• •

CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT;

IF YOU NEED TO BE MEAN . . .
BE MEAN TO ME.

• •

REACHING THE CREST OF TONDC WAS FUCKING DEBILITATING. By the time the group had ghosted the frayed edges of the settlement—Haven was barely more than a shadow of herself. Her body had betrayed her, forcing her to essentially slump against Bellamy with every ounce of strength she had left. His solidity was the lone tether keeping her from being devoured by the maw of the earth itself. Throughout those final five miles, as she leaned into him, her body trembled—a frail burden on his resilient form—and the electric, celestial fire that had once burned within her had dwindled to embers.

She was tired—so, so tired.

        Sleep had eluded Haven for five long days, her mind a desolate wasteland, and the thought of food only twisted her stomach into knots. Bellamy had extended his rations, pressing them into her unwilling hands, but she shrugged him off. Deprivation was catching up to her now, but she lied to herself, whispering that it didn't matter. She'd survived on less—far less. Back in the earlier days of life on Earth, she had lived on sheer spite alone—her will sharpened into something savage, feral, barely human.

Back then . . . that raw, primal hunger to endure had been enough. It had carried her through.

But now . . .

Haven did not want to fight anymore.

She didn't want to live—not really, not now, not after yesterday's horrors.

"I don't like horses."

        Haven wearily dragged her gaze toward Orion. The Vincetta girl waltzed a few paces ahead, her fingers idly dancing along the hilt of her sword, as if it were a mere plaything rather than a lethal extension of her will. The clatter of the Commander's horse-drawn procession echoed as it neared the village gate—a stark contrast to the heavy, dragging steps of the weary group. Yet, amidst the exhaustion that cloaked the others, Orion moved with an ethereal grace, as if untouched by the mortal demands of grief and fatigue.

. . . Except for the death glares she shot at the horses lugging the carts ahead.
       
        "Horses?" Haven asked. "Why not?"

"We have unspoken beef," Orion grunted, casting yet another irritated glance at the pristine white steed bearing Lexa further ahead. "They're twitchy. Unpredictable. And seem to enjoy kicking unsuspecting, innocent people unnecessarily far distances."

        Haven blinked. "That sounds... specific."

        Bellamy's lips twitched upwards. "She's speaking from experience, y'know," he jabbed. "One of 'em launched her ass across an entire clearing once."

"It was a freakin' suckerpunch of a kick!" Orion shot back, slowing her steps to aim an elbow at Bellamy's midsection—a move he preemptively anticipated and dodged. "And I was distracted. Doesn't count."

        "Right," Bellamy drawled smugly. "Sure."

         Orion pinned him beneath another withering glare before glancing back to Haven. "Unfortunately, it's been bad blood between us ever since. But—" she paused dramatically, scrutinizing Bellamy with a mischievous glint in her amber eyes. "If we're really getting into it, Blake... should I tell her the full story? Or are you worried I'll ruin your reputation?"

        Bellamy only scoffed. "My answer won't stop you—"

        "Exactly! So, Haven," Orion interrupted, her grin widening wickedly. "Lemme break it down for you. The only reason I got bitched by a horse was because I was busy saving your boyfriend's useless, incompetent ass from being skewered by Tristan." She raised her arms in mock triumph, as if she were accepting an award, and before Bellamy could react—she successfully jabbed her elbow into his torso. "You literally suck at fighting. Real bad."

Bellamy winced at the connection of her elbow slamming against his rib cage. "I was kind of busy bleeding out of my ears."

"Sounds like an excuse to me!"

"Opin au!"

        Before Haven's faint, barely imperceptible smile could fully form—movement at the procession's forefront stole the breath from her lungs.

        Lexa regally halted the travelers with a mere glance, dismounting her steed, her gaze authoritatively sweeping over the approaching village. From the lush thicket beyond the gates, Trikru warriors emerged like acolytes slipping from the wild, their movements intrinsic as they forced the massive structure open. Lexa was swiftly flanked by her . . . bodyguard? No. Advisor. Or maybe both. If Haven remembered correctly . . . he was the same man who had once threatened to slit her and Clarke's throats during their tense negotiation.

       Y'know . . . the friendly one.

        Now, as the gates groaned open under the strain of ancient wood and rusted hinges, the advisor pointedly detached himself from Lexa's side. Halting before the ragged line of Skaikru, he summoned another warrior with a mere jerk of his head. The second figure approached, basket in hand, an unspoken demand hanging in the balance.

"Weapons," he barked tersely.

"We need to disarm before we enter." Lincoln's voice was calm but firm as he shifted from behind Haven, surrendering his daggers to the basket with a soft, metallic clink. "It's okay."

        . . . Yikes.

        Haven knew that disarming would be an inevitable cruelty, but its knowledge failed to halt the visceral churn of dread twisting in her stomach. The mere thought of walking into enemy territory—bare, defenseless, with nothing but the body of the boy who had slain their people as their offering—felt like stepping willingly into a lion's den. Every fiber of her being howled to hold onto her blades, to keep at least one sliver of steel between her and the threat lurking in every shadow.

        But this was the cost.

        This moment—stripped of protection, nerves frayed raw—was the bitter sacrifice required if the fragile alliance had any hope of surviving.

Trust needed to start somewhere.

        Clarke set the precedent, efficiently sliding her pistol into the basket, her actions swiftly mirrored by Kane, Octavia, and Jackson. Abby, frail and essentially useless in the heat of battle, carried nothing—too weak to hold a weapon, too inept to ever adequately aim one. Orion kissed the silver blade of Michonne—a weapon as much a part of her as her own breath—before letting it go with a visible shudder of separation.

        And then . . . there was Bellamy.

The Blake boy appeared more inclined to face an entire firing squad than let go of the rifle clenched in his grip. The weapon seemed fused to his hands. He shot Haven a look, his eyes pleading—an unvoiced appeal to fuck the goddamn truce and retain the rifle at his side.

        She shook her head. Firmly.

        At last, with an extremely agitated huff . . . Bellamy finally relinquished his gun to the basket.

        Next, the advisor approached Raven, an air of provocation in his movement as she stood defiantly immobile. Smugly, he began retracting the daggers from her clothing—first from her knee brace, then from the depths of her backpack. Each weapon he uncovered felt like stripping away a layer of her armor, but still, she refused to move. His thick hands spun her around with cruel leisure, making a spectacle of the search, his fingers skimming across her as if taunting her to snap. He ensured no blade remained hidden, no sliver of steel left to her name, while the fire in her eyes seethed with an insatiable hunger for vengeance.

        Her childhood love had been sacrificed to the grim demands of his people, after all.

Haven watched the disarmament with rapidly mounting discomfort. The way the advisor handled Raven—overly theatrical and invasive—wasn't just about security. It seemed designed to belittle, to dominate, an egregious display of power intended to make Raven feel patronized.

. . . Dick.

       Then, he lecherously pivoted towards Haven.

       "Lift your shirt," he commanded.

       Haven blinked at him. "What?"

       "Lift your shirt to remove your blades," the advisor insisted, far more gruffly—the tattoos etched across his face contorting with impatience. "Do not disobey me, Natblida."
       
       "Dude," Orion huffed out. "Kick rocks."

        . . . What the fuck kind of humiliation tactic was this?

A violent shudder of revulsion tore down Haven's spine, sharp and relentless, the sheer vulgarity of his demand sinking into her bones. This wasn't just an order—it was a sick, domineering spectacle, an attempt to degrade her under the guise of protocol. The intensity of his gaze alone seemed to strip her bare. For a moment, she felt unmoored, embarrassment tightening its grip around her, rendering her impossibly small and steeped in . . . shame.

        "Lift it," the man ordered tersely. "Now."

        Bellamy cocked his head, daring a step forward to challenge the warrior's unbelievably lunatic request. "You gonna ask me to lift up mine, too—?"

        The advisor remained cunningly aloof. "Shop of, blokafecha." His cold eyes never strayed from Haven. "I was speaking to your huomon."

