Clarity || John Murphy

Chapter Twenty-Three - Decisions

“A grounder caught her, he shot her with the arrow and tried to kill her with an axe. I killed him first with his own knife. I think she’ll be alright, but we need to get something else to stop the bleeding. I don’t know if we should take it out or not, she’s usually the one that deals with this.” Murphy said in a rushed voice.

Clarke nodded. “The grounders don’t make arrowheads, they sharpen the ends of the arrows. If we pull it out, the only thing it’ll do is make her bleed a little more, as long as it hasn’t hit any vital organs.”

“Do you think it has?” Murphy asked, staring at her with a worried look on his face.

She paused, and didn’t answer.

“Clarke, please… You need to help her.” He said, and his eyes felt moist again. He felt like a little baby crying because it didn’t have it’s mother, when really he was a grown criminal trying not to lose the girl he loved.

Clarke’s lips parted, and she moved over to Eve, kneeling down on the opposite side of Murphy, and beside Jack. She slowly moved Murphy’s jacket away from the arrow, the blood no longer moving as quickly as before. “I think she’ll be fine if we pull it out. It doesn’t look like it hit anything major, maybe scraped a bone but that’s it. She’ll be alright, we just have to be prepared to stop the bleeding." She paused. "Someone has to pull out the arrow."

Everyone stayed silent for a few moments, before Murphy had had enough and spoke up. "I'll do it."

Clarke's jaw dropped, and she shook her head. "Murphy, no. You don't-"

Murphy shook her head. "No, Clarke!" He yelled, his face constricting into a look of extreme frustration. " I'm helping her, whether you like it or not! I can do it." He said through clenched teeth.

Clarke and Bellamy looked at each other with seemingly worried expressions on their faces, then back at Murphy and Eve again. 

Murphy bit his lip, then moved his hands to the arrow. 

He looked up at Jack, who pulled out a cleaner cloth and put it near Eve's mouth. She had been listening the entire time, but had stayed silent. Perhaps it was from the blood loss, and she was too weak to speak. 

Jack moved the cloth closer to her mouth, and she opened her jaws, biting down on it. Murphy hoped that she wouldn't hurt herself in doing so.

He slowly wrapped his fingers around the shaft of the arrow, and looked up at Jack, who was restraining Eve's arms, and then at Adam, who was doing the same with her legs. "One... Two... Three." He yanked the arrow out, and Eve screamed into the cloth she used as a gag. 

She struggled against the two men, but eventually the pain softened and she stayed calm. Murphy took his jacket, and cut off the sleeves. He sliced them into strips, and tied them tightly together before he wrapped them around Eve's body and pressed the fabric against the wound. Once he tied the strips together, the bleeding began to slowly stop. "There, that should hold."

Clarke and Bellamy were looking at him strangely. "What?"

They jumped slightly, obviously having not expected him to notice. "Nothing." They said at the same time, and he raised an eyebrow. But, he decided to ignore it.

He wondered why they were looking at each other like that, it was almost like they were thinking the same way. It was very strange.

Once again, he ignored it, and looked down at Eve, who had fought against Jack and gotten her right arm free and took the cloth out. "You can let go of me now." She said, sighing. 

Jack laughed, smiling down at her with tears in his eyes.

Murphy reached over, taking her hand in his. "Don't do that to me. Never again." He said, shaking his head and not being able to hold in the grin that went on his face. She was going to be fine.