Training day 2
Twenty minutes before ten.
District Ten's Life Lee's POV
"What was the hardest thing you faced in the arena?" I asked my male mentor, Druid Ray. I was curious to know what he had to face. Because I might be facing it to.
He was the mentor that I was mainly going to for advice since our female mentor, Sable De Balzac, didn't seem to want to go near me for some reason. Whenever I tried to approach her, she would walk away from me. If I got close enough to her to talk, she would just remain silent. Nothing I could do could get to acknowledge that I existed. No talking, not touching, nothing. It was strange, I don't think I did anything to make her hate me. Max seemed to get along with her fine. So why did she ignore me?
Druid on the other hand, while not impossible to get along with, was hard to get along with. He was bitter and often said things that made you think twice about what you just said. Often those second thoughts were you fearing that he would go on a rampage if you said another thing wrong. And the thing was, sometimes you didn't even know what you did wrong.
"Do you really want to know?" He asked staring at me with his emotionless, forest green eyes. Even though I didn't admire the man, I admired those eyes because of the lack of emotion that they produced, like they were immune to pain and suffering. Something that I would like to experience.
"Yes." I told him. I wanted to know, so that when I was in the arena, I could deal with the worst situation he could think of. He looked like he didn't want to tell me when he told me.
"I think you should know, you know what my game was like, you've most likely heard the story of how I won t-"
"Tell me." I demanded from him, just wanting him to answer my question. "Just tell me." I know it was kind of cruel the way I asked, but I wanted to know, I had to know. If I could survive the horror that he had to face, I could survive anything. If I could survive, I could go home. I could go back to Laurel, who I promised I'd come back for. Laurel, the only person that I cared about back home.
Druid sighed and brushed his shaggy dark hair back with one hand.
"Love." He answered not looking at me anymore, but somewhere else in the room. Maybe not even in this room, but someplace only he could see. Maybe a memory of some sort.
"Love?" I asked not believing him. "Really?"
"Yes really." He told me not sounding so nice and happy anymore. "When I was in the arena, I fell in love. Then it was only the two of us, and I double crossed her." He sighed like he regretted something, which it sounded like he did, and I think I know what it is. "I stabbed her." I knew it.
"Yes. I remember that." I told him, thinking back to that day ten years ago when he had won. He and his girl, Saddy, had made it to the final two, before they planned a double suicide. Druid betrayed her and stabbed her before he was supposed to. They way he told her that he was sorry before he tried to kill himself out of guilt. "She wanted you to survive."
"Yes." He told me, his eyes still emotionless but his face and voice curled into a snarl. "She wanted me to survive and continue living, because she couldn't." I couldn't understand why he was so angry about that. While I knew a little about how he felt, I couldn't understand why he was so angry at being alive. Was it like me and the feeling of powerlessness to prevent a tragedy from occurring? A feeling of wanting to meet loved ones in the after life?
At times, I felt like dying so that my suffering would end and I could meet my family. But I knew it would have just been a waste of life if I did. I don't think my parents would want me to just take my life. That, and if I did take my own life, everything that my family had would just go to the district.
Druid though, had a good life. A life that many could only dream of, and yet, he was so miserable. I guess his guilt is worse than mine, since he was the one that did the deed.
"So what are you saying?" I asked, not wanting to upset him, just in case something happened. "Don't fall in love?"
"Yes." He answered with a slight growl. "Love makes you stupid. It binds you to your lover, and makes you attached to something that needs to be severed. There's a reason that nobody has fallen in love before the seventy fourth games, and after, until my game, and since." Or at least made it out alive and well, I thought.
I took his words and kept them in my head. But I wasn't going to fall in love, because it seemed that everyone I loved was taken away from me except Laurel, and I needed to get back to her. No matter what.
*Ten minutes after ten*
"You sure are stubborn aren't you," My district partner, Max Starling, told me as we rode down the elevator to the training center below ground. "You just had to finish breakfast, you just had to finish that meal, which I don't blame you by the way, it's good stuff, but Aera is still scary. I mean, she's in a better mood than she was when she was before, but I still don't want to get slashed by those nails of hers."
