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CHAPTER SEVENTY TWO;

AIN'T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH!

        TEN MINUTES. THAT'S ALL IT HAD TAKEN FOR BELLAMY TO STRIP HIMSELF OF WHO HE HAD BEEN IN THE DARKNESS, and embrace the mask of duty once more. The lingering warmth of their once-sleeping bodies, the gentle sprawl of The Giving Tree forgotten at the edge of the bed . . . it all felt like the remnants of a fever dream. One that shattered the moment Maya's gentle knocks had breached the sanctity of the guest room.

        It was time to go.

        Haven felt the ache of loss before her bare feet even hit the floor. The purgatory they had delayed with whispers and held breaths now felt crushingly, suffocatingly close. She already mourned the solitude, the impenetrable cocoon of Bellamy's arms, where—for once—they had truly slept. It did not matter that they hadn't yet stepped outside the bedroom; the battlefield awaited, and it would take more than four walls to keep it at bay.

But Bellamy . . .

        He was still.

        Devastatingly, horrifyingly still.

All traces of serenity and every ember of boyish warmth had been wrenched from him—torn apart, desecrated, and obliterated. As if Maya's knock had summoned not just duty, but death itself. The beige, mountainous uniform had only served to complete the transformation, swallowing Bellamy whole and spitting out the aftermath. What remained was a frostbitten abyss. Stone-cold. Unmoving. He was no longer man but shadow, nearly more corpse than human. The boy who had once laughed loud enough to rattle the stars—even within the walls of this godforsaken bunker—had vanished without a trace.

His echo no longer lingered.

In his absence stood something darker.

The indomitable soldier—chiseled from ruin, tempered by loss—had taken his place.

A soldier draped in the uniform of a ghost.

        . . . Lovejoy's.

        Haven had pieced it together long before Maya uttered the fallen Mountain Man's name aloud. The truth had begun to unravel the moment she caught the tremor in Bellamy's voice over the radio—the telltale wobble betraying what his words refused to say when she'd asked about Leo. The sinking weight in her chest had only grown heavier over time. And when Bellamy had finally confessed the crime in the bathroom—his voice cracking under the weight of it—it wasn't a revelation.

It was confirmation.

Lovejoy was dead.

And Leo had been orphaned. Partially.

        Haven would not dare to remind Bellamy that Leo had an older brother, or a mother. She could already feel it—the way such knowledge would burrow into Bellamy's mind, clawing deep, fusing itself to his guilt. It would shred him from the inside out, raking at his soul with every goddamn second his gaze stayed locked on Lovejoy's hat.

        What might have brought comfort to someone else—that Leo wasn't entirely alone—would only destroy Bellamy further.

Because all he would hear, all he would see in his mind's cruel mirror, was the breadth of what he'd destroyed. He hadn't just taken a father from his child; he'd shattered the foundation of a family. Two brothers orphaned. A widow left to grieve the hollowed-out space where her husband once stood.

        How could Haven tell him that?

        How could she broach the subject at all?

How could she comfort him for the sin he would never—not in a thousand lifetimes—grant himself the mercy of forgiveness for?

It was no secret that they'd both been forced to kill on Earth; the blood on their hands was stitched into their skin with the same permanence as breath.

Dax had been her first.

The first human life Haven had severed, the first death to blacken her soul. Yet, regret found no place there. She had saved Bellamy's life, and for that, she would wield that sword again—tenfold, a thousandfold—without hesitation. She had killed five Grounders during the dropship war. Two Reapers had fallen beneath her mother's pistol in the dark, winding tunnels of Mount Weather. A Grounder in the caverns during the aftermath that followed. Four Mountain Men during the uprising of Level Five.

Every act had been survival distilled to its rawest form. Kill, or be killed. Kill, or let her enemies slaughter the ones she could not afford to lose.

And then . . .

There was Tsing.

Cold, black-blooded vengeance had driven Haven to slit the throat of the treacherous doctor.

She was soaked, baptized, maimed by the blood of fourteen human beings. People who had sought to destroy her and her own—but people all the same. Faces blurred in the recesses of memory. Voices silenced forever by her unwavering hands. Familial bonds simply did not exist in the moment her blades met flesh. When steel soared into skulls or plunged into defiant, roaring hearts—she did not stop to wonder who she was unmaking. But she knew. She knew she must have orphaned children, shattered brothers, widowed wives. She had severed mothers from their daughters, fathers from their sons. The blood that soaked her was not just foreign—it was stolen.

        And she knew that Bellamy Blake was just as drenched.

        But this was different.

        Not because Bellamy hadn't done what needed to be done. Not because Lovejoy—a mortal cog in the Mountain's monstrous regime—likely would have ever chosen revolution over obedience. Not because she judged Bellamy for his decision—she never could.

        This was different.

Because for the first time . . . the consequences of their actions stared back at them through the soft, gray eyes of a child.

Haven drew her lip between her teeth, watching as Bellamy's haunted gaze lingered on the cursed hat awaiting him. Both of them were fully dressed now. Clean sweatpants and a fitted black long-sleeve clung to her frame, paired with Maya's borrowed sneakers—clothing that, while not hers, didn't carry the exoskeleton of a dead man.

Bellamy, though, was a different story.

Clad in Lovejoy's uniform—pistol holstered, earpiece activated—he looked every inch the soldier of the Mountain's militia. But the illusion stopped there. He wore the guise of their enemy, but his eyes . . . his eyes betrayed the torment within.

He could not reach for the hat.

So, Haven did it for him.
    
Cautiously, she unmoored herself from the guest room's threshold, her fingers dipping into the laundry bin and clutching the sinister ball cap.

"Bell."

Blood-red lamplight enveloped Bellamy like an open wound, illuminating the hollows of his stillness. He did not stir. He couldn't even bring himself to flinch. The name—his name—bounced off the walls and vanished, swallowed by the vulturine ghosts that circled his conscience. Haunted eyes remained fixed on the barren basket and refused to budge.

        He hadn't even noticed the absence of the hat.

        He hadn't noticed her.

        Softly . . . Haven took Bellamy's right hand into hers. Not forceful enough to jar him, but steady enough to tether him to the present. As he lifted his gaze from the laundry bin, shaking his head to dispel the fog within, she moved her hand to caress his curls. Fingers tenderly threaded through the wild, dark wisps that had grown unruly since their descent to Earth. After smoothing his bangs away from his forehead, she traced her thumb and index finger along his eyelashes. It coaxed him to close his eyes—even if only for a millisecond. Once his lashes obeyed, she reached upward with her free hand, gently placing the hat atop his head.

        His shoulders sagged beneath its weight at once.

        "Look at me," Haven whispered, removing her fingers from his eyelashes to cradle his cheek instead. Her palm felt warm against his freckled skin. "Look at me. Leo... Leo's going to be fine. We'll make sure of it."

        Bellamy blinked at her. "What?"

