Jonh's POV
It's been a week since I got back to camp. I've spent a lot of my time with Monty Green and Jasper Jordan, they've been showing me around and updating me with everybody's function in the camp and other random news.
Jasper, to be specific, has been insisting on telling me how he got speared by a grounder before being kidnapped by it and emphasizing over and over the fact that we're not alone down here.
Octavia and Monty have been trying to convince him to get back outside camp, since he has been afraid of going outside the walls after that.
Wells Jaha was killed by a grounder this week, nobody saw anything, they just found him out in the woods with a knife wound in his neck and two missing fingers. Nobody was particularly moved by his death, except from Clarke –who I understand was his friend– after all his father is the main reason why we all were in lockup up on the ark and down here now even though I'm not really sure being down here is a bad thing… but I believe you get my point.
Monty and Clarke have been working in a way of somehow transforming our wristbands into a radio or something we can use to contact the ark. Bellamy, on the other hand, has been convincing and sometimes even forcing people to take them off as a way to free ourselves from the Ark and rebel against the Council. I get his point, we're all convicts and I still believe they won't let us free just like that if they ever get down here.
Monty took mine off two days ago to try and do his magic turning it into whatever it was in his head, but it didn't work, the wristband broke due to the pressure he inflicted with the sharp tool he was using to take it off and I just ended up with a broken, useless wristband and a wound on my wrist. Monty apologized about over a hundred times.
I'm in the dropship with Monty and he's trying to explain to me how the wristband could transform into a Morse code working radio for the fifth time when Clarke and Finn come inside. Clarke has an odd look on her face, like she just came up with a brilliant maleficent plan.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Finn says.
"This is the only way to make her feel what I felt," Clarke looks at both me and Monty and greets us with a grin. "Monty, I need you to take my wristband off, if you do it carefully enough we can still use this to contact the Ark."
"Say no more," Monty says while grabbing a handmade stick with sharp tip similar to the one he used to take mine off.
While they get to it I stand up and go next to Finn.
Finn and I know each other from the Ark, I met him through Raven, one of my very best friends from the Ark who I've known almost all my life, she lived next door and I've always considered her part of my family.
For Raven, Finn was just the boy next door, who she used to spend more time with apart from me. Throughout the years, the two grew closer and at some point, they started a romantic relationship and the three of us became really good friends.
"So… how did you convince her to do this?" I whisper to him.
"Actually I didn't, it was her decision," he says while crossing his arms and grinning at me.
We hear a loud metallic crushing sound and I look back at Clarke and Monty, expecting to see what in my head looks like a bloodbath, but instead, I see Monty with the opened wristband in his hands and a look of success on his face.
"Yes! I did it," he says while looking up at Clarke. "And it's still operational," he adds and stands up to get to work on it, looking like a spoiled kid who just got a new toy to play with.
Clarke gets up too and comes to us, holding her sore wrist with one hand.
"What?! Monty needed a working wristband," she says, trying to excuse her after realizing Finn's giving her a look.
"And you needed to punish your mother," Finn answers and I find myself with a confuse look on my face trying to put all the pieces of this puzzle together.
"Look, they're running out of air," Clarke says. "And we need their help… my mother thinking I'm dead is only temporary."
Yep, I'm definitely lost here. I know the wristbands transmit vital signs to the Ark, that way they know if we're still alive, but what does Finn mean by 'punishing your mother'?
I think about asking what's exactly going on, but I just decide I'll interrogate Finn later.
"Not if I can pass it through the dropship mainframe," Monty says from his working area and looks back at us. "I can do it… we'll be talking to the Ark by nightfall," he adds.
Clarke smiles and leaves the dropship giving me and Finn a final glance of satisfaction.
"So…?" I whisper at Finn, giving him a I-know-you-know look.
"Don't you have something to go do, John?" Finn says, joking provocatively.
"Go get floated, Finn," I say and head out of the dropship, deciding I'll go take a walk outside the camp.
When I'm right out of the camp's side door I get surprised by Octavia and Jasper, and I smile at them when they make eye contact with me, but my smile drops when I realize they're agitated for some reason.
"Jasper, it's really not that bad out here, nothing is gonna happen to you," I say, frowning at him.
"There's nothing to be afraid o-" Octavia starts saying, but she stops when Jasper steps on a tree root coming out of the ground and falls.
"Wow," I say, and I get closer to them to help Jasper get up. When I get there, I crouch down and I'm about to help him up when I look at his face and realize something's wrong, he's looking at something on the ground with a terrified look on his face, so I look in the direction where his eyes are pointing.
