• •

CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE;

JUS DREIN JUS DAUN.

• •

        STEPPING INSIDE ABBY'S MAKESHIFT MEDICAL WING MADE HAVEN WANT TO RIP HER SKIN OFF. It was a place that shrieked of discomfort and disarray—a hellscape of surgical trays and towering shelves of medical supplies, far removed from the small confines of Jackson's Med-Tent. Though it wasn't the clinical, high-tech environs of the Go-Sci ring, still orbiting distantly in the vacuum of space, the familiarity of this portion of Alpha did little to ease her discomfort.

        On Go-Sci, appointments were typically fraught with high-tech surveillance and heavy security . . . almost always heralding bad, bad news about Haven's stenosis that she and Bellamy had come to expect. Here, however, the visits were supposed to be mundane—standard tests like EKGs and blood draws, the ordinary fare that never used to raise an eyebrow.

Yet . . . even the ordinary had its secrets.

Haven already understood that Abby had been using her body as a test subject long, long before the hundred were consigned to the dropship's metal tomb. But she still struggled to wrap her mind around the reality of it all. Unfortunately, the mad doctor's methods were insidiously brilliant; it was as if Abby had carved her initials into Haven's heart herself. The abnormality etched into her valve became a signature of ownership—a marker of experiments that had pushed far beyond the boundaries of ethics or reason.

The constant cycle of resuscitations, monitoring, EKGs, and CAT scans—these tests, at least, made some fraction of sense. A guise of necessity in Abby's relentless pursuit to keep Haven viable, a living subject ripe for study. But the depth of Abby's interventions—the invasive bloodwork, bone density tests, and the looming specter of a dialysis shunt . . . these procedures haunted Haven with doubt.

         Had they truly been necessary to keep her alive—?

". . . Bloodtype proven to withstand chemical radiation . . . "

         . . . Or had Abby merely been chasing shadows, experimenting with Haven's blood in some mad quest for survival on a dying Earth? Was it all just an elaborate smokescreen, a way to mask the truth that she had been reduced to little more than a living hypothesis? Was there any method to this madness, any fucking humanity, or had she simply just been a casualty in the war waged against nature itself?

        Haven wasn't sure.
        
        All she knew was that standing in the corridor felt like being swallowed by a living nightmare. The cold, clinical stench of antiseptic clung to her skin, her lungs, burning and bitter. It forced her to grip the doorframe as if it were the sole thing anchoring her to reality. Even the walls themselves seemed to recoil from the ghosts haunting them . . . five different effigies of herself, each a harrowing reminder of the times her heart had failed.

         It was awful here.

         But . . . it was also essential.

         While Bellamy and Orion had been tasked with the job of hiding Finn in B-Corridor, away from the wrathful mob of Grounders and Ark citizens—Haven, Clarke, and Octavia had ventured into Medical to visit Lincoln. Their official mission was to gather any information or potential advantages regarding the Commander's offer, any scrap of information that could shift the odds in their favor.

But, truth be told, Haven's real motive was far simpler . . . she just wanted to see if Lincoln was okay.

         Dying sucked. Bad.

"Lincoln...you're not a Repear anymore. You don't need to be restrained."

At the sound of Clarke's voice, Haven blinked, snapping her eyes away from the eerily familiar hallway to focus on the figure before them.

Lincoln lay sprawled across a gurney, his body wracked with coughs and sputters as his lungs struggled to adapt to the simple act of breathing freely again, of being human once more. An IV line snaked down from a bag, its sterile promise of life trickling into his veins, nourishing his emaciated form with nutrients. Yet, what captured the eye most notably were the cold, metal shackles clamped around his wrists. Each one secured him firmly to the gurney sides, treating him as if he were still a feral creature poised to lash out.

Lincoln shook his head wearily. "Yes, I do."

Haven resisted the impulse to frown.

. . . He still didn't trust himself.

"Just tell us," Clarke persisted, blue eyes ringed with the ghastly shadows of exhaustion—though her tone carried an unmistakable urgency. "Is there a way to make peace?"

         Lincoln narrowed his eyes into slits. "Did she leave riders behind?"

         Clarke nodded. "Two just outside the gate."

         "They're waiting for Finn," Lincoln rasped, each word grating against his throat like sandpaper. He drew in another tremulous inhale before clenching his jaw. "Your mother doesn't have much time to decide."

         . . . Right.

        Although the weight of the decision rested squarely on Abby's shoulders, the entirety of Camp Jaha could feel its burden. As Chancellor, she was the one ultimately tasked with the harrowing choice: to accept the offer or not. It was her call whether to hand over Finn to the Grounders in exchange for a fragile truce, a decision that teetered precariously between peace and war. Her verdict would seal Finn's fate, dictating whether he would live . . . or succumb to the harsh judgment of those he had slaughtered.

        Octavia shook her head in dismay. "She can't expect us to just hand over one of our own people," she argued, stepping closer to Lincoln, as if proximity might wring clarity from the impossible situation. "Would she really do that?"

"She wouldn't let the rest of her people die to protect a murderer," Lincoln spat.

Haven grimaced.

Protecting a murderer—no, a mass murderer—was exactly what they were doing. Lincoln's scornful declaration only peeled back the veneer further, making their actions seem a hundred times more foolish, and Finn's crimes a thousand times more wretched. The massacre at the village was atrocious, but their efforts to shield him as they strategized on how to preserve his life . . . it only made them complicit.

        Here they were, standing between Finn and the consequences of his monstrosity—biding time as they balanced his life against the eighteen ghosts of those he had mercilessly killed.

        It was fucking revolting.

Haven felt filthy, as if the grime of their hypocrisy had seeped deep into her pores, leaving an indelible stain no amount of scrubbing could cleanse. Every heartbeat seemed to echo with the unspoken accusation that they were just as culpable as Finn was—guilty of elevating one life above many, guilty of desperately grasping at the fragments of a moral high ground that had long crumbled beneath their feet.

And for what—?

For loyalty?

For friendship?

For some selfish, misguided hope that they could miraculously save themselves from the monsters they were becoming?

        How could they dare claim to have any moral superiority over Finn when their hands were drenched in the blood of their silence? How could they ever possibly look into the mournful eyes of the families who had lost children, elders . . . and say that their grief mattered less than Finn's life?

