Chapter Thirty-Five.
The grass was blood-stained.
Britta's body was gone – taken by the claw of a hovercraft. Neviya had watched the vehicular monster whisk her friend away, the final time she'd ever see again, and had done her best to think about all the good bits rather than her axe thudding into her chest.
Britta's compliment on her hair in their first encounter. Britta standing up on the table and denouncing Chancellor in front of everyone. Britta's blatant and unapologetic stance on being herself and fuck all the rest of them.
She was who she was and Neviya had never met someone with such a presence. She astounded Neviya, but she was now dead. All along, from the moment she'd volunteered, Neviya knew that she would make it home. She just had to. Why would she have volunteered if she truly didn't believe she had it in her? Making friends with Roarke, Linnea and Britta had been lovely but she had done her best to remain above the fantasy that she believed Britta had never really unravelled herself from.
Now – she was all alone.
The boy with the smiles, dead. The girl with the perceptive look yet the ability to still laugh, dead. The confident personality of these Games, dead. It was just her.
Not just me, Neviya reminded herself. There was still Destan. Still Albie. And still five others. The last thing Neviya would allow herself to do was to become too confident. She'd seen what confidence could do to someone, not just in these particular Games, but in past watches as she'd recapped what to do and what not to do through her training.
When she thought of Destan, sat against the cold Cornucopia's shell, rage grew fiery hot throughout Neviya. Her fists seemed to clench as if an automatic reaction to the horrific anger she felt. She'd let the rain get in the way and her own emotions at what she'd done to Britta, at what she'd seen happen to Roarke, cloud her from taking him down there and then.
She should not be in the final seven, she should be in the final six, or even the final five if she hadn't have just stared at Roarke's body instead of running after Albie. It was not the right mindset she was supposed to have, but then again, who decided what mindset she was supposed to have? She had never been a mindless, robotic dullard. That had been the entire philosophy Neviya had prided herself on her entire life.
Neviya closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and thought hard to let the anger ease away. As she unclenched her fists, she did her best to supress it. Rather than let those emotions become so overwhelming that she lost sense of why she was here in the first place, she would let them linger on the peripheral as a driving force. Rather than allow vengeance against Destan to be her motivation, she would think of the finishing line, the victory she wanted and push towards that.
I won't go after Destan, Neviya thought, refusing to become hell-bent on revenge. It was another thing she'd seen many times – another path so many tributes had taken that had never ended well. But if I find him… he'll die. That she was sure of. For Britta but also for herself. And perhaps, for the first time out of these entire Games, it would be the only death she'd take satisfaction from enacting.
As she looked around the Cornucopia area, at the jet-black grass with the light breeze whipping each blade side to side, Neviya finally stood up and pulled on the backpack strap round her shoulder. Is this some monumental moment? She looked around her, imagining cameras zooming in, as Neviya walked over to the patch of ground where Britta had died.
There was the axe, dashed with blood. Next to it, Britta's own sword, tipped with red from Britta's own kill way back in the beginning. She looked at the axe and was only reminded of what Destan had forced her to do. If she was going to keep her emotions in check, she knew that she could not pick it up.
It was the sword that Neviya grabbed, putting it into a scabbard that was round her waist. If she could win with Britta's weapon, then it was symbolic in a way of the girl that in her last words had told her to win for her. She would. And she would leave this Arena with a huge smile, not allowing herself to crumble and fall to pieces, because for the girls she'd called friends, for the boy from home that was dead too, allowing herself to fall apart would be a horrific way of commemorating their loss.
She stopped where Roarke had died and collected as many arrows as she could, putting them into her backpack as blades she could use if she ever had to. Another token of a friend gone.
Neviya took a moment as she walked to the treeline to look over her shoulder once more. Final eight and she was now leaving the Cornucopia area. A lot had gone on within this space – here she had lost every connection she'd made over the course of the Capitol and these Games.
But it was time for the next chapter in this story. She couldn't stay here any longer.
Neviya weaved her way through the trees, knowing exactly where she was now heading, and stopped at the corpse of the hideous rat-lady. She stared at it, rotting in the mud, and moved to where Linnea's body had once been.
