Author's Note: It's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry for the lack of updates, it's a combination of exams (which just finished this afternoon!) and the fact that I'm sort of getting over this story. I'll finish it for the sake of finishing it because I'd hate to leave a story unfinished and there really aren't too many chapters to go, maybe 10 or so, but I'd really appreciate reviews now because it'd make me want to write more often for those that are still enjoying the story.
Anyway, sorry for the numerous POVs, I think of them as scene changes and seeing as I'm writing mostly 1st person it's impossible to show some of these parts without changing POV. Next chapter I'll try to tone it down. It's hard with everyone in completely different places! Enjoy the chapter :)
Crowd of Two
Chapter Twenty-One
Third-Person POV – Finnick's Alliance
"Who was on watch last night? I heard two cannons at some point." Finnick states to the group the next morning as they pack up their camp in preparation to move on.
"I was, and it was the two victors from Nine." Katniss replies with the same lack of enthusiasm in her voice, and she adds "Sorry" to Luke when she realises that they were his district partners. He shrugs and makes the excuse that he didn't know them well enough to regret their deaths.
"This isn't the way these games were meant to turn out." Titus says grumpily, who had been upset all night and didn't get much sleep after Caria's death. There was no doubt it had affected him the most out of all of those in the camp, though there was a noticeable damper that made everyone feel like arguing.
"Well what did you expect was going to happen?" Haymitch asks sarcastically, "Somehow all twenty-four of us would get out and we would live happily ever after? Stories like that don't exist in Panem, kid." Titus growls in fury and begins to stand until Finnick who was sitting next to him roughly pulls him back down.
"If Katniss is right and only seven people have died, that leaves eighteen still roaming this arena. We can't start fighting between ourselves now or else this alliance is going to be over by tonight. And if we've all forgotten, Grey is still at the cornucopia." He looks each of the group in turn and they all look away shamefully.
"Then what are we waiting for, we have to go and get her!" Rory speaks up, his face brighter than all of theirs combined. "If Enobaria and her group aren't allied with Kaine and his group we have the largest alliance in this arena, we can easily get Grey back! It's like seven against three!"
There's no argument with the young boy's comment so with minimal discussion everyone begins to prepare to travel to the cornucopia, now moving with a purpose in mind. They are packed and ready to go in seconds and they begin to head in the direction they came, hoping for an easy retrieval of their friend.
Cato's POV
"Cato, what's that? Is it a tribute? Is it a mockingjay?" I growl low in my throat but the girl attached to me seems oblivious. Enobaria notices however, and she glares at me before warning "Cato…" under her breath.
"I don't know, okay? It's probably some animal. Happy?" I snap at Brynn and she looks hurt for a second before her face spreads into its overenthusiastic grin again. I attempt to tug my arm out of her grip, which was exactly what I knew the sharp-toothed woman behind me would punish me for but I was absolutely sick of this thing that had been hanging off my arm since the moment we started walking.
I had fallen asleep with Brynn's arms around me – Grey was going to throw a weapon when she found that out – and since then it was as if she had been given the go-ahead to flirt constantly with me. I turn my head to glare at Enobaria once again but she only smiles sweetly. It was obviously her doing. Gloss was walking a little away with the look on his face of someone who was constantly being disappointed and disgusted and somehow I knew it wasn't just me annoying him anymore.
"Where are we going?" I ponder out loud, not expecting to be told. I was the embarrassment of the career alliance, after all.
"To hunt down tributes, of course!" Enobaria replies cheerfully, holding up a very menacing knife that she had been sharpening on a rock all morning. I scoff and nod, pretending that I'm an idiot to have not thought of the idea myself. It saved a lot of arguing if I just pretended to be my old career self, though now my mask wasn't fitting as well as it used to.
I'm about to slap away Brynn's straying hand when the sound of people talking hits us and everyone in our group falls still. There's too much sound for it to be Kaine and the rest of the careers and the career tributes have a way of speaking that makes them sound egotistical from a mile away, so I instantly come to the conclusion that it's Finnick and his crew.
There's no time to even form a strategy because in the next second the two groups run into each other. Both are defensive, but theirs even more so when they see Enobaria step forward with both her knife and teeth gleaming.
"Well, well, what do we have here…?" She murmurs evilly, supposedly ignoring the fact that we are very low in numbers compared to their group and shouldn't be so blasé about the impending fight. Gloss and I step back when their alliance begins to prepare their weapons, loading bows and unsheathing swords, knowing that this is something we won't be able to win. I reach for my own sword but Brynn is by my sheath and she's pressed so tightly against my side that I can't access it. I consider pushing her onto the ground to get my weapon, but a hiss of fury from the other side makes me stop and refocus.
