Amery is not supposed to be on the dropship.
She isn't one of the hundred delinquents being sent down to a radiation-soaked planet. She's just a Zero-G mechanic making some last-minute adjustments to a project nobody will tell her anything about.
I...
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✧】ix. reign in your boys【✧
[ twilight's last gleaming - his sister's keeper ]
"I CAN'T BELIEVE he threw it in a lake this shallow," Amery scoffs as she wades through the water beside Raven, the chill of the liquid soaking through the fabric of her pants. The lake is no more than a foot deep, punctuated with clusters of rocks breaking the surface, but she's grateful she thought to leave her shoes and socks on the shore. "At least dispose of your contraband where it's unretrievable."
Raven snorts as she pushes the sleeves of her jacket up to her elbows, eyes still wide with wonder at the combination of fresh air, green trees, and survival. "Well, he's not the brightest bulb."
Amery's gaze is pulled to where Finn stands talking to Clarke in the center of the water. She frowns, the urge to say something clawing at her chest, but what could she say? There's no evidence and no use in hurting her friend without it. Instead, Amery lets herself look back at her longtime friend, the one who worked alongside her in Zero-G, urged her on with bites of sarcasm and constructive criticism, held her when her parents and Keaton were gone.
"I missed you," Amery confides, scanning beneath the animated lake surface for the telltale glints of metal, unable to meet Raven's eyes as the words slip out.
"God, I missed you too," Raven says softly, nudging Amery with her shoulder. "Next time you sneak on a ship to earth, invite a girl, yeah?"
Amery grins, daring to glance at her, the girl's gaze just as penetrating and intense as it always was. "Promise."
"Mer!" Keaton shouts, and she glances to where he and Monty are standing submerged knee-deep several yards away, pointing eagerly at some weeds. Amery rolls her eyes and turns to Raven apologetically.
"Go," the girl smirks, jutting her chin in the boys' direction. "Reign in your boys."
With a smile playing on her lips at Raven's words—her boys, she had called them—Amery crosses the distance between them, careful not to slip on any loose rocks as they shift with the movement of the water under her feet.
"You find drugs or something, Green?" she asks as she approaches, only half-joking.
"You wish. Look at this wacky seaweed," Keaton answers instead, snickering. "It's red."
Amery blinks, entirely unimpressed. "You made me come over here to look at seaweed?"
"Red seaweed!" Keaton exclaims, as if it makes all the difference.
"This is the stuff we used to heal Jasper," Monty explains, pulling some up by the roots with one hand and pushing strands of dark hair from his eyes with the other. "Gonna stock up on some. Honestly, nobody needs to risk that again." He shudders, earning a sympathetic smile from Amery.
