Chapter Fourteen:

I crept in to a clearing, feeling uncomfortable at the lack of cover.

"Greetings," came a cold voice. "I knew you'd come see us. We were looking for you after your precious girl died."

I summoned as much courage as I could, and I turned towards the voice. Behind us, stood the three remaining Careers. Drake, Janecia, and Ariana.

"We can't still change your mind, Cedric?" Ariana pleaded.

Cedric remained immovable, with only a slight shake of his head.

"Ronan?" asked Drake.

Ronan shook his head too, more determinedly than Cedric.

"Then I guess it's a fight to the death," Janecia said quietly.

"Wait," I said quickly. "How did Kedric die?"

"A large purple bird," Janecia said, her eyes a little misty. She paused, a strange look in her eyes. "I'm sorry it all came to this."

"Me too."

Metal against metal screamed as Janecia and Cedric entered a bloody fight including spears. I started fighting Drake, and Ronan Ariana with long shimmery swords. I took out Faren's knives, knowing they would help in hand to hand combat better than arrows. I blocked Drake's sword when he attempted many times to send in skewering in to my guts or head.

There was a loud screaming noise that sounded so similar to Faren's screaming that I immediately dropped my knives and turned to look in the direction of the scream. I was lucky that Drake dropped his sword too, or I'd have become history. Janecia, Ronan, Cedric, and Ariana all turned towards the scream.

Another soon followed. A beautiful and lean creature, like a wolf, stepped out of the jungle, followed by nearly twenty more. I felt my heart jolt, when I realized 18 more. These were...

Beautiful sparkly green eyes, the dominant eye color of District 8. Faren's eye color. I felt my heart catch in my throat. The wolf was caramel colored and thin and pretty, just like Faren. It was such a painful realization that I felt tears hit my eyes.

"The-" Ariana stuttered.

"Tributes," growled Cedric.

"Faren," Ronan said weakly.

Janecia took a cautious step towards the biggest one. "Kedric."

Kedric muttation snarled and bit her hand. Janecia screamed, causing the muttations to scream and howl like wolves. They started to attack.

"Climb!" I cried. "They don't look like they can!"

I shot up a tree like a fish through water. Cedric, Ariana, Drake, and Ronan followed easily, settling near me. Janecia nearly fell, and I quickly jumped after her. It was too late. She was too far away, to close to the ground.

The muttation Kedric jumped and sank its teeth through her back and her chest. I already could tell it was a death blow, so I stopped my descent. Janecia fell unconscious immediately. She would've felt nothing other than the exhilaration of falling.

I felt tears sting my eyes as I climbed carefully back up to the group.

"Janecia," Ariana said, looking down at the body of the tribute being ripped apart. "The Capitol was supposed to be...supposed to bring the body back."

Cedric put his arms around me to comfort me, but nothing could comfort me now. Faren's green eyes were permanently printed in the back of my mind, glaring and beautiful and dangerous.

I leaned my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes, trying to sleep.

They obviously fell for my act.

"I guess we wait here until those are gone, then we can go back to killing each other," Ronan said bluntly.

Ariana said, "Cedric, I need to talk to you."

I felt Cedric sigh. "Talk."

"I...I missed you a lot when you left. I wanted you to come back," Ariana said quickly. "We left without so much a goodbye. I...I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to scare you away or to upset you."

"Ariana, we wouldn't've worked," Cedric softly replied. "We still won't. We are in the Hunger Games."

Ariana insisted, "But, her parents-"

"They were different. They were from the same District."

"At least I'm not faking love!" Ariana shrieked. "Not like her!"

Cedric said so calmly and coolly that I was surprised, "Laurel has never faked love for me."

"Yes, she has!" Ariana cried. "I loved you." She sounded hurt, pained.

I feared suddenly that Cedric would admit love to her too. "I loved you, too. But, unlike you, I was able to move on. I fell in love with Laurel. Love at first sight."

"And when was first sight?" snarled Ariana nastily. "As she was clinging to her little brother, saying goodbye, when she hated you? Or was it that kiss on the chariot? At school, where you had no new friends? You wrote me everyday, and then every week, and every month, and then almost never. I knew I was going to lose you."

"I knew so too."

They were quiet for a long moment. Then, Ariana whispered, "Cedric, don't you remember any of those moments we had together? Any of the fun and friendship? Any of it? Did you forget it all?"

"No, I didn't forget. I just gave up my past," he whispered too. "My past was a painful place, Ariana. Don't you remember why we had those good times? Because we were tired of the bad times. Remember why we had the good times, Ari. But also remember the fact we were trying to run away from bad times."

"You always won fights," Ariana whispered softly, defeat in her voice. "I suppose you win this one too."

I blinked and looked at the two. Ariana had been staring at Cedric, her eyes slightly teary. She moved her eyes to her hands, letting the tears drip out of her eyes. She sat there in silence, and then leaned in to the comfort of Drake.

"Did I miss something?" I asked innocently.

Cedric's expression was blank for a moment, and then his face slowly relaxed in to a smile. "Yeah. But it wasn't important." He kissed me lightly and gave me a hug. "It'll be alright."

Ariana looked up, and then screamed, "Look out!" She jumped up to block me and Cedric, and something bloody and sharp pierced through her neck. She fell to the ground, a bloody mess.

I screamed and scrambled away, pulling Cedric and Ronan with me. We had to get sheltered. Large, purple birds with long, sharp beaks. Like what Janecia described.

Ronan cried out in pain and fell to the ground, a good twelve feet down. Drake stopped suddenly, and shot back up, with a large sweep of his sword. Shaking with pain and clutching his side, he fell to the ground too.

I looked up at the birds, all of which had been sliced in half. Cedric jumped to the ground, and after climbing closer to the ground, I did too.

Ronan was still alive, breathing heavily. Drake was too, his eyes staring at the sky.

"You saved us," I said to Drake.

Drake managed a weak smile. "Of course. After Ariana is dead, I couldn't let this happen to you guys." Something in his eyes, like care. With another weak smile, he touched my cheek. "We all have our times. And now is mine. Goodbye, Miss Laurel Mellark." Before his eyes had even closed, the cannon shot went off.