        Haven clenched her jaw. "Why me?" she pressed, refusing to let her voice waver despite the roar of indignation ripping through her. "Nobody else had to undress."

        "Must I do it for you?"

        "Alright." Orion tensed to lunge. "What the fuck—?"

        "Gustus!"

        All eyes snapped to Lexa's voice reverberating from her position at the gate. She stood immovable as marble, one hand planted firmly on her armored hip, the other tapping the hilt of her sword in a slow, deliberate rhythm. Her eyes—icy, lethal—scythed through the crowd like daggers, sharp enough to cleave through the bravest soul.

        Gustus dipped his head in dutiful acknowledgement. "Heda."

        The Commander's gaze refused to waver. "What are you on about?" she pressed, her voice carrying the same lethal serenity as it always had. "Why do you seek to humiliate her?"

        "No humiliation," Gustus insisted promptly, straightening his broad shoulders as Lexa's eyes narrowed into slits of cold condemnation. "She hides her weapons beneath her clothing. I'm ensuring the search is thorough for your safety, Heda."

        Lexa lifted her hand from her sword's hilt with regal calm. "Em pleni," she muttered flatly, her eyes flickering briefly to Haven before refocusing on Gustus. "She's not foolish enough to lie to me."

        Gustus silently clenched his fists at his sides. "Heda, I must disagree—"

       "Do you question my judgment, Gustus?"

Gustus, ever loyal, shook his head.

"Very well," Lexa hissed. "Proceed, Haven."

With . . . that, Haven slowly relinquished her blades, each one falling into the basket with the weight of her silent rebellion. She moved fluidly, ensuring not a single millimeter of skin was exposed as she slipped her hands beneath the hem of her jacket. She made Gustus watch—forcing the towering, monolithic thumb to track her every fucking movement, daring him to challenge her again. The pistol stashed in her waistband came last, held just a moment longer—reminding him of the power she still commanded, even without the weapons she was surrendering.

        Then, she released it, the clattering of metal against the basket reverberating like a gunshot.

"There," Haven declared. "I don't have anything else."

        Gustus remained unmoved by her lethal glare—nor did he hesitate as he extended his large hands towards her shoulder brace. "Let me check this... contraption," he huffed out. "Then, you are cleared."

        "That's enough," Bellamy snarled, agitatedly stepping forward—again. Instantly, two spears snapped to his chest, their sharp points a whisper away from piercing his skin, held by warriors with eyes as hard as flint. Yet, he stood resolute, the danger to his own life barely registering as he glared at them. "She's only wearing that to protect her injury."

        Gustus shook his head. "I do not care."

        "Sir," Jackson interjected, urgency carrying his words as he moved from the procession's rear, edging his way to stand beside Bellamy. His eyes widened momentarily as one of the spears swiveled threateningly towards him, but his voice held steady. "I'm her... healer. I designed the contraption she's wearing. She can't fit any weapons in there. It's strictly for medical purposes."

        Haven warily glanced to Jackson.

        He offered her a fragile smile of reassurance.
       
        There was no time to unravel the layers of Jackson's motivations—whether his plea was a genuine act of protection or a desperate bid to save his own ass. Haven was acutely aware that the brace he designed could conceal small daggers—something she might have exploited under different circumstances—but she prayed to the stars above that Jackson hadn't covertly planted anything himself.

Ultimately, the subtleties of his intentions faded into irrelevance as Lexa's gaze flicked to Gustus, her curt nod granting him the permission he so eagerly sought.

        His hands snatched Haven at once.

        Agony lanced through Haven's sutures as Gustus's tattooed fingers invaded the space beneath her brace, though the pain was somewhat muted—dulled only by the ghostly numbness left from Finn's twist to her arm days earlier. His grip was aggressive as he jostled the brace, thoroughly inspecting for hidden blades or unseen secrets she might have tucked away. Still, her teeth ground together in fearless defiance, refusing to allow Gustus the satisfaction of flinching as he manhandled her.

After what felt like a tortuous eternity, Gustus reluctantly withdrew . . . having found nothing.

       "Heda," Gustus announced. "Em klir."

Haven was too tired to bare her teeth.

        Meanwhile . . . Bellamy looked half a heartbeat away from strangling the bastard to certain death.

        "Commander," Lincoln translated beneath his breath. "All clear."

        As the spears aimed at his chest slowly lowered, the tension in Bellamy's frame did not dissipate; it merely transformed, simmering just beneath the surface. "How do I say... " He exhaled a low, menacing whisper. "Commander—if you let your fuckface bodyguard touch her again, I'm gonna snap his goddamn neck."

Lincoln pondered the translation.

         And then . . .

"Heda, taim yu teik jokfeis bloka fiya em moun gou, ai na bos em spichen swela—"

        "Lincoln!" Octavia whisper-scolded,  discreetly stomping on the man's boot, halting his profane translation mid-sentence. "Don't encourage him!"

         Lincoln frowned. "He asked for help."

         "Relax," Orion chimed in, dismissing Octavia's pointed glare with an amused wave of her hand. "Your brother's gonna start barking before he learns a new language. I, on the other hand, am looking to become trilingual." She leaned in closer to Lincoln, a gleam of devilish intent in her gaze as her hand landed breezily on his shoulder. "Linc, my guy, how do I say cunt in Grounder—?"

        Suddenly . . . a chorus of reverential voices rippled through the air, silencing their conversation at once.

        "Heda! Heda! Heda!"

        "Heda, monin hou!"

"Commander," Lincoln translated again—a faint, wistful smile tugging at his lips. "Welcome back."

Haven tuned out of the group's antics as Lexa led the procession forward again, unyieldingly flanked by Indra and Gustus. The air shifted as they slowly crossed the open gate, no longer strangers skirting Tondc's boundaries, but rather anointed by the very power that reigned over the lands. The earth beneath their feet felt denser, each step echoing the weight of history—a stark contrast to the first time they had approached, when Finn's gunfire had marred the horizon with blood and ruin.

. . . It was beautiful inside.

Humble abodes painted in dark hues of the earth—navy, umber, and moss—clustered like a mosaic, crafted by the hands of those who danced with the land itself. Quilts, vibrant with tribal motifs, draped over each threshold, whispering tales of unity and heritage. It echoed the fragile sense of home the hundred had once carved for themselves at the dropship, but here, the roots ran far deeper. The village's heart beat in the larger constructs of reclaimed wood and metal, framed by ancient sentinels—trees that stood as silent witnesses to both their darkest hours and their brightest days.

        Here, amidst the thrum of communal life and the faint laughter of children, was a world reborn . . . pulsing with the potent hope of what could be forged from the ruins of what once was.

"Heda! Heda! Heda!"

Around Lexa, warriors congregated with a reverence reserved for the divine, her aura the sun in their orbit, too brilliant to behold yet impossible to ignore.

        And then . . .

        The reverence grew volatile.

"Hakom yu hir?" A voice snarled lividly.

        "Skaikru—? Ripa gon we hou!"

Haven felt Bellamy's hand slide instinctively into hers, his grip tightening as they pressed deeper into the village, surrounded on all sides by restless eyes. The murmurs that rose around them were no longer curious but hostile, festering with resentment. Faces once blank with cautious regard now corroded into rage, soft eyes narrowing into venomous slits, mouths curling into sneers that mirrored the villagers' growing disdain for the outsiders in their midst. And although Haven's grasp of Trigedasleng was fragile at best . . . the gravity of the scornful accusations needed no translation.

"Why have you brought them here?" Lincoln relayed grimly. "Death to the Sky People. Murderers go home."

Murderers.

. . . That's exactly what they were, after all.

        It wasn't only Finn's hands that were soaked in Grounder blood; his massacre might have targeted innocents, but it was only the sharpest edge of a blade they all carried. None among the Skaikru could claim innocence; not one was untainted by the stain of murder. Blood was blood. No matter the reason—self-defense, reactionary violence, the desperate act to save a friend—it was all the same to the earth, to the dead.