Our escort Aera, she was in a better mood since we got to the Capitol, but her six inch nails still scared us every time she wove them around or pointed one of them at us. I swear, one of times she's swinging those around, she's going to break something, or hurt someone. Even our mentors and avoxs were scared when she was waving her hands around. And it wasn't my fault that I wanted to eat some more, I was hungry, and the food was too good to pass, and I was starting to get used to it. But no, we had to get to the training center on time, we just had to. Aera made a fit when I said that I wanted to finish my meal instead of going to the training center.
"You're late!" She shouted at me like it was the end of the world. "Come on! Hurry hurry!" And all I wanted to do was finish my food. So what if we were a minute late? So what if we were five minutes late? It was only five minutes or so.
"I just wanted to finish eating." I told little Max, knowing that he understood.
"Well you didn't have to fight her." He told me. "I mean, you saw her, she was angry and stuff. And it scared me to see you two shouting so loud." Yeah, we did fight a bit, we both shouted at each other. Me telling her to let me finish, her telling me to get going.
"She over reacted." I told him, which in my opinion, she did. She made a big deal out of something that didn't need to be.
"True." He said. "But at least we got more food." He smiled. Yeah, yeah we did. Because in the end, I won, I finished breakfast. I looked at Max and smiled. We both finished breakfast. We couldn't get anything like that back in District Ten.
Before I knew it, we had arrived at the floor the training center was located at. The doors opened and I saw tributes already working at training stations. We were late, but only by a bit. I didn't mind. Nobody seemed to notice anyway.
As Max walked away from me I spotted my ally, Rayne Page from District Six. I waved to her, and she waved back. Yesterday, I noticed that she was great with a knife and I admired her bravery, because she wasn't, if hardly, fazed by the giant District Three male. That's what made us connect at the knife station, we both weren't afraid of him. Unlike a lot of other non-career tributes that tended to avoid the knife station due to him constantly being there and only there. Couldn't avoid him forever if you wanted to use the knives.
When she asked what I was good at, I showed her my axe skills. When she saw what I could do, she was impressed. I had a lot of practice with an axe, after all, I came from the farming district where animals needed to be butchered and sold. And with that, we became allies. I was glad that I could find an ally, I didn't think that anyone would want to team up with me.
After all, why would anyone want to ally with a weakling like me? I looked like someone that was about to drop dead. And there was the fact that I couldn't help that girl from District Twelve when she was being attacked by her district partner. In fact, I had to be saved as well. It made me feel worthless. Nobody would want to be my ally because of that.
But then Rayne came along and we discovered each other. I didn't tell her about my fight with Colin, just in case she decided to dump me because I couldn't fight. Just in case she was reminded of my weakness.
Soon after we became allies, I found out that she was strong and smart. When we were at the plant identification center, she almost memorized the edible plants that were provided to us in a couple of hours. She was definitely a good ally. But there was just something about her that I didn't like. I didn't know what it was, but I still had a feeling that there was something bad about her that I should be worried about.
As I walked over to Rayne, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. To my left I saw a fight going on. I looked over to see three kids. Two older, one younger. The two older ones were Bo Heatherfield from District Seven, and Lucifer Despar from District Two. The younger kid was Howl Draconix who was also from District Two. While Howl was standing close to Lucifer and laughing, Lucifer looked like he was trying to provoke Bo. The District Two boy was shoving him with both of his hands causing Bo to stagger back a little each time he was shoved. Bo was taller than Lucifer, but Lucifer looked like he was stronger then Bo.
"Come on, District Seven!" I heard Lucifer challenge before shoving Bo again. "You gonna do something? Huh? I thought District Sevens were supposed to be almost career like!" He then shoved Bo again. "You don't look like nothing! Want to prove me wrong!" He then shoved Bo again, who didn't do nothing but take it and look away from his attacker. Much like a scared child that didn't know what to do. "I'm talking to you, boy!" Lucifer shouted before grabbing his face and roughly turning it towards him. "What's wrong, seven? Don't like looking at people?" As I looked at them, I thought of how Bo didn't look like an older kid right now, but he looked like a younger kid being picked on at school. It reminded me of my sister, Faerie, who was helpless when she got crushed by our horse, Den. Or what Laurel would be like without me, helpless. I saw Lucifer take Bo's white bandana from his head.
And before I knew it, I was right between the two boys.
"Why don't you leave him alone!?" I shouted to Lucifer, who wasn't scrawny or weak, unlike me. Lucifer then held his hands up in the air in mock surrender.
