The 200th Annual Hunger Games - The Ultimate Games

The Ultimate Games - Day 4 (Afternoon)

Suddenly, Renee twitched. I glanced down as Renee bared her teeth and snapped her jaw closed around Xenia's hand.

Xenia roared and tore her hand free, blood spurting from the wounds made by the bite, then brought her knife across Renee's face. My mouth opened in a scream as the blade tore a gash across Renee's cheek from the corner of her lip, like a demented joker. Blood immediately gushed from the wound, and then the knife was back at Renee's neck.

"Try that again," Xenia snarled, "And I do the other side too."

Renee shut her eyes, tears beginning to fall from her eyes.

"LET HER GO!" I roared, "STOP!"

"YOU KILLED ALEJANDRO!" Xenia suddenly screamed. She grabbed onto Renee tighter, rocking back and forth slightly, "YOU MURDERED MY BROTHER, YOU DESERVE THIS!"

"Renee," I murmured. She looked up at me, shaking and her cheeks damp with tears.

"I'm gonna get you out, I promise,"

Xenia laughed, "Unkeepable promises, I see."

"Let her go," I whispered, "Don't kill her, please."

"No," Xenia spat out, the words sounding venomous rolling off her tongue, "You are going to watch your sister die, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to help her." She giggled suddenly, grinning toothily as if the current situation was hilarious to her.

She really had gone off the deep end. If she was unstable before, this was a complete collapse into madness. She was crazy enough to begin with.

Xenia giggled and pressed the knife closer to Renee, making her whimper in pain as the blade cut open a sliver of skin on her neck. I sobbed.

"Now," Xenia smiled at me, her grin maniacal, "Let's watch her die together."

Then, she flashed me a toothy grin and dug her knife into Renee's neck.

I screamed and writhed as blood immediately squirted from the jagged wound in the side of Renee's throat. Renee gasped out and screamed as Xenia sawed the knife through her neck agonizingly slowly. My vision rocked wildly, screams filling my head as my body shook with angry cries and tears. Xenia's maniacal laugh stabbed at my eardrums. I heard gurgling. Renee's screams died. I screamed louder and louder. Xenia's laugh grew.

BOOM!

"NO!" I roared with all my might, fighting wildly against my restraints, "NO! STOP IT!"

Xenia roared with laughter. I felt a sharp sting across my face as she slapped me. On instinct I opened my eyes, and instantly regretted it. Renee's headless body lay a few feet away, sprawled unnaturally as blood bubbled from the severed neck and down the skin.

Xenia grinned as she held Renee's head up in the air, holding it up by Renee's hair. I screamed again, louder and louder, as if my screams would awaken my twin from the dead.

"LOOK!" Xenia yelled. She grabbed me by the jaw and twisted my head to face Renee's head, shoving it mere centimetres from my face. Her skin was pale, her eyes milky and her jaw slack, her eyes rolled to the back of her head. I screamed again, lashing out with my legs. Xenia howled with laughter and tossed Renee's head over her shoulder. I watched it bounce along the ground, then come to a standstill a few metres away from her body.

"Night, Misty," Xenia winked at me. Ignoring my screams, she pulled her fist back and then punched me in the temple. My eyes danced with stars, then everything went black, Renee's headless corpse tattooed on the back of my eyelids.

Nick Ericson POV

I crept through the trees, keeping my eyes peeled. My feet treaded softly along the dirt, my knife held tightly in my clammy hand as I kept moving.