Chapter 6:

I stare out at the woods, enjoying the peace and quiet of the early morning. The silence allows me to look back on the events that have happened recently.

How did I go from being a popstar living the dream with my family and friends to fighting for my life and parentless?

My whole life was turned upside down after only a few minutes. A few tears escape as I put my head down on my knees. "I'm sorry, mom," I whisper to no one as I shake with sobs.

I sit there for a while just letting the tears fall not caring that I was probably on everyone's tv right now.

"Kendall!" I hear Logan shout as he bursts out of the tent. I pick my head up to look at him and he lets out a sigh of relief when he sees me. "Thank god you're there. I thought you ran off."

"I just needed some time to think on my own."

He sits down next to me and puts and arm around my shoulders. "Do you want to talk about it buddy?"

I shake my head no and stare out at woods. I can hear Logan sigh next to me and I feel slightly bad about not talking to him. But this is just something that needs some time before I'm ready to talk about it.

"Well just know that we're here for you." Carlos and James then exit the tent and Logan smiles at them. "Well now that you two are up, we should get moving. It's probably not a good idea to stay in one spot for very long."

The two look at me expectantly, waiting for my response. They've always looked to me as a leader among us four and I know right now I need to hide my pain and focus on them. "Logan's right, guys. So why don't we pack up?"

James grabs our stuff out of the tent and Logan then presses the button to close it. Carlos looks at me to figure out where to go next, but I have no idea.

"So Logan, anything you suggest we go do?"

He contemplates this for a few seconds. "Well we're almost out of water so-" he's cut off by a cannon going off.

I frown as I think about what that signifies. Almost every person in this arena is my friend or family. Well at least they used to be. Who knows what people are thinking in this situation.

Then another thought crosses my mind. What if that was just a cannon for Katie?

"Kendall there would have been more," Logan says to me, seeming to have read my mind.

I look at him and can tell that he really cares about making sure all of us are okay. But he's right, if that was for Katie there would probably been two more cannons; one for Gustavo and one for Kelly.

Another cannon goes off and my worry comes back tenfold.

"C'mon let's go find some water," James says and nods away from our camp.

I smile at him for trying to distracted me before grabbing a bag and starting to walk into the woods, having a sword ready.

I have Logan lead the way, since he can recognize signs of water. I can tell it's going to be a really hot day as the heat starts to make me feel exhausted.

It's a relief when we finally find water and Logan lets out a triumphant cheer. Carlos runs towards it and screams like a little kid before jumping in it. Logan shakes his head at his childish antics as he starts to fill up the bottles of water. I join him as James dunks his head in the small lake before laying down on the bank.

We relax for a little while and I take in the sun, enjoying the break from the fear of the games.

"I could have sworn I heard someone over here," I hear the arrogant voice of Jett say from somewhere nearby.

Someone answers him but is muffled by the sound of footsteps coming towards us.

We all look at each other in panic for a couple seconds before frantically grabbing all of our stuff. "Go, up the tree," I say as I shove James and Carlos towards a tree that they start climbing right away.

I begin climbing one next to there's and Logan follows behind me, being dragged down by the bags he picked up. I grab his hand and pull him up to the branch I'm on just as Jett and Dak Zevon break through the woods and walk out onto the riverbank where we had been sitting a minute ago.

"Someone was definitely here," Dak says as he crouches down to look at the ground.

Jett looks around and across the lake before replying. "Let's keep moving. We're going to win these games."

The two start walking away and I let out a sigh of relief. I quickly cover my mouth when Jett pauses and turns around to look behind him. I silently pray that he won't look up as he slowly starts taking a couple steps closer to us.

He glances down at the pressed down grasses from us and I can tell he's going to figure out we're up here. But before he can, Dak calls back to him. "Jett, what are you doing? Let's get moving!"

We all wait until he is well out of earshot before moving. I drop my bags down before jumping down the branches. I look over at the guys and can see that they're shaken up from the close encounter.

"That had to have been one of the most terrifying moments of my life," Carlos says as he leans against the tree he was just in.

"Yeah that was almost as terrifying as the time I ran out of Cuda."

"Stop it," Logan says to him in an annoyed voice and rolls his eyes.

I smirk at how the guys are still acting just the same as always. "Well, buddies, we should get moving in case Jett and Dak come back."

"Very true," Carlos says before jumping up and standing next to me.

James grumbles as he stands up, not used to having such demanding tasks. "Where are we even going to go?"

I glance at Logan but he just raises his eyebrows at me, leaving me to answer the question.

"I say we go find somewhere to stay for the night." We reorganize our bags before taking off into the woods in the opposite direction of Jett and Dak.

We chat lightly as we make our way through the woods. But we all become silent after a while when we hear a cannon go off, wondering who it was this time.

But we continue on, walking until it gets to be late afternoon, only taking breaks to eat and rest briefly. We only stop when we reach a small clearing surrounded be thick plants on all sides. It provides the perfect cover and we walked so far today that we shouldn't be near anyone.

As we settle down, I start to make a fire to cook dinner with. We were lucky to have grabbed the bags we did at the cornucopia because a couple of them were full of cans of food.

We all settle down with a can of food each as the sun sets, somber over knowing what was about to happen. We would soon find out which three among all of us in the arena are now gone.

As the anthem starts playing, I look up at the sky anxiously, not quite ready to know who died today. The first face to be shown is Buddha Bob. I feel slightly bad about this since he did help us many times with our crazy plans.

But it's the next face shown that is completely unexpected and tears me apart. "Why Katie?" I whispers to myself and can feel wetness on my cheeks as tears start falling.

I can hear Logan choke out a sob next to me as I look up at the next person shown through blurry eyes. I can feel his pain at losing Camille and I know how much he loved her.

No more faces are shown and the sky fades to black as silence fills the air. Carlos and James look at Logan and I in silence, not knowing what to do. I'm glad they don't say anything because if I tried to talk, surely I would break down completely.

What did I do to deserve first my mother dying, and now my baby sister? And I couldn't even do anything to stop either of them from being killed. Sadness and hatred fill me as I want to personally kill Griffin for putting us through this. But I know the only way for that to happen would be to win and there is no way that I want to keep living without my family and friends.

I'm not giving up completely. But I wouldn't hesitate to take an attack for one of my friends.

I stand up to go to the tent and Carlos and James start protesting right away, thinking I'm leaving them. "Guys, I'm just going to sleep," I say emotionlessly as I enter the tent, wanting sleep to numb away the pain, at least for a little while.