Chapter 13 :

"Run. Run!" Haymitch urged her, pushing her in front of him. It was all a mess… "Effie, come on!"

She stumbled on a root hidden by the thin coat of snow and fell down. They lost precious seconds in getting her upright again. His hands were sweating, his grip on the crossbow was slippery and he couldn't shake the feeling of foreboding away.

They had been walking away from the shore for two days when the snow had started falling again. The more they went north, the colder it got. They had dealt with the cold before however that wasn't a problem, they had found a new way to keep warm at night. Haymitch had even managed to catch a hare, he had started to feel hopeful about the whole things because despite the wilderness, the hunger and the weather, life was sweet. He was free and he had Effie.

Of course, he had learned long ago that all good things came to an end. According to his estimations, they were about a day away from Thirteen's borders when it had gone to hell. The hovercraft had come back but they hadn't managed to hide quickly enough, Peacekeepers were after them again and they had guns. They were so close they could hear the crunching of their boots on the snow in the distance.

They had been so close to making it…

He didn't know what was waiting for them in Thirteen – Effie's rebels or merely radioactive ruins – but he would have loved to find out for himself.

"We won't make it!" Effie panted in despair as he hauled her up and pushed her again in whatever direction he thought north was. He didn't know for sure. He was more worried about getting away from the Peacekeepers. "Haymitch, I'm so sorry! I should never have asked you to come with me… It's…"

"Save your breath and run!" he cut her off. She was out of breath, she was exhausted and she would never outrun them. He would never outrun them. They had a five minutes head start on the Peacekeepers. Five minutes wasn't much. Perhaps he could buy her another two. He stopped running and adjusted his grip on the crossbow.

"What are you doing?" Effie asked, turning back to him with a puzzled expression. She was panting hard and clutching her side. "We need to go!"

"You go, sweetheart. I will be right behind you." he lied, facing the way their pursuers were coming from. They wouldn't be long. He could hear the orders being shouted back and forth. "Go!"

"You are not serious." she hissed. In three long strides she was next to him, clutching his jacket and trying to drag him away from there. "Stop that!" she ordered when he dug his heels in the ground. He pushed her away not so gently.

"You're losing time." he snapped. "Don't be stupid. Go."

He hadn't been expecting the small fist she slammed repeatedly on his arm. "You are stupid ! I am not leaving you behind to die. Now, quit trying to play the hero and come on."

He grabbed her wrist before she could hit him again and pulled her forward so their faces were close. She was terrified. Odd how her terror made his own panic fade away.

"Run." he instructed calmly. "Effie, you run and you don't look back. Whatever you hear, you don't look back." It was the arena all over again. Except this time, the only way to win was to die. Because the only way to win was for Effie to live.

She looked stricken for a second and then her face hardened. "Not ever again. Don't you dare…" She closed her eyes briefly and when she opened them they were unyielding, she thrust her chin in the air stubbornly. "We do this together or we don't do it at all. I am done with leaving people behind." She was serious, he realized. She would stay. She would die there with him. "You said I made you start running again." she said, her eyes shining with tears she was fighting hard to suppress. "Now would be a good time to literally do that, Haymitch."

She really wasn't leaving.

"We're not going to make it." He didn't want to lie to her. "They're too fast and we're too slow." They were well-fed and well-clothed and probably had an entire night of sleep instead of the few hours Haymitch and Effie had grabbed here and there. "I can hold them back. Give you a chance."

"Thirteen. You are pessimistic." She swallowed hard before slipping her hand in his.

"Thirteen is suicide, sweetheart." he whispered like he had done at least ten times before. He had never thought it would be that true though.

"It might very well be." Her laugh was low and broken but she clung to his hand. "One last stand, then."

"Effie, go." he begged.

She shook her head and let go of his hand to grab his neck and pull him in a kiss. It was short and desperate, so much like their first Haymitch was sure it would be their last.