"Ohhhhh I'm soooo scared." He mocked at me before leaning towards me. "Why don't you make me." He laughed. I then pulled back my right hand and threw a fist at his face. It wasn't very strong, but it surprised him so much that he took a few steps back. I was just as surprised. I didn't mean for that to happen, it was like someone else punched him and I just watched it happen.
When he recovered, I didn't even know what happened. Because the next thing I knew, I was on the floor, flat on my back and looking at large red stars swirling in a black sky. Pain radiated over my face and I felt dazed. It was nothing new, but I still didn't like the pain.
I tried to straighten myself up, only to feel something scrape across my face, rattling left side of my face and all my teeth. "Think you're tough now, bitch?"
District Six's Rayne Page's POV
One moment, Life was waving to me and I thought that she'd come over here and we'd practice some spear throwing. Then the next moment, I saw her on the ground, getting attacked by the District Two guy. Had she just had to try and stand up to them? Did the careers attack her? What had they done? I don't think Life's stupid enough to pick a fight with the careers for no reason.
I ran over to her just as the District Seven boy grabbed District Two boy from behind and put him in a choke hold. Lucifer Despar then started to struggle with the District Seven boy, distracting him from me running towards him.
Yes, that's it District Seven, keep him busy so that I can punch him in the face. Nobody attacks my ally and gets away with it. You might be a career, but there's three of us and two of you. A pretty even fight considering that one of you careers is just a little girl.
I quickly closed the distance between us and readied a fist to be thrown. When the distance was closed, I swung my right fist at the career boy, only for him to duck down at the last second and dodge my blow, and for me to strike the District Seven boy across the face. I couldn't help but look in surprise as the wrong boy flew away from me and his grip loosened around the target's neck. This wasn't part of the plan.
Before I knew it, a sharp pain erupted inside my core and I felt myself letting out a painful gasp as the air inside me rushed out. I felt myself bend over just as I went airborne. The world circled around me, and I began wondering what was happening just before I crashed onto the ground. Sudden ripples of pain went through my body as I tried to piece together what just happened. Did he throw me into the air?
I gave out an unwanted cough, which helped spread the pain, and heard a guy start talking. "You take care of Seven and Ten, I'll take care of Six."
"Got it." A girl with a higher pitched voice answered.
I wasn't going to let him take care of me, I was going to take care of him. I sprang to my feet and faced Lucifer and quickly sized him up. He was shorter than me, but he looked stronger with a more muscular frame. But just because I was thin didn't mean that I wasn't strong. And even if he was stronger than me, I doubted that he could match my speed. That was what I was going to use against him.
I raised my hands into a fighting position and the two of us locked eyes for just the briefest of a second before he threw the first punch. I moved out of its path and countered with one myself. It was fast and powerful, but he moved away from my fist and slammed an open handed chop on the side of right side of my neck, hitting a part of my throat. I felt lucky, because if it weren't for my quick reflexes, it would have hit me directly in the throat.
It didn't hurt that much, but I still sputtered out a cough before the spot he hit me actually started to hurt more with each passing millisecond.
I put the pain in the back of my mind as I quickly swung an elbow at my opponent, only for him to duck under it and swing an uppercut at me. Again, it just barely missed me as it sailed past my face. It was so close that I could feel the air swoosh past my face. And before I could launch a counter attack, I felt something hard and pointed smash against the side of my head, causing me to stagger to the side.
Even so, I managed to stay on my feet and look at my opponent. My opponent that was also looking at me with a cocky grin and a sense of superiority. It seemed like he was taunting me with his body posture alone.
I then decided that I was no longer going to play nice. It was time for Rayne to get serious and not just think of this as just another kid from District Six, like I should have done earlier. He was a career, and I should treat him as such.
I yelled out at him before I charged at him and threw a series of punches at him. I threw them with the intention of hitting him, but every thing I threw at him he either blocked or dodged. Rights, lefts, a mixture of both, nothing could hit Lucifer.
I then decided to kick at him, but the first kick that I launched got caught in his hands before I felt myself being flipped just before I saw the world become upside down. Landing on my ass, a shockwave of pain shot through my rear. "That all you got?" Lucifer taunted.
