THE ARENA
Day 1 - 8:24 AM
"Oh, it's quite fashionable," says the stylist as his fingers run across the cotton fabric in his hands. He lifts it up so that the tribute sees the shirt in its entirety, but to Gabriel, it looks just like a plain grey t-shirt. There is absolutely nothing fashionable about it. But he keeps silent as the stylist nods and murmurs to himself.
Gabriel showers and changes into his clothes slowly. He should be afraid because he very well could be dead in less than two hours, but all he feels is numb. He moves his arms and legs to ensure that he has proper circulation in his limbs, and as he does so, he notes that the clothing is at least comfortable. Grey shirt, navy blue zip-up hoodie, dark green pants, and tennis shoes.
It looks like something he'd wear at the community home, and yet his stylist tells him that it's fashionable.
Over the next hour, Gabriel forces himself to eat breakfast and sip water. He won't win the Hunger Games, but he doesn't want to die in the Bloodbath when he already promised someone he'd be in an alliance. He takes another drink of water, longer this time, and sets the empty glass down on the table next to him.
"…You won't have to worry about cold weather, and certainly those shoes are too flimsy for any rough terrain…"
Gabriel refills his water glass with the pitcher, vaguely aware that his stylist still rambles about his wardrobe. A large clock on the wall ticks down the minutes he has left, and when there are only fifteen minutes to go, he stands up and uses the toilet so that if he does get offed in the Bloodbath, he won't evacuate his bladder or bowels. That sort of detail might not intentionally be shown on television, but Gabriel would rather not die with the chance of that being picked up by the cameras as they pan across the carnage of the Cornucopia. He'd rather be a name forgotten to all but the historians than be remembered for shitting himself on television.
He spends his remaining time waiting by the tube that he figures will take him up to the arena. His stylist chatters on the phone with someone until the last couple minutes, and then he rushes over to his tribute.
"Now, find a good weapon and get a big bag," the man says as he adjusts the sleeves of Gabriel's sweatshirt. "Don't think about what all the media says. You could be like James and win this—you never know."
"Can you shut up about James?" Gabriel asks.
"Oh, but he's a fine young man, I'm told."
"I don't want to be compared to him."
The stylist tuts at him and runs his fingers through the sweatshirt's hood to even it out. But he says no more on the subject as he urges him into the glass tube as though he's afraid that Gabriel will turn tail and flee from the inevitable. But even if he wanted to run, there's no place for him to go in this concrete tomb under the arena.
Day 1 - 10:00 AM
The tube closes around him, and Gabriel feels the ground beneath his feet shift upward. He watches his stylist disappear as he goes up and up, and soon Gabriel is enveloped in darkness.
Could it be a desert? That's what they had given his mentor.
His stylist was right that there wouldn't be snow at least.
But what about something more temperate, like a forest?
Concrete, he thinks, the word popping into his head. Tennis shoes are for concrete, just like back at the home.
Soon, though, the blackness around him disappears, and he's surprised to find himself surrounded by walls. He blinks, and as his eyes adjust, he looks around.
He's in a room.
It's a bedroom. Faded floral wallpaper surrounds him on all sides. A queen-sized bed, its stained covers pulled around the mattress, takes up the majority of the room. The thin carpet is worn and discolored. A small writing desk with a chair, a television with broken rabbit ears, an armchair whose stuffing spills out the center. The door was once painted white but now is an unsettling grey. It's a dismal place, a reminder that even in death, Gabriel will get nothing satisfying.
But what's even more confusing is that he's alone here. He twists around as though the other tributes may be behind the bed, but of course he can't leave his pedestal to check under furniture or anything like that. As he turns back, he realizes that the television displays the countdown, the numbers static-y but inescapable despite the interference. It's mesmerizing, but he pulls his attention away to take in his surroundings, and as he does so, something catches his eye.
The door is about ten feet away from him, and next to it, a window. The curtains have been pulled back to reveal what might be a courtyard but, more importantly, is definitely the Cornucopia. His eyes return to the door.
A bedroom with the Cornucopia outside. Gabriel's brain churns through thoughts and ideas, the strangeness of the situation intriguing. The others must be in bedrooms, too, or maybe in kitchens or dining rooms or closets. This must be a strange house, though he can't imagine what sort of rundown heap like this would sport a courtyard in the middle like it's a wealthy estate.
The television makes a subtle bong sound, distracting Gabriel. The number "10" disappears from the screen with another bong, and the number "9" replaces it. As the numbers count down, Gabriel's distinctly aware that he's going into the Hunger Games blind. He and his mentor had discussed how to assess the Cornucopia and the other tributes, but none of that matters if he's in here and everyone else is out there.
BONG!
The "1" vanishes, replaced by a blank screen.
Well that's anticlimactic, Gabriel thinks as he stares at it for a second. But he can't delay; he has to figure out what's going on, if not for his own survival, then at least for that of his ally. He steps off the pedestal and creeps towards the door. He glances through the peep hole but the image is too blurry to make any sense of it.
The Capitol wants a Bloodbath, right? So it's not like they're trying to trick the tributes to stay in their rooms. At least he assumes.
His heart thumps as he reaches for the doorknob. He opens the door a crack and peers outside.
The District 10 tributes scavenge the Cornucopia. His district partner, Scarlett, creeps over towards them.
Where are the Careers?
Before he commits to going outside, Gabriel shifts his attention away from the great golden horn from which a wealth of supplies spill onto open concrete, and searches for the other tributes. He isn't surprised that he's facing a courtyard with four sides, though there are so many doors, each one with a different number. Some are open. Most are closed. He opens his door wider and shifts his stance. There's a pool in the courtyard as well, though its murky, still waters aren't very appealing.
Still no Careers. And no death, either.
It's a trap! Gabriel's brain screams at him as he steps outside and closes the door quietly. A mechanism clicks, and he realizes that he's locked out of his room. Just as well—it's not like he wanted to take refuge in the same place as the Cornucopia. But this means he has no choice but to keep moving, and he might as well grab something from the Cornucopia before it's picked over.
Now the District 11 tributes have reached it, and even Scarlett is brave enough to grab onto a nasty looking sword. The District 12 boy eyes her carefully, but he pulls out a set of throwing knives from the pile.
Gabriel decides that there must be more than one Cornucopia; there's no way that they can be here and half the tributes aren't. He hangs back near the door, the overhang above his head providing shadows in which he can hide until he makes his decision.
Fine. He can't just stand here like a moron. Gabriel slinks forward. But as he reaches the edge of the supply pile and grabs a backpack, a sharp cry sends chills through him.
The District 1 male stands on the third-story balcony, blood-glistening sword in one hand and the head of the District 3 female in the other. Gabriel gawks as the District 1 male launches the head through the air. It splashes in the pool.
Okay, so the Careers are here. But three stories up. Gabriel slings the backpack over his shoulder and darts forward to grab a machete not too far away. Then he shoots another glance upward.
Beneath the Careers—on the second floor—are more tributes. He scans for Acer, but he's not there. District 5, District 8—also District 6. He thinks he sees District 7, too. Those must be the middle district kids. Which means that Districts 1 through 4 are on the upper level, and District 3 would be surrounded by Careers. . . .
Gabriel clenches his machete and searches the third level for Acer. Half the Careers have vanished, but Gabriel isn't going to leave right now until he finds his ally. He searches frantically, even as cries ring out on the second floor as Careers dart down the open-air corridors, clearly having found a way to reach the level below where they started. A scream from the third floor draws his attention, and the District 1 female drags someone along behind her. The small boy in the Career's grasp kicks and screams, his finger slapping at the firm hold on his shirt.
"Acer!" Gabriel calls out. He starts forward, only to pause when he realizes that he doesn't know where to go. There are no staircases or ladders here, and he has to find one fast before it's too late.
But it doesn't matter. The District 1 girl beats Acer's head against the wrought iron railing of the balcony until the screams stop. She lifts the small body up and chucks it down towards the ground where it lands not far from the pool with a sickening crunch. Blood flows out of his head onto the pebbled concrete.
"Acer—" he starts forward towards his ally.
The District 1 girl bellows in triumph before swinging herself over the railing. She balances on the narrow bit of concrete on the other side, steadying herself for a moment, and then launches herself down and into the filthy pool with a splash.
Acer's body lies still, and even from here, Gabriel can see there's no life in him.
He's gone.
Gabriel draws in a sharp breath but keeps his head on his shoulders, even as the District 1 girl draws herself out of the water. In his periphery vision, the lower district tributes grab up their belongings and skitter away from the pile of goods, drawing closer to each other. One of the middle district kids jumps down from the second floor, only for the District 4 male to land next to him, spear in hand. The Career winces with the impact but immediately turns his weapon on his prey.
But Acer—
Gabriel has to move. If he stays here, he dies, and he'll die for nothing. He's not sure he's going to die for anything at this point, but he certainly won't go down in the Bloodbath.
The District 10 male calls him over. District 10 and District 11 have banded together, weapons in hand, as though they plan on defending the Cornucopia. Fools. Damned fools.
Gabriel shakes his head and turns to run. The backpack bounces on his shoulder, and he clenches the machete in his sweaty fingers. He doesn't look back as he ducks into an alleyway that leads him away from the carnage behind him.
Day 1 - 3:02 PM
Gabriel wishes he had stayed and fought. He would have died, surely, but at least he wouldn't have looked like a coward after fleeing. Hell, maybe they could have taken a Career or two down with them and given one of the others a chance to win. At least Gabriel wouldn't have to be here, huddled behind a dumpster at the far edge of some parking lot.
He sighs and runs his hand through his curly auburn hair. Behind him is a chain link fence with barbed wire wrapped around the top. Thick and imposing, it won't let a single soul through. Which figures because he's fairly certain that they're keeping all the tributes in this one claustrophobic area surrounding the three-story building. From this distance, Gabriel's worked out that the arena is a motel. He vaguely remembers going to some motels when he was seven or eight. The community home had taken several girls and boys on a bus around the district to pair them off with various families who wanted children of their own. Free labor was more like it. He had been upset when no one chose him, scrawny thing that he was, but in the end he realized that those people who stood at the bus stops and said they wanted children really just wanted someone to tend the family farm or take shifts in the local processing plants. They weren't loving family members.
Enough of the past, he orders himself. That's not going to help me here.
He shifts himself into a crouch and looks at his backpack again. It's a rusty red color, not unlike the blood that splattered across the patio when the District 1 girl threw Acer's body down three stories. Inside the bag is a variety of things, but mostly clothing: fresh underwear and socks, two t-shirts, an extra pair of pants. It's kind of laughable that for the first time in his life, he finally has new clothes of his own and not hand-me-downs. A few toiletries are included in the bag, such as a toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant, and chapstick. At the bottom sits a first aid kit with individual bandages and small packets of pills. He supposes that his bag is intended to mimic the contents of a suitcase, and things like food and water can be found somewhere within the motel. Which means that he should move and go hunt for something to eat before the others come up with the same idea.
And yet he remains here. His legs burn from supporting himself in the same position for so long, but he can't get himself to move. He was supposed to take care of Acer. Get him through to the end. And now, he. . . .
He can't get the image out of his mind no matter how many times he blinks or rubs his eyelids.
Part of him wishes that he could just stay behind the dumpster until he succumbs from hunger or dehydration, but he'll either be found by the Careers or be chased away by some cruel gamemaker event before he has a chance to die. So he at long last grasps onto the metal siding of the dumpster and pushes himself to his feet. He pulls his backpack onto his back. But there's no place for his machete, so he keeps it in his hand. Carefully, quietly, he creeps around the side of the dumpster, painfully aware that anyone can see him in the stretch of open asphalt between here and the side of the building. But he moves forward, appreciative that these tennis shoes he wears make almost no sound.
He reaches a row of rooms and tries one of the doors. Locked, of course. So is the second. And the third. Well, it would be stupid for him to try to hide in one of them, just in case someone saw him leave the dumpster. So he keeps the building on his left and travels south.
Day 1 - 9:00 PM
If you aren't able to see the faces in the sky at night, they show them to you through the television screens in the motel rooms. Gabriel finds this out when he's huddled on the floor of room 144E. Not to be confused with room 144W, which is on the other side of the motel, closer to the dumpster. From what little he's explored here in the southern side of the building, things seem to be fairly symmetrical and the numbering system altogether confusing.
District 3 male. (He doesn't cry. He gave up on that years ago, and people die regardless of your tears.)
District 3 female.
District 5 male.
District 6 male.
District 6 female.
District 7 male.
District 7 female.
District 8 male.
District 8 female.
District 11 male.
It's kind of funny, in a not-actually-funny way, that so many people died from the middle districts. Normally they die, sure, but it tends to be the lower districts—places like his own—that see many losses in the Bloodbath. But the separation of districts onto different floors saved himself and his fellow lower district tributes, and screwed over the others. There was no way with a set-up like that that District 3 had a chance. And once the Careers realized what was happening, they found their way down to the level below and massacred all of the tributes who were unable to escape them in the narrow corridors. Gabriel wonders if any of them were cowering in rooms like he was now, praying they'd never be found, only to have the door fly open and find a Career standing in front of them, weapon in hand.
Anxiety rolls through Gabriel's body, and he clears his throat and fiddles with a pen he found on the desk. He tries to distract himself from thoughts of the Bloodbath, but it's impossible, and his mind replays the scene over and over.
It seems strange to divide the tributes like that because it put the Careers at a disadvantage and the lower districts at an advantage. The Careers must've been pissed that they were so far away from their weapons. . . .
No, they weren't. The District 1 male had a sword. There must've been more weaponry on the other levels, or at least the third one.
Whatever happened at the Bloodbath doesn't matter. All that's important is what's going on now, and Gabriel knows that he's not safe in any one room for very long. This run-down, dingy room with wallpaper peeling off the corner of the largest wall and cockroaches skittering along the bathroom floor was one of the few rooms he found open. He isn't sure if someone else was here first with the key and forgot to lock it behind them, or if some of the doors start unlocked, leaving the tributes to shake every door handle and hope that there isn't a Career on the other side as they try to find a room for the night. Regardless, it doesn't matter because someone will find a way to break down the doors, and then they'll go though room by room picking off the tributes.
Gabriel's stomach grumbles, but he ignores it and rolls underneath the bed. He drags his bag in after him and tries not to breathe too deeply lest he get a waft of musty carpet. But better here where he won't be immediately spotted should someone break down the door than in the bed or even in the bathroom. It'll give him a couple extra seconds to—
To what?
What is Gabriel's end goal here, really? He's going to die, just like Acer, just like all the others. Yeah, he could fight for his life, but what was the point? To show people that District 9 was tough? To give the Capitol their entertainment? To not disappoint anyone? But honestly, there really was no one to disappoint. He had no family, and he didn't bother with friends these days, not even of the fellow kids at the community home where they were all in the same shitty situation together. He had hoped that by helping Acer, he could at least do something with his pathetic life. But no, he couldn't even do that right.
He closes his eyes and tries to scrub away the image of Acer's head smashing in against the balcony rail, but no matter how many times he digs the heal of his palm into his eyelids, it's still there.
Even before the Hunger Games, Gabriel figured his days were numbered. He wasn't sure when or where he'd flick the switch, but at some point, Gabriel Carvey would cease to be. The Hunger Games just gave him that push that he needed to get it done, and yet here he is still living and breathing. Why doesn't he just take matters into his own hands and make sure there is one fewer opponent left in the arena?
He doesn't know. He just rolls over on his side and squeezes his eyes shut, hoping that he'll be able to fall asleep despite the gory imagery in his brain.
Gabriel receives three visitors while he's waiting for the Peacekeepers to load him onto the train to the Capitol.
1. Samantha. She's a year older than him but had tutored him in math. They could have become friends, even, but Gabriel didn't really do the whole "friend" thing. Still, it was nice of her to come, and though he couldn't bring himself to say that he'd miss her, he thanked her for stopping by. She smiled at him, but it was a distant, distracted smile.
"You were my favorite to tutor," she confides. "You never gave up, even when the math got complicated. Most kids just stop when things get too hard."
2. Benjamin. He sits next to Gabriel in class and sleeps in a bed on the other side of the boys' dormitory. But he always tried to include Gabriel in things. Gabriel saw it as pity, but as he watches the boy struggle to contain his tears, he wonders if he had misread him the entire time.
It doesn't matter, though; Gabriel's not coming back.
"Remember that one time you broke Thomas' arm?" Benjamin says. "I think you can do this. You can win the Hunger Games."
A broken arm means nothing in the grand scheme of things, and Gabriel had only done it because Thomas kept stealing food from the younger kids. Things will be way different in the arena, but Gabriel just nods at his peer and thanks him for visiting.
3. Ms. Hamilton. She has taught him in various subjects over the years. Grammar, history, literature. . . . Although Gabriel wouldn't say that he's received a stellar education from her, she wasn't half bad. She was firm—sometimes mean, even—but she wasn't cruel. It was almost like she had hope in him and was trying to beat the stupidity out of him. A lost cause, as it was for all these kids in the community home who had no future in front of them.
"If there's any child at the home who can do this, it's you, Gabriel," she says. "And I don't say that lightly. Keep your wits about you, and focus."
He doesn't want another lesson, but he also doesn't have it in him to protest. He just answers her with a grunt and pretends that he doesn't hear her. But he does.
Day 2 - 9:04 AM
A muted beep wakes him, and for a second, Gabriel thinks he's back in the community home. He yawns and stretches his arm, cursing when his knuckles collide with the metal bed frame. When he remembers that he's in the arena, he falls silent and draws his hands back to him. He listens.
The noise continues, but it's not coming from his room. After ensuring that he can hear no sound from his immediate vicinity and that the door is still firmly closed, he wiggles his way out from under the bed. Pressing his ear against the wall, he waits.
Sure enough, it sounds like an alarm clock in the next room over.
"Damnit," he mutters. Now he's trapped in this stupid motel room with no way to escape because if there isn't somebody already in the room next to his, then that noise may very well bring others.
