Chapter 14: Fighting
Many of us at the training center are friends, or at least, friendly. Despite the fact that most of us have injured each other at one point or another, we maintain civil relationships. There's one time when that breaks down though.
Some of the young kids who are too young or too frightened to train, hang around near the Capitol stronghold, near our training center. Too frightened to train, but not too frightened to try for some stealth and snatch food from some of us sometimes as we leave. They're clever, most of them. They don't pick on the bigger kids like Cato and Caleb usually and they don't do anything when we're in big groups. Most of them are clever.
A little girl, probably no older than I was when I started training, approaches our tribute-to-be for this year. She thinks she's inconspicuous, but she's wrong. He's tall, taller than Cato and Caleb, although he's got a good three years on them, and muscly and stocky. Really, he ought to be giving this girl some of his extra rations, but when she tries to take a loaf of bread from the wagon he drags behind him he stops, turns, catches hold of her and shoves her hard to the gravel path.
I've had that happen to me. Kids have tried to take from my cart. If I notice them, which is always, I never refrain from letting them know, usually by a little bit of force. I can't give out rations to all of them so I usually just grab them by the collar, pull them around to face me, and make them give back whatever they took with a firm reminder that stealing's punishable by death. It's relatively painless but it scares the daylights out of them so they keep away from my stuff. One time though when I felt the spine of a little girl against my fingers, when I felt how easy it was to pull her and when I saw how near she was to collapsing in my arms, I gave in. "Stealing's punishable by death," I reminded her quietly, but the threat had gone out of my voice. I said it on autopilot. Her upper lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears. Her hands didn't resist as I took the bread away and they hesitated as I offered it back "This stays between you and me," I'd said. If she went blabbing, I'd have the whole group of them on me and I didn't want that. Not to mention I'd lose face with the other trainees. She took the bread and nodded up at me. "Ask next time." I took my hand from her bony back, reached into my cart and handed her an apple. "I'll try to help." Looking ecstatic, the little girl ran away back to her house.
But this kid, our tribute-to-be, loses it completely. It's awful watching him shove the girl to the ground. Her hands and knees are instantly bloodied, staining the loaf of bread she was trying to take. Tears fill her eyes, but she tries valiantly to blink them back. I remember the girl I helped and without thinking, I stride toward the tribute-to-be and put a hand on his elbow, pulling him away from the girl. "Come on, man," I say. I'm angry, but don't really want a fight. "She's just a kid. Let her be."
"Let her be?" he fires back, shoving me away. I stumble backward. "Why don't you let it be, huh? This isn't your fight. Get out of here!"
"What are you gonna do? Beat the hell out of a starving kid over a loaf of bread? Really sensible," I say, mocking him.
"I'll beat the hell out of you!" I don't even have time to get annoyed at him for constantly repeating what I say like he's clever for turning it around before his hands grip the collar of my jacket. He shoves me backward forcefully keeping a grip on me this time, but I'm no novice. I entangle my feet with his, tripping him, and rotate as we fall so that I end up on top of him. It's a clever move, but it's not without risk and he's no fool. A strong blow catches me on the side of the head. It hurts but isn't intolerable, but I still don't want him doing it again so I manage to pin his shoulders down with my knees and his wrists with my toes.
Then I grab hold of the front of his shirt and push him down roughly into the gravel. I feel his muscles tense up and redouble my lock on him, but I'm much lighter than him and he's therefore proportionally stronger. After a second futile attempt, he throws me off him. I make to stand, but he's having none of that. His hands grip the front of my jacket and the breath is forced from me as he pushes me hard into the stone wall of an empty shop. One hand keeps me there while he draws back the other in a fist. It catches me in the teeth, which can't feel good for him, but I definitely come off worse. My upper lip splits and I taste blood. The back of my head also whacks the building which is bad news for my brain. My voice is thick as I snarl at Cato, "Stay out of it!" He looked about ready to intervene, still does, but he won't now I've told him not to. You pick your own battles and you fight your own battles and you don't let other people take your place if you're still conscious. The little girl our tribute-to-be threw to the ground a few moments ago is long gone, having been frightened off by the fight. It's just me, the tribute-to-be, Cato, and Caleb.
