Chapter Seven: First Night
The storm raged around Nessa as she huddled in the bushes, eyes squinting against the driving rain. She was shivering, cold and wet, but she'd been cold and wet before. Just usually not alone. Usually there were cows or goats and she could edge into the herd and share their warmth. They didn't make fun of her like the other kids did, didn't look past her without focusing like the adults, so she'd always volunteered with the outer herds even in winter. She wouldn't mind a cow with her now. Even one not in milk would be warm and comforting and solid and would block the wind and part of the rain and share its heat without complaint. But she'd been cold and wet before and knew that wasn't going to kill her. It wouldn't have time. The Games weren't going to last long enough for that, not this time. Not with so many already dead. And if it wasn't going to kill her, she couldn't afford to pay it much attention.
Instead, her attention was focused on the Careers in the dry clearing, the edge of it only a few yards from her cover. They'd take the good stuff, but they'd leave something behind. She'd watched the games every year of her life, just like everyone else, and she knew how Careers worked. They'd kill everyone stupid enough to hang around, pick over the Cornucopia like wild animals at a carcass, growling and snapping at each other, but not actually biting, not unless they were stupid. And then they'd head out to hunt down the others—maybe each other, too. That part was iffy. It had to do with whether they were any good at sneaking, because nobody who wasn't would waste time on another Career early in the game. You didn't want a fair fight early on. Might get hurt. So they'd get the best stuff, and then they'd leave, heading out into the storm to hunt for the others. But they couldn't take everything.
She wasn't the first one with that thought. She knew that. She'd watched other kids in the videos, watched them wait and then sneak out to go through the leftovers when the Careers moved away. They'd seen it, too. If she'd seen all the Games she'd been alive for, they'd seen all twenty-four, and multiple times each. They'd know somebody might try it, and one of them might wait for a while. But they couldn't afford to wait long. They had to go make the sponsors love them, and hanging around at home base waiting wasn't going to get that. No, they had to go on the offensive. She just had to give them long enough.
They took their time, picking through the pile without ever taking their eyes off each other, pulling on raincoats and ponchos, filling packs, picking up and trading off weapons. The girl from One found a bow and cut its string before tossing it aside. She hadn't demonstrated any skill with the bow in training. The boy had, but she hadn't, so Nessa guessed it made sense not to leave it for anyone else. They took their time, with poor Isra howling and sobbing all the while, her cries audible even over the howl of the wind, but finally they left.
The first to leave was the monster from Six. Nessa hated him like she didn't any of the others. He didn't even have the excuse of being trained for it, he was just naturally vile—and she knew if she had to die, she wanted anyone other than him to kill her. Even the girl from Four, who she was pretty sure wouldn't make it quick or easy, would be better than what he'd do. But he left first, leaving the clearing in the direction Grant had gone into the woods, a ways off to her right. No surprise there. He was the least trained, the one with the worst chance if someone did start a real fight early, and he'd shown early on his goal was the rebel. The sponsors wouldn't like it if he looked like he were backing out on that.
Bella—Nessa remembered her name because it meant pretty, and she knew how she'd have felt growing up if she'd been named pretty, and figured it hadn't been much nicer for Bella—moved towards Isra, who was still sobbing noisily by Cork's body—then swore and jumped back when a stone hit her in the knee and Isra screamed at her. She snarled at the girl and backed off, going the other way, up where the girl from Twelve had entered the storm. Bouquet or Flower or whatever her name was. The volunteer. Nessa squinted hard through the rain and almost thought the other girl was limping just a little. If so, it made sense she'd take off fast and in the direction farthest from where everyone else had gone—Careers were like wolves, and if they saw a weakness they saw prey.
Which was probably why boy from Two had a little bounce in his step as he started off in the same direction once she was out of sight.
