High up on a rocky ridge overlooking the main trail back to Camp Jaha, two figures lay flat in the brush. They wore sleek, high-tech environmental suits, completely detached from the primitive forest around them. One adjusted the dials on a heavy sniper rifle, while the other held a high-powered spotting scope, tracking a column of horses.
"Target acquired," the spotter muttered, his crosshairs settling on the lead riders. He adjusted the focus, his brow furrowing beneath his visor. "The riders from Tondc got here fast... but where is the boy? I can't see him anywhere."
Carl Emerson grunted, peering through his own binoculars. "I can't see him anywhere either. Keep looking. He's the real threat."
The sniper shifted his weight. "They're slowing down." He paused, squinting. "Make that stopping. Hell, I could make that shot right now."
"Check that," Emerson ordered coldly. "We'll wait."
Down on the trail, the horses ground to a halt, kicking up clouds of dust.
"Mom, why are we stopping?" Clarke asked, her voice laced with impatience as she pulled back on her reins.
Abby let out a heavy sigh, passing a canteen forward. "You need to drink, too, Clarke. You're running on fumes."
"I'm fine. We're almost home," Clarke insisted, though she took a brief sip. She turned to one of the Grounder scouts riding near the flank. "Our scouts patrol these woods. Be careful where you shoot."
"Yes, ma'am," the warrior replied with a respectful nod.
Abby watched the exchange, a mixture of pride and unease on her face. "The Grounders actually listen to you."
"Lexa told them to listen to Jason," Clarke explained, wiping her brow. "But he went ahead and instructed them to listen to me instead. He said he didn't want the paperwork of managing an army."
Abby raised an eyebrow. "Oh, is that so? And where exactly is he? I haven't seen him since we left the village."
"I don't know," Clarke admitted, glancing back into the tree line. After a tense beat, she shook her head. "We shouldn't have stopped. Mount up!"
"Clarke" Abby started.
"Mom, I need to get back to that radio to see if Bellamy has made contact," Clarke interrupted, her tone final. "Every second we waste out here is a second he's alone in that mountain."
Abby rode up beside her, her voice dropping into a firm, maternal register. "Listen to me. I know you don't think you need my protection anymore because of Jason, but you do. You have to trust that I know what's right for us. Let's go home. Let's move out!"
Up on the ridge, the sniper smiled behind his mask. "There's your shot. Crosswind five knots."
"My, my... what a lovely view you boys have up here. Mind if I join the party?"
The voice came out of nowhere, dripping with a lazy, playful cadence that sounded like a man strolling through a summer festival rather than a war zone.
Emerson and the sniper froze, their hearts stopping. They whipped their heads back to see Jason standing directly behind them, casually leaning against a boulder with his hands tucked into his pockets. He wore a deceptively cheerful, squinty-eyed smile that made him look completely harmless and entirely terrifying.
"You know, it's terribly rude to point toys at people without introducing yourselves first," Jason purred, tilting his head.
The sniper scrambled to pivot his rifle, but in that exact microsecond, the sharp twang of a Grounder scout's arrow cut through the air from the trees below. The arrow was on a direct trajectory to pierce the sniper's throat.
Moving with terrifying speed, Jason's hand snapped out of his pocket. Thwack. He caught the arrow bare-handed, mid-air, inches from the sniper's face. Without breaking his smile, Jason drove the iron tip straight down into the sniper's knee.
The man let out a muffled scream of agony, his finger convulsing on the trigger as he fell. The rifle discharged into the air
BANG
The echoing gunshot instantly alerted the entire trail below.
Before Emerson could even draw his sidearm, Jason's fist blurred forward, catching the guard square in the jaw. The impact was clean, precise, and completely turned Emerson's lights out. He dropped like a stone next to his unconscious, bleeding partner.
"Whoops," Jason muttered, looking down at the two crumpled Mountain Men. "Guess I don't know my own strength. Oh well, sweet dreams, boys."
Down on the trail, the gunshot threw the column into chaos.
"Mountain Men! Yah!" Clarke yelled, kicking her horse into a gallop and tearing up the rocky path toward the sound of the gunfire.
"Go with her!" Abby shouted to the guards.
