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BLOOD LET
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RAULF GUIDED THEM HOME on the back of a horse with two other riders accompanying him. He looked majestic sat on top of the ebony beast, like a sovereign prince that walked the lands amongst his people. Jinny supposed that he was something akin to that in the Grounders' eyes. The journey was uncomfortably silent, and relief flooded the Sky People's systems once the gates of Camp Jaha came into view through the dense fog that crept around them.
"Hold your fire! They're back!" Major Byrne called loudly. Scanlan rushed forwards to open the gate for them. "Commander Shumway, welcome back!"
The man nodded towards her before barking more orders around. "Power up the gates! Roll out positions and get ready! Nobody takes their eyes off the perimeter!"
Jinny and Bellamy clutched each other's hands as they strode through the gates alongside the others with anxiety set heavy on their brows. The Commander's daughter paused for a moment before turning around, noting that Raulf and the riders were waiting patiently outside. "Shut the gates," she told Scanlan, who obeyed her command. Octavia quickly brought Lincoln into the station with a couple of guards trailing after them.
A crowd immediately started to form around the Chancellor and Clarke; Finn moved forwards quickly with concern in his eyes as he looked at the blonde girl. "What happened? Did you do it? They called a truce?" he asked. Clarke's lips twitched as she looked back at him, her eyes swimming with emotions until she finally averted her gaze to the ground. "What's wrong?"
She finally plucked up the courage to look him in the eyes. "They want you. If we want a truce, we have to give you up to them."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Raven asked as she came up to stand next to Finn. Her gaze flicked to Jinny with blatant disbelief and dread. "What is she talking about?"
"I'm sorry," Jinny responded. "Those were their terms, that's their offer."
"That's not an offer and those are horrible terms!" Raven exclaimed heatedly.
"It's punishment for what happened in the village," Finn stated, his voice numb. "Blood for blood."
"Yup," Jinny confirmed candidly.
"It's insane," Bellamy spoke up beside her.
"If we refuse..." Abby started. "They'll attack."
"I say we give him up!" Someone from the crowd around them yelled. Jinny was immediately brought back to the day they had strung Murphy up by accident. This was Charlotte all over again and a sharp pain shot through her heart. She reached up to press a hand against her sternum and let out a shaky breath. Would she fight to keep Finn alive or would she give him up?
A few years ago, the answer would have been clear cut. Now, she wasn't so sure anymore.
Their audience quickly turned into a mob, people yelling and calling for Finn's execution. The guards started to shift uncomfortably, holding their rifles up in an attempt to keep people at bay. A man that Jinny recognised from Mecha walked forwards to them angrily and his voice held an accusatory tone. "I'm not dying for him!" he shouted, pointing his finger at Finn. "Spacewalker burned three months of oxygen from the Ark. We should've floated him a long time ago. Throw him out!"
"Yeah, give him to the Grounders!" another man said, breaking through the line of guards.
"Back off!" Raven yelled, pushing him away and punching another guy in the face.
The clamour raised in volume until Commander Shumway fired a round into the sky from his rifle. "Enough!" he yelled, his strident voice carrying over the noise. "I will taze every single person who steps out of line!"
"Move, get out of here," Jinny hissed, grabbing Finn's arm roughly and pushing him away. "Raven, go with him and stay out of trouble!"
"Jinny," Shumway called and she turned to look at him questioningly. "You're reinstated to your position on the Guard, effective immediately." He tossed his rifle towards her and she caught it with raised eyebrows. "Make sure the perimeter's secured, Lieutenant Commander."
"Yes, sir," she replied, then turned towards Bellamy with a wide smirk. "I got reinstated and promoted in one fell swoop. Let's get outta here!"
"I never knew there was a rank like that," he told her with an equally delighted grin.
They made their way towards the guard post where David was leaning over a roughly drawn map of the camp and its surrounding areas. Jinny skidded to a halt when she caught sight of a familiar figure slinking around the fence and she went forwards to grab hold of him.
