• •

CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR;

THE FATHER WOUND.

• •

       LIFE WAS NOT KIND. Haven had tasted its cruelty, felt it carve deep, seething wounds into her soul, yet somehow, in the midst of its onslaught . . . she stood. Not unscathed, but standing nonetheless. Life was not kind, and the air at Camp Jaha hummed with the riotous tension of impending war—another blood-soaked conflict poised to tear apart what little remained of their fragile peace. And yet, even as the storm loomed . . . the group had managed to achieve the unthinkable.

        Against all odds, they had wrestled Lincoln back from the edge of mortality, purged the Reaper drug from his veins, and saved his life. It wasn't a victory, not by any grand measure, but they had successfully fulfilled their end of Lexa's bargain. Clarke was now in negotiations, sealing the fragile truce that would, with any luck . . . finally lead them to breach Mount Weather and rescue their friends.

        It was a fragile, fickle thing, this hope.

        But it was theirs.

        Begrudgingly, Haven had refrained joining the follow-up meeting with the Commander, stepping aside to let Clarke take the lead in negotiations and reveal Dahlia's alignment as Lexa's infiltrator. The time for her recklessness had passed, and the thought of dragging her mother's name into the fray once more was enough to suffocate her. Merely speaking of Dahlia had become an unbearable burden, each utterance a leaden, bitter weight on Haven's tongue, sapping her strength.

        Additionally, Clarke had sorta, kind of, strongly hinted that Haven's presence might not be the best idea—especially given the last time they met with Lexa, Haven had daringly twisted the Commander's own blade against her.

        Haven half-believed that Lexa might have respected the move. 

        But whatever.

        In contrast, when Haven had recounted the audacious act to Bellamy, it was as if she had forced him to feel every emotion humanly possible, all at once. His eyebrows had rocketed upwards, scaling the heights of his forehead in sheer disbelief, before they dipped in a moment of recognition, because . . . of course she would. But just as swiftly, his face constricted with fear—fear for her, for the delicate balance she had nearly shattered, for the consequences that surely could have been disastrous.

Eventually, his features had softened, and swathed within his wide, brown eyes . . . a flicker of something deeper emerged.

Pride.

        And then, as if no other response could ever fully capture the enormity of his feelings, he kissed her—swiftly, passionately—a silent ode to her stupid bravery sealed upon her lips.

       Now . . . back at camp, they sat together against the bulk of Alpha's exterior, their spines pressed against the frigid metal, legs tangled carelessly in the dirt. Fog curled around them in a thick, murky veil, its darkness stretching on and on, infinite and impenetrable. Despite the eerie quietude, a semblance of peace pervaded—the kind of fragile tranquility that hung in the air when danger lurked just beyond sight, signaled by the presence of Grounders still haunting the perimeters of Camp Jaha.

Being back inside the dropship, though, had felt like stepping into the seventh circle of hell.

Haven could still feel the weight of it, the oppressive violence of their former home clinging to her bone marrow, as if the walls themselves throbbed with the residual echoes of past agonies—every harrowing scream, every violent death, reverberating through the hollow metal. The dropship had become a necropolis, haunted by the specters of battles waged with blood and flame. Yet, in its cruel embrace . . . it had always felt like home.

Not with the warmth of comfort, but in the way only suffering can—rooting itself deeply within, binding a place to your soul through the intimacy of shared agony.

But here, swadled beneath the blanket of fog and sky, far away from that suffocating cage of steel and death . . . Camp Jaha felt like a small mercy.

Haven could tell that Bellamy felt it, too.

She knew that Bellamy had been itching to leave that godforsaken third floor long before they departed, the tension in his body coiled so tightly that it was a wonder he hadn't come apart at the seams. Now, breathing in the vast, open air, she watched the burdens begin to dissolve from his shoulders, his breath no longer coming in shallow, controlled bursts but in slow, even rhythms. The frigid atmosphere kissed their skin, sharp and bracing, but it was a relief—a reminder that they were alive, alive, alive . . . and together.

        He hadn't let go of her hand once.

        Haven half suspected it was part strategy, a tactile reassurance that she could still feel the warmth of Bellamy's touch pulsing through her injured arm—which, she could. The other half was likely for his own anchoring, a lifeline to steady himself in the tumult of their return. Throughout their trek back to camp, he had been devastatingly quiet, so she filled the silence, chattering about trivialities and nonsense—anything to draw a weary smile across his features and alleviate the burden of his thoughts.

Talking to the boy she loved was as natural as breathing.

And it appeared her efforts had slowly woven their magic—Bellamy's worry lines had softened, his breathing had evened out, and when she swatted at a spider web clinging to her locs, he had laughed. The sound, so rare and unburdened, stirred something deep within her chest, a warmth that spread through her like wildfire in the cold. It was rich, full of life, and for a fleeting, transcendent moment—it felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from both of them, the shadows that clung to their shoulders dissolving into the spellbinding melody of his laughter.

It was healing. It was everything.

       But when his laugh stopped—sudden, abrupt, slicing through the air like a guillotine—Haven already knew why.

         Abby was there.

She drifted through the distant crowd as a ghost, her presence cold and spectral, weaving between the Guard procession like a figure from another time.

Truthfully, the woman's presence was indistinguishable from a black fucking hole, voraciously devouring the fragile peace, sucking the warmth from the night, and leaving only glacial, suffocating dread in her wake. She was more than a mere reminder of the past—she was the past itself, twisted and decayed, relentlessly clawing its way into the present, seeking to assert its dominance once more.

"...Can I shoot her?"

Haven cast Bellamy an uneasy stare. "Are you asking me for permission—?"

Bellamy merely shrugged.

"Not now," Haven answered lightly, shifting their intertwined fingers away from the cold steel of his gun, ensuring he didn't act impulsively. "Whenever the stars align... you'll have to be slick about it."

Which . . . was true.

Plotting murder was fucking insane.

        As much as Haven harbored a deep, burning desire to see the devil herself fall—had even vowed, in the darkest corners of her mind, that she would be the one to end Abby with her own hands—reality tethered her. Abby was still Clarke's mother, and Clarke was their friend. They couldn't simply just . . . execute her mom on a whim, not without risking the harsh repercussions of the Exodus Charter, nor without Clarke's consent. Yet, observing the frost that had crystallized between Clarke and her mother since their harrowing escape from Mount Weather . . . it seemed Clarke was starting to wish that Abby had stayed dead, too.

         It was an awful thought.

         But maybe Haven was simply projecting.

"I can be slick," Bellamy huffed, his fingers tightening around hers, a subtle pulse of tension in the gesture. His gaze finally broke away from Abby's haunting silhouette, though the shadows in his eyes lingered. "Slick is my middle name."

Haven raised an eyebrow, the ghost of a smile flickering on her lips. "I thought it was Augustus?"

Bellamy shook his head. "...That's my first middle name."

"You have two—?"

"You don't—?"

"You know I don't." Haven's smirk met his, their exchange a gentle sparring of wits, quick and spirited. Heat crept up her cheeks as Bellamy tilted his head, his curls cascading over his eyes in that soft, boyish manner that inevitably disarmed her. "Grey definitely isn't as cool as Augustus, though. At least yours has some significance."

