And Now Your Trip Begins {Jayne's End}

When the sun had risen over the arena that morning, Exover and I had already parted ways. We had fought side by side with Saturn the day before, and even saw him kill the boy from Three, Severus. Now, however, Saturn had fallen, too. There were words exchanged between Exover and I as we went our separate ways, but I didn't let myself linger on those words for very long, as, for some reason, I didn't want to allow myself to keep them within my memory. I needed to forget them, especially if Ex and I ended up face to face with one another in the end, having to kill to survive.

I wasn't quite sure how I'd ended up in the sunflower fields, but I could remember being here earlier on in the Games, with Alja, when we were still friends. That was before she had tried to kill me, and before I'd helped in killing her. For some reason, in that moment, I wished she were still here. She had been a friend, at least at first, but now she was gone.

Saturn and Damaris had helped with that.

In the sunflower fields today, though, I heard my name, spoken by a voice I recognized, yet was dreading ever having to hear again. It was the voice of Nico Thorne, my district partner. Although we came from the same home, we certainly didn't get along. Our conflict on the train made me hope that I'd never have to see him again, especially once we actually reached the arena. Unfortunately, that hope was lost, as now, I was face to face with him. Surely, anyone watching at home knew just as well as I did what was about to happen.

We were going to fight, and one of us was going to be dead by the end of it all.

"Looks like we're a little too late for that hand-holding," Nico said to me after hissing my name.

It was him reminding me of what was said on the train, and it made my blood feel like it was boiling. The boy grimaced before he continued.

"I guess that makes us strangers." Then, he struck, and I felt pain before I could even react, much less speak to him in response. The spear entered my eye, and I screamed. I'd barely felt the pain of a weapon hitting me while being in this arena, up until now, and I was feeling what had to be some of the worst of it. It was surely the strike that would end my life, but I wasn't ready for it.

I'd been so close to the end of it all. There were only seven other tributes left, aside from myself, and just as I had started to get confident that I'd be able to return home to District Twelve with Carter and the others, it had all come crashing down on me like an endless avalanche.

The storm that was Nico Thorne had touched down, and it was going to be my demise.

I'd always been known as the sweet little Laws girl back home. I'd been a pacifist, refusing to so much as be rude to someone when they were rude to me. I was so opposed to violence before this arena, but today, I'd been ready to fight. It didn't matter, though. I was dying, and I knew it. My vision was starting to go out in my right eye, where I had been struck by the spear. Surely this was all happening quickly, but to me, it felt slow and painful.

Carter would be watching this all happen. He'd be watching me die when there had been so much hope before. Would he be disappointed in me? Would he be ashamed to share half of a surname with this girl known as Jayne Ashbrook-Laws?

What would my birth parents think of me? Would they be glad that I didn't remember them so that we weren't associated with one another? Or, rather, would they be disappointed in themselves for not making sure they were a bigger memory in the mind of their daughter when she died?

I felt the searing pain that flowed through all of me, and all I wanted to do was yell. I had screamed when I'd fallen, but it was so hard to get any other sounds, much less any words, out of my lips. I just wanted to go home, but the only way I would be going home now would be as a lifeless body for my family to bury. I was dying.

I was dying and it scared me.

Jayne Ashbrook-Laws, who'd grown to be so strong, was scared.

Not only was I scared, though, I was angry.

My chance to go home had been taken away from me, and Nico Thorne was to blame. A boy from my own home.

I wanted him to know my anger and my rage, so I mustered up the last bit of strength that I could as everything was fading away, and I let out a whisper of a few words for him. I'd always been the sweet girl who'd watched her language all the time. Not today. Not on my last day.

"Fuck you, Nico Thorne."

Then, my cannon sounded.

This was the end of Jayne Ashbrook-Laws.

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