Chapter 53- Dexsia Greentree
Kouza pulls his blade out of the bear mutt, backing up for another strike. I've retreated further into the Cornucopia, one hand on my sword, the other rummaging through a crate. Found them! I pull out a handful of throwing knives with my left hand, then transfer them to my right. Kouza stabs the bear just as it lunges for him with that hideous mouth; I throw a knife and it lodges in the mutt's side, making it roar.
"Give me one!" Calypso says, and I hand a knife over to her. The alliance is not yet broken. Kouza, who is our temporary and unexpected ally as well, slashes the mutt's throat, dodging a paw with razor sharp claws on it. My next knife hits the mutt's eye, Calypso's hitting it in the throat. It trembles, but keeps attacking. Each strike of sword or knife makes it weaken more. For a brief period of time, we three tributes are united against our common enemy.
"Why isn't this bloody thing dying already?" Calypso says, dashing forward to skewer the mutt with her trident. It catches her with the backside of its paw, sending her crashing into some crates. I've had enough of it, and Kouza and I attack at the same time.
With our combined strength, we sever the mutt's head, sending it crashing into the snow to stare blankly with those red pupiled eyes. The body falls sideways and also lies still. The bloody thing is dead, thank god.
Kouza and I are both breathing heavy, winded temporarily. My knees are shaking a little with the terror of the thing that we just defeated. Kouza and I look each other in the eyes, and some sort of understanding comes between us. Then the temporary alliance breaks and he comes at me, sword raised high. He looks deranged in the firelight.
"Hey! We've been waiting for you!" Calypso yells from behind me, distracting Kouza just enough for me to stab the boy and back away. Blood drips from the wound I've just inflicted in his back, and I expect him to keel over like Velvet did, but apparently this tribute is stronger than my former ally.
The adrenaline running through him keeps Kouza upright, and he turns to me again, slashing out with his sword. And so begins our first and last battle. He's good, but not as trained as I am. I meet every hasty move with my own blade, twisting and turning with him around the Cornucopia.
"He's mine!" I say to Calypso as she tries to join in.
"Shut up, Dexsia!" she shouts, and attacks anyway; her stab with a trident brings Kouza to one knee, but he gets up again, just as determined as ever to kill me. His green eyes are filled with pain and rage both; one of his hands is shaking but he holds on tight to his sword.
Kouza comes at me again with an attack that would kill any other tribute. I'm no ordinary girl, though. I'm Aulus's favorite, his best girl with a sword, the pride of District 2. And I know my mentor is watching me now with pride. Every clash of my opponent's weapon against my own is a step further to me returning home.
Every swing of Kouza's blade becomes more hurried and chaotic. Pain is driving him to attack without calculating the move beforehand; I, on the other hand, know each strike he's going to make before he makes it, and I deflect his blade with my own. With one more clever move of my own sword, I disarm Kouza and bring the tip to his throat.
Kouza is bleeding heavily now, and we're both standing in a pool of his blood. I smile at him, looking him straight in the eyes. I've won this battle.
"High scores don't mean everything, Kouza," I say. Some expression crosses his eyes that is foreign for the boy from 5. Fear.
"Yeah? Speak for yourself," Kouza says, grabbing my braid suddenly and from there disarming me, holding my own blade's tip to my throat.
Calypso moves forward, but Kouza tightens his grip on me, the sharp edge of the sword brushing against my neck.
"One step further and the girl dies," he says, his breath ragged.
"So?" Calypso says. "Kill her. Only one of us is getting out of here, Kouza."
Calypso has distracted Kouza enough that I can work the knife at my side out of its hilt without him noticing. Just as the tip of the sword at my throat starts to cut through my skin, I stab backwards and let go.
Kouza drops me and the sword, which falls beside me. I grab it with my right and rub my throat with my left; my hand comes away bloody but I think the cut is superficial. I'm going to live; Kouza is not.
The boy from 5 looks down at the knife lodged in his stomach, and the dark stain that's spreading out on his shirt from it. He looks me dead in the eye then, but he makes no move towards me. I sit on the floor of the Cornucopia, holding my sword.
"Bitch," Kouza says, then drops to his knees. The boy from 5, who got a 10 in Training, falls forward on his face and his cannon fires.
Boom.
I stand up to face Calypso, who's standing opposite of me, on the other side of Kouza's body.
"So it's us," I say simply, lifting my sword higher and adjusting my grip.
"Alliance is over," she says.
"Obviously."
