Fiery Payback

Chapter 51

Matthew's P.O.V

"I'm so glad you were the one to find Alyssa." I say.

"I'm also glad she found me." A voice says from behind me. Camille and I both look behind us to see Alyssa right there.

"What are you doing here?" I ask.

"I wanted to come too." She says.

"You should have probably stayed with your mom. I don't want her thinking that I am going to do something bad to you. She already hates me as it is." Camille says.

"She doesn't hate you." I say.

"Tell that to everyone in Panem. She said it during her interview. Hard to miss that." She says. She does have a point.

"Here's a good tree." I say. I take out my knife and put the spile in a good position for the water to flow. "Take out your water bottle."

I hear Camille open her pack and start looking for the bottle. Then, I hear her close it. "Got it right here." She says.

"Okay. Water should be coming out any second now." I say. I start to hit the spile with the opposite end of my knife into the tree. Then, water starts to come out.

Camille is right there to collect the water into her bottle. Once it is full, she caps it off. Alyssa shoves both of us away and sticks her face under the spile to drink the water. Once she is away, Camille does the same and so do I. I just realized that Camille didn't have anything to drink this whole time in the arena. Unless that water bottle was filled with water in the beginning.

I just took out the spile from the tree when I here a noise. It is faint, but kind of annoying. It is a buzzing sound, like a bee makes.

The noise starts to get louder. And louder. I look around, trying to see where it was coming from. I can't see where the source is coming from.

"Ow!" I hear Camille say. I look at her, wondering what happened. "Something just stung me on my arm."

So it was a bee. Then, I hear a gasp. I look at Alyssa and her eyes are wide. "Alyssa, don't move." I hear Camille say calmly.

I look back at Alyssa and notice that a bee is on her neck. Only it wasn't a bee. It kinda looked like a wasp, but at the same time not.

"It's a tracker jacker. That's what stung me." Camille whispers. Tracker jackers are known for bringing plum to orange size swelling, hallucinations, and death. All of this due to the poison in the stinger.

"Ah!" Alyssa shouts. Her hand instinctively goes to her neck. She got stung. Then, she looks ahead of her. Her eyes go wide. "MOMMY!"

I look at where she is looking and gasp. A whole swarm of tracker jackers are coming towards us. "Run!" Camille shouts.

Alyssa, Camille, and I start to run away from the tracker jackers. One of the tracker jackers found its way to my shoulder. I grit my teeth from the pain.

"Ah!" Alyssa shouts. Another tracker jackers must of gotten to her. Then, hear something fall. I look back, not pausing to run, and see Alyssa on the ground. I stop to go to her, but Camille grabs my arm.

"We have to go! Go back to her and you will die!" She shouts to me. I look back at Alyssa and see the large bumps all over her. She's done for. I look at Camille and start to run again. She catches up to me quickly.

I see the beach and am relieved. I have gotten stung so many times, it is getting unbearable to move anymore.

Finally, I reach the beach. I stop and look behind me. Camille emerges from the forest, and she doesn't look good. A ton of tracker jackers got to her. She is almost as bad as Alyssa looked. I hope, by some miracle, that she is okay. She's too young to die.

"Camille!" I hear Annie shout. Annie runs over to Camille, who looks like she is going to pass out. Someone pulls me towards them. My mom.

"Where's Alyssa?" She asks. When I didn't answer, she started to get frantic. "Where is she!?"

"She's... gone." I silently say. "The tracker jackers got to her."

My mom looks horrified. "I didn't hear a cannon." I hear Johanna say.

"From the looks of it, she might as well be dead." I say.

"I've got to go in there." My mom says, looking at the forest.

"You can't go in there. It's too dangerous." I say.

"You can't stop me." She says. Then, she runs in.

"I can try!" I say, running after her. Once I am in the forest, I wanted to get out of there. But I need to find my mom. More tracker jackers find there way to me, stinging me. There are so many of them. Finally, I see my mom.

And she is just standing there with the tracker jackers all around her, looking down at Alyssa.