CHAPTER XXXII: DAY TWO
Delano Astarte • District Eight Male
Luxor / July 9th, 10:21 AM
After their nice ass steak dinner last night, Delano, Shaffa, and Keesha decided to crash for the night at the giganormous titanium pyramid hotel called the Luxor. The place fucked heavy. It had a luxurious, geometric oasis kind of feel. There was gilded hieroglyphic iconography all over the place, glowing gold in the cavernous lighting. Palm trees soared alongside the sloped walls of the pyramid, eerily static in the windless indoors.
Monkey brain dictated that they gravitate toward the highest point of the hotel they could access, so naturally, that's exactly what they did. There was a penthouse suite on the top floor with huge, California king-size beds. The sheets were obscenely silky and comfy — they must've been like, bajillion-thread count Egyptian cotton or some ridiculous shit like that. The three of them pinky promised not to kill each other in their sleep, and then hit the lights.
Developments from last night: Shaffa, the Three girl, and Keesha, the Five girl, are his sugar mommies now. And Delano's like their third, but platonically. Delano was gagged when they told him how they got all their swag. Like, getting loaded off of looting unsupervised slot machines? How cool was that?!
They traded mindless brainrot bullshit stories across the dinner table all night. At one point, Delano snorted so hard that rice came out of his nose. Being adopted by casual teenage girl criminals is probably the best thing that's happened to him during this entire Hunger Games saga. Why the hell had he been with Yuly for so long when he could've been kicking it with Shaffa and Keesha this whole time?!
Ah, better late than never, he supposes. At least he's basking in the babygirl life now. Day two has him sleeping in like it's the weekend — after the best dinner, best company, and best rest ever, Delano's so ready to let go of his broke ass past and look toward his filthy rich future.
(Might as well live it large while he still can, right?)
They head out of the suite a little after 10 AM. On the way down the elevator, Shaffa turns to Delano and Keesha with a mischievous smile on her face.
"I was thinking," the Three girl hums, "that we need a squad name."
"Like what?" Keesha says wryly.
"Something that really encapsulates our essence."
"Our names spell D-K-S," Delano points out. "So… dicks?"
"Hell, no. We are not calling ourselves dicks," Keesha protests.
"Dicks! Dicks! Dicks!" Delano and Shaffa chant in unison.
The elevator doors open to the main floor — the casino. It's swarming with activity, a far departure from its uncanny stillness from the previous night. They stand frozen in shock as countless hologram Capitolites weave through the gambling tables and machines, chattering animatedly in their synthetic tones. The sounds of clattering chips, jingling coins, and spinning roulette wheels flood his senses, bright and alive and overstimulating. But all of the action seems to be constrained to the casino — Delano watches as a few Capitolites slip through the exit to the lobby, abruptly vanishing beyond invisible barriers. Several others seem to notice the three of them standing in the elevator, pointing toward their direction with wide, giddy grins.
Beside him, Delano can tell that Keesha's violently taken aback — he tracks her forlorn gaze to the slot machines, now very occupied and very unraidable. But they have enough chips to gamble the old-fashioned way, enough to bet big and ball out. They decide to split up and run their own tables, each filled with clamoring Capitolite patrons eager to throw their money down to play.
So right now, Delano's got his legs propped up on one of the gambling tables, totally dripped out in some clothes he found in the suite closet. Studded sunglasses, a high-collared blazer, a v-neck — and a skirt, as if he didn't look homosexual enough. He's got a pair of dice in his hand, playing this game called 'craps.'
What the hell kind of name is that? He has no fucking clue. It's like if Delano invented a game and called it 'shit.' But that's besides the point — what actually matters is that he's making a damn killing right now. The Capitolites crowded around the table don't even seem to mind that he's farming all of their money.
The rules are sort of simple enough — it seems there are only two real options. He can either make a bet on the 'pass line' or the 'don't pass line.' If he takes the dice and rolls a combined value of 7 or 11, he wins. If he rolls a 2, 3, or 12, he loses. And if he gets something that isn't any of those five numbers, then he gets a "come" point. Outrageous.
Honestly, Delano has no idea what he's doing. But he's lowkey good at… whatever this is! He should've been illegally gambling ages ago!
The mannequin dealer prompts him to make a new bet. He thinks about it for a second before placing a bet worth $500 on the P in 'PASS LINE' so that it says 'ASS LINE,' snickering obnoxiously because he's a twelve year-old sixteen year-old.
Next to him, a hologram Capitolite chirps excitedly. It's a woman with a pixie cut and a stack of gaudy necklaces wrapped around her suspiciously long, goose-like neck. "I love your outfit, Delano! It's giving femboy Elvis!"
"Who is Elvis?" Delano asks.
"I have no idea, honestly!"
"Me neither!"
"He was someone from before the Dark Days," a Capitolite man says, sidling up to the table. He has these goofy ass sideburns that flare out from his face like tire spikes. "Kind of a big deal, from what I can remember. Maybe a religious or political figure? But what I know for sure is that he died on the toilet."
"Sounds like he sucked at crapping," Delano snorts. "Thankfully, I seem to be the best crapper in the world right now."
The universe decides to shit on him right as he says that. His eyes widen to the size as dinner plates when the dealer brazenly declares a loss. He blinks stupidly as the mannequin dealer sweeps his gargantuan bet of $500 under the table.
"Well, fuck," he mutters under his breath. "Keesha's gonna kill me."
"Dealer, I'd like to sponsor tribute Delano Astarte $150," Tire Spikes says.
"$300 from me, please!" Goose Lady singsongs.
Tire Spikes scowls. "Do you have to show me up at everything?"
"If you're broke, you can just say that, darling."
"You're sponsoring me?" Delano says dumbly.
Goose Lady nods vigorously, her five thousand necklaces bobbing up and down. "Because of the theme this year, the Gamemakers are rolling in a new sponsorship system. You have to play at Lady Luck Casino in order to have the opportunity to sponsor a tribute in one of the Arena's casinos. It's sooo much more expensive, risky, and difficult, but that's kind of the fun of it. Only the luckiest sponsors get the chance to talk to the tributes personally!"
"There are a lot of people that want to talk to you," Tire Spikes stresses.
"Oh, shit," Delano blinks. "I didn't even know I had so many sponsors. You guys are loaded. That's awesome."
Goose Lady winks. "And there's more where that came from."
Delano wins several more games, sharply tripling his earnings from what he started with. On a particularly lucrative victory, he whoops loudly, slamming the table with his palms. "That's what I'm fucking talking about, baby! Dap me up!"
Tire Spikes daps him up. There's a funny, buzzing sensation when his hand makes contact with the hologram hand, like two magnets opposing each other.
"Can we do another one?" the Capitolite man asks. "With your prosthetic arm this time?"
