Chapter Eight
Digit had been wandering around the arena for hours, trying desperately to avoid the other sixteen bloodbath survivors. Having been among those who fled the Cornucopia the moment the gong sounded, he had neither weapons nor supplies, which left him extremely vulnerable. If he was attacked by any of his fellow tributes, he would have no means of fighting back and that meant he would be out of the Games, on his way back to District 3 in a wooden box. Not that he would stand much chance in an armed confrontation, especially against the Careers. And, having seen the death recap, he knew all six of them were still alive. Nor could he trust any of the other tributes, including Synthia; even at this early stage, some of them would be prepared to kill to ensure their own survival. It was much safer to put as much distance as possible between them and himself, then wait for them to wipe each other out.
Trouble was, if he was to have any chance of lasting that long, he would have to find food and living in the concrete jungle that was District 3 had left him ill-prepared for wilderness survival. Not that he hadn't tried to prepare - he'd spent time at the edible plants station back at the Training Centre, learning how to identify what could and couldn't be eaten safely - but there were still several gaps in his knowledge. Shortly after the cannons sounded, he'd found a berry bush and tried to eat some of the berries, only to find they tasted so bitter that he spat them out immediately. Afterwards, he had dashed to a nearby pond and spent the next few minutes gulping down water, which he scooped up in his cupped hands, in a bid to rid himself of the taste of the berries. As he did so, the words of the edible plants instructor echoed in his mind.
"If something tastes bad, it's probably poisonous and that means you should steer clear of it in future. But it's much safer to stick with plants you know are safe to eat."
Sound advice, but his experience with the berries had left Digit wary of trusting any of the plants in the arena. And that meant he hadn't eaten anything since he'd had breakfast on the hovercraft which had brought him here several hours ago. His stomach growled as he thought of all the fancy dishes he'd sampled during his time in the Capitol. A rich fish stew. A whole roast quail all to himself. A three-tier cake covered in whipped cream and decorated with strawberries . . .
"Stop it!" he told himself. "Thinking about Capitol food won't help you. Besides, there's plenty of ponds about, so at least you won't die of thirst."
But he would die of starvation if he didn't take a chance with the local plant life. Unless Beetee had managed to get him some decent sponsors who would stump up the price of a few gifts of food to be sent to him in the arena; even a packet of dried fruit would be better than nothing. He sat down on the ground and looked up at the sky, hoping against hope that a silver parachute would descend towards him, but no parachute appeared. What did appear were six of the other tributes.
Hearing a movement behind him, Digit turned to see Lupus from District 2 coming towards him with a mace in his hand, followed by the other Careers, all of whom were armed. The District 1 tributes, Dazzle and Garnet, were carrying swords. Lupus's district partner, Bellona, had what looked like a cross between a spear and an axe. And Salacia and Fathom from District 4 both wielded tridents. All six had their weapons poised to attack, their faces set into the hard, unsmiling expression of someone who means business. And Digit needed no-one to tell him what business they had in mind. Knowing he wouldn't stand a chance against the entire Career pack even with a weapon, and it wasn't like he could replicate the trap Beetee had used to win his Games, he scrambled to his feet and tried to make a run for it, but they were too quick for him.
"Going somewhere?" Lupus asked, as he and the other Careers fanned out in a circle around their quarry.
"Look, you guys," Digit said as he looked from one Career to another, trying to control the tremor in his voice, "I - I don't think you really want to d - do this. So w- why don't you just l - let me go and . . .?" Before he could finish his sentence, Salacia hurled her trident, catching him right in the stomach; he looked down at the three-pronged spear protruding from his middle, an expression of mute disbelief on his face as his life flashed before his eyes.
He was three years old, in the Justice Building with his parents, his sister, Ada, and a boy he barely remembered. His brother, Turing, who had been a tribute in the Fifty-seventh Hunger Games and had been one of nine kids to die in the bloodbath that year. At the time, Digit had not really understood what the Hunger Games were; he knew Turing was going away for a while, but not why everyone was so sad about it. Even when Turing returned to District 3 lying lifeless in a wooden box, he'd thought his brother was going to wake up soon and all would be as it had been before. In the end, his mother had to explain that Turing was never going to wake up, that he was like a machine which had been so badly damaged it would never work again. His first experience of death.
