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DEATH VALLEY
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THEY WERE RUNNING through the woods after Finn as he clutched the map tightly in his hands, doing their best to keep up with his maniacally frenzied pace. By the time they had re-emerged into open air, the sun had climbed up high in the sky and the humidity increased exponentially with it. Jinny was starting to wonder whether allowing Finn to run around like this was the right course of action, especially after what had just happened in the bunker. The memory of him killing the Grounder in cold blood, without the slightest hint of remorse, still sent a chill up her spine. He hadn't participated in the battle of the dropship, only joining the fray at the last minute to help Bellamy and herself from Tristan. Even then, he had only fired random rounds at the late general.
What the hell was going through his thick skull?
Sure, he was the kind of all-in guy that would do whatever it took for the girl he loved, but this was going too far. Breaking the law to achieve somebody else's dream, getting locked up, facing the possibility of death, were all selfless acts. This was the complete opposite of that.
"Everyone, eyes peeled!" Bellamy called behind her. "We're in Grounder territory."
"Everything is Grounder territory, alright?" Murphy retorted, which sounded pretty funny in Jinny's head. The boy stopped behind them while panting heavily, skin shining with sweat. "I can't keep running. We don't even know the guy Finn killed was even telling the truth."
Finn marched back to him and grabbed his shoulder to pull him down the path. "Keep moving!"
Murphy started to protest but Jinny pushed them apart just as Bellamy stepped in. "Hey, we can give him a minute," he told Finn.
"No, we can't," the boy responded with an agitated frown. "You heard what the Grounder said. 'They'll outlive their usefulness'."
"I heard what he said when you had a gun to his head," Bellamy exclaimed lowly, leaning forwards to raise his eyebrows at him for emphasis.
"Look, you think I wanted to do that?" Finn asked heatedly.
"It didn't look like you didn't want to do it either," Jinny told him quietly.
He turned to her with a frustrated sigh. "He would have told his people we were coming and by the time we got there, our people would be dead. Maybe that's something you can live with, but I can't!"
Finn started forward but Bellamy pushed him back none too gently. "Hey, you did what you think you had to do, but you are not yourself right now. And I can't be out here with another loose canon." He nodded his head back to Murphy in the background.
It prompted Jinny to think about Kane's words about her, finding it strange that Kane saw her as how they saw Murphy. The comparison unnerved her slightly.
"Hey, guys..." Monroe started, the gun in her hands clicking as she raised it.
Once silence had befallen them, Jinny could hear it; the buzzing of carrion flies. They turned around to find a shoe discarded on the grass, and beyond that the mangled figure of a body. Jinny raised her rifle warily and took a step forward, instantly meeting with the rancid odour of corpses and finding a trail of them leading down a bend of the dirt path. She walked ahead of the group and suddenly halted in her tracks. "Holy shit," she breathed out when she recognised the lifeless eyes of the ashen face staring back up at her. "That's Ezra." He lived next to the Blakes in Factory Station. They would always go to him to get their shoes repaired ever since they could remember.
Bellamy jogged up to her, and examined the body with a heavy frown. She turned around and swept her glance around the area, picking up wreckage from the space station strewn across the ground. One of the stations must have landed nearby, but the survivability rate looked deplorable. "No other injuries, they must have gotten thrown out midair from the fall," he concluded.
They continued down the winding path, finding more evidence of the crash the further along they went. Jinny could smell the heavy acrid scent of smoke in the air as they reached the edge of the tree line, breaking through to find the ground stopping abruptly at the edge of a jagged cliff. She moved quickly to the precipice and peered down, confirming one of her worst fears. The entire station had crashed and exploded into charred remnants in a crater at the bottom of the ridge, the result too devastating for her to fathom.
"Must have been a rough landing," Murphy remarked, but his eyes reflected the horror that they all felt at the sight.
Jinny didn't even have the heart to beat him as she gaped in consternation, tufts of anxious breaths leaving her parched mouth. She licked her lips and swallowed dryly. A murmur of birds flew past in the distance, a large mass of aerial acrobatics undulating freely through the bright cerulean sky. Factory Station had made up the biggest portion of the Ark, there would have been a lot of people and supplies on board it. She could feel her stomach drop and twist with wrenching agony. To think that, this could have been any of their fates if things had gone awry during their landing.
"There's nothing we can do for these people," Bellamy said, turning around. "We got to go."
Jinny was about to move out when she heard crying from down below the steep rocky incline, soft at first then increasing in volume. She turned around sharply to peer back down the cliff side along with Sterling and Monroe. "There's someone down there!" she exclaimed, craning her head to look past the edges of the rocky surface.
