The Hunger Games - Through the Fire and Flames - Book 1

Chapter 20

I stood froze with my crew at my sides. There were four of us and the three in the cave. If they defeated us they would know where our others were at and they would be dead within seconds.

"What do we do?" Blaze asked.

Before I could even think about what to do the tribute from 7 ran forward with his weapon of choice, two machete's. I watched as the pack of mutated mutts launched themselves forward. One by one they fell until there was only one left. The final mutt tackled 7 to the floor and they wrestled around until it bit him on the arm. With a loud shout of pain 7 quickly slit the mutts throat and rose to his feet cradling his arm.

The girl from 11 ran forward and took his arm carefully into his hands.

"He's going to need to be fixed up. I need at least 3 things to fix his arm before he goes into shock. Those mutts were poisonous."

"Am I going to die?" The tall husky man asked.

"Not if I can treat you. I have 2 of the three plants that I need the other wont be needed for at least 4 hours after the first two have done there thing." She turned to me and I saw the seriousness on her face. "He can't continue on and nor can I we are going to have to stay back. Its up to you to get the plant I need and the water."

I felt my heart grow heavy. This was a huge burden that was just dropped onto my shoulders. If I didn't do it I would lose a member and my team would grow immensly weaker. Two of my members were immobile so it was just me and Blaze that would be able to continue on. I considered for a moment taking 6 but he was the only other one fit enough to protect the rest and I couldn't leave them without protection.

"What does it look like?" Blaze said as he stepped forward.

"You need to look for the blue cherries. They are not like the red ones they aren't grown like normal cherries. They are found in pods on vines that wrap themselves around the trees that stand to the right of the blue strawberry bushes." How many blue fruits were in this arena? "There will be two trees by every blue strawberry bush, the one with fruit to the left are poisonus so leave them be, the ones to the right are safe."

I nodded my head and went over everything she said in my mind trying to keep up and then I waited for them to go back into the cave. Turning to Blaze I nodded my head and we started forward.

"Do you think we will make it?" Blaze asked me.

I didn't respond because at this very moment it could go both ways. After we walked quickly to check the perimeter Blaze showed me quickly what leaves to place and where. He made an few intricate designs with the leaves that made a short 3 foot trail outward and then we headed off.

"What was that?" I asked him.

"If I need to light it up it will look like its an actual spreading fire and not just a wall. The flame made from the leaves burn in place for up to 2 hours."

How does he know all this? In the end I didn't care I just wanted to find what we needed get our water and get back into the safety of the cave.

A rustle of some near bushes grabbed my attention and I moved closer. Hidden in the bushes was small mutt like the ones that attacked us. I quickly slit its throat and left it there. We walked to the edge of the forest and saw the clearing with the Cornucopia in the middle. It seemed too quiet but with my glasses I was able to see the careers moving about keeping gaurd while a few others slept. I looked to Blaze and he nodded confirming that he saw the same thing.

"So whats the plan?" He asked me.

I searched the center and began counting heads. Two stood gaurd with their weapons and two slept. There were two missing and they could be anywhere.

"I say we skim along the outskirts of the trees, it'll give us some cover and take us straight to the other side. Just keep doing your thing and keep low and alert."

We headed off along the trees and stopped when we heard voices. Crouching low behind a bush we listened.

"I don't understand why we don't just kill the other careers off and head out on our own." A female's voice spoke.

"You know why? There are 7 more others to kill. When there are two left from the other side then we will kill them and finish this." The boy replied.

"Well you better hope they don't kills us before we kill them its been a long time before 4 has had a champion this time around we will win." The girl finished.

I looked at the ground and saw them, snares. I looked around me and saw the entire area looked to be boobytrapped. There was no way around this from the ground. I nudged Blaze and pointed up. Carefully I rose to my feet and adjusted my things so I could silently scale up the tree. Blaze followed and we stood in the tree and began looking around for what branches to maneuvere along to get across and away. Slowly and as quietly as possible we moved from branch to branch. I lost my balance and caught myself rustling the branches of the trees above the careers.

The got to their feet and held their weapons at the tree.

"Do you think its them?" The male asked.

"No they would have attacked by now." the girl asked.

"Unless they have no weapons." he defended.

"We were briefed before we entered the arena. They have weapons. Its probably just an animal or something."

A idea came to my mind and I jostled the branches again and made an animal noise that the ones tree rats made. Blaze made a hissing noise and then another jostle of the branch.

"Told ya its just a stupid animal." The girl said.

They took their seats and I smiled satisfied with myself. We carefully moved on and eventually made it far enough away to drop from the trees to the ground and continue on.

"Why didn't you attack them?" Blaze asked me.

"We don't have time or man power to attack right now. The other careers were feet away and would be on us faster than a starved child on rice." He nodded and we continued on.

Within 20 minutes we heard the sound of the rushing water. Stopping we looked at one another before we laughed and took off at a run to the water. Taking off the back pack that carried the canteens I handed it to Phoenix, and he gave me the empty one for gathering the fruits.

"You get the water and I'll get the fruits it will save time." I said.

