Chapter Fourty-One - "Verdict - Part One"

"Wake up, Rivendell."

That, coupled with the dribble of water onto my face, perks me right up.

Lurching upwards, I give my temples a good rub and blink up a storm in an attempt to regain my bearings. My vision stabilizes just as Eldwyn rises to his feet and saunters over to the blasted out windows where the forcefield's deep blue hue creeps in. The bout of grogginess passes, and I immediately recognize the space I'm in as yet another ancient apartment preserved well enough through the centuries.

I'm lying on a moldy couch, a hastily placed towel the only thing protecting my face from the spores. The gesture is futile, the stench holds a permanent place in my nose. Is it because I'm lying face first on a centuries old couch? Or is it the prolonged exposure to the vapor…or just the arena in general that stinks so bad?

I simply don't know anymore.

Paulus, on the other hand, leans against the wall adjacent to my couch. He watches me with that familiar, mocking look that creeps in on the rare occasion I flub up. He plucks the cigarette out of his mouth and extinguishes it with his heel.

"First we had Clancy, then Emery 'nd now this guy…'Eldwyn'?" he scoffs with a shake of his head. "That's three-for-three, sis. How many times are ya gonna have your ass saved 'fore the Games are out?"

"Shut up." I hiss.

Eldwyn cranes his head my way, his lips puckered in confusion. "Huh?"

"How long was I out for?" I press.

"Few hours. Midnight now…" he replies, sucking in a breath. "Just missed the anthem. Two cannons…Fourteen remaining including you and me. Few pops of gunfire, but that seems to have died down now. You can still hear howling mutts, so hopefully that means the remaining tributes are out of bullets. Rather have the mutts full of lead than us."

He turns to face me, striding back over to me before plopping down on the ground. To my slight astonishment, I watch as he pulls out a portable boiler - the type I see my instructors back at the Academy use to boil their coffee when we did field exercises. He pulls off the cover to reveal two piping hot rations. He suggests that we take the time to fix our medical dressings first before we eat. I quickly agree, reaching into my backpack to gather the remainder of my med stuff.

While I choose a dark corner to sort myself out, Eldwyn has no qualm stripping articles of clothing to dab at the various cuts and bruises that marred his body. The tourniquet on his leg - dealt by yours truly - is gone, replaced with a bandage. A good sign.

"Y'saved me," I cut straight to the chase, wincing as I slather some balm onto the now angry red wound to my side Esmeralda gave me. "Why…?"

"I wanna live," Eldwyn replies in an instant. "How I didn't die earlier with Lilith by my side, I don't know. The announcement - the allowing of two winners? I guess that gave me a lot to think about…"

I watch him as he runs a hand over his communicuff. Viondra's cigarette-totting figure flashes through my mind. She couldn't have. It's too good to be true. She couldn't have messaged him directly, could she? And if my hunch is right, Viondra getting him to pull a Plutarch Heavensbee on Rabe, why? Why would Viondra go and do such a thing?

I quickly conclude that Eldywn's Viondra's backup. And from what little I know of him, he's leagues better than the others we came with. It's not like Eldwyn's the source of the rebel stench. It just rubbed off on him through his family, which is why he's here. She did try to speak to him back on the train, after all. She wouldn't have gone to him if he wasn't viable.

Or Maybe, it's just one last piece of cushioning.

"Y'punched me…" I mutter lamely.

"You sliced my leg open, damn near cut an artery, too." he counters, shrugging. "I'd say we're even."

I give my hand a motion test. Newly dressed with gauze, It's starting to bleed through again, albeit lightly. Doesn't hurt more than it should. "Fair 'nuff..."

I wiggle my pants back onto my waist and secure my harness once more. For each individual instance, the wounds I've sustained wouldn't bother me none. Adding them all up together, however…Well, let's see. Bruised throat, my sense of smell is non-existent, my hand(s) are mangled to a various degree, multiple strikes with a spiked bat, cuts and scrapes…My hate for everyone under this forcefield must be pretty strong, because I should've broken down days ago.

I join Eldwyn on the ground, the portable boiler in between us. A quick padding down of my pockets reveals four painkillers, prompting me to grin like a fool. Thank the Capitol for small mercies. I gobble them down just as fast, glaring at Eldwyn who gawks at me as if I have a gaping hole in my head.

"What?"

"The hell was that you just ate?"

My eyes narrow. "What's it t'you?"