Feeling my anger start to surface, I quickly got to my feet and started to throw more fists at him. Left, left, right, right hook, left hook, right elbow, left hook, right uppercut. Nothing seemed to get to him as his used his agility to move away.
Throwing a right fist that I was determined to use to blow through his head, I shouted to gain strength, and threw. But like he always did, he dodged the blow, but then I felt something else happen. I felt him hitting me. I felt pain rumble through my stomach, then I felt it explode. I felt the air rush out of my body as I tried to get air back in, but for some reason, I couldn't remember how to breathe.
I then felt myself get pulled forwards before I felt rippling pain explode through my mouth before the pain in my stomach became even more agonizing, causing me to drop to my knees. I could taste and feel the faint metallic flavour of blood in my mouth before a pointed knee hit me in the face causing me to fall to my back.
I felt the blood thicken in my mouth as my vision became blurred. I felt myself cough painfully as I lifted my back up, only to see a blur swiftly approach me before a shoe connected with my face, sending me back on the ground.
Dazed and feeling confused with ringing in my ears, I felt myself slowly getting back up. I wasn't going to quit, not just yet. I could still fight.
"That's enough!" I heard someone shout over the ringing.
Recovering from the assault that I had just gone through, I blinked a few times while waiting for my vision to clear. Within moments, I could see district mentors standing around us looking displeased with us.
"What's going on?" The District One female mentor asked looking at all of us, wanting an answer.
"Nothing." We all said at the same time.
"Nothing huh?" The male mentor from Two said, not really believing us. "Care to tell us the truth?"
"We were just playing." Lucifer answered. I looked at him to see that he was in the grasps of my male mentor. Someone who was both taller than me and stronger looking than him. "Just playing." Everyone else, myself included, just nodded and agreed. We all didn't want to get in more trouble than we already were in. While the mentors didn't seem satisfied, they told us we could fight as much as we wanted in the arena and separated us.
"Well that could have gone better." I whispered to nobody except myself. Damn, I couldn't even land a single blow on him. I was strong, I knew that. I was fast, I knew that to, but he was better than me. Maybe even faster and stronger than I was. I didn't want to admit it, but I had been beat. I mentally beat myself up for that. I couldn't get beaten again. If this were the arena, he could of killed me.
Never again. I couldn't be beat again. If I got defeated again, it was going to be my life that I would lose. I wasn't going to allow that. Die in the arena, or return home? The choice was obvious.
I looked over to my ally and saw that she was trying to make conversation with the District Seven guy. Behind them was the little District Two girl glaring at her mentor, who strangely seemed to resemble her.
"Here's your bandana back." Life said holding up a white bandana, I guessed that it was District Seven's. District Seven took it in silence. He placed it back around his head before staring off in the distance. Not really looking away, but not exactly looking at the girl that helped him out. "Your name's Bo right?" Life asked the boy. "I'm Life." Again, the boy just slightly looked at her but also slightly away in silence. "So, you got any allies?" Life asked. I knew where this was going, and no, we weren't going to have this guy with us. He didn't fight back, he'd just be a burden to us. We couldn't fight all his battles for him.
"No Life," I told my ally thinking of how it was a bad idea to have him. "He's not joining us."
"He could be useful," Life told me. "I mean, look at him, he looks strong enough to handle himself."
"If he decides to fight back," I told her. "I didn't see him take care of himself against the careers." Because we had to help him fight his own battle. Why'd you get involved Life? It would of just been better for us to not get involved. Now the careers would look at us like we were easy targets. They would look at us like we were people that would fight them. They would look to finish the fight we just had.
Should have just left him to the District Two tributes.
"What weapons are you good at?" Life asked before I grabbed her shirt collar and dragged her away from the District Seven boy. We didn't need anyone useless on our team, especially someone that couldn't fend for himself. We could go along just fine, the two of us.
We just had to get prepared, just in case something like this ever happens again. I lost in hand to hand combat, Life lost in hand to hand combat, so we both needed to improve on that. I knew which station we should concentrate on now.
District Eleven's Angel Hale's POV
Being my district partner, and someone that was in the same class as I was, I didn't see why I didn't ask him before. It should have been my first choice for an ally. He was a kind person where ever he seemed to be, wither it was back home in the district, or wither it was during the reapings, or train ride, or even here. Sure there was that time yesterday when he punched out that fat guy from District Twelve, but he was doing that to rescue the District Twelve girl and the District Ten girl from his wrath. Even back home he was the same.
