"What? No fair!" I slam my fists down on the table. The thump echoes to the edges of the blank, white room. "I'm a way bigger fan of him than you are!"

Ema grins, swinging her legs a little without kicking the back of the green couch she's perched on. "Honestly, I'd rather hang out with Edgeworth, but hey. I'll take what I can get." She hops off the couch back and lands on her feet. "Well, wouldn't want to keep Mr. Wright waiting."

"You know what, I'll come with you." I hurry after her as she approaches the door.

Snorting, she shoots a look over her shoulder at me. "Hey, it's my turn! You can wait."

I run after her, anyway, but it only takes a few turns of the hallway before she's out of sight. I wander for a while before settling in another room, a wooden-floored one with a few chairs and a whiteboard.

It's some time before Ema joins me and starts drawing a bunch of three-by-three grids on the board. She then proceeds to beat me at tic-tac-toe on every last one of them.

I collapse back onto the floor, arms splayed out. "Why do you have to be so smart?"

She just laughs.

Ema feels so close, so close, when I wake up that I have to bury my face in the sleeping bag to keep myself from crying too hard. But eventually the haze wears off, the dream seems silly and distant, and I shut my eyes again. I need rest. I'm so tired...

The next time I wake up, weak daylight is bleeding into the cave. Probably not far past dawn. Maybe I could sleep in a little more... But maybe not. It looks like all of the girls—I mean, both of them—are up, so we'll probably head out soon. We need to find a stream a little farther from the Careers. Maybe we'll cross back to the other mountain. I'm at a bad angle now, but I'm sure there are other streams coming down that way. It's pointless to have the other mountain in the arena if no one can stay on it. Especially with that clearly man-made tunnel.

With an exhale, I push myself into a sitting position and wince. So sore, even with all the nice padding. But what can I expect after falling down on top of a bunch of rocks? I'll just have to deal with it. Just like everything else...

The sky is bright enough to hide the stars, but Clay's and Ema's faces flicker across my vision, anyway. How are we supposed to deal with this? With all of this, all of these people dying? Maybe not all of the deaths hurt in exactly the same way, but... How am I supposed to handle that much strain? Since we have to stay hidden, I can't even—

Actually... these sleeping bags are pretty thick. I bet a rolled-up one would muffle me well enough.

Jinxie, Trucy, and I exchange some blank "good morning"s as I get the freest bag folded, zipped, and bundled up.

"I'm Apollo Justice and I'm fine!"

It's been too long with too much stress. I really need to let those vocal chords have it.

"I'm Apollo Justice and I'm fine!"

I probably keep it up for twenty minutes, but, when I set the bedroll down, Klavier's still asleep. I guess I was muffled pretty well. That's a relief. I got too caught up in it to check.

"Do you think we should wake him up?" Trucy is rolling up another sleeping bag, but parts of either one remaining are pinned under our dozing tribute.

I clear my throat a little. "I don't see why not. We need to get moving."

"Okay. Klavier?" Trucy kneels down and tries his name again before prodding his shoulder. He finally shifts, and she steps back. "It's time to wake up. We're heading out soon, I think." Frowning, she turns to me. "I mean, I don't want to stay here..."

I shake my head. "Me neither. There's no good reason to."

In broad daylight, with half of the cushy ground cover gone, it's a little harder to think of this as the place we struggled to keep Ema alive. But it is. I wouldn't be happy here even if we had a safe source of water.

Klavier starts to push himself up before his breath catches and his hands fly to the sides of his head. Eyes screwed shut, he hunches over, a moan escaping despite what is clearly his best effort.

"Oh, no." Trucy looks down, loosely gripping her collar. "His head... How badly was he hurt?" She looks at me sharply. "We must have something to help, right?"

"Didn't Athena—?" I scan the cave until I find Klavier's supply pouches. The pill bottle rests in the larger one.

Trucy unclips his water bottle from the carabiner and takes the lid off. I scrutinize the bottle for dosage and shake out two tablets onto my palm.

