CHAPTER 02
WHEN FIRE MEETS GASOLINE the resultant inferno was something to fear. It burned her insides with relentless fervour, trapped within the scorched confines of her chest. Her experiences had been what shaped her into who she was now—twenty-two years of adept lying. She felt her lips stretch to the sides and eyes curve to mimic a reciprocal smile.
Jinny stepped away from Octavia and towards the older boy—it was still hard to think of him as a man—he was always that cadet boy to her. She poked him in the chest with a finger, twisting it in the air with an exaggerated flourish. Bellamy continued to look at her expectantly and she thought she might take pleasure in what she was going to say next.
"I remember you." Her eyes stared deep into his. "The guy that got me arrested."
Bellamy's face fell instantly and a flash of disappointment intruded the depths of his dark cinnamon eyes with the bitterness of undiluted coffee. Jinny's mouth twisted in a cruel sneer at his silence before walking away to pick up on her previous agenda, hearing Octavia start to question her brother in hushed tones. Seeing his face again ignited a series of heated emotions that only served to agitate her as she made her way towards Clarke.
Wells was already telling the blonde about the broken comms when Jinny stopped next to them. "We're flying blind on our own," she said, flicking hair from her face. "And we don't know what to expect. Is there anything on your end?"
Clarke blinked at her in mild surprise but like Wells, there was silent regard and recognition in her blue eyes. "All that matters right now is getting to Mount Weather," she informed before turning to the map in front of her and marking lines across it. "According to my calculations, this is where we landed and this is where we need to get to if we want to survive."
Jinny crossed her arms and pressed her lips against a knuckle thoughtfully. "So we landed off course. We need those supplies."
She turned to Wells for his input but the boy seemed to be preoccupied with another matter. "Where'd you learn to do that?" he asked quietly, eyes set on the navigation points laid across the map.
Clarke glanced at him before lowering her gaze stonily.
"Your father—"
"Ooh, a map!" A lanky boy with goggles came up from behind them, smiling cheekily at the ladies. "Got a bar in this town? I'll buy you a beer."
Jinny snorted in amusement just as Wells cocked his head to the side in mild annoyance before pushing him away. She turned back around to examine Clarke's map, picking it up and leaning against the part of the dropship that had collapsed to offer a makeshift seat. A gang of boys came up to them then, carrying sticks that acted as crude weapons. Their leader had dark hair and pale skin, wearing a scowl on his lips.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa—he's with us," he said, approaching them with a confrontational demeanour.
"Relax." Wells let go of Goggles and held his hands up as a peace offering. "We're just trying to figure out where we are."
"We're on the ground, that not good enough for you?" Bellamy asked loudly from the distance and Jinny had to roll her eyes.
"We need to find Mount Weather." Wells started towards him and Clarke followed. They probably figured that they could trust a guard—or at least someone who looked like one. "You heard my father's message. That has to be our first priority."
"Screw your father," Octavia spat. "What? You think you're in charge here? You and your little princess?"
Jinny's dark eyes watched with faint interest above the top of her map. They hadn't even been there for a full hour and there was already a petty argument occurring. Some things just never changed.
"Do you think we care who's in charge?" Clarke retorted. "We need to get to Mount Weather! Not because the Chancellor said so—because the longer we wait, the hungrier we'll get and the harder this will be. How long do you think we'll last without those supplies? We're looking at a twenty mile trek, okay? So if we wanna get there before dark, we need to leave. Now."
"I got a better idea," Bellamy interjected. "You two go. Find it for us. Let the privileged do the hard work for a change."
"Yeah!" The delinquents chorused around them. "Do it!"
"You're not listening," Wells said as calmly as possible. "We all need to go!"
The pale boy from earlier ran up and shoved Wells in the back whilst sniggering. "Look at this, everybody. The Chancellor of Earth," he sneered.
"You think that's funny?" Wells asked angrily as laughter broke out.
Gang Leader lunged forwards, tripping the boy by kicking at his leg. Wells fell to the ground with a loud grunt and a few cheers erupted. Clarke called out worriedly but another boy held her back from trying to help. Jinny started forwards to observe the fight as a crowd circled the two to egg them on. She folded her arms and glanced at a jeering Miller beside her.
