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~~(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)~~
Author's Notes:
Triage: Thank you for lovely reviews. You know who you are. This chapter continues from the previous evening since our intrepid heroes don't think sleep is necessary for toughies like them. The silly kids. Oh if only they knew what's coming in just ten more years. :)
Zevoros: Special thanks to Team Shadow! Additional thanks to CragmiteBlaster.
Penelope's Web
Chapter 10
Flight of the Valkyrie
Binary was smart enough to be able to see through Gadget's deception. Which only gave her a limited amount of time to go in and get Corduroy out.
It might be a taboo to kill one's district partner short of being the last two left, but if Binary were to catch her then…he could just outsource it to Kernel.
And Peeta didn't have that kind of assurance.
Gadget hoped he would be okay. All she could hear of him was the chimes of the fake sponsor she'd put together for Binary and Kernel.
"Take the bait," Gadget whispered again to herself.
She only had one chance to do this right. One chance to save Corduroy.
She couldn't let him down.
Her eyes drifted to where he was tied up. Still staring up in the sky where Lace's portrait disappeared from. His expression of devastated loss.
It cut her, knowing that if she had been just a little bit quicker, she could have saved her.
So, unlike the words Peeta said to her that morning…there was no mistake in Gadget's mind that it was all her fault.
For who else could it have been except for her?
"It's too far to be a sponsor of ours," Binary said and Gadget glanced at him. She watched in trepidation as he twisted a knife in his hand. Its red sheen frightened her.
"Which means that it's a sponsor for another tribute," Kernel said, dipping his voice. "As if that needed to be said."
Binary hummed.
He turned slowly and approached Corduroy with a neutral expression.
Don't, Gadget pleaded silently.
Binary glared down at Corduroy, who met his gaze evenly. The bruise on his head suddenly seemed very, very vicious to Gadget.
She watched Binary crouch down and finger something at Corduroy's throat.
Please don't! Gadget begged. She wanted to jump out and reveal herself, and beg him to let Corduroy go free.
But she knew that was something Binary would never, ever agree to.
Binary pulled a piece of fabric from around Corduroy's neck that Gadget hadn't seen, and stuffed it into Corduroy's throat, muting any sounds that he could have made.
He stood up slowly and Gadget pressed herself down into the ground harder. If they saw her, she was dead. Kernel would probably stab her over and over again until she bled out and died a terrible, painful death.
Binary couldn't do it himself, but Gadget didn't doubt for a second that he would make her demise painful, even in another person's hands.
She could picture it all so vividly in her head. Her being impaled on a spear and begging for Corduroy to save her, in spite of him being tied up and…forced to watch.
Would he be ashamed of her for that kind of failure? First unable to help protect Lace, and then unable to save him from her own district partner.
Why would he ever want anything to do with her?
Why did he want her as an ally in the first place when there were so many better options available? Options that would never have failed to help Lace like she had.
An ally that would actually be worth something.
An ally that…wasn't like her.
Misery.
Gadget bit deeper into her arm to stop herself from screaming as a fresh wave of agony ripped through her without warning.
It burns!
How could such a minor wound hurt so bad!?
She didn't dare look down at it for fear of what she might find.
Instead, with a pained gaze, she looked at Corduroy once more, and she felt her heart shatter at his despondent expression.
I did this.
The horrible taste of metal on her tongue…she deserved for how she failed so thoroughly.
It was the least of what she deserved.
Her fingers tore free from the dirt beneath her and scrambled for something, anything to hold onto.
A pain even worse than the last burst she'd felt.
Feet away from people who would kill her…or prolong that pain.
Like something was trying to crawl its way out of her.
She felt the tips of her fingers touch a branch, and without hesitation, she reached out and held it in a vice-like grip. Her only lifeline.
Gadget pulled her arm free from her mouth and quietly grunted. She wrenched her attention off of Corduroy and to her arm.
A mess of blood and teeth marks. Had she really bitten down that hard?
Almost against her will, her eyes slid down to her chest. Where Monkshood had tried to stab her.
There was no stopping the horrified squeak that escaped her then.
Not when maggots crawled around the opening of the cut, feasting away at her.
Gadget choked on a scream and swiftly flipped around onto her back. She tried to raise a hand to pull them off of her but her arm…
Her arm, the same one she had bitten, was covered in disgusting maggots, too! They ate away at the dead flesh she herself had created.
And soon, her whole body would be amongst it.
"Oh no…oh no…" Gadget whimpered despairingly. Her other hand left the branch to tear them out of her.
Though it was no use.
It was never any use.
She gripped one hard and started to pull, to yank it out of her.
This couldn't be happening! Not with tributes nearby!
I'm not dead! Gadget thought with terrified pleading.
She pulled harder at the maggot with insistence. It hurt so bad but it never seemed to end! More and more of the maggot was revealed to her the more she pulled.
Covered in her own blood, it squirmed around in protest. But the harder she pulled, the more of the maggot she saw. Burrowed deep inside of her.
Gadget's breath hitched. She wanted to retch.
They're inside me! Gadget thought with panic.
Everything hurt, she wouldn't be able to stand up even if she wanted to. But she was too paralyzed by fear to try.
She was mere feet away from Corduroy, but there was no way she could save him. Not when even breathing had started to hurt.
And the maggots…they ate at her, burrowed inside of her. Her body made a nest to be infested with them.
Finally, the maggot came free, twisting this way and that. All but the end of its tail was covered in her blood.
Gadget stared at it in fearful rapture. It was so long, and Gadget threw it as far as she could away from the campsite.
Her whole body ached and Gadget fearfully looked back down at her arm and chest. She needed to tear them all out of her!
With tears in her eyes, she tried to steel herself for what she knew she had to do in order to be free from them.
Her stomach churned with disgust. This was happening. This was really, really happening.
Gadget grasped at her chest, searching and almost thrashing for the maggots inside her. The sticks and leaves cracked under her, but her body muted the worst of it.
Binary and Kernel had no idea she was there, and she did not want to change that.
She tried to grasp for a maggot to pull it out, but her fingers found nothing. They slipped over the crusty dried blood decorating her chest, and grabbed onto nothing.
Why can't I grab any of them!? Gadget thought in despair. Was she too much of a failure to do even that?
Too much of a failure to do even the simplest of tasks.
Gadget pulled herself up into a sitting position. Not high enough to be seen should Binary or Kernel turn around, but far too high for Gadget's liking.
She looked down at her chest and her arm with scared and sickened eyes. Out! her mind screamed. She needed to get them out of her, no matter the cost.
Then she blinked in confusion as she tried to survey herself carefully. The pain - that aching pain - it fled her without any sign or warning.
Sweet and cool relief. The wind on the wound didn't feel so hot anymore. It no longer burned.
And there were no maggots feasting on her.
Had there ever been? Gadget thought, but it didn't help to calm her.
Her fear rose and her heart thumped heavily.
Am I going insane!?
They were there! So real…and she'd felt them in her fingers. And the pain they'd left behind.
Gadget's gaze shot to her arm but that, too, was untouched. Nothing but her bite marks that left a small amount of blood.
There was nothing.
I'm not insane, Gadget reassured herself. It had to be a Gamemaker trick. One of Seneca Crane's tricks! It had to be. It was the only thing that made sense.
"There's someone there."
Gadget's heart stopped and her blood went cold. Slowly, she pushed herself back down to the ground and peeked through the bushes that were her cover.
But Kernel, the person who had voiced his statement, wasn't looking in her direction.
No, he was still looking out in the direction that Peeta dropped the false sponsor.
A breath of relief passed through her lips.
"Wait," Binary said. He stopped any possible movement from Kernel with a hand on his shoulder. "This doesn't feel right to me."
"It might be our only chance," Kernel countered.
"That sponsor can't be ours," Binary stated firmly. "It's too far. On that we agree?"
Gadget watched as Kernel hesitated, then nodded slowly.
"What kind of mentor would be stupid enough to send their tribute a sponsor this close to someone else?"
Gadget felt her heart sink. No no, take the bait!
In the distance, the red light flashed in a steady rhythm.
"Then, maybe the wind blew it off course," Kernel said, sounding annoyed. "You're seriously going to overthink," he stopped, then continued with what sounded to Gadget like great reluctance, "killing a tribute when they're right there? Or deny a possible sponsor?"
Kernel stopped and looked down at his feet for a moment.
