Steps Singles - The One Shots

Last Thing On My Mind (part 4)

Reminder - T/W death, fighting and blood.

The following morning they were all still shaken from yesterday, Lisa most of all. Faye and M had barely slept, taking it in turns to watch her in case anything funny happened in her head during the night. Watching the deaths in the sky that night was hard for Lisa, and she kept staring up at the sky long after Johnny's picture had faded. The boy they'd killed was from district 4. He'd been without his district partner since day one just like Johnny. When Faye recovered from that feeling of despair she'd checked Lisa was still with them mentally, slipping her arm round Lisa and pulling her sideways into her. Lisa managed not to slip into her head the way she had in the stream. Luckily she also survived the night, but all three of them were exhausted by the morning, and struggled to stay on alert as they set off on their walk. As they walked M, Faye and and Ian grouped together and joked about, none of them being particularly careful and they kept accidentally straying off the path. Claire and Lee had taken responsibility for the still off character Lisa, and were making sure she was staying with them, not that Faye was as worried about her now. Mercifully nothing too bad happened, although they were all on edge so any little rustle of the hedge was enough to make any of the six of them twitch for their weapons. Yesterday had made it suddenly feel real again. Had hit home the fact that they were in the Hunger Games.

This time they made it back to the stream pond in one long day, though it was a little easier as they had left a slight track to follow despite their best efforts to travel undetected. It was exactly as they left it, it didn't seem like the careers had even learnt of the location. And it was a relief, knowing water was nearby and that no-one else had yet found their little haunt. It meant they could stay there as long as they needed given only five people outside the group were still standing.
"Who's still around?" M asked that evening.
Lee bit his lip. "I think both tributes from 1 and 2 and then us?"
Claire shook her head. "Before Johnny died yesterday there was 14 of us. So there's two missing."
Ian thought for a minute, then shook his head. "I think Faye said the other day there were 13 of us left. Only two people have died since. So 11?"
Faye was thinking through all the deaths they'd seen projected on the sky, counting off her fellow tributes (other than the six of them) on her hands and feet. "If my brain isn't playing tricks both from 1 and 2. Then there's the boy from..." She looked down. "...no I think I'm right... 8?"
"I'd ask how, but I guess they coulda teamed up." M replied.
"That'd be awkward, cause it'd be six against five." Lee observed. "And they've mostly trained their whole lives."
Faye bit her lip and stared at her lap. If the thought was right none of them stood a chance. They'd be so close knit they'd know each other's every move by now. If they were the six of them were as good as dead.

*****

All having survived the night, without having to stare at Lisa the whole time, the following day Faye, Ian and M elected to see if they could find anything that wasn't a plant to eat. Faye had to go because she had the bow and no-one else could use it apparently, Ian wanted to come because he was remarkably good at spotting things from a great distance and M just tagged along. Lisa, Claire and Lee stayed to watch camp. The way they'd teamed up, putting the two strongest fighters together back at camp, proved to be their first mistake.

The trio wondered along together, all silent except their footsteps, hoping they'd spy some rabbits or something else edible and somehow they still found them. The three of them still got ambushed. But this time instead of having the upper hand in numbers, as they'd initially thought, they were equally matched. Faye and Ian exchanged a quick look of terror as Faye swung her bow over her head and quickly notched an arrow. They couldn't think how they both were right now. They needed to hope that they'd somehow pull through this attack. She took a deep breath and drew back the string, taking aim at a girl who was probably around the same height as her, but twice as muscular as she swung down from the tree. The first arrow hit her target, but missed it's mark, instead embedding in her leg as Faye misjudged her fall. It slowed her down enough that Faye knew her next arrow would hit a more lethal shot. So Faye shakily took another arrow, steadied her breathing so her hands weren't shaking so much and aimed again, this time hitting the girl in the stomach only because she was shaking too badly to hit her heart. It wouldn't kill her instantly like Faye had hoped, but it would at least do the job. She could always use Ian's knife to mercy kill the girl if she survived. She took aim at the nearer boy next, who was running towards Ian with some sort of almost sword like implement. This time though her target was moving so swiftly that she couldn't take a good aim and both her shots merely skimmed him. Faye held her breath as the boy turned his attentions to her instead and yelled to his friend. She couldn't outrun him or the other boy, she had no weapon of use in close combat, this was it. But then Ian was there in front of her, brandishing his knife and slashing at the other guy who stepped back surprised. There was no way Ian's tiny knife would defeat the sword, but somehow (likely more through luck than judgement) Ian landed a slash on the boy's hand, causing him to cry out and drop the sword in surprise. Ian seized the moment, grabbing the sword which was heavier than he'd imagined, and took back up his slashing. This time it hit. A cannon shot. There was one left. One who'd disappeared, or so they thought until Faye felt a sharp stinging run through her left arm and inhaled sharply, looking down to see blood oozing from a long gash. She pressed her hand to it to stem the bloodflow somewhat, squeaking slightly at the pain it caused. He'd thrown a knife at her. Before she had chance to recover from the surprise and take a shot at her assailant though M was charging after him.
"M no! He'll kill you!" Faye inadvertently called after him. Her face was wet with tears from the pain of her wound as it was, the last thing she wanted was to lose a friend today as well. And how would she tell Lisa her district partner was dead?
"I was always going to die in here some time!" M replied, disappearing into the weeds after the other boy.