A/N: A warning for the easily grossed-out: this chapter contains somewhat of a really creepy-ish description of bad frostbite. Read at your own risk.
The next morning, I'm awakened by Pomp shaking me. "Gooooooood morning good morning good morning!" he says enthusiastically, in a sing-songey voice. I sit up and rub my eyes, shivering. Unfortunately, it's only getting colder and colder each day. Marcella stays curled up in her sleeping bag, eyes practically frozen open from being on watch all night.
Pleasure jitters so much I can hear her trying to stop, clenching her teeth and rubbing her heavily coated arms. Sampson stays in his sleeping bag but grunts to let Pomp know he's awake.
How is Pomp not freezing!?
He gets up and jumps around. "I'm super excited to go hunting today! I've been doing some exercising to keep my body heat up, and it's working! K-Kinda…" he says, shivering. Meanwhile, I've given up trying to feel my hands and feet. I have no idea if Marlowe is still near or not, and I don't know how she's handling the cold without having made a fire. It's a necessity, now that it's so much colder.
"So let's get our morning fire made, shall we?! And let-t's get up 'nd at 'em!"
I get up, shivering so badly I can't control my vocal chords and I continually whimper. "Right-t." I light a match, feeling absolutely miserable for the first time since we got here. Well, maybe not the first time, but…
My thoughts are interrupted when the fire blazes to life and I practically embrace it. The warmth isn't really much, but it feels wonderful all the same. I want to take off my gloves and dry my wet hands, but I have nothing to dry them with so I guess I'll just have to accept the snow that falls into them.
Soon, my alliance is huddled around the fire, shoulder to shoulder, warming up various body parts and sighing and humming with relief. I know how they feel. After a small breakfast, we spend just a couple more blissful moments by the heat before putting it out and looking for smoke. We see a couple assorted fires, when suddenly something catches my eye.
A beeping silver glint, and it's falling to a spot far enough away from the alliance to know that it's not for us, but close enough for us to know that there is someone very very close.
No.
I can't let them go after Marlowe.
"Did you guys see that!?" Pomp asks, smiling and jumping up. "Let's go! Someone's right by us, this is the best opportunity we've gotten this entire Games!"
I let them get Reuben, and I promised him I'd protect Marlowe, I can't let this happen.
But what do I say!? If I say anything, they'll become suspicious! The others are soon up and packing the supplies.
Meanwhile, I start to panic. What can I do to get them away from her!?
Pomp urges everyone along, looking excited. I suppose the others have gotten impatiently bloodthirsty.
"Let's go!" he says, as soon as Marcella's done rolling up her sleeping bag.
It's now or never, and I'm just going to have to wing it. I have to do this, for both of my allies, no matter what happens. Besides, I'm always right. We don't want another Lucy occurrence, though I wouldn't feel ready for one ever again.
I don't want to torture another individual for as long as I live, however long that is. The possibility of death becomes more and more real to me every day that tributes die. One day, I could be one of those faces in the sky… The thought makes my stomach turn.
The others start running.
I take a deep breath and then call, "Wait!"
The others turn and face me, looking annoyed and angry. They're just as miserable as I am, I can tell, but the difference is that they're ready to take it out on tributes. As the days without a kill pass, they all get more and more bloodthirsty. More and more tension is building. Someday, someday soon, it's going to snap.
And I have to make sure that I'm the one to snap it, so I can meet up with Marlowe.
Anyways, Pomp, Pleasure, Sampson, and Marcella stare at me, waiting for me to explain to them why we shouldn't go kill someone who's less than five feet away from us.
And suddenly, very suddenly, I get a reason.
We hear screams, loud screams, right by us, and I don't know how that worked out but my ass was just saved. "Come this way," I tell them, "The tribute with the parachute probably got away already, we can find them later." It takes all of my willpower to say them and not her.
See, I always pretended to be a terrible liar back home, when I actually lie extremely well, especially when my life: and a frie- an ally's life are in danger.
Dutch and Dad never saw through my real lies because they were convinced I could never lie with a straight face. It's why they never knew how much I really trained ("What'd you do while we were out, Os?" "Ah, just sat at home.") or about my letter, or my intentions to volunteer, or worst of all, my real emotions ("Yeah, I'm fine. Really, everything's perfect.") Really, you've seen my lying expertise, I've spent this whole couple of weeks lying. To my family and friends, to my brother, to the Capitol interviewer, to my escort, to my "alliance"…Oh dear…And Dutch and Dad never knew.
So, I guess this is the official end of that act.
I go towards the sound of the screaming, and the others follow. By the sound, I can tell whoever we're about to kill is a boy, the voice is too high for it to be Lanchester… I think either Glitch or Chase. My stomach feels sick as I try to decide which one I'd rather it be. I mean, thinking about Glitch's story makes my heart break, but I had a real conversation with Chase. I joked with Chase, I made him smile and laugh, I complimented his hook and made him blush bright red.
