Woah! I've just realised that this has more story alerts than Brynn's Diary! That's... Wow. Honestly, thanks, guys!
Update: Thank you Mays for pointing out that little blip. I've fixed it now :).
The whole of the next morning, I'm on tenterhooks. Every little noise, and my mind leaps to the conclusion that it's Pixie, or Veronica, or Billy, here to get me and little Betony. And we won't be so fortunate next time; Pixie promised as much.
I try to keep my discomfort and nerves to a minimum; I don't want them to rub off on Betony. I'm pretty sure she notices anyway, though. She's not stupid, as she so often points out. Still, she keeps up her chipper nature, and I'm incredibly grateful for it.
About midday, she insists we stop.
"You need to sleep." She insists. "You didn't all night!"
I shake my head, but my brain has other ideas. I let out a loud yawn. Betony gives me a triumphant grin, clearly glad that she's won this argument, and I lie down on the floor grumpily.
"Wake me up if you hear anything." I instruct flatly. "Or see anything. Or even if you just feel scared or something. It's better to be safe than sorry."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." She drags out.
Against my better judgement, I close my eyes and settle to sleep in the leaf debris, the twelve year old coalminer's daughter from the Seam keeping watch beside me. My last thought before I drift of is that I don't think I've ever put so much trust in one person. There was Jill, but Betony was always there, and she always woke me up after a few hours of watch anyway. But there's only one little Betony now.
I stand in my bedroom, study myself in the mirror. I'm wearing a long white dress which touches the floor, with net-like white sleeves that are too big, and hang past my hands in a strangely elegant sort of way. In my hair is a circlet of freshly picked flowers. Macy's head pokes over my shoulder and she smiles. Her hair is braided back elaborately, unlike mine, which is brushed but left lose.
"I can't believe it!" She beams at our reflections. "My sister, getting married!"
"I never thought I'd see the day myself, if I'm honest." I say wryly, locking eyes with my reflection. They're wide and tired-looking, which is strange. Why should I look so tired and pale? I have no reason to.
"You're growing up, sis." She gives my shoulder a squeeze. "Far quicker than I am."
"Oh, thanks." I say sarcastically. She laughs brightly and I can't help but smile at the noise, at all of the joy it contains.
"You love me really!" She teases.
"Yes." I practically whisper. "Yes, I do."
"You're acting funny." She spins me round to look at her as opposed to her reflection. "You're not having second thoughts, are you?"
I shake my head; I don't know. I lift a shaking hand to remove the hair that had flown into my mouth from the head gesture away. Should I be worried that I can't actually remember who I'm getting married to? I probably should, shouldn't I?
My canary starts shouting from her cage across the room. Her usually melodic tone sounds screechy and painful to my ears.
"Melody, calm down!" I say, walking across to her.
She doesn't. She just keeps screeching and screeching. I'm considering throwing my hands over my ears before my eardrums burst, but, before I have chance to do so, Melody stops her 'singing'. In its place, I hear a loud 'thud'. She's fallen to her cage floor.
"Melody…" I say uncertainly, hoping she's alive with all my heart.
Macy let's our a sudden, horror-filled scream.
I sit bolt upright and look around. It wasn't Macy screaming; it was Betony.
I jump to my feet and snatch the backpack from the floor. I'm thinking straight enough that I remember to take my blowgun out of it before I hurl it with full force at Pixie in an attempt to dislodge her grip on the Seam girl.
The girl from 1 with the braided blonde hair has Betony pinned up against a tree. My District partner has the monster's knife at her throat, pressing against the skin, and I'm certain that the slightest little movement will just hurt her further.
What kind of monster can hurt Betony, of all people?
My throwing of our backpack does nothing to deter Pixie. It bounces off her shoulder and lands on the floor, midway between us. I quickly load up my blowgun and start to raise it to my lips.
"Why, hello, Maysilee," Teases a voice from behind me. My hand freezes midway to my mouth, because there's only one person that voice could belong to.
