Chapter X: Avalanche!
A/N: With the long wait comes a chapter full of drama. Please excuse Haymitch's use of a choice word, he was well within reason to use it! Thanks go out to TheReaper94 and alexandria-likethecityinegypt for their assistance. Italics are flashbacks or listing of deaths. Here are days 7 and 8 of the 80th Hunger Games. Enjoy! SSD
Day VII
Isabel was having trouble sleeping. Especially since the others got back. Nikola was dead. And when she'd asked if it was a quick death, they had all said yes. It had been too quick an answer. They were all keeping something from her.
Then again, she was keeping something from them as well.
While the others had gone after Nikola, Isabel had gotten a gift from a sponsor: two gorgeous daggers.
They had bone handles with silver inlaid into the grip. The blades were curved and were etchings of leaves and vines on the blades as well.
She could tell that they were of the highest quality. They had to be expensive.
There had been a note wrapped around the sheathes.
I saw the video of your training session. May these daggers fly straight and your aim be true.
After making sure that Rose and Thomas were sound asleep, Isabel crept towards Damon.
Damon noticed her walking towards him and asked, "What is it Izzy?"
"I have something to show you," she replied as she brought the daggers into view.
Damon gave a low whistle as he took them in.
"Those probably cost a pretty penny. Did the note say who sent them," he asked.
"No. There was no name," Isabel whispered back.
The wind whistled through the mountains as they both wondered who could have possibly afforded to send Isabel those daggers. The baby wriggled as well.
They weren't the only ones who were wondering where the daggers had come from. Tylara was wondering as well.
Few Capitolians would have the money to buy those daggers. Even fewer would have been able to see the training video *and* send the daggers directly to Isabel, going around Tylara herself.
Once she got back to the District 10 floor, all Tylara wanted to do was sleep. But she noticed a video call was waiting, and when she saw the caller id Tylara decided not to ignore it.
Tylara answered the call and smiled as she saw her son Alistair. He looked tense, but had a huge smile plastered on his face.
"What's wrong Alistair," she asked.
"Nothing mom. How are you doing," her grey eyed son deflected.
Undeceived, Tylara pressed, "I'm your mother. I can tell when something is up with you. What's wrong?"
Thomas wavered for a moment before saying, "I asked Lena to marry me."
Tylara smiled, "That's great Alistair!"
"Don't get excited. She said no," Alistair replied.
"Why? I thought you two were serious," Tylara exclaimed.
"She told me she didn't want kids. You know I do," Alistair replied, his voice tight as if he was trying to keep himself from crying.
"I'm sorry. I liked her, but it's good that you found out now. She obviously wasn't the right one for you," Tylara soothed.
Then an all too familiar voice drawled, "That's a myth. There *are* no right ones."
Tylara started in her seat. The worst possible person to see her talking to her son had just walked in: Haymitch.
She scrambled to turn it off with a "I'll call you back" as Alistair asked, "Mom who is..." Before he could finish the call cut out.
"Please whoever's listening, let Haymitch not have seen..." Tylara thought.
Haymitch shouted, "What the Hell?!"
Tylara swung around in the chair. This was going to be ugly.
"You lied to me!" Haymitch's eyes were blazing like wildfire.
Before Tylara could get a word in edgewise, Haymitch cut her off with, "Were you ever going to tell me about him or were you going to keep this to yourself forever?"
Tylara began with, "I can explain . . ."
"Explain? How can you explain something like this? Did you not think I had a right to know? He's my son and I never even knew he existed!" Haymitch was nearly beyond reason.
She said, "It wasn't like . . ."
"Oh, and what was it like, huh? Because I have no idea . . . Because YOU NEVER TOLD ME!"
Tylara replied, "I didn't exactly lie to you . . ."
"No! You just didn't fucking tell me at all!"
Before she could even reply to that, Haymitch hissed, "You know, Tylara, a lie by omission is still a lie."
As he left, he slammed the door hard enough to knock a painting off the wall, shattering the glass.
The two Victors had not been as alone as they thought.
Gale had heard every word, he thought, "Holy shit, Haymitch has a kid?"