The girls from Districts One and Two eyed each other for a while, glanced at the Cornucopia a few times, then paced around the clearing on opposite sides from each other, stopping to look closely at each place anyone had left, and finally stopped where they met barely twenty feet in front of Nessa. "The girl from Six is the one most likely to come back early," the girl from Two said conversationally, just loudly enough that Nessa could make out the words if she strained. "She obviously fancied herself subtle."
The girl from One, the one who killed her district-mate even though it looked like she was fighting beside him (unlike Bella, who had killed hers gleefully but unsurprisingly), nodded agreement. "I'm not in the mood to wait around, and I don't think she'll find anything Game-changing if she does go through the Cornucopia," she said. "And she hid her track from the first step apparently—I can't see where she went into the woods, even, not clearly enough to be sure. You?"
"No," Two agreed. "So—which one do you want, then? No point going the same way from the beginning."
One eyed her, obviously trying to tell if she was trying to make some kind of trap.
Two shrugged. "It's going to be a miserable Games," she said, waving one hand to the sheets of rain they were standing just out of. "Whoever wins will get out faster if we're not all hunting the same one."
For a long moment, One just looked at her measuringly—then she shrugged. "Okay. I'll take Crazy-girl. Doesn't look like she even tried to hide her trail."
"Good enough. Then I'll take this one," Two said, waving at Nessa, who almost screamed, biting her hand to stop it, shrinking into the mud, trying to be invisible. "Deaf-boy didn't try either, and I may as well start off with something easy. See you later, if the odds allow it!" And she walked by so closely that Nessa could (if she wanted it over quickly) have reached out and grabbed her ankle. But she didn't turn, didn't thrust that spear, still dark with the babysitter's blood, through her, just kept walking, following the deep tracks of Jedric's supposedly panicked run, now full of water but still clear. Nessa wished she could warn him, but figured when it came down to it nobody was going to be all that surprised if a Career showed up behind them.
The girl from One went off after where the crazy girl had left, relatively recently, and Nessa wondered if she'd have any chance at all. She saw more than she should, saw through Jedric without even trying, but Nessa still remembered watching her with a sling, how she'd made herself dizzy watching the spin. Not her problem, she reminded herself. But it didn't hurt to speculate, since she had no intention of breaking cover. Not yet. Any of them might be faking, waiting for someone to slip out of hiding. One of the Careers or even the girl from Six, like they were saying. And while the Careers were the most dangerous, Nessa had no intention of assuming that anyone else was safe.
So she waited, shivering in the mud, moving her limbs one at a time carefully, quietly, just enough to keep them from stiffening up, listening to Isra's sobs and moans, and the equally miserable sounds of the storm, eyes peeled for any motion other than the whipping trees and driving rain. Waited when the hovercraft came, grabbing the bodies of the first ones dead—and finally Isra moved, lumbering for it, screaming that she wanted to go home, wanted her daddy, but some kind of ray shot out and she froze in place mid-step until they were done collecting the bodies and it flew away and the canon went off twelve times. Isra collapsed back down, sobbing like her heart was breaking—and Nessa waited some more. She drifted into a half sleep a couple times—and the third time she jerked awake she decided she'd given it as long as she could afford to. She rose and slipped into the clearing, the sudden stillness and lack of rain a shock to the senses. And nobody rushed out to kill her. Staying carefully far enough from Isra not to upset her further, she approached the Cornucopia.
Soon she had stripped off her wet rags and pulled on warm, dry clothes, topped them with a poncho, tucked a couple knives into her belt, draped a sling loosely around her neck and filled her pockets with shot for it, filled a backpack with food and a flask of water, and started looking at what else she might use. She had a lot to do. She couldn't win just by hiding. Not unless some disaster hit and everyone else died, and that almost never happened. Whoever won had to kill at least one other person, and usually the last person would be a Career and Nessa couldn't kill any of them. Not by fighting them anyway. But they always came back to the Cornucopia. Always. Because they knew that's where they'd find the end game. Eventually, when they got hungry enough, everyone came back. And this time, she was going to make sure they came back to some surprises. She'd spent, after that first day, more time at the traps and snares station than she had even on the sling, and she had no intention of letting her new knowledge go to waste. Slipping back into the storm, barely feeling it this time with her new gear, Nessa started laying traps.
