She is only fifteen, and yet her name is drawn.
She knows, as she is making her way up to the stage, that she is already being written off. She can hear phantom laughter in her ears, see the old men with their betting slips scribbling her name down as a bloodbath, and she doesn't blame them, because Callahan Eicher is nothing but a scrappy street kid.
She's quiet. Unassuming. Small in stature and even smaller in presence. She wraps her arms around herself tightly as she stands on the stage, making herself even smaller, eyes flitting between the escort and her shoes. Is it an act? Not entirely - she's scared even if she won't admit it to herself, and embarrassed, too, because she's never been on camera before. Callahan knows that most of Panem is watching. The last thing she wants to do is catch their attention.
The shadows have practically raised her, and she's eager to cling to their cover as much as she can. Callahan isn't built for vying for the spotlight, or being marketed to the masses, and she's the antithesis of what the Capitol wants in a Victor.
That isn't a bad thing.
Somehow, Callahan will make it work. She doesn't want to be a Victor but behind the rope her sister is crying, and Callahan knows that she has to try. Sacrifice is part of being an older sister and even if she has to sell her soul to win, won't it be worth it? She will have enough money to keep Sullivan fed, and a fire to stoke in the winter to keep Sullivan warm.
The last thing Callahan wants to do is play the Capitol's game but she doesn't have a choice.
She is only fifteen, but her sister depends on her.
Callahan can't provide from six feet under.
Her district partner, Eben Alsado, is seventeen and a pain in the ass.
He is far too cheery for someone who has just been chosen for a deathmatch and he won't leave Callahan alone. She barricades herself in her room the moment their escort lets her, trying to have some alone time to try and untangle her mess of emotions, but five minutes have barely passed before Eben is knocking on her door.
She doesn't answer, watching solemnly as the dull greys of District Six turn into a vibrant mess of greens that signal her district has been left behind. A curdling feeling settles at the bottom of her stomach. Callahan has never loved Six, but that doesn't mean that she wants to leave.
"Hey, Cal, you in there?" Eben's voice cuts through the silence, and Callahan grits her teeth. "They've got some pretty nice pastries in the dining cart, you know. Maybe we can talk over cinnamon rolls?"
Callahan isn't a fan of talking, and she has no idea what a cinnamon roll is. She turns away from the window, the decadence of the room just as unfamiliar as the blur of greens outside. It's odd, the amount of luxury the Capitol is allowing them at this moment; if this was the sort of thing they were willing to give to the tributes - most of them scruffy district children who they would usually pretend didn't exist - then what sort of furniture did they have in their own homes? Surely this couldn't be their finest.
After all, it would be so cute to see the tributes gush over this in their interview, wouldn't it? The bare minimum - furniture that they wouldn't even think of having in their homes.
Maybe she's being too cynical, though she's absolutely sure that the Capitol isn't doing any of this out of the goodness of their hearts.
Whatever way Callahan looks at it, it's a trade. Her life for a week of luxury. It's not a fair trade, though, and the Capitol gives her no chance to decline.
Footsteps catch her attention, and Eben's voice accompanies another knock. So he had left her alone eventually, however briefly. "The recaps will be starting soon," he says. "We should see if there's anyone we want to join us."
Callahan's frown deepens, her gaze flitting to the doorknob. She crosses the room, pulling the door open. "We're not a team," she tells the boy. "Now leave me alone and stop calling me Cal."
He seems to get the message, and Callahan doesn't emerge from her room until she's sure that everyone else has gone to sleep. She pilfers some of the leftovers and wanders the train until she's so tired she can barely think.
There's no way that she will be able to fall asleep in the bed the Capitol has provided her with, so she settles down on the wooden deck of the viewing cart.
The uncomfortableness is the only thing here that is familiar.
There's no escape from Eben while the two of them are side by side on their chariot.
The prep is something that Callahan has no desire to ever go through again; an all around humiliating process that almost ended in frustrated tears on both from her and her prep team. She feels like an idiot in her parade costume, but there's comfort in knowing that Sullivan might get a kick out of it.
"They really dressed us as trains, huh?" Eben snickers. "At least grey is my colour."
