raised for the slaughter

by toboddly

Summary:

It's year seventy-three of the Hunger Games. The Tracy family are just about keeping afloat, as they have been ever since the death of Jeff Tracy, but Scott wakes on the morning of Reaping Day with a sinking feeling in his gut. Then two slips of of paper are drawn that change the family's life forever. All he can hope for is that the odds will stay in his favour. Then again, given how the Tracy family luck has been going, he doesn't have much hope.

Chapter 1: i. reaping

Blearily, Scott peels his eyes open. For a moment he forgets what day it is, and for a moment he lies there, blissfully unaware. Then his brain catches up with his body.

Reaping Day.

He wishes he was still asleep.

The room is still just about dark, silvery light of the moments before sunrise casting unearthly shadows across the walls. It must be before six - only the earliest of risers will be awake today, as no one in the district is expected to work for once - but Scott knows that there is no point trying to get another hour or so of sleep, no matter how much he may need it. Instead he rises, carefully tucking the sheets back around his little brother. Strictly speaking, Alan shares a bed with Virgil, but more often than not he finds his way into Scott’s bed at some point during the night. It seems to help him with the nightmares.

Scott changes quickly and quietly, careful not to disturb his brothers as they sleep. Virgil is in the bed opposite to his. His hand is thrown across his face in an unconscious attempt to keep the dim light off his eyes and let him stay asleep for a few more precious minutes. Scott doesn’t begrudge him the rest. Honestly, he’d much prefer to be asleep himself. But nerves have gotten the best of him, and so he leaves him and Alan in their bedroom and creeps down the stairs.

Reaping Day seems to get worse every year. If he’s honest, it was almost a blessing the first time; the grain and oil he received for signing up for the tesserae had quite literally saved all their lives. But each year means more names in the bowl, more of a chance that he might actually end up being chosen.

It also means more of his brothers are eligible for the Reaping right alongside him. That terrifies Scott more than anything.

This year - his fifth - his name will be in that glass bowl forty-two times. Forty-two. One more name each year, on top of the six tesserae he takes for his brothers, his grandmother, and himself. Nine isn’t exactly the largest district. It isn’t improbable that his name could be on the slip of paper Clodia reads out on that stage. All the same, he doesn’t regret taking the tesserae. John had offered to split the responsibility between them as soon as he’d turned twelve himself, but Scott adamantly refused. Same with Virgil and Gordon once they were eligible too. Alan hadn’t even bothered to argue this year when Scott had turned his offer down.

The first floor of their little house is just as dimly lit as the second, but he can still make out the peeling wallpaper and dingy, rickety furniture. Once, the place had been… not beautiful, exactly. But nice. Warm. Homey. Even though their father had moved into the Victor’s Village just before marrying their mother, he insisted on doing up the old family farmhouse which remained in his name with a portion of his winnings. For the kids, he’d said - at least that’s what Scott’s grandma had told him – because they’d only be allowed to stay there whilst Jeff was still alive. It was a rickety old building and there was only so much Jeff could do even with his winnings, but he’d done his best to make it pleasant, spending weeks doing all of the work himself with the supplies he’d bought. Their father had likely not expected them to need the house so soon, but that was life, wasn’t it? Unpredictable. Cruel. And over time, the house had decayed, their minimal funds all going towards food and clothes (who knew kids could grow so fast?) rather than towards fixing the dodgy leg on the armchair or the broken slats on one of the beds.

Maybe Scott should be ashamed, embarrassed, that his kid brothers are growing up in a place like this, so far removed from the mansion that he’d spent his first years running around in. He does feel some guilt. But he’s kept them all alive, though, hasn’t he? 

Isn’t that enough?

He knows it’s not enough. Not always. But it’s the best he can do.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Scott jumps probably about three feet in the air. He’s on edge, and the sudden voice from the shadows alarms him more than he cares to admit.

“Fuck, John. Give a guy some warning, why don’t you?”

“Sorry.” There’s a grin in his brother’s voice. He’s not that sorry. Scott gives in, and slumps down in the chair opposite John.

“It’s early. What’re you doing up?”

John eyes him, stray strands of ginger hair falling across his face. He looks like he’s been awake for a while already; he has a habit of being awake at the strangest hours, even without the anxiety of Reaping Day interrupting his sleep. “I could ask you the same question.”

Scott half-shrugs. “Woke up, couldn’t get back to sleep. I’m gonna head out and see if there’s anything going.” He traces the wood grain of the table with his finger.

“You’re not going to have much luck,” John says, raising an eyebrow. “Even if it wasn’t Reaping Day, most people aren’t awake at this hour anyway.”

He has a point. Scott sighs, leaning back in his chair. The wooden frame digs into his back. “I know. I might as well try though - could be the last time I get to do my rounds, ever. Would be a shame to miss the opportunity.”

It’s a pretty dark joke (feeble too, to be honest), and unfortunately John doesn’t seem to find it very funny. “Don’t say that,” he says reproachfully. “You’ll be fine.”

“Yeah. Sure.” His voice isn’t the most convincing.

They sit there in silence for a moment. Scott’s thoughts wander off unbidden yet again into all the possibilities the day brings. Stages, glass bowls, Clodia Floride and her garish fashions. Only six hours or so left. Forty-two slips of paper with his name on them. He wonders what they look like. Are they printed in that same font the Capitol uses for the vast majority of the text on their posters? Are they written in cursive? Does some Capitol lackey sit and hand-write every name? He almost laughs. As if it matters what font the death sentence of two kids is printed in.

“I wish you’d let us sign up for tesserae.”

John sounds so quiet, so hurt - so unlike his usual witty self - that it takes Scott a full second to process what he’s just said. He can just about make out his brother’s blue eyes in the darkness, fixed on his lap rather than on Scott’s face.

“You know how I feel about that.”

“Yeah, I know.” John twists his hands together. It’s something he’s done since he was a tiny kid, and it invariably makes Scott want to reach out and take John’s hands in his own - to reassure him in whatever way he can. But the table is in the way, so he stays where he is. “I just- the whole thing’s chance, and we’d all have a better chance if we split the tesserae between us. Even if it was just you and me signing up.”

“It wouldn’t be all of us who had a better chance,” Scott says gently. “Just me. And I - I couldn’t forgive myself, if anything happened. To any of you.”

John nods, giving a tiny smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Worth a try, I guess.”

“I’ll let you and the others sign up for tesserae once I’m too old and not a day before,” Scott says. “Not Alan and Gordon, not yet, they’re too young. And I’m gonna do my damn best to make sure you won’t need to at all.” Being too old to sign up for tesserae means he will be old enough to work full-time. More work means more money. Probably not enough to fully support all of them, because eight mouths is a lot, even with three of them working. It doesn’t mean he won’t try to do everything he can to keep his siblings’ names out of that bowl. One more slip per year is one too many for him.

“I think I’m still gonna head out, just in case.” Scott stands up abruptly, the chair scraping against the bare floorboards.

John makes to get up too, hands braced against the table. “You want company?”

“I think I- no, I’m alright.” He waves him off. “I just need some fresh air.”

John gets the message. He sits back down, relenting. “At least take something to eat on the way.” His blue eyes are piercing.

“Fine.” Scott shoots him a look as he rifles through the kitchen. There’s not much left (he really does need to find work this morning, they need to find something for dinner) so he settles for a hunk of bread, shoved at the back of the cupboard and already stale as a result, before grabbing his bag from where he’d abandoned it on the floor and his father’s old jacket from its place on the hook next to the front door. John waves him a quick goodbye as he ducks out of the house.

District 9 is vast, and it’s pretty easy to tell from the sight that always greets him outside the door. Vast fields of grain stretch out into the distance, rippling in the wind just like how Scott has always imagined the waves on the ocean do. In winter the fields are barren and brown, but now it’s nearly harvest season the landscape is golden with countless stalks of rye: their family’s speciality. In places the landscape is broken up by borders of trees that mark boundary lines between fields, providing soil stability, managing weed growth, and helping the rye grow much better than if they simply had acres of endless grain fields. There is genuine science behind it that everyone in the district is taught, but Scott’s never been one for paying particularly close attention in school. All he really needs to know is how to plant and grow and harvest. Science has always been more John’s thing.

Because there are so few people compared to the amount of land, there aren’t a lot of big settlements like Scott’s heard they have in some of the other districts. His world consists of the small town he moved back to aged ten, its few streets of houses and scattering of shops. The next town is at least ten miles over, and aside from walking the only way to get there is on the wagon that clatters there and back twice a week. Supplies from other districts do come through every now and again, but hitchhiking on Capitol vehicles is illegal and viciously enforced, so people tend to just walk.

Scott knocks on old Marley’s door first. No answer. He waits a good minute or two just in case, but eventually concedes defeat and moves on. 

He does this every day at around four, just after school finishes, and sometimes in the morning when he has the time. Goes round the neighbours’ houses, checking to see if they have anything they need help with. Often he’ll have goods to trade as well: clothes that Grandma Tracy has knitted with the yarn John gets from the house across the road; items Kyrano has whittled when he’s too ill to work in the fields; small animals that Kayo has killed in the forests (although those are more rare, as it’s ridiculously risky to hunt and they eat most of what little she catches). At first he was doing a lot of the odd jobs for free, or ridiculously low prices, but very soon people insisted on paying him back well for his services. Scott always felt a little guilty about accepting things from everyone he helped, but the memory of Alan and Gordon’s pinched faces in those months after the last of Dad’s savings dried out always reminded him that he had a responsibility. A duty of care.

Grist’s house is next. She answers the door very quickly, haggard expression quickly melting away as she realises who’s standing at her door. “Scott,” she says warmly, opening the door wider. “Would you like to come in?”

“Sure,” he replies after a second, hesitantly stepping over the threshold. He supposes he might as well get down to business. "Anything you need help with?"

"I’ve got an old dresser that I need a hand getting outside," Grist tells him. "It's falling to pieces, no use to anyone except as firewood." Scott nods, and she gestures for him to follow her upstairs. It’s not too heavy - easily manageable between the two of them - and they’ve soon gotten it out into the garden.

Grist bustles around her tiny kitchen as Scott chops up the dresser outside. It’s the height of summer and so no one really needs to light fires for warmth around this time of year, but they still need to cook meals and firewood can be incredibly expensive. Hopefully the fuel will last her and her kids for a week or so at least.

Grist is retrieving two mugs from the kitchen cupboards as he makes his way back inside. Evidently, she’s making him some kind of tea. It’s not their usual routine, but things are usually different on Reaping Days. She holds out a mug to him, steam curling upwards from the heat of the liquid. He accepts gratefully. It’s a mild flavour; lightly sweet, and comforting in a way he can’t quite place. Scott sips it slowly to savour the taste. Grist gives him a package - from the looks of it, it’s a decently sized loaf of bread, which Scott thanks her ardently for - and he reaches for his bag to put it away safely. He’d kicked it under the kitchen table where it would be out of the way, so he sets his mug down and leans down. As he puts the loaf away, he remembers the other errand he had to run.

“Before I forget - Grandma made something for Buck,” he says. Buck is her youngest. He’s five years old, but he’s a titchy thing; most people guess he’s around three.

Grist looks at him inquisitively. “She got her hands on some decent fabric recently, so she’s been doing some sewing.” Scott’s hands brush against something soft and squishy buried right at the bottom of the bag; he tugs it free, holding it out to her. A stuffed bunny, floppy-eared and bright-eyed.

A smile tugs at Grist’s lips for the first time today, but she hesitates in taking the bunny from Scott’s hands. “How much?”

Scott shakes his head. “No charge. It’s a present.” Grandma had been working non-stop to make sure they had enough to sell to justify giving something like this away for free; she’d been determined to give it as a gift. Kids need nice things, she’d said. He stretches out his arm to drop the bunny into her hands. Grist cradles it as if it’s incredibly precious. In a way, Scott supposes it is.

“Thank you,” she says quietly, each word brimming with emotion. “Buck will love it.”

“I’m glad,” Scott smiles back. 

Tea finished, he stands, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “I think I’d better be going, though. Thank you so much for the tea.”“You’re welcome.” He’s almost at the door when she calls his name. “Scott?”

“Yes?”

She crosses the kitchen to stand in front of him. Her eyes search his face for a few seconds, something indescribable in her gaze. Then she raises her three fingers to her lips and rests it on his shoulder, bringing their foreheads together.

For a moment, his thoughts freeze. It’s nothing unusual, really; the gesture is a traditional greeting amongst many of the districts, a token of affection towards someone. It’s not necessarily romantic, just an expression of closeness. But it takes him off-guard. Scott hadn’t realised that Grist had cared about him enough to show it like that.

Her hand rests on his cheek for a moment, and then she pulls him into a brief hug. “Good luck for today.”

“Thanks. And…I hope things go okay for you today too.”

She steps back. Nods.

Insides twisting, he shuts the door behind him.

 

---

 

Because of the Reaping, all work and school is cancelled for the day. It means that pretty much everyone is at home, so as the morning progresses there are quite a few people that have odd jobs for Scott. It’s around nine in the morning when he heads back home again.

"Hi," he says to no one in particular as he enters. Kyrano looks up momentarily from his whittling, eyes crinkling in a small smile. 

"Hello, Scott," he replies, returning to his work. He seems to be carving some kind of small animal out of a tiny piece of wood. "Have you eaten yet?"

"Yeah, I had something before I left earlier." He glances around the room. "Is anyone else here?"

"Tanusha and Gordon went out for a walk, I believe. Your other brothers and Mrs Tracy are upstairs."

"Okay. Thanks."

The stairs creak loudly under his feet. The door to his, Virgil's and Alan's room creaks too as he pushes it open; Scott briefly wishes that he had something to oil the hinges with. His brothers' heads turn at the sound. Alan immediately barrels across the room, hugging him tightly around the waist. 

"Morning," Virgil greets him, fingers pausing in their buttoning of his shirt. Scott recognises it; it's the one he wore to last year's Reaping. Strictly speaking, John is older than Virgil - and therefore should be the recipient of Scott's old stuff - but Virgil's grown a lot in the past year. Even though he's two years younger than Scott, his shoulders are just as broad. John has remained decidedly spindly. "You ready for today?"

"Not really," Scott admits, ruffling Alan's hair. The kid's hands clutch onto his jacket. "But it'll be fine. We'll be okay."

The cynical look Virgil gives him stings, but Scott gestures wordlessly at Alan, still clinging to him, and Virgil nods. "Course we'll be okay," he says, more confidently than Scott probably could. "We're us."

"Are you sure?" Alan whispers. Scott pulls back, cups his kid brother's face in his hand. Blue eyes blink back up at him, dirty blonde hair messy and unkempt. Scott spontaneously reaches up and combs his other hands through Alan's hair.

"I'm sure. Nothing's gonna happen to you, Allie, I swear. Besides, your name's only in there once."

"Everyone else's isn't." Alan looks so tiny, curled in on himself as if making himself appear smaller will somehow protect him from today. Scott hates every single person who has made him feel like this. Anger bubbles in his chest, sparking in his fingers. He squashes it down.

"There are loads of other people's names in there too, you know that. It could easily be one of them. We'll be fine, okay?"

Alan nods jerkily.

Scott takes a step back. His hands stay on Alan's shoulders. "Look at you. You look so smart, kid."

He remembers wearing that outfit his very first Reaping. A light blue short-sleeved shirt and cream trousers, neither of them stained from days in relentless sun spent working hard in the fields. All five of them had worn it now. If Alan grew over the next year, he could finally sell it on to someone else. Scott does up the top button, brushes Alan's hair out of his eyes, and tries not to cry.

Below them, a door slams. Someone thuds up the stairs - from the volume of the footsteps it could only be Gordon - but he passes by, headed instead for his own room. Another set of footsteps follow at a much more sedate pace. Kayo nudges the door open, hovering on the threshold. "The train's leaving in twenty minutes," she informs them, her voice quiet. "Grandma wants everyone downstairs in ten."

"Thanks, Kay," Virgil says. "We'll be there soon." She nods, disappearing from sight. Virgil turns to Scott. "You'd better get dressed. Alan and I'll head down."

Then they're gone, and Scott's left staring at the outfit laid out on his bed. There's nothing else he can do now but hope.

 

---

 

Because Nine is such a massive district, it's physically impossible for some people to reach the Justice Building on foot. Instead, the outlying towns and settlements are given a designated timeslot by when they must be at their nearest train station, and those eligible for the Reaping are signed in then. Peacekeepers usually do a final sweep of the villages to make sure no one is left behind. It wouldn't do to have anyone showing up the Capitol with their absence on a day like this.

Alan's extremely brave when the officer beckons him forward to take the blood. His face doesn't so much as twitch as the needle pricks his finger. Scott wishes he could push through the crowd and hug him right there and then. He settles for a reassuring smile as Alan glances back.

There aren't too many kids that live in their area, so they're all on board quickly. Scott sinks down onto the wooden bench next to John as the train jolts, signifying their setting off.

It's a quiet journey. No one really dares to speak. Scott finds himself staring blankly at the same spot on the wall that he stares at each year. There’s straw littering the floor as usual, and the wooden benches are not bolted down, creaking from side to side with the train’s movement. The distinct odour of animal permeates the air; Scott guesses that these trains are normally used as cattle transport.

Alan tucks himself into Scott’s side without a word. Across from them, Virgil and Gordon's hands are intertwined, holding each other so tightly that all the blood has drained from their skin. Kayo has scrunched herself up into a ball in the corner. Her chin rests on her knees as she, too, stares off into the distance. The train carriage doesn’t have windows, but Scott can imagine the endless fields passing them by outside.

He blinks and suddenly the train is slowing, wheels screeching to a halt on the tracks. The door is opened by a burly Peacekeeper - an unfamiliar face, not one of the ones from home - and they all file out in silence. He squints at the bright sunlight, blinding after so long in a dim carriage.

Usually, their train is one of the last to arrive. Most of the district is already assembled in roped-off clusters in front of the Justice Building: boys on one side, girls on the other, in ascending order of age. Twelve-year-olds at the front, eighteen-year-olds at the back. It means Scott is almost as far away from Alan as he could possibly be. Luckily, though, he manages to find a place to stand along the rope between the seventeen- and sixteen-year-olds, and John offers him a small smile as the mayor ascends the stage and begins the readings.

It’s followed all the usual stuff. Panem’s history, the uprisings, the victory of the Capitol over the districts and the annihilation of the last surviving rebels. District 13. It’s been almost three quarters of a century, but the ruins are still smoking in the background whenever the Capitol reporters visit. Scott’s perfected the art of tuning this all out by now. His hands are getting clammy.

His gaze instead wanders, settling on one of the other figures on the stage. District 9’s only surviving victor. Once upon a time, his father had stood up there, watching over the Reapings before taking the tributes under his wing as their mentor in a last-ditch attempt to save them from meeting brutal ends in the arena. In all his years, he’d only ever managed to succeed at saving one tribute. Penelope Creighton-Ward. Hers was the last Games he’d ever mentored, around seven months before his accident.

Scott forcibly brings his mind back to the present, shifting from one foot to the other. On stage, Penelope sits on the chair provided, hands in her lap and ankles neatly crossed: the epitome of grace. Judging from her name, she must have been from the richer area of the district. Not that it did her any good. No matter how many tesserae she signed up for - if any - her name was still pulled from the bowl, and no one volunteered to save her. She’d seemed nice enough during the few brief months when they’d been neighbours in the Victors’ Village, and his father had seemed very fond of her. But that was before. Penelope had ignored them completely after the accident, not offering them any help at all despite the considerable winnings she received as a victor. She didn’t even bother to keep in touch. Scott has never quite forgiven her for any of it.

The mayor has finally finished. Clodia sashays up to the podium, tapping the mic and sending a crackle of feedback rolling around the square - as if the microphone would have stopped working in the twenty seconds it took her to get there. "Finally, we may begin! Happy Hunger Games, everyone!" Clodia chirps. Her emerald green hair glints unnaturally in the sunlight. Scott raises an eyebrow at John and mouths along to her next words. "And may the odds be ever in your favour. As always, ladies first."

Her heels click on the stone stage as she walks slowly over to the glass bowl that contains the names of every eligible girl in the district. There seem to be an impressive amount, but Scott knows they aren't indicative of 9's large population; their district is one of the smallest, despite its massive land mass. Almost every family with eligible children he knows has taken out tesserae. These are the slips that add to the sheer volume of paper in the bowl.

Clodia's taloned fingers rummage around casually, finally grasping a single paper slip and drawing it out. She taps her way back over to the microphone. The rustling of the paper as she unfolds it echoes around the square.

"Tanusha Kyrano!"

Notes:

surprise!!!! this is the new thing that i've only been going on about for uh-- two years now? oops... but i've gotten a lot of this written already, and i'm super excited to actually be able to keep on top of a project for once!! the hunger games and thunderbirds are two things i've loved for years and years and i'm properly excited to combine the two, especially since it means i get to explore areas of the hunger games universe that aren't touched on as much in the books/movies.

i hope you all enjoy this series as much a i'm enjoying writing it, and i hope you all have a wonderful day/night!

Chapter 2: ii. tributes

Notes:

hello! where i am it's technically friday but because ao3 is down for maintenance i thought i'd upload this a tad early :3 enjoy!

Scott stares.

For a moment, he doesn't fully register the name. His brain refuses to process it. And then Kayo is stepping out of the crowd of fourteen-year-olds flanked by Peacekeepers, her hair in a single braid down her back that John had carefully plaited for her just over an hour ago, her hands smoothing down the patterned dress he'd foregone a good few days of meals to save up enough to buy for her.

His stomach turns. He hadn't thought of her. Hadn't bothered to worry. He was so terrified of the possibility of his brothers' names being chosen that Kayo hadn't even crossed his mind. With another nauseating jolt, Scott remembers the extra six slips with her name in that bowl this year, her payment for the two tesserae she signed up for ever since she was twelve. She'd always drawn the line at letting Scott take out tesserae on her and her father's behalf.

He should have fought harder to stop her.

Her shoes barely make any sound on the stone steps as she ascends (Kayo has always been good at being quiet. She loves causing mischief, hiding in the shadows and watching the chaos unfold. Now all the use she has left for that skill is hiding from the people who will want to kill her in the arena.) As usual, no one volunteers. There is nothing anyone can do but watch as she takes her place on the stage. Scott reaches out over the rope, squeezing John's hand tightly. His brother squeezes his hand back. Technically it isn't allowed, but the Peacekeepers don't try to separate them.

"Wonderful!" Clodia exclaims, placing a hand on the small of Kayo's back. Scott bites back a snarl; Kayo hates people touching her unexpectedly. Thankfully, she drops her hand fairly quickly. "And now for the boys."

Scott's grip on John's hand somehow tightens even further. John's going to end up with bruises if he keeps this up.

Once again, Clodia takes an excruciatingly long time to extract a slip from the glass bowl. He's drawn again to her nails; they're sharp and green and shiny. Probably would be a decent weapon in the arena. Good for clawing eyes out. Each tap of her heels on the stage makes him flinch.

"Alan Tracy!"

No.

John's sharp inhale is all he needs to confirm that Scott hasn't imagined the name that has left Clodia's lips. There's a strange high-pitched ringing in his ears. It takes him a good few moments to focus on the stage again.

No, no, no, no, no-

There's a shuffling right at the front, where the twelve-year-olds stand. A mop of blonde hair, almost obscured completely by the Peacekeepers on all sides. A muffled sob from somewhere in the fifteen-year-old bracket.

“Alan! Alan!”

Before he knows it, Scott is barging through the crowd.

He faces no resistance from the other seventeen-year-olds; they all part for him almost instantly. He catches a last glimpse of John's terrified expression before he's in the central aisle.

"I volunteer!" 

A murmur ripples through the square.

"I volunteer- not Alan, please, I- I volunteer as tribute."

Clodia is staring at him incredulously. "Well- there is an order to be followed here, young man…" But, after a pause, she relents. "Alright then. We have our first volunteer from District 9!"

Scott doesn't hear what she says after that. His eyes are trained on Alan. His brother tries to run to him as Scott's marched up to the stage but a Peacekeeper grabs him by the shoulders, unrelenting as he tries desperately to shake him off. 

"Scott, no, no, why would you-" Alan's voice is broken in a hundred ways. "Scott! No!"

He can only get out a fleeting "I'm sorry" before Virgil runs forward, scoops him up. He's murmuring soothing words that Scott can't quite make out, but it doesn't seem to be helping much. Even from the stage, he can see the tears streaking down his baby brother’s face.

The crowd seems impossibly big from up here. Scott looks out, over the sea of heads staring back at him, and sees his own face plastered across the screens above them. Of course. He is being broadcast live to the entire nation. That makes him straighten his spine, stand up a little taller. He can feel thousands of eyes boring into him. Clodia places her hand on the small of his back, ushers him towards the microphone.

“So, young man, what’s your name?”

Clodia is blinking at him expectantly. Scott’s reminded vividly of a barn owl. Only, of course, a bright green one. He tries to work around the lump in his throat. “Scott Tracy.”

“Ah, of course. That must have been your brother, yes?”

Scott nods. He doesn’t trust himself to speak again.

“Such bravery, such bravery.” Then she pauses, eyes glittering with excitement. "And a Tracy? Your father wouldn't be Jefferson Tracy, by any chance?"

Another nod. Clodia looks as if she's just won the lottery. "A legacy tribute! Oh, how wonderful! Following in the footsteps of your father, no doubt. I think that deserves a round of applause!" She looks out expectantly across the crowd.

Silence.

It’s the only way they can defy the Capitol. Anything else would be met immediately with the crack of the Peacekeepers’ batons, the gnawing hunger of supposedly inexplicable food shortages. But they can manage this. Inaction. A sign, however small, that they do not agree. That this is wrong.

Then something happens that knocks the wind out of Scott’s lungs.

It starts with Gordon. His kid brother, so small he’s almost invisible in the sea of thirteen-year-olds. He raises three fingers to his lips, then holds his hand high in the air. A variation on the gesture that Grist had done only this morning. The hand is only raised, however, when the recipient of the gesture is out of reach. Mostly if they’re dead. It’s always used in farewell.

The movement ripples out from his brother, and soon every person in the square has their three fingers raised in the air. This has never happened at a Reaping in all the seventy-three years of the Games. Scott’s not quite sure what’s changed. Maybe it was the fact that he volunteered. Maybe because of his father, the hero of the district, once upon a time. Or maybe it’s just the years of watching children being shipped off to die wearing them down. Resignation giving way to anger.

Tears prick at his eyes, and he has to try extremely hard not to cry on camera.

The mayor takes the stand again and begins to read the Treaty of Treason. The same words that are read out every year wash over him as he stands there, numb, uncomprehending. He stares out into the crowd. The crowd stares back.

Clodia’s spreading her arms wide, beckoning him closer. “Now, shake hands, you two.”

Scott is still staring. Hazel eyes blink back at him.

“Go on, go on.”

There’s an undercurrent of impatience in Clodia’s voice. Scott doesn’t know why, but that’s the thing that sets something burning inside of him. How dare she have the audacity to be impatient, when he has just been handed a near-certain death sentence? How dare she, when he is standing here staring at his sister, knowing she has been given the same? Simmering resentment at the Capitol that he has lived with ever since he can remember is boiling over. He wants to do something. He has to do something, to prove that they won’t break him.

They can have their Games, but they can’t have this.

Kayo’s hand is outstretched slightly. Her brow creases slightly as he doesn’t move to take it. Instead, he raises his left hand to his lips, just like Grist had earlier that morning. It already seems like a lifetime ago.

Kayo’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly as what he’s just done sinks in. But after only a moment, she raises her own fingers to her lips, mirroring him, reaching out for his shoulder and letting herself be pulled closer. Their foreheads touch. The absolute silence around them echoes until it begins to hurt Scott’s ears.

“Well, isn’t that lovely?” Clodia’s voice, with its stupid Capitol accent, shatters the strange stillness that had settled over the square. “The tributes of District 9, everybody!”

The first notes of the national anthem play over the speakers.

And so it begins, Scott thinks grimly.

 

---

 

After the anthem has finished, they are taken into the Justice Building. Scott blinks and Kayo is torn from his side; he catches a glimpse of the white uniform of a Peacekeeper as they disappear around a corner. Before he can question what’s going on, he’s being marched the other way.

The Peacekeeper that’s escorting him has a vice-like grip on his upper arm, and his fingers are digging into Scott’s skin. They march quickly through the winding corridors until they come to a solid wooden door. A second Peacekeeper opens it and Scott is all but shoved into the room beyond. No room for kindness when the cameras aren’t rolling, apparently.

The place is nice enough, surprisingly. Wood panelling, plush - if worn - couches, elegant light fixtures, reminiscent of their home in Victor’s Village. Much nicer than the living room back home, though Scott can’t really find it in himself to enjoy this relative luxury.

He gets one hour to say goodbye. One hour, and then he is shipped off to the Capitol and thrown into a death match that he almost certainly won’t come back from.

The door opens. Scott looks up. 

It’s his brothers.

Alan is first, barrelling into the room and rushing into Scott’s arms. His face is blotchy, red and tear-stained. Scott holds him tight. No matter what happens, at least it isn’t Alan in his place.

Gordon and Virgil are hot on Alan’s heels. They’ve both been crying too, Scott can see, but they’re trying to hold themselves together. Whether it’s for Alan’s sake, his sake, or their own, he can’t tell. Gordon’s clinging on to Virgil’s hand like it’s a lifeline. John and Grandma are conspicuously absent.

“Why’d you do that?” Alan chokes out, pressing his face against Scott’s chest as if keeping him close will stop them from taking him away. “Why did you-” His words fail him.

“I couldn’t let you go, Allie,” Scott murmurs, pressing a kiss on the top of his head. “I couldn’t let any of you go, you know that. I’d do it again to keep you safe.” 

His brother looks up at him. “You’re gonna try and win, right? I bet you could. You’re strong and fast, and you know about plants.”

Not as well as Kayo does, he thinks. And then his insides knot themselves up so tightly he forgets to breathe, because for a few minutes he’d completely forgotten that he wasn’t going into this alone. He feels sick.

“I’ll try and stay alive, I promise,” he says instead. “For as long as I can.” That seems to help.

“John and Grandma are coming to say goodbye after us,” Virgil tells him quietly. “The Peacekeepers said there were too many of us to all come in at once.” Scott nods, sinking onto the couch that’s behind him.

They all just sit for a while. Alan releases him from the hug eventually but doesn’t budge from his side. Gordon clings to his left, head resting on his shoulder. Virgil isn’t next to him, but Scott outstretches his hand for him to hold. They don’t say much, but there isn’t much left to say. His brothers know how much he loves them. Just how much he would do to keep them safe. The current situation is evidence enough of that.

Scott jumps as the door opens and a Peacekeeper beckons for them to leave.

Virgil is the first to get up, guiding Gordon from the couch gently. Alan is more reluctant. Scott has to untangle his fingers from where they’re clutching onto his shirt. “You be good, okay, Alan?” he says, and Alan is immediately close to tears again. Scott combs a steady hand through his little brother’s hair. “Listen to John and Virgil. Stay out of trouble. Don’t let Gordy rope you into one of his schemes.” Gordon laughs at that, a desperate, choked sort of laugh that bubbles up through the tears that have started again. “I love you so much, remember that.”

The Peacekeeper clears his throat; they’ve run out of time. It hits him all over again that he might never see any of them after this, these last precious few moments. Scott moves forward and wraps them all in one last desperate hug. “I love you,” he whispers again and again. It’s not enough, it’ll never be enough, but it’s all he has left to give. “I love you.”

Then they’re gone.

John and Grandma are the next to appear. Grandma is the one to step forward first, closing the gap between them as she wraps him up in her arms. Even though she’s a good few inches shorter than him - and much, much smaller - he always feels tiny in her embrace, like he’s seven again and being comforted after a nightmare. She smells of old jumpers and pecans. Scott breathes it in, not wanting to let go. Grandma keeps ahold of him for a long time, equally reluctant to do so.

But eventually, slowly, she does. He blinks furiously; he refuses to cry today. 

“Oh, Scott, my brave boy,” she says softly, keeping her hands on his shoulders. Her eyes bear decades-old grief, and it’s with a sudden sickening clarity that he remembers she’s done this before, with his father. Everyone’s always told him just how much he looks like Jeff did when he was his age, too. This must be a nightmare for her. “I’m so sorry,” Grandma continues.

Her voice is rough with tears, and in the glow of the lamps he can see her eyes glistening. Scott hates seeing her like this. “No, Grandma, it’s- it’s okay, really. It was bound to happen, right?”

She shakes her head wordlessly, and pulls him in for another hug. Scott tries to engrave the feeling of her favourite woollen cardigan on his skin, the comforting pressure of her arms around him.

Scott remembers abruptly that there’s another person in the room; he’s being so silent and still that he’s blended completely into the background. Behind Grandma, John twists his hands together. His face is unreadable. That in itself is a massive warning sign. John’s always been pretty guarded, sure, but he doesn’t hide his feelings from Scott. Never from Scott.

“John. John. Hey.” He keeps his voice gentle, untangling himself from Grandma’s embrace and taking a step towards him. “Talk to me, c’mon.”

His brother stares at the floor, expression painfully neutral. “What do you need me to do?”

“I- what?”

For once, Scott is completely baffled. What the hell is he talking about? His eyebrows furrow in confusion, hand frozen halfway to where he’d been about to lay it on John’s shoulder.

“I know you. You’ll be worrying about all of us the entire time you’re away, because you’re you, and that’s what you do, you worry. But you’ve got to focus on getting back to us alive, so you can’t be distracted by anything, okay? So - so whatever needs doing, I’ll do it. I can do it.”

His heart breaks all over again. “John…”

“I’m gonna sign up for the tesserae next year, and I’m sorry about that, but I swear I won’t let any of the others sign up too. I can do the rounds, and I’ll make sure Kyrano’s doing okay, and- “

“John-”

His brother stops and looks Scott in the eyes for the first time since he started speaking. John looks scared – wide-eyed, blue irises startlingly bright in that way that means he’s holding back tears, and his hands are trembling – but his jaw is set. He’s determined. “I’ll look after everyone, I promise. Just…please try and come home, okay?”

Scott’s heart aches. “I will. I’ll try.”

Words fail him after that, so he simply pulls John into a hug. Most of the time his brother avoids physical contact like the plague, only really accepting it from family and even then it’s a rarity. But today’s different, and John hugs him back fiercely. Only for a second, though. Then he steps back.

“We should go. There are other people who want to say goodbye as well, so…” he murmurs. “And someone’s gotta, uh, keep an eye on the kids. They’re out there by themselves.”

“I- alright.” Scott doesn’t want to let them go, but he knows they’re running low on time once again.

Grandma Tracy squeezes his shoulder, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “We love you, kiddo. Stay alive.”

He reaches out, clasps her hand in his, reluctant to let her go. “Grandma…” Please stay. I’m scared. 

“I know, Scott.” Her gaze is impossibly fond behind her purple spectacles. “I know.”

Once more, the door swings open expectantly. John and Grandma get the hint. There’s never enough time.

He slumps back onto the couch, pressing his palms against his eyes until the darkness behind his eyelids is a kaleidoscope of lights. His family are gone. In a few minutes, some faceless Peacekeeper will drag him onto a train, where he’ll be whisked off to the Capitol and his eventual death. The last views of his district will not be the endless fields of rye behind his house, but the lifeless concrete of 9’s main railway station. The last glimpses of his family will be their tear-stained faces, painfully aware of the horrors he is about to face. Scott knows that those faces will haunt him every second he spends in that arena.

"Scott?"

The voice is low, gruff, but with an undertone of fondness that he's picked up on over the years spent at her house, lending a hand with odd jobs that he's not sure that she really needs help with. His hands drop to his sides as he rises from the couch. "Grist?"

She looks more tired than he's ever seen her, but she's still somehow smiling. "I, um… Well, there's something I wanted to give you." He picks up on something clasped in her hands, glinting in the sunlight coming through the room's sole window. She holds it out to him.

It's a brooch. A golden circle, carefully polished, holding up a bird in flight. He recognises the shape of its wings, the curve of its beak.

"A mockingjay," he says.

Grist nods. "It's been in my family for a long while. I wanted one of my boys to have it as their token if they were reaped, but, well…I hoped you'd have it as yours."

The token. Right. One object from home that each tribute is allowed to take into the arena with them. He'd completely forgotten, in the midst of...all this. His family had too. Understandable, given the circumstances, of course.

He's still staring at this thing in her hand, this family heirloom he has no right to. "Grist, I couldn't take your brooch…"

"No, please." She presses it into his hand. "Consider it payment for the toy you gave my Buck. For everything."

There isn't much point arguing. Besides, he can tell that this means a lot to her. "Thank you."

"And Scott - "

She swallows, fingers clasping the ring that hangs on a fine chain around her neck. "Stay alive."

He almost smiles. "Everyone keeps telling me that."

She nods, and ducks through the doorway.

He's sure that his hour is up when yet another person walks into the room. It's one of the last people he expected to see. 

“Kyrano.” He pauses. “Hi.”

“Hello, Scott.”

“I, uh…” He pauses. “I thought you’d want to spend the time with Kayo.”

“I have been. But I also wanted to see you.”

“Oh.”

He and Kyrano have never been too close. There’s a mutual respect there, and a strange sort of bond forged in the memory of the closeness between Kyrano and Scott’s father, but their relationship doesn’t go much beyond that. They’ve always looked after each other, of course - Scott isn’t sure that they’d have survived the winter of his father’s death without Kyrano’s help - but there’s a distance that just isn’t present between Scott and the rest of his family. Kyrano was not someone he’d expected to see today.

“I just wanted to say that…whatever happens in the arena, I don’t blame you for it.” Something about Scott’s face must give away his confusion, because Kyrano elaborates. "The arena brings out a different side in everyone. It's unpredictable in a thousand different ways. Anything could happen."

It clicks. He's talking about his daughter. He's talking about Scott letting her die. "Kyrano…"

"Truly, Scott." He holds up a hand. "If anything happens I will not blame you at all. It isn't your fault."

"I'm going to try and bring her home."

The words seem to slip out of their own accord, but even as he says them Scott knows that they're true. They were true the moment he volunteered. Kayo may not be his sister by blood, but over the years she's become so close with them all that she might as well be. If by some miracle Scott actually wins, he'd be haunted by his failure to keep her safe until he died. He'd be a waste of a Victor, a failure of a brother.

If someone is coming back home to Nine, it will be Kayo.

Kyrano doesn't look quite like he believes him. But the Peacekeeper is hammering impatiently on the door once again and he only has time to briefly squeeze Kyrano's hand before the guards are escorting him out and into a black car, squished into the back seat next to Clodia. He's guessing Kayo is on the other side of her, but he can't see beyond Clodia's towering wig or the masses of fabric that make up her awful dress.

They pull up at a different station this time - presumably because the station they arrived at is packed with people still being ferried home. There are cameras everywhere. He tries to seem as unaffected as possible as Clodia guides him by the small of his back through the station. The footage isn't likely to be appearing on television right now, but he wants to appear strong, just in case. For his brothers.

The train that greets them on the platform is a far cry from the rickety old thing that carted them to the Justice Building earlier that day. It's all sleek lines and gunmetal grey, built for high-speed travel between districts. The door swishes open automatically. 

"We've got a long journey ahead of us," Clodia says, shepherding them up the steps and into the carriage. "Lots to do, lots to do." He barely hears her.

As soon as the door shuts behind them, he gathers Kayo into his arms and holds her tight, so tightly he's afraid that he's hurting her. She doesn't protest, though, and hugs him back fiercely. The train rumbles to life under their feet and the sudden movement nearly bowls Scott over, but he stays steady. Grist's mockingjay pin is still nestled in his palm. The metal is warm from being clutched in his hand for the past twenty minutes. They are still hugging. Is he imagining the wetness on his cheeks?

Clodia is fussing, complaining about schedules and preparation and dinner and I really wish you two would pay attention to me because there's just so much to get done. Someone comes up behind her, though, silencing her with a gentle touch on her shoulder. "Let them be," she says, and Clodia looks pissed off but doesn't say anything. She turns her back with a huff, sitting down primly on one of the couches in the carriage. Penelope gives him a slight smile, eyes full of about fifty different emotions. He doesn’t smile back.

Kayo is the one who breaks the hug. She steps back, hands falling to her sides, refusing to meet his eyes. "You okay?" he asks.

Stupid question. Neither of them will ever be okay.

"I'm fine," she replies.

And then she turns and walks away.

Chapter 3: iii. train

Notes:

um. happy valentines i guess guys! i did not intend for this to clash with the 14th (plus gordon's birthday, for which i have Nothing prepared oops!) but i hope you enjoy anyways :)

There is silence in the carriage for a moment. Inevitably, it is broken only a second later, as Clodia feels the need to comment on Kayo's lack of manners. Scott resists the urge to snap at her. Or better still, throw something.

Penelope is still looking at him with those eyes, indecipherable emotions flickering on her face. She looks like she's about to say something, but suddenly Scott isn't in the mood to deal with any more people, so he abruptly turns to Clodia. "Do we have rooms on this thing?" he bites out.

"I- yes, you do," she says, blinking. "In the next carriage."

"Good." And he walks past her, following the path Kayo took only seconds before. 

They’ve helpfully marked the room assigned to him with his name, printed on a slip of paper that’s been slotted into a label holder. Helpful. Easy to remove and replace with the next batch of tributes’ names once this year’s are gone.

Gone, of course, meaning dead.

The room is ridiculously luxurious - much more so than even their home in the Victor’s Village had been - but Scott doesn’t take any of it in. Instead he collapses on the bed, throat closing up, even more tears threatening to fall. For the first time, he lets them. This whole thing is so unfair, so unbearably and agonisingly unfair, and the cruelty snatches his breath and sets the world whirling around him because how the hell does a twelve-year-old’s name, just one slip with that name in a bowl of thousands, get picked right after his sister’s? 

No, the odds had not been in their favour today.

He lies there for a while. Time blurs strangely around him as reality finally, finally sets in. The train hums curiously beneath him. Out of the corner of his eye he watches the golden-yellow of Nine’s cornfields pass by.

He wonders what his family is doing right now. Probably preparing slightly bigger portions for dinner, given there are two less mouths to feed. Or maybe not. Food’s difficult to come by still, and if John has enough sense, he’ll make sure that they ration what little they have. Maybe Gordon went out foraging. He’s quick and he knows what he’s looking for, even if Scott hates the idea of him going out by himself. Kayo was always the best at keeping them out of trouble.

His thoughts turn to Kayo, likely only a few metres away in the next room, and mentally kicks himself for lying here uselessly for so long. He needs to be figuring out how to keep her alive, not wallowing in self-pity.

Scott hauls himself upright and properly surveys his surroundings. The vague sense of luxury he’d gotten back in the Justice Building didn’t even come close to describing the pure decadence of the interior design of the room he’s in now. It’s all extremely compact - it has to be, given that they are on a train - but the abundance of silk drapes everywhere and the minutely detailed wood carvings along the walls are, in his humble opinion, just overkill. Upon closer inspection, the sliding door at one end opens not into another room but into a wardrobe, stacked with more clothes than his family own between them. He almost closes the door in disgust before the itch of his shirt collar reminds him that his current clothes are not exactly the most comfortable, and chooses instead to change into a navy jumper and dark trousers of a strange but soft material that both somehow fit perfectly. He wonders when – and how - they’d taken his measurements. Maybe they had a wardrobe full of every possible size somewhere on this train, ready for whichever unlucky souls were plucked from the pool that year.

Scott almost leaves the shirt lying on the bed until the thought occurs that someone could come in and take it away - for washing, disposing of entirely, whatever. He hesitates, then folds it neatly and hides it under his pillow. Maybe he can convince someone to make sure it gets back to his family.

He also fixes the mockingjay pin to his jumper as he leaves the room.

Clodia and Penelope aren’t in the first carriage. Scott pauses for a second, then turns back the way he came; the train seems to go on forever, but he’ll find them eventually. Not like he has anything better to do. Luckily, they’re just in the next carriage along, just sitting down to eat at a table stacked high with food. His eyes flicker to the windows. Somehow, the sky is already hinting that sunset isn’t far away. Has it really been that long since they set off? Since the Reaping, even? He must have been lying on that bed for hours

“Scott! Come, take a seat.” Clodia waves him over happily, gesturing at the plates and plates of food before them. “Have as much as you want.”

“Should I fetch Tanusha?” Penelope asks.

“Yes, that would be splendid. Wouldn’t want this all going cold before she gets a chance to try anything!”

Clodia’s ever-present smile has started to grate on his nerves immensely. Scott wonders how long it’ll take him to snap and throw something at her.

The food before them, meanwhile, continues to astound him. He barely recognises half of the ingredients, let alone the recipes. Mounds of brightly-coloured fruits, bowls of fluffy white bread rolls, platters of what he’s only about fifty-percent sure is fish. His stomach growls expectantly and he’s reminded that he forgot to eat lunch before the Reaping. Scott doesn’t start eating though. Clodia looks at him strangely, a forkful of seafood halfway to her mouth. “Well, aren’t you going to dig in?”

“I- I think I’ll wait for the others to get back,” he replies. “My grandmother taught me it’s polite to wait until everyone’s sat down to start eating.”

“Hm. Quite.” Clodia raises an eyebrow, but drops her fork onto her plate. “I must say, you’re much more civilised than the two we had the year before last. Gannets, the pair of them.”

Scott isn’t sure what a gannet is, but he guesses Clodia’s not being very complimentary. He resists the urge to punch her.

Thankfully, Penelope and Kayo arrive before Clodia says anything else to test Scott’s willpower. Kayo slides into the chair next to him. He notices that she’s stayed in her Reaping outfit, although her hair’s now loose around her shoulders. Without a word, she begins loading food onto her plate.

Penelope has sat down opposite him. She offers a small smile. “Scott. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, it has.” It feels like a lifetime ago that they were neighbours in the Victor’s Village. Penelope doesn’t seem to have changed too much in appearance since then. She looks immaculate as ever: sophisticated and stylish whilst avoiding the strange eccentricity of Capitol fashions; her outfit mostly white but with a touch of pink, her signature colour. 

Small talk seems kind of irrelevant at this point. Penelope seems to agree, as she doesn’t say anything further. She begins to eat instead. Scott notices for the first time a tremor in her hands.

“Supper was scheduled earlier than usual today, to give us ample time to watch recaps of the Reapings,” Penelope says. “It might be best to take notes on all the tributes, particularly of the Careers and anyone else you think may pose a threat. You’ll need to decide upon a strategy soon, so that we can work on it.”

