XXXI: Arena, Morning, Day Six.
Hale Mavala, 17
District Eleven Male
Well, at least one of them got some sleep.
Hale certainly didn't.
Saying Casi slept is generous as is—she was up every hour checking on them, poking her head into the main room to watch one thing or another. Hale hardly moved, taking up sentry by the door to watch the fire spread further into the city, and Milo stayed in or around the pile of glass he had managed to accumulate, uncaring for if it cut into his own skin while he spread it around.
It didn't appear there was much Milo cared about anymore, not unless there was something Hale was missing.
The idea that he had killed Armina was all too-present in his mind—the thought refused to leave no matter how hard Hale tried to make it vanish. It wasn't a crime to kill an ally and he was sure Milo wasn't the first in this place, but it was all he could do to wonder what had gone so wrong after nearly six days for him to do it now. Was it something she caused, or had Milo just been waiting to do it all along? Hale wanted to ask but that was the wrong move, especially with Casi asleep. Any confrontation had to happen two versus one, and even then it didn't guarantee a win.
Hale has been searching for hours for something to say, trying to bring back a little bit of the humanity left buried within him. For all they know, Milo is telling the truth and coping in the only way he knows how to—self-destruction, laughter, a carefree attitude that is enabling him to continue on.
From the corner of Hale's eye he watches Milo pluck up a piece of glass in-between his fingers, the shard catching on the orange-red light of the sky outside.
He forces himself to come up with something. "Does the fire bug you?" Hale asks.
Milo's eyes flicker to him and to the outside world a few times over in rapid succession, his grip around the glass growing tighter. Hale isn't sure if he sees a trickle of blood run from Milo's fingers or if he's just imagining it, a trick of the light. "Why would it?" he wonders, but the uneasiness has grown tenfold in those few seconds. It does bug him. He only knows the word pyrophobia because of Glenna, but he feels as if he's seeing it now. There's some fear attached to it, whether it's the fright of the fire itself or the prospect of what could happen with it so close-by.
A part of Hale hates it too, the amount of destruction that can be caused by such eerie, towering beauty. He can't help but wonder if they got Ten out of there before the fire swallowed him whole; he hopes so, for his family's sake.
He refuses to push the issue any further, though. Hale shrugs. "Just wondering. It would make sense."
A little bit of Milo's resolve shatters, shown so obviously in the slump of his shoulders, the nervous shake to his fingers as they drop the glass. There's no blood. Hale was imagining it.
Of course he was.
"How many people have you seen in Eleven that hate it?" Milo asks, eyes on the floor. It's such a genuine question that Hale feels himself startle, racking his brain for a quick answer.
"It's… complicated, I guess," he says. "It usually keeps to the fields and the orchards, so for most people it's about losing the crops, not their lives."
Except for when it's not the fields and orchards. Except for when it's a building and you let people die because you're too cowardly to risk your own hide. It's Glenna's voice he hears it in once again, not Arley's because Arley would never blame him no matter what he was thinking. Their disappointment strikes him again all at once, almost too heavy to breathe under. The feeling is not unlike a heavy shroud of smoke, bitter and acrid even through the equipment Glenna made them pile on.
"Wish it was that way in Two," Milo supplies bitterly, slumping back against the counter.
"You don't."
"Better mother fucking nature than people—than my parents."
Oh, Hale's making progress now, is he? Not that it makes him feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside, or anything, to talk about death in such brash terms, but it makes Hale feel like he understands him a bit better, somehow. They each have things they're dealing with, trying to hide them behind shields and walls destined to be broken down.
"I'm sorry," Hale says, which isn't good enough. He's said it before—doesn't mean anything. He can't help but wonder how many people have said that to Milo over the past few months, inflated words that seem more like a tape recording than anything with meaning.
And suddenly Hale feels bad for saying it, wrong. Like he should have said more.
Like they're friends. But they're not. Hale doesn't want friends, doesn't need them. He's getting back out, going home to Arley, and that's all he needs. The memory of Casi will be left lying on that couch in the background and he'll have one of Milo, too, sitting in an explosion of glass without a care in the world, some unspoken grief in his eyes. For his parents and himself both.
