Chapter 108

Could there be any faint possibility that he was getting injured on purpose, just so he could forfeit the games I realised my brain has taken a fancy to just referring to whatever massacre is happening here as the games, because thinking of it as any other thing would make me scared.

It would make me scared beyond comprehension, and so I simply refer to it as the games, or the game, because that is exactly what it is supposed to be, that is what it is supposed to be but that is what it is certainly not. I'd be a fool if I said I didn't see the tiny preparations contestants were making towards winning this thing at every cost, every and any cost if I might add.

I remember Charlotte poisoning her own hands just so I could touch them and die from an unknown cause later, I remember seeing someone putting steel claws under the fabric of their shirts, claws which will no doubt come handy in a tight-fisted scuffle like the fighting rings.

I feel something like anger and indignation bubble up in me, and I realised with morbid fascination that I'm actually angry at Adrian, it would seem this anger that i was feeling was directed at him, and so I let myself feel it at that moment, for a moment I let myself believe he's a coward and a weakling, instead of him preparing for the fight like others, he deliberately got himself injured just so he could forfeit it.

Regardless of whatever danger they might be in participating in these games, I think the greater danger lies in not participating. Not engaging in the Winter games means your family gets to forfeit all they have, all the fancy cars, the fancy clothes, the millions and millions of dollars stored up in bank accounts would be forfeit, just cause he decided to chicken out at the last moment.

For some time I let myself simply be angry at this fact, angry at the fact that he's deciding to give up so easily, he's deciding to give up without putting on a fight but then I remember exactly who Adrian is. Adrian isn't that sort of a person, he isn't the sort of person to give up without at least trying.

He encouraged me when I had thought it was time for me to give up, he had encouraged me when I thought all was lost and I couldn't continue living anymore, he talked me out of jumping off that bridge, he talked me out of living my life like it was a total misery, he talked me into coming here and making these friends.

I have seen Adrian radiating nothing but confidence ever since, and so I'm guessing there's another reason why he seems hesitant to participate in these games. Fear is surely there, true, but he's not the only one scared, everyone around me is practically radiating fear like a Sonic wave but yet I don't think that could have been anything to stop Adrian.

If he was afraid he wouldn't have brought me here in the first place. I grab his hand and squeeze it, he squeezes mine back.