Spot the Covid inspired lines in this chapter.
"Veronica, get up."
Veronica opens her eyes a smidgen and recognises the unmistakable glow of the dawn.
"Urgh, JD, I know you're not big on social norms, but it's not acceptable to wake people up this early." She turns away from him and buries her head back in her sleeping bag.
It's funny how quickly this has all become normal; waking up beside her future murderer, plotting who next to kill, listening out lest someone try to kill them first and knowing all of Panem is just waiting to judge her next move. How many days has she been in the arena? A week? More? It feels both unnatural but also as if it's always been this way.
"No, you need to see this," he insists, helping her sit up and pointing to the mountains in the distance, "let's hope the Heathers were searching for you."
"I love it when two trained killers are searching for me," she mutters, but looks at where he's indicating.
It takes her a while to work out what he's talking about, but eventually she notices it. The mountains are shaking, "An earthquake."
"Looks like it, and all the landslides that go with it."
She waits for the pang of pity for the Heathers but it doesn't come.
"Thank fuck we moved then."
They watch for a while longer until the shaking seems to stop, but they hear no cannons, so either the Heathers were never there or they survived. It's disturbing how disappointed she is by this.
xxx
They take the day lazily, they're where they need to be. At some point the Heathers will likely turn up, and they'll have to get them close enough together to off them with one mine, all the while avoiding any knives, arrows and spears that come in their direction, but for now they have nothing to do but keep a lookout.
Her clothes are dry now, so she gratefully changes out of Kurt's baggy ones and sets up a fire. After a hearty serving of bacon and eggs, he finds a pack of flour on the still enormous Career food pile and mixes it up with water and oil to form a makeshift dough. They wrap it around sticks and roast it until it's brown, before eating it with butter and jam. The bread itself is not that nice, but it's fun to watch it cook while listening to the crackle of the twigs and leaves that they idly toss into the flames.
She's discovered recently how much she likes playing with fire.
He moves closer to her, and she finds herself snuggling against him, relishing the warmth of his body. It's hard to care how immoral this is when she's going to hell anyway.
"Your eye looks awful today," she says, taking in his face. The whole area around it is now black, blue, red and puffy. It sort of makes him look like a badass, but she keeps that to herself.
He gets out his knife and inspects his reflection on the blade, "Eh, I've had worse. I can see, I can fight, that's the main thing."
"Do you think the earthquake will set the Heathers back much?"
"It could have," he says, "but just as likely it won't have at all, we know they're not dead, who knows, they might not have even been in the earthquake."
"Knowing the Gamemakers that seems unlikely."
"Granted. But I think we still need to act as if they're unharmed. I've seen tributes get out of much worse."
She nods.
"Where do you think Brad is?" he asks.
Something has shifted between them since they killed Kurt and Ram. He's starting to trust her, she realises, not in a way where he thinks that she won't kill him given the right situation, nor in a way that has stopped him looking at her like he's a cat that's caught a particularly juicy mouse, but his glances are less patronising, he listens to her now (even if he ignores what he doesn't like). She's impressed him, he values her in a way that has surprised him and it makes her sort of proud.
She considers his question, "I last saw him the second day in the arena. I was north the first couple of days, so he's probably somewhere around there. I think he's been lying low since he made the genius move of turning all the Careers against him." She briefly considers if he went further north to hide in the desert, but then she remembers the carefully crafted net he used to capture the Heathers. "He'll be by a river. Living off catching fish and whatever sponsor gifts Pauline is pouring in his direction."
"That seems likely. In that case, Courtney's probably closer at the moment. She'd be worth hunting down first."
She agrees, but as she does she thinks, with a mild wave of nausea, that this is all hypothetical because, once both Heathers are dead, there's only Courtney and Brad left. Which means she, under no circumstances, wants to be around him when they are killed, because she knows exactly who his next target will be.
As soon as the Heathers are dead she needs to run. Or, even better, place a knife straight into his back.
And, whatever questions she still has about JD, she is certain that he is hyperaware of all these facts too, and has a much better plan of getting her out of the way when the time is right.