He killed Armina—Hale feels like he knows that, now. If he hadn't gotten so many people killed himself maybe that would make him sick to his stomach.
If Hale has given himself a second chance then he can't say Milo doesn't deserve one either.
Fuck, he's going soft, isn't he? It's terrible.
"Sorry's not good enough," Hale continues. "No matter how many times you say it, what does that really mean? Whatever happened still happened. Doesn't change a goddamn thing in the grand scheme of things."
Silence. Milo rolls his head along the counter's front-face to look at him, one eyebrow raised. "Are you getting existential on me?"
And he almost laughs. Almost cracks like the glass case Milo broke last night, no rhyme or reason to it. This version of Milo is still more jaded, patched together with fragile lines of glue and tape, but he sounds more like the one that existed in the Capitol.
Hale is making progress, making amends for everything he's run away from in the past. Just because it's one person doesn't make it any less important. He's starting somewhere, alright? Everyone has to. A part of him still wants to ask about Armina, but he knows that's not right. He has to leave it in the past, as harsh as it sounds. Some things are better forgotten about.
Hale sighs. "Think so. I hate it."
"Join the club. You sound like a fucking philosopher," Milo says, voice a bit hysterical. Still a little bit wrong, but that's okay. "I know there are still mannequins running around everywhere, but I didn't know they were capable of bodily takeover."
He allows himself a chuckle—just a little one, and it feels good to let it out no matter how small. Milo's eyes are closed but he's grinning, stupidly. It really is stupid, isn't it? How the hell have they ended up here after everything? Casi would hate it if she were awake but she'll come to terms with it when she opens her eyes; this is all that's left of their rationality.
They've all gone bad, at least a little bit. It's not just Milo. Crucifixion is not well-deserved because of a few mistakes.
Besides, Hale thinks he's making them right now. Many of them. Allowing himself to laugh, to smile, to project a little bit of undeserved happiness over the image of the Ten boy's falling body and the lost look in Milo's eyes, the defeat in Casi's walk.
He's bad too. At least halfway.
Accepting it feels better than it has any right to.
Ambrose Clarion, 16
District One Male
Not being able to move is a terrifying sensation.
He's all there, though. Ice-cold, limbs tingling, wrapped around himself on the floor. Eyes nearly glued shut, crusted over. Ambrose knows he has to move at some point.
The prospect of bleeding out is still strong.
He's been lost in some sort of limbo state for hours, suspended in-between life and death as blood spread across the floor beneath him, soaking through the gauze and bandages he packed there, so bright and new. Red within seconds. But he was still alive, wasn't he—sort of, anyway. That gift had saved his life. Ambrose had opened his eyes again for a reason.
He does so now, too, dragging an arm up inch by inch until he can scrub at them. There's a orange tint to everything in the shop and his legs are halfway under an antique table of some sorts, knees knocking against one of the wooden legs. The taste of blood is so thick in his mouth he doesn't think he'll ever be able to get rid of it—it's not like he can eat or drink anything, he doesn't think. Not without risking it escaping the gash in his throat.
Even without opening his mouth Ambrose knows he can hardly speak, each breath a harsh rasp that rattles and stings. It has to come back. It can't be gone.
Who is he without a voice?
He hooks a leg around the table leg to anchor himself and reaches forward, one-armed, to slowly shift upwards. The other stays at his throat, pressing down at the sticky, drenched bandages that stick to his skin without the aid of any tape. Even sitting up he feels like it's tearing open further, threatening to separate his head from his neck. One wrong movement and it's over.
Ambrose can hardly see straight, vision blurred and wobbling. The blood-loss and the shock are mixing into a dangerous cocktail, rendering him nearly useless. It takes so much energy to even sit up like this, taking careful breaths that he feels in every inch of his gashed-open throat. The catastrophic remains of the new first-aid kit are spread haphazardly across the ground by his feet, everything else forgotten about except the rolls of bandage and gauze, torn apart by his careless hands. He had no interest for anything neat last night, nothing except haste to keep himself alive the second the parachute hit him.
