Author's Note: So, everybody good and mad at Phlox now? Hold on a minute... XD
"You all knew each other. You acted like friends." –Katniss Everdeen, Catching Fire
Vale put all of her focus solely on the warmth of Lark's hand as he swiped the Capitol medicine he'd found in her pack all over her stinging, sliced palm.
It hurt. It wasn't very deep, and the knife hadn't even cut through any arteries, which was a relief, Lark said. But even so, every time he dabbed another dollop of ice-cold, tingling salve on her skin, she had to clamp down on her lower lip to fight the urge to scream.
As her brother tended to Vale's wound, Fen (having recovered the arrow that she'd fired at Phlox as a warning shot) stood up and began pacing back and forth next to the alcove, murmuring petulantly to herself.
"I can't believe I let myself fall asleep like that, when I knew better than to trust her," she said under her breath. "She could have killed all of us in our sleep, and I wouldn't have even known it."
Lark turned momentarily away from Vale to address his sister. "Everybody gets tired sometimes, Fen."
"I don't care," she replied, her face bathed in shadows. "I could have lost you, just because I was careless."
Lark returned to his work, finishing rubbing in the ointment on Vale's palm. The rain had abated again, but she hardly noticed. She was still biting down hard on her lip, her eyes stinging and wet. The tingling sensation had turned into the feeling of a thousand tiny pinpricks digging into her hand. She couldn't help but whimper.
The younger boy regarded her with sympathy. "Sorry, Vale," he said. "This is supposed to make it heal faster. I'm almost done."
He finished within another ten seconds, but the pricking feeling didn't subside for five more minutes. Even after that, her hand still throbbed whenever she moved it, as if the ghost of Phlox's knife was cutting into her palm all over again.
"I don't understand," she said in a whisper, her hand unconsciously clasping Maybelle's necklace, seeking to calm her fluttering nerves. "Phlox didn't seem bad. She obviously cared a lot about her poor district partner; she tried so hard to save him in the bloodbath. Why would she be so willing to kill us?"
Fen paused her pacing and turned to fix her with a stare that reminded Vale of the way one would look at a woefully naïve child. "We're not from her district. She has no responsibility at all to us. She couldn't kill him, but it's her job to kill all of us so she can make it out alive."
She sounded so blasé about it, so calm, almost comprehending. But Vale was still bewildered.
"But that's awful…."
Fen shrugged her slight shoulders. "It is, I guess. But I can understand it."
Vale just shook her head. "I can't. She fought so hard to protect him, yet didn't hesitate to attack us. How could someone be both so kind and so cruel? I just can't understand it."
/
They would never be able to understand. Not really. Phlox knew this, and she didn't really seek their understanding or acceptance, anyway. The point was that she had failed to get rid of the three, and in fact, she had nearly gotten killed herself. And now, she was on her own again.
They couldn't understand how she needed to gain the sponsors' attention with some grand feat. Since she had failed to take out Obsidian Citrine, the next best thing would have been to take out his silly little girlfriend and her friends—after pretending to form an alliance with them, to stab all three of them right in the back in the most literal sense.
She had promised her mother and her siblings that she would make it back to them at any cost. And Blake had made her promise the same thing to him.
Blake. The name made her pause momentarily in her brisk walk. It had been nearly as dark as this when he had died. They had already made it into these very woods.
The others must have assumed that he had died in the bloodbath. "Poor, blind boy like him. He wouldn't have stood a chance." The thought made Phlox seethe inside, her chest burning with anger. Blake had hated pity. She had never shown any outward signs of pity toward him, instead offering him assistance. Because she knew how bitter he could get toward those who felt sorry for him.
Like that Vale girl. Phlox could still remember how, before he had gone in for his evaluation with the Gamemakers, Vale had called after him, "Good luck," in the most condescending, sympathetic voice. It had humiliated Blake, and it had made Phlox livid.
"Oh, what a sweet, pure, kind little goody two-shoes I am, showing concern for the poor, sad little blind boy. What a shining angel am I, with my pretty, sparkly dresses and my shiny necklace and my fake sympathy."
She had never been happier than when Blake had scored one point higher in evaluations than Vale had.
She hadn't really known Blake before the reaping—he had attended the same school as she had, of course, but he'd been two years younger than her, and she had only known him by his reputation, as "Blake Edenthaw, that weird kid who can't see."
But in the short span of time they had, they had become quite close during their joint preparation for the Games. Too close, really, if Phlox was being honest with herself.
But she and Blake were two of a kind. Often quiet, and therefore aloof and enigmatic. Some would probably call them brooding, but it wasn't Phlox's fault that life in District Eleven had been so difficult. And it definitely wasn't Blake's.
At the time, she hadn't been sure why she had begun acting as the younger boy's guide. It had just seemed the natural course of action to take. Blake hadn't thanked her for it, and neither of them had made a large deal of it. It just felt natural.
Often, he would talk about how he had no chance in the arena. "You might as well kill me the second the Games begin," he would say. "At least you'll be kind about it."
She had no idea why he thought of her as kind, when she wasn't perceived that way by anyone else. She just hated how he seemed so resigned to his fate.
She would always try to argue with him, but it was never any use, and it only left her wondering why in the world the shrewd, indifferent Phlox Ragweed cared so much about someone else's life in the context of the Hunger Games at all.
But together, they had escaped from the initial feud at the Cornucopia. It had all been so chaotic: the screams, the battle cries, the sickening clanging sound of metal clashing hard against metal. Phlox remembered feeling sick to her stomach. She had watched as tributes fell, one after the other, most of them killed by Careers, and recalled now how she had envied Blake for once, because he hadn't been capable of seeing the bloodshed, even if he wanted to.
