CHAPTER TEN - CRY FOR JUSTICE

           EVERYONE HAD STARTED doing their share on helping to build up the wall, all of them were growing scared because of what happened with Wells. The grave had been dug for Wells, and Clarke hadn't moved an inch since. Dakota understood what she was feeling and going through in that moment and she knew she just needed time to mourn her friend.

  "This section should be finished by tomorrow." Dakota called out after tying the vines around the branches to make the wall a little more sturdy. Her eyes glanced over at Charlotte, who was helping to hold the wall straight as Dakota worked with the knots. Suddenly, a crush sounded throughout the camp, and her head turned towards the noise.

"Hey! You think the Grounders are just gonna sit around, and wait for us to finish the wall?" Murphy yelled at the young boy who had fell down to his knees. "Maybe we should let the little girl do the lifting for you, huh?" He gestured towards Charlotte.

Dakota glared over towards her child-hood friend, growing more than annoyed with his attitude. "Murphy!" 

"I just need some water, okay? Then I'll be fine." Connor groaned.

"Murphy, get this guy some water." Bellamy said as he walked over to them, he turned to Charlotte. "Hey, you got this?" He asked and she made a hesitant move towards the wall and Bellamy stopped her. "I'm just kidding," He smiled down at her and then he glanced up at Dakota. 

"Ugh. What the hell is wrong with you?" Connor screamed as he flailed away from Murphy who was releasing bodily fluid on him.

"For fuck sakes." Dakota muttered in disgust as she watched the scene play out before her.

"You wanted a water break? You got it, now get back to work." Murphy growled at him and turned to leave.

 Dakota shot him a heated glare as he started walking upwards her, and when he went to walk past her without  giving her a second look, she grabbed his arm and spun him around. "What the hell is your problem?" Dakota said through her teeth as she got up into his face.

"The wall isn't going to build itself, we need hands on deck at all times." 

"We don't need to kill ourselves doing it. We got plenty of hands, two taking a break for five minutes isn't going to hurt anyone." Dakota glared back at him with just as much fire as he was giving her. Murphy shrugged her off with a scoff. Dakota then shook her head and grabbed a metal cup and walked up towards Connor. 

"Thanks." The boy looked up at the brunette with appreciation in his eyes as she handed down the cup.

 Dakota smiled down at him as he greedily took the cup and started downing the water. "He's a dick, you take a break if you need it." She told him and grabbed his hand to help him off of the ground. 

***

 Dakota was leaning against the drop ship wall as she watched Monty toy around with Clarke's wristband. Clarke, always using things for the greater good. "Yes! I did it!" Monty cheered. "It's still operational." 

 Finn and Dakota both glanced at Clarke and she returns a look. "What? Monty needed a working wristband."

"I didn't think you would ever part ways with that thing, Blondie." Dakota smirked over at her.

"I agree with Bambi over here." Finn said while glancing over towards the brunette with a smirk on his face. 

 Dakota pursed her lips at the sound of a new nickname that had been given to her. "Bambi, that's new." She replied. It was better than short-stack. she thought. 

 Finn caught her gaze once again and sent her a wink in her direction which made her grin get even wider.

 "Look, they're running out of air and we need their help." Clarke stated. "My mother thinking I'm dead is only temporary." She glanced towards Dakota and her eyes went down to where her band would sit tightly around her wrist, but she didn't see it.  "Wait, where's your wristband?"

Dakota shrugged her off like it was no big deal that she was missing her wristband. She didn't care about anyone that was up there anymore since her father made it clear to her that he didn't care about her either. "I went to Bellamy, he took it off." She told her.

"What, why?" 

 Dakota shrugged once again. "He wanted my wristband and now he has it." She told her.

"Monty could've used it to tell them that we're alive." Clarke scolds the brunette with a glare.

"And that helps me, how? I have no one up-" Dakota began through gritted teeth, but Monty had spoken up and completely cut her off. "Not if I can't patch it though the drop-ship mainframe." Monty pointed out. "I can do it. We'll be taking to the Ark by nightfall."

 Dakota nodded and then Bellamy had entered the drop ship and looked towards Clarke and Dakota. "I've been looking for you two, come with me."

Clarke glanced over towards Dakota with confusion in her eyes but they didn't ignore Bellamy's request as they picked themselves off the ground and started following him down to the lower level of the drop ship.

