We made a basic camp in an arch created by two bent trees, covered with vines. When we lit a small fire the shelter filled with smoke, but at least it dispersed it before it drifted above the trees. I ate the meat that Brutus handed me in silence, watching through a gap in the trees as the group across from us dove into the water. As the sun began to set they sat on the beach and I even heard laughter drift across to us. I growled low in my throat at that.
It could have been idyllic really. The fake sun cast an orange glow across the top of the water. Their shadows stretched longer on the sand. I sat in furious stillness and watched them for hours while Brutus slept. I had refused to sleep and he had argued that he wasn't the one who had nearly collapsed with exhaustion. Eventually he gave into my stubbornness though, realizing that at least one of us should get some rest and I wasn't going to take my eyes from the group on the beach.
My rage kept me awake and alert as he slept, cuddling his sword like a child might cuddle a soft toy.
A short time after the anthem played to an empty kill tally, the group began to move, packing up their things, tossing something into the sea, and then trekking along the beach towards us. I nudged Brutus awake with my foot and quickly retracted it in case he decided to slice as me with his sword. Waking a Career was a risky business.
He was up and alert in an instant, crouching beside me and peering out at the darkened beach. "They're on the move," he declared and I rolled my eyes at his obvious statement.
"Then so are we." I didn't wait for his agreement before I was up and running through the jungle, renewed energy at the prospect of the ultimate kill. Every hundred yards I paused and peered through the trees to see where they were, until I caught them slipping into the shadows of the jungle. I slowed but kept moving, hopping lightly over roots and ducking under low hanging branches. I assumed Brutus was behind me but I couldn't hear him.
I did hear Fire Girl and Johanna though. They weren't a soft in their treading and twigs and leaves snapped and crackled under their feet as they walked slowly through the trees. I stopped, assessing the situation, wondering if it was a trap. They appeared to be on their own and they were walking slowly. Fire Girl had her cursed bow ready and was scanning the trees across from me. I smiled sinisterly as I watched her. She might be good with that bow and arrow but I was here, watching, and I could have a knife in her throat before she even thought about releasing an arrow.
I took a step closer towards them, still crouched in the bushes. Brutus materialized beside me. He tapped my shoulder and pointed at something a few feet above them on the jungle floor. Reluctantly I dragged my gaze from Fire Girl and followed his pointing. Something glistened in the moonlight, shining unnaturally in this Arena. I narrowed my eyes and looked back at Johanna and Fire Girl. The same glistening caught my eye in Johanna's hand. She was unraveling something, a wire by the looks of it.
"They're alone." Brutus' words were a breath against my ear that made my skin prickle. This was what we had been waiting for, their separation. Fire Girl and Johanna- two of my biggest enemies here, and we could take them both down.
I was distracted by a murmured conversation between them and when I looked back, Brutus had vanished again. I scanned the trees desperately for him, hoping he hadn't gone in for the kill without me. He would be sorry if he had.
I caught a shift of movement in the dark shadows further up the slope and somehow recognised the shape as Brutus. He had gone above them and was using their discussion as cover to slip out into the open. I watched him curiously, wondering what his plan was and then there was the softest of snaps and the glistening golden strand on the ground spun into a curl around Fire Girl and Johanna. They stared at each other for half a second and then, to my shock, Johanna lifted something and bashed Fire Girl hard on the head. I gasped, anger and delight mixing equally, and pounced from my hiding place. Brutus was thundering down the slope towards us, his silent stealth abandoned. I sprinted to catch up to his path, racing towards where Johanna and Fire Girl were on the ground.
The adrenalin was flying as fast as my legs. I wanted this kill. I need this kill. I'd make Johanna's death so slow and painful if she had taken it from me.
As we approached she darted away, disappearing into the shadows and leaving Fire Girl on the ground. I tried to focus on her as I dashed. She wasn't moving and even in the moonlight it was clear there was blood pooled across her skin. I skidded to a stop, breathing hard and staring at her lifeless body.
No. No, no, no she couldn't be dead. I had to kill her! I wanted to finish what Clove hadn't. I wanted to have her beneath me just like Clove had had her, have her looking up into my eyes, have her see there who I was, what she had taken from me.
