Chapter 28
We find Corvid and Izzie in the coffee-shop attached to the college building. Corvid is behind the counter, raiding drawers and containers.
They state, "I feel so… blegh. I swear, if this arena can provide me with just one iced coffee right now, I will never speak ill of the Capitol again."
"Let me know if you find any hot chocolate powder." Says Izzie, "I could do with a pick-me-up too."
I chime in, "If there's hot chocolate going, I'll have some!"
"Oh, hey." Says Corvid, "Have you left Rubis to process his trauma on his own?"
Rubis is hiding just out of the doorway, out of sight.
"Yes…" I respond hesitantly.
"How considerate." Izzie snorts, "Haven't you heard of aftercare?"
She is sitting with her back to the doorway, absently doodling on a coffee- table with a sharpie.
As per our plan, I make my way closer to Corvid, under the guise of helping them search for coffee.
Corvid sidesteps, muttering, "As much as I appreciate the help, I would rather not be within touching-distance of a sex-pest."
"That's a sensible principle." I say, "But I don't see how it's relevant."
I discretely step closer to them.
"What are you up to?" Izzie asks me, suspiciously.
"Nothing…"
With the fluidity of a ninja, I swipe a china mug from the counter and smash it into Corvid's temple.
They stumble into the cashier's desk, groaning and confused.
"Corvid!" Izzie cries.
They glance blearily up at her, just as Rubis steps into the doorway with his blowpipe poised between his lips.
Corvid yells, "Duck!"
Izzie dodges just in time. Rubis' dart whizzes over her head.
Thanks to Corvid's stupid warning, our plan is totally ruined!
Granted, I was supposed to knock them out cold, but this is still their fault.
Rubis dashes into the room, ducking past Izzie's spear and standing between the two Goths. He spins around, his PS6 controllers flying out in a circle around him.
Izzie dodges them easily, now fully alert.
Corvid, on the other hand, is already dizzy from my blow and takes a controller straight to the head.
They slump over the cash-machine, out cold.
"You bastards!" Izzie cries.
She charges Rubis with her spear. He sidesteps and kicks at her.
Deterred by Rubis' flailing legs, Izzie lunges for me. She misses me by a whisker.
I duck behind the counter.
Her spear slams into the counter-top, sending chips of wood flying.
Izzie vaults over the counter to finish me.
Crouched on the ground, I have no escape route. Izzie raises her spear over my head.
Rubis swings for her, but she catches his controller with one hand and yanks it hard towards her.
Rubis goes stumbling forwards. He grunts as his stomach rams into the counter.
Corvid groans, still slumped over the table.
Izzie's gaze is as cold as ice.
Seconds before I am impaled, I concoct a master-plan to take her out.
I'll catch her spear just before it hits my face, then I'll twist it through the air, and she'll go flying in a wide arc over my head. Her bones will crunch on impact with the ground, so I can take my sweet time to deliver justice to the Capitol rebel.
I raise my hand to catch her weapon.
The earth shakes.
Even better! I have seismic powers!
Izzie instinctively plants her hands on the wall behind her, to steady herself.
The shaking becomes more intense.
The earthquake rattles the walls. Glasses and teacups rain down from the shelves.
I yelp as one strikes my shoulder, causing a sharp pain.
Corvid shakes themself and stands up, only to be hit on the head with a falling glass. They collapse again.
Suddenly, Izzie is huddled next to me under the counter.
"Truce until this blows over?" I ask, sheepishly.
"Fuck off." She replies.
She lunges for me.
With her hands around my neck, her eyes suddenly widen. Izzie lets go and stands up. She raises one arm to shelter her head from falling debris.
I turn, coughing, to see a shelf tipping sideways. Dozens of glasses slide along it, directly towards Corvid's unconscious form.
Izzie props up the shelf with one arm, stopping the glasses just before they rain down on Corvid.
"Why did an earthquake have to happen now?" She demands.
"Good entertainment?" I suggest, still cowering.
Rubis answers, "Silly, lowly rebels aren't allowed to live to the final five."
Face-down, Corvid murmurs, "Six. I'm not dead."
The earthquake becomes more violent. A shuddering vibration nearly causes Izzie and Rubis to lose their footing. I fall onto my backside.
Cracks in the walls widen. Chunks of plaster start to plummet from the ceiling.
Izzie's face hardens with resolve. Still supporting the shelf, she slings Corvid over one shoulder and ducks out from under the it.
A waterfall of glasses cascades onto the hard-wood floor. Shards rebound and lodge in my skin.
Izzie sprints out from behind the desk, carrying Corvid.
She dodges chunks of ceiling on her way to the glass doors. Panicked, she pounds on the glass.
She yells in anguish, "Argh! Why are these the only doors still intact in this whole building?!"
Rubis joins her, ramming his body into the glass.
"Midnight," He calls, "Look for a key-card!"
I do as I'm told, wincing as chips of plaster pelt me like hail.
Scrapes and bruises blossom on my hands as I scrabble at drawers and hunt through piles of smashed porcelain.
"There's no key…" Corvid slurs, "No coffee when I looked everywhere, no key either… Try 'nother door."
Izzie spins on her heel and runs to the stairwell attached to the café.
Rubis follows her before the door can close, leaving me to scramble over the counter and hurry after them.
The three of us, plus a dazed Corvid, struggle down the horribly rattling staircase.
Stairs fall away ahead and behind us. I lose my footing twice. Both times, I just manage to grab one of Rubis' controllers and hoist myself up.
We reach the bottom. Corvid gingerly stands on their own two feet. They look unsteady.
"There's no way you survive this." Rubis comments.
"Shuddup." Corvid responds, "I'm used to head-injuries. This is nothing."
"Explains a lot." Rubis snipes.
"Hey!" Corvid starts, "That's mean. You're-"
"Uh, guys?" Izzie interrupts, "Let's get out of the collapsing-"
A chunk of plaster the size of a basketball plummets from the top of the stairwell, three storeys up. It hits Izzie squarely on the top of the head.
She stands, silent and rigid, for the time it takes for the crack of her skull to echo in the tall room.
I see the life leave her blue eyes, like ice evaporating into steam.
"IZZIE!" Corvid screeches.
They are louder than the boom of the cannon.
"Let's go!" Rubis snaps at me.
He and I race out of the stairwell, into a room full of debris and thick with dust.
Rubis' eyes light up when he sees a vending machine, cracked down the middle by a falling brick.
He makes a detour, to snap up a bottle of Coke with his teeth.
Thankfully, the doors on this floor have been blown to shards, either by the earthquake or whatever destroyed the arena before we got here. We dash through the gaping hole in the wall, leaping over shattered glass and chunks of rubble.
Rubis and I run around the side of the building. Bricks hail around us and smash onto the narrow path.
We find ourselves back in the courtyard with the cornucopia, huffing and panting. It is still pitch black outside – who knows how late it is by now.
We sit on the remains of a stone bench to catch our breath. Rubis grips his Coke between his knees and undoes the cap with his teeth. He takes a long gulp.
The entire lessons-block collapses with an earth-shaking crash, sending up billows of dust into the sky.
"Mm…" Says Rubis, "The forbidden breakfast – Goth pancakes."
"The cannon only went off for Izzie." I state, "Do you think Corvid is trapped in the rubble?"
"We might have missed their cannon over the sound of the building collapsing." Rubis shrugs, "Or they're dying a slow, excruciating death."
I wince, imagining Corvid pinned under a pile of debris, suffocating among plaster-dust while their legs are shattered between bricks and boulders.
"Or maybe," Comes a haggard voice, "Everything stopped for thirty seconds, as though the game makers wanted them to get out."
Corvid emerges from the narrow path we just escaped from.
They are caked in white dust, blood staining their clothes and dripping from cuts on their face and arms. Their eyes are bloodshot. Teeth are missing and hair is plastered to their forehead.
Corvid continues, "As though the sadistic fucks wanted them to live, to suffer the death of their best friend; the person who mattered most to them. Like the Capitol was saying, hey rebels, we can take everything from you. Your lives and your loved ones are in our hands."
Their voice cracks.
Corvid grips their axe in one hand, Izzie's spear in the other. A crooked, maniacal leer spreads across their face.
"Should we run?" I wonder out loud.
"Not sure yet…" Rubis answers, "I can't be bothered unless they actually attack."
Corvid breathes raggedly.
Then they let out something between a sob and a long sigh.
Corvid's face drops. All determination evaporates and their eyes brim with tears.
"Nah, don't worry." They say to us, "I just wanna catch my breath and take a moment, before I lose my mind completely."
Dragging their weapons on the concrete, Corvid trudges over to us. They flop onto a bench opposite us and stare distantly at the ground.
The silence is heavy.
Corvid is the one to break it.
"We were going to lead the rebellion together." Their voice is monotone, "I thought if we died, it would be while fighting, back-to-back. We'd leave a legacy to keep the rebellion burning. But it just took one brick. She never had a chance."
They hunch over and press the heels of their hands into their eyes.
"Can you have your breakdown somewhere else?" Rubis asks, "I'm trying to enjoy my Coke."
Corvid ignores him.
"I should have died. Izzie would have escaped and killed you two, then the others, without hesitation. She would have shown how strong the rebellion could be."
I shift uncomfortably. If I wasn't protecting Rubis, I would have been out of here as soon as Corvid rounded that corner.
Rubis says, "If it makes you feel any better, you might have survived that bonk on the head, if you're so used to head injuries. Then you would have woken up under a collapsed, three-storey building, with all the bones in your body shattered. You would have died agonisingly slowly, from either internal bleeding or suffocation – most likely with Izzie refusing to leave your side and dying in the exact same way. So things could have been worse."
Corvid groans, "But they let me live. Just so they could broadcast my grief as it destroys me. They're playing with my life like I'm a chess-piece. I have no power. None of us do. We never did."
Rubis says sarcastically, "Wow, they let you both get this far to set an example, who would have guessed? It's almost as though two teenagers fighting the government were doomed to lose."
Corvid doesn't argue.
"You're right." They deadpan, "I was delusional. The Capitol are pulling the strings. Always have been, always will be."
They raise their axe to their eyes and inspect their reflection in the blade.
"Maybe I can go out in my own way, at least…"
They pause.
Rubis says, "Don't do that. It's probably exactly what the Capitol planned for you to do. You'll be following their script by trying to show you refuse to."
The axe clatters to the concrete. Corvid's gaze drops to the floor.
A hovercraft buzzes overhead.
"There goes Izzie's body." Rubis states.
Corvid drones, "They'll take her back to our district to set an example. After everything, we are literally being used as a deterrent to rebellion. If it doesn't matter how I die, I'm gonna do it quickly. Good luck with the roadmen, you two."
Corvid picks up Izzie's spear and points it towards their chest with both hands.
"Don't kill yourself." Says Rubis.
"Why? Like you care."
"I do, actually." Rubis looks as if he has a gun held to his head, "You're kind of alright to talk to. I mean, your presence is bearable. And I definitely don't want to be left alone with Midnight."
"Thanks." Corvid says, "You're surprisingly bearable, too."
But they don't lower the spear.
Rubis implores, "Come on, I know they won't let you win, but you can live long enough to stop me getting raped, right?"
I speak for the first time in a while.
"Rubis! That is so inappropriate! The only other people left are tweens!"
"Not if I have to put up with him." Corvid replies to Rubis.
A reluctant and bitter smile flickers across their face.
Corvid's lament is interrupted by a beeping noise.
We all look up to see the dark sky broken by an even darker splodge. Moonlight glints off of the silver parachute as it descends closer.
"Must be one of yours." Says Corvid, "I haven't had any sponsors all game."
I pick up the parachute and open it.
It contains a bamboo cup, with black crows painted on it. My hands instantly turn cold from holding it. I don't need to open the lid for the smell to reach me.
"Coffee?" I voice, "I hate coffee."
"Me too." Rubis grunts, "And is that ice clinking in it? Ugh."
We turn to look at Corvid.
They are visibly trembling.
"That's my cup from home." They say, quietly.
I give it to them and rub my hands together to warm them up again. Corvid seems unbothered by the cold drink.
They sip it slowly and in silence.
Their eyes begin to focus. They sit up straighter and wipe grime from their face, to reveal skin just as pale as the plaster-powder coating them.
The three of us sit in silence until Corvid has finished the entire drink. Then they twist off the lid and crunch on the ice cubes, one at a time.
"Starting to think Midnight has a competitor for biggest weirdo." Says Rubis.
"Ha!" I say, "I'm one of a kind. Nobody is as special as me."
Corvid smiles faintly.
"You got that right." They say.
When they have run out of ice, Corvid just stares at the cup.
Eventually, they say, "This came from my supporters. Not only my favourite drink, but the cup I brought with me to every underground meeting. Whenever…" They hiccup, "Whenever Izzie broke me out of jail, she had to break into the warden's locker to get this back too."
Rubis says, "So you're saying that the only two attachments you had in life were a wolf-girl goth and a bamboo cup?"
"Pretty much, yeah." Corvid waves off the comment, clearly overwhelmed by whatever train of thought they are on, "This shows me I have supporters. Enough people are sponsoring me that they could send a custom drink, this late in the game. They banded together, communicated in secret, to get this to me. They're showing me they're behind me. And more importantly, they're showing each other that even if I give up or am killed, they will still work together."
I say, "Hang on, how do you get all that from a cup of coffee?"
Corvid grins – a triumphant smile this time, not psychotic anymore.
"It shows that the Capitol aren't pulling all the strings. We still have a chance."
Rubis says, "You're still gonna die though. You know that, right?"
Corvid squares their shoulders.
"Yes." They say, fearlessly, "But it's what happens after my death that matters. I feel a plan coming on."