The Tribute and the Victor

Chapter 13

"Your interview wasn't even bad" Caleb said quietly. "If anything, Caesar made it better. He gave the capitol people a reason to sponsor you. So you can come back to me.." He whispered. "Yes but it's not like that though is it?" I said harshly. "What do you mean?" He questioned. "As if you'd want to spend the rest of your life loving a normal girl from district 7 when you can have any beautiful girl you want in the capitol" I hissed carelessly. "Who says I wouldn't want to love you for the rest of my life? I don't want a 'beautiful girl' from the capitol. I want you. Besides, when you come out of the games you'll not just be a normal girl from district 7...you'll be a victor. No different from me." He said. He wanted me? No one else? So now i knew, he did love me. But i didn't bring it up again as i knew that the more we talked about our love for each other, the more it would hurt us. "If i get out" i corrected him. "You will get out" he said sharply. And with that he jumped up from the bed and reached out for my hand. I immediately took it and wondered where on earth he was taking me. When we arrived at our destination I realised we were on the open topped roof of the training centre. "We're not aloud to be here so keep quiet" he whispered. And with that, he took both my hands and faced me. "Listen" he whispered. Music. I could hear music. It must have been coming from the celebrations in the capitol. Although I wasn't entirely sure what they where celebrating. Probably the fact that they were about to see yet another batch of 23 children die. As we listened to the music, he spun me round and slow danced to the faint sound of the capitols music. We must have been dancing for about a good half hour before I finally asked. "How did you win the games? He looked at me and slowly swallowed."Didn't you watch me in the games?" he questioned. "I did, but i never really understood your strategy..or why you did what you did.." i said nervously. "Well...I guess I didn't really kill many people because i didn't want to...you see my district partner, well she was extremely..determined. Determined to win. Anyway...we formed an alliance and she did most of the killing as you probably saw, But when the time came, we had to break off the alliance because we didn't want to have to kill each other. But none of it really went to plan as she managed to kill off all the other tributes before one of them could try to kill me...so I at the final battle, it was me against her. And I had no choice...I had to kill her..." He said quietly.That night I don't think I slept at all, I just laid across the couch next to Caleb talking about his life, my life and our possible future life together...If I could make it out of the arena that was. But deep down in my heart I knew that it was going to be almost impossible to do. Just the thought of me brutally murdering someone made me heave. But I knew that it was the only way to make it home. By the time dawn came I was already dressed and attempting to force as much breakfast down me as possible. But it just seemed to want to come back up. Axe on the other hand was having no trouble piling all the food in. This was the first time I had actually seen him eat without kicking up a fuss. The time flew by as I sat nervously waiting to be called down to the hovercraft. I suddenly felt the urge to run when it was time to leave but Caleb insured that I didn't, I said goodbye to Pheonix and that was it. When we got down to the hovercraft, Caleb stopped me and held my head in his hands "My normal advice would be to run away from the cornucopia but this is different, your practically the fastest tribute here, so run for it, grab your food, water and weapons then get out of there. And for gods sake don't get killed!" He said sternly. "Okay" I said nervously. "I love you" he whispered in my ear. "He then kissed me and sent me towards the hover craft, not caring about the fact that Axe was staring at us both in disbelief. I guess he didn't realise that the whole 'Tribute, Mentor' relationship was actually real. As i stepped up onto the hovercraft. I mouthed the words 'I love you too' to Caleb and that's when they closed the doors. I made a small squeal as the one of the women in the hovercraft injected the tracker into my arm. As I looked over at Axe I noticed that he barely even flinched when they injected his tracker. Sat opposite me was the girl from district 4. She was staring at me with her sea green eyes in an extremely odd way. Her long flowing yellow hair was now pinned back into a hight pony tail with a few wispy curls hanging by the side of her face.When the hovercraft landed we were transported underground to meet our stylets to dress us for the arena. My stylist dressed me in a white tank top, beige trousers, army boots and a thin jacket. "And now for your district token" he said as he swept his straight blue hair from his face. "My district token? I totally forgot, I don't even have one!" I said worriedly. "But you do. Caleb said this was your token" and with that he pulled out the most beautiful ring I had ever seen. I stood there looking at it shocked. "He didn't tell you?" He asked me. "No.." I whispered. "Maybe it is an engagement ring?" He suggested. I wasn't quite sure, but I slipped it on and kissed it lightly and headed for my tube when I heard the female voice tell us we had 10 seconds. As I stepped in the door closed behind me. I closed my eyes and held my breath as i started to lift up. A bright white light. That's all I could see as we were lifted into the arena. Nothing else. Suddenly I made out the shape of the cornucopia and the other tributes all ready in their starting positions. I then looked round to see what this years arena was. No! i thought. No! No! No! This years arena was a scorching hot desert...