Finnick watches his tribute be sick, cringing. He's feel his own stomach churn, but not because of Devon's illness, instead it's because of the person standing beside her.
Cato.
Finnick grits his teeth at the sight of the blond boy dancing back and forth on his feet, narrowly missing what was once Devon's breakfast. His lips are pressed together, and he carefully walks behind the sick girl and reaches into her pack, pulling out a small cloth that he throws at her before he runs off to be a good distance away from her.
He feels a soft, trembling hand is on his arm and he turns around to see Mags. The old women with her soft brown eyes immediately comfort him. Finnick takes a breath before turning back to the screen, only to see that Devon is now standing straight and rubbing her forehead with her hand. Cato is still a few feet away but his eyes are trained on her, and his hand is reaching towards the female.
"You okay?" he asks.
Finnick girts his teeth again. "Do you trust him?" he asks Mags.
The silent women shakes her head, her white hair falling over her shoulders. The two Victors stare at the District Two boy, knowing their own tribute is far, far too close for comfort. They still vividly remember what happened to their tribute girl, Shoshanna, last year at the hands of the District Two monster. Finnick remembers how he and Mags held each other, sobbing, as they listened to her screams, and watched as the monster slowly break her limbs with rocks, wrapped her neck in barbed wire, then cut off her fingers. The absolute worst was when he decided to flay her.
There was barely anything left when he was done, only blood in the snow. The monster kept some of her skin as a souvenir.
As the day turned into night, Devon wishes she could just run away to the water. They had passed by the river multiple times and she was so close to just throwing herself in and letting it wash her away. But she couldn't leave her brother.
The careers wanted to continue hunting throughout the night. Devon, of course, didn't argue because she wasn't really in the mood to have Clove cut off her ear for arguing. It's so dark that night, and Clove has spotted a campfire and is currently running to the spot where some poor, unknowing tribute is waiting.
Devon tries her best to keep up with the other careers, so she's blindly following Cato as he runs through the shrubbery, seemingly giddy at the prospect of killing another human. Is that all he is? Just a monster? She wonders as she runs, but her lack of attention soon has consequences. Her foot catches on a large root and she hurtles to the ground. She lands with a loud thud, her hands thrown out in front of herself to brace her fall. One hits a sharp rock and her breath catches in her throat.
"Fuck," she groans. She pushes herself on her knees and looks up, but sees that the other three careers have vanished into the night. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise. She could try and get back to camp, get Spens… they could run away. She glances behind her at the empty woods and the thought becomes appealing. She stands up, wiping the dirt on her pants, still looking at the path behind her.
"Thinking of running?"
The voice comes out of the darkness and scares her so much she lets out a small scream and jumps, falling down again. Marvel comes out of the tree, his spear glinting in the moonlight. Her eyes widen and she scrambles back.
"No, I wasn't!" She gasps out.
The shadows fall across his face, his green eyes glinting dangerously. He steps towards her, his spear pointed at her stomach. "I think you were. You were going to betray us? On the first night? I should have known. District Four tributes are only getting weaker, and you're the weakest. I need to kill you, the others will understand. And after I'm done with you, I'll get that brother of yours. Son of Poseidon, that's what they call him right? Unbelievable… I can't wait to drive a spear through his stomach. It will be slow and you'll family will have to watch."
Devon can only stare at him with her mouth open. Her heart feels like it stopped and she can't breathe. But then a thought finally gets through to her: Spens. She needs to protect him. He's here because of her and she won't let some lunatic kill him.
Marvel raises his spear and she only has time to jump out of the way as it comes hurtling towards her. It misses her torso but slices her arm. She lets out a cry and clutches the wound. She starts running, and she can hear Marvel chasing her. In the distance, she can also here Clove screaming something. Maybe she knows what's happening? Maybe Cato is with her. He did save her once, but she doubts the gesture will be returned a second time.
Marvel sprints and closes the distance between them, grabbing her jacket and causing them both to crash to the ground. She screams again.
Cato is running after the two careers, Clove close behind him. He's furious that Marvel thought he had the right to take his prey away from him.
He finally reaches them as Marvel grabs Devon by her jacket and pulls her to the ground. However, there's one thing neither of them noticed: they're both very close to the edge of a cliff, which is directly above the white water river. The two struggle for a moment, and both roll closer to the edge.
"Marvel- the river!" Cato roars.
Marvel looks up just as he punches Devon in the side. The girl looks up at Cato for a split second, but with that final bit of force, she goes tumbling down the side of the cliff. Marvel tries to catch her by her hair, but she's already crashing down into the violent water.
The three careers go to the edge and wait for her to reappear, but she's nowhere in sight. There's no canon either.
"She'll drown." Clove says, nodding to the rapids that are stationed below. Cato grits his teeth. No sooner did he have the girl in his hands did he lose her again. He turns around and gives Marvel a powerful shove, causing the boy to go flying back and land on the grass.
"What the fuck!" the District one boy screams as he scrambles to his feet.
"I was going to be the one who killed her," Cato rumbles, his voice low and icy.
"She was going to leave us, she was a traitor. I had to do it," Marvel snapped. He crosses his arms. "Besides, you wouldn't have done it anyways."
"What did you say?" Cato yells, grabbing Marvel by the collar of his shirt and drags the boy towards him.
