Nine

The fireball ended up destroying the trees to their right, setting the tops on fire just by passing by once. Katniss' first impulse was to move away, but she still had to untie herself. Estee, like her, was desperately pulling the strings.

"Come on!" she heard her yell, shaken.

When Katniss released her restraints, she didn't have time to think, or pick up anything, she just strapped her backpack and jumped. Her sleeping bag fell with her and she had to leave it there. It no longer mattered what she could save or not. Estee, on the other hand, fell to her side, bumped, and as Katniss helped her up, she gasped with pain. She could only glance at her sideways, but it seemed to her she had something stuck in her shoulder.

"We have to run," Katniss mumbled, with little strength.

All around her the branches were going down in flames, the smoke surrounded them and if they didn't hurry, they wouldn't only burn, but they would suffocate too. What was the reason for killing them like that? Why attack them directly and not let other tributes put on the show of capturing two girls? Maybe they were too far from the others, maybe they were bored because no one had died the day before, who knew.

They made their way more slowly than they should have, trying to dodge the next bursts of fire, though Katniss wasn't even sure where they were going because there was barely a thing to make out through all the smoke. Estee couldn't stop coughing, despite having almost her entire face covered with part of her jacket. They stumbled through the woods, clutching each other, forcing themselves to walk until the barrier of trees ended. The change was so abrupt they almost fell down the small slope they hit. Estee fell to her knees, as did Katniss beside her, realizing that her leg was burning more than she had realized before, as were her throat and her eyes. If someone showed up at that moment, they would be the easiest prey.

"Are you alright?" Katniss asked, when she was able to stop coughing and began to breathe.

The wound on her leg didn't look good, she was a little charred, but at least she could walk. Estee's shoulder, however, was worse, with blood as bright red as the flames they had left behind.

"I don't know," she heard her murmur. Then she inhaled and breathed several times until she was looking in front of her. She held out her hand to point at something and then she dropped it. "Didn't we want water? Here it is."

Katniss looked up. The sound of the water coming down the river was unmistakable. Going down the slope, just a few meters ahead of them, the river was coming down with all its might. Seeing the water sparkle made her want to cry. She thanked the heavens she still had the bottle. She felt her legs weak, especially the one that had been burned, and if Estee's shoulder hurt, she didn't say anything as they ran towards the water. It was fresh and so appetizing that they drank from their hands before thinking of refilling the bottle. She was about to open the backpack when some screams were heard on the opposite shore.

"Oh no," she heard Estee wail.

The pack of Careers appeared directly in front of them, smiling and trotting as if they were hiking in the woods and not fighting to death. The worst thing wasn't that they were so close to them, or that they had found them and could attack them from the other side. The worst thing was that one of the girls had a bow and arrows slung over her shoulder. They had her bow, Katniss thought with anger rising in her chest, the bow that was meant for her. She bet she wouldn't even know how to use it. By the time she looked away from them, without her having moved a bit, Estee was already on the shore, crouched.

"What are you doing, Katniss? Just jump!" the girl yelled at her.

Almost reluctantly, she followed suit and plunged into the water. The current was going fast, although not so fast they couldn't float and hold on to the stones and branches fallen by the banks. Estee kept looking back, towards the other shore, although from time to time she gave her a sidelong glance, as if she didn't understand how it was possible she hadn't already sunk. She didn't ask if she actually could swim and Katniss was thankful for that. She wasn't supposed to at all. While they focused on not being swept away and drowning, the other tributes followed their lead from the shore. One of them had even tried to hit them with his spear, but had barely made it past the middle of the river. The Gamemakers had offered them a gift, indeed, a poisoned one it was: water in exchange for a fight. If they didn't stop following them, that's what would happen, and they only had one simple knife, a pretty good one, but one. Would they give up or would they be patient enough to wait for them to stop fighting against the current?

A little ahead of her, Estee suddenly grabbed a branch wider than the others, stopping herself. As Katniss got to her side, she followed Cato and the others with her eyes. Her stomach turned uneasily. They didn't seem like the type to give up and if Estee was doing it already, they wouldn't stand a chance.

"You can't stop to..."

"What's that?" Estee interrupted.

Katniss spun around as the sound of the cannon rang out with a rumble that made her heart race. Estee was fine, she was next to her, and the Careers continued her stupid runs on the other side, like it was a real game. Why had the cannon sounded so close, then?

"You'll follow your friend!" Cato shouted in the distance, then burst out laughing. "I'm talking about you, 12!"

She didn't understand what he meant or what had made Estee stop until all the signs came together in her mind. There was something floating in the river, coming towards them, but she couldn't make out what it was. It was bigger than an animal and had the complexion of…a body. The cannon, Cato's comment. Your friend, Katniss repeated to herself. She noticed Estee try to slow her down before she even resumed swimming. Her leg burned and her arms ached from moving with the added weight of her backpack, but she couldn't stop.

Alder. The shape she couldn't distinguish was Alder's body. His name escaped from her lips with a torn scream, without her being able to stop it. She just wanted to get to him, to stop his body from wandering aimlessly down the river, to see him one last time before the hovercraft took him away. She was determined to make it to shore and face them if she had to. How dare they enjoy becoming such monsters? How dare they take the life of a boy with Alder's innocence?

