Chapter Eleven: An Unexpected Replacement
Focus.
I hadn't been lying to Caesar Flickerman. When something like this is happening, there's nothing more important.
Focus.
I look around until I see Cato – he's just a few tributes away from me. I don't even allow myself to examine my surroundings until I meet the eyes of all my other allies, who, thankfully, are relatively close. Then I do look behind me, and to the sides, and I grin.
No – no emotions, not yet.
Focus.
Instead of thinking about the fact that this arena thrills me, I quickly run over the pros and cons of it in my head. Trees – that's good, I've always been a decent climber. A lake – that's more than good, we'll need a reliable source of water, and our alliance will most likely set up camp right here, unless something goes horribly wrong.
No, I won't think like that.
Focus.
The gong rings out.
Without hesitation, I leap from my plate and sprint towards the gleaming Cornucopia, immediately spotting a large knife a few yards away from me. Picking it up, I run the rest of the distance to the Cornucopia, where the rest of my allies are already waiting. Glimmer is still weaponless.
"Here," I call out to her, and pick up an axe that's lying at my feet. She hurries over to me and grabs the axe's handle gratefully.
"Clove!" Cato shouts. I whip around to face him, and he points to something lying on the ground next to Shell. It's a small pile of knives, just waiting for me.
"Thanks!" I grab all the knives that I can fit in my left hand and look around to see who was foolish enough to follow us to the mouth of the Cornucopia. And I see her – Fire Girl – she's trying to wrestle a stupid backpack away from the boy from Nine.
Best not to waste time – or knives. He doesn't see it coming, but one moment he's still fighting with Fire Girl… the next, he's on the ground, my knife in his back.
Fire Girl looks up at me, and there's nothing but pure terror in her expression.
Gotcha, I think contemptuously. I don't expect her to try and fight me, so when she jumps up as if electrocuted and sprints towards the woods, I'm not surprised in the least. My knife is faster, though.
"Damn!" I hiss furiously as Fire Girl somehow manages to protect her head with the stupid backpack. Should've killed her first, I think bitterly. But at least the boy's out of the way.
I don't follow her, though it would be easy. But right now, the rest of my allies are back there fighting, and they need my help – not that I care about that, but damn it all if they take all the glory. My glory.
Glimmer is the closest one to me – she's about to overcome the girl from Seven. "Hey there," I say dangerously to my ally's opponent. She falters momentarily, and the distraction allows Glimmer to bury the axe in her forehead.
"Good teamwork," she says, grinning. I grin back and even go as far as to high-five her.
Marvel – he and Cato are standing back-to-back, giving their all against three tributes. I rush over to them, not knowing if they need help, but needing to fight. Marvel is pretty much on his own against the girl from Three – I can't believe he hasn't managed to kill her yet – and Cato is simultaneously fighting they boy from Six and the girl from Ten.
From just ten yards away, it's easy to take aim at the boy from Six – who appears to be the bigger threat to my district partner, if not much of one – and fling the knife at him. No, not in a fatal place, yet, because Cato would kill me for stealing his victory against the tributes. The blade embeds itself in the boy's upper thigh, and he howls in pain. Cato quickly ends his life and turns his full attention to the girl, who somehow lacked the sense to run while she had the chance.
Who else is there? Shell, she's almost finished playing with the girl from Six. I hear a scream behind me and know that Cato has just defeated his other opponent. There's no sign of Zen anywhere.
"Hey, Clove," Cato drawls. I turn around to see him holding on tightly to a struggling little girl who I recognize as the one I terrorized during training. The girl from Nine.
"I thought you'd like the honor."
I smirk. "Oh dear," I say in a mock worried voice. "What are you going to do now, sweetheart?"
There are tears in the girl's eyes, and I roll my own. "Get over it, girly. Did you really think you had a chance of winning these Games?" The tears come faster. I say softly, "Well, think again."
She dies before she has a chance to scream.
It's over, apparently. There are several dead bodies scattered around us, and I smirk. That was almost too easy…
Wait. Zen's still missing.
"Where's Zen?" I ask sharply.
It's Shell who answers me. "Th – Thresh got him. Zen was fighting the boy from Seven, I think, and right after he killed him… well…"
Cato scowls. "Fantastic. We aren't even an hour into this thing and we're already an ally short of what we should be."
