Act One: The Evil One
Kuat City, Kuat
Rough hands pulled her back, and she felt the cool metal of a blaster barrel against her forehead. "One wrong move, Everdeen, and I'll blast your brains out." The alley had been a bad idea. If she had to get shot, she could at least get shot in a place that didn't reek of fish and where every shadow did not house a different species of vermin.
"I don't have the money, Clove."
"Just the answer I was hoping for." The grip tightened, fingernails digging into the skin of her upper arm, but the woman still did not shoot. Clove always had liked to play with her food.
Katniss' hand crept down towards where her own weapon was stored in a thigh holster. "I'll have it soon, though. We've got this run set up, nice and easy, quick money. We can pay your boss as soon as we -"
"Touch that blaster, and you die."
She raised her right hand. This would be easier if she could see the bounty hunter, but Clove remained behind her, one arm keeping Katniss immobilized while the other kept a blaster at her temple.
"You're out of tricks. That's what you said last time," the bounty hunter continued. "You get the money to me now, today, or you're not gonna live long enough to make that run." Her finger tightened on the trigger, and for a moment, Katniss was certain she was about to die. She steeled herself as best she could, but the shot never came. "You're dealing with dangerous people, Everdeen, and you're way out of your league. You can't really think Cray's going to let you rip him off like that, can you?"
Clove stood a few inches taller than Katniss, and she had a bit more muscle to her as well. Katniss would have a hard time fighting her off. But perhaps, if she played her cards right, it wouldn't come to that. "The job's worth more than I owe. Tell Cray I'll pay him an extra ten percent."
"And how do I know you're not going to run off with the money? I don't even know that this is a real job."
"Would I lie to you about something like this?" The woman spun her around so that they faced each other. Much to Katniss' disappointment, through the entire process, Clove never let go of her arm. She responded with a lopsided grin."Tell you what. We can make an easy ten percent extra for Cray. I know he wants to crack down on people, but he's a businessman first. He won't wanna lose out on a chance like this one. See, Gale and I'll take a loss on this one. Eat the costs ourselves, pass the extra on to you personally. Three thousand, way more than Cray'll pay for me."
The woman wasn't wearing her full armor today. Katniss could understand that. This part of Kuat was far more genteel than the areas she had become accustomed to these last few years. In neighborhoods like this one, where the city planted flowers along the paths and the only places you could get a drink were trendy wine bars with nothing for less than twelve, maybe fifteen credits, body armor did tend to make one stick out. So did carrying two BlasTechs and wearing a chest plate, but Katniss wasn't about to point that out to her. "You'd better be honest about –"
She heard the shot being fired and the scream at the same time, and for a precious few milliseconds, she wasn't sure which had come first. But Katniss' instincts had been honed through years of living on the edge of the law, and her body moved without her mind's conscious involvement. She swung for Clove's unprotected abdomen, her elbow connecting with the soft flesh there. Before she fully realized what she was doing, Katniss began to scan the area, blaster in hand, searching for other potential attackers. Spotting nothing, she turned back to see Clove lying on the ground, her face already ashen and still.
"Katniss!"
Ignoring the man's voice, she kicked away Clove's two blasters before kneeling down next to the other woman. She watched her face for any trace of motion and, seeing none, grabbed her wrist to check for a pulse. "Gale, you didn't have to do that. I had it under control."
"She had you immobilized and staring down the end of her blaster. I don't think that counts as being in control." He had just killed a woman. He shouldn't sound so collected and in control.
"I was going to buy her off!"
"And now you don't have to. Come on, let's get out of here. If Clove's here, Cato can't be far behind."
He tugged on her sleeve, and Katniss pushed him away. "Don't touch me."
Gale shrugged. "Fine, Catnip. But I'm not going to apologize for killing Clove when she had her blaster to your forehead."