Callahan turns her attention to the rest of the room. She hadn't bothered with the recaps, meaning this was her first glimpse of the other tributes. The Career tributes are scary, of course, and she feels bad for the Threes stuck between Two and Four. But on the whole nobody particularly stands out. Most of the tributes were older than her, taller too - the Eight boy almost frighteningly so - but she can't see anyone making a decent ally even if she was searching for them.
"So, what's your deal?" Eben asks, drawing her attention back to the chariot. "Why are you being all quiet and mysterious?"
"I'm not."
"Well you're certainly not being friendly."
"Neither are you, if that's what you're trying to go for."
"Rude," he murmurs, rubbing the back of his neck. "Do you really not want to ally with me?"
Callahan bites back a harsh reply, shaking her head instead. She really doesn't want to ally with Eben, but she doesn't want to anger him either. Would she still fly under the radar if she let him take her under his wing? Sure. Nobody is going to bat an eyelid at a small girl allying with her stronger district partner. But that's not it - Callahan just knows that things are just simpler when you're alone.
She loves her little sister more than anything, but she can't deny that trying to take care of herself and Sullivan over the years has been absolute hell. Taking care of yourself, especially in a life or death situation, is hard enough, let alone trying to look after someone else on top of it.
In the Hunger Games there's an added layer. Callahan looks after Sullivan because she has to, because Sullivan is her flesh and blood, and Callahan loves her. She doesn't know Eben - if neither of their names had been drawn this year, their paths would have never crossed.
Eben isn't family; he isn't even someone from home, not really. He's an obstacle. Competition.
For Callahan to get back to District Six, back to Sullivan , then Eben has to die.
And he will.
Callahan doesn't want that on her conscience.
Training actually proves useful.
Callahan values street smarts over book smarts, always has and probably always will, but she can't deny the usefulness of the encyclopaedias that are dotted around the training stations. She can barely read them, if she's completely honest, but over the three days she manages to glean enough knowledge from them that she feels like the days have been a success.
She does the practical tasks, too; aces the plant quiz after poring over the encyclopaedia for an hour or two, and the instructor is a lot more helpful at teaching her how to tie knots than the shoddily illustrated guide is. She climbs, and she runs the gauntlet, and she dips her toes into as many stations as she can, because it never hurts to be prepared.
The only thing she doesn't do, much to her mentor's chagrin, is find some allies.
Eben sticks to her side at first, because of course he does, but by late morning on the first day he's already gravitated to a group of tributes that will actually talk to him, instead of constantly giving him the cold shoulder. The girl from District Five sidles over at one point, when Callahan is all sweaty from hauling herself up and down the climbing wall, but she doesn't stick around once she realises that Callahan's frosty demeanour is unlikely to melt.
And Callahan doesn't feel bad about it. She doesn't feel guilty, or nervous, or as if she's royally screwed up.
Her mentor tries to frame it that way, but Callahan simply rolls her eyes and walks away.
She's at peace with her choice, even if nobody else thinks that she's making the right one.
After her private session, the Gamemakers give Callahan a three. Her mentor looks crestfallen, and Eben gives Callahan what is supposed to be a comforting pat on the shoulder, but neither of them know that it was mostly intentional. She didn't want to put on a show, to parade about the room as if her only purpose in life was to please the very people orchestrating her death.
So she didn't.
She treated it as if it were simply an extension of the training days; fiddling around at various stations with little to show for it. The score has all but confirmed what the Capitolites, and the rest of Panem, already think; she's a lost cause. A bloodbath.
That's exactly what she wants.
Under the radar completely.
The morning of the bloodbath comes about too quickly for Callahan's liking.
Last night had been a blur of glamour, lights, and one-word answers. She'd hated the entire experience, giving the Capitol absolutely nothing to work with. Callahan has discovered that she has quite the knack of frustrating the Capitolites; last night her interviewer had been so keen to get her off of the stage that he'd cut the interview short. It was just fine with Callahan - nobody wanted to sit through three minutes of her shifting awkwardly in her seat, much less her.
Eben's energy seems to have completely dissipated overnight. He was a natural on the stage; bright eyes and a wide smile, answering every question thrown his way with a confidence that Callahan wouldn't admit to herself she was jealous of.
