Marvel died before he could pull out the spear.
Livia's disc sliced across his neck. He grasped at it- blood pouring through his fingers as he fell to his knees and drowned in his own blood.
Livia shouted at Rue, "Are there more? Are there more?"
She had to say no several times before Livia heard it.
Rue had rolled to her side, her body curved in and around the spear.
Livia shoved the boy away from her and pulled out her knife, freeing Rue from the net.
One look at the wound and Livia knew it was far beyond her capacity to heal, beyond anyone's probably.
The spearhead was buried up to the shaft in her stomach.
Livia crouched before her, staring helplessly at the embedded weapon.
There was no point in comforting words, in telling her she would be all right.
She was no fool.
Her hand reached out and Livia clutched it like a lifeline.
As if it was Livia who was dying instead of Rue.
"You blew up the food?" she whispered.
"Every last bit." Livia said.
"You have to win." Rue said.
"I'm going to. Going to win for both of us now." Livia promised.
Livia heard a cannon and looked up.
It must be for Marvel.
"Don't go." Rue tightened her grip on Livia's hand.
"Course not. Staying right here." Livia assured.
Livia moved in closer to her, pulling Rue's head onto her lap.
She gently brush the dark, thick hair back behind her ear.
"Sing." she said, but Livia barely caught the word.
Sing?
Sing what?
Livia did know a few songs.
Livia's throat was tight with tears, hoarse from smoke and fatigue.
But if this was, Rue's last request, Livia had to at least try.
The song that came to her was a simple lullaby, one they sung fretful, hungry babies to sleep with.
It was old, very old.
Made up long ago in their hills.
What the music teacher called a mountain air.
But the words were easy and soothing, promising tomorrow would be more hopeful than this awful piece of time they called today.
Livia gave a small cough, swallowed hard, and began, "Deep in the meadow, under the willow, a bed of grass, a soft green pillow. Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes and when again they open, the sun will rise."
"Here it's safe, here it's warm
Here the daisies guard you from every harm. Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true. Here is the place where I love you."
Rue's eyes had fluttered shut.
Her chest moved but only slightly.
Livia's eyes released the tears and they slid down her cheeks.
But Livia had to finish the song for her.
"Deep in the meadow, hidden far away, a cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray. Forget your woes and let your troubles lay and when again it's morning, they'll wash away."
"Here it's safe, here it's warm
Here the daisies guard you from every harm", The final lines were barely audible, "Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true. Here is the place where I love you."
Everything was still and quiet.
Then, almost eerily, the mockingjays took up her song.
For a moment, Livia sat there, watching her tears drip down onto Rue's face.
Rue's cannon fired.
Livia leaned forward and pressed her lips against the girls temple.
Slowly, as if not to wake her, Livia laid her head back on the ground and released her hand.
They will want her to clear out now.
So they could collect the bodies.
And there was nothing to stay for.
Livia rolled Marvel onto his face and took his pack, retrieving the disc that ended his life.
Livia cut Rue's pack from her back as well, knowing she would want Livia to have it but left the spear in her stomach.
Weapons in bodies would be transported to the hovercraft.
Livia would have no use for a spear, so the sooner it was gone from the arena the better.
Livia couldn't stop looking at Rue, smaller than ever, a baby animal curled up in a nest of netting.
Livia couldn't bring herself to leave Rue like that.
Past harm, but seeming utterly defenseless.
To hate Marvel, who also appeared so vulnerable in death, seemed inadequate.
It was the Capitol she hated, for doing this to all of them.
There was no way to take revenge on the Capitol.
Was there?
Then Livia remembered Peeta's words on the roof.
"Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to. to show the Capital they don't own me. That I'm more than just a piece in their Games."
And for the first time, Livia understood what he meant.
She wanted to do something, right there, right now, to shame them, to make them accountable, to show the Capitol that whatever they did or forced them to do- there was a part of every tribute they couldn't own.
That Rue was more than a piece in their Games.
And so was Livia.
A few steps into the woods grew a bank of wildflowers.
Perhaps they were really weeds of some sort, but they had blossoms in beautiful shades of violet and yellow and white.
Livia gathered up an armful and came back to Rue's side.
Slowly, one stem at a time, Livia decorated her body in the flowers.
Covering the ugly wound.
Wreathing her face.
Weaving her hair with bright colors.
They would have to show it.
Or, even if they choose to turn the cameras elsewhere at this moment, they would have to bring them back when they collected the bodies and everyone would see her then and know Livia did it.
She stepped back and took a last look at Rue.
She could really be asleep in that meadow after all.
"Bye, Rue." Livia whispered.
She pressed the three middle fingers of her left hand against her lips and held them out in her direction.