"Hey, what are you doing?!" Murphy cried out in surprise. Someone had given him a Guard jacket.
"You look like you're dressed for the part already," she said sweetly with a smile. "Here." She thrusted the rifle into his arms and he stared back at her weirdly. "Look menacing."
Bellamy handed her another rifle once she met up with him at the guard post and David filled them in on the patrol details. All hands on deck, as the saying goes. Clarke finally found them through all the hustle occurring around camp as Jinny marked defensive positions on the map.
"Hey," she called. "I think we should talk to Lincoln. Have you guys seen Finn? He gave Raven the slip."
Bellamy looked around with his superior height and pointed in the direction that Murphy had wandered off to earlier. They found Finn sitting on the ground next to him, and made their way towards them. The boy stood up upon spotting their approach and nodded in greeting, though his eyes were expectant for some kind of announcement.
"We're reinforcing all defenses," Bellamy said. "Doubles on the perimeter. No one's getting past that wire."
"I'll see where they're thin," Finn offered but Jinny held an arm out to stop him.
"Are you insane or stupid?" she asked impatiently. "Everybody wants your blood right now."
"You should head inside," Bellamy suggested. "B corridor will be easier to defend if it comes to that."
"I'm not gonna hide," Finn told them, raising his voice slightly with conviction.
Jinny merely shook her head in exasperation. "I don't care what you want right now, Finn. There are three riders waiting outside to deliver your head to their Commander. And as tempting as it is to throw you to the wolves, there are people I care about who care about you, you stupid shit."
His eyes glanced towards the gates where Raulf's imposing figure remained. He hadn't moved a muscle, posture straight and attentive ever since they arrived. It was a feat of the human body how he managed to do that.
"Right now we have to think about keeping you safe," Clarke said. "I'm gonna talk to Lincoln."
"Come on," Bellamy urged with a nod to the boy. Eventually, he stepped forwards to follow them back into the station. Clarke lagged behind them, speaking briefly to Murphy before catching up to them at the newly restored medical bay. Abby was already waiting for them next to the cot while Octavia fluffed up some pillows to place behind Lincoln's back, helping him sit upright to speak to them. Jinny moved to unclasp the binds around his arms but he stopped her.
"Lincoln, this isn't necessary," she told him.
"Yes, it is," he replied. Jinny shot an uncertain look to Octavia before stepping away from the man.
"Is there a way to make peace?" Abby asked.
Lincoln sighed. "Did they leave riders behind?"
"Raulf is out there waiting with two others," Jinny answered quietly.
"Then you don't have much time," he said. "Raulf is the Commander's right-hand, he carries the Commander's authority wherever he goes. A word from him is a word from the Commander herself."
"She can't expect us to just hand over one of our own people," Octavia protested, walking over to his side and leaning towards him imploringly. "Would she do that?"
"She wouldn't let the rest of her people die to protect a murderer," he responded. "If you don't do this, she will kill everyone in this camp."
"There has to be something else that we can offer," Abby said in a rush.
"He killed eighteen lives," Lincoln stressed to them. "The Commander's offering to take just one in return. Take the deal."
"Of course," Jinny muttered. "Blood must have blood."
"How can you say that?" Clarke exclaimed angrily. "Finn was the first person to come to you to offer peace. He's your friend."
"He massacred my village. Some of the dead were my friends, too."
"But that wasn't Finn!" Clarke went on. "You know that's not who he is!"
"He is now," Lincoln said, his words filled with underlying connotations. Jinny briefly looked at him with a pitiful gaze before dropping it to the floor to stare at Bellamy's boots. "We've all got a monster inside of us, Clarke, and we're all responsible for what it does when we let it out."
"What will they do to him?" Abby asked softly.
"Because he killed the innocent, it starts with fire."
"Starts?" Clarke repeated with a frown.
