Fallen Angel [Bellamy Blake]

Chapter 1: Second Chances

I could scream forever we are the poisoned youth. -Centuries, Fall Out Boy

A GROAN ESCAPES MY LIPS following the loud chime of the cell door unlocking. It's a conditioned response by now.

I roll over with a sigh, already bracing for the headache that comes with every interruption of my precious loafing. The sound of heavy leather boots on the thick metal floors grate on my nerves— the fucking Ark guards, of course.

When you've spent most of your adolescence behind these dull walls, the Prison Station guards lose their edge and really just become a pain in the ass. But I'm sure I was one in theirs too. I smirk at the two guards as they step further into my cell, their expression set in that characteristic cold scowl.

All business, no play.

"Hey, fellas," I drawl, eyeing them lazily. "Another surprise room search? You know how much I love those."

Silence. Not even one of their usually snarky comebacks. Instead, their faces are like stone, eyes locked and focused straight ahead. I have never seen them this tense— and that's saying something about Ark guards.

My mind races to the worst but most logical conclusion: my 18th birthday.

"What's going on?" I snap, trying to remember what day it was today. I glance over to the wall on my left that had I used to mark the days.

"Prisoner 10-4-4, rise now," one of them intones. "You have a visitor."

Before I could ask the obvious follow-up question, my father, Councilman Marcus Kane, enters my cell. He wears his usual grim expression, the one I had grown accustomed to seeing while growing up. That scowl had become his signature.

My grandmother insists that he has a heart underneath that tough exterior and that he does actually care about me. I don't deny he has a heart—I just think it's made of inorganic matter.

What's odd about this surprise visit is not the fact that he's here before visitation hours, but that he's bothered to visit at all. The last time he came was four months ago, and even then, he didn't enter my cell. He'd simply informed me that I'd be taking up private classes with Pike. That news came approximately six months after he told me the Ark was dying. Needless to say, he's not one to come baring good news.

Is he here to tell me that the Council is finally reducing the population and that I am at the top of the list for the Culling? I wouldn't doubt that I am first on their "disposable" list after everything I've done. Still, would my father really deliver that news himself?

My father stops a few feet away. If he reached out, he could touch me—the closest we've been to each other since my lockup three years ago. Up close, I notice the prominent lines that were etched onto his forehead and the purplish hue under his eyes. Something is weighing on him and has been for a while.