"Um. Why?"
"I just want to see if anything will trigger it. Or if it only works in life-or-death situations, like with Yuly and Kai in the lavatory."
"Oh. Um. Well." Delano flattens his lips. "That's the only time that happened, so. The latter would be my guess."
"Cool," Tire Spikes says, holding out his hand expectantly. "So, again?"
"Um…"
"I'll give you $50."
Well, apparently that's about how much his dignity costs, because Delano says, "Deal." As expected, the murder mechanism is not activated. Weirdly, Tire Spikes looks disappointed by this, as if he'd been looking forward to getting his hologram form turned into a virtual pincushion.
They play a couple of more rounds, but Delano's distracted now. He idly rolls the dice in his palms, trying to conceal the shake in his hands. He hasn't let himself think about that night, because his mind keeps asking the same question — did he kill Yuly?
It really shouldn't matter. That freakazoid tribute stabbed him, too. So Yuly was going to die regardless, right? And beyond that, it's not like Delano chose to stab him, either; the prosthetic acted on its own accord. It's not his fault. He didn't even ask for this goddamn thing!
(But at the same time, he's still holding onto it — he can't bring himself to get rid of the device.
Delano doesn't know if he'll be able to kill without it.)
He blinks. Now that Yuly's dead, Delano realizes he has no idea how Dottie and her friend are doing. He turns to the two Capitolites keeping him company. "You guys have been watching the Games, right?"
Goose Lady stares at him. "Well, yes?"
Delano nearly smacks himself in the face. What a smart fucking question, Del. "By any chance, have you seen Dottie and… Ginseng, I think it was? How are they? Do you know?"
Tire Spikes gives a nervous laugh, staticky and garbled. "Um, yeah," he says. "But I can't tell you. We're not allowed to tell you guys about where or what the other tributes are doing. Or else they'll definitely punish us, and maybe even ki—"
Next to him, Goose Lady makes a severe cutting gesture across her own throat. Tire Spikes suddenly turns a sickly shade of pale blue. "K-kick us out! That's all I was going to say. Yeah!"
"Huh," Delano mutters, slinking back in his seat. "Well, they've made it for this long. So… they're probably doing all right."
The Capitolites exchange a strange look. Before Delano can decipher what the hell that means, something sharply tugs the back of his collar. He whirls around, coming face-to-face with Keesha.
"Wrap this up," Keesha tells him nonchalantly. "We're gonna cash out and find a different casino."
Delano gives her a funny little salute. He gathers his winnings and bounces, waving and winking at the Capitolites on his way out. He follows Keesha to where Shaffa's laughing with a large crowd of her own Capitolites, utterly enthralled by the tall, scarlet-haired girl. His lingering worries are drowned out by the hum coming from his chest, pleased by the significant heaviness of his backpack and the hoard of chips being pushed toward Shaffa.
You only live once, right? Delano's gonna make the most of it — one last 'fuck you' to this gayass nation before he drowns in huge piles of everything money can buy.
The Capitol's gonna have to pry it out of his cold, dead, prosthetic hands.
Lucifer Bishop • District Seven Male
Mandalay Bay / July 9th, 12:15 PM
Jillion isn't getting better.
That first night, Lucifer and Emilio did what they could. They cleaned her wound with the sterile-smelling liquid that came out of the taps, glad that she wasn't awake to feel the pain. Lucifer tore a pillowcase into strips and Emilio helped wrap them around her head. Still, a day and a half later, she doesn't look to be in great shape. Her skin has taken an ashen shade of gray, and the dark circles around her eyes just deepen the longer she stays unconscious.
Jillion has stirred a few times, but she was never quite lucid. She'd twitch like a dog with bad dreams, mumbling incoherent things under her breath. But Lucifer swears that at one point, he might've heard her say, wait. don't pull it.
Kids fight hard, but fade fast. Lucifer can't tell how long she'll be able to keep this up. She's burning to the touch, and they don't have anything to bring the fever out. Neither Lucifer or Emilio are faring well themselves — they've been able to gather bits of food here and there by assaulting the occasional vending machine, but they've yet to find water. Nearly two days have passed without a drop.
Taking swigs out of random bottles they found in bars temporarily kept the dehydration at bay, before it swung back with a dizzying vengeance. The stinging spirits still scorch the walls of his throat, even several hours after they decided to stop making things worse.
They walk. It's all they do in this place — walk, and walk, and walk, hoping they'll stumble upon some sort of salvation for this plaguing thirst. Beside him, Emilio's lips are chapped and colorless. His cheeks look scarily gaunt in the shadows as they cross into the next building. Deprivation seems to worsen the tremor in his limbs. He looks even worse than he did after the bloodbath.
They haven't brought it up since, but Lucifer hasn't forgotten what Emilio said that night. He can tell Emilio hasn't, either. When he thinks Lucifer isn't looking, the Nine boy clenches his fists over and over until leathery skin splits over sharp knuckles. Until his hands start to shake, with weakness, desperation, rage, or all three.
Lucifer's no stranger to deprivation, growing up in the Underground. It's just another form of torture — he's dealt with the slow, deliberate kind, as well as the kind that hits like a firecracker, sears like a brand. Like a weed, he sprouted out of the cracks in spite of sunlight and sustenance.
But still, he's only human. Hunger, thirst, pain, exhaustion — unavoidable conditions as long as he's alive. The unabating reminders right now are the furthest thing from welcome. Hunger feels like an animal burrowing into his stomach. Thirst turns the walls of his throat into sandpaper, lined with the remnants of liquor and smoke. Pain racks through his beaten and battered shell, and exhaustion makes it feel as if his next step will be his last. He hears every drag of breath too loudly in his ears. Jillion has started to feel like a bag of rocks, her pulse beating slowly against his back. Every footfall spikes blackness in the corners of his vision. If he falls over, he's not sure he'll have enough energy to pick himself back up.
They're ragdolls, shuffling to their graves. Lucifer feels delirious merely considering the idea of him and Emilio attempting to take on the Careers. They won't even survive another day like this, as is.
He blinks, and they've reached the end of a dark hallway. Blue light licks the edges of the walls, feeding into a larger cavern. The sign overhead says… something.
"Mandalay B-Bay," Emilio reads, barely a whisper. "A-an aquarium. I've n-never been t-t-to one."
"What does it have?" Lucifer asks.
The Nine boy is quiet for a long moment, before he croaks, "Water."
They enter the cavern. His surroundings bloom to life, knocking the breath from his aching chest. It's all blue — beautiful, breathtaking blue. Lucifer has never seen so much blue in his life. It's as if they've entered an alternate universe; hyper-saturated, surreal, unearthly.
