Deceived: The 500th Annual Hunger Games

Chapter 84 - The Arena: Day 3

ROXEN REDPATH'S P.O.V

Septimus survived night two.

Clinging to the coat I'd found in my bag, I wade through the blizzard before me. Did one of the Districts actually have weather this bad once?

The goggle things provided did help me see where I was heading, but not by much. They just helped me to keep my eyes open, stop myself from squinting as the snow became heavier than it should.

Something tells me that this isn't all natural, that somewhere along the line the disaster has been edited, exaggerated to make it seem deadlier. This is ridiculously tough to get through. Even with my muscles, I'm struggling.

It hits me that I'm the only revival from my minigame left. Saying that, not a single person has died from the others. Not that I think, anyway.

Well, how am I to know? I guess seeing the faces of the people when we left the tanks was enough for me to know.

"Roxen?"

Spinning around, I see a boy with brown hair, coated by the later of snow that's fallen on top of him. "Who the hell are you?"

"Grandis Caldwell, District Two," he smiles. "Former Career, part time dead, part time living." A similar humour to what Majoris had, interesting.

"Come with me, but no funny moves," I growl, clutching my daggers. "You've seen me kill before, right?"

"How can I forget?" He smirks. "Majoris risked his life to let you live. For Septimus."

Septimus.

"You have any idea were he is?" I ask. It sounds like more of a demand to be honest, but I don't care - I need to find him. "Septimus is special to me."

"No, really?" Grandis sarcastically says. "Like it wasn't obvious."

My cheeks flush, half embarrassed, half angry. This guy thinks he has the power to boss me about like this? "Who the hell gave you permission to be such an ass?"

He smirks again, a real smug grin. Is this what most Careers have become? "Lets just find Septimus. It may lead me to Phoxus."

"Who the hell is Phoxus?" I ask. Then again, how am I supposed to know? I died in the first minigame, I don't know everyone like that black haired girl from Eight.

"Phoxus is the boy who killed my ally. Phoxus is the brother of Shadow Golett. That victor?" He informs me. Thinking about it, I think I've seen Phoxus on the television, saying hello to Shadow as he returned from his games, victorious.

My dream.

And I have a second chance at it.

Grandis and I march on - he tells me he knows Phoxus is alive because they mentioned it, along with the name of another boy I don't recognise: Spikelet.

"I know Septimus is alive because they was some scan of his face on the screen, like they were tracking him," I say. "I don't know who the other two Victors are."

"Spikelet is this little ginger kid from the mines," Grandis tells me. "Carries a pickaxe as his weapon. Fourteen and deadly," he pretends to quiver.

Rustling is heard from within the snow; it suddenly hit me that our footprints haven't been cleared away. That we're being followed.

Turning around, I see a face I didn't see earlier. Maybe he was on one of the closed tanks. "Majoris?" I question, as if his existence is nothing but a hologram.

When he barged straight into me without a word, I know he's real. He grips his sledgehammer, tries to smash my head - I dodge the swing by less than a millimetre.