Fearless (Bellamy Blake - Book 1)

Chapter 28

We all follow Clarke out of Bellamy's tent, and watch as she holds up Murphy's knife for him to see, a scowl on her face.

"Where you dropped it after you killed Wells!" She yells at him, emotion seeping into her voice.

I don't blame her for being upset, her best friend died for god sake, and finding out Murphy might have been responsible just angers her more.

I suddenly think about what I would be like if something ever happened to Finn or Raven.

I know for sure that I wouldn't handle it well, no matter how rocky our friendship may be at the moment. They're the only family I have.

"Where I what?" Murphy asks, a frown etched onto his face that causes my eyes to narrow slightly. "The Grounders killed Wells, not me."

Clarke shakes her head in disbelief. "I know what you did, and you're gonna pay for it."

"Really?" He looks over Clarke's shoulder to Bellamy and I as we stand side by side, arms folded and faces passive. "Carter, Bellamy you really believe this crap?"

"You threatened to kill him, we all heard you. You hated Wells." Clarke hisses at him, not giving us a chance to respond.

"Plenty of people hated Wells." Murphy defends. "His father was the Chancellor that locked us up!"

"Yeah, but you're the only one who got into a knife fight with him!"

"Yeah, and I didn't kill him then either."

That's a good point, but that knife fight was public, whereas Wells was killed late at night when he was alone.

"Tried to kill Jasper too!" Octavia calls up from next to me, causing Bellamy to glance down at her.

And...Octavia is right too, the night of the acid fog everyone left at camp had to take shelter in the drop ship, but Jasper was still dying then, and no one around camp was sympathetic towards him, least of all Murphy.

I look up at Bellamy and he catches my eye, neither of us know where this will end up going, but I have a pretty good hunch.

A lot of the delinquents don't like how Murphy has tried to take charge around camp, telling them what to do and being a general asshole. So if this all goes south, a majority of the people here will vote against Murphy.

Murphy glances around to see everyone in camp staring at him, a crowd having formed to witness the scene.

"Come on this is ridiculous, I don't have to answer to you. I don't have to answer to anyone!" Murphy walks around Clarke with his arms wide.

"Come again?" Bellamy speaks up from beside me, his arm touches mine and I physically feel him tense, challenging Murphy who pauses and walks towards us.

"Bellamy. Look, I'm telling you man, I didn't do this."

"They found his fingers on the ground with your knife." Bellamy states, not seeing any other point of view and I can't help but agree with him. Murphy looks at me and if I didn't know any better I'd say he looked genuinely scared about this.

"Carter." He glances between Bellamy and I, his voice quiet before he scoffs. "Carter, come on. You know me, you know I wouldn't do something like this."

"Wouldn't you?" I ask, eyebrows furrowed.

Murphy's face suddenly changes, and he gives me a look of pure hatred for not sticking up for him.

He says I know him, but I don't know him that well, I spent most of my time in the Sky Box in isolation, separated from the other prisoners. And besides, it's been said so many times before, Murphy hated Wells because his father got floated.

I quickly close my eyes and shake my head, opening them again and stepping forward. "Look, Murphy, if there's an explanation for this, then now is the time. If it wasn't you, then did you even know your knife was missing?"

He shakes his head at me. "Unbelievable."

"Is this the kind of society that we want?" Clarke calls out to the camp. "You say there should be no rules, does that mean we can kill each other without...without punishment?"

"I already told you, I didn't kill anyone." Murphy spins around to Clarke.

"I say we float him." Connor yells out.

A few other delinquents shout 'Yeah' in agreement.

Float him?

On the Ark, getting floated meant being placed in an airlock chamber and sucked out into space, how would that work on Earth?

"That's not what I'm saying." Clarke shakes my head and I resist rolling my eyes.

Clarke really needs to make up her mind on this.

"Why not? He deserves to float, its justice."

"Revenge isn't justice!"

"It's justice." Connor yells. "Float him! Float him! Float him!"

Soon enough everyone starts chanting 'Float him', first it starts slow but then it speeds up. My head swivels around to look at the determined faces on the delinquents. I try to step forward to put an end to it but I'm stopped by someone placing a hand on my arm, and I look up to see Bellamy shaking his head at me, silently telling me not to get involved with this.

Murphy has potentially murdered someone innocent, I am involved in this, and so is he.

"We need to stop this." I say to Bellamy. "This is getting out of hand."

He glances over at me. "I think it's too late."