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CHAPTER SIXTY SIX;

NORTH STAR.

        WAKING UNDEAD WAS A FEELING BELLAMY WOULD NEVER GET USED TO. Death had flirted with him far too often, whispering its sweet siren calls of oblivion—three times, by his count, though his terrible memory often smeared the lines. The latter two were petty run-ins, cruel flirtations rather than full-blown affairs.

       Take the plague, for instance—when his insides had revolted, vomiting blood onto the dropship grates so profusely that he swore his veins had run dry. Then there was the dropship war, its horrific violence heralding the life-altering crack of Bellamy's skull against steel. The resultant brain bleed had left him sprawled in the dirt, half-dead, his body cold with the finality of it all. Yet even as the shadows beckoned, there was solace—Haven was safe inside.

        Protected. Alive.

        . . . Until she wasn't.

       The moment Bellamy had realized she wasn't inside the dropship once the ramp had sealed shut, something within him fractured—a component more delicate than any bone. His pathetically mortal body forced itself to move. Bloodied forearms clawed through dirt and grenades and debris, dragging his broken body inch by excruciating inch.

It wasn't strength.

It wasn't courage.

When he had finally reached Haven, collapsed atop her, and cocooned her against the rocket's assault . . . it was not some grand act of heroism.

It was necessity.

       Save her. Save her. Save her.

Die again later. Not yet. Not now.

But the first time Bellamy had truly tasted death's bitterness—the first time its icy breath scorched his lungs and left him gasping for meaning—was not on Earth. Not in the blood-slick trenches of Grounder warfare, nor in the choking irony of surviving what no one should. It was aboard the Ark, in the cold, sterile corridors where silence screamed . . . when he had lost all three of the extensions of his heart, all at once.

His mother. His sister. The love of his life.

        He hadn't just touched death then; he had become it.

How did Haven do it?

Bellamy often found himself staring at her, marveling at the impossible strength coiled in her human form, and wondering what infinite cauldron of resilience she drank from. Seven times. She had died—died—seven times, and yet, each time, she rose anew. Like water cascading from the angel wings that seemed to buoy her beyond the reaper's reach, Haven soared higher with every return, heavenfaced and eternal. Her resurrections weren't just survival; they were acts of magic. Glorious, breathtaking defiance that stole the breath from his chest and left him drowning in horrified reverence. Every time her heart resumed its beat, it wasn't just her life that was restored—it was his.

        With every cycle of her death and rebirth, he too perished and was reborn, tethered to her existence, reborn through her persistence.
       
        Haven was so, so strong.

        . . . He was so fucking weak.

       Where she soared, he staggered. Where she blazed, he flickered—a dim ember aching to keep pace with the inferno of her resilience.

        The shame of it scorched through Bellamy's chest, twisting deeper with every reminder of his inadequacy. For all his bravado, for all his desperate, furious attempts to protect her from the world's cruelty—it was Haven who defied them. Haven who bent death to her will, while he was the thief in her light, clinging to the wisps of her brilliance just to sustain his own faltering steps.

But what Bellamy lacked in strength, he compensated with a bottomless well of spite and ruthless, inhuman determination. Spite against the universe that dared to test him, against the gods who seemed intent on mocking him, and against death itself, which had yet to prove it could hold him. If Haven could rise from the grave seven times, then he would meet her halfway—or die trying.

Bellamy Blake could not die. Would not die.

So—he had awoken from his fourth brush with death (because. . . being chased by Grounders back at camp meant jack shit in the grand scheme of things) and dragged himself back into the land of the living. His lungs inflated with the same singular, maddening purpose they always had.

Protecting his loved ones.

        After he and Lincoln ventured into the Reaper tunnels, their carefully laid plan had—predictably—gone straight to hell. The covert trek through the mine system had barely begun when a raider party of Reapers intercepted them. Lincoln had wanted to turn back, to retreat and fight their way out, regroup and try again. But Bellamy? Bellamy had refused, stubborn down to his fucking marrow. They were so damn close to Mount Weather's intake door, close enough to taste the bitter, metallic tang of victory. Abandoning the mission hadn't an option.

        Not then. Not ever.

Eventually, Bellamy had been further forced into the role he despised: the prisoner. A filthy blindfold—scenting of blood and rot—was tied over his eyes, robbing him of sight and control in one fell swoop. It was smelly and awful and disorienting, but there had been no other option. Lincoln had played his part among the Reapers, their guttural grunts and snarling aggression blending with his own as he dragged Bellamy along as fresh meat.

Things were going fine—as fine as things could go while blindfolded, itchy, and being led to his death by a horde of cannibals.

But then . . .

The intake door.

        Bellamy had been stripped down to his boxers—the cold, stale air biting at his skin as he knelt alongside the other bloodbags captured during the Reapers' raid. He was just another body, another piece of meat tagged Harvest, marked for slaughter like cattle on an assembly line. The humiliation was suffocating, but the ache in his chest—the festering, gnawing failure—was worse. The Reapers, drunk on their red drug, had transformed from feral predators to obedient servants, thralls to the Mountain Men's greed.

But Lincoln . . .

        Bellamy could still feel his heart rotting beneath his ribs.

Lincoln had taken the red.

        Instead of battling for his safety and fleeing through the tunnels as they had planned, Lincoln had crumpled to his knees and surrendered to the godforsaken, cannibalistic drug.

The image was seared into Bellamy's memory with the permanence of a brand—the needle piercing Lincoln's flesh. He had seen the moment that fierce determination drained from Lincoln's eyes, replaced with something lifeless, something alien. He had wanted to scream, to throttle Lincoln free from the red haze, but his body had been frozen.

. . . Until it wasn't.

        A switch had flipped, and his paralysis was incinerated by fury and desperation. Bellamy had fought like hell against the Mountain Men to save Lincoln. The man who had sacrificed everything—his people, his freedom, his very soul—for this. For them. For him. Fought like hellfire unleashed to pry him from the jaws of addiction, to preserve what remained of the warrior he admired . . . the friend he trusted.

        Then came the sting.

        Bellamy had been drugged.

Drugged. Tortured. Dehumanized.

Memories of unparalleled agony annihilated Bellamy's still-sore limbs as he recalled the trauma of the hours before. Scalding water. Needles. Chains. Chemicals that seethed like acid against his skin. The decontamination process wasn't about cleansing; it was about destruction. He had been stripped bare, naked amidst grown men, shackled by his ankles, his wrists, and his throat. Steel chains bit into his flesh as if they, too, were complicit in his degradation. Brushes. Blood. Chemicals. Blood. Blood. More blood. Screaming into the cold, unfeeling room until he was convinced his throat had split wide open. But no amount of shrieking could ever satisfy the Mountain Men's cold, mechanical ritual.

        Bellamy had been sure of it—no one could endure this. No human being could possibly emerge from the cruel baptism of fire and filth and live.

        But, miraculously, he did.

        Whether it was mercy or mockery that had spared him, Bellamy did not know. He had blacked out—whether from unrelenting agony or from being drugged again, he also did not know. The line between reality and torment blurred too easily in Mount Weather. But when he had finally come to . . . consciousness slammed into him like a sick fucking joke.

He had awoken in the same damn cages as Haven once did.

        Where her own mother had stashed her like cargo.

        Where Clarke had left her behind.

        Bodies upon bodies of Grounders had been crammed into stacked crates, lined up in sinister rows. Like something out of a nightmare—or some screwed-up parody of the circus animals in the storybooks Bellamy had read as a boy. Iron. Metal. Death. The air was saturated with the stench, so thick it clung to his skin like a second layer, invaded his lungs, and churned his stomach into rebellion. It was so unbearable that he had retched right over the edge of his cage, bile scorching its way up his throat—not once, but twice.

