Raven Ishali, 14, District 2 Female Tribute's POV
"Oops." Raven pulled her hair back into a makeshift ponytail and offered Quark an apologetic smile. Quark had his arms folded in front of his chest - he made the motion so often that Raven was sure his arms had some sort of engrained muscle memory.
"You could at least warn me before you start pulling random levers." Quark said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. Raven blushed.
"I didn't want you to try and talk me out of it." Raven replied with a sheepish shrug. Her curiosity was too strong for her own good. Julia had always told Raven that if she was an animal that she'd be a curious little cat - always getting into trouble. Raven knew her sister would definitely be a dog - something like a golden retriever or a australian shepherd. Dependable, loving, adventurous without straying too dangerously far.
"As if I'd have a chance…" Quark shook his head and Raven couldn't help but giggle.
"I thought that the third lever might be the charm, you know? Everything's best in threes." Raven continued searching through the closet that she had found the lever in.
"We've only found two, stupid."
"Well, there was that other earthquake! It had to be a lever too, I bet someone else just found it." Raven closed the doors of the closet. There was nothing of interest other than the lever. "I was thinking that, at least. I thought you're supposed to be the smart one, you're going to have to keep up."
Quark turned fully around this time to come and give Raven a small playful shove. "I've never been the smart one, I definitely would've flunked out of school this year."
Raven laughed, "Good grades don't mean you're smart, it just means you're good at taking tests."
Quark paused before responding, as if what Raven had said really instilled some sort of deep introspective thought in him. "I've never thought of it that way."
"That's okay, that's why we're a good team. I'm the creative mastermind and you're..." Raven wrapped her arm around his shoulder, giving him a big friendly squeeze. "Hmm, I was gonna say you're the cute one, but after a little bit of extra thinking…"
"Shut up." Quark's darker complexion deepened with a rosy tint, and Raven gleefully noted that he couldn't hide the little smile. "If you're going to be the mastermind, then maybe you should find us something useful in case-"
PLUNK!
Both tributes spun around to see the door that they had left open, which now had some large piece of metal stuck in it. Raven took a hesitant step towards it. It wasn't just metal, it was… a staple? But a big one, like they use in construction or something.
Without much of a pause, another staple shot into the door, sending it flying towards the wall with a loud thwack. Heart starting to beat more quickly in her chest, she took a protective step in front of Quark.
"What the fuck is going on?" Quark's voice is low. Raven shushed him, opening the closet door and shoving her partner in.
"We've got to hide."
She shut the door just in time to hear a voice calling out in a sing-song voice.
"Ready or not here I come!"
Drey Attison, 14, District 6 Male Tribute's POV
A garage. That was what Drey had finally found. It was so loaded with useful supplies that Drey almost felt like he was cheating the system. He had barely spent fifteen minutes in the large five car garage before his bag was heavy with a variety of screwdrivers, wrenches, and even a large breaker bar that he had slung across his back. It sort of made him feel like some sort of cool character from an Asian cartoon with a katana on his back.
In fact, there was more in the garage that he could carry without being weighed down too much. Drey pushed the drawer shut, not bothering to worry about the clanking of all of the things inside of it; he hadn't seen another person since that tall guy from three. Someone finding him wasn't a concern. No. In fact, it was anybody who found Drey who should be concerned for their safety.
The thought filled him with so much glee that Drey laughed. Actually laughed out loud. His voice almost startled him. The sound felt so foreign to his ears after so much silence.
His rats scurried around his feet excitedly at the sound. He patted one of the mutts on the head, and it wriggled as if it were a normal household pet trying to get more attention. Drey had even found himself naming the little things - nothing too fancy, of course. The biggest one he called Tank, then there were two that always ran around in a pain that he called Dee and Dum. The tiny one was Drey's favorite, though, and he called him Rascal.
Drey knew that the creatures were entirely man made by the Capitol scientists. It seemed like almost too much credit to call them alive. Despite that, however, Drey found himself attached to the rodents. He was used to being alone. He and his sister were sort of against the world, and he was so poor that he didn't really make a lot of friends in school. Befriending inanimate objects felt sort of safe. Unlike his father, they couldn't stab him in the back.
He had never had a pet though. Something about not knowing if or when the rats would turn on him added a dangerous thrill that Drey didn't mind so much. It was similar to the feeling of digging a knife through the flesh of his own father; sickening, but in a way that felt more like the drop of a rollercoaster than having a head in a toilet.
"You guys think we're ready for the final test?" Drey pulled a screwdriver out, tossing it in a pinwheel before it landed back in his palm once more. The rats stood at attention at his voice. Feeling reckless, he sent the screwdriver flying towards the wall. It was covered in some sort of material that was easy to pierce, like a giant cork board with tools hanging from in, so the screwdriver dug into the wall.
