Judgment
Gentle hands roused him from the blackness. Gentle hands on his face, forehead, neck, silently asking him to rejoin the living.
"Dean? Dean, please wake up. Dean?"
The angel's voice sounded so strange. Almost like she was crying.
No, no. Angels shouldn't weep.
"Dean, wake up!"
Something cold was laying against his heart, almost piercing his skin due to the hands that were still roaming his chest, looking for something. A heartbeat, maybe?
He could feel his eyelids starting to flutter. Her gray face slowly came into focus.
She was alive. Jo was alive.
Alive.
He sat up way too fast as he pulled her into his arms, kissing her face, hands, and neck.
"Are you all right?" he asked her, feeling tears of relief starting to burn his eyes. "I don't understand. The cannon-?!"
Jo gently tried to calm him, her soft hands dancing over his cheeks and neck. "I'm fine, Dean. You scared the hell out of me. I woke up and found you in an alarming pool of blood and a parachute with some sort of medicine that fixed up your neck."
His hand darts to his throat. He can feel the puckered pink line there, his finger tracing the healing skin. "Ruby got to me. She jumped me at the Feast and started to cut me up. And then Rachel came out and grabbed her, killed her with her own knife."
"Wait a minute, Rachel?" Jo interrupted. "Rachel from District 11? Thank God she didn't get you too."
"She let me go," Dean answered quietly. "Ruby was trashing Ben and that's what-" His voice broke. "I guess that's what set her off. And she turned to me and asked me what I did for Ben. I told her and she let me go. She said that it was for Ben but just that one time."
Jo took a deep breath. "Dean-"
"What?"
"Rachel's dead."
The only way was that Brady had gotten her. That was the only way. Rachel could have easily overpowered Foxfire, he could tell that now after seeing what she had done to Ruby.
He didn't expect this to hit him so hard. Now there was just Brady and Foxfire to get rid of and he and Jo could go home. But if something happened to the two of them, he really had hoped that Rachel could win it. It would really do some good for her family and for Ben's.
Home.
The word was sounding nicer and nicer by the minute.
He could see his father...Lisa...Sam. He missed his little brother more than ever. It was hard to believe that it had been a month since he had seen him.
"Wait a minute-Dean, wasn't your birthday yesterday?"
Jo's voice startled him out of his thoughts. His birthday?
Oh, his birthday.
He was officially eighteen years old.
"Oh, my..."
Jo let out a sigh, her hand resting on his arm. "Happy birthday, Dean." And then her lips brushed against his temple. His eyes closed at her touch, leaning into her. As she finally pulled away, he could hear words that were like an angel's breath escape her. "I'm sorry."
It is really late when the parachute touches down. The temperature had dropped at least thirty degrees, causing a slight chill in the air. It was nearing the end and the Gamemakers were obviously trying to draw the remaining tributes out.
Dean slowly crawls to the mouth of the cave, grabbing the parachute and untethering it from it's link. He opens the pack and lets out a shout.
"Finally!"
"What is it?" asks Jo. The pack falls at her feet and she pulls it open. It is filled to the brim with food. Warm rolls, packaged cooked steaks, tiny chickens filled with cream sauce, jellied candies, and even a tureen of rice and pork stew. "Oh, my goodness..."
Dean chuckles as he slides back down the slope and lands on his feet beside her. "Bobby finally came through. After living on wild mushrooms and roots for the last two days, I guess he got tired of watching us eat like birds."
Jo rolled her eyes as she slowly pulled satchels of food from the pack. "Let's eat this slowly and make it last. Just in case we wind up staying in here for a longer period of time."
It's quite difficult not to gobble the whole pack down at once. But with Jo slapping his hand away whenever he reaches for more, it's finally clear. Must make the food last.
"Seriously, girl. I am going to bruise if you do that one more time."
"Sorry."
And of course, remembering the 'star crossed lovers' bull, he leans over and plants a gentle kiss on her nose. He thinks he's done pretty well with everything that has happened so far in these Games. She blushed before raising her eyebrows in the perfect silent question. He answers it with a sly smile and a slight shrug of the shoulders.
"Just out of curiosity, are you ever going to tell me how you earned that nine in your private session?"
"We need to end this."
Jo's quiet voice pulled him out of a light doze. Dean sat up straighter and looked at her.
"You're thinking that too?"
They moved silently through the brush. Dean took down a groosling and a small squirrel as they walked. Jo took the time to skin them and clean them, telling him that she needed something to do with her hands. She did wander off on him once, looking for roots and berries.
"Jo, can you please stop doing that? You're scaring the hell out of me!"
"Sorry!"
The cannon went off early in the morning.
"What the-?"
"Dean!"
"Jo, I'm here!"
The bow fell to the ground as he caught Jo's tiny form in his arms, pulling her against him in a tight embrace. Tears were in her eyes and a sob was in her throat.
"I heard the cannon!" she nearly cried. "Are you all right?"
