Willow was huddled up with Chester. Her pack was still on her back despite how uncomfortable it was. She didn't trust Levi or Zephyr. They terrified her, though she wasn't going to tell anyone that. She heavily suspected that they would turn on her and Chester the first chance they got, and she didn't want to make herself vulnerable.
It was wickedly cold. The sponsor gifts had helped, but Willow still had a permanent chill that she couldn't shake. What she wanted desperately was a heavy quilt and a mug of hot chocolate or tea. She was tired of the cold. She wanted to go home. She missed her sisters no matter how much grief they gave her. She wanted to be there for them. Her father wouldn't be, and she didn't think that they were capable of taking care of each other.
"Maybe we should set up a shelter or something before it gets dark," Chester suggested, breaking the silence. Levi looked up from sharpening his knives and nodded.
"We can dig a bit into the ground where you are. The ground retains a little heat. Then we can build sides and maybe a bit of a roof with fallen branches…" Levi trailed off, lost in thought.
Chester stood up and walked to the pile of supplies. "Willow and I have a tent," he said, taking it out of his pack. "It barely fits three people, though."
"No, that's perfect," Zephyr interjected. "We're going to need the fourth person to keep watch, anyway."
"We should still construct a bit of a shelter, though," Levi said. "So the person keeping watch will be a little warmer." The other three nodded. "Right, then. Chester and Willow will get to work digging out the area and setting up the tent while Zephyr and I look for branches."
Willow stood up, finally relinquishing her hold on her backpack. She watched Levi and Zephyr disappear before setting down her bag with the others and turning to face Chester. He gave her a smile which she returned for a moment before frowning again.
"Something wrong?" Chester asked.
She shrugged. "I'm just worried," she murmured. "I don't want to talk about it. In case they hear." She didn't think Chester would understand, at any rate. The boy trusted too much. He probably believed that more than one tribute would win the Games. Willow couldn't bring herself to have that kind of hope. And sharing a tent with her future killers wasn't exactly her ideal sleeping arrangement.
Chester nodded in understanding. Without a word, Willow brushed past him and started widening the dent that she and Chester had made in the snow. It'd have to at least triple in size as well as go deeper, past the leaf litter and into the dirt. Chester worked alongside her. The task was familiar after days in the frozen Arena. It didn't take long before they had cleared an area a few meters long and a couple meters wide. The wall of snow around the open dirt was four feet tall, possibly more. They had also cleared a thin gateway into the ring.
They brought the tent over and set it up directly in front of the tree. Just as they finished, Levi and Zephyr reappeared, each with several large branches in tow. Together, the four of them strategically built an arch over the tent. Levi wove smaller branches into the gaps until the roof was fairly solid. He took the leaf litter that Chester and Willow had dug up and sprinkled it over the roof. If it started snowing again, anything that got through the branches of the tree above wouldn't reach the tent.
Dusk had settled over the Arena by the time they had finished. Zephyr had just opened his mouth to say something when the Capitol anthem began to play. Levi's head snapped up to watch the sky. Willow watched him curiously before fixing her own gaze on the inky blue sky. After the insignia of the Capitol faded from view, a picture of the girl from District 10 took its place. October. Levi made a small noise before clamping his mouth shut and hardening his face into a steely mask. Willow tried to give him a sympathetic look but he refused to make eye contact.
Willow knew that October had been Levi's ally, and she had speculated that there was something more to their relationship. She knew that October and Levi had both grown up without families. Their prickly personalities led her to believe that they hadn't had many friends, if any at all, either. It was kind of romantic in a twisted way, really. Two kids who had never had anyone, suddenly thrown together in the fight to survive. There had to be at least a little romance there. Maybe not enough, since the Gamemakers didn't put them together, but it was possible that they'd been too shy to show it.
And now she was dead.
"Are you okay?" Willow asked Levi quietly.
"Grand," he responded in a clipped tone.
"It's just that she was your al—"
"Grand," he repeated.
She bit her lip. Chester shrugged. Zephyr cleared his throat. Levi stared off into the distance, his expression unreadable. After a few minutes, Zephyr spoke up.
"We should probably start working on a plan to kill the others," he ventured. This caught Levi's attention. The District 11 tribute nodded. "Okay," Zephyr continued. "We need to pool our knowledge on the three of them and then figure out how to proceed."
"Cedar was my ally," Levi said. His voice sounded completely normal. Willow was amazed at his acting skills. Or maybe he really never cared for October at all. "He has a vicious temper and hates it when things don't go his way. Every step is a struggle when working with that boy. He's always trying to prove himself. I don't know why."
"Okay," Zephyr mused. "I watched Wren and her ally for a while before I killed Newt. She's smart and fairly arrogant from what I observed. She's also not too quick to trust. Even days into her alliance with Newt she would wake up every couple hours in the night and look around as though she was surprised that she was still alive."
Chester spoke up next. "And of course, we all know Acton." This was true. It was impossible to forget the striking and, Willow hated to admit it, sexy boy from District 3. He was so unbelievably cocky for his apparent IQ level. Willow was honestly surprised that he had survived so long. Of course, he had been allied with the gorgeous girl from District 2. She had brains. They probably made a pretty impressive team. She briefly wondered what killed Anja.
"That's great," Zephyr said to no one in particular. When he caught Willow's confused gaze, he elaborated. "It's a recipe for friendly fire. Wren and Cedar will both be scrambling to be leader. I doubt they trust each other, and they're going to wind up killing each other in no time. And then there's Acton, who's just a complete idiot as far as we know. I doubt it's an act. He's just an arrogant pretty boy that doesn't belong in a place like this. I say we wait a day and see if anything interesting happens. And if it doesn't, well, we'll make something interesting happen."
The other three nodded in agreement. Willow felt a little better knowing that they had a plan to attack the other team. She sensed that neither Zephyr nor Levi would want to create conflict too early in their own group. If Wren and Cedar worked out their differences they'd be quite the dynamic duo, based on the descriptions Zephyr and Levi had offered. Four against two would be better than two tributes that didn't trust each other not to kill them the second they turned their head against a formidable pair.
"I'll take first watch," Levi offered. It was dark, but in the light of the moon Willow could still make out his features.
"I'll take last watch," Zephyr said with a yawn.
"Second, then," Chester shrugged.
"Third," Willow said despite the fact that she knew that it went without saying.
Levi nodded. He sat down outside the tent, staring straight ahead. Willow wondered if he would cry. Probably not, if he thought the cameras could see him. He'd been so strong through everything. It'd be a shame to ruin his image, Willow supposed.
She crawled into the tent and curled up in the corner. She didn't want to be the one to sleep next to Zephyr. It was pointless, since she'd have to sleep next to Levi later on anyway, but she figured she'd sleep better for the first few hours with no one but Chester by her side.
Just before she dozed off, Chester kissed her forehead. "We're going to get through this, okay?" he whispered in her ear. She nodded slightly. As much as she wanted to, she didn't trust him anymore. She didn't trust the Gamemakers to let up to four tributes win, and she certainly didn't trust her older teammates not to tear her to pieces.