Day 6: Shaking hands

"Go on then, Arikara." Lil, Lilac, laughs with a glee unbecoming of a girl who didn't want to enter these games. "Do your duty."

Duty. I wasn't aware duty consisted of killing girls, girls smaller than me, until I entered the Games. Now it feels like second nature, I've put down my fair share.

The sword is in my hands like a weight. A weight that I can't handle, and the blonde inside our circle is hissing at me like a woman possessed. "Coward. Four on one, and you're all wanting to go in at once? Little cowards, the lot of you."

She's dangerous. The two bodies lying outside our circle are proof to that, and I spare them a second's nod. Jason, who'd resolved to himself he was heading back to Seven, and who'd promised he'd lay flowers for all of them. Stan, Thirteen's champion. He'd known he wasn't coming back, still talked of the underground tunnels he'd lived seven years in. Until peacekeepers had stormed the tunnels, drove Thirteen from their warrens to the surface. He thought maybe death would be like the tunnels.

They're dead. But so are One's allies, and now it's her turn. Her tomahawk's flashing dangerously, but one on four is no place for anybody who expects to succeed. The second is in Stan's back, and she nods at it with a wink. "Give me that, at least. Come on, boys, and girl if I can call you that, Twelve. Little gift for the maiden fair, you still outnumber me."

I shake my head, only resolve I've had all session. "Nah." An air of cool nonchalance injected into that one word, I continue. "Fight as you are, One. You trained for this, Capitol lapdog. Best not give you any more of an advantage than you already have."

The first part of the fight is short. I step in, my sword raised. It's four on one, but we're in a half-circle facing her, and she's stepping back as people try to strike out at her, snatching up the small, round shield by Jason's hand and holding it up. "Come on then, dirty cowards. See how a real Victor fights."

Luce runs forward, sword singing in an arc like he's trying to behead her. It goes wide, and he stumbles. Enough stumble for him to trip forward, and her to slam the side of the shield into his head and the axe into his throat, letting a tremble in his hand drop the sword onto the ground. A spray of blood when she pulls it out, and I hear a laugh. "Good boy, coming in like that! Like a movie, really! You three want to come on me one on one? Make this a whole lot quicker."

We don't make this a whole lot quicker, It's a storm of blades, the kind of thing you see in the Games and think 'if only I could do that'. And, well, news is positive. I can do it. I just can't keep up, none of us can

It's three of us, and three of us putting up a hell of a fight, but she has trained and we haven't. That means it's that much closer, and so fast. I feel her kick Aquaria back into me, and the next thing I know Aq has an axe in her neck and collapses with barely a whimper. I should be next, but instead I'm kicked back and she's wheeling on Lil. Falling back, I'm stuck in the mud for a second, two, a few. Long enough I can't see, and long enough that when I turn the fight is over.

"Go on, Arikara." Lil's got a leg clearly brutalized by One's tomahawk, a gaping chasm across her chest. One lies still, dead, Lil's spear in her heart. Quick. A cough of blood, and Lil nods sharply. "Do your duty." Same thing she said earlier, but this time I don't believe it's because the One girl's dead and she was an enemy. Lil's my friend, my ally. My last ally. I can't do my duty, even with our group consensus that if it's only one of us with a chance of winning then they should do whatever it takes to win. No matter the cost.

My hands shake on the knife I draw as a back-up, she can only laugh. "Fucking coward. Knew you didn't have it in you." She lunges forward. I can only scramble back, she falls forward when her leg can't hold her up any more. My knife trembles at hilt and blade from the tremble in my hands, but I drive it deeper. Let her whimper, cough her life into the dirt. My hands shake, and I'd swear I could hear a 'thank you' but that would be silly.

After that, it's over. My hands shake, struggling under the weight of being the hands that had killed. Killed my ally, killed two children who just wanted to go home.

But they didn't have a chance. Maybe they should have plunged the dagger into my heart, gotten it over with and let Lil take the win. Prove, once and for all that I was a good person who just wanted to do good. Prove that the people of Panem, the outlier districts at least were rebellious. Prove we cared as much about each other, regardless of Districts.

But that's not true, is it. I won. I know I deserved to go home. Lil, after all, was entirely too excited. I deserved this, and I tell myself that but of course I can never feel it. That gnawing in my gut is still there, biting down like a feral wolf.

And of course my hands still shake.

Author's Note

Was really hoping not to have to deploy this, but this note is going out to everybody in America. Be goddamn kind. Don't be the problem, and stay safe.