Chapter Thirty-Nine - Return to Form

"I don't want to be allies anymore!"

It shouldn't bother me, but it does. It takes the…What do Fours say a lot? The 'wind out of my sails'? Maybe it's the adrenaline leaving my system, but suddenly I feel a lot more conscious, once again glancing around the dilapidated warehouse for any more threats.

"What'd y'mean?" I reply, frowning. "Didn't we just have a conversation about this?"

"I mean I don't want to be your ally anymore," Emery repeats, taking off her damaged eyeglasses. "I'm sorry, I cannot do it anymore. The aggressive fighting…the death…"

The grip on my rifle slacking, I can't help but scoff aloud. "Emery, seriously? It's the Games. I can't believe I have t'say that weeks into the damn thing. The Games are hard. There's always a sense of dread, fatigue. It's only gonna get more difficult, if it hasn't already! You're overreactin'."

Emery's eyes flare up, as if I'm telling a bold-faced lie. "No I'm not!"

"Who can say they nearly got blown up?" I ask with a shrug and incredulous glare to boot. All firsts are scary, the Games are a potential first some of us might experience. "I get it, it's scary. You're scared. You're overreactin-"

"I am not overreacting!" she shrieks back in reply, stomping toward me with her arms pressing against her sides. "I am not you! I'm not a Career!"

We're a fraction of an inch away from one another, face to face…or face to chin. Only when I adjust the grip on my rifle does Emery become more conscious, easing back a few inches more as she takes a collective breath.

"I'm not my brother either," she continues, glowering towards the floor while kicking a piece of rubble. "I…I can't with the constant running around and killing…"

"Are you hearin' yourself?" I spit back. She's acting as if the hovercrafts dropped her off a day ago. "You killed two so far, y'can't stop now…"

"Not by choice!" she retorts.

"You've been 'constantly running and killing' for weeks now," I press on. "Why the one-eighty?"

Emery glance's at the Five boy's body, shuddering as she turns away and begins to saunter. "If it were entirely up to me, I'd take things slower!" she replies. "At this rate, by continuing on with you I…I…I'll be dead by tonight!"

I can't help but scoff. She may be a Twelve now, but she's a born-Capitol through and through. "How fuckin' dramatic…."

Her eyes flare up. "You sound like my mother," she hisses with a stomp towards me. "I'm not stupid. Anyone with eyes can see what's coming up next. So what, I watch as you kill off everyone else until it's me and yourself and I kneel down for you while you shoot me-!"

"Better than the alternatives, no?!" I scream, ignoring the sharp gasp I get in reply. "I'd offer you a decent exit, better than the rest of these gutless fuckin' rebs!"

Emery's tears are much more plentiful now as she takes the time to wipe them away. On my end, the previous hours' action, together with our little conversation, leaves me winded. I take the lapse between us to catch my breath before continuing.

"Like I said before, who's t'say I live to see the final six?" I say, calmer now.

Emery shakes her head vigorously, tears flying left and right. "The Capitol-"

"Public opinion don't matter, top dogs have fallen before! 'Member Brutus!? Cato!?" I interject. "And if that happens, me dyin', then what? 'Cause you decided to hightail it based on a whim - and die - some shitty pathetic reb like Justin-fucking-Matix takes the crown!? Or Lilith Rabe?!"

More stifled sobs come from Emery as I begin to pace. She did just turn thirteen, here of all places. It's a lot to deal with. If she just pulls herself up by her straps and pushes a little bit harder…

I sigh. "...'Spite all this, I'm willin' to forget this ever happened," I say, shrugging. It's not the first time she got hysterical in the face of hardship. Spinel immediately comes to mind. Her brother dying too. And if she can be pulled from the edge after what happened to her brother, she can be pulled back in regards to this. "Maybe you can, too. Like I said before. If not me for the crown, it'd most definitely be you. We work hard 'cause we gotta. 'Course you're gonna break a little. If I let you just take a time out…"

"No," she replies, firmly, nodding to that effect. "I'm going to play my way. Like you said, I need to help myself. Myself. I can't do that attached to your hip."