Gabriel drinks water from the bathroom sink, careful not to disturb the little packaged soaps or cups on the counter. He hopes to leave the room as he found it so no one will be the wiser that he was here.
For the next several hours, Gabriel listens to the dull beeping. It becomes a sort of music in the back of his mind as he flips through the telephone book and Gideon's Bible tucked away into drawers. He reads the room service menu over and over until the words start to make no sense and the food names seem to lose meaning.
But his stomach rumbles again, and he knows that at some point or another, he's going to have to venture out to get food.
Day 2 - 3:03 PM
He's had enough. The alarm clock will drive him mad. Its beep has become a pounding in his skull, with each pulse seeming to say Acer—Acer—Acer. As the time goes on, the word becomes clearer, and he just can't take it anymore.
He gets it. He failed.
He'd rather take his chances with the other tributes at this point. So he grabs his backpack and heads towards the door.
"Fuck it," he says as he swings the door wide open and strolls out into the afternoon. If someone kills him, they kill him.
But they don't.
Gabriel follows the edge of the building, heading north. Another parking lot stretches to the east, but this one, like the one on the other side of the complex, ends in the distance where a chain-link fence topped with spiral barbed wire prohibits the tributes from progressing into the thick woods on the other side.
He passes room 143E and 142E before coming across two vending machines in an open-air corridor that appears to extend to the western parking lot, straight across the motel. Nobody's here, but he feels so damned exposed right now.
The plastic panel on one vending machine is smashed open, brownish-red blood dried on the fragments that are still in place. Two rows of items have been wiped out, but Gabriel fishes out three granola bars, two packages of jerky, and an MRE. The other vending machine has taken some beating, but nobody destroyed its translucent exterior. However, Gabriel can tell that somebody has pried open the front of the machine, so all he has to do is swing off the panel and help himself to several bottles of water and juice inside. It's surprisingly easy. Too easy. . . .
As soon as he tucks everything into his now-bulging backpack, he turns just in time to see the District 4 male swagger towards him, spear in hand. At first his unsteady gait looks intentional, but then Gabriel realizes that his left leg is injured and wrapped tightly in bandages. Was that from when he jumped off the second floor balcony?
"Thought you got lucky with that food, didn't you?" the Career taunts.
Gabriel shrugs. "Sure, maybe?"
"Nothing comes for free, you know that?" the other guy continues. He tightens his grip on the spear, holding it up as though he plans on letting it loose straight into Gabriel's heart. "We Careers know it, but you lower-district scum just take things for granted, don't you?"
Gabriel's over it. This whole Hunger Games thing is totally asinine, and he doesn't give a shit if this guy trained his whole life for it. He literally screwed up his leg in the first couple days. Did they not teach their Careers how to jump down ten feet or whatever?
He's keenly aware of the weapon in his own hand, a machete he probably doesn't know how to use. He could jump forward and swipe at the Career but what would that get him? Honor? Glory? Death? Did it matter?
The Career continues, "Here you are, completely defenseless and—"
"Yeah, okay."
Gabriel turns and walks away from him. He takes a sharp left towards a staircase that faces the side of motel closest to the parking lot and steps up at an even pace. Stopping at the second floor, he looks around. He could take the staircase up farther, and part of him is tempted to, but he just can't be assed to do it right now. Meanwhile, behind him, he hears the District 4 tribute screaming out something about how he'll get Gabriel later and won't he be sorry that he got away this time.
"Moron," Gabriel mutters under his breath as he moves away from the stairs. Who does that Career think he is if he can't even ascend a staircase?
Gabriel just hopes that the entire nation got a glimpse of that interaction. He hadn't meant to elude the Career simply by walking up stairs—not even running up them—but it was absurd enough to bring the briefest flicker of a smile to his lips. He lets it go, though, and continues to put distance between himself and the Career.
Day 3 - 4:53 AM
There's not much to do here besides hang out inside of the motel rooms. Gabriel never stays in one place for too long, and he tries to sleep no more than a couple hours at a time. Probably not a great long-term sleep strategy, but who cares? The Hunger Games isn't really a long-term endeavor.
Gabriel had gone from room to room trying to identify some way or another to end his time in the Hunger Games. But the funny thing about this place is that there are always little hidden things that catch his eye as he goes through each room. Not necessarily dangerous, but just stuff that keep the rooms from becoming repetitive. A sweet-smelling floral soap in one that made him strangely calm after he smelled it, extra clothing and food in another (as though somebody far wealthier than a tribute has been there and left in a hurry without their bags), a few pages of a diary shoved underneath a pillow in yet another room. Not to mention the strange numbering system this place has. After a bit of exploration of a small portion of the second floor, Gabriel came across inconsistent room numbering. Right now, he is in room 5. The next room over is 233.
He found himself paper in this room—a pad with the motel's logo—and a matching ballpoint pen. It isn't as forgiving as a pencil, but he spends his time now sketching out things he's seen. The shapes of the rooms, the various odds and ends that make them unique, the numbers on the doors. It passes the time and keeps his mind occupied.
Soon enough, though, it will be time to change and move on to the next room, and heaven only knows what that would bring.
What strange oddities did this motel offer?
The mere notion of further exploration brings forth an unexpected emotion, and it is only after several perplexed seconds that he realizes it is curiosity. Not just the musings of someone who is wondering what is on the menu tonight, but a deeper sort of longing for discovery. Now that is something he hasn't had much reason to feel over the past few years. He realizes that as he explores, he's no longer looking for a good rope that won't break under his weight but for whatever odds and ends pique his interest.
Gabriel grabs up his backpack and machete. He gets himself situated and then steps into the corridor. A cool breeze blows, but he likes the scent of morning, crisp and welcoming. He pauses and inhales, allowing his lungs to fill up fully before he lets out his breath.
". . . No, she's going to give us away," comes a snippy female voice. Gabriel crouches down and freezes, hoping that the pale orange corridor lights won't expose him as he listens.
A second voice—a male—says, "What do you want us to do? Leave her behind? Kill her? I'm not going to do either."
A cough interrupts them, but the first person—an older girl, Gabriel thinks—continues, "See?! She's going to alert everyone that we're here!"
"She's a kid, Dana! We can't just leave her behind or—or kill her!"
"We have to do something! I don't want to die because we were trying to coddle a kid that will never make it!"
"Fine! Whatever! It's not like you're going to listen to me anyhow."
"Oh shut up, Justin! Or maybe you'd rather I left you behind with her?"
"No. No, I know. I get it. It's just that—"
"It's the Hunger Games. Kill or be killed. Really, we'd be doing her a mercy."
District 10. Gabriel creeps forward, one hand on the wall. He comes to a stop, still hidden in the darkness but not too far away from the speakers. The weak overhead lighting illuminates three figures: the two older District 10 tributes and the small District 12 girl, the latter crouched down on the cold concrete, her back against the wall. Every now and again, she coughs, a hand pressed against her mouth to suppress the noise best as possible, but the shaking that seizes her body with each hack is obvious.
"There are fourteen people left and no deaths since the Bloodbath," the girl hisses. She pauses and lowers her voice. "How long do you think they'll let us sit here? I'll bet they want to drive the Careers toward us as soon as possible and—"
She stops mid-sentence, her voice hitching. It takes Gabriel a moment to realize that she is staring right at him.
"Shit," she mutters. "See what I mean!"
Gabriel pushes himself up so that he's standing again. His head swims slightly, but he ignores it as he says, "Damn good thing I didn't ally with you if it means having to listen to you assholes bicker. If you don't want the Careers to run you through, then you should shut your mouths and stop blaming the kid."
She glares at him and clenches her jaw as though she's trying to hold words in. But the District 10 male trains his attention on him now, and Gabriel wonders if he's going to use the sword in his hand to scare Gabriel off—or kill him.
"She's coughing, and it's going to draw all the Careers right to us no matter where we try to hide," Justin says, motioning to the District 12 girl.
"We have to do something," Dana explains. "We can't keep carrying her around."
"Right, well, I'm not keen on alerting the Careers to where we are, so move your asses so I can pass by," Gabriel says.
The District 10 boy moves to the side, making a dramatic gesture to wave Gabriel along his way. Gabriel steps forward, trying not to look at the District 12 girl. Her fate is not his concern right now.
"Oh no—too late," Dana whispers. She doesn't move out of Gabriel's way; instead, her attention remains locked on the corridor in the direction from which Gabriel had come.
He doesn't even need to turn around to know that they've been found, but he still looks to see how many pursue them. It's the District 1 male, and he roars out a war cry as he raises his sword in the air.
The District 10 pair bolt away, pushing past Gabriel. The balcony railing digs into Gabriel's back, and he's about to run, too, until he sees the District 12 girl scrambling to her feet.
And he thinks of the District 3 girl, whose head the District 1 male proudly waved through the air at the Bloodbath. Could he leave this kid behind to suffer the same fate?
"C'mon," he says as he grabs onto her wrist and drags her away. She fumbles and nearly falls, but Gabriel has a firm grasp on her and keeps her moving. They turn the corner in time to see the District 10 tributes vanish up a staircase, the older tributes' feet echoing against the metal and concrete. Their motions shake the walkway above him, and Gabriel maneuvers himself and the girl around the stairs, staying on the second floor. Their movements can be easily tracked if they go up; the District 1 male could just follow the shaking of the walkway above his head. But if they stay on this level, maybe the District 10 pair will distract him, and Gabriel will have a chance to escape.
He leads the girl past rooms 501, 502, and so on, until they make a sharp left at a corridor that cuts through the building. They turn right and follow along 212, 211, 209, 210, 210 (again?), 209. . . . Another corner, and finally Gabriel begins rattling doorknobs. To his relief, the first one he checks opens, and he shoves the District 12 girl into room 207W before following after her. He closes the door behind him and throws the dead bolt in place.
Day 3 - 8:14 AM
The girl's name is Collie and she's thirteen years old. Like Acer. But unlike Acer, she's too small. Too thin. Too weak and too much of a liability. She has no shot at victory, not unless someone far more powerful and skilled than Gabriel were allying with her.
And now with this cough she's developed, she doesn't have a chance in hell.
"You don't have to do this," Collie says.
"Shut up," Gabriel replies. He doesn't want to hear her try to justify herself or ask him to leave her behind, or whatever she's doing. But she falls into another fit of coughs.
He can see why the District 10 tributes were trying to figure out how to handle the girl, and he isn't surprised that murder came up in the conversation. It's only a matter of time until someone hears her coughing, and then the both of them would be dead. But Gabriel also knows that he can't just leave her on her own to fall into the hands of whatever cruel Career or muttation happened upon her first.
But he doesn't want another ally. Not after Acer. Not after watching him die like that, knowing that he had failed the boy. . . .
"What is it, like a cold?" Gabriel finally asks as the girl gulps down a glass of water in the hopes of soothing her throat. He's already gone through his first aid kid and not found anything to help with coughing or respiratory issues.
She shakes her head. "I don't know. It started last night, and it hasn't stopped," she answers. "Justin and Dana didn't get sick, so if it's a cold, I don't know where it came from."
It's possible that she picked up something before she went into the arena, but highly unlikely. Gabriel doesn't think he's ever seen a situation like that; it would dramatically alter the way the Hunger Games played out if tributes brought in colds and flus and whatever. Sure, no one was putting money on Collie, but a contagious disease didn't just choose lesser-favored tributes to infect while leaving others alone.
"If it's something you picked up in the arena, there has to be a cure," he thinks aloud. "And that means that it has to be available somewhere. . . ." He turns to the girl. "I found a vending machine on the first floor, the complete opposite side of this motel. It might have something to help us. But there's probably more because the Careers would have done a better job resource guarding if they—"
"Resource guarding?" she interrupts.
"Yeah, you know, like when there's a limited resource and you keep others from getting to it?" he says.
She shakes her head. "That's a new one for me."
Gabriel doesn't respond for a moment. Did they not have that in District 12? Was that just a community home thing, where the biggest kids kept all the others from some coveted item or resource? He can remember clearly several occasions in which the older kids were tasked to pass out extra treats to the others—gifts from generous donors—but they just kept it all for themselves. Or when someone stole the encyclopedia set from the library because they didn't want anyone to outscore them on a test.
"Well, it means that if there was only one place to get food and water, they'd have multiple guards on it," he explains. "But they only had the District 4 male, who was limping pretty bad. So I suspect that there are other places with other resources and things."
She nods. "The lobby, I bet," she says.
"The lobby?" he echoes.
"Yeah, you know where you check in at the motel?" she prompts.
Now it's Gabriel's turn to shake his head. All he remembers about his motel stays were getting off the bus and being ushered into over-crowded rooms to spend the night. A royal treat for them, but clearly not a novelty for all.
"So when you get to a motel, you have to tell them that you're there, right?" she says. But here's she's taken by another cough, and he waits until she stops and takes another drink of water. "So you go to the lobby to sign in, and then they give you the keys to the room. But they also have other things there, like toothbrushes and stuff in case you've forgotten yours. Some of them have teas and cookies, too. I once went to one that had a little store in the lobby with things like—" another pause for coughing "—The store had medicines and trinkets. Didn't you ever stay in a motel for the reaping?"
"No," he answers. "We just got up early and were bussed in." It was a several hour drive, so they had to wake up at 4:00 AM to get going. And then once the reaping ended (Gabriel had never known another person who was reaped), they returned back to the home late at night. It seems that his experience differed greatly to hers.
"Well, my family and I lived far enough away that Dad would get a motel room for two days," she says. "When I was younger, it was really exciting; I didn't understand that my older sister could have been reaped and killed. Then as I got older and I began to understand. . . ." She coughs again, and this time doesn't finish her statement.
"I don't know where this lobby is," he says.
"Wait a second," she replies. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a few crumpled papers. "When I was in room—um, I think it was 504?—I found a motel map. It was a metal sheet pinned on the door, so I couldn't take it, but I copied it down onto here."
She thrusts the wad of papers at him, and he takes them. Smoothing them out, he studies Collie's version of the motel. Her pen strokes are smooth and even, and each box that represents a motel room is perfect. She's taken the time not just to label all of the rooms but to color-coordinate them so that the western side of the complex is blue and the eastern is red.
"Not all the rooms had numbers," she says. "At least not on the map. See, there's a gap between 227E and 233E?"
"That's where the numbers got strange," he explains. "They went 1-2-3-4-5 rather than following the pattern."
"Great," she says. She takes the papers back from him and pulls a pen out of her pocket. "Was 1 near 227 or 233?"
"227," he answers. "But we really shouldn't play map maker and should just—"
"Yeah, I get it," she says. "Let's go."
"No," he says, and she frowns at him. "You can't come. You'll cough and give us away. If we want to do this, I have to go alone. . . . If there really are resources there—and I suspect there are since it's right near the dining room if the map's right—then the Careers will be guarding it closely."
She studies him, and now she no longer looks like the little girl cowering near the ankles of the District 10 tributes as they bickered about the best ways to dispose of her. She's still small, and her face is pale and sickly, but she's not shivering in fear and trying to make herself invisible.
"I'll be back," he assures her. "And if you see my face on the television tonight, stay away from the lobby. Check the rooms or the vending machines."
Collie doesn't protest, and Gabriel is thankful when she lowers herself down onto the foot of the bed.
"Here," she says as she stretches her arm out to him, map in hand. "You might need this."
He takes it from her with a thank you, and folds it up neatly so it'll fit in his pants pocket.
As he walks out the door and closes it behind him, he hears the deadbolt slip in place.
For he first time since Acer died, he finally has a purpose. But this time, he tells himself, he will not get attached.
MAP
Floor 1: tinyurl dot com /yerw3k47
Floor 2: tinyurl dot com /3wk36xv5
Floor 3: tinyurl dot com /hemvjfwp
Day 3 - 8:54 AM
Gabriel doesn't hurry. The map shows no staircase near him, and he's afraid to stray too far from the north part of the hotel to find one, so he slowly lowers himself down a drain pipe until his feet touch solid earth. It was only one floor, and he'd done the same thing many times as he'd slip out of the dormitory on peaceful nights, but it still sends a rush through him.
His shoes crunch on the decomposed gravel surrounding the bushes that wrap around the exterior of the motel, and he lowers himself into a crouch. He figures that if the Careers are guarding this, they'll have more people in the interior where there's a stream that flows across the courtyard. It would probably be scenic were it all not so run-down. Regardless, he'd take his chances out here where the overcast skies bore down on him but the building didn't enclose him its claustrophobic embrace.
His heart pounds, and he knows that he's doing something dangerous. Not stupid-dangerous, just dangerous. If anything, it might be the most meaningful thing he's done in his life, and that gives him a puff of energy to keep his body moving despite the fear within him.
He creeps along the side of the building towards the northern face. To his dismay, however, he sees no entrances but windows and the front door. It would be idiotic just to march right into the lobby through the front, so he ducks back into the bushes and pulls out Collie's map.
If this is right, he should be able to go from the staff room into the office and then to the lobby. Alright, might as well give it a shot. So he heads back around the side of the building and peers in the window.
Should he break it? He glances around for a rock before remembering his machete, strapped to his waist with a belt found in one of the rooms. No, even his weapon isn't good enough. But his search for a rock ends when he realizes that one of the windows is already open. Well doesn't he feel like a moron now?
But rather than going in immediately, he waits. Listens for voices. Nothing. So he reaches up and slowly opens the window wider. His hands find the ledge. It takes him a couple tries, but he finally hoists himself up and into the staff room where he lands with a thud on a desk, papers flapping out underneath him.
When no one comes charging him, he rolls off the desk onto his feet and checks to ensure his machete is in place. Then he moves, keeping low, following the part of the map he's burned into his brain, and heads towards the offices.
As he approaches the door, he hears voices. Two—no, three—distinct people. He dares to look through the open doorway, and finds the District 1 female and the pair from District 2 with her. But the District 1 girl. . . . She's ugly. Her skin is rough and red and cracked, with large boils on her previously smooth features.
Eww. What the hell happened to her?
