Wow, it's been so long. I just – I can't, I hope that there are still a few viewers out there. I am so sorry, please just read, and give me a review, I'd love to hear what you think if you don't hate me. I love you guys, every single one who even glances at this story, and thanks for sticking it out until the end. You're my heroes!

Rainbow

Dark takes the Arena, signifying the end of the day and time for Vander and me to get going. As much as I want to stay here in the Cornucopia, survive on the food rations we have left, wait for some Capitol mutt to come for us, I know we have to go. We have to find Iris, and something tells me she is deep in the forest. Vander senses it as well, I can tell by the way he's gathering his things, packing freeze dried food neatly into his pack, hands shaking slightly. He's nervous; he knows how cunning she can be.

"It's almost over." I say, struggling to wrap a new bandage around my stump. The pain is coming almost monotonous. I've found Brutus' cream expels the venom, but does nothing to heal, only mutes the pain.

"Let me help you." Vander smiles slightly and I unwillingly hand over the gauzy roll. Carefully, he begins wrapping it over the bloody, muscly mess that we can't really do much else about, winding it tightly against the ruined skin. "It'll be okay, Rina. I know it will."

It will be once he's safe and out of the Arena. I've sort of meditated on it, and I know that it's the right decision now, that my brother will live. I've come to accept it, and I'm willing to greet death with open arms as long as it shies away from Vander, whether that be placing a deep cut across my throat or being killed by Iris. I will do it, no matter what. People will act like it, but no one will really miss me, except Vander. He will be heartbroken, but he will heal, memorialize me in my "heroic" death. He'll be famous; he'll have a lot of money to take care of Mom. I imagine him with a pretty girl. Not a Capitol girl or a snotty Career from 2, but a sweet, young beauty who will give him kids and a life worth living.

"I'm ready to hunt." I tell him, buckling my knife vest over my chest. A small poke in my ankle reminds me of Brutus' knife that has somehow stayed in place this entire time.

"Me too." Ruefully, he smiles and selects a long sword over a club he was mulling over. "It's almost dark, we should start heading out."

I nod. We have never had to have much conversation between each other, it's like an unspoken language of sorts between brother and sister. He understands me, and I understand him. I hope he will understand.

We leave the Cornucopia, trudging along in the sand that is back to being as blowy as ever, and I peek over my shoulder to watch a moment as the golden horn glistens in the setting sun. This will be the last time I ever see it in person, of that I'm sure, and for some reason, it brings forward a sense of sadness from deep within me. It has served as a safe haven my entire time here, where I was sheltered, spared from the whipping winds, freezing snow, pelting rain. The horn is a symbol of hope in the Arena, a promise of protection.

"It's pretty, isn't it?" Vander's voice causes me to jump, and I catch up to him, jogging against the puddles of sand that form around each footstep. I didn't know he had been looking at it too, maybe having some of the same thoughts.

"Really pretty." I sigh and try to imprint the vision into my mind to think about later.

"Come on." Vander pats my back again and puts his arm around my shoulders for a brief moment as we walk. I can only imagine how much the Capitol audience is eating us up, and for once, the tributes don't have to fake their connections. Vander and I will always be siblings, always be allies. That will not change.

The forest comes into view, the looming branches bent over like they're weeping, I can see that even from this far away. Vander stops a moment and winds a piece of cloth around a small club he kept in his pack, wicking a match and lighting it. He takes the torch, and I claim a flashlight, the kind with a huge battery pack that will keep on working for hours, like a stage light. It illuminates his face, the yellow flickering against the blond of his hair, dancing off each individual strand of hair. He blends in; Vander is the light, after all. And people have always said that we are opposites.

"Let's stop a moment." He suggests. We are on the transition slip from the desert to forest where the sand begins to mix into soil, far enough in so a cover of trees bend over us like a shield, reaching their shriveled leaves downward. "We walked a long way." I set the flashlight down so it illuminates the ground and a bit of the surroundings, and Vander finds a notch to rest the flaming torch in. The two of us settle in for a moment, me leaning against the trunk of a weathered, aged tree, and he facing me, watching the licking flames of the torch.

"I wish we were home." He says sadly, a sigh escaping his lips. Between his fingers, he sifts a sand-soil mixture, and it falls to the ground in a waterfall of particles.

"So do I." Stupidly, I agree with him, stretching my legs out in front of me and holding my hand to my chest protectively. I wish we had something to make a sling out of, but all we have are food and weapons.

"You liked that Brutus guy, huh?" My head snaps up when he asks, and a deep chortle rises from his throat. "Calm down, Rina. Where's the fire?"

I send him a dirty look which he disregards.

"Hey, it's okay. For a while there, I thought you were swinging the other way."

He ducks as I begin throwing handfuls of sand at him, chucking bits of rock at his face and smiling. Vander holds his hands up in surrender, and the cataclysm of dirt ceases on top of his head.

"While we're here," Vander clears his throat and looks directly at me, and for once, I don't cast my gaze away. "We need to talk about something."

"Mom." I say what he was thinking, tracing a pattern in the dirt with my finger.

