Compared to being woken by a flood, the booming voice was nowhere near as bad. I caught my broken fingers however as I jumped and growled in frustration as they announced a feast would take place at the Cornucopia in two hours.
"They must be getting bored." I said.
"Or they know we're all hungry." Ray replied. She looked pissed off though whether it was hunger or being woken, I didn't know. "I said we'd kill Renown today. So we will."
"We might not make it."
Ray used her spear to jump it. "We'll fucking make it! We'll get there and I'll put this through his heart. Now get up."
I wasn't going to argue. Right now was the most I had ever trusted her as she had thoughts only for Renown and the unspeakable ways she wanted to kill him. Her limp was still there but my medicine had worked its magic on her arm. We were still covered in bruises though and I had my broken fingers. We would have looked intimidating to Kayla and Tyler but not to Renown and his sword.
"Relax." I said.
"To hell with that. I wanted to be coursing with adrenaline when we get there."
The weary girl I had met after dragging myself out of the lake was gone and the Career volunteer was back. At home, killing a fellow District tribute would get you ostracised. For Careers, they knew it was virtually inevitable that they would have to face each other. There was nothing holding her back and her rage at his sudden betrayal was nothing but hypocrisy considering she had been planning to murder him with Fiona.
It was quiet. Very quiet. If it wasn't for us, it would have been completely silent. Ray had no worries about being heard. She crashed along, rustling bushes and snapping branches underfoot, frightening birds out of the trees. If there were any dangerous animals out there, they would have any trouble finding us. Flooding aside, this arena was tame. It hadn't needed to be anything else; we had provided plenty of slaughter.
"If I end up killing you… Thanks. For everything." Ray suddenly said.
"What?"
"Thank you for not trying to kill me that first night. Thank you for helping me with Renown that night rather than running away and leaving us to it. Thank you for the medicine. And thank you for the food."
My first thought was that she was trying to score points with the audience but the way she spoke, casually, and with considerable awkwardness… She was being sincere. "You're a strange person, Ray."
"I don't like debts." She grunted, unable to look at me. "And if you kill me, that wouldn't be so bad. You killed Sulla and Alba so I'll be remembered. If you don't win… you should be memorable. There can't be anything worse than being forgotten. Even death."
"Death is inevitable." I said.
Ray looked at me. "You believe that?"
"We all die. One way or another… You chose to risk dying here. The odds were against me. If I die here, I guess that's better than dying in some mill accident or just starving… At least this is…"
"Exciting?" She offered.
"Perhaps. For me. But for June? For Sora… This was a nightmare."
"Sora?"
"District 8. Alba killed her. I was with her when she died, after I killed Alba… She didn't belong here."
"But we do. You've proved it. I've proved it."
I was not going to argue with the fact that I had proven to be an able killer. "We shouldn't be forced to come here."
"If you hadn't been forced to come here, you'd never have known what you could do."
"I think I could have lived with not knowing I could strangle someone to death."
"We are what we are."
"You scare me."
"Good. That'll help me later." She smiled at her own brutal joke.
We arrived at the Cornucopia just as the table rose out of the ground. Some feasts consisted of banquet platters, full meals laid out on dishes while others might have been a single weapon that could change the balance of power entirely if the right person got hold of it.
Today, at midday I realised, there were five packs. Five packs for five tributes. There had to be food inside. It was what we all needed.
Tyler suddenly ran out of the Cornucopia, tearing across the grass and snatching one of the packs before either of us could react.
"Smart bastard." Ray muttered.
I had to agree. He had put himself in the best position and left the way clear for the rest of us. He would be in the woods in moments and safe again.
"Let him go."
"I wasn't planning on chasing him." I watched him run, slipping the pack over his shoulders and then gushing crimson as something silver flashed in the light. "Fuck!"
Renown came out from behind a tree that Tyler had run to with the worst luck in the world. Even though his throat was open, Renown still felt the need to stab him in the gut, twice.
"You're mine now, asshole!" Ray was already running, her limp throwing her a little off-balance but she compensated with sheer rage. I took after her but she wasn't heading for Renown but for the table. So was Renown. He charged with his bloody sword held low as cannon sounded to tell the world that Tyler was gone. It was a straight up race now and they both had injured legs, I did not.
Neither did little Kayla. I saw her appear on the edge of my vision and she was faster than the three of us, clearly better fed than any of us and completely unhurt. She was completely unarmed too, unencumbered.
