Disclaimer: My City of Bones poster and my Finnick poster came in today! What? No, I don't own either of those franchises.
She ended up using her real name. The signal to begin the games rings out across this year's arena, a snowy forest. One has died already. District 9 dropped her token, a little wooden ball, thirty seconds into the countdown. There's nothing left but bits of her around her plate, turningthe snow red with blood. Azula, who was on the plate next to her, is splattered with blood and bits of flesh. Her face is slightly green as she runs towards the pile of supplies inside the golden structure of the cornucopia.
Johanna Mason starts swearing violently as her girl tribute gets the blade of a knife sunk into her arm. That woman has the mouth of a drunk sailor. My screen flashes to signal the support of another sponsor. Her training score, a ten, gleams beneath that. Julian got a nine. The girl from District 2, Adair Sevine, also scored a ten. Anna's sister. How could this happen?
The boy from Two, Agrippa, gets a blade through the heart from behind before falling to the ground. From two cubes away I hear Enobaria scream in frustration and pain. Someone told me that Agrippa was her cousin. I hope adair goes quickly, like him.
Azula skewers the girl from District 3, Leann I think her name is, through the back with a knife. Leann spins around and gasps, choking on her own blood. She coughs it all over Azula, who screams in disgust before sinking her knife through Leann's neck, which kills her immediately. Then she leans down and grabs a handful of white snow. She rubs it all over her arms, trying in vain to get the quickly drying blood off of her skin. I lean into the next cube and whisper my apologies to Beetee. He just shrugs.
~A few days later~
Julian makes it to the ninth day before being taken down by the surprisingly strong boy from Seven. I hear Johanna cheer and Finnick sends her dirty look. She smiles and sticks out her tongue at us.
"I think you missed something, Jo-Jo," Finnick says as on the screen, Azula kills Johanna's boy with one whip of her razor-sharp knife across his neck. Finnick smirks while I cheer. Johanna sends me a dirty look. I stick out my tongue.
"You are so immature, ViVi," she says rather loudly. Even the morphlings from six, who, surprisingly, still have a trbute alive, glance at her as if she's crazy.
"Oh, Jo-Jo, you're wearing a shirt with dancing trees on it. That's not immature," I snap back.
"Blight gave this to me," she says, sounding offended.
"You look great, Joey," says Blight drunkenly. I roll my eyes. He's almost as bad as Haymitch Abernathy, with his booze.
"Victoria!" I jump out of my seat as the voice whispers in my ear. When I turn around and see who it it, I hiss. Finnick makes and angry cat sound, makes his eyes go all crazy-looking, plasters an insane looking grin on his face, and extends his hands to look like cat claws.
"The claws are about to come out, everyone!" I swat his arm.
"Leona, what are you doing here! Escorts aren't allowed in here."
"I'm not an escort. My father, who was a gamemaker, has just retired, and the other gamemakers voted me as his successor."
"And you came in here why? And congratulations, I'll never have to see you again on my stage."
"Actually, I came to give you a hint for next year's games."
I go to say that we don't need hewr help, but Finnick elbows me lightly in the ribs, effectively cutting off my breath.
"So, the hint?" he asks.
"No weapons in the cornucopia. You need to teach your tribute how to use regular household weapons. The arena's going to be a rural countryside with a few farmhouse. but don't train your tributes especially for household weapons or their hands. It'll look suspicious, and the other gamemakers will kill them off the second they think something's up with them."
She turns and walks out. I smile. Next year is going to be a piece of cake.
~A few days later~
On day thirteen, it's down to the final two. Azula and Adair. Adair and Azula. I'm on the edge of my seat, hands gripping the armrests. My knuckles are as white as the snowy groung of the arena.
The only ones left in the mentoring hub are Finnick and I, Lyme and Enobaria, Johanna, and Cashmere and Gloss. It was a four-way finale. Cahsmere and Gloss's boy tribute, Jasper, was killed by Adair after her finished off the girl from District 7.
At that point, Azula had jumped from her vantage point in a snow-covered pine tree with low branches, right on top of Adair. Adair's hand had still been holding on to the knife that was still in Jasper's back, the one she used to stab him with. The knife had spun out of her hand, landing a little ways away from her hand. Azula had used the element of surprise to her advantage. She has Adair pinnied to the ground.
Azula teasingly brings the blade of her knife across Adair's neck, taunting her. Not hard enough to kill Adair, but enough to make little red beads of blood start to well up on Adair's pale neck. Get it over with, Azula, I think. She better hurry up. Adair is moving, squirming little by little, to her discarded knife ten inches away from her outstretched left hand.
"Hurry up already, Azula," I whimper. Finnick has his arm around my shoulder, and his eyes are closed. The lines on his face stand out visibly, making him look older.
Adair's slim fingers wrap around the hilt of her knife and she lifts it over Azula's head. Azula doesn't even notice. I make a low moaning noise in the back of my throat. As Azula's knife presses harder into Adair's neck, Adair raises her knife high and plunges it, hilt-deep, into the small of Azula's back.
An unearthly wailing fills my ears as Azula rolls off of Adair and collapses onto the snow, couching up blood and gasping for air. It takes a few seconds for me to realize that the wailing noise is coming out of my mouth.
"To... to hell... to hell with the Capitol... May Snow... may Snow burn in hell... ViVi, take care... of the twins... tell them... tell them that I love them..." she rasps, blood staining her lips a crimson color. She takes one last rattling breath, then goes still. Blood slowly seeps out from the wound on her back, coloring the snow around her a bright red.
A cannon booms. "Ladies and gentlemen, the winneof this year's Hunger Games, District 2's Adair Sevine!" says Claudius Templesmith over the loudspeakers in the arena and in the mentoring hub.
I practically melt into Finnick's arms, sobbing. Cashmere comes over and hugs me while Gloss pats my back. They no what it's like to mentor a sibling and watch them die on a screen. Their sister Sunny was reaped this year because Gloss refused President Snow's "offer" after he won last year. Sunny was too young to be part of the pack, and the boy from District 6, Ethan, had swung his swrod through her neck in the bloodbath. Jasper killed him not thirty seconds after.
What I don't get is why nobody in District 1 volunteered for a fourteen year old girl. They're not like District 4. The chosen volunteers always volunteer, even if the person who is reaped is eighteen years old and looks like they could crack a diamond in half with their fist. The same goes for District 2.
Even Johanna hugs me. She went on her victory tour, and when she came back, she found her mother, her father, and her four siblings lying in pools of blood on the floor of her house in Victor's Vilage, supposedly because of her stunt in the games and her nasty attitude during all three of her Caesar Flickerman interviews.
It seems like I'm the only one around here with family left.
Instead of shaking my hand, Lyme hugs me. Enobaria doesn't even shake my hand, which is normally what the mentors of the victor and the final kill do. She just smiles and bares her fangs at me. That's it, I'm done swallowing her crap.
"Come at me, you Capitol mutt! See what happens! I don't care if you've got fangs, I'll rip your heart right out of your damn chest!" I shriek while tears run down my face freely. Finnick holds me back while I try to lunge at her. She laughs. The artificial light from the chandelier above us glints off her teeth.
Finnick drags me to the elevator, Pushes me inside, and hits the button for Level 4. When the door opens, he half pushes me, half drags me to my room. I curl up on my bed and burst into a wave a fresh tears. Finnick sits in the chair next to the bed and pats my head awkwardly.
"This is why Marlin and I fight, and this is why you need to," he says suddenly. That takes me by surprise.
R&R, please!