Shortly after, Nabil walks out of the room. He looks scared, nervous, happy, and confident all at the same time. He then begins to walk with me to our rooms. “How’d you do?” I ask on the way. I’d love to know if he almost killed the Gamemakers like I did. “They looked like they were gonna s*** their pants.” he laughs. I laugh too. “Wait what?” I say unclear, my voice unsteady due to laughing. I clear my throat. “Ahem. Sorry,” I say. “What did you do?” “So they put berries in front of me. I took a handful of the poisonous ones and walked up to them. I threw it at their mouths and it landed in the Head Gamemaker’s mouth. He spit them out and was scared that it was still in his system and it was just… so, so funny.” he says, trying to maintain a straight face. I mull over his words. “Nabil?” I say softly. “Yeah?” he responds. “Don’t you ever feel like… when we hate them… it’s just like them hating us? Like we’re becoming like them? And like… I get it. They force us to fight to the death in an arena, but… don’t you ever feel… bad? When we do that stuff to them during training?” I ask, trying not to sound like I support them. Because I don’t. It’s just that I’m kinder than the Capital. “I mean… I don’t know. You almost killed the Head Gamemaker.” “Well, genuinely, a bit.” he opens up. “Because we’re not like them. We’re actually compassionate.” “Which is why killing in that arena is really difficult,” I say gently, my eyes immediately filling with tears. I try to choke back my tears and hold on to the memory of right now, right here, with Nabil. He squeezes my hand. “It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna come out of that arena alive and you’re gonna be rich, okay?” “What about you?” I ask. He looks away. Before he can answer, Sierra appears in front of us. “There you two are!” she chirps. I sit down on the red velvet couches in front of us. Nabil sits beside me. His fingers crawl on the couch and his hand lands on top of mine. He doesn’t move it. I smile at him and he smiles back. That’s when we’re interrupted by Sierra. “How was training?” she asks. “Good,” I say quietly. “Good? That’s all?” she says in shock. “Come on, tell me more.” “You didn’t ask what I did, you asked how it was!” I say, my voice a bit louder than usual. Oh my gosh, I despise that girl. “Okay then…” she says, feeling embarrassed. “Nabil, how was yours? What did you do? How good were you?” “It was good. I think I got every question correct.” he lies. “Excellent!” Sierra remarks. “Question?” I snicker, trying to joke around with him. “Shut up,” he says jokingly and quietly while laughing. I let out a little laugh too, trying to lighten the mood after Sierra’s never ending, annoying questions.