And yet, here she is, smiling and cuddling him while the fire roars. She takes her bread from the flames, shoving it in her mouth even though it's still doughy inside. The resulting burn on her tongue feels like a fitting punishment and she pushes herself to her feet to get away from him.
"We should put what we can in bags just in case we have to make a quick run for it." She says, in way of explanation.
He agrees. They find the biggest backpacks in the pile and put in each a sleeping bag, a blanket, a bottle of water, a spare knife, a box of matches and a first aid kit. Then they stuff all the remaining space with food that will keep through travel and keep their energy up.
xxx
The Heathers do not appear in any decent time. As the day wears on she feels a bit more sympathy for Kurt and Ram with their phallic image carving and bread based ball games. She thinks about fucking JD to pass the time, but she already knows what it looks like to be attacked unprepared and naked and it would be humiliating to be remembered going out the same way that she killed Kurt and Ram. God, who knew fighting for your life while the whole world watches could be so boring?
He's sitting by the weapons pile, admiring the collection of shiny blades, spears and arrows, with the same sort of excited awe as her dad has when he's found a well written spy novel.
She goes over to him, "Looking for a new toy?"
She tries to pick up the biggest sword but can barely get it off the ground.
He chuckles, "They make those weapons just so the Careers can show off, they're pretty but inefficient." He picks up the arrows, "even these are for showing off too."
"I have seen some very impressive wins in previous Games with arrows."
"Oh sure, if you have trained in it for years, and know exactly the right places to hit. Otherwise, even if you don't miss, you'll likely not hit somewhere that causes enough blood loss and you'll nick them rather than killing them."
Veronica thinks about her own pitiful attempt with a bow at the Training Centre, she hadn't even managed to hit a target, nevermind cause a wound.
"No, my dear," he continues, "knives are our best weapon. Hit a main vein and you'll be dead in minutes. As you know, the throat is very effective, but you can aim above the eyes too, or at the back of the knee, or even the hollow of the elbow. And, of course, the right cut to your stomach and you might not die straight away, but you won't be able to control your muscles to move your legs anymore…" She tries to memorise what he says as he continues. The words are sickening but undeniably valuable to the task at hand. He speaks reverently, with much more enthusiasm and detail than her trainer back and the centre did.
How do you know all this? Did an over-keen trainer answer all your questions, did the mother who you claim was a freedom fighter train you well or is it something more?
She probably should be running about now, but honestly, she has known what he was from the moment Heather died, and for now (most of) her blood remains inside her body and she is more curious than afraid.
"You speak like you've tried this before."
Are there a series of mutilated bodies buried in District 12 whose deaths you've managed to pass off as accidents?
"The Careers kill to prepare for the Games. You know that don't you? They have these luxurious academies where they train their young hopefuls to compete. They send their criminals there as murder practice. They'll have killed dozens. They've lost any compassion for their victims long before they enter the arena."
His statement is disturbing but unsurprising, what is more concerning is what he hasn't said, "Don't bullshit me! You know that didn't answer my quest…"
But at that moment his demeanor changes, he clutches her arm suddenly, "Hush," he says, "I think I hear someone."
She obeys instantly. Getting to her feet and grabbing her knife. He's right, there are footsteps, getting louder and louder, faster and faster. Causing even more commotion than when the Heathers were chasing down Martha…
She sees him tense, he runs over to their bags and chucks one at her. She catches it, confused.
"That's not the Heathers." He says sharply, "We need to go."
She opens her mouth but the question dies on her lips when she hears a roar loud enough to make her ears ring.
It's a lion. Or she thinks it is. She's never seen a lion in real life before, but she's sure they're supposed to be smaller and slower than the beast that thunders towards them now.
All talk of advantage is gone. They manage, thank God, to swing their bags onto their backs and then she runs, tumbling through the forest blindly following his lead.
They run and run, with no sense of direction except the fuck away, they force their way through branches and bracken as the woodland gets thicker and thicker, it's hard work for them, but it's harder for the lion who is having to find gaps to push through. The trampling footsteps fall further behind them.
