6.

Emmer learned a lot that first day of training. But he learned even more on the second day. And he wasn't the only one.

Alexandrite had spent the entire first day learning all the best ways to hide in whatever environment the Arena might throw at her. Apparently, there was a time when they would all be told in advance what they were in for, and serious consequences to anyone who revealed any details to the public. That was what Royal had told her the night before training started.

Last year, she remembered, the Arena was something that resembled an ice palace from some kind of fairytale. Only instead of a blood bath over a pile of weapons and supplies in the cornucopia, each tribute found themselves in a different bedroom and in the center of it was a pack that contained fruit, nuts, water and a retractable knife. There were some tributes who hid in their room until the game was over, and some who starved because of it or went mad and/or took their own lives.

The thing was, eventually those supplies would run out and in order to get fresh, new ones the tributes would have to leave the room, which was locked from the inside, and only the tribute in the room could unlock it. There were some who left the room right away but found another tribute—more often than not a Career—waiting for them around the corner and who would kill them almost instantly in order to steal their supplies.

The year before that it was a pyramid with the same set up. Only this time, there was a timer. The tribute who made their way out of the pyramid first and out onto the yard and into the sunlight would be the winner, while the rest would be exposed to poison gas and be killed instantly. Or rather, there would be two sets of gasses, the first would be to knock them all out, the next was, she was told, painless poison gas.

Those were the kinds of games that took place over the last five years. And the head Gamemaker had insisted that tributes be able to understand the basics for surviving the environments that he designed for them. But now it seemed things were going back to normal. And what was even better, that very same Gamemaker was now a mentor. And for those losers in District 9, no less…

Then again, it wasn't as if she was in a position where she could throw stones at anyone here.

So, inspired by the stories of those unlucky bastards who got cornered and attacked, she decided that the best thing to do would be to learn all the ways to blend into the background, whatever it may be and hide for as long as she could. She even tried to run the gauntlet when the Careers finally took a break from them in an attempt to learn how to outrun the other tributes. And maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if she could outrun something the Careers had become masters at. Every time she got knocked to the ground by one of the trainers, it earned a laugh from a handful of the other tributes—especially the Careers.

"Don't get caught, Xandrie," Electra had told her before she got on the train. "Be faster than everyone else. You don't need to be the strongest, just the fastest…"

Those words had rung in her ears ever since she sat foot in the training center. She decided that the only way she was going to have even a slim chance of winning, or at least a chance at survival for a brief period of time, was if she learned to be fast and good at hiding. But ironically, it had been that lout mentor of hers who had advised her that hiding would only get her so far, she was going to have to have other tricks up her sleeve. She knew he meant the same thing that skyscraper from Two had been talking about in terms of learning to fight. But instead, she decided to focus on being able to build a fire and learn which bugs would kill her instantly, slowly or make her extremely sick. Whether she was just being stubborn or practical was open to interpretation. Well, at least it was for her and no one else.

She had been making the rounds on day two of training and it was an hour away from lunchtime when she found herself at the shelter making station. That was when she saw the girl from District 5, who looked like she hadn't slept at all in the past couple days and was intensely focused on building a short tent out of branches and sticks. Alexandrite suddenly had a terrible vision of waking up one night and finding this girl standing over her, maybe with a knife, her eyes large and unblinking as she brought the knife down to plunge it into Alexandrite's heart in the hopes of stealing what little supplies she had on her.

She shook her head, trying to get the thought out and decided that it might be better just to try something else for the time being. But she'd already studied which things she might find on the ground that were safe to eat and felt fairly confident about her knowledge on the subject (she had always been a fast learner) though she supposed it wouldn't hurt to take another run at it. But logically she knew that she had to learn as much as she possibly could, a variety of things in fact, in such a short amount of time. And since half the Careers were currently at the fire making station while the other half were doing weightlifting, and there was no guarantee that she would need fishhooks, but she would definitely need to know how to make a shelter…

She groaned and decided to walk over to the station, sitting as far away from the district 5 girl as humanly possible. Her face was so pale that it was haunting. She looked like some kind of ghoul. Alexandrite kept her back to the other girl in an attempt to protect her eyes from the terrifying sight. Like whatever Five had was something she could catch.

Meanwhile, Patch was also trying something new by taking a shot at the hand-to-hand combat station and started to punch the large bag hanging from the ceiling. Just as he suspected, even his hardest punch to the bag barely moved it. He had small, delicate hands and long fingers, good for making intricate details into fabric, sewing in labels, not for fighting. He knew that if he were to go toe to toe with even the weakest tribute here, he would lose miserably.

