Lucy spun half a strawberry on her fork, tracing the pink juice across her empty plate as the mentors' voices buzzed in the background.
Polly gave last minute tips and instructions, and Digory interjected whenever he could get a word in edgewise, but at this point they were just repeating themselves.
At least it was better than silence.
Caspian had barely spoken a word since last night, attempting a bit of casual levity at first before falling right back into himself, right back into that cavernous abyss where no light or sound escaped, his silence building in Lucy's chest, grating against her nerves like static. Not that she said much either, but she wished he would. Something. Anything.
Instead he glared at the tablecloth, black poison boiling just below the surface.
"Remember you'll want to find a water source as soon as possible," said Polly for what must have been the third time.
"But don't stick too close," added Digory, "Clean water is where you'll be most likely to meet other tributes."
Lucy nodded, hoping at least to give the impression she was listening. But no matter how positive a tone the mentors kept up, she couldn't help but feel the agonizing crawl of time as their last minutes in the Capitol ticked by, regretting more and more the three waffles she'd forced into her churning stomach.
How had one week as the Capitol's prisoner lulled her into such a false sense of security? As if she had any control over her own life? She'd only ever been trapped, just like she had been in the justice building, waiting for the peacekeepers to drag her away from the only home she'd ever known.
She tried to capture this image in her mind, Digory's scruffy white hair and the way his collar stuck up where it had come untucked, puffing on his pipe, peering over his spectacles at Polly's notebook as she swept pale yellow hair behind one ear and circled something, then erased, then pushed Digory's pipe away with a soft laugh before addressing another piece of advice to Caspian and Lucy.
Was this what it felt like to have parents?
She almost shook the thought away. Ridiculous. But even if it had only been their job to look out for her, they'd been kind, kinder than any adults had ever been. Smiles and warm words outweighed a hand-me-down orange kerchief any day, and it certainly wasn't what she'd expected from people who had won the Hunger Games, but if they could do it, maybe she could, too.
No sooner had the thought entered her head than Zardeenah strode into the room and announced, "They're waiting for you on the roof."
Lucy swallowed hard to keep her breakfast in place.
The mentors stood from the table, Polly gently closing her notebook with the pencil tucked inside. "You've got what you need?"
Lucy clutched the page folded inside her pocket and nodded sharply, pushing back her chair to follow.
Caspian stood and grabbed a wine bottle from the middle of the table, poured a splash into his glass and took the shot without so much as grimacing.
He slammed the glass back down and turned toward the elevator.
Lucy stared, mouth half open.
Even Polly and Digory never drank the Capitol's heavy-smelling wine without watering it down, and his blank expression made her insides squirm as she followed Zardeenah to the elevator.
She barely caught her last glimpse of the apartment, smooth marble and sparkling crystal, before the elevator shot up and they emerged a few moments later into the clear sunlight above the city. Two small hovercrafts waited for them in the middle of the flat grey roof, shining city sprawling out in every direction, but her stomach sank in spite of the breathtaking view.
Two hovercrafts meant she would be traveling alone.
"It's not so bad," said Polly, and Lucy turned to look at her.
So this is goodbye.
"You'll do just fine, you're a smart girl."
"Thank you." She wanted to say more but couldn't seem to come up with the right words.
Polly just smiled and pulled her into a tight hug, and Lucy longed for safety in the woman's embrace, burying her nose into the shoulder of her soft jacket and breathing in the faint vanilla perfume. But all too soon she pulled away and moved off to speak to Caspian, and Lucy found herself face to face with Digory.
How strange, to know him now, the twinkle behind his gold-rimmed spectacles so familiar when only a week ago he'd been nothing more than a passing thought as she huddled in the crawlspace behind his attic. In a way, he'd always been helping her survive.
"Good luck, dear girl." He offered a kind smile, and she returned it as best she could. Then he leaned in and lowered his voice. "Now, don't tell the boy, but my money's on you." He winked, and Lucy grinned involuntarily.
"You'd better get me lots of good sponsors, then."
Digory nodded, eyes still twinkling. "Already on it, my dear."
He squeezed her shoulder, and Zardeenah cut in to remind them of the time.
Four Capitol attendants appeared to escort them toward the hovercrafts. Lucy glanced over her shoulder, hair blowing in the rush of the engines as she reached up hurriedly to wave, and they both waved back.
