District Two; Esterwick Government Complex, western quadrant.
Celia Bradshaw, 18 years, District Four Female.
I couldn't have to make any more terrible decisions right about now.
But I have to leave Rory, because Rooke's apparently decided that now is the prime opportunity to just vanish into thin air. It feels like I ought to glue the two of them together. It feels like I'm Dimara.
At least I know where Rory is, though, and I'm convinced that he's safe with Ronan and Deverin. If only Theo and Costa hadn't run off not a second before I did, in another direction. Still Peacekeepers to deal with, I know, but I couldn't care less about any Peacekeepers right now.
And to think I thought I could handle wrangling the two of them. At least the scythe appears to be missing too. At least he's armed.
That would be more of a comfort to me if I thought anything good was going to come of him being armed.
It doesn't help that I'm not two minutes gone when Tanis starts up in a carefully controlled panic, and of course Deverin offers to go get her, and of course I'm nowhere near them.
"Celia—"
"Go, go," I tell Rory. "I'm gonna find him, we'll catch up."
When Rory panics he goes silent, and there's no voice on the other end now. There's no good direction to head in right now. Either he leaves them and chances coming back for me to look for Rooke, or he goes with them and hopes that they can get to Tanis before anyone else does. Judging by how frantic she was, something bad is about to happen. Rory probably doesn't want to see either side.
But it's not like he really has a choice, right now.
"Go," I repeat. "I'm serious. I'm fine."
"Okay," he replies. "Don't go far. If you haven't found him by the time we're done, then we'll come and get you. We'll look for him together."
Easier said than done. They've already taken the car around the far side of the building, headed towards where Tanis supposedly is. I'm still out in the front. It's a lot easier, not that the sniper's disappeared.
I'm standing there when I see the jet go spiraling off the roof, not long after it lands. I see one person go peeling away from it a second before they disappear into the building, and I'm unable to get a shot off before they do. Whatever Nadir and Kane do, they do it well. It doesn't take long for her voice to come through the comms, telling us he's dead.
It's a relief. But that doesn't mean it's over. In fact, it's far from that.
Unless Rooke didn't think it was safe to find us and took off for one of the buildings, then he's still out here. I don't know which one's more likely, and he's not answering anyone's calls, no matter who asks after him, no matter who worries. He probably got caught up in the explosion same as the rest of us. We were supposed to take care of him. For the first time he was actually supposed to be around with the thought that someone was actually going to care enough about him to stick by his side permanently, and look how that's gone.
It makes me feel like shit. I really can't afford to feel like that right now.
I refuse to believe he's dead. I look through the few people still left out in the front courtyard. At the bodies, some beyond recognition. There's Peacekeeper's lying everywhere. It's almost a relief that I can't recognize anyone, because I'm not sure what I would do if that happened.
Theo and Costa are two people that I can see, now that I've moved a little bit more into the wreckage of some of the cars. They're pretty far off, already, standing over the body of someone I'm not going to allow myself to look at.
There's so many of them, all over place.
"Anything?" Rory asks.
"No," I say, almost infuriated by the word alone. How could this have gone so wrong? Where could he have ended up?
There's a body half lying under a piece of debris, the legs charred and burnt. I force myself to flip the blackened piece of metal off them, my breath catching in my throat at the sight of the blonde hair. It's not him. I can't even really make out a face, but I know it's not him. That still means that it's someone, though, one of the victors, and I take a pace back before I can really get a good look at their face.
It's not Rooke, but it's not solving anything either.
"Theo!" I shout, and thankfully he turns around, Costa not far behind him. The few other people left in the vicinity turn now, jumping nearly a mile. Everyone's scared worse than they thought they would be, even if the dust is starting to settle out here. Everyone knows that it's still kicking off inside, and not one of them looks particularly eager to join.
Theo jogs up to my side, quickly sliding to a halt when he sees the body not far from my feet. It doesn't take him long, to be the one to crouch down on the ground, getting a better look. Costa grabs my arm, fingers a little too tight when Theo gently rolls the body a little bit more to the side.
"Lumin," he says. It's a miracle his voice is as steady as it is. "Go find Tessa."
Costa nods, and lets go of my arm, even if it seems reluctant. Because Five needs more destruction, when they already have so little in the first place, right?
