Chapter 56- Astrid Clearwater
I finally comb the last tangle out of my hair, just as the third cannon of the day fires. This time, I'm certain it's a Career who just died; there's nobody left that it could be otherwise. Unless they took out Circuit, the boy from 6, and someone else I don't remember, and the three Careers are hunting Elowyn and me down in a pack, there's at least one less Career in the arena.
Elowyn doesn't even stir; she hasn't moved from her spot against the tree since she fell asleep. She can sleep; I doubt there're more than two Careers still in the arena, and one other person that I won't know until the Capitol seal goes up tonight. We can kill the Careers together, and then we can work out the alliance between us.
Two axes, one each. And I'll make sure that my axe is in her head before she puts hers in mine.
Somewhere off in the jungle, a creature screeches and howls; it could be a mutt, or it could just be some strange animal put in here to add to the décor. This time, Elowyn murmurs in her sleep, and her hand moves slightly, but she stays asleep.
When the time comes, I'll kill her, just like I'll kill the others. No weaknesses. Victors don't have weaknesses, that's why they're victors. And I'll claw myself into their ranks, no matter the cost. We're down to the final five, if I've counted correctly. Four of us will die, and one will get out and carry on with their lives.
I've thought so much about being a victor, about making it home to District 3. I told Mama I would try to win, and I am trying. But what happens after? I've seen the victors in past years be installed in their Victors' Villages, watched them carry out their Victory Tours. But what happens to them after?
I'll figure it out when I get there.
With my hair finally untangled to the best of my ability, I use my axe to cut a strip of fabric from the bottom of one of my pant legs, then braid my hair back, using the strip to tie it. The end is coming, and I want to be ready for it. Besides, I've seen some tributes win while looking half mad and feral, and I won't give anyone the satisfaction of seeing me like that.
Elowyn's breathing is still slow and steady; she'll sleep for a while yet. I'm not tired, not like that anyway, so all I can do is stare at the trees, watch for other tributes, and wait for my ally to open her eyes again.
When the small amount of sky I can see through the leaves starts to turn pink, Elowyn finally wakes up, blinking and disoriented. "What's happened? What happened when I was asleep?"
"I braided my hair," I say, carefully rearranging myself on the fork of branches I'm sitting on. "Nothing else happened."
Elowyn visibly relaxes, but her eyes keep that disoriented, hunted quality to them. "Oh, another cannon fired," I add, remembering.
"How many does that make today?"
"Three. So there's five left."
"I guess they did the interviews at home earlier then. Final eight," Elowyn says, pushing herself up so that she's not so much lying against the tree as sitting against it.
"I forgot about that," I say. The reporters must have ridden the train or flown into District 3, to talk to Mama and Axel. It occurs to me that if I win, they'll be thrust into the limelight too, at least for a while. "Who would they talk to in 7?" I ask.
"My parents. A few friends of mine." Elowyn shrugs. "Gwennie never made it to the final eight, so we were never interviewed."
"I'm sorry." What else can I say? I'm sorry that her parents have to lose two daughters so that my mother doesn't have to lose one.
"What about you?" she asks, breaking away from the subject of her dead sister.
"My mother and brother."
"Any friends?"
"I don't have any." It's true; nobody would ever talk to me at school, in the streets. They believed my mother had been involved with a Capitol soldier, and anything from the Capitol is an outcast in District 3. So if I'm part Capitol, then I'm not to be trusted, ever. Even if all they have is a rumor passed around for sixteen years. "I've never needed them."
"I'm sorry," Elowyn says, and I won't take her pity.
"Don't be. If you knew the people I know, you wouldn't be sorry either."
Elowyn looks at me, but doesn't say anything else. Instead, she turns to combing out the matts in her own hair, while the sliver of sky above us turns a deeper pink, then purple, and finally begins to fade to black.
"Cold night tonight," I remark, pulling my jacket closer around me. Last night we had the comfort of a fire on the beach, even though I wasn't fully present to appreciate it. Almost every night in the arena we've had some sort of shelter; this is the first that we're spending in a tree.
