Finnick's POV.
Sometime throughout the night, I manage to get a little bit of sleep. I don't know when but when I wake there is a human shadow looming over me. I jump up quickly grab the nearest weapon before I realize its Ivy. "You know, in a place like this, it would be nice for you to refrain from scaring me half to death if we're going to be Allies. It's only going to get you killed." I say groggily.
"Yeah right. And I'm sorry I was just going to wake you-" Then she is cut off by the coughing fit that consumes her. She starts coughing loudly and continuously. I'm afraid she is inviting unwelcome guests by coughing like this.
"Ivy! IVY! Shut up! Ivy!" I whisper loudly so she gets the idea. She keeps coughing though. She looks like she's trying to do it quietly, so I just slap her back the way the District Four doctor always does when someone's choking or coughing. She finally stops but occasionally starts gagging like she's going to start coughing again. "Are you okay now?" I asked resting my hand back on my lap. At some point I'd forgotten we were so high up in this tree and when I look down, I start, grabbing onto Ivy for a brief second to regain my steadiness.
"No, every few minutes I start coughing frantically, I tried to wake you so you could see what was wrong with me but I'm sorry for scaring you awake." Her voice sounds extremely coarse as she says this, I realize that her voice was coarse before, but I only really think about it now.
"It's fine," I say. Then I hear a rustling in the trees about one hundred meters away. I duck down instinctively. "We need to move; your coughing fit woke up the entire three-hundred-meter radius," I whisper angrily at her. She grimaces at my icy tone but obliges and starts to descend the tree hastily. I followed closely behind her, my weapon always at the ready. She looked back at me and copied by putting her sharpest knife out in front of her.
The moment I can't see the tree anymore, I relax, moving my rigid shoulders from an uncomfortable nights sleep. Behind me, Ivy sighs and looks up at me sharply. Her eyes suddenly flash dead when she starts coughing again. She holds her hands over her mouth to muffle the loud and obvious sound. She actually looks scared as she hacks up a lung. I slap her back again and she seems to stop coughing quickly. She looks at me as if to say sorry, I lift my head in acknowledgment when she looks sharply to her right. I quickly follow her gaze, I hear a rustling behind the almost frozen bush in front of us, she inhales quickly, and I ready my trident in front of me. Ivy stands behind me and holds her knife at the ready.
I hear the rustling again and quickly see a rush of red hair. The first thing I think of is Annie with her gorgeous red hair, but I know it isn't her. I do know who it is though. I don't know her name, but I know what district she's from. District Three. I quickly steal a glance at Ivy and see that she looks just as confused as I feel. Why hasn't the District Three Girl attacked yet? stayed stood here for a solid minute and yet no-one dares to move. I'm honestly getting bored.
I am about to spring forward and stab her when Ivy starts coughing again. I hear the girl stiffen behind the bush and I take this as my chance to kill the girl. Whilst Ivy is still having a coughing fit behind me, I sprint to the bush. I spot the same red hair and grab her by the neck. I swiftly take note of any weapons she has on her. She holds a sharp metal sword in her left hand and on her should is a bag. I take them from her, throwing them to the ground with a loud clang as the sword hits a rock. I hear her choke in my hand and I look up at her sharply taking in her features for the first time.
I gasp as I see who I am holding by the neck. This girl has bright red hair exactly like Annie, Bright deep ocean blue eyes exactly like Annie, she even has the same little freckles dotting over her small nose and cheeks exactly like Annie. I stare at her face before she speaks to me softly. "What are you waiting for, Finnick?"
"What?" I say, confused even though I don't know why. I keep staring at the Annie look-alike and exhale, realizing that I have held my breath this whole time.
"You're going to kill me." She says even though she sounds very confused, probably wondering why I haven't impaled her yet. My weapon is in my hand and it is in perfect position to jolt forward and end her life, but I can't make myself do it. Ivy stops coughing suddenly and I look over at her to see if she's alright.
She is bent over herself holding onto her knees and breathing in and out deeply. She looks over at me and her face clouds over in confusion when she sees that I haven't killed her yet. She walks over to us and looks from the girl to me and then back to the girl and back to me.
"Why haven't you killed her yet?" She asks me, her voice still hoarse from her recent coughing fit. She looks back at the girl and realized why I can't do it. "Oh… Annie?" She asks and whips her head back to me.
