A/N- If you don't remember, Qwinne is Reno's sister. Also, a thank you to ForeverAdrian for betaing for me while my regular beta's away at camp!
Chapter 10
Reno Serman, District 10
Well, I'm doing pretty well so far, Qwinne. Fifteen of us now. It's still a lot, when you think of it. Actually, it almost feels like more than twenty-four. I guess it's because now people, lots of people, have died, and the odds are still against me. Or as the president said last year, not, "in my favor". But then again, wishing anybody in the Hunger Games luck is already too little too late. The odds have been against them already, when they were drawn. But I appreciate the sentiment, I guess. Not that she means it. Not that anybody but my family and friends want me back. There's no compassion for the strangers here. It's every man for himself and his loved ones.
The following segment has been removed from public record. Clearance level eight required. To access this selection, please click here and enter your passcode. I apologize for the inconvenience.
You need to tell mom not to give up, too. She was never with us when we whispered out dreams of a better life to each other. She's given up, I'm pretty sure. Mom has accepted the rule of the Capitol. Maybe that's safer, but it's not going to fix anything.
I sigh. It's out of my hands now, I think. Even if I survive and become famous and rich and respected, what am I supposed to do? All eyes will be on me. Well, Wrianin Abro and me. But I won't be able to organize any rebellions any time soon. Heck, I won't be able to fart at the dinner table without some tabloid making a huge deal about my table manners. Can you believe it? They really do make a fuss about stuff like that. They have time to gossip and be frivolous. Time and money. Two things that you can never have at the same time in the Districts, or at least in 10. You either work all day to support yourself, or go hungry for an extra hour with your family. But these people have everything they want. I don't understand it. Really, why can't we just spread that wealth around? If I win, I will. No child in District 10 will go hungry as long as I've got money in my pocket.
But that's an "if". There's still that number. Fifteen. Fourteen of which have to die. My head swims. I'm not so good with numbers. But then again, you already know that. You heard only too many fights between mom and me about my math grades. But it's really okay. My biology was pretty good, and I probably could still have gotten a job as a vet. But now I won't. One way or the other.
Could you imagine what it would be like to be so rich, Qwinne? Grewwen would pay attention to you then, I'm sure. But we'd just turn our noses up at him, because he's never deserved you. Or any other poor girl in District 10. And yes, I know he's "soooooooo handsome", but beyond that, what value does he have as a person, as a husband? Not much as far as I can see. I'm sure you'll get over him. It's just sort of a question of outgrowing little crushes. Though I'm sure you'd object to the term "little crush". But that's really all it is. All most kids our age are capable of. We're just not mature enough to really have that level of commitment, really.
Maturity is one thing the Hunger Games will give you. When you always have to fight for your life at the expense of others, it's a little hard to retain that wide-eyed innocence. And there's really no point in trying. Maybe it'd be fun to pretend, like a little vacation, but it won't solve anything.
Try to find some solutions back home. For you, for mom, for getting over Grewwen. You can't run from problems, because they're faster than you are. You have to go out and fix them. Do it for me.
Mattrick Brint, District 4
Despite Berra and my little heart-to-heart yesterday, nothing has changed. I thought I was really getting through to her. She seemed like she was really listening, really understanding for once. But now she's ignoring me when she isn't insulting me, just like she always has. I'm still holding on to the hope that maybe, just maybe, she'll someday get over the fact that I support our government, even now.
I do, don't I?
I push the thought out of my head. I've been raised to trust the Capitol. Throwing that into question does the same to pretty much my entire upbringing. I've never questioned them before. I'm not about to start now.
We've reached where Berra wanted us to go. As far as I can tell, she's crazy. I don't see anything about this tree that would make it so important to her. With our experience with arena trees, you'd expect her to stay away from them, not seek them out. But whatever. If that's what's going to make her happy, then we'll hang out in the tree. As long as she keeps us fed, I can put up with a weird quirk or two.
She's even more twitchy than usual since we got here, though. It doesn't seem like getting here has made her feel any better. I don't see what her problem is. Probably she's keeping a secret from me, about what I have no idea. But I'm not going to ask. As much as she insists she hates me, I don't think she's planning to stab me in my sleep. I hope she's not. But she seems like an honest girl, so betraying me would be pretty out of character for her. I'm really not too worried.
Berra rubs the tree trunk anxiously. I don't know what she's so worked up about. Honestly, sitting around in a tree doing nothing doesn't seem so bad to me. Actually, it's kind of boring. But it's peaceful, which is good. I almost tease her about being hyperactive, but then decide not to. Knowing Berra she'll find some way to turn that into a deadly insult. I don't feel like dealing with that at the moment. Or, you know, at all.
