They were running fast, breathing ragged as they tried to avoid being caught, feet kicking up dirt when Jason suddenly raised a hand.
"Wait."
He pulled Clarke and Finn behind a shattered wooden wall, pressing them into the shadows. The moment they stopped moving, both Clarke and Finn finally registered what they hadn't processed during the chaos.
Bodies, there were bodies everywhere.
Grounders were everywhere. Some with slashed throats, some missing limbs, some folded in ways a human body simply shouldn't fold. Clarke's stomach tightened.
"God…" she whispered.
Jason glanced over his shoulder and shrugged casually.
"Well… calling me a butcher isn't completely inaccurate i guess plus they just didn't want to comply to demand."
Finn stared at a corpse whose chest looked opened, not cut. "Man, who the hell carves people like this? What are you, a surgeon?"
Jason looked and then back him. "Close enough."
Clarke swallowed hard and asked, "How'd you even find us?"
Jason kept moving, leading them through another section of the hideout and dead bodies. "They found the bodies of the other three kids that were with you guys. Lying near the traps they set. One was also killed by a grounder. Good job, by the way."
Finn shook his head. "We couldn't do anything. We were knocked out and chained."
Jason cut him off, looking forward. "Save the guilt for after we're not being hunted."
They moved again.
"Oh yeah and how I located this place? Murphy helped," Jason added.
Finn stopped, eyes wide. "Murphy? Dude, you can't trust him! This might be a trap—"
"Oh, no," Jason said without even glancing back, "trust me, it's not. I made it very clear what would happen if Murphy screwed us over."
Clarke nodded slowly. "Who came with you?"
"John and David," Jason answered. "Ryan and Evan too. And from the gunshots you heard earlier… I'm pretty sure the last two are dead by now."
Finn's throat tightened. "John? David? Where are they?"
Jason exhaled through his nose. "Don't know. Hope they're alive. It'd be a damn shame to lose those two. But right now we need to survive. We get back to camp first then worry about them second."
They jogged quietly, staying low, until Finn asked:
"And Murphy? Where is he now?"
Jason smirked slightly. "With the… surprise we met breaking in."
Clarke blinked. "Surprise?"
Jason snorted. "How do you think I got the exact location of this little torture chamber? Grounders aren't exactly chatty."
They reached a corner of the wooden perimeter wall and froze.
Grounders sprinted past the other end and did them, moving toward the area they'd just escaped.
Then they heard Anyas voice.
"Find them quickly," she barked. "Kill them before Tristan arrives!"
The name hit Jason like an electric shock.
Tristan.
He knew that name. A flash hit him as he saw flames at camp, screams, destroyed shelters alike with bodies. Tristan was the one who almost wiped out everything the original 100 built.
"Shit," Jason whispered.
They pushed forward around another turn straight into a grounder.
The man didn't even get a breath out.
Jason lunged mid-step, slamming his knee into the man's chest with a bone-shattering CRACK. The grounder's eyes bulged as his breath left instantly, ribs caving in due to the force of the hit. He hit the ground wheezing and unable to get up before Jason drove his sword straight through his broken ribs and into his heart.
Finn and Clarke stared at him like he'd just murdered an innocent civilian.
Jason raised an eyebrow.
"What? He was in the way. Move."
They followed him to another corridor of hideout to reach a dead end.
Finn muttered, "You've got to be kidding me."
Jason crouched, feeling along the corner of the wall. He pressed his fingers under a thick slab of wood, grunted, and ripped it up, revealing a dark crawlspace beneath.
He looked back at them.
"Ladies first."
Clarke slid in, dropping into the darkness.
Finn sighed and followed.
Jason took one last glance behind them and hearing shouted orders, pounding footsteps, and the approaching sound of more warriors and muttered
"Let's hope this thing doesn't collapse…"
Then he slipped into the hole and pulled the slab shut above them.
—————————————-
The crawlspace spat them out behind a line of thorn bushes and trees. Clarke blinked at the sudden change in scenery then froze.
Murphy was standing there.
And beside him… a grounder with a mask covering the upper half of his face.
Finn reacted instantly, stumbling back, hands tightening like he wanted to throw a punch despite the fact that his arm still ached from when the chains almost cut into his wrists. Clarke took a step behind Jason, eyes wide in shock.
Jason sighed.
"Relax. He's with us."
The masked grounder pulled the covering off.
Clarke's breath hitched.
"Oh my God… Lincoln."
Lincoln nodded once at her, then glanced sharply toward the treeline.
"We don't have time. We need to move. Now."
Jason stepped forward. "We still have people inside. I need to get them."
Lincoln fixed him with a hard stare.
"The other group you sent to the other side of this camp was surrounded before the first gunshot went off."
Jason muttered under his breath, voice tight, "Shit."
"But we still need to—"
He froze.
Because the sound that washed over them wasn't footsteps. Jason turned around and saw it
It was horses.
A line of mounted grounders appeared through the trees, torches bobbing as they began speaking of Anya's commands.
"Anya commands we move out! Bring the prisoners! We present them to Tristan!"
Clarke's hand flew to her mouth.
Finn whispered, "Oh no… John… David…"
Jason's jaw clenched, fury sparking across his face.
Two horses dragged John and David, they looked beaten up with their arms tied and they looked barely conscious.
Ryan looked half-dead being hauled along on another horse.
But there was no sign of Evan.
Clarke tried to step out but Jason grabbed her arm and yanked her behind the tree.
"The hell are you doing?" he hissed. "They outnumber us. One wrong move and they'll slit their throats before we blink."
Finn swallowed hard.
"But we can't just leave them!"
Clarke's voice trembled. "Who the hell is Tristan?"
Lincoln stepped closer, voice low and grim.
"He's a commander. And a ruthless one. If Anya is meeting him, then the sky people's days are numbered."
Jason and Clarke stared at him.
Lincoln continued, "After the accident and the burning of one of our villages and the bridge incident… our leader is done taking chances. This is no longer retaliation. This is war."
Finn felt his chest tighten.
"Then we need to get back to the dropship and warn the others."
Jason nodded slowly.
"Yeah… they'd better speed up the defenses. We go back. But first—"
He pointed at the retreating horses.
"—I'm not leaving my men."
Lincoln shook his head.
"If you follow them, you'll be killed. All of you will."
Jason only shrugged, eyes cold.
"Be that as it may."
Lincoln turned to him intensely.
"Jason. Listen to me. They're leading them to Tristan. You go there
you die."
Jason shrugged and looked at Lincoln and gave a grin
A slow, dangerous and arrogant grin.
"Well I don't need to be worried. They hasn't earned the right or privilege to lay claim to my life yet."
Murphy stared at him.
"You're insane."
Jason patted his shoulder lightly.
"Probably. But that's not new."
He pointed at Lincoln, Clarke, Finn, and Murphy.
"Get them back to camp. Tell Bellamy to get ready for war."
Clarke's voice cracked.
"Jason—don't—"
He didn't answer.
He was already stepping backward toward the forest, eyes locked on the trail of torches disappearing between the trees.
Then he turned.
And ran, sprinting after the horses with deadly purpose, vanishing into the dark woods.
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