Chapter Thirty-Three: Balancing the Odds

Training Day Two

Galadia Devinson, District Two Female

I'm awake at the crack of dawn.

Or at least, I think it's the crack of dawn. The building doesn't have any windows, so if I wanted to actually figure out if it's light outside, I'd need to go to the rooftop, and that's not happening right now. I may be awake at the moment, but I'm far from lively.

I wish I'd thought to get a book before I went to bed. As it is now, I don't have much to do but sit and watch the clock (which currently reads "5:48") until everyone gets up, since training doesn't start until 9:00.

I do just that for an hour and ten minutes, trying and failing to get back to sleep after every ten. At 7:00 on the dot, however, I hear enough noise coming from Cassidy's room that I make the assumption that she's gotten up. Chances are, the others will soon follow.

My outfit from yesterday is probably still in the closet- I hope it got washed after I wore it because that might have been the best thing I've ever trained in. Once I open up the door, I breathe a sigh of relief- it's there and it's clean. Without a second thought, I throw my clothes on, running a hand through my hair to try and get the knots out, before Cassidy opens the door.

"Look, kid," she says. "I know you probably hate me because of the little train incident. I'm not the biggest fan of you, either. But that doesn't mean I can just sit there for three days while you train. I have to try and help you at least a tiny bit. There's something I have to tell you."

"Is it that everything I've been doing is wrong? Because that's what I'm expecting at this point," I say.

"No! Your attempts to intimidate the outliers were actually good ones, and that's a decent strategy to have. You just need to be better at picking who to go after."

That makes perfect sense, as much as I hate to admit it. Both of my targets yesterday were barely fazed by me trying to get under their skin- one was so oblivious he didn't notice, and the other was a shameless smartass that probably would have gotten along great with Eris and Valerie back home. (Sure, her deadpan snark is annoying here, but that doesn't mean I don't have the tiniest bit of respect for her. Even if her attitude makes me want to snap her scrawny neck.)

"The girl from Twelve looks like a real loose cannon," Cassidy says. "Get her riled up, and she'll definitely have an enjoyable reaction. As for boys, maybe the kid from Eight. He looked lost in there yesterday, he definitely appears to be a pushover."

Okay then. "What about the pair from Nine? No one's really targeted them yet."

"Not really a smart idea," Cassidy replies. "The victor from last year is basically mentoring them both, so they already know exactly how to get you bored and wanting to move on."

"Well, I'll try to hit them both today," I say. When Cassidy frowns, I add, "Not literally!"

"There you go," she says. "Let's go eat breakfast."

Once I follow Cassidy to the dining room, I notice that while Godric's door is wide open, Crag's is closed tight. I can still hear his snoring through the door, though- it's just that loud.

"He never gets up before nine o'clock anymore," Cassidy says. "Sure, I'm all for him getting his beauty sleep, but it's annoying as hell when we have tributes to mentor."

That's the last words she says as the four of us- me, Cassidy, Godric, and Champagne- bolt down a hurried breakfast, most of which I don't remember. In what feels like no time at all but must be at least half an hour, the same voice from yesterday is blaring over the intercom, saying, "Tributes, you have ten minutes to report to the second day of training. That is all."

In what feels like nothing more than a blur, we're crammed in the hallway, waiting for the doors to open so that we can get back to preparing once more. I try to find a spot by the other Careers, who all stand tall and proud together. The outliers leave them plenty of space, meaning that once I break from the crowd it's easy to stay with them.

"Hey," I say once I've come to a stop. "What's the plan for today?"

"Easy," Clara says. "Same as yesterday. Brush up on or skills, terrify outliers without even trying, and compete to see who becomes the pack leader."

I smile. "Now that sounds like a great plan."

Godric, Sienna, and Nascar don't exactly look thrilled with what's to come, but Clara manages to calm them down with a simple, "We can train separately if you guys want. We only need to stay as a pack for a few hours."

