XII. Fissure

The night passed quietly. At daybreak, the Rosemarie Snow Protection Squad got up reluctantly and got to work.

None of them had slept well the night before. They had debated returning to their houses and sleeping in their own beds, but that left the Cornucopia unguarded, and the spoils of the Cornucopia were too much to divide up and carry up six flights of stairs. So they just carried down as much as they could — pillows, blankets, in Rosemarie's case they brought down her mattress — and curled up to rest.

Still, few did. The stench of blood and Petronius' burning house were thick in the air.

The next morning, they huddled around the fire with breakfast, their armor, and weapons, though nobody was particularly awake. Today was the day they had planned to go out, hunt kids down, and have a great time, but the appeal was wearing off. There was something about seeing your own friend burn to death that put life into context.

But then their eyes were drawn back again and again to little Rosemarie, wrapped in two blankets to shield against the cold, her soft face smudged with a bit of ash. This was for her. For the Capitol.

Finally Ovidus broke the silence.

"I saw that one Cornelius kid shut himself inside his house," he said. "He's big, but he's slow, and he's stupid. Should be easier."

Claudia swallowed a bite of her apple. "He and I sparred a couple times, I know how he fights. I'm going."

"You didn't sleep at all last night," said Electra.

"Neither did you," said Claudia. She met Electra's gaze and Electra was the first to break it. But she didn't respond, just reached into a crate and pulled out a small makeup bag, taken from her home last night.

"You're not worried, are you?" asked Julius. It was phrased like a jeer, but Julius didn't typically jeer; this was a sincere question.

Electra stood with her bag and turned away. "About what?" she asked calmly.

"About being in over our heads," said Julius.

Electra said nothing, just leaned a shiny shield against a crate, pulled an eyeliner pencil out of her bag, and began to draw a dark line over her eye.

Julius didn't back down. He stood. "You said Petronius was an exception — "

"Is," said Rosemarie quietly.

"Petronius is an exception. Electra, when we signed up for this thing, that's what you said, that we really only need to worry about him and that he wasn't even that bad. Not that bad? He survived a fucking firebomb and managed to kill someone within seconds of stepping in the house."

"You don't need to remind me," Electra murmured.

"I'm just saying," said Julius, "that I don't think charging headfirst into people's houses is the best idea anymore. If Petronius 'isn't that bad', I'm not sure I'm jazzed to see what the rest of your clearly misjudged enemies have in store for us."

"Hey, back off, Jul," Claudia said. "You're just reaching for excuses to blame El so you don't seem like such a coward!"

"I am not a coward!" Julius roared, whirling on her. She barely flinched.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"Then why don't you come with me? Take out Cornelius and show me how brave you are?"

Julius opened his mouth but then snapped it shut. "I will not," he finally said. "With Lucio gone, I'm the last line of muscle between the arena and Rosemarie. From now on, I stay with her."

"No," said Electra.

Everyone turned to her. She stood up and turned. For the first time since being taken from her home, she faced them with her dark circles covered in powder and with careful eyeliner wings on her eyelids. Truly confident, for the first time since being stolen from her home.

"Lucio's death was tragic," she said. "But it will not change my plans."

"Plans?" Julius retorted. "What plans? Spend every life we have in the first few days of the Games? Face it, Electra, you know the stats — most of these kids are gonna die from thirst or hunger before we have a chance to get them, we should just wait them out and pick off the rest when they're weak — "

"Rosemarie!" Electra snapped, cutting Julius off.

Rosemarie sat up, despite the blankets and armor. "Um...yes?"

"Rosie dear, who did you elect to be in charge?" asked Electra. "Me or Julius?"

The girl hesitated. "You."

Electra smiled. "That's right. So, if you entrusted me to be in charge, who will you entrust to decide which soldier does which job? Me or Julius?"

"You."

"Great! Glad we settled this." Electra clapped her hands and then turned on Julius, despite the fact that he towered over her. She met his eyes with a pleased, devilish smile.

"You, Julius, will be heading out this morning with Claudia and Ovidus," she said. "That is an order, whether you like it or not."

Julius' red eyes narrowed. Electra never flinched. She knew how Julius ticked — he was predictable, everything he did was predictable, even his modified eye color. Meant to imitate the red of hot coals. Cute.

"Fine," was all he said, but everything said that he was not fine. He was furious. But when he turned around, Claudia and Ovidus were glaring at him, so he turned his eyes downward.

A tiny smile pricked at Electra's lips.

After the other three had gone, Electra turned to Rosemarie, sat next to her on the mattress, and sighed.

"Sleep well?" Electra asked.

"Not really," replied Rosemarie. "I was kinda scared. I've never slept outside before."

