𝐒𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄 || Narnia x The Hunger Games Crossover

Chapter Eleven

Lucy rushed out onto the stone outcropping as Jill stumbled away from the cliff and crumpled to her hands and knees at the edge of the forest.

For one long, terrible moment, Eustace lay utterly still, a heap of charred arena clothes, and Lucy hovered a pace away as electricity hummed in the air, afraid to touch him, afraid of what might happen if she did. But then the heap shuddered, and he coughed, an empty, wheezing kind of cough, and rolled onto his side.

Lucy heaved a sigh, and Jill burst into tears.

Shakily, unsteadily, Eustace placed a hand against the stone and pushed himself onto his elbows, coughing until he could suck in a raspy breath, loose blond hair brushing sunbaked grey dust.

"Are you okay?" asked Lucy, kneeling beside him, fingers hesitating a few inches above his back.

Eustace grimaced and didn't bother looking up, ashen-faced, freckles stark against white cheeks. "Do I look okay?"

"Well, you don't look dead."

He rolled his eyes, grey mirror-glass still sharp, clear as ever. "Hurray."

Lucy retracted her hand and sat back, glancing out into the empty blue, the slightest ripple of color blurring the vast expanse before vanishing below the cliff, just like the force field beneath her training center balcony.

Eustace hauled himself, trembling, into a sitting position to test each limb individually and massage his shoulder, which must have taken the brunt of the fall. Behind him, Jill's breath hitched with panicked sobs.

"Why does she get to cry?" he groaned, "I'm the one she nearly bloody murdered."

Jill only sobbed harder.

"You got lucky," breathed Lucy.

Eustace sighed, and reluctantly muttered, almost to himself, "Hardly." He pulled his sleeve up to inspect a burn on his elbow, black fabric separating to expose a smaller hole in the sleeve of his tunic and flash of pink beyond that. "If it was supposed to kill me I'd be dead."

Lucy's brow furrowed. "Are you sure?" She looked him up and down incredulously as the terrible snap of his body hitting the field replayed in her head.

"We designed force fields in school that did more damage than this thing." He shook his head. "No, that would be too quick and easy for the arena."

Lucy glanced back again. Nothing but empty sky lay beyond the stone. "What if you hit it twice?"

"Oh, do you want to throw me off, too?"

He turned aside to cough, voice still raw and scratchy, and Lucy unslung her backpack and fished out her water bottle, offering the last few sloshing swallows to him.

They hadn't hit water all day, and the Threes' canteen had been empty for hours, so the refusal that might usually have come from the proud boy's lips died before he could utter it, and reluctantly he caved and downed the last of the water as Lucy moved to kneel beside Jill.

"I'm sorry," the girl sobbed, burying her face into Lucy's jacket, voice muffled by the fabric, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I'm sorry—"

"It's okay," cooed Lucy, even though that may have been a lie, but the comforting tone came out on reflex. "It'll be okay." That was a little closer to the truth.

"I just— I wanted to— I wasn't trying to—" Choking gasps eclipsed her words, and Lucy rubbed her arms and hushed her while Eustace pulled himself together.

"I suppose you haven't quite murdered me," he grumbled, and dragged himself unsteadily to his feet.

"Do you really think you should be doing that?" asked Lucy, but he waved her off.