Game tactics. Finally. Scott knows just how little time they have, so he’s anxious to learn as much as he can while he still has the chance. “What strategy d’you think would work best for us in the arena?”

Penelope opens her mouth to reply, but Clodia seems to have other ideas. “My goodness, we’ve only just sat down to eat! It’s just as important that you young things enjoy all the wonderful opportunities being given to you. Why spoil such a lovely meal with all this game talk? You’ll have time to discuss it later, won’t you, Penelope dear?”

‘Penelope dear’ does not look pleased at being referred to as such. “Clodia, I do think it’s good that Scott wants to be prepared. And I must say, I disagree with you. It’s best to get started as soon as possible.” She tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear; Clodia wisely shuts up. “So, strategy. I would like to know each of your strengths and weaknesses before we decide on anything, as that can help determine what angle would work best. And…would you like to be coached separately? Ideally you would each have your own mentor to work with, but I’m afraid it’s only me, so you will have to make do.”

Scott looks at Kayo hesitantly. She shrugs. “I don’t mind being coached together.”

“Me too.” He has to admit, he’s a little relieved. He’d been pretty sure she’d be fine with it too, but sometimes Kayo is just impossible to read.

“Excellent.” Penelope sips her drink - a strange blue substance that he hasn’t had the courage to try yet - before placing the glass back on the table with both hands. She’s already finished eating. “So. Any talents you feel would be useful in the arena?”

“Kayo can hunt,” Scott tells her. “She’s brilliant with a knife, she can hit targets from miles away. And she knows loads about edible plants and stuff.”

“You’re pretty good at all that too,” Kayo adds, ducking her head slightly. “And I’m not that good.”

“You are,” he insists. “And you’re pretty much impossible to find when you don’t want to be. You’ve got a good chance at surviving.”

She shrugs nonchalantly, taking a bite of a buttered bread roll so she doesn’t have to say anything else.

“Scott? What about you?” Penelope asks.

“I mean…” What talents does he have, really? Keeping his family alive. Helping people. He doesn’t think that’ll get him very far in the arena. “I’m strong, I suppose. I can use a scythe, but I’m not likely to find one of those in the arena. I know a bit about plants, like Kayo said.”

“Who is Kayo?” Clodia frowns. ”That must be the second time you’ve said that name.”

“Uh- Tanusha. We call her Kayo,” he tells her.

“Well, I don’t think it’s the most appropriate-”

“It’s Kayo,” his sister snaps, raising her voice. “I- sorry. I’d just…I prefer Kayo. If that’s alright.”

Clodia looks a little displeased. “But Tanusha is such a pretty name…”

“Clodia,” Penelope cuts in, “hush. It’s perfectly fine, Kayo.”

“Thanks.”

By this point, Scott must have eaten the equivalent of about three meals back home. He’s trying not to overeat - the Capitol food is so much richer than he’s used to, and there’s just so much more of it - but his efforts at pacing himself have failed miserably, and his previously-full plate is now completely bare. Kayo’s wolfed down her fair share of food too; at the last count, she’d had about five bread rolls alone. He tells himself that eating lots is a good thing. The extra weight they put on here could prove vital to survival in the arena. Even so, it feels wrong to be presented than more food than his family can scrounge up in a week.

Penelope notices that they’ve finished, and clears her throat, sipping her drink one last time before setting it down. “Should we go through to the other car? The recaps will begin in a few minutes.”

They head through. Clodia, who is still somehow only halfway through her meal, squeaks and skitters after them, cutlery clattering on the plate as she abandons the table.

The screen on which they watch the recaps is absurdly large of course, closer in size to the screens in the town square than their own screen at home. It unsettles Scott, because it means that the figures projected on it are life-sized; they seem a whole lot more like real people, not just tiny moving pictures.

He tries to make a note of names and districts, along with anything about them that stands out. The Career tributes seem mostly as deadly as ever, either tough and lean or strong and burly. As usual, they’re all volunteers. The pair from Four - Derrick and Gill - are a little less so, but they look well-fed and just as determined as the others. The boy from Two, Fuse, must be well over six foot, and he looks massively strong. Petra, his district partner, is somehow almost as tall as he is. Bespoke and Taffeta seem the usual type they get from One, pale and blonde and blue-eyed. Both are absolutely stunning.

There are others who catch his eye too. The boy from Three, a slightly jittery fifteen-year-old, with a surprisingly calculating gaze. The female tribute from Five, scrawny and wide-eyed and only twelve years old. The boy from Seven, Hollis, looks like he could put up a decent fight, with muscled forearms that are comparable to the Careers’. 

And the girl is a tiny thing, with dark freckled skin and auburn braids in pigtails and piercing brown eyes that stare resolutely out at the audience as she stands on the stage. Scott notes her name too. Anise. Someone sobs all the way through the rest of the Reaping; she looks young enough to be standing with the rest of the children, but she’s with the crowd of adults instead. Scott guesses she must be Anise’s older sister. The whole thing reminds him jarringly of Alan, and he looks away.

The two from Eight don't look like much of a challenge. He barely even remembers their names.

Then their own Reaping airs.

Scott flinches as Clodia reads out Kayo’s name. There’s no way to change it now, had been no way to stop it then - and he knows it - but the awful sense of helplessness doesn’t leave. He forces himself to keep watching as Alan’s name is called. These are the last chances he will get to catch a glimpse of his brothers.

The silence of the crowd remains just as powerful. Scott watches the two of them stand on that stage and a tiny smile tugs at his lips as the commentators struggle to describe exactly what’s happening.

Ten, Eleven, Twelve. The last three are always the worst. Most years, the tributes from the outlying districts don’t look as if they’ll stand a chance.

This year is a little different. At a glance, the girl from Ten seems like she could do well, but she weeps all the way up to the stage when her name is called. Because of this, Scott remembers her name too: Feelia. The boy doesn’t appear disgusted by her tears; he offers her a handkerchief as their escort prattles on at the microphone. He might be some of their biggest competition - his tanned arms are bulky and well-defined, comparable to some of the Careers. Ten is known as the slaughterhouse district not just because its tributes tend to be killed in the first thirty seconds. Every now and again, they get a tribute who’s worked on the farms, handling – and sometimes killing - animals. The boy from Ten looks as if he’s worked in those slaughterhouses for a while.

11 and 12, however, are easy pickings for the Careers. The boy from Twelve in particular is so skinny it’s a miracle that he’s still alive, his face pinched and skull-like. None of them look like they’re going to make it through the bloodbath.

“Well,” Clodia says as the anthem plays, “we certainly have an interesting mix this year!”

“We do,” Penelope agrees. “But I think you both stand a good chance. There are a few different tactics we could try.”

Scott is still thinking about little Anise from District 7. He can't handle pretending to be nice to Penelope right now. “Uh…would we be able to talk about this stuff tomorrow?” He scrambles for an excuse. “I’m sort of tired.”

“Of course,” Penelope says. “You need your rest. We can talk in the morning.”

“Thanks.” He pinches his brow, trying to will his building headache into submission. “I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow.”

 

---

 

He’s lying on his bed and tracing patterns on the ceiling with his eyes when someone knocks softly on the door. He doesn’t bother answering, but after a couple seconds the door opens anyway and a slight figure that could only be Kayo slips into the room.

“Is it okay if I come in?” she asks, and Scott huffs a laugh.

“You kind of already did,” he replies. But he sits up, shuffles over so there’s enough space on the bed for her to sit beside him. 

“This place is ridiculously fancy,” she remarks as she makes herself comfortable, knees tucked under her chin and arms wrapped around her legs.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “No expense spared.” It disgusts him a little, if he’s honest, the fact that all this is used a mere four days a year – to the Capitol and back - whilst people in the districts are starving to death every day. But what can you expect from a nation that ships 23 kids off to be brutally killed each summer?

Kayo draws her legs in even further in the silence that follows their sparse exchange. She looks so tiny, so small and slight, that the dread in Scott’s chest that’s been there ever since her name was called tightens like a noose. How on earth is she going to be able to fight off someone like Fuse, or Bespoke? Even one of the less prepared tributes like the boys from 7 or 10 could take her down in close quarters combat, no matter how quickly she can run or how good she is with a knife. He’s seen Kayo fight people before - she got her nickname for a reason - and even though she’s much more capable than she looks he knows that she’s got little chance of winning a fight against most of the Careers. Hell, against quite a few of the others too.

He’s going to have to have a really fucking good plan if he wants to get Kayo out alive.

Scott’s gaze flicks to the window, where the stars hang unmoving over the blurred trees. There isn’t much he can do tonight. Tomorrow he can plan, talk to Penelope, figure out what he can do. At the moment, the only thing left to do is sleep.

Well. He glances back at his sister, who’s still staring at a random patch of wall. Not quite yet.

“How’re you doing?” Scott asks her, shifting so that he can look at her more comfortably. He immediately realises what a stupid question that is.

Kayo blinks, turns her head. “I don’t…I don’t really know.” Her shoulders are tense. “I’m glad Alan isn’t here, I guess.”

Scott exhales slowly. “Yeah, me too.” He pauses. “Kay…I’m sorry I couldn’t stop this happening. If I could’ve volunteered for you, I would have-”

“I know.” She smiles. “It’s okay. You couldn’t have done anything. It’s not your fault.”

He doesn’t know how to reply without sounding like a liar. Kayo rests her chin on her knees again. 

There’s so much he wants to say, but the words are a jumble and he can’t formulate a single sentence that makes any sense so he just ends up saying nothing. Kayo stays silent too, eyes still fixed on that same patch on the wall. Fatigue eventually begins to set in. The clock on the wall ticks away the minutes.

“Scott?”

Kayo’s looking at him again. Time has passed. The clock hands seem to have moved a lot in the blink of an eye. He wonders how long he’s been sitting there.

“Yeah?” He squeezes his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose again, trying to clear the fog that’s settled over his thoughts.

“I was just wondering…” she hesitates. “Is it okay if I stay in your room? Only for tonight. It’s just…I’m not used to sleeping in a room by myself.”

“Of course.” Come to think of it, Scott can’t remember the last time he slept alone either. Alan’s pretty much always right next to him when he wakes up, and if he isn’t then he’s still only a few feet away. “Uh, gimme a second to get changed and stuff though.”

Kayo nods, uncurling herself and standing up. She doesn’t say anything else before disappearing, but a fraction of the tension has left her shoulders.

Scott gets changed while Kayo is gone. She comes back a few minutes later in a comfortable-looking long-sleeved top and trousers, hair still loose. He gestures for her to hand over the hair tie that’s round her wrist before she can say anything. “Let me do your hair so it doesn’t get all tangled overnight.”

“Thank you,” she whispers, holding out the hair tie. He pats the space in front of him and she sits down quietly, hands fidgeting in her lap as he carefully parts her hair. He sticks with a basic three-strand braid; John’s the best at doing hair, and Scott’s never been able to master anything more complicated than the simplest stuff. He wishes he’d tried harder to learn now.

It doesn’t take too long to finish the braid. Scott secures it with the hair tie and taps Kayo’s shoulder to let her know he’s done. She thanks him again, but he brushes it off with a smile.

Scott glances up at the clock again and starts when he realises just how late it’s getting. “Shit,” he curses - and then clamps his lips together. “You didn’t just hear me say that,” he says quickly to Kayo. 

She raises her eyebrows at him. “I’ve heard you say worse.”

“Oh no.” He buries his face in his hands. “I’m an awful person. I can feel Grandma’s disapproval from here.” Scott flops backwards on the bed dramatically and lets out a yelp as his head collides with the wall.

“Scott, are you okay?” He waves her off, rubbing the back of his head. “You idiot.” But he’s laughing now because he’s not actually that hurt, and it really was a stupid thing to do and before long she’s laughing at him too and Scott’s happy because she's laughing, so getting hit on the head was worth it really.

Scott replays that memory over and over as he lies in his bed, waiting for sleep that refuses to visit him. The hum of the train speeding through whichever district they’re in now is quiet but constant. He tries to ignore it as much as he can, focusing instead on the steady breathing of his sister next to him to remind himself that she is still alive.

 

---

 

At some point Scott must have finally fallen asleep, because he is awoken by Clodia rapping impatiently on his door. “Up, up!” she’s saying. “We’re only an hour away from the Capitol and breakfast won’t wait for you forever!”

He groans, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. It’s too early to be dealing with Clodia’s irritating chirpiness. Still, he props himself up, squinting in the bright daylight as he looks around the room. Once again, Kayo is nowhere to be seen.

Scott gets dressed in the same clothes he wore yesterday, exhausted at the mere thought of going through the massive wardrobe again to find himself a different outfit. If this was how Capitol people actually lived he had no idea how they didn’t all go insane from the sheer volume of choice given to them every day. At least in 9 he didn’t have to spend half an hour just deciding what to wear before even leaving his house.

Breakfast is a quiet affair. He and Kayo ask Penelope some basic questions about survival tactics as they eat: what to do in the initial bloodbath, how to find food, if and when making a fire is a good idea, and so on. Her answers are moderately helpful but not very specific; a lot of things are affected by what the Gamemakers put in the arena. Again, Scott tries to eat as much as he can without making himself ill. He particularly enjoys the rich pastry Clodia tells him is an apple turnover, He sneaks an extra one wrapped in a napkin into his pocket when he thinks no one’s looking.

“We’re going to be arriving soon,” Penelope informs the table as they’re finishing off their food. “You’ll be handed over to your prep teams and then to your stylists, who will all be preparing you for the tribute parade this evening. You may not like everything they’ll be doing to you, but don’t fight it. They’re here to help you.”

Kayo’s eyes harden. “I don’t like the sound of it.”

“I know,” Penelope says, “but trust me. The better you look to the Capitol, the more likely people will sponsor you. Gifts from sponsors could quite literally be the difference between life and death for you in the arena.”

Scott knows she’s not wrong. The youngest victor ever, Finnick Odair, had won after he’d received a golden trident from a sponsor; his skill with the weapon was unmatched, and it tipped the odds decisively in his favour. He knows, too, that Penelope herself had received quite a few gifts herself throughout her Games: food and medicine that had kept her from starvation and in good enough health to choke the life out of her opponent when it came down to the final fight.

“Oh, and there it is! Home at last,” Clodia exclaims. Everyone turns their attention to the windows. A towering cityscape is rushing rapidly towards them. The sight is absolutely breathtaking.

The Capitol. In all his wildest dreams, Scott could have never have imagined a place like this.

They have arrived.

Notes:

it's so weird rereading all this because the beginning of this fic was written in 2023-- and half the time i barely remember what i wrote so it's like reading someone else's writing. anyways, hope yall enjoyed! next chapter they'll finally be in the capitol hooray!

Chapter 4: iv. parade

Scott cannot help but stare at absolutely everything around him as their group is driven by car through the streets of the Capitol. None of it looks even remotely real, from the pastel palette of the apartments they pass to the buildings that tower so high above them that he has to crane his neck far, far back to see the tops of them. The people going about their business as they drive are even stranger; it’s a sea of Clodias, each pedestrian dressed in some of the most absurd outfits Scott has ever seen.

“Right!” Clodia chirrups as the car slows. “Here we are! Now remember, the tribute parade is Panem’s first real impression of you, so try and be as memorable as possible. If you do that well, the sponsors are bound to notice you at least. The rest will come later.”

“We'll see you again after the parade,” Penelope says. “Good luck.”

And once again the pair of them are herded into an unfamiliar building. Kayo just about manages to wave a quick farewell before she’s carted off one way and he is sent the other. 

His prep team turn out to be exactly how he’d imagined all Capitol citizens to be: fussy, pernickety, full of empty airs and graces that barely conceal their disgust at his District origins, and - of course - bedecked in what he can only assume are considered the latest fashions here. Not a single one of them has naturally coloured hair or normal eyelashes. One of them has pink eyes, another is covered in neon tattoos. Without talking to him at all, they simply get to work.

It’s without a doubt the strangest experience of his life so far. He’s told to completely strip naked - which he hates, because who the hell gives these people the right to look at him when he’s not decent - and then they hose him down. The water is so intense it feels like he’s going to be bowled over by the sheer force of it. There’s a weird gritty paste that they apply next, hosing him down a second time to remove it, along with what feels like an entire layer of skin. At least three separate products are applied to his hair, leaving it softer and silkier than it’s ever been in his life The team spend a while tutting at the state of his nails (he has an unfortunate habit of biting them, which apparently isn’t very fashionable) before buffing and shaping them as best they can. One of them actually sticks a needle in him at one point; he nearly decks the woman out of instinct, only prevented from doing so by another one grabbing him by the arm.

“Well, I never!” the woman exclaims, looking incredibly affronted. “Disgraceful behaviour!”

“What the hell was that?” he spits, glaring at the person who grabbed his arm.

They seem a little less taken aback by his anger, and have the decency to look a little apologetic. “Sorry for not warning you,” they say. “It’s a required treatment for all the male tributes. Stops you from growing facial hair in the arena, so you won’t have to shave.”

“Oh.” Come to think of it, Scott’s never seen a tribute grow any kind of facial hair in the arena, even though some of the guys from 9 had definitely had the beginnings of beards during past reapings. He’s not entirely sure that cosmetics are the only reasoning behind that. But shaving is an absolute bitch, so he’s not really complaining about having one less thing to worry about in the arena. The team applied some special cream or something as well that’s completely removed all traces of the stubble that had grown in over the past day or so.

One more round of strange cosmetic products and a final hosing down, and his team agree that he’s ready to be handed off to his stylist. “Elpis is going to be thrilled!” the one who’d apologised to him says brightly. “You have the most beautiful eyes. And that profile! The crowd will love you.”

Scott’s really not sure how to respond to that. The crowd are going to love watching him die a gruesome death no matter how pretty they think he is. But his prep team are just trying to be nice, so he settles for a begrudging thank-you.

They depart, and he's left feeling horribly exposed, sitting naked on the table in an empty room. He's only left waiting for a minute or so before there's a quiet knock on the door and a young woman steps in.

Having seen what passes for fashion here, Scott's a little taken aback. She's undoubtedly Capitol, but in the way that Penelope is, rather than his prep team or the people he’d seen on the streets. Her outfit is simple, elegant, and not so bright that it gives him a headache. She hasn’t got any tattoos or dyed her skin in unnatural tones. And she barely has any makeup on. She has some colour around her eyelids and on her lips, but it accentuates her natural features rather than drowning them in a sea of sparkly shit. She’s holding a thin robe, which she immediately holds out to him and gestures for him to put it on. He wraps it around himself gratefully.

"Scott? Hello," she greets him, smiling. “I’m Elpis, your stylist. It's nice to meet you."

Scott can't help but laugh dryly at that. "Yeah. Nice. Not really the word I'd use."

"I know, I'm sorry. But I promise, I’m here to help." Elpis genuinely looks apologetic, and Scott immediately feels bad.

"I didn't mean- sorry, I didn't mean it wasn’t nice to meet you, it’s just… everything. The Games. I’d much rather be home.” He really does feel awful, so he adds, “You seem like a decent person,” just for good measure. And he’s not lying or anything. Elpis has a kind face, and - unlike with the prep team - he’s instantly at ease in her presence.

She smiles. “I appreciate it. And Scott, I truly am sorry that you’ve been forced into this. But I want you to be able to go home too, so I’m here to help you make as big an impression on the Capitol as possible, starting today.”

“Yeah, okay.” 

Scott’s always hated the Tribute Parade. For one thing, it feels like the tributes are being served up as appetising meals to the crowd rather than people, like the plates of fancy nibbles they’d eaten on the train. Valued for their looks rather than anything else. For another thing, they always get put in the most ridiculous outfits, since their costumes are always themed around each district’s industry. Some - like One, with luxury goods, or Eight, fabrics - are lucky, as their stylists can easily come up with memorable outfits that fit with the theme. Others aren’t so lucky. Grain isn’t exactly the most exciting export, so their tributes are almost always in miserable beige outfits or denim farmer costumes. Still, it coud be worse. Ten’s industry is livestock. The number of absurd animal costumes he’s seen over the years is atrocious.

Elpis clearly senses his apprehension. “I know you’re nervous about this, but I think you’ll genuinely like the outfit I’ve got for you.”

“Sorry if I don’t have too much faith, but last year’s tributes didn’t exactly look great.” They’d been dressed up to look like giant stalks of wheat. Scott had been horrified. What little hope they’d had of gaining sponsors had probably died right there and then.

Elpis laughs. “Don’t worry, that wasn’t me. I’m a new stylist this year. You and Tanusha are Saturn’s and my Hunger Games debut.” At Scott’s quizzical look, she elaborates. “Sorry, I forgot to mention him earlier. Saturn is your district’s other stylist. We work together on ideas and everything, but I’m your personal stylist and he’s Tanusha’s. You might get to meet him later, he’s a lovely guy.”

“And you both got saddled with one of the outlying districts?”

“Oh, no, no, we don’t see it like that. I asked for an outlying district, actually.” She smiles. “Those inner districts have everything already, why should they have my talents too?”

Scott decides right there that he likes Elpis. She genuinely wants to help them both win. And if sucking up to the crowds is what he needs to do to get sponsors and give Kayo a better chance, then he needs all the help he can get.

 

---

 

Thankfully, he’s not being dressed as a giant stalk of wheat. His prep team reappeared to do his makeup, which thankfully is minimal - just some gold detailing around his eyes - and then Elpis gives him a cream silk shirt and soft beige trousers to change into. They fit beautifully. It’s a pretty basic outfit, and while he’s glad not to be in a stupid costume (or wearing almost nothing at all, which unfortunately has happened in the past) it doesn’t exactly make the impression he was hoping it would.

Then Elpis reveals the rest of his outfit.

“I wanted to try and represent the beauty of your district,” she tells him as he stares in awe at it. “I wasn’t able to visit, but I got in contact with Penelope and asked for her help in finding as many photos as possible of the grain fields for reference.” Strangely, she seems a little nervous, watching his reaction. “What do you think?”

“I…wow.”

It’s all the answer Scott can muster up at the moment, because the outfit is so far from what he’d expected that it’s completely thrown him off. It’s a jacket, one with a tall collar, but that seems too simple a word for the sheer beauty of the garment. The whole thing is a landscape. It starts in sky-blue, with white wisps of clouds curling across the fabric. If he stares long enough at one of them, he swears he can see it moving. It then fades seamlessly into the yellow of the wheat fields as it reaches the middle of the torso, with gold threads woven into the fabric that catch even the dim light of the changing room and sparkle in such a mesmerising way that he can’t tear his eyes from it for a good few seconds. It also - somehow - seems to glow, in exactly the sort of way that the countryside glows on a bright summer’s day. There’s a cape attached to the back, just as detailed and stunning that billows out behind him at the slightest gust of wind.

“It’s incredible,” Scott says finally, and he means every word of it.

“There’s one final piece left,” Elpis says, picking up something from a stand. “Hold still.”

Scott understands what she means as soon as she turns around. Elpis is holding a golden headpiece that catches the light the same way the gold threads on his clothes do. The spokes radiating out in a semicircle clue him in to what it represents.

“The sun,” he says quietly, almost to himself. Elpis nods and squeezes his shoulder, adjusting the jacket so the collar stands up straight.

“Now you’re ready. Go knock ‘em dead, kid.”

Scott is terrified of ruining his outfit all the way down to the bottom level of the Remake Centre. That fear all too quickly transforms to terror at seeing all of the other tributes assembled in the same spot. Everyone’s staying by their chariots, but they’re all staring at each other from afar. Assessing the competition. Coming to terms with the fact that in a few days, they’ll all be killing each other. The thought makes him feel sick.

Luckily, Kayo appears soon after he arrives, walking alongside a tall man in a crisp black suit accented with gold, long locs framing his face - probably the other stylist, Saturn. Scott is once again taken aback by the sheer talent of their stylists when he sees what she’s wearing.

“Pretty, isn’t it?”

Despite everything, Kayo is beaming as she spreads out the skirts of her dress. She’s wearing something very similar in style to Scott’s outfit, with the sky above and wheat fields below, except whilst his is day, hers is night. The bodice of her dress shimmers with the light of a thousand stars, and instead of gold her headdress is in silver, with a small crescent where his sun emblem sits. Her long hair is loose over her shoulders.

“You look amazing, Kay,” he tells her. 

“Thanks!” She gives him a little curtsy. “Watch this.” And she spins, letting the skirt billow out. The fields glimmer and the stars on the bodice glitter as she turns around and around and around, the fabric whirling about her. Saturn claps and Elpis whoops, and Scott wishes they could stay in this moment forever, because for the first time since he can remember Kayo looks like a kid, carefree and unburdened by the hardships of life back home. Maybe this is what the Capitol children’s lives are like, he wonders. Fancy clothes and endless good food and all the time in the world to enjoy them.

Kayo finally comes to a stop, stumbling dizzily. Her smile is bright and she laughs giddily as she grabs onto Scott’s sleeve to stop herself from falling over. “Careful,” he laughs. “Don’t want to fall over and ruin your dress.”

“Sorry,” she says sheepishly, letting go. 

“I take it you like your outfit?” Elpis asks amusedly.

“I love it,” she replies. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never worn anything like this before.”

“The crowd will love you,” Saturn says. “But we’d better get you two ready to go, because they’re all waiting.”

Sure enough, the other tributes are getting into their chariots. Scott helps Kayo up first, holding the hem of her dress up so she doesn’t step on it, then climbs up alongside her. Their horses are a soft sandy colour. At an unseen signal they begin to trot forward; Scott has to grab onto the railing along the front of the chariot to steady himself.

Ahead of them, the dim stable opens out into brightness. Their horses take them straight towards it, following along behind the pair from 8. “Smile and wave!” he hears Elpis shout, right before the tunnel opens up and the light hits them all at once.

They’d been able to hear the crowd faintly from in the Remake Centre, but nothing could have prepared Scott for the sheer vastness of the Avenue of the Tributes. People line the road as far as he can see, banking up on both sides, roaring as one. A good few moments pass before he remembers to smile. He’s gripping the railing so tightly it feels like his circulation’s been cut off completely. 

Ahead of them, the crowd is going wild over one of the pairs of tributes - probably One, given the shimmering white and purple outfits Scott had seen them in earlier. It hits him again just how many people they are up against in these games, just how much of a disadvantage they are at. 

“How’s the crowd ever going to notice us?” Kayo whispers. Clearly she’s thinking exactly the same thing.

“We’ll make them notice.”

He remembers the way the commentators reacted to the way he volunteered for Alan. He remembers last year’s games, how the victor had talked about trying to survive for his girlfriend to gain sympathy from the crowd. How the victors with looks or humour or intelligence are the ones who stay in the public eye years after their victory. All they want is a good show, a story to become invested in. 

Well. Scott certainly has an interesting story. He just hopes the crowd likes it.

He holds out his hand. Kayo takes it, gripping his hand tightly, tilting her head quizzically at him. "What are you doing?" she whispers.

"Showing them that we're stronger than their games," he whispers back. "Showing them that we're a team."

They raise their hands into the air, and the crowd goes wild.

Honestly, Scott couldn’t have timed it better if he’d tried. Everyone had just begun to notice their outfits as they joined hands, and that symbol of District solidarity combined with the eye-catching beauty of Elpis and Saturn’s work captivated everyone’s attention instantly. The cheers are deafening. Spectators toss flowers at them as they pass, shouting their names. Scott makes sure to smile and wave. Kayo is doing the same and more, beaming at the spectators and even going so far as to blow kisses into the crowd. Clearly the Capitol already adores her; so many flowers are thrown in her direction that she can easily catch one in her free hand. He can see their faces, bathed in the glow of their headdresses, on every screen along the Parade.

As they begin to circle around to a stop in the City Circle, Scott takes the opportunity to glance around at the other tributes. A lot of them have been much less fortunate with their stylists; quite a few of the tributes are in almost comical costumes. At least the pair from 10 have avoided being dressed as barnyard animals this year.

Whilst Scott has been sizing up the competition, President Belah Gaat has already begun his speech. “Welcome, tributes, to the Seventy-Third Annual Hunger Games,” he begins, voice sleek and silky.

Scott tries to look like he’s paying attention - it wouldn’t do to be caught ignoring the president on national television - but if he’s honest, he really hates looking at him. There’s something about the man that seriously unsettles him. Maybe it’s his eyes. They’re a piercing, almost unnatural shade of green, and even though he’s looking out over the crowd Scott somehow feels like they’re fixed right on him. He’s endlessly glad when the speech ends and the anthem plays for their exit.

Scott’s blown away by just how amazing their outfits look in the dark. If he’d thought they’d been eye-catching before, it was nothing compared to now. The two of them are beacons in the night, the stars on Kayo’s dress twinkling right alongside the stars in the sky above. The cameras have noticed it too; they’re getting more than their fair share of screentime as the chariots pull away from the City Circle.

Their prep team swarm the chariot as soon as they’re back inside, voices overlapping as they gush about their success. Thankfully, Saturn and Elpis manage to calm them down pretty quickly and help him and Kayo down from the chariot.

“You were incredible,” Elpis tells them, eyes twinkling. “Excellent, both of you. Panem won’t be forgetting that in a hurry.”

“It was your designs that did it,” Scott says earnestly. She laughs, shaking her head.

“The nice outfits helped, sure, but you two are doing an amazing job at playing to the crowd. And that moment where you held hands… Saturn and I certainly wanted to present you two as a united pair with the coordinated costumes, but that was a brilliant idea. If you keep it up, it’ll definitely get people interested. And that’s our goal. To get the support that’ll give you the best possible chance in that arena.”

Scott nods, unsure quite how to respond.

“It’s been a long day,” Saturn intones. “How about we get you two back to the Tribute Centre?”

As if to accentuate his point, Kayo yawns. Scott chuckles. “C’mon Kay, we’ve still gotta eat before you can go to bed. Try and keep awake a bit longer, yeah?”

“M’fine,” she protests, scrubbing at her eyes with her fist. “Let’s go, then. I’m fucking hungry.”

“Oi. Language.”

Kayo sticks her tongue out at him.

“Oh yeah, real mature.”

 

---

 

The Tribute Centre is even more massive than Scott imagined it, if it’s possible. There are twelve floors - one for each district - and he’s struck all over again by the sheer decadence of the Capitol. A single floor of this place could house an extremely large family; he knew plenty of people that could fit their entire homes into a single room of the suite allocated to District 9. Yet they were the only people staying there. And for most of the year the place would lie completely empty. What a waste.

However disgusted Scott is by it, he’s not about to turn down free food. He sticks with his policy of eating as much as he can manage, also deciding to be brave and try some of the more strange-looking dishes. Not much talking happens during the first half of dinner, but after a while Penelope begins to go over tomorrow’s events.

“You’ll begin the three-day training tomorrow morning,” she informs them, carefully setting her knife and fork down. Again, she’s finished eating well before the rest of them. “Now is probably the time to decide if you want to be a part of an alliance, as you’ll need to spend the training sessions building trust with the tributes you want to work with.”

Allies aren’t something Scott had even considered. Of course Penelope would suggest it, though, given how the alliances she’d formed during her own games had been vital to her victory. He’d assumed that he and Kayo would go off on their own …

“No alliances,” he says firmly. “I don’t think I could trust any of the other tributes. Any alliance we make is going to have to fall apart eventually, so what’s the point? We’re better off just us two.”

“Kayo?”

She shrugs. “Sure. Scott has a point, I suppose.”

Penelope nods. “Well, then. If you don’t want to try and form any alliances, then it’s best you don’t reveal your skills to the other tributes. Focus on survival skills instead. Learn something new. Make note of the plants they have at the stations, too, as they might give you clues as to what the arena will be like.”

Kayo’s eating yet more bread rolls. Scott tries not to laugh at her apparent obsession with them. “Is there anything else we need to know?”

“Not particularly,” Penelope says. “The instructors will tell you more about each station once you’re there. But there is the matter of what angle you two are going for - you’ll need to be careful how you present yourselves in front of the other tributes. The careers especially will be watching everyone. Are you going to continue presenting yourselves as a pair?”

Kayo nods at the same time Scott does. “They love sibling duos, right?” he remarks. “Like the brother and sister in One.” They’d won consecutive years when Scott was little, and they’d been extremely popular in the Capitol ever since.

“You’ll need to impress them with your training scores as well,” Penelope replies, “but it’ll certainly get them interested in you. Keep it up around during training as well. Stick by each other’s side, stay talking, look like you’re enjoying each other’s company.”

“Not too hard.”

“I don’t know.” Kayo smirks at him playfully. “It might be difficult. Scott’s got this smell-”

“Hey!” He elbows her lightly. “I smell great.”

“The Capitol showers helped, sure, but there’s still a distinct odour...”

“Penelope? Is it too late to change our strategy?”

“Aw, come on, Scooter. I’m a delight to be around.”

“Not too sure about that one.”

“You love me really.”

The words hit like a punch to his stomach. He pauses. Kayo’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly, as if she too has realised that she’s crossed some unseen boundary.

“Yeah. I do.” Scott’s voice is barely a whisper.

Kayo stands abruptly, her chair scraping along the floor as it’s pushed back. “I’m going to bed,” she murmurs, and all but runs out of the room. Huffing irritably, Clodia totters off towards her own room, leaving just Penelope and Scott left in the dining room.

“Let her go,” Penelope says as Scott makes to stand up and follow Kayo. “She needs a moment.”

“Yeah.” Scott slumps back in his chair, pressing his palms into his eye sockets. The pressure doesn’t distract from the sick feeling in his gut. “I just…”

“I know how much she means to you.”

“She has to survive.”

Penelope stays quiet. Scott sits up straighter, turning to look her in the eye. Penelope seems almost taken aback by the determination in his gaze.

“I’m being serious. If one of us is making it home, it’s going to be her.”

“Scott…”

“I couldn’t- I couldn’t live with myself if I went home. And she’s just a kid, she could have a good life…” He trails off. “Kayo lives. I’m going to stay alive only so long as I can help her. So I need you to help me get her back home.”

Blonde hair falls in a curtain over Penelope’s face as her eyes dip down momentarily to look at her hands, clasped in her lap. “You’re both up against some tough competition. Kayo is very young… I would only ever be able to do so much to help her.”

“I know. But she’s fast, and she can climb, and she’s brilliant with a knife, I swear. She’s got a good chance. And people her age have won before.”

“Even so, Scott… You have an excellent chance yourself. With the right angle, we could get you enough sponsors to give you an advantage. You’d certainly have a good chance of taking on any of the other tributes one-on-one.”

“And I’m telling you, no.” An irrational surge of anger at his mentor flashes through his veins. “Kayo survives. Kayo goes home. I’m not accepting any other scenario, so don’t try and convince me to do anything else. Just help me.”

Penelope looks impossibly sad, and yet she smiles ruefully. “You really are just like your father,” she says softly. “He tried so hard to bring his tributes home, year after year, even though they died every time. I don’t know that I could have won without his support.”

Scott stays silent. He’d not heard that about his father before. Kyrano didn’t like to talk much about him – the whole thing was still too painful for him – and whilst Grandma tried to keep their memories of him alive, she never talked about his involvement in the Games. It was exactly the sort of thing he’d expect his father to do, though. He’d never been one to give up.

“Did you know there’s a rooftop garden here?” Penelope says suddenly.

“What?” It seems such a strange thing to say. Why is she bringing it up now?

“It’s rather beautiful,” she continues. “The view of the city is magnificent. It does get rather windy though, so it’s a good idea to wrap up warm.”

She looks at him meaningfully. After a second, he gets it. The Capitol can’t use their surveillance as well up there. It’s sort of reassuring, to think that for all their advanced technology, there are limits to their power. “I’d love to see it,” he says, playing along. “It’d be nice to get some fresh air.”

“Of course.” Penelope stands up. “I’ll show you the way.”

 

---

 

The roof is genuinely quite beautiful. Plants of every colour flourish in massive plant pots. Hanging vines twist along a series of wooden arches, creating a roof of greenery that stretches over their heads. The city sprawls out below them, bright lights twinkling and neon signs flashing along the streets, where cars still whiz by even though it’s getting quite late. The lights are so blinding, though that the collective glow is drowning out the stars, and Scott finds himself staring up at a timid version of the night sky back home. It makes him strangely homesick.

Penelope rests her arms on the railing along the edge of the roof, gazing out over the city. Scott joins her. For a few minutes they stand in silence, simply watching the people going about their lives all the way down below.

“I’m sorry for not helping you and your family after your father passed,” Penelope murmurs. “Truly, I am.”

“Then why didn’t you?” The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them.

“I was scared to hurt you.” At Scott’s incredulous look, she laughs humourlessly. “It sounds silly, I know. But I lost my own father in an accident too, just after my Victory Tour. Snow punished me because I made a mistake. Then Jeff, so soon after… I know now that the Capitol couldn’t have been responsible for what happened to him - it wasn’t their way of doing things, especially with such a popular victor. But at the time it seemed like they were killing everyone close to me, one by one, even though I was trying to follow their rules. I thought that it was better if I stayed away from your family. That way they wouldn’t hurt you to try and hurt me.”

“Oh.”

It sounds absurd – fantastical, even – that the Capitol would do something as monumentally fucked-up as that, and yet Scott knows that every word of what Penelope just said could very well have happened. He’s all too familiar with the ruthless brutality of the Peacekeepers, the long hours in the fields no matter the weather, the emaciated figures of so many in his district that he sees every day, to deny that the Capitol would resort to murder like that. Besides, any government willing to force twenty-four kids to fight to death every year certainly isn’t above threatening a victor’s family to keep them in line.

Penelope carries on speaking. “I know it’s no excuse. I still should have found a way to help you.” Scott’s drawn to her hands again, resting on the railing. Still trembling. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen them steady. What with the Capitol’s TV representation of the victors, it can be difficult to remember that under everything they’re people too. Penelope was only seventeen when she won her Games. If Scott remembers correctly, her birthday was in winter – he remembers the party his father had thrown for her – and so she must have just turned eighteen when Jeff died. She was barely older than him. For the first time, he understands how terrified she must have been.

“It’s okay,” he says quietly.

She closes her eyes, pained. “I should have helped you.”

“You could help me now.”

“Help you die?”

“Help my sister live.” At her look, he shrugs. “Well, you pretty much just said you owed me. And I’m going with my plan no matter if I’ve got your help or not, so unless you want us both to die…”

“Just like your father. Stubbornly pig-headed.”

Despite himself, he laughs. “That’s the Tracy determination for you.”

“All right. I promise I will do everything I can to help get Kayo home.”

“Thank you.” Fiery resolve is burning once more in his chest. “And I’ll do everything I can to keep her alive.”

Penelope searches his face, her expression as solemn as a grave. “I know you will.”

Notes:

goooooooooood day! this past week has been horrifically busy, so i'm going to be playing catch-up with the writing for this (don't worry i have about 65k of this written already so i should be fine for the ol weekly updates, but i'm doing my best to keep on top of it just in case). i loved finally getting to explore penelope's character in this chapter - obviously once the games start i won't be able to go into any more detail with her as this is solely scott's pov, but if anyone's interested i have uploaded a short one shot about her games that gives a tiny bit more context for her <3

anyways hope you're all enjoying so far! see you next week :))

Chapter 5: v. training

Notes:

HI IM SO SORRY I KNOW THIS IS A DAY LATE BUT I HAVE AN EXCUSE AND IT'S THAT I WAS OUT LITERALLY ALL DAY AND GOT HOME AT 2AM !!! bit of a slow chapter unfortunately- but i hope you all enjoy it anyways lol

Sunlight splinters through the windows, rousing Scott from his sleep. He groans, pulling the covers over his head in an attempt to block out the light. He’s really not in the mood to get up and deal with the day’s inevitable ordeal. Scott knows he can’t stay in bed forever, though; he’s probably expected for breakfast by now, and it’s important that he’s there. Today marks the first of three days of training. Penelope will kill him if he misses that.

Kayo’s already downstairs when he shows up in the dining room, freshly showered and wearing clothes he can easily move around in without getting overheated. Neither of them mention her abrupt departure from the table last night.

“The pastries are really good,” she says as he sits down. She offers the tray of them to him across the table. An olive branch. He takes one, biting into it. She’s right; it’s delicious.

“Thanks,” he says through a mouthful of flaky pastry and apple filling, trying not to spray crumbs everywhere. Clodia - dressed in lemon yellow today, with yet another towering wig - tuts at his poor manners. He manages to ignore her.

Penelope shows up late for breakfast. This is extraordinarily unusual for her; even years ago, back when they’d been neighbours, Penelope was never late for anything. He’d have guessed that she overslept, but the dark smears under her eyes suggested that she might not have gone to sleep at all. When he asks her if everything is okay, she brushes him off good-naturedly. “I’m perfectly all right, Scott, but I appreciate your concern. You’re very sweet.” She sits down opposite him, pouring herself a cup of dark liquid that he knows from his father’s old habits is coffee. “Are you both ready for the training today?”

“I  guess,” Kayo shrugs. “We’re supposed to stay at the survival stations, right?”

“Yes. Work on what you don’t know that you think will be most useful in the arena. Stay out of everyone’s way, especially the Careers. And stick together.”

“Got it.”

It’s nearly ten already. Kayo gets up, glancing expectantly over at Scott. “Should we head down?”

“Probably a good idea.”

“Good luck,” Penelope calls after them as they head out of the apartment.

Scott takes the opportunity to really appreciate their surroundings as the elevator whisks them down to the bottom floor of the Tribute Centre. Even though they’re moving downwards at an incredibly fast rate - he can see the floors flashing by thanks to the glass walls - and yet aside from the sinking sensation that comes with rapid descents he can’t feel a thing. The elevator moves sleekly and soundlessly, no rickety mechanical shuddering or stalling. It’s a beautiful feat of engineering. Some part of him knows that he should be seething with rage at the fact that the districts have next to no machinery and the Capitol has the talent and resources to build this, but Scott’s so exhausted from the constant burning anger at the Games that he doesn’t bother. He might as well enjoy himself as much as he can before he dies, so he settles for begrudging admiration instead.

Kayo’s tapping out a quick rhythm against her leg as the elevator descends. “Nervous?” he asks her. The tapping stops as she turns to look at him.

“Sort of,” she shrugs. “But it’s more weird than scary. I mean, we’re all going to be trying to kill each other in a few days, and we’re supposed to just learn to make fires and shit together?”

“To be fair, I don’t think they’re exactly expecting us to make friends.”

Kayo rolled her eyes at him. “Not my point.”

“No, no, I get what you mean. It is weird.” And he hates it, he really does. The more time he spends around the other tributes, the more they become people. He’ll know some of their names. He’ll know what kind of food they like to eat. It will be harder to forget that they’re kids too, with family and friends and a girlfriend or a boyfriend, maybe, and as he comes closer to getting Kayo home, there will be more kids that are dead because of him. 

The thought makes him sick.

All too soon the elevator comes to a stop. They’ve reached the floor where the training gym is situated, and Scott realises that actually, he really doesn’t want to go inside. Maybe if he stays here then none of it will become real. But Kayo’s tugging his hand impatiently. “Come on, idiot, we’re going to be late if you stay here all day.”

So, reluctantly, he moves one foot and then the other, and then he’s walking out of the elevator and along the corridor. There’s nothing Scott can do to stop this from happening. He resolves to avoid the other tributes as much as he can and focus on learning as much as humanly possible to lower his chances of dying of dehydration or something else equally embarrassing. Which was what Penelope had told them to do anyway, so he supposed that was good at least.

The training instructor, Atala, seems to share Penelope’s views on the importance of survival skills. She spouts a whole load of statistics about how many tributes die outside of direct combat, from starvation to exposure to infection. “Slashing a few dummies to intimidate everyone works just fine in training,” she warns, “but when you’re dying of dehydration a sword isn’t going to do you much good. Don’t ignore the survival stations just because they don’t look as fun as the archery range.”

Not many of the tributes bother to take her advice. As soon as they’re given free rein of the gymnasium at least half of them flock to the combat stations, picking up axes and hunting knives and broadswords and maces. To be honest, Scott doesn’t really blame a lot of them. It’s clear that many have never even held a weapon before now. He tries not to think about how those tributes are being identified as easy prey by everyone else as he and Kayo elect to head over to the edible plants station.

Despite his resolution to focus on learning survival skills he’d made only minutes before, Scott finds himself watching the other tributes. Again, he reminds himself that Penelope had told them to do that as well - get a good assessment of the competition - but he hates that he’s picking up details about quite a few of them. Without meaning to, he’s already learnt the names of at least half of the Career pack.

“Bloody hell.” Kayo nudges him, pointing at the boy from Two that he now knows is called Fuse. “Look at his forearms. They’re massive.”

Scott had remembered that fact about him from the recaps of the reaping, but he understands why Kayo is mentioning it again; he’s an entirely different level of muscled in real life. That, combined with his height - Fuse is easily well over six foot, a good few inches taller than Scott - means that he’s the most intimidating person in the room by far.

“What are they feeding the kids in Two?” Kayo hisses. “He’s way too big. And tall. People shouldn’t be that tall, it’s unnatural.”

“Two’s masonry, right? Maybe they eat the rocks.”

“That wouldn’t taste good at all. Too gritty.”

Kayo starts laughing at her own joke, and Scott thwacks her arm playfully. “Come on, genius, you’re supposed to be helping me figure out which plants aren’t going to make me drop dead if I eat them.”

“Fine, fine.” She picks up a smallish brown nut that looks vaguely familiar and waves it under his nose. “Tell me about this one.”

“It’s a nut.” She snorts, unimpressed. “Hey! Not helping.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

“It’s a chestnut, right? And you can eat them.”

She nods. “Better to roast them first, but yeah, they’re edible.”

“Cool.” He spots another plant he actually recognises on the table and points at it. “That’s pennycress, isn’t it? The leaves of that are edible too.”

For the first time maybe ever, Kayo actually looks impressed with his plant identification skills. “Yes, it is. There are a lot of plants from back home here, actually. I think we might get lucky with the arena.”

“The odds are in our favour, as Clodia would say,” Scott intones, putting on her Capitol accent for effect.

Kayo exhales. “Yeah.”

“Kayo?” Something about her response seems off. “You okay?”

“I’m good. It’s nothing.”

Scott drops it, and they move on.

