Trust Me

"When will she get here?" Jill asked.

"As if I know." Tam hissed. "What do you think I am? God?"

"Don't get so worked up, and don't flatter yourself. As if I think you know anything." Jill spat back.

"Watch yourself. You never know when you'll say something I might make you regret." Tam said back, drawing his sword and grimacing at her.

Jill instantly pulled an arrow from the sheath wrapped around her shoulder and grabbed her bow, loading it and aiming it at Tam. "Do you really want to do this? Because I'd be more than happy to kill you right here and now."

"Will you two shut up?" Parq yelled. "If you two want to kill each other, then that's fine by me. In fact, I'd quite like to watch it. But do it after we deal with Winnie."

Jill and Tam growled at each other for a few seconds more before reluctantly lowering their weapons. "What if she brings Adri?" Tam asked.

"She won't. I specifically told Kip not to tell her where we were if Adri was with her." Parq said. "He promised he'd stay loyal to us until the end."

"He won't stay loyal to us. We weren't loyal to him -- we killed him, for crying out loud!" Tam hissed back.

"Shut up, 10! He would still want us to win. We're the ones who took care of him for 3 days. What did Winnie do for him?" Jill demanded.

"She put him in our alliance!" Tam replied.

"Yeah, in the alliance that killed him." Jill scoffed back.

"Are you trying to say that Kip is going to blame her for his death?" Tam scoffed.

Parq drew his sword. "Both of you shut up or I'll slice you into so many pieces that it will take the hovercrafts hours to find all of your body."

Jill scoffed and rolled her eyes. "I want her to get here now. I've been itching to kill that girl ever since she got a score of 11. She doesn't deserve it. The only thing she can work with is knives, and she dropped half the knives she grabbed when she was running from the Cornucopia. Give her a bow and arrow and she'll miss by a mile."

"Don't underestimate her. We have to be prepared for the worst." Parq snapped.

"I'm just saying, there's no way she could take on all three of us even if she had ten knives." Jill scoffed.

Adri and I were sitting in the trees a few yards behind the clearing where the three of them were gathered. They had been fighting incessantly since we arrived, and it didn't seem like something new. I almost felt bad for Parq having to put up with them, until I remembered that Parq was a senseless killing machine.

Adri cast me a glance and leaned down to whisper in my ear, "You go first. I'll cover your back and come out when they least expect it."

I nodded. "When do you want me to go?" I whispered back.

"Whenever you feel the moment is right. After that, well...you know the plan." Adri said, and I nodded back.

"I mean, really, she should be dead right now. If it weren't for Adri, Ingrid probably would have skinned her alive by now. That's the only reason I like Ingrid -- because she hates Winnie almost as much as we do." Jill chimed.

"You hate Winnie because she's a threat." Parq said, rolling his eyes.

"The only thing threatening about her is the alliance she's in! Adri's huge, and he's skilled enough to kill us all with his eyes closed!" She snapped.

"You're one to talk. If we didn't need to get rid of Winnie, you wouldn't even be in this alliance! And if it weren't for us, you'd be dead by now." Tam spat.

"Coming from you? Parq was about to kill you when he offered you a place in our alliance. If it weren't for him wanting more allies, you'd have died on the first day!" Jill hollered back.

I figured this was my chance. I sprang forth from the foliage, grabbing a knife in each hand. Parq's eyes widened slightly as he saw me, and Jill and Tam both turned to face me.

"Oh, look who finally showed up!" Jill cooed, her voice sugary sweet and her features arranged in an evil sneer. She was toying with me. "Did you come to avenge your little friend? How cute."

I clenched my hand into a fist on the handle of my knife, wanting so badly to throw it at her but I knew that wasn't the plan. I stared at them all in complete silence, trying to figure out what their next move would be.

"What's the matter? Too scared to fight without your protector? God, I feel bad for Adri. Stuck with someone as hopeless as her for an ally." She continued, scoffing.

I couldn't figure out why, but when she said that something inside me snapped. I whipped out my knives and glared at her, trying to gauge which way she'd move so I could get a direct hit. I couldn't afford to waste knives.

She grimaced. "Oh no you don't! Tam, go slice off her hands so she can't use her pretty little knives. I want to make her death slow." She instructed.

Parq leapt forward without warning, pulling his sword from its sheath. He sliced his sword through Tam’s neck easily in a move nobody could have ever predicted, a cannon blast rumbling through the air as I tried to figure out what the hell was happening.