"Stop it!" Clove yells and tries to pull Cato's arm off, but he's too strong for her.
"You had the chance to kill her but you didn't! You never would have done it!" Marvel yells. His fist connects with Cato's ribs and it causes the boy to stumble, releasing Marvel while he does so. Marvel's green eyes have a dangerous glint in them and Cato realizes he may not be entirely be sane. Marvel is getting closer and closer to him, and Cato has taken a few steps back, until his heel reaches the edge of the cliff.
"You should join her!" Marvel yells. Cato draws his sword, but in that moment Clove throws one of her knives and it hands in the grass only a centimetre away from Marvel's toe. It was meant to be a threat, but it threw Marvel over the edge. He runs forward and with one powerful shove, Cato is thrown off the edge of the cliff, but not before Cato's sword is embedded in Marvel's thigh. A second later, another dagger gets lodged in his neck. Clove is standing there, her mouth wide open as she realizes she's now alone. The boy gurgles and loses his balance, and he goes crashing down the side of the cliff.
Cato is falling quickly and his body slams into the rough water. His back is raw with the impact, and he's pulled underneath the water and soon the ice cold liquid fills his nose and mouth. He can only see black and white as his body is dragged over the riverbed. He kicks violently, only managing to get up for a gasp of air once. The sword is long gone, and he's desperately trying to grab something that will stop him from being hauled through the water. But nothing comes to his aid, and despite how in shape and strong his lungs are, the water filling his airways is becoming too much. He tries one more time to get air, and when his foot connects with a rock he gets an opportunity. With one mighty kick he comes up, coughing water out as he does so. All too soon, he's sucked underneath once again and then he's thrown full force into a large boulder that was underneath the water. Soon, black spots start exploding across his vision, and he starts choking on the water.
This is it.
His thoughts drift to Cerys and he prays she isn't watching, but he knows she is. He's failed her. With that final thought, the water overcomes him and everything goes black.
Devon sits on the rock bed, still trying to get the water out of her lungs. The sun is coming up, and all she can think of is how stupid her decision was to volunteer. She wishes she just had kept her mouth shut. She's starting to shiver and her eyes look back to the river that nearly engulfed her, but she only survived because the strap of her pack got snagged on a sharp rock, which temporarily stopped her and gave her enough time to grab an exposed root of the tree on the shore, and she was able to pull herself up. She was lucky.
As she looks at the water, she sees something that makes her do a double take. A flash of red, and the blond of his hair. It's Cato. He's unconscious, bobbing up and down in the water, but as soon as she sees him, he gets sucked underneath again and goes flying past her in the water. She jumps to her feet and runs along the shore, trying to keep up with him. What is he doing here?! How did he get in the water? These are all questions she'll need to find the answer to later, because she knows that he won't last much longer in this state. Should she even bother to save him… it would be one less person to battle with. But he did save her. She owes him.
She's trying to think fast, but she can't seem to come up with a solution of how to stop his body from going through the water. But then as she looks up, she sees something that makes her get some hope, the violent water eventually steadies out into a calmer pond. But that's still a far distance away, and he will be drowned by then. So, she makes a stupid decision. She jumps back in the water, a few feet ahead of Cato. She holds her breath, goes underwater and holds her arms out and a moment later, the blond boy crashes into her. She manages to drape one of his arms over her shoulder, and then she kicks hard enough that his face is finally in the air. Then she sees something that might be their salvation: a large boulder, which looks like it could be big enough to temporarily hold the two of them. She kicks herself, so they veer to the left and a second later their bodies slam into the boulder. With the crushing weight of the water at their backs, the two are held in position.
"Cato, wake up!" she screams as water begins to get into her nose and mouth, but there's no answer. She'll have to get him up on her own. She slips his arm off her shoulder and uses her right hand to guide herself slightly to the right of the boulder, and then her foot finds a small ledge on the rock. She nestles her foot in and then with one, two, three, nudges she manages to pull herself on top. She's still holding on to Cato's hand. Once she's sitting on her knees. She reaches down with both hands and slips the under his arms, and it takes her a few tries before she can pull him out of the crushing water. They slump back on the boulder, but Cato is still unresponsive.
"Oh my God," she groans as she pushes him on his back, the boulder is small enough that she's practically sitting on top of him. She shakes his shoulder, but there's still no response. So, she folds her hands together and put them on his chest, and pushes hard.
1, 2, 3.
She reaches forward, tilting his head back and pinching his nose together before using her other hands to open his mouth. She puts her lips on his and gives him as much air as she can muster. She pulls away, and does the compressions once again.
1, 2, 3.
She leans forward and puts her mouth on his again, breathing once more. Suddenly, she feels a movement and he jerks awake, nearly shoving her off. He sits up, violently coughing and shaking as the water empties out of his lungs. She holds on to the back of his jacket so he doesn't fall in again.
"What, what happened?" he gasps out between coughs and looks at her with his blood shot blue eyes, his voice is barely audible over the sound of the crashing water. At that moment, Marvel's lifeless body goes whizzing by them in the white water.
She shakes her head before flopping back on the boulder as he continues coughing. "We need to stop owing each other..." she whispers.
A/N: Hi guys! Hope you're enjoying the read :) let me know what you think of the chapter!