Yah, she's dead. One will die today.
Day 10
Chailyn
District 10
My fingers grip around the vial. Not the vial of antidote, the vial of the poison I'd collected from a dead serpent. I still am not sure what do do with it, maybe poison the water supply. However, that might backfire if we were to need water. I stow away the vial. The time has almost come to kill the rest of the tributes.
Maria had gone out overnight and found their camp, though she could not tell if 'their' was Rio or the two others. Quiro had remained with me, and Maria had returned in the middle of the night. We had gotten our weapons ready, and tried to bear the hunger.
"It's time," I say. Quiro stands up, and nods silently. Maria says, "I remember where they are, vaguely though. It might be a bit.....faulty, but if we find them, we find them, and if we don't, we don't." I nod. "Come on then," I say, and we trudge off toward the swamp.
When we finally reach it, it doesn't look like it had just been burned. On the contrary, it looked as normal as usual. I step into the swamp. I motion for Maria and Quiro to follow. I step aside, and gesture for Maria to step forward. "Lead the way," I say. She steps forward.
We run through the swamp, occasionally stopping for Maria to remember where to go, or to rest. Eventually, we reach a small clearing, where I can see several sleeping bags on the ground. I gesture for us to move in closer. We silently move in. I pull out my knife, and move ever closer to the sleeping bags.
I bring the knife up, and stab it into the nearest sleeping bag. Nothing happens. "Look out!" I hear Maria yell, and I turn around to see a blade coming at me. My knife rises to block, but the force of the stroke sends it spinning out of my hand. The blade positions itself at my throat. Alec.
I hear a gasp as the girl from 12 grabs Quiro's throat and holds a machete to it. Maria takes out her spear, but seeing the situation, sets it down. "Hello there," he says to me, grabbing me and holding me with the blade to my throat. I notice it's not his usual blade, rather a glowing sword.
Stella's blade is her normal one. I can tell they're enjoying this after our skirmish yesterday. Or was it two days ago? Time is weird in this arena, so much goes on it all blends together. "Thought you might do something like this," Alec says. "Especially after Stella said she glimpsed a figure in the middle of the night."
Maria growls. "You think you can do this? If you kill us, you'll have to kill Rio and yourselves." She scratches her head. "Wait, that came out wrong. It sounded like I thought you were going to commit suicide. Well....you know what I mean." Stella chuckles. "For a Career, you can be amusing," she says.
"Maybe we should bind them," says Alec. Stella nods. "Good idea," she says. I look at Maria. She's the only one not bound at the moment. She looks at me, with an expression of distaste. She begins to back up. You'd better not...... She runs. Alec and Stella don't bother to follow.
The traitor. Running away when the going gets tough. I'll have to deal with her after we get out of this. If we get out of this. My knife is lying on the ground several feet away. Alec drags me over to a pack and grabs a few ropes, bringing me closer to my knife. Now's my chance. I reach out, and grab my knife. He turns and I hold the knife at his throat.
I grab him in the same way he did to me, holding the blade to his throat. Stella is still holding the machete to Quiro's throat, though, so we've come to a stalemate. "I'll release Alec and leave if you let Quiro go," I say, sincerely, but from my earlier reputation, of course, they don't believe me.
"Why should we believe you?" Stella says. "You've tricked about half the tributes in the Arena, why not?" I sigh. "Fine, I'll let Alec go, as a show of goodwill." I fling him to the ground. "And Quiro?" She takes the blade away from his throat. "Thank you," I say, and turn to Quiro. "We're leaving. Come on."
He follows, leaving them behind, glancing back to see if they would come back to attack. "Where are we going?" he asks. I smile coldly. "We're going to go kill Maria for her insolence. And you are going to help."
