Author's Note: Warning - this chapter contains scenes of nudity, sexuality between minors, and brutal bloody torture of preteens. This is a work of fiction and this author does not condone sexuality between minors, or brutal bloody torture of preteens in real life. Viewer discretion is advised.

Chapter 15: Passion In Paradise

Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith on the television:

"Oh, my, God!" said Caesar Flickerman. "That was exciting! I don't know how she pulled it off, but she is brilliant!"

"Yes, I quite agree Caesar," said Claudius Temple Smith, "I mean we all saw how she found the Career Pack, followed them for days until they were in the right position, and then cleverly lured them to where they would have to make the difficult jump, then escaping them by pretending to jump by standing right at the edge, and when they let their guard down, leaping off of a cliff into water, and using her whip to take one of them with her! I mean…it is genius!"

"Well, she did tell me in her TV interview that her greatest strength was her brain, and that we were all excited to see her ingenuity in the arena. It seems that she didn't disappoint." said Caesar.

"Personally, I have not seen a trick of killing some of the Career Tributes, and then a escaping them, since Katniss Everdeen dropped a hive of Tracker Jackers on them in the 74th Games." said Claudius.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen," said Caesar, "more exciting moments in the 76th Hunger Games to come. Along with other statistics during the Games, we now go to get to, 'Living Tributes Kill Count'. The living Tributes are down to the top 10. The score currently stands at; in the lead, Beverly O'Malley, has made 3 kills.

"Amanda Snow and Dennis Green have each made 2 kills.

"David Crane, Martha Filmer, and Irene Avion, have each made 1 kill.

"All other Tributes that have made kills, are now deceased, may they rest in peace. All other living Tributes have currently made, no kills. We will continue to give you regular updates as the Games progress."

It had been 5 minutes since Beverly O'Malley had killed Janice Miller. The Career Pack was walking back to the bridge to the next island. Martha was mad as she applied a bandage to her bleeding forehead.

"You know, this is all your fault!" said Martha, referring to the death of their two fallen teammates.

"My fault!?" said David. "You were the one who was nearest to her, and should have grabbed her before you got hit with a filed broom handle!"

Martha took offense to that, and the three of them went on like that for awhile, throwing blames at each other.

"Alright! That's it!" said Dennis, "From now on I'm going it alone!"

And Dennis started walking away.

"Fine! You did nothing but hold me back anyway!" said Martha, and then walked off in another direction.

"Good riddance to you both!" said David angrily.

In a secret room, some District malcontents met. They were frustrated that it still seemed likely that Amanda would win, while they tried to think of something. They fretted over the fact that the Career pack had broken up, no fault of Amanda of course, but they foolishly, stubbornly blamed her for everything. This was all a major setback. But they continued to conspire.

Day 9 of the Games, Island F8 (The Arctic Forest), 11:50 pm arena time,

Amanda, Blaze, and Hector, rested all day by the fire pit. As they had guessed, anyone who comes onto the island turns right around and flees from the cold. Amanda still couldn't believe that Lisa was gone. She had been good friends with her since kindergarten. And who killed her? The Gamemakers! Lisa didn't die at the hand of a Tribute who was just trying to win, just trying to survive. No. She died at the hands of the Gamemakers, she didn't even have a chance to defend herself. At least had she gone up against another Tribute, she could have simply lost in a fair fight. Amanda knew that one of them would not make it out alive, but being faced with the reality of it actually happening right in front of her gives her a whole new perspective on the Games. She was torn between having even more sympathy for what the District Tributes went through, and hating the Districts for forcing the Games on her and Lisa. Though her logic and reasoning made her never forget that the Capitol had done far worse than drowning people in the Games. And the Capitol had been well treated by the Districts ever since the end of the war. The peacekeepers, who were all District citizens, enforced the law in the Capitol with benevolence, and Districts 4, 9, 10, and 11 had given the Capitol more than enough food, along with employment, and recreation. She decided to let the matter rest, and continued to think of memories with Lisa.

Amanda had been practicing with her throwing knives all day. It helped her release her pent up rage and apathy. The frozen tree that she had been throwing her knives at was covered in gouges and knife marks. She had been practicing with her left hand. She was getting the hang of it. She tried throwing two knives at once, but she was more used to the concentrating on the flinging of just one wrist at a time. Trying to concentrate on the flinging of both wrists at once was throwing off her aim of both hands. She tried throwing two knives with one hand, but that was even worse.

Her elbows and shoulders were hurting from flinging her arms out hard again and again all day. She popped one of the painkillers from the first aid kit and felt better. She sat down next to Blaze only to realize that he was crying as well, though he was trying hard to hide it.

"What's wrong?" asked Amanda.

"Nothing." said Blaze.

Amanda decided to press it.

"Is it because of Lisa dying?" asked Amanda.

Blaze looked at Amanda with curiosity.

"What if it was?" asked Blaze.

"Well, if it was, I would know how you feel of course, it's just I didn't know you felt that strongly for her." explained Amanda. "Plus, she had to die sometime or neither one of us would be able to win."

Blaze was quiet for a moment, then he responded.

"You were right...about me having strong feelings for Lisa." said Blaze, "I didn't plan on winning. You see...I loved her."

Amanda's eyes went wide with surprise at the green haired boy's confession of love for her best friend.