She wasn't breathing. A scream of frustration tore itself from my throat. I was going to murder Johanna for that.
"She's good as dead!" Brutus bellowed from somewhere behind me. "Come on, Enobaria!" His footsteps pounded away after the retreating tribute.
I hovered half a second, watching, willing a breath to rise in my enemy, but she was as still as the dead.
In pure rage I spun and raced up the hill in the vague direction that Brutus had followed Johanna. I didn't care who died now. I'd kill anyone who appeared before me, just to feel the satisfaction of murder that should have been for Fire Girl. I didn't care if they killed me either, as long as it would make this painful anger stop. It hurt to breathe but was it from the humidity ripping my lungs as I ran as hard as I could, or was it my soul finally tearing itself apart?
Someone was ahead of my in the trees. A shadow darted across patches of moonlight and I made straight for it. Johanna. No one else was that small. I had no idea where Brutus had gone and I didn't care.
Before I'd stopped running, my anger marring my aim, I spun a knife towards the shadow's head. It hit a tree trunk nearby with a dull thud, alerting Johanna. Her head snapped towards me and she snarled, swinging her axe before her. I threw another knife, this one better aimed, but she ducked behind a tree and appeared on the other side, dancing out of my reach.
"You knew this was coming, Johanna," I snarled as we circled each other like wolves. My eyes darted over her limbs, the glistening edge of her axe that was ready to slice into me like it had Cashmere. "You knew I'd come for you."
She actually laughed icily, though it sounded hysterical with tension. We matched each other step for step, never getting closer but never getting further apart. "Still as stupid as ever, District Two," she snarled.
I darted in and swiped at her but she danced out of the way. I ducked back just as her axe swung through where I'd been. They weren't serious moves, just little tests of the tension between us. We resumed out wary pacing.
"Don't you see?" she said slowly, one word for every careful footfall. "You're so busy being angry at the universe you never stopped to see what's right in front of you."
She was just buying time, trying to distract me. That might work on a lesser fighter but I was too smart for that. "What's right in front of me is a pathetic excuse for a Victor," I replied evenly. "A soon to be dead pathetic excuse. You took my kill, Seven. Fire Girl, she was mine."
Johanna swung with her axe, nowhere near me. "Why? Because she lived and your sister dearest didn't?"
I snarled and slashed at her, in my anger hitting her arm. I drew blood but I knew it was a trap as soon as I did. The edge of her axe caught my shoulder as I spun away, reopening the wounds from the monkeys. I ignored the pain, nothing compared to my anger and hatred now.
"We've all lost someone," Johanna continued as if our little attack hadn't happened. "And we chose to take our revenge on those who took them away. You're just still screaming like a spoilt child. Put that anger to use, Two, why don't you?"
"Take it out on you?" I retorted, spinning and slashing. "Gladly."
She snarled at me, hissing like a rabid cat. "We tried to enlist you. You chose not to. There are bigger things at play than revenge for your dead sister, Two."
Whatever she meant I was beyond caring. Vaguely a memory snapped up in my mind, of Johanna talking to me in the Training Centre, of cyptic confusing conversation with her and Finnick, of Gloss and Cashmere talking conspiratorially amongst themselves. There had been a lot that didn't feel right since these Games had begun, but I was too focused on my anger and revenge to care. I still was.
I dismissed her words and the thoughts that flashed through my mind. "I don't care if I go down too, Johanna," I said, taking a step towards her. "As long as you go down with me."
It was the first time I had spoken aloud about my indifference to surviving these Games. It didn't matter now, everything was ending. Somewhere overhead a canon boomed. Fire Girl? Loverboy? Chaff?
Johanna was distracted, she glanced up, a flicker of worry crossing her face. I took the opportunity and lunged at her, bringing my blade down where her throat should have been. She vanished, spinning away and instead something else came towards me out of the corner of my eye. Pain burst across my back but I still spun, growling. Finnick brandished a branch of wood, swinging it with ease. Johanna was nowhere to be seen.
