AN: This fic is rated T for violence and language.


The Wrench

"Malcovitch?" I shout, "MALCOVITCH?"

I might as well be a bleating lamb in a den of wolves. Eyes glance. Heads turn. "Malcovitch!" I yell again, brandishing the rifle as best I can. I've never held one before, until today never seen one held properly unless on the vids. In District 6, rifles aren't a form of protection against other people. They're for rabid dogs, wild cats, and wolves. It shows. I'm not a dangerous soldier or Game Enforcer…I'm just an ugly girl with a gun.

But there's more to a gun than shooting, as they soon learn. I'm Petra Angelovna. Touch me, and die. I send a woman sprawling to the street. The man beside her bleeds brains when I bash his skull. It buys me a momentary pause, but still they come. Butcher, Butcher, Butcher

"Malcovitch!" I shout again, still choking on tearing fumes. "Malcovitch!" I heave the muzzle into someone's sternum, my elbow into someone's groin. A hand finds my hair. Goddamnit, not again! I wrench away, and feel the skin peel from my scalp.

Think, Petra, think! Where would he go? Did the crowd carry him away? Did he just blend in, invisible-?

Another thought comes, more painful than the last: did he ever leave the train? I don't know Xavier Malcovitch. Only met him yesterday. But every gut instinct I've had about Cry baby has been right so far. He was too terrified to board. The smartest—and safest—thing to do in a child's eyes when confronted with that frenzied crowd would be to never disembark.

Don't worry, Cry baby, I tell him as I fight my way forward. Petra Stone-heart is coming. It'll all be over soon.


"Malcovitch!" My dry voice cracks. "Malcovitch?"

I'm battered. Bruised. My nose is bloodied and my clothes are torn. But I'm almost there. Almost there. The train is just meters away, but already I can see I'm too late.

There's a feeding frenzy, like feral dogs around a fresh kill. And tossed in that mayhem of clutching hands and grasping fingers is the small, limp body of Xavier Malcovitch. They pull on hair, clothing, limbs, wrenching, jerking, twisting with enough force to dislocate bones and tear tendons in order to claim their prize.

I'm Petra Angelovna, and I swore I'd kill him. He trusted me, and I failed him.


"Drop him!" Someone screams. "Do it now!"

The voice is panicked, shrill, and female. I don't realize it's mine until I feel the gunstock against my shoulder and the barrel in my fingers. It's shaking, but steady. I might not be able to shoot this thing, but I know how to act tough. When you stare a bull in the eye it's not about being able to overpower him, it's convincing him you can.

"Put him down!" I order again over the distant explosions and gunfire. "NOW!"

"It's her!"

"It's the Butcher!"

"Get her!"

More grey, choking gas. Bright, white light and terrible boom. I reel to my knees, gasping for air. I wipe my streaming eyes and claw blindly for my weapon. I'm deaf. Nearly blind. Utterly defenseless-

The crowd is dispersing like waves on a shore. The tanks drive them over us like breakers. They crash against the train and run panicked onto the tracks. I'm trampled underfoot by the horde as they outrun the cavalry closing in. A woman's skull bursts and cracks under the treads. Limbs are shredded into long, fleshy strings…

There, my rifle! I slither forward, the only sound the ringing in my ears and my hammering heart. I have to reach that gun, have to protect myself, get to Malcovitch-

Men in black uniforms appear eerily out of the grey fog. We're saved. The Game Enforcers are here. Central made it, my heart leaps. But still they come. One by one they raise their weapons. Cease fire, there's Tribies in this crowd, there's Tribies in this crowd, I repeat desperately.

They fire.


Time stands still.

"NO!" I feel the words rip through my throat. "NO-!" Blood and brains splatter against the side of the train. Bodies stagger backwards and slide slowly down. "NO! MALCOVTICH, NO!"

I press my fingers to my mouth, sobbing. I taste blood. The world is spinning, spinning, spinning and sick, my face is flushed, bowels churning, heart turned to fire in my chest. I haven't felt so crushed, so helpless, so goddamned weak since the day I watched Lilly die. Don't name them, my Petra, if you're not strong enough, father said.

He was right: I wasn't. Never have been.

Rough arms grab me. Pull me to safety. I'm limp. Numb. My tired feet stumble between their marching steps. I don't know where they're taking me. I don't care. I failed. Failed a little boy I promised I would protect. Promised when it came time to die it would be my kindness, and no one else's cruelty, that took him. Now he's dead by firing squad. So much for all my promises.

Eerie shapes loom out of the poisonous fog. Train tracks. Tanks. Twisted, ruined bodies. Severed, reaching limbs. They speak on their radios. I don't listen. I can't hear. I don't care. Let it end, just let it end. Would that they drag me to the Arena immediately and not the false comforts of a warm, waiting bed.

My eyes are drawn, irresistibly, mercilessly, to the scene of that slaughter. Men in black Game uniforms prod callously through the heaps of bloody flesh. I watch, dully, as yet another corpse is tossed carelessly aside. Don't watch, Petra. Don't watch, something within me begs. But I must. Just as father made me all those years ago. You have to watch, my Petra, he said. You have to know.

And then-

Miraculous as birth, beautiful as sunlight, frightening as a fledgling's first flight something stirs in that grotesque pile of corpses. Under all that death, something lives. My heart stops, and Xavier Malcovitch is pulled from the carnage with a hoarse, hiccoughing cry.

"Malcovitch!" I shout, straining against my captors. "Malcovitch-!" His tiny face is awash with tears and blood. He blinks his eyes against the sun and fumes until they rest on me. A wordless cry escapes his mouth. Before Game Security can stop him, he wrests away.

Cry baby runs. He runs right to me.

I pick him up one-handedly and crush him to my chest. He shrieks in fear and betrayal. Why, why, why Lily bleats. Why would you let them hurt me?

I won't leave you I won't leave you I won't leave you again, I promise as he sobs into my neck. I'll stay right by your side, Cry baby. Right by your side until the second I kill you.