FIRE AND GOLD ▸ JOHN MURPHY (editing)

fifty-two; it should have been me

"You're Inanna." The kid says not very happy about it.

"You're Jordan." I state and he gives me a small smile. "What did they tell you about me?"

He doesn't reply and I smirk, finishing my food.

"I'm told it doesn't taste very good, but since it's all I've ever eaten-" He tells me.

"We've eaten worst." I interrupt him and he nods to himself as Abby looks back at me.

"What the hell are you even doing here?" She snaps at me, getting up from her seat and I do the same. "You're a monster."

"First we survive, then we get our humanity back. Wasn't that what the other traitor used to say?" I tease and she slaps me as hard as she can.

I move my face and then look back at her, smiling.

"Traitors," I tell her again.

"You gave us no choice." She argues and Clarke and John get closer to us, trying to stop it.

"It was your idea, Abby. We hold the gun but you were the one pulling the trigger." I tell her. "It broke us all, the only difference is that you just pretended it didn't happen and let us carry the burden for four more years."

"I had to live with it too!"

"Not as much as we did." I reply and get closer to her. "Kane killed Wonkru. We should have killed him when we had the chance-"

"Stop it." John tells me interrupting me and pushing me out of the hall. "What the hell was that?! I woke you up and the first thing you do, is that?! Monty said we needed to do better-"

"I don't care about Monty. The last thing I remember him doing was putting most of our people against us." I snap at him. "I didn't ask you to wake me up and I'm not gonna stay quiet as a traitor judges me for doing what she told me to."

"You're not in the bunker anymore." He argues with me and I clench my jaw. "You can't just go around threatening everyone!"

"Have you seen how they look at me?!" I shout. "They don't want me here!"

"They have a very good reason not to!" John spits not thinking about his words.

"They do." I say in a calmer tone but still wanting to kill someone. "But I'm awake now."

* * *

We were back in the dining hall. John wouldn't look at me, on the other side, Raven kept death glaring at me.

"OK, everyone. Listen up. Here's what we know." Bellamy gets up. "Eligius III was a colonizing mission. According to the file, the mothership went to five planets that met necessary conditions for life, dropping mission teams on each one. Monty picked planet Alpha for us because it's the closest and probably the most like Earth."

"Was there a "probably"?" John asks.

"We have to assume they couldn't know for sure until they got here. We can scan the atmosphere from the bridge." Shaw suggests.

"Actually, we can't. None of the equipment we used to monitor Earth is working. I'm guessing it's interference from the ionosphere." Jordan corrects Diyoza's man.

"Bottom line is, we won't know if it's survivable until we get down there." Bellamy tells us and I swallow hard, feeling this get too familiar.

"Sounds familiar." Clarke thinks the same but instead of keeping quiet, speaks up.

"What about radio signals? Anything from the ground that says the mission team survived?" Raven asks.

"No radio signals."