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Chapter 17 – The Angels

The group of six huddled round the fire, inside the grand but rather absurd church. It was a convenient yet bizarre sanctuary, but although it saved them from whatever was outside, it could not save them from each other. Emptiness sat either side of Cole; not even Hayley, who had defended him and his actions before, could bring herself to sit beside him. Yes, no one could blame him for deserting Natalie, but at the same time no one could truly condone it either. He was stuck in a limbo, unable to trust the few people who could save his life. He reminded himself, he should not trust anyone anyway. In situations like these, people can never truly be allies; they just use each other until they are no longer of use, and then discard of each other like worn out socks. All except for Lily. Cole could not understand what Lily was thinking by saving Natalie. She was putting herself at risk by taking on a burden she could not afford, and one doesn't need to be a Career to see that. Lily was not thinking strategically, although the truth was beyond what Cole could imagine. Lily had not been subjected to the violence and apathy present in the Games all her life, like he had, and so her heart was not hardened. She had not been subconsciously trained to serve only herself and do whatever it took to ensure her survival, never mind those of anyone else. She had been brought up on Gryffindor values of bravery, selflessness and chivalry, and although she was well aware that opposing values of being cunning, ambitious and shrewd did not constitute being selfish and stuck-up, she knew that's what they often lead to. But Lily did not save Natalie to please her parents or to feel proud of herself, but simply because she would have hated herself if she had failed to save her, and she would hope if she was in that position, someone would do the same for her.

'You can't ignore me forever,' Cole said, after much deliberation.

'We're not ignoring you,' replied Lily. 'If we were doing that, we'd be pretending you weren't there. See, what we're doing is avoiding you, because we see that you are there, and recognise that that is a problem, and act by keeping as far away from you as possible.'

'Look, I don't deserve this. You're acting like I've killed someone, and even so, do you remember what this whole thing is about? We aren't here to make friends.'

'He's right, Lily,' Natalie replied quietly. 'No one can judge him for that, he did what he had to do to survive. If you left me in that river, no one would judge you, because that's the kind of stuff you have to do when you're in here. Like obviously I'm grateful you saved me, but I shouldn't have expected that of you, or of anyone. I'm dragging you guys down, I should really just-'

'Hey, stop that,' Lily interjected, turning to face Natalie. 'You saved my life too, remember that? You're not some dead weight, you're worth lots, so don't for one minute let yourself believe that you don't deserve to be saved. Yeah, you might not be so great at the whole 'seeing' thing' – Natalie gave out a quiet laugh – 'but that doesn't mean you're not important, and you definitely deserve better than to be left alone to die. No one deserves that, and if everyone in here really is so doomed, I guess we may as well try to make friends and be happy for whatever time we have left.'

Cole stood up and walked away, in the opposite direction of the entrance. 'Are you saying you're not going to kill anyone?' he shouted back.

'There's a difference between defending yourself against someone who's about to kill you and leaving someone who can't defend themselves alone when you know they'll die that way.'

'You tell me she'd have died by herself when you just told her how great she was? Make up your mind, you hypocrite! You act like you're on some moral high ground all because you've not got any blood on your hands, well just you wait. Sooner or later you're gonna have to choose between doing what's right and what's gonna save your life. You can't afford to get so emotional and attached, and that's some friendly advice for you. In here, thinking with your heart is gonna get you killed.'

'Oh, shut up, Cole' said Etta. 'Now you're just babbling. Stop trying to make what you did seem complex and strategic. You were scared, you couldn't cope with the responsibility, so you ran away. It's not that complicated. Oh and shut up about emotions too, not everyone can switch off their feelings like you can, if you have any feelings in the first place.'

Cole stared at the ground. He did not want to fight Etta, but he did not want to give in either. 'You can't deny getting attached to people when you've got to kill them all is a weakness.'

'You miss my point. Of course it's a weakness, but it's unavoidable. If I kill Lily right now, can Albus just decide not to care? No, of course not. Would he recognise that giving in to his desires for revenge may put him in danger and cloud his judgement? Probably, yes, but that isn't going to make him stop feeling that way.'

Cole laughed. 'What are you talking about? You start with telling me I was wrong for not caring about her and get on to telling me about revenge?'

'You're the one that brought emotion into this. I get what you did wasn't nice but I don't care about that, because that stuff happens every year and it's nothing I've not grown to expect of people. I'm glad Natalie is okay now, but what's not okay is you saying that Lily getting emotional over what you did to her friend – not just ally, but friend – is making her weak. '

'Why are you so desperate to prove that getting attached is okay? Is it because you still can't get over Tait?'