Viondra's words about alliances keeps replaying in my head like a broken holoreccord. Cushioning. Cushioning. Cushioning. Something tells me that portion of the Games has played itself out.

Maybe I do need to 'shift priorities'. Do what I came here to do.

Kill kill kill 'till there's none left…or they somehow kill me.

I ignore her, stomping over to the rubble as I begin to ransack through the brick and twisted steel. It's a miracle when I tug out both our rucksacks to find them relatively undamaged. I toss Emery's towards her feet, causing the younger girl to flinch.

"Limited liability partnership, remember?" continues Emery with a sniffle, as she cautiously slings the backpack on. "For me, push has definitely come to shove. I don't think it very much matters for you, obviously."

"...Why's that?"

"Because when push comes to shove, in your case, at least you can do something about it and come out on top…I doubt I can," she says. "But at least now I can try."

Yea…Try and fail. At least with me, she would go quickly, respectfully. 'Cushioning' aside, I like Emery. Having her by my side is the least I can do for Clancy and her folks back home. Can't do nothing if she decides to stray.

"Made a Pioneer's promise to help…saluted to it, too," I say wearily, offering her one more chance. "Meant every word I said."

She offers a sad nod. "I know," she replies. "I would like to at least try. M-Maybe look on the bright side, at least now you don't need to cradle me in your arms when the time comes, right?"

She extends a hand that isn't reciprocated. As far as I can see, I just came across a younger tribute. A tribute who happens to be the youngest of them all with no significant rebel last name. And someway, somehow, deep down inside of me…

I muster enough sympathy to let them go.

I shrug. "Shame you gotta go," I reply derisively. "With less than twenty tributes remainin', too. Hope it works out f'r you."

The look on her face is concrete. I respect her for not bursting into tears outright, but sucking in her lower lip and blinking them away as she shudders. Then, with a deep sigh, she begins to back away, eyeing me as if I were a mutt seeing her as my next meal. Her hand fingers her belt where her holster lies.

Then I glance down and realize I'm holding my rifle.

I sling it. Gunning her down right then and there wouldn't bode well for me well when I get out of here. Emery takes that as a sign to flee, Pivoting on her heels as she darts out of the warehouse, away from me.

A loud crash causes me to pivot to the right and fire off a shot, nearly striking Paulus who raises his hand in surrender.

"Relax! It's just the table givin' way…" He chuckles dryly, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. "Finally! 'Bout time you start flyin' solo!"

My eyes remain glued to the exit Emery took. "Dunno…" I mutter, shrugging. "Don't really feel right, leavin 'er I mean."

All the Pioneer camping and common sense for her age can only go so far against the other tributes…

Paulus scoffs. "Don't tell me you're goin' rebel on me now," he says, reaffirming his grip. "Hey, you s'plained it as clear as day. Not your fault she can't see sense."

"...Right," I murmur, standing a little bit taller. "You're right."

His grip intensifies as he claps my back encouragingly. "Yea, 'course I'm right," he purrs in reply. "Big sib always is. Now you forget about that one and go bag you some rebs. Maybe that prick Matix is lingerin' 'round…Rief Cohen…Rabe…"

"Yea…" If she wants to throw away her chance at being runner-up, let her. Besides…last I recall, I had a mission I needed to complete. It's about high time I continued.

Upon searching the bodies, I leave everything behind except for a few scraps of food and a pistol-like compact grenade launcher with a singular round remaining. I recall playground conversations about having guns in the arena. It's always been a 'what if'. If someone were to tell me that one day projectile explosives would be in an arena, well…

I spend a good chunk of the day looking over this grenade launcher and how I could better use it to propel myself to the victor's crown. If I could just get a nice grouping of them together, how awesome that would be, killing two, four people in one fell swoop.

Another thought runs through my mind as I attempt to stomach a piece of granola. I'm much too antsy to eat. The thought is... it wouldn't be wrong to think that the alliance I forged with Emery and Clancy has Viondra in cahoots with whoever Emery's team is. Now that it's on the fritz, does that change anything? You'd think I'd get a message or a sign or…something.

