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chapter twelve!
TRIP DOWN MEMORY
LANE
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IN THE DAYS since the torturing of the Grounder on the third floor of the dropship, a plethora of things have changed. For one, as the air gets crisper and the delinquents find themselves huddled around bonfires at night to keep warm, Ares finds it laughable that he had been sweating buckets in the dropship earlier that week. Now, the atmosphere is cooler and he's glad that he'd stolen the fingerless gloves— they protect his palms from the brunt of the cold while still giving him full operation of his hands. He starts to see his breath in clouds when he exhales or speaks. It's mystifying at first, and the teenagers had spent several minutes breathing out in the open air and staring wide-eyed at the puffs of white that would travel up into the overcast sky, disappearing into the clouds.

Second: Nate has been put on watch duty to make sure Octavia doesn't try to visit the Grounder. Ares has seen a lot less of him because of it— Blake hadn't assigned Ares to do any of the babysitting, probably because Ares had scarred the guy and Blake doesn't need that happening again.

In terms of the Grounder, nobody is actually sure what to do with him. They can't release him because he knows too much and he'll probably gather up his other Grounder amigos to come and kill them all. Clarke had cleaned his wounds in order to prevent infection and keep him alive. For now, he's been under careful surveillance by Blake, Nate, and a few other kids. Blake hadn't asked Kiernan because of something like, "He's too non-threatening to intimidate someone." Ares disagrees — he's seen what Kiernan is like while hunting — but it keeps one person around that he tolerates, so that's a plus.

Ares' wonderful tech skills had been put to good use when he and Raven spent an entire day transporting the radio to a separate tent, hooking it up to a camera, and wiring it to a screen so they can communicate face-to-face with the Ark. It's a relatively poor connection due to the many miles between them, but Ares remembers how proud of himself he'd been. Proud that he'd managed to actually fix something instead of breaking it. Proud that Raven had seemed grateful for the assistance and he'd been able to provide it. And then Thelonious Jaha's face had crackled onto the screen and Ares had to walk away to keep himself from punching the glass and ruining everything.

Now his wonderful tech skills are being used to crack open the shells of different types of nuts that a gathering team had collected. As he breaks the rough exterior with a large rock and digs the edible portion out with his fingers, he wonders what it would have been like to be part of the group who had found these. Clarke and Blake hadn't let him go — something about, "He'll never come back," which is untrue, though he'd certainly be tempted — so now he's left to deal with the aftermath of their success. Each crack of the stones slamming into the shells makes his jaw clench a little tighter. It's all he's been hearing for hours — that, and Jasper and Monty's constant stream of conversation.

"What do you think they're gonna do with the Grounder?" Jasper questions.

Monty gives a backward glance at the dropship that looms behind them, brow wrinkled in worry beneath his curtain of black hair. "I'd rather not think about it."

"Well, it's been days since Bellamy captured him," Jasper sighs as he smashes his rock down on another shell. The thing splinters under the force he'd used. "How long until his friends come looking?"

That part is also true. If the Grounder's amigos start to wonder what had happened to him, they might come searching for their camp. And if the Grounders find it... well, they'll be woefully unprepared for any sort of battle. Most of the kids here don't have experience with weapons. Up against skilled warriors who can throw a spear with pinpoint accuracy across an entire river and through trees, they wouldn't stand a chance.

"Cheer up." Monty gives him a playful smack on the arm. "In that time, we'll all be dead from hypothermia."

He points to Jasper with a hum. The Raven-haired boy turns to him and sticks his tongue out expectantly, eyes tracing the nut that Monty holds precariously between his thumb and index finger. A light toss and it lands right in his mouth.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Jasper cheers proudly. The two boys each raise a hand next to their heads and clap their own palms, some sort of handshake that they'd clearly invented long ago.

Ares rolls his eyes as he secretly pops a bit of the snack into his mouth, keeping to himself despite the fact that he's been eavesdropping on their every word this entire time. Being on ration duty sucks— not only are they in charge of getting the shells off of the kernels, but they also have to portion and stuff them into small bags to be rationed. Some other kids are drying and salting deer, boar, and rabbit meat. Ares is pretty sure that's what Kiernan is doing, but with the amount of miscellaneous tasks that make the camp a whirlwind of constant activity, he can't be certain.