"We'll live for one night," Elowyn says. I almost laugh at her words. We'll live tonight, but odds are one or both of us won't be around tomorrow night. Tomorrow's the last day; I can feel it.
"Yes." Holding my jacket closed with one hand, I feel around with the other until I touch my axe, still in the backpack. That one weapon is my ticket home, and I am not going to lose it.
"Can you see where the seal is going to be?" she asks; in the dying twilight I can see her white face turned up, watching the leaves above us.
"I doubt it. I'll climb higher," I say.
"Are you sure? With your leg?"
"I'm fine. I want to see." I want to see first, so I can make a plan without Elowyn weighing in right away. I need to know who my final competition is going to be.
"Good luck then. I'll dig out the food I got at the Cornucopia," she says, reaching for her pack. For a moment I think about bringing my axe with me, but I don't want to drop it, so I leave it behind. I don't trust Elowyn, not anymore; I can't at this stage in the Games, but I trust her enough not to steal my axe while I'm climbing around in the trees.
My leg shakes as I slowly pull myself up, trying to remember how Elowyn climbed and copying my remembrance of her movements. It's slow going, but I finally settle myself onto a decent sized branch that looks through a gap in the leaves as the dark arena sky lights up with the Capitol seal.
While the anthem blares, the faces start to appear in the sky. The first is the Career boy from 4 with the dark hair, solidifying my theory that one Career died today. Unfortunately, with him being the first up, it means that the little deadly ones from 2 are still around, and hunting me.
I'll put an axe in both of their heads if I get the chance, I think.
The second face is the troublemaker from 6, Trestle. The one who lit someone else on fire, who was a menace in Training, who found us with his equally irritating ally when our alliance was still a trio. I don't take a lot of joy in watching the faces and seeing the dead tributes, but I'm not sorry to see him dead.
The final face is the little girl from District 8, the one who was the sister of the victor. And I am sorry to see that she's dead, because she was young, and it's so unfair for the younger kids to be in here. It's one thing for me and Elowyn to be sitting in a tree waiting to kill and die, but it's something else entirely for the twelve- and thirteen-year olds who end up in here. Like Elowyn's partner, Kiril.
I hate the Capitol, hate them for putting us all in here to fight each other, for killing all the younger kids, for reaping us in the first place. I hate the whole bloody city, and I don't blame the rebels for trying to take it down forty years ago. Even though it's technically their fault I'm here.
The anthem finishes and fades out, taking the light of its seal with it and leaving me perching in the pitch black on a branch.
Five left. I can count them on one hand, obviously; the two from 2, Elowyn and me, and Circuit. Circuit?
This whole time in the arena it's been occurring to me that Beetee might have chosen Circuit back in Training, but why I have no idea. If the Capitol people like him better and think Circuit is more capable than I am, then they're stupider than I thought they were.
But if I'm right, and Beetee has chosen Circuit over me, then why?
I'll show Beetee that he should have chosen me, and when I win and get back to the Capitol, I think I'll sit him down for a long talk and make him answer every question I have. He could withhold all the information he wanted when he was the mentor and I was the tribute, but when I get back, we'll be on equal ground. And he'll have to answer my questions, one victor to another.
Elowyn's waiting for me down below, waiting for me to tell her who's alive and who's dead. So what now? Alliances can break anytime now; that's obvious from seeing a Career in the sky. I have to be smart about this; with District 2 still out there, I don't want to face them alone. So Elowyn has to stay alive until they're dead.
Carefully, I climb down again, feeling for each branch with my shaking legs and fingers, until I get myself back down to where Elowyn is sitting. Even in the dark I can make out her pale face, guiding me back to where I need to be.
"Who's dead?" she asks in a whisper as soon as I settle myself back on my branch.
