‹ Prequel: Trust Me
Status: In progress.

Fall Away

Chapter 08

By the time we had to break for lunch, I felt confident that I had played my part well. People were eyeing me warily, and I could hear the anxious chatter between the tributes as they tried to figure out what to do with me. Adri did just as well -- he didn't miss a single target, plus he nearly sliced off one of the trainers' arms with a machete when they asked him to move to another station.

Adri and I had just collected our food when I heard someone calling out our names. I turned around to see the tributes from District 2 nodding us over. Finnick and Cashmere were already sitting with them, and Cashmere looked extremely displeased as I walked over to the table. She hadn't come back into the arena after I bit her, so I was rather surprised to see her eating with the other tributes.

As Adri and I approached the table, Finnick shifted over to make room for me, leaving a space for Adri on the other side of him.

"Move." Adri commanded, his voice deep and booming. I'd never heard him speak before, and though it was a rather attractive voice, it did scare me.

Finnick acted as though he hadn't heard him, continuing to poke his fork at his lunch with a bored look on his face.

"I said, 'move'." Adri said again, knocking his tray into the back of Finnick's head. The impact knocked over Adri's glass of ice water, spilling it over the edge of his tray and onto Finnick's back.

Finnick whirled his head around to glare up at Adri. His eyes flickered to me for a moment, a thoughtful expression on his face, but he seemed to swallow his anger. As he reluctantly shuffled over, I squeezed in next to him, not about to let Adri and Finnick sit next to each other.

The woman from District 2 -- Enobaria, I believed -- cleared her throat and turned to me, ignoring what had just happened between Adri and Finnick. "We've already got an alliance formed. We want you two to join it."

"I still think you're making a mistake." Cashmere snarled.

"How's the neck, Cashie?" I cooed, seeing the patch of gauze taped over her wound. To my surprise, some blood had already soaked through the bandage. I still couldn't believe how much damage I'd done with just my teeth, though I remembered now that Enobaria had used her teeth to rip open the throat of another tribute during her Games, and I quickly stopped doubting how much damage teeth could do.

Adri nudged me under the table, his eyes flickering over to me with a stern look on his face. What's his problem? I wondered, but I didn't dare ask him in front of everyone at the table. We had to keep up a strong front around these people at all costs.

Finnick cut in before Cashmere could reply. "The two of them together are unstoppable. Even if you think Winnie wasn't violent enough in her last Games, it's obvious that she's more prepared this time around. Plus, you know they're loyal. Their last alliance ended in a marriage, after all." He added with a somewhat bitter-looking smirk.

Enobaria raised an eyebrow. "I'll just take the alliance, no marriage, thanks." She muttered, giving me a pointed look.

I knew that, if Finnick was a part of this alliance, it must have been a good one. His word was good enough for me. "We're in." I said with a nod.

Cashmere snickered. "Oh, so the lady speaks for you now, huh Adri?"

"Shut up." Finnick snapped.

Adri whirled his head around to glare at Finnick. "Don't talk to her that way!"

My stomach dropped as I turned to Adri, wondering what the hell was going on. But since I still had to look composed, all I could say was, "Adri's right. We have to try and bury any hatchets if we want this alliance to work."

"I'd like to bury a hatchet right in your--" Cashmere began.

"If you don't shut your damn mouth, I'll gladly give you a second bite mark. Maybe I'll get lucky and hit a nice artery." Finnick growled, standing up and pushing his tray forward, knocking Cashmere's to the floor.

"I told you not to talk to her like that!" Adri stood up as well, grabbing Finnick's shirt and pulling it forward. Finnick, caught off guard, stumbled into me, landing on top of me and crushing me into the table, my face planted in my sandwich.

"Would you idiots just shut up? The other tributes are watching." Enobaria hissed, glaring back and forth between Finnick and Adri. "Maybe Cashmere was right; maybe we shouldn't have asked you two to join."

"If you ask me, Cashmere's the one starting the most problems." Finnick muttered, grabbing Adri's fist and pulling it off his shirt before sitting back down.

I felt Adri tense up, but I reached up and grabbed his wrist, pulling him down next to me before he could say anything else. Cashmere smirked up at me smugly, and all I could do was wonder why the hell Adri was defending Cashmere over his own wife.
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I might not update for a while. I'm really struggling with a few things. First of all, my stories are getting stolen left and right, and it's really pissing me off. Secondly, I'm supposed to be on my summer vacation with my family who lives 3,000 miles away from me, but people asked me to update more so I tried to start a Monday/Thursday schedule even though it would take time away from being with my family, which was really hard for me to do. Now that I'm updating more, nobody is reading or commenting, so it feels like I'm just talking to no one, and I'm pushing my family away for nothing. It's frustrating because this is the last summer I'm going to get to come down here, so if nobody's reading my chapters or giving feedback, I might as well spend time enjoying my vacation and spending time with family. Finally, I really want to write my own story. I've only ever written fanfiction, and I want to write something that's entirely my own. Plus, if I write my own stuff, I can write when I have time rather than trying to cancel plans in order to publish a chapter twice a week.
So yeah. If I know people are actually reading, I'd know that the effort to write was actually worthwhile, but it seems people stopped reading after the first few chapters of the sequel, so I'm wondering if writing this is even worth it. The only people reading it are the ones who are stealing it. I'm really debating just deleting Fall Away right now, but I'll see how things go. In a major writing funk right now, tbh. :/