Outskirts of District Two; former Sentinel base.
Dimara Vespoli, 18 years, District One Female.
"What?" I ask, at the same time I'm pretty sure everyone else does.
"That's not funny," Nadir says flatly.
"I'm not, shit, I'm not kidding," Tanis says in a rush, voice frantic. "Shit, they actually are coming this way."
Suddenly, there are three sets of very wide eyes staring at both me and the radio in my hand, silence enveloping the hallway. The breaths I'm hearing on the other end are all pressed close to the radio, barely concealed terror in the middle of them all.
"What direction are they coming from?"
"Why the hell would I know that?" Tanis responds, and I can almost hear her frantically pointing off across the clearing. "That way. I'm not a compass."
"How many of them?"
"Eight, maybe? Ten? I can't see all of them, that's a generous guess."
That's too many. More than we can handle, if they're here to hurt us, or take us back. Not one person here expected they'd be fighting to the death with someone outside of the Games; we're not ready for this. There's no way. Kelsea is already staring back up the way we came, looking back up the stairs like she's waiting for them to appear.
"Can you get back down here?"
There's a lot of muffled swearing, and then a sound that sounds way too much like her falling off of something.
"I'll try? They're really close to one of the doors - they'll probably see me headed for the other one."
"Try," I insist. "Celia and Rory, where—"
"We're together," he says. "What do you want us to do?"
Fuck, I don't know. I really don't know. Everyone's acting like I should, too, like I woke up this morning a hundred and fifty percent prepared for this to happen. So much for cool, calm, relaxed old me, who loses it after a few days where things looked like they may not go entirely to shit. The three of them are still looking at me, too, Kelsea darting frantic glances over her shoulder, waiting for an answer. Waiting for me to tell her what to do, just like Vance and Rooke are. I didn't even bring a weapon - Kelsea's got a knife that I'm pretty sure she stole from Rory, and that's it.
"Blair?" I ask, trying to think. Silence. He couldn't just stay awake for once, could he? He has to be stuck on his own at the absolute worst time, all because I thought leaving him be for a few hours would be alright.
"I'll go for him," Nadir says. "I'm not that far. Figure out what to do."
That makes it easier. "What does everyone have?"
"The stunning realization that I probably have less than five minutes left to live," Tanis mutters, loud enough that I wouldn't be surprised if she was right. If they don't see her they're going to hear her eventually.
"I've got the crossbow," Celia says, at least a tad more serious. "And Rory's got some of the knives. But besides that..."
Her trailing off puts me back at square one. So that's maybe half a dozen knives and a crossbow. I know Tanis had one of the hatchets up there with her, and Nadir had the rest of their stuff, so chances are she still has it all with her. That'll be good, as close to the surface as she's going. She could grab the rest of our stuff too. That's hoping that she can get to Blair before then and get him towards us before someone else decides to come down.
Tanis' voice is quieter the next time she speaks.
"Two of them are headed for the door on the far side. They don't look like they're from the Capitol?"
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Vance asks, at about the same time I think it. That doesn't rule out that they still could be, but if they're not, then who the hell are they? Random people don't just go wandering around in the woods past the fences, no matter what District you're from.
"Give me that," I instruct Kelsea, and she hands me the knife. "Everyone meet back up in the main area. Bring everything you can. We'll figure out what to do once we're all there."
There's really only two options here. If things go better than planned we can all get back together, and get enough weapons to put up a decent enough fight. But I already suspect it's not going to be that easy, that expected. Regardless of where they're from, not a single person would be able to tell me that they're coming in here unarmed. And if they're walking with the purpose that Tanis is making them sound like they have, then they have reason to believe something's here. That something being us.
If that doesn't happen, then our only hope is to go deeper into this place than any of us ever wanted to go, and hope they don't follow. When you look over that railing in the main area you can't see for more than twenty feet before it's nothing but black. Who knows what's down there. I was hoping I'd never really have to find out.
But it's that, or face whoever's coming down here. And I know what I'd rather deal with.
Hell, right now I'd rather be back in the Games.
