The Black Widow- A Hunger Games Fanfic

Day 2

I was the last one to wake the next morning; everyone else was already up and eating.
"Did no-one think to wake me up?" I asked, brushing the sleep from my eyes.
"You can't talk when you're asleep," Enobaria said brutally, "we thought we'd keep it that way as long as possible." So I guessed they were still not okay with my remark last night. Silently, I took some food from my bag and hydrated it, waiting for the water to seep in before beginning to eat. I wasn't really hungry but who knew when it would be safe to sit and eat again.
"Has anyone sent you anything for your cuts yet?" I asked,
"They're minor," Gloss said, "It'd be better to save the money for when we actually need it." I shrugged, I guessed that was true, but still, what happened to sending stuff early when it was cheap? Although I guess the backpacks might've been a bit of a splurge. Maybe we were going to have to wait a little while to get anything else. I began to strap the knives to my body and put on my backpack.
"We should get going soon," Brutus said, as soon as he was finished eating, "we can't stay in one place too long."
"You're right," Gloss agreed, "we need to hunt a bit so we can thin out the field before we run out of supplies. Hopefully that will win us some sponsors to keep us going for the rest of the games." Everyone agreed with that and we started to pack up and start walking back towards the beach.
"Did anyone see the anthem last night?" I asked as we walked,
"No," Enobaria answered, "we were too deep in the jungle. There were three more cannons while you were asleep though."
"And you don't care who they were?"
"Not particularly." How was that okay and me stating that we had all killed children wasn't? Bit biased but anyway.

We walked on in silence until we came to the beach. But we didn't go out because just as we were about to walk out from the treeline, the arena began to shake and water rushed through the trees towards the cornucopia. We all took a step back, during which time I scanned my eyes across the beach. It was occupied,
"Stop," I told Brutus, throwing out a hand to stop him walking out onto the beach. He looked at me angrily for getting in his way but I told him, "Look." He did and stilled. Across the beach were Finnick, Everdeen and Mellark, sitting doing nothing.
"There's four of us, only three of them," he said gloatingly, "This couldn't be easy enough." Suddenly remembering the rebel plan, I struggled to come up with a convincing lie to keep them away. Fortunately, I didn't need to.
Just then, Finnick jumped up and ran towards our sector. For a moment, I thought he'd seen us, but then I saw who he was running to: Johanna. They shouted each others' names as they ran towards each other and for a second, I felt envious that I would never be able to have a conversation with them again without pretending we were enemies. I was going to die. I had asked to die. But now that I knew that my friends weren't going to die with me, I couldn't help but feel lonely.
"There's four of them now," I commented, "Not so easy now."
"No shit sherlock," Enobaria spat, "it's almost like you want us to lose."
I noted that she said lose and not die. I wondered how she could still see this as a game after everything we had all been through. I had never really thought before now about how Brutus and Enobaria had both volunteered thinking they could win. It was like they were living in an entirely different reality to the rest of us. Would my life have turned out better if I was too? Maybe this was how the rest of the districts felt about the careers. It was strange to look at it that way. Despite acquiring a hatred for the Capitol and Snow in particular in the past few years, I still hadn't seen training for the games as wrong. The glory part was gone, sure, but I had always thought the games brought more joy than they did suffering. Training meant that we had a higher chance of winning and volunteering meant only the older ones would enter. And if they won, it was free food for a year. I had always thought that the rewards outweighed the risks. It was part of what had got me through all these years: knowing that my suffering had prevented that of someone else. Now I was starting to wonder how the districts who didn't have that coped? How had I never asked Finnick or Johanna in all the years I had known them what it was like to send a tribute into the arena knowing that they had no chance of escaping alive. Despite me rooting against them, my tributes had always had a chance.
"So what's our plan of attack?" Gloss asked,
"Really?!" I asked incredulously, "We're going to go into that fight with four versus six. Isn't the whole point of this pack that we have strength in numbers? If we do this we'll lose at least one."
"Then let's hope it's you," Enobaria said savagely, "since you're so determined for us to fail."
"I'm the one determined to fail?! I'm the one trying to steer us away from disaster."
"It's three against one, Gold," Brutus said with finality that even I couldn't oppose, "here's the plan..."