Theo stays on the ground for a moment before he stands back up next to me. Costa's already gone. I don't know whether or not I hope she succeeds in finding Tessa or not. A victor of only two years deserves this about as much as we do. She's the same age as us. It's too much.
"Who else did you find?"
"Albany and Barron." He swallows, and looks around again. "Valiant too. And Emori was with Dyna, when she—"
"I got it," I manage. "But no sign of Rooke."
He wouldn't lie to me, if that really was the case. If they had found him. There'd be no point to lying right now. If anything, this will fuel us even when it shouldn't. That's five people, to fire or to bullets or to a jet that we didn't see coming. Five people that can't have died for nothing.
"You're gonna find him," Theo says. "Don't think worst case scenario. Not yet."
I thought worst case scenario once, when the nine of us were all trapped in that building, staring death in the face. I thought, maybe, that I could survive it, but I wasn't daring to be that optimistic. Not when I knew everything around me was about to fall apart. But that was just me, and thinking about my own death, and wondering what it was going to be. This is about everyone.
So for them, I can't think that.
Not yet.
Dimara Vespoli, 18 years, District One Female.
I'm made aware of several things, pretty much all at the same time.
It would be helpful, extremely so, if I could hear anything at all, other than the sound of my own footsteps and my heartbeat, moving in turn. There's no sign of Valiant, not even when I poke my head out the window and look around for a few seconds. Going back downstairs doesn't feel right, either. They're safe down there, for the time being. They don't need me, and I wouldn't be useful anyway.
Valiant's nowhere in sight, so I move on.
And when I move on, I start hearing something, just in-between my own footsteps.
It sounds like someone walking, mixed with the sounds of metal grating against metal, heavy objects moving against each other. I freeze for a second, wondering just how many things I could be hearing.
But it's close. Closer than it should be.
I stop at the next corner and pause against the wall. I hadn't planned on going this way, but you never know. I had been thinking about heading to the front of the building, where some people might still be congregating. That's probably not where this hall will take me, but if it's safe, I can handle that.
I can almost hear something in the earpiece, so Audrel must have gotten through finally. I tap a finger against it a few times but that only makes the static burst through louder. Better to wait.
Or is it?
Those are definitely footsteps, coming closer to me by the second. If it was someone familiar, they wouldn't be trying to creep up on me like this. I wouldn't be worried, either. What are the chances, of this being good, when approximately nothing else has been thus far? Not very likely, if I'm being honest with myself in this moment. I wish I was better at lying to myself.
I hear something almost like my name through the earpiece, slightly warped, and I edge further down the hall and press myself against the nearest doorway. It'll hide me for maybe an extra second or two, if someone is really determined to come looking for me.
"Dimara!"
That didn't come from the earpiece.
That came from around the corner.
I step back out of the doorway at the worst possible time. That's not anyone I recognize, a girl who has a gun pointed directly my way. It would look a lot less threatening if it wasn't. Kelsea comes skidding around the corner behind the girl not two seconds later, eyes wide. Clearly it was her that yelled, something very frantic, and at least now I get it.
Of course, I wish I didn't have to. But this is just one more example of terrible timing in a situation that's basically filled with them.
All three of us are unmoving. The girl raises the gun, far above my head, and two seconds later there's a bullet shattering the front of the camera just down the hallway, up above in the corner. The first time she pulls the trigger it clicks, almost like it's empty. The bullet doesn't come free until the second time, and I stare, but her finger doesn't falter.
Well, now no one can see us. That's nice. The static in my ears is very slowly starting to turn into actual words, but not fast enough. Kelsea is staring at me, silent, unwilling to say anything other than my name. Clearly the girl didn't know she was being followed, but Kelsea wouldn't have made any noise in the first place. Now it's just about what happens next.
I don't really have any time to come up with a plan.
I take the smallest step forward and her gun resettles, pointed right back at me.
"You wanna test your luck?" she says. Her finger hovers over the trigger again, and the second it comes down I flinch.
Nothing happens. Kelsea starts, when she realizes I don't yet have a hole in me.
The chamber rotates, old-fashioned revolver. I can't make out the details from here, but that's the second time. It clicked, empty, the first time too, before the shot came out. Randomly placed bullets, any second the one when one finally comes out. Good old russian roulette, with more bullets than usual. It means that I might have more time than usual, but I won't know when it's coming.