Lucifer blinks several times, but even then, he's not sure that he's not hallucinating. He watches in awe as alien creatures glide in mid-air behind walls of glass, ambling toward arbitrary destinations. Ghostly refractions snake across the floor and dance on his cerulean-painted skin.
They meander slowly through the cavern, and then through a tunnel. The floor underneath his feet turns to glass as well, surrounding him with impenetrable blue on all sides. Lucifer can't stop looking all around himself, at the walls, the ceiling, the ground. He's mirroring Emilio's same expression, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. He nearly seizes when a creature fashioned like a needle blazes right past his shoulder, zipping off into the distance. A beautiful serpent swishes overhead, prismatic and mesmerizing. Its scales shimmer with all sorts of colors, thousands more than Lucifer can name. On the other wall, his eyes latch onto a fearsome beast, with rows and rows of teeth and waxy, gray flesh.
Emilio follows where Lucifer's gaze is tracked. "Shark," he whispers, pointing at the creature. "Th-that's a shark."
Quietly, Lucifer repeats the word. Smiling, Emilio names the others. An eel, its slithering body like an electric, crackling ribbon. A lionfish, spikes flared out like a jagged comb. A sea urchin, inky black like the deadly shell of a grenade.
Lucifer wishes Jillion was awake to see this.
"They're real?" Lucifer asks Emilio, his voice hoarse.
"I th-think so."
"How do you know what they are?"
"B-books," Emilio whispers softly. "P-pictures."
Lucifer can't hide the awe in his voice. "How are they floating?"
Emilio shakes his head. "I-it's water," he says. "Th-they're s-swimming."
How cruel, then. Taunting. An ungodly abundance of the substance that can keep them alive, trapped behind walls of thick glass.
He turns to look at Emilio, his eyes made even bluer by the illuminated water. Blue — if Lucifer dies, is that the color his hands and feet will turn as he decomposes in the dirt? Who will even bury him, if Henrietta stays trapped in the Underground?
They continue traversing through the oceanic haze, in pursuit of the trickling sound that steadily grows louder and louder the further they walk. They reach their destination after what feels like hours. A door awaits them at the end of the aquarium, crudely boarded off with nailed pieces of wood and caution tape.
A dead end.
Despair flashes behind Emilio's eyes before it dies, reverting back to numb blue.
"What," Emilio rasps, "a-are we going t-to do…"
Lucifer presses a shaky palm against a wooden plank. It's fixed shut. With painstakingly gentle effort, he lowers Jillion to the ground before attempting to pry off the piece with both of his hands. It doesn't budge.
His heart and his head start pounding violently, on the cusp of unbearable. It can't happen like this. They can't have walked all this way for nothing — there has to be something he can do. There's so much water in this place — it's all he can see, it's all he can hear. It's past this door, and he knows it. He just needs to figure out how to get it.
He folds his fingers into his palms, joints throbbing with the effort. His fists. They've always had an answer, no matter how temporary.
He swings back and rams his knuckles into the wood furiously, repeatedly. Emilio cries out in surprise. Chips of the wooden board break off and splinter underneath his skin, but Lucifer keeps going with reckless abandon. He has nothing left to lose. The door shudders on its hinges. A plank of wood gives, but it's still one of several that barricade the doorway.
He keeps going, punchdrunk off of the hammering inside his head that spikes worse and worse. The edges of his vision jam black with each blow — just as he thinks he'll pass out, his fists meet air as he stumbles into an open room.
The sound of running water rushes through his ears, louder than anything he remembers ever hearing in his life. He staggers toward the other side of the room where he can see open, waist-level tanks. Inside, he sees flat, diamond-shaped creatures with tails that whistle through the shallow, green water.
It smells fresh. That's all he needs. Lucifer doesn't hesitate before shoving his face into the pool. The water meets his face with a lukewarm kiss, slightly sweet, slightly salty. The very slight saline taste buries itself in the spaces between his gums and his teeth.
He shudders as it goes down, but oh, it's water, salt-of-the-earth water. No tricks, no games, no dehydration or dizziness. The relief is so overwhelming Lucifer feels like he could drown in it.
Emilio scurries up, following Lucifer's lead. They drink and drink until they can't drink anymore.
Lucifer's stomach sloshes as he lifts his head and braces himself against the edge of the tank. He wipes the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, feeling clear-minded for the first time in days. He turns back toward the corridor, where he left Jillion's unconscious form.
For now, they can rest. But he and Emilio need to come up with a way to help Jillion — fast.
Cassia Cosmos • District Two Female
Flamingo / July 9th, 3:49 PM
There haven't been any deaths since the bloodbath. Cassia wonders how long that will last.
The sight of Mavis's blank face and the gored body haunts her every time she closes her eyes. Cassia never should've remembered her name, but she can't escape Fioynder's horrific habit of rattling off the full roster of fallen tributes, like it's all nothing but trivia to him.
Mavis Marigold. The name of the girl from Twelve. The name that her parents chose for her. The name she wrote on school assignments. The name on her reaping slips. The name she will never answer to again, because Cassia took that away from her. And Cassia will have to take more names if she wants to make it back home.
It's starting to weigh on her, the finality of it all.
When Cassia woke up this morning, she rose even more exhausted than before. But she had to pretend she was doing better — other people were faring fine, running on even less. She found Sergeant already patched up, white bandages wrapped around his torso. Cassia felt so awful for forgetting. He said it was fine, but still. He'd been so distant lately, and she couldn't help but feel it was because she was disappointing him.
After two days, their alliance left the Venetian. They decided the earlier they could get a move on, the better. Jupiter stubbornly insisted on walking by herself; with a broken ankle, she was the slowest, despite her efforts to keep up with the rest of the alliance. Cassia could tell she was straining herself, and that Sergeant was growing restless by the slow pace. Cassia didn't want to leave Jupiter alone, but she knew if she offered help, the Four girl would just give her a distant smile and refuse.
Cassia knew how hard it was to feel weak. It was the hardest thing someone had to bear. And the kindest thing Cassia could do right now was let Jupiter feel like she was at least capable of putting herself back together again, one step at a time. So as much as it hurt, Cassia stayed away.
The Flamingo makes their third hotel and casino of the day. Outside, there are flocks of birds, some perched on rocks, others wading in the water. None of them attempt to approach their large group, their pink feathers bristling at the sudden intrusion. Cassia wistfully looks at them from a distance. The other Careers brush past the birds, not wasting a second glance. Fioynder pretends to throw a few punches at some of them, causing them to squawk and scatter.
The interior of the casino, much like the exterior, is overwhelmingly pink. The ceiling is adorned with rich rainbow stripes that beam and radiate. The building has a grandiose, carnival kind of theme, feathered and festive. Further inside, they take note of several disturbed objects around the bar, including a shattered bottle of gin on the floor. Someone else has been here.