Bellamy frowned. "I love your name."

        "Meh," Haven exhaled, shrugging her shoulders with casual indifference. "Haven Grey is kind of an oxymoron if you think about it. Sanctuary and then...nothingness." Her voice softened to a wry murmur. "Dahlia picked my middle name."

        Nothingness.

        Bellamy felt the word lash through him like a cruel strike of lightning. He understood that not all names carried meaning, that sometimes they were just words strung together. But for Haven—Haven Grey Smith—to equate any facet of herself to nothingness . . . it set his blood on fire.

As if grey were something so hollow. As if grey wasn't the sacred in-between, the limbo where shadow married light and the world balanced on the precipice of change. As if grey wasn't the hue of the sky before the storm unleashed its fury, before the heavens opened and the world was baptized in rain. As if grey wasn't the luster of the moon's silver glow that defied the darkness, lighting the way through the blackest night. As if it wasn't the heartbeat before a battle cry, the quiet inhale before creation burst into being . . . the cusp where dreams took form and rose from the ashes of possibility.

        Grey was the universe in motion.

        She was the space where worlds collided and were reborn, the cosmos in flux, the flicker of possibility before the dawn . . . the spark of more.

        . . . Nothingness.

        Bellamy gritted his teeth.

"She told you that's what it meant—?" Bellamy asked, shaking his head almost immediately, as if hearing his own question made him realize how foolish it sounded. Of course her mother would twist something beautiful into nothingness. "Y'know what... nevermind." His voice softened as he let the thought go, his hand still clasped around hers. "Tell me who picked your first name."

Haven softened, at that.

Bellamy always wanted to know more.

Always.

"My dad did... allegedly," Haven admitted, the words slipping out with a tinge of disbelief, as if Dahlia's claims could never be trusted without a grain of salt—or fifty. "I don't think I've ever met a dad from the Ark who actually stuck around. Not besides Miller's." She almost laughed. "They make babies then run for the fuckin' hills."

        Bellamy grimaced. "I guess it tracks. The ones who did stay were always apart of the Alpha families," he mused wryly, his lips twitching into a humorless smirk. With a sudden burst of energy, he lifted their entwined fingers into the air, as if declaring some twisted victory. "We got the orphaned end of the shit-stick."

        Although his words were laced with dark humor . . . Haven knew there was an aching truth beneath them, one that seethed like a bruise they both carried. The kids of Alpha had everything—privilege, status, fathers who stayed and sheltered them beneath a system that bent to their needs. They were cradled in safety, protected by power, their lives woven with certainty. But the rest—the ones from the lesser stations—were discarded like debris, left to wither in the shadow of Alpha's gleaming superiority.

Haven shook her head. "Brats."

        "Can't blame 'em," Bellamy admitted lowly, tilting his head back against the satellite's wall,  observing the stars twinkling overhead with an odd, almost wistful fondness. "The kids, at least. Two loving parents have that effect. Ours'll be brats too."

        A beat passed.

        And then . . .

        "Ours—?"

        Bellamy's eyes practically bulged out of his goddamn head. "Uh...." His body jerked upright, scrambling from his spot against the wall, his next words spewing out in a chaotic rush. "I-I meant down the line. Like, way, way, way, way down. Only hypothetically. I was joking. Half-joking, kind of—? Not literally. Not unless you wanted—?"

        The rest of his babbling died as Haven kissed him on the mouth.

Lifting her hand to Bellamy's neck, her fingers threaded through the soft, unruly curls at the nape, careful not to graze the bandage from Lincoln's bite. She kissed him with a force that silenced his floundering in an instant, a kiss both abrupt and astoundingly tender, like the weight of everything they'd never said had come crashing down all at once. Breathless, fierce, and impossibly fragile, her lips moved against his with an intensity that felt like she was on the verge of shattering . . . as though she were suddenly trying not to cry.

How could she deserve him?

        How could she ever possibly deserve him?

The weight of Bellamy's words permeated every marrow of her being, sinking far more deeply than he'd intended. It wasn't just idle talk. There was a distant, unspoken longing in the way he said it, as though he were truthfully imagining a future they could barely touch—a life beyond the wreckage, a place where love wasn't a fleeting chapter, but the foundation of something enduring.

        The stars above hung cold and aloof, as if to mock their smallness, casting their celestial light on a world that had shown them nothing but bloodshed and cruelty. But Bellamy had spoken with the conviction of someone who refused to bow to fate, who believed—no, demanded—that they could defy the darkness, to fight for their sliver of eternity, at all costs.

        As if he wanted it.

. . . As if he knew they could create something whole.

        Once Haven withdrew from the kiss, Bellamy pressed his lips to her temple in a lingering, tender gesture before lowering his forehead to hers. One of his hands settled gently on her shoulder brace, while his other, caught between their bodies in the soft dirt, clasped hers tighter. He squeezed, as if to capture the moment, to memorize the rhythm of her heartbeat, the rise and fall of her breath, the quiet hum of her presence—over and over, engraving each sensation into his memory for eternity.

Haven broke the stillness first.

        "Let's live til' tomorrow first, okay?" she whispered, her lip catching between her teeth as she dared a quick glance upward—only to find Bellamy's lids closed, as if he were still savoring the quiet between them. "Plus... kids are like, a huge request from the man who still hasn't asked me to be his girlfriend."

        Bellamy scoffed. "You're acting like I didn't overhear what you said yesterday."

Haven blinked. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I heard you," Bellamy insisted, abruptly lifting his forehead from hers to pin her beneath an incredulous stare. "Loud and fuckin' clear, angel. My boyfriend, you said—right when you had your knife at Nyko's neck."

        Haven went rigid.

         . . . Fuck.

Fire danced in Bellamy's eyes, a flicker of his usual smugness weaving through deeper currents, challenging, almost daring Haven to contradict him. His gaze was unrelenting, the teasing edge honed to a fine point, as if he had been biding his time, waiting for the perfect moment to confront her with her own words. He wasn't merely calling her on her shit—he was pushing, testing her, making sure she felt the gravity of her own admission . . . as if the truth had settled between them long before she was ready to voice it aloud.

. . . Not yet!

        Not when it was too fun to fuck with him.

"I think you're delusional," she teased.

        "You're a terrible liar," Bellamy shot back, lifting his hand from her shoulder to knowingly tap the left side of her jawbone. "Your jaw always ticks."

         Motherfucker.

        "Does not!"

"It literally just did."

"Did not!" Haven retorted, her voice sharp with indignation even as she felt the traitorous tick of her jaw betraying her—yet again. Her irritation only flared as Bellamy's lips curled into a triumphant smirk. "You're just making shit up. What if I had TMJ or something? Not my fault—"

        "Shh." Bellamy's lips swifly descended on hers, tender but deliberate, silencing her protests in an instant. "Let me believe it."

        "But—!"

        Before Haven could even marshal her thoughts into a coherent response—Bellamy had already yanked her into his lap with a sudden, possessive tug. The world spun wildly off-kilter as her body meshed with his, and before she could react, he was everywhere, everywhere, everywhere—his mouth peppering her skin with rapid-fire, fervent kisses. His affection crashed over her like a scarlet tide, almost incapacitating—each kiss pressed to her cheek, her nose, her forehead with reckless abandon. She writhed against him, futilely attempting to squirm away, laughter and feigned protest blurring together . . . but he only clutched her tighter.

        "Bellamy—!"

        "Sorry." His smug lips trailed the curve of her jaw, inching dangerously close to the treacherous spot that had just given her away. "Can't hear you."

        "You're un-fucking-believable—"

         "Shut up." The divinity of her laughter, holy and unrestrained, rumbled sweetly against his mouth—fueling Bellamy further as he littered the soft skin of her throat. "You wouldn't have me any other way."

Haven weakly managed to swat at his chest. "I can kick your ass!"

"True." Bellamy lifted his head from the crook of her neck, his chest rising and falling as if he'd just surfaced from the deepest depths of the ocean, theatrically gasping for air. "But you aren't."

        Before Haven could muster a retort—he stole another kiss from her cheek, and plunged back down to resume his reckless trail of affection.

        "—Yet!" Haven finished. "There's people—"

        "Don't care," he rasped shamelessly. "Let 'em watch. Maybe they'll learn something."

        "MOVEMENT AT THE GATE!"

        At the sound of David's voice ripping through their shimmering spell of warmth, the duo tore themselves apart, swiftly disentangling their bodies and shooting to their feet. Bellamy fluidly swung his rifle over his shoulder with one hand, grasped Haven's with the other, their fingers lacing together as he lured her into motion.

         Together . . . they bolted towards the distant gate, the world funneling to the rhythmic pound of their feet against the earth and the unknown threat looming amidst in the shadows.

After a tense moment of scrutiny through the scope of his gun, Bellamy raised his voice to an authoritative shout. "HOLD YOUR FIRE!" he barked, lowering his gun and signaling for the other guards at their posts to follow suit. "She's back! Open the gate!"

        "Power up the gate!"

        "Roll-out positions!"

        "Stay ready!"

        Amidst the swirl of movement within Camp Jaha's walls—Haven's pulse slowed as her eyes locked onto Clarke's figure, emerging ghostlike from the suffocating fog. Flanking her were two warriors on horseback, their torches cleaving fiercely through the murk, casting unnerving, dancing shadows across the thick mist. They rode with an eerie authority, as if dispatched directly from the Commander's own hand, guiding Clarke not as allies . . . but as omens.

Haven squinted to discern their features.

But what greeted her wasn't flesh and blood—it was bone.

Grim masks, or perhaps the very skulls of the long dead, leered out from beneath the torchlight, their hollow sockets staring unblinkingly forward.

"Shut the gate!"

As Clarke slipped safely through the confines of Camp Jaha, Bellamy commandingly echoed her directive, ensuring the guards acted swiftly. The gate swung shut with a definitive click of metal, sealing them from the murky world beyond. Bellamy then turned to Haven, his hand unrelentingly guiding her toward the center of the camp . . . where a crowd of onlookers had already begun to form.

        Finn was the first to reach Clarke's side, his movements marked by frantic urgency, closely followed by Abby and Raven. Haven and Bellamy arrived last, taking their places on the fringes of the hastily formed circle. Though they remained at the periphery, they could feel the dread pooling thick in the air—a shared pulse that echoed within them all like a death knell.

Tension was tenfold.

"Clarke," Finn breathed. "You okay—?"

Clarke shook her head, urgently guiding Finn further into the shadows, peering over her shoulder to ensure the Grounders hadn't noticed him. "You can't be out here."

"What did she say?" Abby asked, stepping forward to encircle her daughter in a brief, stinging hug—an embrace that Clarke visibly shrank from. Her voice was thick with panic. "Is there a chance for a truce?"

Clarke nodded. "Yes."

Haven felt her gut sink.

        Slowly, her eyes drifted to Clarke, studying her closely . . . too closely. Clarke was there, but not truly—her eyes, dulled by an unseen torment, stared into an expanse that no one else could reach. The light that once danced beneath her skin had been drained. There was no trace of the relief that should have come after the meeting, no exhale of peace.

Instead . . . there was an emptiness, a black hole where something darker had swallowed all hope.

It was as if the truce had been nothing but a cruel mirage, or worse—it had crumbled into ruin, leaving Clarke trapped in the wreckage of promises shattered in silence, wounds festering behind lips sealed too tight.

Something wasn't right.

Haven could feel it.

"Clarke..." she began lowly. "What's wrong?"

. . . Nothing.

Haven swallowed hard against lump lodging itself in her throat. "Was it my mom—?" she asked shakily, releasing her hand from Bellamy's as she dared a tentative step closer. "Did her part in this... fuck us over? Is Lexa—"

"No," Clarke interrupted—though her voice was distant, hollow, as if each word were being forced out from a place too insidious to fathom. "Lexa, she...she wants..."

Finn's lips were bloodless. "Clarke—?"

        "They want you," Clarke admitted at last. "If we want a truce—we have to give them Finn."

The silence that followed wasn't merely quiet—it was cataclysmic, apocalyptic, surging through the air like a final breath before the world collapsed.

        The very essence of the night seemed to congeal around them, shadows coiling tighter, an inky blackness devouring every sliver of light. Stars fled, the moon cowered, leaving behind a suffocating void where even darkness dared not linger. The ground beneath their feet vibrated, a low, ominous hum, as if the earth sensed the doom creeping closer, closer, closer—daring them to resist, to fight against the cruel inevitability.

But the trees . . .

        The trees refused to sway.

        They were the stoic witnesses to the unfolding horror, branches poised as the outstretched fingers of eighteen specters . . . pointing unflinchingly to the truth already written in the stars.

        "What the hell are you talking about?"

        Raven was the first to breach the silence, standing rigid as iron beside Clarke, but her eyes . . . her eyes burned with something Haven recognized all too well. It was the scalding, unrelenting fire that Raven Reyes reserved exclusively for Finn Collins—a flame that couldn't be extinguished by fear or reason. It wasn't merely hot—it was molten, destruction embodied, one that threatened to burn the world to ash rather than let fate stake its claim.

Clarke's words were devastatingly quiet. "That's their offer."

"That's not an offer," Raven shot back.

"Sure sounds like an offer to me."

         Orion's words, though spoken with a casual flippancy, landed with the force of a hammer strike. Her maneuver through the crowd was breezily confident, effortlessly unbothered, elbowing past the physical bodies and the moral hesitations that entangled the group as if they were mere inconveniences. Squeezing between Haven and Bellamy—chin high, arms crossed—she exuded a presence that was both seen and felt.

        "I say do it," she reiterated.

Raven shot her a scathing glare.

Finn slowly shook his head. "It's a punishment for what happened at the village," he whispered, almost to himself, his knuckles bone-white with realization. "...Blood for blood."

Haven and Bellamy exchanged a private, unspoken glance of understanding.

        In a perfect world, where justice was pristine and unsullied, blood would never be paid with more blood. Disputes would be settled in courts of reason, not on battlefields soaked in vengeance. But this wasn't that world. This was Earth—a fractured, unforgiving wasteland where survival penned its own laws. The Grounders had lived here, bled here, long before the hundred ever fell from the sky. They had carved their existence into the marrow of this broken planet, building lifelong systems that had endured, even if those customs were steeped in scarlet.

