WARNING: From now on, there will be violence, blood and unpleasant circumstances. Just so you know.

Right, I'm going to warn you now... this chapter ain't pretty. It won't all be like this, I promise (I'm not planning too many horrifically gory deaths) but well, this is the bloodbath, so there's gonna be blood. I'm also well aware that the 70th Hunger Games were described as 'boring', but no one wants to read boringness, so I'm going to ignore that, at least at first anyway.

So here we go ... Let the Games Begin!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - ALL PART OF THE GAMES

The gong rings out, loud and clear in the silent clearing and for the briefest of moments, time stands still... But them I'm off, sprinting across the clearing like a deer, my eyes fixed firmly on my weapon. What I'll do after I've got it in my hands, I'm not entirely sure. All I know is that I need a weapon and my best bet is that spear.

I fly across the grass and there's only about three metres between me and my prize, when someone barrels straight into me. All the air leaves my lungs and with a breathless cry, I hit the ground, rolling over a few times. I land on my stomach and look up – dismayed– to see the boy from District 6 on the ground a few metres away. We stare at each other for a second, both wide eyed and winded – neither having meant to run into each other – but then he scrabbles in the grass and I see his fingers close around a knife.

No!

I risk a glance for my spear but it's too far and I won't reach it in time. I turn, panic stricken, back to the boy and see the knife is in his hand, raised above his head.

My only thought is how humiliating it's going to be to die in the first thirty seconds of the Games.

But then an arrow pierces his wrist, and he screams in agony, his blade falling harmlessly to the ground. I look over his shoulder to see Elenna, standing a good fifteen metres away, her bow raised and still pointing at the boy from District 6. Our eyes meet and I want to ask her why, but then she turns tail and bolts, disappearing into the greenery before my lips have even formed the word.

I drag myself to my knees, turning my attention back to the District 6 boy. Despite his injury, he's going for the knife again.

"Oh no you don't." Reuben appears above him, already armed with two axes. The boy drops the knife in alarm and scrambles backwards, all arms and legs like a terrified insect. I expect Reuben to smash one of the axes into his head, but he drops them next to me and swoops in on the boy. I hear a sickening snap of bone as Reuben's arm tugs backwards and then the boy from District 6 falls, a limp body on the ground, his neck twisted at an odd angle.

Reuben turns to me and holds out a hand. A hand which seconds ago snapped someone's neck. But well, if it wasn't for Reuben, I'd be dead, so I take it and let him pull me to my feet.

"You alright?" he asks, picking up both his axes and effortlessly swinging the one over to rest on his broad shoulder. I realise I'm very very glad to have him on my side, even if it's only for the time being.

"Yeah," I shoot him a grateful smile. "Thanks."

"No problem." His eye rests on something just behind me. "Were you aiming for that?"

I turn to see my spear, still lying unclaimed in the grass.

"Yes, but I..." I dart over and pick it up. "I sort of got held up." I straighten and move back towards Reuben, passing the weapon from hand to hand as I do so. It's long, lean weight is reassuring in my hands.

I suddenly realise there's not much fighting going on around us.

"Wait." I glance around just in time to see Ash yank his sword from some boy's body. Ugh. "Is it over already?"

"Mostly," Reuben says, looking over my shoulder, his expression tightening. I turn and follow his gaze to where Seela has a small blood soaked body pinned to the ground. The screams are suddenly awfully loud in the near silent clearing.

"Who?" I ask quietly, although I think I already know. My stomach flips and I have to swallow back the rising nausea. Please let me be wrong.

Reuben doesn't answer me since he's already striding off towards Seela and her sobbing captive. I race after him.

"Annie!" Ethan jogs up behind me, a bloody harpoon in his hand... Bloody? He sees my expression and has the decency to look embarrassed. "Jasmine's kill really. I just finished him off." I nod but by then we're nearing Seela and the screams distract him. "Oh hell, is that Mia?"

It is Mia. Shy, little, dark haired, twelve-year-old Mia, trapped beneath Seela's thighs, the older girl's knife travelling teasingly across her pale skin. As I get closer, I see her stomach has been sliced open – cleanly, neatly, the work of a sabre – and there's no way she'll recover from it, no way she'll live.

The little girl is dying and Seela is enjoying torturing her.

I feel tears burn in the corners of my eyes, but what can I do? Seela has to be my ally and she's not the kind of person you interfere with. I stop a little behind Ethan, feeling worse than I ever have in my entire life. Mia screams again – high pitched agonised begging – and my heart twists. Reuben's eyes briefly meet mine and I can tell he's hating this too. Reuben is no coward but even he doesn't want to stop Seela on her blood-thirsty mission. None of us want to ruin the alliance before it's even begun.

