Flora's legs give out underneath her and she pitches forward, her palms radiating with pain as she slams into the dirt. Somewhere behind her she can hear Alli collapse too, panting, crying, but, thankfully, there's no sound of the Careers.
They got what they wanted, after all.
When Flora eventually pushes herself up to a sitting position, Alli is staring at her. She's slumped against a tree, wide-eyed, fearful, still struggling to catch her breath. She meets Flora's gaze.
"You pushed her." It's not an accusation, it's a fact.
"I had to." Flora clenches her jaw. "They would've killed all three of us."
"You don't know that," Alli says. "You didn't even give her a chance."
Flora gets to her feet, running a hand through her hair. She swallows down the guilt that starts to rise. She did what she had to do. "She had to die at some point."
"That's callous, Flora."
"Is it? You said the same thing about Hari."
"Yeah, I did." Alli stands too, clenching her free fist. "But what happened to Hari wasn't our fault. There was nothing we could do. But you pushed Orabel, you threw her to the wolves. It might as well have been your hatchet that killed her, and then you're going to stand there and say that it had to happen at some point, like it was all out of your control?"
"In case you forgot, Alli, we're in the Hunger Games. People have to die."
"Orabel didn't. Not like that."
"Look. We can stand here and argue all day, or we can put more distance between us and the Careers," Flora says. "And nobody is making you stay in this alliance with me. If you want to leave, you're free to."
Alli hesitates for a few seconds, looking over her shoulder at the way they came. She shakes her head, wiping away a few tears.
"That's what I thought," Flora says, and she starts walking.
In her dream Orabel is there; eyes full of betrayal, face twisted into a grimace. They're back at the cliff, standing opposite each other and she's stepping forward, trying to say something but before she can, Orabel is falling, arms outstretched but meeting nothing but air. Both of them are screaming and-
A stiff kick to her shin wakes Alli up, and she flies into a sitting position, gasping. Flora is stood over her.
"Are you okay?"
Alli nods, reaching for her water skin. She takes a few mouthfuls, trying to gather herself before replying. "I'm fine."
Flora doesn't look convinced, but Alli looks away, eyes flicking over everything but the concern on her ally's face. It's easier to convince herself that Flora doesn't care; that the two of them are just strangers, using the other for a leg up.
Alli has learned her lesson. She's already lost three friends, and she can't lose a fourth if there isn't one.
She can't be betrayed by one, either.
They haven't spoken much since the day that Orabel died. They don't need to. Alli has made her position clear, Flora hers, and what's done is done. Alli doesn't agree with it, but she also knows, like it or not, that she needs Flora.
There are nine other tributes still out there, and two is always better than one.
Flora sees the way that Alli looks at her when she thinks she isn't paying attention. Thinly-veiled disgust and fear, like Flora's going to attack her at any minute and leave her for dead. It doesn't make Flora feel bad, even if it should, because she was simply playing the game. She was saving her own skin. Getting herself out.
Alli, too.
It was one of them, or all of them, and frankly, Flora doesn't regret the choice that she made. Not because she's heartless or, as Alli put it, callous, but because she's still alive. She feels awful when she thinks about Orabel, about the family and the district that she left behind, but Flora can't ignore that she has those things, too. Her mother, her grandmother, her brother… they're all counting on her to get home.
And Flora will do what she has to do to get there.
There are seven other tributes left, now. She's almost there.
It's approaching afternoon. The two of them are walking side by side when they hear nearby voices. Alli stops dead in her tracks, eyes flitting between Flora and the two figures in the distance. The figures are talking amongst themselves, louder than she or Alli would ever dare, and, somehow, they haven't spotted them yet. Flora lunges towards Alli, the other girl recoiling, but not before Flora can seize her wrist.
"We have to hide," Flora hisses. "Unless you want-"
Flora's cut off by a throwing knife whizzing just over her head, sticking into the trunk of a tree just behind her.
"I think it's too late for hiding," Alli says.
Flora sighs, readying her hatchet. "Yeah. No shit."