"I know it's probably setting off every single red flag that you can think of," he remarked. "But we have the advantage," Kernel emphasized, pointing at the knife Binary held. "One cut of that, and they're dead."
Gadget glanced in the direction of the fake sponsor. Is Peeta safe? she wondered worriedly. She hoped he was. Gadget didn't think she could handle another one of her allies - friends - dying.
"They probably don't know we're here," Kernel added. "We've been sure to keep quiet," he said, and Gadget realized the truth to his words. She had to strain to hear both him and Binary from her position.
Binary stared at Kernel for a long moment. Then, finally, he said, "Fine. Keep low, and be quiet."
"As you say, captain," Kernel commented. Together, they stepped out into the trees and disappeared from Gadget's view.
This was it! This was her opening!
She counted the seconds of Binary and Kernel's absence. The further they got away, the better the chance she could get Corduroy free.
But then, the moment they realized the sponsor was a fake, they would return fast. Very, very fast.
A window of opportunity that was so short, and Gadget feared so greatly that she would mess it up.
Maybe she should've had Peeta save him. He knew what he was doing better than she did, she was certain.
It was too late to go back now. This was it.
Gadget leaped out from behind the bush as fast as she could. Sticks cracking and breaking underneath her feet at her sudden and quick movements.
Corduroy turned in his bindings and a startled noise escaped from his muffled throat. But Gadget could see as whatever words he tried to say died on his tongue as she let herself come into view.
She slid forward as quickly as she could. Time was ticking away. The second she made it to his side, she pulled the gag out of his mouth.
"Gadget?" Corduroy whispered. A slight smile appeared on his face.
"H-hey," Gadget stuttered. It felt like ages since she had last seen and talked to him.
She slipped her knife out from her belt and spied the rope that tied him.
Time's ticking, Gadget.
"You did well for yourself," Corduroy said as he looked at her. Then he quietened and she knew he found the wound in her chest. "What happened?"
"Later," Gadget whispered back. She followed the rope behind the tree where the knot was tied. A place that Corduroy couldn't reach to untie.
She wasted nothing in working to undo it.
The knife wouldn't cut through in time. It would be a waste of the valuable time they had.
"Gadget!" someone whisper-yelled and Gadget turned, her jumping into her throat. She grasped her knife hard.
But all that she saw was Peeta, out of breath and resting his hands on his knees.
"P-Peeta," Gadget stuttered, lowering her knife. She glanced back at Corduroy. "Help me!"
"Right. Yeah." Peeta nodded and ambled over, not overly worried about stealth for now.
Speed was more prudent until they could get Corduroy free.
Gadget's vision started to get blurry, and she had to blink her eyes rapidly, but that seemed to make things worse. Now she was seeing double.
Her fear and panic was mounting, and she wasn't sure if she was being more hindrance than help as she fumbled with the ropes. But between her and Peeta, they somehow managed it.
"You'll need to move quickly," Peeta told Corduroy, eyeing his leg, "think you can manage?"
Gadget realized Peeta was right. Between his bad leg, and the fact he'd been bound and unable to move for who knows how long - Gadget herself took quite some time after being forced to lie still for half a day - they'd best support him between them.
The rope fell, undone. Gadget wished she could throw it in her pack, but she didn't have the time to do it.
"Perhaps," Corduroy replied softly, giving Peeta a guarded look, "if you would be so kind as to give me a hand up, we can be on our way."
Gadget and Peeta did exactly that, hoisting the boy between them, and they beat a hasty retreat just as they heard Binary and Kernel's footfalls. They were returning in a hurry, having realized the decoy's purpose.
They slipped deeper into the shadows of the woods. As Corduroy slowly regained some control over his stiff muscles, he began to move more on his own than with their support. They managed to put some distance between them just as the two boys evidently reached their camp.
Binary made an angry sound, but other than that, she couldn't hear anything.
Then she heard a soft thudding noise, and Kernel going, "Ow! Hey!"
"What did I tell you?!" Binary demanded. "It was a diversion! This was exactly the kind of creativity Gadget showed. She played dead for hours under the Career Pack's watch!"
"It was a fifty-fifty chance!" Kernel defended. "Look, they couldn't have gone far. Corduroy's leg is a potato, if we go now, we could get ourselves two hostages."
"Three," Binary corrected.
"Three?" Kernel repeated.
"Gadget couldn't have done this alone," Binary said, and the sound of a bush being swiped away reached the girl in question's ears. "She would have to circle around from the decoy to District Eight."
The trio held their collective breath, somehow deciding together that they wanted to hear Binary's verdict first.
"Regardless, your suggestion is sound," Binary finally said.
"Let's move," Peeta whispered.
Gadget nodded and she turned, assisting Corduroy as they navigated as quickly and quietly as they could unassisted by any artificial light, aside from some stars and a moon's soft glow.
They followed an open path through the woods, taking the easiest routes due to Corduroy's leg and Gadget's constant stumbling whenever the pain racked up.
Why are they still with me? Haven't they seen how much of a liability I am?
She stumbled forward further along with them, her feet breaking branches and leaves clumsily with each step she took.
Her vision was getting increasingly blurry, and her head dizzy.
What is happening to me?
Gadget didn't have an answer. She didn't have enough time to figure out an answer.
"Gadget!" Binary called somewhere behind them. "I know you're here somewhere!"
Gadget shook her head roughly. Don't let him see you, Gadget, she said to herself internally. She had no idea how cruel Binary would be if he did.
Corduroy's steps straightened out and he slowly removed his arms from around Gadget and Peeta. He was on his feet, and even with the brace around his leg, Gadget could see through her blurry vision how competent he was.
Not like her. She could hardly stand straight. And every time she rubbed at her eyes with her hand, her vision only went worse.
It was so hard to see anything beyond the dark colors and shapes.
"Gadget," Corduroy said softly. She inclined her head in his direction, but he didn't say anything else.
She almost gasped when she felt his fingers intertwine with her own.
"Are you okay?" Corduroy asked cautiously, but he didn't slow down.
Gadget shook her head. "It's…" She stopped and contemplated lying. To tell him that everything was fine, but…
There was no point in doing that. She wouldn't drag her friends down with her because she wanted to appear more useful then she actually was to them.
"I-I can't s-see we-ll," she stuttered at last.
Corduroy's fingers tightened around her hand.
"What happened to your chest?" he asked softly.
Gadget almost stumbled. He was…asking about her well-being?
She didn't answer and Peeta said, "Monkshood stabbed her."
Gadget winced. Wasn't she just so pathetic? Maybe Peeta and Corduroy would see her for who she really was, now.
"Monkshood?" Corduroy said.
"Yeah," Peeta replied. "We got ambushed."
Gadget flushed in embarrassment. It was her fault that had happened in the first place. If she had just been a little bit smarter, then that wouldn't have happened, and she could share her supplies with Corduroy.
Corduroy seemed to take a moment to think as he guided Gadget over a branch that she nearly tripped on.
"Rue is very adept at applying venom to weaponry," he said. "Was that what she did for Monkshood?"
She heard Peeta nod. "Yeah, I think so."
Gadget blinked and her hand clutched at Corduroy's like a lifeline.
"Over here," Peeta said and Gadget looked to where he was pointing. A drop in the small cliff with an opening to hide in.
It was very hard to make out the details from the blurriness, and the dizziness in Gadget's head. But she understood that it was a form of a grotto.
By no means a permanent place to hide, but…it would have to do.
"Gadget!" Binary yelled somewhere behind them, and his voice alone was enough to spring Gadget back into action.
She climbed down the short cliff. About a six foot drop, if that, and she landed with a thud, the crackling of branches breaking under her feet.
"Here!" Corduroy whispered urgently, dropping down beside her. He took Gadget's hand again and ducked into the grotto with her.
Peeta appeared a second later and he pressed his back into the wall behind them. His wooden spear held at the ready, prepares for a moment's notice.
A wall of dirt and stone, it felt like. Roots dug into Gadget's back, but she didn't dare to make a sound. Making a sound, even the slightest one, would get them caught.
She was certain, confident in that. Because she never had any use otherwise.
Now she slowed her friends down. It was all she was good for, and Gadget couldn't for the life of her understand why they were being so kind.
Corduroy's fingers rubbed rhythmic, soft patterns onto the back of Gadget's hand. Like he was letting her know that he was still there. Like he was letting her know that he didn't intend on leaving her alone.
