Chapter 11

Note: Just a thank you to all of you who are reviewing and are following this story, especially HoppinginTrees since you spent a lot of time on reviewing and I really appreciate it! And to answer your question, it's named "Johanna, it's you" because that's the first thing Vincentio said to her when he first saw her in the arena when he saved her life from the bears. It made the difference between life and death in her case. Enjoy!

"Shall we go look for food? We also need more firewood for tonight," Vincentio says.

It's been cold in the arena for the past couple of days. Without the warm fire at night, the both of us would freeze to death. The Gamemakers are really good at doing their job of making us suffer. You got to give them credit for that.

"Okay, let's go," I say. We leave our cave again like we did yesterday. Vincentio carries the backpack and his sword. I carry my own water container and spear. I'm still not very comfortable with the spear since it's not what I'm use to and I couldn't work with it in front of the other tributes during training. I tried it out two days ago, but I still got issues with this. Maybe there's some way to get other weapons…

We continue down our trail and find lots of firewood. We drop it off inside the cave and head off again. There's no more meat running around so our only option is to go to that berry bush for more food. We are forty yards away from the bush and I stop Vincentio before we go any further. There's a tribute pigging out at the berry bush. Just when I am about to suggest we go the other way, I see it. It's an axe. A double bladed axe! The girl is holding it. I think I recognise the long dirty blonde hair tied back, it's the girl who came inside our old cave the other day. She dodged Vincentio's spear and ran off calling the names of her allies. Why is she alone? Maybe she didn't find her allies after she ran away from us. She wasn't carrying the axe then. In any case, she's a Career, with an axe I want. Vincentio finally sees her and raises his eyebrows. A huge tree is blocking us from her view so she doesn't notice we're that close to her. Plus, she's busy with the eating. She looks real hungry.

"Let's turn around," Vincentio advises, very softly.

"No, she's too close to our cave. Look at the weapon she has! And the berry bush is our only food source. I don't want to starve to death!" I reply softly, giving perfect excuses. We need to attack. It's the only way I can get that axe from her.

"We have sponsors, Johanna. I know you're scared that she's close, but…" Vincentio whispers, with confusion running in his voice. Just a tad bit more convincing will do.

"She's going to come by our cave like last time. I've been having nightmares about that," I lie. "It's safer to attack now. What if we don't get sponsors? I'm hungry."

Vincentio looks down for a second, as if he's deciding. Perfect. I still sound feeble and above suspicion in front of him, but I convinced him to fight. I know there's a lot more use to this guy.

"Okay. I hope you're good with that spear…" says Vincentio. He prepares his shield and is in ready position with his sword. "On a count of three…"

"One."

I hold on tightly to my spear. It's time to fight. I must get that axe if I'll have any chance of winning. I'll make Vincentio fight for me so I won't get injuries.

"Two."

Remember Johanna, stay behind him.

"Three!"

We charge towards the girl who's still munching on the berries. Her eyes open wide the moment she sees us and defends herself with her axe. The two of them are fighting at the berry bush and I'm just standing there being confused, not knowing what to do. I would help Vincentio, but I can't let him know I can fight. He'll be cautious of me and I won't be able to take the axe without him being all suspicious. I stay behind Vincentio at all times holding my spear in ready position, just in case the girl attacks me. The two are blocking each other's attack with their own weapons. Vincentio has a slight advantage with the shield but the girl has amazing reflexes. Well, she is a Career. She's trained to be here. All of a sudden, Vincentio's sword finds home above the girl's stomach causing her to scream to pain. Vincentio then tries to injure the girl's wrist so it frees from the axe, but not before the girl throws the axe towards his stomach with her limited strength. Both of them are now on the ground, injured. The axe is free from the girl's hands, right beside Vincentio. Vincentio still has the sword in his hand but is lying on his side, moaning in great pain.

"Johanna!" he screams.

I know what he wants. He wants me to finish her off. I'm capable of doing that. My heart is still beating fast from all the action but I'm not scared since she's barely able to move from the injury. It must be pretty terrible. I must finish her off before she finds any sort of strength to escape or attack.

I run towards her and stab her in the heart with my spear. The girl's eyes open wide and a soft moan comes out of her. Two seconds later, the cannon fires. Vincentio is behind me still moaning in pain. Should I finish him off? This would be a good time to break the alliance…

"Johanna, let's clear out," says Vincentio, his voice is not too weak. He stands up and walks towards me with one hand holding on to the sword and one hand covering his wound. Blood is coming out of it but it's probably not that deep since the girl was injured herself when this was done. I pick up the axe and leave the spear in the girl's stomach. I don't want it anyways, now that I have this axe.

Thank you, Vincentio.

"Let's go back to the cave then, I'll take a look at your cut," I suggest, forgetting about the berries I'm suppose to pick. Who's in the mood to pick berries anyways?

