14: Bloodbath

Katniss POV

The blades of the hovercraft whir as it takes me closer to the arena. An avox walks down the aisle, injecting trackers into our arms. I wince as the needle pierces the skin on my wrist and thrusts the device inside. It feels so much like last year, but so different. Much more scary because the tributes around me are bigger and much more experienced than I am. At least half of them are old.

After a few minutes of flying the hovercraft lands and we all go downstairs into an underground building. This is where the tubes will be that will take us up into the arena, into the bloodbath. I'm hoping for trees like last year, but I doubt it will be that simple. It's a Quarter Quell, they'll have something more exotic and deadly.

As we are separated into the different rooms, I glance at the other rebellion victors. Finnick Odair: playful and irritating, but skilled and useful. Johanna Mason: maybe a bit unbalanced, but dangerous with an axe and passionate about the cause. Mags: old, but kind and wise. Electra, Wiress and Beetee: understand technology and power. They'll be useful.

I step into the tube. Cinna comes into the room like he did last year. I let out a breath in relief. Nothing happened to him for burning my wedding dress into a mockingjay. Cinna presses his hands against the glass of the tube and I try to touch them. The glass is cold, but I keep my hands there.

"I'm still betting on you girl on fire," Cinna says to me. "You can do this. You can win these Games and become the mockingjay. Win for Panem."

"Thank you," I whisper. "You were part of the rebellion Cinna. All this time and you never told me. You helped me make an impression. I couldn't have done it without you."

I hear a low buzz as the countdown starts. Two peacekeepers come into the room. They grab Cinna and I scream as they throw him against the tube. His face presses up close to me. "Cinna, no!" I shout. "Stop! Stop, I'm a victor! I order you to stop!" They pull him back and push him onto the floor and kick him in the ribs.

"Cinna?" I call. Is he still alive? If he is he won't be alive for very long. He wasn't just a casual member of the rebellion, it dawns on me. Cinna knew that he would give his life for it- he was willing to give up his life for me. I kiss my fingers and give him the District 12 salute. He isn't conscious to see it, but it feels right. Tears gather at the corners of my eyes.

The floor starts to move up and I grasp to tube. I shouldn't leave Cinna. But there's nothing I can do now. I need to focus on the arena. The countdown is on ten. I will be thrust into the bloodbath in a few seconds and I can't afford to be distracted. Otherwise Cinna's death will be in vain.

I spend a moment looking around. The cornucopia is an island roughly fifty metres away. There is a small beach and what looks like saltwater lapping up against the shore. A few platforms float, probably to help the tributes who can't swim and give them some chance of survival. Fortunately for me, I can swim. I remember learning with Gale in the forest lake around a year ago. I was terrible at first, he was much better, but we stuck with it until I was as good as him. I'm glad we did now, though at the time I wanted to quit.

The countdown reaches three and my heart starts to pound in my chest. Just a few more seconds and I might die. I glance across the cornucopia to Gloss and Enobaria. I've seen Enobaria with swords and throwing knives and Gloss with spears. If I get too close to them then I'll be dead, no questions asked. Brutus could easily kill me, being superior in size, strength and ability to use spears and swords. He got ten or eleven in training and he didn't do it by rebelling.

One. The gong that signals the start of the Games reverberates through the arena. The mines are deactivated. I don't wait like last year, but instinctively jump into the water. It's cold, but that was expected. I push myself towards the cornucopia with strong strokes and kick my legs behind me. My technique isn't as good as Finnick's or even Mags's but it's better than most of the others.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the platforms collapsing and plunging tributes into the water. I'm glad that I didn't use those. It feels like forever that I am swimming and I'm afraid that the careers will reach the cornucopia before me. They could kill me easily from here. My mind is hyper-aware and has sensed nothing from them though, so I carry on swimming mindlessly towards the centre

.

Finnick has reached the cornucopia and nabbed a trident. He aims it at me, but I shove my head up and he twists around, slamming the points into the head of the District Seven male. I hear the squelch from here. Finnick yanks out the trident and the man falls down dead. Finnick doesn't even seem guilty about it. It's scary how one minute he can be a nice man flirting with Capitol ladies and the next a mindless killer.

My hands hit the sand and I pull myself out. The bow and arrows are a few metres away and I sprint towards them. Cashmere blocks my way, armed with a knife. Finnick shouts. I trust him enough to obey and a trident sails over my head, hitting her in the arm. I use the moment to grab the bow and nock an arrow. Cashmere doesn't stick around and immediately jumps into the water and swims under.

The water is red with blood now, so I can't see her location. I don't have the arrows to waste on blindly shooting, so I let her go. I whirl around to see another tribute standing behind me. As soon as I recognise that it isn't a rebellion victor, my arrow flies and hits between their mouth and nose. A small trickle of blood comes out as they fall to the floor, dead. It's a District 8 woman. She was no threat.

