CW: Aran's POV contains graphic descriptions of an infection. The Capitol POV contains descriptions of an abusive relationship as well as mild gore.
Aran Casteel, 18
Training Center, Capitol
D1F
July 2, 329 AEDD
Aran Casteel knew that he deserved so much more. The Capitol didn't seem to agree, but then again, it had put him in a labor camp. It wasn't very well his fault that the Peacekeepers were incompetent. (Read: susceptible to bribery. Aran had stolen the diamond wedding ring right off Ravya's finger and traded it for a short-lived bout of freedom at the Tribute Parade.) However, his little stunt had managed to backfire in a big way. His new Peacekeeper escort comprised only the strictest, most by-the-book officers. The first batch had been cruel, at least until he had some money to talk for him, but this one was somehow worse.
They were so perfectly reasonable that Aran couldn't stand it. There was nothing for him to be angry at. They didn't grant him any emotional responses when Aran tried to fight them, or finish his battle with Amy, or throw vases around the District Five suite. He'd attempted to stab his mentor at breakfast with the knife he'd been issued to cut his sausages, then successfully stabbed the Peacekeeper who leapt forward to stop him. It was Aran's mentor's fault, really, for trying to boss him around, but he didn't expect the Peacekeepers to see it that way. Gently, politely, they confiscated the knife and sliced the meat into rounds for him. They never yelled. Instead, they sat him down and lectured him in a corresponding perfectly reasonable tone until his brain turned to mush and he started thinking that maybe being chained to the bathtub again wouldn't be so bad. At least he could prod those Peacekeepers into doing his bidding if he had things they wanted.
He'd been surprised to learn that they were letting him run free during training. No Peacekeepers were privy to Orion Zenobia's training methods. His staffers were capable of maintaining control when tributes tried to go after one another, and had proven their competency plenty of times in the past. District Five had been slightly delayed due to the early-morning murder attempt, courtesy of Aran. As bad as the preparations for the Tribute Parade were, he had been somewhat assuaged by the knowledge that all of the other tributes underwent the same process. However, after that, the other tributes had the right to bathe independently. Aran was not so lucky. In fairness, he recognized that this may have been a problem of his own making. The Peacekeepers had initially stationed themselves just outside the shower, but he had immediately tried to strangle one of them with the cord of the handheld shower head, so his newfound privacy privileges were revoked.
It was humiliating, even more so because they tried to speak to him like a child. "You keep attacking people the second we leave you alone," one had said. "We need to keep them safe, so we can't leave you alone." Aran had dismissed that out of hand, but the Peacekeeper had persisted. "None of us particularly feel like sweating our riot armor off standing in the shower with you to make sure you don't kill someone."
"You think I'd commit mid-shampoo homicide?"
"Yes." That had been the end of that, but Aran was pissed enough to increase the water temperature to near-scalding. If the Peacekeepers got boiled like lobsters in their commando suits, it served them right. They at least had the decency to turn around while he changed, but the urge to put the mahogany jewelry box to good use grew too strong. He'd slammed it into the back of someone's helmet, and then after summoning paramedics to collect their injured companion, the other Peacekeepers decided that he needed constant supervision, modesty notwithstanding.
Training sucked. Aran enjoyed combat, but he didn't exactly feel like getting in the way of the Careers, not after the sting of their rejection the previous night at the Tribute Parade. He was scrappy enough to be dangerous, but the Careers seemed a good deal smarter than the Peacekeepers. Also, the Peacekeepers were forbidden from hurting him, and the opposite was true for the Careers. Their job was to kill him at all costs. So he stayed by himself. He tried to approach Maize again, but one of the trainers ordered him to mind his P's and Q's, which he took as a sign that he was better off elsewhere.
He'd spent the morning alone, messing around with some first aid manuals and sitting on a fake boulder. Lunch had been spent blessedly free from his Peacekeeper entourage, although he didn't think it was a coincidence that he'd been the only tribute at his table, surrounded by trainers on all sides. He'd been provided another knife to cut his steak, but cowed by the threat of having his food cut up for him like a toddler, he used it only for its intended purpose. By the time afternoon rolled around, he'd plucked up the courage to enter the Careers' territory and inched into the dagger section of the sword station. He selected a sturdy wedge-shaped knife called a seax and ventured towards the trainer to request a robotic training dummy. As it was set up, he surveyed the Careers, hard at work, battling their own dummies. The dummies were modeled after Careers, programmed to display their behaviors when it came to fighting, and were supposed to be accurate examples of the biggest challenge most tributes would face in the arena. Overcoming one would be quite hard enough.