Besides being a nice guy and being strong and able to defeat someone that two others were having trouble with, he was skilled with knives and scythes. Not too surprising since they were farm tools, something that he must of used a lot since he was in the fields most of his life.
The reason that I hadn't asked him before was because I was nervous when I thought of asking him to join the alliance Sami and I were in. So nervous that I asked Sami to ask him for me. But her being shy, didn't want to. She seemed almost scared to ask, so scared that she seemed to hide behind her orange hair like a certain. So I had to do it myself. I didn't want to do it, but I did it anyway. There was no other way to ask him to join our alliance. It had to be done.
I walked up to him as he was starting to work on camouflage.
"Hi." I said to him as he was painting himself with green and black material. There were spots of black and green all around his torso and about half his face. He looked like he was trying to blend in with the laid out earth below him.
"Hi." He smiled back. Ugh, how should I ask him? I hadn't thought of that.
I felt my nerves start to get to me as I realized that this was the first time that I had ever really spoken to him. We were from the same district, and we were in the same class back in school, but I was never in the same group of people as him. I didn't know what to do, and I felt myself start to panic.
"You want to be allies?" I asked suddenly. Oh crap, why'd I just go all out just ask him like that? That was stupid of me. I should have thought this through.
"Sure." He said still smiling, unfazed, and surprisingly, happy. It was a bit of a shock.
"Really?" I asked hoping that he wasn't kidding around.
"Yeah," He told me happily. "In fact, I was thinking of looking for allies, but I didn't know who to ask, so, I'm glad that you asked me." Wow, he was glad that I asked him. I was happy that he said that. The thing was, I felt something for him back in the district for some time now.
"Your welcome." I told him happily, letting myself relax again, knowing that the worst was over. And there it was again, his smile. Though he was almost always smiling. It made my day to remember that, even though it had only happened around an hour ago that I had last seen him. Now our group had three people in it. Two long range and one close range. We were a good group if I say so myself. Two to keep people away, and one to fight just in case they got too close.
Sami and I were trying out the spear station when I saw two older kids approach Aerin while he was lifting weights. Even though Aerin was my age, he sure was lifting a lot. There were big weights on each end of a pole, and he way laying down, pushing them up and down with his arms. I looked closer and saw that those two kids that were now standing beside him were careers, they were the boys from districts One and Four. What did they want with Aerin?
I tapped Sami on the shoulder, and when she looked at me I pointed towards Aerin and the two careers. "What do they want?" I asked her, wondering if she had any thoughts on the situation. She shrugged her shoulders, she was just as confused as I was. I then decided to get a closer look, see what they were saying, see what those careers wanted. See how Aerin would respond. "Come on Sami, let's see what's going on."
As Sami and I got closer to them, the words that were coming from their mouths were becoming clearer.
"What do you mean you have other allies?" I heard the big guy from One ask, slightly angered from what he heard. I'm sure that Aerin said that he already had allies, and that was us.
"It means that I already have allies." Aerin said to him nicely, trying not to make a fight, unlike some other people earlier today. I watched some of that fight. It started out with the District Two careers harassing the District Seven boy. Then the District Ten girl tried to help him, but only got herself and her ally into a fight that didn't belong to her, again. The boy from Two and the Girl from Six began to fight each other, as well as the girls from Ten and Two. The boy just pathetically looked like he was trying to stop the little girl from fighting, like he didn't want to hurt her in any kind of way. She took full advantage of that.
Still, even with the two of them going at her, the boy from Seven and the girl from Ten ended up on the losing side of the battle, which I thought was kind of pathetic. She was a twelve year old girl, how hard could it be to beat her? The girl from Six also lost her fight. And it wasn't until the mentors, not the trainers, that separated them and ended the fight before it got too out of hand.
I won't count the fight between the District Two girl since the two non-careers were probably really bad at fighting, but the District Two male devastated the District Six girl. If things went bad between Aerin and the two careers boys, I didn't want to think of what would happen.
"Sorry, but, I'm not going to just leave them after I told them I'm going to join them." While the boy from Four was calm about it, I could see the bigger, stronger boy from One's hands shaking and had an expression of suppressed anger on his face.
