Trust Me

The night grew colder as the sun ducked further and further out of sight, and by the time the stars were twinkling in the sky Adri and I were nearly frozen.

"I don't like that this is becoming a habit," Adri muttered as I grabbed the sleeping bag and started to remove my shirt.

"Strip or freeze," I grumbled. "Your choice."

He grimaced and reluctantly pulled off his clothes too before we climbed into the sleeping bag. I tried to remind myself that it was nothing but a survival technique and nothing to be ashamed of, but the idea of lying naked next to a boy I hardly knew was extremely difficult to get used to. It felt different than it had the night before somehow, like something had changed between Adri and I. It was awkward, but in a different way. The night before it had been awkward because we were two people who hated each other, and yet we were forced to sleep together. Now it was awkward because we were friends (or at least, I liked to think of us as tentative friends) and we didn't want to cross the line with each other. Now that we had to worry about each others' feelings, it created a whole new level of problems.

A hologram suddenly lit up the night sky, playing the anthem before showing the faces of the fallen. The girl from 3, the girl from 10, the boy from 11, the girl from 12. When the face of the boy from 11 lit up the sky, I turned away quickly, not wanting to look at the smiling image of his face as it shone down on me.

"Looks like it'll only be 4 today," Adri said with a sigh. "Slow day."

"You sound like you want them to die faster." I muttered.

"Of course I do. The faster they die, the sooner we get out of here." Adri muttered.

"Wait, 'we'? What do you mean, the sooner 'we' get out of here?" I repeated.

His face fell. "Right. The sooner someone gets out of here." He said quietly. "Hopefully, it'll be one of us."

I tried to steer the topic away from death. "Still, wishing that the rest of them died is a little harsh."

"The sooner they die, the more likely their death will be merciful. The longer we're in here, the more cruel the Game makers get. They want to make the finalists work for their position." He murmured.

Shivers ran down my spine. "Oh goody," I muttered sarcastically.

He laughed and leaned over to whisper something in my ear. "Don't worry. They'll try to keep us together and alive. They'll either want us to turn on each other, or they'll try to get another tribute to kill one of us. Probably, they'll try to get Ingrid to kill you. If she kills you, it'll make a nice show of me killing her to avenge your death. All they want is a good Game."

I realized why he'd whispered it. If one of the many cameras picked up on what he'd said, the Game makers would probably try to kill us off quicker just to prove Adri wrong. I'd heard rumors that the Game makers thought of themselves as Gods, controlling their own small planet and the lives contained upon it, and surely they wouldn't like to hear Adri challenge that power. "Do you really think they'll try to get Ingrid to kill me?" I whispered, taking care to turn my face toward him. Perhaps it was paranoid, but I was convinced that they could read my lips if I was close enough to a camera.

He chuckled. "Do you think it was a coincidence that she found you? The arena is huge, and when she left the Cornucopia she was headed in the opposite direction. The Game makers were trying to herd us like sheep. That's probably why the sound of the water was so loud. A normal trickle of water running down a cliff wouldn't be that loud, but if it was any quieter we wouldn't have heard it. Think about it, you fell down the cliff so we didn't really have any other option but to stay on this side of the cliff, and that rock pool was perfectly visible from the top of the cliff, which was exactly what we were after. We did exactly what they wanted us to, and Ingrid played her part perfectly as well."

Goosebumps danced across my skin, and it wasn't because of the bone-chilling cold air. "Well that's good to know. I'm feeling extremely comforted now." I drawled sarcastically.

"Don't be so bitter. You're still alive, aren't you? Ingrid must be weak. What you said earlier about her wanting a real battle makes sense, but I have the feeling that she's not that patient. She probably would have killed you and then waited for me to come back. She'd know that I'd be angry when I saw that she'd killed you, and that would provoke me enough to really fight her. She wouldn't want to wait to take you on one-on-one. She wants to fight as soon as she can. But she's not strong enough to take one of us on. Not yet. I don't know what it is -- maybe she was dehydrated just like us, or maybe she couldn't find any food on her own, or maybe she's injured. But you can bet that the Game makers will want her to heal and regain her strength so she can fight us." Adri assured me, though his words were even more unsettling than what he'd said before.

After Adri's depressing and terrifying revelation, I pretended to be completely exhausted, feigning sleep as an excuse to end the conversation. I didn't want to hear anything else about what Ingrid may or may not be doing, especially now that Adri had me convinced that the Game makers were doing everything they could to get Ingrid to kill one of us in the hopes of some epic showdown. I snuggled under the cover of the sleeping bag as the cold started to nip at any inch of skin that was exposed, and I could feel Adri doing the same thing. I knew that he had been the one most affected by the cold the night before, and he seemed to have learned his lesson as tried to subtly shift closer to me to keep his body heat up. I almost wanted to push him away, annoyed with him for everything he'd said that night. I knew everything he'd been said had been right -- what he'd said about not being able to save each other, about Ingrid trying to weave a twisted little web, about needing the other tributes to die as quick as possible in order to get one of us out -- but I resented him for knowing these things. It was like he already had every last day of the Games planned in his head. He knew exactly what he needed to do and when he needed to do it, and it troubled me. How long did I stay in his plan? Did he already know how to kill me? I know he'd said that he would try not to, but what if we were the last two tributes left in the Games? Did he have a plan for how to kill me then?

Adri shook me a few hours later and I pretended to wake up, though I hadn't come even close to sleep. He told me it was my watch shift, and just a few short seconds after he'd rolled over and closed his eyes, I heard his soft snores start. The cold air that surrounded us had dipped back down to the same temperature it had been the night before, if not slightly colder. It was lucky that we were already bundled up in the sleeping bag, as it kept our body heat circulating through the fabric and left us toasty warm. Plus, sleeping next to Adri was like sharing a bed with a huge furnace.

A loud cannon rumble shook through the trees, and I glanced over to see a hovercraft scoop up a body in the thickest part of the forest. I could see a billow of thick smoke dance through that spot in the trees, and I figured that the tribute must have frozen to death after their attempt at a fire failed, resulting in more smoke than flame or heat.

Adri grumbled and opened his eyes, looking around frantically has he tried to wake himself up. "What happened?"

"One cannon fire. Far enough away from here that we don't have to worry." I assured him.

"Probably killed by the cold," He murmured, echoing my thoughts before he closed his eyes and resumed snoring a few short seconds later.

I didn't bother to wake Adri when his watch shift was supposed to start. I knew he needed the sleep, but I also knew that I wouldn't be able to sleep even if I tried at this point. Instead I stayed awake, staring at the sky and listening for any sign of movement in the trees. The cold, though dangerous, was actually keeping us safe at night. After all, nobody would be able to run through the trees to try and find us at this temperature. They'd start to feel the effects of either hypothermia or frostbite in just 10 minutes of being out in the open. Still, I took no chances. Perhaps it was the knowledge that Ingrid was out there waiting for us that kept me on edge, but I kept stealing glances next to me to make sure my knives were within reach at any given moment.