Dean hugged her back, gently running his hand over her shoulders. "I'm fine. It's okay."
She finally calmed down after another few minutes, unwrapping herself from around his body. "Who do you think it was?"
"We can only hope that it was Brady."
And of course, it wasn't.
Foxfire's emaciated body was hanging about twenty feet away, her mouth open and her neck bloated with a thin snare wrapped around it. Dean peered a little closer and recognized the snare as one that could catch large turkey and small deer. Foxfire's body was so small and slight that with one stumble, it could easily shoot around her body and wrap around her neck.
Dean remembered he and Lisa attempting that snare once or twice but never being able to catch anything. When he nearly got tangled up in one, they knew better than to try it again anytime soon.
The hovercraft touched down moments later, the large metallic claw snaking out and hooking itself around Foxfire's body. The cord snapped and fluttered behind her as she was lifted up and swallowed by the gaping hole of the hovercraft entrance.
The two stood for a moment, watching as the hovercraft disappeared into the sky. Dean then found himself looking at Jo.
He had never seen her look so cold in all of his life.
"Let's get moving," he finally whispered, gently touching her hand.
Jo shook herself out of it, looking back at him. "You're right."
It wasn't surprising to them when they stumbled into the clearing where the Cornucopia lay.
It was time to end this.
"I'll get some water," Jo whispered, taking the bottles and the iodine from his pack and slowly heading for the lake. '
He followed her, holding her hand as they slid down the mucky embankment. He filled the bottles with the icy water and she dropped the iodine into it, shaking it up and replacing the caps.
"Where is he?" she suddenly murmured, looking around them. "I can't stand this tension."
"I know what you mean," replied Dean. "It's driving me even more crazy than I already am."
Jo sighed before she turned, taking the muddy embankment at a run and getting to the top. She offered her hand to which he took, pulling him up behind her.
Brady could be anywhere. Anywhere at all in this arena. But they knew that he was close by, waiting for exactly the right moment.
The right moment came quite quickly.
Darkness was slowly starting to fall, even though it couldn't even have been noon.
"I think it's almost time for the kick-off," Dean murmured, pulling on Jo's hand. "Let's-"
That's when they see the first ball of light.
"What the hell is that?"
The light touched down less than five feet away from the couple and began to take shape.
"What the-?" Dean felt himself stutter before his jaw widened in shock.
The light had turned into Sam.
"Dean!"
He wasn't really sure who had called his name.
But this wasn't the twelve year old Sam he had left behind. This Sam was older, maybe eighteen or nineteen years old. His hair was longer, his bangs were shaggier, and even though he was encircled by light, his eyes were still the puppy-dog hazel that he adored.
"Dean! That's not Sam!"
So it was Jo that was calling his name.
Mutt-Sam slowly started towards the two of them. As he got closer, Dean could make out smears of some dark brown substance on his coat and face. Looking even closer, Dean could also see that the substance was blood coming from four perfect holes in his front.
Dean was frozen. He couldn't move even though he didn't even bother to try. Jo was pulling on his arms, tryng desperately to get some sort of movement from him. Absolutely nothing could get him to move.
Mutt-Sam continued coming. His mouth opened and some blood dribbled down onto his front. His arm extended in a leering point.
"Sammy..."
"DEAN!"
And then Mutt-Sam was gone. Brady had ran right through him, rushing past them and heading straight for the Cornucopia.
"Dean, move!"
Jo had followed Brady, almost running up the side of the Cornucopia. Dean felt himself finally be able to move and he gave her a shove up the side. She turned and grabbed onto his arm. With their combined efforts, he was able to get to the top.
And then he was greeted with a hard slap across the face.
"What the hell was that?!" Jo snapped.
"It was Sam!" He snarled back, not even bothering to cradle his flaming cheek.
"No, it wasn't Sam. That was some sort of figment that the freaking Gamemakers made up to screw with your mind."
That was when it began to dawn on him. Dean took in a deep breath of cold air, finding her eyes in the mist.
"Wait a minute, it was a muttation?"
"Yes," Jo murmured. Her face was a breath's away from his, her eyes boring into his. "It was a mutt."
Calming breaths started to overcome him. Jo's hand rested against his chest, just ahove the amulet. Her touch soothed him.
Brady took his chance.
"JO!"
The bow flew from Dean's back to hands as Brady wrapped his arms around Jo's neck, pulling her throat back and exposing it to the right length. His large hands circled her jugular, his thumbs pressing right above the pulse point.
Dean had his arrow pointed right at Brady's forehead. Brady could see it.
He laughed. "Go ahead. Do it. Kill me, we both go down. Those other muttations rip us to bits and you win."
He couldn't help himself but glance down onto the ground. More balls of light were touching down, forming into figures. Some of them looked familiar, scarily familiar. Demonic. Lethal.
Jo shook her head as much as she could in Brady's death grip. "Do it, Dean."