Even though that was more than she deserved.
He didn't know how badly she'd failed to protect Lace, after all.
Gadget knew he would despise her if he did.
Which was why she needed to tell him. To let him know that she was there when Lace died and that there was no one more responsible for the things Clove did to Lace…than herself.
Gadget rubbed at her eyes one last time in hopes that the blurriness would leave her. How much more of a liability could she possibly be?
She squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed at them with her fingers, and then the palm of her hand. Why was everything so blurry?
Until…nothing was.
Gadget blinked her eyes open and everything became clear. The blurriness vanished, but that did nothing to stop the dizziness that continued to become worse and worse.
She tried to press her foot into the ground to change her position, but everything felt so wobbly.
Her knees like floppy disks.
She couldn't stand or move and she pushed back against the wall again.
"Gadget!" Binary's voice called out again.
Where is Kernel? Gadget questioned, then shook the thought away. It didn't matter, not really.
Gadget glanced around their surroundings. Corduroy and Peeta were utterly quiet and the former held a knife he didn't have before.
Where did he get that from?
Gadget glimpsed at her belt to find that she was indeed missing one of her knives. Not that it mattered to her. She couldn't help defend him against Binary or Kernel, she wasn't ever strong enough to.
She looked out past the grotto they hid in and tried to map an escape route in her head based on what she could see.
But she stopped and her throat went dry.
Blood dribbled from the trees and down their bark. Out from underneath the tree, like a person was trapped inside of them and they had been crushed to death.
Gadget pushed back ever further against the wall, ignoring how the roots poked and stabbed into her skin, she didn't care.
She couldn't care when the trees were bleeding!
I'm not going insane! she yelled at herself internally. I'm not! I'm not!
But the proof was undeniable. Crimson…vermillion…red blood slid down the trunks of the trees in front of her. All around her.
Because it wasn't just the trees, but the roots above and around them.
Murky blood that dripped all around her. She looked at Corduroy and Peeta but they appeared nonchalant about what was happening around them.
They didn't care at all!
It was like they couldn't even see it all.
Gadget's breathing picked up.
She could not stop a small whimper of sheer terror. She knew that the blood was real. It had to be! And she did not want it touching her. It would consume her. Binary wouldn't need to bother. The Gamemakers and her dad would do her in.
Her dad?
What did he have to do with anything? He threw her out when she was just twelve. He saw her for the failure that she was.
Tears poured down and she clenched her eyes shut, her whole body trembling.
She felt fingers lightly touching her chin, and she snapped her eyes back open, and stared into the vague form of Corduroy, most of him shrouded in darkness, save for his eyes.
His index finger was against his lips, and she nodded, but her eyes still relayed panic.
Beyond Corduroy, under a spotlight, was Seneca Crane, standing there, looking upon them.
Even when he was on level ground, he somehow made one feel like he was looking down on them.
"The tracker jacker is a very potent and interesting creature," Seneca Crane said.
He vanished, and with a gasp, Gadget whipped her head and there he was, walking on air!
"The toxin is extremely painful, and can cause intense hallucinations, and eventually, death," he continued to explain, sauntering right past Gadget, Peeta and Corduroy.
Tracker jackers…they were notorious for their effects. And they had appeared in countless Games before.
Seneca Crane stopped. The blood of the trees dribbled down over him, staining his clothes and his body.
"And if someone were to use tracker jacker venom on a weapon of some kind," Seneca Crane added, "then its victim would face some severe hallucinations and…"
The blood seemed to fall in droves. It covered Seneca Crane from head to toe. It showed him for who he truly was.
A monster.
"Torture."
He isn't real, Gadget, she said to herself. Seneca Crane wasn't really there.
But he looked so real!
So, so real.
Seneca Crane twisted sharply on his feet and stared coldly down at Gadget. She wanted to scream, but she knew better than to lose herself to that.
He isn't real!
"I'm not real?" Seneca Crane tilted his head to the side slightly. More and more blood slid down the side of his face. Down his cheeks and sticking to his neatly trimmed beard.
"You're not really here," Gadget whispered. She could feel Corduroy and Peeta's eyes on her, but she didn't care. She was too petrified.
Seneca Crane took one grand step closer to the inside of the grotto. "Oh, but I am, Ms. Trevelyan."
Gadget couldn't swallow. Something felt like it was stuck in her throat and she couldn't take her eyes off of the sinister man that kept approaching. Kept getting closer.
"I'm all around you," Seneca Crane said. "From the ground you're touching to the arena you're encased in."
"No, you aren't…y-you aren't he-here," Gadget stuttered. She wanted to push herself further back into the grotto, but she had already gone as far as she could go.
"Gadget," Corduroy whispered to her by her side. "Who is not really here?" he asked.
Corduroy couldn't see him. Which meant that Peeta couldn't, either.
Seneca Crane wasn't there. He wasn't really watching them as blood from the trees poured over him.
Blood poured out of Seneca Crane's eyes, his cool grey-blue replaced with the dark scarlet of blood as it slid down his face like a cruel mimicry of tears.
"Y-you aren't h-here," Gadget repeated again to herself as Seneca Crane took a step closer. And then another.
"Gadget," Corduroy said kindly in her ear.
"Seneca Crane isn't re-really here," Gadget said, and she covered her ears with her hands. It was the tracker jackers, not the Head Gamemaker!
Not Seneca Crane.
"Gadget!"
That wasn't Corduroy.
Binary's voice was getting closer and closer. Somewhere above and behind them. He wasn't close enough to know where they were.
He couldn't be.
Corduroy said something that Gadget couldn't make out and she turned her head to try to find him in the all-encompassing darkness.
Or was it just the tracker jackers that made it seem that way?
Another strike of pain cut through her chest and Gadget bit down on her arm to once more stop herself from crying out.
The phantom pain of what felt like Monkshood's dagger sliding through her chest. Embedded deep inside her. But that had never happened.
Though that didn't stop it from hurting so, so badly.
She glanced up desperately, but there was no sign of Seneca Crane. But the trees…they continued to bleed more and more.
It's not real, Gadget! She wanted to kick herself. The blood wasn't real. It was part of the tracker jacker poison. It had to be.
That was the poison Monkshood had put on her dagger. Tracker jacker venom. How she had managed it, Gadget didn't care. But the pieces were thrown together in her mind and…it all made sense.
The roots creaked around them. Flecks of dirt and stone fell from the top of the grotto.
But the pain in her chest was too much for her to care. It hurt so bad. And it kept getting worse. She had hoped that the last time would be the worst, but it only kept growing.
Shards of pain that struck without warning and…
Gadget wanted to cry. She sucked in a harsh breath and clutched hard at where the wound in her chest was.
However, she didn't look down at it. If she had…she feared she would see the maggots again. Seem them crawling around inside of her.
Maggots crawling around under her skin.
She couldn't take it. She couldn't take that.
The roots creaked louder than before. Larger flecks of dirt and rock fell around them. They tangled in Gadget's hair.
"Gadget," Corduroy whispered in concern. She heard him turn to Peeta. "What is happening to her?"
"I don't know," Peeta said. "Whatever the poison did, it keeps coming back randomly and hurts her."
"It's tracker jackers," Gadget whispered. She bit down on her lower lip and leaned back as far as she could in spite of the pointed roots digging into her back.
"Tracker jackers?" Peeta repeated.
Gadget nodded, though she didn't know if they could see her. "Their poison," she stuttered. She flicked her gaze to where she knew Corduroy was. "It burns!"
The grotto rumbled, and more flecks of dirt and stone fell. The branches and roots creaked in protest.
And then, all at once, the grotto shook and sent a flood of dirt and soil raining across the interior.
Gadget gasped in surprise and she felt Corduroy take her hand again. Whether it was out of impulse or not, she didn't know.
But the walls started to move.
"We need to go!" Corduroy said frantically.
This wasn't a part of her hallucinations.
The roots and stone slammed into Gadget's back hard, like they were trying to dig itself into her. And the top of the grotto's ceiling rippled.
Dirt squeezed into the grotto, pounds of it covering up Gadget's feet as she tried to stand and follow Corduroy out to the exit that was only mere feet in front of them.
But Seneca Crane - the real Seneca Crane - wasn't making it easy.
The exit started to shrink as stone and gravel and dirt fell into place, and the walls started to close roughly.