This morning, he doesn't even look up as she joins him and their district team for breakfast. His hands shake as he cuts up his pancakes. It's a little disarming if she's being honest; even after the reaping he was flitting about as if nothing had even happened.
But... the prospect of imminent death weighs heavily.
Callahan can't quite work out how she feels about it. Death has been at the forefront of her mind for years, always looming on the horizon. It's different here, though; now it's on her doorstep, peeking through the windows, and she's scared, of course she is, but not for herself.
She's scared for Sullivan. If she doesn't win, her sister is the one who will be saddled with the consequences. And Callahan knows better than anyone that trying to navigate the streets of Six at only eleven is almost impossible.
She doesn't know how she managed it. Especially with a seven year old attached to her hip.
For the first time since she stepped on the train, Callahan eats until she is full. She's been careful so far, not wanting to get used to a belly full of food before getting dropped in the arena, but now is the time where every mouthful counts.
Eben eyes her warily. "Are you not nervous?"
She doesn't answer him, shovelling a forkful of scrambled eggs into her mouth. Eben still watches her, eyebrows pinched.
"You can still join my alliance, you know," he says. "There's safety in numbers in the arena, Callahan, and I know that you don't like people, but—"
"The hovercrafts are here," their escort interrupts. "It's time to go to the roof."
Eben lets out a shaky breath, murmuring something that is too quiet for Callahan to catch. Callahan finished the last few mouthfuls of her breakfast, hopping down from her chair. It's tense in the elevator, but Callahan tries to keep her thoughts from wondering.
They reach the roof, the doors opening to reveal two hovercrafts and two queues separated by gender.
"Hey, Eben." Callahan tugs on his sleeve before they separate. She can't leave without saying anything, not when he might be dead in two hours. "Good luck out there."
"Yeah." Eben's eyes are glistening with tears. "You too, Cal."
Just this once, Callahan lets the nickname slide.
She, too, is holding back tears as her plate rises.
It's unfamiliar, the sense of absolute terror that is coursing through Callahan. It hits her so suddenly in the launch room that it makes her head spin, and there's a moment where she's worried that her large breakfast is going to make a reappearance. She's scared. She's more than scared.
Death is done knocking; it's wrapping it's fingers around her doorknob, and she's powerless to stop it as it starts to inch the door open.
The next few moments are crucial and she needs to get it together.
The cornucopia is in a clearing, tall trees towering in the distance every way that Callahan looks.
That's good. That's good . The forest will provide more than enough cover for her. She's a good climber; she can stay up in the branches and let the other tributes fight it out on the ground.
The countdown reaches single digits. Callahan sucks in a deep breath, leaning forward as a voice booms across the arena.
"Let the 37th Annual Hunger Games begin!"
As the gong rings, Callahan's boots pound against the dirt. She makes a beeline for a knife, scooping it up before she changes courses and runs towards a backpack.
She's reaching down when somebody else plucks it from the dirt. There's a momentary flare of panic as Callahan locks eyes with the District Five girl that had approached her during training. What did she say her name was? Aubrey? Audrey? Allura? It was something beginning with an A…
The girl takes a step backward, hugging the backpack to her chest. Callahan grits her teeth. She needs that backpack.
She lunges forward, the knife clenched in her right hand as her left wraps around the handle atop the backpack, pulling it towards her. The other girl lets out a surprised cry, her nails digging into Callahan's fingers as she tries to pry them from the bag.
No. No! I need it, I need it, Ineed it —
Callahan raises her knife and stabs the girl in the forearm. The scream feels like it shatters Callahan's eardrums, and the girl's grip loosens, but not enough for Callahan to claim the bag as her own.
A foot meets her shin, unbalancing her for a moment. The girl's eyes are desperate now; full of fear, pity and pain. Nails rake down Callahan's face, eliciting a hiss, and when Callahan realises her first stab didn't do the trick, she stabs again.
The knife catches the girl in the shoulder this time, and there's another scream - there's so much screaming here - but Callahan doesn't give her a chance to do anything else before she stabs her again.
Blood splatters up Callahan's forearm and the sight of it makes her stomach turn. She doesn't know where she hit the girl this time, everything is such a blur, but it seems to be the final blow. Callahan watches her drop to the floor, limp fingers releasing the bag as Callahan gives it a final tug.