He heard the sound of something heavy hitting another heavy thing with great force, followed by a grunting noise. Patch looked over and saw that a few feet away, much to his instinctive horror, the same horror as any rational tiny thing would feel at seeing something much bigger than them.

It was the boy from District 10. The Horseman.

Inga had been talking about him at dinner last night. She'd been going on and on about what a freak he was, always talking to himself and never making eye contact. Nona, the girl from District 2 who seemed to be their unofficial leader, wanted him for their Career pack, which Inga was inexplicably a part of now, but he'd apparently shown no interest, something Inga had been very relieved to hear.

"The last thing that we need is some thick-skulled ape with several screws loose slowing us down and making us look weak on camera once we're in that Arena," she'd said smugly.

Woof had just looked at her, rolled his eyes and reminded her, "He's still bigger than you, remember that. At least as a fellow Career that so-called crazy person would have been your ally, now he's just another enemy. Now he'll be your enemy right away instead of way down the line like your other new friends."

Now that had shut her up. It had put murder in her eyes, but it had temporarily put a smile on Patch's face as well.

Refusing to be a part of the Careers, whatever the state of his mind was and causing Inga any kind of distress was enough to earn some respect from Patch. But there was something about seeing this guy up close, however happy and carefree he'd looked while riding those horses, that still made Patch a bit uneasy. He was, well, scary up close. And so much bigger. So much wilder, too. So much more of a clear and present threat to him and everyone that it wasn't funny. Patch forgot about Inga, he forgot about everything else. All he could think about was the fact that this guy was going to be in the Arena with him and if he was not only strong but crazy, well then that was a problem then, wasn't it? Especially for him. The biggest tribute against the smallest and weakest. The biggest simpleton in the world could do that math.

Patch suddenly felt that familiar tickle in his throat and used his right arm to cover his mouth as an intense coughing fit came over him. The one good thing about being in the gym was that if any blood showed up on his sleeve, he could easily dismiss it and say that it was just from training. Anyone would believe it anyway, but the fact that it came from fragile whittle him would make it that much easier to believe.

"You cough a lot," said a low voice.

Patch didn't bother to turn around. He wouldn't dignify whoever spoke with a glance in their direction. Instead, without looking at them he deadpanned, "You're perceptive."

"Why do you cough so much?" That same voice asked with a note of curiosity in their voice. In fact, it almost sounded like the voice had perked up a little bit. Like they had just gotten a bit of good news. What about his coughing could possibly be good news? What, Patch needed to give them confirmation that he was an easy mark?

"Because my throat is dry," Patch answered simply before going back to hitting the bag. But then he decided that he should go get some water instead, keeping his back to the person speaking the entire time he did so.

Marrow just watched the tiny volunteer walk away, privately noting that trying to sound more upbeat didn't seem to endear him at all to the younger boy, and wondered what would make someone so weak and so small decide to volunteer for the Games. He'd asked Rex about it on the train ride over and he'd offered up a nugget of wisdom:

"Maybe that guy he volunteered for was a good friend. Maybe he thought that he was saving him. Doesn't really make much sense though, does it? He would have been the one guy in here as big as you."

"It doesn't make sense," Marrow echoed out loud. "Should I ask…no. No, not a good idea. Not a good idea at all. I should focus. I should move on to another station. What do I need help with? Balance. Yes, that's a good idea. Then shelter and fire making. And I could always brush up on some knot-tying. That would be a good idea…"

Latia focused on building a shelter that, after much effort and tying and untying several knots, she was able to build something that even remotely resembled a habitat. She nodded in approval, but decided to test it to see if it could withstand harsh elements and any amount of pressure. Anything to keep her mind off the information that she'd gotten not forty-eight hours ago, information that she had still been trying to process while she threw up, angrily resisting the prep team as they attempted to dress her up for that stupid parade.

She'd kicked and screamed and scratched them, drawing blood, cursing at them, threatening them. Just like with getting her on the train car, she'd had to be sedated, only not knocked out. Just enough to keep her docile so that they could pretty her up. Wicker had been told to hold her hand and keep her steady and make sure she didn't fall out when they were in the chariots, which he had done, albeit with some confusion and concern, or so she'd been told by Molespinner and forced to take his word for it on account of the fact that she'd been half alive for all of that…

"I'm not so sure this is the best way to gain her trust," Giles had said uncertainly to Therma. Latia had overheard them while in her numb haze.