"It could be the boy from Seven," Sergeant says to the group.
Reverie shakes her head. "I doubt it. I mean, it wouldn't really make sense."
Sergeant and Reverie have been riding a razor-thin stalemate for the last two days. Cassia's shoulders tense every time they talk to each other, no matter how innocuous the exchange is. She can't forget how furious Sergeant was at her after the bloodbath, and the venom in Reverie's sneer as she fired back at him. It's scary — it feels like the peace of the group depends on whether they get along or not.
"Look," Reverie continues, pointing at the bar's shelf before dragging her finger to the fallen glass. "It's like someone was struggling to reach the bottles up there, and knocked one over."
Her face struggles to remain impassive as Fioynder corroborates her observation. "With Lucifer Bishop's roughly six-foot stature, he wouldn't have had to try very hard to procure a bottle from the top shelf. He could just grab it, neat and tidy!"
Sergeant scowls. "Oh, like the neat and tidy way he killed Orion?"
Simultaneously, everyone turns to look at Cassia. Some are more subtle than others, but Cassia can still feel all of their eyes on her. Reverie's glance is apprehensive, Sergeant's is guilty, Jupiter and Kieran's are concerned.
Every time someone mentions Orion, all of her allies treat her like she's about to break. They start softening their voices, asking if she's okay. God, she's trying so hard to be — is it really that obvious that she's not?
Cassia had known Orion probably wasn't going to make it. Sergeant told her as much, that second night. Plus, for her to go home, he had to… go out at some point. She just didn't think it'd happen so soon. She thought after he got his 6 in private sessions, that… she didn't even know. That he'd be safe, at least for a little while longer?
Fioynder blathers on. "Well, actually, Lucifer overshot when he struck Orion, indicated by his stumbling afterward. So, it wasn't that neat and ti—"
"Seven was drunk," Reverie interrupts. "But I don't think he was the one that made this mess. The Gamemakers wouldn't have given him a 9 if he was that clumsy all the time."
"Who's to say he wasn't still drunk when he got here?" Sergeant argues.
"I saw him down like, two whole drinks!" Fioynder chimes in.
"It would've worn off by the time he passed through here, so there's no reason he'd be going around knocking shit over," Reverie retorts.
"The effects of inebriation for someone his size probably would've lasted for two hours, at most!" Fioynder adds.
Reverie clenches her teeth together. "Fioynder, nobody's asking you to say anything right now."
"Don't worry, I have a counterargument, too!" the blue-eyed boy exclaims. "If his alliance didn't manage to obtain any supplies at the bloodbath, then it's possible they could've resorted to drinking spirits to temporarily resolve their dehydration."
"Okay, how about this?" Sergeant grits out, taking immense effort to keep his tone measured. "Let's split up the lobby and look for clues. Try to find where the path leads next. It'll be great if we can find Seven or the other outlier threat, but any tribute we take out is one tribute closer to home. Let's regroup in twenty, and go from there."
Nobody needs to be told twice. Anything is better than listening to Sergeant and Reverie go at each other's throats, or listening to Fioynder talk. Cassia feels a little bad for thinking it, but it's true. Long gone are the easy laughs from pre-Games. Right now, the more the others speak, the closer the alliance feels to fracturing. She's not sure what she can do to change this, but there has to be something she can try.
Cassia decides to approach Sergeant while he's investigating. His shoulders tense at her oncoming footsteps, but then relax just slightly when he realizes it's her.
"Hey, Cass," he says, tired.
"Hi, Sarge," she responds, bumping his shoulder with hers. "Find anything?"
He sighs, flattening his lips. "Seven probably didn't do this," her District partner admits. "I can grab the top shelf easy, and he's even taller than I am. At this rate, we're probably never gonna fuckin' find him."
"Of course we will," Cassia assures. "It's only day two. There might be a Feast later on or something."
"I don't wanna wait 'til then. That was the whole point of targeting the outer-District threats early," Sergeant mutters, exasperation creeping into his voice. "So we'd have less to deal with when shit actually starts hitting the fan."
"Is that why you asked Reverie to take down Seven?" Cassia asks.
"Yeah," Sergeant says, after a beat. "And she couldn't even do that much. So much for a goddamn 11."
"Reverie's a smart person. She probably gauged the situation differently, and decided the risk was too much," Cassia reasons. "Please don't be so hard on her, Sarge. She had a lot of things going on."
"We all do," Sergeant snaps.
Cassia tries not to bristle at his tone. "I know," she says, her voice wavering slightly. "Which means we all get how hard it is, sometimes."
Sergeant's jaw grows tense. "That shouldn't stop us from doing what has to be done."
"I think she's making up for it. She got us most of the supplies. She could've left with everything, but she didn't. So from what I can see, she's on our side."
"Her not stealing all of the supplies doesn't reassure me." He turns his eyes away from her. "You don't know what I know, Cassia."
"Then tell me," she says.
Sergeant is quiet for a long moment. "She's keeping stuff from us — all of us," he whispers at last. "That's all I can say."
It stings. Why can't he say more?
(What happened to being a team, doing this together?)
"You're keeping something from me, right now, by not telling me what's bothering you," Cassia points out, a little petulantly. "But I trust that you have a good reason. Whatever Reverie's not telling us, she probably has a good reason, too."
A weird, stricken look flickers over Sergeant's face. It takes Cassia aback. She can't read him, can't tell what this means — is he mad at her?
"How about you go help someone else?" he tells her.
She feels something deflate inside her chest. "Sarge," she pleads, "I just — I didn't mean to—"
"I don't want to talk about this anymore," he says abruptly. "Is that fine, Cassia?"
It feels like there's a rock caught in her throat. Cassia's not wanted right now — it's loud and clear. She nods numbly before turning and walking away, down the hall where she can sort of make out a figure through her blurring vision.
"Need any help?" she half-whispers to Kieran. Her voice cracks, but if he notices, he doesn't say.
Kieran fills her in on what he's been looking at: these occasional mud scuffs in the carpet that progress erratically down the hallway. He talks for a while as they investigate, and his low, rhythmic tenor almost puts the conversation with Sergeant out of her mind.
Further down, Cassia finds a more visible pair of small, muddy footprints. Upon further inspection, it's nothing like the print of a shoe; it's like someone took them off and just kept going, raw feet on the floor.
Kieran peeks his head over her shoulder, instantly arriving at the same conclusion as her. "What kind of lunatic would go barefoot in the Arena?" he says, bemused.
Cassia thinks about it. "The bloodbath started when everyone was in their party clothes. A lot of the girls were wearing heels."
"That's right," Kieran mutters. "Goddamn. I wouldn't last an hour."
Cassia nods in agreement, in hindsight very grateful she chose the dress shoes when the stylist offered the options to her.
