CHAPTER 08
ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN at a moment's notice without so much as a warning or an ounce of hesitation. Bellamy had gathered their hunting party and they came across a wild boar deep in the verdant woods. The man had then almost impaled a little girl with his axe throwing skills and Screamer—also known as Charlotte—was now tagging along with them, tiny knife in hand.
"So Jinny," Atom started as he walked alongside her. She pushed an overhanging branch out of her way, not bothering to reply. "What did the Commander's daughter get arrested for? Everyone's dying to know."
Bellamy glanced back at them from the front, Charlotte was casually skipping two steps behind him. Jinny continued walking, not giving the slightest hint as to whether she had heard the boy or not. Atom was starting to doubt that she had when her low voice sounded in the crisp air.
"I tore a man's throat out," she turned to look at him, grinning slightly. "With my teeth."
There was a loud snort that apparently came from Bellamy and he had a hand pressed against his mouth. Atom stared at her, once again considering the possibility of her statement. She suppressed her own laugh and turned back to the front so he wouldn't see her lips twitch. The boy was the kind of sensitive soul that actually bothered to make human connections with other people. She found it kind of endearing.
"Atom," Bellamy said, his deep voice booming in the woodland hush that surrounded them. "You should know that Jin's a pathological liar."
"Very funny," Atom finally said, rolling his eyes.
A wide humorous smile broke out across Jinny's face as she looked back at him. It fell instantly and a look of horror took place, rooting itself deep in her eyes. Atom frowned and turned around to find tendrils of yellow mist snaking towards them at a rapid pace. Jinny cried out in alarm with a few obscenities falling from her lips. It managed to gain Bellamy's attention and he was then yelling for everyone to hide.
"Jinny, run!" he shouted imperatively.
She stumbled with panic, her brain not fully comprehending the sudden appearance of the thick mustard fog. Her nose caught a whiff of sulphur and chlorine, the resultant combination resembling the scent of garlic or horseradish. The acrid stench almost made her want to gag as she forced herself into a dash. Her heart pumped quickly, expelling more oxygen throughout her entire system as she tore through the undergrowth after Bellamy. Cold sweat trickled down her back as a thousand different scenarios of what that gas could do to them fought for dominance in her mind.
Atom let out a pained cry behind her as he tripped and fell to the ground, the fog consuming him not more than two seconds later. "Jinny!" he called loudly while choking on the impure air. She stopped and whirled around to get him, allowing the dense yellow smoke to catch up with her immediately. Her eyes watered from the irritant particles that engulfed her body and her skin tingled on contact. Jinny quickly stumbled backwards in terror, stepping out through the edge of the brume. She coughed when fumes entered her lungs and she waved her hand in a feeble attempt to beat the mist away. It started to burn from the continued exposure as if she had soaked it in a chemical bath saturated with corrosive elements.
"Jinny! Bellamy!"
A foghorn sounded off in the distance, reverberating through the stone and branches. She felt a hand reach out to grab her from the side and Bellamy was pulling her urgently. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, bringing her through a hollow that led into a cave. Charlotte was already inside and she took Bellamy's hand as he walked by, urging them further down the passageway.
Their footsteps echoed with every painful beat of her heart until they reached the end and Charlotte dropped onto the floor tiredly. Jinny leaned against the wall, feeling like she was ready to expel her entire stomach onto the ground as it churned uncomfortably. Bellamy took her hand, the one that had been dipped in fog, and held on tightly in an effort to stop the tremors. It hurt at even the slightest touch but pain was the farthest thing from her mind right then.
"W-we left Atom," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "We left him out there... in... in that thing."
"There wasn't anything that we could do," he told her quietly.
She pulled her hand away, wincing as she did so, and examined it with consternation. Her palm was red with tiny darker dots to embellish it. The back of her hand tingled with a burning sensation and she felt like she had lost motor control over it. Bellamy looked at her worriedly before pulling out a piece of cloth from his pocket to wrap around her hand.
"What the hell was that anyway?" he asked.
"N-nerve damage," she stuttered before taking a shuddering breath. "That fog... it's lethal. Like some kind of chemical warfare bullshit."
