Trust Me

"If you throw one of those knives at me, I swear my ghost will haunt you for the rest of your life." Adri growled, poking his head out of the trees and glaring at me.

Kip let out a yell and fumbled to grab one of my knives from me, nearly impaling his hand on them in the process. "Winnie, run! I'll try and distract him for you."

"No, no, Kip! It's fine!" I assured him, reaching down to stroke his hair in an attempt to calm him down. "He's my...I mean, we're..." I glanced up at Adri, searching for a word to describe what we were. I knew 'allies' was the right word, but I wasn't sure if I could safely say we were friends. Maybe he was just being nice to me without being a friend.

"We're friends." Adri filled in, effectively silencing my inner debate as to what our relationship was. He gave me a slight smile, and it was then that I realized I was grinning stupidly at him. I quickly wiped the grin off my face and looked back down at Kip.

"So Parq was right." Kip said softly. "You staged your own death with his help!" He gave a rough jerk of his head towards Adri, wincing as he did so. "And now you've come back to finish me off, is that it?"

"As much as I'd love to," Adri began, and I winced as I braced myself for what was coming next. That wasn't a promising start to his sentence. "Winnie wouldn't let me lay so much as a finger on your head. She's the one who insisted on making sure you were okay. And what Winnie wants, I'll support. For the most part." He added the last part quickly as if he didn't want me to get carried away.

"Oh. Thanks, Winnie." Kip said, his eyes starting to flutter shut. His skin, which had previously been fiery hot, was now icy cold. "Can you do me a favor?"

I nodded. "Anything."

"Win. Win for me and for Finnick and for everyone back home. And when you win, can you give this back to my mom?" He held up his hand and I realized he'd been clutching onto a small locket. I took it and saw it was open, revealing a picture of Kip and his mother playing in the water when Kip was only a few years old.

"I'll do my best." I promised as his breathing grew shallow. I leaned forward and lightly pressed my lips to his forehead, clutching his hand as his eyes drew closed. He continued to shiver and shake for a few moments before all movement stopped and a cannon blast rippled through the air. His chest no longer rose and fell -- it would be still forever. I gently stroked my thumb over his cheek, tears starting to run down my face. "Bye, Kip." I whispered, kissing his forehead once again before I stood up. I found the closest wildflower and plucked it, placing it over Kip's chest.

Adri came up beside me and bowed his head to Kip's body. "Are you okay?" He murmured.

"I'm fine," I said, but my words were cut off by a choked sob.

Adri sighed and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into his chest in a tight hug. "Liar," He murmured, stroking my back gently. At first I tried to hold back my tears, but soon they overpowered me and I was bawling into his chest, sobs racking through me so hard I thought I might have fallen over if it weren't for Adri holding me.

A hovercraft zoomed by and lifted Kip's body off the ground, and I looked at Kip for the very last time until he was enclosed in the hovercraft and it flew back off into the distance. I wiped the tears from my face and pulled out of Adri's arms. "I'm fine, really. I promise." I said.

Adri glanced at the writing in blood just a few feet away from us. "'Come play, 4'. Why do I have the feeling that whoever wrote that wasn't talking about Kip?"

"Because they weren't." I said dryly. "He was just the bait. They're waiting for us by the cliffs."

"Wait, I don't understand. Why wouldn't they just wait here to ambush you when you came to see Kip?" Adri asked.

I shrugged. "They've probably positioned themselves on the cliffs so they'll have an advantage. I'm willing to bet that they're at the top of the cliffs so they can see in every direction."

He nodded. "Makes sense. So what, are they trying to make you angry by killing the other tribute from your district?"

"So it would seem. They want me to chase them down in a vengeful fit of rage. They probably assume you'll follow me and they can pick us both off at the same time. There's three of them and two of us, plus they're bloodthirsty monsters." I pointed out.

"Fantastic. So when do you want to leave?" Adri said.

I laughed bitterly. "You're joking, right?" He stared at me blankly and I realized that he was very serious. "So you're going to do exactly what they want you to do?"

"I'm not. We are." Adri corrected. "I'm not going in there alone. The two of us are good fighters with our weapons of choice. We have time to plan a strategy on how to attack -- for now, they'll be on the defensive. They're waiting for us to strike and they've got to figure out how we're going to do it, so they've got a lot more on their plate. Besides, it's like you said; they're bloodthirsty monsters. They'll be driven by their need to kill. As soon as they see us, their defense will disappear and they'll go full-on into attack mode. That's when we can target their weaknesses."

"What weaknesses?" I asked.

"Parq's determined to be feared and in charge. He won't want anyone's help. If you and I both take him on, he won't let anyone else help him because he'll want to do it himself. Asking for help shows weakness, and he won't stand for that. So we outnumber him and take him down easily. Jill's not good with weapons at a long range, which is where your knife-throwing skills come in handy. I can try and come at her with my machete and she'll be too focused on avoiding me to realize what you're doing. And, if by that point Tam hasn't gone running, we can take him down easily. He'll be outnumbered just like Parq, but he won't have anyone to ask for help." Adri explained.

I sighed and looked at the puddle of blood, which was all that remained of Kip. "I don't know. It still seems a little rash do to exactly what they want us to do. Surely they'll have their plan already sorted out. We're walking right into their trap."

Adri stopped and grabbed my face, placing one of his hands on each of my cheeks and craning my face up to his so all I could see were his eyes. "Don't you trust me?"

I stopped short, seeing the sincerity in his expression. "Okay. I trust you," I said quietly after a few moments.

He smiled and kissed my forehead lightly. "Thank you. Now, we have to get a move on. We have to get there earlier than they expect us to. This way, they won't be entirely set up and we'll have a better shot."

I nodded and started to take off through the trees, but Adri grabbed my wrist and stopped me.

"One more thing. If anything happens to me -- fatal or not -- don't do anything. Keep fighting and don't think about me. If you get distracted, they'll easily overpower you and you can't help me if you're dead." He pointed out.

I winced. "Good point," I murmured. "Okay, fine. If you get hurt, you're on your own, 1. Don't weigh me down."

He laughed. "That's the spirit." He said, and then he ran ahead of me into the forest. I followed after him hurriedly, trying not to think about Kip. I'd have plenty of time to think about him after his murderers were dead.