Doesn't matter. He needs cough syrup for Collie, and the District 1 girl's situation is irrelevant.
Collie said that the medicine would be in the lobby, but what if it wasn't? What if he burst out in front of everyone, and then he died for nothing? Does he really want that?
He chews on his lip as he thinks, and in the end, he scouts around the office. Some desks are exposed to the open air, but others are tucked away in their own rooms behind doors with name plates such as "John Smith" and "Sally Jones." Gabriel paws through each desk, looking for whatever he might find to soothe Collie's throat.
There's a wealth of odds and ends. He finds a pouch that he straps to his waist since he left his backpack upstairs, and drops in a few things that might come in handy: a good pencil for sketching (he knows it's not the priority, but still), a switch blade, a packet of pain medicine. Just little things. As he searches through one "Daniel Roberts" desk, the drawer opens and several bottles roll. His eyebrows raise as he pulls out the container of cough syrup. An unopened bottle, still in its packaging.
Hell yes, he thinks as he tucks it directly into his pants pocket. No way he want to be parted with this. But as he's about to close the drawer, he wonders what the other bottles are; they might be useful.
There's a medium-sized bottle of rubbing alcohol, and he places that into the pouch even though it takes up most of the space. Then a tube of lipstick (he ignores that). And finally, a small vial labeled only with a skull and crossbones. Poison.
His fingers tighten on the vial as though he's afraid that he'll drop it and it'll break and kill him. For several seconds, he contemplates this. It could have its uses. . . . His mind ticks with vague ideas before honing in on one specific issue it could solve.
This vial goes into his other pocket, buried deep beneath the map.
But underneath where the bottle had been, he finds a set of keys bound together with a carabiner. Five keys, to be specific. He's not sure what rooms they're for; the light's too dim to make out the faded letters on the tags attached to them.
"Hey! Who's there!"
Gabriel starts and snatches up the keys, holding them close so the metal doesn't clink together.
"I know someone is in here. Tell me who you are, or I'll kill you without a second thought."
They'd kill me anyhow, Gabriel thinks with irritation. Stupid games they think they're playing. He has a goal now, and he has to get back to Collie before they get to him. And once they know he's here, they'll give chase. No way for him to escape when the arena is so small.
He sinks down behind the desk and holds his breath. Footsteps thump down the hall, passing mere feet from him. He can't die here. He has to get back to Collie. He stares at the wall opposite him, praying that whoever is in here with him gives up the search quickly. But time passes, and others come to join them.
Gabriel's heart thumps loudly as they approach his desk. He grits his teeth and covers his mouth and nose with a hand to suppress the sound of his own breathing.
But the Careers are chattering between themselves too much to listen for the small noises of intruders, and at long last, their footsteps grow fainter. Gabriel's hand drops away from his mouth, and his dizzy brain can finally start formulating an escape plan.
He turns to the window, and with some effort, pushes it open. As he vanishes outside, he can hear the voices once again grow louder. But they haven't found him yet.
Day 3 - 2:15 PM
Gabriel doesn't go right back to their room at 207W just in case someone follows him. He doesn't hear anyone, but he won't take chances. Once he's in a room, he's pinned down and at the mercy of whoever controls the door and thus the only escape. So instead he goes around the north face of the building straight past the front doors, then finds an eastern staircase. From there he goes to the third floor, spends some time in a room, and finally circles around to the west. Once again, he takes a drain pipe down to get to his room, and quietly slips the map underneath the door. A pause, and then a moment later, the door opens a crack.
Collie ushers him inside and closes the door behind him.
"I found it," he says, and pulls the bottle from his pocket.
She smiles. "Thank you so much!" she says. She clutches the bottle to her chest before skittering off towards the bathroom. She pauses at the sink outside of the small toilet room and peels away the packaging.
"There were other things, too," he says as he follows her. He pauses to untie the pouch on his waist and slaps it down on the counter. "Rubbing alcohol is a good disinfectant. There's a bit of pain medication so that you can have some, too. And this," he pulls out the switch blade, "is for you."
She grins at him and takes the knife, pausing to flick the blade open and admire the shining metal. Then she uses the new tool to remove the rest of the medicine's packaging. Within moments, she has read the instructions and gulped down a serving of syrup.
"What's that?" she says, motioning toward the keys now spread out on the counter.
He shrugs. "Found them in the same drawer."
"That means that other people could have keys for this room?"
He didn't think of that, but he's glad they put the deadbolt in place. Still, he scoops up the keys and flips through them. 302W, 253W, 321E, Storage, δ. He wasn't sure what the symbol on the last one was, but at least the storage key looked good.
"I guess," he replies. "But there are so many rooms, I'm not sure what the chance of someone having the key for the exact room we're in actually is."
She looks at him, worry creasing her brow.
"It'll be fine," he assures her.
She doesn't look convinced but she says, "Yeah, sure," and turns back to her medicine bottle.
"You should probably get some rest," he says as she twists the cap back on the bottle.
"Me? You're the one who was just running around everywhere," she replies. "If it weren't for you—"
"Yeah, yeah, I don't want to hear it," he cuts her off. "Now get to sleep."
She does what he says, and as she curls up into the bed, he settles into the armchair. From here, he can watch the door and the window, but nobody will see him when they first enter as their eyes adjust to the darkness.
He did something right for once. He may very well have saved the girl's life. Maybe he does have a purpose after all.
Does this mean they're allies now?
Day 3 - 7:53 PM
Cannon fire wakes them both up. Confusion swells within Gabriel, and his first reaction is to check on the girl. But she's sitting up in bed, the blankets wrapped around her, and her eyes wide.
The first kill since the Bloodbath.
Gabriel tightens his grip on the machete on his lap.
Neither he nor Collie speak as she climbs out of bed and shuffles over towards her bag resting on the dresser next to the television. She digs through it and pulls out a wrinkled package of nuts, mostly empty.
"We have to keep moving," Gabriel says.
"Why?" she asks. "Nobody knows we're here."
"I don't feel safe here," he replies.
"The Careers are out killing people—I don't want to run into them."
"How do you know it's Careers?" he replies. "It could very well be a muttation or event punishing people who stay in place for too long."
She eyes him, knowing very well that he could be right. But at the same time, he supposes that his escapade today may be enough to keep the hounds off him for a few hours longer.
Unless, of course, the reason why they heard the cannon is because the Careers knew someone stole something from them, and now they've started to search for the thief. He holds that thought to himself and instead grabs up his backpack.
"Let's get out of here."
She nods and zips up her bag.
Day 4 - 9:00 PM
District 12 male.
Collie murmurs something about how he had been so nice to her in the Training Center, and her words send chills through him. For the first time since he was dumped in the arena, it really strikes him that everyone here is a real person. Not just a name and a face and a history, but hopes and dreams and fears and futures. Like Acer.
But not him. Not Gabriel. He tries to think of one thing he's hopeful for, but he can't come up with anything. Hell, even if he said, "I hope I get out of this arena alive," it would sound like he's lying even to himself. So he's going to die, he gets it. But with everyone else having all these emotions and things—these real desires and connections to life—how does one choose which one's future doesn't get cut short in this place?
He's thinking too much. He rubs his forehead and swings his legs over the side of the double bed he's claimed as his own.
"There's a game here. Found it in a cupboard when we first came in," he says as he picks up a tattered cardboard box in his hands. "Want to play?"
Collie looks over, eyes glistening with unshed tears. For a second she stares dumbly at the box before his words seem to register in her head. She nods, and he brings the game over.
For the next couple hours, they play Monopoly on an old board that's missing most of the fake currency. Gabriel tries to keep his mind off his own thoughts, and for a short while, it actually works.
Day 4 - 2:30 AM
"Something about this place isn't right," Gabriel explains, keeping his voice low. They're in room 302W, one of the rooms for which they now had the key. It's not a bad room; if they were chased, there are a couple routes they could take provided they could get out of the room alive. Besides, they even found a large quantity of fresh fruit and "leftovers" in styrofoam containers in the fridge, all still good to eat.
"What do you think the Careers are doing now?" Collie asks, her voice thoughtful.
"Um, sleeping, maybe?" he suggests. "Some might be out looking for tributes."
"But they'll find us eventually," she says. "Maybe they're all actually sleeping because they know that we can't hide forever."
"Okay, but can we go back to talking about the motel itself?" he asks.
She shrugs. "Sure," she answers. "I agree that it's strange. And the fact that some rooms don't have numbers on the map is really weird—but even weirder are that some rooms on the map have inconsistent numbers. Like look at this—" she plunks her finger down towards the center of the third map page "—normally it's symmetrical between east and west, but here we have 320-319 on the west, but the east has 320-321. The numbering system got off track."
"I guess they're trying to confuse us," he says.
"I'd believe it, but. . . ."
"But what?"
"You can feel it, right? You must, if you know there is something off about this place."
He doesn't answer right away, but finally he nods. "Yeah," he admits. "It's like I'm being watched—and not just by the cameras. I notice it in the rooms, especially at night. I just thought, you know. . . ."
"Stress and stuff," she fills in. "Me too."
"I guess it just—" he starts, but he falls silent, quite uncertain what he was trying to say. But Collie just cocks her head at him and he shrugs. "This entire place is so weird and I just want to . . . explore it? No, that sounds so dumb when I put it into words."
"No, it doesn't at all," Collie says. "There's something mysterious about it. . . . At first I was disappointed in the arena because it's so gross and weird but the longer I was stuck in that room, the more I wanted to get out and look around. I was just staring at this map all day wanting to put the pieces together and finish it."
How strange they must look to the viewers at home. Two tributes without a chance of victory who were so enamored by the arena in which they had been thrust that they wanted to go out and explore. Hiding wasn't an option for them, not anymore. They needed to figure out this world, this final place for them. It was, after all, where they would close their eyes for good.
"Look, down here," Gabriel says as he motions to the map. "Down in this southwestern area of this floor—none of these rooms have numbers. What do you think? Should we check it out?"
Collie grins. "Of course," she replies. But the grin vanishes as she's taken by another burst of coughs. They come less frequently now, and they don't shake her whole body in violent spasms as they did before. The medicine is working, but Gabriel hoped that it would do better than this.
The girl downs a glass of water she poured herself from the sink, and then turns to the bottle of medicine.
"It says I need to take this every 6 hours, but if I do that, it'll be gone so soon," she ponders. "If I ration it out, it'll last me several days."
"Just do what the label says," Gabriel replies even though she wasn't really looking for an answer. "We can always find some more."
Besides, if she doesn't take the proper dosage, it's not going to stop the coughs, and then they'll be back to square one with the same problem but now with wasted medicine. He watches as she takes another swig of the thick syrup and recaps the bottle.
"We should have a plan in case we get separated," she says.
"We won't get separated," he answers.
"You don't know that, we—"
"We won't."
"Fine, have it your way," she mutters. She takes the second-floor map and lifts it up, intent on studying it. Or trying to avoid Gabriel. Either way, it leaves him in peace to study the third-floor map, and he makes a couple of sketches in the margins.
This only prompts Collie to slip a pad of motel paper toward him and pluck the map out of his hands.
"You have your art, I have mine," she states.
Day 4 - 4:33 AM
They take the stairs to the roof. Keeping a low profile, they move towards the south. There's no way to get from the roof of the main building to the smaller building south of them without a dangerous jump, so Gabriel shows Collie how to climb down the drain pipes. She's good at it, too, which is a relief. She's also good at walking quietly and keeping her mouth shut.
Gabriel couldn't say that Acer would have been the same.
Don't think about him. Focus.
Once on the third floor again, they cross a small bridge that links to the southern building. Gabriel keeps an eye out for other tributes, but they see no one. Despite the small arena, people do a good job of hiding. He wonders how long until everyone will be flushed out of their rooms.
Collie tugs at his sleeve, and Gabriel barely manages to not pull away from the unexpected touch.
"That symbol there—it matches the one on your key!"
Gabriel scans the doors and finds that this section has a variety of strange symbols. α, β, γ, δ. The District 12 girl was indeed correct. He pulls the keys out of his pocket and flips through them until he finds the one whose symbol matches. He and Collie walk towards the door, and as he inserts the key into the lock, Collie peers around the corner to make sure no one is coming.
The key slides in and he twists it. When the door opens, they're greeted with darkness. Thick drapes have been drawn across the windows, preventing any natural light to filter through the glass.
"I hear someone!" Collie whispers. "Downstairs, I think!"
Gabriel remembers the District 10 pair and how their footsteps could be heard from the level below. So he motions the girl into the room and closes the door behind them. It clicks shut, and Collie flicks on the lights.
They're not alone.
Two tributes—the District 5 female and District 11 female—lay curled up in one of the room's two queen-sized beds. Both are so still that Gabriel wonders if they're alive. He studies the slow rise and fall of their chests to ensure that they still breathe.
He puts a finger on his lips and motions to the sleeping girls with his other hand. Collie's eyes widen but she nods. She quickly turns the lights back off.
Gabriel and Collie sit down with their backs against the wall and stay close to the door. They only need to be here long enough to ensure that whoever was on the floor below has moved on. No way they want to wake up the sleeping tributes. Minutes pass, and just when Gabriel thinks they can leave, he hears voices and pounding footsteps right outside. They seem to come and go, as though someone patrols the area in front of this strangely-named room.
Might as well stay here. The two girls are completely out, and he'd take them over a band of Careers.
"They have medicine, too," Collie whispers, her voice cutting through the darkness.
"Hmm?" Gabriel dares to reply.
"On the nightstand," she says. She points, but Gabriel can barely make out a small shape that might be a bottle. Clearly the District 12 girl has better eyesight than he does. "I can't really tell from here, but it looks different from mine."
Before Gabriel can say anything, Collie pushes herself away from the wall and tiptoes towards the bed. She keeps her distance from the District 5 girl and picks up the bottle on the nightstand.
"Look—this one is definitely different," she says. "It has something called diff-en- um diff-en-hydra-mine."
Gabriel takes the bottle from her. The word she was trying to pronounce is just one ingredient labeled on the front, but it's in large, bold letters. "Diphenhydramine. It's an antihistamine. Sometimes people working in the fields need to take stuff like this if they have allergies."
"You worked in the fields?" she asks.
"Yeah, after school and on Saturdays," he replies, and hands the bottle back to her. "Some people are fine with this antihistamine, but for others, it knocks them right out. You see that this bottle says 'nighttime use'?"
"I guess it's working," Collie says. "Though I'd hate to be sedated in the arena."
"Wait, let me see the bottle again." Gabriel once again turns it over. "This is a cough syrup, too. Just one that has an extra ingredient. . . ."
"I'm glad what you got me didn't knock me out," she comments.
"Better sedated than have a cough rat you out," he says, somewhat absently. His mind flits through a few thoughts before he once again hands the bottle back.
More footsteps shake the ground, and he falls silent. But he knows he's right. Collie's cold wasn't a cold; it was something else, possibly something much more sinister. He'd be really freaked out about this realization if the cough syrup they found hadn't been helping her so well.
"That girl—District 5—she helped me in the first day in the Training Center," Collie whispers. "Her name is Em, and she was showing me how to do some first aid stuff. It's weird to think that . . . we could just kill them in their sleep. They'd never know. But . . . she was so nice to me, and I just can't imagine doing anything like that."
Gabriel doesn't reply to this. Although he didn't know either girl—and he had kept his distance on purpose—the idea of using the machete in his hand to end their lives is just . . . weird. It shouldn't be, not after all the death he's seen so far. But to know that somebody died at his hands is just surreal.
Soon you will meet death at the hands of someone else. Will they think it's strange to have taken your life? To know that their actions have cut short another person's future?
Well, he counters, he has no future. He's just another community home kid who will be thrust out into the world where he'll find some dead-end job slaving away in a field. Then he'll be expected to marry and have children and raise them in the same grey landscape that he has faced his entire existence. Is it really so bad if someone else cuts that short?
He turns the machete over in his hand and exhales slowly. No, he has no desire to take anyone's life. He will if it means keeping Collie safe, but he won't do it just to get ahead.
Time passes, and the footsteps don't come. A cannon blasts through the arena, and Gabriel wonders dully if it's Scarlett's. He hasn't seen neither hide nor hair of her since they entered the arena. And wasn't the District 5 girl one of her allies?
So lost in thought is he that he doesn't realize that the District 11 girl is stirring until she's sitting upright. Her hair falls limply around her face and her eyes are still half-closed, but she grabs onto the other girl's shoulder and shakes it.
"Em," she says. She shakes her more. "We're not alone."
"Shut up, Momo," the District 5 girl mutters. "Let me sleep."
The District 11 girl looks at Gabriel and Collie, and for a second, Gabriel thinks she's about to tumble back into her pillows. But at last she drops her hand away from her ally and says, "How did you get in?"
"Through the door," Gabriel replies before Collie can announce that they have a key to the room.
"It was locked," the girl protests.
"It wasn't when we came in," he answers.
She frowns at him, and he sees her reaching for something.
"We're not here to kill you," he says. "We just needed a place to hide for a few minutes. If we wanted you dead, we would have killed you already."
"There's someone outside?" she asks. She grabs onto a bottle of water on the nightstand and takes a drink.
"Can't tell right now, but they were a few minutes ago," he explains. "Seems to be pacing a bit like they're monitoring their territory."
"Well don't leave until they're gone. I don't want them finding Em and me," she says. Before Gabriel or Collie can say anything, she slips back down into her bed, nestles in on the pillow, and falls back asleep.
Gabriel waits a minute until her breathing evens out, and then he stands up.
"But she said—" Collie starts.
"I know," Gabriel cuts her off. "But we can at least see what's in this room, right?"
Collie nods, and Gabriel's just happy that she doesn't give him shit for rummaging around someone else's room. He might not be the one bringing the blade to their necks, but stealing supplies could be very well what gets them killed in the end. Still, he's not going to pretend that he's above stealing. Sometimes you just had to take what wasn't yours in order to keep yourself safe. And in this case, it wasn't just himself he had to look out for.