        "We'll... we'll take care of him," Haven continued, her voice trembling at first but gaining strength as she straightened her spine. "Once we take down the Mountain Men... the civilians here are probably going to need new leaders. Staff. Doctors. Maybe Jackson can perform a transfusion, and I..." She hesitated, the words catching in her throat, but she forced herself to continue. "I can donate my blood to Leo. He can leave the Mountain and come with us. To camp." 

        Silence roared.

Once again . . . Haven chose not to mention the remainder of the Lovejoy family. Not because she wanted to deceive Bellamy or paint a picture of false hope, but because her words were truthful. Her plan was no illusion, no half-baked promise meant to soothe the ache in his chest. It was a vow—one she would see through to the end.

It was impossible to predict who would be left standing at the end of their war. But Haven knew one thing with certainty: civilians were not meant to be casualties. This fucking war, the one raging between their alliance and Mount Weather, was not against the Mountain itself. Not against the innocents trapped within its walls—but against the bloodthirsty leaders who had coveted survival into tyranny.

And still, if Leo had no one left when the dust finally settled . . . if the blood of his own family had inadvertently been spilled in the madness of it all . . . he would not be alone.

She would make certain of it.

If her blood—this cursed, sacred offering of hers—could save people, then the best thing Haven could do in her final six months would be to spend them ensuring it saved who she chose.

Starting with that seven-year-old boy.

Bellamy's voice, when it finally came, was barely above a whisper.

       "...I don't think I'll ever be able to look at him again."

Haven shook her head. "You will," she encouraged softly, cradling his guilt in her palms and refusing to bow beneath its weight. "We can't undo what's been done. But we can try to be better—in every way that we can, whenever we can." Her thumb brushed against his freckles—five tender taps to the beat of a hopeful heart. "That's where we start."

        A thousand emotions rippled through Bellamy's eyes. each one a storm unto itself, flickering and fading before she could name them all. Shadows pooled in their endlessly brown depths before a glimmer of something fragile caught the light. But just as swiftly, it was gone, swallowed by the weight of a blink that fell too fast.

        He nodded. Shakily.

        Haven rose at once, hands brushing Bellamy's shoulders for balance, and softly pressed her lips to the left edge of his cheek. Next came the right, then the bridge of his nose, and finally, her lips found his—their warmth neither a question nor an answer, but a ceasefire in the war they carried within.

        The Vie family sanctuary was left behind at last.

        Winding through the corridors of Level Three felt . . . strange. Gone were the sterile stone walls of Tsing's lab, but the air still carried the weight of its horrors. Haven had almost forgotten the vastness that each Level spanned within the Mountain. Level Three wasn't just the heart of civilian life; it housed the primary Medical ward and, most infamously, Tsing's first secret laboratory. And now, with Maya's allegiance shifted to aid Haven and her friends, another dark truth had surfaced—a second, even more secretive lab nestled on Level Six.

        The place where their friends would be dragged—where bone saws would carve into flesh and drill them for their fucking marrow.

Maya had whispered the level was worse than the Harvest Chamber.

        (Which . . . Haven struggled to believe.)

        As the trio stealthily moved through the halls—Maya leading the way while the couple trailed close behind—Haven tried really, really hard not to freak the hell out. She fought to master the rapid staccato of her heartbeat, to corral the chaos in her mind and focus on what truly mattered.

        Her friends, their survival, and the sliver of normalcy she had tasted before it was snatched away.

        If she wanted to reclaim even a fragment of the life she'd experienced with Bellamy—or to forge something stronger from its ruins—she had to sharpen her mind, swallow her fear, and lock the fuck in.

Fear wouldn't save them.

        Fear wouldn't save anyone.

        (Plus . . . the steady, unflinching presence of Bellamy at her side made her feel just brave enough to keep moving.)

"Lovejoy's keycard will get you into the armory," Maya whispered sharply, her gaze darting between Bellamy and the shadows ahead. She gestured toward the keycard tucked against his vest. "The guns are locked, but the guard has the key. I can lure him away—"

        "No—there's no time," Bellamy cut in lowly, lips cramping as he wiped at the cold sweat collected beneath his bangs. "Once I get the guns, how the hell do I get them to Level Five? They're watching every door."

        Maya slowed to a halt. "Maybe not," she breathed out. "The Mess Hall has a trash chute."

        "Trash chute—?" Bellamy echoed.

Maya nodded in confirmation. "There's one on every level. Best part? There's no radiation alarms. The hatches leak like crazy, so they put in these airlocks just to be safe." She cast a knowing glance between the couple and determinedly set her jaw. "You two get the guns—I'll get them into the Mess Hall."

Haven offered the Vie girl a smile.

A real, unguarded smile.

Not the hollow ones she'd offered in her earlier days of Mount Weather's captivity. Back then, Maya had been nothing more than another moving part in the Mountain's machinery—someone whose allegiance Haven had doubted, whose quiet kindness she'd met with suspicion.

        But everything had changed since then.

        Maya Vie had proven herself time and time again, standing defiant against her own people, risking her life for strangers she owed nothing to.

She'd been the one to expose the horrors of the Harvest Chamber to Jasper, the first to whisper truths no one else dared speak. She'd become their shadow ally, organizing seeds of rebellion on Level Five, working tirelessly in the background while the walls pressed closer and closer. And when Haven and Bellamy had been led to her home, bloodied and battered, Maya hadn't hesitated. She'd given them shelter, scrubbed the carnage from their clothes, and meticulously re-stitched the sutures torn open by Haven's own recklessness.

This smile wasn't just gratitude—it was acknowledgment. A silent apology for doubting her before, and a promise that she saw her now.

For everything she was.

For everything she had done.

        Bellamy's words intrinsically mirrored the thoughts Haven had yet to speak aloud.

"...You're a natural-born revolutionary."

        Maya's gaze did not waver, her chin lifting with a conviction far too steady for someone her age. In that moment, she looked every bit like she belonged among the hundred—undaunted, resolute, though untouched by the bloodstains that seemed to scar them all.

"My mom was the revolutionary," she answered simply. "I'm just trying to do what's right."

        And then . . . fuck.

        "Wait," Haven breathed, irritably pinching the bridge of her nose between her forefingers as horrific realization struck. "I think Monty might've disabled the trash chutes."

        The silence that followed was deafening.

        Bellamy blinked at her. Maya openly gaped.

        "...But we can get them up and running again," she blurted, forcing herself to sound calm, in control, even as her pulse hammered in her ears. "I—I'll go tell him. Bell, you get the guns. Maya, get to the chute."

        "What?" Bellamy echoed incredulously. "No way."

"I—"

"No. Fucking. Way."

        Bellamy's voice ricocheted off the stone walls, far louder than anyone attempting to stay undercover had any right to be. Both girls whirled toward him, their pointed glares sharp enough to cut, and he apologetically cleared his throat in response.