And with a deep breath, she boarded the craft, glancing back as Caspian mounted his own vehicle, gears rumbling, ramp rising to block the rooftop from view.
Their eyes met for a split second, and a tiny jolt of electricity stabbed through her chest just before the ramp locked into place and everything went black.
Panic.
Was that what she'd seen reflected in his black depths? No, she had to be imagining it, projecting the suffocating pressure in her own chest as the hovercraft came alive beneath her feet and the city dropped away behind the single, small window.
A Capitol attendant swabbed her arm with some kind of disinfectant and the pinch of a syringe plunged into her forearm before she could pull away. "Your tracker," they said flatly, and disappeared through a sliding door that locked automatically behind them.
Lucy hissed a curse word under her breath and ran her thumb over the small, sore lump.
Two guards took their places on either side of the dull rectangular compartment, visors blank and impersonal.
She swallowed hard, clutched the page inside her pocket, and waited for the wave of nausea to pass before she moved carefully to sit at the small booth beside the window, the city already so far below she could barely make out the avenues and parks and city blocks, as if laid out on a tiny sparkly painting for a second before cloudy grey mountains overtook them.
The distant thread that was the train track disappeared into one side and came out the other, stretching off into scattered green countryside, and the world turned to blotches of green and grey, some patches darker where there must have been forests. Once she thought she caught a lake reflecting the pale blue of the sky, wild, empty land stretching out forever, until she almost couldn't believe the world was this big.
But dread still churned heavy inside her, cycling between visceral panic and a numb, empty fear, over and over until she thought she would go mad.
It would be fine if she could just talk to someone; Polly, Digory, Zardeenah. Even Caspian's stony silence would be better than this.
Maybe that wine had been a good idea after all.
Back home, she would have talked to Marjorie.
In another life.
The distant greenish world outside almost reminded her of the way the light used to dapple through the branches of their schoolyard tree, splashing patterns of green and yellow over Marjorie's round face and neatly pressed dress, while Lucy smoothed her own wrinkled skirt habitually under her fingers.
She could still smell the dry, sunbaked grass, and all at once that day flooded back to her, eyes darting around the schoolyard, knees tucked up defensively against her flat chest.
"What are you so jumpy for?" came Marjorie's voice, younger, but still perfectly clear in her head.
Lucy's eyes lingered on her classmates for another few moments before glancing at her friend. "It's just… I… left… last night."
"What?"
"I left. The home on 5th. I can't stand it there anymore. It's just so… so… much…" She couldn't say what she really meant, not to Marjorie, not to the girl who cried if she so much as mentioned blood. But Lucy didn't want to be the next girl stabbed in a fight she didn't start, or framed for smuggling drugs she didn't take. The girl yesterday… she'd only been a few years older than Lucy, hanging from the hook on the windowsill, electrical wire long since having turned her face blue.
"You left? Lucy, are you crazy? Where are you going to live?"
"I don't know," she whispered. October already nipped in the breeze, her whole body aching from a night spent shivering behind the dumpsters, and despite her best efforts in the school showers, she hadn't quite gotten the smell out of her hair.
She glanced around for the thousandth time, afraid one of the bigger girls would notice and report her for running away, not yet aware just how little any of them ever thought about her.
"Well, I can ask my parents if you can stay over tonight."
Lucy's eyes widened. "Really, Marj?"
"Just tonight," she clarified quickly, "I don't want them to think— I mean, you know how my parents feel about street people."
Lucy nodded, making a mental note to shower again before they left.
She opened her mouth to say thank you, but another voice cut in.
"Been digging through the trash, have we Pevensie?"
Anne Featherstone crossed her arms on the outskirts of the tree's shade, striking even at that age, yellow hair bound tightly into neat curls around her head, plush lips a sparkly pink.
"Mind your own business," snapped Lucy.
"How can I, with you looking like that? Spivvins said he could smell you across the classroom."
Lucy's hand went unconsciously to her hair, and Anne laughed.
"I don't know what's so funny," spat Lucy, but the blood was already rushing to her cheeks.
Anne's eyes flicked to Marjorie, and the smaller girl shrank back. "How can you stand to sit so close to her, Preston? Won't your parents wonder what kind of company you've been keeping?"