Alli is the first one of them to move. She pulls her wrist from Flora's grip and ducks down behind the nearest bush for cover. Pulling her knife from her belt, she watches as the other two tributes approach. They're not Careers, looking almost as uncertain about this as she and Flora do, but it does little to calm Alli's nerves.
She leaps out from behind the bush before they can reach it, slashing at the outstretched arm of the girl closest to her. It doesn't feel good, to intentionally hurt someone else, but Alli grits her teeth and slashes out again. This time she gets the girl's forearm, leaving a nasty looking cut, but the girl backs away before Alli can get a third strike in.
But, Alli keeps advancing. She hadn't seen which one of the pair had throwing knives, and she doesn't about to mess around and find out. The girl backs up until she can't anymore, pressing herself against the trunk of a tree. Swallowing down bile that begins to rise at the back of her throat, Alli tries to ignore the way that the girl's blade shakes in her hand, and the tears that shine in her eyes.
She wills the girl to do something, to attack her, because she can feel her own resolve fading the closer she gets; they're about the same age, almost the same height, the girl probably has people back at home, just like Alli does and-
"Fuck!"
Alli doesn't know how the girl moves so fast. Alli's advancing, and she's stuck in her own head, drowning in her thoughts, but still with her wits about her. She's getting closer, raising her knife, and then suddenly the girl is lunging at her. A blinding pain radiates from Alli's shoulder, and she's doubling over and then something hard is meeting the back of Alli's head, and she's down on the ground.
She falls to her knees first, and then onto her side, rolling onto her back as the girl looms over her. Her eyes widen at the sight of the knife handle protruding from her shoulder; a scream of pure panic ripping from her throat. The girl is on top of her now, wrenching the knife from Alli's shoulder. She screams again, guttural this time, the pain almost unbearable.
The girl isn't smiling. Not like the District Four boy had been when Flora shoved Orabel his way. There's an expression of genuine remorse on her face.
And Alli is sure that, along with the pain, there's a similar expression in her own face, too; she doesn't want to do this. She doesn't want to kill, but the cold blade of the girl's knife is resting on her neck and it doesn't leave her much choice.
With the arm that isn't pinned to her side, and the shoulder that hasn't been stabbed, Alli slams her knife into the side of the girl's neck.
The girl topples off of her, and Alli staggers to her feet. She's barely able to keep herself upright, stumbling forward as the cannon fires to where Flora and the boy are fighting.
"Alli!" Flora's voice is laced with panic. She's backed up against a tree, similarly to how the girl had been only moments ago.
The boy is limping heavily towards Flora, not knowing that it was his ally's cannon that had fired. He has Flora's hatchet somehow.
Alli's gaze flicks down to her shoulder, to the knife in her hand, and then to the boy attacking her ally.
Tall. Strong. Armed.
She meets Flora's desperate gaze, grips the handle of her bloodied knife in her hand, and then, like a coward, she turns tail and runs.
She doesn't know who the cannon that fires a few minutes later belongs to.
But she knows that it's truly awful of her to hope that it was Flora's.
Her shoulder hurts like a motherfucker.
It keeps her up; staring bleary-eyed through the canopy of leaves at the starry sky above her. She'd briefly managed to drift off a few hours ago, but the relative peace was interrupted by a cannon shot that almost had her toppling from the branches.
In all honesty, she had expected it to be Alli, but Flora was pleasantly surprised by the District Two girl's face in the sky. Coupled with the deaths of the Six boy and the Eight girl at the hands of Alli and Flora, and the One girl later that afternoon, it means that there are only three of them left now.
And it's an odd feeling, knowing that she's made it to the final three despite everything. She hadn't expected it.
She had been prepared to die in the bloodbath. She'd been prepared to die when the Careers had been chasing them. She'd been prepared to die yesterday.
Flora doesn't want to die, but she's prepared to. Of course, she'll do anything to make sure that she doesn't. Her hands have seen their fair share of blood in the arena, and she doubts that they're done.
Alli. The District Four boy. They're still out there. In the morning there's no doubt that they'll be forced together, this hellish experience finally coming to an end.
One way or another.