"So we're working with a set of footprints heading down this direction," Kieran says slowly. "Maybe two, if there are enough for that."
"And it could be a girl who took off her heels, or anyone else who just got tired of their shoes."
Kieran nods. "I think that gives us enough to report back to the bossman."
"You can go ahead," Cassia says, forcing a weak smile.
"You're not coming with?"
Cassia doesn't look at him. "I don't think Sarge wants to hear from me right now."
"What makes you say that?"
She just gives a vague shrug, hoping that's enough. But Kieran stays there, silently inquiring.
"I think he's upset with me," she admits after a long moment. "I fell asleep and forgot to take care of his wounds last night."
Kieran smiles slightly. "Didn't realize I took over your duties. Hope you don't mind."
"No, no, of course not!" Cassia assures. "Thanks. You did a good job. It looks thorough."
"I'm sure he's not upset over something like that."
"I was talking to him earlier, too," she murmurs. "I must've said something wrong. I was… I don't know. I just want him and Reverie to be okay again. They got along so well during training, you know? I don't like seeing him so… mad." She can't help it — her lip starts to waver. "But now I probably just made him mad at me."
Kieran hums, the note a little flat. "He's not mad at you."
"How can you say for sure?"
"I… think the stress of the job's just weighing on him," the One boy says. "Plus, he really cares about you. That's pretty obvious. To me, at least."
Memories echo in her head. Their first meeting in the train, their laughter during training, their soft conversations in the darkness of the Two suite. Sergeant, her District partner, her first friend. He explained things to her, listened to her, congratulated her, smiled with her. And above all, he'd always been honest with her, about Kai, about Orion. He never held back, even if the truth hurt. He treated her like she was strong.
But there's something going on between him and Reverie, and he won't tell her what it is. Why isn't he confiding in her anymore? What's changed?
There's only one conclusion she can draw.
"I think I've let him down. Everyone down, really." She pauses, swallowing hard. "I forget what people ask me to do. I say all the wrong things. I score lower than an outer-District. And I can't protect my friends in the bloodbath. Not Orion, not Jupiter."
"You couldn't help that," Kieran says, his voice gentle.
"I could've," Cassia insists, "if I didn't get so sick at the banquet. I just — I'm supposed to be better than this, you know? I keep telling myself the Academy picked me for a reason, but I don't even know what they saw in me. I've been preparing for this place, this Games for almost nine years, and I — I can't—"
She trembles, unable to get the words out. I can't even make myself kill the right way. Mercifully. I made it worse, and she still died. That girl that will never go home because of what I did.
"Never mind," she whispers. "It's silly. I don't know if you'd understand."
"You might be surprised," Kieran says.
"I just didn't think it'd be so hard." Cassia's jaw trembles, and her eyes grow hot. "Hurting people."
She's starting to cry now. This makes, what, the third, fourth time since these Games have started? She can hear the mocking laughter of schoolchildren, even all these years later — crybaby, crybaby.
Kieran wraps a gentle arm around her, and she nearly collapses into him. She covers her mouth with the back of her hand the way she learned to as a kid, the way that would keep herself silent.
"It's a hard thing to do," Kieran says softly. "It shouldn't be easy."
"But we've trained for this," Cassia whispers shakily. "Training is supposed to make you ready."
"Yeah, well. That's not always how that works," Kieran murmurs. "They make it seem like you're facing monsters, or animals, but…"
"She was just a kid." She almost can't choke her next words out. "I didn't want to do it."
His response is nearly imperceptible — so quiet, Cassia wonders if she really heard it.
"I know."
Ginseng Clarkson • District Seven Female
Paris / July 9th, 5:00 PM
Ginseng and Dottie find themselves in Paris.
Whatever that is. Apparently, it was a city, like how Las Vegas used to be a city. A city inside of a city. Ginseng has no idea how that's supposed to work — she's sure the answer's simple, but every time she tries to think about it, her thoughts scatter just out of reach.
She and Dottie stumble down the charming little street, lined with little shops and little cafés. The pebbled path feels smooth underneath their bare feet, but it's plastic, it's fake. As fake as the blue sky that lies flat and too low over their heads, as fake as the electric warmth of the indoor sun. Glowing amber lanterns illuminate the liminal space. Distorted birdsong flits from the speakers, lulling Ginseng into a false sense of security. She and Dottie are closed off from the greater world, with no idea what this place is or even what time of day it is.
Ginseng might've found it disturbing if she didn't feel so… funny right now. She'd always been curious about what it felt like, during the odd occasion her mother would pour herself a glass of red wine, once in a blue moon when her father would come home with a bottle of beer. What in the drinks brought on the easier smiles, the rare bouts of affection?
But after taking one sip of Lucifer's awful drink at the banquet, she decided right there and then that she never wanted to find out. Its pungent bitterness tasted like regret mixed with battery acid. However, without any source of water to be found after nearly two desperate days of searching, alcohol is their only option.
Her parents called it an acquired taste — like how Bo didn't like vegetables until he was forced to stomach them down at the end of every meal, like how Min hated math until their parents made her do sheets on sheets of problems until she was good at it. With enough exposure, anything can be bearable, they said. You might even grow to like it.
It's what Ginseng tries to remind herself as she and Dottie take refuge in a small restaurant, staggering their way toward the back where the bottles are. They'd already done this song and dance this morning, forcing down swallow after swallow of the burning liquid to stave off their thirst. But over the course of hours, it's retaliated tenfold.
Ginseng can't decide whether the bird pee water would've been worse than this, after all. But maybe it's better they no longer have the opportunity to take their chances, because Ginseng vaguely remembers Bo telling her a story about someone drinking lake water and going crazy. It doesn't matter — at this point, the flamingo fountain is far behind, and honestly, Ginseng doesn't think she could trace her way back, even if she tried.
Clumsily, Ginseng darts behind the bar and throws open a cabinet, jamming her feet inside to use as a stepstool. Dottie makes herself useful by scrounging the bread baskets littered around the restaurant. Ginseng rummages around the top shelf for a bottleneck or two, trying to be more careful than before, but too dizzy to be truly worried about whether or not she's succeeding.
She grabs a hold of a couple of bottles. The words are right before her eyes, swimming in and out of focus. Whiskey — 40%. Tequila — 35%. Ginseng's learned the higher the percentage is, the worse it tastes. "Yucky," she grimaces, shoving those aside.
Her fingers wrap around the neck of another tall bottle. She's briefly mesmerized by the pretty gold color of the liquid, the sparkling bubbles trapped in the bottle. 12%. Not as bad. She squints at the label, unsure how to pronounce the name. "Cham-pag-nee?" she tries through her numb lips.
Dottie returns with a baguette nearly half her size, cradled in her arms. "I have dinner," she mumbles, blinking slowly.
