Viktor eyes Alice like a wolf watching its prey quiver in the brush, knowing that it is trapped. There was no way she could get away if she tried. In her pained state she would not make it ten feet before he descended on her, tearing her apart tooth and claw. She cannot make it, she cannot get away, and I grip the sofa in fear. I should have let her die last night; I should have let the fire swallow her whole! Even that would have been better than this. He saunters forwards, a predatorial grin etched on his otherwise handsome face. I grimace, no, not handsome. He is too twisted to be attractive, to sick. Even without knowing his intentions there is a darkness to him that attests to his internal deformation. As he stalks forward Alice presses back, wincing as she finds herself trapped between him and a tree. "So tell me, Alice." He coos, and my knuckles turn white. "How did a sweet little thing like you get an eight?" He asks, but Alice is far too afraid to speak.
With a few long steps he closes the distance between them, standing so close to her I'm sure she can feel his breath on her face. He draws his hand up and runs the back of it down the unmarred side of her face. "Don't feel like talking? Oh well, it doesn't matter." He breathes. "Shame about your face, you were such a pretty little thing." He grips her chin and forces her to look at him. "Like a little canary. Tell me, Canary, do you sing in those mines of yours?" Alice's frail body shivers.
"Please, please leave me alone." A tear slips down from her good eye and he rubs it away with his thumb gently, but his pupils have widened, and his smile turns even wider.
"I would like to, Alice." He says with a deep chuckle. "But I think I'd like to hear you beg some more." With that he raises his hand and brings it down across her burnt cheek. She lets out an inhuman scream, a sound very similar to the ones the mutt's make. She staggers as blood blossoms from the burst blisters, her body shuddering. "Come now, Alice. It's no fun if you're quiet." He says as he grabs her by her hair and yanks her back towards him.
"Stop! Please!" She chokes out, and he laugh manically. He pulls her flush against him, and the surprise mixed with fear in her eyes enrages me. I jump up from the couch with my nails biting into my palms. I don't know where I'm planning on going, or what I'm planning on doing, but someone must pay for this, someone has to suffer for what he is doing to her!
"Say it again." He yells as he grips her face roughly, his nails digging into her burns.
"Please stop." She wails, but he simply presses her against the tree, his hands roaming her tiny body. The look in his eye sends me reeling.
"I'll kill him!" I yell at the screen. "I swear to god I will skin that bastard alive!" I fist my hands in my hair as his hand slips under her jacket, and she struggles as best she can. Cinna attempts to pull me into his arms, to hide my face from the screen but I push him back, probably harder than I should. That is my tribute on screen, my girl, and she is about to be destroyed. I let out a feral growl, I hope he lives. I hope he lives so I can strangle him with my own bare hands!
"Stop! Leave me alone!" She screams, but he keeps on going. He buries his face in her thin neck, biting her hard enough to leave teeth marks on her ivory skin. He laughs once more. "What are you doing?" She cries, tears streaming down her face in a gentle stream.
"Shh shh shh." He says almost tenderly. "The less you struggle the less it will hurt." He grins madly as his hands travel down her small hips to her bottom, but the expression is not long lived. "But it will hurt." She catches him off guard with a knee to the groin and he stumbles back, doubled over his waist and she breaks free for a moment and hope rises in my chest. Like a bullet, much faster that I would have imagined possible in her state, she tears away into the forest, pushing crumbling branches out of her way with her hands as she goes. She's only run a few meters before he catches up. He grabs her around her thin waist and slams her to the ground, pinning her arms above her head as he spits on her. "Little bitch." He snarls, holding her fast with one hand.
"Darren!" She screams at the top of her lungs. "Darren!" The back of his hand comes down across her face, the injured side, and her head snaps so quickly I hope he's broken her neck. At least that would be a quick ending for her, a mostly painless ending.
"Shut up!" He hisses as he begins unbuttoning her trousers, his eyes dark and greedy.
