Chapter Text
Prologue
Buoyed in the peculiar weightlessness of space, Raven often dreamt of Earth. Clinging to a raft in oversized gloves and a fishbowl helmet, she should have felt graceless, clumsy. But her hands were steady and efficient on the frame of the Ark, stars above her head and beneath her feet, and the moon at her back. In front of her Earth loomed magnificent, flooding her entire field of vision with the beckoning blue of the ocean. The sight made her homesick for a place she'd never been, for the ebb and flow of tides and seasons, for snow and falling leaves and the scent of rain.
There in the vacuum, the material world fell away and she could imagine every atom in her body stumbling towards entropy, as if each element that made up her flesh and bones and blood yearned to dissolve back into dust. There was no sound, but the cosmos breathed with the rhythm of her breath, and pulsated with her heartbeat.
From this vantage point Earth seemed close enough to touch, and she had an unreasonable urge to push off and somersault into the pull of its gravity. If she let go, she felt as though she could freefall down into the sky and through the clouds, and watch the curve of the planet flatten out into the horizon, shedding her suit piece by piece as she descended. Past river and mountain and forest with the wind in her face, she would fill her lungs, reach out her arms and legs, and dive into the sapphire depths, propelled by the momentum of her curiosity and longing for the unknown. She craved the taste of saltwater on her tongue, the hot prickle of sunlight in her eyes, the caress of waves against her skin.
How foolish she felt, wishing for the ocean when she had the stars.
***
I. Self-Portrait of a Young Woman Bound in Steel and Plastic
The first thing Raven registered, eyes still shut, was that her hands were restrained. She knew it with a clawing sense of helplessness inside her chest, even before the dawning awareness of metal against her wrist bones. She tried to make a fist, but even the slightest movement of her fingers eluded her. Her hands steadfastly ignored her increasingly frantic demands upon them. Fear and rage swept over her in nauseating waves. She tried to draw breath to cry out, but her breathing remained steady and no sound emerged. She became suddenly, acutely aware of the hard sensation of plastic in her mouth, and of the invading tubes threaded through her nostrils and down her throat.
A light announced itself in an unwelcome burst of bright orange against her closed eyelids, and she struggled to open them, though they felt rusted shut. The light retreated and she cracked her eyes open. For a moment her brain couldn't make sense of what she saw. Her eyes widened in fascination and horror. Visible before her was a labyrinth of steel rods and white plastic tubes and wires, and inside, a tiny girl lay suspended like a fly in a spider's web. The girl's eyes were bruised and hollow and huge with terror, her cheeks gaunt, her hair shorn down to the scalp, which was red and raw around bolts that fixed her head into a circlet of steel that was attached to the frame. Raven wanted to tell her it would be okay, that soon she would escape and take the girl with her.
The girl's eyes followed her own, and Raven realized she was staring into a mirror on the ceiling.
Shadows in her periphery came toward her and resolved themselves into figures in white, wearing helmets not so unlike her own astronaut suit. One of the figures leaned over and shone a flashlight into each eye in turn; and then, with a sensation like a cork being drawn from a bottle, her ears were unplugged.
"Spinal patient X," came a man's voice; clinical, though it wavered and creaked with advanced age. "Female, approximately seventeen to twenty-one years old, five foot five, one hundred and fifteen pounds, exposure time approximately thirty days, found in critical condition." The dry voice held a measure of interest for the first time as it continued instructively, "The single gunshot completely severed the spine, but reconstructive surgery with stem cells is showing promise for recovery. Neural and spinal stimulation were introduced via ports surgically placed between the vertebrae and into the brainstem. Now what is the purpose of these ports, Bernice?"
There was a sound of rustling paper and then a female voice nervously responded, "To teach the brain and the rest of the spine to communicate with and recognize the new stem cells, and to introduce a paralytic agent to immobilize the upper body, in accordance with the teachings of Dr. Ananya Mehta, who invented the procedure in 2054. The historical full recovery rate is approximately 27%, with 49% of patients achieving at least partial recovery, and-"
Her voice was cut off by the old man chuckling lightly. "It's been so long since we've had a spinal patient here, I thought I might never get the chance to teach you and your fellow students how to treat one and that the procedure might be lost to history. We are very fortunate that fate has brought this young woman to us." He picked up a curious-looking instrument and held it perilously close to Raven’s eyes for a moment before he forcibly inserted its blunt blades between her eyelids, holding them painfully open. More than ever, she wished she could scream. "We should now commence with checking the patient's mental status while she appears to be conscious."