"Hey, Ortega, wanna try?" Jasper questions with an elbow to Ares' bicep due to their height difference.

"I'd rather gouge my eyes out with this rock," Ares replies without missing a beat, pointedly crushing a shell open as soon as he finishes the sentence.

A beat of awkward silence. Jasper picks up the mood again by saying, "That's the spirit!" and pretending the whole thing never happened.

Ares' hands are starting to ache. He remembers when he used to have calluses covering his fingers— the awesome kind that took months or years to create, which had made his skin look rough and all sorts of cool. They warned people not to fuck with him. However, a year and a half in prison without anything to hold had made his hands go soft again. The textured exterior of the rock on his fingers and the repeated movement of picking it up, slamming it down, and setting it aside has made the familiar pain wash back up. His skin feels raw right now. Soon, it'll harden and make him feel a little more like who he'd been before he'd gotten himself into this mess.

Scratch that— someone else had gotten him into this mess. It's not his fault.

Merritt Santiago was not his fault.

Ares doesn't realize he'd been zoning out, arm positioned up to crack another shell but merely hovering in midair, until an unfamiliar voice calls his name. "Ortega!"

He turns toward the noise to find a boy likely eighteen years of age with brunet hair and a long face staring at him. His blue eyes hold an eerie, unreadable expression that makes Ares' gut instinctively churn. "They're asking for you in the communications tent."

Ares lets the rock drop onto the table unceremoniously, making Jasper jump and put a hand to his heart. "Jesus, dude."

The curly-haired boy ignores him and shoves his hands into his jacket pockets as he walks toward the tent in question. As he passes the kid, a chill goes down his spine and makes him suppress a shiver. Creep. His eyes narrow and glare at the unknown boy.

Ares sweeps the flap aside, expecting to find someone already in there based on the words, "They're asking for you." However, it's completely empty. He straightens up to see nothing but the screen that's filled with enough static to give him a headache and the set of headphones used to hear the audio due to privacy reasons. His fingers tick restlessly against his left leg— the chair on the opposite end of the call is empty. He's taking a risk by sitting in front of the camera.

He breathes in through his nose, letting the cool air calm his head, then pushes it out through his mouth. Ares Ortega is not a coward.

He sits in front of the camera and slides the headphones on.

For a beat, nothing happens, and he starts to get impatient the longer the chair on the screen stays empty. He recognizes the room instantly despite the wall in front of the camera being completely blank. It's the room where the Council meetings are held— the same one where his charges had been read and he'd been unanimously voted to rot in the Sky Box until his eighteenth birthday. If he hadn't been sent to Earth, he would have been dead already. His body would have been released into space with nobody to miss him. The air would have been sucked out of his lungs, the absence of pressure causing his blood to boil and capillaries to explode.

What a strange timeline he lives in.

It gets even stranger when the video stream glitches, creating a lag on the bottom half of the screen for a moment as a person sits down in front of the camera. Ares blinks once. Twice. Resists the urge to rub his eyes to make sure he's not dreaming, though he isn't even sure he'd be able to do so, because his entire body is frozen.

Castor Ortega has come to speak with him.

It takes Ares a moment to recognize his father's face. The last time he'd seen him, his chocolate-brown eyes had always been rimmed with red and slightly glassy in a way that always made him look like he was about to cry. He'd been in desperate need of both a haircut and a beard trimming. The curls on his head had been absolutely unruly, and, combined with the bushy facial hair he'd simply let grow and grow without cleaning, he'd looked like a man gone wild. Now his dark locks are shorter than they've been in years. They're too short to turn into waves, so they sweep up and away from his square-shaped face neatly. A bit of facial hair still covers his jaw, but it's considerably better-looking than Ares remembers it being. He can actually see the whites of his father's eyes. And even though the camera isn't great so everything on-screen appears overly-exposed and washed-out, he still looks like a new man.

