LEGENDS ▹ the hunger games au

xx

THE FINALE

DAYS IN THE ARENA :

III

WILL smoked them out.

Cannons were firing. One by one, any surviving tributes came coughing and straggling out into the open. In the shadows, Will prowled and perched until she found who she was looking for. Blitz. She would make him suffer. Someone would die tonight. It was him or her. Nothing held her back now. No conscience, no fear of turning into something she wasn't. She was this. They had made her this.

Will chased Blitz through the city, boots thudding on concrete as she worked to catch up with him. Her speed was her best weapon, just as she knew it would be. With every stride he made, she had made three closer. She fired at him while she ran, one after another, never a kill shot, each arrow meant to draw out his pain — his suffering. She caught him in the arm first, then the side, then the shoulder, then each of the legs. Blitz cried out when he finally collapsed, weak and on his knees. Will slowed so she could savor this moment, approach steadily, bow still raised.

Blitz was trying to crawl away, hands bloodied as they clawed his path forward.

Desperately.

Pathetically.

Will smirked in embittered pleasure, pulling the arrow from the line, spinning it in her fingers, and then driving it straight through his hand. Blitz screamed an agonized sound, rolling onto his back, clutching the bleeding appendage to his chest.

He would die soon. He would bleed out in a matter of minutes.

Will cocked her head to the side, crouching down slightly, studying him.

Was it like this then? Did Rye's eyes look this way before Blitz killed him? Had he been afraid? Did he even have time to be afraid before it happened? Did it hurt? Had he felt it at all?

The scent of blood rose curled up into her nose, down into her throat, squeezing it tight with despair. All the people she loved had always been so haunted by death and her big brother was always going to be a part of that, and yet here she now stood over the bleeding body of his murderer. Nothing had changed. Nothing could ever change now.

She weighed her options carefully, thought everything through. Keeping her eyes on his, she said, "For Rye."

His eyes blazed and then he was thrusting his uninjured leg forward, twisting her knee out from under her. She shrieked when she heard a crack, landing flat on her back in the street. And then Blitz rolled and slammed into her, pinning her shoulders to the ground with his knees.