"Please stop." She sobs as he struggles to pull them down, tearing them slightly in his haste. "Please." He smirks, his eyes glues to the snow white skin of her pelvis where it dips down. It disgusts me how good of a view the cameras are getting. Something tells me I will have to murder Seneca Crane for allowing this to happen when I finish with Viktor.
"That's much better." He murmurs. " I-" He is cut off suddenly by a flash of movement, a blur of arms and legs that tackles him off screen. The cameras, however, quickly adjust to see that Rider is sitting on Victor's chest, pummeling the other boy with what looks like a rock.
"You. Are. A. Monster!" Rider growls with each slam of the rock, but his advantage is short lived. Viktor hooks his leg around the boy from Four and flips them both over to where Rider is now staring up at the Monster.
"Didn't your mother ever teach you not to interrupt?" He hisses as he wraps his hands around the boy's throat. Rider's eyes bulge as he kicks and thrashes, but unlike Alice Viktor can't hold him for long. Rider throws the boy off of him, getting to his feet as quickly as he can to face the other Career. He sends one quick glance in Alice's direction.
"What are you doing? Run!" He yells as he draws his knife, but so does Viktor. His eyes glint with hatred.
"It's not like I won't find you, my Canary!" He calls, but before he can say anything else Rider rushes forward, and the two move like dancers. For a moment Alice is too mesmerized to move as she watches the two Career tributes fight, their blades glinting in the sunlight. Here, in this barren land, they look like to superimposed beings doing a choreographed dance. While Viktor is bigger than Rider he cannot match Rider's speed, but it is obvious Rider cannot match his strength. For a moment it seems as if there is hope, as if Rider might have the upper hand but then it is over as quickly as it began. Just as I had finished off Cato in my own Games Viktor has finished off Rider with a jagged red smile pained on his throat.
The boy's hands fly up to cover the wound, and thick red blood seeps from between his fingers as he falls to his knees. Viktor laughs as he kicks the boy over, watching in delight as his body twitches and horrible gurgling sounds emanate from his mouth. Maybe it is my imagination but for a moment it is as if I hear the words 'Alice, run.' amongst the incoherent sounds. Viktor wipes his blade off of his pants as he watched Rider's body slowly fall still.
"Now," he says in a triumphant voice. "Where were we, Canary?" He asks as he turns around, but his excited eyes grow wide with shock. Standing in front of Alice, guarding her from Viktor, is Darren. I let out an excited gasp as I see the two of them standing together, a look of murder on Darren's face.
"So," Darren begins darkly. "You like to rape women?" Darren asks as he steps forward, his pickaxe in hand. Viktor's face is covered in astonishment as his eyes flit between the man who towers over him and his weapon.
"Where did you get that?" Viktor takes a step back.
"You like to hurt little girls?" Darren growls as he keeps advancing slowly. "I'm going to have a little girl soon." Viktor visibly swallows. "You know what I would do to any man who tried to hurt her?"
"Look, man-"
"I would gut him and hang his entrails in front of my house as a warning!" Darren thunders, and fear flickers in the Career's eyes. I can't keep the grin off my face, to see a Career tribute quivering in the face of a tribute of mine is very fulfilling. I knew the other tributes were afraid of Darren but I hadn't been expecting anything like this. Viktor looks up at Darren as if he is an apparition, an angel of death he cannot possibly hope to fight off. As he keeps moving backward he stumbles on a root and his knife drops from his hand. He lets out a small frightened sound as he puts his hands up defensively.
"I wasn't really going to-"
"You're a liar!" Darren booms, raising his pickaxe. "And I'm going to make sure you never hurt a little girl again!" But before he can swing his axe Viktor freezes and his eyes grow wide. His mouth falls open as he sputters; his body trembling as Darren slowly lowers his axe in confusion. The Career falls to his knees just as Alice removes her knife from his back where it pierced his heart. Without as much as a hint of remorse or mercy she grabs a handful of his hair and drives the point of her dagger into his ear. The Cannon sounds. He falls to the ground. Everything is silent.
