Chapter 9 Day 1 part IV

"I propose we go inside and get cosy ?" Everyone eyed Meliorn. It had been a bad joke. The more they approached, the more Alec felt something was off. He halted. There was a light coming from the house. The downstairs windows were open. You could almost hear the conversation coming from the building. But that wasn't it. They all separated. Kaelie stayed to have a view on the entrance door while the others including Alec would go around. Alec almost resigned himself to the fact there wasn't anything until he saw it. There; on the side, only one window was open on the second floor. More interestingly, a rope was hanging from it. It was almost indiscernible, if only it hadn't been for its shadow. Alec crouched. He checked the ground. The rope hung out in such a way that you couldn't see it from the inside if you climbed it. It didn't look trapped either. There were knots all over. Their tightness indicated that they had been already used. His first gut feeling had been right. There was somebody who had snuck inside through the upstairs window.

He knew how to do this so he confidently tugged on it. It still felt stable and since it was out of sight, he decided to climb it. The effort made him forget his headache as the adrenaline coursed through his veins. When he hoisted himself up he felt the burn in his muscles more than before. He got in, hopefully as soundlessly as possible. There was a light source. He could feel and hear it. They had lit the fireplace downstairs. Like in the other house the upstairs was divided into different empty rooms. There was no chest to be seen. He followed the wall to avoid walking in plain sight. The plan was to surprise the tribute that had snuck upstairs.

It didn't take long for Alec to see him. Sebastian was peering at the tributes downstairs through a removed plank of wood in the floor. Alec unsheathed a knife from his belt. Sebastian had clearly not heard him.

Alec was quick. He blocked Sebastian's arms before he even moved. He swept the man to the floor. It wasn't soundless but the wood was thick enough that it muffled most of the impact. Sebastian clearly hadn't expected him but he had kept his focus from not even exclaiming a groan even while being attacked. Alec held him into a shoulder lock, his knife pressed to Sebastian's throat. Sebastian was still struggling against his grip. Alec couldn't let himself relax under any circumstances because it wouldn't be too hard to break free if Sebastian really wanted.

"Long time no see," he whispered into Sebastian's ear. He felt the tribute stiffen under him.

"Release me at once." He still struggled against Alec's grip. He felt strong and not as exhausted as Alec felt.

"Will you kill me if I do ?" Alec asked. He hooked one of his feet behind Sebastian's legs, preventing him from moving even more.

At that moment, cold metal slid right under Alec's chin. He immediately stopped struggling to keep Sebastian in place. One move would push his neck into the blade.

"He might not be able to, but I would if you don't release him." Aline's voice was just a whisper and Alec felt like his plan had backfired on him. He let Sebastian go.

"You have fled the cornucopia, I thought we had an arrangement," Alec gritted between his teeth. Was this the moment where he would meet his end ? Because he had been too impulsive ? Sebastian had gotten up and moved away from the duo.

"We have, I stay true to my word." Aline disengaged the knife from his throat. Alec looked up at her, hiding his relief. Her knife was one of the biggest he had seen in the arena. It would be able to slice quite deeply into a throat if the wielder used it with a bit of speed and strength.

"What was the plan ?" Alec asked, gesturing toward the peephole in the floor.

"Attract them upstairs. Maybe use one of them to lure the others." Sebastian answered. He was massaging his neck as if he was still feeling Alec's arm around it.

"Who is it ?" Alec didn't know why it mattered to him. He wondered if it was a sign of weakness. Maybe it was just to be sure they knew whom was awaiting them downstairs and what challenges it would entail if they were to attack them straight on.

"The singing guy, then the two of from district 7." Alec nodded to Aline, both tributes from 7 looked feral. The girl especially had more stamina than she looked likely to possess.

"We were going to drop these from the opening. The boy from 7 is keeping watch. He is mainly falling asleep from time to time." Sebastian took out a piece of cloth. Its content was little chocolate balls Alec hadn't seen yet.

"It's from the blue wrapped candies. They are full of cyanide. You notice it from its bitter almond smell." Aline added to his unspoken question. Alec felt some kind of contentment flood over himself as he understood that he had been right on time to stop Lydia from eating any of those.

"I'll cover their possible escape route from the stairs," said Alec. He didn't want to share anything with his newfound allies yet. Aline nodded. She would sneak up on them from the back. Sebastian would make sure he would trap the tribute if they were to try and get through to the other rooms. Even if it was most unlikely.

The plan was set. Aline poured some of the candies down. The response wasn't immediate, apart from a questioning sound of 'what' and 'how'. Alec glanced at Aline as he heard the boy from downstairs wake up his companions.

"There is candy falling from the ceiling." His friend clearly grunted. The other woke up at the conversation. "I'm gonna check upstairs." Alec took out his feather-staff. He would be able to sweep people off their feet if it was needed.

"Bat, I don't think it's a good idea." The boy got upset. He said something about being hungry and made his way toward the stairs. They all readied themselves. Aline had left the cloth with the poisoned candies on the floorboard. It indeed distracted the tribute. Bat crouched to inspect the cloth full of candies. Aline moved in, she elbowed him at the back of the head and straddled him. He turned and punched her. Alec couldn't keep up with their wrestling so he kept an ear out for what was going downstairs. The girl ran up the stairs. She didn't see Alec at all. She was about to jump on Aline with a knife but Alec stopped her. He trapped her with her staff. The wood was on her throat. He was trying to choke her.

"Maia, get out of-." The sentence died in his throat as Aline sliced her knife through it. The girl went wild. She elbowed Alec and rammed them both against the nearest surface. He saw black spots in front of his eyes. The air was knocked out of his lungs as his head bounced back against the wall. The slight loosening of his grip was all it took for Maia to break free. A canon resonated. She was groaning. Aline didn't have the time to get up. She ran through the rooms; when Sebastian tried to stop her, she pushed him aside.

