Grain & Blood | A Hunger Games collection

New allies

 Robin's gone. Dead. But so is his killer, and at least his death has been avenged just a little.
I pack up our little camp, emptying Robin's backpack and putting all our supplies into mine. The blanket, the water bottles, the rope, all the food, the matches, the water purification tablets and my knives. Then, for no reason other than to obtain another weapon, I pack the axe used to kill Robin.
I follow the thin woods down to the stream, stop to fill up the water bottles and walk downstream to where Robin said the camp was. And sure enough, nestled amongst the first few rocks is a sleeping bag and a couple of backpacks, and the girl from 5.
I smile and prepare myself to throw. I know she has decent supplies, I saw her getting them at the cornucopia, so even better if I kill her and take her stuff. Just as I'm about to let go, she looks up from whatever she was doing.
"Please don't kill me!" she whimpers.
I'm about to kill her anyway, but then an idea crosses my mind.
"I won't kill you. You don't deserve it, not like everyone else I've killed. And I've just killed someone, I'm not ready to do that again."
"Who?"
"That boy from 7, the one with you. He killed my brother, so I killed him."
"Oh... Sorry."
"It's okay. I don't want to kill you now, not with blood still fresh on my hands."
"So... um... can you leave?"
"No, I wanted to ask... allies?"
"Yes!"
We begin to pack up the girl's camp, I think her name was Nikki. She has pretty good supplies: a sleeping bag, a water bottle, some iodine, a first aid kit and quite a bit of food. But what I didn't realise was that she had a collection of sharp spearheads, the ones Robin and I abandoned.
"No weapons?"
"The axe that Thenet had with him was mine. These spearheads he found in a box in the desert."
"Oh. Okay."
I watch a hovercraft come down and collect Robin and Thenet's bodies. Nikki's watching too, as sad as I am at the death of our allies.
We walk through the trees together, looking for another place to set up camp. Eventually we decide on a tall tree, with a decent place to sleep a bit of the way up. I climb up first, sit on the branch and use my rope to put our backpacks on, then tie it around my waist and then to the tree so that I don't fall down.
Nikki comes up beside me, and I tie the rope around her as well. If we do fall off, the rope will catch us and stop us from hitting the ground.
We eat some of the crackers in her bag, drink some water and wrap ourselves in the blanket, the sun is setting and the temperature is dropping. Then the anthem plays and the faces of today's deaths show in the sky.
Thenet from 7.
Robin from 9.
The seal shows and the sky turns to black again.
So I guess the two of us are new allies.
Nikki falls asleep almost immediately, but I stay awake. I want to stay on watch, yes, but I also want to spend the night remembering my brother.
The day bleeds into nightfall and you're not here to get me through it all.
The hours pass and the sky gets progressively darker. At around midnight, I hear voices in the woods, laughing and joking, walking towards our tree. I need to get up. Now.
With an inward sorry to Nikki, I cut the rope, swing both our backpacks onto my shoulders, stuff the blanket into my bag and climb higher, being careful not to rustle any branches on my way up.
Just as I reach a safe place to stop, the owners of the voices walk right into my sight.
The careers.
Kamalyn's voice shouts to the others, "I see someone! Asleep in that tree!"
No. No no no. Nikki is going to be the next death, and it's my fault.
I watch silently as Benedict hooks the rope attached to Nikki's waist and pulls her down. She wakes up as she hits the floor and starts to scream.
"You okay little girl?" Rift laughs.
"Please, don't kill me!"
"There can only be one victor," says the boy from District 2.
"And it won't be you," Finishes the girl from one, at the same time that Nikki screams,
"Iris! Help!"
Just as Rift is about to bring the cleaver down on her head, Kamalyn steps forward.
"What did she just say?"
Nikki screams again. "Iris!"
"Iris... the scum from nine." Kamalyn ponders.
"The one who killed Beatrix," The boy from 2 confirms.
"The one who got a ten in training, whacked an axe into my leg at the bloodbath and killed Beatrix," snarls Rift.
"You can kill her now," hisses Kamalyn.
I close my eyes as Rift slices into her skull with the cleaver.

YAAAAAA SECOND UPDATE OF THE DAY!!! I am writing this author's note about 3 minutes after I published the previous chapter. Random facts have stopped, and memes have started. I do not take any credit for any of the memes I put in my stories, just enjoy them, ok?

-Katherine