Author's Note
I do not own the Hunger Games.
Brace yourselves folks.
The trees looked closer together, and much closer to the cabin, than they had yesterday. It was unnatural, and abomination of nature.
It was not that Luciente was looking at.
She was feeling, listening, as the presence grew closer. Not a ghost, she recognised as they grew nearer, not a fairy.
Another tribute.
She drew her slingshot, slotted a projectile into place.
The girl from Twelve came sprinting full tilt from the trees. Her dark hair was a tangle around her face, her arena clothing half torn away, her boots and jacket missing altogether. Behind her Luciente heard Heaven scream but this girl was no threat. She had no weapons, no supplies even. Luciente lowered her slingshot.
"Stay away from me," the girl screamed, shrill and frantic, spitting out blood and bile and foam and who-knew-what else as she spoke. "Stay away from me; just— stay away."
"I won't hurt you," Luciente said, dangling the slingshot at her side.
For a flash of a moment she saw the girl knelt, the boy looming over her, his dark eyes large and delighted, his hands streaked with blood, tears staining the girl's cheeks.
She took a step towards her, held her hand out. "I can protect you from him."
Everyone needed protecting from the darkness.
The girl shook her head, sending blood and mud and unidentifiable stuff flying about her. She was afraid, Luciente recognised, too afraid.
"Luciente," Nathaniel called. "Come away."
The girl looked at him, looked at the backpack slung over his shoulders, and then shot like an arrow towards him. Nathaniel yelled and bolted behind the cabin; Luciente roared and dove after the girl; and a second figure came charging from the trees.
The girl from Two, she realised, though she looked in worse shape than when she saw her during the bloodbath. There was blood staining her sleeves and the left of her face had swollen and bruised a terrible black and purple.
She looked at them.
They looked at her.
The girl from Twelve screamed.
Luciente raised her slingshot and fired, but Two was already moving, charging towards Bunny with an almost fanatical fury. She screamed and dodged aside, lashing out with her knife, but she'd never stand a chance against a Career.
Luciente charged at her.
She looked at something – someone, she realised – behind her and let out a roar.
"You!" She dodged her attempted leap and sprinted towards Nathaniel and the girl from Twelve. "Get away from him! You're in league! Monster!"
What?
For once in her life, Luciente…
Didn't understand.
She didn't understand.
She rushed towards the girl from Twelve, but she had already managed to flee back into the trees and Heaven was confusing matters now, for some reason calling for her to come back – did she want to feed her to the girl from Two? – and getting overall far too close to the girl from Two.
The Career rushed towards her, raised her knives high.
Heaven screamed.
She fitted another projectile to her slingshot.
Heaven hurled herself aside, fleeing into the trees behind Nathaniel and the girl from Twelve, but the girl from Two charged after her, still waving his trident and yelling about 'being in league' and 'demons from hell.'
Luciente followed, snarling, chasing after her into the trees.
She couldn't get a clear shot with the slingshot, not while they were running, so she stuffed it back into her belt and tensed her legs.
And for a moment she was somewhere else, someone else, something other.
It was a moment too slow.
The knife plunged through Heaven's chest.
For a moment Heaven managed to stay on her feet, her mouth and eyes rounded in soft surprise, and then she toppled backwards into the stream, the water around her quickly turning red.
The girl from Two turned on Twelve, who seemed to have frozen by the waterside.
Luciente sprang.
She hit the girl from Two side on, throwing them both into the water, clawing at her arms, sinking her teeth deep into her throat. She screamed, twisting under her, thrashing, striking at her with strong fists and desperate arms. She was bigger stronger, but Luciente was on top, her mouth full of blood, hot, coppery, and it was running down her throat, choking her, but she couldn't stop now, not when she would lose if she did that.
They rolled in the water, pinning her underneath, and she wrapped her legs around Two's, fighting for purchase in the water, fighting for air as the liquid filled her mouth and nose and lungs, flipping over, choking, sinking her fingers into the bloody wound, ripping the fleshy wound further open. Two's own hands found her neck, squeezing tight, but she could feel her weakening, losing blood, losing life.
And then the pressure around her neck was gone.
Her body went a funny kind of slack.
Dead, like the rabbit, like her District partner, like their father.
She released her, sharp and sudden, and floundered in the water she realised only now was deep.
"Luciente!"
Nathaniel.
She kicked in the water, scrambling back onto shallower stone and then clambering out, dripping wet and bloody.
Nathaniel stared at her. His face was pale, his eyes wide in horror. "Is she- Is- Did- Is- she-?"
She licked her bloodied lips and nodded.
He and Bunny had pulled Heaven out onto the soft ground by the stream, the hilt of the knife still jutting from her chest. She was gasping, choking, grasping at the shaft of the thing.
"Heaven," Bunny sobbed, clutching to her hand.
Luciente knelt at her side, took her arm.
If she'd been faster…
Heaven wasn't like them, but she'd been pack, if only for a short while.
Heaven coughed up blood. "B- Bu- Bun-"
Her body fell limp.
Her eyes glazed over.
Two cannons fired.
Author's Note
And this is why I couldn't merge these two chapters! Also, apparently I'm killing tributes off in pairs now? Believe it or not, it's a coincidence. Or is it..?
