day ten, part one: waterlogged fellows
The black and cold reminds me of all the distance we have crossed – and if your darkness finds me, I could never be more lost.
Grief is like an amputation.
It is painful. Constant. Like having a limb detached from your body – severed off and cut from you, to the point where the ache becomes unbearable. Elysia would be lying, if she claimed that she had not grown sick of it. How deeply it has settled against her ribs. How slowly it has tried to wear her down, piercing like an aneurysm with vibrations of despair, desire, guilt and aching numbness…
Her regrets have come to stain her skin. And so, here she is.
In the water.
Filth. Blood. Animosity. She could spend hours scrubbing, but the wear of her heart would never come off. The things she's done for the sake of her own ego are more grievous than she would ever care to admit; Anka, Jade, Patron, they're all just figments of the fractured whole.
Here, Elysia can see her reflection – and she doesn't like the look of it.
A sigh escapes her. In solitude and silence, she wades from the dock, her arms and legs treading water so viscous that it tires her.
Yet she moves forward, nonetheless. Out of the shallows and into the oblivion, reaching for a darkened center that holds pressure like a bottomless pit.
(It is strangely calming, to float in the abyss. To think about the void, and all its emptiness. How close she is to touching it. How, if she wanted to, she could drink it down into her and let apathy stain her lips, take in melancholy until it spoils her.
Angelo had a sword. Varsen, a pill.
She has nothing. Or, rather, nothingness. Elysia would let it drown her.)
She could die, now, and not feel a thing.
Gathering up a handful of water in her palms, Elysia tilts her head back and raises it to her face. She allows it to fall, to drip down her face and the contours of her bared chest, shirt discarded with her other belongings somewhere far away from her. Though she thinks she should, perhaps, be cautious of her vulnerability, she can't find the energy to care about her nakedness.
Panem can see her unabashed, if they care to.
She has nothing in the world left to lose.
Her eyelids flutter. She finds the sky, gray and toxic and full of nothing. Space beyond space, all feeding into a perfect oblivion.
This place is a microcosm, but its not really so different from the real thing.
Society. They like to market violence. No different from One and their trainers. Nobody wants to tell you that victory is nothing. That nobody ever wins the Games.
Elysia sighs, and lets her weight begin to slide down.
Down. Down. Her head submerges. Down.
…
The lakewater is murky.
It smothers her with blinding fog, swirling about like gas trapped in a bottle, muddling any sense she has of direction. Perhaps if she had more sense, she'd try to tear herself from it – escape the confusion sinking into her chest, her ears closing up to the point of a near deafness. As it is now, she feels more compelled to dive under.
(Water cannot judge. It cannot illuminate. And better still, it never gives up its secrets.)
"Elysia…"
Her eyes close.
…
…
The nothing beckons.
…
…
It's warm.
"Anka?"
(They're laughing in her bed, latched together with limbs still tangled in the sheets. Grey is cuddled up at Anka's feet, nestled into the embrace of a discarded sweater. The blinds are drawn, keeping the sun from shining into the darkness of their haven; a safe place, away from the rest of the world, where nothing and nobody would be left to touch her…
Except for Ankara Lamotte.
"My rose."
Elysia's thumb runs across her knuckles, still bruised from the melee of the eve before. Academy wounds never vanish quick, but they hurt less when borne from victory; success, more than anything, was a natural balm. Almost as soothing as –
Anka giggles.
"I love it when you call me that," she confesses, her face pinched up into something entirely too sweet, utterly adorable and happy. Elysia pulls her close, chest lain flush against her curving back, and hooks her chin over a slim shoulder, one hand moving up to squeeze her arm tight.
"I call you that because you're beautiful," she whispers. "You deserve more praise than you're given, Anka.")
Just like her…
(Even in the memory, she smells of flowers. Like the garden they'd kept together, outside of the Academy's mess; or the windowbox in her room, full to brimming with the most beautiful succulents. Begonias, hyacinths, orchids.
They both loved orchids. How tall and lovely they managed to bloom… how they could sprout in even the grimmest of winters, bloom anew from dismal nothing. Anka had called them an unexpected gift; a reward for them, in their perseverance. She'd given so many seedlings to Elysia over the years… so many beautiful memories…)
"Elysia!"
Blood swarms into her head.
Dead skin chokes her up.
Somehow, at the lake's bottom, she finds her eyes starting to open.
And then, as if waking, she sees.
Elysia, in her surprise, startles. Of all the things she expected to find this morning, a set of fresh corpses hadn't been on her list.
Waterlogged and bloated, it's hard to make out their features, but she'd seen the anthems all the same. The girl from Four, blue-faced and punctured. The boy from Five, stark white with a gaping neck. Two tributes, gone before their time. Her rivals, her enemies, her competition…
Why does it look like they're still breathing?
Four's hand twitches.
Elysia pulls back, her legs kicking as she attempts to swim upwards – away to the surface where there are no bodies, no death for her to unwittingly bathe with, steeped in the uncanny aftermath of doubt – they're not alive, surely, they can't be, not if they're down here, but she could have sworn – she wouldn't just imagine something so –
No. No, wait –
There's more bodies here than two.
Past Four and Five sit a menagerie. Three of the silent dead, covered in moss and mud and bugs, gods, the maggots are festering in them. Beetles crawling from their mouth, and – and she can see flies sitting in their eyes. Dragonflies. Decomposition. They shouldn't be here, but they are. They are.
Two sets of eyes fly open. The other, alone in its skull, merely flickers.
Then, somehow, they are on her.
Too-many-hands begin to move, clawing over her legs, at her feet and down her hips. She flails, yanking away from them, and with a newfound urgency, she starts to swim. Up and up and up some more, up and up – away from them, away from the creatures, all her molten, sorry hatred and her stupid memories —
Fingers latch about both her ankles.
In some grand display of will, the One girl's head breaks from the water.
She sputters, chokes – her own breath feels stifling, but she cannot register it before she's pulled back down, forced beneath the shimmering surface, into a place where no sun shines. Death. She hits at the dark girl's face, kicks the one-eyed boy in the shin, and turns to race in the direction of the docks, adrenaline surging into her, filling her to the point of bursting.
Again, she goes under.
Again, she rises.