I wish Berra didn't hate me so much. I saw her talking to some of the other girls, and with her District partner, back in the holding building before the Games. She seemed nice, and smart, and brave. And I can still see that person when her mouth is shut and she's not glaring at me. I'm a pretty good judge of character, and I'd like her if she didn't hate me. But she does.
I watch her out of the corner of my eye. If I look at her normally she'll make some nasty remark. She'll snap at me if I look at her, trip, say anything, sneeze, snore, or basically do anything at all to remind her that I'm still around. I try to be as quiet as possible, but she always finds something to be mad about. I'm pretty sure she looks for things to be mad about. If she didn't find anything, I wouldn't put it past her to make something up. But the silence is killing me, so I decide to strike up a conversation, whether she likes it or not. Probably not.
"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" I ask abruptly.
She looks at me with disgust. "Why do you care?"
"Because I'm bored," I answer honestly.
"Well, excuse me for not being entertaining enough!" She growls. I sigh.
"Look, Berra. It's just a question. Can't you just answer like a normal human being? I swear, why do you need to make everything into a fight?" I say wearily.
"I have an older brother," she says shortly.
I wait for her to ask me but, unsurprisingly, she says nothing.
"It's considered polite to ask me too," I point out.
"Fine."
"Well?"
"You really are annoying."
"Well?"
"Fine! Do you have any stupid brothers or sisters?"
"Nope."
"Then why did you make me ask you?"
"For the sake of conversation," I say.
She groans in exasperation but I interrupt her by asking, "What is your brother like?"
"He'd hate you," she begins, and I have to hold back a sigh, "But he loves me. He's too old for the reaping now. I know he'd protect me if he could, but there's nothing he can do against the Capitol. He was crying when he came to see me after I got reaped. I'd never seen him cry before.
"He's engaged now. His fiancée's name is Omi. She's really sweet; she's almost like a sister to me. I don't usually like my brother's girlfriends, but she's wonderful. I'm glad they're getting married."
"How long have they been engaged?" I ask, glad that I seem to have eased her into a topic that she cares enough about to discuss with me.
"Since last month. They've been dating for about a year and a half. For Herbert, that's my brother's name, that's a really long time. That's how I know he's serious. He's cheated on his girlfriends before," her face darkens, "They were almost all nasty people though, so I never felt too bad for them. But he'll never hurt Omi. You can just tell when he looks at her. I'm really glad. She doesn't deserve to be hurt."
"She sounds really nice," I say.
"She is. All of my family is," Berra says, and the falls silent. I smile. She doesn't ask me anything about my family, but I don't really mind. That's the most civil conversation we've had in…ever.
I sneeze.
"Shh! You want to get us killed? Shut up!"
I sigh. The nicest conversation we've had in a long time, and might for quite some time. I glance at her briefly.
"What?"
Yup. Looks like it.
Hary Lumer, District 2
Three trades so far. One with the boy from 5 and the girl from 1, one with the girl from 6 (who followed me around for a while after that. She doesn't seem to understand that a "business transaction" doesn't mean you're friends. But she seemed really nice. It's too bad), and one with that guy from 3. I must admit, I feel bad that he died the same day I treated him. I hope it wasn't my fault. But maybe that would be a good strategy: Pretend to heal them and really kill them quietly. I tuck that thought away. Could come in handy.
I shuffle through my pack. I feel like a real doctor with my bag full of medicine. I smile. It's nice that I got to be a doctor, even with the Hunger Games. I would have gotten into college for sure. Top 7% in my class, more than high enough than the 50% you needed to go on to another level of higher education. I probably would have gotten a really top-level job, although I might not have gotten to actually become a doctor in the Capitol. My fingers twitch with just the idea of that most coveted job. Even with short shifts in the Capitol, seldom more than three months at a time, really good doctors could make a killing. Or even better, a living. I think that may be the real reason us in District 2 are so happy to let things go the way they have been. We get breaks like none of the other Districts. We're grateful, like anyone would be. Sorry if you can't relate with that.
I took almost everything I could from the cornucopia. Medical supplies were at the top of my priority list, because I knew I could get the most use out of them of anyone here. I highly doubt that Eewyn's above 8%, and nobody else here could possibly know as much about medicine as kids from the medicine District. That'd just be ridiculous.
Everything looks to be in order. When I've got nothing else to do I shuffle through my pack, memorizing the shiny Capitol labels and the long list of active chemicals. I'm surprised to see how many I don't recognize. But I know what the medicines do, and the unknown ingredients don't bother me. I love a good mystery, and it'll give me something to wonder about between cases. Maybe if I compare the different labels and the purposes of the medicines I can even figure out what exactly the chemicals are supposed to do. Perfect. I have a little game to keep me busy.
