𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐍 𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐒 | hunger games ✓

chapter 17

━━･❪ 🌸 ❫ ･━━

Daphne froze, her water bottle cap halfway screwed. She knew that voice behind her. That deep growl dipping with bloodlust and the promise of violence, the heavy footsteps accompanied by the sound of a large weapon being slung over a shoulder.

Daphne was almost afraid to turn around. Almost.

She whirled, a knife instantly flying. There was a metallic clang as her blade collided with not flesh, but a mace.

Cosmo broke out in a grin, an evil glint in his eyes as he lowered his weapon. He kicked aside Daphne's discarded knife, sending it skittering into some nearby bushes.

Another knife was in Daphne's hand, but she knew that he would just deflect it again if she threw it. There was no way she would win in hand-to-hand combat. His mace would club her to shreds the moment she stepped closer.

His mace. Images of that very mace ripping into the District Nine girls flashed through Daphne's mind. A chill crept up her spine, a cold drop of sweat making its way down her temple. She hastily pushed aside the memory.

Cosmo was massive, but he had rather short legs in proportion to his body. He also seemed to be alone, Glory and the other Careers nowhere in sight. He didn't have any projectile weapons either. Daphne's heart was thundering, but she tightened her grip on her water bottle and knife and worked a smirk onto her face.

"Catch me if you can, brute."

With that, Daphne shoved the knife back into her belt, turned heel and sprinted like hell. She was nowhere near the fastest runner, peaking at just average, and she prayed Cosmo wasn't either. Adrenaline sang through her veins, adding extra speed to her legs. She tore down the street, then cut to the right and clambered over a wire fence into a backyard after throwing her water bottle over first. She was across the backyard and up and over the next fence as Cosmo hacked down the first one with his mace.

Daphne silently thanked all the times she would play insane games of tag with Aedon, or Lysa and Tobe. Then she wished for a pocket of some sort, since running with a water bottle in hand was not quite practical, but it was too essential to abandon.

She heard Cosmo's lumbering footsteps behind her, thankfully not gaining but also not stopping. Daphne began to recognize her surroundings as she cut across a fourth backyard, lungs burning and throat constricting painfully. This was the street she and Azalea had been last night. Where she'd picked up a pebble she'd found on the ground.

Where a house with a hedge on the side of its porch stood.

Daphne knew it was a gamble. But this whole Game was one big gamble. Might as well put on a show.

She slowed her pace the slightest bit, only to allow Cosmo the illusion of gaining. As Daphne dashed past the rigged porch, she launched a knife towards the front steps where the invisible tripwires crisscrossed.

The knife sank into the old wood with ease, and the tripwires flitted into view as they snapped free. And right as Cosmo was lumbering past the stairs, there was a clicking sound from the hedge.

Cosmo's roar of pain was deafening.

Daphne skidded to a halt and turned to find the brute collapsed on the ground, his mace skittering out of his hands. He clutched at his right leg, where a long crossbow bolt was embedded into his flesh. The bolt was covered with some sort of fine, white powder.

Cosmo yanked the bolt out of his leg with a guttural scream, then crawled for his mace. He couldn't seem to stand up, and the skin around his wound was rapidly turning into a rotted shade of black.