She doesn't know where she stands. The Six boy did a number on her; slamming her into the tree as if she weighed nothing, fucking up her shoulder. Whacking the handle of her hatchet into the side of her head, disorienting her for most of the afternoon. Anything but actually burying the hatchet in her skull.
She still isn't sure why. Whether he just preferred the use of blunt force, or was just panicking too much to make a logical decision, but she's grateful. It gave her the opportunity to fight back.
And, once she managed to get her hatchet back, she didn't have the same issue. He was dead within a minute.
He was dead, Alli was gone, and Flora was alone.
But she's alive, somehow and, hopefully this time tomorrow she will be back in the Capitol.
At some point, Flora finds sleep again, but it doesn't last for long. The smell of smoke is what rouses her, a wall of fire greeting her when she turns left.
Heart hammering in her chest she scrambles down from the tree, and takes off running as fast as her legs will carry her.
Alli can barely breathe.
The heat behind her is fierce, panic constricting her chest as she raced forward, desperate to keep herself ahead of the flames. She'd known that something like this was coming; it had been all too obvious after the cannon last night.
She emerges from the forest at the same time as someone else, but she doesn't bother to check who it is. Too wrapped up in her own guilt, she hadn't the courage to watch the anthem last night.
Alli doesn't think that she could stomach seeing Flora's face staring down at her. Not after she abandoned her like she did.
It's a habit, it seems.
Anders and Hari during the bloodbath, Orabel at the cliff, Flora in the forest.
And depending on how the next few minutes go, potentially her family back in District Twelve.
The heat on her back has lessened, shoes skidding on the stone beneath her as she stops.
She realises, with a sinking heart, that she's back at the cliff face.
Then, that the other figure is Flora. Bruised, bloody, on her hands and knees trying to catch her breath. But… alive.
There's another figure, too, coming from the direction of the mountains. Alli watches in horror as the landslide behind them seems to accelerate. In seconds it seems to have swallowed them whole, the cannon shot that follows not as reassuring as Alli thought it would be.
Flora is getting to her feet now, looking warily over at the landslide as she takes a few steps towards Alli.
"Guess it'd be too predictable if they let him fight us," she laughs, and it's the first time Alli thinks she's ever heard it. "Nothing fun about watching him take us out with one swing."
Alli clenches her jaw, raising her knife. "Don't," she says. "I don't wanna-"
"You don't want to kill me?" Flora interrupts. "That didn't seem like much of an issue when you left me."
"He would've killed me," Alli says. "He would've killed me and then he'd have killed you. You know he would've."
Flora laughs again. She's still approaching, but there's nowhere else for Alli to go. If she takes another step, she'll go hurtling down the cliff face.
"Do you hear yourself?" Flora asks. "You're a hypocrite. You've painted me out as the villain for days but, when it comes down to it, you're just as despicable."
"No," Alli says. "I'm not." She and Flora are so close that they're almost nose to nose. "Maybe I shouldn't have left you, but it's nothing compared to you pushing Orabel. She trusted you, Flora, and you betrayed her. You didn't even give her a chance; she had no idea what you were going to do."
Flora's face is unreadable. She reaches out, squeezing Alli's injured shoulder in what might've been a comforting gesture if it didn't cause so much pain.
"Well, is it better when you know it's coming?" Flora asks.
Alli grits her teeth, closing her eyes. She thrusts her arm forward, sinking her knife into Flora's stomach.
"I don't know," she says. "Is it?"
She moves past Flora, whose hands are pressed against her stomach, eyes full of betrayal. She's somehow still standing, but not for too long.
With a final burst of anger, Alli's hands meet the middle of Flora's back, shoving her off the cliff.
Alli is sure Flora's scream will haunt her for the rest of her life, permeating the air as she scrambles away from the drop and promptly throws up the meagre amount of food in her stomach.
"When it comes down to it, you're just as despicable." Flora's words echo in Alli's head. She can't even refute them; falling onto her knees, and then onto her stomach.
Flora was supposed to be a friend. It wasn't supposed to end this way.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present to you the Victor of the 29th Hunger Games: Miss Alli Egan!"