Etta sprang up from the floor and ran for Cole. It was at this point Cole knew, he should not have said that. She pinned him against a stone column by the lapels of his jacket. Despite her violent exterior, her voice was calm.

'Do not talk about him. Do not say a single thing about him, okay? You have no idea, no idea at all, of what my connection to him was and what I'm thinking when I'm thinking about him, so if you dare try and suggest that I'm being weak by not being able to get over him ever again, you will die. I'm already prepared to do whatever it takes to kill whoever killed him, no matter what is rational or sensible, and if you knew what I have planned when I get my hands of them, you wouldn't have any doubt about what I'll do to someone who even suggests someone negative regarding him. Understand?'

Cole nodded, his face white, his body trembling. 'Good,' said Etta. 'I know it may seem I'm being unreasonable, but trust me, I couldn't be reasonable about this if I tried.' She threw him to the floor, and walked away to the cathedral's apse. She would have walked outside – some fresh, cold air would be perfect right now – but she knew the danger hiding out there in among the trees, so settled for sitting beside the two metallic angels instead. Lily got up too, patting Natalie's shoulder to tell her she would be back soon, and sat beside Etta. Cole got up, and sat back down at the fire, not raising his head or attempting to make conversation with anyone.

Albus, who had really just been trying to keep out of the situation as far as possible, felt bad for the danger he was letting his little sister get into, but his guilt for his passivity was overcome with the pride he felt for Lily's determination to stand up for what she knew was right. She had not helped Natalie just to look good or give herself something to feel proud of, but because her conscience could not have let her done anything else. She just wanted to help, and that she did. Albus moved beside Natalie and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, giving her a reassuring squeeze.

'I wish this wasn't happening,' said Natalie. 'I hate all this fighting, and it's all because of me. I should have just died long before now. Never mind before I met Lily or Nanuk, I should have done it long before the Games, before I became such a burden to everyone. It's not fair of me to keep on living when I do nothing for anyone else. My family don't deserve to put up with all the things I put them through.'

'No, don't stay that,' said Albus, taking one of her hands in his. 'You seem to have trouble remembering, you saved Lily's life. If you think that's nothing, then you're seriously hard on yourself. Yes, you rely on others for a lot of things, but that's okay. People are there for each other, and sometimes we just need to accept that we need help, and we have every right to ask for that help, because we matter. You matter, to your family, to us, and we wouldn't help you if you weren't worth helping, but you are. You are one of the sweetest, caring people I have ever met, and the world would be an incredibly sadder place without you.'

'Well it's going to be very shortly. Let's face it; I'm not coming out of this alive. There's no point helping me, I've not got a life to live, so there's no use trying to make me happy.'

'You deserve to be happy, no matter what happens. And if you die, you at least deserve to die knowing you are loved, and that you matter.'

'Are you sure you're not just saying this because you feel bad for me?'

'Well, I do feel bad for you, but I don't feel despair. Where there is life, there is hope, and we're still alive, right? That's got to count for something.'

'Hope is pointless when it's so ill-founded.'

'Hope is never pointless. It's better to be full of ill-founded hope and be doomed than to be doomed and know it.'

'So, we give in to optimism? Look on the bright side?'

'Exactly!'

'It's hard to look on the bright side when all you see is black.'

There was a silence, uncomfortable and awkward, broken by Natalie's laughter. Albus joined in, and they laughed together, filled with not hope, but acceptance.

'You know,' Albus said, 'my dad used to tell me this story, when I was little. It's about three brothers who think they can avoid death. Two of them think they can fight it off, like if they are powerful enough then they can conquer it, but of course they learn otherwise. The third one just goes about his life, enjoying the time he has, and when the time comes, he accepts it, and 'greets death as an old friend' or something like that. He doesn't fight it, and I guess if I die, that's how I want it to be.'

'I guess we should treat death like an old friend; we've got to know it well enough.' Natalie smiled. 'Say, although you've completely ruined it, I'd still quite like to hear this story. Can you remember it?'

Albus grinned. 'Oh, you bet.'

Lily went up to Etta, sitting down beside her. Etta was crying – not bawling and quivering, but silently and calmly, as if she just needed to get it over. She seemed to have mastered the art of controlling herself, but her outburst at Cole brought the side of her out that she did not like showing very much. Etta turned, giving Lily a sad half-smile, and Lily moved closer, hugging her.

'This place does weird things to me, I hate it,' said Etta quietly. 'Not only am I an emotional wreck, but everyone can see me.'

'Emotions are allowed, I doubt anyone can blame you. Plus there is the whole dying thing.'