"If you want, you can sleep in your home while we guard the stairs."

"N…no thanks."

Rosemarie shifted her hands around her mug of tea. They had been lucky enough to find a small box of green tea bags but reserved them for Rosemarie for her breakfast. She appreciated the offer, but tea was a rare luxury in the Games; she could only remember a few tributes ever getting them as special rewards from sponsors or making it on their own to soothe a malady. She wasn't sick, and she was pretty sure she wasn't popular with the rebel sponsor crowd.

"Electra?" she said finally. "Do you ever wonder if you guys…giving me special treatment and all…is kind of backwards?"

Electra turned sharply. "What do you mean?"

Rosemarie fiddled with the string of her tea bag and sighed. "You want me to…to survive," she said. She had to avoid saying the M-word where all the rebels could hear and record her, but it was no mystery to Panem that the tributes of these Games wanted to keep President Snow's granddaughter alive. She inhaled deeply.

"You want me to survive these Games because I'm oh-so-special, but...if I never get my hands dirty, isn't that just kind of weird? A flawless victor is one thing, we've had those before, but there's never been a victor who never had to fight or run or anything…"

"If you're asking if you can go out there," Electra said, "my answer is still no. I think you'll find that not even Julius will disagree with that."

Rosemarie looked down again and went quiet. Electra seemed to sense the hostility and touched her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," said Electra. "But you're just a kid."

"Well, you're just a teenager," Rosemarie replied, deadpan.

Electra blinked, then scowled. "Well, there's a big difference between almost nineteen and barely twelve. Trust me."

She let out a sigh and sat back, leaning against a crate. Then she closed her eyes.

"I know I'm not the smartest person in this arena," she admitted. "I'm not the biggest or the fastest...I'm not even the oldest. Petronius turns nineteen in a few days, if I recall. Those are all things I can't use to my advantage. But — " Electra turned and met Rosemarie's gaze. " — I do have one thing. I'm the only one here with a plan. I'm the only one brave enough to think that far in advance and adjust accordingly. That's something that I'm not sure you're old enough to understand."

"I do understand!" Rosemarie burst. "You've told me your plan, I know, you and the others want to protect me, and that's great, but — "

"They don't all want to protect you, Rosie."

Rosemarie faltered. Her soft, grey-blue eyes widened. "What?"

Electra didn't break her gaze. "I told you," she said. "I'm the only one here who understands what you and I are trying to do. Lucio...he understood, too, and if he had survived, I would have let him stay behind to hear what I am about to tell you. If I'm going to protect you — if — if we're going to protect you, we have to die. Once there is nothing left in this arena that can harm you, we each have to kill ourselves."

The younger girl stayed silent. She knew that. There was nothing she could do about it — if Electra and Rosemarie were the last two tributes alive, even if Rosemarie begged at Electra's feet for her not to kill herself, Electra would do it anyway.

"But not all of us will," said Electra, standing.

"Huh?"

Electra walked away, picking up a sword. She picked up a stone and began to sharpen it. "Julius," she began, "is beginning to doubt. You saw him. He values his own life quite highly, you know. What do you think would happen if you and Julius were the last two left in the arena? Or what if all five of our group survived to the end, last five alive, do you think he would stick to the plan that long?"

Rosemarie opened her mouth but then hesitated. She knew. They both knew.

"That's right," said Electra. "Ovidus, too. Sometimes I'm afraid he'll slit all of our throats in the night, just because he got the whim. So I'm not waiting for them to make it to the final few. If we keep sending them out, eventually, nature and other tributes will take care of them, lessening the chance that they'll…that they'll turn on us."

Still Rosemarie said nothing. She did not know how to think about that. She supposed it would be one of those things that came back to haunt her as she lay under the red night skies.

"I still don't see what that has to do with keeping me penned up here," she mumbled. "I wanna do something. I wanna help."

She knew it was dangerous to say that. They had an audience. The rebels knew Rosemarie Snow was under high security, even inside the arena. Everyone wanted her dead except these few allies of hers, and every person in the audience would be wondering why those allies didn't want her dead as well.

Electra acted just as she had planned. She knelt and hugged Rosemarie tight. "I don't want to lose you," she whispered. It was not a lie. "I already had to lose Lucio, I can't...I don't think I could stand it if I knew you wouldn't make it out."

Above them, a cannon fired — Cornelius was dead. Their first easy kill. Electra bit her lip. She pulled back, holding both of Rosemarie's shoulders. Her electric blue eyes met Rosemarie's soft grey ones.

"I'm getting you out of here, Rosie," she said. "Even if it means sending our friends to their deaths."