He doesn't want to turn on the light in case anything slips through the curtains, so they have to shuffle around the room in the dark. It's a big place—at least twice as big as most of the rooms he's seen—with its own kitchen and dining area plus a deluxe bathroom. Once upon a time this probably would have been a coveted room for guests, but now it's just as run-down, rusty, and damaged as the rest of the motel. Cracked caulking, broken tiles, and mildew speak of misuse and neglect.
"We had to have gotten a key to this place for a reason," he whispers to Collie as they search through the kitchen. "The last one had so much food. See if you can find something like that."
After several minutes, they've managed to gather some more food that won't spoil (though they leave some behind for the sleeping alliance) and a few odds and ends including, much to Gabriel's delight, a flashlight. Collie also finds a lock pick kit, and she tucks it away in her pocket as Gabriel shines his light across the bathroom.
"Wait, look there—I think there's something behind that," Collie says. She points towards a mirror which has fallen to the ground. Cracked with glass strewn about in front of it, it lays propped against the tile wall. The girl moves closer and pulls it out of the way, revealing a hole behind it.
"What the hell?" Gabriel breathes as he looks at the void. Darkness greets him, and he shines his flashlight in. "Another hotel room."
"Weird," Collie says.
"We can crawl through and maybe get out this way."
He slips his backpack off his shoulders and checks his machete at his side. Crouching down with his flashlight in one hand and strap of his backpack in another, he crawls through the opening into another room. He whispers for Collie to stay there, and he drops his bag to grab his machete as he searches the room for any sign of inhabitants. But it looks completely untouched, with a fine layer of dust on the carpet and furniture. So he shoulders his bag, orders Collie to crawl though, and then does his best to reach through the gap and replace the mirror behind them.
"This is so weird," Collie says as Gabriel shines his light around the L-shaped room. Unlike all the others, it's pretty much a time capsule—something made and then abandoned so many years ago. It's grimy and in a state of disrepair, but it's somehow different, too, like the rust and mildew have left it alone to withstand the test of time.
"There has to be something about this room. That must be why we got the key," Gabriel says.
At least he wishes it were so. For some reason, he needs to have some purpose right now. He can't just be here in the arena trying to keep himself alive to keep this girl alive, each moment wondering if it'll be their last. He wants to explore and—and (he can barely admit this to himself) he wants to enjoy the last few hours or days he has left on this Earth. It must have meaning. To know that this is all just nothing and he is just ambling from one room to another would be a devastating blow. But to be able to discover things would be something else.
Relax, Gabriel, he orders himself. It's all just gamemaker bullshit.
But does it matter? Isn't his entire life just one Capitol-controlled thing or another? He lives in a damned community home, and he can't think of anything more Capitol-ized than a place where kids go in order to waste away into nothing. So why not find a way to spend the last bits of Gabriel Carvey's existence?
"Let's figure this place out," he says.
"There's no door," Collie states.
"What?" But he doesn't need her to repeat it. There's a door to the bathroom, but there is no door leading to the outdoor corridor. Hell, when he checks the windows, he finds that they're boarded up from the outside. For whatever reason, this room isn't meant to be accessed.
Unless you're looking for it, he thinks. Unless you wonder why there was a key to the adjoining room and really set out to find its meaning. Only then would you discover this room locked away and boarded up.
Gabriel's aware that it means that this room is a death trap should anything happen, yet he keeps this to himself as he and Collie walk around the place. His flashlight beam traces across furniture and illuminates spiderwebs in dark corners. They dig through drawers and find extra batteries for the flashlight, a first-aid kit that Gabriel gives to Collie, and bottled water.
Collie dares to climb on the ground and search underneath the beds. Gabriel watches her small form half-disappear underneath the musty edges of a comforter dangling to the floor, and a moment later, she slithers back out with a box in her hand. She proudly hands it to him.
It appears to be some sort of puzzle with locking mechanisms that only click open if you snap them in the right order. Gabriel fiddles with it for a better part of ten minutes before giving it to the girl, who spends her time clicking and snapping until she grows weary with it and slides it back to him. Another ten minutes, and he's figured it out.
A key. He pulls it out and turns it over in his hands.
"I was hoping it was going to be a really good weapon," Collie sighs.
Maybe it is, Gabriel thinks, but he just feels the weight of the key in his palm as he stares at it. Was this what the room kept hidden from the others?
"I think there's more going on than what meets the eye," he says at last. Setting the box to the side, he turns to his ally. "We were right to explore this place. Now we just have to figure out what this key opens."
Day 4 - 12:55 PM
The boom of a cannon shakes Gabriel, and his eyes snap open. He sits up straight, his back rubbing against the wall, and his hand tightens on the handle of the machete across his lap.
But all within 351E is silent.
Gabriel and Collie had exited the mystery room back through δ, past the sleeping District 5 and District 11 girls, and then beelined straight to the mirror reflection of the mysterious room. 351E, like the other room, was L-shaped, but that was pretty much where the similarities ended. The door opened smoothly, and they had found a standard room. Larger, and with a kitchenette, but it wasn't so different from any of the other rooms around here: run-down, mildewy, and had seen better days. But it lacked the strange sense of preserved charm, the thick layers of dust, and the ever-present cobwebs.
Exhaustion had caught up with them, so they had agreed to take turns watching for threats. In the end, it looks like both of them had fallen asleep.
What they don't tell you—what you don't see if you're just watching the Hunger Games from the safety of your couch—is how damned exhausting it is. Gabriel understands now how easy it is to succumb to that exhaustion and collapse on your designated watch. All the times he'd cursed tributes for being stupid and not being able to stay awake when they were supposed to comes to mind, and he can't help groaning internally at his dumbness. But he's weary, and he needs sleep. Same with Collie. He hasn't heard her cough in a couple hours now, but he doesn't doubt that she needs rest so it doesn't return right again.
Gabriel stretches and tries to work out the soreness from his body. Thirteen dead. Four days into the Hunger Games, and nearly half of them still remain. He'll wait for this evening to see who is among the fallen, but he'll assume that the Career pack is entirely intact.
Collie stirs and pushes the blankets off her. She shuffles out of bed and into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
At least the pipes don't creak, Gabriel thinks. Then he returns his attention to the task at hand.
With their exploration, Collie added more room names to her maps, and the two of them had discovered not just a secret room but a mysterious key. Their treasure hunt would have to continue if they wanted to find out what it lead to. More keys? Some sort of prize for finding it? It would have to be something that the Careers couldn't just break open with brute force, otherwise what would be the point of making tributes go through the effort of finding the special room and solving the puzzle box?
When Collie re-emerges, they pack up and continue moving. So far he hasn't heard anyone outside, and he wonders what the Career are really up to. There's not much to do in this arena unless you know where to look, and certainly they aren't the sorts to go on scavenger hunts for trinkets and novelties. They want blood, and yet they haven't gotten much of it.
"I have some thoughts," Gabriel whispers as they walk. "But I don't want to say here."
Not with the open corridors. He'd never know who had heard them.
They go downstairs, and after a bit of wandering, they find themselves on the "island" of rooms at the far south of the map. It's an area that's missing from the third floor, but is accessible by walkways from the second floor.
"Why are there two room 261 right next to each other?" he mumbles to himself.
"Three."
"Three?"
"Wait, hang on." Collie scuttles ahead of him, and he jogs to keep up as she turns a corner, and then another. "Four."
"Somebody had a field day naming these things," he says.
Collie leads him into the room next to it—265W—and closes the door behind them.
"Okay, tell me your thoughts," she says after they've made sure they're alone. They can't risk another incident like earlier today, especially if the other tributes aren't drugged out of their minds.
"I don't think that was the only passageway between rooms," he says. "We've barely seen any other tributes, right? And the Careers have only killed three people outside of the Bloodbath—assuming it was the Careers and not mutts."
Collie nods thoughtfully. "It is a small arena. . . . It would be over really fast if we didn't have passageways between rooms."
They take a couple minutes to rip apart this room but find nothing. No gaping holes to other rooms, no secret ladder to the floor below, no way to escape should they need to flee from a predator. They try to put things back where they found them, but Gabriel's thoughts distract him as he wonders why they'd only come across one room with a hole to another thusfar. Maybe he hadn't been looking carefully enough.
Day 4 - 5:15 PM
Gabriel doesn't like staying in one place for very long, and although Collie never protests leaving, she always eyes him warily when he suggests abandoning their room for another.
So far, they've searched four rooms since 265W and have found no secret passageways. Gabriel still feels the heavy mystery key in his pocket, but hasn't found anything that looks like it would need opening with it. Their trail has gone dead, and he isn't sure what to look for next.
"Let me see the key again," Collie says.
Gabriel digs into his pocket and his fingers lock onto the key. But as he withdraws his hand, the small vial of poison rolls out of his pocket onto the floor. It bounces and comes to a halt against the leg of a table, skull-and-crossbones design face upward.
Collie's eyes widen, and Gabriel opens his mouth to explain. But the horror on her face cuts him off, and they both fall silent.
"You were . . . going to poison me?" she asks.
He shakes his head. "No, I wasn't. I'm not," he insists.
Her lip trembles. "But you didn't even tell me that you had this."
"I picked it up when I grabbed your medicine, and then since we didn't need it, I kind of forgot about it," he tries to explain, but it sounds weak now that it's been so long since he gave her the bottle of cough syrup. It didn't seem like a big deal then—and it still doesn't now, in a way—but the girl doesn't want his excuses. She wanted trust and now that has been broken. He reaches over and snatches it up off the floor before holding it out to her. "Take it."
She shakes her head.
"C'mon, Collie," he half-begs. "Honestly, I wasn't going to use it against you. It's for—well, I dunno."
How can he convince her that it was never meant to be something he used against her because his end goal was to keep her alive for as long as possible? She looks up at him with large eyes, but when she doesn't take it, he puts it back in his pocket.
"Here, then take this," he gives her the key. "I'm sorry, Collie. Honestly."
She lifts up the key from his hand and stares at it. "Fine."
It doesn't make him feel much better, and he doubts that it settles her unease with him. He knows what it must've looked like, him withholding a vial of poison from her. But he doesn't say anything else about it because what sort of good would assurances do when the entire point of the Hunger Games was to kill or be killed? She'd never believe anything that came from his mouth.
They fall into uneasy step as they leave the room behind them. The door clicks closed and they head down the walkway.
They don't see the Careers until it's too late. Two in front of them, two behind them. The older tributes' weapons are up, blood glistening off some of their blades, and Gabriel knows that his weak machete is nothing against them. Heart pounding, he tries to think of a way out of this situation.
"Collie, climb over the ledge," he whispers to her. "There's a drain pipe a couple feet away."
"W-what?" Her voice quivers, and Gabriel sees her body equally shaky out of the corner of his eye.
"Climb over the ledge and swing down," he says to her again. "Do it quickly, and then run."
"What about—"
"Count of three. One. . . . Two. . . . Three. . . !"
Collie scrambles over the wrought iron railing and crouches down on the strip of concrete on the other side. The Careers rush forward, but the girl manages to clasp onto the drain pipe and shimmy her way down to the first floor, vanishing entirely from sight.
Gabriel doesn't know what he's going to do. If he follows her, the Careers will only pursue the both of them, and Collie may be able to get away from one, but not four, not even with Gabriel's help. If he stays behind and feels the burn of their blades in his flesh, then he'll die, but at least she'll be out of here. And isn't that what he wanted, to use his worthless life and equally worthless death as a means to help somebody more deserving than him?
Yet despite this, Gabriel launches himself towards one of the rooms. It's a dead end, but he doesn't care. His sweaty fingers fumble for the handle, but it's locked. The Careers rush at him now, one from the east and two from the west; the fourth must've jumped down and gone after Collie. He throws himself at a second door, and to his relief, it's open. He tosses himself inside and deadbolts the door behind him.
But it's only going to buy him—and Collie—some time. They'll knock through the glass, or maybe they'll rip the door off the hinges. Doesn't matter. Either way, he's not going to be alive much longer, and he's going to feel their wrath within mere minutes.
He can't succumb to this fate, though. He doesn't know why, and he doesn't care why. All he knows is that he's tearing through the room, ripping it apart as he looks for some sort of way to escape from this prison in which he's locked himself. Secret passageways, a small hole in a wall—yet, he receives nothing for his trouble. The Careers pound on the door, and he hears something smack against the glass not quite hard enough to shatter it but with a few swings of a weapon, they'll get in. His heart thumps, and he backs towards the bathroom in the hopes that he can lock himself in and they'll never be able to get through.
But it's a fool's hope, and he knows it.
Last thing he wants to do is die in a bathroom. He'd probably shit his pants as dead tend to do, and then he'd be known almost making it to the toilet. He'd be the source of jokes for years to come at the community home with that one.
Damn, why the hell is he thinking about the community home and what those good-for-nothing vermin even think about him?
He clenches the machete in his hand and turns to face the door. He'll die, sure, but he'll die standing.
The Careers continue to pound on the door, and they're smacking on the glass. Moments pass, and Gabriel braces himself for the sound of shattering window. Yet nothing happens. They remain outside, and he's trapped within the walls of this room. He walks towards the window and draws back the curtains in a move that will be either heralded for bravery or mocked for stupidity, yet that thought vanishes when he sees that the Careers are using bricks on the windows—bricks and weapons and whatever else they have—but the glass doesn't even crack. He drops the curtain away and backs up.
"You can't hide in there forever," a muffled voice calls on the other side of the door. "The moment you come out, you're dead!"
Gabriel steps backwards and pauses, his body tense. But as the minutes go by and the Careers' attempts to break in become less frequent, he lowers himself onto the side of the bed and waits.
And waits.
And waits.
Day 4 - 9:00 PM
District 9 female.
Gabriel watches her face appear and disappear on the television screen as the national anthem plays. He remembers her sobbing endlessly in the Training Center apartment, and he wonders if she was still a never-ending flow of tears in the arena. Did they finally off her because she wouldn't stop crying?
District 10 female.
Her alliance must have broken. Gabriel wonders if the District 10 male finally wisened up to the girl's desire to kill and abandon those who were weaker than her, or maybe she was picked off by the Careers. Either way, it doesn't matter. She's dead.
Soon he will be, too. Once the Careers figure out how to break into the motel room.
Day 5 - 1:34 AM
They've posted someone outside of the motel room door, but none of the Careers have tried to break in since he first got himself trapped here. Gabriel has given in to his exhaustion yet again, and he doesn't care much if they break down that door and find him sleeping. So he curls up in the blankets and falls asleep again.
Gabriel's always wanted brothers and sisters—properbrothers and sisters. The staff at the community home tried to convince them that their fellow orphans were their siblings, but that was bullshit. Especially after he'd ended up in the hospital when one of the older boys had beat the shit out of him for no apparent reason. Did siblings behave like that, he wanted to ask. Did they send each other to the hospital just because they were bored?
He gave up dreaming about siblings and families and whatever else by the time he turned ten. It just wasn't practical. None of it was. He'd watched a few kids find homes in the community and elsewhere in District 9, but as they grew older, it happened less frequently. They were no longer cute. And kids like Gabriel couldn't be placed at homes that wanted free labor. He was too thin, too weak, too little. There was no escape—if you could call forced labor "escape"—from the community home. Even after the years working in the fields after school had toughened him up, it didn't make him any more appealing.
Kids like Gabriel were damaged and scarred and brought baggage with them that parents didn't want to deal with. They were angry, jaded. Destroyed. Worthless. Only good enough to be fed and clothed and used for whatever bits of labor they could squeeze out of them before they succumbed to misery and died.
Day 5 - 6:12 AM
Gabriel's head hurts. He presses his palms against his temples and tries to subdue the pounding in his skull.
Day 5 - 7:30 AM
He staggers to the bathroom to get a drink of water, but when he turns on the faucet, the water gushes out rusty and weird. It pools in the sink for a moment before he flicks the handle off, and as the water drains away, it leaves a reddish-brown residue in the basin.
Looks like he's going to have to ration his water. Which is too bad because he's pretty sure the headache is from dehydration. He wants to kick himself for not being more careful about his well-being when they were jumping from room to room and the fresh water was plentiful.
He goes to lay down again, but his legs give way as soon as he steps out of the bathroom and he passes out.
Day 5 - 8:13 AM
He wakes up, his head throbbing. His breathing ragged, he pushes himself to his knees and looks around.
Someone's laughing.
Not in his room—he's alone still—but from the other side of the wall. Are the Careers going to make their own hole to get to him?
He slumps against the wall as dizziness overwhelms him.
Day 5 - 9:56 AM
There's something wrong with this room. He can't put it into words, but there's something completely wrong with this place. His head is too achy to think, and he hasn't moved since he tried the faucet.
Did you plan on getting out of here alive?
Day 5 - 11:20 AM
Gabriel comes to again, and hoists himself to his feet. Propped up against the wall, he lets the swimming in his head abate before taking in his surroundings.
There are messages on the wallpaper scrawled in dripping red:
It's in the walls.
The walls are alive.
Death watches you.
Gabriel shivers and wraps his arms around his chest. Several seconds later, he realizes that he doesn't have his machete, and he sees its shape on the bed. Now, more than ever, he wants to have it in his hands.
He staggers toward the bed and grasps the handle. He feels relief, but not safety. Never safety.
Day 5 - 1:37 PM
The walls laugh.
They breathe.
They're alive.
Gabriel watches them pulse and quiver with ragged, shuddering breaths.
He'd think that he's hallucinating except that he sets his hand on one of the walls and feels its unnerving motion beneath his fingers. It's like putting his palms on the ribs of an old dog not long for the world; the wall inhales and exhales with great effort.
The gamemakers are trying to drive him mad.
As Gabriel watches his hand rise and fall and listens to the hysterical laughter emanate from the far side of the room, he thinks that the gamemakers might very well be successful in the end.
Day 5 - 5:01 PM
Gabriel wonders if there have been any cannons today. He's heard next to nothing besides the muted voices of the Careers changing shifts outside his door and the unearthly sounds of the walls. He's almost becoming used to it, and he wonders if he was mad to begin with.
