BLOOD ON MY HANDS || Finnick Odair

ten; the first of many.

He couldn't help the surprise that flooded him, and his brows rose up. "Why're you telling me this?"

"You asked us back in the training center why we wanted to help you," Beau shrugged simply, averting his eyes down to his lap. "Well...that's my reason why." He looked unbelievably guilty as the words left his mouth, like he'd been lying to his face.

But he couldn't understand why, because in all honesty, the only thing he could hear was essentially just what kind of person Beau was, and he was pleasantly surprised. Because he was truly good. He understood why he'd want to ignore them completely, because it was easier than admitting to yourself what you'd have to sacrifice if you made the decision to help him with his cause.

It would mean deciding to give up your life for a girl you'd just met.

"Then," he continued on, "I thought that it would be super easy for me to make a decision if you hated me or I hated you, I'd be able to justify not wanting to team up with you, for wanting to be okay with killing a pregnant girl. I was almost hoping you'd be super arrogant, or rude, or something along the lines of painfully annoying." Beau sucked in a sharp breath and met his eyes again, and Eden couldn't help but think about just how much they looked the way the ocean had the night before as it reflected the canopy of grey clouds that never went away. "But you weren't any of those things. You were just this tired kid who's trying to do the impossible, and she's terrified and after taking one look at you I knew I couldn't let you do that alone...you know?"

Even though he couldn't think of a thing to say in return, he wasn't given the chance to respond because a loud scream rang through the trees and Lara came stumbling out into the valley, a massive mark on the side of her left thigh visibly dripping red. Her eyes were wide as she trampled her way across the muddy grass, not even bothering to be silent.

For a singular moment, everything around them stood still; it was just the eerie absence of birds, tree branches rustling in the wind, and the distant sound of waves crashing off rock far away.

Then, three figures came racing out after her, whooping and hollering as they ran with weapons outstretched, grinning to themselves. Eden only got a glimpse of a guy with brown hair waving a long silver blade, a lean female body holding two knives and long blonde hair holding a small axe before he was springing into action, but he didn't have to look long.

He already knew it was the careers — Darius, Amethyst and Sloane — coming for their kill, and Lara had been their first target, though she had somehow survived the attack. Volt raced past him with the wooden spear that had just wordlessly become his in the two days they'd been there, and though he wasn't sure what it would do against a gleaming sword the length of his arm, but he didn't have time to think about it.

His feet carried carried him over to Rin, who was grabbing the knives from their bags and wordlessly handed him one as she turned around and whirled hers through the air.

Eden turned just in time to see it plant itself in Sloane's arm and she let out a loud cry, stumbling back into Amethyst causing her to drop one of her blades to the grass in visible shock.

Beside him, Flora was whimpering while holding up a sharpened stick she'd grabbed from the pile of kindling next to the fire. He wasn't sure when she had woken up — more than likely somewhere around the time when Lara had started screaming — but she was clinging to his leg because she couldn't get up without help, and her eyes were watery but she'd somehow managed to hold her tears back.

In that second of delay in turning to throw his own knife, he turned in time to watch Ivy collapse face first in the grass while Darius was simultaneously pulling his sword out of Volt's chest, a massive spurt of blood following after it. Almost in sync, two cannons fired off and he knew it was too late to save either of them.

He threw his knife, but the careers were already retreating to avoid a slaughter because Beau now had his own knife and was wielding it with deadly accuracy, and they'd lost their advantage of surprise.

Eden found that his hand was trembling as he dropped to his knees beside Volt, and felt his throat close up at the sight of the gaping wound in his chest. His eyes, though they saw nothing, looked as if they were staring right at him with nothing short of accusation; you did this to me, I'm dead because of you.

But Eden didn't allow himself to cry.

He couldn't.

Not if he wanted people to believe he was a true competitor.

So he placed his hand on Volt's chest, mostly to steady himself, and he twisted his upper body to face Ivy. Her pale cheeks were flecked with splatters of her own blood, and her lips had already begun to turn blue from lack of blood flow. Red stained the grass beneath her from what looked like a deep slash would going diagonally length-wise across her abdomen, which he knew from training would've disemboweled her.

You have a job to do, he reminded himself. So so it.

His jaw steeled and he stood up, swiftly tugging Flora with him and he held her as tightly as he could without breaking any bones. Only with his face buried in her shoulder did he allow a tear to fall, but he pulled away quickly.

They didn't have any time.

When he looked away, Beau was already helping Rin wrap Lara's leg in torn strips of cloth that would have to do until they could get somewhere more sheltered. "You think we'll have to cauterize it?" He asked them gruffly.

Judging by the grim look on their faces, he already had his answer. "I'm really sorry," Lara choked out, teeth gritted more than likely to help her hold in her screams. Her eyes were pinched in pain. "I should've been more careful, I should've—"

"—we need to get out of here before they come back," Beau cut her off. He looked completely neutral to the situation, but Eden suspected that the Careers were desensitized to situations like this in their training. "So make a temporary bandage and lets go."

"We need to cauterize it here so she doesn't leave a blood trail they can track us with," Rin countered calmly, hands on her hips.

Just moments of discussion later, Eden was building a fire as Flora held a blade over the flame, and the other two were doing the best they could to clean the dirt and some kind of strangely coloured grime oozing out of it. After making sure Flora didn't mind holding onto the knife until it was heated, he set to work with hastily packing up their camp.

It didn't take long, just a good ten minutes of meticulous organizing, and by the time he was done Rin said that the knife would have to do as it is, because Lara was losing too much blood. So, as Flora sat herself down and carefully settled Lara's head in her lap, him and Beau were set with the task of holding her legs down as Rin pressed the red-hot blade over the wound.

He knew it would be a long time before he was able to get Lara's screams out of his head.

Eden had to close his eyes and hum a childhood lullaby under his breath to tune it out, as he wasn't sure how the others could stand to hear it, but it was just over in a matter of seconds. While they bandaged up her leg he kicked mud onto the fire and watched patiently to make sure it would burn out, he couldn't help but look back at Ivy and Volt who were still in the exact same spot, and he sighed. He hadn't planned on getting this attached to any of them, and since it had only been two nights of knowing them, he didn't think he'd be this sad over it.

But he had to remind himself that in the ways of goodbyes, these two were just the first of many if he was going to be getting Flora and his daughter home. He was torn out of his thoughts after Rin whistled once, and they were on their way. Rin carried both hers and Eden's backpacks as he had Lara on his back the same way he would carry Eve the farms when her feet would get sore, and then he kept a close eye on Beau who was holding Flora like a groom would his bride.

The last thing they did was pile dirt on the fire, and then they disappeared into the forest.