"The rules are simple," Hadley begins, kneading the black ring in her lip with her teeth as she stares at the buzzing teenagers in front of her. "If you get hit, you're out. The rest of you will continue to fight until one wins and scores the kill shot on the other. It's exactly like the Games, except less gore. Simple enough?"
The crowd of teenagers cheer, all of them throwing their fists into the air and jerking their heads back and howling like wolves. Hadley smiled, gesturing for Reighley to blow the canon that starts the match. Reighley gleamed, pure white teeth showing in the light of the moon before the canon blasted through the silent air.
Emberly ran through the trees, her leather boots crunching against the leaves. The teenage girl breezes past the trees, hearing people yelping in pain behind her. Blowing the bangs from her face that had fallen into her eyes, Emberly turns into a darker, denser, part of the forest surrounding her.
Going deeper and deeper into the heart of the forest, Emberly stops upon spotting a thick tree that's hidden from the light of the moon. Placing the handle of her dagger into her mouth, Emberly shoved the toe of her boot into the tree trunk. Trying to get a grip before lifting herself up, Emberly reaches in front of herself and grabbed another branch to lift herself up higher.
"Woohoo!" A loud yell blasted through the night. Tensing, Emberly instantly recognizes the sound as Kade; their districts major's only son in a family filled with nothing other than women.
Emberly made her way into the heart of the tree, her legs on either side of one particularly thick branch as she removed the bow from where it was locked on her belt. The brunette silently scanned the strings of her bow before she was reaching behind her into the quiver and grabbing one of the fine-tipped arrows made specifically for this game.
They'd did this every Friday night. Every leader would gather their class of exactly a hundred students, lead them into the wooded area just a few miles away from their main town and have them battle the other classes to see which one would be the one to excel against the others. Meanwhile, while every teenager is fighting to get the first placing rank amongst four-hundred others; the leaders are grading each member on their combat, mental, and survival skills.
Leaves crunching close by made Emberly instantly cock her bow back, the string of her bow gently brushing against her pale nose as Kade and Ruby stepped into the patches of leaves beneath her tree. The two were an odd pair, Kade was slender and tall, while Ruby was a thick boned girl with fiery red hair and dark freckles on her face.
"I know she loves trees." Kade grins, turning his head only an inch to the side before he's grinning. Emberly knows it's coming before it actually happens, and tries to still her body to make herself blend into the foliage in the trees.
Abruptly a dagger is thrown in Emberly's direction by Kade's nimble fingers. Instantly, Emberly is reminding herself that she and Kade trained together for years; that she'd mad a life-costing mistake thinking he wouldn't know her tricks. Holding back the reflex to gasp out loud, Emberly lets go of the arrow she'd been cocking back, and watches it graze past Kade's ear and stab into the meat of a tree a few feet behind him.
Emberly takes Kade's confusion as an advantage and jumps towards the ground, barely missing a knife that Ruby send in her direction as she does so. Kicking the dirt out from underneath her, Emberly dashes through the trees, hearing Kade and Ruby quickening up their pace behind her.
"C'mon Emberly, don't be like that!" Kade yells, voice loud and obnoxious.
Emberly heaves herself up, jumping mid-sprint and grabbing onto the branch of a nearby tree above her head. Using the momentum of running to help her, Emberly swings herself upright again on the branch; instantly reaching into her quiver and shooting a silver headed arrow into Ruby's back as the red head runs underneath her.
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A Court of Roses ↠ Peeta Mellark ✓
قصص الهواة❝I asked him for it. For the blood, for the rust, for the sin. I didn't want the pearls other girls talked about, or the fine marble of palaces, or even the roses in the mouth of servants. I wanted darkness, - I wanted him.❞ ~ ...
