Gently, Helena runs her fingers over the small bump where, mere hours ago, a woman in a lab coat injected her with a tracker. Her heartbeat pulses through it, a gentle, measured thrumming that synchronizes with her breathing.

There's no adrenaline coursing through her veins, not yet; no panic, no fear, no pain.

All she feels is an eerie sense of calm.

She's run through her plan for the next few hours, days, weeks so many times in her head that it's almost become background noise. The steps echo in Helena's mind, one after the other - run towards the Cornucopia, grab a pack and a weapon, run to the north to meet whichever allies survive, all the way until she can see herself seated on a plush red throne, a gilded crown resting on her head.

Her zen-like state is barely interrupted by the sound of her stylist entering her launch room, carrying a small package. "Are you ready to get dressed?"

Wordlessly, Helena nods. She allows him to help her put on her outfit: undergarments, a black tank top, black cargo pants, and a leather utility belt. Helena laces up a pair of black combat boots as her stylist turns to her hair: though her blonde hair only extends just past her chin, her stylist somehow manages to deftly weave it into two French braids.

Finally, he reaches into his pocket and takes out a chain with a gaudy pendant hanging from it. "Is that part of the outfit?"

"No," the stylist replies incredulously. "It's your token."

Helena can't help but scoff. "I didn't bring a token."

"It was with your things on the train. We figured-"

"I don't want it."

"Are you sure?"

"Completely."

(Helena doesn't need a gesture of hope or luck or any of that bullshit from anyone else. And she certainly doesn't need a necklace given to her by her mother, the woman who claimed to provide for all her daughter's needs but was never around for a hug or even the time of day.)

"Suit yourself," he says, sliding the pendant back into his pocket.

(The only person who is going to push Helena to Victory - the only person who will be with her when she wins in a few days' time - is Helena Nikolina herself.

Just as it's always been.)

A few more moments pass before a pleasant, sterile voice announces that it is time to prepare for launch. Helena doesn't waste a second; she stands from the couch on which she waited, takes one last sip of water, and strides over to the circular plate that rests idly in the corner of the room.

As she steps onto the plate, she feels the presence of her stylist close behind her. "I have one more thing," he says, as the lights in the room suddenly dim. She feels her stylist hook something onto her belt, but it barely weighs her down. He then places something directly into her ear; the sound around her is muffled for a brief second before Helena hears a brief crackling noise, and the volume of the room returns to normal.

Questions flood into Helena's mind, but before she can even figure out which one to ask first, a glass cylinder lowers around her, separating Helena from the only person who might have answers.

The plate beneath her feet begins to rise. Helena finds herself surrounded by darkness for just enough time to make her heart beat a little faster. She curses under her breath, hopeful that she can keep her thoughts tamped down for a few moments more.

Helena will have plenty of time to figure out what these things are for once she survives the Bloodbath.

Soon enough, the darkness gives way to a warm, orangey-yellow light. Helena watches as a large, concrete basin forms around her, its walls extending at least fifty feet upwards, probably more. It's hard to tell from the bottom of the basin whether sky or ceiling hangs above, but the staleness of the air leads Helena to believe that at least this part of the Arena has remained closed off for quite some time.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, let the 115th Annual Hunger Games begin!"

Helena narrows her focus to the area around her. The first thing she notices is that she did not, in fact, launch at the bottom of the basin. Instead, the tributes stand on a ring of concrete that sticks out from the basin's wall, about five feet above the Cornucopia. Positioned around the circle are four ladders that lead upwards into a maze of catwalks and scaffolding, with small platforms of metal extending here and there over the basin below.

She doesn't bother searching for her ally; whether they live or die in the next ten minutes is nowhere near Helena's problem. Instead, she focuses her attention on finding the best way out. But no matter how many times her eyes scan the area, she can't seem to pick anything out of the maze of metal.

Her perspective may be skewed, being so far down below the surface. But from where she sits, the only sure way out seems to be up.

As that realization hits, Helena feels the ground rumble. She looks down just as the concrete ring crumbles to dust, revealing that her plate rests not on cement but on a metal catwalk of its own. Four more ladders also appear, a way to reach the Cornucopia below without jumping five feet down - and also the only way back up.

Helena glances at the number above the Cornucopia:

10.

Her stomach drops. No time to think. Her plan won't work. She has to put her survival first.

So when the gong sounds, Helena takes off for the nearest ladder. She scrambles upward as quickly as she can, away from any chance at supplies - all to guarantee her life.

After all, no plan is more important than her plan to stay alive.

(And with her out of the way, her ally has nobody to protect him.)

Fortunately or unfortunately - Helena can't quite tell which - Helena's ally survives the bloodbath.

Blitz - Helena reluctantly remembers the Capitol boy's name now - eagerly fills Helena in on every single detail of how he found her. Helena pays attention to absolutely none of them. Too lively does not even begin to describe Blitz; he seems to have more energy than Five can produce in a day.

