AN: Quick warning, there's one swear-word in this chapter. Peridan says "Dammit" once. I honestly have no idea where that came from, it wasn't in my plans/notes for this story, he just kinda said it on his own, LOL!
"If the last two tributes in the arena are from the same district, they can both win. That's right, there can be two victors this year! May the odds be ever in your favor."
Nothing like it had ever happened in the Hunger Games before. I was so surprised I dropped my bow.
About two days earlier, when Eustace and I saw the Gamemakers set up a contained wildfire, which caused a fleeing Ash to run into Cato, I hadn't been surprised at all.
I'd felt afraid, certainly, because I thought I was next.
Ash, after all, had appeared in the sky that night-along with Gael from District 4-and so I knew they were dead, though not how it happened. I'd figured Cato-possibly with the help of his allies-must have killed them, and I'd been waiting ever since then for the Gamemakers to drop something on my head or lead a Career tribute right to me.
At first, I had tried sharing my fears with Eustace, but he seemed aggravated whenever I brought it up, insisting I didn't know anything and was speculating about a bunch of nonsense. I realized, later, that it was because I was scaring him with my constantly-on-edge, white-knuckled, waiting-for-death mannerisms even more than I was scaring myself.
I had envisioned fires, landslides, ambushes from the Careers and their allies, even mutts with foam and hot blood dripping from their enormous fangs and muzzles, but I had never anticipated an announcement with a rule change.
In seventy-seven years, there was no record I'd ever heard of even a small rule in the Hunger Games being changed.
I figured such was probably the case because, aside from the fact that there could only be one winner, there weren't very many rules to begin with; therefore not much to revoke.
Yet, that's what the voice had said: there could be two victors.
Yes, two victors, for the first time ever in Hunger Games history; but only if they were from the same district.
That ruled out Eustace and me. If we were the last two in the arena, we'd still have to kill each other.
Did the Gamemakers expect me to go and team up with Edmund, because of the rule change? I knew that was most likely what District 7 would expect of me. He was no longer a threat to me, and his family-if nobody else-would want me to respect that. And I wanted to help him, if I could, for his sister's sake; to repay her for her kindness in taking care of my father when he was ill.
Only, I barely knew Edmund Martin, and Scrubb-Eustace-was the ally I'd gotten used to; I didn't want to simply abandon him.
Except, what of that Lucy-girl from District 1? Eustace cared about what happened to her, I knew he did. Why should I hold him back from teaming up with her? Their mentor, Peter, I was sure that was what he would want.
Was there any way, I wondered, that the four of us could team up? Sort of like a Career pack? Fighting off anything that came our way until...
Until what, exactly?
Until it was only the four of us left?
No, that would be too hard. It would be like messing up in the wrong place on a crossword puzzle written in dark, unfading ink; no way to fix it, no way to win, and no way to lose, either; nothing but a muddled, wholly not-allowed, impasse.
"What do we do now?" Eustace asked, sort of quietly.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "What if we just think about it for a little while?"
"You want to find Edmund, don't you?"
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do."
"No, I don't."
"He'll be a better ally than me, that's what you're thinking."
I scowled. "It is not!" I huffed, bending down and picking up my bow.
"Come on, Pole, you're always picking on my low score," he pointed out. "His eleven... The two of you could win."
"Shut up, Scrubb." His comment would have frustrated me much less if it weren't true. I had-a little too often, perhaps-harped on his four. And our alliance was formed more out of need than pure choice. I'd very rarely thought seriously of how that made him feel.
"No, I will not shut up," Eustace snapped unexpectedly, glaring at me. "If you don't want me anymore, I'd rather hear you say it now, to my face, than have you give me the silent treatment for a couple of days, trying to figure out how to end this."
He didn't understand how valuable he'd really been to me. I mean, he had gotten by on little more than his wits; nobody expected a tribute with a four to live this long in the arena.
Unfortunately, when I mentioned this, he took it the wrong way entirely.
"See, there you go again," he said bitterly, his expression hurt.
"Why do you have to do that?" I demanded.
"Do what?"
"Act like everything anybody says about you is automatically an insult," I sighed. "Honestly, Scrubb, if you stopped being so...so..." I was beginning to stammer. "Well, if you would just stop it, maybe people would like you better."
"Oh, so now people hate me?" He arched a pale eyebrow and folded his arms across his chest.
"I didn't say that!"
"You implied it."
"That's exactly what I'm talking about!" I exclaimed, shaking my head at him. "That, right there! You know what? I don't think it's people that don't like you, after all; I think it's you who doesn't like people."
"What has that got to do with anything?"
"It has everything to do with everything!" It didn't, really, but I was feeling stupidly determined to win our little quarrel.
