Disclaimer: Do not own Marvel, DC or The 100
Warnings for stalking, murder, child neglect, verbal abuse and what definitely can be read as child grooming, unfortunately and sexual assault.
Whispers of deceit
Chapter one
It started out seemingly innocent enough.
Clarke was sixteen years old when it started.
Back when she was a kid, they didn't have things like buttons you could speak, to talk to someone for an emergency. There were phones, sure. But buttons that automatically directed you to speak with a police officer, or call the fire department or something like that? Had not existed for years, until Clarke was a teenager.
Clarke Griffin was sixteen years old when she first called them. A help service center that you could call, if you felt like you were stressed, depressed, sad, or felt trapped and just needed to talk to someone.
That was when she had spoken to the first of them. A woman on the line that called herself "Natasha."
She had a very soothing voice. Low, purring practically when she wanted to calm Clarke.
Clarke started explaining her situation, keeping herself quiet, as she closed the door to her room, making sure there was as much distance between herself and her "brothers" and "sisters."
They were not her family, but she knew that her birth mother would side with them any day over her.
The other kids in this house were adopted, but the second her daddy, Jake Griffin had died of cancer, her mother, Abby Griffin, had taken every opportunity to make her feel like trash, over the adopted children, who also bullied Clarke.
Even before her daddy's death, Clarke had noticed certain things. Abby withholding affection until Clarke did what she wanted, for instance.
That was just naming a few things.
Clarke sat down on the floor, facing her door, speaking to Natasha and explaining over the line, hoping that she wasn't bothering the woman. Everyone always made sure Clarke knew that she was at best, an annoyance.
Natasha, to Clarke's surprise, soothed Clarke softly, cooing to her and reassuring her that Clarke wasn't bad, wasn't a waste of space.
Natasha said gently, "None of this is your fault. You matter as a person. Your life and words have worth."
Clarke leaned against the foot of her bed, feeling like she might cry at how she felt, hearing this.
It was so long since she'd heard someone tell her this.
Her father had died when she was thirteen, and for the past three years, Abby was happy to let the rest of the adoptive kids; two older kids, Bellamy Blake and Raven Reyes and a bunch of other kids, Nathan Miller, Jasper Jordan, John Murphy, John Mbege, Miles Shaw and Octavia Blake, to know that they could treat Clarke badly.
And they were happy to do just that.
It was so long since someone told Clarke that she had worth as a person.
Clarke couldn't help it, she started crying. When she calmed herself down, she worried that she might have made the woman on the other end fed up and that the woman would leave, but the woman remained on the phone as she said, "Would you like to talk some more."
Clarke relieved and still tearful, said "yes," and remained on the line with Natasha.
Clarke kept who she had called from everyone else in the household.
She could not risk them finding out about the only positive experience she'd had.
She knew they would take that away from her too, first chance they got.
Which was exactly why she didn't tell them.
A few days later, Clarke had left a painting of hers on the floor in a backroom, and she went to go to the bathroom, when she came back, she stared, actual anger filling her, when she saw Murphy standing over the painting, urinating onto it, grinning at her and telling her that it was a "mercy," since no one wanted to see her "talentless shit," anyway.
Clarke was unable to help it, she had picked up a box of crayons she had and chucked it at Murphy's head.
It hit him square on the head and he fell back, grunting, cursing her out, and Clarke ran to her room.
She would be happy when the day would arrive, she knew, when she could have her own place.
When she was eighteen and she could move out.
A shudder ran through her. She realized it was possibly that her "family" would try to ruin that, as well for her.
Unable to think of anything else to do, she called the help line again.
She couldn't say that she wasn't slightly disappointed when she heard a woman's voice that didn't belong to Natasha.
It was another woman, she said her name was "Wanda."
Clarke asked quietly, feeling self-conscious, if she could speak with Natasha.
Wanda had softly explained that if Clarke needed anything, she was happy to help, but Natasha wasn't in today.
She then said, "Would you like me to give Natasha a message for you?"
Clarke breathed in and began saying that it was fine, knowing she had no right to ask for that. She then explained the situation.
And again, she was given reassurance, soft, gentle reassurance.
Clarke knew that technically, it was just their jobs to be reassuring. But she couldn't help but feel addicted to the comfort.
Throughout months, Clarke found herself calling these people, and getting the same group of people.
Always women.
Clarke wondered if this line only hired women.
And always the same women. Natasha and Wanda, yes. But also others. Diana, Yelena, Hela and several others.
Clarke was grateful for them. So grateful. Hesitantly, she ended up alluding to her location a few times.
It was greedy of her, but some part of her hoped they would come rescue her.
A fantasy, she knew, that could never happen
Then something happened that was unexpected.
A week after the last time Clarke had called the hotline, while Clarke was left at the house and Abby and her "real children" went out to a fancy dinner, a dinner that Clarke was not invited to, evidently, something happened.
Clarke was visiting one of the few friends she had, a young girl named Harper and staying with Harper and Harper's parents, when the police officers pulled up at the house across the street from the Harper's family's house.
