The Arena

Chapter 8

I kept on waking up to the sounds of rushing water, and darkness. I had no idea where I was or what was happening. I was in pain. Lots of it. It seemed that every time I would come even just into a little bit of consciousness, the pain would be too much and encircle me in darkness again. I heard one or two voices but never enough to distinguish who was talking. I thought I was going to die, part of me wishes that I would just slip into death. 

I awoke one time to rough hands cleaning my wounds. I shot up in pain screaming. 

"Shh, Nicole," Laim says as he clamps a hand over my mouth. "I know it hurts but if I don't clean it you are going to die of an infection." He lifts his hand from my mouth and cups my face, something in his eyes told me he was sorry he had left me alone. "I heard the horn and I knew that they were letting in the Runners, and I thought that if I left you at the waterfall you would stay there out of sight until I came back for you. I am so sorry Nicole. I promise to make it right, and to do that I have to cause you a little bit of pain right now. If you need to scream please do it into my chest, we can't let anyone know where we are."

I knew that he wasn't lying to me so I nodded to afraid to open my mouth for fear I might loose my voice to hysterics. Laim took his hand from my face and began to clean the wound on my shoulder. I clinged to Laim the pain almost more than I could bear. As he dug deeper and deeper into the wound wanting to make sure that it was thoroughly cleaned I buried my face in his chest and let out a scream that never seemed to end. Within minutes he was done was holding me crying in his arms.

"Nicole there are 5 of us left. They took out the Runners after they saw what you were doing. pretty great if you think about it, you beat them at their own game. So it's you and me, Mags and Darius and some guy from one of the south village. I have no idea where he is at or how he lasted this long. But I am afraid that you can't fight anymore. The Runner to a big bite out of you and I am pretty sure that you can't fire your bow anymore."

"Laim, I... Thank you for coming back for me. But if I cant fight, then how are we going to win." I asked as I looked into his deep brown eyes, in an instant I knew his plan. "I am not staying here I say as softly as I can. "I am going back out there to fight. I am not going to stay here!" 

Just then we heard the cannon and in the sky we saw Mags' face appear. We waited a few minutes and then nothing. We didn't know what to think, only that she was dead and either Darius had killed her or the southern tribute did. But when Darius' face did not show up or the other tributes face, I knew in my heart that Darius had killed her. I felt anger well up inside of me. This was not fair. She had been loyal to him, she had fought for him and protected him, but he, he had sold her out in a moments notice, probably the same way he had killed Max. With little thought or concern for her life. 

"Listen Laim, I am not going to let you go out there alone, I am going to fight with you. It is up to me to kill Darius and I am going to, I need to!" 

"Let's just sleep for now in the morning we will try and figure this out. I promised you that you would live, and that is going to happen one way or another."

As we lay down next to each other, my eyes were wide open. There was nothing that I could do to, I knew that Laim would leave me here in the morning, and that I would not be able to catch up with him before he would leave me in the dust completely. I listened to Laim's breath fall into a peaceful rhythm and I quietly and slowly got up grabbed my bow and left him there.