There, her spear was still nestled in the grass, and Neviya made the exact same choice as earlier. With Britta's sword by her hip, Roarke's arrows in her backpack and Linnea's spear in hand, she set forwards into the rest of the Arena.
Through the memory of the friends she had made and lost, Neviya would survive.
Sword, arrows and spear. With Neviya channelling each of them through her.
It was the path she was now set on. The path that would see her to victory.
"Can you believe we're the last District still alive?"
It was a morbid thought, but as Celestin looked at Maisley and the two exchanged a smile, Celestin couldn't believe it. Who would have thought two rich, snobby brats who hadn't worked a day in their lives, one of them the prissy daughter of the Mayor and the other a lazy fool, would still be alive? It astounded Celestin to think that he was in the final eight but it also frightened him.
He could no longer just expect to be allowed to go under the radar. His ankle, though still occasionally painful, had healed up thanks to his sponsor gift. He now had Maisley with him. This was where he had to take a shot at actually excelling in this Arena. Whatever that actually meant. Between Maisley and Carys, he had no idea what their next move would be. And he did not trust Carys – not one bit. The cut on Maisley's arm made that all the more palpable.
"Who's left exactly?" Celestin asked Maisley. He'd tried to pay attention to the faces in the sky but they'd all started blending into one in the end. Seeing Bryce had been shocking. He hoped Sinta was dealing with that okay. As much as he felt that they were now separated and on different paths, he still cared for his past alliance.
Maisley lifted a finger as she counted off the tributes. "You've got Neviya and Destan – the last two Careers. Uh – us two. Go team. Carys of course. Sinta and Sheridan. And then I think it's Albie? From Three?" She looked at Celestin, lifting an eyebrow. "That's eight, right?"
Celestin, though asking the question, hadn't really listened. Though one eye continued to look at Maisley pleasantly, happy to be back with her, the other continued to stare at Carys from the opposite corner of the hut, sat hunched up with her chin resting on her knees as she stared at anyone but the two from Six.
Celestin was not about to give everything up for Maisley's own survival, but he was also not about to let anything bad happen to her just yet. Through the bubble-wrapped world they'd come from, both had found each other in some weird sense of unity that actually now made Celestin feel like he had a purpose moving forwards. But he'd moved from one tension-laced alliance with Sinta going off the rails, to Carys having attacked Maisley because of some weird drug-infused apple and he couldn't shake the feeling that whenever he wasn't looking, Carys' eyes would flit up and land on him.
He hummed in agreement to Maisley's question but felt his entire body on edge at this moment. Maybe it was Carys, but being here in this Arena had heightened his senses to a million times the amount they'd ever been before. And going by where Celestin had come from, his bed being his natural habitat, that didn't take much.
Maisley, as she continued to talk quietly with Celestin, couldn't help but notice how his eyes would hover over Carys in the corner. She was not proud of what she was doing – not in the slightest. Shooting the arrow to attract the attention of Castor and Ponche, lying about the possibility of sponsors when they'd had nothing really, basically doing everything she could to create a team of meat shields. It had all been for her own self-preservation. And she knew, as much as she liked Celestin, she was just using him too. Carys had become less reliable, if that were possible, and at the peak of her anxiety over where she stood, here he had come to offer more grounding. A solid foundation.
From their position in the treetops, Maisley felt more secure than ever. She knew, when she did decide to strike against Carys soon, that Celestin was bound to join with her. But she wasn't about to vocalise her thoughts. So far, the conversation between Maisley and Celestin was boring – dull remarks about what they'd got up to, reminiscing about Six, and thinking about the other tributes. If she dropped her voice to discuss getting rid of Carys, then who knows what would happen.
Maisley knew she had to strike when Carys' back was turned. She was the strongest out of the three of them. Without Celestin, she had no chance.
"May I have some water?"
At the sound of Carys' gentle voice, Celestin and Maisley glanced over. Carys wore a smile but she wasn't a fool. She had no place in this alliance at all. From the girl back in Ten that had punched dummies and hated the world, to the girl that had joined an alliance of lighter personalities and had begun to feel like she could change for the better. Then she'd killed Spelt for another girl that had blatantly lied and she was once again shown why she had been so callous towards the world in the first place. Because it was a world of liars and cheats.
