Griffin Cadbury, 18
District One Mentor
Lunchtime in the Mentor Lounge
8 July 329 AEDD
The Avox had delivered the note in a sealed envelope stamped with a red CLASSIFIED insignia. I opened it immediately. It read as follows:
ICIXXQS,
BLH RLCC AA NV KRQO HSFLX. WHLENI AK VTB E UGMED. KPJ'A ALVS MW, SVI Q RHGO HWJ BT LS VQXELZQSO ZHTJ IEHWWBEQV QOJ EM. KQJWGPN EAVZBIV HCOE FWB, SEUGY DMEWZKLHN HIDD KFTP WQ EEDD GTC E VRZNKGZ BIRWU EO KWVI VMNKEA S FWYM. MW OFSL JMFL EV HZLDGEX: "WHLENI'K OWWSMQI QOJ XIXARDEST. LJCXB LHT. QODDWB PIU NPAV. KPJ SRRYD MGJM YPEQ CYYGFM. —FVXRPTUK L."
XFVIP VZDSQ, XFVIP VZMGJZTE, TDPPM XGZJDIU.
MLIQS IQJEFQCE
I knew that it was in code. My name has a double F, and the first line of the message had a double X, so I assumed that someone had to be communicating with me privately. I didn't know what to do, but I couldn't ignore it, so I called Nikolai Fassnacht. He curtly asked me if I had talked to Flossie. I told him no. He said he was busy and I shouldn't call him again unless she was at a loss for a plan, so I sent for Flossie at once. I hadn't spent very much time with her yet, but if Nikolai thought I should trust her, I was going to. Flossie inspected the note carefully. "It's not a substitution cipher," she said. "It needs a key. Did anything else arrive with this piece of paper?" I gave her the envelope and it didn't take her long to start scribbling out letters in her notebook. "Vigenère," she concluded. "Letter shift." She translated the code rapidly. The decrypted text said:
GRIFFIN,
THE PACK IS IN GOOD HANDS. ODICCI IS NOT A REBEL. SHE'S WITH ME, AND I NEED HER TO DO SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT FOR ME. FIFTEEN MINUTES FROM NOW, KAREN DUMOUCHEL WILL CALL TO TELL YOU A SPONSOR WANTS TO SEND NIKITA A NOTE. IT MUST READ AS FOLLOWS: "ODICCI'S WORKING FOR FASSNACHT. TRUST HER. FOLLOW HER LEAD. SHE KNOWS MORE THAN ANYONE. —ANTONIUS T."
PANEM TODAY, PANEM TOMORROW, PANEM FOREVER.
KAIYA ALBACORE
I was surprised. I did not know what this meant, but Kaiya Albacore was a well-respected pillar of the community, District Four's illustrious Academy Head, and the aunt of Odicci's mentor. "What do I do?" I asked Flossie.
"Whatever Kaiya tells you. Tell you what, we've been working on this for what, almost fifteen minutes? The call should come in anytime, and I'll stay here until it—"
The phone rang. I answered it. "This is Karen DuMouchel. There's a sponsor calling regarding Nikita Valeta, District Twelve Male."
"What do they want to send him?"
"A 100-character note. Do you wish to approve this request?"
Nikita Valeta, 18
D12M
A Smidge Northeast of the Cornucopia
8 July 329 AEDD
"Certain things, they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone."
Nikita was getting messages from the District Two mentors and Tybalt wasn't. At least, that's the first thing that went through his brain. He was special, chosen, replacing Tybalt. Then he felt jealous that it was Odicci, not him, who was being selected to assist the Head Peacekeeper. The note had floated down on a silver parachute in a rare moment of privacy when he'd left camp to use the bathroom. It said "ODICCI'S WORKING FOR FASSNACHT. TRUST HER. FOLLOW HER LEAD. SHE KNOWS MORE THAN ANYONE. —ANTONIUS T." Nikita realized that Aileen or Yew had to approve any sponsorship gifts before they were sent to him, and swelled with pride as he thought about the frosty Twelve mentors actually fighting on his behalf. They were allowing him help from the Careers, right?
