Chapter IX: Playing With Their Food
A/N: Here's day 6 of the 80th Hunger Games. I made some changes to my original plan for the chapter, so things took a little longer than I'd like in writing it. Thanks go to TheReaper94 and alexandria-likethecityinegypt for their help. The description of the 35th Games and arena comes from Reaper's Year By Year story with permission. There is some brutality from the Careers in this chapter. Enjoy the chapter! SSD
Day VI
Each year the Hunger Games plated out differently. And each victor or in one case victors, leaving their mark.
Ceasar thought of his first Hunger Games as Master of Ceremonies. He had only been 22 years old at the 35th Games.
The arena had been modeled after a District 12 mine. That year, the girl from 12 had scored unusually high in training. Most of the time, tributes from 12 were lucky to get a 5.
The Career Alliance had picked off the other tributes one by one, until they came across the male tribute from District 3 on the 11th day. Nets fell on the six Careers as they entered. After a few moments, the nets became electrified and cooked them all until they were dead.
That had been a 16 year old Beetee Latier.
The 46th Games also had an interesting arena: A meatpacking plant with rabid mutts thrown in for good measure. Those Games had lasted 2 and a half weeks, mostly with the tributes running away from the Mutts.
From the ashes of a second bloodbath finale, rose a 16 year old butcher's daughter from 10: Tylara Donovan with 5 kills.
The Second Quarter Quell had the districts sending in two boys and two girls. Like in the first Quarter Quell, the arena had been a deceptively innocent looking outdoor mountainous arena. Over these three week Games, there had been jaguar mutts that could leap great distances, EF-5 tornadoes, earthquakes that would register a 9 on the Ricter Scale, and ended near an erupting volcano.
That nailbiter of a finale had ended when the Capitol favorite girl from 1 threw an axe at the surviving tribute from 12 of all places. The boy had ducked the axe which ricochet off the force field around the arena and back into the girl's head.
That had led to Haymitch Abernathy's becoming the second Victor from 12.
Before he could think of how other Games had played out, there was a knock on the door.
"Come in," Ceasar called.
A Peacekeeper strode in and said, "The President wishes to see you."
Ceasar got up right away, being late for such a meeting was never a good idea.
Even if Romulus was not as dangerous as his father. Yet.
"So how do you think the Games are going," Romulus asked as soon as Ceasar entered the room.
"Most of the deaths have been well received. Though the frostbite death as seen as anticlimactic," he replied before continuing, "The death of the girl from 4 was surprising."
"I thought that they would be better prepared and know to look around. District 4 needs to step up their game, if they want to hold up to the sobriquet "Career District"," Romulus muttered.
Were you betting on the girl then," Ceasar asked.
"No. I have my money bet on other tributes," Romulus replied.
Nikola was out setting traps. He'd been doing alright for most of the day.
He'd already brought back a haul of rabbits from his traps back to the cave. Damon and Isabel were skinning them with ease.
He had never thought that he would make it this far into the Games. Nikola had even caused the death of another tribute with one of his more lethal traps. And it had even been a Career tribute!
"Look what we have here. Let's have some fun," a voice sneered.
Nikola turned around and saw 3 members of the Career pack. He should have been paying more attention to his surroundings.
Before he could move, the boy from 1 hit Nikola on the side of the side of the head with the flat of his sword, plunging him into darkness.
What surprised Nikola was the fact that he did wake up. He'd been "helped" awake by a slap to the face.
"Ah. Looks like our guest has finally woken up," Trident grinned.
Nikola could only blink as the girl from 1 hauled him up. He noticed that the pair from 2 were conspicuously absent.
"Okay, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Tell us where your alliance is hidden and we'll kill you quickly. Don't tell us, and we'll make you wish you'd never been born," Auric said in a tone that made you think he was asking which wine would be best to go with fish.
Nikola just turned his face away. They would be killing him anyway, not that he would even consider telling these psychos where his allies were hidden. He knew that they were mainly after Isabel.
"Suit yourself," Serena drawled as she gave a Nikola kidney punch. Once he was down, the two boys started kicking every inch of him they could reach.
After they seemed to have finally gotten tired of kicking him around like a soccer ball, Auric hauled him up to a standing position, frog marched him over to a tree and tied him to it with Nikola's face into the tree.
Auric, Serena, and Trident then broke branches from a cedar tree and took turns flogging his back.