"You leave her out of it!" shouted Lucy, turning a few nearby heads.
"Why should I?"
"Because she hasn't done anything to you!"
"Her daddy works for my daddy," lilted Anne, that same old impish grin playing on her lips. "You don't have room to talk, Pevensie, your daddy's dead."
"You don't know that."
"So what, he abandoned you? That makes more sense, even your own parents couldn't stand you. The only reason your little friend sticks around is because nobody else will talk to her, isn't that right, Preston?"
Lucy stood so suddenly Anne actually took a step back.
"Stop it right now!"
"Or what? You'll hit me?"
Lucy didn't have time to think before her body moved on its own and lunged for Anne Featherstone.
The girl squeaked in surprise and shrieked as they both crashed to the ground, Lucy's knees slamming into dry dirt, a mess of limbs and hair and fingernails as the schoolyard erupted with shouting and movement.
Kids rushed in to pull them apart, hands grabbing at Lucy's arms and shoulders and yanking at her clothes until they hauled her off, lip bleeding, coppery warmth between her teeth, Anne's perfect curls frayed and loose, her cheek turning purple as she whimpered and blubbed and cowered behind her gang.
"What's all this about?" The teacher's sharp voice cut through the din, and someone kicked Lucy in the ribs so she gasped instead of answering.
"Lucy started it!" sobbed Anne, "She just jumped on me! I— I didn't even do anything!"
"Alright," said the woman as she reached them, "Calm down, girl. One of you lot, get her some ice. Lucy Pevensie. My office. Now."
Lucy cast a desperate glance at Marjorie, but the girl pressed herself back against the tree and said nothing. Her dark eyes flicked to the ground.
With a sigh, Lucy shoved herself to her feet, following the teacher across the yard, wiping the blood from her mouth on her already-stained sleeve.
It was a long time before she became presentable enough to sleep at the Prestons' again, though she learned a great deal that autumn about surviving on the cold, hard concrete of District Eight's back alleys.
The hovercraft window went dark and Lucy blinked.
How long had she been spacing out? She must be getting close to the arena, if they'd blacked out the glass.
She straightened and breathed a deep sigh, spine aching from poor posture as she tilted her head back and winced at the tension in her neck.
But still her thoughts lingered in District Eight, in the musty blueberry scent of the Prestons' sitting room, in the scratchy sofa, in the glass bottles of fizzy drinks Mrs Preston only broke out on very special occasions, in the faded patchwork quilt under which she and Marjorie had giggled and whispered about whatever cute upper class boy they'd glimpsed in the hallway that morning.
What would she do now, without Lucy there to stand up for her? Without anyone to talk to under their oak tree?
A lurch and a rumble snapped her back to reality as the hovercraft altered course to descend.
Her stomach flipped.
Why was she worrying about Marjorie Preston? She needed to take care of herself now, just like she'd always done. Nobody else was going to keep her alive, especially not that girl.
She sent you here, remember? Get it together.
The ship shuddered to a stop and settled, and the ramp hissed as it lowered into a dim, grey, cavernous area, lit only by exposed fluorescent bulbs.
She stood, and the pair of guards moved to flank her as they descended into the catacombs, huge and deserted save for a single attendant who took her page, scanned it through a machine that beeped once, and handed it back to her.
The guards walked without speaking, leading the way deeper and deeper into the strange underground maze, until they came to a door at the end of a long hallway and buzzed her through into a small, square, concrete room, containing nothing but a floor-to-ceiling glass cylinder in the far corner. And to Lucy's overwhelming relief, in the middle of the room holding a bundle of folded clothes, stood Emerald.
In that moment she could have hugged the woman.
Emerald smiled faintly and held out the bundle as the guards stepped out and shut the door. "Your uniform."
Lucy took a deep breath.
The stylist helped her out of her Capitol clothes and into the new ones: a thin, white tunic, grey pants, a simple black belt, black hiking boots, and a lightweight, grey weatherproof jacket.
Emerald made a few small comments like "These have sturdy grips, made for hiking," and "You'll likely get mild weather with this flimsy padding," at last tucking Lucy's page into an inside pocket and zipping it up.
Everything fit perfectly.
"There's no need to shake so, girl. Thousands have made this trip before you, and hundreds have come back."
Lucy clenched her muscles against the static trembling through her limbs, balling her hands into fists, but still her chest tightened.
