OUT OF MIND² ━━ Bellamy Blake

𝐗𝐈: Bloodlines

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BLOODLINES

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          THE SHADOWS OF the dropship are overwhelmed with ghosts of the past. Darkness blurs the edges of the memories, but Lyra still remembers enough ━━ the good ol' days, even if she hadn't known it at the time.

"You got it?"

Eyes snapping from the molten shadows, Lyra glances up to see Monty looming at the threshold. There's a flashlight in his hand that illuminates the first level in an almost ghostly glow. His features are soft but Lyra grimaces anyway. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she takes the bulky electromagnet in hand. Careful not to jolt the microprocessor, she slides it into Monty's pack. He slings it over his shoulders and she rises up from her crouch.

"Yeah," she mumbles. She wipes the grease from her hands on her cargo pants. "Let's get out of here."

     "That's the best idea I've heard all night," Monty responds. He raises his flashlight and then starts for the tattered cloth overhang. "Octavia! We had a hell of a time prying open the sub-assembly, but we got it!"

     The darkness is visceral. Lyra cannot see the stars or the moon. Dead leaves crunch beneath her boots as her fingers rap anxiously against one another. After. . . after whatever the hell had taken place between her and Octavia, Lyra had gone into the dropship to help Monty with the sub-assembly. Octavia had stayed outside and at first Lyra had thought it was to keep watch, but now that there's no response from her. . .

     Something rustles in the foliage. Monty lifts the flashlight beam towards the woods, but there's nothing there.

     "Octavia!" He shouts.

     No one answers.

The rover shudders. Lyra whirls around in alarm as a blurred silhouette emerges from the vehicle, bracken snapping beneath their boots. Sidling around the hood of the rover, the silhouette slowly but surely creeps towards them, wreathed by the shadows. Lyra's heart starts to beat a little faster. And then the figure emerges into the blinding white beams of the rover and she is almost crippled by disappointment; it's not Octavia.

"Monty!" Hannah cries out, running towards them. "Thank god!"

He is bewildered as she hugs him. "Mom?"

Lyra steps back uneasily. Hannah had been the one to convince Pike to lie to her about her dad being captured. This woman wanted her dead just twenty-four hours ago. But now she seems to hardly notice Lyra at all. She's much more concerned with her son, smoothing down his hair, running her hands along his face.

"Pretty sure I lost them in the woods," she says breathlessly. "Did you see anyone? They're everywhere."

Monty steps forwards, shining the flashlight into the darkness again. "You got away?"

"I had to find you."

"I heard what you did. You tried to kill Lyra," Monty says, his voice tight with pain. "And then what you told Pike. . . how could you turn me in?"