I nearly jump out of my own skin when my communicuff begins to vibrate. I groan when projections of Vi and Pax emit from out of it.

"Attention tributes of the Seventy-Sixth Hunger Games. I suppose a hearty congratulations are in order, given the…" Vi pauses, squinting and rolling her wrist in an apparent attempt to 'find the word' "...parameters of this year's arena."

"You're on the cusp of breaking a Games record, nearly nineteen days have passed since the pedestals rose. The Seventy-Fourth lasted eighteen days and some hours."

"Nineteen days of strenuous hardship…"

"...Most of which were spent exclusively with your district partners."

"And so, in light of the…additional contestants, coupled with the Capitol's grace, it has been decided that if two tributes from the same district are the last ones standing, they will be the ones declared victor."

My brows furrow as I shake my head. "But how…?" I mutter. It seems I'm not the only one confused, seeing as the holograms exchange knowing looks, pausing as if to allow us to react to the news which I'm sure everyone left alive has the same questions I do.

"If you have made it this far, I would wager you're smart enough to…hash out the details."

"Good luck…"

"...And may the odds be ever in your favor."

And just like that, the holograms are gone and I'm left…confused. Call me cocky, but I was starting to think that these Games were nothing but a milk run. Kill everyone until I remain. Why bother give the other tributes a carrot of hope? I try to do the math, I try to figure out whose left out of all the tributes and I immediately kill the idea. It doesn't matter. A singular tribute, an alliance duo, they're all dying either way.

A certain girl with a bushy updo and circular eyeglasses pops into mind and I quickly shake the image away. She dug her grave...let her lie in it.

I venture outside of the concrete slab that was my temporary shelter. I throw my hands to my sides, knowing for a fact that there has to be at least a dozen cameras on me right now. I say nothing, but my expression is universal: What now?

An hour passes before my communicuff vibrates. I consult my map, noting three blips to the east. All D4, a little over two klicks away. The cuff vibrates yet again, signaling yet another boundary shift. I dawn my mask and adopt my clockwork strategy once more, the fight against Rief in the dormitory flashing through my head.

This time, he'll suffer more than a fractured arm.

Consulting the map, Rief and his team are hightailing it fast with one straggling behind significantly. There's trouble because I hear the distinct popping and crackling that comes with gunfire.

I close the klick distance between them and me within a reasonable time, clambering over a mass of rubble to find myself on a roundabout with a decrepit stone monument as a centerpiece. The park due north of it.

We're on the edge of the arena boundary. My gasmask stays on.

I know I'm on the right track due to the dead or dying muttated dogs lying about - I count five. All the surrounding buildings are either destroyed or welded shut except the… 'DEUTSCHE BANK CENTER'. I'm drawn in by the washed out advertisements of a bygone era when I hear the sounds of combat - yelling, cries of a girl, clashing of metal on metal. I ditch my kit into a nearby bush, bringing only Spinel's shotgun and my gauntlets in with me. Should be enough.

Thank Panem for the wide panel glass frontage that consists of the entrance, otherwise It'd be like entering a pitch black cave. I barely enter when a male gives a pained wail and a female's gasp pieces the air. To my immediate left. Gripping onto the shotgun, I rush to the right, around the escalators, and take aim at my opponents.

Esmeralda comforts a wheezing Rief while their district partner is curled into a ball, a pole impaled into his stomach.

Like skittish deer, they're gone before my shot could hit them, the blast striking an information pillar instead, blowing a window wide open, expelling dust and paper. The round a corner as I advance forward. It's alright, they won't get too far.

I give the shotgun a satisfying cock before cautiously stalking forward. Paulus rushes to my side, striding a few steps ahead.

"Cowards…" he scoffs.

"What's th'matter, Cohen?!" I cry out, sweeping the shotgun's barrel from left to right. "Dontcha wanna rematch?!"

"...Careful Zen," Paulus warns. "When they chased you into the subway…"

I lower the barrel to the ground. "...Barely any of 'em came out." I murmur, coming upon the downed Four male.