        Still . . . his feet betrayed him, irresistibly carrying him closer to Haven. A shaky hand sought her wrist, fingers trembling as they wrapped around the sliver of skin beneath her wristband. Steady pupils were now blown wide, reflecting not only panic—but a smoldering, guttural outrage that the proposition had dared to exist at all.

        "We're not doing this," he rasped, though the words fractured halfway out of him—less command and more prayer. "We're not splitting up. We can't, Hav. I can't."

Haven anxiously bit her lip. "It's safer."

"Safer—?"

"For all of us," Haven clarified, lifting her left hand from its limp vigil at her side and placing it over his. She ached to hold him tightly, to return the urgency in his grasp, but the strength in her muscle was faltering. "The Mountain Men know my face. Cage wants me next... apparently. And if they find me following you, if they find us working together... I'll blow your cover."

"They won't find you," Bellamy cut in hotly. "They can't blow my cover if they're fucking dead."

Haven released a weary sigh. "We have to think strategically here, Bell," she began, softening as she noted the way his chest rose and fell in sharper, frantic bursts. As if he were staving off the instinct to implode. "What if they do find us sneaking around? What if we get caught and they force you to hand me over? If you resist—they'll know you don't belong here." She adamantly shook her head. "You can't compromise the mission."

"What kind of question is that?" Bellamy's eyes scorched into hers and revolted against her blasphemy. "I'm not worried about the mission, Hav. If shit goes south, we'll adapt. We always do. But if they touch you—I'll kill them."

"...And blow your cover in the process," Haven countered.

        Bellamy released an agitated huff.

        But Haven knew him—knew the way his resolve constricted into a noose whenever he felt cornered. Knew him well enough to detect the faintest emergence of understanding seeping through his armor. Bellamy Blake was a fortress of instinct—a man who had forged his identity on the foundation of protection. And as much as she admired the strength that had tirelessly kept them all alive . . . she knew its darker edge all too well. He saw threats as fires to extinguish and targets to neutralize, while the consequences of the fallout often blurred into static. Because what mattered most to him was the here and now—eliminating the immediate danger and protecting the people he loved, no matter the cost.

Act now. Think later.

Haven couldn't fault him for it. Not really.

Not when she was guilty of the same.

His hypervigilant tunnel vision was carved from loss, chiseled into him by the weight of every failure and fracture he'd endured. But Bellamy's resolve, no matter how devotedly it burned, would consume them all if he wasn't careful.

        "Look. I... I don't like this either." Haven fought to maintain her conviction, though the worry eclipsing Bellamy's eyes forced her heart to stutter. "But this is way bigger than surviving the next five minutes. We need to survive the next five hours. The next five days. And if you don't get those guns—we lose any chance of saving anyone." A fragile smile twitched at her lips. "I'll be waiting in the Mess Hall. When you bring the guns, I'll be there."

        Bellamy's jaw tightened, his mind warring with the logic she presented . . . but his resolve refused to bend.

        "No," he bit out lowly. "This is suicide—"

        "Bell." Haven silenced his mounting protests by sharpening her voice—a whisper intended to stabilize rather than soothe. "You want me to start valuing my life, right? I—I can't handle crawling through the vents like you do. Not yet." She hesitated for half a heartbeat. "And if you aren't the one to blow your cover... I will be. Especially if I start to freak."

        Which, was true.

        Navigating Mount Weather's ventilation system wasn't just a logistical nightmare—it was a mental one. A claustrophobic maze of suffocating spaces and endless shadows, destined to press against the edges of Haven's mind until they splintered. Prolonging that inevitability wasn't just a choice—it was survival. And as much as the Blake boy hated it, deep down, he knew it too.

Bellamy stared at her. Desperately.

For a moment, Haven braced herself, expecting him to launch into another frantic tirade—to reject the logic she'd laid out and toss another reckless alternative on the table. But then, the fury blazing in his eyes faltered. Outrage melted into fear, fear bled into trust, and trust crumbled back into fear, swirling endlessly, violently—until, at last, it finally surrendered.

His lips quirked, the barest tremor, and the frown he wore so earnestly fractured. A fleeting, lopsided grin emerged—so quick, so faint—it might've been nothing more than a phantom trick of the light.

"...I hate how much I love you right now."

Haven's smile could have conjured starlight.

"Thirty minutes." Bellamy uttered the words as though he were reciting the most sacred commandment in existence. "I'm coming back to you in thirty minutes—you got that? And then we'll take the stairwells. No more vents. Together."

        Together.

        It wasn't just a plan; it was a vow. A declaration that no matter what lay ahead, he wouldn't let her face it alone. Because the boy she loved did not just survive for others—he survived with them.

Haven nodded in understanding.

        "Thirty minutes," she whispered back.

Three pulses warmed her right hand.

But the fragile relief of being on the same page—of trusting and being trusted in return—dissolved the moment Haven freed her hand from his. The warmth of his touch vanished, and the world began to tilt. Everything felt horrifyingly vast, unbearably heavy, and impossibly overwhelming without the gravity that was Bellamy Blake.

        But she forced herself to turn. To leave.

        Because he never would.

And somebody had to.

        Step by step, Haven willed her body to fall behind Maya's as she led her back to Level Five's stairwell. Step by step, she lugged herself forward, every muscle shrieking against the magnetism that demanded she turn back. Step by step, she carved courage out of agony, even as it felt like peeling her own skin away—exposing nothing but brittle, decaying bone.

        Level Five had undergone another startling metamorphosis.

        As Maya disappeared toward the chute, Haven dropped to her knees, crawling swiftly through the narrow hole at the base of the rebuilt barricade. On the other side, chaos greeted her—a grim, bloody mirror of yesterday's horror. Bloodstained teenagers swarmed the corridor and moved in every direction. Barricades were fortified and rebuilt from furniture and scrap. Dead bodies of Mountain Men—four of them felled by Haven's own blades—had been hauled into one of the stairwells as deterrents. Scarlet streaked the stone walls, defiling the once-pristine paintings, and pooled across the stone floors. There wasn't a single goddamn millimeter of Level Five that hadn't been baptized in carnage.

        And yet, the teenagers did not falter.

        They moved, worked, and strategized—rallying to prepare for whatever blood-soaked battle lay ahead.

(Haven could feel that their co-leaders would've been monumentally proud.)

        "Hav—?"

The familiar figure of Monty Green froze mid-word upon registering her return. He stood slack-jawed, fingers still white-knuckling the edges of the monitoring tablet . . . as if the sight of her had momentarily short-circuited his ability to think. Miller, Jasper, and Harper lingered beside him, huddled around a desk that had seemingly become their makeshift war table. A chaotic sprawl of ammunition, walkie-talkies, and riot gear lay scattered across its surface—loot stripped from the lifeless Mountain Men.

        Haven greeted them with a friendly wave.

        Monty continued to gape. "Y-You're actually back? Again?"

        "She told me she would be," Miller chimed in, proudly swinging his arm across Haven's shoulders and sighing in relief. "I knew you'd be back! But you definitely took your sweet ass time."

