When they stepped out of the bar Gendry couldn't help but feel nervous, his eyes darting from side to side down the narrow alley as if he expected the other players to be waiting for them. He wasn't sure why he was so on edge all of a sudden. He had been the one to lead the others here, he knew how off the beaten path it was. The bar was really only known by regulars and they preferred to keep it that way. Still, Gendry let out a small breath of relief to find the alley as deserted as it was when they had entered the bar.

He turned to face the others and shifted uncomfortably to find Arya staring at him with a narrowed gaze. He couldn't help but feel like he had made a mistake agreeing to join their game. The other two seemed excited to have evened out their numbers but Arya looked like she wanted nothing more than to shoot him in the face and yank the gun out of his hands.

"Where should we go now?" Rickon asked curiously as they huddled in the middle of the alley. No sense in going out to the road in plain sight when they didn't have a plan.

"We should try to set a trap." Arya said definitively. Judging by the look on her face Gendry was willing to bet she already had a trap in mind.

"That would work. We need to get everyone together. The game is taking much longer this year." Ygritte mused, tightening her ponytail as they talked.

"How long does the game usually last?" Gendry asked curiously. They had told him the game was blocked off for twenty-four hours and there were only nine hours left. Gendry didn't think that they would be playing for all of them. Although he supposed it didn't really matter if they did, he didn't have any other plans.

"Usually about twelve hours, less if we're in Winterfell." Rickon shrugged when he caught the look Gendry was giving him. "No one lets us in their stores anymore." he admitted sheepishly.

"Longest game is twenty-one hours." Arya added as she adjusted the strap holding her paintball gun to her torso. "This one is going to go longer if we don't come up with a strategy."

No sooner had the words left her mouth a symphony of chimes and beeps went off as someone sent a message to the group text.

Gendry didn't know the number but Ygritte muttered to him, "Robb.", as they all read the message.

Jojen had an episode. We're taking him to the hospital near the bay. Meet us there.

Gendry started in surprise, he didn't know who Jojen was or what kind of an episode he'd had but he felt a pang of worry for the boy anyway. He looked up and was startled to see everyone else was grinning.

"Am I missing something?" he asked cautiously, looking from one smiling face to the next.

"Someone set the trap for us." Arya said calmly as she pocketed her phone and everyone set off for the mouth of the alley. Gendry only hesitated for a moment before joining them.

"How can you be sure it's not real?" Gendry asked as he followed after them.

Arya snorted as Rickon looked over his shoulder at him. "Robb tried this same thing a few years ago with Jon's friend Sam."

"It was a trap then, it's a trap now." Arya assured him as she peeked around the walls of the alley before heading out into the street like she owned it.

"Why are we going there if you know it's a trap?" Gendry asked, there was so much he did not understand about this game. Or its players, it seemed.

"Because the others will go." Ygritte explained as she peeked around a street corner before waving the others after her. They got more than a few curious looks from onlookers as they walked.

"Bran's team will have to go." Rickon explained, clearly seeing how lost Gendry felt. "He won't risk Jojen on this not being a trap."

"This is low even for Robb." Ygritte observed causing Arya to tense. Gendry could see her back stiffen and he watched her curiously.

"Ten to one its Theon's idea." Arya bit out and Gendry couldn't help but wonder at the anger in her voice. He wondered what this Theon character had done to receive so much ire from the woman.

"Well, he is defending champion. He's going for a streak." Ygritte agreed with a nod.

Gendry glanced over at her in surprise. "You didn't win last year?" he asked Arya causing her to glare at him. He shifted under the weight of her gaze. How such a small woman could produce such a look was lost on him. "I just figured you would be hard to kill."

She only glared at him more, her fingers tightening on her gun and for a wild moment Gendry was certain she was going to shoot him. But she simply shook her head at him before walking to the front of the group.

"We don't talk about last year." Rickon whispered as she walked away.

Rickon's whisper left a lot to be desired as Arya easily overheard him and she snapped back over her shoulder, "Last year was a fluke!"

A hundred questions were burning in Gendry's mouth but one head shake from Rickon and Ygritte's wicked grin made him decide he better keep his mouth shut on this one. This was their game after all, he was just crashing it.

They walked on in silence until the hospital came into sight. They were across the street and huddled next to a building as they surveyed the area. Gendry didn't know who he was looking for but he didn't see anyone with paintball guns so he assumed they were in the clear.

"Robb didn't even bother to tell us what room to go to." Ygritte said with a shake of her head as she looked at her phone. "Amateurs."

"Robb wouldn't risk us going into the hospital. They're on the grounds." Arya explained patiently; her gray eyes bright behind her glasses as she surveyed the area. "Let's split up. You guys take the right and the newb and I will go left."