A small screen was put in front of Raven's eyes, and a reel of images began to play. A crescent moon, a fallen leaf, a red apple, a spinning coin, a mother and child, a bird in flight, a gun, a chess piece, a small hand in a larger one, a spear, a raindrop, a running horse, an automobile, a human skull, all interspersed with things she'd never seen and didn't have names for. The sound kicked in then, music which was at first barely audible, but swelled steadily to a roar she could neither block out nor protest. It cut off suddenly, leaving a faint ringing in her ears.
"Visual and auditory responses normal. Subject's brain appears to be responsive and functional within expected parameters. Barring any unforeseen complications, we'll proceed as scheduled with further neural stimulation procedures."
Someone removed the retractors from her eyes. No one made any attempt to address her directly. The man who'd spoken approached her with a syringe, jabbed it unceremoniously into her arm, and Raven lapsed back into unconsciousness.
***
"I have to find O-" Bellamy began for the third time, but was interrupted yet again by a hacking cough. "Octavia," he wheezed, when the coughing fit had subsided, leaving him breathless but no less resolved.
Finn spared him an irritated glance Bellamy could see quite clearly even in the moonlight. "Will you shut up?" He shouted in a whisper. "If your coughing hasn't already drawn the attention of whatever's lurking in these woods, the sound of your voice will. You made it more than clear that your first priority is Octavia the first ten times you told me. An eleventh time isn't going to make it any clearer. Serve you right if I left you here to die."
"I don't need your help," Bellamy insisted. "I can find her on my own."
"Oh really?" Finn said. He unslung Bellamy's arm from around his own shoulder and stepped back a pace, releasing him. Bellamy swayed and made a valiant effort to balance his weight against a tree, then crumpled to the ground. There was a marked silence.
"You've made your point," Bellamy said.
"I don't think I have. You're no good to Octavia if you're too weak to carry your own weight." Bellamy felt the impact of those words like a knee to the chest, but Finn carried on, oblivious. "You obviously need medical attention I can't provide. I don't think we have any choice but to head to Mount Weather. They may have doctors, even a hospital."
Whatever Bellamy had been expecting, it wasn't that. "Have you lost your fucking mind?" he asked; rather mildly, he thought, given that Finn had clearly gone stark raving mad.
"No," Finn replied, heaving a resistant Bellamy upright. "It's the only way."
"The hell it is! You're talking about delivering me into the hands of the unknown element who captured all of our friends and who we've just spent weeks avoiding!" Bellamy argued, forgetting to keep his voice down. "Why don't you just kill me here and now?"
"Quit being so dramatic," Finn hissed. At that point Bellamy tired of the debate, and with more luck than precision, twisted an arm round to punch Finn squarely in the stomach. Finn, taken off-guard by the sudden attack, went down hard, and the two of them scuffled briefly, the fight ending when Finn shoved Bellamy's face into the dirt and held him there until he stopped struggling. "Enough! You do realize I'm trying to save your ungrateful ass, right?"
Bellamy spat out a leaf, a dozen suitable responses flitting through his mind, but ultimately settled on stony silence.
"You'll thank me for this eventually," Finn said, helping him to his feet.
Bellamy ground his teeth. "I'll kill you for this."
He was coughing blood by the time they reached the foothills of the mountain, and in no condition to protest when Finn dropped him in a heap at his feet, waved his arms back and forth, and shouted, "Hello! Can anyone hear me? We're unarmed! We need your help! Hello out there!" There was a long silence, during which Bellamy contemplated the merits of a peaceful death, and then Finn unmercifully started up again. "Hello! Is anyone out there? Help! Can anyone hear me?"
A spotlight swept over them, and Bellamy hung his head in the face of its glare.
*
"Bellamy? Bellamy! He's waking up," said a familiar voice, and Bellamy sat up abruptly, which made his head pound and spots dance before his eyes. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and blinked rapidly, trying to get his bearings.
"How long was I out?"
