WE'RE JUST BETTER TOGETHER.

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

"        TWO SERPENTS,
ONE GARDEN.       "

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Harley had spent so many years loving Octavia Blake that she couldn't picture a day that she wouldn't. Even after Blodreina. The days she couldn't speak to her for six, long years counted too. She wasn't sure if her heart would let her love again if Octavia's arm's exposure eventually caught up to her brain. It was difficult that the only person Harley wanted to kill was the only person that had an idea of how to cure her. Xavier was too busy guiding them to a small hut to notice the way she glared at the back of his head every time it came into her view. If he wasn't the only one alive that could help Octavia, and if looks could kill, he'd have fallen dead already.

It takes them a longer time than she expected to make it to Xavier's shelter if one could call it that. Harley took over driving when Octavia was too weak to continue and Diyoza is grumpily letting Xavier drive on her bike while she sat behind him so he could guide them through the woods. Harley felt Octavia's thinning fingers clutching at her waist, her cheek pressed against the warm cloth of her jacket. Her touch felt lighter every minute as if she felt as peace enough to find solitude and rest while laying on her.

Harley would have liked it to last forever because it made her feel as if they could start to rebuild their trust in one another. Unfortunately, Xavier comes to a stop in front of a tent with various wires and sticks holding it up. A tree trunk sticks out of the ground circled by stones, more wires twisting around it with radios dangling. Harley clasps her fingers around the break so that it comes to a pit stop and takes off her helmet so she can get a better look.

"What is this? Your home?" She asks. In some way, it makes Harley nostalgic. She missed living in tents like this. Some of those days were her happiest memories. It almost looked like the homes she longed for on Earth. The only difference Harley noticed was the lack of other tents and the clear view of green that mixes in the clouds of the blue sky. She wondered if the hum in her ear was delivered from it or just a beat in her eardrums.

"Something like that," Xavier says with a shrug. "Welcome to the Verge. Don't worry. You'll never get used to the sound." He helps Octavia off of Harley's bike and carefully guides her to a tall tree that she can lean against. Harley and Diyoza follow as Octavia fumbles with the blanket across her shoulders, eyes only half-open.

Diyoza glanced to the tent. "Is he here?" She questions. The side glare she gives to Xavier as he walked away was sharper than daggers and could have definitely killed him had he looked back.

He doesn't even bother gracing them with an answer. "I got to get the power on," is all he says as he left for his tent.

That almost felt like a confirmation. Harley eyed the shelter wearily, it didn't seem like anyone else was inside. But then again, the enemy had said Gabriel was the Old Man which meant he wouldn't be sprinting outside at the sound of someone's arrival.

"First, the Old Man cures you," Diyoza whispers to Octavia.

Octavia hardly looks her way, but Harley sees a grin curl on her face. "And then, you put a bullet in his brain."

She hardly missed a beat and it catches Diyoza by surprise. She raises her eyebrows, smirks, and comments, "Look at us, finishing each other's thoughts - " She pauses to throw her arm to be slung over Harley's shoulder who huffs at the touch. "... And if you'd like to join us, back in my days, no one really frowned upon three women turning into an old, married couple."

A sudden thunk of metal catches their attention away from Diyoza's discussion on marriage. Xavier had pulled something heavy off of solar panels. They were rusted and covered in dirt, but when the sunlight hits them, the dozens of radios attached to the trunk begin to beep and blink red. A cluster of voices came through the speakers that Harley can't decipher or recognize. Xavier barely blinks at their reaction and only waves them to follow as he ducks inside the tent once more.

It takes both Harley and Diyoza to carry Octavia inside with their arms around her, practically dragging her inside. There are various trinkets that hang or rest on tables. It had Harley guess this was where Xavier spent most of his life and studied since she knew he was a local doctor with a lot of knowledge.

"Thought you said radios were no good here," Diyoza recalls.

"They're not." Xavier pulls out a metal chair for Octavia that squeaks with her deadweight when Harley gently lowers her with a quiet grunt. "All signals get sucked up by the anomaly. You pick them up here in endless, repeating waves or something," he explains as his fingers brush against rumpled papers.

Meanwhile, Diyoza had no shame in being nosey. In fact, Harley doubted she was even listening to an answer to the question she asked. She picks out a frame and stares at the picture inside, eyebrows pinched. "Who's the girl?"

The girl in the old picture had started to fade from the years it had been kept. The girl inside was smiling, blonde waves framing her face, and Xavier's head snaps towards her. "Put that down," he demands protectively as if it was personal to him.