        It was horrific.

        The cages were packed, faces pressed against bars, too many eyes hollowed by exhaustion or void of consciousness entirely. Those who hadn't been stuffed into the suffocating confines of crates fared no better. They hung upside down, pale bodies limp, pirouetting in the dim, murky teal glow that bathed the room. It would have been almost serene—this eerie, slow dance of suspended forms—if not for the sickening truth of it.

        Their blood was siphoned in rhythmic pulses, coursing through tubes that disappeared into the walls . . . and into the Mountain itself.

        The same godforsaken Mountain that Bellamy was going to fucking demolish.

        Luckily, there has been no trace of his friends in the Harvest Chamber. Yet.

        After plotting his escape from the cage far too . . . violently, Bellamy had been drugged again.

        The fourth time. Or had it been the fifth—?

        Bellamy still wasn't sure. He clung to the belief he'd been drugged, because the alternative was too monstrous to fathom. Surely, he would remember if they'd strung him up next. If they'd dangled him upside down beneath that sterile teal light, his blood siphoned drop by drop into the Mountain's insatiable veins.

He would remember the icy bite of metal digging into his ankles, the crushing weight of gravity hoisting him into a slow descent toward death. He would remember the intimacy of the tubes feeding on his lifeforce, draining his strength, reducing his existence to a resource—a slow execution masquerading as survival for someone else.

        . . . He remembered. All of it.

        And he felt fucking dead.

        But then . . .

        Maya Vie.

        Bellamy could remember Haven's recollection of her—the teenage girl with too-small shoulders for the weight she carried. She was part of the Mountain's staff, yet stood apart from it in ways that made her an enigma. And of course he remembered Jasper's massive, head-over-heels, mushy-gushy-hearts-in-his-eyes crush on the girl.

(Haven's words—not his—often delivered with an exaggerated roll of her own eyes.)

Bellamy knew that Haven hadn't trusted Maya—couldn't, given where she came from—but distrust did not equate to dislike.

        Still.

Maya had helped save Bellamy's life.

        The girl Haven had regarded with reluctant acceptance, the girl Jasper had seen through rose-tinted lenses, had defied the Mountain for him.

. . . For them.

Lovejoy, one of the Mountain Men, had stumbled into the Harvest Chamber moments after Maya discovered Bellamy's body. The timing was almost poetic in its cruelty, and Bellamy—playing dead as instructed—felt the weight of thirty excruciating seconds stretch into eternity.

But then the universe, so often cruel, shifted in his favor. The chains had slackened, lowering his upside-down corpse to the ground.

Unbound. Free.

Bellamy wasted no time.

        After fighting ninety percent naked, struggling back and forth, and nearly choking on his own goddamn blood . . . Lovejoy's throat was crushed beneath his hands in seconds.

        And he did not care.

Bellamy didn't hesitate. Didn't waver. He had choked the life out of him, the man's feeble gasps for oxygen ebbing into silence as Bellamy's resolve hardened into steel. There was no room left in him for remorse, no spare breath for regret—only the cold calculus of survival. His friends were out there, trapped, counting on him to be their salvation.

        The blood on Bellamy's tongue was nothing compared to the fire in his chest.

        Lovejoy's corpse had been discarded next, along with the tracker sutured into Bellamy's forearm, each hastily hidden with Maya's help. Donning the stolen uniform and jamming the man's stiff hat onto his curls, Bellamy had felt the weight of the Mountain's expectations settle heavily onto his shoulders. It was suffocating, but he would wear it.

He would make it his armor.

        Maya, to her credit, was a rather remarkable revolutionist; her quiet ferocity paired with a keen sense of survival made her indispensable.

Together, the duo had swiftly moved through the Mountain's labyrinthine halls—Level Two to Level Five—undetected. Maya's navigation, her keycard, and her startling composure kept them practically invisible. Bellamy did as he was told. All he had to do was keep his head down, avoid the unblinking gaze of the cameras, and merge with the shadows. No mistakes. No hesitation. Not a single ripple of attention.

He could do this. He had to.

Next on his mission—?

The radio.

Bellamy needed to reach that damn radio, and he needed to hear her voice emerge through the static. The voice that would finally regulate pulse, weave his fraying mind back together, and soothe the debilitating sickness in his gut.

He had been so nauseous lately.

But once he heard Haven . . . everything would fall into place. It was the only thing that kept his stupid corpse upright at this point. His heart would find its rhythm. His focus would sharpen. And then he'd tear this Mountain apart, brick by fucking brick, and bury its lies beneath the weight of his vengeance.

        Bellamy typically rolled with pressure.

But this . . . fuck.

        Everybody was depending solely on him.

        Skaikru. Trikru. Everybody.

        Bellamy was terrified beyond human comprehension—but terror alone did not breed soldiers, nor would it save the lives of his people. He had to suck it up, lock the fuck in, and forcibly stop his hands from shaking. He'd come too far, survived too much, and his friends were just around the corner—trapped in the dormitories, waiting for him to finish what he started. And Haven . . .

Haven was waiting.

        The girl he loved was waiting for him to come home.

        Failure was not an option.

" . . . Homeroom has now begun. All students should be in their classrooms. . ."

At the crackling sound of the announcement over the intercom, Maya's forearm flew out, stopping Bellamy dead in his tracks behind her.

Bellamy clenched his jaw as Maya scanned the corridor ahead, silent as the tomb, while his stare remained pinned on the gritty dust against Mount Weather's walls. He couldn't afford to look up, couldn't trust his own damn eyes in a place so steeped in shadow and sin. Instead, he forced himself to listen, relying on the cadence of sound to orient him.

        Footsteps danced faintly down the corridor, but something about them was wrong—or perhaps too right. They were light, careless, devoid of the looming menace Bellamy had come to associate with the Mountain Men. Smaller, softer. Not the boots of soldiers, but the hurried scuffle of sneakers belonging to . . . children.

        And then—laughter.

        The sound struck Bellamy like a chord out of tune—high and bright, peeling like silver bells against the stillness. And beneath the echo of their joy came another voice—a woman's, her words too faint to catch, but her tone unmistakably guiding.

A teacher.

Maya dipped her head forward, signaling the all-clear as the faint click of a door echoed down the hall. "Come on."

        Breathing deeply, Bellamy forced his weary legs to move, his boots falling in line behind hers. He kept Maya at a careful distance ahead, allowing her to navigate while his eyes clung to the walls, desperate for something to anchor him. His hand stayed fixed on the grip of his gun tucked into his waistband, fingers tapping the cold metal in rhythmic counts of five.

Again. Again. Again. Again. Again.

The steady motion was the only thing keeping the rising tide of nausea at bay.

But then . . . Bellamy's gaze caught something. A sign, brightly colored and glaringly out of place against the gray monotony of Mount Weather's hellscape.

MOUNT WEATHER
PRESCHOOL

Bellamy froze.

The world seemed to tilt, the letters swimming tauntingly before his eyes. A preschool. Here. In this tomb. Children weren't merely hidden away or imprisoned—they were nurtured, taught, cared for, as if this place was something other than the purgatory he believed it to be.

Mount Weather wasn't just a base of operations.

        It was a home.

Exactly as Haven had warned him.

        And yet, Bellamy could not halt the bile surging in his throat, his stomach roiling at the sheer perversity of it—innocence cradled in a place dripping with blood.

        What kind of future could they possibly be preparing children for in this shithole?

