Trigger warning: One mention of grooming.

23. The Acrobat - Don't You Dare

Spruce Dolan, District 7, 76th Hunger Games, Placement to be determined

For the first time in six months, Spruce Dolan lifted the loose floorboard under his bed.

He'd been meaning to get rid of his spray cans for a while but he'd kept putting it off because he had no idea what was the safest way to go about it. It would've been suspicious, right? Being caught trying to dispose of some spray cans immediately after the Quell.

But now it was urgent. Earlier today, Sam had cornered him on the way home from work.

"Do you still have those cans, Spruce?" he'd asked.

"My parents say I'm not allowed to talk to you anymore," Spruce had replied.

"Fine, I don't need to know. I'm not the one who's gonna get executed if the peacekeepers search my house and find a bunch of spray cans."

"The peacekeepers aren't going to search my house," Spruce had said. "We're the fucking Dolans."

The Dolan family had always had a bad reputation. It had started about seventy years ago (the people of District 7 had really long fucking memories). Spruce's paternal grandfather had been born looking nothing like either of his parents. There were pretty standard rumours about an affair. But then shit got really wild. A rumour started that Spruce's great-grandmother had had an affair with Treech Fujiwara. If one of the Dolans was willing to let a Fujiwara into her bed, surely they were all just as cruel and monstrous and pro-Capitol as the Fujiwara family had been.

The Fujiwaras' terrible reputation had clung to the Dolans for sixty-six years now. Spruce's parents wouldn't talk about it. His grandfather wouldn't talk about it. But his classmates sure loved to talk about it. Especially when the rebellion had grown popular in Seven.

The first time Spruce Dolan had sprayed a mockingjay on a wall, it was because he'd wanted to shut them all up.

"So you're telling me you've been at the lumber yard and you know nothing about the Chau Crackdown?"

"The Chau Crackdown?"

"Ever since the rebels in Three put Fawkes Chau in the hospital, the peacekeepers have been searching every house in the lumber slums," Sam had said. "Even the ones that've been hanging the Capitol flag. I thought your coworkers would've told you. It's only a matter of time before the peacekeepers reach your neighbourhood and, when they do, being rich won't save you, Sprucie."

Spruce's parents had told him not to but he'd decided to trust Sam. It didn't seem like Sam was trying to convince him to do anything rebellious. It seemed like Sam was just warning Spruce about the danger of his house being searched. Sam had always been better at keeping up with the news of the rebellion than Spruce had. And if he was lying and the peacekeepers, never ended up searching his house, there was no harm in getting rid of the cans.

Spruce reached his hand into the hole under the floorboards and felt around. All of his spray cans were gone. He started to panic.

Have they searched my house already? Am I going to be executed?

Spruce's first instinct was to go to his parents. They'd got him out of a bad situation back in July. Just before the Quell, they'd caught him trying to sneak out with a bag of rebel fliers in his hand and said: "Spruce Makoto Dolan, don't you dare." And then he'd been grounded.

Spruce had been forced to cut off all his rebel friends. His parents had made him get a part-time job at the lumber yard so he could learn to be more responsible. Which had turned into a full time job when his teachers had finally flunked him out of school like they'd been threatening to do for years. At first, Spruce had hated his parents for being so strict, but when his rebel group disbanded shortly after the Quell because things were becoming too dangerous, he'd realised that his parents had given him a head start to getting his life back on track.

When Spruce found his parents, they were examining his collection of spray cans.

"Care to explain?" his father asked, fixing him with piercing green eyes.

"I meant to get rid of them," Spruce said. "I was just… procrastinating."

"Well, we're glad you procrastinated long enough for us to find them," his mother said. "Now we can dispose of them together. How were you planning to get rid of them?"

Spruce shrugged. "Taking them into the woods and setting them on fire."

"Yeah… maybe don't do that."

Spruce readied his axe over his ally's throat.

He'd been tossing and turning for most of the night debating whether or not this was a good idea. Hephaestion was the strongest member of the alliance. But that was because he was a Career.

