Before I could react or do anything, the owner of the voice pulls me by my hair, which is still in the fishtail braid, and puts one of their arms around my collarbones and with the other, they hold a sharp knife against my throat.
"Look what we got here." They say again. "Isn't the lovely little girl from two?"
"Leave her alone!" Ryle shouts, trying to get up, but he falls back to the ground.
"Tell me why should I?" Divya yells at him. "I have a better idea, you know? Taby, could you hold her while I kill Ryle and then after she has seen the whole thing, we can kill her too?"
"We were going to discuss that with Kellen, remember?" Tabitha says.
"This is the great chance, Taby." Divya says, her pupils have gotten dilated making her look even more like a lunatic, I can't see her though because my back is right pressed against her stomach, and I can't even move because of her strong grip on me. "We can get rid of the two tributes of District two on the same day."
"Ryle is our ally."
"Come on! We will give the audience a great show and the gamemakers won't create some horrible mutts to kills us to make the people excited again, this is a great chance and we can't ruin it!"
"I still think…"
"What?" Divya yells. "Do you want this pathetic girl to kill you later and win the Games?"
"That's not what I was going to say!" Tabitha exclaims.
"Look, we will kill Ryle first and then we will kill…"
Divya lets out a loudly scream, making my ear hurt. Ryle has thrown the knife he had at her, it hit her right on her left shoulder, it almost hits me too. Divya starts to bleed, but even after that, her grip on me doesn't get loose at all.
"You little piece of shit! You will pay for it!" Divya yells at Ryle. "See, Taby? We have to kill him before he kills us! Keep an eye on him, won't you?"
Divya then let go of me and pushes me to the ground, I fall on my hands and my stomach against the hard floor, then Divya turns me around and sits on top of me, pinning my hands with one of her hands and holding tightly the knife in her other hand, again she holds it against my throat.
"Let's make her suffer a bit and then we kill her partner and finally we kill her." Divya says. "How did you get that twelve anyway?" Divya asks looking me straight into my eyes, her own eyes are scary and she really looks like a mad person. "You are weak, pathetic and good for nothing, aren't you? How did you get that twelve?"
"Just get it done already!" Tabitha shouts.
"Let me have my fun!"
I slap myself mentally, I could have escaped once she had me pinned against her own body, I could have kicked her and run away, but now that I'm on the floor some of my sense comes back to me and I try to do what Finnick taught me, but she's too heavy, she doesn't even bulge. This is it, this is my end.
"So you can't talk either?" Divya says to me. "Hmm? You are so pathetic, you can't even talk, maybe you just need a bit of help."
Divya smiles in a sick way of me and then I feel a sharp pain on the left side of my face, she has just slapped me. I just groan a bit, but don't scream or say anything. She grabs her knife again and points it at my neck, this time it is actually touching my skin.
"I can apply some more pressure to it and it will be your end, you know? One of your most important arteries is right under the blade, you would bleed to death in just seconds. We are that fragile, interesting, huh?"
"Divya, just kill her already?"
"There is no fun in that!"
"Divya, kill me!" Ryle shouts. "Do whatever you want to me!"
"Don't worry I will." Divya says. "After I have made her suffer a bit."
Divya then smiles at me again and I know that doesn't mean anything good. And I am right, because I feel a great amount of pain right on my abdomen. I let out a scream, I don't want to show her I'm weak, but it's just too painful and it surprises me.
"Oh, so you have a voice!" Divya says laughing. "I'll make a few more of those, and don't worry, I know where exactly to make them without killing you."
She raises her hand once again, her smile never leaving her lips, that and the eyes compliment her twisted expression. This is not a good way to die, why can't she just get it done with? She's just about to do it again, she will stab me again so I close my eyes and prepare for it.
"What is going on!?" Another voice yells angrily, Divya lets her knife drop to the ground as I open my eyes, she turns her head to look who is behind her.
I move my head a bit to the right and I can see the familiar face of the blonde tribute from District 1, Kellen. His green eyes are full of alertness, bitterness, anger, fury, confusion and pain, but when they land on me and recognize me, they soften a bit.
"What the hell are you doing?" Kellen yells at Divya.
"What do you think?" She yells back. "I'm going to kill her!"
"Let her go!"
"What?" She yells, confused. "Are you all mad? You have to kill to win, that's what you have to do, or you haven't understood the rules yet?"
"Just let her go, Divya!"
Kellen approaches her quickly, grabs her by her wrist and pushes her off of me, she ends up right next to me on the ground. Then he grabs me by my wrist too, but he pulls me up to my feet, he looks at me caringly. The murder look he gave Divya a few seconds ago is gone, he looks at me like a friend who cares about me and someone who is in pain because I'm hurt. I'm shaking of fear, I haven't realized it because I was on the ground but now my legs feel like jelly. I wonder how much longer will it take for me to fall because of it.