Diyoza didn't exactly comply, not at first. "He loved her, didn't he? You can tell by the picture. She was just looking to get laid."

"Enough," Harley warns. She leaves Octavia's side to snatch the frame out of Diyoza's hands and set it in its rightful place again. She may not understand the pain of loving someone that didn't love you back, but she understood the pain of losing someone you loved, and it was clear the girl met a lot to him. That brings unbearable pain and it's evident in the image that it was kept because it truly never goes away.

"Excuse me for being curious," Diyoza defends with a careless shrug. "You can see as well as I do that he loved her, right?"

It didn't matter as much to Harley whether or not the Old Man loved the girl but she considered the effect it was having on Xavier who's statue became stiff. "I wouldn't know. You can ask Gabriel yourself when we get to the anomaly," he states. Harley can see he cares and has become bothered by the discussion but pretended he wasn't. Xavier's only shown interest is towards the basket he thrusts towards them with one instruction. "Weapons stay here."

Harley and Diyoza spun to Xavier in sync. Harley's eyebrows had risen in surprise while Diyoza had a comical smile on her face, declaring amusingly, "That's funny."

"Is it?" Xavier challenges. "You know what happens during the Red Sun?"

"Heard about it - tree toxins, mass hysteria... Sounds like a party."

"It's not," Xavier says firmly.

Harley's features change to normal when she realizes what Xavier was getting at, but that's likely because she's the only standing woman there who survived a day in the Red Sun. "Yeah, it's not," she mumbled. Harley quickly ran a hand through her short hair and averts her eyes when she notices stares. Even Xavier looked taken off guard so he's the only gaze she met with a hunch he understood. "I don't even remember it, really. I just... I just remember feeling angry. Like something inside me exploded, and I took my brother with me."

"You hurt your brother?" Xavier questions with sudden interest. Harley only nods. She struggles to mention that she doesn't even know if Murphy is alive. A sad look crosses his face, but he doesn't compare a similar experience. It's more pity than anything. "It may be hard to believe, but it's not your fault. The anomaly has a similar effect on the plants here, only it's constant and weirder." Xavier looks back to Diyoza. "If you don't trust me, then you should trust Harley. You don't want to be armed." He tosses the basket on the table in front of them. "I won't take you if you are."

That leaves little room for argument. Harley hates the idea of leaving her weapon here, but she hates the idea of the Red Sun affecting her again even more. She didn't want to hurt anyone else, not Octavia, not Diyoza, and not Xavier, for now. "Okay," she agrees. Octavia looks too exhausted to offer her weapons or even fight back so Harley is careful rummaging through her clothing to retrieve all the weapons she can find. She isn't carrying much since they were disarmed at Sanctum and neither is Harley, so all she can hand over was their swords really.

However, Diyoza had to pick the variety of weapons she had out of her backpack including knives and pistols, plus the one she carried on a strap over her shoulder. She sends yet another glare at Xavier. "What about these?" Diyoza questions with her hands in the air. "Because there's about fifty different ways I can kill you with them."

They send dominating grins to one another. Xavier breaks the stare to carry the basket to a safer spot, but Octavia's suddenly shot up towards him. She smacked it out of his hands, sending the weapons flying across the ground. She jerks in shudders and tries to leap away from him, but she's hunched over, struggling to stand. Octavia snarls, demanding, "Who are you?"

"Move," Harley orders and delivers a shove to Xavier's shoulder when he's too close. "Octavia. Hey, Octavia!" She exclaims, struggling to hold her upright. Octavia doesn't respond, she barely blinks, only staring ahead blankly. Diyoza helps her move to her chair again. Octavia is struggling to place herself in reality again, her green eyes flickering back and forth, darting from Diyoza's face to Harley's.

"It's starting to reach her brain," Xavier warns them.

The terrifying thought drives Harley's hands to gently grasp her cheeks. She tenderly rubs her thumbs across her skin, so thin she could feel the bone under her finger. Octavia's fragileness started to take a tole on her emotionally. "It's me, Harley," she urges softly. "Come on, it's me."

She watches as Octavia silently studies her with a few gasps for breath. She starts to melt under Harley's touch and relaxes, pressing against the chair. Diyoza peers at her over Harley's shoulder and catches her eye, causing Octavia to mumble, "Two serpents," before glancing back at Harley, "One garden."

Eden never stood a chance.

"Your turn to move," Xavier informs Harley, using less of a harsh tone. "I need to see her arm."