His father opens his mouth. Hesitates. Closes it. Then his hand comes up and rakes his hair back as a sigh puffs from his lips. "I — I thought about this for hours, and now I don't know what to say."

His tone is lighthearted. Joking.

Ares stays completely silent.

"I never thought I'd see your face again," his father admits in a heavy tone laden with regret. These are the most words he's spoken at once without throwing up, gagging, slurring, or taking another drink in-between. Ares had almost forgotten what the sound of his real voice had been like. "They came knocking at my door, told me you'd been arrested for murder and I wouldn't even get to say goodbye before they locked you up— I knew you couldn't have it in you. Christ, I know I wasn't competent most of the time, but I'm not an idiot. I knew that you were doing some illegal things behind my back, but you were a kid. I didn't believe anything for a second. In fact, it was so bizarre I thought it was some drunken nightmare."

Ares stares at him.

Castor's palm covers his mouth and his eyebrows pinch together as if the mere sight of his son is too much to handle. Then he pulls himself together, setting his hand on the table out of sight. "I don't have more than a few minutes. But if this is the last time we get to talk before the rest of the Ark comes down to Earth, I want you to know that I'll be counting down the days. I can't wait to see you, Res. It's been a lonely year and a half."

His father waits for a response, watching Ares' blank face with an expression of mild anxiety and patience in his hazel eyes. Patience he never used to have. Patience that's so different from the times when Ares would try to use his rations to shower only to discover that his father had used them on yet another bottle of liquor. As if he couldn't stand a moment being sober. As if the world had felt so empty without his wife that his son's existence wasn't enough to keep him going. As if he didn't care that he was destroying his liver and kidneys and increasing the chances of Ares becoming parentless with every sip of booze.

Ares' fingers curl around the edge of the chair, jaw tightening even as his face stays pointedly blank as if he'd shot straight past rage and is now at a terrible calm. He can feel the fury rising though. It comes soaring up like a tidal wave, rushing, rushing, rushing toward the shore like a tsunami.

His words come spitting out like acid, and if they had been, Castor Ortega would have been completely scorched. "Fuck you."

And then he rips off the headset, tossing it onto the table with movements so brash and jerky it hardly seems like he's in control anymore. Ares sweeps the fabric covering the entrance of the tent aside and storms out without looking back. He'd been wondering if his father had changed since he'd been arrested, but he hadn't wanted to reunite like this. Without warning. Without a single goddamn apology. He'd spoken countless words and not once had he formed the words, "I'm sorry for treating you like you didn't exist for eight years." Even the first two words would have been satisfactory. But it's like he'd just glossed over the fact that Ares had joined the Underground because he felt like, although he'd only truly lost his mother, both of his parents may as well have vanished. Maybe he wouldn't have sought out a new family if Castor had still treated him like a son.

They'd been separated for a year and a half, and he hadn't even bothered to say, "I love you." Then again, what should Ares have expected? He hasn't heard those words in six years. He remembers when he'd clutched onto his threadbare blanket at night as a kid and early teenager, replaying his mother's voice over and over again in his head as he tried to fall asleep. Te quiero, mi conejito.

If he'd heard those three simple words, he's sure he would have fallen out of that chair. It would have been proof that his father had acknowledged his mistakes and truly wants to make up for the years he'd neglected him. But it's clear that although Castor looks different, he still has a long way to go for redemption and forgiveness.

Ares returns to the ration station, slamming his hands onto the table and gripping the edges so hard that his knuckles turn white. Thunder crackles in his veins. It comes in vitalized bursts, begging to be released. He has to hunch over to resist the urge to flip the table and send an entire day's worth of work cascading to the dirt beneath his boots. Labored breaths puff out of his mouth and yet it doesn't feel like he's breathing at all. He's only aware of the fact that he's a ticking time-bomb about to blow, muscles tense and rigid with the force it takes not to make a scene.

