"Wait!"

No, I can't just let her go. I get up and wince when I put too much weight on my bad leg. I find that I can move without too much pain, but I can't go too fast, either. The dressings she has put on are holding nicely, but not too tight.

Just as the door hisses shut behind me, and I am wondering whether she went left or right, I hear Wing cry out sharply. I run toward her as fast as I can manage, and find her in a chamber down the corridor, writhing on the ground and howling in pain, her hands manically clawing at her face.

"What's wrong? What happened?"

"My eyes! My eyes! It hurts so much!" is all she manages. And now I can see her face is bright red, her eyes all but swollen shut, tears streaming down her cheeks. She must have triggered some sort of trap. But at least it wasn't the deadly kind. It may just be tear gas, if she is lucky.

"Wing, listen to me. I'm going to try to help you. Do you have any water?"

"In my pack…"

I rummage through her backpack and find a canteen of water. I tell her to hold still and pour the water over her forehead, rinsing away whatever substance was covering her face. The effect is instantaneous. Her screams have dwindled down to whimpers, and she stops rubbing her eyes like crazy. But she still can't open her eyes.

"Thanks. Now please go away."

"Are you serious? I'm not leaving you here like this!"

I try to take her arm, to help her to her feet, but she begins to struggle violently, and one of her flailing arms catches me square in the face, her elbow connecting with my jaw with a crunch. I've had enough of this. Somehow I get a hold of her wrists. I pull her close to me and hiss into her ear:

"You need help, whether you like it or not. If I wanted you dead, I would just leave you here. Now will you please, please trust me? If you want to leave after we fixed your eyes, I won't stop you. Deal?"

She is shaking now, but otherwise has gone very still. Finally she nods, staring ahead with unseeing eyes, gripping my arm so tightly her knuckles turn white.

"I'm glad we've finally settled that. Now we really need to get out of here before the careers arrive, okay? You made quite a racket."

Between us, we have three good legs and one seeing pair of eyes, so we move in a slow, awkward fashion, with me showing the way while she supports me with her narrow but surprisingly strong frame. We must make a truly sorry sight. But we shuffle along stubbornly and finally make it back to the resting chamber unharmed. It's good to be open for another four and a half hours. We curl up in separate corners of the room and fall fast asleep.

After a couple of hours of rest, Wing seems to be feeling somewhat better, though she says she still can hardly see anything. Still she is surprisingly calm about it.

"How bad does is it? Tell me the truth."

I examine her face carefully. She winces when I touch her cheek to turn her face toward the light, but doesn't pull back. I am glad to see that at least the swelling has gone down quite a bit, but the skin is still flushed around the eyes, and her pupils are covered with a milky film. Maybe it will heal on its own, but I would feel a lot better if we had some medicine for her. I tell her that I would like to try and go find something that will help her.

At that moment, my bracelet does its notification vibration thing again. And sure enough, a symbol marking a package drop has appeared on the map, but it's further away than I would have expected. It's one floor down, a few minutes walk from here. It's not that far actually, but it's still dangerous considering our enemies could be waiting around every corner. Of course I tell her I'm going anyway.

"I'm not expecting you to risk your life for me," she says quietly.

"It's mine to risk, so it's my decision. In the meantime, you will be safe here, but you should know that we can't stay in this chamber indefinitely. The countdown says we still have a little over an hour left."

"What does that mean, what will happen in an hour?"

I explain about the poison gas. I wish I could find a way to somehow use it to our advantage. Now that I've lost my knife, I wouldn't stand the slightest chance in a fight with the careers. A cold flood of fear suddenly comes rushing over me, and I know I need to get going quickly, or it will paralyze me.

I don't really know why I do it, but I pull her into a quick embrace. And surprisingly, she doesn't push me away this time.

"I will come back for you, I give you my word."

She squeezes my arm.

"I know, I trust you. But what if something happens to you?"

"Let's both hope that something won't."

I follow the map to the location of the marker, staying hyper-vigilant, but I arrive there without seeing anyone. And sure enough, a glowing white panel has appeared in the middle of a regular stone wall. When I touch it, a flap falls open, revealing a box-shaped cavity, brightly lit with fluorescent lights like a showcase in a museum.

There are two items this time. I am surprised that we apparently have so much sponsor support. It feels good to know there are people out there who haven't given up on us. One is a tin can of some kind of salve, which is for Wing, obviously. But lying right next to it is a new knife. I'm guessing it's supposed to be a replacement for the one I lost. It comes with a note which reads "There is a right tool for every purpose."

The blade itself is dark and slender, more like a dagger than what I had before. I had hoped for something bigger, but I guess this is better than nothing. As the note said, there is a purpose for everything. At the very least I can hide it more easily. As I start to slip the dagger into my boot, I notice some unevenness on the tip of the handle. The rest of the dagger looks like it's made of a single, solid piece of metal, but the end of the handle is different. I play with it and suddenly another piece comes loose that was concealed inside the handle. It is a long and thin cylinder, almost like a small pen. At the very tip of it are some weird protrusions that form an "X". It looks almost like a tiny screwdriver.

But whatever would I want with a screwdriver here? I look at the opening again. The flap is still hanging open, waiting indifferently for me to close it. The walls on the inside are smooth, shiny metal. But at the top there are four small, circular depressions. I stick my head in to look at them more closely. With the tip of my new dagger I dig out one of the tiny round plates that are covering the holes. Underneath it I find a small steel screw, just the same size as the screwdriver.

This could be interesting.