"Oh my god," Octavia says and I look back at her to see she's also down on the ground with us now. I try to find out what it is that they're looking at because I can't see it.
Jaspers slowly moves backwards while still on the ground as if the thing he's looking at would jump on him. Then I see it… and I paralyze too.
"Are those…" Jaspers says
"I'm… gonna throw up," I say, struggling to keep my last meal in my stomach.
In a snap of an eye the three of us are on our feet, my brain connects all the dots together and I can't stop looking at the knife and the fingers… Wells' fingers.
Bellamy's POV
We're in Jasper's tent. O, Jasper and Jonathan found some kind of knife and what seem to be two fingers belonging to Wells Jaha. Apparently we were wrong, Wells wasn't killed by a grounder.
The five of us, Clarke, Jasper, O, Jonathan and I are looking at the fingers and the knife as if we'll be able to read the answer of who did it written on it if we stare for long enough.
Clarke leans on the table and picks up the knife. "This knife was made of metal from the dropship," she says. And she's right, the knife is actually a metallic bar from the dropship that has been folded in two to create a handle and then sharpened on the other end.
"What do you mean?" Jasper says opening his eyes more than any person should be able to.
"Who else knows about this?" I cut him off.
"No one, we brought it straight here," O says, looking back at the fingers and then up at me.
"Clarke?"
"It means the grounders didn't kill Wells," Clarke says, looking at every one of us one after the other. "It was one of us," she adds, with what seems to be a mixture of horror and anger on her face.
I look at Jonathan and I notice he's still looking at the fingers; he has been doing in since we all got inside the tent. He's bracing himself with his left arm and the other one is up, covering his mouth while resting its elbow on the left hand.
I take a second to study his expression, there's something odd about him, I can't read him like I usually am able to do with other people… I can't tell if he's calm and thinking his next move or if he's just horrified and trying not to throw up.
"So there's a murderer in the camp?" Jasper says.
Jonathan breaks his posture, letting his arms fall down and pulls his eyebrows up when Jasper speaks.
"There's more than one murderer in this camp," I say, answering Jasper but also trying to calm Jonathan's expression. "This isn't news. We keep it quiet," I add, crossing my arms, but undoing it when Clarke attempts to get out of the tent, which for some reason I find offensive so I get in her way.
"Get out of my way, Bellamy."
"Look there's more about this. Look what we've achieved, the walls, patrols… like it or not, thinking the grounders killed Wells is good for us."
"Oh good for you, you mean!" she says. "What? Keep people afraid and they'll work for you? Is that it?"
"Yes, that's it," I reply. "But it's good for all of us… fear of the grounder is building that wall. Besides, what're you gonna do? Just walk out and ask the killer to step forward? You don't even know whose knife that is," I say and I glance at Jonathan for one second, he's crossing his arms and listening to the conversation with a serious look on his face, as if trying to decide whose side he is on. I look back at Clarke when I notice she's about to speak again.
"Oh, really?" she says with a really confident look on her face, she picks up the knife and shows it to me "J.M … John Murphy." Pointing to the letters engraved on the inside of the knife's handle. "The people have the right to now," she adds and walks right past me and out of the tent.
"She's right," Jonathan says, looking down when I look at him and going ahead and leaving the tent with Jasper. I'm not sure if it's real or just inside my head, but when he passes next to me I believe I hear him whispering, "I'm sorry."
John's POV
I head outside the tent and the first I see is Clarke confronting Murphy.
"You son of a bitch!" she yells at him while hitting both of his shoulders. A group of people make a circle around them.
"What's your problem?" Murphy says with a sarcastic laugh.
"Recognize this?" She says while pulling the knife up.
I'm now next to Octavia and Jasper inside the circle, none of us saying a word.
"That's my knife, where'd you find it?" Murphy says and attempts to take the knife, but Clarke moves away.
"Where you dropped it after you killed Wells!"
"Where what?" he says looking -in my opinion- genuinely confused.
I look at Octavia and Jasper to see if I'm the only one getting that feeling but they all seem to be pretty sure Clarke's right, even Bellamy, who I notice is now standing with us.
"The grounders killed Wells, not me," Murphy adds.
"I know what you did, and you're gonna pay for it."
"Really…?" He looks away from Clarke. "Bellamy, you really believe this crap?"
Every looks back at us, but none of us say a word, not even Bellamy.
"You threatened to kill him, we all heard you!" Clarke brakes the silence again. "You hated Wells."
"Plenty of people hated Wells..." Murphy says. "His father was the chancellor that locked us up!"
