Shinju Matsushita- Heart of Darkness D3F

I felt numb when I saw Castiel's face in the sky. Maybe people would say I should be consumed with guilt, but tell the truth, this wasn't my fault. I'd been trying to get away. I hadn't wanted to fight any more than I'd wanted to be turned into this. I didn't know why the girl hated me so much, but I hoped she regretted it. If she'd only slowed down for a single minute, she would have seen I just wanted to get away and not hurt her. When I ran into Castiel, it was all I could do to keep moving. If I'd even glanced back, I would have seen the blood on the floor and I didn't think I could have held back. It was my only hope that maybe Castiel would recover, but here we were.

The blood bag lay deflated on the floor next to me, still tinged with smears of blood. After sucking it down, I could think again. With my clear head, I had the ability to wonder if there might be some hope for me. If there was something in the arena that could turn me into a vampire, maybe there was something that could cure me. I thought wistfully about asking Zibby. It was a lovely fantasy, but she wouldn't help someone like me. She wouldn't help anyone at all. She'd just kill me, like everyone else in the arena, even if I wasn't a vampire.

It seemed unholy to think about, but if I let there be, there were probably advantages to my state. I'd noticed I was stronger than normal. Not too strong- I supposed the Gamemakers didn't want me to have too big an advantage- but I was definitely stronger than I used to be. The normal me wouldn't have bowled Castiel over with what I'd meant to be a light shove aside so I could get past him. There was also the durability- when the girl speared me earlier, I hadn't even felt it. What does it have to be? I wondered, going through the list. Stakes, of course, like the vampire hunter girl had landed on. Silver, I supposed. How far did it go? Did it include the most esoteric legends, like cutting off my head and filling my mouth with garlic? I suspected it would work with just the head thing. That usually kills things. What about dropping seeds? Would I have to count them all? I would test it, but I wasn't sure if it would work if I was the one who dropped them. Clearly I didn't need to be invited into rooms, though it did have to be the owner, and the Capitol did invite me here.

When I heard the footsteps in the hall, they were too close for me to run out. I darted behind a cabinet near the door. If they came in and searched the room, I could dart out behind them. I made it out of sight just as a shadow crossed the threshold.

I sighed heavily when I saw the glossy black hair as the girl passed by. I didn't know what had happened in the girl's life that she saw an actual vampire and immediately reacted like she did, but I couldn't exactly fault someone for assuming I needed to be killed. I just wished she knew what she was fighting against. It would be so easy to kill her. It was so easy I didn't even know if I could avoid it.

I would try, though. As soon as the girl and her ally were halfway across the room, I darted for the doorway. The girl gave a little cry as she turned around behind me.

"Shinju!" she shouted. And Heaven help me, I looked back.

Joseph Carpenter- Wandering Souls D2M

This really didn't seem like a good idea. Walcott was absolutely insistent that we had to find Shinju and kill her. If we didn't? A plague o'er the land, massive cataclysms worldwide, the Earth would be knocked loose of its orbit and thrown into the sun, and the advent of Ragnarok. With those risks, talking her out of it wasn't an option. It was just a question of whether I would stay with her or not. I'd already stayed longer than I should have. I just felt some responsibility toward her. She was Castiel's friend. I couldn't help him anymore, but I knew he would want Walcott to be safe. I couldn't stay with her forever, but I would do what I could in his honor.

"I bet she's in there," Walcott said as we came out of one room, pointing to the next.

"Why?" I asked.

"I just feel it," she said. I might have been convinced, since Walcott seemed to be a bit preternatural, but she'd said that about three rooms on this floor already.

I didn't expect much as we entered the room. Shinju could be anywhere in a very large hospital, though it wasn't as large as it had been. We'd gone to the top floor to try to search top-to-bottom, but the rooms on the seventh and sixth floors had all been sealed. The Careers had been busy, it seemed.
When I saw Shinju out of the corner of my eye, I pretended I hadn't. Maybe Walcott wouldn't notice her, and she'd get away, and eventually Walcott would lose interest, and then-

"Shinju!"

Shinju looked back. I saw her dark eyes blush. I looked behind me and saw Walcott lifting the red-tinged knife from the back of her arm. I knew then that Walcott would never, ever let this go. She would give her own blood to kill Shinju.

Shinju stopped in her flight. She stood gripping the doorway, trembling as she stared at Walcott's arm. Walcott ran at her, stake raised. Shinju raised an arm to push the stake away from her heart. Walcott smashed into her and they both fell. Shinju tried to pull away, but then something finally gave. She shot Walcott a dirty look and punched her in the nose. As Walcott recovered, Shinju grabbed her bleeding arm.

I grabbed Shinju by the hair and yanked her off Walcott. Pity she didn't punch her in the throat, I thought as Shinju's face drew sharp and she bared her fangs at me. If Shinju had gone for the throat, we would have found out if silver worked. Walcott had been so proud when she told me silver was antibiotic and was sometimes used in ointments. Our throats and wrists were both smeared with silver and I was kind of curious to see if Shinju would burst into flames or something.