"Emerald," she said abruptly, and the woman's sharp eyes flicked up to meet hers, expectant. "Have any of your tributes ever come back?"
Emerald gave a half smirk. "Why don't you become the first?"
Lucy swallowed, and then a tinny voice toned in over a small speaker in the wall.
"All tributes, prepare for launch."
Wide eyes snapped to Emerald, pleading, but the woman only nodded toward the glass cylinder, and it came into her head that if she didn't do it on her own, someone else would do it for her.
She glanced back at the bolted door, and moved, trembling, to stand on the metal plate in the corner, skin prickling with cold sweat.
The second she stepped inside, the cylinder closed around her and panic surged into her throat, lungs constricting, hand flying up to slap cold glass, bulletproof, suffocating.
Emerald moved her hand in front of her chest, motioning for Lucy to take a deep breath, and she tried, but her heart pounded, begging for oxygen, and then the platform hummed to life and began to rise, concrete room falling away beneath her.
Emerald's shiny green heels vanished into total darkness, the hollow metallic echo of her own gasps bouncing in a pitch black tunnel, heart racing on the verge of explosion, and then came a mechanical noise overhead and she burst out into blinding sunlight.
A cool breeze struck her face, crisp and dry with a hint of something almost tangy.
Pine.
"Ladies and gentlemen," boomed a voice from everywhere at once, reverberating in her bones, "Let the Two Hundred and Twenty Fifth Hunger Games begin!"
Lucy blinked, squinting in a bleak landscape as her heart pounded in her ears, drowning out the sixty second countdown that held the tributes to their platforms under pain of instant death.
Jagged grey stone stretched out eternally in all directions, gleaming white in her dazzled eyes save for the single wall of dark pine straight ahead. Broken square pillars stood at random intervals around the ring of platforms, giving the impression of a ruin, not a single blade of grass in sight, and the twenty four tributes formed a wide circle around a massive stone slab almost like a table, propped up on stone feet at each corner and piled with supplies and food and weapons: this year's cornucopia.
Pale metal glinted in the sunlight; the best weapons would be heaped atop the table itself, but scattered around it and spread further out lay supplies of varying quality, blankets and first aid kits and bags of bread and fishing rods.
"Don't get too greedy," came Polly's voice in her head, the morning's advice repeated for the thousandth time, "just grab something and get out. You're better off alive with nothing than dead with a perfect knife."
But a switch flipped inside her. She could run. She could get at least halfway to the table before turning back, halfway into the sea of potentially life-saving items scattered over sunbaked stone, practically already abandoned for the people who wouldn't even use them.
"I don't know," came another voice before she could pick a target, "I think Lucy should probably avoid knives altogether."
The half-hearted smirk came back just as clearly as it had that morning, and her head snapped up.
Caspian.
The countdown crashed in around her as her senses cleared, hurriedly scanning every tribute in the wide circle until her eyes locked onto him—a hundred yards away and backed by dark forest—on the exact opposite side of the cornucopia.
Yes, very helpful, thank you.
She cast a dry glance into the sky, into wherever the gamemakers were watching from.
Where were they watching from? Cameras in the pillars?
"Seven," boomed the countdown. "Six…"
Focus, Lucy Pevensie.
Tributes shifted on their platforms, and she braced herself, leaning forward as far as she could without slipping off the metal disc.
5… 4…
A brown backpack caught her eye, about halfway to the cornucopia.
3… 2…
Get in, get the bag, get out.
I can do that.
1.
Lucy burst from her platform as the crash of a gong exploded through the air, boots pounding stone, adrenaline kicking in, other tributes flashing at the edges of her vision.
She reached the backpack in a few seconds and skidded to a halt, throwing the strap over her shoulder and glancing around for Caspian as other tributes breezed past, hoping to catch his eye so they could run in the same direction.
But before she could spot him, Edith reached the stone table and spun back around with a gleaming spear in hand.
Lucy froze.
She didn't even have time to move before the metal shaft launched into the air and sailed in a perfect arc against the pale sky.
But it wasn't meant for her.
The sickening crunch of metal against skull silenced Gael's squeak as her tiny body crashed to the ground a few yards to Lucy's right, apples cascading from the package she clutched as dark crimson leaked beneath light brown hair.