       The ledger of death bore grim tallies.

        Skaikru had buried almost fifty of their own.

        . . . Trikru had lost over three hundred.

        A sullen figure emerged, his form casting a shadow across the path, halting the procession from passing. "Skaikru don jak eting op kom ai!" he declared solemnly. "Ai houmon... ai yongon."

        "Sky People took everything from me," Lincoln translated softly, the quiet anguish of the words barely audible over the rising murmur of the crowd. "My wife. My child."

        Haven felt her heart wail.

        "Sef of," Gustus barked coldly.

        The man shook his head. "Ripa nou gou teik in hir."

        "...Murderers are not welcome here," Lincoln finished.

        Before Haven could fully process the tightening in her throat, a signal passed—silent, deadly—from Lexa to Gustus, a nearly imperceptible dip of her head.

        And then . . .

        Gustus pummeled the man into the earth.

Blood erupted in brutal bursts beneath every blow, spraying with the rhythm of fury made flesh. An uppercut split the man's lip, a crack across the jaw shattered any thought of defiance—again, and again, and again. Each strike fell like thunder, obliterating breath, grinding bone, demanding submission. The man's gasps were drowned in scarlet rivers, his chest heaving in stuttering, desperate bursts, only to be met with the merciless bite of another punch. Every attempt to lift his head was crushed beneath the hammerfall of Gustus's knuckles.

        This was no fight.

        It was punishment.

        Haven understood that the man's crime was not cowardice; he was guilty of simply . . . mourning. He had barred his doors against the people who had razed his world—his wife, his children—so he fought with the only weapon left: his refusal.

        But defiance was a fragile thing beneath fists like these.

"Commander—stop him, please," Clarke begged, attempting to occupy the void of Gustus's presence at Lexa's left—only to find it vast, merciless, and cold. "They'll blame us for this too."

Lexa did not budge.

Each strike seemed to conjure the ghosts of the man's lost family, fleeting apparitions rising with the force of his suffering—only to be beaten back into the dirt, crimson staining the soil where they once lived.

Again, Lexa did not budge.

. . . But Haven wasn't Clarke, and patience was a virtue she had never cared to master.

        "ENOUGH!"

All eyes snapped to Haven.

Lexa's hand lifted, a signal for Gustus to halt, though the gesture was more for show. The violence had already faltered. His fist wavered mid-swing, hovering as if snagged by an invisible thread, his entire body locked in place as though the marrow of his bones had warped to stone. The moment of hesitation was so fleeting, so imperceptible, it might have slipped past anyone else.

        Anyone but Haven.

        Gustus stood there, frozen, staring at his own hand as though it were a foreign object—betrayed by the very muscles he had commanded moments before. It was instinct, primal and treacherous . . . a surrender buried somewhere beneath his skin, answering her word before thought could intervene.

        . . . He looked grateful that Lexa missed it.

"There she is." Lexa's focus zeroed in on Haven, now standing boldly at the forefront of the crowd, her presence intrinsically commanding attention. "Would you care to explain why you interrupted my orders so... audaciously?"

        Haven shook her head. "You don't have to beat him to prove a point," she managed, acutely aware of the weight of Bellamy's hand pressing tighter against hers from behind. "Your punishment is nothing compared to the grief he's already feeling."

Lexa tilted her chin. "You think this is punishment?" she murmured venomously. "All those who dare to defy me must learn—"

"He's not defying you," Haven cut in, her voice slipping in fast, sharp as a dagger locating the soft seam between armor. "This was never even about you. He's just... mourning. And you're denying him that." She inhaled sharply, a quick snatch of air, before forcing out her next words with bold clarity. "If you don't want defiance—prevent his blow from landing instead of getting pissed and striking back. Validate him instead of pummeling him."

        Haven's gaze then drifted to the blood-soaked form of the man lying in the dirt—the wifeless husband, the father without a child. At the periphery of her vision, the spectral form of Finn flickered, though she blinked him away before he could fully manifest. Instead, she forced herself to meet the man's eyes, to hold the weight of his stare, allowing his hatred to sink its teeth into her soul. It gnashed through her, stripping her to her marrow, until all that remained was the hollow ache underpinning his fury—his grief dulling the sharpness of his rage, bleeding it into a void so deep it seemed bottomless.

        No fist could match that kind of suffering.

        No punishment was harsher than the ghosts that lingered long after the dead were buried.

        Haven pointedly lifted her chin high.

"His pain isn't a threat to your authority, Commander," she declared. "Don't beat him into something smaller just to fit your control."

         And then . . .

"Teik em kik raun."

        As Lexa's command cleaved through the air, Gustus finally rose to his feet, abandoning the man he'd beaten in the soil and resuming his vigil at Lexa's left.

        Villagers swiftly carried the man's body away, but before he could vanish entirely, he tilted his battered face toward Haven. His swollen features quivered with the effort, but beneath the ruin of bruises and blood, he offered her the faintest nod—a fragile flicker of something unexpected.

        Gratitude.

"The Sky People march with us now!" Lexa declared, stepping into the bed of leaves maimed by the man's blood, her words sharp as steel and final as the grave. "Anyone who tries to stop that will pay with their life!"

And then . . .

The march into Tondc resumed.

Haven couldn't pinpoint the moment her lungs remembered how to inhale without shuddering, nor when her legs resumed their weary rhythm, trailing the procession like a phantom bound to follow. The edges of the world blurred, smeared by exhaustion, the scenery folding into shadows too heavy to hold significance. She pressed her palm against her eyes, willing herself to scrub away the deep-seated fatigue, but it was too ingrained, permeating her very bones.

Every step felt stolen.

        Until . . .

        Three pulses warmed her palm.

        Centered by Bellamy's familiar gravity, Haven forced her legs to move, one step after another, through the blood-soaked soil that transitioned into the approaching village.

"Dude," Orion whispered, breath involuntarily hitching as her eyes stayed glued to Lexa's figure ahead. "She's, like, scary hot."

Bellamy blew out an agitated breath.

        "Warm welcome."

• •

        WATCHING FINN'S BODY BURN TO ASH WAS THE DEEPEST TORMENT HAVEN HAD EVER KNOWN. Smoke had curled within the air like grey wraiths, slithering into her lungs, choking her with memories she couldn't afford to relive. Her knees trembled, traitorous beneath her weight; her stomach twisted into a violent knot, and the migraine behind her eyes throbbed like a war drum—but she refused to fall.

        Just as she had refused when Clarke's knife sunk into Finn's gut.

        Every nerve in Haven's body screamed, every shattered piece of her begged to shatter further—to wail, to crumble, to hurl his name into the blackened sky. But she stood still, sculpted from sorrow and stone, as if his death demanded her stillness—a punishment only she could carry.

She couldn't move. She couldn't move.

Not when every flicker of the fire whispered his name.

The funeral ritual had been calm—eerily so, all things considered. Finn's lifeless form lay atop a small pyre, bolstered by the eighteen bodies he had slaughtered. Each corpse was enshrouded in a body bag, but the ones belonging to the children—so small, so terribly delicate—stood out most horrifically. With the touch of a single torch, the pyre caught fire, and the flames had licked hungrily at their offering.

        ". . . People of Tondc—in fire, we cleanse the pain of the past. . ."

        As fire swept through the structure, it indiscriminately devoured everything in its path—flesh, bone, and sin alike, merging victim and perpetrator in its fiery cleanse. There were no prayers whispered, no words of comfort—only the crackle of fire and the steady collapse of bodies into dust.

        Clarke had been the one to burn his body.

Meanwhile . . . Haven had stood rigidly between the Blake siblings, suffocating beneath the weight of their unspoken concern.

