The Third Quarter Quell

Chapter Six

I awaken from a nightmare in which vampires sink their fangs in my throat, seven vampires at once. One of them looks like the girl who wore the baker outfit in the procession. I am more than a little disturbed.

But I know that Hans was just being paranoid. There are no vampires in the Hunger Games. Vampires were killed over a hundred years ago. They are part of the reason the Twelve Districts rebelled against Panem, for after Panem eliminated the vampires, they made more and more stringent demands of the outlying regions. Till it escalated into tyranny, and those in the Districts rose to rebel.

Cinna directs me to the tube in which I rise up to meet with the other Tributes. I see Rosalie and smile at her. The guy with bulging muscles near her is intimidating.

I gaze upon the cornucopia and spot a crossbow with poison darts on the other side. Then there's the usual wait of sixty seconds, upon which it is dangerous to step off the pad. And finally the cannon firing off.

There is a mad rush for the cornucopia. A strange boy with blue skin reaches for a javelin, then looks at me with venom in his eyes. I'm ready to punch him in the jowl when I hear a scream from my right. The guy with muscles who was standing near Rosalie has cornered Prim, and seems to be ready to twist her neck. I dart forward but am kicked down by a rather brawny boy with fierce eyebrows. I want to save Prim but a girl sets her foot on my back and I feel intense heat ripple over my body. Then some bubble explodes near my ear.

I have just enough time to see a dagger before me, sticking up from a gourd. I grab the dagger then feel something slam hard into my back and everything goes dark.

When I come to, I feel myself moving at a speed unknown to me. I didn't know what was keeping me going at such a place, but I had a feeling it wasn't anything concerned about my safety, as it slammed me into the barks of quite a few trees as we wound our way toward a valley.

I haven't even gotten a good look at the arena yet…all I know is that a few trees and a valley serve as a portion of it, as well as the beach upon which the cornucopia stands. Somehow I wonder if the new Head Gamemaker is toying with this design…I wouldn't put it past him.

Suddenly I'm thrust to the ground and cold hands brush against my arm. I look up into the green eyes of a dark-haired girl.

"I'm Alice," she says. "And I wanted to warn you….the others want to kill you as fast as they possibly can."

"Well, of course they do," I snap. "This is the Hunger Games, after all."

"Not because of that," Alice said, shaking her head. "Well, yes because of that. Bui they think that if they kill you, they'll be set free. That's what the President told them, though it isn't true. But making them see that it isn't, won't be easy. Which is why you need to do your best to say alive for awhile."

I stare at her, not knowing what to make of what she is saying. But at that moment, the tall man who wore an orange suit and a black mask, whom I had noticed on the platform surrounding the cornucopia, leaps out from a bush, sharp talons extending from his palms. Upon his shoulders sits the little girl whose stare had caused me such intent pain. And then it sears across my chest again, like a knot twisting tautly and strenuously. My stomach feels as though its been pummeled by a sumo wrestler, and then I'm almost certain it's bleeding from the inside. Then the masked man raises his talons and swipes at me. Only a wolf begins tearing into my shoulder with its teeth at that moment. The talons of the masked man pierce my neck. Some other boy wearing yellow goggles with red patches over the eye portion stands a few feet away. Red lasers emit from his eyewear, tearing up the material in his path. He seems to be showing me what he can do to me, when once he decides to initiate his attack. But for now he is merely demonstrating.

Though the wolf and the masked man will likely kill me soon, if something doesn't forestall them. In the restrained position I find myself in, struggling doesn't seem to yield any results. Nor does screaming, though that isn't a method I'd undertake. Showing signs of weakness would not be good under any circumstances, even if you're about to die.

Then just when I'm almost certain I'm looking at fuzzy yellow dots in the moment before death, my attention is captured by a wave of blue skin…the mischievous boy on the platform near the cornucopia. He is touching my feet, and has a Swiss army knife in one hand. He's probably going to cut my foot. But then another blue-skinned boy, looking exactly like the first, kicks him in the shins, then grabs my ankles, just as the wolf takes a bite out of the flesh north of my ribcage, and the masked man tears a gash in my left cheek, going up to my eye, which feels bloodshot and is tough to keep open…

Out of my right eye, though, I see that I'm now in a desert, though I'm not sure how I could have gotten here.