The District 1 girl takes her shift outside, and Gabriel catches a glimpse of her through the curtains. He starts when he sees her, and he wonders if the room's insanity has warped his vision. But then he remembers that she looked similarly when he saw her in the offices. But now she's worse, somehow.
Her skin bubbles and peels in what must be only pain. Bloody bandages wrap around exposed skin on her arms. Her hair has started to fall out in clumps, and she's missing an eyebrow. She wears clothing different from the rest of the tributes, and he wonders if the light fabric is easier against her raw flesh. But she remains alert, and he finds her staring right back at him.
"Have a problem, Nine?" she asks.
"You're ugly," he says.
She snorts. "Tell me something I don't know. Cruel to make someone as beautiful as me look like this now."
"What happened?"
She twirls her sword in her gloved hand, and Gabriel wonders if she'll even tell him. It would make sense if they want to hold some of the arena's secrets as their own.
But she finally says, "I jumped into the pool. Good thing I held my breath because God only knows what would have happened if I had inhaled some of that shit."
The first day, Gabriel recalls. After she beat Acer lifeless and tossed his corpse down three stories, she had taken a shorter way down herself and thrown herself into the murky pool. Part of him thinks he should feel relief that she has suffered like this after killing Acer, but what's the point of that? Somebody would have killed him eventually. There's a reason that the young kids don't get through the arena alive.
"Looks like it hurts," he comments.
She shrugs.
"How can you hold a weapon?" he tries again.
She lifts up one gloved hand. "I have very generous sponsors," she says as she eyes he thick fabric encasing her palm and fingers. There's something special about it—maybe it has some medication inside—but she doesn't elaborate.
A cannon fires, followed a moment later by a second one.
Gabriel shudders, and the District 1 girl just laughs.
"Looks like my allies found a couple more," she says. "Hope one of them wasn't your friend."
Gabriel grits his teeth but doesn't take her bait. She's trying to get him riled up for her own entertainment as she sits here with what any Career must see as a boring babysitting job.
"Then again," she muses aloud. "The little ones are the squirmiest. Sometimes hardest to find. It's the older ones who think they can take us on."
"Is that's what is happening?" Gabriel asks. "You're having trouble finding us all?"
She shrugs. "Maybe? Or maybe we just want to not rush things too much. Though I'll be honest that it'll be easier for everyone—yourself included—if you'd just crawl out of your hole and die."
He doesn't respond to this, and she starts to pace lightly, going no more than a few steps before turning around. It looks like she has special boots, too: thick and comforting on feet that no doubt burn with pain with every step she takes.
Yeah, it would be easier if he left this room, wouldn't it? Then he wouldn't have to endure whatever the hell is going on with him right now with pounding head and laughing walls.
Gabriel sighs and returns to his bed. He sits with his back against the headboard and his machete in hand.
Day 5 - 9:00 PM
District 5 female.
District 11 female.
Gabriel wonders if they ever woke up or if they drifted off in their sleep.
At least Collie's not there. At least she's safe somewhere. It brings him a little consolation that he was able to divert attention away from her when he ran in this room, but with it is also the realization that he's just sitting around and should be out there trying to defend her.
But he's not. He's here, and the walls breathe and his head pounds and there are things watching him from the shadows. He can't take care of Collie because he's too afraid to make a dash out the door, and the laughter only reminds him of his failures.
Day 5 - 9:30 PM
The Careers swap out so that the injured District 4 male is in charge of watching Gabriel's door. He wonders if they're so bored that they decided that this guy who can barely walk is a sufficient babysitter, or if it's a trap to make Gabriel feel like he has a shot of escaping, only to be slaughtered by another Career around the corner. Either way, he doesn't give a shit because he's not going anywhere. Especially not with this headache that won't go away and the laughter. Damn this laughter.
"Keep your wits about you, and focus."
Day 6 - 3:34 AM
Gabriel wakes with Ms. Hamilton's final words to him in his mind. Her final lesson to a student who never paid a whole lot of attention in class.
But he's paying attention now because he knows that his dreaming brain didn't just conjure up those words for no good reason.
The walls continue to laugh. There's no rhyme or reason to it. Maybe every few minutes, maybe for thirty second straight, maybe with a gap of an hour between each bout of hysteria.
The walls continue to breathe. It's constant, but not consistent. Sometimes even breaths, but mostly tired and weary and ragged.
He hates it. It's driving him mad and the gamemakers are going to get what they want. Each second that passes is one second closer to when he's going to throw himself out of this room into the mercy of the Careers outside even though he knows it's certain death. He's not sure why he didn't do it before, since he doesn't want to sit here with the entire nation watching him unravel for their own entertainment. His fingers twitch on the machete's handle, and his legs prepare themselves to launch out of the bed and towards the door. Yet he's staring at the words painted in what is supposed to be blood, he's sure, but he hasn't had the desire to check up close.
The walls are alive.
He studies the words over and over. He's trying to keep his wits, but it's damned hard when nothing makes sense and he feels his sanity slipping away between his fingers with each passing second. His head still throbs, and each thump inside his skull brings a fresh wave of pain.
It's in the walls.
He reads the words for the umpteenth time. And then finally, it clicks: What is in the walls?
What is in the walls?
Gabriel clambers out of bed and stands with his feet firmly on the floor. Machete in hand, he studies the breathing walls.
Only one way to find out.
And then he lifts his weapon and plunges it into the wallpaper. The wall lets out a hisssss as though Gabriel's relieved a pressurized pouch of gas, but rather than deflating, the wall still stand strong. His machete continues to cut through the wall, slicing deep within the boards beneath the faded flowers. At long last, he lowers his machete and stares at the shredded wallpaper peeling away from plaster and wood.
Darkness. Not another room, but darkness. He reaches up his free hand and sticks it into the shadows. There's enough room for him back here if he wedges himself in, and then there's another layer of material that he's certain must be the room next door.
Realizing that he's discovered a passageway in the walls, Gabriel grabs his backpack and climbs into the void.
He won't die here in this room designed to drive him to insanity.
And, should he explore enough, perhaps he will find Collie again.
Perhaps he does have a chance to save her.
Day 6 - 3:55 AM
The silence that he's experienced since he left the cursed room nearly overwhelms him. The darkness, the silence. He'll take it over the pounding insanity that tortured him for so long. The space between the walls is so narrow that he has to scoot sideways through it, sometimes pausing to step over pipes or duck beneath wiring. Twists and turns pull him farther away from his room, but he's uncertain where it will take him at last.
Finally it comes to an end. For a moment, he panics, wondering if it was all for nothing. But then he notices a faint light near his feet, and he pauses to observe. He remembers that he has a flashlight, and he pulls it from his bag. Sure enough it looks like there is a small door here. He crouches down as much as the space will allow him, and he presses on the panel. It gives way, and light pours into his space.
Quiet. No Careers, no breathing walls. Desperate to get away from this corridor, he squeezes through the space and finds himself in a bathroom. Again, not unlike any of the others. Placing the panel back, he dusts himself off.
He doesn't mean to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror, but he does. He's sickly looking. Pale skin, purple patches around his eyes, blueish veins sneaking up his neck and into his cheeks. He starts at first, but then takes a few minutes to look himself over. His fingers are white, the nail beds blueish purple. His veins contrast sharply with his flesh, as though his skin were translucent.
The gamemakers poisoned him, just like they poisoned the District 1 girl. There was something in that room that made him sick; some secret gas they pumped in just to drive him mad.
They were trying to flush him out into the hands of the Careers, but he didn't go out like he was supposed to. Instead he fought through the poison and figured out how to escape.
He finds something about that funny. Here he had not only assumed he would die but had embraced his death, only to decide that he wasn't going to stand for it. How stupid he was; it is only a matter of time before the Careers catch up with him, especially if this poison weakens him.
Then again, the District 1 girl didn't look like she was worsened because of her condition. Miserable, yes, but not out of the running.
Right, well, he has to find Collie.
The bathroom leads to an empty bedroom. He pauses for a few minutes to stretch and dig through his bag for a few pain pills. It doesn't seem like he should waste even a single pill on a headache, but he has to keep a clear mind. So he throws back a pill with a swig of water, and then pauses to eat. When was the last time he had eaten anything? Probably well before being split with his ally.
We should have figured out a meeting point, he thinks as he eats a granola bar. The food tastes bland but he gobbles it down anyhow. He tries to recall anything that would give him a hint as to where the girl has gone, but nothing comes to mind. Maybe once his head aches less, he'll be able to think.
Doesn't matter. Need to get out of here. Keep moving.
Though he doesn't rush himself in getting food and water in him and stretching his muscles, he also knows that he needs to clear out of this room. He's not that far from where he started, and the Careers are lurking around here without a doubt. He creeps over to the door but pauses and listens. When it sound as safe as he can expect it to, he opens the door and slips out into the morning air.
Day 6 - 5:52 AM
He's back on the roof again—above the third story of the southern part of the motel. He can lay down on his belly and watch the Careers scramble around the section of the hotel where they had trapped him. They don't know he's no longer in there, but he supposes it's only a matter of time until one of them thinks to shine a flashlight into the room and then notices the hole he carved in the wall. And besides, the sky grows pink in the east; within minutes, they'll be able to see him perched up on the roof watching them.
He slithers backwards until he's far enough away that he dares to lift himself into a crouch and scamper across the roof northward. Putting the Careers and the haunted room behind him, he makes quick work across the complex.
With each passing second, though, he becomes more and more concerned that he won't find Collie.
Day 6 - 9:16 AM
He considered spending all day on the roof, but it quickly grew too hot as the sun bore down. Which is funny because once he's under the awnings, the temperature is perfect, maybe a hair too cool if he had to make a complaint. When he climbs down, he dares to walk around the central path that connects the east and western sides.
A noise startles him, and he freezes.
The District 10 male—Justin—inserts coins into a vending machine. He presses a button, and there's a clunk, and then he reaches into a gap towards the bottom. Withdrawing the beverage, he takes a step back and sorts through the coins in his hand.
"Or you could just break it," Gabriel states.
Justin jumps and whips around, clutching onto the coins before they can scatter around the floor and wake up half the motel in the process.
"Geeze! Dude! Did you have to—woah, wait. Are you the District 9 guy?"
"Yeah, why?"
"You look like you're half mutt," Justin says, squinting to get a better look at him. Not that he's much to speak. The guy has a black eye, a laceration across his cheek, and several blood-stained bandages on his body, wrapped around his clothing. Yet he still looks human despite the wounds.
Gabriel shrugs. "You should see the District 1 girl if you think I look bad."
"I'd rather not," the guy says. "Saw enough of her in the Bloodbath to last me a lifetime. Anyhow. . . ." He looks around them uneasily, as though somebody might ambush them while they're talking.
Or that he has an ally in the shadows. . . .
Justin clears his throat. "Did you need something?"
"I'm looking for the District 12 girl," he says. "We got split up yesterday. Had to go separate ways for a bit."
"Sounds rough, but I haven't seen her," the District 10 male replies.
"If you do. . . ." His voice trails off. What does he expect, to tell the District 10 male exactly where to find him? He adds, "Just let her know that I'm looking for her."
Justin nods. "Sure."
"And also. . . . Why don't you just break the vending machine?"
"Why should I? This is quieter, and I get what I want out of it."
"Where'd you get the coins?"
"One of the rooms."
Gabriel nods. Yeah, sure. Maybe that makes sense. He'd rather just destroy it once and call it good, but that's because he knows the Careers are elsewhere in the arena.
Or at least he assumes so. Maybe they've migrated, or have different people patrolling different areas.
"She's not going to make it, you know."
Gabriel cocks his head. "What?"
"District 12. If the Careers haven't found her by now, the gamemakers'll do something to flush her out." Justin doesn't look particularly perturbed by his own words. And why should he be? Gabriel, Justin, and Collie are the only non-Career tributes left in the arena.
Gabriel doesn't say anything as he turns to leave. He'll have to find Collie on his own.
"We could ally," comes District 10's voice. "You, me—the girl, if we find her. Could be the only way we take out the Careers."
The word "no" is on the tip of his tongue, but Gabriel hesitates. If it were just him, there was no way he'd accept this offer. But he has Collie he has to keep an eye on, and he can't shoot down her chances of success. So he takes a breath and finally says, "Sure, but I'm going to find District 12 first."
Justin nods, but Gabriel just turns and keeps moving.
Day 6 - 5:33 PM
Collie finds Gabriel, not the other way around.
The door opens a crack as he passes by, and he hears her whispering that she's inside. Without a second thought, he joins her in room 53.8 in the eastern wing of the third floor.
"You okay?" he asks as soon as he's cleared the door frame.
She nods. "Yeah, there was only one after me, and I managed to lose him," she says. She eyes him warily. "What happened to you?"
"Got stuck in a room with the Careers outside, and I think the gamemakers filled it up with some sort of poison to try to flush me out," he says. He explains how he cut a hole in the wall and managed to escape after suffering through a pounding headache and no fresh water in the sinks, but he doesn't tell her about the breathing walls, the laughing, or the fact that he might very well have lost his mind.
Collie reaches out and runs a finger across his forearm where his sweatshirt sleeve has been pushed up to his elbow. Her fingers trace the length of one of the blue veins.
"The District 10 male wants to ally with us," Gabriel says. "We should go talk with him."
"Probably not a good idea," Collie says, dropping her hand away from his arm. She stares up at him intently. "He tried to take on three Careers yesterday. I'm not sure how he got away—I wasn't close enough to see—but he's reckless and I don't trust him."
Three Careers? Wow. Gabriel could never imagine trying to best three people trained in fighting. He's relieved that Collie doesn't want to join Justin, though. But this means that they're going to have to keep well away from him so that he doesn't catch on that they're declining his offer.
Collie makes Gabriel sit down in a chair and drink cup after cup of water before opening up an MRE and using the flameless heater to warm up the pasta. She won't let him lift a finger and protests when he declines the electrolyte powder that comes in the kit.
She's taking care of me, he realizes with a start. As he flips the words over in his head, he reluctantly plucks the packet of powder from the table and rips it open. Tapping the contents into his plastic cup of water, he wonders at what point he started to get attached to Collie. There's no denying that he is, of course; that's a given. And clearly she's attached to him, too.
He can't remember the last time someone actually cared for him.
No, that wasn't true. His visitors before he was sent to the Capitol: Samantha, his tutor; Benjamin, his classmate; Ms. Hamilton, his teacher. They didn't come because they thought he had a chance to win and wanted to cheer him on, nor were they there to mock him. They could have told themselves that someone else would occupy his time before he had to board the train, but they didn't. They legitimately cared about him and wanted to see him off. He doesn't know how he feels about this revelation, and in truth, it makes him a bit uncomfortable. He didn't deserve their attention, after all.
He and the girl hang out in the room for the better part of an hour before Gabriel gets the itch to move again. Collie agrees and says that she's been following his advice on not keeping in one place for longer than a few hours.
"Besides," she adds. "This key is really something. It opens every door I come across!"
She pulls it out of her pocket and holds it out to Gabriel.
"That's yours," he says. "You hang onto it."
They're quiet then, unspoken memories about their final interaction lingering between them. Gabriel wishes he could explain himself, but the words don't come up. He just rubs the back of his neck and shifts uneasily.
"You solved the puzzle box—it's yours," she insists.
His takes the key and turns it over. It doesn't seem right. So he pulls out the vial of poison from his pocket.
"It was never meant for you, and I'm being honest about that," he says. He plunks it down on the table between them. "And if you don't take it, it's staying here for someone else to find."
She doesn't respond for a moment. He's not certain how he could convince her that it was always meant for him, right from the very beginning. For when it was just the two of them together, and he knew that she wouldn't want to kill him. He figured this would be easier—and less traumatic for the both of them—than trying to work up the guts to plunge the machete into his own throat. But what sort of tribute says that? What tribute would make it that far and off himself? Nobody would believe that.
Her fingers reluctantly close around the vial and she slips it into her pocket.
Day 6 - 9:00 PM
No cannons.
Day 7 - 4:00 AM
Gabriel doesn't know why, but being on the first floor unnerves him. He agrees to descend to the ground level upon Collie's insistence that they needed to not make their migration from room to room too predictable, and she leads him down to the two-story structure on the western side of the complex. They unlock room 130W without testing the doorknob, and they go inside.
Another room. Nothing substantial about it. Some clothing in the closet, a few toiletries on the counter. Gabriel's about to write it off when he notices a sheet of paper sitting on the desk. Unlike the motel monogrammed paper pad, this one looks like it was ripped out of a journal or the like. He scans the curly lettering and is about to discard it as nonsense when a few words catch his eye:
Maintenance request: fix air conditioning units. Guests are complaining about a cough and the boss thinks it's related. Or at least he doesn't want to get sued.
Gabriel pauses and re-reads the document. Air conditioning and illness. . . . There's a reason the Capitol chose to "leave" the paper here for tributes to stumble across. But of course, it only confirmed what he already knew.
"What happened after the Cornucopia?" he asks as he lowers the paper and turns to the District 12 girl who now sorts through a suitcase next to a wardrobe.
"Nothing much," she answers. "Left with the District 10 pair, and they told me to stay put in that room while they went out and explored. Took them forever, and then I started to not feel well. . . ."
"I'd be willing to bet that the reason you got sick and not Justin or Dana was because you stayed in one place too long," Gabriel says. He gives the paper a shake. He knows nothing about air conditioning units, but he does know that the gamemakers find ways to draw "boring" tributes out of the holes in which they've buried themselves. So it would makes sense that they make them sick with a disease that will keep them from hiding no matter how hard they tried. If they wanted to have a chance at survival, then they needed to put in the effort to get the medication.
Collie reads over the paper. "Do you think that this is what happened to the girls from District 5 and District 11, too?"
"I imagine it happened to anyone who was hiding too much," he says with a shrug.
"This place just gets weirder and weirder," she sighs.
Gabriel snorts. "I'll say."