The only thing she feels as she turns on her heel and runs towards the forest is relief.
She can't tell if Eben thinks she's the world's biggest idiot or not.
They're three days into this hell, and he's been following her the entire time. She notices him during the first night, when her eyes are red and puffy because it finally dawns on her that she killed someone. At first he's loitering just on the edge of her vision, too far away for her to make him out properly, and she thinks that she's simply imagining him. It's not until she's hauled herself into a tree and she sees movement on the ground, recognising the familiar dull grey of the District Six jacket, that she realises what's going on.
But she isn't in the mood for reunions, and there's always the chance that it's not really him; just some other tribute looking to trick her, so she stays put.
On the second day, she's more concerned with trying to put a distance between herself and the cornucopia that she doesn't pay him any attention, forgets that he's even there most of the time.
But today, he's being practically as annoying as he was on the train. Not socially - he still hasn't approached her - but it's getting harder to ignore that he is there when he seems so hellbent on making as much noise as possible.
Callahan grits her teeth as she hears the distant sound of another stone thudding into a tree trunk. She whirls around and she can't immediately see him, but he's there somewhere.
"Are you trying to draw every tribute and their mom here, Eben?"
There's a minute of silence. Then, a sheepish, "... No?"
"Well it sure seems like it. You're doing a terrible job at keeping quiet."
"Yeah…" He appears from behind a tree, rubbing the back of his neck as he crosses the distance between the two of them. "How long have you known?"
"Since the first night."
"Oh. Why didn't you say anything?"
Callahan shrugs, turning the direction she was originally travelling in. "I told you on the train that we're not a team."
"You can go back on your word, you know," he says, falling into step with her. "That's okay."
"You already have an alliance. Why aren't you with them?"
"Bloodbath." He winces. "Careers got 'em."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"No you're not."
"No. I'm not."
She knows that the eleven that died in the bloodbath were people; that they had family and friends and lives that were cut too short. She isn't completely heartless. But… when it comes down to it, their deaths are a good thing for her. Callahan can't ignore that. She won't.
"I can leave if you want me to," Eben says. "I just… I dunno. We ended up going the same way after the bloodbath, and you're from home, and it makes me feel better knowing that there's someone in this place who won't slit my throat open on sight—"
Callahan doesn't know what possesses her to tell him that he can stay, but she does. His eyes light up in a way that they probably shouldn't, given that they're in a deathmatch right now, but she can't deny that it does make her feel a little bit better knowing that there's someone on her side.
It's on the sixth day that the Careers have their first casualty.
Eben and Callahan hear the first cannon in the late afternoon, and a second follows it in quick succession. Callahan pauses atop the fallen tree that Eben is helping her over, counting on her fingers.
"Ten left," she says solemnly.
Eben nods. "Eight others."
"And six of them are Careers."
"Hey, those cannons might have been Careers," Eben says as Callahan hops down from the tree trunk. "We'll see tonight."
He's partially right, at least. The first face in the sky is the District Two female, her portrait oozing with smugness as it looks down over the arena. The second face is the District Seven male.
"I talked to him a little in training," Eben says. "He was nice."
"You'd say everyone here was nice."
He shrugs. "Maybe. But I'm not lying. All of us… our only crime in life was getting reaped together."
Callahan snorts. "Speak for yourself."
Eben's eyes widen, his face contorting into a ridiculous mockery of surprise. "You're a criminal, Callahan?" He asks loudly, one hand covering his mouth. "Boy, I never would've guessed!"
"Shh!" She smacks him on the arm, pressing a finger to her lips as her gaze darts about, scouting for any other tributes.
"Don't you get tired of being so serious all the time?" Eben sighs, once she's calmed down a little, rubbing the spot that she had hit. "These could be our last days alive. Loosen up a little."
He means well, she knows that he does. Still, the comment irks Callahan more than it probably should. Sometimes she thinks that he didn't get the memo that this isn't an actual game. That they're not supposed to be having fun, or getting attached to people. She can't 'loosen up' - not when her life is on the line.
Eben turns everything into a joke. The fact that they're low on water, and running out of food. The fact that the rope they use to tie themselves onto branches at night is starting to fray. They're real issues, even if he can't see that, and if she 'loosens up' then they will never get fixed.