Odicci had seemed a little off her game, now that he thought about it. She'd been spending a strange amount of time with Tybalt, but Nikita didn't like thinking about what happened on the inside of Tybalt's skull, so he had chosen to ignore it. Now he wondered what Odicci was really up to. He had to get himself paired up with her for the afternoon hunt. He remembered their argument from training and wondered if she would believe that he was on her side.
That was a great point, actually. Was he on her side? Antonius Treek seemed to think so. What did Odicci know, and was it related to her spending so much time with Tybalt? He found himself jealous. He reciprocated Orpheus's affection, but it was so peaceful and unturbulent that it made him feel guilty. Orpheus was so normal, so not-a-Peacekeeper-never-a-Peacekeeper. Nikita knew he was forever tainted by his complicity in the violence Vallis Albertine demanded of him as a lieutenant, a leader, but Orpheus wasn't. Orpheus still went to school and wrote cute little scenarios in books, whereas Nikita just angsted over all the kids he watched die. Nikita had never thought of himself as having a type. The type was just Orpheus, but now Nikita was having doubts.
To clarify, the doubts were not his fault. The doubts were entirely Tybalt's doing. He smoldered, and he did it on purpose to mess with Nikita's head. This was a neutral and bias-free fact, and nothing could possibly have been clouding Nikita's judgement. Tybalt was a rude, obnoxious, deceitful home wrecker who couldn't stand anybody having a nicer time than him, and he was undoubtedly targeting Nikita specifically to drive him to insanity and take him out of the competition.
Nikita and Orpheus had stayed at camp all morning, but Nathaniel had mentioned changing up the partnerships for the afternoon, and Nikita was only too happy to propose getting to know Odicci a little better. Tybalt threw him a Very Hairy Eyeball™, which only proved to Nikita that Antonius had made the right call. Nathaniel assigned Tybalt to himself, which left Haylia and Orpheus as the last group. This was probably done so Tybalt and Orpheus didn't murder each other, but it had the added benefit of further pissing off Tybalt, who considered being stuck with an injured Pack leader a humiliating babysitting assignment.
He waited until he and Odicci were far enough away from the other pairs to be out of earshot, then waited fifteen minutes more. When they were thoroughly isolated, he turned to face her. "I got a note this morning from Tybalt's mentor," he said importantly.
"That's nice."
"Do you know what he said? He said 'Odicci's working for Fassnacht. Trust her. Follow her lead. She knows more than anyone.'" He stretched a cocky smile across his face and waited. To be the first one to speak was to lose, and Nikita wanted to win this conversation.
Odicci struck fast, silently, and completely out of the blue. She whipped her trident around behind him and clotheslined the backs of his knees with the long handle, sending him to the ground with his spear, which she kicked out of the way. He snagged her ankle and she jabbed down hard. He cringed, expecting to die, but instead, she'd imprisoned his wrist between the prongs of her trident. "Let go of my ankle," she ordered.
"I could kill you."
"I've got a scimitar and a trident. You've got jack shit." Odicci yanked the trident up and flicked his wrist back towards his body, then used it to press him farther away from his spear. "I'm not trying to hurt you. I just want to ask you a few questions. How do you know Nikolai Fassnacht?"
"He asked Aspen and I questions about Peacekeeping in District Twelve while we were at the Capitol."
"What do you know about Antonius Treek?"
"Um, Victor of the 304th, runs Treek Academy in District Two, knows Tybalt."
"I know he knows Tybalt. Does he know you?"
"Not really. I went to Morrow Academy. I've met him, but like, I don't ever talk to him."
"Tybalt thinks I'm a rebel because of my mother's song."
"What?"