        An eye for an eye. A life for a life.

        But . . . this wasn't just a life for a life.

        Lexa's demand was disturbingly restrained . . . one life, despite Finn's hands being stained with the blood of eighteen.

       The twisted logic of it wasn't lost on Haven. Perhaps she had acclimated to the harshness of Earth's soil quicker than she'd thought. Perhaps the incessant shadow of death had etched itself so deeply into her being that the calculus of existence—of who should live or die—had dulled to a distant echo, felt only when fate demanded its due. Perhaps she had morphed into someone colder, evolved or devolved, into someone straddling the fading echoes of the Council's decrees and the severe judgments of the Grounders.

        Because, in some grim way, Lexa's offer seemed . . . merciful.

        Abby shook her head. "If we refuse—?"

        "...They attack," Clarke answered morbidly.

        "I SAY WE GIVE HIM UP!"

        Haven's heart lurched as she cast a startled glance over her shoulder, her eyes colliding with a vision that clenched her spine with icy dread—an ominous crowd, swelling in size, faces hardened with the grit of people who had tasted survival and were ready to sacrifice anything to keep it. The onlookers had multiplied in mere seconds, the tense energy spreading with the ferocity of a wildfire. These weren't just bystanders; they were the souls who had fallen from the sky aboard the Ark, now circling the teenagers like a flock of vultures, eyes gleaming with a hunger that bordered on something darker . . . more primal.

        "Get rid of him!"

        "Yeah! Float his ass!"

        "HEY!" Byrne's voice cracked like a whip, slicing through the air as she abandoned her post near the gate. Her movements were quick, a desperate attempt to roll back the scarlet tide of fury, pushing against the crowd with outstretched arms. "Easy, people! Easy!"

The crowd hesitated, recoiling ever so slightly . . . but only for a heartbeat.

"GIVE HIM TO THE GROUNDERS!"

Before Haven could even register his presence—an enraged man stalked towards the group, shoulder-checking her right arm before bulldozing directly towards Finn.

Raven erupted into a snarl. "Back off!"

The next chain of events unfolded like a cascade of fucking dominoes—fast, tumultuous, and inevitable. Raven slammed her hands into the man's shoulders, her strength fueled by pure, unfiltered rage. The blow sent him stumbling, careening harshly into Bellamy's chest. Bellamy grunted, caught off guard, but before the man could regain his footing—and before Bellamy could pummel his teeth in—Haven was there, swift as a shadow, seizing the stranger by the collar and yanking him back with all the force she could muster.

         For a split second, the behemoth of a man was stalled, swaying between the push and pull of bodies . . . but it wasn't enough.

        He lunged for Finn's throat.

        . . . Again.

"I said—BACK OFF!"

        Raven shifted to pounce.

         . . . Again.

        "Hey—Raven!" Clarke frantically grasped the Reyes girl by the shoulders, seeking to steady her, gradually soothing the protective instincts caged beneath her skin. "Raven, listen to me," she urged lowly. "Nothing is gonna happen to him. I promise—okay?"

        Raven nodded. Jerkily.

But Haven could still glimpse the shimmer of unshed tears glossing over Raven's wild eyes—visible even over the shoulder of the boy who divided them.

"I'm not dying for him!" A fervent declaration cut through the momentary lull, piercing the quiet with venomous intensity. It came from a man not taller than Haven, yet his build was broader, muscles coiled with brute strength. "Spacewalker burned three months of oxygen from the Ark! We should've floated him a long time ago!" His voice was a raw, guttural bark as he jabbed a thick finger toward Finn's motionless form. "Throw him out!"

        A smattering of agreement ensued.

        "Real," Orion huffed beneath her breath, raising her hands defensively as Haven cast her a scolding glare. "What? He has a point!"

        Haven shook her head. "Not the time."

        And then . . .

        The man dove for Finn's shoulders.

        "BACK! OFF!"

        Like a live wire finally snapping, Raven burst from Clarke's hold, her last vestiges of control splintering explosively. She launched herself with feral abandon into the man, her entire being a weapon of raw, unchecked fury. He staggered under the sudden impact, barely regaining his balance as Raven's fist carved a brutal arc through the air, connecting with a sickening crunch against his nose . . . then slamming into his jaw.

        "Raven! Raven—HEY!"

        Before Raven's fist could fly again—Haven charged into the fray, throwing her arms around her torso and hauling her backward just as the guards surged towards them.

        "Birdy!" Haven shouted, futilely straining to contain the inferno of Raven's wrath. A sharp hiss of agony escaped her throat as Raven jerked wildly against her shoulder brace—but she bit it back, locking her arms tighter around Raven, refusing to let go. "C'mon! Get your shit together!"

        "Don't touch me!" Raven seethed. "LET ME AT HIM!"

"Stop, Raven!"

        Just as Byrne fought to steady Haven with the flailing, furious girl in her grasp—Raven's world narrowed to a single, blinding point of rage. In a swift, desperate pivot, she channeled every iota of her pent-up fury and adrenaline into one explosive movement. She swung, throwing her entire body weight behind her clenched fist . . . and slammed it squarely into Byrne's face.

Haven staggered backwards.

        Well . . . fuck.

        The curse was a bitter whisper swallowed by the cacophony of chaos, lost in the suffocating swell of bodies crashing around her. Shoved and jostled, Haven fought for balance, each breath a ragged gasp as she was swallowed whole by the human mob. Her muscles screamed in protest as she pivoted desperately, seeking an escape, but the sea of flesh and fury surged back, hurling her into the writhing mass once more.

        Through the madness, Haven caught a fleeting glimpse of Raven—a flash of whipping ponytail, gleaming with feral, untamed rage. Two guards had her, each gripping an arm, struggling to restrain her as she fought against them.

        But Haven's heart sputtered as she saw him—the same man as earlier, lunging forward again . . . this time aiming for Raven's thrashing feet.

        "HEY!" Orion barked. "Get off her, cunt!"

        Surging through the chaos, Orion bulldozed a path to its epicenter, her eyes unflinchingly locked on her target. With a swift, vengeful swoop, she seized the man by the scruff of his shirt—snatching him away just before his fingers could leech onto Raven's boots.

        He snarled at her incredulously. "Who the hell are you calling a cunt, Vincetta—?"

        "Who's it look like—?!" Orion retorted, thrusting the man back into the seething crowd with a ferocious shove against his chest. "You, CUNT!"

        "Watch it!"

        "—C-U-N-T—!"

        "Shut the fuck up—!"

        "—CUNT, CUNT, CUNT, CUNT—!"

"Your crazy ass should've been floated too!" he spat venomously, clawing his way back to the forefront, spit arcing from his sneering lips as he thrust a condemning finger toward Orion. "You murdered your own stepdad! Larson was my friend—!"

The words died on his lips as Orion's fist catapulted forward—her knuckles crashing into his mouth with the force of a goddamn meteor.

Now . . . hell had officially broken loose.