She is just foolishly thinking that maybe human stamina might just beat a muttation, when she sees him coming to a sudden halt straight ahead. She rushes to where he is, confused, before seeing the problem. Water, normally something she's very thankful for here, is rushing in front of them, dark, fast and deep.
"Can you swim?" he asks gruffly.
She looks at the swirling water, pounding against the rocks, splashing them with droplets even as they stand several metres away, she thinks she might give him the same answer even if she could, "Before the arena, I'd never seen more water than in a bathtub."
"Me neither." He says, as they are left with no choice but to turn to face the snarling beast charging towards them.
He raises his knife, ready to run forward, and she looks at him as if he is mad.
"The mine. Use the fucking mine."
He hesitates, and she spends valuable seconds turning to face him, "Do you have it?"
He nods once, his eyes judging the rapidly shrinking distance between them and the thing.
"Then fucking throw it. I don't care if you wanted to use it on the Heathers. We can't kill them if we're dead."
He waits for just a second longer before relenting, dropping his knife, reaching into his pocket and hurling the mine towards the beast. He grabs her around the waist and pulls her away from the explosion and into some reeds beside the river. He's not quite fast enough, they are pushed back by the force of the fire and have to grab large handfuls of the reeds so they don't both fall into the bubbling water.
But then it's over and, grabbing his shoulder, she stumbles back onto her feet, giving him a hand to help him up. She assesses the damage, some stinging burns from the explosive which she's sure will blister, her hands have friction burns from the reeds and her arms and legs have a hell of a lot of scratches and cuts, but all in all, it's a whole lot better than being gored to death.
The muttation is in pieces around them, very, very dead. Thank God.
And with that, all their explosive weapons are gone. It feels rather anticlimactic. She wonders if it was a deliberate move on the Capitol's part, they can't have been pleased with the way he was playing with something so powerful that they hadn't intended to be used as a weapon.
They're both reluctant to go back in the direction of the beast. So, after they've put a little lotion from their first aid kits on their burns, they make their way upstream instead.
They've only been walking about fifteen minutes when they hear more footsteps. They both dive immediately into the nearest bush. She hastily pushes the branches to the side to see what they are facing, she might have to take her chances with a watery death if there's another lion on the prowl. But it's not. It's Courtney, who has apparently not yet seen them.
She feels him shift beside her, his hand already reaching for his knife, "We should get her now, while we still have the element of surprise."
Veronica stills him, observing the girl, she is not running but she is walking cautiously downstream, slightly twitchy, her eyes wide. Something has spooked her. There's no way otherwise she'd be heading towards the commotion they must have made when they killed the lion.
"No," she says.
"There's two of us, we can overpower her, it'll be fine."
But she's not paying attention, she's looking into the distance where she sees the undergrowth rustle unnaturally.
"Get down," she hisses.
He ignores her.
"Now, you idiot," And, before she can rationalise why, she drops her knife and grabs him, using all her weight to restrain him.
She's not a moment too soon. Heading towards them are the two remaining Careers.
"Well you were right, the explosion did attract the Heathers." She mutters to him, in spite of herself.
"And if we'd waited we could have used it to kill all three tributes right now," he hisses back.
The Heathers are so much more dishevelled than the last time she saw them that they are hard to recognise. Both are heavily bruised, covered with grazes and cuts, some nasty gashes which must be painful with the distances they have walked. Heather McNamara seems to be sporting a limp. Veronica has no doubt they were in the centre of the earthquake and spent the morning after they discovered their only allies were dead fighting for their own lives.
The enthusiasm they had for the hunt seems to have been replaced, in Heather McNamara, by a frightened look, like a child who just wants to go back home, but for Heather Duke it's something different. She looks wild and so much fiercer than she ever did before, even when she was going in for the kill. It takes Veronica a second to recognise it but then she realises, it's the same deranged look she had in her eyes for a moment when Heather Chandler insulted her after they'd killed David. Back then Heather had pushed it away, but after a week of having her advantages slowly whittled down, having to finally fight if she wanted to live, letting it take over is the only thing she can do to survive.
