Author's Note: Hola, everybody! Again, so busy with school, which is why my updates are a little less frequent now. Don't you just hate schoolwork? XD
"I have one real friend in here. And he isn't from District 4." –Katniss Everdeen, Catching Fire
Fen smoldered for the rest of the afternoon about Vale's spontaneous alliance with Phlox.
Vale and Lark welcomed her wholeheartedly, but it was obvious that Fen still didn't trust her as far as she could have thrown her. Although she looked like she wanted to throw her very far away at the moment.
As far as Vale was concerned, Phlox would be a good addition to their small pack. The girl could obviously set excellent snares, if she had been able to trap one of the Careers. Anyway, Vale remembered the way Phlox had guided her blind district partner, Blake, onto the stage for their interview. Phlox came across as nearly emotionless, yet she had displayed blatant tenderness with Blake. She couldn't be all bad, even if Fen seemed convinced that she was.
Lark continued trying to initiate conversations with her—Vale might have, but she was a bit more inept at talking to people—but Phlox tended to ignore him or answer with questions with one- or two-word responses. Mostly, she just sat still and silent, her dark eyes shifting back and forth between the others' faces and the thick line of trees surrounding their small, crowded alcove. Vale noticed a small cut, mostly healed, on one side of her face; every once in a while, the girl would raise a hand to the injury almost unconsciously, looking pensive.
The day passed by slowly, with Vale, Fen, Lark, and Phlox eating a portion of the meat found in the backpack that the latter had stolen from the Career. Vale noticed that Fen didn't eat any of the meat until she saw Phlox take her first bite—as if she was ensuring that it wasn't poisoned.
Vale didn't understand it. She could still call to mind the vibrant image of Phlox, in the midst of the tumultuous bloodbath, steering Blake by the arm away from the danger zone, at risk to her own safety. Someone like that, who had put her own life in jeopardy for the sake of her district partner, couldn't be as bad as Fen obviously thought.
She tried to save that poor, blind boy's life. She has to be a good person. She just has to be.
Afternoon sunk into evening, the sun disappearing as long, dark shadows began creeping their way around the alcove. Rain began pattering down on them again, and Vale, beginning to shiver, drew her rubbery black hood up to cover her head.
Final goodnights were exchanged, and the four retired to their sleeping bags. Fen and Lark burrowed first inside the large bag which they shared, their breathing soon slowing down in rest, and Phlox settled down inside the one that she had apparently taken from the Careers.
As Vale tried to find a comfortable lying position inside her own sleeping bag, her gaze continued to be drawn to Phlox's face. In the blackness of night, it was difficult to make out her dark features, but Vale was almost certain that she was still awake.
Vale wished that she herself wasn't still lying awake on her side, staring over at her newest ally because she found herself unable to drift off to sleep. Her eyelids felt as if they were weighted down. She was exhausted; why couldn't she find any rest? It had to be more than just the chill of the rain on her exposed cheeks.
Something was keeping her awake. She wasn't sure what.
Everything is fine, she told herself in a soothing voice, trying to calm her irrational fears and lull herself to sleep. No one is here but us, just the four of us: me, Fen, Lark, and Phlox. Nobody wants to hurt us.
Yet the practical voice which permanently resided in the back of her mind was there to remind her on cue: the four of them, tucked snugly inside their nice little alcove, weren't the only ones out there. There were—she did a quick count—six other tributes still running loose in the arena, four Careers and two others, who could come upon them at any moment. The tributes from Districts One and Two, very dangerous, as well as Chas, whose fighting style was wild and also quite lethal, and Lexus, who was armed with a blowgun, Vale recalled.
At these thoughts, she shivered inside the growing warmth of her sleeping bag, even though she was hardly even conscious of the icy sting of the rain any longer.
That was it: she was scared. Of the foes still lurking in the shadows. Just waiting for the right moment to strike while they're beneath the enigmatic shroud of midnight's shadows and slip a knife right in our chests while we're sleeping.
She could almost hear the pragmatic voice scoffing at her. Don't be so histrionic about it. Point is, people want you dead. And they've got pointy weapons. End of story.
She shuddered again. She knew that "end of story" was merely a figure of speech, but she really didn't want it to be the end of her story.
At least an hour passed, and still, Vale found herself unable to go to asleep. She didn't shift from position to position, although the one that she was in now certainly wasn't the best, because she figured that the movement would just snap her out of any sort of sleepy reverie that she might have been slowly sinking into.
She even tried to consciously slow down her breathing, to the point where it mirrored the tempo of the inhales and exhales of the slumbering siblings to her right.
In… And out… In… And out again…
It was no use. She just couldn't fall asleep. Something wouldn't let her.
Her back was beginning to cramp from the uncomfortable position she was laying in. She didn't want to move, was too busy trying to breathe slowly and close her eyelids to move, but at the same time, it was really beginning to hurt…
That's it.
Vale was just about to shift and roll over to her other side—maybe tuck in her knees and curl up like a baby, even—when suddenly… Something moved. She sensed it even before her eyes quite registered the subtle change.
Another tribute, out there in the woods? An animal? Or maybe—goodness, please, no—the same mutt whose deadly, sharp claws had killed Kit?
Just in case it was (it couldn't, and probably wouldn't, but just in case it was), Vale's hand twitched in the direction of the knife tucked beneath the sturdy leather of her belt.
But no, it wasn't the mutt at all, or any sort of animal, or even an unfamiliar tribute.
It was Phlox.
Slowly, silently, she shifted to one side, then rolled up into a sitting position. She paused, seeming to glance back and forth from the siblings to Vale and back again, as if searching for any signs of wakefulness.
