Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games.
On the first day of my second week in the arena, absolutely nothing happens. Manson and I wander around, looking for other tributes, but we find no one.
On the second day of my second week in the arena, Manson and I are woken up by screams.
"They're close by," I say, immediately jumping out of my sleeping bag and picking up my swords.
"We can leave our stuff here," Manson says, grabbing his trident. "It's close enough that we'll be able to find it again."
I hesitate for a second, then nod. Leaving our stuff here is the smartest option, if we want to be able to find whoever is causing someone to scream. Hopefully, we'll catch the killer in the act, then kill him or her. Two opponents down in one day. "Let's go."
We take off in the direction of the screams.
They're coming from a small clearing. We barely burst from the trees when a cannon booms.
"Are we too late?" Manson asks me, looking around warily.
"No," I say, pointing to two figures on the other side of the clearing. We run over as quickly as we can.
It's the girl from District 7, the one whom I noticed was strong just by looking at her reaping, and she's pinning another tribute up against flower stem. I distantly remember her being called Acacia during her interview. And the girl she's pinning up against the stem… it's Georgia.
I grab Acacia by the shoulders and haul her backwards, then signal for Manson to take care of her. Meanwhile, I lunge forward to catch Georgia as she falls from her spot up against the grass blade. She sobs and links her small arms around my neck. I quickly spin around so she's facing the grass instead of the clearing; that way, she doesn't have watch as Manson impales Acacia through the heart with his trident.
She falls to the ground, and another boom of the cannon echoes throughout the arena.
Manson walks up to me and wipes sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. He gives me an uncertain expressions. "Are you going to…" his voice fades when he sees me shake my head.
I can't kill Georgia. She was so nice to me, and so innocent, and her Larkin were the ones that put me on the path of the other careers when I first started hunting them…
Georgia gives another huge sob and wraps her arms around me tighter, as I pet her hair soothingly. "Larkin…" she cries.
"Larkin," I repeat. Manson looks at me with a strange expression in his eyes. I hold up one finger, silently asking him to be quiet. "What happened to Larkin?"
Georgia picks her head up from my shoulder and shakily points behind her. "We were coming out of the grass and… and… Acacia ambushed us. She cut right into Larkin with her axe, and then she picked me up and rammed me against the stem of that flower…"
The first cannon was for Larkin, then.
It's then that I hear Manson suck in a breath. "Kal," he says. "Your pants. Look at your pants."
My eyes travel down to see that my pants are covered in blood. "Georgia," I say warily. "Stand up."
She tries to, but she can't, seeing as there's a gaping wound in her thigh. Her pants have been ripped away around it.
I inhale sharply. "What happened?"
"Larkin and I were allied with Rosetta," she says faintly. "Garrett attacked us and killed her. He gave me this-" she points to the wound "-before he realized that I was his district partner. Then he ran off." She takes a shallow breath. "Larkin bandaged it as best as she could. It stopped bleeding and even scabbed over a little, but it must have reopened." She sits back down.
"It scabbed over?" I say cautiously. She nods. My brain starts working at a thousand miles a minute. "Let me see it."
She bares her leg for me. However, there's so much blood that I can't even see the actual wound. "I've got to clean this off," I decide. "Manson, can you help me carry her back to camp?"
He looks annoyed, but nods and helps me pick her up.
She's light between the two of us, and we get her back to camp easily.
We set her down, and I hand her a full canteen of water. "Pour a little on at first," I instruct her. "It will sting, but don't stop. Once it stops stinging so bad, pour a little more. Then repeat until you can see the flesh wound, alright?"
She nods and bites her bottom lip as she begins to pour water onto her wound.
I retreat and stand next to Manson. "Shouldn't we be killing her?" he asks. "Instead of, you know, helping her?"
"A few days ago, Georgia and her friend Larkin, the one who just died, helped to put me on the track of the careers after I started hunting them. I'm not going to repay their kindness by killing her."
"Oh," he says, folding his arms.
"Besides, look at her." We both glance at her. She's biting her bottom lip and pouring even more water onto her leg; her hands are shaking profusely, but she keeps pouring. "She's only thirteen years old. How can you not help her?"
He sighs and rubs his temples. "She's going to have to die eventually."
"I-" suddenly Georgia calls out my name.
"Yeah?" I say, jogging up to her.
"Should this be happening?" she asks, putting her hands on either side of her leg and squeezing gently. A large amount of pus comes oozing out of the wound, which has now stopped bleeding and been cleared of most of the blood.
I groan. "Shit."
"What's wrong?" she asks, sounding a little frightened.
"That's pus," I explain. "It means the wound is infected. I don't… we don't have any medicine, but maybe the ointment I got the other day will help."
I dig through my bag until I find the tube that came in the parachute I got three days ago. I don't have much left, but hopefully it will work.
"We have to squeeze all the pus out first," I tell her. "Do you want me to do it, or do you want to do it yourself?"
"You do it," she says, sniffling softly.
I nod and brace my hands on either side of her leg, then squeeze gently. Even more pus comes out. It's disgusting, but it has to be done.
I wash it away with some water and repeat the process. After that, I do it again. By the fifth time, all the pus is gone.
"I have an infection," Georgia states, like she is trying to get herself to believe it. She opens her brown eyes and looks straight at me. "I'm going to die, aren't I?"
"What?" I choke out, my hand freezing on the cap of the tube of ointment. "No, of course not!"