"Really, I'm sorry that I have to kill you," Calypso says, raising her trident with the bloody prongs.
"Same to you. I've been planning on being a victor for a long time, though," I say.
"What a coincidence; so have I," Calypso says, and she throws the knife that I didn't even know she had at my head. I duck in time, and the knife clatters off the metal inside of the Cornucopia. Outside, it's growing lighter, but within the golden horn, the firelight dances off the shiny surface of the walls and ceiling, casting odd shadows all around.
So this is it. The fight is between Calypso and me.
Calypso rushes at me, stabbing with her trident; I dodge and slash at her, but she's too quick. She dances out of reach, towards the entrance of the horn.
I reach behind me into a crate and pull out another knife. I throw it at her, but she ducks from it too, doing a roll forward. Calypso comes up onto one knee, trident ready to strike.
"Maybe that thing works underwater, but we're on land if you haven't noticed," I say, swinging my sword around. The snow is falling a little heavier now, but not yet in a blizzard.
Before Calypso has a chance to answer, I run towards her, slashing her arm with my blade. Blood streams from the wound, dripping onto the snow at her feet. With her other arm, she catches me in the leg with a knife, the knife I threw at her.
The fight becomes bloody and violent very quickly; she turns out to be quite a match for me with the trident. Calypso stabs me again, this time in the side when I'm not expecting it. My right side feels like it's on fire, but I strike out; this time I slash Calypso across the face, catching her in one eye and cutting her mouth.
She cries out in agony, clutching her face as blood drips through her fingers. I'm on the verge of tears myself, as blood runs through my own hand as I keep it clasped on my side. The pain is unlike anything I've ever felt before, beyond words. Calypso's pretty face is destroyed- by my own hand.
Though she's shaking and breathing heavy, Calypso stabs out again; I catch her trident between the prongs with my sword, but my arm is shaking, and my side is on fire, and the pain is getting to be too much.
Calypso lets out a sob from her ruined face; it's covered in blood. I say the first thing that comes to mind.
"I'm sorry, Calypso! I'm sorry!" I shouldn't be sorry; this is how the Games are played, nothing is too far in here. But I am, I am sorry. She was my ally, and she could have been my friend, and I've destroyed her with one movement of my hand.
I've destroyed a lot of people in here with one movement of my hand. The face of the little girl from 9 swims before my eyes, and guilt overwhelms me. I said there was no room for guilt here in the arena, but I was wrong.
No matter how guilty I may be, no matter how many deaths may be on my hands, I have to be the victor. I promised my family, I promised Aulus, I promised myself. I have to win, no matter what.
"How could you?" Calypso gets out. Her front is soaked with blood; the ground is slippery with it too. Behind us, Kouza is bleeding out onto the ground, and in front of me, the bear mutt is still gushing blood into the snow from its severed neck. All this gore is making me feel ill, but I push past it.
"I'm sorry, I have to be the victor," I say, then kick her trident up, freeing my blade. The trident clatters to the ground a few feet away, and I'm about to feel elation, that now I can kill Calypso and then the girl from 8 if she ever arrives, and then I can go home.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Calypso make a quick movement, but it doesn't quite register until the knife is lodged in my stomach.
Calypso breathes heavily, trying to staunch the flow of blood with her hands. I keep one hand on my side, and drop my sword with the other. I wrap my hand tentatively around the hilt, the dark brown hilt of the knife, and pull it out of me. The blade is dark red, as is the stain that's spreading across my front.
I won't be the victor.
I sink to my knees, trembling all over, then fall backwards, hands at my sides. I killed Kouza, and now I'm being killed in the exact same way. The irony of that is not lost on me.
"I'm sorry too, Dex," Calypso says, and she's crying. There's no room for tears for me, though. Everything about me hurts; my side, my stomach, and my breaking heart inside me.
"I love you all," I say, looking at the gold ceiling above me. "And I'm going to miss you."
Calypso comes over to me, still pressing her hands into her face as blood drips around them. "Can you turn me so I can see the sunrise?" I ask quietly. She turns me so I can see the outside world, the light and the snow and how alive everything is. The trees at the oasis.
"Mother, Father, I love you. Gallus, I'm sorry. I love you," I say, my last goodbyes to my family. They'll be watching me; they'll hear.
"Oh Calypso," I say to the girl who's killed me. "The sunrise is so beautiful."
The colors of the sky grow dimmer and dimmer, until I can hardly see them at all. I find the hilt of my sword with my right hand, and it's in this way that I go into the dark.