I couldn't explain it, but, ever since that stupid announcement, this overwhelming sick feeling that I was losing him for ever had started to wash over me and it made me so cross I just wanted to hit something-or someone-or at least tell off whoever was near at hand (even if it wasn't their fault); which, obviously, was only Eustace.
"Don't be an idiot."
I flared up at that. "I am not an idiot! You're an idiot! And hostile, too!" Stamping my foot, I added, "I'm sorry you hate people, but that's no reason to-"
He cut me off. "I don't hate people." Then, muttering, he added, "I'm not too keen on you right now, however."
Tears welled up in my eyes; I couldn't keep up this whole facade of being angry with him. It wasn't him I was furious at. The gamemakers and the government; they'd done this to me-to us.
"Jill..." The tone of his voice changed completely. "Don't cry..." He reached for me and his hand almost touched my cheek.
I don't know what would have happened next if he'd made contact, because, right before his palm could press against the side of my face, we heard voices and started scrambling for the nearest tree.
Part of me was suddenly terrified of falling, for the first time in my life, after seeing the corpse of the girl from District 5. I had never been afraid of heights before, but that image of her poor bruised body with the broken neck haunted me. It was Eustace who was strong for me then; he seemed to understand straight-off what was bothering me and he even grasped my waist to steady my shaking body when I quivered while gripping a branch a little too thin even for somebody as light-footed as myself to cling onto for very long.
"We could have both lived!" cried an anguished voice. "She didn't have to die!"
"You're acting as if I killed her," another replied.
I saw two fair-coloured heads below me, which I quickly registered as belonging to Cato and Peridan.
"You moved," said Peridan, his voice cracking slightly. "If you hadn't..."
"What did you expect me to do?" growled Cato. "Let that four-eyed moron shoot me in the leg?"
"You should have never let him get his hands on the pistol in the first place."
"So you blame me for what happened, do you?" Cato's hands shot out and grasped the front of Peridan's doublet, pulling the District 4 tribute's face close to his.
"She was a little girl, dammit!" shouted Peridan.
Cato shoved him away, almost knocking him down. "You wouldn't be saying this if it weren't for that announcement."
"You're right," he said; "I wouldn't."
"So?"
"So what? She could have stood a chance and she's dead, because of you."
"What are you going to do?" Cato scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Kill me?"
"You think I'm so dense I don't know that this whole rule change is probably to give you and Clove a chance to win together?" Peridan asked, his voice not shaking so much all of a sudden. "I'm not going to steal that from you."
"Yet?" Cato's eyebrows rose so high up on his face they seemed almost to touch his hairline.
"Yet," agreed Peridan. "We're still allies for now, after all." He swallowed hard and closed his eyes. "After the tributes from 1 and 7 are gone, you and me team up against Jadis. We can't trust her. She'll turn on us in a second."
"No arguing with you there," Cato said, shrugging.
"I don't want to kill the District 1 tributes," Peridan told him.
"Cold feet?"
"No, I just don't feel like it."
"Clove and I will take care of them, but only if you take care of Andrew and that boy from 3 when the time comes."
"Wait." Peridan's eyes narrowed. "That leaves me, on my own, against you and Clove."
"Nobody ever said reality was pretty," snorted Cato apathetically. "Besides, do you really think that little girl from your district would have been a match for Clove?"
"No," he had to admit, his tone grim. "It would have been on my shoulders to win for us anyway."
"There you go."
"So, I take out Andrew and the boy from 3, and I don't have to touch either of the tributes from 1?"
"Clove wants the girl from 1 anyway," Cato informed him. "I promised she could have her if she gave the audience a good show."
Peridan grimaced and went a bit green in the face, as if he might be on the verge of taking ill. "I see," was all he said to that.
"But there is one other condition to all this."
"What's that?"
"I kill Edmund Martin."
Peridan didn't appear even remotely surprised. If anything, he seemed a bit irritated that Cato had to bring up something so obviously already all but written in stone. "Well, if Jadis doesn't first, right?"
Cato cocked his head. "She had her chance with that spear, and she blew it. Now it's my turn."
"Fair enough," sighed Peridan.
"You know, it'll almost be downright unpleasant," Cato said, clicking his tongue and putting a hand on Peridan's shoulder. "Killing you when it's down to the final three."
"I'm sure you won't be crying any tears for my sake," Peridan grunted.
"I'll try to make it as quick as possible."
"Ooh, special treatment," Peridan said sardonically, shaking off Cato's grip. "You must like me."
Cato smirked. "Don't go getting a big head."
"I'll try not to," sneered Peridan.
"Cato?" Clove's voice called.
