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"Quinn! Peeta!"
Quinn rubbed at his eyes, Katniss' soft voice pulling him from his sleep, looking over his shoulder at the woman.
"Yeah?" Peeta asked.
"Walk over here slowly."
"The hell are you—" Quinn turned his head, coming face to face with a mutt that looked all too much like a monkey. "Motherfucker."
The mutt lunged at Quinn, the boy scrambling for his knife as it tackled him into the pond nearby.
He could barely see through the water, vigorously thrusting his knife upward to try and kill the beast.
He kicked the carcass off of him, pushing himself out of the water and onto his knees as he heaved for air.
Quinn's lungs burned, and he could feel water in his nose, and even before he could recover another mutt was on his back.
He was face first in the water, having dropped his knife on the way down. A scream was muted by the lake, the feeling of claws digging into his back making adrenaline course through his veins.
Katniss panicked when she saw the water stain red, shooting an arrow into the mutt's head and pulling Quinn up quickly.
Water fell from the boy's mouth, struggling to keep his eyes out of the back of his head as he regained footing.
"Are you okay?"
Quinn numbly nodded in answer, softly pushing the girl away and grabbing the rest of his knives and his bow.
He shot at any mutt he set his eyes on, not bother to see if they landed. Pulling back his bowstring made the gashes on his back burn, not being able to tell if what he was feeling was blood or water soaking his clothes.
"We have to get to the beach!" Peeta shouted.
Quinn slowly backed away, firing at more of the monkeys as they approached. Suddenly, one lunged for Peeta, but before anyone could act a morphling jumped in front of the boy.
The mutt latched onto her throat, Peeta reacting quickly and grabbing the woman.
Peeta gaped at the sight, carefully dragging the woman into the safety of the water by the beach.
As soon as Quinn's feet hit the sand, he fell to his knees, coughing up water. It dripped from his mouth and his nose, the boy taking long breaths of air to try and calm his racing heart.