"Makes sense," Godric says. Sienna starts to say something, but it gets drowned out by the creaking of the massive doors swinging open.

All five of us stride with purpose to the door, and then I'm ready to prove that yes, I can win these games.

"Don't worry, girl," I say to myself. "You've got this. Time to go kick some butt."

Just like that, the second day has begun.

Odysea Davos, District Eleven Female

I think it's safe to say that Thomiah and I both zoned out during Cutter's second-day speech.

Chances are, nothing super-important was in it, anyway. And we still have a lot of ground to cover if we want to be ready by the time these Games are thrust upon us.

Thus, the second that Cutter finishes talking, all of us fan out across the room, rushing to beat everyone else to whatever the hell they're going to do. As for the two of us, we decided the night before that today would be better spent getting practice with combat. Thomiah and I both get sickles and move towards some training dummies on racks.

A helpful diagram right next to the rightmost one shows an image of a gender-neutral, faceless person with a series of red lines across their body- I'm assuming those are the best ways to stab someone if you want the stab to be fatal. Some are obvious- the heart, the brain, the stomach- while others are less so.

For about the next half hour, we practice slicing up the dummies using the methods shown in the diagram. It's hard, heavy work- while Thomiah swings his sickle around with relative ease, I'm struggling to lift the thing up to reach a fatal point after only a few "kills." After about a dozen more, Thomiah barely seems any worse off than when he first started, but my arms feel like they're about to snap at the shoulder, so I wind up collapsing on the floor, panting, as Thomiah looks on.

"Are you okay?"

I look up just so he knows I didn't pass out or something stupid. "Fine… just tired and not very good at this."

"I thought you were a field worker. Wouldn't you be used to handling sickles?"

"Not really," I reply. "I really wasn't involved with much of the grunt work. I wound up handling all the weird little things that cropped up whenever we weren't picking crops. Clearing out poison ivy, chasing animals out of the crop fields, cleaning stuff up whenever there was a really bad thunderstorm coming, stuff like that."

"Good to know," Thomiah says. "I'm not a weapons expert or anything- we should probably ask one of the trainers about this first- but you might want to just stick with knives. Lighter weapons tend to be easier to handle."

"Sounds like a plan," I say, and then head back to the weapons rack, exchanging the sickle for a much lighter knife. Then, I hustle to the water cooler, drink two cups of the most refreshing ice water I've ever had, I rejoin Thomiah back with the dummies.

For another fifteen minutes or so, we get back to work, and suddenly the job becomes much easier. Sure, the knife has a bit of a harder time cutting through the burlap monstrosities posing as human models, but I'm swinging it so much faster that the disadvantages of knives over sickles are almost negated.

After all that, we're exhausted and beyond sweaty. I've drunk plenty of water, so I just stagger to a bench to sit for a minute, but Thomiah goes to the water cooler to get something to drink. I take a quick look around, just to make sure I don't get ambushed by the entire Career pack while Thomiah isn't here to help, but all I can see from here is one of the bigger outliers- the boy from Seven, I think- going to town on a dummy with a freaky-looking, double-headed axe.

Thomiah comes back soon enough, looking slightly less exhausted. "It might just be me here," he says, "but I don't think we can do this all day. Maybe we should mix some more mundane stations into weapons training?"

"I thought you'd never ask," I say. "So, where should we go first? Swimming training? Cooking? Climbing wall? I'm not picky."

Thomiah glances around the room for a short while, but eventually, his gaze settles on the fitness section of the arena. Even though it's inhabited by a boy who definitely looks like a Career, he seems to be focused far more on himself than anybody else- as he bench-presses truly mind-boggling amounts of weight, two other kids throw some kind of ball underhanded, back and forth. That looks pretty easy to me, but the kids doing it have an expression on their faces with so much pain, I'm surprised they haven't had a vein burst yet or something.

"Ally scouting?" It's an obvious question, but his answer is a bit out of the ordinary.

"Of course," he says. "In fact, I think we could start up the anti-Career pack this year."

Well, that was unexpected. Ever since I got here, I never saw myself as anti-Career material. The past few packs like that have all been a few super-serious kids with reasonably useful talents and little enough to lose that they were willing to challenge the Careers themselves. Sure, sponsor money is suddenly much less of a luxury than it was before, but now every single Career wants their heads on a pike.

The last anti-Career to win, funnily enough, is Cordelia, so I make a mental note to ask her some questions once I get back, if she hasn't already gone to bed. Every year since hers (The Eighty-Seventh Games, for those who care) the anti-Career pack had been wiped out before the Games were over, due to a combination of bad luck, a stretch of overly strong Careers, and just some lackluster packs in general.

If we do this, will we be one of those packs? I really hope not.

"Let's go," Thomiah says. "I've got my top targets picked out already. The longer we wait to ask, the higher the likelihood they'll have already formed another alliance."

He strides purposefully over towards the fitness area. I stick behind him, weaving around dummies and weapons and even a Career girl in the midst of hacking a dummy to bits with a machete. Thankfully, she doesn't pay us any attention as we pass.

It only takes a second to decide that I'll let him do most of the talking. Considering he is orders of magnitude more charismatic than I could ever hope to be, if he can't get them into this alliance, I doubt I could.

And just like that, we're trying to look perfectly nonchalant when what might be the most important event in our lives will occur any second.

Faolan Drover, District Ten Male

It might just be me, but the exercise area seems ludicrously crowded, at least by training room standards.

The boy from Two continues to lift weights with ease that I had difficulty even picking up yesterday. The girl from Eight jogs laps around the track, occasionally appearing in my field of vision before vanishing again. The boy from Three is trying out some sort of contraption that's supposedly meant to improve your upper-body strength but looks more like a torture device. Finally, we're joined by the pair from Eleven, both of them slightly out of breath, as they stumble towards some other machine.

After a few minutes, I can tell they're eyeing me up. At least they're attempting to have some subtlety, but it really isn't working.

Fifteen minutes more of this, I decide to just end it myself before this ventures into "creepy" territory. So, I say, in their general direction, "Okay, I wonder if someone wants to ask me something."

The two of them come out of their hiding spots to get closer to me, the boy taking the lead. "Hello," he says. "Thomiah Marshall, District Eleven. Pleasure to meet you."

"Faolan Drover, District Ten," I reply. "Nice to meet you too."

The girl stays in the background. Artesia, having set down the heavy ball, does the same.

"Look," the boy says. "I know that usually there's a lot of awkward side conversation where everyone dances around the point until they finally ask whether they want to ally, but I'm going to keep things brief. We're trying to form the anti-Career pack this year. Are you two interested?"

Well, to make that decision, all I do is answer two quick questions.

Could I work without allies? Definitely.

Should I work without allies? Definitely not.

Well, that was easy. "I'm more than happy to join you two, especially since there hasn't been a real anti-Career pack in four Games. I'll see if Artesia…". I trail off as Artesia comes into view, nodding so fast that it gives the impression that her head is on a spring.

"And then there were four," Thomiah says. "Do you want to try and recruit anyone else?"

"Four's enough," I say. "Tractor subjected me to a Games marathon the past two days, and most of the anti-Career packs were four kids or less. More kids means more power, but it also increases the likelihood that one of them turns traitor."

"Understandable," Thomiah says. "So, you two both from Ten?"

I nod, and Artesia follows.

"One last thing," he adds. "I know we're the anti-Career pack now, but do you want to have another name? Maybe just to stand out a little?"

In all honesty, I could really care less. Being anti-Careers in the first place is enough of a novelty that we'll be interesting regardless. "I don't know. Not the Careers, obviously, but there's got to be something we'll all be fine with."

Thomiah's District partner- I know her name starts with O, but I can't remember it right now- speaks up for the first time. "You want us to be known as 'Not the Careers?'"

