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HOLDING ON TO ANGER was like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. In Jinny's current predicament, that was accurately true. She glared down at Bellamy as he stood up from the river bed, throwing water out of his hair with a vigorous shake of his head. Pushing the sodden locks from his face, he looked up at her with pleading eyes. Her wilting stare could curdle any known substance or composition in the entire universe.
"Jin," he started when she suddenly hurled herself forwards, dropping forcefully into the stream along with him. A wave splashed up into his face from her fall and he wiped the droplets away once more. His composure faltered, eyes widening in horror when he saw her taking a step towards him. He quickly moved away instinctively.
"Get back here!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, her voice holding a feral growl. "Bellamy Blake, I am going to drown you right here in this fucking river!"
The taller, larger man in front of her shook his head before turning around to flee. He retreated towards the opposite bank, his longer strides easily putting a safe distance between them. Despite the fact that she was small and probably only weighed about a hundred pounds, she was capable of beating down an opponent three times her size. He had witnessed it first hand before, and he obviously had no intention of experiencing it personally.
"You know I had to do it! I told you, they'll kill me!" he shouted.
"Now I'm going to kill you!" she screamed back.
He turned back around to trudge through the reeds and silted sediment, tripping over a rock in his haste. His shirt clung tightly around his defined torso as his pants dripped heavily onto the ground. Jinny picked up her pace, crossing towards the other side just in time to see the man take off into the underbrush on her right.
"Yeah, you better run!" she yelled. "The next time I see you, you're gonna be dead! You hear me?!"
Jinny scoffed angrily as the only reply to her warning was the shudder of leaves and twigs breaking under heavy foot falls in the direction of Bellamy's escape. She continued to glare at the sounds, hands on her hips, when she suddenly heard something resembling laughter followed by a crash in the trees. It came from somewhere nearby, above a bend in the river upstream. She strained her eyes to find its source, swearing she heard the voice crying out in pain. Maybe Bellamy had ran in that direction and slipped while he was running. Good.
With another indignant huff, she whirled around and marched back to the crash site while grumbling underneath her breath. She pushed through overhanging branches with unnecessary strength, creating an obvious trail behind her. When she grew closer to the pod, she could hear voices calling out. Her heart skipped a beat, hoping that it was someone from their group.
Jinny hurried forwards, emerging from the thicket at a casual jog. She stopped next to Clarke's slack figure staring blankly at the couple in front of them. The boy was Finn, and the girl was—
"What the hell?" she exclaimed loudly. "Raven?!"
The slim brunette in the red jacket broke away from her ardent kiss to look around. Her face broke out into a wide grin when her gaze fell on the soaking wet girl.
"It's Jinny, the Sneak!" she cried out happily.
"You were the one inside that thing?"Jinny pointed at the pod with disgust.
"How did you get here?" Finn asked.
"You know that big scrap hold, the one on K deck?" Raven continued to grin.
"You built that from scrap?" he questioned in awe.
"I kind of rebuilt it." Raven shrugged with one shoulder as Finn laughed. "Please. Like that's hard. It just needed a couple of parts and some love."
"You're insane," he told her.
"I'd do more for you and worse. Just like you would for me." She suddenly stumbled sideways, taking in a gasping breath as Finn steadied her.
Jinny walked over to them. "The both of you are insane," she said, raising an eyebrow at Finn with an exasperated expression on her face. "She probably has a concussion from the landing. Didn't look pretty smooth to me."
"Come on, sit down here," Finn said coaxingly, guiding Raven backwards to a nearby rock. He took his jacket off and wrapped it around her shoulders. "Let me get something for that," he told her, caressing the wound on her forehead before heading over to Clarke.
Jinny dropped onto the ground next to Raven, who blinked at her as if truly seeing her for the first time. "Why are you all wet?" she asked curiously, wrinkling her nose.
"I was trying to bring back a large fish to roast for dinner tonight," Jinny replied, venom dripping all over her words.
"It must have been one huge ass fish," the girl laughed.
"You have no idea."
Finn came back with Clarke, handing Raven a piece of cloth from their pack. He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "This is Clarke," he introduced. "She was on the dropship too."
"Clarke?" Raven repeated before standing up with a frown. She looked at the blonde with some relief. "This is all because of your mom."
"My mom?" Clarke questioned.
Jinny got up from the ground as well and Raven looked between the three of them. "This was all her plan. We were trying to come down here together. We waited—oh, my god—" She paused, her gaze dropping momentarily with apprehension. "We couldn't wait because the council was voting whether to kill three hundred people to save air."
"What?" Jinny blanched at the outrageous news.
Clarke sputtered from her own shock. "W-When?"
"Today!" Raven started back towards the pod anxiously. "We have to tell them you're alive!"
Jinny followed after her as the girl ducked underneath the hatch to search the pod. She felt her stomach drop when the full gravity of their situation hit her. "The radio's gone!" Raven cried, backing out and looking around on the ground. "It must have gotten loose through re-entry. I should've strapped it to the A-strut. Stupid!"
"No, no, this is my fault," Clarke said, her face ashen with panic. "Someone got here before us. We have to—" She froze, eyes lighting up with realisation before turning to stare at Jinny. Finn and Raven followed her gaze, and there was an inaudible click as their brains finally processed the significance of her presence.
"Jinny..." Clarke started slowly. "Was Bellamy with you?"
"Why do you think I'm all wet?" she retorted, throwing her hands up at the sides. "The stupid idiot threw the freaking radio into the river!"
Raven blinked at her again. "You mean Bellamy Blake was the fish?"