Gadget's heart thumped in panic. She had no idea where Peeta was, but she hoped he had made it out already.
What is happening!?
The grotto…it was closing!
It was going to crush them!
Gadget tore her foot out of the flood of dirt that enveloped her feet.
One…
Her second foot. Gadget pulled harder than her first. Her chest protested at the movement, but she endured through the pain to tear her foot out.
Two…
But the grotto was closing too fast. The dirt continued to pour in from places Gadget didn't know where from.
I'm not going to make it!
The exit seemed to get further and further away despite her movements. And its opening was so much smaller than it was moment's ago.
Dirt and stone squeezed around her feet, further restricting her movements. Her hand tightened around Corduroy's and she tried to pull her foot out from under the weight.
Ahead of them, she could barely make out the shadow of Peeta as he climbed through the exit with a grunt.
At least he's safe, Gadget thought.
She thrust her foot out and forward, making another clambering step.
Three…
The walls of the grotto came closer and closer. Ground and all kinds of different things surrounded her and Corduroy completely.
She wasn't going to get out in time.
Four…
The entrance closed ever more, tightening around itself, and the grotto did the same. The ground had started to rise and Gadget lost her balance.
"Gadget!" Corduroy called, but it was too late. Her hand slipped out from him and the ground swallowed the lower half of her body.
"R-run, Corduroy!" Gadget said as loudly as she could over the sound of the earth shifting.
She tried to pry her leg out, but the weight was immense. The ceiling came down on top of her, pressing her down.
Hands poked through the grotto's opening and grabbed onto Corduroy. In a second, he was gone, hauled out of the entrance.
Gadget threw her hand forward to grab onto something. Anything that would help her. But all she could reach was the dirt and stone in front of her.
It slipped through her grip as she tried to grab onto something to help her.
But there wasn't anything.
They slipped into the open wounds of her body and a horrible agony split her.
Gadget kicked her feet out as hard as she could and pulled with all of her might.
Out of the earth her legs came, both of them. She did not have any time to waste and she pushed herself forward as she found a grip in the ground with her heel.
It was so close!
Five…
The entrance tightened more and left nothing but a small hole she would have to squeeze through. And beyond it, she could see nothing but the darkness of the night.
The grotto's ceiling touched her back, and she could feel the wall behind her closing in. She felt her feet kick off from it.
It was becoming so hard to breathe!
Six…
Soil and its smell filtered through Gadget's nostrils and she coughed.
Gap between the opening, and the ceiling from the floor, was growing closer together by the second, and Gadget knew she wasn't going to make it out.
She wasn't quick enough.
Seven…
A root plunged up through the dirt and into Gadget's chest, right where Monkshood had stabbed her.
"AHH!" Gadget screamed, and all sense of composure was lost.
"You are right there!" Corduroy said.
He was so close!
But the pain…it was almost unbearable.
It pressed and pressed deeper, far past where the dagger had cut in. The root opened the wound further and Gadget screamed louder.
She kicked out hard against the walls that forced her legs into an uncompromising, unbendable position.
Eight…
It was going to crush her! She was going to suffocate! The grotto's opening wasn't going to be large enough!
The space had become minimal in seconds. Gadget couldn't bend her arms. The weight restricted it and the walls and floor and ceiling were too close to allow it.
Nine…
Gadget pushed hard, ground her teeth together as the root dug into her chest one last time, before it was pulled free.
Her hands connected with the opening, but it was small.
Too small.
She wasn't going to be able to fit through.
But her elbows had.
Even as she was crushed, she crawled. The weight on top of her pressed down as hard as it could.
She couldn't breathe.
It was too hard!
Four hands grabbed her arms and began to pull and Gadget slid along until her head cleared the opening of the grotto.
Corduroy and Peeta stood in front of her, brightened by moonlight, each with a hand on her arms.
She couldn't move anything beyond her neck. Everything clung to her and hugged her like a perverse blanket that would kill her.
That was killing her.
The grotto continued to close and the pressure on her became too much. Pain erupted all throughout her and again, Gadget screamed.
Roots and rocks stabbed at her. How many cut openings in her had they made?
Corduroy and Peeta pulled, and all at once, Gadget's chest came free from the grotto.
She could breathe again!
But it stopped nothing.
The grotto squeezed around her and Gadget felt like her body was about to be cut in half.
She tried to stop herself from making another noise, but she couldn't. A whimper fled her.
It was worse than Monkshood's dagger and the tracker jackers. It was so much worse.
"AHHH!" Gadget shrieked.
The opening of the grotto cut into her waist. Was she bleeding? She didn't know.
"Come on!" Peeta said, and she felt their hands grip her harder than ever before.
And they pulled.
Such an intense burning torture followed. Like a knife stabbed sliced into her leg to the hilt, and ran all the way down to her ankles.
And then she fell and she couldn't catch herself.
Her shoulder hit the ground first, from what she idly estimated was about a three foot drop.
But she didn't care. She had been freed.
Gadget flipped onto her back and looked at the opening of the grotto, just in time to see as it closed completely, and left nothing behind.
Nothing but a wall of rock and dirt.
Gadget shivered and jostled into a sitting position. That had almost been her. She had almost been crushed.
"We should-" Peeta started to speak.
TZING!
Something whizzed right by her ear and noisily embedded itself into a nearby tree. Binary had a ranged weapon of some sort! Probably a crossbow.
With no time to even catch their breath or come to terms with how close they came to death once again, the three were scrambling to their feet and fleeing. Gadget was being pulled by both boys, each holding one of her hands.
"I can see you!" Gadget heard Binary say from somewhere behind her.
He couldn't kill her…but that didn't stop him from hurting her.
"This way!" Peeta said, and Gadget swerved on her feet as Corduroy pulled her about. Gently yet firmly, he guided her.
"Corduroy," Gadget whimpered. Her free hand flew to her chest, and then to the arm of the hand he held. His quick movements felt like her arm was about to pop out of its socket.
But Gadget knew that feeling wasn't real. His pull was too gentle for that. It was the tracker jackers.
"I am sorry," Corduroy said sympathetically. His features morphed into one of solace. His hold on her became softer.
But the pain in her shoulder only heightened.
"They're going to abandon you, you know," Seneca Crane's silky voice whispered in her ear.
"No!" Gadget shook her head rapidly. That wasn't true!
Peeta zig-zagged between a grouping of trees, and Corduroy and Gadget followed closely behind. She could hear the thunk of something embedding itself into a tree at her back.
Gadget glanced down at herself. She was covered in dirt and blood from the trees. A complete mess.
Her hand reached up for her shoulder and her heart skipped a beat.
The shoulder pad was missing.
"I am sorry," Corduroy said again and Gadget looked at him. His carefully guarded eyes met her sad and dead ones. Slowly, he withdrew his hand.
"Wait, p-please!" Gadget said, and she lunged for his hand, preventing him from moving. She didn't want him to leave her side like that.
But that was horrifically selfish. If leaving her meant that he could survive…then so be it.
They stopped behind a field of trees that coveted them from Binary. It wouldn't stop him for long, Gadget knew, but it provided the very limited chance to plan a real escape.
"You said 'no'," Corduroy said softly. "I thought-"
"It's…" Gadget doubled over and caught herself on the bark of the tree. It was so slippery. The blood made it so hard to grasp onto. "Th-the hallu-hallucinations…"
"You stupid glitches!" Binary shouted and Gadget fell against the bark of the tree. "You've ruined it again, Gadget! Is that all you're good for!?"
A breath fled Gadget's lungs. Her body ached and protested. Everything hurt. But her hand in Corduroy's…it made things feel better. Just.
"This is chaos," Peeta said lowly. He dropped his hands to his knees and surveyed the area they'd run to.
"Chaos is what started the Bloodbath," Corduroy replied.
An expression of hurt appeared on Peeta's face, but Gadget knew that it wasn't because of the words Corduroy said.
It was because of Katniss.
"What's the plan?" he asked, schooling his face into something neutral. "Besides staying alive. That part's kind of implied."
"There is nothing we can do," Corduroy replied, "but keep running."
He looked at Gadget and she looked back at him. Her eyes felt so full of pain. Every time she moved, something sharp tore into her.
"You should…" Gadget started, then stopped. She grimaced as another ripple hit her and she gasped.
Gadget tucked her feet hard into the ground and pushed herself off the tree with her arm as it shook more and more as she tried.