When we get closer, all running now, I can make out a figure lying in the snow up ahead. Upon getting even closer, I see a lilac coat lying across from the body and a dark purple T-shirt with it. My eyebrows shoot up as we approach the now-shirtless figure.
I try to think back to come up with an explanation of why. Then I remember, back in the Academy, when they told us about freezing to death. They had said that, when it gets to a certain point, after the hallucinations and suffering, the person's body suddenly feels like it's on fire. It's just a common thing when you're freezing to death…
He lies face-down in the snow. His bare back is blotched with purple and blue areas, with some red clumps.
I kneel and Sampson kneels next to me. I brush the copper hair away gently. "Chase?" He obviously can't be saved. But maybe… Maybe…
"He's not breathing," Sampson says, in a loud voice. I blink in surprise at hearing him say it, and he helps me roll the 14-year-old over to make absolute sure. I wonder if they're intentionally delaying the cannon.
Seeing the face makes me gasp and practically fall backwards. His nose is dark purple, his cheeks blotched dark red and dark purple, his lips almost matching the color. I know I need to tear my eyes away from him and stop looking, but it's just so hard.
His cannon roars and I almost want to throw up. When I finally tear my glance away from him to the other three, they look pissed. Sampson drops Chase gently into the snow with a small shiver, but he's holding it together so I need to do the same thing.
"Look, I'm sick of these tributes dying on their own! We came here to kill people, and I'm starting to get pretty pissed off because we haven't," Marcella says, scowling, "Maybe Lucy was right."
The others stare at her with slightly scared glances and wide eyes. Obviously none of them are in the mood to discuss what happened the other day. I'm still not.
But, this time, Pomp doesn't come to my defense. He just scowls and says, "Well, we've got a body here, and I need to mutilate something. And it's not going to be you guys. Yet."
"Good idea," I say quietly, trying to get them to like me again, even if it's just for a little while. "We're all crabby and upset, and we need to get it out now."
The others raise their weapons, looking more bloodthirsty and insane than I thought they could ever look. Pomp charges, but Sampson grabs him by the hood and says, "Wait!" in his shouting-voice, which is still shocking.
"What, you too!?" Pomp whines.
"Let's find Miss Sponsor." Sampson starts walking without another word and my stomach does another somersault.
How much does he know!? Does he really know Marlowe's been tailing us this whole time!?
Impossible. He just can't know. She's been careful, and not even watchful Pomp has found her. Besides, if Sampson had seen her, he would have sent someone after her or killed her by now. He has no reason to keep her alive like I do.
We walk back to our camp and keep walking, Pomp angrily shouting at us to go faster. My stomach growls like it has been all morning, so finally, Pomp lets us stop for lunch. I can see footprints in the snow that have to be Marlowe's, but she's gone from her spot.
"Got away," Pomp grumbles, as we cook some freshly-killed rabbit meat. I'm glad he had something to kill, because he seems calmer now.
"I was right then," I mumble to myself, loud enough that the others could accidentally hear.
Pomp grunts, nodding ever-so-slightly.
"They might've gotten away when we went to the dead-end from Nine," Marcella grumbles, but I ignore this. We cook and eat in silence after that, not wanting to talk. We keep our eyes on the fires: by now there are about three of them: and there's a mutual determination to kill the rest of these tributes. I want these Games to end so I can go home and be warm again, because God, it's cold.
We set off toward a fire as soon as we're done eating, but find nothing for the rest of the day. The others grumble but I keep trying to stay positive, letting them kill any animals we find, no matter how bloody and useless the meat is afterward. Sampson seems to have at least a little control over his blood-thirstiness, but Pomp and both girls really don't.
We walk along the woods, and I let Pomp and the girls kill any wildlife we come across. It calms all of them down considerably.
Suddenly, I see something up ahead and grin. Surely this will silence them.
Pomp is the second to see it: or, should I say, them.
"Footprints!" he says, suddenly snapping into his chipper self again.
"Hell yes!" even Marcella smiles.
"Well, come on you guys!" We all start to follow the trail of the footsteps, hoping it really is from a tribute, but not Marlowe, and not from some wild animal.
"This is so mysterious!" Pomp says to me, as we each stay on one side of the holes in the deep snow.
"Yeah, sure is," I say, feeling much more comfortable than this morning.
"It's like we're on an old detective show!"
"Huh?"
He grins brightly and says, in a suspiciously Capitol-sounding accent, "Come on, Watson!"
I smile and play along, even though I have no idea what he's talking about. (What the hell is a Watson, anyways? He said it's some super-old TV show but I dunno, it sounds like a toaster brand or something.)
After an evening of following footprints and hunting animals, everyone is on higher spirits than they were this morning as we eat dinner around a blessed fire.