Harley refuses to let Octavia think she isn't there. She keeps a hand curled around her upper arm, but reluctantly steps aside to let the only doctor there inspect her. Xavier peels the rag covering her back to reveal the shriveled arm. Harley feels her stomach churn every time she sees it. The flesh looked as if it was rotting at this point and it doesn't get any better when he tells them, "We don't have much time." Xavier knelt in front of Octavia so their leveled. "I'm curious... You experiencing memories? Things you don't quite understand?"

The only noise Octavia can make out is pained grunts instead of words. Harley parts her lips to speak, ask her if she was okay even though she already knows the answer, Diyoza clears her throat to interrupt. She cocks her head, a signal towards her, and Harley frowns in confusement. She gently squeezes Octavia's arm and steps back until she's behind Xaiver too.

Xavier doesn't notice their stares. He's too busy trying to get Octavia to speak to him. But Harley, breath hitching as her eyes glaze over the back of his neck, doesn't miss the healed scar dragged through his dark hairline. She recognized it once. It's what grounders did for their new commanders to nightbloods, and she knew the Primes were interested in nightbloods, as were their enemies.

While Harley struggled to understand what that meant for Xavier, Diyoza had already swiped a gun from the pile of weapons Octavia knocked over, rests her finger on the trigger, and points the barrel at the back of his head. "You look pretty good for an old man," she comments. "Say hi to Gabriel."

Harley's mind struggles to wrap around exactly what Diyoza meant. She doesn't know if there's something she's missing or if it was beyond what she could comprehend. But Diyoza, who had alone time with Xavier while she stuck with Octavia in the glowing forest, shakes her head. "Don't worry. He wouldn't have wanted you to know your family is stuck with a palace of body snatchers like the chip you put in that frosty little commander, isn't that right, Old Man?" She accuses.

The chip. The Primes must have created something for nightbloods like the grounders had and they must work the same as the chip used for the past commanders except the body snatcher words. Harley slowly allows it to clear her head that fills with thoughts all at the same time. That's why the Primes had been so strange. Were they killing people born as nightbloods to keep themselves alive? She may not know the entire story, but that's something Gabriel will have to tell her because Harley had let her fury spike.

Her family was stuck in a place with body snatchers who were trying to live longer than any human being should.

"... You saw the scar," she hears Xavier reply when she tunes back in to the little hut. "I would ask about yours, but the story of how you slashed your own throat was big news before we left Earth."

The gun was still pointed at Xavier, following him, so there was no chance of him moving when Harley's storms towards him and her thin fingers twist around his coat. Xavier was well over six feet and has to look down to see her, much taller than her who wasn't even that short, but he still holds a faint look of fear as the girl trembles with fury in front of him. "You tried to keep this from us," Harley sneers, but it wasn't a question. Xavier - no, Gabriel, she corrects herself - was saving his ass by keeping a huge secret from three girls with a temper problem and without a fear to kill.

Gabriel doesn't defend himself or try to tug himself away, out of Harley's reach before she could swing. He merely nods. "Yes," he agrees. "I was protecting myself." His dark brown eyes skim over the top of her head as he tries to avoid the deep blue of her own. "Your family is in danger, Harley, but so is Octavia. You can hit me later if it makes you feel better, but right now it's time to go to the anomaly as we planned."

And Harley hates every word that leaves his mouth because he's completely right. Octavia was running out of time and she'd screw that up if she tried to fight Gabriel or run back to Sanctum to warn her family. There was more of them and they could take care of each other, if Murphy even made it. That meant it was time to leave. Harley would warn them about the Primes after she saves Octavia.

"I mean, you can smack him around first," Diyoza inputs. "If that'll make you feel better."

Harley listens and she releases Gabriel's clothes to flatten her palm and bring it down. She struck him in the face so hard that the slap echoes and his head snaps to the side. His tongue drags across his lower lip as his cheek blooms red from the hit.

Harley's fingers spark with the flame from the harsh touch, but realizes it didn't make her feel any better. She was sure even if she released years of pent-up rage on him, leaving Gabriel a bloody mess on the ground, it still wouldn't fix what she felt inside. Causing someone who wrong her harm wasn't supposed to make her feel better.

But Gabriel eventually comes back from the outburst and finally steps out of Harley's reach, scrambling to grab supplies they'll need. "It's time to go and find out what it wants." He sent Diyoza a quick warning look. "Oh, and about the gun, if you bring it, you'll most likely kill all of us, yourself and baby included. It's up to you." Gabriel starts to duck out of the tent then. "Come on."

"I got a bad feeling about this," Diyoza mutters, but she tosses the gun away anyway. They grab Octavia together and carry her after Gabriel of all people, towards the anomaly.