        Every glance in her direction felt like a bruise—light but insistent, burrowing into the cracks she fought to keep hidden. The creases between their brows had deepened each time they observed her, as if they were waiting for her to shatter, bracing for the inevitable collapse that never came. She couldn't entirely fault them; to stand so vacant, so unnervingly silent at the funeral of her oldest friend—it was as unnatural as grief without tears.

        Bellamy had been quieter in his concern than Octavia, but no less relentless, tracking the line of Haven's drifting stare into the void—endlessly, tirelessly—over and over again. She watched the shadows; Bellamy watched her. His brow furrowed as if sheer force of will might let him glimpse whatever haunted her gaze—as if he could reach into the spaces between breaths and grasp the invisible thing she clung to so desperately.

Haven knew that he never would.

No one would.

. . . Finn's apparition was her burden to carry.

It was almost terrifying—the way Finn's ghost slipped through the edges of Haven's vision. He flickered in and out like a wayward ember caught in the wind, lingering behind tree trunks, watching from the shadows as if he had always belonged there. She didn't question it. She couldn't. She was too weary to chase sanity through the haze of grief, too exhausted to fight against the image of him reappearing in the blink of an eye . . . only to dissolve the next.

        What was the point of fighting the presence of someone who felt more real in death than he ever did in life?

        If Finn Collins was fated to haunt her—if he was destined to become the phantom stitched into the marrow of her troubled mind—then so be it.

        . . . At least he was alive somewhere.

        Now, the procession had convened inside one of Tondc's aged structures, gathering around the promise of a meal that would solidify their truce for good.

        The interior of the old building held a haunting beauty. Concrete floors lay underfoot, surrounded by brick walls that were once painted white and golden, now draped in lush moss and sprawling greenery. Candles cast a warm glow in nearly every corner of the expansive room, warding off the chill that spilled invasively through the lofty windows. At the heart of the room stood a grand, weathered table, long enough to stretch the expanse between enemies. It groaned beneath the weight of heaping trays—fruits and meats, roasted roots and bread—an offering abundant enough to disguise the tension woven through every glance and movement. Lexa and the Grounders occupied one side of the table, while Kane and Skaikru lined the opposite, mirroring their counterparts in a display of tentative harmony.

Haven felt ghostlike among them. Again.

Meanwhile, Kane had donned an impeccably warm smile. "Please accept this gift, Commander," he began, his voice rich with cordiality as he extended a glass bottle across the table, its contents sloshing with moonshine. "We drink this at special occasions. I believe this qualifies."

Gustus received the moonshine first, dedicatedly presenting the bottle to Lexa, sparing her the need to stretch across the table.

Lexa accepted the gesture graciously, her typically stern features softening as her lips curled into a faint smile—a rare thaw in her otherwise icy demeanor. "Thank you, Marcus of the Sky People."

"You're welcome, Lexa... kom Trikru."

Haven bit down on her lip, stifling her snort at the former Chancellor's awkward attempt at Trigedasleng. While her own pronunciation might not have been flawless, her linguistic skills honed among the diverse languages of Mecha allowed her to discern Kane's overly rolled R's—more reminiscent of Spanish than the Grounder's native tongue. Yet, despite the fumble, Kane's accent carried an unmistakable sincerity. It was clear he was striving to demonstrate solidarity, even if it came across a bit clumsily.

"Just, uh... don't drink too much of it," Kane added lightheartedly.

        Lexa nodded in acknowledgment before shifting her eyes towards the figure beside him. "Clarke," she invited warmly, seeking the blonde's eyes across the bountiful feast table and . . . smiling. "Let us drink together."

        Clarke nodded. "It would be my pleasure."

        At that, a warrior emerged from the shadows behind Lexa, swiftly presenting two metallic goblets to Gustus. With a measured hand, Gustus set them down upon the table, allowing Lexa to pour the moonshine into each cup, its liquid swirling like molten silver beneath the candlelit glow.

        "Ain't no way." Orion's incredulous whisper warmed the shell of Haven's ear, low but edged with fire, the words barely containing her indignation. "Two goblets? That's it? What about the rest of us?"

        "Shh," Octavia hissed quietly. "You whisper, like, super loud."

"And—?" Orion only leaned in closer. "I refuse to stay sober for this. I had to cuddle with your fucknut brother last night just to be next to Haven. I deserve a damn drink."

Haven, keeping her voice low, allowed the sound of moonshine sloshing into goblets to swallow her retort. "That was literally your choice."

        "Was it though?"

"Yeah, I noticed that," Octavia teased snidely. "You guys looked like a throuple."

        Sinking her teeth into her inner cheek, Haven fought a losing battle against the snort begging to escape, forcing every muscle in her face into the brittle facade of stoicism. From the corner of her eye, she caught Lincoln's figure casting a sharp, cautionary glare their way—a warning mirrored with intensified sternness by Bellamy.

. . . They couldn't afford to fuck this up.

"Heda—allow me."

As Lexa offered one of the goblets to Clarke—Gustus claimed the second chalice with a guardian's resolve. His fingers, scripted with ink and bound by duty, tightened around the metal as though it were the hilt of a sword, as if the goblet itself could falter and betray. Without breaking eye contact, he raised the metal to his lips, as though the mere act of drinking in their presence was a punishment he endured out of loyalty—ensuring that every Skaikru soul across the table felt the slow-burn of his scorn beneath the pretense of unity.

Once the warrior was satisfied that the moonshine hadn't been tainted—because, really, why the fuck would they even bother?—he allowed Lexa to reclaim her goblet with a curt nod.

"Today we celebrate our peace," the Commander intoned softly. She lifted her goblet, the movement slow and deliberate, a bridge offered to Clarke across the distance between them. "Tomorrow we plan our war. To those we've lost, to those we shall soon find—"

        Her declaration was brutally severed by the thunderous crash of Gustus's body against the table.

Haven abruptly recoiled as the shockwave rippled through the assembly—a ghost of panic sweeping over her face. Gustus's formidable form buckled, his choking gasps muffled by the foamy liquid spilling from his lips, a grisly froth of betrayal. Warriors surged forward, a brace of arms steadying his hulking form, only for him to collapse once more, his back slamming against the cold brick with a hollow thud. His desperate, ragged breaths punctuated the chaos, gagging wretchedly and clutching at his throat, almost as if . . . as if . . .

        "IT'S POISON!"

         . . . FUCK.

Before Haven could fully comprehend her own instincts, her arm swept through the air like a falcon in flight, striking the second goblet from Clarke's grasp. Instantly, Indra's sword was unsheathed, the steel gleaming as it cleaved through the atmosphere, leveling a silent accusation at the visitors. Haven then thrust Clarke backward—the force of her shove colliding seamlessly with Bellamy's outstretched arm, already in motion, sweeping both girls behind him in perfect synchronization.

Indra's words thundered across the dining hall as a vicious, condemning snarl.

"IT WAS THE SKY PEOPLE!"

"No!" Haven shouted. "No! How the fuck—"

        All at once, the dining table was upended, dishes and goblets scattering violently as the Grounders surged forward, closing the gap with deadly precision.

        "Dude..." Orion gasped. "Not the food!"

        Haven found herself shoved further backward as Bellamy lunged again—relentless, unwavering—his body a living barrier as he launched himself in front of the girls. Behind them, Lincoln and Octavia closed ranks, their bodies primed as they protected Kane, Abby, and Jackson at the rear. Surrounded, weaponless, and ensnared in the heart of the lion's den with its jaws already closing—the group had no fucking option but to retreat, inching backward as the circle of Grounders tightened like a noose.

        "This wasn't us!" Clarke cried out, her words aimed like arrows over the chaotic sea of bodies, seeking the authority only Lexa could wield. "Commander! You have to know this wasn't us!"

        "Sou nou teik em gon op!"

        "Gon yo we! Pat emo daun!"

