One Fire: A One Direction Fan Fiction

27

27

   “It’ll be a risk. An electric shock that powerful with no advanced medical resources to keep the victim alive could have the capability to potentially kill a man.”

   Liam’s ghostly voice keeps ringing through my head as he begins work on Dolly’s trap and the plan we had developed. I had no regrets in volunteering for a possible suicide mission for the memory of Leah, and to give the remaining tributes not necessarily hated by the Capitol a chance to live. With the trouble I’d already caused, I was as good as a goner already.

   Liam, Mousy and Cedar weaved the coils of metal wire into a net as Chiffon had believed possible before we’d been separated, and Zayn and Roti hiked out to scout possible locations for our trial runs. However, the weaving teams never chose to hush their complaints about the complexity of their portion of the operation as they worked. I had already once heard Cedar nearly scream, “Chiffon, you can’t possibly be able to do this with anything! You lying little –”

   “Cedar,” Liam had interrupted before she went too far, “She can’t hear you, no matter how loud you yell.”

   It was hard enough on me not having the mockingjays to lead her and the others back to us. We missed having those four around, especially since they could make our plan better. Chiffon would be able to weave the net in seconds; Dolly – I was sure – would have a better alternative for charging the net which would both allow it to be simply mobile and not let an electric current pass through my body, and Louis and Niall would have at least never have let me volunteer for the most dangerous job.

   It hadn’t taken long to weave the net, or for Roti and Zayn to find a good, tall tree, so we agreed to test our plan the next morning, which came much too quickly for my liking. I was soon climbing up into the tree, holding the long, conducting wire they’d attached to the net in one hand, and my bow in the other.

   “As much as the current will try to make you,” Liam called to me from the ground. He and Mousy were both holding the net in their rubber gloved hands. “Do not let go of the tree, or the net, or the current will have nowhere to go except in you, and that could be fatal.”

   I nodded to tell him I understood, but it just made my heart speed up. This could potentially kill me, but, then again, if I didn’t die in this year’s games, what was keeping President Snow from finding a reason to send me back next year?

   Doing this all made me think of home; District Twelve. Right now, my mum, Gemma and Robin were probably weeping for my safety, and Leah’s family just weeping. Over half the tributes still remained alive in this arena, which still gave me a slim chance of returning, whether I had once already or not.

   I sat on the branch and waited for the lightning bolt to go ahead and strike the tree I was in. The wire remained in my left hand, and my right still touched the trunk of the tree. The bow and quiver were still positioned over my shoulder. In the hour of time I spent up there, I watched the others below. Zayn and Cedar already had to leap to avoid their bolts of lightning, but, even though it had been seemingly hitting near me the most, I received nothing.

   “Are you still doing okay up there, blazing boy?” Cedar yells up to me. Her hatchet is out in her hand, and she’s lightly running her finger down its sharpest edge.

   “Never been better,” I say sarcastically down to them.

   It’s another good half hour before, from the sky, not too far away from us, another bolt cracks down to the earth. So far, as Mousy pointed out, they’ve been coming down in pairs. The next one, as we had predicted, heads for the tree I’m positioned in.