Everyone nodded in agreement and Gendry watched Ygritte and Rickon walk away with a sinking in his gut. He didn't think Arya wanted him with her because of his skills. He was going to have to make sure to walk behind her.

"You sure you're ready to shoot your girlfriend?" he heard Ygritte ask as they walked away.

"She knows what she signed up for." Rickon responded and Ygritte's laughter was still in his ears as Gendry followed after Arya in silence.

They had just reached the first line of cars when Arya pulled her walkie off her hip to turn the volume down low, she glared at Gendry until he did the same.

"I did not ask you to join. I will leave you if you fall behind." Arya told him tightly, her gaze like steel as she stared him down.

Gendry bristled at her tone and she had turned to walk away from him but he grabbed her arm to pull her to a stop, ignoring the never-ending eye daggers she was giving him. He was sick of the looks and he knew he couldn't handle another nine hours of it, or however long the game ended up taking. They needed to air this out now before it got in the way of her game.

"I get that you're pissed that I'm playing but I am. I'm on your team and I promise not to hold you back." Gendry looked down at her and shrugged helplessly. Why couldn't she just see him as an unexpected ally? "Besides I'm here now. Wouldn't it be easier to stop trying to fight me too?"

Arya yanked her arm away from him and rose an eyebrow at him coldly. "What makes you think anything about me is easy?"

She turned away from him to begin making her way through the cars, peering down each row cautiously like she expected to see someone crouched among the vehicles. Judging by the way they seemed to play the game Gendry decided that was probably exactly what she was expecting. Gendry watched her go with a sinking feeling in his gut. Maybe he should just shoot himself to drop out of the game, she would clearly be much happier that way.

"What can I do to make you stop hating me?" Gendry called after her. If she asked him to take himself out of the game, he would. He had crashed it after all, he had no place there.

Arya did not say what he had been expecting nor did she even spare him a glance as she returned, "Prove yourself."

Gendry didn't know how she expected him to do that but he hoped it could be as easy as taking out another player. Part of him wanted to remind Arya that he didn't know who any of the other players were but he could already see her eye roll and knew her response, "Anyone with a gun." He hadn't shot a paintball gun in years, he hoped he was a better shot than he remembered.

A sudden loud pop pulled him from his thoughts and he watched as Arya dove towards the ground. Gendry noticed a bright circle of paint on the car where her head had been moments before and understanding flashed in his mind as he hit the ground as well. He felt the skin of his arm tear on the gravel and he bit back a curse at the sting. Gendry had enough time for a quick thought that whoever owned that car was going to be pissed and hoped that hospital security didn't come after them. He noticed Arya crawling and he headed after her, army crawling down the aisle. He split off from her without her having to say anything and watched in surprise as she crawled underneath a car.

This had not been how he expected his day to go. Gendry crawled underneath a truck a row away from Arya and flinched as he heard people running in their direction. He watched as a pair of boots ran down their aisle. He turned to his side to see Arya shifting out from underneath the car and he was about to ask her what her plan was when he saw her raise to her knees and heard her gun go off. A thud to his left made Gendry turn in surprise and he flinched backwards as he saw a brunette woman lying on the ground a car over, her face turned towards him and a bright circle of orange paint in the center of her forehead.

She didn't move at first but when she caught sight of him under the car she winked. Gendry looked away from her with a shake of his head. He'd never had siblings until recently and they still weren't that close. He had no idea if this was normal family behavior or if he had unwittingly stumbled into the weirdest family in Westeros.

Arya was crawling on her stomach between the cars again so Gendry cast a quick glance up and down the aisle before slipping out from underneath the truck and following her, making sure to keep a row of cars between them. He already knew Arya would freak out on him if he tried to go down the same aisle as her. It would make them too easy of targets and put half her team in danger.

There was the sound of more running footsteps and without looking over Gendry knew Arya had gone under a car until she could locate the direction of the sound so Gendry slipped under the first car that was large enough to house him underneath it. It was a much tighter fit than before and Gendry found himself suddenly glad he wasn't claustrophobic.

He looked around to locate Arya and found her two cars in front of him and a row over. He could just make out the bottoms of her shoes.

"I know you're here somewhere Arya." a deep voice suddenly called in a sing-song tone.

Gendry looked around wildly and noticed a pair of black boots coming down the row in front of them. He saw Arya turn to face the aisle and he knew she had seen the boots too. He expected her to roll away out the other side of the car and found himself growing more and more anxious as she stayed where she was, her finger hovering on the trigger of her gun. He wondered if her plan was to shoot the person in the foot but that wouldn't count as a kill shot and it would give her position away. Gendry worried on his lower lip as a plan came to him.

