Deleted scene - Pandora

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Celeste's POV.

I fidget with the crossbow bolt around my neck. Mom is right beside me.

There aren't many left. There's only Greg Parker and Pandora Emmerson from One, Kateira Rosendieh from Two, Max Blaire from Three and Lynn Fishcher from Five.

Only four more until Pandora comes home. She'll be famous. Feared. Respected.

Even I, the daughter of Julianna Vip Richardson-Fox, world famous Victor of the fifty-sixth Hunger Games, am not.

I'm as respected as the maids that clean our messes. I'm as feared as a good paycheck. I'm a joke to them, a game to see if I can live up to Julianna.

I'll show them. They'll see.

"Look," mother says.

I turn my attention back to the screen. It shows Pan, standing on the hot desert sand. She takes a gulp from her bottle, not bothering to ration it. She has many sponsors; should she need water desperately, it would be easy to get.

Greg walks up behind her, his sword swining at his side. Pan hears him and turns, not taking out a weapon. He's from One, he must want to talk.

"You look like you've seen better days," she calls.

"Could be better," he says, sweat dropping from his face and hair. She holds out the bottle, offering him a sip.

He doesn't take it, instead gripping her forearm in his hand and turning it up.

"It's minor," she says of the red marks on her arm. It is, just the constant sun and the itchy sand irritating her skin.

He says nothing, in a swift move, he's pulled the sword from his belt and ripped the skin of her wrist.

"Hey!" she screams, trying to pull away. She swings for him, but dizzy and disoriented from the blood loss, she stumbles and misses. He cuts the other.

He says nothing else, and walks away.

She gasps, frozen from shock and suprise. It turns to fear.

She holds her torn wrists in front of her, as if begging the sky to seal them and save her.

She weeps, sinking down on her knees into her own blood. The sand sticks to her.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Cel, you have to win. I wasn't ready, you have to win. Please, be strong. Please.."

Her words fade as she slowly tips over into the sand, and dies.

I sit in shock. I feel a breakdown coming. Greg. He was her friend. He betrayed her, selfishly for himself.

I want to cry. I need to leave. Mom leans back in her chair, looking at me. Judging me.

Slowly I get up. I need to leave. Instead of going to my room, where I thought I would end up, I find myself in the training room. My eyes scan the familiar weapons, punching bags, tools. It doesn't seem wrong to be in a room surrounded by the make up of the arena after my best friend has just died in it.

I let my body take control for once. I walk to the punching bag. I don't put on tape or gloves. My knuckles will split and bleed.

I no longer need to cry. I am furious. Anger boils within me while I stae at the bag, until it erupts.

Still.

For a moment.

Silent. Calm. Nothing.

By body flexes in the silence, tenses like the predator I am.

Fist clenched, body locked.

Then. I scream.

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