The second time his name leaves my lips my body lunges forward, trying to reach him, to protect him. But my leg betrays me and I fall face first in the ground.
"Katniss!" He cries out, but when I look up Clove is pressing the blade of her knife against his lips, forcing him to be quiet. I shiver, almost feeling the cold metal against my own face as I try to regain my foot.
"It's okay Danny, we are allies remember?" She mocks, and I can see his small body trembling as he tries to find a way out. "How did mommy hen allow you to come here all on your own, Danny boy? Or is it that our poison is taking effect?"
Danny doesn't reply and I manage to stand up. My hands are trembling and I am too far away to shoot accurately, especially since I am so nervous.
"She'll kill you if you hurt me," his voice almost makes me stop. That sweet kid should have never had to say those words. His voice should never tremble that hard.
"Liar," she says with a grin. "Where is she? I could hear her screaming but she is nowhere to be seen. But don't worry. I'll kill you fast. It won't even hurt."
"Get your hands off him!" I threaten, but it sounds almost ridiculous since it's tainted by my breathlessness.
She laughs and I stop, my wounded leg has stopped responding completely. And there is no way I can limp fast enough to stop her. I have to take her down while I'm still covered and Cato cannot find me. I force my hands to stop trembling and shoot.
But I fail.
She laughs as the arrow flies past her, but I know I have given away my position because she smirks into my direction.
"Oh, but you Katniss. You I'm going to have so much fun with. I promised Cato that if he let me have you, I'd give the audience a good show. I'm not like Marvel, remember? How he killed your little friend so quickly, so ungracefully?"
My stomach turns and I limp forward while trying to shoot again, but I have to let myself fall down when she throws a knife in my direction. I curse before trying to lift myself without any help from my leg. But when I manage to, I see a figure I hadn't laid eyes on since the first day appear out of nowhere. Tresh is huge next to Clove, and he easily separates her from Danny before throwing her harshly onto the floor.
"What'd you say?" He demands, and I watch as pure terror invades both her and Danny's faces.
She calls out for Cato and tries to crawl away but Tresh stops her, shoving her onto the ground again. "You killed Rue?"
"No! No, I- it wasn't me!" She cries out, and I want to tell Danny to run towards me now that he can, but I am too shocked by Tresh's yelling, I had never heard his voice above a mutter.
I hear Cato's answer, and some rustling in the forest as he makes his way towards his ally. But he is too late. Just as I am too far to cover Danny's eyes and spare him the horror. Tresh grabs a large stone from the ground and then brings it down and hard against Clove's temple. It's not bleeding, but even from this distance I can see the dent in her skull and I know that she is a goner. It takes a few agonizing seconds before the canon is heard.
"Don't touch him!" I cry when he turns around to see Danny. I search for an arrow but I realize I shot the last one in Clove's direction. Danny is powerless and miniscule against Tresh, and I am useless and unarmed, feet away.
"What'd she mean? About Rue being your ally?"
Danny stares at him dumbfounded, but when Tresh takes a step towards him Danny suddenly finds his words.
"We teamed up! W-we were a team, Rue, Katniss and I. Blew up the supplies, sh-Katniss tried to save her. She covered her in flowers and sang to her to sleep."
"Katniss?"
"T-the girl on fire…"
If it had been me in Danny's place, I would have begged Tresh to be quick, to kill me fast so that I wouldn't feel a thing and the people back home would be spared. But Danny proved to be stronger and smarter than me once more.
"P-please, she is sick. Cato poisoned her, this is medicine for her just… please can I go get it to her?" Is he actuallyasking a fellow tribute to sparehim? I am at a significant distance, but I can't see Tresh's features wavering, and so I start limping towards them again, but I stop as soon as he speaks once again.
"Just this once, Twelve. For Rue." He turns around to speak towards the woods I was on, missing my position for a few meters but I understood that he meant to be speaking to me. "We are even. No more owed." I nod, even though I know he can't see me.
And with that he turns around from Danny, a boy he could have murdered in his sleep with his bare hands, but didn't; grabs his pack along with Cato's and disappears into the edge of the plain into the area of the Arena I've never seen. Danny seems fazed, but Cato's voice bring us both out of our haze and the blonde boy runs towards the woods, where I catch him into my arms, hugging him tightly. I can feel the warm tears wet my shirt where he sobs, and I guess I must be crying too because my voice shakes when I finally speak.
"I'm going to kill you Daniel Mellark, I swear I'm going to kill you."
The walk back into the woods was frightening. My quiver was empty and my leg slowed us down. As soon as I was done hugging Danny we opened the pack hurriedly, finding a hypodermic needle which I quickly jammed into my leg before pressing down the plunger. Fire spread through my leg, but it started reacting again after a couple of minutes, and I could half-run next to Danny until we found a cave.
It is much closer to the Cornucopia than I'd like, but I can't run much further and Danny obviously needs a break after the emotions he had just lived. Besides, I am positive Cato had been close enough to see Tresh taking his pack with him, if I had to bet I'd say he was going to go after him. Not us. But we can never be too sure, especially not here. We camouflage the entrance to the cave as best as we can and sit in the darkness for a while.
