There's a blur of forest, the sound of rushing blood.
"Come on, com'mon."
My legs burn, and so do my lungs. Hades' weight is pressing on me, pulling me to the ground. I won't let my knees buckle though; we have to keep going. If we stop then we're dead. If we even slow just a fraction of an inch, we're dead.
I can still feel the thrum in my fingers, Pan choking beneath me, pleading for life as his nails scraped into my flesh. With how raw my eyes are I can barely see which way Hades and I are going. I've never cried so hard in my life; it was worse than the night before the Games began. Then again, I don't think they truly started until today, until I took that little boy's life with his entire family, our entire republic watching me from the other side of a television screen. At the time, I didn't even feel regret about killing him; I simply felt regret about killing.
Now it's like an extra weight, tearing at the ligaments in my ankles as I push Hades forwards. He's bleeding, wincing with every step where the knife twisted in his side. Our blood is mixing together, the cuts on my body, namely my wrists, sliding with his blood down my legs, slippery wet. Untangling my ropes wasn't as difficult as trying not to cry out when my own knife bit into my flesh, snick, snick towards the bone.
"Hades, stay with me," I tell him, meeting his hazy gaze.
He nods, but it's weak and I know I will kill Aphrodite for this– I'll strangle her the way I did with Pan. But I won't cry; I'll laugh. Laugh the way she did when she was carving at me like a stuffed pig, reveling in Hades' protests. I thank the Gods that the sky finally settled into night; that she left us there on the forest floor with Pan to keep watch so she could catch their dinner, wanted to save us off through the night, the morning to be killed.
"I like torture," she said, insanity to rival even Ares. "Back home, I'd always gut the herrings so they didn't catch the fish first. We're just supposed to decapitate them, kill them quick. But where's the fun in that?"
Pan didn't see it coming, didn't know I'd been cutting at my ropes with every chance I got. When I knocked him to the ground, he tried to scream. I slithered my body over his like those serpents never got the chance, locked my fingers around his neck so he couldn't make another sound. And all I could think was that he just stood there, stood there and watched while Aphrodite made Hades and me into pieces of bloody, mangled art.
When the life left Pan's eyes, that's when it settled in– what I'd done. The crying lasted just a few moments, long enough for Hades to nudge the side of my leg with his head, eyes half-dead like the rest of him. I didn't know it was possible for a boy to scream so shrill, the way he did when Aphrodite pulled the knife from his belly and cauterized the wounds.
"You'll live for a while," she said. "I didn't hit anything vital. Infection will be the thing that kills you in the end. Énteka here won't be so lucky."
"I gotta stop," Hades says now, his legs praying for relief. "Kore, I have to stop."
"No," I argue savagely. "We gotta keep going."
"You have to keep going," Hades says. "Leave me. You can make it. I'm done for."
"No!" I say this time, more shrill. "I won't."
"It's my fault you're in this mess in the first place," he says, voice on a broken whisper. "I'm so sorry she cut one of your wings."
"Stop talking like that," I say to him, the memory of his body pressed into mine as Aphrodite lashed the whip over my skin. "I know how your brother died; what an idiot. You can die like him now too," she said. Hades' touch was my only comfort, the only thing to keep me grounded. I still wonder if I was like that for Plutus, holding his hand until he died. "I won't leave you," I say to him again.
I won't lose him; I can't.
Our stumbling keeps up another mile, maybe. Hades and I are both crying by the end of it. I know his tears are from pain and fright; mine are a mixture, with guilt bleeding around the edges. I wonder if it hurt Pan too bad, when I killed him. His body gave up rather quickly, too small to go without oxygen for more than a minute. His eyes staring up at the treetops until I closed them; he won't ever open them again and that's my fault.
When I buckle in my next steps, neither Hades nor I can keep ourselves up this time. We fall to the ground in a heap much like when we tried to climb out of that tree this morning, faces in the dirt. I can feel it sliding into the cuts on my skin, the marks on my back. All I have on are my breast bindings and my leggings now, survival pack offering minimal reprieve from mud in all of my wounds everywhere. It's the same for Hades, his teeth gritting together as he tries not to scream.
Aphrodite has been following us for miles, the entire length of the arena it feels. I can hear her just meters away now, heavy breath and malice. I got her maybe three hours ago; recovered my scythe and my pack before Hades and I ran. Aphrodite caught up to us a few minutes into the chase; I set Hades down on the forest floor and fought through the pain, the pull of wounds tearing back open.