 

---

 

The rest of the morning passes pretty quickly. Scott’s mostly focused on their own stations, but he’s noticing more things about the others. Although most of them are moving around independently (apart from the career pack, of course, who leer at everybody from the weapons ranges) the pair from Ten - with the girl who’d cried all the way to the stage - stick firmly together. The girl really does look absolutely terrified, but the boy is taking care of her, carefully correcting her stance as she tremulously tries to throw a spear. Scott can only hope that someone else takes them both out instead of him. The pair from Three are over by the fire-building station; they’ve clearly never tried to make fire before, but they’re both picking techniques up incredibly quickly, especially the boy. He’s discovered a way to ignite the kindling by concentrating the light through his glasses. And then there’s the thirteen-year-old from 7, chatting excitedly to her district partner in a way that reminds Scott so painfully of Alan he suggests they move to a different station further away.

It turns out that trying to avoid her completely will be impossible, however, because at lunch Kayo steers the conversation around to her.

They load their plates with food from the buffet first. The stuff they’re served in the cafeteria is still Capitol standard, but they also have twelve different types of bread that are clearly baked from various district recipes. He recognises the round, diagonally slashed sourdough loaves from home. Scott decides to try one of the crescent-shaped seeded loaves and a green-tinged roll, which he guesses are from Districts 11 and 4 respectively. He wishes Virgil were here - only because his brother loves baking, and he’d be itching to taste and try to recreate every single recipe.

The two of them have been chatting amiably for a few minutes (as instructed by Penelope, though Scott would’ve sat with Kayo regardless) when Kayo brings her up.

“So, what do you think about Anise?”

At first, he doesn’t realise who she’s talking about. “Who?”

“The girl from Seven,” Kayo clarifies. “She seems to know quite a bit about plants.”

“I, uh, didn’t really notice.” Well. He’d tried not to notice her. It hadn’t worked very well.

“Well, she knew exactly what she was doing at the station. I was watching her.” Kayo pauses for a second to eat a forkful of stew. “I’d bet that she’s fast, too. And knows how to climb, seeing as she’s from Seven. I think she’d be a good ally.”

Ally? What the hell is Kayo talking about?

“I thought we’d agreed we weren’t going to have any allies,” Scott says warily. It was pretty much the first thing they’d agreed on, and Kayo had seemed on board with it at the time. And if they’re going to team up with anyone, Scott doesn’t want it to be little Anise, with her bright smile and brown eyes that are so different from Alan’s and yet somehow so similar. The more he gets to know her, the worse it will be when she inevitably dies. But he can’t explain that to Kayo. He settles for a simple “I don’t really want to team up with anyone” instead.

Kayo, though, shrugs, pushing her stew around on the plate. “Well…you don’t have to.”

He frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do in the arena,” Kayo says carefully. Her use of I - not we - sets alarm bells ringing. “It might be better if we didn’t work together.”

“I - what?”

“Obviously, I’m not going to hunt you down or anything.” She’s clearly trying to joke, but it falls miserably flat. “Just… I think you’d stand a better chance if you weren’t having to babysit me too.”

“Kayo, don’t be stupid…”

He knows he should be saying more than this, but panic is setting in and it’s clouding his mind. Scott’s entire plan rests on being able to protect Kayo right up until the end. He needs to work with her for that. If she gets it into her head to run off by herself, how the hell can he keep her safe? She’s fast, and she can climb much better than he can - and, most importantly, she can keep herself hidden. He won’t be able to find her if she doesn’t want him to. If Kayo decides to go off on her own, it’s over.

“Look, Scott. Only one of us is making it out. We’ve got to be realistic here. You’ve got the best chance by far of the two of us.” Her eyes are glinting in that way they only do when she’s absolutely set on something.

She’s serious.

“That’s not true,” he insists. “You’re fast, you know how to survive in the wild, you’re brilliant with knives. If anything, I'm the one who needs your help!”

“Have you seen the competition?” she hisses, making a stabbing gesture towards the table where the Careers have camped out. “I might be able to survive for a while, sure, but if I come face to face with any of them, I’m dead. I’d never survive the final fight even if I stayed alive that long. You could. But you won’t if you’re trying to protect me too.”

He hates that she has a point. Then again, isn’t that the entire reason for their alliance? To have her back if - when - something like that happens? To ensure that she'll make it to the end, and goes home?

“I’m not abandoning you, Kay,” he says simply. “I couldn’t do that, not ever.”

“I know,” she replies. 

He hates the way she says those two words, and the silence that hangs between them afterwards.

 

---

 

They return pretty quickly to small talk after lunch. No mention of the conversation is made, and after a while Scott dares to tell himself that maybe he’d imagined the look of resolve on Kayo’s face as she told him to leave her behind. It certainly seems as if she’s forgotten it herself, grinning in excitement as she nimbly replicates the snare that the instructor had demonstrated for them. Scott gets there in the end too, but not before she makes fun of him for being a slowpoke.

He keeps one eye on the other tributes. He’s still trying to avoid watching Anise, but her partner is definitely one of the bigger threats. They don’t go near the combat stations, but he’s tall, and clearly strong. The Career pack are eyeing him from across the room. He’s firmly ignoring them. Scott respects him for that.

The first day comes to an end both very slowly and much too quickly. The tributes are all dismissed, and Scott’s nearly at the door when he notices that Kayo’s vanished from his side (seriously, he needs to put a bell on her or something, because her ability to move completely silently spooks him constantly). He spins around, surveying the gym until he spots her over by the knot-tying station. His heart sinks as he realises who she’s talking to. Anise.

The two look like they’re getting along well. He clears his throat loudly to get Kayo’s attention, and she turns to look at him, saying a few more words to Anise before heading back over. “Sorry,” she says as she reaches his side.

“What were you talking to her about?” Scott asks, trepidation building.

“Oh, you know. Stuff. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.” Clearly Kayo can sense his disapproval, because she’s already heading for the door. “I’m starving. Hope dinner’s good.”

Seeing as they’re currently in the Capitol, Scott’s not really sure how the food is going to be anything but. He follows her hurriedly, feeling uncomfortably like he’s constantly battling to avoid being left behind.

 

---

 

Dinner is a quiet affair. Penelope grills them on everything that happened during training, as well as things they noticed about the other tributes and the sort of wildlife that was featured at the survival stations. Aside from answering her questions, neither Scott nor Kayo really say anything. He notices that Kayo chooses not to mention her chat with Anise.

The food is lovely (as usual) but it’s not nearly enough to distract Scott from his own thoughts. Anxiety simmers in his chest. In all his planning of how to help Kayo, not once had the possibility of her not wanting his help crossed his mind. Once again, she's being rash and stubborn and ignoring him, despite the fact he's only ever got her best interests at heart. It happened all the time back home, over things that had been important then but seem so trivial now, because now their lives are quite literally hanging in the balance and Scott’s no longer sure that he can keep Kayo from dying. The thought has utterly ruined his appetite. He sits, prodding at his rice with his fork, nausea swirling in his stomach. He tries to eat, because the extra food he eats now will help sustain his weight in the arena, but he doesn’t succeed very well.

Scott glances pointedly at Penelope as they're all finishing their food, and she hangs back as the others disappear off elsewhere in the apartment.

"Did something happen?" she asks him, arms folded.

"I think Kayo's planning to run off by herself."

"You mean, she doesn't want an alliance?"

"She might still want one, I don't know - just not with me." At Penelope's quizzical look, he continues. "She's been acting weirdly ever since the reaping. One minute she's there, the next she's shutting me out. I'd have said it was just because of…well, everything, but today at training she pretty much said that she thought she'd be holding me back if we worked together."

"I see. And the alliance you mentioned?"

"Kayo was talking about how Anise could be a good ally. Then they were talking after training finished - I don't know what about, I couldn't hear - so…"

Penelope sighs. "I can see why you're worried."

"If she goes off alone, I haven't got a chance of keeping up. There’s no way I can stick with her in the arena if she doesn’t want me to, she’ll find a way to lose me." He's talking faster now, panic settling over him like a second skin. His limbs are vibrating with anxiety. "I have to- Penelope, please, help me figure this out. My family can't lose both of us. Please."

He doesn't realise he's wringing his hands until Penelope reaches out and steadies them. He holds on tightly. "Scott, breathe," she murmurs, and he attempts a shuddering inhale. "Let's talk about this in my room."

Scott nods slowly, still grasping her wrists. She guides him along a corridor he's not been down before and into a bedroom, spacious and well-furnished. It looks much more lived-in than Scott's room does. The mentors and escorts must stay in the same place every year, of course. Maybe the Capitol lets them personalise the space. "Sit," she instructs him, gesturing at the bed. 

Scott shakes his head. "I'd rather stand." For the first time in days, he has too much nervous energy. He starts pacing as soon as Penelope lets go of his wrist.

"You want to keep Kayo alive."

It's a statement rather than a question, but Scott answers anyway. "I do, but how the hell can I protect her if I don't know where she is?"

"Think, Scott. Who's the biggest threat in the arena?"

The Gamemakers, he thinks. But he doesn't dare to say that out loud. "The Careers?" he says instead, and Penelope smiles.

"Precisely."

"I haven't got a chance of killing them, though. Especially not at the beginning, there are six of them. Plus they always get control of the best gear. Maybe I could take out one of them before I get killed, but…" He tails off as Penelope simply eyes him knowingly. Irritation rises - why is she making him guess, when she's clearly got the answer? - but then it clicks, and he simply stares at her incredulously.

"You want me to join the Career alliance."

"I do."

It's not unheard of for tributes from outlying districts to join the Careers, but it is rare. In fact, one of only two Games Scott remembers watching where it happened were Penelope's. She had planted the seeds of betrayal, moving around supplies and stealing weapons and turning them all against each other. The alliance crumbled after the District 1 boy was killed, and the surviving Careers were much easier to pick off one by one.

“To do what? Take them out from the inside, like you did?”

“Not quite,” Penelope says. “After a few days or so. At first, though, it means that when the pack decides to hunt for other tributes, you’ll be right there with them.”

The final piece falls into place. “So if they find Kayo, I can stall them or help her get away or something.” It’s not a bad plan, objectively.

“I know it doesn’t account for the threats from other tributes or the environment, but there’s only so much I can do. And you don’t have to ally with the Careers. If you want to protect her, staying by her side is still the best chance you have- “

“It isn’t,” Scott interrupts. “I mean - I can try and talk her round, but she’s stubborn as a bull when she wants to be. The Career plan might be our best shot.”

“Very well.” Penelope glances at the clock on the far wall, a fancy thing that’s all swirls and gilded wood and yet still manages to be more tasteful than most of the Capitol décor he’s seen so far. “It’s still early. I have a few connections with the Career mentors, so I’ll talk to them about a potential alliance. They’re not too fond of outlying districts, so I might have a little trouble, and the final decision to let you in obviously rests with the tributes themselves.”

“I’ll need to impress the Careers tomorrow then, huh?”

“It’s a good idea. Let them approach you first, though. Like it or not, this alliance will be entirely on their terms.”

That’s no secret. Every aspect of the Games is almost entirely on the Career districts’ terms, year after year. They get the best scores, the best odds on the boards, the adoration of the audience, sponsor gift after sponsor gift. They’re also usually the ones who kill the kids from 9.

But not this time. Not if Scott can help it.

His mind turns back to strategy, and another thought pops into his head. “What about our whole sibling angle? Should we stick with that? I mean, it’s all going to fall apart in the arena if we run off in completely separate directions.”

“Not necessarily,” Penelope says. “You’re doing it to save her life. Once you make your move, whatever it is, the audience should catch on to your plan.”

“If they don’t, Kayo will. She’s smart. She’ll play it up for all it’s worth if she thinks it’ll help us.”

“Indeed.” Penelope rises from where she’d been perched on the corner of her bed, smoothing the folds of her skirt (pink, as usual). “Well. If there’s nothing else you want to discuss, I should go and speak to the other mentors before it gets too late.”

“Right, yeah.” He tries a smile, but he’s pretty sure it ends up more of a grimace.  “Good luck talking them round.”

“Thank you. And Scott, you might want to get some rest before tomorrow.”

Then she’s out of the door, off to hunt down the Career mentors and rope them into her scheme. Scott lets out a breath as he leaves her room.

It’s a bold strategy, that’s for sure. Buddying up with the Careers? Never in a million years would he have imagined that he’d be doing that. The whole lot of them are ruthless killers, having trained their entire lives for the possibility of glory and fame, prepared to do whatever it takes to win. It feels slightly like a betrayal to be teaming up with them, considering that they always pick off the tributes from the outlying districts like it’s a sport before gearing up for the big fight between them. The whole lot of them view the Hunger Games like - well, like they’re a game, some sick pageant that lets them bring honour to their district. As if it’s worth anything.

And yet here he is.

But if this alliance lets him save Kayo’s life, then it’s worth it. His morals can be put aside for this. He’ll protect her, and when it’s time he can shatter the alliance and take as many of the Careers down with him when he goes.

Chapter 6: vi. alliance

Day two of training is already here. Scott’s restless as he gets dressed, all too aware of the alarming speed with which his last few days outside of the arena are trickling away. Tomorrow is the skill assessment, the day after that the interview, and then they’re being thrown into an arena to fight to the death. Every second passes in a blink, yet feels like it stretches across millenia.

The mockingjay pin is still where he left it on the day they arrived, on top of his nightstand, resting on his father’s old shirt. Penelope had apparently made sure that both had been safely transported from the train to the Tribute Centre. Just another thing he’s indebted to her for. If she’d wanted to make up for not helping his family all those years ago, she’s certainly been doing it these past few days.

Scott hasn’t wanted to risk wearing the pin to training - it’d only get lost or damaged or confiscated - but its presence is strangely soothing. Maybe because it reminds him of Grist, of the simple everyday kindness of his neighbours back home. He hopes that she’s doing alright. John had said that he'd take up Scott’s rounds, so at least she’ll have regular visitors despite his absence. Knowing her, she’ll probably be helping John right back, doing favours for his brothers. Grist always was too kind for the harsh life she was given.

Kayo isn’t there for breakfast. Clodia, wearing yet another mad getup that’s supposedly the height of Capitol fashion, tells him that Kayo had already eaten before he arrived. That  doesn’t surprise him. She usually avoids him like the plague during the first day or so of one of their arguments. It doesn’t bode well or today, though; the two of them are supposed to be sticking with the inseparable sibling act. Emphasis on act, at the moment. He hopes she won’t be too hostile once they’re together again.

Clodia displays a rare moment of shrewdness when Kayo finally shows up, right before the pair of them are expected to go down for training. “Now, I hope you both remember the angle we’re pushing,” she says sternly. “I’m not sure what’s happened between you two, but Penelope wants you to appear at least amiable to everyone - including the other tributes - and she knows what she’s doing, so you had better listen to her and set aside whatever…this is. Are we clear?”

Clodia goes a little up in his estimation just then. Scott’s genuinely surprised that she even noticed anything was going on at all. 

“Clear,” he blinks. Kayo mutters a similar assent, scuffing her show on the polished marble floor. Clodia seems appeased, nodding sharply and brushing down her lurid yellow dress. 

“Excellent. Well, then, I think the pair of you had better head downstairs. Plenty to do before your assessments tomorrow! I’ve got another busy day drumming up sponsorship interest, so I shall see the both of you in time for supper.” She bustles off, walking in that odd way that Scott only ever sees Capitolites do. It must have something to do with her massive heels. They can’t be easy to balance in, he muses.

Scott’s about to follow Kayo into the elevator for training when Penelope materialises out of the shadows just by the corridor to their rooms and tilts her head at him meaningfully. He scrambles for an excuse to hang back.

“Hold on, I forgot my, uh, my jacket.” Which is true enough, he’d left it in his room and hadn’t been bothered to collect it after breakfast. “I’ll just be a second.” 

Penelope disappears off down the corridor. He follows her as she turns into his room.

“What is it?” Scott asks once the door is shut behind him. There’s a slight irritation to his words; he doesn’t like going behind Kayo’s back, no matter how necessary it may be. It’s not Penelope’s fault, of course - she’s just trying to help - but Scott’s still stuck in a strange moral quagmire that lends an edge to his tone. If Penelope notices, she doesn’t comment on it.

“I spoke to some of the inner district mentors,” she informs him. “It’s just as I suspected. They’re open to an alliance if the pack approves. I just thought I’d warn you that they might approach you today to see what you can do.”

He has to prove himself to them. Of course. “So I’m guessing that the whole ‘keep your skills hidden’ tactic is going out the window.”

“Only once they’ve actually approached you. Be tough. Impress them. Don’t let them rile you up, but don’t be a pushover either.”

“Okay, cool.” Aware of the fact that Kayo is waiting for him by the elevator, he gestures at the jacket he left discarded on his bed, down by Penelope’s feet. He needs to get back before he’s gone too long. “I’d better go - I’ll just…”

“Ah, yes. Here.” Penelope deftly scoops the jacket up and throws it to him. He grabs it, tying it around his waist as he rushes back out of his room.

Kayo tilts her head curiously at him as Scott emerges from the corridor, trying not to appear as stressed as he feels. “I must’ve accidentally kicked it under my bed or something, it was kind of hard to find,” he offers as meagre explanation for why he was gone so long. Kayo doesn’t respond, just beckons for him to hurry up. He follows her out of the door.

 

---

 

They make an effort to continue Penelope’s strategy of appearing as a team, but it’s getting more difficult. There’s a wedge between them that’s almost tangible, a growing barrier that they skirt around and around, neither of them daring to acknowledge it. Scott can tell she still feels guilty about dinner yesterday. He’s too on edge about his imminent audition with the dogpack to try and reassure her much.

The new atmosphere in the training gym isn’t helping one bit. As they go over the plants Scott had struggled to identify yesterday, he can feel the eyes of the Careers on him. They’re trying to play it off, act tough and indifferent to all the other tributes, but he’s noticed them stealing glance after glance at him when they think he isn’t looking. As it turns out, the nickname of dogpack that Penelope used that morning is incredibly apt; he feels distinctly like a deer in a forest being stalked by a pack of wolves. They don’t have any back in 9, of course, but he’s heard stories - passed across the district from those who live on the borders - of the wolves that live beyond the boundary. They say that they can sometimes be heard howling from deep in the forests - but only on the darkest of nights. Every so often a dead animal will appear next to the fence, its bones picked clean.

Sure enough, before long Kayo also notices the newfound attention from the Careers. She glares at them out of the corner of her eye.

“What’s their deal?” she murmurs to Scott.

“Dunno,” he says, praying that she doesn’t pick up on the way his voice is slightly too loud, his attitude too nonchalant. “Maybe they’re sizing up the competition.”

“Maybe.” Kayo doesn’t sound too sure of her words. “They just seem…different from yesterday. I don’t like it.”

“No, me neither.” And that really is the truth. The gleam in the boy from Four’s eyes is starting to creep Scott out. “Maybe we should move to a different station.”

That turns out to be a mistake. The pair of them have been settled at the knot-tying station for a little while when the boy from One - Bespoke - calls out to them.

“Hey! Nine! You ever gonna pick up any of these weapons, or are you just gonna keep messing around with the pretty flowers?”

Scott’s step falters, and he stops and turns. Kayo tugs at his wrist. “Ignore him. Come on, let’s go.”

Bespoke carries on taunting him. “You letting that kid tell you what to do, Scotty?”

The childhood nickname stings. It’s twisted and bitter on Bespoke’s lips, a mockingly painful reminder of the family he’s lost and the people he’ll never see again. He grits his teeth and clenches his fist, nails digging into his palm. “Shut the fuck up,” he spits. Kayo tugs at his arm again.

“Don’t rise to the bait, Scott, come on,” she whispers sharply. “Penelope told us to steer clear of the Careers.”

Not both of us, Scott thinks, heart sinking. This could be the moment Penelope warned him about. The Careers are testing him. If he wants this alliance to happen, he’s got to prove that he’s somebody worth allying with.

“I bet those big shoulders are just for show,” the girl from Two smirks. Scott can’t remember her name, but he definitely remembers the gleam of her slightly-too-sharp canines. “He’s just another pretty face.”

He knows for certain now what they want him to do. They’re baiting him, getting him to show off his combat skills. Figuring out his strengths and weaknesses. “Don’t, Scott, please,” Kayo hisses, but he wrenches his arm out of her grasp and strides over to where the pack are gathered around the wall of weapons. Indignant rage at having to perform for them like some kind of circus animal burns in his veins, made all the more powerful at the sting of their snide taunts. 

Scott is much more comfortable with the feel of the scythes that the workers use during harvest season, but they aren't very effective weapons. He'd decided yesterday after careful observation of the way the other tributes at the combat stations (on top of his years of experience watching the Games, of course) that axes would be much better suited to the arena: a weapon he still has experience with, as he’d used his father’s axe for years to chop firewood. Scott pulls two weapons free from the rack – a decent-sized axe that looks to be about the same weight as the larger scythes they used during the harvest back home, and a smaller knife - staring down Bespoke as he does so. Bespoke stares straight back. A couple of the Peacekeepers stationed around the outskirts of the room edge closer; clearly, they’re expecting a fight. Scott walks straight through the Career pack, however, instead coming to a stop in front of the combat range. The boy from Two folds his arms as the pair from Four nudge each other and point.

Several dummies stand before him at varying distances away. They’re all different sizes, some roughly the same height and build as him and some much smaller. A few are even smaller than Kayo. It's appallingly clear that the smaller dummies are meant to represent the youngest tributes.

The Capitol's training us to kill kids, Scott thinks. Kids like Alan, like Gordon, like Kayo. He focuses his gaze determinedly on one of the largest dummies and tries to ignore his stomach lurching. The axes are heavy in his hands.

"Get on with it!" the District One girl jibes from the back of the group. Scott suppresses a snarl. He settles into what he hopes is an impressive stance, hooking the knife onto his belt.

The axe feels different to the scythes he's used to, but the weight is familiar in his hands. Scott hopes that the years he's spent working in the fields will help him now.

He swings.

Scott spins with the attack, whirling around as the blade whistles through the air. The first blow slices the head of the first dummy clean off. He brings the weapon close to his body again and advances.

Honestly, he’s got no clue how effective these attacks would actually be in the arena. For one, he's not having to fend off counter-attacks, which lets him focus fully on offence. For another, the dummies aren't running away, so it's vastly easier to hit the targets. The axe slices through another dummy and he grunts with the effort. 

His last target is further away, a few feet from him. It doesn't bother Scott. In one fluid move he unhooks the knife from his belt - praying that he isn't going to make a massive fool of himself - and hurls it, aiming for the dummy's head. He's certainly not the most amazing shot, but Kayo isn't the only one who's knows how to throw knives. She was the one who taught him, actually. He likes to think that he's okay at it.

The knife sails straight over the dummy's head.

Scott curses under his breath. That was a stupid gamble. Now he's going to look like an idiot, and the Careers are going to write him off as just another useless Outlier idiot, and he's completely blown his chances-

There's a thud.

Scott's eyes follow the path through the air the knife had carved. Past the target he'd tried to hit, right at the back of the combat area, the blade sits quivering in the skull of the farthest dummy. One of the Careers actually whistles in appreciation. 

Oh. Neat.

There's still one opponent left now, though, and Scott figures that he might as well take out the dummy in front of him. One twist of his axe and the blade is embedded deep in its neck, right at the point where, if he was fighting a real person, the blood would gush out of their body, leaving them dead in minutes. After a couple seconds he yanks the axe free, driving a kick into its stomach that sends the dummy toppling over.

"Hm. Not bad, Nine."

Scott glances back, trying to slow his breathing. Every single Career is watching him, as well as at least half of all the other tributes. Expressions range from shocked to impressed to irritated to terrified. He understands now why Penelope had initially told them not to demonstrate their combat skills during training; he feels like he's just painted a massive target on his back. Everyone now knows exactly how he fights. They'll either stay as far away from him as they can…or try to take him out as quickly as possible. The Careers almost look bitter at his success, some of them scowling openly at him. The boy from Two, however (Fuse, Scott remembers), looks…pleased? It throws him off much more than the dirty looks the rest of the dogpack are giving him. 

He shoves the weapons roughly back on the weapons stands, all too eager to get the hell away from the combat stations and back to the knot tying station, where Kayo's waiting for him. But as he passes Fuse, the guy sticks out his hand. It takes Scott a second to realise he's offering a handshake.

This is probably some kind of test too, he thinks. The Career lot always think their shit doesn’t stink, that they deserve everything in the world and then more because they’ve somehow earned their place in the Games. Anyone offered something so valuable as a position in their alliance should be grovelling at their feet for the opportunity. Grudgingly, Scott takes his hand. He can't quite bring himself to do exactly as he's supposed to, though. So his grip is tighter than it should be, and no simpering smile graces his lips. "Hope you and your friends are as good as you say you are," he murmurs into Fuse's ear, just barely avoiding slamming into the bigger boy’s shoulders as he moves past him.

Fuse chuckles. The girl from One giggles playfully. "Kitty's got claws," she mocks, swiping at him. He stalks past her, not bothering to look back.

“What the fuck were you thinking, going over to them like that?” Kayo hisses as he crouches back down next to her. He picks up the length of rope he’d been trying in vain to knot and tries not to look at her. She isn’t deterred by his lack of eye contact, elbowing him in the ribs sharply. “That was really stupid. Incredibly stupid. Penelope told us explicitly not to talk to them.”

“They just pissed me off,” he replies, self-hatred lending an edge to his voice. It’s not completely untrue - the Careers had a unique way of getting under his skin - but his cheeks are burning with the guilt of lying to her and the anger at having to suck up to the inner district kids for the sake of the stupid alliance.

“You’ve just lost pretty much the only advantage you had!” she reprimands him. “They know exactly how well you can fight now. Were you even thinking?”

“I guess I wasn’t. I’m sorry.” Scott’s fingers clench tightly around the rope; he’s given up trying to tie the knot the instructor had taught them ten minutes ago. His hands are shaking too much from exertion.

Kayo sighs, focusing on her own knot-tying, letting the pair of them sit in silence for a while. When she finally speaks, her voice is quiet and resigned. “Well, it’s happened now. You can’t change it, so…”

“I messed up, I know. I promise I won’t take the bait if they try something like that again.”

Her fingers deftly tie and untie the rope together again and again. “Good. They’re not worth it.”

Scott turns back to his own rope again, trying to bring the shaking back under control.

“And Scott?”

“Yeah?”

“That was a damn good throw.”

His eyes flick over to Kayo. She’s smiling slightly, eyes twinkling. “Well, I had a good teacher.” Her smile grows a little wider. “I’ve gotta be honest, though… I was actually aiming for the other one.”

She snorts. “Dumbass.”

“I won’t argue with that.”

 

---

 

The Careers don’t bother him for the rest of the day. He’s eternally grateful for that, because if they tried to get him to show off more of his abilities he genuinely doesn’t know if he’d be able to. Scott had known that Kayo would be mad at him for going against Penelope’s advice, but he hadn’t known that she’d be that angry. The thought of letting her down like that again is awful.

Scott decides instead to spend the rest of the day people-watching as they tour the survival stations. He’s slowly but surely getting used to the idea that all of the tributes will be dead within the next few weeks. If he wants to be serious about getting Kayo home, he needs to step up his game. So he starts noticing details, trying to figure out who looks like they might actually stand a chance. The tributes from 3 seem pretty smart, but the boy in particular is a whiz at whipping up snares, impressing even the instructor with his skill. The male tribute from 7, Hollis, ventures over to the weapons stations eventually, and proves that he’s very handy with an axe. The pair from 10 work diligently at their survival skills, sometimes bumping into Scott and Kayo as they’re moving to a new station. Scott wonders if 10’s mentors had given them the same advice that Penelope had. 

Anise and Hollis both approach them at lunch, horrifyingly, and Kayo is all too happy to invite them to sit down. Scott nibbles on a seaweed loaf from 4 and does his best to ignore the conversation.

Now that he’s no longer panicking about the thought of Kayo going off on her own (well, he is, but he has a plan, which helps calm his nerves somewhat), he genuinely doesn’t know how he feels about Kayo teaming up with Anise - and maybe Hollis too, given how close he seems to be with his district partner. One the one hand, the two of them have been getting along really well. It’s incredibly clear that Kayo has missed having people her age to talk to and mess around with; he hasn’t seen her this animated since before the reaping. The two of them are getting along like a house on fire, offering each other little pieces of food and recommending Capitol dishes that the other hadn’t tried yet. The fact that, despite everything, the two of them still get to be kids together is incredible. It’s an act of defiance, a silent fuck you to the Capitol. The Gamemakers haven’t managed to destroy their childhood entirely just yet.

But on the other hand, Scott knows it can’t last forever. At least one of them will die. If they’re unlucky, one of them will die first, and the other will have to live the rest of their life with that guilt. He doesn’t want that for Kayo, but if she gets out alive then he knows that Anise’s face will just be one of the many that will haunt her.

Still, he lets them enjoy the moment while it’s still here. 

“Can we come with you to the camouflage station?” Anise pipes up as they’re finishing up their meal. She’s looking directly at Scott, those brown eyes wide and earnest. He flinches slightly. After a second, he nods jerkily.

“Cool!” She bounces up from the bench, dragging Kayo up with her. “Let’s go!” Hollis follows behind her at a more sedate pace, taking his and Anise’s dirty plates over to the counter before heading to the camouflage station. Scott sits alone at the table for a minute. Then he picks up his and Kayo’s plates, trudging over and dumping them on the counter with the other dirty dishes. He hopes desperately that he’ll make it through the next few hours, next to the little girl with the wide eyes and infectious smile that remind him so painfully of his youngest brothers, without spiralling into some kind of panic. 

 

---

 

Miraculously, Scott survives the afternoon training session. Anise and Hollis head up in the elevator with them; he spends the entire journey trying to control his breathing. It’s a mercy when they get out two floors before him and Kayo.

"You don't like her, do you?" Kayo says quietly. Scott's eyes widen slightly; he hadn't realised that she'd noticed his less-than-cheerful attitude. Then again, he doesn't know why he's surprised. Kayo's always been very noticing.

"It's not that I don't like her," he starts, picking over his words carefully as he navigates the tangle of emotions in his chest, "but she…. I dunno." He owes her an explanation, so he tries to find the words. "She reminds me of Alan. Gordon too, but…mostly Alan."

"Oh."

"I can't figure out what it is about her, exactly, but…" He shrugs. "Yeah. It's not Anise’s fault that she reminds me of them. She seems very sweet."

“She is.” Kayo twists her hands together. “I don’t want you to hate her or anything. It’s stupid, but…”

“I don’t,” he reassures her. “She and Hollis seem like good people.”

Kayo nods silently. 

Scott sighs internally, pushing the button that opens the door to their apartment. He tries to talk her round one last time. “Are you really sure that you don’t want to stick together in the arena? You can forage and throw knives, I can do the close quarters fighting… we could do pretty well as a team.”

For a second, she seems to hesitate, golden eyes hesitantly meeting his. A tiny spark of hope flares up in his chest. Then her gaze wavers and she looks away, a thousand emotions flickering across her face. “I’d only get in your way. You’ll have a better chance without me.”

Damn it.

“Kay, please…”

“I said no, Scott. I’m not putting you in danger.”

An irrational flash of anger surges through him. “Fine. Be like that.” For once, he is the one who walks away, leaving behind a wide-eyed Kayo frozen in the hallway. His footsteps burn angry holes in the luxury carpet as he storms along the corridor to his room.

Penelope finds him there a few hours later. Scott had paced back and forth until he’d worn his anger out, at which point he’d collapsed on his bed and refused to move, not even when Clodia had called him for dinner. He’d simply let the hours tick by, staring at the ceiling, wishing everything would disappear but unable to close his eyes and slip into the oblivion of sleep. He doesn’t glance over when the door creaks open, doesn’t move as Penelope sits herself down in his periphery.

Scott drags a hand down his face, pressing down on his eyes. “She’s so fucking stubborn.” Penelope rests a comforting hand on his shoulder. The contact makes him shudder, but he doesn’t have the energy to bat her away. “Why does she have to be so stubborn? Why won’t she just listen to me?”

“She’s trying to do the same thing you are,” Penelope says softly. “You Tracys have a habit of caring too much about other people - and Kayo clearly thinks of you as her brother.”

“But it’s not her job to protect me. I’m the eldest. I have to keep everyone else safe, not the other way round.”

“Perhaps she wants to return the favour.” At Scott’s silence, Penelope sighs. “I won’t pretend to understand her motives, but we can’t change her mind if she’s made her decision. There isn’t anything you can do that you aren’t already doing. Except for this.” She nudges his shoulder, gesturing for him to sit up. Reluctantly, he does. “You skipped dinner. With the games so close, you have to be storing as much food in your body as you can. Eat.” 

A meticulously wrapped package is deposited in his lap. Carefully, he unfolds the fabric holding it together, revealing a few boxes packed with both sweet and savoury dishes - including some of the apple turnovers that he’d enjoyed so much on the train to the Capitol. He stares at the meal for a few seconds. Scott isn't hungry, not really - hunger to him is the vicious gnawing of a whole day (or two, or three) without anything to eat, the hollow feeling in your stomach that wracks your body with shakes - but he knows she's right. He has to take advantage of the plenty of the Capitol while he still can. So he digs into the rice dish with the fork Penelope hands him, its gorgeous flavour barely registering in his mouth as he chokes it down. The apple turnovers help ground him slightly. Penelope stays silent as he eats.

“I’ve been speaking to the Career mentors again,” she says softly, taking the empty boxes back from him and wrapping them back up. “They’ve heard quite a bit about you from the tributes, apparently. You seem to have impressed them.”

“Great,” he grunts unenthusiastically. It’s hard to care a lot about the opinions of the people that are out for your blood. Penelope gives him a look.

“This is a good thing, remember? Our plan is coming together.” She hands him a piece of paper folded into quarters. “Enobaria from Two gave me this. Seems you’ve made an excellent impression.”

Scott takes the note. His name is scrawled on the outside in a messy chicken scrawl. He unfolds it carefully, brow creasing as he attempts to read the barely legible writing.

 

Not a bad show today, Nine. Impress the Gamemakers in your training evaluation and you’re in.

Fuse.

 

Well, then.

Notes:

hi lads! sorry for the slight delay, i've unfortunately become slightly obsessed with call the midwife of all things. i have been actually working on the rest of the fic though - i'm determined to keep ahead of the curve and all that, but my writing fever died down a little and it's been harder to find the inspo. ah well!

all the drama is kicking off! it's honestly kind of interesting reading back over this whilst i was proofreading and making sure the plot is still consistent, because it feels like so long ago that i wrote the first bit. it's kind of nice to see how i've improved as an author when i pick up phrasing that feels clumsy and can actually edit it in a way that works better - but also a little embarrassing because y'know that's how my writing used to be! i've definitely improved at fleshing out scenes at least, and adding in little details to liven it up. the first section of this fic feels so plot heavy because there's so much to establish oof

anyways! love to all of you, sending lots of good luck and joy and things <3 take care of yourselves and see you next week!

Chapter 7: vii. scores

The last day of training arrives alarmingly quickly, along with a sick feeling in Scott’s stomach that he knows won’t leave him until all of this is over. (Whether by this he means the assessments, the interviews, or the whole damn Games, he doesn’t know.) They only have half the usual time at the training stations today; after lunch, they will take it in turns to showcase their abilities to the Gamemakers. This is one of the limited number of opportunities they will get to impress the Capitol before entering the arena, and it’s one of the most important. Higher scoring tributes garner the most attention from the sponsors - and he’s seen firsthand what a difference those sponsorships can make. Finnick Odair won his Games because he was gifted a golden trident, a tool that became a deadly weapon in his fisherman’s hands.

And Scott has even more riding on these private sessions than most of the other tributes. After all, if he messes this up, there’s no way he’ll be let in on the alliance. He has to prove that his skills in the weapons range yesterday were more than just a fluke.

Everyone is on edge today, even the Careers. He can tell from the way the dogpack is standing a little more tensely than usual, huddled together, true to their namesake. Fuse throws a spear into one of the dummies with so much force that it tears straight through its chest and buries itself in the ground behind it. The kid from Three is stuttering even more than usual, and there’s a shake to his hands that Scott can see from clear across the room. Even Anise, usually so chatty, is hiding in the corner, exchanging only a few words with Hollis.

“You know what you’re gonna do in your private session?” Kayo murmurs to Scott during lunch, quietly enough so that the pair from Three, sitting only a table away, cannot overhear. He nods.

“Pretty much what I did yesterday in front of the Careers,” he whispers back. “I dunno, I don’t have much else to impress them with. What about you?”

“Throwing knives, probably,” she shrugs.

“Show them your climbing skills too,” Scott suggests. “There’s loads of stuff you could climb around, and if you can hit targets from way up in the air I bet they’d be really impressed. It shows you can attack with stealth.”

“I could,” Kayo agrees. “I haven’t had the chance to climb anything recently either. I miss it.”

“I’ll never understand how you can love being so high up,” Scott grimaces. Even the thought of climbing makes him feel a bit queasy. Kayo and Gordon, on the other hand, had been trying to clamber up anything taller than them pretty much since they could walk. They’d tried to get him to go climbing with them in the forest all the time, but he used to try and get out of it as much as possible. He’s not bad at it, per se, just not at all fond of heights.

“It’s fun,” Kayo insists.

“If you say so,” Scott says, unconvinced.

“I do say so,” she replies self-assuredly. “You’re just a boring old scaredy-cat.”

“I just don’t want to break my neck falling out of a tree that I was climbing for no reason whatsoever.”

“Fine,” she sniffs. “Mister Boring Scaredy-Cat.”

“Hey!”

Kayo just giggles.

 

---

 

All traces of humour disappear once the private sessions begin. The waiting room is quiet to begin with, no one quite daring to speak too loudly, and the volume drops to near silence once the Career pack have all left. Scott and Kayo are pretty much the only people talking by the time Nine is called.

As the sessions are done boy-girl, Scott goes first. “Good luck,” Kayo whispers to him as his name is called, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Thanks,” he whispers back as he stands. “You too. I’ll see you soon.” She nods, hand releasing his and dropping into her lap.

The gym is set up the same as usual when he enters, only without the instructors stationed around the room. The only people in there apart from himself are the Gamemakers, milling around on the velvet-lined balcony high up on the wall opposite the entrance. He'd not spent a lot of time looking at it before - surveying the other tributes and following Penelope’s advice had been the focus of his attention - but now that the gym is empty, the Gamemakers' balcony sticks out like a sore thumb. Whilst the rest of the place is done up in dull metallic greys, the balcony is a rich blood-red, draped with gorgeous hangings that are made of a much finer cloth than the fabrics they could get ahold of for clothes back in 9. A table laden with more food than his family eat in a week stretches across the back wall.

He walks hesitantly over to the centre of the room, standing in clear view of the balcony. No one seems to be paying him much attention.

“Um.” He clears his throat awkwardly. “I’m Scott Tracy, District 9.”

A few more of the Gamemakers glance over at him, but most of them seem more interested in the buffet table at the back. Irritation itches under Scott's skin, and he has to fight the urge to throw a few choice words in their direction. He instead walks with a little more purpose towards the weapons range and hopes that, once he gets started, some of them will actually notice. The larger axe is heavy as he picks it up, and in his nervous state his hands are sweaty and he nearly drops it. He hears a laugh from the balcony.

Face set, Scott doesn’t wait another second. With a grunt he swings the axe, spinning to gain momentum, and takes the head clean off the first dummy. This time, however, he decides to add a little more flair. A side roll covers the distance between him and the second target; he comes up into a crouch, slicing the legs of the second dummy off. It topples unceremoniously to the ground as he pushes himself to his feet and delivers the killing blow to its neck. A third dummy is sent reeling as he jabs it with the end of the pole. He uses those seconds he has gained to get himself in range. A slash to its stomach spills stuffing all over the floor.

Scott’s hand goes automatically to his belt before he remembers that, in his anger, he forgot to pick up the knife.

Inwardly, he yells in frustration. He’d wanted to finish off the demonstration with a similar tactic to yesterday, with an impressive knife throw. Now he’ll have to change his plans, and lose out on demonstrating his long-range combat skills.

Outwardly, he simply breaks out into a run. There is a second combat range in the room, a little way over from the first. He beheads the last remaining dummy in the first combat range as he sprints past. The climbing apparatus lies between him and the second range. Scott volleys one-handed over a block that comes up to his waist, easily clearing the top. He leaps on top of the second block, not slowing down in the slightest, and jumps over to the third. From there it’s only a very short distance to the last dummy he’s marked out as a target. Scott leaps, gripping his poleaxe with both hands and bringing his whole weight down on the last dummy’s head.

The attack cleaves the thing in half from crown to sternum. Only a few inches of fabric and barely-contained stuffing are keeping it from coming apart entirely.

Panting, arms straining with effort, Scott tugs his weapon free. Considering he’d forgotten to pick up the hatchet, he’s incredibly pleased with how well his display had gone. He turns to the Gamemakers’ balcony.

There is the barest smattering of applause.

Of course there is. No matter how tough Scott may look - and he knows that he's in much better shape than some of the other younger, more malnourished tributes, even if he’s not at the same level as the Careers - he's from an outlying district. Why would they ever care about him? He's a nobody, a tribute that'll die at the hands of a Career, the opponent in a fight scene that will take up thirty seconds of the winner's montage and gain them a few compliments on how skilfully they overpowered him and left him dying in the dust.

Rage burns in his chest.

Before Scott even realises what he's doing, he's storming over to the weapons range and tearing the knife from its place on the stand. It thuds into the wall, inches away from one of the Gamemaker's heads, and he watches with a sick sense of satisfaction as the blade severs the tether holding up one corner of the velvet drapery, sending it crashing to the floor. It takes a half of the buffet dishes onto the floor with it as it falls, a deafening cacophony of destruction. Everything goes deathly quiet.

"Have a good day, ladies and gents," he says, and lets the axe clatter to the floor as he calmly walks out of the gymnasium.

 

---

 

Scott makes it into the elevator before the reality of what he's just done hits him fully. He sinks to the floor, back pressed against the far wall, head dropping into his arms as they rest on his knees.

“Fuck,” he whispers. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…”

There’s no way they’ll give him a good score after that. The sheer disdain and disrespect he’d shown every single one of them had been off the scale. He’ll end up getting a one. Maybe even a zero. No one will sponsor him.

What will the Careers think?

Scott lets out a muffled scream of frustration. He’s completely blown the alliance now. With what Fuse said - even after proving himself like he did yesterday - there’s no way they’ll let him join with such a low score. No allies, no sponsors. No help. He’s going to be completely on his own in the arena.

The elevator pings. Slowly, he gets to his feet. He reaches out half-heartedly for the switch on the wall that opens the door, has to try a couple times before he succeeds. He doesn’t acknowledge Clodia or Penelope or Elpis and Saturn and the prep teams, who have clearly shown up specially for the announcement later this evening. He just walks straight into his room and sits on the floor next to the bed, exactly how he’d been sitting in the elevator.

“Scott? Everything alright?”

Penelope appears in the doorway. He doesn’t stop her entering, but doesn’t reply to her either. She hesitates for a second, then pads over and sits herself down next to him.

“I blew it,” he murmurs eventually. Penelope exhales slowly. “I was doing well, but then I lost my cool, and…” He closes his eyes. “I just blew it.”

“How bad was it?” she asks.

“I threw a knife into the back of the balcony. Took out the wall hangings and half the buffet table.”

Penelope blinks. “My goodness.”

“There’s no way they’ll give me a good score after that.” He looks away, guilt eating away at his insides like acid. “The Capitol won’t let it slide, they never do.”

“They won’t be able to do anything drastic for now,” Penelope reassures him, resting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “The training sessions remain absolutely confidential, so they can’t do anything officially without giving a reason – and you’re too in the public eye for that. Besides, if they admit you did something to show up the Capitol and execute you, they look doubly weak. They need you to compete in the Games.”

Scott laughs wryly. “And that’s punishment enough, right?”

“Careful,” Penelope warns. Her eyes flick up to the ceiling; hidden cameras, maybe. The reminder that they're being surveilled at all hours sends a shiver down Scott's spine.

“Well,” he shrugs, “even if the worst they do is give me a bad score, I’m screwed anyway. No one in their right mind will sponsor me, and I’m out of the alliance. I’m not going to last long. Plus I won't be able to protect Kayo from the pack when they go hunting.”

“We don’t know that yet,” Penelope says firmly. “And in any case, you'll have plenty of opportunity to prove yourself in the arena and secure sponsors. Remember Johanna from 7, who won two years ago? She had no shortage of sponsors by the end, and her training score was appalling."

He does remember that. She'd done awfully in the entire run-up to the Games, actually, bursting into tears at every opportunity and appearing absolutely useless until she'd viciously and ruthlessly taken out two members of the Career pack at once with her axe. Everyone had been completely enthralled with her by the end of it, and her Victory Tour was spectacular.

"But what about Kayo?"

"You'll simply have to try your best," Penelope sighs. "I don't recommend trying to go for any of the supplies in the middle of the Cornucopia - it's always carnage, you're more likely to get a knife in the back than anything useful - but anything you can grab quickly is good. Try not to lose her at the start. And if she won't talk to you then you'll have to shadow her, keep her safe that way."

"Right." He sinks backwards into the side of the mattress, tipping his head back so that it rests on the bed. It feels like an impossible task, but what choice does he have?

"Kayo should be back by now," Penelope tells him gently. "Do you think you're ready to head on through? The others will want to know how it went."

He scoffs. "They'll be disappointed when they find out." Penelope doesn't reply, but her tiny smile is all the answer he needs. Still, he groans and pushes himself to his feet. He'll have to face them eventually. Besides, he wants to hear how Kayo's private session went.

All heads turn to him as he walks sheepishly behind Penelope into the main room. Scott tries to conjure up a smile, but he's finding it harder and harder to stay positive about the terrible score he's sure they've given him. Elpis tilts her head in concern at his expression.

"Did something bad happen?" she asks him, hands clasped in front of her. He shrugs.

"It didn't go too great," he admits. "I'm pretty sure they're going to give me a horrible score."

"Oh no, I'm sorry." Elpis' eyebrows crease in sympathy. His prep team lament his failure in chorus and attempt to reassure him that it couldn't have been all bad. Far from being comforting, they just serve to aggravate his already frayed nerves. But they're only trying to help, so Scott does his best to accept their remarks politely.

"I'd rather not talk about it," he says as Clodia asks him what happened. "Where's Kayo? Shouldn't she be back yet?"

Penelope glanced around as well at his statement while Saturn shrugs. "Not sure."

"The sessions don't usually take this long," Clodia tuts. "Terrible organisation, really."

Scott has a sneaking suspicion that his session might be the reason for the holdup. A new fear springs into his mind unbidden - what if his behaviour affects Kayo's score? - and he clenches his fists tightly. Penelope's hand ghosts reassuringly over his forearm. "I'm sure it's nothing," she says casually. "She'll be back soon, and then we can sit down to eat."