She caught my eye just as she reached the table and I saw immediately. Kayla had shadowed me and the others, stayed hidden the whole time. Hiding had kept her alive. Hiding could continue to keep her alive. These packs were her ticket home.
She seized all four.
Ray and Renown both screamed with rage as the little girl took off, the weight of the packs slowing her down. Renown had already slowed and I saw him glance around and realised that Tyler still wore one of the five. He glanced at Ray and then turned and ran back. I was running for Kayla and I heard Ray scream with frustration and I didn't know if she wanted help to go after Renown or because we had been outsmarted and wrong footed by both Tyler and Kayla.
The distance between me and Kayla shrank to just a few feet and the enormity of the need to stab her in the back overwhelmed me suddenly. I couldn't do that. Not Kayla. Not in the back. If I tackled her… Ray could do the dirty work…
Kayla hurled a pack and it struck me in the face hard. Something inside was metallic. Apparently Kayla's skill was throwing. I stumbled back and Kayla fled with the remaining three.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" Ray skidded up beside me and glared after Kayla.
"Don't."
"You think I could catch the little rat on an empty stomach?!" Ray snarled at me and I tensed and began to raise my spear. "Don't!" She snapped. "Not yet." She turned and looked back to where Tyler's body was being recovered. Renown was gone. Kayla was gone. The Gamemakers had gotten their kill out of their feast and everyone was resupplied. Some more than others. Ray gazed at the scorched Cornucopia. "Let's eat."
It was a roof over our heads, despite the ashes, blackened metal and plastic gunk. With our spears, it was also easily defended. Spears we both pointedly put down as we opened the pack.
The metallic object was a cylinder of soup, hot soup. We put it aside and took out a couple of packets of dried meat, along with bags of fresh rolls and apples and a tub of rice.
It was enough food for a tribute to survive on for a week.
Ray unscrewed the lid of the cylinder and filled it. The sight of the steam coming off it made my stomach growl loud enough for her to hear it. She giggled and I felt my skin creep at this unnatural sound. She cautiously sipped from the lid and flinched as the hot liquid entered her mouth but then her eyes rolled up with delight. "Chicken soup." She purred and my skin crawled again.
I helped myself to some of the rice because it was the only other part of this meal I hadn't eaten since entering the arena. It was rice, egg-fried, delicious. I only had a mouthful because after eating pinewood for days I didn't trust my stomach not to recoil.
Ray finished her soup and offered me the lid. She also had a mouthful of rice and made that same purring sound. Going hungry was obviously much worse for her, and perhaps she was used to good food where she came from.
It wasn't much of a meal, a cup of soup and a mouthful of rice, all things considered. But it was a meal. The soup did something impossible; it made me feel better.
"This is really wrong."
I looked up at Ray and all trace of her giggle and purr was gone. Instead she looked revolted.
"Think about killing Renown." I said. "This won't feel so revolting."
"I'm sat here having a nice meal with you." Now she was the one with creeping skin. "We've eaten, we should find the girl."
"Kayla? What about Renown?"
"Renown doesn't have my pack of food."
"Kayla-"
"Kayla took those packs because she knows what she's doing! She knows we're together to get Renown. She knows we're all dangerous. She knows that the best way to finish us is to leave us hungry and fighting each other! She took those packs so she can hide somewhere, eat well and leave us to wither away! That is a smart kid. That is a dead kid!"
"We're not going after her."
"You don't have to kill her."
"Renown's limping. We can catch him. We can kill him."
"And then what? You leave me to kill Kayla and then wait to kill me?"
"So you want to kill Kayla, then Renown and then… We stand over his body, say good luck-"
"You don't want Renown to kill you, I don't want Renown to kill me. So we kill him together. If we have to track down a kid who took our supplies first, fuck it! If we're the final two… That's the way it is."
"It's not right."
"Because she's two years younger than you? Because she's a girl?"
"It doesn't feel…" I shrugged helplessly.
"So you'll only kill people from Districts 1 and 2. How… provincial of you."
I had an awful moment of clarity as I realised that with Kayla dead there would only be brute force tributes left. With only myself, Ray and Renown left, the Games would soon be over.
No more of these awkward, nerve-grating nights. No more arguments with this bloodthirsty maniac.
"Fine." I finally said.