"Don't be stupid," Dean whispered.
"Dean!"
"Jo, shut up!"
Brady laughed. Blood began to trickle from a cut on his cheek, soaking his hand and falling onto Jo's neck. It was a sickening sight.
And then he saw Jo's fingers twitch.
"I can do this," Brady muttered. He sounded more like he was trying to convince himself more than them. "It's just one more kill."
"It's a dumb decision," Dean answered. "You were brainwashed from the moment you were born."
"It's what I need to do," Brady shot back.
Dean shook his head. "No. You don't need to do it. You can turn yourself against it. You can fight back." As the words left his mouth, Dean couldn't believe that he was trying to talk down the District 2 boy.
Brady's hands were starting to slacken. He had to really look hard to see it but he could. Jo's fingers curled around his meaty palms and her thumb twitched once again.
"You can stop this. You can help us stop this," Dean whispered. He allowed his bow to drop an inch.
Brady was staring at him, holding onto every word.
"This can all be over," he finished carefully. "You can make it be over."
It was the most absurd thing to even try. But he had to do it.
And it didn't work.
"I'm sorry," Brady whispered. His hands tightened once again around Jo's throat.
Then Jo screamed. "NOW!"
The arrow flew, landing right in the center of Brady's hand. He shouted in pain and Jo pulled his arm down, twisted it and laid a mighty kick into his abdomen. He fell back and slowly slid off the Cornucopia, one of the last of Dean's arrows landing right in the center of his skull.
The thud of Brady's body hitting the ground greeted their ears. And then the cannon sounded, alerting them to the end.
The hovercraft appeared, scooping up his body before the mutts could get to it. Once the hovercraft took flight once again, the mutts disappeared.
In the darkness, Dean found himself stumbling forward, his arms circling Jo in a granite like embrace. She sank against him, burying her face in his chest.
"It's over," she whispered, her voice thick with tears and pain. "It's over."
He didn't answer, his arms tightening around her.
They stood. They waited.
Nothing happened.
"Why don't they end it already?" he mumbled.
"Good afternoon, our remaining two tributes! There has been another rule change!"
Uh-oh.
"It turns out there can only be one victor of the Seventy Fourth Hunger Games. So our remaining two must have it out until the very end!" Gabriel's voice sounded full of glee. He had always liked epic endings, proven in the last twenty Games that he had been the announcer and Head Gamemaker in.
"Oh, my…" Jo's voice trailed off in fear.
"So, may the odds be ever in your favor."
And then the lights were dead, everything still as death.
Jo carefully detangled herself from Dean's slackening embrace. She stepped back, pushed her ratty hair off of her forehead. Her coffee eyes found his emerald ones in the dimness.
"Do it."
Dean stared. "Don't be an idiot."
Jo shook her head. "Listen to me, Dean. You have a family that needs you. They need you there with them. You have many friends that would suffer without you. I am the baker's daughter. I have always lived well to do in my life."
"And what about your parents, Jo?" Dean snapped. "You have a mom that loves you more than anything in this world. You shouldn't have ever been in this arena in the first place."
"But I am. And if you hadn't been there, Sam would have come with me. Don't you understand?!"
"What the hell am I supposed to understand?! What am I supposed to do?!"
"You let this be over. And you keep fighting. You fight all of it. You go back to your father and to Sam. You go back to your home in the Seam, and you keep fighting."
Dean moved then, carefully lowering his bow onto the metal roof. He keeps the quiver secure on his back. He stepped towards Jo, taking his hand in hers.
"Then let's keep fighting together," he whispered. And then he reaches a hand back, pulling out the last two arrows. "Because I am not leaving this arena without you."
With that, he handed her an arrow. The razor sharp edges of the head gleamed in the breaking sunlight, making quite the picture for the viewers back home. Jo watched his face for a moment before understanding exactly what he meant.
She took the arrow from him, placing it gently on the top of her upturned wrist. The edge laid against the blueness of the veins. He does the same.
The first beads of blood appear on his skin.
"STOP! STOP!"
They freeze.
"Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the victors of the Seventy Fourth Annual Hunger Games! District Twelve's Dean Winchester and Joanna Harvelle!"
Dean drops his arrow, clamping his booted foot down on it and breaking it to bits. Jo throws hers over the edge of the Cornucopia, the wind picking it up into a gentle soaring sensation.
And then she falls.
Dean manages to catch her before she hits the roof, her face bluer than he had ever seen it, breath barely escaping her.
"Jo! JO!"
The hovercraft was there. It's large talon like claws were wrapping around the both of them, lifting them off of the roof. He didn't dare let go of her.
One more chapter! One more! I am so excited!
When I post the final chapter of this, the first chapter of the sequel, 'carry on, my wayward son' will be up so you can just proceed right to it. I am not going to be horribly mean.
Anyway, hope you liked. Reviews are so appreciated and thank you all so much for being the best readers ever.