He was not quite four years old, sitting on a platform in front of a stage with his parents, Ada and baby sister, Sparky, who had been born only a few weeks before. A man, a woman and a teenaged girl, the family of Turing's district partner, Poly, sat nearby, though none of them looked like they wanted to be there and neither did the boy who was standing on the stage, thanking the people of District 3. His name was Consus; he came from District 9 and was the victor of the Fifty-seventh Games, but he didn't look happy about it. Digit had asked his father about this; his father's reply had been that Consus must feel bad because he was alive and twenty-three other kids, including Poly and Turing, weren't. Something called "survivor guilt", not that Digit had understood what that meant at the time.
He was seven years old, standing with his mother and sisters at the funeral of his father, who had died in an accident at the factory where he'd worked. Conditions in the factories which dominated District 3 were at best poor, at worst downright dangerous; the Capitol cared more about getting all the gadgets they produced to its wealthy citizens than the welfare of the people who made those gadgets. Digit's father had been electrocuted when he'd touched a part of a machine which turned out to be live, but which had no warning sign displayed. Fried, just like Beetee had fried those kids in order to win his Games.
He was ten years old, about to begin an after school job at another of 3's many factories. Ada, who was sixteen at the time, had been working at the same factory for the past three years, having taken a position there shortly after their father died. She'd had to; their mother couldn't afford to feed a family of four on her wage alone and the only alternative to the factories was taking out tesserae, which the Emerson children had been forbidden to do. Their mother had no wish to see them increase their risk of ending up in the arena, not after what had happened to Turing. But even with Ada bringing in an extra pay packet, the family had struggled, so Digit had sought part-time employment as soon as he was old enough.
He was twelve years old, standing behind the ropes at his first reaping, hoping desperately that his name would not be called. District 3's escort, Gabriella, had already drawn the name of the district's girl tribute and, having asked (without success) for volunteers, was reaching into the boys' reaping ball. She pulled out a slip of paper and, returning to the microphone in the middle of the stage, unfolded it and read out the name written on it. Digit, who had been holding his breath without realising, exhaled with relief when she called another boy's name, but it was immediately replaced by a feeling of pity as the owner of that name took his place on the stage. By now, he knew only too well what being reaped meant.
He was fourteen years old, in the same room where he had said goodbye to Turing eleven years earlier. Except, this time, he was the tribute and the people saying goodbye were his mother and ten-year-old Sparky, Ada and her husband, Gyro, having already been in to see him. He tried to put a brave face on things, assuring them that he would be all right, that he would come back alive and they could all go and live in District 3's Victors' Village, but he knew the odds were against him. There hadn't been a District 3 victor for twenty years.
He was . . .
The sound of the cannon booming out across the arena roused Dyson from a restless sleep. Pleat had haunted his dreams from the moment he turned in and Astra took his place on watch; he kept reliving the moment when he had slashed her throat with the machete that was now tucked into his belt, kept seeing the gaping wound in her neck. A wound which he had inflicted. He had killed her and, though he kept reminding himself that she had been out to kill him, it made little difference. He had taken away her life and he doubted he would ever come to terms with what he had done, not that it mattered when the odds were that he too would be dead soon.
Dead like the tribute whose cannon had just sounded. He had no way of knowing who it was, just that it was unlikely to be a Career at this early stage in the Games. More likely it was a Career who had done the killing and that meant the pack was out there, hunting down their fellow tributes and picking them off one by one. Any of them could be next, including himself, including Astra.
