Trust Me

By the time the sun was just beginning to creep into the sky, the cold started to vanish as rapidly as it had come. The air was cool and damp, and the patches of grass and moss were covered with dew, filling the arena with a deliciously cool and earthy scent.

Adri began to stir, peeking one eye open to glance at me. He closed it and started to go back to sleep, then shot up quickly as he realized something was awry. "My watch shift! Why didn't you wake me?" He demanded.

"I wasn't tired. Rather than both of us staying up and losing sleep, I figured at least one person should get some rest." I explained.

Adri glared at me. "Tonight I'm taking on a double shift." He challenged.

I scoffed. "You're just being stupid! Then I'll be overtired from not sleeping last night, and you'll be overtired from not sleeping enough tonight!"

Adri held up a hand to silence me. "I'm still taking a double shift." He insisted, starting to pull on his clothes. He grabbed mine and threw them at my face without another word.

"I sense you're still angry." I said, my jacket still stuck on my head and covering my face.

He sighed and pulled the shirt off my head before throwing it at my chest this time. "What was your first clue, sweetheart?"

"Is this a pride issue? Do you feel like, as 'the man', you have to do more than your fair share of work?" I muttered.

"Not at all." He scoffed.

"Then what is it?" I challenged.

He grimaced at me, pausing for a moment as he thought. After several minutes of him thinking, he tossed his arms up with another scoff. "Just get dressed!"

I couldn't help but laugh. "Avoiding the issue. Very nice. Do you not know the answer, or do you just know that I'm right and you don't want to admit it?"

"Don't push your luck, 4."

"I can afford to push my luck because you need me. If you killed me, you'd freeze to death tonight. The cold seems to get worse every night. Last night it killed someone, and it probably disfigured several others." I pointed out.

"Do you want to be tied up again? Because that is still an option." He hissed.

I crinkled my nose at him. "Is that any way to treat the girl who saved your life and who's helping you eliminate the competition?"

"It is when she's being a royal pain in the ass." He muttered, pulling the canteen out of his backpack. He grimaced as he saw that the water in all of the canteens was completely frozen, and he set the canteens out in a row before the fire, poking the dying embers a bit to get it going again.

"That's not nice." I pointed out.

"Didn't I tell you not to push it, 4?" Adri demanded, shooting me a glare.

"I thought my charming sense of humor might lighten your mood." I dismissed easily, grabbing one of the canteens and wiggling it over the fire, as if that might make it thaw faster. When that didn't work I just unscrewed it and stuck my tongue to the ice, trying to lick up the water as it thawed.

Adri grimaced. "That's your canteen now," He muttered, snatching the other one that was still sitting by the fire and moving it farther away from me.

I rolled my eyes and set the canteen down. "Someone's grumpy."

"And you're both unnaturally cheery and overly sarcastic at the same time." He shot back.

"I'm overtired, give me a break." I drawled. "What's your excuse for being so irritable?"

"You know exactly what it is. You shouldn't have taken my watch shift last night. I want both of us to do our fair share of work. If we start depending on each other, that will just make things worse when we have to split up." Adri said.

"We might not necessarily split up." I chimed in, and Adri raised an eyebrow curiously. "One of us might get killed first."

He glowered at me. "Thanks for that option, that's such an improvement."

"I just don't want you to forget that option. You're the one who was so insistent on reminding yourself about that point last night." I said. I started to roll up the sleeping bag despite the fact that Adri was still sitting on it. Once it was rolled up to the point that I could not roll it up any further without running into him, I glanced up and stared at him expectantly. "Do you mind?"

He just sat there and stared back at me, not moving a single muscle.

"Fine. I'll take matters into my own hands, then." I decided. I placed my knees on top of the roll to keep it from moving, freeing up my hands to work with Adri. I started trying to push him off the sleeping bag, heaving with all my might, but he barely budged. I didn't have enough leverage. I readjusted myself, the roll of the sleeping bag unraveling as I did so, but I didn't really care. At this point it was more about moving Adri than it was about rolling up the sleeping bag, anyway.

I dug the gripping soles of my shoes into the rock, placing my hands on Adri's lower ribcage as I tried to catch his center of gravity without having any clue where it was. I gave another push as hard as I could, and this time his arms shot out to steady himself.

"Hah!" I declared proudly, beaming a victory smile at him.

"Don't do your victory dance yet, sweetheart. You haven't even moved me." Adri pointed out.

"Why do you have to be so difficult? I hissed.

"I did tell you not to push your luck. Let's consider this my revenge, shall we?"

I jutted out my bottom lip angrily before moving my hands up a little higher, trying to find the 'sweet spot' to push him off the sleeping bag. I gave the hardest shove I could out of nowhere and he slipped off the top of the sleeping bag. I'd pushed him a bit too hard, though, and when he suddenly slipped out of the way it sent me tumbling underneath him as he scrambled to steady himself. The nylon surface of the sleeping bag was slippery, and we both seemed to flop like fish out of water as we tried to keep from falling into the fire pit. Adri pinned himself on top of me, reaching his arms out on either side of us to try and dig his hands into the rock. The friction was enough to steady us, but I could see the force with which he was digging his hands into the rock.

We both laid there for a few moments as we tried to catch our breath, the sleeping bag still unfolded underneath us. I glanced up at Adri to thank him for catching us, but as I looked up I realized that Adri was much closer than I'd originally thought. His faces was inches from mine, and I stopped short as I realized what he looked like when he wasn't giving me a glare or some kind of smug grin. His skin was tanned from being in the sun the past few days, his shirt blond hair sticking out at wild angles after he'd slept on it. A few strands of his hair were matted to his face with the light beading of sweat that had started to collect on his forehead, and his blue eyes were wide with the remaining traces of fear from being almost thrown in the fire. I stared at him for a few moments, trying to find the right words. What had I been about to say to him a few minutes ago? I couldn't remember a single word. The more I looked at him, the more I realized how attractive he was.

After several minutes of us staring at each other in silence, Adri finally spoke in a low and soft voice. "That was the most idiotic thing you've ever done."

I blinked and stared blankly at him for a few seconds as I tried to absorb what he'd said. "What? Me?"

"Yes, you! I didn't just slip and fall on my own, did I? You could have burned us both to a crisp!" He hissed.

"You were the one who wouldn't move! You provoked me!" I accused.

"Don't pin this on me, I'm the one who saved your life!" He fired back, rolling off me.

I sat up instantly and shifted away from him. "You've got to stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Saving me!" I yelled. I felt humiliated. Somehow I felt like he knew what I'd been thinking about him just a few moments ago, and the heat started to creep into my cheeks.

His brow furrowed, and his voice was suddenly quiet. "Right. I do," He agreed, sitting up.

I caught a glance of his hands and almost gasped in shock. The skin was mangled and bloody, small gravelly bits of rock stuck in his palm. His hand was a portrait of red, a mixture of scrapes and gashes from when he'd used his hands against the rock to try and keep us from slipping into the fire. "Adri, your hands..." I began.

He wiped the blood off onto his pants, and I could see his face contort from the pain. He quickly tried to rearrange his expression, but I could see him wincing. "It's nothing."

"No, let me see." I snatched the canteen from the fire pit and grabbed his hands, setting them in my lap. I poured a bit of water onto his palm, trying to rinse out the rocks and blood. He winced as the cold water hit his skin, then let out a soft sigh of relief as it took away the sting. "Is that better?" I asked.

He didn't reply; instead, he just stood up and wrapped his arms around my waist, suddenly lifting me up and setting me down on the ground next to the sleeping bag before he went to work, rolling the bag up despite his mutilated hands.