The Huntress

Gale’s POV

Once I finished the song that Adyrn sang all the time, I started checking on her leg. The injury was bad. It was an open wound from about the mid of her thigh all the way down to her mid-calf. I applied pressure to stop the bleeding and once it stopped I rushed outside to grab some small plants that Adyrn told me once helped bring the swelling down of an injury. I cleaned up her wound and re-bandaged her leg. She was shivering so I decided to grab her backpack to see what she had and hoped that she had a sleeping bag or some type of blanket. When I found the one she used, I lifted her into it and crawled into it and held her close. I kissed her forehead and watched her sleep. For once I don’t think she had a nightmare because her face was peaceful. I remember the first time I met her. I had my eyes set on a big wild turkey and when I threw my knife I saw an arrow fly at the same time and we both killed the turkey. When she got to the turkey, I was already there trying to figure out who or what killed my turkey. When she emerged from a bush she saw me and then glared at me because she thought I was trying to steal her turkey. We then spent the next twenty minutes fighting over who was going to keep the turkey. We both had families to feed and she wasn’t going to budge on letting me take home the turkey so that’s when we started hunting together. From then on, I knew I had to get to know her but I didn’t trust her and I knew she didn’t trust me for a while. I think she thought that I would somehow throw her under a bus for some reason but the more we talked, the more we found out about each other. We had a lot of similarities, many of them including our hatred for the Capitol and President Snow. She never voiced her opinions much like I did when we hunted but when she was angry she did let you got hear her whether you wanted to or not. Before I knew it, I had fallen asleep and when I woke up I saw that Adyrn had somehow managed to get out of the cave and kill two squirrels and was cooking it.

“How in the hell?” I asked confused.

“I managed,” she replied as she handed me a squirrel, “I didn’t know how long it’s been since you’ve eaten.”

“It’s been a couple days,” I said as I took it and sat next to her as she cooked one for her, “What time of day is it?”

“Mid-afternoon,” she replied, “I figured you stayed up most of the night.”

I then noticed that she was still shivering from last night.

“Are you still cold?” I asked grabbing the sleeping bag and wrapping it around her.

“It won’t do much,” she replied as she continued to shiver and I checked her forehead.

“You have a fever,” I said and went straight to her backpack that had some fever pills to try and break the fever.

“So you finally went through my backpack,” she smiled at me as I handed her a bottle of water and two pills.

“Yeah,” I said, “you were shivering and I hoped you had a sleeping bag.”

“Well good thing you checked,” she said as she started eating her squirrel and she looked up at me.

“I have a question for you,” I said and she looked at me confused.

“Okay?” she said.

“Who was the guy you were talking about during your interview?” I asked and then I saw the look of recognition cross her face because she never said who she was talking about you.

She then looked down and then looked back up and then back down.

“I was talking about you,” she said quietly and then looked up at me.

“Really?” I asked pretending to be shocked.

“Yes,” she replied, “That’s the reason why I’ve been distancing myself from you. I didn’t want to kill you.”

“Well now we can both go home,” I said as I moved closer to her and wrapped my arm around her.

She laid her head on my shoulder and we sat there as we watched the fire burn out. We sat there in silence and I looked down at her to see her staring at her leg.

“How bad is it?” she asked.

“Not too bad,” I lied to her and I knew she saw through it.

“Tell me the truth Gale Hawthorne,” she said giving me the look she always gave me when I lied to her.

“It was pretty swollen so I put on some of the leaves you showed me to help bring the swelling down. I cleaned it re-bandaged it and I haven’t checked it,” I said, “Let me check on it.”

She then slid against the wall and she let me check her leg. When I opened her bandage, her leg was worse and I looked up at her and she closed her eyes.

“Rewrap it Gale,” she whispered, “and then I want you take my things and get out of here and win this thing.”

“I’m not leaving you,” I said, “Not this time. We’re sticking this thing out and we’re going home together.”

“Oh really?” she snapped her eyes open and saw her glare, “And how in the hell are we going to do that Gale? I can barely walk and Cato, Clove, Foxface, and Thresh are still alive and are perfectly fine.”

“I’m not leaving you Adyrn,” I said looking up at her and closing up the space between us and kissed her lightly.

When I opened my eyes, her eyes were still closed and they slowly opened to look up at me.

“I’m not leaving here without you to be alone for the rest of my life knowing I could have saved you,” I said putting my forehead against hers.

She just looked at me and then smiled lightly at me.

“You don’t know long I’ve wanted to do that,” she whispered and I smiled at her.

“I’m going to go hunt so we have some food okay,” I said, “I’ll be back before you know it.”