Then she walked away without looking back.
The birds fell silent.
Somewhere, a mockingjay gave the warning whistle that preceded the hovercraft.
Livia didn't know how it knew- It must hear things that humans couldn't.
Livia paused, her eyes focused on what was ahead, not what was happening behind her.
It didn't take long, then the general birdsong began again and Livia knew she was gone.
Another mockingjay, a young one by the look of it, landed on a branch before Livia burst out Rue's melody.
Livia's song, the hovercraft, were too unfamiliar for this novice to pick up, but it had mastered Rue's handful of notes.
The ones that meant she was safe.
"Good and safe", Livia mumbled as she passed under its branch, "We don't have to worry about her now."
Good and safe.
Livia had no idea where to go.
The brief sense of home she had that one night with Rue had vanished.
Her feet wandered this way and that until sunset.
She was not afraid, not even watchful.
Which made her an easy target.
Except she would kill anyone she met on sight.
Without emotion or the slightest tremor in her hands.
Her hatred of the Capitol had not lessened her hatred of her competitors in the least.
Especially the Careers.
They, at least, could be made to pay for Rue's death.
No one materialized though.
There weren't many of them left and it was a big arena.
Soon they would be pulling out some other device to force them together.
But there had been enough gore today.
Perhaps they would even get to sleep.
Livia was about to haul her packs into a tree to make camp when a silver parachute floated down and landed in front of her.
A gift from a sponsor.
But why now?
She had been in fairly good shape with supplies.
She opened the parachute and found a small loaf of bread- it was not the fine white Capitol stuff.
It was made of dark ration grain and shaped in a crescent.
Sprinkled with seeds.
Livia flashed back to Peeta's lesson on the various district breads in the Training Center.
This bread came from District 11.
Livia cautiously lifted the still warm loaf.
What must it have cost the people of District 11 who couldn't even feed themselves?
How many would have to do without to scrape up a coin to put in the collection for this one loaf?
It had been meant for Rue, surely.
But instead of pulling the gift when she died, they had authorized them to give it to Livia.
As a thank-you?
Or because, like Livia, they didn't like to let debts go unpaid?
For whatever reason, it was a first.
A district gift to a tribute who was not your own.
Livia lifted her face and stepped into the last falling rays of sunlight.
"My thanks to the people of District Eleven." Livia said.
She wanted them to know she knew where it came from.
That the full value of their gift had been recognized.
Livia climbed dangerously high into a tree, not for safety but to get as far away from today as she could.
Her sleeping bag was rolled neatly in Rue's pack.
Tomorrow she would sort through the supplies.
Tomorrow she would make a new plan.
But tonight, all she could do was strap herself in and take tiny bites of the bread.
It was good.
It tasted of home.
Soon the seal was in the sky, the anthem played in her right ear.
She saw Marvel and Rue.
That was all for tonight.
Six of them left.
Only six.
With the bread still locked in her hands, she fell asleep at once.
Tonight her dreams sent her Rue, still decked in her flowers, perched in a high sea of trees, trying to teach Livia to talk to the mockingjays.
She saw no sign of her wounds, no blood, just a bright, laughing girl.
She sung songs Livia never heard in a clear, melodic voice.
On and on.
Through the night.
There was a drowsy in-between period when Livia could hear the last few strains of her music although she was lost in the leaves.
When she fully awoke, she was momentarily comforted.
Livia tried to hold on to the peaceful feeling of the dream, but it quickly slipped away, leaving her sadder and lonelier than ever.
Heaviness infused her whole body, as if there was liquid lead in her veins.
She had lost the will to do the simplest tasks, to do anything but lie there, staring unblinkingly through the canopy of leaves.
For several hours, she remained motionless.
As usual, it was the thought of her brothers anxious faces as they watched her on the screens back home that broke her from her lethargy.
She gave herself a series of simple commands to follow, like:
'Now you have to sit up, Livia. Now you have to drink water, Livia.'
She acted on the orders with slow, robotic motions, 'Now you have to sort the packs, Livia.'
Rue's pack held Livia's sleeping bag, her nearly empty water skin, a handful of nuts and roots, a bit of rabbit, her extra socks, and her slingshot.
Marvel had several knives, two spare spearheads, a flashlight, a small leather pouch, a first-aid kit, a full bottle of water, and a pack of dried fruit.
A pack of dried fruit- out of all he might have chosen from.
To Livia, it was a sign of extreme arrogance.
Why bother to carry food when you have such a bounty back at camp?
When you will kill your enemies so quickly you'll be home before you're hungry?
Livia can only hope the other Careers traveled so lightly when it came to food and now found themselves with nothing.