"Help me!" A female voice cried out clearly. Jinny could make her out as she squirmed, arms clenching on tightly to an overgrown tree root. She had luckily managed to step onto a ledge, which eased her efforts slightly, having also tied her jacket around herself like a harness for extra support. "Please help me! I'm so scared!" she sobbed, causing Jinny's heart to twist with pity.
"Mel?!" Sterling suddenly called in astonishment. "Mel, is that really you?!"
"Sterling?!" she shouted in reply. "Please don't leave me here! Please!"
"You know her?" Murphy asked with a bemused voice.
"Shut up, Murphy, she's my friend!" Sterling snapped before turning to Jinny. "We have to do something."
She turned to look back at the boy, wracking her brain for a solution, when she heard Finn take Bellamy aside and said, "We can't stop."
"This isn't a Grounder, Finn!" Bellamy declared. "We have a rope."
Sterling shook his head, taking matters into his own hands and grabbing his backpack. He walked a few feet from the edge and bent down to pull out the cord of rope. Jinny pushed a lock of hair behind her ears and glanced at Finn as he continued to argue with Bellamy.
"You saw her," he contended. "She'll never be able to hold on. We'd have to lower somebody down. It'll take time that we don't have. I hate this as much as you..."
She rolled her eyes and went to help lasso the rope for Sterling after he secured it to a tree. He then grasped the end and started to lower himself down the side, scaling the craggy wall as he made his way down. "Just hold on, Mel! I'm coming to get you!" he shouted bravely.
"What! Sterling, no!" Finn yelled, chasing him to the edge, but it was too late. The boy had already slipped past the precipice beyond their reach.
"Well, it looks like we're taking that break after all, huh?" Murphy stated in amusement, taking the opportunity to sit down.
"We can't leave her," Jinny said, glancing to Bellamy. She'd heard him telling them to move out just as Sterling started to climb down. "Someone already died on our watch today, and she can't hold on forever. If we leave her now, she'll die."
"Clarke and the others could die at any moment too!" Finn exploded angrily at her.
"Hey," she barked sharply at him. "Use your head for one second and not your ass. It's been two days, Murphy lived to three. Besides, even savages know how to keep hostages."
Finn glared at her speechlessly, nostrils flaring, before spinning around and stalking away from them. She turned back to face the cliff again, equally annoyed, and felt Bellamy step up next to her. "He thinks he's the only one who cares about them," she said bitterly. "Clarke isn't the only person they captured. Monty, Jasper and Nathan are with them too. I promised David I'd get his son home."
"He's just not thinking straight right now," he told her. "I mean, if I were in his shoes..."
"If it were Octavia..."
"Or you." He placed a finger underneath her chin, gently turning her face to him, and she looked at him with a weary gaze. "I'd swim through the River Styx for the both of you."
She smiled slightly before diverting her attention back to Sterling; he was about five feet away from the girl now. "I'm almost there!" he yelled. "Once I have her, pull us up!"
"Well, I'd say he's heard one too many of your motivational speeches," Murphy said, smirking towards Jinny and Bellamy.
"Shut up, Murphy," they retorted in unison.
Sterling had finally managed to reach Mel, inching closer until he was able to hop onto the rocky ledge with her. The moment he placed pressure with his foot, the entire protrusion crumbled away. Mel screamed, having lost her foothold and kicked her feet in the air as she swung precariously from the tree root she was holding on to. Sterling swayed from side to side until he managed to plant his feet firmly against the cliff wall and Mel found another foothold in the cracks. He reached out to her, grabbing hold of her hand as the poor girl sobbed for her life.
There was a sharp snap and Jinny turned around to find the rope darting across the ground. "Crap!" she yelled out with widened eyes, rushing forwards just as the end slipped past the edge and Sterling's scream resounded over the side of the cliff. Jinny had to throw herself against Monroe to stop her from chasing after the rope and down into the steep scar.
"Sterling!" Bellamy yelled out in surprise and panic. They leaned forwards to look down, watching helplessly as the boy plummeted before his body broke over a rocky shelf, then tumbling back down into the chasm below.
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © KAYE CEE
DO NOT STEAL, COPY OR TAKE ANY PART OF THIS WORK.
[ author's note ]
i don't know how i didn't see this text post for the last chapter lmao oh well!!
but i loved sterling omg why did he have to fall?!?! and then we never see mel again after this?!?! why?!?!
btw you may or may not have noticed that i posted a new fic for bob morley!! if you like jinny and this story, then check 'odyssey' out because it's a behind the scenes social media story for this story! wow, that sounded super confusing! but have a look if that interests you!! i promise it's super cute and funny! :D i'm so excited about it because making the graphics for it is really fun!