DISCORDIA

[ 30 ] leap faith

       "Anyway, I'll meet you back in the dropship." He patted her arm before darting off towards his tent on the other side of camp. Jinny sniffed as she watched him leave before looking around to the rest of the delinquents as they bustled about hastily around camp. She scanned each familiar face that she had gotten to know within the month that they had been sentenced to the ground together. They had been her brothers-in-arms, her comrades, her people. All of them had come so far from being the hopeless and desperate souls trapped on the Ark, waiting for their day of deliverance. She'd never admit it, but she had actually came to care for all their well-beings. The only thing that Jinny hoped for was that they would live to see another day.

       Her tent had barely anything inside, as she mostly lived on a day-by-day basis. She grabbed her bag pack and threw her water flask, rope, blanket and jacket inside. Her trusty knife was in the back pocket of her pants and she took one cursory glance around before quickly making her way to the dropship. Bellamy was already inside, standing to the side with his arms crossed as Clarke probed Raven's wound.

       "She needs an operation," she said.

       "We don't have the time," Finn told her.

       "I know that..." Clarke looked up at Jinny. "We'll cauterise the wound, give me your knife."

       The woman pulled it out and handed it to her before moving around the table where Raven laid to help start a fire. "What about the bullet inside her? Is she gonna be okay?" Jinny asked.

       "It's difficult to say, I can't tell where it's perforated without an x-ray," the trainee doctor replied as she soaked the blade with some moonshine.

       "Right." Jinny frowned, watching Clarke stick the knife into the hot coal. "But she's gonna be okay, right?"

       "As long as she doesn't move."

       "I'll find a stretcher," Finn said.

       "Like hell you are!" Raven protested loudly and attempted to sit up. Jinny and Bellamy pushed her back down immediately, while Clarke drew the knife out of the firepit. Its silver blade was already alight with a red incandescence and the mechanic instantly paused tentatively with her eyes set on it.

       "You ready?" Clarke asked and Raven nodded bravely. "Alright." She leaned over and pressed the side of the gleaming knife onto the girl's bloodied wound. Raven let out an agonised scream from the pain, the smell of burnt flesh wafting through the air as it sizzled momentarily. Jinny bit her lip, thinking of how much she hated the idea that they couldn't get the bullet out. She was so going to murder Murphy the next time she laid eyes on him.

       "That should stop the external bleeding," Clarke said with a sigh.

       "I don't understand," Finn said. "How did Murphy get a gun?"

       "Jasper came in and put his gun down on the table before heading upstairs for some gun powder," Jinny explained while shaking her head. "He saw Murphy killing Myles and it's a really long story."

       "We got lucky," Raven told them. "If Murphy hit the fuel tank instead of me, we'd all be dead."

       "Wait, there's rocket fuel down there?" Clarke asked. "Enough to build a bomb?"

       "Enough to build a hundred bombs... if we had any gun powder left."

       "What about the reapers?" Bellamy asked, flicking his finger against the page of Lincoln's journal. "Maybe they'll help us. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?"

       Clarke shook her head and her voice was tight when she said, "Not this enemy. We saw them. Trust me, it's not an option."

       Jinny sighed in frustration. "This is hopeless."