A/N: Luke's POV
At the beginning of the seventh day, I woke up to someone standing over me with a short sort of hunting sword.
"Good morning, Catriona," I moaned, making to sit up and finding that she'd moved the blade directly to my throat.
"Hello, Luke," she said with a smirk. "I have to say, I didn't think you'd still be alive, but that just proves that even the best of us can make a mistake."
I nearly snorted, but I wasn't in much of a position to be making light of her extreme self-confidence. After all, she was still alive. She was certainly not the worst. For all I knew, she could be the best. We'd yet to actually determine that.
"Some of the biggest braggers have been among the first to die each year," I said as calmly as I could, getting my knife where I could use it as quickly as I could without alerting her to what I was doing.
She was so distracted by my words that she didn't even seem to notice that I had a knife in hand. With a deep breath, before she had a chance to stick me like she so obviously wanted to, I carefully and forcefully sliced the biggest wound I could manage onto her calf.
Catriona stumbled backward and cried out in pain.
I could barely believe that I'd downed her, and I wondered whether I should leave her to bleed or die of infection, or just slit her throat or stab her chest, putting her out of her misery. I frowned, unsure of what action to take, but she was scrambling for her sword and I didn't have much time to make some sort of decision.
She made to swing the sword at me and I dodged it.
Maybe I would have to fight her after all, I realized, wondering how strong she might be, able to wield a sword with surprising strength and agility for someone who'd basically been given what was a death sentence in the arena. Sure, people had come back from worse, but usually only on the final day or close to it. We had too many people left for it to be a minor thing.
"Stand still so I can kill you, Luke," she hissed.
"What happened to Draven and his girls?" I snarled back, dodging another swing. "I thought you had allies, Catriona."
"Allies are overrated," she said, grinning through gritted teeth. "All yours are dead, obviously. Guess that alliance didn't do you a lot of good."
"And yours did you so much better?" I gasped, dodging another swing, trying to circle around and see if I could get closer without risking the blade. There didn't seem to be any way to get the upper hand with her.
"Oh, well enough," Catriona growled, obviously holding onto the little bit of strength she had left. "I figure if I die, Luke, I'm taking you down with me. I don't want to leave the arena empty-handed."
"Oh, you're not empty-handed," I spat, dodging her sword once more, although she managed to nick my arm then. "You already killed Violet, remember?"
"How could I forget?" Catriona squealed. "I mean, didn't you want to kill her too? She thought she was so pretty, so special. There was nothing special about her, just like there's nothing special about you. Ligeia, she was special, wasn't she? But she's dead. Special, not special, it doesn't make a difference. We're all going to die."
"Not all of us," I growled, pushing her away from me with a sharp shoulder to her chest. "You're acting mad."
"You think I'm crazy?" she laughed. "Let's face it, Luke, Draven's going to come out of this alive, and the rest of us are going to die. He keeps his hands clean unless he knows he can win. He's got enough human shields, willing or only half-willing to protect him with their own lives. Nobody, not a one of us can stand up to that, no matter how good and numerous our sponsors are."
I didn't want to believe that. I didn't want to give up on my life so easily, and the same desperation that ran through me just before I killed Finley was coursing through me once more.
"I'm not going to believe that," I spat up at her. "As long as I've not been stuck through I've got a chance, and so do you! Do you really think you're going to die?"
"Oh, Luke, dear, I know it!" she laughed, and then I knew she had to have gone insane. What drove her insane? Thirst? Hunger? Despair? There were so many things, which made me worry a fair amount about my own mind. Was her mind just fragile? Was mine?
I ducked another blow, without time to breathe a sigh of relief.
It was hard not to wonder as we battled, what the sponsors and mentors were making of this, because unless someone else was in the process of actually dying we were sure to be featured on all the screens in Panem as we tried to kill each other and not be killed. Catriona had been such a good bet when the betting began, and I had been a tough sell. No, I hadn't killed her yet, but I had reasonably good faith in my ability to do so.
And then I turned slightly, finding that spot right between her ribs and distracting her, pretending I was going one way and then changing direction at the last second, shoving my knife into her with a single thrust at a forty-five degree angle, just enough force to pierce her heart and the cannon blast told me I'd hit my mark just as her eyes glazed with surprise and death.
Catriona fell to the floor of the desert and I pulled my knife out, cleaning it off with the sand that wasn't already staining with her blood. I would move on when I'd had a chance to catch my breath.