Enraged beyond reason, Haven tore her way through the mass of bodies, shoving aside everything and everyone in sight. Around her, the air seethed with the humid energy of conflict, sudden and fierce as tempers flared among the throng. Sweat brewed on her brow; the heat smothered, the closeness of the crowd making her skin clammy, her breaths emerging as searing gusts. By the time she had shouldered her way to the forefront once more—Raven and Orion were already being dragged into the stockade by Major Bryne and Major Cordellia, huffing and puffing . . . yet begrudgingly surrendering.

However . . . that wasn't Haven's target.

Not now. Not yet.

She tasted a whisper of relief—slender, yet potent enough to tether her rage—seeing Raven and Orion in the custody of female guards. Bryne and Cordellia were harsh, but they abided by the Guard Code, and Haven trusted that Abby would free the girls soon. After all, the Chancellor's power thrived on the borrowed breaths that Haven generously allowed her. If Abby dared to defy her, if she hesitated for even a moment to release the girls . . . Haven would force her hand, or bite it the fuck off.

So, Haven kept moving, her eyes cleaving past the waning frenzy and the thinning throng of bodies. She locked onto her target with seething, lethal precision—the familiar figure of the man that had the audacity to taunt Orion.

Now . . . he staggered away, clutching his bloodied nose, seeking to vanish into the shadows like some craven wretch—a pitiful semblance of a man reduced to nothing more than a trembling coward.

        What a fucking idiot.

He wanted to light the match and then cower in the darkness? Believed he could spout cruel bullshit and then scurry off like some . . . rat? Was his mind so deluded to believe that Haven was merely another tempest he could stir, hurl venom towards, and then slink away, his tail tucked in cowardice?

        . . . He'd need more than luck to escape her.

        Thundering around the corner of Alpha's hull, Haven tore through the night, her every footfall pounding out the prelude to his destruction. She did not soften her approach, did not grant him the mercy of ignorance—she wanted him to feel her presence, to feel the weight of his own doom pressing down on him. His eyes widened, terror flickering like the last gasps of a dying flame as he watched her approach, each breath shallow, choked with fear.

        She reached for him unflinchingly, fingers clawing towards his throat, poised to drag him headlong into the abyss he had summoned—

        And then . . . Bellamy struck.

        Emerging like a shadow wrought by vengeance itself—Bellamy's hand effortlessly clamped around the man's throat. Lifting him from the ground, he flung him to the earth with the ferocity of an avalanche, the impact echoing like a curse across the land, as if the planet itself shunned the man's vile essence. Bellamy's boot then crashed down on his ribs, the sickening crunch of bone splintering beneath his weight drowned out by the agonized howl that followed.

        But Bellamy didn't flinch.

        He didn't even look down.

        Instead, the Blake boy casually pivoted towards Haven, his expression as serene and undisturbed as if he had merely swatted away a stray leaf.

        "Hav," he began softly, tender hands reaching out to realign the straps of her shoulder brace, jostled in the earlier tumult. "Are you hurt?"

        "No," Haven bit out the words through clenched teeth. "Move."

        Bellamy's gaze slid to the man crumpled on the ground, a pitiful mound of pain and fury, clutching his shattered ribs, spitting curses like wretched venom. Then, his eyes knowingly shifted back to her—a grenade with the pin pulled, fury barely contained, poised to detonate.

        "Don't have to tell me twice."

He stepped aside, the path clear, an unspoken agreement passing between them. But before Haven could fully unleash her wrath, Bellamy lunged, seizing the man by the scruff of his jacket and wrenching him upright. He forced the man's spine flush against his chest, one arm clamped around his throat, the other gripping his shoulder like a vice, immobilizing him in place . . . a human sacrifice at the altar of Haven's knuckles.

        "Go ahead," Bellamy commanded. "I'll hold him still."

        Haven soared her fist into the man's face.

        Unflinchingly. Wildly. Murderously.

        Again. Again. Again.

• •

[ content warning: brief, inexplicit mention of S/A
not graphic — but could potentially be triggering for some.
i love you. ]

• •

ORION JAE VINCETTA HAD A LONG, LONG LIST OF THINGS THAT MADE HER ANGRY. At the pinnacle of that list, reigning like some festering disease—was Finn fucking Collins. He was a blight. An insufferable contradiction of his own making, a walking calamity wrapped in boyish charm and empty promises, his soft eyes hiding the rot within. His very existence seemed designed to infuriate her, to push every one of her buttons until she was a live wire, sparking with rage. Next, of course, came the inconsequential annoyances: insects skittering where they had no right to be, thunderstorms that roared too loud, Blake's heavy-footed stomps echoing through the wilderness . . . and the guilt that twisted in her gut for mocking him.

These were small things, absurd things, the kind of irritations that should have been swept away as cobwebs and dismissed with a wry smile.

But Orion had never been one to simply let go.

No—the Vincetta girl hoarded every slight, every grievance, clutching them as if they were lifelines, as if the sheer force of her fury was the only thing anchoring her to this wretched world. Again, and again—she was the first to fly off the handle, the first to throw a punch, the first to erupt into seething rage at the mere whisper of an inconvenience. To her, every offense was monumental, a wound that festered and spread until her entire being was plagued with it . . . because if it wasn't gargantuan, it meant nothing.

        And Orion simply couldn't allow herself to feel nothing, knowing all too well that if she ever let herself slip into that abyss, even for the slightest of moments—she would plummet, and there would be no end to the fall.

Rage was better than emptiness.

Wrath was better than loneliness.

Envy was better than insecurity.

Orion refused to be a hollow vessel, an empty shell drifting through the currents of an uncaring world. She had sworn to herself—etched it into her very bones—that she would never dial down the enormity of her emotions ever again. For three agonizing years, she had run on nothing but the relentless churn of fury, the venomous bite of spite, and the stubborn will to survive. The Sky Box had attempted to break her, Earth had tried to bury her alive—but she held on, driven by the blind hope to see her mother's face again. Her rage was her lifeblood, the inferno that kept her alive, the force that filled the yawning void within her and almost made her feel whole.

        Except . . . it was a lie; a beautiful lie.

        Her rage was eroding her.

        Slowly. Murderously. Silently.

        With each volcanic eruption of anger, the act became more arduous, the returns diminishing. Flinging insults and scoffing at the repercussions no longer eased the roiling cesspool of Orion's psyche. She was beginning to feel the relentless fatigue; the switchblade sharpness of her tongue and the once lustrous, vengeful bite of her canines now felt like unwieldy burdens, too heavy for her weary mouth to sustain. Her ribs felt too frail. Her skin stretched taut over the dark, coiled beast of her rage, trembling as if it could barely contain the unholy violence thrashing beneath. She was petrified that the next slight, the next whisper of provocation, would be the final crack—the one that would shatter her completely.

        But Orion had built this rage.

        It was her fortress, her resplendent armor—magnificently sinister and wicked to its steel core. This armor was no mere protective layer, but a bulletproof vest that cocooned her, casting her shadow long and mighty across the ground as a monarch upon an unassailable throne. It served as a grim proclamation: STAY! BACK! DON'T COME TOO CLOSE, or be scorched by the venom she'd unleash, crushed beneath the wrath of her clenched fist . . . or, more hauntingly, catch the faintest glimpse of the weeping little girl pounding her fists against the glass.

