The others are packing up leftover pieces of our dinner wraps, but it's not the most difficult work, and we get Hugh to ourselves without much trouble.

"What is it?" He flips through his book with his thumb without it affecting his grip. "It must be extremely important if you expect me to talk to you when Juniper is over there crying." He claps the book shut and meets my gaze.

"Hey, she's perfectly okay now!" Athena responds, hands fisted. "She just had to get something off her chest. Even more, it's your fault she was keeping that secret to begin with, so you have no right to lecture us about it."

"Is that so?" He shifts his line of sight to her. "Go on, then. What on earth do you think I did to hurt my friend like that?"

"Tell us what happened at the bloodbath," I say. "I can't expect you to trust us with anything you wouldn't tell Juniper, but we will get the truth out of you. Do you understand?"

"Is that a threat?"

"Nope." Athena folds her arms. "It's just being honest. Now, tell us what happened to you in the first few minutes of the Games."

"Not a significant amount." He starts going through his book again. "I oriented myself, retrieved some necessary supplies from the Cornucopia, and met up with my allies."

I wait for a minute before crossing my arms. "You're going to have to give us a little more detail than that."

"I hate to say I'm not precisely sure how many steps I took. Other than that... To put it simply, there are no details you need to know."

"That's a lie!" Athena looks ready to slap him. "It was important enough to Juniper, and we're only asking for her sake!"

He fumbles a bit, hand going to his neck. "Does she really think I killed Constance?"

I slam my fists down. "How did you know that's what she thought? We never mentioned it, and she was keeping it secret from you!"

He settles down. "She's in the throes of pain because of this, and the only significant thing that happened near me at the bloodbath was Constance's death. What else am I to assume?" He smirks, though he's sweating a bit. "Although the three of us made a pact not to kill anyone—we won't be able to abolish this dark age together otherwise. I suppose Juniper doesn't think that highly of me after all if she's willing to accuse me."

Athena points at him. "Well, can you convince us you're innocent? She said you had blood dripping from your hands. Can you explain that?"

"And don't try to say she was lying or imagining it. I can prove the existence of blood traces with a kit a friend left me, no matter how hard you've tried to wipe it away!" I don't know if it still works on week-old blood traces, but he doesn't need to know that.

"Hmph." He turns his face toward us again. "I wouldn't dream of calling her a liar. But I'm afraid a little blood on my hands is entirely unrelated." He pauses before removing his left hand from his pocket. It's heavily bandaged, some bloodstains reaching the outermost layer.

"I... was mistakenly stabbed by my district partner by the Cornucopia." He seems a little twitchy for admitting something as innocent as that. "My hand hasn't been functioning properly since, although it thankfully hasn't gotten infected."

Now that I think about it, he's had that hand in his pocket every time I've looked at him. And then...

"I think it's a puma." Trucy peeks over the rocks before ducking back down next to me.

"Sounds dangerous." I resist the temptation to look for myself. No need to alert it to our presence. "Can you hit it?"

"It's still a little far."

"I suppose it would be, for a mouth-breather." Hugh gets to his feet and slips a longbow out of his weapon case along with an arrow. "I'll handle this."

He proceeds to nock the arrow with his mouth, jawline quivering as he holds it in place while pushing the bow out in front of him horizontally.

I may not have spent much time at the archery station, but I'm sure that is not how you use a bow—

He takes a moment to aim before letting the arrow fly. It goes straight through the puma's chest.

—Unless you're Hugh.

Well, there's where his training score came from.

"Do you have any other reason to think I did it?"

I exchange a look with Athena.

"Well, someone had to have done it," she says, frowning and tapping her earring.

He smirks, turning his nose up. "That's some solid reasoning, although I don't see how it points to me."

"Then who do you say did it?" I ask him.

"Hmph. I'll leave it to your feeble minds to work out. I have better things to pursue." He whips out his book again. How has he not finished it, flipping through so quickly?

"So... could it have been Robin?" Athena shifts her gaze to me, although her eyes are still thoughtful. "I wouldn't expect that from h-him, but..."