His little pets wasted no time running over and pulling it out of the wall. In fact, they stepped all over each other trying to be the first one to the weapon, with Dee and Dum holding opposite ends as they trotted back obediently. Drey smiled.
"Just a little more practice, then… And we'll see how those big bad Valedictorians like a taste of their own medicine."
Kukla Kuria, 18, District 4 Female Tribute's POV
Kukla couldn't look any of her allies in the eye as she and Bethany entered their home base once more. She knew that she could hear the voices of their pack and she could understand the words they were saying, but it seemed to fade in and out.
"Where's Lachlan?"
"He didn't make it."
Numbness travelled through her arms to her finger tips. It felt similar to the first time she got lip injections. The clinical numbness. The voices of her mother and her surgeon agreed how it was the only flaw in the beautiful Kuria daughter's features. If her lips were just a little plumped, then she'd be perfect. Kukla Kuria, the picture of beauty.
"What happened?"
"He's dead. It's not worth wasting the breath to explain; we got cornered, we killed one and injured another pretty good."
This feeling - or lack thereof - was much different though. The pain of those things was always momentary. This heaviness in her chest had lingered even when Kukla had been forced to release Lachlan's body from her embrace. Her own voice rang through her head, over and over like the chorus of a song that she had never heard before with the lyrics barely out of her reach. 'This is my fault.'
"Are you guys okay? Does anybody need anything?"
"I think Kukla has a pretty nasty cut on her side."
Asher led Kukla to a more secluded part of the room, but she barely noticed she was moving. Kukla was floating - a tide that was both gentle and firm taking her downstream. She could hear Milo, Bethany, and Arius talking in hushed voices as Asher helped Kukla with the scrape along her side.
It was more of a bruise than a cut. Kukla knew that Bethany just wanted to get her away from the others.
"She hasn't said anything. I don't know what's wrong with her."
"She's processing what's going on."
"Fours are always so fucking weak, everyone knows that Eight has been rising up the ranks to overtake their Academies."
Kukla found it easy enough to ignore them. She instead turned her empty glass eyes to Asher.
"It's my fault." It fell from her lips before she could find other words to say.
"It's not." Asher's reply came swift and sure. How could he be so sure? Kukla had given him that powder - the 'glass cannon'. She had no idea it would change him into that… that monster.
"How do you know?" She whispered.
"It was just a fight. Sometimes things happen." Asher pressed a damp cloth to her skin.
Kukla swallowed. "I got a sponsor gift last night."
"Oh?" He didn't look up from her side, where he cleaned her wound.
"Some sort of powder. It was labeled as a glass cannon. And I was too scared to take it myself, so I gave it to Lachlan. That's why he's dead."
Saying it out loud brought some of the pressure off of her chest. Kukla knew that she should keep this a secret. She knew that all of Panem had probably seen what she had done. Her family would've been proud of how cunning Kukla was. Kukla herself should've been proud. She had taken out one of her biggest competitors without any suspicion on her name.
But Kukla didn't feel proud. She felt sick. She had been told that the farther she got into the games, the more sure of herself she'd be. Kukla had no idea what she was doing.
"You didn't kill him. It was an accident."
"You don't know that." Kukla felt her lip tremble. She told it to stop, but it continued. Kukla Kuria was not going to cry on television. Not unless it would get her a sympathy sponsor. Kukla was becoming somebody she barely recognized.
"I know you. I can see it in your eyes." He answered. "I can see how bad you feel. I've talked to lots of people that have done some pretty awful things. They don't always regret it."
In the darkest depths of her mind, part of her was grateful she had done it. That was the most sickening part to her. If she had used that stuff on herself, it might've been her that died. As broken up as she felt about Lachlan dying, she still wanted to be alive. It felt… Different. New. Kukla no longer thought to herself that she wanted to win - but that she wanted to live.
Had she ever really lived before?
"I'm scared."
"That's okay. Me too." Asher smiled at her. It was a soft smile that Kukla had rarely seen before - only in the softness of her lover's lips and in the gingerness of touches she had seen given from mother to child. "But I've got your back."
"You do?" Kukla blinked a few times at him, trying to clear her mind.
"Of course." He answered. "And I know you've got mine."
"I won't make the same mistake again." Kukla said. Although she was speaking to Asher, it felt like she was speaking to herself too. "I want to make it out of here, but I won't betray my allies." After a small pause, she held up her pinky to Asher. Their gazes locked. "I promise."