        Orion had built this.

        She forged it for herself, brick by agonizing brick, and she was damn proud of it—but fuck, it was . . . exhausting. The weight of her own armor, the endless vigilance, the ceaseless fury—it was wearing her down to the bone. She no longer knew where to place her rage to rest. The warning tape seemed welded to her seething ribcage, and she didn't know how to disarm the militia of fury that patrolled her every corner of her mind, because without it . . . what would she have left?

What was truly hers?

What part of her remained untarnished by the brutal savagery of Earth? What had escaped the scars inflicted by Grounders' relentless assaults and the endless rivers of bloodshed? What had shred of innocence not been defiled by the hands of the very guardian meant to be her protector?

        Sometimes, Orion was lost in the futility of her own defenses, questioning why she continued to fortify these walls, why she still wielded her rage like a weapon. What was the purpose of brandishing fury when there seemed nothing left to protect anymore, no sanctity untouched by violation? What was the point of rising again if each ascent only preluded a fall more devastating—a shattering more complete than if she had simply stayed down in the first place? Why did she grasp her anger so desperately, clutching it like a crucifix, as if it could exorcise the demons that she had voluntarily chosen to bury?

Why? Why? Why?

Her girlhood had been stolen from her.

. . . But why did she keep burying it further?

More shoveling.

         More digging.

         More burying.

        Down, down, down, until her hands were blistering and bleeding, until the dirt was caked under her fingernails . . . until she no longer remembered what lay beneath it.

Sitting slouched against the cold, sterile wall of the stockade—Orion felt the thoughts eating away at her, rotting at the edges of her mind with a viciousness that had grown sharper, more relentless in recent days. Ever since the rescue team had found her mother alive, she'd been riding the crest of a fragile, unfamiliar joy. She'd been the happiest she'd been in weeks, months, years—an elation so foreign it almost felt like a wound. She didn't believe in god, had never believed in anything except survival. But whatever force out there had spared her mother and brought Naomi back to her . . . she owed it a debt she could never repay.

        Finally, Orion had the one thing she had always dreamed of, the one piece of her past she had longed to reclaim, and yet . . . her soul remained ensnared in fury, as relentless and consuming as ever.

        Buried alive in her own fucking tomb.

        "You okay?"

        Nearly launching out of her own skin, Orion tore her gaze from the floor, blowing away a stray curl that dared to obscure her vision. What she saw beside her wasn't just a girl—it was a tempest incarnate.

. . . Raven.

The mechanic hovered just a few feet away, a molten force barely contained within the fragile boundaries of flesh. Her hands were restless, clenching and unclenching with the tension of an earthquake waiting to split the earth. Although Raven was visibly itching to escape the stockade—her exterior remained calm, collected, and unfathomably beautiful.

        There was a certain magnetism to Raven Reyes that had swept Orion off her feet from the moment she crashed through the atmosphere. At first, she had bristled at her presence, reacting to Raven the way most of the other delinquents had—exasperated, tired of being barked at, tired of the constant litany of instructions as they prepped the solar flares, tired of her sharp voice cutting through the camp like a dagger. But when Raven had forced her to set aside her pride, to channel her rage into something tangible, something that demanded more than just idle defiance . . . something in Orion had shifted.

Wildflowers began to creep through the barren wasteland of dirt she had buried herself in.

Raven was far more than just blinding, scorching beauty—she was cutthroat, jagged, all hard lines and no soft edges. She was the type of girl who could incapacitate you with a mere breath and devour your heart with the mere flash of her snarling smile. Intoxicating and infuriating, the kind of girl who carved her name into your bones and left you itching, aching, pleading for more. Raven was not just smarter than you—she knew it, and she made sure you knew it too, a thousand times over. Yet, in the sharp sting of her brilliance, you found something captivating, wearing it not as a mark of humiliation . . . but as a badge of honor.

        But beneath all that fire and fury, beneath the relentless drive and the relentless fight, there was a shadow that never left her eyes—a tether to a past that refused to let her go.

Raven Reyes, for all her defiance . . . was still, irrevocably, devastatingly in love with Finn Collins.

        Orion blinked. "You talking to me–?"

        Raven managed to suppress a scoff, opting instead for a sharp gesture toward the man lingering across the other side of the cell. "You think I'm talking to his ass?"

There, slumped against the rear of the stockade and staring vacantly out the window, sat Chancellor Jaha—or rather, just Jaha now. Stripped of his authoritative mantle, the once commanding figure was reduced to a mere shadow of his former self, a man who had lost not only his power but seemingly his purpose as well. The title of Chancellor had once cloaked him in an aura of tyrannical control, but now, without it, he appeared nothing more than a major freakin' loser.

        ". . . Four years, Miss Vincetta. . . "

        Orion could still see it all—the ghost of her younger self standing before the Council, shaking uncontrollably, hands drenched in blood that wasn't her own . . . the thick, sticky warmth of it seeping into the cuffs that bound her wrists. She remembered the way her body had quaked, breath rattling in her chest as Jaha's gaze bore down on her with the weight of a guillotine poised to drop. His eyes were cold, clinical, dissecting her without emotion, as if he were looking past the trembling girl before him, past the blood and the terror and the desperation, straight through to the verdict he'd already decided.

        It didn't matter to him that her face was smudged with tears, that her clothes were torn, barely clinging to her frame—or that she was standing in front of the entire Council missing her undershirt, one shoe gone.

        " . . . You are sentenced to spend the next four years in the Sky Box. Larson was a fine Craftsman, and murder is not taken lightly. You are lucky we are giving you the opportunity for rehabilitation rather than execution. . . "

Orion still couldn't remember where her underwear went.

        "Not unless you had a gun to your head," Orion muttered lowly, casting Jaha yet another scathing glare from her position on the ground, despite her bone-deep fatigue. "I'm fine, though."

        Raven tilted her head. "You've just been... quiet," she added bluntly, eyes narrowing in concern, studying Orion with an intensity that nearly made her want to curl in on herself—to hide from that probing stare that saw too, too much. "You usually would've cussed Jaha out again by now."

        Jaha groaned. "I second that."

        Orion's lips twitched into a shadow of a smirk, though it failed to reach her eyes. "Don't get too comfortable, big back. The first three times were my warm-up," she huffed, softening almost imperceptibly as her eyes gravitated back to Raven. "Are you okay?"

"M'fine," Raven admitted. "Just need to get the hell out of here."

Tracing Raven's anxious stare towards the locked door of the stockade, Orion felt the need for freedom radiating from the Reyes girl like a living, breathing entity. They'd been imprisoned in this god-forsaken shithole for barely half an hour—thirty-two minutes and fifty-six seconds, to be exact—yet each second stretched and warped, inflating the air with stifled energy. Raven's fingers curled into fists, knuckles whitening with the echo of violence and the itch for new confrontations. Orion, caught in the crossfire of her own rattled nerves, fought to suppress the flinch that threatened to ripple through her each time the guard—Scanlon—shifted outside their makeshift cell, replacing Major Cordellia with a silent promise of continued captivity.