        They couldn't.

        Lincoln's voice carried the weight of grim certainty. "If you don't do this... she will kill everyone in this camp."

        "There has to be something else that we can offer," Clarke insisted, chewing her inner cheek before her eyes desperately flashed towards Haven. "Did your mom say anything else? Even the tiniest bit of information we can use to our advantage—?"

        Lincoln met Haven's eyes, at that.

        Once again, the mere mention of Dahlia's existence coiled through the air like a dark omen, freezing Haven's blood into black ice and twisting her stomach into knots of reflexive dread. It was a name that conjured shadows into being—a word that felt no different than a dagger pressed to her throat. But in Lincoln's stare, there was no blaze of scorn, no fire of condemnation she had come to expect from the Grounders. Instead, there lingered something raw and haunting, a storm of anguish barely tethered, teetering dangerously close to the edge of . . . remorse.

        After all . . . he had known her mother was alive from the very beginning.

Haven swiftly averted her eyes. "All we know is that she's working against the Mountain Men," she admitted. "Jackson said she stashed blueprints of the Mountain's vents in the backpack she sent me with... but the rest is a gamble."

        "It's not enough to sway her," Lincoln cut in. "Finn took eighteen lives—the Commander's offering to take just one in return. Take the deal."

        "How can you say that?" Clarke shot back, crossing her arms defiantly over her chest—an uwitting mirror of her mother's self-righteousness. "Finn was the first person to come to you to offer peace. He's your friend!"

        "Finn massacred his village, Clarke," Haven murmured, though the words seeped out darker and more bitter than she intended, surprising even herself with their intensity. "Some of the dead were his friends, too."

Clarke vehemently shook her head. "But that wasn't Finn!" she argued, her wide eyes darting accusingly between Haven and Lincoln, searching for even the faintest semblance of understanding. "You both know that's not who he is."

Lincoln's response was clipped. "It is now."

And then . . .

Clarke was staring at Haven. Pleadingly.

But Haven couldn't summon the will to plead Finn's case to Lincoln—not now, not after everything he'd done, and certainly not to the girl who had only brushed against the surface of Finn's soul for a goddamn month. Clarke's defense was born of desperation, a frantic clinging to an ideal that had long since crumbled to dust. But Haven saw through it, felt the bitter truth pulsing in her veins like a poison she could never expel.

        Whether she liked it or not, Haven knew Finn Collins in ways that words could never adequately convey. She knew him as intimately as the Mecha Station floors knew the innocent blood of her youth, the wounds on her knees that his fingers had once tenderly bandaged. She knew him as deeply as she knew the haunting silence where a heart once beat . . . stilled by those same fingers.

"I've known him since I was five," Haven admitted softly. "I'm sorry. But I—I don't see him here. Not entirely. Not when it comes to this."

Lincoln nodded stoically. "We've all got a monster inside of usc, Clarke..." he began, his fists tightening against the cold metal of his restraints, muscles tensing as if to challenge their integrity—to ensure he couldn't escape. "And we're all responsible for what it does when we let it out."

        Silence fell, sharp and unforgiving, twisting with the brutality of a knife to the gut.

        Octavia hesitantly raised her voice. "...What will they do to him?"

        "Fire," Lincoln confessed grimly. "Because he killed the innocent—it starts with fire."

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

        "They'll take his hands—his tongue, his eyes," Lincoln continued, vacantly staring past the girls, transfixed by some gruesome spectacle only he could see. "Anyone who grieves will have a turn with the knife. At sunrise, the Commander will end it with her sword, but I've never known anyone to survive until the sword." His words emerged as a somber requiem, the syllables heavy and deliberate, each one a nail driven into the silence. "He killed eighteen, he will suffer the pain of eighteen deaths, then... we can have peace."

        Haven felt her world tilt.

        Nothing could be said after that.

Though the notion of a single life paying for eighteen still carried a perverse sort of mercy, the explicit depiction of such barbarity, such relentless torture . . . it was nauseating beyond words. The Grounders' customs were stark—justice demanded in blood, meted out in the most excruciating, deliberate manner conceivable for those in mourning. If there could be no truce through words, Finn's suffering would be the language of peace—a spectacle where each scream and shuddering breath would serve as the grisly bridge to unity.

Finn needed to face consequences.

The Council would've floated him.

. . . But Haven simply couldn't reconcile his demise in her bleeding, selfish heart.

        All at once, Clarke abruptly stormed out of the room, burying her head in her hands and leaving behind an icy trail of frost in her wake. Octavia lingered a moment, her voice a whisper in the tension-soaked air, promising to return with water for Lincoln. Her fingers brushed Haven's elbow in a fleeting gesture of comfort before she disappeared. Haven herself turned to leave, silently counting to five beneath her breath in an attempt to to quell the dread within her heart, but before she could dissolve into the gloomy corridor . . . Lincoln's voice called out after her.

        "Haven—wait."

        Haven paused at the threshold, lip drawn between her teeth, spinning back on her heels as she observed Lincoln in silent anticipation.

Lincoln's eyes softened, a glimmer of warmth creeping through the tension etched across his face, though his body remained rigid—shoulders squared, head held high. "I never got to thank you for saving my life."

Haven blinked. "What—?"

        "Bellamy came in here to say that the baton was your idea," Lincoln went on, his voice reverent, each word carrying the weight of deep, unwavering gratitude and ancestral respect. "I would be dead without you."

         . . . Right.

Truth be told, Haven's idea to repurpose the shock baton into a makeshift defibrillator remained shrouded in the fog of adrenaline and necessity. It was a precarious, almost lunatic risk—a reckless waltz along the razor-thin line between ingenuity and insanity. The damn thing was barely functional, gutted and cracked from when Lincoln had wrecked it earlier in a blur of rage; the fact that there was any spark left in its bones was nothing short of a miracle. With three swords hovering above Bellamy's torso, one pressing cold against her own throat, another tracing a deadly path along her spine—she had known that trusting Abby to deliver the life-saving jolt was a grim necessity.

Yet . . . of course, Bellamy would never allow Abby the credit.

Haven knew he would sooner choke on his own blood than allow the woman to taste even a sliver of praise, let alone permit her to wear the mantle of heroism.

         She tilted her head curiously. "Did he?"