"Are you alright?" He asks me.
I don't say a word though, I can't find my voice. I'm too terrified.
"Divya stabbed her!" Ryle says loudly.
"Where?" He asks me.
Again I don't talk, I can't answer him, I only look down at my stomach. My thoughts are all messy and even if I find my voice I wouldn't know what to say, this is all too confusing. Kellen's actions are making me even more confused, he should be killing me too, not asking if I'm alright.
He kneels down, and raises my shirt a bit to look at the cut. It is on the left side, is right between my hipbone and my belly button. That area just feels warms now, it hurt when it happened but I don't feel anything now.
"Why did you do this, Divya?" He shouts angrily.
"I really don't understand you, people!" Divya shouts back, she's on her feet by now. "You don't want me to kill that pathetic girl and Taby doesn't want me to kill Ryle! What the hell? Do you want to keep everyone alive or what?"
"Kill Ryle?" Kellen asks astonished.
"Just look at him! He will die soon, anyways!" Divya keeps shouting. "We would do him a favour!"
"Just shut up, already!"
Then instead of looking upset, Divya starts laughing. She even falls to the ground, holding her stomach and rolls on the ground as she keeps laughing. Has she finally gone completely insane? All I know is that it is very scary.
"I get it now!" She says loudly as she keeps laughing. "You don't want your little love to die! You really like her, don't you?"
"Divya, are you alright?" Tabitha asks her.
"All what you said on that interview was true, wasn't it? About being in love with her?" Divya asks Kellen as she points at me, she finally stops laughing then. "My mentors, Kade and I talked about it and we thought it was only a cheap trick to get sponsors, you know? The handsome Career tribute falls in love with the weakest tribute of all of us? The weak tribute that magically got a twelve, it was a perfect love story. A perfect way to get sponsor, but those weren't your intentions. It was all true. Just great, now you will let her live."
"She's not a threat." Kellen says.
"Maybe, but we still have to kill her if we want to win."
"Not today." Kellen says firmly.
Kellen walks away from me then and approaches Tabitha. He never loses me or Divya from his sight though, he leans in and whispers something to Tabitha, she looks a bit shocked at first but she keeps nodding at whatever he is telling her. Maybe they are planning how to kill me after all.
"Just wait a bit, okay?" Kellen says softly to her, she nods once again.
Kellen glares at Divya as he walks back closer to me, he gives Tabitha a final look and nods at her before all his attention is on me. His gentle light green eyes are staring straight at my own blue ones.
"Don't be afraid, okay?" He says to me.
Then Kellen bends down and picks me up bridal style, with one of his hands under my knees and the other under my middle black, my first reaction is to wrap my arms around his neck to not fall. Divya is throwing daggers at us with her eyes.
Kellen starts to walk away from that place, away from them. I'm still so confused to even move, I just stay paralysed in his arms. Maybe he is taking me somewhere to kill me himself. What else could he be doing?"
"Where are you going?" Divya yells at him.
"I'll be back soon."
Kellen keeps walking away from them, until we are back where the ground is flooded. He seems like what he is doing demands little to no effort at all to him, like if I'm weightless.
"Do you have medical supplies?" He asks me. "Like for that cut?"
"Yes." I finally say, my voice is pretty raspy and it is barely audible.
"Can you take care of it by yourself or do you need help?" Kellen says. "I could help you."
"I can do it, thanks." I say, my voice is unrecognizable.
"Do you have like some kind of shelter, or something?"
"Yeah, I have my things there."
"Take care of yourself, okay? Be alert." He says to me. "I'd tell you to stay with me, but I know you don't want to make any kind of alliance."
"I wouldn't stay just to be killed by Divya in my sleep."
"I could get rid of her if you want."
"It's alright." I say, shaking my head at him, being a bit disturbed that he would kill someone for me. "You can leave me here if you want."
"Let me take you a bit further, we are on the right path, right?"
"I think so." I say.
Kellen keeps walking without saying another word, all that I hear is his breathing and the sound of the water every time he takes a step. My head is against his chest, his heartbeat is almost like a lullaby, I feel myself getting a bit drowsy.
The sun is almost gone by now, the rainforest is getting darker and the noises of animals like owls have started, there are more nocturnal animals than daytime animals here, and since it's all dark the nocturnal ones are scarier, with those bright yellow or green eyes they have.
"I don't know how further are your things, but I'll leave you here." He says as he puts me down, my shoes touching the cold water, my feet or the inside of my shoes don't get wet though, because of the waterproof fabric of my tennis-boots kind of shoes.
"Thanks, you have done so much for me already, like letting me live." I tell him. "Besides I wouldn't like you to see where is my hidden place, no offense."
"Of course." He says, not offended at all. "Be safe, yeah?"
"Okay."
"Okay." He says.
