undertow | bellamy blake (book one)

20 | you are the darkness

It wasn't long after Bellamy left that things got weird. Jovie stumbled as the room started spinning. She reached her hand out to grab one of the barrels to steady herself. It was such a sudden reaction she had no idea what was happening. It got even worse when she heard a voice that she hadn't heard in years.

"Are you happy with what you've become?" Jovie whipped around and her eyes widened when she saw her mother standing there.

"What the fuck?" She said. "You're dead." Either Jovie was losing her damn mind or something was causing her to see her mother. She didn't remember the last time she had a full night's sleep, so that could have been part of it, but why would she be seeing her mother?

"I'm dead because of you and John," she said. Jovie frowned and shook her head. She wasn't there to see how her mother fell apart after their father was floated and she was arrested, but John took it all. Apparently she resorted to alcohol to cope with her loss and stopped taking care of John because she couldn't even take care of herself. Eventually she drank herself to death.

Jovie never particularly had a close relationship with her parents. Part of it began when they chose to keep her a secret instead of John. Though she eventually realized it was better that she was the one to bare the burden, considering John probably would have gone crazy, it still didn't feel good having to be a hidden child. She didn't get to grow up like a normal kid. She didn't get to learn and didn't get to make friends. The only companion she had was her brother. It also didn't help that their parents worked many long hours. For a while they had to split rations in order to stay fed, but once she grew the courage to sneak out, she found that she started to fend for herself. She felt like a burden so she did something about it. It's not that her parents didn't take care of her, but she started to grow a subtle hostility towards them. They always seemed to favor John and it took a toll on her. It made her develop the wall that she would build up to keep others out, so that she wouldn't let herself get hurt.

But their mother's death was not because of her and John. She did it to herself. She let herself fall apart and put the blame on anyone that wasn't herself.

"You made that choice to drink yourself to death," Jovie said. "That was not because of me and it wasn't because of John either." Yes, her father got floated because he got caught stealing medicine to save John, but that wasn't his fault either. Besides, Jovie even saved her mother's life by telling that lie that she was dead. She took the fault of being alive.

"You killed me, just like you killed Atom," her mother continued, walking close to Jovie. "You lead Charlotte down a road of evil, an innocent girl that looked up to you. You let them banish John, your brother who has always been there for you. And you just watched as they tortured that man, the one who saved your life."

"I couldn't just let Finn die," Jovie argued. She didn't want to torture the Grounder, but they had no choice. "Charlotte knew killing Wells was wrong! And John made his choice."

"Bellamy's right about something bad always happening when you're around, you know. Wherever you go, darkness follows. You are the darkness," her mother said. Jovie backed up, trying to shake the visions out of her mind.

"You're not real," she mumbled.

"You are the darkness and you will never be enough, Jovie," she continued. "You were not enough to save any of them. And you are not enough for him." Jovie knew who she was referring to.

"Shut up!" Jovie screamed, kicking the barrel towards her mother. It managed to make her disappear, but in her place was Dax. Before she could process what was going on, Dax slammed a gun into her head, knocking her to the floor unconscious.

♛

Jovie groaned as she slowly sat up, wincing when she touched her head to find blood. She almost forgot where she was for a second before remembering what Dax had done.