"You'd rather join a group of losers?" The boy from One growled through his teeth, the top and bottom of his teeth hadn't left each other while he spoke. He was clearly angry. And not only that, but his voice was rough, almost violent sounding. It almost reminded me of the peacekeepers back home, which made me shutter a little.
"Okay, calm down." The boy from Four told him calmly. "He doesn't want to join us, his loss." He clearly didn't want a fight to erupt, and I didn't either. The boy from Two looked hard enough to handle, and the District One boy seemed to be twice as big and six inches taller.
Four then turned to Aerin and calmly explained to him. "Listen, we know how to use weapons, we'll have almost all the supplies from the cornucopia, you'll be guaranteed to survive the bloodbath, what's not to like?"
"I like all of it." Aerin told him still being friendly to them, even though they were trying to get him to do something that he didn't want to do. "But I'm not going to abandon my allies." Aerin. He was better than I thought. He wasn't just going to abandon us when something better came along. That was when I knew that I could trust him to not betray us.
"Suit yourself." The boy from Four said like he couldn't care less. "Come on, Griffin, let's go." The boy from Four then turned away from Aerin before saying. "If he wants to die in the bloodbath let him."
But the boy from Four didn't seem to notice that the District One boy, Griffin, wasn't walking away from Aerin like he was. I saw Aerin continue to push the weights up and down, working on his muscles. The weight in his hand looked fairly heavy to him. I then saw the District One boy then, with little effort, place a hand on the center of the bar Aerin was lifting, and started to push down.
Because of the added weight and pressure, Aerin couldn't lift it properly and struggled to push away the bar that was approaching his throat.
Seeing that Aerin was in trouble, I turned to Sami and told her the obvious.
"Aerin needs help! Let's go!"
Before I gave her any time to think, I grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her with me. I wasn't going in there alone, not with two careers there. The District Four guy looked like he had no interest in fighting, but I didn't fancy our chances against the District One guy by myself. We had to get Aerin out of there together.
Sami seemed to be silently protesting, but I knew that it was better that she came along with me and not just stay on the sidelines. If someone stayed on the sidelines the whole time, then the person that was getting hurt was just going to continue to get hurt. I should know, I had been in that kind of situation before. My whole family had been in that situation before. I wasn't about to let that happen to Aerin.
I got within twenty feet of the giant career before I felt something slam against the left side of my body, pain rippling through my left ribs as I felt my feet leave the floor. I hit the floor, hard, before I heard a high pitched grunt that was mixed in with a squeak. I looked over to the source of my pain and saw that the District Four boy, the one that I thought had already left, was laying down beside me.
All three of us were on the ground. Him, Sami, and I. The career was holding Sami's shirt with his left hand as her body was planted on the floor as well. His feet were right on my injured ribs. I'm guessing he kicked me before grabbing Sami and forced her to the ground as well.
I glared at him for stopping us from helping our ally, and threw a kick at him. He easily rolled away from my attack, spun his body, and kicked me in the face, sending a splash of bright colours to appear in front of me as pain spiked my face.
I didn't let that stop me though, because as soon as the second of shock was over, I lunged for his leg and took hold of it with both my hands. "Sami!" I shouted as I crawled up his body, noticing that he was no longer holding onto Sami. "Help Aerin!"
I crawled on his body until I was on top of him, just like in the pinning position that I saw so many tributes did in the games. A lot of tributes had trouble escaping from this position, so as long as I stayed on top of him, he was just about helpless.
I couldn't help but smile in triumph as I pulled back a right fist and threw it at his face. But I felt him readjust my throw, causing it to move too much to my left, making me miss his face as my fist connected with the hard floor. Pain rippled through my fist as I felt him grab my arm and my momentum to make my throw continue it's path, scrapping if across the floor.
I felt myself start to lean to the right, and before I knew it, I was off balance and I was rolled onto my back, with the career on top of me! No. No no no, this wasn't what was supposed to be happening. I was supposed to be the one in the dominant position!
Things went from bad to worse as the career pinned me in a position that trapped my arms, making me unable to defend myself from any incoming attacks. And that's just what happened. As expected, I couldn't defend myself from the three blows that hit me in the face so fast they almost felt like one.