"Callahan?"
"What?"
"Want to play two truths and a lie?"
She resists the urge to roll her eyes, stomping away from their small ground campsite, to the tree that they had picked out to sleep in.
"All right then, suit yourself." He calls after her. "Goodnight!"
She doesn't respond.
On the seventh day, the two of them find a river to refill the bottle that Callahan had been given in her backpack, but their attempts at hunting end with nought. They're surviving on berries that Callahan remembers aren't poisonous from her training, but it's barely enough to sustain either of them.
Callahan is used to it, though. It's not like she and Sullivan sat down to three hot meals a day. Eben clearly isn't, and his constant whining becomes almost too much to bear.
Between the eighth and ninth days, the Careers lose three more members.
It scares Callahan almost to death, seeing their faces in the sky, because what the hell is in this arena that even they couldn't fend off?
By the tenth day, even Eben has stopped cracking jokes. Over the past few days he's managed to coax more from Callahan than she would have ever expected. He knows about her mother and the illness that stole her breath, he knows about her father and how he just up and left, and he knows about Sullivan, who Callahan is doing this all for. She learns about his family, too. His mom and dad who work at the train station, his older sister who's due to have a little boy soon, and his younger brother who is apparently similar to Callahan, and part of the reason why he had been so insistent to get to know her.
She's getting increasingly uneasy as the numbers dwindle. There are four others left; two Careers, and two outliers.
"Can we stop?" He asks for the third time today. "My legs feel like they're about to give out."
Callahan rubs her temple, wincing at the headache that's been pounding since yesterday afternoon. "Five minutes. I'm going to scout ahead."
"Okay. Have fun."
She's been walking for maybe two minutes when she hears Eben scream.
It's blood-curdling, and Callahan runs faster than she ever has before back to the spot that she left him at.
When she gets there, two figures are trustling on the ground. Fists flying, and legs kicking. Callahan swallows down the bile that rises, throwing herself towards the unfamiliar blur of bottle green.
In the chaos an elbow finds her nose, the crunching sound lost between her own cry of pain and the several yells coming from both Eben and the other tribute', but not long after, her hand finds hair. She's breathing heavily as she gives the hair a hard tug, reaching up to wipe away the blood dripping down her face. The tribute is sitting upright, head tipped back. With another tug, just for good measure, Callahan's knife finds the side of the tribute's neck. Once. Twice.
A cannon booms.
As she lets go, the body slumps forward, Eben letting out a whimper as it pins him to the ground. Shaking, Callahan quickly pushes it off, her eyes catching the eight pinned to his jacket.
Five left. Callahan, Eben, two Careers, and one more outlier.
"Callahan?"
Her attention turns to her district partner, and Callahan feels the blood drain from her face. His jacket is unzipped, and though the white of his t-shirt has been gradually dirtying over the days, there wasn't a blooming red stain there when she left him.
"Eb?" The nickname falls from her lips, laced with panic, as she drops to her knees and puts as much pressure on the wound as she can. "What happened?"
"Bastard had a knife." He winces, pointing off to the side where, sure enough, a knife lays in the leaves. "I managed to knock it out of his hands, but not before he stabbed me." His eyes flick to the corpse beside them. "You killed him."
"I had to." Callahan says. "If I didn't, you'd be dead."
Eben lets out a barely audible laugh. "I will be soon."
"No. No you won't." Callahan shakes her head. "I-I learned medicine during training, I can—" His hands find hers, pulling them from his shirt. "What're you—?"
"You can't fix this," he says. He meets her gaze and she shakes her head again, eyes brimming with tears. "Just sit with me, okay? Until…"
So, she does.
They exchange quiet words. Callahan apologised for being such a bitch, and Eben for being annoying. She tries to tell him that's not true, but he calls her bluff immediately. He makes a joke about his sister's baby - "there's no way she can't name it after me now, right?" - because of course he does, and they just sit and talk and talk and…
"You deserved better than this," Callahan tells him. It's late afternoon now, and Eben's having trouble keeping his eyes open.
"So do you," Eben says, his eyes flick to the body beside them. The Capitol should have collected it by now, but Callahan suspects that they're waiting for Eben to die. Make it easier for them. "So does he. So does the girl that you killed in the bloodbath—"
"You know?" She cuts him off.