Therma had, in turn, responded coldly, "This isn't about trust, this is about survival. Winning. This is a war. And she needs to get her head on—"

"Therma," Giles had interjected, slightly more assertively, not by much, but still. "I told her that her parents had died. How had no one told her? Aren't you curious? Aren't you concerned? Do you even know why she was selected? I mean, the Burns' died by lethal injection, so someone wanted this done quietly and even peacefully—"

"Do you really care, Molespinner?" Therma asked in a deadly calm voice. "No, really, do you really care about this girl, whose name, let's be honest, you're going to forget in a matter of months when all of this is over. Unless of course, she wins. That's how it works—"

"That girl was you once," Giles said firmly. "I would have thought—"

"Thought what?" Therma asked in a steely voice. "That we would braid each other's hair. There's no time for that right now. If she doesn't go out there and look pretty then someone is going to come in here and put a gun to her head until she does. This is the way it has to be. It's better than what I had, at least. Infinitely better. This is what it takes to give you people what you want, alright? Sorry if it's ugly up close but no one asked you to look. You can look away, some of us can't and this is what we have to do to get through it. Now let's get a move on. Come on. Now."

That first day in training, Wicker had tried to talk to her, had tried to lean in and whisper to her in a strangely comforting and genuinely empathetic voice, "I didn't know about your parents. Molespinner told me. I'm so sorry. I can't imagine—"

But she'd cut him off. The last thing that she really wanted to do right now was actually talk about it. To think about it. To think about the fact that they were actually dead. And for what? What had Molespinner said? Treason? What kind of treason? And every time she'd tried to ask Therma or Molespinner for more information, they seemed to know as much as she did, if not, and it was hard to believe this was even possible, less.

Now the only way for her to get through any of this was to keep focused on training. If only Wicker would stop bothering her—

"Hey," he said, standing on her right. "Mind if I join you? I could use a refresher course. It's been a while since I've, you know, made shelter."

He said it like it was some funny inside joke between them, but she didn't even acknowledge him. Feeling a slight sting of defeat, he walked over to the table with all the supplies and just so happened to run into the girl from District 1.

"Hey," he said casually.

"Shouldn't you be training with your new best friends?" she deadpanned.

Wicker just shrugged and said, "Needed a break. Wanted to strike out on my own for a while. You know, I think they mainly like me because—"

"I don't care," she cut him off coldly.

He squinted his eyes at her and said, "A jester. They want me around so that I can be a jester. I don't really have the time and energy to be that for anyone right now, you know?"

"Wow, you really don't know what 'I don't care' means," she observed in exasperation.

"Okay, what is going on?" he asked loudly enough so that both she and Latia could hear him. "I'm trying to be nice and you guys are just tearing me down—"

"I'm a little too busy to give you all the attention that your parents definitely didn't give you," Alexandrite cut him off.

"Wow, you should really meet my District partner," he said. "You two would get along great. Especially if what Nona says about you is true. I mean, wow—"

"Zip it!" she demanded loudly, causing the words to echo slightly off the walls in the gym. Then she went back over to her shelter making station and attempted to tie a knot.

Wicker, however, wasn't giving up and decided that his curiosity needed to be satisfied. He followed the district 1 girl over to her station, stood over it and informed her, "You know, even if you don't really agree with their, I don't know, excitement for all this, it probably wasn't a good idea to just flat out reject them. They would have made some pretty powerful allies. Good bodyguards for a good portion of the Game."

The district 1 girl let out a growl from her throat and refused to look up at Wicker. Yet, she still felt the need to explain, "They would have seen me as useless and killed me in my sleep on the first night. It's what they do. It's what they've been doing for over two decades. Now leave me alone."

"Well, that beast from District 8 definitely would love to have a piece of you. She's been talking about it non-stop. About that rich-kid from One who got so many free passes and she thinks it's her job to teach you a lesson. She even threw out some ideas for how she might wanna do it. You know, if you're interested."

Alexandrite, clearly against her will, slowly lifted her head up to look at him. And, despite herself, Latia was doing the same thing. In that moment, they both seemed to realize that this stupid idiot (or so they both thought) had been spending the last day and a half gathering intel on some of the toughest, scariest players in the game. Had that been just some happy accident, pure dumb luck, or had that been his plan all along? Neither one of them wanted to ask, probably because that would require admitting that not only did this mean that he was intelligent, but that they both thought so.

Wicker seemed very proud of himself for having gained this much of their attention and even begrudging respect. "Now, what do you say we all give each other some tips in exchange for some great new information. I'm not much of a survivalist, but clearly one of us is. I can pass information that I have on certain tributes along to you both in exchange for any and all information you two have to offer me. Latia, tips on how to secure this structure that you've started, for instance. And One," he addressed Alexandrite as he said this. "You can tell us all about how you managed to avoid the reaping for so long."

Alexandrite's face darkened, "Forget it."