She probably has to use the bathroom, or maybe she wants a midnight snack, and she just doesn't want to disturb us, thought Vale.
Yet even so, her heart was racing uncontrollably, and she made herself as still as possible and squeezed her eyes shut as Phlox's head turned in her direction again.
With measured, precise, gradual movements, Phlox slipped out of her sleeping bag and raised herself up onto her knees. She made not a sound, so quiet that Vale never would have noticed that she stirred at all if she hadn't been watching through her own narrow eyes.
Inch by inch, Phlox crept toward her stolen backpack. She unzipped it in dead silence. No, deadly silence, Vale corrected herself, then wondered why she was concerned about Phlox being deadly at all. She's our ally. She's our friend. She tried so hard to save Blake's life at the Cornucopia….
When Phlox's hand withdrew again from the pack, it was clutching a knife.
Vale's heart started to flutter even faster, yet she found that she was strangely immobile. It wasn't that she wouldn't move—she couldn't. She was frozen, petrified with a sudden onslaught of numbing fear.
Phlox, still on her knees, turned slowly in the direction of Fen and Lark's dozing forms, edging nearer and nearer.
For a moment, the blade in her hand caught the light of the moon as the pale orb broke through the gaps in the tree limbs overhead, and that old, latent terror within Vale was reawakened. Knives. Blades. Claws. Her stomach wrenched with panic, and she caught her breath in a soft gasp.
Soft, perhaps, but the faint noise was enough to startle the District Eleven girl as she loomed over the sleeping Lark. Her eyes, almost black, glinted as they connected with Vale's. For a moment, everything was still.
Then, everything exploded into chaos.
Vale, giving a wordless cry of alarm, sprang from her sleeping bag. Or, at least, she attempted to. Instead, her legs became entangled in the sleeping bag, and she went pitching forward with a shriek. Her body slammed into Phlox, and both girls went sprawling on top of Lark and Fen. Fen awoke in an instant, immediately alert. Her brother was quick to follow.
Vale's mind was a jumble of disorderly thoughts, each one growing louder than the last in an effort to be heard. Phlox wants to kill us! No, but she tried so hard to save Blake! Don't be a moron; she just tried to stab Lark! But she said she wanted to be our ally!…
Phlox was struggling now, sandwiched between Vale and Fen. "Get off of me!" she gasped. "Get off!"
Lark's face had gone pallid with fright. "Wh-what's going on?" he said. His voice sounded small, as if it belonged to a boy younger than fifteen, as he eyed the knife that was still clasped in Phlox's fingers.
The knife. Vale's eyes became fixated on the small, jagged blade. She had to get the weapon away from her before she could use it to slash at Kit… No, Lark… No…
She blinked in an effort to clear away the brain fog—oh, right, now it decided to descend over her. Faces and names and events seemed to blur together in her mind in the heat of the moment. Kit, Lark, Averill… Fen, Lavinia, Maybelle… Phlox, Amber, Brigid… Laurel, Nerissa, Hazelle… Vale, Vale, Vale! Snap out of it….
She decided that it didn't matter. She couldn't let another brother, Fen's or her own, get hurt again.
Vale reached out, half-blindly, for the knife. But as her sluggish hand came into contact with Phlox's, the girl jerked the knife, either in a simple, hopeless flail, or aiming to strike out at whatever opportunity they presented her with.
Either way, for a fraction of a second, Vale felt the sharp edge of a knife burrowing into her palm.
She let out a shrill scream that was far too loud, piercing through the night like an audible refrain of the sharp pain of blade slicing neatly through flesh. For a moment, Vale saw deep blue spots dancing in front of her vision. She felt a sudden icy jolt, as if someone had just dumped a bucket full of freezing cold water all over her. All that she could think of was backing up, retreating, getting as far away from that cutting edge as she could.
When her perception cleared again, she was lying on her back on top of her own thickly padded sleeping bag, her entire body curled as if to protect her one injured hand. After a moment, she made out the sounds of a scuffle continuing around her: Fen growling, Phlox cursing, Lark whimpering, the rustling of dead, broken leaves.
By the time she finally managed to sit up, Fen had gotten hold of her bow and loaded an arrow, and she was now pointing it at Phlox. Through the shadows, Vale could still make out a deadly gleam in her eye.
"Three seconds until I shoot. One…"
Phlox, with no trace of murderous intent on her face now, scrambled for her stolen pack. By the time Fen reached "two," she was already out of the alcove and tearing away into the woods.
Fen fired the arrow, and it lodged itself in a tree, mere inches from where Phlox had been positioned just seconds before. The dark-braided girl gave a soft gasp of terror and disappeared into the trees.
Vale was trembling terribly, clutching her injured hand. Blood trickled out from the cut, only to be washed away by the rain. She glanced over at Lark, who seemed to be quivering as well but didn't appear to be harmed. His eyes were wide and scared.
Fen, meanwhile, only looked miffed. "Great. Now, I'm going to have to go over there and hunt down my arrow."
"Born into a world I knew nothing of, no concept of pain—I didn't know what it was. But I was young, innocent, and so naive, and I soon found out how it is. Born into a world I knew nothing of, no concept of pain—I didn't know what it was. I thought I could trust; I thought I could lean on this world, but I soon found out what it means to fall face to the ground. Try to get back up, pushed back down. Outstretched hand, broken wrist, one more name on my blacklist. Didn't take me long to learn that if you trust, you get burned." –Six Feet Deep, "Angry Son"
Author's Note: Ah, Fen, at least you haven't said "I told you so" yet...
~Lily