They wouldn't have sent it if they didn't believe he could save himself; they knew more about the inner-workings of people than he did. The wound was high up, tucked underneath his chin. It hadn't hit the important things—he'd be dead if it had. That's all Ambrose knew.
And it had to be good enough.
He drags the kit closer and rolls out the rest of the bandages, what little is left. Pulling off the outer layer from around his neck sends his heart-racing so fast he can feel it in his fingertips. Any second now he could start bleeding again, another torrential flood that will surely kill him. Ambrose doesn't have enough blood left in his body to survive it a second time. He'll just… slip away.
It's so hard to move it takes him what feels like forever to remove the outer bandages, gently pasting a clean layer over-top of them before he fastens it with a pin around the side, and then another just to be sure. His clothes are another issue, his shirt and jacket soaked through to the point where they're still damp, only making his clammy skin worse.
If only he had someone to help him. If only he hadn't killed Lex, or Devan, or hadn't done any of this. Karmic energy is at work; the world is only paying Ambrose back for the numerous wrongs he's committed inside this arena.
Now he's alone. Possibly still dying.
So close to the end without a voice.
He splashes a little bit of his remaining water over his hands, noting the vicious shake to them. It's not just the pain or the wound, but the realization. Ambrose knows precisely why he's here and why that decision was made—in a few agonizing, life-altering seconds that very reason has been stolen from him. He never should have stopped in that intersection, shouldn't have tried to save Varrik.
It was all for nothing, every single second of it.
His new reality is still floating about, but that doesn't stop him from dragging the parachute closer, using it to sop up some of the blood from his shirt as he squeezes at it as best he can, watching it drip to the floor. Something slips free from the bundle as he does so, so spotted through with blood that he can hardly make out the thick, blocky letters in the orange gloom.
YOU'RE NOT ALONE IN THIS.
He is, though. It's unavoidable; Ambrose must accept that. Dimara is much too far away to save him, and everyone who might have given even an ounce of thought to his well-being is dead and gone. The one person who would have really put energy into saving him has been dead a long time, now, and even if Oksana is here he doesn't know what she'd be able to do. Those words sound just like what she told him back in training, only less in bold and more gentle, a careful reminder.
It's meant to comfort him. They're trying. Considering just how alone he is, that means something more than he thought it could.
After many minutes of build-up, it comes to him. His throat is practically on fire, every layer of it pulling and protesting the movement when he opens his mouth. But he has to try rather than admit defeat—that's all Ambrose has ever known to do.
The quiet thank-you that escapes his mouth is hardly audible, a weak rasp that sounds nothing like his actual voice. Pain lances through his neck when he swallows, trying once again. "Thank-you," he manages, nothing more than a whisper, and it burns, the taste of blood filling his mouth once again as he bites down on his cheek, hoping to lessen it.
It hardly works, but it's enough proof. Ambrose hasn't been completely silenced. He can come back from this—he can come back from anything.
Seven more people. Hardly any at all, really.
He doesn't have a choice.
Inara Brea, 16
District Five Female
Inara can only wait so long for the sun to come up before she has to admit defeat.
She's been in a half-doze for some time now waiting for it, hoping to see some glimmer of it on the horizon, only to be greeted by that same garish red from the day before. Red as blood, she can't help but think, at the bit of it that still stains her hands underneath the ash from Hosea.
The sun is not coming up, she thinks. Or maybe it is and it's hidden away, never to be found. It's like a treasure hunt, almost—it would be, anyway, if they weren't trapped in the Games and waiting for the harsh inevitability of death. A hunt such as that would be much too childish for them at this point, something she'd organize for the kids back home if they ever happened to have the free time for it.
Not that they ever did, but that was beside the point.
Inara sits up, escaping the plush pillowing of clothing she's laid herself in to ease some of her discomfort. What's left of the woods across the road is not much at all, trees scorched to black. What little of them remain, anyway. Soot billows across the road in large, gray clouds and drives fiercely against the outside of the building. Inara is safe in here, for now, but she doesn't quite feel it. Not the way she should, anyway.