Jinny slid down the wall and planted herself on the ground with a weary sigh. Bellamy sat down beside her with a perplexed frown, glancing at Charlotte who seemed to have passed out from exhaustion. He turned back to her, their eyes meeting with matched anxiety, and he leaned in to stroke her hair soothingly.
"Hey, it's gonna be okay," he told her.
Jinny nodded and let herself lean against his shoulder, finding security in their close proximity. He pulled her closer as if it were the most natural thing in the world. In that moment of vulnerability, it was and they both revelled in it.
"As if mutant animals and psychopathic Grounders aren't enough," he muttered.
She scoffed lightly. "Next thing you know, we'll be plunged into an ice age."
"Except there won't be any dinosaurs to eat," he said and she let out a genuine chuckle. "It'll be winter soon though."
Jinny shook her head as she softly sighed. "I can't think past this moment."
Bellamy shifted beside her and she felt him lean his head against hers. His husky voice felt like a gentle caress when he said, "Me neither."
She closed her eyes as they lapsed into a comfortable silence, despite the yearning ache in their hearts. There was the sound of dripping water from somewhere deep within the cavern that reminded her of a ticking clock. Hours probably passed, she couldn't really tell, but the pain in her hand subsided as time went on. Charlotte remained in blissful slumber and by the steady rhythm of Bellamy's chest, she guessed that he had taken respite as well. Jinny was on the verge of joining them, her consciousness melting into the dark realms of oblivion.
Then a piercing scream echoed around the cave and it was like breaking through ice to get to the surface. Her eyes snapped open and she started violently from the shock, sucking in a deep breath of air that made her choke as she did so. Bellamy shot up and scanned the cave through the dark, finding Charlotte thrashing violently in her sleep.
"Hey. Hey!" He reached an arm out to her. "Charlotte, wake up!"
The little girl opened her eyes almost immediately and looked around to regain her bearings. She turned to Bellamy, her voice small and sad. "I'm sorry."
"Does it happen often?" he asked and she averted her gaze, sighing ruefully. "What are you scared of?" She continued to look down with abject sorrow, unwilling to speak aloud of the things that haunted her. "You know what? It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what you do about it."
"But... I'm asleep," she responded with confusion.
Jinny looked up curiously at them, recovering herself from the sudden scare. She could guess what Bellamy was about to tell her word for word, because she had heard it before.
"Fears are fears," he started. "Slay your demons when you're awake, they won't be there to get you in your sleep."
She shook her head. "Yeah, but... how?"
"You can't afford to be weak. Down here, weakness is death, fear is death." Charlotte listened to him with rapt attention and he paused to hold out his hand. "Let me see that knife I gave you."
She reached into her pocket and brought out the small handmade blade to give it back to him. Bellamy took it and grasped the hilt firmly in his hand. "Now, when you feel afraid," he said. "You hold tight to that knife, and you say, 'Screw you. I'm not afraid.'"
Jinny smiled at the familiar phrase as Bellamy passed the knife back to Charlotte. She held it with both hands as if it were a totem and looked down at it.
"Screw you. I'm not afraid." Her eyes flicked up to his and he cocked his head slightly to show that he wasn't convinced. She looked back down and took a small breath, filling her voice with more confidence. "Screw you. I'm not afraid."
Bellamy patted her on the leg, drawing away to lean against the wall again. "Slay your demons, kid. Then you'll be able to sleep."
"But it's easy for you to say," she contested, her thin voice wavering slightly. "You're a lot braver than I am."
"Hey," Jinny called softly. She gestured for the girl to come over and Charlotte slowly crawled towards her. The older woman wrapped an arm around her shoulders and smiled. "Bravery isn't the lack of fear. It's being able to move forward despite having fear. It's being the only one who knows that you're afraid."
"Were you afraid when we were running just now?" Charlotte asked.
"Yeah, my heart was about ready to explode," she said. "But I didn't let that stop me. I wanted to live so I ran."
"How do you tell yourself to do it?"
Jinny stroked her hair and looked up, something wistful taking hold in her eyes. "There's power in words. Whenever you think that you can't do something, just tell yourself this one thing." She turned her gaze back to the little girl. "We are infinite."