I frown. "But he's the only other suspect?"

"For all your jabbering, you've yet to reach the most logical conclusion."

"S-Simon!" Athena turns towards the tribute stepping away from the rest of the group. "What do you mean?"

He smirks, settling onto a rock across from Athena and me. "If we're eliminating suspects by distance, and it wasn't Golden Boy here, the next most likely culprit is Little Miss Sunshine herself."

"Little... Y-you don't mean Junie, do you?" Athena stares at him, her necklace glowing yellow before flashing red. "That's the least logical conclusion! She's so peaceful she never even got a weapon!"

"Because she left it behind in the victim's body." He taps his forehead a few times, chains jangling. "Surely she would have thought to pick something up from the first battle if she cared at all for her survival—yet she made it out with nothing."

"But she had her friends!" Athena counters. "And it's not like she could use some fancy weapon if she got her hands on it, anyway. She wouldn't even try. And she certainly wouldn't kill Constance for no reason!"

"Narrowing the field isn't reason enough?" He gazes at her evenly. "In that case, she's the only suspect with a motive—revenge for rejecting her offer of alliance."

I put my fists down. "But even for that, Juniper wouldn't—!"

"Silence!" He slams his fists down on the rock in front of him, hard enough to startle Taka.

Was–was that a chain link that just flew by me?

Simon only gives me a black look for a moment before spitting the feather in his mouth at me. Just before it reaches my nose, he slashes it in half. I can see the years of my life reflected in the blade for one brief moment.

"Aaaack!" I'm gonna die, we're all gonna die, Simon's gonna kill everyone...

"Do you mean to cite her innocence?" He glowers at us. "That kind of sentimentalism is inappropriate for this discussion. Even the most innocent will lash out when their well-being is threatened."

Somehow, Athena seems more distracted than me now despite not having a katana inches from her face. I'm still not in the best position to come up with a good argument, especially when Simon's hand is still on his sword and his handcuffs hang broken. Those things are solid metal, aren't they...?

"That's enough!" Hugh grimaces, a hand pressed to his neck. "Don't you dare accuse Juniper of such a thing! Do you have any evidence?" He tilts his chin up. "You don't even have evidence that I didn't kill Constance, do you?"

Simon's eyes flash. "Your successful raid of the Cornucopia suggests you didn't have much time to spare, and the state of your hand suggests you were in no condition to go about stabbing people."

"Ha!" With a swift motion, the 9 draws his bow one-handed. "I can shoot perfectly well with an injured hand! A simple stabbing would be even easier!"

"So..." Athena frowns. "Are you admitting you did it?"

Hugh grips his neck. "Perhaps I am."

Simon turns his back to us. "This is a waste of time. Run in circles all you like, but it won't change what really happened."

But we have to figure out the truth to respond to it, instead of just jumping to conclusions like you!

"The girl from 6 is dead because someone killed her. That's all." He looks over his shoulder at us with a smirk. "Unless you believe that whoever is innocent may still be trustworthy. In reality, no one in this situation can be trusted. Unless, of course, you don't mind a deadly betrayal."

I clench my fists. "That's... not true..."

"Exactly! Otherwise..." She points at Simon. "You'd be saying I can't even trust you!"

He falls silent, staring ahead. "I suppose that, ultimately, that's true. Seeing as I am already a dead man, my situation is a bit different than the other tributes', but I could potentially betray you any moment. People don't always act rationally, after all."

Athena plants her hands on her hips, scowling. "Will you quit calling yourself dead? The odds aren't in your favor, sure, but you're still alive and one of the few trained fighters left! You could very well make it out!"

He doesn't face her. "Not one person from District 2 sent into battle for execution has returned alive. Even if I did, I would be swinging above the gallows in a matter of days."

Snatching a feather of Taka's before it can float to the ground, he chews on it and grins over his shoulder at her. "So, it's your own choice. Do you trust me to get you out alive? Or do you hope against reason that I can get out alive and in so doing cast aside any reason for trusting in me?"

He lets it sink in before he takes his first step away. "I've had enough of all this foolish talk. Come. It's time we set up camp."