"Hey–" Jasper's voice breaks through the clouds in his mind. Ares starts; he'd forgotten he's not alone. The anger had trapped him in a bubble. Before the raven-haired boy can get another word out, though, Monty lightly smacks him.

"Are you okay?" Monty inquires in a much calmer voice. "Look, Bellamy and Clarke went to go check out a supply depot, so if you need to take a break, we won't tell them."

Ares nods, barely aware of the fact that he's moving until his vision swirls because he doesn't stop. He closes his eyes to help with the vertigo and releases a slow, cooling breath in an attempt to douse the flames still lashing in his body. It doesn't work. He blinks open his eyes anyway, telling himself what he needs to do as he does it.

Straighten up, Ares. That's it. Now turn, walk toward your tent. Dodge that idiot who's goofing off instead of doing his work like he's supposed to. One foot in front of the other. Up the hill. Down the hill. Careful not to slide. Keep your balance. Good job– you made it to your tent. Unzip the flap, walk inside, flop onto your cot–

Ares' shoulders heave in time with his breaths. The wave of blinding rage reaches its peak, making his movements wild as he clumsily sheds his jacket like it's burning his skin. He bundles it up into a tight ball, buries his face into it, and lets loose just as the wave pummels into the shore.

The scream of pure, undiluted anger that bursts from deep within him nearly shreds his vocal cords. It burns his entire throat. Although it's mostly muffled by the padded fabric of his jacket, some of it still reaches his ears and he's jarred by how much emotion is trapped within the sound. It seems to last both an eternity and a second. It's too long and yet over too soon, his lungs forcing him to stop because they lack the oxygen he needs to survive.

He lies there for a moment, face-down on his cot with his face buried into his jacket, before he turns on his side and curls into a ball. A few of the nuts he'd shoved into his coat pockets spill onto his cot at the shift in his position. He swipes them and shoves them past his lips so he doesn't crush perfectly good food. Then he sniffles, his throat aching and raw from the power of the scream, but he feels better now. Less like he wants to set the dropship on fire just to watch it burn.

And now Ares realizes how exhausted he is. He hasn't slept well in days, from the number of tasks that have been loaded on every member of the camp and from the stress that keeps him up at night, mind refusing to rest despite the fatigue that creates bags and purple rings beneath his eyes.

Now it's like the world is trying to make up for all the shit that has happened to him. He closes his burning eyes and falls asleep within minutes.

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The first thing that registers is that he's wet. Ares squeezes his eyes shut a little tighter, grimacing at the foreign and unwelcome sensation of dampness soaking his curls and shirt. He rolls onto his back only to feel as if he's just laid into a puddle. Perplexed considering his cot is supposed to be completely dry and the tent would protect him from rain, he groans and blinks open his eyes.

He sees the ceiling of his tent, only now, it's considerably darker than it had been when he'd fallen asleep. Whoever is outside hasn't been keeping up with building fires. Instead of a warm, orange glow, his tent is smothered in darkness and shadows, illuminated only by the pale light that streams through the sliver created by the open flap.

Ares inhales and his heart stops cold, instantly sending adrenaline cascading through his limbs and making them feel like dead weights. The all-too-familiar coppery stench of blood invades his nostrils. It's so intense he feels his head swim, the ceiling of his tent swirling as his nerves skyrocket to high-alert.

He glances to his left and finds his cot covered in blood. It soaks through the padding and there's so much leftover that the plush fabric can't even absorb it all, forcing him to lie in rivers of crimson. Panic seizes his chest. It's mind-numbing, causing his heart to trip over itself as it hammers furiously in his ribcage, gaze scavenging the room with only one word echoing in his brain over and over and over again until it's a thunderous roar in his skull: No, no, no, no, no, no, nonononononoNONONONONONO–

He inhales through his mouth, strangled and shallow, as he forces himself to sit up. It's like he's an extension of himself. His body doesn't feel like his own, though he can still feel the horrible sensation of blood soaking through his sweatshirt and hair, staining his skin.