A new voice, one that doesn't belong with us, sounds from a few yards away. "I might be able to fix that."
Lover Boy. It's him – he's here.
Why the hell is he here?
I spring at him immediately. Glimmer rushes to help me, and within thirty seconds, he's pinned on the ground. I'm on top of him, one knee against each of his shoulders, and Glimmer holds down his legs.
"Give me one reason I shouldn't kill you this second," I whisper threateningly, "after what you said to the whole country last night?"
"Katniss," he says simply.
Oh.
"What about her?" Cato says sharply. I'm honestly surprised he hasn't killed Lover Boy yet, but he's simply stood by, watching Glimmer and me attack.
Lover Boy looks exasperated, as though we should've figured this out by now. "Oh, come on! You don't think I meant what I said last night? Please," he scoffs. "What would you have done? She's one of those people you need to have any sort of advantage over in these situations. Guess what? I do."
I exchange a shocked look with Cato. "How do we know you're telling the truth?" I spit at Lover Boy. "That you're not lying?"
He sighs. "Because the truth makes no sense. What reason would I have for liking Katniss? Back in District Twelve, we're from very different places. People like me just don't mix with people like her. I never spoke to her before the reaping!"
I meet Cato's eyes again. Could Lover Boy be telling the truth?
Marvel glares. "I don't believe him. He's just trying to get in with us, and then he'll kill us all in our sleep!"
"Yeah," Shell says angrily. "He's lying!"
I bite my lip, because I can't decide whether to believe Lover Boy or not. If he's telling us the truth, then it's obvious he's a very good liar, he must've been in order to fool us before – and, well… that's the problem. Plus, Enobaria said to kill Fire Girl and Lover Boy… I wish I could talk to her, just for a minute, and ask what she thinks about this…
"Let him stay," Cato says abruptly. I stare at him in shock – I would think that Cato, of all people, would want Lover Boy's death immediately.
Bu at the same time I know that no one will oppose his verdict.
He gives me a "Well?" look, and I hastily add, "Yes, let him stay. He might be able to help us. Since it sounds like he wants Fire Girl dead too."
Lover Boy nods. "I can't stand her. She needs to die."
"It's settled, then," Cato says shortly. "Now we need to get out of here so they can collect the bodies. Everyone grab a weapon – we're going hunting."
We spend quite a while picking out weapons. Whatever we don't take with us will be divided up later tonight, or, more likely, tomorrow morning. Cato and I will do that – I don't trust the rest of them to divide everything properly…
I search the ground for knives, and there are plenty. I grab a large backpack lying near the Cornucopia and fill it, only adding a few bottles of water in addition to the knives. Cato has some spears, and – a sword. I resist the urge to roll my eyes. No one uses swords anymore…
Glimmer has several axes tied around her waist, and a backpack slung over one shoulder. Shell has a mace, an awl, and… some rope.
"Going to make some traps for us, then?" I ask her.
She nods, smirking. "Tonight, probably, when we get back. But it's best to have this, just in case…"
Marvel only has a spear. God, I still hate him – I really can't wait until we have the number of tributes down to eight or so, and I can kill him…
Lover Boy has a spear… and a knife. "Can you use that knife, Lover Boy?" I try to sound intimidating, but I'm actually curious.
He shrugs. "Well enough." He tosses it at a tree, and it actually sticks in the bark.
I nod approvingly. "Not bad. Maybe you aren't completely useless."
"Let's go. We need to get out of here anyway, so they can collect the bodies," Cato calls.
"Wait!" Shell cries. She hurries over to the mouth of the Cornucopia and grabs something. When she returns, she has more supplies. "These might help." She tosses me something and I catch it reflexively. It's a flashlight.
"Good thinking!" I say as she hands the same thing to everyone else. I'm further impressed when she also hands out torches, which were apparently right by the flashlights. Maybe Shell isn't as bad as I initially thought.
"Okay, we're all set," Cato says. I can tell he really wants to get to the woods. "Let's go!"
So we do.
But after scouring the woods for at least four hours, we've got nothing. Nothing. Eleven tributes are dead, no more than after the bloodbath. This is bad for a lot of reasons, but one of the worst parts is that everyone's temper has become rather… short. The only excitement we have is when the faces of the dead are shown in the sky – one of them being Zen, of course – and we can celebrate our kills and congratulate each other – but that only lasts a few minutes.
