With thanks to Glassgift, GoldenfeatherKyru and abbycoraby123 for your reviews of the last chapter.
Y 184-09-02 T 00:25:59
Day 3
Emma had spent the last hour or so consolidating supplies from the large pile she and Ronan had tied up in the City Studios- she had taken as much as she could hold, then had taken the rest outside and lit a bonfire to destroy the rest. She had just dragged the last of Ronan's store outside and placed the match on some tinder when she noticed the flickering light glowing on the pyre that she had not lit yet.
She looked up into the night and found it was dyed orange with flickering, shifting, burning light.
When Emil had walked from the Waterfront to the Cornucopia, it had taken him hours- he had been careful with every step to prevent it echoing, stopped every few metres to check nobody was around.
Now he wasn't afraid anymore. Now, it took him twenty minutes despite the heavy backpack to jog back to the Waterfront and the small-windowed building he had left Cesal in. No buildings in this fake Capitol had locks, so Cesal had been half-placed and half-dragged to a backroom of the house, settled on a bed, and the door reinforced as much as possible. As Emil walked into the building, he did not even notice the burnt umber skies behind him.
Cesal emerged from dreamless sleep slowly. At first, it had been like any other morning- he had flexed the one of his hands missing a finger, he had relaxed back into the wonderfully soft bed, he had smiled in the bliss of the state between sleep and waking.
And then the events of the afternoon slammed home in the drowsy confines of his mind, slammed home like an electric shock to his side, like a spear to his-
Cesal let out a strangled wail and bunched the bedsheets in his hands as the pain made itself known. He gasped for breath, gasped again, clamping down on his screams until he was only left with silence and the sharp ache of his abdomen. He lay there a moment, catching his breath and his thoughts in the night.
He had been stabbed by a tribute. He had fallen. He had been lifted away from the carnage of mutts and blood. And then he had, in some mess of his soul, seen Dane Twill. He had been forgiven.
But more than any of those matters right now, Cesal wondered how he had come from the streets to this bed, and what had happened to him inbetween. His body ached and it was excruciating, but it wasn't overwhelming. In his time as a leading member of a violent teenage gang, he had seen people taking shots to the stomach by Peacekeepers, and they hadn't stopped screaming until they had died. He needed to know what had happened to change that fate.
Slowly, agonisingly, he propped himself up and pulled aside the multitude of sheets and blankets he had been left in. Bloodied bandages were wrapped around him. Biting his bottom lip, Cesal began to pull at the bandages, ripping them and setting them aside, before slowly unsticking the last of the bandages from the dried blood on his body, and his wound was uncovered.
A jagged, red-pink scar, covered in dried blood but certainly no longer open, spanned the bottom left of his torso, perhaps a little smaller than a hand's width in its breadth. Cesal experimentally probed the scarred flesh and was met with fresh pain, and he retracted his hand with a whimper. There were probably still injuries internally, but his skin had entirely knit together on the surface. It certainly hadn't been stitched, so that left only natural healing- but scarring this complete would take days, weeks, even.
How long had he been out?
A scraping sound from outside his door and Cesal's head jerked up. He tried to sit up and get out of the bed but the sudden movement pulled too hard on his warped and scarred skin and he had to bite his bottom lip again to stop himself from screaming. He sat there, pretty much helpless, as the door opened.
Emil poked his head through the door. His cool blue eyes held an expression of surprise.
"You're awake?"
"Hello to you too, kid," Cesal said, realising how dry his mouth was as he said it. Emil came through the door and shut it after him. Before he could speak again, Cesal cut him off.
"How long have I been here?" He asked. Emil frowned.
"About four, five hours? Not long. Why?"
"Five-" Cesal blinked, looking down at the scar on his body. "I was stabbed, right?"
Emil leaned over and saw Cesal's scarred torso. Then his jaw dropped.
"Wha- you were still bleeding when I left!" He exclaimed, striding to the bed and leaning over to inspect the injury. Cesal felt more than a little vulnerable, with a guy he had barely known for a week leaning too close to him and hovering his fingers just over his skin. Emil's confused expression tensed, then his blue eyes opened wide in realisation and shock.
"It must be the Capitol medicine. They must've enhanced your immune system, or increased cell production, or- something."
"Capitol medicine? Where the hell did you get that?"
Emil shrugged vaguely, making the backpack on his back clink. "I fought a guy."