Some of that stems from being alone, surely. She grew too comfortable having Hosea to watch her back and then Micah, too, two people who seemed to genuinely trust her. A small part of Inara wishes she could have had that with Oriol, too, but she knows it was never meant to be. Not everything is.
She learned that at a very young age. If fate was all good and dandy it wouldn't have tossed her around and then spit her out into the home, facing the wrath of the Sisters day in and day out while trying to care for and tuck one too many children under her arm. So she doesn't feel safe, not quite, but she watches the outside stay there, held back by the glass shopfront. For now, there's nothing to worry about.
Inara doesn't have to get up to know that the fire has escaped the woods, somehow. The buildings around here are still standing but it looks as if hell has encroached and come to stay, encasing them all in some sort of hellish little snow-globe. It's a funny thought, really. The kids would be entertained by it if they were here to laugh with her.
She's glad they're not, but a bit of laughter would do wonders for her mental state. Hell, anything other than just lying here would.
Time to move, then. Inara has laid here for long enough. If there's no escaping hell, she might as well wander out into it.
There's a few things to handle, first. Inara bends forward to examine her feet, red and angry and blistered around the edges. They definitely hurt, but not unbearably so. She's definitely had worse, so she works on pulling free some of the drapes and scraps of clothing out from beneath her and takes her knife to them, tearing neat, uniform strips off that she lays across her bended knees. The bandages she has left are minimal and surely can't with-stand the brutality of the street; if only there were some shoes in here. Wouldn't that be nice?
"Can't rustle up some shoes, can you?" she mutters, flashing a quick glance towards the camera hovering above the door.
Nothing falls out of the ceiling onto her head, so she figures that's a no. Oh, well. She can work with what she's got. First she smoothes some of the antiseptic over her feet, touch beyond gentle, and then wraps a thin layer of bandages around them both, over the arch and down beneath her sole. Not tight enough to really hurt, but there to protect. Her scraps of cloth follow, layered over-top to keep the bandages clean. So she hopes, anyway. Going out there and trying to keep anything clean is going to be difficult.
Inara has to try, though. She certainly has enough reasons to.
She looks around at her little place of refuge and lets herself breathe for a moment longer while she shrugs off her jacket. The heat is sweltering anyway, brought on by the intensity of the flames shifting all around them. She slices through the bottom half of it, fabric tearing obnoxiously loud beneath the knife's blade, and yanks the end-product over her head and over her mouth and nose. It's shabby at best, but it should protect her from the worst of the smoke. Her lungs already ache from previous exertion, throat so scratchy even her previous single sentence made everything burn.
Just like that, she's doing this. Alone, the way she was meant to. She can't help but wonder what her kids thought when she ran off into the arena with allies in the first place—they had to have been surprised. Even shocked. Someone like Gilda would laugh at her for that, elbowing her and giggling like a schoolgirl with a little crush. You have friends? she would chortle, before looping her arms tight around Inara's back in an instant apology, I thought you only had us!
And now she does. Hosea and Oriol are dead. Micah may be somewhere out there, but she doesn't think she has a hope in hell of finding him. A part of her doesn't want to, either. She doesn't want to be the one to kill him.
He deserves to go home just like she does. If it's not Inara, she wants it to be him.
She can't take that away from him.
Inara steels herself before she braces her arms against the ground and brings herself into a crouch, carefully testing her weight. Her feet aren't too happy about the position, but they're going to have to deal with it. It's not as if Inara can sit here and wait for someone to show up; the Gamemakers will send something worse her way before they let her get that boring.
Her steps to the door are careful, each one calculated. The carpet is nice; the streets and everything beyond it won't be so forgiving. She has to go, though. For them and for herself.
She thinks of them again. Kanea and Demi and Gilda and all of the other girls, unable to stop herself from thinking about how they must be handling all of this. If the interviewers from the Capitol even managed to find them, what could they have said?
Inara looks up to the camera. "I'm coming back," she says resolutely, giving the camera a firm nod. She doesn't care about what the audience must think about her words. All she cares about are her kids—they have to know she means it. That's all Inara wants.