"Then you can apologize for the fact that neither of us will be able to show our faces anywhere in the system again. This isn't some seedy tapcaf. The people that live here keep flowerbeds in a city where land goes for ten thousand credits per square meter. You really think they don't have holocams watching us right now? Think the authorities haven't been alerted already?"
"Then that's all the more reason to get out of here. Come on."
She couldn't argue with that, so she followed him, almost having to run to keep up with his brisk pace. Already, she could see well-dressed Kuati watching them, a few of their mouths hanging wide open while children or pets begged for their attention. More worryingly, she spotted a handful with tall, muscular non-humans behind them. Given how paranoid the Kuati could be, she would bet anything they were bodyguards. Though, she supposed, considering that their most recent run had been for a Kuati judge high enough up on the food chain that she could afford to have close to three million credits worth of high-quality glitterstim delivered directly to her, maybe they were right to be concerned. What mattered right now was that one or two pointed hand-held holocams in their direction.
Katniss nodded to Gale, and they turned down a side street. Her knees pounded and every strike of foot against duracrete made the split in her side scream, but they couldn't stop yet. "Find a speeder to hotwire, and let's get out of here," she gasped.
She had hardly finished her sentence when Gale grabbed her arm. "This one. C'mon." He hopped into the driver's seat of the roofless model, and a few deft movements later, he had the engine roaring to life beneath them.
District 12, Panem
The lines of the ledger sheet ran together as he studied the document. Peeta tapped his pen against the counter in time with the whirring of the fan above. Though he kept every window open, the summer always brought weeks of heat and humidity to the district, and the oven only made the heat even more unbearable.
An excuse to look away from the ledger came when the bell above the door rang. "Good afternoon."
"Afternoon, Peeta." Darius tossed him a lazy half-salute as he stepped inside, allowing the screen door to slam shut behind him. "How you doing today?"
"Hot, but I'm doing all right. How 'bout you? What can I help you with today?"
The Peacekeeper peeled a piece of flimsi off the top of the pile he carried and handed it to Peeta. "You got a place to hang this up? I've got to get them up in all the businesses in this part of town."
EXTENDED CURFEW HOURS
2000 TO 0600 HOURS
INCREASED PENALTIES STRICTLY ENFORCED
Peeta did his best to keep his voice steady. "Sure, will over there work?" He nodded towards the far wall.
"Yeah, I think it should. Mind if I use the glue, or do you have something else you'd like me to use?"
"The glue's fine." Peeta watched as Darius got to work. "Can I get you something to drink? I've got some lemonade, if you'd like any."
"Yes, please. It's like a furnace out there. I don't know how you stand it in here all day."
"You get used to it after a while." He fetched the pitcher of lemonade from the cooler, savoring the blast of cold air it released when opened. When he returned to the front, Darius sat at the counter, waiting for him. Once two tall glasses had been poured, the real conversation could begin. "Two hours on both sides is sure going to be a pinch on us. Think you'll be making some exceptions? I need to be at the bakery by five hundred hours at the latest to get the ovens up and running."
"Can't you old man do it? He's still living upstairs, isn't he?"
"He is, but my mother hasn't been well, and he can't leave her alone for an hour. Rye and I have been pretty well running the place for the last few months." He took a long drink of lemonade. Outside, he could hear children playing. Peeta couldn't help but wonder how soon that sound might become foreign.
"Sorry to hear that, mate. I wish I could help, but I'm not allowed to grant exceptions. You could try and bring it up with Commander Thread."
"Do you think it'd help?" The look on Darius' face told him the answer. Instead, he tried a different approach. "It says there are increased punishments. Are they raising the fines?"
Darius winced. "Don't be out past curfew, and you won't find out." He drained the rest of his glass. "Thanks for the lemonade, Peeta, but I've got to get going. The commander wants all of these in place before the formal announcement tonight. Take care of yourself, all right?"
"You too, Darius." He showed the man out, waving to the children that played tag in the square. Though it was only early afternoon, he flipped the sign from open to closed and locked the door. He read the sign over once more before he returned to the back to start the day's clean up.
