A/N: Yeah, if blood isn't your thing…well you've been warned for this chapter. Just a disclaimer for the faint of heart.
"Where are you going?" Fresco laughed, his voice unnatural and airy. "Where are you running to, girl?"
Kevlar kept stumbling towards the rock formation, and Sam had a choice to make here – and no option was good. The girl from District 8 provided great cover that would likely give her time to take down one of the Careers with the bolas in a surprise strike; it wouldn't be a kill, but it could certainly wound. Furthermore, that'd leave the other two outnumbered by the three of them and could scare them off. The only problem would be that it'd be using Kevlar as bait – and it was doubtful she'd survive that sort of approach.
The other option was the noble one; stick up for the wounded girl and hit the Careers in a frontal attack. Low probability of success there, but the numbers were still on their side. Could save Kevlar, could possibly even dissuade them from attacking at all…or it could get everyone killed. It was risky. Too risky for Sam.
Unfortunately not for Storm, whose rashness far exceeded Sam's calculating mind.
"We can get them now! Come on," Storm almost seemed to relish the moment as he turned the rock formation, wielding his spear in both hands and ready for action.
Gannet was petrified on Sam's other side. She was armed with the wooden spear, but neither she nor Sam was the physical match for a Career that Storm was. Now that a straight-up assault had been decided on, things were in play much faster.
"C'mon, get your spear, let's go," Sam waved to her. "Stay next to me. Maybe we don't have to kill everyone."
Sam took the bolas up in her right hand and the kukri in her left, giving her a chance to hit with range before the Careers could approach. It was a stroke of luck that none of the three aggressors were equipped with bows or throwing knives; Fresco had apparently discarded his tomahawks of earlier and now wielded a thick broadsword. Cascade carried a bident loosely beside him, while the most dangerous weapon – Hadrian's colossal halberd – looked absolutely lethal in the night. The boy from District 2 would be a different beast altogether.
Gannet and Sam came across the boulders just as the Careers had held up with Storm's appearance. Kevlar weakly looked between the two trios, caught in no-man's land in a deadly game of chicken.
"Where she's running to," Storm led off. "Doesn't matter. Why don't you get out of here before you all get hurt?"
"Why don't you take your band of misfits and leave," Fresco responded, obviously the leader. His face was obscured in the night, leaving only a shadowy form in the darkening evening. "Maybe we'll let you run while we butcher this one."
"Just let me kill them now," Hadrian's deep, throaty voice sounded unhinged, his words laced with bloodlust. "He's the only big one. Those other three are nothing."
"Take your best shot," Storm taunted.
"Maybe I will," Hadrian lashed back, taking a step forward and thrusting his shoulder out as intimidation. Even in the darkness it was impossible to miss his musculature. "Which one of these bitches do you love the most? I'll slit that one's fucking throat in front of you, let her bleed out and writhe around in the sand 'til she's dead."
"Settle," Fresco waved off Hadrian as if keeping his chained feral dog back. "We can be civilized. I'll repeat what I said. You leave, take your two with you, and we'll…temporarily forget we saw you. Spare you what Hadrian here will do if you don't take it."
Cascade hadn't done as much as move throughout the entire proceeding, and Sam began to get worried. Hadrian was simply a loose cannon – a big and brutal one albeit, but a cannon nonetheless. But what was the boy from 4, Gannet's district-mate, hiding?
"What do you think?" Sam piped up, nearly shouting at the Careers and directing her question at the boy from 4. "Cascade, isn't it? You're kinda quiet. You don't sound like you want to go along with this."
Hadrian snarled, a low, animal thing, at Sam. Cascade's reaction was entirely different.
"I'm the only real tribute from District 4," he replied, his voice far different than what Sam had imagined – it sounded waxy, untamed, and a shade sharp on an eerily high pitch. "I want to make it that way permanently."
Gannet took an involuntary step back at Cascade's deliberate targeting of her – and Hadrian smelled blood in the water.
"I'm taking that one now," he growled, breaking out of Fresco's control and sprinting forward at a loping gait right at Sam.
That was that, then.
Kevlar never stood a chance. As Hadrian trotted right past her, Fresco strode up to the scrambling injured girl and struck with the sword. In one quick motion her head was separated from her neck, her body slumping over to the ground. While Hadrian closed in, however, Sam had the quickest glance at something very odd – the other two Careers held back, as if waiting for Hadrian's moves to come. She thought it was a delaying action at first, but before the burly boy from District 2 closed into combat range, she had a flashing insight.
They want us to burn ourselves out killing him – to put down their wild dog for them. Fresco doesn't want to fight.
Hadrian wasn't an ally to them; just a savage, if useful, tool. Unfortunately, they'd have to play right into Fresco and Cascade's game.
The boy from District 2 let out a roar as he swung the long polearm with the axe blade of the halberd, ripping it downward at Sam. She dodged the undisciplined blow easily, scrambling aside as Storm stepped in to assist. Hadrian was far too fast for him, however, knocking aside his spear and using the butt end to whip him in the face. Storm let out a cry and stumbled back as the burly boy from 2 brought the weapon end to bear. A quick block by Sam and her kukri ensured Storm lived to keep fighting, but Hadrian had switched to using his halberd like a quarterstaff – he was more than capable of engaging two untrained targets at once and still win.