 As soon as they entered a tent, Octavia and Jasper were inside. "There you guys are," Octavia said as she walked over. 

"What's up?" Dakota asked the two and Octavia grabbed the knife that Jasper had brought in from the forest. She followed her gaze and saw there were fingers on the table as well.

 Clarke frowned, but walked up to the table and her eyes widened at the sight. Dakota gnawed on her lip as color left Clarke's face, and then her eyes shifted to the makeshift knife and her frown came back. She delicately picked it up and examined it before looking up at them with confusion. "This was made out of metal from the drop ship."

 "What do you mean?" Jasper questions, not coming to the same conclusion as Dakota had.

"Who else knows about this?" Bellamy addressed the two that discovered the body parts and knife.

"No one, we brought it straight here." Octavia replied, pushing herself away from the table.

"Clarke?" Jasper tried to get Clarke's attention, his voice was significantly quieter than before.

 "Isn't it obvious?" Dakota quirked an eyebrow as she folded her arms over her chest. Jasper sent her a blank, slightly scared expression and she sighed, and looked towards Clarke so she could explain exactly what was going on here.

  "It means the Grounders didn't kill Wells," Clarke concluded, she exchanged looks with Dakota. Both understood what it meant and Dakota pursed her lips. "It was one of us."

 "So there's a murderer in the camp?" He asked. 

"There is more than one murderer in this camp." Bellamy pointed out, straightening himself up. "This isn't news, you need to keep it quiet."

"And let Wells' killer walk around, free to do it again?" Dakota spoke up. She turned to Bellamy with a defensive frown. 

"Like I said, we have killers in this camp. All it would take is a few wrong words from Wells' mouth and they could've snapped." Bellamy tried to reason with her but it only made her more frustrated. "It wasn't like Wells was the most loved in this camp. I'm sure most people were out for his blood."

"All the more reason to give this son of a bitch what they deserve." She retorted, clenching her fists by her sides.  "How long do we wait until someone else has to say the wrong thing and then their life is ended because you didn't want to sort this out?"

Clarke's jaw tightened and she strode purposefully towards the exit of the tent. Bellamy stepped in front of her and she looked up to him and Dakota saw the dangerous glint in her eyes. "Be smart about this. Look at what we achieved, the walls, the patrols; like it or not, thinking the Grounders killed Wells is good for us."

"Good for you, you mean?" Clarke snapped back. "What, keep people afraid and they'll work for you? Is that it?"

"Yeah, that's it." Bellamy replied, not missing a beat. His own tone matched Clarke's. Dakota looked over at Octavia with a quirked eyebrow and she shrugged in response, silently saying she had no idea what was going on either.

 A bitter laugh overcame her lips. "Oh really?" Clarke challenged. "J.M. John Murphy." She held the makeshift knife up and Dakota could just about make out the carved initials on the inside of the handle. Her eyebrows rose in surprise. There was no way that Murphy could've killed Wells in between their activities that took place that night. 

 "Dakota." Octavia called, snapping her back to reality. Dakota's brown eyes glanced up at her with a questionable look and she rolled her eyes. "Come on, Clarke is gonna confront Murphy."

 Dakota followed behind Octavia, who was walking towards Clarke who was storming forwards Murphy.  "You son of a bitch!" Clarke shouted over hot tears. Murphy stepped back with an amused laugh.

"Whoa! What's your problem?" 

"Recognize this?" She held up the blade in her hand.  holding up his knife. 

 "It's my knife. Where'd you find it?"

 Murphy reached for it, but she yanked it back and spat. "Where you dropped it after you killed Wells."

Everything fell silent, and even Murphy didn't try to make a joke out of the situation. After a pause, he asked dumbfounded. "Where I what? The Grounders killed Wells, not me."

"I know what you did." Clarke stepped forward. "And you're going to pay for it."

He scowled. "Really?" Looking over the blonde teenager's shoulder, he found Bellamy standing beside his sister in the crowd. "Bellamy, you're going to believe this crap?"

"Dakota." Murphy glanced towards someone he knew that trusted him, but she refused to meet his eyes. She didn't know whether or not she should believe what really went on here. "You know I didn't kill Wells. I was with you the whole night." His words had caught Bellamy's attention, and Dakota bit down on the inside of her cheek as she felt his gaze settle on her.

"You threatened to kill him. We all heard you. You hated Wells." She says.

"Plenty of people hated Wells. His father locked us up." Murphy spoke, defending himself.