"Stop it –" A too-familiar memory pleads, and the girl of her nightmares appears once more before her, clad in a sundress, legs dangling from the pier. They didn't have beaches, back at home – barely even rivers, but there was a pond. In the park they'd used to frequent, Elysia with her worn-out bomber jacket, Anka sitting in her lap. She'd bury her face in her neck and sink teeth in to mark her. Arms possessive around her waist, held there like a warning.
She'd been just as feral an animal then as she is now. Teeth bared and snarling. Mine. Mine. Get back. You can't have her.
(Their first summer had passed in the blink of an eye. Their last had been endless.)
Don't lie to yourself, Ellie, you deserve this.
You deserve the pain. The hurt. The sorrow.
You deserve the guilt. You deserve to question.
You deserve to die alone. Unloved. Aimless.
Bitter, like you made me.
Wounded, like you made me.
(How long will it take you to break?
Elysia, it took me years.
I wanted you more than anything –
but you didn't love me.
You loved controlling me.
You loved possessing me.
The love of submission isn't love.
It isn't equal.)
(Your want for perfection is what will kill you.)
(Can't you see it in your reflection? All those cracks?)
The weight of stone compounds across her legs, humbling her with the weight of broken pride. She breaks free of the depths, breaks free of her errors, and yet alone in her mind's tumult, she can see nothing. All she can do is feel.
Her heart, ravaged by anger; scorn, fear, loathing for herself above all others. Her mind ravaged by madness, for finally she's lost it, lost all sense of sense and control. The loss is making her flounder. The loss is eating her whole.
Chaos consumes her. Chaos rules her. There is no purpose to the Games she's played, not beyond the selfishness she'd once preached to Patron, standing over another corpse that she might as well have killed herself…
Selfishness is all of her. But it won't save her.
The sun.
Elysia, the sun.
Get to the sun.
Her head breaks waves again, clearer than ever before. Slowly, the shadows around her clear, revealing at last the picture of her surroundings; the arena and the cabin circle, her body drifting at the end of her rope.
There's someone standing at the edge of the dock. A girl. A phantom.
Blazing yellow hair.
Dead leaves and earth bubble out of her mouth. Her corpse is clogged with putrescence, skin tingling as it strips away from her, exposing a wash of muscles and sinew. Even now, she feels weakness: all her torn ligaments and tendons, undiagnosed fractures set in her body from years of being berated, years of trying to shape herself into One's perfect fighter, their worthless fucking ideal.
Perfection kills.
Perfection rots.
Why was she so blind before?
Her arms stretch out, fighting their way loose of the blood-algae, blooming in clusters over the water. Try as she might, when her fingers curl, they find nothing. Nothing but more cold, more dark water…
Anka's reflection, crying beneath the ice.
Her own frostbitten palms stuck against the surface, flesh stripped away as she tries to pull them free, tear them loose of the coffin she'd built, the coffin that was her home and is her love, for ice is all she knows how to feel now, and were she to try and warm from it, all she would be able to do is burn –
Elysia's head sinks under the water again, and she gasps, breathless. Once more, the bodies are on her, perfect mannequins of aesthetic rot, leaking, seeping, acid in their wounds. Dark eyes, like Isabelle Harmony – Sephtis Adeyemi, Merrick Aldaine.
(She'd committed their names to heart last year, for reasons she doesn't rightly know. Perhaps because she feared them; what they stood for, what they had become. Could-have-beens, should-have-beens, somehow I knew they were exactly like me – wastes, all wastes, ruined by the values that made them – just like One, my craven home —)
Nails score lines through her raw skin. A stitched mouth wails some unheard song, while on her back, two hands begin to press.
(Elysia…)
Once more, she goes under. She sees the bodies – the ruined empires forged from their bones, silver-gold, searching for meaning. Like her, they found it in the worst places.
Like her, desperation killed them.
"Get off, get off, get off of me –"
Elysia squirms, kicks herself free. Her throat burns, but her mouth is dry. She surfaces, again, at the edge of the water, clamoring for a hold on the dock's left post, her vision hazy as she reaches up.
(I want you to lose all control.)
"Six –" she rasps, her voice hoarse and tarnished. "Six, help me. Please."
Sharpness pierces her gut. Agony crushes her lungs. No matter how she begs, the demons never leave – they're stuck in her, lodged inside her chest, and no amount of apology will be enough to drill them out.
"Tatiana. Please."
She hears pain. Her own mouth, open. Screaming.
Two dark eyes look down on her. A hand stretches through the fog, slick with blood and stained mottle-dark.
"Maybe it's time," Anka whispers to her, as hands once more grab hold of her legs, threatening to pull her down to the lake's murky depths. "A monster dying to monsters – I'd call that a fitting end, wouldn't you?"
"No!"
Elysia's teeth sink through her tongue, blood spilling down past her lips while her body shakes. No. No, no, this is not where her story ends, this is not the place where she is going to die.
Not like this.
Gnarled claws pierce the flesh of her feet, teeth sharp as they sink into her, wearing her close to the bone. Elysia kicks, but the water simply ripples around her, impervious to her anger as much as her thrashing. A set of rotten limbs curl around her chest, her eyes blown wide as they clutch – tight, tighter, is this how she felt, Elysia, is this how you used to choke her? – moulding horror to her wet skin.
Her mouth parts around a desperate breath, demanding in its finality. Except…
Except there are no hands.
No hands, no eyes, no scathing tongues.
No touch, binding or tugging…
…
…
(Her finality does not exist.)
Elysia shudders.
Something incomprehensibly warm is on her, lingering against her palm and snaking beneath her skin. One arm becomes two, fixed about her hand and elbow, and before she can so much as blink, salvation emerges as a brackish sun, dragging her onto the lakeside shore.
Elysia's head lolls to the side, the dock's wood creaking beneath her lake-soaked weight. The screaming comes to a halt, then. Ringing in her ears, she can hear only silence.
…
..
.
No, not silence.
An echo.
.
..
…
(A heartbeat.)
..
…
..
Tatiana's hand slips from her wrist.
Then, as always, she is alone.
Ansel has never cared for touch.
Especially in situations such as this – where his body is repulsed, made up of scrapes and scars and hurts too big to get his hands around. He sees the hollows in his figure and wishes he could withdraw into them, or better yet, carve them deeper, destroy himself so thoroughly that there would be no means of salvaging scraps, no reason for others to attempt recovery.
The reason why is simple: Ten and her hands, undoing his wrappings. Ten and her hands, looking over his wound.
