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CHAPTER SIXTY;

GENESIS OF EVIL.

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        FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HER LIFE—RETURNING FROM THE CLUTCHES OF DEATH FELT LIKE A PUNISHMENT. Haven couldn't discern where one wound ended and where another began. Everything hurt. Everywhere. Agony lanced through the frail sutures holding her together, leaching into her marrow and settling deep within her atoms. Her shoulder throbbed with a rage that eclipsed any suffering she'd ever endured. Pins and needles scorched irritably in her fingertips, snaking their way through her left arm, marking a path of pale fire in their wake. Even the tiniest flicker of movement felt like an act of defiance against a body that pleaded to collapse under the weight of itself.

Once again, here Haven Grey Smith was—ripped from a sleep she couldn't recall surrendering to—only to awaken in yet another unfamiliar tent she had no memory of entering. She lay cocooned within a cot, smothered beneath two blankets, with a familiar jacket draped over her as a final layer of armor.

        At least her migraine was gone.

And at the edge of the cot . . .

Bellamy.

His back faced her, jacket discarded, the stretch of his spine taut and unmoving. His gaze was pinned on the tent's entrance with a vigilance too relentless to be human, daring some unseen terror to crawl through and threaten their sanctuary. The only proof that he was still among the living was the faint curl of breath that left his lips—each exhale evaporating into mist as soon as it graced the air.

        Haven's lips parted, just barely, a whisper of life clawing to escape her throat . . . and Bellamy spun to face her.

        Even amidst the fog of her exhaustion, Bellamy Blake emerged with the blistering clarity of the sun after an eternal, starless night. No matter how lost Haven was—whether buried in nightmares, tangled in the threads of fractured timelines, or scattered across the edges of existence—she would always find him.

Because she always had.

Because she always would.

Every line of Bellamy's body spoke of a war waged just beneath the surface, every muscle coiled tight with phantom dread. His eyes burned with exhaustion, bloodshot and bruised with shadows so deep they seemed etched straight into his soul.

But his face . . . god, his face.

Pale, as if life itself had abandoned him, like he had wandered too close to the edge of the world and returned only half-intact. He wore fragility as his second skin, a man crumbling in the hollow quiet, folded inward beneath the weight of things that had no name. He seemed . . . small, in a way Haven had rarely witnessed, as if time had peeled away every hardened layer, leaving only the raw effigy of the boy who was once whole.

He looked seventeen again.

And yet, in the wreckage of that moment, Bellamy had never looked so found. So impossibly, shatteringly relieved—as though, after all the years of gnashing through the dark, he had finally stepped into the light and found Haven waiting.

Alive.

"There she is," Bellamy breathed out, shifting from the edge of the cot to sit beside her, close enough that his warmth bled into the cold space between them. His eyes softened in a way that seemed almost involuntary. "Hey, angel face."

Haven tried to respond, but her voice fractured, as if rusted shut from disuse. Her tongue felt like lead in her mouth, heavy and abnormally sluggish, refusing to obey even the simplest commands. She wanted to speak, she was trying—fighting—but the effort cost more than she'd imagined.

        She . . . she couldn't.

        She couldn't speak.

        What. The. Fuck.

        Even the mere thought of stringing syllables together sent an excruciating, white-hot scourge of agony whipping through her skull—forcing her to gasp for coherence she couldn't quite reach.

        Bellamy noticed her difficulty and shook his head. "I-It's okay," he murmured, wincing as Haven futilely attempted to sit herself upright against the cot's pillows. "Just take it slow, alright? There's no rush. It's been a long day."

"Day—?" Haven managed weakly.

         Bellamy nodded, the corner of his mouth twitching, though the futile attempt at smiling failed to reach his eyes. "Yeah," he whispered quietly. "Yeah. Only a day, Hav. Not even. Technically, you've only been out for twelve hours this time." He shook his head. "Not two days again."

        Haven swallowed the sudden urge to weep.

She hated this part of waking up.

She hated not remembering.

        Slowly . . . she managed to prop herself against the pillows, shuffling beneath the warm cocoon of blankets until she was fully seated. As she settled, she quickly noticed the jarring change in her attire—her clothes were no longer ragged remnants torn by Lexa's sword, or sopping with her own blood. Instead, she wore something soft and clean, though the garments were tight enough to make the myriad stitches lacing her skin nauseatingly apparent. The sight of her newly mended flesh, crisscrossed with precise, surgical lines, was so fucking disturbing that she had to avert her eyes after only a moment.

Waking without knowing how long she'd been asleep was disorienting enough. But waking here—somewhere unrecognizable, in clothes that weren't hers, her body sewn together like a ruin somebody had tried to salvage—was another hell entirely.

         "Where..." Haven could feel the act of speaking ease its way back into her body, like a limb slowly stirring from numbness. Yet, even as the words came, each syllable still felt unbearably heavy, grating over her tongue like stones. "...are we?"

        "Still at Tondc," Bellamy answered, his voice low and edged with a quiet kind of relief—as if hearing her speak was enough to loosen the knots in his chest. "All of us are here. We set up camp at the outskirts for the night. Lexa..." He sucked in an agitated inhale. "Lexa gave you the cot to recover."

        Haven was half-inclined to roll her eyes. "Better than... the sleeping... bag," she managed dryly. The sarcasm unfurled as an instinct, a lifeline in the ruin, even if it hurt to speak. "What about the alliance—?"

        Ever so slightly . . . Bellamy's lip twitched upward again. "The alliance is solid," he assured. "Clarke's holding shit down with Lexa. Orion and Octavia were the ones to change your clothes. Raven's working on the radio. We're strategizing for Mount Weather at dawn."

        Haven nodded wearily.

        Despite the fleeting relief in Bellamy's posture, the weight of his gaze lingered like a hand just shy of touch. He traced every frayed stitch lingering beneath Haven's clothing, memorizing each curve and contour as if afraid she might vanish before him. His eyes devoured her in stolen seconds—haunted, desperate, and reverent—until his guilt gnashed its teeth, forcing him to tear his gaze away. It was a cruel game of restraint, a self-imposed punishment: look too closely, and he might crumble; look away, and she might slip beyond his reach forever.

        . . . Haven knew what it had cost Bellamy to watch her suffer in that clearing.

        The sight of her torment had flayed him wide open. And now, the reverberations of his screams haunted her, humming discordantly with the wreckage of her thoughts. He hadn't stopped screaming—not really. From the moment they wrenched her from the dining hall, down the cold corridors, and out into the open air where the execution pole was waiting, its cruel silhouette casting a shadow too large to outrun.

        Haven had seen Bellamy cry before.

        . . . But she had never heard him scream until his lungs bled.

        "I won't lie to you," Haven whispered, her lips curling into the faintest, defiant ghost of a smirk. She watched as Bellamy's eyes drifted to her mouth—drawn to the words, to the life in her voice. "It hurts like a motherfucker. But I think that time you accidentally kicked me in the face was worse."

        " . . . Shit! Shit! Shit! . . . "

Eighteen-year-old Bellamy Blake stood petrified, eyes wide with shock, rooted to the ground as though the very tiles had swallowed his nerve. He watched, horrified, as Haven crumpled onto Go-Sci's floor, her breath stuttering with the impact he'd inflicted. This time, her fall wasn't precipitated by her stenosis, but by an ill-aimed kick from Bellamy himself—meant for a controlled spar to her throat, yet tragically connecting with her face.

" . . . Relax," Haven wheezed, defiantly straightening and attempting to find her footing—despite the bruised gasp she couldn't quite hide. "lt's good character building. . ."

She could see it, as clearly as the constellations glittering against the windowpane—the transformation in Bellamy was unmistakable. The once wiry frame, the jittery limbs, all the softness she once knew had metamorphosed into strength, to a power that ran deeper than just muscle and bone. Teaching her self-defense had forged him too, ingraining resilience and purpose into his being, building the fortress he'd never admit to becoming.

        ". . . Fuck," Bellamy whispered. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. . . "

        A barrage of sharp retorts hovered at the brink of Haven's lips, each one a potential missile to keep him at bay, to sustain the biting, effortless banter between them that pulsed as naturally as her heartbeat. But as Bellamy broke free from his initial shock, his hands quivering as they rose to her face, brushing against her blood-streaked lips with a startling tenderness—her voice caught in her throat.

       ". . . C'mon," she managed breathlessly. "I thought pain was part of the process. . ."

        Bellamy's thumb drifted across the dark stain on her lips, tracing the delicate curve of her lower lip with a slowness that felt almost reverent. For a single heartbeat—one fraught, suspended breath—he held on, his gaze flickering between her lips and her eyes, as if tethered to something he couldn't name.

Then, as though scorched by the stars themselves, he stumbled backward, practically launching himself away from her.

        ". . . Yeah," he panted shakily. "Yeah. I, uh, meant to do that. . ."

        ". . . Right." Haven's lips curled into a wickedly divine smirk. "But this is payback . . ."

