Clarity || John Murphy

Chapter Seventeen - Confliction

Jack lunged at the grounder, his gun in hand. He slammed it to the back of the grounder's head, who fell to his knees and eventually to the ground. Murphy let out a breath of relief when he saw that he was out cold.

Octavia had a blank expression on her face, but it slowly got taken over by fear once again. "C-Can we go now? Please?"

Jack gave a slow nod. "Yeah. We can go. Are you alright, James?"

James had removed his shirt, and was biting his lip so hard that Murphy was surprised he wasn't bleeding by then. "Y-Yeah. I think."

"No, you're not." Eve said, walking over to him and shaking her head. "You're bleeding too much. Way, way too much."

It was true, he was. The cut seemed extremely deep. The blood had already gone from the cut and dripped down his body to the belt of his pants, down to his thighs. The rest of his pants were continuing to get even more soaked in the blood. "I-I'm fine... I'm-" He cut himself off, his eyes going up into his head as his knees gave out under him. He fell to the ground at Jack's feet, who quickly caught him before he fell forwards.

"Dammit!" Jack yelled, staring down at the grounder with a mixture of anger, hatred, and extreme disgust. "Damn you, you son of a bitch!"

Eve ran over, taking James' head and laying it in her lap. She opened his eyes, which were completely white. "He's out. He's lost too much." She hissed in frustration.

Jack stood up, walking over to the grounder with his hand holding the gun even harder. Adam lunged forwards, grabbing his shoulder hard enough that he froze in his tracks. "I'll kill him. I swear, I'll kill him." Jack hissed. "These damn things have killed people I care about. They almost killed Eve when I wasn't fast enough to kill them first! I won't let them do that again, Adam! I WON'T!" He screamed, trying to push his way through.

"STOP!" Adam yelled at him, his voice sounding purely menacing. "JUST STOP!"

Jack stared at him in disbelief.

"You need to calm down. We'll be ready for them next time, they won't hurt anyone else. I promise you that." He narrowed his eyes at the grounder. He looked just as disgusted as Jack, but he seemed more in control.

Jack gritted his teeth, and looked down at Eve. "Will he live?" He visibly paled, swallowing with his face now stricken with fear.

"That depends on if the bleeding stops, and how long it takes us to get back to the colony."

Murphy glanced down at Octavia, who looked extremely confused. Of course, the fear that she had as she stared down at James and the grounder was the dominant emotion.

"Well then I suggest we get moving." Jack said, moving towards James. He took off his jacket, taking out a knife and slicing both the sleeves off it. After about a minute, he had cut them into strips and tied them tightly around James' waist, specificially around the cut, and making it much easier to stop the bleeding.

Jack froze for a moment, and Murphy could see it in his eyes. He thought of James as a little brother, he cared about him just as much as Eve. It must have been tearing him apart just to see him get slice open then knocked out.

Jack picked James up, seeming to not have a single problem with it. He put him over his shoulder, his eyebrows raising. "He literally weighs NOTHING."

They went down the passageway very quickly, Murphy glancing behind them every few seconds to make sure that the sneaky little grounder wasn't following them.

Murphy and Adam left the passageway first, jumping up into the hatch. Jack lifted James up through the hole, and Murphy and Adam carried him out with ease. Jack was right, he was extremely light.