By the time Clarke burst into the clearing, closely followed by Indra and Octavia, the danger was already entirely over.
The two Mountain Men lay completely flat on the ground, thoroughly neutralized. Jason was standing over them, dusting off his jacket with an innocent, boyish grin. He looked up at the arriving group and gave a cheerful, two-finger salute.
"Oh, hi there," Jason said brightly. "Nice day for a walk, isn't it?"
Indra stepped into the clearing, her eyes darting from the bloody arrow in the guard's knee to Jason's pristine, smiling face. She let out a low growl. "You fight like a demon who stole a man's skin."
Jason's smile widened. "Why, thank you, Indra. I always knew you appreciated fine artistry."
Indra merely scoffed, turning her back to secure the perimeter.
Jason reached down, effortlessly hauling Emerson up by the collar. He unbuckled the high-tech tactical backpack from the unconscious soldier's shoulders and tossed it carelessly across the clearing toward Octavia. "Hey, O. Catch. See what kind of goodies our subterranean neighbors brought us."
Octavia caught the pack, unzipping the heavy seals and pulling out a booklet. As she flipped the pages, her jaw dropped.
Jason strolled over, leaning over her shoulder and raising an eyebrow at the book and pictures in the book. "Oh, wow," he chuckled darkly. "They definitely got the jaw angle correct on mine. Truly captured my good side."
Clarke rushed over, her face tense. "What is it?"
"Clarke..." Octavia said, her voice shaking slightly as she held up the book along with some pictures. "You, Lexa, and Jason were the targets. They have coordinates, movement patterns, everything. They came out here specifically to assassinate you three."
Indra's head snapped back around, her eyes wide with alarm. "We have to warn the Commander," she ordered, immediately barking instructions to her scouts in rapid, urgent Trigedasleng to ride back to Tondc.
Jason watched the frantic scramble, completely unbothered. He let out a soft, dramatic sigh, placing a hand over his heart. "What, no one is worried about my safety? I'm hurt. Deeply wounded, really."
Clarke, Abby, and Octavia all looked at him with blank, unamused stares.
Jason blinked, the silence stretching out awkwardly in the clearing. He rubbed the back of his neck and muttered, "No? Seriously? Wow... tough crowd."
———
The cages in the harvest chamber of Mount Weather hummed with a low, agonizing vibration. Bellamy hung from the iron bars of his enclosure, his shoulders aching as he strained against his bonds.
A voice, raspy and laced with a thick accent, drifted from the cage directly opposite his.
"(Trigedasleng)... You are a fool for trying to run," Echo muttered, her eyes tracking his desperate movements.
Bellamy panted, sweat stinging his eyes. "I can't... I—I don't understand you."
Echo leaned her forehead against the bars, spitting onto the concrete floor. "Sky Person?"
"Yeah," Bellamy grunted, bracing his feet against the iron frame. "I take it no one has told you we're not enemies anymore. I need to get out of this cage."
"And then what?" Echo asked, her tone flat, entirely devoid of hope.
"And then," Bellamy vowed, his voice dropping into a dark, unyielding promise, "I'll kill everyone in this mountain."
Back at Camp Jaha, the heavy metal gates opened to admit the returning party. Marcus Kane hurried down the main ramp, his eyes widening as he took in the sight of the horses and the two heavily bound Grounders dragging the unconscious, chemical-suited captives.
"Well, look who decided to greet the welcoming committee," Jason called out brightly, tossing a lazy wave from his saddle. "We brought souvenirs, Marcus. Though I have to say, the local wrapping paper leaves a lot to be desired."
Kane stopped, his gaze dropping to the sniper whose leg was horribly mangled by the iron-tipped arrow. He winced as he noticed blistering, raw burns bubbling across the man's exposed neck and face. "What happened out there? Jason, what did you do to him? Why is he squirming like that apart from the arrow?"
"There was a tear in his suit," Clarke explained quickly, sliding down from her horse. "The radiation started cooking him from the inside out, but we patched it with duct tape in the field. Is there anything from Bellamy?"
Raven had just sprinted up to the group, her face pale. She shook her head. "No. Nothing yet."
