Vam falls and Dean doesn't even blink when the cannon goes off. He checks the chamber of the revolver—three bullets left—before tucking it back into the inner pocket of his coat and turning back around to Krissy.
"It's okay," he assures her, fishing around in her pocket for the knife. "We just have to get out of here before they come to take his body away."
Krissy makes a little choking sound as he begins to saw at the rope again. Dean dismisses it as shock at the coldblooded murder until she coughs again and a little drop of blood slides from the corner of her mouth to her chin.
"Krissy?" Dean asks, frowning. "Are you hurt?" He puts his arm down, accidentally jostling the spear, which he was working around, and she cries out harshly.
Dean looks down. He'd assumed—hoped—that the spear had missed. But now he sees that it hit its target—or maybe it had missed its target and found another instead. The head of the shaft is buried deep inside Krissy's stomach. A red flower is slowly staining her shirt.
"No," he whispers, shaking his head. "No, no, no, no, it's fine, okay?" he babbles, working harder at sawing through the rope. Dean's frantic motions make the knife slip and he doesn't even notice the pain from the blade slicing his palm. "You're gonna be okay, all right? Just hang on, okay?"
"Dean…" Krissy's voice is soft and barely above a whisper.
"Shut up," Dean orders. This is his fault. He shouldn't have moved. "Why'd you warn me, Krissy?" he asks miserably. "It would have just hit my arm."
"No, it wouldn't have," she whispers and coughs again. The twelve-year-old wipes her chin with her sleeve, but that just smears the blood on her face more.
"Dean?"
Dean jumps at the sound of another familiar voice. Jo arrived too late. "Come help me," he snaps. "Come on, Krissy. Just hold on a little longer, okay? You're gonna be fine."
Jo places a hand on his shoulder. "Dean…"
"Get your healing cream out," Dean interrupts loudly. "Jo."
Jo takes out her father's knife and helps Dean free Krissy instead. The child is mostly silent as they work, save for coughing and sniffling at times.
Once the two District 5 tributes have cut a wide enough hole for Krissy to get out, now comes the issue of actually getting her out. The spear isn't supple enough to finagle it out of the net.
"Here, hold her up and I'll…" Dean grunts, trying to lift the spear up just enough for the angle to allow it to slip through the net's holes, but Krissy cries out again weakly.
"Just take it out," the child whispers.
Jo blanches. "Krissy…"
"I'm already dead!" she snaps. "Just spare me a little bit of pain, okay?"
Dean wrenches the spear out of her body. All the sounds around him are muffled and his peripheral vision is blurring as he focuses on the small girl. She's smaller than Sam. She looks like a doll.
Jo gently places Krissy on the ground and grips her hand so harshly both girls have white knuckles. Dean kneels down on the other side of the girl and strokes her hair out of her face.
"You're so brave," he whispers. "Your dad knows that. Everyone knows that."
Krissy nods and squeezes her eyes shut. A single tear drips out of her left eye and he brushes it away. "Tell him…" her voice breaks and it hurts Dean's heart so much he feels like he's dying right along with the child. "Tell him I love him, okay?"
"He already knows," Dean whispers. If even Krissy wasn't good enough to make it out of the arena, how in the hell will he? Sure, he's got more skills, but something so pure should have risen out of the imperfection easily. She was too innocent to die.
And yet she's bleeding out right now.
"But tell him," Krissy insists. "You have to win."
Dean's mouth opens but his mind is blank. What is he supposed to say to that? "Ah…"
"Don't worry," Jo assures her. "We'll tell him."
"Good," Krissy breathes. "I know you will. You guys… are so good."
A drop of water falls onto Krissy's face and Dean wipes his eyes with confusion. When did he start crying?
"It doesn't hurt anymore," the girl breathes. The creases in her forehead disappear as Jo strokes her hair again. "Thank you for… saving me, Dean."
"I didn't," Dean whispers. "I didn't… I wasn't quick enough."