Wicker shrugged, like this was enough for him. "Fine, fine. If you don't wanna hear about how the Careers really feel about that District 8 girl and all the others. Who they're each planning to attack first…"

Alexandrite's scowl deepened. Information was currency. And really, what did she have to lose now? Her pride? Her family's reputation? The fact that they hadn't been drawn and quartered already was a miracle as far as she was concerned.

So they all got to work at the knot-tying station to brush up on tying the strongest knots for certain kinds of weather and what you could make those strong knots out of. Meanwhile, Wicker told them all about the Careers, who liked who as a friend, who liked who as something more, who couldn't stand who, what their weak spots were, as hard as they might be to see with the naked eye. And Alexandrite, very, very reluctantly, told them both the broad strokes of how she ended up here.

"Wow," Wicker said, almost impressed when she finished telling him. "Just, just wow. Really, wow—"

"Stop saying that, Alexandrite demanded. "I've really had enough of all of it. I've been getting it non-stop ever since I got to this stupid city…"

Latia looked at her thoughtfully, Then without really thinking about what she was saying, said, "It's kind of funny. We're both here because of treason charges. We might be the only ones..."

Alexandrite looked over at her with a moderately fascinated expression. "Oh yeah? And how exactly did you betray Panem?"

Latia let out an ill-humored chuckle and said, "You know, it's funny, no one thought to tell me what I did. As for what my parents did…"

Suddenly she looked like she was going to throw up. That was when a gentleness that Alexandrite didn't even know she still possessed arose to the surface.

"We don't have to talk about our families," Alexandrite said softly. "I get it. Bad legacy. No one's business." She turned over to Wicker with a serious expression and said firmly, "No one's business."

Wicker put up his hands in surrender and said, "All I needed from her was just some advice and I got it. I'm good."

"Good," Alexandrite said, turning back to face Latia. "By the way, I thought your costumes for the parade were great. Very original. Very eye-catching. The ones they made us wear were pretty gaudy in my opinion." She chuckled in a self-deprecating sort of way, which seemed to do the trick in easing Latia Burns because she allowed the tiny ghost of a smile to come across her face.

Alexandrite smiled in satisfaction. "Hey, if it's information you want, I just found out last night that those two idiots from Nine have a former head Gamemaker as their mentor."

Latia raised her eyebrow in disbelief. "What?"

"No way," Wicker agreed. "Why didn't I hear about this?"

"Grant probably thought it was no big deal," Alexandrite said, rolling her eyes. "Because Royal thought it was no big deal. He thinks they're gonna trash the design Longwell did for this year's Games before he got fired, so there's really no point in sucking up to them. But I don't know. I think it's worth pursuing."

"What, you think they have information?" Latia asked, intrigued, the color beginning to come back to her cheeks, even if it was faint. "What if your mentor was right?"

"He won by dropping rocks on people's heads—a skill he 'learned' from all his years in the mines," Alexandrite said dismissively. "I don't think planning is his strong suit. Same with Grant."

"Oh he's not dumb," Wicker interjected. "Believe me, he has a plan."

"What, to kill everyone?" Alexandrite asked. "Brilliant, he should write a book on warfare if he wins."

"His plan is to cut everyone off one by one. Strategically. And that's assuming that your mentor—Royal—was right."

"That's not a bad point," Latia agreed, ignoring the hopeful look on Wicker's face. "After all, Longwell's Games were absurdly popular in the Capitol and even in certain parts of the Districts. It was so weird, seeing people actually cheering their tribute on instead of just shaking and drinking their rum in pure terror."

"Then how did he get fired?" Wicker asked with a raised eyebrow.

Alexandrite shrugged, looking across the gym at the District 9 girl, who was casually enjoying a sip of her water as she leaned against the wall lazily.

"There's always a way to find out," Alexandrite said mischievously. "Information for information. Right now we know everything and she knows nothing. We can use that. Assuming she actually cares."

"I can't believe no one is making her do anything," Latia said as she shook her head in disapproval and disbelief.

"What would they care?" Alexandrite asked. "I doubt it makes much of a difference to their pay, what kind of training score we get. What we do in here, as long as it's not to each other, not yet anyway. Why would it? This isn't real life. Now come on, let's go."

"This isn't gonna be easy," Latia informed her. "You know what districts in the east call us?"

"The Privileged," Alexandrite sighed. "Yeah. As if we're not getting our names pulled out of that infernal bowl every year, same as everybody else. But you're right. So, what's our plan to charm this lunatic?"

Again, Wicker casually shrugged and threw out a suggestion. "She likes to eat. I say we ask her to lunch."