Chapter 15: Trapped

Iris' POV

I grunt with pain as I hang from a branch with my burnt arm. Sage is below, scrambling down as I make my way to the ground. I let go and land on the ground, wincing a bit from my bad leg, but at least I can walk and run normally now. Sage lands next to me and smiles, taking my hand in his.

"Which way?" He asks, looking around the forest.

I sigh and say, "I wish we could just stay up in that tree…"

Sage smiles at me as he wraps his arms around me, his breath caressing my skin. I smile, loving how close he is, loving his touch; I could just stay like this forever. But I know I can't and I try and ignore the fact that only one of us is able to come out alive.

I hope it's him.

"We could," He says, his voice light, "if you want."

He leans forward and kisses me on the lips and I stand there, kissing back. I want to continue, but I know better. I lean back and smile at him sweetly.

"No, we need to leave," I separate from him, but still grip his hand, "maybe we might find something for my arm and your other burns."

"Mine aren't that bad," Sage shrugs and looks at my arm worriedly, "But we need to get something for that arm of yours."

I sigh and say, "The pain's fine to deal with."

"That's not the point," He shakes his head, "you need it to heal."

I glance down at my arm which isn't as inflamed as before. The angry red color is starting to diminish, but it still isn't good. It only hurts real bad if I'm using my arm, but besides that there's only a continuous pain which I've grown use to. I really wish Jake would send us something.

"We'll just work with what we've got," I say as I start to move, "That's all we can do."

"Unless Jake sends something," Sage murmurs, "But I don't know why he's holding off."

"He has a reason," I say, "Maybe something might happen, that's why he's laying off."

Sage just gives me a doubtful look, but doesn't say anything else as we move through the forest. Suddenly, I hear something behind me. I freeze, the hair on my neck standing up. Something is terribly wrong.

Sage stops beside me, glancing at me with a confused expression. Slowly I turn around and am met with a horrible fate. Wolves. But not regular wolves, no, these look like half wolves and half cheetah. There's only one word for them.

"Mutts," I hiss under my breath.

Sage's body goes stiff as I pull out my sword slowly from my belt and he pulls out his arrow. He let's go of my hand and I grab my dagger. He nods to the knife in his own belt and I take that as well.

They inch closer to us, snarling and growling with their lips curled in a snarl. They'll be much faster than us, and very deadly, so we only have one choice. Fight.

I whip Sage's knife at the first Mutation I see. Direct hit; it slams right into its heart. But that makes the others angry. They pounce towards us as Sage let's go of his arrow and I throw my dagger. My arm burns with a horrible pain that I force to ignore. Thankfully I don't have to throw any longer so I start to use my sword.

One of them leaps towards me, claws outstretched like a cats. I roll away, slicing its side open with my sword. It howls in pain as I finish it off, stabbing it in the chest. It falls to the ground and I see Sage release another arrow into the heart of a Mutt. Be he is quickly losing arrows and he only has five left.

I turn around and slam my sword down, using both hands, onto the back of another Mutt. It snarls in pain and slashes out its claws. I shout in pain as I feel them rake across my back with such intensity it nearly makes me faint. With now my arm and back burning with pain, I know that we need to get out of here.

"Sage!" I call, seeing him using the knife from before to stab one of the mutts. His side is bleeding and I can tell that he's trying his best to keep it from bleeding too badly.

He turns when I call his name and I slice my sword into another Mutt. More are coming and I know we have to run to survive. There's no other way and we can't fight them all. Sage stabs another Mutt as do I but another one always replaces it. It's impossible.

"Run!" I scream at him.

He nods as we both charge away from the Mutts. They howl and run after us. I try not to collapse from the horrible pain in my back that just gets worse as I run. I can feel the blood slowly pouring down from my back and I know that I must be leaving a blood trail. Sage, too, is bleeding from his side wound.

I push myself faster as I hear the pounds of their feet catching up to us. They're part cheetah, so they must be faster than normal wolves. Just what we needed. But what we do need is something to distract them, to keep them occupied. A thought occurs to me.

"Sage!" I scream at him over the howling.

"What?"

"Do you have any meat?" I call.

"Yeah, why?" He's panting now and losing energy, we need to do this quickly.

"Throw it at them!"

Figuring out my plan, he grabs the back pack from his shoulders and opens it before tossing the entire thing back. I look back to see that the Mutts have stopped and start sniffing it, taking out the meat that had been in there. So much for the backpack and food, but oh well. We're alive.

Once we're out of sight, I slow down and after a little bit, Sage collapses on the ground. He grabs some nearby moss and presses it against his side, his breaths quick and uneven. I groan from the blistering pain in my back and my arm. I collapse down beside him, careful not to lean back on anything.

"Did they get you?" He gasps.

I nod, "On my back, hurts like hell but I'll live."

"Let me look at it," He offers.

But I shake my head, "Rest first, it can wait."

He nods reluctantly and leans back as I take his hand in his. The adrenaline rushing through my body begins to simmer down and my hands stop shaking. I try to reach around to wear the Mutt clawed me on my back, but it's too large of a cut. I can tell just by the pain that it's probably going across my back. I'll just have to live with it.

"How many arrows do you have left?" I ask after a bit.

Sage checks slowly and murmurs, "Three."

"Keep the knife," I say, pushing it towards him, "You need something to defend yourself with."

He nods and murmurs, "Alright, thanks."

We rest for a bit before I force myself to my feet and say, "We should get going, we don't know if the Mutts will come back."

Sage sighs and nods, struggling to his feet. The bleeding has stopped on his side so he tosses the moss away as he begins to walk. I put my hand in his as we walk in silence, too much in pain to speak. I'm just glad Sage is here with me, so that I wouldn't have to have dealt with that alone.

I would've surely died, I figure silently.

Suddenly, we come to a clearing. I freeze right as we come to it, just at the edges of the trees. I see the most horrifying thing we could have run into, even worse than the Mutts, the fire, the avalanche, or the flood.

In the clearing, a large amount of Tributes are circled around it, all waiting to strike.