"My mother's song. I was whistling this song she whistled at the Goodbyes and apparently Tybalt asked Treek about it who said it was a rebel anthem. Which is weird because of everything Kaylee told me. My mother is not a rebel."
"Odicci, I have no clue what you're saying."
"Main bullet points: my father is part of an evil conspiracy with Konstance DuMouchel and a bunch of Capitolites and Peacekeepers, including the Head Peacekeeper of District Twelve, to take over the country. My mom and Miss Albacore and Nikolai are trying to stop it, and Kaylee's partner got Orion Zenobia to spill about the arena so I know exactly where to go and what to do because we cannot, no matter what, let the wrong person get the Victory this year."
Fahad Azerola, 17
D10M
Northwest of the Cornucopia
8 July 329 AEDD
"That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful,
because there isn't any."
Fahad was starting to feel like something was seriously wrong. Mare was surprisingly relaxed, but for an outlaw, he supposed the arena must feel like home. They were relying on the kindness of the Capitol and their own abilities. Mare, who never liked owing anybody anything, was fine with this arrangement. She had found a clear brook to refill the metal water bottle, then made a fire by rubbing two dead sticks together and boiled it until all the pathogens had been killed. She dug for wild onions, just like at home, and ever since they'd reached the jungle border, she'd showed Fahad how to safely eat the fat grubs writhing beneath the damp tree bark.
He retched, but he choked them down. They risked eating some unfamiliar fruits after seeing some animals feasting on them, which turned out to be delicious. The fruit was significantly better than the grubs, and Fahad staunchly refused to consume any more insects, but Mare shrugged and chewed another leaf-wrapped grub in half. "They've got lots of protein," she said.
"Not worth it. They taste like glue, but alive."
"Okay. Your pick." Apparently, Mare had eaten raw bugs before. Fahad, however, swore he could feel the grubs crawling around in his stomach, no matter how many times Mare promised it was his imagination. Still, he knew he was lucky, and he was grateful that there was food in the jungle. It just felt like the Gamemakers had given them a very easy time so far, and the Hunger Games were not known for being easy.
They hadn't encountered any other tributes yet. They slept next to each other and drank and ate frequently, trying to build up strength for the difficult days ahead. Someone had to be coming for them. The Careers had to be on the way, with sharp swords and a thirst for outer district blood. Mare brushed this off whenever he brought it up. "Let's take it as it comes," she said. "We don't have supplies. There's not much we can do. Our best option is staying here until something better presents itself."
"Won't we be boring? Isn't that dangerous?"
"Well, yes, but would it be any less dangerous to go hunting?"
"Depends who we run into."
"And how do we know who we'll run into?"
"Um. We don't."
"Exactly. Just stay here, babe. We've got everything we need right now." Mare sounded so confident, but Fahad couldn't think he could ever share her optimism. Mare seemed to sense this and leaned over to plant a kiss on his forehead, then pulled back and looked into his eyes. "Oh god, you're stressed, huh?"
"I feel awful," Fahad confessed.
"Hey, shh, that's okay. Tell me what you're thinking."
"The Gamemakers have mutts. If we don't do anything exciting, they're going to kill us." Fahad was terrified of this. He searched Mare's face for signs of understanding.
"And you want to move to make sure that doesn't happen?"
"No, yeah, I mean, yes, but you're the boss, so, like, whatever you think is best?"
"No, sweetheart, no. This is a team. We're partners, it's not like there's a leader and a follower." Fahad looked blankly at her. "You do know that, right? I know I have a big personality, but that doesn't mean I'm any smarter or more important than you."
"You're in charge."
"No, we can just be equals."
"But I can't be in charge so you have to be in charge." Fahad was confused and frustrated. What was Mare trying to say? What did she mean they could be equals when there was nothing remotely equal about them? Mare was tough and relaxed and fashionable and Fahad was none of those things. Fahad was a high-strung burden who couldn't survive without her. Mare wasn't just carrying him, she had literally carried him because his endurance was so bad he couldn't keep pace with her at the beginning of the Games. He couldn't make himself eat grubs, he didn't have the first idea what to do, and now he was wasting Mare's time while she constructed some elaborate social veneer he had no clue what to do with.
