Safe and Sound || Hunger Games

Chapter Nineteen - Grayson's First Kill

"Harper Anselin, you scared me! That's not very ally-like of you!" He exclaimed, clutching his heart. I laughed quietly, before kneeling down next to him. I placed his backpack next to him. He took it back and then moved himself into a seating position. "How can you do that without breaking both of your legs? Seriously, if I tried a stunt like that I think I would die."

"No you wouldn't. Anyway, how much sleep did you get?" I asked him, rubbing his back to rid him of the shock. He relaxed.

"A few hours. But I feel fine, honestly." He said. I raised an eyebrow at him, not quite so convinced.

"You won't be feeling fine when the exhaustion catches up with you in a couple of hour's time." I warned, but I wasn't angry at him. He waved it off.

"Don't worry, I'm used to staying up late and not getting lots of sleep." He said. "Anyway, the real question is, why did you decide to join me so...so...eagerly?" I laughed at his choice of words. It felt good to laugh, even though I was stuck in this arena with several bloodthirsty children. Grayson seemed to help with that problem. It was a good choice to make, he was great company and a good ally from what I had seen...even though he couldn't climb trees very well.

"I wanted to return this." I reached into my pocket and pulled out his knife, which I had forgotten about completely. Grayson seemed to as well. I held it out to him, but he pushed it away.

"Keep it, you may need it to kill a mutt or something." He answered. I raised one eyebrow at him yet again, "Seriously, keep it, it's actually a good idea to have a variety of weapons in the arena! And those two blunt knives in your pack won't do any sort of good with a creature like the mutt that almost killed you."

"Fair point. Thank you." I slipped it back into my pocket. "How many knives did you collect?" I then asked. I moved from a kneeling position to a cross-legged seated position.

"Er, let's see. Hang on a minute." Grayson reached into his jacket pockets and pulled out about four from one and three from the other. He then reached into his trouser pockets and pulled several smaller ones. He then opened his backpack and aimed it towards me. It was filled with many throwing knives. He also had several in each of the backpack's the side pockets. He was truly stocked up. He then packed his knives away, before he remembered something. He reached into his left hand boot and pulled out three quite long, thin ones from the strapping on the side, each of which looked quite deadly. They tucked in quite nicely to the straps on the side of the boot in such a way that you couldn't actually see them. A great supply secret weapon. He tucked them back into the strapping and tightened it up and looked at me, as if he hadn't just shown me a huge stash of knives that all looked very lethal and all very sharp.

"So that's your variety of weapons?" I asked. He nodded.

"A variety of different blades that could do different damage depending on how you throw them or how or where you hold them. It's quite clever, really. The Capitol actually give you pretty good weapons for in here. I guess it makes the killings more interesting, if a tribute has a specific weapon that they are known for using." He answered eagerly.

"Remind me not to get on your bad side. I've seen you use just normal throwing knives, I don't want to know what you can do with different ones." I said, "But what gets to me is how did you get that much at the bloodbath? I didn't even see you."  

"I have my ways. But I did go straight there, scooped up as much as I could, rammed everything into the pack that I picked up on the way there and then I sprinted out of there before anyone could get to me. I didn't even look back. I only sorted them when I was sure I was safe from an immediate danger. I packed some in my pockets, some in my backpack and obviously the three thin blades in the strapping on the side of my left boot." Grayson said, patting his left foot. I nodded in approval.