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Chapter 18

Present day

On the morning following the day on which she had left her "allies" tied up in their own ropes, Artemis debated with herself on the subject of what to do with the Elites' weapons. All of their daggers she would keep for herself. But that was basically where her knowledge of weapons ceased. She couldn't shoot an arrow to save her life, so Cynthia's silver recurve bow was out of the question. Claudia's spears were also out, seeing as her favorite method of flight was climbing and it is hard to climb when one is holding a large stick in one hand. She was okay with a sword, but Lucius's blade was too heavy and not balanced right. And however wiry she was, she would never be able to wield Julius's battleaxe or Marius's club.

Her wily mind immediately dreamt up a small bit of mockery that she might be able to commit against the Careers. They had plenty of weapons and she knew for a fact that Julius had at least three other axes, but she thought that what she had in mind might be amusing to her. And she did love to be amused.

After abandoning the Elites, Artemis had scouted out a camp. Back when she had still had her control disk, she had virtually examined every acre of the arena. With the entire map of the arena in her hands, she had found two potential camps. Her first choice had been claimed by Caius already, so she reverted to using the second. It was a fifteen-by-ten-foot clearing about a quarter mile from the Cornucopia, which was dangerously risky. Artemis was willing to take that risk, as it was so obvious that they would never think to look. When she went out to "scout and liberate", she kept her belongings up in a tree. At night, she slept on the ground, comforted by the fact that she was a light sleeper and that any enemy that dared try to ambush her would probably wake her up before he came within striking range. As a precaution, she had even gone to the length of gathering dried leaves and brittle twigs, spreading them in a ten-meter radius around her clearing. She could think of only one person who might be able to sneak up on her during the night, and she didn't think of him as a threat. Not because he wasn't dangerous, but because she doubted he would come for her. At least, she was ninety-six percent sure...

So here she sat cross-legged in the center of the clearing, surrounded by packs and weapons that used to be the Elites'. She had sorted them stragetically, by placing all of the food items in one pack, the medical supplies in another, and so on. Now she was left with the weapons, which she was mentally labeling.

She would be ashamed to admit that when she heard the voices, she jumped a bit. But then again, these days she was as tightly wound as a spring. Her head instantly jerked in the direction of the voices, which were thankfully not coming from the direction of the Elites camp. In the distance, through the trees, she could see three tributes, all of them heading towards her. A flash of sunlight reflected off smooth, silvery blond locks of hair, and Artemis instantly recognized Iris. The other two tributes she was unsure about –– Lystria and Romulus, were they? She shrugged dismissively. They were no threat.

Quickly Artemis wrapped the weapons in a camouflage tarpaulin and concealed them under a log, then ghosted off into the woods in the direction Romulus, Lystria, and Iris were coming from. Might as well start gathering them up now, she mused to herself. Earn their trust while you can.

To Iris, Romulus, and Lystria, it seemed that the female District 11 tribute literally stepped right out of the trunk of a tree. The hood of her camouflage jacket was pulled up over her head, shadowing her eyes. Only one weapon, a knife, was visible, and it was sheathed, but no one had any doubt that it was probably not the only weapon and that if it was, it could be out in a heartbeat. When Artemis appeared, Lystria yelped and Romulus drew his knife, brandishing it out like a sword. But to their surprise, she only laughed.

"Relax! It's only me," she said, pushing back the hood of her jacket. She was smiling, but no one was comforted. Artemis's smile was never a reassuring thing, and she knew that full well.

"What do you want?" snapped Romulus boldly.

The smile dissipated like mist on the breeze. "Nothing that you have. Put your weapons down; I'm not going to hurt you. Not now, at least."

No one said anything. Artemis rolled her eyes. "None of you have weapons?"

"I have my dagger, my strength, my bravery, and my will to protect my friends and family," the boy replied.

"So in other words, no," she said. "Come on. Want to see my camp?"

Romulus's weapon wavered. "Is this a trap?"