The house they had pulled up at was the Griffin house.
Clarke and Harper saw the flashing red and blue lights from the window, where they were playing video games next to.
Clarke and Harper rose up and Clarke walked out of the house, seeing the officers.
She went across the street, checking both ways and asking how she could help the officers, cautiously.
The two grave looking officers asked for her to come into her house and answer their questions.
Thankfully, Harper's parents, Maggie and Kyle, stopped them and said that Clarke was not to be questioned without an adult that wasn't a police officer present.
So, they led Clarke, Harper and the officers inside, where the officers explained the situation to Clarke.
Clarke listened, shocked when she heard the news.
The wonderful news.
Her birth mother and all of her birth mother's adopted children, were killed. When leaving the restaurant.
Someone came along with a gun, and shot all of them in the kneecaps, sending Abby and her adopted children down.
Then those same people took out crowbars and proceeded to beat Abby and her adopted children to death.
Clarke's mouth hung open. She honestly was shocked. She couldn't imagine this happening.
But some part of her was so happy. She was so happy. But she knew she couldn't show that.
If she showed that at all, people would think that she was involved. She wasn't, but that didn't change that she was happy.
"I…I'm sorry," she said, "But…how could this have happened? Who would want them dead?"
Clarke knew that she'd want Abby and her adopted children dead, but who else would want them dead?
It was then that Clarke's mind went to the help hotline that she had spent several weeks on. Weeks that became months.
But she almost instantly threw that thought away. Because there was no way.
That was insane. Why would people from a help hotline do things like that? Their job was to do the opposite.
Besides, the people she'd talked to were good people. They'd never even contemplate killing people.
That was why Clarke couldn't possibly entertain that.
Clarke honestly didn't know anything. She didn't have a clue.
And she was with Harper and Harper's parents the whole night. Harper's parents could attest to that.
The police were left with nothing.
They didn't know who did it, and were left with no leads.
It was made even more obvious that Clarke couldn't in any way be involved, when it came out that Abby's boyfriend, Marcus Kane, was murdered at his office. Someone had shot him in the head, avoiding the cameras and leaving no fingerprints or any sort of physical evidence.
That was why Clarke was left alone. The police had worried that the killer might try to track Clarke down, but it soon became apparent after several weeks that Clarke was not in danger.
In Clarke's eyes? Kane's death was even more proof that the people she spoke to on the help hotline? Couldn't be involved.
Because how could they have known about Kane? She never told them about Marcus Kane.
Yes, she'd told them that her birth mother had a boyfriend and that she didn't like him. But she hadn't told them his name. And hadn't told them where he worked or even what his job was.
How would they know about him if it really was the people she had spoken to over the phone?
Clarke was happy, but kept it quiet well. Besides, what could she tell the police? No one she knew was involved. She was sure of it.
But there was a question of where she was to end up now.
She was almost an adult, but still underaged.
Harper's parents had offered to take her in, but Clarke at the police's insistence, ended up in the system.
Before Harper's parents could adopt her, another family had come by and the woman that had come along, a woman named Callie Cartwig, had took one look at Clarke and knew that she would give Clarke a good home.
She adopted Clarke, not caring that Clarke was almost an adult, and Clarke met her new brothers and new sister, Wells Jaha, Finn Collins, and Sterling and Zoe Monroe.
Clarke at first resented all of them, because she didn't have the chance to be with Harper and Harper's parents anymore, but Callie was happy to bring Clarke to her friend's house, whenever Clarke wanted.
And Clarke now had two homes, the Cartwig house, where Callie actually treated Clarke like her daughter, and her new siblings actually treated her nicely. And Harper's house, where Harper was like her sister and Harper's parents were there for Clarke too.
During that time, Clarke hadn't forgotten the people that had made her feel supported during the time when she was miserable, so, she called the help hotline in her room, closing the door and waited.
She heard the voice and smiled, recognizing Natasha's voice. Instantly, she told Natasha happily that she was adopted by a loving family and didn't have to deal with her old, abusive family anymore.
Natasha sounded surprised and asked if the police had taken Clarke from her old family.
Clarke explained that her old family was murdered. And the shock Clarke got in response, sounded real enough.
Clarke smiled and listened to Natasha's questions, asking if Clarke was alright, if she was scared at all.
Clarke assured her that she was not.
She knew that now that she had an actual supportive family, she might not need the people that she spoke to, in her life anymore, but quickly had dismissed that. She wanted to be in contact with them.
She missed them.
She was positive this wasn't considered "professional" or "appropriate," but she couldn't help it.
She wanted to speak with them more.
That was why she spent the next few years speaking with them, telling them about her life with her new adoptive family, about her new school with new friends.
And about what college she went to.
Now that she had an actual loving family and good friends? She wanted to go to a college where she was near her family.
It was so different from before, when she was looking forward to going to college, because she felt like she had needed to get away from her shitty family.
Everything seemed perfect now.
And she was even still in contact with the help hotline people-the same women, soothing her.
It seemed perfect.
And what happened when there was perfection?
It never lasted.