A/N: *Fidgits.*
Hey guys! So this chapter is pretty mild, kind of a filler chapter and I-
*Bursts out laughing*
I can't say that with a straight face. Enjoy!
Star Fire (17) POV
District 4 female
Jasmin and I are sitting on the same pier that she jumped off of days ago to go skinny dipping. The same pier that we both cut our hair on. It was simpler a few days ago, back when we had our full alliance. Back then, Ambrose either wasn't as much of an asshole, or we were able to ignore him better with more people with us. I'm guessing it's a combination of both.
"I'm bored," Ambrose whines. "There's nothing to do. I wanna go hunting."
I glance at Jasmin. Her nostrils flare, and she looks at me, taking a deep breath. She closes her eyes, and her chest rises and falls rhythmically, and I can tell she's trying to calm herself down. Clearly, it's not working, because her hands are balled into fists with her nails digging into her palms.
"I'm not going to kill him," she says, to herself and me. "I'm not going to kill him. Yet."
"You say that," I tease. "But you look like you're about to decapitate him."
"Ha ha," she says, rolling her eyes.
Since Ambrose is being such an asshole, and Jasmin's on the brink of death, I decide that I should probably do something nice for her. I think I have an idea, too. I lean in so I'm right by her ear. She looks up at me with doe eyes, probably knowing where I'm about to go with this, and I whisper in her ear so Ambrose doesn't hear us.
"Do you want me to take Ambrose hunting?" I ask. "You can stay here and have some goddamn peace and quiet."
"Thank you," she says. "Don't kill anyone without me; just keep him occupied for a while."
"He's like a toddler," I mutter.
"More like a dog," she says, smirking.
I let out a laugh, then walk over to the ground, where Ambrose is sprawled out like a starfish.
"Ambrose, do you wanna go hunting?" I ask, crossing my fingers that he says no.
"Really?" he asks, hopefully.
"If that's what you want to do," I say, already regretting my decision.
"Yeah, let's go," he says. "Is Jasmin coming?"
"No," I say. "She's not feeling well."
"Sucks to be her. Let's go," he repeats. "I wanna get someone before someone else does."
Ambrose and I each grab a bag, along with an ax for me and a spear for him.
"Good luck, guys!" Jasmin calls.
"Not that we need it," Ambrose says, smirking.
Just as we're about to leave, a small package falls from the sky. I'm excited, because the raccoon mutts took most of our food, but when Jasmin opens it, it's nowhere near edible. It's a weird little black box with an antennae coming out of the top. Ambrose and I walk over to her to get a closer look, and Jasmin turns it over in her hands.
"What the hell?" I ask, tentatively touching one of the buttons. A sharp static sound comes from a speaker, and Jasmin drops it on the ground.
"I have no idea," Ambrose mutters.
"It must be important, or else we wouldn't have gotten it," Jasmin says. "You go hunting, and I'll stay here and try to figure it out."
We set out, and with Ambrose as my hunting partner, I feel like we're going to find someone, whether we're trying to or not.
Fenton Henderson (17) POV
District 10 male
A small silver parachute enters our line of vision, and Elizabeth grabs it in midair. She opens it up and cradles it in her hands like a wounded baby bird.
"What is that?" I ask.
"Oh, it's a walkie talkie," she says. "Little kids play with them all the time in District 6. You press the red button when you're talking, and the green button when you want to hear what the other person is saying."
"That's cool and all," I say "But why would they only give us one?"
"Who knows?" Elizabeth says. "You should probably hang on to it. I lose everything."
I tuck the walkie talkie into my belt, then sit down on the ground. Elizabeth follows suit.
"How are we for food?" she asks, moving a stray strand of hair out of her eyes.
"Two apples, a bagel and a pack of jerky," I say. "Why?"
"Do you wanna just..." she trails off.
"Finish it?" I ask, hoping she'll say yes.
"I was gonna say sacrifice it to the sun god," she says, a ghost of a smile on her lips. "But finishing it works too."
I chuckle, and her eyes sparkle a bit, though I could have imagined it. I squint at her, taking in her face, since one way or another, I'm not going to know her much longer. I open my mouth, about to share my thought with her, but then I realize that it's definitely not something she would want to hear.
"Were you going to say something?" Elizabeth says.
"Oh," I say quickly before blurting out the first thing that comes to mind. "Um... You have pretty eyes."
The corner of her mouth turns up into a smile, and she looks down at her lap. "Thanks," she says, quietly.
"Any time," I say. Why's she acting so weird? It's just a compliment. "So, the food? An apple, half a bagel and a few strips of beef each?"
"Sounds good," she says. I take the food out of our backpack, and we split it between ourselves. The bagel is stale, the apples bruised, but the beef fine due to the plastic bag.
"I'm weirdly obsessed with beef jerky now," Liz says, taking a bite. "I swear, if I win, I'm just gonna be living off this when I'm in the Capitol. I never had it back home, because Maverick hated it. Not to mention, we could never find it."
"It's pretty easy to come by in 10," I say, absently. "Most people usually have it. A lot of the richer people refuse to eat it; they, like, dismiss it as cowboy food."
"Cowboy food?" she asks, grinning. "That's ridiculous."
"Like I said, only really pretentious people don't like it," I say, returning her smile.
"Girls like Kalia?" she asks, a mischievous look in her eye.
