Chapter 21: Day 13
This chapter is going to be a bit shorter than usual, but full of action! This is also going to be the second-to-last chapter, and I have to say it's kind of weird coming to the end here since I've been working on this story for so long! I hope you enjoy!
My heart pounded, both from trying to get out of the area before someone found me and from the shock of seeing Atlas. I knew that it was only logical that I would have to confront him at some point, but that didn't stop myself from wishing that he had just eaten the poisoned food like Zeus had and was now dead.
"That was clever," he told me. "Poisoning the food? How long did you have that little trick up your sleeve?"
He had seen me? I had thought that I had been alone.
"Don't worry, I didn't tell Zeus," he continued. "I want him dead just as much as you do. There was no way that I was going to be able to kill him by myself." He paused, as if he were collecting his thoughts. "So how long were you going to wait before poisoning me?"
"I've been poisoning people since the very beginning of the Games." That was a lie - I hadn't started until after Atlas had tried to kill me, but perhaps it would unnerve him if he believed that I had been poisoning tributes for longer than I really had been. Maybe he would believe that I had poisoned him.
"I can't believe I didn't see it sooner," Atlas said, smiling, although there was no warmth in it. "I can't believe no one saw it. I suppose your grandfather taught you."
I nodded, taking a few steps closer to him. If I could keep him talking, then maybe he wouldn't notice when I tried to kill him. I debated throwing my knife at him, but if I missed, that would mean that I had lost one of my weapons, and so I refrained.
"I'm surprised that you were able to pretend to be in love with me for so long," I told him, clenching my knife in a fist. It still made me furious when I thought about how he had tricked me, and so easily as well. I hadn't questioned him at all when he had said that he was in love with me, and so quickly had decided that I wouldn't hurt him.
Now I had no qualms about it. Besides the fact that only one of us could walk out of this arena, I wanted my revenge on Atlas. AndI was going to get it right now.
"You should have waited until the very end to turn on me." I took several more steps closer to Atlas, tightening my hold on my knives, although I didn't move them into an attack position, in order to redirect Atlas' attention from them and any possibility that I would attack him. I doubted he would fall for it, but I may as well try. "That way you would have had an ally to help you kill off Zeus and Ares. Instead, I had to kill them myself."
"You're right, I should have waited. But this is fine too. Either way, I'm still going to get to kill you." And he charged toward me, his sword in one hand in his mace in the other.
My senses kicked into high gear. This was it: if I killed Atlas here, I would win. Although Zeus' cannon hadn't gone off yet, it was only a matter of time, and he wasn't going to pose a threat to me after eating all of that hemlock.
And if Atlas defeated me, it was over. I wasn't going to let that happen.
Raising my knife, I stepped to the side, dodging his sword. I swept my knife downward, aiming for his arm, I didn't care which one. All I cared about was that I injured him enough that he wouldn't be able to use both his sword and his mace. I'd have much more of a chance of winning against him if it was a knife against just a sword or just a mace, instead of a knife against both a sword and a mace.
He hadn't expected me to dodge him, and so he didn't see my knife coming. I hit the hand that was holding the mace, and cut deep enough that he dropped the mace, which clattered on the pavement as it fell. I made a split-second decision to bend over and grab the mace for myself, hoping desperately that Atlas wouldn't seize the opportunity to hit me over the head with the sword or to stab me in the back.
He did, thankfully, because he continued on for a few paces, since he had been sprinting at me, and he seemed to be too preoccupied with his wound to do anything else for the few moments that it took for me to pick the mace up. I had to drop one of my knives, but it was worth it. I had much more of a chance now that I had a larger weapon. And though I hadn't trained with a mace, I'd be able to figure it out quickly. All I had to do was swing it, unlike a sword, which required technique.
Atlas stopped and stared at me, a look of horror spreading across his face as he realized what was happening: I now had two weapons, while he only had one, and he was injured and I wasn't. I smiled at him, the way I might have if he had never revealed that his love for me had all been an act. This clearly unnerved him, because he looked even more unsettled than before.
Good.
I took a few steps toward him, feinting with my knife so that he'd try to block with the sword, while then stepping to the side and bringing the mace down on his shoulder, causing him to yell in pain and drop his sword. His whole arm went limp. Even with top-notch medical care from the Capitol, he'd be lucky to keep the arm. There was no way that he was going to be using it anytime soon.
"Please-" Atlas began, and I gave a humorless laugh.
"You would have happily killed me at any point in these Games," I told him. "Why would I spare you if it meant my own death? Besides, you tried to kill me first. And you were the one who pretended to have feelings for me."
"So yours were real?" Despite his clearly impending death, Atlas had the gall to look smug. "You're much more pathetic than you look."
"They weren't. What did you expect? This is the Hunger Games. Any advantage that I could possibly have, I took. Even if it involved pretending to be in love with you." I was lying through my teeth, and I was sure that he knew that.
"Your feelings seemed real enough to me then." He stopped to wince, trying his hardest not to give more of an indication that he was in pain.
"So did yours. I'm a good actor." I raised the mace again, ready to just kill him and get these damn Games over with.
Realizing what I was about to do, Atlas turned and started running in the opposite direction, making one last attempt at escape and survival. But he was injured and I wasn't, and so I caught up to him in only a few seconds.
I brought the mace down on his head once, with all my might, not wanting to prolong this any more than I already had. Atlas crumpled to the ground, dead.
The cannon fired.