None of us will.
"Dimara?" Ivory says in my ear, and I let out a breath. "Where are you?"
"Can't really talk right now," I murmur.
"Tell me where you are."
I don't know if Kelsea can hear her, or if that's just me.
"First floor, east corridor," I say. It's loud enough that the gun clicks again. I force myself to stay still, to calm my breathing. She doesn't want me talking - that much is clear. It's just about how much I can get out before one of the chambers is finally filled with something other than air.
"Stay put."
"What do I do?"
"Don't die."
I can't tell if the girl's gotten closer or not, or if that's just my imagination. Something very far away shakes and rumbles, the sound of an explosion. Bomber's in the building, someone says, but it's not Ivory, so I all but ignore them. The jet's down, but apparently not everyone inside it went with it. The girl's got one eye on me and the other on Kelsea, but it's clear that she knows I'm the real problem.
"Are you at the last corner, or further down?" Ivory asks.
I chance a glance over my shoulder, just barely moving. "Fifteen feet. Ish."
"It's a marvel that you're not that scared," the girl says. "Prometheus got to you guys more than I expected."
I should've known, when she said that. Somehow I'm still unprepared when she turns the gun away from me and swings it back towards Kelsea.
So I don't really think. I just move. Ivory's words are completely forgotten in the moment, when I lunge to close the distance between the two of us. At the last second she turns the gun back towards me, and this time I actually hear the bullet come free from the chamber. I don't really feel it impact with my arm, just below the elbow. There's a very brief flare of fiery pain, as it rips through my skin before it bursts free from the other side. I don't even have a weapon out. There's not a damn second for that to happen.
There's an explosion, right above us. I crash into the girl's back.
I also should have expected that she wouldn't go down just from that hit alone. She's not a scrawny, underfed tribute that I'm trying to take down. She's a lot worse. All it does is screw with her aim a bit, sufficiently distracting her from shooting Kelsea for the time being. She turns around to wrestle my arms away from her torso, still holding onto that stupid gun. She wrenches my arm back, tearing the skin under my elbow apart even more. More blood drips down onto the floor.
The last thing I expect is for Kelsea to get actively involved.
The second I feel one of her arms on me, I nearly scream. To think all I was trying to do was distract this girl from hitting Kelsea, and now she's right in the thick of it anyway. Curse us, probably, for making her think she needs to do that, when she's half everyone's size.
She's not trying to force the girl off me, though. She's trying to pull me back, as hard as she can, so I go with it. I push off her too, digging up against her abdomen, and with Kelsea pulling me both of us go tumbling to the floor.
It's not until I hit the ground that I realize the ceiling is cracking apart. Something Kelsea already saw.
The girl realizes at the exact same time, and takes off the opposite way.
Several chunks of the ceiling come hurtling down and hit the floor mere feet away, where the two of us had just been fighting. The girl manages to clear the space before the rest of it breaks apart, a pile of rubble slowly growing on the floor as it crumbles away right in front of me. Kelsea instantly starts trying to squirm away, and I wrench my own gun out of my belt before she can even get there. I can hardly see through all the dust that's accumulating, but I can still see the girl, about to turn back towards us.
She doesn't get the chance, before I fire.
It's bad, that I'm pretty sure of. She hits the ground but I see where the bullet itself hits, somewhere in her side. Right up against her ribs. No empty chambers to be seen here, thank you very much.
"She's not dead," Kelsea manages, and I'm already clambering to my feet. More blood drips down from my hand, but the pain's hardly registering as I make my way through the chaos that is now the floor, struggling to get to the other side of it. Kelsea doesn't let go of my jacket the entire time, following along as closely as she can.
The girl indeed isn't dead. She's still got her eyes open, searching us out, even through there's most definitely a bullet lodged somewhere in her ribs. There's already a trickle of blood running out of her mouth.
I don't know what she'd say, if I thought she was capable of speaking.
I don't really care, either.
The second she even moves, to do something she probably couldn't see through, I pull the trigger again. Kelsea flinches at the noise, so close, and then folds a hand over where the blood is still pumping out of my arm. It's not that bad. Not as bad as it could've been.
"Thanks," I get out, and Kelsea nods, squeezing tighter around my arm.
