Chapter 20
We stride out of the cornucopia like a trio of superheroes. The breeze and the sun rising behind us make us look uber-cool.
When I'm back in the Capitol, I'll make sure they put an awesome theme tune over this, in the highlights reel.
"You both know the plan?" Says Greg.
"Ya, dude." Says Rob.
"Yass queen." I say, using my own cool catchphrase.
"She won't suspect a thing." Rob says confidently.
Greg laments, "I'd much rather use violence, but she's too unpredictable. And that brat sidekick of hers is powerful too, somehow. Oh well. This'll show the Capitol how strong my brain muscles are."
We ascend the two flights of stairs to find Sugar and Salto in the common room, where we have been storing everything we can fit. I'm glad our plan doesn't involve violence – I'm winded from all those stairs.
"So you finally decided your break's over?" Says Sugar, "We've moved most of these supplies up here by ourselves."
"Thanks for the help." Says Greg, "It's the last useful thing you'll do."
"What?" Snaps Sugar.
Greg says good-naturedly, "Because we volunteer to do all the work from now on, as an apology for being jerks to the two of you. Isn't that right, guys?"
"Yeah." Rob and I confirm.
I fight hard to stop a grin spreading across my face. Sugar and Salto no idea what's coming.
"I wanted to say thank you, properly." Says Greg, "I was mean to you, when you're actually a massive threat… to other tributes, but a great asset to the Careers."
Trust Greg to nearly slip up.
Thinking quickly, I say, "Yeah, and Anita would probably have killed me if you two hadn't shown up to scare her off."
As if.
Sugar is unreadable as always.
Greg says, "Anyway, we found something we thought you guys might appreciate."
He extracts from his pocket two bright, shiny apples. One is pink, the other blue.
You could say, as bright and shiny as spray paint.
Greg found the canisters that Minx left outside the cornucopia. The labels said, do not ingest. Rob was smart enough to know that was another way of saying 'poisonous'. And I helped.
"Please, accept these as a peace offering." Says Greg.
"Oh, come on." Groans Sugar, "If you're going to try to kill me, at least be creative!"
"Kill you?" Greg says innocently, "What makes you think we're trying to do that?"
Sugar counts on her fingers as she makes a list.
"Let's see. The three of you disappeared for twenty minutes in the middle of a job. You are all too proud to actually want to make up with me. I saw you walk across the courtyard like you were in a bad action movie. You've been trying to supress your sneaky expressions this whole conversation, especially Midnight, who is the most quiet I've ever seen him. Have I missed anything?"
Salto chimes in, "And we heard you go over your plan, in detail, when we came back down to move things. Do you guys actually know how to whisper?"
Sugar says, "Really, I would have expected better from careers. Not Midnight, but you two at least. And pink isn't even my favourite colour. It's green."
"The apples were green before we painted them!" I say, frustrated, "That was a waste of effort. Do us a favour for all our hard work – just eat the apples."
Sugar says, "We're not doing some crappy Snow White remake. And even if I did fall for your pathetic trap, I'm sure nothing would happen. It's just paint, not nightshade."
"What, are you chicken?" I taunt.
I flap my arms and cluck, just like Greg did earlier.
Rob says, "Brah, are you having a stroke?"
I stop.
Sugar sighs, "Well, seeing as you clearly can't be trusted, it's time to say our goodbyes."
I raise my hand to wave before we turn away, but Sugar whips out a couple of knifes.
Salto does the same.
Oh. That kind of goodbye.
Greg says, "Fuck it. Time for plan B."
"What's plan B, man?" Asks Rob, looking worried.
"We beat the shit out of 'em."
Greg lunges for Sugar. The two of them battle, becoming a mass of flailing arms and blades. Deep slashes appear in the walls around them. Sparks fly from their clashing weapons.
Rob manages to grab a trident from a pile of supplies, just as Salto comes for him. Salto can't break through Rob's long reach. He discards his knives and grabs a sword instead.
Their weapons clang as Rob and Salto move past me into the corridor. I have to dive into a pile of supplies to avoid them.
Whilst the other four play their petty war-games, I engage in the real battle.
The supplies I fell into hold me fast. I struggle against their grip, but they do everything in their power to stop me. Just as I make progress, Sugar's knife whisks past my face and I instinctively dive back into the pile.
A stray mace spikes me in the rump. I jolt upright in shock and I am filled with a new vigour for the fight.
Eventually I manage to extract myself. Greg and Sugar are such a blur that I wouldn't be able to strike Sugar without risking hitting Greg instead.
