One Lucky Winner

Chapter 81 ~ Harry

I'm very confused as to why she's approaching me. My mind spins; I don't know what to say.

I pocket Ron's wand and slowly stand up, so we're face to face. For the first time I notice she's shorter than me. I also notice that she doesn't have anything with her. Not even a small knife or a handgun. Nothing. No weapons at all. Not even the ring. The stupid gold ring she found is gone from around her neck. I wonder where it went.

"I've been looking everywhere for you," she finally says. Then she hugs me. It's awkward and confusing and I'm terrified.

She lets me go. "Do you know what happened to Four," she asks me, keeping her right hand on my bicep. I notice that her left hand, at her side, is clenched into a fist.

I blink. Doesn't she know?

"I woke up that night, and...he was dead and you were gone," she continues, and slightly tightens the grip around my arm. "What happened?"

Before I can reply, she continues. "And the bag was gone too." She look down at the ground, eyeing the bag. She looks back up at me. "Oh, look at that. You have it."

I blink again. She's putting me on. She's playing with me. She has to be.

"What happened?" she croaks. Her voice is like sandpaper.

My mind whirls. I don't know if I should lie and make up some story or tell her I took the bag and killed Four. But I'm almost positive she knows. She has to. I know she's putting me on. She's trying to confuse me and it's working.

So, I decide to confuse her back.

"I dunno. It's all a blur," I say. She just stares at me.

So I continue. "I saw this creature. This thing. A mutt, you know, like the rats. It was huge, though, and looked dangerous. I grabbed the bag and was screaming for you guys to get up and run, but you slept through it. It came after me, so I had to run. I guess it got to Four, then." I swallow hard. That was horrible.

"Well, that's strange, because when I woke up, Four didn't have any blood on him or anything. So how could've this 'strange creature' kill him? And why would it kill him and not me?"

I continue to lie. "It has this way of killing. It doesn't eat it's victims, it just injects this serum into the victim, and it kills them instantly. And it only kills males. Doesn't like all of those female hormones." I make myself cringe.

She nods suspiciously. "You seem to know a lot about this creature."

"I read up on them. During training."

"I think I would've remembered a mutt information station during training."

"Well, it was there."

"You didn't know anything about the rats, though."

"When I was reading it, I didn't get to the 'R's'."

"Well, if you read an alphabetical book on mutts, you should've known what this strange creature's name was."

"I forgot the name. Bad nutrition for the past week."

She nods again. "Strange."

"Isn't everything?"

She blinks. "Yeah."

We stare at each other for a while. It's like a staring contest. I realize that she could've been really pretty. Her face used to seem so flawless but now it's so beat up. Somehow she's still easy to look at.

I eventually break eye contact and look back down at her fist at my side. She apparently sees me looking and unclenches it. She also releases my arm. Then she speaks again. "Well. It was nice to see you again." Based on her tone of voice, I can tell she tried to outsmart me by pretending she didn't know about me killing Four. But I outsmarted her better.

"Yeah. Good luck," I tell her. She slowly turns away from me and slowly walks away. I know she tried to outsmart me, but she's not going to kill me?

I stand there and watch her until she's out of sight. This whole thing is very confusing. I shake my head and sit back down against the tree, watching her walk away.

Even though she became my friend and I didn't want to betray her, I really want to go home. I should've killed her.

I grab my wand for reassurance. I shake my head in confusion, playing it through in my head. That was so weird. I really should've killed her when I had the chance.

A snap in the bushes behind me makes me whip around. It strangely reminds me of when the rat mutts first came out.

I notice something sticking out; a shoe. A black boot. Someone spying on me.

Tris.