Chapter 3

She's distracting me. That annoyingly pretty girl is distracting me. All she's doing is sitting at the side of the Gamemaking Centre's entrance, twirling her pink and blue hair around her perfectly-manicured finger while tapping at her portable touch-screen device with the other hand.

It's driving me mad.

When did she turn up? It seems like she's been here in the Gamemaking Centre forever, twirling that perfect hair around that stunning finger. I wonder if she has a boyfriend…

"Hey, Adrastus!" I turn at the sound of my name.

"What?"

"Bring the sun up, will you?"

"On it!"

That was Pia, my girlfriend – no, fiancé. We met in this very room, six years ago. I was new here, and she was showing me around. Now, I can't remember anything of what she said, only the way she walked, how her pink eyes lit up when she got an idea, her lips when she called to someone across the room. It took me a year to build up the confidence to ask her out, and her around half a second to say yes.

After five years of dating, I asked her to marry me. It took even less time for her to agree this time – she was nodding and crying before I even finished asking her the question!

I love her; I know I do, with all my heart. Our wedding is I just over a week.

So why is this other girl distracting me?!

She only arrived yesterday, at noon, with my boss, Dante Tyler. No explanation was given as to her presence, but rumour has it that Dante is splitting up with his wife and she left him the child. A lot of suggestions as to her name were passed about, too. Most say Sabella, but I think that's rather far-fetched, and agree with the idea of Pepita being her name. We're probably all wrong, but I'm too busy working to find out.

After a few minutes, I feel a tap on my shoulder and spin, my fists drawn into my chest. A look of shock appears on the face of my 'attacker' – Dante Tyler's daughter. She laughs a high-pitched squeak of a laugh and I mutter an apology.

"It's ok," she giggles, fiddling in the sparkly purple bag that hangs over her shoulder. The bag's colour matches her eyes, but not the rest of her outfit. My eyes follow her hands as she fishes out a pot of green lip gloss and re-does her already-perfect lips.

"So… Whatcha doin'?" she drawls, replacing the lip gloss back in her bag.

"I'm, um, controlling the weather," I stutter.

A mischievous grin appears on her face.

"Can I have a go?"

The thunderstorm appears out of nowhere, taking us all by surprise. Rachel moans and complains about her hair… And it stops. I stare at her, open-mouthed. She gives me a grin.

"Yeah, 'cause I can control the weather, see?" She snaps her fingers and the rain pours down, until she snaps again and it stops. She continues to do this, for a few minutes, becoming more and more confused s to why this 'power' is working until it doesn't. She slumps and frowns while I let out my breath. I hate storms.

By now the sun is up for good and Robert is getting up. Alexx and Drew are curled in each other's arms, fast asleep. Personally, I don't want to wake them. Hung-over Alexx and Drew are not going to be pretty sights.

Robert checks our supplies and winces.

"This is stupid," he groans. "We had more than this yesterday! Have you been feasting overnight, girls?"

Rachel laughs the comment off and points to her waist. "Do you think I'd look like this if I'd been feasting overnight?"

Robert scowls. "Shut up."

"We need to go hunting," I say, interrupting the pair. "Rachel and I can go."

Robert thinks about this. "No, I'll go with Rachel; you'll be more use here."

He does have a point, so I agree and send them off to the next island along – a thick wood.

An hour later, a cannon fires. Drew lifts his head and looks around, but Alexx pulls him back down. I try not to worry about Rachel, and think of home to take my mind off it.

When I picture home, I picture our house before the Dark Days, when it still existed and we were a happy family together. I try not to my family's current home: a room in a big farmhouse-turned-refugee-shelter that we share with two other families. Being in such a tight space with my four siblings all the time almost tears our family apart daily. I'm still not sure how we are kept together.

My family is entirely legal adults now. Aimee is the oldest sister at twenty-five. She's also the prettiest. And tallest, and strongest. Even my parents look up to her. During the Dark Days, she fought for District Ten on the front line. She doesn't wear short-sleeved T-shirts anymore because of the burns and scars up and down her arms and she only shows them to us when she's in a really good mood or drunk.

The next oldest is Kendra, at twenty-three. She's the quiet, retiring one who never argues and barley talks, just sits and watches us with her big, round eyes brimming with tears at the sight of us tearing each other's throats out. It's amazing how different she is to Aimee, really.