"If any one of you goes wandering off, I am not coming to look for you," I hiss, and Rooke nods. He knows I'm talking to him, but this is something I don't even think Rooke wants to face on his own. Not when something's finally coming after us, and he's still the furthest thing from a murderer in here.
"What's the plan if they find us?" Vance asks. Kelsea's all but dragging him up the stairs after her, his pace faster than it would be if he was walking on his own.
"You know what it is," I respond. There's no point in saying it out-loud.
It's probably not right to ask this of them. They're not Careers. They didn't plan on living or dying, not like some of us. But right now, it really doesn't matter what they planned on. What matters is that this could be life or death, and if I have a choice, I know which one I'm making.
I'll hurt them. Kill them, if I can.
I'm not dying today.
Tanis Maes, 15 years, District Seven Female.
I can't even get down off the roof.
They're still far off enough that if I move they're going to see me instantly, off in the distance. The smallest bit of movement will alert them. It'll be once they're closer that I'll have to get down - enough of the ruins will block me, but it also means I'll have to beat them to the other door.
That, or run off into the woods and leave everyone else here. A prospect that's beginning to look more and more promising by the second.
I'm half tempted to do it. I could probably disappear into the trees faster than any of them, and keep watch. Tell everyone where they're going, without risking myself. Even if they did see me I could probably lose them.
It's not just Nadir I'd feel bad about though. Damn all of them.
I hear the noise of the far door being pulled open - the rest of the broken walls are blocking me from seeing just how many of them are headed down.
"You guys hear that?" I ask.
"Got it. How many?" Dimara asks.
I don't know. I need to know, and so does everyone else.
"Give me a second."
I wiggle down to the opposite edge of the roof, the stone scraping at my hips and knees. At least I have the hatchet. It's not as comforting as it would be normally, but at least it's something. I still can't see from this angle, though.
"Tanis, if it's that hard to see them, just stop," Nadir insists. "Get down here."
"Hold on" I hiss, and poke my head over the top of the wall. It's less intact on this side. I can feel the shift of it underneath me, and some of the rock crumbling and giving way, hitting the grass below me. It's only about a ten foot drop - I've done way worse. Climbing down the safer way will mean less cover, and right now I can't afford that.
I lift myself up quickly and then throw my legs over the side of the wall, falling to the ground in one swift motion. I hit it with a thud, quickly lowering myself into the grass. I'm going to be picking gravel out of my hands for hours, but it doesn't sound like anyone's headed this way.
I rise to my feet and take the hatchet out at the same time, pressing myself up against the wall. If I move along the next two walls I should be able to see the direction they came from clearly. Hopefully some of them are still lurking there.
"Tanis," Nadir repeats, sounding more exasperated.
"Shut it," I whisper. "You're going to give me away."
I see someone off in the distance when I sprint between the gaps of two walls, but don't dare to stop. I round the next corner and can see the sun reflected off the of the metal door.
"Alright, alright," I say quietly. "There's three going in the far door - two girls, one guy. They're all armed but only the one girl has a gun out. There's one off in the trees behind them - I really don't wanna say he looks like he has a sniper but I'm not gonna lie about it."
Someone sucks in a breath in the other end. Note to self: keep my head firmly tucked behind walls where I'm not at risk of a bullet hitting me in the brain.
"What about the other side?"
I can't see it, not even close, but as if on cue there's a resounding creak across the clearing, and I know of other door's been opened as well.
"Nadir, how close are you to Blair?" I ask.
"Not far, don't worry about me. I'll beat them there."
It would be easier to be less worried if she didn't sound so worried herself. Whether that's about me or her own chances I'm not really sure. I can't even really think about it, either. There's no time.
"I'm gonna head that way and see if I can follow them down."
It doesn't even sound like a good idea, but my options are limited. It's that or find a sizeable enough hole in the ground and drop down into the room below. I could possibly find the room we've been staying in and get there even before Nadir does.
Again, or I could just stay here. But I can't leave the eight of them to deal with this.
I turn to head back, and someone's standing ten feet behind me.
