It took everything in me to stop my fist from making contact with the tree again. My nails dug deep into my palm and my jaw locked tight as I brought my hand back to my side. I didn't want to face him, to give him the satisfaction of seeing me like this. I drew in a deep breath, tucking my hands into my pockets so he wouldn't be able to see the blood.

"What do you want Jesse?" I huffed, my back leaning against the tree as my eyes watched the ground. I could feel him coming closer to me, I was so tempted to yell out and tell him to leave me alone but I stayed calm.

"Don't answer a question with a question, Princess." His feet stopped right before mine but I still couldn't look up at him. "I want to know what that jerk of a tree must have said to piss you off so badly." He reached for my right arm and pulled it out from my pocket. I didn't resist, I couldn't bring my self to be bothered. "Crap." He swore under his breath when he saw my knuckles.

I attempted to pull my hand out of his grasp, but he wouldn't budge. Finally, I brought my eyes up to see what he was seeing. My knuckles had tiny shards of wood and dirt sticking in at different angles; they were split with blood dripping down the entire back of my hands. It wasn't too bad, however, I'd seen worse. My trainer had taken my out to box on a tree before and I'd ended up with four broken fingers. I was stronger than that know, I couldn't even feel the pain just a dull ache that I could easily ignore.

"Why did you do this to yourself?" He almost sounded concerned, his grip on me loosened. His fingers felt delicate, despite their large callouses and blood stains.

"None of your business." I mumbled pulling my hand from him finally, the second I attempt to walk away from the tree he took a step forward and trapped me. "Get out of my way, Blake."

"Not until you answer my question." My eyes finally met his, and I immediately regret it. His eyes reflected so many questions, so many questions that I could have almost confused it for worry. He reached back for my hand, this time balling it into a fist. "Next time you need to take out your anger, take it out on me not a poor tree."

He held up his palms and raised his eyebrows- almost challenging me to hit him. I don't know what prompted this change but I was more than happy to play along.

"I don't want to hurt you." I dusted off my hands, wiping the blood onto the thighs of my jeans. I rose my fists up to my chin, cracking my neck and roll my shoulders I prepared to throw a punch that would break fingers If I wanted it to.

"You wont hurt me, don't worry." He rolled his shoulders too, throwing me a cocky smirk.

"You asked for this." And I threw my first punch, I took it easy only put a quarter of my strength behind it. Which was a mistake. Jesse effortlessly caught my punch and spun me so that my back was pressed against his front. I turned over my right shoulder to met out eyes. "We're playing it that way are we?"

Throwing my body back I knocked him away, spinning around I didn't waste time to land an uppercut near his ribs. I tried to throw another one near his jaw but he ducked in time. Turning my so that he lost his grip I used the fact that his hand was no longer blocking the right side of his face. I threw a right hook followed by a quick jab. He couldn't block them in time and they both caused him to stumble backwards slightly. Before I even tried to throw another punch he had bounced back sending out his leg to met my side. An impact like this would usually not have bothered me, but it hit right on my stitched up side.

"Oh, you are so on." I wasn't going to hold make any longer, this boy before me clearly asking for it.

I bounced from foot to foot, building up the suspension for when I was going to launch it. He looked confident, his signature smirk playing on his lips. That set me off.

My right fits met his chest, skilfully diverting away from his block. I followed that with a quick yet powerful jab to the jaw. I continued with a right hook to the side of the face. In my combo he hadn't had the opportunity to even throw on back. "Sure you don't want to give up, Blake?" I kicked out my right leg, it met his thigh with a powerful snap. I then kicked the front of his thigh with the same leg- a move that sent him backwards once again. "You're just embarrassing yourself."

"The embarrassing thing is that you haven't gotten my down yet, I'm only an amateur here- yet I'm still standing." He brought his hands back to his chin, he threw a series of punches all but one being easily blocked by the own arms.

Before I could throw another one he held his hands up in surrender, "Fine, Fine. This isn't be giving up-it's me acknowledging I may have a lot to learn from you here." He grinned, his eyes challenging me further. "Just like you could do with some lesson from me on how to keep people alive."

His words sliced through me, unconsciously causing a sharp inhale as I could feel my heart physically aching. He noticed my obvious change in attitude, his eyes telling me that he was shocked. How could it be so surprising I didn't want all those people to die?

"I mean, if you'd listened to me there would be a lot more of us for the rescue team to find." He didn't seem to care how hard his words were hitting me. So I guess it was my turn to hit back.

I drove my right hook into his side, following it with a series of hard uppercuts. I drove him back into a tree, pressing his back up against it as I met all parts of his body with my fists. I wasn't using all my force, I didn't need to be dealing with broken bones. But I was using all of my anger, allowing it to take over as it translated into punch after punch. I couldn't tell is he was fighting back or if I was too strong for him but I felt nothing in return.

"You can't deny that, Princess, the people need a strong leader that isn't going to save to everything they say they want. I should have stuck to the food rule." I don't know what had possessed him to keep speaking but the idiot did. He had his hands held out to his side, letting me have at it with his torso. With his last sentence I could feel it all coming out. The truth.

"I know! Okay. I know that I could have done more!" I punched his sternum, hoping that It left a nice bruise. "I know that I could have stopped all of this! But I didn't! And you won't even give me a chance to make it right!" I exploded, my punches stopping as my words rang out.

His hands had wrapped around my wrists, stopping me completely as I continued to scream out. My body was giving in too, I felt so out of control that I couldn't even snap myself out of it. There was no control over what spilled out of my mouth; the rage had finally taken over me with this boy's eye shooting his anger back at me.

"I wish that I could have stopped this all, I hate myself every time I see their faces because all I see if what I did to get them here!"

His eyes grew dark, his hands pulling me closer to him so I could here his low growl.

"What do you mean what you did to get us here?"

~~~~~~~~~~