"We're over here!" he called back. "We're fine."
"Well, hurry up! Jadis killed four rabbits. We're going to light a fire."
Their arrogance infuriated me. Any non-Career tributes would never, not in a million years of these unfair games, be able to shout such information so carelessly. Not without getting themselves killed, they wouldn't. And here, the Careers and their savage allies were shouting about eating and lighting fires. I hated them. I should have already hated them enough for everything else, not least of all that they wanted-even Peridan (he had expressed not wanting to kill Eustace or Lucy, but he'd said nothing of the sort regarding me)-to kill me, but it was their wastefulness and cocksure attitude that irked me the most. It always had been like that with them, right from the start. It simply rubbed me the wrong way and I couldn't get over it.
Eustace's stomach growled.
I sighed.
If he hadn't unwittingly let Lucy and Emeth get away during his first day in the arena, would he still be with them now? I wondered. Would he be gathering firewood and preparing for a meal with them at this very moment?
I decided he probably wouldn't have been. Eventually, he would have done something to upset the others and gotten himself expelled from their alliance.
In a way, we were lucky it happened when it did, straight-off; because it brought us together. That one mistake, his letting the girl from his district go, had resulted in company for us both.
If it hadn't happened, either of us might have been dead-or else completely and utterly alone-right then; and, at the time, scared and confused, sitting in that tree, I couldn't make my mind up about which was worse.
Only, it made the whole issue with the rule-change even more distressing.
What were we going to do? How long could we go on like this, trapped in a nerve-wracking alliance limbo, so to speak?
Save for my racing thoughts and pounding heart, it was a boring evening that followed in the arena. I killed a squirrel, after we got down from that tree, but it wasn't very much substance divided between the two of us. Eustace did surprise me by offering me most of his own small portion, even though I knew he was famished and could have eaten more than twice that amount of food were it more readily available in the arena, but I turned it down.
In the morning, Peter sent us some stew, and Johanna sent a small stash of raisins. We ate the raisins for breakfast and saved the stew for luncheon and supper, doing our best to make it last as long as possible.
The air was still and quiet. Occasionally it got muggy, only to cool off within the hour. No natural disasters plagued us; and there were no further signs of the Careers and their allies.
In fact, sitting by the stream that afternoon, I felt my eyelids get heavy and lazy. My subconscious seemed to have forgotten where I was and almost let me fall asleep in the open before Eustace shook my shoulder, reminding me to keep on my guard.
I had heard no cannons that day, but I had the feeling something-somewhere else in the arena-was happening. Something very dramatic and captivating, probably. Something to hold the Capitol's home viewing audience.
That was when I heard the same voice that had announced the rule change bursting through the arena's hidden speakers all over again.
I'd heard, in passing, back at the Training Center, that the voice who addressed the tributes in the arena with announcements belonged to a man named Claudius Templesmith. I found myself wondering, if this Claudius person became an Avox, would anybody be able to recognize him? Everyone in Panem-the districts and the Capitol alike-knew his voice by heart, even if they couldn't remember his name; but would anybody know him if he was suddenly rendered mute? The notion made me wonder if even people from the Capitol stood on dangerous grounds. Perhaps there were other kinds of reapings in the world, ready to take out a person's name and destroy them whether they deserved it or not; maybe not all reaping bowls were made of materials so tangible as glass.
Was Claudius revoking the rule? I wondered, a mite disgusted with myself for almost wishing he would.
"Listen up, Hunger Games' contestants! This is important. I'm addressing you all to invite you to a special feast at the cornucopia this evening, around dusk."
Please, I thought, how stupid do they think I am? As if I would go running into some free-for-all with the Careers and their allies! And for food, no less! After Eustace and I had already gotten fed by our sponsors earlier?
"Now, some of you may already be declining this invitation," the voice continued.
"No fooling!" mumbled Eustace, under his breath.
I bit back a smile and choked down a giggle.
"But, each of you needs something desperately. Most of you know what that something is. However, not all of you do. Think hard. If you can't think of anything, possibly that something you need is an extra blanket or sleeping-bag. Because it's going to be extremely cold tonight. And not all of you are currently equipped for this forthcoming temperature change." He paused to let that sink in. "At the feast, each of you will find whatever it is you need-or will need-most in a backpack with your district number on it. Consider carefully before deciding not to show. For some of you, this could be your last chance. May the odds be ever in your favor!"
Eustace looked at me. "So," he said, a bit sheepishly, his brow furrowed with anxiety. "Which of us goes?"
I thought about it for a moment. "Both of us."
Because, I realized, whatever happened, there was no way I was going without him.
AN: Please review and tell me what you thought of the chapter!