        Monty blinked at them. "How the hell—?"

        "Bellamy."

        The familiar name rolled off Haven's tongue in perfect synchronization with Miller's, prompting the duo to exchange shared glances. Haven arched her right brow; Miller mirrored it by pointedly arching his left. She screwed her lips into a scowl, poised to tell him to stop copying her—but Miller was faster, his mouth already curling into a slow-motion smirk.

The flicker of humor sputtered out and died at the sharp, unmistakable click of Jasper loading ammo into another clip.

He still could not look at her.

Silently, Jasper continued to sift through the sparse weaponry and scattered ammo spread across the desktop. He hadn't glanced up to acknowledge Haven's arrival—not even once—but the faint, trembling sniffle and the tight set of his jaw betrayed him. He was aware of her, painfully so. Hands moved with mechanical precision, yet his body quaked with the effort of keeping fresh tears at bay.

        . . . Tick. Tick. Tick. . .

Haven stood cemented to the floor.

        She did not know what would be worse—attempting to comfort him, or leaving him to his anticipatory grief. Both options felt impossibly cruel.

        Both felt like mistakes.

        Miller pointedly cleared his throat to alleviate the tension. "They're gonna come in a lot harder next time," he began warily. "You know that, right?"

        Jasper did not glance up from his robotic tasks. "All we gotta do is hold the floor until Bellamy finds a way out."

        "Yeah..." Miller trailed off, struggling to restrain his grimace as he wiped at the scarlet gash on his temple. "...We're gonna need more than a bucket of water and four guns to do that."

        Haven knew he had a point.

        Everybody knew he had a point.

Despite their victory in claiming the Level and asserting their dominance . . . the reality of their situation loomed heavily. The weapons they'd scavenged from the fallen soldiers—barely enough to arm a fraction of their numbers—were woefully inadequate. Four guns, a smattering of ammunition, and the vicious determination of forty-five teenagers stood as their only defense against the next raid.

        "Bellamy's bringing more guns." Haven chimed in, swallowing the sting of Jasper's avoidance as he continued to avert his gaze. "He's got access to the armory... thanks to his keycard. Maya's helping him sneak them through the trash chute in the Mess Hall."

        Monty's eyes widened in alarm. "I disabled it."

        "So un-disable it," Haven deadpanned.

        "I can't just..." Monty drew in a shuddering gulp of oxygen. "Haven, you do realize—"

        ". . . This is President Wallace talking to the kids who just killed ten of my men. . . ."

        An oppressive silence smothered Level Five.

        Every whisper evaporated, snuffed out by the sinister clarity of Cage Wallace's voice infiltrating the airwaves—not his father's, President Dante. His words emerged from an abandoned walkie-talkie on the desk, prompting Jasper to snatch it and aggressively dial up the volume.

        " . . . I thought we'd try something a little different this time. . ."

        "Guys!"

Before Haven could fully register the unsettling shift in power between father and son—Monty was already in motion, thrusting the tablet into view.

The screen flickered to life, casting an eerie glow over the group as their eyes locked on the grainy, black-and-white security feed. Two figures were visible amidst Corridor 9. The first was smaller, clad head to toe in one of Mount Weather's signature hazmat suits—the kind worn by Tsing and her medical staff. Arms raised, they stood frozen in what could only be described as surrender. The second figure was unmistakably one of the Mountain Men, dressed in riot gear and a gas mask, his rifle pointed directly at the first.

Beneath the first figure's visor, Haven caught a glimpse—a faint, distorted silhouette of mousy hair and wide, anxious eyes.

        Recognition could have struck her dead.

". . .There's only twenty minutes of oxygen in Maya's suit. . ."

No.

        No. No. No.

". . . I know she's a friend of yours. In twenty minutes, your friend will either suffocate or burn. But you can save her. All you have to do is surrender. . ."

And then . . .

The radio cut out.

Cage's voice vanished into nothingness, its sudden absence somehow more menacing than its presence ever could be. Yet, his ultimatum lingered, forcing every teenager in Level Five to freeze in terror.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

Haven's thoughts roared in her mind—a litany of self-recrimination that choked out all else. How could she have been so careless—so thoughtless—so utterly fucking stupid to let Maya walk her back to Level Five? How could she have brought the Vie girl so close to the edge of radiation, so close to the line that now marked her imminent demise? If Maya had gone straight to the trash chute—if Haven hadn't selfishly let her hover and escort her like some guardian angel—she might've slipped through unnoticed. She might've avoided the Mountain Men's intervention altogether.

        She might've had a chance to live.

        But instead, Maya was there, the seconds of oxygen in her suit ticking away as steadily as the guilt eroding Haven's veins.

What have you done?

"Fuck," Haven panted, breath ragged and uneven, each word a searing exhalation of hellfire. She funneled every ounce of her rage into cracking her right knuckles. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—!"

Miller knew better than to reach for her. "What are we supposed to do?" he pressed, his lips thin and pale as he scanned the group for some semblance of a solution. "We can't surrender."

"We can't let her die," Jasper shot back.

        "No shit, man!" Miller countered, nostrils flaring and hands slashing wildly in exasperation. "But how the hell are we supposed to save her? It's not like we can just waltz her to another level! Those fuckers gotta be watching every goddamn door!"

        Haven could barely hear them. Her thoughts seethed, boiling over, spinning faster and faster—until the chaos crystallized into clarity.

        "...That's exactly what we're gonna do," she breathed out.

        Miller froze mid-flail. Dumbfounded.

        "Huh—?"

        But Haven was already in motion. "Monty, we're rigging the trash chute," she declared, snatching Monty by the collar of his button-up and yanking him towards the main barricade. "Jasper, find Maya and get her moving. I—I don't care what you have to do. Get her to the chute. We need to act—now."

        Everybody moved at once.

        Nobody asked questions.

        Nobody dared to doubt her logic.

        And even if they did harbor doubts—if her vague, hastily-formed plan sparked some shadow of hesitation—there was no time to voice it. Any delay, even the faintest, infinitesimal millisecond, would seal the fate of the girl who had already risked everything for their cause. The Vie girl would not meet the same fate as her late, revolutionary mother. Another life lost for the sake of an uprising? Another innocent consumed by their impossible war?

        No. Fucking. Way.

        Maya was not going to become a martyr.

        Not if Haven had anything to say about it.

       "Hav! Hold on! Where do you need me?"

        Haven snapped a glance over her shoulder, only for her gaze to collide with Miller's. His jaw was tight. Shoulders squared with the kind of resilience that felt too solid for someone so young. The eighteen-year-old—still just a boy in so many ways—stood before her like a soldier awaiting orders. But it wasn't just obedience in his stare. It was something deeper, something more enduring. The kind of loyalty that wasn't born from duty . . . but from something infinitely more sacred.

Family.

        "You're with me."

        Haven knowingly gestured to the rifle Miller had abandoned near the desktop.