Although she knew how to handle herself in the water, Estee was faster, of course. She knew what it was like to swim against the waves, for sure. She had only known the still waters of the lake.

"Katniss, stop!" she begged her, barely a couple of arm lengths away from her. "He's trying to provoke you."

She was so efficient, even hurt, that she reached her, grabbed her from behind, and pulled her back to the other side of the rivers. Katniss tried to wrestle her several times, consumed by the fury of seeing Alder's body move away from her, until she thought that if she hit her on the shoulder it would hurt her. That was the only thing that convinced her to stop.

The next few minutes passed in a haze that Katniss wouldn't even remember afterwards: the two of them getting out of the water, shivering from the cold, trying to take refuge back in the woods, before the Careers figured out a way to cross the river. Then she would do other things she would regret showing in public, because any camera could focus on them, like breaking down, crying for a long time while Estee hugged her and cried too, she didn't know if she did it for Alder, Robin, or for themselves too.

Sometime between late afternoon and nightfall, when they chose their tree for the night, two small parachutes appeared, their first two gifts, the only thing that made Katniss feel the hole in her stomach close a little. Finnick had sent Estee some cream for her burns, and while Katniss didn't think it would be much useful for the wound on her shoulder, it would do for one on her face and her own leg. Haymitch, on the other hand, surprised her with a huge bottle of water. When she saw it, Katniss felt like hitting herself. She had gotten so upset she hadn't even filled hers in the river.

"How's your shoulder?" she asked Estee.

"Not good, I think. I don't really feel it, or my arm. It's weird."

"I don't know what we can do," Katniss admitted.

"At least we have something for the burns. I'm sorry, Katniss," she added in a whisper, as she pulled her blanket over her, still a bit cold.

They had lost half of their things in the fire, like her sleeping bag and the rest of their food, and what was left was half wet from her trip down the river. The next day they had no choice but to build a trap with some branches and some pieces of wire that Katniss found in a pocket inside her backpack. Skinning him wasn't enough to calm the anger she still felt because of the Careers and also for having let herself be so devastated. Still, if sponsors were watching, they might as well forget the way she'd broken down the day before now she had proved she could hunt.

"How many of us are left?"

She had lost count, because she had refused to see Alder's face lighting up the sky along with the others who had fallen the other night.

"Half of us, I think," Estee answered, while she tried cook the rabbit's meat on the tiny fire they had lit. The matches had become useless.

So twelve, then… To have survived this long was already quite an achievement, but that wouldn't be enough. It wasn't enough to go home. She had to be the last one standing.

"When are we going to stop?" The question brought Katniss to a halt. "At what point are we supposed to stop helping each other? Because if it's just you and me... What would we do then? Because I'm not going to kill you."

A chill gave her goosebumps as she looked into Estee's eyes. She had dragged her away in the midst of her shock and if it weren't for her, Cato would surely have ended up killing her too. Maybe it was the hair blond like dry grass, or the way she insisted on helping her without wanting anything in return, but when she looked at Estee she reminded her a little of her sister and then of Madge. She couldn't watch anyone die again, much less her. She refused to do it.

"We could eat the berries we saw the other day," Katniss nearly spat out. "Then no one would win."

Estee gave a bitter laugh, but she meant it.

"I wish that were an option," she replied.

They ate all the rabbit they could use and decided that the next day they would follow the river again. It was risky, but they had almost no supplies and needed some weapons to defend themselves with. Katniss had an idea about it, like stealing the bow that should be hers from that girl. She was starting to think like Cato with his damn knife, she thought suddenly, with revulsion.

"I'll stay awake," she informed Estee, before settling down in the same place they'd slept the night before, "in case they come back for us."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded several times. She had to think, come up with some plan. Despite Estee's insistence to wake her up too in a couple of hours to keep watch too, Katniss didn't sleep more than a couple of nods. When she realized she had without telling her, it was already daylight. She stretched a little, careful not to push her and whispered her name so that she would wake up already.

"Estee."

She had her head cocked, leaning against the tree with all her hair in front of her face. Since Katniss couldn't see her properly, she shook her a little until she turned around. Her eyes were narrowed, as if she were half asleep, but she wasn't answering. What startled her was that her arm slipped to the side and she didn't even respond. At the same time her jacket slipped off her shoulder, revealing a suspiciously dark patch of skin, like a huge bruise spreading. Terror rose in her throat. Katniss reached out for her and tugged on her sleeve until she realized her entire arm was purple and her skin was cold. She froze on the spot until she understood what she was seeing. Her wound was no longer just that or a superficial burn, whatever had gone through her shoulder had caused a major infection and one of those that killed, her subconscious whispered. Estee didn't move, she didn't speak, she didn't respond. The inevitable happened though Katniss still hadn't been able to let go of her arm, because that would make it real, the death cannon reverberated around her and the girl felt her own heart stop as well: Robin, Alder, Estee. She knew one thing: out of them four, only she remained and she was next.

Hi again! I'm very very happy with how you guys are responding to this story, thanks for lovely comments 3

I know this is getting a bit sad, but I guess things have to get really bad before they get better... You may feel like I am going to skip past the Games quite quickly, but my main intention is to reflect on how Katniss will feel after and how her relationship with Finnick evolves. Hopefully, you'll enjoy that too!