Chapter Text
Clarke’s not sure when she first discovered The Secret. Maybe she’s always known, deep down in her bones, that she was never quite right on the Ark. Everything was always too small, too contained, no matter how much space she had.
Her dad told her it was because they wouldn’t let her run. She remembers looking at him in confusion, because of course she’s run before; they have scheduled exercise hours everyday for children, mandated in a fitness bay where everyone is assigned a treadmill and space to burn away their excess energy.
His eyes are sad when he answers, “Yes, but you’ve never run.”
-
She’s fourteen when it starts. Clarke’s been feeling off, not sickly, just— off, all week. Her skin feels too thin and her blood runs hot, leaving her violent and mean and hungry. Her stomach turns and twists while she’s laying in the dark off her bunk, and she crawls out of bed for water to try and stem the pain, thinking vaguely, maybe its her time of the month? She hasn’t gotten her period yet, but maybe this is it—just her growing up?
She turns on the bathroom light, and shrieks, because her normally pale blue eyes are shining back, reflective, angry, and bright bright gold, and when she opens her mouth her canines are sharpened to a vicious point.
-
Her parents explain it to her in hushed tones through the metal of the bathroom door.
“We never meant to hide it from you, sweetie, it’s just—we hoped it wouldn’t pass down.” Her mother sighs, and Clarke opens the door a tiny crack to see her parent’s faces, long and drawn in the dim light of the apartment.
“It just means you’ll have to be careful. But we love you so so much, Clarke, honey, and we’ll—we’ll figure it out.” Her father is watching her, and he smiles, tight and a little nervous, before he reaches for her through the crack. He’s kneeling near the opening so he can look her in the eye when he whispers, “I always knew you were too much like me for your own good.” His eyes flash bright red and he presses her lips to her forehead, and something in her settles, the panic fading as if it never existed at all.
-
According to her dad, there are only four other wolves on the Ark, from what he can tell. One is an old man named Leo who lives in Sector 7 on Factory station, that Jake Griffin met on accident one day when running a diagnostic on the ventilation systems. The other, a woman from Mecha station, was floated last year for attacking a guard. Jake uses this as a warning for Clarke— the wolf must be controlled. No excuses.
Apparently with practice, she’ll be able to scent out other wolves as well, not that she’ll need to. Leo is aging, and with her father as the only alpha, they are the last of their kind— and when they die, Clarke knows she’ll be trapped in space, alone.
Her pack is already so small, she worries. Wells can never know, and their bloodline is fading fast. Wolves aren’t built to run alone. And, she looks around their tiny apartment, they very much aren't meant to live in cages.
-
Every month, it goes like this.
Unlike what the stories say (and there are so many stories; very few are right, but some are impressively close) the change isn’t really about the moon. It’s biological, in some ways it’s almost like, a virus of some sort, a virus turned mutation--and luckily, this means it can be contained.
They have a system.
Clarke and her father get three weeks of simple existence, going about their days easily and unencumbered: i.e, human. Then, on that singular week in the middle, the shift will surface, slowly. Her teeth will feel sore and just slightly too big in her mouth, her hands will curl inadvertently, as if she’s holding in her claws. She will dream about the smell of blood. Her voice will growl at the edges, and her temper will shorten to dangerous levels, and she can hear everything. The world will widen, until she listens to the heartbeats of the family two levels below in order to fall asleep. Her eyes sharpen to the point of perfect clarity, until she can count the freckles on a guard’s face from across the mess hall at night.
Clarke watches his pulse thump steadily during dinner, and tries not to wonder what he’d taste like.
This is around the time when Abby Griffin injects them both with a concentrated dosage of LN4, a modified sleep drug that allows Jake and Clarke to reign in the urge for an extra two days, before they succumb to the secondary tranquilizer dosage, and sleep through the shift in a locked compartment in the back of their living quarters.
Clarke has never been awake for the shift. And if everything goes they way they hope, she never will.
But then, she knows the saying. The best laid plans…
-
Jake Griffin stands in front of the airlock, arms calmly at his side. Six guards line the edges of the bay, blocking the glass doors while Abby Griffin wraps her daughter in her arms and holds on tight. Clarke could tear the hearts out of each of their chests in a blink of an eye, but she can’t. The wolf must be contained. No excuses.
“Shhh, baby, please, calm down, calm down, I love you, hold on, please,” her mother is muttering under her breath, voice choked with tears.
Clarke doesn't know what she looks like, right now, right on the cusp of a shift, barely holding her skin together, shaking and trembling with rage and panic while her mother whispers soothing words in her ears and tries not to wince in pain as Clarke’s claws bite through the sleeves of the jacket she's wearing. Jaha stands in front of them both, reading the charges in monotone, and Clarke can feel his eyes on her. She can smell the thread of fear as he watches her fall apart.
Her lips pull back over her teeth in a snarl.
Her father’s eyes find hers through the glass and he shakes his head sharply, the iris flaring red just long enough to force her to settle.
The airlock doors open with a sigh.
Clarke screams and screams and screams as her father is sucked into the black; the animal in her raging wild, rabid, panicked-- until she feels a familiar needle pierce her skin. She crumples, and right before she lets the drug take her she feels a a searing pain, like something is ripping and surging into her chest-- and then her vision whites out.
She wakes up in their quarters two days later and sees her reflection in the mirror, only to sink to her knees when blood-red eyes look back.