HELL FROM THE POWERS TRILOGY | C. HADLEY

CHAPTER 12

"Thank you for the food, by the way," Rue blurted out, and Leighton raised one of his hands which had a small backpack surely with Devyn's food she had given him.

"You told us you had no other supplies," Devyn narrowed her eyes at him as he rummaged through the backpack.

"I wasn't going to allow lover boy to know what I have. And if I told him, he'd ask where I got it; I'd have to either lie or reveal Rue. Which one sounds like the better option?"

"Leighton —"

"Oh, I know, and you can sit here and defend him all you want," Leighton interrupted, and Devyn grumbled.

"The truth is, Devyn is that no one here can influence Cato the way you can. That's why he didn't kill Leighton when he had the chance or when he agreed not to kill Katniss himself," Rue said softly, slightly timid as Devyn diverted her stare to her.

"You were listening in on us?" Devyn hissed, now snapping her head over to Leighton, who shrugged.

"As I said earlier, he's a loud talker," Devyn restrained from biting his head off as she shook her head.

"What were you doing on the ground, Rue?" Devyn asked, trying to calm herself down by drowning out Leighton.

"Searching for food. I wasn't able to find many roots or nuts though," she pulled out a small handful of nuts and roots with a sigh of frustration.

"And you haven't been hunting Leighton?" Devyn continued, looking over at Leighton.

"I'm too paranoid to hunt by myself," he answered, and Devyn sighed.

"I'll go then."

"I can go with you —"

"No, you both need to watch after each other and stay above ground. In the meantime, stay here and wait for me to come back. I'll try to get here before dusk. If I don't come back, you two need to play defensively. This means no surprise attacks on careers," Leighton rolled his eyes as Devyn opened her backpack, which was slowly losing its camouflage. She pulled out her extra pairs of socks along with some wire and her tiny dagger and handed them to Rue. She moved onto Leighton, who got her extra jacket that wouldn't be too much help with the burnt-through hole in the arm, but he took it gratefully along with his share of wire, a few matches, and the last of her berries.

Devyn stood, waved at Rue, and ruffled Leighton's hair before crawling down the tree and taking off. She gripped her ax, ready to strike anything that came at her, and it quickly became late afternoon when she finally caught a surprisingly small fox having its own dinner of a plump robin. She gained two pieces of game and stored them in her backpack until she had time to cook them in the morning.

As evening fell, she collected a few more berries, nuts, and plants. She was determined to return with at least one more animal, even if she was far behind the schedule she had told Rue and Leighton. Her throat gradually grew dryer as the journey went on, and she began to regret using all her water on the burn, which was still highly agonizing to touch. She had to grit her teeth when moving her left arm at all.

She knew she had to get medicine before it became infected, and she was surprised Johanna hadn't gotten her something to help it. Devyn was on the verge of giving up and kept stopping to debate if she should head back or not. It was now past twilight, and the sky was a dark blue littered with stars. It wouldn't be long before it became pitch black, and the only thing guiding her path back to the oak tree would be the moon.

She didn't know how far she had traveled until she saw the slight glint of a rock reflecting the moonlight and noticed the dip into the wheat field. Her eyes widened as she began panicking. There had to be at least one person in there, and she had no idea who because the wheat was so high it could even hide people as big as Thresh or Cato.