Cleo Jackson
Age: 20

This is Cleo's second year in the bunker.  She's still extremely frustrated with being stuck indoors and isn't afraid to admit it.  She most definitely isn't part of the rebellion though.  In her words, she isn't stupid.

Skylar is one of the best leaders she's seen and has no reason to dislike her.  Even the Gladiator fights didn't bother her anymore.  In fact, they've kind of grown on her.  She still doesn't love them, but she doesn't dislike them either.  She finds them interesting and maybe even a tad entertaining.  This would have worried the old Cleo, but it didn't bother her at all nowadays. Take pleasure in what you can, right? Usually when she watches the fights though, only half of her attention is on them.  The other half is in her sketches. 

Speaking of her sketches, she still spends most of her time on drawing, but not so much on writing.  She doesn't remember the last time she had actually written in her journal.  She does, however, remembers what the last thing she wrote was.

"I just... I need to be free.  I'm stuck underground, breathing filtered air, stuck around all this death.  It's driving me insane.  Not literally, but you get the point.  How does everyone else live like this? How do they not care? The only other ones who get it are the rebels but I wouldn't turn to them in a million years. They've done enough.

I feel like I'm trapped down here.  The rebellion isn't helping this feeling either.  With them around, I feel the need to protect myself from them.  And I still don't know how to do that yet.  I want to, but I just don't. Is that my fault?

I can't be the only one who feels like this, right?  Then again, I've always been the odd one out with the grounders.  Preferring to use my words instead of blades.  Preferring to draw instead of train.  Doing basically the opposite of everyone else.  I never hunted.  I never fought.  

  Həll, I hadn't even killed anyone until about two years ago.  Even when I had, I hadn't wanted to.  Why did I do it?  She had asked me to, but I hadn't wanted to. Why did I do it?  Even if she had been purposely making me upset.  I didn't mean to do it. She had brought up Gage and said how it was my fault he had died. Was it? Even if it wasn't, her words still upset me.  Some of the girl's words keep coming back to me.  In my sleep, making me question it too. 
'Why would he prefer a grounder over me?' 

  I still don't know the answer, and probably never will.  When she had said it, she had sounded so... agitated, and exasperated, and maybe... maybe even mad.  I don't know why though.  Gage had been Skaikru, so had the girl I had killed.  I was from Floukru.  Why had he preferred me and Lexi?

  Lexi was also my friend.  One of my only friends, to be exact.  Along with Gage, but Lexi had been closer to me.  Gage had been... well... Gage.  Still a friend, but not as much as Lexi had been. 

  Why am I even talking about this?  I no longer hurt every night because of their deaths.  I'm not plagued by nightly nightmares anymore.  I don't hurt anymore.  Their deaths don't pain me anymore, so why am I writing like they do?  And why don't they?

  Even if they did, I'd have to act like they didn't. 

  The bunker is not a place you can afford to be weak in.  That, if anything, is the one thing I've learned."

That entry had been almost a year ago now, and it was completely honest.  It was one of the most honest things she'd ever written.  And nobody had seen that one.  That, she was happy about.  She didn't want to be pitied.  Or felt bad for.  She wanted to be a normal girl for once.  Instead of being ignored, instead of just being 'a grounder who took the chip'.  She wasn't proud of that, and guilt still attacked her for doing so, but like everything else, she was moving past it.  Slowly maybe, but she was. 

Cleo had started to train almost a year ago.  Once, maybe twice a week.  Her skill was steadily growing, even if she was still weak.  She wasn't nearly as weak as she had been, but she still was.  She'd now be able to defend herself should something arise, but she still felt like she needed to use her words first, before drawing a blade or using her fists.  It was simply who she was.  Training was the first spark, and A spark leads to a fire.

But right now, she was a block of warm clay that would be moulded soon.  A few years ago she had been hard ice, unable to mould, unable to change.  Now she needed to change.  And she was.  Just not entirely for the better.

Along with her aim and accuracy, her confidence was also expanding.  Slowly, way more slowly than anything else, but it was.  And maybe in a year or two, that would be noticeable.

She was becoming the woman she swore she never would.  She was becoming someone fierce, cold, and there was nothing she could to stop it.

A/N

Still another two chapters at least!  Sorry if I'm making it too long...