"People die from infections all the time in the arena," she says slowly. "I'm just going to be one of them."
"Not on my watch," I assure her. "Now, relax. This medicine is used to prevent infections in wounds. Hopefully, it will work for this, too."
She takes the ointment from my hand. "I want to do this part."
I nod and back away quickly.
"Does she looks pale to you?" Manson asks quietly.
"Yes," I say worriedly. "She's gone without cleaning the wound and putting medicine on it for two days. She is in serious trouble if that medicine doesn't work."
He looks at me with sad eyes. "Brace yourself, then."
By the time dusk rolls around, Georgia is burning up with a high fever, and little red spots have begun to appear all over her skin.
"I want to go to sleep," she begs.
"You can't fall asleep," I say, for the eighth time. I don't know why I'm so terrified that if she goes to sleep, she'll never wake up.
"We all need sleep," Manson reminds me.
"I know that," I snap. "But she's not going to sleep."
"You need sleep, too," he says. "Get some rest. I'll watch her, and I'll wake you up if she gets any worse."
I want to protest, but already my eyelids are fighting hard to stay open.
I fall asleep to the sound of the anthem.
Manson wakes me up about an hour past midnight. "She was calling out your name."
I nod and crawl out of my sleeping bag, offering it to him. "Get some sleep. Thank you for staying up with her."
He nods and settles into the sleeping bag. I walk over to where Georgia is lying. "Hey, Georgia," I say lowly. "I'm here."
Her eyes open, and I hold back a gasp. They're bloodshot and glassy, and the rich brown of her irises have dulled to an almost greyish color. "Kal?"
I nod and take her hand, squeezing it gently. She squeezes back. "I'm here."
"I'm dying."
"You're not dying," I say, closing my eyes and fighting back tears.
"I am," she says. "I know it. I've got a high fever and red dots. It's blood poisoning. I've seen it before."
"Do you need anything?"
"Can you help me sit up?" I nod, then help her sit up and prop her against a blade of grass.
"Can you cut three long, equal pieces of rope?" she asks, leaning her head back against the grass and closing her eyes.
It's a strange request, but I do it.
When I'm done, she asks, "Do you know how to make a friendship bracelet?" I nod. "Can you make me one?"
"Why?" I inquire.
"I don't have a token," she says.
"You can have mine," I blurt out, then clap my hand over my mouth. What am I doing? My token isn't even mine to give away.
She laughs faintly. "I can't take yours. Yours is an heirloom. It belonged to your mentor, and now it belongs to you."
I stiffen. I don't want we getting the wrong idea about Jared and I. "How do you know that?"
"You wear it on a chain around your neck, probably because it's too big, which means that it belonged to a man. And I heard that your token from home got denied, so the only person who would give you a token like that is your mentor."
I smile slightly. "You're good at that."
She smiles. "I'm pretty smart, I guess. Now, can you please make me a bracelet, so I can have a token when they send me home?"
"Of course." I set to work on knotting the different strands of rope together.
"Tell me about your family," she instructs.
"Um, okay." I hesitate, thinking of what to say first. "Well, there's my brother, Jasper. I don't like him very much. He's sort of crazy."
She giggles a little.
"Then there's my mom." I knot the ropes together a few more time before continuing. "She's always busy with work, so she often leaves me to take care of the rest of the family, but that's okay. She still loves us all very much, even if she's strict."
"That's like my dad," Georgia says quietly. "My mom died a few years ago."
"My dad died, too," I say softly, thinking of my father, with his blonde hair and soft, smiling green eyes.
"Do you have any other siblings besides Jasper?" she asks me, her voice sounding even weaker than it did before.
"Yeah," I say. "I have a little sister named Jinx. She's not much younger than you, actually. She looks like just like me, except she doesn't dye her hair brown."
"You have blonde hair in real life?" Georgia asks, her eyes flying open.
"Yep." I smile. "Shhh, though. Don't tell anyone. It's a secret."
She laughs. "I won't. I promise."
"Anyway, Jinx is my only other sibling. She's a butthead sometimes, but she's sweet and stubborn and I love her. I think you'd get along with her very well."
She nods. "I have two siblings, too. Their names are Agnes and Cooper. They're twins. They're eleven years old. They'll be in the reaping next year. And I can't stop it. They'll have to take tesserae now that I'm gone." A small tear drips down her face. "I don't want them to end up dying like this."
"If I get out of here, I promise I won't let them," I say, reaching out and taking her hand in mine before squeezing it again.
She squeezes back. "Thank you."
"I'm done," I say sadly, holding up the intricately woven bracelet with the hand that's not latched onto hers.
She takes it in her free hand and smiles. "It's so pretty. You did a good job."
"Thank you," I say, tears welling up in my eyes.
"Can you put it on my wrist?" she asks, holding it up.
I take it back from her. "Of course," I say, slipping it around her hand.
When I'm done, her hand falls back to her side. "It's so pretty," she repeats, closing her eyes. "You did a good job."
"Thank you," I say again.
"Everything's so pretty," she whispers, opening her eyes suddenly. Her hand squeezes mine tightly. "We're in a death match, but everything here is so pretty. How can everything here be pretty?"
"I don't know," I answer, squeezing her hand.
"Look at the stars. They're so pretty."
"They are," I agree.
"So pretty," she says once more, then exhales deeply. Her hand in mine goes slack.
Boom.
Review, please! Constructive criticism is welcome, but please be nice!