        "Bring your gun."

NINETEEN AGONIZING MINUTES HAD PASSED SINCE MAYA WAS RUSHED TO THE TRASH CHUTE. Nineteen minutes of frantic hands and breathless orders. Nineteen minutes since Haven had joined Monty at the control panel, fingers flying over wires in an attempt to breathe life back into the chute's sealed entrance. Nineteen minutes since the plan had been set into motion—an impossible gamble to launch Maya down to Level Six, far away from the irradiated death trap of Level Five. Nineteen minutes of pounding hearts and mounting dread as every second dragged them closer to failure. Nineteen minutes since the door had refused to open.

        And now, only sixty seconds remained.

        One solitary minute to save Maya's life.

"She's almost out of oxygen," Harper muttered gravely, glancing to the timer on her watch and choking back her terror. "It's been nineteen minutes."

"You're not helping, Harper."

At the sound of Maya's strained, wheezing breaths, Haven forced her focus away from the snarl of wires and turned toward her instead. The Vie girl was slumped against the wall, limply clinging to Jasper, the pale blue hazmat suit molded to her body like a second membrane. Her visor had fogged over with the telltale haze of carbon monoxide. And beneath the veil, Haven could see it—the alarmingly pale sheen of her sweat-soaked face, the flutter of her eyelids as she waged a losing battle against unconsciousness.

She looked like she was dying.

She was dying.

Right there. Right in front of them.

And no matter how fast they moved, no matter how desperately they clawed for a solution . . . it wasn't fucking fast enough.

"Don't worry—we'll get it open," Jasper urged, reaching out to steady Maya's sagging frame. His glare scorched into the duo hunched over the wiring. "Won't we, guys?"

"Almost there," Monty exhaled shakily.

Miller tightened his jaw, eyes flicking between Maya's waning vitality and the life-saving, obstinate chute that refused to open. "Almost isn't good enough."

"I just need to bypass the—"

"FUCK THIS!"

Haven did not wait for logic to align with her intrusive thoughts. In one reckless motion, she snatched the switchblade from her sweatpants, and drove it straight into the circuitry's heart.

The response was instantaneous.

        A sharp, blistering hiss snarled through the air as sparks exploded from the panel. Lightning-bright flashes illuminated the dim corridor, blinding Monty and forcing the others to stagger backward.

"There," Haven panted, releasing an agitated huff of air and irritably pocketing her switchblade. "Problem solved."

Miller openly gaped. "What the hell did you just do?"

"What's it look like—?" Haven shot back, already grasping the lever of the chute and motioning for the others to assist. "I cut power to the modem! Stop fucking staring and use those arms to open the damn thing!"

        All at once, Miller and Monty threw themselves at the chute, hands gripping the lever as they yanked with every ounce of strength they could muster.

        Haven joined them, or at least, she tried.

But she was no better than a shadow—a useless fragment caught in the motion. Her right hand curled effortlessly around the lever, pulling and prying with the sheer force of her will. But her left—her left betrayed her. A hollow, traitorous appendage that hung at her side, as though it belonged to someone else entirely. She tried to command it, to force it into action, but the connection was stuttering. It wrapped weakly around the lever, trembling, but there was no power. No resistance. Ashen fingertips grazed the metal, but it did not feel real.

        It did not feel like anything at all.

        Again and again, Haven pushed, begged, and screamed silently at her body to move, to listen, to rise to the simple command. She yanked with everything she had in her right hand, breath heaving in clipped, broken gasps . . . but it wasn't enough.

        She couldn't.

       "We can't get leverage!" Monty panted, his voice cracking as he hurled his entire body weight into the effort. His face had flushed an alarming shade of scarlet. "TRY HARDER, MILLER!"

        "I... AM... trying!" Miller snarled.

"NOT... HARD... ENOUGH!"

        At that, Miller froze mid-yank, pivoting to pin Monty beneath an incredulous glare.

"...I ONLY HAVE NINE FINGERS, YOU DICK!"

"Guys! There's someone in there!"

At the sudden shriek from Harper—closely followed by a loud, deafening clamor from within the chute itself—all six members of the group recoiled in terror. Jasper and Miller swiftly raised their rifles, prepared for the threat, while Harper shielded a barely-conscious Maya with her own body. Amidst the chaos, Haven deftly retrieved her switchblade, yanking the weapon free and shoving Monty behind her.

"WEAPONS HOT!" Jasper barked. "They're coming in!"

        Haven could feel her pulse metastasizing, igniting, and liquefying every atom within her cells to molten starfire. Killing another Mountain Man hadn't been on her immediate agenda, but plans were for people who had time. If this soldier dared stand between Maya and her only chance at salvation . . . Haven would slit his fucking throat.

Movement slammed into the chute with the force of imminent thunder.

And then . . .

The hatch hissed open, revealing a face Haven could recognize even amidst a thousand shades of chaos: freckled, sweat-soaked, and gesturing wildly for the Vie girl to follow him.

She exhaled a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

Beside her, Miller's face split into an outrageously wide grin. A laugh escaped him as he uttered the name of the friend he'd follow into the fire, into the unknown . . . into hell itself.

        "Bellamy—?"

Bellamy Blake emerged from the gloom as the lighthouse he'd always been for the people he loved. Wide, unblinking eyes swept over Haven, over the others, cataloging their injuries—or lack thereof—before locking onto Maya. Without hesitation, he leaned half his body out of the chute, a hand snapping forward like an anchor thrown to salvation.

"Get in here! C'mon! C'mon!"

"GO!" Jasper bellowed, shoving Maya into the chute with a force that carried no tenderness—only the brutal urgency of survival. "GO! GO! GO!"

As soon as Jasper and Maya disappeared into the mouth of the chute, devoured by the shadowed unknown, Bellamy's head snapped toward Haven.

Their eyes locked—half a breath, half a heartbeat, half a second stretched into eternity.

Wordlessly, Bellamy flung himself into the abyss, bracing himself to break her fall before she had even decided to jump.

        And then Haven was moving.

        No . . . flying.

        She unhesitatingly launched herself into the chute after him.

        It was the kind of flying that felt more like surrendering to death than ascending toward freedom—but flying nonetheless. Down and down they spiraled, four bodies entwined in chaos—screams ricocheting through the metallic confines as the Mountain's veins ingested them whole. Darkness pressed against Haven's chest like a living thing. It was too hot, too tight, too fast for thought—but the sheer velocity stole any chance for fear to fester. They were weightless and heavy all at once. Plummeting so goddamn quickly that all panic dissolved into pure, reckless motion. Screams gave way to muffled groans and gasps as they explosively shot out of the chute, their bodies careening into what Haven could only assume was a dumpster. Maya struck first, with Jasper flailing just behind her. Bellamy came next, the force of his landing sharp enough to draw an agonized grunt from his chest, and then . . .

Haven.

Her momentum drove the air from both of their lungs as she landed atop the Blake boy's chest.