Jason let out a soft hum, rubbing his chin. "Well, that means our fearless insider is either currently in a bit of a pickle, or he's realized the catering in the mountain is better than ours."
"No," Clarke snapped, her anxiety flaring. "It just means he hasn't gotten to a secure radio yet. He's careful."
"Ah, the sweet, intoxicating scent of unfiltered optimism," Jason mused. "Always a pleasure." Clarke glared at him before turning back to Raven. "Then why aren't you at the comms station?"
"Octavia just took my place," Raven replied, wiping her hands. "I came down the second I heard the gate open. And if you're wondering about Finn, he's still in a lot of pain, but the fever broke. He's awake."
Within ten minutes, the injured assassin was wheeled into the makeshift medical facility, his labored breathing rattling through his damaged visor.
Jackson leaned over the gurney, inspecting the bloody puncture. "The arrowhead is wedged deep against the bone. We need to extract this immediately."
"Don't touch the seals," Clarke warned, leaning over the table. "That suit is the only thing keeping him alive right now."
"Well, how can we treat a guy if we can't touch him?" Jackson asked, throwing his hands up in frustration.
"I can rig up some radiation scrubbers in the decompression airlock," Raven interjected, already backing toward the door. "Give me twenty minutes to isolate the vents."
Abby crossed her arms, turning a sharp, disapproving glare toward Jason, who was casually leaning against a medicine cabinet. "Jason, couldn't you have just knocked him out cleanly? Look at him. He's losing too much blood because of that arrow."
Jason's smile vanished, replaced by an icy, level stare that made the room drop in temperature. "Tell me, Abby... would you be giving me a lecture on proper first-aid etiquette if that man had successfully put a bullet through your daughter's skull?"
Abby opened her mouth to argue, but the words died in her throat under the weight of his gaze.
"That's what I thought," Jason said smoothly, tilting his head. "The man is incredibly lucky. I decided to put the arrow through his knee instead of sliding it through his eye sockets. I was being remarkably civil."
Indra stepped into the light of the medical bay, her hand resting heavily on her sword hilt. "For once, I agree with the Butcher. No mercy should be wasted on these cowards. We should just kill this one now. We have a spare locked in the guardhouse to interrogate. Keeping two alive is a waste of our strength."
"We're not doing that," Clarke said firmly. "Both of them have different intel. We need to know their patrol routes, their command structure…everything."
Indra turned her fierce gaze back to the tables. "Then let me make the other one talk. The one in the guardhouse is unbroken."
"No," Clarke countered, stepping directly into Indra's path. "We're not torturing him."
Abby nodded in agreement. "Clarke's right. He might just cooperate because we saved his life, even if the soldier in the guardhouse refuses to speak."
Indra let out a sharp, disgusted breath. "You people are so incredibly weak."
Jason chuckled which sounded like a low, melodic sound that drew Indra's immediate attention. He took a step toward her, his eyes glinting with a dangerous, dark amusement. "Wanna say that again, my dear Indra? I quite like the sound of your voice when you're being brave."
Indra's jaw tightened. She held his gaze for three agonizing seconds, recognizing the predatory stillness in his posture, before she turned on her heel and stormed out of the medical bay. The heavy steel door slammed shut behind her.
Jason smirked, lazily adjusting the cuffs of his jacket. "Man, she really is a ray of sunshine, isn't she?"
Abby let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, turning her attention to her daughter. "Someone tried to assassinate you today, Clarke. It's okay if you're upset. You don't have to carry it all."
"Just another day on the ground," Clarke said, her voice hollow as she walked toward the exit. "I'll be in engineering waiting for Bellamy to radio. I'm going to check up on Finn first."
As Clarke left, the room fell into an uneasy quiet. Abby turned her gaze back to Jason, looking at him with a mixture of fear, confusion, and reluctant gratitude.
"You really don't care what they think of you, do you?" Abby asked quietly. "The Grounders, our people... you let them look at you like you're a devil."
"A devil is a very useful thing to have around when you're walking through hell, Chancellor," Jason replied, his voice entirely devoid of humor. He straightened up, giving the cabinet a soft tap. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go have a little chat with our pristine friend in the guardhouse. Let's see if he's any better at conversation than his partner."