—
Myra snarled in frustration as Dug left the clearing first. She'd been hoping he'd hold out longer. If he were last, she could go through the cornucopia before he could get too far, and still have some hope of keeping up, but there was no saying how long the others would take. It wasn't surprising, though, and she was used to Dug pissing her off, so she settled for slipping down from her tree and following far enough behind that he wouldn't see her. He did look back a few times—not for her, she thought, but to see if any of the others thought he'd be better prey than fellow-predator. He didn't see her, though. She was good at hiding and he was easy enough to follow that she didn't have to stay close. He was big, heavy, and he sank into the mud leaving big footprints that filled with water. The rebel's trail was far subtler, he'd obviously been making an effort to hide it, and she rolled her eyes when the two diverged, keeping to Dug's as it got more and more random and uncertain.
—
Tanna danced with the wind. It was a good partner, even though it stung her with whipping branches when she got the steps wrong. It was beautiful, purple and blue and green and red and it swirled and jumped and she twirled and leaped with it, laughing with pleasure as it played with her. She couldn't hear over its song, but she didn't have to, not when it told her everything she needed to know, waltzing with her towards the beacon of Grant's silvery glitter.
She stifled a giggle as she slipped past the greasy shine of the bad man, and the sharp purple spikiness of the girl following him. The girl saw her—but simply rolled her eyes and held a finger to her lips, and Tanna grinned at her and held a finger to her own before the dance carried her away, golden footprints telling her where she should step, where she should jump, where she should spin and turn and duck, until, exhausted but laughing with euphoria she tumbled out from between two trees and grabbed Grant by both hands, spinning him with her. "Found you!" she crowed.
—
Zander grinned as he saw the ugly girl from Four stagger just a little as the storm was closing around her, veiling her from sight. She hadn't held on quite long enough, and who was he to ignore an invitation like that? The storm was like a slap to the face, its roar annoying and worrisome, depriving him of one of his favorite senses, but it would hurt everyone else just as much as it did him—and the driving sheets of rain would make thrown and shot weapons far less accurate, which he could only see as an advantage given his own lack of proficiency in that area. His face was soaked in seconds, and some water slipped down the neck of his raincoat, but not enough to cause any extreme discomfort as he slogged through the mud. He hung back, watching, trailing her, a smile twisting his lips as her limp gradually grew a little deeper, her movement less sure. Gradually, he grew closer, confident that she couldn't hear him over the raging storm, and she wasn't expending the energy to watch her back—a foolish mistake. Even when she did glance back, she telegraphed it so he could easily slip behind a tree before she'd turned enough to see him.
She paused, leaning on one hand on the trunk of a tree, the bad knee slightly raised, taking the pressure off it, head down—and his grin widened. He slipped forward closer, drawing his sword, raised it—
And the girl spun, all her weight firmly on a leg that appeared to have no problem bearing it, the hand that had not been on the tree bringing a dagger straight for his stomach, well beneath his sword.
Swearing, he tried to change his strike to a parry, sliding aside and bringing his sword between them defensively, and limited her slash to a scratch across his ribs rather than a truly dangerous blow. He recovered quickly and attacked, trying to take advantage of the length of his sword against her little daggers, but she hopped behind the tree she'd been leaning on, and he had to pull the blow and edge after her for another attack, his free hand pulling a long dagger from a sheath at his hip—he preferred swords, but in these tight quarters the shorter weapon might serve him better.
