The tribute she hits is, of course, Ares.
Her arrow nabs his shoulder, has him falling back but not before he throws the spear in his hand, sinks it right into Artemis' side. She screams and goes down, blood spatter on the dais behind us. I shout her name, drop to her level and pull the spear out. She screams again, gurgles the blood rising up in her throat. With the help of Hades, I pull her away just as the rest of the tributes pile on top of the mountain, weapons raised at the ready.
"We have to move, move, move!" I hiss.
It's only the Demigods and us left, besides another girl from Deka who I imagine isn't exactly apt to help anyone but herself by this point. So I tally it as us against them, which, even though there's more of us than the Demigods, I know they're stronger, faster, better. Ares isn't even phased by the hit he's taken, stands back up and stalks closer with sword poised for the kill.
I lash out with the scythe stored at my side, breathing rapid when he blocks it. There's a leer in his expression, a silent I've got you, Enteka and it makes my heart beat too fast. He's just a few feet from us, Artemis finally able to stand and trying to uselessly raise her bow when there's a flash of red, and suddenly all of us are falling backwards, Hades, Hesita, Artemis and I.
We land in a river, swift current rushing us Gods know where. Ares roars from the top of the mountain, his retrieved spear following after us into the water, but we're moving too fast to be struck. Rain still pours down, making the water harder to manage. We're lucky if we don't drown, get taken out by the arena instead of other tributes.
I paddle my arms hard, reach out for a bobbing Artemis and keep hold. Hades has Hestia clinging to his shoulders, trying to stay afloat. "Grab my tunic!" I shout, kick my legs when he does. We rush and rush forwards, but I keep us up until we reach a stable ledge, all of us spitting water from our mouth and coughing it from our lungs.
"What was that thing that pushed us in?" Hades asks, hair sticking to his forehead.
"Don't know," I say as I search sporadically over Artemis' person trying to find the healing medication for her side. The cold water kept the blood from leaking out too bad, but now that we're on land it's coming fast. "Whatever it was, I wish it woulda been there sooner so we'd never have gone up top. That place was an alter just waiting to be praised." I find the medication then and smear it over the large gash in Artemis' side, cover her mouth with my hand when she starts to scream as the wound heals so our location isn't given away.
"So what do we do now?" Hades asks, curling Hestia up in his lap because she's shivering. "Wait for the Demigods to kill each other?"
"They won't do that," Artemis says through panting breaths, holding her hand over the noticeably smaller wound in her side once the burning sensation is gone, just bits of blood and torn flesh. "They'll come hunting us again, now. We should have stayed and fought."
"You were in no condition to fight!" I tell her.
"I was ready to die!" she screams back at me. "I was ready to go back with Apollo!"
"And leave us there, with Hestia, defenseless?!" I shout, just as angry as her all of a sudden. "You might be ready to go, but Hades and I aren't! Not without making sure she's safe!"
"You guys are gonna save me?" Hestia asks then, an all eyes turn to her, both Artemis and I calming at the way the little girl looks like she's going to cry from hearing the words. "But I don't wanna win."
"You don't want to die, do you?" Artemis asks, just a little harshly.
"No," Hestia sniffles.
"Then you're going to win, Vesta," Hades says, an endearment I feel a bit like an intruder for hearing when he says it in such a soft way. "You're gonna go home, and be happy."
"But what about you?" Hestia asks, looks at him with her big, amber eyes and touches his face softly. "I want you to come home with me. Kore and Artemis, too. Why can't we all go home?"
"Because we just can't sweetie," I say then, lean down next to her and set my hand softly on her shoulder. "We want to, but we can't."
Artemis snorts at my statement, softens when she looks at Hestia and sighs. "We all have to die sometime, Hestia. But you get to wait a good bit longer than us."
"But how?" Hestia asks. "How are we gonna beat the Demigods?"
"I don't know," I say honestly, look down at my scythe that's still dripping wet, collecting rust in the storm going on around us. "We nearly all got killed up there."
"We'll figure it out," Hades says. "Until then, let's find some kind of shelter. High up. I have a feeling the Gamesmakers aren't just going to let us sit here."
As if to confirm his statement, yowling begins just past the edge of the cliff we sit on. "Fucking great," Artemis says, counts her arrows and raises her bow. "Don't they just love their irony?"
"I really don't wanna get eaten," Hestia says, shrinking into Hades' side.
I blink, hear the growls before us and brace myself to climb or run or fight, when suddenly the flash of red from the mountaintop is before us again. When I look at it, its shape forms in the rain's mist, large and aloof. "You have to be kidding me," I whisper, and Hades looks over too.
"Well I'll be damned," he says.
