Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson and the Olympians or Heroes of Olympus. They belong to their respective owners: Suzanne Collins and Rick Riordan.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Dahlia is running. She's not sure where through. The image around her keeps shifting, from woods to ruins to desert and so on. She doesn't know what her arena will look like, after all. But she does know that this is the arena. And she knows she's being chased. Maybe by Slate. Or the gigantic Castle. She's not sure which one would be more terrifying.
She has a backpack over her shoulder and a knife in her hand- maybe not the best move, now that she thinks of it, but she needs to have something to defend herself.
The cameras on her are like beady little eyes. She can practically feel them recording her, displaying her on giant screens for all the world to see. It's awful.
She trips over something and goes sprawling on a ground that's constantly changing and yet remains solid. She pushes herself to her hands and knees, but when she tries to stand, pain shoots through her right ankle, and she almost falls down again. In bewilderment, she looks down at it, trying not to curse or cry out.
It must be sprained. Dahlia forces herself to keep going, shambling painfully along as she rummages in her backpack. Surely she has something she can use to fix her ankle. All she gets is a plastic baggy of nuts and berries, an extra knife, a half-empty canteen for water, and a piece of cloth that seems to be about useless.
If only she had medicine. Or ambrosia or nectar. But of course she wouldn't find those here. It's a mortal game after all. Mortals don't know about ambrosia and nectar. They can't use it, anyway.
Dahlia curses very softly in Ancient Greek. No need for Capitolites to find out she can speak a really, really, really long-dead language. Might raise suspicion.
She's going too slow. She can almost feel her chasers gaining. Ignoring the pain as best she can, she forces herself to go faster as she zips up her backpack. Her knife is still clutched in her hand, which surprises her. She's lucky that it didn't go flying off into this weird shape-shifting world around her after she fell. Or that she didn't stab herself in the nose or somewhere worse. At least she only has a sprained ankle, however troublesome it may be.
Dahlia hobbles on, as fast as she can, almost biting her tongue off to keep from crying out. The pain makes her clumsy. She spends the majority of her time stumbling over things, then catching herself and pushing on. And she can't go nearly as fast as before. Soon she hears the pounding of footsteps behind her, proof that she's running out of time. She looks around her in desperation. She dodges into the trees as, for one second, the shifting image changes to woods, but in the next second it's an endless, treeless grassland, stretching out for as far as the eye can see. Then it's a desert. And it just keeps changing: a different climate, a different time, a different place every second. It makes Dahlia want to scream. She's grateful that in the real arena it won't be like this. She hopes.
So using her surroundings is out. That's for sure. She keeps running, as best she can.
Then the arrow catches her in the back of the left thigh. The pain is sharp and sudden, and Dahlia can't hold back a scream. Her legs collapse underneath her.
"No," she whispers from her place on the ground.
Both her legs are pretty much useless now, but she manages to roll over and sit up, holding her knife out shakily in warning. Her ankle and leg are screaming in pain, making it near impossible to focus, but she throws her knife, and a second later hears the grunt of pain that shows its hit someone.
Then that someone is in front of her. He has a bow in his hand, an arrow notched. There's a cut on his leg, presumably from Dahlia's knife, but the knife itself is nowhere to be seen.
Fearfully, Dahlia's eyes raise to the boy's face, and it's not Slate. It's not Castle. Suddenly, she realizes that the most terrifying way for her to die is not by either of their hands.
Because they're definitely not her friends.
But this is. And he terrifies Dahlia.
Adair Labelle, her own district partner, stands over her, an arrow aimed straight at her. Her heart is almost pounding out of her chest, so loud she's sure he can hear it, practically telling him, I'm right here! Please feel free to shoot me now!
The look in Adair's brown eyes is so angry, so full of hatred and bitterness. Dahlia doesn't understand it. Why does he look like that?
"Adair?" She can hear the shock in her voice. His eyes tighten.
"Dahlia." His voice is seething with anger.
She tries to say something else, ask what's wrong with him, beg for mercy, anything, but then he lets the arrow fly.
She wakes up screaming just before it pierces her heart.