The idiot is really going to go three-on-one…
Unfortunately, "the idiot"came trained in that, too. As Fresco and Cascade merely watched on with looks of amusement, waiting to pick over the remainder, Hadrian skillfully swatted away a weak attempt from Gannet's spear and drove an elbow into her temple. She squeaked in pain and fell to the sandy floor as Hadrian diverted his attention back to Storm's incoming blow, parrying it and holding his spear thrusts back.
Sam hit paydirt as Hadrian's attention was off, swinging her bolas rocks right into his knee. He grunted in pain and stumbled to one knee, yet still managed to knock aside her swing of the kukri. Hadrian was engaging in a battle he could ultimately not win, yet his bloody rage and supreme confidence ensured he wouldn't go down without bringing out every ounce of effort his combatants could give.
The other two Careers knew that, unfortunately.
Hadrian delivered a headbutt to Storm's face, knocking him back and catching Sam with a surprising burst of speed. He rammed the butt of his halberd into her stomach, knocking the kukri from her left hand and driving her to the ground. She only had time to gasp as he whipped the axe blade in for a killing strike. Hadrian's eyes gleamed in ecstasy – his threat to Storm would be fulfilled as he launched Sam's head flying off into the arena night with a powerful swing.
Gannet wouldn't let him take her so easily.
The little girl from 4 had recovered from the elbow, extending her arm and spear to stop Hadrian's halberd before it connected. He snarled in retaliation, hooking her wooden spear on the curved spike of the halberd and wrenching it from her hands. Storm moved in for support, but Gannet's shock of the ferocity of the move gave Hadrian all the time he needed. As Sam got to her feet and whipped the bolas in preparation to throw, Hadrian knocked away a blow from Storm's spear with his polearm's butt and swung the halberd axe in a perfect semicircle into Gannet.
Gannet's cry of surprise and shock caught Sam just as she released the bolas, letting the rocks fly straight and true into Hadrian's kneecaps. She didn't even realize the spatter of blood – Gannet's blood, her ally's blood – that had jumped onto her face as the boy from 2 gaped in pain and went down, one knee cracking and the other bending unnaturally inwards. Storm finished the job, seizing the moment and driving the spear straight into Hadrian's neck.
It had come too late for Gannet, however.
Fresco and Cascade had their opportunity, but with his rival dead, the boy from 4 deflated. He had no more dog in the fight – and Fresco, who had wanted to avoid collateral damage in the first place, was now faced with too much of an even fight. He looked down at the three dead and dying tributes, spitting on the desert floor and staring at Sam straight in the eye. Something in him spoke of uncertainty, however – as if he didn't want to lose more when something else was lurking.
There were only three Careers here, Sam's mind inadvertently thought in a hurry as she squared off with Fresco, kukri back in hand. Where's your District 1 pal? Where's Royal?
"Impressive," Fresco managed with a spiteful twist to his voice. "But maybe not next time. As you were…10 and 12."
The boy from 1 signaled Cascade with a wave and picked up Kevlar's seizing headless corpse, backing away with it as a human shield for a hundred meters before dumping it and starting off into a trot. Sam had no desire for a chase anyway – they had done all the damage in her eyes as she realized what Hadrian had done. She rushed over to the bleeding girl from 4, sinking to her knees in front of Gannet as two boom! cannon shots sounded out – Kevlar and Hadrian.
"Gannet, Gannet please stay with me," Sam didn't mince words or try to cover up the wound as she grabbed the girl's hands in her own. "Just stay with me."
Sam finally saw the wound for all it was – and just managed to suppress a cry of horror. It wouldn't be a quick and painless death for the little girl from the sea, but a horrific one. Hadrian's halberd had hewn straight through Gannet's torso, ripping out viscera and muscle. The first stages of moonlight began shining down on the desert floor, illuminating shiny reflections off Gannet's blood in ghastly pale light. She didn't see her own grievous injury, but Sam had no doubts that she could certainly feel it.
"S-Sam," Gannet managed to eke out as her face scrunched up in agony and fear. "Sam…"
"I'm right here," Sam cooed. "I'm not going anywhere, Gannet. I'm not leaving you."
For all Gannet's pain, she held on tightly to Sam's hands for the next minute. Her breaths came out in labored pants, struggling against the inevitability of Hadrian's gaping slash. Sam held back all the emotions that pounded against her skull for Gannet's sake, staying brave to keep her calm and give her some peace.
The desert had gone perfectly silent. Storm was some distance away, but Sam had tuned out everything but right there and then. No birds called out in the night; no owls hooted, no insects chirped. Only Gannet's small breaths let Sam know she could even still hear.
"Stay…with him," Gannet managed to speak before coughing up a mouthful of blood. "He'll keep you safe."
"I will," Sam patted her hand and kept her gaze squarely in the girl's dimming green eyes. "Don't you worry, Gannet. You did great. You did all you could. Saved my life."
The girl from 4 managed to lift a little smile as her eyes drooped, getting out every last word she could. "I wish I could go back to the water one more time. But you're still my friend…Sam. I'm happy I got to know you."
"And you'll always be mine," Sam replied softly, her blue eyes filling up with tears. "Always."
Gannet exhaled long and slowly into the night air. For a moment, Sam thought she saw something rising from her body – perhaps she imagined it, but the girl from the sea seemed to be sending herself away from this desolate place and reaching back for a faraway home. Gannet's head slumped back against the dirt with finality and a glaze took over her eyes – Sam had spoken the last words she could to her ally. Her friend.
Boom!
Sam leaned over and kissed her forehead, reaching up to close her eyes. "Good night, Gannet. You won't be hurting for long."