"Boys from 4 and 6, and the girl from 8," I reply, feeling around for my bag. As soon as I touch the smooth handle of my axe, I relax slightly. I'm still armed, and Elowyn didn't take it. Not that I thought she would, but I'm not trusting anything at this point.
"How much longer do you think it'll go on for?" There's a question within her question; how much longer will we be allies?
"Maybe another day," I answer, still stroking that smooth wooden handle. "At most, two."
"Not a lot of time," she remarks.
"No." It's not a lot of time at all to live, for five people who want to live so badly. "What's the situation with our supplies?"
"We're flat out of water, but I still have two oat bars that I took from the Cornucopia." Elowyn rustles around in her bag for a moment, then says, "Here. One each. If it's the last night, we might as well eat them."
"Can't help the water, can we?" I say, taking the bar in its manufactured packaging from her. I can't help the water situation, but our mentors should be able to. For the number of sponsors Elowyn was supposed to have, we haven't gotten a lot over the past week. Some food, a tarp. The most expensive thing was the medicine that fixed my leg somewhat. Three gifts in what's going on seven days.
Beetee's smart, that's what everyone knows about him. I remember, back six years ago when he won, he electrocuted a pack of tributes that were hunting him. A man who did that as a boy isn't stupid, so he must know what he's doing with the lack of gifts and help.
Maybe I should trust my mentor a little bit more, but frankly I haven't trusted much of anyone in a long time.
You carry out your plans, Beetee. I'll keep going with mine, and we'll see who comes out on top in the end.
I have a feeling that Beetee is going to do whatever he thinks is the right thing for him to do, no matter what happens to Circuit and me down in here. Just like he studied us through Training, like we were puzzles more than people, he's doing that right now. And again, I can't help but feel that we're more alike than we're not, because I've been figuring out the people in this arena since we were all reaped.
"I'll take first watch," Elowyn says, breaking the brief silence that's fallen over us.
"I'm not sleeping," I tell her. Not at this part of the Games. What would be ideal is if something took out the others and I wouldn't have to kill any of them, but I doubt that's going to happen. Somehow I know that I'm going to have to kill Elowyn in the end.
All I can think about is that fire when I was a child; I can feel the flames burning all around me here in this tree, just waiting to devour us all down. It's going to burn for another day and take four of us with it, but I'm craving that cool sense of relief of it being over.
I just want this all to be over, for the nightmare to end, so that I can go home to District 3 and forget.
"Are you sure, Astrid?" Elowyn asks. "You should sleep. I'll keep a watch out for the others."
I'm about to tell her that I'm not tired, that I'll stay up all night to watch with her, when a screech rises up off in the distance. It's not human, and it doesn't sound like anything I've heard in here so far.
"What was that?" Elowyn whispers. I shake my head, then remember that she can't see me in the dark.
"I don't know."
Another screech, this one slightly higher pitched than the first one, echoes somewhere closer to our tree, then another and another. Slowly, carefully, I edge my axe out of my pack and grip the smooth wooden handle as tight as I can.
Suddenly, I turn to Elowyn. "Thank you. For being my ally," I say, quickly. Things I have to say before I kill her, before whatever's down there kills her. Because she is my ally, and a girl that I liked and like, but I can't think of her as anything more than a friendly obstacle that I have to overcome. I don't want it to be the two of us in the end, but if it is, I'll kill her, no matter how I feel about her. "And I'm sorry."
"Me too, Astrid," Elowyn says; I can hear the sadness in her voice, and I know she's sincere.
"Together still?" I ask.
"Until we can't be anymore," she agrees. Maybe I'm a fool to trust her, even slightly, but for the moment I understand that we're still allies, at least for the next few minutes. Another screech rises up, the closest yet.
I think this is the end. No cannons yet, but there will be, and I have to make sure none of them are mine. Together, Elowyn and I crouch on our branches; as a last minute thought, I slip my backpack back on; if this isn't the end, I'll want it. Waiting, hearing the screeches come closer and closer.
Neither of us is prepared when the last screech comes from the branches above us.