"Y-you traitor!" Titus hisses maliciously, his voice quickly escalating to a scream as he steps towards me. "You're separated from Grey for a couple of days and you find a whore to pleasure you instead?!" Finnick growls a warning at Grey's old friend but he's on a rampage and while I'm searching for some explanation I hear a war cry and suddenly I'm being barrelled to the ground with something sharp pressed to my neck. I gasp in panic – the worst thing to do in the situation and the first lesson at the academy – and he grins nastily, relishing in my loss of power.
"Cato? Cato, help!" I manage to turn my head slightly and I see Brynn has been pulled down by my scuffle with Titus. I'm about to say something mean, but Titus beats me to it.
"Shut up." He hisses and he removes the dagger from my neck to stab the girl in the chest. There's a chilling silence for a moment – then life speeds up again and Brynn screams loudly. It is cut short when she realises that she is rapidly losing blood and oxygen, and she only manages to speak brokenly when she opens her mouth.
"Enobaria… told me to. Just wanted to… go home. Promised…" And then her cannon booms loudly and just like that there is one more added to the eight teenagers who aren't going home.
Enobaria shouts in anger, furious at losing one of her dwindling allies, and she throws her weapon into the group opposite her in anger. It hits the mark because there's a sickening sound of metal hitting skull followed instantly by the second cannon in a minute.
This time it's Katniss' turn to scream as she catches her district partner's fall from life. Rory lands glassy-eyed in her arms with the knife imbedded deep in the center of his forehead. The girl from District Twelve gapes for a couple of seconds until she goes red with fury. I realise only now that there is no more pressure on my neck, Titus having stood up and begun to advance on Enobaria like Katniss and the rest of them are doing too. I feel a rough tug on my jacket as Gloss pulls me to a standing position, not looking away from the people coming towards us.
"I think it's time to go boys." Enobaria says brightly as if she hasn't just lost one and killed another. Gloss begins to tug me backwards, holding a spear so it almost looks like I'm his hostage.
"Wait," Someone interrupts as they step forward from Finnick's group, "I want to offer Cato a place in the alliance." There's a general consensus of disagreement from everyone on his side, especially Titus who has stopped temporarily if only to refuse the idea of me joining them, but the boy who had spoken angrily glares at those around him. I don't instantly recognize the boy with the shaggy brown hair, but as he's supporting my return to the group I feel the need to trust him.
Though instead of nodding and being embraced back into their team – people who would protect and not backstab me – I shake my head.
"I… I can't." I blurt out. "I'm sorry." The looks of shock and betrayal on their faces are painful enough, but Finnick gives an imperceptible shake of his head that almost says he knew I would refuse all along which is a kick in the face. I can vaguely here Gloss telling me that we have to go, but before I go I grab what has been hanging around my neck since the beginning of the 74th Hunger Games and tug it off my neck, throwing it down on the ground in front of them.
As the three of us run off Enobaria whispers "Good choice," seemingly proud that I've stuck with her alliance. I shake my head, it wasn't my own choice. My only comfort is the fact that I saw the shaggy-haired boy pick up my token as I left and I know that as long as he has it, it will get to Grey.
Grey's POV
The two cannons within a few moments of each other startle me from my day-dreaming. I had been sitting in my usual spot inside the cornucopia, surrounded by various weapons and packs all day. Although I was being held hostage by the most dangerous tributes in the game, I felt quite safe. As long as Kaine didn't kill me, I would be protected while I stayed here.
"What are you thinking about?" Or if Target didn't kill me first. The young man with the shaved head had previously been staring out into the forest but now I had his full attention and he demanded to know what was on my mind.
"What is it with your alliance and my thoughts? I can't escape just by wishing it, you know."
"I don't know but none of us trust you. You spend too much time thinking," Target growls back in reply. I shrug and turn my head away from him.
"If you must know, I'm thinking about the same thing I was thinking about when Kaine last asked the question – Cato." Kaine and Litty had gone out to scope the area for tributes so I had been left with Target as a 'sitter.'
"Why bother?" His voice is gruff. "He's not coming to get you, only Kaine is idiotic enough to think that."
"Cato will find me, I know he will." Target scoffs in disbelief and he looks ready to point out that my "precious boyfriend" as Kaine calls him is nowhere to be found, when he is interrupted by a sound of crunching leaves outside.
"Took you long enough Kaine, you can look after this one here from now on." Target walks out of sight to oversee the return of the rest of the pack and I wait impatiently for an expected sarcastic comment from Litty. It's strangely silent out there and I resist the urge to rise and peek out of the entrance for a few seconds until the need gets to be too strong. I walk over to the opening of the structure and as soon as I see the scene before me I start running across the clearing.
