Chapter 10: Rue

                                    

                                          
We continued to hear rustling and I sat up. I grabbed a knife and got out of the sleeping bag. Gale was still asleep and I was guarding the little entrance that was being covered by the boulder.
It began to shift and I gripped my knife tighter. The boulder shifted just enough for me to see a young girl. She saw me and jumped back. I pushed the boulder over and climbed out.
"Please don't kill me." She pleaded.
"Never. As long as you don't either." She noded at my request and I invited her into the cave. I climbed on top of gale and woke him up. I climbed on him so he wouldn't freak out when he saw the other girl in the cave.
"Y/n what's going on? Why are you on top of me? Who's that?!" I rested my hands on his cheeks. To calm him down.
"This is what was stomping around last night. And I'm on top of you so you don't kill her." I said as I got off of him.
"My name is rue." She said.
"Rue are you injured or hungry?" I asked. She shook her head no. "Are you tired?"
"Very." She answered. Gale got out of the sleeping bag and offered it to her. She gladly accepted and crawled in.
"I'm gonna go get some water." Gale said as he grabbed both ours and rues water bottles and crawled out of the cave. I unwrapped some of our food and lit a fire to heat it up.
Gale returned 15 minutes later and we ate some of the food I had heated up and saved the rest for rue. I treated the water then took a few sips. I passed the bottle to gale and he drank some.
Gale and I left rue with a knife and went out with the rest of the weapons. Gale took the spear and I took my whip and the other knife. We didn't know what we were doing out there because we had plenty of food now that rue had teamed with us. She had quite a bit of food she had foraged.
We noticed an injured tribute on the ground. They looked like they were on the younger side. Gale looked at me for instructions and I gestured to his spear. He shook his head back and forth and I rolled my eyes.
I handed him my knife and whip and took the spear. I jogged over to the body. Gale watched as I impaled the kid in the heart. The canon went off and I pulled the spear out. That was my third kill in a week. I took any weapons the kid had. I found a third knife, a bow and a full quiver of arrows. 
I walked back to gale and handed him the bow and arrows. He gave me back my whip. Now I had a knife, spear and whip while gale had his bow and a knife. we walked back but gale stopped me before we went it.
"Why did you kill the kid?" He asked.
"I had to. This is real gale i have to kill people." I replied as we stood there.
"Then why didn't you kill rue?" 
"Because she asked me not to. When I killed the boy in the bloodbath it was self defense. When it was glimmer I had to take her out. She asked me too after I speared her. When I just killed that kid it was because he had your bow. That's what you did for the sponsors wasn't it."
"Yea. I was never as good as Katniss and I missed a few on purpose to play up the act."
"See we both have to do things sometimes." I ended the conversation and pushed the boulder over and climbed in.
"Y/n come back out." It wasn't a question and I did what Gale told me to.
"What?" I asked. 
"I'm sorry." He said as he took my hands in his and kissed me. "I love you."
We heard crunching and then a whoosh came by us. It was another tribute. It wasn't a career though. My head shot to the person.
It all happened in slow motion in my head as the tribute threw a knife and it stuck in gales leg. I ran at the person and whipped them hard and fast. They began to stumble as I whipped them across the neck. It left a deep slash and blood began to drip. Gale shot and arrow using the last bit of  his quickly draining energy. It went through his heart and a canon boomed.
I pulled the arrow out of the tribute and ran over to gale. Rue had woken up to all the commotion and quickly handed me the first aid kit.
I pulled out some antiseptic wipes and rubbed them on gales leg. The knife was very small like a swiss army knife size. The wound wasn't bleeding to much but I was going to need to stitch it up. 
A silver parachute fell beside us and rue picked it up while I was busy soothing gale.
"It's rubbing alcohol." She said and opened it.
"Rue your going to clean the wound while I hold gale still." I said. Gale laid on his stomach and I sat on his feet to hold them still.
Rue began pouring the rubbing alcohol on gales leg and he started grunting in pain.
"Maby we should do this in the cave." Rue suggested and we quickly went into the cave covering the entrance with the Boulder.
Once rue finished cleaning the wound I threaded a needle and began sewing the wound.
"Y/n can you sing while you sew i need to be distracted from the pain." I began to sing. I didn't sing with any words I just sung random notes that seemed to go together. Soon after, I finished the stitching and rue wrapped gales leg in some cloth. 
"You shouldn't walk for a few days in case it tears." Rue suggested. 
"Thank you." Gale replied. I crawled over to him and helped make him comfortable. I stroked his hair as he fell asleep with his head in my lap. I continued stroking his hair as it too gave me comfort. 
Eventually I fell asleep too and rue placed the bag under my head as she noticed me drifting off to sleep. Shortly after rue rested her head on gales side using him as a pillow and we slept for the rest of the day and through the night.