Ten and her kindness, nursing him away from death, when he deserves no less than worse…
It was never Ansel's role to be the one wounded.
(Rather, he'd be the mender; keeping watch over Xay as they slept, stroking back their sweaty hair, or patching up Andre's wounds with a brittle needle and sewing thread. He grew used to cleaning blood from broken flesh… grew used to collecting sick in buckets to be dumped out in the alley, when his partner was at their worst. Caretaker was not a role to which he was especially suited, but it had given him a sense of purpose, for a time.
He wonders if it's the same for Pangaea.)
"Raise your arm a little."
With a sigh, Ansel Zilliah shifts his arm away from his side, another pang striking at his chest. The fabric of his shirt has been rolled back to his shoulder – better to expose the damage – but his bicep remains a congealed scarlet, stained over by yesterday's hemorrhaging.
What a mess he's going to leave. What a mess he is, all cut up and forcing a stranger to attend to –
He bites his tongue.
Be grateful she's willing to help at all.
A pair of fingers prod at the edges of the wound, then something cool is spread across it, undermining the heat of the deep-set pain.
"The wound looks better," Ten observes. "Less swelling."
Ansel laughs, something sunless that doesn't ring as pleasant, his amusement seeping out in the exposure of his teeth.
"Does it now?"
The question is not in demand of an answer.
Pangaea blinks at him, brow furrowed. Her mouth opens, but Ansel turns away, exhaling his humor as a sigh.
Cordura knew what she was doing when she threw her weapon; if the wound looks better now, it's only because it's yet to get worse.
(… infection.)
He shakes his head, hair falling down across his eyes.
(Sepsis would be a fitting end for him. After all, it's what took Xay. The wasting decay that he couldn't stop…)
Pangaea's breath wafts over his ear, heaving much like his own. Her hands work to pull the new bandage out from its sheath inside the supply bag, and with quiet as her companion, she unrolls it. Ansel, still, does not attempt to face her.
It's easier for them to keep some distance. Their compromise, while helpful, is only a temporary thing. A fleeting comfort. A partnership set to perish…
…
…
…
So be it.
Ansel knows, quite well, that nothing is more punishing than memory. Pain, hunger, the stabmark festering in his arm – none of them can hold a candle to the sheer agony of catharsis. He looks on his hands, mottled and blistered, and sees on them the blood of his cousin. He holds tight to the end of Four's rope, and feels only the length of a noose, left to dangle from the ceiling in his old hovel.
(He'd abandoned it there, despite his longing. The noose, the knife, his endless bottle of ending pills. Tiny gray capsules designed for the damned, urging him into an oblivion of sleep, and oh, he would have clung to them, would have taken Death's hand and followed their dance if there was so much as a chance the reaper would bring him back to his lover…)
It doesn't make much sense to him: why he's still fighting so hard to attain survival, why he's invested himself with such will to live, when there's nothing left in his world that matters. Life is a fickle mistress, as his brother would say, fickle as a flower with a single bloom and a stem made from gnarled thorns. Worse still, it's a mule's game, one that's taken and left him with nothing. There's no point to it, no sense, no security, no hope to be found at the end of the tunnel… would it not just be easier to give up?
(Would it not just be easier to lose?)
His teeth clench together as Ten finishes with dressing his wound, tying the bandage off with a simple, sturdy knot. Slowly, Ansel flexes his arm, and then at last his head raises, deigning to reward his healer with a single, conciliatory look, hoping that his eyes will convey the thanks that his mouth cannot. He gives her a nod.
Ten returns it.
"You're welcome," she says, rising to her feet. Once again, he's left to busy himself.
Should probably get to packing, the Eight boy considers. Better to leave now than to get comfortable.
He doesn't take much notice as Pangaea wanders back to Rhys, stretched out in a corner across his poor excuse for a bedroll. Perhaps its because he can't stand to look at him – the blistering of his face, his scabbing scars, skin flaking from char and rot, pus oozing out of too-many sores that burst. Burns are never pretty, but Rhys' belong to him, were made undoubtedly by his actions and hand.
Ansel doesn't regret the fire, but he does regret that it didn't kill him.
(No. He regrets that it didn't kill them all. Pangaea, with her kindness and her tired eyes, Rhys, suffering in his pain and cynicism. Himself, disillusioned with the world, and Atlanshi, so insensate in his zeal, already on the verge of death. He reeked of sickness when they last spoke. It wouldn't have been long… wouldn't have been easy, and while fire is not a kind way to go, at the very least it took him quick.)
(If only it had been strong enough to claim the rest of them as well.)
He begins to gather his own things, belongings laid out against the floor in neat little stacks beside the wall. They'd made a trade, last night, just as Pangaea had bargained; food in exchange for a patch to his injury, water shared for painkillers. In light of their situation, it was a fairer deal than he'd have thought; unexpectedly equitable, and doubly so with the assistance in shelter. If he were less aware of the stakes…
A frown.
It doesn't matter.
Somebody has to leave first.
Ansel shoves his things back into his discarded pack, paying no mind to the order of them. The length of corded rope, the caltrops, the bandages that Pangaea so thoughtfully gave to him. The single remaining bottle of water, a piece of bread, his last tangerine. A handful of the berries that Ten picked from the woods.
The matchbook, which he slips from inside his pocket, and tucks in before either of the others can notice. He couldn't risk them seeing that, when it's practically evidence for an accusation. You did this to me. You did this. You burned me, you scarred me, you ruined me. You'd have left me to suffer, always to suffer, and wouldn't have thought a thing of it because my pain's no skin from your back. Just like your partner, your friends, your cousin. Your brother who you handed over, sold out so you could ego trip – Cordura's right, Ansel, you're nothing.
You're nothing. You're nothing.
You're nothing and you hate them for it – hate her, for daring to be more than society decided. For casting off her bonds and forging a new mask…
(All of this pettiness, it has to stop.
Your cruelty, your jealousy.
Ansel, listen to me, love.
This shape does not become you.)
…
" — need to figure out where to get more. One bottle won't keep us going."
The conversation washes over him, then, overwhelming Xay's voice enough to banish them from his side. Ansel looks over to his not-quite-allies, sat together on the ground, his eyes catching on the bottle in Pangaea's hand… the bottle that he'd given them, despite their supply advantage. He frowns.
"You can just use the purifier," he cuts in, the intrusion prompting Ten to look over once again. "Go to the river, collect some water in your bottles, dose it with the solution and you have what you need. It's simple to do, even without instructions."