"Yeah, but you're the one who got into a knife fight with him." Clarke screams at him.

"Yeah, I didn't kill him then, either." Murphy snaps.

"Tried to kill Jasper, too." Octavia pointed out.

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

"Come again?" Bellamy raises his eyebrows as he stepped towards Murphy.

"Bellamy, look, I'm telling you man." Murphy says. "I didn't do this."

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

"It's true, Murphy didn't kill him, We were together the whole night." Dakota had finally decided to speak up after her silence, and she stood next to him.  

 Dakota knew this wasn't going to turn out well with everyone in the camp believing that Murphy had succeeded in finally getting rid of the Chancellor's son once and for all, but Dakota knew the truth. She would've noticed if Murphy ended up leaving the tent in the night.

"I say we float him." Someone behind Dakota shouted into the crowd.

Clarke turned around angrily, her eyes landing on the perpetrator, Connor, and she shook her head. "That's not what I'm saying."

Connor shrugged his shoulders, "Why not? He deserves to float, it's justice!" He shouted into the crowd, wilding them up. A bunch of others started to join in, cheering alongside him. "Float him! Float him! Float him!"

The crowd started to cheer along with Connor for the punishment and Clarke watched with wild eyes at the crowd became completely out of control within seconds. Murphy and Dakota locked eyes, her wild stare boring into his own panicked ones. He took one step towards her when he was tripped by one of his peers beside him and he fell to the dirt floor, now caked in mud. Suddenly, there was a heard around the young teenager and everyone started to beat him.

"Hey! No, don't touch him!" Dakota yelled through a panicked voice as she reached out to grab hold of one of the teenagers by the shoulder and rip him off, only for another one to take his place. Dakota started to panic even more, and grabbed hold of another teenager, and sprung her fist towards one of their backs only to get an elbow to the face.

Everyone who opposed the murder of Murphy were knocked to the side, out of the way, fighting the crowd as they were determined to get their revenge for a person they didn't even like. It was more about the fact that no one in the camp liked Murphy, regardless of whether or not he was Well's murderer. It was an excuse to kill him; it was an out.

Everything was like a nightmare, people were screaming and clawing like starving animals as they all mauled Murphy, everything had slipped into slow-motion. A rope swung into the air, wrapping around a tree branch with a noose tied at the end and someone was wrapping it around Murphy's neck. "No, stop it!" Dakota pushed herself off of the ground after fighting with one of the boys who kept shoving her back, and shoved her way through the crowd.

Someone grabbed onto her arm as she watched Murphy being lifted off of the ground by his neck. She looked up to find one of Murphy's peers, the tanned skin boy looked down at her, his fingers pushing into the skin of her forearm. "You need to get out of here."

"No way, get off of me!" She maneuvered away from him and ran up to Bellamy, who was standing next to Clarke who was begging him to stop all of this. Octavia was behind them, she looked distressed and helpless. She could hear Murphy choking out pleads from behind Clarke, a gag in his mouth, "I didn't do it. Please. You have to believe me. I didn't do this."

"You can stop this!" Clarke screamed at him pleadingly. "They'll listen to you."

"Bellamy should do it!" Connor called out from behind them, walking away from the piece of metal that was holding Murphy up. His face was all bruised, cut, and bloody. Mud smudged on his skin and clothes.

Dakota's eyes widened in fear as she took in the panicked expression written all over Murphy's features and the wash of fear striking over. "No, please don't!" She screamed out until her lungs got raw, kicking and screaming against the man who held her back, knowing that she would cut him down if she had the chance too.

The crowd started to chant again, this time praising Bellamy's name like he was the king of them all. As Bellamy stared up at Murphy and watched the teenager shake his head with a beg, Clarke's voice was loud in his ear. "I know Dakota killed Atom. I saw you in the woods. I know you're not a killer. Bellamy, don't do this. Don't...Bellamy!"

But he was already up there, right under Murphy's feet, and he kicked the box over so Murphy was left without something to stand on. All of Murphy's weight fell as he hung from his neck, his feet flying out around him and he was suffocating. Dakota let out a loud cry, falling onto her knees and looking over at him with a tear-stained face.

"This is on you, Princess!" Bellamy snarled, grabbing Clarke by the shoulders and pushing her backwards. "You should've kept your mouth shut!"