"Let's back up," Mare coaxed. "Can you describe the problem to me?" She looked so earnest, and Fahad didn't understand why. He explained all of this to her, and she was crying, and it was clear he'd done something but he had no idea what. Slowly, she gathered him up in her arms. "I'm sorry," she murmured.
"What?" Fahad was pretty sure the wrong person was apologizing.
"I'm sorry. I really never meant to make you nervous or put pressure on you to make decisions, but genuinely, I want to be equals. You're not lesser than me, in any way, and I'm sorry I didn't make that clear enough. You're way too special to me to ever be a burden."
"But I depend on you."
"That doesn't matter."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm so sure. I love you."
Fahad could tell she hadn't meant to disclose that last part, that it had sort of escaped her mouth because she didn't have her emotions as locked up as normal. He didn't know what to say back. He tried going for something nice and minimally awkward, but he ended up saying "I want to stay with you forever" back and well, he meant it, but he didn't want to upset her, even though he was starting to think maybe she wasn't capable of being upset. All he wanted at the moment was to never leave this dreamscape where she was holding him and petting his jaw and suddenly they were facing each other and she was looping an elastic over her wrist and pulling her hair into a ponytail at the back of her neck and leaning forward.
Her lips touched his and he didn't ever, ever want to go back to a world without Mare Duster's kisses.
Tom Leary, 16
D7M
North-Northwest of the Cornucopia
8 July 329 AEDD
"Just because somebody's dead, you don't just stop liking them—especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that're alive and all."
Brielle's death had left a sunbeam-shaped hole in Tom's heart. Twyla and Beemo were good, kind people, but Brielle was closer to him than either of them. It seemed deeply unfair that she was the first to go, especially because she was the strongest. Twyla was the leader, Beemo was the fighter, Tom was the strategist, but Brielle was the glue. Tom knew firsthand how much damage a shitty dad could inflict on a person, and Brielle had somehow dug her heels in and become an angel instead of a monster. He wasn't religious, but he liked the idea of Brielle in the sunshine, reclining on a fluffy cloud with a halo. It felt right to him.
Tom had been a monster ever since he snatched the first child from the cradle in the dead of a lean winter, left it bundled up in blankets at the mouth of the beast's lair. It was a sacrifice, a life for a life. The beast had saved him, but even beasts needed to eat. He had always thought he was the monster of the alliance, but he was rapidly coming to terms with the idea that Twyla and Beemo weren't as pure as he'd imagined. Beemo was ready to kill, brewing up poisons day in and day out. He had captured some brightly-colored frogs from the jungle and swatched some of the toxins from their skin onto special sponges from the kit. He was developing poisons with different acting durations, some nonfatal, some that caused horrific symptoms before death. Each new recipe was labeled with an adhesive strip, detailing the contents and handling warnings.
Beemo did this happily. He was good with plants, and he enjoyed science and chemistry. These were all fun experiments for him, and while he definitely wasn't pleased with the fact that he would be using some of them on real people, he planned to fight. It was eerie being surrounded by lethal substances, but Tom was growing used to the knowledge that he wouldn't be the only murderer in the group for much longer. When someone inevitably passed by the obelisk, Beemo would strike, and Tom would no longer be the odd one out.
He wasn't sure what his actual Games strategy was. If it came down to the three of them, whether it was the final eight, the final six, the finale, he would not be winning. Beemo had such a massive advantage over Twyla and Tom that they wouldn't stand a chance, and it therefore made sense to eliminate him soon, but Tom didn't want to kill his new friends. Besides, the Careers still loomed large in Tom's mind. There were six living Careers, and nobody had died since the Bloodbath, which seemed to indicate that the Careers' hunting was unsuccessful. If they failed to amuse the audience enough, the Gamemakers would send in the mutts, and the marble stronghold would quickly become a deathtrap.