They had almost died several times. Obsidian had almost killed her, before he had gotten distracted by Dornick, the District Eight boy, who was foolishly advancing on Vale. Phlox had almost laughed at how stupid he was, caring about someone who was his natural enemy in the arena. Then, the girl from Two, Brigid, had come at Blake with a mace, gashing his shoulder, and all thoughts about the foolishness of love and affection had been purged from Phlox's mind and replaced by the raw, simple desire to take Blake and flee.
Miraculously, they had escaped into the forest with minimal injuries, and with a single knife that Phlox had plucked from the hands of a fallen tribute. Other than the wound on his shoulder, Blake had made it out scot-free. Phlox had received a few small, shallow cuts on her arms, as well as a deeper one on her left cheek that stung bitterly. She had tried to hide this from Blake, but even without vision, her district partner seemed to be too perceptive.
"Phlox, you're hurt."
"I'm fine, Blake. Don't worry about me. We're alive, aren't we? That's good enough."
"You're hurt," he'd said again.
He had raised a delicate hand to her face and winced when his fingers discovered the gash. Phlox had flinched, too, but only partially from the sudden jolt of pain that seemed to shoot from the injury, all the way down her spine. More so, she wondered as to the cause for the grave, unchecked concern written all over his face. It was just a nick, not a gaping wound or anything.
"Why did you save me, Phlox? You shouldn't have bothered. You're a fighter. You're clever. You actually have a chance here. Why would you risk it, just for me?"
She hadn't known how to answer at the time. She'd spent precious moments fumbling for words that would make her sound proud, detached, the person that many people assumed that she was.
"If I let you die, everyone in District Eleven would hate me."
"Oh," he had said softly. He'd looked almost wounded. Unlike Phlox, Blake had never been able to look at his reflection and learn to make his features a blank mask, emotionless. Inexplicable sorrow showed plainly on his face.
He had paused for a long while—too long a while, in hindsight, contemplating, the gears of his mind whirring rapidly behind lovely, sightless eyes. Slowly, his hands fell away from Phlox's face, leaving her skin feeling numb at the sudden absence of warmth.
"Why don't you let me hold the knife?" he had said at last. "You're smart, and you can defend yourself and make traps. But I don't have anything; I'm just dead weight to you. Can I just hold it, so I'll at least have some hope of being able to inflict a fatal wound and help you out?"
Phlox hadn't paid enough attention to his words at the time, or to the unimpeded gleam in his eyes. She had been too busy thinking, Yes, he's right. He needs to be able to defend himself in case I can't defend him. I need to make sure that, whatever happens, he stays safe, and feeling around for the knife that she had slipped into her pocket.
Blake had taken it from her and just held it in his hands, absently testing the blade lightly against his fingers. "Promise me what you promised your family," he murmured. "Tell me you're going to win, no matter what you have to do, no matter who you have to hurt."
She had nodded. "I promise."
"I promise the same thing. No matter what I have to do or who I have to kill… I'll make sure you have the best possible chance of making it through to the end. Because I know you'll make a great victor if there's nothing, no one, to hold you back, Phlox."
There had been so much feeling put into that single syllable, her name, that it had struck Phlox dumb: silent and unforgivably stupid. She hadn't done anything as Blake, still holding the knife in one hand, used his other hand to cup her cheek, the one that wasn't injured. As he'd clumsily kissed her, right on the mouth. As he had then taken the knife and plunged it right into his own heart—she'd been frozen stiff, until there was nothing she could do to save him.
"Phlox" had been the last thing he ever said.
His final statements, an urging for her to win. "No matter what you have to do, no matter who you have to hurt."
He had been wrong. He hadn't been dead weight. He'd been an inspiration, a driving force, even now, when he was gone and far away. She'd sworn to him that she would win. And win she would.
"If I let you die, everyone in District Eleven would hate me." Why did I say that? I shouldn't have said that. I should have said… "Because I need you. Because I care about you. Because I l…"
She didn't permit that thought to come to its natural conclusion. Too close, she'd gotten too close. It was stupid; caring was stupid. Senseless, really, in the Hunger Games.
She could just look at the imbecile from District One for proof of that. He had been admirable at the start, utilizing a sound strategy, showing signs of an actual brain dwelling behind that thick Career skull. He had pulled off a remarkable score of ten in evaluations and earned Phlox's grudging respect.
And then, he had thrown it all away the moment that he began to care about that spineless goody-goody from Twelve and her puny little partner. Now, he was an idiot, plain and simple.
Phlox continued her silent walk through the woods, reaching a hand up to trace the fading gash on her cheek. When she pulled her hand away, it was wet.
She scowled. Must be left over from the rain earlier, she told herself firmly.
It wasn't as if she'd been crying or anything. Blake had hated pity, even from her. She hated it, too.
"You were always there, and like shining light, on my darkest days, you were there to guide me. Oh, I miss you now. I wish you could see just how much your memory will always mean to me. In a blink of an eye… I never got to say goodbye. Like a shooting star, flying across the room, so fast, so far, you were gone too soon. You're part of me, and I'll never be the same here without you. You were gone too soon." –Simple Plan, "Gone Too Soon"
Author's Note: I keep POV-hopping lately, don't I? I just wanted to show a bit of Phlox's backstory, as well as what really happened to Blake. Apparently, I just like making you all depressed, don't I?
Anyway, hope you enjoyed.
~Lily