"Hey what are you doing?!" Finn was pushing his way through the crowd and Dakota and Bellamy shot their heads in his direction. "Cut him down! Charlotte," He crouched down in front of the blonde little girl that Dakota remembered from the cave. "Get out of here, now!" He moved on to where Murphy was but when he got close enough, Connor pulled a knife and pointed it at him.

Dakota saw the knife in his hand and her jaw had tensed, this was all caused by him. She picked herself off of the ground, her tears were forgotten as it still rolled down her cheeks but she was no longer feeling horrified, she was seeing red.

Dakota pushed Connor backwards, elbowing him in the jaw and sending a spray of fresh blood spurting from his nose as his head shot up towards the sky, then she yanked the knife from his grasp and flipped the blade so she was holding onto the handle and the tip was pointing down towards him. "I told you not to-"

Charlotte screamed out in all the chaos that was filled around them, "Just stop, okay! Murphy didn't kill Wells. I did!" She shrieked, causing Dakota to turn around without even finishing her sentence.

"Oh my god," Dakota whispered while racing her way towards Murphy and then cutting him down quickly. As soon as he hit the ground, she pulled the gag out of his mouth and loosened the nose from his neck, he let out an antagonizing scream.

Dakota pulled his head into her dirt stained lap and her finger's quickly worked on pulling his hair from his mouth and his sweaty forehead as he greedily took a breath of air. "T-Thank you.." Murphy managed to croak and Dakota looked down as she wiped at her face.

"Hey, it's okay. Don't talk." Dakota shook her head as she looked down at him.

Once Murphy had a chance to regain his breath, his blue eyes had turned dark and immediately Dakota knew that what he was thinking wasn't good at all. "John... don't." Dakota shook her head as he picked himself off of her lap with a shaking legs. "What they did was wrong, but what you are about to do is wrong. Please, try to be a better person." She spoke, hoping that her words would knock some sense into him but her words didn't even cross his mind as he spun around and shot a glare in her direction.

 "Why are you defending her? She killed someone, and almost let me die for it."

"And that was wrong for her to do. She deserves to get punished, but she's just a child, Murphy." He didn't listen to her and instead turned on his heel and started to walk towards where Bellamy and Clarke were, and where they were hiding Charlotte. Dakota shook her head and raced towards the tent, forcing herself inside.

"What the hell is she taking about?" Clarke demanded as Dakota walked inside, and all eyes turned towards the door and their tense frames softened when Dakota came into view.

"She misunderstood me! Charlotte, that's not what I meant."

"Bring out the girl!" Murphy screamed at the top of his lungs from outside the tent. All of them were surrounding the little girl in a circle. She was the actual murderer on camp.

Dakota's gaze shifted onto Bellamy as she finally realized what went through the little girl's head. "No! Bellamy, that's exactly what you meant, you just didn't know what the hell you were doing. I told you not to listen to him, Charlotte!"

"Bring the girl out now!" Murphy screamed and Charlotte shook her head, tears streaming down her face. "Please, don't let them hurt me."

Dakota buried her head in her hands with a shake, absolutely astonished at Charlotte's stupidity. Bellamy turned to Finn and Clarke. "If you guys have any bright ideas, speak up." But there was no answer, minus the confused glances they all shared with one another. Bellamy waited a few moments until his eyes widened, "now you stay quiet!"

Finn's head snapped towards him, "Those are your boys out there."

"This isn't my fault! If Clarke listened to me, those idiots would still be building the wall!" Dakota began to rub circles into her temple as she crouched into a squatting position on the ground.

"Hey, you want to build a society, Princess?" Murphy taunted Clarke from outside the tent. "Let's build a society! Bring her out!"

"No!" Charlotte begged. "Please..Bellamy.."

Bellamy bent down. "Charlotte, hey, it's gonna be okay. Just..stay with them."

After Bellamy turned to Finn, Clarke, and Dakota to indicate the people Charlotte was safe with, Dakota watched as he started to duck under the tent flap.

"We can't stay here," Finn said aloud. "They'll kill her. Bellamy won't be able to stop them."

"So what do we do? Where do we go? There are Grounders everywhere and Murphy will find us." Clarke asked. Finn looked around for inspiration, but then he lifted his head and looked over at Clarke, who was confused because of his unspoken plan.

"Come on." Finn lifted the backside of the tent for the girls to run quietly through, and they all fled as quickly as they could, all while hearing Murphy's promises of revenge.