The giant fox's ears perk up, eyes intent upon the four of us.
"What the hell is that?" Artemis asks, and the creature takes off.
"Follow it!" I say.
"What?!" she asks, like I'm insane.
"No questions, just go!"
The sounds of much more gruesome things continue to rage behind us as we run, the fox on a steady sprint before us back up the mountain. And I hope that it in't leading us to slaughter as the lambs, but as the wolves instead.
Hades practically carries Hestia as we sprint, and I support Artemis when her body tries to slow in its injured state. We run for what feels like forever, the storm still raging and lightning striking the mountainside, setting the bottom of it on fire. Any hopes of getting off this golden deathtrap are ruined with that, the Capital's mutts all trapped on here with us and ready to strike if the other tributes don't get the chance.
Eventually the fox slows, a shallow trot that we follow to a new ledge. It swipes past the side, beckoning, moves away before I can catch it, but then I'm left staring at the rift below. Artemis, Hades and Hestia join me, and we're all amazed to see the Demigods in a small circle, the girl from Deka nowhere in sight. I wonder if she's dead, if I couldn't hear the trumpet through the thunder and howling of beasts.
"We can attack them from here," Artemis whispers, and the sky has become so dark that I can barely see her smile in the faked sunlight coming in through the clouds.
"It's perfect," I whisper, know she can shoot at least one of them dead before the others attack.
"Kore," Hades says then, touches my shoulder.
When I turn to look at him, he points behind us, to the giant fox who is still standing there, waiting. I look between it and Hestia, a silent revelation. "Follow it again," I say to her, tuck her curls behind her ears as I bend to her level.
"What?" Hestia asks.
"Follow it again," I repeat. "Stay hidden. Stay safe."
"I don't wanna leave you," she says, real tears spilling over now.
"It's okay," I whisper to her. "This is what we want."
Hades kneels down next to us then, hugs Hestia to him real tight. "Go," he whispers to her. "Win."
The goodbye is no more bittersweet than that, Hestia looking at us one last time and turning back, the fox sprinting off with her following after it, chubby legs trying to keep up the way Despoina does to the butterflies in the fields. And somehow I know for certain that the fox is not the Capital's invention; somehow I know it will keep her safe, take her home.
When her curls have vanished from sight, both Hades and I turn back to Artemis, faces hard with resolve. She nods at us, we nod at her, and that's it.
Bow raised, she creeps to the ledge's edge, the only thing towering above the dais made for our funeral piars; the rain hasn't even been able to wash her blood from it.
"Zeus is mine," Artemis says then, drawing back her arrow. "For Apollo."
"Deal," I say, just as the mountain erupts and the Gamesmakers break apart the cliff we're standing on.
We all fall in sync, silent and brash as we hit the dais, blood leaking from cuts and scrapes and broken places. I feel my already fractured wrist snap, the bone sticking out. I refuse to scream, refuse to do anything but get up as the Demigods come for us.
Even from the ground, half-dead, limbs crushed, Artemis is able to shoot Zeus right through the throat. She laughs, keeps laughing even after Ares drives his sword through her chest. A word like 'no' comes rushing out of me, but I've got Hades in my line of sight, one of his legs trapped under a rock from the slide and it's too late for Artemis but not for him.
Somehow, with a rush of adrenaline, I get the rock off his leg, pull him from the wreckage just as the girl Demigod, Hera, lunges for us. I don't see the knife, just the blood as it makes a sickening sound when it spills from her mouth, the blade of Hades' hidden knife buried deep in her gut. She falls, red hair getting darker and darker as she bleeds out on the dais.
I keep dragging Hades, flinch every time he screams from the way his broken leg and cut-up back drags on rocks below. My own broken wrist is falling apart, blood everywhere and my hands can barely hold him, but I won't give up. I won't die like this, not until the rest of them are gone first. I have to save Hestia the way I couldn't save Plutus.
I have to.
"Give it up, Enteka," Ares says then, cleans the blade of his sword off on Artemis' tunic; she's smiling even in death, eyes shining in the storm. "You're never gonna win. If you give up now, I'll kill you and loverboy there quick."
"Never." I bite at him, hold hard to Hades' side and refuse to give in. "I'm not some fucking pawn to be used so you can win some fake glory." I spit blood out of my mouth, at his feet as he approaches closer. "I'd rather worship dirt than worship you."
"Suit yourself," Ares says, his eyes glowing in maliciousness. "I guess we can at least make it a show for everyone at home when I kill you. Bet your mother will love watching her precious, little maiden get defiled."
"Kill him," Hades whispers in my ear then as we reach the edge of the cliff, hard ledges to lean him up against. "Kill. Him."