Courtney starts and tries to run, but Veronica already knows that it's too late, Heather Duke pounces on the girl, pushing her to the ground, knee on her back so she is struggling to breathe.
"Heather, get the rope out of my bag. I want you to tie her up."
"It's not in my bag, it's in yo…"
"Shut up Heather. I know you're dumb but this isn't math."
Heather McNamara pulls the rope out from Heather Duke's bag and starts winding it around Courtney's legs, but the girl is struggling and the rope keeps slipping off.
"Oh for fuck sake Heather, can't you do anything right?" Heather Duke grabs the rope and Courtney's arms and legs are bound at a speed that would only be possible if the knots were done by someone from 4.
Heather Duke drags the girl to a tree trunk and drops her against it, then stands over her.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Heather shakes her hair out and then reaches to tie it back. Veronica recognises Heather Chandler's red scrunchie, she must have found it where it fell on the hill. Somehow it looks much more menacing in Heather Duke's hair. "We are away one night and suddenly our guards are dead and you're nearby with a remarkably full backpack. Did you kill them? Did you take supplies that weren't meant to be yours, you little bitch?"
If Courtney's cries yesterday were hard to distinguish from a wounded animal, there is no difference now.
"No, no, it wasn't me. I promise! It was the girl from 8 and the boy from 12, they killed the guys on guard and then spent the day at the campsite going through your stuff."
"The boy from 12? The creepy, skinny one who kept staring at everyone?" Courtney nods. "God, Veronica has no taste."
Can't disagree with you there Heather.
"I don't think I believe you," says Heather, getting out her knife and gently tracing the outline of the girl's face, ignoring her whimpers, "Veronica can barely handle a knife, she's no match for Kurt and Ram."
"I'm telling the truth, I promise," says Courtney quickly, as if she thinks somehow she can talk her way into surviving, "She pretended to seduce them and then when they were naked she and the boy killed them."
Little tattle tale. I knew we should have hunted that sneak down yesterday.
For a second Heather Duke's features almost look like she's hurt, but a moment later Veronica is sure she imagined it, for there is nothing but maliciousness in Heather's expression. If Courtney had hoped Heather would show her mercy after this confession she is out of luck. If anything, the words only make her angrier.
"I knew it. That little slut. After everything we did for her, we could have turned her into mincemeat the day we met her, but no, we fed and protected her even though she was useless, and this is how she repays us? She won't be thinking she's outsmarted us when we're cutting her into ribbons."
She punctures every few words by thrusting her knife into Courtney, all fear of blood apparently gone along with her sanity. She's enjoying the girl's terror. Courtney's unrelenting screams vibrate against Veronica's eardrums. As Heather continues to rant about her, any resentment she feels for the girl immediately turns to horror. Horror and guilt; it's hard not to feel like it's all her fault, nor are Heather's plans for revenge particularly comforting.
It's not like the other murders she's seen the Careers commit, where they were so eager to strike the killing blow that they made quite a mess of their prey. This is much worse, it's slow, it's torturous and Heather's clearly enjoying it, or at least is too hysterical to realise she's not.
Heather McNamara lingers at the back, looking like she'd rather be anywhere else, any joy she had for killing has clearly long since faded.
Veronica and JD squat in the bushes, legs aching from the awkward position, barely daring to breathe. She just looks straight forward as she sees a girl get slowly tortured to death. There's no question of attacking, not when Heather is feral like this. Their only chance is to not be discovered.
She finds his hand in the undergrowth and clasps it tightly, desperate to feel the comfort of some, any, human contact. He doesn't pull away, instead, he finds the knife she dropped when restraining him and slips it into her other hand. In case she needs it. At this moment they're the only two people left in the world, fighting the monsters that surround them.