       Before Bellamy could register her words, she moved with sudden, ruthless precision. Her foot shot up, sweeping his knees out from under him, and as he floundered to regain his balance, her other foot connected sharply with his jaw. The impact sent him sprawling, breath knocked clean from his lungs, and he collapsed to the floor, flat on his back.

       But then . . .

        He looked up.

        Despite the sting of crimson on his gums and the throbbing ache in his jaw, Bellamy was beaming—smiling at Haven with an intensity that outshone every speck of starlight spilling through the nearby porthole.

        ". . . Good," he panted. "Hit me harder. . ."

Bellamy didn't laugh, but his lips tilted into that same stolen smile—fragile and fleeting, as though the weight of the world might crush it at any second. And in that stolen second, the blistering sting in Haven's sutures dulled to nothingness. She couldn't feel their agony anymore. Not when the ghost of a boy, sitting just near her lap, flickered into being—not whole, but . . . enough.

        Finally, he reached for her.

        . . . But his hands were cuffed.

Cold, unforgiving metal sank into Bellamy's wrists as his hands fell into her lap. Even so, his fingers curled around hers—slow, deliberate—and offered the faintest squeeze of reassurance. But it wasn't the sight of the cuffs that sent Haven's pulse careening—it was the startling absence of resistance. No blood smeared along his wrists. No seething red welts rose beneath the pressure. No desperate bruises branded the metal into his flesh. The steel sat on him like a second skin, unchallenged, as if it belonged there.

        . . . As if he had accepted it.

Haven worriedly lifted her gaze. "W-What happened?" she whispered, retracting her fingers from his only to slip them beneath the metal, tracing the unmarred skin with featherlight touches. "Why are you wearing those?"

The muscle in Bellamy's jaw flexed imperceptibly. "Assassination attempt."

Haven's throat constricted. "Lexa—?"

"Abby."

        Silence gutted the air between them.

        Haven stared at him—not in disbelief, but with agonizing confusion. Bellamy attempting to murder the woman who had irrevocably destroyed their lives wasn't shocking—it was inevitable, written in the marrow of his bones. Abby's demise had always been a specter on the distant horizon, and the only surprise was that it hadn't come sooner. He was a dam overflowing with far, far too much grief; his collapse was not a matter of if . . . but when.

But what truly haunted Haven was not the act itself—it was the echoing void where her memories should have been. Her mind reeled, desperately clawing for any shred of recollection, only to grasp at shadows. The last concrete memory was the execution pole—ropes cutting sharply into her wrists, her vision blurring as her lifeforce seeped into the thirsty earth. And then there was Bellamy—his arms cradling her, frantically pressing his torso against every bleeding wound possible, his warmth fighting the frost that had seeped into her bones.

But beyond that moment—nothing.

No conversations, no whispered warnings, no fleeting touches of reality. Just a vast, crushing emptiness, twelve hours of her life devoured by the insatiable maw of unconsciousness . . . again.

Bellamy allowed Haven's fingers to trace soothing patterns on the skin beneath the icy bite of his cuffs, though he clasped his other hand atop her own. "A lot went down. Really, really fast," he rasped weakly. "Kane's not letting me out of them til' we talk."

        Haven blinked. "Kane–?" she echoed, her mind stuttering over the words as though they didn't align properly. "Why the hell do you need to talk to Kane?"

        "We have to talk to Kane." Bellamy let out a ragged exhale, one so fatigued that Haven could almost hear his ribs groan beneath the strain. "Well... I guess we don't have to. But I think that we should," he murmured, though the words lacked conviction, sagging under the weight of remorse. "It's my own fault, but I really don't want to be in these cuffs any longer."

        Haven shook her head, disbelief bleeding into fury, the weight of it pressing against every raw stitch tugged tight across her skin. "What authority does he have to keep you in cuffs?" she countered. "What could we possibly have to say to him?"

        "Everything," Bellamy answered solemnly. "We have to talk about everything, Hav."

        "Like... everything, everything?"

        "Everything." 

         . . . Fuck.

        Just as Haven knew Bellamy's assassination attempt was inevitable, she also recognized that the ensuing shitstorm of questions was equally unavoidable. Bellamy's hatred for the Chancellor had never been a secret within Camp Jaha; it had always blazed openly, a fire stoked by injustice and suffering. But this—this act of violence—had ripped the veil off his smoldering resentment, flaying every hidden grudge and festering truth bare. It wasn't just a matter of grudges anymore. As Vice Chancellor, it was logical for Kane to probe into the matter, and considering Bellamy was restrained in cuffs, the situation had clearly escalated to violence.

They couldn't run from it any longer.

The truth about Abby's crimes would have to come out sooner or later—dragged into the harsh light of scrutiny, no matter how much it burned.

        But Haven knew that exposing Abby meant more than just laying bare the sins of just one woman. It meant exposing all of them. The truth was a murky, stained thing—they had all been complicit, each in their own distinct ways. None of them were innocent. Not Bellamy. Not Jackson. Not Haven herself. For four long years, they had all danced the line between survival and treason, tangled in a web of deceit spun tighter and tighter with every desperate choice made.

Bellamy had willingly traversed this dark path, believing he was protecting Haven—twisting himself into knots. He was utterly blind to the fact that Abby had manipulated him from the start, feeding him false hope to keep him tethered to her schemes. Jackson had walked the fault line between loyalty and regret, unpredictable as shifting sand. And Abby . . . Abby had kept Haven alive, not for love, but for her blood—for the scientific goldmine in her veins, carved out through cryptic experiments.

Was Haven prepared to talk about that?

. . . Could she even form the syllables?

Could she truthfully confess the darkest corners of her past to Marcus fucking Kane? Could she peel back the scars and expose the truth of what had been done to her, what she had endured beneath Abby's scalpel? Could she bear the weight of reliving it all—for the sake of justice?

        Haven's fingers trembled beneath the frigid bite of the cuffs. "I don't want to," she murmured, shakily attempting to pull her hand away. But Bellamy's grip was firm, gentle, anchoring her nerves. "I-I don't think I can. If this is about—"

       "It's not just about Abby's involvement in what happened to you," Bellamy cut in softly. He was acutely aware of the tremor in her fingers, ensuring it remained just that—a tremor, and not the precursor to a larger collapse. "Kane saw your blood out there, Haven. And he didn't look surprised."

        . . . Oh. Right.

        Haven kind of forgot about that part.

        "...I guess I'm not either," she admitted, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip, chewing at the words. "Dead people seem to come back to life every day around here. I wouldn't be surprised if Jaha already knows about it too."

       Silence.

       Bellamy's thoughtful stare seared into her temples like molten starfire. "How much do you remember from today?"

       "It's...blurry," Haven began, knitting her brows together, cleaving through the haze that shrouded her thoughts. She groped for the fragments, grasping at moments that seemed to slip through her fingers like ghosts. "Raven and I were fighting—"

"Raven was screaming at you." Bellamy's correction was swift and precise—like a blade slipping between ribs. "And you were just... standing there. Taking it."

        ". . . It's not enough. It's not enough when Finn was the next person to die because of YOU! . . . "

       The memory surged, throttling its way to the surface, but Haven shoved it down—hard—into the darkest corridors of her mind, slamming the door shut and swallowing the key.

        "Okay, well, after... that, everything starts to get fuzzy," she confessed, frustration mounting as she sifted through the memories, only to come up empty handed. "I don't remember much once I was off the pole. I know that Gustus planted the poison to try and frame me... so I could take Lexa's place as Commander, or whatever." She swallowed hard, the gravity of the accusations and plots sinking heavily into the pit of her stomach. "I also saw that Lexa's blood is black. Like mine. Unless... unless I hallucinated that too."

        Bellamy went horrifically still.

        "Too—?"

        . . . Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

        The truth was . . . the fight with Raven and the jagged, fractured memories it unearthed were only a fraction of what Haven remembered.

        She knew—knew—that Finn's apparition had been haunting her since the night he died, clinging to the edges of her vision like smoke, a phantom shadowing every breath and blink. But it was more than fleeting glimpses, more than the occasional specter of guilt. Finn's presence had become relentless. She'd seen him more than any other phantom from her past, lingering like an otherworldly curse that refused to lift.

        He'd been there—standing just behind Lexa's shoulder when her sword drove into Haven's flesh. She'd felt him, felt his hands guiding the blade deeper, desecrating her body with the same unflinching precision she had once been prepared to unleash on his. His ghost hadn't merely stood by—he'd joined in, an echo of the hatred they had both carried. Again and again, his hands mirrored Haven's darkest intentions, unhesitatingly cutting her down the way she would have done to him.

        And the worst part?

        She would've let him.

        If Finn's ghost had wanted her eternally ruined—if vengeance is what he demanded—Haven would've thanked him for it.

        It didn't matter if she knew he wasn't real.

But how . . . how could she explain that to Bellamy?

