Behind Those Violet Eyes ▸ Hunger Games

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Alia Fletson

Chapter Twenty-Seven:

Alia's POV

When Cato and I reached the safe side of the river, I turned around to catch a glimpse of the blazing flames of the Gamemaker-made fire. The blindingly bright ends of the flames crawled their way to the tops of the trees, making them at least twenty feet tall.

I sat down at the riverbank, splashing the cold water on my face in an attempt to wash the dirt off.

Staring at my reflection in the river water, I noticed I had a cut from the bridge of my nose all the way down to the end of the left side of my face.

I cursed Cyra’s name under my breath, knowing that her knife was responsible for the horrid cut on my face.

I then smirked, as I wasn’t the only one scarred-up.

As soon as she threw one of her knives into Cato’s arm, I slammed her onto the ground, as I knew she was oblivious to her surroundings at the moment.

We flipped each other over on the ground, practically rolling in the dirt.

However, she clearly didn’t have the amount of hand-to-hand combat training that I did, as I quickly pinned her to the ground, a dagger in my left hand.

Cyra fought hard, though. She just wasn’t stronger than me, of course… but she did have that knife…

She tried slashing my face a couple times in defense, but I ducked each time. She did get me once, though, and that was why I had the large cut across my face.

But as soon as I felt my skin slice open, I immediately did the same damage to her face with my dagger, slicing her right cheek in the shape of an X.

She winced as soon as the blade made contact with the open skin. Cyra then threw her knife straight into Clove’s stomach, sending a cannon off.

I just laughed. “Oh, and now you’ve got no weapon… Not the smartest decision, Fish Girl…”

We then somehow ended back where we started: fighting in the dirt next to the river… It was at that point where I noticed something in her purple eyes. It wasn’t hatred, not even anger. No, Cyra didn’t seem the slightest bit mad, which surprised me deeply since I was trying to kill her. Defiance… and not towards me, either. Towards the Capitol, the Gamemakers, President Frost, anyone involved in the creation of the Hunger Games. It was as if she was saying: I’m not the enemy, Alia. They are...

I just shook my head at thought.

No, not really, Cyra. They haven’t done anything to me. You’re the one who blew up all our supplies and dropped a Tracker Jacker nest on us.

Ever since the Tracker Jacker incident, I haven’t felt the same. For one, I grew much more exhausted, but there was something much deeper than that.

I snapped.

Whatever ‘good sense of judgment I had’, I lost in rage. My thought process had been completely twisted around, to the point where I was finding myself thinking spiteful and irrational things. Like actually wanting to kill Cyra. I don’t enjoy killing the other tributes by any means, but I do so in order to survive. Now, I actually wanted to hunt her down. Sure, I haven’t liked her since the moment she got a higher score than me, but the thought of hunting her never entered my mind. Also, I was furious with things from the past that used to have no affect on me. Like my father. He practically kicked me and my mother out of his life and just focused on work. I didn’t even really notice, most likely because I so used to it. Nevertheless, I found myself hating him for choosing his stupid job over his family. I was always the type of person who didn’t like to ‘bother others with their problems’, therefore bottling all my anger inside… and when Cyra dropped that nest on Cato and I… it was as if all my years of rage had exploded inside me.