So Carys would just have to be the biggest liar and biggest cheat of them all. If everyone was going to continue using Carys for what she could provide, then fuck them all. She was done playing it the way she thought people expected of her. So, as she smiled sweetly over at the pair from Six, she knew right there and then that as soon as she got some water and a little bit of Celestin's food, she was gone.
Though she could not bring herself to hurt either of them, she was done. Maybe their alliance had died the second she had killed Spelt. Maybe this was just the way it was always going to be.
Without Castor's light, there was no-one left to be the beacon.
Celestin looked over at Maisley, unsure what to say. But when Maisley just grinned back and nodded, he unzipped his backpack and passed Carys the bottle of water.
"Sure," he said, voice not unkind, but not warm either. "You look tired."
"Can't say I've had much sleep the past few days," Carys said, honestly.
He grinned. "I can relate. I miss my bed."
"Me too," Maisley laughed, keeping one eye on Carys and she took a swig of water and gulped it down. "I guess I sometimes took it for granted. Having such a large bed. Where did you sleep Carys?"
It was a question followed by a smile, but Carys' mood curdled even more as she looked at the horribly sweet smile on Maisley's face. Rather than give into the anger coursing through her system, though, she just shrugged her shoulders and tried to smile back. "It wasn't anything special. But my house was warm enough. My younger brother Hale—" she paused at his name, a genuine pang of sadness in her chest, replacing the violent anger, "—when he was younger we would sometimes share a bed if he had a nightmare. Or if I did. Actually, it was usually me that—"
Carys stopped, refusing to give away too much, not after everything that had happened with the apples. Being forced to relive past trauma had done something to Carys and she did not like it. When she looked at Celestin, she saw dirty blonde hair, the same colour of the boy that had wrapped his hands round her throat. She'd been able to forget about those little details over the years. But this Arena had forced them back to the forefront of her mind.
It was why she had to escape. Quickly.
As time continued to pass the group by, and Maisley and Celestin seemed to relax in to each other's company again, ignoring Carys for the time being, she looked into her backpack. She'd made her mind up to go. She turned around as Maisley's eyes seemed to close, drifting away, and she flicked through some of the last remnants of her supplies. There were little bits she couldn't see the use of but it was her knife that she was mostly focused in. It was still coated with Spelt's blood. Dried at the end, flaking off.
It reminded her she could do this. She thought of all the faces that had once been so lively, so different from each other, all simply gone. Carys rifled through her backpack, cementing the idea in her head, the path she would take, the destination in mind to get away.
Carys didn't know but Maisley's eyes had opened. They'd never really closed. It was Celestin that seemed to finally be drifting off, lack of sleep finally getting to him, as she watched Carys' hands fidget around inside her backpack. Oh no, Maisley thought. She hadn't been ready to get rid of her ally just yet, but she couldn't just let her… walk away.
It had hardly been any time since their conversation yet she knew it had been poisoned with the bond between both girls that had shattered to pieces. Neither knew that over the past few days, the other had considered killing them. Carys pushing Maisley from the tower. Maisley knifing Carys in the back across the bridge.
She blamed the Hunger Games, blamed her desire to live, but if she let Carys go, she knew she'd come back to haunt her in the end. In her mind, with Celestin just by her side, Maisley believed this was now the time. If she thought about it too much, she'd lose her chance.
Now or never… now or never…
Maisley stood up as quietly as she could as the noise of Carys' zip startled her. The knife gripped clumsily in her hands. One quick strike. Through the back. If it didn't kill her straight away, it'd be enough to incapacitate her. That was all Maisley needed. She couldn't win in one on one fights. Backstabbing had to be the way to go. In every literal sense of the word.
She wanted to cry because this was not what she wanted to do – not really. She liked Carys, deep down. She really did. But as she took the final step, she resolved herself to her actions and brought the knife swiftly down.
Only Carys was quicker.
"What the—" Carys dodged out the way, spinning around, her shout waking Celestin up from his sleep. The scene froze in place.
Carys wasn't sure if Maisley severely overestimated her ability, or underestimated Carys, but Carys wasn't a deaf, blind fool. When trust became impossible in an alliance, she did not turn her back expecting nothing to happen.