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It isn't clear exactly what made the forest glow an ominous green. Every step they take, every move that brings them deeper into the trees, it becomes darker like it was swallowing them whole. A part of Harley feared this was something they wouldn't make it out of and Gabriel was leading them directly into a trap, but the other half of her told her this was the only way to save Octavia. If he wanted to kill the three of them, he would have tried already.

The orange leaves drying out from the weather crunch under their shoes. Harley noticed they were starting to change color, becoming green, even on the trees. But Diyoza, with her arm tightly wrapped around Octavia to hold her upright, only wonders aloud, "How do we know when this stuff starts getting to us?"

Gabriel doesn't respond. He glances into an open space as if something else was there and Harley notices his shoulders tensing. She frowns, but Diyoza isn't too bothered by the reaction that she doesn't notice. "You okay there, Grandpa?" She pushes. "I asked you a question."

"It sucks, Diyoza," Harley cuts in with a twinge of annoyance. "And you'll know when it hits you. That's it."

"That's it, huh?" Diyoza muses after a grunt from guiding Octavia over a particularly large lump. "What about it, Old Man? Are we just boring you? How about we pass the time by you telling us how someone dedicated to the destruction of the Immortal Primes took a new body?" She challenges. "I mean, dying sucks. I get it. But not being willing to die for your cause makes you a coward where I come from."

Gabriel looks over his shoulder, but Harley can't tell if his attention is on them or something else around them. "I left Sanctum, but Sanctum didn't leave me," is all he supplies her with.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means I still have the drive in my head, but no one to remove it," Gabriel explains his story. "I eventually taught someone. Eduardo, a Null infant rescued from the Offering Grove. I loved him like a son," he admits. He quickly scans the area around him before finishing, "Unfortunately, once he learned to perform the procedure, he refused."

Diyoza shares a look with Harley before asking, "Why?"

"By then, Xavier was born. He had the blood." He tilts his head down and stares at his very own body with shame.

"Nightblood," Harley whispers.

The name causes Gabriel to lift his head again and nod. "If you want to call it that, sure. But Eduardo believed it was a sign - a freeborn host. I thought I convinced him otherwise, but when my last body died, he finally wiped Xavier and brought me back."

A soft voice drifts from the woods and fills Harley's ears. "Tell me what was worse - losing someone you love, or killing them yourself?" The voice sounds familiar and it brings her gut to swarm with guilt. Her head snaps in the direction, but there's nobody there.

"... Once I resurrected and realized what he did, I killed him in a fit of rage and assumed Xavier's identity out of shame," Gabriel continued regretfully. "No one else knew." And Harley, who found herself listening to him again, knew he was referencing her when he stated, "Until now."

A wave of guilt Harley can't cough out of her lungs washes over her. She felt torn down the middle realizing that she shouldn't have hit him. Gabriel hated himself enough already and regretted his past more than anything, and even if his choices now weren't giving him redemption, he still was attempting to earn it.

"But that's what you do, don't you?" The same voice from before calls out. They're clearer than day this time, and Harley's heart sinks. "You don't think before you do and the ones you love... They pay for it."

"Do you hear that?" Harley whispers, but no one answers her. Diyoza is too busy searching for the voice she heard too, and Octavia nearly slips out of her grasp, only to be caught by Gabriel.

"... I was trying to take down a system dedicated to the worship of false gods. I became a false god all over again," he confesses. Gabriel shakes his head then. "Come on, you don't have much longer, and we still got a ways to go."

Harley desperately tries to drag her mind back to this planet. She tries to stay focused on the task at hand, the long trail ahead of them. But then, a torn red cape flows in the breeze as someone rounds the tree and comes to a dead stop in front of Harley.

Blodreina scared Harley so badly that her heart, once sinking, now leapt into her throat. She lets out a cry of surprise and stumbles backward. Her boot catches a root and she can't catch herself from falling, crashing against the soil below her. Harley's jaw falls, eyes widening, and elbows propping herself up as she stares up at the Red Queen herself. Her eyes are rimmed with red, the same shade of her armor, but full of more hatred than Harley had last seen in her.

Anger wasn't the only affect the red sun could have on Harley. Guilt, shame... The two emotions overpowered it overall.

"I'm sorry," Harley cries out quietly. Tears burn her eyes. "Please, forgive me..."

"Harley! Snap out of it!" Diyoza's voice shouts over her. Harley blinks, and Blodreina is gone, replaced with Diyoza whose hand outstretches towards her.

