SILVER • THE HUNGER GAMES ¹

| 25. A WARRIOR FALLS

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

( A WARRIOR FALLS )

     A GIANT SHARP-CLAWED FLACON MUTT stabbed their talons into her shoulder. Bella struggled to regain her balance and tumbled to the floor, two identical wounds producing what seems like gallons of blood. She was losing her life fast. Then I saw her, Bella: vulnerable, half-dead. For once, it appeared like she was losing her battle.

     I tried to run with all my strength to reach her, swiping out my knife from the back of my belt, "James help her... Don't just stand there! Do something!" James grabbed Blaise's old axe and began fighting away the Mutts, along with Althea. As I neared Bella's body the Mutt dived down for yet another attack, this time reaching Rey and piercing his neck with its pointed beak. I reached Bella, sharply moving to her defence under the swarming sky of flying Mutts and fire. Quickly, I cleared my mind, focusing on removing the Mutt from trying to behead her again.

     "It's all James' bloody fault!" She bitterly whispered under her breath, most likely meant for my ears only. "What the hell must he have been thinking to set the whole cornucopia on fire?"

     "I... I don't know," I swiftly replied whilst scarring a Mutt's abdomen as it tried to penetrate the back of my body shielding Bella's. My voice seemed to release a short string of mumbled words as I struggled to fight off the Mutts. Even if my instincts were the best of the world, I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to tackle these with such a short range weapon.

     "No. No! It's not his fault. I shouldn't blame him. It's —" She let out a shrill cry of pain as I ripped of a patch of my shirt and placed it on her right shoulder. It quickly absorbed the blood, turning a metallic scarlet. Instantly regretting my poor choice of first aid, I tried to remove it but Bella pushed my hand aside, her shoulders almost painted with red.

     She was losing a hell of a lot of blood.

     "Watch my back," Bella announced suddenly, climbing up from her position and clutching her trident. She scrunched up her face in pain as she jolted back. I caught her before she hit the ground, my hands covered with her crimson blood and cascading off my finger tips drip by drip. "Thanks," she said, continuing to lean on my support and helping herself up from landing on the sand.

     "What are you going to do?" I asked, still fending of the swarm of Mutts, my back against Bella's in an attempt of her survival. She clutched my wrist and wrapped a piece of paper in my palm and my thoughts soon turned into a puzzled mess. Ignoring the strange action, I tucked the paper into my pocket, obviously dismissing the distraction. She strutted up to Rey, her hands loosening from the permanent grip they always seemed to have been in.

     Finally, she answered my question, saying in a sly tone, "Something I should have done a bloody long time ago."

     I watched with a puzzled face as Bella grabbed Rey - still wounded from his small injuries - and leaned in to kiss him. Althea turned green with envy. But, hey, you could tell she liked Kestrel, even though she was the one who killed him, by the manner she watched him throughout training. It was her only 'nice' face.

     Unpredictably, she crashed her Trident into his stomach and Rey's cannon sounded his immediate death. James sniggered in the background and I could see that he was not jealous, but instead almost proud, as if he been a mentor to Bella this whole way, like he had expected her to do this to Rey.

     I took a step back, to take it all in. The final four. Who would have knew I would have made it this far. I mean, I'm only thirteen - ok - almost fourteen. And, there is only one enemy left: Althea Hadley.

     All of a sudden, I tensed up and I couldn't feel the rest of my body. The only thing that seemed to be functioning is my mind. All I saw was Bella falling to the floor, blood everywhere. A Mutt speared into her front. I struck it away, but it was no good.

     "Bella?" No answer. "Listen to me..." I sorrowfully said, kneeling down to talk to her, but there was still no reply. I felt like I may have lost one of my best friends.

     She tilted her head to look at mine, attempted a small smile and nodded slowly, "Hey... You did bloody better than me."

     I felt James crouch down behind me and put a hand on my shoulder.

     "I should have treated you better and I shouldn't have misjudged you. You're the best badass, sarcastic Tribute I've ever met." I said, releasing one misty tear.

     "I'm the only badass, sarcastic Tribute you've ever met. For goodness sake, you live in District Ten," Bella said sarcastically, but gently.

     I laughed, but it was more of a sigh of relief, relief that Bella and I were left as friends, possibly even good friends. Not moving my eyes off of Bella for one second, I noticed Althea was weighed down with a swarm of infuriated Mutts. James patted my shoulder, causing me to divert my attention back to Bella's wilting body. Her hand was slowly loosing grip on her trident, fading her consciousness away from the arena. At that moment, I knew something was terribly wrong.

     And with that, her eyes eventually sealed shut and the cannon took her life.

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