Cesal laughed, before abruptly halting and wincing at the sensation it caused to his injured flesh. "Okay, but really, kid, be serious here."
Emil seemed disinterested in talking about it, however, and so bent down and retrieved a plastic crate from the floor. Unclasping it, he revealed a set of vials, each stamped with the Capitol sigil and some neat lettering.
"Holy shit," Cesal muttered. "You really did fight a guy, didn't you?"
"Thanks for the confidence in me."
"I'm not complaining, I'm just wondering why," Cesal said with a lopsided smile as he picked up and inspected a vial. "I mean, he wouldn't just give away magic healing medicine like this, so he musta put up a fight for it."
"It's not magic, it's just incredibly advanced." Emil avoided the question almost as deftly as he took the vial from Cesal's hands. He replaced it in the crate, then unhooked his backpack from his shoulder and placed it onto the bed next to Cesal. Cesal could feel the bed sink underneath the pack.
"What, did you fill that with bricks?" The movement was painful but Cesal insisted upon slowly getting up and pulling on his shirt and jacket- he noticed the large rip the spear made in his shirt, and the blood across his clothing, and could barely believe that only hours later some Capitol drug could knit him back together almost like before. A medicine like that could save a multitude- here it was being thrown away for the entertainment for the masses. If he had had access to that when he was far younger, his hand wouldn't be missing fingers, and those fingers that remained wouldn't be so limited in movement.
He turned back and Emil had swept all bandages and sheets off of the mattress, tipping up the backpack. Medipacks, ration packs, water bottles; equipment the likes of which Cesal had only ever seen with a Career pack bounced out of Emil's backpack and onto the bed. Emil immediately snatched up a ration pack, ripped the metallic packaging open and stuffed the contents into his mouth- Cesal stood next to him, picked up another and did the same. After two days and a stabbing, the freeze-dried food felt like a luxury.
"Where'd you get this?" Cesal garbled through a mouthful of food. Emil gave him a horrified look and refused to answer until he had finished eating.
"The Cornucopia." He responded curtly, sifting through the pile of their new belongings. Cesal blinked.
"The wh- the fucking what?" He said, grabbing Emil by the shoulder and forcing him back to look at him head-to-head. "Are you insane, kid? I'm down for a few hours and you go off to check out the most Career-infested place in the Arena?"
Emil's lips were a taut line. "We haven't eaten in days, and you had just been stabbed. You needed food."
Cesal blinked again. "I- what-"
"You know it makes sense."
Cesal laughed, turning around a little too quickly and hiding his wince as he began slowly pacing the room. "Sense doesn't come into it, kid! What makes you want to risk your life for-"
He cut himself off. Because the word he was about to say was 'me', and he didn't want to say it.
Cesal had always been many things, but cardinal above them all was self-reliant. The fact that his life had been placed in the hands of a person that was nothing more than a tentative ally, and that his life had not only been saved but another life risked in kind for his own- that terrified him. Cesal had never expected that of anyone he knew. The only one who had ever shown him something even approaching that level of kindness was Cutch Hassan, and Cesal's response to that was to volunteer for a death trap in his place.
But Cutch Hassan had been his friend for years- he had known Emil Reynolds for practically a week. And yet, despite this, despite the animosity between them, despite the fact that Emil could have killed him a thousand times over when he was bleeding and unconscious, he had fought a tribute to steal their medicine, he had saved Cesal's life with it, he had tucked him in bed and gone off and stolen a whole backpack's worth of goods- and returned to him.
Cesal couldn't ask why Emil had done that for him. But Emil seemed to have figured out his question.
"We're allies," he responded, as if that explained everything. Cesal couldn't conceal his bitter mirth.
"Oh, come on, Emil, we both know that's bullshit. You must've watched as much Hunger Games as I have- ever seen an ally do something this dumb to protect each other?"
Emil licked his lips and shrugged. Cesal was vaguely surprised that Emil's usually careful countenance was slipping. "Katniss and Rue?"
"Yeah, well, they're both dead now, and that's because they protected each other."
"I don't understand- are you angry at me for saving your life?"
"No, I'm angry at you because you risked your own life to save one less valuable!" He stormed, eyes alight with a faint orange glow from the windows.
His words caught up with him and he faltered. Emil was staring at him with those strange blue eyes and an emotion he couldn't place.