"Wait, is that really what the kit's for? It fixes the water?"
Pangaea's words are lilted in surprise, and for a moment, Ansel's brow scrunches, his chest tightening in turn with her remark. Does she think him untrustworthy? He hasn't given her any reason to be skeptical; he's held up their deals, abided by her propositions. What reason would he have to lie to her about a trinket?
The Eight boy's lips part, tongue ready to lash in a caustic retort, but whatever he means to say dies inside his mouth.
(The look she's giving him isn't skeptical – not like the glares that Rhys has been shooting him since before he woke, yesterday morning. No, Ten's expression seems more curious than anything; as if she's never had cause to use such an object, much less to ask another person about its value… perhaps she's simply clueless. Needing explanation. If that's the case…)
(He's overreacted. Truly.)
Just as quick as it came, the tension Ansel's holding seems to dissipate.
"I'm surprised you haven't seen one before. In Eight, a lot of the rivers are contaminated," he explains. "Especially in the area I'm from. Lots of pollution from the warehouses. Smog in the air, chemical runoff. Normally we just take what we can get, boil it and burn the waste off, but…"
He trails off, glancing back to the door. A proposition stains his tongue, sitting there like a wintry fruit.
(Should I ask? Should I confide?)
"The rich have other options. Filters they can use, iodine drops. Not too different from what's in that kit."
(I can show you how to use it. I could even gather more supplies. Just let me stay, he wants to say, and the words gather with such ferocity it almost hurts when he bites his cheek.)
" – just add three drops after it's been strained out. Make sure it's fresh, so you won't have to concern yourself with dirt –
He's still speaking, but he cannot hear himself. The blood in his skull is pounding, drowning out every bit of thought that might be left to it, forcing his brain to devolve into nonsense.
(Solitude isn't what it's cracked up to be – it feels visceral and endless and I've had more than enough of it. I'm sick of entertaining it. I'm sick of the loneliness, the disconnect – )
" – for a few days, at least. Let's try not to cross paths again."
Ansel stands to his feet, pulling his satchel back over his good shoulder. It's lighter now, unburdened from the majority of his supplies, not to mention the assets from his trap, the day just before last. So much rope, all tied together. So many wires, so many blades, whittled off and jangling. He could return to the place he found them; lock himself away inside the cabin until he once more is forced to relinquish. He could even give his key away, should he so wish it…
"Good luck."
He takes one step toward the cabin door. Then another. A third, his hands moving to shove in his pockets, a fourth, his chin notched up so as not to express his disappointment, his doubt at the decision, why should I be the one to leave, why should any of us have to—
"Wait."
His feet come to a halt. He turns.
Rhys is watching him with dark, unsteady eyes.
Mistrust is written there. It sits in brown hollows like a spectre of despair, forever in doubt of his motivations.
No, not just mine, Ansel thinks. Everyone's. The world, that is what Rhys doubts. And who can really blame him, when there's wolves like me lurking around every corner? Preying on the unsuspecting, always ready to rip out throats...
(It's not enough, to merely say he regrets. It's not enough to want to be better, when he continues to demonstrate only the worst, to thieve and rend and butcher without mercy. He can want to change, but if he does not try… what good will longing do?)
Rhys speaks, then, his expression unwavering.
"If you leave," he begins, a glint within the lines of his gloom, "how do we know you won't just tell someone where we are?"
"You don't," he agrees, a part of him bristling at the insinuation of betrayal.
(It isn't undeserved. So why, then, does it perturb him?)
"Maybe you should come with us, then," Rhys speaks, his lips quirked downward into a slight frown, as if Ansel's answer has offended him. "Show us what you meant about the water. Clearly we need the expertise," he concludes, barking out a harsh laugh.
Beyond him, he sees Ten nod, her hair bobbing around her face. "Came all this way... why leave so soon? Seems like you've got the know-how, anyway..." she says quietly.
Between them hang words left unspoken, questions without answers. He can tell Rhys wants to say more, but his own skepticism holds his tongue. The air stills with unwanted tension, and all Ansel wants is to cleave it in two, so desperate to find connection instead of being left utterly alone.
He looks into Three's ghastly visage. Ten's haunted eyes.
"Very well, then," Ansel nods, a small smile twitching at his lips. "I'll let you lead."
His companions – if he should dare to call them that – look once to each other and nod, presuming to make up their minds. Ten helps Three to stand on his haphazard feet, one arm hung limp at her side even as her posture struggles.
Ansel approaches. Stops beside them, ducks down enough to grab hold of Three's other side, loop the burned arm back over his shoulder (and how it hurts to feel that weight against him, how it stings, now, to touch while knowing the truth, but he will keep his lips sealed and never speak it, not unless Three does first) and straighten, finally ready to confront the arena.
The day awaits them. Is there more reason to shy from it?
With two pillars on his left, Ansel trudges onward, bearing a small grin against the exhaustion that has settled with permanence into his bones. He's been scum his entire life, wasting away at the bottom of the barrel. In taking the world down with him, Ansel has been seeking destruction to fill the void of his want. But destruction is not the thing he wants. He knows that now.
It's possible that he's always known.
Grief does not heal by threading more of it. And hurting others…
Hurting others is no way to mourn.
Everyone wants a rock bottom.
This, more than anything, Kellen Akos knows to be true. Human existence runs on suffering; people imbibe despair like they do alcohol, using it to compound their sorrows and make victims of themselves while orchestrating their own self-destruction.
And so the story goes. Misery is alluring. Victimhood, moreso. Everyone wants a rock bottom – a weight to break under, some blood to choke on.
What they don't understand is that by searching for their lowest low, they're just finding ways to sink down even further.
Kellen might even fancy himself a prime example – of the human paradox, all their fucking stupidity. He's spent years digging his own grave, all while imagining it to be a throne – look at this violence, this madness, this destruction. Look at how miserable I am, how far I've fucking burned – and for no purpose other than petulance. Much like his moods, his whims seem to shift at random, cycling from grandeur to morosity to grandeur again, enough times to have altered his image.
He'd like to think himself a Victor.
Truth is he's anything but.
The Two boy takes in a short breath, letting it out through his dust-streaked nose. Though fatigue lingers in his muscles, he tries not to show it when he bends down to fix his boots, stifling a yawn with his tongue pressed against his teeth.