In that moment, Carys looked between Maisley and the knife in her hand, the startled expression on her face, and the groggy eyes of Celestin as he took in what had just occured. His eyes then widened and he stood up. With the two from Six looking at her, both with a knife, Carys turned tail and ran from the hut.
The wind whipped her cheeks, branches from higher up in the trees slashed at her as she made her way across a bridge, then into the next hut, through the maze of the treetop village. Maisley gave chase before Celestin could tell her otherwise.
Maisley felt panic in her heart, fear flaring through every fibre of her being. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Maisley knew she'd been foolish. And she knew she still was being foolish. But being in the final eight, so close to the end, with an ally now turned enemy who was stronger than both her and Celestin escaping, she couldn't see past the innate terror in her body at the idea of letting her get away.
Stop… stop… she wasn't sure if that was her mind telling her legs to freeze, or Celestin's voice as he chased after her, but Maisley ignored it. For once, she ignored the self-centred part of her body, the voice that had always told her to use her weaknesses to her advantage, and she continued to chase after Carys, knife in hand.
"Maisley!" Celestin shouted, running after her. His ankle seemed to suddenly remember that it had been twisted and that the ointment was only a numbing effect, not a way of healing it. He cursed blindly at the pain that shot up his leg but he didn't stop. Like Maisley, part of his mind willed him to give up the chase, knowing that Carys and Maisley were not worth risking his own neck.
But he couldn't. All three were caught up in the heat of the moment. Emotions trumped survival instinct.
Carys passed through another hut, grabbed onto a rope and swung across the gap, before reaching another bridge. She picked up the knife in her hand and realised, if she didn't cause some kind of diversion, they would be running around in circles until the inevitable clash happened. Though she knew she was stronger than the little liar she'd allied herself with, that did not change the fact Carys knew anything could happen in this Arena.
Strength did not automatically guarantee an upper-hand in the Games. She would not blindly throw herself into action anymore. If she was going to win, everything she'd learnt about herself, would have to be applied to help her make it to the end.
She reached the end of the bridge and with her knife, cut at the first rope. As it started to give way, the planks wiggled in their spot, though there was still enough connection to the hut to keep it upright. Maisley did not seem to notice and ran halfway across the bridge before Carys stepped out from the shadows of the hut and met her eye.
Celestin joined Maisley on the bridge, closer to the opposite end, and stared between his District partner and Carys.
"Why?!" Carys shouted, even though she knew the answer.
Maisley gave up the pretence and felt everything she'd worked hard on fall to pieces there and then. Maybe the reason she'd jumped the gun a bit, tried to take out Carys without properly thinking it through when moments ago she was considering the plan properly, was because she did not have any of the control she truly always believed she did have.
Maisley felt tears in her eyes but blinked them away. "I don't want to die," she said.
"Not good enough."
Carys took out her knife, and before Maisley could do anything, she cut the final rope.
"MAISLEY!"
Celestin jumped backwards and caught the edge of the hut as the bridge fell, ropes snapped and the planks struck the tree branches all the way down to the forest floor. Gravity took Maisley down with it and a high-pitched scream rang through the canopy as Carys looked across the empty gap between her hut, and the one that Celestin stood at.
He gawped at her, then peered over the gap, as Carys ran towards the nearest ladder she could find. She realised as she made it to the forest floor, there had been no cannon. It would have been easier if there had been. After everything they'd been through, she did not dislike Maisley. She did not hate her. And she still saw a strong, younger person in those eyes that reminded her of Hale.
Maisley was crawling in the mud, crying into the dirt as her leg splayed out at an awkward angle, bone jutting through skin. She sobbed and continued to drag her body forwards, looking over her shoulder at Carys advancing, and she shook her head fearfully, side to side, pain shooting through every ounce of her being.
It was fiery hot. Nothing she'd ever experienced before. And in that moment, Maisley was just a small, fourteen-year-old girl, who wanted to go home to her family and tell stories to her friends again.
"P-Please – Carys – please –"
Carys bent down to look at Maisley and felt her own tears balancing delicately on her eyelashes. She shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry, Maisley. I'm really sorry."