It's a couple more minutes until Kayo arrives, cheeks flushed. He looks questioningly at her; she gives him a quick smile and a thumbs up before the rest of the room descend on her with their questions.

"It went pretty well, I think," she says in answer to all of them at once. "They were weirdly attentive, but that's probably a good thing."

"What skill did you show them?" one of her prep team asks eagerly.

"Knife throwing and climbing," she shrugs. "I hit every single target, so they'd bloody well better give me a good score."

Scott grins inwardly. Having seen Kayo in the woods back home, 'climbing' seems the wrong word for the occasion. She makes it seem so effortless, leaping from tree to tree in the blink of an eye. 'Flying' seems more appropriate. If her session showed any of that - combined with her terrifyingly accurate aim - then she's guaranteed at least a seven, despite her small stature.

"How about you?" Kayo continues, nudging his shoulder. "How'd your session go?"

"I managed to piss them off rather than impress them," Scott replies quietly, so that none of the others can hear. Kayo's eyes widen. "It's fine though, it's cool. Sponsors are overrated anyway."

She huffs a laugh. "Only you could be so ridiculously flippant about this."

"Ooh, big word. Someone's been doing their reading."

"Seriously though, Scott." She's looking at him dead in the eyes, hazel eyes piercing his soul. "Was it that bad?"

"I lost my temper right at the end," he murmurs. "They're not likely to give me a good score for showing them disrespect like that, no matter how impressive they thought I was at first. But, you know, it could be worse. I could be going into a fight to the death in a few days."

He's trying to make light of the situation, but judging from the look on Kayo's face, it's not working. She reaches out for his hand and holds it tight.

Clodia claps her hands together abruptly. "Now, we have a wonderful meal waiting for us in the other room! The scores will not be announced for a while yet, so why not enjoy some excellent food?"

"Glad at least someone's enthusiastic about this," Scott mutters to Kayo. She snorts and rolls her eyes at him, dragging him through to the dining room.

 

---

 

Dinner passes agonisingly slowly for the first time since their departure from Nine. The food is as delicious as usual, but Scott cannot stop the events of his training session from replaying over and over in his head. There is nothing he can do now to change what happened - he knows that, he does - but his brain is replaying it nonetheless and all the questions (from the prep teams, mainly) aren't helping at all. Thankfully, Penelope manages to get them to leave him alone eventually, and Kayo's potential success gives them plenty to talk about. He settles for sitting quietly in the corner and trying not to think too much about anything.

Finally, blessedly, dinner comes to an end, and the group migrates into the other room to sit down in front of the projector and wait for the scores to be announced. Kayo sits next to him again. He's given up trying to figure out if the two of them are arguing or not - that's another excruciating aspect of these Games, the awful looming cloud that now hangs over the two of them - but right now, he's just happy for the company. He can count on one hand the number of times he'll get to spend this kind of time with her.

Finally, the anthem plays, and Caesar's too-perfect smile flashes up on the screen. Kayo's hand finds Scott's as he rambles on about the tradition of the Games and the purpose of the scores and so on. He talks entirely too much for Scott's taste, but he just knows that the Capitol audience is eating it all up.

He begins to read out the scores, starting with District One as usual. Caesar likes to switch up the order for different events ever so slightly, though, and in this case the male tribute goes first. It doesn't make much difference to Scott. He knows that he's failed this.

By the time Caesar gets to District 8, Scott's gripping Kayo's hand tighter than he should be. He starts to apologise, but Kayo shakes her head, offering him a whispered 'it's okay' when he doesn't stop talking. He only realises after that that she's holding his hand back just as tight.

"And now for District 9!" Scott's face flashes up on the screen from different angles, all pictures he doesn't remember being taken. He's wearing his father's shirt in them; they must be screengrabs from his Reaping. "The male tribute from Nine is Scott Tracy, with a score of…" Caesar's gaze drops to his cue cards, and Scott just wants him to read it out and get it over with so he can go to sleep…

"Eleven."

"What?"

Kayo's whooping and Clodia is squealing and his prep team are hugging each other and Scott stares, stares in disbelief at the ELEVEN flashing on the screen, because this has to be a joke, right? He can't have scored an eleven. But everything carries on happening, and Kayo and Penelope are still whispering congratulations as everyone quiets down to hear Kayo's score.

"And now we move on to our female tribute, Tanusha Kyrano, with a score of…eight. My, my. An impressive turnout indeed from District 9 this year."

Everyone explodes into celebration once more.

"That's my girl!" Saturn grins, pulling Kayo into a fierce hug as she beams at him.

Scott gets in there next, wrapping his arms around her tightly. "I knew you could do it," he says, and Kayo snorts.

"Damn right I could," she retorts. "I'm an excellent shot."

He laughs. "Yes, you are."

"This is marvellous! Incredible!" Clodia squeals, clasping her hands together in glee. "Why, these are the best scores this district has ever had! I knew there was something special about you two, oh, I said it right from the beginning, I did." Scott and Kayo both erupt into laughter at that. Of course Clodia is managing to make this moment about herself.

"And you!" Kayo exclaims, jabbing Scott in the ribs suddenly and ignoring his pained wheeze. "You bastard, you said that it had gone terribly! You absolute liar."

"I really did think it had gone badly," Scott says numbly. Even now, the fact that he hasn’t failed is only just beginning to sink in - let alone that he got an eleven.

"Well, you have to tell us what happened in your training session now," Elpis pipes up, raising an eyebrow at him. "You can't possibly be embarrassed about it."

Scott’s prep team immediately start clamouring for him to tell the story. Kayo nudges him expectantly. “Go on,” she says curiously.

“Fine.” Scott sighs sheepishly. “I may or may have not thrown a knife at the Gamemakers.”

The room erupts into deafening disbelief. Clodia splutters, outraged, whilst the prep teams chatter amongst themselves, seemingly unsure how to react. Saturn looks quietly impressed. Elpis hides a smile behind her hand, but there’s a glimmer of concern in her eyes. Penelope - who obviously already knows - sips her drink nonchalantly.

Kayo, meanwhile, bursts out laughing again. “You- you threw an knife at them? Fucking hell, Scott, that’s hardcore.”

“I didn’t aim for any of them,” he protests. “I just wanted to scare them. I aimed for the wall, I swear.”

“Sure you did.” Kayo rolls her eyes, but can’t keep the grin off her face. It’s infectious; Scott feels a grin of his own tugging at his lips.

“How did they react?” Elpis asks, shuffling closer to him on the couch.

"Well, I definitely startled them." He thinks back to the moment after he threw the axe; in hindsight, it had been a ridiculous scene. His smile widens as their startled expressions spring to mind. "They kept tripping over the banner I'd knocked down. And- and one of them slipped on the spilled trifle."

"Oh, I wish I'd seen that," Elpis sighs wistfully. "It must have been beautiful."

"It was pretty funny," Scott admits.

 

---

 

A few drinks later (alcoholic ones, surprisingly, that Scott had had a couple glasses of but adamantly refused to let Kayo try) and the evening is winding pleasantly down. They’re all still buzzing from the scores they'd gotten - every ten minutes Clodia makes another speech about her involvement in their success - but it’s getting late and Scott is starting to feel it. The alcohol has started to go to his head as well, a sensation he’s decidedly unused to, and he really wants to lie down before it all gets too much.

Next to him, Kayo hides a yawn, and at that Penelope stands up.

"I do think that it is time for us all to get some rest," she announces to the room. "We have the interviews tomorrow, after all, and we have much to go over in preparation for them."

"Agreed," Clodia nods briskly, standing up and smoothing down the ruffles of her dress. "Come along, you two! You need your beauty sleep."

Scott shoots Kayo a look as Clodia totters towards them like a strange feathered bird, flapping her hands and herding them off towards their beds.

"Night," Scott waves from the doorway of his room. Kayo just has time to wave back before she is bustled round the corner by Clodia.

"Get some rest, young man," Clodia says firmly before she disappears around the corner herself. There’s nothing left for Scott to do but try and do as she says.

Notes:

i feel like the plot is pretty boring at the moment - i swear we'll get to more exciting bits soon! i'm currently writing much more action-based scenes so coming back and reading this bit is really weird!!

also thank you for all the lovely comments so far, i know not too much has happened (in the grand scheme of things anyway) so it's awesome that people are already keeping up with my updates :3 i'm so grateful to every single one of you!

Chapter 8: viii. interviews

Notes:

i nearly forgot to upload today!!!!!! my copy of sunrise on the reaping arrived at uhhh 7pm and i finished reading at about 2.30am? 3am? then was too excited to sleep so finally konked out at 6am..... i can't stop thinking about it i won't lie. crazy. i'm about to start my reread of the whole series including tbosas (which somehow i still don't own a copy of?????) complete with annotations. guys when literature has themes motifs and parallels.......

ANYWAY ENJOY!

Clodia bustles into Scott's room at the crack of dawn, flinging open the curtains to let the first silvery rays of the day's sun fall across the room. "Morning, morning!" she chirps, heels clacking on the floor. "Rise and shine! Lots of preparation to do. It's a big day for you!" 

It's far too early for Scott to be dealing with Clodia's irritatingly enthusiastic attitude. He groans, shoving a pillow over his head. 

"Come on now, dear, don't be like that," she chastises him. "Positivity is always best - why, today it's absolutely imperative. Show those sponsors your good side." Clodia seems to be doing everything she possibly can to get Scott out of bed short of physically removing him from it - something which he does not appreciate. Still, she clearly isn't going away any time soon, so with another groan he hauls himself out of bed and trudges into the dining room.

"Have you heard? It’s interview day today, apparently," Scott says dryly as he thuds onto the seat next to Kayo, who's still wiping the sleep from her eyes. Clodia tuts at his complete lack of decorum. Scott doesn't much care.

"Yippee," Kayo responds sarcastically, biting into a slice of toast smeared with red jam.

"Honestly," Clodia snaps, "you are both taking this far too lightly. This is your final chance to secure sponsors before the game begins. High scores don't guarantee your survival. This is about giving you an edge out there - don't you want it?"

Scott blinks. There's an edge to Clodia's voice, a glimmer of worry taut on her face. It's the first time she's actually shown any sort of concern for them, for their fate in the arena. Maybe she does care after all.

"She's right," Penelope intones from right by Scott's ear. He jumps; he’d not noticed her approach at all. "These interviews are vital for setting up the image we want to maintain throughout the Games, even though they're only three minutes long. Best eat up, you two. We've got a lot of preparation to do today."

Scott sighs and spreads some more jam onto his buttered roll. He's not looking forward to this at all.

 

---

 

Preparation turns out to be hours upon hours of elocution lessons. Clodia and Penelope both seem to be experts, so one of them takes him and the other takes Kayo. He's unlucky enough to end up with Clodia. Two hours later and he's already thoroughly sick of the whole thing.

"Don't hunch, Scott, my goodness, we have been over this. Bad posture is very unbecoming of a young man." She pokes him in between the shoulder blades and Scott exhales slowly in an attempt to keep calm. Clodia has been insistent on making him a paragon of Capitol manners (perhaps to combat the negative assumptions that come with being from an outlying district, who knows) but he's not the best at it. He understands the importance of making a good impression, of course he does, but he's not sure how much all these arbitrary rules help with that.

"Could we not try something else?" he says eventually, turning in his chair to look back at Clodia. "A more casual approach, I don't know. I'm never going to get all this by tonight."

Clodia looks a little put out that her efforts are being shot down, but she indulges him – maybe realising that they’re not getting very far with her approach. "Hm. Well, do you have any suggestions?"

"I don't know, just…doing it as myself. Not pretending to be someone completely different."

Clodia looks doubtful.

"Well, it's all about personality, right? If I act more like myself, won't people like me more than if I act like some Capitol kid?" Scott can see she's wavering, and he presses the point. "I had quite a few admirers at home, so I can't be that bad, can I?"

Admirers is a phrase Scott has never wanted to use to describe the few girls who showed interest in him back home - but still, his point stands. There must've been something about him that they liked, his looks or his smile or something about his personality (though honestly he has no idea why). He figured that if he could just turn on his Tracy charm, as his grandmother called it, maybe the Capitol will like him just the same as people did back home. He does feel a little bad for rejecting all of Clodia's tips after the hours they just spent going over them, but Scott just can't make them work at all. He'd rather do the interview on his own terms at any rate.

"Hm." Clodia doesn't seem fully convinced, but she gestures at him to have a go. "We'll trial an interview your way and see how it goes. However, I am reserving the right to take over the situation if I see fit."

“Fine by me,” Scott shrugs. 

 

---

 

"Scott, you're making this very difficult," Elpis gripes, grasping him by the shoulders yet again to examine the fit of the suit jacket.

"It really does feel fine," Scott says for what feels like the tenth time. They've been doing this for a while now; even though his outfit fits him perfectly, Elpis still seems dissatisfied with it. The prep team had come and gone and she’s still fussing around him.

"Shush." She thwacks his shoulder lightly, brow creased, smoothing the fold of his lapel yet again. "Who's the fashion graduate here? Me. So please trust me when I say something's off."

Scott chooses not to mention the anger that bubbles up at the mention of graduation. His mother had loved sewing - among a myriad other things - and had hand-made many an outfit for he and his brothers when they were younger. She would have been an incredible fashion student (the fact that there was an entire school in the Capitol dedicated to fashion still blew his mind). But that wasn't an opportunity given to the districts. Still, he pushes the thought to the side. He has more important things to worry about now.

"A-ha!"

The sudden snap of fingers by his ear sends Scott jumping about a foot into the air. He turns, irritated, to face his designer.

"What?"

"It's the eyeliner," Elpis says smugly. "They've used the wrong gold."

"The- " Scott can't even finish the sentence, he's so confused. Gold is gold - how can there be a wrong gold? Looking in the mirror, he can't even tell the difference between the two shades.

"It won't matter for the stage, I don't think," Elpis muses. "It's close enough that most people won't notice, and it doesn't ruin the look. It's just - different to what I thought it would be." She catches his expression and ducks her head awkwardly. “Sorry, I know it must seem unimportant. I just want to make sure I’m giving you the best chance I can, and this sort of thing can make a difference.”

Scott's just relieved that he won't have to sit in the makeup chair for another two hours to fix it.

Today's look has kept with the wheat field theme, but Elpis has leaned much more heavily into the colour of the wheat itself; there are no blue skies to be seen this time. His suit is cream, peppered with delicate gold embroidered sheafs that he knows Elpis has spent hours upon hours working on. The shoes are a light beige, and fit like he's been wearing them for years. Gold outlines his eyes in a way he's told brings out the blue of his irises. The whole outfit feels so far removed from what he’s used to wearing at home - on top of the new, strange smoothness of his skin, a blank canvas erased of every scar he'd gotten over his seventeen years - that Scott simply stares at his reflection for a while, trying to recognise the boy that stares back at him.

"Ready to head through?" Elpis asks him gently, appearing by his shoulder and jolting him out of his reverie. He nods, taking a second to tear his gaze from the mirror. Scott wishes he could leave the strange boy staring at him right there in the reflection, but he can feel the soft satin clinging to his too-smooth skin even as he turns away, a constant reminder of the Capitol's hold on him. He tries in vain to pretend that he's clad instead in his own well-worn work shirt and faithful old linen pants.

Kayo and Saturn materialise next to them as they walk to the backstage area. She's in a dress that's more subtle than her Parade outfit, but just as elaborate. The embroidery in particular is a work of art in itself, one that even Scott with his uncultured tastes (he pushes images of Virgil sketching his masterpieces in the sketchbooks Scott saved every spare penny to buy him out of his mind) can appreciate. He gives Kayo a big thumbs up. She gives a tentative one back.

"Now, are you two ready?" Clodia says from immediately behind him, making him jump about a foot in the air. "Calm down, Scott. You had better not be jumping about like a kangaroo on that stage when it's your turn."

Scott has no idea what a kangaroo is, but he doesn't think there's much point in asking. Besides, the nerves have well and truly set in by now. He's suddenly regretting turning down the extra few hours of elocution lessons he would have had if he'd not been so despicably confident in his ability to bullshit his way through the interview, because how on earth was anyone in the Capitol going to be captivated by his bumbling country ramblings? What in Snow’s name had been going through his head when he'd decided that?

Elpis takes his hand and squeezes it. Scott lets out a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding at the contact.

"You'll be fine," she reassures him. "Both of you.”

Kayo bunches her hands up in her dress for a second before unclenching her fists and smoothing the fabric out again, clearly apprehensive about ruining her outfit before the show. Without something to cling onto her hands seem at a loss, fingers curling and uncurling themselves. “D'you really think so?”

“Of course you will,” Saturn intones, laying a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “They would be crazy not to like you. You already won over the crowd in the parade, didn't you? And that was a piece of cake. This'll be a doddle.” Kayo nods hesitantly, a small smile tugging gently at her lips.

Scott looks around for Penelope, but she seems to have disappeared - or at least, hasn’t arrived with the others. He wishes he could ask her how she’d handled her interview. He wishes he could ask her a lot of things. It’s funny that he’s now actively seeking her out for reassurance, considering that until about two days ago he was harbouring a deep disdain for the woman, but the Games have already tossed most of his understanding of his world into disarray so in the grand scheme of things it’s one of the least surprising developments. But it’s pointless, because she’s missing and he misses her and they’re already being herded backstage to wait for their turn in the spotlight.

Interviews are run in a slightly different order to the private training sessions, so this time Kayo is going before him. They stand in silence backstage (a woman with a headset and cobalt blue skin shushes them furiously if they so much as clear their throats) with nothing to do until the show begins and they are all called to their seats. Some of the prep teams and stylists are still bustling around, making adjustments to outfits and hair and makeup. Scott is glad their stylists aren't doing the same; they're due to go on any second, and the last minute fussing would make him stress him out even more than he already is. The blue lady flaps them toward the stage entrance - the theme begins playing over the speakers - and all of a sudden they are marching forward, forward, out into the lights and noise. The small space that they've been standing in for the past hour opens up into the vast outdoors of the interview stage specially constructed along the Tribute Parade. Thousands of painted faces stare eagerly at them, oohing and aahing at the sight of all the tributes in their finery. Caesar is drumming up the crowd, laughing, wide-toothed smile permanently stitched to his face. The crowd adore him, obviously. He cracks a joke and they laugh as one sprawling entity, the sound spilling across the whole city. It's overwhelming.

Finally, the crowd dies down. Caesar, prompt as ever, quickly gets the first tribute, the girl from One, sat down in the chair. The interviews have begun.

As usual, the careers are all alarmingly confident, but each shows off their own carefully crafted personality. The girl from One seems unusually vicious; usually it's the pair from Two that are the most aggressive. Fuse, interestingly, mentions that he has a sister. It makes Scott feel a lot worse about the fact he's going to have to betray the guy. (If Scott even manages to survive that long.) The pair from Three are smart, especially the boy. Scott's more convinced than ever that he really does need to keep an eye on him, however young and frail he might appear. Caesar calls him Fermat, and this time around the name sticks in his mind.

Four seem boring. Five aren't anything impressive either, though Thrush's wide-eyed determination makes Scott want to scream a tiny bit. By the time they get to Seven, he's getting antsy. Hollis seems quiet and sturdy, whilst Anise is vivid as the wild poppies that grow amongst the wheat in the fields outside his house. He barely registers Eight's interviews - the girl makes it through without crying, he at least remembers that much - and all of a sudden Caesar is calling Kayo's name and she's standing up in a whirl of glowing fabric and deafening applause.

Kayo sits down amid residual cheers and whoops from the audience; clearly she's already popular, helped along by Elpis and Saturn’s designs. Pride swells up in Scott's chest as he watches her beam out at the endless mass of not-quite-real faces. Caesar's chuckling good-naturedly at the whole thing.

"My, my, that's quite a fan club you have forming for you there!" he laughs, gesturing to the audience. A few of them cheer again. "And I certainly don't blame them! You've been making impressions on us viewers since you first arrived! Tanusha, that outfit you wore for the chariot ride simply took my breath away."

"Me too, Caesar," Kayo says, still smiling. "It was the prettiest thing I've ever worn – or I thought it was until I put this on. My stylist embroidered all the detail by hand, can you believe it?" Scott can tell that she's bristling under the surface at being called Tanusha - she's only ever let her father call her by her full real name - but nobody else notices her annoyance; the audience are seemingly too enraptured by her sweetness. She actually stands up and spreads out the skirt, Saturn's careful embroidery on show for everyone to see. The audience oohs appreciatively at the shimmering gold thread as it catches the light.

Caesar, however, has a knowing glint in his eye as he applauds Saturn's handiwork.

"But there's more to you than a girl who loves pretty dresses. You scored an eight in training, did you not?"

"I did."

The audience cheers again. Scott grins.

Caesar whistles in appreciation. "A truly impressive score for someone so small. How old are you, Tanusha?"

"Fourteen."

"Fourteen! And if I'm not mistaken, the highest scores tend to indicate an excellent demonstration of combat skills? I must say, I never would have suspected it of someone so tiny."

"When you have five brothers, it's easy to learn how to hold your own in a fight," Kayo smiles again, but it's much less bright. Even the audience pick up on the tension now; it’s clear that they’ve just broached a sensitive topic. It stings for Scott, too. He tries in vain to will away the vision that forms unbidden in his mind, the memory of the last time he saw his family. Stubbornly, they remain, living ghosts of a life he'll never get to live.

"Five brothers, my goodness," Caesar says. "Are you all close?"

"Closer than anything," Kayo admits quietly. Scott can see the tremble in her fingers as they're clasped in her lap. "We always used to mess around after school when we weren't needed for the harvest. My brother Gordon-" her voice hitches, and Scott prays that she can keep it together, "he called me Kayo, 'cause I accidentally knocked him straight over once when we were play-fighting, and then suddenly everyone else was calling me that too."

"Kayo? That's an unusual nickname." 

"Well - it's K and O. It stands for knock-out," she clarifies. 

Caesar nods in understanding. "And everybody calls you that? You must have a reputation for being quite a tough cookie back home."

"I don't think most people realise what it actually means." There's a hint of amusement in her voice at that. "But all my friends call me Kayo. Only my father ever really calls me Tanusha."

Scott gets what she's saying immediately. Only my father calls me Tanusha. (Once upon a time, there had been others who had called her that too - but they were long dead.) She's asking Caesar to call her Kayo. It's a bold move for sure; Scott can’t remember a year when a tribute has ever given themselves a nickname before.

"Ah." There's a glint in Caesar's eye that indicated he's picked up on her message. "Your friends call you Kayo? Would I fall into that category?"

"Well, I don't think you're my father, Caesar," Kayo jokes. "Unless you've ever been to District 9?"

"I'm pretty sure I haven't," Caesar pretends to think, chortling all the while. "Kayo it is, then!" The crowd laughs raucously along with him. Kayo has them all enthralled. Scott's glad - he hopes that it's enough to score her sponsors despite her young age.

They talk a little more about District 9 and how she’s finding the Capitol, and Kayo manages to make Caesar laugh quite a few times. Soon, though, the klaxon sounds, marking the end of the three minutes. The crowd groans, clearly eager to hear some more from her.

"Goodness, doesn't time fly?" Caesar quips. "It's been a pleasure talking to you, Kayo. Try not to knock anyone out before the Games start, eh?"

"I'll do my best, Caesar," Kayo beams, and waves prettily at the crowd as she makes her way back to her seat. Scott wishes that he could congratulate her, but he's already being introduced onstage by Caesar.

He's so nervous he doesn't even properly hear what Caesar's saying as he stumbles onto the stage. Scott tries to remember how to breathe. Caesar gestures to the seat next to him, and he gratefully sinks into it, trying to remember how to appear nonchalant. He wishes once again that he hadn't been so dismissive of Clodia's pointers.

"So, Scott," Caesar starts, leaning in conspiratorially, "has young Kayo tried to take you down yet?"

"I've been safe so far, Caesar," Scott replies calmly, letting a smirk tug at his lips. "But from the looks she gives me sometimes, I think she's pretty close to giving it a go."

Caesar roars with laughter. "She's a spitfire, that one!"

"Oh, you should see her death stares," Scott chuckles. "I've never seen someone make eating cereal terrifying, but she manages it." The jokes are helping to settle his nerves; Scott's getting into the groove of the interview. The crowd seem to love his easygoing attitude - and he knows from the reactions it got back home that his smile can win over hearts in seconds.

Caesar wags a finger at him. "Don't go selling yourself short though, young man. I'm sure many of us here remember your late father, Jefferson Tracy- " a proportion of the crowd cheer at his name- "and on top of that, your training score was astounding. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a score that high. What can you tell us?"

Scott hesitates, then decides to play up the mysterious and mischievous angle. "Well, Caesar… I'm not sure I'm allowed to tell you much. Confidentiality and all that - I'm sure you understand." The crowd groan, but he beckons Caesar closer and out of the corner of his eye he can see the audience lean closer too, as if them moving forward a few inches will help them to hear better. "I can tell you that those guys up there certainly didn't see it coming. I must have made quite an impression on 'em." He waves up at the gallery where the Gamemakers sit; some of them wave back enthusiastically, and one of them even shouts out a hello. Many look like they’re several drinks in.

"You certainly have." Caesar raises his eyebrows, seemingly impressed. "Well, Scott, I have to ask…do you think your brother would be proud of how well you've done?"

He's been expecting this question for a while, but the fresh wave of grief that washes over him still knocks the breath out of his lungs for a second. Caesar carries on talking to allow him a moment to recover. "I know that many of us were touched by how brave you were when you volunteered for him. That took a lot of courage."

"I, uh…" Scott hesitates for a second. "I always swore that if any of my brothers were reaped, I would volunteer in their place. I'd hoped it would never happen, but…" He trails off, glancing down at his hands and trying to swallow the lump in his throat. "I hope that he's proud. And I hope that- that he knows how much I love him."

Caesar nods solemnly. "I'm sure that he does. Any brother who'd do what you did for him cares very much indeed."

Scott nods, stage lights blurring together around him. He blinks away the beginning of tears.

"And," Caesar continues, "with your talent, you've got a good shot at winning this. I'll bet you can tell him that in person soon."

A rush of grief washes over him, and he can't stop the shuddering exhale that leaves his body all at once. To tell Alan he loved him again… it really could be that simple, couldn't it? He could win this whole thing and just- go home. "I wish it were that easy," he finds himself saying instead. "I really do."

"What do you mean?" Caesar asks, genuinely puzzled.

"Because - because I don't just have brothers. I have a sister too.” He takes a steadying breath. “And…she came with me."

Gasps from the audience. A murmured exclamation from Caesar, loaded with sympathy and - to a lesser extent, but very much present - glee at the prospect of a good story. Kayo's eyes, trained on him from where she sat at the back of the stage.

"You mean to tell me that young Kayo is…"

"Yeah. Yeah, she is," he says with a wry smile. "Not by blood, but we’ve grown up together our whole lives, so she's as good as. My dad was best friends with hers for years. So…" He shrugs, as if every word isn't like a knife to the stomach. "She's my kid sister, you know? I'm not gonna let anything happen to her."

"Goodness," Caesar breathes. "I am deeply sorry, Scott." There does seem to be a note of sincerity in his voice; Scott gets the sense that maybe Caesar cares just a little more than he lets on about the tributes. Scott gives a small smile in gratitude for Caesar's sympathy; he's surprised to find that it's genuine.

"Thanks, Caesar," he says quietly. "It's… well, it's been a rough few days."

Caesar nods understandably. "I can imagine." Scott exhales slowly, praying that his three minutes are nearly up. "I hate to ask, but do you have any idea what you'll do once the two of you are in the arena?"

"I- I can't let her get hurt. So I guess I'm just gonna do the best I can for her. Same as I'd do for my brothers."

Caesar rests what's supposed to be a reassuring hand on Scott's leg. "I'm sure that you will, Scott."

The buzzer sounds. Scott silently thanks the heavens.

"Well, I'm afraid that's all we have time for," Caesar says regretfully. "I wish you the best of luck, Scott - we all do."

He gestures out at the crowd as Scott's rising to his feet; the crowd respond considerably more enthusiastically than they did when he entered, whooping and calling out his name. Scott tries to tug the corners of his mouth up into a smile. He's not quite sure that he manages it, but the crowd don't seem to care. Clumsily, he stumbles back to his seat, miraculously making it back without toppling over. Kayo meets his eyes, hesitates for a second, and then reaches across to squeeze his hand. The crowd seem to love it. Scott ignores them. He can play the game in a second; for now, all that matters is the sister next to him. He squeezes back.

Notes:

one more chapter and then we're in the arena!!!! wow!!!!!!! time flies huh?

boy i need to get back on writing lmao this past week i have done NOTHING partially because i left my laptop charger at a friends literal hours away from mine oops!

Chapter 9: ix. countdown

Notes:

first of all. i am so sorry for not updating yesterday. family things are going on so it's been a bit Silly! also i still do not have a laptop charger and my laptop is on uhhh 21% ? so i need to go on a quest around the house to see if there are any chargers round the house that fit my laptop or we're a teeny bt screwed.... i don't really want to be updating on my phone i won't lie......

we'll see if i still have tech capabilities next week, shall we? anyway enjoy!

“Oh, well done!” Clodia gushes as soon as they're off the stage. She's perhaps the happiest Scott has ever seen her, clearly thrilled with the outcome of the evening. Her eyes are alarmingly wide, her long shimmering eyelashes fluttering so fast as she blinks that Scott thinks she might take off. “You both did absolutely splendidly, marvellously, wonderfully!” Penelope not-so-subtly clears her throat next to her and she tones it down a tad. “Well. Good job. You both deserve a nice evening after all that. I'm sure the food shall be extra special tonight.”

Scott can feel himself slowly but surely coming down off the high that had hit him once he stepped foot on the stage. His hand is clutching Kayo's again; his palms are clammy from the stress and probably horrible to hold on to, but he can't quite get his fingers to unclamp from around hers. Kayo doesn't seem to mind. She squeezes his hand reassuringly, offering a small but sturdy smile when he glances at her. Some small part of his mind asks what on earth he did to deserve a whole extra sibling like her.

Somehow, the food that evening is the most extravagant yet. Scott supposes it must be one last hurrah, a sugarcoating of the horrors to come that tastes bitter in Scott's mouth. He spends most of dinner pushing the food around in his plate, willing in vain for his stomach to stop churning. Across from him, Kayo seems to be having the same trouble. Penelope eats even less than she usually does, if that's even possible. Only Clodia seems to enjoy the meal at all.

It's all over too quickly. The sun has vanished over the horizon and darkness takes ahold of the sky. Lights blink on all around the city, allowing Capitol nightlife to thrive. The lights are so bright that they block out almost all the stars. Light pollution, Clodia had called it when he'd asked on the first day, in a way that suggested she was proud that the Capitol had the power to blot out the stars themselves. Scott hates it. He misses the stars. He can barely make out any of John's constellations, the ones he'd learnt over many nights stargazing with his little brother. No Scorpius, no Delphinus, no Ursa Major with little Ursa Minor nipping at her heels. Scott closes his eyes and imagines them instead.

There were old stories about the stars that John had loved to recount, even though Scott had already heard them a thousand times before from his father. They were remnants of an ancient civilisation, he'd said, one that had once dominated vast continents for centuries before finally giving in to the march of time. Of all the stories Jeff had told them, the tale of the hunter and the scorpion was perhaps his favourite. The hunter - Orion - had gained the favour of a powerful goddess, but her brother feared that Orion would cause the goddess to break her vow of chastity. He sent a giant scorpion loose and tasked Orion with killing it, and the two had chased each other for months until finally Orion struck the fatal blow - but not before the scorpion stung him, injecting him with deadly poison. The goddess strung them both up among the stars, where they hunted each other across the sky forever. It was a depressing tale, but for some reason Scott loved it. Still, he had always felt a little bad for them both. It wasn't either of their fault that the vengeful god had orchestrated the hunt just to serve his own ends.

Scott hopes that the sky in the arena will be clear enough to let him see the stars again before he dies.

They finish dinner and Scott retreats to his room as soon as he's allowed - not that he thinks anyone will have the heart to stop him doing what he wants anyway, given that in just over twelve hours he will be in the arena. He heads straight into his room and curls up on the bed, not bothering to get under the covers. He's exhausted and restless all at once, head aching and threatening to burst into a full-blown migraine some point soon. Scott turns over to his other side, curling up even tighter. He wishes it would all stop.

The door opens almost silently. Turned the other way, Scott can't see who it is, and he doesn't bother rolling over to check. When the hand gently rests on his shoulder, he recognises the cautious, feather-light touch as Penelope's.

“Hello,” she says softly, and she sits down on the bed next to him. Scott can't bring himself to say anything, so he simply lies there, silent and unmoving.

“I thought I'd say goodbye for the moment,” she continues hesitantly, hand still resting tentatively on his shoulder. “They keep us in our rooms tomorrow morning, so I won't be able to see you off.”

Scott nods numbly. His words are failing him, so he simply leans against Penelope’s shoulder. She draws a sharp breath at the contact, failing to disguise it in time.

“How are you feeling?” Penelope asks quietly. When he doesn't answer, she chuckles emptily. “Sorry. Silly question.”

“I miss the stars,” he murmurs after a minute. He doesn't know why that's the thing that’s upsetting him the most right now, but hot tears are prickling in the corners of his eyes and his chest hurts and his head is throbbing and all he wants to do is escape the oppressive atmosphere of the Capitol and go home. Next to him, Penelope hesitantly wraps an arm around him. The touch is grounding.

“We could go up to the roof, if you like. You can see some stars on a clear night like tonight from up there.”

“I…yeah. Yeah.”

Penelope squeezes his shoulder again, then helps him up.

They're quiet on the way to the roof, Scott mostly trying to keep his breathing from speeding up and the contents of his stomach from evacuating his body. The rush of fresh air and the inky black sky is a welcome change from the stuffy artificiality of the elevator. He stands still for a moment, lets the breeze ruffle his hair.

He wonders absently who maintains the roof garden as they walk across the roof past the flowerbeds. It's less precise and gaudy than what he's come to expect from the Capitol, the tasteful chaos of the flowers and tinkling of handmade windchimes a far cry from the candy-coloured apartments and gaudy fashion he’s been subjected to these last few days. There's a bench that he didn’t spot last time they were up here, a wooden one, and he sits gingerly down on it. One of the archways stretches over his head, some kind of climbing flower draped over it, lilac blooms dotted amongst the green. Strings of lights weave in and out of the flowerbeds and up over his head, bathing the plants in a warm glow. Sitting here, the Capitol skyline hidden by the greenery, he can almost pretend he's back home.

Almost.

“It's Lyme’s talent,” Penelope says, noticing him staring. “The gardening. She's up here a lot during the Games, if she doesn't have a tribute to look after. The Capitol maintains it when she’s not here, but they don’t change anything without her permission. The windchimes are part of Blight’s talent. He makes all sorts of wooden decorations - or he used to, anyway. Not so much these days.”

Scott just about remembers the two Victors she's talking about. Lyme’s from Two and won maybe just before he was born, and Blight is one of the few victors from Seven left. He mostly remembers him because there was an accident last year on the news, a fire of some kind, that a few of their Victors were caught up in. Blight was the only one out of the three to survive.

“I asked Lyme why she chose gardening as her talent once, when some of us got together up here,” Penelope continues, gaze fixed on a cluster of roses in front of her. “She said that she sees so much death in the Games that she wanted to try and bring some life into the world instead. I don't know how she managed to get permission to create a garden up here, if I’m honest.”

“It's nice,” Scott manages to say. His fingers are twisting themselves into knots in his lap. Penelope reaches out, taking one of his hands in her own before he starts digging his fingernails into his palm.

“I can't tell you that it will be alright,” Penelope murmurs. “The arena will be unpredictable and vicious. But you're strong, and smart. And I will be trying as hard as I can to keep you alive.”

Scott shakes his head, throat closing up. He feels like he's going to be sick. “Any last advice?”

Penelope exhales slowly, her eyes fixed on the horizon. Neither of them look at each other. “Pay attention to any sponsor gifts I send you. The public provides the money, but I’m the one who chooses what it’s spent on and when it’s sent. We aren’t allowed to attach notes or anything – that would be seen as an unfair advantage, as tributes are supposed to win on their own merit – but I’ll to my best to send hints if I can.” He nods, even though he knows she can’t see it.

“Kayo’s the priority, though,” he murmurs roughly. “Make sure you’re looking after her.”

“I know, and I will, but…Scott, if something happens to her…promise me you'll keep fighting?”

It’s not a thought he even wants to entertain. The idea of leaving that arena alone is almost too much to bear. And yet… His family will need him. Alan told him to come back.

“I- yeah.” He nods. “Yeah. Just…” Scott swallows. “Will you look after my brothers when- if I don't come back? I don't want- they're so young, and- and my grandma-”

“I will, I promise.”

Scott looks at Penelope properly for the first time since they sat down. She's looking straight back at him now, pale blue eyes glinting with determination, and he knows that even though a week ago he didn't trust her - resented her for abandoning his family when Jeff died - he does trust her now. No matter what, his brothers will not starve when he's gone. She will make sure of it.

“Thank you,” Scott says sincerely. He hopes that she understands that he's not just thanking her for that promise, but for everything she's done, for the way she's been trying so hard to make up for the past.

Penelope blinks. Nods silently.

They sit there for a while.

Eventually, they are interrupted by the quiet opening of the elevator doors. Penelope whips round instantly. When Scott turns to look too, he has to squint to make out the distant figure.

It's Kayo.

Penelope stands up, resting a hand on his shoulder briefly. “I'll let you two talk,” she murmurs. “Don't stay up too late.”

“Yeah. See you later,” Scott says without thinking. Penelope just smiles sadly at him and walks back to the elevator. He almost wants to run after her, do something stupid like hug her and tell her how truly grateful he is because he doesn't think she understood, but it's too late. He tries to take a snapshot of his mentor as she looks now, walking away from him, in one of the last moments of peace he’ll probably ever experience. The light reflects off her golden hair, almost like fire, and her summer dress flutters around her in the wind. She doesn’t look back as the elevator doors close, taking her down back to the apartment.

Scott rises from the bench, walks over to the edge of the roof where Kayo is standing, head resting on the railing. “Hey,” he says softly, and she shifts her head to look at him.

“Hey,” she says after a beat. Then she goes back to staring out at the horizon. Scott mirrors her, folding his arms over the railing so he can rest his head comfortably. Neither of them say anything for a long while. Scott watches the neon lights flashing on the sides of the Capitol buildings, listens to the buzz of the crowds below. They're all excitedly anticipating the beginning of the Games tomorrow. Parties, clubs, booze. It’s sickening.

The atmosphere makes Scott more and more uncomfortable the longer they sit there. It's not an amicable silence like usual; it's sharp, the air buzzing with all the unsaid things hanging in the air between them. In the dark, it's hard to tell, but he thinks that Kayo's eyes are glistening more than normal.

“Can we- can we not leave things like this?” he asks finally, turning to face Kayo. She refuses to turn to look at him, gaze fixed on the distant lights of some pre-Games house party. “Kayo, please.” After a minute, her eyes flick up to his face.

“I don't want to go into that arena,” she whispers, and his heart breaks all over again. “And I don't want to say goodbye. It's too-” she cuts herself off, but Scott knows exactly what she meant. Too final.

“Then we don't say goodbye,” he says, more confidently than he feels. “It's bad luck. Besides, we'll see each other again. We'll come across each other in the arena and forage or hunt or something together, just like back home. We just… we don't say goodbye.”

“All right,” she murmurs. “No goodbyes.”

“Do you wanna talk about something else?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Scott thinks for a second. “Did you see Clodia's outfit today?”

Despite the tears glittering in Kayo's eyes, she lets out a snort. “Fucking hell. It was so ugly.”

Scott laughs, dropping his head into his hands. “Who told her that bright orange was a good look for her? I mean, who wears colours like that?”

“Capitol citizens are stupid,” Kayo chuckles. “It's like they go out of their way every day to wear the most ridiculous outfit ever to curse this earth.”

“And Caesar’s sparkly suit! I was nearly blinded by it when I went onstage today.”

“I didn’t think it was possible for it to look any more sparkly than it did on the broadcasts.”

“Me neither. I guess we were both wrong, huh?”

Kayo laughs again, resting her head on Scott’s shoulder. “I guess we were.” Scott stays as still as he can, not wanting to disturb this brief moment of contact between them, staring down at his arms where they rest on the railing.

“The fashion’s not all terrible, I suppose,” he admits. “Elpis and Saturn have pretty good taste, I think.” Kayo hums in nonverbal agreement. “They’ve been so nice.”

“It’s nice to know at least two of the people here see us as actual people,” Kayo sighs. “Maybe Clodia too, I don’t know. She has her moments, I guess. But she’s a bit of a freak.”

“Case in point being that fucking neon orange dress.”

They burst out laughing again.

Poor Clodia is the butt of quite a few more jokes, but it’s getting late and Scott knows that no matter how much he may want to stay out on the rooftop pretending nothing bad is happening tomorrow, they both need to sleep for as much of this last night of safety as they can. He can tell Kayo is getting tired, too; her eyes keep shutting every few minutes and she has to keep prying them open. Eventually, he bites the bullet and straightens, nudging Kayo’s shoulder.

“C’mon, we’d better get some rest.” Reluctantly, she nods, pulling away from the railing. Scott tucks her under his arm as they head toward the elevator. She only just comes up to his chin.

She stops just outside her bedroom door, turning to face him. Her face is obscured in the half-light. “See you later,” she whispers.

“See you later,” he returns. Then she disappears into the darkness.

 

---

 

It’s early when Elpis shakes him awake - so early that the sky is still silvery-grey outside, just the same as it was on reaping day. Scott hauls himself out of bed, still rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Get dressed into something comfortable,” Elpis instructs him. “It doesn’t matter what, you’ll get changed again when we arrive.” He throws on a baggy sweater and a pair of dark pants and lets her usher him out the door.

They head up onto the roof. As the doors open, the stifling quiet of the building explodes into the deafening hum of engines and the whirring of propellers; the source is easy to pinpoint, as a Capitol hovercraft identical to the ones he’d seen back home passing overhead is hanging in the air like a bird surfing the wind. Its belly swings open, dropping a ladder down. Elpis gestures for him to go first, so he does. As soon as his foot leaves the ground, Scott is frozen in place - by what, exactly, he couldn’t say. He doesn’t like it one bit.

Everything from that point onward begins to blur together. He doesn’t remember letting go of the ladder or sitting down, only a vague impression of a searing pain in his arm that is still throbbing by the time an Avox has appeared and set a plate of food in front of him. Elpis encourages him to eat, and he must do, because eventually the plate is empty and the Avox comes back to take it away. Elpis asks him if he wants her to trim his hair back a bit more so that it doesn’t end up growing out too much in the arena and getting in the way (because who knows how long he’ll be stuck there? The Games could go on for weeks) and he agrees, maybe just to give himself something to do other than stare out of the window at the blue sky and wish that he was anywhere but here. Eventually, the windows black out, and all he has to stare at are the gunmetal grey walls of the hovercraft.

They have to go back down the strange paralysing ladder to enter the stockyard. (When he calls it that, Elpis smacks him lightly on the arm and tells him to not even joke about something like that, the horror and upset in her voice very real. He supposes the Capitol must not use the same charming nickname for the so-called Launch Room that the districts do. Huh.)

Elpis spends a minute appraising the outfit hanging up in the stockyard before handing it over to Scott to change into. It’s nothing much, just a pair of boots, dark brown lightweight trousers, a dark green jacket, and a t-shirt in the same buttery yellow generally used to signify District 9 tributes. The number 9 is stitched onto one of the sleeves of the t-shirt, Scott notices absently as he pulls the thing over his head.

“The trousers, jacket and boots are all waterproof,” Elpis notes once he’s dressed. “That means there’ll either be a lot of rain, a lot of water, or maybe both. Possibly a swamp arena.” He nods, trying in vain to think of what that could mean for him once he’s up there. His head is filled with a strange kind of buzzing, and he wants to knock his skull against the wall just to try and make it stop.

“Scott. Hey, Scott.” There are hands on his shoulders. “Scott, listen to me.”

He swallows, tries to focus his eyes. Elpis swims into view. “You have a plan, remember? Just stick to it. You’re going with the Careers. Get to the centre as quickly as you can and get a weapon to defend yourself. That’s your first priority, okay? Just make it through the bloodbath. You’ll be fine.”

A chime sounds from above. He jerks involuntarily at the sound, Elpis’ hands steadying him. “You’ve got to go now, okay?” she tells him gently. “I’m so proud of you, Scott. Keep fighting for me. Keep fighting.”

He’s in the launch tube. The glass is cold beneath his fingers. Elpis rests her hand against his on the other side, still murmuring words of encouragement even as the tube takes him up and up and out of sight. For a few moments he’s in complete darkness. Then light explodes around him, and he squeezes his eyes shut, his hand going up to shield his face instinctively.

“Let the seventy-third Hunger Games begin!”

He opens his eyes.

Scott’s still adjusting to the light, but he can already make out the hazy form of the Cornucopia in front of him. It seems to be in a clearing, the longer grasses surrounding the tribute podiums blending into shorter grasses closer to the centre that lends him an easy view of the supplies strewn across the space. The biggest piles are closest to the Cornucopia itself, and he can see the glinting of metal where wicked blades of all shapes and sizes are hung up inside its mouth. That’s where he needs to end up.

Hovering above the Cornucopia is a holographic countdown. The dulcet tones of Claudius Templesmith, Games commentator, are ringing out across the arena in correlation with the numbers ticking down in front of them. Fifty-one. Fifty. Forty-nine. Over ten seconds gone already.

Scott glances around him, searching first for the other Careers and then for Kayo. The tributes are in a circle around the Cornucopia’s mouth, equidistant from the supplies. Some he can’t see, the golden horn obscuring his view. The boy from One is two podiums to his left, right next to Fuse. The girl from Four is three podiums the other direction.

He can’t see Kayo.

Thirty-six. Thirty-five.

On the other side of the clearing, the long meadow grasses grow even longer, reaching maybe up to Scott’s waist – he’s too far away to know for sure. Beyond that lies the boundary to a forest, the trees stretching up and up as the ground gradually steepens. As far as he can tell, though, there are no mountains in the distance.

Twenty-eight.

Scott risks a glance behind him. The tall grasses stretch round that way, too, but there is no forest beyond. Instead, there are reeds and very few trees and what seems to be water. The vegetation makes it difficult to see, but Scott thinks that he can see a series of islets amongst the water. Maybe marshland. Elpis was right, then. It looks similar to the marshes out behind Victor’s Village that he used to explore with his father, back when he was little.

