I shouldered my door open, my brain already running through how I could get some answers. Storming right into my closet, I changed into my running gear, though I wasn't sure I'd run in the cold. I was grumbling under my breath, cursing Kellen and Jackson and even Jess for their impulsivity and lack of foresight. With one shoe on, and one in my hand, I barged out of my closet and right into Katia.
Katia? In my room.
"God, you're a ray of sunshine aren't you?" She snarked.
Where had she come from?
"You didn't even notice I was here!" She offered me a smug smile, and gestured for me to follow her. "Come please."
Was she okay? In what world was I going with her? "Oh-kay... Why?"
"Because, little Ace, I'm here for my flag."
"That's nice, but I'm not the flag," I matched her patronizing tone. Who was she calling little anyway? I was taller than her.
She pondered my words for a second, then shrugged. "Eh! Come please."
I planted my feet when she took my arm and tried to pull me along with her. With an irritated look at me, she clicked her tongue. "See, the thing is, I don't care. I came here for the flag, and I'm taking it. So, you'll come with me, or I'll take you."
"I'm not the flag." I stood my ground. Or I would have, if she hadn't grabbed both my arms and before I could wrench them from her grip, zip-tied my wrists together surprisingly fast. I stared in shock; shouldn't I have been able to overpower her? I hadn't even noticed she had the ties. "What the hell, Katia?"
I thrashed as she draped dark fabric over my head, and snapped her fingers in some sort of command that brought two people to my sides. Had I not noticed them in my room either? Nicole, you're slipping.
"Seriously??" I yelled as they shoved and dragged me from my room. "Don't touch me! I swear I'll remove your damn hands!" I fought them all the way to our destination. "This is ridiculous! I'm not even the right person!"
When I was finally released into a room, my blindfold tugged off, I looked at Katia with indignation. With a genuine smile, she used a switchblade to undo the zip-tie on my wrists. "Sorry about that, but you didn't exactly make it easy."
"You decided to kidnap a fighter!" I grumbled, rolling my wrists. I eyed her with curiosity, "What did you take me for anyways?"
"The flag would have to be someone they'd miss, or notice missing. And you just said it, you're a fighter, so it's kind of a no-brainer... Note to self, fighter."
"Well, I'm not the flag, and I told you that already."
"I figured you could be. Either Jess or you. He'll come for you." She sounded certainty.
"Again, Jess I get, but why me?"
"You came to rescue the guys when we took them." She said as if it were self-explanatory, one hand on her jutted hip, and one gesturing back and forth from me to the imaginary Trifecta that sat beside me. "I figured you would only do that if you were dating one of them."
My jaw dropped. Dating one of them?
Ignoring my expression, she continued, her hands moving as she talked more to herself than me. "Leon's off the table, because, gay. It's possible Jackson could be into you, but..."
"Eww!" The thought made me want to hurl; sure he was cute, but I knew him in a way that made me bristle at her statement. "Jacks is like family; that would never happen!"
"Huh. I didn't think of that. I just didn't see you being into a womanizer." An annoyingly smug smile settled on her lips. "So, the obvious conclusion is Kellen."
I laughed, really laughed. "You put a lot of thought into this."
"Yes, I did!" She stood straighter, showing off her self-pride. "And I may have gotten the wrong flag, but he'll be here."
"I wouldn't hold my breath"
I laid on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as I waited for her to leave, but that didn't happen. Instead, she stared at me every so often, with perplexed calculation. Like she was trying to figure something out, or perhaps measure me up. She did think her brother was dating me, so I guessed it made sense. I felt a tiny bit hurt that she was trying to figure out why he would like me.
I cleared my throat, "Katia?"
"Yeah."
"You know, when all that shit went down in the dining hall, I was on your side."
"I know." She sounded almost bored despite the slight flush that colored her cheeks. "I heard what you said."
I couldn't even hide my surprise. "You heard?"
"Yes." Looking at me as if that memory replaced her earlier confusion about me, she nodded and smiled softly at me. "I thought it was pretty cool of you, Nicole."
In the awkward silence that followed her words, I could only gape at her; she knew my name, and she'd heard me. Did that mean Kellen had heard?
"Thanks, by the way. I wouldn't have expected one of Kellen's sublings to have the guts to call him out on being a jerk, especially..." She pondered my expression a moment and then ended her sentence with, "in front of everyone."
-.-
No one had come yet and I was kind of pissed off. Not that I was uncomfortable; I was in what appeared to be an extra bedroom or dorm suite. It was adequate, I had a bed and clothes and music and books to read, but I was locked in. Katia brought me dinner later that night and breakfast the next morning and sat with me for a while each time; so I wouldn't go nuts, she'd said. But by lunch time I was livid.
Katia opened the door, tossed her book bag in and then picked up a bag from just outside the door. "I got us sushi!"
I heard the lock click from outside; they really weren't taking any chances that I would get away. "You know that's just a little psycho."
She looked at me blankly for a moment, "Sushi?" she asked. "I'm psycho for feeding you sushi?"
"No, the door," I clarified, turning an imaginary key in the air.
She nodded and then shrugged as she sat in front of me and ripped open the bag. "Hey, there's no fun in this otherwise." Passing me a miso soup, she laid everything out, setting both chopsticks and forks on the table between two plates. I rolled my eyes and grabbed a pair of chopsticks, and as I put a couple pieces of sushi on my plate, Katia looked thoughtful. "I got that from you guys, by the way. The," she mimicked my key turning and clicked her tongue.
"How does it feel?" I asked after ignoring her through our meal, and she lowered her book to raise an eyebrow at me. "Being noticed?"
"What?" she laughed, peering at me like she couldn't believe I was asking.
I frowned. "You and your friends, even Kellen and the guys, everyone notices you. You guys say things, or do things and people listen, they hear you."
"I guess it's nice." She sounded as if she'd never given it a thought.
It irked me and I snapped at her, "Have you ever been in the background? Do you even know what it feels like to be swallowed into one of your two armies and told what to do day in and day out? Do you ever think about us? I mean, really think about us. Because honestly, who the hell wants to set up a prank in the middle of night for you while you get your beauty sleep?"
Her face became truly unreadable. "I'm not making anyone watch you, am I?"
I scoffed, "I bet that's only because you think you'll get some kind of information out of me that you can use against them."
A flush crept across her face and I knew I was right. "Fine, I don't think of you guys. I guess I just assumed that since everyone was so into it in the beginning, everyone was still enjoying themselves."
"You guys made yourselves the A-listers and put us all in our places to serve you without question. None of you consider the things we may have going on in our lives; games, tests, crushes, dates, our ambitions. You just tell us where to be and what to do, and half the time you don't even know the name of the person you're talking to! We're all just skills to you. How can you think we're all enjoying ourselves?"
"I, um." Her face crumpled. "I have to go." Forcefully keeping her back to me, she packed up her things. She turned her head only a fraction after knocking on the door twice. "Some of you are enjoying yourselves, you know. Bye Nicole."