A Knife in the Dark | ✓

Twelve

The clang of metal was an oddly comforting sound. The feeling of bruises beginning to form on my battered flesh was liberating. I was breathless, covered in sweat, hair sticking to my face, dodging and blocking and parrying Cato's rapid-fire assault. He didn't even seem winded, but I was struggling to keep up. My side ached from where he'd managed to sneak in multiple hits, my arms burned from switching the sword back and forth from hand to hand, and I could feel my jaw swelling already.

He flicked his wrist, snapping mine to the side, knocking my sword from my grasp. It skidded across the floor, nearly hitting someone's feet. Cato kept coming at me and I dropped, kicking out his ankles, leaving him sprawled on the mat. But Cato had become as relentless as the other Broken, and he didn't hesitate to knock me aside with a kick that stole the wind from my lungs. He stood and hit me in the head, not hard enough to hurt or leave a mark, but he managed to get me flat on my back. He pressed the tip of his sword to my throat. "You going to give up?"

"I don't like that phrase," I said, pushing aside his sword with one finger. "I prefer to say that I'm accepting defeat for this fight."

He rolled his eyes and helped me to my feet. "You just don't know when to quit, do you?"

"There's no quitting in the Games." I told him. "So I don't quit."

"I'm making that the first line of your obituary. And the line on your headstone."

"You have fun with that." I said. "I'm gonna get my sword now."

"Good idea." He laughed. I jogged to where it was lying and jogged back. Despite my swelling jaw and the lump I was surely going to have on my head, I got back into position. "Really? Again?"

"Hell yeah," I said. "You need all the prep you can get."

He shrugged, loosening his shoulders and widening his stance. "If you insist."

✗

"How the hell do you do that?" Jake demanded as Saylee flipped end over end towards us.

She stood, straightened her hair out, and shrugged with a smile. "I'm flexible."

"It's why she gets laid so much." Clove deadpanned. Cato made a sound like he was choking, and covered it with a cough. I turned away so that Jake wouldn't see my smile, because his question seemed to be somewhat genuine.

"Really, Clove? We're going to argue about that now?"

"I'm just saying that since you have a girlfriend, maybe you should know how to--"

"Enough!" I cut her off. "The last thing I want to hear about is your sex life."

"Would you rather we talked about yours?" Saylee teased. Then she made a face. "Never mind. I don't want to hear about how Cato is. He's like, my brother." She gagged.

I started to laugh. I ended up not being able to get a good amount of air in, my face turning hot and my already sore sides aching even more. "You think Cato could get laid?" I forced out between painful laughs. "That's hysterical!"

"I think I'm offended." Cato said, looking at Jake. "Should I be offended?"

"I think so." Jake said. "But I'm not sure." Their expressions made me laugh harder. Saylee dissolved into giggles. Clove let out a small snort, clapped a hand over her mouth, and then started laughing too.

"You three should probably stop." Cato said, and made a show of checking the watch on his wrist. "People might begin to think that you're crazy."

Saylee wiped under her eyes, careful not to mess up her makeup. "Well, they wouldn't be wrong. And they're an idiot if they didn't already know it, so..."

Jake shook his head. "You three are..."

"Indescribable, I know." Clove and I straightened ourselves out while Saylee and Jake went back and forth. "Look, boys, all girls are crazy. You just need to find one that's significantly less crazy, or at least a kind of crazy that you can coexist well with." She looked at Clove. "Take Clove here, for example. Her crazy goes well with Jake's non-crazy. And Atala's crazy--"

"Does not go well with mine." Cato chuckled. "She'd kill me."

"Murder is more fitting." Jake said. "Atala doesn't kill."

I shrugged. "He's not wrong."

Saylee rolled her eyes. "Atala's the equivalent of a teddy bear. Hush."

"She could throw a knife in the dark and hit the target. And chances are, the target would be me. So I think I'll pass on trying that one."

"He isn't wrong." I said.

"Shut up, Atala." Saylee elbowed me. "And Cato, with your standards, you'll be lucky if you don't die alone with thirty cats. Cats that will feed on your dead body for weeks after you die. Alone. On your floor. Because you fell."

"Thank you, Saylee, for that disgusting image." Clove shuddered. "After that, I think I'll go back to training. Never know when you might need knives." She shot a glare at Jake and stormed off.

Cato turned to Jake. "Rough night?"

He rubbed a hand over his face. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me." Cato said. Jake looked between Saylee and I, and Cato shrugged. "We're going to go work on spears. Don't follow us." He and Jake went off.

Saylee turned to me excitedly. "Want to go try the gauntlet? I haven't done it in a while."

I looked between where Cato and Jake had gone and where Clove stood, armed with a set of wicked daggers. "Yeah," I said, looking at her and smiling. "The gauntlet sounds good."