"Everything alright down there?" Ivory asks, standing far above on the second floor, staring down through the whole she created in the floor. Because setting off explosives right in the thick of things is always safe, right? Especially when you're doing it with the goal in mind to only have it truly affect one person, and not the one you're trying to protect.
"I'd appreciate some warning next time," I inform her.
"Warnings are for losers." Even as she says it, she looks slightly troubled. Maybe it's the blood, or maybe it's something else.
To be perfectly honest, I'm not so sure I want to hear it right now. All I can really think about is how that's one more down. One step closer, in the grand scheme of things. It's better than nothing.
A little blood is something I can handle, when it comes to that.
Tanis Maes, 15 years, District Seven Female.
I'm pretty sure she's gaining on me.
I'm trying not to think about it.
All I'm focusing on, for my own sanity, is whatever instructions Deverin is giving me.
Head for the doors. Okay, got it, don't really know what way those are at this point, but I'll try. Stay in the outside corridors. Can do that, for sure, because even chancing fleeting glances out the window is giving me hope that I'll be able to get outside and get away from the witch that is chasing me. If I tell you to stop, you need to trust me. No offense, I don't really want to stop. No matter what amount of trust I have placed in Deverin, nothing in me is going to want to stop. The second I do, that could give her the option to shoot.
"What do you see now?" Rory asks. Right. Nearly forget he was with her, Ronan too. It's really hard to remember things like that, when you're completely focused on running for your life and trying not to fall.
"The hallway turns left at the end," I pant. "I think I'm getting closer to the doors. I can see smoke out the windows."
"Okay, when you turn the next corner, stop."
Stop. That was the word I was dreading. To be honest, I was on the fast track to having convinced myself that Deverin was joking when she said someone would tell me to. It doesn't make any sense. Do they want me to wind up dead?
"Are you serious?" I ask. I'm getting closer to the corner. There's not much time to even really make a concrete decision.
"Tanis, trust us."
Easier said than done. But that's what I've been working so hard to do this whole time, isn't it? Trust people I never thought I want want to or have the opportunity to trust. Deverin's different, she's been my mentor from the start. But all of them are worlds away.
I round the next corner, and I stop.
My chest is heaving, my legs prickling with a fierce burn, and I lean against the wall. I didn't even realize how much it hurt until now. When I peek back around the corner I can't see the girl, not yet, but I reckon it'll only be a few seconds.
"I stopped. What do you want me to do?"
"Stay there."
I have to be able to do something else. If I just stand there, I'll be waiting for it. There's still this hallway that I could run down, or I could try my luck at the set of double doors across the hall in front of me. I don't know if they lead outside, but if they do, I might have a real shot at getting away.
"Guys—"
"Tanis, don't move."
A car comes crashing right through the doors.
I flinch and throw myself back against the wall even more, but the second the doors splinter apart and fall to the ground, the car stops, tires squealing against the marble. There's so much noise I don't even hear the girl round the corner after me, but even she looks a little bit surprised at what's transpired when she's been too slow to stop it.
That's Ronan in the driver's seat, and I can see Deverin, too, and Rory.
The girl lunges after me, but I'm already headed for the car. Ronan basically comes flying out of the front seat, gun raised, and I feel the bullets whiz over my shoulder, just past my head. It'd be terrifying, coming from anyone else. I nearly run into the driver's side door I'm going so fast, and I don't even take a second to look back. Deverin reaches over the middle console and leans out of the car to grab me, halting my momentum. I land very awkwardly, half laying in the driver's seat, but it takes her all of two seconds to drag me further in and then send me flying into the backseat, awkwardly crushed in the footwell. I half expect Rory to pull me back up, but he's already out of the car and after Ronan, arrows flying.
Even from my awkward position I can see Deverin clambering to get in the driver's seat, already holding onto the wheel, and by the time I pull myself back up onto the seat the car is already jumping forward. Both of the doors shut of their own accord.
The girl's bleeding, but so is Ronan. Neither look terribly injured. The second the noise of the car starts back up everyone's scrambling to move out of it's impending path. There's not much room for it to move.
A bullet hits the girl in the shoulder. One just misses Ronan's head.
Someone must get the message. Rory dives out of the way, scrambling back behind the car, and Ronan flattens himself against the wall. The noise of Deverin flattening her foot against the gas pedal is deafening.
I don't really look.
But I definitely feel it.
