Brock Carver- District Two male (12)
It was early morning, still early enough that the sun was barely cresting over the horizon and the world was still dimly lit. It was my last chance to find a few more stragglers in the dark before daylight made it easier for them to see me coming. After killing Raleigh I'd gone back to camp and paired up with Talise. I hadn't had any trouble killing Raleigh but it did make me realize that running around alone wasn't a good idea even if I was a Career. It turned out to have been a better idea than I'd thought, since my mind was clouded with what I'd done. It felt like killing Raleigh up close like that- looking into her eyes instead of seeing only the back of her head like Elle- was a sort of confirmation. I'd chosen Pray's path- a violent rampage that would stop at nothing and would leave a pile of bodies behind me if I was successful. It surprised me I didn't feel guilty. I only felt cold. That must be what Pray feels like.
"Hey," Talise said. She pointed ahead and my eyes immediately picked out the movement in the window of the house about fifty yards down the row from us. The figure in the window seemed to be rigging something up- probably an early warning system, the thought came to me.
"Is that... Irina?" Talise asked, squinting at the dimly-lit form.
"It sure is," I said after taking a closer look.
"Then that's the circus alliance house," Talise said. "The 'big top', you might say."
"And it seems like she doesn't notice us so they must not have a surveillance system in place yet," I said. We both ducked further behind the corner of the house we were peeking out from when another figure came down the stairs behind Irina. Nene, or maybe it was Skada, grabbed something off the table and went back upstairs, stopping when someone at the top said something to her.
"They're upstairs, then," Talise commented.
"Probably working from the top down," I said.
Talise smiled beside me. "You think they've gotten to that little coal chute to the basement?"
"What, like right now? You want to go in?" I asked. It seemed pretty bold to go up against the entire circus alliance on our own. It would be a lot safer with the rest of the Careers.
"Everyone else is out hunting and by the time we gather them all it'll be 1. daylight and 2. they'll have the entire house booby-trapped," Talise said. "Or... we go in through the cellar and sneak up into the first floor. We shoot Irina from behind and take out their biggest weapon. If we get lucky some dumbass will run downstairs at the noise. We shoot them too then decide whether to go after all the others or clear out and come back with the rest of the Careers."
That's impressively ruthless, I thought, reflecting on how Talise had expressed resentment at being underestimated by her District. She was right- they shouldn't have misjudged her. She was both cunning enough to come up with the plan and pragmatic enough to find a way to use the near-worthless guns we had. At that range we'd be guaranteed to hit. It was a bold move but in five minutes we could wipe out the only reason the circus alliance was a threat to us. Fortune favors the bold...
Skada Socket, District Five female (15)
It was the first day since Elle and Zara died. The first day they wouldn't see the sun rise or wake up with the rest of us. I would start to think about something else and my mind would go right back to it, like a train that only had one track. I would hear the rest of my allies chatting and over and over I would notice that Elle and Zara's voices weren't among them. And of course there was the horrible stillness around our house of Tabitha not laughing or telling a joke or moving around in some frenetic physical prank. Our house was a funeral home.
Once Irina saw Nene and me setting traps around the house she dove in and gave us some expert advice. It was great having a Career around who knew exactly how another Career would try to get in. We were already out of the worst of the danger for the moment since they would be most likely to try to sneak in at night. The sun was just starting to brighten up the house, which was nice. It had been so creepy in the dark, especially in the attic with no windows. Fire codes hadn't been invented back then, it seemed.
I heard Irina moving around downstairs and clambered out of the attic to go help her. Probably she was trying to make breakfast to cheer us all up. Irina was good at a lot of things but cooking wasn't one of them. I was almost down the stairs when I reached the end of the half-wall between the kitchen and the living/dining room. That was when I saw Brock, streaked with what looked like coal dust, about to pull the trigger on his pistol right as Irina walked into sight, looking out the window so she couldn't see him coming. Behind him Talise was lurking just outside the cellar hatch and was already raising a pistol at me. I had less than a second to react. Before I even realized what I was doing I leaped down screaming right onto Brock.
Irina Sokolova- District One female (18)
Every thought flew out of my head when someone screamed behind me. My hand shot out and grabbed the lid of a cast iron pan on the stove as I whirled around, ducking and throwing up y other arm to protect my head. I saw Skada landing on top of Brock, who was five feet behind me and pointing a gun at me, and before I could attend to him I was already zeroed in on Talise, who was in the corner of the house by the hatch that led to the cellar and was following Skada with her gun. Skada collided with Brock, making the shot impossible, and I threw the pot lid at her like a discus before she could aim at me instead. It hit her in the ribs and she gasped and almost fell over, dropping the gun.