NONONONONO–

Ares glances to his right and an inhuman, wretched sound escapes from his mouth, the equivalent of a wounded animal. One of his knives is on the floor of his tent. The blade drips with blood that forms puddles around the weapon. And the body a mere foot away is one he's tried to forget for a year and a half, but the haunting images always worm their way into his brain. The memory has never been so clear. He's never been able to smell the blood this well, to see the torn flesh and soulless eyes of Merritt Santiago with this much clarity. He's never been able to feel the overwhelming sensation of tragedy that smothers the air so clearly, weighing on his shoulders and constricting his chest until he can hardly breathe.

His hands tremble uncontrollably, vibrations coursing through them that makes him feel as if miniature earthquakes are trapped in his veins. A cough bursts from his lips because his chest feels so tight he can't breathe properly. When he inhales, it gets stuck in his trachea and he has to cough again to prevent himself from choking.

Don't scream don't scream don't scream they'll hear you they'll hear you they'll hear you they'll take you away they'll take you away they'll take you away–

Ares doesn't listen to his hysteric mind's advice. Instead, he sputters before curling in on himself, tucking his knees to his chest and releasing an unrestrained scream that forces his eyes to slam shut. For the first time in days, all of the emotions he's refused to process come cascading down on him. He cries, sobs, hiccups, as unrelenting terror riots inside him. He'd thought he'd escaped this. The memories had just been that: memories. Things in his mind that couldn't hurt him anymore. But now – now – now Merritt Santiago's body is so close he can see the blood still leaking from his twenty-four stab wounds. Now this safe place has been ruined. Ruined. Ruined ruined ruined–

He's not sure if he's still screaming. The ripped-raw feeling in his throat is still there from his previous cathartic screech, but now the burn has increased by tenfold. His face is soaked in tears and splatters of blood.

The flap to his tent moves, a fact he's only aware of because the area behind his eyelids gets a little brighter. Ares' body jumps to defense mode. He starts shrieking words now. Though they're a jumbled mess of sobs, hiccups, and incomprehensible sounds, he repeats something in earnest that he had failed to say the first time. "I didn't do it. Please, I didn't do it. I swear I didn't. I didn't – didn't – didn't – I DIDN'T DO IT!"

"ARES!"

Hands are on his face. Ares snaps his eyes open to see a familiar pair of brown ones staring at him, wide-eyed and concerned. Tanned skin surrounds them, home to pinched eyebrows and lips pulled into a frown. Raven. She's gripping his cheeks, smushing them almost to an aggressive point. How can she touch him? How can she stand to be near him when there's all this blood, all this–

"Breathe," she orders, shaking his head when he does nothing but stare dumbly at her. "Copy me, okay?"

She inhales deeply through her nose. Ares obeys and mimics the action even though it gets interrupted by a shuddering sob halfway through. His chest burns until she releases the breath through her mouth. After a few more repetitions, he no longer feels like his lungs are collapsing in on themselves.

The words that he hasn't spoken since he'd told Nate the truth almost a year ago come spilling out of his mouth. "I didn't do it."

Raven appears confused as she releases her grip on his face. She's kneeling in front of him with her legs almost touching the toes of his boots. Close. Despite the fact that there's a body right there.

"I didn't kill him. I promise I didn't– I swear," he confesses, wondering if his words are even audible because he can't tell if he's whispering or if all sounds are muffled to his ears for some reason.

"Are you talking about Merritt Santiago?" Raven questions. The name makes Ares squeezes his eyes shut as a stab of pain slices through him. But the inquiry makes no sense.

"Of course I am," he responds, still finding a part of him that has the energy to be sarcastic. "He's right–"

Ares looks to his right and immediately halts his sentence. There's nothing there but grass and dirt, seeming nearly black in the lack of lighting. He stares at the place where Merritt's body had been moments ago with eyes as wide as saucers. No sound comes out of his open mouth.

"Did you eat any of those nuts you guys were rationing?" Raven asks tentatively as if she's afraid of the answer. When Ares merely continues to stare at the spot in dumbfounded silence, she sighs in sympathy. "Ares, whatever you saw, it wasn't real. Most of the camp is high off of whatever was in those things."