It seemed he had found a chance to prove himself after all.

He hoped desperately that there weren't any innocent bystanders in the parking lot as he watched the boots come ever closer, still calling Arya's name. She looked ready to fire but Gendry took a deep breath and shimmed his torso out from underneath the car, his gun raising before he had even taken in who he was aiming at.

He caught sight of a paintball gun in a dark-haired man's hands and fired, crossing his fingers in his mind that his aim was good.

A bright green circle of paint appeared on the man's chest and he swore as he dropped to the pavement, glaring at Gendry in a look that made him certain more than the similarities of their features that this man was related to Arya.

A distant scream of anguish suddenly filled Gendry's ears and he pulled himself out from underneath the car as Arya did the same, reaching over to steal a handful of paintballs from the man's gun. He rolled his eyes at her as she did so.

"That's Sansa." Arya whispered as she shoved the ammo into her gun. "We should go."

Gendry nodded and followed after her, running at a half crouch as they made their way through the cars. "Don't we want to go after her too?" he asked quietly as they stopped beside the last of the cars.

Arya shook her head as she peered carefully at the stretch of grass, they would have to cross to get away from the parking lot.

"We just took out half her team. Bran's with her too." Arya looked behind him at the parking lot like she expected the others to pop out at her from behind Gendry. "I'm not facing him without the others."

"I didn't think you'd be scared of anything." Gendry admitted before he realized what he had just said.

"I'm not scared of him." Arya snapped. She had a spot of oil on her forehead and it made it a little harder for Gendry to take her glares as seriously. "I have to survive long enough to get my revenge."

Gendry was just about to ask her who she needed to get revenge on when Arya cast one last look at the grass field and rose to her haunches.

"We're going to have to make a break for it. Let's move."

Gendry felt like that was the closest he was going to get to acceptance of being on her team.

He supposed he could live with that.

XxX

Arya had been perfectly prepared to take Jon out herself, she was going to shoot him in the foot and then while he was hopping around, she'd roll out on the other side of the car and shoot him in the head. It had worked for her before and she was slightly annoyed that Gendry didn't think she could take care of herself. She tried to shake the thought from her head as they sprinted past the hospital, Arya leading the way to a small coffeeshop across the street. She had told Gendry to prove himself and she supposed he just had.

She was just happy not to be caring around any dead weight. Usually the people that only played once were awful allies because they weren't emotionally invested in the game.

Arya was more invested than she usually was this year. She always got pretty intense when it came to the game but this year, she had a wrong to right. It was why she hadn't let them stay in the parking lot to finish picking of Sansa's team. Arya wanted to win but more than that she wanted to make sure she was the one who took out Theon that year.

The customers in the café looked up in concern at the sight of their paintball guns but Arya ignored them as she settled into a booth by the window. This way they could see when any of the others were approaching.

She took the walkie off her hip and spoke into it as Gendry started a timer on his phone. She was pleasantly surprised he'd remembered the rule.

"We left the hospital. Jon and Jeyne are dead. Are you in a safe location?" Arya ignored the looks people were giving her and she kept her gaze on the street. Gendry fidgeted beside her clearly affected by the weird looks they were getting.

Their phones both went off at the same time and Arya didn't bother to check hers as Gendry told her what the message was. "It's the two people who just got out. Oh, weird."

The surprise in Gendry's tone was strong enough to make her tear her gaze away from the street to look at him. His brow was wrinkled in confusion and he looked up in time to see her curious glance.

"My cousin Shireen is in the group text." Gendry admitted with a shrug. "I heard you guys talking about a Shireen but I didn't think it was her."

"That's Rickon's girlfriend." Arya explained as she surveyed Gendry. She supposed they did have similar coloring. Still, she hadn't heard Shireen mention him before although she hadn't spent much time with the girl.

"We just met a few years ago." Gendry admitted uncomfortably even though Arya wasn't pressing him to talk about it. She turned back to look at the street, relieved to see it still devoid of players. Although she was a bit nervous since her team wasn't getting back to her yet.

Arya put two and two together and realized that Gendry must be one of Robert Baratheon's bastard children. There had been quite the media coverage a few years back when the politician had done one of those DNA family tree tests and found he was the father not to three children like previously thought, but eleven. And those were just the children who had also taken the DNA test on that website and registered. Judging from his promiscuous past he probably had more children out there that he didn't know about.

Gendry seemed pretty uncomfortable which was making Arya feel the same way. All she wanted to do was play the game and get her revenge, she really didn't want to have heart to hearts with strangers.

Thankfully, their phones went off again breaking the stiff silence they had fallen into.

Arya tore her eyes off the window to look at her phone, surprised to see another death count message.