When I'd gotten myself better I started walking, knowing that the hovercraft would be coming in for her body. I didn't want to make them wait, and I had no desire to sit and watch her corpse grow hot in the daytime arena sun. I wanted to see if there was some sort of food or water source somewhere so I didn't have to keep receiving handouts from Finnick and my sponsors. I didn't want to look like a weakling if I could find some sort of way to survive on my own skill.
It was hard to walk, though, and I was losing blood from a small but not exactly shallow cut on my right arm. I sat down and cut a strip of fabric off the bottom of my pants, tying it around the spot, trying not to tie it off to tightly with my teeth, but it wasn't easy to do. I wasn't going for a tourniquet, but sometimes you do what you can. I would have liked an ally very much in that moment.
I kept walking, the hot sun beating down on my face, making me sweat, making me wish I didn't have so much fabric, but at least it was cotton, breathable.
There weren't too many of us left, I reasoned. There couldn't be. When I counted, I discovered I was right: Anselm, from District Three; myself; Charlotte, from Seven; Maggie, from Eight; Alexander and Daisy, from District Nine; Draven; and Hanna, from Eleven. Eight of us.
Interviews of family and friends would begin. My sister and parents would be on screen. I didn't have too many friends. I suppose the boys I studied and trained with would be called friends, although we weren't particularly close.
Ligeia had had lots of friends. If she had made it to the last eight instead of me, she would have had lots of people to talk about her and how wonderful she was. I never really thought she was all that wonderful, but I supposed it didn't really matter much anymore.
I hadn't found any water yet, but I'd certainly found shade under a large rock, wondering which direction I should try next, once I'd had a bit to eat and drink, and had a little time to rest.
Half of the remaining tributes were boys, half girls. I wasn't sure if that meant anything for my chances. Charlotte could be just as deadly as Draven under the right circumstances, and probably deadlier than Anselm. I also wasn't sure what state Draven's 'alliance' of sorts was in, especially given Catriona's strange words and behavior. Had she gone mad and detached herself from the group, had then kicked her out, or had the whole group gone their separate ways already? After all, I was the only Career left standing and -
... I was the only Career left standing.
How had that happened? I wasn't even supposed to be alive, much less the last of the Careers.
Before I had a chance to really parse out how I'd managed to make it so far, though, I heard a piercing, frantic scream coming from not very far away at all.
While everything in me wanted to stay sheltered under my rock, I knew that the rock wouldn't be very good protection from Draven or Charlotte if they were nearby killing... who? Maggie? Daisy? Hanna? I supposed it could have been Charlotte screaming, but somehow I didn't think so. Not so soon. She was, if I remembered correctly, fairly well armed.
The only thing to do was to find out what was going on, as best as I could without being seeing, so I would know if I needed to run and find some other rock to rest under.
Slowly, carefully, I came out from my shade, squinting as the brightness of the arena's sun hurt my adjusting eyes. Once I was able to see normally, I ran toward the screams, wondering who would be taking so long in killing a fellow tribute. I supposed I wouldn't put it past either Draven or Charlotte, so I would operate under the assumption that one of them was the killer.
What I hadn't expected to find, once the screaming stopped, was a figure surrounded by lizards. The cannon blast sounded and I realized that it wasn't a tribute kill: it was someone who'd been killed by the lizard muttations. Unsure what to do, I looked around me and found a reasonably sized rock, picked it up, and tossed it into the center of the lizards. As I watched them scatter I hid behind a boulder, not wanting to be their next victim. Several moments later, I came back out and saw a mangled body that looked feminine.
As I got closer I realized it was Hanna from District Eleven, although it wasn't easy to tell at first. She was so deformed from the feeding of the lizards that it took me a moment to figure out for sure that it was a female. I frowned.
That didn't seem a way to die to me, but I wasn't sure how I would have wanted to die, so maybe it wasn't any worse than however I would die. I felt guilty that I hadn't been there to finish her off, put an end to the screaming. I didn't like the thought of how much pain she must have been in before the end, as I was trying to find out what was going on and who was dying.
"I can do this," I whispered, turning away and deciding to start looking for water again. "I can win. I can do this."
But it was starting to look harder every minute. Each step closer to victory some new surprise came along and I wasn't sure if I would manage to make it to the end at the rate things were going. I could hear the hovercraft coming in for Hanna's body and I shook my head.