Ginseng doesn't respond immediately, preoccupied as she blindly reaches into the far back of the shelf for the last bottle she can sort of make out. She nearly slips before managing to procure it — a rather wide, dark-glass bottle of cider.
7%. That's the lowest she's been able to find. Good.
She swings herself off the counter, almost toppling herself over with the movement. Her arms flail toward the open cabinet for support, heart racketing in her ribs. Ginseng's vision moves in stop-motion shots, like her eyes can't catch up to real life. Her brain feels like a pinwheel inside her skull.
Dottie grabs her arm with one hand, as if she means to steady her. But Ginseng can't tell who's steadying who right now. They slowly slump to the ground together, tucked away and obscured in the shadows of the bar.
It feels like flames are licking the walls of her throat, coating the insides of her veins. Ginseng looks at the cork of the bottle, deciding to shatter the neck against the floor rather than deal with popping it off. She doesn't think her shaking fingers could manage that strength or precision, anyway. The top of the bottle breaks off, leaving a jagged edge of glass teeth. Some of the liquid spills out, fizzing in between the cracks of the tile. The underside of her feet start to feel wet.
At the very least, Ginseng still has enough good sense to feel around for a cup instead of pressing her lips to the broken neck of the bottle. She finds two, and pours the cider out with as much coordination as she can manage.
"Toast?" Dottie asks when she's finished, holding one slippery cup in hand. In the dim light, her green eyes are as dull as beer glass.
"Okay," Ginseng says hoarsely, clinking her cup into Dottie's. "Toast."
She braces herself for the sting, but it doesn't come. The cider slips down her throat, only burning when it hits the pool at the bottom of her stomach. It's kind of like apple juice, but… punchier. Her mouth feels unpleasant with the lingering memories of the taste.
Apple juice… the thought of it makes her snort. Apple juice, the kind she drank at the school cafeteria. Apple juice, the kind that Artan gave her at the banquet.
She suddenly feels overcome with a frightening loss of inhibition. Giggles start to bubble out of her chest and she doesn't know why. They spill and spill and spill until she's falling forward, her head heavy as a dumbbell. Her face lands in a puddle with a quiet splat, and her world turns to static.
…
"Root girl," Dottie's voice slurs. Her breath smells sour. "Root girl, root to earth girl."
Ginseng groans. It feels like her heartbeat decided to make a home in her head — it pulses painfully, over and over and over. There's an uncomfortable fever in the back of her throat, the base of her belly. The lights overhead are too bright to look at. She feels both too tethered to her own body and not on this plane at all.
She squints before mustering just enough effort to look at the Eight girl, who's laying right beside her, their arms pressed together. She's looking back at Ginseng, but her eyes are even more dazed than usual.
"Doesn't this feel familiar?" Dottie whispers.
Ginseng blinks slowly. It does, she realizes. The revelation comes slowly. That night at the parades, so long ago. Heads pressed against the floor, staring at the impossibly bright lights. Closing her eyes and watching the floaters dance.
She lets her eyes flutter shut. But out of the inky darkness, amidst the shifting colors, something else comes.
Instead of floaters, all Ginseng can see are the faces of Yuly, Mavis, and Artan, hazy and haunting.
Reverie Berlusconi • District One Female
The Cromwell / July 9th, 11:37 PM
"Rev."
She exhales tightly through her nose. "What do you want?"
"Play some pool with me," the Two boy says.
"You're asking me?"
"There's no one else here, is there?"
There isn't. It's almost midnight, and unfortunately, she and Sergeant are the only ones on watch duty. The others are resting, split between the luxury suite's three bedrooms. From one, she can hear the sounds of obnoxious snoring — Fioynder, no doubt. There's nothing more she wants than to just march in and smother him to death with a pillow. It'd solve so many problems for her.
But she knows she'd never get away with it. There aren't any doors, into the suite or between the rooms. There's only one entrance and exit in the suite, and the open space makes it easy to alert the others if someone or something comes up on them.
Despite herself, Reverie finds her mind wandering back to playing cards with Sergeant during training. She has to admit it'd been… fun. He had a competitive edge to him that made dicking around enjoyable, and God knows there's nothing else to do right now.
Still, she's wary of Sergeant's abrupt olive branch, if that's even what this is. Things between them haven't been the same since he went apeshit on her after the bloodbath, for obvious reasons. And if she's being honest, she's been frustrated with him before that, too.
Is there really a point in going back to the way things were? Reverie knows where this is headed. She should accept that things can't be the same. It'll make it easier in the long run.
It's pool, though. Good, old-fashioned pool. She's bored out of her mind, and she can't remember the last time she played. Probably at some stupid dive bar lifetimes ago, with the band. Pandora. Kieran.
Aurelius.
"I call stripes!" Aurelius hollered, his eyes shining mirthfully. The red, exposed lights cancelled out the green of his irises. "Dibs on Reverie!"
Reverie just rolled her eyes, wanting to avoid another pointless argument. Especially not when her friends were wearing smiles brighter than the moon, riding the high of another sold-out concert. They crowded around an old, scratched-up pool table, well-loved by rowdy kids and older bar patrons before them. Countless metal posters and neon signs lined the walls, all boasting promotions for alcoholism.
Pandora laughed at Aurelius. "Oh, come on. That's hardly fair. What if I wanted Reverie on my team?"
Kieran turned to their drummer, mock-offended. "What, I'm not good enough for you?"
Reverie's face broke out into a grin as Pandora linked her arm through hers. "Do you really want me to answer that?" Pandora teased.
"I think you guys are scared to let us team up," Reverie said with a sly smile. "You know we'd wipe you both."
Aurelius scoffed. "Yeah, right."
"We've got the table for an hour," Kieran laughed. "Enough for two games, at the least. So let's do it this way first, and then put Rev's theory to the test."
After a few moments, the group came to an agreement. Kieran had always been good at that — finding a happy medium.
"I'm gonna grab a couple drinks from the bar before we start," Aurelius said. "Anyone want anything?"
Kieran asked for a club soda, Pandora an iced tea. Reverie declined.
Aurelius stalked off to the bar. Kieran went to the bathroom, and Pandora left to request a song from the jukebox. Reverie was alone for a few minutes, manning their table from the other people in the bar. She twisted sharply when she felt an alien pressure on her waist, baring her fist right toward—
"What the fuck, Aurie?" she cursed, stopping herself right before her knuckles made impact with his jaw. She roughly yanked his arm off of her. "What the fuck are you doing?"
He held out his hands in surrender, though the visual was difficult when both of his hands were full of drinks. "I'm just passing through. It's crowded here."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Not crowded enough."
"You've seriously gotta chill out, Rev," Aurelius drawled, with a slight huff of amusement. "I mean, we're not even in the Arena yet."
