Anywhere But Here (Foxface/Marvel) THGFic

Chapter 3

Foxface's POV

I want want to hit myself right now. Why did I say that? Why am I so stupid? I still don't even know his name. I clasp my hand over my mouth and he looks at me, a confused expression spreading across his face. I start to panic as he goes to collect his spear from behind him. I am a still target. He can kill me right now if he wants to, what's stopping him? I turn on my heel and I'm just about to run, but then I freeze. My ears pick up footsteps, but they don't belong to someone as heavy as the boy. Small and quiet and heading towards us. Clove. I grab the boy's hand and run as fast as I can, but it isn't fast enough. She's seen me and is throwing knives. I keep running as I know she can't hit me because she will have to strike through the boy. I let go of his hand in hope that she will think he is running to catch me and not away from her, with me.

"MARVEL!" Clove shouts from behind me. He stops and I run into a thicket of bushes that conceal where I am going. So that's his name, Marvel. Well, it suits him, he certainly is marvellous. I slap myself across the cheek. "Stop it." I am telling myself but after what has just happened, how he shielded me from Clove, how he didn't throw his spear as we were running, how...how he smiled at me when he noticed me behind the tree. Does, does he like me? I try to shake the thought from my head as I continue to crawl through the bushes and out into a patch of the forest that I know is well sheltered and hard to find if you don't know where you are going.

By the time I get back to the tree I have been living in for the last few days, it is starting to become dark. I climb the tree and lay down in the branches, taking a couple of bites of an apple I had stolen from the Career camp yesterday. I hear a cannon go off just as I am about the close my eyes, but I force myself up to wait and see who died. As the anthem plays and the seal lights up the arena, I see the boy from District 3. I know he had been working with the Careers to set the trap around their supplies and I'm puzzled as to why he has died. I finally manage to drift off to sleep and I dream of winning the Games. When I awake in the early morning I chuckle at the thought of my dream, the chances of me winning the Games are so slim - but like I said to Mae, maybe I could out fox them.

I descend the tree and hear a cannon sound. I make a mental list of people I know are left to try and figure out whose cannon it is. Myself, Marvel, Rue, Cato, Clove, Thresh and both 12s. Everyone seemed able to survive. Just then I hear another cannon fire, and another. I'm really confused. A fight must have broken out and caused three deaths that seems to be the most plausible theory. I'll just have to wait until tonight to find out whose lives had been taken. I start off towards the Career camp to get a drink from the lake and just as I crawl out of the thicket of bushes I had run through yesterday, I see a fidgeting, nervous Marvel. I stand up straight and brush myself off, but I'm still so much smaller than him.

"Cato killed D3 last night - he wasn't any use any more. Clove and those two other girls, they're dead. You're the last girl and Cato's coming for you." Marvel says with an edge to his voice, his eyes full of pain. Not physical pain, but emotional pain. He begs me to crawl back into the bush as we hear Cato's voice calling his name. I comply and hide just in time to see Cato storm through the forest towards Marvel.

"Just Loverboy, 11 and that ginger girl to get rid of Marvy, then I'll be crowned victor! No doubt somebody will kill you in the mean time. No offense," Cato says, flexing his muscles. Marvel nods along with what he's is saying, "Come on then, let's go get Loverboy." Continues Cato. He begins to walk off causing Marvel to follow. As they get further away, I notice Marvel looking around to the bushes where I've been hiding to see if I'm still there, not that he can tell, I'm too concealed. As soon as they are out of sight I dart to the lake to wash my face and get a drink. I walk over to the pile of supplies and do my strange little dance around the mines to the centre, I take another apple and a packet of dried fruit. Tiptoeing back around the mines, I rush back to my tree. I hear another cannon and presume it is for the boy from 12. As I climb to the top of my tree, I notice the hovercraft picking up his body and scale back down the tree. I cautiously run to the place where the boy had been picked up to see if there are any signs of where Cato and Marvel have gone to next. But all I find is berries.

Marvel's POV

I'm confused as to what Finch is trying to tell me. It would be so easy to kill her now, whilst she is standing in front of me than to have to track her down again, but as those thoughts sink in, I realise what she meant. She grabs my hand and we start to run, away from what, I'm not sure. I start to see knives flying into the trees around me and I instantly realise that it's Clove. We get to a thicket of bushes and Finch crawls into them. I turn to be greeted by Clove and her stone-cold glare. She mutters something incoherent, my guess is it is about Finch, and then we walk back to our camp. That night we all sleep well and I am awoken in the early morning by a cannon. I look over to the other side of the camp to see the District 11 girl laying on the ground, presumably dead. A scream follows and I see Clove fall to the ground, an arrow through her stomach. I run over to her and hear another cannon go off, but it isn't Clove's, she's still breathing. Shallow breaths, but she's breating nonetheless. I look around to see Cato has stuck his sword through the Girl on Fire. I take Clove's hand in mine and her eyes fill up with tears. Cato sits down on the opposite side of Clove to myself and takes her other hand.

"I never wanted to be a tribute." she says faintly, her voice stricken with pain as she gasps for breath. I look over to Cato and see him fighting back tears.

"Don't leave me Clove," he whispers, "We came here together, right? We're District partners. 'Partners in Crime' - we always have been. You can't leave me Clove, I can't do this without you." A slight smile appears across Clove's face and she let's out a moan of pain. Cato brings her hand to his lips and kisses it lightly. He lays it back down by her side and I do the same. We look at Clove, longing for her to live, but we both know she is too far gone to save. Her eyes close and her cannon fires. Both Cato and I have tears streaming down our face, and I take a walk to let them collect the bodies, while Cato crosses to the other side of the lake to compose himself. I find myself lent against a tree by the bushes where Finch had disappeared yesterday and I start to remember everything Clove had said or done that I found significant since I met her just a few weeks ago. Finch appears from the bushes and I snap straight out of my thoughts. I'm worried now. Cato is going to be avenging Clove's death, even if he's already killed her killer. I know he wants to get everything over with now and he will be killing everything in his path. I tell her what I know and she hides in the bushes just in time.

I proceed to follow Cato to kill the boy from 12 who had left out alliance a few days prior to "try and find and kill Katniss." We knew he was lying, but we let him go anyway. Now that the job of killing her is done, we no longer have a reason not to kill him. We find him setting a trap with Nightlock berries. Cato sticks him straight in the back with his sword and his cannon fires right away. I go to rest on a tree near-by but Cato starts yelling at me, telling me we have to carry on.

"I want to stay here for a bit, Cato. I need time to think about everything that's happened already today. You go on." I tilt my head down and from the corner of my eye I see him raise his sword. He goes off on one about how I don't care, how I have been distracted ever since training. He slashes me across the top of my leg and walks off, leaving me to die.

A few minutes later, I see Finch walk into the clearing and spot the berries. She walks over and is about to pick them up. I start calling her name as loudly as I can, but my leg is causing my voice to waver and become quiet. I pull a knife from my backpack and throw it towards the ground in front of her with as much force as I can. She looks straight towards me, alarm in her eyes. She starts to back away. My heart starts racing. She thinks I'm going to kill her, "It's okay, Finch. I'm not going to hurt you. Please, just come here." I think she catches what I say, she starts to walk towards me and picks up some berries on the way. She bends down next to me, her hand full of Nightlock berries. I hit her hand so that the berries scatter everywhere and she looks at me in disbelief.

"Nightlock," I whisper in pain. The tone of my voice and the expression on my face causes her to look down to my leg, which is now gushing with blood.