"Pretty much," I say.
We finish our food in silence, and I'm left dissatisfied when we're done. It was quite a bit of food, but knowing that we're completely out now makes me crave more. Elizabeth is fiddling with the straps on her backpack, and I remember saying that the straps were too loose. It made it hard for her to move quickly. I'm surprised she's just now gotten around to fixing it.
All of a sudden, her head snaps up, and her eyes widen.
"F-Fenton," she says, obviously scared.
"What's wro-" A powerful blow from behind cuts me off from my sentence, and before I can formulate an idea, my vision goes black.
Jaclyn Hide (12) POV
District 8 female
Techa's face shines in the sky, along with the boy from District 11, and a strangled cry erupts from the back of my throat. I killed Techa. I killed the boy from District 11, and I don't even know his name. I didn't even think about it, and I already regret it. I remember in his interview, he said he had younger siblings with no parents. His uncle had died on Reaping day. Now, his siblings are probably going to die on their own, all because of me. If Techa and I had just let him kill us, he would probably have had a good chance at winning. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't have killed him. He had so much more to go home to than me and Techa.
Quickly, I snap myself out of it. Techa may not have had much to go home to, but I sure as hell did. For God's sake, I have a family too. I have a younger sister who probably doesn't know what's going on, parents who have to be worried sick, and a best friend that I miss more than anything. Not to mention, I have to get home to tell my parents about Clara being an Avox. I've thought about just saying it now for the cameras, but it would probably get edited out, and it would put a target on my back for the Gamemakers, so I keep my mouth shut about it.
I can't let pity get the best of me. I couldn't control getting reaped, but I can control whether or not I come out of the arena alive. Without a kidnapper to intimidate or or an ally to blind me, nothing can stand in my way of victory. After all, I've survived the arena through eighteen deaths, so what's five more, really? The Careers are probably more concerned with the girl from 6 and the boy from 10 than me. Not to mention, they probably think it was Techa and me that died, not Techa and the boy from 11, so right now, I'm as good as dead to them.
I'm so lost in thought that I almost don't notice the sponsor gift coming towards me. The package is about the size of my hand, and when I unwrap it, I immediately recognize it as a walkie talkie. Abernella and I used to use them when we were pulling especially elaborate pranks and needed a way to keep in touch. But why would we need them? I don't have allies anymore, so there's no one I'd need to keep in contact with. I drop the device into Techa's old bag and quickly foget about it while formulating my new plan.
Jasmin Kentwell (17) POV
District 2 female
I jolt awake to the sound of Ambrose yelling and Star trying in vain to quiet him. I rub the sleep from my eyes and look over the horizon to see three figures stumbling towards the Cornucopia. Ambrose is running circles around Star, pumping is fist in the air and screaming, while Star struggles to support the weight of another tribute.
Are they helping someone? It's not in the nature of a Career to show mercy, but Star's always been more compassionate than the rest of us, so it wouldn't surprise me if she did. Why, then, would Ambrose be so excited? Ambrose, given his way, would have been happy to take the kill, to add one more tally mark next to his name, which leads me to believe that they have something much wore than a quick death for whoever they're bringing.
The three of them get close to the Corcucopia, and I play a game with myself, trying to guess who they might be bringing. It could be anyone, since I slept through the anthem and never found out the two that died (Idiot), but by the build of the body, I immediately rule out the girls from 3 and 8, leaving the girl from 6 or the guys from 10 or 11.
A mess of curly blonde hair glints slightly in the moonlight, and I realize that they have the girl from 6; Maverick's sister, whose name I can't remember.
"She's unconscious!" Ambrose cries, gleefully. "Knocked out! We can do anything!"
"Until she wakes up, dumbass!" I yell. "What the hell were you guys thinking?!"
"You said not to kill anyone," Star says, haphazardly dropping District 6 on the ground. "We were thinking since you couldn't get Lileth, you could kill this one."
"Well thanks for that," I say. "I'm gonna wait until she gets up, try to get some information from her."
"She had an ally when we got her," Ambrose says. "The boy from 10."
"What happened to him, then?" I ask.
"We knocked him out and left him," Ambrose says. "We couldn't realistically bring them both, and the girl was facing us. The guy never saw us."
"Who died?" I ask. "I missed the anthem."
"The girl from 3 and the boy from 11," Star says.
"So it was probably her that killed them," Ambrose says, gesturing to the half-dead girl on the ground.
"Most likely," I say. "But we can't be too sure. We need to ask her when she gets up."
"Do you think she knows what this is?" I ask, waving the black box at them.
"Probably," Star says. "District 6 is transportation, so they're probably pretty advanced when it comes to technology."
Ambrose props the girl up on the side of the Cornucopia and takes up the responsibility of staying awake with her so Star and I can sleep. Maybe he's not that bad after all.
END OF DAY NINE
Questions!
1) Do you like Jaclyn more or less now?
2) Thoughts on the Elizabeth situation?
3) Who do you think will die next?
4) Who do you want to win?
Now that we're down to the final 6, I've put up a new poll. You can only vote once, so chose wisely.
Quote of the day: "YOU CAN DO IT. HANG IN THERE, I BELIEVE IN YOU. FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS. THE SKY IS THE LIMIT. Something like that. I'm not good with encouragement. I'd more likely be procrastinating with you." -Fifidear
-Make the day special!