Not real. But he'd felt it so clearly. The blood soaking his clothes and hair, the unbearable stench of copper...

He reaches a hand up and lightly touches his curls. They're completely dry, and so are his clothes. The only thing he can smell is a hint of smoke from an old bonfire.

Ares is still shaking. His fingers touch his forehead as he struggles to make sense of both Raven's words and his new surroundings. Everything is normal. It had all been in his head, but his body continues to react to the horrible things he'd seen.

Raven hesitates. Her mouth opens and stays like that for a moment before she finally forces the words out. "You didn't do it?"

Ares releases a shaking breath and drops his hands down so his forearms are draped over his knees. Speaking feels like he's trying to talk through a throat-full of needles, each one piercing his insides as he responds, "No."

"Is that what you meant by 'Everyone thinks I killed someone'?"

He chuckles dryly, unsure of how he even finds it in him to do so. Trust it to the smartest person he knows to latch onto that information so well she'd been able to perfectly quote his own words back to him. It's a tiny detail that most would have missed. He hadn't even meant to let it slip, but the words had passed his lips, and by the time he'd realized they had, it had been too late.

"Yeah," he answers quietly.

Raven sits back on her knees and considers him for a moment. Her calculating gaze sweeps over the tear stains on his face, the haunted look in his eyes, and the way his whole body continues to tremble. Nobody except Nate has seen him like this, and that's only because he'd had no choice. As cellmates, the two had become well-acquainted with each other's demons. Ares couldn't control when he'd wake up due to a nightmare-induced panic attack.

Then she adjusts her legs so she's sitting cross-legged in front of him, elbows resting on her knees as she thinks. Her eyebrows crease in the way they do right before she's about to ask a question.

Ares already knows what it is before it comes out of her mouth.

"If you didn't do it... then who did?"

"I don't know," Ares responds just as softly as before. It's like if he speaks too loudly, the vision will come back and he'll find himself sitting in a pool of blood once again. He doesn't want to scare his demons back to life.

"You don't know?" Raven repeats. "Or are you just too afraid to let yourself think about it?"

The words slam into him so hard that his head snaps up to look at her instead of his trembling fingers. He blinks at her incredulously. Nobody has asked him that before. Nate is kind of shit at giving advice, so he'd only affirmed that the real murderer is an asshole and that Ares is also an asshole, but not the murdering-type asshole.

Shit, Ares realizes with a blow to his gut, she's right. He's absolutely terrified to let himself truly consider who could have been cruel enough to frame him for murder. Doing so would mean that someone had been set out to ruin an innocent kid's life. It would mean that the true killer had been ruthless enough to stab Merritt twenty-four times– some surely after he was already dead. It would mean someone had maimed a body so gruesomely and then walked free. Unscathed. While Ares paid the price in the Sky Box and waited to die.

He closes his eyes and exhales slowly to prepare himself. His face pinches when he hits a familiar mental wall. It's always prevented him from truly questioning the people he knows, truly wondering who could have done this. The easier way to cope had been to give up when he'd hit the roadblock because he'd figured dealing with not-knowing would be easier than living with undeniable heartbreak. But now he forces himself past the wall, knowing he has nothing to lose now that his crimes have been forgiven and the only person around him right now has already seen him at his lowest point.

Ares hadn't known many people in his past life. Sure, he knew names and faces due to his observative nature, but he didn't have friends, per se. There were mere acquaintances and some enemies, but all of them had been kids like him. There's no way a teenager could have accomplished what had happened to him. It required calculation, stealth, access to the security cameras, and a disturbing lack of morals. That means it must have been an adult.

His father wouldn't do that to him. Even though he wasn't much of a dad, he was always too drunk to have the mental capacity it would have taken to frame him, and it wouldn't have gained him anything. He wasn't too close to any of his teachers. That leaves one area left to search.