"This can all stop you know. Just tell us where your allies are hiding," Trident said as he took another turn at the recalcitrant boy from 5.
Through the agony of his broken ribs, Nikola snarled, "Go to hell" with a baleful glare.
The Careers just went back to beating him raw.
Nikola wondered what they'd do next.
He was taken down and had a cloth placed over his face. The two boys held him down, as Serena poured several bottles of water over his face.
"Looks like they've moved to waterboarding," Nikola thought.
He had no idea how long this had been going on.
"What do we do with you next," Auric mocked.
Nikola's back felt like flames were licking every inch of it.
"He's not going to talk. Let's just end it," Trident growled. This had been a massive waste of time.
Nikola watched in a daze as his torturers cut from two medium sized trees.
"Come on 5. We're gonna leave someplace for your allies to find you," Serena dragged him along.
"My name... is Nikola," he choked out.
"This is where I die. At least I didn't rat my allies out. I can die with honor," Nikola thought as he watched them knock together a cross.
"They're going to crucify me," was one of Nikola's last coherent thoughts through his pain hazed mind.
His back burned as they roughly threw him onto the boards. He felt ropes being tied around his wrists.
Knives were also driven into his wrists.
After getting the cross up, Trident snickered, "We'll be leaving you here. Enjoy hanging out."
Rose was running as fast as she could. She'd been near Nikola's area on her way back from patrolling, when she heard a high pitched laugh. Moving quietly towards the noise, Rose had seen three Careers flogging Nikola with branches.
Rose wasn't stupid. Taking on three Careers at once, on her own, was suicide. That was why she was running towards the cave.
When she got back, Rose blurted, "Three Careers are torturing Nikola."
"We can't fight them in the open," Thomas argued.
"If they're focused on Nikola, we could catch them off guard," Rose argued.
"It would be nice to knock another Career or two out," Damon mused.
Isabel started to open her mouth and Damon as if reading her mind said, "No. Absolutely not. You are staying here and hiding."
"But..." Isabel started before Thomas said, "Isabel, I know you're bored. But it's safer for you to hide here."
"We'd also move faster," Rose remarked.
Isabel knew that she was a liability. It didn't mean she liked it.
"Okay go find Nikola. I'll hold down the fort," she grumbled.
The other three ran off with their weapons.
Isabel settled into her chair, the baby kicking visibly. She had a very bad feeling about what they would find.
Damon, Thomas, and Rose booked it back to where Rose had last seen Nikola. It took them over an hour to get there.
"MARY MOTHER OF GOD," Damon exclaimed.
The trio was struck dumb at the site of their ally on a cross. The Careers had crucified him in addition to whatever else they did.
Thomas recovered his voice first ordering, "For God's sake, cut him down!"
The other two broke out of their shock and proceeded to do that.
As they brought him down, Nikola was moaning "I didn't tell them, I didn't tell them" over and over.
Thomas looked Nikola over with the practiced eye of a healer.
Nikola's chest looked like one big bruise. He could also see that several ribs were broken.
"Ribs in the back are also likely broken," Thomas catalogued.
The way Nikola was breathing also made Thomas suspect that at least one of his lungs was punctured.
He turned to Rose and Damon saying, "We need to talk."
"His wounds are too much," Thomas whispered.
"I can see that," Damon drawled with sarcasm clear in his voice. But he all knew what Thomas was saying.
As he drew his machete, Rose beat him over to Nikola. She knelt down besides him, saying, "It's going to be alright now."
Nikola wheezed a "thank you."
A short time later, Rose choked up on her scythe and sliced Nikola's carotid artery, ending his suffering.
Nikola Coil, 12th Place, District 5, tortured by Trident, Auric, and Serena
As soon as the cannon fired, Rose dropped her weapon and ran off to vomit in the bushes.
Damon did feel sorry for Nikola. Being tortured for information that he didn't give, then crucified was not a good way to go.
He'd been reaching for his weapon when Rose did what he'd been about to do himself.
And while it was nice to have allies now, Damon knew that such alliances were temporary.
The only person he truly trusted in the arena was Isabel. And Damon's main focus was getting Isabel and himself home.
"At least I didn't have to kill him by stabbing him in the back," Damon thought as the trio trudged back to the cave.
A/N 2: Those Careers certainly showed their brutality. Don't worry, they'll get their comeuppance in time. Romulus Snow is cast as Kiefer Sutherland. So... what did you all think of it? SSD