"L-le-leave me here," Gadget finally said. She couldn't meet Corduroy or Peeta's eyes. If she had, she knew she would find betrayal in them.
Or feverish disappointment.
"Come out from behind there," Binary ordered coldly. "Let's try not to waste each other's time."
"Gadget," Corduroy said and she felt his hand squeeze her own gently. Comfortingly. "I will not leave you behind."
Gadget looked at Corduroy with pained, dead eyes. Why would he do that? Why?
"If only he knew how you failed Lace," Seneca Crane whispered in her ear. She wanted to shake it away, but the words were true.
Even if they came in the voice of a hallucination of the Head Gamemaker.
"If only he knew how much of a coward you were. To leave your friend there to die," Seneca Crane's false voice continued. It barely sounded like him. The tracker jackers mimicked him in voice only. "Even Peeta held you back from doing it. What does that say about his confidence in you?"
They were despicable words, voiced only in her head. Gadget knew it was all in her head. Seneca Crane wasn't really there.
Even as she could feel his presence all around them, he wasn't really there.
But it didn't make his silky words any less true.
"You came back for me," Corduroy said softly. "I will not leave you."
Gadget wanted to retch.
He was being so kind to her when she didn't deserve it. She was the last person that deserved it. At least Monkshood had the excuse of self-preservation.
I'm…just a coward…
Gadget turned away. Corduroy said something else, but it faded into static in her ears.
She was nothing, and worth even less.
"Stop hiding, Gadget!" Binary's voice filtered through the static. "You and your allies!"
Gadget shook in terrified anxiety.
She twisted on her feet and pulled off of the tree. One of her hands ran through the dirt and blood that stained her arm and tried to rub it away.
But it was pointless. All it did was stick to her hand…and dug into her skin.
Gadget made a small, despairing noise and tried to rub her hands together to get rid of it.
"Why didn't you save me, Gadget?"
Gadget's blood went cold and she looked back towards the tree she had been leaning on. The tree that had been covered in blood as it bled through the bark.
The tree with Lace's body carved into its wood.
"N-no…" Gadget stuttered, horrified.
The carving of Lace was immaculate. But it terrified Gadget.
Because she wasn't smiling anymore.
The tree's wood creaked and groaned as the carving of Lace in the tree tilted its head. Bark shifted about to let her move and stare coldly, dispassionately.
"I-I wanted t-to sa-save-"
"But you didn't, did you?" Lace asked callously. "You just watched and did nothing."
"No!" Gadget cried, and she tried to take a step back, but her foot caught on a root and she fell.
"Clove might have been the one to kill me," Lace said, staring down at Gadget. Her voice sounded nothing like the girl Gadget had once known. It sounded cold. So, so cold.
Gadget backed up on her arms.
"But you were supposed to be the one to save me," Lace continued coldly. Her voice grew louder and louder until it was all Gadget could hear.
She whimpered.
"Allies were supposed to help each other, I thought," Lace said. The bark creaked as her brow turned downwards into something frightful. "I even talked you up in my interview!"
She sounded nothing like Lace! She wouldn't say these things to her! No matter how true they were, Lace would never say them!
It was just a tracker jacker hallucination! This wasn't real!
"Go a-away," Gadget said and shook her head.
"But you just left me there to die. And of course now you feel bad about it," Lace continued on. "Because now you don't have an ally to lean on."
"Go away!" Gadget said, more clearly, and more loudly.
"Is that what you really want, Gadget?" Lace said, and Gadget looked up at the carving. That terrible voice was gone and it was Lace…
Just Lace.
"You got me killed," she said chillingly. "And now, you're going to have to suffer for being such a coward."
"I-I'm s-s-sorry," Gadget stuttered. "I-"
"That blood on your hands," Lace said, wooden eyes pointing down at Gadget's palms. "That blood is my blood."
With fearful trepidation, Gadget looked down at her herself. Right where a new fresh sheet of blood was all over her fingers and palms.
"No!" Gadget sobbed. She looked back up at Lace.
But she was gone. The carving in the tree was just that again. A tree.
Gadget stood up slowly, but she took another few steps back.
Her hands were stained red, and the dripping blood on the trees seemed to start to rain.
There was so much of it! An unending storm!
"Look at me," someone said, and her attention was torn away from what had once been in front of her.
Instead, she turned sharply at the person who had spoken. Corduroy.
His eyes held so much concern.
Concern she didn't deserve.
And his hand, intertwined with her own, felt nice and comforting. But it didn't feel right.
Lace was dead because of her, and here her district partner was completely unaware of that cold, hard fact.
"Has it passed?" Corduroy asked gently.
"Y-y-ye-yeah," Gadget lied.
Blood splattered against the trees and the ground in droves.
"The Gamemakers really know how to set the mood, don't they?" Binary called, and Gadget grimaced at the sound of his voice. "Rain. Perfect for a showdown."
Gadget spared the sky only the shortest of glances. Crimson drops fell all around her. It mixed in with the bleeding trees and…
She tried to slow her breathing, but there was no calming herself down. Not here. Not with the vile hallucinations.
"Hey," Peeta said as he appeared at her side. "Did you hear what Corduroy said?"
"Wh-what?" Gadget asked hesitantly.
"There is a river," Corduroy said, pointing away. "That way."
In the direction of the Cornucopia.
Gadget would've preferred running in the other direction. Away from where she knew would be closer to the Careers. Not towards them.
But she didn't deserve to have a choice in the matter.
"You're starting to really try my patience!" Binary shouted.
Gadget stood up, doing her best to ignore the resurgent pain in her chest. They were running out of time.
Corduroy paused, and then, with a low whisper that only Gadget and Peeta could hear, he said, "Go."
As one, Gadget, Corduroy, and Peeta sprung out from their position and ran.
TZING!
Gadget heard as something thunked into the wood of a tree. She took one look over her shoulder to see that it was a makeshift arrow that Binary shot at them.
In the distance, she heard him curse.
"Ah!" Gadget groaned suddenly, and she touched a hand to her wound. With a peak down at it, she saw the angry red marks of it.
And the pain intensified.
Her feet crushed into the ground at a stumbling speed. Everything hurt. Everything.
Her legs screamed in objection with her every step, but she would take it over whatever Binary planned for her.
In front of her, Corduroy limped at a steady rhythm. He wound them between tree after tree and Gadget was glad for the attempt to lose Binary.
TZING!
An arrow stuck into one of the trees in front of them and Corduroy shifted on his feet abruptly. He shifted and pulled at Gadget's hand, into an awkward angle.
"This way," he told them, and he was off.
Gadget's hand felt clammy in his own.
Peeta's lumbering breath echoed in her ears.
She's sure that Binary notches another arrow.
How close was the river? Gadget hoped it wasn't too far away.
Her muscles ached under each step of her shoe digging through soil.
Gadget felt like her heart was pounding in her head, and she felt like the whole world was coming down on her.
"How did you end up joining him?" Corduroy nodded his head in the direction of Peeta where they'd last seen him.
"I-I put a kn-knife to his throat…and-and asked him to join me," Gadget answered distractedly.
Corduroy's lips curled upwards slightly. "How remarkable."
Something felt like it stabbed her chest. Like a shard of glass. A dull throb.
Gadget held back her gasp and stopped herself from nearly stumbling.
The pressure started to build.
"Over here," Corduroy said, and he came to a stop. Right in front of them was a muddy slope, curved downward to connect with the forest.
Corduroy's hand left her's and Gadget tried to reach back to take it. She wanted the comfort it gave her.
She wanted the comfort she didn't deserve.
Corduroy planted his feet on the slope and hauled himself forward. Despite the brace on his leg, he slid down with no problems, balancing himself with relative ease from Gadget's point of view.
The mud slipped around his feet, she could see. It pushed his momentum forward until he reached the bottom.
And when he did, Corduroy skid a few feet, before he turned around to face them. He held a hand out like he was beckoning them.
Gadget swallowed nervously. But she planted her feet in the ground the way she had seen Corduroy do it, and pushed herself off of solid ground and onto the mud.
It was slippery. Much more slippery than she had expected.
Puddles of blood in small crevices in the slope, and she tried not to think about it.
It wasn't real. It was just a part of the hallucinations.
But that didn't stop her feet from kicking out from under her before she even made it halfway down the slope.
A gasp escaped her mouth and she was hurtled forward at an unexpected speed. Her knee hit the mud, and she flipped onto her side into a roll.