"Don't be surprised if it is," she answered, turning and lithely stepping towards her camp again. None of the other tributes moved. Artemis glanced over her shoulder and smiled, a real smile this time. "I was kidding. Come on."

Romulus lowered his dagger reluctantly. "What do you want?" he asked again.

"I told you," Artemis said. "Nothing. Now do you want my help or not?"

The boy glanced at his two companions. They only shrugged. In unison, the three huddled into a circle and started talking among themselves, glancing every so often over towards where Artemis was leaning casually against an oak tree.

"It could be a trap," said Romulus.

"It probably is," agreed Iris.

"But Artemis seems so nice," protested Lystria. "And she let us go when she was working with the Careers."

"That's the part I'm worried about," her brother replied. "What if she's still working for them? What if she turns us in to them or slits our throats in the night?"

"None of us are going to win anyway," Iris pointed out. "Better sooner than later. And, as a bonus, that way it'll be painless."

The other two mumbled reluctant assent. "There's just something not right here," said Romulus. "In the beginning of the Games, she made it clear that she worked alone. Now she's pairing up with everybody, even the Careers. She's up to something… suspicious."

"I've met her dad before, tons of times," interjected Iris, "and he used to say that Artemis is always up to something suspicious. It's just in her nature."

Lystria shrugged. "I say we go with her. It's been clear that she's a thief. She can steal us food and weapons and supplies. I like her."

"I'm with Lystria," Iris added. "Now it's just you, Romulus. If you don't want to go with us and Artemis, you can go on your own way."

Romulus pondered this for a minute. "Fine," he agreed. "I'll go with you. But don't say I didn't warn you."

They turned to Artemis. "We've decided," said Romulus, who had been silently voted as the orator of the group. "You just earned yourself three more allies. Now where's this camp you're talking about?"

Artemis inclined her chin an inch. "Good choice," she said. "If you had not chosen that, I would have been forced to kill you. Come on."

Before they could interject, she bounded off through the trees and they had no choice but to follow. But almost as soon as they entered her clearing, Lystria stopped and cried, "Wait! I left my token at the river!"

Artemis turned her calculating gaze towards Lystria. "Your token?" It was a question.

She nodded earnestly. "Yeah. It was a gold bracelet my father gave me when I was seven. I took it off when we stopped at the river to wash up and left it on a rock. I need to go back and get it!"

Artemis thought about this for a moment. "Gold bracelet… yes. There were rubies on it, no? I remember it. Once I stole it off your wrist at a dinner party of my father's. Pretty thing, with beautiful filigree work. I could have pawned it off for quite a few credits, but I didn't think I should do that to you, poor, simple girl that you are…ah, were. You didn't even notice it had been taken off and put back on."

Lystria was panicking so much that she didn't catch Artemis's insulting mistake. "Oh, what if a bird carries it away? What if another tribute takes it? I need to go back!"

"Calm down, Lys, Romulus comforted. "We'll go back there, don't worry. Iris, Artemis, won't you two come with?"

Iris nodded and Artemis shrugged. "You'll need extra backup. Oh, and I almost forgot. You'll need something to defend yourselves, minus that toothpick you have, Romulus." Kneeling down, she dug underneath a certain log and drew out the wrapped bundle of the Elites' weapons. "Have fun." With that, she unwrapped the bundle and let the weapons spill out. At the sight of Cynthia's silver bow and sheath of arrows, young Iris gasped.

"No way," she breathed, picking up the bow. "Where did you get these?"

"Stole them," said Artemis simply. "Try it out."

Almost reverently, Iris slung the sheath over her shoulder and held the bow in her left hand. The bow was a bit too big for one of her diminutive size, but she did not seem to care. With alarming speed, she whipped an arrow from the sheath, nocked it to the string, and drew back with surprising strength. She raised the bow, aimed, and fired within the space of a second, and the arrow streaked through the air. It pinned the trunk of a tree ten meters away, and was quickly followed by two others that thudded right below it, forming a perfect triangle.

Artemis let out a low whistle. "Remind me not to get on your bad side."