I bend down and yank the arrow out of her skull, trying to ignore the sharp crack of bone. I can feel myself sweating and my muscles twitch as a result of the adrenaline pumping through my veins. I feel slightly nauseous, but I hold it in. She would have died anyway. Her death isn't my fault, I try to convince myself. I still feel like a cold-blooded murderer though.

From the other side of the cornucopia, I see Brutus, Enobaria, Cashmere and Gloss. They all have their weapons of choice with them and have formed a defensive circle. I check to find member of my alliance. Haymitch isn't far from me, he's holding an axe that is soaked with blood and has a strange look of elation on his face. I guess it has been quite a long time since he's felt this clear-minded due to the combination of no alcohol and adrenaline.

Mags is with Finnick a bit further away. It looks like he is considering that we launch an attack on the careers, but decides against it. There are too many of them. There's no sign of Johanna, Electra, Beetee or Wiress. Finnick darts away from the careers and does a low dive into the water. I scramble after him with Haymitch running after me. Mags makes her way into the water and despite being nearly eighty years old, swims quite fast. Practice I guess.

After around a minute of swimming, we manage to get to the shore. The careers don't bother chasing us. I think that they fear us. I don't blame that because of what they saw in the training room. Finnick being so precise with the tridents, Haymitch beheading the dummies and beating the Capitol instructors and of course my skill with the bow and arrow. My feet hit the shore and I break into a run after Finnick and Mags.

I hadn't noticed the rest of the arena when I first entered, but now I see that it is mainly comprised of trees. That's good for me. This is the sort of place that I can hunt and hide in. This is familiar territory to me, even if it isn't to Finnick, Mags and Haymitch. I can protect them here.

There doesn't seem to be anything particularly unusual about these woods, but Gale told me last night that the head gamemaker is now Plutarch Heavensbee, who was in charge of mutts and designed the foxes and the tribute-wolves. I don't trust that these woods are normal, I bet that soon if not now there will be terrifying creatures chasing us. At least I will be prepared for it next time.

Once we get a reasonable distance away from the cornucopia, we all stop. I pant for breath. I may have worked on my fitness during the few months before I was reaped, but I still can't run long distances without getting winded. I sink down to the floor as the events of today come back to me. I had almost forgotten in the adrenaline rush that was the bloodbath that Cinna was beaten to death before my eyes.

Should I tell Haymitch and the others? They deserve to know, but the Capitol won't want me to say it. Chances are they have their cameras on us now, but I don't want to make them kill me. I need to get out of these Games, not just for myself but for Gale and Prim as well.

We settle down and make a temporary camp. The weapons go on a small pile in the middle. I'm not hungry enough to eat yet and I don't want to go out hunting alone anyway. Finnick and Mags sit together talking about memories from District Four. I doubt that Mags will last long. She's too old and unfit, even if she can swim and fish. It's a pity because Mags seemed like she wasn't one of the ruthless victors. I can't even imagine Mags pushing to the front to volunteer as a child.

I shuffle closer to Haymitch. "Are you OK?" I ask him. "At the cornucopia you looked so.."

"-Pleased," he cuts me off angrily. "I was killing tributes left and right and I was pleased with myself. Tributes that would never have won. I shouldn't have done that. I'm just like a career now, enjoying their kills, letting the bloodlust get to them. That's what it was. Bloodlust."

"No," I murmur to him. "You did what you had to. You were pleased because you were clear-minded for the first time in ages," I insist. "If you didn't kill those tributes, they would have died a more painful death at the hands of the careers. The real careers, who enjoy it for the sake of killing and not because they had an adrenaline rush. You aren't a career Haymitch."

"If you say so. The fact remains that I killed three tributes without any remorse. Even if I'm not a career I'm still a heartless killer. It's useful in these Games, but still. It's not right. I wasn't killing in self-defense like I was in my Games. I was killing to get rid of them quickly."

"Haymitch, these tributes would have died anyway," I say. "Many of them volunteered with the knowledge that they would die because they didn't want that to happen to younger victors. You told me that yourself. Even though you were the one who killed them, their deaths aren't on your hands. You have to trust me. This wasn't your fault. This was Snow," I say, my voice hardening towards the end. I doubt the Capitolites put that on TV.

That's true, he says, a new vigour in his voice. I smile slightly. I should have known that the quickest way to get Haymitch back would be to mention Snow. Haymitch hates Snow even more than I do. It's his want for vengeance that has kept him at least somewhat grounded in reality for the past twenty years. Otherwise he probably would have been like the morphlings.

We sit together quietly as the sky darkens. Finnick and Mags also sink into a comfortable silence. The tributes should come up in the sky soon. See how many were killed in the bloodbath. Normally around half, should be about the same this year. I stare upwards. Is the sky even real, or is it just some sort of hologram?