A brand new set of agony hit her and Gadget had to hold back her scream. Every little impact against the ground hit her like the blunt end of a butter knife.
All over her. All around her. Digging persistently into her.
Her chest…where Monkshood had cut into her, was the worst of all. The cool breeze of the night did nothing to stop the increasing burning sensation.
Gadget threw her hands out in front of her as best she could, and they crashed into the bloody, decrepit ground. She flipped onto her side so suddenly and without her preparation.
Another stabbing pain erupted within her. Harder than before. The weight of her body hitting the ground carried with it.
It carried the ache.
Her joints screamed. They begged for rest, but Gadget couldn't give it to them. Not here. Not now.
Finally, she came to a stop with a soft thud at the foot of the slope. Blood from the rain pooled all around her.
Like it marked her for death.
Maybe that was exactly what she was. It was what she was supposed to be.
Gadget groaned softly. Could she still stand? The build upon build of pain…it made every little movement hurt. Everything she did felt like a dull stab.
One that became increasingly sharper the longer she held on for.
She tried to sit up, and she crawled into a kneeling position, but it took so much of her strength. Her body screamed at her.
Gadget blinked and looked for Corduroy, but she stopped as her gaze landed on one of the many bleeding trees.
For spiders had squeezed through from under the bark. So many of them crawled out, and they didn't care for the blood that decorated them.
It's not real! Gadget thought furiously.
She squeezed her hands into fists, and felt something squish in her palms.
Gadget opened her palm and glanced down and…there were so many spiders!
They crawled around on her hand, so many of them. They moved on her flesh, and others created a webbing between her fingers.
She wanted to shake them off, but she was paralyzed.
Until a thousand tiny teeth sliced into her and Gadget gasped.
She drew her sleeve back to see her arm further and…there were so many of them! So many of them gnawed at her skin and bit into her.
Like she was a meal.
Gadget smacked her free hand on her wrist and arm, but it was no use. She killed one, and a new one appeared to take its place.
"No no," Gadget mumbled and she started to scratch them away. Wave and pull them away until there was nothing left.
Her pale skin became a red raw color quickly, but she didn't stop. They just kept coming, and they didn't seem to stop!
More and more until her arm was nothing but black in the color of hundreds of spiders.
She could feel her skin tearing under her nails as she tried to pull and scratch them away, but it was useless. There was no stopping it!
Gadget stopped and looked past her arm to the ground. Where more spiders came from and crawled went towards her.
No!
Gadget tried to move back and get out of the way of them, but she couldn't. The pain in her feet…it was too much. How could she feel both agony and numbness at the same time!?
Up her legs they came, and she tried to swipe them off, but every one of her movements was in vain.
She couldn't stop them. She couldn't stop all of them.
More and more, they came. In droves. Unstoppable.
It isn't real! Gadget reminded herself, but it stopped nothing. It looked real. It felt real.
They engulfed her until she couldn't see anything beyond their blackness.
It was indescribable, how much it hurt. She could only watch, helpless, as the spiders on her arm burrowed into her. She could see them crawling under her skin.
There was nothing she could do.
She scratched harder at her arm until it bled. Pulled until she tore the skin open. Because the spiders were inside of her!
They made her their home.
She groaned, trying her best not to scream, though every instinct told her that was what she was supposed to be doing. She hated spiders!
Gadget rolled on the ground, heedless of the dirt and blood she was getting into her open wounds. Her mind was reeling with panic, fear, despair, anguish and terror. It was overwhelming. Too much. Too much!
The loud crack of a branch underfoot snapped Gadget out of her state of panic, and she saw Corduroy and Peeta looking down at her helplessly, with such compassion in their eyes. Like her, they too were drenched in blood, and the dimensions of their faces were distorted somewhat. Like the eyes or mouth were morphing and shifting in size.
"S-s-someone…" Gadget said, in case her friends hadn't heard the noise, but they looked up a moment later.
There, coming down along the bank, and moments from seeing the trio, was Kernel. He held his spear in a ready posture, but he seemed nervous. Like Peeta and Corduroy, the dimensions of his face and body were distorted and shifting.
Suddenly, it wasn't Kernel there, it was her dad.
Zeno.
"Such a disappointment…" Zeno said, as he seemed to look right at her, "...you can't even die right. What happened to going out early in the Bloodbath? I thought I told you to die quickly. You can't even do this properly."
"N-no…" Gadget whispered. Why was her dad here?
A moment later, it was just Kernel again, and he was still looking in the opposite direction from where the three of them were. The blood rain drenched his form, and Gadget saw red.
Literally.
It was his fault everything was happening! He captured Corduroy! Him and Binary!
A sound emanated from Gadget's throat, and it made Corduroy look back at her with an unreadable expression on his face.
A growl emanated from Gadget.
All that fear, that terror, it was now turning into something else. Gadget saw flashes of memories, times when Binary chased her down the streets with his friend.
When he dislocated her shoulder, sprained her leg, caused her to twist her ankle…
Kernel and Binary. Binary and Kernel. They're one and the same.
One and the same!
"ARRGH!" Gadget's guttural cry of fury and rage shocked everyone, including Kernel who froze instead of swinging his weapon about to aim at her, he held it to the side, trying to assess what was coming out at him in a frenzied state.
"Gadget!" Peeta cried, but then ran in her wake, followed awkwardly by Corduroy.
Gadget was thin, but also tall, and heavy-boned. She slammed full force into the surprised Kernel, and successfully tackled him to the ground.
"YOU'RE THE SAME! YOU'RE THE SAME!" she cried out as she slapped him, scratched his face and punched him for all she was worth.
"Hnngh!" Kernel grunted. He shoved his hands in front of his face to protect himself.
But Gadget swung down at him like a rabid animal.
She didn't want to stop.
Not until, all at once, everything returned and Gadget shifted to the side, her actions halted.
Just like that, the pain and weariness was back, and Gadget fell off of Kernel, but Corduroy and Peeta took advantage of her initial assault to pin the other boy to the ground, while Gadget slipped off and clutched at the wound on her chest.
"What do we do?" Peeta asked, looking at Corduroy.
Corduroy looked thoughtfully at Kernel. Life and death must have flashed before the boy currently pinned by Peeta and him.
"He was kinder than Binary, by far," Corduroy said after a while, "Consider this my returning the favor."
He raised a clenched fist and struck with heavy force. Kernel's head tilted to the side, eyes closed.
Gadget watched everything from where she lay, her own legs still draped over Kernel's. She found that she couldn't bring herself to kill, and she realized, maybe somewhat presumptuously, that Corduroy and Peeta seemed the same. Neither were truly willing to kill, especially someone they managed to get the drop on.
Thanks to her.
She blinked as the thought came across her mind.
For the first time in her life, she...attacked.
Pulling her hands away from her chest, she looked down at the blood-soaked paws she called hands.
I attacked, she thought, I was so angry...I hate…I hated…
She shook her head. This was...she got up. She needed to get away. She needed to compute what had just happened. Needed to understand.
If Corduroy or Peeta called out to her as she stumbled along the muddy banks, heedless of blood rain getting into her eyes, she did not respond or register.
She felt a rage that always simmered below her mind, underneath the fear and terror. Today, for the first time in her life, she'd unleashed that rage, the wall of fear and insecurity fell away for an instant, and in that instant, she'd done something she never imagined she'd be able to do.
Was she proud of it? No.
Ashamed? Most certainly. She wasn't sure she liked that she had this...this…
Wait.
How far away did she move?
Gadget looked around frantically in search of her friends. Her allies. But they were nowhere to be found.
She was alone.
"They see you for what you really are."
Gadget jumped and held her hands out. Her crimson hands, wrought with Lace's blood.
Seneca Crane stood mere feet from her, his hands folded behind his back. The red rain went everywhere except where he stood.
"Mr. Ellsworth has abandoned you," Seneca Crane said.
Gadget shook her head. "N-no…" she said. "H-he said he woul-wouldn't leave m-me," she tried to say. Tried to rationalize.
"And he figured out your failure to save Ms. Feathermont," Seneca Crane said. He took a step forward. "You are just as much responsible as Ms. Kentwell in her death."
Unshed tears pricked at Gadget's eyes.
"It i-isn't-" she tried to say.
"Isn't it?" Seneca Crane asked coldly. His grey-blue eyes stared into her, and cut through her like a razor. "Action is as important as inaction."
