Chapter 17: The Pawns in a Sick Game
A/N: Since Sage is now dead, I figured that we should have the point of views be in Iris', Nyla's, and Sabine's since they are allies. For a refresher, Nyla is of District 6 and Sabine is from District 12.
Nyla's POV
I slowly lift my head from the bloody mud and narrow my eyes. Smoke descends upon us and all sorts of matter are on top of us. Sabine groans beside me as she tries to shift out of the mud. I see Iris behind us; her body is shaking from quiet sobs as I hear four cannons go off. One of them was Sage's.
Poor girl, I think, she must've loved him.
Pushing myself up to my feet, I help Sabine get to hers. Her golden hair is covered with mud and her blue eyes are filled with shock. Silently agreeing, we turn to Iris. I pick her up by her arms as does Sabine and we get her to her feet. She's still crying, but she doesn't fight us like she did before. I put her left arm around my shoulders as Sabine puts her right arm around hers.
"Come on," I say in a soothing voice, "We're going to take you to our camp. It's warm and safe there, you'll love it."
Iris doesn't respond as we help her down to the river. Our camp is a small tent that I managed to swipe from the Cornucopia on the first day. Sabine and I hid it in a clump of undergrowth which hid it well. It was right by the shore, just inside the trees. So far no one has found us.
"We better wash up," Sabine murmurs as I nod in agreement.
We carry Iris into the water and begin to scrub her and ourselves down. I see that she has multiple wounds; the worse of them is a burn on her right forearm and a long, deep claw mark on her back. We wash off all the mud, dirt, and blood and she's practically clean as we do ourselves. Finally after we're clean, our clothes on our bodies dripping wet along with our hair, we go over to Iris.
"I'll get the first aid kit," Sabine offers as she hustles inside the tent.
"Alright," I say as I help Iris down on the sand. She hasn't said a word and her gray eyes are distant and filled with pain and grief. Her body sags and she doesn't even care about anything it seems. I force down my pity, knowing that Iris wouldn't want it.
"I'm going to look at your wounds, alright?" I say as Sabine comes back with the first aid kit.
Iris doesn't respond, so we just help her lie down on her stomach. I gently take off her shirt and finally her undershirt. I flinch when I see the wound-I have never been good with blood. It's a very deep and long three claw marks that go diagonally from one end of her back to the other. Sabine chuckles quietly at my face-I'm pretty sure it has turned a shade of green- as I open up the first aid kit.
"What do we do for this?" I ask Sabine as I look at the supplies we have.
"You see this ointment?" Sabine leans forward and grabs a small container, "This will help it heal and fight off infections. We rub it on and then bandage it up."
"Maybe you should do this," I say standing up on shaky legs as I see that the wound is starting to bleed again, "I feel like I'm going to faint."
Sabine grins and says, "Aw, come on, a little queasy with blood, are we?"
"Just fix her," I say, waving my hand towards Iris' back as I turn, trying not to look.
After a little bit, I hear Sabine say, "Alright, her back is done."
I turn as I see Sabine help Iris into her undershirt and then finally her green t-shirt. I glance at her arm, flinching at how bad the burn is. I guess this is what happens when your father's a scientist/inventor and you spend most of your free hours trying to keep the house well and clean and getting food on the table. But when I think of my father I feel that same gut-wrenching pain when I remember that he's dead.
It was just before I entered the arena when I got the call saying my father had died. I had no family left now, and I'm not expecting to go back to District 12. I'm going to help Sabine and Iris try and go back to their Districts, because they have a family that cares about them. I don't.
I think back to before I was chosen to enter the Games. My father and I have never been close. My mother died giving birth to me, and after that he mostly just stayed in the house, working on new inventions and ideas. I grew up and got a job after school. Sometimes he would sell his inventions, the really extravagant ones, and the money would be good. But most of the time he wouldn't, and he'd just keep remodeling and rebuilding and working on all sorts of things. Then when he fell ill it was up to me to make sure we got enough to eat. But he died after I left, I never was able to say goodbye.
"Hey look!" Sabine's call snaps me out of my thoughts.
I look up and see a silver parachute come down. Two, actually, come down and land in front of us. Iris doesn't move, she barely even glances at them. I take one and so does Sabine. I rip off the parachute and open up the small box. I narrow my eyes when I see that a necklace was inside. It has small, insignificant chains on it. When I look closely at it, I see that it says: "Follow the song the mockingjay sings, through the shadows and the hills beyond. Follow it, listen to it, and feel it in your heartbeat, as it guides you to the safety of the heavens."
I blink in surprise and see that there's a note attached to it also. On the cover is says "Iris" in bad, scribbling, handwriting. Confusion lights up in me, but I shrug it off.