Suddenly—rough, calloused hands yanked each Sky Person into submission, wrenching limbs and ripping through fabric. Haven gasped as her shoulder was twisted sideways, the intruding fingers of a Grounder prying beneath her brace—again. Bellamy spat curses in violent bursts, profanities flying as if each obscenity were a weapon, defiant and relentless beneath the pat-downs. Orion and Raven gnashed their sneering canines in every direction possible. Jackson's face drained of color, pale as death, while Kane, ever the diplomat, attempted to weave any semblance of reason into the fray.

"Wait! Listen—let's just talk! Wait!"

"FUCK YOU, dirtneck!"

"Get the HELL off her! I'll bury you—!"

"—It wasn't us! Stop! Stop! Stop!"

        But the noise was useless.

        Warriors pushed and pulled, dismantling any semblance of order, their hands merciless and swift as they ransacked pockets and pried at buckles, every touch invasive and deliberately cruel.

        It was chaos.

Pure, unadulterated chaos.

        A storm without form, raging with sharp elbows, clawing fingers, and the deafening roar of defiance drowned beneath command.

        "Commander!" Haven shouted over the tumult, miraculously finding Lexa's eyes as she retreated from Gustus's inert form in the distance. "We didn't do this! I promise you!"

For a flicker of a moment, Lexa's gaze sharpened, narrowing as if she might consider the plea—might allow reason to temper her blistering wrath. But then her features contorted, porcelain skin cracking into a mask of seething rage, cold and merciless as winter's edge.

        "LIES!" she seethed furiously. "I told you—you will die by your word, Natblida! Do you take us as fools?"

        "Do you take us as fools—?" Haven retorted, finally ripping her forearm away from the Grounder who had been interrogating her sleeves. "Why would we sacrifice our own alliance? Why would we be stupid enough to do it—unarmed—in your territory—when we know you can kill us right here?!"

        "It wasn't us!" Clarke insisted. "It wasn't—"

        "Gustus warned me about you..." Lexa drawled venomously. "But I didn't believe him."
       
Before Clarke could respond, Orion surged to the forefront, elbowing past Bellamy with a growl that could have split stone. "Gustus's WEIRD ass is probably plotting to make you his freakin' child bride!" she hurled back. "If he lives—take it as damn proof that we're innocent!"

        Lexa insidiously bared her teeth. "How DARE you utter such filth in my presence—in my village—"

        "Filth—?" Orion scoffed, the sneer twisting her face into something unmistakably feral. "You think this is filthy? Wait til' I really cut loose and call you a cun—"

Octavia lunged before the profanity could escape, slapping her palm over Orion's mouth with a loud, resounding smack. Orion thrashed beneath the hold, a muffled snarl vibrating against Octavia's hand, every muscle coiled like an animal itching to strike. Octavia then thrust her towards Bellamy, who instantly recoiled, shoving Orion back just as she sank her teeth into his hand.

"Son of a—" Bellamy agitatedly shook out the sting from his palm. "O—you take her! I'm done!"

"No!" Octavia protested. "You!"

        The exasperated shuffle of limbs halted only when Haven's livid eyes scorched through the turmoil . . . silencing Orion's resistance with a singular, damning glare.

Meanwhile, Lexa's demeanor only grew more formidable, her jaw clenching as her hand hovered ominously near the hilt of her blade. The sinews in her neck stood taut, strained by the sheer force of her resisting her sword's sheath.

        She shook her head. Once. Twice.

        "...You will not survive a second insult."

        For the first time in her seventeen years, Orion Jae Vincetta clamped her mouth shut, not out of fear, but . . . willingly.

Clarke tried again. "Lexa, please—"

"Tell me something, Clarke," Lexa cut in hotly. "When you plunged the knife into the heart of the boy you loved—did you not wish that it was mine?"

"Heda!"

Haven pivoted sharply at the warrior's call, her breath catching at the nightmare before her—the sight of a Grounder delicately extracting a sinister vial from Raven's coat. Words in Trigedasleng, cryptic and murmuring, wove an ominous tapestry between the warrior and Lexa, yet no echo reached Haven's ears. All sound was drowned, swallowed by the haunting vision of the vial, its very essence whispering of poison, of shadows woven into liquid form . . . portending a betrayal as deep and dark as a starless night sky.

         "That's not mine!" Raven's voice slashed through the tense air, edged with irritation as she elbowed her way through the clustered group. "I'm telling you—it's not mine! He put it there when he searched me!"

Lexa's inhalation was apocalyptically low. The shadows seemed to shift in its wake, drawn toward her like old allies summoned to witness the reckoning. Tempestuous blue eyes flickered with something wild and unnameable—rage, betrayal, a wrath ancient as the earth itself—fixing on the intruders who dared to defile her lands once more.

And then . . .

"NO SKY PERSON LEAVES THIS ROOM!"

• •

[ content warning: suicidal ideation ]

nothing graphic or explicit.
death and discussions surrounding mortality are pretty prominent themes in this fic, but this section does contain some heavier thoughts towards the end of the chapter.
i always find it difficult to know when to insert a trigger warning because these themes are so interwoven with the plot, but i think this qualifies.

read at your own risk and take care of yourself!!

<3

• •

SOMEBODY HAD TO BE BREAKING THE ALLIANCE. The vial found in Raven's jacket was alien to every member of Skaikru, and Haven knew with an unshakable certainty that Raven hadn't poisoned the moonshine herself. It wasn't only physically impossible—Kane had been the one carrying the alcohol—it was logically inconceivable as well. No amount of grief could beckon Raven to sabotage the fragile peace that Finn had died for on a reckless whim—Raven Reyes simply wasn't wired that way.

Haven knew that.

It didn't matter that Raven's impulsiveness had nearly put a bullet in Haven's chest, or that Murphy's life had almost been forfeited to the Grounders instead of Finn's. That was Raven's fear lashing out, jagged and unfiltered—but it wasn't malice, and it wasn't intentional cruelty. Now that Finn was dead, Raven had no cause for such drastic retaliation; Haven knew her far too well for that. They'd spent too many years aboard Mecha together, testing each other's boundaries, childlike fingers jabbing at buttons until they inevitably snapped—but never, not once, had Raven resorted to real violence.

        If her sharp words didn't suffice to strike somebody down . . . Raven saw no need to resort to fists or weapons. And even when she hit hard, the blows were always hollow, more bark than bite.

        But over the past few days, Haven had glimpsed a harrowing shift—a metamorphosis into something colder, more monstrous, as grief had pried Raven's mind apart at the seams and rearranged her into someone unrecognizable. It wasn't just her frantic strategizing; it was the wild, feral gleam in her eyes, a hint of lurking mania that whispered of a beast poised just beneath the veneer of her skin. The unsettling change was drastically unlike her, yet Haven still clung to one unshakeable conviction—it wasn't Raven's hand behind that damn vial.

         Because Raven didn't need poison to destroy someone. She could ruin a person with nothing more than her words, sharper than any blade, and leave one bleeding with wounds unseen. That was her weapon—her switchblade tongue, cutting with surgical precision, unfathomably cruel when she chose to be.

         Raven Reyes could devastate with a single sentence, dismantle the very foundations of what somebody believed themselves to be, and leave them hollow—a shell gasping for air in the aftermath of her verbal onslaught.

         Haven knew that, too.

        And whatever the hell was happening here, this . . . this wasn't Raven. This was someone else's game, someone else's poison—someone seeking to incinerate the bridge that Finn had died to build.

        . . . But who?

Haven's razor-sharp intellect was dulled by exhaustion, too weary to unravel the tangled web of who among the Grounders might have slipped the poison into Raven's jacket, or how it had found its way into the moonshine to begin with. Her migraine had intensified mercilessly during the last half-hour they were confined in the dining hall. The pain essentially forced her to retreat, to slump against the cool embrace of the brick wall, cradling her head in her hands.

With a shallow breath, Haven closed her eyes, casting the world into darkness. She shut out the flicker of candlelight, the hum of tension in the room, the low murmurs of voices hovering on the edge of confrontation. In the quiet blackness behind her eyelids, she sought a fragment of solace—a fleeting moment untouched by light, sound, or the weight of suspicion pressing down on her weary thoughts.