"That's fine," Krissy whispers back. "They wouldn't have let you… they wouldn't have let you save me even if you were…" She wheezes. "Quick enough. You did your best." Another coughing fit overtakes her, and then Krissy slumps back onto the ground. Her head lolls.
A cannon fires.
But that was another tribute, right? Maybe the girl from District 7, Sif Terr; she hasn't even been seen, as far as Dean can tell, ever since the Games started. Or any of the Careers. Or—
"Krissy?" Dean asks. The girl's eyelashes don't even flutter. "No… no… Krissy! Hey! Snap out of it!" He grabs her chin and forcefully turns her face towards him. "Krissy? Look at me!"
"Dean," Jo tries. "She's—"
"Shut up!" Dean snarls. "She's fine! I told you to get that cream out! She's just passed out—get the damn medicine, Jo!"
"The medicine won't solve a gaping hole in her stomach," Jo points out, way too calm for this situation, and it infuriates Dean. His almost-sister's fingers reach for Krissy's neck, presumably to take a pulse, and he flings them away.
"You let her die!" he accuses. "If you had—"
Jo's expression hardens, but Dean's already correcting himself.
"If I hadn't dodged the spear… if you hadn't left her…" He strokes Krissy's hair again. "This is my fault."
"It was whoever threw the spear's fault," Jo says with heat. She looks over at where Vam's body lays. "District 1? Vam Pyre? How'd you kill him?"
Dean's hand goes to his breast pocket wordlessly and Jo pushes his hand away before shoving a hand into the pocket. She barely needs to touch the gun before recoiling slightly. "How'd you get that? Didn't Bela have it?"
Looking away from Krissy takes much more effort than Dean had anticipated. He's barely looked at Jo before she's saying quickly, "You know what? We can talk about this later. Come on; we need to get away from the bodies."
Yes, that's right, the Gamemakers need to pick up the bodies of Vam Pyre and Krissy Chambers so they can be packaged into neat little coffins and sent back to their families. They'll be cold and pale and still for a day and then they'll be burned.
"Can't we just bury her here?" Dean whispers. His lips feel very cold and larger than normal. "Why should they get her body? They'll just wash away what they did to her."
Jo slaps him. "I said, come on, Dean!" Then her face softens and she pushes her mouth against his, teeth clinking together uncomfortably. "Please?"
"My ankle," Dean says helplessly. Jo lets him sling his arm around her shoulders and pulls him along. They make it two steps before trumpets sound. He had half-expected them; there are only seven tributes left. Normally Asmodeus Stardonna will announce a feast at the Cornucopia. Sometimes there is an actual feast akin to the food Dean was able to eat in the Capitol and sometimes it's merely a loaf of bread that tributes fight over. It would be a good time to take out some competitors but it would be dumb to actually go for the food.
Whatever it is, it means that food is getting scarce for everyone. That reminds Dean that he needs to start setting traps once he and Jo settle down for the night; his stomach might be rumbling now but it's also churning and he might vomit after one bite, so he'll only check the traps in the morning.
That reminder almost makes Dean miss the announcement that Asmodeus makes. It's not an invitation to a feast. It's a rule change announcement, which is confusing. There aren't a whole lot of rules in the Games, apart from 'Don't step off your circle before the sixty-second countdown is finished' and the unspoken rule about not desecrating corpses and/or eating them.
Under the new rule, there can be two Victors of this year's Hunger Games as long as they come from the same district. Asmodeus repeats the rule change after a slight pause, as if he realizes that Dean's still too shell-shocked to understand what's going on.
Then it sinks in.
Jo flings her arms around Dean's neck.
Someone knocks on the front door but Sam doesn't even twitch. Dean's acting really weird on the screen right now. He's… insisting that it's his fault the District 11 girl died? While also saying that she's not really dead? And also saying that it's now Jo's fault that she's dead?