So I rush into the corridor to help Rob with his twelve-year-old opponent. I have to duck between sword and trident as the two barge back into the common room, still fighting ferociously.
Sugar has Greg pinned against a wall. Both are bleeding from several stab wounds. Sugar writhes with her wrists held fast in Greg's mighty hands.
"Drop the knives." He orders.
Sugar knees him in the groin and he doubles over.
Just as Sugar is about to embed her blade in his neck, Rob swings his trident back to aim a sweeping blow at Salto. Instead, the handle of his trident strikes Sugar in the back of the head, and she stumbles onto Greg.
Salto leaps nimbly over Rob's trident and lunges with his sword.
As he does so, Greg throws Sugar off of him like a bag of flour.
She goes bowling into Rob, knocking him out the way of Salto's sword.
The sword pierces Sugar's shoulder and she grunts in pain. Greg tackles her from behind, pushing her over the window ledge.
Sugar grabs on with just one hand, her other arm hanging limply and covered in blood from her sword-wound.
"Sugar!" Salto yells, "I'm so sorry!"
I spot my chance as Salto is busy with Rob, with Greg blocking the exit.
I scoop up the discarded blue apple from the floor and throw it at the back of Salto's head. It hits him in the left shoulder-blade.
Salto instinctively glances at the threat behind him, giving Rob a split second to move.
He grabs Salto by the shoulders and tosses his tiny body out of the window.
"Salto!" Sugar screams.
Somehow, with more endurance than I imagined possible, Sugar catches Salto's hand as he plummets past her.
Her fingers slip on the ledge. She is practically holding on by her fingernails.
Greg, Rob and I stand panting, as Sugar attempts to pry her way back up, still holding onto Salto.
We move to the ledge to see her looking up at us, with the first flicker of fear I have ever seen on her face.
It disappears in an instant.
Sugar says, "Pull us up, or I will flay you alive and make you eat your own eyeballs."
"Tempting." Says Greg.
He raises his foot to stamp on her fingers.
Before he can do so, Sugar lets go.
Time seems to slow down as she kicks away from the wall. She pulls Salto on top of her. They free-fall to the ground.
"Sugar! No!" Salto screams.
The resounding crunch makes my whole body flinch.
Cautiously, we peek over the ledge, to see Salto lying on top of Sugar's crumpled form.
"That was way more fun than poison apples." Greg comments.
One cannon blast resonates across the arena.
"Only one?" Says Rob, "That's crazy, we got them both, man."
Tentatively, Salto sits up and manoeuvres himself off of Sugar. He gives his best friend one last hug before looking up at us.
On his face is a mixture of fear, grief and fury.
Without a word, Salto limps away. He cradles his wrist and hunches over, likely nursing several broken ribs. Though he didn't leave unscathed, Sugar saved his life by landing beneath him.
I shuffle my feet impatiently. I don't want to look pompous by taking all the credit, but I really do deserve some recognition for eliminating the strongest player here – besides myself, obviously.
"So close." Says Greg, bitterly.
"I dunno, brah;" Says Rob, "we got the strongest one. And the little dude won't last on his own. Not with all those injuries from falling. Pretty sure I stuck him once with my trident, too."
Rob twirls his trident. He has come away mostly uninjured, with only torn clothes and some shallow cuts on his arms and torso.
Greg, on the other hand, appears pale. He sits and leans against a wall, pressing the heel of his hand into the worst of his stab-wounds to stem the flow of blood.
"Hey, brah. Let me help you out." Says Rob, crouching beside Greg.
He soon gets to work applying dressings from our collected supplies, and wrapping bandages that slowly blossom with red patches.
I say, "I know you are both severely injured, so I won't wait for you to perform a victory speech for me. A short thank you will do."
The two Careers ignore me.
"After all," I persist, "It was me who distracted Salto, which led to Sugar sacrificing herself to save him."
Greg winces, and Rob continues to dress his wounds.
I say, "Ok. I didn't want it to come to this, but I think you two are being rather ungrateful. If it weren't for me-"
Greg groans, "The adrenaline is wearing off and I can feel every gaping hole in my body, but that's not as painful as knowing I still have to put up with your crap. Twelve, please. For the sake of my sanity, just shut up."
He must be in worse shape than I thought. If he's having delusions that I'm irking him, he must be feverish.
For lack of anything else to do, I gather a meal for myself from the supplies, including sweets, crackers and bottled water. We have enough rations here to last the Bros' Alliance a long while.