"Why do you think I joined your alliance?" asked Blaze rhetorically. "I wasn't just looking for any old alliance to join. If it wasn't for Lisa, I would have joined the Career Pack. I loved her since the first grade. I first met her at a party of my father's ten years ago, before she turned herself yellow. It was a silly preteen crush, but my feelings never went away when I got older. My plan for not winning is I was going to sacrifice myself to save her. Getting separated from her in a tidal wave spoiled that plan."

Amanda had no words. So she said nothing. She never knew Blaze felt that way.

A minute later, the anthem started playing. The face of Janice Miller appeared in the sky, followed a moment later by Giovanni Leon.

"2 of the Careers?" said Hector excitedly, "This is awesome! We all have a better chance of winning now!"

"I wonder how it happened?" said Amanda curiously.

"Not likely they were killed by another Tribute." said Blaze, "They most likely died from a Gamemaker's trap, like Lisa did."

Amanda then had a more determined looked on her face.

"Break time is over!" Amanda said with authority, "Everyone get some sleep. We are off first thing in the morning to resume where we left off when Lisa died. One of us will win...for Lisa."

And they all went to sleep.

Noon, day 11 of the Games:

Around this time, islands B2, B3, B4, and B5 had sunk into the sea. Island B6 would follow soon, and all of the outer edge islands would continue to sink into the sea, one at a time, gradually, until all that would be left would be the center island F6. Amanda, Blaze, and Hector, had combed through to island D4, which was a tropical paradise set up by the Gamemakers.

Amanda felt like taking a break. She needed to let a load off of her mind. The heat was sweltering, and they had just come to a beautifully clear freshwater pool, fed by a Gamemaker's man-made waterfall. After 11 days of the Games, and losing her friend, the clean tropical pool looked so tantalizingly inviting. She didn't care that she was in the presence of two boys, that there were other tributes looking for her to kill her, or that she was on live television; she stripped down to the nude, and jumped into the warm, clear, refreshing water. She felt the water revitalize her. The two boys looked at her with eyes wide, jaw agape, and unashamed that they didn't look away, assuming that she did not care that they looked. Amanda's body wasn't perfect, but as she stood up quickly out of the shallow water, and the water cascaded down her body in contrast with her wet pink hair that clung to her neck, back, and shoulders. Her body glittering wetly in the sunlight, she looked like a magnificently beautiful water sprite, or topless mermaid. Hector, being only 12, was still only a boy, and didn't have a romantic interest in girls yet, but he did exercise a childlike curiosity for the female form. Blaze on the other hand, being 16, had his teenage hormones in their prime, he had never seen anything more sensually beautiful in his entire life.

"Does your apathy cause you to have to be very...free spirited?" Blaze asked Amanda.

"More or less." said Amanda with a devious smile. "Let's enjoy the pleasures of life while we still can. After all, we don't have much time left, 2 of us will be dead when this is over. This may be our last chance."

The two boys then shrugged their shoulders in defeat and resignation, and threw all caution, shame, and modesty to the wind, and emulated Amanda's example.

An hour or so later. Amanda and Blaze were laying on the sandy shore of the pool side by side after Hector got redressed and went to find some privacy.

'Finally!' thought Amanda, 'I thought he would never leave.'

She turned onto her side and looked at Blaze's body. He was sexy, not super muscular, but his stomach had a modest six-pack. The black stripe, that started from the top of his forehead under the front of his green hair and went down his face, didn't stop at the bottom of his neck, the black stripe went all the way down his body to his groin, and then all the way up his back. His hairless manhood was a decent size, and in her presence, she could tell that he was fully ready for copulation.

Without warning, Amanda released all her inhibitions and got on top of Blaze, straddling his hips.

"Amanda? What are you doing?" said Blaze with shock and surprise, though the physical position that he was in was not unwanted.

"Don't talk!" demanded Amanda in a firm voice of authority, "Just take advantage of last chances." she commanded.

And then she put her lips to his.

Hector had gone and found privacy about 5 minutes earlier. When he came back, he caught a glimpse, from behind a tree from a distance, of Amanda and Blaze in an unusual embrace. He had seen the particular kind of 'unclothed' embrace before in a video in health class at school; it had been a video of an attractive naked couple hugging each other close, explaining about the reproductive system. (Hector was a little naive and innocent.)

Though he was fascinated, he decided to give them some privacy himself, and he turned around and walked away about 50 yards and then decided to sit down and wait.

It was a few moments later when he was grabbed from behind and gagged by a piece of fabric so he couldn't scream. He then found that he was face to face with Martha Filmer, her face was covered with half healed scars and bruises, one of the scars was more recent.

"Well, what do we have here?" said Martha with an evil and sadistic smile. "Me and the rest of my team broke up." she told Hector matter-of-factly. She assumed that Hector would be curious as to why she was alone.

Martha pull out a knife she had received from as sponsor.

"This will be fun." she said in an evil voice.

She held him down with her weight, and stabbed the knife into his arm and raked it deeply along the skin. Hector screamed into the gag, but the sound was too muffled to be heard by his teammates that were far too... 'distracted'. Blood poured out of the gaping wound like turning on a faucet full blast. Martha laughed maniacally. She continued to make cuts and stabs all over Hector's body as the dirt beneath him became more and more heavily soaked with his blood.

Martha continued to laugh as though she enjoyed every second of his pain, until a strong hand grabbed her neck and lifted her bodily off the ground, and the knife was pulled from her hand. She was spun around and was then face to face with Susanna Xavier. Susanna Xavier had an angry look on her face.

"I...hate...bullies!" said Susanna in emphasis of her feelings of the matter.

And she stabbed Martha in the heart with the knife.

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