"Saw you do it." He grimaces. Callahan can't tell if it's directed towards her, or simply because of the pain he's in. "But you had to. Just like you had to kill Eight."
"Had to." Callahan nods, pressing her lips into a thin line. "I had to."
The afternoon fades into evening, and by some miracle Eben's cannon still hasn't boomed. He's either unconscious or asleep at this point. There's a ghost of a smile on his lips, and it's fitting, Callahan thinks. The arena might have started to wear him down over the past few days, but it couldn't break his spirit.
She's dozing when his cannon finally booms.
It startles her awake, and she doesn't think it's his at first. Not until she realises that his hand has fallen from hers, resting in her lap, and picks it up. It's cold. Too cold.
Her gaze snaps to Eben. His eyes are closed and in the moonlight, it looks as if he's still sleeping.
"Eben?" She shakes his shoulder. "Eben?"
For once, he's the one who doesn't respond.
She spends the next two days walking and crying.
The ending with Eben isn't what she had been afraid of at the start. Callahan didn't want someone else to have to drag around the arena, another mouth to feed, another person to look out for. She hadn't even thought about what would happen if someone became more than that. Because Eben had been all of those things when she first let him join her. Then, slowly, he became a friend.
Two weeks since they were both reaped, and she trusted him. She'd go to sleep with him on watch and be confident that he wouldn't kill her, or sneak off into the night with their supplies. She told him about her family, and he told her about his. He cracked jokes, even when she was sick of them, and maybe she should have appreciated that more because now the silence is too loud.
She stumbles sometimes, or misses a branch when she's climbing, and she expects him to make fun of her. He doesn't, of course.
He's probably back home now, with his family. She tries to be happy about that at least.
She's close to getting home, too. The District Two male dies the day after Eben, meaning that Callahan has made it to the final three. It's a far cry from dying in the bloodbath, that's for sure.
Survival has never been an option for her, and even though there's nothing but sorrow in her chest, she's not giving up now.
Eben would want her to win; Sullivan is counting on her return.
Callahan isn't going to let either of them down.
The penultimate cannon wakes her early in the morning.
It's still dark, and she squints up through the tree branches to see the face of the District One female projected in the sky.
Callahan breathes a sigh of relief, untying herself from the branch she'd been sleeping on. She doesn't bother to bring anything but her water bottle, a handful of berries, and her flask; it's easy to cover distance when she's not weighed down, and it's not like she'll need any of it after the final battle.
She starts walking in a random direction, trusting that the gamemakers will guide her towards the other tribute. And they do - fallen tree branches and brambles too thick to push through force her to change her direction more than a few times.
But when she finally emerges into the clearing that houses the cornucopia, Callahan is convinced that it must be a trick.
There are two figures on the ground, one in the entrance of the cornucopia, and the other face down not too far out. There's no tribute lunging at her like she imagines; no grand finale full of bloodshed and tension.
The body in the cornucopia is the District One female. The other is the District Seven female.
Approaching Seven's body, since it wasn't her face projected in the sky, Callahan winces at the gash in her back. Hopefully, whatever fight she sustained this in whetted the Capitol's appetite, because the quick work of Callahan's knife surely won't.
She takes a moment, tipping her head back to feel the warmth of the sun on her face. She closes her eyes, feels the wind blowing through her hair. She's done it - she's won.
But as she crouches down, brushing the District Seven girl's red hair to the side, here's a hesitancy within her that she doesn't expect.
Is she leaving Eben behind? It feels as if he's all around her in the arena, however weird that sounds - his laughter carries on the wind; she thinks of him every time she sees a fallen tree, like the one he'd helped her over; when she pictures him in her mind his face is bathed in light from a campfire.
Does she really want to leave?
Yes… Sullivan is in Six. Home is in Six. It has been her goal the entire time to get back there. The arena is where Eben died, Six is where he will live. In Callahan's memories; in his family's stories; in the places he loved to visit; the school classrooms that he studied in.
"For Sullivan," she murmurs, as she readies her knife. "For Eben."
"Ladies and gentleman, I am pleased to present to you the Victor of the 37th Hunger Games: Miss Callahan Eicher!"