SONG: Waiting Around to Die by The Be Good Tanyas
Iris allowed herself to sit numbly against a tree for five minutes, to sip on water and put the girl from Eight in the box with the others. And then she got up. It wouldn't do for them to get killed while they were just sitting there. It would mean the girl from Eight died for nothing.
Agata, who had remained silent throughout this process, got up wordlessly as well, watching Iris carefully like she was afraid her ally might snap at any moment.
The look in her eyes - not pity, exactly, but it was close - annoyed Iris. How dare she? How dare she, a career, care about Iris' feelings, when she'd killed people too? "Don't look at me like that," Iris snapped.
"Like what?"
"Like I'm about to start crying or something. Because I'm not."
"I never thought you were," said Agata calmly. "I was just watching you."
"Why?"
"Well, it looked like you went somewhere else. And I was just wondering where that was."
"Well, stop wondering," Iris said, harsher than she intended. Then she sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm not used to killing like you are."
Agata frowned. "What makes you think I'm used to it?"
"You're a Career! You've been getting ready for this your whole life!"
"Yes, but I never… never killed before I came here. I might have been a bit more prepared for it than you but that doesn't make it any easier to do."
Iris bit her lip, feeling bad. "I guess I just assumed…"
"Yeah. That's okay. I didn't mean to make it about me, anyway," Agata said. She reached out and put a hand on Iris' arm. "Are you okay?"
Iris pulled her arm away. "I'm fine. Can we get moving?"
"Yes please."
"Lead the way."
It didn't take them long to get to the Cornucopia. By the time they did, the sun was high in the sky, and Iris was drenched with sweat. "I swear it's getting hotter." She looked around at the field, half-expecting for the bodies of the fallen tributes to still be lying where they fell. She could see her pedestal… the spot where she'd killed Taggerty. She could almost feel it, the splatter of blood on her face, Kasia's strong hands dragging her away from the conflict. She gulped, trying to ignore the pain in her head.
Agata fanned herself with her hands, clueless to Iris' internal conflict. "Tell me about it, I'm frying like an egg."
"How far behind us do you think the others are?" Iris asked.
"Oh, not long, I'd say," Agata said. "Maybe a couple hours. Why?"
"Well, I thought we could set up traps around the Cornucopia," Iris said, peeking into the metal structure, in case there was someone hiding in wait. There wasn't, not that she really thought there would be, but it had become a habit, to expect someone to be lying in wait to kill her. "That's where they'll go first, right?"
"Definitely. What kind of traps were you thinking?"
"Oh, the usual. Bear traps, snares, anything stabby." She stepped into the Cornucopia, savouring the relief the shade gave as it swept over her skin. The Cornucopia was still packed with supplies, though she noticed that most of the food was gone, save from a few bags of jerky, which Iris put into her backpack.
Agata looked at the sky and cast a habitual glance over her shoulder. "I think, if we started now, we'd still have time to hide before they get here. If we wanted to hide, that is." She stepped in after Iris, and looked around, at the shelves still full of supplies.
"Well, let's just see how we go," Iris replied. "I wonder if they're even still together, or if they've split up by now."
"Who knows. If Minerva and River haven't killed each other by now, they must've split."
"Tell me about them," Iris said, rustling through a container that seemed to exclusively contain spearheads. She wasn't exactly sure what she was looking for, but she had a feeling that she'd know it when she saw it.
"Well, Minerva and River both have to be the best. I'm not sure who's more arrogant. They were competing with each other even in training. I think one of them will end up killing the other. Malachite is mean but fair - he does his best to rein Minerva in, which works about half the time. And Scorah is a people pleaser. She tries to keep the peace, but Minerva hates her on principle because she's friends with River. She's smart but she won't win, she was the weakest link aside from my darling district partner."
Iris nodded, filing away this information for later. She wasn't sure exactly what it would help with, but if she could somehow pit the Twos and Fours against each other… She chewed on the inside of her cheek, thinking, and that was when she spotted them. "Oh, Agata, look - bear traps."
"These are perfect," Agata said. She had a dangerous glint in her eyes, which made Iris very glad that they were on the same side. If she had to fight Agata, there was no question about it - Agata would win. "We can bury them in the sand. With any luck, someone will step on them. I'm hoping for Minerva."
"Ruthless," Iris grinned.
Agata elbowed her playfully. "Hey, that's the game! And you're the one who found them."