Taking the bag I headed to the spot where I remembered the strawberries were and looked up just like 11 said there were two trees one to the right and one to the left. I took to the one on the right and searched for a pod. My fingers found one almost immeadiately and I pulled it from its vine that wrapped around the trees trunk. Splitting open one of the pods I checked out the fruit it held, blue cherries. Smiling to myself I put them in the bag and began picking the vine free from the pods. After I collected them I moved back to the bush that held the straw berries and began carefully pulling the ones that were connected to the spotted leaves. Soon I had near 40 berries and then went back to the tree to retreive the fruit from is branches. These were blue apples. I loved apples and went to take a bite from one when a knife stabbed into it and knocked it from my hand. I quickly pulled my bow and aimed only to see it was Blaze.

I dropped down from the tree. "What was that for?"

"Those are poisonus." He said pointing to the ground where an animal took a bite from the apple and fell over. "Those are the ones you want" he said pointing to the apples in the tree to the left.

"Those are poisonus." I told him. He shook his head.

"Trust me I've fished near area's with these trees."

We headed over to the tree and gathered the apples from its branches before we collected more mint leaves and 3 other fruits and then headed back. We neared the drop off point were we came down from the trees and I stopped.

"We need to find a different way back. Maybe the back way."

We peered through the bushes that was near the clearing and counted the tributes. The were all accounted for but there was still the problem of the snares. We came up with a plan to draw attention to the snare and then take off through the clearing running as fast as we could to the other side. Once we got to the trail of the sunburst leaves Blaze would start a fire that would become a barrier.

I took from my bag an apple and stabbed it with an arrow before I set it up to shoot. I aimed for the snare that was set up 15 feet from our point and shot it. With a loud bang it went off. Just as expected all six of the careers headed in the sound of the snare. Slinging my bow back over my shoulder Blaze and I set off at a run through the clearing. As we barely passed the cornucopia I heard a female voice shout. Soon they were on our tails.

The careers were 10 feet behind us. I saw Blaze adjust the back pack as he ran and pull out two stones before he threw the bag over the trail and stop to kneel down to hit the rocks together.

"Get the stuff inside" he shouted.

Before I could pick up the bags a flame began. Just like Blaze said the fire kept the careers at bay. He caught up with me as I brought the bags inside. The moment I entered I saw just how bad the bite had affected 7. He was sweating bullets and his skin had a odd colored tinge to it and he had bits of foam coming from his mouth.

"I- I got the blue cherries" I said as I dug in the bag and handed 11 the pod.

She thanked me and opened it it before she ripped off the meat of four cherries and took the pits.

"You need to swallow these" She said as she placed them in his mouth.

I gave her some water and she took off the lid and helped him drink some. After a few minutes of trying to get them into his system he finally swallowed them. 11 turned to me and thanked me for going out for her. After keeping a close eye on 7 we saw he started to improve from his previous state. I was glad I took the time to grab extra food because he was unable to travel for atleast 3 days. For now we will keep it low profile. Every few hours one of us went out and threw some more sunburst leaves on the fire to keep it burning and then returned.

As the sun came down that night I sat outside the cave eating a blue apple. I missed my family and I wondered what my parents thought about the Capitol throwing me back into the game with 6 careers even though I won. I hoped that they wouldn't do anything crazy to get them in trouble. I looked upwards and smiled.

"I love you mom, dad" I paused for a moment. "And River." After finishing my apple I threw the core into the bushes and slipped back inside the cave. "I'll keep gaurd the rest of you get some sleep okay."

"I'll take the next shift" Lia said. "It's the least I could do since I am of no real help."

I hugged her and brought her into my arms before I let her sink in between 11 and 9. Oreale pulled her to her side and put the sleeping bag over them before they dozed off.

I needed to keep myself busy. I needed to be on my feet. Grabbing my bow and sheeth I headed out to do some hunting and pick some more sunburst leaves. I thought it'd be a good idea to keep a stash of them at hand incase we needed them. As I walked 3 feet I heard a rustle and got to my feet arming myself.

"Who are you come out and I won' t kill you" I said in a steady voice.

I watched carefully as a tall female with long brown hair came forward she was carrying in her right hand a trident and clear in a sheeth on her back were several more.

"My name is Aqua Odair from District 4 and I'm going to kill you." She said with a devilish smirk.

Suddenly she dropped to to her knees and a loud bang sounded. She was dead, but how? I turned around and saw Lia shaking. I walked over to her and rubbed her shoulders to try and calm her.

"I- I- I-" she tried to speak but stuttered.

Several heads popped out of the cave and moved to our side. Apparently everyone was curious as to why Lia had left the cave so fast and now they knew why.

"It's okay." I finally told her.

I sent everyone back into the cave. Blaze who didn't listen moved forward to kneel beside the body of the girl.

"I recognize her. She's the daughter of Finnick and Annie Odair. Finnick recently became Mayor of District 4." He let out a nervous chuckle. "Good thing I'm not returning to four or he would name me a traitor and have me burned alive."

I walked forward a bit. "Why aren't you going back? Surely you have as good a chance of winning as everyone else."

He shook his head. "We know the Capitol had no right to restart this you won your life. We all agreed that we would protect you till the end, no one objected. Not even myself. At the end of this game you are going home." Blaze said to me.