RipredIsAwesome: Woot! New chapter! Just a couple notes before I start this: 1) yes the fighting scene probably isn't the best but please don't focus on that too much. 2) The Death Pinch (as will be mentioned) I'm pretty sure is real. It's supposed to be a spot where if you put pressure on it, cuts off major circulation to your brain. I don't know exactly where it is, but one of my friends showed me once (I just forget) and I've got a good idea. I think it's in the neck area. Anyway..enjoy the chapter!

Disclaimer: RipredISAwesome does NOT own THE Hunger Games. I own a copy of the books, but the series is copyrighted (C) by Suzanne Collins.

Chapter Ten

It wasn't much longer after I had gotten ready to kill when the girl jumped on me, throwing her spear into some dark spot. My knives had slipped from my grasp and were scattered across the floor. It was clear that she wanted to fight me hand to hand. I gave her a rough kick and tossed her off of me, although it took a while. The girl weighed a ton! She groaned as she rolled on the ground and grabbed her previously thrown spear.

"You die now," she said darkly, stalking over to me as I continued to lie on the ground, immobilized. She thrust her spear towards me, but I rolled on the ground and then swung my legs to trip her. The girl tripped, but was so big and I was so slender that it didn't work fully. However, she did drop the spear again. I scrambled over to grab it, but the girl took both of my arms first and stopped me.

"Not so fast," she said, breaking her grip slightly so she could get a knife out of her jacket. She pulled me closer and then started tracing my neck with her knife. "I could kill you in an instant, rebel girl." As if to emphasize this, she pushed slightly harder on the knife, causing a small trickle of blood to start making a trail on my neck. "But I don't think I should. Not right now at least. You should suffer a bit."

"You really think that?" I asked. She laughed.

"Hell yeah! Those people that you're bringing together? I want to show them what would happen to them," she said. She removed her knife from my neck. I smirked.

"Wrong decision, girl," I said viciously and then kicked her in the stomach to make her let go of me. I pulled out a knife from my jacket that had a number four on its handle. It was extremely long and pointed, like a knife made for sushi. Perfect.

"You can't kill me with that thing!" she exclaimed. I gave her a rueful smile.

"Watch me," I said and threw the knife at her neck at a wicked speed. She didn't even have time to react before the knife killed her, ramming into her the top of her neck. The District Four girl fell to the ground, the giant cut in her neck facing the ground. The blood flowed from her like the fountain outside of the house. I didn't even bother getting the knife. Not only did I not want to deal with all the blood, I had twenty four knives. Even in the Hunger Games, when I have that kind of surplus, I don't need to go out of my way to get a knife. I looked over where Charles stood. The body from the boy was right at his feet, dead. You could tell by the glazed over look in his eyes. Yet there didn't seem anything wrong with him.

"How did you…?" I asked, not wanting to finish.

"A move Master taught me, the Death Pinch. Ten seconds, their unconscious. About after a minute, they're dead." he said. Well, that made it certain. Charles was a black belt in karate. "Now come on. Let's move these corpses out into the street so the hovercraft can take them." I nodded in agreement, but took the boy. I swear he had to have weighed half as much as the girl. Charles, however, could seemingly effortlessly carry the girl to the nearest exit. We tossed them both throw a broken window that it appeared the members of District Four had entered through. Two cannon shots sounded.

"We have to leave this house," I said as soon as the boy had been tossed over. "We should fill up our empty water bottles to as full as possible and leave. The rest of the Career Pack will be on our tail soon."

"No, Zaria," he said. I looked at him.

"Then what do we do?" I asked softly. "They know where we are." He smiled.

"Exactly. They'll expect us to move and will check every house, but only the main room, correct?" he said. I nodded.

"I don't see where this is going," I admitted. Charles's smile just got bigger.

"That's good then. But think Zaria. What's the one place, other than the roof, that we found?" Suddenly it hit me. Of course! We had just been there. I smiled.

"The underground," I said wryly.

"And if what my father told me is correct," Charles added, "then this should connect us to every major area and house in the town."

"What did your father tell you?" I asked.

"Well, I'm almost certain this is the place they called Jingletown. It fits the description exactly, with the brick buildings, the tall clock tower with the inscription, and the high rooftops. Yes, this has to be Jingletown. Anyway, my father told me tons of things about this place. All of its names, some of the people that grew up in this town, even what the motto is on the clock tower. He told me how this place started and how it was supposedly destroyed. I just wonder why the Capitol would pick to make a copy of the place for their arena," he mused. I shuddered.

"If that's true, then I'm sure this place is coming down the same way Jingletown did," I said. "Fire."

"They wouldn't," Charles said. I shook my head.

"Oh yes they would. Just to show everyone a lesson. That no matter what, they are the ultimate power. I'm sure you saw those people at the Opening Ceremony. The ones that promised the return of the City of the Damned. It seems just like the Capitol to crush their spirits, their hopes, by showing what they did to this place and what they can easily do to it again. It's truly sickening," I said bitterly.

"Does this conspiracy theory thing come naturally to you?" Charles asked. I shook my head.

"No. Now come on, we've got to get underground," I said. Charles wordlessly agreed and grabbed my other knives and his staff. I simply marched silently on down to the Underground, our new base.

We came up only to watch the deaths. All of District Four (thanks to us), all of District Eleven, the boy from District Ten and the girl from District Five. That was another six added on to the nine dead already. So we were slightly above half, but not by much. Still, I couldn't help but think of the Career attack Charles and I had today. That many deaths in a day…it almost seemed planned. And the Careers probably sent two of their weaker members for us, other than that man-girl of course. The screen turned off as Charles and I headed back down. I shook all my previous thought from my head. It can't be true, I reasoned. The Careers wouldn't actually plan a ranged attack on all the non-Career groups.

Even with this thought passed me, it still took quite a while to fall asleep that night.