She pauses at the door, one hand resisting against the glass. It's warm to the touch, her face already sweating beneath the fabric she's tied over her face. The hellscape that has emerged while she laid curled up, letting herself agonize and hate the world, is unlike anything she's ever seen before. Nothing will ever look this way to her again because nothing can be this bad.
But this is the world Inara has to work with, now. This is the one she has to fight through to get back.
She promised them she would.
Inara takes a deep breath, her last one for some time, she suspects, and steps outside into hell.
Micah Rossier, 18
District Eight Male
It's not his imagination that has him hearing things.
It could be, of course. Micah is in a world of pain right now, hardly able to stand, his leg quaking beneath him as if it's about to give way. Not to mention his head, ears ringing, pulsating pain radiating out from the back of his skull. His heart is slamming, over-exertion driving him to a point of exhaustion as his body fights against the agony that continues to spread throughout his body. Maybe it's that he's hearing.
Could be the fire, too. The noise has risen to a practical roar. He keeps waiting for something to emerge, but the fire only grows taller. It's the only thing there.
If the noise isn't anything around him, it only leaves one practical explanation: it's coming from inside the Training Center.
Exactly where he had thought to finally go.
There are supplies in there; he knows there is. Weapons and food and medical supplies, God he needs those more badly than he ever thought he could. Something in there has to be strong enough to fix him. His skin is starting to swell and darken around the gash in his leg, still occasionally leaking blood that stains down his white pants all the way to the ankle.
Someone's in there, though. He's heard their voice not far from the main door, but nothing in response. Perhaps they're talking to themselves. Admittedly, Micah is almost to that point as well. If they wouldn't hear him in return, he likely would be. You can figure this out, he says to himself instead, keeping the words floating through his brain. Not that they give him any confidence. He's alone, now, at risk of death, and no one is coming to save him.
Not this time. Micah has to save himself.
He stays close to the wall, nearly pressed up against it as he shuffles away from the main entrance and closer to another door, less official. More of a back entrance, if he had to guess. He grapples for the door handle, using it to hold his body up as his leg finally crumples beneath him like nothing more than wet paper. There's no making it very long like this, so he has to go in there. Worst case scenario, he's caught and they kill him.
Micah thinks he might already be dying anyway. What's the difference, and why does it matter? Would he rather die slow from the inside out, whatever's wrong with his leg gradually overtaking the rest of his body, or at the end of someone's weapon, a blade driven into his body to the hilt as they stand above him like a demon, blood-soaked and blood-thirsty.
He's already imagining things too deeply to be entirely in his right mind. Just because he's made it this far doesn't mean he's surrounded by pure evil.
So he's hoping, anyway.
Micah tests the door by pushing it in a mere centimeter, waiting for a reaction from the other side. From what he can tell it's only darkness he's interrupted, a quiet back hallway that might just lead to the lobby outside of the elevator. At least he knows this place somewhat unlike the rest of the arena. They walked down here each day to training, spent several long minutes riding in that elevator all the way up to eight as much as he despised it.
Another noise reaches the outer shell of his ear, faint and then growing ever closer. He doesn't dare slam the door shut but flattens himself to it instead, holding his breath as the girl's voice becomes nearly crystal clear.
"You better not let this fire chase me out of here," she spits. There's a noise like her fist slamming down on something and then the answering chime of the elevator. She's going up. Micah presses a hand over his mouth to keep from crying out in relief. After so many days of no doubt guarding the bounty inside, she's likely assuming no one else is going to try it. Micah wishes he had thought of it sooner, but late is better than never.
The elevator doors slide shut so quietly he almost misses it, but at that moment Micah doesn't hesitate in pushing the door open fully, ignoring the alarming creak it lets out. It's not as if she can hear it, anyway. He hobbles down the hall and into the lobby, that blessed lobby, lit so warm and homey that all he wants to do is curl up and cry.
But the doors are right there, two of them, held wide-open by invisible hands. Just waiting for him.
It's still full. He was right.
"Thank-you," he whispers. "Thank-you."
