A/N: Finnick's POV
Luke's words were still ringing in my brain as I got up and changed the following morning.
I was in no hurry. We didn't have to be up watching the Games in our group's typical spot on the twelfth floor until the bloodbath began, and first the tributes would have to be transported to the arena, taken to the underground area specified for them to change into their tribute outfits and receive the final bits of advice and encouragement from their stylists.
To be honest, I wasn't particularly eager to be getting up to the twelfth floor, seeing Haymitch so early in the morning.
At breakfast, Mags looked a bit ill. I almost asked her if she was feeling up to meeting with sponsors, but she went right into the schedule of meeting them, and she insisted that we meet them jointly the first day, probably thinking that it would do Luke some good if we came right out presenting a united front for the two of them. That is, if they managed to uphold that sort of vibe until lunch.
I thought that they could manage that, at the least. The bloodbath was usually an hour before lunch in the Capitol, and only so much could happen between then and lunch. Still, there was always the potential that Ligeia would try to kill all the other Careers during the bloodbath. Stella would have done it, if she'd had a chance to try. But I thought Ligeia would be smarter than her cousin, more cautious, ultra-aware of how the other tributes perceived her and the importance of gaining their trust, especially after what her cousin had done.
I would have to ask Cashmere if it was difficult for her, following in Gloss's footsteps. It seemed to me that having a family member compete before could cause a lot of pressure, particularly in Career districts. That would have to wait until later, though, because Mags and I were due on the twelfth floor for the start of the Games.
Scarlett was sitting on the edge of a sofa, next to Haymitch, staring blankly at the screen and I perched myself on the arm of the sofa, kissing the top of her head.
"Good morning," I said softly. "Did you not sleep well?"
She just shrugged as the other mentors began taking bets on who would be killed first and who would have the first kill.
"I'm telling you," Jonas, from District Eight, insisted, "it's going to be Vin. We were right last year, weren't we?"
"All the more reason why we're not betting on yours this year," Chaff from District Eleven laughed. "What do you think, Haymitch, Ken or Becky?"
"Ken," Haymitch said with a slur already. "Becky's got some spunk. Plus, I think she's going to latch onto Draven, and that'll get her some protection."
"Does Draven actually have any allies?" I asked. "Or is he just flirting with everyone under the sun?"
"Girls are stupid," Scarlett said flatly. "I'm sure Charlotte's going to be the first to do his bidding."
I raised an eyebrow at her, but Scarlett said no more. It was frustrating, sometimes, how eager she was to say some things and how closed off she was about others. Finally, I leaned forward and whispered, "You know, if you don't brighten up that sullen expression, the sponsors aren't going to be too keen to keep Charlotte alive."
"I don't care," she hissed, and I saw Haymitch tense beside her, as well as Blight, who was apparently listening from down the sofa.
"You don't mean that," I whispered, but she didn't answer, and I got the feeling that she really did.
"Here we go," Alondra said, hushing us as the tributes began to rise onto their discs.
The arena was filled with sand, bushes, and boulders. There would be little hiding in this climate, and I imagined that there was very little water accessible, just as I had told Luke. I felt bad, almost like I'd jinxed it.
Luke was standing between Ida and Charlotte. As the sixty seconds were counting down, I scanned the Cornucopia. Just about every weapon I'd ever seen was there for the taking.
"Now this is going to be an interesting set of Games," Haymitch whispered. "No water, very little food… Nowhere to hide. This could be even quicker than yours, Finnick."
"Could be," I said. "Or they could find some way to drag it out for weeks."
"Bets on the length?" Callie asked. "I'm going for a week and a half."
"Two and a half," Chaff countered.
"You're on," she laughed.
"Here we go," Scarlett said in a dull voice, and we turned back to the screen to see the last five seconds of the countdown before the mines were deactivated and the bloodbath began.
When the tributes were signaled that the Games had begun, they took off running. Luke got his hands on a knife rather quickly and Ida was the first to die. What surprised us all was the rest of the bloodbath: only three deaths. Daisy killed Cephalus with a hand axe. Catriona did the ultimate turncoat move and ran Violet through with a sword, and Maggie managed to get Blake in the neck with a hand axe. All three of them, plus Charlotte, ran off with Draven, who hadn't even lifted a finger in his defense, grabbing a length of rope and filling a pack with as many weapons as he could get his hands on.
I blinked.
"Did that just happen?" I asked, staring in awe at the screen, wondering if Draven had truly just pulled off what I thought he had.
"Well," Blight said, "on the bright side, Luke made a kill. That'll be helpful in negotiations."
"You know what else?" Mags said with an almost sinister smile. "You're going to have to work with Rayne."