All the breath leaves my lungs. His face splits into a grin, stretching from ear to ear. Both of my hands tighten, first around the hatchet and then the radio, and all I can think about is how young he looks. No more than a few years older than me. He doesn't look like someone who's about to drag me kicking and screaming back to the Capitol, but he also doesn't look like anything I ever expected.
"What are you gonna do with that?" he asks, and gestures towards the hatchet.
Anything. Nothing. I don't know what to do.
"Tanis?" someone asks. "What—"
The green light of the radio is still on, and he lunges forward and pulls it out of my hand. It's almost pathetic, how easily he does it. I'm too focused on backing as far away as I can, trying to put the blade between us, and he lifts the radio up to his mouth.
"Sorry, Tanis is otherwise indisposed at the moment," he says, very calm. "She'll get back to you in a bit."
Or never. This is looking a lot less like a capture mission and a lot more like an outright murder one. I don't think I'm gonna be around to get back to them, let alone anyone.
He switches the radio off, and my hopes die with the green light. "So. What have you guys been up to?"
Nadir Kuenzli, 17 years, District Twelve Female.
The radio goes dead.
I swear, too many words in as many seconds, and hear everyone else spread across the place doing the same. Someone is saying Tanis' name, over and over again like that's all they know how to say.
"Shut up," I say finally, and whoever it was falls silent. I run faster.
I'm going to shove Blair into a corner where no one can find him and then go up there and slit the throat of whoever's voice that was, even if I die two seconds later. It's not rational, it's not smart, and I couldn't care less. It doesn't matter what's smart right now.
I skid around the next corner and all but fling myself through the doorway. I can see the stairs from here, illuminated by the light pouring in from above. Someone's probably down here already, and if they're not, they will be soon.
But I launch myself through the doorway, and Blair's gone.
"You're fucking kidding me," I mutter, and then wince at the sound of my own voice. I clap a hand over the radio when it crackles next, looking back out into the hallway.
"What?"
"He's gone," I snap. I'm going to go up there, slit that person's throat, and then come back and find Blair and do the exact same thing to him. Now really isn't the time for this.
"What do you mean, he's gone?" Rory asks.
"Literally how else could I word that?"
I shove the radio in my pocket, further muffling the sound, and take a step back out into the hallway. Still no sign of anything. No sign of Blair, either. This time when the shadows in the hallway take me back I have a knife in either hand, looking around cautiously.
There's still the possibility that someone got here before I did. Got to him before I did.
But if they wanted us dead, then Blair would be dead in there. And if someone came for something else, he'd have put up enough of a fight that I'm sure I would've heard it.
I don't get the feeling that he's dead. And for whatever reason, I don't think Tanis is either.
I would know.
Every little noise is putting me on edge now, as I turn the corner and start heading for the stairs that will take me to the main area.
It feels too far; like I'll never get there. I can hear something coming towards me already, footsteps just this side of too heavy. Enough that I hear them coming, and have enough time to bolster the growing fear in me that I'm really not going to be prepared for whatever's there.
Blair pokes his head around the corner and looks me dead in the eye.
"Do you practice being this inconvenient to everyone around you, or does that just come naturally?" I ask, incredulous.
He looks dazed, still in pain, but he raises his eyebrows at me, like he has the right to be confused. He's got the mace in his hand, and there's really nothing else for me to grab, so I walk right at him until he gets the point and backs up around the corner.
"What are you doing?" I hiss. "Can you even walk?"
"Got this far," he points out, and then nearly stumbles into the wall. "I heard something, I'm telling you."
"That may have something to do with the ten odd people in the woods," I force out, and his eyes widen.
"What?"
"The people in the woods," I repeat. "Why do you have not have the radio?"
He waves the mace wildly for a moment. "I have one hand."
Fair enough, in any normal circumstance, but he also has pockets and no excuse to go wandering off on his own if he really did hear something. What does he think he's going to do? You can't point out the one hand thing and then insist that wandering on your own after creepy noises with your aforementioned one hand is a good idea.