"Less valuable?" Emil quoted slowly. Cesal, aware of just how much of himself he had revealed to both Emil and the world, smiled and shrugged and looked away, pretended to sift through the pile of stuff on the bed. Emil's focus did not waver as Cesal tried to avoid his gaze.
"Cesal."
"Mm?"
"You think I shouldn't have saved you because your life isn't- valuable enough?"
Cesal pressed his lips into a thin line and said nothing. His abdomen ached again. He held up a medipack to the orange light and tried to fixate on that instead of the conversation.
"Cesal, I saved your life because it was right. We're allies, and even if you think that usually means 'try to kill them when their back is turned', I don't. I-" Emil broke off. "Are you listening to me?"
Cesal had frozen with the medipack held up to the orange light. Slowly, wincing, he turned.
"This light look right to you?"
Emil looked around them for the first time, frowning at the flickering orange light around them. Together, silent and in unison, they made their way to the small window in the bedroom.
Flames leapt in the distance, clamouring and orange and showering sparks into the air. Something was on fire in the Inner City.
And it was something big.
Elizabeth veered back as the heat became hotter and the flames leapt higher- they stood now in the centre of the four banks of fountains, but the mist from their spray was gone. Unremitting heat came in waves against her face, and every so often she had to turn her head to temporarily alleviate the heat.
They had set the Presidential Mansion on fire.
Theon, beside her, was bouncing on the balls of his feet, anxious as he watched the fountain spraying a high plume of water and the flames stretching to match it. He had lit the match.
Elizabeth, nervously picking at her grey clothes and unused to the lack of weight and warmth to her hair, couldn't bring herself to leave this site of destruction and rebellion. She had placed the match to the tinder.
Neither of them had expected the fire to become an inferno.
"So what now?" Theon said. "What now with your plan?"
"This, uh-" Elizabeth winced. "This wasn't part of it."
"What?!" Theon rounded on her with horrified eyes lit by flames. "I thought that note was from one of your revo friends or something!" He was having to yell over the sound of cracking wood and breaking stone, and having to breathe deeply to accommodate the rushing lack of oxygen in the air.
"What kind of group do you think we operate in District 7?!" She yelled back, horrified by Theon's mistaken obedience to her authority. "It was me and Chal and a few others- do you think we had the funds to send a gift to the damn arena?!"
Theon licked his lips, looking up at the destruction they had made of their gift. "Yes," he murmured, although Elizabeth could barely catch his voice. "Who sent it, then?"
"I don't know." Elizabeth shook her head furiously. "I'm starting to think we've been played into doing this."
Theon rubbed his face, looked away from the heat and flames. "God- damn it!" He snapped at the air. "We're dead, aren't we?!"
Elizabeth grabbed his shoulder furiously. "Not yet," she growled. "We're not dead yet, and this is going to do something-"
"What, like your dress did something, back at the chariots?!" Theon said, backing away from her. Elizabeth realised that she had pushed the former Career into rebellion too fast, and the shadowy promise of the Capitol's retribution had scared him. "Yeah, it caused broken arms and chaos! That's all this Game has been- chaos! We're all dead, we're going to die, I'm going to-"
Elizabeth looked up at the burning mansion. Her heart jumped to her throat.
"-Shut up."
"No! No, why should I?! You and your rebels have-"
"-Theon, shut up." Elizabeth's voice thrummed with authority and danger and Theon could not help but follow her commands. She looked with horror at the mansion.
"There's someone in there."
The heat was unbearable, nothing like she had ever known. District 1 was cold, and crisp air laid sharp as a diamond against every citizen's skin. Here, however, in this burning mansion, the air was inflated and seared with heat. Glace was named for the ice. She did not want to burn in the heat.
Quint tried to stumble down the staircase, but he came back quickly, eyes streaming from the smoke.
"Everything's on fire as far as I can see," he gasped into the heat, following Glace's lead and ducking back into a corridor less imbued with smoke.
"You can't see much at the moment, but I'll take that as meaning that the stairs are out," Glace said.
"Is this the Gamemakers?" Quint called into the grinding sound of a slowly collapsing building. Glace did not give any indication she had heard him as she started walking quickly through the mansion, eyes roaming every window.
The likelihood was it was the Gamemakers, but that didn't matter right now. What mattered was getting out. If it was the Gamemakers trying to kill them, they'd learn that later. Glace coughed and continued through the smoke, now starting to open windows she passed in a vain attempt to alleviate the heat and smoke. She almost burnt herself on a handle and winced into the smoking night.