"Um, Iris," I turn to her and lean down to face her, holding the objects in my hand, "I think this is for you."
I'm surprised when I see some life flash in her eyes. She stares at the things in my hands, her gray eyes still filled with tears. With a shaky hand she reaches out and grabs it. She looks at the note and opens it up. There's a pause and I'm curious to see what it says, but I just sit down in front of her, waiting to see if this will help.
And to my surprise, again, the corners of her lips turn up into a very small smile. "Jake," She murmurs, her voice rough and filled with the sadness and depression of this day. She lies the note down beside her as she clips the necklace around her neck, trying to keep back another round of sobs.
"What did it say?" I ask gently.
Iris just pushes the note towards me and I take it. I open it up and read what it says:
"Sometimes vengeance is a good thing."
I blink in confusion and look up at Iris who is fingering the necklace on her neck. I don't get what Jake meant by this, but if it helped Iris then who am I to question it? I shrug and hand it back to Iris. She takes it in her small hands and slides it in her pocket.
"He wants the people responsible for Sage's death to pay," Iris explains to me, her voice quiet.
And finally I get what she means. The Capitol, I think silently.
"I think you're getting some more sponsors," Sabine says as she moves towards us, "'Cause look what I've got."
She hands over a tube of some sort of ointment. It's a different color than the other and it's a light pink color. I rub it in between two of my fingers; it feels thick and smooth and the feel of it is cooling.
"It must be something to help your burn," I say to Iris.
She just merely glances at it, obviously distracted. But Sabine and I take a bunch of this stuff and start rubbing it on her arm. She flinches at first and I figure it must sting, but then she relaxes. At least she's reacting to stuff now, I'm glad about that. After we finish we see that the burn has turned into a baby pink color; I sigh in relief.
"Well, now that your wounds are taken care of," I say, "Let's get settled in for the night."
"What are we going to do, though," Sabine asks, "now that there are only six of us left? Us and the careers, that's it."
"They're going to hold interviews," Iris speaks, her voice still quiet but at least she's speaking now, "and there have been four deaths," Her voice catches on 'deaths' but she soon goes on, "it'll keep the audience occupied for a long enough time for us to rest."
"She's right," I say, "maybe we'll have a few days of peace and quiet. At least to get our strength up again."
"Well, in the mean time," Sabine stands up, "Let's go inside the tent. Nyla, you can take the harpoon and see if you can catch anything."
I shrug and say, "Alright."
Sabine and Iris go into the tent as I grab the harpoon. I wrap vine around the end as I go up to the shore. The water of the river laps at my feet as I lean down, looking for fish. I see one, just a little out of reach. I grab hold of the harpoon as I chuck it towards it. As it slides out of my grip, I hang onto the vine as it spears the fish. I haul it in and see a fairly good sized silver fish at the end. I smile to myself as I take the spear out (trying not to look) and set it down beside me.
I go on like this for a while and finally get three fish. When I haul in my third fish I hear footsteps. I turn and see Iris walking towards me. She sits down on the sand as I sit down also.
"Thanks," She says, looking out at the river, tucking her legs close to her chest. She looks so small and young now, and I wonder how a 12 year old girl managed to make it this far.
"For what?" I ask, smiling a bit.
"For saving my life back there," She continues, tracing her finger in the sand like I've seen so many other kids do, "I was prepared to let them kill me, and the bomb seemed perfect. Even when you guys took me here I was thinking how I couldn't live without him. But now I know, I have to fight. For my family, because really they're the only thing I've got."
"That's all we have," Sabine says as she joins us, sitting down on my other side, "Our Districts betrayed us by sending us into this thing, and we've been having to kill people our own ages, or older or younger. Our family is all we've got."
I look down at the water, trying not to let them see my own pain. Because really, I've got nothing. To them, the only thing they have is their families, and I don't even have that. My District betrayed me and I've had to kill people. I have nothing to hold on to.
"I have three siblings back at home," Iris murmurs, "along with my father. I'm ashamed, really, that I wasn't even thinking about them after I lost Sage." Her voice chokes as she says his name and I see tears fill her gray eyes again, but she moves on, "But I know that they need me. And if I get back, we'll have enough money to stay fed for the rest of our lives. We won't be hungry again."
"I think the same is with all of us," I agree, "Well, except for the people in Districts 1 through 4. They've never had as much trouble as us."
"Yeah, but what can we do?" Sabine shrugs her shoulders, "We're just the pawns in the Capitol's game."
"We're the ones who die for their pleasure," Iris growls, her saddened, depressed voice now filled with rage, "every single year."
"And there's nothing we can do about it," Sabine mutters, shaking her head.
"Maybe one day we will," I whisper, looking out at the river, "Maybe one day, the pawns will fight back and no one can stop them, not even the queen."