A/N: Hope you're all still reading =)
&Sorry if the next two chapters aren't up to par. I wrote them at three in the morning, so I had a lot of editing to do.
I could've rewritten them and all but I want something published, so here ya guys go. (:
Violet's POV
I can see them from up through the branches. Bambi, Marina and Trafford are all moving through the jungle in a little huddle, and Bambi stops to vomit as they pass the bottom of our tree. Trafford exchanges a look with Marina before the three of them walk off—and only once they're out of hearing distance do I release my hand from Tiffany's mouth and lean back.
She takes in a dramatic breath. "I was about to suffocate there."
I don't respond. I just look at Trawny, who's pretending not to notice me looking at him by flicking dirt off his shirt. His reasons for wanting to keep Tiffany are pretty simple: if we run into careers, she goes first and we have a chance at getting away. Especially now that I have a martial arts stick always tucked into the sides of my pants, and Trawny a kit full of medical gear—which he proved his skills with by patching up a cut on my arm I received when the water from the pit threw us out and into the jungle.
"Do you have a problem with me?" Tiffany asks suddenly, and I look away from Trawny's bright orange hair to her. I don't want to answer. But I have to.
"I normally don't have a problem with anyone," I tell her. "Until they have a problem with me."
Tiffany tilts her head, like she's considering this. "Touché."
Odyss's POV
Ebony's ear is better, I guess. And by better I mean it's stopped bleeding.
She's always in pain, and sometimes she lets it show, others she doesn't, but either way I can tell how much she's suffering. Ryli and I've patched it up to our best ability but neither of us is wonderful with the medical field, and we've established it as a lost hope to try and do much else. It seems that Ebony can hear with it, but not very well.
That's why she doesn't sit watch at night. She insists sometimes, but it would be a bad idea if we let her listen in the night for danger when she's nearly half-deaf. I wouldn't want my little sisters doing that, so she won't either.
Not that Ebony is like a little sister to me or anything. Like I said before, whatever happens in these games happens. And for me to win, both Ryli and Ebony must die. And I will win. For my family.
"Not many cannons have gone since the games started," Ryli says to us. We're all sitting in some cave we found under a cliff in the jungle—no way we're heading back to the beach—nibbling on a few big juicy-looking beetles we found outside under some rocks. They smell quite horrible, but food is food.
"What does that mean, then?" questions Ebony. "These beetles are really good, by the way."
Ryli shrugs. "It's not good. Our situation, I mean, not the beetles. The Capitol probably wants some bloodshed. And nobody's died since yesterday—"
A cannon fires.
We all go silent and look around, like it was one of us. But I can see both are still in one piece each, legs crossed and mouths full of insects. Which are delicious, but I try and concentrate more on Ebony and Ryli for the time being. "Who do you think it was?" I ask.
"Hopefully one of the careers, but I'm not saying anything else." Ryli sits back, shoves a beetle in her mouth, and abruptly stands up from the ground. "I feel excited. Like drunken excited. Does anyone care to dance?"
Bridger's POV
It happens so quickly I don't know what's going on—not until I'm pinned to the ground, my only good hand being squashed underneath my back, and when I reach for my sharp tree root which is somewhere behind my head one of my fingers gets pierced with a blade.
I resist screaming out in pain and meet the eye of the bastard on top of me. Ariel. Her black hair is swinging on my face, and I should be able to push such a person off, but she got me in the middle of one of my naps. When my weapon was foolishly placed next to my numb hand, not my good one.
"Bridger." Her voice slurs, and I know Alexander must be lurking somewhere in the shadows. If I could get her off of me, and reach my weapon, somehow, he would have me back down in a second. But still, if she thinks I'm going to go down quietly and without a fight—
"Ariel Peffer." The only reason I say her last name as well as her first is because the p sound makes a sound I'm able to spit on. She swipes the saliva off her face with the back of her hand, and I grin widely at her.
"Asshole," she mutters.
"Bitch."
"Moron."
"Please," Alexander says. I can't see him, but he's obviously somewhere. "Get the hell on with it all."
"I just want to make it good," she says, looking back at the trees. More black hair skims against my face, and while her head is turned I realize the blade she pierced my finger with is still there, just lying in her hand limply. So, resisting pain, I clutch my hand around the blade and yank it free from her palm, which catches her so off guard I'm able to push her to the side and stand with the homemade blade in my own possession.
"Now look what you've done," I hear Alexander groan. "Now he has the blade. Bravo."
"Shut up, goddamn it." Her head whips back to me as she stands up to her feet faster than I can comprehend, and lunges. But I sidestep, and she tumbles. I want nothing more than to lunge for her myself and kill, but something from behind hits me, and I fall towards the ground, the blade still in my hand. I try to move it, but I can't, it's too late, I can't move the blade—
I feel the sharp point slice through my chest deeper and deeper as I see the soil coming closer and closer. Finally, my body hits the ground, and the pain of the knife in me is too much. So I pull it out, but it seems to make it worse, because my hands immediately fill with blood. Ariel is laughing, saying something about how she didn't have to do anything and I'm so stupid I did it for her, but I can't hear. It's too distant. I can't be bothered. I'm too tired, and I really just want a nap.
So I shut my eyes and pray for the pain to go away, whispering goodbye to my father.