Volunteers: A Hunger Games Story

Chapter 10: Together Again

I was just climbing out of the water at the edge of the river when I heard yelling again. But this time, Felix's voice was mixed in with it. My eyes widened and I broke into a sprint, desperate to find him. "Felix!" I called. I was able to follow the direction of the sound of the voices until I finally spotted them in the woods. I ducked behind a tree and peered around the bark. Felix and Ben stood face to face with only an arm length between them. There was a girl dead on the ground next to them. I gasped and put my hands on my knees to avoid throwing up. I hadn't technically killed a single person yet and I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever be able to.

"Stop!" Felix yelled and I glanced around the tree again. He held the handle of his trident in both hands. Ben brought a sword down against the handle and Felix tried to push it away from himself. I was able to see that Felix was already hurt. He had a deep cut right under his eye. "You're Ben, right?" Felix asked, despite the fact that Ben was not letting up with the sword. "Come on, you don't want to kill me." Felix tried to reason. Ben swung his sword around to the side but Felix was able to dodge it.

"Yes I do!"

"No you don't, Ben." I said, finally stepping out from around the tree.

"Mila! What are you doing?! Run!" Felix yelled, but I didn't. The end of Ben's sword hit the ground as his arm fell by his side.

"I thought you were dead." Ben said, practically forgetting that Felix was there.

"Why would you think that? Haven't you been watching the sky at night?"

"No. Have you?" he asked.

"No." I answered. "We've been under cover for a while. It hasn't been visible to me." Felix hadn't put his trident down yet, clearly still on edge. I didn't blame him. Ben's eyes were blazing with rage still.

"We? You're on a team with him?" Ben laughed. He didn't seem very much like himself.

"Yes?" I said in a questioning voice. "Who have you been hanging around with?"

"It doesn't matter." he answered. "They're all dead now."

"Come with us, Ben." I said, holding my hand out to him. He looked at it but didn't move from the spot,

"No offense, Mila, but have you absolutely lost your mind? He just tried to kill me." Felix said. Ben immediately brought his sword down on the handle of Felix's trident that he held across himself again to defend himself.

"Ben, stop! Everything's going to be ok. Remember?" I said, touching his shoulder. He finally seemed to lose that scary look in his eyes. "We can buy time. We can stick together and make it through this." I said, even though I knew that the end to the game was very much in sight now. We didn't have much time left. It was probably better if Ben didn't come with us, but if I didn't offer, he was just going to continue to try to kill Felix. Ben had a sad look in his eyes now. He sighed and dropped his sword on the ground.

"Sorry." he let out a big breath and shrugged his shoulders. "I'm about to starve to death and Kira was just murdered before my eyes."

"How many people are left?" I asked.

"Three. The boy from district twelve, the girl from district one and the boy from district three."

"When did Artemis die?" Felix asked. His shoulders hung low and you could tell by the look in his eyes that he really had cared about her. I remembered him mentioning her during the interviews. That seemed so long ago.

"I don't know." Ben answered. "I'm sorry." We stood in silence for a minute. I was still a little bit nervous that Ben was going to grab the sword off of the ground and try to cut Felix in half.