Hephaestion had spent most of the first day bossing his allies around, trying to get the supplies organised. Lucinda had got out of it because she'd been hurt during the bloodbath. Gus had been totally fine with it because apparently Hephaestion had learned how to organise supplies at his dumb Career school. Spruce didn't buy it. He couldn't imagine Hephaestion squeezing his big, beefy body behind a desk and studying something dorky like inventory management. Spruce hated being bossed around by a Career.

Then there was Hephaestion's coldness. There was something very Career about the way he treated death. He'd snapped Primrose Everdeen's neck seconds into the games. He'd barely batted an eye when Gus had found Hunter's mutilated body on the ground. And when the two of them had cornered Rory, the sweet thirteen-year-old boy from District 6, Hephaestion had said, "I've already got two kills. Spruce, do you want this one?" as if Spruce gave a fuck about his kill count. Who did Hephaestion take him for, a Career?

But Spruce had never been able to stand up to peer pressure. He'd killed the kid anyway and now he felt like complete shit.

Surely the only way to make things right was to kill Hephaestion?

"I know what you're thinking, Spruce," a quiet voice came from next to him. "Don't you dare."

If it had been anyone else, Spruce would've brought his axe down on Hephaestion's neck anyway. But it was Lucinda.

Spruce liked his district partner. He'd been worried about whether she'd hate him. There was a rumour going around that Spruce was more than just Treech Fujiwara's great grandson, he was some undead version of Treech Fujiwara, a ghost or a zombie. Apparently, Spruce looked more like Treech than his father did, which a lot of people found weird. None of them seemed to consider that Spruce might've got his black hair and his brown eyes from his mother's side of the family.

Lucinda had just told Spruce that she didn't believe in ghosts or zombies. She believed in science and mathematics.

"Do you think he could really be my great-grandfather?" Spruce had asked her.

"How old is your grandfather?" she'd asked.

"He turns sixty-eight in September."

"Then he was born in September, Eight A.T.T? If Treech was eighteen in July, Ten A.T.T. that would make him either fifteen or sixteen when your grandfather was conceived. How old was your great grandmother?"

Spruce didn't know. Nobody in his family talked about his great grandmother.

"I don't know," Spruce had said. "She was married so… probably older."

"If Treech is your great-grandfather, I think that makes your great-grandmother is the real monster for taking advantage of him when he was so young. And either way, it doesn't affect how I view you."

Spruce had been shocked. He'd never done the maths before. Treech had been fifteen or sixteen when Spruce's grandfather had been conceived. Why hadn't more people in Seven brought this up over the years? If the rumours were true, it probably meant a child had been groomed. Wasn't that a bigger problem than who the child's parents were?

Maybe it was because Treech Fujiwara had never been a child to them. He'd just been a ghost in the woods. District 7 hadn't even respected him enough to remember what had happened to him in the Hunger Games.

Would Spruce meet the same fate?

The only way he'd know for sure was if he won.

"You're the one who told me we can't trust him," Spruce hissed.

Lucinda had pointed out on the first day of the games how Gus and Hephaestion - the two strongest tributes in the alliance - seemed incredibly close. Gus had been in the Careers for the first couple days of training, until he'd become uncomfortable with his Career allies picking on outliers and left the alliance. To Hephaestion's credit, he'd been the only Career to take Gus' side. It seemed like Gus and Hephaestion had formed some kind of bond in the Careers, which was why Hephaestion had betrayed the Careers during the bloodbath and joined Gus' new alliance. Having the strongest tribute in the games on their side was good, but Lucinda had warned Spruce that Hephaestion wouldn't be on their side forever. When this alliance split up, Gus and Hephaestion were so loyal to each other that Spruce would likely be their first target.

"I know," Lucinda said. "But we need to keep Gus and Hephaestion on or side until Tsarina is dead. We both know I'm useless in combat. Do you really think you can kill her on your own? Besides, how exactly are you planning on getting away with this without Gus finding out. He's right outside the shelter. If you leave with blood on your hands right after a cannon, he's gonna get really suspicious."

Lucinda was right. Gus was right outside the shelter, keeping watch for the night. Spruce couldn't kill Hephaestion and escape without Gus finding out.

What if I killed Gus? Spruce wondered. He's stronger than me, but he'll never expect me to betray him so soon.