They had decided to return to camp and round up a few volunteers to help them search the river for the radio. It would have been an utter miracle if the four of them were able to find it before the end of the day. Jinny was listening to Raven recount exactly how she managed to fix the pod from useless junk when she started. From the corner of her eye, she managed to spot a familiar figure in the distance. He was walking back to camp as well, and seemingly oblivious to their presence behind him. Raven cried out in surprise when Jinny suddenly took off in his direction at a quick sprint. Bellamy turned around too late when he heard her approach and she tackled him at full force, knocking the both of them down to the foliage strewn ground.
"I'm going to have so much fun," she grinned evilly down at him.
"Jin, no!" He tried to get her off him but she grabbed his arm and pressed into the crevice of his inner elbow, right into the joint. The man cried helplessly under her mercy as she grabbed a fistful of his dark messy hair.
"What are you doing?!" Clarke cried in outrage when their group finally caught up to them.
"Are you hungry, Clarke?" Jinny asked. "I caught a big one."
"That is called cannibalism and is in fact frowned upon in most societies," Raven commented.
Bellamy managed to find an opening, grabbing her wrist and quickly using his size to an advantage. He rolled over, pushing her to the side and towards the ground where he could pin her down. Jinny growled angrily before kneeing him in the solar plexus. Bellamy immediately went down with the wind knocked out of him.
"Is nobody going to stop this?" Finn asked.
"Why? He deserves it." Raven gestured with slight amusement in her tone. "Stole my radio. Shot the Chancellor."
"Wait, what?" Clarke looked at her sharply as Jinny grabbed Bellamy's jacket and hauled him to his feet. She patted his back none too gently in an effort to ease the wheezing fit she had induced. "So that's why he took the wristbands! Needed everyone to think we're dead!"
"All that 'whatever the hell we want'?" Finn added. "You just care about saving your own skin."
Bellamy recovered himself and took off again without another word. Jinny was about to go after him when Raven beat her to it, darting after the man tauntingly. "You feel good about yourself, huh? Jacking my radio up? Hey! Shooter!"
"I should've killed you when I had the chance," he growled at her.
"Really?" Raven stood in front of him. "Well, I'm right here."
He suddenly grabbed her by the throat, forcing her into a tree. Raven's arm quickly shot up with her penknife in hand, pointed at his face threateningly. She cocked an eyebrow, teeth bared in a lethal smile as she dared Bellamy with her eyes. Jinny was reminded of why she liked the girl, and the reason she started to hang around Mecha more often—among other things.
"Okay, stop it!" Clarke said as she and Finn went up to them.
Bellamy glanced back at Jinny before letting go of Raven.
"Jaha deserved to die, you all know that," he said while walking away again.
"Yeah, he's not my favourite person either," Raven called after him. "But he isn't dead."
"What?" he turned back in confusion.
"You're a lousy shot," she told him.
"Bellamy, don't you see what this means?" Clarke went towards him and grabbed his arm. "You're not a murderer. You always did what you had to do to protect your sister. That's who you are. And you can do it again, by protecting three hundred of your people. Help us look for the radio."
"What?" he asked again.
Jinny crossed her arms and sighed heavily. "You dumb shit."
Jones had been the one to find the radio down stream, but the bad news was that they wouldn't be able to get it working on time. Instead of trying to fix it, Raven suggested that they make flares to signal the Ark. Jinny was excited to start the task as they went back to strip Raven's pod apart for raw materials.
"We need to launch those flares ASAP if we have any hope of saving those people," Raven said loudly as she bustled about giving instructions. "Finn, get that control panel to camp. You, pull out those firing circuits in one piece or they won't work!"
"Hey, be careful with that!" Jinny snapped at the boy next to her who was trying to pry out the auxiliary cables with a knife. "You have any idea how important each component is? And Miller, step away from that open circuit unless you want to electrocute yourself."
The boy stared at her with wide eyes as he slowly took a step away from the exposed circuit board. She sighed in exasperation and turned around to find Bellamy with his arms crossed and watching her intently.
"Can you be any less useless?" she asked.
"You're enjoying this," he observed. "Bossing people around."
"Yeah, now get your ass over here and help me carry this fuel cell back to camp," she pointed at the large bulky part next to her.
He rolled his eyes lightly before walking over and picking up one side of the battery. They made their way back to the camp as quickly as they could, following after the faint silhouettes of Finn and Jones in the distance. Bellamy tried to make small talk but she was still in no mood to entertain him. The hustling back at camp was made more chaotic by the prospect of their plan to contact the Ark. Raven was literally a godsend from the heavens above.
They worked endlessly until darkness fell around them, but everyone was still in good spirits. Jinny recruited Monty to help Raven assemble the parts of the flares in the middle of camp. It had seemed so simple in theory but their working conditions were pretty shit at best. The others tried to help with tasks that didn't require the use of physics.
Finally, Raven shouted for everyone to stand back and she smashed her hand on the button to launch the flares. They took off in a blaze of purple from the potassium elements in the fuel packs. Jinny stepped back as she craned her head upwards, admiring the streaks of light as the empty vessels travelled across the night sky. She bumped into Bellamy behind her and glanced at his profile lit up by the flickering lights.
"You think they can see it from up there?" he asked.
"I don't know," Clarke answered nearby. "I hope so... can you wish on this kind of shooting star?"
Bellamy gave her an odd look and she shook her head, telling them to forget about it.
"I wouldn't even know what to wish for," he told her. "What about you?"
Clarke gave a small shrug before directing her gaze over the crowd. Jinny watched as the flares grew smaller over time, the residue of their emissions hanging about like a glowing violet shroud in the night sky. It illuminated the trees surrounding them with an esoteric quality, their shadows dancing under the wake of burnt stars.
"I wish my mum would see this," she said quietly.
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