"Yeah, but you're the one who got in a knife fight with him."
"Yeah I didn't kill him then either."
Then I notice Octavia is looking at me, but when I turn to face her I notice she's actually looking at Jasper and when I'm about to turn his way, she speaks.
"Yeah, he tried to kill Jasper too!"
Murphy laughs, "Come on guys this is ridiculous, I don't have to answer to you," he says. "I don't have to answer to anyone!" he adds, but this time on a higher tone and moving away from Clarke.
"Come again?"
I turn to face in the direction of the voice and see Bellamy, arms crossed, looking at Murphy who's no longer in front of Clarke. Everybody's looking our way now.
"Bellamy," he says, and starts walking towards us. "Look, I'm telling you man, I didn't do this," he says, lowering his voice.
"They found his fingers of the ground with your knife," Bellamy says, almost whispering.
"Is this the kind of society that we want?" Clarke starts talking. "You say there should be no rules, does that mean we can start killing each other without… without punishment?"
"Look, I told you I didn't kill anyone," Murphy defends himself.
"I say we float'im," Connor says from the crowd and others start agreeing.
"That's not what I'm saying," Clarke says, trying to calm the agitated crowd.
I look at Octavia with a disapproving look and she passes it to Bellamy who is now looking at us.
"Float him! float him! float him!" Everybody starts yelling, and in a second, Murphy is lying on the ground being kicked by everyone.
"No! Get off him," someone I can't see from outside the crowd says, but I recognize as Clarke.
"Bellamy stop it!" I say and start heading inside the crowd followed by Octavia. But someone pulls us both out, Bellamy.
When he lets us go, the crowd starts moving outside the camp, they got Murphy but I can't see what's happening. We head out and freeze when we see the group hanging Murphy to a tree by his neck, his hands tied and a gag in his mouth.
"Bellamy, this is insane; we're not savages," I say, yelling at him and turning around to look for someone to agree with me. I see Clarke coming.
"You can stop this!" Clarke says, lunging at him. "They listen to you," her voice cracks.
Bellamy has a blank expression on his face, people start yelling his name, encouraging him to give the order to let him hang to death.
I look from Octavia to Clarke, to Jasper and back at Bellamy, again and again, trying to thinks of something clever to say that would make Bellamy take the right decision.
"I saw you in the woods with Atom, I know you're not a killer," I say to him, grabbing him by his shoulder trying to get his full attention. He looks at me and then turns to Murphy.
"Bellamy don't do this!" Clarke says, a mixture of anger and distress in her voice.
"BELL-A-MY! BELL-A-MY! BALL-A-MY!"
Bellamy gives us one final glare and starts heading to Murphy, I'm in shock for his decision and Clarke follows him, insisting to stop. He pushes her away.
"BELL-A-MY! BELL-A-MY! BALL-A-MY!"
I can see Bellamy's eyes and I feel my entire body filled with anger and disappointment, the next thing I hear is Bellamy kicking the piece of wood where Murphy's standing. He falls. He's chocking to death.
I try to get to him but someone grabs my arm avoiding me to move forward. Clarke's crying, horrified, and Bellamy turns back to us.
"This is on you princess!" He says, looking at her and glaring at me right after. "You should have kept your mouth shut!"
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!" We all turn. It's Finn, he tries to cut the rope that is causing Murphy to die, but Connor gets him and points a knife at him. "GET OUT OF MY WAY," Finn says trying to get him off him.
"Connor get away from him!" I say and I'm about to get on him to help Finn when the whole group turns to someone yelling at us.
"STOP, OKAY?! MURPHY DIDN'T KILL WELLS, I DID IT!" Charlotte.
Everybody goes silent.
I turn around and take Bellamy's axe off his belt. "Clarke!" I call.
I throw the axe to her and right after catching it she gets to the rope and cuts it, making Murphy fall to the ground.
Bellamy's devastated, he knows he took a rushed decision being influenced by others and he was wrong. I look at him and I see him looking at Charlotte. Then it hits me, he caused this, he encouraged her to do this, to slay her demons.
Bellamy, Clarke, Finn and Charlotte are inside one of the tents discussing about what happened. Outside, everyone else now lead by – the angriest Murphy I've ever seen– Murphy, are waiting for them to basically turn Charlotte over and 'Make justice' the same way they were doing with him.
"Bring the girl out, Bellamy!" Murphy yells.