From the boiler, he fishes out what is supposed to be my pouch of rations. "You'd think….chicken pot pie would be better than the pill dinner you just had."

I look at the ration pouch with aversion. "Not hungry…"

In fact, I glance at the windows and then to the entrance of our shelter proper. I even consult my communicuff to look at the ever-shrinking arena boundary. There's fourteen people left. Certainly these Games won't go on for another ten days, right? And if they've been through at least half of the stuff I just went through, then they're ripe for the picking. Matix is ripe for the picking.

"Let's go hunting," I say. "Pick off some of the others while they're still lickin' their wounds. Should be easy enough…"

He's about to stuff a ravioli into his mouth when his vision narrows. "You're kidding, right?"

I return the glare back. He's the one that's gotta be jokin'. "Yea, I'm 'kiddin'...Plenty more jokes if y'wanna hear 'em."

"If shit were to kick off right now, I bet my life you'd keel over with an exploded heart," he snips, tossing me my ration. "Eat something. Who knows what'll happen ten minutes from now or hours from now."

I catch it, wincing at how hot it is. I set it aside, opting to rise onto my feet in an attempt to stem the antsiness.

He reaffirms his glare. "I'm damn near regretting making the choice I made just now. Don't make me regret it, please."

Staring him down, I break the glare and manage a sigh. He's right. I don't know what Viondra and the Capitol have in mind, but something is going down sooner or later. The last thing I need is to feel like utter garbage when I need to be at least sixty percent ready for whatever they throw our way next.

So, I plop down onto my bottom, tear open the rat, and force myself to stomach its contents. Rations. They're nice for the occasional weekend exercises back at the Academy, but are dreadful for everyday consumption. Better than making us hunt for our own food, I guess.

Eldwyn is eyeing me up again. Like he's some sort of 'concerned parent', or whatever.

I gesture in kind, shrugging. "Gotta problem, Bishop?"

"You sure proved the other tributes wrong," he drawls. "Everyone in the dormitories was banking on killing you first thing. S'all they talked about." spork in hand, he lazily gestures towards me with lazy air circles. "Two weeks in, fourteen people left, you're still standing…not after a few attempts to tear you down, it looks like."

Speaking of still standing…I retrieve my last remaining gauntlet, mentally fretting that the other one must've been lost during the fight with Rabe. I activate the 'claw mode', twisting it ever so slightly that the metal catches the light. I honestly can't remember how many rebs I've offed with these… I can't help but grin to myself. "Got that right. Lemme tell ya, I'm enjoyin'provin' you rebs wrong..."

Eldwyn looks at me as if I insulted his mother. "I'm not a rebel. Don't lump me in with them."

"I s'pose you're not…" I drawl, taking the towel from off the couch as I begin polishing the remaining gauntlet. "I mean, you bumped off the relative to Two's most famous reb t'save me…Why didn't you just spare th' trouble an' join me from the start?"

Eldwyn doesn't answer. Stuffing his mouth with more rations not to eat but to stifle his feelings…judging by the hardness in his features, his blank expression. His lack of response causes a flash of annoyance runs through me.

"I know why. 'Cause you're a fencesitter." I jut my gauntlet towards him. "While you were too afraid to stand against the mob, I had a whole group of Capitol-born tributes with me, y'might know 'em."

He's stopped eating completely, glaring at me. I continue. "S'funny, Career or not, you're a Two. You'd think a Two would be up to the challenge rather than a bunch o' Capitol kids who had nothing t'worry about beforehand-"

"Maybe I wanted to play my way?!" Eldwyn snaps, rising to his feet, kicking over the boiler in the process. "I mean, the way you were going, I'm surprised I'm even speaking to you right now! Like I said, the way everyone was hissing your name, you should've been a face in the sky bloodbath night!"

We're both right. I could care less if he joined me earlier on. The chances that he went the same way as Syndra and the others were high. It's the principle that counts. Fencesitter or not, after being reaped into a Games like these, he should've made his stance known, not slink along with the Rebels just because he'd get targeted.

As for me…Unlike what Garrison tried to advise me to do, I gave up my anonymity as soon as I marched down the aisle. Damned if I do, damned if I don't. People were going to hate me because of my Two roots anyway.

Reaching an impasse, we spend a moment or two glaring each other down. I opt to finish my food while he slinks back down onto his bottom, looking anywhere but to his front. For a few minutes, there's nothing but the howling wind and settling buildings filling in the silence until Eldwyn speaks up again.