"I'm freezing!" whines Shell. I agree with her, and even though I'm not stupid enough to say anything, I'm clutching my jacket around me tightly.
"Shut up!" snarls Cato. "It doesn't matter! Maybe if you quit bitching we'll actually find someone out here!"
I scowl. "Maybe we should just call it a night, Cato. I mean, we kind of wasted a lot of time picking out weapons, maybe they're all just too far ahead of us. We can try again in the morning, really early when they're all asleep…"
He shakes his head so violently that, somewhat childishly, I'm afraid it's going to fall off. "No! We'll find someone!"
And so we continue on, and I, for one, am in a bad mood.
Until we see it – a tall column of smoke rising in the distance. We all stand there in shock, for a moment, because who would be stupid enough to build a fire when it's this dark?
"What are we waiting for?" Cato roars after a moment. "Let's go!"
We don't run, not yet. The smoke is actually pretty far away, it'll take us a couple of hours to get there – and that's if we're lucky. Besides that – as much as it sucks, well, we're loud. It's not something any of us can help. Cato, Marvel, and Lover Boy especially can barely walk without making ridiculous amounts of noise. Running would alert the fire starter that we're coming before we get anywhere close to him. Or her.
It's almost dawn when we finally get there. And when we do, it's impossible not to run. Because this is our first kill of the night – or morning, depending on how you look at it – and it's so nice to finally succeed.
The girl from District Eight – the one I marked as an idiot when I watched her reaping – clearly, I was right – is still half asleep when we enter the small clearing. She sees us, then, and lets outa high-pitched shriek of horror. Glimmer and Marvel run to the other side of the clearing, so she's surrounded, and we begin to close in.
"Please!" she sobs. "Please – I don't want to die! I want to go home! Please!"
"Right," Marvel scoffs. "As if you ever had a chance! You're going to die. Stop crying about it, you can't stop us."
This only makes her cry harder. "No – no, please! I – I can help you!" the girl says feebly.
"How?" I say, pretending to consider it.
"I – I can – g-guard…"
"I don't think so," sneers Cato.
"No – no – PLEASE!"
Cato doesn't give her an easy end, a quick one. The spear enters her stomach and comes out, and she screams – loudly. But I know she's not dead right away. No cannon, for one thing. She just lies on the ground, whimpering…
Right now, Cato's not the person I've known this past week. He's the one the people of Panem were introduced to last night during his interview.
"Nice one," Marvel comments. Shell laughs.
"Twelve down and eleven to go!" Cato whoops.
I walk over to the girl – she's fallen silent – and grab the small backpack that lies beside her. It's empty. "Nothing," I say. Shell grumbles a bit, but really, we have everything we need back at camp.
"Better clear out so they can get the body before it starts stinking," Cato says. I have to grin.
We move on, but I stop when we've only gone about fifty yards. "Shouldn't we have heard a cannon by how?" I ask uncertainly.
"I'd say yes," Glimmer answers. "Nothing to prevent them from going in immediately."
"Unless she isn't dead," Marvel cuts in.
Cato glares at him. "She's dead. I stuck her myself."
"Then where's the cannon?" Shell says impatiently.
"Someone should go back," Marvel insists. "Make sure the job's done."
As much as I dislike Marvel, I have to agree with him on this one. "Yeah, we don't want to have to track her down twice."
"I said she'd dead!" Cato says furiously.
"Then why's she still lying there?" Glimmer says, pointing her flashlight in the direction of the body.
"Because she's not dead, obviously!" Marvel says, exasperated.
"Shut up already!" I tell him. He's starting to irritate me. Again.
"As if you know better, you stupid girl," he sneers.
"Don't talk to her like that!" Cato shouts.
"Yeah, Marvel, you have no place to call anyone stupid!" says Shell, scowling at him.
"We're wasting time!" I spin around – oh. It's just Lover Boy – I forgot about him. "I'll go finish her and let's move on!"
I blink at him. Why would Lover Boy volunteer to go kill the girl? He's the one that seemed the least enthusiastic while we were hunting…
"Go on, then, Lover Boy," Cato says challengingly. "See for yourself."
When he's out of sight, Marvel rounds on the rest of us. "Why don't we just kill him now and get it over with?" he hisses.