There's a very harsh thump, and a half cut-off scream before the car goes rolling over something. I know exactly what it just ran over, who. Deverin keeps going until the car is finally clear, nearly into the next hallway. Both Rory and Ronan make a face at whatever they see behind the car's path. Whatever's left, anyway. She hit her fast, and hard, and I don't even want to imagine what the wreckage of that looks like.
"All good?" Deverin asks. "Or do I need to back up?"
Ronan doesn't look amused, exactly, but it's not far off. "I'd say you did a pretty sufficient job of running her over the first time, Dev."
I finally let myself take a deep breath. It feels like I haven't breathed properly in a while. Rory opens the door just next to me once again, leaning in.
"You good?"
"Yeah. Cutting it a little close."
He reaches forward to squeeze my leg. "We're gonna go look for the others. Stay here with Deverin, until you're good."
"I should go find Nadir."
"You will. Just take a minute first."
Right, think about myself first, just for a moment. I'll be dead if I have to try running full speed away from anyone any time soon. Rory holds me there until he's apparently satisfied that I'm not going to come tumbling out of the car after him to try something else. I can't help but notice how divided his attention is - clearly he's trying to pay attention to me, but there's so much more to think about.
"Go," I tell him. "I'm good. Thanks."
He nods, and goes to follow Ronan, who's already started to move down the hallway. I chance a glance behind me. The body behind the car is still recognizable, to a degree. Maybe slightly flattened. Definitely crushed and bleeding, in more than one place. But dead. That's really the only fact that matters to me.
"Nice," I manage. My heart rate is still through the roof, no matter what I do.
Deverin turns back to follow my gaze. "I should've backed up."
And honestly? I'm really not opposed to it.
Kelsea Faraday, 13 years, District Ten Female.
Dimara's arm bleeding is honestly giving me something to focus on.
We've bandaged it up as best we could with what little time we have to focus on it, but every time she moves she agitates it. She's not in any danger, really. Not from that. It's us moving that's worrying to me, but as long as I'm trying to hold the bandages together without her running off on me, it's giving me something to look at and hold onto that's actually purposeful.
It keeps my gaze from wandering. From wondering what's really out there waiting for us next.
Not that Ivory really seems concerned about that. Dimara either. I'm beginning to wonder if it's a One type of thing, because you don't see Ten's doing this very often.
Or ever. Kellen might, but I don't have a single clue where he is. I can just only hope that he's still breathing.
We're basically just keeping up with Ivory, at this rate. I'm becoming slightly alarmed that Dimara's leaving droplets of blood behind us everywhere we go, but that's beside the point. We're looking for Vance, and the Eights. Whoever else may be with them. Alessia's nearby, supposedly. Trying to keep a perimeter, to lock the sniper in.
I don't want to be locked in anywhere with a sniper, thank you very much.
Nobody's really giving us a choice.
We're doing too well. Even Tanis managed to get away from one of them unscathed, if you ignore the few minutes of panic from pretty much everyone. There's so many of them dead already.
That's the issue, though. The ones that are dead don't really seem like they were obstacles. It's the ones that are left.
A sniper. A bomber that helped the pilot ruin everything before it had even started. A girl who no one's even managed to lay eyes on yet. Their leader. Meritt's sister. And the one person not a single soul knows anything about - the replacement that could turn out to be the worst one of all. I'm not sure how much worse it could get, at this point, but I'm not about to pretend otherwise. Something will happen to one of us eventually. I'm sure of it. Something that's more threatening than most things we've dealt with.
"We're not far," Ivory says. "You guys still on the other side of the courtyard?"
"Sure are," Mia says. "I'm shocked you're still intact."
I wish I could tell people to stop joking about this, but that's justhow some of us are choosing to cope. They're keeping their sanity, I'm trying not to panic. Basically the usual.
"Sniper's on the second floor," Audrel says. "If he's headed your way I'm going to lose him - there's no cameras that way."
"Fantastic," Dimara mutters, but pulls me a little faster after her the second we're in sight of the doors that must lead to the courtyard. There's sunlight flooding in through the windows, illuminating even the darkened corners of the hallway. Ivory throws the doors open and the light is blinding for a brief moment, but Dimara's momentum pulls me forward and outside regardless.
