Chapter Sixteen

For the fourteenth time since the Games began, the anthem started to play and the Capitol seal was projected over the arena, marking the end of another day. Dyson, sheltering in a small cave, watched as the seal in the sky was replaced by Synthia's face; since she was . . . had been from District 3, he needed no-one to tell him the tributes from 1 and 2 were still alive. Which meant Bellona must have defeated Fathom, defeated and killed him. Seconds later, Synthia faded from the sky and Fathom took her place, confirming what Dyson already knew. With no more cannons having sounded that day, the seal then reappeared, hovering over the arena to mark the end of the death recap.

As the seal faded from the sky, Dyson thought about the implications of what he had seen at the "feast". The Careers were beginning to turn on each other, as they always did at this stage in the Games. With most of the tributes from the other nine districts dead, there was no need for them to keep up even a pretence of being a team, so allies became enemies, ready to attack each other, even kill each other. Just as Bellona had killed Fathom, a boy she had chatted with in the Training Centre as though they were old friends. But alliances counted for nothing when the Games were down to the final five, which meant any of the Careers could kill any of the others at any time, though the pack usually held together just long enough for its members to eliminate any remaining non-Careers.

Any remaining non-Careers. Apart from the tributes from Districts 1 and 2, there was only himself and Valerie from District 9 left now. A boy from the district which generated power for Panem and a girl from the district which grew the nation's grain. For a moment, he considered trying to find Valerie and team up with her to take Dazzle, Bellona and Lupus down, but he quickly dismissed the idea. Forming an alliance early in the Games was one thing, but, at this late stage, any tributes who were still alive would be keyed up to the point where they were prepared to kill on sight. It would be safer if he stayed away from his fellow tributes and waited for them to wipe each other out.

Trouble was, the Gamemakers probably wouldn't allow him to do that. Sooner or later, and with so few tributes left in the arena it would probably be sooner, they were bound to unleash something which forced everyone into the same area. Attending the "feast" had been optional, but dodging a fire, or a flood, or whatever the Gamemakers had planned would not be a matter of choice if he wanted to stay alive. Which meant he would have to be ready for a fight which could come at any moment against between one and four opponents, three of whom had spent their lives training for the arena. And he would have to be ready to kill if he wanted to get out of here alive.

He gripped his machete, the blade of which had already been stained with the blood of three other tributes. And it could soon be stained with the blood of at least one more.


Valerie did not doubt that she had taken the right decision when she chose not to attend the "feast". She'd seen what happened to tributes who, drawn by the promise of extra food, showed up at the Cornucopia, only to be attacked by the entire Career pack, or whatever was left of it. Every time the Games included a "feast", there had always been at least one fatality and this time had been no exception. She'd heard two cannons go off within minutes of each other and guessed something must have happened at the Cornucopia, something which had led to the deaths of two more tributes. And, had she been at the "feast", one of those cannons might well have been for her.

Instead, she was alive, for now at least. And, she thought as she watched Synthia and Fathom's faces appear in the sky, if she wanted to stay alive she had better come up with some kind of plan. Earlier in the Games, she, Xylon and Glean had planned to set an ambush, but that wouldn't work now that her allies were dead and she was alone. Which meant . . .

A sudden movement around the edge of her camp startled her. Who, or what, was it? A wild animal? One of the Gamemakers' mutts? A human being? If it was the latter, it could only be one of her fellow tributes and that meant she was in big trouble, especially if it was a Career. She knew how bloodthirsty the tributes from 1, 2 and 4 could be, especially those who made it to this late stage in the Games. And now one of them could be right outside her camp, ready to kill her if they got the chance. Well, she wasn't going to give them that chance if she could help it. She jumped to her feet and, leaving everything except the sickle she carried in her belt behind, began to run.

But she didn't get far before she found herself looking into Dazzle's eyes as the District 1 girl brandished a sword in front of her face. "Going somewhere?" Dazzle asked, a dangerous edge to her voice. "How come you weren't at the Cornucopia earlier?"

"That's none of your business," Valerie said with more bravado than she felt, her hand on the handle of her sickle. She pulled her weapon out of her belt and stood ready to defend herself. Even if she couldn't win against Dazzle, she was determined not to go down without a fight.

"Well, I was hoping to see you there; you'd have seen some real action, like when I killed that girl from 3 . . ." Dazzle suddenly lunged with her sword. "Just like I'm going to kill you!"