Tylara was just sitting in the chair in front of the video call screen.
She looked up and upon seeing him there she asked, "You heard that?"
He nodded.
"All of it?"
He nodded again.
Tylara got up and braced her hands on a window sill. She spoke in a whisper, but still loud enough for Gale to hear, "I wanted to tell him. I really did. you know how the prior president was."
Gale nodded. He had been present for Gale's Avoxing.
"I just... couldn't take that risk. If it had been common knowledge that Haymitch was Alistair's father, it likely would have been my son's death sentence."
Taking a deep breath, Tylara recovered her composure with, "I need to get down to the Games Center. Aras is likely waiting."
Auric was out on patrol hunting for other tributes.
This year's batch of outer district tributes were particularly good at hiding this time around. The only tribute that had been found during hunting had been the trap boy from 5.
He'd been eating a bunch of wild grapes he'd found along a river in the arena, after he ran out of the food he had with him. They were a bit bitter, but seemed okay.
On his way back to the Cornucopia, Auric went by the river where he'd found the wild grapes. He began to feel something akin to severe gas pains, which steadily got worse.
He fell to his knees beside the river, doubled over in pain.
Auric could feel an explosion coming, and he was able to pull his pants down.
No sooner had he managed that, an eruption of diarrhea happened. Auric managed to turn his head around and saw that there was blood in the stool and a lot of it.
He'd been poisoned somehow.
Auric then stuck his finger down his throat to try and make himself vomit. He puked, but his stomach pain just got worse.
Another explosion of bloody diarrhea shot out of him. Auric's whole body began to jerk around.
All of the sudden, the urge to take off all his clothes hit him. And it sounded like a good idea.
No sooner had Auric done that, two more spurts of the runs escaped him. He couldn't bring himself to care.
After several more spurts, Auric was lying down, shivering.
Maybe if he slept, the agony would end.
Auric Jerome, 11th Place, District 1, moonseed poisoning, Day VII
A short time later in the Game Center...
Tylara breathed a sigh of relief. Another Career was dead, and due to his own stupidity.
"I thought that Careers knew better than to eat anything outside the Cornucopia," Aras remarked before saying, "Though that's how I won my Games. The girl from 2 ate some Barbados nuts."
"Be thankful you didn't have to watch it. That was unpleasant," Tylara commented.
Day VIII, late morning...
James had been on tenterhooks since the day of the reaping. The girl he loved had been intentionally reaped. Then as per the coin toss they'd made, Damon had volunteered to go into the Arena to protect her.
Isabel. He'd been in love with her for years. And just when he had gotten the courage up to ask her out, Erik had beaten him to the punch.
He couldn't feel bitter. Erik had been his best friend besides Damon.
In the end, Erik had made Izzy happy, and that had been enough for him. James remembered the day of the funeral. He, Isabel, and Damon had been forbidden to go. They were going to find a way to say goodbye to him their own way.
Not unsurprisingly, James woke up to the sound of someone retching in the bathroom.
Isabel, it seemed, was suffering from morning sickness.
She'd been staying at the Martell house most days. Her family had become downright cold and distant with her. Except for Tristan who couldn't understand why everyone was being mean to his favorite sister.
James padded over to the bathroom and opened it. Sure enough, Isabel was kneeling before the toilet.
He shuffled over and gathered her hair away from her face and rubbed her back.
When she finished puking, Isabel murmured, "Thank you."
"Why don't you take a shower? It'll help you feel better. I'll make you some tea and crackers," James soothed.
"Thank you. For everything," Isabel replied.
James went into the kitchen and started making the ginger tea. The ginger came from his mother's garden.
Roxanne, his 11 year old sister was in the kitchen as well.
"How's Izzy doing," she asked.
"She'll feel a bit better after drinking this," he replied.
A short time later, Isabel padded into the kitchen, still quite pale. With nod and the barest ghost of a smile, drank the tea and nibbled the crackers.
"Thank you, James," she whispered.
James was taking his sister Roxy out to a park after she begged for him to spend more time with her.
While his sister was playing, James saw Erik's brother Patrick. Who was likely one of his murderers.
