Chapter Fourteen
"Here, drink this." Vander tosses me a canteen of water, and it lands in my lap. I unscrew the cap and take a swig of the warm water; it is so hot it is almost boiling.
"Yuck." I sift a handful of sand through my fingers, handing him back the canteen. "That tastes bad when it's hot."
"Gotta stay hydrated, Rina." He offers me his hand and I take it, getting pulled up. I have washed my bloody jacket in the ocean surf and now smell like salt, and I am sticky with the same substance.
"Her choice." Edwin shrugs, sauntering up in the sand. "The sun's starting to set. Still boiling hot."
"That's the desert for you." Claudia comes up behind Vander and runs her fingers along Vander's neck. "Better find yourself some sunblock, gorgeous."
Vander blushes, his ears and cheeks turning a shade of cherry tomato. I narrow my eyes at the foxlike blond who is not even attempting to hide her flirting with my brother. And he seems to like it. Oh well, I guess Vander is used to have girls flock to him. He always had a herd of them following him at school.
"I don't think the Gamemakers put anything like that in here." Mouse plops down in the sand, stretching out her legs. The sun is already making her pasty skin peel red and her breakout is already glowing with irritation. She has a sour look on her face, she seems to have a bit of a crush on Vander as well.
"It won't matter once the sun goes down." Edwin sits next to Mouse. "It'll be dark and we'll be able to go hunting. Nowhere for those little rats to hide."
Rats indeed. If anyone here is a rat, it's snotty Edwin.
"Speaking of the rats." Claudia plops herself down next to Vander and plays with his fingers in the sand. He looks up and smiles at her, and Mouse makes a gagging noise. I bet the Capitol people are eating up Claudia and Vander's flirting at home. They will have more sponsors than anyone, I bet. "Who's left in this Game?"
I tick them off on my fingers. "All six of us… Iris." My breath freezes in my mouth for a moment when I speak her name. "Girl and boy from 6, I think. Boy from 8, girl from 9, girl from 11 and boy from 12."
"Shouldn't be hard. I don't think I saw anyone take to the water and risk finding land." Gerrit polishes the tip of his arrow on a piece of a ripped cloth. "I don't know what's out there, all I can see is desert."
"Look what I found." Edwin looks up from rifling through his pack, holding up something that looks like a pair of large spectacles connected to a leather strap.
"Can I see?" I hold out my hand and he drops the device into my palm. I hold the glasses up to my eyes, marveling at how much they maximize the landscape.
I zoom in the binoculars are much as they allow, focusing on something, anything in the distance. So far, all I can see is desert and more desert.
"Nothing." I hand them to Vander who has helped Claudia back up and is now brushing the sand away from his clingy jacket. He holds them up to his eyes and scans the horizon just like I did.
"I say we head in the direction the most of them went." Mouse points out, sifting sand through his fingers.
"Yeah, but we don't know which way they actually headed, Mouse." Claudia fluffs her blond hair over her shoulder which is somehow still perfect after all the battling. I can feel my own hair is a tangled mess, and I feel for one of the rubber bands Ro placed around my wrist. I pull my hair back into a braid, still leaving in the small, pretty French braid Ro put in in the front.
"Wait!" Vander exclaims with excitement. "I think I see something."
"Give me those!" Edwin re-claims the binoculars. "Besides, I'm the only one who knows how to use them right."
We all lean in closer to Edwin, waiting to see if what Vander claimed is truly real.
"Ha! I see it!" he exclaims with excitement. "Just a little clump of trees!"
"Give me that!" Claudia snatches it next, and it isn't long before all of us have taken a look at the mass of tiny, spiny-looking trees in the distance. I take a turn before Gerrit, who goes last, and once again proves why he is my favorite. He isn't snooty or out-there, or grabby at all. He is just quiet and doesn't seem to bask in anything too long. I will have to ask him how he handles his murders so well.
"I think we should go hunting." Mouse suggests after we have all taken multiple glances through the special lenses. "It's getting dark, and I think it's finally starting to cool down."
Yeah, cooling down from 120 degrees to 100, Mouse.
"I agree. I want to have some time to actually play with my victim." Claudia rubs her hands together and I see her wink at Vander. I look away, disgusted.
I think hard to remember the names in my head of the remaining tributes. Iris, of course. I almost expected for her to survive the bloodbath, but I doubt she has much to survive in this wilderness.
There is the girl from 6, her name is Julia, if I remember it correctly. Then there are the both of them from 8, and I remember the boy being fairly large and able. I don't remember seeing him leave the Cornucopia with anything or other, but he could be a potential threat. His name is Terrin, I believe, a slightly girly name for a boy his size and strength. He might be a problem.
I will bet the girls from 9 and 11 are probably allied, possibly with the boy from 12. They seem like they want to hide more than anything, possibly in the forest that is far away in the distance. I don't recall their names, possibly the boy is a Buck or something similar to that.
"Rina, stop standing there." Vander tosses me a flashlight, and I flick it on. The iridescent light makes the sand sparkle, and if this were any other time, and I wasn't in the Arena, I actually would have admired the glittering, individual grains. But instead, I run after my brother, who is already brandishing a torch, blazing with a flame made from matches and a bit of fabric wrapped around a metal pole.
The pack heads out, each of us weighed down with either a flashlight or torch, and with weapons that we will all need. I keep Brutus' knife safely tucked in my boot and follow them all, staying behind the group a little bit to watch out backs. Just in case the Capitol decides to set a pack of mutts on us from behind.