The world finally stilled.

"Hav? Hav! Haven—?"

Before Haven could even tilt her head toward Bellamy's voice—before she could blink through the dizzy haze of stars bursting across her vision—a blistering, frigid hiss sliced through the air. Milk-white chemicals enveloped the tangled bodies, invading their lungs with a chill sharp enough to frost their very marrow. They coughed violently, lungs wracking against the acrid fog that seemed to claw at the air itself.

". . . DECOMINATION COMPLETE. . ."

        With a sharp inhale, Haven coaxed her limbs into compliance, slowly peeling herself away from Bellamy's chest. She crawled forward a few paces before seating herself upright, gasping for oxygen. Luckily, the decontamination fog had dissipated as swiftly as it had descended. The icy bite of chemicals faded into the stale, recycled air of the Mountain, allowing Haven to assess their surroundings.

They'd been launched an entire level deeper into the subterranean hell of Mount Weather.

        And for a moment, she couldn't tell if they'd inched closer to salvation—or simply descended further into their own burial ground.

". . . ALL CLEAR. . ."

      
"Hav."

        Bellamy's voice cut through the haze just as he materialized in front of her—faster than Haven could gulp down her next breath. Wild, frantic eyes raked over her, searching for the hurt he could not see. Impossibly warm hands gripped her biceps before sliding to her shoulder brace. He inspected the contraception compulsively, ensuring no fresh blood had seeped into the bandage beneath. Only once he was satisfied—only once the tension in his jaw eased ever so slightly—did his touch soften. His fingers smoothed over the crown of her hair, taming the haphazard sprawl of her locs before guiding her to stand.

        His eyes begged the question his breathless lungs could not.
       
        "I'm good," Haven managed between gasps, clutching the metallic edge of the dumpster for support. "I...I still can't feel anything. Not with the pain meds. You broke my fall like a champ."

        Bellamy looked far from convinced. "You sure?" he pressed, dark eyes inevitably gravitating towards her brace again. "I couldn't tell if you landed on your back or your shoulder. Can you move it for me? Does it—"

        "I'm good." Haven interrupted, cutting him off before his floundering could gain momentum. She pointedly reached for him with her left hand, even if she couldn't register the contact beneath her fingertips. "You, on the other hand, were really pushing it with that thirty-minute time crunch." A wry smile illuminated her face. "You only gave me, like... ten seconds to spare."

        At that . . . Bellamy softened.

        The worry scarred into his features did not vanish—it never truly did—but it eased, tempered now by the familiar glow of his smile. A warmth that was uniquely his. Without warning, he tugged Haven into his arms, selfish in his need to feel her against him. He tenderly pressed his lips to the top of her head, releasing a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the Mountain itself.

        "Yeah, yeah..." he exhaled. "Told you I'd find you."

        As Haven peered beyond the iron wall of Bellamy's chest, her gaze finally began to adjust to their surroundings. A metallic, rust-streaked sign reading LEVEL SIX was bolted against mossy stone walls—eerily reminiscent of Tsing's hidden chamber on Level Three. The air was thick with damp rot, lit by the sporadic flickers of overhead lamplights. At one end of the corridor stood a massive radiation scrubber, while the other end dissolved into fathomless darkness—a black void that seemed to breathe, watching, waiting.

        Haven did not want to think about what horrors might lurk there.

        It felt far too much like the Reaper tunnels.

        After retreating from Bellamy's arms, Haven stepped backwards, only to find Maya and Jasper peeling apart from their own embrace. The Vie girl's radiation visor lay abandoned at her feet. Strands of sweat-dampened hair clung to her temples, framing eyes that shimmered with unshed tears. Her face, pale as bone, showed no signs of radiation's cruel touch—she had escaped that horror. But the terror of the last twenty minutes had left its mark.

        Maya could not stop shaking.

        She was trembling, every inch of her vibrating with the aftershock of survival. Her breaths came in shallow, uneven bursts. And though her lips quivered, no sound escaped. It was the silence that undid Haven—the way Maya swallowed her sobs, forcing composure onto a frame that was far too young to bear it.

        Seventeen.

        Seventeen years old and shuddering beneath the weight of unimaginable fear.

        "...Eughhhhhh..."

Another groan pierced the silence, freezing the group mid-motion as they scrambled to hoist themselves out of the dumpster. Apparently, there was a fifth presence amidst the pile of trash and twisted limbs—one that had slipped beneath their notice until now.

No one dared glance downward to confirm.

        They didn't have to.

Not when the answer revealed herself with a sharp, deliberate flip of her middle finger.

        "Blake... what the fuck, dude?"

        Bellamy almost launched three full feet into the air.

        Beside him, Haven froze, her entire frame locking as if her soul had momentarily vacated her body.

        "ORION—?!"

        Slumped against the bottom of the dumpster, half-hidden among the filth, was none other than Orion Vincetta. The seventeen-year-old unfolded herself from her crumpled posture, straightening each limb as though her joints were made of rusted iron. With a huff of irritation, she swatted at the jet-black curls plastered to her face, dragging her fingers through the mess of blood and sweat that maimed her features. Scarlet was splattered across her clothes, her hands, her face. Not a single goddamn inch of the Vincetta girl had been spared from carnage.

And as Haven glimpsed the bloodied hilt of the sword strapped across Orion's spine . . . she realized that the blood was not her own.

"In the flesh," Orion wheezed, somehow managing to stand at her full height within the confines of the dumpster. She peeled another sticky, blood-drenched curl from her eyes and glared at Bellamy. "Or... what's left of my flesh. Thanks for the landing, dick. Pretty sure your ass just rearranged my spine." A guttural groan escaped her lips as she arched her back. "At this point, I think I'd rather be dead."

One heartbeat passed. Another.

And then . . .

Haven erupted at once.

"What the HELL are you doing here?!" she demanded, storming towards the opposite edge of the dumpster and furiously seizing Orion by her shoulders. "Orion! You... you can't... you shouldn't be here! You can't be here! How did you—"

"ME—?!" Orion echoed incredulously.

"Yeah!" Haven thundered back. "YOU!"

        Orion's glare could have cleaved through steel. "You... you're seriously asking me what I'm doing here?!" she snapped, indignantly swatting Haven's hands away and seizing her by the shoulders instead. "Hav... what about you?! You're the one who decided to waltz in here and get yourself killed! You're the one who snuck out of camp without telling anyone! No warning! No plan! No nothing! N-Not even..."

        Delicate glass stretched over her amber eyes.

        "Not even ME!"

        Haven went disturbingly still.

        Guilt was no stranger to her. It had long since become an inextricable part of her anatomy, fused to her spine like carrion clinging to bone. She had carried the stench of it for so long, worn its phantom weight so intimately, that she'd nearly forgotten what it felt like to stand upright. But now, face-to-face with yet another soul wounded by her attempts to be something—to be useful—Haven felt the scaffolding of her justifications collapse. She could not help but wonder if any of it—the blood, the loss, the irreversible trauma she'd inflicted—had ever been worth it.

