Capewood (Book I) *Completed*

Alicia

This just got very real. Throughout this game, I've seen Eros and his goons kill, but I've never seen another contestant kill each other. This just changed the whole atmosphere of the game. "Alicia, he's losing a lot of blood," says Katherine. She's stripped off her shirt and has tried to put enough pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding from his shoulder. 

"This dumb bitch really stuck him good," I say looking at the girl sitting against the wall. "I still don't know what we are going to do with her." 

Katherine leans back and looks at Julian. The bleeding has thankfully seemed to stop, but she still has a worried look on her face. "I wish we had more water. We really drank through that from the cabin we found at the beginning of this "game." That was stupid." 

It was then I remembered how thirsty I was, and also how hungry I am. Things have been so high paced all the time, that I haven't really thought about eating until now. The rumbles in my stomach make me feel a bit dizzy, and I start to look around hoping that food will fall from the sky. I look over at the girl that is sitting against the wall and notice that she has a backpack on. 

"Kat, do you see what I see?" I ask her looking towards the girl with the backpack. 

Katherine smiles and walks over to try and get the girl's backpack off her shoulders. The girl suddenly wakes up and grabs onto Katherine's arm. She screams and jumps up and down on the girl's leg. A snap is heard from where I'm standing, and I instantly get nauseated. 

The girl lets out a wail that I didn't know was physically possible as she hunches over and begins to cry. For the first time that she's been in my area, I really look at her; she can't be more than 15 years old. 

"I'm- I'm sorry," says the girl taking scattered and shallow breaths. Tears are streaming down her face. Her leg is bent at an impossible angle. I don't know how Katherine has the ferocity to keep going like this, but she's willful. That's for sure. 

"Give us the backpack," says Katherine holding out her hand.

The girl struggles to get it unhooked from around her shoulders and then hands it to Katherine. "There's a fruit snacks box, some jerky, and a few bottles of waters," says the girl frowning as Katherine digs into it. 

"Thanks," says Katherine as she gets up and walks away with the bag in her tow.

"What are you just going to leave me here?!" says the girl. "Please! There's no way I can move." 

"You just tried to kill us!" I say with an eye-roll. "This isn't it, honey. You need to have a bit of self-respect. You want to fight like a warrior you can die like a warrior." The girl's eyes widen in shock as the words slip off of my tongue. 

"Die!?"  says the girl like it is just now hitting her where she is and what she has been thrown into. "What do you mean die!? You're going to kill me?!" 

"Oh for goodness sake," says Katherine as she takes one of the knives and stabs it into the girl's head. I jump in surprise and fear as Katherine just moves quickly. "6 left now," says Katherine looking at me. There's deadness in her eyes that I haven't noticed before. "One of us is almost home," she says. 

My jaw slightly drops at the comment she makes. She looks as she if she's just performing a business deal. She stays so calm cool and collected as she goes through the process of killing someone. 

"You've just killed two people in less than an hour," I whisper as I watch her ruffle through the backpack. She looks up at me and then bites her lower lip and tears well up in her eyes, and then looks back down in the backpack. "How do you do it?"

"Compartmentalize," she whispers. "You can't think about this. She attacked us. We have no choice. This is something that we can't control. We have to-" she stops as tears start to fall down her cheeks. She screams as she crawls up into a ball and hugs her knees. "I don't know who I am anymore," she cries. "This isn't me. I'm not this ruthless bitch. I just don't want to die here," she says. "I'm so scared all the time. That's all I ever am. I have no way of catching my breath here. This isn't what I'm supposed to be like."  

I run to my friend and wrap my arms around her. She throws her body into my hug and sobs loudly. I run my hand over her hair and whisper into her ear. "You're okay, Katherine." 

She's quite possibly the strongest person that I know. I've seen her do crazy things to get not only herself but all of us home. She's not afraid to make that snap judgment call; she's not scared to do the dirty work, so others don't have to. Like I initially said, she's a warrior. That's what she is. 

"Autumn!" a male voice cries. 

Both Katherine and I jump as we look over and see Julian trying to get up. "Oh no, Julian," says Katherine quickly pulling herself together. "You can't be getting up right now. You have to lay back down. It's okay." 

"Where's Autumn," 

I'm still taken aback by how quickly Katherine composed herself to talk to Julian. I pause looking down at the watermarks on my shirt. Yeah, those are real. The puffy eyes and the tear-stained cheeks are real too. I need to look into this compartmentalization thing. It does wonders for Katherine. 

"She got taken by someone named Eddy, I think?" I say looking at him confused. Julian's face turns bright white, and he looks down and sees that there are only six lights lit up on his ankle and you can see the panic appear on his face. 

"We need to go get her!" he screams. We need to get her now! This guy wants to kill her! We need to go!" 

"Julian, we can't go anywhere in the state you're in,"  says Katherine. "He hasn't killed her yet, which means he's not going to for a while. We have time. You need to rest up, and then we will go get her." 

Katherine gets up and walks out of the maze hall. I can see her crying as she rounds the corner, but decide following her right now isn't in her best interest. Julian sees the two dead bodies and looks at me appalled. "Did you!?" he begins, but I hold up my hand. 

"Don't you dare make her feel bad," I say to him with an aggressive tone. "She did it for you and Autumn."