"You alright?" I ask him once the silence becomes unbearable, I am sure that even in here we are not hidden from the cameras.
"I thought I was going to die," he confessed, choking.
I let out a long huff of air, swallowing back my Me too,before he can catch it and I wrap my arms around him again, letting him sob against my neck.
"That was a stupid move, Boss. But somehow it worked out for you, in the end. And you are fine, and I will be fine thanks to you. Besides, we are the only team left." I pull away so that he can look into my eyes while I speak, hoping he can see my honesty in the darkness. "We can do this, Danny. We could go home."
"Home," he confirms, wiping his tears and I kiss his forehead.
"Peeta is going to be furious at you when we get there, Prim too. They will all be so mad. I amvery mad," I tease him, tickling him. He managed a smile.
"I wouldn't mind being grounded by Mom right now."
And with that bittersweet comment, we silently start getting ready to sleep, knowing that neither of us had much rest the night before.
I try not to think much about how quickly the pain in my leg has disappeared. When I went to sleep earlier today it was a dumb pain, opposed to the unbearable twinge that had tortured me the day before. But now as I wake up in the cave my leg feels like new. I don't remove the bandage though, if I take it off to reveal a piece of perfectly healthy skin I might go crazy. That's just not how medicine works. It shouldn't be.
Beside me, Danny sleeps sort of peacefully, a smug smile on his face.
Now that he is safely within my reach I can tell that I am glad the things unfolded the way they did, in many ways Danny saved me earlier today. And that just might ease his conscience a little about having me in the Arena with him. I am glad at least one of us is walking out of here with a clean conscience.
After a couple minutes of listening to our empty stomachs rumble in the darkness I wake him up. My bow is useless now that I don't have any arrows left, but I take it with me anyway as we go outside to get something to eat. We both regret not having set some traps before going to sleep because we have to walk a long time before finding a fruit tree that doesn't quite end our hunger.
I wonder where Haymitch is, and why he is letting us starve. I don't like to admit it, but I know there has to be a reason for it.
The following morning is better. We slept a few hours in a half empty stomach and woke up to squirrels on Danny's snares. We cook them and eat in silence, but even without either of us voicing them I know the question is there. What now? What happens now, Katniss?
My stomach turns as I think about it, because I do not know the answer to that question. Up until this moment I always had a sort of plan. Get a bow. Pretend to be a Career, get out of there. Blow up their food, be the last two. Take down the District Two team.
The night before we slept through the anthem, but I can picture Clove's face in the sky without having seen it. The canon still sounds fresh in my mind, but nothing else does. Because I am at a complete loss of what to do.
I know the audience will become impatient soon, we gave them an action-packed morning yesterday but then slept the day off. There have been no more canons and there is only five of us left. The Gamemakers are probably already thinking about ways to round us up together for the final bloodbath.
Cato must be after Tresh, but whomever comes out alive from that quarrel is an enemy I don't want to face. Cato is too strong, too determined and too heartless. Tresh… I can't picture myself killing him, I just can't. If we were to lose, I would like him to win, for Rue. But I know that it's not a thought I should indulge. Foxface is still out there, goodness knows where. And while I could take her down easily on a physical fight, I know that she is too wise for me to ever be at arm's length from her. Besides I kind of have a weak spot for her cleverness. Which reminds me…
"Danny, when you… how much time did you spent inside the Cornucopia with Foxface?"
He looks up from his squirrel, blinking as if he was trying to remember a distant memory.
"A while, a few hours I think. I ran because I knew you'd follow me, and because I wanted to be inside the Cornucopia before dawn, I didn't think anyone else would think of it… she thought so too. She almost screamed when she saw me in there, but I talked to her. I told her I just wanted the medicine and I'd leave, and that she could go first."
Clever boy."So you talked twotributes out of killing you yesterday?"
He blushes in the morning light, and I smile. "I guess."
"You Mellark boys, your tongues are too dangerous," I say without thinking, my heart turns heavy as I think of Peeta and how he always had the right thing to say. How his words had talked me into loving him, into letting him in. As I said: they were dangerous.
The silence stretches on for some more before I look up to find him staring at his empty plate.
"Let's walk towards the lake, this is bound to end soon anyway."
When he doesn't ask what thisis, I know he understands me.
We collect berries as we walk, mostly because we know that there will be little chances for us to hunt or set snares in the following hours. But also because it keeps our mind of things, or at least I hope that it does for him. My own mind is too busy trying to figure out our next step for me to pay attention.
But then, the silence becomes unbearable. I turn around once I realize I haven't heard his loud footsteps in a while, but he is not behind me.
Before I can call out his name, I hear a canon.
Author's Note / Hello! Thank you so much again for forgiving me for the long absences! I hope that you enjoy this chapter and that you are willing to overlook some minor nonsense (Katniss not being able to rescue Danny), I simply thought our sweet boy deserved his chance to shine!
Stay close for more updates! Also, I promise a Peeta POV before this all ends.
Merry Christmas y'all!