Together, we cried. But during the onslaught of tears, I managed to gently turn Danni's head the right way round, and then twisted his body so he was facing up. I tried many a time, to pull myself together and comfort Xenia, but when the hovercraft picked up Drop-Bear Dude, I completely lost it.
"No!" I screamed at the sky. "No! You can't take him! I won't let you!" I shielded Danni's body from the sky with my own flesh and wailed and screamed profanities at the sky. Then Xenia was in front of me, taking my arm and pulling me away. I let her, turning and sobbing on her shoulder. Soon, her jacket was running with tears and snot, but we made it away from the clearing. I didn't turn to see the hovercraft take Danni's body. Neither did I care what they did with DBD's.

That night we camped under a thicket of bushes. I was ashamed that a thirteen year old had to drag me away from a body. He was gone. Nothing would bring him back. We inched under, but when the Capitol's anthem played through the arena, we crawled out to look at the sky. Danni's face was in the sky first and I smiled through the thick mist in my head. He was smiling in his 'mug shot', grinning like an idiot at the camera. Just as I expected him too. Drop-Bear Dude was there as well, but we both just frowned at the picture. Go to hell and rot there, I thought. He deserved that for doing this to my family. For killing one of us off. And I made a pact with myself that I would protect Xenia at all costs.
That night, the strong tributes found us. I cursed myself for not seeing them coming. I wasn't sleeping anyway, because when I closed my eyes I saw Danni dying over and over again, so I didn't need to sleep. I was pumped with adrenaline. We had no head start so the first thing I did when I saw them prowling towards us was scoop Xenia up and scramble up one of the trees we were hiding under. Once we were in a fork about two-thirds of the way up, I put one hand on Xenia's elbow to steady her, one hand on the tree limb next to me. All four of them were there; panther girl, the hulk, the beautiful chick and Marcus. Now that I could see them closer up, the hulk had a huge nose, protruding forehead and thick-as eyebrows. But he still had the same expression that he had showed on the interview night; childish. He was smiling up at Xenia and making strange motions with his hands, which were slightly raised to about hip height. On his hands were thick golden bands of knuckle-dusters.
Panther girl was gazing up at us with eyes that glittered with hate. She was smiling, though, so I had a feeling she would enjoy killing us. Me, I corrected myself. If I had to take down all four of these monsters, I would, to keep Xenia alive. Panther girl's eyes were gold. She had no weapons but, if looks could kill…
Now I was closer, I could see the slight slant to the beautiful girl's eyes. Part Asian, she was. She was grinding her teeth, by the look of it, at the hulk. It made me smile. The smile dropped when I saw her choice of weapons. She had two fingerless gloves hanging from her pockets, and both gloves had 30cm blades made of thick steel on all fingers except thumbs.
Marcus was staring at us, mortified. His lips were moving in soundless words, and his hands that gripped a long spear were white. His hair looked like it had been thickly covered in mud a few days ago but it had since then thinned so you could see the green still there, and his eyes were sea-green, like his hair before it was modified.
"Hey, Marcus." Xenia said, surprising me. She spoke to her cousin and for a second, it seemed like a private moment. But then I remembered it was the Hunger Games, and nothing was private.
"Hey, Xenia, how're things?" I was surprised when he answered. He spoke sorrowfully and his face was tight. I grimaced as his question reminded me of my own to DBD. Beauty turned to Marcus in a flash.
"Shut up, Marcus!" she snapped. Wouldn't like to get on her last nerves.
"I'm good, but I've been hurt a bit." Xenia's voice was tiny. She was mumbling but her eyes were big and pleading. Marcus blanched when she said the word hurt, and then looked steadily into her eyes, like they were conveying a message. Family could do that.
The hulk raised a fat finger and pointed it at Xenia. "You have hair," he said, grinning delightedly. Both mine and Xenia's eyebrows raised in shock. Thank you, Captain Obvious, I didn't know Xenia had hair. "Like his," Big-and-Stupid continued, and raised one of his hands to Marcus' head and tried to touch his green locks. Marcus just rolled his eyes and batted the giant's hand away like he'd done it a thousand times before.
"Gonar! How many times do we have to tell you? When we're confronting the enemy, you don't talk to them, nor do you touch Marcus's Hair. Ever!" The Asian girl shrieked at the hulk. Gonar, I corrected myself.
Gonar himself lowered his hand and his head and spoke to the ground in the voice of a child who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Sorry Shayla, sorry Marcus. Gonar won't touch your pretty hair again." He spoke in third person. How odd.
"I'm sorry for your pain." Marcus told Xenia. Shayla looked like she was about the kill him with her eyes. Marcus all but ignored her, but I could see him perspiring in the moonlight. Xenia's hand tightened on the tree branch she was holding onto. She was crying again, and that made me mad.
"Leave her be!" I shouted at him "If you truly wanted to help her, you wouldn't be hunting us- her- down!" Now the panther-girl smiled at us. Her eyes shone in the moonlight and she spoke for the first time since she came to the clearing.
"Why wouldn't we do that, idiot girl? As if we would let you go, when we have two new tributes to kill." Then she switched her view to Marcus and smiled, her eyes glittering. "You can do the honors, Marky. Just throw the spear. You haven't had trouble doing that with other tributes. It should be easy for you to kill these two." That triggered a shocked expression from Marcus, whose face went white, to pale grey to green. In me, it triggered waves of hate that made me say possibly the stupidest thing I've ever said.
"Over my dead body," I snarled whilst drawing my biggest knife, and with such menace Gonar looked up from the floor, Shayla's eyebrows rose an inch and Marcus flinched again. But the black-haired girl just smiled and I realized my mistake.
"That can be arranged," she purred. Then she clicked her fingers at Marcus and his eyes widened as he looked at her.
"Jessamine… Jessamine please-" he pleaded with her. She shook her head, and both she and Shayla shouted at the same time.
"Now!" they shrieked. He had no choice unless he wanted to die himself. He turned to us and aimed his spear up, balancing it on his shoulder. He moved to stand directly below us, and I felt guilty. A drop of water dripped on Marcus' face, and I realized one of Xenia's tears had fallen onto his cheek. I turned to her. Her eyes were wide with fear, but it didn't look like the fear was for her. She was staring at Marcus and shivering with the cold, the shaking racking her tiny frame. And then I looked at Marcus. He was staring at me, hard, like this was the most important thing he ever looked at. He mouthed a sentence at me. No, not just a sentence; a plea, an apology, an instruction.
"Take care of her," he mouthed at me. A tear fell from his eyes, and then he threw his spear, hard and fast, straight at Jessamine. Then he was running.