They don't linger in the room long at all. In fact, when they leave a few minutes later, they stay clear of that section of the motel and travel north towards the offices and lobby, stopping briefly at 128W before settling in 103W.
"How are we going to kill six Careers?" Collie asks as she sinks into the desk chair.
Gabriel finishes checking to make sure the room is free from other tributes before he returns to her.
"I don't know," he admits. "But I guess we have to . . . Figure out a way."
He doesn't tell her that he has no chance because his district won just last year, and no one wants double victories from somewhere like District 9. But it's been many years (20? 25?) since District 12 won, so it was possible the gamemakers wouldn't be against Collie winning. He just has to figure out a way to overcome the Careers.
Do you think that's possible? a small voice whispers inside him. The gamemakers don't want an outer district victory. They only want a Careervictory. Why else would they put all the upper and middle districts so close to them? Why else did they poison any of the remaining lower district tributes who would no doubt hide and not try to challenge the Careers?
He swallows hard in an effort to push away the lump in his throat, but it won't vanish no matter how much he tries.
"Are you . . . Are you okay?" Collie asks, her own voice wavering.
He realizes that she has seen his hesitation and his fear, and he nods quickly. "I'm just trying to come up with a plan. If anything comes to mind, let me know."
Collie grins, the smile almost pushing away the fear in her eyes. "I like that," she says.
"Like what?"
"I like that you're treating me like an equal," she says. "You don't seem to care that I'm younger than you or anything like that. Like you think maybe I really could win this if I try hard enough."
Gabriel doesn't answer right away. He's not certain what to say to this. Finally he gives her a noncommittal grunt.
This wasn't what he wanted when he decided to take her under his wing, but now that she's said it, he can't get it off his brain. He supposes he is treating her like a peer rather than the tiny girl that she is; it wasn't intentional, but if he's honest with himself, he kind of likes her.
He cuts himself short with that thought. The arena is not the place to make friends.
Day 7 - 2:15 PM
They've been exploring quite a bit, and Gabriel still prefers the upper levels. On a couple of occasions, they've had to duck into rooms to avoid being seen by Careers, but with their master key, it's not a problem.
"Something smells bad," Collie comments as they step into room 253W, one of the rooms for which Gabriel has a key. She wrinkles her nose.
Gabriel smells it, too, but it's secondary to all the other things in his brain right now. Still, once the door is locked, he tells the girl to stay put as he ventures around the room, flashlight beam leading the way. When he gets to the bathroom, he recoils.
The rotting body of a person (man? woman?) lays in the waterless tub, one arm dangling out above the tile floor. It holds a folded piece of paper in its outstretched hand.
Gabriel chokes and steps backwards, closing the door quickly so he no longer has to see that.
"What is it?" Collie whispers.
"A body," he states. He's not going to say more, but he figures she'll ask anyhow, so he adds, "In some stage of decomposition."
"Eww," the girl replies. She walks over to him, but his hand remains on the doorknob, preventing her from opening the door.
But despite how gross it is, Gabriel wonders what the piece of paper said. He draws in an uncertain breath, pauses, and then opens the door again. Collie stays back as he steps through a pool of blood and reaches out. He expects the body to come alive as he snatches the paper from the fingers, but it doesn't. Still, he makes a quick retreat and closes the door behind him.
"What does it say?" Collie asks, eyes wide.
They'll find the truth in storage.
Gabriel frowns and rereads it. The truth about what?
"You have that key," the girl says.
They check the key ring, and she's right. The storage key. But when they look at the map, they realize it's near the vending machine that the District 4 male had been patrolling several day ago. One of the resources they'd been guarding.
Gabriel isn't sure what to make of this. Curiosity propels him forward, but he knows that it could very well be a death trap. He just took a note off of a corpse, for heaven's sake.
He eyes Collie. "You want to check it out with me?"
"Absolutely," she says.
The stench of the room grows fainter as their nostrils grow accustomed to it, but it doesn't go away. They stay in the room for a few minutes, forcing themselves to endure the rotting odor. There's a certain thrill associated with jumping from one room to another, but it's also terrifying, and he needs time to recover. Neither of them talk about it, but judging by the way Collie paces around whenever they lock themselves in a new room, she's probably thinking the same thing.
"I saw the District 10 boy using coins to get into a vending machine yesterday," Gabriel says as he plops down on the bed. "Have you found any coins?"
"Here or there, but I didn't think about it much," she says. They'd been lucky to find bits of food in various rooms, and neither of them were big eaters so it wasn't an issue. Someone like the District 10 boy or a Career, on the other hand, would require larger meals.
"Did your map have all the vending machine locations?" he asks.
"No, but I wrote a few down when we found them," she says. She pulls out the wrinkled map again, the pages now very worn and starting to tear at the creases, and smooths it out on the table. "Most of them were already open, so I don't know why he was bothering with coins."
"The Careers were guarding the one down there—on the first floor in the south section—early on," Gabriel says with a nod to the map. He doesn't have the energy to stand up and show her exactly where, but she'll figure it out. "Right across from the storage room."
"Yeah, I remember you saying that, which is why you went to the lobby, but they were guarding there, too," she says.
"They must've split themselves up," he says. "Figured they were the most dangerous thing in the arena and it's a small place, so they separated into two groups. I don't know if we can still count on that, though; that was days ago."
"What're you saying?" she asks.
"I'm saying that we're going to have to be extra careful if we want to check out the storage room. I'm not sure how we're going to manage it, but we have to do it without the Careers noticing or we're dead."
She nods. "Makes sense. I could be bait and draw them away and go hide in a room and—"
"Absolutely not," Gabriel cuts her off. She winces at the sharpness of his words, but he goes on, "We're sticking together."
He doesn't want to be separated again. If they split up, he might not find her, and he doesn't trust a rendezvous point in a place like this where they could be so easily cornered in a room. Besides, the gamemakers have made it clear that hiding in wait for too long is a punishable offense, so it wouldn't do for someone to stay in a room for an extended period of time.
She's just a kid, he thinks to himself. But it's a foolish thought. They're all just kids, even if it doesn't feel that way. Gabriel hasn't thought of himself as being a child in many, many years, yet the truth is that he's only two years older than she is. Hell, one could argue that even the Careers are kids. None of that matters, though.
In the Hunger Games, the only thing that matters is how exciting your death is.
Day 7 - 7:42 PM
The Careers still use the vending machine on the first floor. Gabriel and Collie don't get close enough to see the details, but they watch as two of the Careers—the District 2 female and District 4 male (the latter of whom is still injured)—patrol the area. Gabriel and the girl are hidden on the second floor, lying on their bellies with the coldness of the ground seeping through their clothing into their skin, and they can just barely see the two tributes under the overhang.
In fact, if Gabriel's not mistaken, not only are they guarding the vending machine, but they're restocking it. Like a Cornucopia away from the Cornucopia.
"They're hoarding all the food," Gabriel breathes.
The best way to pull the other tributes out would be to cut off their resources.
Once they've seen enough, Gabriel and Collie retreat into room 4 and close the door quietly.
"They're gathering up food around the arena into that one vending machine," he says. "Going to starve us out because they can't find us."
"Well, at least we know one thing," Collie comments. After a pause, she explains, "They don't have a master key like we do, so they don't realize we have access to food inside whatever room we choose to explore."
And if they did have the master key, Gabriel knows, they would have opening every damned door in the arena until they dragged out all remaining tributes.
It's little consolation.
Day 8 - 8:19 AM
A cannon blasts wakes Gabriel. Collie's on watch, but she sits on the bed next to him, her body completely tense and her eyes wide.
Gabriel swears that every time he falls asleep, he wakes to a cannon. It's like a very bad alarm clock.
Or very good, he thinks. Each death is a step closer to the end.
"Who do you think it was?" the girl asks.
Gabriel grunts. "I guess we'll find out tonight."
Day 8 - 4:55 PM
They're still finding food in the motel rooms. Gabriel wonders what the hell is wrong with the Careers if they think that hoarding vending machine food is going to be worthwhile. Still, it makes him uneasy. Collie, too. They don't eat as much as they normally do, and they save as much as the can when they stumble across granola bars and bags of candy in rooms.
Day 8 - 9:00 PM
District 10 male.
Gabriel and Collie exchange looks.
Right now, it's just them against a full set of Careers.
Gabriel's stomach lurches, but he pretends that this news does not bother him the slightest. Inside, though, he's screaming. How can two weaklings from lower districts take on six highly-trained murderers?
He lets Collie sleep as he tries to think of ideas, but the only things that pop into his mind are thoughts of failure.
Day 8 - 11:02 PM
They have to check out the storage room. They both have keys now, and with the note encouraging them, he knows it's inevitable. And better now than when the Careers decide to hunt for them in the morning.
He rouses Collie and the two of them prepare for their journey. They leave their room in silence and creep down to the first floor.
Sure enough, there's still someone guarding the vending machine. They lay in the bushes outside of one of the rooms and watch. The District 2 male walks back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes he goes around the corner, but he always returns.
Gabriel's hands press into the dirt beneath him. His fingers bump into a rock, and he grabs onto it. When the Career goes around the corner again, he moves himself and Collie forward. It's dark enough that they can use the shadows of the poorly-lit corridor on their side, but they can't be foolish about it. They turn the corner so that they are across from their desired room.
When the Career's back is turned, Gabriel chucks the rock upstairs, onto the second floor walkway. It immediately draws the Career's attention.
"Who's there?" he demands.
No answer, of course.
The Career grows irritated and calls out again, "Tell me who you are!"
When he receives no other answer, he moves forward. A few seconds later, Gabriel hears his feet pounding on the staircase not too far away, and only then does he grab onto Collie and slip out of the bushes.
His key slides easily into the lock, and he opens the door. They scurry inside and lock it behind them.
It's a small room with racks of towels, buckets, and other equipment. Mops and brooms, cleaning agents, packages of mints and pads of paper. They barely have anywhere to move amongst the shelves, but they manage to wiggle around to scout out the supplies. Their fingers hurry through stacks of neatly folded towels and sheets, hoping that the answer that they've been searching for lies within the yellowing fabric.
"You know, we never thought of a way out of here," Collie says.
Gabriel's chest tightens. Damn, she's right. Once the Career returns, they'll be trapped. But he only answers her with a shrug and a grunt. He has to fight through the panic (the thought that he had once again failed the person he was trying to protect) and focus on his task at hand:
Find something useful.
Find whatever the gamemakers wanted them to discover.
Find the truth, whatever that maybe.
They dig through piles of lost and found belongings, turn over boxes of cleaning products, root through rusted pieces of equipment. But there's nothing here. Not even something that's tempting to take back with them, like a makeshift weapon, another key, or a piece of food. They search for over an hour with no luck, and Gabriel finally sits down on his bottom and admits defeat. They are stuck in this room with a Career on patrol outside, and this supposed lead was really a dead end.
Collie slides into place next to him and lets out a sigh.
"What do we do now?" she asks.
"I guess we have to figure out our escape plan," he answers.
She leans her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes. He almost starts at the sudden pressure against his body. How strange to have someone so physically close to him. Someone who trusts him.
"We'll give it some more time. If they are still here in a couple of hours, we'll have to figure out something else, but otherwise, we'll just wait," he assures her despite the lump in his throat. If the Careers don't stop patrolling this place, then he'll have to take more drastic measures. Provide a distraction so his ally can escape.
There was no gamemaker prize at the end of this road, he thinks bitterly to himself. It was all just a trap that they knew we'd follow without hesitation because that's what we've been doing this entire time.
How stupid and foolish he is for falling victim to such an obvious thing. Of course they shouldn't have blindly trusted a note planted on a corpse. Who the hell does that sort of stuff?
He closes his eyes and wills the Career to leave, yet the pacing footsteps are always present. Time passes, and Gabriel may even nod off once or twice. To keep himself and his trembling ally occupied, he pulls his pencil and pad of paper out of his bag and the two engage in a few half-hearted games of tic-tac-toe as they wait.
He's putting together an escape plan when he hears voices. He and Collie exchange a look, and a half second later, they push themselves off their butts and to their feet. A small hole in the wall—barely visible unless they were looking for it—connects them to the next room. They'd never be able to fit themselves through this little gash that's barely big enough for Gabriel to fit his pencil in sideways should he have the desire to do so.
"The Careers!" Collie whispers.
Gabriel puts a finger to his lips and gives her a sharp look. He knows that. In fact, if he can squint through the crack a bit, he can see that it looks like they've torn up the room and moved things around. Their base of operations?
". . . Don't worry, we'll flush them out," says a girl's voice. Gabriel thinks it's the District 4 female. He can kind of make out her figure, but she's a little too far to the side for him to really see.
"Little rats," comes a gruffer male's voice. District 4? "When we find them, I'll make sure to give them a slow death."
It takes Gabriel a half second longer to realize that the Careers are talking about him and Collie. His throat hurts. Collie's breathing quickens, and he reaches out and takes her hand.
"Chill, dude, they'll be delivered to us eventually," says the girl. "The gamemakers don't want to see them hiding in a room somewhere any more than we do. Right now, though, we need to handle our . . . lobby problem."
For the next couple minutes, the Careers talk in low voices that Gabriel can't entirely pick up. From what he can gather, though, the pack split into two groups that (he assumes) were supposed to still function as one but over time grew more distant: one in the lobby at the north end of the map and one here in the south. The District 1 pair have claimed the lobby with the District 2 female. But some things are vague and he can't quite follow.
"They cast us to the side to what, guard a damn vending machine?" The District 4 male's voice grows louder.
"Gotta do what the leader says."
"Well fuck that. I've done nothing but wandered the corridor making sure no one gets to a vending machine that they don't even need. There are a dozen of vending machines in this place! While you and District 2 go around and gather up the rest of the food? Where does that make sense?"
"Listen, I'm with you," says the female more calmly. "The pack shouldn't have been split to begin with, and certainly not with both of District 1 in one area. They're dumb. But that works to our advantage."
Their voices drop down again, and try as Gabriel might, he can't work out more than a few words here or there.
But the important thing is this: things aren't going very well in the Career pack.
Their conversation falls quiet when the door opens and the District 2 male (Gabriel assumes; he can't see the face) steps inside. "Hey, your turn for vending machine duty."
Gabriel nudges Collie as he sits back. "C'mon, now's our chance," he whispers.
The girl follows after him as he slowly opens the door and looks around. The area is clear, so he hurries out and the girl keeps pace with him. When the storage room door is snugly closed behind them, they put as much distance as they can between themselves and the Careers, and find a room to tuck themselves away into to think.
Day 9 - 4:30 AM
As soon as Gabriel wakes, he remembers that only six others are alive and all of them are Careers. It's a sour thought, but he coaxes Collie to take a nap as he sits on the bed and tries to figure out how to get them out of this situation.
It's supposed to be a Career win. That much is obvious. The arena was pretty much set up so that the victory would be handed to them on a silver platter. Right now, the gamemakers were probably prepping some event or muttation or something to flush him and Collie out of whatever room they chose and right into the path of a particularly sharp sword, thus guaranteeing a Career victory.
But what if the Careers don't win?
His mentor had told him that sometimes things don't go as the gamemakers planned. . . .
He wracks his brain to figure out what the hell he and Collie could do to turn the tables so that not only could they have a shot at victory inside the arena but that the gamemakers wouldn't outright kill them for not dying fast enough. He rubs his arm absently as he thinks, eyes flitting through the darkness of their hotel room. The girl is curled up by his hip, and he remains sitting with his back against the headboard.
His brain isn't working his favor right now. All the thoughts are jumbled up.
Carefully so as to not disturb the girl, Gabriel reaches over to the nightstand and picks up his pad of paper and pencil. With each stroke of the pencil, his thoughts become clearer even if the image he draws is completely unrelated to the things that concern his mind.
Day 9 - 10:15 AM
He won't tell Collie his plans, not because he doesn't trust her but because he doesn't want the gamemakers to know and thus ruin things before he and Collie can put it into practice, but he does let her in on a few small things.
"We spent the last week exploring this motel up and down," he says, and she nods. "Your map is almost entirely complete, and we know what is in many rooms. So let's use that to our advantage. Maybe we'll take a Career or two out or, even better, maybe we can see how strong their pack really is."
Even without knowing the details of what they're doing, Collie's in. She doesn't protest as he leads the two of them south to spy on the Careers, and then north to see if there's any movement from the lobby area.
Now that there are only eight of them left, though, it's easier to slip around unnoticed than it was before, especially with the master key.
Collie stays on the second floor while Gabriel crawls down a drain pipe and onto the ground level. His feet touch the concrete, and he turns around to scan the courtyard with the pool and the great golden horn. The bodies have long since been removed, but his eyes drift to the patch of ground not too far from him where the District 3 boy had splattered on the pavement. His pool of blood is brown now. If Gabriel hadn't known the source of the stain, he wouldn't have guessed what it was.
Enough of that.
He crouches down near the pool and fills up four empty water bottles with the gross liquid from the pool. He tries not to get any on himself, but he can't help it touching his fingers when he dips the bottle in, nor when drops of liquid roll down the side of the bottle onto his hand. But he caps the bottles, throws them into his backpack, and shimmies back up the drainpipe onto the second floor. He and Collie make themselves scarce.
In their next room, Collie watches eagerly as Gabriel carefully pours the pool water into eight bottles half-filled with a dark colored electrolyte beverage. He caps each one carefully, wipes them clean with a hand towel, and steps back to admire them. They look almost no different from the bottle full of electrolyte beverage that he has on the counter for comparison. Sure, they could have used the poison that Collie keeps in her pocket now, but why waste it when the arena provided other opportunities? Besides, he kind of wants to see what this can do.
"The District 1 girl said that she wondered what would happen if she accidentally opened her mouth in the pool," he says. "Guess it's time to find out."
Collie grins. "Do you think this'll work?"
"I'm hoping so," he says. "But it might not be immediate. Still, we have to plant it somewhere and hope that they add it to their stockpile to drink later."
