The plus side is Julie looks at the drying blood on his shirt and she isn't flinching away. There's that. Her face only goes still, a bit too still, and that's about all the reaction she gives him. The downside is she's still here. Any relief he felt seeing her is now curdling and shriveling in on itself as R tries to work out how to get her out of here.

This isn't like sneaking her out of the airport. Other Dead he can handle. It's these other Tributes he isn't so sure about. They're way faster, with a lot more to lose than any zombie. This is way worse than someone being hungry enough to make a pass at her.

R doesn't complain as Julie takes his hand in his - he'd never complain - and stumbles along after her, nearly tripping on her heels as they go deeper and deeper into the Arena. The Living heat radiating out her hand taunts him, his fingers flexing against hers as he ducks his head to avoid braining himself on a low-slung pipe. If she knows where they're going, she isn’t sharing it with the class and maybe, just, maybe, there’s a part of R that doesn’t want to know. He almost prefers to believe she has more of a plan than he does.

The tunnels lead to a drainage pipe, grated and green with old algae. The water trickling out looks pretty foul, R starting toward it. He reaches down and tries pulling on it.

“Remove?” R tries to convey what he means by tugging at it again, more insistently. “You…hide here.”

Yeah, that’s totally an amazing plan. The sad part is it took him the whole trip to come up with something even that basic.