Sleep in the arena is restless. A continuous vortex of madness interspersed only with brief intervals of frightening sanity. In his dreams, the mistakes of the past seem magnified,reflected tenfold by the images that surround him. The family he's abandoned. The lives taken by his hand. They'll be in his mind forever, prosaic portraits made in metaphor.
(It's for this reason that he thinks a part of him must still be yearning – grieving for the loss of his connections, not to mention his humanity.)
(Why can't he be free of it? Why can't he just –)
He tries not to linger on it.
There are better things for him to spend his time with. Such as hunting down his former allies.
Patron. Tatiana. Elysia.
A grunt of annoyance escapes him as he sets about retying his shoe, the lace half-frayed between his fingers. He knew yesterday that she wouldn't come back – wouldn't take the risk of being in his proximity, after their disagreement and the tension of the days before. She, like Kellen, is too guarded; too mistrustful, too suspicious. He'd known that from the first night they really spoke. Before the Games were set to begin, sequestered together in One's training suite…
(Kellen isn't a fool. He knows how easily she could have struck him down, if she'd had the mind for it. Put an end to their rivalry, the complex mesh of enmity and empathy which stemmed from their backroom deal… their murder of Jade, who he'd slaughtered in cold blood… so why didn't she do it? Why didn't she get her shit together, buck up, and run him through?)
It all comes back to apathy, doesn't it?
(She doesn't care. She doesn't need him. Elysia, much like Kellen, saw their alliance as the means to an end; a pragmatic decision made for the sake of self-preservation. When it was no longer a benefit to her, she'd done the smart thing and chosen to discard it.
He'd choose well to do the same.)
That's certainly what his dreams have told him. How many nights has he spent walking Two's streets, the cobbled stone lined with bodies? Blood spatter on cold cement, every window around shut to him, the regular citizens trying so valiantly to dismiss his presence. As if they all have better things to do than notice the wrongs that he committed… the successes he's made, acting in violence…
(... had his destruction been a plea? A cry for notice, for attention, for respect the likes of which he'd never command, so low and pathetic in his lieutenant's station?)
(Even at the end, Kellen did not command.
He plotted.
He schemed.
He remained under Vaclav's thumb.)
Two's empire will never be yours. Victory or failure, what sort of people could be persuaded to bow to a cur?
Kellen huffs, finishing off the knot on his shoelace and righting himself on weary feet. With one nand, he tugs his pack up over his shoulder, adjusting the strap that's begun to slip from his back. His solitude, while sorely needed, has given him too much time to think.
And yet, it still isn't time enough.
His mentor's voice serves to mock him as he trudges up the hill, reaching the peak near the blackened forest. With one foot against the rock, he turns to spare one look down at the valley - the cabins, the lodge, the shrouded lake.
He would stay, if he thought there was even a chance of Elysia returning. Already, he's spent two days waiting for her, making a point to listen for every footstep, every sigh, every little creak in the fucking floorboards. Last night in the lodge, he'd watched the light stream through the broken windows, casting dark patterns over the floor, imagining them to fit the shape of a person. If he could just talk to her, try and make her see reason –
(What would he have done, if she had walked through that door, delivered herself back with that nihilistic scowl, her icy condescension and persistent silence? Would he have dared to strike her down, puncture her with knives and pummel her with fists, until the very idea of her was no more? Would he have been vicious in how he undid her – ruthless, like he was with Jade, his own District partner burnt as trash under the Capitol's sweet eye?)
(Would he have taken her back, all sly smiles and taunting sympathy, claiming he understood her when he truly did anything but?)
With a bit of force, Kellen turns his body back to the woods. The lodge is behind him.
And quite honestly? He couldn't care less.
With a dagger in his hand and a sword sheathed at his hip, he makes his way through the underbrush – thorned bushes lining the base of tall trees, leaves left to wither beneath the mud and pine needles that coat the ground.
Being from Two, he's seen his share of forests; still, nothing in the sectors is so natural as this. It's a bit disconcerting, actually. Even most of the minewoods are covered by trails.
(Keeps stragglers on the path, he'd heard the Peacekeepers say. The last thing they needed was rebels assembling out in the trees.)
…
…
Rebels. Now that's a thought.
Kellen laughs, a near-mania settling over him. Is it possible that Ailith's still alive somewhere? The real Ailith, that is, and not the fraudulent sister that he'd come to know. If she is, there's no doubt that half of Two's out hunting her – wanting blood for the shame they'll think she brought them, revenge for the mischief Jade has since invoked. Fucking feds can't have anyone disrupting their precious order.
His fingers curl tight about the dagger, gripping it with intensity as he moves around rocks and tangled bushes, moss-bound tree trunks and sodden ground.
It's still early, and the light that washes through the trees is glum, passing blue-tinged and harsh across his eyes. Were he less accustomed to it, the derelict atmosphere might wear on him; mud sinking in on his shoes, leaves still dripping dew from yesterday's storm… nothing about this place could be considered welcoming.
Maybe that's why it seems to suit him.
He walks for some time before the trail splits off, two paths making a fork next to a cluster of signs that he'd been too distracted to notice on the way down. The one on the right is marked with a number of words – Raven's Roost, Archery Range, Infirmary – and all of them seem intriguing enough for Kellen to make his decision. Again, he starts walking; trekking down the path, trekking up a hill, making his way around a set of boulders and a fallen log half-set into the trail path.
The sun overhead gleams brighter. A breeze ruffles the pines, causing the tall stems of them to shudder. Kellen stays on the trailhead, then cuts away from it, making his way into the mess of woodland where he thinks his competitors would be more likely to hide, should they have the mind for Games…
He wanders. He waits. He walks.
In the periphery, a twig snaps.
Kellen doesn't waste any time. With all the speed and grace of a cat, he slips from the path and withdraws, cautious, into the bushes, tucking his body down amidst the array of brambles. Their thorns needle at his sides, scraping and pushing, but for all his discomfort he remains in place, arms fixed to his sides, knees bent in an uncomfortable crouch, ready to pounce on the unsuspecting should they draw too near.
…
…
…
The seconds tick past, slow and slower, carrying on for long enough that his vision starts to spill red.
Eventually, the sound of steps becomes a song of murmurs. People, muttering in conversation.
"– had flowers like this, back in Eight. My sister used to find them growing in the gutters – "
" – Bruin always just called 'em weeds. I guess they're pretty, though. Bit stupid-looking – "
Both voices cut out for a moment, only for the original speaker to pipe up again.