"We need to get back to the main area," I say quietly. "Someone got Tanis, but if we can meet back up—"
"Someone's coming," he interrupts, breath hardly above a whisper, and I freeze. He came from that way. If he didn't see anything then that means that someone was following him the whole way back. Following, and not doing anything. Now that I've frozen I can hear it, just barely. The sound of gentle, faint footsteps. Hardly even touching the ground.
Of course Blair heard it; that's what he's trained to do. So what if he walks around will all the force of an elephant?
As if he can hear my thoughts he takes a few paces away from me, towards the corner he just pointed out, and my feet follow against my own will. This is why people die in books, in horror movies. Because they don't turn tail and run when they know they should.
I can't even speak. Blair nearly loses his balance and stumbles into the junction between all of the hallways, and it's only my hand in the back of his jacket that stops him.
I can't stop him, though. A fact I'm very quickly beginning to come to terms with.
Someone comes around the corner before he gets there, though.
It happens so fast. Whoever it is moves like one of the knives in my hands, in motion and then completely motionless the second after, still as a stone, both hands locked around Blair's lone arm. The mace clatters to the ground between the two of them.
Blair looks startled, even more dazed than before, and half my brain is screaming at me to do anything other than stand here, even if it's just scream at the top of my lungs, but I can't.
I can't move, and I know exactly why.
It's not real. What I'm looking at is a literal figment of my imagination, because there's no way it's happening. There's no explanation - there's no way anyone has one. Not for this.
Blair finally looks up, after what I'm convinced is him having an internal battle about whether or not the pain's enough for him to successfully go under for the tenth time. He looks up, though, at who's holding him, and quickly his face morphs into what I'm sure mine already looks like. Blank, object shock. Horror, confusion, any emotion that will work to explain what our brain's obviously can't.
"You know," he says, and the voice shocks me back into the middle of it, "I was really expecting there to be another arm I'd have to grab."
"You're dead," Blair manages, voice and hand shaking alike.
"Thanks," the very much alive Meritt Trevall says, "I hadn't noticed."
Kelsea Faraday, 13 years, District Ten Female.
"Guys," Nadir says, sounding half like she's about to cry and half like she's about to hit something. "We have a problem."
"Define problem," Dimara fires back, and the moment stretches on for longer than I would've liked. The image of Nadir standing there gaping, struggling for words, isn't one I thought I'd ever have. In fact, it's one I'd be content to get rid of effective right now.
"Uh," she manages, and then there's the distinct noise of something else on the other end that isn't her.
"Here's how this is gonna go," a voice says, one that isn't Nadir's. One that isn't anyone familiar, and I swallow. "You see someone you don't recognize, don't take a swing. Nobody's here to hurt you, but I'm not responsible if someone whacks you in the back of the head if you try it."
Dimara pulls the radio out of Vance's hands. "And who are you?"
"Judging by the reaction I just got, should probably save it for a face to face."
That's not terrifying in the slightest. It's fine. Everything's fine. We don't know who it is and even Nadir sounded rattled by it. At least Rory and Celia have shown up now, because Tanis is still gone, and who knows what happened there.
"Where's Tanis?" I ask, just loud enough to be heard.
"Don't worry about her. Like I said, you're not in any danger. At least not from us. How many of you are together down there?"
"Six," Rooke says, a second before Dimara slaps a hand over his mouth, like she had been waiting for it.
"Give her the radio back," Dimara says, and it's only a second before I can hear the radio being transferred back. "Do you have Blair?"
"Yeah, I have him alright. Don't think he's going anywhere again."
There's a lot of muttering in the background, and it at least sounds like Nadir is getting angry now. I don't reckon she'll be taking whoever it is down here without Tanis, not any time soon. Hopefully she puts up a fight about it. Even if I was terrified I hope I would too.
Celia swivels around, crossbow clutched in both hands, to the set of legs coming down from the stairs along the opposite side.
"If you shoot me," Tanis starts.
"Oh my god," I breathe, and put both my hands over my face, but not before I register the fact that there are more people coming down the stairs after her. Multiple. Maybe she was closer to the actual number than she believed.
