What are you fighting for?

8. The Beginning

Waking up is no longer the pleasure it was. My lids that were drooping and leaden with sleep snap open as violently as if I'd been woken by the raid sirens wailing. There haven't been deaths for three days and now the difficult part of my plan starts.
In order to win this and have the people on my side first I need to get Zana Burris' approval. But she is not as easy as all the other girls. She hates me with a venom that seems to be too fierce to die. Probably after I split up their group and let her partner die in the duel. But how else was i supposed to find the fiercest competitor.

Hoping she would fall for my charms was a weak plan and it failed miserably, judging by the way she acted on the lake. I doubt just living and acting nice will appease her.

I swing my legs off the bed and start walking.

That girl with the brown hair. She would have flown under my radar if I wouldn't have planned everything as detailed. There was just a small possibility for her to be my last competition. Maybe Runyon or Keon, definitely not Merce. Promised him wealth after my victory and that boy was faster on my side as I could count to three.
But her?

I chuckle.

I have to admit, I underestimated her though. For me she was just like Soleil, maybe not as cocky and loud. For me, she was like the blonde but with a monotone expression on her face. Good at fighting, impulsive and without any goal. But she surprised me, as she proved herself to be calculating and she seems to be in it for the long run, probably already hatching a plan to take me down.

And she can't be as cold as I thought or she would have shot me right in the face when we stood face to face. But no, she listened to my words.
She has that horrible sense of justice, a weakness for me to use.

Finally I reach their former headquarter. Call it stupid to use the highest tower and most obvious building to live in. I walked in and out as if I lived here without anyone ever noticing. It was almost too easy to place the bomb.

"That Keon, was he your boyfriend?" my hands meet behind my back as I stand in the door.
With widened eyes she turns around, a breath of relief leaving her mouth as she sees me.
"You startled me"

I plant a smirk on my face and step closer to the window she was looking out of.
Just a small pouting of the lips; a narrowing of the eyes and a tilting of the head.

"So?" I want an answer to my question
"Is" she replies, and I believe to spot, despite her stonern face, a little infuriation in her eyes as she gets a glimpse of my subtle smirk.

Her eyes. Probably the only thing about her that is not plain and boring. When she closes her eyes she is the definition of ordinary.

"He still is my boyfriend" she repeats since I haven't responded.
"He's not dead" she mumbles, turning to face the window again.
So she has a boyfriend. A variable which will make my plan harder to pursue, but not impossible and I'm willing to take the challenge.

"Did you meet here?" Ignoring her words. I need to lead the conversation and turn it into a special direction if I want this to work.

"You know, Adyn, we never really talked about our lives back home. It was kind of like a rule" a quick glimpse over to me, scanning my body, probably for weapons.

"Yeah, but I thought we weren't playing by the rules anymore" I lean against the wall to her right, looking down on her, arms crossed in front of me.

Her head turns, giving me an interested look. Her eyebrow raises and I see something changing in her blue eyes.

"Zana Burris, 23. I live with my little sister and my mother in a flat in the city, we own a small sewing shop. My father-" the words formed in her mouth are stuck. Her eyes go blank and she stops herself as if she has gone too far.

Now the silence lays on her skin like a poison. It seeped into her blood and paralyzed her brain, her pupils became dilated and there was a tremor in her hands. What can I do for my face to not be one of awkwardness? Hurry to save her?
Fill the void with a non-comital statement of appreciation or a charming joke. The void was a cruelty I inflicted unintentionally, but had I been aware that she would blab something out that was not intentionally for my ears I would have asked something different.

"It's ok" finally I break the silence with an empathetic but calm response. A heavy silence settles over us, thicker than the uneasy tension in the atmosphere.
"You don't have to tell me" I add, hoping for her to say something.

I feel my whole face wanting to shrink together. My jaw wants to tighten, my eyebrows want to pull in, my eyes want to narrow or roll in disgust. I did everything I could to keep my cover, don't lose my facade. It's her turn to say something, anything. If I say more I'll seem needy and I am smarter than that.