For bigtimerangergirl123 :) by the way guys, this whole thing is un-beta'd, so when it's finished, I'm going to edit the entire thing and then re-upload it so it makes more sense (I changed some things halfway through and all). Enjoy!
These were as much his Games as they were hers. It sounded almost selfish to say it – she was the one struggling for her life, being chased and attacked at random – but this was a partnership, and he had to work to his best ability to get her out alive. After all he had told her about the Cornucopia and staying away from it, she had remained there when the gong had gone. Anyone else would've been annoyed as hell that their life-saving advice had been ignored, but he knew that she had just been too shocked to move at all. And then, he had been so worried that she was going to be killed by that girl from Seven that he had dug his fingernails into his unshaven cheeks until they bled. When she managed to win the fight, and kill that girl, he was both proud and disappointed.
He was proud because she was still alive, and had managed to conquer her fear of hurting someone else. But disappointed purely because if – no when, he had to keep telling himself – she came out, she would never be the same. Of course she wouldn't, no one ever was, and there was no hope that she would win without killing someone, even if it was in self-defence, but the innocence that she possessed was just…gone.
He was glad she was alright now though. But he could see what she couldn't. This arena was deadlier than his, deadlier than any other he had seen before. There were traps everywhere, mutts lurking around every corner, things hidden underneath the ground and underneath the bushes, and no potential source of food. Nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. There had been the hideous moment earlier when the girl from District Four had run off done one of the lanes from the Cornucopia (having been denied by the Careers) and had been attacked by worm mutts, similar to leeches, which had suckered onto her legs and then crawled all over her entire body, eating away her flesh whilst she tried to rip them off. It didn't work.
He was watching her now though, with Mara by his side and Aaron on the other. All were on tenterhooks, but as the night began to descend upon the arena, they calmed down a little. Trey was seemingly alone in the arena, but only about two hundred metres from the Career camp. Like most of the remaining tributes, he had managed to clamber underneath one of the bushes, unaware of the mutt rats and worms. Haymitch couldn't care less about him anymore. Well, that was a lie, he could care, but he wasn't going to. What that boy had potentially done to Albany was unforgiveable.
Speaking of Albany, he was relieved to see that she had recognized the full potential of the gas canister and the matches. He was kind of sad to let go of the lace – it may sound sad, but it was the only real reminder he had of his father, and of Noe. He refused to let them go, and he wasn't going to let Albany join them. But she needed to rest now; tomorrow would be a struggle, with a large number of fifteen tributes left. She would need all of her strength, and she had no food. He wasn't quite sure if she could hunt. But she would have to.
'Well, I'm off to bed, wake me up if anything interesting happens!' Mara trilled loudly, as Albany began to settle underneath the hedge. Haymitch and Aaron glanced up at her; Aaron wished her a good night, and Haymitch just grunted, not taking his eyes off the screen, which was currently displaying the Career pack, camping in the dense maze. Mara looked a little disgruntled, but realized how important every second of this was for Haymitch. 'I'm bringing in my daughter tomorrow – she's got the day off school and wanted to come and watch the Games with us,' Mara added before she sauntered down the corridor and into her luxury bedroom.
Aaron looked confused and smoothed back his hair before turning to Haymitch, who was still staring at the screen, but with a bewildered look on his handsome face. Haymitch gradually detached his gaze from the giant screen, and looked at Aaron as well.
'She has a daughter?'
'Mara has someone who will put up with her?'
They both guffawed in unison at the idea of it, and at what each other had just said, but then realized the eccentric lady from the Capitol was being serious. Haymitch had never really stopped to think about Mara before. He had never wondered if she actually had family; he had never wondered if there was anyone she loved, if there was anyone that haunted her dreams in the night. If there were things she regretted, and people she loved. Haymitch had never thought about what Mara got up to in the eleven month break they had for another – in all honesty, he didn't think anyone would be able to put up with her for that long. Having a daughter turned her into a three-dimensional character of some sorts.
With an almost new perspective on things in the Capitol, Haymitch turned back to the screen to watch what exactly was going on. Mara had distracted him for a few seconds – not to mention that her daughter was coming tomorrow and would probably be a miniature carbon copy of her mother (great) – and he couldn't afford to do that anymore. He had to keep Albany alive, and trivial little issues would not help that.
Suddenly, a part of him ached for her. Even though he had known her for all but nine days, it felt so painful to be parted from her, especially in this way. He missed being able to lean over and caress her hair and her cheeks. He missed having her next to him, being able to give her a reassuring squeeze of the hand. But it wouldn't be long, he thought, before he would be able to do that again. He would have her back soon, she would be okay.
-HungerGames-
The night underneath the hedge had been – after spending eight days in a double bed with silk covers and goose-feather pillows – uncomfortable to say the least. There were times when she could feel things wriggling around her, and times when she heard tentative footsteps outside and she had to stop herself breathing until they dissipated. But she didn't sleep at all. Every time she flickered her eyelids shut, or when they just drooped shut out of exhaustion, she could just see…well, you know what she could see. She could weirdly understand why Haymitch drank so much. If someone offered her some whiskey now to stop her seeing Lorna or the head of that girl from District Eleven, she would take it without even saying thank you.
