The Mastermind

AN: They're back! (No, not miniature dinosaurs…Tasha and Klerkov!)


The drive back to the hotel complex is mind-numbingly uneventful. The tank is a dull, windowless shell not even sound can penetrate. Outside, the crowd might still be rioting, but inside the soldiers sit in slumped silence, weapons holstered and forgotten. It's claustrophobic and stuffy. Malcovtich stirs fretfully in my arms, beads of sweat falling down his brow and soaking my breasts. His hair is hot and sticky against my neck. My now even emptier stomach rumbles.

"Where are you taking us?" I ask again. Not a single soldier will make eye contact with me, and every question I pose goes unanswered.

Get used to it, Petra, you're just a sheep to the slaughter. That medic did us a disservice in letting us think we were still human. We're in the Capital now, and our humanity got checked at the door. I'm no longer Petra Angelovna: I'm a Tribute.

District 6, Female.


I don't know what I expected at our reunion, but it certainly wasn't this. When the roof of the tank finally opens, streamers of sunlight and the chanting of thousands reaches our ears. Xavier Malcovith nearly wets himself from fright, and it takes the soldiers the better part of fifteen minutes to secure the perimeter and haul us up. I crawl out of that drab hole, blinking in the force of the stark sun sheering the sides of every edifice, and am met with the welcome sight of Tasha Pushkina and Victor Ivan Klerkov.

She waves frantically, hopping up and down to be seen, her orange kimono and gilt-dragon headdress bobbing in the breeze. Beside her, Klerkov looks fiercely impressive with the addition of a chain-mail bodice, fanged earrings and an oiled bronze helm, affixed with bull's horns and the fierce, gaping jaws of a bear.

…I was attacked, mobbed, stripped, and half-raped and in the interim, my Mentor and Escort went for a costume change. Damn them. Every ounce of giddy elation I felt at the sight of a familiar face dies and rankles within me. I forget the Capitol, forget the Games, forget the crowd and cameras that must be watching, even now.

"Where the hell have you been!" I shout, feeling my face flush crimson. "The fucking spa? I can't believe you just left us behind-!"


Xavier Malcovitch shares none of my frustration. The moment the lobby doors close behind us with a dull thud the noise of the maddening crowd evaporates. Cry baby opens his eyes at the sudden silence, and notices Tasha Pushkina for the first time. The resulting squeal and shrill echoes in the granite and glass foyer are deafening.

He also managed to get a knee in my ribs in his haste to get down.

Tasha Pushkina hauls him up with difficulty as the silk tears on her dress, cooing all the while. "Hello, mamin 'hvostik! Did the medics take good care of you?" Cry baby giggles obligingly, nuzzling her neck with his nose. Klerkov merely harrumphs.

Yes, Tasha Pushkina, he did-despite wanting to euthanize him on the spot. Suddenly I'm footsore. Weary. I left my home and family yesterday, and haven't eaten since this morning. Two days ago-was it only two days ago?-I slaughtered animals for a living. Two days from now it will be children.

Her dark eyes find mine over Xavier's curls and prattling, and her wide smile falters. She reads my face, finds me caught between wanting to hate or hug her, run to her like Cry baby for comfort or to bash her painted face in. And despite the paint, fresh wig and magnificent clothes, suddenly she looks just as tired, just as spent as I am.

I want a hot bath. A hot meal. A train ride home. A Mentor's support and a Hunger Games won. I want to live. Want to live whatever it takes…

My tired feet bring me within a meter of them, still uncertain. Klerkov looms over us appraisingly, one over-large hand already curling his beard. Still clutching Xavier to one hip, she opens her arms.

…To hell with it. I hug her.


It's a test, it's a test, with him it's always a test, my mind insists. As I slide slowly back from her awkward embrace, I wonder whether I've passed or failed. But I remember facing down a carnivorous crowd, the sick spray of hot blood on broken glass, the sound of a skull crunching beneath the butt of a rifle and the clear fluid that came pouring down the barrel beneath grey chunks of brain.