For the first time, Gabriel's feeling some confidence. He has ideas. Plans. And it's so different from anything he's ever experienced. Back home, original thoughts just weren't really a thing. Sure, he could draw and stuff, but nobody wanted to hear what was going through his head in the form of words. There were too many kids for anyone to care much about, and he never stood out much in the sea of nameless bodies.
"C'mon, let's go slip this in somewhere," he says.
He gives her four bottles for her bag and he puts four bottles into his bag. As he zips up the fabric, he notices red splotches forming where the pool water had touched his skin, a sharp contrast to the white flesh and blue veins that had plagued him since he escaped from the nightmare room.
Day 9 - 11:05 AM
They place the "electrolyte bottles" in vending machines whose doors are partially ajar. The machines have been ransacked, but not completely gutted by the Careers. There's still other stuff inside, so Gabriel and Collie help themselves to water bottles before they leave.
Day 9 - 1:30 PM
"Room 233W?" asks the girl.
"No, I'm thinking the third floor. Maybe 309W. It connects with 311W, so it should work."
"What's wrong with the second floor?"
Gabriel shrugs and hands the map back to the girl. "The Careers prefer the first floor, so it would probably take them awhile to get to this part of the arena."
The girl nods. He's right. In all of their exploration, they've noticed that while the Careers do come to the third floor, it's not their favorite place to be. Maybe they know something that he doesn't, but he suspects it has something to do with the fact that it's smaller and not as easy to pace around and not as much stuff to look at.
At any rate, all they need is one Career, and they won't be picky. They just need whoever happens to be patrolling the area at the right moment, and then they can set their plans into motion.
"Plans" plural. Because Gabriel knows that the Capitol doesn't want to see the same trick done over and over again. So he's come up with a few things—some still half-baked—to keep everyone entertained. The gamemakers have to make sure they don't kill off the outlier tributes if they want to see his ideas come to fruition.
Day 9 - 2:14 PM
The District 2 male wanders the corridors on the western side second floor. As soon as he gets a glimpse of Gabriel, he breaks into a run.
Gabriel darts up the stairs to the third floor. The corridor shakes as the District 2 male runs after him.
As terrifying as this is, Gabriel knows that he can't just run right to room 309W. Instead he pauses to check various doorknobs as though he's desperately trying to get away from the Career. When he gets to the desired room, he closes the door but doesn't bother locking it. Not until he gets to the bathroom, at which point, he locks the door behind himself and crawls through the opening. Collie grabs onto him to help pull him through the tiny slit in the wall.
"Go—make sure he can't get out," Gabriel hisses as he begins to shove a desk in front of the opening. Collie jumps to her feet and hurries out the door. When the desk is in place, he shoves a nightstand in front of it for added strength, and then follows the girl out of the room.
She is already tying a rope around the doorknob. He grabs the other end and ties it to the balcony railing. His fingers shake, but he works quickly, thanking heavens that he took a few minutes at the knots and snares station in the Training Center. He'd never be able to catch a rabbit with these knots, but he doesn't need to; all he needs to do is ensure that the District 2 male can't pull that door open no matter what. Once his allies arrive, they'll slice the rope and free him, but who knows when that will be. With any luck, the Career will be coughing up a storm. Maybe worse.
Either way, at least it'll weaken him a bit.
And give the Capitol some entertainment in the meantime, Gabriel thinks darkly.
Day 10 - 1:22 AM
Gabriel wishes that there'd be a couple of Careers' faces in the television screen for Day 9, but it makes sense that no one's died yet. If they even die from his and Collie's antics at all. A few hours ago, their ideas seemed like genius, but now he recognizes how weak they are. If the gamemakers want the Careers to win, they can simply just keep the poisonous air out of the District 2 boy's room. Or the Careers might pass up on the electrolyte drinks they planted because there are so many beverages they've accumulated. Gabriel doesn't have the means to destroy their stock pile of supplies, so he'll just have to hope that eventually someone would drink one.
We should have put a bottle in the room we trapped the District 2 guy in, Gabriel thinks. How dumb of them not to have thought of that in advance.
He stares at his red fingers, grateful that they no longer ache like they did after he tied the rope. The parts of his skin the pool water touched are beginning to crack and soon they'll blister, just like with the District 1 female. At least he can still hold a machete, he tries to console himself. It could be worse.
But then again, it could be better.
Collie is his sister. They've grown up together, and he's protected her through the hell that the other kids at the community home throw at them. She trusts him. She loves him. She tells him that he's her favorite brother (even though he's her only one) and that one day they'll escape from this place.
They dream of a family who loves them. A mother and father and a dog and cat. A perfect family.
But nobody's willing to take teenagers, and definitely not twoof them. The reality is that once Gabriel turns eighteen, he'll be tossed out of the community home with a few dollars and a dead-end job in a field somewhere, and if he proves himself, they'll give him custody of Collie. Then she, too, will get a few dollars and a dead-end job, and the two of them will live day by day wondering what else there is in life but this.
Yet they'll have each other. No matter how shitty life gets, it's the two of them together. Nothing can stop that.
Day 10 - 4:45 AM
Gabriel wakes disoriented and with tears on his cheeks. He quickly swipes them off with the sleeve of his sweatshirt and pushes himself up.
Darkness surrounds him, just like it did a few hours ago when he dared to go to sleep. Collie lay by his side, curled into a ball.
She's going to die. He's going to die. There's no hope for escape for either of them. One way or another, this is going to be a Career victory, and he and Collie are just nuisances. Little hiccups in everyone's plans.
He leans his head against the headboard.
He lets Collie sleep for a few more minutes before waking her. It's time to move on. It's time to cause more havoc.
Day 10 - 6:00 AM
"I don't like this plan," Collie states. She chews on the hem of her sweatshirt sleeve.
"I don't care," Gabriel replies as he crosses his arms over his chest. "It's a good plan, and you know it."
She nods reluctantly. It is a good plan, and it'll get them some positive attention, maybe. At least if all goes well, it'll show them that they can best the Careers. And if it doesn't, then he'll be dead and it won't matter.
They want to choose a room with a secret pathway to another room, so they poke their heads into various rooms on the northeastern side of the second floor, but they find nothing of great note.
What they do find is the District 1 male patrolling the area around the corner. He goes from room to room rattling doorknobs and shouting that he's going to find them and kill them slowly. Gabriel's heart thumps, and he starts to regret his plan, but there's nothing he can do about it at this point. Sooner or later, they need to face the Careers, and he'd rather it be this way than any other.
But this means that if he fails, the District 1 male will kill not just him but Collie as well.
However, it occurs to him that the Career isn't yelling for them but for the District 2 male. He and Collie exchange a confused glance before turning back to the Career. They can't see him here from where he prowls around the corner, but it's only a matter of time until he's on them.
"They think the District 2 tribute ditched them," Collie whispers.
"Shhh!" But Gabriel can't help feel a little eager. It wasn't their intention to tear the pack apart in that way, but he'll take it. He grabs onto Collie's wrist and inches backwards.
"Room 234," he says. "Let's go."
Gabriel opens the door and hands Collie the master key. She takes it in her hand and stares at it for a second, but Gabriel's already crawling underneath one of the beds. He can't bear to say more than "good luck" to her; his throat has tightened and anything else would come out in a forceful squeak.
Collie leaves the room.
Gabriel prays that this doesn't get her killed.
His heart pounds so heavily, he can feel it throbbing against the thin carpet under his chest. His fingers hold the machete tightly, and he watches what he can see from his spot under the bed. Which is very little given the comforter that dangles down towards the carpet.
There's commotion outside. The District 1 male is screaming and Collie is screaming, and they're getting closer. She sounds terrified, and Gabriel holds onto the hope that she's going to make it.
And she does. The door flings open, and he watches her sneakers pound across the floor as she darts for the bathroom. The District 1 male is on her trail. Each step shakes the ground beneath Gabriel's body.
The bathroom door slams shut. The motel room door slams shut.
Both Collie and District 1 male are screaming. Screaming and shouting. Banging on the door. Rattling the door knob.
Go, Gabriel!
His body trembles, but he rolls out from under the bed and rushes forward.
While the Career is distracted with breaking through the door, Gabriel lifts his weapon.
The machete stabs through the Career's back, opening flesh in a vibrant spray of blood.
Gabriel wrenches out the machete as the District 1 male lurches forward with a roar of anger. The Career turns around, his own sword shining in the meager motel room lighting. Gabriel ducks as the weapon swings, but the blade bites into his arm. He throws himself forward, screaming and bleeding and thrashing the machete.
Once more, the weapon finds its home in the body of the District 1 male, piercing through his chest.
The Career collapses to his knees, and Gabriel nearly loses his machete entirely, though he yanks it away as the Career cries out in pain.
Gabriel gasps. He just—he just—
Pull yourself together! Think!
He's seen this before on previous Hunger Games. He knows that he has to finish this before the Career miraculously gets to his feet and strikes Gabriel down. So without a second thought, Gabriel lashes the machete at the District 1 tribute's throat, and the Career falls down in a pool of his own blood.
The cannon fires.
Gabriel stares down at the fallen figure on the floor. Blood pools beneath the body. Splashes of red decorate the wallpaper and Gabriel's own pale skin. His clothing is soaked through, and he feels the warmth against his chest.
Collie sobs from the other side of the door.
Suddenly, Gabriel realizes what he's done. Really realizes. He's just killed somebody. Took their life.
He's a killer.
Murderer.
He presses a bloody palm against the bathroom door to steady himself and to calm his racing thoughts.
"Collie, it's okay," he gasps. "I'm fine. It's—I mean, our plan worked."
The door slowly opens and Collie peers out at him. Her eyes widen when she takes in the blood splattered across him, and then she drops her gaze down to the body on the floor.
Neither of them say anything as Gabriel helps her step over the body and gather up their bags. The District 1 male had nothing on him, and his sword is too heavy for either of them. Collie uses the first aid kit; she cleans and disinfects Gabriel's arm before medicating it and wrapping it tightly. It hurts worse than anything Gabriel's ever experienced, but he just clenches his teeth together as she works.
They leave without a second thought.
Day 10 - 8:03 AM
Gabriel knows that what he did was the right thing to do, but he can't help feel weird about it. How can murdering somebody be "right" anyhow? He was just protecting himself and Collie, and what the hell else could he have done?
He washes his hands in the sink for the fifth time. Collie doesn't say anything, but he can't remove the sensation of the blood even though it's physically gone from his skin and has been for awhile now.
Collie hands him a fresh shirt from his bag, and he strips off his sweatshirt. Every motion takes too much effort, and he keeps thinking about the District 1 male. How things could have gone so very wrong in that situation. How they both could have died. He peels off his blood-saturated shirt and casts the fabric aside as he pulls on the new shirt. But he doesn't have a new sweatshirt, so he slips his arms into the old one. He will never be free from the blood.
He sits down and joins Collie in a bowl of stew, courtesy of the sponsors at home.
Day 10 - 4:12 PM
A cannon booms, startling both of them.
Gabriel crouches down against the wall of the corridor they're walking down and tries to steady his breathing. Collie sinks to her knees right behind him.
"One step closer," she whispers.
Closer to what? Only one of them will live.
He isn't sure how he'll gather the courage to do it, but he knows that he has to do what must be done, poison or not.
Day 10 - 9:00 PM
District 1 male. It's not a surprise that his face appears in the anthem, but chills roll through Gabriel's body anyhow. That kid is dead because of him.
District 4 female. He wonders how she died. Did she drink the tainted electrolyte drinks?
Four Careers left. Just four. They can do this.
What happened to the District 2 male? Is he still in that room, or has he been freed? Gabriel would love to check, but he doesn't want to draw attention to that part of the motel. Either District 2 is out of the room or he's not; either way, they still have to factor him in as a contender.
Day 11 - 3:30 AM
The District 2 female finds them as soon as they step out of their room. Gabriel grasps onto Collie's wrist with one hand and his machete with the other. There's no way they can run and get away from her; they're going to have to use a drain pipe to climb down to the second floor, or maybe they could get up to the roof.
But they don't have a chance to think about it before a person lumbers around the corner. The District 2 girl doesn't stop running at them, and Gabriel realizes that they'll have to contend with two Careers this time.
No, that's not right. The person behind the District 2 girl isn't a person at all but a creature. It's human in shape, but it looks like it's been flayed and melted. Gabriel's grip on Collie tightens, and he realizes that the District 2 girl is not running at them—she's running away from the muttation right behind her.
The District 2 girl curses and shouts at them to move out of her way, and Gabriel and Collie run. The Career is right behind them. Their feet pound against the concrete balcony, shaking the railing next to them. It doesn't matter where they go; they just have to get away. Gabriel's chest aches from the gasping breaths he takes, and he pushes himself to think and figure out a way out of this before the monster catches up to them. He isn't a long-distance runner, and Collie keeps stumbling; it's only a matter of time until one or the other of them falls.
"That room with the strange symbol!" Gabriel cries out.
Collie understands him, and she jams her hand into her pocket. Gabriel has a key for this room, too, but it's on a ring that he can't quite dig out with the mutt gaining on them. The three of them dart forward, and Collie reaches the room first. The key slides into the lock, and Gabriel throws open the door to allow Collie in first. He's about to follow her when there's a sharp elbow to his chest, and the District 2 girl shoves him out of the way. He gasps with the sudden impact and staggers backwards, one hand still grasping the door handle.
The muttation is on him. He cries out as a claw sinks into his shoulder, slicing through fabric and flesh. But he heaves himself into the room and pulls the door shut behind him.
The pain and the sudden darkness combine, and he's unable to see anything in front of him. His hand goes to his shoulder, and his fingers touch something warm and wet. Blood, of course. He winces and stumbles forward.
"Barricade the door!" he snaps out. But the District 2 girl is already moving furniture in front of the entryway. Collie steps forward to help, but Gabriel grabs onto her arm again and drags her away.
The muttation pounds on the door, each forceful blow threatening to remove the door from the hinges entirely. It's only a matter of time until the door gives way, and then all three of them will be dead.
Gabriel and Collie close the bathroom door behind them and crawl into the mysterious room 344W on the other side. They cover the hole back up with the fallen mirror just as they hear the window shattering in the room.
No matter how hard they try not to listen, they can't block out the screams of the District 2 girl as she realizes her fate, or the way she scrambles to lock herself into the bathroom mere inches away from them. All that separates her from Collie and Gabriel is plaster and wood. She doesn't see the escape route, but they can hear as the muttation barges into the bathroom and tears her apart.
The cannon booms.
Day 11 - 5:46 AM
The District 2 female's cries have long since died, but Gabriel still hears them echoing in his head. He holds Collie in his arms. The girl's tears have dried on her cheeks, but she still quivers against his body.
That could have been them. They could have been the ones ripped to shreds.
Neither of them can move. Gabriel's body is leaden, and Collie is too fragile. But they can't stay here forever, and they haven't heard the mutt since the cannon fired, so they have no reason to remain in this room any longer.
Gabriel nudges Collie, and offers her a bottle of water. She drinks, and he drinks, too. They spend a few silent minutes assessing the scratch across Gabriel's shoulder. It's shallow, fortunately, but it still hurts so badly. He almost tells Collie to save the pain meds, but the pain is so sharp that he can't help but gulp a few pills down as Collie cleans and wraps the wound. She also tends to the wound on his arm that the District 1 male has given him. For the Hunger Games, this is nothing. But it hurts so damned much.
They don't want to go back through room δ, but they have no choice since this room has no door. Gabriel goes first. The District 2 girl's body is gone (how they managed to whisk it away without a hovercraft, he doesn't know), but the blood is everywhere. Splashed around the room with bits of flesh and muscle and. . . . He doesn't want to think about what some of this is. He helps Collie through the hole, and they try to ignore it all as they hurry through the room. Shattered glass shows where the mutt entered, but they try not to think about that, either.
Three Careers left.
Day 11 - 12:10 PM
Another cannon, the second of the day.
Another step closer.
Day 11 - 2:13 PM
"They're going to try to force us to fight the Careers," Gabriel says.
"What?" Collie asks.
The two of them sit on the floor of a motel room eating a bowl of stew from another sponsor. He wonders dully why stew and not something else, but at least this time they've gotten a bit of bread. He knows sponsorship gifts are expensive as shit right now, and he's not one to complain as it is.
"They want a Career to win, right? So they want the four of us to engage in open combat and then for us to be killed before the two Careers have a final battle," he explains. "It's happened in Hunger Games before."
"Yeah, but sometimes the Careers don't win," the girl protests. "Remember a few years ago? That girl from District 7 won even though she was in a final battle with two Careers."
"She had actual weaponry skill," he points out. "We don't."
Well, except for the lucky strikes he got in on the District 1 male. The few hours over the past week and a half he's slashed his blade around in the motel rooms as he practiced getting acquainted with his weapon don't count.
"So what do you think?" she asks.
"I'm not certain yet," he replies. "They could force us together at any time, and we have to be prepared."
Collie's quiet for a moment as she thinks, and then she says, "We could hunt them first before there is a chance for a final battle."
Gabriel likes this idea, but he doesn't say so right away because he isn't sure how it'll play out. Even the two of them taking on one Career won't be a guaranteed win. The only reason he managed to kill the District 1 male was because the guy was distracted by Collie, and he can't keep putting her at risk. One of these times, the plan may fail and what the hell will he do if she dies because of him?
"I'll think of something," he answers.
"So will I," she replies.
They go back to eating, and they take turns scraping the bottom of the bowl with their spoons. When it's clear that they can get nothing else out of it, Gabriel sets it aside.
"Does it hurt?"
"Hmm?"
Collie points to his hands, then to the veins running up his arms. "It's getting worse every day."
She's right. Whenever he catches a glimpse of himself in a mirror (which is far more frequent than he'd like), he can tell that his skin grows paler and the veins become more pronounced, like all the color from his skin has been sucked away into his bloodstream. That part doesn't hurt more than a dull headache that flares up every now and again; he wouldn't notice it at all were it not for the mirrors. What really hurts are the parts of him that have been exposed to the pool water—the little splashes on his fingers and hands.