Helena knows she should be grateful that he's still alive; he, his supplies, and his sponsor wallet are still comfortably under her grasp. But the constant, incessant noise just makes Blitz feel more and more like dead weight. With how loud the boy is, surely the entire Arena knows exactly where she and her partner are. Even Helena's patented "smile and nod but don't pay attention" technique can't block Blitz's blathering out, wasting energy that Helena could be putting towards figuring out what fuck her earpiece and pouch are for.

But when eleven cannons fire in quick succession, Helena is swiftly able to drag Blitz's conversation back to the bloodbath. And she's pleasantly surprised to find that there are nuggets of useful information hidden in the bullshit that surrounds them.

"See, I was facing pretty close to straight on to the Cornucopia," Blitz describes. "And from where I stood, all I could see inside were bows and arrows and crossbows and darts. I bet there were other weapons somewhere or another, but there were racks and racks of arrow quivers."

"Did you see what the Core Alliance did with them?"

"Not directly. But I heard it as we climbed. There were so many arrows firing, I had no idea how they could reload that fast."

An alarm bell goes off in Helena's mind. Not once in training did she see either One tribute so much as look at the archery station. Part of her wonders if they even told the Twos about that skill of theirs, given the fights that broke out in training.

But if that is true, if they did want to keep their greatest strength away from their strongest allies… why?

And what would they do if an Outer District tribute knew about the skill they were trying to keep hidden?

(At least Helena has someone she can throw under the bus.)

She decides to put the question to the side for a moment. Helena is not going to be able to think in any meaningful way until she can get some peace and quiet, and by this point, Blitz is already off on some other tangent.

As the sound of his voice washes over her, Helena can't help but wonder if Blitz realizes just how much he might be able to figure out from the one detail he noticed. He's clearly more observant than Kedara - the lowest of bars - but he doesn't seem at all interested in strategizing or making connections with that information, or even just keeping it to himself. It's as if he's perfectly content to take the world at face value, unafraid of anything others might be hiding from him - or anything he could stand to lose.

And what a goddamn privilege that must be for him.

By the third night of the Games, Helena feels like she's losing her mind.

First of all, this Arena is basically unnavigable. Though the square footage of the arena is not so big, there has to be at least thirty total miles of overlapping catwalk weaving around, above, and below itself, stretching up as far as Helena's eye can see. There's very little to distinguish any one turn from any other, making it impossible for Helena to know where in the Arena she and Blitz have already traveled.

Granted, there are a few landmarks to break up the metallic monotony. Other than the Cornucopia, Helena has spotted two other basin-like structures sunk into the floor of the Arena. The two are nearly identical, only distinguishable from each other by the color of their concrete floors: the one they spotted first is pink, while the one they now find themselves encircling is blue.

Admittedly, Helena's not sure why these basins are here. The walls around them are so high that it would be challenging, at best, to navigate down to its floor or back out by catwalk. Nothing seems to be waiting at the bottom of the basins, either, and while it seems like each basin has multiple escape routes, the more athletic tribute would probably win the race toward their combatant every time.

And that's the second problem. Both of her biggest threats - the Core alliance and Kedara's alliance - have a significant physical leg up on Helena and Blitz. Granted, that was by design; Helena was relying on being able to use the information she's been gathering since the moment she was reaped to secure an upper hand that they wouldn't be able to contend with. But now, her plan has entirely blown up in her face. She has so much information saved up for this very purpose, all of which is useless because the Arena is too big and windy to find any other fucking tributes.

In other words, all of the work she's done to prepare for the Games has thus far given her zero advantage.

Even worse, as far as Helena's concerned, is that there is information hidden somewhere in the Arena that would give her an advantage. There is no way the Gamemakers would set up an Arena like this without providing a key for how to navigate it, whether a map or a tracker or something - a key that Helena doesn't have. The Gamemakers also wouldn't have given every tribute a pouch and an earpiece if they didn't have some sort of use, didn't serve some sort of purpose or mechanic in the Arena - but Helena has no way to figure out what it is.

With every aimless step she takes, Helena grows more and more frustrated. Never has she been in a position where information was clearly available but entirely inaccessible to her. And yet here she is, in the moment where she needs intel the most, with zero idea where to find it - or even who might have it.

(Helena has to assume that the Gamemakers intended for the information to fall into the hands of those they tend to protect: the Core District tributes. They're the Capitol's pets, after all, the long-revered saviors of Panem. And while it's not a guarantee in a normal year that the odds would be stacked in their favor, this year, Helena is sure that the Capitolite viewers are not-so-secretly hoping that the finale will come down to the Core District alliance once more.

Even so… Helena can't imagine the Ones or the Twos have noticed any clues the Gamemakers left for them; more likely than not, they're too focused on each other to pay attention to anything beyond their competition. And if they somehow found those clues, Helena can't imagine that either pair willing to work with the other to decode them, to find the secrets they protect. The question is, really, if the Capitol girl is sharp enough to figure them out on her own.)

(Helena hopes she isn't.)

(At least Helena's sure that Kedara's oblivious ass doesn't have any clues than she does. Kedara wouldn't know a clue if it tapped her on the shoulder and called her name.)

"Hey, Helena?"

A tap on her shoulder breaks Helena out of her thoughts. She freezes in her tracks as her eyes land on Blitz, eyes wide. "What's up?"