"Someone has to take care of her." He nods and brushes his blond locks from his face, rubbing his forehead with his hand like he has a headache coming on. He's right, of course. In the good chance that one of us lives, and of course he doesn't know about my plan to make sure it's him, either of us will silently agree to take care of our mother. She isn't exactly sane, and the idea of our father caring for her is just a thought I'd rather not think about. He would probably beat her. Like he beat me.

Also, there's one more thing to factor in. which is the possibility that Iris is the one that walks out of here. Neither of us can predict the future, and how are we to know we won't be eaten by some muttation, enhanced and enabled by the Capitol, leaving her as the only living victor. Then, our mother would be left alone to fend for herself, and who knows how she would take both her children's deaths. Maybe she doesn't even realize we are gone, there's always that.

"Someone will do it." I tell myself more than I assure him. Hopefully, I'm looking directly into some camera, and someone kind at home, maybe a friend of Vander's or one of my mother's, is seeing me, taking my words to heart. I can't trust my father, and I never will.

"I hope so." A troubled look crosses his face and he goes back to staring at the flame for what seems like a long time.

…

After what seems like hours, when the "sun" is completely set and we are cloaked in darkness, Vander and I pack our things and enter the forest. It still reminds me of being little, of hearing the stories about the princess running into the wood of living trees. But I'm hardly a princess; I hardly feel human anymore.

We move through the brush with difficulty, pushing through the thorns and bending back face-height, rubbery branches that only work against us. It has grown over more since we've been here last, the underbrush flourishing and thick. I hold my hand to my chest, shielding it, and grip a knife in my free hand, ready to send it hurtling. Vander leads, yielding the torch in the air to light our way, clearing a path for the both of us.

"Thorn patch up ahead." My brother warns, and I narrowly avoid ripping up my legs to the brambles.

Something shifts behind me with a soft flutter, and I whirl around, knife raised. Vander pauses in front of me, shifting to watch me with wide eyes.

"Irina…" He questions, watching me closely. "What is it?"

I don't answer, just keep the knife in the air, raised and ready. The woods are silent for a long, drawn out moment as we wait.

The flutter comes again louder now, and something big and black bursts from the tops of the trees with a loud "CAW!". The torch flames as Vander thrusts is upward to view the black figure. Wings flapping and continuously cawing, the crow sweeps downward, claws open at Vander's shoulders.

I send the knife flying into the air, and it buries itself into the plump breast of the creature. It falls to the ground like a stone, and Vander, shaking, kneels beside it, plucking a few feathers from the dead fowl's body. I trot over to him, crouching next to him to view the crow.

Its eyes stare forward unmovingly, a deep emerald shade that shines in the darkness. It is much larger than the crow we came across earlier this week, and I think of Gerrit in a mess of blood on the ground.

One for sorrow.

I shake the words from my mind.

"Euck." Vander makes a disgusted sound as he slides the knife from the bird's muscled breast, handing it back to me. It is covered in a black, sticky substance, and I wick it away from the blade to sort of clean it off.

"Let's keep moving." I offer, resisting the urge to vomit. The smell is like rancid meet, the blood that is, but as soon as we're moving through the forest again, it is soon forgotten. But I can't forget the crow, the dead look in its eyes as it hit the ground, blankly staring. I know it isn't real, that it may not even be living, just a robotic mutt the Capitol scientists thought up in some lab experiment. But, to me, that crow is just another murder, another life I took away, whether it mattered or not. No one will miss the crow, no one will even count it for anything, but they will miss the others that won't ever see the light of day again: Gerrit, Claudia, Juliet, Edwin… All gone and shipped back to their families in a simple, wooden box. They will go in the ground and go down in history as the ones who lost. Some of them aren't even whole bodies anymore. Just pieces identified by a name. That will be me soon, I will be the crow with blank eyes, slack body.

"Irina, come on." Vander's face is red and sweating, and I can tell he is tired from crashing through the brush.

"I'll take the lead." I slip past him easily and wave the knife in the air. He seems glad, and I begin slashing through the brush with my knife, using it as a machete. We fall into a sort of rhythm, and I look for any sort of sign of life, a sign of Iris. As a Career, we are taught to identify tracks, but this girl has left nothing. I imagine she must be swinging through the trees like a monkey.

"Vander." I call behind me, slicing my knife through a big branch hanging low. "I don't see anything."

No answer.

"Vand?" I call again, figuring he'll come sweeping through the brush in a few seconds. He doesn't.

"Vander." I say with more force, now, doubling back through the path I've been creating the last half hour or so. Oh God. Oh God, oh no. "Vander. Vander!"

A smoking torch lies on the ground. I swivel the flashlight up to find my brother, pressed into a chokehold. Iris is behind him, her arm around his neck, small, cruel-tipped knife pressed to the base of his neck. Vander's eyes find mine, warm and sorry and helpless.

Iris' cruel eyes shine with brightness, and with a smile, she drags the knife over his neck.

Oh Vander. I'm so sorry again guys, please tell me what you think! I'd love to see a review pop up, even if it's a flame about what I just did to my favorite character. Love you guys!

Rainbow