         "Yes," Lincoln began. "He also made it very clear that Clarke's mother is a major... " He trailed off, his nose wrinkling in what could only be described as distaste at the memory of Bellamy's vulgar language. "...I don't think I should repeat that word."

        Haven fought against the impulse to grin. "Bitch—?"

        "Worse," Lincoln huffed wryly. "In my language, I believe the translation he's looking for is Kripagapa." He shook his head, though beneath the surface, amusement glinted in his eyes—a spark of mirth he couldn't quite extinguish. "Sky people are creative with their cursing."

         . . . Kripagapa.

         Though curiosity tugged at the edges of Haven's mind, she sensed Lincoln's reluctance to translate the word into English, his discomfort evident in the way his lips pressed into a thin line. So, she swallowed the question, allowing it to dissolve on her tongue. Besides, she didn't need the translation to grasp its essence; the way the word seemed to coil around her heart, serpent-like, hissing with malice, was sufficient enough. It encapsulated Abby perfectly, as if tailor-made for her—a title for the kind of monstrosity that wore human skin but held only darkness beneath.

         "Well—you don't have to thank me," Haven continued, shifting closer to the gurney and redirecting the drift of their conversation back to its original currents. "You helped my mom recover from her crash landing, apparently. Guess we're even."

The words cleaved through the air like stones.

One beat passed. Another.

"...You say that like you are unhappy," Lincoln observed.

Haven shrugged. "You knew who I was from the beginning. You had to have known I was her daughter," she sighed, her voice tapering into a whisper that barely escaped the confines of her lips. The admission felt raw, jagged, forcing her to swallow hard and straighten. "I think—I just wish I would've known, is all."

. . . Did she?

Haven was grateful, of course, that Lincoln had nursed her mother back from the brink of death, woven her into the fabric of Trikru, threading their lives together until fate unraveled them both within the cursed veins of the Mountain. She had wanted her mother to be alive—dreamed it, prayed it, ached for it—but the bitter truth was that believing her mother was dead had almost been easier than . . . this.

A cleaner grief.

A simpler sorrow.

. . . It was a foul, selfish thought.

But still . . . Dahlia's existence weighed on her spine like an unburied corpse left to rot, its skeletal fingers clawing at Haven's skin, dragging her down with every breath she took. Every new revelation about her mother only twisted the knife lodged between her shoulder blades, again, and again, and again—until, in the darkest hours of the night, Haven wondered if the blade would ever be withdrawn, if she could ever be free of its merciless torment.

Selfish. Selfish. Selfish.

Ultimately, Haven knew this was her cross to bear, her penance for wanting her mother alive . . . yet recoiling from the reality of it.

"I understand," Lincoln murmured gently. "I assumed she had died in the Mountain. I didn't want to give your heart hope."

        . . . Wait.

        Haven lifted an eyebrow. "You knew she was an informant?"

        Lincoln nodded. "The Commander granted her permission to tell me before she staged the escape from Tondc," he admitted, decisively clearing his throat before his lips curved into a wry, almost bittersweet smile. "She spoke of you. A lot."

        "Yeah?" Haven asked skeptically, stifling her bitter scoff beneath her tongue and narrowing her eyes into slits. "And what'd she have to say—?"

        "Your head was often too buried in books, or lost among the stars to see what was right in front of you."

        Haven felt something within her crumble and decay, a brittle fragment of the fragile shield she'd enforced around herself. Of course. Of course it was more of the same—her mother's riddles, the cryptic, unfathomable wisdom that had always left Haven grasping at shadows. Dahlia's voice had never carried the gentle cadence of compliments or praise, only the sharp, scornful commands for more, more, more.

        Swallowing the jagged lump in her throat, Haven forced the traitorous fragments of her heart to steel themselves—preparing them to withstand the inevitable wave of disappointment that always lurked on the horizon.

"Did she say what I was missing?"

        "Earth," Lincoln confessed. "Destiny, she called it."

        There it was.

. . . Earth.

        The radioactive wasteland that hung like a shattered jewel in the black void of space, lightyears away from the cold, metal confines of their shoebox living quarters aboard Mecha. It lingered as the phantom that haunted Dahlia's fevered dreams, the obsession that had devoured her sanity and left Haven neglected, bleeding out beneath the shadow of a dead world. The irony was wretchedly exquisite, a cruel joke—Dahlia had elevated Earth to her manic embodiment of destiny, and more absurdly . . . she had entwined Haven with it.

As if she hadn't begged for understanding at ten, when the darkness of space felt endless and her mother's absence became unbearable. As if she hadn't cried herself hoarse at eleven, clutching at the hope that maybe this time Dahlia would heed her cries, show compassion, and embody the warmth of a mother rather than the frigidity of a ghost. As if she hadn't withered away at fourteen, her body frail and shrinking under the weight of her mother's relentless pursuit, starving—not just for sustenance, but for affection, for a single goddamn moment where she mattered more than some distant, forsaken fantasy.

         And now . . . now, Dahlia had the audacity to claim this planet was Haven's destiny as well?

        To tether her daughter's fate to a wretched, dying world—a world that had already stolen so much from her, devouring the lives of nearly half of her friends?

        How convenient.

        How perfectly convenient for Dahlia to carve out her purpose at the cruel expense of her own child.

        "Destiny," Haven spat out, her voice brittle and worn. The scoff that escaped her was fractured—a harsh, ugly sound that ripped through the silence like shrapnel. "Y'know... she could've just told me that herself. But instead, she was too busy bitching me out—or beating the shit out of me for asking too many questions."

Lincoln shook his head. "I don't agree with her methods. I don't agree with her words, either," he declared firmly. "I only agree that you are meant to be here, Haven. You..." He broke off, his breath hitching, as if the sheer enormity of what he sought to convey was too much to contain. "You might not understand it, not now. But this life is your calling."

"Don't," Haven cut in. "Don't say that."

Lincoln tried again. "I—"

"You expect me to believe that living on this fucking rock is my calling—?" Haven's voice soared, a crescendo of raw incredulity shredding through any veneer of control. "That killing people to survive is what I was meant for? Leading my friends to their deaths every day we turn the corner—is some sick, twisted destiny I'm just supposed to accept—?"

"Leading," Lincoln asserted. "Just leading."