Wells stood up, wincing and readjusting his stance from an injury to his ankle, before grounding himself stubbornly with his fists held high. Gang Leader threw a fake punch to mock him and was about to go in for a real strike when someone dropped in between them from the side of the dropship.
Jinny raised her eyebrows in mild surprise when she saw that it was Finn Collins. She had known him back on the Ark, courtesy of one of her partners in crime. He had asked for a favour once, to make sure that the coast was clear when he supposedly went on that illegal spacewalk.
"Kid's got one leg." Finn cocked his head to Wells and Gang Leader stopped short. "How 'bout you wait till it's a fair fight, huh?"
"Hey, Space Walker!" Octavia called, skipping over with a coquettish smile playing on the side of her lips and dispersing the tension from the brief altercation. "Rescue me next."
Finn chuckled as he looked at her and gang kid backed off, pulling his friends along with him. The crowd started to disperse and Bellamy approached his sister with a raised eyebrow.
"What?" She shrugged. "He's cute."
"He's a criminal," he told her.
"Jinny's a criminal." Octavia pointed in a low voice. "Apparently, you made that happen."
"Look." Bellamy grabbed her arm and pulled her away. "I came down here to protect you!"
They started to argue a few feet away and Jinny turned her attention to Wells instead. Clarke was examining his ankle on the ground and it seemed like he wasn't up for a journey anymore. The brunette woman sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree that had been knocked down by the dropship and crossed her arms again. Finn came back and punched her lightly on the shoulder.
"I thought I was dreaming when I saw you," he proclaimed with a wide grin. "Jinny, the Sneak. How are you not dead yet?"
"Hey, Space Boy," she greeted him back with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. "I won a bet against the Chancellor and got diplomatic immunity for life."
"I see you haven't changed." He shook his head with a laugh before turning to Clarke. "So when are we going to Mount Weather?"
"Right now," the girl replied while standing up. "We'll be back tomorrow with food."
"How are the three of you going to carry food enough for one hundred?" Wells asked skeptically.
"Who said I was going?" Jinny frowned.
"What?" Clarke exclaimed. "But we need you! There's a radiation soaked forest separating us from our next meal. Like you said, we don't know what to expect."
Jinny shrugged nonchalantly and jabbed her thumb at Finn. "You got him, you'll be fine. There's something else I need to do here."
"Like what?" The blonde furrowed her brows in disbelief.
"If I told you, I'd have to kill you," Jinny replied seriously. Finn motioned for Clarke not to pry further.
Wells raised an eyebrow. "So it's just the two of you."
Finn held up a finger before jogging over and clapping his hands on the shoulders of two kids. It was Goggles and his Asian friend. They turned around to look at them with mildly bewildered expressions and Finn grinned widely once more.
"Now there's four of us," he said smugly. "Can we go now?"
"Sounds like a party!" Octavia skipped over to them and everyone turned to look at her questioningly. "Make it five!"
"Hey!" Bellamy quickly ran over. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Going for a relaxing stroll," she replied flippantly.
Clarke suddenly reached out to grab Finn's hand and examined his wristband with scrutinising eyes. There were obvious dents across its surface. "Were you trying to take this off?" she asked with an undertone of disbelief.
"Yeah. So?" Finn responded.
"So this wristband transmits your vital signs to the Ark," she told him sternly. "Take it off and they'll think you're dead."
"Should I care?" he questioned with an insouciant tone.
"Well, I don't know. Do you want the people you love to think you're dead?" she shot back. "Do you want them to follow you down here in two months because they won't if they think we're dying."
"Great, I don't want my dad to follow me down here anyway," Jinny said.
Clarke shook her head at her. "You don't mean that."
"Whatever," she muttered before standing up from her perch on the tree trunk. "You guys better go. Bring back some food 'cause the flowers are too pretty for me to eat."
She patted the dirt off the back of her pants as Clarke heeded her words and nodded to the others. Jinny quickly made her escape when she saw Bellamy begrudgingly bestow his sister permission to follow them. The younger girl kissed him on the cheek and bounded off to catch up with Finn and the rest. The crowd of unruly teenagers had more or less settled down by then and milled about in groups in an attempt to look civilised.