        Orion stood bravely before her—jaw locked tight, eyes sharp—shaking with thermonuclear outrage.

        And yet . . .

        Haven had never seen her look so hurt.

        But that wasn't even the worst of it. The most devastating, soul-crushing part of the agony carved into Orion's eyes was its familiarity. Haven had already seen it before—mirrored so brokenly, so irreparably—in the gaze of another.

        Just last night.

Bellamy stood at the edge of the firestorm, close enough to feel its fury but distant enough to let it rage without his interference. His presence was deliberate, a silent reminder that he was there—watching, waiting—but unwilling to cross the invisible line that tethered him to restraint. Muscles were intrinsically taut, as though he were bracing for the moment he might need to step in, to shield, or to steady . . . but he did not move.

        Not when his eyes conveyed his message for him.

        . . . This is yours to fix.

        Haven forced herself to slow her breathing. "I'm sorry," she whispered earnestly, allowing her hands to cover Orion's—hands that still clung desperately to her shoulders. "I should've told you. I—I should've told both of you." Sorrowful eyes gravitated to Bellamy. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry—"

        "You should be!" Orion's blood-streaked cheeks glistened with saltwater trails, though she made no attempt to wipe them away. Instead, she leaned—against her will, against her pride—into the warmth of Haven's touch. "God! For fuck's sake! The past forty-eight hours have been freakin' terrible! Tondc got nuked! Raven and Wick are too busy boning to focus on literally ANYTHING else! This dumpster reeks! And to top it all off..."

She paused to gag. Violently.

"Murphy was the one who told me you were gone! FUCKING! MURPHY! The same Murphy who struts around like the second coming of freakin' SYPHILLIS! Seriously, Haven! What the actual fuck—?!"

       "Murphy—?!"

        The name, more curse than identity, escaped Haven's lips in perfect unison with Bellamy's. Their heads snapped toward each other with an almost feral synchronization. Bellamy moodily crossed his arms over his chest . . . while Haven fought the urge to let her jaw unhinge and drop clean off her skull.

Again.

        "YES, MURPHY!" Orion shook her head before erupting into a sharp, blisteringly bitter laugh. "He's the one who ratted you out, Hav. Sauntered into Camp Jaha like the smug little shit he is and casually told us that you left."

        . . . He did what?

Haven stood cemented in place.

John fucking Murphy—the boy who had shattered her locket, cracked her skull against his rifle, and dangled her life as bait in his endless war against Bellamy Blake. John fucking Murphy—the boy whose calves she had nearly split in two as repayment in blood. John fucking Murphy—the boy who could utter apologies with a smirk but never shed his serpent's skin. The boy who had tried—in his own half-hearted way—to stop her from going to Mount Weather, but hadn't cared enough to follow her. John fucking Murphy—who cared about nothing and no one beyond his own survival, whose moral compass eternally spun in whatever direction best suited him.

He went back. To warn them.

To . . . help her.

        (What twisted, alternate universe had they crash-landed into after they'd tumbled down the trash chute?)

"I—I may or may not have jumped him for letting you run off," Orion admitted, forcing her fury to settle before it metastasized into something even more volatile. "But I should be jumping YOU next! You can't... you can't... you can't do that to me! To all of us! David! Clarke! Kane's fuck ass! Jackson practically had a goddamn aneurysm—!"

        "He did?" Haven echoed morbidly.

        "OF COURSE HE DID!" Orion's rebuttal shook the confines of the dumpster like white-hot thunder. "We all did! I left camp as soon as Murphy told me. I..." Her gaze faltered, drifting toward Bellamy with something that bordered uncomfortably close to . . . remorse. "I'm not Clarke or Raven. I wouldn't have been able to lie to him over the radio anyway."

Something undefinable flickered across the Blake boy's eyes. An emotion too fleeting—too foreign to name—yet powerful enough to erode every iron line in his shoulders.

"...Thanks," he managed lowly.

        Orion let out another long, drawn-out sigh. "Murphy trailed me until I got to the tunnels," she admitted quietly. "Once he split off to find Jaha... I—I fought my way through to come after you."

        Clarity struck like a lightning strike.

Haven wrestled with the impulse to strangle someone—likely herself—as the full gravity of Orion's confession sank its claws into her. Every splatter of blood. Every sweat-slicked curl clinging to her temples. Every ragged breath dragged through bruised ribs and aching limbs. None of it belonged to the Mountain Men.

        It couldn't have.

        Not when, in order to reach Mount Weather at all . . . Orion would've had to survive the Reaper tunnels first.

        Haven had barely made it out alive.

        Bellamy had barely made it in.

        And yet, somehow—somehow—Orion Jae Vincetta had clawed, fought, and bled her way through the pits of hell itself.

        Chasing after her best friend.

        Tears eclipsed Haven's wide, horrified eyes before she could will them away—mirroring the unshed grief swimming in Orion's. For a moment, the girls stood there, tethered by the gravity of everything left unsaid. Words swelled in their throats, frantic and unformed, but none made it past the silence pressing between them. The only sound amidst the quiet was the group's ragged breaths—and the slow, agonizing collapse of Haven's heart.

        Bellamy was the first to brave the silence.

        "...You did what?" he echoed.

        Orion let out a slow, withering groan. "Shut up, Blake."

        "You fought through those tunnels—alone? Are you... are you hurt?"

        "Shut. Up. Blake." Orion's warning was punctuated with an eye roll so violent it nearly sent her vision into the astral plane. "Like it was hard—? Please. Michonne and I are a diabolical combo. Those gut-munchers never stood a chance."

        Bellamy huffed—but the exasperation couldn't quite smother the faint, involuntary grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

        And then . . .

        Haven was yanked into Orion's arms.

The dam finally broke, its flood crashing through in waves of shuddering breaths and tangled limbs. Lean arms cinched tightly around Haven's waist, while Haven curled hers around Orion's shoulders, stretching onto her tallest tiptoes to bridge the gap between them. Blood—spilled from strangers, from ghosts—seeped into Haven's clean clothes all over again. Tears bled together. Saltwater slipped down the creases where their cheeks pressed too tightly, mingling with muffled sniffles and the echoes of all the words they could not say. Time became untraceable, stretching and folding in on itself, but Haven knew one thing with absolute certainty.

        She never wanted to let go.

        "You crazy, suicidal bitch," Orion muttered against her locs. "I... I love you."

        Haven squeezed Orion with as much tender force as her body would allow. "I love you too," she whispered back, the words barely forming before reality forced her to retract herself. "But... after you got through the tunnels... how did you..."

        Orion nodded towards the shadows—a wry smirk gracing her mouth as she extended a hand past Haven's shoulders. "Once I hit the intake door... that guy let me in." Her finger pointed at a dim figure lurking in the distance. "Said he was on our side. Told me to hide in the dumpster 'til he came back for me."