There were also the other outliers to worry about. Tom was under the impression that although the Pack was strong, some of the normal outer-district tributes would make it pretty far. The choice to focus on survival skills in the Capitol was paying off. The alliance was well fed and had plenty of water, so they could save the contents of the rucksack for a rainy day. However, Tom was starting to realize the drawbacks of putting all the combat on one member of the team. He knew Beemo was a loyal person, but the poison could definitely create a power imbalance, and nothing was certain in the Games.
Tom was thinking about killing Careers. Most of them weren't very smart. They tromped all over the arena because they could afford to be loud. They had strength in numbers, and that made them cocky. That arrogance could be exploited. If he could get the Careers within firing range of the obelisk, Beemo could take out a few, but the rest would break into the fortress and start killing. In his ideal world, the Careers split. That would require waiting. They didn't like cleaving the Pack in half unless they had no good alternatives, but if they didn't get a kill soon, they would leave some people at camp while the rest went on a two-day excursion to the outer reaches of the arena.
If the Gamemakers left Tom, Twyla, and Beemo alone until that happened, they could lure the three Careers towards the obelisk and eliminate some of their most dangerous enemies, but that was a pretty big if. It wasn't the kind of gamble Tom would normally take, but he was in the Hunger Games. Every choice could mean the difference between a brutal death and another day of life in the arena, and the only way to reach the outside world again was deciding and hoping for the best. Inaction was a surefire way to die. Filler characters outliving more compelling tributes was bad for ratings, and the Capitol wanted its citizens watching and enjoying the show. Yes, they needed to have a talk, to make a plan. It was Tom's turn to contribute something of value to the alliance, and he really, really hoped that the first Career to go would be the Four girl. She had murdered Brielle, who hadn't deserved it in the slightest, and Tom wanted the girl to know that Brielle was worthy of avenging, whereas she would fade into oblivion, another shameless volunteer who naively entered the Games and died at the hands of an outlier. Most of all, he hoped that she and her family back home knew that her death would be her own fault for taunting an outlier she had absolutely no business targeting.
It was natural justice, and Tom always enjoyed meting it out.
Tybalt Alistair Martell, 18
D2M
Cornucopia
8 July 329 AEDD
"All morons hate it when you call them a moron."
Tybalt was getting sick and tired of the bullshit. Nathaniel seemed to think he was an amateur or something, but Tybalt wasn't some lovesick puppy like Orpheus, fawning over some deprived military boy who was infatuated with the attention. Nikita wanted Tybalt, which he knew because he had been ignoring him completely and yet saw Nikita's eyes on him constantly. Tybalt had never lost a competition in his life and he wasn't about to start now, whether with the love triangle or Nathaniel's little play at leadership. Nathaniel was no leader, that much was clear. There were smarter, more ambitious tributes to take his place. He was frankly lucky to call himself a Career. A Career who sustained an incapacitating injury in the Bloodbath, especially from a thirteen-year-old girl from District Three, did not deserve to be in the Pack.
Careers were superior, and Nathaniel was a cheap facsimile of his companions. Tybalt might have been playing with Odicci's mind a little, but he had the utmost respect for her as a professional. Now that was how a Career dealt with an outlier attack in the Bloodbath. She was crisp and confident and the most fun of his opponents to try to best. Haylia was too agreeable to be a real stand-in for an enemy, and besides, Odicci gave him something to play off of. Arguing with Haylia was almost impossible. She knew exactly how to handle him, and while he had to admit that was handy when he was in need of a reality check, it made for very poor banter. Tybalt needed someone at his throat constantly in order to be his best, and Nathaniel had appeared to fill the void.