He's in a bad way. A trident, Rief's presumably, is skewered into his chest. The Four's in his death throes now, squirming pathetically while letting out rattley moans. The visor of his gasmask is stained with the blood he's choked up, allowing me to see only one singular sea green eye. I consider putting him out of his misery when nature takes its course, the Four boy stilling into place as his cannon fires overhead.

"Two boys, one dish…" a wry grin on his lips, Paulus turns to me. "Sounds like trouble in paradise to me…Why else would he off his own district partner?"

Grunting in agreement, I casually step over the corpse. This is one more reason to stay alive, to find out how everyone else got on in this arena.

The further I advance into the mall, the darker it gets. Natural light can only shine in so far. The Gamemakers were sure to limit the amount of hiding space this shopping place offered, seeing as many of the storefronts are gated or welded shut. I follow a predetermined path, rounding a corner and cautiously navigating the stationary escalators onto the second floor. A huge steel wall prevents me from accessing the floor further, which forces me to make my way towards a store ' _w .

I opt for no lights. The daylight creeping in through the mildew-infested windows is enough…At least I think. Now I'm second guessing myself. Yes lights or no lights…? The store is shaded in a dark hue that makes a simple mannequin look like a live person. It doesn't help that the toxic vapor lingers, either.

No lights. No sense makin' it easier for 'em.

I slowly stalk through the store, attempting to keep as quiet as I can. I'm failing at that. I chalk it up to nerves, but everything in my head sounds amplified. Everything from the way my boots clump against the eroded tiles to my slow, deep breaths that sound like a hurricane with each one I take. Not to mention my heart thumping against my chest, threatening to burst through.

I drum my fingers along the shotgun's pump. 'Member Zen, they're stuck in here with you.

That offers some assurance.

I sweep from left to right. Left to right. Left to right as I methodically clear the store from the entrance from which I came to the window face. I hook a left in this 'L-shaped' room, and continue stalking towards the change rooms.

That's when I hear a stifled wheeze. I pivot towards the right, the shotguns barrel aiming right between the astonished eyes of Rief. He's fast, because when I pull the trigger he's gone, allowing a poor mannequin to take the hit instead. I stay on him, following him around the solid display table as I fire off another round in his direction, blowing off a chunk of table as he dolphin dives for his life.

If Esmeralda didn't shriek like a banshee I wouldn't have known she was coming.

I pivot to the right, just as she powers her hatchet down towards me. I'm so flustered I barely counter by bracing the shotgun against her blow, catching the ax as I pump a boot into her stomach.

Esmeralda doubles over, ax clattering away as I deliver an upward buttstroke to her jaw. The stroke's so strong it shatters her mask as the strike has her reeling upward. I level the shotgun towards her head.

Rief's back in action, because he's tackling me to the ground as I tug the trigger. I watch as the shotgun's barrel veers off course, the blast peppering the surrounding wares instead of scattering Esmeralda's face in a million directions.

In a vigorous, desperate attempt to one up each other, Rief and I engage in a grapple that has us rolling this way and that, casting aside mannequins and breaking in display tables. It's him that gets the upper hand, his weight pinning my chest in a way that immediately causes me to wail out.

I get a good look at him. Coupled with the vapor inhalation he's already in a bad way with three, jagged slashes across his head, among other nicks and bruises. Explains the dead mutts.

Before I know it, his hands are around my mask and he's tugging. Alarm bells blaring in my skull, I attempt to keep the mask on, but Rief overpowers me, his hands alternating between my neck and the mask's fastenings.

And It's off.

The stench of mold and rotten eggs enters my nose and floods my lungs and I'm gagging. I pay it no mind, activating my right gauntlet as I swipe wildly in his direction. It sticks him in the arm but he endures through it, tugging the gauntlet and my arm with it. It takes three painful yanks to wrench my arm free of the gauntlet as he turns my own weapon against me, aiming it between my eyes as he plunges downward.

I use my hands as a shield, crying out as the blades cut through the thin wool gloves I wear, tearing my palms into ribbons. My hands feel like they're on coals. The blood pools onto my face.