Lucy's heart skipped two beats and her wits rushed back to her, stumbling back a pace before wheeling and bolting in the opposite direction.
Blood pumped heavy in her veins with every jarring footfall, eyes darting through the chaos of tributes trying to make a break for it.
Aravis and Lasaraleen disappeared down a sharp decline toward the south of the arena, a clash of metal rang through the open air, and with a glance over her shoulder, she finally found Caspian.
Peter's sword bore down on him a second time just as he swung up to block it, backing hard into the stone table, and Lucy almost shouted his name before she caught herself, not daring to distract him from the silver flicker dancing so fast she only saw the whip of his hair and power in his arms as he lashed back.
Someone shouted ahead and she snapped to attention just as a boy lurched across her path, clutching an arrow in his chest and crumpling at her feet as he rasped a horrible cough, gurgling red bubbles.
She didn't need to look back to feel Susan's gaze shift onto her next.
Her boots slammed stone and she leapt over the boy's writhing body, adrenaline driving her a few paces before she threw herself to the ground and the telltale zip of an arrow flew overhead.
She surged up again, aiming for the nearest crumbling square pillar, certain the next bolt would come any second, spine tingling with the anticipation of impact, but she skidded around the side of the stone and slammed back against it, chest heaving, still alive.
Her flesh burned to keep running.
After a few seconds she risked a glance back at the bloodbath, Susan's arrow pointing somewhere else, Caspian and Peter shrouded behind the steps to the table.
She couldn't hang around to wait forever.
Susan turned the other direction and Lucy bolted to the next pillar, then the next, any curiosity she might have had for the ruin washed away by the pure white heat of survival, drowning out the clamor and the shouts and the screams with her own heartbeat, wind whipping in her face.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught a small flash of red and swerved to grab Susan's stray arrow from where it had stuck in a crack in the stone, scarlet fletchings a target of their own in the grey wasteland.
Even without a bow, the sharp object felt good in her hand, and she gripped it tight as she ran.
And then there was only running, out across the desolate expanse, the flat ground giving way to dips and cracks, and eventually jagged zig-zagging rock formations she could climb over or crawl between, an endless array of chasms and hills, but always grey and always dry as dust.
It took only a few minutes in the uneven terrain to get out of sight of the cornucopia, but still she ran, for what must have been nearly half an hour, until a stitch formed in her side, lungs raw, thighs burning, and she slowed to catch her breath.
Some grass stuck up from the cracks here, but it looked dry and coarse and didn't promise much in the way of vegetation, the sun beating down hard from where it hung in the middle of the sky. Blue mountains rose in the distance, very far to the north and west, but to the east where she ran, nothing but pale blue sky stretched out for eternity.
Lucy sighed and propped her hands on her knees just as another set of footsteps clapped over the stone nearby.
She perked up for a split second before scrambling to slide down the nearest slope, disappearing silently into a ditch and only daring to peek out again when the footsteps stopped.
The hope that it might be Caspian died as quickly as it sprang.
Instead, a blonde and a redhead stood a fair distance away: Lilliandil and Peridan, catching their breath. Something metal glinted in Peridan's belt. Probably a knife.
They'd made out well.
Lucy didn't move until a rending boom sent her halfway out of her skin. She glanced wildly around, as if the noise had come from everywhere at once, and then another boom split the air.
Cannon shots.
The bloodbath was over.
Three... four... five... she counted in her head, and Peridan counted along on his fingers.
But the shots stopped there, silence hanging precariously in the air.
Five.
Just five?
Silence stretched out in answer, and Lilliandil's shoulders slumped. Peridan put an arm around her.
Just five dead.
That meant nineteen tributes remained in the arena, and that was a lot more than usual. Ordinarily, you could count on the bloodbath to take out at least a third—if not half of the competition. But not this time, apparently.
Was Caspian one of those five?
Her chest tightened as Gael's crumpled form flashed into her head, apples rolling through crimson blood.
Suddenly she didn't want to look at Peridan and Lilliandil anymore.
Her fingers slid down the rough stone and pebbles pierced her knees, crawling silently along the shallow ravine and into an even lower area, keeping behind cover all the while, heading vaguely northeast.
Even if Caspian was still alive, he wasn't here.
He could be anywhere.
She was on her own now.
They'd already messed it up.