She nodded her head and then laid her head against the cave wall and continued to shiver. I kissed her forehead and then grabbed a set of arrows and a bow and headed out to hunt quickly. I got about a couple hundred feet from the cave, when I saw a parachute sitting on rocks. I quickly ran over to it and saw that there was a container of soup. There was a note on top of the container.

You call that a kiss loverboy? H

I then looked up at the sky and shook my head smirking at him. I then quickly rushed back to the cave to find Adyrn sleeping.

Adyrn’s POV

When I woke up from my nap, I saw that Gale was warming something up over the embers that were still lit up.

“What did you find?” I asked groggily.

“I found soup,” he said smiling at me.

“How many parachutes have you gotten?” I asked and he looked at me shocked.

“I’ve gotten a few,” he said, “You?”

“One,” I said and I knew Gale didn’t know what to say, “Are you going to eat that soup or are you going to let it spoil?”

“You’re eating it,” he said, “It might help with your fever.”

I was going to reach for it when he shook his head.

“I’ll feed it too you,” he said and scooted closer to me, “You fed my family once, let me feed you for once.”

I then remembered the first month I officially started hunting in the woods of District 12.

It had been a week since I had met Gale. We hadn’t officially became a hunting party yet but I was hunting heavily like I always did and I was checking on his snares throughout the day and none had caught. I had managed to kill some things so I took all the extra game that I had killed and made sure all the snares had been released so they hung my kills above the ground so no animal could get to them. I had done been doing it for about three weeks when I was caught by Gale.

“Hey what are you doing?” he demanded and I quickly turned around to have the snare set off and hang a squirrel in the air.

“Not stealing your game,” I replied just as emotionless as possible, “Your snares hadn’t been catching animals so I’ve been killing extra game so your family can eat well. I kill way too many animals on Sunday for us to eat. If you want some good catches you might want to head a little more southwest towards District 11 there are a lot of wild turkeys down there.”

“And why would didn’t you tell me that before?” Gale demanded and I feel Katniss standing behind me glaring at him for the tone in his voice.

“Because I thought you might want to live to see the next day,” I snapped, “Any other questions you wish to ask?”

Gale didn’t know what to so say Katniss and I then walked off into the woods and took refuge next to a nearby tree. Katniss and I sat there while I checked what I had for food and listened to Gale try to find us.

“Why would she just give up information like that?” Gale asked himself.

I was then brought back to reality when I noticed Gale was staring at me strangely.

“Sorry I was having a flashback,” I replied quietly as he fed me the broth.

“How long did you feed my family like that?” Gale asked.

“About three weeks until you caught me,” I replied quietly.

“You’re fever is getting worse,” Gale said as he checked my forehead.

“If I don’t get better can I make you promise me something?” I asked and he shook his head no.

“I’m not leaving you,” he said, “because you are not going to die.”

“At least one of us thinks that,” I said looking out at the opening of the cave.

The Anthem started and we saw that no one had died yet. When the Anthem ended, Gale looked over at me.

“You think Haymitch will send you a parachute?” Gale asked.

“No,” I said, “That medicine must cost a fortune now. Besides I don’t get many parachutes.”

“How many have you gotten?” Gale asked.

“One,” I said, “You?”

“Three,” he said quietly.

Before I could say anything, Claudius’ voice came on and we sat and listened.

“There shall be a feast tomorrow morning at dawn,” he started and I was going to tune out until he added more, “Now hold on, before you stop listening to me I want to make this worth your while. Each of you needs something desperately to survive. You will find that something in the backpack with your district number on them in the Cornucopia at dawn tomorrow. This will be your last chance to get this so the choice is up to you.”

His voice was then cut off and I looked over at Gale who was already forming a plan in his head.

“You are not going out there alone,” I said.

“Like you can walk Adyrn,” he said, “And besides you need that medicine.”

“Gale,” I started but he ignored me and continued talking.

“And once you get the medicine, we can finally finish this thing off and go home,” he said, “And we can see everyone again.”

“Gale,” I exclaimed and he stopped talking and looked at me, “You are not going to risk your life for me not this time.”

“You did for me twice and I’m doing it for you,” Gale said.

“No,” I said, “You are not going to do that.”

“How about this we make a deal,” he said, “When dawn comes around we’ll decided then.”

“Fine,” I said knowing I already lost this fight, Gale was going to go when I fell asleep, “Be quiet when you leave then.”

Gale kept his face emotionless as I handed him my backpack.

“These have glasses you can where during the night so you can see,” I said, “and I still have dried fruit, beef and crackers in there. I’m giving you until noon tomorrow before I start looking for you.”

I then crawled into my sleeping bag and waited to fall asleep.