Grain & Blood | A Hunger Games collection

The end

 I shove two dates in my mouth and take a long sip of water. My last meal. Then I take a roll of bandage and the medicine box Robin picked up at the cornucopia, shove them in my pockets and ditch my backpack in the tree. And slide mine and Robin's tribute tokens into my vest. It will just be an extra weight when I'm running, and although it protects my back from knives I'm going to leave it.
The knife vest is above my waterproof, and I'm ready as every to do this. To take on the two careers. To die.
I climb down carefully, making as little sound as possible so that I have the advantage of surprise. The advantage is still there when I drop in front of Kamalyn, who only sees me for a few seconds before I'm off. She shouts after me, and tells Rift to circle round.
I'm ready.
The adrenaline pumping through my body gives me all the energy to run faster, to keep going.
I have a roughly 20 second head start, which I need. These two have been training since they were 8, for Rift 10 years and 7 for Kamalyn.
Sprinting through the burnt forest, heart pumping, the beating of footsteps constantly chasing. Home is so close, like I've found the diversion around the closed road and I'm chasing victory, released from the box that withheld it from my grasp.
Without even slowing my pace a little, I pull 2 knives from my vest, one in each hand, and keep sprinting for Rift. In a few minutes he'll be dead, and I guess I might be too. One will go home. The other two will die. One will live in riches. The others will live under the ground for all of eternity.
My path is blocked by a fallen tree, so without breaking my pace I dive around it, leaving myself face to face with Rift.
Think Iris!
He makes a lunge with his cleaver for my neck, and spin out of the way. Again he lunges, and this time I block it with my knife. But I'm not done with this move. I slide my knife into the little hole in the corner of the cleaver and yank it out of his hands. Surprisingly, it's kind of easy. With the cleaver still on my knife, I flick it towards his neck, which would end as a killing blow, but he dodges and instead it drops to the ground.
Unarmed, Rift aims a hook punch at my head which I catch. However I can't pins his arms behind him because of his size and build. Instead, he throws me to the ground, places his foot on my chest, and reaches for his cleaver. This is not the end. This won't be. This can't be.
It can.
He leans over me, cleaver raised, and with a sheer hit of genius, I aim a knife for his neck. Confused, he pauses, and in the brief time that he's still, I throw it.
As he falls to the ground, dying, I twist behind a tree and wait for Kamalyn to catch up. She arrives, but instead of crying her eyes glint with malice.
"Kamalyn... help," Rift murmurs.
"No."
"But... But you love me, like I love you?"
"No."
"But... But you do?"
"No. I never cared."
And she swipes into his heart with one of her knives.
I've seen enough and I start to run again, heart beating faster, as his cannon booms and Kamalyn starts chasing me again. Any second now she could throw a knife into my back, and I would fall, she would kill me...
I turn my head and see that she is hot on my trail. I'm not looking where I'm going, I really should...
Then she launches at me, thumping me onto the floor. Her hazel eyes are glowing with hate and bloodlust. Lust for my blood. She wants me dead, as revenge for killing Benedict. She wants me to die in pain, begging for mercy. I won't let her.
She has me pinned down in every way possible, removes the knives from my vest, lies my tribute token across my neck. All niceties she would have removed if she didn't hate me as much. If she didn't want me to feel the pain.
The first cut is slices into my chin, and sends my eyes watering and gives my nervous system a huge jolt. She takes a chunk of skin away, making me feel like I'm going to bleed to death. The next chunk is from my cheek, then my forehead, then my nose, under my eyes, above my mouth, until there are several gaps in my face where skin and flesh should be.
A dark pit is beginning to open beneath me, and I guess that pit is death. A sweet release from life.
I begin to laugh, laughing for my life and for the sickened look on Kamalyn's face. The black cloud above is sending winds blowing me to the pit.
I laugh again, laughing at my killer and her hazel eyes, laughing at the darkness, pulling me down. Laughing at my life. Laughing for my family. Laughing for Jonen. Laughing for the Capitol. The darkness pulls harder, and I realise that Kamalyn has made another dent in my face. She won't get away from this with no scars.
"Goodbye!" I scream just in case.
I hunch my shoulders, stretch my arms out for one of my knives and roll out as she budges to accommodate my new form. But unfortunately for her, that's a terrible move and ends with me slicing into her leg, as close to the femoral artery as possible, Just like in training. Just how it should be.
We both stagger for a few seconds and then fall to the ground in a crumpled heap. The dark is still pulling but the laugh has gone. Just an empty silence with two girls dying from each other. Just two girls pushing against the pull of death...
An eerie echo booms and I let go.