. . . She wanted to be with her mom.

        "Yeah." Orion decisively tore her eyes far away from Scanlon and focused on the metal grates beneath her feet instead, tracing the patterns of rust and grime. "You and me both."

        Orion could feel the cool, ethereal fire of Raven's aura as she moved closer, narrowing the space between them until she gradually slouched against the wall beside her. Instinctively, Orion drew her knees to her chest, providing space while also wrestling with the rising storm within her—a storm stirred by the nearness of Raven's knees to her own, and the soft caress of loose strands from the ponytail that grazed her shoulder. Raven's gaze, deep and thoughtful, seemed to shred right through her, observing her in a way that made Orion's stomach twist.

        Being perceived was, like, medieval torture.

        Raven arched an eyebrow. "You don't like men, do you?"

        Orion's mind screeched to a halt.

        Was that—? Was that a lesbian innuendo?

        Could Raven be speaking in code—?

        Orion shoved the intrusive thoughts away, banishing them to the furthest corners of her mind, where they could no longer wreak havoc. Raven had to be speaking in generalities, her words devoid of the secret, loaded meaning Orion so desperately wished for. But still, her crush raged through her like a fever dream—a wild, delirious force that twisted her perception, distorted every syllable, every fleeting glance. It was as if the universe itself conspired to heighten her desire, taunting her with the sheer impossibility of it all. She knew better—god, she knew better—but her treacherous heart refused to listen, drowning out reason with its relentless, traitorous hope.

Being delusional was exhausting.

        So, Orion forced a smile—one that felt like shattered glass on her lips—and replied with the kind of eloquence she was known for.

        "Men deserve to be put down, eradicated, and hung by the skin of their dicks until they bleed out and die."

        Raven blinked.

         "...Sorry," Orion winced out.

        At that, Raven's blank stare melted into a grin, one that danced precariously between amusement and incredulity, the edges of it sharp with barely restrained laughter. "Since when do you apologize for anything—?"

        Orion shrugged. "I don't want you to think that I'm, like, a psychopathic man murderer."

        Raven's grin only widened. "I mean, that's not the worst reputation to have. Androcide isn't that terrible," she added, though her eyes softened imperceptibly—as if she were searching past Orion's words, prying for something deeper. "I'm sure you'd have your reasons."

        There was a tenderness in her voice, so elusive, so exquisitely faint—yet it struck Orion with the force of a battering ram.

         "Yeah, well..." Orion managed, the words rough and jagged, as if torn from her throat. "I'd like to think I'd be a little more creative if I were to go on some murderous rampage."

        A beat passed.

        Raven hesitated. "Can I ask you something?"

        . . . Ah, shit.

        Orion nodded. "Yeah." No!

        "...How old were you when you were put in Lockup?"

        As the question settled into the minimal space between them, it seemed to leech all traces of oxygen from their cell. Orion felt the grip of the past tighten around her lungs, constricting, a visceral reminder of years she had fought to bury in the darkest recesses of her mind. Her heart thudded sorely against her ribcage, each beat a loud echo in the hushed enclosure as memories clawed their way to the surface. It was a torturous flaying, layer by layer, her defenses stripped away under the cruel weight of remembrance.

Still . . . she refused to break.

        The word escaped Orion's lips like a curse, heavy and brittle, dripping with the venom of a thousand buried wounds.

"Fourteen."

        Raven looked at Orion, then—really, truly looked at her. Her stare was incisive, peeling back the layers of Orion's carefully crafted armor and exposing the raw, throbbing wound beneath. Orion could almost taste the metallic tang of vulnerability on her tongue, feel the walls she'd built so meticulously crumble under the excruciating weight of being seen—truly seen. Not as the untamed, invincible force she had clawed herself into becoming . . . but as something fractured.

        It was unbearable, that look—sharp with pity, brimming with a tenderness Orion did not want, nor had she ever asked for. She fucking despised it; Raven's silent compassion felt like poison coursing through her veins, compelling her to retreat inward, to bury her head, and vanish into the cavernous shadows of her own making.

        But then Raven's gaze shifted, the sympathy hardening into something else, something darker, something that crackled with a quiet, simmering rage. It wasn't directed at Orion—no, it was something far more dangerous, visceral . . . a fury that seemed to burn on her behalf.

"You should've punched that motherfucker outside ten times harder," Raven declared at last, her jaw tightening almost imperceptibly as she locked her eyes on Jaha, pinning him with a glare that could scorch the paint off the walls. "...And you? You're worthless."

        Jaha merely sighed.

        . . . Freakin' loser.

Orion cleared her throat. "I'm better with a sword than I am with my fists," she admitted, restlessly fidgeting with her fingers atop her knees and wincing as she observed the fresh bruising. "I don't have Haven's true aim, and Blake says I swing too wildly. Claims I need to fight my opponent and not the air around them." She huffed out a frustrated breath, her lips curling into a wry, almost rueful grimace. "Whatever the hell that means."

"Bellamy doesn't have the rage of a teenage girl—so, he can suck it," Raven stated, the edges of her fury softening as she pivoted back towards Orion, keenly aware of her restless hands. "I can teach you how I throw mine."

Orion lifted her head. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Raven's affirmation was a solid, grounding thing as she shifted her position from sitting beside Orion to directly in front of her. She raised her hand, then paused, her movement halting mid-air. "Let me—can I see your hand?"

. . . FUCK.

Miraculously . . . Orion refrained from blacking out right then, right there, right on the goddamn spot.

         To say that she was internally battling the catastrophic urge to burst into flames and scatter herself against the walls would be putting it mildly. She blinked, momentarily disarmed by the softness in Raven's voice, the foreign, respectful hesitance in her approach. It wasn't a demand that hovered in the air between them, but a gentle invitation . . . waiting rather than imposing.

        Swallowing down the sudden rush of emotion that threatened to incapacitate her, Orion nodded, the movement small, almost imperceptible—but enough. Slowly, ever so slowly . . . she lifted her hand, the bruised knuckles trembling as she extended it toward Raven.

Raven's slender fingers wrapped around hers with a touch that was featherlight—so delicate that Orion questioned if it was real, or some aching figment conjured by the depths of her imagination. Every movement was gentle, unassuming, as if the slightest pressure might shatter the fragile trust that hung between them. She turned Orion's hand over cautiously, examining it with a concentration that bordered on reverence, tracing the violet veins and the darkening bruises with the barest graze of her thumb.

Calloused hands had never felt so impossibly soft.

"You threw with your shoulder instead of your body weight," Raven explained matter-of-factly. "That's why your knuckles are fucked up now."

Orion said nothing.

        She was too busy trying not to pass out.

Or throw up. Or both.

. . . Preferably neither.

"I use this crap around my knee if my brace is bothering me," Raven admitted softly, her grip steady on Orion's hand as she reached with her other into the back pocket of her cargos, retrieving a roll of crepe bandages. "The compression should help with healing."

And then . . .

Raven began to wrap her knuckles.