The cannons ring out loudly in the silence of the night. I count them carefully. Ten. That's a bit less than usual, but there are some stronger tributes from what are normally the weak Districts, like Haymitch and me, or Beetee and Wiress. I wait for the names to appear in the sky to see if any members of my alliance were killed.

There's no one dead from Districts One or Two, which isn't surprising. Careers rarely die in the bloodbath. I let out a sigh of relief as I see that no one from Three is dead either. Four is obvious, as Mags and Finnick are sitting next to me. None from Five, which means Electra is OK. Unfortunately it also means that her non-rebellion partner, Leon, is OK. The male morphling died, which is unsurprising. I'm surprised that the female survived. District Seven male. Both tributes from Eight, Nine, Ten and Eleven. The Capitol seal appears in the air.

I decide to try and get some sleep. It normally takes a while to get to sleep in the Games and I need to be well rested for tomorrow. Finnick offers to take the first watch for three hours, then he'll wake Mags. After Mags will be Haymitch and I'll take the last watch. I curl up into a ball to keep warm and try to block out the memories of the bloodbath today. Nightmares in the Games are worse than usual.

Gale POV

Katniss seems safe, for now at least. The careers didn't chase her and she's in the forest. I know how well she can work with forest. I know that it won't just be ordinary forest though. This is a Quarter Quell after all. The game-makers will need something more exciting. Knowing Plutarch, mutts. I hope they aren't poisonous; medicine costs the most to give (after weapons of course). I wonder whether to send Katniss some food.

I glance at the sponsor screen. As soon as the gong had rung to start the Games, there was an influx of beeps that showed people sponsoring. The total is high now: around £15,000. I wonder how many of the sponsors were regular Capitolites who like the idea of the star-crossed lovers and how many of them are interested in keeping her alive for the rebellion. I wish Haymitch had told me more, like how Cinna was part of the rebellion. He can't now though.

Should I sponsor Katniss now or do I wait until later until she really needs something? I have the money and I'll probably get more later on, but I decide to wait. I'll send her the spiel when she wakes up tomorrow. They're quite expensive, but I can easily see why. They remove the need to put oneself in danger to go to the water source.

I look over at the screen showing where Electra, Beetee, Wiress and Johanna are. They're quite far away from Katniss and her alliance, but it's possible that they can meet up later. Johanna has her axe. Beetee has managed to grab a coil of wire from the cornucopia. Wiress has a short sword, but I doubt that she knows how to use it. Electra has a pair of long daggers. They seem to have done well at the cornucopia, like Katniss, Finnick and Haymitch.

The mentors whose tributes died are all leaving the room. There is nothing left for them to do now. Most of the others are checking their screens and sponsor magazines. Katniss has the most money, followed quite closely by Finnick. Haymitch has a few sponsors, around £200. The careers got sponsored a lot, especially Enobaria. After Katniss and Finnick, she's the favourite to win.

I go over to talk with Annie, but find her shaking on her chair with her eyes closed. So this is what they were talking about when they said crazy. "Annie?" I ask. There's no response to me, but she mutters a few words. I catch Finnick, help and another name that I don't recognise- Cetus. "Annie!" I shout, shaking her. "Snap out of it. Finnick needs you. You aren't in the Hunger Games! You're in the mentor room."

Annie's eyes snap open. She screams piercingly and the other mentors turn around to look at us. She's having a flashback into the Games. She said that Finnick helped with them, but he isn't here now. What do I do, I think panicking. "Annie, it's OK," I say as soothingly as I can, like I'm talking to Posy. "You're OK. You aren't in any danger. Cetus is alright too."

Annie's shaking slows down and I carry on. "You aren't in an arena. Look around you." I move her head to the sides. "You're safe. Nobody is going to hurt you here. You or Cetus." Annie stops shaking entirely and takes a few deep breaths. I think she's back to normal. I doubt she'll be very good as a mentor though. I'll have to help Finnick and Mags as well as Haymitch and Catnip.

"I'm OK," she whispers. "I'm alright now. Thanks Gale. I shouldn't have watched the bloodbath, I should have known this would happen. I needed to know if Finnick was alright though. I'm going to be a terrible mentor. Please help Finnick for me. I can't just watch him die in there."

"I will," I promise. "We're allies. I won't leave an ally behind." Aravis, a voice in my head says. You said that to her as well, and is she alive now? An image of Aravis flashes into my head, but I push it away. I can't afford to think about my own Games now. I need to concentrate on the future, not the past.

xXx-X-xXx

Hope you liked the chapter and the fact that I updated quickly for once. Now that the Games have begun I'll probably update more quickly because I enjoy writing action scenes more. Please review, follow or favourite. Thanks to those who have already done so.

-MoonOfPluto