By now, Klavier has managed to pull one of his hands off his head and open his eyes a bit, although he's shaking. I give him the pills, and he's in too much of a hurry to worry about their taste before he can get a swig of water. He puts the bottle down with a thunk and grips the right side of his head again.

A minute passes before he lowers his hands. Taking a few deep breaths, he slides his sunglasses on and gets to his feet. "Thanks. You... said we were getting out of here?"

"Yeah." I slide a sleeping bag toward me and start to pack it up. "Are you feeling well enough?"

"If we have to run, we have to run." He frowns and reassembles his chain belt. "Let's move along before the Careers can catch up to us." He shuffles around to roll up the last bag.

Each of us takes a bedroll and starts to descend. Hopefully we can cover a good amount of ground in the morning before we get too worn out. We need to at least get past the valley. It's looking a bit overcast, too.

We're still a good drop from the bottom when I turn to check on the others and don't see Jinxie.

"T-Trucy! Where did...?!"

Startled, she lowers herself onto a flatter ledge and turns around. "Jinxie?!"

I check below, but I'm sure Jinxie would have screamed if she had fallen that much. Unless she was sleepwalking and didn't even notice...!

"Oh!" Trucy waves a hand to get my attention and points upward. "Jinxie!" she calls.

The girl clambering up doesn't even glance back. Maybe she really is asleep? She didn't seem that coordinated yesterday, though. Which probably means I need to keep her from falling.

Inhaling, I locate a few handholds and start up after her. "Hey! Can you hear us?"

She climbs a little faster. Please tell me she's not still scared of me... She's not shaking, though, as far as I can tell. I guess she really is sleep-climbing. It's a good thing she was at the back of the cave last night. We'll have to keep an eye on her during night watches, too, or she could end up somewhere dangerous. Or she could just—

Fall.

With a yelp, she tumbles down a few feet, too high up for me to catch her. It doesn't look like she lands on her shoulder, but she lets out a scream nonetheless.

She didn't break anything, did she?

Just as I'm about to catch up, she's back on her feet and climbing again.

She has to be conscious by now. What on earth is she doing?

"Jinxie!" I dodge a few pebbles that skitter down from her foot. "Hang on for a minute! If you're hurt, we need to fix it before you move any more!"

She makes it past where she fell from before disappearing over a rocky shelf.

Shoot!

I take a second to rub some of the soreness from my arms before hurrying after her again. I can hear her panting, at least. I don't think she's getting too far away.

When I finally pull myself panting over the ledge, Jinxie is sitting there, a little tearful, both hands gripping stalks of some flowering plant stemming from a muddy patch. She doesn't seem wounded, although her shoulder's a little off. I'm not sure if that's anything new or not, though.

"Jinxie?"

She jumps and turns around enough to see me. "O-oh! I'm sorry..."

Hey, she said something! "No, it's fine. Are you hurt or anything?"

"Um... I think there's something wrong w-with my shoulder again."

I frown. Did it re-dislocate? "Can I see?"

"O-okay." She pivots a bit to give me a better look, but she maintains her grip on the flower stem.

"What kind of flower is that?" I start as I scan over her shoulder. There's definitely a bulge; I think it did look like that the first night we found her. Since she's definitely in pain, I can only come to the conclusion her shoulder has popped out of its socket again.

"A Nine-Tails Flower. These were my mother's favorite." She twirls a stem between her fingers as I scoot over in front of her.

"They're not just arena plants, huh?" I let out a breath. "I'm going to try to fix your shoulder again. Is that okay?"

She winces but nods. I may not have done this in a while, but you don't grow up in a building chock-full of boys without having to clean up after a few fights.

It only takes a little maneuvering to get her shoulder back in condition. She cries out but manages to keep her eyes open this time.

"Everything feel all right?" I pull back and give her a look-over. She looks okay, and there aren't any more bruises—on her shoulder, at least.

She nods.

"Good. You'll be just fine." I cast a look down the mountainside. I think the others have come up a little bit, but they're definitely waiting on us. It's still a pretty long climb down. Is Jinxie going to be able to make it? Even with everything back in place, she shouldn't move her arm much, and it's pretty clear that she has been. Are we going to have to carry her? I honestly don't know if I'm up to that right now...

