Author's Note

I do not own The Hunger Games.


Nothing.

He'd heard nothing of her.

Luciente hadn't even howled last night or this morning.

Hyperion stretched out and took a long drink from his canteen. He knew she wasn't dead at least. No cannons. No deaths on the first day, not that that was unusual. The Gamemakers would often give tributes a day to acclimatise before things started to happen.

But now the grace period was gone, he needed to find her.

He knew she was close – somewhere downstream, only downstream, and she'd wait for him – so all he had to do was get there.

Shelley was fishing again, and as he watched she dragged up something that was certainly not a fish, a length of glistening wet black something that writhed on her hook as she flung it onto the shore and leapt on top of it, slamming her branch down across its neck to try and crush it.

"What the fuck is that?"

"It's an eel! Don't just stand there; help me kill it!"

The eel continued to struggle under her.

It fought more than the fish at least.

Hyperion spun his spear around and drove it hard through the thing's head.

It gave one last stubborn thrash – and lay still.

The five of them studied it. He'd certainly never seen anything like it before.

"It looks like a snake," Azrayk said, looking puzzled.

He was right.

It did look kinda like a snake.

"We get them sometimes in Five. They're good eating."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Come on, help me hack it up and I'll prove it!"

Somehow, ridiculously, it turned into a competition between the three of them, overlooked by a bewildered looking Wylie and Arielle, over who could chop up their section of the eel the fastest and neatest. Shelley won, unsurprisingly, and skewered her chunks of eel on a sharpened stick. "We need to cook them."

The fire had long since been extinguished and gone cold, but they relit it now and got it roaring to cook the eel.

It all felt stupidly domestic as they sat around to try a piece.

Azrayk chewed thoughtfully on his. "What do you know? It is good."

Hyperion swallowed his own chunk of eel and frowned as he listened to the world around him. It felt quiet, suddenly, like the night before. A strange coldness crept over him. He snatched up his spear and got to his feet. Azrayk followed suite. There was no birdsong, no noise.

Hyperion peered into the trees. He could pick them out in the darkness, three large shapes, darker than darkness. He twitched his hand, tipping his head towards them, and then remembered a moment later Luciente wasn't with him.

They came crashing from the trees a heartbeat later.

The boy from One and the pair from Two, Hyperion recognised. The camp came alive around him, Shelley bouncing to her feet and Arielle lunging for Wylie. Azrayk snatched up his makeshift spear, while Shelley grabbed a branch and set it alight in the fire, whipping it in front of her like a burning blade. The boy from Two drew his fist back and swung for her, while the boy from One chased after Arielle and Wylie as they fled into the water.

The girl from Two lunged at Hyperion, wielding two wicked looking knives. "Where's your freak sister Ten?"

Hyperion knocked one of her swings aside with his spear, dodging aside.

"Did you lose her?"

He growled, ducking again as she swung at him.

"I'll tell her I killed you when I find her. And then I'll draw it out, make sure it lasts."

He roared, swinging the spear at her. It cracked into the side of her head and she stumbled, fell. He raised it to bring it down on her, only for the boy from One to intercede, forcing the spear tip away with his sword.

There was a sharp, shrill scream from Arielle.

A heavy splash followed it.

A cannon rang out.

The girl from Two scrambled to her feet.

The boy from One stood still, staring out into the stream.

Arielle continued to scream.

Hyperion tightened his grip on the spear, jerked it away from One's sword, and drove it through his chest.

Crimson blood spurted from the wound. The boy stumbled, staggered, grasping uselessly at the spear. The boy from Two sprinted towards them, grabbed his District partner's arm, and yanked her away into the trees as she screamed furiously.

"I'll see you soon Ten!" she roared.

Hyperion wrenched his spear from One's chest. His body slammed to the ground. He choked for air, spat out blood, and then lay still.

A cannon boomed.

For a moment they were all still, silent, except for Arielle, who was still howling. Wylie lay face down in the water by her knees, two large arrows protruding from his back.

Shelley snatched up her backpack. "We have to go."

"Wylie," Arielle whispered, reaching for his shoulder. "Wylie, Wylie."

"Let's move Six!" Azrayk hollered.

Hyperion looked at the boy at his feet. He had been scared when he killed their father, scared of what he'd done but more scared of being caught.

He wasn't scared.

He reached down to the boy and took the small backpack he'd been carrying, the knife at his waist and the sword, clipping them to his own belt.

"How comes you get all the weapons?" Shelley whined.

"Did you kill the bastard?"

"I might have done, if I'd had a sword."

"I killed him. I keep these." He looked over at Arielle. There was no way he was going to fetch her, but Luciente did like her so. "Six, you coming or not?"

Arielle dragged a hand across her eyes and slowly waded back to shore. Blood was splattered across her face and caught in her chestnut curls, but it was probably Wylie's rather than her own. Azrayk stomped out the fire. "Which way?"

"That way." Hyperion pointed downstream. Towards Luciente.

Shelley frowned, eyeing Wylie's corpse. "The water will be contaminated that way."

"Luciente's that way."

"And you know that how?"

"You don't have to come Five."

Shelley scowled, but she followed. Arielle cast one last look at Wylie's body bobbing in the water, and then did likewise.