Lincoln continued, "They'll take his hands. His tongue, his eyes. And anyone who grieves will have a turn with the knife. At sunrise, the Commander will end it with her sword. But I've never known anyone to survive until the sword. He killed eighteen, he will suffer the pain of eighteen deaths. Then we can have peace."
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"Jus drein jus daun! Jus drein jus daun!"
The army that stood outside their home yelled as one, thousands of thunderous voices melding together into a single intention under the light of the crisp dawn. Vengeance. Jinny strode forwards to open the gate herself with Bellamy behind her, a wary look in his eyes as he held his rifle close to his side. She had heard the phrase more often than she liked to not finally grasp its meaning. The uproar had caused the two horses to become unsettled but Raulf's stallion remained steady as a rock. Another thing that set him apart from everyone else, just like the Commander. There was no doubt that they were related by blood.
"You've been waiting the entire night," Jinny said in greeting.
Raulf nodded his head with a smile on his lips. "You've been making me wait the entire night."
She sighed. "Tell me there's another way. Please."
The amusement on his face faded into cold steel. "If there was, I would. Casualties happen in war, warriors die. They chose their fates, they knew from the very beginning what laid in wait for them. But Finn came to my village and slaughtered my people. Young blood was spilled, old blood, innocent blood. Tell me, Jinny, what do you do with your murderers?"
"It doesn't have to be this way," she answered quietly, but he heard her plain as the morning sun.
"We can work something out if you just let us," Bellamy added beseechingly.
"Why would you protect him?" Raulf asked them. "Just because we're not one of your people, do our lives not deserve retribution too?"
Jinny inhaled deeply at his words. She thought of the children in the camp, the people who greeted her with warm smiles and offered her food from their rations. They were the same as the villagers that had been left broken and traumatised by Finn's unspeakable actions. If the tables had been turned on them—if their friends had been victims of a mindless massacre—then surely, they would have wanted punishment to be delivered too. It was simply human nature.
"He's one of us," Bellamy said. "We can't just doom him to death."
"Blood stains both our hands," Raulf went on. "We justify that blood with our intentions. What Finn did is not justifiable. He doomed himself."
"He wasn't in his right mind," Jinny tried again, but it was obvious that her attempts were feeble at best.
"People change," he simply told her.
She looked away, her stomach tied in knots with a lump forming in her throat as she found herself having trouble in swallowing that one simple truth. Her periphery caught sight of Raven watching her with a worried gaze from the side, her expression filled with both hope and despondency. Jinny turned back to Raulf and shook her head. "It's not our call, I'm sorry."
"We will wait," he told her with a nod. "Until the call has been made."
Jinny turned around, exchanging uneasy glances with Bellamy as he followed her back towards the station. The Guards behind them were moving into defensive positions, taking cover behind crates and walls while training their guns on the three resilient riders. Banks started suddenly and yelled out, "We've got movement in the woods!"
"Don't shoot!" A voice cut through the air from the distance.
Everyone turned to look, some of the guards darting towards the fence to take a better look at the intrusion. Jinny peered through her scope, finding a pair of arms raised up high in the air from behind the remnants of a gnarled tree trunk. Raulf remained still, not even bothering to look behind him as the man emerged into the open. Jinny lowered her gun and gaped in wonder as Marcus Kane made his way back to them. Abby rushed forwards to meet him but, just as he reached the gates, a war horn blared from the Grounders' encampment.
Raulf finally stirred, rearing his horse up in the air and frightening a few people by his sudden action. "The call has been made!" he shouted to Jinny before riding away with his men.
"Yes, it has," she said and Bellamy turned to her with a frown.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Finn will die."
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © KAYE CEE
DO NOT STEAL, COPY OR TAKE ANY PART OF THIS WORK.
[ author's note ]
for those hoping that jinny and raulf will be a brotp, don't worry, they totally are!! there're tons of scenes with him later on that i'm really excited for because he's just so pure and adorable omg. still working on lexa though hm...