        "Mister—?"

        The voice was small and hesitant, barely more than a whisper, but it struck Bellamy like a thunderclap. He nearly leapt out of his goddamn skin, the hairs on the back of his neck rising as he felt the soft, grubby touch of tiny fingers against his arm. His instincts roared to life, hand snapping tighter around the grip of his gun as his mind screamed DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!

But when he turned, his breath hitched—caught somewhere between a gasp and a curse.

        "Are you on a Ground Unit?" A little boy asked curiously. "My dad is training for a Ground Unit."

        Bellamy blinked as his gaze locked on the child's glowing face. The first thing he noticed were his eyes—gray, soft, and unnervingly familiar. There was something strange about them that dug beneath his skin, gnawing at the edges of his memory. Wisps of sandy bangs hung low, nearly obscuring the ashen depths, but they failed to hide the sparkle of mischief flickering within. He was so, so little—impossibly small—no older than seven.

        Yet somehow . . . his presence radiated a warmth that felt utterly out of place here, as though the boy himself could light the entire godforsaken hallway.

        " . . . Sunshine in a bottle. You'd understand if you'd met him . . ."

        Leo.

The child Haven had befriended.

Bellamy fought to regulate his breathing and managed to offer the boy a timid, strained nod. "It's pretty cool up there," he rasped. "I hope he makes it."

Leo's head tilted as he continued to study Bellamy, summoning the kind of intensity only a child could manage—innocent and ruthless all at once. It made Bellamy want to crawl out of his skin. Despite his best efforts to remain still, his fingers twitched anxiously, gravitating toward the security of his waistband where the calming metal of his gun lay hidden.

Why was he threatened by a child?

(It was embarrassing.)

        "Wait..." Leo drawled, taking in Bellamy's towering height, the tense line of his shoulders, the wary set of his jaw. "You're not one of us, are you?"

Well . . . fuck. That was fast.

Bellamy skittishly glanced to Maya.

And then . . .

"Holy shit!" Leo's voice broke into a squeal as he began to bounce on his toes. A grin spread across his face as he jabbed a small, surprisingly sharp finger into Bellamy's abdomen. "I—I knew it! You're not from here! You're totally one of the other aliens!"

Aliens—?

Before Bellamy could react, Leo gasped dramatically, his hands flying up to cover his mouth for all of . . . two seconds, before he blurted out his next words.

"Do you have laser eyes? No, wait—do you shoot fire out of your mouth? Or do you, like, grow extra arms when you're mad? What about tentacles—?"

Bellamy blinked again—utterly stupefied—as Leo darted around him in a dizzying circle, craning his neck to examine him from every angle.

"Oh man, this is so freakin' cool!" Leo declared, incessantly poking at Bellamy's bicep and testing its durability. He lifted Bellamy's forearm next, marveling at its heft, before abruptly letting it go—narrowly avoiding a collision with his own face. "You're like... huge. Super huge! You almost killed me with your elbow! Do you, like, bench spaceships? Do you eat people? Bugs? Or what do you eat—?"

       Bellamy parted his lips. "I—"

        "Wait, no, don't tell me—SPACE ROCKS! Or moon cheese—?"

Holy. Hell.

. . . . Orion and this tiny, hyperactive, impossibly motor-mouthed child would have a field day together.

Lips twitching upward, Bellamy found himself impressed by the boy's startlingly accurate pronunciation of the word shit—albeit slightly lispy. But the rare spark of humor quickly dimmed as reality reared its ugly head again. His eyes darted around the corridor, scanning their surroundings to ensure no one had overheard Leo's reckless outburst.

"Leo," Maya hissed softly, lifting a stern finger as she worriedly glanced over her shoulder. "You have to keep it down."

        Leo's eyes widened, twin moons of mortification, before he slapped a small hand over his mouth. "Sorry!" he whispered. His fingers fell away quickly, already tugging insistently on Bellamy's shirt and coaxing him to his height. "B-But I knew it! Your alien friends knew you would come find them!"

        A strange, unexpected warmth stirred beneath Bellamy's ribs, thawing the frost of heartsickness that had lodged itself there as of late. He let himself crouch lower. "Did they?"

        Leo nodded. "Uh... yeah! I... I haven't seen them since breakfast. But I know they were talking about you," he whispered conspiratorially. He hesitated for a beat, his small fingers reaching to brush against Bellamy's freckles. "Are you Bellamy?"

        Bellamy nodded. Slowly.

        Leo's face fell.

        "Then where's Haven—?"

Bellamy could feel his heart sputter at the mere mention of the girl he loved. But before he could gather his thoughts, Leo was already charging ahead and diving into another explanation.

"Miller—the alien boss—he said she'd probably be with you when you came here. I—I saw her get hurt in the hallway." Leo's brilliance seemed to falter, dulled by a shadow of fear too massive for his wiry frame. "She fell down, and my dad had to pick her up on this... this thing with wheels." His hands moved in clumsy, earnest gestures, miming what Bellamy instantly recognized as a stretcher. "He said he was taking her to the doctor so they could fix her up. I was gonna bring her breakfast. Two donuts! And oatmeal. 'Cause... 'cause it's got protein, and protein makes you strong."

His lips wobbled into a frown.

"I promised."

        All at once, hellfire roared within Bellamy's chest, scorching away the fragile warmth the child had restored and replacing it with outrage. He had never allowed himself to ask Clarke—or Haven—about the details of that day, about how they orchestrated Haven's fake flare-up to infiltrate Medical. Some truths, he told himself, were better left buried. Because if he ever unearthed the full scope of what had happened that day, he knew he'd find his fists bloody.

Against a wall. Or a body. It didn't matter.

It had been enough to force Haven to seize.

And if she had seized . . .

It had been traumatic enough to force her into the clutches of what they now knew as another HIBI episode. Enough to leave Leo caught in the shadows of her agony.

Bellamy wished—god, how he wished—he had been there to stop it.

"...Is she okay?" Leo whispered softly.

Bellamy managed to nod. "She's doin' just fine," he answered, though his words felt stiff, too tight in his mouth. He tried to ease the weight of them with a small smile. "You got her to eat breakfast? That's a pretty big deal, kid. I can't even do that for her most days."

"Well... will she be back soon?" Leo pressed further, drawing his lip between his baby teeth and groaning in exasperation. "I've been saving my chocolate cake for her for forever! Like, two whole weeks! But my dad says it's gonna get moldy." His nose crinkled in disgust. "Whatever that means. It still looks fine to me."

Bellamy's lips curved into a crooked grin. "We'll bake her a new one then," he offered softly, leaning closer as Leo's fingers mapped his freckles again. He privately hoped the small boy wasn't fearful of his bruises. "But only if you promise not to tell anyone you saw me. Deal?"

Leo's smile could've summoned lightning.

"Deal!"

        At that, Maya tilted her head toward the corridor, signaling for Leo to finally join his classmates. Bellamy watched as the boy obeyed, his grin impossibly wide as he shuffled forward, the straps of his oversized backpack clutched tightly in his hands.

Then Bellamy's gaze caught the embroidery.

LOVEJOY

He could have died on the spot.

        Right then. Right there.

Of all the blood-soaked choices Bellamy had made since plummeting to Earth—of all the lives he'd taken, the moral boundaries he'd shredded, the lines he'd crossed and forgotten to redraw . . . this was the one. This was the act that unmade him. Not just the worst decision he'd ever made, but the most damning.

        His gravest sin.