She's good with that whip; got me a few times and threw off my balance when I tried to strike at her. Combined with the pain and weakness in my limbs I was nearly done for when I got the blade in her, hooked the scythe into her shoulder and pulled. I don't know why she's not dead yet, oceans of red down her pretty frame.
"Leave me," Hades says again. "I'll distract her and you can go– we're almost to the mountain. You can hide there."
"No," I tell him, reaching for his hand. "You didn't leave me." Because Aphrodite gave him the chance; untied his ropes and stood him tall and told him to go once his wounds were all burned closed. "A sponsor may take pity and give you medicine," she leered. "What'll it be, lover boy?" But he stayed by my side not because he couldn't get away– he had enough life he could– but because he wanted to; he wanted to stay with me. And I want to stay with him. "I want to stay with you," I say as much.
"Kore…" he pleads, but I shake my head, take a deep breath and grunt as I struggle to my feet, drop my pack at his side and unstring a length of chain on the scythe.
"We're not gonna die here, Hades," I tell him. "Not at her hands."
When Aphrodite finds us, it's with a snarl. She cracks the whip and something inside of me cringes in fear, wants to tuck tail and run. I don't; I stay where I am. There's blood dripping in my eyes, copper on my tongue and a shake to my limbs that's unbearable. When she lunges for me, I'm too helpless to stay upwards.
We fall to the ground in tangled girl, weapons gone and hair clashing with honey and blood. I snarl at her, get my claws into her arms and scratch. "You bitch! I will kill you for that!" she screeches, reaches out to slap me across the mouth.
I spit my blood at her, right hook elbows into her ribs. She tries to get her hands around my neck, the way I did to Pan. And I can't die like this; can't die with no air to my lungs like I did to the little boy from my republic, the starving little boy no older than twelve. The desperation in me is so fierce that I can stand the press of her hands tighter into my throat as I surge forwards, sink my teeth into the wound at her shoulder.
Aphrodite yowls, pulls back and her flesh rips off in my teeth. I spit it out, bloody hunks and adrenaline blocking the bile threatening to rise in my throat. I scramble to get up, to finish this once and for all, but the sickening crack from the direction Aphrodite falls has the fear in me anew; I pause and glance over, hands shaking.
Hades kneels next to Aphrodite's golden corpse, dropping the bloody rock in his hands. He's panting, falls forwards to brace his frame on his hands and breathes, just breathes. Aphrodite's lifeless teal eyes are staring at me now, brains spattered into her pale blonde hair from the hole in her skull. Even in death she is the epitome of beauty; her sponsors must be weeping to have lost such a jewel.
And this time when the bile rises I'm helpless to it, vomit acid and blood onto the forest floor. I feel the hands on me before I can look at him, Hades giving soft pats as I feel like I am coughing up my lung when my stomach has nothing left to heave.
"It's okay," he says.
"No," I answer him, a hysteric sob bubbling in my chest. "No, it's not. None of this is. I want to go home."
"I do to," he says, and we when stand he is the one to brace me this time.
I gather my pack and my scythe as we hobble away from the scene, a trumpet blaring in the distance the same it did with Pan. But there are no faces in the sky tonight; it's too late in the evening for the Capital's emblem to blaze; it may wake the rest of the tributes up, if the trumpets haven't already. And the viewers have their blood now; Hades and I have brought gore and fight to the screen for nearly hours, whether it's our own or Pan and Aphrodite's, the Game has been played enough for now.
We walk with no destination, the trees thinning to shrubs as we near the mountain, towering golden in the sky. "It looks like Olympus," Hades says, the building in which President Kronus sits, watching us now.
"It does," I agree, pressing the side of my head into his shoulder, breathing in coal dust and rot.
A few more steps, just a few more before the ground give beneath us. I would scream but I don't have the energy left in me, let my body fall down the sudden slope. Hades goes with me, doesn't let go until we lie panting in the dark. It feels like my left wrist is broken; I try to move it with no luck.
"Are you okay?" Hades asks on an agonized groan.
There is black dotting my vision, Hypnos threatening to pull me into the realm of sleep. "Yes," I tell him, the lie coming easily.
"Okay," he says, and I know he's just as dazed as I am.
We sleep like the dead, all night my arms stretched across him, rivers of blood as I pray please keep him safe, please keep him safe.
A/N: I know this chapter is extremely short and vague, but I wanted to keep this stopping point (nothing like a Richard Siken allusion to wrap a chapter up). And keep in mind with the swaying verse of the chapter, Kore's pretty much on the brink of passing out the entire time and has lost a lot of blood, so her mind isn't working quite right.
Quick thank you for all of your support, guys; you rock. Any critiques are seriously appreciated!