My entire world seems to fall out from beneath me and I am frozen to the spot. The scream continues in my head even after it has died out in the arena. There was no doubt in my mind. That was Justin's voice and Justin's scream. He was in trouble.
"There he is! Get him!"
I round on the section of trees that the harsh voice came from, hearing again the laughter of a Career pack. Gripping the damp sword hilt in a sweaty palm I crash into the forest, disregarding the amount of noise I was making. Moonlight broke through the treetops above, landing in fractured beams that distort my surroundings. My pulse jumps at the slightest shadow ahead, but each time it turns out to be a leaf or a flying bird.
Stopping in a small clearing I try to catch my breath and listen for any sign of the hunters. For a moment I'm afraid I lost them. The night was silent again and it was like the screaming and the laughter never existed. Then I hear a sharp clack of a blade on wood and a distinct shattering of glass with another scream. It wasn't Justin's screams this time and they were quickly followed by a string of curses.
"You'll pay for this you bastard. We're going to make your little girl beg for death because of you!"
"Justin." I whisper.
I run in the direction of their taunts, a slow fire burning in the pits of my stomach. One thought crosses my mind and it is of my blade running through the ones who made my brother scream. If he should die, if he should even be injured, they would pay.
I am so wrapped up in the thoughts of revenge that I almost don't see the shadow rapidly approaching. It stumbles through the trees ahead and then we collide. My sword is knocked from my grip as we roll across the forest floor and hit a fallen tree. We break apart immediately and I scramble towards the sword through the piles of dead leaves and mud. I reach it at the same moment I hear a bow being drawn and rise to my feet to face my assailant.
An arrow head meets me, but it is quickly dropped and I see the sweat streaked face of my brother. Justin doesn't hesitate in dropping his weapon and gathering me up in a crushing embrace. My arms quickly find their way around his neck and I bury my head in his shoulder. He was alive. Justin was still alive.
"You are so stupid." I tell him.
"I know. I know, I know, I know."
"You could have been killed. You could have died."
There was a breath of hesitation and he hugs me tighter.
"Emma, I'm so sorry…We need to run. They're coming for you."
I nod and pull back from him, taking his hand as we ran off in the opposite direction of the Careers. We quickly pass the small clearing I had paused at and I hear the sound of pursuit gaining behind us. Justin abruptly changes direction and we run parallel to the river, heading for the fall it spilled from. The rushing waters sound loud in the forest even when they couldn't be seen and it masks the sounds of the Careers.
Justin unexpectedly stumbles beside me and falls to the ground, taking me with him. Pushing up from the ground I see Justin legs tangle with a trap made of vines. I stand and begin hacking at the vines, trying to cut as quickly as possible without cutting him. He reaches into his pack and draws a knife, removing some of the smaller vines.
I can hear the Careers now over the waters and turn to see their shadows dart in between the trees. Justin at last frees himself and staggers to his feet. Taking my hand, he wordlessly pulls me in towards the gulley until we break through the tree cover.
The gap between us and the opposite bank somehow seems wider and I wonder if we would be able to make it this time. A spear thuds into the ground just inches from where we stood and I knew that we had no choice.
"We do it together." I gasp.
Justin looks overly pale in the moonlight and his lips are pressed into a tight line, but he nods. Backing up, our backs press against the forest and my spine tingles with the presence of our hunters.
"There's nowhere to run, Sweetheart!" Engle's voice rang out behind me. "I'm coming for you!"
I spare a glance behind us and see him race through the forest, achieving speeds I never thought possible. Even his alliance was lagging behind him. He grins recklessly when he notices me watching and he is close enough that I notice his incisors are filed into fangs. They hadn't been like that when the games began and the sight of his fangs drew the hairs up on the back of my neck. Engle had prepared himself for me.
"Emma, we have to jump!" Justin's shout is desperate and I tear my gaze from Engle's teeth. "We have to do it now!"
Without hesitation, we ran for the black mouth of the gulley and kick off from the soft edge of the bank. Time seems to stand still and in that moment it felt like we hung for an eternity. We were in the middle of reaching salvation and being caught by the enemy, death lingering below us in the hungry waters. Then eternity broke and Justin tightened beside me, a strangled cry breaking past his lips.
We fell towards the opposite bank, landing on the soft dirt just past the gulley's opening. It wasn't enough and I felt Justin slide back from me over the edge, his weight dragging me with him. I scramble against his pull, searching for a way to stop our descent. A second before we fell completely over I drive my sword into the ground and anchor us.
Justin drops off the edge and the sword slips through the dirt before catching on something as I hang over the gulley. My entire body screams and I catch my breath with the pain, digging my fingers into the only thing keeping us together.
"Emma!"
My face twists as I see Justin barely holding onto me, his pack spiralling down away from us and hitting the roaring rapids. He catches hold of my wrist only to have his other hand slip out from my grasp.
"Don't let go of me!" I shout, desperation leaking into my voice. "Give me your other hand!"
I strain against his weight, trying to lift him up so that he could grab hold of the ledge, but it was no use. I wasn't strong enough and a heavy wind no doubt engineered by the gamemakers took hold of us so that we were swinging around like a pendulum.
"Emma, I'm slipping!"
The terror in his voice needles its way into my chest and I know that he was moments away from giving up. That couldn't happen. Not now, not ever.
"I can't hold onto you for much longer!" he gasps and I feel his grip slipping.
My fingers wrap around him, gripping him so tightly that I bruise.
"Don't you dare let go of me! Not after everything we've been through! You can't die, Justin!"
