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THE KILL
(Day 1, Afternoon)
Grass rustles around Jack's legs as he runs, feet pounding the rocky ground. He's breathing in gasps, and blood is trickling into his eyes from the cut across his brow, but there's a knapsack safely over his shoulder and it's heavy with supplies.
He blinks furiously, trying to clear his vision enough to get a sense of where he is. Uphill. He's running uphill and the Cornucopia is behind him. Battle is still raging back there, with the cries of dying tributes echoing off the rocks like faraway birdsong, but up here it's already getting quiet among the sandy earth and the trees. No cannon-fire yet. Not until tonight. They'll be safe for the time being if they can just get away and find shelter, but first he has to find Emma, he has to find Emma...
Slowing down a little, Jack winces at the stitch in his side and thinks back. He spotted her across the Arena, waiting on her plate - just like Ana promised, her hair was in two brown braids again. She had a look of frightened determination on her face, a stubborn set to her round chin. Everything was chaos after the bloodbath started; Jack didn't have much chance to triangulate from the Cornucopia to what he thought was Emma's vacated launchpad and beyond.
He thinks he's running the right direction, which means she should be hiding somewhere around here, but...if he's wrong, or if she didn't stick to the plan, she could be too far away to -
A flash of motion catches Jack's eye, somewhere among the trees. He veers off course, hurrying toward it through the scrubby bare pines; and then he hears his sister's shrill scream.
"Jack! Jaaaack!"
Has he ever run this fast in his life? The trees blur past him on either side as he races against time, heart pounding in his throat...
There! The forest opens up into a scrubby clearing, tumbled with rocks, and he spots them at the far side. Emma is down, fallen, still screaming his name; she's rolled over onto her back, both hands held up to defend herself, and the big dark-haired boy from District Twelve is looming over her with a hunting knife gripped in his fist.
Stumbling across the boulder-strewn ground, Jack yanks his own new knife, belt and all, from where it's stuffed awkwardly into his jacket pocket. The sheath is unfamiliar; his fingers slip as he struggles to unsnap the catch. "Leave her alone!" he shouts, desperately.
Emma hears him and turns, reaches out a hand to him - cries out in wordless terror - and Jack realizes with a horrible sick finality as the boy's knife blade begins to descend that he will never reach his sister in time.
Something whistles through the air, and hits the District Twelve boy in the back with a nasty thud.
He jolts forward, makes a horrible wet choking noise, then falls to his knees. The knife tumbles from his twitching fingers.
Emma shrieks and crawls backwards, away from the dying boy's body. Jack runs the last few precious steps to her and lunges for her hand, shouting her name. She's crying with shock as he hauls her to her feet. Jack clasps one arm tightly around her and finally shakes his knife free of its scabbard with the other hand, looking wildly around for the next attack.
Standing between two trees, at the edge of the clearing, is a girl with a bow in her hand. Her blue eyes are wide in a face gone pale. She's got another arrow on the string, ready to fire again if necessary, but the stricken boy has stopped moving.
"Merida?" Emma whispers. "Merida!"
Her cry of delight breaks the awful frozen silence, and jolts Merida back into life and action. She lets down her second arrow, and with trembling fingers she slides it and her bow back into the quiver slung from her shoulder. As she picks her way across the rocky clearing, her eyes dart constantly around, checking the shadows between the trees; but she doesn't look at the dead boy as she edges past that bloody patch of ground.
"Holy shit," Jack sputters, completely forgetting to self-censor in front of his sister. It seems impossible. They have an ally after all. "You...you were serious?! I didn't think you were serious..."
"Come on, ye daft fool!" Merida hisses fiercely as she reaches them. She grabs Jack's wrist and drags him after her at a run. "We cannae stay here, they'll be comin' soon!" Her fingers are strong, warm and slightly callused. Jack stumbles for a few steps, then gets his feet under him and matches her pace. Emma has finally let go of his shirt, and trots along at Merida's side like a puppy, gazing up at her with awestruck brown eyes.
"That was amazing," she whispers.
Merida is still a bit pale, but she smiles at the younger girl all the same. "Ye're a good brave lass, Emma Forrester," she says, and reaches down to give Emma's fingers a squeeze. Her curly hair is already snarled with leaves and dirt, and there's a smear of fresh blood across her cheek, but otherwise she doesn't have even a hint of injury. Jack can't help wondering who she fought for that bow and quiver of arrows. A shiver runs down his spine.
He silently thanks whatever power possessed this girl to be on their side, and runs faster.