Reunited: Against the Odds

Chapter 3

Opening my eyes, I find myself laying on the ground in a cell-like room. My vision slowly clears up from black, and I look to find most everyone else sitting up or standing. I attempt to pick myself up then, realizing my hands are held behind my back by sturdy handcuffs. Hoping that they are the toy kinds that 3-year olds play with, I attempt to break the plastic by smashing the hard steel against the ground, but to no avail. Realizing they aren't of plastic, I give up on unnecessarily wasting energy.

"Buen tardies!" the older blonde greets me, attempting to speak Spanish. Though she had learned quite a bit, she was fit only for speaking English, which proved to be true when she tried doing any accent other than the one she developed naturally. Each victor had to learn a foreign language, most of them taking on different ones. They were encouraged- required, but after a lot of failure, I just made them take the class, not get the grades.

"Yeah, yeah, good morning," I mutter to the two of them, spasmodically jerking around as to try to get up, which only results in more laughs from the two girls. After about the first synchronous laugh, it gets rather old, like a joke losing its effect after being told the first time. 

"Well, well, well. Look who finally decided to wake up," Wynter says, sitting on one of the three benches on the sides of the cell. Her hair is messy and tangled, more than it usually is, just as her expression is more grim and tired than normal. 

"Be nice!" Delilah says, elbowing her, then whispering something into her ear, the two giggling. Probably yet another witty insult, which both of them were well-known for. 

"You look like a fish out of water," Wynter says, and the two burst out into their simultaneous laughter. I roll my eyes, stopping my movement for a while. "Here, Delilah, get on the ground; I'll try to kick off the cuffs."

So apparently I'm not the only one handcuffed. How reassuring. Just the fact that I'm the only laying on the ground is a little defeating. "You look like you're having a bad hair day," I retaliate with the stupidest of smirks, Wynter rolling her eyes as Delilah attempts to fidget with her hair.

"You're not very good at being rude," Wynter says.

"That's our job anyway," Delilah follows.

"Sorry, I'm just naturally a great person," I shrug with a winning smile, the both simultaneously rolling their eyes. 

"If you were as great as you say so, you should have been out of the handcuffs," says Delilah.

"Or actually, you shouldn't be here because you shouldn't have been captured. None of should have," Wynter says. "Good job at protecting us like you apparently agreed to in The Oath."

"You remember The Oath?" I  question, quite surprised actually. Neither of the two seemed to make it a point to forget anything they didn't find interesting or worth remembering. Chores, especially. We used to have a number of housekeepers. We still do. But after a year or so of the Gamemakers hitting a slobby streak, coincidentally after Wynter's victory, the mansion's condition was embarrassing to leave to anyone, even cleaners. Implementing a chore system, I ensured that they cleaned up at least some of the mansion, so that it wasn't a complete humiliation. 

Delilah sits on the ground, her hands outstretched upwards towards Wynter, who kicks at the handcuffs with the intent of breaking them with her feet. Like my attempt to shatter the cuffs, she fails miserably, resulting in a pained Delilah. She bit her lip, looking at what must be an oncoming bruise. The pained facial expression lasts no longer than a mere second before returning into her natural, half-grouchy self. It was an amazing, yet slightly disarming thing. Wynter and Delilah had quite a high pain tolerance, despite their exaggerated complaining at slight punches. Pain seemed to last only a second. First I thought it valor, but soon learned that they were used to pain. But maybe those two weren't dissimilar.