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It took us hours to sneak around the periphery of the forest, making sure we weren't spotted during which time I ran a thousand scenarios through my head of how to prevent the attack or warn the others but it was no good. Anything I did would reveal my position as a rebel traitor and possibly the whole plan in the process. I just had to do as little as possible and hope that the rebels were strong enough to defeat the careers. And hope no-one important died in the process. It was worrying that that was how my mind worked now.
We stood silently together in the shadows of the jungle, watching as the the group gathered in a circle, looking at something drawn in the sand. My guess was they were mapping out the arena. Part of me wanted to know what the other traps were. More out of curiosity than a wish to avoid them but whatever. The plan Brutus had laid out was simple: as soon as one strayed from the group, Gloss would go in and take one out. The cannon would draw their attention and then the rest of us would attack.
I thought it was a shit plan. It would be much more effective to sneak up behind them and long distance kill the major players then take out the weaker ones later but of course I wasn't going to say that. And even if I did, no-one would listen to me anyway.
A week ago, I might've said that with any luck, it would be over today. But now, with everything I knew and felt, I was desperately hoping it wasn't. That maybe I'd have purpose for a little bit longer. Even if it was just so I could live a bit longer. Although, it might not be worth that much if I had to live my last few days completely alone.

Whilst I was lost in thought, Wiress wandered away from the group. She didn't look so good: muttering something that I couldn't quite hear; so far removed from the calm, collected victor I had met before the games.
Before I knew it, Gloss had exited the foliage and slit her throat the canon boomed. He looked up for all of a second before Katniss's arrow struck him in the forehead. I froze. The cannon boomed. No. This couldn't be it. How was Gloss gone? He had been alive seconds ago. Maybe that cannon had been for something else. But there he was on the ground: not moving. Poor Cashmere. She wouldn't have even had time to look away.
But Brutus and Enobaria were on their way to attack. Sneaking around. Brutus was poised to strike Finnick, take him out. And I didn't want him to die.
With strength and speed I hadn't known I had, I hurled a knife into the tree by his head. He turned to the source of the noise just in time to block Brutus's attack. Now they were in all out combat. But I would need to get involved properly. That was what was expected from me. I couldn't use the frozen in shock ruse now that I'd thrown my knife.
It was Johanna who ended up coming to fight me. But she seemed reluctant. Not a good look for an axe murderer, who was known to show no mercy. She threw a few half hearted blows at me with her axe, backing me onto one of the spokes of the cornucopia, all of which I either evaded or blocked with a knife.
If I was ever going to let my life end, now would be the time.
Johanna was strong. She had an axe and I had only a knife. It would be believable.
I had thrown the knife to warn Finnick. Gloss was dead. Brutus and Enobaria wouldn't take me back. I was of no more use to the plan.
It would be so easy just to slip up and let the cannon boom to signal the end of the Widow's tale.
But then I realised: I don't want to die.
I hadn't realised that I was thinking aloud until Johanna's eyes widened and she twisted her axe just in time that the flat of the blade hit me instead of the sharp part and I went tumbling into the water.

I screamed as the bodies swarmed towards me. Tried to embrace me as one of their own. I tried desperately to push them away. I screamed until my lungs were about to give out, only then remembering that I was still human and alive and needed to breathe.
But there was no air. There was no light. And I had no idea which way was up.
Maybe I was going to die after all.
Ironic, wasn't it, that in learning that I didn't want to die, I had gotten myself killed. I should have accepted it by this point. Maybe then I could've died peacefully. Murdered in my sleep would've been preferable but a clean cut with an axe could've worked too.
Or an arrow. Straight to the head. Like Gloss. Why couldn't I have died that quickly too?
Instead, I get drowning, which was annoyingly fitting. Like the old nursery rhyme where the spider got washed away. Now, I would die among underwater with the images of all the people I had killed as the last thing I would ever see.
Except there was a body moving infront of me. And it was moving, cutting quickly through the water in the way only the people of District 4 could. Maybe it was Morgan, coming to avenge his death from when he had been so close to surviving. Well just look how surviving turned out for me.
But the person in front of me didn't look like Morgan. The person who dragged me from the water looked a lot more like Finnick.