, Arizona was going to be her home. Hers.

Which was all the more reason why, nice as the idea was? She couldn't kill Abby. Because if she killed Abby, that would leave Harper and Charlotte as orphans.

And while the idiotic judges of whatever state, might decide that they could stay with Kane and his son and daughter, they might just decide that just because Clarke was by blood related to Harper and Charlotte, that they'd be better off with her.

And Clarke sure as hell, didn't want those two pissants that always took Abby's side over hers and her daddy's, living with her.

Instead, she had to wait.

As soon as she was eighteen, come hell or high water, she'd leave them and Abby to whatever dump Kane and his children lived in and she'd go all the way to Arizona to see her daddy, Callie, Carmen and her new siblings. To her new family.

Clarke snickered.

Abby had been talking about them having a new family, and Clarke supposed that she agreed with that. She was going to get a new family, alright.

The difference between her, Abby, Harper and Charlotte?

Abby, Harper and Charlotte, would be living in California with Abby's bitch-ass husband, Kane and his two bitch-ass children.

And Clarke would be going to her real home and her real family, her new one in Arizona.

The car zoomed along, or as much as it could, given how old the vehicle was.

It went past the many rocks and trees and dunes of sand.

Another few hours went by, and at last, they reached the Kane residence.

All the while, Clarke was wondering about what lizards to get, after years of living with her new family.

She ignored Charlotte's many questions, asking her what she wanted to do when they got to the new house.

Abby glanced at Clarke, worried she'd snap at Charlotte, but Clarke just ignored the small brat in the backseat.

Clarke thought about what lizards she'd get.

She'd always wanted a bunch of the large monitors. Not the Nile monitors, though, they were dangerous. And had a...complicated temperament, unless they had been handled by humans for years.

Crocodile monitors were also a bit too dangerous.

This was only if they hadn't been handled by the right people, though. Nile and crocodile monitors alike, could be "puppy tame," but only as long as they had been handled for years. And that required a skill that she just didn't have.

When a person had about as complicated a temperament as the animal they were trying to calm down, which Clarke certainly did have a similar personality to a Nile monitor that hadn't been tamed down, it probably wasn't a good idea to have one.

But Asian water monitors were just right. Very affectionate, even in the wild.

She might get the smaller type of monitor first, when her three baby siblings were small. The savannah monitor, was a thought.

Then she felt her seat being kicked by Charlotte and she tensed, a bolt of anger firing through her as she clenched her jaw.

"Charlotte," both Abby and Harper said urgently.

But it was too late.

Clarke whirled around and screamed at Charlotte in the backseat, "You fucking brat! You can't even leave me be for a few minutes, can you?!"

Charlotte winced at Clarke's anger.

"You haven't talked to us in way longer than a few minutes," Charlotte said sadly.

"Clarke," Abby said, sounding troubled by Clarke's rage.

"Yeah, I haven't talked to you in that long," Clarke snapped at Charlotte, ignoring Abby's concerned mumbling, "For good reason. What the hell do you want?"

"I just wanted to know if you wanted to get ice cream in town when we got there," Charlotte said sadly, looking like she was worried that Clarke was going to hit her.

Clarke's angered expression softened.

She tried to make herself less angry at Charlotte.

Charlotte always took Abby's side, yes, but that wasn't entirely her fault. It was the narrative that Abby had built up around herself and around Jake Griffin.

And Charlotte was just a kid.

Clarke nodded to Charlotte as she said, "Sure, brat. If they even have an ice cream place in town. Which, let's be honest, they probably don't. Ice cream places are for towns that don't suck."

Harper grunted, leaning back against her seat, shaking her head, "Clarke, can't you be a bit more optimistic? Is there any chance you can say anything that isn't making us feel bad?"

"Why?" Clarke asked, glaring at Harper, "All of you are fine with making me feel awful by moving somewhere, where i don't want to fucking move."

Harper looked away from Clarke. The fire in Clarke's eye, as always, making Harper turn the other way.

Clarke knew that she often scared Abby, Harper and Charlotte. She also knew that even though she shouldn't, she felt a certain satisfaction that she scared them.

Why shouldn't she? They clearly didn't care all that much about what she wanted. They just cared about what they wanted.

Clarke sighed, her expression softening slightly as she looked at Charlotte.

"Again, kid," she said, "If they have an ice cream place there, we can go to it."

Charlotte brightened a bit, and smiled.

"Thank you, Clarke," she said happily.

Clarke nodded and turned from the small girl, going back to glare out the window at the barren landscape that was just desert.

The only redeeming thing Clarke could think of, was that there were probably a lot of lizards and other reptiles here in the rural part of California.

She had no real problem with California as a whole, by itself. It was just that Kane, Bellamy and Octavia living here and Abby going to meet them and marry Kane, just made this place unlivable for her.

It was like the presence of this Marcus Kane and his two children, made what might have been a relatively nice scenery, just plain ugly.

Unconsciously, Clarke reached into one of her other pockets, pulled out her father's beloved lighter and began playing with it.

It still had fuel in it, so, there was an orange, flickering blade that shot up out of the lighter, as soon as Clarke uncapped the lighter and played with the wheel of the lighter.