I rub my hands together and begin to dig around in the bag. I pull out a small bottle of pills for fever. I dive into the long list of letters and measurements, comparing them to the others in the bag. Just when I feel a breakthrough coming on, the anthem interrupts me. No faces today, but the tune makes it too hard to concentrate. Oh well. It's for the better. It got dark so slowly that I didn't realize how much I'd been straining my eyes to read the label.
I replace the medicines carefully, maneuvering through my bag by feel. I'll have to leave the mysteries of my medicine bag un-cracked for the day. Oh well. That just means there are more of them for tomorrow.
Day eight.
Winona Sweet, District 6
I really hope he doesn't hurt me. He has Roe with him, so he must be a good person to be taking care of her like that. I think we're actually a lot alike, although I'm smarter by at least…a lot, really. Roe's nice, but it's not very hard to be smarter than her. But we're both nice and kind and maybe he'll like me too.
He's a lot stronger than me, which is about as hard to do as being smarter than Roe, and I know that if I fight with him I'll lose. So my only hope is that he'll be my friend, or that I can outrun him if he won't. I hope he'll be my friend, though. I don't want to be lonely. I tried to make friends with the District 2 boy, but he just fixed my scrape and went away. I wish he would have stayed, because he seemed really nice. I saw a couple of other people too, but they all ran before I could tell whom they were. They must be lonely too, so I don't know why they wouldn't talk to me. They weren't scared of me, were they? I wouldn't hurt anybody.
"Who are you?" He growls. I whimper, and his hands twitch a little, warning me that I better answer him or else.
"W-Winona Sweet," I whisper.
"From?" He asks, still looking at me in that scary way.
"District 6," I choke back.
His eyes look different for a moment, kind of like he's thinking about something far away from here. Probably just about Wrianin Abro. He's the only person from District 6 that he would probably know. But now he's angry with me again. We stand here like this, me shivering because I'm afraid he's going to hurt me, him crossing his arms and looking at me, and Roe asking some loud questions in the background that we don't really pay attention to.
After a moment, Caspian's body goes a little looser. His eyes don't look so angry anymore. But I'm still scared, because it's not in a forgiving kind of way. He looks like he's about to do something he really doesn't want to do.
"Winona…" He begins, and stops. He chews his lip for a second and Roe grabs his arm, saying something about rabbits and me.
"Roe, shut up!" He snaps.
"Uh…" She says, and looks at him with her chin tucked almost down to her chest and one finger out like she's going to point at something. She looks funny. I've never seen somebody stand like that before.
But before I can laugh Caspian spins around and smashes something into the side of my head. As I fall down I can see that his face is screwed up; he doesn't want to do it. But he's going to anyway. Why?
The rock smashes into my head again, and I see Caspian stumble away and throw up just before my eyes go red and then black.
Maybe Wrianin Abro was right. You can't have friends in the Hunger Games.
Evita Cormichael, District 4
"Her name's Winona Sweet," Eewyn says, looking up at the brunette girl's face in the sky.
I nod. "I know that."
I remember Winona. Her last name was pretty apt. She was the sort of person who just wanted everyone to like her. The type who'd never kill. Pretty much the opposite of me. She was one of the people here I would have really felt bad about killing, so I'm torn between gladness I didn't have to hurt her, and feeling angry that someone else did.
We're silent. Usually Eewyn and I entertain ourselves by trading sarcastic remarks, but not now. Never during the anthem. Even we, though we're playing by the rules and killing to save ourselves, will never mock the dead in the sky. You'd have to be true scum to do that.
"How many now, Eewyn?" I ask. She knows what I mean.
"Fourteen. Ten dead," she answers. I nod and we sit for another moment, in a pause halfway between awkward and thoughtful.
"Well, goodnight, Evita." Eewyn says and flops over onto her side. It's always a little funny to watch us get ready for bed, since we just flop over and that's that.
"Night," I mutter, and roll over so that we're facing opposite directions. Maybe a night watch would be better, but I'm too tired tonight. I think Eewyn is too.
Good night.
Day nine.
Surviving Contestants:
District 1: Wesley Sawr (Wez-lee Sahr)
Baylyn Homer (Bay-lin Ho-mur)
District 2: Hary Lumer (Hawr-ee Loo-mur)
Eewyn Carre (Yew-in Cuh-ray)
District 3: Nolaf Killt (No-lof Kilt)
District 4: Mattrick Brint (Ma-trick Brihnt)
Evita Cormichael (Eh-vee-tuh Core-michael)
District 5: Adrian Martinez (Ay-dree-un Mar-tee-nez)
District 6: None
District 7: Kiteriin Fromet (Kit-er-een Fro-met)
District 8: Caspian Toushone (Cas-pee-in Too-shown)
Roe Tamden (Row Tam-dan)
District 9: None
District 10: Reno Serman (Ree-no Ser-mahn)
District 11: Dewq Deffen (Duke Def-in)
Berra Timsing (Bare-uh Tim-zing)
District 12: None