Raul Villalobos, 17, District 10 Male Tribute's POV
"Two chimes… That means two more people have died, huh?" Alina's voice pulled Raul's attention to her, following a few paces behind him. He tried not to show much on his face, for fear that it would betray how badly these games were getting to him. She seemingly took his silence as a response, though, and continued speaking, "I wonder who it could be..."
Raul had no idea, but worrying about it was one of the last things on his mind. He didn't want to think about death anymore. It felt hopeless; he had worried so much about Gillian, and it didn't do her any good. His worry didn't keep that freak from twelve from painting the floorboards with Gillian's insides a garish bright red.
Back home, when it was time for the peacocks to be slaughtered, there would be hints of their blood in the butcheries. A muted burgundy that was so deeply stained that it felt more like it was the color it had always been. Even in the first few days following the biggest slaughters, it was never the ruby red that burst freshly from his ally. From his friend.
"Are you still thinking about Gillian?" Alina asked, her hand pressing onto his shoulder.
"Are you not?" Raul shot back hotly. Alina flinched, letting the dam of guilt wash over Raul with a flash of hot embarrassment. "I'm sorry. I'm just… I'm sorry."
He felt stupid for not having a better response, for not being the leader that the three girls expected him to be, for taking out his anger on Alina. He felt bad for not being good enough.
"It was a stupid question." Alina murmured, shaking her head to herself. "I guess I just hate the silence." Her eyes drifted down the hallway to the last door that they hadn't yet entered.
"It might be dangerous to talk too loud."
"It's dangerous just to be here at all."
Raul sighed. She was right, but he still didn't think talking was a good idea. As if his 'good ideas' had gotten his alliance very far in the first place. The boy from district ten continued to the door they were headed to, his hand turning the cold knob. That's what they had spent the morning doing; heading down from the attic there was a corridor full of rooms, but a lot of them seemed fairly useless. Bland guest bedrooms with little more than an empty dresser and a bed dressed in satin white sheets.
The final room in the hall, however, revealed to be different as soon as the door swung open. It was personalized to the max - with sports memorabilia lining the wall and large baseball and soccer ball bean bags sitting in the corner. Alina lit up as soon as she got a whiff of it.
"Woah! How cool." In less than an instant, she was jumping onto one of the bean bags with a big sigh. "Now I could get used to this."
She seemed so at ease. Raul couldn't imagine how; they had watched Gillian die less than 24 hours earlier. In a way, he felt almost jealous. She didn't look like she had a care in the world. Alina was Raul's last ally - his last chance to keep someone here safe.
Raul refused to let another moment go wasted. He began to search through the drawers, finding notebooks and pencils and baseball cards; in other words, nothing of use. He checked every drawer of the dresser, only finding clothes big enough to fit a child still in single digits of age, with the same filling the closet.
"Raul…" Alina was standing when he turned to face her. She wasn't looking at him, however. Instead, her eyes were fixed on a large display frame on the wall. Inside was a signed photo of some baseball player that Raul didn't recognize, as well as a signed ball and baseball bat.
"What?"
"A baseball bat." She said it like it was obvious, and Raul felt heat crawl up his back as he realized it sort of was. If they were searching for better weapons, a baseball bat was a great candidate. "Do you think we could break the glass?"
"Only one way to find out." Raul answered. He climbed on the desk to reach the frame and brought his fists together on the glass as hard as he could. It shattered beneath his hands, and he could feel the small cuts start to burn as he took the bat out carefully.
"Well, gosh, I was thinking we could maybe throw something at it." Alina let out a breathy laugh. Raul laughed with her.
"That might've been smarter."
"Maybe. But all that matters now is that we have a nice weapon!" Alina clapped her hand together excitedly. Raul opened his mouth to respond, but he stopped to listen more closely as he heard a sound somewhere in the distance.
Another sound rang out through the house - an unfamiliar thunking sound. It reminded him of the sound of peacocks banging their beaks onto the doors of unsuspecting homes - or at least it would have if it didn't come accompanied by the far away voice that he recognized.
"Ready or not, here I come!"
AN: I know, I know, ya girl is going off with the speedy updates here. I've decided to keep chapters between 4-6 POVs and just end them on spots that I think offer nice little cliff hangers, so I hope y'all don't mind the shorter length. Remember to redeem your sponsor gifts if you haven't already! I've got a secret project in the works that will be unveiled with the application for our sequel, which I've decided will be released with our final eight. I'll see you all next time!
Confirmed Alliances:
Career Pack: Bethany Joy, Arius, Milo, Kukla, Asher
Team Clip Clop: Raul, Alina
Hackers4Lyfe: Raven, Quark
Tough Girls: Viola, Emmeline