"That is not what I meant," Haven snarled, stumbling backwards as if his words had tainted the air with noxious venom. "I'm not going to be the daughter who dies for my mom's delusions—or yours, or anybody else's. I'm just trying to get through the day and keep my friends alive. I'm not—I can't—I'm not..." She sucked in a tremulous inhale. "I-I'm not a leader."

        Her voice abruptly splintered, morphing into a choked, broken whisper.

"I don't want to be."

Lincoln's stare remained unfathomably gentle. "The true ones never desire it," he voiced softly, though his words betrayed an intensity that rooted her to the ground. "But I can see it in your eyes, Haven. You know what to do about Finn. You can feel it in your blood."

Haven recoiled as if she had been struck.

        All at once—the walls around her seemed to pulse and contract, no longer echoing with the faded memories of her past lives in the sterile, antiseptic corridors of Medical. Gone were the haunting visions of a dying girl and the guard whose hands shook as he fought to save her. Instead, it pulsed with the tremors of a future that loomed over her like a curse—a future she had not chosen. A future that would desecrate her soul more profoundly than the worst of Abby's wounds . . . one that she knew would tear her asunder, dismantling her piece by piece, until there was nothing left but ruins and blood.

         Lincoln held her stare.

         Softly. Knowingly. Remorsefully.

         ". . . Listen to its truth instead of running away from it."

• •

JUS DREIN JUS DAUN—blood must have blood, according to Lincoln's grim translation. At first light, the phrase had surged thunderously through the gathered masses of Grounders, each heart beating in vengeful syncopation—united in their demand for Finn's life as penance. It vibrated through the iron bones of Alpha's exoskeleton, seeping into every rivet, every seem, making the structure itself quiver in fear of the creed it now housed.

It was a force meant to break wills, to bend spines, to make even the most stalwart of hearts falter.

. . . And it had nearly succeeded.

        Haven sensed that the unsettling mantra might have been enough to pummel Abby into submission. The interim Chancellor had been teetering on the edge, fully prepared to signal the Guard to fall back and fortify their defenses within the compound. But bolstered by Bellamy's belief that it was merely a scare tactic, and further encouraged by her daughter's brave words, Abby seemingly found a new resolve. Defiantly, she had marched up to the riders who were ominously gathered at the gate, awaiting Finn's body . . . and essentially told them to fuck off.

        " . . . We're not giving him up. We're ready to fight if that's what it comes to! . . ."

        The decree had been nauseating.

        Ever since Haven's tense exchange with Lincoln in the Medical wing, a sense of parasitic . . . disgust, had burrowed deep within her, infesting her very cells. Hiding behind Camp Jaha's electric fence was suffocating enough already, the charged hum of the barrier a constant reminder of their cowardice. But to do so under the purpose of protecting Finn was utterly fucking unbearable. It tainted the very air she breathed, each breath laced with the bitter taste of betrayal and moral decay.

         " . . . JUS DREIN JUS DAUN! . . ."

        The chant, rising from the throats of the Grounders, carried a timbre not solely steeped in anger or vengeance, nor pulsing with the raw hunger for bloodshed alone. Surprisingly, it was the least furious Haven had ever heard the Grounders—more a mournful echo than a war cry. Their voices didn't boom with intensity to shake the very earth . . . but rather swelled with a profound grief.

        They were mourning.

        Every time Haven closed her eyes, she was haunted by the visions of the dead—faces she couldn't forget, bodies crumpled in the dirt, their blood salting the earth beneath them. It wasn't just her own people whose memories plagued her; it was the villagers, too—the innocents who had known nothing of war's brutal cadence, who had lived by the gentle, unassuming rhythms of daily life until Finn's merciless gunfire had struck them dead.

        It was horrific.

        Shortly after Abby had delivered her defiant message to the riders . . . the elusive figure of Marcus Kane emerged from the shadowy treeline. Half of the Guard, gripped by tension and uncertainty, nearly shot him dead; it was only the swift intervention of Bellamy and David, barking orders to hold their fire, that saved Kane from a premature demise. By some inexplicable act of mercy, Lexa had chosen to let him live, granting both Kane and Jaha a reprieve that neither had dared to hope for.

        And so, battered and blooded, yet miraculously alive . . . Kane had limped his way back into Camp Jaha's borders, each step laden with the weight of a near-death that had brushed dangerously close.

        He looked like hell.

With the addition of Kane's resurgence, Abby had fiercely swept back into Alpha and freed Jaha from the stockade—only to corral both of the men into the Council chambers for further, private deliberation.

        And that, of course . . . led the group to now.

        Eavesdropping. Duh.

        Pressed against the icy barrier of the chamber room's door—Haven, Bellamy, Orion and Raven clung to the silence with bated breath, ears straining to catch every whispered word, every nerve attuned to the clash of voices from within. Haven, the shortest of the bunch, crouched low, her cheek nearly grazing the metal as she squinted through the slim crack between the padlock and its electrical circuit. Orion flanked her left, while Raven pressed in on her right, brow furrowed with immense concentration, as if willing the walls to unspool their secrets.

"Can you stop existing so loudly—?"

And then . . .

There was Bellamy.

        Towering above them, the Blake boy effortlessly assumed the role of Scary Boyfriend Patrol, the ever-watchful guardian of the girls. His presence was a fortress; eyes sharp and vigilant, muscles coiled in rigid anticipation—positioned to protect and keep watch as the girls listened intently.

        Bellamy blinked at Orion incredulously. "I'm five full feet away from you."

        "Not far enough," Orion groaned lowly, her voice barely above a whisper, laced with utmost irritation. "I can like, feel your eyes on me. Too close for comfort."

"I'm..." Bellamy shook his head in bewilderment. "I wasn't even looking at you."

Spinning on her heels, Orion pivoted away from the doorframe, pinning Bellamy beneath a glare that could crumble stone. "You sayin' I'm not worth looking at, then—?"

Bellamy gaped. "What?"

"Am I ugly to you?"

        Bellamy gaped further. "What—?"

        "Fighting words, Blakey boy," Orion concluded with mock indignation, whirling back around in one fluid motion, reclaiming her spot against the doorframe as if the moment hadn't happened. "Ya hear that, Hav? Your boyfriend just hate-crimed me."