The first thing I do catch sight of, regardless of the sun, is the others standing across the courtyard, shielded underneath the balcony, staying close to the wall. There's a difference between knowing Vance is alright and having actual visual confirmation of the fact.
He almost takes a step out into the light.
Almost.
I don't hear anything at all, or see what's going on, but two seconds later Ivory slams into both of us so hard that we go stumbling off the cobblestone pathway and into the tall grass, just behind a rather large fountain. A bullet ricochets off the concrete and bounces back, landing in the grass ten feet away, silent.
"Do not move," Ivory instructs. Not that I can. She's basically laying on me.
I turn my head out of the grass. Vance has backed up all the way to the wall with the others. I can't see any other way but forward. No way to tell where that bullet came from.
"Far end of the courtyard," Mia says. "He's on the balcony."
"No shit, Mia," Ivory snarls.
"Don't get snarky on me now. You don't move either."
This is great. This is just great. What the hell are we supposed to do now? He's got two options - wait for someone to poke their head out like a damn gopher and shoot them, or move down the balcony and get us another way. We don't even have one option.
"What do we do?" Dimara asks.
"I'm trying to think."
"Don't hurt yourself," Mia responds, and I can feel the irritated sigh all throughout Ivory's body.
"Shut up, Mia—"
The door behind us cracks open, but not one of us can look back to see who it is before someone comes skidding through the grass next to us. Fenton lands with a thud and nearly crushes what little of me is still left exposed, somehow completely ignoring the bullet that gets sent his way. Apparently he doesn't really care.
"Hey," he says, and then winces. "Ow. Need some help?"
"Mental help," Ivory gets out. Both her and Fenton pop their heads back up at nearly the same time, and there's a bullet passing through the space just above their heads in response. This really isn't good. How are we supposed to move?
"You're the Sentinel," Dimara says. "What do we do?"
Fenton's no older than she is. He could be younger, by a few months. This is who we're relying on to get us out of this right now. He crawls forward through the grass a few feet, nearly rounding the edge of the fountain. Maybe he can see what's going on. It would be nice for that to be true.
"Everyone just be ready to shoot."
I thought that would give me a bit more warning than it actually does. I see guns come out, from more than one person, but I'm not really capable of moving myself. Fenton rises up to his hands and knees; another inch and he'll be in view, too easy to shoot.
"That," he says, very quietly. "Or get ready to run."
I'm still not really ready for him to get up and run.
Not away. Not saving himself.
Towards it.
Kiero Mearlove, 26 years, Victor of the 150 Hunger Games.
Fenton is ten times braver than he thinks he could ever be capable of.
It doesn't even make sense. He's watching a kid eight years younger than him take off across the courtyard, directly into the line of fire, towards where he's sure the sniper is, drawn back into the shadows where he belongs.
As soon as he starts running the shots start popping up, in rhythm. Fire, re-adjust, re-aim, fire again.
He feels incredibly useless at this moment in time, but it doesn't really come as a shock. This is something we was never made for. He wasn't made for the Games and he wasn't made for war, but he also couldn't run from either of those two things when he was looking them in the face. He's only here right now because he's not sure who's more likely to get involved in something they can't get out of - Mia or Aveza. Hell, even Vance seems like an option right now.
He's here because he wouldn't let Della come, but someone had to be the rationale behind all of this.
But if he's surviving this, rationale has to go out the window.
Mia's already shooting. That's good. At least she's distracting him. Ivory too. He has zero clue who gave Aveza a crossbow and where they got it from; he isn't sure he wants to know the answer.
He grabs her sleeve and she nearly turns the crossbow back on him. "Listen to me. I know it's not the same thing, but you're a sniper too. So out-snipe him."
"You're right," Aveza agrees. "Not the same thing at all."
"That's not what I meant. Just get a good shot on him. I know you can."
And he's not sure about anyone else. Mia and Ivory may be able to shoot for hours and not hit anything. Aveza's the most recent. Aveza killed the most people, as surprising as that may be. And he knows she can do it, because he sure can't.
Everyone seems to be focused on doing something, and Vance is looking right at him. It would be nice, if he could believe he was just waiting for instructions. He knows that's not it. He's waiting to see what he's going to do, and whether or not he can participate.
It's a miracle Eight has as many Victor's as they do, if Kiero's being honest with himself.
"You coming with me?" he asks, and Vance nods.