         How could Haven admit that, in the moments when the blade pierced her flesh, she hadn't resisted—hadn't even wanted to? That she'd have let Finn mutilate her, again and again, if only to silence the ache pulsing beneath her skull? How could she ever possibly tell Bellamy, when he already looked sick with understanding—genuinely, physically ill—like the revelation had already rooted itself somewhere deep inside him?

        She couldn't. She fucking couldn't.

        Haven felt Bellamy's grip tighten. His knuckles blanched with the effort, fingers twitching as though they couldn't quite grasp the release they craved. For the first time since they'd been bound, he strained against the cuffs binding his wrists, as if he'd only now begun to resent their weight. His palms ground into hers—again, and again, and again—the pressure restless and erratic, each squeeze a silent tremor that resonated far louder than words. This was more than mere longing to feel her in his hands, and stronger than the simple ache to clutch her closer, closer, closer.

. . . He was holding something back. 

Slowly, Haven slid one of her hands free from his grasp. Her fingers brushed along the rough line of Bellamy's jaw before she cupped his chin, tenderly coaxing it upward and forcing him to meet her eyes.

        "...You aren't telling me something either."

        Bellamy's gaze fell, his bloodshot eyes retreating from hers as though the truth was too heavy, too corrosive to look at directly. "That's because I don't want to tell you," he admitted, his voice splintering beneath the enormity of his devastation. "I—I just wish we had more time. I always want more time. I wish you could wake up from nearly dying without having your world torn apart again."

        Haven shook her head. "Bell..."

        "I don't want to make things any heavier. God, Haven, I-I don't. But if we're going to face Kane and... Jackson." He drew in another tremulous breath, a shudder that seemed to echo from deep beneath his ribcage. "I... I want it to come from me."

        "Bell." Haven squeezed his hand as though his life depended on it. "What is it?"

        Bellamy finally summoned the courage to hold her stare. "I didn't just... attempt to kill Abby." he admitted, his words brittle, barely above a whisper. "I choked her. I hit her in the face—again, and again, and..." His head lowered, shaking vehemently, shoulders curled inward as if he could forcibly shrink away from the memory. "I-I can't tell you this. I can't do this to you. I can't—"

        "Bellamy," Haven insisted—unwaveringly firm yet outrageously tender, daring him to unveil the darkest depths of his misdeeds and watch her stand unflinching. "It's me. It's just me."

        An excruciatingly long heartbeat passed.

        And then . . .

        "Her blood was black, Hav."

        Haven blinked. "What?"

        "Her blood was black," Bellamy repeated brokenly, dragging a shaking hand across his face, vainly attempting to wipe at the saltwater clinging to his lashes. "Clarke said Abby wasn't born with it. She's seen her blood before. This... it's not genetic, like yours. It has to be the result of her... experiments."

        The words fell from his lips like stones into a fathomless abyss.

        "...I think she put your blood in her body."

        Haven felt her soul capsize.

        There were no words crafted in any tongue that could capture the cataclysm that had ripped through her when Bellamy first unveiled her role as Abby's unwitting specimen. It was a revelation that scalded her very essence, upheaving all she had believed for five long years. But this . . . this new truth was an abomination beyond comprehension. Violation to the highest degree. Haven was not merely a victim; she had been transformed into Abby's unwitting chimera, a laboratory creature spun from nightmare, destined only for ruin. Her blood—the very essence that should have been hers alone—had been siphoned, defiled, stolen from her veins, and forced into her tormentor's.

Nothing belonged to Haven.

Nothing ever had. Nothing ever would.

        She was nothing but a goddamn vessel—a hollowed shell filled with memories fractured by cruelty, scars that spanned dimensions deeper than flesh. Every atom, every cell, every fragment of her being had been tainted, scarred, or altered, touched by the unholy hands of a perverse creator.

        Not even the blood in her body was her own.

        Her body.

        . . . If she could even call it that anymore.

        Bellamy strained against his handcuffs once more, muscles tensing in a desperate attempt to dislocate his thumbs, if only to slip free and cradle Haven in his arms. He'd banish every fucking shadow, absorb every ache, love her so profoundly that nothing—no monster born of nightmare or reality—could ever breach the fortress of his body and wound her again.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so, so, so fucking sorry."

Haven's lips moved as though detached from her will. "Where is she?" she managed to whisper, though the syllables felt wrong—again. "I-Is she still here?"

"No." Bellamy's thumbs traced slow, comforting circles over the veins on her hands—a desperate attempt to offer whatever sliver of solace he could muster. He averted his gaze from the remnants of black blood embedded beneath his nails. "Once I saw the blood—I froze. Kane cuffed me, and now Abby's on her way to Camp Jaha. Lincoln's escorting her back with Nyko."

Meanwhile . . . Haven was far too numb to register the bitterness that should have been felt. "So she gets to avoid questioning... but we don't."

"It's not an interrogation about us," Bellamy clarified. "I won't force you to talk to them. I can't decide that for you. But... I... I think it's time." He withdrew his hand once more, reluctantly pressing his fingers to his eyes, wiping, rubbing, desperate to banish his own fractures—over and over, until it felt like he could erase himself in the process. "There's a lot we need answers to. And I don't want to worry you by worrying about you, but Haven..."

He could not hold back his tears this time.

"I am so scared for you."

Haven would not allow his words to decimate him any further. "Don't be," she warned, lifting her hands from her lap and cradling his tear-sodden cheeks in her palms. "Bellamy, this isn't—"

"I-I'm... I'm terrified for your wellbeing," Bellamy interrupted, drawing in a shuddering breath to fortify his voice, though he helplessly leaned into the gravity of her hands. "I—I just—there's too much that we don't know right now. I want you to have answers." His voice softened to a heartwrenching whisper. "This is a start."

Haven had never questioned the cosmic force that had gifted her Bellamy Blake. But now, as she stared at the wilting boy in front of her, shoulders bowing beneath the unbearable weight of his worry. . . something unholy surged within her. She ached to tear open the heavens, to shout blasphemies against the star-strewn tapestry that had cursed him to the devastation of loving her. Her soul cried out to the vast, indifferent galaxies, begging it to release him, to tear their originating stars asunder and fling them into opposing corners of the void—until he was finally free from the weight of her existence.

She did not deserve him.

And Bellamy did not deserve to be bound to the quiet ruin of loving her.

"Okay," Haven breathed shakily. "Okay."

Before she could shape another protest, before any words of comfort could ruminate on her tongue—Bellamy was already moving. His mouth found hers, achingly gentle yet deeply urgent. Salt lingered on his lips, the faint taste of sorrow and storm, and despite the cuffs that bound his wrists, he used what little freedom he had to his advantage. He angled himself towards her, coaxing inexorably her closer, as if he could tether her to him through sheer touch alone.

But all too soon, he drew back, resting his forehead softly against hers, their breaths mingling in the space between.

"I can do the talking if you want," Bellamy whispered, pausing to gently kiss the bridge of Haven's nose. "But if you'd rather—I'll follow your lead. You ready?"

. . . Absolutely the fuck not.

"No," Haven whispered. "But I have you."

Bellamy's gaze held hers for another fleeting eternity . . . and then he leaned in once more, kissing her again, and again, and again. Each was impossibly gentle, yet laden with the vast expanse of everything he couldn't voice—the desperate, quiet power of a love too immense to be caged. As he rose from the cot, reluctantly nearing the tent's entrance, his kisses still remained unbroken, continuous. He could not pull away. His mouth could not bear to part from hers, fearing that to sever their connection would rupture some sacred, delicate thread between them. With every brush of his mouth, every soft breath shared, he inhaled her presence, breathing her life into his lungs. . . drawing courage from the quiet enormity of her being.

Haven detached her mouth first.

And then . . .

"Let em' in, Orion."

        "Roger that, Blakey boy!"

        After a muffled shuffle of movement outside, punctuated by a colorful litany of low, muttered curses, Orion burst through the tent's entrance. An otherworldly grin illuminated her face as she absorbed the sight of Haven, alert and awake on the cot. Flanking her—and equally irritated—were Eric Jackson and Marcus Kane, each unceremoniously lugged forward by their earlobes. With a decisive yank, Orion propelled them further into the tent, arms defiantly crossed as she shifted to retreat.

        "Just so you know—I'm totally gonna eavesdrop," she announced, voice deceptively light, jabbing two accusing fingers at the men lingering uneasily before her. "So, gentlemen! If you say the wrong thing to her, if you breathe the wrong way, if you exist too loudly—I will be back, and I will decapitate you."

        Jackson audibly gulped.

        Kane blinked in silent astonishment. "You don't even have your sword."

        "Don't need it." Orion's grin only widened—a beautifully wicked curve that promised far more damage than any blade could deliver. "Adieu!"

        She vanished behind the tarp at once.

Haven immediately wished that she hadn't.