She was waiting for him, and threw a knife as soon as he was in view—his own dagger was up to deflect it, but another gust of wind sent the weapon into a wobble and it caught him in the shoulder instead of following a path he could easily block—or killing him, which was, presumably the intention. Zander took quick stock, then muttered another oath and backed off. The girl showed some signs of pressing the fight, but a defensive slash caught her forehead—not enough to do any real damage, but head wounds bleed and it was flowing into one of her eyes. He toyed with the question of continuing after all—he had the knife in his shoulder and a little slice across his stomach, but she'd be half-blind—but no. Better to wait for now, than risk worse injury this early in the game. He eased back, and this time she didn't follow. They would probably meet again. And next time he'd know not to believe any weakness she showed him, not letting her get in a free first blow.
—
Grant weighed his options as he moved through the storm, straight out from the clearing, not letting the wind push him into its own trajectory. He held the sword loosely in his right hand, used his left to protect his eyes from the worst of the storm, and tried to decide what to do next. He was reasonably certain that he'd made his trail at least difficult to follow, and none of the Careers had demonstrated any keen sense in tracking during training, so they should have trouble catching him. He had a weapon, not the best sword he'd ever used, but acceptably balanced and no huge flaws. Water wouldn't be a problem. He had no food, and he was soaked and growing chilled, more quickly now that the light, never intense through the raging storm, was starting to dim. He needed to find some level of shelter, where he could at least get out of the wind and, preferably, at least somewhat dry. Given time, he could make a lean-to, there were plenty of materials available, but it would be obvious to anyone who stumbled across it. He'd keep an eye out for a hollow tree and try to keep moving to higher ground for now, and see what he could find.
The wind carried the sound of a footstep, and he was instantly on the defense, sword—hand tightening slightly, balance moving to the balls of his feet, every sense alert. There was a gust of wind and a breaking branch and the patter of footsteps—and he spun, thrusting—and barely managed to reverse the sword's momentum before Tanna grabbed both his hands with no sign of even noticing the sword, calling gleefully, "Found you!"
"I almost killed you!" he hissed.
She laughed. "You're not going to kill me. You don't want to. C'mon," she added, releasing one of his hands but keeping hold of the other and tugging him on a diagonal from the trajectory he'd been planning to follow.
"What—where—"
"The cave," she said simply. "It's brown. And warm. You're cold," she added, looking him over critically.
"So are you," he pointed out, taking in the faint bluish tint to her lips and the pale bloodlessness of her face.
She giggled. "I'm not cold—I'm dancing! Come on!"
He hesitated for a moment before giving in to the pressure of her hand. Then he glanced back and swore at the clarity of the path she'd travelled. "Tanna! You have to hide your tracks or they'll find us too soon!"
She looked back and blinked at him. "What difference does it make?" she said. "How can you hide it?"
"It makes a difference because the sooner they find us the less prepared we'll be," he said as patiently as he could. "And you can walk on stone and through water and—anywhere that doesn't show as much as in the mud, and try to avoid breaking branches and—"
She shook her head impatiently. "But who cares about some stupid footprints?" she demanded. "You're here. The gross one's there, with the purple spiky one behind him, Twelve-girl's waaaayyyy over that way, she's the furthest, with Pretty and Two-boy behind her, and—"
Grant grabbed her wrists and stared at her. "Tanna. You know where they are? All of them? Everyone?"
"Of course," she said.
He took a breath, released it. "That's how you found me?"
"I thought you'd like the warm place, and you were sorta on the way, so I thought I'd get you first."
"Okay," he said, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do with this—and if he should believe it or just take it as further evidence that she was insane. But she had found him. "Okay. Uh. How do you know?"
She blinked up at him. "How do you not?"
For a long moment, they stared at each other, then he nodded acceptance. "Okay. Well. That—that should be useful. But—but the rest of us don't know that. They have to find us by following the signs we make—the footprints and things. So we need to try not to leave any."
She looked doubtfully back. "But yours are bright blue," she pointed out. "No matter what you stepped on. How can you hide that?"
"Right," he said. "Okay. Just—trust me. The rest of us don't see it like that. Let's do it like this—you tell me generally which way to go, and I'll lead the way and you step exactly where I do. Okay?"
She smiled. "Sure," she said, pointing. "It'll be like a game! That way!"