"We're a house divided. That's the best way to put it…" he mutters. Or so I think he mutters.

Just as I finish stomaching the ration, I glance up at him. "What?"

"My side of the family," he explains. "Mom, Dad. little sibs…Wanted nothing to do with all this mess. We're miners. M'dad's brother s'what caused me to be here. Guess he wanted more than back-breaking quarry work. Fired up half of my village…screwed us over in the process."

"Doesn't that anger you?" I say, genuinely confused as to why he wouldn't want to take revenge. "Family dead. Friends dead. Dontcha wanna do something about it?"

His face is rife with aversion, cringing. "S'not my fight. My fight is for my Mom and my sibs. 'Cause at the end of the day, who's looking out for you the most? Them, no one else. S'not like your experience..."

My experience. I find myself physically recoiling as he makes mention of it, despite having thought about my experience ever since it happened.

"In the beginning, when you marched up, I won't lie, kinda rolled my eyes," Eldwyn continues, a wry little smirk on his lips when I quirk a brow. "I thought: like seriously, after everything that's happened, you're just gonna volunteer on a whim like every other year? Not to mention the fight on the train…how pissed off you were…" he shrugs slightly, his features softening. "I immediately thought you were a 'typical Career'. And then you did your interview with Caesar. After Caesar, I understood your anger, then." he stares me straight in the eyes. "I'm uh…I'm sorry that happened to you. It's definitely one of the worst things I've heard this past year."

It's my turn to be quiet now, turning my attention to the promise ring Randall gave me. I'm such an idiot, having worn it throughout my entire foray into the Games, the band definitely has some wear and tear to it. Absent-mindedly, I twist the ring from left to right.

It's my turn to respond now. Might as well, right?

"Didn't want any of this, originally..." I say slowly, recollecting bits and pieces of 'happier times'. "In a perfect world, m'sib would've volunteered, 'nd won. I was debatin' my 'rents on goin' to officer candidate school or stayin' at home while m'boyfriend did his thing. But then this stupid 'rebellion' had to happen 'nd you people-!"

Eldwyn shakes his head, firmly stating, "I'm not them."

Gripping either knee, I suck in a breath. "...They had to go 'nd ruin everything. So here I am, one girl with one goal in mind…And surprisingly enough, the finish line is in sight."

Eldwyn seems to agree, nodding along stiffly, reluctantly. "Call it a 'perfect storm'. An arena full of rebels, one of which you're gunnin' for-"

I hiss out a sigh. "None of this is 'perfect'. Things could've been better enough f'r everyone if they left it well enough alone. But no, you guys just had to push, had to bite the hand…"

Imagine that. No war. No empty desks or dormitory beds where friends are supposed to be. No memories gnawing at me no matter if I lay my head down to rest or wake up in the morning. No emptiness. No weakness…

Judging by the time on our cuffs and the lack of audible activity, we decide to retire for the night. Eldwyn insists we both rest, to which I say he's mad. Some tributes may be thinking the same way I am thinking. But then he does something obvious, like rigging a table and a vase to the entryway. A homemade warning system. Never thought about doing that, except…

"Y'know, I was in an apartment like this a couple days back," I say, grinning at myself at the thought of having done such a thing. "'Stead of a vase, I rigged a couch into the stairwell. Move the wrong way, you'd have a bad day…"

Eldwyn shakes his head with a snort, a tiny grin on his lips. "I can see you doing that."

…

My chest feeling rattly, a byproduct of the vapor, I cough into my elbow. Even still, gasping, Eldwyn shoots from off the ground, spade in hand. I pay him no mind, continuing about my business. If he wants to lounge around, let him.

"What're you doing?" he asks.

"There hasn't been a boundary shift since yesterday evening," I say, lacing my boots so tight I'm probably cutting circulation. "They always shift the boundaries first thing in the morning. They haven't now."

My arena uniform is as squared away as can be. Wounds cleaned, boots bloused up and my harness loaded with extra provisions and weapons. As good as it feels to hunt down famous rebel after famous rebel, which I haven't even gotten a signal from Viondra yet on who's next on the list, it's time to press on the fight, take matters into my own hands. Things are taking too long. Hells, even the Second Quarter Quell didn't take this long at two weeks. We're tied at the Seventy-fourth Games' eighteen days.