        It wasn't just guilt that consumed him now. Guilt was too sterile, too clean. This was devastation—ruin that twisted and blackened every corner of him. It spread like a sickness, a rot that bubbled and festered in his chest before seeping into his lungs, his stomach, his throat, choking him with the enormity of what he had done.

        Lovejoy.

        The Mountain Man whose life Bellamy had ended in the Harvest Chamber with nothing but his bare hands.

        . . . He killed Leo's father.

        He. Killed. Leo's. Father.

Leo was fatherless because of him.

        Bellamy could hardly hold himself upright.

"They're just kids," he whispered hoarsely.

Maya offered him a sad smile. "What did you expect you'd find here?"

There was no answer. No excuse he could summon, no justification that would make the truth any less damning. Kill or be killed—that mantra felt hollow now, meaningless when Bellamy was the monster standing among finger-painted murals and tiny chairs. He hadn't expected the decisions in Mount Weather to be easy. He hadn't expected mercy, but he hadn't expected this either. He hadn't expected to hate himself more than he already did so . . . soon.

His hand drifted to the metal of his gun.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Inhaling sharply, Bellamy forced the drag of air into his lungs, grounding himself in the motion. His legs felt like stone, but he willed them to move. One step. Then another. Just enough to keep from collapsing beneath the weight of his own misdeeds.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low, broken, and teetering dangerously close to the edge of a sob.

"I need to talk to Haven."

        HAVEN HURTLED INTO THE DORMITORIES WITH THE FORCE OF A METEOR. Tears carved molten tracks down her face as she rounded the corner, limbs shaking with urgency. She reached the sanctuary of their quarters—hers and Bellamy's—and slammed the metal door shut with a force that shook the walls, though the sound barely touched her ears. This wasn't solace. This wasn't escaping Abby's scorn. This wasn't peace. But it was the only place she could still feel him.

Everything was wrong.

Everything within this damned satellite felt twisted, foreign, desolate. Even their small studio dorm—a space that should've cradled the remnants of their lives—felt like an echo of what it had been. The sofa bed remained untouched, preserving the last time Bellamy had straightened its edges with calloused hands. The blue wildflower he'd once pressed behind her ear still blossomed by the windowsill. His rifle was tucked beneath the mattress, alongside his pistol and the backup daggers he'd always—always—stash in his waistband for her. Wisps of his stray curls still clung to the dust by the baseboards.

He was everywhere. Yet he was nowhere.

The room was saturated with him—his scent, his touch, his strength—but without him, it was nothing more than a tomb.

        A tomb for the boy who could've already been dead.

". . . What could you possibly do to save them? . . ."

Abby's damning words reverberated cruelly through the wreckage of Haven's mind, exacerbating her helplessness with every repetition. But Haven wasn't helpless—not anymore. She had already decided what she would do to save her friends. To save him. That decision had taken root the moment Dahlia shoved her into Mount Weather's trash chute, forcing her to flee while the others stayed behind to face the monsters. It had brewed inside her for two agonizing weeks, a plan simmering at the edge of fantasy, desperate to leap into reality.

        She was going back.

        It didn't matter that it was fucking suicide at this point. It didn't matter that the odds were stacked against her. Staying here—staying stationary while her friends were being bled—was far worse than any death.

        Facing death was preferable to the agony of doing nothing.

        Seething, Haven stormed towards the closet, thrusting open the door on its hinges and scavenging through the meager contents. Life on the ground had whittled their belongings down to the bare essentials, and she found herself wearing Bellamy's jackets more often than her own, anyway. It didn't take long to spot her backpack, but as she lifted it—her gaze caught onto something unexpected.

        Taped atop the zipper was a scrap of paper.

A note.

. . . Bellamy fucking Blake.

Haven froze, her heart stumbling over itself as she plucked the paper free. The sight of his handwriting hit her like a fist to the gut—strong, steady, and infuriatingly familiar. The words were simple, but they held the weight of Bellamy's presence, his stubbornness, his maddening . . . superpower to anticipate her every move. Her grip tightened around the note as her lips pressed into a thin line, torn between fury and the ache blooming in her chest.

        She flipped it over with a huff.

        Why did he have to know her so well?

(It was her favorite thing about him.)

Eventually, Haven decided she was irritated more than flattered—definitely irritated. With an exaggerated huff, she stomped across the room towards the wastebasket, her boots thudding against the floor far louder than necessary. If Bellamy could somehow feel her frustration from the Mountain, then all the better. Let him know how achingly annoying he was, even in absentia.

        Pressing her boot firmly against the lever, she yanked the lid open, impulsively seeking to discard the note—when her breath caught.

        Another scrap of paper was taped to the underside of the lid.

        The sound that escaped her Haven's lips was half-laugh, half-sigh, a reluctant surrender to the tug beneath her ribcage. Bellamy Augustus Blake—impossibly charming, infuriatingly endearing, insufferably sentimental—always managed to be two steps ahead, even from afar.

Her fingers lingered on the note for a moment longer before tucking it gently into her pocket. Not that she intended to keep it, not really. She would crumple it into a perfect little ball and flick it against Bellamy's forehead the second she saw him again—because she would see him again.

. . . If he wasn't already dead.

Recentering her focus, Haven felt the desperation within her bones stretch and magnify, inflating the hollow spaces of her chest until it threatened to splinter her resolve. Bellamy's love notes had their charm, but they lacked the visceral, grounding weight of his presence—the only force strong enough to truly stop her from barreling into the night. She shoved the lingering ache aside and turned back to the closet, unzipping the primary compartment of her backpack in preparation for her canteen and the small tub of Jackson's numbing paste.

But Bellamy wasn't done.

Haven's fingers faltered as she reached into the empty compartment and brushed against something foreign. At first, it appeared to be nothing more than a box—small, sleek, unassuming—but as she wrenched it free, the air seemed to shift. Her heart stuttered as the faint glow of holographic stars shimmered under the dim light.

        The Astralis Deck.

        This was no ordinary deck of cards—it was a goddamn mythical relic. Spades transformed into planets, hearts into constellations, each card its own fragment of the universe. There were only three such decks aboard the Ark, known only to those who had heard the whispered stories of its existence.

AKA . . . Alpha Station brats.

Not all of Haven's free time in Medical with Bellamy was defined by the sharp crack of their fists or the rhythmic thwack of blades meeting their mark.

(He had a habit of stringing up surgical masks from the ceiling as makeshift targets—all while muttering private prayers that Jackson wouldn't raise hell about it later.)

        Those days were her favorites.

        But then there were other days.

        Some days, Haven's body betrayed her completely. Days when her legs would not obey her mind, when the incessant throbbing in her heart stole her breath and threatened to unmake her. When the cruel cocktail of Abby's medications mingled with Sky Box starvation left her so violently ill, she could do nothing more than merely exist and rot away. Entire swaths of time would disappear into the haze, erased as though they had never been, until Bellamy would say something—a memory, a moment—and she'd realize it was one she didn't even know she had lost.

        And on those days, when the world blurred into agony and Haven could barely open her eyes, Bellamy stayed. He stayed and he read to her, anchoring her to something—anything—beyond her sickness.

Or, when words failed him . . . he would shuffle the cards.

        These cards.
  
        They played for hours, the sterile hum of Medical dissolving into insignificance as Haven's world shrank to the table between them. To Bellamy's muffled snickers when she scowled at his infuriating poker face. To the way he let her win just enough to keep her from rocket launching the entire deck at his head. Sometimes, exhaustion would overtake her mid-game, her head dipping, her hands slackening their grip, and Bellamy would scoop her into his arms.