" – had so few nice things, I wasn't going to be picky – "
Her companion snorts. "Seriously? After the food thing?"
"Just because you don't have a refined palate doesn't mean the rest of us – "
"So not a snob by birth, just by choice then."
"Argenta," a feigned gasp. "Really? I'm offended."
"Only 'cuz you're a priss, and you know it."
…
The original voice laughs.
"Well, at least I'm hot enough to pull it off."
As if on cue, two sets of legs stride into the clearing, mudsoaked and stained by the green press of grass. Kellen shifts slightly, angling his head to better peer out from the thorn bush, his free hand pressed into the ground to leverage his weight.
He grips his dagger tightly…
…
…
… and his face slowly splits into a manic grin. The irony truly astounds.
For who else would be standing there but the girls from Five and Eight? After all the time the Careers had spent squabbling over them… bickering over numbers and the necessity of a plan, wandering about the lodge in the hopes of staging a strike… really, he couldn't have planned it better himself.
Oh, if One only knew. She'd probably be seething –
Kellen begins to rise, brambles shaking as he forces his way out of them. He could fight them if he wanted; no doubt he'd have kept the element of surprise, at least for a couple minutes. But why fight when there's a situation brimming with opportunity?
(Two enemies of his enemy, people he could work to his advantage in Elysia's stead… if they were strong enough to upstage her once, they should be able to do it again. And even if they can't, what's the harm in dragging around a couple of extra bodies? Worst case scenario, he has to kill them, but he's sure he could do it without qualms. Now, if necessary, although hopefully his offer is enticing enough to be —)
"Cordy?"
Five's head whips around. Her partner, the older girl, draws out a blade, shoulders tensing in preparation.
"Yeah. I heard it too."
She raises herself up, almost reflexively trying to make her posture appear imposing; something tough, something hardened. Something that can't show fear.
Kellen isn't fazed in the slightest.
"Whoever you are, show yourself!" Eight spits, and taunting, he lifts his hands, rising to his full height and pulling loose of the brush, taking a full step forward in the pair's direction.
"Now, now. Let's not do anything hasty."
Five whirls, baring her teeth. Eight, not so subtly, nudges the younger girl behind her, shoulder flexing enough to draw a pained grimace. Kellen's eyes linger on the bloodsoaked bandages, wrapped tight around her apparent wound. Is that the mark Jade left her? Must be deep if it's still hurting.
Eight must be thinking the same thing, from the glare she gives him when she takes note of the attention.
"You're from Two, right?" She asks. Kellen raises a brow, neither confirming nor denying the guess. The girl sighs. "What do you want?"
"From you?" He chuckles. "Nothing more than a few words. Feel up for a chat, or would you prefer to stab me over hearing me out?"
"Probably the latter, if I thought I could get away with it," Eight smirks. "Is this the part where your little friends come charging out of the woods, all ready to run me through for pissing them off? You know, if One's after a rematch, all she has to do is ask."
"Funny you should mention that," Kellen retorts, feigning nonchalance. Finally, he drops his arms, though his dagger remains within his hand, poised there in case of attack. "It may come as a surprise to you, but my alliance has… crumbled, over the last few days. Not by my doing, I'd like to add."
"Oh?" Eight sounds disbelieving. "And whose doing was it then? If you don't mind."
And like that, she's already taken half the bait. Perfect.
Kellen forces his smile to drop, the gears in his head forever churning. He schools his visage into something stiff – stoic, guarded, but carefully overlaid by vestiges of summoned feeling. Rage, agony, guilt…
He can make them seem believable.
(The emotions may not be for his alliance, but they are real. So is the pain.)
"Elysia." He bites out, surprised at just how much vitriol coats the lie on his lips. "She did something unforgivable. I trusted her, we both did, but everything she's told us, everything we planned… it was nothing more than a fucking lie. And Ailith – "
A single, glistening teardrop rolls from the corner of his eye. Kellen, in turn, allows his legs to falter slightly, the dagger in his hand clattering down against the dirt.
"She killed her. Without so much as hesitating. I couldn't save her – I couldn't do a fucking thing…"
The Five girl's brow creases, her face falling, and Kellen can see something sympathetic hiding in her eyes… the sympathy that only a child can have, broken and fragmented by an excess of loss, of hurt, of hate, of desperation –
"But you," he continues, these words more than any feeling true as they pool in his mouth, "You beat her once, in the bloodbath. So it stands to reason you could do it again. That's why I revealed myself. Why I…"
Kellen trails off, shaking his head.
"I'm too weak," he confesses, keeping his gaze averted, his arms braced around himself as he admits his insecurity, against his pride's wish. "Without Ailith, I wouldn't stand a chance. I'm not trained, I don't have – the luxury of support or sponsors. But I can't let it go, what she's done – what she'll continue to do, if somebody doesn't just take it in their hands to put her down –"
"My District partner died, too."
Five's words cut him off, and Kellen makes a show of gritting his teeth, more tears spilling as he raises his head to look at her, teeth grazing hard over his lip as he latches onto the claim. Time to go for the kill.
"You get it, then. What it's like to have that last tether to everything you know vanish, without any fucking reason. Ailith never should have been in the Games – and she didn't deserve to die, especially when it was pointless. I wanted to get her out of here. I just – I wanted…"
Teardrops continue to come, one after the other as Kellen chokes down a sob. And despite the fact it's all fake – a lie, a facade, a way of winning them over – there's something about the noise that feels right in his mouth. As if he's been waiting to cry for a long time, and only just forgot how to do it.
"Cordura."
Five looks up to her older ally, almost begging. Eight, at last, leans back against the nearest tree, sighing before she shakes her head.
"Fuck it," she says, the words sounding rather like a conclusion. "What do we really have left to lose?"
How does one wear a stranger's skin?
If that longing has an answer, it's not one Rhys has ever been told. He has spent more time sitting alone with a body that can't love him than a form which feels familiar, his behavior a weave of flesh and loss, plastic and a lack of sureness. And in this moment, sitting at the edge of an unreal river, understanding strikes him like a viper, swift and deadly in its efforts to undo him.
(At times, it feels as if he is simply playing a role. The wounded actor on a great stage, taking pride in all his hurt. Does it make him feel large and tragic? Rhys isn't entirely certain. But he knows that it's foolish to prize his wounds. More so when the only audience to his drama is his weary and neglected self.)