"I kind of figured the boundaries of this place would force us to remain inside the arena," said the blue-skinned boy. "Rather unfortunate. If I could have got you to safety…oh well. No matter."

He turns to me and grins. "You're safe for now. This is the farthest point in the arena. It'll take the others some time to get here. They'd have to go through a moat and a bog, see. I think they'll give up the chase for a while and pursue the others."

"How have I ended up here?" I ask.

"I brought you," he says. "Using Nightcrawler's power. He wanted to use it to kill you. Of course, he can't get here himself until he knows where 'here' is. I used this talisman to navigate the arena in under a moment."

He held up an octagon with a green imprint shaped like a rabbit.

"Of course, some of the vamps can move lickety-split," he says. "They might get here fast, if they want to. But I think Edward convinced Bella that he could take out the less sturdy of the District 12 Tributes. So we might have some time."

"Really, who are you, and what do you want with me?"

"My name is Rogue," the boy says. "Well, Anna Marie is what my birth certificate says. But I don't hold much store on birth certificates."

"Anna isn't a boy's name," I say.

"Oh, I'm not a boy," said he. "I only look like this because I've used my mother's power of taking on the body semblance, including voice, of someone else. I thought I'd look the part. If I'm going to act as your protector in this competition, it's best if I look like whomever's powers I'm currently using. Though I'll change back to my natural form for now."

Then the blue of the boy's skin blanched to become white. His face transformed to become more feminine, and the hair lengthened a little and became brown with a white arch extending from her bangs. The girl before me now—for she was a girl in fact, or at least now she was—had purple lips too. Quite freaky.

"Are you a vampire?" I query.

"Me? A vampire? Well, I'm told that my bite is worse than my bark."

"Well, I don't want a vampire protecting me," I say, not looking at her.

"You don't have a choice on who does protect you," Rogue says. "All of the others in this game want to kill you, your sister, and those two blokes from District 12 that came with you. If no one's there to protect you, then you'll be mincemeat without a prayer." She snaps her fingers. "That's how long you'd last. You don't know the powers the X-Men possess. And that's just the mutants. The vampires have some too, though there wasn't enough time in training to figure out what they all were. So you'd better hope you have someone watching your back. Because you're dealing with forces the like of which you've never seen."

"If you were really as good a protector as you claim," I say, "you would save my sister."

"I couldn't just rescue everybody. They'd come after you without any effort if you're all gathered in one place. It wouldn't be right."

"Get Prim," I moan. "Please, Rogue."

"All right, all right. Keep your tears in their ducts. I'll get Prim. But the boys are on their own."

"That's all right," I say. "So long as Prim's safe."

"She will be," says Rogue, transforming back into the blue-skinned boy. "Be right back with one sister of yours."

Then she vanished. Or he vanished. I'm not sure I'll get used to this, knowing Rogue is a girl but that she can appear as a boy…

Twenty minutes roll by. Then forty. I remain waiting for Rogue to return. Something is keeping her. And worry fills me, which isn't abated by distant howling…

Then there's a shout. "I found her!" It's nearer than I want it to be. And I look up to see eyes of pure loathing. It's the boy who dressed as a baker, though the girl who donned the costume appearing as his wife is nowhere in sight. He charges toward me, ready to pounce.

"I will be the victor of the Hunger Games!"

"Edward, no!"

He lunges toward me, and I'm certain death will come because he is holding a wooden stake with a knife blade sticking out of it, aiming for my heart. Though it baffles me who called out the command for him to cease his assault on me, when I see blond hair and a girl tackle Edward, a girl whose presence gives me pleasure, for it is Rosalie.

"Let me take her out, Rose!"

"Never, Edward. You need to read her mind."

"She's the reason we're here. I was sick of the moose blood they fed us for all those years we were in captivity. Let me have human blood now!"

"Edward, you're mad. Calm down."

He had a frenzy in his eyes. Then he punched Rosalie in the jaw, and stuck the stake in her throat, knife piercing her flesh. Then he scooted toward me, guffawing and triumphant. I was done for.