"Do you see that figure down there? I think it's another tribute."

Helena peers over the edge of the catwalk into the blue-floored basin below. Though she's at least seventy or eighty feet above the floor of the basin - probably more - she's able to make out the shape of a tribute, facing away from where Helena's standing. From what Helena can see, they just seem to be loitering near the edge of the basin, directly between two ladders - clearly, he's more interested in whatever he's facing than how easy it might be for him to escape.

"Any idea what he's doing?" Blitz whispers.

Helena observes for a moment. "I'd have a guess or two," she replies, "but we're too far away to see clearly. We'd have to get closer, and I'm not sure I want to be a sitting duck down in that basin."

"We didn't get any binoculars or anything like that with our supplies, did we?" asks Blitz.

"I barely picked up any supplies," Helena retorts, "So unless you have a pair stuffed deep into your pack, no, we don't have any binoculars."

As if on cue, a chime sounds from above. Helena and Blitz look up to find a drone maneuvering towards them, carrying a silver canister below it. It drops the canister into Blitz's outstretched arms; as the drone flies away, Blitz twists open the canister, his eyes sparkling as he offers Helena its contents.

"Did someone order a pair of binoculars?"

Without missing a beat, Helena snatches the binoculars from Blitz's hands and focuses them on the figure at the bottom of the basin. She watches as the tribute bangs his fist against the wall once, twice, three times - and nothing happens. With a huff, the tribute slams both palms into the wall, kicks it, and then storms off to the nearest ladder.

"He's leaving now."

"I see that, Blitz."

"I wonder why he was so upset at the wall."

Helena stifles the urge to bury her face in her hands. "I don't think it was the wall itself. Either he was upset about something else, or…"

"Or what?"

"Let me think."

Zooming the binoculars in, Helena carefully scans the area around where the tribute was. It takes a moment, but her eyes finally land on something that makes Helena's information sensors tingle, more than they have in a long while.

"Let's go."

"Where?" Blitz asks.

"The bottom of the basin."

~.~.~

Gently, Helena runs her hand along the narrow crack in the pale blue wall. "There has to be another one," she murmurs.

"Why do you say that?" asks Blitz.

"The crack is too straight. It's not, like, a natural crack in the concrete. It was put here on purpose. Which means something has to be able to happen to this wall."

"Like what?"

Helena doesn't answer. She steps backwards, her eyes following the crack up, then over a few feet to the left, and then down again, until it reaches the floor once more.

"Like a door."

Blitz cocks his head. "You think we should be able to get in here?"

"Why else do you think that other kid spent so much time here? He was probably trying to find a way in."

"Well, I don't see a doorknob. Or a lock."

And Helena doesn't either; the wall of the basin is as flat as, well, as a wall should be. There has to be something here that'll let them in - Helena just can't imagine it'll be easy for a non-Core tribute to figure out.

(In a normal circumstance, this is the sort of observation Helena would rather keep to herself. But even she has to admit how sharp Blitz's eyes are.)

"Why don't we work together? You start scanning from the top and I'll start scanning from the bottom, and we'll see if we spot anything that strikes us as odd."

"You mean like this?" Blitz replies, pointing to a small circle carved into the wall. "That's probably something."

"Yeah, exactly like that. Nice job."

"What do you think we're supposed to do with it?"

Stepping towards Blitz, Helena examines the circle. As she moves her head to its left and to its right, she notices that the area inside the circle has a slight sheen. It reminds her of some of the sensors inside Five's apartment in the Tribute Tower.

(And then it hits her, so plainly that Helena can't believe she didn't realize sooner. Blitz may not be in the traditional Core District alliance, but he is still a Core District tribute. If Helena is right - if there is information hidden in this Arena for the tributes to find, and if the Gamemakers want the Core tributes to find it, and if that information is sitting behind this door - there must be a way for Blitz to get inside.

And once Blitz is inside, Helena can get to work.)

"Hey, Blitz."

"Yeah?"

"Can you come try something for me?"

"What's up?"

"Put your finger here."

But before Blitz can even take one step closer, the ground beneath their feet begins to rumble.

It's a gentle rumbling, one that can barely be heard or felt. But Helena still instinctively throws her body behind Blitz. The last thing she needs is to be the first line of defense against an avalanche. But before long, the rumbling stops just as abruptly as it began, and she hears a breath catch in Blitz's throat.

Helena peeks around Blitz's body to find that a whole section of the wall has swung inwards, revealing a dimly lit tunnel behind it.

A grin spreads across her face before Helena can do anything to stop it. She's about to take off into the passage when Blitz inhales sharply. "Do you see that?"

"Hm?"

"It looks like another tribute."

It takes Helena a moment to make out the figure, shadowed by the dim lighting of the tunnel. As she searches for another tribute's silhouette, Helena backs up slowly, knife drawn from her pack and held in front of her. Blitz, on the other hand, rushes forward, seemingly without a care for whoever this might be - a death wish from the person who noticed the figure in the first place.

Helena is just about to turn and run, leaving Blitz to the fate he volunteered for…

Until she finally realizes who the other tribute is.