"That is not what that means—"

"Disagreeing with gay people is against the law, Blake," Orion deadpanned. "Do better."

Bellamy sputtered exasperatedly. "That's not...what are you even..." He glanced around helplessly, as if the walls themselves might offer some semblance of logic, before finally releasing a long-suffering sigh. "I'm literally just standing here."

        "Standing there and committing crimes!"

"Shh!" Haven cut in, dismissively waving a hand to silence the duo's incessant bickering. Her gaze only intensified, laser-focused on the slim gap she surveilled. "I can't tell if Kane is talking about Finn's war crimes or his own. It's too muffled."

        "Same difference," Bellamy grumbled beneath his breath. "Kane's a dick."

        Raven blew out an exasperated hiss of agitation. "Let's just hope all three of their braincells can knock some goddamn sense into each other," she muttered. "Otherwise, I will."

       "That's optimistic," Orion snorted wryly. "I'd say their down to one braincell and half a conscience—max."

        As Orion's jab floated through the air, Haven pivoted away from the lock, only to find herself locking eyes with Raven.

        Haven could feel the tension roiling off her best friend in blistering waves, as if she were a furnace struggling to contain a wildfire. Raven's jaw was clenched to the point of catastrophe, her fingers twitching with violent, restless energy, desperate for a fight she couldn't afford to lose. Her eyes were distant, almost feral, seething with the biological, unrelenting instinct to protect—to shield the boy she loved fearlessly, uncaring of the cost, heedless of the consequences.

        Slowly, Haven nudged her elbow against Raven's knee from her crouched position. "We'll figure this out, Birdy," she whispered, though the words felt unfathomably thin—a brittle promise against the weight of their circumstances. "One way or another."

        At that . . . the Mecha girls longingly held each other's stare, suspended in a moment that felt like an eternity.

         A thousand unspoken words ricocheted through the air, their meanings elusive, like phantoms clumsily slipping through desperate fingers. For the first time, the silence between them felt unbearably heavy, laden with a confusion neither could articulate, a gulf neither could cross. Raven's lips parted, the echo of something unsaid trembling on her breath—a plea, an apology, a profanity—but the words withered and died before they could be born. Haven watched her soundlessly, her brows knit in quiet anticipation, waiting for something more, something that would never come.

And then . . .

Raven nodded stiffly, the incendiary light in her eyes flickering for just a heartbeat before hardening into flint once more. She tore her gaze away at once, the moment unraveling like a fragile tether snapped too soon . . . and the distance between them only seemed to yawn wider.

Haven felt her heart plummet.

What the fuck was happening to them?

The thought shrieked through her mind, but before she could even begin to reach for it—a sudden rush of footsteps reverberated from the other side of the door.

. . . Oh, shit.

Panic struck like a lightning strike, and in an instant, every member of the group was abruptly scrambling—a chaotic blur of limbs and muffled curses. Haven lurched backward, nearly flailing onto her ass from the sheer speed of retreating—though Bellamy's hands were swift to scoop beneath her arms and haul her upright. There was no time to catch her breath, no time to process the near-disaster of being caught . . . because the chamber door was already sliding open with a low, mechanical hiss.

        Abby.

        Bellamy tucked Haven closer to his torso on instinct.

        Meanwhile . . . the Chancellor strode into the hallway with imperious calm, barely casting a glance at the others as she advanced. Around her, the group, still breathless and disheveled from their frantic scramble, bombarded her with a flurry of questions—voices overlapping, urgency thick in the air—though she brushed them off like a swarm of gnats.

        "What's happening—?!"

        Soon, the group fell into a relentless pursuit down the corridor—Orion swiftly flanking Abby's left side, Raven at her right, while Haven and Bellamy lingered just a step behind. Raven was the most insistent, almost rabid in her thirst for information, adeptly maneuvering around every attempt Abby made to create distance.

"What'd you talk about?" The Reyes girl's questions echoed in the narrow space like the rapid fire of a machine gun—refusing to allow silence or evasion any foothold. "What changed? You were in there a long time."

         Abby's words were frostbitten. "There was a lot to talk about."

         Unsatisfied, Raven only pressed harder. "Well, what's going on?"

        "C'mon—spill it, Gabby," Orion groaned, impatient as ever, cutting directly into Abby's path with a confrontational cross of her arms. "We've been waiting for, like, twenty minutes."

"There was a lot to talk about." Abby's voice tightened as she attempted to weave around Orion—only to stumble abruptly into Raven's formidable frame. A low hiss of irritation escaped her. "Both of you—step aside, now."

"Cut the shit," Bellamy snarled, cleaving through the tension as he swiftly maneuvered past the trio. He positioned himself squarely before Orion and Raven, a solid barrier to Abby's pitiful attempts to edge forward. "Answer them."

        Abby glared at him wretchedly. "Step. Aside."

"Make me."

        Time dilated, seconds morphing into slow, aching heartbeats as Bellamy stared the beast dead in the eye, fingers reflexively coiling tighter around the rifle hanging by his side. His jaw clenched so violently he could taste the bitter thrum of his own pulse against his teeth. It wasn't the lingering effects of his brain bleed that made him this volatile—no, his body's deep-seated revulsion to her presence had become second nature, an intrinsic response. He was perpetually poised to cuss her out, to fire his gun, to eradicate her blasphemous existence from the face of the earth itself.

        . . . She couldn't be the Chancellor anymore if she was fucking dead.

Abby knew it, too.

"When I have more information... you four will be the first to know," she conceded, her attempt at authority thinly veiled by the unmistakable tremor of fear Bellamy's presence evoked. "We're all trying to find a way out of this."

Bellamy begrudgingly allowed Abby to pass him.

And then . . .

His eyes found Haven's.

Haven felt her chest tighten, dread coiling within her like a spectral presence, its icy claws scraping to the surface once more. Abby's promise of more information was nothing but a hollow ruse; Haven recognized the lie as clearly as Bellamy. And if Abby was bluffing . . . if Bellamy had allowed her passage without a challenge . . . it was because they both understood the grim futility of it all.

        The verdict on Finn's fate had already been sealed, cast in the shadows, far from their reach.

Bellamy refused to tear his eyes from hers, sensing her innermost thoughts as intrinsically as his own . . . voicing them aloud as if extracting the syllables directly from her soul.

"...They're gonna give him up."