Instead of going after James himself, Patrick decided to go for Roxanne by sneering, "Hey Roxanne. You know they're going to be sending your brother back in pieces right?"
Before James could even take a step towards her, Roxanne jumped off the playground equipment, charged Patrick yelling "YAARRGH!" and tackled him. Patrick was 20 years old and a lot bigger than Roxanne.
Even though there were Peacekeepers in the growing crowd, they didn't do anything to stop Roxy from sitting on Patrick's chest and hitting him in the face. She was also using language James wondered where she picked it up! The Peacekeepers were too busy laughing along with the crowd.
James had been laughing too, before he ran up to his spitfire of a sister and dragged her off Patrick. Roxanne managed to get a kick to Patrick's family jewels.
The crowd applauded and cheered even more.
He stopped dragging his sister, knelt down before her and asked, "What the he- What on Earth were you thinking?" James had needed to catch himself.
"He needed to be taught a lesson," Roxanne cried, hot tears coming down her cheeks, before blurting, "He was being mean to you and me, and he's been mean to Izzy!"
"That he has," James replied. Patrick had been a bully all his life.
The Bostwicks were largely pieces of work, except for Erik, and his 15 year old sister Aurora, who adored her big brother.
James had an incredibly bad feeling that the entire family, save for Aurora, had likely gotten away with murder.
Back in the arena... later on Day VIII
Isabel was feeling itchy inside her own skin. What didn't help matters was that the baby had dancing a jig inside her the entire night.
Still, she'd managed to be productive today. Isabel had taken three camping backpacks and packed them full with food and supplies.
She'd attached the tent to the backpack that Damon would be using with ease.
"Izzy, what are you doing," Damon asked.
"I'm just getting the supplies together. You three need to watch each other's backs when you go check those traps," she replied.
"I still don't think leaving you alone is a good idea," Rose countered, beating Damon to that issue.
"I'll be fine. Thomas helped me move the stuff that I'll have into the cave, and I now have my own methods of self defense," Isabel said in reply.
She had shown Rose and Thomas the daggers she'd received while they were gone. Isabel had also demonstrated her skill with them.
"Is that what you showed in your private sessions," Thomas asked.
Isabel had nodded in reply.
After that moment of introspection, she began to shoo them away from the cave saying, "Now get going. The sooner you leave, the sooner you get back!"
Isabel had been feeling achy everywhere all day. She'd pushed through it wanting to get the backpacks packed up and the supplies moved back into the cave.
She sat down in her camp chair. Of course, the baby began wriggling again.
When the other three had been gone for roughly an hour, according to her watch, Isabel heard a rumble. Some small rocks tumbled. The vibrations grew stronger as snow slid in front of the cave. Moments later a wall of snow covered the opening, blocking it completely.
Isabel snarled, "Ah shit!"
Achilles had been patrolling nearby when the avalanche hit. He'd tried to outrun it, but to no avail.
First the wall of snow threw him into a boulder.
His last coherent vision was of a tree falling down on him.
Achilles Corvin, 10th Place, District 2, avalanche, Day VIII
At the sound of the cannon firing, Damon was off like a shot shouting, "I KNEW I shouldn't have left her alone!"
Rose and Thomas tore after him.
Tristan Storm was numb. He didn't know whether his sister was alive or dead.
He looked at James, who was kneeling on the floor, ashen faced.
The only word Tristan could hear James say was, "No."
A/N 2: And this chapter comes to an end. A few things:
1. I tweaked the reaction time of the moonseed poisoning to be a lot faster than it usually is. Auric ate a lot of them, so that sped up the time window.
2. The new castings are Ben Barnes as James Martell and Anthony Mackie as Aras McCoy. James and Damon are fraternal twins.
3. Haven't cast Tylara's son Alistair. Open to suggestions. What do you all think of who Dad is for him by the way? I said that Haymitch and Tylara were good friends. I just didn't say how good of friends they were at one point! ;)
And lastly...
4. The next three chapters will be a part of an arc. Any guesses as to what will be happening over the course of the arc? ;)
Hope you all enjoyed the chapter, can't wait to see what you all think! Happy Groundhog Day! SSD