Hello everyone! I just want to say thank you for all of the support I've been getting for this story. Hope you enjoy this chapter!
Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games.
It's chaos when the cannon booms, signaling the start of the Games. I watch as tributes either sprint towards the Cornucopia or try to get as far away from it as possible. Katniss is still standing on her platform looking confused while some tributes are already halfway to the middle. She suddenly snaps back into reality and jumps off her platform to grab a loaf of bread and a sheet of plastic that are right by her feet. Then she heads for a backpack that is farther away from her but when she gets there a male tribute comes and tries to take it from her.
I gasp when he lifts up his axe to finish off my sister but then there is suddenly a knife wedged into his back. The girl from District 2 smiles when she hits her target and immediately grabs another knife to throw at Katniss. Hazelle quickly covers Posy's eyes and I want to cover my own but I'm frozen in my spot. Katniss grabs the backpack and sprints towards the woods and away from the girl. Clove growls in frustration when her prey starts to run and she hurls her knife right at Katniss's head but luckily Katniss's instincts cause her to put the backpack up to cover her head and the knife sticks in the bag.
Everybody in the Square lets out a breath of relief as she runs into the woods unharmed. The camera shows Peeta run into the woods but stopping behind a tree that is still very close to the bloodbath. Then we start to see tributes getting killed, in all there are eleven bloodbath deaths. All but one of the Careers survive which was a surprise that one of them died because they usually all survive the bloodbath. The camera zooms out to show the blood splattered field with bodies everywhere. It's an awful sight.
I grasp Rory's hand when he starts to look like he might throw up. Some children in the front of the crowd start screaming from the sight and their distressed mothers trying to quiet them down. The camera zooms back in and focuses on the Career pack who are sorting through all the things in the Cornucopia. I notice that they have the District 3 male in their group which is very odd. Most of the time the Career packs consist only of the tributes from District 1, 2, and 4 because they have all trained for this their entire lives and are the best of the best.
The screen quickly flips from tribute to tribute, mostly showing tributes running in the woods to get away from the Careers. They show my sister running through the woods and she looks like she is in pretty good shape. She has a backpack and a knife and no visible injuries. I feel extremely thankful that she managed to survive the bloodbath unlike most District 12 tributes do. I also feel a strange sense of relief when they show Rue leaping through the trees like she is a bird. She managed to survive the bloodbath unlike most other tributes who are her size and age. I doubt I would have been strong enough to survive the bloodbath like her.
When they switch to a camera facing Peeta I'm shocked to see that he is walking out of the woods and is headed straight for the Careers. The square starts to murmur that he's crazy.
Rory looks over at me and says, "He is just asking to be killed."
I don't say anything but squeeze his hand to let him know I heard what he said. I try to think of reasons Peeta would go over to the Careers, maybe he wants them to just kill him already so he doesn't have to fight anyone, but I highly doubt that. So that means that he's probably trying to join the Career pack like the guy from District 3 did, but that is unheard of. District 12 tributes just don't walk up to the Careers and go "Hey can I join your team?".
When Peeta gets close enough for the Careers to see him, they immediately jump up from where they were sitting and grab whatever weapon is closest. They all stand ready to attack but Peeta claims that he didn't come to fight but instead wants to talk.
"Why would you want to talk to us, Loverboy?" Clove growls.
"Because if you took me into your alliance I could help you get what you really want," he says while putting his hands in front of him to show that he doesn't have any weapons.
"And what is it that you can give us that we don't already have?" Cato asks while motioning for everyone to lower their weapons.
"I can give you Katniss."
My heart stops. What happened to being in love with her? He can't be serious. I start to think that maybe I heard him wrong but when Rory squeezes my hand so hard that it starts to hurt, I realize that I wasn't the only one that heard it.
"That District 12 girl who got the eleven? Why would you give us the girl you love?" Cato says with a sneer.
Peeta just shrugs and says, "In the end there's only going to be one winner."
Cato and the rest of the Careers debate in hushed voices if they should take him in or not. As they talk I try to figure out what Peeta's plan is. If they take him on and somehow catch Katniss then he won't be useful anymore and the Careers will most likely kill him. So he is probably not doing this just to win the Games because it would probably be safer to be by himself. Besides, from the things I've heard about him, he is the nicest and most genuine person around. So I try to come up with different motives that seem possible for a nice person to have, when it comes to me, he's trying to protect her.
"He's trying to protect her," I whisper into Rory's ear.
"Are you hearing what I'm hearing? He literally just said he'd help the deadliest tributes in the Games hunt down Katniss. That doesn't really sound like he's trying to protect her to me," he whispers back.