"Finnick!" I shriek as I approach my mentor. He had just finished stabbing a knife through Target's chest and when I leap at him in excitement the cannon goes off for my captor.
"Hey there, hope we didn't take too long?" Finnick teases, hugging me before Titus appears and does the same, his embrace even tighter.
"You silly girl, what did you think you were doing? You never could follow instructions!" My old friend scolds me but there's a look in his eyes that tells me he isn't as serious as he could be, though he is still worried.
"I had to do something – you didn't think I would just accept going with Haymitch and…" My sentence dies away as I look around the group for Rory, but my eyes eventually find Katniss and Haymitch who are standing solemnly on the edge of the group, not joining in on the reunion.
"Oh no…" I murmur and it's all I need to say. Katniss walks up me and at this close range I can see her eyes look overcome with sorrow.
"On the way here we bumped into Enobaria. Titus killed one of them and as revenge she got Rory. It happened so fast." I hug Katniss for the loss of what seemed like one of her good friends, but the feeling doesn't go all the way to my heart, knowing that this is just the beginning of the games.
"A lot has changed, sweetheart." Haymitch says cryptically.
Kaine's POV
She's gone.
I growl and kick over the stand of spears. If she had been there, she would have been impaled by one of their sharp tips, but she wasn't and she isn't.
"If I didn't know any better, it would seem like you had feelings for her." Litty comments from her position out of reach by the entrance of the cornucopia. She is leaning casually against the doorframe of the structure, looking no worse for wear at the fact that we have just lost our most valuable asset.
"She was our only way of getting Cato coming straight to our door, vulnerable and looking to be the knight in shining armour. That's another step that they've gained on us!"
"Stop thinking about it like that Kaine," The dark haired girl says, her blue eyes gleaming as she approaches me, "Cato will come to us wanting blood soon enough. You don't really think that she's actually changed him, do you?" Her tone is accusing, as if she had read my thoughts during my earlier conversation with Grey.
"Of course not," I say moodily, "I was just irritated that we've wasted our time looking after a hostage that proved no use to us."
"Oh I wouldn't say that." Litty's voice is sly and as it runs over me I relax into her belief that everything is going to be okay. She's right next to me now and one of her hands traces up under my shirt, sending my thoughts in the direction of what would happen right now if I just-
Pain. I look down at myself in shock to see Litty holding up my shirt to reveal my stomach, a long dagger embedded deep into it. I groan and fall to the ground, clutching the wound. My brain struggles to come up with a plausible explanation, how – why – was I suddenly dying?
"Stop thinking so hard Kaine," Litty says from above me, her image already beginning to fade. I've heard sight is one of the first senses to go prior to your death, hearing being the last. "Is it really that hard to believe?"
"Love…" I croak out, only managing part of the sentence I was trying to get out. I hear her scoff.
"Love is for cowards like them, not careers like us. Love will never get you anywhere except dead, dear Kaine. Funny that."
I hear her lean down so her mouth is right beside my ear but I can no longer see my old ally. Even my hearing is beginning to fade in and out. How far did she push that knife of hers?
"Sleep Kaine, sleep like little Target. Know that now it's time for the girls to play. Except I'm not playing around like you were."
The sound of the cannon is music to her ears. Kaine's body now lies deadly still between the fallen spears, his face frozen. That Grey girl had obviously gotten to him while they he was watching her, and emotions were a liability. He had to be finished before he could do any damage.
"Life goes so fast, doesn't it?" A voice says from outside the cornucopia, causing her to turn around and pull the dagger out from Kaine's heart, brandishing it ready for another killing shot.
"It's indeed a precious thing." Litty replies strongly. The newcomer is leaning casually against the cornucopia entrance, staring intently at Kaine's motionless body. The position is so much like Litty's own when she had approached her district partner only a few minutes ago that she is curious enough to lower her weapon and take a step towards them. The enemy takes an elusive step backwards.
"I don't recognize you, where have you been all this time?" Litty demands, angry but also curious to how someone has slipped under her radar so easily.
"My name is Peyton, District Nine. It seems you only notice people you want to notice, Lightning from District One, it's not a particularly beneficial habit in this game we're playing."
"You seem interesting," Litty begins as she holds back fury at the tribute's veiled taunts, "So I'm going to let you go. Maybe I'll even give you to the count of three to-" She holds up her dagger ready to throw it – who was she kidding, she doesn't give three second head starts – but the girl is already gone. There's nothing but silence and the sound of a faraway hovercraft coming to pick up her betrayed district partner, and she takes time wiping the blood off her dagger to hide her confusion.