undertow | bellamy blake (book one)

9 | mob mentality

"Yeah, but you're the only one who got in a knife fight with him!" Clarke screamed.

"Yeah, I didn't kill him then, either," he replied calmly.

"Tried to kill Jasper, too," Octavia chipped in. Jovie's eyes shot over to her. Murphy wasn't the most well-liked, but she didn't expect her best friend to gang up on him too. At this point it felt like the only one that was trying to understand Murphy's side of the story was Jovie.

"Come on. This is ridiculous. I don't have to answer to you. I don't have to answer to anyone!" Murphy screamed.

"Come again?" Bellamy finally spoke.

"Bellamy, look, I'm telling you, man. I didn't do this," Murphy said as he walked up to the leader. The way he said it convinced Jovie he was telling the truth.

"They found his fingers on the ground with your knife," Bellamy said.

"Is this the kind of society that we want? You say there should be no rules. Does that mean that we can kill each other without... without punishment?" Clarke was rallying up the teenagers. And it was obvious they were listening.

"I already told you. I didn't kill anyone!" Murphy said again, desperately trying to get them to listen to him. But he had already made a reputation for himself and it wasn't a good one.

"I say we float him!" Connor said. Jovie whipped around, watching as the delinquents cheered in agreement.

"That's not what I'm saying," Clarke corrected herself. But it was too late. They already had the idea set in their minds.

"Why not? He deserves to float. It's justice," Connor argued.

"Revenge isn't justice," Jovie snapped.

"It's justice. Float him!" Connor screamed, getting the others to join in with him. Jovie reached over and grabbed her brother's hand. He looked down at her and frowned. He didn't want them to have a reason to hurt her too by being by his side, but he knew she wouldn't just turn her back on him. They were twins and she was always there for him, no matter how much of a jerk he was being.

He ripped his hand out of hers and ran towards Clarke, getting tripped by one of the boys in the process. The delinquents immediately rushed forward and starting kicking Murphy as he laid on the ground. Mob mentality was a real thing and Jovie was seeing that firsthand.

"No! Get off of him!" Jovie screamed as she tried to push through them to get to her brother. One of the guys grabbed her to stop her and she just punched him in the face out of reflex. She managed to get kicked a few times as she got in the line of fire, but she would do what she could to protect him. She watched as they tied him up and gagged him before a few of them lifted him up and went off with him. She ran after the crowd as they kicked him down again and one of the guys punched him in the face. "Stop!"

"You can stop this! They'll listen to you!" Clarke begged Bellamy.

"Bellamy! You should do it," Connor said. Jovie didn't want to take her eyes off of her brother who now had a noose around his neck as a rope hung from a tree. They were going to kill him. And they wanted Bellamy to do it, so she turned to him and looked at him with such desperation in her eyes.

"Bellamy, please!" Jovie cried out, trying to get Bellamy's attention. He refused to look at her though. He couldn't, not with what he was going to do. The teenagers started chanting his name. Before she could even process what was happening, he pushed past her and kicked the box out from Murphy's feet. "No!" Jovie went to lunge forward to help him, but someone grabbed her to stop her.

"Jo, it's too late," Octavia said.

"Let me go, Octavia!" Jovie screamed, but it didn't matter because her legs soon gave out from underneath her. She watched in terror as her brother swung from the rope, his face turning purple as the rope restricted air from reaching his lungs. Her eyes filled with tears and her hands went to her throat. She felt like she was suffocating watch him suffocate. She was feeling his pain. She hated the idea that she was crying in front of all of the delinquents like this, but she couldn't control it. She was being forced to watch her twin brother die and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She felt powerless.

"How could you?" She heard Clarke scream.

"This is on you, princess! You should've kept your mouth shut!" Bellamy yelled. She then heard Finn yelling at them to cut Murphy down. Everyone sounded so far away and hollow, like she was underwater.

Suddenly, a voice broke the crowd's screams and it was then that Jovie was brought back to reality.

"Stop! Okay? Murphy didn't kill Wells! I did!" Jovie recognized that voice. It was Charlotte.

Clarke wasted no time grabbing Bellamy's axe to cut Murphy down. Jovie barely made it to her feet as she stumbled over to where her brother was laying on the ground, gasping for air. Finn loosened the rope that was around his neck.

"J, breathe," she said. Finn and Jovie helped him sit up. "I'll go get you some water. Stay with him?" Finn nodded his head. She didn't even have to push her way through the crowd because they made a path for her. Clearly they didn't want to get in her way after what they had done to her brother. She refused to look at Bellamy as she stormed past him, angry at him for what he had done. But as she did, he grabbed her arm.

"Jovie," he said. She turned on her heel and slapped him, not even truly realizing that she was doing it. Everyone stopped to stare at them. He didn't even react when she hit him, almost like he wanted her to do it.

"Don't," she growled. He couldn't pretend like he was sorry. "This is on you." It was also on Clarke for confronting John like she did, but Bellamy was the one who kicked out the box. "You could have stopped this." Bellamy just stayed silent. It was because she was right.