'Oh yeah, forgot about that,' Etta answered under her breath.

Lily thought she better change the subject; moping and feeling sorry wasn't going to make anything better.

'What do you think these angels are for?'

'I dunno. To fit in with the church theme, I guess.' Etta obviously wasn't interested, but Lily continued.

'They look awfully out of place.' Lily stood up, examining the two figures. She walked around them, and stopped in front of the one on the left. She could see her distorted reflection in its blank, metallic face. She reached out her hand, touching the centre of its face, and to her amazement, it rippled like a liquid. She pressed her palm against it, and the fluid covered her hand, like quicksilver, but there was none left on her hand when she pulled it away. 'Hey guys,' she called back, 'you might want to see this.'

There was a short, light beep, and then the two angels opened their praying hands like books, with their palms facing upwards. From their palms came the same hologram; a tall screen, filled with bold, black writing:

Before you now two angels stand
And both of them offer you a hand
In your despair, grab one tight
And you may join the angel's flight

Yet though one angel, your live will save
One shall take you to your grave
With a bullet to the head
Tribute, you shall fall down dead

To find the hand that you must take
Ask the angels, for goodness' sake

But only once may you inquire
On the path to your desire

Then you must take the hand you will
And be rewarded for your skill

But hear well, tribute, listen close
Dissimilar are your heavenly host

For while one speaks with honesty sweet
One will talk with purest deceit

So find the truth behind the lies

If you wish to escape your demise

Believe no answer you receive
This is no time to be naive
The position before may well have changed
The qualities and virtues rearranged

For if honesty stood to the left hand side
And was a tribute's saving guide
It may now stand over to the right
And give a tribute a nasty fright

So do not consider what happened before
Or ask a question to just ignore
But listen to the angel's reply
Let not good advice pass you by

Take a chance and risk your life
Or be doomed to your enemy's knife
Take the hand of the angel and join in its flight

As it takes you to safety at the speed of light

Solve the riddle, and do it quick

Do not be fooled by the liar's trick

Here ends your clues, so good luck and Godspeed

You have our best wishes - which you certainly need!

'Well,' said Etta, 'that was a bit overdone. I'm sure they could have got the message of that across in about half as much.'

'Ah,' said Albus, 'but would it still rhyme in half as much? Clearly, it needs to rhyme.'

'How pretentious,' added Cole.

'I'm guessing something happened?' called Natalie, still sitting at the fire.

'There's a way out of here, if we ever need to escape in a hurry,' explained Lily. 'Thing is, it's protected by a riddle, and if you get the riddle wrong, you die.'

'Oh, great, how generous an offer' she replied, deadpan. 'What's the riddle? I might be good at that.'

Lily sat back down beside Natalie, and explained it to her as best as she could. 'One angel tells lies, one tells the truth, but one of them saves you while the other kills you. You can ask either of them one question to help with your decision, only one question, but there's no guarantee the answer would be true. Sorry I can't give you the rhyming, fancy version but that's the summary of it.'

Natalie smiled. 'Oh, that's a good one. I'll need to have a good think about that. There's no other clues on them, is there?'

'Not that I can tell. They look exactly the same.'

Cole walked around them, looking for any difference in the two angels, occasionally prodding them to marvel at their rippling forms. It did not seem like a necessity to make them out of liquid metal, but the Game Makers – in fact, the entire Capitol – didn't make things that were purpose built. If something could be embellished further, it always would be, whether that meant covering it in bows, painting it fluorescent pink, or making it wobble when touched. Cole guessed there must be a magnetised solid metal frame inside to stop the angels from ending up as puddles, but even his experience of growing up in the technology district couldn't truly explain how something as marvellous as these worked.

'I could stare at these all day,' Cole said, although he was aware that no one cared for what he had to say, so instead he spoke to the angel on his right. 'They all hate me now.' He laughed. 'At least I have you guys, right?'

There was a quiet ting, followed by a response Cole had not anticipated. 'Yes,' answered an artificial voice, coming from that angel. 'We will not leave you, unless you leave this building. We will remain here until deactivated.' And with that, the holograms in their hands vanished, and they both held out one arm, palms upwards, waiting for Cole to make his choice.

'Oh, no, no, no, no. No, I didn't mean it as a question. Well, not like a question question, it wasn't a real question. No, no, undo that! Stop it! That wasn't a real question and you know it!' Cole was shouting at the angels, but there was nothing he could do.

Etta appeared behind him. 'Cole, what just happened? What did you do?'

