Trust Me

That night, we followed our regular routine. We set our clothes off to the side and huddled together inside the sleeping bag after we’d finished eating. It was cold by this point, but we were pressed so tightly to each other and so close to the fire that we were toasty warm. I stared up at the sky, waiting for the hologram to appear and show the faces of the day’s Fallen, but out of the corner of my eye it looked almost as if Adri was staring at me. It looked like he’d been staring at me for the last 20 minuets, but it was in my peripheral vision so I couldn’t be certain.

I slowly tilted my head towards him and quickly flickered my eyes to the corners, glancing at Adri’s face to discover that he was watching me. He didn’t so much as blink when I caught his gaze, but for some reason I felt like I couldn’t maintain eye contact with him. I quickly snapped my head back up to look at the sky as if I could pretend that I’d never looked at him, but I could feel heat rising in my cheeks. Why was I so skittish around him tonight?

The anthem suddenly started blaring through the arena, making me jump.

Adri laughed. “Why are you so jumpy?”

I opened my mouth in the hopes that a perfect excuse would form itself, but nothing happened. Instead, I smacked him and said, “Shush, the anthem is playing.”

“I can hear that.” He muttered, a smirk plain in his voice.

I grimaced and watched as the faces lit up the sky. Parq’s face was the first one to pop up, followed by Kip, and as I saw his familiar face I winced. I turned my head away, and found myself accidentally pressing myself closer against Adri as I tried to shield myself from Kip’s face in the sky.

Adri wrapped his arm around me and stroked his thumb back and forth across my skin. I tensed up, feeling my stomach fill with butterflies as I tried to figure out what was going on and how I was supposed to react to this.

Before I had a chance to figure out what I should do, Adri withdrew his arms and nudged me gently on the shoulder. “His face is gone.” He murmured, and I glanced back up at the sky to see Jill’s face light up. Next was Tam’s, followed by the girl from District 11.

“She must have been the one who froze last night,” I suggested.

Adri nodded. “Probably. At least she went gently,” He murmured as the hologram disappeared, leaving the night sky dark again.

“I’ll take the first watch shift.” I said, not wanting to dwell on the topic of death.

“No. I haven’t forgotten what happened last night. You took two of my watch shifts, so tonight I’m taking two of yours.” Adri said firmly.

I scoffed. “I’m not going to sleep until my watch shift is over, so you’ll just be depriving us both of sleep.”

Adri grimaced. “I know the pressure point to knock you unconscious. Don’t you remember? That’s how I dragged you away from the Cornucopia in the first place. I could still use that against you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

I raised my eyebrows and glared at him, crossing my arms over my chest. “Fine. I’ll close my eyes. But you have no way of knowing if I’m actually sleeping.”

Adri scoffed. “That’s so childish. Just use this time to actually sleep. If your breathing isn’t deep or steady enough for you to be asleep, I swear I’ll use that pressure point again.”

“Well that’s a nice home remedy for insomnia.” I grumbled, rolling over and closing my eyes before he could say another word.