My prep teams comes by in the morning, and at first, I was a little confused, expecting them to do similar things as they did every other time they've come around, but they forego any makeup, opting only to tweeze my brows and braid my hair in a single braid over one shoulder. They help me dress in the thin black outfit, definitely not meant for the cold, and a light jacket.
"It's become your signature, you know," Tasten tells me as he ties off the end of my braid. "They love your braid."
Great. Another part of me turned into a spectacle.
"All done! We need to get you going," Augusina pushes me out the door where Haymitch is waiting for me. As far as I can tell, it's just us. I haven't seen Sawyer since I left him on the roof last night and who knows where Effie's gone.
We're silent as we make our way down to the training center. I'm finally able to catch a glance of Sawyer, who is already waiting there with the other tributes. Haymitch must have brought him down first.
Haymitch stops right outside the entrance to the room. "This is as far as I take you, sweetheart."
All at once, it feels like the nerves that had been weirdly absent hit me at once, and my heart starts beating faster. I hand him the bundle of papers I had been keeping in my room. He unrolls it and frowns.
"I told you to give these to her yourself." Haymitch tries to shove the drawings for Dani back to me.
"Just hold onto them. You can give them back to me later. Please," I pleaded with him. His eyes soften for just a second and he tucks them into his pocket.
I see that I'm the last tribute still standing out here. "Got any last minute advice for me?" I try to keep the shaking out of my voice.
Haymitch smirks. "Stay alive."
I crack a smile, remembering the first time he said those words I wanted to murder him. Now, he was my only lifeline inside that arena.
I nod, walking into the room, trying not to show any vulnerability. I stand at the end of the row that the tributes have formed and we're all herded through the door in the back into the hovercraft by peacekeepers. I end up next to Sawyer again, but neither of us dare to look at each other and instead I scan the other tributes sitting across from me. They all look a little nervous, minus the careers. I lock eyes with Hudson for a second and he winks, making a silly face and I purse my lips to hold back my smile.
He's blocked from my view as a female peacekeeper steps in front of me. I look up to see she has a device in one hand and is reaching for my arm with her other gloved hand. I instinctively try to pull away but she yanks it towards her.
"What is that?" I ask, but don't get a response. She moves the device towards my inner wrist and there's a sharp pinch, much more painful than when they prick our fingers for the reapings. "What is it?" I repeat, hoping for some kind of answer.
"A tracking device," she replies, simply, before moving on to the next tribute. I rub my wrist where she injected it, and I'm surprised to find the pain quickly fading away.
It's only about five minutes later when we land and each of us are escorted out by a peacekeeper. Mine is a man, I think, much taller than me, but I can't quite tell with his mask on. He grips my arm and leads me to a room where I'm relieved to see a familiar face.
"Cinna." I say the man's name and he turns around, coming over to assess me. Once he's satisfied, he reaches into his pocket.
"I found this is the clothes you came in. Barely got it approved but I thought you might like to have it." It's the mockingjay pin from Aunt Madge. I had forgotten all about it. Each tribute gets to take one thing from their district into the arena if they want. As long as it can't be used as a weapon. I suppose they thought the pin was too dull and too short to do any real damage.
"Thank you, Cinna. For everything," I tell him. He was the only person here who seemed to have any real sympathy for what we were going through and it did feel like he tried to take care of me in the time we had.
He leans forward, lightly pressing his lips to my temple. "I'm not allowed to bet, but if I could, I would bet on you."
He keeps a hand on my shoulder until I'm inside of the launch pad. He steps back, letting the doors close between us. It takes another minute before the platform starts moving and Cinna watches me the entire time as I'm raised higher and higher, just like at the tribute parade.
Only this time, instead of coming out in the stadium, I'm in the arena. It looks to be covered in grass, and I'm relieved to see a forest of trees in the distance. All of the other tributes have also appeared on their launch pads, and an announcement is made not to step off until the buzzer sounds.
"Let the one-hundredth Hunger Games begin!"
Then, the countdown begins. I try to remember everything Haymitch told me, to run as far away from the initial bloodbath as possible. But I can't help thinking that I would have a much harder time without any sort of supplies, and the large Cornucopia in the center is definitely appealing. I can see why so many tributes are drawn to it. The mouth is facing us and we can see all of the weapons piled up inside. Moving outwards, the items on the ground become less and less enticing, until there are only a few backpacks scattered a couple of yards from our platforms.
Should I even try to grab something or just take off? Sawyer is directly across from me and seems to be watching my inner turmoil. He shakes his head looking back into the trees. I know he's going to take Haymitch's advice.
