The Hanging Tree

Chapter Seven

"What?" Kiva asked and then exploded into laughter. "You lit the damn thing on fire? Boom?" 

"Boom," I echoed miserably.

She slapped me on the back. "You're going far, kid."

I rubbed the sore spot where she'd hit me.

"Ow," I said. "And if by 'far' you mean 'not anywhere at all,' then yeah. Far. Really far."

"Oh, come on kid," She said. "It's not the end of the world. I'm sure you're not the first to blow up the training room."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, yeah," She said. "You're definitely the first but who cares?'

"The Gamemakers," I answered. "You know, considering I almost killed all of them."

Kiva shrugged. "But nobody got hurt."

"My score did. Badly, actually. If I'd done it intentionally - I mean, that would be different - but I didn't."

In truth, I still wasn't sure what had gone wrong. I'd been throwing knives at targets, ran an obstacle course and a climbing course, but, run out of options and with only about a minute and a half remaining, I decided to take a few harder throws. I'd thought it was going great at first but I took a bold target but my throw was too hard and my throw sliced into the wiring for two light fixtures that crashed to the ground and into one of the technical stations resulting in, to my despair and complete horror, an explosion.

She sighed. "Maybe it won't be so bad. Even if they give you a 1 -,"

"If even."

She looked at me in exasperation. "No matter what you get, it comes down to what happens in the arena. I don't give a damn if you get an 11 or a 2. You can win no matter what your score is."

"But it'll make it harder for me. You know that."

"They can throw whatever they have at you," She said, throwing a grape up in the air and catching it in her mouth. "Just throw all you have back."

I glared at her in disbelief.

"Thanks," I said dryly. "That might just be the best advice you've given me. Why didn't I ever think of it?"

"You know," She said as she threw a grape at me. It bounced off of my forehead and to the ground as I blinked. "You don't have to be such a sour grape."

She laughed like a maniac at her own joke.

Even Odessa let out a small, light laugh but when I looked up at her, she turned her head to the side, trying to muffle the sound with her hand.

A few seconds later, when she'd regained her composure, she turned to Kiva.

"You're being insensitive, Kiva," She told her softly.

"Am I?" Kiva asked her before turning to me. "Do you know what my score was? Three. I got a three. All I did was hack a few dummies with a machete and then left. Any idiot could have done that. I thought the whole thing was too below me to bother. But I won. I could have gotten a 1 and I would have still won. I could have gotten an 11 and I would have still won. That number didn't matter. The Gamemakers threw a pack of mutts on me and I still won."

"I know, but -,"

"But what?"

I threw my hands up in exasperation. "But I'm not you, Kiva! I'm not strong or brave or - or -,"

"What?" She asked, hands crossed across her chest.

"A killer!" I finished. "Okay? I can't do it. I can't take a machete and slash someone else to pieces. I can't even slaughter a sheep back home! This whole thing is so stupid. So goddamn stupid and I hate the whole fucking -,"