All she glimpsed was Finn's ghost.

         ". . . She's just tired, Bellamy. . . "

        ". . . Are you blind? Look at her! . . . "

        The whispered argument barely registered in Haven's foggy mind, slipping past her like smoke through a cracked door. The words were heat without substance, distant and half-formed. What she could make out, however, was Bellamy's shadow shifting deliberately, blocking the sunlight that tried to stab its way through the windows. His calloused hands tapped periodically against her cheek, ensuring she stayed alert. Somewhere beyond him, Jackson's voice threaded through the tension, calm and clinical, a lifeline knotted between them.

       But it was too much, too close.

        An overreach.

        She didn't need any of this—not Bellamy hovering, not Clarke's exhausted reassurances, and certainly not Jackson calculating whether she was seconds away from collapsing.

        Haven was fine.

        "YOU'RE THE ONLY MURDERER HERE!"

Raven's shout echoed across the hall with the force of a gunshot, jolting Haven from her slumped posture against the wall. Her head snapped up, eyes flaring open just in time to catch Clarke reeling backwards, clutching her reddened cheek . . . a stark testament to the force of the punch Raven had delivered.

. . . Oh, shit.

Haven shot to her feet at once. "Raven!" she shouted, closing the distance from the opposite end of the dining hall in perfect synchronization with Orion. She reached for her bestfriend's shoulders with shaky hands. "Birdy, c'mon, take a breath—"

"Do not get me started on YOU!"

Raven spun toward Haven with unfathomable fury burning in her eyes, her lips twisted into a snarl that seethed with bitterness. Her chest rose and fell with ragged, livid breaths, and her fingers twitched uncontrollably at her sides, as if desperate to find something—someone—to lash out at, to hold, to break.

Haven stood cemented in place. "What?"

"How could you? How could you?!" Raven pressed, murderously advancing forward, forcing Haven to recoil as she fought to unearth the root of her friend's wrath. "Finn was your brother, Haven! He was EVERYTHING to me! And you—you let this happen to him! You let him give himself up!"

. . . Here it was.

Haven could feel her lungs collapse. "What are you talking about?" she stammered, brows knitted together, miserably shoving down the rot resurfacing in her throat again. "I-I tried to stop him! I tried! He lunged for the ramp after he twisted my shoulder!"

"You should've tried HARDER!" Raven's voice was a howl of anguish wrapped in venom, sharp enough to cut, bitter enough to corrode. "You were the last person who could get through to him—and you let him go! You told him he deserved to die! I fucking heard you!"

Haven went still as the tomb.

". . . I deserve it. . ."

". . . Maybe you fucking do, Finn. . ."

The memory slithered through her, insidious and venomous, burrowing itself deep beneath Haven's ribs. White-hot remorse clawed its way through her collapsed lungs, inflating them with rancid, bitter air—air she was forced to exhale like a toxin. Even in the fervor of their confrontation at the dropship, Haven had sensed their words weren't cloaked in the privacy she desired. Finn's voice had escalated, hers had shattered—words colliding against each other like fists in the dark, a fight not meant for outside ears.

         But they weren't alone.

         They'd never been alone.

         Now, hearing those same words echoed in Raven's voice—transformed into weapons, brutal and unforgiving—felt like being gutted from the inside. It was an agony that eradicated the space for breath, for excuses, leaving only the gnawing twist of shame that coiled tighter with each inhale. Raven's fury was more than rage; it was grief honed into a blade, desperate to etch blame into the flesh of the guilty.

. . . And that guilty was Haven.

        She could take it. All of it.

        Haven shakily parted her lips. "I—"

"Raven," Kane cut in, cautiously abandoning his supportive stance against the nearby wall. "Haven isn't to blame for this. Finn massacred the village. At the end of the day, the boy brought this on himself."

"SHE BROUGHT THIS ON HIM!" Raven thundered, her bloodshot eyes locked intently on Haven, rendering Kane's interjection as inconsequential as mere dust motes in the air. "She let everybody alienate him for weeks over an accident! She shut him out! She let him spiral into this mess—and then her boyfriend sent him into a village with a GUN!"

Bellamy agitatedly stepped forward next, jaw tight, settling beside the girl he loved with poorly restrained fury. "Raven..."

Haven shot him the look to stay out of it.

. . . Orion, however, was far less obedient.

"Right..." Orion's voice dripped with lethal irony, flat yet underlaid with a steel that was hard to miss. "Because Haven was just supposed to magically forgive Finn after he insulted her, then killed her. And Blake totally knew Finn was gonna go off slaughtering an innocent village... all for the girl who he cheated on you with."

        Clarke uncomfortably grimaced.

        But Raven's fury remained insatiable. "He didn't mean to kill her!"

        "Okay. Fine." Orion shot back smoothly, uncrossing her arms, abandoning their earlier pose of detached nonchalance. She tilted her in mock agreement. "That doesn't change the fact he put his hands on her anyway—after he left you on the bridge to die! Why are you okay with that?"

Raven scoffed bitterly. "You know what? You're not innocent either," she spat, jabbing an accusatory finger towards Orion's chest—one that Bellamy very irritably swatted away. "You tormented Finn for WEEKS!"

Haven shook her head. "Raven—"

"And he fucking deserved every goddamn second of it!" Orion snapped, the venom in her words unmistakable, every muscle in her body coiled and ready to strike. "He killed my best friend! Accidental or not!" Her voice softened ever so slightly as she inhaled. "Raven... I-I get it, okay? You love him. You're grieving. But don't forget that Haven is your best friend, too."

"Is she—?" Raven echoed.

        Haven could feel the pressure mounting, the urge to break apart under the strain of congealing herself together almost incapacitating. Yet, she resisted, spinning away from Orion's charged presence to face Raven. Her eyes were wide, frantic, pleading—seeking any bridge of understanding in the chasm that had opened between them.

        "What is that supposed to mean?"

"You tell me NOTHING!" Raven's voice erupted, sharp as a gunshot, but beneath the fury, she was unraveling—each word catching on the sob she refused to let escape. "Everything I find out about you is through somebody else! You still haven't told me that you have stenosis, o-or that you've died in the Sky Box!" Tears bled down her cheeks in scathing rivulets of anguish. "You're... you're so far away from me, and I'm trying to hold on—but fuck, Haven! You've made it impossible!"

Haven breathlessly staggered backward.

        As if she'd been struck dead.
      
        As if a specter had surged forth—a ghostly revenant of all the neglected words and overlooked glances shared between the Mecha girls. These suppressed truths now jackhammered their way into the void between them—relentless, merciless. They demanded recognition, forced the acknowledgment of every hushed secret and sidestepped topic since Raven's cataclysmic descent to Earth, unraveling with horrific, piercing clarity.

Haven had let this happen.

She had known, in some fractured alcove of her heart, that the space between them was no longer what it had been.

But she let it slip through her hands.

Knowingly, unknowingly—voluntarily, or with the crushing inevitability of time slipping through the cracks—the girls had been moving too fast to hold on. Too fast to halt, to breathe, to ensure they hadn't been lost in the current. And in those rare moments when danger wasn't gnashing at their heels . . . Haven had never made the time. She never paused the world, never forced the truth between them into the open, because she had assumed . . . assumed their bond was unbreakable. Assumed the words didn't need to be spoken aloud, because they already knew them, didn't they?

They were bestfriends.

. . . Weren't they?

The question twisted in Haven's chest like a knife, slow and deliberate, scraping against every memory they had ever shared together. It unraveled her—because somewhere along the way, beneath the noise and the running and the surviving . . . Haven had lost her grip.

And maybe, just maybe, Raven had let go a long time ago.

        Still . . . the Reyes girl was far from done.

        Her next words detonated like a bomb.

"I...I don't care if you know me better than everybody else! I don't care if you had a stupid crush on me when we were kids—!"

