Y 184-09-01 T 20:56:05
Day 2
The high, thin screams needled Emma's ears, ricocheting off the tall buildings around them. The young Eleven girl continued to scream- Emma did not trust her hand to remain unbitten if she jammed it into the girl's mouth, so she yanked her sword from where it was buried in the girl's abdomen, stepped back and pushed the blade forward, into the hollow of the girl's throat.
Screams turned to silence. Blood frothed at the Eleven girl's mouth. She collapsed, to her knees, then to the ground. A cannon fired overhead, shuddering the air around her. Ronan emerged from a side street as the cannon fired, sprinting back to her position with wide eyes.
"You found one?"
Emma clenched her sword a little tighter. She truly hated the screams, the blood- she did not relish what she had just done.
"Yeah," she sighed. "First one this afternoon and it's a kid. Starting to think this whole hunting thing's a waste of time."
Ronan sighed, kicking the still-bleeding body absently. "First one this afternoon and you took the kill. What have I got outta today? Helping your odds board?"
In the face of her own murders, Emma could care less about her odds board. "Next time, feel free to take them." She wouldn't complain at the loss of the executioner's responsibility.
Ronan chuckled as he probed the body with his shoe. "Will do, boss," he quipped.
It was then that the sun set- but not slowly, not with an eventual finality. The sun had been lowering in the sky for two hours now, but now it was just- gone. Emma's eyes fought to adjust to the sudden darkness.
The now-night air cooled the warm blood on Emma's skin. The air cooled, thrummed, and then 'Horn of Plenty' played above them as silver strands coalesced in the fake sky to form the seal of Panem. A hovercraft buzzed towards them, and the two stepped back carefully, heads tilted to the sky.
Faces flicked past. The face of the District 6 girl. When Emma had seen her corpse in Anna's gambling emporium, she hadn't had a face; or limbs. Emma bit her lip anxiously.
Other people's faces, faces without names. The Ten boy. The Eleven girl. Emma looked down in shame, but found herself watching the girl's body airlifted by the hovercraft, and had to look up again.
The silver strands dissolved in the air and the music stopped, and the two of them were left alone in the night.
"Three today, all those people yesterday.. How many are left?" Emma murmured.
Ronan frowned. "Uh, one from District One, one from Three, both from Nine-
Emma's memory jogged at the thought of the dead. "Uh, the guys from Seven, Ten and Eleven-"
"And the girls from Eleven, Six, Eight and Twelve." Ronan began tapping his fingers in time with the dead. "So that makes- ten?"
"Eleven." Emma looked up at the sky again. "No wonder we haven't run into anyone- almost half the group is already dead."
Ronan grinned. "Perfect- less people around to kill us. Shame Anna or Theon couldn't top off the list, but Sheen's dead, so that's a bonus!"
Death didn't seem much like a bonus to Emma. "Look, we should head back. It's not worth getting killed out here trying to track down people to kill. We'll end up running into Anna."
"Well, she's on our list too, right?" Ronan asked as he led the way home.
"Our- list?"
"Sure. I mean, if winning's the objective, Anna's a big player. Hell, she's a girl, and she topped the odds board back at home."
Emma shrugged. "I don't trust those odds boards."
Ronan laughed. "Course you don't, you were almost bottom-odds on the Career pack! But hey, that's why I keep you around, so don't worry your head about it."
Emma stopped still in her tracks. "What?"
Ronan turned around, still smiling with ease. "Like the sixty-first Games- remember Malek Forneti? If I keep around a weak Career as an ally until everyone else is dead, then I get the easy victory. It's old strategy. I mean, you get the last chance for victory as much as me, but I fancy my odds." He grinned. "Should be fun, right?"
Emma's blood had run cold. "You- keep me around for an easy victory?"
Ronan shrugged. "What did you think I kept you around for, your age and experience?"
Emma couldn't believe what she was hearing. Ronan, who had helped her off the ground when she watched her father shot, who had taught her how to breathe through her panic, who had pulled her away from the chaos in the bloodbath, who shared rations and jokes and smiles with her- he had been working a strategy? The whole time?
She clutched her sword a little tighter in her hand. She did not start moving again. Ronan rolled his eyes and turned away again, walking away.
"Fine, be like that. You don't want protection up until the end, fine by me, but don't forget that when it's you and me at the end, I can give you a quick death or a slow one."
Emma blinked. Her blood ran hot. And she swung her sword-
But Ronan was lithe and fast, and it was all too easy to forget that, and although he had her back to her he ducked under the blade and close to her, yanking the sword free from her hand, kicking her smartly down.
"Don't mess with me, kid." He dropped the sword on the ground. "I was almost at the top of the board, and you weren't. You know why? It's not cause of training, because you were always better with a sword. It's because you're /obvious. Your emotions give you away. You couldn't keep it together when your dad died, you can't hide your intent when you want to kill- you might be able to slice an Eleven girl in half, but don't think you can kill me."
