Warning: This chapter is not for the squeamish. Please go ahead and skip it if you don't feel comfortable with violence.
As always, I do not own anything that belongs to Susan Collins.
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You could hear a pin drop in the square. We all knew what we were about to witness. This was going to be the last time we got to see her alive. The last time we got to see her jet black hair sway from side to side, the last time we got to see her light olive skin radiant with life.
She had managed to stay alive longer than most of us ever expected her to and I can speak for the entire District when I say she had made us all proud… well at least the ones from the Seam.
I look around to see if he was in the square and he is. Pale, his eyes laced with terror.
Good. I hope he enjoys what he is about to see. I wanted him to suffer for the rest of his life for pushing her away.
I knew that this was going to be gruesome. Marvel was a blood thirsty Career engulfed by the flames of rage and insanity following Glimmer's death. But she wasn't going to go down without a fight. I could tell because I knew she was a strong and brave girl. She chose to take control of her fate and had voluntarily entered the games knowing what awaited her.
This was her way of proving to him that she was a much braver person than he ever could be. She was going to die with dignity.
I look around and am relieved that Prim is not in the square. I didn't want her to see this.
"Do you know what we call you?" Marvel asks in no rush to finish the job. "We call you angel, you know, for volunteering for some little girl like the one I just killed," he signals to the lifeless body of Rue.
"Finally decided to pick on someone your own size?" I find myself smirking at Avalyn's challenge. She wasn't afraid. She was going to fight to the death.
I blink as Marvel lunges himself forward and within seconds, Avalyn was on her back with Marvel straddling her, pinning her body to the hard surface of the ground.
"Feisty," he smirks "…Now I'm really going to enjoy knocking that halo right off your head," I feel blood drain from my skin at the sound of Marvel's fist smashing across Avalyn's face. She cries out in pain as blood begins to trickle down from her mouth, her lip cut from the blow.
Marvel lifts himself to his feet, off of Avalyn as she scrambles to get up herself. She tries to crawl to her feet but he doesn't give her the chance as he grabs her head and smashes it back to the ground, hard.
She moans as her body contorts in pain on the ground, her hand clutching the side of her head. He smirks before dragging her to her feet by her hair pulling her body flush against his. "You may be my most prized kill…" he pulls her head back exposing her fragile neck drinking in her pained expression. He leans in and kisses the side of her jaw "Don't worry, I'll make sure he remembers this," he whispers through clenched teeth before punching her in the stomach.
"Please make it stop!" he yells at the screen as he stands to his feet tears streaming down his face blatantly ignoring his soon to be wife who looks mortified by his outburst.
For a split second I wonder if he still cares but quickly push that thought out of my head. A little too late to show his affection I think to myself bitterly. If he cared she wouldn't be in the Games getting pummeled to death by Marvel.
Avalyn falls to her knees clenching her stomach blood flowing down her mouth, already a bruise manifesting on the side of her face. Marvel yanks at his jacket and carefully chooses a knife from the inside of his jacket.
She tries tries to scramble away but she's unsteady and weak from the blows. He pulls her hair again and rests his face on the crook of her neck "Where is my little angel going?" he breathes eyes rimmed with insanity. He grins before drawing back his hand, plunging the knife into the meaty part of her lower back.
Her scream engulfs the district.
My eyes snap open at the sound of a horrifying shriek and I instantly know who it belongs to. Without a second thought, I scramble to my feet and take off.
Marvel slowly removes the knife as Avalyn falls to her knees her right hand clenching her wound. What happens next is so fast that I almost miss it.
Avalyn cuts Marvels with her knife.
With a loud thud he falls backwards on his back, his leg immobile from the wound.
Marvel had lowered his guard when he had stabbed her and failed to notice her reach exposing the deadly weapon. She had managed to grab the knife that was hidden on the side of her hips safely tucked under her jacket.
She cut him on the back of his right leg, a sloppy but deep gush. He scrambled backwards cursing at her trying to widen the distance between them.
At that moment I see something in her face that scares me. Avalyn didn't look like herself anymore as she crawled towards his vulnerable body and stabbed him in the upper thigh, this time with vicious ferocity.
He screams and pushes her backwards but she has the upper hand. Pushing through her pain from the cut on her back now staining her jacket and pants crimson red, she plunges her knife into his stomach. She straddles him as his body begins to convulse from the pain and shock. She raises the knife grabbing the hilt with both hands and delivers the final blow, stabbing him right through the heart.