Raven buried her head in her hands.

The words fell like a curse, heavy and irrevocable, reverberating through the hollows of their clustered forms. It was more than a mere statement; it was a prophecy, an acknowledgment of the fate they had all seen coming . . . yet fought so desperately to deny.

"We can't keep him here," Raven rasped weakly, lifting her head from her hands and forcing her posture to straighten. She took another step backward and began to retreat down the corridor. "I'll cut the electricity to the gate again with Wick. Meet me there when you figure out a plan."

And then . . .

She was gone.

        Before Haven could even part her lips to call after her best friend, Orion was already in motion, slipping into the space Raven had left behind like a shadow trailing in her wake. "I'll, um... help her out," she offered, shrugging nonchalantly. "I like to bully Wick in my free time, anyway."

        Haven nodded.

But the movement felt ghostlike.

It was moments like these where everything felt like the beginning of the end. Every breath carried the bitter taste of inevitability, every heartbeat a mournful echo of something irretrievably lost. She knew better than to wager hope on Finn's fate. Logic dictated his end; the Council offering him up to a twisted, yet merciful deal was a path that made sense for the safety of Camp Jaha, the fragile cornerstone of a fledgling alliance. She knew the tally of his crimes, the atrocities that stained his hands in shades of red that no absolution could cleanse. She knew his death was the only sentence that justice could mete out. She knew that she felt more corpse than girl for protecting him, but why. . . why couldn't she let go?

. . . Why couldn't she let him go?

"What do you wanna do, Hav?"

Haven gaped. "Me—?"

Bellamy's eyes softened immeasurably. "Yeah," he whispered, curling his hand around her wrist and guiding them to a more private alcove in the corridor. His voice was low, a confidential murmur meant only for her ears. "I'll follow your lead. You wanna keep him alive?"

"I-I don't want him to die," Haven admitted selfishly—though the words felt disgustingly foul, tainted with wretched, bitter ash. "Finn needs consequences, but there has to be something else we can work out besides torture. I overheard Kane talking about putting him on trial here instead of giving him up to Lexa." She swallowed thickly. "Maybe we can buy ourselves more time if we hold him someplace safe."

"A trial... here?" Bellamy echoed, brows reflexively knitting together, sifting through the logic of the proposal. "So the Council can execute Finn themselves—?"

         "Maybe. I—I don't know," Haven whispered shakily. "If we try him here, we can show the Grounders that we're willing to hold him accountable instead of protecting him."

Bellamy remained unconvinced. "The Council already voted to clear him once," he reminded her softly, his tone devoid of any edge, yet laden with the weight of their past decisions. "I...I don't think Lexa's gonna care about our version of justice. If she doesn't like the second outcome—she'll kill us all."

Haven knew that he was right.

But the panic that had rooted itself in her chest, entwining its selfish tendrils around her fragile, stupid heart . . . refused to listen.

"It's a chance," Haven continued, shaking her head, staring at the boy she loved almost manically. "If we hand him over, we're complicit in his death. If we protect him here, we're complicit in his crimes." As a lump formed in her throat, choking her plea into a whisper, her resolve began to wane. "But if the Council offers him an official, public trial, at least..."

         Traitorous glass stretched over her irises.

        "At least it's something human."

Human.

        The word, once soft and brimming with tangible promise, now only seemed to carry the weight of the blood that had salted their new earth, darkening their hands and shadowing their hearts. It had taken only a month for its sanctity to erode, for the idea of salvation it once carried to dissolve like mist under the relentless sun of survival. Yet, at the sincerity softening Haven's words, and the private tears eclipsing her big, brown eyes . . . Bellamy suddenly felt himself reminded of its truth.

Humanity was gospel.

        But, if it stood as the sole barrier between Bellamy Blake and protecting the lives of those who mattered most . . . then he was its fucking heretic.

He would tear its scripture, set its pages alight, and let the ashes scatter like a requiem over the graves of those he had failed to save.

For what good was humanity if it could not protect what he held most dear? What use was faith when it was paid for in the blood of the innocent, when it asked them to turn the other cheek—only to have it beaten and bruised, until there was nothing left but hollow eyes and a scream caught in the throat? Humanity was a beacon—but it was also a goddamn chain, binding them to an ideal that no longer fit the world they roamed. And if that chain threatened to lure them into the abyss, then Belllamy would break it, annihilate it with his bare hands, and wield the fragments as weapons, because for his loved ones . . . he would become whatever the hell the world demanded of him.

         A savior. A sinner.

         A monster cloaked in the guise of a man.

        Bellamy couldn't possibly be worthy of the humanity Haven perceived in him if it cost her life, especially not for Finn fucking Collins . . . whose actions had nearly claimed hers.

"Hav..." His whisper was ragged, a tortured sound carried on a breath steeped in torment, as if every syllable were a boulder he had to push uphill. "Being human also means making choices—even the hard ones. Sometimes we have to protect the people we love by letting go of what we can't save."

        "But you've never let go of one of our own," Haven shot back, her voice cracking with startling conviction. "What if... what if we're wrong, Bell? What if there's still a way to save him?"

         "And what if there isn't?" Bellamy argued softly. "What if trying to save Finn means losing everybody else? Camp. Our friends in Mount Weather." His grip on her wrist tightened into something desperate. "You."

Silence roared.

And then . . .

Eighteen ghosts condemned Haven straight to the obsidian gates of hell.

"I have to try."

        Beneath the cold, ethereal wash of
Alpha's light, Bellamy studied the girl he loved with an intensity that bordered on worship. His eyes raked over every inch of her, lingering on the shadows that clung beneath her eyes, the lines of strain furrowing her brow, the delicate curve of her lips—chapped and trembling with a fear she wouldn't dare voice. His grip on her wrist was both a clasp and a caress; his thumb drew slow, deliberate circles against the fragile pulse point, as if attempting to soothe the thunder of her heartbeat, or commit its rhythm to memory. He felt the tremor in her tendons, the subtle twitch of her muscles beneath his fingertips, the faint crack of her knuckles as she held herself taut . . . forcing herself to be strong.

He knew his resistance was doomed from the goddamn start.

         She was the best of them.

         All of them.

"...Are you sure about this?"

Haven shook her head. "Why are you asking me specifically?"