I wanted to go home.
But I couldn't go home, so as I walked I began to think over my competition.
Anselm was from District Three. He was just a boy, twelve years old. He obviously was clever, though, and knew how to hide, since he'd made it so long. The question was how would he survive? It wasn't the tributes I thought would get him, but the arena. I didn't expect he would be skilled at hunting or finding food, and I had yet to find water. What was more, I didn't expect he had too many people clambering to give him sponsorship.
Charlotte had a chance, I knew. She hadn't scored any higher than Anselm, but that was because she didn't any concept of finesse. In a different arena, of course, she might have needed it, but as things turned out finesse wasn't exactly a necessary quality for survival in the sixty-seventh arena. Charlotte also had age on her side, being seventeen if I recalled correctly. And she obviously had some weapon she could wield. I was sure she'd killed that girl from District Five - what was her name? - Delight. That meant she had a weapon of some sort.
Maggie was probably only alive because of Draven's protection. She'd killed Blake, but she'd caught him off guard in the chaos of our shocking upset of a bloodbath. I had no doubt that she wouldn't have managed such a feat in typical combat. Was there such a thing as typical combat? Surely there must be. Human nature, wasn't it, fighting?
Alexander wasn't truly a surprise. He was strong, reasonably skilled. I wasn't sure if he was hiding out somewhere or just waiting for someone to come to him, but he hadn't seemed to be incredibly aggressive as of yet. Maybe he was waiting for something, or maybe he just didn't see the point in getting in the fray when the rest of us were more than willing to kill each other off. I suspected that if I stumbled across him, though, he wouldn't hesitate to defend his territory. I certainly hoped I wouldn't stumble across him.
Daisy was another under the protection of Draven. She was far weaker than Charlotte, though, and I was almost certain that she wouldn't be able to survive on her own. That made me wonder how long it would be until Draven either disbanded his alliance and they went their separate ways or he simply just tied them up in their sleep and killed them. Either way, that day would spell the end of Daisy; I had no doubt that day was very, very soon.
That left Draven himself to consider, and I didn't need to be reminded of how dangerous he was, just on charm alone. I had sponsors, sure, but if I did than so did Draven. A tribute couldn't not with his looks, charm, and obvious ability to turn things to his advantage. He had to be the favorite to win. I wasn't sure how I felt about someone else being the favorite, but I knew I wasn't surprised. After all, I'd had two different tributes basically tell me to let them kill me because I had no chance of winning, anyway. There were probably plenty of people in the Capitol who had agreed with them, but I wondered if they'd still agree after watching me kill both.
I wandered through the desert, still not finding water. Was it possible that they'd built and entire arena without it? That seemed like poor foresight. But then, maybe they figured that if nothing else we could all die of thirst and the last one standing after the blood and lack of water would be winner. Or just someone with excellent sponsors.
Except that wouldn't be the end of it, I knew as I found a rock to rest on for a few moments in my search for water, which was looking more and more like a fool's errand. Draven and I were sure to have plenty of water from our sponsors, and Charlotte might as well. With that in mind, it would be our combat skills and not our sponsors or survival skills, that would be the determining factor for victory.
After a short rest, I realized I was hungry. About ten seconds after I decided I needed to eat, I remembered that I was out of meat. I could do without it for a day or two, certainly, but then I was either going to have to hunt it down or I was going to have to hope Finnick wasn't using up all my sponsor money on water.
I decided it would be better to find a lizard.
Recalling what had happened to Hanna, I gathered up some stones in preparation and went looking for a lizard pack.
It wasn't hard to find one, and praying that I wouldn't miss, because I wasn't stupid enough to get too close to them, I tossed my knife as best I could, hitting one of the lizards squarely in the belly by sheer luck. Quickly, I began tossing the rocks in the general direction of the lizard I'd hit, both making sure it was dead and scattering off the other lizards so that by the time I approached my kill, I was left with a single dead lizard in empty sand to deal with.
I cooked it over a small, smoky fire that I put out as soon as I thought it was cooked well enough that I wouldn't get sick and then I sat back, ate my meat, drank a bit of water, and watched the projections of faces on the sky sandwiched between the seal of the Capitol.
Two faces. Catriona and Hanna, and I had been the last person to see both of them alive. I wondered if the betting would go up on me in the morning, or if I was still destined to lose, and then I fell asleep.