I start to say that that's not what I meant, but Thomiah beats me to the punch. "Odysea, call me crazy, but 'Not the Careers' doesn't sound too terrible, even if just 'anti-Careers' is fine. Sure, there have to be better names out there, but I don't have any prepared. Anyone else have ideas?"

Silence. Coupled with some awkward staring. We couldn't have had a better representation of how much we actually know each other if we tried.

"How about we just go by 'anti-Careers' for now, and if we come up with a better name, we'll use it," Thomiah says. The rest of us just nod in agreement. "So, are we going to be a pack or what?"

Thomiah's partner- wait, Odysea- nods. Artesia smiles. I do the same.

"Well," he says, "let's vote on a station to go to next. Any preferences?"

Artesia and Odysea ring in with their respective suggestions, but they get drowned out by a dual wave of ecstasy and anxiety. The ecstasy from becoming part of probably the most powerful non-Career alliance, and the anxiety from rocketing to the top of the Careers' hit list. Unless a miracle breaks in our favor, we'll have to kill them before they can do the same to us.

And based on the Games that Tractor had me watch, doing that is going to be the most challenging thing I've ever done.

Zari Morelett, District Six Female

I know being in an alliance is crucial, but I just don't know who I'd fit with.

The pair from Five looks mismatched at best, and all I'd probably do is screw up whatever their plan was. The kids from Nine are definitely close friends or at least know each other, based on how much they're talking, so I probably wouldn't work with them either. I'm not enough of a threat that the anti-Career alliance would want me, and the Careers? Even if I was talented enough to join them, I'm not sure how I could stand them. Even though they all appear to have a similar mindset, they can barely stand each other- throw me into the mix and everything would just fall apart.

A couple of other alliances have already formed, from what I can tell- besides the Careers and anti-Careers, the kids from Five are sticking together, as are the kids from Nine. I could theoretically try to do the same, but Remi has proven himself to be a double whammy of annoying and incompetent over the few days I've known him. Keeping him around would be the death of me, despite how much I tend to like kids in his age range.

The weapons station might as well be off-limits given how many Careers are currently training there, and I don't have any idea how to operate most of the machines in the exercise area. Thus, for my next station, I decide to do some runs on the obstacle course.

I'm not alone once I get there. At the starting line, the girl from Seven is stretching like she's almost bored with the events transpiring around her. While she does that, I scan the course. It's nothing too challenging or intense- hurdles, ducking through a crawl space for a stretch, climbing over several increasingly-high barriers, and then crossing a very narrow balance beam.

"Hey," the girl says when she finishes stretching. "Wanna race?"

"Eh, no reason not to," I say. "Zari Morelett, District Six."

"Alexa Dobio, District Seven," she replies. "Ready to see who's the queen of the obstacle course?"

"I believe that would be me."

When we turn around in unison to find the source of the new voice, we both swallow hard. Apparently, the girl from One has taken time out of her training schedule to scare the crap out of us. She looks intimidating enough with her all-black attire and piercing eyes, but the creepy smirk really ups her "terrifying" attribute.

"Clara Ridley, District One," she says. "If you think you can beat me, you've got another thing coming."

I start to sign towards Alexa asking what we should do, but I stop about three words in. She's not from home. I didn't know her before today. She probably hasn't learned sign language and I'm just making myself look like a moron. So instead, I whisper the question. "What do we do?"

She doesn't respond. Instead, she calls out, "Hey, can someone just say 'Go' in, like, ten seconds? This Clara chick is trying to prove she's better than us, so we're going to race on the obstacle course."

Someone else, presumably a trainer, yells, "Will do. Ready… set…"

As soon as we hear him scream "Go!" we're flat-out sprinting for the hurdles. I start falling behind, Clara keeping just in front of Alexa while Alexa widens the gap between her and me. Then come the hurdles. Clara and Alexa both fly over them like they've been training for this all their lives. Of course, in Clara's case, it's true…

By the time I've gotten past the hurdles, Clara and Alexa are army-crawling through the narrow space. Clara moves fast, but Alexa's so much smaller that she has a bit of an advantage here. Before they finish, I throw myself under my own crawl space and start worming my way forward.