Before Maisley could say anything else, Carys drew her knife across her throat and the little girl from Six fell still, blood pooling around the wound in her neck.
BOOM!
As if timed perfectly, Celestin ran towards the two of them and froze, knife now falling to his hip as he just stared at Maisley's dead body.
His mind whirred. He thought about the girl from the train that had asked questions about why no one from Six had ever really gone home, a girl that had spurred him towards joining Sinta, a girl that he had seen take every strength she had growing up in a household like the one she had and twisting it to her advantage.
She might have been the youngest, but she had been a force to be reckoned with. And now she was dead.
"You killed her," Celestin said.
Carys wanted to cry but knew she could not. Not until this was over with.
"I'll give you two options. Try and fight me – maybe win, maybe lose. Or run," Carys lowered her gaze. "Please run."
Celestin looked at his District partner once more, her fragile face twisted in the agony she'd felt in her final moments, and blinked back his own tears.
When Carys looked up, Celestin was gone.
She was all alone.
All his life, Destan had known he would never live up to his mother's expectations.
He'd chosen which image to wear in front of which people to try and be someone special, but all that had left Destan with was an innate sense of worthlessness. As a Career, he'd tried to find that control through other means, but even then he'd never truly believed he was physically strong enough in comparison to the other more brutal, vigorous trainees.
Yet here he was, final eight, and Destan should have felt content knowing he was in the end game. But he wasn't. Destan had stumbled through the forest, streaks down his face from the angry tears that had fallen, and he continued to slash away at any branch that was annoying enough to get in his way, tripping over rocks and awkwardly dancing over roots that jutted from the ground.
Inside of him, all he felt was pure, unfiltered rage. At his mother. At District Four. At Panem. At the Capitol. At Chancellor, Linnea and Britta. At Roarke. At Neviya. At himself.
Deep down, Destan wanted to turn himself around and head straight back for the Cornucopia and get Neviya. The loss of control, the fact that he knew how fucking stupid he had been not seeing through Roarke's deception, or Nikos' blatant desire to run, it angered him so much. But he knew he wasn't angry at Neviya, not really. No – he was angry at himself.
Angry at every single choice he had made since the very beginning of these Games. They all came down to the pure and honest fact that he was not cut out for this. Not in the absolute slightest. He felt a disgrace to everything he'd tried to pretend to be and knew, if he'd just made some different choices back home, he could have been living a very different life to the one he'd thought was the only path for him.
The angry tears that fell from his eyes were not anger at wanting to go and kill Neviya, but the anger at the embarrassment he felt. But it was easier to channel that anger into wanting to wipe the smirk from the face of those that had made him feel this way about himself. In a one on one fight with the girl from Two, he knew he would not win. So, he didn't turn around to face her.
He was scared to.
Albie was somewhere in these trees and he knew she couldn't be too far. He continued to traipse through the dense forest, weaving this way and that around trees and azalea bushes, over roots that seemed targeted to tangling his feet up, and he continued to shake with every emotion that had come to the forefront on his journey through the forest.
If his next target was going to be Albie, he had to be smart, because he knew that she was. He had thought he could use her anger towards Roarke after they'd gotten rid of the threat of Neviya and Britta. Clearly, the second Nikos had ran and Roarke had shot him down, everything he'd thought was going to work had fallen to pieces in seconds.
He just wanted this over with. He could do some soul-searching back home. He could live the life he could have lived when this was all done and neatly wrapped together with his victory. Whatever he may have felt previously about killing, that had fallen to pieces the moment he'd thrown the knife in a blind rage into Castor's skull.
Now – Destan just wanted to find tributes, kill them, smother down all he was feeling, and win.
If he thought about it that way, he could delude himself into thinking it was easy. If he could feign some sort of confidence, then everything he hated about himself could settle just on the edge, but not enough to overwhelm him.
But he couldn't see anything. Or hear anyone. It was just these fucking endless trees and he was growing more and more frustrated. Destan's eyes looked up to the sky, where those cameras were hovering around, and he knew it was worth maybe another shot. One more little push.
"Can a guy get some help?" Destan pleaded, hoping the Gamemakers were listening like they had the last time. "Please?"
He waited. And waited some more. And then some more.
Nothing.