An eye for an eye.
The Canon goes off.
The square fills with sharp intakes of breath, shrieks and disbelief. I feel Gale's arms wrap my body pulling me into his because without warning I have begun to cry. I had just witnessed a gruesome murder. Murder committed by one of our own.
Avalyn looks at Marvel's body in disbelief her mouth agape breathing heavily. "No…" she mouths before touching his shoulders. "Wake up, wake up!" she screams shaking his lifeless body.
In horror she backs away crawling to a nearby tree as she begins to wail. She cradles her knees to her chest, her body shaking.
I think this is the exact moment I understand why Haymitch Abernathy is drunk all the time.
She's leaning against the tree, color drained from her face weeping. I notice the lacerations on her face and a small pool of blood on the ground next to where she sits.
I'm not sure what to do.
She's clutching her hands watching the fresh blood drip down her hands. I approach her and notice the lifeless body of Marvel and Rue in the proximity. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what had happened here moments earlier.
I approach her as quietly as I can, not wanting to startle her and sit directly in front of her. When her eyes meet mine she leans forward and without hesitation, rests her head on my chest.
"What the hell is going on here," Rei demands having finally caught up with me her eyes taking in the sight of the massacre. She bends forward slightly resting her palms on her upper thighs catching her breath.
"Help me," is all I need to say before Rei is right by my side lifting Avalyn to her feet.
I slip my hands under her legs and lift her up in my arms. She nuzzles her head to my chest, her arms wrapping around my neck.
"You're gonna hurt your back prince charming."
From what I have learned in my brief alliance with Rei is that she always tries to make light of the situation. And at this very moment I appreciate it more than anything else.
I watch as she runs Marvel's body then to Rue's and takes whatever she can salvage from their scattered supplies.
Feeling like a grave robber, I give her a disapproving look. "What? They have no use for it anymore," she huffs leading the way.
The next hour at the square is like torture. None of us could take our eyes off the screen or the distraught butcher's son who was getting yelled at by his parents while his soon to be wife cried a few feet away. They clearly did not approve of his outburst earlier.
I had to actively stop myself from stomping over and beating the crap out of them all. What did they expect? For their son to be indifferent to what had just transpired? It had shaken me up. It had shaken everyone up. Of course it was going to affect him.
Mr. Cartwright, the District's voice of reason, was quickly there to calm the butcher as Peeta's father grabbed the butcher's son and led him away to where his family was seated close to the front of the screen.
I turn my attention back Peeta as he carries Avalyn for a good mile before settling her down by a nearby stream. Rei begins to rummage through the supplies she had salvaged, pulling out a small bottle of rubbing alcohol and some gauze. She passes a bottle of medicated ointment to Peeta asking him if she could possibly use it on Avalyn's wounds.
Peeta reads over the label and nods his head in approval as Rei begins to undress Avalyn who has slipped out of consciousness.
Rei removes her jacket and tosses it aside before sitting Avalyn's body upright to remove her shirt. The task was not an easy one to accomplish alone and the frustration was imminent on her face. Peeta steps in and gently removes the shirt over her head.
His fingers gently touched Avalyn's bare skin as he removed her sleeveless tank top next, exposing her plain black undergarment.
I knew it was platonic move. I knew it was in no way meant to be sexual. So when I felt a slight ting of what I can only decipher as jealousy I instantly feel guilty.
Avalyn was teetering between the fine line of life and death and here I was feeling … jealous.
Rei straightens Avalyn's legs and unbuttons her pants pulling it off gently, exposing her perfectly toned legs.
I was always uncomfortable with nudity. Gale had laughed at me once when an injured coal miner was carried into our house and placed on our kitchen table after being undressed. He was completely nude with only a thin white sheet covering his manhood. I had turned bright red and looked away as my mother and Prim nonchalantly treated the man and wiped his body clean.
There was something beautiful about watching Rei gently tend to Avalyn's wound as Peeta soothingly ran his fingers through her hair.
Avalyn was only in her undergarments, her body otherwise exposed to the entire Panem. There was something mesmerizing about the images displayed on the screen and I could not take my eyes off of it.
Despite the injury and all the blood, she was beautiful.
She was the spitting image of perfection.
The butcher's son was an idiot.
So what did you guys think? I don't know why but for some reason this is my favorite chapter so far. The mental image of Peeta, Avalyn and Rei is something really beautiful in my mind despite the gruesome nature.
What did you think?