        Before Haven could fully turn, before she could glimpse whatever ghost of decency lurked among the Mountain's ranks . . . Maya's breath hitched.

        "...Dad?"

Lo and behold, from the far end of Level Six's corridor, Vincent Vie emerged.

Clad head to toe in his work uniform, he looked every bit the part of the Mountain's machine—another cog in the system, another faceless presence in the enemy's stronghold. But then Haven saw the duffle bag slung over his shoulder—bulging with supplies—and the way his blue eyes widened. Not with alarm, but recognition, softening as they landed on his daughter.

"What..." Maya choked out breathlessly. "W-What are you doing here?"

        Vincent did not answer right away. Instead, he stepped forward, eliminating the distance to wrap his arms around his daughter—his shivering, infinitely brave daughter—and refused to let go.

"What your mother would have done."

        Before Haven could peel her eyes away from the tender embrace between Maya and her father, she was suddenly wrenched into another—one far messier, far less delicate. One second, she was standing; the next, she was utterly smothered—crushed against Orion's torso, both of them shoved back against the iron fortress of Bellamy's chest.

But it wasn't Bellamy who had wrenched them together and forced them to hug.

         It was Jasper.

        "You idiots," he breathed out. "You reckless, stupid, thick-skulled, beautiful freakin' idiots."

        A breathless laugh rippled through the murky corridor—half relief, half exhaustion. Jasper unflinchingly stretched his wiry arms around the group—reaching, grasping, clinging on as if he could keep them all from slipping through his fingers. Limbs tangled in graceless angles. Haven's cheek crushed against Orion's collarbone, her arm trapped awkwardly against Bellamy's hip. Orion let out a dramatic, put-upon huff before privately nestling closer. Bellamy bore the brunt of all three of them, his knees nearly buckling under the weight, but he did not dare move.

        What had started as an unceremonious pile of bodies—too tight, too sudden, too much—softened into something sanctified and rare. Breaths slowed. Heartbeats tangled. Rhythms coalesced until they became indistinguishable from one another.

And for the first time in what felt like forever . . . peace wasn't something distant.

        It was here. It was them.

And even if this embrace was doomed to be their last—if the Mountain hungered for them, if the earth itself conspired to tear them apart—it lived beyond the reach of time. A defiant ember in the void, untouched by ruin, unclaimed by fate. No vengeful titan, no god drunk on wrath, no butcher lurking in the Mountain's blackened heart could rip this from their grasp.

It was theirs.

        Bellamy's eyes were glassy—privately so—by the time they finally untangled themselves.

"Alright," he breathed out, forcing his lungs to deflate and his resolve to solidify. "Listen to me, Jasper. Clarke is coming with an army of Grounders."

        Jasper nodded. "So I've heard."

        "Haven told me that you've been running things here with Miller," Bellamy continued, the syllables edged with something that almost sounded like . . . pride. He met Jasper's gaze and nodded, adjusting the hat perched atop his unruly curls. "You did good. Better than good. I... I mean it." A beat. A breath. "But I'm here now, and that means I have to keep all of you safe until reinforcements arrive."

        "Roger that, sir." Jasper flicked a lazy, two-fingered salute—the gesture playful, but not without sincerity. His lips curled into a boyish grin. "But Hav didn't exactly give us the full rundown on this kickass Grounder army. Don't tell me Finn finally got his peace talks."

        Silence roared.

        Haven felt it first in her ribs—a fracture, a splintering, a quiet prelude before the collapse.

Then it surged.

A grief so vast it eclipsed breath—a black tide swelling through marrow and muscle, drowning her from the inside out. It did not weep; it howled. It gnashed and it clawed, splitting her open with the precision of a knife slipped between the ribs.

        Everything had changed beyond the stone crypt of Mount Weather.

        Irrevocably. Permanently.

        The Ark had been torn from the cosmos, its wreckage scattered across a planet that had never been meant to house them. Factory Station was nothing but dust and memory. The remaining stations—radio silent. Out of reach. Or worse, gone. Jaha had fallen from grace, Kane had risen, and Abigail Griffin had eclipsed them both. Finn had massacred eighteen innocents. An alliance had been forged in the wake of slaughter, sealed with his blood, his body the penance demanded.

        Inside the Mountain . . . the world remained frozen in its illusion of order.

Nobody knew that Finn Collins was dead.

Nobody except for Haven and Bellamy.

"...Something like that," Bellamy
answered at last.

As Haven flexed her fingers, preparing to crack her knuckles, Bellamy's hand was already there—waiting, knowing, intercepting her before she could even begin. His fingers laced through hers with quiet certainty, offering no words, only warmth. Only presence. She squeezed—once, twice, again and again—funneling the solarstorm from her bones into the space between their palms.

        And he took it. Absorbed it.

        As if he could siphon the grief from her onyx veins, draw it into himself, and let it carve its ruin into his marrow instead. As if he could trap the sorrow within his own bloodstream, cage it there, tame it—so that, at last, she could finally breathe again.

"So..." Orion slotted herself between the star-born couple with the ease of someone who belonged nowhere and everywhere all at once. Her arms draped lazily over their shoulders. "What's the plan now, Blakey boy?"

Bellamy did not shrug off her presence as he dipped his head toward the exit.

"C'mon. We've got a lot of work to do."

• •

YALL THOUGHT I WOULD KEEP ORION SEPERATED FROM THE MAIN GROUP UNTIL THE FINALE.....?? AINT NO WAYYYYYY!!!!
i think she would actually rather die than stay back at camp without haven or octavia. pining for raven from afar is on hold for her. not until the 'aven girls (ty venus 😏) mend things. she stands on business

also... murphy???

this chapter took me 4737492 years to edit. the slump that comes from transitioning into chapters full of original content, and then back into the show's plot is insane. bc why am i more excited to write my own work than the show's!!! it used to be the exact opposite. i deadass used to dread original content and now i kinda thrive in it

that being said... next week we will finally be completing episode 13!!
dahlia x haven
MOMMY ISSUES EXTRAVAGANZA 😍
the week after that!
BELL x HAVEN
🔥 MONUMENTALLY FUCKING SHIT UP TOGETHER 🔥
RAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

ALSO!!! ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL MANIP HAS ENTERED THE CHAT CREATED BY MY GIRL LIZZIE @thedrama_llama
this time with our golden trio :)))

HOW FREAKIN CUTE AND AMAAZING!!! she surprised me with the most divine timing imaginable, RIGHT as i was initially writing this author's note. AND NOW I GET TO ADD IT TO THE TRIO REUNION CHAPTER!!! RAAAAAHHH!!
LIZZIE !!! I LOVE YOU !!! THANK YOU FOR ALWAYS BEING SO THOUGHTFUL  :,)))

as always, my discord is in my bio!! i love talking to yall and seeing art yall have created :,))

I LOVE YALL SO MUCH!!!!

THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING ❤️‍🩹