The sun sets and we set up camp for the night, eating a very late dinner by the fire, and then Sampson and I staying up and the others dozing off.
I sit up in my sleeping bag. It's much too cold to sleep without it. Soon, the District 4 boy does the same.
Images of Chase's dead body flash before my eyes, and they make me cringe. I remember seeing him smile brightly, not even a week before. I can practically feel my heart break in my chest, and my eyes sting unpleasantly in the cold as tears push their way to the corners of them.
I adjust my glasses and glance over at the other Career, who looks a little like he's struggling to keep his eyes open.
If only he would fall asleep, I think, So I could talk to Marlowe.
The only flaw in our plan of meeting up is that our alliance keeps watch in twos. Sometime soon, I'll have to convince them that we can do it in ones. Thinking Sampson's basically asleep, I get up, ready to sneak off, but he grunts in question. I jump, but my brain comes up with something speedy quick and I speak before thinking about it, "I have to pee real bad." Part of me wants to facepalm (our alliance has scheduled bathroom breaks), but the other part is convinced that was genius. He doesn't question it, and I go off into the woods.
I know this is a bad idea, but I can't help it. I need to find her. I walk a little bit deeper in the forest, and I can see her sleeping, blending in with the rock she's laying on top of. I see she has a blanket wrapped tightly around her, and figure that was what was in her parachute.
"Marlowe," I whisper, as quiet as I can. She sits straight up, eyes wide, looking sleep-deprived. I'm sure you have to be when you're by yourself.
"Os," she whispers, "What are you doing here?!"
"I don't have much time… But I think the time for us to get together is soon."
I hear a rustle in the bush and my heart stops. Marlowe dashes back to her rock. After a pause, I see her lips move again.
Tomorrow?
I nod and whisper, "Tomorrow."
Then I go back to Sampson and sit down.
We sit in silence for a while before I say, "What a day it was… Today…" I force it out even though there's a huge knot in my stomach.
He nods silently.
"Why'd you stop them? From mutilating the body?" I stare up at the crystal clear sky. The bright white moon. The pretty stars.
"Hm?"
"Why?" I ask again.
He mumbles something that I think was about a funeral.
"What?"
"Nobody should have to see 'im mutilated." It's quiet but I can hear it this time. Sampson's voice is interesting, probably because I'm still not used to hearing it.
"That was very brave of you. Very... Uh… Valiant." I don't like to use Dutch's middle name as an adjective, but it's the only word that comes to mind.
He just shrugs, mumbling so quietly I can't hear half his words and I'm right next to him, "Victors' lives are already fucked up. Let's not fuck it up more than it has to."
"That's why I volunteered, you know? So that Dutch wouldn't have to live that life by himself." I know he's not by himself, really, but I don't care.
He glances over at me, and I get a glimpse of what his green eyes look like when they're not rock-hard.
I keep talking, feeling odd at this exchange, "But I've see Victors' lives. They're terrible. I can't believe people like Pomp, nice, sweet people… Why would they want to live it?"
Sampson takes a breath and practically mouths the words, "'Cause that's how they were raised. We weren't raised like you. They don't even know what a Victor's life is." He raises his voice slightly, as if those words weren't meant for me to hear. "Ignorance is bliss."
Suddenly, we hear quiet beeping. Two slim parachutes fall from the sky and land on the snow next to us. I pick the one up that landed by me and open it. There's a cup there, and the way it's sealed makes me think it's something warm.
When I pick it up, I realize that it's hot. It think it's hot chocolate. Looking over, I see that Sampson got the same thing. I take out the note, eager to see Dutch's handwriting.
Cheers. –Dutch
I didn't realize I whispered it until Sampson mutters, "Mine says the same thing. But it's from Sal."
There's only one thing left to do, after I put the note in my pocket with the first one.
I hold out my glass. "Cheers."
He hits his against mine and mumbles, "Cheers."
I drink the hot chocolate, smiling and letting myself get lost in how good the warm drink feels and how good the chocolate tastes after being deprived of it for so long. I think about how the Capitol won't be happy about us talking like that on TV.
The thought escapes my mind as we stay up, waiting for the right time to wake up Pleasure and Marcella so we can get some rest. When we finally make sure both girls are awake and alert, I finally close my eyes and black out.
I'm haunted by nightmares. Chase's frozen body, lying in the snow. His screams. Pomp's insane spell. Even myself torturing Lucy, and Reuben dying… The past days all morph in my head into one terrifying nightmare.
However, I'm snapped out of it quite suddenly.
"Guys, get up," Marcella says, staring at us with crazy eyes.
The sky is barely even bright enough to call it dawn. I'm about to complain but then I hear the reason she and Pleasure woke us up so fast.
I look at Pomp and his eyes widen in horror.
"Mutts."