Day Eleven: Behind you
Yelled, Clarissa provides warning at the last second. "Duck!" The boy's spear sails over her head, sinks into the chest of the girl from Six like it's a toy. The popular girl from Six, after last year there was no expectation she would be anything but a source of great excitement for the Capitol. And now she's dead, and Clarissa's got one arm around Lacie and is picking her up, spear in the other hand. "Lacie, we have to GO. You're not going to do anything here! We have to go, come on!" Lacie doesn't want to go. She wants to stay, to die so she isn't a burden. But she's slung like a sack of cloth over one shoulder, and Clarissa's running.
Behind Lacie is Rooke. Rooke, who she can see because he has that massive hooked sword in his hand. Why he's still got it, she doesn't know. Supplies would be better.
Rooke and Clarissa had both been denied entry to the Squad. Rooke from Five, Clarissa from Ten. They'd been lost, trying to find allies, when they'd come across Lacie crying in a corner. From that moment on, for reasons Lacie still can't place, they'd picked her as a kind of mascot. Carried her around, made sure she was ok, they'd even had her up to Clarissa's suite for a chat. They'd try and help her as long as they could.
"Face me!" The roar comes, and Rooke turns to face the pursuer. Two's boy, carrying his own sword. There's a crash of metal, and now Lacie's watching this. It's like a scrap between two of the rats in an alley, except more vicious. The swords clash with a spray of sparks, and Rooke's stepping forward. He's bigger than the Two boy, overpowering in terms of strength. Lacie can see the fight, massive Rooke leaning forward, pressing down with the sword.
Then the sword is swinging again, and they're back at the fight. Skill against strength, Lacie unable to do anything but watch as Two's sword sweeps, a deadly final arc. Singing in that arc into Rooke's neck, biting deeper and deeper.
Rooke's falling. His head's falling down, rolling along the ground. His body falls, first to his knees then to the floor. It's like one of the nature documentaries she'd been allowed to watch at school, because that was a privilege the better off kids got in Eight. The old male, collapsing in favour of the new.
Two points at them, at her and Clarissa running, but there's nobody to join any chase, and so with a yell of frustration the boy turns back to the Cornucopia. Clarissa's still running, and Lacie can see behind her the body collapsed onto the cold ground.
"Behind you!" Clarissa's there for Lacie in a heartbeat. The spear stabs forward, and the twin sticks that extend outwards on each side of the spear catch the massive wolf that had been running at her, head of the spear stabbing up. Lacie can see Clarissa's muscles flexing, driving forwards with the exertion of holding back the baying hound on the end of her spear. It tries to scratch, but that even is too far off.
Instead it whimpers, and Lacie has to get behind, make a loop, and stab it in the side. Where those vicious claws can't reach. It's enough for her to get bloodied, but with the weight dropped from her spear Clarissa wraps a hug about her. "Well done Lacie!"
Lacie's crying. She had a dog. Has a dog, if mama and papa haven't got it put down because she's not there to take care of it. And the wolf was trying to kill her, but in limp death it just looks like a big dog, the kind of dog that's friendly deep down.
Clarissa gathers her up in a big hug, arms around Lacie. It feels nice, to know that even though Lacie's having this horrible day, and even though she's been attacked by the big wolf. Well, maybe Clarissa does care about her after all. And that would be good, because Lacie's not sure she can get through this alone. She's also not sure she can get through it with a little or a lot of support. But that support may make it a bit easier.
"Duck." The command is dribbled with the blood between lips, and Lacie ducks in time to watch the spear slam into the Two boy with the last of Clarissa's energy, taking him through the bicep as he roars. Then he's slipping down, and now Lacie's hearing a muttered command from Clarissa. "Do it. For Rooke."
She does it. There's the knife she was given in her hand, and before Two can react she's on him, stabbing the knife through his throat again and again and again and a cannon goes off. A clap, weak, from Clarissa, and Lacie's back at her side. A cough, her face is flecked with blood. Lacie is only 14, she isn't meant for this, but it's still her hand that gets grasped in Clarissa's bloody own hand, squeezed tightly. "Remember me."
Clarissa's ashen. She's bleeding, a lot. Lacie can do nothing but panic. "Why... why did you?" "Help? Because." A laugh, a steadily unsteady laugh. "Because me and Rooke didn't know what the hell to do. We'd been told we weren't welcome in the Squad, because why would we be? Five's girl, my boy were the best, they said. She was pretty enough and good enough with her knives. He was big and scary. So when we're kicked out and see a little girl all on her own? Well, how better to help?"
She coughs, Lacie's feeling tears pick up, but she can't cry. She needs to be the strong one. "What do I... I can get. I can." "You can make it quick." Pained grimace from Clarissa, Lacie is terrified, and Clarissa's taking her hand. "Lacie. One of us is going to win. You're not staying here for weeks waiting for me to get better and then letting me kill you. So get the knife, make it quick."
Clarissa even presses the knife into her hand, shows Lacie where to stab to make it quick. Behind, back of the neck.
Clarissa's hand touches his shoulder. "Hey. I'll always be behind you, you know this."
The knife comes down.