A/N:Here's chapter ten! Whoo-hoo! We get to meet Meladina from district 7 here :) Enjoy!
Disclaimer:I do not own the Hunger Games, it's characters, or Suzanne Collins' brain. No copyright infrigment intended.

Chapter ten-A melody for Meladina

Zeb's arrow is lodged into Nana's forehead before she even has a chance to run. As she falls to the ground I hear the other careers run away in abandonment. I ignore them and grasp Zara's hand. "Zara, you OK?" I ask.

"Been better," she replys. Her voice is hoarse and quiet.

"I don't know what to do!" I say. "You seemed better with the medical stuff and now your dying."

"Primrose, someone's coming!" Zeb says.

"Well get rid of them!" I snap.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I can't see them."

My head whips rapidly round but I can't see no-one either. "Just keep watching the woods," I say. Zara's grip on my hand is losening. "Zara, come on now. Stay strong."

"Don't touch the wound," A small voice says. I look up and see Meladina sitting across from me. I can see Zeb pointing his arrow at her but I know he won't shoot. "Don't remove the axe. The blood flow will become too strong and she'll die of blood loss." She starts cleaning the blood round the axe and puts some green stuff on. "It'll stop the bleeding. I made it out of some leaves and flowers when Nana cut my leg but she needs it more." I see the giant blood stain on her trousers. How bad was she cut? It looks like it would have been fatal if it wasn't for her plant knowledge. "I'm not going to make it," Zara says.

"I'm doing my best," Meladina says as she puts the green stuff on. "You'll survive yet."

"No I won't. I don't want false hope," Zara says. "I'm going to die."

"Yes," Meladina says. "But on my watch, your going to die in comfort." She jumps to her feet and runs to a patch where the grass is over grown. She rips a whole load out of the ground and starts weaving. I watch closely as her fingers move rapidly round the grass and end up making a pillow. She then comes back over and lifts Zara's head up and sticks the pillow under. She slowly puts her head back down. A tear runs down Zara's cheek. "Thank you," she whispers.

"My pleasure," Meladina rests her hand on Zara's. "Who do you see?"

"Rue," Zara says. "She's so grown up. I'm going to follow her into the great beyond to see what lays ahead. She's singing. She wants me to join in. Deep in the meadow. Under the willow. A bed of grass. A soft green pillow. . ." Zara's singing gets quieter and quieter as she drifts away. I remember the song. It's the one mum sang to Rue as she died. But why does Zara see her like Harrie saw Kaliana?

When the singing stops and Zara is dead I close her eyes with my fingers. "Sleep tight kick girl," I say. I want to to burst into hysterics the way I did when Harrie died but I need to learn to deal with death. Whether I like it or not. Only one cannon fires. Zara is definetly dead. What about Nana? Meladina goes over to her and starts speaking to her. "You know, what you did was a really naughty thing. You took a life for your own survival. Not your falut. We are all adapted to survive. Your brother is waiting for you Nana. Go to him now and you can be with each other forever." Nana's breathing slows down and she's heaving in giant gasps. "Go to Jared, Nana, go to him. He's waiting. Go on." Nana's breathing slowly stops and the cannon fires. Meladina goes to hop into the woods but I run over and grab her wrist. "Ok, you've got some explaining to do," I say.

"Please don't kill me it's not my falut I just can't bear to see people die so I bring their deceased loved ones to them to comfort them! Please don't kill me," Meladina babbles.

"We're not going to kill you," I say. "But how can you bring deceased loved ones to people?"

Meladina shrugs. "I'm sorta physic."

"No, seriously," I say. "I get enough messing from him."

"I'm serious," Meladina protests.

"Yeah, and I can see dead people," I say. Meladina snaps her hand up and presses two fingers onto my forehead and closes her eyes. "Your family history is foggy. Full of fire and burning and rage. Hold on I can sense someone. Prim? Her name's Prim yes? Your auntie? Yes, your auntie. She wants you to know she's proud of you and believes you can do it. Make it through the games, she knows you will make it. Hold on, someone else is coming through too."

"I have no-one else," I frown. How can she even know about auntie Prim?

"Your two uncles."

"I don't have two uncles," I say.

"Oh but you do. Your father's family was killed during a bomb raid many years ago. Including his father, mother, and two brothers. Your father is in too much of a state to even speak of his family and your mother understands that and doesn't mention them either. But he did have two brothers once upon a time. They want you to know that they are rooting for you too."

I pull away. "Ok, maybe you are physic. Why would you want to help the dying tributes?"

"Because death is painful. It always has been. No-one can ever deal with death with ease. My mother died before my eyes. Shot by a peacekeeper. I have no-one back home. I live in the children's insitute. No-one has a choice whether they want to kill or not in the games. You do it because you have to. I want to make them happy in the last moments of life. To show them that nobody blames them for killing."