Twenty.

Scott turns back to the Cornucopia, trying to locate a weapon close enough to him to try and aim for. There’s one about halfway between him and the mouth of the Cornucopia - a decent-sized blade that he could probably manage with until he finds an axe. He gets himself into something resembling a running stance, sees Fuse doing the same out of the corner of his eye. He eyes the tributes next to him, tries to determine if they’re aiming to run the same way as him. All he can tell is that they look terrified.

Eleven. Ten. Nine.

Scott tries to steady his breathing.

Seven.

This is it.

Five.

The moment he has spent the past week preparing for.

Four.

Everything depends on this.

Three.

Breathe, Scott.

Two.

Breathe.

One.

Stay alive.

Notes:

OH MY LORD HERE WE GO GANG!!!! i can't believe we're already in the actual games!!!!!!!!! heeheehoohoo silly time eeeee

still reeling from sunrise on the reaping too. my lord......... that book was so good....... i want to reread it but i lent it to a friend and she's a bit of a slow reader so i might not get it back for a while :(

Chapter 10: x: bloodbath

Notes:

first of all can i say how sorry i am....... my laptop did in fact die and i did not in fact have my charger back so eventually i bought a new one and now have access to my document again! hooray! i'm going to also be back to posting on Fridays so you will get 2 chapters in a week (just) as a little apology for. all this. (and i do need to hurry up on finishing off this damn thing because i still have just over 4 chapters to write which is probably roughly 16k? which is a lot for me.) BUT ANYWAY ENJOY! the games have officially started now hooray!

The klaxon sounds and Scott doesn't hesitate. He runs, straight forward, sprinting for the blade glinting in the grass ahead of him. The tribute next to him is running for it too, but he's faster, and his hands close around the hilt first so he grasps it and shoves the other tribute away and-

everything is erupting around him.

There is a tribute collapsed to his left: alive or dead, he can't tell. He runs past them. Someone is screaming. He grabs a backpack that is lying on the ground as he passes, praying that there is something in there that will be useful to him. The blade is still clutched in his hand. Fuse is by the Cornucopia, blood spattered across his burly arms, flecks of it on his face like crimson freckles. He beckons. Scott runs faster. He's nearly reached the Career pack when-

-someone slams into him, and they're on the ground, and he's grappling for his weapon and trying to get a good angle when suddenly the blade is gone from his hand and the body goes limp.

Scott shoves them off him, clambers to his feet, and the blood is spilling out onto the grass and over his sleeves but he can't focus on that now so he's back on his feet and-

-he keeps running, running like his life depends on it because it does-

-and Fuse is at the Cornucopia, tossing him an axe that he snatches out of the air, slowing to a stop next to him.

"Nice catch, Tracy!" he grins. Scott can only nod breathlessly in reply. The axe Fuse has tossed him is about the same size and weight as the splitting axe he uses back home to chop up the larger firewood; he almost hates how familiar it feels in his grasp. All around them, tributes are fighting. The rest of the Careers have armed themselves and are tearing their way through anyone who dares to try and take supplies for themselves. Some Outler kids are fleeing, others are still gambling everything to get their hands on one of the precious packs. It’s chaos, pure and simple. The sounds of death are everywhere.

Scott finds himself looking back the way he came, at the spot where he was tackled to the ground. The grass is slowly turning red as blood pumps sluggishly from a body lying face-down in the dirt. It's the same kid that was next to him at the beginning, who'd ran for the blade that’s now embedded in his side. For one heartstopping second, Scott thinks the kid is dead. That he's killed him. Then one arm reaches out, claws at the ground, and despite himself Scott lets out a sigh of relief because it means that he's not a murderer, not yet. 

The cry that tears itself from the tribute's throat a second later makes him wish he'd finished the job.

Before he can even think about moving again, another scream pierces the air, guttural and terror-filled, that cuts off almost as abruptly as it started. Scott whips around - the voice is high-pitched, and for a second he almost thinks it's Kayo - but his eyes quickly fall on the girl from Four, her hands clutched around a bloody sword buried up to the hilt in the girl from Five. Thrush, he remembers with a jolt. The girl from Four places her boot on Thrush's stomach and uses it as a fulcrum to tug her weapon free. The body thuds onto the ground. Scott tears his eyes away from Thrush's lifeless gaze.

Fuse is gone from his side already. Scott spins, disoriented, suddenly aware that he's still at risk. Time keeps slipping away from him; the seconds judder and jump around, passing too slowly and too quickly all at once. He seems to be safe this close to the Cornucopia, though, as none of the other tributes are daring to get close to the pile of goods in its mouth that the Careers have already claimed as their own. 

A grunt of effort from Fuse, locked in combat with the burly kid from Ten, shocks Scott into action. He can't be seen as useless by the Careers, not this early in. He needs to fight. Willing his fingers to work again, Scott turns to the mouth of the Cornucopia, scanning for a long-range weapon. His eyes fall on a wicked range of knives glinting along the inner wall. Good. Scott reaches them just in time to snatch a couple and dart out again at the sound of a rage-filled roar. Fuse is still fighting - he was the one who yelled - but his opponent has changed. Someone else had tried to attack him from behind. He catches sight of the boy from Ten taking advantage of the distraction, snatching his district partner's hand and dragging her out of danger. 

Meanwhile, Fuse is struggling. His opponent has their back turned to him, but the mop of curly hair is familiar. It's Hollis. He’s even stronger than he looks. Both have weapons - Hollis has somehow got his hands on a wickedly sharp axe, something he'll know how to use almost as well as Fuse knows how to use a sword - and, somehow, he's gaining the upper hand.

A dozen sparking ideas, half-formed, flit through his mind, and Scott can only snatch at a precious few. Fuse could lose this fight. Scott needs to stay on the right side of the Careers. Kayo is nowhere to be seen. The Careers could turn on him if Fuse dies. Scott needs to keep Kayo alive. He can't do that if he's dead.

Scott takes a deep breath and throws a knife at Hollis. It sinks into his left shoulder - nowhere vital, and he's right-handed, so his grip on his axe doesn't fail - but it hurts him and he hollers and the distraction is all Fuse needs to bring his sword in a wide arc and send his guts spilling onto the grass. Hollis crumples like a marionette with its strings cut. Scott looks away.

Things are starting to calm down. Only a few Outlier tributes are still standing, the rest either dead on the ground or vanished into the trees. Scott can't see Kayo anywhere. He desperately hopes that's a good thing.

Fuse is at his side again suddenly, wiping off the blood from his sword on the grass. “Thanks for the save, Nine,” he says, breathing heavily. “Knew it was a good idea keeping you round.” 

Scott just nods.

“We're pretty much done here,” he continues, gesturing round at the meadow. “Just cleanup now. I think that kid you took down earlier's still kickin’, though. Might as well go finish him off.”

“I don't- “ Scott can't finish the sentence. His axe feels so heavy in his hand all of a sudden. “He's going to die anyway, right?”

“There's something they teach everyone at the Academy,” Fuse says, lowering his voice. (Scott's not surprised at the revelation of the existence of what sounds like a training institution; the rumours of official training facilities for the Games in Two have been going round as long as he's been alive.) “The importance of honour. You've gotta put on a good show sometimes, but there's no honour in making the younger ones suffer, especially not this early. You'd be doing him a favour in killing him quickly rather than leaving him there to bleed out. Besides,” he raises his voice, clapping a hand to Scott's shoulder, “you took him down. It's your kill.”

Scott almost laughs at the twisted logic behind it all. Honour, here? In the Games? Is that what the Careers really think they're fighting for?

And yet…

His eyes find the twitching form of the boy he'd taken down at the beginning. He must be in a lot of pain. Scott knows he must have hit him somewhere vital, but the kid is clinging on to life still, and it'll probably be a while before he finally succumbs to his injuries. Fuse has a point, much as he hates to admit it. A mercy kill is the most he can do for the boy now.

He heads over slowly, keeping his back straight, trying not to show weakness to the other Careers. The kid's breath quickens as he sees Scott approach. He's managed to claw himself over onto his back, and his deep brown eyes are full of fear and pain. The coal-black of his jacket indicates his District 12 origins. Scott can't remember his name. He looks only a little younger than Virgil.

“A– are y–” the kid gasps, trying in vain to form a sentence. Scott closes his eyes for a second, forcing the image of his little brother out of his head. This kid deserves to be remembered as himself, not as a piece of Scott's own life.

“I'm sorry,” Scott says softly. “I'm sorry.” Useless words, meant to soothe his own stupid guilt. 

The boy simply looks at him in terror and desperation, lips contorting in a desperate attempt to speak. Eventually, he mouths the word please. One bloody hand reaches up and brushes against Scott's leg.

He's watched enough Games enough to know exactly where to strike. Even if he hadn't, Kayo had taught him the basics of hunting. Hit the brain, heart or lungs. He hopes the boy won't feel it too much.

Scott's knife stabs down, right into the heart. The boy from Twelve goes limp.

Nine cannons sound. Scott flinches

Even from where he’s standing, He can see some of the others make a face at the numbers; certainly, they’re a bit low for a bloodbath, but not the lowest he’s ever seen.  “Get back over here, farmboy!” he hears one of the Careers shout. One of the girls, maybe. His ears are still ringing from the cannons. He takes one step, two steps back from the body before he can will himself to turn around and head over to the Cornucopia.

“Nice job,” Fuse says as he gets closer. One girl, standing next to him, rolls her eyes, tossing her hair and heading over to talk to her district partner. Petra from Two crosses her arms, eyeing him suspiciously. 

“We're going through the supplies now,” she tells him curtly. “Get yourself a pack and collect what you want. Keep out of the meadow for a while. They'll be coming for the bodies.”

The hovercraft. Right. Scott nods shakily. 

“And Nine?” He pauses, looking over at Petra. She glares. “Don't be greedy. We don't like hoarders, especially if they're an Outlier.”

Lovely.

He heads into the Cornucopia, opening a crate at random. He attaches his knife to his belt, but he doesn't put down the axe. His fingers don't seem to want to let it go just yet. Petra watches him from behind the large bag she's rifling through, slate-grey eyes glinting with suspicion. Scott's hand tightens round his axe, suddenly glad that he's not weaponless with her only a few feet away. He takes a look in the small crate closest to him so as not to seem completely useless. The thing is packed full of fruit - apples, pears, oranges. Scott doesn't think he's ever had an orange in his life. No wonder the Careers never lose, what with this amount of food at their disposal. Bloody hell. He takes a couple of each, seeing as they're going to go off before a lot of the other stuff, and points out the crate to the others. Petra makes a point to barge into his shoulder as she grabs an apple from the crate and takes a bite right there and then.

After a couple of minutes, Scott's fingers finally unclench from around his axe, and he hooks it onto his belt so he has both hands free to examine the contents of a rucksack he's just picked up. He can see the girl from One taking her pick of the throwing knives on the same weapons display that he'd taken his own knife from. There's another small case of throwing knives lying nearby that Scott quietly nabs with Kayo in mind, immediately hiding them in his pack so that One girl doesn't attempt to take them for herself as well. That was the trouble with long-range weapons: not enough of them to go around.

Scott quietly takes stock of the rest of the supplies around him. Inside the Cornucopia itself, there are pretty much only crates and boxes dotted around; all the packs are outside, where Outlier tributes have more of a chance at grabbing them. He spies a few things that aren’t ever put in the survival packs, too: tents, larger spools of wire, electric torches. There’s even something that looks suspiciously like a small fuel canister. Scott approaches and discreetly sniffs at the nozzle, immediately hit by the distinctive tang of lighter fluid. Huh. Interesting.

It's then that his ears pick up on a faint whirring, growing louder with every second. He recognises the sound; it's a Capitol hovercraft. Maybe more than one, now he's listening more closely. They'll be here for the bodies.

Despite himself, Scott glances out of the mouth of the Cornucopia to the field where the bodies still lie. As he watches, a metal device descends from the sky, opening its jaws wide enough to snatch up one of the tributes (he can't tell who it is from this distance, though he tries to identify them). The metal snaps shut with a clang once it has the body in its grasp, the sound grating on Scott's ears. He looks away.

“Not a fan of the hovercrafts, Nine?” Bespoke asks from the knife rack, where he's examining each blade with a wickedly sharp grin. “Scared of the big bad claw?”

“Why should I be?” Scott shoots back, hurriedly wiping his face of any emotion that the boy could construe as weakness. “They’re just taking away the obstacles between me and winning this thing. Besides, if I get taken away by one of them I'll already be dead, so what's the point in worrying?”

The girl from One snorts. “He has a point, Bes.”

Bespoke raises an eyebrow. “Bold of you to think you have a chance at winning this thing.”

“Your allies must do,” Scott says evenly, “ ‘cause they asked me to join you, didn't they?”

The pair from 4 openly laugh at that. Fuse snorts, appearing at Scott's side and clapping him on the shoulder. “He's got you there, mate.” Bespoke and Petra scowl at him. Scott does his best to not smirk too much. There's a glint in Petra's eye that worries him. He gets the feeling that despite Fuse's support, his district partner ever so slightly hates him.

“Hovercrafts are gone,” the boy from Four says a few seconds later (Scott should really learn his name). “We can start to set up camp outside now if we want.”

The pack seems to agree this is the best course of action, filing out of the Cornucopia fully equipped. Scott's pack is as light as he felt he could make it whilst still taking everything he needed to survive (he'd seen some of the others putting what was barely more than a snack into their packs, and was astounded at their sheer confidence that they'd never have to worry about food), but it's still a little heavy. On top of the fresh fruit and throwing knives he’d picked up, he's got some food in the form of packets of dried fruit, beef jerky and some form of dense energy bar, a water bottle with purification tablets, as well as a compact sleeping bag, a box of matches, a rudimentary first aid kit, and thin but seemingly sturdy rope.

Scott knows that all of it will come in infinitely useful in a survival situation. He just hopes the weight won't slow him down enough to matter in a fight.

Petra has brought the tents outside and is in the process of putting them up. It doesn't take long; the entire thing springs open in a matter of minutes, leaving Scott to wonder at the marvels of Capitol engineering. Bespoke, meanwhile, is collecting decent sized rocks for the girl from One to use to mark out a fireplace. He's almost impressed; they actually seem to know what they're doing. In a short amount of time, they have a decent camp set up near the Cornucopia. 

“Nine, pull your weight. Come get firewood with me,” Petra snaps, swinging her ponytail out of her face. (It's styled in exactly the same way as Enobaria's was for her Games, Scott notices vaguely. Everyone on the Capitol broadcasts had had ponytails for months after she won. Maybe Enobaria is her mentor. Or role model. He imagines the inner districts must idolise their Victors.) Scott nods passively, taking up his axe again. He keeps his pack, though. If something happens he wants to be ready to run.

The two of them traipse in silence to the edge of the woods, where Petra starts hacking at one of the lower branches with a hatchet she'd nabbed from the Cornucopia (though, judging from the sword glinting wickedly on her belt, the hatchet is not her weapon of choice). Scott scans the ground instead for fallen branches or twigs that could use for kindling. They work in silence, the only sounds the thud of Petra's hatchet as she swings it into the tree and the quiet rustling of the leaves. There is no birdsong in this part of the woods.

“I'm keeping an eye on you,” Petra says suddenly, sharply. Scott looks over at her nervously. Even from thirty feet away, he can feel the intensity of her gaze.

“I- alright, okay,” he says awkwardly. 

“I don't know what you did to make Fuse trust you,” she continues, “but you did something.” Scott isn't sure where she's going with this. “I trust Fuse, and he's usually got okay instincts about people, so I didn't call him a fucking lunatic when he wanted you in the alliance even though he probably is. But I'm still keeping a close fucking eye on you. You do anything to mess these Games up for us, and…”

Petra lets her sentence peter out, and her hatchet swings into the tree again, hard, underlining her point just as effectively as her silence does. Scott nods hastily in understanding before going back to collecting the smaller sticks.

“And Nine?” 

He turns around again.

“Use your stupid axe and get us some proper wood. I'd have brought along that twig kid from Four if I wanted someone to just pick up shit off the floor like that.”

Scott gulps, and hurriedly sets his bundle of kindling down.

 

---

 

They head back maybe a half hour later, both laden with a decent amount of firewood. Scott makes sure to walk in Petra's line of sight to reassure the girl that he's playing by the rules, trying as hard as he can to not look suspicious - not that he has any idea how he could be seen as doing anything suspicious whilst carrying armfuls of heavy branches. Petra, on the other hand, is carrying her burden with ease, the sleeves of her jacket tight around her muscles. That, combined with her height (honestly, she has to be over six foot) and the sharp glint in her flint-grey eyes, all means that Scott is extremely keen not to get on her bad side. He shifts the bundle of firewood in his arms and quickens his pace slightly to keep up with her.

They get back to camp and Fuse immediately gets started on building a fire as everyone else congregates around the firepit. The girl from One tosses a small throwing knife in the air, spinning it around her fingers expertly. When she sees Scott staring, she blows him a kiss and giggles wickedly.

“So, plans for tonight,” Bespoke says, as if they're just a group of friends deciding on what to do for fun. “We should get started with the hunt. Split into two groups so some of us are guarding the supplies and the others can whittle numbers down.”

“I'll go,” Petra says immediately, squaring her shoulders and leaning forward. Her sword glints in the firelight as she rolls the hilt between her palms. “I'm gonna get those fucking Twelves. It's an embarrassment that both of them survived the bloodbath.”

“Good,” says Bespoke. “I'll stay here, then. We should split up district pairs just to be safe.”

“What the hell for, One?” Petra interjects. “You don't trust us or something?”

“No, Two, I don't,” Bespoke drawls. “It's a competition, remember? I don't want you and him,” he jabbed a thumb at Fuse, “scheming away, especially not after his little scheme to get Nine into the pack actually worked. He stays here with me and Jill, and Taffy can go with you and Derrick on the hunt.” Derrick must be the Four boy’s name, then, and Taffy the One girl’s. Scott makes a mental note.

“What about Nine?” One girl – Taffy - purrs, blue eyes flicking across to Scott like a cat's. Her knife spins in her hand in a way that has Scott wishing he could move away from her without being accused of cowardice, uncomfortably reminded of just how accurately she had hit those targets in training. “He's basically Fuse's little pet.”

Bespoke's eyes glitter as they rake over Scott's face. “You've got a point. Fine then, farmboy can go with you too. Don't want him and Fuse getting all buddy-buddy on us. Maybe he can even help you find that freak sister of his – the one with the high score.” He casts his gaze across the whole group, issuing a silent challenge. “Anyone got a problem with that?”

Silence.

Bespoke nodded. “All right then. You leave in ten minutes. Everyone pack for overnight - food, sleeping bags. Probably a good idea to head into the forest, it looked like most tributes went that way. Besides, you know what marshes are like in these Games. Fucking nightmares. Anyone stupid enough to hide out there’ll probably get themselves into trouble and come running back out again sooner or later.”

Scott nods because he can't really do anything but agree, even though that comment about Kayo has sent a jolt of anxiety down his spine. Bespoke’s clearly trying to establish himself as the group leader - and it seems to be working, because even stubborn Petra has let him decide how they will split up without much argument. It’s a slight shift from how things had seemed during training. He wonders if Fuse's reputation within the pack has been damaged by his association with Scott.

“Get off your ass and get ready, Nine,” Petra snaps, and Scott jolts from his seat. The other three in the hunting group are all already gathering their things, and he hastens to do the same. It wouldn't do him any good to pass anyone off this early into the Games, not with the target already painted on his back thanks to his Outlier district status. He double-checks his axe is safely secured to his belt and that the couple throwing knives he’d taken for himself are still secured to the inside of his jacket where he'd put them when Taffy had her back turned. Then he slings his rucksack over his shoulder and heads over to the rest of the group.

“Everyone ready?” Petra asks, and Taffy rolls her eyes and tosses her platinum blonde plait over her shoulder but nods in assent. Derrick offers only a small jerk of his head. Scott nods silently as well. “Good. Let's go.”

They head off into the forest.

Chapter 11: xi: hunt

Notes:

oi oi! i did say that i would post another this week so if everyone could just be really nice and ignore that it's like 1am right now that would be lovely <3

The forest is strange and familiar all at the same time. Most arenas tend to have a forest of some kind in them (having shelter and firewood helps to prevent tributes dying of something boring like hypothermia), so they’ve all seen trees before, but it’s a completely different environment to what Scott is used to back home. The strips of woodland between the wheat fields near their house are narrow; patches of biodiversity meant to enrich the surrounding soil and encourage growth in the crops. You’re never more than thirty seconds from the open sky. Whilst the trees of the arena forest are familiar to Scott - mostly deciduous, with plants he recognises growing all around their feet - an uneasy feeling settles into his bones as they walk and walk and it finally sinks in that they truly are surrounded. He’s never been this far from open fields back home. He looks up and sees only fleeting patches of blue-grey sky amongst the leaves, and he doesn’t like it.

But they’re on the hunt now, and nothing is going to stop the pack from sniffing out their next kill.

Petra is leading the way, pushing aside brambles and cutting them a path through the foliage. Scott follows behind her, with Derrick behind him and Taffy at the rear. The back of his neck is itching in the way it does when someone is watching him; it doesn’t take much thought to figure out that it’s Taffy, whose distrust of him runs almost as deep as her district partner’s. He isn’t quite sure what to make of Derrick yet. The pair from Four have stuck pretty close together so far, as the tributes from their district tend to in the Games. Because of this, whenever the Career packs have crumbled in the past, kids from Four often end up being targeted. It’s difficult to tell if that’s likely to happen this year, though.

Trying to keep the complex inter-district dynamics clear in his head is already giving Scott a headache. He’s already regretting this stupid plan. He scowls up at the sky and trudges on.

Since none of them trust each other, the atmosphere is almost unbearably tense. Petra - who, unbelievably, Scott feels the most safe around - keeps shooting dark looks behind her, and Derrick is ominously quiet. Taffy hates his guts, of course, that much he already knows, but she doesn’t seem to like any of the others either. It’s an all-round uncomfortable situation and Scott is really hoping that he won’t be stuck with this group the entire time. It’d be shit if his last days on earth were spent around this lot.

As the sun dips below the horizon, the screaming starts.

“That’s nearby,” Petra hisses, unsheathing her blade. “There could be a fight going on, we should go and check it out.”

Taffy looks for a moment like she’s about to disagree, but then they hear the first cannon since the bloodbath and screaming gets louder. The decision is unanimous. They sneak through the undergrowth as one, on the lookout for any tributes running from the scene. The screaming is high-pitched, young - probably one of the tributes Scott had written off as soon as the reapings aired. Still, he irrationally finds himself hoping that they’ll pull themselves together and flee before the Careers catch up to them. He’s had enough of death for one day. But no luck. The screaming carries on, only increasing in desperation as they get closer.

Then he has the horrid thought that the screams could be Anise.

He knows it isn’t Kayo - he knows her voice much too well - but there was a cannon. That means there’s another person there. And they’re dead. Anise could have made it through the bloodbath; there’s a possibility that the two of them stuck with their alliance, despite Hollis’ death. The other person could be Kayo. Scott’s breath keeps catching in his chest. He’s getting a stitch.

Please, don’t let it be Kayo.

They find the source of the sound in… not a clearing, exactly, but a slightly more open space than the forest they’d been trekking through. There are the beginnings of a very basic camp, with a little pile of twigs caged in by a circle of pebbles in the centre. It’s clear that the alliance that set that up had absolutely no survival skills; had they lit the fire, it would’ve let off a lot of smoke judging by all the green wood they’ve collected. The Careers would’ve found them in an instant regardless. These kids never had a chance.

Looking around, Scott spots the body immediately. It’s the boy from Six. 

(Not Kayo. It isn’t Kayo. Kayo isn’t here.)

The boy is slumped against a tree, his skin ashen and his limbs eerily still. His eyes are wide open and glassy, fixed on some distant object that only he can see. But there’s no blood, and no sign of an attacker anywhere - just his ally (not Anise, it’s not Anise, she’s wearing the burnt orange of District 6), screaming and screaming and screaming. From the tremor in her hands and the hysteria in her eyes, it’s clear she’s barely hanging onto her sanity. Taffy slams her against a tree, knife gleaming at her throat and finally the girl from Six slips into silence.

“What happened to him?” she snaps, jerking her head at the corpse. The girl gulps, tears cutting tracks through the dirt on her face.

“He- I- He just…we just finished eating, and Dee fell and started shaking and th-then he stopped, and he wasn’t breathing, and the cannon…” The girl is sobbing now, her whole body shaking even though the movement is causing the knife at her neck to draw blood. Against his better judgement, Scott feels awful for her. Now he’s up close, it’s clear that she can’t be any older than fourteen. Her shirt hangs loose on her despite the Capitol’s tailoring and her ponytail is tangled already, strands limply framing her haggard face. Her eyes are grey and terrified. Taffy sighs and swipes the blade across her throat. The girl crumples to the ground like a puppet with cut strings as the cannon booms.

“Something they ate was poisonous, then,” she says, bored, as if she hadn’t just killed a kid in cold blood. Scott swallows shakily.

“Any food left here?” Petra asks. 

Derrick, already rummaging through the single tiny pack the pair had had between them, shakes his head. “Whatever they ate, they didn’t save any for later. Fucking amateurs. It was probably something from the forest they foraged,” he shrugs, rising to his feet. “They don’t put poisonous stuff in the packs.”

“Lucky we’ve claimed all the food at the Cornucopia then,” Taffy smirks. “I’d say that’s good enough for the night. We should head back. Don’t want the crowd getting bored ‘cause we’ve killed off all the competition too early.”

Petra snorts and sheathes her sword. “It's getting dark as well, and I want to fucking sleep.” Scott tries to laugh along with the others in agreement. Secretly, he’s just glad that he won’t have to kill anyone else for a little while longer.

The walk back is uneventful. Scott spends most of it trying to see the stars through the canopy above, searching in vain for the same constellations he mapped with his brothers back home. The night sky, however, is entirely unfamiliar: a sign that the arena is completely artificial, yet another creation of the Capitol. He's almost impressed by the complexity of the technology needed to create something like this. It’d be easier to appreciate if he didn’t know that the Gamemakers have designed this place just to kill all of them as excitingly as possible.

They have flashlights, provided by the Cornucopia, but none of them use them so as not to alert any nearby tributes of their presence. Not that they're going to be able to ambush anyone, the way Petra is stomping through the forest and disturbing every animal for miles. Scott can just hear Gordon's snarky aside in his mind: Is that an elephant I hear stomping through? Oh no, never mind, it’s just carrot-top over there. Geez, is she really that loud all the time? I don’t think I could walk that loudly even if I tried.

And now Scott’s listening to imaginary people in his head. Brilliant. He pushes the not-Gordon voice to the back of his mind and ignores the pang of loneliness it leaves him with.

Before too long, the light levels change slightly and Scott can tell that they’re nearly at the edge of the forest. The Cornucopia stands tall and proud in the centre of the clearing, gold shimmering strangely in the moonlight. Taffy takes over Petra and starts skipping ahead to the campfire, giggling like a maniac. Derrick sighs behind him and trudges along at the same pace. Scott wonders absentmindedly if many people have bothered sponsoring the Four boy yet; he’s no Finnick, either in looks or charm. They probably have. Career pack kids are never short of sponsors.

“Welcome back,” Bespoke greets them, in a voice that seems to say ‘I wouldn’t really have given a flying fuck if all of you died while you were out there’. “We heard those cannons, was that you?”

“One of ‘em,” Taffy says dejectedly. “Dumbass kid from Six ate something poisonous and snuffed it before we could take him out. We got his tribute partner at least.

As if on cue, the first notes of the national anthem blare out over the arena, almost making Scott jump. He quickly disguises the shock and turns his eyes up to the sky, where the emblem of Panem is projected high up above the trees. Eleven tributes, in all – not quite half the competition. Other than the two kids from the forest, the rest of them must have died in the bloodbath. He tries to make a mental note of who’s gone so far. Both from Five and Six, Hollis from Seven (so Anise did make it). Both tributes from Eight, Eleven and Twelve.

Scott winces at the faces of Hollis and the boy from Twelve that he’d killed.

At least Kayo is fine. For now.

“Not a bad showing for the first day,” Fuse remarks. He's in the middle of eating what looks like a curry with rice from his bowl. A parachute lies at his feet; it's clear that the meal he's finishing up was sent by a sponsor. More parachutes litter the ground around the others who stayed behind to watch over the camp. Scott has to hold back a snort of surprise. Clearly the Careers this year are popular enough for their mentors to have the funds to send down something as decadent as a meal. It’s especially frivolous considering that they currently are in control of the majority of the food in the arena.

Bespoke spots Scott staring at his food and scoffs. “What're you looking at, Nine? Are you jealous? Sad that you haven't got enough sponsors to afford a decent meal?”

“Sure,” Scott says dully, “whatever you say, boss.”

Next to him, Petra snorts. Bespoke decides not to deign him with a response and turns back to his rice.

“Hey, Cashmere!” Taffy shouts up at the sky. “How about some food for us, huh? You better give me something at least as good as his!” 

In response, a soft blinking alert sounds above them. Then another, and another, and another. Four parachutes drift into view seemingly from thin air against the dark sky, heading directly for the hunting group. To Scott's surprise, one of them lands at his feet.

“Come on, you lot, sit down and eat,” Fuse instructs them, gesturing at the logs around the fire. Petra takes her seat next to him; Taffy elegantly perches next to Bespoke, manicured nails unclasping the parachute to get at the meal inside. The pair from Four sit down next to each other. Scott is left standing, feeling very much like a spare part, until Fuse jerks his head at the space on his other side and Scott slides gratefully into place. He fumbles with the catch on the side of the parachute for a second before he's able to get it open; the smell hits him first, a familiar scent that leaves him smiling. Penelope has sent him bread and stew, a traditional dish from Nine. It's undeniably had a Capitol spin put on it - Scott's not even seen a couple of the vegetables floating in the stew before - but the bread is baked exactly the same as back home, a hearty loaf that's used to scoop up the stew and mop up the leftovers. 

“What've you got?” Fuse asks him, leaning over. Scott tilts the bowl towards him in response. “Not bad,” he allows. “Guess you've managed to score some sponsors after all.”

“Do you get sent food every mealtime?” Scott asks curiously. He’s always tried to pay as little attention to the Games as possible, particularly when it came to Careers, so he genuinely has no idea how normal this is. The sheer amount of money the meals cost is not lost on him, even this early on in the Games; the number of sponsors the inner districts must have is staggering if this is how they're treated every day. But -

“Nah,” Fuse says, scraping rice and curry from around the edges of his bowl. “It's a tradition, more like. It started out as a sort of proof that tributes had enough sponsors to keep them safe in emergencies, and now it happens every year. Makes you feel a little closer to home too, when you're out here and not sure if you'll make it back home. My mentor won a couple decades ago when the tradition was still new and he said it helped keep him going.”

Huh. Scott had almost forgotten that the Careers could feel anything like homesickness, the way they always act so unbothered. He mentally kicks himself at the twang of sympathy he feels towards Fuse. These are his enemies, he reminds himself. No matter how nice they can seem, they'd all betray him in a heartbeat.

At least Bespoke and Taffy are dicks. It makes it easier to hate them.

Scott settles into eating, relishing the warmth of the stew. It's probably the last hot food he will have in a while. Maybe ever. He pushes the thought aside and savours the meal instead. The Capitol version of the stew is absolutely delicious, which he'd expected after the past week of sampling their cuisine. Even so, he finds himself missing the version that Virgil would often make when they could scrounge up the ingredients.

Night comes quickly. The temperature had dropped as soon as the sun sank under the horizon and Scott is starting to feel it. Luckily there isn't too much left to do, and the other half of the pack set off hunting after finishing their food. They'll be away for the whole night, so the rest of them finish setting up their tents and agree on who will keep watch. Once again, Taffy insists on keeping watch in pairs; it seems as though the Careers are more concerned about being backstabbed by their own allies than about any outside threat. It doesn't look as if the alliance will last long this year.

Good.

Scott is on first watch with Derrick, so he sits himself by the fire and feeds it from their pile of firewood every now and again to keep it alive and kicking. The night is cold for summer, a harsh wind blowing in from the marshes, but it isn't unbearable, and the fire helps to keep the feeling in his limbs. The vivid memory of the frozen Games a few years ago springs to mind, when they had watched over half a dozen tributes succumb to frostbite and lose fingers and toes before they rattled their last breaths. He can only hope that the Gamemakers don't try to do anything similar this year. They're unlikely to, though, given how unpopular it was with the Capitol audience the last time.

Derrick keeps glancing at him warily, but thankfully doesn't try and engage him in conversation. The two remain in cautious silence until the moon is high in the sky and it's time for the watch to swap over. Petra scowls at him and grumbles incessantly when he wakes her, but she gets up eventually and Scott is left to try and get some semblance of rest until tomorrow.

He's exhausted, but even as he lies in his sleeping bag, sheltered from the cold wind blowing outside, Scott finds it difficult to sleep. Anxiety thrums throughout his body, a constant ever since he woke up over eighteen hours ago (how long has it been? How long have they been in the arena?), gripping his chest and snatching his breath away. And then, inevitably, his thoughts drift to Kayo, somewhere out in the forest.

He hadn't seen her at all in the bloodbath, had no idea which direction she'd run. It was likely she'd headed into the forest, given that it was a more predictable environment in terms of food than the marshes and easier to hide in, but they were vast. She could be anywhere. Maybe she'd managed to grab some supplies in the bloodbath, maybe she'd stolen something from another tribute (given the number of times that Kayo had nicked Scott's own belongings without him noticing, the likelihood of that wasn't zero). Maybe she had nothing. The sudden and vivid image of Kayo out in the middle of the forest, unprotected and freezing, springs unbidden into Scott's mind. He feels sick.

The only thing that gives him comfort is that there have been no cannons since before the night's fallen tributes were projected into the sky. It does mean of course that the Career pack will be pretty irritated if they secure no kills at all before tomorrow morning, but it also means that Kayo is at least alive and still out there. With that knowledge, Scott is just about able to slip into a restless sleep. 

When he opens his eyes again, the silvery light of the moments before dawn shining through the walls of the tent. It reminds Scott of the morning of Reaping Day - less than a week ago, and yet a lifetime - and he gives up on rest. Instead he rises, joining Taffeta and Petra at the campfire. Taffy glares at him with enough venom in her eyes to fell a grown stag.

“Morning,” he murmurs, voice rough with sleep. She doesn't respond with anything other than a huff, inspecting her perfect nails. Even though Scott’s look similarly neat thanks to his prep team taking him back to beauty base zero (whatever the fuck that means), he doesn't doubt that Taffy had perfect nails even before the Games. She has the stereotypical look of the District One tributes town to a T with her blonde ringlets, perfect figure and glittering blue eyes. And she knows it, too; Scott hadn't missed the winks and smiles that she'd tossed at anyone who looked her way, particularly during her interview. Even now, she's carefully brushing through her hair with her fingers and plaiting it again so that it falls over her shoulder just so. The Capitol audience must love her.

Despite her delicate beauty, however, Scott remembers the toned strength of her arms throwing knife after knife into the targets at the Training Centre with terrifying precision. The Capitol may be fooled by her delicate features, but he isn't about to let down his guard.

Petra, at least, offers him a tight smile, which he takes as invitation to sit on her side of the fire. The silence is uncomfortable but not unbearable. Eventually, he suggests that he go and fetch firewood, to which Taffy shrugs indifferently and Petra nods a vague confirmation. The familiarity of chopping firewood helps to calm his nerves somewhat, and he gathers as much as he can carry.

When Scott eventually gets back, the hunting party have returned. They slept in the woods at some point, apparently, but are all still looking quite tired and - more to the point - pissed off. They must have not had any success. Scott doesn't know whether to be pleased that no more kids have been slaughtered at their hands or daunted by the prospect of a few more potential threats still alive in the arena. Then again, he'd seen the competition. Aside from the Careers, almost none of them look like they have the skills to survive for long in the wilderness. Killing them would be a mercy, nothing more.

Scott almost flinches at his own reasoning. How quickly had he fallen into the mindset of the Games? These are kids, not mindless obstacles for him to dispose of.

But Fuse is calling him over, and so Scott has to cast aside his thoughts and rejoin the group.

Fuse suggests that they switch up the day and night hunting parties. Bespoke seems irritated that the guy has actually had a good idea, but he agrees to it with surprisingly little argument. Scott has been put on the night party tonight - still not with Fuse, he notices - but for the morning they all stay at camp and organise supplies. The tents they’d slept in stay up in their places around the campfire, a spot designated for the firewood Scott gathered. They all get the opportunity, too, to rifle through the supplies in the Cornucopia again. Scott takes the chance to stash away more food in his pack, despite the rules the Careers seem to have about hoarding; when the alliance inevitably crumbles, who knows how difficult getting food will become? He thinks that he mostly gets away with it, though Fuse seems to be observing him quietly in his peripheral. If he sees that Scott’s taking a little more than the others, he doesn't say anything.

There isn't much for the first group to do as they while away the afternoon. Derrick and Gill have been grouped together today (apparently, Bespoke does not deem them as much of a threat) and spend most of their time talking in low voices. They keep glancing over at him, and from the snatches of conversation Scott overhears, he guesses that they aren’t saying anything particularly nice. Petra, meanwhile, is running through training exercises beside the Cornucopia, her sword flashing through the air with deadly purpose. After sitting alone for an hour and a half or so, Scott finally succumbs to boredom and decides to ask her for some combat advice.

“Hey,” he greets her, trudging through the grass. 

Petra finishes a combination with a swipe that would surely disembowel a real opponent and turns to him. “What d’you want, Nine?” she asks brusquely but not unkindly, hand on her hip. In the sunlight, her ginger hair looks as if it were on fire.

“I was wondering if you could, uh, talk me through some of your training exercises,” he asks awkwardly.

Petra raises one eyebrow (Scott never could figure out how to do that). “You saying that you actually don't know how to fight?”

“No,” Scott amends hurriedly, “no, I just don't know any formal stuff like you, that's all. And there’s nothing much to do till the others get back, so…”

“Relax, Nine, I'm teasing. I'll take you through it if you want. Bit different with an axe, but the principle's the same.”

Scott breathes out slowly, moving to stand next to Petra (and carefully ignoring her amused snort at his discomfort). She takes him through the basic form first: stance, grip, guard. He's always been a quick learner, but it's still uncanny just how easily he picks up what she tells him. They move swiftly on to different attacks, swinging high and low. It's not instantly transforming Scott’s rough-and-ready technique, but it passes the time at least.

“How'd you learn how to handle an axe in the first place?” Petra asks him abruptly. “I mean, aren't your district all farmers?”

“I chop a lot of firewood,” Scott shrugs. “And I'm used to swinging scythes and sickles during harvest season. It's not that different from what we're doing.”

Petra nods, satisfied. He doesn't ask where she learned the exercises that they are both walking through slowly, of course; even he knows of the unspoken rule that no one talks about the Career training facilities where the Capitol will hear. It's not a secret by any means, but convenient collective amnesia ensures that the audience are well-entertained by the fighting machines that the inner districts produce without the guilt of acknowledging that kids are being trained to kill - and die - for their amusement.

“Your form's not bad,” she says eventually, watching him as he practices the combination she taught him. “Bit clumsy, and you do that stupid thing with your foot every other second, but overall…not bad.” Scott knows it's the closest he is going to get to praise from her. It surprises him that he’s genuinely flattered by the compliment.

“Thank you,” he says, and he means it.

Petra rolls her eyes. “Whatever.” And she walks off. Scott watches her go, trying in vain to quash the spark of fondness for the District Two girl that has begun to form deep in his chest.

Notes:

still not sure how i feel about the Career chapters? i think i just need to stop getting so into all the lore and stuff because i love dropping little tidbits of my own personal worldbuilding but i feel like i'm doing it just a bit too much.... oh well! also the end scene was not supposed to be there but i got too attached to an oc....again. petra darling you are an icon.

anyways see y'all next week

Chapter 12: xii: unstable

Notes:

okay first of all. i would like to apologise. i have been saying that i'll do weekly chapters (and to be fair i managed it for a bit!) but life keeps getting in the way :( i was sat down last Friday editing this and then was adding a whole ass scene and then i needed to go to sleep because i had to travel 2h for a 9:45am all-day event I was performing at and THEN did a 15 mile sponsored walk the day after and THEN my cousin has been staying with us since we got back from the walk. so. yeah

i'm still going to try and keep up weekly updates but i don't want people to expect regular Friday chapters and then be constantly disappointed, so they'll happen when they happen yk...

anyway enjoy! this is a longer one than usual because I added that extra bit so I hope it makes up for the chaos lol

The next day passes uneventfully. No deaths occur either during the day or the night - a fact which infuriates the group - despite their regular hunts. There's a certain tension in the air building by the afternoon of their third day in the arena. Something is going to happen soon. The only question is if it will be the Careers, other tributes, or the Gamemakers themselves who will light the match that sparks the flame.

Scott finds himself gravitating slightly more towards the pair from District Two, partially because they're the only ones who don't treat him like the dirt under their feet. Petra is sharp as flint and tough as rock, communicating mainly through insults and grunts, though every now and again Scott catches a glimpse through her stony exterior. Fuse, meanwhile, is easier to talk to. It's clear that the tough, cocksure front he puts on in front of the rest of the alliance doesn’t come naturally to him. It’s something he's clearly had to spend years cultivating - an attempt to disguise the gentleness within him. 

Both of the Twos still terrify him, of course. Scott knows just how easily they could kill him at any moment.

The pair from One, meanwhile, are the unspoken leaders of the pack. They've cemented their position through the separation of district partners where they can and the frequent switching of groups, discouraging the formation of inner alliances. Bespoke's loud instructions and Taffy's wicked remarks are the cornerstone of every group conversation. Scott dislikes them more and more with every passing moment.

Derrick and Gill are the hardest to read. The pair from Four seem content to let One take the lead - unlike Fuse and Petra, who do their best to challenge the Ones as often as possible (without being outright hostile and risking fracturing the group). Scott doesn't doubt that the pair from Four do not trust him either, though. Not after what he overhead last night.

Gill and Taffy (Taffeta is her full name, he’s since found out) had been on watch together whilst the rest of them got some sleep. Scott’s sleep, however, has been…disturbed, to say the least, ever since the start of the Games. He wakes at the slightest noises and finds it extremely hard to fall asleep, no matter how tired he is. It meant that he’d overheard a good chunk of the conversation that had passed between the two girls.

“What d'you make of that Nine kid?” Gill had whispered to Taffy, not quite lowering her voice enough to prevent Scott from overhearing if he strained his ears enough. He missed what Taffeta said next but he guessed it wasn't very kind, because at her words Gill laughed, venom in her voice. 

“I don't get why the Twos pushed for us to let him join our group,” she remarked, Taffy murmuring in agreement. Scott missed the next exchange, though the sharpness of their words was clear as day. He did catch something about scored an eleven and don’t know what he can do and can’t trust him.

And he certainly didn't miss their hushed agreement to kill Scott as soon as he stopped being useful.

Not the most comforting thing to overhear.

He's not surprised, really. The only two he could even vaguely trust right from day two of training were Fuse and Petra, and that hasn't changed. He just needs to be on his guard.

Night three arrives with yet another sky devoid of fallen tributes, and Bespoke scowls at the stars as if they personally are responsible. They mostly eat in silence until Taffeta kicks him in the shin. Scott tries not to wince (she really didn’t hold back; he’ll have a bruise there by the morning) and looks up at her sharply.

“So what’s the deal with your kid sister?” she demands, tossing her hair back in that infuriating way she always does.

“What d’you mean?” he asks warily.

“I mean,” she says, exasperation tinting her words already, “how did she end up with an eight in training? She’s what, thirteen?”

“Fourteen,” he corrects.

“Whatever. She’s tiny. How the fuck did she end up with such a high score? What did she do?”

Scott shrugs. “Dunno, she never told me. Just because she’s my sister doesn’t mean I know everything about her.”

Taffeta huffs, scuffing her shoe in the dirt. Around the circle, the rest of the dogpack is clearly listening in; nothing else interesting is being said anyway. Bespoke has a wicked gleam in his eye again, and the Fours are huddled up next to each other as usual. Fuse leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “I have been wondering, actually,” he starts, and everyone turns to look at him. “How’d you get such a high score?”

Ah, shit.

This is the downside of that eleven. It’s not just impressive, it’s the highest anyone’s scored in his living memory, maybe longer – higher than any of the Careers. It’s a massive target on his back. The people surrounding him are making that clear enough. Taffeta’s switched from bored and fidgety to dangerously still, and Bespoke’s eyes are trained on him like a hawk. The Fours are leaning closer together than ever, edgy and conspiratorial, and even the Twos are looking at him with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. The tension is taut; it’s the least safe Scott has felt since the bloodbath.

“I don’t know why they gave me such a high score,” he says - because there’s no way he can say what actually happened in that assessment, even if he’d wanted to. The Capitol’s cameras are surely trained on him, and he can’t show up the Gamemakers by revealing how he’d practically committed treason. “I guess they just thought I was good.”

“Don’t be all coy,” Bespoke says sharply. “What did you do?”

He shrugs. “Showed them my fighting skills. Maybe they saw my survival knowledge during the other days too, I don’t know. Ask the Gamemakers yourself what they were thinking if you’re so curious. I’d sure like to know.”

Bespoke gives up then, folding his arms and gritting his teeth. The Fours whisper away. Scott focuses back on his food, steadfastly ignoring the way they’re all looking at him now at this reminder of his training score. He gets the feeling this alliance is going to be pretty short-lived.

Soon after they've all had finished eating (the food was taken from the supplies in the Cornucopia, of course; the Career mentors are not wasting valuable sponsor money on food at the moment, especially considering their tributes’ lack of progress) the night hunting party ready up. Today, it includes Scott, alongside Derrick, Fuse and Bespoke. A boy-girl split.

“We've gotta get on with it today,” Fuse murmurs to Scott as they head off into the dark, packs secured and torches in pockets (but not on, because they could alert anyone nearby of their presence). “Audience is probably getting bored, and the others aren't happy that we haven't killed anyone since day one. Unless something else is going on in the forest, there's been no action at all since then.” 

So no pressure or anything.

Scott nods silently, falling into step with the burly Two. He wonders absently just how old Fuse is; despite his height and muscle, he surely can't be any older than seventeen. The same age as Scott himself, and only a year older than John.

