A/N: Thanks for the reviews, cynicz! And apology for the slowness in getting this latest update in, readership; I mean to do one-a-day, but this one took some work getting right.
"I'm going to have to take some of you; it's nothing personal!"
"Get off! Get off me!"
Troop sauntered through Sam's dreams, laughing as he cut away at her. She tried to move and get away, yet found herself bound to a red cliff, overseeing legions of laughing, shrieking Capitol fans peering up from the rocky canyon below. The windy dress she wore had turned to air that circled her body like a cyclone as Troop took his time chewing flesh and swallowing in as dramatic a fashion as possible.
"It's nothing personal."
Yet he wasn't a boy, no – he was a fire demon, born from ashes and charred to broil as the tribute from District 6 gazed into Sam's face. His eyes reflected an odd shimmer and sheen as flames licked away across his body, setting his skin the color of tar. Blue electric lines shined out from those eyes – as he burned and melted, the eyes looked on. Sam pulled at her wrists, scrambling to get away as Troop slowly burned away – revealing the Head Gamesmaker, Phaeston Rex, below. He gazed at her like he had from the television screen on the train, expression full of foreboding mystery and dark intent. Who was this beast hewn from the shadows?
"An interesting tribute from District 10," Rex spoke, each syllable launching black fire from his mouth before his voice broke into that of President Octavian. "And may the odds be ever in your favor!"
"It's nothing personal – just relax, Samantha. Sam."
"Sam! Wake up!"
She snapped her eyes open from the dream and shook away perceptions of the fallen Troop and the enigmatic Rex. Storm stood over her, his hands on her shoulder shaking her awake. A concerned look played across his eyes as she came to, stretching out and testing her limbs. Well, she wasn't dead. Sam swung her eyes back over the spot Troop had died just the night before and flung herself back with a start – no, he wasn't there. He couldn't do anything now.
"Whas' goin' on?" Sam sleepily asked, vaguely aware of the pink morning light sneaking into the cave.
Storm knelt and took a look outside as he spoke. "You were mumbling and rolling about in your sleep, grabbing at your arms. Didn't look like a happy dream."
Wait, so is he going to kill me now? Sam thought, still adjusting from the prior night. No, wait. He's the ally. Right.
"So, uh," she said, trying to break the awkwardness of the moment. "What happens now?"
"I was thinking I'd just hitch a train back to District 12," Storm replied sarcastically. "Then I remembered I'm in an arena on some uncharted end of the planet. Happy Hunger Games. The odds are in the Capitol's favor."
Sam momentarily dwelt on the lunacy of mocking the Capitol right in front of their nose, yet remembered she was already stuck in a game of death with just one winner. It didn't get more sadistic than that, so why bother playing nice?
"How'd you find me again?" Sam asked. "You just like…came out of the night yesterday. Now we're here."
"Troop was tromping about with that torch of his. Couldn't really miss him, so I followed him and stayed well behind – figured I could nab some of his stuff and kill him while he slept. You did the work for me."
Sam went quiet as Storm nonchalantly discussed the killing – did he really think that? That taking another person's life only involved intent and the moment? Sam still had yet to come to terms with Troop's quick and fiery death by the slight of her hand and a shock of adrenaline, but all her tears had run their course. She had nothing left to offer in an arena that would chew her up and spit her out if she wasn't careful – even around someone ostensibly trustworthy, like Storm. If he could take her killing Troop so easily and dismiss it with a few words, how easily could he kill her off while she slept? He could very well be using her as a distraction until most of the field was gone, and then take her out easily.
Dangerous, that one.
"I don't, uh, don't really want to talk about that," Sam deflected attention from District 6's loss. "It's morning, I don't think we should stay here. Let's just go before someone else shows up."
In truth, that last part did scare her. The cave offered shelter and anonymity in darkness, yet in the coming daylight, it would be easy to spot and see from the canyon floor. She had had no time to survey the arena, so there was no telling if tributes would be passing this way any time soon. The cave was far enough away from the Cornucopia – and vertically, it was a challenge for anyone up there to get to, as she'd found out – yet the Careers would be able to keep much better speed and endurance in their hunts than anyone else. Sticking around in one place invited death – if not from them, then from the haunting specter of Phaeston Rex that had invaded her dreams.