It feels like forever until the screaming dies and then several more minutes until the cannon booms. Heather kicks Courtney's body a few more times for good measure before she's finally satisfied and she turns suddenly back in the direction of the Cornucopia. Heather McNamara hobbling behind her, struggling to keep up.
Finally, the footsteps fade away and she collapses against him in relief. They stay there for a couple of minutes, watching the hovercraft pick up the battered body still dripping with blood. Eventually, she pulls herself away.
"We should go. Like, whichever way Heather didn't go."
He nods and follows her as she, as quietly as possible, heads upstream until it is shallow enough for them to fill their bottles and wade through to the other side of the river. The sun is hanging low in the sky and there's a hill not too far off, so they decide to set up camp there to have a vantage point if they have any night time attackers.
When they get there they don't want to risk a fire. The evening air is chilly but not cold so they sit together, under both the blankets, and eat some of the canned supplies they took from the Cornucopia.
When she's finished, she gazes down over the arena thoughtfully, looking at the Cornucopia glistening in the sinking sun.
"She was never like that, Heather Duke, not when I was with the Heathers. She was pretty nice really, the nicest of all of them."
He shrugs, indifferent, "She's lost most of her allies, maybe it's finally seeped into her brain that this isn't very fun anymore."
"Yeah, I guess," she says, slightly mournfully, "maybe turning into this is the only way she thinks she can escape this place."
"You don't escape anything, Veronica," he says in that annoying tone he has when he acts like he didn't grow up being fed exactly the same propaganda that she was, "you may have fewer cameras on you, but they know you now. You're always in their grip, brought back to mentor every year, pulled into every party and awful event they want to show you off at, your children's reapings rigged so they can get some tearful interview from you when they die onscreen, they even whore you out if someone pays Gowan enough."
Is this true? She wonders, after all that she's endured the last few days, for her entire life really, she wouldn't put it past the Capitol. On the other hand, JD is bullshit personified and could be making the whole thing up to enrage her.
Veronica refuses to let him get to her. Instead she snorts, leaning against him, "No one in the Capitol is going to want to fuck you, babe."
"Is that supposed to be an insult?" he asks, amused, putting his arm around her shoulders, hand drifting towards her breast, fingers gently circling a nipple, grinning as she lets out a soft moan. She can feel the smugness radiating off him.
She smiles lazily up at him, "No, it's a statement of fact." The people of the Capitol might be indulgent and bloodthirsty but they're not that stupid. No one on the planet can be that stupid. She can't imagine they relish the thought of a knife in the neck in the name of anarchy the moment they fall asleep, no matter how hot he is.
The Anthem pulls her away from her thoughts and she swats him off her as she looks to the sky. Courtney's face is the only one tonight, her picture shows her at her finest (if not in the nicest dress), she smiles at them, clearly nervous about what is to come, but also overwhelmed by the Capitol's luxury, at how gorgeous the makeup artists have made her. It's a stark contrast from the screaming girl she saw meet her end earlier today.
The image fades and the sky goes back to the dusky orange shade of nightfall but Courtney's smiling face stays in her mind. It seems grotesque to know that, while she was watching the most awful death she could ever imagine, there were tens of thousands more people enjoying it. There's no question, every second of Courtney's death will be replayed in the highlights, probably interspersed with Veronica's own, terrified reaction. Maybe tomorrow they'll be enjoying a similar scene with her as the victim.
So many of them are dead now. She thinks. Not just in these Games but in the 88 that came before them, thousands of dead children, tens of thousands of grieving family members and friends, all this suffering, all this pain for a crime their ancestors committed.
And then there are the victors, if Heather Duke wins (and despite what she and JD have done this still seems like the most likely outcome) she is not the girl she used to be either, she is only a cruel shell of what she was before, pretending she is still alive as if she hadn't died with the rest of them.
And what if she wins? Facing District 8 and everything she has done feels like another Games in itself. When she was reaped her greatest wish was to return, to go home and for everything to be back to normal. But that can't happen. It's far, far too late. She feels more of a kinship with the corpses buried beside the arena than she ever could with someone in her district.