That fact unsettles Scott more than he'd like to admit.

“So,” Scott asks him eventually, sick of the relentless silence. “Why’d you volunteer for the Games?”

Fuse blinks at him, like he’d forgotten Scott could speak. Then he shrugs. “To bring honour to my district. I was one of the strongest candidates. Didn’t think it would happen, honestly, but I went for it and I was selected, so…”

“Selected?”

“Out of the volunteers for this year.” At Scott’s evident confusion, Fuse raises his eyebrows. “Don’t you know how it works?”

“We don’t really get volunteers in Nine.”

“S’pose not.” Fuse takes pity on him and explains. “Once they read the name, all the volunteers – well, volunteer. They get all of them on the stage, ask for names, then draw again from the pool. Everyone’s name goes in just once that time, so kids don’t get an advantage for taking tesserae. Most years there’s a ton of people, so it can take a while.”

“Wow.” Scott doesn’t say anything about Fuse calling taking the tesserae an advantage. In the outer districts, it’s a gamble: increase the chances of ending up in the Games, or risk your family starving to death? Because of the tesserae system, the poorest kids of the district are the most likely to end up in the Games – and almost none of them stand a chance.

“So you think you can win this thing?” he says instead.

“Don’t we all?” Fuse grins. Then his smile dims slightly, and he looks away into the distance. “But yeah, I want to win. I want to go home.”

Scott hesitates a moment before speaking. “Back to your sister?”

“You remembered,” Fuse says, surprised. Scott just shrugs. “Yeah, I’ve got a sister. Well, half sister. She’s a bit older than me. Her name’s Helvia, but I call her Havoc ‘cause she’s always getting into loads of trouble. Everyone was scared of her at school ‘cause she used to fight anyone who called me names.”

“She sounds like a great sister.”

Fuse smiles fondly. “She is. And I promised her I’d make it home, so I’m gonna win this thing for her.”

“I said the same to my brothers,” Scott murmurs. Fuse doesn’t reply to him, and for a moment Scott thinks he didn’t hear. But then he catches a glimpse of the odd look on Fuse’s face before he turns away, a mix of pity, recognition and inner conflict. Scott understands exactly what must be going through his head, because it’s the exact same as what went through his when Fuse talked about his sister: the realisation that they aren’t so different after all.

He's trying to figure out how to diffuse this strange moment between them when when a thin trail of smoke catches his eye. It's barely visible and at first Scott almost dismisses it as a trick of the night, but Fuse spots it too and nudges him.

“Definitely looks like campfire smoke,” he murmurs, gesturing to the other two to move closer. “Could even be an alliance - I dunno if a solo tribute would have the confidence to do that.”

“I can't see any kind of glow from an actual fire,” Bespoke remarks sceptically, folding his arms. “Could be something else.”

Fuse visibly bites back a retort. “I still think it's worth checking out,” he says after a beat, voice forcibly calm. Bespoke stares back at him, unimpressed. There's an unspoken challenge between them; this disagreement is clearly not just about the smoke. 

“I agree with Fuse,” Scott says tentatively. All three of them turn to look at him as one, and he almost regrets saying anything. “If it's not a campfire, then we don't lose anything, but if it is and we don't check it out then whoever lit it will get away.”

Derrick sighs. “I hate to say it, but Nine has a point.”

Bespoke narrows his eyes, but it's clear even as he pretends to deliberate that their course of action is obvious. “Fine,” he relents, “we'll scout it out. But if you're wrong, Nine, I'm not gonna be happy that you've wasted our time.”

Right. Cool.

Scott swallows and follows the group towards the smoke.

For the first time, it seems as if the Careers are actually trying to be quiet. They're succeeding, too, and Scott is the one who keeps accidentally making a sound despite all his attempts to adhere to the advice Kayo had given him all those months ago about remaining undetected in the forest. Fuse is uncannily silent, given his size, and Bespoke similarly slips between the trees with ease. Derrick seems a little less confident - perhaps there aren't many forests by the coast - but still manages alright. When they finally come across the source of the smoke, the person that started the fire is almost completely unaware of their approach.

Almost, but not quite completely unawares.

Scott doesn't recognise the girl straight away. She's scrawny, young, wide-eyed and mousy. She’s quick, too; she makes it halfway up a tree and almost to safety before Bespoke's knife thuds into her shoulder and sends her tumbling to the ground. The boy from One laughs cruelly as she writhes on the forest floor, screaming. It's clear these days of boredom and lack of action have only amplified his vicious streak. As the girl sobs and tries to drag herself away, he stomps on her hand, pinning her in place.

“Thought you could hide from us?” he sneers, dangling his sword in front of her. “Thought you could outsmart us?”

The girl is sobbing harder, shaking her head desperately, face twisted in pain. Bespoke tugs the knife from her shoulder in one sharp movement and she wails. Scott flinches, turning away at the needless cruelty.

That's when he spots the second tribute.

Crouched in the bushes, face smeared with dirt and leaves in his hair, the boy from Three blends in almost seamlessly. The only thing that draws Scott's attention is the gleam of his glasses in the moonlight. The girl must be his district partner, then; Scott does remember her now, remembers the dress she wore to the interviews. She looks so different - probably closer to how she normally looks, rather than the picture-perfect doll her stylists had presented last week. Both of them look even smaller now, cowering in fear from the Career pack. From him.

Scott locks eyes with the boy, Fermat. He must be terrified; he looks like the mice Scott used to see back home cornered by a stray cat. He must think that he’s done for. That this is it, the Careers have caught him. He’s only fifteen and he’s going to die.

Scott makes a split-second decision.

He glances around to make sure no one is paying attention to him (and they aren’t, too distracted by this new prey to consider there could be anyone else nearby) and gestures subtly to Fermat to take his glasses off. It’s all he can think of to do. If he tells the kid to run, he’ll be caught in a second. All he can hope is that Fermat can stay hidden and quiet long enough for Scott to get the pack to move elsewhere.

It takes the kid a moment, but then his eyes widen minutely in understanding and he carefully pockets his glasses. Without the light reflecting off them, he’s almost indistinguishable from the foliage. Scott breathes a silent sigh of relief. His attention turns now to the other girl, lying on the floor as Bespoke taunts her.

“Gonna cry for Mommy?” he hisses, and she screws her eyes shut and whimpers. Derrick laughs; Fuse looks distinctly uncomfortable. 

“Come on, Bespoke,” Scott is saying before he’s even thought about it, stepping forwards. “Cut it out.”

“Excuse me?” Bespoke whips around, his eyes narrowing.

“She’s just a kid, and she’s already hurt,” Scott shoots back. “Stop torturing her.” He’s already slightly regretting his words once he sees the viciousness in Bespoke’s glare, but there’s an anger burning in his chest that won’t be extinguished by fear of the Careers. Besides, Fuse doesn’t seem at all happy with Bespoke either.

Bespoke huffs. “Get off your fucking high horse, Nine. I’m playing the game, aren’t I? I’m just giving the audience what they want.”

“It’s cruelty is what that is.”

“He has a point,” Fuse says, shoulder brushing briefly against Scott’s. 

On the floor, the girl’s cries are weakening.

“Fine. Have it your way.” Bespoke pivots abruptly and drives his sword directly into the girl’s heart. Her eyes widen and her breath leaves her body in one sharp exhale, head tipping to one side. Scott meets her eyes and mouths I’m sorry as she stills and doesn’t breathe in again. A second later, the cannon fires. “Are you both fucking happy now?”

Neither of them say anything. Derrick scoffs and kicks at the meagre supplies arranged neatly by the fire pit. Now that the girl from Three is dead, Scott turns his attention to the camp. The smoke they’d spotted earlier is not, in fact, coming from the pit that Derrick is standing next to (which itself is actually a hole in the ground, disguising the glow of the fire from a distance) but from a separate hole, like a chimney. The whole setup is actually extremely effective, and especially impressive when he recalls how the Threes had never lit a fire before their first day of training; Scott wouldn’t be surprised if the pair of them had been getting away with lighting fires undetected since the first day of the Games. It was merely bad luck on their part that the Careers had spotted the smoke tonight.

“It looks like she wasn’t alone,” Derrick comments, still poking through the supplies. “Probably her weedy district partner.”

“I think I saw some movement that way when we first arrived,” Scott jumps in quickly, pointing the other way to where he knew Fermat was crouched, still hidden in the undergrowth. “The ground gets steeper that way, there could be caves or something that he knows he could hide in.”

Bespoke shoots him a suspicious look. “You sure you’re not imagining it?”

“No, I’m pretty sure.” Scott tries to look as confident as he can in his words. “I mean, we don’t have any other leads anyway. No one else saw anything, right?” None of the others say anything. Phew. “Then it can’t hurt to search that way.”

Bespoke rolls his eyes, but after a second he marches off in the direction Scott had pointed in. Derrick follows, and Fuse hangs back to walk side by side with Scott. As they leave the clearing, Scott risks one last glance back at where he knew Fermat was hiding. There’s no sign of him. He’ll just have to hope he did enough to help.

 

---

 

In the end, they don’t find any trace of Fermat. It pisses Bespoke off no end, but Derrick reassures him that the kid won’t have gotten far and will probably die soon anyway, which mollifies him slightly. Fucked up reasoning, but that’s the Hunger Games for you.

They make camp on the forest slopes, having strayed too far from the flatter areas to make it back to more solid ground in decent time. They have no tents, just sleeping bags. Scott braces himself for a second night of sleeping on roots and rocks.

“You know, I wonder where your sister’s ended up?” Bespoke says slyly as they’re arranging their supplies and starting a small fire for the night. Scott stiffens, but carries on unrolling his sleeping bag.

“I thought she’d be dead by now, honestly,” Derrick chimes in. “Little brat looks like a strong wind would blow her over.”

“Ah, but she got that high score, remember?” Bespoke wags a finger mockingly, his smirk audible. “It’s a miracle a weedy kid like her managed an eight. Any clue what she did to get that, Nine?”

“She’s tougher than she looks,” Scott bites back.

Bespoke snickers. “Oh, I’m sure she is. But she won’t be as tough once I find her and skewer her like a nice bit of mutton.”

Scott’s fists clench so tightly around his sleeping bag he nearly rips the seams.

“Oh no, big brother Scott! Save me, big brother Scott!” Derrick squeals, his voice high-pitched and his arms waving haphazardly in the air. Bespoke howls with laughter. “The big bad Careers are going to kill me!”

Scott sees red.

Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s grabbed Derrick by the collar, shoving his face right up against the other boy’s. “Shut the fuck up, Four,” he spits. “Don’t you dare speak about her like that.”

Rough hands pull him back. Derrick scrambles away as Scott is forced to let go, eyes wide with genuine fear for a second before he manages to compose himself. Behind him, Bespoke has drawn his sword, one hand coming down protectively on Derrick’s shoulder.

Scott whips around to face the person who grabbed him. He meets intense dark brown eyes and eyebrows creased in concern.

“What the hell d’you think you’re doing?” Fuse hisses urgently, one hand still wrapped around his bicep. “They already don’t trust you. You’re gonna get yourself killed, you idiot.”

Scott doesn’t respond. Fuse looks him up and down, eventually releasing Scott’s arm and stepping back very slightly to give him a bit more space. Scott almost  collapses to the ground, shuffling away and pressing his back against the tree. His hatchet is still on his belt and he clutches it defensively, eyeing Derrick and Bespoke. Both of them eye him back, seemingly trying to gauge whether or not he is still a threat. Derrick’s knuckles are white around his trident. Bespoke’s hand hovers at his sword hilt.

“Don’t you dare do that again,” Bespoke says finally, every word sharp with warning. “If you ever even think about attacking anyone in the alliance, I will gut you, and I will take my fucking time doing it. You’ll wish you were dead by the time I’m done with you. Do you understand?”

Scott nods.

“Right.” Bespoke folds his arms, and Scott relaxes a fraction. “It’s late. We’ll sleep in three shifts. You’re on first watch with me, Nine, then Derrick, then Fuse. Then we head back to camp.” His tone leaves no room for argument, and Scott does not want to test him. He nods wordlessly, and Derrick and Fuse do the same.

The fire is small and barely hot enough to keep Scott from shivering. He sits opposite Bespoke, staring off into the black of the forest, trying to avoid the other boy’s gaze. Already he’s regretting his outburst, regretting upsetting the already shaky foundations of his inclusion into the Career alliance. He knows for certain that if Fuse were not there, Bespoke and Derrick would probably have killed him for what he did. The only thing keeping him alive is his affinity with the Twos; never has he been more intensely aware of that fact. Still, this clearly cannot go on for much longer. His only hope is to make a run for it - sometime tomorrow, perhaps - or to disrupt the alliance and take as many Careers down as he can in order to give Kayo a fighting chance. He’s not optimistic about his chances of surviving either scenario.

But he has to try.

The beginnings of a plan are formulating in his mind but he’s finding it difficult to concentrate. The distinct feeling of being watched is permeating his thoughts. He keeps scanning the forest for signs of someone following, but there’s no movement. Bespoke doesn’t say anything; if he feels the same way, he’s certainly not telling Scott about it. It’s happened periodically over the last few days, mostly when he’s out hunting with the pack, so by this point Scott just assumes that it’s a side effect of knowing that their every move is being broadcast to the entirety of Panem. So far he hasn’t spotted a single camera, but he knows there must be some somewhere. He hates that his family can see the awful things he’s been a part of so far, hopes that Grandma and John are keeping his youngest siblings from seeing or hearing the worst of it.

In the end, enough time passes without any incident and Bespoke decides it’s time to wake Derrick for the next watch, instructing Scott in no uncertain terms to go to sleep. Given his track record so far of sleeping in the arena (absolutely and utterly shit), Scott doubts he’ll actually be able to get any rest, but even so he lies down in his cold sleeping bag and shifts closer to the fire in a futile attempt to warm himself up. He closes his eyes, mulling his options over and over in his head and attempting to ignore the feeling of being watched.

To his surprise, Scott does manage to sort of drift off. He’s floating in and out of consciousness, snatches of reality bleeding into his almost-asleep state, when a shuffling catches his attention and he blearily opens his eyes to see Derrick crouched over him, about to drive a knife into his heart.

He’s too late to do anything about it. All Scott can do is lie there, the reality of his imminent death sinking in in a split-second, when a blade thuds into Derrick’s skull and he slumps lifelessly across Scott’s chest. The cannon fires, its deafening sound cutting through the murky silence of the forest.

Scott scrambles upright. He’s desperately shoving Derrick away from him as hot blood trickles onto his sleeping bag, head whipping in every direction in an attempt to locate the source of the knife. He glimpses a figure high up in a tree before his attention is diverted by a shout.

The cannon has woken the other two Careers. Bespoke is already reaching for his sword - as is Fuse - and Scott realises with sinking dread that from their point of view he must have killed Derrick. He knows instantly that Bespoke certainly will not listen to reason. He will be dead before the first word of explanation leaves his lips.

He has to run.

Scott frees himself from his sleeping bag and snatches the thing up, swinging his bag onto his shoulder and grabbing his hatchet. Bespoke is yelling, struggling with the zip on his sleeping bag (classic Career arrogance, of course; even with the cold Scott had left his own bag partly unzipped for exactly this reason), and even Fuse is gearing up to fight him. Luckily, Scott has a decent headstart, and he’s already fleeing the clearing. Even so, the extra few seconds he takes to grab the sleeping bag have cost him. Bespoke throws one of his knives, grazing his right shoulder. He almost doesn't feel it thanks to the adrenaline coursing through his veins, but he does feel the hot blood running down his arm.

As he runs, he risks one final glance up at the figure in the tree, trying to identify his silent saviour.

The moon chooses that moment to show its face. He catches a glimpse of raven-dark hair and a buttercup-yellow tshirt under the jacket before the branches obscure his vision and he has to turn and keep running.

Scott runs and runs and runs, feet pounding painfully on the dirt. He balls up his sleeping bag under one arm as best he can, reluctant to let the thing go entirely but terrified of the fabric catching on a stray branch and giving his pathway away - or worse still, slowing him down enough so that the Careers can catch up. He tries to dart through the undergrowth as best as he can, swerving and weaving in an attempt to lose them. Their shouts are a distance away, but aren’t getting any further, and his side feels like it’s splitting as he desperately tries to inhale the air he needs to keep going.

Scott spots a particularly dense bit of foliage and makes a split-second decision, darting into it and curling up on the forest floor. He pulls his hood over his head in an attempt to camouflage himself (thank fuck for jacket; if he was wearing a bright yellow one instead of the dark green they’re all wearing he’d be spotted in a second) and lies as still as he possibly can.

Only about twenty seconds later he hears the thundering footsteps of his pursuers rushing by, not stopping to even look at his hiding spot. Scott counts silently to forty, listening to them get further away, and then inches his way out, turning and moving as fast as he can whilst staying silent in a completely different direction. He’s glad that he did so, as only a few minutes later he hears them doubling back, the sounds of them cutting through undergrowth to try and find him still audible even from a distance.

He takes a moment to duck behind a tree and stuff his sleeping bag haphazardly into his pack before carrying on into the night.

Scott doesn’t stop walking for a long time. He’s exhausted but pure adrenaline keeps him on his guard, watching out for both the Careers and for any other tributes. The longer he walks, the more he feels the pain in his shoulder, too. It doesn't feel dangerously deep, but it stings like a bitch.

It’s nearly dawn before he feels safe enough to try and find a place to sleep for the night;. Scott ends up scaling a smaller tree, the wood of which he doesn’t recognise, using it to reach the high branches of a massive oak that had been impossible to climb from the ground. There’s a fork in the trunk that he settles into, laying the sleeping bag over him like a blanket and using the length of rope he’d stashed in his pack to secure himself to the tree trunk.

It's as he's cleaning and wrapping his shoulder in bandages from the tiny medkit he'd stashed that Scott's thoughts slow down enough for him to comprehend what just happened.

He’s out of the alliance. Derrick is dead. The remaining Careers are out for his blood, and when they catch him they won’t be so kind as to just kill him straight away. They’re going to want to make him suffer.

And another tribute had killed Derrick.

Who was it?

They’d been small, hidden way up in the trees, but they’d hit Derrick with terrifying accuracy. Scott tries to conjure up the brief glimpse he’d managed to catch of his saviour. Long dark hair and a flash of a buttercup yellow t-shirt. The same yellow as Scott’s own.

His breath hitches.

Kayo had just saved his life.

Chapter 13: xiii: marshes

Notes:

ignore that it's been a month. time is weird and writer's block is a bitch. anyway enjoy

Scott barely sleeps all night.

Never did he think he would actually miss being part of the Career alliance, but now that he’s alone in the arena with no one to watch his back the paranoia is sinking in. Even high up in the tree, all but completely hidden from sight, he’s terrified of being discovered - not just by the Careers, but by any of the other tributes. The night is oppressive, never-ending. Terrifying. His dislike of heights isn’t helping either; despite using the rope from his pack to secure himself to the tree like he’d seen tributes do in previous years, Scott feels like he’s going to slip and fall at any moment.

His thoughts shift for the first time to the threats posed by the Gamemakers. A fair few tributes are killed every year by their mutt creations. Scott is incredibly likely to encounter one, given he’s all alone now. And soon.

Not only that, but his mind is buzzing at the short glimpse he caught of Kayo. It had been impossible to tell in the dark, but she’d looked…okay. Not horribly injured. Well enough to take Derrick out with a single well-placed knife at any rate. That meant she’s had access to weapons, and probably some food and water too.

How had she managed to get her hands on that knife? Had she grabbed some supplies from the Cornucopia during the bloodbath? Had she taken some from another tribute? Had she killed for them?

The thought of his little sister, forced to kill to survive by the Capitol, makes his blood boil. He swiftly redirects his thoughts elsewhere.

As far as he could see, Kayo had been alone in the woods. What had happened, then, to her alliance with Anise? Hollis had died in the bloodbath (Scott pointedly doesn't think about how he died, on the brink of overpowering Fuse until Scott had intervened and tipped the odds against him), but Anise had made it out. Was she keeping watch over their camp at this very moment, waiting for Kayo to return? Scott can't decide if he is more or less comforted by the idea of Kayo having an ally. Someone to watch her back, sure, but also someone who could just as easily stab her in the back. A double-edged sword.

In the end, Scott finally drifts off a little before dawn begins to approach. It’s still early morning when he wakes, packs up and gets back on the move. He's too close to the Career camp for his tastes - still in the forest closer to the meadow they started in, the only place they've felt safe to hunt in so far. He heads south-west instead, avoiding the Cornucopia and aiming for the marshes to the south.

It's maybe a terrible idea. He at least has some familiarity with forests; the marshes are a complete unknown to him. Less coverage and places to hide, no way to light a fire without immediately being spotted. Massive bodies of water in which anything could be lurking. Scott wouldn't be surprised if there were hordes of mutts in there just waiting to pounce.

Still. He'd rather that than the Careers.

He walks for hours. At what he assumes is lunch he stops, climbs a tree, eats the smallest portion of his rations that he can. Scott is incredibly glad that he'd taken all the opportunities that he had to take extra supplies from the Cornucopia, even though they made his pack heavier. Dried jerky and protein bars aren't the most delicious, but they do what they’re supposed to do: keep him alive. Still, he's on the lookout for additional food sources. He's probably going to have zero luck with making effective snares, so he sticks to foraging nuts, berries and mushrooms.

As he scans the undergrowth his gaze falls on a bush of berries just to his left. They don't look too bad, and they're somewhat familiar, so he heads over and picks one. 

Scott rolls the berry around in his fingertips, trying to figure out what's so familiar about it. The bushes that he found them growing on are dotted all around the forest; he must've walked past at least a dozen clumps of them over the past few days, but until now had not really taken any notice. It's small, perfectly round, and a pleasant mottled navy blue. Maybe he saw it in the Training Center? He'd certainly not spent long enough at the edible plants station, that much was obvious even at the time. Scott kicks himself internally and tries to recall the plants back in District 9, in the wooded areas near their house.

Kayo, Gordon and Virgil had been the ones who'd known the most about edible plants. Every now and again one of them would drag him out into the woods to try and teach him how to identify them, but Scott simply didn't have the same eye for detail that they all had. More often than not he’d just let them do the foraging and try to get food on the table in his own way.

As he sits there, still rolling the berry between his fingertips, one faint memory shoves its way to the forefront of his mind. Gordon had gone out foraging after school, had brought back a full bag of berries for Grandma to cook with. He'd been so proud of himself. He'd opened the bag and was inches away from sneaking one into his mouth when Kayo had grabbed his wrist and jerked his hand away from his mouth so quickly that the berry flew from his hand and rolled under the kitchen table. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’ she'd snapped. ‘That's moonseed, Gordon, it'll kill you!’

Gordon had been incredibly confused. Then that confusion turned to terrified relief as he realised his mistake. Moonseed berries look extremely similar to fox grapes - another plant also found in the woods, but completely safe to eat. Kayo had pointed out the more navy tones of the moonseed, and said that fox grapes tended to have more of a purple hue, but that the easiest way to differentiate them was by the rounded, three-pointed leaves of the moonseed vine.

Scott's head turns to the plant growing only a few feet away that he'd plucked the berry from. He stands, moves closer to examine the shape of the leaves.

Dark green. Smooth, rounded. And with three points.

He drops the berry on the ground as if it's scorched his fingers.

This must be the thing that had killed the boy from 6. He recognises it now. It’s alarming just how much they look like fox grapes, just how easily he could have assumed they were safe and eaten them. He thanks his lucky stars that he'd paid attention to Kayo back then.

In the end, he finds some mushrooms that he definitely recognises from training and some more berries that are not deadly poisonous, thank you very much. He eats a few now but saves most of them for later. They won't keep long, but he can eat them first and leave the supplies from the Cornucopia for when he really needs them.

By the evening he's still not quite reached the marshes so he heads up yet another tree and settles down for the night. The arena feels colder already than it was the first night; Scott can't tell if that's because the temperature is lower higher up in the trees, the lack of fire, the Gamemakers, or a combination of all three. Regardless, he's grateful that he took the time to bring the sleeping bag with him, even if it resulted in injury. The extra layer makes the difference between discomfort and hypothermia.

Scott is awoken by the anthem early the next morning - day four, maybe, though his time in the arena is already starting to blur together into one muddy haze. Two deaths last night: the District 3 girl and Derrick. If the pack haven't already regrouped, the three left at the Cornucopia definitely know something big happened in the night. It's only a matter of time before they're all out for blood.

He needs to get moving.

Foraging more food as he goes (and really missing the Capitol’s dishes by now), Scott treks through the forest. It's strangely quiet. Somehow he doesn't come across a single other tribute. Where are all the others hiding? Maybe some are in the marshes. Maybe they're elsewhere in the forest, in some ingenious hiding spot that the Careers have so far missed. Either way, they aren't anywhere near him.

By the time he reaches the border between the forest and the marshes, Scott is well and truly sick of walking. It's strange, being by himself; he's used to being surrounded by rowdy siblings at all hours, and now he's split from the Careers he's truly alone for the first time. He's getting used to needing to be constantly on guard, but the complete lack of human contact is…jarring. He hopes that the nerves aren't showing too much on his face. Nothing much exciting is happening right now to him, but Scott remembers from years past the many montages of tribute activity get broadcast non-stop. He doesn’t want to show any signs of weakness that might make it back to his family at home. More than that, he refuses to give the Capitol the satisfaction of seeing him scared.

He walks along the border until he's happy with the distance between him and the Cornucopia (and therefore being spotted by the Careers) and finally steps into the marshland.

The environment is unlike any he's been in before - though of course that isn't a high bar, considering he's spent pretty much all his time in fields. The first thing hat strikes him is that there’s so much water. Winding rivers teeming with reeds and other aquatic plants, the blend of green-yellow around the banks making it almost impossible to tell where solid ground ends and the water begins. The trees are sporadic and mostly in tiny clumps, spread out along the riverbanks. In the distance he thinks he can see what might be a lake glinting in the sunlight, a smudge of grey-blue on the horizon. Even the sky seems different from what it was in the forest somehow: a murky grey almost identical to the colour of the water around him. It’s beautiful, in its own strange way. A different kind of beautiful from the other end of the arena, and a whole world away from his own district, but beautiful nonetheless. He would have loved to have taken his family here on some kind of day out.

Of course, that was impossible even before the reaping. Even more so impossible now.

Scott takes a deep breath and walks onwards.

He steers well clear of the rivers as he walks; even though they can’t be that deep, they’re strangely murky, and he has no idea what could be lurking under the surface. It's difficult to tell where the solid ground ends and the water begins thanks to all the foliage, but he treads carefully. 

Not carefully enough, of course.

His right foot slips on the muddy ground just once and he flails, losing his footing. One foot barely dips into the water next to him, the faint splash loud in the muffled quiet of the marsh. There's a second of absolute, blissful silence.

Then all hell breaks loose.

Lunging from the water, a mutt latches onto his leg and bites down, hard. He yells - kicks out - grapples for his axe and dislodges the beast with a desperate swipe. He barely gets a glance at it before the water is rippling and bubbling and a dozen more burst from its depths, screeching and chittering. Scott searches desperately for cover, a high vantage point, anywhere he could hide or climb up to save himself. Nothing. There’s one tree a little ways off that he can see, not nearly as big or sturdy as those in the forest. It looks like it could maybe hold his weight. Maybe, not definitely. But if he doesn’t try for cover, these things could tear him apart in minutes.

There's nothing he can do but run for it.

He’s fast, but they’re faster, and the mere two second headstart he gets is not nearly enough to let him reach the tree unscathed. Eventually one leaps onto his back, sinking teeth into his shoulder, and he screams, tries to pull it off him. It clings on. He staggers on, finally reaching the tree, slamming his shoulder into the trunk - the thing yelps and drops to the ground. The rest have caught up now, though, and Scott readies his axe in his hands.

He finally gets a good look at the mutts that have been chasing him as he gives up running and turns to face them, the tree guarding his back from any attacks from behind. They look a bit like otters, animals Scott remembers from school, but much bigger and meaner than the pictures he’d seen. Their tails are barbed, heavy, and their teeth are sharp and jagged like broken glass. One of them swipes at him and he barely dodges it, retaliating with a swing that cleaves it in two. His arm stings from where its claws grazed his flesh.

After that, details get a bit fuzzy. 

The mutts are vicious. He swings and chops and hacks at them, but it feels like they’re never-ending, and every one he cuts down is replaced almost instantly. They’re scrambling over their own dead to get to him, the screeches and hisses never-ending. Every so often one of them gets past his defences and lands another hit before he can knock them down again. They’re not incredibly tough one-on-one, but there are so many and he’s being worn down slowly but surely. Everything hurts. He’s scratched and bitten and bruised all over, and every second a different part of his body throbs in pain.

Slowly, though, their numbers are thinning. Scott kills another mutt and takes full advantage of the brief gap in the attacks to haul himself up into the lowest branches of the tree. A mutt leaps, hangs onto his ankle by its claws, and he kicks his leg so that the thing thuds again and again into the tree trunk, finally letting go with a crunch as something snapped and it crashes lifelessly to the ground. He climbs up again, shifting the awkward weight of his pack so that it doesn’t tug him back down to the swamp floor.

He fears that the height he’s gained will make little difference - that the mutts can climb, and will tear him to pieces regardless - but they stay at the bottom of the tree, chittering ominously. Maybe this is it. Maybe the Capitol has had their excitement for the day, maybe the Gamemakers have deemed him worthy of survival for now. Either way, the mutts slink away, slipping back under the water with barely a splash. Scott is spared the indignity of being torn to pieces on live television.

But maybe not from dying of blood loss.

Now he’s (relatively) safe, Scott is truly noticing the heightening wooziness in his head. He’s been bitten and scratched pretty much everywhere, deeper in some places than others, and his clothes are sticking to his skin, stained a rusty red-brown. Those things really had been fucking vicious. Scott would love nothing more than to sit here, maybe have a nap, but Atala’s advice from training is at the forefront of his mind. Blood loss and infection. These are going to kill him soon if he doesn’t do something.

Scott rifles through his pack for the meagre medkit from the Cornucopia. There really isn’t anything in there for treating more major injuries, and he’s already used up some of the bandages on the wound Bespoke gave him. All he can do is peel back his clothing as carefully as he can (which is difficult in a tree, even if he’s only rolling his sleeves and trousers back, not taking them off altogether) to rinse the blood and dirt from the wounds while trying not to waste the little water he has. Thank fuck he has those water purification tablets, or he’d truly be in trouble. The process stings like a bitch, especially in the places where his blood has dried his clothes to his skin, and Scott gasps and hisses with pain and tries his damnedest not to swear on television. He prioritises wrapping the deepest wounds, trying to leave a couple bandages for later emergencies or for if he needs to change them sometime soon. Even then it’s a poor attempt at first aid and he knows that he’s more likely than not going to end up with some kind of infection. Oh well. Nothing he can do now.

It’s getting dark anyway, so after the anthem (no one else has died, which he knew anyway because of the lack of cannons) Scott settles down in the tree and eats more food than he would have before in order to try and regain a little of the strength lost from the blood loss. Briefly, he wonders about cooking one of the mutts lying dead under the tree, before remembering that if he lit a fire he’d probably be dead within the hour. The thought makes him chuckle deliriously, and he falls asleep thinking of all the ways the Careers could tear him apart.

Morning arrives unceremoniously with no more deaths. Something else is likely to happen sometime today, Scott knows, because even with his little incident the night before the crowds are likely getting restless with the continuing lack of action.

Speaking of his little incident, Scott mentally checks himself over, cataloguing the location and intensity of the pain throughout his body. It’s difficult to tell if it’s gotten better or worse, because every part of him aches in a way it hadn’t yesterday. Sleeping in a tree definitely isn’t helping speed up the healing process. Despite that, though, Scott can tell something isn’t right with a couple of the injuries: the bite on his right arm, and the gouge in his abdomen that was the result of one of the mutts’ claws. They’re more painful than yesterday, and when he explores with gently probing fingers they’re sensitive and hot to the touch. Scott had paid enough attention over the years to Caesar’s commentary to recognise the beginnings of infection - and not a mild one, at that. He tries to swallow down the fear that leaps into his throat at the thought and fails miserably.

Infection. The one thing Atala had warned them about so emphatically during training. He’d tried to avoid it, he really had, what with all the effort he’d put into cleaning his wounds and bandaging them up properly. Then again, he’s in a fucking swamp, slowly starving and bleeding to death. It’s no wonder he’s ended up with an infection.

In the end, Scott tries to help his body fight as best he can by carefully unwrapping the infected wounds and washing them out with water. The sight of them almost makes him gag when the last of the bandages fall away: angry, swollen red, sickly pus seeping from the puncture marks of the teeth and the jagged gouge in his flesh left by the claws. The water stings worse than yesterday; he hisses through his teeth, scrunching his eyes shut and pressing his head back against the tree trunk. He has to wrap them up with the same bandages as before, but he uses the very last of his water to attempt to clean them, then tries to wrap the wounds in such a way that the cleaner parts of the bandages make contact with the wounds themselves. The effort leaves him light-headed and dreading going to find another water source to refill his bottle, so he pauses to eat the last of the berries he’d collected in the forest. The juice at least hydrates him more than the tough dried beef jerky would have.

The sun is high in the sky by the time he’s done. Scott immediately sets out for the nearest river, before stopping in his tracks almost immediately as he remembers the last time he disturbed the surface of a body of water in the marshes. He doesn’t dare try again in a different area; he wouldn’t put it past the Gamemakers to have booby-trapped almost every single body of water in the area. He rests against the base of the tree trunk, bum getting damper the longer he stays still, trying to come up with a game plan.

Pros of staying in the marshes: isolated, less likely to run into other tributes, less likely that the Career pack risk entering the area and killing him. Cons of staying in the marshes: killer otters, no water, no safe plants so far that he’s recognised.

So, in conclusion, he’s at major risk of dying unpleasantly either way.

Fantastic.

As he deliberates, Scott finds his mind drifting unbidden to his brothers. He hadn’t really allowed himself to think of them so far in the arena - didn’t want his memories of them tainted by the blood and death and starvation, didn’t want to feel the pain of missing them to amplify the horrors of the arena. Yet when he thinks of what John would say to him in this situation (‘It’s a simple decision, Scott, and the more time you sit there thinking about it the more time you’re wasting’), or how Virgil would offer him a warm smile and a side-hug, resting his head on Scott’s shoulder, or how Gordon and Alan would attempt to help but promptly descend into bickering and irritate the heck outta him, all Scott feels is fondness. It’s bittersweet, mixed with a fierce sense of longing, of course, but at the same time it fills him with determination. They’re back at 9 watching him. Maybe in school, given the time of day. He can’t afford to be sitting around on his ass all day, letting them down. They’re expecting him to fight, so he’d better damn well start fighting.

Scott hauls himself to his feet, steadying himself against the dizziness that washes over him at the sudden change of height. Better the enemy you know, he thinks, setting off slowly but surely back to the forest. Water and food are his priorities now. He’ll be no good against any other tribute hungry and dehydrated and dying of infection. He heads further away from the Cornucopia as a precaution, though, hoping that if he puts enough distance between him and the Careers’ camp he’ll stand a better chance of avoiding their hunts. If he carries on in a straight line, too, he should come across the river the Careers found during one of their hunts eventually.

The marshes had been a stupid plan, all right. Ah well. You live and you learn.

Darkness has fallen by the time he reaches the edge of the forest again. Scott glances back at the marshes - so deceptively calm in the twilight - and, after a moment of deliberation, sticks his middle finger up at them. There. Let the Capitol have a laugh at that.

He turns back to the forest. In the end, he chickens out slightly and doesn’t go in too deep, scaling a tree pretty close to the edge of the marshes for fear of stumbling across something (or someone) unsavoury in the darkness. Scott nearly slips and falls twice, though, as he climbs high enough to avoid being spotted from the ground. The infection doesn’t seem to be getting any better; the light-headedness isn’t going away, and the wounds feel worse if anything. His pace has definitely been slowing throughout the day, too. He dreads to think what state he’ll be in in the morning. 

Luckily, Penelope takes mercy on him.

As the anthem sounds over the arena, the seal of Panem glowing high up in the sky, a soft beeping cuts through the noise. It’s so quiet that at first Scott thinks there’s something wrong with his ears but then he spots it: a silver parachute, glinting in the glow of the projection, floating gently down to him. It gets snagged on a branch just above him, thankfully, and he can grab it with not too much difficulty. When he prises the thing open, it drops five rolls of bandages into his palm.

Huh.

Scott’s brow furrows slightly as he deliberates the significance of Penelope’s actions. Firstly, she chose to drop the parachute during the anthem - which could suggest she was trying to disguise its deployment. Meaning there’s a tribute somewhere close by, but maybe not the Careers (he doubts she would have risked sending a parachute even during the anthem if they were nearby). Secondly, she’s given him bandages. Surely she wouldn’t just give him regular bandages, as it would be sort of a waste of money…

Scott brings one of them up to his nose, the metallic tang of Capitol medicine immediately making itself known. His mouth splits into a grin, and he mouths a silent thank you up at the stars.

The bandages are coated in some sort of healing balm. Likely something to counter infection, probably extremely expensive. So he definitely does still have sponsors - and a lot of them. 

Things are looking up.

Chapter 14: xiv: friend

Notes:

BOO!

The bandages do wonders.

Scott wraps his wounds straight away, saving the old ones just in case (if he finds the river he can wash them out, and then they'll probably be fine to use again in the worst case scenario, he reasons). He starts feeling better almost instantly as whatever's on them soaks into his skin, soothing the heat and reducing the tenderness around both wounds. With the injuries dressed, he finally decides to get some rest after securing the parachute and its contents inside his pack.

The next morning, he awakes to the anthem feeling remarkably well-rested, given the circumstances. He flexes his right arm experimentally, ghosts his fingers over his abdomen; neither flare with pain. In fact, neither hurt at all, so much so that Scott takes a quick peek at his stomach wound. It’s - somehow - completely scabbed over, the flesh around it pink and puckered. He guesses that his arm is in a similar state. The Capitol medicine has done a full day’s of healing in only a few hours on top of getting rid of the infection, and he sends a quiet thank you to Penelope. Scott wonders for a moment about wrapping some of his other wounds with the other three bandages he received, but in the end decides to save them for later. After all, there’s still a long way to go in these Games. Anything could happen.

Speaking of: how many of them are left? No one had died during the night once again, meaning the numbers are the same as they were after Derrick’s death. Five Careers, he knows that for sure. The kid from Three, one from Seven, both from Ten. Him and Kayo. Scott feels like he’s missing someone, but isn’t entirely sure. Either way, there are still a lot of tributes, and most of them are decent threats. He wouldn’t be surprised if most of the outlying District kids were hiding in this very forest, either. As Scott climbs down from his perch and sets off in the direction of the river, he keeps this in mind, axe in one hand ready to defend from any potential threats.

As an unnatural rustling in the distance catches his eye, Scott is grateful for this foresight.

He’s walking in the open - probably been spotted already - so to a certain extent stealth is pointless. Whoever it is (likely not a member of the inner district alliance; they would never bother hiding for as long as this, they’d just leap out and try to skewer him) knows he’s coming. His grip around his axe is shaky, but he holds his ground. Not like he has an excuse for being afraid to kill, anyway, not after murdering that kid in the bloodbath.

Then he catches a glimpse of glass glinting in the sunlight, and he relaxes a fraction.

“Hey,” he says gently, lowering his weapon. “Your name’s Fermat, right? It’s okay, I won’t hurt you.”

A second passes, then a tiny figure emerges from the bushes. It is indeed the kid from Three, Fermat. He looks absolutely terrified - his hands trembling, all skinny arms and gangly legs that he doesn’t know what to do with. He shoves his glasses further up his nose, reaching for the pack slung over his shoulder protectively. He isn’t running though. Scott counts that as a win.

“Why d-did you let me go before?” the kid says eventually, fingers white around his bag strap. Even his hands look painfully skinny, his knuckles straining underneath his skin, and Scott feels a strange protectiveness surging up. He could never kill a kid like him.

(But you already have.)

“I- “ Scott hesitates for a moment. “I didn’t want to see the Careers hurt you. It wasn’t fair, so many of them against just you.” And it’s a pathetic reason to give, but he’s all too aware of the cameras, of the audience behind them, to give the real reason he let Fermat go.

“A-aren’t you a p-part of their group?”

Scott shakes his head. “They’re hunting me now too. I, uh… I’m not exactly in their good books at the moment.”

“What happened?”

“One of them got killed, and I got the blame for it, so I had to run.” He doesn’t mention Kayo, her part in Derrick’s death. He’s not sure why. Not because he doesn’t trust Fermat, certainly. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay with the pack much longer anyways. I didn’t like how they were doing things.” Fermat nods, blinking nervously as he takes in Scott’s story. 

“I’m sorry about your district partner,” Scott says sincerely. Her face, young and terrified, has been seared into his mind. He wishes that whole day had gone differently.

Fermat looks away abruptly, shrinking into himself. “Thank you,” he murmurs almost imperceptibly. Scott wonders for the first time if they had perhaps known each other back in District 3. They looked to be about the same age, certainly. It does happen fairly often, that tributes know each other - take him and Kayo, for example, Scott thinks bitterly. Maybe they were in the same class together at school. Maybe they had been neighbours. Or maybe they hadn’t known each other at all. The Games bonded tributes together more surely than almost anything else in the world; Scott had seen it happen plenty in years past. However well they’d known each other, it was clear Fermat had cared a lot about her.

The two of them watch each other cautiously for a few seconds. Scott runs through a whole heap of scenarios in his head. One: they agree to fight, Fermat probably dies, Scott ends up with maybe a couple more life-threatening injuries and has to deal with the fact that he’s just killed another kid. Two: they go their separate ways, and nothing much changes. Three: they stick together, until one or both of them inevitably gets killed. Option two is probably the best one. Fermat seems like such a sweet kid, and Scott knows that if he talks to him any longer he’s going to end up getting attached. He’s better off staying by himself, coming up with a strategy for the future. Taking down the Career pack. Maybe trying to find Kayo.

And then he finds himself asking, “d’you want to be allies?” - because he never makes things easy for himself, does he?

Fermat ducks his head anxiously, eyes flickering from Scott to the surrounding forest and back to Scott again. He thinks for a moment - clearly torn, weighing up the pros and cons just the same as Scott had - but in the end he nods jerkily. “O-okay,” he says, and Scott smiles gently.

“Great,” he says, and he means it. “So, what’s next?”

Fermat shrugs hesitantly, blinking up at him with his doe eyes. “We c-carry on walking the way we were both g-going, I guess.”

The two of them end up travelling towards the river. They don’t quite make it (Scott hadn’t expected them to, given how far he had travelled away from it over the past few days) but they set up camp in the later afternoon. Having company again is comforting and off-putting at the same time, but different to how it had been with the Career pack. This time, he isn’t relying on trained killers, second-guessing their every move and hoping he doesn’t put a step wrong and paint a target on his back. His new ally is young, small. More scared of him than anything. Still, Scott doesn’t doubt that Fermat has some tricks up his sleeve.

Once they set up camp, Scott shows Fermat some of the safe berries he’s identified so far in the forest. Fermat already knows some of them, and he ducks his head bashfully when Scott asks if he recognises any from his home in Three.

“N-no, we don’t have p-plants in my district,” he tells him. “It’s all w-warehouses and factories. I picked up some things in t-training, that’s all.”

Scott whistles appreciatively. “You know almost as much as me, and I’ve got an advantage. We have a lot of these plants in my district. You’re smart, kid.” Fermat shrugs, cheeks darkening at the compliment.

They eat well that evening. Or as well as could be expected, given where they are. Fermat had surprised Scott yet again by fashioning a snare as soon as they set up camp, and by the late evening there was a small rabbit tangled up in it. Not much, but enough for them to share and supplement with some of their foraged berries. Fermat looks a little squeamish at the prospect of skinning and preparing the thing, so Scott offers to do it instead. They risk lighting a small fire to cook the meat and avoid getting food poisoning, seeking out wood that’ll smoke as little as possible and putting it out before it gets dark and the glow gives their location away. 

“Why didn’t you want to skin the rabbit? Haven’t you caught anything in the arena yet?” Scott asks as they eat, looking for some inane conversation starter as a way to try putting Fermat at ease.

Fermat swallows before answering. “I have caught things before,” he says, “b-but I just… I don’t like how it feels. Handling d-dead things - “ He shudders. “M-Moneeta did it at first. Then…”

Moneeta must be his district partner. Scott pauses at the memory of her death, and Fermat does too. “I’m sorry about what happened to her,” Scott says eventually, shoulders heavy with his own inaction.

“It’s the game, r-right?” Fermat replies quietly, attempting a smile.

“Did you know her from home?”

“She was in my year at school. We were in s-some of the same classes.” Fermat’s eyes are bright. “We ate lunch together l-last year sometimes. I don’t really h-have a lot of friends back home, and s-she… She was kind to m-me. It meant a l-lot.”

Scott scoots closer to Fermat, then slowly goes to hug him, telegraphing his movements so that the kid can move away if he wants to. He doesn’t protest, and when Scott puts a hand on his shoulder Fermat leans into him slightly. “Tell me about her,” he says gently, “if you want to.” He knows that the Capitol might not be happy about this; alliances and inter-tribute bonding make for good entertainment, but not the humanisation of an already-dead tribute. He doesn’t care. They can cut the cameras for a minute or two. Fermat clearly misses his friend, and Scott wants to comfort him.

Fermat pauses, searching for the words to describe her. “Moneeta was…k-kind,” he says eventually - a repetition of his earlier words. “She a-always had patience with my s-stutter. She was s-smart too. She remembered how to set up the f-fire to stop the smoke and hide the g-glowing. Neither of us were a-amazing at talking to people, but we c-could talk to each other. It was nice. I wish I had g-gotten to know her better before the G-Games.”

Scott understands that feeling more than he thought he would. He’d mended fences with Penelope in the run-up to the Games (and shit, he hasn’t thought about his mentor for a while, hasn’t realised just how much he’s missing her right now) and he truly wishes that he’d talked to her about what had happened sooner. She’s stronger and kinder than he’d realised, and Scott wishes he’d known her better.

“Moneeta sounds like a wonderful person,” he says to Fermat, squeezing his shoulder comfortingly. “I’m sorry.” What he’s apologising for, he has no idea. Maybe the guilt that he hadn’t stopped Bespoke from hurting her like he had. Maybe for the entire existence of the Games, the creation of the circumstances that had taken her life so soon. 