"Because Finn killed you," Bellamy deadpanned. "And you're spending a hell of a lot of time arguing on behalf of his life."

Haven almost recoiled at the memory. She could still feel the force of Finn's shove—the brutal, unintentional impact that had thrust her backward, collapsing into the dirt and consequently stopping her heart. Darkness then swept in, vast and empty, swallowing her whole. It had wrapped itself around her like a shroud, dragging her down, down, down, into an abyss where there was no air, no light, no sense of self . . . only the numb, distant awareness that something vital had been severed.

        "Accidentally," she winced out.

Bellamy stared at her. "Your heart stopped."

"...Accidentally."

For a moment, the air between them seethed, charged with the enormity of Bellamy's unspoken rage and the grief that lingered like plague, too vast and deep to be fully articulated. The intensity of it all flared, tangible and white-hot, before he managed to curb it—though not completely. The tightening of his jaw and the unholy darkening of his gaze betrayed him, revealing the inner conflict that words could barely skim.

        "That's more than enough reason for me."

Haven hesitated, at that.

        "...You want to give him up, don't you?"

"I don't want any of our people dead by Grounders." Bellamy shook his head, almost as if he could physically expel the idea from his mind—as if the mere suggestion of surrendering one of their own was a poison he couldn't stomach. "But I'd be lying if I said I'd grieve him."

        Haven wasn't surprised.

        She had expected this, after all.

        It wasn't a secret—not to her, not to any of the surviving members of the hundred, not to anyone who had witnessed the collision of Bellamy Blake and Finn Collins, two forces that could never fully reconcile. Coexistence between them was a lie they had tried to live, but it was as impossible as oil mingling with water. The blood-soaked days after the dropship war had fused them together out of sheer necessity—but necessity did not breed trust, nor did it clense the bitter taste of betrayal.

        Haven knew that, in Bellamy's eyes, Finn had already dug his own grave . . . and now all that was left was for him to lie in it.

"I...." Haven's voice faltered, fragile as glass under the crushing weight of unspoken thoughts, of everything she ached to express but found too elusive to capture in words. "We just need more time. Only a little more."

        And then . . .

Bellamy nodded. Unflinchingly.

"Okay," he breathed out, shifting his hand from her wrist to grasp her own, his fingers intertwining with hers in a devoted clasp. "Okay. We'll keep him in the dropship."

        Haven apprehensively bit her lip. "You sure?"

        Three pulses warmed her palm in response.

        Bellamy understood all too well that this was not a solution, not in the slightest. But it was something—a delicate attempt to buy time, to nurture the hope burning in Haven's eyes, even if it felt like he was trying to stem a flood with his bare hands. Still, he would do it; he would stand against the entire goddamn ocean if it meant granting her this fragment of peace, a fleeting moment to cling to the belief that, maybe, just maybe . . . they could salvage the unsalvageable.

        . . . She was brilliant enough to figure something out, anyway.

        "I told you I'd follow your lead, Hav," Bellamy assured her. "Just say the word."

        Haven knew that he meant it.

        As the duo navigated the twisting corridors of Alpha, their hands intertwined, they soon discovered Finn at the desolate dead end of B-Corridor.

        The Collins boy stood slouched against the wall, hands shoved deep into his pockets, shoulders caved in, as though the magnitude of his sins were pressing down on him with an unbearable force. Tousles of dark hair veiled his face, concealing his deadened eyes as he stared vacantly at the floor. Clarke lingered just to his left, arms crossed, eyes peeled as she vigilantly kept watch of their surroundings . . . and widening as she glimpsed the familiar duo approaching them.

         "Finn," Bellamy called out, beckoning him over with an agitated sweep of his hand. "You need to get out of here—now. Let's go."

For a moment, Finn stood suspended in the eerie stillness of his own torment, deaf to Bellamy's voice.

         "Finn..." Bellamy bit out his insistence through clenched teeth, far more impatiently than his last attempt. "Move your fuckin' ass."

        Slowly, laboriously, Finn's head began to rise—an ancient mechanism creaking back to life. His eyes, once vibrant with the light of a thousand possibilities, were now dull and hollow, twin voids that seemed to devour the atmosphere around him. He looked at Bellamy, then at Haven . . . and finally summoned the strength to move.

        Clarke stiffened, a reflexive brace for bad news, though she wasted no time trailing after the group as they shifted to retrace their steps. "Where would he go?"

        "The dropship," Bellamy grunted.

        "What? No!" Clarke's retort was a frantic whisper, mindful of the ears that lingered within the dim confines of the hallway. "You know that this is the safest place for him right now."

        Bellamy shook his head. "It isn't if they're turning on him," he muttered, the words barely audible above the soft scuffle of their hurried steps. Swiftly, he positioned himself between Finn and Haven, not only enforcing space . . . but also casting himself as Finn's unwilling shield. "We can protect him at the dropship until we figure this thing out."

         As Haven shifted to take the lead, fluidly guiding the group down the dim corridor and into the branching hallway, the weight of countless eyes hawked her every move. She could feel the gaze of every Ark civilian piercing through the shadows, a thousand silent judgments trailing their steps. It wasn't the usual scrutiny of the guards—whose constant vigilance had long since blurred into the background of their daily lives—nor the indifferent eyes of the Council's minions.

This was . . . different.

Mothers clutched their children tighter, shrinking away from Finn as if his very proximity could lure them closer to ruin. The elderly averted their eyes. Even the young, usually so curious and resilient, watched with wide, trembling eyes, their breaths caught in their throats as if in his presence, the very air became thinner.

        They weren't just wary of Finn.

         . . . They were terrified of him.

        "Grab your gear and meet at Raven's gate in five." Bellamy's command was low and urgent as they came to a halt. "She's already working on cutting the power to the fence with Orion."

        "Okay," Finn rasped. "But nobody's coming with me."

        Haven shook her head. "Not a chance."

        "What the hell are you two thinking—?" Clarke hissed, incredulity seething through the thin veil of her patience as she absorbed the sheer recklessness of the duo's resolve—mirrored so visibly in the steel of Haven's jaw and Bellamy's tightened fists. "Sneaking out is insane. Sneaking out together is suicide. We are surrounded by Grounders—"

        "If we split up, take the low ground—we'll make it through," Bellamy cut in sternly. "All we have to do is meet at the dropship."

