Barley Sturridge, District Nine (13)
"Look out!" I yelled. I grabbed Sky and pulled her back out of Margo's range. Margo turned mid-strike and I saw the sword arcing toward my stomach. Then she winced as something bounced off her head. I saw the tennis ball fall to the ground in the corner of my eye as Sky and I ran. Later I found out that Castiel threw it. He must have been a wonderful person. Imagine helping someone you don't even know in a fight where only one person can live.
Sky was the smartest person I'd ever met. This was the perfect Arena for us and right away she set out gathering everything she needed to make a bomb. We used everything from the rust off a tin can to transmission fluid we siphoned out of a car. I'd never even seen a siphon before. Crazy how the liquid would go up and over the bend in the tube.
We finally saw our chance when all the Careers gathered at their camp to regroup and switch shifts standing watch. They hardly expected someone to try to sneak closer to them so it was easy to get up behind the pile of garbage nearest them. She peeked out from the pile and wound up to throw.
Things can change so fast in the Games. Sky came out from behind the pile and her arm went up to throw. I'd never seen anyone with reflexes like Margo. The instant Sky appeared her head snapped up and she was up from where she'd been sitting on the ground eating an energy bar. As Sky's arm came forward Margo's bowstring went tight. As the bomb left sky's hand the arrow left Margo's bow.
I saved Sky from Margo once but I guess it was fate. There was nothing I could do to stop an already-fired arrow. I could only watch it slice through the air and knife into her. The shockwave told me Sky's bomb was successful. When I sat up, ears ringing, Margo was already gone.
I spent the rest of the day trying to adjust to the damage the explosion did to my balance. I felt like the world was tilted at an angle and my ears were still ringing. It made me sick to my stomach trying to walk like a normal person when I could see the horizon but somehow my body couldn't connect to it.
It was a full day before I could even think about looking for my final remaining opponent, Adair from District Five. Even then I really wasn't looking for him. It was one thing for me to help Sky with her bomb but another to actually try to kill someone with my own hands. I hated the idea of it. I was so much bigger that Adair. It made me sick to think of what he would go through to be hunted and held down and killed by someone like me.
His cannon came out of nowhere. I was rifling through a pile of clamshells hoping for one that still contained some stale bread and it just sounded out of nowhere. I jumped up, looking all around like I might somehow have caused it. I didn't even see Adair anywhere. When they showed the recap I finally found out he had cut himself on a rusty spring a week before the finale and died of tetanus.
Sometimes I wondered if all Victors felt like imposters. It was hard for me to ask since I was the only one in Nine's Victor's Village. Later on I asked a few of them. Tillo said no. Cornflower said yes. So results were inconclusive, I guess. But I did make it to the end. Not the way I thought I would, and not without help. But when I looked over the past Games that was the case most of the time. Most of the Victors had someone to help them, sometimes all the way until the end. That was kind of ironic or something. The Games were made to separate the Districts and the only way to win was to work together.