"I am not a Canary." She spits as she removes her dagger from his head, and I cannot seem to unstick my jaw from the floor. She killed him, the Career from District Two. The thirteen year old girl from Twelve, so thin and frail she seems hardly able to stand. She looks at his body without pity before she kicks his face, which holds his eternal shock, for good measure.
For a few moments my two tributes stand there in silence, neither knowing what to do or say. I suppose some part of me should be happy because I will finally be bringing someone home, but all I can think right now is one will have to kill the other. It's happened before in the Games, where tributes have to kill the tribute from their home District, but usually it happens to the Careers. Darren finally looks up from his pickaxe to Alice, and the emotions that cross his face are heart breaking. The Arena is completely silent; I imagine all of Panem is silent. The Seventy-Eighth Hunger Games are about to draw to an end, just as they had finally begun. Not even a week has gone by and twenty-two children are dead, two bodies still lie on screen, and a thirteen year old girl cannot take her eyes off her first kill.
Darren closes his eyes for a moment and a single tear drops down his cheek. I fall back down onto the couch; he knows what he has to do. He has to kill her. He opens his eyes and looks back down at Alice, but she hasn't looked up yet. He has saved her twice now, protected her from the other tributes, and now he will be the one to kill her. There is no one to distract him, no one to catch his attention so she can sneak in a killing blow. It is just the two of them, and I know the tension makes up for the fact that Seneca never had the chance to unleash all his mutts on them. There is no where she can run, now where she can hide. His arms are longer, stronger, and he is much faster than she is. "I'm sorry." He whispers, but Alice doesn't appear to hear him. "I'm sorry." He repeats, and Alice seems to twitch. He takes a step forward, she doesn't move. "I'm sorry." He says again, and this time she looks up at him, confusion written on her face.
"What?" She asks, and I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from crying out. She hasn't realized it yet.
"I'm sorry." He says in a breathy voice as more tears drip from his eyes. She tilts her head to the side.
"Darren, what are you talking about?" She murmurs, but her eyes fall on his axe and she gasps.
"I'm sorry." His body is shaking as his fingers tighten on the hilt of his axe. Alice's head snaps between the point and his face again and again, she takes a short step back.
"N-no." She shakes her head in disbelief. "No, Darren please don't." She puts her hands up, just as Viktor had, and walks backwards.
"I'm sorry." He shudders as he takes another step, but Alice lets out a long groan.
"No, please no." She begs, her eyes darting down to watch her step. She changed her direction slightly, avoiding a root before eventually squaring off to him again. She is hardly more than ten feet away.
"I'm sorry." He repeats again, taking another step. Alice lets out a loud sob.
"Please, I don't want to die!" She cried as tears pour down her cheeks. "I don't want to die!" She asks as she puts more distance between herself and Darren. I lean against Cinna as tears stream down my own face. He will never be the same after this; he will have nightmares of this moment for years to come, if not for the rest of his life. Alice's eyes search the ground for something, anything, but she doesn't seem to find what she is looking for.
"I'm sorry." Is has become his mantra as he stalks forward. "I'm sorry." Alice stops and looks down at her feet, her small shoulders trembling.
"Please." She whispers, as she crosses her arms over herself and waits for the end. I glue my eyes to the screen, knowing that when the time comes I will try to look away. I can't, I owe my tributes that much. I have to watch him kill her; I can't spare myself the pain. If they can't escape it why should I be able to?
"I'm sorry." He says as he takes one last step, and his body pitches forward. He lets out one short stifled cry as the ground beneath his gives way and he falls through to the pit below. Just as Alice has suspected there were spikes at the bottom, and his screams end with a cannon fire. Tears streamed down Alice's face as she looked down into the pit.
"I'm sorry."