I'm with Octavia, Jasper and Monty now. I personally decided to stay out of this one, I don't want to find myself telling everybody 'I told you so' about Charlotte… after all, the only one I told how I felt about the girl was Finn and I'm not sure he was even paying attention to me since I did it while we were out in the woods looking for 'Something to draw with' a couple days ago. Plus, I'm almost sure they're talking about the slaying your demons metaphor that girl took too literally.
"And you wanna build a society, princess?" Murphy yells again. "Let's build a society, take her out!"
A couple seconds after, Bellamy comes out.
"Well, look who decided to join us," Murphy says while walking towards him.
"Back off," Is all Bellamy says.
"Or what? What are you gonna do Bellamy? Hang me?"
"I was just giving the people what they wanted."
"Yeah that's a good idea, why don't we do that right now?" Murphy says with a sarcastic and defiant attitude. He turns around and walks to the rest of us. "So who here wants to see the real murderer hang up?" he says while raising his hand.
When I turn to look at the rest of the crowd I take a last glance at the tent where they are keeping Charlotte and I realize the shadows I could see before are no longer there, the tent is empty. So I sneak out of the group and get into the forest without anyone noticing. I stop walking when I hear Murphy yelling something I can't really understand, but I give up trying to figure it out and continue to follow the trails until I get closer to Clarke, Finn and Charlotte and I prove myself right… they're taking her out of here.
I decide to follow them but don't let them see me, and that's what I do for a while. I can hear Clarke telling Charlotte what she did was wrong, going a little harsh on her, but I don't feel bad, I don't like the girl, I'm sorry. You're soulless Jonathan.
"CHARLOTTE!... CLARKE AND FINN CAN'T SAVE YOU!"
It's Murphy, I decide to go out now and help Clarke and Finn protect Charlotte and take them out of their actual location, or Bellamy and the others are gonna find them.
I get out of the trees and I can tell I scare the crap out of them, I apologize with a grin and walk right past Finn, looking at Clarke.
"They're coming this way, let's go," I say as I point to my previous location.
"We need to run," Clarke says, and starts following me, but when I'm about to walk pass next to Finn, he grabs my arm.
"Yeah that's a good way to go… I like my plan better," he says and squats and opens what seems to be a hatch on the ground. "Get in."
I don't ask and get inside, all of us do.
This new place feels like what I imagine being inside a submarine would be, I remember my mom telling me stories of how submarines could get real deep into the water and navigate for long periods of time without running out of oxygen, kinda like an aquatic Ark… but this has no windows and feels lifeless.
When the excitement of the new discovery is over, we get Charlotte in one of the beds in this place and get her to sleep and relax for a while until we think what to do next.
I'm going around the tiny place looking at everything, it fascinates me how everything on earth is, the packaging of food, pictures, books, magazines… it's all so different down here.
While I wander around, I can hear Finn and Clarke talking but I decide not to get in that conversation since I'm more interested on my earth-items research.
When I'm done touching everything in the 'bunker' as Finn called it minutes ago, and I'm finally up to a conversation, I realize Finn and Clarke are asleep, so I decide to jump into one of the free beds and I zone out faster than I thought I would.
"Fin, John wake up!" Clark says.
I get up and almost fall out the bed, for a second I forget I'm in a bunk bed.
I see Clarke coming to check the bed under mine and I take a look. "Holy shit"
"She's gone," Clark says.
It takes us only about ten seconds to get out of there and we start looking for Charlotte, we can hear Murphy is still around looking for her and we find trails so we follow them.
"NO! MURPHY!" we hear Charlotte.
"Murphy has her," Clarke says and we start running that way.
When we find them we see Bellamy has Charlotte and they're standing next to a big cliff, Murphy and four other guys are holding torches and surrounding them.
"Bellamy! Stop!" Clarke says and turns back to Murphy. "This's gone too far, let's calm down and talk about this."
It all goes silent. I go stand next to Clarke and for a second I think Murphy might be considering it but then, in a blink of an eye, Murphy takes me and puts a knife on my throat. I try to get him off me but Murphy gets the knife closer to me the second I move. I start feeling dizzy and my now healed head wound starts beating for some reason.
"I'm sick of listening to you tal-" he starts saying to Clarke but Finn cuts him off
"Let him go!" Clarke and Finn say in unison
"I WILL SLIT HIS THROAT!" Murphy says while pointing at them with his free hand and walking backwards.
"Please don't hurt him!" Charlotte says.
"Don't hurt him?" Murphy turns to her, with the knife still on my throat. "Ok, I'll make you a deal, you come here and I'll let him go."
When Charlotte tries to get closer, Bellamy gets her.