The person knocks again, louder, and it startles John out of his dozing on the couch next to Sam. He snorts and blinks before raising his head and looking to Sam. "What did I miss?"
"Dean shot the District 1 boy after he killed the District 11 girl," Sam answers promptly. "There was an earthquake and Dean lost his backpack. It was awesome."
John blinks again and squints a bit as if Sam had lost him, but really, it wasn't that confusing.
The person at the door knocks again and John calls out that he's coming before standing up.
Ruby, who's sitting next to Sam on the couch, snorts at the television screen as Jo has to wrestle with Dean to get him to let go of the District 11 girl's body. Privately, Sam agrees with her unspoken comments, but outwardly he bristles at the way she dismisses Dean, because Dean is awesome. He's strong and smart and capable and even if he's acting a bit stupid right now, that doesn't mean he is stupid. That doesn't mean he's pathetic or going to lose the Games or anything else like that, especially because he's with Jo again. He's been so badass during the entire Games. Sam hopes Dean will show him how to be that badass when he gets back.
Really, Sam's been looking for a reason to be mad at Ruby for almost since he met her and Meg. Apart from the fact that Meg was the one to acknowledge his presence and the blonde just ignored him, it's also clear that she doesn't think very much about Dean either. Besides, her disdain for everything and everything in the Winchester household is grating, not to mention how many salted, fried potato chips she's eaten while watching the Games. Sure, the food is hardly in short supply, especially because she's stealing them from the Victor pantry. Doesn't mean Sam appreciates the theft any more.
All in all, Sam's not exactly enchanted with the prickly, sneering blonde rebel-slash-Peacekeeper that's apparently 'an awesome spy'. In his opinion, spies are supposed to be sneaky. The constant crackling of the potato chip bag is the opposite of sneaky.
John walks back into the room with Meg hot on his heels. Sam likes Meg a lot more than Ruby. She's quieter, she's much less restless, and she hasn't even implied that Dean is anything less than awesome.
"Your turn," is all she says to Ruby. It's what she says every time she comes to pick up Ruby for the blonde's turn at patrolling while being a Peacekeeper, and it's the only thing she says for her whole visit.
Why it's necessary that a Peacekeeper watch over Sam 24/7 he doesn't know. Why it has to be one out of two female Peacekeepers that obviously don't like him? Sam doesn't know the answer to that either. They're basically acting like Dean, only they're a lot less fun and a lot less nice.
Sam can't wait until Dean gets back so Ruby and Meg can leave. Sure, Dean sleeps in way too late and fights too often with John and threatens to rip people's lungs out whenever they hurt Sam.
He also steals food for Sam and makes up fun stories when Sam's bored at night. The colorful monsters Dean describes in the nightmare-inducing stories? Terrifying. He's gotten into fights with John before that involved lots of crashing from the other room (Dean insists it was just bumping tables and smashing plates but there were no missing plates the next morning or scratch marks on the floor so Sam doesn't know about that) when Sam wasn't able to sleep at night thinking about the people that turned into wolves once a month. Or the people that drink other people's blood. Honestly, it was great to have a distraction from the terrible monotony of a sheltered Victor's life in District 5.
The Gamemakers, apparently not very interested in Dean and Jo being reunited anymore now that it's obvious there's not going to be any romance going on between them—just Jo slapping Dean in the face again as Sam's brother tries frantically to scrub Krissy's blood off of his hands—switches the show's perspective to the Career group. The group is apparently trying to sleep in the middle of the day. They're probably worn out from their encounter with the hellhound.
"Sam, lunch," John calls from the kitchen. Sam tears his gaze from the television as his father raises up a sandwich for him to see. At the sight of the food, his stomach grumbles. He'd forgotten that John hadn't fed him dinner last night and he'd been too anxious this morning about Dean to eat, but now Sam's hunger is back in full force. "It's your favorite—ham and cheese."