        On the rarest of nights, when sleep came without protest, Haven would stir to consciousness in her cell, the faint scent of him still lingering on her skin. It was the proof that Bellamy had carried her back there in the dark—silently, faithfully—refusing to let her fall.

Even now.

Even mountains away.

He hadn't stopped catching her.

She flipped the note atop the cards.

. . . OR ELSE!

Stars save her.

        She was helplessly, utterly, irrevocably in love with a dork.

Haven held Bellamy's final note as though it were something sacred—more delicate than the paper it was written on, more eternal than the stars that cleaved their mortals forms apart. As he fingers ghosted along its edges, her breath hitched—and she swore that the ink itself carried his voice. That low, teasing drawl that wound its way through her marrow and nestled into her soul. Gently, reverently, she slipped it beneath their pillowcase, its weight absurdly heavy for something so small—so simple—yet so monumental.

        And then, suddenly, she ached for her locket.

        If Haven still carried the damn thing, she would tear out Silas's cryptic note without hesitation. She'd rip the blood-tainted portrait of her mother into crimson smithereens if it meant making room for this. For him. For the physical trace of the boy she loved, written in his beautifully clumsy scrawl, stamped with his unshakable warmth. She would tuck it there, press it to her skin, keep it so close to her heart that it could almost feel the frantic rhythm of her pulse.

But Bellamy was already there—wasn't he?

        He had never needed the vessel. He had already claimed her body as his temple. He lived in her bones, her bloodstream, threaded through the sinew and the most sacred, infinitesimal particles of her being. Her ribcage existed to house him. Her heart beat to sustain him. Her every breath whispered his name before her own.

        . . . Haven needed to check the radio.

        After peeling off her clothes and haphazardly smearing the numbing paste across her stitches—each motion sharp with agony and far too clumsy for relief—Haven forced herself to move. The sting in her body was nothing compared to the starfire in her chest. She yanked her shirt back on, left the backpack where it lay, and bolted into Alpha's shadowed corridors. Her desperation hadn't waned—it never did. But this time, she didn't allow it to steer her; she harnessed its weight and forged it into something sharper.

        She only noticed her tears were gone when the air cooled the dry streaks on her face.

        She hadn't even realized they'd stopped.

"You don't get to give up, Clarke!"

Haven wasn't sure what she was expected as she launched herself into the Engineering Bay, her locs whipping wildly behind her, desperation pounding in her chest. She skidded to an abrupt halt in the doorway, breath catching as her gaze intrinsically sought out the radio.

        Silent. Unmoving.

        It sat there—lifeless and cold—mocking her with its lack of life, its absence of him. She swallowed the lump lodging itself in her throat and intentionally shifted her focus.

Clarke and Raven.

. . . Arguing. Again.

By the looks of it, Clarke had stormed in here straight from the southern Airlock, still humming with the shockwave of slapping her own mother across the face. Haven could almost feel the fresh imprint of horror in the way Clarke held herself—rigid, frosted over, more ice than flesh. Fatigue was etched into every line of her slender body, as though the weight of the Ark itself was crushing her all at once.

Raven, on the other hand, was a hurricane barely contained. Her rage crackled like an exposed wire, seething hotter than the machinery thrumming at her back. The tendons in her neck were strained beneath the force of her outrage, with her hands clenched into exasperated, trembling fists.

The duo stood locked in a wretched standoff, heat and frost colliding in a volatile silence that reeked of unspoken grievances and raw wounds.

        "You killed Finn, and I didn't give up!" Raven's accusation cleaved through the air like cruel lightning, her hand slashing wildly towards the clutter of tools at her workstation. "I'm building a damn tone generator! You do your job!"

        Clarke dared an exhausted step forward. "What is my job—?!"

         As the girls' argument roared into a cacophony of static—too loud, too sharp, too laden with wounds Haven no longer had the capacity to bear—her gaze drifted to the opposite side of the doorframe.

There stood Orion, casually leaning against the cold metal, ever the embodiment of detached amusement. Her fingers toyed lazily with the curly ends of her french braids. She watched the argument as one might watch waves crash against rocks—predictable, inevitable, and utterly unremarkable.

         Haven cut her an inquisitive glance.

"Don't ask," Orion grumbled lowly. "I've been observing the beef from a safe distance. Pretty sure they haven't even noticed me yet." She shifted against the frame, straightening her stance, her features darkening just slightly as her eyes landed on Haven's face—the black blood vessels still marring the white of her eye. "You alright, Hav?"

Haven merely sighed. "Did Bellamy—?"

"I don't know!" Raven continued her heated argument with the blonde as though she hadn't even registered Haven's arrival. "To come up with something!"

        Clarke gritted her teeth. "I have tried—"

        " . . . Camp Jaha, this is Mount Weather. Can anyone read me? . . ."

        Haven almost fell to her knees.

        All sound in the room died, swallowed whole by the familiar cadence of Bellamy Blake's voice as it crackled through the static. It wasn't just sound—it was breath, it was light, it was life inflating the silence, into Haven's weary, oxygen-starved lungs.

Nobody moved. Nobody breathed.

"Holy crap," Raven whispered.

" . . . Camp Jaha, this is Mount Weather. Can anyone read me?. . ."

Haven forgot how to walk. Her legs betrayed her for two heartbeats—maybe three—before Orion, with a huff of impatience, shoved her through the entryway. Haven stumbled, barely catching herself as she collapsed into the nearby chair, trembling fingers hovering over the radio. She clutched the machinery as though it were the last tether keeping her from plummeting into unimaginable oblivion, refusing to let her voice crack as she finally spoke.

"...Bell?"

         An unfathomable sigh of relief flooded the airwaves—one that cracked and shuddered shamelessly.

        ". . . Haven. . . "

Her name was always safest in his mouth.

And then—then, Haven remembered how to breathe again. Her lungs dragged in a slow, fluid inhale, the kind that no longer felt like splintered glass scraping through her chest. It came steady, measured, as if Bellamy's voice had woven itself into her ribs, tenderly stitching together what his absence had left in ruin. His presence wasn't just a balm; it was resurrection. His words reached across the void, wrenching her from the graveyard of the Ark, lifting her corpse from the ashes of her own decay . . . anointing her veins with the holiest of solar golds and purging the rot.

She exhaled. Softly. Peacefully.

        He did it. He fucking did it.

        " . . . Don't ghost me now, angel. I'm doin' just fine over here. You okay?. . ."

        The crackle of his voice grounded Haven—though her tongue felt like lead, heavy and uncooperative as it wrestled with the onslaught of her own emotions.

        Raven, always quicker on her feet, stepped in. "Bellamy, we have to—"

        ". . . I don't remember asking you. . ."

        The words landed like a low growl, indignant and razor-edged, prompting Raven to decisively clamp her mouth shut.

Orion almost snorted. Almost.

        Haven reached for the microphone at once. "I'm fine," she answered, her lips curving into the faintest trace of a smile—unbidden and impossible to suppress. "A-Are you? You sound cranky."

        ". . . I have a stupid hat on. I'm sweating through my uniform. And . . . I miss you," Bellamy relayed gruffly, his voice fraying at the edges, softened like moonbeams filtering through the veil of night. ". . . But we have to talk fast. Something has changed. Jasper. Monty. Everyone. They just locked them in the dorm. . . "

        Fuck.

        Clarke bridged the silence next. "But they're alive—all of them?"

        ". . . I think so, for now. Maya says that they're already using their blood, and things are gonna get ugly in here real fast. . ."

        . . . Fuck.