"Nah, it's fine," he answers. But he's still staring at his wrist where the blue veins wind up his forearm. "It's funny, but it's like the arena is trying to turn us into monsters."
"Hmm," the girl says. "I wonder if that mutt was human once."
Gabriel shrugs. Who knows what the gamemakers get up to in their laboratories? He supposes it's possible that it might have been a tribute, but they were all dead. Maybe an avox or something.
Collie falls into thought, and Gabriel wonders what's going through her head. They both know that their ends will come upon them soon, and yet they hold out hope that they will make it to the final two. The idea of losing Collie—either she dies before him, or he dies and she lives—sickens him. After all the two of them have been together, after all they've been through. . . .
"You know, I hate being here," Gabriel says, and the girl looks up at him with a look that says yeah, obviously, but he continues, "But this arena is pretty interesting, I'll give it that. And you and me, we make a good team. Good explorers."
She looks down at her hands and picks at the last bits of nail polish that clings to an index finger.
"I don't want to die, Gabriel," she says quietly.
"Yeah, I know," he replies. "And if I have it my way, you won't."
She drops her hands onto her knees and tilts her face up towards him. Her eyes ask what he means by that, but she doesn't speak the words out loud. He turns away, afraid that his own face will give away his thoughts. Right now, he has to focus on staying alive. That's the only way they're going to make it to the end.
Day 11 - 9:00 PM
District 2 male. So he did die. Was it inside that room, or had something (or someone) else killed him once he broke free?
District 2 female. Gabriel tries not to think about this.
"That leaves the District 1 female and District 4 male," he says. "Both of them are injured."
"How much?" Collie asks.
"The pool water messed the District 1 girl up pretty badly," he explains, pausing to look at his own fingers. The splotches that were touched with the liquid are red and peeling, and a blister has formed on the back of one finger. Small areas, but it still hurts when he touches those parts of his fingers or bends the joints the damaged skin covers. He lowers his hand. "And the District 4 guy's been limping since the beginning. Maybe he's got some medicine to help him, but he wouldn't even chase me up a flight of stairs back at the beginning."
"We could trap the District 4 male somehow," Collie suggests. "If he can't run, then maybe we could do the same to him that we did to the District 2 boy?"
"No, we don't want to do the same thing twice. It gets . . . boring really fast."
Boring for the viewers. For the people who have the tributes' lives in their hands. Not boring for Gabriel and Collie. They'd lock the whole lot into rooms to go crazy if they could, but that wouldn't fly.
Gabriel's aware that in order to advance him and Collie onward, they're going to have to face the Careers head-on. No more tricks or trapping people in rooms. The thought terrifies him because if he dies, Collie dies. End of story. There's no way that she can face a Career—or anyone else—in open combat.
This, of course, means that he'll have to kill again. Logically he's okay with this because he has no choice, but there's some disconnect in him that is begging him to stop. That this isn't him. That he's not a murderer. But he has to push it down and ignore it because the reality is that he did murder someone and that means that he is, technically, a murderer. No use trying to weasel his way out of that.
"Get some rest," he says. "We'll move out in a couple hours."
How are you going to do it? How are you going to put a blade against your own throat and slice it? Do you have the courage to do that, or will you realize that it's an impossible task?
The poison was the easy way out. But now the girl has it, and you can't take it from her without betraying her trust and making her suspicious.
So how will you die now?
Day 12 - 3:55 AM
Gabriel doesn't have any new ideas. Try as he might, he can't think of any way to get them out o battle that the gamemakers will inevitably set up. Fear clouds his brain and prohibits him from stringing together coherent thoughts, and the more challenging it is to think, the more frustrated he becomes. His stomach aches with the understanding that Collie may very well die because he's too flustered to think straight. He runs a hand through his curly hair and sighs.
"Gabriel?"
"Hmm?"
"Thank you."
He turns and looks at Collie, who sits at the edge of the bed where she re-ties her shoes. Her fingers have frozen on the laces, and she watches him.
"I-I don't know what's going to happen," she says. "And I know I'll probably die. But . . . Thank you so much for being my ally. I . . . I think I'd rather die knowing that I have a friend than being left behind by the people I trusted."
Gabriel swallows hard and for a second, he doesn't know how to respond. But he finally sits down on the bed next to her and says, "I'm going to do my damnedest to get us out of this fight, okay?"
She nods, but the tears are already spilling down her cheeks. For two weeks now, she's been so brave that he almost forgot how small and young she truly is. But now he remembers just how little and frightened she had been when the District 10 tributes had argued over her cowering body.
Those Careers willingly signed up to kill little kids like Collie and Acer. And he sure as hell isn't going to let that happen again. No matter what, he's going to keep Collie safe.
He puts an arm around her shoulder, and as she falls into him, he wraps his other arm around her quivering frame. He can't remember the last time he's hugged someone like this, but he knows it's supposed to feel good. It doesn't. It feels like fear and pain and chaos. It feels like he has so much at stake for no reason at all. He'll do anything—absolutely anything—to get this girl out alive. If that means slicing his own throat, then so be it.
"Let's get going," he says at last, and the girl sniffles and pulls away from him. He gives her a minute to clean her face with tissues from the bathroom, and they both gulp down some water before gathering their bags and weapons.
Nearly two weeks in the arena, and Gabriel thinks he might be finally understanding his weapon. He's swung it around in practice without really knowing how to use it, but once he felt it bite into the District 1 boy's flesh, he knew how powerful it truly was.
His bag, on the other hand, feels like a burden. It rubs against the muttation wound on his shoulder, yet he can't bring himself to sling it over one arm because it could fall off so easily. At least, he consoles himself, the claw mark is on his non-dominant shoulder and doesn't interfere with his swing. And the slice the District 1 male had given him is healing up nicely. All things considered, the two of them are doing pretty well.
But that's about to change in the very near future.
He and Collie don't need to go far before they find the Careers lingering around the Cornucopia, clearly suspecting that some force will drive the four of them together where they will have two easy kills before a worthwhile final battle. It sickens Gabriel to think that they're nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
"If things go badly, you run," Gabriel instructs. He and Collie lie on their bellies on the second floor corridor as they watch the Careers. "And if I die, you do whatever you can to live. Whatever it takes. Use your knife, use your poison, use whatever you must. Remember that the mutt might still be wandering around, though, so be smart about it."
She nods, unable to answer with words. It's all common sense stuff, and she's proved well enough that she has a good head on her shoulders despite her young age.
Collie's nose twitches and she turns to Gabriel.
"Do you smell something?" she asks.
He pauses and inhales. He wouldn't have noticed it had she said nothing, but now that he concentrates, he can smell smoke. He presses his fingertips into the cold concrete.
"This is it," he says. "This is the finale."
He didn't think it would have come like this, or rather, that he would have made it this far. They just have to get through this and then—well, he will cross that bridge when he comes to it. Right now, he has to focus on the two Careers.
The District 4 male paces back and forth despite the prominent limp. His spear swings whenever he turns, its blade shining sharp. On his waist, he wears two knives. The District 1 girl remains in place, her eyes searching through the darkness. Her slimy, blistering skin glistens in the dull orange lamplight. Her hand rests on the hilt of the sword in her belt, poised for whatever is to come.
The smell of smoke becomes more prominent now, and the Careers notice it, too. It thickens and threatens to clog Gabriel's lungs, but as he struggles to suppress a cough, he notices that though the Careers sniff the air and look around for the flames, they remain unaffected by the smoke.
"Do you think you could take the staircase before the fire gets too bad?" he asks Collie.
She looks around and then nods. "What about you?"
"I have an idea."
She side-eyes him but remains quiet. With each passing second, it becomes clearer and clearer that the gamemakers want them out of there, and each lungful of smoke will make fighting that much more challenging.
"Take the stairs to the first floor. Stay by the vending machines if you can. If you're pushed into the patio, then just try to stay low to he ground and out of everyone's sight."
She presses her palms to the ground and hoists herself into a crouch. Without a word, she vanishes around the corner.
That may be the last I ever see of her, he finds himself thinking.
Okay, enough. It's now or never. Gabriel has to act, otherwise the Careers'll notice Collie at some point. He takes a deep breath and tries to accept that he may die without accomplishing his goal. But he has no time to contemplate it further because the District 4 male continues to approach, drawing closer and closer. Soon he'll turn and head the opposite direction, and Gabriel will lose his window to act.
Without further hesitation, Gabriel pushes himself to his feet, launches over the railing, and throws himself onto the District 4 boy. He hits him with a heavy thud and grabs onto him, knocking the older boy off balance. And with his bad leg, the Career collapses to his knees, sending Gabriel rolling into a flower bed.
Shit shit shit shit shit.
He lost his chance, and now the Career is getting up!
Gabriel digs his sneakers into the ground and pounces towards the District 4 male. He swings his machete into the injured leg, and the Career screams out as he sprawls onto his back.
Gabriel brings his machete up to plunge it into the Career, but the District 4 male throws Gabriel off. Screaming and cursing, he abandons his spear and pulls a knife out of his belt. Gabriel launches himself forward. Pain bursts through his shoulder as the knife sinks into his back, but he still swings his own weapon.
In all his flailing, the machete makes contact with skin and slices across the Career's chest. Another knife sinks into Gabriel's side, and he gasps as his vision blurs. He blinks furiously, and the Career pulls out the knife from his shoulder, causing a wave of burning pain to spread across Gabriel's body. His legs grow wobbly, and he wants to do nothing more than to collapse on the floor in a heap and succumb to the agony within him. But he forces himself to swing his weapon again, and he brings his machete down into the District 4 male's arm. The wail that escapes the Career is enough to signify that he's done damage. The knife in Gabriel's side remains lodged in place as the Career stumbles backwards, hand hanging limply—and at a strange angle—on his arm.
Gabriel can barely move. Pain in his back, pain in his side. It's so much. It's so, so much. He gasps for breath.
Remember Collie, he tells himself. Remember that you're doing this for her.
Tears stream down his cheeks, but he readjusts his bloody grip on his machete and strikes forward. It's a weak blow that's easily deflected by the Career's knife, and as the District 4 male looms up above him, fear billows up within Gabriel. This is it. It's over.
No. It's not. It can't be, and it won't be.
The Career fills his view; he can see nothing else. Hear nothing else. Feel nothing else. And when the tribute raises his knife to plunge it into Gabriel's chest, Gabriel shoots forward and swings his machete into the good arm. It slices into it, moving through muscle and bone before stopping. Gabriel wrenches it free, but the knife clatters from the Career's hand now, and he's screaming and screaming. He lifts up a foot to kick Gabriel, but Gabriel swipes at his leg. The machete does little more than scrape the skin, but the Career backs away to regain his bearings.
The District 4 male is dazed, and Gabriel moves in. Adrenaline fills him, and he thrusts his weapon forward. The machete sinks into the Career's chest.
The Career falls away from him, and Gabriel, still grasping onto the machete, tumbles to the ground on top of his opponent. He pulls out the weapon with effort, and prepares to strike again when the boom of a cannon distracts him.
Collie!
He looks around, but can see no sign of the girl. His chest heaves, and his head swims.
The District 1 female, however, watches him.
"I'm impressed, really," she says, a sickening smile twisting her features. "But he was always the weakest of us—and the stupidest. Thought he could overcome his leg injury without proper rest."
Gabriel realizes that the cannon wasn't for Collie but for the boy lying underneath him right now.
He feels no remorse. He isn't disgusted by what he did, or the pain he inflicted upon the Career before killing him. He pushes himself to his feet, grasping at the knife in his side and starting to pull it out.
"Leave it where it is," says the District 1 girl. "Otherwise you're going to start spurting blood everywhere."
For some dumb reason, he does what she says. It sounds stupid, but it's easier to leave it in than to yank it out anyhow. Maybe he won't need to kill himself if it comes down to just Collie and him. If he can even make it through the next fight, he may very well have mere minutes left to live.
Heat radiates around him, and he realizes dully that flames consume the buildings. They're surrounded on four sides with no way to escape. Not that he could escape. Everything hurts so badly, and each breath brings fresh waves of pain across his body. But he's going to do this. He's going to push onward and kill this Career. He will get Collie to the end.
Yet the pain overtakes him and the blood loss makes his head swim. He sinks to his knees before he realizes what he's doing, and the Career grins her twisted grin as she walks closer. Her sword reflects the glow of the fire.
A sudden scream and an explosion draws their attention, and Gabriel turns and cranes his neck despite a bolt of pain through his body. Collie rushes from the corridor, flames licking at her back. Panic fills her eyes, and she scrambles to stay ahead of the surge of fire bellowing up behind her.
The gamemakers have pushed her out into the finale.
"Collie, hide!" Gabriel gasps.
The girl turns to him, and her eyes widen. "Gabriel!"
"Hide, damnit!" he snaps, "Get out of here!" His words are weak and hoarse, his voice seeping out of his throat as the blood drains out of his damaged body.
Collie backs up, and her head moves around as she tries to find a place to hide.
The Career grabs onto her sword. "No, I don't want my final fight to be against a little girl."
"Collie, run!"
But it's too late. Collie attempts to scramble into the bushes, but the Career strides forward and cuts her off. The girl stops and backs up, but the Career's sword slices through the girl's throat and pulls back out in one smooth motion.
Collie collapses to the ground and a cannon booms above their head, the single noise echoing throughout Gabriel's hollow chest.
The girl is dead.
Just like that.
Gabriel screams, the noise ripping through him and echoing throughout the courtyard despite the roar of the flames that consume the buildings around them.
No no no no! Fuck! No!
Emptiness swallows him up, and he suffocates in its darkness. Choking on his own words, his own screams, maybe even his own blood, he fails to cry out that it should have been him who died. Not her. Never her.
All Gabriel wanted was to make his life mean something. He knew his time was limited well before his name was called on reaping day; the Hunger Games just gave him the opportunity to make his death mean that someone else—someone more worthy than he—would have a chance to live. And now. . . .
And now it was all for nothing.
He knew this could happen. He knew it was a possibility. But he didn't let himself think about it because it would mean failure for both of them. . . .
Everything balls up in him in a white seething hot mass of anger and hatred. His hands adjust on the blood-slickened hilt of his machete and he charges for the District 1 girl.
The Career turns around just in time and her sword pierces Gabriel's torso. He screams again as pain blinds him. The sword slips out of his body, and he sinks to the ground where he lands on his side.
"Not my ideal final fight, but what the hey," the Career says as she watches Gabriel writhing on the floor. "Though I admit you're pretty slippery, aren't you? I know you were the one in the offices, and I'm impressed you made it out of that room you locked yourself into."
Gabriel barely hears her. Everything hurts. His body is sliced and pierced. His muscles burn. His nostrils fill with smoke. And above him stands the girl who murdered his friend—the one person worthy of stepping out of this arena alive.
The District 1 girl: a monster whose shadow falls over him, her skin peeling away and exposing raw, red layers underneath it.
And him, the District 9 boy: also a monster. Also changed by the arena.
But he can't do this. He can't even lift his machete, and each tortured breath sends pain through his entire being. His hands tremble against the concrete as he tries to lift himself up, but he can't. It's like his fingers just don't work anymore. He stares at his red fingertips. Red because of blood. Red because of the poisoned water.
The poisoned water that this Career also jumped in to, immersing her entire body into its depths.
Think, Gabriel.
She didn't step into the fight when he took on the District 4 male because it hurts. Everything on her body hurts. Hell, even her clothing rubbing against her skin is too much to bear. For nearly two weeks, the poison has eaten away at her, peeling her apart bit by bit.
Gabriel reaches out a hand and grasps onto her ankle. The Career cries out—a sound of pain and not surprise, even as she tries to suppress the noise that escapes her lips. He tightens his grip. It hurts him, but it hurts her more.
She starts to bring her sword down on him, but he grabs onto her other ankle with his other hand, abandoning his machete by his side.
The girl screams and staggers backwards, kicking her legs to get him off her.
You have to do this. Do this for Collie. Kill.
He grits his teeth together. Blood pours out of him, and the knife in his side might have become dislodged. Sweat beads on his forehead and threatens to obscure his vision, so he wipes a bloody hand across his brow.
No. Do this for yourself. Do it for you. Be selfish. Get out of here.
Live.
The thought is so sudden, so clear—as though it has been planted in his head from elsewhere. Somewhere clean and pure and not tainted by years of lingering darkness.
"Collie?" he groans.
She doesn't answer. Of course she doesn't—she's dead.
Gabriel hefts himself to his feet. He clamps an arm down across his abdomen, but he barely feels the pain from the wound. His head grows lighter, and he struggles to cling to reality.
The Career raises her sword, but he throws himself on top of her. The instant that his body touches hers, she screams out and her weapon falls to the ground. Her hands grab onto him and she tries to tug him off, but he wraps himself onto her torso and clings, hoping that the pressure of his small frame against her rotting skin will be enough. Enough for what he doesn't know. But for something. Because he's losing it.
He's dying, and he knows it. They both know it.
She screams and pounds him with her fists, but he just tightens his grasp on her. Her voice calls out, words twisted with intense agony. He can barely bear it all, but the adrenaline courses through him and keeps him alive. Her fists grow weaker against his back, and her breathing more ragged. His own grip loosens, and he knows he doesn't have much time.
He keeps her pinned to the ground, his lightweight body enough to prolong her suffering. He grabs for her sword.
She's still screaming when he brings the blade down on her neck. It's not a clean blow, and he has to use his weight to dig in it. But her body stops moving and a cannon echoes above his head.
He rolls off her body and stares up into the sky. Thick smoke blocks the clear night above, and he gasps for air.
"I am proud to present the victor of the 149th Annual Hunger Games: Gabriel Carvey of District 9!"
"You did it, Gabriel. I knew you could."
"I'm so sorry."
"No, you have done well. You kept me safe, and you kept me happy."
"You should have won."
"Thank you for being my friend."
"I have failed you."