THE FREE FALL ⇘ Bellamy Blake. [1]

| xxix. WHAT HE'S DONE

        Bellamy frowned.

        The Smith girl shuddered beneath the weight of his stare. "Tough crowd?"

        Perhaps it was too soon to crack an inappropriate amount of jokes about her seventh dance with death. However, Haven found herself simply unable to resist, the gallows humor serving as a feeble shield against the gaping hole in her memory. Confusion weighed on her mercilessly. And as Bellamy was looking at her like that–she knew things must've gotten ugly.

        "After you guys set the bomb off...Jasper said you got into a fight with Finn." Bellamy's jaw tightened at the mere mention of the Collins boy, expelling the name like venomous bile. "Apparently, Finn said something dumb. You shoved him, he shoved you back–then your heart stopped. Sound familiar?"

        Haven drew her bottom lip between her teeth as she scavenged through the murky recesses of her mind. Everything felt so...fuzzy. She could recall the chaotic rush of chasing Raven on the bridge, the deafening explosion of the bomb, and surge of raw fury that had driven her to annihilate Finn's face. But when it came to the specifics, the details slipped through her fingers like sand.

        She only remembered that it hurt.

        Everywhere.

        "Unfortunately," Haven groaned, her hand withdrawing from Bellamy's to rub at her temples in weary frustration. "So Finn killed me? Finn fucking Collins?"

Bellamy heaved an elongated sigh. "If you ask me–yes. If you ask Clarke–no," he grunted, a shadow darkening his features as he recounted the horrors of the past two days. "She said that you dealt with something called commottio cordis. The trauma of Finn shoving you aligned with your heartbeat at the wrong time, so your heart just..." He sucked in a shaky breath. "...stopped."

        "Great," Haven huffed. "But...how'd I get..."

        "Monty saved your life the first time," Bellamy finished, intuitively catching onto her unspoken question as her eyes scanned their surroundings. It must've felt wildly disorienting to wake up in a place different from where she last remembered. "After he finished CPR, the group brought you back on a stretcher." His eyes darkened. "You were unconscious for two days."

Haven went rigid.

Fourty-eight hours of time slipped by in what felt like nothing more than a blink. Life had carried on its relentless march while she lay trapped in the grip of a numbing slumber, a prisoner to unconsciousness. Perhaps it would have been bearable if she had drifted through dreams, if she could have sought solace in the mirrored reflections of her subconscious and willed herself to awaken sooner. But alas, she didn't.

All she was left with was darkness.

"Two days." Haven's words echoed with a mechanical cadence, struggling to comprehend the temporal void that had enveloped her. Then, she remembered the earlier part of Bellamy's explanation. "Wait–what do you mean, the first time?"

Bracing himself for the admission that lay ahead, Bellamy squared his shoulders. "Your heart stopped again earlier today. I–we don't know why," he explained lowly, a fragile part of himself splintering into a thousand tiny pieces all over again. "Monty and Raven both saved you this time around. Built a defibrillator out of two scraps of metal and the radio."