I shrug. "Let him tag along. What's the harm?" I ask rhetorically. "And he's handy with that knife." Well, judging based on one throw, but still…
"Besides, he's our best chance of finding her," Cato says in a low voice. We all know he means Fire Girl.
"Why?" asks Glimmer curiously. "You think she bought into that sappy romance stuff?" She sounds doubtful.
Shell seems irritated. "She might've. Seemed pretty simpleminded to me. Every time I think about her spinning around in that dress, I want to puke." Shell arranges her face into a naïve expression and twirls around once in a circle.
"Wish we knew how she got that eleven," I mutter resentfully.
"Bet you Lover Boy knows," Cato points out.
"Shh!" Glimmer hisses. Lover Boy's back.
"Was she dead?" asks Cato aggressively.
"No," he says, and Cato looks sullen. "But she is now." Yes, there's the cannon. "Ready to move on?"
We start running – finally. "Why don't we just head back to camp?" I say. "We can get some rest, and then we'll divide up the supplies in a few hours…"
"Good idea," Cato huffs.
It doesn't take nearly as long to get back to the lake as it did to reach the girl from Eight, since we were searching the other side of the forest. We're back at camp in less than an hour – and we're not alone.
The boy from District Three gasps when he sees us and tries to run, clutching the pack of dried beef he's just taken from the Cornucopia. But Glimmer is too fast for him.
"And where do you think you're going, exactly?" she says sweetly, catching him in a headlock.
"St – stop! I-I can – "
"Help us, right?" I scoff. "Sorry, kid, we just heard that one an hour ago. It's not going to work, unfortunately for you."
He gasps again as Glimmer throws him to the ground. "N-no, I really can!" he stutters, trying to scamper backwards, away from us.
I step in front of him. "How's that?"
The boy looks around one last time, hoping for a way out – seeing none, he blurts, "I can reactivate the land mines!"
Silence.
"What?" I gasp. "You – you can – "
"Reactivate the landmines," he says, clearly relieved that we haven't killed him yet. "To – to guard the supplies, or for whatever you want, really! District Three, we learn this kind of thing! See, I really can help!"
"Stay there," I order him, and I motion for all my allies to gather around Cato and me.
"What do you think?" I whisper.
Shell's indifferent. "I don't care. But you might want to consider the fact that there are twelve of us left, if we take him then there will only be five people we can kill."
Marvel glares at us all. "I say we kill him. I doubt he'll be able to do what he says…"
"It's settled, then," Cato announces. "He's staying." Marvel looks furious.
"You really hate him, don't you?" I mutter so that only Cato can hear. He nods tersely.
"Alright, kid. You've got three days. If it's not done by then, we're going to kill you, and that's that," Cato says to the boy.
"Thank you!" he cries. "I'll – I'll get to work right away."
"You'd better," I say sternly. To everyone else, I say, "Grab a sleeping bag and go to sleep. I'll keep watch."
We all walk over to where the tents are, and I sit down in the mouth of the Cornucopia. Cato follows me.
"You can sleep," I tell him. "Don't worry about it."
He shakes his head. "No, I'm not tired. And I'm not stupid enough to go to sleep here, for sure."
I grin. "Fair enough."
Cato sighs. "Do you think it was a good idea to let the boy stay?"
"Which one?" I ask. Without waiting for an answer, I continue. "I think Lover Boy might actually be able to help us. He really seems to hate Fire Girl. And… I know you only let the kid stay because Marvel wanted to kill him, but think about it! If he really can reactivate the landmines…" I trail off.
"Thanks, Clove," he says, smiling.
I smile back. "You know, I think this is going to be a lot easier than I thought."
The Games! I was really nervous about writing the bloodbath scene, since it's so important... I wasn't sure if I could do it justice. I'm pretty happy with how this chapter came out, though. Before anyone says anything, I know a common way of getting Peeta in with the Careers is to have him kill the boy from Four, but I don't think that's very realistic. Peeta is supposed to be good with words, so I figured he'd be able to talk his way into the alliance. Also... I know the bloodbath seemed short. Think of it this way: the time probably passed very quickly for the Careers. It wasn't really two minutes long, obviously...
Review, please! Since this is such an important chapter I need feedback! :)
~What the Quell
