THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR.

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LOST IN FIRE (book three).
°• CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR •°

" SHE KILLED THE RED QUEEN! "

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        Harley's world is black with spots of red that fill her vision. She blinks a few times until her vision clears then a quiet groan falls past her lips. She doesn't remember what happened. Not at first. It takes a minute or so to click. Then it all comes pouring in as if a dam had opened and there was suddenly no way to tape over the break. John Murphy was still alive. Harley nearly killed him, and that only meant her job wasn't done yet. Harley's limbs start to twitch as she regains feeling in them. Her skin is still warm as she pushes herself onto her knees so she can examine the room she was put in after feeling a needle pierce her neck. Thanks, Jackson, she angrily thinks. Harley debates putting him on her list after as she starts to stand but suddenly has no choice but to stop.

There are two leather bands enclosing her wrists that connect to a chain. Harley mashes her lips together and gives a harsh tug. Her skin could be sliced and magma would pour out when she realizes they chained her into a small room. Harley gives a testing tug but the chains hardly creak against the pull. There's no breaking free without a key if the lock hole around the cuffs say anything.

"Oh, great, she's up," a voice drawls from the corner. "Here we go again." Harley's head snaps towards the sound and sees none other than Emori. They don't seem too different now. The girl's curly hair has become frizzy, cheeks flushed, and eyes glazed over with anger. She must have lost her mind minutes after Harley did.

"Quiet, Emori," another one pitches in. Harley silently turns to see Echo. They're both chained in the same position she is.

Finally, Harley speaks. "Both of you shut it," she snaps. Her tone is colder than she felt. Everything else was burning. She brings her voice lower, darker. "Get me out of these chains, Echo. Now!"

"I couldn't even if I would, Harley. Bellamy has your key," Echo says without glancing in her direction. She's oddly calmer than either of them. "You tried to kill your brother. I'm sorry, but until the red sun effects wear off, you're staying put."

Fury unlike anything Harley had felt before started pumping so loud that it drummed like a beat in her ears. She was truly stuck here. "Get me out!" She's frantically yelling with another few frantic yanks. It doesn't budge but she can feel a burn starting to worm its way through her skin. It should break through and bleed soon, but she doesn't care. Harley continues to demand in multiple shouts to be let free as she plants the flat, sole of her boot against the wooden wall for leverage and pulls harder. Nothing works, but she doesn't give up.

"Harley - Harley, knock it off, come on," Echo pleads. It goes ignored, but Harley delivers a hateful kick to the wall. She flinches at the noise. "You're only going to hurt yourself," she adds.

"Why are you protecting him?!" Harley exclaims harshly. "You know who he is! That pathetic little - " She pauses to let out a snarl and kicks the wall again. "Waste of air... He's nothing! John Murphy is nothing and I swear that I will kill him. I don't care how but it'll be done before it's us."

Echo is quiet for a moment. Then she shakes her head and whispers, "I can't believe you're saying this." She lets out a long breath like another bad memory hit her. "I can't believe you almost killed him."

Harley puts the pieces together. Jackson must have done something to help him so he's healing from the wounds she gave him slowly but surely. She doesn't know what the red sun is, but she doesn't care. Not about anything. Except finally wiping this planet clean of Murphy and the trail of death that follows him wherever he goes. It'll take them too. The world would soon be better off and they could do better.

"And we all can't believe the little Ice Nation warrior turned into a peacemaker from space," Emori cut in darkly. Echo doesn't respond. She only shuts her eyes for a second as if she's trying to block the noise both of them were making out, but it must not work as she opens them again a second later. Echo still won't look at them as if the sight will break her.

A sudden thump above startles them all, even Harley. A loud, deep scream follows. It's Miller. "Make it stop!" He's begging. He's terrified. And the screams are only growing louder than soon, Jackson's follow.

Echo sat up straighter with her head tilted to the ceiling. "Jackson, use the tranqs. We divided them up for a reason," she calls to him. The screams slowly turn into painful wails as powerful smacks clap against the wood, echoing through the building. Harley's eyebrows furrow when she hears two sets of footsteps clambering up the stairs. "Bellamy, what are you doing?" Echo panicked.

They can't see him, but Harley hears Bellamy call back. "Echo, it's okay, we've got this."