"It's still…" Eldwyn squints at his cuff, "Half past ten…Honestly I don't pay attention, I just react. Does it usually-"

"It happens earlier than that," I snip in reply. "If I weren't keen, we'd have overslept. Somethin's gotta give."

I give my cuff a check for the zillionth time. The circumference of the boundary is about a klick all around. I even go as far as to peer out the window. No howling mutts, no gunfire…just silence. Sleet's coming down hard, harder than usual…

"Maybe, they want us rested…as rested as we can be," Eldwyn says. "I say we wait."

"The Gamemakers do this all the time," I grumble, running a hand through my hair, quickly stopping when I tug against a sore part of my scalp. "A few pieces of meat go into th' grinder, they ease up-"

"Ease up enough to let us sleep in instead of makin' us haul ass first thing in the morning and what seems like every other hour after that?" Eldwyn replies with a barbed look. "Again, let's wait. Like we say in the quarries, 'work smarter, not harder'."

"We say that in the Academy, too…" I offer lamely in reply.

My heart tells me to charge guns blazing while my brain tells me to hear Eldwyn out. Think Zen, think…For the past few days they've had us moving every hour. Now…things are quiet. Half past ten turns into eleven o'clock and eleven turns to twelve o'clock. No muttations barking or flapping their wings, no gunfire, no cannons. Eldwyn seems to be right. Something is on the horizon. We're finally here.

A white-haired boy begins to reassert himself into my brain, as well as the thousands of ways I can possibly end him.

But before that, I 'iron out the kinks' so to speak, performing a series of stretches to loosen my aching body. The pills put in work, but the pain is still there. It's not like I haven't operated under the stress of pain, however. That's what Pioneering and the Academy was for.

My mind then flashes with images of a certain younger girl. I quickly give my head a shake. I hope for her sake, the end comes quickly.

Eldwyn, on the other hand, deals with the impending storm in a different way. I watch him now as he sifts through his knapsack to find a plastic package.

"Vanilla pound cake, the last of my rations…" he says aloud, his head cocking to the side with an odd, twisted grin on his lips. Sighing, he shrugs. "Not a bad last meal, I'd say…"

I shrug along with him. Can't say I disagree. The Gamemakers have been somewhat generous in their distribution of rations. Part of me wonders how the other tributes who weren't so lucky to find them, got on. I watch him now as he splits the cake in half, raising a piece towards me.

"Who knows," he says wryly. "Might give us a little edge over the competition."

Part of me wants to decline him. That's your last meal, not mine. But I need him mentally here, not off-kilter just because I declined his dumb gesture. With my stretches done, I claim the piece of cake, sit down, and begin to eat.

Not even five minutes after we finish, we get a notification on our communicuffs. Eyes locking, We jump to our feet.

"The boundary is shifting," Announces Vi. "We suggest you make haste with only what you require."

"Extras will just…hold you down," adds Pax. "And something tells us that for this final bound, you don't want to be at mercy to the…miasma."

"'Miasma…?" Eldwyn repeats, looking at me. "Does he mean the air?"

My brain running a mile a millisecond, I rifle through my equipment. Don't need food, could use some gauze and balm. Rifle? See you in my museum exhibit. Singular gauntlet…check. Short sword will have to act as a secondary weapon. Shotgun with a singular bullet remaining…? Would be a shame not to use it. I load the bullet and pump the action, ignoring the gawky expression Eldwyn gives me as I brush past him. "Let's move into it!"

Move into it we do. We move fast, lest we get caught up in the vapor. Each glance at my communicuff sees the red circumference closing in ever so quickly. We return to the scene of last night's battle, making sure to avoid the sinkhole that cost Rabe her life. Reaching the ground floor, I barely pay mind to the fleshy, bloody mass centered in the middle of the chasm. The thing that was Lilith Rabe. I have to spin back and tug Eldwyn to come along. And then we're outside.

For an arena on the edge of seeing its finale, things seem calm. Besides the ominous cloudy mass, thicker than the wispy vapor that dominated the boundary days prior, closing in from a few blocks down. My brain immediately flashes back to the Seventy-fifth. If an old bat like Mags died in an instant, what would that fog do to me?

Eldwyn rushes forward, only for me to yank him by the collar. Part of me wants to gut him in return for the deathly glare he shoots my way.

"What gives?" he snips irritably.