I'm Petra Angelova. Petra Stone-heart. I can—I will—win the Hunger Games, and I don't need Victor Ivan Klerkov's help to do it.

But help or no help, I can't stand the brooding silence. "Well?" I round on Klerkov.

"Well?" He yawns in return. "Well what?"

"Don't you have anything to say?" I insist.

"Don't you have any judgments to make?" Tasha asks snidely, adjusting her slipping headdress.

"This does not sound like me at all," Klerkov scoffs, grandiose. "Victor Ivan Klerkov does not cast judgment. He critiques!"

"Oh, shove it, Klerkov!" Tasha snaps. "Just tell us what you're thinking!"

He blinks in exaggerated, feigned surprise. "I am thinking, I am thinking that I am hungry, and it is past time for lunch. I am also thinking that it is lunchtime, and we have yet to meet our Stylists. I am therefore concluding we are running late." He takes her hand and pats it once. "And I worry, dear Natalayia, that lunch may be overlooked in our haste."

"She wants to know what you're thinking about me," I refrain from swearing, at least aloud. "About this morning."

"Ah," Victor Ivan Klerkov intones seriously, crossing his large arms and frowning deeply, "about this…incident."

"Fiasco," Tasha says.

"Clusterfuck," I finish.

"Oh, Petra, my Petra," Klerkov sighs, removing the grotesque helm and running fingers through his newly coiffed hair. "What to do, what to do? You didn't have to quash the man's testicles so. I promised him a Consort for the Games, and now I'll be forced to reschedule. And Venus does not give refunds," he clucks. "This will cost me greatly."

…Oh, fuck.

Tasha blinks.

"You bastard," I spit.

Klerkov grins. "Yes?"

"You knew, didn't you?" I accuse him, shaking in anger. "You knew it would draw the crowd into an uproar, and you meant for Malcovitch to run to me! That's why you scared him on the train!"

"Of course, moya Petren'ka!" he roars, slapping his great thigh in laughter as the leather straps of his armor creak in protest around his barrel-like chest. "It would not have looked half so convincing if it were not real. I am a Victor, I should know. A live audience isn't so easily manipulated." So much for not needing him. My every independent action had been ordered in advance. I only acted a part: you must fool the world into seeing you for what you really are. They must see the truth within the lie.

"I'll be damnned," Tasha Pushkina says weakly. "You planned all that?"

"Good Games, not all of it! How was I to know the Resistance would join in?" He asks, dark eyes shining as he wipes away tears of mirth. "Risky, risky, risky! I would never dream to jeopardize my champion so! But the same trick gets old," Klerkov waves dismissively. "And they must stay interesting, Natalayia, above all else, even your idiot-child. They expected the two to walk out together. My Petra gave them the entrance of a champion acting alone and unafraid. Your zaychik gave them the emotional plea of a little boy. The Resistance, well… my champion gets more minutes of press coverage, and no one knows what the hell to really think. If it is panem et circensus the crowd wants, Victor Ivan Klerkov will give it to them, and let the Capitol beware! This Bear will dance, and his little cubs too!" He claps Tasha in a painful, bear-like hug and plants flourished kisses on both her painted cheeks then lifts Xavier bodily over his head and spins once before handing him to me.

Without a word he waltzes away, dancing on the balls of his feet, positively whistling.

I do, Victor Ivan Klerkov, I call to his retreating back as Cry-baby laughs. I think you're fucking insane. But he's also one clever son of a bitch. After his stunt this morning, all of Panem is convinced that I'm a cold-blooded monster capable of holding her own. And for that I'm grateful he's my Mentor, and no one else's. When Victor Ivan Klerkov says you'll have the best chance to win, he really means it, lie, cheat, steal, kill or fuck. Maybe he's a sopping drunk, maybe he isn't, but there's no longer any doubt in my mind Victor Ivan Klerkov is the most dangerous man I've ever met.