HELL FROM THE POWERS TRILOGY | C. HADLEY

CHAPTER 8

"You ready for this?" Leighton cut in, and they both looked over at him.

"Will I ever be?" Devyn joked, but Leighton didn't laugh; he looked really nervous about answering questions in front of hundreds of thousands, not counting the people watching through their TVs.

"Hey," Devyn placed her hand over his, and he looked at her. "You'll be fine. You're charming, handsome, and somewhat sweet."

"Thanks," Devyn giggled, ruffling his hair and turning to look at the other tributes, knowing they were dressed nicer than her. And she was absolutely right. The only person possibly worse than her was Glimmer, who wore something somewhat similar. Except tighter and in bubblegum pink.

Then her eyes met Cato's. He wore a slick black undercoat and pants with a silver jacket. He glanced her up and down with a slight smirk. Gesturing to his thigh, he raised an eyebrow as he moved his hand back and forth, signaling even he thought the dress was too short. Devyn rolled her eyes at the reminder but continued staring at him nevertheless. As subtly as possible, he then pointed upward, causing Devyn to look up to see nothing but the ceiling.

She heard a low chuckle as she looked back at Cato. He shook his head before pointing to Devyn, then at himself and gesturing up again. Devyn was still confused as she furrowed her eyebrows. "Hey, Dev, can I talk with you?" Johanna asked from behind her, and Devyn shot around. She nodded without hesitation and followed Johanna into the hallway.

"Don't talk too loud because the audio of the security cameras might pick it up," Johanna mentioned, and Devyn nodded, leaning closer to her mentor. "What is going on with you and the boy from two?" She mumbled, and Devyn's mischievous smile from before fell.

"What are you talking about?" She asked quickly.

"I saw that little conversation between you two. Are you guys friends? Allies? ... more than friends?" Devyn jumped back at Johanna's words, almost tripping over her heels. Johanna grasped her arms and brought her close. "Tell me the truth, Dev."

Devyn stared at her, not blinking once as she decided it was best to tell her. "Cato and I have been talking recently, so what? We aren't allies or friends and definitely not ... you know."

"I've never seen you look at a boy that way, Devyn. I can tell there's something more there than just talking. How frequently has this been going on?"

Devyn suddenly became flustered, her cheeks turning a light pink. "I don't know ever since we got here, I guess. We ran into each other up on the roof on the first night because we both couldn't sleep, and since then, we've met up a few times," she stated, remembering last night's meet-up. The entire day was dedicated to planning for the interview and establishing a story for the tributes. So naturally, Devyn and Cato were bored by dinner when it finally ended. They already planned on meeting up, but they arrived earlier than planned and talked for hours. They learned a lot more things about one another but steered away from the subject of the upcoming games.

"Is that where you were for over five hours? Talking with him?" Johanna interrupted Devyn's memories, who froze. "God, Dev. He's not worth getting worked up over. He's either going to betray you once the gong goes off, or you're going to get hurt when he dies. You have to remember not both of you can come out. And it had to be the arrogant and psychopathic one out of all people? I always knew you had bad taste but never this bad."

Devyn began drowning out Johanna's scoldings as she began rumbling about how unreliable careers were, especially someone like Cato. "Jo,' she finally cut Johanna off as she went into how she could shut this down without becoming Cato's next target. "As much as I love that you're looking out for me, I can handle myself. I'll know if I need to stop this thing with Cato, alright? I promise you."