Kellen turns around and starts walking away, going in the same direction he came from, I also start walking but on the other direction. I make sure he won't follow me or anything. I don't go straight to the cave, just in case he is somewhere hidden, wanting to know where I go. So I change course a bit, just to be safe. I walk around the arena walking in circles sometimes, or going a bit more to the right or left than I should.
With all these trees and their leaves I don't really see the sun or anything but, just as the sun completely sets, a canon is fired.
As soon as I hear the canon, I start running my hands over all my body to see where I had just been injured, I knew I shouldn't trust Kellen. At lease I feel no pain at all.
I don't find anything, though.
I stop to look down at me and I see no injury or blood, except from the stab Divya did to me. I shake my head and almost hit myself on the forehead for being silly, I wouldn't be able to run or to check my injuries if I would be dead. Ok, maybe that was the most stupid thought I have ever had.
I resume my run back to the cave, it is pretty hard with the water reaching a bit above my ankle, I'm making a lot of noise and I don't want any tribute to know where I hide. When I'm close to the cave, I climb a tree and keep going from tree to tree, just like I followed the female careers. The branches are way too close to each other that they touch together, is not hard to go this way, it's actually easier. I must be really cautious to not slip, though.
It is almost pitch black when I finally see the little hill and the cave, I get off the tree and go up the hill to get to the cave. Once there, I crawl a bit fast to where my backpack is and grab the flashlight and the medical kit, I can't let this wound get infected or to let it keep bleeding, I must do something and quick.
I don't know much about healing cuts and medicine but I put some peroxide on the wound and then some alcohol, I don't want to scream but I do, it is just too painful. And right when I'm going to bandage it, I hear a noise outside the cave, I crawl back to the end of the cave, afraid it is another tribute but when I calm down a bit and pay more attention to my surroundings I see it is something silver. A parachute.
I crawl as fast as I can and take the parachute in my hands, I open it and see a little ointment bottle inside, I open it and put some on the wound and I feel some kind of instant relief, but at the same time I feel pain in another part of my body, my neck. My fingers instantly travel to my neck and I feel something sticky and warm, I look at my fingers and sure enough there is blood, it seems Divya pressed way too hard against it and did a little cut on there when I was on the ground, I didn't even feel it when it happened.
I also put a tiny bit of the ointment on that newfound cut, and again I feel instant relief. Those things of the capitol work wonders. It is just then that I see the note in the parachute.
'Don't waste it and take care of yourself. – B.'
Brutus must be really upset at me for my stupid actions just an hour or so before. But the person that must be more than furious at me it is definitely Finnick. I didn't do anything he taught me, I was paralyzed. I was so scared I couldn't move a single muscle, including my brain, it wasn't working at all, I wanted to escape but I didn't know how. I could have escaped, but I didn't. If Kellen wouldn't have shown up I would probably be dead right now, or Divya would still be torturing me.
I'm really upset at myself. For my careless actions, I should have been more alert, I should have paid more attention to my surroundings and I should have left so much earlier, I stayed for far too long. I knew they were going to be back soon. Also, everything I practiced for a week, didn't work at the time I needed it. I should have kicked her like Finnick told me instead of just stayed motionless waiting for my death, that is something that must not happen again, because if it does, I won't be as lucky and I will end up dead. I was extremely lucky to get out of there with only one stab and one cut.
It's already pretty dark and I don't want to waste the batteries of my flashlight and the cave is illuminated by it, meaning anyone could see the light from the darkness outside, it's a chance I don't want to take.
I grab an apple and two crackers before turning it off, I eat them in complete darkness. I chew every piece about twenty or twenty-five times, so I can taste them well and will get full faster, I don't have much food and I just can't eat everything in one day.
I didn't eat anything but a loaf of bread in the first two days, and these three days I haven't eaten much either, just some bread and fruit, my stomach and my body are starting to get used to so little food, there are times I want to eat the whole thing but I distract myself so I don't end up giving in and regretting it later.
That night every little noise makes me jumpy and extremely paranoid. I think it is Kellen with Tabitha and Divya that will ambush me, but it's just the nocturnal animals. I lie down with the backpack as a pillow and put the jacket over me, like a small blanket and try to sleep, but I open my eyes every time I hear the most minimal noise.
Hours and more hours pass, or at least it feels like that. And I can't really fall asleep making it seem that time lasts longer than what it actually does, and if I'm lucky enough to fall asleep I wake up just in a matter of seconds, either because of the noises or because of the nightmares where Divya slices my throat open or something as bloody and painful as that.
Then another noise catches my attention, the Capitol anthem. I groan as I sit up and crawl to the edge of the cave so I can look up to the sky and see who died. The seal disappears and the picture of the fallen tribute appears high on the night sky, when I see it I feel like someone is suffocating me because I can't breathe and I feel like Divya is stabbing me once again but this time on my heart. It's Ryle.
What do you think of this chapter? What's your opinion on Kellen and Divya?
Who do you think will die next?