"Robb's out too. Serves him right for using Jojen as bait." Arya said as she pocketed her phone. "We're the only whole team left."

"I still don't get how we win." Gendry admitted nervously. Arya supposed his nerves were fair, she had been snapping at him for over an hour now. "Is it the last person or last team?"

"Last team standing wins." Arya explained, tapping her fingers against her walkie nervously. What was taking the others so long?

"What if there's more than one person left on the team? Do they have to turn on each other?" Gendry asked curiously.

"Of course not. We're not animals." Arya was offended he had even thought such a thing. She didn't bother telling him the last time there was more than one surviving member on a team had been five years ago, the last time her and Bran had been on the same team. With the two of them together, no one else had stood a chance. They were the two best shots in the game.

Arya spared Gendry another glance to see him nodding in relief. She was surprised to note that his eyes were a striking but pretty blue. Quickly she shook the thought from her mind, focusing instead on her annoyance that he had interrupted their game for no reason and shot Jon when she could have easily taken him out by herself. She was not a damsel in distress, she did not need to be rescued.

A sudden flash of red caught her eye and Arya let out a breath of relief as she noticed Ygritte and Rickon running in their direction. That relief faded when she saw the three people chasing after them.

"We have to go." Arya said as she slipped out of the booth. Gendry was already raising as he had noticed the others as well.

Arya waited to start running until she was out of the café. She could tell Ygritte and Rickon caught sight of her because they changed direction slightly to head their way. Arya led the pack around the edge of the café, her eyes darting around wildly for a place to hide. The only place she could see that was big enough was a dumpster. She pushed open the lid as Ygritte and Rickon turned the corner of the building.

Thankfully the dumpster had been emptied that morning and there was only one bag of trash at the bottom. Arya was just trying to figure out how to hold the lid and climb inside when the lid lifted out of her hands. She looked over her shoulder to see Gendry holding it up and waiting for them to climb inside. She did so quickly, holding her breath as she jumped inside. Rickon landed in a graceless heap on top of her and Ygritte sat on the edge of the dumpster to hold the lid so Gendry could climb in with them. He settled next to Arya as Ygritte hoped inside and shut the lid quietly after her.

Arya tried to fight back a gag at the smell. It wasn't as bad as it could have been had the dumpster been full but years of trash baking in the hot sun had baked the smell into the metal.

"Does this count as a room?" Rickon whispered into the dark causing Arya to elbow him in the ribs. They didn't need to talk and draw attention to themselves.

"I am not staying in here for twenty minutes." Ygritte whispered back.

"We're screwed if anyone looks in here." Gendry muttered making Arya sigh.

"No one will look. Everyone shut up." she snapped as softly as she could.

Over the sound of their breathing Arya heard shouting and running footsteps and she knew the other team was out there looking for them. She counted to a hundred and then back down to zero and listened to the silence outside. Slowly she pushed Rickon's legs off hers and rose to her feet, propping the dumpster lid up slowly, her gun resting on the lip in case she needed to fire.

No one was out there but Arya counted to fifty again just to be sure. Satisfied she rose the lid above her head, Gendry once again taking it off her hands so that she could climb out. Everyone gulped in breaths of fresh air gratefully as they clambered out of the dumpster.

"How'd you know no one would look?" Gendry asked Arya with interest as she held the lid open for him to get out.

Arya grinned at him as she let the lid fall shut after him. "Theon's team are basically both newbies. Jojen's only played two years and last year he got out in the first three hours. Shireen has never played before. They don't realize how serious we play yet."

"And Theon?" Gendry asked as he brushed coffee grounds off his bag.

"He's too busy trying to catch Sansa." Rickon said with an eye roll.

"Never mind all that. Which of you two shot Jon?" Ygritte asked curiously as she looked between him and Arya.

Gendry shifted sheepishly and ran a hand over the back of his neck, a move that made Arya's stomach flip. She told herself it was just the lingering scent from the dumpster. "I did."

Ygritte reached out and punched him lightly on the arm. "That's for not letting me do it!"

Arya rolled her eyes at the woman before surveying the area around them. "The others can't have gone far. We can still catch up."

"Um first we should run." Rickon said, his voice suddenly catching.

Everyone turned to face him nervously and Arya cursed when she noticed Sansa running in their direction and Bran rolling his wheelchair just as quickly beside her. Arya felt her stomach drop at the sight. She knew she needed to avoid Bran for the rest of the game if she wanted a chance of taking out Theon. The only way people avoided getting shot by Bran was avoiding Bran himself. Once he had you in his crosshairs you were already dead.

"Seven hells." Arya whispered before turning on her heels and bolting, the others quickly following after her.