"Not today. Should be today… but I can't do it. Not after that run." She shook her head and then snarled at herself, furious with her own weakness. It was good to hear she was exhausted though as I was completely worn out too. "Today we eat. We eat and we rest and tomorrow, we kill your little Kayla."
"You're not helping."
"I'm here to kill you."
"Good point." I was glad our spears were on the ground because otherwise I might have done something stupid. "No weapons." I said. "Not even cutlery."
"There's two of us and one of him. It's more sporting if he has a real weapon and we don't."
Ray understood the Games far too well I thought.
"And I don't think Kayla has a single weapon, so it's definitely entertaining."
"You've watched every single Games, haven't you?"
"Many times." She admitted far too freely. "You can learn a lot. Be afraid of animals." She twitched several times. "Very afraid."
She wasn't wrong. Whenever mutts made an appearance in the Games, they always left an indelible stain on your mind.
"You're thinking. Stop that. You're making me paranoid."
Ray was clearly making a joke. "Are you insane?" I asked.
"This is weird, and wrong. I'm trying to get over it."
"Maybe we should just go our own ways."
"No. I need you. I might feel like you're going to stab me in the back but I know you won't."
"I wouldn't stab you in the back."
"You killed Sulla from behind and stabbed Alba in the heart. Put them together."
"That was different."
"How?"
"I know you. If I kill you, you'll be facing me, and you'll be armed."
"If." She said and smiled grimly. "I like that."
"You would."
Perhaps in response to the fact we had all benefited from the feast today, as the light faded the temperature dropped radically. I watched my breath mist in front of me as I tucked my hands into my sleeves. We weren't going to risk a fire, not now. Instead we sat back in the ashes of the Cornucopia and Ray used her new pack like I did as a crude blanket. Perhaps Renown was using my sleeping bag… Perhaps he had one of his own from the Careers supplies. Maybe he had both. Imagining him warm made me think about breaking his legs and that helped warm me up.
"I'm glad it wasn't snow. So glad." Ray murmured.
"It might have been nice, nothing but cold to help you slip away…"
"Do you even care if I kill you?"
"I don't have anything to go back to. I might hate the mills but what would I do without them? Who would I be?"
"You tell me, millboy." It might not have been possible but I swore I heard her eyes roll in the darkness. "You know people like you make very boring Games."
"If you want entertainment, they should all be volunteers like you."
"I think that would be better. It's not satisfying to gut a twelve year old."
"You did?"
"Girl from Six. First day. Killed her instantly. I didn't eviscerate her the way Renown took the boy from Twelve. And Alba took the girl from Twelve. Good throw."
"I saw that. And I saw Renown kill the boy from Eight. He's racked up a lot of kills."
"Yeah… Imagine if they were all like us. All Careers as you call us. That would be a contest." The relish of this idea was clear in her voice. "Imagine if they took previous Victors."
"That would cruel."
"For people like you. Not for us."
"If you made it out of here, you'd want to come back."
"You try and tell me if you've ever felt more alive than before you came here."
"I'm not like other people."
The sound of her eyes rolling bothered me again. "I'm this close to risking a fire."
"I don't want to fight Renown in the dark again."
"No. That wasn't fun. I think they want us to fight in the light. Better footage that way."
"Go to sleep, Ray." I didn't need to hear how the Capitol would prefer a clearer shot of my bloody demise.
"Are you going to keep watch?"
"One of us has to."
"Makes sense."
Ray astonished me by actually going to sleep and either she believed me when I said I would only kill her when she was facing me or she actually did trust me. I knew I wouldn't have trusted her to be awake while I slept as easily.
Maybe it was the cold. Maybe it was the thought that Renown was on the prowl. Perhaps I was afraid of falling asleep and having Ray discover I had slept on watch. Whatever it was I stayed awake. I did what she had told me, I avoided thinking. I had no idea what kept me going through the night. There was nothing to see, nothing to do. All I could hear was Ray breathing.
Dawn finally rolled around and Ray came awake blearily. "You actually stayed awake all night?"
"All quiet."
"Good job." She said and I was confident that we were both unsettled by her words. "You sleep now." She stood up and stretched. "I need to find a bush. But get some rest. We've got to finish off District 3 today."
"I'm sure that'll give me pleasant dreams."
I settled back and dozed. I heard her come back and felt her settle beside me. I drifted in and out, too tired to stay awake and too paranoid to completely drift away. If she had killed me though, I wouldn't have blamed her. It was all part of the Games.