Each hit wasn't bad, my dad had hit harder than him, but three of them stacked together was another story. "That all you got!" I shouted at him, wanting him to concentrate on me and not Sami. I could take hits, but I didn't know if Sami could. If she could get Aerin free, than she wouldn't be alone. But for now, all I could do was keep the threat away from her.
Because of that, I felt an arm press against my throat, cutting off the air from my body.
I struggled to get free, but he was just holding me down too good. His body felt heavy and I felt too weak to do anything, just like back home when my dad was hitting me. There was nothing that I could do about it, and there was nothing I could do would stop it.
I couldn't run away, and I couldn't defend myself. A losing situation that made me feel helpless, no matter what I did, because no matter what I did, there was no stopping him.
Soon, the distant beating of drums appeared in my ears. Then I couldn't even feel myself breathing anymore. Then my vision began to blur as dark shadows came from the edges of my sights. I continued to struggle against his weight, but nothing I did seemed to help. I began to think that I was going to pass out, until I felt the weight of his body lift off me and I felt a rush of air get sucked into my lungs.
The sounds of drums and my sights began to clear as I felt myself coughing as I sucked in sweet sweet air through my sore throat.
I looked up and saw my female mentor, Pepper Ridgeway, holding the career boy in her arms. Pepper, being as big as she was, made the District Four boy look almost like a tiny child she was so large.
"Stop fighting, right now." She commanded. The District Four boy automatically complied. I don't know wither it was because he was scared of our mentor or not, but either way, he stopped so suddenly it was almost shocking.
"Okay." He calmly said, almost as if he was giving in to her. Which, I guess in a way, he was.
Wondering how Aerin and Sami were doing, I looked over to see that Aerin was thickly bleeding from the left side of his mouth while Sami had her hands over her mouth. Ahead of them, the District One male was being held back by our mentor, and his mentor. I saw that our attacker had a heavy weight in his right hand. No doubt that he attacked Aerin with it. It was probably why Aerin was bleeding so badly from the mouth.
"Griffin!" His mentor yelled at him. "Stop this madness and put that weight down!"
Griffin did as he was told, but not in the way that they thought he'd do it. I saw Griffin toss the weight towards Aerin, and before I could even warn him, or he could react, the weight landed on his left foot, and I swore I heard a sickening crunch occur before Aerin started to scream. "What the fuck!" His mentor shouted before the two mentors started to pull Griffin away as Sami gasped out in shock.
"Aerin!" I shouted as I ran towards him, worried about him and his might be broken foot.
Aerin picked up the weight and got it off his foot before he stared to hobble around, screaming out a string of curse words. "Aerin!" I shouted, panicking. "Aerin! You all right?"
"Fine." He grunted, obviously lying as he continued to hop.
"You two get him to the medic station!" Pepper shouted to us as she continued to hold the District Four boy. "Nemo! Nemo where are you? Get over here so you can have a chat with your boy!"
"Medic!" I shouted, wanting to have the medic come to us rather than the opposite. "Medic!" Even so, I took one side of Aerin, and when told to do the same, Sami took the other side. We lifted up Aerin as best we could, but he was so heavy that we were dragging him just as much as we were carrying him.
"You girls all right?" Aerin asked over the noise of the mentors.
"Yeah." I told him, more worried about him than me. I might of gotten hurt a little and been chocked to a point that I thought I was going to pass out, but he got his foot crushed!
"Em-Hmm." Sami said quietly.
"Good." Aerin sighed. "I was worried. Thanks for coming to my aid. Both of you. Especially you Sami, thanks for pulling me away from under those weights."
"We're allies." I heard Sami quietly, almost inaudible, say, and so did Aerin.
"What was that?" Aerin asked.
"She said we're allies." I told him, thinking of how this was the first sentence that Sami said without stuttering. It was short, but it was something.
"Yeah." Aerin said with a smile on his face. "Allies."
I began to like Aerin even more, and not just as an ally. He didn't stray away from us, not even when the careers made him a deal for him to join them. He wouldn't abandon us, or sell us out. I'm glad you're my ally Aerin.
A/N: Happy Remembrance Day everyone. May we never forget those who sacrificed and suffered so that we wouldn't have to.
"Never was so much owed by so many to the so few." -Winston Churchill
I forgot to get quotes for the previous two chapters. I'll go back and change that at a later date.