Though the tent was roomy enough to house several more bodies, the presence of the men before her and Bellamy seemed to expand, infiltrating every corner until even breathing felt like an intrusion. Jackson was a figure of constant motion, shifting his weight and scratching the back of his neck, his fingers restless, fidgeting in search of a place to settle. Kane, by contrast, stood like a statue—his posture a fortress of calculated distance, arms crossed tightly, ensuring his presence was felt but not imposed upon Haven.

        . . . Bellamy already looked sick of both of them.

        "Haven," Jackson began warmly, clearing his throat and managing to summon an outrageously misplaced grin. "How are you feeling?"

        Haven stared at him through dead eyes.

"Like I just got tortured."

        Jackson winced. "How's, um, your shoulder doing—?"

        "I don't want to talk about my fucking shoulder," Haven cut in rashly, her voice cleaving through the stagnant air with the sharpness of shattered glass. She straightened against the cot, the urge to yank the blankets over her head almost unbearable—a desperate longing to disappear. "Just... cut the shit, okay? Abby's blood is black. My blood is black." Her condemning finger stabbed the air towards Kane. "You knew about it." She gestured to Bellamy and herself. "We didn't."

        Finally . . . her finger settled on Jackson, the accusation hovering like a guillotine poised to fall.

        "Did you?"

        Jackson shook his head. "No," he reiterated firmly—a clear note of sincerity that rang true, even in the midst of chaos. "No. I was just as blindsided as you."

        Haven bit back the impulse to sneer. "I wasn't blindsided," she huffed out, intimately aware of Bellamy's warmth sinking onto the cot beside her, intertwining his fingers with her own. "If the shoe fits or whatever."

        Kane shifted, his figure outlined by the soft, tangerine glow of the lantern, shadows stretching across his face in angular patterns that made his expression hauntingly unreadable. "I'd just like to clarify... I was unaware that Abby's blood had undergone... changes, too," he added lowly. "I had no idea."

        Bellamy cocked his head. "Then why are you fucking here?" he spat. "Why did you put me in cuffs and bitch about the need to talk?"

        "You're handcuffed because you assaulted the Chancellor, Bellamy," Kane deadpanned, his voice hollow, robbed of its usual calculated diplomacy. "You tried to assassinate her in front of everybody."

        "And I'll do it again," Bellamy snarled dangerously. "Cuffs mean jack shit."

        Kane expelled an exasperated breath. "Your anger is warranted, son," he reasoned, his gaze flicking knowingly to Haven, a silent caution glinting in his darkened, bruised eye. "But let's stay on task—for her sake."

        "What would you know about my sake?" Haven's face twisted into a portrait of utter revulsion—one she could barely leash beneath the thin veil of civility. "Bellamy's right. Why are you here, Kane? It's not like my blood was a surprise to you."

        After sweeping his hand over the scruff shadowing his jaw, Kane blew out another measured exhale. "Look," he began tiredly. "I'll let Jackson start us off, and I can fill in the blanks... if that's what you choose."

All eyes flickered to Jackson.

        Jackson, to his credit, managed not to collapse—an achievement Haven deemed near miraculous, considering he seemed to shrivel beneath the weight of her scathing scrutiny. He swayed slightly on his feet, hands alternately clenching and unclenching into fists, as if wrestling with invisible chains. He drew in a deep, fraught breath, a prelude to the storm about to break.

"Everybody in this tent has been deceived by Abby," he declared, the words resonant with a hard-won resolve as he met the icy gaze of the Vice Chancellor. "I-I didn't even know Kane had anything to do with this until... twelve hours ago, I think. But no one—no one—has been manipulated more than you two." His stare softened, almost painfully, as it drifted to Haven and Bellamy. "I... I can't even begin to apologize enough—"

"I don't want to hear your apologies, Jackson," Haven cut in, silencing his floundering with an incisive glare. "I just want the truth."

Jackson drew in another trembling breath before nodding in acknowledgement. "According to the files I planted for Bellamy to find that day on the Ark—Abby had been experimenting on your blood for four years," he began, forcing his voice to maintain its integrity as he prepared to deliver his next admission. "She was authorized to do so by Jaha and Kane."

        Haven barely registered the seismic shock that should have coursed through her. She felt Bellamy's hand tighten in hers, his outrage silently rippling through the tension of his grip, swallowing the choked scoff that never made it past his throat. But Haven's mind was adrift, submerged beneath layers of exhaustion and betrayal that dulled the edge of revelation. There was no room left for shock—only a voracious, gnawing hunger for clarity, an insatiable need to dredge up the answers buried in the wreckage of endless lies.

Her eyes incisively flicked to Kane.

"...You knew from the beginning?"

Kane inclined his head. "I did," he admitted, the confession landing amidst the charged air with unnerving stoicism. "It was Jaha, Abby, and myself. Jackson had no knowledge of any of this until I spoke with him last night."

        Haven cast a knowing glance to Bellamy.

        In that single, silent exchange—a thousand sentiments pulsed between them, words rendered powerless against the vastness of understanding and disillusionment. There was no surprise—there hadn't been room for that in a long time—but the strangeness of it, the sheer absurdity of it all, lodged itself in her mind like a thorn.

For half a decade . . . the narrative of Haven's blood had been drilled into their minds as the Ark's darkest, most perilous secret, something to be hidden at all costs. Even the note from Silas, tucked within her locket, had woven itself into her sense of survival. Abby and the trio in Medical had bent themselves into knots, committing treason and twisting truth, all beneath the grave insistence that they were protecting Haven from the Council's wrath.

If the Council knew—they would kill her.

        . . . But the Council had always known.

        They had known from the goddamn jump, from the very genesis of Abby's experiments, had even sanctioned it. Haven's blood, her body, the agony she'd endured—it had all been approved and neatly filed under their authority. Abby had lied to her, Bellamy, and . . . Jackson, turned fear into a weapon, crafted horror from shadows that had never been real.

But why? For what?

        . . . What was the point of fucking traumatizing them?

Kane took the oppressive silence as his cue to press on. "The plan to send the hundred to Earth was only a distant dream at the time. Oxygen levels on the Ark were deteriorating, and when you were processed in Lockup, Haven, your bloodwork... it was abnormal for... obvious reasons," he continued lowly. "Abby noticed its synthetic nature instantly, recognized its potential right away, and came to Jaha and me with a proposition."

"And what was that?" Bellamy spat wretchedly, shifting from his position on the cot as if he were on the cusp of vaulting across the tent, itching to throttle Kane's neck with his bare hands. "Mutilate Haven for your own gain?"

Kane did not flinch. "Abby believed your blood held the key to survival on Earth. It's resistance to radiation... it was hope, Haven."

Haven let out a harsh, disbelieving laugh, shaking her head in sheer bafflement. "She's a fucking idiot," she breathed, the syllables laden with unimaginable scorn. "Nobody thought about our predisposition to solar radiation—?"

Kane stared at her. Blankly.

"Great," Haven scoffed. "You're all idiots."

        "With the oxygen crisis looming, we granted Abby authorization to delay your initial execution. She wanted more time for testing—to see if your blood's synthetic properties could be harnessed universally," Kane pressed on, his words weary, bearing the weight of his own twisted logic with a righteousness that grated against her very bones. "Perhaps as a vaccine, or a transfusion."

        An insidious chill crept over Haven's spine, her bewilderment crystallizing into something far colder. "Wait," she drawled. "You... you knew about Jackson altering my birth year in the system? You knew the entire time?"

        "We authorized it," Kane confirmed. "Nothing escapes Alpha's security system. We saw the alert—and dismissed it."

        Holy. Fuck.

        Jackson uncomfortably cleared his throat. "I wasn't aware of that either." His gaze shifted to Bellamy, offering a fleeting, apologetic grimace before focusing on Haven once more. "Again... I-I thought Bellamy and I pulled off the biggest security breach in Ark history—right up until twelve hours ago."

        Bellamy only clutched Haven's hand tighter.

        "Continuing on..." Kane straightened, shoulders squaring, his frame casting a longer, darker shadow near the tent's entrance. "For those four years, we received regular updates on Abby's research. According to her, the synthetic compound was inextricably bonded to your blood's biological properties. She described it as... a bond. Like the synthetic had been engineered to fuse with specific hosts, becoming inseparable from them." His gaze darkened, and a shuddered breath escaped him, barely perceptible. "Four years of failed vaccines, genetic trials, endless dissections of what made you... you. All of it was futile until the weeks before your final surgery."

        "Right." Bellamy's face twisted, revulsion etched into every furious line, his lips screwed into a poorly restrained snarl. "The one where Abby planned to kill Haven—then harvest her fucking organs."

Kane dipped his head in acknowledgement. "Abby came to us with what she called a breakthrough," he continued, voice low, as if confessing the sin carved into his bones. "She believed transfusions were the only way to spread the synthetic properties. Rather than dividing and diluting your biology for vaccines, the blood needed a new host. A full transfer."

Haven felt her stomach lurch.

. . . Transfusions.

"None of you monsters are any different than Tsing in Mount Weather," she hissed, battling the rise of bile in her throat, her breath measured but seething with contempt. "I mean... fuck Camp Jaha. Pack your shit and go work there. Bet you'd love it."

