Hunt and Chase

Friend or Foe

I started my treck early the next morning. I had to find Chase, I couldn't leave her alone anymore. On the outside it wouldn't look like we had an alliance, just two people stuck together who don't want to kill each other, it will be the same as it was when I was with Amaris. Deep down I knew we'd have a true partnership though, the cameras just couldn't see it, they had already seen me go soft on Amaris. Maybe they'll think it's out of pity.

I stalked through the forest brush, watching all around me for anyone who came my way. I'd kill them, no matter who they were, all of them, except for Chase. She had to go home. Once she was a Victor she could go anywhere. She could go to the furthest reaches of District Four, cross the border and be with her brother again. I had no one to go home to, so why win? I just had to make sure she survived.

The forest seemed to be getting denser and denser with each step as if trees were just shooting up out of the ground. I was pushing aside branches and slashing through the ends with my whip until the forest almost suddenly stopped. Lay before me was the mountains, no snow, no fallen rocks as if the avalanche had never happened. The air got colder and thinner as I trecked up. Searching for anything.

I stepped over a snare walking towards the next peak. Then another as I crossed it. I did a double-take and peered over the summit. A cave.

I carelessly slid down the mountain, making far too much noise to be safe, knife in hand just in case this wasn't Chase. I slid to the bottom, stepping over another snare and then a dart whizzed out past my ear. She got her weapon. I smiled to myself and said one word, "Rooftop."
Another dart did not come, just Chase, a bandage around her head, her hair draped over her side in a messy braid, her cinnamon eyes full of fire. She was beautiful.

"Hunt," she breathed out. Making a motion for me to come inside. "I thought you were done with me," she said.
"You know I couldn't be," I whispered back to her, remembering Vera's words in the Launch Room, a twinge of homesickness stung me in the heart.

We talked for hours, about what had happened to us. Chase had slipped from a tree and cut her head open, I told her about Amaris, the mountain lion, she was attacked by one that looked like me, she almost couldn't kill it. I admitted to her about Tycho and Esmeralda.

"You're not a monster Hunt, you did what you had to," she reassured me.

We ate some game she had caught that morning alone with bread and cheese for lunch and I patched up her head with some Capitol healing gel.

"I'm gonna make sure you go home," I said carelessly, so much for that fake alliance. "Hunt no, you have to go. I don't want to go back."
"You have to. You know where to go," I whispered to her.
She nodded solemnly. I knew if her heart that she wouldn't let herself live.

"Things are going to get intense. There's only a few of us left," just then a cannon thundered through the arena, shaking the scattered pebbles inside the cave. "We'll be hearing a lot of that. Stay on alert at all times," I finished.

The rest of the day had gone by uneventfully, which meant bad things for us soon. The cannon had been the boy from Five. What was left of the career pack would either come for us fast or wait for us all to kill each other. I knew I'd kill them first though.

I took the first watch staring out that the moon. Chase resting beside me, her body finally relaxing from the tense position it had been in, blow gun in hand.

She had to go home.

_________
Oh boy, I did not know how to continue this but, let's just say things are gonna get bloody soon.

- Valkyrie