Bellamy's confession only confirmed the morbid truth they had already begun to piece together back at Camp Jaha—truth unearthed through Abby's revelations about Emerson's bloodwork. If their friends were locked in the dorms . . . it could only mean they had uncovered the horrifying reality of the transfusions, or the Harvest Chamber itself. And if that were the case, they must have rebelled, revolting against the Mountain Men's iron fist.

        In retaliation, the bastards must have locked them away, stripping them of choice, of freedom, preparing to drain their blood for their greater good . . . involuntarily.

        Transfusions were beginning.

        Her friends were locked away, trapped and subjected to horrors Haven couldn't fully fathom. They were smart—so goddamn smart—but even intelligence had its limits against desperation and cruelty. The timeline was collapsing. If the transfusions had begun, it meant they were losing ground far faster than she had feared.

        And then, there was her mother.

        Before Haven had been shoved unceremoniously into that damned trash chute, her mother had made a promise—a solemn vow—that she would protect Haven's friends for as long as she could. But now, if the blood transfusions were already underway, if her friends were trapped . . .

. . . Where the fuck was Dahlia?

Haven swallowed and attempted to dislodge the endlessly bleeding maternal wound in her throat. "Maya's with you?"

        ". . . She helped me escape. If not for her, I'd be dead. . . " Bellamy inhaled and it sounded as though he were moments away from crumbling to the ground. He was in far greater physical pain than he'd let on; Haven could hear it in the unsteady cadence of his breath. " . . . And, guys, there's kids in here. We need a plan that doesn't kill everyone. Please tell me we have one. . . "

Haven clutched the radio tighter as warmth swelled beneath her ribs. "You saw Leo?"

One heartbeat passed. Another.

" . . . Yeah. . ." Bellamy's voice sounded dangerously close to shattering all over again. "Yeah. He's okay, Hav. The kid thought I was an alien. . ."

Beside herself, Haven felt her smile broaden, closing her eyes and sighing in unimaginable relief at the young boy's safety. The Lovejoys had been her tiny flicker of light in the suffocating gloom of Mount Weather. When her fake flare-up shitshow had sent her spiraling into hallucinatory terrror—Leo's father had been there. He was the only Mountain Man whose gaze had not been tinged with icy detachment, the only one whose humanity hadn't rotted away entirely.

        But compassion could only go so far.

        If Lovejoy was entangled in the monstrous schemes unraveling now—if he had even lifted a finger to support the bloodletting of her friends, her family—then whatever kindness he had shown her curdled to ash.

        Her gratitude would die where it stood.

Compassion wasn't an absolution.

        Not when Lovejoy's decency towards her might have been nothing more than a mask to veil his own dark complicity.

"We can't do anything until you disable the acid fog," Clarke added, apprehensively rolling her lip between her teeth. Her gaze flicked to the others behind the radio, lingering only long enough to delegate roles. "Raven is gonna help you. Orion'll be here for moral support."

Orion blinked in disbelief. "I will—?"

Clarke shot her an exhausted glare, to which Orion countered by innocently raising her hands in mock surrender. The corners of her lips twitched with her typical restrained amusement, though she wisely chose not to stoke the frost of Clarke's patience.

". . . Got it. What else? . . ."

"You have to figure out a way to free the Grounder prisoners," Clarke relayed firmly. "There is an entire army inside that mountain, and they don't even realize it."

" . . . Trojan horse. I like it. . ."

Orion smirked, hardly restraining her snicker as she teasingly nudged Haven's good shoulder from behind the chair. "That's exactly what Haven said."

        ". . . Yeah. Because she's a dork. . ."

        Bellamy's smile could be felt all the way from Mount Weather itself. Its warmth was so strong, so visceral, it radiated through the crackling static of the radio and brushed against Haven like a caress. It cocooned her, an unseen tether binding them despite the miles of darkness and stone between them. She wondered, fleetingly, how far that warmth could stretch—how much distance it would take to sever his presence from her.

She could know him blind. She could feel him across oceans, through the endless void of space, from one side of the globe to the other, from the silvery wisps of the moon to the farthest reaches of the galaxies.

        True north.

She could always feel him.

        She would always feel him. Always.

And that unshakable truth smothered her outrage at his accusation, momentarily choking off the retort that hovered on the tip of her tongue . . . for now.

        "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Laugh all you want now," Haven teased flatly. She glanced back, catching Orion clamping her hand over her mouth, visibly struggling to stifle another snicker. "You're probably gonna have to find my mom to pull it off."

        " . . . "

        "Bell—?"

        " . . . "

        "Uh-oh," Orion whistled. "He passed out."

". . . Did not. . ." Bellamy's voice returned, low and gravelly, punctuated by an exaggerated clearing of his throat. ". . . I'm on it. . . "

Haven frowned. "Look, she's—"

". . . I'm not worried about your mom, Hav. . ."

"You should be." Haven's words came out sharper than she intended—a sigh of discomfort slipping past her lips as the ever-present wound in her throat seemed to stretch. "You're gonna be the first one to find out where she truly stands, Bell. Just... Just be careful, alright? And don't make eye contact for too long. If she shoots you the crazy eyes—"

        " . . . Stop, drop, and roll. I know. . ."

Bellamy's reassurance was dry, laced with a familiar exasperation that carried just enough warmth to alleviate the phantom noose around Haven's neck.

"What does Maya think?" Clarke clutched the radio with enough force to warp the metal itself. "Is it doable?"

Static roared.

" . . . She says it's not a problem. But if I'm gonna pull this off, I need you guys to buy me some time . . ." Bellamy answered at last, but his tension betrayed itself in the rasp of his controlled breaths. ". . . It won't be long before they realize I don't belong here, and if that happens . . ."

"I'll handle it," Haven cut in, silencing the rise of his mounting fears with the conviction of a thousand supernovae. "I promise."

". . . I know you will. . . " Bellamy's voice softened—fractionally steadier—though Haven could still hear the incessant, rhythmic tapping of his fingers on the other side of the line. Five beats. Always five. A code written in the language of his nerves as of late. " . . . From behind Camp Jaha's fence. Not outside. You got that?. . ."

"Copy that, my King," Haven lied through her goddamn teeth and was thankful he wasn't there to catch her jaw tick. "And, Bell..."

". . . Yeah? . . ."

But before she could shape her thoughts into something resembling encouragement, Orion snatched the microphone from Haven's hands with startling insistence. Bringing it to her lips, she let her voice crackle across the airwaves, firm as stone, unrelenting, and somehow—against all odds—soft, in its own peculiar way.

"Fuck shit up, Blakey boy," Orion demanded unflinchingly. "Fuck. Shit. Up."

" . . . Roger that. . . ."

Before the silence could settle, Clarke swept the microphone from Orion's hands and passed it to Raven. "You're up for navigation," she announced, rising from her crouch beside Haven and turning toward the door. "Let's go, Haven. I need your help. I think I know what to do about Emerson."

Haven blinked at her in bewilderment. "What? But Bellamy—"

" . . . Bellamy also wants you to fuck shit up. . . " His voice rolled through the static smoothly—a silken caress wrapped around ironclad conviction. ". . . Go with her. Stretch that pretty brain of yours. I'll be here when you get back, alright?. . ."

Haven's smile could summon starlight.

". . . Mhm. I love you too. . ."

        At that, Orion's lips twisted into an unbelievably sour grimace. She mimed gagging, her hand already reaching for the microphone with the unmistakable intent of delivering a blistering remark. But before she could part her lips . . .

        ". . . Don't bother, Orion. I know you love me too. Maybe one day I'll hate myself enough to feel the same. . ."