"Let's give 'em a real show," I say, but I don't look at Ares; instead I kiss Hades what I think is goodbye, let a length of chain hang down near my waist as I turn.
Ares doesn't even wait for the full movement, lunges before I can see the gold of his eyes- I'm ready for it.
Instead of getting my heart like he wanted, the blade of his sword scrapes my arm, stark pain but it's gone in a second as I wrap the chain around the metal and pull it from him, send the weapon over the side of the mountain. I whip the scythe back out not a second later, hook it so hard it has me falling to the ground as the blade buries itself in the wound Artemis' arrow left in Ares' shoulder.
He screams, but doesn't let me take his arm off like I wanted, because just as I'm about to pull the blade back, he grabs the chain, yanks me forwards.
I collide into his chest, blood in my face as he grabs my good wrist and squeezes until I'm forced to drop my weapon under the pressure and he kicks it away. "Now I can strangle you easy while I fuck you like the whore you are," he says, and I spit blood in his face this time, go down as he slaps me across the mouth.
"Kore!" Hades screams, worry and panic but he can't move fast enough, not with how broken he is from the fall.
"You stay put!" Ares points at him, peeling off his bloody tunic as he moves to straddle his legs across my waist. "Watch what happens when your girlfriend tries to act all big and tough."
I bite ans scratch and kick as Ares tries to pull my tunic off too, sudden panic while Hades tries to push himself up, but it isn't any use. The bones in his leg are completely shattered, one of his hands bruised-up so bad he'd barely even be able to crawl. Ares would have me dead by then, because of how far we've rolled away, just how much ground Hades would have to cover to have any chance of saving me. Even if Ares lasts long while he does this, it won't be enough time.
And with the shine in the bastard's eyes, I suppose it'll all be over quick anyways.
One of his hands go around my throat as he pries my leggings down with the other, and I don't even think about the disgusting feel of his fingers touching me, just about how he'll still be around to kill Hades after this, hunt Hestia. How that poor, little kid wouldn't even have a chance with the girl from Deka when left to her own devices.
And my mother's going to have to watch that, going to have to watch her daughter die raped and tortured while her murderer kills the others and wins, becomes a God; Prometheus is going to have to watch me go the way he never got to watch Plutus, and then share his throne with Ares like it never even happened.
And I realize that I will not go like this. I cannot. I cannot not go quietly and pliant like all the rest, like the Capitol wants me to. I might be weak, but I am not helpless.
Taking a deep breath, Ares busy trying to pull down my underwear, I surge forwards, his hand around my throat not able to keep me down as I bite into his wounded shoulder, rusted crimson against my tongue as he howls. The slap across my face is barely felt; I simply kick out and land my knee into the bulge between his legs. He cries out again, limbs moving between my own as he falls forwards a little bit.
Both of his hands go around my throat within the next instant, but it's like on the mats back in the training center- he's vulnerable. I strike out with my elbows, catch him in the chin and make his teeth rip into his tongue. I keep going before he can recover, manage a fist to his nose so it cracks open, broken and dripping red. I punch again, too much pain for his head to be level. He whines like a child, clutching at the wounds and leaving my throat open, my body moving.
My knees wrap around his head then, and I use all that I can to flip us. He goes down, me on top and I just keep striking before he can recover, all of my fear and my anger and my panic coming out with each blow.
I can't stop it either, grab the sides of his head and force his skull back against the dais, his screams coming forth and blood spewing out. He tries to pull me off but he's too weak, one arm bled out, the other just too tired. And my resolve is too strong- I'm not going to die because of him.
Eventually he goes quiet, and even though I hear a trumpet blare and can feel his brains leaking in-between my fingers, I don't stop. Instead I just keep forcing his head back, screaming and crying, snot clogging my throat.
"Kore!" someone is screaming behind me. "Kore, stop! Persephone!"
I blink at the name, let Ares' head drop back against the dais for a final time and stop. When everything comes into focus, I can see the splinters of his skull, the splatter from his brains and blood. For a moment I wonder who did that, who took down such a fearsome, large boy closer to a God than the rest of us. Then I lift my hands in front of my face, see the red on them and feel the bile rise in my throat.
I scramble back, fall and brace myself up on my palms before my broken wrist gives way, instant pain now that the adrenaline is stilling.
"Kore," Hades says again, and I shift to face him. He smiles at me, like cooing to a wild animal. "Kore, it's okay. We're gonna be okay."
I sob then- a real, broken kind of sob as I stand and begin to make my way over to him, but before I'm there, there's a flash of skin and dark hair, the shine of a knife. The girl from Deka drives the blade into his stomach, and Hades screams.