"I guess we'll see," I murmur to him.
Clove breaks away from the group and tells Peeta, "Listen here, Loverboy. You can join our alliance on one condition."
"What is it?" he asks.
"If you find her you have to give her to us to kill. No funny business like setting her free because if you do, you're dead," she says.
"Okay, deal," he agrees while shaking her hand.
I can see Gale nearly blow up in anger. "He said he loved her and now he is just handing her over to them!" he exclaims quietly.
The screen changes to show Katniss hiking through the woods but it doesn't stay on her for very long because the Capitol people who run the cameras seem to find the dead tributes much more interesting than the living ones.
They show a hovercraft lifting the eleven dead children into the air and I try to think about what their families must be thinking. As a light brown haired girl's body is being lifted from the ground I force myself to think about what she could've had if her life wasn't cut so short. She could've fallen in love with a great man and gotten married. She could've had a beautiful child who she raises with her loving husband. But now she won't have any of that and instead of going home in the victor's train, she will be going home in a wooden box.
These thoughts make tears start to flow down my face. I try to stifle my sobs because I shouldn't be crying. My sister is still alive and well and I can't cry at every single death because I have to be strong for Katniss. Rory notices my crying and pulls me into his strong embrace. He stands over a head taller than me but he leans down enough for me to be able to rest my head on his shoulder. My tears soak through his shirt and I apologize once I pull away.
"It's fine, Prim. Don't worry about it," he says while wiping the tears off my face with his shirt sleeve.
"I shouldn't be crying," I say, angry with myself for being so weak.
Rory puts his hands on my shoulders and looks me straight in the eye when he says, "Prim listen to me, you can cry. Your sister is in the Hunger Games! It doesn't make you weak. I mean you're here right now watching her, right? That has to mean something."
I pull him into a hug and whisper a quiet "thank you" in his ear. I'm pretty sure that Rory Hawthorne is the only person that can make me feel better when my sister is fighting for her life in the Hunger Games.
We break apart when the cannon shots start. Each cannon shot signals that a tribute is dead. For the bloodbath they wait until all the dead tributes are collected before setting off the cannons. They do the cannons to let the tributes know how many are left because the people watching know who all is dead but the tributes don't. At night they will also project the faces of the tributes that have died that day.
No other tributes die for the rest of the day. We watch as Peeta and the Careers set up all of their supplies in a giant pyramid and dig holes around it. They don't do anything with the holes for now but it has everyone curious as to what they are going to do with them. The screen also shows Katniss running through the woods without stopping until she is pretty far from the Cornucopia. When she does stop she is up high in a tree and looks to be as safe as you can be when you're in the Hunger Games.
Everybody stays in the Square until nighttime. The only reason some people left during the day was to eat but other than that almost nobody took their eyes off the screen for a second. Then when it gets really late Hazelle brings Vick and Posy home in order for them to get to bed at a decent hour while the rest of us stay behind. After they leave a lot more people start to leave too and soon there is only a small group of us left.
I close my sleepy eyes for only a second before the anthem starts to play. While the tributes only have to see the pictures of the tributes, we have to watch all of their deaths one by one. They first show a tribute being stabbed to death and then another being brutally beaten. I close my eyes and cover my ears as I usually do after seeing the first couple deaths. It's a worse sight than just the bodies sprawled all across the field when you have to see the gruesome way they died.
After a while Rory taps my shoulder saying that the recap of the deaths are over so I hesitantly pull my hands off my ears and open my eyes. The camera is showing Katniss sleeping peacefully in the sleeping bag she found in her backpack. She has used some rope to tie herself onto the branch so I'm not super worried that she will fall out.
My mother comes over and tells me that it's time for us to head home and when I open my mouth to argue, a yawn comes out instead. This seals the deal for my mother and she grabs my hand to lead me home. I ask Rory and Gale if they are going to head home and Rory says that he is but Gale just shakes his head and stares at the screen.
I realize the second that we get outside the Square and I can't see the screens anymore that tonight is going to be a very long night. I can't shake the feeling that something is going to happen to Katniss while I'm not watching and I can feel my feet hurrying their pace so I can watch her on the television in our home. Rory has to tell me to slow down because I'm going to trip over something that lies on the dark road we are walking on.
When we finally reach my house I quickly hug Rory and tell him to get home safely and make sure Gale does too. He tells me that he will then he leaves. My mother immediately goes straight to bed without even changing out of her clothes while I go to turn on the television. I flip to the version of the Games that only shows Katniss and watch for a while. After I've watched her just sleep for about half an hour I decide that I should probably get some sleep myself because I still have to go to school tomorrow morning. I go into the bathroom to get ready when my reflection catches my eye.