Valerie dodged to one side and came at Dazzle with her sickle, the curved blade glinting in the moonlight as she swung it at her opponent. More by luck than judgement, she managed to stab Dazzle right in the eye, inflicting the same kind of injury that had half-blinded Thalia, District 9's second Hunger Games victor, who had worn a patch over her missing left eye ever since. Dazzle screamed in agony as Valerie pulled her sickle out of her eye and, in too much pain to focus on anything else, attempted to stem the flow of blood pouring from the socket. Valerie felt physically sick at the sight of the horrific wound she had inflicted, but she forced down the bile which rose in her throat. She must take advantage of the fact that Dazzle was injured and finish her off. Kill or be killed.

Moving behind Dazzle, Valerie pressed the curved edge of her sickle against her opponent's throat and, with a quick jerk, sliced it open; Dazzle fell to the ground, where she quickly expired with a horrible gurgling sound as she choked on her own blood. For the twentieth time since the tributes were launched into the arena, the cannon sounded. District 1 would not be getting another victor, not this year. But, before Valerie had time to process the fact that she had killed another human being, she suddenly fell on top of Dazzle's corpse as the axe from Bellona's halberd sliced through her neck, nearly severing her head. She had been so focused on Dazzle that she had failed to notice the tributes from District 2 coming up behind her.

The cannon fired again, but it only confirmed what Bellona and Lupus already knew. All the tributes were dead apart from themselves and the District 5 boy, the kid who'd only scored a three in training. Neither of them could figure out how he was still alive when most tributes who did as badly as him would have long since gone home in a wooden box, but they vowed he wouldn't stay that way much longer. They were going to find him and kill him, leaving the two of them to fight it out for the victor's crown. Bellona versus Lupus. One way or the other, District 2 was going to win the Sixty-eighth Hunger Games.

As he and Bellona walked away from the bodies of the girls from Districts 1 and 9, Lupus threw back his head and gave his uncannily accurate imitation of a wolf's howl.


Dyson had been dozing lightly, not daring to fall into a deeper sleep when the finale could come at any moment, when the boom of the cannon jolted him awake. Another dead tribute - that meant twenty had fallen since the Games began. Just four now remained, at least two of whom were the remaining members of the Career pack. But how had the tribute whose cannon had just sounded died? Was Bellona finishing what she had started when she killed Fathom at the Cornucopia? Or had one of the other tributes been responsible? Or was it something else, such as mutts or a Gamemakers' trap?

The cannon fired again. Dyson recalled how, when his name was called at the reaping, he had not expected to last very long in the arena. Yet here he was, still alive after two weeks, in the final three. If he could outlast two more opponents, he would be able to return to District 5 as their fourth Hunger Games victor, to see his friends and family again. But he had no way of knowing who the other two surviving tributes were; if either of them was from District 2, getting out of here alive could be easier said than done.

The words he had said to Tia after the reaping echoed in his mind. "You just have to do your best." Well, he'd made it this far and now he was going to do his best to go even further. He was going to do his best to survive, even if the odds weren't exactly in his favour. At the very least, he vowed as he tightened his grip on his machete, he was going to make sure he gave the tribute who eliminated him from the Games something to remember him by.

Especially if whoever it was went on to win.


"And so we have our final three - Bellona Maynard and Lupus Hendrix from District 2 and Dyson Kinsella from District 5. What's the verdict, Caesar? Are we going to see an all District 2 finale?" Claudius asked his co-host as first Dazzle, then Valerie disappeared from the gallery of tributes.

"It's too early to say," replied Caesar, taking a sip of water from the glass on the table beside him. "Obviously, the odds are in favour of such a scenario, but I have a feeling young Dyson could surprise us all. After all, who would have predicted two weeks ago that a boy who scored a three in training would make it past the bloodbath, much less still be alive this late in the Games?"

"Well, I certainly wouldn't. And I don't think our viewers would either, which just goes to show the twists the Hunger Games can throw up." Claudius thought back over the nearly thirty years he had been commentating on the Games, recalling how several tributes who'd looked like they wouldn't do very well had proved everyone wrong once they were in the arena. Like Norma, a tribute from District 6, who'd won the Forty-sixth Games at the age of fourteen. No-one had expected her to last more than a few days, but she'd scavenged a large shard of broken glass from one of the derelict buildings which made up that year's arena and she'd used it to devastating effect, luring her fellow tributes towards herself, then slashing them to death with her makeshift weapon. Fortunately, she'd managed to obtain a pair of thick gloves at the Cornucopia, so there was no danger of her cutting herself on the glass. In the end, it came down to her and the tributes from District 1, Marquise and Plush; when the latter two turned on each other, she was hiding in one of the buildings, watching as they fought it out until Marquise succeeded in killing her district partner. At that point, Norma emerged from the building and, while Marquise was kneeling beside Plush's body, stabbed the District 1 girl in the back of the neck with the shard of glass, becoming the youngest female victor in the history of the Games.