Emma was at Ronan's mercy on the ground. She realised for the first time how incongruous their allied state had been from the beginning- Ronan, a trained Career of volunteer age, supporting the rebellious daughter of the Training Center instructor, despite her age, despite her lack of emotional training. He had smiled at her in the hovercraft to the arena, he had supported her when the grief brought her breathing to shallow gasps in the night, and he had pulled her away from the bloodbath; because she was useful. Because she was easy to kill. And she had killed, she had killed for him; she had just done it now, the Twelve girl she had mutilated to the sound of cannon yesterday, the Eleven girl she had killed only minutes before. How much better was she, now, than him?
Anger flooded her veins, her emotions replaced with adrenaline, and all of a sudden, everything was clear in her mind.
She shifted slightly to test his reaction. He shifted the machete in his hand to match. He was alert to movement, and Emma couldn't beat him, not on the ground, unarmed against an armed and trained Career of volunteer age.
But he thought she was weak. She would make him regret that.
"So, what? It's all been to satisfy the odds?" She managed. "All of it?" She made her voice higher, her eyes wider, playing up to her young age as much as possible. "I thought you liked me."
Ronan stepped back and laughed. "Liked you? Of course I don't like you, we're in the fucking games!" He snorted, swinging his machete loosely. Emma watched with eyes like a hawk. "I thought you were running away from that arranged marriage of yours, too." He laughed. "Man, you fucked up with that, kid."
"So did you."
Ronan didn't react quickly enough. Emma drove upwards, a swimmer's strong legs taking her from the ground into him. She took his weapon hand in both of hers- he had the strength of being an older male, but she had the advantage of training. Her parents, when they had been alive, had taught her since birth- not with expectation of her being in the Games, perhaps, but with the simple expectation that she should know how to defend herself. She ripped back two of his fingers- she heard an audible cracking sound, and Ronan growled in pain, kicking out- but she was already wheeling back, throwing the machete far away, stooping to pick up her sword. He came up to try and kick her over, to snap her neck, to do something- but she was faster than him, and she rose, stepped, pivoted.
The sword rested on the back of Ronan's neck, and he stood still with the horror of impending execution.
Emma stood still as well, her sword held ready to swing and cleave. She could do it- all it would take was a second, and enough power to cleave the vertebrae.
But she had been here before.
Long ago, back when her father was alive and she had felt the ocean on her face, Ronan had fought her brother, and then her. In hindsight, she should have realised then Ronan's distrustful nature- even with her father's insistence, Ronan had kept his knife at her brother's neck for far too long.
But then, way back then, she had fought him and disarmed him and put him in the exact same position.
If this was District 4, if her father was watching once more, he would once more put them at ease. But this wasn't the arena, and Emma remembered her father's comment back then- that if Ronan was to face her in the Games, she would kill him before the first day.
She tensed the sword in her hand. Ronan was tense but unapologetic in the face of death- it was clear he recognised the dishonour in begging for his life. Emma raised the sword. One swift, cleaving motion.
And she would go against her father, her father who had died for her to be here. She would be no better than Ronan, exploiting her for his own gain. She would become something she had never wanted to become- a Career, unrepentant, a kinslayer of her District partner. Monstrous.
She stopped. Ronan tried to turn, to fight, kill, but Emma was not entirely merciful. She brought down the butt of her sword heavily on his temple, and he crumpled on the floor.
She looked down at him. Life was better than he deserved, but she would not become his killer.
She had killed enough for him already.
Picking up his machete and stripping him of his backpack, Emma made her way through the streets. Her sword was still bloodied by the Eleven girl's expired life, but she could not clean it yet. Before Ronan regained consciousness, she would take as much of their weapons cache as she could carry- as many ration packs as she could hold in a backpack. The rest she would destroy as much as possible, and then she would move on.
She had abandoned the last vestiges of the Career pack, but she would not cry for that. She had never been a Career anyway. She was not sure what victory she could bring that would bring her father's sacrifice into balance with her actions, but she could only try to find it.
She walked back to the Inner City through the streets, freed of Careerdom and freed of everything but her own agency.
Her sword dripped with innocent blood, but soon she would wash it anew with a more righteous cause, of that she was certain.
Oh my god, this is the fiftieth chapter! Okay, I don't know how many people still read this, or mind all that much, but I'm excited. Seriously, I've never committed so much to a writing piece. I'm taking Jacquerie all the way to the end, I'm sure of that now.
Now, some of you may be wondering- if this is the fiftieth chapter and we're only up to the second night, my god, when is this going to end? Fear not. Even if I stretch my chapter plan to the absolute maximum, this has about fifteen chapters left to go. Make of that, and what that means for the upcoming plot, what you will.
Which means, if I stick to the plan- Jacquerie will be complete in just over a fortnight.
And I am so excited to show you what I've been planning from the beginning.
As ever, thank you for reading this far.