Someone nudges her hard enough that she comes down the last of the stairs a bit faster than she would normally, and as soon as she hits flat ground she turns around to give him the finger, hurrying around the edge of the railing until she's closer to us.
"I have never been so glad to see you guys in my life," she mutters, and circles around Rory until she's mostly out of sight.
The guy who first came down the stairs with her notices the crossbow and halts. After a moment he holds out both his arms, grinning.
"Human target practice. Go."
Definitely the guy over the radio, then. The next person down the stairs elbows him dead center in the middle of the back so hard that he stumbles forward, nearly into the railing.
"Quit it, Fen. Serious time."
"Says you," he complains, and reaches to elbow her back.
I blink at them. They just keep coming, too, half of them armed with more weapons than what's got to be legal and the other half looking almost friendly, which shouldn't be legal either. Not in a situation like this. One of them looks around, clearly counting heads.
"Where are the other two?"
"Mer's got 'em," someone else responds, and that is definitely a sniper rifle. Can we leave now?
"Oh, god," Rooke says. "This is - I'm leaving."
I'm torn between looking at him as he turns around, looking ready to shoulder his way through the group of us, and one of the last people that comes down the stairs. For being told we're not in any danger it feels like we are, now. Much more than we can handle.
I was eight, and my parents were shielding my eyes from the mandatory broadcast after the 155th, but it would be impossible not to recognize him.
"Scaring the kids as always, Luca," the first girl says, and she laughs, like this is normal.
Like the guy who the whole world only knows as Arker isn't standing in front of us, plain as day.
"Oh my god," Rooke chokes out, back to the rest of us. "Am I having a fucking nightmare?"
I think that's the first time I've heard Rooke swear like he actually means it, and it's enough to make me turn around. Nadir's walking in, and she's pushing Blair ahead of her, glancing over her shoulder at—
"What?" Celia gets out, where I find I can't. Rooke squeezes his eyes shut and then re-opens them, like he's expecting the scene to have changed. Tanis leans forward and pinches him in the arm, even though he didn't ask. It doesn't do anything to help, not for any of us.
"You know, I've been getting that reaction a lot today," Meritt says, casually, like everyone in this room didn't watch him get incinerated five years ago.
Someone behind us cackles.
Blair looks up and stutters to an uneven halt, and Nadir looks up at the same time, mouth falling open.
"Seren?" Blair breathes.
"Does anyone else's head hurt?" Rory says distantly.
It's not a familiar face, not really, but Seren is at least recognizable, at least someone who I know has protected one person in this room at some point. Even if it doesn't make sense that she's here, it's better than nothing. She had stopped at the bottom of the stairs but now she's moving around us all and going right for Blair, eyes wide.
"What the fuck happened?" she asks, and it takes me a moment to realize that not everyone knows. We've all grown so used to the lack of the arm and the injuries and our entire situation that it's a shock, to realize that we're the only ones. To everyone else, this is all new.
"Complications," Blair tries weakly, but his attempt at smiling is poor at best, and when she grabs him he doesn't hesitate to drop his head onto her shoulder, apparently done for the day.
This is worse than what we had. At least before we were learning, we were getting closer. Without even realizing it I've drifted closer to Vance and he squeezes my shoulder. He probably needs it just as much as I do. We've all drifted closer together, unconsciously, looking for safety when everything else around us looks the complete opposite.
I feel safe with them. I really do, even right now.
But looking around, even if we're not in any danger, I have a feeling we're in for it.
And we can't run away now.
Seren and Meritt really are THAT District pair. Katniss and Peeta who.
That was meant as a joke. Whether it succeeds or not is up for debate.
At this point I'm not sure who I feel worse for: the people who read Mayday and never realized I would do something like this, or the people who never read it at all. Apologies. My attempts at writing out an abbreviated explanation aren't so hot, either. But I can try.
My birthday's this upcoming week, though. This was my present to myself.
No, seriously. How much more self-indulgent can I get with my plot points? Stay tuned to find out.
Until next time.