Monroe’s teeth were beginning to ache from how tightly they were pressed together. Uncontrollable anger was beginning to seethe inside her, threatening to bubble up and make her snap. Her eyes narrowed at Murphy and she shook her head, refusing to let him go just yet. “Maybe it should be justified if you explode by me asking a simple question. I just wanted to know why.” She swallowed, not caring about the poison in her voice “It’s cowardly. And stupid.”
Maybe could have kept it together if he hadn’t spoken the last part. But the more Murphy went on the more angry and hurt she got until the top of that bottle she pushed her emotions into popped off. How could he go there? How could he say that? The was another pause as the anger visibly rose, showing on her expression and countenance as the girl stiffened. “You-”
Monroe’s voice caught, she was too livid and shocked to form a complete sentence. Her hand balled into a fist and she found herself responding the only way she knew how. The fist was brought up to Murphy’s nose in a quick and flicking motion, making contact with a sickening thud.
Murphy wasn’t new to violence. In fact, he was intimately
acquainted with being attacked. He was, however, new to the full brunt of
Monroe’s fist. Her knuckles bore into his cartilage, flint on flint, and pain
rippled through his face upon impact. Blood dripped from nose and spattered his
shirt as he stared at her, wide-eyed and wounded.
This was inevitable. Monroe’s betrayed expression got into
his bloodstream; the edges of his vision blurred and blackened slightly, and
his nose was crooked and streaming. He tried to muster the conviction he’d felt
when he’d decided to stay. He tried to remember his pride and justifications.
However, the only thing he remembered was that he was a coward and Monroe was the only thing that made the idea of dying
more devastating. He wanted to hit her. He wanted to hit her and make her pay, but he wouldn’t – couldn’t. His
emotions were everywhere, everywhere, like a serpent trying to escape him, like
he was being consumed. She was right, she
was right, he was a coward. Months and months worth of pent of misery poured out of his eyes and skin and mouth.
“What, that’s all you got?” he croaked, and then his voice
rose. “You want me to stay,
huh? Well what if I can’t? ‘Cause there—there’s so much death,
all around me, and I just—I just can’t…I just-” with a hysterical laugh, he instinctively
wiped his hand under his nose, and tears gushed over his eyelids and slid down
his now blood-smeared cheeks. “I feel it in my Goddamn head
and it’s killing me! It’s killing me. That should’ve been
my execution.”
Finn’s execution was
still a fresh wound, and tied into his low blow regarding Sterling. Despite
everything, Raven had been right to offer him up. He may not have pulled the
trigger, but he killed Connor and Myles, and tried to hang Bellamy. Murphy wrapped his arms around his stomach until
his lungs felt as if they were being wrung out.
“I’ve kept all this inside me for so long, and
everything is fucked up and there’s nothing I can do about it,” he shouted.
“I’m not allowed to anything, I can’t act out: I’m just supposed
to crawl into a hole like the obedient
dirt I am and take it. But I can’t do this forever! My father,
he—he died for me. And I—I can’t do this forever. I can’t do this forever, I
can’t-”