As we're walking back to the cave, I know I made a good decision of not attacking Vincentio. I guess that wound just hurt badly for that one moment. It's not bleeding that much and he can walk just fine. I've seen this guy fight twice and he's not one you want to fight close up with. It seems like he's better at close up combat than something from a distance. I don't even know if I'm his match quite honestly. I know I'm better with the axe than the girl. My advantage is that he's unsuspicious of me and won't see anything coming if I decide to attack. Suddenly, he seems just as dangerous, if not more, than all the other Careers in this arena. Actually, he may even be more dangerous since he killed two Careers. The only two Careers dead were kills of Vincentio Baitsley. Just as we're about to go inside the entrance of our cave, a silver parachute descends from the sky. I catch it as it falls, it feels very warm. It must be food.

Once we get inside, I make a fire with the firewood we got earlier. I take out the box of remedies from his backpack and lift up his shirt and jacket to see the wound. Just as I thought, it's not too deep. Not enough to kill him at least. His thick jacket protected his organs and a lot of layers of flesh. I spray that spray on the wound he used on me after the bear attack. His whole body tightens. The spray does sting the wound a whole lot, but it gets a lot better afterwards. Lastly, I wrap up the wound with the bandages provided in the box of remedies.

"Thanks," he says.

"No problem. I'm sorry I was no help during the fight. I was just… I don't know. I'm glad you're okay now though. Anyways, you want to eat?" I ask.

"Sure," he says. I open up the silver parachute to find a perfect loaf of plain bread, for the both of us. I divide up the loaf and we finish it in no time. The bread will be enough for the night.

"Why don't you get some sleep? I'll wake you when the anthem plays," I say. We have nothing to do anyways.

He smiles and nods. Within minutes, he's asleep with the sword in his hand. An hour later, I decide to head out. This should be a good time to leave. I think about the possibility of killing him in his sleep, but in case I don't succeed, I might be the one killed. Why not let him and the Careers fight it out? Now that I got the axe, I actually have a chance. It's decided, I'm leaving him for the Careers. Should I take anything with me? No, that might wake him and I don't need all that stuff. The only thing useful is the box of remedies but it's not worth getting caught. I should probably get some ropes that we left outside as traps. I'll just take apart as many of the snares as I can and make a run for it. There are only nine people left anyways.

Just as I make my way quietly towards the entrance. I hear his voice. "Johanna?"

Damn. I turn around and act concerned. "Is something wrong?"

"Where are you going?" he asks, curiously but not suspiciously.

"I'm out of water. Want me to fill up your bottle too?" I ask. At least that's the truth.

He nods and I head out to fill up my bottle and his. Maybe I should've waited a bit longer before I attempt to leave but I didn't want the anthem to wake him while I'm trying to run away. I fill our bottle up with snow and head back in to melt it by putting it near the fire. I have to head off soon, I no longer feel safe around who could be the most dangerous person in this arena.

"Is something wrong?" Vincentio asks. This has been my biggest mistake so far. I forgot to hide my emotions for just this one second. My face was giving out a "worried and concerned" message and it's too late to take it back.

"I killed someone today," I improvise, as if that's what I'm concerned about. Of course I'm not happy to kill people, but again, my survival comes first. And like Andreev suggests, I like to think of these people as creatures the Capitol sent.

He offers me his shoulder and I manage to pretend to cry. I am so pathetic, I should laugh at myself. I just need to make him think that I'm really weak and he would never need to be cautious around me. Oh, and I'm a sweet girl inside and out.

"Is that why you took the axe?" he asks. "You didn't want to take the spear out of that girl's stomach?"

Thank you Vincentio! The butcher's son just made my life a whole lot easier!

"Yes… I was scared," I say, pathetically.

The anthem soon plays at a perfect time to announce the end of day 6. They show the dirty blonde girl from District 2 and the sky is completely dark again. So far, it's been eventful every single day. There are only nine players left in the arena. Fifteen are dead already. I try to think about those who are left. There are four Careers including that boy, Oberon, who got a 10 in training. There's Vincentio and me, obviously. There are three other people… I don't even remember their District numbers. Wait… our very own District Seven's Donnie Ostroff is still alive. That little boy is a smart one… I thought he'd be dead the first day. Anyhow, even the Careers might be breaking off their alliance soon so I might as well before it's too late.

"Go to sleep, I'll keep watch," says Vincentio.

I lie down and turn to the side away from Vincentio and hold on securely to my knife attached to my belt. After what happened today, with the girl's death and all, I know this alliance is about to end. The hardest part is to get away from Vincentio because he'll try to kill me the moment he finds out I want to break this alliance. It seems like he's still fond of us being allied though. The "weakling act" must continue. I've been dependent on him to fight for me, this must stop now and I'll be the one to fight him.

The deadliest parts of the Games have begun.

Thank you for reading!