Quint came up behind her and tapped her shoulder- she turned. Communication was becoming impossible amongst the sounds of the mansion in flames, but he demonstrated ripping off a long strip of cloth from his shirt and tying it around his nose and mouth. Glace supposed that a train mechanic would know something of fire, and copied the action with her tank top- the fabric muffled her breathing, but the air was marginally easier to breathe, if not to inhale through the cloth. The two struggled on in a corridor that seemed to span the outside level of the mansion, until they finally reached a window that seemed to be in the front of the mansion itself.
It was there that Glace saw them.
Two figures, one tall and wide-shouldered, and the other shorter with short hair and a shining axe in their hand. Glace knew the first to be Theon. She wasn't sure who the second was, but it didn't matter because now she was sure who had lit the fire. Her abandoning the Careers had finally come back to kill her.
But Quint seemed to have a different viewpoint, because his response was to open the window wide, then yell through it.
"HEY!"
Glace dragged him back from the window, eyes wide with fear. She had not slipped her control enough to feel fear in a long time. "Are you crazy?! That's the Careers!"
Quint pushed Glace away, and Glace found her reflexes slowed by the smoke and heat so that she couldn't even react in time to stop him. "That's Elizabeth. The rebel." He went back to the window. "HEY! OVER HERE!"
Glace looked back and found that he was right- her hair was shorter and her ally was new, but she was definitely Elizabeth now she looked closer, with her slim build and freckled skin and her expression of fierce determination that turned up to them now, turning honey-brown eyes flecked with orange flame towards them both.
Glace was always in control. She took a quiet pride in that. But the heat was increasing behind her and fear had took her now.
"HELP!" She screamed at them. "HELP!"
Theon turned and turned, circling and circling in the heat and mist.
"That's Quint and Glace," he said furiously as the two of them shouted out of a window not yet claimed by the flames. "They're probably the closest thing to a friendly we'd get and now we set them on fire."
Elizabeth was shaking violently as she started to advance towards the flames. "Shut up, Theon."
Theon circled again and noticed Elizabeth starting to move into a sprint, starting to shout back and wave her hands and get closer to the flame-blackened stone facade of the mansion.
"-Hey! Hey!" He screamed, grabbing her and pulling her back. She was strong but he was stronger, and restrained her easily. "I'm not saying 'run into the fire'! What good is it killing yourself to save them?"
"I could climb up there! I could save them!" She screamed.
"You might, but you shouldn't! They're not worth it!"
Quint tapped his finger rapidly against the window frame as Elizabeth was restrained by Theon far below them. They were arguing rapidly, and most words were lost in the all-encompassing inferno, but Quint caught a few words- 'not worth it'. Quint's jaw worked. He couldn't climb down this sheer mansion, and given that Glace wasn't moving to the window he reckoned she couldn't either. With no exits and no escape routes, their only hope was being saved by others.
Thankfully, Quint had an idea.
He leant out of the window as far as he could and pulled down his makeshift scarf and yelled, his voice hoarse from the smoke and heat but it carried as far as it needed to.
"WE CAN GET YOU OUT!"
Glace pulled at him sharply and Theon pulled at Elizabeth desperately but neither did so fast or hard enough and they all heard him. Elizabeth and Theon looked up.
"WHAT?!" Elizabeth yelled. Glace pulled at Quint furiously, yanking at him by his jacket.
"The Gamemakers can hear us," she warned. Quint looked back at her.
"That's not gonna matter if we die," he said with a brutal logic that stalled her and made her release her hold. Quint leaned out of the window.
"WE CAN GET YOU OUT OF THE ARENA!" He yelled, and now Theon had stopped trying to drag Elizabeth away from the burning mansion.
Around Quint and Glace in the corridor, the heat was growing hotter, and now their fate lay in the hands of the rebels. Quint gasped through his cloth filter and wiped sweat from his forehead and tried not to breathe the baking air too deeply.
Okay okay okay okaaay! This was going to be a single chapter, but I wrote it and looked at it and realised it was outright 10K of words. Which is, maybe, just a tad excessive. So I've broken it up and I'm going to release it over the next few days and finally get back to a normal schedule of releasing chapters! Haha!
(Also I almost broke my iPod trying to upload the whole chapter in a one)
I am so excited to get back to business. As ever, thank you for reading this far.