How Fermat interprets it is a mystery. He just sighs and says thank you in a tiny voice, and the pair fall silent.

They go to sleep not long afterwards. Scott puts out the fire and does his best to disguise the fire pit - though it’s tricky disguising a small hole dug in the ground - and they sleep in shifts, Fermat offering to take the first one. Scott declines his offer. He’s not sure if it’s worse taking the first or second shift, but the kid looks exhausted. He gives Fermat his sleeping bag, too. They sleep in the trees (Scott is just about getting used to being up so high, though it still puts him a little on edge) and he leaves it a little longer than he maybe should before waking Fermat for his shift. So sue him if he wants to let the kid rest a little longer.

The next morning dawns bright and crisp. The air is humid, which when paired with the wind makes it feel much colder than it is, so they pull their hoods up to try and keep their necks and ears warm and keep moving towards the river. The pair of them keep quiet as they go, reaching the river at roughly noon and deciding to stay put for the rest of the day; they’ve seen no signs of other tributes, and they’re definitely a safe distance from the Career camp at the Cornucopia.

Scott approaches Fermat whilst he’s setting a couple more of his snares in the hopes of catching a decent dinner for that evening. “So,” he begins. “I was wondering if you had any idea what any of the other tributes have been doing for the past couple days, especially the Career pack. I’ve been steering clear for, uh…” He gestures vaguely. “Obvious reasons.”

Fermat turns his attention from the snare, nudging his glasses up his nose. “I d-do,” he nods. “They’ve been q-quite angry and distrustful of each other. The pair from One d-don’t trust the T-Twos, and the g-girl from Four seems upset. P-Probably because her district p-partner died. They’ve a-also been out hunting a l-lot.”

“Oops,” Scott says, pulling a face. “That makes a lot of sense, I guess.” At Fermat’s questioning look, he elaborates. “Fuse - the boy from Two - was the one who pushed my acceptance into the alliance, and I also got closer to his district partner Petra. The pair from One didn’t trust me as much, so they’re probably blaming both the Twos for what happened with me and Derrick. Gill, that’s the girl from Four, was pretty close with her district partner, so she’s definitely upset about that, but also probably because now she’s the only one from her district and so she’s more isolated.”

Fermat nods in understanding. “And they’re t-trying to find you to get revenge, which is why they’ve b-been hunting every day.”

Scott sighs. “Yup. Hooray for me.”

Fermat ties a final knot in his snare and stands to face Scott fully. “Y-You know, it m-might be a good thing that they’re after you.”

“Really?”

“We c-can use it to our advantage.”

Scott’s brow quirks at the sudden glint of mischievousness in Fermat’s eye. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“If you’re thinking about s-sabotaging the pack…then yes.”

Scott leans forward, glancing around them in a burst of paranoia at the mention of someone overhearing the beginnings of a plan he’s been mulling over for the past couple days. The lighter fluid in the Cornucopia - meant as campfire fuel, though surely the Gamemakers would be aware of its explosive potential - would be perfect for destroying the supplies the Career pack had stored in its depths. They’d moved a lot of the crates around on the second day to firstly sort what they had into groups and secondly to hide the things most likely to be stolen from them: the food. Scott had helped them do it. The Career pack had probably been too arrogant or forgetful, too, to remember that little fact, assuming that fear and their presence at the Cornucopia would be enough to dissuade him from even attempting to steal from them. 

Which means that he should have no problem at all setting alight to all of their food supplies in mere minutes.

He relays all this to Fermat, who seems absolutely delighted, nodding along enthusiastically at his suggestion. “I’d assumed it’d be really difficult for me to do it when I first had the idea,” he explains, “but if there’s two of us it makes things a heck of a lot easier. We can set a distraction to draw most or all of them away from the Cornucopia long enough to destroy the whole lot and give everyone else a chance at winning this thing.” Most importantly, it’ll give Kayo a chance, he thinks. But he doesn’t say it aloud.

Fermat hums in agreement. “W-what could we do for a d-distraction?” he wonders, half asking and half thinking aloud.

“I’ll be the distraction.”

“B-But you’re the one who knows where the f-food and fuel are.”

Scott shakes his head. “They aren’t that hidden, and if I give you instructions on where to go once you’re inside the Cornucopia it’d be easy. The Careers are more likely to all abandon their camp if they’re hunting me. Besides, I stand a better chance of outrunning them. I can maybe head into the marshes, lose them there, or hide up a tree in the forest. Something like that.” He doesn’t say that it’s the more dangerous job. He can’t bring himself to ask Fermat to do it, even if it would mean one more tribute between Kayo winning and going home. He already cares about the kid too much.

Fermat relents, clearly agreeing with his logic. “I s-suppose.” He presses his lips together, suppressing a grin. “I d-do have another idea. My own plan focuses on t-taking down the Careers themselves rather than their supplies, so we c-could do both.”

“What’ve you got in mind?”

“I’ve been wondering about the e-explosives they p-put under the tribute platforms. There m-must be a way to weaponise them.” Fermat’s eyes are glinting as he speaks, his bony fingers folded together. “I think I c-could get them out and set some kind of m-motion triggered trap without b-blowing myself up. I j-just don’t know how to get the Careers to s-set the trap off. Maybe d-dropping it on them, b-but then we’d be t-too close to the explosion.”

Scott’s mind is whirring. “Would a parachute work?”

Fermat nods. “Y-Yes - we could drop it from the trees and have a little more time to get clear - but I haven’t g-gotten any sponsor gifts yet.”

Scott drags his pack closer, unzipping it and rummaging through its contents. He triumphantly holds what he’d been looking for up for inspection. “Would this do?”

“Yes!” Fermat is grinning so widely at the sight of the parachute in Scott’s hand, complete with silver casing, that his entire face is just one big excited smile. “It’s p-perfect.” Scott smiles back, pleased that for once his hoarding tendencies have paid off. He has no idea why he’d even kept the thing in the first place - maybe subconsciously planning for some kind of deception like this, maybe just as a way of keeping Penelope close by holding onto something she sent him. Who knows. Either way, they have all the pieces they need to execute their plan.

“Well then.” Scott raises an eyebrow. “I think we’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.” Fermat carries on smiling up at him. The expression on his face looks hopeful for the first time since Scott has known him.

He distracts himself by gesturing at the completed snare Fermat has long since finished construction. “So, why don’t you teach me how to make some of these things? I’ve got my own rope and everything, might as well put it to good use.”

Fermat agrees - looking a little surprised that Scott would be up for it, but pleased and proud at the same time to have an older boy looking to him for advice like that. He starts with the first knot, using the end of Scott’s rope to demonstrate. “So you s-start off like this…”

 

---

 

In the end, they stick around at their makeshift camp overnight and for some of the following morning too, in part to maximise their catch from the snares they’d set up so they don’t have to worry about it while setting up the different elements of their plan. Scott does his best to recall the layout of the inside of the Cornucopia to Fermat; luckily he at least remembers exactly where the fuel ended up so that he doesn’t have to waste time searching for it. Fermat doesn’t have any matches of his own, so Scott removes half of the matches from the box and rips off part of the striking surface, then gives the box and the rest of the matches to the kid. “I don’t want to have loose matches rattling round in my pack, so I want my box back as soon as,” he jokes. Fermat just nods very seriously, clearly having missed the playful tone in Scott’s voice. He decides to let it slide.

Fermat tells him that the Careers have changed their pattern slightly, given their numbers have dropped to five, but that they’re still sticking with the strategy of sending roughly half the group out hunting whilst the rest stay behind. After a brief discussion, they both decide the best time to start the first phase of the plan is when half the pack is out hunting: long enough after they’ve left to make sure they can’t get back too quickly, but not long enough that they’re at risk of returning. When Fermat asks if Scott will be able to draw away every single person still at the Cornucopia, Scott snorts.

“You’re underestimating just how much they hate my guts,” he chuckles (pretending that the idea of five bloodthirsty killers after him hasn’t been literally keeping him awake at night for the past few days, because it’ll do no good to freak out the kid currently relying on him for survival). “They’ll definitely follow if they can see it’s me. The difficult part’ll be not ending up on the wrong end of their weapons.”

“Ah.” Fermat nods nervously. “O-Okay.”

Scott gives him a thumbs up.

Apparently, they aren’t too far from the Cornucopia, which Scott is glad for. They head through the forest carefully, veering back towards the marshes in the hopes that the Careers are still avoiding them, and by the time they get within a decent distance it’s already dark. Which is good, as the plan had already involved scouting out the tribute podiums under cover of darkness.

“Scott,” Fermat whispers suddenly, stopping and turning to face him, “for this n-next bit you’re going to have to l-let me handle things. The m-mines are incredibly s-sensitive, and you may accidentally set one off. I’ll d-dig it up myself.” He looks determined - assertive - which is a massive contrast to how he’s been so far, and Scott simply voices an affirmative and lets him take charge. They travel in silence for the last stretch, crawling through the long grasses that hide them from the Career camp.

Scott gives Fermat his knife to use as a makeshift shovel. It’s not the best tool, but it gets the job done. It is slow going, though. Whilst the anthem played along with the announcement of any further deaths (of which there were none), Fermat was able to be a little less careful about the noise he was making. But it was over too soon, and Scott’s terrified to even breathe lest one of the Careers somehow hear him.

In the end, Scott loses track of how much time they spend digging in that field. The sky has begun to lighten, certainly, by the time Fermat reaches delicately into the shallow hole he’d dug and retrieves a small flat cylinder that must be the mine he’d been searching for. He tilts his head slightly to indicate they need to leave, and Scott obeys. He’s not about to argue with the guy holding an active bomb.

Once they’re firmly out of earshot of the Career camp, Fermat whispers to Scott. “It’s p-partially deactivated for the moment,” he tells him, “but I’m b-being extremely careful just in case d-drastic movement sets it off. I should be able to rig the p-parachute in time for th-this evening.”

Scott nods. “Okay, good. But rest first. You’ve been up all night, and you need all your focus to get this thing right. There won’t be any do-overs.” Fermat goes to protest (typical young teen refusal to go to bed, Scott thinks fondly), but he raises a finger in warning. “I mean it. You need rest. Our sabotage plan can wait till morning.”

“Then d-down with the Careers.”

Scott nods solemnly. “Then down with the Careers.”

Notes:

okay um again. sorry it's been a little while. on the upside, i've nearly finished writing chapter 21! i'm currently juggling a Lot of creative projects ( primarily, artfight started and i had sort of forgotten about it but i'm trying to get back to drawing) but i am DETERMINED to finish this fic because the end is actually in sight! this'll be either 22 or 23 chapters - hopefully 23 - which means i have i think 8k to write? and then editing to make sure the logistics of these games make sense, it's a whole thing. ough. but it is cool beans and i am having fun!

see ya soon!

Chapter 15: xv: sabotage

Notes:

[the Hood voice] who's the saboteur trying to sabotage my sabotage?

Scott’s on edge for the whole day. It’s not fun, just sitting around and waiting - first for Fermat to wake from his sleep (the poor kid had looked exhausted, and he definitely needed the rest) and then for him to properly set up the parachute bomb. He passes the time by planning out the best route for his distraction. He’s best off drawing the Careers into the forest behind the Cornucopia; that way, they’re much less likely to accidentally spot Fermat setting the fire inside. He hopes that he can be fast enough, too, to outrun them and eventually lose them entirely in the forest.

“Y-You know, Scott, you need sleep too,” Fermat says lightly as he works on the device, hands tangled in wires that look eerily like guts. They’ve been sitting in silence for so long at this point that Scott actually jumps at his voice, turning round to face him.

“Huh?” he says eloquently.

“You haven’t slept,” Fermat observes matter-of-factly. “Your reflexes w-won’t be as quick and you c-could miss something important if you don’t sleep. It’d be m-making it easy for the Careers if you try and d-distract them when you’re already d-distracted yourself.”

Scott doesn’t like the idea of leaving Fermat alone, particularly during the day. There are too many threats - too many tributes unaccounted for, potential threats in the forest itself - and given that Fermat’s concentrating on his work, he doesn’t want to leave him without someone watching his back.

The kid can clearly see the trepidation on his face, though, because he rolls his eyes. “I’ll wake you up if I th-think we’re in any d-danger at all, I’m not s-stupid. Go to sleep. It’s f-fine.”

“I - “ Scott makes a face, irritated at the logic he’s being presented with. They have a staring contest for a few seconds before he sighs and pinches his brow. “Oh, fine. But seriously, wake me up if anything seems amiss. Anything at all,” he emphasises, fixing Fermat with a look to drive home his point. His ally nods.

He wakes up a few hours later, having slept restlessly - but still feeling (irritatingly) much better than he did before. Fermat is still hard at work when he glances over.

“D-Did you sleep well?” he asks, still focused on his work.

“Yeah.” Scott’s voice is horribly rough with sleep; he fumbles for his pack, retrieving his water bottle and taking a small sip. They’d filled it up before leaving the river, but he’s rationing just in case they can’t make it back to a water source to refill it for a while. He’s still got a decent amount of purification tablets, but Fermat doesn’t have a water bottle of his own and Scott’s doesn’t have much to split between them. He sits up, glancing around as he does so. Nothing seems amiss, but he checks in with Fermat anyway. Apparently it’s been quiet all day. No cannons.

“Have you eaten?” Scott asks. Fermat shakes his head, so he rifles around in the side pocket of his pack for the berries he’d foraged yesterday. “You should take a lunch break,” he says firmly. Fermat only hesitates a moment before setting down the device, giving the wires a once-over and then shuffling over to Scott’s outstretched palm. He takes the berries offered with a tentative smile.

“Thanks,” he murmurs. Scott pops a couple berries into his own mouth, then pulls out another pack of the dried jerky. It’s his second-to-last one. He tries not to panic too much at their rapidly dwindling supplies. Even with the foraging and occasional catch from the snares they’ve been setting, his stockpile will likely only last for another couple days.

“You know, it might be a good idea to nab some food from the Careers before we burn it all,” he comments as they eat. “We could do with stocking up, just in case. I know you’ll have to be quick, but anything you could get for us would definitely help.”

“I agree,” Fermat nods. “It’s n-not like they’re going to g-get the chance to eat it, anyway.”

Scott snorts. “Too right.” Fermat grins. He opens his mouth to have another mouthful of food, and Scott catches a glimpse of his tongue - stained a bright purple - and starts laughing even harder.

“What?” Fermat stares at him, baffled.

“Fermat, your tongue’s stained from the berries!”

The kid’s eyes widen. “I-Is it?” He sticks his tongue out, almost going cross-eyed as he tries to tell what colour it’s gone. He looks so silly, making absolutely ridiculous faces in an effort to see more of his tongue; Scott nearly falls backwards, he’s laughing so hard. It’s not even that funny, but given the absolute absurdity of their current situation - they’re in the Hunger Games, for fuck’s sake - it’s all caught up with him, and currently Fermat sticking his tongue out seems like the funniest thing in the world. 

“It’s n-not funny!” Fermat protests, putting his tongue back in his mouth and folding his arms stroppily. “I b-bet your tongue’s a funny colour too.”

“Oh, shit.” And now Scott’s the one looking like an idiot, sticking his tongue as far out as it can go to try and tell if it really is in the same state as Fermat’s. The kid starts laughing at him now, covering his mouth with his hand in an effort to disguise the giggles.

“See, it is funny,” Scott says triumphantly (after determining that yep, his tongue is a very charming shade of indigo. How they hadn’t noticed before that the berries they’ve been eating have that effect, he has no idea). “Besides, I look great. Purple’s totally my colour.”

Fermat shakes his head, still giggling. “It’s d-definitely not.”

“Aw, come on.”

“M-Maybe blue.”

“Hm.” Scott leans back. “I do like blue.”

“My favourite c-colour’s orange,” Fermat offers.

“That’s my little brother’s favourite too,” Scott says without thinking. The breath leaves his chest in a rush, and he has to remember to suck in more air at the thought of Gordon. Strangely, it doesn’t hurt too much to think of him in this way - not as an orphan about to lose his eldest brother, but as a little kid, excitedly pointing at the marigolds Kyrano had managed to grow in the garden one year and gazing in awe at their bright sunset hues. The memory genuinely makes Scott smile, and the twinge of grief and homesickness he feels isn’t as bad as it could be.

“Which brother?” Fermat asks tentatively, tilting his head in curiosity.

“Gordon,” Scott replies. “He’s thirteen. An absolute menace, too - I’d thought he was bad when he was younger, but I think he’s actually gotten worse now he’s older. He’s always trying to cause some kind of mischief.” Fermat seems genuinely intrigued as Scott talks, so after a beat he continues. “One time, he swapped everyone’s socks around. They all look pretty much the same, so no one noticed anything at first except the fact that none of the socks fitted any of us quite right any more. It took us all a week to figure out what he’d done.”

Fermat chuckles, a shy smile spreading across his face again. “It m-must be wonderful having so m-many siblings. I d-don’t have any at all.”

Only children are uncommon in Nine; families usually end up with lots of children for many reasons, two of which being the lack of contraception and the need for extra farmhands during the harvest. Scott wonders briefly if things are different in Three, or if Fermat is an exception. He isn’t curious enough to ask.

“I love my siblings a lot,” he says instead. “They’re my world. I’d do anything for them. Though sometimes I do wish I could have a bit of peace and quiet,” he jokes, ignoring the pang of homesickness in his chest.

“Me too,” Fermat smiles. “Three is so c-crowded that even though I’m an only child it’s always c-chaotic.”

“Is your town big?”

“The d-district is one big city. Most people l-live in apartment blocks, and the walls are p-pretty thin.”

Scott finds that so hard to picture. The only glimpses of District Three he’s ever seen are the passing shots of the crowds during Reaping Day, and he wouldn’t be surprised if those are edited to seem more palatable to a Capitol audience. Even so, it seems a miserably drab and grey place. Even the air itself seems grey, sickly; apparently it’s a result of the factories. It’s hard to believe that the urban sprawl he’s glimpsed stretches out and out to accommodate hundreds of thousands of people. It just seems so unnatural. Then again, he’s used to living amongst wheat fields as far as the eye can see. How different life must be in any of the other districts.

“My district is mainly farmland,” Scott tells him. “All different kinds of grain. It’s literally the opposite of Three. I live in one of the small towns in the countryside, there are maybe a hundred and fifty of us. The highest buildings we have are a couple two storey farmhouses.”

“Wow,” Fermat hums. He’s finished his food and is now leaning against one of the trees, his feet tucked up to his chest. It makes him look even smaller than he already is. “Your district m-must be so pretty.”

Scott exhales, tangling his fingers in the grass. “I suppose it is, yeah. I’d not really thought about it.” Fermat doesn’t reply, and Scott just bathes in the silence for a few moments, letting the sounds of the forest wash over him. It’s a rare moment of calm in the middle of the arena’s chaos - companionship snatched from the jaws of danger, distrust and violence - and he savours it. After all, who knew when the next moment like this would come along, if ever?

Eventually, Fermat slowly uncurls himself, stretching out and wiggling his legs before standing up carefully. “W-Well, I suppose I’d better finish m-making this thing,” he sighs reluctantly, stepping over to his makeshift workstation. “The Careers aren’t going to b-blow themselves up.”

Scott snorts. “No, I suppose not.”

 

---

 

In the end, Fermat finishes rewiring the bomb around mid-afternoon. Scott, meanwhile, spends some time foraging in the area, finding some more berries to bolster their food stock. The rest of the time is spent refining his part of the plan and coming up with a couple backups for anything that could potentially go awry. His plan involved luring the Careers into the forest by yelling and taunting them; that way, he could be further away when the chase began, on top of having the ability to more precisely draw them in the direction he wanted using his voice. Fermat will also (hopefully) be able to hear better what was going on whilst he executes his part of the plan and gauge how much time he had before the Careers returned.

The parachute aspect of the plan is a little trickier. Given that they need to be in the trees to gain the height needed for dropping the parachute to the Careers, they’ll have to target the hunting party during the evening. If they’re lucky, the entire pack could end up in the woods if they felt unsafe enough around the Cornucopia fire, in which case they could take out more of them at once. Either way, the difficult part will be keeping track of where the Careers are and managing to get close enough to drop the parachute from above without them noticing and therefore suspecting sabotage.

Scott’s sure he’ll come up with something closer to the time. He’ll probably use the anthem again to disguise any sound he may make clambering round in the trees. Other than that, he’s relying on a good bit of luck. The bomb has been set up to be triggered by the opening of the parachute’s container, so worst case scenario he could always run into the middle of the pack and blow himself up.

What a pleasant thought.

“Ready to go?” he asks Fermat eventually, with more levity than he feels. Fermat nods, rising to his feet and beginning to collect his few belongings. When he looks up at Scott, though, there’s something terrifyingly close to affection written all over his face. His pack thuds to the floor (thank fuck the parachute isn’t in it, Scott thinks briefly) as the kid wraps himself round Scott’s waist, clinging on for dear life. He lets out a whumpff as the impact knocks the air from his lungs; hesitantly, he hugs Fermat back, arms enveloping his bony frame. Fermat is only just taller than his shoulders, and it’s never been more painfully obvious to Scott before now. He’s only about fourteen, maybe younger. In another life, maybe, Scott could have been the big brother this kid clearly needs. Maybe in another life they could have spent time together for reasons other than to plan the killings of other children. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

But the universe is not that kind, and they are in the Hunger Games, so Scott forces himself to pull away and squeezes Fermat’s shoulder and fixes a smile on his face that probably looks as fake as Caesar’s artificial hair colouring. “Let’s go show the Careers what the arena’s like for the rest of us,” he says, and Fermat stiffens but nods and hands him the parachute bomb.

This is the point where they split up. Scott heads towards the forest behind the Cornucopia, whilst Fermat sets off towards the marshes, where he can hide amongst the tall grasses until the coast is clear. It’s a bit of a walk - and Scott doesn’t want to get too close yet besides - but he still treads slowly, listening intently for any sounds of Careers on the hunt. He could be being completely paranoid, of course, if Fermat’s information on the decreased regularity of their hunts is anything to go by, but better safe than sorry.

The parachute weighs heavy in Scott’s pack. He trusts Fermat’s engineering, he does, but the knowledge that he’s carrying a live explosive is still unsettling no matter how small of a chance there is of it suddenly going off. Images of that tribute years ago who’d blown herself to smithereens on the starting podium spring to mind. He shoves them back down.

Once he’s close enough, he climbs as high up into a tree as he can get and waits. It’s higher than Scott has ever been - much higher than he ever managed back home, still not trusting the branches to keep him from tumbling to the forest floor and breaking a bone - and he thinks briefly how proud Kayo would be of him if she were here. There’s still a chance he will see her again in the arena, he reminds himself. She isn’t dead. And even if he doesn’t, who knows? Maybe they’ll show this in the Victor’s recap and when she wins, she’ll see it.

When, and not if, he thinks resolutely.

Once the sun starts setting, Scott carefully climbs down again. They’d agreed that this would probably be the best time to initiate phase one. He treads a little closer to the Cornucopia - as close as he dares - and opens his mouth.

It goes against every survival instinct he’s honed over the past week or so. Even so, the yell that leaves Scott is loud and piercing and fierce, and there’s no way that the Careers can’t hear him.

“Bespoke!” he bellows, heart already pounding. “Where are you? Come and face me!”

And then he runs.

It’s lucky that Scott’s always been a good runner, because the sound of at least three of the Careers yelling to each other - and then, a few seconds later, the sounds of them crashing through the undergrowth - is coming at him surprisingly quickly. But Scott knows how to traverse these woods. He’s had practice at home, on the rare occasion when Peacekeepers have gone into their woodlands to catch any out-of-bound citizens. He yells again - “Too slow, dipshits!” and immediately veers off to the right. He’s already getting tired, but he has to keep going. Fermat is counting on him.

Scott throws himself behind a sturdy oak tree for a moment, listening out carefully for the Careers. It definitely sounds like three people (does that mean that all the Careers at the Cornucopia had come into the forest looking for him, or that there are still two left at their camp?), behind him but off to the side slightly. He takes a deep breath, shouts one more time, and sprints away again - to the left, this time.

Scott’s definitely getting tired now. It means the Careers must be too, but it sounds already like they’re getting closer, so he channels the very last of his strength into getting up into the nearest climbable tree and out of sight for when the Careers inevitably reach this area of forest.

He realises his mistake immediately. The tree he’s in is not tall enough to hide him from the ground, not if the Careers think to look up. He doesn’t have time to climb down and back up somewhere else, not judging by the volume of the shouts and threats behind him. They’re almost close enough for Scott to make out their exact words. He glances around frantically, looking for some kind of solution; to his right, he’s almost immediately presented with one. His little tree is next to another of the massive oaks, the ones with pin-straight trunks and hulking branches that don’t appear low down on the tree but are in abundance higher up. One of those branches is outstretched in his direction, brushing against his little tree. If he can make it across, he’d be able to get even higher up and easily hide away in one of the nooks between the oak’s branches.

The only problem is it’s risky. And the ground is a long way down.

Scott’s got no choice, obviously, and no time to deliberate. He carefully inches along the branch closest to that of the oak tree, holding onto another one higher up to help keep balance and hoping that they’re stronger than they look (seriously, these things are more sticks than branches, what the fuck is he thinking?). The branch he’s aiming for is just below him.

Scott puts a foot wrong, slips. Pushes himself forward at the last second so instead of plummeting to the floor he falls toward the oak branch, thudding painfully into it and immediately scrabbling for a hold. His feet dangle in the air, stomach doing flips inside him at the sensation because there is nothing to catch him if he falls. 

But he breathes in, out - one, two, three - and gets one leg up around the branch. He hooks his foot and carefully wiggles around, so he’s straddling it. Well. He’s lying flat on the branch, arms and legs gripping as tight as they can to give him some semblance of security. Scott knows what an idiot he must look. But hey, he nearly just died, so stick it, Capitol audience.

He does an awkward shuffle along the branch, as quickly as he can go without standing up and walking (which he would never fucking do in any world). Only once he’s reached the tree’s trunk does he dare to uncurl his legs and stand. 

Even then he’s got more climbing to do. There’s a nook not too far above him - a splitting of three branches - that he can squish into and be pretty much invisible from the ground, so Scott tells his trembling hands to calm the heck down and hoists himself up. He reaches it just in time, tucking his feet under him and ducking his head down too just in case, because the voices and footsteps are terrifyingly close. They’re not directly under his tree, but they certainly aren’t far off either.

“He must have come this way,” someone is saying - Bespoke, from the sounds of things. He does not seem happy.

“Then where the fuck is he?” one of the girls (Scott thinks it’s Gill, but he’s not sure) snaps. “This should’ve been a quick kill. He was right there, how did you let him get away?”

“I didn’t,” Bespoke hisses, and there’s the sound of a sword hacking at a plant. “Don’t put this on me.”

And then - from the opposite direction they’d come - Scott hears more people. He holds his breath as he realises what must be going on; the rest of the Careers have heard the commotion and come running. There must have been a hunting party out in the forest after all. So Fermat’s got a clear run to the Cornucopia. Good.

And Scott’s now surrounded by people who want him dead. Hooray for him.

Bespoke is still seething when someone from the hunting party calls out (Scott recognises Fuse immediately). “What the fuck are you two doing here?” he bites out, and Fuse scoffs.

“Came to see what all the fuss was about,” he responds. “What the bloody hell happened?”

“It was Nine,” the third person - Petra, surely - explains. “He started yelling, real close to the Corncopia. We came out to get him, but Bespoke lost which way he went.” Bespoke growls - actually growls - at her words. The guy sounds genuinely close to losing it.

“So no one’s at the Cornucopia right now?” Fuse says slowly. Scott can picture him now; probably looking around the group, doing a mental headcount. Realising that all of them are here and the Cornucopia is unguarded.

“Uh, no,” Gill says flippantly. “He’s only one guy, and he definitely couldn’t have circled back round without us knowing. He’s somewhere here.”

“It sounds like a fucking distraction,” Fuse says, voice rising. “Why the fuck would he yell and pick a fight with all three of you at once? He’s not tried to attack you, so he must be trying to get you away from the Cornucopia.”

“But he doesn’t have any allies.” Gill sounds unsure, though, and Fuse lets out a noise of exasperation.

“He could have found some! His sister’s still out here somewhere, they could easily have teamed up! And you know what the outliers are like!” Fuse’s voice rises. “You three, get back to the Cornucopia right fucking now.” There’s a moment of silence, and then he snaps again. “Now!”

Scott’s still barely breathing as three of the pack set off again, leaves crunching underfoot as they hurry back to the Cornucopia. He can’t move, because Fuse and his hunting partner are still too close by, which means he can’t get back before them to warn Fermat. He just hopes that he bought enough time for him to do what he needed to do. He’s still got this awful feeling that something is about to go wrong.

Meanwhile, the final two Careers haven’t moved. Scott figures the last one must be Taffeta (he makes a face at the thought of her smug expressions and irritating hair tosses). “What’re we doing here still?” she asks impatiently. “We should head back too.”

“Scott must still be in the area,” Fuse tells her, lowering his voice a little. “We should try and find him. If the others were so sure he couldn’t have gotten away without them hearing, he must have hidden somewhere round here.”

“Good,” Taffeta purrs, voice laced with silken poison. “I want to get him back for what he did. Make him pay.”

“Agreed,” Fuse says. Scott’s blood runs ice-cold at the genuine anger in his voice. Then the two of them start to move off, and he’s left in his tree with that awful feeling only growing stronger.

Even though the Careers are all moving away from him, Scott doesn’t dare to even think about leaving his spot. Bespoke and Taffeta are going to be scouring the area looking for him, and if he tries to get down he’ll probably end up with one of Taffeta’s knives in his back and a sword through his stomach. He’s got no choice but to sit here and wait until they go away.

And then, the smell of burning reaches his nostrils.

It’s a horrendous stench: charred meat, vegetables, a strange chemical-ly sting that must be the plastic storage boxes melting, all underpinned by the vicious scent of the lighter fluid Fermat used. Sure enough, a plume of black smoke is twisting its way into the sky in the direction of the Cornucopia. It’s almost hypnotic, how it billows up and outwards, fading out as it gets higher and higher. Scott stares, enthralled, even as somewhere to the left of him he can hear Taffeta and Fuse cursing as they too catch sight of the fire.

“We need to-”

“You go,” Fuse cuts Taffeta off. “Make sure everything’s okay, back them up. I’m staying out here. Scott must still be here somewhere. There’ll probably only be one person who’s caused it anyway.” Taffeta’s light footsteps on the forest floor signify her departure, and they soon fade out until Scott’s left with the gentle sounds of the forest and Fuse's quiet shuffling below him. He can't take his eyes off the sight of the Careers’ supplies going up in flames against the steadily darkening sky. Fuse starts to move off too, clearly going to search for him.

All Scott has left to do is wait until Fuse decides to give up and rejoin the others, so he shifts ever so slightly into a more comfortable position, being careful not to squish his pack and accidentally set off the parachute. It’s just when he’s finally getting comfortable, his pack on his lap and his back against one of the branches, that he hears the cannon.

Notes:

ooooooooobh drama.........

Chapter 16: xvi: game-changer

Notes:

we are going to ignore the fact this is a month late please and thank you. i have not written anything in about a month. i am fighting the writer block demons as we speak

Scott’s heart stops.

The cannon is absolutely unmistakeable. A sound he’s known almost as long as he’s been alive; one that signifies pain, brutality, death. The very first thing that springs to mind when someone mentions the Hunger Games.

He’s never been this scared to hear it before.

He hopes against hope that it was someone else. Another tribute falling victim to the mutts in the marshes, perhaps. Someone plummeting to their death from the treetops. It’s illogical, of course. The biggest killers in these games are the Careers, and he knows exactly who four of them are currently hunting. It’s funny. For the first time in the arena, Kayo is not the person whose life he is most afraid for right now.

And of course he’s still trapped in the fucking tree. Fuse had frozen at the sound of the cannon, but now he’s turning back around. He walks back into the clearing, stopping almost directly under Scott’s tree.

Not knowing what happened is awful - almost unbearable. Scott’s fingers tear at the skin around his fingernails, not even flinching when he picks too hard and blood beads up, vivid red. His stomach is rolling, and if he’d eaten anything at all recently he’d be worried about throwing it all back up again. As it stands, the last he ate was the little meal of beef jerky and berries with Fermat a good while ago, and it’s been long enough that his stomach is staying settled for now.

Fuck.

Scott forces the thought of the kid from Three from his mind, desperately grappling for something, anything else to think about. There’s nothing. He sits and tears at his fingers and cruelly hopes that some nameless tribute is dead instead.

The sky is almost completely dark by now, the smoke from the Cornucopia fire almost indistinguishable from the night sky except for where it blocks out the light of the newly visible stars. The faint glow of the fire itself, however, is visible in the distance. Scott gets a sick sense of satisfaction at the thought of the pack being lowered to everyone else’s level. They’ll be lucky if anything has survived at all, judging by the strength of the inferno; if it has, it’ll be impossible to reach until the fire has burned itself out, and that could take hours if not days. All they’ll have is what’s in their packs (not much, judging from how they’d been stocking them whilst Scott was part of the group), anything they manage to hunt or forage, and whatever the sponsors can afford to give them. Still more than most other tributes, but they no longer have the massive advantage they used to.

Scott blinks as the first notes of the anthem play. The seal of Panem lights up the sky above him; his heart leaps into his throat. Almost against his own will, he reads the two words that follow: The Fallen.

Fermat’s face flickers into view.

He claps a hand over his mouth to stifle the sob that builds up at the confirmation. He can’t take his eyes off the blue-and-white portrait of his ally. He looks even younger, somehow, eyes wide behind his glasses and hair freshly washed and fluffy. The pictures had been taken on the last day of training, before they were let into the gym, and it’s clear from the way Fermat’s face looks slightly fuller: a benefit of the plentiful food in the Capitol. It was all gone by the time Scott ran across him in the arena, his dark skin ashen and his cheekbones accentuated. The arena had not been kind to him.

It was bound to happen sooner or later - Scott knows that, truly - but right now it just hurts. Fermat had so much ahead of him, so much potential, and now…

Now, all that’s left for Scott to do is finish what they started.

He can feel tears on his face, collecting on his fingers where they’re still clamped over his mouth. Scott scrubs the evidence away furiously, determined not to let the Capitol see any more of his grief. He hasn’t got time to mourn now. The Careers have lost their supplies, but Scott needs to do more. He has to complete Fermat’s plan. The parachute weighs heavy in his pack.

And he’s still fucking stuck in this tree. Scott lets his head thud against the trunk, concentrating on the dull pain in the back of his skull as he does so. He can hear more people now, moving around in the distance. Probably the other Careers. There’s definitely no way that he’ll be able to sneak off now. Not that he wants to. He needs to be close enough to execute his plan, and his current position is actually a pretty helpful place for him to be. Funny.

“Fuse?” one of the Careers calls out, sounding slightly closer to him than before. Fuse calls back. He can hear the group approaching (and damn, they’re loud, it’s no wonder they’ve barely found any tributes so far when everyone can hear them from a mile away). And, sure enough, the group congregate in the clearing right next to him. It’s almost how comical how easy they’re making this for him.

“What the fuck happened?” Fuse asks once they’re all together. 

“Kid from Three only went and blew all our fucking supplies sky-high,” Bespoke spits. “It’s all gone. All of it. The fire’s not gonna burn itself out for a while either.”

Fuse curses. Scott holds his breath. “You sure nothing was salvageable?” he asks after a beat.

“Nothing,” Bespoke replies. “Fire’s so big we weren’t even sure the camp was safe, so we packed up the tents. We got the brat, though.”

A flash of rage burns in Scott’s gut at the mention of Fermat. He forces himself to focus on the satisfaction at burning the Careers’ supplies instead, doing his best to ignore the scenes his brain keep conjuring up of Fermat caught like a hunted animal, scared and bleeding out in the grass. They aren’t doing him any good. Scott chooses to let a brief smile play on his lips – a tidbit for the Capitol cameras. Let them focus on that, rather than treat the death of a little boy like entertainment.

He tunes back into the Careers’ conversation, keeping track of their next moves. “I’d prefer if we set up camp here,” Fuse is saying. “We might as well all get some rest for the minute and figure out what we can do about food. Besides, I bet Nine’s still in the area. This was probably his damn plan all along. I want to get him back for what he’s done.”

There’s a general hum of agreement. Ah well. Scott had already made an enemy of the Careers; what’s a little more targeting? It means they’re leaving the rest of the tributes – most importantly, Kayo - alone, at least.

“It’s agreed, then,” Bespoke says. “We set up camp here, figure out what we do about food. Then we send a hunting party out for Nine.”

“I’m leading the hunt,” Fuse says darkly. His tone brokers no argument, and Bespoke doesn’t offer one. A shuffling begins, suggesting they’ve begun to set up camp.

Scott almost can’t believe his luck. The Careers have ended up almost right on top of him, but with no idea of his presence and no intention of moving any time soon. It’s almost perfect. He risks lifting his head slightly - carefully - and quickly catches sight of them, only a couple dozen feet to his left. The branch he’s leaning against juts out in that direction, crossing over with another tall oak that stretches right over the camp. If he waits a little longer for it to get dark enough to cover him completely and for the Careers to finish making camp, he could definitely make it across and drop the parachute, if he’s quiet enough to not draw any attention. It probably won’t even be suspicious, either; given what’s just happened, the Careers won’t question a sponsor gift.

He waits maybe another half hour, listening intently to the sounds coming from his left to try and gauge when they’ve finished setting up camp. They settle down eventually, the glow from their small fire sparking up before long. Scott almost scoffs at that; even now, without the Cornucopia supplies, they’re so sure of their own strength that the attention the brightness of a campfire draws doesn’t even bother them. Then again, of course, almost no tribute would dare ambushing a group of five Careers, so maybe their arrogance isn’t entirely unfounded.

Scott’s not complaining. The fire is a perfect guiding light for him. The glow will make their eyes less sensitive to the darkness, anyhow, and make it even harder to spot him.

Carefully, he inches himself up from his perch, using one of the knots on the trunk to push himself up and onto the branch. His shuffling approach from last climb is too loud - but he still doesn’t trust his balance nearly enough to stand up - so he settles for crawling, his pack firmly strapped to his back. He goes slowly. He has enough time, and it’d be really anticlimactic if he just fell to his death then and there. The branch gets steadily thinner the further he gets out, and there’s one awkwardly situated twig that requires a bit of shuffling to get around, but he doesn’t fall and that’s the main thing.

The Careers are still talking in low voices about all sorts. He tunes them out after he hears someone say the word ‘Three’, followed by a chorus of cruel laughter. It’ll only make him angrier if he listens in, and he needs to keep his emotions under control.

Here comes the tricky bit: manoeuvring across to the other oak. It’s like the last time, except both less and more stressful; he’s not under an imminent threat of being spotted, but now if he makes too much noise (such as, oh, nearly falling and thudding loudly into a tree branch) he’ll be spotted and shot down in an instant. He won’t die quickly, either if he survives the fall. The Careers will make certain of that. Agonisingly slowly, Scott eases himself up into a standing position, reaching up to the branch of the other tree. It’s just above waist level, and so he reaches up above it for another branch to help pull himself up.

In the end, it’s a bit easier than the last time, if only for the sturdiness of both of the trees. Scott risks a quick glance below him once he’s sturdy to gauge how much further he needs to go.

The camp is roughly below the base of the oak he’s now in, as it stands on the edge of a clearing (or as big a clearing as these woods seem to have, anyway). The boys’ tent is close to the trunk, with the firepit a little further away. Scott will have to climb along almost to the trunk of the tree to be at a logical distance for a parachute to drop.

It’s then that a parachute - a real one - floats down into earshot above him, beeping softly.

Scott immediately ducks down as low as he can, tucking his limbs away from the edges of the branch so they hopefully can’t see him below. His first thought is irritation, followed by relief, then utter confusion. Why on earth would the Career mentors choose now of all times to drop a parachute? He could easily drop his parachute right along with it and the Careers would just assume it’s two loads of food, sent from two of their districts. It’s made his life easier, if anything.

Then with a jolt, he remembers the advice Penelope had given him - that sponsor gifts can mean more than they seem on the surface. His stomach plummets. The Career mentors may be trying to warn the pack that he’s here. Maybe somehow telling them not to open the next parachute they get. Scott isn’t sure how, but he wouldn’t put it past them not to have some secret code devised to go under the audience’s radar; the Career districts certainly have enough sponsors for it to be a reliable method of communication.

Whatever’s in that parachute, it means that he has to send his own one down now.

Scott crawls as quickly as he can along the branch, trying to get closer to the camp. He glances up a couple times to ascertain where the parachute is in the air, and each time it’s closer than he would like. He stops about halfway along the branch - not as far as he’d like, but it’ll have to do.

The next challenge is getting the fucking thing out of his pack. He grapples with the straps, curling his legs around the branch to free both hands. The zip almost gets stuck. He tugs at it, praying it’ll budge, and after a couple pulls it does. The parachute is heavy in his hands. He’s trembling as he fumbles with the strings where they’ve gotten tangled in his pack, trying to make sure the parachute itself will unfurl properly when he throws it. The real parachute has almost reached him. The Careers surely must have heard it by now. No - he risks one final look as he gets ready to throw - they’re still caught in conversation.

Scott flings the parachute into the air.

He’s got a good throwing arm and it shows as the thing sails up, higher than the real parachute, but then it starts to plummet down. For a terrifying split-second it looks as if the chute isn’t going to open at all. Then - thankfully, miraculously, it opens up, a silvery angel of death drifting down towards the camp. No one seems to notice that this one isn’t chiming.

The actual sponsor gift lands first. Scott shuts his eyes in anticipation, stomach churning. He hopes they don’t figure out whatever clue the mentors have tried to give them in time.

“The fuck are they sending us bread from Nine for?” Taffeta remarks incredulously, and Scott hears a sharp inhale from someone. Fuse, maybe. But then he hears the thud of the second parachute setting down on the ground. Any second now. There’s a shuffling below as someone picks up the parachute.

“You don’t think-” Fuse starts, but is cut off by a rumbling explosion that leaves Scott’s ears ringing.

The world tips on its side.

There’s screaming coming from somewhere below him –

– a rushing sound, loud and getting louder –

– heat, heat travelling upwards – 

– more screaming, so much screaming –

– smoke engulfing his branch, blinding him, making him cough –

– and Scott realises all of a sudden that his branch is on fire.

The whole clearing is beginning to go up in smoke. Trees are burning, accelerated by the dry leaves on the forest floor, and as Scott looks down he can only see red. There are shapes on the ground that could be the tents, could be bodies, he can’t tell. The fire has raced up the trunks of the trees closest to it and has reached the canopy, leaping from branch to branch like a strange, many-limbed creature. The ground below Scott is ablaze but it’s not quite reached the trunk of his oak tree, not yet, so he scrambles away from the heat and light and almost falls, but then he’s almost at the trunk and he drops down to the next branch even though it’s really too far, and it hurts but it breaks his fall, and then he drops the rest of the way down and twists his ankle and swears but he’s not on fire, not yet.

The screaming is louder down here. He risks a single look back, and regrets it. He can see clearly now that one of the shapes is a dead body. It’s missing half of one arm and all of the other one, and he knows that must be the person who opened the parachute.

Scott stumbles away, pain flaring up with every step he takes, and doesn’t get very far before he’s sick all over the forest floor.

He can hear someone else shouting behind him. They sound in pain, but they also sound angry. Scott breaks into a run. He runs and he runs and he runs, pack thudding against his back awkwardly because he’s only got one of the straps on his shoulders. The shouting fades away into the distance eventually, but he still runs. They could try and hunt him tonight. He needs to be far, far away.

Scott slows to a panting walk when his ankle becomes too painful. Adrenaline had been keeping him going up till that point, but it’s rapidly wearing off, leaving only exhaustion and agonising jolts up his right leg with every step he takes. His ankle must be sprained, at least. He hopes it’s not broken. A sprain he can deal with. A break, not so much.

Nevertheless, he keeps going, stopping only to chop a suitable branch down to use as a walking stick in an attempt to take the pressure off his foot. It helps a little, and he makes it a little further than he probably would have without it. Finally though, he stops and hides himself in a bush for the night. Not an ideal spot by any means, but better than nothing.

It’s then that he finally falls apart.

The sobs come on without warning, so thick in his throat he feels he might choke. His eyes burn with tears, so he squeezes them shut, but it doesn’t help. The pain in his ankle compounds the violent ache in his heart and it builds and builds until he’s not sure which is which. He’s gasping for breath, trying to fight the tears, but it’s not working. The last time he felt like this was when Dad died. It hurts. Hurts so much, so damned much there’s no room for anything else.

It’s all just so unfair. Fermat was so young - so, so young. He was smart, funny, determined; there was so much he had ahead of him, so much he could have done. And the Capitol had killed him. And twenty-two other kids just like him are dying now, in this awful arena. Most of them, if not all, must have families and loved ones back home suffering through this. So much pain. And for what? Punishment for a war none of them were alive for? Entertainment, for an audience who don’t seem to recognise or value life at all?

And even if Fermat hadn’t ended up in the Games, Scott thinks miserably, even if he’d stayed safe in District Three, would he have even had the opportunity to do the things he clearly could have, clearly wanted to? Would he have just ended up dead in one of the ugly brick factories Scott’s seen on the news, another casualty of the Capitol’s endless demand for productivity?

His breath stutters and catches in his chest as he sobs, and Scott tries to slow his breathing. He’s getting a headache, and he can’t breathe, and he’s feeling awful and lightheaded and his ankle hurts. He doesn’t want the Capitol to be watching him like this. Doesn’t want his brothers back home to see him losing control. But even as he tries to calm himself down, some small part of his mind whispers treacherously.

What’s the point?

What’s the point in any of this? Why is he still going? He’s tired, so tired, and more than anything Scott just wants to lie down and sleep. He’s not going to make it out of this. They’re all dying, one by one, and he should have died long before this. It’s a miracle, really, that he hasn’t been caught by the Careers or fallen in a trap or just frozen to death in the night. It can’t last forever. It’ll catch up with him eventually and it’s going to hurt. His brothers are going to lose him one way or another. Why not get it over with? At least then they won’t be worrying any more.

Scott doubles over on himself, hiding his face as thoroughly as he can from the cameras. He presses his knuckles into his eyes so fiercely that stars burst behind his eyelids. It’s a strange pressure, but good, and he focuses on that instead of the pounding in his head and the ache in his ankle and the heaviness in his chest. He counts his breaths. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Again, again, and again.

Pull yourself together, Scott.

