Gina crams two more pieces of scrap metal into the box in front of her. She flips one over in her hand, studying the wires sprouting from the frame. These shards of steel seem useless, but in the hands of the right person they can be filed into a weapon or molded into a shovel or curved into a cup. In the right hands they can become anything.

Except Gina's hands aren't anything special.

She was never the best in her farming classes and her brain isn't wired to do engineering or mechanical work. She thought she'd finally found her niche with Abigail in the medical wing, but the first time she witnessed surgery she ended up on the floor. Gina wasn't first at anything, though she was never last either. She drifted through life on the Ark as invisible as possible, following the rules, keeping the status quo and, even now, as she stands in the mess hall of Arkadia sorting chunks of metal, she's a small, quiet piece of the patchwork society stitched together by Kane and Abigail.

Gina checks her watch. Twenty minutes until the next scavenging mission. Mount Weather has everything they'll ever need. It has everything they'll never need too. Paintings, chandeliers, a piano. Those Mountain Men tried to create a fairytale out of the apocalypse. Locked away from the devastation around them, they've never starved for oxygen or fought back tears because it'd be a senseless waste of water. But their makeshift utopia wasn't enough for them. They wanted more. Arkadia paid the price.

Clarke did the right thing.

"Team two to the loading station." Kane's voice crackles over the com.

Gina tosses the gasket she'd been holding onto the table. She grabs her backpack and picks up the walkie-talkie. Her boots thump against the metal grates of the Arks floor, or what's left of it since the crash landing. She breathes in the stale air from the hallways and it takes her back to a month ago when she was still in space orbiting the Earth. In another month or so the Ark will air out and her last connection to her parents will be lost.

"Five minutes until departure," a man calls over the walkie.

Gina dabs her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. Like Nate says, you can't change the past.

A loud roar from one of the Rovers fills the loading bay and Gina grits her teeth as it vibrates in her eardrums. It's such an obnoxiously odd sound, a car engine. Nate revs the motor again. He thinks it's funny. Gina thinks he's an idiot.

She climbs into the passenger seat beside him and pulls the key from the ignition.

"You're not authorized to have those," Nate says, pointing to the furry, rabbit foot keychain.

"You shouldn't be authorized to have these." Gina jiggles them in front of his face.

"I'm the best damn driver on this planet."

"That's debatable."

"Name one person you'd rather have in this seat."

"Raven, Bellamy, Monty…"

"What about me?" Bellamy says climbing into the back of the Rover. He sits down positioning his gun between his legs. The rest of the security detail files into their seats next to him.

"Nothing," Gina says, lowering her head so her curls fall in front of her eyes. "I'm just expressing my confidence in Nate as our chauffeur."

"That's what I thought." Nate snatches the keys from Gina's hand. "Sit back and enjoy the ride, Martin."

"Hold on." Gina snaps open a bag she snatched from the kitchen. With Nate driving there's a good chance breakfast will come back up. "Okay, I'm ready."

"Really? A vomit bag?" Nate shifts the Rover into gear. "I'm not that bad."

"That's debatable."

The Rover rolls forward along the smooth dirt path of Arkadia. It'll be a while before they get to Mount Weather and Gina's counting on it. She closes her eyes, relaxing against the faded, cracked leather of the seat. A good night's sleep on the ground is hard to come by. There's too many things down here to kill you. At least on the Ark, your worst fears were being floated or oxygen deprivation, both of them offering a quick, painless death. The grounders, though they offer death as well, are sure to torture you.

She's heard the stories. She's lived them through the words whispered between sips of alcohol and the crackling of fire. Some deaths, such as those taken in the midst of battle, are quick, bloody moments in time. A spear to the heart. A knife to the jugular. A spring loaded trap. In these instances, the agony is not in the act itself but in the seconds leading up to it. Whether it's Nathan or Jasper or Harper or anyone else of the 100 recounting what happened in the first few days back on Earth, there's always a thick, palpable panic tugging at their voice. And it's that same panic that was placed there by the grounders during those so-called quick, bloody moments.

But that's not what worries Gina the most. Her fears have shifted from what would happen if she got caught snagging an extra slice of bread on the Ark to what would happen if the grounders ever got their hands on her. Like really got their hands on her.

She's been around the campfire when Murphy would mumble about his time spent in the Grounder's camp. How they beat him and cut him and burned his skin. She's seen Jasper's scar from where they strung him up in a tree, patched his wounds, and left him for whatever animal wanted a human snack. Gina's not worried about the punishments dished out inside of Arkadia's walls. She can handle those. It's the torment beyond the gates that draws a cold sweat from her pores.

Gina drifts in and out of consciousness, letting herself nudge up against her dreams before pulling back. It's not enough to satisfy the ache in her eyes or lift the fog floating through her brain, but this isn't a world of rest. That much she's learned.

