♘ Be Brave ♘

XLVI

After training, Cassandra and I head to the Pit hand in hand to get some food. "You're getting better at this violence stuff," I joke. "I know. Funny how many uses there are for knives. The only time I used knives before I transferred was when... when I helped the kitchen staff in Amity at lunch time."

I glance at her. "You okay?" Cassandra smiles, somewhat unconvincingly. "Yeah. I'm...fine." We grab a slice of chocolate cake to share. "You know you can tell me anything, right?" Cassandra holds my hand. "I know." We head over to our usual table, and find that Zeke and Lauren are already there.

"Wait...is there something going on that we should know about?" Lauren glances at our hands and raises an eyebrow. "Um, no, not that I know of...why?" I wink at Cassandra as we take a seat.

"Wait...no...no way, man." Zeke gasps, seemingly shocked. I laugh. "We're together now." Cassandra beams and gives me a kiss on the cheek. "Tell me how this happened. Now." Lauren leans forward and I sit back as Cassandra tells the story about how Eric attacked her.

"Matt, let's go give that guy a quick tour of the chasm, shall we?" Cassandra shakes her head. "No, don't. The less we mess with him the better off we will be." I nod. "She's right." Lauren smirks.

"Well, of course you'd say that." We laugh, and cut the cake into slices for each of us. "Isn't this the best chocolate cake you've ever tasted?"

Zeke shoves more of it into his already full mouth. "Remember when we used to try to bake cakes by ourselves? We almost set the compound on fire that one time." Lauren laughs. "Yeah, we did. Cassandra is a better baker than both of us combined, though." It's interesting, hearing more about their lives.

"Really? You never told me that." Cassandra shrugs. "You never asked." I smile. "Maybe you should give me baking lessons sometime." Cassandra looks away. "Um, yeah. Maybe. Sorry guys, I'm not very hungry, and..." She gets up so abruptly her chair falls over backwards. I hurry after her, puzzled. What was going on?