A gunshot rang out and my heart stopped. I was certain I was too late to help Skada but as I ran to her I saw her still moving as she wrestled Brock fro underneath. She weakly struggled as he moved the gun up to her face to finish her. I jumped on him from behind and yanked the gun upwards the exact moment he shot. A cold wet wrongness washed over my hand. As I yanked it away I saw the two last fingers on my right hand were gone.
Brock Carver- District Two male (12)
The gun went off, my hand and arm vibrating with the force of the exploding bullet. Wetness spattered my face and I blinked as some fell into my eye. There was a thundering of footsteps as the rest of Skada's allies started flooding down the stairs. I turned my head to see if any of them were armed and Skada threw an arm around my head and yanked me downwards. At the same time Irina tore the gun away from me. I thrashed free of Skada's grasp and saw the pistol pointing right into my eye, so close I could see the smooth metal interior. I thought of something that Pray had never told me, something I must have heard from someone else.
Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.
Lester Browning, District Three male (16)
When I heard the gunshot my first thought was that whoever had been shot was dead and there was no use in the rest of us getting killed by going after them. Then I heard Skada whimpering and enough movement that it was clear there were multiple parties, implying Irina was still alive and likely kicking ass. I jumped from the attic without even using the short folding staircase and tore down the stairs, Nene right behind me and Richard following after he grabbed something.
I was barely down three stairs when a bullet whizzed past y legs and I jumped backwards, Nene almost tripping over me. Richard threw something- a book, I saw as he threw it- in the direction of the bullet. The book clattered off the wall but as I got up I saw a blur of movement toward the corner of the room. I caught a glimpse of Talise fleeing toward the cellar hatch, clearly having decided that there were too many of us and not many bullets in her unreliable little gun. She dove into the hatch and shut the door behind her.
"That leads to outside?" Tabitha asked as she caught up to us.
"He shot Skada!" Irina yelled, her voice shrill and panicked. I looked down and saw her kneeling over Skada's weakly stirring form, blood oozing from her hip. Tabitha and I ran to them as Richard and Nene dragged the heavy dining room table over and set it on top of the cellar hatch.
"Get her away from the window!" Richard yelled, pointing to the window Talise could easily shoot through once she got back outside.
"We shouldn't-" Tabitha started, but stopped as Irina and Richard picked Skada up by her limbs and hastily dragged her to a spot out of the line of sight of any windows. I followed along with them, pressing my wadded-up shirt to Skada's wound.
We set her down and looked at the wound. I was no doctor but it seemed like it wasn't necessarily fatal. I didn't see any bone and the wound reached the edge of her body, the bullet having been so close to missing that it had gone right through her and was somewhere in the floor. Skada's eyes were open and she was breathing but it was scarily rapid and shallow. She didn't seem to be looking at anything and it scared me how tiny her pupils were.
"Skadathisisgonnahurtlikehell," Irina blurted. Skada didn't reply as Irina cocked up a knee and put it beside the wound. She set her whole weight on it and Skada moaned. Irina gently batted her hands away as she tried to push her off. Nene appeared at her side with a basin of water and splashed it on the wound. She patted it dry with my shirt and I could see that Irina's pressure had greatly slowed the blood flow. Behind us Richard stood by the nearest window watching for any further sign of the Careers.
"Skada. Skada, you got shot. Can you hear us?" Tabitha asked as she knelt by Skada's- holy *$% Irina's hand- head. She took her hand. "Breathe deep, okay?"
Skada's breath slowly regulated and her eyes focused on Tabitha. She nodded, unable to say anything else.
I wadded the shirt back up and shoved it against the wound, tying it in place with some string Nene brought me. "We have to stop the bleeding and stabilize her. Then we can work on how to fix this," I said.
"There's a pharmacy near the Cornucopia," Nene said. "It had one of those red stripey poles."
"They'll have medicine there," Tabitha said.
"And they'll have Careers there," Irina said. "I think I broke Talise's rib but she's slowly making her way back there right now to tell them where we'll be heading next."
"I don't care! I'll go anyway!" Richard yelled from the window.
"Wait!" I said, holding up a hand. "There's a stable by the Cornucopia, too."
"Yeah?" Irina asked.
"So there's a veterinarian somewhere..."
16th place: Brock Carver, District Two male- shot by Irina
Brock's one of those character types a lot of authors don't like. He was a young Career and a non-chosen volunteer and all that. I'm glad he found me so I could give him a chance. I'll give anyone a shot- it usually ends up in death anyway. Brock gave grumpy old Pray a chance to relive her youth, a bittersweet experience for her since she does acknowledge the wrongness in her own life. He would have lasted a while longer but -5 votes will do that to you. In his short time in the Arena he proved himself a dangerous killer but it was just a cold fact there were other killers in there as well. Hope you had a fun time, Very New to This. Brock was a lot of Tribute in a little package.
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