Reverie blinks, and suddenly she's back inside this quiet, quiet suite with Sergeant. No red lights, no jukebox music, no laughter. But the feeling of eyes on her skin still lingers.
(She knows she's not getting rid of those, not until she gets out of this Arena.)
"Sure," she says to Sergeant at last. "Let's play."
She and Sergeant make their way to the other side of the suite, where the large pool table is positioned in front of a large window that stretches from the ceiling to the floor. From here, Reverie can see every single studded, black-leather piece of furniture, all of the raunchy, boudoir pictures hanging on the wall. Some sleazy CEO's gross excuse for hotel decor. Did they really have to choose to stop at the Cromwell for the night, of all places?
Sergeant gathers the pool balls in the wooden triangle frame, the rainbow of colors rolling over the green felt. In one hand, he idly tosses the cue ball up in the air.
"Stripes or solids?" he asks.
"Solids."
Sergeant passes her a cue stick. She takes it from him wordlessly. He circles around back to the other side of the table, positioning the milky-white cue ball before the others. He leans over the table and rests the point of his stick in the divot between the edge of his pointer finger and his thumb. The movement is measured in its laidback confidence, with the ease of someone who's done this a million times.
But that only makes the slight, nearly imperceptible stiffness in his spine all the more noticeable to Reverie. Her eyes survey the smooth, vulnerable plane of his back as he bends — it unsettles her, how quickly her mind registers it as a perfect target to drive a knife or three. But she keeps her hands still, leaning her chin on the pool stick. She watches as Sergeant deftly launches the cue ball into the hoard with swift movement, sending the rainbow scattering all over the table. Two solids soar toward the side pockets, and a striped ball slips into one of the corners.
After scoring two more stripes, Sergeant wastes no time getting to business. "We need to start hunting," the Two boy tells her. "It's almost day three — we've already wasted enough time as it is. Who should I send out?"
It's interesting that he's asking for her opinion. She would've assumed he'd be done with including her in his strategies after what happened at the bloodbath. Either this is some sort of test, or he needs her more than he's willing to admit. Perhaps both.
Reverie gets close to the table, using the crook between her index and her thumb to level the stick as she sends the cue ball into a red solid. It beelines towards the corner hole, graceful and nearly magnetic.
"Kieran," she decides. "Because he wants a kill so badly."
"I was thinking the same thing." He watches as Reverie scores another solid, and another after that with two polished clacks. "All right. One more person. Who else?"
The options are rather limited from here. Smart Career alliances never let a pair of District partners alone on a hunt — it's a recipe for desertion. Not that Reverie would suggest herself, anyway. The concept of letting Fioynder go on a hunt is laughable, to say the very least. And as unfortunate it is to admit, Jupiter is out of the running — both as a contender for a hunt, and as a Victor. Those injuries are a death sentence.
Which only leaves one of the Twos.
"Cassia?" Reverie says, just to see how the boy will react.
Her eyes don't miss the sudden shrink of his diaphragm, the tight breath that escapes through his parted lips. "I don't think that's a good idea," he manages to say after getting another two points, keeping his voice a careful neutral. She's almost amused by the effort.
"Why's that?"
"She'd probably feel safer to be the one watching Jupiter," is the lackluster reasoning Sergeant comes up with after a grueling thirty seconds.
"I couldn't blame her," Reverie whispers. "Considering your track record with the safety of her friends."
Sergeant's cue stick jerks sharply, only managing to scratch the edge of the cue ball. It flies toward the side cushion, missing every other ball by a humiliatingly wide margin. Reverie swears she sees red flash through his eyes — only for a brief second, as Sergeant painstakingly reassembles his composure once more. There must be something he really wants, to control himself like this.
"Cassia stays here," he grits out.
Reverie shrugs. She scores a solid through a direct trajectory, and another through a powerful, measured bounce against the top and right side cushions. She ends her turn with just one solid and the jet-black eight ball left.
"You could go with Kieran," she suggests instead.
Sergeant laughs, but there's something dark about the sound. "And leave you alone with the others?"
It doesn't look like Sergeant's ready to forget what happened, after all. Good, she thinks with a stiff smile. She's not, either.
"Is there something wrong with that?" Reverie says, her voice sickly saccharine.
"You, with an outer-District, someone who's critically injured, and Cassia?" Sergeant whispers, incredulous. "Not a shot in hell."
Another stroke from Sergeant. It's violent, angry. She watches with slitted eyes as a striped ball flies across the table into the corner pocket. His last stripe inches tantalizingly close to a hole at the long end of the table. It only takes a small push from the point of his cue stick to coax it in. Sergeant, Reverie — it's 7 - 6.
"You don't trust me anymore," Reverie says simply. Not an accusation, but a fact.
He doesn't respond to this. Neither does he make any moves toward his final stroke — the eight ball lies placidly in wait, in no rush to end things so soon.
But Reverie's not nearly as patient. She knows the game will be over by the next round. If Sergeant misses this, Reverie will be too eager to clean this up. But she doesn't know when that'll be, when Sergeant will suck it up and take the damn shot. The Two boy always had the aggravating habit of delaying his own defeat — something she picked up on during their card games.
"Listen," Sergeant says slowly, carefully. It's such a fascinating departure from his easy boldness. "Let's just move on from the Seven thing."
This takes her aback, but she doesn't show it. A pleasant surprise — moving on means she'll get to cover her tracks for good, regarding Orion and Fioynder. But she'll be damned if she lets Sergeant get what he wants so easily. Especially when he's revealed such a blatant chink in his armor.
Reverie cocks an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"I won't bring it up again. Let's just leave it behind."
"That easy?" she murmurs. "After all of that, you're backing down?"
She gets her intended result. A flicker of tension in his jaw, his fingers clenching tightly over the body of his cue stick. "That's not what I said."
"Isn't it?" Reverie hums. "I'll give you an easier question. What's in it for me?"
"Is me tolerating your presence in my pack not enough?" Sergeant almost snarls.
Reverie just laughs, quiet enough for only Sergeant to hear. "No," she admits. "Not after how you talked to me at the bloodbath."
"I'm not going to apologize."
"I don't need you to," she whispers. "All I'm saying is that it's awfully rich of you to ask me for any sort of favor."
"What do I need to do?" Sergeant hisses through clenched teeth. "What do you want, Rev?!"
"Nothing you can give me," Reverie says, and that's completely honest. "So I suggest you stop tugging your leash, and pray to God you never give me a reason to say anything to Cassia."
The corners of his mouth hike up in a dangerous, delighted expression. "You're threatening me?" Sergeant says, his knuckles flexing around the shaft of the cue stick. It looks deadly in the Two boy's hands as he stands across the table, a shallow four feet away from her throat.