"Do you wanna help me out, dude?" Asks Rob.
"Nah," I respond, "It looks like you've got it under control."
Greg groans as a trickle of blood bubbles over a bandage on his torso.
"He needs real medicine." Rob says, concerned.
At Greg's anxious expression, he adds, "I mean, you'll be ok, man. It would just be less painful with, like, paracetamol or something. You're totally gonna live, my dude. Totally."
We hear a bleeping noise outside, becoming louder.
A silver parachute descends slowly towards the window.
"Oh, thank Neptune!" Rob cries, "Medicine! He's not gonna die! Quick, Midnight. Reach out the window and grab it!"
I finish the Dairy Milk I was eating and head over to the window. The parachute sinks out of reach.
"I rephrase." Sighs Rob, "Go downstairs and get it before another tribute finds it, dude."
Grumbling at the cruelty of making me exercise after a fight for my life, I head downstairs and retrieve the parachute from outside.
When I return, Rob pops the lid off the silver canister and extracts a bottle of medicine. Greg grabs it and chugs the whole thing.
Taking it back, Rob says, "This stuff looks pretty strong, my dude. The label says you didn't need that much."
"I'm a big guy."
Greg shrugs, then winces.
"It also says it has sedative effects, if ingested in large quantities." Says Rob.
"Well I'm not going anywhere anyway." Says Greg, "Plus I don't have to listen to Midnight's rambling, if I'm…"
He yawns.
"If I'm asleep…" He trails off, groggily.
Within seconds, his eyes close.
What a shame; I had just constructed a compelling argument for why he should feel lucky to listen to my highly educated 'rambling'.
Rob sits on the sofa across the room from me.
I make decreasingly-subtle signals to him to join me on this sofa.
When my winks, lip-biting and smouldering have no effect, I confidently stride over and sit next to him. Maybe he just couldn't see what I was doing through his shaggy orange bangs.
We sit at either end of the sofa in silence. I made the first move; it's up to him now.
"Soo…" Rob says.
"Yes?" I perk up.
"What d'ya wanna do?"
So upfront!
I blush.
"Well… since you're asking…" I start.
Rob interjects, "I was thinking we could try and kill a tribute or two, while Greg's asleep? I dunno about you, but I'm pumped from that fight. And it's not like anyone's gonna come up here and get Greg. Only Salto knows where we are, and he doesn't know Greg's incapacitated."
"Don't say incapacitated." I say, "Greg is unbeatable! He'll pull through!"
Greg murmurs in his sleep, "I don't wanna eat the unicorn, mommy… Mr Rainbow is my friend…"
"Temporarily incapacitated." Rob amends.
"Me and Rob and Mr Rainbow are having a sleepover." Greg mumbles.
Without me?! I'm appalled!
Greg's faint smile infuriates me. Does he not consider me a friend?!
"Let's get out of here." I tell Rob.
Unfortunately, our outing results in little success. Our weapons only weigh us down as we explore the area around the college, without glimpsing a single tribute.
We do pass a lot of houses, any of which could be hiding our opponents. But Rob assures me that, with so many hiding places, the Capitol will force the other tributes to come to us.
We investigate an abandoned corner store, hoping that the possibility of food will have made it the base for an unsuspecting victim. Though some of the non-perishable food has survived whatever tragedy befell this arena, nobody is hiding between the aisles.
Over the course of our trip, we hear two cannon-blasts, a couple of hours apart. I hope that Rob's guess is right – that one of Minx or Mace finally won their battle, and the other died of their injuries shortly afterwards.
We'll see when the fallen tributes appear in the sky later.
Rob and I trudge back. I slump dejectedly. A whole afternoon with Hogwater's hottest surfer-dude, and nothing to show for it.
Why won't he just make a move?
As the sun begins to set on our second day in the arena, we return to our base at the college.
I go to open the door to the common room, where we left Greg to doze.
The handle is jammed.
I put my full weight into it and it doesn't budge.
"Let me try, brah." Says Rob.
I let him pass, smugly knowing that he doesn't stand a chance if I couldn't open it.
"Oh, it's a push door, dude." Rob says.
"I know. I was pushing it."
Rob must have got his words muddled up.
He pushes open the door, with a mechanical click, and I follow him inside.
"Hippo on a harpoon!" Rob cries, "What the fish?!"
"Yeah, the floor's oily!" I notice, "What's with that?"
"Nah, brah." Says Rob, shakily, "That."
He points.
"Oh…" I say, "That."
Then I scream.