Me and Sierra are sweating buckets and I know without any water soon, we're going to be sitting ducks. We keep walking for a long while, and every once in a while, I hear her sniffle at the memory of her Tribute mate. I try my hardest not to roll my eyes. The time for mourning is after we find water, not before.
We eventually come across a grove of green plants with a waxy skin and prickles. The look like cactuses, which I vaguely remember from the plant station at the Training Center. I do remember one thing they said: it has water, but don't drink it. Frustration floods me. How dare undrinkable water be in reach?
Sierra, however, sets her sight on a patch of small, circular cactuses. They barely reach halfway up to my knee. Sierra kicks one of them, hard, several times. I wince – her foot is not going to paying her any favors for doing that. But then it pops open, and she smiles.
She leans down in the dirt and cups her hand inside of it. Inside of it is a small pond of water lying in her palm.
"Wait –"
She drinks it and then turns back to me, and I growl at her.
"That'll make you sick!" I spoke. Sierra shook her head and motioned with her head to the open cactus.
"Not these kinds," she said. "I remember from the training days – I spent a lot of time at the plants station." I eye her suspiciously, scared that this might be a trick. Get me to drink so that my stomach will curdle, and I will be down for the count and easy pickings. But I see her take another drink, and my thirst wins out. If I drink it and die, the other option was not drinking it and still dying.
I kneel down next to her and follow Sierra, cupping some of the water in my hands. I drink perhaps more greedily than I should, and Sierra follows my suit in that regard. Sure enough, we have to open another one with my ax. We put some in the water bottle for Trapper and for later. I need to pay close attention to where this is, so we can find it later.
Me and Sierra walk back to the ruins, and I can feel contemplation coming from my companion.
"Why do you have blood stains?" Sierra asks quietly.
"What?" I ask. She points at the splotches of dark brown blood littering my shirt.
"The blood, where did it come from?" Sierra said. I furrow my brow and turn back to her, instinctively tightening my ax in my hand.
"I was close to where your fellow 3 and Daisy were fighting," I grind out. "Look, we're in the the Hunger Games Sierra. I'm going to be covered in blood by time all of this is over, and you will be too."
I doubt she will though. She looks too scared to kill.
Sierra is quiet for a long moment and we walk a little furtherer along before she speaks again, this time her voice even quieter than before.
"Did you kill Tremaine and Daisy?" Sierra said. I blink, confused, and then I realize that Tremaine must be the name of the District 3 Tribute I killed. I debate about hiding it, let her think the Careers did it, but is she really going to believe me?
I must hesitate because the next thing I know, Sierra is coming at me. She claws at my face, again and again and again until little rivets of blood start going down my face. I growl and try and push her off of me, but she has too hard of a grip on my face for me to do anything.
I flip my ax around so the butt faces Sierra, and I jam it into her stomach. It throws her back in surprise, and her claws let for of their hold on my face. I kick her down to the ground and then straddle her, my hand on her throat and my ax raised.
But I do not bring down the final blow. Blood drips down my face and onto hers, and she grimaces as my blood hits her cheeks in a drip.
"Yes, I killed Tremaine," I said. "But only because he killed Daisy."
Sierra just grimaces up at me and I tighten my hold on her to make sure she stays down on the ground.
"This isn't playtime Sierra," I said in frustration. "I killed him because this is a game of survival. If anything, I did you favor. Now you don't have to do it, and you're one step closer to possibly going home."
This does little to subdue her anger, and she chuckled darkly.
"I'm not going home, Johanna," Sierra said. "Me and you both know that. Neither of us are. We both know who is."
Marlin. She's talking about Marlin, I can tell. Marlin is the easy favorite of the Capitol. Darling in her interview, a strong competitor, and a patriot too it seemed. She was probably pulling all of the sponsors now as we speak, and any we have our far and few between.
But unlike Sierra, I am not going down without a fight.
I lean down to whisper in her ear.
"And then why don't I just kill you right now then?" I ask. "Make it a double whammy for District 3."
I do not know where this part of me is coming from. I do not want to kill Sierra, but annoyance and frustration in me is fueling an anger that makes me want to lower my ax into her skull. If she's just going to give up, why bother keeping her alive?
"Go ahead," she seethes. "At least my conscience will be clear. I haven't killed anyone."
Something in that sentence fuels me so that I finally bring it down. I don't want to kill. I really don't. But I will not have this girl from Three judge me for what I'm doing to survive.
The ax enters her head, sending rivers of blood gushing out of her skull. She sputters once and then dies, and I feel nothing. I stand but leave the ax in her head, watching as the last of her color drains from her face. She lets out a shuddering breath, the last of the air in her lungs, and I watch for several moments before the cannon finally goes off.
She is dead. And I do not care.
I retrieve my ax from her forehead and wipe the blood off on my shirt. I take a few steps back as I hear the hovercraft that is coming to take away her body, so that it can be shipped back to District 3. I know those in District 3 are probably decrying my name right now – murderess. Killer. I have taken both their son and daughter in one day.
And yet still, I am unmoved by her death.
I check her pockets and jacket before the hovercraft appear, and I find a few pieces of beef stripes she had been hiding from me and Trapper. Conscience is clear my ass.
I walk away as the hovercraft appears and begins to lower the crane that will take her. I start back towards the ruins, which will take my only a couple more hours to reach. I take a sip of the water from the pack and I am grateful I only have to share it with one other person now.
Despite killing Sierra, I can not just leave Trapper to die of dehydration. Sierra died painfully, but at least quickly. Dehydration and starvation is a cruel way to go. I've seen what happens in District Seven when someone's luck runs out and they can not afford anymore food or get their hands on water. Though I can feel myself growing colder every passing second, I am not a heartless monster.
I make it back the ruins just as the sun is about to set. I open the door to our small, makeshift shelter to find Trapper still hidden away in a corner. He points the knife at the door but heaves a sigh of relief when he sees it is just me. He puts the knife back down on the ground beside him.
I sit in front of him and offer him the bottle of water, and he takes two gulps of it before handing it back to me.
"We'll head to where me and Sierra found this tomorrow to get more," I say. "See if we can find some more, maybe find a new shelter."
"Where is Sierra?" Trapper asks.
"I killed her," I said matter-of-factly. Trapper starts, jumping up to his feet, the knife once again securely in his hand.
"What?" Trapper said. I shake my head but do not stand, my ax across my folded lap remaining untouched.
"She attacked me," I said. "See these scars starting to form on my face? That's her."
The blood had stopped running, but I know there will be thin red lines for the next few days, possibly until the end of the Games.
"Sierra would never," Trapper insisted. I laugh under my breath.
"Well, she did," I counter. "How will do you really know Sierra? You've known her, what, a week at most? You have no idea what she's capable of." Or was capable of, that is.
Trapper purses his lips and does not sit back down.
"Look, Trapper, we're all going to die someday," I said. "But I would prefer it not be here and now. And for that to happen, we have to kill other people. That's the deal. So if you have a problem with that, then I can just kill you too and have it over with."
Trapper sobers and shakes his head, finally sitting again. I do not reoffer the water bottle to him, instead slipping it back into my bag for tomorrow.
"Good. Now get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow."