Stay with me, always.

Chapter 50. Cowboy

I think I'm gonna start taking sleeping pills.

I'd prefer to be sedated, but I know the Doctor won't go for that. I didn't sleep at all last night, too consumed with my horrible thoughts of failure and possible death that could follow said failure.

I sat in the lounge car for a while, staring at a blank piece of paper with no one to write to. I suppose Sejanus wouldn't mind another letter, but we're so close to seeing each other that there's really no point.

I went through the fan mail, granted I didn't read any, but I was happy to see so many letters addressed to me.

Most were of course addressed to Soarynn, since this whole "Tour of Our Lives" was because of her, for her.

There were a few letters addressed to Mother and Father as well, and there was one letter for Eudora but I tucked them all away. Then I went to the viewing car, watching as the green plains began to appear, herds of cattle roaming around.

The sun had come up, and I needed to get back to bed before Soarynn woke up. I tiptoed past my parent's room, lingering outside their door for a moment just in case they decided to talk about me again, but all I heard were Father's snores.

Soarynn was fast asleep, curled up on my side of the bed, hugging my pillow. A poor substitute but I was here to take its place.

Eudora would be up any minute, stirring up a racket to wake us all up, and I wanted Soarynn to have a calmer wakeup call. I ran my fingers through her soft hair as I slowly slipped into bed, pulling the pillow from her grasp.

It was adorable the way her hands immediately found me, clinging onto my waist as she mumbled something I couldn't understand. I gave her a little nudge with my foot, "Soarynn, wake up," I whispered, "we're almost to District Ten."

I wasn't really all that excited for Ten, animals were fun, but they also smelled bad.

Really bad.

And knowing Soarynn, we'd be helping some cow give birth or something outrageous like that. "I don't hear Eudora yet," she mumbled, turning away and pulling the covers over her head.

I ripped them back off of her, "I'm giving you a better wakeup call," I explained, to which she cracked one eye open, giving me a look. "You look like you've been awake for a while," she said with a yawn, slowly sitting up.

I could feel my heart racing, I had been up for a while, the entire night to be honest. Thankfully, technology and medicine have come a long way, so all I needed to do was pop a pill or three to get some energy flowing through my system.

And of course, Soarynn always knew how to get my blood flowing.

"I woke up like half an hour ago," I said nonchalantly, she raised her eyebrows but nodded, "It's been getting harder to sleep since Tour's almost coming to an end."

Tell me about it.

"I wonder what we'll be doing today," I said, Eudora hadn't given us much of a briefing yesterday about what we were actually gonna see. "All I know is that their Tribute's are Juniper and Zeren. And Zeren was pretty scary," she said, rubbing her eyes.

I frowned, I didn't remember her and Zeren ever running into each other in the Games, well, both alive that is.

"Did you ever talk to him?" I asked, even though most Tribute's kept to themselves during training, no one could really stop them from engaging in polite conversation.

She nodded, "Yes, he was very quiet, but he was nice. That's what made him so scary, how calm he was and then how vicious he could be the next moment. Kind of like Jessup," she mumbled, pulling her knees under her chin.