Especially when the last person I helped carry—

No. N-not right now.

"I'm Apollo Justice and I'm fine." Swallowing, I pull my jacket out from my bedroll. "Let's at least try to make you a sling."

Okay, I need a squarish area for her arm, and then... One sleeve behind her neck and the other going around the front.

She only shudders a little bit as I knot it up. She's doing so well all of a sudden. Is it... the flowers? She sure went out of her way to get them.

"We'll probably run into some more, but go ahead and pick a few if you want." I push myself to my feet, trying not to wobble. My knee's doing all right with that brace, but it's still beaten up, and a lot of the rest of me is, too.

Jinxie quickly takes a few flowers, clutching them in her right hand.

"Come on, let's go."

It's pretty slow progress staying next to her—she keeps crying out against demons kicking her shins to make her trip, although I fail to see any of them—but we make it to the others and, after a few words, continue our descent.

The rain pounding outside of the tunnel doesn't muddle Trucy's voice much. "What are they for, anyway?"

Legs crossed, Jinxie brushes her fingers against the charms on her forehead. "They keep evil things from taking control of me."

"Huh." I look out at the screen of water—it's thick, but there's still some sunlight seeping between the clouds. "Everyone in the Hunger Games could probably use a few of those."

I guess she's literally concerned about demons, but... Evil does tend to creep into people here.

"Oh!" Jinxie leans toward me. "You have paper and ink, don't you?"

Drawing back, I say, "Er, yeah." Is she really going to make her own?

Well, with this paper, she won't be able to stick anything to my forehead, so it shouldn't hurt me... right?

I'm still not feeling great about it when I take out the clipboard and offer it to her. She snaps it up, orients herself to the pen, and starts scribbling on the second page.

"Hmm, so you can ward off evil..." Trucy smiles at her. "What else have you got? Anything for endurance? Climbing? Headaches?"

Jinxie finishes whatever symbol she's working on before she looks up. "Of course! If a demon causes it, a warding charm can fix it!"

"How is your headache, by the way?" Trucy turns her head toward Klavier and the entrance.

Holding out a water bottle in each hand, he has to crane his neck to meet her gaze. "It comes in and out. The pills help, though they're none too fast-acting."

Really? You set out quickly enough this morning. Were you still in the same amount of pain?

His voice is kind of flat even now. Is his injury affecting him that much? It didn't seem that bad until today...

The sound of paper ripping brings my attention back to Jinxie, who carefully tears the paper into smaller rectangles. Only two of the symbols match the ones crossing her forehead.

"Trucy, Klavier. Th-these are for evil-warding."

I pause. "None for me?"

Blinking, she furrows her brow. "But a demon can't possess another demon! O-or can they?!" She clutches the clipboard to her chest and sling. "Perhaps I was wrong, but as a demon, you'd know!"

I slouch. "No. I can't be possessed by any demons."

"O-okay." She goes on her merry way with the other charms.

The next day, the rain still hasn't let up. I guess we're getting a little time to recover. Phineas was the only face in the sky last night, Trucy told me. So, laments aside, there must have been at least a little action to keep the audience at bay.

Thankfully, this tunnel is as wide and deep as the first one, and Klavier has enough sponsors to keep us well-fed. He wasn't lying about having hair gel, either. So we're all taken care of. I can't help but be on edge, but the time to rest is nice. My shoulder's still not great, and my knee aches off and on, but I don't feel as ground up anymore.

It's probably noon when we hear the screech.

Not human. Somehow that isn't much of a relief.

We all kick away our lounge of sleeping bags and get to our feet before a shadow crosses the entrance.

My heart stops when Simon Blackquill blocks off the route outside.

"What a quaint little encampment." He smirks, hooking his hand around his chin. "You appear to have plenty of room—would you care to let in two more weary travelers?"

He steps to the side so Athena can fit in the space next to him.

"Hey, guys." She smiles. "How's it going?"