"Yeah," I say still looking at the girl. I release my hold on her neck and put my trident back in its position by my side. I drop my head and take a step away from her. I wait a few seconds before looking back at her again, her red hair floating in the wind. A million emotions are running through her expression at the moment, a few of them I recognize; relieved, scared, nervous and confused. I can't say I blame her. I begin lowering my head again just to get the image of Annie out of my head. "Okay, I won't kill you right now, so you better run along before I change my mind," I say icily.
"What?" Both Ivy and the District Three girl say a bit too loud and I shook my head back up to look at them. The girl just looks so confused and Ivy looks angrier that I'm letting my emotions get in the way of winning this. I shoot an equally angry look towards Ivy as if threatening her also. She whimpers under my stare and looks down.
"Fine, get out of here quickly, I'm not going to let my emotions get in the way of this." She says to the girl before shooting a mocking glace my way. I scratch my neck and walk away from them.
The girl waits a few seconds before retrieving her backpack and weapon and running away from us. I listen to her footsteps gradually getting softer as she sprints away from us. Seconds later I hear a piercing scream from her direction and a cannon overhead. I shiver as I think of Annie dying, even though I know it isn't her. The District Three girl has died. I take that in for a second before I think about the fact that the person who killed her must be close. I must have thought about that for too long because unexpectedly I feel a tugging on my arm coming from Ivy. Obviously trying to get me to move from my frozen position on the ground.
I see him before I hear him. He must have moved very swiftly and quietly through the short distance to meet us. His long silver blade flashes in the frosty light coming from the sun somewhere. He stands in a position that says he isn't going down without a fight, and you know what? Neither am I! He is about the same height as I am even though I know he is about two years older than me. His dark hair covers most of his face leaving only a small section of vision. He seems to be a lot bulkier than I am. I am strong but it looks like he trained for this before coming here. I am intimidated but that doesn't mean that I am going to go running and screaming for the hills. I have the upper hand in this fight because my weapon is longer and can reach him easily. I look at Ivy in my peripheral vision. She is watching but doesn't look like she will join in unless needed.
I start the fight. Swinging my Trident over my head before reaching forward to deliver the first blow. He dodges around my weapon swinging forward towards my head. He misses but still throws me off my balance for a short second. I compose myself and grin at him. I walk sideways a few steps to try to get him in a more vulnerable position. I realize that he has a slight limp in his right leg making him stumble a little when he tries to stab me again.
I am the first to draw blood, leaving him clutching over a piece of skin on his shoulder. When he removes his hand from his bleeding shoulder, I examine the wound. There is blood falling slowly over his jacket, the red liquid staining his hand where he reached for it. I ignore my guilt and try to hurt him again, a second later he flung out his weapon, aiming for my head once again. I winced and ducked out of his way rolling under the blow and delivering an even deadlier wound to the same leg that he was limping on.
He cries out in pain and clutches his leg as he did with his shoulder. I noticed at this point that it didn't matter that he was older and looked stronger. He was very strong but obviously not as strong as me. He howled like a wolf before spitting at me and running forwards towards me. I leaped backward, barely getting my trident up in time, the screech of metal on metal pierced my ears and left a chill running up my spine. He pushes forward on my weapon leaving me squatting down under his undeniable strength. I reacted as much as possible before pushing back and throwing him off me. I grin at him again and run at him, weapon ready. He ducks, plunging his weapon into the unoccupied arm. I grimace and grab my arm letting out a whimper of pain. I hear Ivy gasp behind me, and I wonder how she can just stand by and watch this without helping in any way. I grind my teeth together and try to squeeze the pain away even though I know it is only pushing more blood out.
I think about Annie and immediately I have forgotten about the pain, flinging my weapon forward I manage to sink the weapon into his stomach, but it isn't deep enough to kill him. He grabs my trident and jerks it from my grasp, leaving me unarmed. He grins and throws my weapon back towards a tree. I then realized how very fragile my trident was as it shattered and fell to the ground, breaking like glass. I swore to myself and tried to find my knife in my belt. I find it and aim it towards him, but it isn't long enough for me to win this.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ivy moving towards the back of him. I grin even though it isn't me that will kill him in the end. Ivy jumps forward with her knife and drives her silver knife forward and into his neck. I gag as he cries out in pain. I can just see the silver knife coming through the front of his neck. Whatever is left of his head rolls to the side and hot red blood trickles down his jacket and onto the floor. Whatever frozen over grass was there has now melted under the hot liquid. I shiver at how much blood flows out of him. I watch as he finally falls to the hard ground in a heap. The blood doesn't stop though. I find myself struggling to look away from the corpse on the ground. The cannon sounds and I groan. One more down!
