There's Nothing More Important than Family, chapter 16

I don’t really know what time it was when I heard the screams.

We all sat around the fire until the anthem appeared in the sky. I saw that no one had died and that’s all I needed to know. I went to bed, and Addalie took her first night time watch shift of the Games. Nathan shared his sleeping bag with me, so I was nice and cozy with his arm wrapped around me. I had more nightmares and was awake every half-hour or so, but I tried to remember what Jason said about being strong mentally. Thank goodness I wasn’t thrashing around in my sleep again; I didn’t want to hurt Nathan. He slept with his sword and I didn’t feel like being on the receiving end of that. After three or four hours of tossing and turning, I finally fell asleep for good. I didn’t know I wouldn’t be sleeping for long.

When I wake up next, Addalie is screaming and someone else, who has an unfamiliar voice, is cackling madly. Jason and Breah sit up quickly, as does Nathan.

“Zania, stay here!” Nathan orders. “Don’t come out unless I tell you its safe!”

“Addalie, we’re right here!” cries Breah, and the three tributes sprint out to her aid. I hear Addalie’s bloodcurdling scream and then a muffled ‘thump’. The cannon fires ominously. I peek my head out of the tent door and nearly scream myself. Addalie’s skin is ravaged and bloody and there is a spear buried halfway up the shaft in her chest. That cannon was for her. Addalie is dead.

Payla is standing, with the other three surrounding her. She has no more weapons and she’s covered in blood; her own and Addalie’s. She has smeared some under her eyes, like war paint. She spits out even more blood, and smiles. Her teeth are stained red.

“It was suicide coming here.” Growls Nathan.

“I’m not dead yet.” Payla smirks. “I can still finish you three off. Then I’ll find the little girl.”

“Like hell you will!” yells Nathan. He swings at Payla with his sword, but she stupidly grabs the blade and pulls the sword from Nathan’s hands. Her fingers are bleeding now, but I think they must’ve been bleeding already. She slashes at Nathan. He jumps backwards to avoid it. It almost misses him, but his chest gets cut.

“See?” Payla taunts. “I’m still in this! When I kill you all, I can just help myself to your first aid supplies! And I can kill her with her brother’s sword. I’m still competing.”

“Not for long.” Breah says sinisterly. She smiles, like she knows something Payla doesn’t. She winks, just as Jason sneaks up behind Payla and slices her in half. I hear the boom of the cannon, but I can’t tear my eyes away from her chopped up body.

“Zania, it’s safe.” Nathan huffs. “You can come out.” I creep outside cautiously and see that there is a hole in Nathan’s hoodie. The edges of the hole are saturated in blood. He wipes some of it away absent mindedly as he takes back his sword from Payla’s disgusting hand.

“How do you think this happened?” I ask.

“She got tires and was drifting off, I suppose.” Breah whispers. “She didn’t see Payla coming. It looks like Payla likes to play with her prey before she kills it.” Nathan takes off his sweater and shirt, and ZI help him patch his wound up. When I’m done I look around, and see Addalie’s limp figure on the grass, surrounded in some liquid, some congealed, blood. I burst into tears and run into the tent. Addalie was my first friend here at the Games. She was nice to me from the very start. Seeing her lifeless body on the ground makes my heart break.

I hear Jason and Nathan talk through the tent walls. “We should move their bodies over that way.” Jason suggests. “They’ll want to come get the bodies and they won’t even try with us so close. It’s easier to move the two of them than it is to move the whole campsite.”

“Agreed.” Says Nathan. “I’ll take her body. You carry Addalie.” I hear them grunt and groan in disgust as they pick up the bodies (or, in Payla’s case, pieces of the bodies) and walk away. Breah enters the tent and takes one of my hands softly.

“You look pale. Sit down.” She orders me quietly. “Did you see it all happen?”

“Not Addalie. I saw Payla die though.”

“And how are you holding up?”

I feel my expression harden. “Payla deserved to die.”

“Zania, that’s a horrible thing to say. No one deserves to die.”

The angry tears erupting from my eyes burn my face. “She did!” I argue. “She tortures Addalie before she killed her! She killed Addalie for fun! She volunteered; she wanted to be here! She likes killing, and seeing people die. She had it coming to her.”

“I know, I know. But you still shouldn’t say things like that. Do you think she’d be like that if the Unger Games didn’t exist?”

“They do exist, and not everyone is like that! She wants to be like that.”