He could have killed Amy. This made him feel better. He was good at injuring people, resourceful when selecting everyday objects to tip the scales in his favor, and he really could have done her in if Ravya hadn't showed up just in the nick of time. However, he wasn't exactly built for dodging. He'd be surprised if he could evade the Careers' long range attacks. He had a sudden vision of himself, an arrow protruding from his chest, bleeding out on the forest floor. He had to be able to fight back. He didn't have the time to become proficient with a good weapon, one that could take out other tributes from a distance, but it might just be enough to equip himself with a way to kill from close up.
He wanted a city arena. Somewhere urban, where he could set up ambushes, scrounge for water in roof grooves and gutters, dumpster dive for food. Those were things he knew how to do. He didn't want the kind of arena where he had to figure out which plants might kill him, which were edible, and which would give him the worst stomach bug of all time. He didn't know how to navigate the wilderness. He wanted huge buildings to blot out the skyline and render the Careers' spears useless. Outdoorsy deaths tended to be slow and painful. Aran could handle pain to an extent, had handled it often. He couldn't handle humiliation. He dreaded the tipping point when stoic tributes cracked. He'd witnessed it in previous years. The tributes immobilized from infection or stricken with horrible, fatal diarrhea would start crying and never stop. Eight hours, one day, two. He had once seen a tribute try to sew her own intestines back together and then watched as septic flesh consumed her careful sutures at the edges, a scalloped lace trim in slate gray, vaguely reminiscent of Aisling's favorite nightgown.
He remembered that it had lasted four days. Four awful, long days. Back when he still attended school, his teacher had projected the Games onto the chalkboard and he'd distractedly filled out worksheets while the girl agonized onscreen. How old had he been? Fourteen, maybe fifteen? They'd been practicing the Pythagorean Theorem. He remembered the triangles in the word problems, all themed after the district industry, as usual. He had always disliked school, and had never been particularly good at it, but on that day, the questions that always bored him were a welcome distraction. He'd sketched diagrams on autopilot, typed numbers into a cruddy school calculator with a sticky minus key.
The girl had been in so much pain. He couldn't remember her name, couldn't even remember her district, just that she wasn't a Career. She was about his age at the time, and he remembered being horrified hearing her whimpering. Hands shaking, she'd tried to rip away the invasion with the forceps in her first aid kit, but it had merely reappeared on the cusp of the fresh stitches, like mold growing around a tear on a piece of bread. If she'd had a weapon, she would have ended it sooner, he knew. She would have done anything to mitigate her suffering. But as it stood, she couldn't quite make herself die, and so Aran had been forced to watch until her body finally gave out. It shook him up more than he would have admitted. Contemporaneously, he tried to imagine the same thing happening to him and was grateful that the Fives that year had both died quickly in the Bloodbath.
But now he was a tribute, and there was no guarantee that he wouldn't suffer the same fate. It occurred to him that in fact, with all the trouble he'd caused, the Gamemakers might want to punish him with a particularly ugly end. Or if Maize turned out to be stronger than expected and her allies caught him at a weak spot, they might decide to torture him before he could torture them. Especially Maize, who was responsible for his horrible new Peacekeeper detail in the first place. He would make her pay.
The robot whirred to life. One chance only. No margin of failure.
He picked up his dagger.
Odicci Harbore, 18
Training Center, Capitol
D4F
July 2, 329 AEDD
After a hearty meal of braised short rib and mashed potatoes spent at Nathaniel's side, Odicci was feeling good. Training had been going well. The collaborative exercise that had transpired at the sword station earlier that morning, combined with the group run just before the lunch break, had successfully intimidated most of the other tributes. The spear station had been just as productive, if slightly less showy. Odicci's trident work had been smooth, and Nathaniel and Nikita had also been performing up to par. As she returned to the racks of weapons and hefted an alloy trident, testing its weight and balance, she contemplated the Pack composition.
Nathaniel's leadership was already a success. The Pack didn't seem to have much natural chemistry, but he was mellow enough to give orders without offending anyone in particular, and was altogether uninterested in any of the drama surrounding the other Careers. Odicci was starting to understand Miss Albacore's decision even more. She and Nathaniel complemented one another well. Too often, the Academies put their faith in one tribute over the other, but Careers worked in a team for a reason.
Odicci privately thought that Tybalt's leadership could have been disastrous, and was glad that District One had seen sense and decided to put Nathaniel in charge. They were becoming fast friends, and she had a good read on who Nathaniel liked most and least out of the Pack. Tybalt was the only member that either of District Four's tributes took issue with. Jealous and easy to anger, he was responsible for all of the minor disagreements they'd had so far. Luckily, Nascha seemed to have neatly put him in his place during lunch. Nathaniel had very nearly snorted milk out of his nose when Odicci pointed out the series of expressions making their way across Tybalt's face. When the Pack regrouped in the middle of the Training Center for the afternoon session, Tybalt seemed to have chilled out significantly, and was playing much nicer with the other Careers.
