The Incoming Storm: The Tale of the 325th Hunger Games

Chapter 25

 "Amey!" Ross cries.

Below me stands Ross badly bruised, lips cracked and puffy, with a black eye. "Ross!" I say, climbing back down. We embrace for a moment, and he sits down. The only thing he has with him is his machete, water bottle, and first aid kit. "Are you okay?"

"Been better," he says, gesturing to his face.

"Is that from our attack on the cornucopia?" I ask.

"Yeah, I was about to go into the clearing to attack, but then there was this explosion," I think back to the crater and skid mark. "Luckily, my backpack took most of it. I was going to go back and try to help you but they started shooting fireballs at me."

"Fireballs?" I say. I wonder why the Gamemakers drove him away.

"Yeah, I tried to get back to you two but then I started hearing cannons and I got even more scared. I was distracted and a fireball hit me." It is now that I notice his arm, blistered and blackened. I am nauseated at the sight, it is horrendous. "I wouldn't have been able to help you, so I had to flee."

"It's okay," I say, even if Ross had been there things could have still played out the same way. Spoola didn't have a fighting chance, the best that would have happened is that Ross and I would have been together the last few days instead of separated.

"Then that night..." he makes a choking sound, "That night... I saw her face."

Tears begin streaming down his face. I reach out and he holds my hand with his good hand. My eyes well up with tears too, I didn't know her nearly as long as he did, but I consider her a friend. Probably my best friend now that I think of it. Ever since mom and dad died it was hard to make them, I was always the orphan girl. The few friends I did have thought of me as a charity rather than a true friend. "I miss her, too," is all I can manage to say.

We sit in the purple light as morning begins to break in the arena, watching the river roll by. Ross weeps silently beside me and I just hold his hand. "It's my fault she died," he says, breaking the silence.

"You can't think like that," I say.

"No, it is. It's my fault she came here," he says, ripping a clump of grass from the ground with his burned hand, wincing with pain.

"She made the choice herself-"

"We should have died in that explosion," Ross growls.

"You were sick, you can't blame yourselves for something like that. The odds work in strange ways."

"We weren't sick."

"You what?" I say. A pit forms in my stomach.

"We faked being sick," Ross says. He cups a hand over his mouth as if trying to take the words back. "We fake being sick," he repeats.

I don't know what to say, "Did you know that the explosion was going to happen?" I ask.

"What? No! We weren't sick though. We were together," Ross says. My mind begins working connecting the dots from every interaction between the two. Just as the pieces fall into place he says, "I loved her, and I think she loved me too."