Orion gasped in outrage. "Raven!"

"You left me beneath the dropship to get shot! You and Clarke left our FRIENDS—!"

"Raven!" Octavia cut in. "Stop it!"

"—in Mount Weather to die! You let everybody torment Finn! You let Finn die! You would've killed him yourself! And you're taking NO responsibility for it!"

By the time the rant ground to its bitter, catastrophic conclusion, the silence that followed was deafening.

Haven stood paralyzed. Utterly paralyzed.

The world around her seemed to dissolve at the edges, the ground beneath her feet disintegrating into nothingness. She blinked furiously, trying to stave off the tears, but they came unbidden, warping her vision until she could no longer discern whether it was Raven's face before her, or Finn's ghost tangled in the wreckage of her mind. Their features melded—pain, betrayal, and something deeper, something harder to name—fusing together into an indistinguishable tangle. She couldn't pinpoint where her grief ended and Raven's began . . . couldn't separate her own guilt from the suffocating weight of Finn's death.

         Everything was knotted into a single, terrible snarl—too tight, too entangled, and far, far too late to undo.

"I'm sorry," Haven choked out. "I-I'm sorry."

Raven only shook her head. "It's not enough," she whispered brokenly. "It's not enough when Finn was the next person to die because of YOU!"

And then . . .

        Raven shifted to shove her.

The movement was sudden, deliberate, like the snap of a monster's bloodied canines. Haven barely registered the shove before it came—before the world narrowed to the blistering space between them, and Raven's hands shot forward. But through the blur of her tears, Haven saw it—felt the pressure of her migraine as it split her skull's fault line, warping the membrane between reality and illusion.

        Raven's face remained the same, twisted in agony, wrath flickering behind her bloodshot eyes like the embers of hell itself.

Yet . . . it was not Raven's arms that stretched toward her.

It was Finn's.

Finn's hands broke through the suffocating divide, his fingers ghosting toward Haven's chest like an accusation written in flesh and bone. The imprint of him rippled through Raven's movements, twisting the moment into something phantasmagoric . . . as if his very presence had bled through Raven's skin.

        Fingers hovered dangerously close to Haven's resuscitation scars.

        And then . . .

         "ENOUGH!"

          . . .The blow never connected.

        In a flash of motion, Bellamy's hand shot forward, his grip coiling around Raven's wrist like iron. The force of it was terrifying—so brutal it seemed to threaten the very structure of bone, warping under the sheer intensity of his rage. His knuckles blanched, fingers pressing in until Raven's pulse stuttered beneath his grip, as if every ounce of his fury was caged within that one hand.

He was seething.

Seething with a wrath so profound it eclipsed anything Raven could have summoned in her wildest fury. It boiled within him—feral, volatile—threatening to consume every rational thought in its path. The acrid sting of words too caustic for forgiveness lingered at the brink of his lips, aching to be set free. But somehow—somehow—he managed to choke them back . . . for now.

        "Back. Off." Bellamy bit out the words through clenched teeth. "Now."

Raven only scoffed. "Oh, for fuck's sake—"

"You already made the worst mistake of your life the second you pointed your gun at her," Bellamy cut in lowly. His grip on Raven's forearm tightened, hard enough to ensure the bruises would bloom by morning. "You're making the second one right now."

         He murderously shook his head.

         "...You don't get to make a third."

        Raven stared at him wretchedly. "Me?" she echoed. "Who are the fuck are you to tell me how to talk to the girl I've known my entire life? Congratulations, Bellamy—you love her, you idolize her, you'd die for her." She shook her head as she laughed. "But don't let that blind you from who she really is."

Haven buried her head in her hands.

. . . But Bellamy had bitten his tongue for too damn long.

He dared an insidious step forward. "And what's that?" he began menacingly. "Who is she, Raven? Tell me. Even if you haven't had the chance to catch up—go ahead." His voice was murderously calm—the kind of quiet that carried far more danger than shouting ever could. "Tell me Haven's not the same girl who risked her life to stop you from killing yourself on that bridge... all while Finn sat on his ass, and would've watched both of you die."

        Slowly, ever so slowly . . . Raven began to wither.

        Bellamy only clenched her forearm tighter.

"Haven beat Finn's skull in to defend you—after he left you both for dead," he hissed out, low and deadly, each word a nail driven into her vile heart. "Finn killed her to defend himself from his own fucking inaction. And you—?" His lip curled, twisted in disgust, revulsion oozing from him like poison. "You were the one who wanted to run away in the aftermath, while she was left in the coma that he caused." One step closer. Another. "You were the one that chose him over her when all she has done—all she has ever done—is choose you."

Bellamy leaned in closer, so close his breath ghosted across Raven's skin like a knife's edge, aching to spill blood.

        "But go ahead," he snarled. "Tell me who the bad friend is right now and try not to point the other three fingers back at yourself."

Bellamy held Raven's death glare without flinching.

Where was the girl who had once cried that she couldn't afford to lose Haven? Where was the girl who had found his eyes in his tent, watery and desperate, as she braced to deliver that final, life-or-death shock to Haven's dead body? Where was the girl whose gaze whispered that if they failed—if they couldn't save Haven's life—she wouldn't survive the loss either?

        Where was the girl who had looked at him, silently confessing in the spaces between breaths, that she loved Haven just as devotedly as he did?

        Bellamy couldn't see her.

        Not here. Not anymore. Not now.

        All that was left was the hollowed shell of someone consumed by the shadow of a dead man—a shadow that had always loomed too large, eclipsing all else.

         . . . Even her best friend.

Eventually . . . Raven stumbled backwards.

        "Yeah," Bellamy spat out. "That's what I thought."

        Before the argument could detonate any further, Haven felt Bellamy's hand wrap around her forearm—not rough, but firm, purposeful—and guide her away. Far, far away from the smothering shadow of her best friend. When they finally slowed at the opposite end of the room, Haven sagged against the brick wall, her breath coming in shallow bursts. She blinked furiously, tears clinging stubbornly to her lashes, and pressed her palms hard against her thighs, willing her heart to slow—willing herself to remain upright just a little longer.

        Bellamy could not stop pacing. "You can't let her talk to you like this, Hav," he murmured lowly, fingers twitching restlessly at his sides. "You can't. You'll stand up to anyone else, curse them out without a second thought, but the second Raven turns on you..." He sucked in an agitated breath. "...you shut down."

        Haven's voice was unfathomably strained. "She needed to get it out of her system."

        "Who gives a shit?" Bellamy shot back, the bite in his words sharper than he'd intended. "You don't have to take it just because she needs an outlet."

        Jackson nodded from his solemn stance nearby. "You're her friend, Haven." he added softly. "Not her punching bag."

         . . . Weren't they the same thing?

Haven didn't know anymore. She didn't want to know. All she wanted was for the noise inside her head to fade into oblivion—the arguing, the ache, the relentless ticking of time slipping away from her. Every second felt like a drumbeat inside her skull, threatening to split her wide open. Her hands drifted from her thighs, shaking as she pressed them to her face, rubbing hard, as if she could erase the ghosts haunting the periphery of her vision. But it was no use. The darkness clung more persistently, and her movements became disjointed, erratic—as if she were unraveling, thread by delicate thread.

        She was fine. She was fine.

        "I'm fine," she whispered, the lie breaking against her lips, crumbling before it could hold. "I'm—"

"Stop lying to me, Haven." Bellamy's interjection struck low and rough. In a heartbeat, he was in front of her, grasping her shoulders—not hard, but with enough weight to tether her before she could drift too far from herself. His wild eyes mirrored his alarm. "You're not. I can see it. I-I can feel it."

        Haven weakly shook her head. "You'd let me take my grief out on you."

        "Of course I would." Bellamy uttered the words as though they had always lived on his tongue. "I already did when you were fifteen. But I'd never let you take it out on your friends."

