Sasha
Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games.
It wasn't supposed to happen this way. We were supposed to be back-to-back Victors. Not Tributes at the same time.
But all the boys in the eighteen-year-old dormitory came down with a nasty flu...completely out of season...two days before the Reaping and Markus was the best alternate out of the year below.
If only we could both win one Games, had been her first thought.
After the Reaping, she'd even let herself think about the possibility a couple times. Maybe she could find a way to bend the rules, to make a double victory happen. She was damn good at making things happen. Even when it pissed people off.
But when reality set in, that only one of them was going home...she knew what had to happen. She knew what to do.
She'd gotten her brother out of the mining sector. She'd get him out of the Arena, too. That was her job. She'd do it if she had to fall on her own damn sword.
Yet she had failed.
"Love you, sis."
After it was over, seeing red on everything, not just the stained snow and her little brother's last words, she'd looked for more wolves to slaughter and found none. The next best thing had been the stupid pretty girl from Four, who'd been crying...What the hell gave her the right?!...and trying to approach. She would've moved on to the scrawny Twelve or the creepy Eight but Marius yelled at her to stop ,and she could barely see them through boiling hot tears anyway. "We've still got outliers to deal with! Save it for them!"
To think she and Markus had just been talking about culling the useless allies. Well, I got one of them.
The next day, it was business as usual, just like they'd always pushed in the Academy. "The pack has to keep going until the time is right for it to break. Just move on from early losses."
The Twelve girl had taken off during the night, but Sasha, Marius, and the psycho kid had a good time with the boy from Seven, with Marius finishing him off. He had been a fighter. They got a decent package of food from sponsors as a reward.
They hadn't found anyone on Day Nine. Day Ten, partly out of frustration and partly because the Eight girl was acting creepier and creepier, Sasha cut off her head while she was looking the other way.
"You wanted to wake up with her knife in your back? 'Cause that was what was going to happen!"
I'm not going to die in some stupid way like Markus. I'm going to win, and I'm going to keep his memory alive because I sure as hell don't have anything else.
Day Eleven, they had gotten the Seven girl. She put up a fight like her district partner. Sasha, going on instinct, killed her quickly, almost by accident.
"That was a disappointingly fast fight," Marius had said. "Bet we won't get a sponsor present for that one." He'd been right.
The next morning , he'd decided it was a good time to earn that sponsor gift and turned on Sasha, giving her a heads up and a half-sincere apology . It was an extended fight, because Marius was good, very good.
But Sasha was better.
I'm always better.
The Twelve girl died later that day. That night, eating a sponsor dinner of rich, warm stew that tasted to her like the stone grit, Sasha heard the cannon and saw the twenty-second portrait in the sky.
Final two. Who else is left?
Markus would've known. He would've immediately been able to list their district, their name, their age, their training score, what they looked like…
Because Markus, under the swordsmanship and the big toothy smile and the bravado he'd put on in the Capitol and Arena...he was a smart and decent person. Sasha had always assumed that it was because he had her, to protect him and save the best parts of himself. Even if it cost her.
Maybe he just had something I never did.
As she scraped up the last bits of the stew, she remembered. District Ten. The girl.
The thin, brown-haired girl who probably was close to Sasha's age but was so much smaller. And she was quiet. Sasha remembered that.
I'll hunt her down in the morning.
Day Thirteen, the Gamemaker's made it easy on her. The sky remained cloudy, except for one point, not that far from her resting place, where the sunlight streamed down like a spotlight.
Above a wide patch of flattened snow and icy grass, crouched on a pile of boulders, was the girl from Ten, soaking in the sunlight. Ana or whatever her name is. She didn't move when Sasha clambered up to join her.
Panting, sword in hand, Sasha stood straight. "Well, I guess it's you and me, Ten," she said loudly. This should be an easy one. The last one. For Markus.
Somehow that felt hollow, but she shook it off. Not the time. Never the time.
The other girl finally stood and faced her, gaunt-faced, shivering. She still didn't say anything.
"If you don't put up a fight, I'm…" Not going to do anything in the particular. Let's get it over with. "Never mind."
"Final kills should be spectacular."
She didn't care about that right now, not when her eyes were burning with tears she wasn't allowed to shed.
This was supposed to be me and Markus, and I was supposed to…
She cut that thought off, hefted her sword, and lunged. The Ten girl nimbly dodged her.
It would've been a minor setback. Except Sasha lost her footing on the crumbling stone.
It wasn't supposed to happen this way.
The fall wasn't that high, but it didn't matter when you landed on the sharp end of your own sword.
I'm sorry, Markus. I'm so sorry...