Chapter Fifteen

A/N: Thank you to Lya200, MissLestrange, anonamous, princesspay10 and Guest for reviewing the last chapter.

"Well, would you look at who it is?" the eldest of the Careers, Coda, spoke. His patronising tone reminded Abby somewhat of the stories that she had been told, about a man called Cato during the first Games that her parents had taken part in. Strangely enough, from what she remembered, that man had also been the Tribute from District One, and the leader of the Career pack, though the details were a little fuzzy, as she had been informed of this years ago, back in the short time when her father did not mind talking about the Hunger Games in which he had taken part. "If it isn't little Mellark and her band of renegades."

From behind the man, clearly the most dominant of the group, the majority of the Careers laughed at the comment. But unlike the laughs of the so called 'renegades', when they had each told amusing stories of their childhoods in their Districts, the laughs of the Careers were not laced with joy or amusement, but only with malice, the glint in their eyes showing only cruelty.

"It seems that she isn't as stupid as she looks." commented the young woman that Abby recognised to be Ada Olana, and her brother hissed with laughter, nodding his head slowly and deliberately.

"Yeah." the boy sneered, nudging his sister slightly, an unpleasant smile mirrored across both of their faces. "There is a huge crack in the wall of the cave, which just so happens to go all the way around, but at least she had enough brains to realise that it was a door. That's more than we could say for any of these idiots she's travelling around with."

"Who are you calling idiots?" Harry protested loudly, speaking so quickly that Abby had no time to try and stop him. The hoots of laughter flared up once more, filling the silence and darkness of the enclosed space, and Coda took another step forwards, taking his place at the head of the unconscious formation of the Careers.

"I think you'd better watch your mouth, Odair." Sapphire commented, her eyes narrowing viciously in the boy's direction. Despite the fact that he was older, she was not the one that shrank away. "Although, from what I've been told, that didn't do Daddy any good, did it?"

The comment had been quietly hissed, but in the silence of the cave, it rang out loud and clear, and for a moment, not one person in either group dared move. Then, triggered by the smile on the young woman's face, Harry snapped. He ran towards the group, unfazed by their superior weaponry, and attacked the laughing girl, bringing her to the ground and banging her head against the floor repeatedly. Abby shouted at him, and so did Isabelle, but he did not listen, carrying on with his actions, despite the murderous looks the Careers were giving him.

They were reaching for their weapons now, no longer tolerating such a treatment of one of their own, but Coda held them back, preferring to watch his District partner fight off her attacker on her own, to prove her worth as a Career. If she did so, there would be one less enemy for them, but if she did not… at least there would be one less person for him to kill.

Abby watched in horror as the woman flailing on the ground pulled a dagger from her belt, and screamed a warning to her friend. "Harry, she has a knife! Harry, stop it! Move!"

Through the haze of his fury, the District Four Tribute seemed to pick up on his friend's distress, which brought him out of his reverie for a moment, long enough for him to hear her and roll out of the way of the incoming blade. He was so swift at reacting that it barely skimmed the edge of his shirt, and was left lodged in the stone of the floor.

Menacingly, the brother and sister team from District Three took three quick steps forward, their weapons bared as they prepared for combat, but one again, Coda held up a hand to stop them, and they begrudgingly did not move any further, recognising the gravitas of the dangerous man, and knowing that if they stood against him, they would be just as much an enemy as the rest of the Arena.

"Sapphire." Coda called, and the instruction in his voice was as clear to his enemies as much as to his allies. The young woman from District One hauled herself to her feet, spitting a slight amount of blood onto the floor, and running a hand quickly through her hair, wincing almost unnoticeably at the amount of scarlet liquid that came off on her hand. She was clearly very badly hurt, and yet she was still being forced to rise to join the group. 'That is just barbaric.' Abby thought, her eyes narrowing in disgust.

"Harry, come on. We have to go, just leave them." the young Mellark told her friend, desperately pleading in her mind that he would listen to her for once, rather than following his own stubborn ideals. She was fortunate on this occasion, it seemed, as he quickly stood to join her at her side.

And now they were back to where they started. The Careers stood on one side of the cavernous area, the so called rebels on the other, their eyes boring holes into the others, as if they were attempting to make them scared enough to run. This immediately made Abby want to stand her ground, to defy their expectations and make her parents proud of her, assuming that there were cameras within the labyrinth, and that her mother did not find it too painful to remember her own Games. But they had to leave, she knew that now. They were being given a chance, and they would have to take it, as unarmed, they would have no chance of living.

So, defying her principles and all that she had been taught by her mother, the young woman took her group of friends and ran for her life, though she knew that the Careers would allow them to go, if only to lengthen the chase for sport. But as she left the cave, the last to do so, Abby quickly turned her head around and caught the eye of her own District partner. Her eyes fogged over with tears, and even from the distance, she could see that his had too.

She wanted to tell him to come with her, to force him to run from the Careers and join their group, to keep each other safe as they had promised to do. But the look on his face told her that he could not do so, and so she left him, wiping the single tear from her cheek as she began to run.

A/N: Please review!