A door flies open, and all Harley can hear are continuous screams and shouts she can't clearly make out. Harley's eyes start to shut when her head grows dizzy. It's too much noise, too much for her to handle, so loud it hurts her ears and head. It almost starts to sound like cheers which slowly makes her more confused than angry. Harley opens her eyes again and swears the room she's in is becoming blurry. Something's wrong, so very wrong -

Suddenly, it stops. Everything Harley was hallucinating ceases and goes silent completely. Minutes must have passed of her becoming lost in her dark mind because as soon as she tunes back into reality, the rage has returned because she hears Bellamy and Clarke outside the windows calling for Murphy. "Let me out," she says quietly at first. Then Harley loses it. "Let me out!" She screams and kicks a sleek stand next to her, the only furniture in her reach. "Let me go! I'll kill him! I'll kill everyone!"

Because it would be an easier, faster way to go. It's like seeing a poor, tortured animal and wanting to give the poor thing mercy. If Murphy was alive any longer, he'll take them all down one by one. Harley can stop it, she'd do anything to stop it, even mercy kill them -

Echo is following the chain connecting to her wrist unsurely but stops when she hears a light knock at the door locking them in. "Echo, open up. It's me," Bellamy speaks through it.

"Bellamy?" Echo whispers.

"Don't you open that door!" Emori screeches. She attempts to lunge, but the chain only yanks her back.

The three girls stare each other down, warmer than the sun beaming through the windows and keeping them full of wrath. Echo keeps her ground. "Calm down - "

"He'll kill us all!" Emori shouts with an arm pointed at the door.

"Bellamy, what are you doing here?" Echo questions. "You're supposed to be inside."

"Murphy's loose. He's taken the guns. I think he may come for Harley."

Harley's heart pounds the lava through her bloodstream faster. Her hands curl, aching for the satisfying weight of her sword or the blade of a knife. "Float yourself, Bellamy, I can take care of him myself," she sneers loud enough for him to hear. The words he's taken the guns hadn't even processed in Harley's mind, she only vouches, "And I will."

There's a quieter mumbling behind the door that Harley can't make out before Bellamy's voice overpowers it and rises with each word. "No. You need to go back to the school and see if he left any weapons, and you need to open this damn door!" His hand slams against the window in a way that should have shattered it.

"Tell me why," Echo demands over the slaps. "What's happening?"

"We used our tranqs on Miller and Jackson, and I need yours for Murphy," Bellamy replies impatiently.

Head cocking, words fall from Harley's curled lips, "I have a better way to keep him out."

"Are Miller and Jackson okay? We heard screams," Echo interrogated. She's stalling. She doesn't want to open that door, afraid of the anger hidden in Bellamy's tone.

"Yeah, they're fine, just let me in!"

Eyes dart across the space until they land on the medical stick just a few feet from where Echo was standing. She had to stretch for it but soon has her fingers curled around it tightly, but her feet don't move towards the door as if she's torn down the middle. "Yeah, that's right. Do what you're told," Emori taunted once she notices it. "That's all you ever do..."

"Shut up," Echo hissed.

"The good, little spy..."

"Shut up so I can think."

Emori doesn't comply. "Always following her master's voice..."

Suddenly, Echo jerkily lurches forward as she screams wildly, "I said shut up! Shut up!" All that follows is Emori's manic laughter as Harley's eyes dart between them, craning her neck, the three prisoners prepared to break free and take each other down if their chains weren't strong enough to hold them.

Echo soon backs away, her hands pressing over her ears as she frantically looked around the small space. Emori watches with a curling grin like this was an amusing show, but Harley doesn't. She can feel the cuffs finally break through her skin and rubs the blood raw as she rips at them again. "Open the door, Echo, do it!"

The room starts spinning again. Harley barely sees Echo's eyes tear up as she cries out, "Bellamy, I'm sorry, I can't." But she does watch as the tranquilizer she holds is plunged into the crook of her neck, her thumb jamming against the button to inject the medicine into her system. Echo's eyes roll to the back of her head until they're white and she falls, her limp body curling against a threaded oval rug.

Emori lets out a loud, echoing laugh before she falls against the edge of a mattress, her arms spread like an eagle. "You lose, John. You lose," she breathes out into the empty air.

The face of Harley's twin flashes in her mind when Emori says it only once before it's gone. She swears she hears, "It's Harley kom Skaikru, the girl from the stars," coming from behind her so she whirls around but only comes face to face with herself. A squared mirror hangs from the wall, and Harley doesn't recognize the girl staring back at her.

Her hair is wilder than she thought. It's still chopped to her shoulders but it's knotted, a few strands left in thin braids, barely brushing against her jaw. Harley knew her skin has been red since the attack on her brother, but that wasn't all that was keeping it crimson. Blood is smeared across her skin, painting her cheeks, forehead, even splattered across the bridge of her nose. It was like a mask. Harley watches in silent horror as the foreign girl in the mirror stares back, blue eyes widening in terror.