        Clarke tried again. "I—"

        "THERE HE IS!"

        Haven felt her blood ignite.

        Standing barely ten feet away was the man who had tormented Orion earlier that day—the same bastard she and Bellamy had ambushed outside Alpha's shadow. It was a miracle he was even breathing, let alone standing. His face became an unrecognizable ruin—vivid, violet bruises swelling across his skin, his nose shattered, teeth chipped and jagged. Every inch of him bore the violent marks of their assault, his ribs caved in, and yet, miraculously, he was still alive.

        . . . Barely.

        Haven had been certain they left him to die, a mangled carcass left to bleed out into the cold embrace of the dirt.

        But . . . impossibly, the motherfucker had resurrected himself, fueled by an infernal rage, charging towards them with the desperation of a cornered beast. His frame was bent, movements feral, as if every sinew was sparked by sheer fury. Clutched in his hands was a jagged cylinder of metal—more a tool of vengeance than a mere weapon. Emitting a guttural snarl, his eyes, feverish and alight with wrath, bypassed Haven and Bellamy . . . fixing instead on Finn.

        "You are going to get us killed!"

        "You've only got about... thirty seconds left," Haven retorted, arms folded across her chest with a disarming nonchalance. Her eyes glinted with lethal serenity, fully aware that it would take only a heartbeat for either herself—or Bellamy—to end his miserable existence for good. "How the fuck are you still breathing—?"

        Recognition twisted the man's features into something monstrous. "And you!" he snarled, thrusting the jagged cylinder toward Haven with a trembling, vengeful hand. "You're the bitch who cracked my front teeth!"

        Bellamy cocked his head. "The fuck did you just say—?"

        Before he could make a move, Haven stepped forward, utterly unshaken by the man's outburst. "And I'll do it again," she huffed dismissively, rivaling his loathing with a mocking smirk. "Cry about it, dick. You were ugly anyway."

        The man's body coiled as he shifted his weight, eyes ablaze, poised to launch himself forward. "When I get my hands on both of you, I swear to—"

His threat never reached its end.

Bellamy struck first.

Before he could even register the loss, the pole was wrenched from the man's grip, and with a single, fluid motion, Bellamy wielded it against him. The metal collided sharply with the man's skull—a sickening thwack silencing any further words. His body swiftly dropped, unconscious before it hit the floor . . . though Bellamy refused to stop.

        As the man lay prone and defenseless, Bellamy continued his relentless assault. Each strike of the pole forced the man's head to snap back, blood spurting rhythmically with each lethal connection. The pole was discarded in a flash, and Bellamy's boot swiftly followed—his heel crushing into the man's jaw with devastating force, teeth scattering across the blood-slicked floor as mere debris.

        Haven blinked.

        Well . . . that was fast.

        Bellamy stood towering over the man's limp form, chest barely rising, dark eyes dangerously sweeping over the crowd of onlookers.

"...Anyone else?"

Panic erupted like a flash flood, and without hesitation . . . every bystander bolted, scattering in all directions.

        "Bellamy's right," Clarke began breathlessly,  eyeing the nearest exit as she turned to Finn. "We have to go."

        "Of course I'm right," Bellamy grumbled, wiping the blood from his hands onto the front of his cargo pants, the scarlet streaks staining the fabric as if it were nothing more than a minor inconvenience. "We'll meet you there."

Clarke nodded solemnly.

Finn stared vacantly ahead.

As Haven watched their shadows retreat down the opposite hallway, skirting the bloodied remnants of Bellamy's brutal handiwork, she felt the weight of Finn's gaze lingering on her. His eyes, shadowed by something elusive—remorse, gratitude, or perhaps sorrow—flickered back over his shoulder, catching hers for the briefest moment. Whatever the hell it was, it clung to him like a phantom, slipping away before she could fully grasp it.

It twisted her gut with guilt.

She had made the choice to buy him more time.

But now . . . Haven was condemned to live with the consequences, shackled by the suffocating knowledge that every breath Finn drew from this moment forward was stolen.

        "Hav." Bellamy's voice was a soothing balm to her frayed nerves. "You're with me."

        Haven blinked, wrenching herself from the gloom of her thoughts, her eyes finally lifting to meet his as he drew closer. "I thought you said we were splitting up?"

        Bellamy almost laughed, his lips curling into the faintest semblance of a crooked grin. "Since when does that apply to us—?"

         Yet, even in his smile's quiet warmth . . . it held a promise that stilled the firestorm roaring within Haven's chest. The dread that had gripped her heart, leeching the strength from her veins, seemed to ebb beneath the shelter of his presence. His hands, steady and warm, slipped another dagger into her back pocket, the cold steel forgotten beneath the tender brush of his fingers. They lingered at her waist, a delicate tether that grounded her amid the chaos of blood and ruin . . . a fragile link to something softer amidst the devastation.

         "You move, I move."

• •

HI BESTIES

orion everytime bellamy breathes:

lil disclaimer because i feel like i need to say this especially with the upcoming chapters ... it's very easy to raise pitchforks at finn(I DO TOO), but haven's feelings about him are supposed to come across as messy/conflicting, especially as his death becomes more of a reality.
ever since the massacre i think her thoughts surrounding him and his actions have been written clearly. she has a spine, but now that his life is fully on the line... its all starting to hit her at once, shits getting complicated and she's starting to panic. she recognizes the hypocrisy in buying him more time/finding another option besides offering his life, but deep down she feels she is too selfish to let go of him . . . yet.
she does NOT stand for his actions at the village but her moral compass is going !!! haywire !!! as she empathizes with the grounders' grief, while ALSO trying to reconcile with her childhood friend's downfall AND his livelihood

.....i feel like im waaay overthinking this explanation lol i know yall understand haven like i do, but i really hope it came across as intended is what im trying to say, i think. because writing it has been stressful as FUCK 😭

ANYWAAAAAY

next chapter is one of my simple favs again <3 we back at the dropship and everything always feels so nostalgic there.
but the next span of chapters following it are going to be hell. pretty much back to back to back hell 😎😎😎 BUT ITS SO EXCITING THO I CANT FUCKING WAIT FOR YALL TO SEE WHAT I HAVE PLOTTED

I LOVE YOUUUUUUUU!!!!