| " F A U L T . " |

___♔___

"Help!" I plead loudly, struggling as I try to get free from the ropes that hold me.

"Lana, shhhh!" Jonah whispers, holding his hand up to cover my mouth. "You have to be quiet, or someone will hear us."

"Please, just get me down before someone finds us," I beg, moving his hand from my lips.

"Okay, just stay quiet." He pulls out a knife, climbing up the tree quickly, but quietly. After he supports himself on a branch by my ankles and begins to cut the rope that dangles me in the air.

After around two minutes of hanging upside down, I begin to feel dizzy, my head spinning as my vision blurrs. I rub my forehead with a groan, looking up to Jonah.

"J-jonah, you need to hurry." I manage, a migraine eventually growing.

"I'm trying. This rope- it's not cutting easily." He sighs, still cutting away at the rope.

A cannon sounds, not too far away from where we are. A wave of panic rushing through me, urging me to jolt around to try and break free.

"Jonah, hurry! People are coming!" I rush in a whisper.

"Give me a minute, will you?"

Laughing and voices get close to us, and I twitch at the thought that Jonah and I might die if he can't cut me down quick enough. I'm defenseless and vulnerable at this point.

At the last moment, the rope snaps, and I fall to the ground, landing flat on my back. The wind is knocked out of me, and I gasp for breath as I roll over on my stomach. I cough, ignoring the pains in my back as I push myself up from the ground and into a standing position. I snatch my knife from the ground as the footsteps now unwind in front of me.

"Hey, look- it's Lana!"

In the group is the boy from District six, a girl that I can't put my finger on, and the girl from District thirteen, who's name I think is Crestia.

"Isn't the princess of the Capitol a little far from her allies?" Arkon asks, twirling his machete in his hand.

"Nope. I'm right here," Jonah states, jumping to the ground next to me flawlessly.

Well, he basically just killed himself. I mean, seriously- we're outnumbered.

"Lets give the Capitol a run for their money, shall we?" Crestia questions, pulling out her spear with an evil glint in her eyes. With a battle cry, she comes at me with the other girl in tow, the boy deciding to test himself against Jonah.

I stab my knife into Crestia's shoulder, yanking it out as quick as I can. She cries out, but contains herself, running at me again. I knock the other girl off of her feet, and swiftly stab her leg.

The girl screams in protest, pulling out the knife. I put a gash into Crestia's arm after swiping my knife from the other girl's hand. I then proceed to gash her thigh, resulting in her body crashing to the ground.

Without a second guess, I pull out two more knives, and end their misery with a stab to their foreheads.

After two cannons sound, I turn around, only to watch as the boy retreats from Jonah.

"Don't worry, Lana. I'll be back," The boy promises through gritted teeth, before sprinting into the forest.

"Did you get hurt?" I ask Jonah, averting my gaze from the two dead girls that lay in a pool of blood next to my feet.

"No," He assures me, catching his breath as he leans against a tree.

"Okay. I killed Crestia and whoever she is," I tell him, nodding in the direction of their bodies. He nods, and sighs, weighing the axe in his hand.

"We need to get back to the cornucopia. The guys should be back by now."

"What if they aren't?" I ask. "We came here to find them, and that's what we need to do."

"Fine. But you need to watch where you're going, you almost got us killed." I grunt, but follow him as we make our way through the trees.

The darkness of the sky starts to consume us after about half an hour of searching, and I find myself growing hopeless. The lack of cannons in the night air gives me hope, though, as I try to think of anything other than the boys dying.

"C'mon Lana, we need to go," Jonah states, pulling me towards the direction of the cornucopia.

I know he's right, so I don't fight him back this time. I'm hungry, tired, and sore from the day behind me. I definitely need rest.

If the guys are still out looking for us, I'm positive that they can protect themselves. As I start to think back upon on the past days, ten people are dead, and most of them were killed by me. And from that, I feel absolutely terrible. I know how it feels to lose a loved one to the games- to watch them get slaughtered on live television.

It's a terrible feeling, knowing that you can't do anything to prevent these peoples' deaths, almost as if it's your fault that this is happening to them.