"Rescuing your little girlfriend, Finnick?" I spat, bearing down upon him. He stepped back calmly, still spinning the branch. "Using her to replace Raven? Good thing she's dead, what do you think she'd think of your murderous side if she could see this?" I was using old wounds against him but he remained as calm as ever.
"Katniss wasn't really who you wanted to kill, was it, Enobaria?" he asked as we made our way back up the slope. "It was Snow who killed your sister. It's Snow you really hate. What if you could help bring him down?"
I didn't know how he knew about Clove, Johanna had probably told him, but it didn't matter anymore who knew.
Another canon boomed. The numbers were dropping. The Games were ending.
Finnick raised an eyebrow at me questioningly and I tuned into his words. He was right, I didn't know how, but it had always been Snow I hated more than any other thing on earth. I couldn't stop myself from glancing around instinctively though. They were watching this, undoubtedly, and here was Finnick talking openly about killing the President. I supposed it didn't matter, if he was going to die anyway.
We were still moving swiftly up the slope. A part of my marveled at his ability to walk so calmly, backward no less, through the dark jungle. I bet his fans in the Capitol were loving that.
"Catch me if you can," he said suddenly and threw the branch at me like a javelin. I ducked under it easily with lightning quick reflexes but by the time I had straightened myself again he had vanished into the shadows. I could hear him though, he wasn't sneaking away, he was sprinting without care through the jungle.
I took off in pursuit, uncaring if I made myself a target with noise or if I was running into a trap. What did it even matter anymore?
Ahead of me I saw him reach the massive tree where they had had lunch and I realized that it was the tree that had been hit by the lightning. The same glistening strands of wire that Brutus had cut were looped on the ground around the tree. Finnick leaped over them as he dashed passed, skidding to a halt on the other side of the clearing. I followed him, halting at the same place, knife held out ready. This definitely felt like a trap.
"Decorating the tree for Christmas?" I asked, eyes flicking madly between Finnick, the tree and the jungle, trying to figure out what was going on. Brutus was nowhere to be seen, neither was Johanna.
Finnick was jumpy as I was, his eyes following a similar path as mine. His head whipped around, searching the jungle. He looked worried, perhaps something had gone wrong with their plan. I slide my last knife into my palm.
"Where's your friends, Finnick?" I asked, taking a step closer. "Found yourself all alone have you?"
His eyes snapped to mine. "No. That's the difference between us, Enobaria."
Before I could wonder what he meant there was a noise, a cry across the clearing. Two dark shadows skidded to a halt on the edge of the trees and in a glance I recognized Johanna and Peeta. At the same time the sky overhead crackled ominously and I realized what was about to happen- the lightning. Finnick and I were standing so close to the tree. Was this the trap? Did he not care if he died either as long as he took me out?
Behind the tree a silhouette rose, a bow in her hand. I gasped. Fire Girl.
It all happened in half a second- Johanna and Peeta arriving, Finnick throwing himself to the ground away from the tree, Fire Girl rising from the dead, and finally the lightning, soaring down out of the sky, exploding on the tree and setting the air around me on fire. Then a bigger explosion- the entire world dissolved.
The blast threw me into the air, slammed me into the ground with more force than a truck. I couldn't move as the sky overhead erupted in a chain of explosions, raining down flaming sky and setting the trees around us alight. I had no idea where anyone else was, who was even still alive. I wasn't sure that I was alive as I failed to draw burning air into my lungs. My vision went black but my other senses still fed me pain and heat and then the roar of a hovercraft.
My last thought was that we were all dead, one way or another, and that for the first time in 75 years the Hunger Games didn't have a victor.
A/N: It has been sooo long since I posted a chapter that I'm uploading three at once. I king of lost motivation for posting new chapters (even though they're all already written) when I felt like not many people were interested in the story anymore. However I have received a couple of absolutely lovely and encouraging reviews that made me want to start posting again just for those readers, even if no one else. So I hope you enjoy - possibly not the right word - these chapters, and I sincerely hope that I can keep up the posting so I can finally finish this saga before the final movie comes out in November. Thank you so much everyone who is still hanging in there; there will never be words to describe how much I love and appreciate all of your comments and messages.
- Lu