They got to work, burying the bear traps around the perimeter of the Cornucopia. There were twelve of them in total, which Iris found interesting. One for each district. They were an interesting design - slim and shiny, with razor-sharp steel teeth that glinted cruelly in the sun. They were a lot lighter than what Iris thought they would be, but she knew they would be no less deadly. They were easy enough to set - there was a dial on the bottom of them, and the jaws opened when the dial was wound. They placed them around the Cornucopia, and buried them under a layer of sand so the Careers wouldn't notice them.
Iris tested one of the traps out, using her walking stick to set off the mechanism. It snapped around the stick, splintering it, and the girls grinned at each other. "Oh, yes," Agata breathed. "That will do nicely."
Iris grinned, winding the dial so it released the stick. "We should put a rock or something next to them, so we know where not to step. Something the Careers won't know to look out for." She reburied the trap and collected all the splintered wood into her backpack so there wasn't anything left for the Careers to notice.
"Good idea," Agata agreed.
They were in the process of marking the traps, and had marked roughly half of them with small pebbles, when the sound of voices in the distance made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She caught Agata's eye, and they grabbed their things and ran, Agata leading the way.
To the immediate south of the Cornucopia, perhaps five metres from the pedestals, there was a rocky area, with large boulders resting to form a sort of hill. They scaled the boulders and climbed to the top, and lay on their stomachs on top. They were too high for the Careers to see them easily - they would have to scale their necks uncomfortably if they somehow knew they were there - but it gave them both eyes and ears on the Cornucopia.
The four of them were all there, surprising both Agata and Iris. Usually the Careers had split by this point in the Games - and for five out of six of them to still be alive was practically unheard of, especially with the infighting this year's group had endured. Iris realised with an uncomfortable prickle that she was the last non-Career standing. She had felt almost a kinship with the girl from Eight - they had been the last two left, the only non-Careers. And Iris had killed her.
The Careers seemed almost… relaxed. They were talking and laughing loudly, obviously not caring if she and Agata were in the area - obviously they knew that they'd be able to overpower an alliance of two. And certainly she and Agata weren't going to go down there and confront them, while they were all awake and advantageous. Yes, they had all the luck at that moment, and they knew it.
But luck never lasted long in the arena. A crack and a resounding scream bounced off the rocks, echoing eerily across the sand, and River went down, the jaws of a bear trap closed tightly around his ankle. "What the fuck?" He shrieked, trying to pull his ankle out of the trap. This only caused the steel jaws to tighten around his foot, and he yelled in pain. "Who did this? Two! You planted these here!"
"How could I possibly have planted these here?" Minerva hissed. "Fucking idiot! We got here at the same time!"
"You've had it out for me since the Bloodbath!" he said, pointing at her accusingly. "You've been aching to kill me, you planted them, I know it!"
"Yeah, because you took my kill! I didn't put these here, you paranoid asshole."
"I'm not paranoid!"
"River, stop talking and let me help you," Scorah said nervously, squatting down and tugging at the trap.
River yelled in pain and pushed her away. "Don't touch me! None of you fucking touch me! Get away!" Scorah raised her hands, and he warily allowed her to get closer to him again, though his posture was tense. Iris knew that if she was in Scorah's position, she would be too wary of his obvious paranoia to help him.
"He's cracked," Agata whispered. Iris nodded in agreement. The boy from Four obviously knew he'd reached his expiry date.
"Well, if these were here, there must be more," Malachite said, speaking up for the first time.
Minerva turned to him, nodding. "It's got Agata written all over it, that sneaky bitch. Wonder where she's hiding."
Agata and Iris grinned at each other smugly.
"We'll find her in due time," Malachite said.
"Get me out!" River shrieked, interrupting them. "Fucking get me out of here! You stupid, lazy, pieces of shit, you're all disgraces to Panem, I should've been the one to lead from the start instead of a couple of girls -"
"Oh I have had ENOUGH of you!" Minerva roared, whirling on River, sword raised. Scorah, who had been working on the trap, wisely backed away from him. Minerva brought the sword down in one swift movement and stabbed him in the stomach.
River gasped. Even from a distance, Iris could see the blood dribbling from his mouth.
"You haven't - shut up - the whole time - I've known you," Minerva yelled, stabbing him with each pause. "Arrogant, entitled, misogynistic PRICK!" She screeched, her final blow taking off his head. The cannon boomed at the same time River's head thudded to the ground. Iris slapped a hand over her mouth to conceal her gasp. She scrambled backwards, fighting down the bile in her throat.
The head… the thud… she saw Christopher again, falling to the ground, his head rolling in the other direction. She knew that the sound of heads falling to sand would haunt her forever, and Christopher pounded on the roof of the box in her head…
Agata took her by the shoulders and shook her. "Iris, snap out of it!" She hissed. "Look."
Iris gulped in a breath, and peered back over the ledge, fighting down the urge to vomit. The three remaining Careers were arguing - well, the tributes from Two were arguing. Scorah was looking on nervously, obviously keenly aware that she'd be the next one to go.
Malachite had crossed his arms. "You shouldn't have done that, Minerva."
"Well, he was useless, anyway! Even more so with a bear trap round his foot." Minerva delivered a swift kick to River's headless body. Oh, god. Iris tried to steady her breathing.
"Even so, we could have saved him, and now we're one man down. It'll be even harder to take out Agata."
"It's still three against one! We'll be fine."
"You know as well as I do how proficient she is. And it's two against one - we can't trust her anymore," Malachite said, jabbing a thumb at Scorah.
"I'm not going to turn on you," Scorah said nervously. If she was upset about her district partner, she didn't show it. "I need you as much as you need me, and we both know it. If Agata's trapped this whole area, that's all the more caution we'll need to take. You're better off keeping me for now."
Malachite sighed. "You're right. I guess you were never a problem, it was just your idiot of a district partner, and he's gone now, thanks to Minerva."
"Yeah, you're welcome," Minerva said. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Well, whatever. Fine. There's still that girl from Six, as well - who knows what she's got up her sleeve, if she's lasted this long."
"Told you we underestimated her," Malachite said.
Iris couldn't see from where she was, but she had a feeling that Minerva had just rolled her eyes at him. "Yeah, yeah, you were right all along, keep your panties on. Let's just get out of here before we stand in any more traps," said Minerva. She pulled River's pack off his shoulders and shoved it towards Scorah, who took it without complaint, even though it was dripping with his blood. "Come on, Four."
The three remaining Careers went back the way they came, and disappeared into the forest. Iris and Agata stared at each other, taking in what they'd just seen. So much had happened in the span of twenty minutes - their mad dash away from the Cornucopia, the death of River, the heated discussion between the remaining Careers. Iris had thought for sure that the girl from Four was a goner, that Minerva would take her out the second River was dead. But she'd underestimated Minerva's patience, apparently, just as Minerva had underestimated Iris.
She couldn't lie, the idea that the Careers had given her any thought at all gave her a thrill. It meant that the Capitol probably thought about her, too - maybe it wasn't so impossible that she'd win, after all. Iris caught herself - she'd been thinking that she wouldn't win, again. She had to stop doing that. If she acted like she would win, like there was no other outcome, she knew her chances would be better. Because if she walked around wondering how she'd survived so far, she might as well have one foot in a bear trap. Her mother used to say, 'Fake it til you make it." If Iris walked around pretending she had already won, it would be far more believable for her to actually win.
Agata's cave turned out to be not a cave at all, but a small hollow between two boulders. Iris could tell how it might have looked like a cave from a distance. It was barely more than an overhang, but still, it was shelter. And they had the best view in the arena - they'd be able to see the Careers coming before they even had a chance to catch them. Knowing that made Iris feel a bit better about lighting a fire that evening, when the chill had set in. She was glad she'd kept her splintered walking stick - with the sticks they'd collected while they were in the forest, there was plenty of fuel to keep it going for a few hours.
Using the water they'd gathered that afternoon, they prepared some of the fancy ready meals, and Iris had the first hot meal she'd had for a very long time. It both amazed and terrified her, really, the kind of technology they had in the Capitol. A dry, lumpy disc had turned into a steaming hot meal of chicken and rice, with only the addition of water.
"Stop marvelling and eat, would you?"
"It's just crazy," Iris said, looking closer at a grain of rice. "I mean, how do they do it?"
"A whole lot of preservatives, I'd say." Agata raised her fork to her mouth - yes, the meals even came with cutlery - and sighed. "But I don't care. This is like the best thing I've ever eaten."
"Yeah, especially after however many days of protein bars."
"And jerky. Don't forget the jerky."
Iris laughed. "I wish I could forget the jerky." She hoped the Games would be over soon, that she wouldn't have time to eat the jerky she took from the Cornucopia.
They ate in silence for a while, savouring the first real food they'd had in days. To think, they'd had it with them the whole time, yet hadn't been able to sacrifice the water to eat properly. Iris hoped, that no matter how this all turned out, that she'd never have to go so long without water again. She finished her meal with a contented sigh, and put the cardboard container into the fire, watching it go up in a plume of orange.
"What will you do if you go home?" Iris asked.
Agata looked surprised at the question, and slightly sad. Firelight flickered over her face. Iris barely noticed her scars anymore. Agata was still beautiful to her, even though the face she had now was different to the one she had before. "I don't think I'm going home. I'm not sure I want to."
"Why?"
She sighed, and looked down at her hands. When she looked up again, her eyes were bright. "I just… I don't want to have changed. I want to go home the same person I was when I left, and that's not possible anymore because I've changed more than I thought was possible. I want home to always be home, you know? If I go back different, I'll see it different. It'll feel different," she rambled. She'd evidently given it a lot of thought. Is that where her mind had been, when she walked silently behind Iris? Had her mind been there the whole time? "Does that make sense?"
"Yeah." Though she didn't feel the same way, Iris did understand. District Six would never be the place it was when she left. It couldn't be, not with everything she'd seen and done. It would never be the home she once knew, but Iris couldn't honestly say that she minded. Of course she would be different, but she hadn't had a future before she volunteered. When she came home, at least she'd be able to do something with her life.
"What will you do?" Agata asked. She tossed her finished meal box in the fire as well.
Iris smiled, thinking of Jordie's too-large feet, of his toes sticking through the ends of his boots. "Buy my brother some new shoes. That's what I'll do first. And then…" She paused. She hadn't given much thought to what she would do after, if she managed to win. It had all just been about surviving - she hadn't thought about what would happen to her if she did. When she did. "I don't know."
"Well, I'm sure you'll figure something out."
"Yeah. I hope so." Maybe she'd be able to make up for the deaths she'd caused with the morphing. Maybe she'd even manage to bring a tribute or two home - she hoped so.
"I don't think I ever asked you why you volunteered."
She had wondered when this question would come. Caesar had asked during her interview, of course, but her answer hadn't exactly been the truth. She'd have to be careful how she answered it, now - better to dance around the truth than get caught out telling lies to the Capitol. "I was in trouble at home. Big trouble. Coming here seemed like a better chance of survival."
"So what did you do, then?" Agata prompted. "To get into so much trouble? Tell me the real story, not whatever you told Caesar."
"Hang on," Iris said, smirking. Damn, Agata was smart - of course she caught on that Iris' story had been just that, a story. "I went over this in my interview."
"Yeah, but I want to hear it from you," Agata said sincerely. "When you're not in front of the whole country."
"Well, I'm sure the whole country is still watching me. And anyway, it's the same story," she said, knowing full well that Agata knew she was lying through her teeth.
"Sure it is," Agata said. Her eyebrow twitched. She obviously knew she wasn't going to get the truth out of Iris. Iris sort of wished she could tell her - she had a feeling that Agata would understand why she'd done it. "Whatever. I believe you. I guess it doesn't matter what you did, considering you ended up here."
"Yeah." Iris took a long drink of water, savouring it. It had scared her, how desperate she'd felt not so long ago. How quickly she would have killed if it meant a bottle of water and a hot meal. It disgusted her. She could understand, now, how some tributes went crazy in the arena. Lost any decorum or control they once had. How they turned feral in the absence of sustenance. It scared her, knowing how much worse it could have been, when she'd only had a taste of that desperation. "Did you always want to volunteer?"
"Not always. But then my best friend started seriously considering it, and trained with that in mind. So I trained with her, and I got good." Agata smiled, a faraway look in her eyes. "Really good. So here I am."
"Did your friend ever end up volunteering?"
"No. She died. Snakebite."
"I'm sorry," Iris said. She'd never had friends before the arena, but now that she knew how it felt to lose them, she wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Agata shrugged. "Don't be. We stopped being friends when we were fourteen. It sucks that she died, but she was a bitch so I'm not sad about it. And I understand that makes me sound totally frigid but I don't really care."
"Why'd you stop being friends?"
Agata sighed. "It's complicated."
"Try me," Iris said, leaning back.
"Well, I guess we've got nothing better to talk about. Whatever, fine. Well, first she stole my boyfriend, which I didn't really care too much about - he was an asshole," Agata said, rolling her eyes. "But then she started spreading rumours about me, saying that I tried to kiss her, that I was obsessed with her because I was trying to cling to our friendship. She said that I'd forced him to be with me in the first place, and everyone stopped talking to me. It sucked. But then she died, so I guess that's what you get when you're a total cunt."
"Wow." Iris said. She'd thought it was bad, not having any friends, but maybe that was better than having a friend who turned on you. "That makes me glad I never had friends at home."
"You were friends with your allies, though, right?" Agata asked. "You seemed to get along with them in training."
Iris closed her eyes, that familiar pain in her head rising as Kasia and Christopher tried to get out of their box. "I don't want to talk about them." She heard Kasia's agonised screams in her ears, heard Christopher's head thump onto the sand, heard the cannon as Kasia went limp in her arms. She took a deep breath. "I don't want to talk about that."
"That's fine," Agata said. Iris didn't look at her. "Tell me about your brother, then. What's his name?"
"His name's Jordie. He's all I've got. He's thirteen, and he'll probably be taller than me when I get home." Iris smiled. She missed her stupid, annoying brother. She'd give anything to be home right now, with him doing something to annoy her - him singing the same song worse each time, or fiddling with the TV until she slapped his hand away, or him throwing his clothes on the floor and just being a useless slob in general. She missed it all. She couldn't wait to see him again. They rarely hugged each other, but she couldn't wait to feel his boney arms around her shoulders.
"You said 'when'. Not if," Agata said, raising her eyebrows.
"I know," Iris replied. "I just realised that I might as well act like I'm going to win, because if I can't believe I can then who will?"
"Good."
"Shouldn't you hate that I'm so confident?"
"Probably," Agata sighed, shrugging. "But if I can't win, then I want it to be you."
So Agata was still adamant that she wasn't going home. Of course that worked for Iris - she knew she should be happy that Agata had accepted her death - but it made her sad. If Iris didn't win, she wanted Agata to. "They can fix you, you know," Iris said quietly. "Haven't you seen how Victors are perfect again a few days after the Games? They can fix you."
"I don't want them to fix me," Agata said under her breath, so softly that Iris almost didn't hear her.
She didn't say anything in return, but Iris knew how Agata felt. It would seem wrong, afterwards, for all the marks she'd earned in this arena to be stripped away like it had never happened. She wanted to keep her scars - at least then she'd have something worthwhile to show for her trouble. Something to say that even though she wasn't dead like the rest of them, she had suffered too.
But that wasn't the Capitol's style, of course. They wanted their Victors to be the picture of health. They didn't want to see the ugly side of the Games, they wanted to see the glory, the riches, the beauty. Scars weren't part of the story they wanted to tell.
Iris placed her hand on top of Agata's. "I understand." She squeezed Agata's hand, and Agata squeezed hers back.
The sound of the anthem jerked them out of whatever moment had just transpired between them, and they released each other's hands. They looked to the sky, and there was River, smiling down on them. It felt wrong, like he should have been scowling at them instead - how dare you still be here when I'm not? - and then he disappeared to the face of the girl Iris had killed. Her unspoken ally, the link between them as the last two non-Careers. She felt a strange sense of grief for the girl from Eight that she hadn't felt for the others she'd killed. She felt… lonelier, now. Someone else who might have grown up like Iris did - hungry. She was the only person in the arena who might have understood what it was like to grow up in poverty, and now she was gone.
The Capitol seal faded from the sky, and Iris pushed her thoughts away. Her head was so full of boxes now, it was getting hard for her to make sense of them all. "You should get some sleep," she said. "I'll take first watch."
"Alright," Agata said, yawning. "Thanks. It'll be good to go to sleep with a full stomach again. I hate going to bed hungry."
Iris resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Yeah." Even after all they'd been through together, a part of her still resented Agata. She didn't know how lucky she was, to grow up in the richest district. There was no way she could know, and Iris tried not to hold it against her, but it was hard not to. Because she was sure Agata had never been hungry to the point of feeling her stomach eat itself, after a week of no food but mouldy bread out of other people's trash. Sure, she didn't mean to sound entitled, but it annoyed Iris anyway. "Hate it."
Agata stretched, and had a sip of water. "Anyway. Goodnight, Iris. Wake me in a few hours."
"Good night, Agata," Iris said. She wondered if that would be the last time they said that to each other. If it was their last night in the arena. Something about it felt final, like she could feel in the air that the end was near.
She hoped it was, no matter the result. She wasn't sure how much longer she could stand being in here. The boxes were coming apart, and no matter how hard she tried to keep them shut, they would break open eventually. She dreaded the day they finally burst.
I'm really happy with this chapter, I think it might be my favourite one so far! I was going to save this for after Christmas, but I thought it would make a nice little Christmas Eve Eve present for you wonderful people.
Happy Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, holidays! Whatever you celebrate, I hope you all have a great time and are looking after yourselves.
Until next time 3