Callie groaned and Blight winced, but Scarlett just blinked at the screen. Neither of us had met Rayne, so I wasn't sure what was so bad about her. I knew she'd won just after Lyme, so maybe Lyme would know how to deal with her, but other than the fact that she was an expert archer, I knew nothing.
In actuality, Blight wouldn't have to work with Rayne at all. Cephalus had died. Charlotte was Scarlett's responsibility, but even beyond the fact that it was customary for both tributes to work on behalf of the surviving tribute once one died in their district, I was fairly certain that Blight felt like it was his responsibility to help Scarlett, since she was so not herself lately.
Four cannons sounded and we watched as Finley and Luke went off in one direction, Sebastien and Ligeia in the other. Draven and his harem were heading off in still another direction, and all three hunting groups were searching for stray tributes.
Within ten minutes, Finley had run Haymitch's boy through with a javelin. Five minutes later, Charlotte bludgeoned the girl from District Five with a mace.
"Well," I said, blinking at the screen, "she's certainly got a lot of… aggression."
"Yeah," Scarlett said, staring at the screen as the corpse at Charlotte's feet trickled blood all over the sand and a cannon sounded. "She certainly does."
"You realize we're going to have to deal with Gloss and Brutus without Lyme?" I complained to Mags from across the room. She nodded with a small smile and Callie playfully tossed an apple at me for complaining about the sort of problems most mentors would love to have.
No, it wasn't fair that my tributes came pre-trained and told their whole lives how to hand the Games while most of the tributes barely knew what descent bread looked like, but I wasn't going to tread lightly around the issue. They were adults, most of them well older than me, and they could certainly handle it.
There was more tracking and following and I found myself wishing away the moments until lunch arrived, despite the interaction with sponsors it would bring. For one, I was hungry and for another, I needed a break from the already minimal bloodshed. Each year the Games seemed to be just a little bit harder to stomach and I understood why Mags was so tired, so ready for her time as a Mentor to be over, even though she hadn't served as a mentor every year since her own victory.
Luke came onto to screen and I sat forward a bit. He and Finley were tracking Chaff's tribute, who had gone off past Haymitch's boy, being just a bit faster. He'd even managed to grab a pack, but we hadn't seen what was in it yet.
"Damn it," Chaff sighed. "Here we go, another year and nothing."
We chucked awkwardly, but I had a feeling it must be frustrating, getting attached year after year and getting no results. I couldn't remember the last time District Eleven had won the Games.
"What do you think?" Finley hissed, watching as the boy from Eleven panted on the rock he'd stopped on from behind the boulder guarding Luke and Finley from his sight.
"Well, if you hadn't left the javelin in the boy from Twelve I'd say you take him," Luke whispered back, "because I can't throw to save my life."
"Not even from this distance?"
Luke shook his head, narrowing his eyes.
"Do you think he's armed?"
Finley tipped his head from side to side as if to say that he couldn't tell. He narrowed his eyes, leaning a little bit closer.
"Nothing obvious," he said finally, "but there's certainly space to hide a knife or two in these things. Did you see him when he was at the Cornucopia?"
Luke shook his head again and said, "No, once I got Ida I got a bit distracted by Catriona's betrayal."
"To be honest," Finley said with a dark smirk, "I was sure it was going to be Ligeia, betraying us, although I didn't think it would happen so early."
"Yeah, well, keep your wits about you, it's still early," Luke snorted. "She saw through Draven, unlike the other girls, apparently. Except for Finnick, where she's got an understandable blind spot, Ligeia's quite a good judge of character."
I smirked. She probably was, but if she couldn't get through her brain the fact that I was working to help her, she couldn't be too great of a judge. But then, Luke made an excellent point: She had a blind spot. We all had blind spots. For example, Scarlett didn't seem to understand just how intriguing she was, if her self-derisive remarks after Draven's announcement of devotion to her were what she really thought of herself.
Draven…. It boggled my mind completely that he was still able to get all of those girls to do his bidding, even after his declaration of love for Scarlett. Perhaps he'd told them about it in advance, told them it was part of his strategy for the sponsors and not to pay attention to it. And perhaps it was a strategy, but I certainly believed him, and I figured that most of Panem bought it, as well.
But then, Luke was right about that, Ligeia saw through Draven, and she was an excellent judge of character. I think anyone who saw my Games would be able to attest that my personal scale for character was a bit off. After all, I'd allied myself with Alana, even if she had been allies with Lila.
"All right, well sitting here isn't going to get him killed," Luke sighed. "Be ready to cover me, in case something happens."
"What am I supposed to do?" Finley snapped. "I haven't got a weapon!"
"You've got hands, yes?" Luke hissed back, aggravated. "Use them! Distract him! I don't care, just catch him off guard and you'll be fine. Honestly, I'm sure Ligeia and Sebastien aren't having these arguments."