He wouldn't just let his Hunger Games devolve into boredom, after all.
"You have anything good on you?" Storm asked, peeling himself away from the cave wall. "Dead boy's pack got left behind and I looked over it in the night. Not a lot – water bottle, long length of twine, some metal wire, a spearhead, small medical kit, and some dry meat. I don't know what we're supposed to do with half that. His spear's nice, though…think I'll keep this."
"Improvise?" Sam offered. "I have a knife and a few odds and ends. Gimme the backpack, I'll carry it."
Sam tossed the pack over her shoulders and looped her old belt pack about her waist – in hindsight, she figured it would have been smarter to let Storm carry it. Now she felt like a pack mule to his hunter. As the sun had already begun to crawl over the canyon, she grabbed some of the charcoal from the dead fire's remains and wiped black streaks under her eyes.
"What are you doing?" Storm looked amused at the act. "New style for next year's parade?"
"Keeps the sun out," Sam replied, not feeling humorous in the somber morning. "I don't really care how I look."
The desert had already warmed up to over sixty degrees as the two climbed back out into the open air. Storm took the lead of the two, hiking along at a slow and measured pace that would give them the opportunity to scout out any terrain while not stumbling headfirst into other wandering tributes. The flowing stream that branched like a snake through the gorge provided an easy-to-follow navigational marker as the canyon stretched and weaved its way across the desert. With it close by, neither Storm nor Sam needed to drop everything and search for water – and it provided an easy source of food.
"Are you any good at fishing?" Storm popped the question as the late morning rolled in, with nary a peep from other tributes. The canyon clearly went on for a long distance. "I can see little fish here and there, but I'm not really all that good with spearing fish."
"We don't even have fish much back home," Sam peered over the water for a look into the moving current. "Do you have a lot of chance to fish in 12?"
Before Sam had the chance to remind herself how stupid the question sounded, Storm laughed and shook his head. "No, the only thing we fish is coal. And hungry kids starving in the streets, but that's normal, right?"
"I don't think that's a good way to get a lot of sponsors," Sam took the realistic angle, looking to stave off another ideology debate. "Regardless of right or wrong."
"I guess you're smarter than me at this stuff. Who's going to sponsor District 10 or 12 anyway?" Storm laughed, as if the idea was comical.
Sam forced herself to smile, despite the seriousness of that situation. "Well, not me probably. I only got a five in training and I don't think anybody would be blown away by my three minutes with Constantine Flickerman."
"Oh, you're not giving yourself enough credit," Storm chided as he made a halfhearted stab into the water. "I thought you were pretty funny up there. Crowd did, too."
"Laughing along with a guy with bad hair is funny?" Sam wondered why Storm bothered to compliment her. Nothing to gain out of that…besides her trust, which would be useful if he wanted to easily kill her. Surely he wasn't looking for buddies - what good did friends do when almost everyone had to die?
"It's not really about what we think, is it?" Storm shrugged. "If it was, I don't think anybody would be here. Maybe the Careers."
He laughed at his own poor joke before letting it fall away, gray eyes trailing over the river and scanning the canyon ahead. "I didn't see the count yesterday – did you get who was dead?"
"Nine or ten. Most of the middle districts…oh! The girl from 2, as well."
"That's a welcome change," Storm opined. "One less of them to worry about."
The two ate the dried meat as they hiked along, finishing half the prepared food as a meager substitution for lunch and left the rest for later. It didn't do much to quench Sam's raging appetite – her stomach keenly reminded her she hadn't really eaten since breakfast of the day before. Had it only been yesterday that she'd said her goodbye to Agrippa, back under the arena? Time really did fly with life on the line.
As the stream grew larger and more powerful, the canyon widened into a larger and broader ravine. Scalable slopes extended up to fifty feet on either side before the steeper cliffs shot off to the top, providing plenty of cover and chances to rest – but also hiding potentially wary tributes and other nasty surprises. Kicking over rocks revealed shed snake skins or dry rabbit dung. Dusty plants invited a respite to hunger, but without knowing for certain all the poisonous ones, each represented a big risk. Sam opted to avoid eating the flora altogether unless she was one hundred percent sure a plant wasn't a Gamesmaker trick to a nondescript death.