My nervous tick of playing with my hair makes it very evident that I've been super anxious because of how messy it is. The bags under my eyes show that my sleep is plagued by nightmares and any actual sleep that I do get is getting rarer and rarer. My eyes have also changed. My once bright and happy eyes have been replaced with eyes that are worried and scared. I also notice that my whole demeanor has changed from happy and bubbly to serious and guarded. I tear my eyes from the mirror and decide that I don't like the changes.
I quickly get ready to go to sleep and slip into bed with my mother but I don't fall asleep until a while later. When I do fall asleep I quickly realize that I would rather be awake. Tonight's nightmares are of Katniss like usual. Most of the nightmares of Katniss are the recurring ones of her dying in different ways, but there was one nightmare that I especially hated.
It took place in the same arena that Katniss is in now but it was at the end of the Games and down to the last two tributes. The thing was, I was the other tribute. We were all alone and we both knew that only one of us could live. Katniss was determined that I would be the one to go home but of course I tried desperately to make it known that I couldn't live without her. She eventually got tired of me arguing with her so she told me, "I love you so much, Prim, but you know I have to do this."
She quickly grabbed a knife and plunged it into her heart. I was devastated and tried to stop the blood flow but my attempts were futile. She died on the spot. I briefly remember screaming her name before waking up to my mother's arms wrapped around me.
My mother lifts me up so I'm sitting in her lap and she wraps her arms around my shaking body. She shushes me softly and wipes my tears away with the back of her hand. I cry into her nightgown as she runs her fingers through my hair like she always does when I'm upset. We stay in this position for a while and then I realize that I should probably check the television just to make sure Katniss is doing okay. I slip out of my mother's grasp and hold out a hand to help her get out of bed. She seems to know what I'm going to do without me having to tell her because she immediately sits down on the couch and pats the spot next to her. I don't hesitate to curl up next to her, still shaken from my nightmare. My mother turns on the television and I sigh in relief when they show my sister fine and still in the tree.
She isn't asleep anymore but is instead looking in worry to where the girl tribute from District 8 is huddling by a fire.
"This is not good," I say with a sigh.
I'm surprised the Careers haven't caught the girl yet because lighting a fire is just asking for them to come and kill you. Katniss is only a stone throw away from this girl which means if they find the girl they might find Katniss. I let myself give into the hope that the Careers won't come because they usually hunt for other tributes at night and the sun is already starting to rise from the ground. Katniss also seems to believe that she and the girl are safe because she relaxes back into her sleeping bag but then the Careers come bursting into the girl's camp. The girl starts to scream and I prepare myself for her death. Everyone but Peeta and Link, the boy from 3, surround the poor girl. They laugh at her cries for mercy and argue about who's going to kill her. Cato ends up doing it by fatally slicing his sword across her stomach. I jerk my head away and try my best not to cry.
When I turn my head to look at the screen again the Careers have left the poor girl's camp and are right by Katniss's tree. I hold my breath as they stop suddenly and one of them asks about the cannon that hasn't gone off yet for the District 8 girl. They start arguing about who should go back and Peeta speaks up saying that he'll go back and make sure she's finished off. The screen is suddenly filled with Katniss's face which is covered in the look of betrayal from figuring out that Peeta joined the Careers. She quickly swipes all emotions off her face and focuses on the Careers who are waiting underneath her tree.
Now the cameras are on Peeta as he makes it back to the girl's camp and I have to admire her strength for staying alive for this long. She is gasping for air when Peeta reaches her and she tries to escape him when he reaches her. He sits down next to her and tells her that he won't hurt her and I want to know what happens next but they suddenly switch to a different camera that is focused on the Careers. When the boom of a cannon finally erupts Clove smiles.
"I've gotta say, I didn't expect Loverboy to actually carry it out," she says.
Peeta comes back a little bit later with a sad expression on his face. He quickly wipes it off his face and follows the Careers as they set off to find some more tributes. A bird flies out from a tree next to Katniss's, causing a rustle that makes Peeta look back to try and find out what made the sound. Peeta looks around and his eyes widen when he sees Katniss in the trees. He quickly looks away before Katniss can see that he knows where she is hidden.
This is it. This is when I find out if my assumption about Peeta trying to protect Katniss is right.
Peeta runs up to the Careers and for a second it looks like he might tell them about Katniss's hiding spot, but then he urges them to go the opposite way of Katniss.
He really is protecting her.
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please leave a review if you can! Stay safe and healthy! :)