"Twelve." she reminded him against his lips. Twelve is you love me, he had told her, Twelve is you will never leave me again. Twelve is… you made me start running. But what did you do when running wasn't an option anymore? Haymitch had been standing still ever since his Games and that had been self-destructive, that had been giving up. How was that different? Perhaps, he realized when he met her eyes, because there was a difference between standing still and standing your ground.

"Twelve." he agreed. Twelve meant he loved her. Twelve meant he was sorry he couldn't save her. Twelve meant he was sorry he failed her. "You have the knife?"

Not that it would make any difference. They would probably be dead before he could even shoot his crossbow. She nodded and freed the hunting knife from her belt. It looked awkward in her hand, her grip on the handle was wrong but there was no time to correct that now. She could wield it well enough anyway.

"Are you absolutely sure you don't want to run?" she asked in a shaky voice, eyes riveted on the trees. The shout were getting closer, Peacekeepers would be there any second now. "Or hide, maybe? Anything really?" There was a touch of hysteria to her voice, yet she stood still next to him.

It would have been the perfect time to get over his insecurities and mental block and say the words he wanted to say instead of a mere 'Twelve' that held no real value, but he couldn't. And there was no time left anyway. Peacekeepers stormed around them, coming to a hasty halt, obviously surprised to find them waiting. They didn't shoot immediately which Haymitch took as a good sign but the guns aiming at them didn't waver either. He didn't dare step in front of Effie in case they interpreted that as an aggressive gesture and pulled the trigger but the urge was difficult to suppress.

A man came forth from the rear of the Peacekeepers squad. That one didn't have a helmet but he sure as hell looked smug. He looked just as despicable as Haymitch remembered him.

"Abernathy." Head Peacekeeper Hangston spat with so much malevolence, Haymitch really wondered what he had done to the guy. Threw up on his boots during one of his and Chaff's visits to the finest bars the Capitol had to offer? "You are in so much trouble."

He was about to retort with something that would probably have sounded really clever but would have also had them killed on the spot when Effie took a step forward. All guns changed tracks and aimed at her in a deafening chorus of clicking. He grabbed her arm to drag her back but she didn't seem to realize it. She did stop though, her eyes wide. She was gripping her knife so tight, her knuckles were white.

"Your voice…" she hissed. "It was you." She tried to take another step but Haymitch held her back firmly. She shrugged his hand away but he managed to grip her jacket.

"Effie, snap out of it." he ordered, afraid of what was happening. It wasn't difficult to add two and two : Hangston had been in charge of finding Effie… It wasn't a stretch to imagine he had been in charge of dealing with her family before that.

"He killed them all!" she roared, trying to get free but he held on and pulled her into his side. He didn't dare let go of the crossbow but he trapped her against him. "He killed them!" She was enraged and he was sure she would jump on the Peacekeeper and stab him to death if he let her. He was also very sure she would be long dead before she reached him. "Haymitch, let me go." He tightened his hold, cursing that man to hell and back.

Hangston actually seemed amused by the scene she was causing. "We don't need the girl." he said. "Kill her."

"No!" Haymitch shouted, pushing her behind him. She tried to flung herself past him but he forced her back. "No."

"Sir?" one of the Peacekeeper asked when Hangston started laughing.

"Why, Abernathy… Did you find yourself a girlfriend?" the man mocked. "After what happened to the last one…"

It was fortunate he was too focused on keeping Effie behind him because he probably would have tried to kill the man for that sole comment.

"My orders are to bring you back." Hangston explained, with false sympathy. "She, on the other hand, should have been dead for a good month and a half now." He nodded to one of the Peacekeeper. "Kill her."

In a perfect world, Haymitch would have reacted sooner. He would have trained the crossbow on the guy, pulled the trigger and pushed Effie out of the line of fire. In a perfect world, he would have had enough time to act before the detonation echoed in his ear.

That world wasn't perfect.

Two chapters left and a mean cliffy! I'm sooooo mean. ;) Let me know what you think!