And then next year they'll be another Games, more Courtneys and Bettys and Marthas and Peters and Heathers and Kurts and Rams becoming nothing more than gravestones by an arena.
She turns to her companion sitting idly beside her, "Do you think there's an afterlife?"
"Probably not," he replies, "that's why we need to do all the burning of sinners here on Earth."
She rolls her eyes, wondering why she expected anything more of him, and turns her gaze back to the dusk.
"I think there are Gods though," he says, after a while. "Not that bullshit like a big wise omnipotent being in the sky who creates and controls everything." He clarifies, after her eyes widen in surprise, "but the Gods are the ones who control our fate, the Capitol are our Gods and, when we choose to end their lives, we are their Gods," he says, gesturing at the arena below where their victims were slain.
"The others could still kill us though. We're not safe from the Heathers or Brad."
"Gods are not infallible, just powerful. Chessmasters, who watch their minions attempt to guess their next move. Humans make their own Gods."
She can't remember the last time she had a proper philosophical discussion. It reminds her of when they first spoke and he declared her his only competition, sometimes it's a relief to find someone who is your intellectual equal. His statement would almost be profound if it wasn't coming from the mouth of a psychopath.
She sees his point though, in the fading sunset the arena is genuinely beautiful, it's supposed to be – it was carefully created by intelligent design, not only to house every horror the Gamemakers could think of, but to stun audiences with the most stunning and elaborate of settings. In the world they have found themselves in now – hell in the districts in which they've lived all their lives – were they ever more than pawns in the plan of the Gods who ruled them all?
What has she ever really had that is in her control?
She kisses him, not roughly. He seems surprised, an emotion she was genuinely not sure he had (she feels a rush of power at having caught him off guard), but he recovers quickly and pulls her closer – his hands automatically reaching to dispose of her shirt. She immediately slips her hands underneath his pants and they slip into their natural rhythm – if a slower one than usual.
The Capitol won't be showing this. They'll have cut before the discussion of Gods and JD's impression of their control. So, away from the public's eye, (despite the fact some of the Gamemakers are inevitably watching), the moment feels almost private. For once it's just them, two young Gods, vicious, ruthless, unrepentant, fighting against a greater power that has already decided their fate.
She wonders, incredibly fleetingly, what it must be like to live under fair Gods, ones who use their power for good.
Tomorrow will come and she'll hate him again as he smirks and plots and plans, they will pursue their reluctant alliance for however long it will still last (it can't be long now, there aren't many of them left). The public will watch, make bets on exactly how he will end her life, and the world will have slipped back to normal.
Give me tonight, she prays to the only Gods she knows, though she makes sure they cannot hear her for they are anything but kind. Give me one night where I don't hate myself, where I forget who he is and what is to become of us both. Give me one night where I can pretend I can still be the girl I was before this.
When they are done he cups her face, and kisses her once, gently, "It won't be painful," he says softly, "when you die, it'll be so quick you barely notice."
It's really the closest to a declaration of love she'll ever get from him.
She returns it by biting back her automatic response of exactly how painfully she's planning to kill him. He seems to understand.
Sometime during the night, it occurs to her that now, with only them and three other tributes left and the two most dangerous injured, it would be the best time to slit his throat while he sleeps, before he kills her.
She snuggles closer to his warmth and lets herself drift off.
The Capitol Presents: the Surviving Tributes, Day 8
District 1
Heather McNamara
Ram Sweeny
District 2
Heather Chandler
David Remington
District 3
Betty Finn
Peter Dawson
District 4
Heather Duke
Kurt Kelly
District 5
Shannon Lucas
Rodney Bulb
District 6
Cathy Stone
Al Springer
District 7
Tracy Hophead
Bobby Young
District 8
Veronica Sawyer
Brad Richards
District 9
Courtney Chadwick
Keith Harrington
District 10
Shelly Little
Dennis Grundy
District 11
Phyllis McCarthy
Dwight Archer
District 12
Martha Dunstock
Jason Dean
Deaths today: 1
Survivors: 5