"Why's Dean so sad about Krissy Chambers?" Sam asks innocently as he slides into the seat next to his father. John hadn't really made his favorite sandwich—that title is reserved only for peanut butter and banana sandwiches—but ham and cheese isn't really that bad anyway.
John shrugs and grunts as he takes a bite of his sandwich. After wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he remarks, "Sometimes your brother makes dumb decisions."
Sam scowls.
"I'm sure, though," John continues, "that he'll snap out of it. He's probably just tired. You've seen how much sleep tributes typically get in the arena."
"Oh, shit," Meg says from the television-room. Sam's eyebrows rise; that's the first time she's said something out of hand, and a curse word no less. Just the sound of it makes his blood race; whenever Dean slips up and says bad words John gets really angry. They're forbidden words, which makes them uber-exciting.
"Excuse me?" John asks, a stern look on his face that normally makes Sam scowl (and makes Dean's stomach fall into his feet and heart pump faster) because it means punishments that are stupid (and beatings and training and hunger for days). Meg doesn't react to his intimidating tone. She keeps her eyes on the screen as she replies, "Wendy Igo's finally acting like the psycho we all knew she was from the start."
"Pardon?"
Sam drops the half-eaten sandwich onto his sandwich and scrambles back into the television room.
"Look," Meg points out. "Rugaru and Constance are both sleeping but she's awake and pulling out one of her knives. There was just an announcement that there can be two Victors this year but only if they're from the same District. It must have set her off because Peter Sweeney's dead and Rugaru and Constance are from the same District."
"There was an announcement?" John repeats.
"A rule change," Meg explains.
John echoes those words faintly but Sam doesn't hear him. He's too busy watching with morbid fascination the District 3 girl draw closer to Rugaru's sleeping form. He'd barely heard Meg talking and certainly hadn't processed her words.
Sam draws closer to watch and before he knows it, Meg's grabbed him. One hand clenches around each arm in a vise-like grip that digs into Sam's flesh.
"Ow! Hey! What the heck are you doing?" Sam cries as she jerks him back. Why isn't John doing anything to help him?
The Peacekeeper slaps her hand over his eyes with enough force for it to sting. "Why'd you think we were here?" she asks sensibly. "Your father doesn't want you to watch the more gruesome deaths."
Sam stomps on the Peacekeeper's foot and she lets him go, but she doesn't flinch or hiss or do anything that would make him believe he was the one that forced her to let him go. And, sure enough, when Sam looks at the screen, Constance is shouting and swinging her spiked club at Wendy Igo, who's fleeing the two District 2 tributes. Rugaru lays on the ground. When the camera zooms in, Sam can hear the boy choking and gurgling as blood spreads from around his head. Wendy had slit his throat in his sleep.
It's not actually unheard of, especially in the Career groups later in the Games, but it's always made Sam's skin crawl when listening to people choke to death on their own blood. He looks away until the sounds stop on the screen and are replaced with the sound of panting breaths. Wendy Igo is the sole focus of the Games now.
She darts from building to building, opening each door and stepping inside with knives drawn. Obviously she's taking her hunting for non-Career tributes to a whole new level now that she's eliminated from the alliance. She wrenches open one more door and steps inside and belatedly, Sam recognizes the interior of the room she's stepped into. It was the room Dean found refuge in after the Bloodbath. It's also the room he left his flameshooter in.
The rope he'd attached to the flamethrower and the door's handle squeezes, shutting the door behind her sharply. Flames shoot out of the little box immediately. The rope, which had been soaked in gasoline, lights from the falling sparks, and the fire quickly travels down the rope to the door's handle. The door's handle and door were soaked in gasoline and so was the wooden floor of the room.
The fire spreads in seconds. She never lasted a chance.
Just as the cannon goes off signaling her death, Ellen bursts into the house. Somehow she flings her arms around John's neck, despite being much shorter than him, and cries out, "Our babies are both coming home."
Sam squints and cocks his head. "What?"
Meg sighs and rolls her eyes.