Chapter 14 : Bloodbath
I was moving before the sound finished echoing.
Not toward the Cornucopia's mouth—that's where the Careers were sprinting, where the best weapons waited, where the killing would be thickest. I angled right, toward the scattered supplies that spread from the horn's edge like offerings to a hungry god.
A backpack lay fifteen feet from my pedestal. Orange canvas, bulging with unknown contents. I reached it in three seconds, touched it without breaking stride, and the pack vanished into storage.
Keep moving. Don't stop. Don't think.
Water bottles scattered across the grass ahead. Three of them, Capitol-grade containers designed for arena conditions. Touch, store, touch, store, touch, store. Three seconds, three bottles, never slowing down.
The screaming started behind me.
I didn't look. Couldn't afford to. My Blind Spot sense painted the chaos in pressure and gaps—Careers converging on the horn, outer-district tributes scrambling for scraps, attention fracturing as people chose targets and priorities.
A weapon cache appeared ahead. Knives arranged in a leather roll, displayed like silverware at a Capitol dinner party. The attention on this section was minimal—everyone focused on the sword fights already erupting at the center.
I touched the roll. Stored. Four combat knives, better than anything I'd managed to steal during training.
Keep moving. Keep storing. Keep breathing.
A small axe lay half-buried in trampled grass. Utilitarian, single-headed, perfectly balanced. I scooped it up without slowing, felt it disappear into that other space.
Something wet sprayed across my back.
Blood. Not mine. The girl from District 8 had been running parallel to me, reaching for a supply crate, when Clove's knife caught her in the throat. She fell three feet away, eyes already glazing, and I kept moving because stopping meant dying.
The forest beckoned. Fifty feet. Forty. Thirty.
Through the chaos, I spotted Katniss.
She'd grabbed a backpack and was sprinting for the trees—the smart play, exactly what Haymitch had told us to do. But a tribute was angling to intercept her. The boy from District 4, career alliance, knife raised and ready.
I redirected.
The knife from my District 12 home materialized in my hand—the first weapon I'd ever stored, brought from a life that wasn't mine into a battle that was. I didn't throw it. Too many cameras, too many witnesses. Instead, I crashed into the District 4 boy from behind, momentum carrying us both to the ground.
He twisted, slashed. The blade caught my forearm—sharp bite of pain, blood welling immediately—but I had position. I pinned his knife hand with my knee, pressed my own blade against his throat.
"Don't."
The word came out harder than I intended. His eyes were wide, panicked, calculating. Career training taught aggression, but it also taught survival calculus. One tribute with a knife at his throat wasn't worth dying over.
"Let me up," he said.
Behind me, I sensed Katniss disappearing into the tree line. Gone. Safe. The mission was complete.
I rolled off the Career and scrambled to my feet. He was already rising, reaching for his dropped weapon, but I was faster—sprinting for the forest before he could pursue.
Another tribute cut across my path. District 6, younger than me, carrying a stolen water bottle like it was precious gold. He saw me, saw the bloody knife in my hand, and flinched.
"Run," I told him. "Get to the trees."
He ran. Wrong direction—toward the Cornucopia's edge where Cato was systematically cutting down anyone who came within sword range—but that wasn't my problem.
The forest swallowed me whole.
I didn't stop running for ten minutes.
My lungs burned. My arm throbbed where the knife had cut, blood soaking my jacket sleeve. But the trees closed around me, branches whipping past, and the sounds of slaughter faded into distance.
When I finally stopped, bracing myself against a massive oak, my Blind Spot sense had quieted. Pressure still existed—cameras tracked the forest, Gamemakers watched from above—but the concentrated attention of twenty-four tributes had dispersed. The bloodbath was over.
I looked at my arm.
The cut was deep—a three-inch gash across my forearm that would have needed stitches in my old life. Blood still seeped from the edges, but as I watched, the bleeding slowed. Stopped. The wound's edges began to close, muscle fibers reaching for each other like hands across a gap.
My healing factor, working exactly as it should.
The itching was intense—worse than anything I'd experienced during my small tests in District 12. This was real damage, real repair, and my body demanded payment. Hunger hit like a physical blow, stomach clenching around emptiness.
I retrieved bread from storage and ate while my arm knitted itself together. The calories disappeared almost as fast as I consumed them, fuel for the regeneration burning through my tissues.
By the time I finished eating, the wound was a pink line. In another hour, it would be a faint scar. By tomorrow, even that would fade.
The first test of my abilities under combat conditions. Passed.
Now I needed to find Katniss.
Cannons began firing.
Each boom marked a death—tribute eliminated, body collected, family somewhere in Panem watching their child's face disappear from the screen. I counted automatically, each number landing like a stone in my chest.
One. Two. Three.
The boy from District 9, Clove's first throw.
Four. Five. Six.
Cato's sword work, probably. Career efficiency.
Seven. Eight. Nine.
Smaller tributes. Slower ones. The unlucky and the unprepared.
Ten. Eleven.
Silence.
Eleven dead. Thirteen alive. Half the field eliminated in minutes.
I leaned against the oak tree and let the numbers settle. Eleven faces would appear in the sky tonight, projected for all of Panem to see. Eleven families would begin mourning. Eleven sets of sponsors would stop making calls.
The boy from District 6—the one I'd told to run—was probably among them. I'd seen him heading toward Cato's position. A stupid direction to run, but fear made people stupid.
I could have stopped him. Could have grabbed his arm and redirected him toward the forest. But I'd been focused on escape, on survival, on getting my own flesh out of the killing ground.
This was the Hunger Games. Everyone made choices. Most of them were wrong.
I pushed off from the tree and started moving deeper into the forest.
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