She wasn't going to… To everyone's astonishment, Maia did indeed run herself through the window. Alec just had the time to shake the black spots away to see her jump out of the window. She was probably going to break her legs. Sebastian hurried to the window to see it happen. "She is getting away," he shouted. He lifted one leg over the edge to follow her.

"Don't be stupid, Sebastian," Aline's voice was firm but desperate. She sounded very protective. "She was able to make that jump, you can't. Don't risk it !"

Alec saw Sebastian hesitate. He saw him weighing the odds. He didn't follow her. Alec then remembered there were three of them. He rushed downstairs. Of course the last one had fled. He groaned and went outside. Duplesse was nowhere to be seen. Lydia was looking annoyed.

"I saw what happened, did you really think you could do this on your own ?" She sounded upset. Meliorn came out from the bushes, he was out of breath.

"She is really fast despite having jumped from that height. I couldn't catch up. If we had known you were planning on attacking, Lightwood, we might have gotten them together." Meliorn crossed his arms as he spat out the words at Alec's face. "I thought we were allies."

Alec shrugged, "It wasn't my plan." He sheathed his feather-staff. "Where is Kaelie ?" Nobody answered. He saw his two allies relax when Aline and Sebastian came out of the house.

"Now I see why Alec didn't wait for us. You didn't have any cover from outside. We could have done a better job together." Lydia's tone was filled with bitterness. Aline took long strides to just stop right in front of her. Alec wondered if they would break into a fight. This wasn't productive and helped none of them. If it escalated he would step in between them.

"You are right," said Aline. She was tensing up her jaw. "I had, however, put traps outside."

Alec heard Meliorn apologise. "Doesn't matter, whoever we're not getting now, we'll get them later."

The tribute death cannon fired. They all looked surprised at each other. The computerised voice of the arena resonated :

"10 tributes remaining."

Kaelie then appeared from out of the forest. She wasn't limping anymore. "Got 'em !" she shouted. When she joined them she explained that she had been able to ambush the running Kirk Duplesse who got a freshly cut throat in response. Thanks to her, the plan hadn't been a complete failure.

They all sat down together and built up a camp together outside of the house. Sebastian reported it had suddenly melted out of nowhere. To emphasize his story, he had shown a huge burn mark on his thigh that looked mostly healed. If it was still painful ? He didn't answer. Nobody liked to show any weaknesses. Kaelie had found a medical syringe in Duplesse's pockets which explained why her foot suddenly seemed cured. Originally they had refused to use a syringe for that purpose but since it hadn't been from the group's supply, nobody made a big deal out of it.

They lit a fire and proceeded to draw a map on the ground. From the cornucopia ou,t Aline and Sebastian had explored the more left side of the arena. There were two houses they had encountered, an empty one with huge walls and no other floors. It had been completely devoid of rooms. Then there was the one they set camp at, the one that melted every so often. The rooms would get extremely hot and all of a sudden things became like liquid lava. It had originally driven them out. But they had stayed in the area. A few hours later the house had been rebuilt as if nothing had happened. They had decided to make the house into a possible trap for any other tributes that would be curious enough to explore it. They tracked down the three tributes and left clues for them to find the house. Sebastian added that they had been talking about things being buried underground until most of them fell asleep on the couches. That had maybe been an hour before Alec and the others arrived.

Meliorn explained what had happened to the house that the other part of the group had been in. How it had crumbled into a million pieces without warning.

"Have you met the thing ?" he finished his explanation with that question. Aline and Sebastian looked at each other and shook their heads. "It hums, it sounds female and is extremely fast; it almost got me and Lightwood. It killed one of the other tributes." It didn't seem to ring any bells.

"We haven't seen nor heard it. One of the gamemakers' mutations ?" Aline seemed to think while she asked the question. She had the habit of caressing her chin like her mother.

"Usually mutations have a function. They are there to draw us together to kill each other." Alec added. "I believe it can see in the dark, it had no problem tracking us through the cornfield past the pathway cobblestones. We weren't able to get a look at it." He sighed. His headache had come back since the adrenaline had died down in his veins. His fingers rubbed his temples absentmindedly . He was used to staying awake for longer periods than that. Even in the institute you were trained to stay awake for consecutive days with a minimal amount of sleep. He was just feeling a bit numb.

"If it comes at dark we always have this." Sebastian took something from his backpack. Alec immediately recognised night vision goggles. "We will see it coming."

There was a relief from tension coming from almost everyone. Suddenly things felt safer, manageable. Their chances at survival seemed higher than ever. Two took the first watch and Alec didn't feel like he could sleep at all. He felt himself drift in and out of sleep. After what Alec presumed was an hour he decided to give up. He flung his robe, which he had been using as a blanket, back on and sat down with Kaelie. They exchanged a few words, even friendly conversation. The night didn't seem to end. Alec was keeping watch with Aline when the anthem boomed over the arena. The announcement asked for respect to the fallen. Their portraits flickered away one after the other in the midnight sky.

Alec didn't look away, they had all fought bravely. They had all tried to survive. He felt his heart race to a stop when the face of the girl from 8 was displayed. He still heard the gurgle of the blood in her throat as he stabbed and stabbed her again. He kept his eyes open, not sure if he was still registering the portraits. His hands itched as if they desperately needed to get cleaned again. His nails felt as if they were out of place. He felt himself rub them. He tucked his hands under his arms. The itchiness didn't go away, nor did the sudden fog in his mind. He got distracted when he heard Lydia mutter a prayer. The anthem had woken all of them up. When the last portrait vanished, the sun peeked over the horizon. With relief and dread they saw the sun rise up to its apex within a few minutes. The first day in the arena had passed.