Jinny slunk back into the dropship and hid herself on the upper level. She looked around and ran her hand along the communications panel with a remorseful sigh. Her fingers rapped against the cool metal before curling over the edge and trying to rip the top apart. It gave way slightly from the previous trauma that the ship sustained but she still needed tools to disassemble it.
She started towards one of the seats, tripping across the two bodies that she had completely forgotten about. "Man," she muttered under her breath. "What a way to go, dudes."
Stepping over them carefully, she reached a chair and began to unfasten the metal parts one by one. Jinny continued to rip the dropship apart, fashioning rudimentary tools from the metal scraps or piling them on the side for later use. She thought about building a new motherboard using the intact parts from all the others. There were a couple of microprocessors that seemed undamaged but she would need to repair the burnt mainframe as well. Jinny ran a hand through her dark hair and let out a groan of frustration. Why couldn't things ever be easy?
She paused in thought as an idea formed in her mind.
Then a pair of boots thumped loudly on the metal floor behind her, causing Jinny to drop the circuit board in her hands from surprise. It rang throughout the cabin with a loud clamour that made her wince before she whirled around to glare at the intruder.
"I thought you'd be in here scavenging." The young man smirked at her. "You haven't changed at all."
Jinny groaned out loud in vexation and bent down to swipe her panel off the floor. "Bellamy, go away," she growled warningly.
"What? No hug for an old friend?" He shrugged his shoulders while walking towards her. The smirk remained on his face but his eyes were as sharp as swords. "You know what happened wasn't my fault."
"You think two years would have changed my memory?" she asked scornfully as she turned around and picked up a shard of glass in her hand. She grasped it tightly.
"I thought they were going to float you." His footsteps grew closer and she could feel his presence radiating from behind her.
"Yeah, well, shit happens."
He spun her around and she flashed the shard across the narrow space between them. Bellamy moved back an inch but continued to hold her arms in a firm grip. They stared each other down fiercely, whatever shred of familiarity she used to share with him had already been severed since the day she was thrown into solitary. He was just an annoying nuisance to her now, somebody who knew too much about her past that she couldn't lie to.
"Why didn't they float you?" he asked, a deep frown replacing the nonchalant mask he previously wore.
"Maybe I'm just really charming," she replied almost scathingly.
He scoffed a laugh before letting go of her and she took a step away from him. Jinny kept her face in an impenetrable veil but her eyes were spitting coals. Bellamy sighed and said, "I'm sorry, okay? It was a mistake."
"You think sorry can just undo what you did?" she hissed at him with narrowed eyes.
"No." His voice was soft but firm. "I know it's too late for that. But we have a chance to start over now, can't you see?"
"I don't see," she retorted venomously.
"We're on the ground," he said, voice dropping with breathless excitement. "We can do whatever we want here, no more laws that'll get us floated."
"Great," she deadpanned. "Good for you."
"Except for one problem." He grabbed her hand and nodded to the band around her wrist. "If they think we're dying, they won't come down."
She shook her head in irritation and broke free from his grip. "Are you serious?"
"C'mon, Jin, you think when the others come down here, we'll be off the hook?" he questioned. "Think about Octavia, remember what her life was like. The other kids—they know who you are. You can convince them to take the bands off."
Jinny glanced down at her wristband and the blank screen that was embedded in its metal, the gears in her brain turning at hyper speed. Telemetry and key designs ran through her mind as she swiped through the possibilities. She looked back at him and a small scowl marred her delicate features once again.
"Fine," she told him. "But I'm not doing this for you."
He gave a curt nod. "Fine."
Jinny grabbed a few materials from the counter top and stuffed them into her makeshift bag fashioned from chair straps. The woman ran a hand through her hair, messing it up even more than it already was, before turning back to Bellamy. Her eyes scrutinised him briefly and for a split second, she almost remembered the friendship that they had shared so long ago.
"I'm not mad at getting arrested," she finally said, slinging her bag over a shoulder.
He frowned. "Then what?"
Her eyes peered back at him coolly with the quality of crystallised obsidian. Something inside her stirred, a flicker of memory—faint and poignant. "I used to trust you."
"You still can," he said in earnest, features melting away softly.
"Not anymore." Jinny turned away from him and walked towards the hatch.