Gadget covered her ears and shook her head. "Y-you're not rea-really here," she mumbled. It was the tracker jackers. They were playing tricks on her.
"And Mr. Mellark," Seneca Crane continued like he hadn't heard her. "He's the real star of the show."
"You-you aren't really he-here," Gadget said again. She slammed her eyes shut and palmed her ears harder.
"Declaring his undying love for Ms. Everdeen. He stole the hearts of hundreds," Seneca Crane said. "Thousands."
"You are-aren't real-ly here," Gadget stuttered. She squeezed her eyes shut harder than ever before. But the bloody rain on her hands felt so real.
"What did you do?" Seneca Crane asked. "A sob story about how your district partner bullies you?"
"You aren't…you aren't really here," Gadget said. She tried to say it more firmly, but it was hard. It was so hard when everything he said cut so deep.
"And now, Mr. Mellark realized his worth. He has no confidence in your abilities. He knows you're weak and have nothing to offer him," Seneca Crane said.
"You aren't really here!" Gadget said louder. She refused to look at him, even as the drops of blood became more insistent and fierce against her skin. "You c-can't hu-hurt me," she said, now more quiet. "You are-aren't rea-really here."
"I can't?" Seneca Crane asked. His voice was silky smooth. And he sounded like he was all around her. No longer in one place where his voice could flit through her ears no matter how hard she covered them.
It's the tracker jackers, Gadget reminded herself. Hallucinations. It wasn't real. None of this was real.
"Open your eyes, and I can show you just how much I can hurt you."
Against her will, Gadget felt her eyes open and her heart pounded in her throat. In the distance, she could see a mountain that she swore hadn't been there before.
And then it began to change.
It morphed and altered as rock and stone fell apart. Gadget could do nothing but watch with a growing sense of terror as the mountain transformed before her eyes.
And soon, all that was left were three faces staring down at her. With hatred. Horrible, horrible hatred.
Micra and Flux were on the left and right, with eyes so cold. They stared down at her even from their high position.
Gadget felt like she'd been stabbed.
But the middle face was worse.
Zeno. Her dad. His face watched her with scathing loathing. With nothing but true hatred etched into the mountain face.
Because he would never truly see her as a daughter.
"Please…p-please…"
"Is something wrong, Gadget?"
Gadget turned. That wasn't the voice of Seneca Crane.
That was the voice of Beetee.
He stared at her with such compassionate eyes that Gadget had never seen before from her dad.
From the person the mountain stone copied.
"I-I just…wa-want it to…stop," Gadget pleaded. The bloody rain pitter-pattered all around her. It stained her. Rubbed into her body.
Beetee's face fell. "But isn't this what you wanted?" he asked.
Gadget froze and she shook her head. "No-"
"Yes it is," Beetee said mournfully. "My help was only so limited. Why did I waste my time on you?"
How long had Gadget been crying? She didn't know. She rubbed the tears out of her eyes, but something stung in them when she tried.
"I-I'm sorry," Gadget tried to apologize.
"No you're not," Beetee said. "I wasted my time on you. I thought you could be a true victor, but now I see that I was wrong."
Gadget sobbed again. She ducked her head low to the ground. "I'm sorry," she said.
"No, you aren't. You're sorry you didn't die in the Bloodbath."
"I'm sorry," Gadget repeated, hopelessly.
"To think I saw something in you," a different voice said.
"Wiress?" Gadget asked quietly, and she looked up slowly to look around the clearing.
And there was Wiress, standing a few paces away.
"I-"
"I should've helped Grid and Qwerty," Wiress said. She shook her head. "Then, District Three would have had a chance."
"I'm sorry," Gadget tried to apologize. She could feel her tears running down her cheeks.
"Sometimes, the best thing to do," Wiress started to say, "is to jump off the pedestal before the Games begin."
"I'm sorry!" Gadget said again, but Wiress was gone as soon as she had come. But she didn't stand. She couldn't stand.
They were right. She was a failure. She should have died in the Bloodbath. At least she wouldn't be a waste of space, then.
"I wanted to see something in you," Septimius' voice swept through the clearing, and Gadget twisted on her knees.
"I'm sorry!" Gadget said again.
"But I was wrong. There was nothing in you," Septimius said, his voice one of true misery. "You couldn't measure up to Beetee or Wiress."
Gadget hugged her legs to her chest and buried her head into her knees. It was all true!
"I tried, but…you proved me wrong at every turn," Septimius said sadly. "I should never have tried to help you."
"No!" Gadget cried.
They were all right about her.
A waste of time.
A waste of space.
"Gadget."
Gadget looked up from her knees slowly, and there Syncis was. Kneeled in front of her with a hand outstretched towards her. He gave her a small smile.
She opened her mouth, then closed it again.
"Why do people fall down?" he asked
Hesitantly, Gadget reached her hand out to take Syncis' proffered hand.
"So we can learn to pick ourselves back up," Syncis finished.
The world warped in front of her and Gadget felt so very dizzy. She closed her eyes to try to rid herself of it and shook her head.
Then, when she opened them again, it wasn't Syncis that was holding her hand.
But Peeta.
She glanced around swiftly, searching for that mountain, but it was gone. Corduroy was at her side with a concerned expression.
"Are you okay?" Peeta asked and Gadget looked at him, too. His eyes were full of concern. Just like Corduroy's.
"I-I'm okay," Gadget said quietly. She rubbed at her eyes again.
But was she, really?
Numerous footsteps could be heard approaching them. Gadget's already rapidly beating heart began to intensify. It sounded like more than one person.
This couldn't be Binary.
She couldn't keep this up. She needed to rest, and soon. Her body felt leaden and heavy all of a sudden. The non-stop adrenaline rush, the panic, the rage. It was all taking its toll on her.
"We need to go," Corduroy said quickly and she felt his hand shoot out to grab her arm.
Gadget gave the best nod she could manage, and she staggered forward.
"The river is this way," Corduroy told her and Peeta as he directed them past the trees, looping carefully through them.
Peeta's hand in her own, and Corduroy's on her arm. She should've felt safe, at least a little bit, knowing that they were with her.
But she felt anything but.
"Your arm, Gadget," Peeta said and Gadget's head drooped down heavily to see what he was referring to.
"Oh," Gadget whispered.
Her arm, the one that belonged to the hand that Peeta held, was a bloody mess. She had torn the skin apart to get those spiders that weren't real out of her.
She glanced at him, then away and tilted her arm inwards toward herself. That was not something he needed to see.
Corduroy wound them between another set of trees. He looked over his shoulder once at Gadget.
Her feet twisted over themselves, but she caught herself before she could fall.
It was getting harder and harder to run. Every part of her body screamed at her to give up. To rest and lie down.
Though that wasn't an option.
But she couldn't keep going forever.
TZING!
"AH!" Peeta shouted. He stumbled and his hand released Gadget's as he fell into a tree.
"Peeta!?" Gadget said hoarsely. Her foot caught on a root and she twisted around to catch herself.
"I'm okay," Peeta said quickly. He pushed off of the tree and Gadget saw him wince.
Embedded in the back of his shoulder was one of Binary's arrows.
"It's…it's not bad," Peeta said reassuringly.
But it didn't reassure Gadget in the slightest. She eyed the arrow and the litany of blood that flooded out of the wound.
"But-" Gadget started.
"Hurry, we don't have time," Peeta said, and with the hand that didn't occupy his shoulder, pushed her forward gently towards Corduroy.
Gadget spared him one last tired look.
Then, she stopped as someone emerged from the bushes behind them in the distance.
Binary was notching another arrow in what she could see was a crossbow, but that wasn't what scared her most.
What scared her most was that, by his side, a spear in hand, was Zeno.
A frightened whimper passed through her cracked lips and she snapped backward into Corduroy.
"Little brat!" Zeno sneered.
"N-no," Gadget stuttered.
"Go!" Corduroy yelled, and he tugged on her hard.
TZING!
An arrow embedded itself into the ground. Right where her leg had been.
He couldn't be here. Her dad wasn't here. He wasn't really in the arena.
It was the poison. The hallucinations. That was it.
"Maybe if you'd died like you were supposed to, you would be remembered and loved," Zeno said scathingly.
But none of that made it any less real.
"But you ruined it. You ruin everything!"
Corduroy pulled Gadget behind a tree, and Peeta lumbered after them clumsily, a hand on the arrow in his shoulder.