Clarke's face swam into view, and he groaned at its lively expression. "It's been three days since Finn carried you in," Clarke informed him gravely, and then lost the battle with her smile and grinned hugely, which made Bellamy wonder exactly how much of the ignominious tale Finn had shared. He was saved from coming up with a response by the appearance of four more faces behind Clarke, as Finn himself, along with Jasper, Monty, and Miller, crowded around Bellamy's bed. There was a short period of chaos involving much clapping on the shoulder, and loud, enthusiastic greetings.
"Back off guys, give him room to breathe," Clarke admonished. "Do you feel well enough to get up, Bellamy?"
He nodded and ignored the hand she offered, swinging his legs off the narrow bed and then, when he suffered no ill effects, rising to his feet. He felt reassuringly steady, and took several deep breaths, pleased to find he could do so without coughing. To his annoyance, he discovered that he was attached to an IV stand. He reached to yank the needle out, but Clarke stayed his hand with a stern look on her face.
"Those are antibiotics. You had pneumonia, Bellamy. Your chart says there are still a few days left on your course, and since Finn tells me that you are the most annoying sick person he has ever met, I'm not going to risk you getting ill all over again." With an air of suppressed urgency, she continued, "But it has wheels, and it is time for us to give you the grand tour."
Bellamy grudgingly clung to the IV stand as Clarke led him out of the room, privately grateful that it took some of his body weight so that he would not have to again rely on someone's shoulder to support him.
Mount Weather was a maze of industrial corridors and identically proportioned rooms. At first Bellamy tried to memorize their route: left from his door to the end of the hall and then through the right-hand side door, down another hallway and two sharp lefts in quick succession, and then a long straight stretch of hallway that sloped slightly downwards, and another right, and so on, but he soon lost track. At the top of a winding staircase Clarke paused, and - with an unsubtle glance at Bellamy’s IV stand - shook her head and kept going.
"We’ll take the elevator."
Clarke seemed to know exactly where she was going, and every door she opened was unlocked.
"We were quarantined at first," she told Bellamy, when he remarked on this. "And no one would speak to us."
"That didn't last long," said Monty. "Clarke's been raising hell."
Bellamy glanced at her, impressed, and Clarke shrugged a dismissive shoulder. "I couldn't let them treat us that way," she said simply. "They want us to think we're not prisoners. So no more cameras, and no more locked doors."
"Are we allowed to leave?" Bellamy asked.
She grimaced. "Well, no."
"Then we're prisoners," he said flatly.
"You’re not wrong," she replied, lowering her voice. "But for now we play nice."
"They say they're protecting us from further exposure," Jasper put in. "They don't even leave the mountain without gas masks and protective shielding."
Bellamy snorted. "The Grounders seem healthy enough."
"You were pretty sick yourself," Finn said.
Bellamy's nostrils flared with irritation, but he ignored this. Turning to Miller, he said, "How many of us are here?"
Miller shook his head. "Not all. Fifty, maybe."
"We should gather everyone," said Bellamy. "Get a definitive headcount."
"Easier said than done," Miller replied. "We don't know who's still in quarantine."
"Did Raven make it? Is she okay?" Bellamy asked suddenly, half-dreading the answer.
Finn shrugged wearily. "We’re hoping that she's just still in quarantine, but..." The way he trailed off made it clear they feared the worst.
"Oh, since they took the cameras down they've been interviewing us individually," interrupted Clarke. "Finn went yesterday. They'll probably ask for you soon."
"What did they ask you?" Bellamy said to Finn.
He shrugged. "Just basic stuff, like about my parents and favorite subjects in school, that sort of thing."
Bellamy frowned. "Seems like a useless interrogation tactic. Unless they're trying to fool us into thinking they're harmless. But what's the point? They have us at their mercy."
"Yes, and they haven't hurt us," said Finn. "At least not yet."
There was a short silence, and Bellamy's eyes wandered to their surroundings. It seemed that the lower they descended, the cleaner and more modern the compound grew. The walls on this level were blindingly white, the hallways wide and spacious. Clarke halted in front of a set of imposing double doors.
"This is the observatory," she said, pushing them open.
A girl sat in the corner with her back to the doors, and as she turned to look at them, Bellamy did a double take.
"Anya?"
She quirked a disdainful eyebrow in his direction, but didn't deign to reply.
"She hasn't left this room since her latest escape attempt," said Jasper in an undertone. "She won't even come to the dining hall. I've been bringing her food, but she won't eat it."