Olivia, the third daughter, is different again. She's giggly and chatty and girly and annoying. Aimee almost threw her out once for talking about how cute the young Master of Ceremonies, Caesar Flickerman, is. Liv is twenty now and Caesar is seventeen, but she says that doesn't matter. Aimee doesn't care, and she said that is Olivia is going to be an adoring fan of a Capitolite, Aimee would make her change her name.

Liv shut up after that.

Peter is the only boy of the family apart from Dad. He is currently eighteen – the same age as me – but he turns nineteen in a few days (Whereas I turned eighteen a few weeks ago). Peter is really, really smart, but only tells me about his amazing thoughts. I sometimes think that he should be in Three, not Ten, but he says that he would never be able to move away from all of us.

This isn't true.

Peter and Aimee are the ones who start most of the arguments. They often end with Peter yelling that he hates us all and Aimee yelling that she hates him, too.

It happens all too often.

Rachel appears to bring me back to now, carrying Robert's mace and four rabbits. A scowl is carved onto her face.

"Robert's dead," she snarls, flopping herself down by the fire and throwing the rabbits at my feet.

"Who killed him?" I ask.

"Me," she growls.

"Ok." There is a long pause. "Can I ask why?"

"Yes."

Another pause.

"Why?" I ask.

She sniffs and starts to build up the fire.

"Why?" I ask again. The twig between her fingers snaps.

"He told me something," Rachel says in a measured tone. "Something about his brother."

"What?"

Another twig snaps between her fingers.

"He told me that he killed his brother. That Robert, aged twelve, murdered his own brother."

"So you killed him. Right…"

"His brother was sixteen at the time, as were my sisters. His brother was my sister's boyfriend."

I don't reply.

"My sister went mad with grief over that boy's death. She was a wonderful person, ready to volunteer and bring us pride. But then she couldn't, all because Robert broke her.

"I had to kill him when he told me."

"I understand," I whisper.

We sit in silence while she tends the fire and I gut the rabbits.

There's something about gutting animals that calms me down. I have no idea what, or why, but it does. Maybe it's because I used to watch my mother do it when I was little, back when the world was happy and peaceful. Now I do it to get away from my family when there's and argument, often with Kendra.

I've gutted a lot of animals. You could call me an expert.

Or you could call me a weirdo.

Alexx gets up and yawns, her red dreadlocks tumbling down around one side of her face in a way that looks not dissimilar to a haystack.

"Afternoon," mutters Rachel. Alexx scowls.

"Want some food?" I ask, and notice that Drew sits up at this.

"Yes, please!" calls Drew.

I dig out the four potatoes in foil and put them into the fire while Rachel roasts a rabbit on one of Robert's handless knives.

"What is that thing?" I ask, gesturing to it.

"It's a rabbit. I thought you were a farmer, Frances," mutters Alexx.

Rachel ignores her. "It's a bayonet. They used to go on the ends of guns." She frowns. "We used them in training once, instead of knives; the trainers said we needed to be ready for anything."

My eyes widen. So they do train! All those rumours were right!

Alexx's scowl deepens at my reaction.

"What's the matter with that?"

"You… You trained?" I breathe.

"Yeah," say Alexx and Rachel in unison. "So?"

"It's illegal!" I exclaim, throwing my hands up. "You have an unfair advantage!"

Alexx rolls her eyes and goes back to doing her nails or whatever and Rachel shrugs and turns the rabbit over. It's all I can do not to scream at them in frustration.

Drew appears and we eat in silence.

Suddenly, a face pops into my mind: Trevor, the boys from five. He had the same plan as me, I think: join the pairs from Four, Two and One and then betray them gradually.

Well, that was my plan. The thing is, they seem to be betraying each other well enough already; we're only on day three and already there are only four of the original seven left.

Or original eight, if you count Trevor. Either way, we're dropping like flies and our main method of death is each other. I don't need to think about killing anyone; they're doing it for me.

The thing is, I'm not sure if I could kill one of these guys now, if it came down to it. I know it has really only been three days but I really think I would miss Rachel if she were dead. I might even miss Drew's failed flirting and Alexx's sulking.

And I can only just bear thinking about killing them.

But I think of our dwindling food supply, of the eyes in the grass and of Riana's shredded body.

Maybe I won't have to.