For a moment, Dahlia doesn't know where she is. All she sees is dark. All she can hear is her racing heart, wildly pounding in her ears, and her breath, racing almost as fast as her heart.
Then she forces herself to relax, tries to control her ragged breathing. She hopes she didn't wake anyone up with her screaming.
The memory of Adair's angry eyes is burned into her mind. Why did he look like that?
It was a dream, she tells herself. Of course, for demigods, that doesn't really mean much. But she can't believe this will really come to pass. Adair would never do that to her. She's sure of it. He's annoying, but he's not like that. It was just her subconscious, conjuring up things to scare the life out of her on the day she goes into the arena.
Oh crap...this is the day she goes into the arena.
A knock sounds on the door, interrupting her thoughts.
A boy's voice calls, "Dahli?"
Adair. A shiver of fear rushes through her, irrational but very real. She forces it down and slowly crawls out of bed.
"Yeah?" she calls, making her way toward the door.
"Are you okay?"
Dahlia places her hand on the doorknob and contemplates that question. Is anyone okay after they've had an awful nightmare like hers, and on top of that they're about to get sent into an arena that might very likely be the last place they ever see? She doesn't think so.
"I'm fine." She twists the knob and pulls the door open.
She tries not to smile at the sight of Adair. His black hair is disheveled, his eyes glimmering with worry and exhaustion. There are faint blue circles under his eyes, so Dahlia assumes he hasn't had the best of nights, either.
"You were screaming," he says.
She winces. "Bad dreams." She hesitates. "Sorry if I woke you."
He waves her off. "No. I couldn't sleep anyway."
I know the feeling, Dahlia thinks. "Oh" is all she says.
Adair opens his mouth to say something else, but before he can, the hallway behind him bursts into action. Red lights flash and alarms blare, and Dahlia gasps. Mica and Diamond. She forgot all about the escape plan in the wake of her dream, but now it comes flooding into her mind again.
The alarms can mean only one thing: Diamond and Mica have been spotted. They might have even been caught.
"What's going on?" Adair looks bewildered.
"I don't know," Dahlia lies.
She pushes him aside and steps out into the hall next to him, closing the door firmly behind her. "But it can't be good."
"Maybe we shouldn't be-" A door slams open farther down the hall, cutting him off.
Toni bursts out and comes barreling toward them. She stops in front of them.
"Come on." She grabs both their arms and drags them back the way she came.
"Where are we going?" Adair demands, asking the exact same question Dahlia was about to ask.
"Somewhere safe," Toni replies. "The Training Center's been breached. The guards gave us orders to get all the tributes to the roof."
"Why the roof?" Dahlia's afraid she knows the answer, but she asks anyway.
Toni gives her a weak smile. "It seems you'll be heading for the arena a bit early."
No.
Dahlia hears doors slamming behind her, and the elevator is going crazy. They ride up to the roof with the District Ten team and an escort Dahlia remembers from District Seven's reaping. That boy from Ten gives Dahlia and Adair the evil eye the entire way up. Apparently he hasn't forgiven them for that little mishap during the interviews. That incident seems so small to Dahlia now, compared with all the other things that have happened since then.
The elevator lets them out onto the roof, and Dahlia considers jumping back into the elevator and getting out of there, but no. The elevator's constantly going up and down. It'd take forever for her to finally get down to the first floor. And she might not even be able to find Diamond and Mica. Besides, a lot of people's eyes are on her, and Toni's grip in incredibly strong as she drags Dahlia and Adair toward the waiting hovercraft.
Adair looks scared and confused in equal measure. Dahlia looks around the roof and spots Barric's golden hair about ten feet away. She wishes she could go to him. She wishes she could run to the elevator. She wishes she could go anywhere but that dreaded hovercraft.
But they get to the rope ladder anyway. Toni gives Dahlia one last smile, then shoves her toward it.
"Good luck," she says.
Dahlia doesn't have much choice but to grab the rope ladder. Instantly, she's paralyzed and the ladder is lifted into the hovercraft. Once inside, she can move again, and she stands in the middle of the craft, wishing that there was a way out of this. But there isn't. Not anymore.
Hunger Games here I come.