While I'm still trying to decide exactly what to do, the buzzer goes off and everyone takes off towards the center, except a few of the tributes including Sawyer who turn and run in the opposite direction. I know I've already lost the valuable first seconds and I don't have any more time to waste. I quickly look around, my eye catching a red backpack just to my right that still hasn't been claimed. But to my right, another girl, I think from eight, spots it too and starts to run towards it. I'm a little bit closer and I'm able to snatch it first, not that it matters because one of the careers, the girl from two, throws a knife, hitting the girl right in the neck. She slumps to the ground and I'm frozen in shock at how easily she killed her. I quickly snap out of it though, as another knife whizzes past my head, narrowly missing my ear. I hold my bad up as a shield, somehow blocking her. I sprint as fast as I can towards the trees, not bothering to look back for even a second. Hopefully, she'll have moved on to easier targets but it doesn't seem like I'm being followed.
I keep up a fast pace, combination of running, jogging, and walking, until I'm certain I'm far enough away that the careers won't come after me. They'll most likely have made camp in the cornucopia so I would be safe for now.
A large boom makes me jump and I immediately check my surroundings before realizing it must be the cannons from the initial bloodbath.
"Two…three…" I count each of the cannons until it finally stops. "Nine." Nine dead in the initial battle. That means there are only 15 other tributes left.
I continue on, trying to put more distance between me and cornucopia just in case any of the surviving tributes start making their way this way.
It was starting to get dark and I haven't been able to find a water source yet so I figure I'll just have to find somewhere to sleep for the night and keep looking first thing in the morning. There were a couple more cannons that went off over the last couple of hours and every time I can't help wonder if it's someone I know. I walk a little farther until I find a tree high enough that the leaves will hide me from view from the ground. I climb up just high enough that I'll be hidden but not too high that the branches are too thin and take a rest against the trunk. My legs are sore from all the running and I'm relieved that I'm finally able to rest. I finally let myself look through the backpack I've been carrying. Removing the knife from the back, I tuck it into the side, knowing it will be very useful at some point, either a tool or a weapon, maybe both.
There isn't much inside the backpack which is to be expected, considering how far away it was from the cornucopia itself. There's a small pack inside which I quickly unroll. It's a sleeping bag which will definitely be useful, especially since it's starting to get really chilly. The game makers must have made it even colder here. It was never this cold at night back home.
I'm dehydrated and tired and my throat is starting to hurt. So I quickly dig through the rest of the backpack hoping for some water. There's a pack of crackers, some dried beef strips, a box of matches, some coiled rope, some weird sunglasses, a bottle of what must be iodine and a water bottle. I'm excited about the bottle only to find it empty and I groan up at the sky, knowing Haymitch and the game makers can see me. Stuffing everything back into the pack except the sleeping bag and the rope, I drape the backpack across my front and shimmy myself into the bag. I know that if I fell from this height I was as good as dead so I doubled up the rope and wrapped it around myself twice, tying it as tight as I can in the front. I shift a little bit from side to side to test the sturdiness. It wasn't great, but it would keep me from falling out.
The sun is rapidly setting and as soon as it's over the horizon, the anthem blares, signaling the end of the broadcasting day. The pictures of the fallen tributes is projected into the sky and I keep tabs of whose left. Both careers from one and two, the boy from 3, Hudson, the girl from five, both from seven, the boy from nine, the girl from ten, both from eleven, and to my surprised relief, Sawyer too. I'm so exhausted that I can't even think about anything else and before I know it, my eyes are closed and I'm drifting off into a dreamless sleep.
It's a restless sleep and I wake with a start, terrified that the careers somehow could have tracked me, but there's nobody around. I wonder if any more cannons went off during the night. Surely, I would have heard them if they did.
I'm just about to untie myself when I hear some voices close by. It's a group of people, laughing and talking loudly, without a care of who might hear them. It has to be the careers. Curious to see how many of them there are and if Hudson has joined them, I peer over the side, but the leaves are blocking most of my view.
"Did you hear that bitch scream?" The girl from one laughs. "She didn't stand a chance!"
"I didn't hear a cannon. I thought you said you killed her?" The boy from two sounds angry.
"I did, Herc! I slit her throat!" The girl from one defends. I lean just a little more to see the boy from three and the girl from one with them too. And she has my bow!
"Ugh! It's taking too long. I'm going to go finish her," Herc moves to grab the machete from the other boy.
"I'll do it!" The girl with the bow reaches back for an arrow .
"How about we let loverboy do it," Herc suggests, his voice sounding smug as he crosses his arms over his chest.