The Vincetta girl froze mid-motion, her eyes going wide before a gasp of pure, cataclysmic outrage ripped from her throat.

"THAT IS NOT WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY—!"

        FUCKING SHIT UP WAS THE MOST GLORIOUS, LIBERATING THING THAT HAVEN HAD DONE FOR HERSELF IN AGES. She felt unstoppable. Inevitable. Bulletproof. Stupidly overconfident and unfathomably brave. Adrenaline slashed through her veins like starfire and fearlessness thundered in her footsteps like the crash of distant comets. She was glowing, molten, her unwavering focus filling the hollows left by despair with an invigorating sense of power.

        After abandoning her heart back in the Engineering Bay, she had fluidly slipped into the shadows behind Clarke, their pulses syncing with the sharp rhythm of the hunt. Together, they had scorched a deathtrail into Alpha's cold floors—two seething stars striding into a battlefield that had long since forgotten what girlhood felt like.

        Clarke and Haven led the charge.

        Indra and Octavia followed behind them.

        And further still, like ghosts birthed from smoke, came Indra's finest—a procession of formidable warriors, eyes gleaming with the promise of destruction.

Scanlon had been the lone sentinel, standing rigid outside the Airlock, his task to guard Emerson against any would-be threats. As the procession approached, he had puffed up like a bird desperate to appear larger than it was, his chest swelling with false bravado. His hand hovered near his rifle, eager to wield authority and to bark orders for their retreat.

        But then Haven moved.

        With a slow, deliberate grace, she had unsheathed her blade from beneath her shirt, its steel gleaming menacingly in the dim light. The motion rippled like a shockwave through the warriors behind her. Intrinsically, every single Grounder had mirrored her action, swords whispering free of their scabbards in perfect unison.

        (Which . . . holy fuck!)

Scanlon had frozen.

        His bravado cracked, slipping through the trembling fingers now white-knuckling his weapon. His gaze had flicked from Haven's lethal stare to the sea of blades—pointed, poised, waiting—and just like that, he backed the fuck down.

        Now, stalking into the velvet dead of night, the girls fearlessly led their charge towards Camp Jaha's electric fence. Emerson followed behind, encased in his hazmat suit like a trapped insect, his breaths fogging the visor as panic seeped through his composure. The Grounders flanked him, gripping his arms, forcing him to trail behind the girls as he awaited his fate.

        Gasps erupted at once.

        "Haven—?"

        Kane was the first to react, lurching to his feet, his conversation with Costa by the firepit forgotten as he flailed after her. His eyes were wild, body taut with tension, every sinew straining under the weight of a truth he couldn't yet grasp—but instinctively knew he wouldn't like.

        "Haven! Clarke!" Kane's voice boomed through the frigid air, abandoning his pursuit of the indifferent Smith girl and agitatedly shifting tactics. He sprinted to intercept them, planting himself in front of the gate just as the procession neared its boundary. "What the hell is going on here?"

Haven merely ignored him. Again.

"Clarke—stop!"

Abigail Griffin arrived at the perimeter with the weight of the entire goddamn Guard at her back. She stationed herself beside Kane—who stiffly edged three steps away from her—and folded her arms with a venomous finality. Once again, Abby's monstrous, rotten presence became the immovable barrier between Haven and her plans. The twilight mist softened her edges, cloaking her bruised eyes and swollen face in a veil that might have made her seem pitiful—tragic, even—to anyone blind enough to sympathize with her.

But not to Haven.

She stood face to face with her abuser.

And she refused to cower.

Clarke lifted her chin. "No," she declared evenly. Without breaking eye contact with her mother, her pinkie brushed against Haven's in a silent tether of solidarity. "We're letting the prisoner go."

"Absolutely not," Abby deadpanned.

Kane's head shook almost reflexively, his mind scrambling to unearth some logical foothold amidst their defiance. "He hasn't told us anything yet."

"He doesn't have to." Clarke smoothly tilted her chin toward the distant silhouette of the mountains, their peaks cleaving into the murky horizon like fangs. "He's gonna tell them something."

        Abby refused to budge. "Get the prisoner back to the Airlock," she ordered tersely. She tore her gaze from Clarke, severing the moment as though it had never existed, and pivoted to David and the Guard. "Now."

        The words hung like a guillotine, and for a moment, the night seemed to hold its breath. Indra swiftly prompted her swarm of warriors to unsheathe their weapons. David stiffened, his frame straightening with the instinctive precision of a soldier in the presence of command. The Guard followed suit, their movements crisp and automatic, a phalanx bound by duty.

Yet as Haven's gaze lingered on David, something flickered—a fracture in his typically rigid discipline. His posture wasn't carved by the weight of Abby's authority, but instead fortified by the strength of his own resolve.

        One heartbeat stretched. Another.

        "Yeah..." he drawled at last. "I don't fuckin' think so."

        Haven felt her breath hitch.

        Abby spun on her heels, pupils blown wide with shock, and pinned him beneath the weight of an outrageous glare. "Excuse you, Sergeant Miller?"

        "You're not in command of the Guard."

        Abby blinked at him. "I'm not—?"

        "You're not." David lifted his chin as he stared the woman down, leveling Abby's glare with an unapologetic defiance that seemed to root him to the ground. "Before leaving to secure our survival, Bellamy Blake took it upon himself to remind me of Section 6D of the Guard Code. Should the Chancellor's orders jeopardize the welfare of Arkadians—or be deemed unjust, unfit, or reckless—command authority reverts to the Chief of the Guard."

He took a measured step forward.

"That's me."

Abby parted her lips in a silent gasp of unfathomable outrage. "I—"

"STAND DOWN!" David barked, whirling to face the battalion of guards, their rifles clutched lethally in their restless palms. He gestured to Clarke and Haven with an unflinchingly loyal nod. "Weapons lowered, now! From this moment forward—you take your orders from them as you would from me! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

        And then, in a chorus as potent as the roar of the ocean, the Guard answered . . . their voices splitting through the twilight in perfect unison.

"SIR, YES, SIR!"

        As the Guard sheathed their weapons, they fell into a stance carved from the stone of discipline—obedient not just to David's command, but to the unspoken authority of Clarke and Haven.

        The Smith girl found her eyes inexorably tethered to David. Words of gratitude perished on her lips, lost in the molten swell of warmth that surged through her chest. It was a love reserved for the ghost of the boy she had cherished most—the boy whose quiet care had reached her even across vast, mountainous divides.

In place of words, Haven offered David a thumbs-up, mirroring the silent sentiment he had so often offered her . . . time and time again.

David returned the gesture with a friendly wink—one that sculpted him into the spitting image of his son.

        "You may be the Chancellor." Clarke held her mother's death glare and refused to falter. "But I'm in charge."

Abby's composure fractured, disbelief twisting her bruised features as she struggled for footing. Her eyes darted over Clarke's shoulder, seeking any scrap of authority to bolster her faltering stance. "Indra," she barked. "Tell your people to stand down before this gets out of hand."

Indra calmly shook her head. "No."

"Out of hand—?" David's voice slid in, smooth as a blade slipping between ribs. He cocked his head, a wry smile curling his lips as he gestured to the empty expanse of dirt where the Guard once loomed behind Abby. "With all due respect... you and what army, ma'am?"

Abby floundered. "People could get hurt."

"And you'll be the first," Haven cut in, her voice cold and sharp as the blade tucked beneath her clothing. Her fingers twitched, itching to draw it, but the venom in her words was weapon enough. "Move. Now."

Clarke clenched her jaw. "You need to trust that I know what's right for us."