A sigh lingers on his tongue. In turn, he tastes and swallows it.
With any luck, Pangaea will be back soon. She's not bad at prompting him from his melancholy; keeping the rumination to a minimum, as it ought to be given their situation. He's not sure why the last two days have gotten to him, made him so content and willing to brood, but it's becoming more of a frustration than a benefit.
And, of course, Ansel's company doesn't help. Rather, he might say it's done the opposite.
" – fix the netting in place, like this. Be sure to tuck it in, otherwise the liquid will weight it down; here's where you'll need the swab. If you hold it here, by the stemming –"
Smoke fogs his skull. It comes in rings and rows, like the puffs of smoke from a dying cigarette, fading with the pulse of desire. Rhys watches Ansel and tries to riddle the shape of him: that down-turned mouth that looks so like Esme Casper's, the conflicted eyes which remind him gravely of clients, taken to his home in the dead of night, always so ashamed of their unconscious wrinkles. Flaws are something he is used to seeing, and this boy is full of them, full to bursting.
Looking at him feels like déja vu.
But Rhys forces a smile, anyhow, and takes his care to play along.
(He can still be decorous, when he wishes so. It doesn't take much effort for a prostitute to put on a face.)
" – three drops, that's all you need."
The Eight boy's hands go through the motions of dripping the iodine into the bottle, keeping the swab in his left hand. Once it's through, he removes the filter over the top, sets it back down on the cloth pouch, then raises the cup to take a drink.
His lips press together. He nods.
"Looks good." Ansel caps off the bottle, passing it over to Rhys. "Here. You keep this one."
Rhys' eyebrows lift. He sits the bottle in his lap, letting it rest there propped against his thigh. For a moment, the world condenses – all he can feel is the substance of it, the prescience, only mitigated by the bubbling of the creek against rock and earth.
He watches Ansel restopper the iodine, placing it back into the kit alongside the net.
"Thank you," the Three boy whispers. Ansel waves him off.
"No need for that."
"There is need," Rhys persists. "You didn't have to supply us, but you did nonetheless. You were honest in telling us about the purifier. All with me questioning your motives, doubting your every word…"
He trails off. He isn't going to apologize, but maybe…
Maybe he's been a bit unfair.
Ansel hums, trailing his stark-white fingers through blades of emerald grass.
"Life hasn't been kind to you," he observes, a statement that's not in the least bit subtle. "I get that. People can be cruel – violent, manipulative. It's how we were made to be: selfish in our entirety. Our want to survive is meant to be a trump card, more important than anything else."
"When you go through life learning to prioritize yourself, it's hard to imagine anyone else doing differently," Rhys agrees, his throat dry and rasping. He's not sure when he grew so parched. "But not everyone is so…"
"Untrustworthy?"
"Suspicious," he concludes, fingers idly rolling the bottle, left to right across his leg. "I don't know. Maybe I'm just masochistic, but it seems like I have a penchant for punishing myself, at least where people are concerned. Built my walls just a touch too high."
Ansel's head turns toward the treeline, as if waiting for Pangaea to emerge from the grove.
"Haven't we all."
The leaves dance as a breeze carries through, ruffling Rhys' hair and stinging at his skin as a whip. He frowns, a hollowness settling over him as worry divides his thoughts. She should be back now. Why isn't she back? Did someone attack her? Did she maybe —
No. No, Pangaea's smart, more than he's ever really given her credit for. In spite of her fortune and wealthy upbringing, she's proven that she's capable of taking care of herself, which admittedly is one of the things that Rhys likes about her. She's got grit. Actually, if anyone in the group is to be seen as the weak link right now, it's –
It's him.
"We'll do the other canteen," Rhys decides, refusing to let the thought rankle. He shifts atop the bank, attempting to rise back to his feet. Doing so humbles him – twice, actually, but he does not relent. He forces himself up, snatches the bag from Ansel's lap. He's not an invalid; there's no need for them to treat him as one, no matter the burns he carries. He inhales through his nose, exhales through his mouth. Everything is fine.
"Now, if Pangaea would just hurry up," he continues, splitting into the satchel, "maybe we can leave before noon comes. Not really looking forward to the gamemakers' announcements."
Reaching down, his fingers rummage for the second bottle, caution abandoned in lieu of independence. Fabric rustles against his fingers, shifting back and forth as he clutches blindly – rope, sack, rope, something sharp, the other bread roll from last evening, a bloody bandage –
That's odd.
Ansel tenses as his hand dips downward, pulls free with… something… nestled to his palm. The terrycloth fabric is pleasant to hold, soft to the touch even if tattered. Little holes line the thing's body, as if hooks had been torn into its skin, and through one of its eyes, the stuffing's split – spilled out, partially, along with grains of rice.
Rhys finds himself laughing.
"What's this?" His tone is morbidly curious as he looks the doll-thing over, trying to make sense of the words etched on its back, written there in some mottled red pen. "Your token?"
It's sodden, drenched by water that must have spilled out when they went wading through the river, but not to the point where it reviles. Rather, holding it has been soothing… familiar, for some unknown reason, stoking the camaraderie that Pangaea kindled in him enough to jar a smile.
"Bit creepy," he concludes, "but I guess it suits you."
His arm outstretches, as if in offering. But the doll he holds doesn't vanish.
Instead, Ansel grabs his wrist.
Twisted fingers drop the bag, losing nerve as quick as they gained it. Rhys looks up, adrenaline in his chest, pumping vast as the sun's grand reach. "Ansel," he says, questioning without asking. His unwanted companion shifts, and fire splits up his side as he tries to draw back, forcing his teeth to grit. "Let go of me."
"I'm afraid I can't do that."
The doll slides loose of Rhys' grip, his fingers slack when they curl back around nothing. His gaze narrows, lids shuttering in 's touch wanes upon his wrist, but does not release it, even as the burnt-up thing on the ground tumbles down, off the stone of the riverbank, back into the vibrant waters. Rhys looks to him, then to the pack –
The open pack with the glaring matchbook.
The torn cover stamped black with soot.
…
Soot.
Understanding dawns on him, swift and rapacious. He should have known. He should have seen it? He –
He takes a deep breath.
(Fury.)
"It was you," Rhys whispers, his voice left monotone in his mounting shock. "The boy from Four, the cabin…"
His throat clenches around the words as a dark feeling settles into him, burrowing under his aching ribs.