There's no one to talk to. He's in the same boat as the girl, whoever she was, but at least he's not raving about anything. Micah is just so thankful nothing else would have come out if he even tried. Despite the lump that rises in his throat at the sight of it, he knows exactly where to go—the table is exactly the same, both benches empty without Oksana to sit there first, quiet and waiting. The temptation to sit down there now nearly overwhelms him, but Micah ignores the instinct, grabs the biggest first-aid kit he can find, and then forces two smaller ones into the bag still weighing him down.
Water is within reach, too, and he tucks two bottles under his arm, fingers closing around a third. A table laden with food is ten yards away, if that. In and out. He's almost there...
The elevator dings again. It takes everything in him not to just collapse onto the floor and wait for it.
Her footsteps are harsh. Too harsh. His own dragging feet are comparatively quiet as he moves for the rock wall as fast as he possibly can, grabbing at the fake stones to nearly throw himself around the other side of it, out of view. Micah slams down onto his knees, entire leg crying out in protest as he folds over, biting down onto his own arm to keep from screaming. His head pulsates as if readying to explode, still damp with blood and fluid, matted into his hair.
She's still talking. He hears it as if underwater, drowning. She's on the surface but she won't save him.
The longer Micah lays there, gash tricking yet again with a fresh stream of blood, the more he realizes that she hasn't noticed.
He's… safe.
No, he isn't. There's no way this is anything like safety. He's trapped in the room with her, now, no way out unless she happens to leave again. If this place has been hers from the beginning, she's smart—smarter than him, at any rate. Likely a killer.
She'll have no qualms about killing him if he reveals himself. This isn't like Hosea or Inara. No helpful hand will be extended to him.
Micah pulls himself up, teeth sunken into his own lip. He's wedged into the maybe five feet of space between the back of the rock wall and the real wall of the building. There's no way she just comes back here to look for anything; the only way Micah is going to get caught is if she hears him.
So he can't make any noise. Okay. He can do that. Micah breathes in and silently pulls on the latch that opens the first of the kits, fresh tears springing to his eyes at the creams and salves and fresh rolls of bandages that reveal themselves.
She won't be down here forever. Micah can get out. He can live.
He just has to be patient and fix what he can.
Ilaria Landucci, 18
District Six Female
The card is burning a hole in her pocket.
Ilaria hasn't moved from the floor in hours. She feels hollow, only able to curl up like a child would after a particularly bad nightmare. There's nothing to hold onto, no pretense of a parents loving embrace. Just her and the cold, cold floor and the memory of last night.
Of what she did.
He was screaming. Not just in pain, but in fear. Every individual tear of his skin and muscle was punctuated by blood dripping from it's maw onto the ground, onto the boy trapped beneath it. His nails caught the pavement, jagged as they tried to pull away in any direction they could. No relief ever came, unless you counted it in the form of a cannon.
She expects it to be a nightmare, but she doesn't even sleep. She can't call it one if she never bothered trying to close her eyes.
Since then, everything has been powered down—everything, at least, save for the one screen just above where Ilaria lays now. The reason why she knew Velcra killed Cal, why she had proof Licia was dead for good, is the very thing Ilaria has left as proof that they blame her for it. Her name sits next to the boy from Four's, bold as ever. His death is as much on the mutts many hands as it is on her own.
Ilaria feels like every bad thing she has spent so long trying to avoid. Like one of the girls who would have no trouble killing someone in an alley after a deal gone bad, like Altair forcing his hands not just on her but presumably onto many girls, like they were his for the taking. She feels just as awful as she knows them to be, the most dreadful creatures in existence. They take and they take and they take and it's all okay with them.
That's the only reason Ilaria knows she's different. She'll regret this for as long as she lives, even if it's the rest of her life.
She forces herself to choke down the rest of her food from the night before, a small helping of every portion that she made sure to save. At the time she imagined it would be a nice treat; she could have never predicted what happened after she made that decision. It all tastes like acid going down, mixed into one foul taste that sticks to the back of her throat and makes her retch.
She has to eat. Eat and hydrate. That's what Ceto would say.
