Happy Hunger Games, Haymitch.

Cashmere and the knife

"Haymitch. Haymitch I just killed someone. Haymitch." Laven shrieked, her words ran together so I could barely make out my name.
"Woah, sweetheart, calm down" I say, squeezing her shoulders.
"He was gonna kill you. He didn't care about you."
This does nothing to console her, and she starts hyperventilating and tears come to her eyes.
I place my hands on either side of her face and look her in the eye. She seems to calm down slightly, but I find her gaze traveling upwards. I realise what she's looking at. The hovercraft. Whilst I was trying to calm her, I'd forgotten to check the body for stuff we can use. I snapped my head around and scanned the body. A backpack. I dive down, turning the body over and scrambling desperately to retrieve it before the claw picks it up. I barely had time to jump out of the way before the body was lifted up and taken out of the arena forever.
"we should run. I think he was a career. People will run to where the hovercraft was"
Laven nodded and started sprinting. I clambered to my feet and followed her.

After about 5 minutes, we stopped again. I sat down, looking for anything we could use in the pack.
"Anything good in there?" She asked, craning her neck to get a look.
I moved things around, there was a water bottle, water purification tablets, some dried fruit, a knife, a reflective thin silver thing. I handed it to Laven, to see if she could identify it.

"Oh it's a heat reflective thing. Says on the front." She said, handing it back to me.
I put it back in the pack and took out the knife. It wasn't balanced enough for throwing, but it was serrated and a good weapon for me.
She had a quick look through the pack, found some crackers which i'd missed, and ended up carrying it.

Soon it was getting dark, we kept moving before finding some shrubbery to sleep under. The way way the branches were positioned, it gave us a pocket of sleeping area. Enough for her to stretch, enough for me to lay down. She had just started to drift off to sleep when the anthem sounded. She jolted awake, a hand on her belt, before realising what it was. She moved some leaves around, and peeked out. Nobody important. The career Laven killed, some tributes who didn't stand a chance, the morphlings, all together 9 people had died.
"9" she muttered. I murmured in agreement.
Soon it was getting very cold. For some reason I didn't feel it, but Laven was shaking in her sleep. I opened the heat reflective sheet as quietly as possible to put it on her, and soon she stopped. The fact that Laven was peaceful sent me to sleep, although not entirely asleep, it was like I was resting but still alert.

Laven woke me up with her stirring. I felt surprisingly well rested. At first, she opened her eyes slowly, then sat bolt upright. She looked around, horrified, and let her face fall when she saw me.
"Oh" she said weakly. "Oh. Ok. Ok. Alright."
I felt awful. I wanted her to go home right now. Alive. She went to crawl out of the bush, but then jumped back with a gasp. I caught her and asked her what was wrong.
She put a finger over her mouth and I knew that she meant there was somebody outside. My heart rate soared, as I gestured for her to hide. I crept forward slightly and tried to get a look at who was outside. I made too much noise, as the head was turned to me. Cashmere. District 1.
She lunged forward, sending a knife into my arm. I jumped out, ignoring the pain. I pinned her down, which to my benefit, shocked her into being frozen for a few precious seconds as I clambered to find a rock to bash her skull in. I didn't have to though, because a knife swept across her neck, severing it. It landed in the bark of a tree a metre away. Her eyes snapped open, shocked. I stayed pinned on her until the cannon sounded. Laven crept forward, examining the body. She pulled a hair tie out of Cashmeres hair, and gestured to a small pack on her thigh. I pulled it away, looking in it. Bandages.
"What's in it- Haymitch!" I looked behind me, sure that she meant a tribute was behind me.
"What?!"
She snatched the pack away from me, looked inside, breathed a sigh of relief, and I realised what she was looking at. The knife was still in my arm. The pain suddenly returned, and I gritted my teeth.
"Haymitch, this will hurt, but trust me." She said.
Her hand clamped the knife's handle, she hesitated for a second, then yanked it out with a swift motion. My face twisted up in agony, and she unzipped my jacket and flung it off me. She quickly wiped the blood away with her sleeve, wrapped the bandage around the wound, and sealed it off. The pain had subsided considerably, but was still there. I let out a long sigh, and zipped my jacket back on. I realised that she had been grimacing too, and laughed slightly.
This seemed to calm her down.
"Well, I think that it just cut the muscle, it was pretty shallow."
We watched the hovercraft take Cashmere's body away, as Laven put her hair in a bun with the bobble she'd got from her.
"Don't scream like that again, scared me half to death." I say.
"Sorry. Just got worried." She replied, loosening her bun so that it didn't look like it was ripping her hair out, then pulled two strands of hair down as a fringe.
It was silent for a moment, before I thought about the fact she had just saved my life.
"Good job, by the way. Killin' that girl, fixing the knife thing."
She laughed slightly.
"Thanks"
"We should go. Like you said, the hovercraft is a giveaway."
I nodded, getting up. Only then did I realise how hungry and thirsty I was. Laven retrieved the knife from the tree, and suggested we find a water source. I agreed, and she put the knife back in her belt.

We walked for about 2 miles before dehydration started to kick in. Laven felt the effects too, as she was panting, not breathing.
"Moss" I said, pointing to the ground. "That's a good sign."
We continued onwards until we finally found the glorious pond. We sat by the pond for 30 minutes whilst the water purified in the bottle, and Laven took the time to clean her knives. She splashed water on her face, then finally took a few big gulps of water, then remembered me. She looked sorry, and wiped the water from her mouth, before handing the bottle to me. I laughed at her expression and drank some of the water, enough to quench my thirst but still leave some left.
"Drink the rest of it. I'll purify another bottle and then we can get going." She suggested.
I accepted without hesitation. I opened the pack on her back and gave her some dried fruit and a cracker. She smiled, obviously hungry, as I had to remind her to chew it.
I picked up the bottle and filled it with water, then sank the purification tablet in and got moving. After 10 minutes, she looked down and furrowed her brow.
"Haymitch, why are you protecting me?"