Overnight, there were no casualties, but by about six in the morning, Albany convinced herself it would be better to have a head start, especially with the footsteps she had heard during the night. The daylight was stunning and radiant after spending the night bathed in mud and leaves and seemed to scald her eyes slightly, but she quickly adjusted and pulled her pack from underneath the hedge. Pulling out the gas canister and the matches, Albany placed one item in either pocket and travelled forwards, trying to find some food of sorts.
After last night, and retching up half of the contents of her stomachs, she found her stomach screaming for some sort of nutritious item that she could stuff herself with. Surely there had to be some sort of animal or something here? Yesterday she had had the same thought, but now it was a more immediate issue. They say one of the worst days to die are dehydration and starvation, as well as mutilation and torture. And she faces all of these today, and every day that follows until she either does die or indeed she wins. She hopes, for the little beating heart of Annie Cresta, and the sanity and well-being of Haymitch Abernathy, that if she does die, then it is quick.
There is something about the maze that makes her feel unsteady and ill, and rather unsettled as well. Maybe just because it's the arena, and there are fourteen other people hunting her down, but there's something around her that just sets her completely on edge. Like if whichever corner she turns, something will be waiting. She realizes these are the deadliest Games that the Capitol has ever devised, like they were planned especially to send everyone mad. With a shudder, Albany realized that even if she got out of here alive, she would be in the same mental state as Annie. She wouldn't be able to look after her again. She and Haymitch could live together, but they would never be happy. They would never be complete again. Nothing would ever be the same.
The sudden noise of flapping wings alerts Albany to the fact that there is a large flock of brightly coloured birds above her. They look slightly edible. Grabbing the knife from her pack, Albany squeezes her eyes shut to remove any traces of the tears she shed yesterday, and aimed for one of the large birds, choosing the specific one she will bring down. This time yesterday, she couldn't even think of killing an animal; in the time that had passed, she had killed a human being. One bird wasn't going to dent her self-esteem at all.
Albany flung the knife into the crowd, and with a loud screech, one of the brightly feathered birds – which reminded her so much of Mara's unfortunate wigs – came down right in front of her feet. On closer inspection, and when she brought herself to clutch the bird in her hand and pick it up off the ground, Albany saw that the bird was not really a bird at all. It looked like a sort of giant rat with wings that merged into its spine, creating some grotesque exoskeleton that she had managed to pierce. The bird suddenly twitched in her hand and let out a loud, strangled cry before it flopped limply in her hand. Albany barely had time to pull out her matches and start a fire before the shriek was reciprocated. But not by one, but by many, many birds.
She had never seen mutts that had travelled in such a tightly knit group before.
The last thing she saw before she ran was the density of the hundred plus bright pink bird-rats all plummeting down in one second towards her.
She hurled around and sprinted down the skinny pathway, hurtling around the corners as the bird-rats descended to her head level and began chasing her intently, screeching and screaming so loudly she couldn't hear anything else. Albany threw the knife to the side, skewering another bird by accident and clamped her hands around her ears as she ran. She skidded around a corner and slipped to her knees, cutting open her leg, but she wrenched herself to her feet out of the dust and continued sprinting around the maze, not having a clue where she was going.
As was obvious, the birds began to catch up, biting at her legs and limbs and head. They began tearing at her skin, ripping holes the size of pennies all over her pale skin, and she threw away the empty pack which they seemed so intent upon tearing up anyway. She was beginning to tire – her lack of water and food becoming obvious as her energy levels dropped, and her speed did alongside. Blood was beginning to run in thin streams down all of her limbs, and a veil of sweat broke out across her forehead. In a last ditch attempt to escape, Albany jumped through one of the hedges into a completely different path, but just as dusty as the last. The sun was now glaring ferociously, like all of its energy was concentrated directly upon her and the leaves in the hedge seemed to pull about a thousand scratches across her skin. Albany fell out of the hedge onto the ground, slamming her hip and shoulder into the floor, sending shooting pains up her limbs.
The canister of gas flung out of her pocket as she tried to roll over, and the matches came out as well. Ignoring the sudden pain all over her body whenever she moved the slightest muscle, Albany fumbled for the canister and the matches, attempting to light it up, and, if necessary blow herself to pieces, as long as she could send these mutts straight back to hell as well.
But the hole she had created in the bush was too large, and the pink mutts came storming through the gap and over the hedge and started ripping into her again. Her arm was wrenched back, and the canister and matches went flying behind her. She laid defencelessly on the floor as bird-rats came from all directions, all scrambling to get to her. A dense flock of birds surrounded her, blocking her entire figure from the cameras. Somewhere, she heard Haymitch crying her name. Somewhere, she heard Annie Cresta crying into a new matron's shoulder out in District Four. She let out a pained scream as the birds relentlessly grabbed and tore at her. Through the crowd of birds, Albany lifted a hand out and then it dropped to the floor.
A canon fired.