Now the Games had once more come down to two tributes from the same Career district and a third tribute from one of the outlying districts. Like Norma, Dyson was the youngest tribute in the final three, being fifteen years old to Bellona's seventeen and Lupus's eighteen. Could history be about to repeat itself? Perhaps, but Dyson hadn't shown the same killer instinct as Norma; he'd made only three kills since arriving in the arena and two of those had been mercy kills. Norma, on the other hand, had killed six tributes, including Marquise, and she'd done it without hesitation.

Claudius quickly dismissed Norma from his mind; thinking about a girl who'd won the Games more than twenty years ago wouldn't determine the outcome of this year's Games. Instead, he urged those watching in the Capitol to hurry up and place their bets on who would emerge as victor out of Bellona, Lupus and Dyson. "That's right, one of these brave young people is going to bring glory to their district! Are we going to see another victor for District 2? Or is District 5 going to have its first victor in twenty-six years? This is your chance to get rich quick!"

Of course, most people in the Capitol were filthy rich already, but they were prepared to do pretty much anything to increase their wealth even further. Including gambling on the lives of kids from the districts.


"All right, let's move out."

It was Lupus who said this as he and Bellona finished their breakfast of granola bars and water. Something told him this was the last breakfast they would eat in the arena; for one of them, it would be the last breakfast they ever ate. Indeed, with only three tributes left, the Games would almost certainly reach their conclusion within the next twenty-four hours. Two more dead tributes and the survivor would be whisked away from the arena to begin their life as a victor.

However, he refused to consider any scenario where anyone other than himself or Bellona won these Games. They'd both volunteered for the glory of becoming District 2's fifteenth Hunger Games victor and they'd managed to outlive all the tributes except the District 5 boy - and each other. He and Bellona both knew that meant one of them would probably have to kill the other, but they'd been prepared for that from the start. After all, the Games had come down to a showdown between the tributes from District 2 on previous occasions, such as when Lupus's mentor, Brutus, won his Games. He and his district partner, Minerva, had fought alongside each other for nearly two weeks, but when they were the only tributes left alive, he had not hesitated to run her through with his sword. This, plus the fact that Brutus had killed eight other tributes, including three of his fellow Careers, had earned him a reputation for ruthlessness, a reputation many of the tributes he mentored were keen to emulate.

Including Lupus. He might not have made as many kills as Brutus, but those he had made had been executed without mercy and he'd celebrated each one with his imitation of a wolf's howl. At the Cornucopia on the first day, he'd taken out Axle from 6 and Mallow from 11, before he and Garnet teamed up to bring down Cormac from 12, whom the Careers had decided was the biggest threat among the non-Careers because, unlike most tributes from the mining district, he actually looked like serious competition. And then there was Glean from 9, whose skull Lupus had bashed in a few days earlier after he and Bellona chanced upon him. That made four deaths for which he would receive at least partial credit and he was going to add Bellona to his list of kills - or die in the attempt.

But first Dyson, not that he cared what the last surviving non-Career was called. All he cared about was making sure a tribute from an outlying district didn't win the Games and that meant he and Bellona would have to work together to eliminate Dyson before the final showdown. Which should be easy enough for either one of them, but he wanted to make sure they had the advantage in terms of numbers.

He and Bellona gathered up their weapons and set off in search of their prey. In search of Dyson.


By late afternoon, there was still no sign of Dyson and Bellona and Lupus were growing impatient. They knew he was out there in the vast expanse of moorland that formed this year's arena and they meant to find him and kill him before they fought it out for the crown. Trouble was, it was a large arena and Dyson could be anywhere within it.

"I bet he's hiding from us," Bellona muttered as she and Lupus trudged over the moor, keeping a constant watch for any sign of their last remaining opponent. So far, they had seen no-one except each other, but they knew Dyson was out there and they knew they would find him sooner or later. And, when they did, they would make sure he didn't get out of here alive; no kid from District 5 was going to beat them, especially one who had only scored a three in training.