—
Posy squeezed herself into a jag in the base of the overhang, and told herself that without the wind she was almost warm. It wasn't exactly convincing, but she'd convinced herself of worse lies in the past. The way the rocks were set up, she'd be pretty hard to see unless someone was right on top of her—the fact that there was a space to hide, even, was well-disguised. It seemed like the best place she'd seen so far to spend the night, and the darkness now couldn't be blamed just on the storm. It was definitely darker.
It got still darker quickly, and she wedged herself a little more deeply into the crevasse, trying to find a balance between relaxing a little and staying in her cover. The first notes of the anthem struck, and she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and then opened them, squirming out just enough that she'd have a view of the sky when the pictures started. Her jaw dropped at the first face, the handsome, confident boy from One, the one who could use every weapon in the training grounds and who hadn't appeared to even consider it a possibility that anyone else could win. The pair from Three were no surprise—but then another Career, the boy from Four. The only other surprises were in omission. Isra, incredibly, wasn't shown. And the deaf boy was still out there, too. Everyone else pretty much made sense, though she'd hoped that maybe the boy from Nine would be up there. She shivered as she slid back into the depths of her hiding space and closed her eyes. She probably couldn't actually sleep, she was cold and wet and the position was far from comfortable—but she could rest. Tomorrow would bring more deaths and more running and more hunger and cold and misery, so she'd better at least steal what rest she could.
—
Myra snickered silently as Dug finally gave up with a growl at almost full dark, slamming one fist into a tree and glaring at the ground in front of him. "I know you're watching me," he snarled loudly, looking all around.
Her laugh broke off and her eyes narrowed, rebalancing her weight, ready to run if he made a move towards her. He couldn't catch her if she didn't give him a chance to close the gap—he was too slow. And he might be bluffing—
"So you listen up," he continued. "You want the kid killed—you know it, I know it. You know I'm the best one for the job. So you want it done right, you give me some way to track him down, huh? Cuz this wandering around the fucking forest isn't getting' your rebel dead any faster. Think about it." And then he dropped his pack, sat down with his back against a tree, and glared at the sky.
Relaxing, Myra shook her head with the realization that he'd been talking to the audience. If he honestly thought—
A soft beeping drew both their gazes up, and her eyes widened at the silvery parachute dropping through the storm, its path apparently untouched by the buffeting winds as it fell directly into Dug's waiting hands. He grinned nastily as he opened it and pulled out something that looked like a little compass. "Thanks," he said. "I promise you—first thing tomorrow when there's enough light to see where I'm going—I'll go get him." Then he started pulling food out of his pack, ate some dinner, pulled the hood of his raincoat low over his face and tilted his head back against the tree. And within moments he was snoring.
Myra stared in absolute disbelief. Partly at how fast he'd gone to sleep—and mostly at the fact that the Gamemakers responded to his request. Instantly. With exactly what he asked for. Which meant he was right. They wanted this. And that meant that if she killed him now, they'd be more than a little upset with her. So. She would have to rethink her plans a little.
She waited an hour before slipping out of hiding and approaching him. She grabbed the pack, glanced in, and extracted a little knife. She brought it almost to Dug's throat—and then looked at the nearest camera and deliberately moved it away, instead cutting several slashes into his coat. She didn't touch the compass. Didn't touch the sword or the club he had handy. Nothing he'd need to do the job they wanted him for, distasteful though that decision was. Once he'd killed the boy, she'd kill him. Once she wouldn't be punished for it. She slid away from his camp and slipped up into a tree, slowly eating rations from the liberated pack before closing it, putting it on backwards over her chest, and letting her eyes drift closed. Half down, half to go. Dug and his prey, and the crazy girl from Six. For the Careers, the girls from One and Four, and both Twos. And then the volunteer from 12, the girl from 10, the deaf boy, and the gentle giant with the rocks. Eleven to go. And herself, of course. Myra pulled her poncho a little further over her face and let herself drift into a light slumber.