The Underground. The place where he'd felt more at home than in his own living quarters, where he was accepted because he took the vow of secrecy, received the brand on his shoulder, and that made him part of a family. He'd spent countless days there during their hours of operation learning to fight. It was where he'd learned to wield a knife and how to shoot a gun, though they never shot each other in sparring sessions and the fake bullets were purely for target practice. There, he had felt most like himself. It was a place where he could finally be set free.

Ares' face twists further, his mind caving in on him in an attempt to self-preserve and protect him from the thoughts that are sure to cause damage. His thoughts begin to scatter. What had he been thinking about, again? Framed — adults — the Underground.

He pushes onward through his tangled stream of thoughts. He'd just been a kid. Although the leader of the Underground certainly saw potential in him, a handful of the adults merely saw him as a pesky fly. Someone to be ignored and undermined. But they had enjoyed pretending he hadn't existed; nobody would have paid attention to him enough to frame him for murder. They were all too loyal.

Too loyal.

Too loyal to the Underground.

Too loyal to Klaus Silas.

Ares' eyes snap open and he feels the mental roadblock transform into a mountain. "I can't do it."

Raven places a supportive hand on his wrist, steady in comparison to his shaking. "You can. Whoever it was can't hurt you down here."

Ares doesn't know what he did to deserve her support, but he's immensely grateful for it. She's like an anchor keeping his thoughts from bubbling out of control. Soon, he's back where he left off, pressing through the pain that makes his stomach clench and nausea rise.

The Underground valued one thing above all: loyalty. It couldn't function if it wasn't a secret, and, therefore, any rats were disposed of. Usually, it meant a snitch was conveniently found dead in their living quarters from a heart attack that wasn't actually a heart attack– Klaus had a habit of filling syringes with air and then injecting them into the victims, which would yield nearly the same results as one. He loved everyone in the Underground like his own family. However, if you ratted out the club, you became as good as dead.

As good as dead.

Ares had been as good as dead when he'd been locked away. But he hadn't been a snitch, so why would Klaus frame him?

Ares thinks back to his memories of his time there. He remembers most faces with surprising clarity. He rifles through them, pulling up what he knows about each person like a mental filing cabinet.

The only person that draws red flags is Conan Gallagher– the kid who had taken a sparring session too seriously and had nearly taken his eye out a few years prior to the murder of Merritt Santiago. He'd always been anxious to prove himself. Ares had been, too, but this kid was willing to do anything – anything – to win so much as a nod of approval from Klaus.

Klaus had been a decade younger than his own dad, but Ares had still looked up to him as a parent. He'd filled the void that Castor had left when he'd started his drinking habit. Ares remembers him being enthusiastic to teach ten-year-old Ares basic fighting techniques. He remembers the supportive comments he'd get when he got his ass kicked in spars.

Conan must have compared their relationship to what he had with Klaus and decided he wanted it. It would have been easy for that cunning little prick to spin up a lie about how Ares was having second thoughts on being in the Underground and how he was thinking about ratting them out to secure a job in Go-Sci or something.

He forces his mind to venture back to that day. He'd been walking back home from a day crammed with classes, strolling through an empty corridor, when he'd been struck hard on the head from behind. Then he'd woken in a pool of Merritt's blood with his skull throbbing. Ares recounts all of this while imagining Klaus perpetrating the attack. Using his contacts in Go-Sci to short-circuit the cameras, murdering Merritt, coming up behind an unsuspecting Ares and knocking him out cold, then dumping him in the closet with Merritt's body, letting the blood soak into his skin and clothes.

It makes so much sense.

Ares opens his eyes to find his cheeks wet with tears he doesn't remember crying. Raven's hand is still on his wrist, and she's patient, willing to sit in complete silence with him as he figures this out. She must realize that he's come to a possible conclusion, but she doesn't press him to reveal it to her. Instead, she lifts her lips in a tiny and halfhearted grin. "I knew you had it in you."

He exhales a calming breath, not even bothering to wipe away the tears on his cheeks because they're still coming. He has no idea what he did to deserve this or why she seems to believe in him so much. Up until now, he's scarcely done anything except annoy her and steal her things.