"Yeah, he must knows his time's nearly up," said Lupus. "Probably thinks he'll outlast us if he hunkers down in whatever hole he's found. If so, he's very much mistaken. Because we're gonna find him and then . . ." Rather than completing the last sentence, he made a throat-slitting gesture, then threw back his head as he gave his signature wolf howl.

"And how are we going to find him?" Bellona countered. "Because we've been looking all day! The death recap'll been starting in a couple hours - and I want to see District 5's face up there!" She glanced at the sky, imagining Dyson's image being projected over the arena, along with those of Dazzle and Valerie. And how had a kid who'd done so badly in his private session that the Gamemakers awarded him the lowest score out of all this year's tributes lasted this long anyway? Was he hiding something? Bellona didn't know and frankly she didn't care. Her only thought where Dyson was concerned was that he was not going to last much longer; she and Lupus were going to see to that. Just as soon as they found him . . .

"I expect the Gamemakers will unleash their bag of tricks," Lupus replied. "They'll flush him out and . . ." He broke off abruptly as Bellona suddenly cried out and turned to see her slapping at thin air, as though she was pounding on a pane of glass. Except there couldn't be any panes of glass here. "Bellona?" There was an edge to Lupus's voice that was rarely heard in a Career tribute, especially a boy from District 2 who had made the final three. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know!" Bellona continued pounding away at nothing. "There's an invisible barrier - I walked right into it!"

"Try going around it," Lupus suggested, trying to remain calm as it dawned on him what had just happened. An invisible barrier in the middle of a Hunger Games arena could only be a Gamemakers' trap, a trap which his district partner had just triggered.

Bellona tried to follow Lupus's advice, attempting to go left, then right, then back the way she had come. But, no matter which direction she turned, the barrier was in the way. And, though she and Lupus tried using their weapons to break through it, they only bounced right off; the barrier was impervious to all forms of attack and could only be deactivated by the Gamemakers, which they wouldn't do until . . . Bellona barely had time to realise she was doomed before green smoke began to drift up from the ground at her feet. She coughed as the smoke entered her lungs and, as it continued to engulf her, fell to her knees, gasping for air as tears rolled down her face, tears brought about mostly by the fact that the smoke was irritating her eyes, but also by the hopelessness of her situation. She'd been prepared to face death at the hands of a fellow tribute, even a mutt, had promised herself she would be brave if and when the time came when it was clear that she would not be getting out the arena alive. But she hadn't been prepared for a scenario in which she was trapped and being gassed to death. She tried to call out for help, only to find that the gas had affected her throat and she could only produce a strangled croak, which ended up being the last sound she ever made.

Lupus could only stand by helplessly as his district partner was enveloped in green smoke and began gasping her life out. This wasn't how it was meant to end; he and Bellona were supposed to face off against each other for the crown, which wasn't going to happen now, thanks to whoever had devised this trap. But there was nothing he could do, no way he could break through the barriers and get her out, even though he would only be saving her so they could fight it out in the final two, a fight which would end in the death of one of them. All he could do was watch as she struggled to speak, before her gasps ceased, she went still and the cannon fired.

Lupus did not look back as he walked away from the scene, not even to watch as the hovercraft retrieved Bellona's body. He kept moving forward, his mind focused on finding somewhere he could rest and wait for the finale. It was just him and Dyson now and, while he would have preferred to have the advantage of numbers Bellona would have given him, he was sure he would be able to take down a kid from District 5 easily.

Soon, he told himself, District 2 was going to have another victor.


Dyson had spent the day in the cave where he had taken shelter the previous night, preparing himself for what lay ahead. Having heard two cannons shortly after the death recap, he knew only three tributes remained, including himself. Which meant the Gamemakers could trigger the final showdown at any time within the next twenty-four hours. So he dared not relax, even when hours passed with nothing happening apart from the cannon going off in the afternoon. Two tributes left, himself and one other whose identity he would learn when he saw the faces of the three most recent fatalities in the sky.

As the sun set, he ate some of the bread and one of the apples he'd obtained at the "feast" and drank some of his water. While he was drinking, the anthem began to play and the seal appeared over the arena, followed by the images of first Dazzle, then Bellona, then Valerie, before the seal reappeared for the end of the anthem. Which, he realised as the seal faded from the sky, meant only one thing.

The Sixty-eighth Hunger Games had come down to himself and Lupus.