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》︎✳︎✳︎✳︎《︎︎
IT HAD HAPPENED so fast that she had to register that someone had just died for a few seconds. She walked deeper into the many bushes of Nightlock to find the source of the noise she had heard before the cannon and her confusion. When she rounded the corner of a tree, her nausea skyrocketed, and she nearly threw up at the sight. Not because it was gruesome or she was squeamish, it was merely the situation.
"Leighton," she gulped and ran over, kneeling down to Leighton's still body. "Leighton! No! Wake up!" She screamed and grabbed Leighton's face, trying not to touch the toxic berry juice around his lips. His eyes were open just like Rue, except hers had the hint of sadness and dread for death while Leighton had joy. He even had a small smile on his face.
Devyn sobbed loudly, now knowing how Leighton felt when Rue died. She felt so helpless not being able to do anything to bring him back. He was long gone as Nightlock made you braindead in seconds, but she still felt the need to give him medicine or CPR. Although she couldn't do mouth-to-mouth, otherwise, she'd die as well.
So all she could settle with was crying. And at that point, she didn't care if she alerted the entire arena of her location. All she wanted was Leighton back. "You can't leave me. We're meant to win this together."
Unintentionally she let out an ear-piercing scream as she gripped Leighton's shirt. "You're too young to die. You can't die," she sobbed into the skin of his neck as she wrapped her arms around him. She then realized how weak she must seem on camera, but like anything else besides holding Leighton, she didn't care. She didn't care about her presentation what she said about the games or the Capitol as long as she let out her pain.
She didn't know how long it had been, it could've been minutes or hours, she had no clue, but even after possibly much time, she never let go of the young boy she considered her brother by now. Maybe Cato was right, and he thought of her as more, but he was like a little brother ever since the Reaping.
She finally moved when she heard footsteps behind her. She shot around, grabbing her ax and pointing it to the person approaching her. "Hey, whoah," Cato held up his hands, and Devyn relaxed. She set down her ax as Cato initially smiled until he looked under her and saw Leighton's lying lifeless on the floor with Nightlock berries still in his hand and his lips stained a deep red.
Devyn saw how incapable of words Cato was, so she answered his questions before he had the opportunity to spit them out, "he accidentally ate Nightlock berries. They killed him in seconds, but I didn't find him until shortly after. We were hunting, and his job was to look for plants and berries."
"I'm sorry. Devyn." Cato said softly as he sat down next to her, wiping away her tears. "But I can't help thinking something...."