"We refused to grant Abby permission to begin experimental transfusions without speaking to you directly first, Haven," Kane added swiftly, his voice imbued with a rare conviction—a glimmer of sincerity fighting to cut through the mire of deception. "That's when things started to change."

Haven did not grant the man even the tiniest sliver of credibility. "How considerate of you," she echoed icily. "How considerate to finally decide to talk to me about the experimenting done on my body—after four years of hiding it—only because you needed me to start transfusions." Her fury pulsed, raw and unforgiving, reigniting the phantom ache of incision scars stretched across her chest. "You're... you're worthless, Kane. You weren't going to approach me out of honesty or remorse. You just needed me to agree."

Kane said nothing.

        Meanwhile . . . Haven's mind churned with the sheer audacity of it all, unable to fathom what angle Kane hoped to play here. It was as if by seeking her permission for the transfusions—he imagined he could redeem himself and Jaha from the atrocity of their deeds. As if that one hollow gesture could somehow cleanse them of the betrayal they'd already etched into her flesh—of the four years they had sanctioned her suffering in silence, transforming her body into a battleground of hidden scars and violated trust.

It was infuriating, maddeningly so.

Haven would have preferred they kill her outright, strip her of breath, and continue their ruthless agenda than to sit here, watching Kane fumble with the pretense of conscience . . . while her world lay shattered at their feet, devastated by their hands.

Kane tentatively broke the lingering silence. "Abby started acting strange during those next few weeks. Skittish. Uncomfortable. Detached. She... she didn't want us to interact with you," he confessed. "Ultimately, we came to an agreement. The meeting was scheduled for the same day as your surgery. We intended to come clean about everything—the testing—and then present the opportunity for transfusions, to see if you'd consent." A somber reflection muddied his expression as he momentarily lost himself to the past. "It was supposed to be a defining day. But... the issue was, your surgery was never briefed with me and Jaha. It began thirty minutes prior to our meeting."

Bellamy went insidiously still.

"...Abby went AWOL," he breathed.

Kane nodded in morbid confirmation. "We weren't aware of the surgery until the OR booking notification came through. And as for her intentions... we had no idea." His voice faltered, slipping into a whisper—a trace of horror buried within it before he steeled himself, forcing the words to solidify. "I—I didn't even know she was planning to harvest your organs until Jackson and I spoke last night."

         . . . Yeah, right.

        Haven remained remarkably unconvinced. "But why would she keep her plans from you?" she pressed, nearly choking beneath the magnitude of her contempt. "Why would it even matter if she wanted to kill me and finish what all of you started? You gave her permission to test my blood without my permission. You gave her permission to mutilate my heart—"

        "No," Kane cut in—his protest landing with far more volition than anticipated. "We permitted the testing of your blood without your consent because we were desperate to ensure our survival. I cannot speak for Jaha... but I knew no such thing about her destruction to your heart, Haven."

        Haven shook her head. "I don't believe you."

        Kane's face tightened as he attempted to tread carefully. "I was led to believe you were medically... dependent," he admitted, his words carefully chosen yet excruciatingly cold. "I can admit that your dependency on Medical made testing easier—"

        "Easier," Bellamy scowled furiously. "Easier."

        Kane did not glance in his direction. "I thought your visits to Medical were necessary to keep you alive," he continued, refusing to shrink beneath Haven's death stare—or the truth of his alleged ignorance. "But I didn't know it was because Abby was making you sick. I didn't know she was forcing you into dependence."

"I, um, also told him that," Jackson chimed in skittishly. "...Twelve hours ago."

"A year ago—I believed the surgery was exactly what Abby had claimed it to be," Kane continued grimly. "An emergency resuscitation requiring immediate intervention on your heart. According to her, it resolved your symptoms. You were cured of your stenosis and no longer considered medically dependent."

        Bellamy and Haven shared another look—a flicker of understanding coalescing between them, each haunted by the weight of memories they both seemed reluctant to relive.

        Though dredging up the memory of her final surgery on the Ark felt like reopening an unhealed wound . . . Haven couldn't deny the twisted consistency of Abby's lies. Those last moments with Bellamy, before she was ripped away from the team she'd been manipulated into trusting, placed instead in the cold, clinical grasp of a new Medical crew, had been shrouded in Abby's deceit. The ruptured blood vessel—a carefully crafted excuse for an emergency surgery—had concealed the hidden intent to end her life. Only Bellamy's intervention had disrupted the covert plan, transforming the procedure meant to kill her into the very one that saved her life.

        But she hadn't known. Not then.

Haven had believed every fucking thread of the narrative Kane now recounted, the same story she had clung to for the past year—that Abby had cured her stenosis, that her pain had been justified, that her survival had been nothing short of miraculous. Only last month had she learned the truth, that the cure had been nothing more than a desperate, concealed act of survival—a twist of fate that owed nothing to Abby's intent and everything to Bellamy's gun.

"But I can see it for what it was now," Kane declared. every word carrying the weight of a revelation that had taken far too long to surface. "Abby wanted you dead before Jaha and I got the opportunity to talk to you. Before we looked too close and realized she had made you sick without our knowledge."

Haven felt her blood alchemize into poison.

Bellamy remained as rigid as stone. "I... even spun Jaha away that day," he confessed breathlessly. As he shook his head, a curtain of curls shielded the ghostly torment in his eyes—a flimsy veil that could not obscure the deep-seated torment that throbbed beneath. "He wasn't just spontaneously visiting the Sick Bay. He was coming to see Haven."

Kane nodded slowly. "Because you had no reason to be in Medical anymore, not after Abby assured us you were cured—no further experimenting was done," he continued. "We had vials of your blood stored for additional testing if necessary. Abby was barred from resuming her medical duties with you to avoid raising suspicions. Assigning you new doctors kept the lie intact and maintained the illusion she'd constructed—that we were in the dark about your blood, and distancing herself kept you safe."

        As the avalanche of revelations crashed down around her . . . Haven felt as though she were suddenly grasping at ghosts. It was too much, too fast, unraveling far too quickly—every certainty she'd clung to was disintegrating, leaving her stranded in the wreckage of what she thought she knew. Her mind reeled, spinning in a relentless loop as she struggled to make sense of the impossible, to breathe, to wrench even a single coherent thought from the maelstrom of betrayal and deceit.

        "I just—I don't understand," Haven managed to whisper. She pinched her brows, clutching Bellamy's hand tighter, seeking some anchor as their world capsized once more. "This entire time... we were told we were avoiding suspicion from you."

        Bellamy clenched his jaw. "I even donated my blood for it," he murmured. "Dozens. There are dozens of vials of my blood that I gave Abby to protect Haven—just in case any new doctors, or you and Jaha came poking around." His voice grew, regaining strength, each word an accusation sharpened to a blade. "What was the point if you both already knew?"

        "Unfortunately, son... it appears that Abby was avoiding suspicion from all of us." Kane's shoulders sagged as he let out a long, defeated breath. "After your surgery, Haven, Abby abandoned her belief in the transfusions. You were only one person, and we needed hundreds of transfusions to even begin considering it as a viable solution." His words were heavy, laden with the sorrow of hindsight. "If we spread the synthetic properties from one person with your blood to another... the synthetic would thin, weakening it, until it was just as ineffective as the vaccines."

        His next words struck like gunfire.

        "The project was ultimately deemed a failure."

        Bellamy shot to his feet in an instant. "She's not a project," he lashed out, wrenching his cuffed hands from Haven's and pointing at Kane damningly—daring him to utter one more word of callousness. "She... she was fifteen! She's not a goddamn experiment for you stupid, braindead, useless fucks—she's a human being! She's a girl—!"

        But Haven barely registered Bellamy's outburst; his voice became a faint hum, fading into the roaring pulse of her own heartbeat.

        Failure.

        The sentence landed with devastating force. Every sacrifice, every deception, every ounce of stolen blood had built itself into this unholy edifice—only for it to collapse into dust. She had been mutilated, reduced to an experiment, a vessel, her identity siphoned off until all that was left was a hollow shell, a monument to suffering with no purpose. Her innocence, her body, her very humanity—sacrificed upon the altar of salvation. And yet, her suffering had only ever amounted to a ghost chase—an experiment leading to a dead end.

        Failure.

        She'd been mutilated . . . for nothing.

Kane eventually managed to speak up again once Bellamy's verbal warfare relented. "I... apologize for my choice of words," he said, glancing away, as though ashamed of the language that had stripped Haven of her humanity. "After... that, we took Abby at her word. The plan to send the hundred to the ground was set into motion for the upcoming year. From that point on..." He scratched his neck uncomfortably. "I had forgotten about most of this, to be truthful."

"What a luxury for you," Bellamy hissed.

"But after today, after what I've seen and learned from Jackson and I's conversation..." Kane's face blanched to a sickly, devastating shade of ghost-white. "I suspect that Abby's experiments never truly stopped. It appears she used the vials of your blood she kept and... injected them into herself."