"It's all clear," Bellamy announced as he stepped out from the mouth of the cave the next morning. He looked around carefully before signalling for the both of them to join him. Charlotte was holding on to Jinny's hand but she let go when they were out in the open air again.
"Anybody out there?" He raised his voice to call. "Jones?!"
"We're here!" a reply came from their right.
They quickly made their way towards the direction of the boy's voice and met up with the rest of their group. Jinny looked around quickly as Jones told Bellamy that they managed to get to a cave further down. She finally locked her gaze on the three kids in front of her.
"Did you see Atom?" she asked.
Jones shook his head and she inhaled sharply. Bellamy touched her arm, brows pulled together with concern. "Let's find him. Come on."
They spread out across the woods with Bellamy pointing in the direction that they'd been running in the day before. Jinny jogged quickly, desperate to find the boy and praying against all hope that he was okay—or at least the closest version to okay. Her hand was still shaking and every so often, a sharp pain would shoot through the middle of her palm and radiate out to the whole extremity. Her breathing was ragged as she paused to look around, cradling her injured hand to her chest. She could feel Bellamy close behind, probably keeping an eye on her.
A scream erupted further ahead and Jinny tore through the foliage in its direction. She jumped over a rock, skid past a fallen log, and found Charlotte. The older woman grabbed her around the shoulders to calm her down. "Screamer, hey, it's oka—"
Her blood ran cold when her eyes finally landed on the sight before them; the reason why Charlotte had screamed. Fear and dread filled her, pushing out all other senses to replace them with a sick feeling in the pit of her gut. Bellamy caught up to them and walked towards the quivering body that was lying on the ground. They followed after him slowly, their eyes taking in every single detail of Atom's deformation with each step they took.
Jinny let go of Charlotte and fell to her knees beside him. "No, no, no..." she started. "Shit. No! Atom!"
His skin was covered with large blisters filled with yellow abscess, dried blood covering the chemical burns that lacerated his skin and splitting them open in cracks. Atom's eyes which used to be the colour of burnt umber were now coated in white spots from corneal ulceration, his lungs filled with liquid as he struggled to breathe. He spoke only two words, his voice barely a whisper. It froze her veins and her entire body tensed like a tightly wound coil.
"Kill... me..."
Bellamy stood up from his crouch just as Charlotte approached them. The boy lying at their feet continued to choke and struggle for air, face crumpled in agony, unable to even shed a tear. Jinny felt something small and cool slip into her hand and she looked down to see Charlotte placing the knife in her palm.
"Don't be afraid," her childish voice said as Jinny curled her trembling fingers around the hilt.
"Go back to camp," Bellamy told the others. "Charlotte... you too."
Jinny heard their retreating footsteps rustle through the underbrush away from them and Bellamy crouched back down beside her. He placed a hand on her arm but she couldn't tear her eyes away from Atom. Would she had been able to save him if she had just gone back?
She inhaled sharply and felt tears well up in her eyes. Jinny swallowed thickly to banish them, exchanging the knife to her good hand and gripping it tightly. Suddenly, she felt someone pass by and she looked up to find Clarke bending down opposite her. The blonde placed a hand on Atom's chest, eyes quickly surveying the damage before looking up at the both of them.
"I heard screams," she stated.
"Charlotte found him," Bellamy replied. "I sent her back to camp."
"Kill me... J... Jin... ny... Bella... my... ple... ease..."
Atom's chest heaved as he continued to beg for them to take his life. Clarke inspected the boy again, racking her brain for any information she had that could possibly save him. In the end, she shook her head sadly.
Bellamy covered Jinny's hand with his own and gave her a significant look, trying to communicate what he wanted to say with his eyes alone. She inhaled deeply and clenched her jaw, looking up at the both of them with a steely gaze. Bellamy shuffled to the side as she gently pushed him away and took position next to Atom. The dying boy turned his head in her direction, as if he knew what was coming. She reached out to touch his hair and he closed his unseeing eyes.
"Thank you..." he rasped.
With her heart falling into a black abyss, she pierced his neck.