One Lucky Winner

Chapter 41 ~ Tris

Day 3
3:48 PM

My body stings with pain and my lungs are exhausted from sprinting away from the mutts. I feel like I could sleep for weeks.

I'm sitting by Harry, who is staring out in space. He was crying earlier; I pretended not to notice. I was tugging at my clothes and messing with my hair and poking the ground. When other people cry around me, I get uncomfortable. I think Tobias does too, because he pretended not to notice either. But right now, Harry is silent. I feel so bad for him.

My head throbs. I haven't had a headache free minute ever since Captain America threw his shield at me the first night. He also burned Caleb that night...

No. Not Caleb tears again. Wrong time to think about him. Just get him out of your head!

I stand up to get rid of the thought. I'm so dizzy. "I think we should get moving now," I say quietly. I don't know where this tunnel leads, and I don't know if I want to find out.

Tobias stands up. "We should go back the way we came."

"But the rats might be waiting for us there," I protest.

"They would've followed us down here if they were," Tobias says. He looks at Harry and helps him up. Harry's face is emotionless and seems to be make of stone.

We all slowly walk the way we came, the smell of blood very strong in the air.

After awhile, we reach the end of the tunnel and the opening of the cave. The hovercrafts must've came and took Ron's body, because it's not there. The rats aren't there either. There's just a lot of blood on the snowy ground, and that's it.

Harry walks over to the blood and picks up something. I'm about to ask what but then I see it; Ron's wand. Harry meets my eyes for a moment and then continues to walk.

Poor Harry. I wonder what he's thinking right now. It would be so awful to kill my best friend; I can't even imagine doing it. I wouldn't be able to. He must be very mentally strong. I wish I could say or do something that would make him feel better, but at this point I don't think anything I could do would help.

We walk along, occasionally slipping on the snow. I hold on to Tobias' arm to steady myself. I wonder what this whole rock place is. Who knew there was something else besides trees in this arena? It would've been good shelter for that storm the first night. I wonder if we should stay here.

I turn to Tobias and Harry. "Should we stay here?" My voice seems very loud, especially since we've been quiet for the last 20 minutes.

"No," Tobias says simply.

"It's good shelter," I say. Tobias stops walking and points to a cave.

I look. I don't see anything. It's just a cave. "What?"

"Footprints," Harry answers for him in a monotone voice. I look at him. "Someone else is here."

"Exactly," Tobias says, looking at Harry.

"So?" I say. I don't see what the big deal is. "We'll kill them."

"With two small handguns?" Tobias says. "I don't think so."

"Harry has his wand," I say.

"A wand that had barely no effect on the rats," Harry mumbles without looking at me.

"Keep walking," Tobias says to me, with a light nudge. Ugh. It's impossible to even try to reason with them.

We walk to the treeline and enter the woods again. I'm thankful the ground is less slippery. I can walk without holding into Tobias' arm now.