Once I'm able to stand up again, Clara and Alexa are practically throwing themselves over the barriers. Clara has a massive height advantage here, and to a lesser extent, I do. As I scale the first wall, Clara hurls herself over the final one, and once I summit the second wall, Alexa's followed Clara to the balance beam.

The beam is arguably the hardest obstacle, since it's maybe a foot wide at the start and shrinks to tightrope-width by the end that's suspended above a pit (thankfully, it's filled with foam bricks, meaning that even if you fall, you should be fine unless you land on your face). Clara's inching forward across the thing, while Alexa's making a move to try and pass her, gaining fast. Having already realized there's no shot of me winning, now I'm focusing less on what I'm doing and more on who wins this thing.

The two of them are neck and neck now, with less than half the balance beam to go, as I take my first step onto it. It's gonna be close.

Then Clara comes to a dead stop. Alexa keeps moving forward, but I stop too, not quite sure what to make of this.

At least, until Clara pulls her leg back and kicks Alexa in the shin.

She shrieks and wobbles briefly, but somehow keeps her balance. However, the distraction is enough for Clara to pass her, snickering as she does. I see red for a split second and pick up the pace once more, but I can't do anything to fix this.

Alexa, however, growls, "So that's how it's going to be?" Then, as she nears Clara again, she returns the favor by sharply poking her in the side, snarling, "Two can play that game, missy!". Clara almost tumbles off the beam as well, but somehow stays up there, although Alexa gains the lead once more, moving way faster than I'd ever dare across the narrowest part of the balance beam.

Alexa leaps off the beam a second before Clara, and now it's just a mad dash to the wall. One that I intend to see…

But then I miss a step. Flailing my arms around fruitlessly to try and regain my balance, I topple off the side, luckily missing the other beams as I fall. (Sure, the beams are fairly flexible so you don't get a concussion if you hit them, but that doesn't mean that it isn't painful), landing in the foam blocks below.

I can't see who wins. However, I do hear Alexa yelling "Ding ding ding!", which is immediately followed by Clara spewing a string of nasty curse words- or at least words I think are nasty curse words, given that I've never heard anyone use them before.

"Uh, hello?" I'm calling up, hoping someone can hear me. "How do I get out of here?"

Unfortunately, neither Clara nor Alexa are paying attention to me. Clara's loudly accusing Alexa of cheating, while Alexa's yelling back, and I quote, "if you can't take it, don't dish it!"

Oh, great. As much as Alexa's accusations are justified, all they're going to do is get her killed. The Careers don't have a ton of power in the Training Room, but once we leave, there's no holds barred.

Soon, their argument either stops or gets too far away for me to hear, leaving me alone in this pit. Seriously, though, how am I supposed to climb back up?

Eventually (and I do mean eventually) my calls for help and repeated asks of "How do I get out of here?" get answered, as a retractable ladder drops from somewhere, allowing me to climb back out.

I'm going to have to push what just happened to the back of my mind- the last thing I need is to waste any more time.

However, forgetting Alexa is not going to be a simple task.

Alliance Tracker:

-From now on, I'm going to give you an updated alliance list with each chapter relevant to training or the Arena. It's listed below:

Alliances:

Careers: Nascar, Clara, Godric, Galadia, Sienna

Anti-Careers: Faolan, Artesia, Thomiah, Odysea

Opposites Attract: Spark, Catarina

One-Way Romance: Marius, Toren

Unaligned (for now): Rhaemyr, Sotia, Vick, Remi, Zari, Aryion, Alexa, Romeo, Lacey, Maxxer, Fox

Other Notes:

-Hopefully, you enjoyed this, and I'll see you next chapter!