She and Nathaniel had plenty of time to cozy up with Nikita, so as the afternoon began, Odicci set her mind to extracting a little more information about the whole dynamic emerging between three of her new allies. It was clear that Nikita and Orpheus had something going on romantically, and it was also clear that, for whatever reason, it was setting off Tybalt.
"So you're from District Two," she said, sidling up to Nikita on the clay range. He was getting ready to start in on another round, toggled the difficulty to level five out of ten and readying a rack of spears.
"Yeah."
"I've heard the Academies are different there. Is it true you have more than one?"
"You don't have zones?"
"What are zones?"
"It's hard to explain. Here, if you're gonna join, join."
"Sure!" She wheeled over a rack of carbon fiber tridents. The machine revved up, selecting one of a few dozen randomized patterns of fire.
"So, District Four is very sparsely populated compared to us. It's also long and narrow, right?"
"Yeah."
"Where's your Academy?" One of the many hidden launchers fired the first clay disc with a puff of dry smoke.
"Southeast tip of the district." Nikita's spear shattered the clay on impact, then fell to the plush mat.
"What if someone in the northwest wants to train?" A different launch point released a second clay. Odicci's trident intercepted it easily.
"If they want a specific Academy? They move."
"Really? They just have to live apart from their family, at age eight?"
"Usually the whole family moves."
"Why do they have to move?"
"Well, District Two is about five times as populated as District Four. The basin is actually much smaller. It's less than an hour from one end to the other. But because spots at the Academy are in such high demand, you can't pick which Academy you want to go to based on which Victor runs it. They map out the district and you go to the Academy in your zone."
"What are the Academies?"
"Floy, Morrow, Treek, Aragon, and Slate."
"Ooh, which one was yours?"
"Morrow."
"Was Tybalt there?"
"No. He was at Treek."
"How do you pick Volunteers if there are five Academies?"
"You're awfully curious about our Academy system." Nikita seemed to be getting suspicious, which was the opposite of what Odicci wanted.
"I was just surprised to hear that you guys didn't know each other. He doesn't seem to like you much."
"Are you baiting me?" He had fixed his full attention on her, so much that he didn't even notice the clay rocketing across the range. Odicci had to dispatch it hastily.
"Of course not. It's not like I care if you have history or something."
"Really? Because you care enough to keep prying about it." Odicci looked up and realized just how much taller he was compared to her. That revelation, combined with the fact that he was obstinately refusing to let the issue drop, prompted her to make a tough decision: she could either confess her motivations or go big and attempt to craft a lie so tremendous that it made the whole problem go away. The conversation had already proved that her guile needed some serious work, so she reluctantly came out with a partial truth.
"Look, Nascha pulled Tybalt aside and gave him a serious scare. I'm thinking that if it was enough to rattle him, it's enough to make trouble for us in the arena, so now I'm thinking that the other Two tributes might know something about it."
"But you didn't talk to Haylia."
"Haylia was at a different station." Nikita seemed to accept this excuse. Although it was among her reasons, Odicci had been more concerned about Haylia potentially being in cahoots with Tybalt. They seemed to get along a little too smoothly, even setting aside the usual expectations of district loyalty. She sensed that all was not well, and she hadn't even been able to bring the conversation around to Orpheus at all. Clays fired, but they thwacked against the walls of the stall and slid to the rubber pad on the ground. Nikita looked at Odicci. She looked back. Neither one paid any mind to their training exercise.
"It's a little strange that we're not at the head of the Pack this year, despite holding the majority," Nikita commented.
"Well, Nathaniel won the vote."
"That's true. But it feels a tad bit like you're trying to sow discord among District Two, because you know you couldn't defeat us honestly." Odicci drew back, offended.
"Bold words from someone without a guaranteed spot in the Pack. If you get anything less than a nine, you'll be back to little Aspen before you can say 'dropout.'"
"I am not a dropout," he seethed. "I fractured my ankle and they gave away my spot."
"And I bet you tell yourself that you would've been chosen to Volunteer for sure, if not for that pesky injury."
"You know what? The Academy was wrong. I'm just as much of a tribute as Tybalt and Haylia. And I'll be just as much of a Victor as Grant Morrow anyway. I'll even make them rename his stupid Academy after me."
"You got a problem with not being the protagonist of life anymore, now that your glory days are gone forever? You're acting like my dad." Odicci knew she'd gone too far, but something inside her instinctively lashed out when Nikita had sniped at her. It had been a matter of pride, putting him back in his place, but he seemed to truly believe he was destined for Victory.
"He obviously aspired to better things than raising a daughter as obnoxious as you."
"Ooh, a Peacekeeper that doesn't respect the chain of command? Cute." She knew that pulling rank was a bad idea, as was leaning into this spiraling argument. Nathaniel was going to be so disappointed.
"I was a lieutenant, if you must know. I answered directly to the district's Head Peacekeeper." He spoke indignantly, as though Odicci had attacked his very identity.
"Yes, yes. But lieutenant or no, nothing will make you the District Two Male. So take up the jealousy with Tybalt, because—"
"What about me?" Tybalt had suddenly appeared behind her with Nathaniel. Neither she nor Nikita seemed to find a response in an appropriate amount of time.
"You were arguing," Nathaniel said.
"It's her fault!" Nikita said, rather petulantly.
"He said I was trying to cause infighting among the Twos," Odicci argued.
"That's ridiculous. Why would I want to fight him?" As if to prove that there was no ill will between them, Tybalt shifted to stand alongside Nikita. "You Fours are so deceitful. A pity we didn't end up with a proper leader this year."
"I have been a perfectly inoffensive leader," Nathaniel declared. "Nikita, Odicci, I am sure that there has been some kind of misunderstanding, because I refuse to believe that Careers would deliberately reveal each other's weaknesses within full view of outlying tributes." There was a warning note in his voice, reminding them that however temporary as the alliance might be, they needed to protect the Pack's interests first and foremost. "I expect a united front," he continued. "So there won't be any more of this, right?"
"Right," Odicci agreed.
"Of course," Nikita said. He seemed genuinely cowed by the presence of an authority figure, and in that moment Odicci realized that he would never publicly defy orders, especially not when she had implied that his security as a Career was tenuous. She could use that, but she was no closer to figuring out the dynamic among the other Careers.
And she had no idea if she'd just thrown away her good standing with one petty argument.
Brielle Rawlings, 16
Training Center, Capitol
D7F
July 2, 329 AEDD
Brielle tried not to get too attached, but it was trickier than she'd expected. She'd found some of the nicest, most likeable tributes to be her allies, then discovered that her heart ached for them. She liked taking care of people, but that was no longer her chief purpose in life. If she wanted to escape the Games alive, the others would have to die. She tried to imagine gentle Twyla backed into a corner with a sword at her throat, or confident, smart Beemo run down by Careers, or Tom, her district partner, who seemed so much like herself, dragged out of a hiding spot by rough hands.
The morning had been well-spent. Brielle felt like she'd gotten a basic grasp of combat with the butterfly swords, and she had practiced water safety with Twyla while the boys worked on plant identification, then traded tips with them. Lunch had involved a lot of observation. Twyla had brought in a notebook and took notes on the other tributes and their affiliations with one another under the guise of playing Hangman across the table with Tom. Twyla was sure that there was something wrong with the Career Pack. The One girl had a sort of conflabe with the Two boy, and she thought maybe their alliance could exploit that later in the Games by sowing distrust among the Career districts.
By Brielle's assessment, she, Tom, and the Threes were leading the other outliers in terms of preparedness level. With food and water hopefully accounted for, Beemo was pushing for shelter next, while Tom argued in favor of first aid. "Medical care is more important," he said. "Imagine we all get separated and injured. We can't just wait for one another to arrive. First aid will equip us better for an emergency situation."
"Humans can only survive three hours without shelter," Beemo countered. "First aid is important, but so is not freezing to death."
"Is bleeding to death better? What happens if we don't know how to stop it?"
"Then we die." Twyla sounded almost serene, despite the terrible finality of her words. "We learn or we die. We might learn and end up dying anyway. But we have two more days left to train. We're picking which one to do first, not which one to do only."
"Shelter seems more fun," Brielle suggested. "Let's do that."
"We can do them both tomorrow," Beemo offered. "Maybe we could split up again.
"I should practice more," Brielle said. She wasn't as good as she wanted to be when it came to the plant identification. (She also wasn't as good as she wanted to be when it came to anything else. Her job was to take care of people. How was she supposed to take care of her allies when her life came at the cost of theirs?)
An agreement was reached about independent work, and Brielle wandered over to the appropriate station, pulled on gloves to protect her from the poisons, and began sorting. She was sorting to practice not eating things that would make her sick, but she was also sorting to resist the rising panic in her mind. The Careers scared her. They were more prepared than her, better fed than her. They doubtlessly understood strategies that she couldn't even dream up. Sure, she could smack her swords against theirs a few times, but then she would be overwhelmed and made to pay.
Liam. The customer's son. Liam was dead. He might have been an outstanding lumberjack, but occupational knowledge of a weapon couldn't replace proper, specialized education. Being a chef did not mean she could handle knives with skill outside of the kitchen.
She thought about her mentor. Fiona Marie lived beyond the reach of the Games. She was friendly, but it was obvious that Brielle was not going to win the way she did. She used flowery language, in both the poetic and horticultural senses. Fiona Marie was the child of a botanist. Brielle was the child of a man who tried to repeatedly kidnap her. "How am I supposed to escape the Careers?" Brielle had asked. "You'll figure out a way," Fiona Marie had replied.
So rescue-by-mentor was off the table. What was left? Well, she could just stick with her allies and hope that everyone else got bumped off, leaving her as the Victor. That would probably sort of happen, but it wouldn't carry her all the way. She was asking too much of the Gamemakers. Did other alternatives remain? She supposed she could go on the offensive, but she didn't trust herself to go about it successfully. There would be no respite if she erred and stirred up the Careers. They would hunt her down immediately, for however long it took to catch her. The longer they had to wait, the worse the torture would be.
She was going to keep her head down. She could take orders from Twyla, who always knew what to do, and stick close to Beemo and Tom, who had skills. What did Brielle do? What did Brielle bring to the alliance? Beemo could attack. Brielle had to defend. If someone stumbled upon them, it was her job to draw her blade and fight them. Maybe kill them. Or worse, risk being killed.
Murder was not an easy thought. Beemo seemed to come to terms with it. When questioned, he had just shrugged his shoulders and said that he was training in postmortem forensic science. His parents, apparently, saw their fair share of bodies as forensic investigators. People who had been victims of premeditated homicides or died of natural causes, but also those who had tried to hurt someone and gotten killed in self defense. "If someone attacks us first, they incited the conflict, and they can deal with th results," he said. Brielle was pretty sure there was more to his opinion than that, but he declined to share his personal views on the morality of murder in the Hunger Games.
He would never have to observe the effects of his actions, though, thought Brielle. His poisons didn't work immediately. If Brielle inflicted a mortal wound, she would have to sit and watch as the unfortunate recipient died in front of her.
She'd just have to cross that bridge when she came to it. Sliding down the curved seat of her plastic orange chair, she slumped to the floor, scrubbing at her face.
Things were never going to be okay again.
Maize Bono, 15
Training Center, Capitol
D9F
July 2, 329 AEDD
The Tribute Parade had seriously shaken Maize up. She had been on the road to making some allies, but the Aran incident had cast a damper on things. He had demanded that she give up on allying with the Threes and Sevens, and, fearing that he would take revenge on her in the arena, Maize had complied.
She wasn't sure what strengths she really had. Baking bread wasn't going to be much use in the arena. Brielle was a chef and had decided to fight with knives similar to the ones she used at work, but Maize didn't have such easily transferable skills. She supposed that she could try out the Brielle route—after all, she had still used knives on occasion in the kitchen—but she couldn't expect to get good in only three days. She had spent most of the first day ignoring the question of combat and learning about food and water safety and researching the history of the Games. There was a small library in the Training Center. Maize didn't do a whole lot of recreational reading, but she also didn't feel like coexisting with the tributes at some of the stations she would have preferred to visit, so reading it was.
The trainer guided Maize to some books detailing common Gamemaking tricks and traps. "Every Head Gamemaker has their own style," he said. "Each does things a little differently and has some stock devices that they use year after year. Konstance DuMouchel has a lot of experience, so there's a lot of data, and we've seen some clear patterns. For example, she puts a snake mutt in the Games every single year, so even though many common snakes are edible when cooked a certain way, you should never risk doing that in the arena."
"Okay."
"But there's more stuff. Like, she tends to mess with the water sources to guarantee that tributes will get sick if they don't purify it beforehand."
"Why would she do that?"
"Luck is the enemy of odds. Ask any Gamemaker. They plan out the whole Games based on math, but all of that just falls away if someone gets a lucky break. DuMouchel is willing to go the extra mile to prevent that."
"So I have to be extra sure to purify the water?"
"Yes. Boil it for five minutes."
"I thought the trainer at the water safety station said it was one normally, three at high altitudes."
"And he was right, but you shouldn't take any chances. You won't be wearing a watch in the arena, so you're just going to count the seconds. Better overshoot just in case."
"What else?"
"Don't eat raw or undercooked meat or eggs. That's the same thing as the water. I know it's dangerous to make a fire in the arena, but there are ways to keep it small to minimize the chances of getting caught. Dig a hole in dirt, obviously don't if there's dry grass or whatnot, but dig a large, shallow hole, line the bottom with rocks, then start with lit kindling and some small chunks of wood. Keep the fire small, feed it manually, and don't put any large branches in it. The water bottles are always metal. Lay them in the coals. DuMouchel has a thing about messy cooking, so she tends to put metal dishes in the backpacks. I'd advise going to the Cornucopia at the beginning of the Games."
"What?" Maize was sure that was a bad idea. Every year, between one-third and one-half of the tributes died immediately in the Bloodbath while they fought to get supplies. She was a small outlier with no combat skills or allies. There was no reason for her to partake in the Bloodbath because it was practically a suicide mission.
"These Gamemakers are generous with supplies. If you think you can get even one item, do it. An empty water bottle is better than nothing. An extra shirt is better than nothing. The gold standard is a backpack or other bag. Grab something and then run as fast as you can."
"Be honest. How long am I going to live?" Maize was a little surprised by her own question. She was normally hesitant to even talk to other people. Then again, she supposed it was time to take her anxiety in hand. Hiding from the future wasn't going to change it. The trainer looked her up and down.
"How fast can you run?"
"Fast." Once again, she surprised herself. Yes, she supposed, she was confident about this. She'd never really tested her endurance, but she'd never met anybody who could sprint faster than her. Could she really run more quickly than most of the other tributes? She asked the trainer.
"If you watch the Careers, they're probably going to do a sprint race at some point. If you can just about match the slowest one, then I really think you should go for the Cornucopia."
"Okay."
"And whatever you do, don't do any running until the private session. That's not a skill you want the Careers knowing about in advance. I'm not sure how much attention the outlying stylists give their tributes, but if yours doesn't put up your hair beforehand, make sure to do something with it in the launch room. It's way too long and easy to grab. Braid that up. Put it in a super tight low bun. Make sure it can't slow you down or get you dead."
When dry, Maize's hair reached to her belly button. If wet, the curl fell out and it stretched to her hips. That was going to be a problem. It could become a handle for an attacker, or get stuck on a tree branch. It would be simpler to just get rid of it, but that felt too upsetting. In some ways, it felt a bit like a turtle's shell, something to retract her neck into when danger presented itself. Aunt Chia had never cut it beyond a trim since that traumatic first (only) day of school. Maize remembered how the shoulder-length hair had been swept on either side of a center part into pigtails, revealing her face to the world. She had wanted to hide behind her curls, but there had been nothing there.
She never wanted to feel that way again. The world would not bear witness to her humiliation, and she refused to watch it jeer at her.
Pulling it back was fine in the kitchen. Maize understood food safety. But whenever she had a customer-facing role, out came the hair. She needed it to buffer the human interaction. She had no idea how it would feel to be stripped of that in front of the country. The hair would not be able to save her this time. She couldn't risk it being the reason for her death, and besides, she had to see.
No, this was not happy news. "Okay," she said. "What else should I do to prepare?"
"It would be unwise to enter the Cornucopia without first identifying your weapon of choice. You can sprint in, but you may need to fight your way out."
"Then I can't—"
"You can and you must. Come with me." He took hold of her wrists and brought her to her feet.
"Where are we going?"
"The sword station."
"You're joking." The trainer's dark eyes did not look particularly mirthful.
"I am not." He led her across the room diagonally.
"No. Please, I'm fifteen, I'm short, I'm too weak, I probably—"
"Look, my buddy's one of the sword station trainers. Please trust me on this." The formality had dropped out of his voice entirely. Now he just sounded concerned for her. Maize realized that most of the trainers in the room looked scarcely beyond Reaping Age themselves. If it weren't for the different uniforms, she wasn't sure she could figure out who was who. Did the trainers do this because they hoped that, if the roles were reversed, they wanted someone looking out for them? Did they sympathize with the tributes? Did they have their own interests?
"Why are you doing this for me?" Maize asked. The trainer lowered his voice and took on a conversational, instructive tone to disguise whatever he was about to share.
"There's something wrong with the Five boy."
"He's violent. I know."
"No, I mean Orion Zenobia called us to meet yesterday about the Tribute Parade, to give us a special warning about Five. He got a few years in a labor camp for stalking an ex that dumped him for being too possessive. He's sent a prep team member and a few Peacekeepers to the hospital since he got here. He might've killed one by caving in his skull—they're not sure he's gonna make it. He's unpredictable and dangerous and thinks all of this is one massive joke. I don't want to know what'll happen if he catches up to you in the arena."
Maize shuddered involuntarily. "So you're trying to do the right thing."
"I could get in very deep trouble for telling you this. So please listen to me and come to the sword station. I think I know what we can do with you."
He led her to the sword station, where there were two more trainers. A blonde woman was sparring with a Career boy. The other trainer, a man with blue hair, glided over to her. He seemed to know the trainer that had accompanied Maize, and they talked about her for a moment. Then the blue-haired one circled her, occasionally touching her hand or examining the mechanism of her elbow. He asked questions that she didn't know the answers to, used words she'd never heard before, and finally beckoned her towards a gel training dummy. He handed her a sword as long as her arm. It was heavy, but not as heavy as she'd expected. She gave it an experimental swing and nearly sliced the dummy's arm off.
"Whoa, there. Easy. Let me help." The trainers corrected her posture, then modeled with their own swords. "More like this."
"You're doing better."
"No, not that much better, people will take notice of you." Maize's arms were stronger than she'd known, from mixing dough and kneading bread every day for years. Once she learned to control the sword, it was easy enough to make it go where she wanted.
The original trainer leaned down to give her one more piece of whispered advice before the first day of practice completely elapsed: "Don't excel in your private session. Surprise them in the Bloodbath." She buzzed a little with confidence. Maybe it was going to be okay after all. She looked up at her fellow tributes and saw Aran Casteel's eyes locked on hers in a resentful glare
Suddenly Maize felt nervous all over again.
The Cloaked Stranger [AGE UNKNOWN]
12 Witherkemp Road, Capitol
[OCCUPATION UNKNOWN]
July 2, 329 AEDD
Summer was an inconvenient time for power plays.
It was a rather cold tact for a person to take, but then again, he was about to nearly murder someone. The cloaked stranger hitched the closure of the waterproof covering up a notch, where the oversized lapels wouldn't rub at his throat quite so incessantly. He could do without cold drops of rainwater creeping down his shirt.
The rain had been a stroke of luck. It was hard to travel inconspicuously in the Capitol as a person with minimal cosmetic adjustments. Plainness served him well in the districts, but it caused problems when one was so visibly unaltered, and even more so since the task at hand required forgettable attire. It was a day of Hunger Games festivities, and the lack of a celebratory outfit would typically not go unnoticed. Had it been sunny, he would have had a lot to answer for, but thanks to the afternoon thunderstorm, the crowd was dotted with enough black coats for him to slink through the city undetected.
Their informant was dead. That much was clear. Respiratory compromise? Ludicrous. Pandora Mink was toeing the party line, and it might have worked on the gullible viewership, but the stranger knew better. Ivan Cardozo had met Flossie Merveilleuse, no doubt to convey a piece of information that was now lost forever. Flossie was tougher than she let on, that the stranger knew from experience. Morally questionable, pining after a man that would never love her back, sure. But not a traitor. Never a traitor. If he managed to capture Flossie and interrogate her, she'd never tell them what he wanted, not even under the most excruciating torture. Killing her? Out of the question. Nikolai might not have cared for Flossie in the same way she cared for him, but in the event of her death, he would no doubt bring the hammer down on the whole operation, even if it disrupted the entire country.
And the Shakiras would let him. Not Willoughby, obviously, who cared too much about his image to jeopardize his projection of perfect strength, but Will was the acting President, and Eurydice and Linus were powerful in their own capacities. Nikolai would put the Games on hold—indefinitely. He'd keep the tributes cooped up in their suites for however long it took to find the perpetrator. And then everything would be well and truly fucked.
But since Flossie had not been disposed of, she'd certainly already tattled to Nikolai about whatever Ivan had said, so now the stranger was at a distinct disadvantage. Some secret had come out regarding a failure in their operations. Nikolai knew about it, and the insurgents didn't. Konstance DuMouchel had been expecting an emergency communication from a contact in trouble, and if this happened to be related, the plan could be in much worse trouble than anybody had predicted. And that wasn't the worst of it.
Konstance was angry, but the Ringmaster had practically been incandescent with rage. This was a first. The stranger had been acquainted with the Ringmaster for almost two-thirds of their lives. She was pure predator comprising blonde hair and red lipstick and whatever happens when you mix moonshine with an ounce and a half of sweet-and-sour flattery and a dash of obsession. Muddle for eighteen years, serve with a wedge of lemon-tart avarice, and you've got yourself a winning combination.
The stranger loved the Ringmaster. Loved her more than warm mulberry pie, the respect their Peacekeeping officership afforded them, and their mother put together. Their mother who was still cheerfully overseeing District One's Peacekeeping force eighteen years later, with no idea of what her problem child had gotten into.
Sometimes he still dreamed about her. He had a memory of running into her arms after scraping his knee, had a picture in his wallet that she had taken of him not ten minutes later, giggling with a face plastered all over with band-aids that were wholly ornamental.
He missed her. It was hard to admit, but when he donned his Peacekeeping uniform each morning in front of the mirror, it was her face that appeared, a vibrant overlay on top of his own, faded into grayscale. Her brown hair smoothed into a bun at the base of her neck, her freckles popping from the constant exposure to sunlight. The regimental commander, she was the only one in her company who didn't have to wear a visor outdoors.
Her absentminded husband would eat in his office, but she would make dinner for the two of them every night. How was your day at school, sweetheart? And when the stranger was thirteen, it all changed. She was offered a promotion she couldn't turn down, and she'd left him in the care of his father, who was wholly unobjectionable but completely oblivious to the less tasteful activities he began to partake in.
Yeah, he supposed he was a mama's boy. Ivan had always spat out the phrase like a barbed projectile, but the Ringmaster had been worse. She'd cooed it, with a slight curl of the lip, not yet decorated with her signature crimson. A subtle disapproval, an indictment of his dependency.
He had never been good enough for her. He had stayed for eighteen years, and he was finally about to prove his mettle.
Where Ivan had failed, he would succeed. As instructed, he would remedy this little issue by making an example out of Nikolai Fassnacht, forcing him to grasp that the penalty for resistance was unfathomably high. Fearless Nikolai, unafraid of inconveniencing the Capitol in his pursuit of justice, had to be slowed. It would take a particularly tremendous act of intimidation, and that meant it was an opportune time to prove oneself to the Ringmaster, who held a particular fondness for bullying. It had always been a controlled meanness, but since the episode of fury following Ivan's death, he understood that once she ran out of minions to crush under her boots, there was a nonzero chance that he would be next.
So in keeping with the stakes of the situation, the stranger was going to commit an act of unfathomable cruelty. As he reached 12 Witherkemp Road, certain that Nikolai was stuck in a meeting with Flossie at that very moment (oh, the irony!), a glimmer of reticence crossed his mind. The young man really didn't deserve what was coming, but it was necessary to disincentivize Nikolai from pressing too much into things.
Shadowed by the overhang of the roof, he slid a dark neck gaiter up over his nose and wedged his hat down a bit lower over his forehead, concealing any traces of his tawny hair. He gripped the knife with his gloved left hand—an unfortunate mark of distinction, but not one that could be helped—and pressed the doorbell with his right. Nigel was at home on his lunch break, hazardously trusting. He opened the door, and the stranger lunged.
The stranger would never forget the horrible scream of sweet, clueless teenager meeting sharp steel. He reeled, suddenly nauseous, sickened by the clear-white edges of a wound so precisely carved that it hadn't yet filled with blood. With considerable effort, he withdrew the knife from Nigel's shoulder. No evidence left behind.
His stomach turned, and he had to fight to stow his weapon in the cloak's large pocket. He risked a glance back at Nigel, who seemed confused, confused about why someone would ambush him only to deliver a nonfatal blow. The stranger wanted to apologize. Waffled. Understood that it would be near-unforgivable, would require much more than a bit of groveling to be absolved of, would incur the Ringmaster's wrath in its least predictable and most dangerous state, would be the second offense of an infraction he'd sworn to never repeat.
"I'msorrypleaseI'msorrypleasedon'tbeangrypleaseletNikolainotbe—"
He clamped a glove tightly over his mouth. Nikolai would nail him right proper now, didn't see how he wouldn't. He'd ruined it all. If the government had his voice, once they talked to Nigel, everything would be for naught.
Over eighteen years, the Ringmaster had hit him exactly once, when he'd tried to back out of the fireworks at the last second, feeling a similar surge of guilt. She'd had a length of steel rope to rig up an aerosol booster, and amidst his explosion of bubbling apologies, he saw her ugly side directed at him. Now, the tight band of scar tissue across his chest snapped taut as he ran, a painful reminder of what failure meant. Good enough, he'd never been good enough. Would never be good enough. And that was the Ringmaster in a forgiving mood. Her creamy bosom heaving on top of his fresh wound later that night, she'd explained that it was purposeful, targeted. A lesson learned, one she hoped to never repeat.
He had almost compromised his unfaltering loyalty. That was why she kept him around, after all. Outlive his usefulness and she'd cut him loose, and he couldn't have that. He could keep running, take on his old identity, and she wouldn't chase him, or he could face whatever punishment would be waiting at home, whatever Ringmasters did to accomplices that made irreconcilable errors in judgement.
He could forget all of it, reassume his station as a Peacekeeper, and request a transfer to District One. He could move back in with his mother and she'd never begrudge him his mistakes, plentiful as they were. And he wanted to. It was certainly the smart choice to make. It didn't take a genius to understand that Nikolai was generally well-intentioned and the plot against him and his cohort could be generously described as repugnant.
But just like always, the stranger wanted the Ringmaster's approval more, so he started calculating the details of a rendezvous point and prepared to accept whatever consequences would take effect upon his arrival. The Ringmaster would always win out in the end.
Panem et circenses indeed.
Hey y'all,
It's been forever but I'm alive. I did Victor Exchange over the summer (401st HG oneshot thingy is complete and on my profile) and then had a chaotic beginning of senior year and kitchen appliance crisis management. My goal is to finish this before I graduate high school so I'll try to churn out another chapter soon. Next chapter will feature Vica, Orpheus, Nathaniel, and Fahad. The Capitol Focus is kind of up in the air so I might throw Nikolai another POV because he's my favorite special boy and also his baby brother got stabbed.
I also have a lot of backreading to catch up on, so feel free to pester me if I've been neglecting my tributes in your fics. Reviews will be on the way!
—LC :)