"Better to starve to death than be trapped like an animal in the Mountain Men's cage," said Anya, whose hearing was evidently rather acute. Bellamy couldn't entirely disagree with the sentiment.
"You should eat," said Clarke gently. "Keep up your strength for when we all get out of here, together."
"Lincoln has gone. Even he knows there's no hope for us," said Anya, tipping her head back against the wall and closing her eyes.
Bellamy's heart skipped a beat. "Lincoln? He wasn't here, was he? And Octavia?"
Anya opened her eyes reluctantly. "No. He left a message he knew I would see from here."
"What about my sister?" Bellamy demanded. "Do you have news of her?"
She shrugged. "His bewildering devotion to her doesn't appear to have changed; he took her with him."
"Where?" said Bellamy impatiently. "Took her with him where?"
Anya eyed him dispassionately for a moment. "To the coast; to Luna. They'll be safe there."
His knees felt weak. "If you're lying..."
She snorted. "I'd as soon tell you I left her in a shallow grave with her throat cut. Your sister is nothing to me. Why would I lie?"
Bellamy found this bizarrely comforting, and sagged against the wall as the tension drained abruptly out of him. "Okay."
For the first time in weeks, the knot of desperate worry in his gut unclenched slightly. He was surprised to discover that whatever he thought of Lincoln personally, he trusted him to protect Octavia. He didn't have much of a choice, after all. And he felt lightheaded with relief that she was far away from this place.
Jasper and Monty were taking turns peeking through the viewing port, and Bellamy came over to have a look. The sight of forest and sky kindled his hope and stirred his blood, and he glanced around, making eye contact with each of them in turn. Anya ignored him, but he didn't take it personally.
"We're going to get out of here," he said, quietly but forcefully. "We didn't come to the ground only to be trapped underneath it."
As they left Anya to her vigil, Miller bumped Bellamy's shoulder lightly with his own.
"I know you didn't want to be here, but I'm glad you are, man."
***
She drifted. Consciousness disgusted her but her dreams were no refuge. With no way to gauge the passage of time, Raven began to forget any other kind of existence. Sensation returned in increments and the ache that rippled outwards from the base of her spine anchored her, moment to moment. She was lulled into something like a trance, while the sound of beeping monitors and the glow of artificial lights washed over and around her.
They took the plastic out of her nose and mouth and she watched with detached horror as at least a foot of tubing was pulled from her throat. Someone held a cup and straw with a very little bit of water to her lips, and she drank eagerly, heedless of the way it felt like her throat was full of ground glass, or what else might be in the water.
She spent a long time just breathing in and out, and moving her tongue because she could. She drafted a thousand impossible escape plans and discarded them one by one, while her anger rose up and then plateaued uselessly. Biting her tongue and hoping to choke to death on the blood was the only escape plan within her reach, and she hoped fervently it wouldn't come to that. She cried with impotent rage, voiceless; and stared involuntarily into the mirror on the ceiling above, wondering if it was meant as some kind of sick joke. A particularly creative method of torture by humiliation?
She was like a marionette to them. They kept her entirely immobilized, but rotated the bizarre frame she was attached to so that sometimes she was upright, sometimes on her back, and sometimes face down. They stabbed hundreds of pins into her body that sent momentary jolts of electricity and pain through her muscles, sometimes for hours at a time, and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.
It didn't matter when her voice came back; they ignored all her questions and pleas.
"How long have I been here?" was the first thing she asked. It seemed vitally important that she find out, for in her altered state it seemed entirely plausible that it had been several centuries.
No one answered.
"Why are you treating me?" This she already knew; because she was a curiosity, an opportunity for research, a specimen to be dissected.
In desperation: "Why won't you answer me? Please! Answer me!" Her voice cracked, and one of the young doctors hesitated for a moment, but turned away.
Angry tears welled up and she cried out with pure frustration, unable even to wipe them off. She screamed until her throat was raw, while the walls absorbed the sound.
***
It was the screaming that woke him. Bellamy never slept deeply, here inside the mountain. A single month of sleeping in a tent on the ground, with the open sky above and the earth below, among the scents of the forest and the sound of the wind in the trees, was enough to erase a lifetime of breathing recycled air in the rabbit warren in the sky that was the Ark. He had a vague sense of oppressive dread every time he fell asleep inside Mount Weather's thick walls, as if the air would be squeezed out of his lungs by the pressure of the mountain all around him, and he would slip into a sleep from which he'd never wake. At first he thought the screams were part of a nightmare, but the sound continued. He threw his blanket off and slipped into the dark corridor.
