FIRE AND GOLD ▸ JOHN MURPHY (editing)

seven; edge of the cliff

"You sliced two and seem to be doing just fine."

"Two I didn't care about," I say still looking at him, and his grip becomes tighter again, pushing me so my back is fully pressed against his chest again.

"Stay still!" He orders me, his face against mine again.

"No, please. Please don't hurt her." Charlotte begs, making me close my eyes for a second, cursing silently.

"Don't hurt her? Okay, I'll make you a deal. You come with me right now, I will let her go." Murphy tells her, still grabbing me as close as he can.

"Don't do it Charlotte," Clark says and Murphy chuckles slightly only loud enough for me to hear.

"Fuck you, Clark," I mutter, looking at her.

Charlotte tries to walk towards us but Bellamy stops her.

"Don't do it, Charlotte. Don't do it, Charlotte!" He tells her.

"No, I have to!"

"Stop!" Bellamy stops her. "Murphy, this is not happening."

"I can't let any of you get hurt anymore. Not because of me. Not after what I did." Charlotte says and I notice that something is wrong, making me grab Murphy's wrist, not caring that he has a knife on my neck.

Still, nothing could prepare us for what happened next.

Charlotte jumps off the cliff and everyone screams, even Murphy. Immediately letting me go.

Both Clark and Bellamy run towards the end of the cliff to see if she made it. By the look on their faces, she didn't.

"No, no, no!" Clark cries at the end of the cliff with Bellamy, who looks back at Murphy.

"Bellamy." He mutters trying to calm him down but failing miserably.

I'm still in front of Murphy, but Bellamy doesn't waste any time before pushing me out of the way and jumping on Murphy, pulling him down and starting to punch him.

"Stop!" I tell Bellamy, trying my best to grabbing him.

"Bellamy stop!" Clark screams "You're gonna kill him!"

"Stop it." I try to grab Bellamy but fail, being thrown to the ground.

"You're okay?" Clark comes to ask him.

"Don't help me, help him!" I scream at her.

Finally, Finn grabs Bellamy after a lot of squirming coming from him.

I get up and walk towards Murphy who's laying on the ground with his face looking like a battlefield.

"He deserves to die!" Bellamy screams still trying to push Finn away from him.

"Don't we all?" I scream back, putting myself between the two of them.

"No! We don't decide who lives and dies. Not down here." Clark screams at him.

"So help me God, if you say the people have a right to decide, I'll-"

"No, I was wrong before, okay? You were right. "Sometimes it's dangerous to tell people the truth." Clark looks at Bellamy, sorry that this all happened because of her, I can almost see tears threatening to leave her eyes. "But if we're gonna survive down here, we can't just live by whatever the hell we want. We need rules." She gets herself together again.

"And who makes those rules, huh? You?" Bellamy asks her.

"For now, we make the rules. Okay?" She assures him and he swallows hard, passing his hand through his hair, anxiously and without knowing what to do next.