"You ought not to have told him that!" the tribute-to-be snarls at me, closing his fingers around my throat. I don't know this kid. I have no idea about his personality or his limitations, but in the arena, a hand around a throat usually equals a speedy kill if your opponent is defenseless. We aren't in the arena, obviously, but as he's someone who will be, I wouldn't put it past him. If I pass out here in the street, it's guaranteed one of the boys will step up and pull him off me, but hell if I'm going to let it come to that.
He's an inexpert fighter with a decent build, I decide, looking at his arm. His elbow is hyperextended. Any trainee will tell you never to hyperextend your elbows. I grip his wrist and he sneers, thinking I'm trying to pull him off me. But I lock my other hand around his twisted elbow and without hesitation, using the momentum I gathered in raising my arm, I push up hard, keeping a firm grip on his wrist. He gives a howl of pain an instant after the crack that indicates I've just broken his elbow. He's horrified and in pain, but I feel no guilt because I get what I wanted. He lets me go.
If he were able to move the damaged arm, my guess is that he'd hit me again, but he can only stagger away, tears glistening in his eyes. He won't do well in the arena if a broken bone is going to reduce him to tears. I maintain eye contact with him, feeling blood run from my cut lip down my chin. Caleb steps forward rather slowly. He speaks quietly, calmingly, "I can set it for you. Then you need to go back to the medical station at the stronghold to have them wrap it up. If I set it here, it won't be so painful to walk back over there."
Caleb is within an arm's length of the tribute-to-be, but he lashes out, pushing Caleb away with his one good hand. "Get away!" His voice breaks and there's more than pain in it. Fear. Despair, even. It's not the broken bone that's making him upset. It's the realization that this injury will hinder him in the arena. Even if he spends the next three months in intensive rehabilitation, there will be kinks he's unfamiliar with and intensive rehab takes time. He'll lose some of his skills from training. When he volunteers, he'll be knowingly sentencing himself to death. I didn't think of that and now I wish I had.
He walks away from us now, dragging his cart behind him with his good hand, wincing and gritting his teeth against the pain in his awkwardly bent left arm. For the first time in minutes, my eyes leave him. First they find Caleb who's looking solemnly at me. I don't know why. I can't tell if he's judging what I've just done harshly or if he's just had some kind of epiphany. Cato on the other hand is still smoldering in anger and a desire to join a fight and just beginning to feel concern. "You ok?" he asks me brusquely. I role my damaged lip once in over my teeth, feeling the torn flesh. It hurts. It'll need to be cleaned. My head where his first strike hit is still tender, and the back of my skull throbs, but I doubt I'll have more than a bruise. I expect the same of my throat where his fingers were. "Yeah. I'm alright," I say.
"I'll take your cart," Caleb says, picking up the handle.
"I got it," I say. He's doing it to be kind but there's no reason for that. I don't need his help dragging a wagon back home. My arms are fine and he's got his own cart. The metal handle clanks a little as I take it from him and they walk with me back to my house.
Disclaimer: Don't own THG.
AN: Oh my gosh. I feel like eleven days is forever between chapters for me. I'm still hooked on Game of Thrones and that's why these chapters are coming slower. All I do is sit around and read and pack and get stung by wasps.
I don't know if I said this in my last AN, but I'm a little nervous about this chapter. It's been edited a few times, but when I first wrote it, the fight felt kind of forced, but I think it's a little better now. Thoughts?
I just want to comment on Clove's morals real quick here, as well. I said in a previous AN that she's rarely going to be 100% right and I think this chapter throws that into light. Giving the little girl an apple and some bread and standing up for this other girl that the tribute-to-be goes after wins her points as well. Way to go her. Breaking his arm . . . well that escalated quickly. Or did it, because he was kind of squishing her? Clove got the right ideas, the right motives, but doesn't always execute them so well. That's my comment. Thoughts?
Ghanaperu: Here's a funny story for you: Suzanne Collins was influenced by Roman stories and things like that. One of those is the "I am Spartacus!" story, (lots of people claimed to be who the officials were looking for because they figured if they all were Spartacus, no one was Spartacus. I feel like everyone knows that story, but maybe not) which is where I got the idea for Cato and Clove to win the way they do. Of course, the people who said they were Spartacus did not win, but still. Insights into my brain. Thank you as always for sticking with me :)