Chapter 10- The 2nd day
We all wake up suddenly because of extreme heat and crackling noises. My eyes fling open to see tall, bright orange flames racing for us. "Everyone run!" yells Marina.
All 6 of us race away from the fire which was obviously machine generated. The flames scorched our faces and deafened us with it's roars. Cato is running in the front and he slides to a stop just in time because seconds later a huge fireball flies in front of him. It would have burnt him to a crisp. Marvel was right behind Cato, this concerned me even further. Marvel could've skidded forward and got burned to death.
We keep running for about 5 minutes when we hear a horrific scream from behind us. It's Peeta, he's lying several metres behind us to the left. Every inch of his skin is raw, bleeding, peeling and smoking, his jacket is on fire and his eyes are closed tight. A fireball has burned him to a crisp! A cannon sounds and we know he is dead. The remaining 5 of us keep running further until the fire just stopped. We all stopped and began panting rapidly.
"Oh my god! Why the fuck would they just start a fire?" Cato screamed ruthlessly.
"Don't you get it? It was to kill Katniss! The girl on fire! Stupid gamemakers." Clove chuckles.
"Well Loverboy's dead." Marina sighs
"Oh well, one less to kill!" Marvel exclaims.
"He didn't even find Katniss!" I scoff
"Let's move guys, before the fire moves this way." Cato snaps
We walk through the woods for a while, often hearing screams of tributes being burned by fire or the low rumbles of the flying fireballs. We were too tired from the fire to pursue the tributes so we just walked looking for a good camp. Later on, we began to become our normal selves and so we were in the mood for hunting tributes. We began to trot onwards gradually becoming faster and faster. Our little pack gallop onto some rocks by the river laughing and joking when Marvel cries out "Hey! Look there she is!". We peer around to see Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire soaking in a pond. We all instantly began to race after her shouting things like "She's mine!" and "We're coming for you!". Our voices were hoarse and raspy from the fires smoke and we had burns on our bodies from the flames so we weren't as fast as usual. I noticed Katniss was limp-running away, she must've been got by the fire pretty bad. Almost instantly we were hot on her trail. Probably because she was a hundred times slower than usual. She disappeared into a cluster of bushes and when we ran through those same bushes seconds later she was gone! Cato yells "We got her!".
I look up to see Katniss sitting comfortably on a high up tree branch. "That's not going to help you up there Katniss" I taunt.
"How's everything with you?" Katniss called down cheerfully.
"Well enough, yourself?" says Cato
"It's been a bit warm for my taste" She says. "The air is better up here, why don't you come on up." she says.
"I think I will" Cato snarls.
I offer Cato my bow but he declines it, he says he'll do better with his sword. Cato begins to climb up the tree but Katniss climbed farther up as he was doing so. Suddenly the branches begin to crack and Cato plummets to the ground along with a branch! Clove inhales sharply at this. Marvel nods at me and I begin to scale the tree, soon enough the branches crack under my weight as well. I stopped climbing and jumped down into Marvels warm arms and kiss him passionately right in the view of Katniss.
Marvel places me on the ground softly and winks at me. I turn with smirk across my face and knock and arrow to my bow. I point the bow at Katniss, who now was 80 feet up and release the arrow. The arrow flies up into the branches and lodges in a branch near her shoulder. Katniss grbas the arrow and waves it around mockingly. This angers me and I send another arrow speeding towards her and it buries itself deeply in her right shoulder. She shrieks in pain and drops my previous arrow to the ground. I retrieve it and place it in my quiver. We all laugh at her. "Great shot baby" Marvel exclaims loudly so Katniss and the Capitol hear it. A puzzled look appears on her face. "You guys are dating?" she says. "How sweet.".
"Ye they are dating." says Marina watching Marvel kiss my cheek gently.
"Are you jealous Katniss?" Clove sneers wickedly.
"No, no I'm waiting for Peeta to find me actually." She smirks.
All 5 of the careers erupts in laughter. She thinks he's alive! How funny.
"Katniss, haven't you heard? He's dead! He burned to death in that fire. We let him die, he was in our pack!" I yell with an evil smile on my face.
The smirk on her face is replaced with a pained expression.
"Alright guys. Let's leave her alone for now. Set up a camp right here. We'll wait her out for now." Cato says.
The Careers settle down around a fire and I think about Peeta's death. It was grotesque. The thoughts would bring nightmares for sure so I snuggled up against Marvel's warm body.
I glanced over to my right where Cato and Clove were sitting very close together whispering about something. I had noticed that they'd started becoming close since we'd been in the Capitol. I wondered if there was something between them as well as Marvel and I. I think of this as I drift quietly off into a deep slumber.