"People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain."
― Jim Morrison
My eyebrows shot up as I glared at him. His blonde curls stuck to his forehead, a layer of sweat covering his face and, most likely, his whole body. His arena clothes are different than mine, being a dark green jacket instead of black. No blood stains his clothes or any part of his exposed skin, and he carries only a small pack on his back. Clearly he didn't go into the fight at the cornucopia, he headed straight for the woods, probably grabbing the pack no the way. I take a step towards him and his body stiffens, my hand finds a knife on instinct. Scared people are dangerous. They make stupid decisions, stupid decisions lead to dead people.
"I want to join your alliance." He speaks quickly, nervously. He's fidgety, his hands clenching into fists so that I won't see their sweating. I walk up to him until there's only a few feet separating us, his body leans backwards, away from mine, and I smirk at him. He doesn't know that Cato and I are experts in reading body language. It's a natural skill, which at the Academy, was only strengthened. I take another step towards him and he lifts his gaze up, locking his eyes with mine. His eyes are a brilliant blue. Though not the ones I love, his are not cold, not ice. Not Cato's.
"Now why?" I bring the knife up and rest the side of the blade on the side of his neck, his eyes widen slightly. "Would you want to do that?" I run the knife across the front of his neck and he involuntarily lifts his head, showing me his neck. An act of submission, that I've forced him into.
"Because I can help you." I cock my head at him, waiting for him to continue. "I'm a good fighter, and I know where some of the tributes headed. And who's allied with whom." My mouth skews off to the side as he talks. That information could be helpful. He's big enough, and he could lift during training. I saw him wrestle briefly and he looked like he knew what he was doing, for the most part. Add a knife and he might be able to do some damage. But either way, he'd be easy to just stab in the back when he got useless.
"One wrong move," I press the blade harder onto his throat, "and this will be sticking through your neck. Got it?" I grin at him as he nods slightly, my words had come out snappy and to the point.
"Got it." I return the knife to my pants, turning on my heel and motioning for the boy to follow. I hear him behind me and wince.
"You're a loud walker." I comment.
"I-I'm sorry?" I ignore him.
"I'm Cain." I tell him without turning around.
"Peeta." I snort aloud at his name and hold my arm up in the air when I see Cato watching us from the cornucopia. Telling him to hold back. Peeta and I walk to the cornucopia, I point Peeta to one of the crates and give him simple instructions to look through it and sort shit. I continue walking up to Cato, who, once I'm in range, grabs my arm and drags me off to the side. I jab him in the ribs with the hilt of my knife and growls lowly, but let's go of me.
"What's he doing here?" His head motions back to Peeta and I shrug.
"He wanted in. Besides, when we're done with him, just stab'em in the back. Easy, he might even be helpful." He opens his mouth to object but I put a finger over his lips. "Hey, let me handle it, I know what I'm doing." His eyes still show his anger as he brings my hand to his mouth fully and kisses it.
"You're okay?"
"I'm fine." I smirk at him, "Bet I got more than you did."
"Loser has to keep watch with Marvel?"
"Deal." He lets my hand go and we both return to the front of the horn, where Glimmer and Marvel are stretched out in the grass, Peeta sitting atop a now empty crate, looking awkward and out of place. We're a few paces away when the cannons start to go off, the gamemakers apparently just deciding that we won't kill Peeta.
The shots echo throughout the whole arena and I count them in my head. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. They stop afterwards and Cato and I look at each other.
"I killed three." I say aloud and see Peeta flinch while Cato smirks.
"Four, suck it." I scowl, because I know Cato well enough to know when he's lying, and right now, he's not.
"One!" Marvel states it happily and with way too much enthusiasm.
"I got one too." Glimmer says it nonchalantly, still staring up at the sky.
"Then who got the last one?" It's Peeta who wonders it aloud.
"Wow! You can add baker boy!" Marvel laughs at his own joke and slaps Peeta on the shoulder, who just glances at me in confusion as I take a deep breath.
"How did you know I was a baker?"
"Hey, I paid attention to the interviews!" Peeta seems a little bit relieved that Marvel isn't just some strange stalker at the news.
"Someone else must've made a kill then." Cato says it harshly, his eyes roaming the edge of the forest. "Let's get some rest, Marvel's first watch," he turns and smirks at me, "With Cain."
"Dick" I mutter as I shove Cato, going and starting to look through a pile of weapons as the other three who aren't on watch move into the darkness of the cornucopia to sleep before we go hunting tonight. Within minutes of them going in and falling asleep Marvel starts talking.
"So Cain, why'd the chicken cross the road?"
"Cause he's an idiot." I snap back at him and Marvel laughs.
"No, one, you don't know if it's a he, and two, it wanted to get to the other side." I stop and just give Marvel a 'you're a crazy idiot' look.
"That's not even remotely funny."
"That's the point!"
I don't answer him. I just pick up a short sword that I find and examine it closer. Basically, it's a huge knife, I could work with this.
"Hey Cain?" I look up when I hear the District Twelve boy.
"What?" I ask, he should be sleeping.