"Your mommy," Zeno continued. "The money we so desperately needed."
Gadget shook her head. Her vision was becoming blurry and things were becoming harder to see. She burned and felt numb at the exact same time.
The cool breeze whipped across her face as she, Corduroy, and Peeta sped along.
"And now you got your one friend killed," Zeno said, and the words almost made Gadget trip.
You know it's true.
"If you did what you know you should've done, then that would've been avoided."
She was so exhausted. So much running. And for what? What was the point when everything would go wrong anyway?
"We are almost there," Corduroy said. He cut through a bush and Gadget obediently followed, ignoring the thorns and the way it cut into her exposed skin.
"You die…and it changes everyone's lives for the better."
Gadget swallowed her dry throat.
The tracker jacker venom was just giving voice to her own doubts and fears, but pointing out in harsh light the reality: She got people killed.
It was why she lived alone in the junkyard. Why she really isolated herself from everyone, even when having friends might have saved her from pain and abuse at Binary's hands.
She killed her mother. That was her fault. She had no one else to blame but herself for that.
"I'm s-sorry!" she sobbed.
Before Corduroy could ask her anything, she let out a small yelp and swallowed a mouthful of ice cold water.
There was no stopping it.
Gadget screamed, muffled under the surface of the river so that she was almost soundless.
The coldness of the water was a shock, but it sprung her into action. Just like in the grotto, she kicked her feet out as hard as she could.
But instead of hitting something to bounce off of, she propelled herself forward.
The water swept into her open wounds and Gadget ground her teeth. Oxygen steadily left her as bubble after bubble rose to the surface.
Gadget padded her arms out and rose, sticking her head out of the freezing water.
"Hurry!" someone shouted and she had no time to register if it was Corduroy or Peeta…or Kernel or Binary.
Instructions that the woman in the Training Center, Antonia, rang in her head. She had taught her how to do this. She could do this.
Gadget kicked her feet again and withdrew her arms out of the water, then dropped them back in. Push the water back to pull herself forward. It was that easy.
But the water was freezing cold. Colder than anything she had felt before.
So, so cold. So cold that it hurt.
She closed her eyes and pushed forward, steeling herself to ignore and overcome the coldness of the water.
When she fluttered her eyes open again, though, her swimming attempts came to a sudden still.
Because it wasn't water that she was in.
It was blood.
Icy, freezing blood that lapped at her and encased her.
"Ah!" Gadget shouted in panic. It wasn't water, it was blood!
Blood like the trees. Blood like the rain.
Blood.
TZING!
An arrow splashed somewhere near her, but Gadget didn't see where. She glanced back at the coast of the river to see both Binary and Kernel. The former with a crossbow, and notching another arrow.
Corduroy, or maybe it was Peeta, said something but she couldn't hear it. She couldn't focus.
She could go back. Maybe they would spare her the fate of dying here in the freezing River.
Binary was her district partner after all, and Kernel…they'd spared Kernel!
But despite the thought, Gadget pushed onwards closer to the other side of the glacial blood River.
It smudged into her. Grime that sunk into the layers of her skin that would never, ever come out.
"You're going to get hypothermia, Gadget," Binary said, and his voice vibrated around in her skull. "You should come back!"
Gadget shook her head roughly and she pushed harder. She needed to get to the other side. The other side was where it was safe.
TZING!
Another arrow landed in the blood somewhere and Gadget squeaked.
It's not really blood! Gadget reminded herself even as she dropped an arm to pull herself forward.
It looked so real. The texture of it felt so real. Thick and hard to loop through.
It felt nothing like the river she'd been swimming in seconds before.
She shivered. A bout of sudden tiredness caught up to her, but now was not the time to rest. Soon. When they were gone from Binary and Kernel.
When they-
TZING!
That one landed closer than the others.
Gadget ducked her head below the blood. It was the only way she could ensure Binary wouldn't hit her.
However, she could barely see anything. Blood pressed into her eyes, and it stung and froze her all at the same time.
Was Corduroy okay? Was Peeta? She couldn't see them. She couldn't hear them.
She brought her head from the bloody river and glimpsed her left and right, but she couldn't see either of them. Blood dripped down her face and she wished that she had the ability to wipe it off.
Her hand reached something solid and Gadget wiped her eyes as best she could.
She had made it.
Quickly, she pulled herself out of the river with as little strength as she had and collapsed onto the ground.
Gadget had made it to the other side.
A hand grabbed onto her arm and Gadget had to swallow her scream. She turned in their grip of the hand and prepared to defend herself as best she could but…she didn't have to.
It was just a shivering Corduroy. One arm wrapped around his own torso and the other on her arm.
"C-Corduroy," she stuttered, and she fell into him as the last of her strength gave out.
"Are you guys…okay?" a shivering Peeta asked as Gadget heard him pull himself out of the river.
They had made it.
"Why are you celebrating?" Binary called from across the river and Gadget looked over her shoulder as best she could.
He looked calm. Very calm. For someone that had just lost his hostage…why?
"You guys are very touching," Kernel said, and he leaned forward to hold his head. His face was covered on vicious marks of her previous attack.
"I…" Gadget started, but whatever she wanted to say died on her lips. There was nothing she really could say.
"But this is still the Hunger Games," Binary said. "And clearly you didn't realize that, did you Gadget?"
Gadget winced. What did that mean? What was Binary saying?
Binary extended his crossbow and fired.
TZING!
The arrow sailed through the air.
Before it landed at the other end of the bloody river with a thud into the ground. It had fallen too early.
Gadget spied the arrow, then Binary. She watched as he dropped the crossbow to his side with an even expression.
"Because now that District Eight girl is dead," Binary finished.
A tear plucked at Gadget's eye and she laid her head against Corduroy's chest. "I'm s-sorry," she whispered. "I-I-I'm so-o sorry."
Binary stared across the bloody river for a second longer, before he turned on his heel and vanished into the trees, back the way they had come.
Kernel shot them a look before he slowly followed.
And all that remained was them. Alone together, finally.
"I'm sor-sorry," Gadget said again. She pulled away from Corduroy, and then collapsed to the ground.
"Gadget," Corduroy said patiently. "It is okay. You-"
"Noo," Gadget moaned. She twisted over so that she was on her back looking up. "I-it's m-my fa-fault."
"Gadget, no-" Peeta tried to say.
"Lace is dead…bec-because of me…" Gadget said.
A figure moved in the darkness behind Corduroy and Peeta, and Gadget's eyes grew wide.
She pointed at the spot with a meek, but frightened, "Beh-behind you!"
Corduroy and Peeta looked, following Gadget's finger.
And the second their gazes left her, they turned into nothing but ash that spread across the ground in a heap.
"No!" Gadget said, her frightened eyes following the ash as it spread out. Corduroy! Peeta!
Something started to burn hot in her chest. It went completely with odds with the coolness that enveloped her.
Gadget tried to reach out to cup the ash into her palm, but she didn't have the strength to do it.
I can't reach…
"No," Gadget moaned in delirious despair.
Between the trees, a shadow moved and Gadget stared fearfully at where she had seen it. Had it killed Corduroy and Peeta?
What kind of mutt could do something like that!?
The burning in her chest became hotter and hotter. Like something metal that was slammed against her.
A foot stepped into the moonlight, revealing itself to her. Followed by the second foot, until the figure came completely into view.
Just like earlier that night, Seneca Crane stared at her, impassive. Grey-blue eyes cold and calculating.
Bloody rain splashed over him and faded into nothing, and left Seneca Crane untouched.
"And down goes your house of cards," he remarked.
Gadget opened her mouth to say something…to say anything…
When the burning against her chest exploded into torturous fire that covered her very being.
Her every nerve and joint burned in suffering.
Whatever thought she'd had disappeared in an instant, replaced by pleads and begs. STOP! STOP! PLEASE!
The knives she had thought were dull came back sharpened and stuck into her all over until there was no part of her that wasn't in pure agony.
She wanted to die.
"Please…" Gadget said, sobbing as the pain consumed her ever more. "Kill me!" she begged.
It was too much to bear.
It scorched her…all over.
"Please!" Gadget shouted.
She writhed and clutched her hands, but even the impact of her skin touching skin burned something fierce.
Every movement…every inch…the throes of misery.
Gadget's mouth opened in a silent scream…
And darkness overtook her.