He glanced across at his district partner, sitting on the ground just outside the rocky outcrop beneath which they had made camp, a thirteen-year-old girl barely visible in the moonlight. At least her sleep had been untroubled; she hadn't killed anyone, so no dead tributes haunted her dreams, not yet anyway. He, on the other hand, would have to live what he had done to Pleat for the rest of his life, which might not be very long in his current situation. But, if he managed to survive the Games, he would never be able to escape the memory unless he turned to drink or drugs like so many other victors. Six months after the Games, he would be taken on a tour of the districts, at which he would come face to face with the families of the dead tributes, including Pleat's. And, from then on, he would be expected to do his share of mentoring, which meant he would have to return to the Capitol every year until he died, or until something happened which made him unfit to continue as a mentor.
He shook his head. He was a long way from being a victor, so there was no sense in thinking about what came after. Besides, the odds were against him lasting that long; there were fourteen other tributes, not including Astra, out there and nearly half of them were the Careers. The pets of the Capitol. Kids who had been raised with the expectation that they would one day compete in the Games, who could kill without it troubling their conscience. If he and Astra came up against the pack, they wouldn't stand a chance. Six highly trained fighters against a couple of kids from District 5, one of whom had killed for the first time only that morning while the other had never killed at all? No contest.
Almost without thinking about it, he reached up and touched the crescent moon pendant he wore round his neck. The pendant Paula had given him before he left for the Capitol. It gave him a sense of connection to her and to the outside world, reminding him that both were still out there, that, dead or alive, he would get out of the arena.
"Way to go!"
"You speared him just like a fish!"
"Only another ten to go!"
The Careers were gathered around Salacia, patting her on the back and congratulating her on a job well done. It had taken them nearly all night, but they'd eventually spotted one of the other tributes. The boy from District 3, not that it mattered to them where he came from; they were looking for a kill and he was the perfect sitting target. Especially since he didn't seem to have any supplies, let alone any weapons. It had only taken a matter of moments for them to circle around him, preventing him from escaping, and then Salacia had thrown her trident. After that, it wasn't long before it was all over. The boy collapsing to the ground with the trident buried up to its prongs in his stomach. His body jerking in its death throes, then going still. The cannon firing.
Salacia looked down at the body of the boy she had killed, her face betraying no emotion. She was no more concerned about having taken his life than she was about the shoals of fish which the people of District 4 netted, hauled out of the sea and delivered to the processing plants to be gutted and packed for delivery to the Capitol. These were the Hunger Games, she was a tribute from a Career district and she was prepared to kill anyone who stood between her and victory, even if it happened to be Fathom, her district partner. Especially if he called her Sal again . . .
"Come on," Dazzle said after a while. "We'd better get out of here - they'll be wanting to retrieve the body."
"OK," said Salacia. "Just let me get my trident first." With that, she took hold of the shaft and, grunting with the effort, pulled the weapon free from the boy's belly, leaving three parallel holes in his jacket. There wasn't much blood, but that was deceptive; it was the internal injuries inflicted by the trident which had killed him. Judging by the smell, she had perforated his intestines.
Once Salacia had retrieved her trident, she and the other Careers turned their backs on their victim and walked away from the scene. None of them looked back as one of the Capitol's hovercraft appeared as if from nowhere and a claw dipped down, lifting up the body of the eighth tribute to die in the Sixty-eighth Hunger Games and removing him from the arena.
The next morning, after breakfasting on crackers and beef jerky, Astra and Dyson prepared to break camp. It was too risky to stay in one place for too long with the Careers out there. There was no telling where the pack was; they could be on the other side of the arena, or they could be nearby. Not to mention that some of the other tributes would also be prepared to kill, if only to keep themselves alive for a little longer. So, rather than risk being found by potential enemies, Astra and Dyson packed up and moved on, determined to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the others. Especially the Careers.
"Whose cannon do you think we heard last night?" Astra asked as she and Dyson headed in the direction of a stand of trees that looked like it might provide them with shelter, at least for a while. There was no way they would be allowed to stay there indefinitely, though; the Gamemakers were bound to force them to move sooner or later, which would almost certainly drive them into the path of their fellow tributes. Still, this was only the second day and eight tributes had been killed already, so the Capitol audience's bloodlust should have been satisfied - for now. It was when the Games started to drag on that the Gamemakers unleashed their bag of tricks on the tributes.
