Defenders of Panem (Being Rewritten)

Chapter 34

Hey yall! This one is a crazy long one because we like to torture our lovely readers with long, grating, emotional, raw chapters that leave you dying and crying and laughing and dying! The last chapter was too fluffy and sweet for my co-author so she wrote up this gruesome one! So I hope you enjoy this!

Jem's POV

I bolt awake the moment Meg touches my shoulder. My knife already in my hand, I stand up.

"What is it?? What's wrong???"

"Jem calm down! Nothing's wrong!" I look at Meg as she talks to me; I see a slight hint of fear in her eyes as she pries the knife from my hand. "We got something from the sponsors." The look in her eyes and tone of her voice tells me that the "sponsors" are really the rebels.

I look over and see the boys are standing around whatever the rebels sent, except Collin, who is drawing something in the dirt, hopefully a battle plan. Meg and I walk over. The gift from the sponsors are arrows, two of them have red tips. The red tips are explosive. The rest are normal. Seven arrows total. That means we have only two shots at getting out of here, and seven hours until we can be rescued. I look around at the others and unspoken we all seem to come to the same conclusion. I look down at Collin and what he's drawing in the dirt, unfortunately it's not a battle plan...it's a bunny, or at least I think it's a bunny...they don't teach us arts and crafts in 13.

"So what's our plan?" I ask looking at them.

"Well I think it's pretty obvious," Collin says wiping off his hands, "We fight our way out. In a matter of hours we'll have the other tributes on our asses along with whatever the Gamemakers send at us. We'll be lucky if even half of us survive." His bluntness doesn't surprise me. But Jace and Karter look startled.

"So what you're saying is that most of us are going to die?" Karter says as Jace slowly sits down, the grimness of the situation is starting to settle in, leaving a heavy feeling in my chest. Collin just nods. "So this is it? After all the shit we've been through we just die??"

Collin starts to say something but I cut him off, "We might not die, there's still a chance"

Karter looks at me like I'm crazy "A chance Jem?? What chance?? In a few hours we'll probably all be dead! And here I was stupid enough to believe that we could get out! And I can't believe that you're so stupid to think we still have a chance! There is no chance Jem! None! So get it out of your head!" I stare at him surprised, this wasn't his usual slightly high pitched, panicky ranting in a tough situation, this was a side of Karter I've never seen before. Before I can reply, Jace stands up and gets between Karter and I.

"Don't yell at her. Listen to her. Jem is right there's still a chance! And you shouting at her isn't helping!" Jace, being a quite a few inches shorter than Karter, glares up at him, while Karter has a look of disgust towards Jace.

"Don't fucking tell me what to do. I get enough shit from Meg and Collin, I don't need it from some little asshole who thinks he's everyone's best friend!" Karter retorts.