Chapter 11 - Day 4

This one is going to be a bit of a filler chapter, because after all, it's only day four and the games can't go too quickly! I do have some more action -lots of it- planned for future chapters, however!

It was still dark out, so I kept my eyes wide, glancing around me to see if any of the other tributes were approaching. They weren't, thankfully. Or at least, not that I could see. We were in the middle of the city, and there were any number of places that someone could be hiding. I kept knives in both of my hands, ready to use them at a moment's notice. Similarly, Atlas had his mace clenched in a tight fist and looked just as alert as I felt.

Though I knew that it probably wasn't wise to try and multitask right now, I couldn't help trying to figure in my head who was all left. Atlas and me, obviously. Ares was still out there, as was Zeus. Those two were the easiest to remember, as they were the oldest and the strongest and easily the two tributes I was most worried about. Well, besides Atlas. What would happen if Atlas and I made it to the final two?

I knew the answer without even thinking. I would save myself.

Besides Ares and Zeus, I knew that Hestia was still alive as of last night, because I had been impressed that she had managed to evade death this long, being the youngest and the smallest and the least capable of all of the tributes that were left.

I knew there were more tributes left besides the ones I had already remembered, but I couldn't recall who they were, which probably meant they were fairly inconsequential. After all, the tributes that I had been able to remember were the ones that posed the biggest threat to me. I wouldn't waste time trying to remember who the rest were if it was going to distract me from the task at hand, which was much more important.

Atlas and I didn't say anything as we walked throughout the city, not wanting to make any noise besides the sound of our footsteps on the cracked pavement. Though I knew there were only seven of us left and it was a large arena and there were sure to be people hiding in the oasis and in the desert and all over the city, I couldn't help feeling like one of the other tributes was going to jump out at us as soon as I let my guard down. And it made it even worse that there was an infinite amount of places to hide in a ruined city: in the buildings themselves, behind some of the half-destructed walls, behind huge chunks of rubble. It almost made me wish for an arena in the forest, like the Seventy-Fourth Games had been, because although there had been places to hide, it hadn't been to this extent. There were a dozen buildings on every block, and blocks and blocks of this forsaken city.

Of course, if the arena had been in the forest, none of us would have known how to survive, being Capitol children. Even my grandfather hadn't taught me how to survive in the wilderness -probably because he had never had to know how, either- so I probably wouldn't have been much better off than anyone else, apart from my knowledge of edible and poisonous -mostly poisonous- plants.

"Here," Atlas said suddenly, startling me enough that I raised my knife and whipped my head around, following his gaze. But he was just pointing out a building for us to stay in. And it was a good one: a smaller building, half-hidden in between two larger ones -perhaps a little store in between apartment buildings?- and already half-ruined, the half of the roof farthest away from the street completely caved in, making it look like, at first glance, there was no way that anyone would be able to live there. That made it the perfect spot to hide from the rest of the tributes. If the rest of the roof didn't collapse on us first, that was. Like the other building we had stayed in, there was no door, but we could just stay to the sides of the building so that we'd stay out of sight.

We ducked into the small, half-ruined building with our weapons still out, ready to attack anyone who was already inside the building.

The building was empty, however, so we were able to dump our packs on the floor and collapse onto the ground. Atlas put his arms around me again and I relaxed into his embrace, grateful for the comfort he was able to give me. If he hadn't been here, I would have been alone, and I didn't think I would have been able to keep from crying if I had been alone. And the last thing that I needed right now was to appear weak in front of the cameras.

Although, crying would humanize me to the audience, and I was sure that after seeing me kill several tributes and walk away seemingly unaffected, they would need a reminder of my humanity. It didn't help that they all detested me for who my grandfather had been. Now, if I had been more like my father, or my cousins, who had all been working overtime trying to convince the rebels that they were nothing like my grandfather, I probably would have been able to get more support from the audience and the rebels. Because if I won, but everyone still hated me, I didn't doubt that the rebels would have me quietly killed. And I wasn't going to let that happen, if I could do anything about it.

It wasn't hard to bring tears to my eyes. I had been holding them back all day, and just thinking about what had happened to Leto brought them streaming down my face. I hadn't cried like this in years, and my first reaction was to pull away from Atlas and immediately try to stop the tears, but I let them come. I hoped they wouldn't look fake, but I doubted that they would because they were genuine tears.

Atlas pulled back slightly, looking down at me, his brow furrowed with what looked like confusion.

"Are you… crying?" he asked, sounding surprised. That made sense, because the girl he had known, both at the Academy and in the arena, would never cry. And the tone in his voice still made me want to leave so that he wouldn't see me like this, but I knew that it was important that I didn't.

So I nodded, the tears still coming down my face, and my buried my head in his chest. Atlas didn't ask what was wrong, because it was very, very clear why I had been crying.

"I as good as killed her," I said after a while. "I let her stand guard knowing full well she wouldn't be able to defend herself if something happened."

"But we didn't think that something would happen," Atlas countered. "None of the tributes seemed to attack at night. And the girl that did attack us seemed absolutely insane. Besides, this is the Hunger Games. You couldn't protect Leto forever, you know. She would have had to die at some point. We both knew that she wasn't able to defend herself as well as some of the others. It's honestly a miracle that she made it this far."

"She made it this far because I was there to protect her!"

"Right, and you wouldn't have been able to do it the whole time. Let it go, Caelia. This is the Hunger Games, after all."

But of course I wasn't able to let it go, because Leto had been my best friend since we had been small children, and now she was gone. That would take time to recover from, and the Hunger Games was not the best place to do it.

I had started crying originally to garner some sympathy from the audience, but now that I had started, I realized how much I had actually needed to cry, after everything that had happened. Leto's death had affected me in a way that none of the others had, and it was no wonder why. So Atlas held me, resting his chin atop my head and murmuring words of reassurance, as I cried into his chest, mourning Leto and with her, the last bit of childhood that I had left.