Mentors (An Everlark Fanfic)

Chapter 20

Peeta's POV
Katniss and I are looking at the Sponsor gifts. Ylja and Raze doesn't really need anything, since they haven't left their cave, and when they have, they've always stayed close. They've been eating lizards, and drinking from the cactuses in the area. They only have little bruises, none of them are fatal.
Nova on the other hand, is outstarved, thirsty, and weak. She's lying on the ground, awaiting her death.
The big wound Ylja's brother gave her, has stopped bleeding, but everytime she moves, it starts to bleed again.

"I think we have enough money for both some water and medicine," Katniss says, her eyes glued to the screen.

Nova's fight with Ylja's brother, and the passing of her ally, and friend is two days ago. How she isn't dead yet, is crazy. 8 days. 17 children is lost over the course of 8 days. The newest addition to the family of lost children is the boy from 6, and the boy from 9.

"Peeta, are you okay?" Katniss asks, giving my hand a reasurring squeeze.

"What? Yeah, it's just.. This is so inhumane."

"And we have to do this every year," Katniss sighs.

Katniss burries her face in my shirt, sighing loudly.

"As long as we have each other," she mumbles.

"We have," I whisper into her hair wrapping my arms protectively around her.

---

We buy a little water and medicine for Nova.

"When she gets on her feet again, she should be able to find food," I tell Katniss, trying to calm her down, as she is kind of freaking out over Nova breaths getting shallower and less for every minute.

"Katniss, she is a fighter, she can do this," I say. I stretch my arms out, and place them on her shoulders. Then, I turn her around, so I can look at her. When she meets my gaze, she looks down.

"I just.. I just don't want her to die," she whispers to the ground.

"She won't. Come here." Katniss instantly throws herself into my embrace, and I feel a few tears escaping, making my shirt wet where her eyes are placed.

Suddenly the door flies open, and Finnick appears.

"What are you doing here? Your tributes are dead," I say, not wanting anyone to see Katniss is this stage, since it'll only make things worse.

"I know. What a shame," He says sarcastically, smirking.

"How can you say something like that? We're talking about dead children!" I slightly hiss at him.

"Don't worry, Peeta. After a couple of years, you'll learn to not give a shit. Now, the reason for me actually being here, is not to argue with you over dead kids, since both of your tributes have made it this far, you two are doing interviews soon, and I am your escort, since Effie and Haymitch was busy."

Nova's POV
I have finally accepted it. I have accepted death. As I can feel death creeping around in my body, searching for a heart to break, and a brain to stop, I have accepted it.

I have always been afraid of death. When I watched the Games when I was little, I was always afraid of being the little girl, who slowly closed her eyes, her body bruised, her limbs wounded, her face droopy and her soul gone. Everyone always thought that I was afraid of being in the Games. But I never was. I was afraid of death.

Until now.

Now that I know that I only have a few minutes back, before I become that little girl that I have always feared, I am not afraid anymore. As I feel my soul leaving my thin, destroyed body, I find myself more relaxed than ever. In fact, I want to die now. I can feel it. And it's peaceful.