Twenty minutes later, and fifteen minutes too soon, Gina jolts awake, her head slamming into the dashboard as the Rover jerks to a stop. Her head throbs and pounds with a pain so bright she can almost taste it. She smells it too, a harsh metallic zing burning its way up her nostrils and down her throat. Gina's never been in a fight before, never caught a punch to the face, but she's almost certain this is what it feels like.

A hand grips her shoulder, shaking her and tugging her, rattling her already scrambled thoughts. Gina looks to her left, blinking fast to clear the tears welling in her eyes. Nate yells something at her. She can't make it out above the panic rising from her team in the back. They load their guns, the distinctive clicks of the ammo cartridges sliding into place echo one another in the confined space. Bellamy shouts orders to his men and somehow they hear him.

Nate shoves a gun towards Gina and she takes it from him. It's awkward in her hands. The only time she's ever held one was in weapons training.

"Gina," Bellamy calls from the back of the Rover.

She twists around in her seat to look at him. The throbbing in her head doesn't abate.

"It's safer for you back here," he says.

"You tell me that now?" Gina says, pointing to her busted nose.

Bellamy smirks, but a clink outside the Rover wipes it away. "Move it. Now."

Gina doesn't argue, crawling between the seats and sitting down on the cold metal floorboard. The back of the Rover's been modified to allow two benches on either side. With all the guys of the security detail crammed into the back there's no room for her on the benches. She glances around, finding that the barrels of her friend's guns are mostly angled towards the floor, right where she just so happens to be sitting. One twitchy finger and it's all over.

She pushes away the one closest to her. "Mind pointing that thing somewhere else?"

"Sorry," the kid says, aiming the gun towards the roof.

"You two, cover me when the doors open." Bellamy says pointing to the guys closest to the door. "And you three, follow after me. Shoot anyone not with us. And Gina…" he looks at her. Pieces of brown, curly hair fall just above his eyebrows, darkening the color of his eyes and Gina knows he's afraid. Not of the Grounders outside, but of the real chance he'll lose another friend. "Don't die"

Gina nods, knowing it's a promise she might not be able to keep.

Bellamy unlatches the doors and kicks them open, his gun firing off a few rounds before Gina can feel the fresh air against her skin. He jumps out and the team follows him. A Grounder's head rams through the windshield, a boy, younger than anyone on Gina's team. Nate's standing behind him, his chest heaving, a deep gash gleaming on his right arm. The glass has cut slits into the Grounder's face, but he keeps fighting, pushing and pulling, trying to pry himself free. Nate approaches the boy, lifting himself onto the hood of the Rover. Gina hears a crunch, not a twig breaking type crunch, but a sickening sound that causes Gina's bones to vibrate and her stomach to lurch. The Grounder's head falls slack.

Gina scurries away from his body, tumbling out the back of the Rover and onto the rocky dirt path. She's never seen a dead body. Not up close and personal. And definitely not so close that she could see the faint smudges of war paint around his eyes, or smell the blood dripping from his mouth, or hear the wheeze of his final breath rattling through his windpipe. Her body trembles. The gun in her shaking hand clinks against the metal of her belt buckle. Her first instinct is to drop it, her second is to keep it close.

Someone grabs her arm, dragging her to her feet. Gina twists away, aiming her trembling gun at whoever had her. Bellamy yanks her into his chest and an arrow zips by her head. She feels Bellamy raising his arm and hears the shots being fired off, but she refuses to look up. Instead she stares at the ground with her forehead resting against his collarbone and her hand, the one holding the gun, hanging limp by her side.

"I almost shot you," she says.

"But you didn't," he wraps one arm around her in a quick hug. "Now, come on."

He takes her hand, sneaking her around the perimeter of the fight. They crouch down in front of the Rover, their bodies hidden by it's bulky frame. Bellamy leans in close.

"Okay, head that way," he points in the direction they had came. "Don't stop until you get to camp. Let them know what happened."

"Are you insane?" Gina can't believe what she's hearing. Is he really suggesting she abandon them and run off into the woods? She narrows her eyes. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Get back to Arkadia. Tell Kane what happened." Bellamy's eyes soften. "Please."

What he doesn't say is "tell Octavia I'm sorry."

Two types of guilt sink in Gina's stomach. The first: the guilt of leaving her friends behind. The second: the guilt of not following Bellamy's orders. She's no warrior. She's no killer. But Bellamy is asking her to do the only thing she can do in this fight. He's asking her to run, to survive, to tell their story.

There's no telling who's going to win this battle. But as Gina sprints off into the forest, she gives Bellamy a nod. With every thud of her feet she promises Bellamy she'll survive. With each breath that leaves her lungs she promises that she won't stop running. She can't decide if she's running toward something or away from something.

From someone.