"Probably not a Career. Other than that . . ." Dyson shrugged, unable to give a more precise answer. "We'll find out when whoever it was appears in the sky tonight." Assuming he and Astra didn't get killed between now and the death recap, but he tried not to think about that. They might be trapped in a deadly game which only one player could survive, but they were not dead yet.
"Wait!" Astra said suddenly, cupping her hand behind her ear. "What was that?"
"What was what?"
"I don't know - I thought I heard something. It came from over there." She pointed in the general direction she and Dyson were heading, but slightly to the east.
Following her lead, Dyson cupped his hand behind his ear and listened. Seconds later, he picked up a faint moan, the sound of a human in pain. And since the only people in the arena were the sixteen remaining tributes, it had to be one of them. Whichever tribute it was, it sounded like they were hurt, badly - unless they were feigning injury in order to lure their fellow tributes into a trap, a strategy which had been used in the Games before. On the other hand, there was always a chance, no matter how slim, that the tribute was genuinely in trouble, in which case they presented Dyson with a dilemma. Should he ignore them or try to help them, even though he knew they might end up killing him later?
"Help . . . me . . ."
Those two barely audible words were what finally decided the matter. Hunger Games or no Hunger Games, Dyson could not allow another human being to suffer. He had his first aid kit, so maybe he would be able to patch up the tribute's injuries in order to buy them some more time, not that this changed the fact that only one tribute would get out of here alive. Besides, after what he'd done to Pleat, he didn't want another death on his conscience. Not yet, anyway.
"Come on," he told Astra. And, with that, the tributes from District 5 veered off the path they had been on, heading in the direction of the moans.
It was Dyson who spotted him first. Linus from District 8, lying on the ground, his exposed skin covered in bright red blisters, his eyes almost swollen shut. Faint moans escaped from his mouth, but he showed no other signs of life and there was no telling how long he had been in this state. He could have been lying here all night, or whatever had caused this could have happened a few minutes ago. Either way, there was no way a tribute could have inflicted such injuries with the weapons they'd been provided at the Cornucopia; it had to be the Gamemakers' doing. A trap or some new kind of mutt, not that it mattered. From the look of it, District 8 would soon be out of the running.
"Help . . . me . . ." Linus was clearly in so much pain that he could barely get the words out.
Dyson moved closer to him and knelt down to examine him, not that there was much he, or anyone else, could do. Linus's injuries looked as though they were beyond even the Capitol's best medical experts to heal, which was probably the intention. These were the Hunger Games after all and, while the Capitol preferred to see the tributes killing each other, the Gamemakers weren't above rigging up a few nasty little surprises in the arena. Such as whatever had done this to Linus.
"What happened?" It was Astra who had spoken. She had joined her district partner and both of them were looking down at the dying boy who lay, barely recognisible as human, on the ground. The blistered skin, the swollen eyelids, the cracked lips . . . The sight of him made her feel physically sick; it took all her willpower for her to hang on to her breakfast.
"Bird mutt . . . got . . . me . . ." Linus choked out. "Sprayed . . . acid . . . from . . . its beak . . . Burns . . . Made it . . . this . . . far . . . Help . . . me . . ."
Astra and Dyson exchanged glances, knowing what they had to do, knowing there was only one thing that could help Linus. It was the last thing either of them wanted to do, especially Dyson, but it had to be done. If Linus was left like this, he could suffer a lingering, agonising death; it was better to put him out of his misery now. So, telling himself that this was a completely different scenario from when he'd killed Pleat, Dyson pulled out his machete and, with one quick movement, severed Linus's carotid artery.
The moment the cannon fired, Astra and Dyson withdrew, leaving District 8's male tribute lying dead on the ground. They knew the Gamemakers wouldn't move in to collect the body as long as there were any living tributes in the immediate vicinity. And besides the acid-spraying bird Linus had mentioned might still be nearby.
