Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.
The bread was salty yet sweet and in the middle it was still warm. It was the most her hunger had been satiated since being in the arena. Cassia knew what it was like to eat scraps, pickings from the ground—to become accustomed to the empty and unsatisfied ache in her belly. There would never be a time in her life when she wouldn't be grateful for the food she had when she had it, because she knew the next night could be left with nothing to stench her family's hunger.
They ate a quarter of the loaf, Cassia storing it away in her pack for later. She also saved the capsule it came in just in case she lost her water canteen later on. Then they went into their shifts, Cassia dreaming of nothing but endless darkness, waking every now and then in a start to stare up at the sky and to listen to the shift in the woods; the low breathing of the few tributes around her the only thing pulling her back down to the present moment.
She wasn't sure she would ever get used to the unsettling feeling of being hunted and she refused to die with it weighing down on her, to have it be the last emotion she would feel as the life drained from her body. It wasn't an option anyway, she had made a promise, and even if words were just words and fate has planned for her to die, she would fight until it was her last breath because that's all she could do, really.
She watched the sun rise—Clio complained too much about her shift so they switched. Dark circles dragged her eyes down as the soft blues and yellows rose over the sharp peaks of the mountains.
Having a camp in the mountains would give them an advantage against the other tributes, but she was debating if all of the walking was worth it. She had assumed that all Careers did was go on hunting sprees and kill tributes until they were the only ones left, not make strategic decisions about their camp. How long were they expecting to be in the arena for? Or were they just giving themselves a useless task to further stall the inevitability of their deaths?
"Water?" Griffin sat down next to her, offering his canteen and snapping her out of her darkening thoughts.
She didn't hesitate as she took it despite the small thought that he could have poisoned it with something he found in the woods. But she needed him to trust her, so she took a sip of it and thanked him. Plus, death by poison wasn't exactly the worst way to go out. Images of the tributes she's killed flashed in her mind.
She looked a few feet away to where Ezra and Clio slept, the pile of ashes from the fire between them. There were still a few hours before they planned to leave their camp. "We finally reach the mountain today," She said. Make them riot if you die, make them burn the cities to the ground, make them love you, the voice in the back of her head whispered conspiratorially.
"We do," He replied.
Make him love you.
Cassia looked at him without restraint or shyness. His hair appeared like it had been run through by the wind, falling over his forehead in loose waves. There was dirt on the side of his neck from sleeping on the ground and not showering for the few days they had been in the arena and his lips were slightly chapped, like her own.