Turning a corner, he found Clarke; fully dressed and with a flashlight in her hand, pale hair ghostly in the bluish light, her expression decidedly unnerved.
"Clarke! Was that you? Are you okay?"
She shook her head quickly. "I'm fine. I heard it too." She gestured with her flashlight. "I think it came from that direction."
They set off into the maze of corridors, and it was some minutes before Bellamy realised he had lost all sense of direction. "Wait," he said, catching Clarke by the upper arm. "Do you hear anything?" They both stood stock still, barely breathing. For long moments there was nothing, and then a faint cry, as if the voice was growing tired or further away, and it was difficult to tell which. "This way," Bellamy whispered, letting go her arm, and they ran this time, with a sense of urgency that needed no communicating.
They were well and truly lost by the time they caught sight of a light spilling into a distant hallway. The screams had stopped but they rushed forward regardless. Bellamy reached the door first and peered in through the hazy circular window.
Raven was pinned there like a butterfly on a plaque, bound by bolts and tubes and wires to a metal frame that surrounded her like an exoskeleton. Her head was fixed looking straight ahead, though her eyes were tightly closed. With shaking hands he opened the door, Clarke at his heels.
It felt invasive to see her this way, clad in white with her limbs outstretched like Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, nearly unrecognizable beneath the web of unidentifiable equipment, but unmistakably herself. He was overwhelmingly relieved to see her alive and hear the sound of her voice, and if he stood rooted to the spot with dizziness there in the doorway for a moment, he blamed his recent illness.
She looked up at their entrance, with an unhurried deliberation that was insolent rather than weary, and raised livid eyes to meet theirs. And even as the anger dissolved into shock at the identity of her visitors, Bellamy felt a pang of resolve upon glimpsing that banked fury. With Raven's help, they might actually stand a chance.
Though at the moment, it seemed as if she might need their help more than they needed hers. Her head had been shaved in the recent past, and was encircled by a metal ring attached with screws and bolts, around which the flesh was torn and crusted with dried blood. The juxtaposition of the ugly wounds against the gentle curve of her skull and the bold planes of her face was haunting. She was thinner even than before, so that her collarbones pressed against her skin, and she looked sallow and vengeful, dark eyes looming hugely over broad cheekbones. He approached her cautiously, as he would any wild creature held captive.
"Raven? What have they done to you?"
She hesitated, taut as a bowstring, then relaxed slightly. "Nothing. It's okay. They're treating me." It came out half-strangled, and Bellamy got the distinct impression that that wasn't the whole story.
He ran an appraising hand along one of the metal bars and raised his eyebrows at her. "Pretty kinky, Reyes. Didn't know you were into this sort of thing."
Clarke looked shocked at his insensitivity, but Raven let out a bark of startled, involuntary laughter.
"The things you don't know about me could fill a book," she retorted, still sounding hoarse and exhausted, but mostly like herself.
Clarke rushed forward with a wordless exclamation, reached out her hand and then held back, unsure. "Raven," she said, sounding near tears. "I'm so glad you're alive."
One side of Raven's mouth quirked up in a wry smile, eyes glistening. "You too." She flicked her eyes in Bellamy's direction. "Even you." She swallowed hard, then said, "Is Finn..."
"He's fine," Clarke assured her, with obvious relief at being able to impart some good news. "He's here in the mountain with us and he's fine."
Raven let out her breath noisily. "Good. That's good."
"What exactly are they doing to you?" Bellamy asked, more concerned with the matter at hand. "It looks... uncomfortable."
Raven snorted. "Understatement. It's not exactly the relaxing Earth vacation activity I'd choose for myself, but they're trying to fix me. From what I can tell it's going okay. But the doctors won't talk to me."
Clarke frowned, looking disturbed by this. "They don't talk to you? They tried that on us at first, but-"
"We had no idea you were even here," interrupted Bellamy, then turned to Clarke. "I told you we couldn't trust them!" he said violently. "It's probably crawling with cameras in here. I say we get Raven out of this room. Now."
"No!" said Raven and Clarke in unison. "I don’t think I’m very portable at the moment," Raven added, grimacing.
"We can't afford to mess up her recovery," Clarke said diplomatically. "We'll come back first thing in the morning with the others." Bellamy opened his mouth to argue further, but Clarke held up a hand to forestall him. With the air of one explaining something very simple to a particularly contrary child, she went on, "If they haven't harmed her yet, they're not likely to do anything drastic in the next six hours or so. And if they are indeed treating her, I’d risk paralyzing her permanently. It’s best to leave her here until we can form a better plan."
Bellamy looked to Raven for confirmation. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah," she said, pragmatic as ever. "I'll be fine."
He would have taken the screws out with his bitten-down fingernails and torn out all the wires then and there if she'd said the word, and she seemed to understand that.
"You can do me a favour, though," she added. "Blueprints, maps, anything and everything you can get your hands on, bring them to me. I’ve seen half of this one room. I need to know the lay of the land before I can come up with a plan to get us the hell out of here."
Clarke was nodding rapidly, eyes blazing with determination. "On it. We can go over what I’ve already collected and I’ll work on getting more. We’ll come back tomorrow."
As she turned to leave, Bellamy ran a hand very gently over Raven's head, so lightly his palm didn't even touch her skull, only the prickly-soft growth of very short hair.
"I like it," he told her. "Very punk rock."
She looked at him like he'd lost his mind, and he smiled a bit as he followed Clarke out of the room.
***
Finn came to see Raven the next morning before any of the others. She was still upright, so that at least she could look him in the eye when he entered the room. This meant she had a perfect view of the expression on his face when he saw her, like someone had sucker-punched him. He let out a hitching gasp and his face crumpled.
"Oh, God," he said, coming towards her. "Raven. I'm so sorry."
There was a lump in her throat, and she closed her eyes for a moment, willing herself not to break down. It was much more difficult to remain stoic when Finn was looking at her like he was about to be sick.
He stroked the backs of two fingers across her cheek, tears standing in his eyes. "You're going to be okay. It's okay. I'll never leave you again."
"Finn?" said Raven, very low.
His brow was furrowed with concern. "Yeah?"
"Get out of my face."
He looked as startled as if she'd slapped him, and took his hand away. A part of her wanted to beg him to hold her, but a much larger part was worn out and angry and humiliated by his pity.
"It's good to see you," she reassured him. "But you're not helping."
"I'm sorry," he repeated uselessly. "Raven, I wish I knew what to do."
"Being around is good," she said. "Just do that."
He smiled weakly. "Always."
On that precariously harmonious note, they were interrupted by the arrival of Clarke, Bellamy, and Jasper. Raven answered their questions in monosyllables, feeling emotionally hungover.
"Raven, you’re going to be all right," said Clarke. "I know it. Look at Bellamy! They healed him practically overnight." Raven glanced at his complete absence of bodily wounds, unimpressed.
"I had a cold," Bellamy objected.
"You were coughing up blood and half-dead from pneumonia," said Finn. "Clarke’s right. If there’s one thing we can depend on it seems to be their medical knowledge." He cast Raven a reassuring smile. "You’ll be up and about in no time."
"There’s no guarantee of that," said Bellamy. Clarke elbowed him, but Raven spoke up then.
"He’s got a point." They made eye contact and shared a look of grim recognition. "There are no guarantees of anything."
"Hey, where's your painting?" Jasper asked after a beat of silence, looking around. "I still think mine is the creepiest." He made a ghastly open-mouthed face and put his hands to his cheeks.
"The Scream?" Bellamy said, not making any effort to hide his amusement.
"You've heard of it?" Jasper appeared honestly horrified. "I thought it was a warning about how they planned on torturing me and driving me mad. What's on your wall?"
"Some chick with no eyebrows," replied Bellamy.
"The Mona Lisa is a marvel of sacred geometry," Clarke muttered.
Bellamy dismissed the Mona Lisa with a wave of his hand. "It's boring. And how much do you want to bet that they didn't even try to save a single Basquiat?"
"Or Remedios Varo?" Raven added.
"So how come Raven doesn't have one?" Finn asked the room at large.
Raven looked into her own eyes over his shoulder in one of the mirrors. Her room was mostly empty space, unadorned; the only thing in a frame was her.
"I have one." Her reflection's mouth curved briefly in an ironic smile. "I call it, 'Self-Portrait of a Young Woman Bound in Steel and Plastic'."
***