Bellamy let out a tired huff at Murphy’s words. He wished he would have a good answer to that, he wanted to somehow justify this situation but it was impossible. This was unfair but this was all he could do after everything that had happened. The Grounders wouldn’t let him go, not anymore, and he wasn’t going to run like a scared rabbit. “That Grounder bitch is their queen, they want justice to her. It’s just matter of time if they get me now or later. The little queen wants my blood, she shall get it.”
He tried to keep his voice still, heartless. He wanted to talk about his future like it wouldn’t matter to him, like none of this would matter. Because if he… if he admitted how fucking scared he was, how the nightmares were always reaching for him, he wouldn’t handle it. And Murphy wasn’t doing anything to help him. Bellamy knew damn well what they had done to Murphy, what they were going to do for him. That would be just much, much worse. Murphy had got out of there alive… he wouldn’t.
“It doesn’t matter!” Bellamy exclaimed, stepped closer to the younger boy. “None of that matters anymore. I’ve sealed my deal, it’s the only way to save even some of us. If I didn’t agree to this, they would’ve killed everyone. Do you want that?” He glared down to him, he didn’t need this. God, he seriously didn’t need this now, not from Murphy. “I do what I have to do. A leader protects his people. I don’t have any other choice.”
Bellamy encroached on Murphy’s space, glaring down with tired eyes, and it felt natural and easy. The animosity was familiar; soon Bellamy would be gone, and there would be no one left to make Murphy feel this alive. He tried to picture Bellamy going off to be tortured by the Grounders. Every time he tried, though, he could only see the man who’d led them through hell; everything he was and everything he could be; every reckless choice and broken promise; every hard-won survival.
“So that it, huh? You go off, and what, we get rounded up? Hope for the best?” asked Murphy, voice breaking patchily. No, there was nothing left for him with the Stageda. He’d stay at Camp Jaha—not despite everything, but because of it. “Fine. Fine. Some of them are going to stay, you know. And I guess I will too. I have nothing better to do.”
Murphy smirked at that, but none of the mirth touched his eyes. He thought back to Bellamy, strung up and hanging from a noose of red seat-belts – and how Murphy had later hauled Bellamy’s useless ass up the side of a cliff with those same belts. Most things happened so damn fast, and yet there was never enough time left. Time destroyed everything its path, and soon it would erase any remnants of Bellamy’s existence.
“This is fucking ridiculous.” Murphy blurted out without any warning or comprehension at all. “This would be so much easier if I actually wanted you to die. I used to, you know? And now I — I don’t, and — shit, you’re an asshole, Blake, but I can’t lose you too. ”