A wave of nausea roiled through Haven, sharp and bitter, her throat scorching with bile as she recalled her fateful conversation with Abby on the radio.

        ". . . Your resilience played a crucial role in the progress made this past year. . ."

This . . . this was what Abby had meant all along. She hadn't been speaking in comforting abstractions or poetic metaphors; she had meant it in the most literal, twisted sense. Abby had presumably taken Haven's resilience—her blood, her very essence—and injected it into her own veins, siphoning the strength that Haven had been forced to give.

        "Given that it didn't kill her... we also have reason to suspect she tested your blood with some of the blood Bellamy had donated," Jackson chimed in, his voice a low, grim murmur that seemed to suck the air from the tent. "To see how the blood metastasized in a lab before performing the transfusion on herself."

        Bellamy stood still, unflinching, his gaze steady as he absorbed the enormity of it. As he settled beside her on the cot, as though he had already given up on his own right to indignation . . . Haven felt her heart shatter in a way she hadn't thought possible.

It wasn't enough that Abby had stolen Haven's lifeblood—she had twisted it, experimented with it, splicing it with Bellamy's blood like they were mere components in some morbid alchemy. It wasn't enough that Abby had traumatized him, rewired him, and poisoned every instinct in him until every whisper of conflict, every shadow on Haven's face, was transformed into a battle cry—a call to arms to protect her. It wasn't enough that she had gotten his mother executed and his sister locked up. Every intimate piece of Bellamy had been dissected, reshaped, and repurposed—an unholy union of his essence and her own, both of them bound together in a cruel fate neither of them had consented to.

        Abby hadn't merely crossed lines.

        . . . She fucking annihilated them.

Haven swallowed thickly. "Why would Abby do the transfusion if the plan for the hundred was already decided?"

"She's insane—that's why," Bellamy scoffed. He shook his head, slipping his hand back into hers, his grip tightening, pulsing—a silent rhythm of reassurance, over and over. "She must've gone full mad scientist. Thought it was for the greater good, or some shit. That's what she was hinting at the day that I stopped the surgery."

"It lines up with the timeline," Kane said grimly, his gaze growing distant, clouded by the memories of a year shrouded in secrets. "Jake—Clarke's father—was floated for exposing the oxygen crisis, and Clarke herself was thrown into solitary. Everything unraveled at once. Abby's mental state... it was spiraling. She became unhinged."

Jackson nodded solemnly. "Now she has no choice but to keep up the charade."

Silence polluted the air.

Here it was—the full, ruthless scope of Abby's plan lay bare before them, exposed in all its monstrous glory. A twisted mockery of salvation, forged from desperation and stripped of any last shred of humanity. This wasn't science; it was slaughter—a perverse alchemy that had reduced lives to mere calculations, flesh and blood sacrificed for nothing. Half of the people within this cursed tent had been her unwilling pawns, tangled in a web of cruelty masquerading as necessity. Their autonomy had been hollowed out, their fates twisted into something preordained . . . a path set in blood and betrayal.

        Doomed from the goddamn start.

        Haven parted her lips. "How am I supposed to believe you?" she whispered, lifting her haunted stare from the hands in her lap and scrutinizing Jackson and Kane. "How... how am I supposed to believe either of you?"

        "You shouldn't." Jackson dared a cautious step forward, each movement tentative, as though he could somehow bridge the insurmountable chasm between them without further wounding her trust. "I-I haven't given you much of a reason to."

        "You're damn right you haven't," Haven shot back, shifting herself further against the cot, itching to escape the suffocating presence of betrayal that surrounded her. "Kane and Jaha are idiots. Full offense."

        Kane awkwardly winced. "I—"

        "Shut up," Bellamy barked.

        Haven, however, ignored them both, her gaze locked onto Jackson—the man she had once dared to trust, to even call . . . her friend. "But you're a doctor, Jackson," she continued lowly. "You... you just expect me to believe you knew nothing about this? I—I can understand if Abby's testing was done privately. Kind of. But you had to have known about her..."

        Her breath traitorously caught in her throat.

        "...Mutilations."

        "You have every reason to feel that way," Jackson whispered, halting mid-step. He retreated to his place near the entrance, shoulders sagging as if the weight of his own remorse threatened to crush him. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly as he fought to find the proper words. "I-I can't, I'm so incredibly—"

        "Stop. Apologizing."

Haven knew just as well as Jackson did that apologies were nothing but empty gestures, meaningless against the depth of the betrayal she felt, the wounds that still bled beneath the surface. She didn't need remorse; she needed answers, truths stripped of pretense—anything but the weak offerings of a conscience too late awakened.

        Jackson drew in a deep breath.

        "Five years ago... I had just completed my med-school internship beneath Doctor Kahn on Go-Sci," he began, forcing his volume to maintain its integrity. "I'd done a lot of volunteer work in Farm and Mecha's Sick Bays, but Abby requested me as her official assistant a few months after that. She claimed there was a new patient she was responsible for—someone who was also a prisoner." His eyes hesitantly flicked from the ground and held Haven's probing stare. "I think... she thought that because I had experience on the poorer stations, I'd be more trustworthy to you."

Kane nodded in understanding. "I suppose I can see her logic."

"Shut up, Kane." Bellamy repeated hotly.

"I'm not saying that I agree with her," Kane continued—a note of that insufferable, self-righteous authority creeping into his tone, unable to resist playing the devil's advocate. "She likely believed that Jackson would understand Haven's experience more."

        "Shut. Up. Kane." Haven demanded. "No one fucking asked what you thought."

Kane decisively clamped his mouth shut.

"When I was brought in and read your file, you had already been diagnosed with your condition," Jackson continued. "The CT scan in your file showed the aortic valve with textbook stenosis. It matched... perfectly."

"You're lying," Haven interjected icily. "Bellamy told me that my first CT scan—the one from when I was dragged to Medical after Lockup—showed no sign of the abnormality. Abby created it during the exploratory surgery."

Jackson did not deny her accusation. "He's correct," he admitted softly. "However, I wasn't there for the exploratory surgery. I wasn't offered the position until a month after you had already begun your treatment in Medical. Both of you know that." His voice faltered, almost pleading. "I—I had no prior knowledge of the original CT scan because I didn't know it existed, Haven. I had only ever seen the one with the abnormality."

But Haven was beyond the reach of his justifications. "I—I don't care. You couldn't have seen that the abnormality was carved intentionally—?" she demanded. "Even Tsing could tell in Mount Weather."

". . . I have a lot of concerns about your condition, Haven. Or rather, the destruction that caused your condition. . ."

Jackson swallowed thickly. "After your final surgery, when Bellamy forced Abby to repair the valve with tissue from your lung... it became evident that her surgical work was sloppy. Tsing must've noticed that." His face grew increasingly pale with horror. "But before that... Abby had the hands any surgeon would dream of. Her work, at least on paper, was flawless. Textbook. She manipulated every detail to make the stenosis appear completely natural, exactly as a real case would present itself."

        Another inhale punctuated his admission.

        "Abby deceived me too."

        Jackson's confession hung morbidly in the air, tarnishing the silence with the bitter truth of his unwitting complicity. Abby had not just created a falsified condition—she had masked it with a skill that even Jackson, trained and trusted, could not see through.

Still.

Haven was not convinced.

"W-What about all the other times?" she pressed, acutely aware of the knot tightening in her throat. "The other two heart surgeries? The bloodwork? The dialysis shunt? The bone density tests? Everything else? I-It was all necessary?" Her voice splintered, brittle and raw, forcing her to choke back the sudden urge to . . . cry. "None of it was worth a second thought?"

Jackson's eyes grew unfathomably gentle. "She made you incredibly sick, Haven," he admitted. "I stand by my belief that most tests were necessary to keep you alive."

"Most—?" she echoed.

"The only procedure I deemed medically unnecessary was the dialysis shunt. You both know I prevented it." Jackson withdrew an arm from the restless vigil at his sides to sweep a hand across his clammy brow. "I-I'm glad that I did, because after everything... if Abby had succeeded in destroying the valve and harvesting your organs that day... if you'd had the shunt implanted..."

His voice cracked.

One heartbeat passed. Another.

"She might've been plotting to do the transfusions on your corpse."

Haven could not breathe.

The depth of the betrayal seeped into her bones like rot, putrid and insidious, sinking so deeply that she felt she might already be more corpse than girl. Nothing could be felt beside the sharp silence beside her—Bellamy's abrupt stillness, a reflection of her own horror—and the suffocating awareness of just how close she had come to losing not only her life . . . but her right to rest in peace.

        Abby had been willing to drain her body dry, to the very last drop, even in the silence of death.

        For the first time since their conversation began, Bellamy bolted for the exit, storming out of the tent and vanishing distantly beyond the tarp.

        Outside, the darkness claimed him, but Haven knew—knew the sound of his anguish, vaguely glimpsed his silhouette doubled over, emptying his soul onto the earth with every raw retch.