        "The Grounders trust Clarke and Haven," Kane began softly. As he spoke, the sharp edges of his skepticism seemed to soften, transforming gradually into something that—if one looked closely enough—might almost be mistaken for admiration. "It's about time that we should, too."

        But Abby refused to yield, her defiance as unrelenting as her grip on the power that no longer answered her. Her fury turned outward, locking onto the Grounder contingent flanking Emerson. Her glare could have leveled monuments, but here, in this moment—on this wild, untamed Earth—she was met with only stoic disregard. For the first time since her reign had polluted the stars, and now sought to corrupt the soil beneath her feet . . . she stood utterly, devastatingly powerless.

        "Return him to the Airlock. Now."

        Her command struck the air and fell dead.

        No one stirred.

        Not the Guard. Not the Grounders.

        Not even the goddamn wind.

Haven's lips curved into a gloating smirk, the luster in her eyes sharp as steel. "Open the gate," she commanded kindly, her head tilting toward the towering metal barrier behind David. "Please!"

        David met her with a quiet nod, grinning as he raised his left hand in an affirmative salute. Without a moment's delay, he set about disengaging one end of the electric barrier, the machinery emitting a hiss and groan that shattered the prevailing silence. At his signal, Costa stepped up, deftly unlocking the remaining half. The gates then swung open, creating a wide chasm in the once unyielding fence—a new passage carved into the unknown.

Haven and Clarke wasted no time.

        They blazed into the night with the trajectory of twin comets. The Grounders recoiled, scattering like shadows banished by the first light of dawn, their power eclipsed as the two girls seized Emerson. Dragging him through the jagged edges of the treeline, they forced him to stand alone in the darkness, the canopy above almost swallowing him whole.

"Can you hear me all right?" Clarke questioned icily, forcing Emerson to confront the enormity of her death glare beneath his hazmat suit. "Because I need to make sure you get this."

Emerson nodded. "Loud and clear."

        "I have a message for your leader." Clarke relayed her words with startling conviction. "We're coming for him. You're watching us—but you haven't seen a thing. The Grounder army is bigger than you think, and even if you could find it, your acid fog can't hurt them. And now, thanks to you..." She reached into her pocket, fingers closing around the tone generator that Raven had replicated. Slowly, she withdrew it, holding it aloft like a trophy. "...Neither can the Reapers. So you have one last chance. Let our people go—and we'll let you live. It's just that simple."

        "...I got it," Emerson answered stiffly.

        At that, Haven stepped forward, her arms unfolding from their watchful pose across her chest. "One last thing," she drawled coolly—an assassin's whisper before the strike. She reached for the oxygen canister attached to Emerson's belt loop and adjusted its settings, effectively reducing its output by two hours. "It's an eight-hour walk back to Mount Weather. You're gonna do it in six."

        "Six hours—?" Emerson's disbelief morphed into exasperation, his voice rising in pitch as he shook his head, the action causing the interior of his mask to fog up from his heated breath. "That's not enough. How am I supposed to deliver your message?"

        "Figure it the fuck out," Haven answered simply. "Or die trying."

        Emerson sputtered again. "I—"

        "Unless you want me to stab you... again," Haven cut in, smoothly retrieving her blade from beneath her top. She lifted it to the man's visor, its sharp edge dangling tauntingly between his wide eyes. "Think you'll make it back to Mount Weather with your skin burning off? Because I don't."

        The blade tapped gently—mockingly—against the glass, the dull click echoing between them like a death knell.

        Emerson clamped his jaw shut.

        "Smart boy," she hummed. "Run."

And run he did.

Emerson dissolved into the shadows without a backward glance. His form shrunk into nothing more than a ghost—a phantom propelled by the urgent need to preserve his own life and those of his compatriots, those who had mercilessly drained the lifeforce of Haven's friends.

        She remained utterly still as she observed his rapid retreat, tracing the path of Emerson's flight with utmost attention. Westbound. The fastest route towards the Mountain. A subtle smirk graced Haven's lips, not just from satisfaction, but from triumph. This wasn't just mercy—it was strategy. Emerson hadn't simply fled; he'd been guided, nudged like a goddamn pawn across her chessboard, each frantic step taking him deeper into her design.

Haven had let him go, yes—but only into the exact path she wanted him to take.

The one she knew how to find.

Octavia worriedly approached the girls as they reentered the boundaries of Camp Jaha. "Hold on," she began, arching a skeptical, war-painted brow. "You want to explain to me how this helps my brother—?"

Clarke met her gaze squarely, her spine straightening as if to ward off any sign of weakness. "I just told him we have a secret army to worry about," she explained. "The more they're looking at us, the less they're looking at him. Bellamy is the key to everything, Octavia."

        In that moment, a flicker of doubt crossed Clarke's features—subtle, yet unmistakable.

Fleetingly. But enough.

        "If he dies... we die."

. . . But Haven would not let that happen.

She fucking refused.

        Once Clarke and Octavia vanished into the veil of night, their voices swallowed by the whisper of a distant meeting—the weight of twelve clans heavy on their shoulders—Haven knew her path had already been chosen.

        The chaos was her cloak.

        Grounders in foreign tongues, Guard personnel shouting orders, the faceless crowd became the living current she swam through. A shadow among shadows, she slipped past the electric fence just as David's hand hovered on the switch. Storming into the murky expanse of evergreen. Praying the numbing paste would stave off the pain long enough to endure the six-hour trek ahead. Following the moonlight's silver thread amidst the ferns and moving westward. Running. Running. Running. Becoming the true distraction for Lorelei Tsing, President Dante, and their Mountain Men, effectively diverting their attention from Bellamy Blake.

The trees began to thin, and above her, the stars emerged—scattered like a thousand dying embers, their cold light both a curse and a guide. Somewhere out there, amidst the ash and stone, lay her grave. Haven could feel it pulling her forward . . . and forced her body to run faster.

Faster. Faster. Faster.

Seeking out the man in the hazmat suit to deliver her to her death.

And seeking out the stars above to guide her home.

WE'RE GOING BACK TO THAT DAMN MOUNTAIN BITCHES

SONGS FOR THE REMAINDER OF ACT 2 ARE CANT STOP BY RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS AND SALT IN THE MOTHEFUCKIN WOUND BY BOYGENIUS!!! 🦅
PLOT IS UP! BAVEN IS UP! ACTION IS UP! I AM SOOOOOO FCKIN EXCITED (terrified biting my nails) BUT... LETS FUCKIN GO

next chapter is... a lot!
baven reunion is the chapter after next week. either chapter 68 or 69(😏) depending on how i split up the word count

the entire section of bell's interaction with leo made me cry. same for the section with the notes bell left for haven </3 THATS WHY HE MADE THE PITSTOP BACK AT CAMP JAHA instead of just going straight from tondc to mount weather with lincoln 🙂‍↔️
ALSO!!! i posted to my message board, but there is a fanfic awards book currently being run by @/aesfilms!!!
self promo feels so strange BUTTT if you feel inclined to vote, you guys nominated me for favorite author, best new author, best angst author, and best the 100 fic!!! (its all the way towards the end in the dead fandom categories). that's where my user and tff is available to vote for currently :)
being chronically online has its perks and little things like these make me love being on the internet and LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE YALL SO MUCH 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 SOBBING AND THROWING UP.
being nominated at all was enough in itself... plus, yall i am not expecting to win against these other writers... they have like 20k followers HELLO?!

but! you can vote once daily til dec 23rd if you're interested ❤️‍🩹

SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!! I LOVE YOU!!! SO SO SO SO SO MUCH!!!