        "I—"

        As the dining hall doors groaned open, the sound of metal scraping against metal grated the air, heralding the return of the Grounder procession. Nyko led them, his gaze low, while Indra and her warriors glided fluidly behind him, exuding an air of controlled danger. Tension snapped through Skaikru like a live wire; Bellamy and Jackson moved as one, barring themselves unflinchingly in front of Haven. Orion and Octavia were shielded by Lincoln, while Kane instinctively stepped in front of Abby, Clarke, and Raven.

         Lincoln was the first to breach the excruciating silence. "How's Gustus?"

        Nyko dipped his head. "Gustus will live."

But Indra—Indra was far from satisfied. There was no relief in her gaze, only a lethal, unforgiving wrath. Her dark eyes glinted with barely restrained fury, her body rigid and furious, resembling a sculpture wrought from the darkest depths of vengeance. With a curt command in Trigedasleng, her intentions became clear.

Four warriors detached from the formation, their movements devoid of hesitation . . . a grim procession that marched deliberately towards Raven.

"Wait!" Kane shifted instinctively, stepping back toward Raven's trembling form, his arms spreading as if he could block the weight of the warriors bearing down on her. "Wait! What are you doing?"

"I argued for all of you to die—but the Commander is merciful," Indra murmured lowly. "She wants only one."

Haven felt her world tilt.

"No," she whispered, the words barely audible beneath the crushing tide of panic. "No. No. No—"

        Somehow, from the depths of her fatigue, Haven miraculously summoned the strength to lunge toward Raven—but Bellamy was faster. His arms locked unyieldingly around her, intercepting every wild attempt she made to evade his immovable grasp.

"She's innocent!" Lincoln argued defiantly. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Kane, the two of them forming a desperate, human barricade between Raven and the encroaching doom. "Indra—"

"I! Don't! Care!" Indra's voice lashed out like a whip, barking orders to her subordinates, each word vibrating with unrelenting, insatiable bloodlust. "They move—they bleed."

As the Grounders closed in, their hands clamping around Raven's shoulders, Haven felt her blood alchemize into black ice—sharp, unforgiving, and absolute. It surged through her veins like a curse, freezing any tremor of fear before it could bloom. Her backbone calcified into iron, forcing her chin high and her tongue to forge itself into a blade too cold to falter. Her heart remained a mutilated ruin—an organ carved open and left to rot—but that no longer mattered. It beat only to remind her of what she had failed to protect, of friendships frayed, of Finn's ghost still circling her soul like a mournful raven.

But there, amidst the bitter edge of realization, lay a thread of redemption.

If saving Raven could quiet the ghosts that haunted her ribs, if this was the key to extinguishing the poison of guilt stitched into her every breath . . . Haven would take it.

She had to.

Bellamy's eyes locked on her as he felt the shift, saw the twitch at the corner of her mouth, a breath away from something final, something reckless.

And then . . .

"It was me!"

The words detonated across the room like thunder, but they hadn't come from Haven's lips.

. . . They had come from his.

Bellamy's voice rang out, steady and defiant, though his hands still gripped Haven as if he might crumble without her. He didn't flinch, didn't stutter. His gaze was iron, locked on Indra, daring her to believe him—or make the fatal mistake of not.

"It was me," Bellamy reiterated fearlessly. "I did it. I planted the poison and blamed it on Raven."

The Grounders faltered, momentarily thrown by the unexpected confession, their grip on Raven loosening as they processed the words.

. . . But Indra's lips curled into a slow, merciless smile.

"Perfect." Indra unflinchingly gestured to Haven. "Take her."

Bellamy froze.

Before Haven could even process the shift, the air was sucked from her lungs as four pairs of hands closed in . . . yanking her out of Bellamy's iron grip.

"No!" Bellamy roared. "NO! NO—!"

Ruthlessly, Haven's form was thrust towards the exit, dragged away from Bellamy's diminishing silhouette and the chaotic flails of her friends. His hands fought to cling to her, fingers scraping against hers in a final, frantic attempt to hold onto her—but the warriors were faster. They ripped her from him with brutal precision, dragging her backward as Bellamy erupted into violent, uncontrollable thrashing, only to be subdued by the mass of warriors swarming him.

"IT WASN'T HER!" he cried. "IT WAS ME!"

"Indra..." Nyko began lowly. "He confessed."

Indra shook her head in disbelief. "Don't be a fool," she spat bitterly. "Can you not smell the stench of devotion rotting beneath your own nose? Em ste em huomon! Everybody lies for the Natblida so she can ascend as Heda—friends, enemies, lovers!" She glanced towards the group in utter revulsion. "He's not confessing. He's protecting her. They all are."

        "GET THE HELL—"

        "You're right," Haven whispered, her voice thin as smoke, fraying at the edges yet laden with utmost conviction. "It was me."

        "—LYING! SHE'S LYING!"

Before the words had even fully escaped, Indra struck like a thunderclap, slamming Haven hard between her shoulder blades. The blow sent her staggering forward, limbs faltering under the force, caught between stumbling steps and the merciless pull of rough hands. The world fractured around her—faces blurred into jagged edges, stares sharpened with cold, feral hunger. She was dragged through it all, half-shoved, half-yanked, the bitter chill of hostility pressing in from every corner.

"No." Raven's voice drifted through the chaos, hollow and broken, a desperate mantra unraveling into the void. "No, no, no—"

"SHE'S LYING!" Bellamy howled manically. "GET THE HELL OFF ME! GET OFF! HAVEN—NO! IT WAS ME!"

        "GIVE HER BACK!" Orion's shriek ricocheted off the brick walls, each word laced with fury so wild it seemed to scrape her throat raw. "SHE DIDN'T DO IT, YOU FUCKING IDIOTS! GIVE HER BACK!"

        Indra stared through them, cold and resolute, as though their fury was no more than the wind against iron. "The rest of you are free," she hissed out. "When she is dead—so is the alliance. You should run."

Haven felt the weight of her own demise drape over her, not as a curse, but as a lover's embrace—cool, patient, welcoming. Each shove through the corridor peeled away the last threads tethering her to a world she no longer wanted to carry. Surrendering to death—without clawing, without biting, without thrashing against the inevitable—felt foreign, like a violation of the sacred law she had lived by. Death had never been her enemy. She had fought it, not out of fear, but out of defiance, knowing she would always outlast its grasp. Death existed only because she ran from it; without her resistance, it was no monster.

It was just silence.

It was rest.

        And now . . .

        "DON'T! HURT! HER!"

In the distance, Bellamy erupted into another devastated roar. It was more than sound—it was a wound carved into the universe, tearing through the spaces between breaths, rupturing the atmosphere with the sheer force of its agony.

". . . PLEASE!"

. . . Haven did not want to fight anymore.

• •

hey.... so... FUCK

this was NAUSEATING to write

song for this chapter is none other than... i dont smoke by mitski ☹️
ALSO PLEASE SOMEBODY TELL ME THEY LISTEN TO GIGI PEREZ BECAUSE I HAVE NOBODY TO TALK TO ABOUT HER AND IVE BEEN CRYING LISTENING TO FABLE SINCE LAST NIGHT. how am i supposed to be normal about this song!!! or any of her discography!!! kill for you is also so baven coded i can throw up

anyway!

guess what pov you're getting next chapter...

...i fear it is the bellamy one i had given the warning about. i dont have words for it because it literally devastates me to read. it took EVERYTHING out of me to write. objectively one of the most IMPORTANT chapters plot wise though
so much has been leading up to the next span of chapters im convulsing shsjsjejejwisiw LIKE BUCKLE TF UP.
lots of original content incomingggg 🤭

IDK WHAT ELSE TO SAY BESIDES STAY STRONG 😭😭😭

also.. i recently just did a rough word count of all chapters combined
yall have officially read approximately 465k words of my baven brain rot at this point.... almost half a million words?!?!?!
HELLO!

and ty for 80k reads :,)) I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!

(if you are not familiar with antigone ..... congratulations!!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭 )