Chapter 8: Maybe Not

Ira Millward, Age: 17, Victor, District 9

Having both of Nine's tributes die in the Bloodbath was a relief.

Not that I'll ever say that out loud.

Ira had known Bran wouldn't stand a chance. Thirteen-year-olds never had and never would. There had been a little hope for Maisie, but she had crossed the path of the Four girl while trying to escape and had died from over a dozen spear wounds.

Bonnie had teared up right there in the Mentor Room. Ira didn't. He didn't feel much except general anxiety and occasional bursts of panic at any time in the Capitol.

But having both tributes dead by the end of the first day allowed him to hide in his hotel room whenever he wasn't specifically ordered somewhere. Which wasn't too often, because he wasn't much of a looker. "Too scrawny and freckly," as his stylist tended to lament. Maybe he would grow into his gangling limbs someday. For now, he just got dragged out in the evenings, and half the time it was the kind of situation where nothing much was expected of him besides a smile and Bonnie was able to stay beside him the entire time.

He hadn't been a popular Victor, either. He'd won by outrunning everyone else and hiding among the jagged rock formations that rose all over from the rolling plains of the Arena.

My biggest advantage was being a volunteer. Capitol people thought that was brave and honorable.

Which was bullshit. He'd only volunteered because his idiot, outgoing, hilarious, absolute ray-of-sunshine twin brother had gotten his name called. If Isai died, a lot of people would have missed him. A lot of lives would have been impacted for the worse.

My life would've ended.

Ira was the shy, serious, studious, responsible twin. His family would miss him, but not many more beyond that. If either brother had to die, Ira was the better choice. Or at least that was what had gone through his head in the few seconds between the escort's trilled "Isai Millward!" and his shouted "I volunteer!"

I was always a faster runner, anyway. I had a better chance.

He'd said as much when his parents and sobbing brother came to say goodbye after the Reaping.

Then he hadn't died after all.

And here I am, two years later, holed up in a hotel room in a city under a too-small sky watching more kids not much different from me getting murdered.

Day Four had ended with the boy from Eleven getting knifed to death and the boy from Twelve getting burned to death by a Gamemaker trap at the eastern edge of the Arena.

Bet the president loved that. How did Bonnie put it that one time? "If they escape the Bloodbath, Twelve's tributes have tended to suffer fire-related deaths for the last twenty-five years."

Fortunately, no one was on fire right now.

The Careers were stalking through a patch of mostly mushroom forest west of the Cornucopia, tracking the girl from Eight. They had packed enough supplies to feel fine leaving the rest unguarded, and kept losing the trail. Most of Eight's tributes weren't so stealthy.

That's what Claudia Templesmith keeps saying. Maybe she's just making shit up; the other Capitolites wouldn't notice. Or maybe she does remember details between years and is right.

Ira still didn't like her. Or her stupidly loud voice. Or her grating laugh.

He turned the volume down as she started shrieking in excitement. The Careers had suddenly been surrounded by giant spider mutts.

Well, this is new.

Ira didn't mind spiders. They were all over the grain and canal trees and even houses in the autumn. He'd grown up with so many that he'd started to like them. Even the giant ones on the screen barely made him flinch.

They're good-looking mutts. Too big for comfort, but very much like real spiders.

He was numb to all the tribute blood and gore by now, so he didn't look away from that, either.

The girl from Four got ripped to shreds first. The boys from One and Four and the girl from Two managed to get away, running south out from under the purplish-brown mushroom caps. The girl from One, half-blinded, clothes and skin in tatters, stumbled northward, just making it out of the spiders' territory in time.

Great. She's gonna have a slow death.

One of the spiders had gotten her with some kind of stinger near the end of the fight, and before long the beautiful girl was nearly writhing , sobbing and begging for relief that never came.

According to Claudia, another commentator, and their "anonymous source", there was no antidote to this mutt's poison.

Fuck.

Ira stalked down to the hotel's ground floor, despite it having even more screens showing the One girl's ongoing death, headed for the open bar. He'd just be given a full bottle and a glass when Bonnie appeared, sat down next to him, and slid both away from him. "None of that, boy. We have a party to attend in an hour and you can't show up drunk."

"Just one?" he whined as she made the bartender replace the alcohol with soda.

"You can have one at the party."

"I'd had alcohol before I became a Victor, you know!"

"Sure you did. Some moonshine Isai sneaked into the house one night and that you threw all up later. I'm friends with your parents, you know."

He groaned, rested his arms on the counter, and dropped his head onto them. "I hate that."

"I know you do." She sipped her soda loudly.

And smugly. I can tell . Ugh.

A minute later, while his head was still down, Bonnie exclaimed, "What's he doing?"

Ira jerked upright. The TV on the wall behind the bar was still showing the girl from One, now collapsed on her back in a small meadow and whimpering, but someone else had joined her.

Volunteer boy from Five. Seems he already realizes there aren't any other threats around, so why isn't he leaving? Why is he approaching her? Maybe he's going to try to take what he can off her?

Not that there was much. She'd dropped her pack and more or less everything else much earlier.

But Darien Lopez didn't seem interesting in looting her half-dead body. Instead, he just sat down next to her, and when she turned her head towards him, he reached out and took her hand, the one that wasn't as mangled. "Hey," he said quietly, voice rough. "Who did this to you?"

"...Mutts," she choked out, tears leaking from her green eyes. "Hurts…"

Ira was half-expecting the boy to taunt her, to bring up his dead brother like he had during his interview. That didn't happen.

"Looks like it." Darien reached into his raincoat. "No sponsor gifts?"

"Not...for this...before...sent...candy, I…" She coughed, sobbed. "Please...make it stop…"

"Okay." He pulled a six-inch-long thin dagger out of his coat.

Was that in the supplies he grabbed in the Bloodbath? Maybe a sponsor gift? Ira hadn't paid enough attention to the Five boy to know.

"Did you ever watch the clouds at home in One? Damien and I used to, back in Five...The clouds up there today are sure pretty...Take a look."

The girl...Alysia, that's her name...sniffled and rolled her head to look at the sky. Darien, cupping her cheek with his left hand, positioned the dagger in his right with its tip just inside her ear. "That's it. Just think about the clouds, the shapes they make…"

Seconds later, he'd jammed the dagger into her ear, into her brain. The cannon fired, echoing through an Arena with only seven tributes left in it.

What the fuck just happened.

Darien made a clumsy attempt to rearrange the girl's ragged clothes to cover her better before he left the meadow. His face showed next to no emotion.

"Trying to give her body some dignity for when they show it being lifted out," Bonnie murmured. Her blue eyes looked too shiny.

Who even does that? Mercy kills an opponent? In an Arena? An ally, sure, that happens sometimes, but...

Ira and Bonnie had to leave the hotel shortly afterward, but screens were everywhere and the action was over for the night anyway. The event turned out to be a birthday party for a rich Capitol girl younger than Ira who just wanted to sit next to and take pictures with him all night. So not a difficult night. He didn't even end up drinking any alcohol.

He was distracted the entire time, though.

Why did the Five do that? He seemed like a fighter, someone who hated all Careers. How is this going to turn out for him? Stuff like that can lead to popularity and sponsors, but isn't really encouraged, last I heard. Not in the Games. It's almost...rebellious.

Maybe Darien would get punished for it. Maybe the Gamemakers were planning how to kill him right then.

Or maybe not. Guess we'll find out.