"No, they're probably eating each other's faces off," Finley said with a grin. "Did you see the way he was looking at her in that dress last night?"
"Ugh," Luke spluttered softly. "Please don't say that. You know we're going to have to live with them, probably for weeks. I'd rather ignore that any such disgustingness is occurring, thank you very much."
"You can't deny she's hot," Finley reasoned.
"No, I can't," Luke agreed, "but I can certainly ignore what she may or may not be doing with Sebastien in their spare time. It's really not any of our business, and it's a bit disturbing that you sit around thinking about it."
I rolled my eyes, wondering when they would stop being stupid teenage boys and get on with it.
"All right, then," Luke sighed. "Now's the time. Tell you what, I've got a better plan now. You gather up some of these smaller rocks, go around that way, and toss them at him as you move in a circle away from here, distracting him from me. I'll get him from behind."
"That could work," Finley muttered, impressed, and I could hear a few male victors grunting in agreement.
Finley gathered up a handful of small rocks and started moving away, getting about twenty paces from Luke before tossing them in ten second intervals as he scooped up more with the other hand. With the distraction, Luke crept forward, unnoticed by Chaff's boy. I watched with bated breath as he neared his opponent, heard only too late as the boy turned, spotted Luke, and lunged, right onto Luke's waiting knife. Luke pushed him off, held him on the ground, and slit his throat thoroughly, not leaving any chances of a comeback by this boy. The cannon sounded and Luke and Finley rested, looking at the boy and using sand to clean of Luke's knife before moving along.
"Glad that's over," Luke said, his voice a bit shakier than it had been while they were discussing the kill prior to enacting it.
"You did well," Finley said with a grin. "Kid never had a chance. Do you remember where we were supposed to meet up with the others?"
Luke shook his head.
"Probably just head back to guard the supplies, make sure none of the others are trying to get at it while we're gone. We're going to have to come up with a better system than this for protecting it, you know. Wanna pile it up, maybe think of some traps?"
"Sure," Finley said with a shrug. "Let's go."
At that point, those of us who still had tributes alive and in the running had to go schmooze with the sponsors. I overheard several people on my way in asking Blight where Scarlett was and he looked incredibly uncomfortable.
Of course, more time oozing charm left me wanting little more than to take a long, cold shower, but instead I went straight back to the screen where Scarlett was sitting, staring, knowing that there was every possibility that I might miss something important if I stopped to take a shower.
"How's everyone doing?" I asked, sitting down on the couch beside Scarlett.
"Nothing new," Scarlett said with a shrug. "Luke and Finley are having a really tough time of getting the food together. The lizards are giving them the fight of their lives."
"Nobody's died since I left?" I asked.
"No, not yet," she sighed. "They were right about Ligeia and Sebastien, they're flirting up a storm. It's disgusting."
"What, you don't approve of flirting your way to a win?" I teased. "I thought all pretty girls were willing to take that strategy."
Haymitch, who had just come in and sat down growled, "Cut it out, Luke. Someone's about to get killed."
I didn't have time to be upset with him because Haymitch was right, Draven had used a rope to lasso Ronan's boy and was standing over him with a longsword, his female helpers off behind him.
Draven didn't waste a moment saying anything to his whimpering victim, but simply decapitated him, pulled the rope off when the cannon sounded, and cleaned off his sword with sand as he went.
"Don't like it," he snapped, handing the sword to Daisy. "We'll try the harpoon next time."
The casual way Draven handled his kills made me uneasy, just like the casual way he treated the girls he'd collected to do his bidding. The other person who looked uneasy every time he came on the screen was Scarlett, but she didn't seem anything but uneasy lately. The other mentors filed back in, gathering around the screen, bragging about their acquisitions of sponsors for their tributes.
The screen then turned to Freya, Draven's district partner who had been left to fend for herself. From the looks of things, she hadn't managed to acquire anything during the bloodbath and she was shivering, stumbling along the desert, obviously thirsty from the way she kept smacking her lips.
Freya stumbled across a bit of water, a sort of muddy spring, and I held my breath, hoping she had the good sense not to drink something so obviously unclean, no matter how thirsty she was, but it appeared that Freya was probably lacking in sense because she hadn't even gone a full day yet without water. There was no way she should be thirsty enough to put her lips to that liquid, but she did it anyway.
It was a painful few minutes, watching her gulp down water until she started getting sick. For almost an hour we watched as she retched into the sand beside her little pond of bad water before her body went still in the sand and a cannon sounded.
"That was quite fast," Mags commented. "I would have thought she could have held on until morning. Either she's weak or that water's got some sort of Capitol poison in it."
"Probably both," Haymitch snorted.
It didn't escape my notice the blankness in Scarlett's eyes as the hovercraft scooped up Freya's pale body. She wasn't even a little be fazed.