There's a few more seconds of cries, and then I see Ethan tense up. Suddenly and furiously, he strides forward and slams his harpoon into the little girl's chest. Her head slumps almost immediately and the clearing is silent.

Relief is my first emotion – the little girl is no longer suffering – but then it's completely overshadowed by the shame... Ethan had the guts to do what no one else would. I have to swallow a couple of times to work past the unforgiving lump in my throat.

Seela stilled the moment Ethan intervened, but now she stands, slowly and ominously, seething with anger. She turns on him.

"That was my kill!" she hisses.

"Kill?" Ethan snaps incredulously as he yanks out his harpoon. (I flinch at the awful sound). "You weren't killing her, you were playing with her."

Seela shrugs.

"So what? It's all part of the Games."

"She's a little girl!" Ethan growls, the harpoon clutched so tightly in his hands, his knuckles are white.

"Was," Seela reminds him nastily. "Was a little girl. Now she's just a body." She even has the gall to kick back at the poor little thing behind her. I think Ethan's about to explode, his face has gone so red, but I can't let him. Seela is awful, disgusting and sadistic but unless we want a similar fate to Mia's, we can't provoke her – not yet anyhow.

"You, you...!" Ethan stutters, taking a step towards Seela, so furious he can barely speak. Her hand moves automatically towards the sabre at her belt, but I step in between them, a warning hand on Ethan's chest. I think briefly of Mags telling me that Ethan's staunch belief in never backing down would cause problems in the area. I hadn't realised it would be so soon.

"Ethan, stop it," I tell him, feeling awful, but knowing that, unless we want a full scale Career battle on our hands, I have to smooth this over. "It doesn't matter, not anymore. She's dead now and that's the end of it." I glance at Seela. "For the both of you."

I half expect Seela to cut me in half for daring to take charge, but am saved by Ash, who has up till now remained silent.

"Cool it, Seela," he says, casually inspecting the sharpness of his sword. "There are plenty more tributes left for you to have your fun with."

Feeling a little ill but mostly grateful for this intervention, I nod.

"You can do what you like, Seela," I say. "I'm sure Ethan just wanted to end the bloodbath so we can look over the supplies..." I turn to him, my voice rising a little desperately. "Right, Ethan?"

He's still seething, his chest rising and falling too fast under my hand, but I stare meaningfully up at him, trying to convey just through my eyes how we can't fight with them yet, how we need the Careers to stay together, how if he and Seela fight, the others will have to take sides and frankly, I'm not sure how many will choose ours. It takes him a few seconds, but then I see him realise all of these things and let out a little breath.

His muscles relax beneath my fingers and he takes a step away.

"I'm sorry," he says stiffly to Seela. "I won't interfere in your kills again."

She smirks – vaguely placated, maybe even a little smug that Ethan had to cave – but then glances around her, frowning.

"Not much of a bloodbath, was it?" she says, sounding disappointed. I look around too and spot only four bodies. Almost immediately, I feel bad for thinking 'only'.

"Four," Preese says seriously. "That's unusually low."

I see Ash's eyes narrow.

"Did none of you do anything?" He asks irritably.

"You only killed one." Jasmine points out. I'd been pretty much thinking the same thing, but being the coward that I am, hadn't said it out loud.

"There wasn't anyone to kill!" To say Ash isn't very happy about this is an understatement. "Not near me, anyway."

"I think most of the others ran straight away," I say, determined to peacemake. "I guess we're pretty intimidating."

It was a mistake to speak, I realise, since it draws Ash's attention to me.

"What about you, Cresta?" he scowls. "Did you do anything useful?"

I swallow. What do I say to that?

"Yeah." Fortunately, Reuben jumps in. "She helped me take out the boy from 6."

"Oh." Ash seems to run out of steam. "Right."

There is a silence, in which I cast a grateful look in Reuben's direction.

"Let's clear out," Ethan says suddenly. "Let them take the bodies and then we can come back and sort through the supplies."

"That sounds like a plan," Jasmine says brightly.

As we move towards the forest, the cannons begin to fire.

Four cannons. The other tributes will hear them around the arena and they'll know the extraordinarily low death toll. It's almost embarrassing, actually, in a weird, twisted kind of way. After all, we've been bigged up in the Capitol as the Great Career Pack – the biggest in years, made up of very talented people, a good mix of skills etc etc – and at the most opportune time, the only time when everyone's together, we've only managed to remove four tributes from the playing fields. I can tell Ash is still angry with us all... and himself, probably.

Still, four down, only nineteen left to go, a voice that sounds remarkably like Violet's breezes inside my head.

You're a monster for thinking that, I tell myself miserably as, from the edge of the clearing, we watch the hovercrafts take away the first bodies. A real monster.

...

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