"I really think there are tributes around here," Nathaniel insisted.
"There aren't," Tybalt informed him.
"But we've checked everywhere near the Cornucopia."
"Let's put on our thinking caps, darling. If the tributes aren't near the Cornucopia, they—surprise, surprise—aren't near the Cornucopia."
"You caught the Six girl in the leg. If you cut her to the bone like you say, she would be around here. She can't have gotten far. And Nikita's sure he hit Aspen with that spear."
"Nathaniel, they got away from us and got some sponsors. It's not that hard to figure out."
"Both of them? What are the odds of that?"
"Do I look like a mathematician?"
"You sure don't look like a Career." Oh, that was a low blow. Tybalt couldn't let that pass without comment.
"It's interesting how you keep saying I'm not a Career and yet you're the one who got bested by a girl the size of a hummingbird."
"Shut up." There was a long beat of silence. That meant he'd taken the rebuttal to heart, so Tybalt could afford to spare him a crumb of encouragement.
"Nobody's saying you're a bad leader," he said, despite thinking exactly that. "But you need to see sense. The other tributes aren't around here. And if you try again tomorrow and you're still wrong, the Gamemakers aren't going to be happy. I'm not too hot on getting run down by mutts just because you're being stubborn."
"Okay. You're perfect, you know everything, shoot. Tell me where the tributes are."
"We know there's a forest or something way east. Forests have trees. Tributes hide in trees. Boom, there's your plan for tomorrow's hunt." Nathaniel mulled this over at length.
"That's inspired, I'll admit, but the answer is no."
"Okay, you don't like that? There are tracks in the sand, no? Let's follow those, see where they go. Could be a dead end, but hey, as long as we're grasping at straws, we oughta check, no? Ooh, or maybe we should just go back to camp and patrol and re-patrol the same little circle of dust we've wasted the past three days on and wait for a sponsor to send us a map."
"You've got such a temper. See, that's why you didn't get voted in as leader."
Something flashed in Tybalt's mind, a similar taunt uttered by a now-dead Caballero. He had won that bout, and the next, and he would win this one. His voice turned to ice.
"That can change." He thumbed at the edge of his machete.
"You wouldn't dare."
"Dare to what? I'm just saying, you're only the leader as long as you've got the support of the Pack, and everyone's getting a little antsy with this stupid posturing shit. You don't have the first clue about the Games."
"Shut up!" Nathaniel was breathing heavy, cheeks flushing. Yes, Tybalt had tapped into the right insecurity.
"I've been making friends with Odicci," he said conversationally.
"Liar."
"She said Miss Albacore selected you two as a pair because you worked together, but ask yourself why she picked you, someone so unpopular. You've told us yourself that nobody thought you'd succeed. And I think Miss Albacore was in agreement."
"You're wrong."
"I think you're the sacrificial lamb. She didn't give Odicci an ally, she gave her a meat shield. It's so obvious."
"You're trying to get in my head, and it's not going to work."
"Positive affirmations won't save you this time, Lewis. I've tried going about this the noble, sensible way, but some people can't listen to reason. When you die, don't blame me."
"You're a revolting person."
"I'm a future Victor."
"It's disgusting. How you treat people."
"They called it the Career Academy, not the Let's Be Best Friends Academy. This is our job. Do it right or fuck off to your casket and make room for someone else who actually cares about this opportunity. People have killed to be in your shoes."
"Like you."
"Yes, like me. And just so you know, I'm quite looking forward to doing it again." Tybalt flashed a sharklike smile
"Let's say we head back to camp."
"Of course, dear leader. Whatever you say." So Tybalt followed, but he also gloated, because he had vanquished his opponent once more. He just had to wait for the second shoe to drop.
Hey y'all,
Subplot is merging into the main plot with some fun new developments! The quotes in this chapter came from Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. I know we haven't had any deaths since the Bloodbath, but don't worry. We'll fix that soon!
—LC :)