The instant she spots the bow that gleams from the very top of the Cornucopia, she understands. She knows why Twelve received an eleven, why the Capitol has picked a skinny, short sixteen-year-old as its likely victor.
She also knows she won't allow their prophecy to come true. The gong sounds, and she leaps from her pedestal with all the deadly grace that's been drilled into her practically since birth. A long, slender knife calls to her, and she stops for just a second to pick it up before racing further towards the center. Only once she has the bow does she pause to consider what goes on around her.
A boy – Nine's, she thinks, but she's not sure – scurries away from the Cornucopia with an orange backpack. Thirty seconds later, she wipes his blood off her knife and moves on to the next fight. This one lasts a little longer, but though the girl spent all of Training practicing with a sword, she can't hold off a Career for long. The little girl drops as her killer's betting odds improve.
The fighting is done for the moment, and it's easier to wait for the booms of the cannon than to add up the pieces that used to make up eleven children. As a group, the Careers move to the tree line and wait for the hovercrafts to pick up the bodies one by one. The girl next to her sniffles when her district partner's corpse is lifted from its spot at the base of the Cornucopia, but she doubts the other woman's tears are for poor Connor Reilly. Careers, as a rule, don't live long after their partner is gone. With Four gone, she'll only have her own partner and Two to cut through. Good.
"Are you going to grab some arrows for that thing or not?" asks the Two girl.
She opens her mouth to tell them that as long as she has the bow, the arrows won't do Twelve any good, but instead she laughs at her mistake and retrieves the quiver from the mouth of the Cornucopia. Information is a luxury in the Arena; she's not foolish enough to share the little she has.
The woman leaves the set of throwing knives so much like the ones she's trained with behind. The others will catch on if she brings three weapons into the forest with her. There will be no need for the bow once they've found Twelve; she'll come back for her knives then.
.oOo.
A/N: Thanks for reading, and to Estoma, Holly, and Rose for reviewing! I have a question: would you like the character's names posted in the author's note of the next chapter? So far, I've been answering reviews with guesses as right or wrong, and I assume readers are figuring these out, but I'm not sure. Anyway, let me know if you have an opinion about how I should run this. Thanks again!
Chapter 4's character is President Snow.