Cookies and blueberries to jakefan and CR3ATIV3, who reviewed! (no tributes were harmed in the stealing –– er, acquisition of these food items)

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Caius and Petronius: You're welcome...

Me: They're just being sullen and moody, dears. Ignore them.

Chapter 13

Petronius didn't know how long he stumbled blindly through the forest. But he did know that his journey ended abruptly when a tree seemingly appeared out of nowhere and, suddenly, he found himself on his back rubbing a sore forehead. Dazed, he tried to get up and almost crashed into the same tree. He was really dizzy now. A nap sounded really good.

The world spun around him as he yawned and gave into the blackness.

He woke up to blinding daylight and a debilitating headache. He blinked and sat up. His backpack had mostly cushioned his backwards fall, but his head hurt now in two places –– where it had knocked against the tree the first time and where it had bounced off a rock as he fell. Groaning, he stood up. The sun, peeking through the trees, told him that it was sometime around noon. He was hungry. But he knew that there wasn't much food in his backpack and that saving it until he really needed it was a better idea.

Then he heard the rustling of leaves and a snapping twig. Reflexively he dropped his backpack, leapt up, and brandished his sword. He almost cleaved the small girl behind him in half, but then he recognized her and lowered the weapon. "Augusta?"

"Petronius?" she replied. Petronius dropped his sword and hugged her tightly.

"I'm so glad you're safe," he murmured into her hair.

His district partner drew back from the hug. "He's coming for me," she gasped. "That's why I was running. I didn't see him in the cave and he attacked me. I had to run."

Petronius noticed the thin cut on her cheek and wiped the blood away with his sleeve. He scowled as he realized who had attacked her.

In the cave…

As far as he was aware, no one else knew about the caves except for Caius.

"Then stay behind me," he said determinedly. "I'll fight him myself."

"You're not going to kill him, are you?"

"If I have to," he replied, grasping his sword hilt tightly, "I will."

"He's my brother," Augusta said, her voice shaking. "You can't kill him."

My brother…

"Amadeus?" Petronius said doubtfully. "Not Caius?"

"Caius?" Augusta repeated. "Who said anything about Caius?"

Petronius opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it and chose something else to say. "No one," he said. "The important thing is, you're safe."

She hugged him again and started sobbing. "I…I don't know what happened to him," she whimpered. "He wandered off during the middle of the night, and I was searching for him until I found the caves. He was hunched in back of one, over what looked like a dead body, laughing. And it wasn't his laugh. And then he turned around and drew a sword. He didn't recognize me, even when I told him I was me. And his mouth… blood dribbled from his lips, and something blue. Pieces of berries, I think they were. He started to laugh again, and I was so scared I couldn't move. Then the dead boy behind him groaned and stood up. I think it was that Caius boy you were talking about. He had blood on his head and a cut on his arm but was alive, at least he acted like he was. He's so pale I couldn't tell at first. He knocked down my brother, took his sword, and said something like, 'That's my sword!' And then I ran. I couldn't help it. I was so scared, and both of them looked like they were going to kill me. Ama…Amadeus came after me. The pale boy chased him out, but I don't think he knew that he would follow me. And he did. He almost caught me, but…I made it away. Oh, Petronius, I don't know what's wrong with him."

Petronius hesitated, then said, "I think I do."

She looked up, sadness in her large hazel eyes, and asked, "You do?"

Petronius was going to answer, but then he heard someone crashing through the leaves and looked up. Quickly he shoved Augusta behind him and drew his sword. Amadeus stumbled out of the leaves in front of Petronius. He was barefoot and shirtless. There was a long, thin cut along his bare chest, but he did not seem to notice at all. His maddened eyes locked with Petronius's and he let out a guttural, almost feral laugh, blood dribbling down his chin. The red substance was mixed with specks of blue and Petronius instantly realized that his theory had been correct.

Amadeus leapt forward, his knife gripped tight. Petronius tried to dodge him, but Amadeus was fast. He plowed into Petronius's stomach and sent him crashing to the ground, momentarily winded. Petronius's sword clattered out of his hands. Amadeus raised his knife, but Petronius remembered his other knife, the one he had snatched from Lucius in the bloodbath, and grabbed it. A desperate slash to Amadeus's cheek and a shove to his chest sent the boy tumbling. But before Petronius could get up and grab his sword, Amadeus had disappeared like smoke on the wind.