"Emma," his voice is surprisingly calm, but it only makes things worse, "I'm already dead."
He unfolds his jacket from his torso, revealing a chest bathed in blood. His shirt stuck to him and I saw a long gash running across his stomach. It was a miracle Justin was even conscious let alone able to run. My face screws up, but the tears do not come. Instead I feel the fire from before and harden my grip, determined not to lose him.
"You have to let go of me. I'm too far gone…You have to be the one who survives."
Justin looks down below to where his feet dangle and his grip abruptly slips even further until we were just holding fingers. He faces me once more, the terror apparent as he knew that his time was about to run out.
It happens in an instant, but it was like time stretched out between us as I felt him slip from my grasp. Justin fell into the open space, plummeting towards the rapids with nothing to catch him. His light gaze catches me briefly before the foaming waters swallow him.
"JUSTIN!"
His name rips away from me leaving my throat feeling raw and empty, just like my reaching hand. There is a whistling and I lean back from a spray of stone and dirt that erupts from an arrow burying into the wall next to me. Another quickly follows and I glance up to see Engle with Justin's bow. Our eyes meet and I let go of my sword, falling after my brother and hitting the icy waters.
I was immediately drawn under their black depths that threaten to drown me as I am swept away from the Careers. Clawing my way towards the surface, I take in a strangled breath before being pulled back under to scrape along the murky bottom.
I feel my jacket catch on something, yanking me back with a force that frees my held breath. It refuses to let me go even as I fight to pull away, holding me down from reaching the surface. Struggling against the current that continues to drag my feet forward, I twist out from my jacket in a way that make my shoulders scream with pain and knew that the bone was just moments away from popping out of its socket. At the last second I feel the leather of my jacket tear as my arms slip from the sleeve's grasp and I looked up to see the clawing fingers of a tree's roots shudder in my retreat.
Without warning, my back slams into a hard, smooth surface that knocks me from the rushing river's grasp and throws me into shallow waters. The current is calmer here and allows me to blindly pull myself onto a soggy bank. I pull myself partly out of the water before I collapse, coughing up black water from my lungs.
My cheek presses into slimy mud and my vision blurs in and out several times before focusing. There is a groan nearby and I struggle to my knees, looking around for Justin. He lies at the foot of a large boulder sticking into the river; the same boulder that had knocked me onto the bank. I only have the strength to crawl to his side and I sink against the boulder.
Tears stream unhindered down my face and I work to lift Justin's limp body into my lap. He is still breathing, his eyes barely open, but he was dying. One look at his pale complexion that continued to drain of colour told me that much.
Justin sucks in a hitching breath and looks up at me, blinking when my tears hit his face.
"I told you to let go of me." He rasps.
"No," I whimper, "I'll never let go of you. Justin, please. Stay with me."
"It's okay, it's okay. Everything was worth it, Emma."
He hushes me and his hand finds mine while the other wipes at my face. Slowly he begins to trace on my palm, outlining a stream of numbers.
"I found it." He tells me. "I found what you need…You can do this without me. You have to survive."
"Don't say that-"
"You have to promise me, Emma." He cuts me off, his hand closing over mine. "Promise that you won't kill them for what they did. Promise me that-you won't-let them—change you."
I take his face in my hand, seeing the stars from the cloudless sky reflected in his eyes.
"I just can't make that promise." I whisper.
My body crumples above him, overwrought with crushing emotions that made it hard to breath. His expression saddens, but he gives one last smile even as his eyes dim.
"My brother." I say, not ready to give him up.
"My sister." he breathes and then he is gone.
A canon sounds above us, but I barely hear it. Justin's grip loosens, falling away to slap into the pool of water drifting beside us. An anguished cry escapes from my clogged throat and I hold him close, willing this to all be a dream. This couldn't be real. Justin couldn't be dead.
"No." I moan, shaking him even though I knew it was useless. "No, no, no. Please wake up, Justin. Tell me this isn't happening-this isn't real, this isn't real..."
I crumple into uncontrollable sobbing over him, heedless of the Career threat and actually wishing that they would come. I wish for them to end my suffering, to take my life so that I would not be living this hell. The Games had already taken me from my home and have now taken my brother so why were they waiting before they took my life?
But no one came and I continue to clutch my brother's limp body until I begin to understand the faux President Snow had already taken my life. I was broken, torn away from everything I held dear and at last ready to be shaped like soft clay for their entertainment. If this was what they wanted from me, if killing my brother was how they believed they were going to get it, then it was time I showed them what I was truly capable of.
Slowly my grief turns to hatred and anger, the fear I once had of the games vanishing. The fire in my belly turns into a full blaze and I vow to avenge my brother.
Gently I lay Justin's head down on the muddy bank and rise to follow a riverbed that had become dry. I don't look back even when I hear an aircraft materialize to take Justin away. At last I come to a part of the gulley that evens out and climb up to the forest above. Retracing my steps, I travel to the point where we had fallen and find my sword still dug into the dirt.
The sky was just beginning to brighten, the sun rising ahead like an orb of molten gold. Shaking with the hatred, anger, and grief that had consumed me, I reach for my sword and draw it from the ground. I hold it aloft and gaze into the shining steel, seeing the numbers Justin had given me. They were forever inscribed in my minds eyes as well as the image of my brother's fear. I had failed to save him, but I wasn't going fail from avenging him. Engle Arons would pay.
Backing up only a couple steps, I leap over the gap and immediately land into a run. I hope the Capitol is watching now. I hope they see what they have done. The games had never really begun at the cornucopia. They were beginning now and wouldn't stop until the ones who killed my brother were gone.