Chapter 20

The moment I open my eyes, I remember my mission for today.

I stand, sliding my water bottle out of my backpack and looking into the harsh light of the rising sun. The Cornucopia, golden on that sandbar in the middle of the water – I can see it from here.

My water bottle open, I make my way to the water's edge and fill it quickly before dropping in some iodine. I screw the top back on and put it back in my pack.

I scan the perimenter of the beach to make sure no other tributes will attack me. The coast is clear.

My leg muscles tense as adrenaline races through me – I know I'm going to have to race as fast as I can, sliding through the water without a sound – to avoid attention.

I rub my hands together and take a deep breath, crouching low before –

And then I'm sprinting across the sand, darting to the water's edge where I dive under.

The cool water caresses me greedily at contact, and I'm reminded with a shiver of what I felt when I first plunged into these same waters in the first minute of the Games. It was like a fin or something.

Something is living in these waters.

By the time I surface, reaching the sand again with my toes, I'm relieved to get out of the suspicious water. I'm dripping, water streaming from my chin, hair, clothes, everywhere. And I'm panting.

But that doesn't stop me. I search with predator's eyes, searching for anything the District 3 girl might want to use. Knives, swords, spears, what? I don't need to use it, I just need to have it.

I'm about to let my fingers close around the hilt of a knife I see in the sand when I hear a noise and I stop dead, sweat already breaking through my pores. Who was that?

It's a ripping sound. Like someone is ripping a box.

The fact seems to echo in my head. Someone is ripping a box. Someone is ripping a box.

Someone is ripping a box.

I have company.

Trying to calm my frantic breaths, I carefully slide my feet across the sand until I can peer just around the edge of the Cornucopia to see the second body on the sandbar with me.

First it's an elbow, then a knee, then a hip, then a head, and then I'm standing yards behind the boy in the sand with a parachute in his hands.

Author's Note:

Sorry I haven't been updating this story in a while. But I finally decided I needed to work on the Hunger Games, so I started writing. I know this chapter is small, but I hope it still counts for something! And now the question: who did Adalee see?