The Hunger Games: Camden Shepard

Chapter 7

I handed Ben his sickle and positioned my trident as I took hold of the door knob.
"Stay behind me." I said. I still wasn't sure if I could completely trust Ben yet, but I wasn't going to have him go before me, bleeding out and rather useless in his state of pain. He nodded. I pulled hard on the door and stepped inside. It was dark, but I could see the shadow of a small figure lunging at me.
"Cam!" It said. My eyes adjusted and I dropped my trident.
"Layla!" She nearly tipped me over as she hugged me.
"I heard the canons, I thought it might have been you!" She was talking incredibly fast. "I haven't seen you or Jack since the Games started, but I hoped the canons weren't you. I saw that Shilo died." She stopped and let go of me, pushing back my shoulders so she could look into my eyes. "Did you kill him? Was it you?" She asked. I nodded.
"He was the first, just like I promised. Now he can't hurt you." I smiled at her. She nodded back at me. I turned around to Ben, he was pale, his color fading from his face as the blood drained from his leg. I pulled him inside and made him lie down.
"Ben, Layla. Layla, Ben." I gave quick introductions as I yanked my blanket out of my backpack and pulled the dagger out of my boot. I quickly cut a log strip off the blanket and began wrapping his leg.
"We've got to stop the bleeding." I told Layla. She nodded. Ben was muttering something that I couldn't understand. After about a minute I had his leg wrapped in a makeshift bandage, but he was still bleeding. I looked up at him. He wasn't muttering anymore.
"Prop up his head and keep him awake." I instructed. Layla sat crisscross and put his head in her lap. She began asking him questions as I raced around the building, searching for bandages. The blanket wasn't going to stop the bleeding for very long. I eventually found a room full of cabinets and i began to pull the contents from the shelves. There was a small pack of bandages, but they were much too small to cover the wound in his leg. I was just pulling open the top shelves when I heard another canon go off. My heart sank to my stomach. I ran back towards the stairs when a scream rang through the building, turning my blood cold.
"Layla!" I yelled, running down the stairs.
"Cam!" Layla screamed again. I made it to the bottom floor just in time to see the girl from two swing her massive sword down toward Layla's tiny body. I could see my trident on the ground next to Ben's body. Layla was holding her hands up in an attempt to fend off the attack. Without thinking I sprinted across the room and tackled the girl just as her blade made contact with Layla's arms. Layla called out in pain, but I was focused on the girl from Two. She had dropped the sword and I was on top of her. I was much larger than her. I had the girl pinned by the wrists. She was desperately trying to kick me off, but to no avail. Her eyes were indignant, but unforgiving.
"She killed Ben!" Layla sobbed. My vision went red, the boy I'd been trying to save, who had fought with me. She had killed him. I let go of one of her wrists. I brought my fist down. Hard.
"This." Her unforgiving eyes gave way to fear. I brought my fist down again.
"Is." Again.
"For." Again.
"Ben." She had barely lifted her head, but my last hit forced her head back onto the concrete. A canon went off and her head rolled to one side. I blinked and my vision cleared. I hadn't thought I'd killed her. I looked at my bloody hands. The hands of a murderer. I rolled off the dead girls body and threw up. A hovercraft was above the building now.
"Cam, we have to go." Layla whispered. I couldn't take my eyes off the girl from Two. I didn't even know her name.
"I'm sorry." I whispered.
"Cam, now." Layla was pulling on my arm. I turned to look at her. She had my backpack on and was trying not to carry my trident, even though it was much to heavy for her. I stood up and took my trident. She had my dagger in her other hand, apparently she hadn't gotten a weapon at the Cornucopia. We ran out just as the hovercraft lowered its mechanical arms to take Ben and the girl from two back to the Capitol. I could hear the sizzle of an electric current that was now buzzing over the arms of the hovercraft as I ran past. That was fast, I thought, they must have done that so I couldn't use their tools against them anymore.
Layla and I jogged a block away then turned to watch Ben being lifted into the hovercraft and away. I looked down and saw that Layla was crying. For a moment she looked just as she should, a small, scared child, not a product of the Games. Then her face hardened and she looked up at me.
"She deserved it." Layla whispered. Then she turned and walked off down the street.
Layla and I had wandered around our section of the city, keeping to the shadows and dark alleyways to avoid detection. I'd heard only one more canon go off the entire day, and couldn't help but worry about Jack. Layla and I'd eventually made a camp in the upper floors of a small building. The building was filled with what looked like individual houses on each floor. I didn't know what to call it until I'd found a book tucked under a desk on the first floor.
"Penthouse Apartments." I read. An apartment building. Layla and I had searched the apartments for supplies and found a few of the house-rooms contained supplies. The rooms didn't look like they had in the pictures of the book, most were much smaller and decrepit. Layla and I had collected whatever looked like it could be of use and eventually made it to the top floors. There we found the rooms that the book downstairs had proudly boasted. Years of wear and tear caused the rooms to be less grand than their pictures, but they were still more beautiful than my hut. My mind wandered to Charlie as I thought of my hut. I missed him.
Layla hadn't spoken much since we'd left the building where Ben had died. She had drawn away from me, kept silent. We found a cabinet full of stale food and made a meal out of the chips and crackers that weren't covered in mold. I let Layla sleep in one of the rooms massive beds and I took the first watch.
Layla had been asleep for an hour when the Capitols anthem blared across the arena. I ran to a window, praying that Jacks face wouldn't appear in the sky.
The sky lit up with the boy from ones picture, the boy Ben had killed, then the girl from one that I'd killed. The girl from two that I'd killed. The boy from five. My heart leapt, that meant Jack was okay. Jack had survived another day. The screen changed again and showed the girl from five, Amiya. The boy from sevens face appeared, maybe he was the the burned boy. Then the girl from nine, the rouge canon? And finally Mia, the fourteen year old from eleven, and Ben, my ally for whatever short a time.
I had counted on my fingers the deaths. Seven deaths the day before, and nine today. Sixteen kids were already dead, sixteen. Eight of us were left. Nine deaths, and I'd had a hand in four of them. I'd seen seven of them. I shook my head and looked over at Layla. She had slept through the nights death toll. I moved away from the window so I wouldn't be spotted and took up my spot at the end of the bed again. I leaned heavily on my trident and waited for my shift to end.