While Iris trekked over to the tree to retrieve her three arrows, Romulus and Lystria sorted through the weapons pile. The boy tried to pick up Julius's axe, but Artemis put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head. "Too unwieldy. Try a spear."

Romulus took one of Claudia's smaller spears, and Lystria selected Cynthia's long dagger. Artemis slid a small dagger into a sheath hidden in her left boot, and slung a twelve-inch fighting knife in a sheath over her shoulder. "We travel light," she ordered. "Leave your packs under the log. We'll come back, hopefully."

The three other tributes followed their guide and ally as she led them through the trees, into the deeper part of the forest by the river. She seemed to know exactly where they were going, but after a while she instructed Romulus and Lystria to lead. "You know where by the river you were," she said. "Lead on."

No one felt comfortable with Artemis behind them with at least three knives on her personage, but no one objected. With the two District 2 tributes leading them, they soon made it to the rocky bed of the river. Seeing a glimmer of gold out of the corner of her eye, Lystria started wading across one of the shallower parts of the river, giving the other three no choice but to follow. Once on the other side, Lystria snatched up her gold bracelet.

"Good, it's all right," she said gratefully, clipping it around her wrist.

"You got it, now let's go," replied Artemis impatiently. But when she turned around towards the river and the direction of her camp she found herself almost crashing into a huge wall. Except…it wasn't a wall. It was Julius, holding a new, and possibly larger, battleaxe over his shoulder. Cynthia, Lucius, and Marius stood behind him, weapons at the ready. Artemis looked up into Julius's furious eyes. "Oh…hello. Nice to see a familiar face."

"Is this where you were, Artemis Gossamer?" asked Julius, swinging his axe down from his shoulder and smacking the shaft against his hand. "Making friends with these losers?" All of the other Elites laughed as if that was the funniest thing Julius had ever said.

Artemis's brow furrowed as she backed up slowly, her arms outstretched as if to shield Iris, Romulus, and Lystria. "You know, that so-called and so-supposed 'joke' was so brainless that I am not even going to bother to deflect it."

Julius ignored that. "In your note, you said you wanted our next meeting to be a head-to-head-fight to the death," he said, stepping forward slowly.

Artemis never took her eyes off him, but out of her peripheral vision she carefully watched the other three Elites. "I may have written something of that nature. Why?"

A faint, yet ominous smile wavered on the edges of Julius's lips. "We're going to take that into effect."

The fourteen-year-old scowled. Then, without taking her eyes off the four Elites, she said one word. "RUN."

At that word, the monstrous Marius lumbered towards Artemis with surprising speed and swung down with his gigantic club. As Artemis rolled to the side to avoid the crushing blow, Iris, Romulus, and Lystria scattered. The two girls darted through the surprised ranks of Elites, splashed across the river, and sprinted into the forest. Romulus, though, stayed and gripped his spear. Artemis landed from the somersault on her feet, and Romulus rushed to her side.

"Plan?" he inquired.

Artemis didn't even ask why he wasn't running. "Yeah. Stay alive," and like an arrow from a bowstring she shot forward, her fighting knife in her right hand and her smaller throwing knife in her left.

Romulus shrugged. "If I'm gonna die now, might as well go down fighting."

Sorry if this one's not the best; I've been feeling a bit foggy due to allergies and insomnia, so tell me if you see anything that I might have missed... *yawns* zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Artemis: Hey! Hey, wake up!

Caius: She's out cold...

Artemis: Who's going to say it, then?

Caius: I'll do it. Um, hi? Uhh... Sky says to review.

Artemis: Come on, you can do better than that. You've got to bribe them!

Caius: Uh... okay. If you review, I'll give you guys... uh... hugs?

Artemis: *facepalm*

Caius: Maybe that's not enough –– ahh! *runs away being chased by a bunch of squealing fangirls*

Fangirls: WE WANT HUGS! WE LOVE YOU CAIUS!

Artemis: *double facepalm*

Sky aka me: (waking up) ... uh what...?