The boy from three pushes forward another person who had been hidden from my view. It's Sawyer, but he has a bruise on his cheek and there's a cut on his lip. His left arm looks like it's been bandaged. I gasp before slapping my hand over my mouth, hoping that they didn't hear me. Luckily, they seem to be too distracted, apart from Sawyer himself who's eyes meet mine through the leaves. I'm sure this is the moment I die and he's going to let them all know I'm there, but he doesn't.
Instead, he grabs the machete from the boy and starts heading back in the direction he came. "I'll do it." And then he disappears through the trees.
"Why can't we just kill him?" The girl from one asks.
"I would, Lucilla. But he's our best shot at finding that twelve girl. He still won't tell us how she got an eleven," Herc explains.
"Maybe he doesn't know," Lucilla says.
Herc shrugs. "Either way it's a win win. We either get to kill him or we find her and kill them
Not even a minute later, the cannon sounds and the careers cheer, clapping Sawyer on the back as he rejoins the group. Something is off though and his mouth is set in a hard line.
"Maybe you aren't so useless after all," Herc praises, pushing him forward. The rest of the group follows and they continue on.
How did Sawyer end up with the careers? It's not like they showed any liking towards him during training, although if Herc's words were anything to go by, they were only with him to find me. In that case, is this a part of this strategy? Or is it merely because if he didn't go along they would kill him? What confuses me the most is that he didn't seem to tell them anything about my archery skills, so they're still unaware of how I scored so high. But it could be that the only reason he's keeping the secret is so that the careers won't kill him. The second they get what they want, he might as well tell the gamemakers to get a cannon ready.
I try my best to keep my expression neutral. If Haymitch is trying to play up the lovers angle to sponsors, I can't imagine Sawyer seemingly betraying me would help either of our cases. So instead I have to act like I knew all along and it's just another part of our plan.
"Nice job, Sawyer," I whisper to nobody, although I'm hoping the cameras pick it up.
I scramble down the tree once I'm sure they won't be able to hear me but my throat hurts so much I can't even concentrate anymore. I continue on with no signs of water when I remember something.
I look around me, not sure exactly how this works. "Water." I call out, hoping Haymitch can work some of his mentor magic. I wait a bit but nothing happens.
What is happening? Can't Haymitch see that I'm not going to last much longer without water? Has he already given up on me and shifted his attention to Sawyer, who now seems like the stronger bet with his newfound alliance?
No, I decide. He wouldn't do that to Dani. There has to be another reason. If Haymitch isn't sending me anything, then he must know something I don't.
There has to be water nearby. That's the only thing I can think of. He wouldn't want to waste sponsor resources if I'm close to discovering it on my own.
"You better be right, old man," I scowl and put every last bit of energy I had in my body to propel myself forward, but I trip over a tree root and fall to the ground. I try to push myself back up but I don't have the strength to and put my face against the soft dirt. This wouldn't be too bad of a place to die.
Wait. It's wet. It's mud, which means there has to be a water source nearby. I lift my head just enough to look around and all but crawl along the trail of mud. I almost cry out in relief at the sight of a small pond a few yards away. I hold back the tears from thinking I was going to die and dip my hands in. I don't think I've ever been so relieved to see water in my life. I'm just about to bring it to my lips when I remember it might not be clean. It would be almost worse to contract cholera or something from unfiltered water. My fingers tremble as I put the iodine and the water into the empty bottle, filling it to the brim. I know I'm supposed to wait a while before I'm able to drink it and the time that I wait for feels like the longest thirty minutes of my life.
As soon as it feels like enough time might have passed, I start gulping down the water, but remind myself to pace my drinking so I don't make myself sick. Once I've downed the entire bottle, I start to feel infinitely better and fill up the bottle again. I eat a couple of the crackers and a jerky strip, saving the rest for later. I'll need to find a way to get my hands on that bow if I want to hunt. Although I could try to fashion a snare, I know it won't be anywhere as good as Sawyer's but it could be good enough to catch something.
Feeling infinitely better and more hopeful than I had since I entered the arena, I continue on in my journey. I don't want to seek out any tributes so I can't think of anything more productive to do than to see how far this arena goes. I know it has to end somewhere, even Haymitch used that knowledge to his advantage to win the games. I hear two more cannons while I continue my trek and find another tree to sleep in for the night before it gets too dark. I strap myself in the same way I had done the previous night. The anthem plays and it's only the tributes from seven. That's almost half of us gone.
I can't help thinking about Sawyer. Would the careers kill him if they can't find me? And how long will they give him? I let myself drift off for the night, feeling the reality of the situation slowly settle in.