This kid's freaky. Can see dead people? Scary. I mean, I wouldn't of believed her if she hadn't of mentioned auntie Prim and my apparent uncles.

"And Peeta?" Meladina suddenly shouts, making me jump. "Your mum is sorry for hitting you. It was just brunt bread. It shouldn't have mattered!" My mouth forms an 'o' shape. My grandmother beat dad? For brunt bread? Bit late saying sorry now she's dead. "I couldn't go near you guys when Harrie was dying as I felt you were too out in the open. I brought the wrong person down to take her. It was supposed to be her little cousin, Jessie, but I accidently brought Kaliana. She was supposed to be for someone else."

"Who?" I ask. Meladina nods towards Zeb, whose back is turned on us as he covers us.

"She really did love him you know," Meladina says.

"I know," I say. "You will be able to bring her back if he ends up dying right?"

"I'll do my best. It's hard to bring someone back twice. But I will try."

XXX

"Is Nana dead?" Waness asks Jamica back at the Cornucopia.

"Obviously," Jamica rolls her eyes. "No-one can survive an arrow in the head."

"What will we do? We're one down now," Waness says.

"We need Zeb," Jamica sighs. "Did you see how he caught those arrows? And how he shot Nana so fast? Yes, we need him."

"Well, we can't. He won't join us," Waness says.

"Who says we need his permission?" Jamica grins.

XXX

"You want me as an ally?" Meladina asks in disbelief as we move further into the woods.

"Yes. Your clever and resoureful. We need that," I reply.

"Wow. I thought I'd be forced to work alone," Meladina says. "I never thought I'd get this far anyway. I mean, I comforted everyone who died at the Cornucopia, then I thought I was going to get killed soon enough. Now I've got allies."

"What time is it Primrose?" Zeb asks.

"Um, judging by the sun it's around noon," I say.

"Wanna take a rest?" he asks.

"Ok," I reply, silently relieved as my legs feel like they're going to buckle under me any moment. "That tree looks surdy enough." Meladina scales the tree like she's a squirrel where I have to hack out more footholds for Zeb. When we're all up in the tree Zeb volunteers to watch while Meladina and I take a nap. We agree for him to wake one of us up in an hour or two so he can rest as well.

It seems only mere moments when I open my eyes again. The sun is setting and it's around five o'clock. "Zeb, why didn't you wake us?" I say, nudging Meladina to get up. When I sit up straight and my eyes adjust I don't see Zeb. "Zeb?" I whisper. "Zeb! Where are you?" Meladina climbs higher into the tree to see if he's there but he isn't. "Oh my god. Where'd he go?"

"Maybe he went to get more food and water," Meladina suggests.

"No, we've got enough in the packs we took," I say. "Did a cannon fire?"

"No. I would've heard it. I'm a light sleeper," Meladina says.

"Where'd he go then?!" I say.

"Hold on," Meladina unclips something off the lapel of her jacket. It's about the size of a thumb nail and looks like a black pill. "Once we use this we'll have to ditch it," she says.

"Why?"

"It's supposed to be my district token." She cracks it open and a blue holographic screen appears out of the pill. "We're not allowed to bring weapons as our district token but they thought this was a cod liver oil pill that we make with tree bark at home." She presses multiple buttons on the screen and then a time shows up and some footage begins to play. Meladina slept up against the tree trunk so the small pill had a perfect view of both me and Zeb. She slowly fast forwards the footage until something happens and she stops it. As Zeb keeps watch a small pink device that looks like a bar of soap gets thrown onto the branch. When he picks it up some sort of dart flies out and knocks him out. He falls off the branch as he goes unconscious.

"Ok, what was that?" I ask.

"It looked like a knock out dart," Meladina says. "Who would use that though?"

"There's only two other people left," I say. "The careers."

"Why would they do that?" Meladina asks.

"They wanted him to join them but he wouldn't. Now they're down one person I doubt they care whether they have his permission or not. Come on." I jump off the branch and Meladina follows. We weave through the trees until we reach the clearing where the Cornucopia stands. We crouch by a tree that stands at the outer rim of the clearing. We're facing the back of the Cornucopia. Waness and Jamica soon appear through the trees but they quickly run and hide in the shadows. I wonder why until 12 podiums rise out of the dirt. Each has a different person on them. I start counting back from 60 in my head to see if my hunch is correct. As I reach 30 I see a little girl on the podium Zeb stood on. It's Carrie. I know for sure that Jamica or Waness will kill her if she tries to run. As I reach 10 I grab Meladina's hand. As these people are tributes. They're putting another 12 people into the games.

A/N:Yeah, I thought too many people were getting killed too fast :)
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