"Veronica, darling," I say enthusiastically, like she's an old friend and we're both very girly girls. "How goes the day, my love?" I turn to face her, grinning in a way so forced, so fake, that it physically makes my face hurt.
She wrinkles her nose at me. "Ew! Love?"
"Figure of speech, dear, figure of speech." I assure her. "I hate you every bit as much as you hate me."
This elicits a smile from the girl with the sunshine-coloured hair. "Good to know."
Before I have chance to think, she's grabbed my blowgun hand. I try to prise her fingers off of it with the fingers of my left, but fail miserably. In the end I resort to using said free left hand to slap her round the face.
She glares at me and uses her own free hand to slap me back. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Billy leaning against a tree with an amused smirk on his face, watching as Veronica and I continue to slap each-other round the face.
"Interesting take on 'fight to the death', I must say." He says casually, though whether to us or to himself is anybody's guess.
After what I guess is a few minutes of me and Veronica slapping each-other round the face (taking it in turns- what the hell?!), I look over my shoulder at Betony. She's squeezed her eyes shut and she's muttering something- maybe some sort of prayer.
Veronica's hand collides with my right cheek as I turn my head back to face her. I don't hesitate to raise my left hand and slap her back.
"Vera!" Pixie shouts from over with Betony. "I need some help."
"Why," She slaps me. "Can't Billy do it? I'm sorta," I slap her. "Busy here."
I can almost hear the eye-roll in Pixie's voice, even if our backs are to each-other. "Unless you hit her really, really hard, slapping 12 isn't going to kill her. Now, come here and hold Mini still."
I feel anger boil up inside me at the name for my District partner, but can't think of anything to do with aforementioned rage.
Veronica glares at me, but releases her grip on my blowgun wrist. As she walks toward Pixie, she slaps my face. I roll my eyes.
On Pixie's instruction, the girl from 4 holds the knife at Betony's throat whilst Pixie digs around in their backpack for some other sort of weapon. When she pulls out a heavy-looking metal baton, about the length of the distance between my wrist and elbow, I realise Pixie is planning to bludgeon Betony to death.
My feet start working before it registers. It's only when I'm standing right next to the three girls that I realise it would probably have been a better idea to stand far away and blow darts at them. By blowpipe is still in my hand after all.
Pixie locks eyes with me and groans dramatically.
"Billy!" She shouts. "Sort her out!"
Billy pulls away from the tree with what he makes seem like a great deal of effort. "Do I get a weapon?"
"Well, duh." Veronica replies.
"Sweet!" Billy cheers as Pixie throws their backpack at him. I watch as he digs through it, pulls out some sort of silver dagger, and makes towards me. I quickly raise my pipe to my lips, but he catches my wrist before I have chance to spit my ammo at him. His eyes lock with mine. And I don't know if I'm imagining it, but I swear his head makes a small- but pointed- gesture to the left.
"I'm taking her away." Billy tells Veronica and Pixie. "So she can't try anything."
He starts to lead me away when I hear a tiny whimper that can only come from Betony. And I'm fighting against the grip on my wrist, struggling to raise the pipe to my lips again, trying with all my might to get back to the little girl with the wide grey eyes who's probably terrified out of her wits right now, with no-one to comfort her and tell her all those lies people always tell small children; "You're safe", "It'll be alright", etcetera, etcetera.
When we're a sizeable distance away, Billy drops my wrist. I'm about to raise the pipe to my mouth and knock him out of the Games when he raises a hand.
"Look, look, look," He says hurriedly. "You could kill me right now- and I honestly wouldn't blame you!- but please let me assure you that I mean you no harm."
I let out a sound that I think might be a snort. "You're holding a dagger."
"Just to up the authenticity." He smiles at me, but it seems forced, insincere. Like he realises this, he quickly rearranges his face, makes his expression neutral again. "I'm not actually going to kill you."
"So you're going to stab me and let me bleed to death?" I hiss. "Or steal my supplies and let me starve?" My thought bounces back to my backpack, lying on the floor, witnessing whatever horrors those bitches are inflicting on helpless little Betony.