        . . . He was throwing his guts up.

        In a surge of desperation, Haven attempted to launch to her feet after him, flinging aside the blankets covering her legs. But the instant she shifted her weight, agony erupted through her body—a violent burst that shot through every sinew. Fatigue and the cruel lattice of stitches in her hip immobilized her, holding her prisoner to her own injuries, preventing even the simplest act of standing. Helpless, she lay bound by her own fragile flesh, halted just when the boy she loved needed her most.

        Over. Her. Dead. Fucking. Body.

        Gritting her teeth, Haven fought to push herself upright again, defying the agony that ripped through her. But before she could fully rise—Bellamy re-entered the tent, emerging through the tarp as an effigy of himself.

        Somehow, he looked both young and impossibly old. Childlike eyes, dulled by the sight of horrors that no innocence should endure, stared back at her. Shoulders forged under a weight that seemed infinite trembled as though on the edge of collapse—a tower eroded by years of carrying wounds too great for any single soul. Innocent freckles now accentuated features that were gaunt, sickly, and waxen—his skin stretched too thin, barely caging the seismic weight of his terror.

        The terror of a child forced into the body of a man.

        "Sit down, Hav," he rasped weakly, extending a shaky hand to grasp Haven's forearm, guiding her back into her original seated position. "I'm fine."

        Jackson's eyes softened with concern. "We can take a break," he offered. "This is a lot—"

        "She'll tell you when we take a damn break," Bellamy snapped, his bloodshot eyes flickering to Jackson's with a flash of barely contained fury. His gaze lingered just long enough to underscore his point before turning back, resuming his silent vigil on the cot. "I'm fine. Go ahead."

        Haven drew in a shuddering breath, steadying herself only by the warmth of Bellamy's cuffed hands resting atop her legs. His thumbs traced soft, grounding circles on her kneecaps, as though he could infuse all the steadiness she needed through his fingertips alone.

        "...What about my blood?"

        Jackson lifted his head. "What about it?"

        "You never questioned why Abby wanted to keep it a secret in the first place—?"

        "Neither did Bellamy," Jackson reasoned fairly. "We thought we were protecting you from the Council. I... I thought we were protecting you up until the morning of your final surgery, Haven."

        Haven silently awaited his explanation.

        Jackson briefly sunk his teeth into his lower lip. "Abby said we were going toe switch operating rooms to avoid Kane and Jaha's visit to the Sick-Bay," he began, huffing out an exasperated sigh before pressing on. "Now that we know she meant that literally... she'd asked me to reorganize your medical notes to prepare for the worst-case scenario. She must've been anxious and...screwed up. I think, during the switch, she accidentally mixed her notes with mine. That's when I found the phases of her plan."

        He hauntingly shook his head.

        "...I found the original CT scan ten minutes before I wheeled you into the OR."

        Haven knowingly glanced to Bellamy.

        Slowly, ever so slowly . . . the fractured pieces of Jackson's role in her suffering, or perhaps his lack thereof, began to align. Bellamy had shared with her that he'd found the original CT scan buried, crumpled and shoved amidst Jackson's otherwise meticulous notes. It had struck him then as strange, out of character—as if it had been slipped in hastily, a last-minute addition, concealed in a desperate attempt to keep it from prying eyes.

        "That's why the paper looked wedged in," Jackson confessed at last. "I had to think fast. Besides the air bubble in your IV line—it was the only thing I could do without drawing suspicion."

        Haven stared at him. Brokenly.

        Each word out of his mouth made sense—a terrible, agonizing kind of sense. His explanation was too precise, too painful in its truth to be anything but genuine. Yet, even as the pieces fit, she felt an emptiness expand within her—a hollow ache where trust used to reside. She hungered to find a crack, a trace of deceit buried beneath Jackson's sorrow. Something to mark him as the villain she'd trained herself to see, some shadow that would confirm her instinct to mistrust.

. . . But she found nothing.

And that hollow ache only deepened, its void inflating with the bitter realization that her instinct to mistrust—to expect betrayal at every turn—was perhaps the only shield she had left.

Haven couldn't understand why she clung so voraciously to the belief in Jackson's guilt, why the idea of betrayal seemed safer than accepting his innocence. But she could feel it, a twisted comfort in expecting the worst—an agony she understood better than the emptiness of misplaced faith. Maybe it was easier to live with the wounds she could name, to hold onto the sting of betrayal, than to confront the hollow, terrifying void left by a trust betrayed by circumstance . . . by well-meaning failure rather than malicious intent.

And still . . . despite the soundness of Jackson's words, Haven could not summon the faith she needed. She could not bring herself to believe fully, to relinquish the wall she'd built between herself and every doctor who'd held her fate in their hands.

Trust between them was unattainable.

Wholly. Irreconcilably. Eternally.

        "I... I don't believe you," Haven managed breathlessly, shaking her head in denial, fingers itching for something tangible. "I need proof. I-I need something real to prove to me you're not just lying through your teeth to save your own ass."

As though he had anticipated her reaction, Jackson merely nodded, a flicker of understanding softening the lines of his face. Without a word, he retreated to the shadowed corner where Kane stood, stooping down to retrieve the med-kit stashed by his boots. His movements were swift as he unzipped the worn duffle bag, sifting through its contents. After a moment, he pulled free a yellowed manila folder, its edges crumpled and stained with the remnants of black blood.

        Slowly, almost reverently . . . he extended the folder into Haven's hands.

        With trembling fingers, Haven opened the folder, skeptically thumbing through the files as Bellamy observed over her shoulder. Pages upon pages unfolded before her eyes, each one layered in the cold, clinical language of experimentation and control. Her eyes razed over charts, bloodwork, CT scans—her body and blood broken down into data points, dissected, stripped of humanity in codes she lacked the knowledge to understand.

        But even in her unfamiliarity, Haven could read the horror woven between the lines.

        Abby's handwriting was unmistakable.

        The mad doctor's scrawl slashed over the footnotes of most pages. Jackson's handwriting was there, too, his notes less frequent but equally damning. As the pages continued, the weight of it settled heavily against Haven's chest—a smothering, unrelenting suffocation. This was it—the evidence Bellamy had found in the OR—the folder he'd described in the quiet, broken whispers of his tent.

         This folder was more than mere documentation; it was a weapon, a confession inked in black and white.

. . . A smoking gun.

Phase One: Creation

Phase Two: Extraction

        Haven glanced up from the paperwork with saltwater stinging her eyes. "Where's Phase Three and Phase Four?"

        "I don't know," Jackson admitted, his voice rough with a truth he couldn't soften. "That's all I managed to salvage before we cleared the Med-Bay that day. The original CT scan of your healthy valve is in there—the same one I planted for Bellamy to find." His finger hovered cautiously over the crumpled sheet that Bellamy had described to her before. "But so are most of my medical notes."

        "Okay..." Haven's voice wavered, her throat tightening as she fought back the sting of her stupid, stubborn tears. "What exactly is this supposed to prove to me?"

        "I-I'm complicit in this," Jackson whispered horrifically, averting his eyes from the file, as if the pages themselves scorched his conscience. "My notes. My work orders for your bloodwork. Everything I was doing that had unknowingly aided Abby... its all right there." His hand rose, a shaky finger pointing toward the incriminating folder before he recoiled, shame forcing his hand back to his side. "I could've destroyed it. Shredded every page. Thrown it into the airlock. But I didn't. I saved it because... if we put her ass on trial... we're going to need it."

        Haven stared at him. Stunned.

        "Trial—?"

        "Trial." Jackson echoed the word unflinchingly. "I'm not afraid to go down with her. Not if it gives you justice, Haven."

        But Haven's body only betrayed her—the slight wobble in her chin, the hitch of her breath, barely reined in beneath the sheer magnitude of Jackson's declaration. His sincerity cleaved through her defenses, prying at the walls she had so painstakingly constructed around her heart, demanding to be felt, to be believed . . . but she refused to allow him any foothold.

She would not allow herself to soften.

        "You could've showed this to Jaha anytime over the past year if you wanted to give me justice."

        Jackson frowned. "Would you have wanted me to do that?" he asked softly, seeking her genuine answer. "I wanted to give you the choice, Haven. With what I knew at this time last year—I thought this folder was a death sentence for myself, Abby, Bellamy, and you." A shadow marred his features as he stepped further into the lantern's glow. "An investigation would've blown everything wide open."

        . . . Well, fuck.

        Haven could admit that Jackson had presented a fair point, as bitter as it was to swallow. She'd been so certain, so hellbent on catching him in some lie—some delicate string she could yank to expose his deceit into the light. But his reasoning made an unfortunate kind of sense. What she noticed more pressingly, though, was Bellamy's silence. His eyes traced the words in that damning folder with an intensity that scalded, but without . . . surprise.

Bellamy glanced to Jackson.

Jackson glanced to Bellamy.

