DISCORDIA

[ 37 ] death valley

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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.