Speaking of which, Livia's own supply was running low.
She finished off the loaf from District 11 and the last of the rabbit.
How quickly the food disappeared.
All she had left were Rue's roots and nuts, the boy's dried fruit, and one strip of beef.
'Now you have to hunt, Livia' she to herself.
She obediently consolidated the supplies she wanted into her pack.
After she climbed down the tree, she concealed the boy's knives and spearheads in a pile of rocks so that no one else could use them.
Livia had lost her bearings what with all the wandering around she did yesterday evening, but she tried to head back in the general direction of the stream.
She knew she was on course when she came across Rue's third, unlit fire.
Shortly thereafter, Livia discovered a flock of grooslings perched in the trees and took out three before they know what hit them.
She returned to Rue's signal fire and started it up, not caring about the excessive smoke.
Where are you, Cato? Livia thought as she roasted the birds and Rue's roots.
She was waiting right there.
Who knows where the Careers were now?
Either too far to reach her or too sure it was a trick or...
Was it possible?
Too scared of her?
They knew she had her discs, but had they put two and two together yet?
Figured out Livia blew up the supplies and killed their fellow Career?
Possibly they thought Thresh did it.
Wouldn't he be more likely to revenge Rue's death than Livia would?
Being from the same district?
Not that he ever took any interest in her.
And what about Foxface?
Did she hang around to watch Livia blow up the supplies?
No.
When Livia caught her laughing in the ashes the next morning, it was as if someone had given her a lovely surprise.
Livia doubted they thought Peeta had lit this signal fire.
Cato was sure he was as good as dead.
Livia found herself wishing she could tell Peeta about the flowers she put on Rue.
That she now understood what he was trying to say on the roof.
Perhaps if he won the Games, he would see Livia on victor's night, when they replayed the highlights of the Games on a screen over the stage where they did their interviews.
The winner sat in a place of honor on the platform, surrounded by their support crew.
But Livia told Rue she'd be there.
For both of them.
And somehow that seemed even more important than the vow she gave her brothers.
Livia really thought she stood a chance of doing it now.
Winning.
It was not just having the discs or outsmarting the Careers a few times- although those things help.
Something happened when Livia was holding Rue's hand, watching the life drain out of her.
Now she was determined to revenge her, to make her loss unforgettable, and Livia could only do that by winning and thereby making herself unforgettable.
Livia overcooked the birds hoping someone would show up to shoot, but no one did.
Maybe the other tributes were out there beating one another senseless.
Which would be fine, Ever since the bloodbath, she had been featured on screens more than she cared.
Eventually, she wrapped up her food and headed back to the stream to replenish her water and gather some.
But the heaviness from the morning draped back over her and even though it was only early evening, Livia climbed a tree and settled in for the night.
Livia's brain began to replay the events from yesterday.
She kept seeing Rue speared, her disc slicing Marvel's neck.
Livia didn't even know why she should even care about the boy.
But somewhere his family was weeping for him.
His friends call for her blood.
Maybe he had a girlfriend who really believed he would come back.
Then Livia thought of Rue's still body and she was able to banish the boy from her mind.
At least, for now.
It had been an uneventful day according to the sky.
No deaths.
Livia wondered how long they would get until the next catastrophe drove them back together.
If it was going to be tonight, Livia wanted to get some sleep first.
She covered her good ear to block out the strains of the anthem, but then she heard the trumpets and sat straight up in anticipation.
For the most part, the only communication the tributes got from outside the arena was the nightly death toll.
But occasionally, there would be trumpets followed by an announcement.
Usually, this will be a call to a feast.
When food is scarce, the Gamemakers will invite the players to a banquet, somewhere known to all like the Cornucopia, as an inducement to gather and fight.
Sometimes there is a feast and sometimes there's nothing but a loaf of stale bread for the tributes to compete for.
Livia wouldn't go in for the food, but this could be an ideal time to take out a few competitors.
Claudius Templesmith's voice boomed down from overhead, congratulating the six of them who remained, but he was not inviting them to a feast.
He was saying something very confusing.
There had been a rule change in the Games.
A rule change.
That in itself was mind bending since they didn't really have any rules to speak of except don't step off your circle for sixty seconds and the unspoken rule about not eating one another.
Under the new rule, both tributes from the same district would be declared winners if they were the last two alive.
Claudius paused, as if he knew they were not getting it, and repeated the change again.
The news sunk in and her eyes trailed to the bandana wrapped around her ankle.
Livia didn't think of Cato- his ears perking up at the news- but of the other blonde.
Peeta.
Lying somewhere half-dead.
The boy she made an alliance with.
Her friend.
She realized the new rule didn't matter-
Because she didn't want Cato to win.