𝗜 𝗔𝗠 𝗥𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘 ↬ 𝗡𝗘𝗪𝗧 𝗙𝗙 [EN]

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟖

𝐼𝐹 𝑊𝐸 𝑊𝐸𝑅𝐸 𝑀𝐸𝐴𝑁𝑇 𝑇𝑂 𝐵𝐸

𝑊𝐸 𝑊𝑂𝑈𝐿𝐷 𝐻𝐴𝑉𝐸 𝐵𝐸𝐸𝑁 𝐵𝑌 𝑁𝑂𝑊

𝑆𝐸𝐸 𝑊𝐻𝐴𝑇 𝑌𝑂𝑈 𝑊𝐴𝑁𝑁𝐴 𝑆𝐸𝐸

𝐵𝑈𝑇 𝐴𝐿𝐿 𝐼 𝑆𝐸𝐸 𝐼𝑆 𝐻𝐼𝑀 𝑅𝐼𝐺𝐻𝑇 𝑁𝑂𝑊

- 𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑒 𝑒𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑠ℎ, 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ

*＊✿❀　❀✿＊*

“Please, James,” the brown-haired woman pleaded into the night, but she was completely defenseless. Exposed to everything he wanted to do to her. It would happen again when she had promised Newt it wouldn't. She fucking promised.

James, on the other hand, squeezed the rope in his hand as if they were flowers he was destroying. A destroyer that was itself destroyed.

Melanie couldn't defend herself, couldn't run away, as everything inside her screamed. Her hands were simply carelessly tied together.

“This is your punishment!” he said, “Your hearts is too soft, girl. Thanks to you, I'm still here. If I'm honest, I wouldn't have even blamed you if you'd had me banished. But here we are because you're so scared that you can't do it."

She gritted her teeth, hating that this was already round two and he was enjoying it more and more.

This is a good thing I do. If it's me, I know he can't hurt anyone else at the same time.

He pushed her top up the back a little, wanting to prepare his approach. “I see your back is feeling better, huh? Did it hurt so much that you couldn't take it anymore?" His words were far from mocking, so murderously wrong that she didn't understand what such an animalistic transformation could take place in a human being.

He knelt in front of her, searching, and she held his gaze coldly. He came a little closer to her and a cloud of his foul breath wafted over to her, making her look down at the ground. There was no fear in her anymore, a simple bravery to do good. "Go ahead. Go for it,” she spat at him with a wave of kind-hearted courage. James stood up abruptly and spun his rope around to strike.

"I did not hear you. Did you say something?" He played such miserable games, full of dying misery. Melanie growled and looked at him, her heart so dangerously loud and panting filled with adrenaline. "Start, you asshole, I said!"

He laughed, his eyes darkening. “Oh, what expletives she uses! Remember: one more stroke for every word, girl." He ended up silencing her because she preferred to avoid it when she had a choice. Then things repeated themselves, like the first time.

He did what seemed to be in his nature and she endured it, gritting her teeth and just feeling the throbbing on her skin because everything burned disgustingly. He had previously dipped the rope in a liquid that was incompatible with open wounds and the pain was three times as intense.

“Don’t you have anything to say?,” he asked in between. Melanie just shook her head unceremoniously, having to concentrate on not screaming. Where had they ended up that such ideas crossed his mind? In the Middle Ages?

He struck again and this time she flinched, having hit the same spot twice. It was like a real hell and she wanted nothing more than to just be dead.

Melanie tried to take a deep breath and not lose her mind. Instead, she simply believed that this was okay. That she spared someone else this and preferred to carry luggage for someone who couldn't. So selfless that she killed herself in a stupid way.

“Mel?”

She jerked her head up, not wanting to acknowledge whose voice she had heard. But she was right. It was inevitably Newt's.

Filled with remorse, her entire jaw tensed and guilt erupted that was completely unfounded. "Newt ..." she managed. A mix of rejection and embarrassment.

Before the blonde could react, still processing the fact that this time he was witnessing all of their bad experiences, it happened again: James lashed out.

Thankfully, this time she tore away her hands that he was aiming for and gasped hard because he missed. Whatever he had done was enough.

Newt ran towards them, but was stopped by James, who had his hand pressed to his chest. "Stay out of this! She's doing this of her own free will, Blondie."

Melanie looked away, choking on the untruths being dished out. "What?," he stammered in disbelief, amazed at how sick someone he had known for three decades could be. “Don’t lie to yourself, James. She has a good heart. If she can save others, she would do anything. Sacrificing herself too.” Everything that didn’t make James. Everything James was the dark opposite of.

Slight surprise appeared on Melanie's face, as the blonde probably knew her so much better than she wanted to show and than she was aware of. Suddenly the feeling that he should leave also seemed to disappear.

She was beginning to feel terribly grateful that he was here. That he offered her a way out of this.

Newt did what he had to do and drew his machete, pointing it firmly at him. In the moonlight the blade shone menacingly sharp, more real than in all her nightmares. And for reasons that saved lives, not ended them.

"Same game. Give her to me and I'll let you go." James nodded his head slightly thoughtfully, his lips pressed together suspiciously, as if he would lose control in the next ten seconds.

He was already a danger to everyone.

Inevitably, however, he let the blonde through to her. Always keeping the machete in his hand, he freed Melanie and silently shook his head at what had happened here. He gently helped her get up, looked at what was new and had to say that it was a lot less bad than the first time.

Newt would prevent there being a third time. “Tomorrow will be the last time you will see the sunlight, James. After that you'll be banished once and for all, I've already told Alby everything."

After she stood up again, taking a second to gather the strength from her bones, she stared at the blonde briefly, processing.

Then into the short expanse of night darkness until she began to speak.

"Finding you is worse for all of us than meeting a Griever," she told James, with words so razor-sharp that the fire in her didn't seem to be lost.

Maybe it was created by all the falling moments.

Since her truth only seemed to reach James superficially, as if he had stood away waiting for an order from someone unknown, it only showed how insane he was. That after his banishment she didn't feel like a murderer, but rather understood that you had to eliminate danger when you still had the chance. If you could protect others in return.

What kind of moral starting point would it be to sacrifice one person in order to save forty-nine others in return?