No, that was a horrible idea. Gus was like a big brother to Spruce. Gus had defended him from the Careers. Gus had tried to keep Spruce from seeing Hunter's mutilated body after the bloodbath.

What is this arena turning me into? Spruce wondered.

He wondered if Treech had killed anyone in his games. He wondered if he'd regretted it. Spruce doubted he'd had a big brother figure, since he had been eighteen - two years older than Spruce - when he'd been reaped, but maybe he'd had a little brother figure. The games weren't even halfway done and Spruce had already killed two boys. The first had been Sceptre, the Career who'd pushed him around in training and tried to beat Lucinda to death during the bloodbath. Spruce didn't feel bad about burying his axe in that boy's head. But Rory… Rory still haunted him.

Spruce wondered if anyone else in this games would haunt him. Hephaestion wouldn't. Gus would. So was killing Hephaestion now worth it if it meant that Spruce would also have to kill Gus?

No, it wasn't. There was one Career left (besides Hephaestion). Her name was Tsarina. She'd tortured Hunter to death during the bloodbath. Spruce wasn't sure he was strong enough to fight her without Gus and Hephaestion.

Besides, Gus and Hephaestion were both very vocal about their loyalty to the Capitol. Spruce had been very careful to be a good boy. He wasn't sure how much the gamemakers knew about his rebellious activity back in Seven, but he didn't want to do anything that'd cause them to investigate him. If they knew, he wanted to make it clear that that phase of his life was over. He'd just been a dumb kid trying to prove himself and have a bit of fun. Spruce had never truly believed in the rebellion. He hadn't done anything serious or violent, he'd just handed out a few fliers, put up some posters and graffitied a few buildings. Then after the Quell, he'd cut off all his rebel friends and got a job.

Half of Spruce's allies were people who a true rebel would never be caught dead allying with. Gus was the grandson of Panem's most loyalist victor. Every night, he saluted the Capitol seal in the sky. Hephaestion was a wannabe peacekeeper who'd taken a vow of celibacy and everything. Hunter had basically worshipped his mentor, Fawkes Chau. Sometimes it felt like everything he'd said in training was preceded with the words 'Fawkes says'. Honestly, if Spruce had been enough of a rebel to ignore strategic advice from Fawkes Chau, one of the greatest strategists in Hunger games history, just because the rebels in a district Spruce wasn't even from wanted him dead, that would make him so stupid he deserved to die.

If Spruce turned on the two biggest loyalists in the games at this point, even if it was for clearly strategic reasons, all of his hard work would be undone. The gamemakers would be out for his blood for the rest of the games.

"Good call," Spruce said. With shaking hands, he returned his axe to its spot beside his sleeping bag. There would be no betrayal tonight.

Sorry for falling behind. I didn't want to stay up until 3AM finishing this chapter because I've been so sleep deprived lately. I also don't want to make this a short chapter because Spruce is one of the POV tributes for A Traitor's Tale and the whole reason I'm writing this story is to prepare myself for A Traitor's Tale. The next couple tributes aren't ATT tributes so if I speedrun the next couple chapters, I might be able to catch up. We'll see.

Did you really think I was gonna write a story called A Traitor's Tale without finding a way to insert Treacherous Treech into the narrative even though he died sixty-six years ago? *laughs evilly* It just so happened that there was a Seven on the cast of A Traitor's Tale who I could easily retcon into being Treech's great-grandson. Even better, Spruce already had ADHD. What if he'd inherited it from Treech?

This meant that Spruce, like Gus and Hephaestion, grew up in a famous (or infamous) family member's shadow, which gives him a better motive for his rebellious deeds. Spruce's acts of rebellion are by far the most mild of the ATT cast (apart from maybe Petra) so I also wanted to give President Snow another reason to be mad that he makes the top six. I'm sure Coriolanus is having a really fun time now that Treech's great-grandson, who is named Spruce, is in the top six of the Seventy-Sixth Hunger Games.

As for what makes Spruce a traitor, he's already cut off the rebels he was once associated with, but we can also see that his relationship with his allies, especially Hephaestion, is becoming increasingly strained. He definitely has the capacity for betrayal.

Our next act will be The Stilt Walker.