Still, I hang on, I don't dare slacken my grip, bleating out pained whines as the gauntlet acts like a saw, wedging itself into my palms deeper with each push as Rief attempts to skewer me.

He coughs, spraying spittle and blood into my already sullied vision. "I don't know...whether or not… to be surprised you're still alive…"

"S'my arena…" I grit back, groaning as the gauntlet slides down deeper, pricking the base of my nose. "You're just a guest in it!"

Rief scowls deeply in response, bearing all his weight down on me as the tip of the dagger begins to break my skin.

All of a sudden, I'm in that loft again, Syndra dead in the corner while I'm trying desperately to cling onto life while the boy from Nine chokes the life out of me.

"Rief!" Esmeralda's back in the game it seems, as I roll my eyes upward and watch her now as she skids into view, ax in hand. "Move out of the way! Move!"

She drops to her knees, no doubt the ax is dropping with her. I grip Rief's armpit with my freehand and lift, bucking my hips as hard as I can. The both of us begin to roll backward, towards Rief's little girlfriend.

Both Fours let out a shout. Esmeralda's is one of shock while Rief's is one of pure pain, much to my joy.

My gambit worked.

I have no time to relish as I spring to my feet and immediately begin to fight off the grog that washes over me, as well as have a coughing fit. The vapor must not be as strong here. Not strong enough to kill outright.

A meter or two away, Rief writhes on the floor, an ax wedged into his shoulder. Esmeralda, now armed with a thin metal pole, rushes me with an angered snarl. The 'rush' is a quick shuffle. She's wounded in one leg.

I activate my remaining gauntlet, deflecting her blows as she repeatedly slams the bar down with the finesse of an amped-up District Two male. She shifts her attack from downward swings to frontal thrusts, utilizing the sharp end of the jagged bar to try and impale me.

She doesn't expect me to close the distance and is shocked when I allow the pole to glide against my side, cutting into me. Instead of recoiling, I embrace it, using my freehand to affirm my grip over the pole.

Her face falters even more when she tugs for control, only to gain none as I don't budge. Using the pole, I yank her forwards, all while cranking my gauntlet back and forcefully thrusting it forward, into her chest. Her exclaim of surprise is muddled by the blood that erupts out of her mouth.

Rief shouts out a guttural roar so loud I thought the Gamemakers summoned mutts. As I shove Esmeralda aside, he rushes me and slams me to the ground. His eyes bulging, he lets out another yell that has me half-stunned.

Somehow having my pocket pistol in hand, he maneuvers it towards my head. That wakes me up again. I immediately latch onto his wrist.

My grip keeping the gun at bay, I watch in horror as the muzzle flashes repeatedly in my vision. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Each shot sends dust and shards of tile into my vision and dulls the hearing in my right ear to the point of my world feeling as if it were submerged underwater.

I pay it no mind, as I take my fingers and rake them across the three open scars in his head. He cries out, loosening his grip enough on the gun for me to flick his wrist and cast the weapon aside. Rief goes next, as I forcefully roll him off of me and launch my foot into his gut for good measure.

Ignoring his cries of pain, I stand, immediately eyeing the shotgun lying a meter or two away. He's forgotten all about me it seems, choosing to pathetically crawl over to Esmeralda.

It's a pathetic sight, a whimpering Rief cradling his girlfriend who's half-dead already, her head lolling over his forearm while blood leaks from her mouth, pooling onto the ground.

I loom over both of them, pumping the shotgun's action. He's too enamored by Esmeralda to care, murmuring his last, sweet nothings into her ear. She's somewhat coherent, a singular tear leaking from her eye as she watches me.

"Rief-" she warbles.

Rief regains her attention, using his index finger to shift her face towards his. "Es, look at me. Just look at me-"

"I mean, hey…" I say, taking one bound backward, making it so that the shotgun's barrel lines up with both Rief and Esmeralda. "'Least you can say you got this ending, right?"

Their whimpering intensifies. Best not to let this play out too long. Me standing over them, victorious, drives the point home already.

I tug the trigger.

Coming up Next...

"Reflection. It helps in situations like these," Vi continues. "Looking back can perhaps…clear the way forward."