And then . . . it clicked.

"Bell," Haven started, lowering the folder to the cot and reaching for Bellamy's hand resting atop her knees. "You knew he had the file... didn't you?"

        "You think he'd let me anywhere near you if showing him the file wasn't the first thing I did?" The faintest tremor of amusement lingered in Jackson's words. "Near himself—?"

Slowly, Bellamy pivoted on the cot, shifting so that he faced Haven fully rather than sitting beside her. "Jackson told me he opened his own practice when I was thrown into his Med-Tent. Right before Kane's ass locked me up with Murphy and Orion," he admitted, seeking her weary eyes and probing for understanding. "He showed me the file then, too. I didn't say anything because—I didn't want to force you into talking about everything. I wanted it to be your choice, your time, and I—"

"I'm not upset," Haven interrupted, fingers weaving soundlessly into his, silencing the apology that trembled on his lips before it could take flight. "It's just... you trust him?"

Bellamy's jaw tightened as he nodded, his eyes darkening, casting a glare over his shoulder—a silent, blistering threat aimed squarely at Jackson. "I trust him enough to keep you alive," he muttered lowly. "...He can spend the rest of his life proving he's worth anything more than that."

        Another stretch of silence ensued.

        It became excruciatingly obvious that every soul in the tent clung to Haven—hearts suspended as they awaited her verdict, her judgment, her righteous fury. Truth lay gutted and bleeding at her feet, mingling with the broken pieces of their entangled fates, thrust into the white-hot glare of her scrutiny. And yet . . . all that dwelled within her was emptiness. Her devastation was so disastrous that it left no sanctuary for rage or sorrow, only an abyss of numbness. Every feeling spiraled into a void so vast and merciless that she had become precisely what Abby had designed her to be—a shell.

       Empty, hollowed out, silent as the grave where her innocence lay entombed.

        "...What now?" she asked flatly.

        Kane swallowed, tension knotting his throat as he unfolded his arms, stepping into the weight of her gaze. "That's up to you, Haven," he began tentatively. "This is entirely your choice. I'm willing to put Abby on trial for her crimes—if that's what you choose."

        "That's impossible," Haven shot back. "She's the fucking Chancellor."

        "She's not above the law." Kane's declaration struck with the finality of a gavel slam. "Not down here. None of us are. If enough people rally against her, she'll have to answer for what she's done." His gaze was unwavering, conviction illuminating his eyes as he stepped forward, fully casting off the shadows that clung to him. "If Jaha and I go down with her... that's a risk I'm willing to take."

        Haven stared at the man as though he were spouting blasphemies in some strange, foreign language. "Why?" she echoed incredulously. "Why do you suddenly care about justice when you sanctioned her experiments for four years?"

        Kane held her stare. Unflinchingly.

The Vice Chancellor—once the ironfist who would rather cast one hundred children to burn beneath a poisoned sky than confess to his own failures—now faced a version of himself he'd tried to forget. Molten eyes mirrored his darkest truths back at him, contorting his image until his reflection emerged with startling, horrifying clarity.

       "I was a coward," Kane admitted, the confession bleeding out agonizingly slow. "Now, I am trying to do better. You're... you're still just a kid. Both of you are just kids." His eyes flickered remorsefully between Haven and Bellamy. "I can't undo the past. But I'll be damned to repeat the same mistakes again."

Jackson cautiously stepped forward next. "We're the adults. We put both of you into a position neither of you should have ever faced—especially at such a young age. Knowingly or unknowingly," he added, his voice thick with sincerity. "This is your body, Haven. This is your life. Whatever happens next... it's your choice. You decide what happens to her."

        Saltwater clung to Haven's eyelashes.

        Again. Again. Again.

        Although her trust in the men's declarations remained flimsy—there was something piercing about the softness lurking behind their steely eyes. Strangely tender. Achingly foreign. To be truly seen, wholly acknowledged, to have her traumas laid bare and dissected beneath their scrutiny was torment in its rawest form. And if the mere glimpse of her trauma in their eyes has already left her gutted . . . what devastation would it bring to lay herself bare before all of Camp Jaha?

        Justice was dust.

It was a feeble, hollow thing—no verdict could reclaim the years she'd lost, the life Abby had ravaged, the boy she loved most corrupted into an unwilling accomplice in her suffering. No, justice could never encompass what Abby deserved. Abby deserved something deeper, darker—a reckoning drenched in blood. Not once, but tenfold. Seven to mark each time Haven's pulse had stilled, two more for Aurora Blake and Octavia, and one final debt—a raging inferno—for Bellamy.

Death alone was a kindness Abigail Griffin did not deserve.

. . . How could a trial ever possibly stand as its placeholder?

"...A trial is a waste of time," Haven managed at last. She furiously wiped at her eyes, attempting to square her shoulders, though the numbness in her left one made the gesture feel hollow. "We're about to fight another war, and we need to save our friends in Mount Weather. That's more important than anything else."

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the shadowed shift in Bellamy beside her—the unmistakable darkening of his form as his muscles coiled, tension radiating off him like heat. His jaw was clenched so tightly she could almost hear the grinding of his teeth, a barely restrained growl rumbling low in his chest.

She knew he was biting his tongue.

. . . Literally.

Kane nodded in reluctant acceptance. "Just... think about it," he murmured, exhaling a sigh steeped in finality as he neared Bellamy's towering form. "In the meantime, you cannot try to execute her yourselves. Otherwise—I will make sure you live in handcuffs, and are never permitted to carry a rifle again."

"Bold of you to assume I won't kill you next," Bellamy snarled, fingers twitching with the urge to seize the keys that danced tantalizingly within Kane's grasp. "Plus, you need me to lead the Guard with David."

"You can do it without a gun."

"I'm your best sharpshooter," Bellamy spat. "The best. Ever."

Kane did not flinch. "Others can learn."

        Eventually, Bellamy yielded, begrudgingly dipping his head in surrender before thrusting his shackled hands into Kane's grasp. As soon as the cuffs clattered free, he moved, sweeping Haven into his arms at once.

        For the first time since Haven had drifted back from the numbing depths of sleep . . . their heartbeats synced.

        Haven's lashes drifted shut, her ear naturally seeking his left ribcage—the familiar sanctuary where his pulse drummed steady beneath her cheek. Bellamy's chin found its resting place atop her head, his arms enveloping her with a strength that was both urgently protective and achingly gentle. He was mindful of the wounds etched across her skin but unable—unwilling—to let go. It was instinctive, this perfect alignment of their bodies, each curve and contour finding its counterpart as if gravity itself conspired to draw them closer.

        Kane slipped away unnoticed.

But Jackson lingered—hovering soundlessly at the edge of their cocoon. He rocked uneasily on his heels, gaze cast low, offering the couple privacy. Though he kept his distance, his presence weighed like lead in the air, a silent reminder that the world beyond their embrace was ever clawing, vying to reclaim them.

"You can leave too."

Haven's words emerged far softer than she'd intended, the venom of her usual bite dulled by exhaustion. Yet, Jackson flinched all the same, recoiling beneath the weight of her demand. He watched solemnly as Bellamy unwound his arms from her torso, slow and hesitant, as though even the faintest shift might wrench apart the fragile sutures of her skin.

"I'm afraid I can't," Jackson murmured quietly. "We still need to discuss your health, Haven."

Haven shook her head. "I don't want to."

"Hav..."

"What—?" Her response cleaved through Bellamy's pleading whisper with a ferocity that snapped his words short, sealing his lips. Molten eyes pinned Jackson beneath a stare that scorched. "What could possibly be important enough to discuss after everything else?"

Jackson's eyes softened.

        Knowingly. Sorrowfully. Remorsefully.

"...HIBI."

• •

hiii

surprise early update :) hopefully this can be an emotional bandaid (or not) for those of us affected by the election in the US. even tho this chapter is not happy, the goal is literally to dissociate!!! to maybe forget for just a little while as you read.
little flashback + special edition gif for this chapter too incase you missed it </3

abby... trust. you will be DEALT with

I encourage everyone to reread the first two chapters, who are you really, what he's done(!!!), written in the stars, + emergency contact to see how everything aligns. if you have any questions or want further clarification, ask away, and i'll answer as long as it doesn't spoil anything upcoming! more answers will be coming next chapter as well :)

i honestly dont have much to say writing this authors note because idk how to exist normally with the state of everything right now. i want to hold everybody's hands through this and wipe our tears through the devastation. so many emotions are being felt at once to the point of just feeling dead.
but if you're also feeling anything like me, just know you're not alone in it.
feel your grief and sadness for as long as you need to. allow yourself that much. let it drive you. control what little you can control in your day to day life in a world where it feels like we have no!!! control!! and eventually, we will get up and face the day again, as we do everyday... because we still got shit to do and work to be done to survive this presidency and its repercussions.

this is also a safe space to FULLY crash out

I. LOVE. YOU. SO. DEEPLY.

early update was only for this week
we back to free fall fridays as normal next time