"In case you were wondering..." Raven retracts her hand from his wrist and searches through her own pocket. A moment later, she holds up her knife, which glints in the pale light that still comes through the tiny opening in his unzipped tent. "I took this back a few days ago when Clarke was upstairs, right before Finn started seizing. It gave me a distraction when I felt like the world was crashing down on me. So... thanks for that."

Ares manages the smallest of twitches of his lips. It's not a smirk, but he's pretty sure he'd look like a psychopath if he tried doing that with tears still streaming down his face, so it doesn't matter. Then he says words of genuine gratitude. "Thank you."

Raven gives him a small smile again. "You're welcome. I'm glad I found you before it got worse."

"Me too." Ares shudders at the thought of being trapped in that nightmare for a second longer than he already had been. Then he huffs out a breath, averting his gaze from hers for a second before sniffling and asking, "Uh, could you do me a favor and get Nate for me?"

"Miller?" Raven questions. When he nods, she slides her knife back into her pocket and starts to stand. "Sure. I think he was giggling about having extra fingers the last time I saw him, but I can check. I'll be right back."

She exits his tent, leaving Ares alone. He glances around one more time to ensure that everything is normal. When he confirms that it's just his regular tent and not the horrific scene of a murder, he sighs again and rubs his raw hands together.

Klaus Silas. The man who'd been a secondary father to Ares. It makes sense– he's brutal, and he would have known that framing Ares for such a gruesome murder would have gotten him acquitted. He'd committed a crime so inhumane that there was no chance of Ares not getting locked away until he'd be floated on his eighteenth birthday. In doing so, Klaus had assumed he'd been protecting the Underground by eliminating another rat from the equation.

It hurts, though. Ares feels like someone has just taken out his heart and stomped on it, like a chunk of him is missing. Like everything he'd loved and praised about his beloved club had actually been the thing to ruin his life. To make it worse, he has to live with the swirl-shaped brand on his shoulder for the rest of his days.

"Hey, Res, what's up?"

Ares pushes himself to his feet as Nate ducks into the tent. After a quick once-over, Ares determines that the nuts' effects have fully worn off. There's no gleam of amusement in his eyes and he doesn't seem mystified by his hands. In fact, there's only concern in his brown-eyed gaze. So because Ares doesn't know what the hell he's supposed to do with himself now, he does something even he doesn't expect.

Ares pulls Nate into a hug.

He doesn't remember the last time he's done this, to be honest. There's just the moment he'd been standing there and then the moment he's resting his chin on his friend's shoulder, confusion on his face as he tries to process how to hug someone. To Nate's credit, he holds him back almost immediately. There's a suggestion in the action that he just knows. He knows something is wrong. Ares wouldn't be doing this if he didn't absolutely need comfort in the form of physical contact. Nate just seems happy to oblige.

Tears continue to stream down Ares' cheeks, somehow increasing their number and pace at the feeling of being cared for. His shoulders shake with quiet sobs. His fingers curl around Nate's jacket and secure him there, confirming his existence at this moment and not that horrible memory. His friend doesn't even say anything. He just holds him and lets him cry, understanding that all he needs right now is this.

Yeah. He's definitely glad that he'd gotten stuck with Nate. Because now, instead of being forced to keep each other company, Ares is choosing to keep him in his life.

__________

a/n:

"Ares pulls Nate into a hug."

hi everyone i am CRYING

this chapter is really character-central for ares because i thought we needed to see what's going on inside his head a little bit. the dude is Not Okay and this chapter was basically me pummeling him with even more trauma and angst, but hey, at least he has nate!

a lot of you were like 👀👀👀 when i first mentioned klaus and i thought it was sO FUNNY because you guys knew he was a shady dude from the beginning.

also !!!! what did you guys think of ares' reunion with his father?? the dude is trying but he isn't very good at it. if you want a clear picture of what he looks like, his faceclaim is edgar ramirez! i additionally have a little comparison of ares with both of his parents in chapter 5's author's note

–kristyn

TRANSLATIONS

Te quiero, mi conejito: I love you, my little bunny

( word count: 6.9k )