Cole seemed on the verge of a panic attack. 'I said something, it was sort of a question, but it took it literally and now it won't let me ask a real question.' He was hyperventilating, his face going red. 'Oh, God, no, no! It's stuck, it's stuck like this until someone touches it, but we have nothing to go on. It could kill them, we don't know which one to touch! Oh God, oh God, what do we do?'

Etta smirked, the answer was clear to her. 'Well,' she said, in a sadistic way that did not match her at all, 'you'd better hurry up and make your choice.'

Cole looked at her pleadingly. 'What? What are you saying?'

'You set them off, it's your responsibility to undo that. I hope you feel lucky.'

'Surely you can't be serious,' he laughed, although he didn't find it funny. 'It was an accident; I didn't mean to do it!'

'I don't doubt that for a minute, but just because it's an accident doesn't mean it's not your fault.

Albus stepped in. 'Hey, now, wait a minute. Let's not do something stupid here.'

'He's already done something stupid!' Etta shouted. 'Now he has to undo that, unless you want to do it for him, Albus.'

'Oh, but I'm sure you'd never allow that,' Cole shouted back. 'If anyone else had set it off, you'd be full of sympathy, but because it's me, you aren't.'

'You're exactly right! And you wanna know why? It's because you aren't like anyone else, you're a rat. You're selfish, reckless, and above all else, utterly convinced of your own innocence.'

'I know what I've done has been ruthless, maybe even cruel, and yes I think I've been justified, but don't tell me I think I'm innocent. No one is innocent, especially not me, but that doesn't mean I'm evil.'

'Listen to yourself!' The argument was reaching roaring level now. '"No one is innocent", that's you telling yourself that it's normal to leave people to die and feel absolutely fine about it!'

'Yet again, you act like this is just the normal world, this isn't! This is a life or death situation here, so if you're going to base my moral judgement and what I do for other people on what I do in here, you're getting a pretty bad picture.'

'Oh, I quite disagree. Here brings out the best, and worst, in people, and it's definitely shown your true colours off to the world.'

'It's a game! It's all a game and I'm just playing it, doing what I can to save myself so I can win.'

'Ha! Oh, really, that is pathetic, you think you can win?'

'Well, it's worth a shot anyway! Clearly I've got more chance than you, pretending you'll be fine if you through strategy out the window and just befriend everyone you can.'

'You know nothing about me! Nothing at all, not about my strategy, my allies, and certainly not about my skills. I am better than you at attacking, defending and surviving, so don't even bothering bringing that into this.'

'You've changed, you know that? You've really changed. I don't know what it was about Tait but since he died, you've flipped completely. Goodbye Miss Let's-Be-Friends-and-Sing-Songs-Around-the-Camp-Fire, hello Miss Don't-Look-At-Me-or-I'll-Stab-You. God, you people from Six are such a mess, no wonder you're all addicts.

That was a raw nerve. Etta snapped, punching Cole square in the jaw.

'You remember the train that brought you here, huh? Or how about the hovercraft? You think you could have built that with your wires and your circuit boards? You're deluded, you're completely insane, if you think that District Six has nothing to offer but drug addicts! There's a problem, a huge problem with drugs, and I know that all too well, but don't for a minute think you can talk crap about my home and expect me to take it on the chin. It may not mean much, but I am incredibly proud of my district. I am proud of my people, my family, and my victors, and I'm not going to turn around and say what they've achieved is worth nothing all because they've let morphling into their lives. You disgust me; you really, truly do.'

'I'll do it,' said a new voice. 'Please, stop fighting. I'll reset the angels, it will be fine. I'm the most dispensable one here.' It was Natalie.

Etta turned to look at her, then back to Cole. He was starting at the ground, unable to look up. Etta walked over to him, and whispered in his ear. 'This is what you do,' she said. 'This the effect you have on people when you treat them like dirt and make them feel like they don't matter. I hope you do win, just so you can live the rest of your pathetic little life remembering those words and thinking about how you convinced someone they weren't even worth the space they occupied.'

With that, Etta walked back towards the fire, but froze in her tracks when she saw the figures standing in the doorway.

'Oh dear, what's all this shouting about? Having a little domestic? Some of us are trying to sleep, y'know. We thought we better pay you a visit, check you weren't killing each other. We wouldn't want you to have the fun of that all to yourselves.'

It was Olida, the rest of the Career pack right behind her, armed and clearly hungry for some violence. Lily tugged at Natalie's arm, telling her to get ready to run, while her other hand stretched out for her bow and quiver. Everyone stood perfectly still, daring not to make the first move. Olida's first throwing star whizzed straight into the church, Etta narrowly diving out of its way, and the chaos began.