Petronius replaced his knife with his sword and scanned the shrubs around him carefully. Amadeus's strange, animal laugh echoed throughout the trees. A lone cannon sounded, causing him to jump, but when he turned around Augusta was still alive. He held his sword tighter and gazed back into the trees. The laugh came again, right behind him, and out of his peripheral vision he saw a flash of movement and a figure running towards him. Before he could think fully he thrust backwards with his sword into the stomach of the person behind him and drew the bloodstained blade out. A wide-eyed Augusta dropped to her knees.

Petronius's sword fell out of his hands as he realized what he had done. "Augusta!" he cried, catching her body as she fell. Her face was pale; her hands fluttered around the possibly fatal wound in her stomach. Her lips moved, but no sound came out, and almost too late Petronius realized what she was trying to say.

"Behind…you," she managed to whisper.

Petronius lashed out with his fist and caught Amadeus in the kneecap. He stumbled but made no sound, and Petronius managed to wrestle the knife out of his wrist as he pounced. Now he remembered fully. Amadeus had most likely eaten the naevlynd berry, a scientifically-mutated form of poisonous berry that caused madness, hallucinations, memory loss, and an unnatural desire to kill. The only way to reverse the affects…

Only part of Petronius knew what he was doing when he gripped Amadeus's knife and drove the blade right into the boy's heart. Immediately he stopped thrashing. His face went white and his eyes widened. The naevlynd would keep him alive for a little while longer, then it would fade and so would he. Only after Petronius struck the final blow did he regret it and wish he wasn't so stupid.

"No…" Amadeus whispered as everything he had done flooded back to him and started to make sense. "What have I done? Augusta…"

Then Amadeus's eyes glazed over. His cannon sounded, and Petronius was reminded of Augusta. He rushed to her side, his hands fluttering over the lethal wound in her stomach. She was still alive, but barely. Her lips formed inaudible words, and Petronius had to lean in to hear her. Tears dripped down his face.

"I'm so sorry," he choked over the lump in his throat. "I'm sorry…"

She reached up with one thin hand and touched his cheek. "It's not your fault," she whispered. "It was theirs… the rebels."

Her eyelids fluttered and her hand fell limply. Petronius grabbed her wrist and tried to feel her pulse. Nothing. Augusta was gone.

Her cannon fired, but he barely heard it. Slowly, calmly, he zipped up her jacket, covering the wound, took her small backpack, and lay her still body next to her brother's. He did not want Amadeus's knife, but when he looked at it more closely, he noticed that it was the same knife Caius had stolen from his belt. Stolen once by a thief, stolen a second time from the thief, and now back in the original owner's hand. Angrily, he snatched it up and hurled it at the nearest target he could find, the trunk of a dead, splintered oak tree. The blade lodged into the dry wood with terrifying accuracy and force, but Petronius was in no mood to admire his handiwork. He drew his sword and started hacking away at the thick, grayish trunk of the dead tree, and once his anger was spent, the tree looked even more dead and desolate than before. Dried out, lifeless, and wounded. Just how he felt.

As he was preparing to leave, he noticed the blood on the keen blade. Augusta's blood. He took his sleeve and wiped the blade clean, but as he was finishing, the edge accidentally sliced against the palm of his left hand and he winced. Blood for blood. It was only justice. But he didn't deserve such a light punishment for what he had done. He looked back at the dead girl on the ground. It should have been his body lying there. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

He left the two siblings' bodies where he had laid them and kept hiking. All of his focus was on his thoughts. He didn't care about his hunger. He didn't care about his thirst. He didn't even care about the two minor, but bleeding wounds on his arm and leg from the fight with Amadeus or the cut on his hand. He almost didn't notice the silver parachute until it was right in front of him. He picked it up. Inside the capsule was a small loaf of bread. A consolation present from the sponsors.

Moodily, he ate the entire loaf and washed it down with a gulp of water from his bottle. He took the time to pull the tiny jar of medicine from his pack, spread the substance on his two wounds, and wrap them before he kept going. He didn't know how long he hiked after that, not knowing where he was going, not caring. Yet another cannon sounded, but he hardly even heard it. He couldn't take his mind off of what he had done to Amadeus and Augusta. He had killed both of them. And he felt horrible about it.

I know… wimpy chapter ending. Whatever.

If I can reach 20 reviews, I'll post tomorrow!