Breah sighs, seeing that I will not change my mind. “The hovercraft will probably pick them up soon. The Careers might be walking around. I bet they think those cannons were both one of us. They’ll think there are only three of us left, and they might come.”

I shrug slightly and she stalks out. I know she’s annoyed with how stubborn I am, but I don’t care anymore. I feel like screaming, crying and sleeping all at once. I can cry all I want, but if I scream, I’d be broadcasting our position to every tribute in the arena. We’re near the top of the mountain, so my screams would echo. I don’t want them to find us. If I go back to sleep, I’m afraid the nightmares will come back, worse than before.

I know this death isn’t my fault, but for some reason I still feel guilty. What a horrible thing to have happen on her first night-time watch. Now Nathan will never let me take watch.

I look through the tent door once again, just in time to see the hovercraft fly away. Nathan and Jason both have their sleeves rolled up and there is blood all over their arms and clothes. I grab a water bottle and run over to help them clean up. Their sweaters and undershirts are soaked, so they take them off and we hang them off the side of the tent. It’s almost noon and the sun is warming up, so they will be dry in no time. I build another fire and we cook one of the birds. It’s dry and tasteless, but it’s food. We hear a cannon fire, and look around at each other anxiously.

“Who was that?” I wonder aloud.

“Who’s even left?” asks Jason.

Breah automatically begins counting the tributes off her fingers. “Both from 1, 2, 3, 9 and 11, and the boy from 8.”

“Hopefully it was one of the Careers.” Says Nathan.

“Wait, the boy from 8 is still alive?” exclaims Jason.

“Yeah, as far as I know.” Replies Breah.

“That might’ve been him. The Careers have no use for him anymore. If you ask me, they only kept him along as source of entertainment.” Laughs Jason.

“I’d rather one of the Careers be dead.” Says Nathan solemnly. “The boy from 8 would be easier to finish off.” I nod my head in agreement.

“It’s a lot to hope for, but I hope you’re right.” Mutters Breah. An ember falls on my leg and I brush it off hastily.

I think back to Payla and how her body had been cut in half. When they retrieve the bodies from the arena, they try to restore the body the best they can before they ship it to the deceased’s family. They are usually then buried at home. They’d need to do a lot to restore Payla’s body. How can they re-attach her torso to her bottom half? It seems impossible.

It’s getting progressively darker and colder outside. Jason and Nathan’s clothes are still damp, but they put them on anyway. Nathan shivers; there’s a giant hole in the front of his sweater, where the cold air can creep in. He grabs the wool blanket from the tent, and I snicker as he stuffs it under his hoodie.

“There.” He tells me. “Much better!”

Breah chuckles and snatches the bird leg from his hand. “I should probably take this; you look stiffed!” Nathan protests, but Breah takes a bite, and consumes the meat in a matter of seconds.

“Well then!” Nathan says in mock anger. “I think I’ll just go to sleep! Goodnight!” he grins cockily and kisses me on the cheek before returning to the tent.

“I’ll take watch.” Jason says. “You two can go to bed.” Breah burps her thanks and follows Nathan to bed, but I don’t move. I stare into the fire, even though it hurts my eyes. “Zania, you should sleep.” Jason nags.

“I don’t want to.”I say stubbornly.

“You’re afraid of having more nightmares?” he guesses.

“Yeah.”

“If I see that you’re having a nightmare, I’ll wake you up, okay? You really need to get some sleep.”

“Do I have to?” I whine, like a small child.

“Tell you what. You can stay up until we see who died,” he instructs assertively, “And then you can go to bed. Deal?”

“Deal. You’ll really wake me up if I have a nightmare? You promise?”

“Definitely.” He promises. He tosses a bag of peanuts at me. “I don’t like those; you can finish them if you want.”

I nod, and I hear the Capitol anthem play. I look up into the sky. They show Payla, the Addalie. Finally, they show Harvey, the boy from District 11. “Wow.” I say to Jason. “I didn’t even know he was still alive!”

“Neither did I!” he exclaims, and then he pauses. “I’ll tell the others when they wake up. You go to bed.” I groan and obey, slipping through the tent door. Now that Addalie’s gone, there’s an extra sleeping bag, but I don’t take it. I know I sound childish, but I half wish that Addalie will be sleeping there again. The more innocent part of my mind believes that she’s just out hunting in the woods, or maybe on vacation. I climb into Nathan’s sleeping bag and curl up beside him. He snorts, but stays asleep. In no time, I’m asleep too.