"NO! Let me! I have to!" she fights.
"Don't, Charlotte," I hiss, my breathing accelerates due to my anger.
"Murphy, this won't happen," Bellamy speaks, and when I look at him I realize how tense he looks.
"I can't let any of you get hurt anymore… not because of me, not after what I did," Charlotte says, and all the eyes are on her. Her stare drops and with a quick move, she gets out of Bellamy's arms and turns to jump off the cliff.
"NO!" Clarke yells and runs to the edge of the cliff. "NO! no, no…!"
I try to yell but nothing comes out of my mouth. Murphy lets me go and I fall on my knees, I can't look at the cliff, I can't look at any one, so I just look down until I feel someone grabbing my shoulder, its Finn, he's helping me get up.
All of a sudden Bellamy is on Murphy and they fall to the ground, Bellamy's hitting the living hell out of him.
"Bellamy stop! Stop it you'll kill him!" Clarke says and all I do it watch it happen with Finn next to me, but then he goes and takes Bellamy away from Murphy.
"Get off me! He deserves to die!"
"NO! We don't decide who lives and who dies, not down here!"
"So help me god, if you say the people have the right to decid-"
"NO! I know! I was wrong before, ok?" Clark says. "You were right, sometimes it is dangerous to tell people the truth, but if we're gonna survive down here, we can't just live by 'whatever the hell we want', we need rules!"
"And who makes those rules? Hugh? You?"
"For now we make the rules, ok? Clarke says turning around and looking at us all.
"So what then?" Bellamy answers. "We just take him back and pretend like that never happen?"
"NO!" Clarke says, turning around to look at Murphy. "We vanish him".
Bellamy glares at me and Finn and then gets to Murphy who is still lying on the ground semi unconscious and gets him up.
"Get up" He says and takes him to the edge of the cliff.
"BELLAMY! STOP!" Clark says and she and I go ahead to stop Bellamy from whatever it is he's attempting.
"If I ever get you near camp, we'll be back here, understand?" Bellamy says, and I can see Murphy nodding in a deadly way. He drops Murphy to the ground and faces the other ones with the torches.
"As for the four of you, you can come back and follow me, or go off with him to die," he says while staring at them. "Your choice". Then he's staring at me, he looks at me from head to toe as if he's analyzing me.
"You alright?" he asks. And I nod, not being able to get a single word out of my mouth.
Then he leaves and Clarke goes after him, so do all of us including the guys supporting Murphy, and we head back to camp. Once we get there, Bellamy and Clarke decide to get the camp together and communicate what happened with Murphy and how thing are going to be from now on. After that, everyone starts getting to their tents or around camp but we all just stand there next to the fire, Bellamy, Clarke, Octavia, Monty, Jasper, Finn and I, in that order.
Monty suggests to try the wristbands communication system all together since he already has it sorted out.
"You guys go ahead; I'll be right there in a minute," I say, for no particular reason, I just feel like staring at the fire for a little longer.
So they all get into the dropship except for Finn who is looking from the outside and…
"You don't wanna see if it works?" Bellamy says, and I notice he's still sitting here next to me.
"Not really, I don't even know if that'd be a positive thing," I say with my eyes still on the fire.
"Hey, are you alright?" He says pointing at my throat and narrowing his eyebrows.
I touch my throat and blood come off of it, it doesn't hurt so that's when I first notice the superficial cut.
"Must have been Murphy's knife, its ok," I say, this time looking at him and I notice his expression changes when I name Murphy.
"Here, let me..." he says and pulls a piece of fabric out of his pocket, then cleans the blood off my wound. "I'm sorry for today," he talks again while looking at me, with one hand cleaning the wound and the other one holding the back of my neck.
"It's okay," I smile, "we all make bad decision under pressure, I know you're not a bad guy."
He answers with a grin and we just stay there looking at the fire and exchanging a glare from time to time until I see Finn running out of the dropship and into the woods.
I stand up, thinking about going after him but I stop when I see Clarke following him after a couple seconds. I look down and see Bellamy's still sitting down here next to the fire and I'm about to sit back down when Octavia comes out of the dropship and comes to sit with us.
"The wristbands are all fried, it didn't work," She says, and I sit down.
None of us say a word. We stay there until we get tired enough and one by one, we start leaving to go to our tents.
Notes:
Hope you enjoyed reading x
Let me know what you think so far! xoxo
ps. You can find me on tumblr as 'train-wreck101'
Preview: A Escape Pod is launched to earth. Bellamy is gonna have to take decisions... is Jonathan gonna agree with him?