Masked Enemies

Chapter 29

 Katniss

"Get-" I struggle for air, turning my head from side to side. "Off." I yank Celosia's hair, but she doesn't move. I keep struggling, and I fall on my side. Someone is lying on the ground a yard or so away from me. Finnick. I push Celosia off of me and run over to his body, kneeling over him. Not dead. But knocked out. Cascade rushes over to me and grabs Finnick's legs, dragging him out of the clearing.

A scream pierces the air. I turn just in time to see the spear enter Cassia's chest. I kill the attacker even before I know who it is, launching an arrow into his head.

Bronek tumbles to the ground, just in time to yank the arrow out of his head, which made the blood gush out even faster, spilling all over the blanket of snow. I look around me, and everywhere I like I see blood.

I see the offender even before the get close to me. Spinning around, I nock an arrow but it is the knife that reaches its target first. The target was me, and I scream and fall as the knife hits my ear, chopping half of the earlobe off. Diem lowers the knife onto me, but another figure knocks her down from behind. Cascade grapples with Diem, trying to plunge her knife into Diem's chest, but Diem is too quick. She is able to avoid the knife, and Cascade sticks the knife into the snow instead. As Cascade struggles to get the knife out of the thick wet blanket, Diem leaps up and escapes, taking Arch and Celosia with her.

We are still there, in the middle of the hollow, with a dead girl, an unconscious man, and part of my ear on the ground.

"Cassia." I realize. I run over to her. A cannon sounds, but somehow I know it is for Bronek. An arrow to the head was a lot more fatal in my opinion.

Cassia's eyes are still lit with life, but get dimmer and dimmer by the second. She smiles at me, her mouth opening and closing. No words come out of her mouth, though. Somehow I know she is saying, You have to win, Katniss.

The corners of my eyes are full of tears as I tell her, "I will."

Cassia smiles one last time at me, and I watch the light leave her eyes. The cannon sounds, and I am crying freely now. I don't care who saw me, because nothing mattered as of right now. The only thing that mattered, really, was the Capitol. My fury at them for throwing this little girl into the Games and forcing her to kill, just for the entertainment of the Capitol citizens.

Cascade comes and helps me up. "You should come see Finnick." Then she sees my ear and gasps. "Katniss, your ear. It's-"

"I know." I say, and I feel it is painful but I am numb to pain right now. Strange, how some things could make the worst of pain go away. "I'm coming." I say, and walk over to the pile and grab a first aid kit.

Looking behind me one more time, I see the hovercraft pick up Bronek and Cassia's bodies, lifting them up into the air until they weren't visible to me anymore. I follow Cascade into the woods.

"They'll be back soon." Cascade notes, looking behind her. She takes me to a small clearing with a snowmelt pool. Finnick is slumped on a rock next to it. I gasp at the sight of him, his head and neck bleeding, smearing the rock.

"Finnick..." I breathe, running over to him. Alive, still, but barely conscious. His head is lolled back, and I can see a bright blue bruise forming on his forehead.

"Alive." Cascade says harshly. "Thank god for that first-aid kit." She takes the kit from my hands, but I don't think this is a rude gesture. Finnick was one of her closest friends. Cascade begins to treat him, her fingers working in and out of the bandage, stitching up his wounds.

"How many are dead?" I ask her hardly.

"Hard to say. Ten, I think." Cascade says, her gaze glued to Finnick. "Us three, the three Careers, the boy from Five, the girl from Three, the boy from Eleven, and..." There is one more, but none of us can remember who it is.