Yet again, Harley realizes her mind was only playing tricks on her. She blinks until she feels as if the tears wouldn't leak free before reaching up to clasp Diyoza's hand in hers. She gives a forceful tug until Harley's on her feet, unsteady, but standing.

Meanwhile, a cry louder than Harley's comes from Octavia who sounds much more terrified. Had Harley been able to see her hallucinations, she'd know Octavia sobs at the sight of her and Bellamy on their knees before her, gags in their mouth. She'd know that Octavia's heart had shattered at the thought of the two people she loved more than anything in this world staring at her with hatred.

"Hey, hey! Not both of you," Diyoza pleads with her. "You're not gonna freak out on me again, are you?" She releases the other to hold Octavia on her feet when she started to slip before looking over her shoulder. "Harley?"

A quick, tearful scan of their surroundings tell Harley that while Blodreina had been whispering to her, she was nowhere to be seen. "I'm good," she mumbles even though it's unconvincing and brings herself to Octavia's other side so she can drape herself on her too.

The only person Harley had to convince she could do this, even if she couldn't, was herself.

And yet, the green glow drags them further into the woods. Harley doesn't know how far they are from Sanctum or Gabriel's tent, for that matter. She only knows something in the radiance was dragging her closer and closer as if it was calling her. Harley couldn't possibly ignores how it tugs at her heartstrings. It wanted her away from Blodreina, from herself. It wanted her to go home.

Gabriel isn't as interested as what Harley's silent longing. He only looks to an empty space next to him and utters, "Not this time."

"You say something, Doc?" Diyoza demanded.

"No. You must be hearing things," Gabriel denied. He pauses before a set of trees that almost form a bush. It doesn't protect the light burning through. Harley would have shielded her eyes with her arm if she didn't welcome it. "The anomaly will do that. Sometimes it's your darkest fear. Sometimes your deepest desire... Sometimes it's both at once."

Unfortunately, that's what Harley saw, she realizes. She was lucky enough to have them both at once - a girl begging for forgiveness from the person she feared the most.

The slope Gabriel leads them down breaks them free from the trees. Harley hardly hears him over the roar of the anomaly as he says, "Long is the way and hard that out of hell leads up to light."

Harley doesn't know what she imagined when she pictured what the anomaly was, but here it is before her. The open field holds an emerald green light that moves in waves, surfing through the air with a soft hum. The anomaly flashes by them so fast that it hyptonizes them, drawing Harley in like it told her what laid inside held the secrets to everything she needed, what she believed she could never earn, beginning with forgiveness.

This was the green light calling Harley home.

A single gloved hand outstretches in front of Diyoza. She stares into the empty air like it's a promise, eyes full of love before she steps forward like she was being drawn in, too. Gabriel lunges to yank her other arm back. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. No one who's gone in has ever come out," he warns.

But Diyoza blocks him out, pulling her arm back and continuing. Octavia staggers to stop her, insisting, "Wait. She's not there. Whatever you see... It isn't real."

At last, Diyoza stops. She looks at the pair following her and it's the first time Harley had ever seen her smiling. "Diyoza... If you go in there, you'll die," she desperately whispers. Her words are barely audible over the anomaly's thrumming.

"I don't know what it means or if it's real... I just know I have to go," Diyoza replies calmly.

She doesn't spare another second. Diyoza sprints across the grass until she reaches the anomaly and dives inside. Harley watches, eyes burning from tears and the light, as it swallows her whole, enveloping her into it's light.

"Wait," Harley gasps as Octavia takes a single step forward.

But then the girl who Harley loves, who's slowly dying, looks at her, pleading silently. She begs Harley to trust her, to trust Diyoza, and save her. That they were in this together like they were from the beginning.

"Together?" Octavia asks softly like she feared Harley's answer.

But Harley makes up her mind and gives into the yearning so strong it aches. She nods, agrees, "Together," and clutches Octavia's hand in hers.

And together, they use the last bit of strength they have to charge straight into the anomaly.

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author's note:

i've had so many people ask for an update so here it is!! i tried not to rush through it but i'm pretty satisfied. i hope you guys like it, and sorry for the long wait!!

i said it once and i'll say it again, gabriel was one of my favorites from season 6 & 7 and he deserved so much better. harley isn't so pleased with him rn but TRUST THE PROCESS I PROMISE.

anyway, like i promised, a character from the past will make an appearance soon - possibly in the very next chapter O: so get ready! i'll try to get back to regular updates now that midterms are done!

thank you for coming back to read! ❤️

- koda