Damn, these are some messed up priorities I have here; I'm worrying about the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder on a rucksack!
Billy looks at me like I'm crazy. After that PTSD idea over my backpack, I really think he might actually have a point there. "No, silly, I'm letting you go."
I just stand there for a moment, like a complete and utter numpty, whilst this sinks in. "You… You what?"
Billy looks like he wants to smack his head against something. "I'm not gonna kill you, 12. Jeez, do I have to write it down for you?"
I'm tempted to say 'yes', but find myself saying the opposite.
We stand for a moment in silence, only broken by a shrill scream. Betony.
I try immediately to push past Billy, to get to her and do something, because it's so despicably, heart-wrenchingly hard to do absolutely nothing.
Billy catches my shoulder and holds it with what appears to be minimal effort. No matter how hard I try, I can't get any further than his arm's reach.
"There's nothing you can do." He tells me flatly.
Another scream populates the air and I get a sinking feeling in my stomach, like it's determined to fall down to the same level as my ankles or something. "I can try."
"Do you want to get yourself killed?"
I stopped pulling against him. This seems to shock him a little, as his grip automatically loosens and I fall face-first to the floor. Sitting up, I spit the dirt out of my mouth and look up at him. He gives me a weak smile and holds out a hand, pulls me back up to my feet.
"Look, I know it's hard." He says gently. "As in, the hardest thing ever. But going back will just kill you too." He pauses for a moment. "Now, as weird as this might sound, can you punch me?"
"What?" I ask, confused.
"If I go back and say you put up a fight, so I lost you, but still look like my usual charming self," I scoff at this, and he smirks. "Then it'll be pretty obvious I let you go."
In answer to his request, I drop my blowgun to the floor. And then I'm balling my right fist, flinging it at his left shoulder. It collides with a jarring impact that shoots up my arm and makes my hand ache.
I pull it away and flex my fingers painfully. Damn it, that... Ow...
Billy reaches up and slaps himself round the face a few times, just to add to the beaten-up effect.
"Thanks." He says, trying a smile.
I'm about to smile back, but a cannon sounds. From the cheers of joy not all that far away, there's no mistaking who's it was.
"I didn't get to say goodbye." I grip Billy's shoulders tighter than I thought possible, trying to hammer my point across. "Are you going back there?"
He nods, studying me carefully.
"Please say goodbye to her. Please?"
Rather than call me crazy- she is dead, after all- or refuse to do something so weird point-blank. He just locks his eyes on mine. "If you let go, I should be able to beat the hovercraft."
I release my grip and he sprints back the way we came. I can only hope he gets there in time so say goodbye to the little girl, from me.
I don't cry as I pick my blowgun up and set off into the forest. I don't cry as a parachute flits down to where I'm sitting that afternoon, bearing a loaf of warm, fresh bread and a note that simply says "I'm sorry- W."
I manage to keep myself composed as her picture flashes in the sky that night, no matter how hard it might be.
It isn't until the next morning, when Billy appears in front of me, sweaty and breathless and holding my poor little backpack, that I finally break down in tears.
It surprises him to no end. I think he was expecting to find me, throw the backpack in my general direction, and run back to the Career camp before anyone cottons on. But instead he hands the backpack to me and doesn't even raise and eyebrow as I cuddle it close. It's all that remains of our alliance now. Me, and this poor little backpack.
"I said goodbye." He tells me gently, running away again immediately after. I sniffle and hug the back tighter, trying not to think of the horrors it must've seen.
It's curled up against the trunk of the tree, hugging the rucksack and sniffling every so often, that I hear someone shouting, someone else screaming. A cannon sounds.
And I shouldn't panic. I should just stay here, where it's relatively safe rather than dashing into the fray.
Only that was Haymitch's voice. That was his shouting. And I can't sit here and do nothing. Not again.
I'm not surprised if you all hate me right now. Honestly, I don't think I blame you. But, I mean, it had to happen at some point, right?
Plus, we got to see Billy :D! He is a fun, fun character to write. Maybe that redeems it a teeny, tiny bit?