But she's undeterred. Reverie's killed before, armed with less. If it comes down to it, she'll know what to do.
"Am I?" she says wryly.
"You know damn well I can get rid of you right now," Sergeant whispers, jaw tightening. Reverie can tell it's taking every shred of effort to keep his voice down. "I can say you attacked me, and she'd believe me."
She doesn't need to say it for them to both know he's bluffing.
"I think someone would be very unhappy with you if you tried that," Reverie says instead.
"I think your little boyfriend might be glad, actually." Sergeant cocks an eyebrow. "Sorry — ex-boyfriend?"
Reverie presses her lips into a grim line. Sergeant doesn't even know what he thinks he knows — Kieran would, in fact, be very unhappy to be deprived of the opportunity to kill her. But more pressing issues are at hand. It rushes into her veins, this flood of sirens and paranoia.
"How do you know that?"
"Looks like it's true, then."
"He told you that, didn't he?" Reverie suppresses a frown, trying to gauge what else Sergeant could possibly know. She didn't realize they were close like that — they gave the exact opposite impression during pre-Games. But she should've known things could change, especially with how the aftermath panned out. What else have Sergeant and Kieran talked about? To what extent?
"It doesn't matter. What else have you been hiding from me?" Sergeant squints, as if trying to recall something. "What the hell did Fio mean the other day — when he said you killed the assigned volunteer?"
"Fioynder needs to get the facts straight. She hadn't been assigned yet," Reverie sneers. "And nothing's changed since what I told you that night. Accidents happen, and people die — it's not exactly a unique story anymore. Makes me wonder what nasty things you had to do to get here, hm?"
"I won my selection tournament fairly. I don't know how they run shit in your District, but in Two, it's fuckin' straight-forward and honest."
"Honest? Like the way you've been leading this pack?"
"You have no ground to stand on when it comes to honesty."
"I'm under zero obligation to tell you every minute detail of my life. I don't see how it's any of your business."
"I'm the leader," he growls. "You know damn well it's my business."
"How about this," Reverie says, shooting him the most withering, patronizing look she can muster. She's pleased by the way Sergeant tenses as she rounds the corner of the table, the way he takes a step back. "You get your nose out of my fucking ass, and I don't tell Cassia what you told me to do."
"It's what we agreed on," Sergeant spits, his pathetic excuse for a rebuttal. "It's on you, just as much as me."
"Not taking accountability isn't a very good look for a leader," Reverie murmurs with a smile. "I was only acting under your orders, Captain."
"You," Sergeant sputters, "you—"
"She'd never think of you the same way again, you know," she interjects lightly, just a decibel under her normal volume. If she spoke any louder, no doubt the others would hear, sleeping or not. "It would break her heart."
The livid flash in his eyes is the only warning she gets before he lashes out, pinning her wrist to the side railing of the pool table with enough force to bruise. The tip of his cue stick hovers right underneath the soft skin of her jaw, poised to pierce through her skull from below. But two can play at that game — her own cue stick, wrapped in her lithe fingers, is aimed right between his legs.
"I'll fucking kill you," Sergeant rasps. His breath is hot against her face, too familiar — it's enough to make her break into a sweat, but not from exertion.
"Just fucking try it," Reverie says with the most ferocious grin she can muster, but she's shaking. "I'll scream. I'll wake up this whole goddamn building. And this'll happen one of two ways — they wake up to you going Kai-mode on one of your beloved allies, or they can watch as I mortar-and-pestle your dick to baby bits."
A series of emotions flicker across the leader's face, but her heart is pounding too loudly in her ears for her to catch any of them. The air in this suite, in this dressing room, is getting too thin. She can't back up against the table, the wall. Earth-brown irises, the glint of emerald, white teeth behind pink lips—
Sergeant relinquishes his hold on her wrist. She jolts away from him, away from the table, refusing to look at the new purple stains, refusing to sever eye contact from the man across from her. Her breath runs ragged in her lungs, her pulse pounds like a jackrabbit's.
"Go on," she bites out, miraculously keeping the waver from her voice. Or maybe it's no miracle — her voice is the most trained thing in her body, after her hands. "Finish the fucking game, Sarge."
This game, this stupid, fucking game. Reverie doesn't care how this ends anymore. She has the upper hand in every way that matters. Sergeant can't do anything to her as long as she has this over his head. And he knows if he tries anything, anything at all, she can guarantee their mutual destruction.
Still, these thoughts only barely fight the waves of nausea rolling through her, this wicked cocktail of adrenaline and bile. Her body can't forget.
She can't tell if that's a blessing or a curse.
Taut as a wire, Sergeant takes his aim for his last shot. Reverie watches his face twist darkly as the cue ball slips in right after the black.
Scoreboard:
Kai: I
Delano: I
Dottie: I
Reverie: I
Sergeant: I
Lucifer: I
Cassia: I
Jupiter: I
Fioynder: I
Injuries:
Cassia: One large cut on the right arm. [Addressed.]
Sergeant: Multiple contusions, abrasions, and lacerations across the torso with possible internal damage. [Addressed.]
Jupiter: Bruise along the jaw. Knife slashes on the arms. Broken ankle. Deep stab wound in the abdomen, stitched. [Addressed.]
Ginseng: Alcohol poisoning.
Dottie: Alcohol poisoning.
Delano: Bruised tailbone and back. Contusion on the back of the head.
Falo: Varying puncture wounds on the right leg. [Addressed.]
Jillion: Multiple bruises across the body. Broken ribs. Localized hematoma on the side of the head. High likelihood of concussion. Immediate attention is required. [Deteriorating.]
Alliances:
Careers: Reverie, Kieran, Cassia, Sergeant, Jupiter, Fioynder
Littles: Ginseng, Dottie
"Truce": Lucifer, Emilio, Jillion
Dicks: Shaffa, Keesha, Delano
Ten: Falo, Asahel
Loners: Wisteria
Locations:
Luxor: Shaffa, Keesha, Delano
Mandalay Bay: Lucifer, Emilio, Jillion
Paris: Ginseng, Dottie
The Cromwell: Reverie, Kieran, Cassia, Sergeant, Jupiter, Fioynder
?: Falo, Asahel
?: Wisteria
a/n: i wanted to post this on december 4th (national dice day) but i did nawt clutch up :sob: :broken_heart: take this chapter on friday the 13th instead. Whatever.
thank you to ama for the initial looksies, and to logan and erik for beta-reading! :lovecat: i love you guys so much… let's get vegas married
today's title [ DEALING WITH DEVILS ] i'm fully aware is the name of some other person's syot but idgaf. you can interpret it like dealing cards, but also dealing with people or even vices. who or what are the devils in question? that all depends on your perspective!
upcoming: day 3.
deuces,
bing . com