"Do you think someone should have stayed behind to guard the camp?" Gerrit pipes up for the first time in the Careers bantering conversation about killing joyously. "What if someone steals something?"
"No one's going to steal something." Edwin piffs. "Who would we have left, then?"
"You." He mumbles under his breath so only I can hear. I put my hand over my mouth and giggle quietly. He steps back to walk with me, and we fall into silent tread together.
It is at least an hour or two when we begin to be able to see the knob of spiny trees without the binoculars. The closer we get to it, the more it looks like the Dark Forest from the tales my mother used to tell me when I was little. She would tuck me in and pull the covers up to my chin nice and snug, kiss me on the forehead.
"Tell me a story." I would say to her, all those times I was small and I was just a child. I might have even been a little bit cute back then, maybe my chin wasn't sharpened yet.
"What one do you want to hear?" She would smooth over my forehead, pushing my black hair back.
"The one where the girl who looks like me gets caught in the big forest."
My mother always acted concerned the story about the huntsman who was told to bring back the girl's heart in a box. But she always told it to me anyway, because it was my favorite, though she wouldn't do it for anyone but me.
"Are you sure, darling? This is the one with the scary forest."
"That's my favorite part. I promise I won't get scared."
It was an empty promise. I always did have nightmares. Of wandering around in the Dark Forest on my hands and knees, being attacked by the creatures that lived there. But I always wanted her to tell it for some reason. It was my favorite story. Or maybe it was just the way she told it. With expression and a voice for every different character.
"Ugh. It's muggy here." Claudia complains, dragging her club on the ground like it weighs 200 pounds.
"You're going to get mud in your spikes." Edwin points out. By now, we are at the edge of the forest, just above the spiny branches of the overhanging trees. They vaguely remind me of hands reaching down to touch me, grab me and hold onto me until I cannot let go.
"I don't care." She complains. "This place is creepy."
"Come on, let's go hunting." Mouse urges, swinging her sword a bit too playfully. "We're wasting time."
I feel like I need to get out as soon as I enter the dark, overhanging cloak of knobby trees. I slip behind Vander, he has always been like my shield, and Gerrit slides in behind me. Is suppose he senses that I am scared, and he is nice enough not to mention it to anyone. He also seems to be protecting me, like Vander is, silently.
There is a deep owl hoot from ahead, and the six of us shine our flashlights into the top branches. There is the flapping of wings, but I don't see anything, and there are twigs snapping behind us. Vander whips his torch around, revealing nothing.
"I feel like someone's watching us." Mouse whispers quietly, the first human voice I've heard in a long time.
"All sorts of –" Claudia clears her throat. "Creepy crawlies in here."
"Who knows." Edwin shrugs and pushes onward. "Let's keep going."
"No, let's set up camp." Claudia insists and Mouse nods in the beam of my flashlight.
"I can't believe this." Edwin rolls his eyes. "I can't believe you're scared. You're just a bunch of wussy girls."
"Don't be sexist." Vander thrusts his torch in Edwin's face. "I think we should make camp, too. The sun will be up soon, and it will be getting light out. Then we can hunt."
Edwin swears heavily and kicks the dirt. "I'm going hunting. If you want to come." He motions to all of us. We all stare back at him blankly, even brave Claudia.
"Fine." He spits on the dirt at our feet. "Maybe I'll see you on the other side. Mouse, are you coming or not."
Mouse shakes her head and slips behind Vander's shoulder.
Edwin turns around and stomps through the brush. We shine our lights on him the entire time, waiting to see if he will come back. He doesn't.
"He'll be back. Don't worry, Mouse." Vander reassures. He clears a spot, making room for us in the dirt. "We can sleep on our jackets."
The luxuries of the 52nd Hunger Games.
I spread out my jacket on the forest floor next to Gerrit. He curls up, fitting almost his entire body onto his own jacket, suddenly reminding me of a little rodent. I smile, laying down my head on the warm ground that seems to be radiating heat.
"I'll keep watch." He suggests.
There are various murmurs of "thanks" and "wake me up in a few hours."
"Night, Gerrit." I nod to him and smile lightly. "Wake one of us up when you get tired."
"Nah." He shrugs and pats my arm and I curl my jacket sleeve under my head to become a pillow. "You gotta sleep."
"So do you." I flick my flashlight on and off. This is followed by a few annoyed shouts from Claudia about "trying to get some sleep."
"I'm fine." He taps his head. "My brain stays awake a long time."
"Suit yourself." I smile at him one last time before closing my eyes. My body allows me to fall into a light, dreamless sleep.
Just like the morning of Reaping day, my body is awake before my eyes are open. There is still dark behind my eyelids, it is still dark out. I smell something rusty, something metallic in my nose. I roll over, and my face gets wet with a runny substance.
Wait.
I open my eyes to pitch black, besides a flashlight strewn in a random position, pointing in towards the forest around us. I feel the wetness on the ground again, this time with my fingertips, and then I feel around for my flashlight.
I flick it on, studying the strange substance on the ground. It is reflective, something very bright red under the flashlight rays.
I gasp. It is blood all over the ground.
Okay you guys, please enjoy and review! I am going on vacation tomorrow, so no new chapters will be up within the next few days, but maybe on Friday! Enjoy!
xoxo
Rainbow