And here she is, relying on somebody else to tell her to eat and drink like she doesn't know how to operate like a normal human being. Maybe she doesn't anymore.
Ilaria glances around at the screens again, just in case, but they don't even respond to the touch of her hand. The Gamemakers have taken away control. In Ilaria's eyes, they're not likely to give it back. She's done her damage; they'll do the rest of it.
Which means there's really no point in staying here.
She fixates on neatly packing up her belongings, organizing everything in her pack three times over before she decides she's satisfied with it. It makes her feel more like herself. Less bad, anyway. No one so willing to do such gruesome things would never be so careful about others. Her rationale is poor, but distracting at least.
Ilaria will take any distraction she can get right now.
Before she goes she tests every single mechanic, fingers finding screens and buttons and switches. They refuse to respond to her. The entire control room is cold and silent, the family buzz of technology having faded overnight. It's clear to her, at least, that she doesn't belong here anymore. Then again, did she ever? Ilaria only ever stepped through that door because Velcra brought her, and now it's time to leave. That's all there is to it.
With rest comes a bit of ease in moving. Ilaria is sore, her one arm still rendered nearly useless, but it's manageable. That doesn't stop her from throwing all her body weight into the door as she drags it shut so hard the frame rattles in place. Even then she refuses to let go of it, testing it several times over. It keeps beeping, waiting eagerly for a swipe of the card that Ilaria won't allow it to have. Not again—never again. No one deserves to die like that.
And yet you did it anyway, her brain tells her. How can you claim you're any better than those people when you ruin things just the same? A pretty face, that's all you are—not very bright, are you sweetheart?
Apparently not. She can't argue that, not with her own brain. It knows the truth. Everyone has always liked her for certain reasons; Ilaria knows what they are. A brain isn't something they've ever looked for. Surface level details have always been better. Pretty eyes, styled hair, a tall lean body like a model from the Capitol.
Do they still enjoy her now that she's torn up and bloody, or have they already looked away? Ilaria wouldn't blame them if they had.
She makes her way slowly down the stairs, avoiding the stage out front as she spirals closer to the ground out back, not far from the arena's edge. There are only a few buildings between here and there and only a few of them are left untouched—the ones at the very edge have gone up in flames, tongues of fire licking across the street and threatening to go further.
There's no use in gallivanting off to the edge of the arena, but there's nowhere else Ilaria can go. She buries her nearly useless hand in her pocket and feels the hard plastic of the card dig into her palm until she's sure it leaves marks into her skin, clutching tight onto her sword with the other hand. She takes very carefully measured breaths as she steps across the very last street and to what's left of the closest building, half-collapsed. Debris lies in the street not far from her feet, smoking and sparking in the wind. It stings at her eyes, making it nearly impossible to see.
But Ilaria doesn't miss. Never has, never will. She grips the card tighter and gives it a small toss—right into the heart of the flames.
The plastic bubbles and spits angrily before Ilaria's eyes, quickly melted down into nothing. No matter what details Velcra remembered, she's not getting back into the control room. Ilaria has already made sure to forget the code so that even if the temptation strikes her she has no easy way in. That place is not meant for people—not people like her, anyway.
It's time to move on from that properly. Ilaria has spent too long trying to distance herself from the numerous bad things in her life. Winning was supposed to be the ultimate escape, the only way left to get away from her inevitable demise back in Six.
If she dies now, she dies a horrible person. At least if she wins she can prove them wrong. She can do some good.
Ilaria turns away from the fire. It's gone, now. No going back.
And she's never going to.
Casimira Ruiz, 17
District Eleven Female
If there are words in the English language to describe the emotions inside her now, Casi doesn't believe she's ever felt them.
What is it, exactly? Melancholy? Such a fanciful word, something meant to be said by a girl like her but perhaps not meant to be felt. The sorrow that clenched at every bit of her chest made existing difficult; how was she even meant to get up but when she could barely breathe?
The boys talking in the room reminded her of that quickly enough; she couldn't leave them alone together. Not forever, anyway.