The fire.
(It all comes back to the fire.
His burning body.
His scorching face.
A grudge so deeply wrought,
there's not a chance he can let it go.)
"... you did this to me," Rhys accuses, and Ansel's flinch only proves what he knows to be true. "You burned me. You ruined me."
Eight's tongue runs across his lip, over skin too rough and oft-bitten to appear healthy. He sucks his breath in. Rhys' hands are shaking.
"Three," the liar calls, failing words an attempt to soothe him. "I can explain –"
But whatever false proclamations he wishes to make never have a chance to surface. Rhys bares his burnished teeth, anger plastered to his skull and curdled.
Here before him stands the cause of his misery. His fractured pride, his constant agony – all of it stems from one source. A callous boy with callous whims, who could care less about the idea of collateral, like Rhys Intarsia's tarnished body.
He doesn't think.
He lunges.
Ansel brings his arms up to cover his face as Rhys swipes for it, looking to tear. A push sends him back into a ripple of stars, the river's pulse waning along his body, letting him splash back to the basin. His ankles catch as he surges forward, falling atop Eight's body – spindlysootyspiteful, I-knew-I-knew-I-knew – and life fades into a blur. Rhys strikes down while Ansel pushes up, losing himself to flailing arms and swinging fists, nails and teeth and two leg-sets knocking together in the muck. One tumbles over and Two meets them strong, water coarse and splashing against their wounded flesh, and though it soothes his burned visage, Rhys has no time to dwell on it.
His thumb jabs into Eight's 's hands are lashing out, little knives clawing at his form, dragging scorch marks down his skin, past his back and arms and the side of his face. Already so ruined, already unrecognizable, and yet he deigns to add insult to injury. Insult to agony. Tumult. Cacophony.
Rhys screams, andpunches downward. He gets Ansel in the gut, in the shoulder, in the jaw, but something sharp is jamming into his side, pointed and fierce and long enough to strike. Blinding pain overwhelms him, eating into the scars that cover him flesh-to-bone, and as the wind begins to weep, the only thing he can see is red.
Ansel pushes him off, shoves him down against the stone.
His back hits, a jarring crack. Rhys curls in on himself, wishing to be fetal, but he's stretched too thin, too harsh, too dead, and so in sorrow, he starts to mumble.
Please.
Please.
He shudders as something climbs on top of him, shudders as he is dragged into the nether's tow. In scalds him, to boil in his pain, and all he wants is a reprieve. Relief, clarity, to die is as natural as breathing, so come on, Ansel, come on and do it, just get it over with,make it stop!
Two hands lock tight around his neck. His head tilts back before he can protest, going under the rushing tide, and in his delirium there strikes a bell.
A chime of voice, like something from a dream. Insects on his skin, nipping their marks. Fires smoking into the night, disintegrating hope in a blaze of glory.
(River.)
(River.)
(River.)
(I will see you at the river.)
(… ah.)
(So that's what it is.)
On his back, there is nowhere to look but up.
"P-Pan…"
His arm locks about Ansel's, instinctively reaching out for the partner he knows has vanished. Some semblance of survival instinct screams inside his conscience, urging him to pry his killer off, but Rhys finds that he can't be bothered.
(Wanting is futile.
Fighting is pointless.
Death comes for everyone,
and rarely does the Reaper
allow their sentence
a delay.
He shouldn't cry for it.
He isn't special.
He's just —
Desperate.)
"... d… don't…"
Once more there's fire in his chest, rending, reaming, wrenching him apart. He can feel his lungs starting to close up, water burning through his esophagus. Gurgling, sinking deep… asphyxia in his very veins, scored down and down to the pit of his chest, where his sternum begins to compress, caving like the voice he'd sung with behind closed doors…
And just like that, Rhys knows.
This is where he's going to die.
(It isn't the first time he's been choked. He'd had bodies, before, that preferred to be rough; talons that took and dug into his throat, dragging thin clothes from his body to heap them over the floor. A hotel, an alley, it mattered not – he could find exploitation wherever he was, even down in Three's worst scrapheaps, where he'd foraged and formed his life from junk.)
He's going to die.
(His brain short circuits with the information, drinking it in as he'd once drunk rosé. Silas had been so gentle with him the first meeting, and it was a far cry from what he was used to; the advantages of having good fortune, a face full of makeup and a warm home. Wealth was always an appeal, and Rhys didn't mind taking from those who were able to spend it. He was the one who needed it more. He was the one who wanted – who spent his life wanting, from that last day at the community home left out in the snow, to the day he'd first met the mayor, handsome in that way older men often were. It was never his intention to steal him away, but Esme saw what she wanted to, and she'd said as much at the voting counter, her mouth leaking a barrage of hatred.)
He's going to die.
(Silas wanted nothing to do with him, then. His wife threw him to the wolves and all the asshole could do was watch, observe quiet as he was led from the pens, named and marked as a sheep for slaughter. Rhys Intarsia, the beloathed and beleaguered, standing alone before a crowd of impassive faces.)
He can't breathe.
(Like the first night on the train, everything is black. Spotty, and – cursed and marred and broken by his own demanding tears. How long did he sit awake in that Capitol bed, going over his past by way of a dozen what-ifs? How long did he linger, naked and alone in that cold darkness, listening as his heart began to ebb away? False hopes shattering into pieces, not a trace of life to be found inside his wretched skull –)
"It may seem cruel, Three," his attacker begins,
smiling soft and sad, "but this is a mercy."
Rhys struggles to keep a grip on his arms, prying with jagged nails at Ansel's hands. Static snow confounds him, and his mind numbs white, colored dark and blank as his vision.
"... this is a mercy…"
Sunlight traces his burned cheek. Against his own volition, he feels his mouth twitch.
"... mercy …"
A flash of movement. Two hands, capped by wicked claws, dangle before him until they are finally (woefully, blessedly) wrenched back from his neck.
In his despair, Rhys gasps – a single stuttering breath.
He sees a blaze. Dappled hair.
Pangaea.
His eyes close.
(Mercy, indeed.)
The water churns.
Deaths TBA.
But I'm not the one to take your direction, I'm not the one who wears the disguise.
(I'm not the one to share your reflection – I'm not the one you break the same way twice.)
A/N: Smothered by Spineshank.
Thanks to all for reading. 10.2 will be soon, with any luck.