Storm had other things on his mind – namely, talking about anything and everything for as long as he could, damn the consequences.
"Ya know what would be great; the Capitol just sending in a bunch of hovercraft and machine-gunning us all. Why don't they just do that? It'd be easier, faster, probably entertaining…fade to black with that stupid video at the Reaping every year going 'War, terrible war.'"
"Why does this matter so much to you?" Sam asked, already frustrated in less than a day with Storm's incessant conversation. "We're stuck here and most of us are going to die. I don't really see a change."
"Maybe their advertising team of Peacekeepers is listening," Storm shrugged. "You know, mix it up in the Quell in a couple years. They should pay me for this stuff."
"Does it, like, cross your mind that maybe the Careers are right behind us and listening?" Sam let her emotions challenge Storm, hoping to get him to pipe down. To her, he was a danger in more than just a knife in the back – by seemingly ignoring the prospect of the other tributes (after he had stalked Troop the prior night, to boot) he was inviting an ambush on both of them.
Storm reacted in the one way she hadn't thought – he simply looked at her and laughed. "You're so cute when you get all riled up and frustrated, especially with the charcoal under your eyes. You look like you're gonna attack the next thing that moves. Shoulda done that one with Constantine on stage."
Frustrated was a good way of putting it. No matter how much she tried to ignore him or get him to stop, Sam couldn't move the boy from 12. Instead he kept right along talking and leading the way, his confidence pushing out any sense of dangers. Strangely enough, for all her trepidations, Sam considered the alternative to Storm being a danger. He clearly didn't lack for attitude, but that carefree rebel outlook against the very Games that tried right now to kill them gave her a lift. Without him, she figured she'd be holed up in some rocky outcropping, panting fast and eyes scouring everything for the slightest anomaly.
She hated to admit it, but Storm made her feel that much safer, despite the very fact that he could murder her at any time.
"We're going to have to get something to eat eventually," she ventured around high noon as the two kept walking about the canyon. "I don't really want to subside on meat strips forever."
"Alright," Storm looked at the river. "I'm gonna see if I can get something out of there. Try not to run off with everything."
Sam took a seat on a warm, flat rock and laid out the two packs, taking a moment to collect herself as Storm walked down to the river bank and behind a patch of scrubby plants. Alone, she had time to collect her thoughts. The Gamesmakers hadn't killed anyone since Troop – and while the first day had been a cataclysm of tributes dying, surely they wouldn't wait forever to get another one.
Why was that? The audience couldn't go a day without seeing a child die? Where was the game in that – the fun, the sport, the humanity? To toss twenty-four kids out in a desert and think that it'd be a good idea to see which one lasted the longest if you gave them a bundle of weapons and told them to run around for cameras – how sick! It was a complete disregard of families, of loved ones and siblings and parents and all others who cared just a little bit for lives, rather than mindless entertainment and bets that treated kids like numbers. Maybe that was why Storm ranted so much – he'd already accepted this fact and deemed the Capitol and irreversible monster. Maybe it was.
Sam found herself on the verge of crying again and wiped away a tear from her smudged cheeks. She caught herself before the inevitable thought came out – Way to make yourself look tough for the Capitol, Sammy. Yet why was that even a problem? That a fifteen year-old couldn't have emotions when tossed into a life-or-death situation entirely out of their will? Only a statue wouldn't be feeling something.
A loud and pained scream broke the natural sounds of the canyon – a drawn-out and painful thing, not that of a wounded animal or even a man charging into combat, but that of a person being tortured to death on some terrible instrument. Sam jumped to her feet – other tributes around?
"Storm?" she shouted, looking about for her ally. If someone hadn't heard the scream, they wouldn't hear her now. "Storm?"
She dashed about the scrub just as he came running from the opposite direction, slamming straight into her and knocking her to the sand. "Storm! W-what was that? I was just sit…sitting there and then-"
"I don't know but I need your help right now," he countered, his voice rapid yet full of authority. "Just grab your knife and come on."
What is going on? Sam thought frantically as she hurried behind him, knife in hand. Storm had his spear out in front of him as if he expected trouble, dashing into the river current and quickly moving to the other side. Sam had to fight the chest-deep water as she waded through, wondering all the time where the noise had come from and what had spooked Storm enough to knock him out of his casual stance.