She has a game to intend to. To prove her father wrong, to prove them all wrong. But now for Tella, too, because she wouldn't have wanted Casi to lay around and accept a gruesome fate when there were other options available. A bit of black still lines the grooves of her palms, an eerie reminder of the petals she had crushed in her shaking grip.
She's lost her, but not all is lost. There's still purpose out there, somewhere.
She knows it.
Casi gets up and refuses to let her feet drag, scrubbing hard at her eyes until she's certain she looks more awake, smoothing down a bit of untamed hair that sticks up from her braids. Not everyone will be so fooled by a quick few adjustments, but they make her feel better in the very least. Casi is able to feel more like the girl she is back home, always so put together and ready for anything. If she looks like she can handle any challenge thrown her way, then she can. No questions asked.
Tella certainly believed that, as far as she could tell. She had faith placed in Casi that no one had ever given her before.
She has to take that with her and keep it close.
"It's still going?" she wonders, stepping back out into the store. Milo snaps to attention, eyes on her while Hale glances out the window almost slowly, unsurprised by the state of affairs. By the looks of it they've been up all night watching on in silence. Or not, she suspects. She did hear them talking before. Getting chummy, aren't they? Almost like old friends…
God willing, that can't happen. Not on Casi's watch. If Milo really is responsible for taking Tella away then he doesn't deserve anything, least of all friendship.
Casi is not exactly a forgiving person, you see.
"Did you expect it to stop?" Milo asks, eyes still wide as he looks up at her, but almost childishly curious. She knows sarcasm when she hears it, though, feigned innocence from someone who is definitely not, and glares in response.
"The Gamemakers are probably fueling it," Hale guesses. "The wind's picked up since we started it. It wouldn't have gone across the roads otherwise."
She nods, crossing her arms over her chest. Damn Gamemakers and their unnecessary intervention—were things not shitty enough already that they had to go and make it worse? You'd have thought they were being lazy. It's not like sixteen people haven't died in the past five days or anything like that, no, that would simply be downright asinine.
She really hates them right about now.
"So what do you think, then?" Casi asks, making sure it's clear who she's talking to. Hale's opinion is something she's learned to value; he's been good to her when Casi knows damn well she hasn't always deserved it. That treatment is rare—even more rare, she's sure, from him specifically. Besides, it's not like she's going to start asking Milo for advice. Casi doesn't trust him as far as she could throw him, and she couldn't throw him very far right now.
"Might want to hunker down until the worst of it passes us. I doubt they'll let the three of us burn to death, so—"
"So nothing," Milo interrupts and she grimaces, taking a step back as he gets to his feet, striding to the door so that his face is nearly pressed against the glass. "I've been thinking…"
"Don't hurt yourself," she says flatly, and he reaches back to give her the finger without looking. If she was closer, she'd swat it down.
She almost strides forward to do so anyway.
"I have a theory," he continues. "I think I just might be right."
"About?" Hale prompts, getting up to stand beside him. Casi doesn't even want to get that close; her skin crawls at the idea of letting him into her bubble after what he possibly did yesterday while she was stupid enough to leave him. A stupid, silly little girl, just like her father says. Casi has finally proved him right in at least one regard—it was apparently only a matter of time.
Milo doesn't respond, instead jabbing his finger against the window, straightened to point into the distance. She follows the line of it across the arena towards one of the tallest buildings left standing, untouched by the fire. In fact, it almost looks like the fire is going around it, creating a wide berth that's protecting whatever could be within it.
"Why?" she asks, but deep down Casi already knows. Something's there—something, or someone. Whatever it is, it's worth checking out. It has to be if the Gamemakers are protecting it.
"Why not?" Milo fires back, his grin far too close to her face. Hale gives her a warning look past Milo's shoulder: don't.
It could mean a lot of things, but Casi knows which in particular. And she wouldn't. Not yet, not here, but soon. It has to be soon, for her sake. And looking into the distance towards the Training Center, she thinks her opportunity might be about to arrive.
It has to.
And we're back in business, baby.
I know break week might not have been the easiest for some but not having to edit or focus on this for a bit was admittedly nice, and now we're in the home stretch. Only four chapters left until the finale. Who are you betting on?
Until next time.