Chapter Six, Shooting Targets
❝ lights will guide you home ❞
❝ and ignite your bones. ❞
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"TOMORROW, THEY'LL BRING YOU IN ONE BY ONE and evaluate you. This is important, because higher ratings will mean sponsors. This is the time to show them everything. There'll be some knives, make sure you use them Jade. Peeta, make sure to show your strength. They'll start with District 1, so the two of you will go last. I don't know how else to put this. Make sure they remember you."
Haymitch's words from this morning play in my mind as the elevator shoots up, the bright blue colours of the lights piercing my eye-sight.
I arrive in the narrow space, where all the tributes stay sitting onto respective chairs, anxiously peering down onto the floor, playing with their hair or jumping their legs against the metal floor.
I don't pay attention to my surroundings on the evaluation floor, until I hear my name being called by the robotic voice. My head shoots up, finally being glued off the ground. Only my district partner remains, and everything else around me stops being a fuzzy blur.
I glance at Peeta, my hands shaking from the fear and apprehension.
"Hey Jade, shoot straight." my district partner reassuringly comments, laying a comforting hand onto my shoulder.
I nod, getting up and making my way though the large doors, wanting nothing but the moment to be over.
"Thank you. And you, don't forget to show them just how strong you truly are." I finally add, getting a last glimpse of Peeta Mellark, smiling.
Entering the immense room, the dispersed attention of the Game makers immediately surprise me. Have they even noticed I was here?
I walk towards the diversified range of knives, going from extremely pointy blades to machetes. I grab a few, similar knives and arrange them on my belt, making my way to the moving targets.
It feels amazing to finally posses the weapon I had so badly wanted to use days before. I take a deep breath, squint my emerald eyes and prepare my move. In a matter of ten seconds, I've hit every single target right in the heart.
I beam in content, then looking over at the range of Game makers, expecting impressed expressions.
However, much to my growing disappointment, my supposed audience hasn't spared a single moment of their concentration to my skill. Instead, they cheer when dinner arrives on their podium, yelling in delight when a large pig arrives in the room.
I gulp, stress, annoyance, but essentially anger blurring my vision. My right hand reaches one of the knives left on the rack, and before regaining my senses, the knife flies across the room and hits the apple that resides into the pig's mouth in the center, pinning it to the rose-coloured walls.
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✓ Raw and Wild / Cato Hadley
Fanfic𝐑𝐀𝐖 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐃 ────── in which jade everdeen has to face her biggest fear while falling for her rival. © sandysurfs / cover by @girldirt