        Every movement was careful and precise, her fingers weaving the bandage around each knuckle with a gentleness that was almost excruciating. It wasn't just the act itself, but the quiet intimacy of it—the way her eyes never strayed far from Orion's, as if seeking permission for each loop and twist of the bandage, her touch a wordless promise to bind what was bruised . . . to offer solace in the simplest of gestures.

        Satisfied with her handiwork, Raven leaned back and shot a triumphant smirk toward the heavens above—a shimmer of pride dancing in her eyes as she gently released Orion's hand.

"Boom," she declared. "We can start practice once you're back in commission."

Forcibly reminding herself to breathe again—Orion inhaled sharply, sucking in far more oxygen than necessary and nearly sputtering on the surplus. "Me—? I'm ready whenever," she insisted, forcing her shoulders back, straightening against the wall as Raven began to snicker. "I came out the womb kicking and freakin' screaming. I can always beat a bitch up."

        "That'll come in handy if they don't let us outta here soon," Raven mused, though her smirk swiftly faded into something shadowed. The sweetness of her laugh ebbed away, leaving only the hollow echo of it lingering between them, as though it had never been there at all. "I need to find Finn."

        Orion felt her heart fracture.

         . . . Finn.

        EEEEUUUUUUUUUUGGHH!

        Orion's perception of Finn Collins was nauseatingly clear—he was the chain coiled around Raven's lion-heart, the ghost she couldn't exorcise, the shadow that kept her tethered to a world she should have long since left behind. From the moment he cheated on her with Clarke, to the day he abandoned her on that bridge, to the moment he forced Haven's heart to stop, to the massacre he had committed just five days ago . . . his sins trailed behind him like a funeral procession, tainting everything he touched.

It was salt in the goddamn wound at this point; the girl who could reduce the world to cinders was still scorching, still aching for a man who was little more than ashes and dust.

Orion fought against the instinctive twitch of her eye. "I, um...totally stand by what I said about giving him to the Grounders," she began cautiously, acutely aware of Raven's posture tensing. "But I know he means a lot to you and Haven. So, I guess I can..." She swallowed back her reflexive gag. "I guess I can help—for now. Until whenever someone drags a better plan out of their ass."

        . . . She meant it.

       Raven softened, almost imperceptibly, the tension easing from her frame as she shifted against the wall. Her head tilted back, and in a quiet, unguarded moment, she let it rest gently on Orion's shoulder . . . as if the weight of her burdens could be shared, if only for a fleeting breath.

"Yeah, well... I don't think Finn and I mean shit to Haven anymore," she admitted quietly. "So, thanks."

Orion blinked.

. . . What the fuck?

"Jeez," Raven scoffed. "At least you're straightforward."

And then . . . as if those words had lit a fuse, Raven wrenched herself away, tearing her head from Orion's shoulder with such force that it seemed to split the air itself.

        As Raven shot to her feet, Orion's world spun wildly, throwing her senses into disarray as she struggled to comprehend what the fuck just happened. Her mouth gaped open in a frantic bid for words, but only fragmented breaths tumbled out—choking on the sudden, brutal realization that struck her like a lightning bolt.

Wait.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh, fuck no.

. . . Did she say that out loud—?!

"Forget I said anything," Raven muttered, briskly wiping away invisible dust on the front of her cargo pants. Her jaw set hard, muscles tensing visibly as she pivoted, her boots scraping the floor as she moved toward the far end of the stockade. "And please, please—don't tell Haven about it. It's just...it's complicated. I don't expect you to understand."

"Wait!" Orion shot to her feet after her,  desperation weaving through her words as she frantically sought clarity. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, but I-I'm just, like, confused."

        "I told you that you wouldn't understand."

        "But I want to," Orion cut in. "I—"

        "You can't."

        "I can!" Orion's voice abruptly spiked in volume before she could rein it in. "Haven loves Finn. She loves you. How...how could you even say that—?"

Raven shook her head dismissively. "Forget it."

But Orion's thoughts were already spit firing into the frigid air between them. "Forget it—?" she echoed. "Raven... she ran onto the bridge for you. She risked her life running to Lincoln's cave to get you coagulant right before the battle. She—I-I mean—fuck! She literally ran with the Reapers right behind her!" she pressed on, protective instincts flaring in her chest just as fiercely as her need to soothe Raven's doubts. "She just tried to break up the fight before we got shoved in here. She tried to bring you breakfast the day after the massacre, but you were with Finn—"

"It's not really your place, Orion," Raven cut in agitatedly. "Just forget it, alright?"

"But—"

"Forget! It!"

        At that, Orion's breath caught in her throat, her heart thundering against the brittle cage of her ribs. Words she yearned to unleash—needed to set free—strangled her, twisting into a relentless knot of frustration, fear, and an ache she couldn't quite name, lodging itself in her chest. She stared at Raven soundlessly, the distance between them suddenly feeling like a chasm she didn't know how to cross. Every iota of her being shrieked to push, to fight, to fix it like she had been trying to do . . . but Raven's expression remained impenetrable as stone.

Orion sagged her shoulders.

"Consider it forgotten."

It was imperceptible, the exact moment Orion slid back to slump against the wall, her fury subtly morphing into a biting, paralyzing shame. She hadn't intended to overshadow Raven's words, or to erupt into a vehement defense of the friend she cherished above all else, but she couldn't . . . she couldn't control it. She was torn, desperately seeking to reassure Raven while staunchly defending Haven, yet her words spilled out too aggressively, too loudly.

And when the dust settled, Orion was still that same fire-spitting dragon—alone with her rage, suffocating beneath the dirt, frantically striving to do the right thing . . . yet each attempt only seemed to deepen the grave of her failures.

        Again. Again. Again.

• •

hey siri play stay down by boygenius

orion..... you are the LOVE of my life.
i originally wasn't going to write orion's pov for the second half of this chapter and would've kept going with haven's for the main plot, but i wanted to FINALLY write an orion pov that was significant and fitting. i don't like skirting around her trauma, or only writing/depicting haven's/bell's perception of it. doing that feels like a disservice to orion, but i also wanted to insert her pov at an appropriate time so that it didn't feel half-assed/underdone. as angsty as it was (idk how to write happy characters 🤭) i hope you enjoyed it and i hope you enjoyed the little themes spread throughout this chapter as well <333

bellamy getting lovedrunk, aggressively suppressing the thought of haven dying and dreaming about being a dad instead ✨🩷 orion hating her father figure and suffering 😏🫣 haven not knowing who her dad is😍😍 me fully knowing who her dad is 🫣😈

ANYWAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

i also wanted to add....raven's emotions surrounding haven will be touched on and discussed more in the upcoming chapters. i wanted to include this scene to give more context for whats to come later on. i do NOT like creating unnecessary beef between two female characters for no reason, i think thats stupid (disrespectfully) and a waste of time and a disservice to the characters themselves!! bc why are you fighting!! what is the reason !!! all that being said, i love raven, i love haven....but a lot of whats to come is true to character and will unravel in a way that makes sense, i fear 😔
i hid a very specific sentence in this chapter that encapsulates a lot it. props if you caught it ;)

yall.... we've officially entered the spacewalker episode.
GET READY FOR SHIT TO HIT THE FAN

I FUCKIN LOVE YOU !!!! ✨✨