The girl in the mirror was like a ghost. This wasn't her. This would never be her.

Gunfires ring in the air and explode louder than they should be. Harley's hands fly up to cover her ears with a violent flinch, but she doesn't look away from the girl in the glass mirror. "She killed the Red Queen!" Someone shouted.

The Red Queen, Blodreina, Octavia. The blood coating her face drips past her ruby lips and spread to her tongue and dance across the tastebuds. It was Octavia's blood, wasn't it? Harley's hands tremble as she lowers them and stares in shock. They're stained, too. But Harley can't remember truly killing Octavia, she made a mistake, a stupid, selfish mistake that she can't ever take back, but she could never take her life!

"No!" Harley cries out. Tears sting behind her eyes before they slip free and leave a stream through the red. Guilt unlike anything she's ever felt powers through her and leaves her drowning it, so endlessly painful, but she just won't die. "I didn't - I didn't mean to! Please, I didn't do it!" She spluttered. Broken sobs fall. "I love her, I never wanted this - "

There's more gunfire and she cries out, flying away from the mirror and pressing her back against the wall to move out of whoever's aim. They were going to kill her for... For... Killing Octavia? Was she dead?

The pleas go unheard by the voices Harley can't place yet. "No, leave her. Wonkru needs a leader."

"I'm not... No, I'm not a - a leader. Wonkru isn't - it's not mine to lead," she chokes out, rapidly shaking her head in denial, but the armor of blood Harley wears tells a different story. A tale of guilt, power, sorrow, anger, everything that could overcome a person and change them into a ghost of the one they used to be.

"Blodreina lives on through her!" A warrior cries out and multiple screaming chants follow.

Harley was the monster now. She was the nightmare who was born in space, became a prisoner, falling to Earth, watched helplessly as everyone she's ever loved die, returned to space to ignore the peace she was gifted, and then was next in line to lose her mind. Harley still doesn't know if she truly killed Octavia Blake or only her spirit, but the darkest parts left of it were now living on in her. Harley Murphy has become what she feared most of all.

Her hands curl into fists in her hair. Her back slid down the wall until her bottom hits the floor, and she squeezes her eyes shut before letting her jaw fall open to let loose a strong scream.

"I don't tolerate weakness," another one suddenly snarled. This one was more familiar because it belonged to Octavia. "Stand up, Harley!" It shouts.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Harley sobs breathlessly, but she doesn't know who she's apologizing to anymore. She refuses to stand. She knew this spot was where she belonged, curled on the ground, as useless as everyone knew she was.

"I always knew what you were," the voice of Octavia went on. "A coward, just like your brother. You were afraid, weren't you? When you slipped that poison into my food?" Harley keeps her eyes shut, her hands knotted in her hair, but there's a faint nod. She did it to save herself. To save her brother. "I could have turned you into a warrior. But now you're alone. No lover, no brother, no family... And you'll understand exactly how I felt when you left me in that bunker to lead, to die."

"Please," Harley cries weakly. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" She throws her head back. It bounces off of the wall and leaves a pang above the nape of her neck. "I'm not who you think I am! I'm not - "

"A killer?" A bitter laugh fills Harley's ears. "No, you're worse. You think Murphy's the coward, the waste of air, but it's you. You should cease to exist. You're not even worthy enough to be called a monster unless you want to count the times you've left people to die to save your own skin. Once this world is wiped of you, Monty's memory will be honored."

The tears become bulbous and leave the room blurry through Harley's sight. She can't even tell if Octavia's really there or not. She's become a mess on the ground, dissolving into a puddle, and to regain her strength she swung backward again. Harley's head cracks again, this time more painfully. Something explodes in the back of her skull so she doesn't stop.

Because Octavia's right. Harley thought it was Murphy who was the root of the problem, but it was her all along. And she has to get rid of the root of the problem.

Her vision flashes white when she repeats the action. Harley can feel fresh blood trickle down her neck, but that's when her body gives out. A tingle spreads down her spine and all of her limbs become slack, unmoving before she falls to her side and lets the darkness she belongs in take over.

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author's note:

sorry for the shortish chapter, found it difficult to improvise but i really liked the ending. the whole time i was writing i just whispered "harley murphy dont u listen to those voices u angel bean" but alas, she does anyway.

however i do have wifi finally set up and can post more regularly now! i can't wait to write for the end of this season and the next one. there is just ... so much pain i have planned.

so, yeah, thank you sm for comin to read and i hope to see you next time here or in my other many stories! ❤️

- koda