Storm abruptly stopped as he approached a cluster of scrub, holding a finger to his lips and motioning for Sam to get down. He pointed around the bushes, motioning for her to have a look. She clutched the knife tightly – no telling what lay on the other side – and sneaked just enough of her head around to clear her eyes. Instinctively she gasped, holding in a shriek.
Stuck in a wide patch of quicksand was Gannet. The diminutive girl from District 4 had caught herself up to her waist in the muck, fighting with everything she had to get out of the trap – and only getting herself further in trouble. In the pool of gunky sand and water, if the Careers didn't find her, the sun would do the job – unless she cleared out of the quicksand soon, she would be in serious trouble.
Or whatever made the scream would clean up the place.
She couldn't just sit there. Sam took off around the bend as Storm hissed at her to stay put. Gannet looked up at the noise of her crossing the sand, yelping and recoiling at the sight of Sam's knife. Stuck in the quicksand, she was easy pickings for a predatory tribute.
"I'm not gonna hurt you, okay?" Sam tried to re-assure her, dropping the knife and showing her hands. "Okay? We just need to get you out of –"
Before she could continue her sentence, the tortured scream echoed across the canyon again. Gannet panicked, whimpering and struggling with her arms to gain some sort of traction against the trap. To Sam, the sound didn't even seem real – like a hundred women and children all being torn at together and letting out cries of pain and agony. A ranch hand had been gored by a steer on her father's property years back, and he'd let out a similar cry – as he lay dying in the fields. Sam had been one of the first to find him, and the image and his voice had burned themselves in her memory. Now they came rushing back – but instead of a dead man from District 10 roping wandering cattle, something far more dangerous and elusive was coming out to battle.
"Sam, get her out of there fast, we have to move!" Storm dashed after her, careful to avoid the quicksand and spear ready for action.
"Then help me get her out!" Sam spat back. "Do you see like a log or anything to grab onto?"
Quicksand – just sand and water, mixed together. Sam let her mind go to work in trying to solve the problem. Although District 10 didn't have such dangers like this, it seemed relatively simple enough on its own. If Gannet couldn't pull herself free, something must have been catching her and holding on. The murky goop would do that – but since it was just dirt and liquid, it would hold on unless stirred up. That was how she'd have gotten stuck in the first place – her weight bringing her down against the quicksand. If she could negate the pulling force, it seemed simple enough that she could work her away across the top of the goop.
"Gannet, listen to me," Sam kneeled down by the edge of the trap. "Can you kick your legs any, just side to side?"
The girl's fear was plastered all over her face as she let out a small nod. Of course, District 4 – she'd had to have been swimming all her life. Sam figured that was a start.
"Alright, just keep kicking. Stir up the stuff," Sam slowed things down, trying to talk Gannet through the process before whatever horrible thing that was coming showed up. "Once you think you have a little space, see if you can get a leg up and over the surface. I need you to try and crawl your way out of the quicksand."
"Don't try to grab her," Storm cautioned, eyes alert for danger. "She'll just pull you in, and I can't help you both."
"Come on, just a foot," Sam ignored Storm – he was not helping at all. Granted, something was making that horrible noise, and no doubt the Gamesmakers were intent on sending it right down their throats. Still, they couldn't just leave Gannet behind.
Of course, maybe Storm could.
"I'm trying!" Gannet panted, pulling her heel up and out of the surface.
"That's it, now just keep going little by little. Just swim your way out."
Sam hit gold there. Gannet took the suggestion literally, using her free food like a flipper and paddling it on the surface of the quicksand. Progress was slow, but she had made some headway – enough to bring her entire left leg out and cross half the distance to freedom.
"That's it, almost there," Sam encouraged, trying to keep a positive outlook.
"Sam…" Storm warned.
"Can you just hold on a second?" Sam felt her frustration rising with the boy from 12. Couldn't he see she was trying?
"Sam, we have no time, go now!"
Sam lifted her head up, about to say something angry and laden with bitterness when she saw the problem just as she heard it, romping out of a large hole in the canyon wall. For a third time, the pained scream trumpeted out across the canyon like a tortured epitaph – and now it had shown up in person before the three tributes, angry, enraged, and ready for a fight.
The Gamesmakers really did want another death.