"The boundary is what? One, two hundred meters away?" I motion to the husk of a car and run towards it, getting down to knee level. "Everyone rushes to the center, it seems. People could be coming our way…"

The realization on his face is clear as day. "People to get the jump on…"

I nod. "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast."

We wait for any potential tributes to rush by, even as the wall of fog creeps ever so closer. A hundred or so meters turns into about fifty. No one appears down either avenue.

"Guess no one's coming," Eldwyn says, checking his cuff. "The safe zone is back at the park. Let's get there."

I have no choice but to relent, breaking away from cover as Eldwyn takes the lead.

"Zenobia!" That's Paulus' voice. I skid to a stop, turning around to see him down the road. He gestures with a finger further down the road. "Look!"

Little ways beyond Paulus, I spot them. I spot him. My breath goes short and my chest restricts. Justin and his remaining partner. He sees me too. Pausing in the boulevard for the briefest of moments before skittering off like the no-good, Thirteen tunnel rat he was.

Exhaling roughly through the nose, I grip the shotgun in my hands like a lifeline.

"Zenobia, what's the matter?!" Eldwyn howls. I pay him no mind. Left, right, left, right. Like a locomotive, my legs power to life. Left, right, left, right, left, right, left. right. Before I know it I'm pounding down the street towards where I spotted Justin last. Full steam ahead. "Zenobia!"

"Ignore Bishop ! Go! Go!" Paulus cries, no, pleads as I bolt past him. "You find that rebel trash 'nd you make 'im regret ever crossing your path! This is what you came for!"

He's right. This is what I came for. Everyone else; Rabe, Spinel, Troy…They're just stepping stones. Appetizers. Despite the snow and glaze covering everything, it might as well be as clear as day with how I'm running. I vault over the hood of a car effortlessly. And then a mutt appears. A stupid, stupid mutt.

It charges towards me and I don't dare back down, instead I continue on running towards it. Any other day, I would be cautious. Today was not that day. No damned mutt was going to deprive me of what I've dreamed of for months now. I put the shotgun in front of me, the protruding bayonet acting as a lance as the beastly dog pounces toward me. I jut the gun forward and the beast yelps. Despite its immense weight, I use the shotgun to slam it onto the ground all while not breaking my momentum for a second.

I skid to a halt in front of an open apartment building. The shotgun primed and ready, I charge up the steps and into the broken-down lobby. Like every other building, the Gamemakers cordoned off rooms and corridors with mounds of rubble, making it easy for me to navigate myself up a few steps, around some corners, straight to him.

We're on an open, hollowed-out floor when I spot him and his partner, Irene, trying to overturn a bookshelf from an entryway. I stomp towards them, honing in the shotgun's barrel towards Irene. Whatever happened to the big bad Thirteens? I wonder. If you're so tough, why run? Oh yea, I forgot, 'cause you're stuck in here with me. No more disappearing back into your cave like the tunnel rats you are. Noticing me, Justin turns my way and dives aside.

"Irene!" he shouts.

Irene isn't so lucky, eyes wide like a deer in lights when she realizes what's coming. I let the shotgun in my hands roar. The incendiary rounds splash against Irene and the bookcase, launching her off her feet with a strangled cry, colliding into the bookcase and causing it to topple on top of her in a smoldering heap. The resulting cannon is instantaneous.

My heart threatening to burst from out of my chest, I turn my attention to the last remaining reminder of my pain. Once he finishes desperately patting down the embers that splashed onto him, Justin staggers to his feet, sparing a fleeting glance towards his dead ally before turning his attention back to me. He looks defeated, tired, standing before me in a uniform soiled beyond repair. Even his prematurely white hair is tinted with grunge and gore.

His blues flicker toward the shotgun in my hands as he attempts to stand tall, but he favors his left leg. Everything from his firm gaze, to the straightening of his head and the bob of his throat screams 'Alright, you got me. Make it quick'.

He wishes I were quick.

I only scoff, discarding the shotgun like an apple core as it clatters off in the distance. He watches me through unnerved eyes while I activate my remaining gauntlet and withdraw the short sword from its scabbard. Even if I did have a remaining bullet, shooting you would be too easy. No…Gonna make it personal, gonna make it hurt oh so bad. I'm tired, too. Tired of having to run through all these hoops just to get to you. But now, finally…we're here. End of the line, Matix.

Letting out a shriek, I lunge towards him.