Shinju twisted in my grip like a wildcat. She growled and then bit me in the forearm. At the sudden spiking pain, I let go of her hair to yank my arm back. Shinju closed her eyes as she kicked at my legs and scrambled upright as I was trying not to fall. She ran out down the hallway as Walcott, weirdly, didn't follow her.
"Did she get you?" Walcott asked, looking at me intensely.

"It's just a little bite," I said. I showed her my forearm. The little pinpricks weren't even bleeding, really, just oozing a little. She must not have hit anything big.
Shinju stabbed me in the stomach. I gasped as she leaned against the blade, dragging it sideways until I shoved her off. I looked at her with shock as I tried to figure out if I even had any chance of stemming the blood before it was too late.

"What?" I asked, so disoriented and pained that I couldn't even string together a sentence.

"She infected you." Walcott's expression was both pitying and resolute. She stepped backwards in case I tried to get her. "There's ways to stop it, but I don't know which work. I probably don't have the materials anyway. You would turn into one just like her. It's better this way."

You could have let me have a say in that. I tried to raise myself to my hands and knees and fell in the slick of my blood. I knew it wasn't good how cold I felt. Weariness settled over me and I lay my head on the floor.

What's gonna happen now? Is it better I tried to stop hurting people, or is it worse, since I admitted it was bad but didn't stop entirely? Does it matter that I got bit helping Walcott? Castiel said it's about the heart. I think my heart changed…

As my breathing grew labored, Walcott came a little closer. I wasn't surprised she was unfazed by what she'd done. I was just surprised she cared enough to say anything to me. Her eyes were fiery as she bent lower.

"Don't worry," she said passionately. "I'll avenge you."

Camille Igawa- Let the Good Times Roll D9F

They didn't tell me how boring it would be. I'd tried going through all the equipment in the back of the ambulance and reading the labels. I'd tried opening the hood and seeing if I could figure out what the different parts did. I'd gone through every option days ago. For the last few days I'd literally been counting. Just sitting in the front seat and seeing how high I could count. It was funny how before long it seemed like there was an abacus in my head. I got so excited to complete another hundred or thousand. Oh, how my life had fallen.

I should have felt guilty for being excited when someone came into the ambulance bay and I immediately thought about how fun it would be to kill them. A few things made me feel a little better. First, I wasn't really excited to kill someone. I was just so freaking bored and I was excited for any action. I'd have been just as excited if a mutt came or if a chunk of ceiling had fallen or something like that. Second, it was Braddock. I didn't know most of the tributes in a group this big, but him I knew. Every time I'd seen him in training he'd been pushing someone around, or screaming right when someone was about to shoot an arrow, or complaining to his mentor or his fellow Sevens or anyone unlucky enough to be in range. If I was going to be excited about killing someone, I couldn't imagine a better person for it to happen to.

Come on, keep going I urged as Braddock lingered in the doorway, trying to decide whether it was worth searching the room. I grinned from my perch, peeking out from underneath the steering wheel so I wasn't visible, as he started in. He limped- he seemed to have been injured somehow, based on how he was almost lurching instead of walking- toward one of the racks of supplies in the middle of the room. He started picking through it and quickly came up with a wrench, which he swung in a circle to test its weight and force. Well that makes me feel a little better, I thought as I reached up to turn on the ignition. He was looking for things to kill people with. You know what they say about those who live by the sword…

I didn't think it would work as well as it did. I thought Braddock would run when he heard an ambulance turn on- you know, like a normal person. Instead he slowly turned around to look. He saw me in the driver's seat and glared at me. He raised his wrench like he was somehow going to bash me right through the truck.

I'm probably going to have to move after this, I thought as I prepared to squish Braddock flat. I was going to ram him into the rack, which would make a lot of noise. Oh well. I was getting stir-crazy anyway. Might as well have some fun. I reached up.

At the ear-piercing sound of the siren echoing off the walls in the small room, Braddock dropped the wrench and covered his ears. I barreled toward him in my truck, fully expecting he would at least try to dodge. He chose another strategy. Just as I reached him, Braddock balled up a fist and punched at the front of my ambulance. It did not end well for him. I smashed into him and then the rack, knocking it over as he disappeared under the front of the truck. I braked and the truck stopped over his body, which was certainly dead even if the siren had drowned out the cannon.

I flicked off the siren and climbed out of the ambulance. I was pushing my luck the longer I stayed in the same place anyway. For better or for worse, I needed to move on. I was just glad I got to run down two people first.

19th place: Joseph Carpenter- stabbed by Shinju

Joseph was one of those morally angsty tributes. He was a reluctant Career who actually acted on that instead of just killing people and trying to get himself brownie points with the readers by pretending he didn't like it while making no effort to stop. He committed enough to ally with Castiel and stay with Walcott even after he Castiel died. Willuna said he's a sacrificial sort but wouldn't just waste his life for someone he barely knows. Here's a compromise where he was willing to get in a fight to help Walcott but didn't really sacrifice himself. She just heckin stabbed him because he got bit... trying to help her. And without checking if this vampirism is contagious in one bite, which is usually not the case in vampire fiction (and is not here BTW. Shinju's vampirism is not spread by bites but only by exposure to the chemical that changed her). It would have been a hard road for Joseph had he won, since he's really not willing to murder anymore.