Not a wisp of ghostly blue. Not a single floating gaseous, whimsical being to show him the way. Either the Gamemakers had completely lost faith in his endeavours, or they were finding it funny to watch him beg them, eyes probably two inches away from a camera, staring at the sky, hoping and praying for guidance.
He kicked a tree root in frustration and howled with pain again. This must have been the third time he'd done so.
As he closed his eyes to try and calm himself down, that was when he heard it.
A snap of a tree branch. A rustle of leaves.
Maybe the Gamemakers hadn't sent a path for him to follow because he was closer than he thought.
Maybe they hadn't lost faith in him after all.
There was only one way to find out.
Ding. Ding.
Albie glanced up at the sky as she caught sight of the parachute floating gently towards her. It brushed against the branches of the tree she was stood under and softly she let it fall into her hands as she stared at the note written and hooked to the canister.
You've caught their attention. Use this. Keep moving – S.
She said a silent thank-you to Shiloh, her mentor, and let the paper fall to the ground. As the lid came off the canister and a glass jar fell into her hands, Albie knew immediately what it was for and couldn't contain her silly excitement.
If the sponsors were giving her a gift this late in the game – something that was bound to be expensive – it could only mean she'd caught the attention of everyone out there. A part of Albie knew that everything she'd been through and done had not been for anyone but herself and those that she had lost along the way. Nikos was just the final nail in the coffin of the Albie she'd once been.
All her life she'd been told to bottle things up. If – no, when – she made it home, she'd gladly tell her mother where to stick her ideas of what made the perfect Mathison daughter. And then she'd never see her again.
She thought back to the chaos of yesterday. Nikos being shot down immediately – something she wished she'd been able to predict. And then Roarke, dead to her knife, another Career fallen. She hadn't taken a risk then of trying to get Neviya or Destan. Albie, for everything she was feeling, still prided herself on her mind. A continuous state of bringing together the two parts of who she now was as a tribute in these Games.
The jar made her think of Shual, back in the hut, and she knew that this was a gift to get her moving those plans forward. As if on cue, the fireflies gently floated back into view and Albie smiled at their peaceful appearance. They were bright yellow, golden in hue, as they seemed to move straight towards her. Albie thought of the two Careers still out there – Neviya and Destan – but also of the other remaining tributes. She had nothing against any of them, but just by being alive, they were in her way of living.
She would step over everyone now, this close to the finish line, if it meant making it home to Three and living the rest of her life trying to accept who she had now become. She would do anything.
Albie gently unscrewed the lid from the jar and moved towards the nearest golden cloud of fireflies. None of them seemed to fly away as she scooped the jar through the air, several fireflies falling into the glass and she rolled the lid back up and tightened it so they couldn't escape.
Shual, as much as he'd wanted to survive by sticking to the shadows, had known this was the best way forwards. She would do this for him, knowing he couldn't be here. For Armina, lost too soon. The second Albie looked down at the fireflies, peacefully roaming around their new glass home, their yellow bodies turned to red and she saw little tendrils of fire sweep around the confines of the jar.
Perfect, Albie thought.
She thought of Shiloh and again thanked her and whoever had blessed her with this jar. Then her mind went back to the note – keep moving – and she could almost feel the eyes on her. Albie tried to remain as calm as she could and quickly hurried forwards. She had no idea who it was but in that moment, she knew she was being followed, though they were keeping their distance, not yet ready to strike.
With the red fireflies, Albie knew exactly where she was now headed and how far she was willing to take this to make sure she could survive.
It was the end of the day. The Capitol seal could be seen through the canopy as the girls from Five and Six looked back down on the surviving tributes, and then sunlight became starlight.
In the night-time glow, the red fireflies seemed to burn even brighter.
Albie smiled, ears perked up to every sound, eyes taking in her surroundings, and she set off towards her destination, ready to set the world ablaze.
She was nearing the end.
Six to go.
8th: Maisley Corvac, District Six Female.
Okay typing a chapter when you slice your finger open on a ketchup bottle and have it all plastered up is bloody difficult. The things I go through for fanfiction ;/
Three more Games chapters left – almost there!
Question time:
If you could swap two tributes – one dead for one alive – who would you choose and why?
Thanks!