Love Crimes

Chapter 35 [The Games]

Varity takes a deep breath in. "My.. Wedding will be a day after my birthday, and, I won't be marrying you but this guy named Roderique. It got forced on my family, it's not your fault so don't apologise for it." She says and Darton looks hurt. "I'm sorry Dart... I didn't want it to go like that, I tried my best to not make it happen." Darton sighs. "No." He says, the way he says it shows he's serious. "What?" Varity looks a bit worried at him. "Do you want to marry him?" He asks and Varity shakes her head. Darton gets a smile on his face, Varity looks at him and realises he's thinking of something, which makes her face light up as well. "You have a plan, don't you?" She asks with a giggle in her voice and he smirks at her. "Oh yes, I won't shoot up the wedding, don't worry, you're going to marry whoever you want, not this Roderique guy." He says and Varity smiles, he's happy to have a boyfriend this helpful. "God, I love it when you make plans." She says and makes him look at her. "And I love it when a plan goes correctly." He looks at her smiling,

"Will it?" She asks. "Oh yeah it will." He leans in and she follows, they kiss. They then pull away. "Do you want to go inside and wait for a wonderful birthday party?" Darton asks and Varity gets up and holds his hand. "Yes!" They walk to the tribunes and see a huge crowd, sitting ready, Darton looks at the contestants. He notices they are not what he expected them to be, they looked like they faught in the war as well. This made Darton a little unsure. Varity handed him, his outfit. "You didn't think you'd be rolling around and fighting in the mud with that suit, right? Here's your uniform, go change in the bathroom." Darton nods, takes the uniform and leaves to the bathroom, he changes into the clothes Varity gave him. Once he changed, he goes back to the tribunes and doesn't see Varity anymore but does see his opponents, standing in a line ready, he joined the line. He was number eleven. Darton looks around the crowd and saw Varity sitting there, he looks at her and smiles. Happy to see that she's looking at him, this is why he's in the games after all.

The games begin with the first round being rope pulling. Darton stands ready and the match begins, it seems that for Darton it's not going so well, he pulls but his opponent is stronger, Darton is a few millimetres away from the line, and therefore a few millimetres away from losing. He tries his best to pull the rope as hard as he can but it doesn't seem to work, Darton manages to stay in place and not go more to the front, a few minutes in and Darton already hears people failing, number fourteen, number twenty two, number three. He tries his best to stay in the match, and tries his best to win. He looks at his opponent and the opponent soon looks up at him, he realises who he's against. A surprised look comes onto the man's face. "Mr. Dolsey?! But you're supposed to be in prison!" The man says, this was Darton's oppertunity, while he was distracted he pulls the rope and the man takes one, two, three steps forward, and Darton takes one, two, three steps backwards. A few more steps and he will win this round. Darton starts to gain hope.

He continues to pull and manages to stay in place again, although it was tough since the man was trying his ultra best now. "I'm, only doing this for Varity, I want her to be happy, so if you manage to make me lose, I'll kill your daughter, her name is Mary-Lynn right?" The man looks frightened at Darton and slowly starts holding on looser onto the rope, Darton smirks and pulls, he pulls the man over the white line in front of their feet and the man falls to the ground, he looks at Varity, she's clapping for him. Happiness filled Darton's mind as he celebrated his victory. The round soon ended and the second one was starting not much later after that, seven people were left, which made it both harder and more easy for Darton to win, since there was less competition but only the best were in the second round. The second round was a shooting round, this should be pretty easy for Darton, although he doesn't know how good of a shooter the others were. He loads his gun and points it at the board, one by one they shoot their shots, they all come so very close.

Once it's Darton's turn he tries his best to concentrate but soon hears someone shout his name, this is a massive distraction for him, he shoots and fails, he missed the board. He looks in defeat at the board. He has the lowest score of them all. Varity looks quite disappointed but then grabs the mic and speaks up about it. "The rounds are going quite fast, aren't they? How about we make this more interesting? Everyone gets two more shooting chances, their points will be counted and the top three highest scores win and will go to the next round." She suggests and the crowd cheers, Darton smiles, he got two other chances to make this better. There were a few more gunshots, Darton shot and hit the board but not that many points, this time there was no other option, Darton had to shoot bullseye, otherwise, he wouldn't make it in the top three. He aims, stays completely still, he tries to remind himself of the war. He aims, shoots and scores bullseye. He cheers as the croud cheers with. The points get counted and the top three get announced, Darton isn't in the first place, he fears he might not even be on the board.

"And on third place... Darton Dolsey!" The man announces, and Darton feels a massive relief. He didn't make it in first place but at least he is still going to the third round. Third round is sprinting, only two will make it this time, he cannot lose this time, if he becomes last he will lose everything, these games already have been going harsh on him and he wasn't doing so well but it's winning this or losing everything. The three stand in their places and once shot has been fired, Darton runs and tries to stay in front, but halfway, the two pass Darton, he can see the finish line already and has been passed by two times now which means he's last, which also means that he will be losing if he's not going faster. Darton gives every single bit of energy he has left in his body to get to the finish, he passes number two nearly and gets second, he still has to pass the first one, or stay far away from the second. He continues running and gets so close to number one but the finish is right ahead of them, so Darton makes bigger sprints, and once they finish, it is Darton who ends up first. Darton collapses from exhaustion. Varity calls it enough for now and the final two are allowed to have a small break.