Chapter 11

Alone and Hunted by the careers

I wake up to the bright sunlight shining into my eyes. I rub my eyes to get out all of the sleep. I sit up in the tree and look around; I see birds chirping and the low humming of insects. The morning would have been beautiful if children weren't trying to hunt me down and kill me. I unbuckle my belt from the tree and stretch trying not to yawn to loud. I look over to the branch beside mine and see that Beatrix is still sleeping, she told me to wake her up before I left for the careers camp.

I jump down from the tree and land in the grass still in my bare feet and the grass is so long that the bottom of my trousers get wet because of the morning dew. I take a deep breath and try to relax myself. I might die today; I might as well try enjoying myself until then. I crawl up the tree that Beatrix and all the supplies are in and place a hand over her mouth, she told me to do this because sometimes she screams or makes a lot of noise when she wakes up. I nudge her in the side and she lets out a loud groan that is muffled by my hand. She looks very annoyed and then tense for a moment and then sees it's me and relaxes. I remove my hand from her mouth,

"Morning Faye." Beatrix yawns.

"Morning Trix." I say.

"Are you going to the careers today?" Beatrix asked.

"Yes." I say, they are something I really needed to talk to her about and I am nervous she won't agree.

I take a deep breath. "I think we should split up for five days."

"Why? Do you not want to be allies?" She asked offended.

"No but I want to camp near the careers for five days and I don't think it is safe if there is two of us near the careers we might make noise and after a while we can meet up." I suggest. "Because we still need weapons camping supplies and stuff that I can steal."

"Yeah that would be good." She says with a sigh. "I just hope we will both be okay."

"We will." I say smiling, glad that she is okay with it.

"Where will we meet up?" She asks.

"How about here." I suggest.

"Okay." She says. "I guess we will divide up the supplies and I will head for the mountains and you will head for the careers camp. I hope we will both survive."

"We hopefully will." I say with a sigh realizing that this might be the last time I will see her.

We sit in the branch dividing the supplies. We decided that I get the plastic and the flashlight. She gets the water bottle, the purifier, the bread and the roots and berries.

"I have too much you need something." She says.

"I am okay I will steal from the careers." I say.

"But what if they are watching their supplies?" Beatrix asks.

"I can sneak up from behind, honestly Trix I am actually offended that you would underestimate my ability to steal." I say grinning. "Anyway I have to go."

"Okay bye Faye." She says with a nervous gulp looking as if she is about to cry.

"Hey Trix you will be fine." I say.

"How I don't really know how to get food and stuff." She says. "And what about the monsters like the Banshee and the Dullahan."

"You will be at the mountains so it will be easy to find water and you have a lot of food on you and just try eating some roots if you get to hungry and with the monsters just hide in a cave." I say.

"Yeah I will manage just five days is nearly half the games." She says.

"I have a feeling these games will be a bit longer than normal." I say grinning slightly.

"Okay." She sighs fanning her tears away with her hand.

"I am going to leave before you cry." I say pulling on my socks and shoes and she hands me a chunk of bread.

"Okay we will meet up in five days." She says.

I jump down from the tree.

"Bye Trix." I say walking away.

"Bye Faye." I hear her call back to me.

Have I seen her for the last time?

I walk through the forest for about a hour when I arrive at the cornucopia. I crouch down in the outskirts of the forest and look trough the bushes so I can see in but they can't see me.

I look and see that all the careers are there. The two tributes from district one, Rosegold and Scally are sitting beside each other on top of a box in the cornucopia. The girl from district two is sitting and talking with the sixteen year old girl from district four, Victoria and Lily. The boy from district four whose name is Nickolas is sitting and talking with Evan while the boy from district two who mocked Finches death is sitting alone and playing with a large axe.

"We need to hunt." Marcus says standing up and throwing the axe over his shoulder.

"Well we need to leave someone at to guard the supplies." Lily says. "I mean that little girl from district five got a training score higher than yours."

"So it's the second day she won't be here yet anyway that score was just luck." He scowls.

"I have to agree with Lilly did you not watch the games with her sister in it and I hate to remind you of how far that knife went." Victoria says.

"I agree with Vicky and Lilly we need someone to watch out for that girl." Rosegold says.

Marcus is about to say something when he is cut off by Lilly.

"Vote who wants to go hunting without leaving a guard." She says.

Only Marcus says he is and when he sees that he is the only one that wants to go he sighs and falls back down.

"We could go hunting for her." He mumbles.

What is their obsession with me? I am only thirteen and not any treat to them. Even if I got a high score I still think they should be hunting people who are bigger than me.

"Why would we kill her we need someone smart for once on the careers." Lilly says.

I get a chill up my spine do they know I am here? That is the only way they would talk about me allying with me. I am thirteen and they are the careers. They might know I am here and are trying to make me revile myself.

Eventually they decided that Rosegold will stay and watch the supplies. The rest of the careers go into the woods to hunt.

I have a very good view of the camp but not good enough. I climb a tree that is a bit away from me. I have to clime it carefully so I can't be seen. When I am at the top I clime threw the branches so I can sit in the tree and look at the camp.

I look over the camp and then see that they have stacked most of the supplies in a pyramid inside the cornucopia except for some large boxes carelessly scattered around the area they must have been too heavy to stack in the pyramid on the first day. It seemed easy enough to sneak in there.

I saw that Rosegold was sitting on top of a box and reading a book. Why would they have a book in the games?

I sit in the tree wondering why she has a book until it hits me. That book must have all the mythological beasts like the Dullahan and the Banshee we saw at the start. I need that book. I obviously can't take it now but I have five days left to take it.

I think that I could easily make it to the middle of the cornucopia.

I silently crawl down the tree and hide back in the bush. I creep forward in the bush so I am at the very edge of the forest; I wait for her to turn the page so she will be looking at the book for a bit longer.

Eventually she does turn the page and I take my chance and creep out of the forest and silently hide behind the big box so she can't see me. I wait there for a bit before I peep over the top of my box and see that she is still engrossed in the book.

I crouch run to the next box when she turns the page again. I repeat this again and again until I reach the middle of the cornucopia where the stack is. This is the scariest part because Rosegold is only two meters away from where I am, if she walked two meter to the left she would find me. I run silently into the cornucopia around the other side of the pile. She is sitting at the front. I am annoyed that I can't run away from the back because it is inside the cornucopia.

I grab a small empty bag that is dark brown so it could easily be camouflaged. I have to take things from different things from different boxes so they won't notice anything is gone.

Take enough to for yourself but not enough for anyone to notice.

I take two apples, a full water bottle, a small knife, a small sachet of salt, a purifier, a throwing axe for Beatrix and binoculars, they are way more supplies then normal at the cornucopia about four times as much. I am about to leave when I remember why I came here, I search around a bit and find a gold ring that could help me defend myself against a Dullahan.

When I find the ring and slip the ring on and then hear footsteps approaching me. I know for a fact that it is Rosegold. I silently creep around the other side of the pyramid. This reminds me of the game me and Gabriella use to play where we would run around the tree trying to catch each other. When I am around the front and Rosegold is around the back. She still doesn't know that I am here. I run to a box near the woods and hide behind it. I would try and take deep breaths to relax myself but I can't because if I take to deep breaths I might make noise. I hear Rosegold return to the front.

I do my pattern back to the forest and when I finally get there, I throw the bag over my shoulder and walk in further into the forest and clime a tree and organize my supplies.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. For my first day being on my own and hunted by the careers I did okay. Maybe I will be okay. I look thru the trees and see a small bird fly through the trees. I don't know what it was but I like to tell myself that it is a finch because that makes me feel happy and it's not often I am happy.