"We're back," Jonah announces as we walk into our camp. He tosses his axe to the ground, and slumps next to it, leaning against the wall in exhaustion.

"Finally." Seth breaths as he sees me, a small smile growing on my face.

"What the hell took you guys so damn long?" Bane asks, throwing pieces of a stick into the large fire.

"First I got stuck in a net, then we ran into . . . trouble." I trail off, not wanting to think about the two girls I just killed.

"We heard two cannons, and it scared us to death. From now on, we all hunt together. No one goes out alone or as a pair," Triton says firmly, pointing a finger at me.

"I'm perfectly fine! I can take care of myself. I killed two people when they came at me a couple of hours ago, after I fell out of a tree." I argue with a scoff.

"I don't care what you did. We are sticking to orders, and that's final."

I huff, and slump to the ground, placing my knife next to me.

___♕___

After a few hours, the sun sets. I prepare myself for the fallen, looking to the sky. Right after the Capitol anthem starts, pictures of the people I murdered file onto the open sky, before fading into the darkness.

How could I have killed these people?

They were just trying to get home to their families, and I killed them. I ruined their family's lives. I just slaughtered their children.

Guilt washes over me, and I feel the urge to cry. But crying won't get me out of here, It'll only make everything so much harder to handle.

"What are you thinking about?" Laila asks me after the pictures of the fallen finally disappear. I turn back and notice that everyone else is asleep, except for the girl in front of me.

"How I killed those people today." I shrug as she plops down next to me.

"It had to happen at some point, if you think about it. At least you killed them fast. If Triton or Bane had gotten to them after finding out they had threatened you, they would've been tortured. I can tell that they already want to make that guy's death slow and painful," She says.

"I guess so . . . " I trail off, taking a little comfort in her assurance. "So who are you going home to?"

"I'm not going home. I knew that the first day I got here," She chuckles with a sympathetic smile.

"Don't say that. But seriously, who's waiting for you back home?"

"I have a little brother, Sam"

"More details?" I urge, making a smile appear on her face.

"I take care of him. He's five, and he treats me like I'm his mother. It's crazy how his little mind works, that kid. He might be small, but I can tell he has something big planned for the world." Her eyes float away, almost to a distant place.

"Your parents . . . ?"

"They're gone. An epidemic went through our District, and killed off some people. It just so happened that my parents both died from it." She frowns, her eyes landing on the ground as she shifts.

"So who's watching Sam, you know, while you're here?"

"Macey, my best friend. She's always been there for us, especially when our parents died. She brought me out of my depression. I couldn't eat or sleep for days. But she helped me. She saved me.

"I know it was selfish of me, but I volunteered for myself. I didn't even think of Sam or Macey when I volunteered," She murmers, tears welling up in her eyes, then continues.

"I thought that I could win, that I could live my life, and be rich- to give myself everything I've ever wanted. And after all those senseless years of training and fighting, I still didn't feel prepared.

"But I still thought that I could win. I still hurt Sam and Macey by walking up on that stage. I still shut out my thoughts, and went with my heart. I basically killed myself that day, Lana. I signed my own death certificate when I volunteered to bring myself to this arena.

"But what I don't get is why. Why do people do this to themsleves- put themselves into this situation?" She cries. "I can tell that I don't have long left in this arena, but I don't want to admit to myself, to Macey and Sam, that I won't make it through this.

"I made a promise to Sam before I got in that train. That I would win, so that I could come home to him. He begged me to not leave him, yet I did it anyway." I pull her into my arms tightly, letting myself cry along with her.

"Laila, in these past few days, I've learned some things. It doesn't matter at this point what you did or said before you were here. You're here now. In this arena. And now you have changed, you changed the moment you stepped off of that pedistool.

"You can't let your promises hold you back, you have to let them move you forward. That promise that you made to Sam- keep it. Because this is my promise to you, I will get all of you home, safe," I mutter into her shoulder, my bottom lip quivering as tears track my cheeks.

"Thanks for the promise, Lana." She pulls away, wiping away her tears. "If only you could keep it."

_______