"Knock knock." I glare at him but go along anyways as Marvel looks on.
"Who's there?" it comes out in a threatening tone, but I don't really give a shit.
"Nobody you're crazy."
I don't know why, maybe because he says it so calmly, or just because it's insulting a bit, but I first just try to keep it back, a grin coming over my face. Then I can't help it, I burst out laughing.
"WHAT THE HELL!?" There's a loud slamming and I look over to see Marvel glaring at Peeta. "My jokes are SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT! And you just come in here, not even been here for an hour and YOU get her to laugh! I've been trying for DAYS!"
"Well, that's too bad." I stop laughing and just look at Peeta.
"Go to sleep." I tell him, he obliges.
"Cain." I wake up to Cato's voice. "Get up." I hear the anthem in playing and I'm up right away, walking with Cato to where the rest of our alliance is gathered. The first face to appear is that of the girl from District Three. Glimmer raises her hand, claiming that she killed the girl herself. Next is the girl from District Four, to which Cato claims, telling us that he stabbed straight through her with his sword. I'm proud of him, while Twelve just shudders. Both tributes from Five come up, Cato and I having taken out both, followed by the girl from Six, of whom I killed. Cato claims his final two kills of the bloodbath in both tributes from District Seven, who are followed up with my kill of the boy from Eight. Marvel's kill is next, the life of the boy from Nine having ended today. The girl from Ten shows next and we don't know who killed her. As the anthem ends I walk over and pick up the short sword I had earlier, preparing for the night of hunting. The others also grab their weapons of choice.
Cato has his sword and Marvel carries a spear. As Glimmer goes to get whatever she uses I go grab a regular knife from the weapons pile. "Twelve." He looks at me and I toss the knife to him, he catches it and looks back up to me, nodding and grinning slightly to me in thanks.
I flip him off.
We walk in silence, into the woods, Cato and I leading, Glimmer behind us, and Marvel and Peeta taking up the rear. The arena woods are set in the fall season, the leaves a vibrant red, gold, or orange. You can still make out their colors in the darkness. It's a silent trek for about an hour before I see it. Light. A light of a fire some tribute lit. I take off running towards it at a breakneck pace.
Cato's only a second behind me, the rest of our posse picking up the pace as well, though they lag behind. My hand finds my knife as adrenalin fills my veins. I vault over rocks and branches as I run. The landscape in the forest is full of hills and rocks. Slates of stone are in some parts, forcing us to climb a bit earlier, but now it's just the forest floor and trees.
When I can make out the tributes shape, seeing it's a girl, I let out a loud whoop of excitement, my voice echoing throughout the arena. I find out Cato's caught up to me, just a few feet behind me, when he opens his mouth as well.
When we arrive, we wordlessly form a circle around the girl, who is from District Eight, who is now looking at us, her eyes flickering from each of us, wide and fearful. When her eyes land on Peeta, standing slightly out of the circle, but clutching his knife just the same, confusion fills her features. Glimmer snickers and I shoot her a look; she shuts up.
Cato looks up at me, and when we make eye contact, I slink back into the shadows, circling around until I'm directly behind the girl, she doesn't even see me.
"Well, well, well." Cato laughs darkly as he steps up, twirling his sword in his hands. The fire reflects off the metal blade and it's almost mesmerizing. "What's wrong? Were you cold?" he mock-pouts at her as she nods. "Here's a piece of advice. When you're being hunted, and you know it, grow a pair and deal with it. Fire is like you lighting a beacon and just begging us to come kill you." Cato's eyes dart up to me for a fraction of a second, it's all I need. I lounge out of the shadows, my arm coming out and going around her shoulders, holding her to me as my blade finds her throat. I just press on her throat a bit, letting it start to bleed but not killing her.
"You're not very smart, are you?" I ask her, she gulps, and Cato snorts.
"And that's just what we're going to do." Cato looks up at me and smirks. His sword plunges into her gut just milliseconds before my knife slits her throat at an awkward angle. She doesn't die right away, and that's the point. An ear-shattering scream full of agony fills the silence. Blood comes up from her throat and pools in her mouth. It drips down her face and down her neck as she continues to try and scream.
Cato pulls his sword out of her, causing her shriek to rise to an even higher octave. The blade of his sword is red, blood dripping off from the tip due to the angle he holds it at. There's a blazing fire in Cato's eyes that I've only seen a handful of times as his lips turn upwards, watching the girl die in front of him.
I release my grip on her and she falls to the ground, face-down, still alive, before I jam my foot into her back. There's a sick squishing sound that comes from her as blood pours out her mouth. As I lift my foot a cannon sounds, signaling her death.
As we leave her corpse, Cato turns and takes my hand, squeezing it briefly before letting it fall.
We have more hunting to do.
So, that was…interesting. Yeah, I haven't updated in a while so I hope you enjoyed that!
Ashtera: Thanks!
RueEvergreen: haha thank you! I always love your reviews!
Sorry to sound like a bitch here, but please review! I got two reviews on the last chapter..only..two. It doesn't really help my motivation to keep writing! Reviews let me know your reading!