"What are you two doing?" Mia snaps, at the same time Kiero wonders just how many people he's going to get a talking to from later, for this. Della, and Rayon, and then Soren's going to lock him in the bathroom and never let him out once they get home.
He grabs Vance's arm and hauls him out into the open space of the courtyard.
Fenton's nearly made it to the far left side. There's a staircase there, but he won't be able to get up it with all the attention focused on him. The second Kiero drags Vance out there's no need to say anything, no need to explain. Vance takes off on him before he's even prepared for it, arm ripped out of his grasp, headed for the opposite side. The bullets start up again. Kiero watches them pepper the ground, put holes in the ground. There are bullets going up the other way, too. Trying to hit him before he hits one of them.
He won't be able to live with himself if he gets Vance killed, or any of them. Especially after all of this.
But he also knows better than to try and stop someone, when they're determined to do something anyway.
A bullet hits the railing right next to where he can see the sniper rifle poking out. Closer. Just one lucky shot and they can do this. But a distraction would make it go a lot quicker.
Fenton cleared half the stairs, with the sniper's attention safely diverted to the two of them. He can't look back and wait for Fenton to get his footing on the actual balcony; he's too focused on shoving Vance down on the stairs the second he catches up with him, completely flattened to the ground. A bit of concrete flies away as a bullet buries itself just next to their heads. They just have to hope it won't give way.
"Stay here," he orders. The bullets aren't going their way, anymore. He's looking back at Fenton, again. The real problem.
Kiero still stays low, hugging the wall along the stairs. He has a gun. He just has to get there. The weight of it in his hands is nearly enough to make him sick, enough to bring him back to the arena and the agonizing pain of the bullet in his own shoulder, before they pulled him out.
He gets to the balcony and Fenton has already thrown himself behind a pillar. The sniper rifle is still set up, holding firm, but the man himself is turned the other way, a pistol in his hands, trying to land a hit. Kiero can't tell if he actually has.
He can't help but remember what Spens had said, ten years ago now. Telling him not to be sorry. Words that he still hears in the back of his head more often than he'd like, completely unshakable. But they're the one thing that have always made him realize that he just needs to do things. He can't regret them all the time.
He raises the gun, and fires.
It's different with a bow, just like Aveza said. If it was an arrow Kiero is sure he'd have hit him square in the back, just like Hariwin. That he'd be watching him fall.
The bullet hits him in the shoulder and rips clean out the other side. He stumbles forward a bit, rising up a foot or two, hell bent on turning around to kill him now that there's someone else to focus on—
An arrow tears through his neck and splatters his blood all over the back wall.
It's a shock, seeing him so quickly about to turn around, and then watching his dead body slump back against the wall in the next second. He hates how steady the gun still is in his hand but won't let himself feel sorry about it, can't when this man would've killed all of them, given the opportunity.
"Sniper is dead!" Ivory crows, a little wildly, and Vance repeats the words, managing to sound a bit more calm. Kiero's not even sure he feels that calm, but having others along the earpieces know does make him feel better.
It fades quite a lot when Fenton stumbles around the edge of the pillar, clutching at what appears to be his very rapidly bleeding thigh. His breath catches in his throat for a minute, but even Fenton manages to look up and manage a smile, even if it's half a grimace.
"I thought I would be quick enough. My bad."
"I'm good," he continues, the second Kiero gets close. "I'm good, don't worry."
"I know, I know. Sit down."
He very carefully lowers him to the ground, refusing to let himself panic. It's a lot of blood, but it shouldn't be life-threatening. Vance must have already noticed, because he's disappeared back down the stairs, probably headed for someone's supplies.
Fenton's handling this far too well, for someone with a bullet in his leg.
"You know," Kiero starts. "When I got shot I was sobbing hysterically and trying not to scream."
"Sorry to disappoint you?"
He watches Fenton's lips quirk up again. Because this is normal, just having an every day, casual conversation about his rather god awful time in the Games with a Sentinel who's much younger than he is, like it happens all the time. They're going to be pissed about this, he reckons. It'll make them fight harder. Make this end quicker.
He looks back at the body on the balcony, and even with the blood soaking through his hands, feels a sense of relief come over him. "Believe me. I'm not disappointed."
Is this really that bad? Nah, not yet anyway.
Until next time.
