Ever Fellows
There were two ways this could go. There had only ever been two ways. Two possibilities, as different as the two Tributes they led to. One was a trained killer who spent her entire life planning and preparing for this day. She saw everyone else as nothing but targets and had long ago abandoned empathy and fraternity. She lay awake at night looking forward to this day and counting the seconds until it was time. The other was a girl from a land of forests and plants. She spent her days working and her few free moments playing with an old knife in her backyard. She lay awake at night looking forward to this day and wishing she could hold the seconds in place.
Twenty-four Tributes were still on their platforms as a timer counted down one last time. Life and death spread out before us in a golden horn. My eyes went from one platform to another, discarding what I saw until I got to her. Venus wasn't looking back at me. For all she was to me, I was nothing to her. Her finely-tuned mind and eagle-sharp eyes were focused on the band of glittering knives we both needed. With them, we were unstoppable. Without them, we were nothing.
When I took my eyes off Venus, I saw the knives in the center of the circle. A long black band was draped across a table of weapons, part of it dangling in the open air. Six light, balanced knives were tucked into the thick material. My knife at home had never been anything but a toy. It was a lump of metal I threw at a stump because I didn't have any other toys. I never thought I would want a knife so hard or so look forward to the security of knowing I could throw it into another child's head if I wanted. It frightened me how deeply I lusted after half a dozen knives.
There were other things in the Cornucopia as well. There was a spear for the boy from One. A coiled whip for the girl who told the Gamemakers she knew how to use it. Any of those, even the knives, could be my death. It would be suicide not to run in, but the opposite might be suicide as well. If one of us died, the Games would be decided right there. Either of us might die in a second from a perfunctory shot from another Tribute who saw both of us as nothing but targets.
The timer sounded. I would have jumped, but my legs acted before my brain. I ran toward the Cornucopia, and I saw Venus in the corner of my eye. The mud slowed us both, and the water foamed around me as I tore through it. When the mud hardened into dirt under my feet, I leaned forward and focused all my momentum on a path that led me straight into the heart of danger.
I was going too fast to slow down, and I smashed into the table when I reached it. I grabbed the belt even as the pain flashed through my bruised hip. Venus was still a blur in my peripheral vision. I tore out a knife and turned as she reached me. She tried to pull it away from me, and I dropped the knife and yanked the belt with both hands. She stumbled forward a step, and I yanked a knife out of the slackened belt. I was so close I didn't have to throw, and I didn't have to worry about it bouncing off her ribs. I stuck the knife into her heart. I expected her to drop the belt or back away, but she stepped forward to strike back. I pushed the handle of the knife away from me with the flat of my hand, driving it deeper and knocking her backwards enough that she fell. I left the knife still in her and ran off with the other five, checking over my shoulder to confirm what I couldn't believe.
The Games were decided.