I look up to see Ivy smiling to herself, obviously proud of her kill. I smile encouragingly at her before looking back down at my wounded arm and crying out at the pain. I forgot how much it hurt.
"Oh, it's worse than I thought." Ivy gasps and rushes to my side, any signs of happiness dispersing as she stares at my bleeding arm.
"It's fine. I'm fine." I say even though my face doesn't show it. I can just imagine how much my face is complaining opposite to what I said right now.
"No, it's not. Umm… See that tree over there?" She asks me and I turn around to where she was looking to see a tree with lots of out-branches, I look back at her and nod. "Try to climb it, I know it will be painful but just do it. My dad used to have a bunch of healing plants in his yard. I recognize a few of them, I've seen some around here somewhere. I'll go look for some and you try to calm down. I'll be back soon." She explains and wipes a bit more blood away with her palm.
Out of nowhere, she starts coughing again, clutching her throat as if trying to rip it off. I try to reach her to slap her back like I've done a few times, but she crouches down. She continues couching too loudly when I hear the familiar chime from the Hunger Games parachutes. Oh, thank God! I think as I run towards the parachutes landing on the ground a few meters away. Ivy looks after me and notices the parachute coming into land.
I grab the chute from the air and rip off the top, trying to get to the metal box hopefully containing something for Ivy's cough. I open the container and run back to Ivy. Medicine! I open the medicine box and held out the tube to Ivy so she can drink it. She drinks it quickly and instantly stops coughing. She gags a few times from the taste, scrunching up her face and pocking out her tongue. She exhales and smiles at me in gratitude. I notice the little white piece of paper in the back of the box and open it out to read.
Keep going and good luck. – Mags
I am immediately grateful for Mags. I knew she would come through. Ivy looks over the paper and smiles.
"Okay, go over to the tree, I'll be back in a bit." She says and walks in the opposite direction. I go to the tree that she pointed out and find a branch that will hold both of our weight. I find one about four meters up. When I get there, I sit down and look at my arm again. I wince as I touch it, finally realizing how happy I am that I survived that fight with just one injury.
I hear the cannon twice as I sit in the tree, both times I think it is Ivy, but I am relieved when I see her come through the trees about two or three hours later. She walks to me with several leaves in her hand. By now the bleeding has almost stopped and the wound has almost scabbed over. I notice as she comes to sit beside me that she also has a backpack that she didn't have before. She puts the leaves on my arm and wraps it in twine to keep it secure.
"Thanks, Ivy," I say and look back at the bag she brought. "You didn't have that before."
"Oh, yeah I found this when I was looking. It was the District Three girl's bag. It has water in it." She says and grabs out the two bottles of water out. She hands one to me and I suddenly realize how thirsty I am, not having drunk in almost two days. I drink some of the boiling hot water leaving some for later. I give the bottle back for Ivy to put back in the bag and she wraps the bag around the tree, so it doesn't fall.
I look up to the sky and realize how dark it has gotten. I am quite tired, so I lean back on the wood and look up to the sky waiting for the familiar sound of the Capitol anthem to ring out over the arena.
When it finally sounds, I come back to attention and observe the deaths for today.
District 1: None.
District 2: Fred Deannie. Thank god, someone in the career pack is finally dead!
District 3: Hazel Donely. I realize the familiar red hair and sigh.
District 4: None.
District 5: Blade Lowe. That's the one Ivy finished off. I look over to see Ivy smiling again.
District 6: Dead.
District 7: None.
District 8: None.
District 9: Dead.
District 10: Sapphire Blunt. Must have been one of the cannons I heard when Ivy was gone.
District 11: None.
District 12: Dead.
Only four gone today which means that there are only eight of us left. Wow. I look over at Ivy and see that she has come to the same conclusion as I have. We might have to kill each other.
I look down and so does she. We both sigh and then I rub my sore arm.
"Goodnight," Ivy tells me then climbs one branch higher and puts her rope around her to keep her secure. I do the same and rest my eyes for the night. Drifting off into a dreamless sleep.
How did you like this one? I hope you liked it. Keep reading these chapters and remember to review this Chapter. I have started wiring on Wattpad as well so I moved this whole book over onto that website. it is exactly the same but uploaded on both websites. I might be writing different stories on there as well so you should definitely check out my page on Wattpad, my account is Amclean05!