She heard Abby's sharp intake of breath in reaction, and Clarke smirked. She liked making Abby nervous.

Abby's reaction to the lighter, she suspected, was for two reasons.

The first, of course, because the lighter reminded Abby of her former husband, Jake.

Jake had always carried the lighter around, before giving it and his watch to Clarke, after the judge and the law had made sure that Jake had to leave his daughters with Abby. And he had told his former wife and daughters, about how it was a family heirloom. It had belonged to his father, and to his father's father, and to his paternal grandfather's mother, and so on.

Now it belonged to Clarke.

And the second? Because, well, it was a lighter, inside a car.

Either way, Clarke was glad that she was making Abby uncomfortable.

The bitch deserved it.

Clarke hadn't always hated Abby.

Abby, at the most, usually had been an annoyance to her.

Clarke had used to love her. Of course, she had. For years. But as the years went by and when Abby saw how much Clarke respected Jake's opinion on things, it was clear that Abby assumed that Clarke was "Jake's child" and not "hers," so, she kept condescending Clarke and borderline insulting her.

And when Charlotte came along, Abby focused all her attention on making Harper and Charlotte her little clones.

The way she saw it, unless you were one hundred percent agreeing with her, then you were Abby's enemy.

That was all there was to it.

And as time went on and Clarke saw more and more of Abby's true nature, she began to feel the resentment grow.

It didn't help that Abby had made it clear that there were to be no pets in the house.

Even though Clarke had made it abundantly clear how much she wanted pet lizards.

She had even pleaded one time with Abby, promising that it didn't have to be a big lizard, even if that was what Clarke wanted. She told Abby that it could be a few small ones.

But again, Abby had been unmovable in every aspect.

Even when Harper had suggested getting cat? Abby had refused.

Clarke honestly had to wonder about Abby. And honestly, wonder about anyone that didn't like animals.

She felt like that was sort of a warning sign about a person, right?

If a person didn't like animals, then there was probably something wrong with them, right?

Clarke had always loved animals. Especially reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates.

She supposed she'd understand why Abby wouldn't want loads of those specific animals in her house, but she wouldn't even Clarke have a couple of small lizards? Or allow Harper to have a cat?

Again, Clarke wasn't convinced that there wasn't something wrong with Abby.

As Abby drove the car up a pathway and finally to a not too bad looking house, Abby stopped the car and said, "Okay, we're here, kids. Time to move in with your new father, new brother and new sister."

Clarke tried to ignore Abby's words, as she snapped the lighter closed.

She thought about that pen knife in her pocket again, only this time, she mentally pictured slashing the throats of all three Kane, Octavia and Bellamy.

She quieted those violent thoughts as she pocketed the lighter, took off her seatbelt and got out of the car.

She went around behind the car, as the trunk was popped open. She lifted it up completely and reached inside, grabbing only her bags, no one else's.

She carried her things off to the house, and Harper, Charlotte and Abby carried a mixture of their things and each other's things.

When Clarke got to the house, she intended to find her respective room and not help at all.

No one else was her problem.

She was her own damn problem, that was all.

She barged in through the front door of the wide, light brown painted house, ignoring the man there, with light brown hair, smiling, introducing herself as Marcus Kane.

"That's great and all," she said wryly, "Where's my room." No, she didn't care how rude she was being.

"Oh," Kane said, pointing up the stairs, "Upstairs. It will be across from your mother and my bedroom."

Clarke almost scoffed at the words, "Your mother." As if Abby had been her mother in any capacity for years now.

Callie and Carmen Cartwig were her mothers.

But she wasn't going to let anyone here know that.

But Abby was no more her mother than this jackass, Kane, was her father.

As Clarke moved to the stairs and began to go up them, she caught a flash of two figures in the kitchen.

A young, white girl about Clarke's age, with long, light brown hair and a tall, lanky looking man that Clarke was going to guess was biracial, with short black hair with curls at the ends. Even from here, she could tell he had freckles. She didn't like the look of him. At all.

The first word that entered her mind as soon as she saw him? (Ugly.)

But she kept that thought to herself.

She went up the stairs, to her room, finding a large bedroom and going across from that bedroom to what she presumed was her own room.

It wasn't too bad of a room, she had to admit.

Wide, with a decently sized bed, with a lot of shelf room for Clarke to put her possessions on.

Clarke dropped her bags all over the floor and closed the door, happy to see there was a lock on the door and locked the door instantly.

She went to the opposite side of the room and looked out the window.

She saw a few trees back there and paused, her eyebrows narrowing.

Had she just seen a few figures go behind the trees?

Outside of the house, where the small group of four had just come to live, the figures watching, grinned, pleased that the first phase of their plan had come to fruition.

Just as they knew would happen, Abby and Kane had ended up in a relationship and Abby, as a result, moved herself and her three daughters to here.

Now that they were here? All they had to do, was lure Clarke Griffin away, then kill everyone else inside the house.

Then they would give Clarke what she wanted. What she really wanted and not what Abby Griffin presumed Clarke wanted.