 

---

 

At some point, somehow, he must have fallen asleep, because an indeterminate amount of time later he’s peeling his eyes open, head throbbing. Scott groans incoherently, uncurling himself and wincing. He’d not fallen asleep in a comfortable position at all - not that he’d meant to, of course, it’d just sort of happened. Now his back is hurting right alongside his ankle and head. Ouch.

He’s fumbling for his water bottle and sipping his water before his thoughts catch up with him. The grief of Fermat’s death hits him all over again - slowly this time, a worsening ache, as opposed to the freight train of yesterday. But it’s almost manageable. Almost. Easier to hide, at least, which he does, schooling his expression into one of careful neutrality. Scott takes comfort in the fact that the Capitol are no longer seeing his emotions scrawled all over his face.

It’s difficult to tell through the branches of the bush he’s hidden in (what on earth had he been thinking yesterday, hiding in such an obvious spot? How had he managed to not get killed in the night?) but Scott thinks that it’s very early morning. And, sure enough, as he’s taking stock of his food supplies (not good) and tightening his bootlaces to attempt to give his ankle (also not good) some more support, the anthem begins playing.

He remembers with a jolt that there had been more cannons last night. Some of the Careers had been killed in the explosion for certain. How many, he doesn’t know. The explosion had been loud, had caused a vicious ringing in his ears that was only just now wearing off, and he’d been too focused on not burning to death besides to worry much about it. The main thing is that the plan worked, and the Careers aren’t going to be nearly as much of a threat after this.

(He doesn’t think about the times that Fuse had stood up for him, regardless of what the others had to say about it. The time that Petra had taught him some of her combat training exercises. About the fact that in another world, they could’ve been friends.)

Scott stumbles to his feet, heading out into the open to get a glimpse of the projected tributes. He squints up at the sky through the branches. The first to appear is Bespoke. Then Gill. Almost half the pack gone in minutes. Only Taffeta, Fuse and Petra left, then - and who knows what state they'll be in? The fire had started alarmingly quickly, consuming the whole clearing. Surely all three of them couldn’t have made it out unscathed. Depending on how much prices have skyrocketed, it could give others an advantage in a fight against them. Even so, Scott tries not to be pleased at the fact that both of the Twos are still alive. It’s stupid, of course. At least one of them will end up dead. If Kayo manages to win, then both of them will die. But he can’t help feeling a tiny bit glad anyway.

Fermat doesn’t appear. Of course he wouldn’t, they’d projected him in the sky last night, but even his absence makes Scott’s heart ache. He backs up slowly against the nearest tree, sliding down its trunk and ending up in an awkward heap, cradled in the roots. One hand tries in vain to massage away his headache. He sits, and he does not move for a while.

It’s the first time in days that Scott has not had a solid plan for what he needs to do next. It’s strange, almost, feeling adrift like this. He doesn’t bother to get up from his spot even to fetch his pack, still where he left it in the bush. A tiny voice in his head keeps asking what the point of all of this is, and for the first time he’s too exhausted to argue. The constant killing and sabotage is eating away at him, and for the moment he simply doesn’t have the strength to think about killing a single other person. It feels like each death is slowly chipping away at his soul. Of course, he doesn’t plan on making it out of the arena, so it doesn’t matter all that much, but Scott can’t pretend that it doesn’t hurt all the same.

Maybe he’ll just sit here a little longer.

“Attention, tributes, attention.”

Almost involuntarily, Scott’s head whips up. It’s the voice of Claudius Templesmith, Games commentator and announcer. Instantly he knows that this must be something important; his voice is only heard in the arena when a feast or rule change is being announced. Both mean that the regular state of affairs will be completely shaken up.

“The regulations requiring a single Victor have been…suspended. From now on, two Victors may be crowned if both originate from the same district. This will be the only announcement.”

For a moment he sits frozen in place, as still as the stone statues dotted around the Capitol. Then he’s on his feet, scrambling for his things, his lips mouthing Kayo’s name over and over like a mantra.

They could both make it out of this.

Notes:

um yeah idk really what to say? things feel like they've been really crazy recently mostly because it's the summer i think. i sleepy. want to get this motherfucker finished so i can go back to my other wips lol

Chapter 17: xvii: sister

Scott has no idea where to even start to look for Kayo.

He crosses off the marshes first. She knows the forests much better, and (as demonstrated by the way she’d taken out Derrick) can use them to her advantage in a fight. Besides, if she stuck to her plan and is currently allied with Anise, the girl from Seven will be just as, if not more, comfortable in the treetops. So, forest it is.

Other than that, Scott figures that they could be somewhere close to the river he and Fermat had found; after all, there’s no other water source in the forest (that he knows of at least). So he heads that way and hopes for the best. Kayo is also hopefully looking for him. He keeps his fingers crossed that she’ll come to a similar conclusion and go to where she thinks he’ll look for her. Maybe Penelope could find a way to give him some clues, who knows? Then again, maybe the fact that she hasn’t is significant in itself; he could be on the right track already, and they’ll cross paths sometime soon. After all, Kayo had already found him once before.

Scott spends the whole day walking to the river, taking it slowly so as not to further aggravate his ankle. The tight bandages do seem to be providing some extra support to the joint, which has reduced the pain somewhat. He still is careful to take breaks when needed; better to make slower progress than damage his ankle irreparably.

It’s raining again today, heavy and depressing. Scott’s never been so grateful for the waterproof aspect of his arena outfit - including the hood, which keeps him drier than when it’d rained back home. Waterproofs were well beyond what they had ever been able to afford. When he reaches the river, it’s swollen with rainfall.

He comes across nobody else, thankfully. Come to think of it, it’s been a good while since he came across another tribute not part of the pack – and even then, the only other non-Career tribute he’s seen since the bloodbath is Fermat, unless you counted the tiny glimpse he’d caught of Kayo the night Derrick died. He runs through the mental list of the other tributes. The only ones he can think of are Anise and the pair from Ten, who he assumes are sticking together based on how inseparable they’d been during training. Apart from the pair from Two, they’re also the only ones who can benefit from the rule change.

Other than him and Kayo, of course.

He’s not been at the riverside long before the sun starts setting. The forest gets dark much quicker than the open spaces around the water, though, so if he walks along the river itself he can still see a little. Every hundred metres or so, he leaves behind a tiny clue for Kayo to find: a twig, bent and hooked around itself to form a circle. It’s something they’d done to mark out areas in the forests back home if they’d needed to for whatever reason, and hopefully not something another tribute would look out for – or not something they’d understand the meaning of if they did.

There are different plants growing here, ones he assumes are semi-aquatic, but none that he recognises as safe food sources. He eats a few of the berries he’d foraged as he walked and thinks about setting a snare. It’s too dark, though, so in the end he collects some water from the river, heads a little ways into the forest, and gingerly climbs a tree to sleep.

The next morning brings with it no deaths. That doesn’t surprise Scott; the events of the night before are more than enough to keep the Capitol happy even for today (though they’ll likely be hungering for more action by the evening). The first thing he does is set up a snare, the way Fermat taught him. He struggles a little, and gets the knots wrong a couple times. If Fermat were there he’d mock him endlessly, then deconstruct whatever monstrosity Scott had made. But he’s not, and Scott has to muddle through himself, fumbling uselessly with the string for a good few minutes.

He's getting really worried about food now. His supplies are all but gone so he’s pretty much relying on whatever he can forage or catch, and those pickings are sparse at best. There’s no Cornucopia to rob either. Fermat had died and taken all of the food they’d planned to steal to bolster their own supply with him. Still, he’s doing better than the Careers. Their sponsors are probably worrying about dipping into valuable funds that could go towards much-needed medicine, weighing up the value of keeping the sponsor money for emergencies versus avoiding their tributes starving to death. To be fair, it’s their own fault for not knowing how to hunt well enough to keep their energy levels up. They’re great at killing kids, apparently, but not so much animals.

He's just finishing the snare when someone clears their throat behind him.

Scott whirls round, axe in hand, before the logical part of his brain has the time to point out that the person probably isn’t trying to kill him; why on earth would they cough when they clearly have the ability to sneak up right next to him?

“Hey,” Kayo says, and he almost sobs in relief.

She looks fine. Unharmed, as far as he can tell, and still with that mischievous glint in her eye. Her hair is in pigtails, with tiny bands all the way down that make sort of bobbles. It’s cute, and it looks like it’s held up in the arena pretty well. Her face is dirty in the way only a soak in a hot bath with soap will solve, and her cheeks are starting to look a little hollow, which makes his heart ache – but he probably looks much worse, so he doesn’t comment on it. He just pulls her into a hug. It feels so good to get to hug her again. He’s lost count of how many days they’ve spent in the arena – a week, maybe more – but it feels like it's been a lifetime.

“Hey,” Scott whispers. His voice is hoarse; the sound of it surprises him. He supposes that’s what happens when you cry yourself to sleep and then don’t speak a word for a full day. Kayo’s fingers are grasped tightly onto his jacket, knuckles digging into his back. She’s on her tiptoes, bony chin tucked over his shoulder. It’s by far one of the least comfortable hugs they’ve ever had, but he doesn’t care. She’s here, and she’s alive. They both are.

Hope flares in his chest, blooming bright and hot.

She releases his jacket eventually and steps back, searching his face. He checks her over in turn, taking stock of the way her clothes are hanging a little limply on her, the tangled mess of her hair. She does at least seem to have a decent sized pack, hopefully with some decent supplies in it. The pair of them have managed to survive this long, after all.

Then he utterly loses his train of thought, because all of a sudden she’s gone and thumped him on the arm.

“Ow!” he exclaims, staring at her incredulously. “What was that for!?”

“That,” she says, folding her arms, “was for allying yourself with the fucking Careers without telling me. What on earth were you thinking? They’re all bloody idiots!”

“I was trying to- keep an eye on them,” he says lamely. “Just in case they went after you and stuff.” Kayo snorts. “In the end it worked out pretty well, thank you very much,” he says defensively. “Managed to take out their supplies and half the pack alongside them.”

Kayo’s eyes widen slightly. “That was you?” He nods. Scott chooses not to mention Fermat’s role in the whole thing. It doesn’t feel like the right time, somehow. There may never be a good time. 

“Good job, Scooter,” Kayo says - and for once it doesn’t feel like she’s making fun of him. He merely shrugs. It doesn’t feel right to be taking praise for killing kids, no matter how much they’d wanted him (and everyone else) dead.

“I’m also here,” someone says from a little ways behind Kayo. Scott jumps. Standing awkwardly, leaning nonchalantly against a tree, is the girl from Seven, Anise. She sees him looking and gives him a thumbs up. “Hi.”

Kayo turns around for a second to glance back at the girl, as if she’d forgotten she was there at all. She tucks a flyaway strand of hair behind her ear as she steps back, gesturing to her ally. “Sorry, yeah. Scott, you probably remember Anise. From Seven. We’ve been allies since – well, since the first day, pretty much. She’s saved my ass more than once.”

“Thank you for protecting her,” Scott says sincerely.

Anise shrugs modestly. “It’s been mutual. Kayo’s pretty good at the whole tree climbing thing. She’s been giving me a run for my money.”

Scott chuckles. “Yeah, she’s like a spider. Can get up anywhere. It drives Grandma mad.”

“I tried to climb up on the roof of our house once,” Kayo tells Anise, grinning. “Would’ve made it up too, only she threatened to bake a whole batch of cookies just for me.”

Anise looks perplexed. “How is that a punishment?”

Kayo pulls a face. “Our grandma is a horrible baker. She’s really good at making meals with whatever food we can get together, but because she substitutes so much stuff whenever she bakes it goes so wrong, especially since we don’t have a proper oven to bake things in. She made these cookies one time and they tasted awful. We’ve never let her attempt to bake anything other than bread since, and even that’s risky.”

Scott shudders at the memory; it had truly been one of the low points of the winter of the 70^th Games (he remembers because it was only a week or so after the disastrous Victory Tour, with the girl from Four who’d lost her mind in the arena). “It tasted like feet,” he groans, and Anise giggles. “Sorry Grandma, if you’re watching right now,” he adds hurriedly. Kayo smiles apologetically and waves off into the middle distance.

“That sounds rough,” Anise says sympathetically – though the sentiment is somewhat damaged by the fact she keeps on bursting into giggles.

Kayo rolls her eyes affectionately. “Come on then, let’s leave this snare alone and pick a spot to set up camp. We’ve got a lot to catch up on.”

Scott agrees. He shoulders his pack, adjusting its weight on his back, still holding his axe in one hand just in case. Kayo instantly falls into step beside him, and Anise wanders behind them, keeping an eye out for any unwelcome tributes tailing them from afar. They choose to follow the river, heading upstream to steeper terrain in the hopes it will offer a more hidden location for a camp. 

He can’t stop glancing over at Kayo every now and again, just to check that she’s real.

The trio elect to stop after an hour or so, once even the open space of the river gets too dark to manage. Scott offers to take first watch. Anise looks uncertain - clearly wary to trust him - but she seems to accept Kayo’s loyalty as proof enough that Scott wouldn’t do anything while the two of them are asleep. Of course, she’s right to be wary, what with the new rule of two from the same district being able to win. He wonders briefly what happened to her district partner, before remembering with a jolt the fight Hollis had gotten into just moments after the starting cannon. He himself had played a pretty significant part in the Seven boy’s death.

Does Anise know how he died? Did she see it happen?

Scott doesn’t really want to find out.

The pair of them haven’t got sleeping bags, it turns out. They’d just about survived the nights by huddling up and using a tiny tarpaulin that’d been in one of the packs they’d grabbed as a makeshift blanket, apparently. Scott suggests they huddle up together in his, which is luckily big enough for two small girls (because if he’d thought Kayo was small, Anise is even smaller; clearly a stick of a girl even before the Games, she’s lost the little weight she’d gained since the reaping and then some). The look of contentment on both of their faces as they drop off is worth the freezing cold that hits soon after the sun dips below the horizon.

Being up for the first watch allows everything to sink in - just about. It’s still so strange, having his sister right next to him, looking just as peaceful in her sleep now as she did back home. It’s infinitely reassuring and yet terrifying at the same time. After all, Scott hadn’t seen her since before the bloodbath: hadn’t been able to spot her in the chaos before she ran away, hadn’t seen her since, except for the flash of a butter-yellow t-shirt in the dead of night that almost felt like a trick of his own desperate imagination (though the knife in the back of Derrick’s head proved beyond a doubt that it wasn’t). He’d nearly managed to convince himself that Kayo wasn’t really in the arena at all. Out of sight, out of mind, as his grandma said. For all he knew, she could have been miles and miles away, safely tucked up on the couch watching the Games with his brothers.

And now she’s here, lying by his side. As close as she’s been all Games - yet it feels like she’s never been closer to being snatched away from him forever. Always just out of reach.

He feels himself drifting dangerously close to nodding off. Figuring it’s been long enough anyhow, he shakes Kayo gently awake, making sure to keep quiet enough so as not to disturb Anise. For a split second she doesn’t move, and Scott convinces himself that something awful has somehow happened. But then her brow knits together and her eyes crack open and he lets out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding.

“Your turn to keep watch,” he whispers, and she nods, rubbing the sleep from her eyes blearily. Carefully, she undoes the zip of the sleeping bag enough to shuffle out of it; he shakes his head, gesturing at the tarpaulin tucked around him.

“You can’t sleep under that!” she hisses, as loud as she dares. Scott shakes his head.

“You need to keep warm,” he counters. “Besides, all the shuffling will wake Anise up.”

Kayo rolls her eyes and eases her way out of the sleeping bag. “Don’t be stupid. I’ll take the tarp, you get nice and cosy in this thing. Anise sleeps through anything.”

Scott gives in. He learnt the hard way that when Kayo gets something in her head, she won’t give up until it comes to pass. She grins smugly at him as she takes the tarpaulin, wrapping it round her shoulders and tucking her legs under it. “Night, Scott. Sweet dreams.”

“Fat chance.”

She snorts. “Fair enough.”

 

---

 

It turns out to be a dreamless sleep, and Scott wakes sometime mid-morning with a jolt. It’s one of the few times that’s happened in the arena; usually anxiety and stress serve as a miserable alarm clock long before the sun’s made a proper appearance in the sky. He wouldn’t be surprised if the reason for it lay in the company he’s now keeping. With the Careers, he’d been constantly terrified of a knife in the back. With Fermat, the fear had arisen from the feeling of a duty of care for the kid, compounded by the anxiety of ensuring their plan was executed successfully. Now, he’s with family. Kayo and Anise have proven themselves to be adept at surviving, besides; they don’t need his protection as much as Fermat did.

(Not that the protection he’d offered Fermat had done him any good in the end.)

Kayo smiles when she notices he’s awake and waves a dead squirrel at him. He tries not to wince at the sight of the poor thing skewered on a stick. “Breakfast is on the way,” she says happily. “Anise managed to find some good firewood that won’t give off much smoke, and with this fog we figured we could risk a fire. So, cooked meat for all of us this morning!”

She’s right about the fog; Scott only has to look through the trees to see how quickly their trunks fade into monotone grey. The Gamemakers must not want any groups of tributes running into each other for a bit, then. Interesting. 

“How’d you catch that thing?” he asks Kayo, gesturing at the squirrel.

“Slingshot,” she grins, fishing the thing out of her pocket. “We didn’t have one at first, but when the Careers’ supplies went up in smoke and they abandoned the camp we went to investigate and see if anything was salvageable.”

“But they’d said that there was nothing,” Scott frowns, confused. “I overheard them talking in the forest after. Everything went up in smoke.”

“It did,” Kayo confirms, “but we found a pack abandoned in the long grass not far from the Cornucopia. It had a decent bit of food in it - all stuff that’ll keep, so we’ve been saving it as much as we can and eating what we can forage - and some other bits and pieces. There was a bit of elastic. I managed to cut some of the leather from my shoe and find a good forked stick in the forest, and put it all together to make a pretty decent catapult. I’ve been collecting stones as ammo.” 

She holds it out for him to see, and he nods wordlessly, attempting a smile. His mind, though, instantly puts together the pieces of the puzzle. Fermat had managed to gather supplies after all. Made it out of the Cornucopia. He’d realised he wasn’t going to be able to get those supplies back to their rendezvous, for some reason, and had hidden them. His mind races through the possibilities. Maybe it was a calculated measure, so he could run without being weighed down by the pack. Maybe he’d heard the Careers coming and thrown it away last minute.

Maybe he’d known he wasn’t going to make it out alive.

The upset must show on his face, because Kayo rests a hand on his knee, shuffling closer to him. “What’s wrong?”

“Fermat packed that bag,” he says quietly. “The kid from Three. We were allies, for a bit. The supplies…it was my idea to set fire to them. Then his idea to use the landmines to attack the Careers. We did it together.”

Kayo knows the rest, of course. It was spelled out in the sky right after it all happened. Her brow creases in sympathy, and she moves even closer, moving her hand from his knee to round his shoulder and resting her head against him. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs.

Scott blinks back tears. “He was a good kid.”

Kayo hums in sympathy. Scott does his best to squash down the feelings welling up. He’s done too much mourning already. It’s why he doesn’t miss the small glance Kayo shoots over at Anise, who’s busying herself with the fire - so quick he could’ve blinked and missed it. He decides not to pry. He sends up a silent thank-you to Fermat instead - for the supplies he’d saved, for the plan that dealt the Careers a blow that might just tip the odds in his and Kayo’s favour. For being a good friend.

But he can think about it after the Games - once he’s gotten both of them out of the arena, safe and sound. Right now, they need to survive.

 

---

 

The fog continues all day. They’re hoping to get further upstream, amongst the steeper terrain where the rocky landscape will hopefully offer more cover and give them the advantage against attackers from further down the river. The Gamemakers, however, seem determined to stop them travelling much, and with the density of the fog they soon have to give up and make camp well before dark. It does at least give them the advantage of freely being able to light a fire without worrying about anyone (most pressingly, the remainder of the Career pack) spotting the smoke. Kayo’s excellent aim takes down a couple more squirrels for the evening, and they even have enough thanks to Fermat’s supply bag to dip into their reserves.

It’s a little awkward, being around Anise. She’s clearly resigned herself to Scott’s presence, but she’s barely said two words to him since they met up yesterday. Occasionally Kayo talks to her, and she seems to respond well, but he doesn’t know how to approach her himself and she doesn’t try to approach him in turn. Some of the hesitation he’s feeling is undoubtedly related to the role he played in her district partner’s death - and the daunting question of how much she knows about his involvement. Anise clearly misses him, too; after all, if he were here, the two of them could even go home together. Hollis’ absence hangs between the pair of them: almost tangible, like words on the tip of the tongue.

The silence as they sit around the campfire is eerie, almost. The fog deadens every natural sound of the forest, a cloth covering the mouth of nature and muffling everything from the rushing of water to the birdsong in the trees. It only begins to lift once night falls, only to be replaced yet again by the rain. They all spend the night huddled under the tarpaulin, nestled amongst the roots of a tall oak, the sleeping bag unzipped and tucked around all three of them like a blanket. It’s miserable, and Scott barely sleeps a wink. His sleep is so unsettled when he does manage to close his eyes that he stirs at the slightest sounds all night.

One of the times he wakes, he peers blearily around for the source of the sound that woke him. He doesn’t spot anything - but in the darkness, two hazel eyes blink back at him. Kayo.

“Can’t sleep either?” he whispers as quiet as he can. She shakes her head. After a couple seconds of only the rain pattering loudly on their tarpaulin, Scott exhales tiredly. “I don’t like what the weather’s been doing,” he murmurs, and Kayo hums an agreement. “The Gamemakers must be planning something. I just can’t figure out what.”

“We’ll figure it out, won’t we?” Kayo whispers back. “We’ve both made it this far. Now we’re together, and now the rule change is in place, we’ve got more of a chance than ever.”

“Funny to think we might survive this.” Kayo doesn’t reply, so Scott stares off into the blackness. Even though he knows the tarp is inches from his face, it’s so dark he can barely make it out. Kayo is barely visible next to him; he feels as though at any moment, she might fade into the night entirely. He exhales softly. After a moment, Kayo’s hand finds his under the makeshift covers of his unzipped sleeping bag, and Scott squeezes it tightly.

“I’m glad I found you,” she whispers. 

Scott smiles, even though she can’t see it. “Me too.”

The next morning, everything goes wrong.

Notes:

no idea how frequent updates will be from this point on bc uni stuff is starting up but i swear guys we're nearly there!!! i also may or may not have started to write things for whumptoper (oops) because ive got a bit of a writers block with this fic at the moment so expect BIG THINGS!!!!!! muhuhahahahah

Chapter 18: xviii: ambush

They barely get any warning. 

One moment the three of them are eating a soggy breakfast under the tarp, the morning sun dulled by clouds like light trying to shine through a grimy window, and then the Careers are almost on top of them. It’s still raining, the ground transformed to a muddy swamp, the river churning a frothy brown. 

“Run!” Scott roars, shaking Anise’s shoulder roughly as he scrambles to his feet. There’s no time to grab the tarpaulin, left discarded on the forest floor. He mourns its loss for a split second only; they may regret leaving it later, but later may not come at all if they all die here. Kayo’s slinging her bag onto her shoulder and pulling out her knife even as she runs toward the forest. There’s yelling, blood-curdling and furious. He recognises Fuse’s voice just before he crashes into view. Scott’s running already, feet pounding on the muddy ground, but for a split-second he catches a glimpse of the District Two boy’s face. It’s the angriest Scott has ever seen him.

Kayo’s had a head start on the other two, and Scott keeps his eyes fixed on her pack, blue against all the green and brown. His hand is clutching Anise’s wrist; he tugs her along, refusing to slow his pace so that she’s almost being dragged in his wake. His hood isn’t even up. Rainwater drips down his face, going in his eyes. He can’t stop to wipe it away. His ankle burns with every step.

The Careers are hot on their heels. He can hear them - two of the three left. Fuse prefers short-range weapons, that much Scott knows, but the glimpse of blonde hair he’d spotted means the other is Taffeta, and that means they’re in trouble. He’s swerving in and out of the trees - Kayo is too - hoping it will be enough cover to prevent a knife to the head. Scott doesn’t know that it will be. He saw what Taffeta could do in training. While he was still in the alliance, he’d watched her nail a squirrel high up in a tree out of sheer boredom.

Anise is flagging, starting to drag her feet. Scott’s own lungs are burning, his legs aching and ankle protesting with every step. Even Kayo is slowing down up ahead. But their pursuers seem to be slowing down too; he can hear Fuse panting from here, can hear how much he’s struggling. Scott dares to think, just for a moment, that they might be able to outrun them.

Then he’s jerked back.

Anise has collapsed to the floor with an odd wheezing, as if all the air had been suddenly forced from her lungs. She drags him down with her where his hand is still clasping her wrist. His breath stutters, lungs burning for air even as his chest seizes with panic. The cause of her sudden collapse is obvious when he turns around: a blade, buried to the hilt slightly to the right of her spine. Anise coughs. Blood splatters and mixes into the mud. Scott knows instantly that she’s not going to survive. The blade has punctured her lung.

Kayo has turned back at the commotion, instantly doubling back on herself. Scott’s opening his mouth as Anise shakes her head frantically, tears mixing with the rain still pouring down on them.

“Leave me,” Anise forces out, breath rattling. Fuse and Taffeta have almost caught up with them. Scott’s rising to his feet, putting himself between Anise and the Careers despite the fact Anise won’t live more than a few minutes. Anise curls her fingers around his trouser leg, a silent plea. He ignores it.

Taffeta is first, Fuse lagging maybe twenty-odd paces behind. Scott’s readying his axe, but there’s already a knife in her hand - a tiny, wicked-looking one, diamond-shaped and glistening with rainwater - and even though his swing throws her off the blade has left her hand. It doesn’t stop his axe from carving straight through her upper arm and nicking her chest. His stomach lurches as she screams. It’s a piercing sound, almost inhuman, the agony branded on her face as she drops like a stone to her knees. Her arm hangs limply, held onto the rest of her body by tiny strips of flesh and sinew. He can see the bone, sheared clean in half.

When her mouth closes for a brief moment, though, he can still hear screaming. For a second Scott thinks his mind has finally snapped. Then, as he turns back to check on his allies, his eyes widen in horror as they spy Kayo curled in on herself, hands clutching her face and drenched in blood. It’s mixing with the rain, dripping onto the forest floor.

He looks down at his feet, at the blood pooling in the mud as Anise bleeds out all over his shoes. Her beautiful braids, once glowing like fire in the sun, are lying muddied and limp around her head. She’s not moving now. It’s probably only a matter of seconds before her heart stops. There’s nothing more he can do for her.

Scott wills himself to move. They need to get to safety. He tugs one foot free of the mud, then the other, moving as quickly as he can without slipping over. Kayo’s stopped screaming now, her lips pressed together, strangled keens like that of a wild animal forcing themselves from her throat. He grabs her arm, pulling her away. “We have to go,” he orders her urgently, hoping some part of her is paying attention. “Come on, we need to get out of here. You can do it. One foot in front of the other.”

She’s stumbling, barely co-ordinated, but she manages it. Slowly at first, then faster as they find momentum. His only focus is getting them to safety.

Scott risks one last look back. Fuse has caught up to Taffeta, but has stopped there; he’s cradling her now, her body limp. A cannon fires. Scott can’t tell if it’s for her or for Anise. Both are already dead, anyway. It’s only a matter of time.

They stagger onwards. Scott doesn’t dare stop, guiding them on a winding path through the trees in an attempt to stop Fuse from being able to follow. They’re heading slightly uphill, he thinks, but it doesn’t matter so long as they’re away from the Careers. He can feel Kayo flagging, but he keeps pushing, putting his arm round her back to support her. When her knees give out, he hauls her onto his back, her arms slung round his neck. He tries as hard as he can not to jostle her. At some point, a second cannon booms. Scott flinches at the sound.

Eventually they stumble back onto the river, though it’s definitely more of a stream this high up. Kayo’s already started slipping, unable to hold on, and after a while of following the stream Scott’s strength finally gives out and he hurriedly sets her down as gently as he can. She’s breathing raggedly and barely conscious. But they’re too exposed, even here. They can’t rest yet.

“We need to find proper shelter, c’mon,” he urges her, but she doesn’t respond. Scott looks around frantically, trying to spot somewhere they can hide. At least the rain has stopped.

The ground is a lot more rocky up here, as they’d predicted. There are strange outcroppings up ahead; rock formations amongst the foliage that look promising. He double-checks for any unwelcome stragglers, then dares to step a few paces away from where Kayo’s resting against a smaller boulder to see if there’s anywhere that could offer a bit of protection. For once, luck is on their side, as there’s a hollow space nestled under an outcropping right in the centre of a cluster of rocks. It’s small - just big enough to fit the two of them in along with their packs - but Scott circles the rocks around it and he can’t see the cave unless he’s right on top of it, so it’s as good a space as any. Dry, primarily, which is infinitely valuable given the weather over the past few days. He heads back to Kayo and gently coaxes her to her feet.

“I’ve found us somewhere,” he tells her softly, hauling her up. It’s one of the few times he’s been glad for her small stature; if she were any heavier, he doesn’t think he’d be able to lift her at all. “It’s not far, I promise, just beyond those rocks.” She mumbles something incoherent that he doesn’t catch, and Scott grits his teeth and presses on. Only a little farther, and then he can look at her injury.

The hollow is nicer than he’d expected. The ground is slanted and the outcropping provides protection from the rain, the natural landscape guiding the water back to the main stream and keeping the space dry. He props Kayo up on the wall. They can’t stand in here - the outcropping is too low-hanging for that - but the upside is that they’ll be even more hidden from the rest of the tributes.

Now he has to deal with her eye.

Scott knows it’s bad. He knew it the minute Kayo was hurt. Now that they’re as safe as they’re going to get in the arena and he’s no longer panicking about the Careers behind them, the severity of her injury is becoming more apparent by the second. The knife is still buried in her eye socket, blood slowly crusting on her face like tears, and her skin is ashen and clammy from blood loss. The only mercy is that Kayo seems to finally have more of less faded from consciousness. Whether that will remain true once he starts treating the wound, he doesn’t know.

His hands have started trembling at the thought of pulling the knife out (because he can’t leave it in there indefinitely even though it’ll cause fresh bleeding, the risk of infection is too high). Scott clenches his hands into fists briefly, willing them to still. Then he rifles through his pack for the remnants of his medical kit. The most important thing is the anti-bacterial bandages. He’s infinitely glad that he’d been sparing with them before. From what he remembers, prices skyrocket the further into the Games they get; Penelope would probably struggle to send them such in-demand medical supplies this far in. There are two clean rolls of the regular bandages left over, along with three of the anti-bacterial ones. Carefully, he folds one of the latter into a rough square as a pad to place against the injury itself, and unscrews the lid of his water bottle ready to wash out her eye socket once the blade is out.

Kayo’s still clearly out of it. Scott holds his breath as he steadies her head with one hand, the other hand getting a good grip on the handle. His skin is already stinging in sympathy, the memory of washing out his own wounds not too long ago to spark phantom pains in his arm and abdomen. He can only hope that Kayo remains unconscious.

Sucking in a breath, he adjusts his hold on the hilt and tugs the knife out in one swift motion. Kayo jerks at the sensation (he’s glad his other hand is steadying her and preventing further injury), a choked yelp escaping her as her hand flies up to latch onto his wrist with a terrifyingly strong grip. He’s murmuring a constant stream of words: apologies, reassurances, empty promises that it’ll be over soon even though he knows this injury won’t heal for a while. Quickly as he can, he pours water over the wound, ignoring the way Kayo’s nails dig into his skin even harder and the way her face scrunches in pain. Fresh blood is already pooling in her eye socket, only running faster as it mixes with the water, turning a strange sort of pink. He presses the pad to her eye, wrapping one of the regular bandages around her head to hold it in place.

By the time he’s finished, Kayo’s out cold again.

Carefully, he removes Kayo’s pack from her shoulder and tugs his jacket off to use as a makeshift pillow, folding it up so the dry inside lining is on the outside. He’d heard from his grandma that blood flows less quickly when above the heart, so keeping her head elevated will help to stem the bleeding. Hopefully. He leaves her propped up against the cave wall and sits back, pressing his hands to his eyes.

Are they ever going to be able to catch a break? It feels like every time Scott feels he’s got a handle on these Games, something else horrific happens. Though that’s probably the point. The audience need entertaining, after all.

He risks another glance over at Kayo, resting fitfully on the other side of the cave. She looks so small, lying there, and the fear of losing her hits him all over again - like he’s been plowed down by one of the harvesters in the fields. Now they actually have a chance of both making it home together, it’s as if he’s become hyper-aware of just how much he has to lose. Scott wishes it had been him instead of her. He can deal with pain; over the years he’s become an expert at pushing his own feelings and problems to the side to take care of his family. Now that it’s one of them who are hurt, he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

So, he does what he does best: help them.

Scott starts by setting out a small meal next to Kayo in case she wakes up and is hungry, leaving her water bottle - still full from when they’d topped up the night before - in reach as well. His own he takes to the stream, filling it up again and dropping one of their last purification tablets into it. Then he heads out properly. Both packs are left in the enclave and he brings only his axe, going in search of leafy branches he can take back to cover the entrance. It takes a couple of trips, but soon enough there’s enough foliage clustered amongst the rocks to disguise their new camp from all except the most observant tributes - and even they would struggle to notice it. Checking on Kayo again to make sure she’s still asleep, Scott then takes his pack and sets up a couple snares a decent distance away from their camp. Until Kayo recovers, they can’t rely on her slingshot to hunt (Scott did have a go and swiftly learnt that he’s an appalling shot). And even then, Scott has no clue how Kayo’s sight will heal. There had been a farm worker back home who’d lost his eye in an accident. He’d told Scott once that he struggled with telling how far away objects were - depth perception, he’d called it. From the state of Kayo’s eye, Scott worries that her vision will be the same, at least whilst in the arena. He hopes desperately that if they win, the Capitol will be able to fix it.

If, if, if. Until now, Scott hadn’t even considered if. He forces himself to stop considering it once again; he can’t afford distractions. For now, all that matters is the arena.

The whole day seems to have passed in the blink of an eye. The sun - a pale blot in the milky grey of the sky - is getting lower by the minute, the little warmth it brought him slowly but surely being leached from his body by the chill of the lengthening shadows. Sure enough, he’s sorely regretting the loss of the tarpaulin and the layer between them and the cold night it could have provided. Luckily, he’d already packed the sleeping bag; the only reason the tarpaulin had still been out was as additional protection from the incessant rain. He and Kayo will just about fit in it during the night, and their body heat will help to keep each other warm. At least he hopes so. Conditions in the arena have been steadily worsening over the past few days.

Kayo’s sort of stirring when he gets back. Even though she’s clearly not entirely lucid, the pain is etched onto her face, creases and lines carved into her forehead as if by a knife (which, he supposes with grim humour, they were). The dressing is saturated with blood; he needs to change it. Pulling out his medkit once again, Scott is relieved to see that the wound at least has finally stopped oozing. She shifts uneasily as he changes the dressing, using another of the anti-bacterial bandages just to be on the safe side, but stays mercifully quiet.

As Scott settles down next to her, eating half a packet of beef jerky and some of the berries he’d foraged (he’d not normally risk eating that much of their limited food supply, but there had been a few moments where he’d almost blacked out from light-headedness today and passing out was not on his agenda at the moment) Kayo’s good eye cracks open. Her face scrunches slightly; she hisses in pain, her hand going up automatically to her right eye. Her good eye blinks a couple times before finally focusing on Scott.

“Are you thirsty?” he asks gently. “Hungry? Did you have anything while I was out?”

“No,” she rasps, licking her dry lips. “Not hungry but…thirsty.” He unscrews his water bottle and brings it to her lips, making sure he doesn’t tip it too much at once. She does her best, but some still spills, cutting streaks through the dirt on her face. Scott makes a mental note to clean the rest of the dirt away. His grandmother had always stressed just how important cleanliness and putting your best self forward was, and he doesn’t want the cameras to capture them as anything less than presentable.

Kayo’s hand catches on his sleeve, gently tugging it to capture his attention. He sets the water bottle down, looking up at her questioningly.

“Anise?” she asks, jaw set and face taut. He can’t quite get the words out, but he shakes his head. Kayo blinked back tears. “I hoped…maybe…” Her words tail off, but Scott knows what she means. He wishes there was some comfort he could offer her. Fermat's death is still raw for him, like skin scrubbed pink and stinging in a too-hot bath, and there's nothing that can ease that for him. Kayo must be feeling the same way, and he hates it. All Scott can do is wrap an arm around her as she curls up into a tiny ball. She makes no sound, but he can feel her shoulders shaking. Tears soak into his shirt.

Eventually, her breathing evens out as she succumbs to rest, finally falling still. Scott presses a gentle kiss to her temple and tucks the sleeping bag around them both as best he can without jostling her. Here, in their tiny hollow, it almost feels like they're the only people left in the arena. Maybe the world. If they stay like this for long enough, maybe everything will turn out okay.

 

---

 

The next morning, there are no deaths. Anise and Taffeta must have been projected in the sky, but by then Scott was in the hollow, half-asleep and only dimly aware the anthem was playing. They can't see the sky in there anyway, so he would have missed it regardless. Scott imagines the hovercrafts coming to pick them up, the great metal claws scooping them from the arena to be taken back to the Capitol and packaged for their return home. Two more names for their districts’ Tribute Monuments in the town squares. Two more graves for the tributes’ cemeteries. He doesn't know if it's the same for all the districts, but in Nine their cemetery had been close to the Victors’ Village. He remembers playing too close once, his ma pulling him away. When his father died, they'd buried him there too. Once a tribute, always a tribute. 

Scott supposes that he'll be buried alongside his father one way or another, whether he dies here in this arena or back home years and years from now. It's a small comfort.

Kayo is still doing badly. Not as bad as she could be, but from her ashen complexion and the fact she can’t stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time, it’s clear she’s going nowhere today. Scott manages to get her to eat a couple of berries and have a few gulps of water at least. Then she’s out again, face relaxed in sleep.

There isn’t much for Scott to do, really. He spends the morning searching for edible plants, berries and mushrooms, never daring to stray far from the hollow. With that restriction, his finds are pitiably low. Food never stops being a worry in the arena, and every day he spends here Scott can feel the lack of it taking its toll on him. Even then, he knows he’s been lucky. There have been much worse arenas, particularly when he was younger. This year they’ve had food, water, and shelter. Small mercies.

Kayo next opens her eyes when he’s back in the early afternoon, sorting through their remaining food supplies. There’s one packet of dried beef jerky left, some salted crackers, and a tiny wheel of cheese, plus the couple handfuls of berries he found and a few mushrooms that’ll be good cooked (once he’s comfortable risking a fire, anyway). The snares had been empty when he checked, unfortunately. Scott smushes the cheese onto the crackers and tries it alongside some berries; it turns out to be surprisingly pleasant. He wants to offer some to Kayo, but she’s already out cold again. She may not be showing any signs of infection, but healing is clearly still taking a toll on her body. Scott settles for leaving some next to her for when she next wakes.

He heads out again in the hopes of catching something for dinner, but has no luck. Maybe the Gamemakers are doing this on purpose; it’s definitely been getting harder to catch wild animals as the Games have gone on, and the woods that had once been alive with noise are now almost silent. Scott has to head back to the hollow empty-handed. With their food situation being the way it is, he’s hoping Penelope will send something, but no silver parachute descends from the heavens. There must be some reason for it - possibly other tributes in the area. Whatever the reason, it means they’ll be going hungry soon if nothing else changes.

At least their hiding place remains well-camouflaged. He doesn’t eat anything that evening, aware of how little Kayo has eaten these past two days and the energy levels she will need to build back up once she’s feeling up to it. He sleeps fitfully, still paranoid that someone may stumble upon them - it’s happened before - but when the sound of rain wakes him, the sky is already light.

The poor weather lasts the whole day. It’s less of a rainstorm and more of a deluge, water pouring down in torrents that must be intended to discourage any of the tributes from moving, because Scott would have to be crazy to even consider going out in that. He wastes time by unpacking and repacking his bag several times (coming across a small box he’d forgotten he had and setting it aside for later), drawing patterns in the dirt, and whittling down a stick he’d found yesterday to almost nothing. (He’d never been very good with boredom, and it turns out the arena is no different.)

Kayo stirs at around noon, looking a tiny bit better than yesterday, and she manages to stay awake for a bit longer this time. Scott helps her to drink more water - her lips are looking parched - and she manages the last of the crackers, forgoing the portion of the cheese and berries he’d set aside yesterday for her.

“How’re you feeling?” he asks once she’s finished eating, smoothing her hair back from her forehead. Kayo relaxes minutely at the feel of his cold hand; her skin is hot and she’s running a fever.

“Not amazing…” she admits. “I want a bath.”

Scott chuckles. “Me too, kid. I never thought I could miss wash day this much.”

Kayo cracks a smile. A tiny one, but it’s there. Scott counts it as a win.

“You know, we do have running water outside…” he starts, nudging her shoulder gently. “If you stand in the rain, it’ll almost be like the Capitol showers. Just, y’know, colder.” Kayo huffs, but shakes her head slightly, wincing at the movement.

“Maybe tomorrow.”

Scott pauses for a second. “How about I just do your hair?”

Kayo’s hair looks like it’s been through the wars. The shorter bits at the front that have escaped her hairstyle are either plastered to her forehead or sticking out in clouds of tangles. The two bunches that hold the rest of her hair haven’t held up well at all, looking worryingly matted in places. He knows how much pride Kayo takes in her hair and its length, along with her appearance in general. It would upset her no end to see the state it’s in right now.

Kayo nods sleepily, and Scott gets to work. 

It’s no easy feat - some of these knots are vicious, mixed up with twigs and leaves - and he has no brush to work with, but he perseveres, reluctant to give in and cut off precious locks. He pulls apart the tangles and removes the souvenirs left by the forest, using his fingers to comb out the hair as he goes. Working from the bottom up, he loses track of exactly how long it takes. Kayo spends a lot of it dozing, resting her head on his shoulder. Scott does have to poke her awake at one point to shift her position. The bandage holding the gauze in place over her eye socket gets in the way a little, but he just detangles all the hair around it as best he can.

When that’s done, Scott takes the hair ties and uses them to fix the ends of two long plaits. It’s a strangely comforting ritual. His mind goes back, unbidden, first to the night on the train where he’d done much the same thing, each trying to find comfort in the other’s presence after being essentially handed a death sentence. Then it goes back further, to summer-autumn days during the harvest: long hours in the fields with family, those rare days when summer rain would fall and the young kids would laugh and spin with their arms stretched out and bare feet splashing in the puddles. Kayo’s plaits would spin with her, whirling with her skirts, before Gordon or Alan inevitably started shoving her and each other and they’d all end up brawling in the mud. 

Scott misses those days. They had been hard, terrifying sometimes, even. But at least finding where the next meal was going to come from was all he’d had to worry about.

As if taunting him, Claudius Templesmith chooses that moment to make another

announcement. Scott hastily shakes Kayo awake, and they listen with bated breath. Kayo’s arm grips Scott’s tighter as the words sink in.

At midnight tomorrow, there will be a Feast.

Notes:

this might be the last chapter for a while, depending on how things are going for me (though I am also doing whumptober as enrichment, so stuff will still be going up in October!!). I can't believe we're so far through already though! only 5 chapters left :3

Chapter 19: xix: feast

Notes:

[slides in and skids on the floor and nearly falls flat on my face] heyyyyyyyyyy

Scott’s first thought is that this must be the reason for their lack of sponsor gifts. In previous years, the commentators have noted that gifts can’t be sent to tributes for a set amount of time before a feast, whether it’s been announced or not. His second thought is that going to the feast is a terrifying idea, Given how the last time they came face to face with the Careers went, everything could go abysmally wrong.

His third thought is that they’re going to have to go anyway. When he looks over at Kayo, it’s clear that she’s come to the same conclusion.

“Man, this sucks,” she groans, her head thudding gently against the rock as she leans back and casts her gaze despairingly at the sky. Scott chuckles slightly hysterically.

“Come on, it could be fun,” he says light-heartedly, nudging her with his foot.

Kayo levels him with a look. “I have a killer headache. The last thing I wanna do right now is hike a full day all the way back to the Cornucopia just to get stabbed by one of the Careers.”

Scott sighs. “Yeah, I agree. Walking sucks. But from the sounds of it, there’ll be some good food there. And we could really use some.”

“Boooo.”

As if in response to Templesmith’s announcement, the rain outside is finally dying down. Which, to be fair, isn’t far from the reality. Scott imagines some faceless Capitol lackey flicking in a switch in a clinical control room, changing the weather in the arena at a literal click of a button. He wonders if it’s one of the Gamemakers he had his private training, or some poor sod right at the bottom of the food chain who’s been stuck with weather duty for the past however-many-days it’s been. After all, the arena’s huge; who knows how many people it takes to keep this whole thing ticking?

Meanwhile, Kayo is looking at him expectantly. Scott blinks, his grasp on the conversation thoroughly lost. “What?” he asked awkwardly.

“I said,” she raises her eyebrow, “what’s the food situation? Will we be alright until midnight tomorrow?”

“Oh, uh…” He fumbles in his pack for the neat packages of their food he’d sorted out only this morning. “We really need to catch something tomorrow, I think. But for the minute we’ve got the beef jerky, three quarters of the cheese - half of that’s for you, I ate mine already - and your portion of berries.” Kayo pulls a face, and he nods in agreement, ignoring the gnawing in his stomach. Scott’s had a lot of practice at disguising his hunger, and right now he’s not about to reveal his discomfort to his sister - or his family watching back home. An easy smile graces his lips instead. “Hunting’s going to be a heck of a lot easier now you’re awake, though.”

Kayo smiles wryly. “Yeah, somehow I don’t think so. I can barely see. I don’t think I’m going to be much use when we’re hunting…let alone in a fight.”

There’s a hint of resignation in her voice. Scott pounces on it at once. “Don’t go thinking like that,” he warns her sternly. “I’m not abandoning you again in this arena. Not ever. We’ll go to the feast together, and I’ll protect you, just like I said I would. There’s no world in which I’m going home without you, you hear me?”

Blinking at the sudden passion in Scott’s voice, Kayo nods slowly. Her hand seeks his out, warm and familiar. “Besides,” he continues, “you probably just need a little time to get used to things. We can do a little target practice on the way, if you like. You can still attack people from a safe distance.”

Kayo hums unhappily. “My slingshot’s useless against anything bigger than a rabbit. Besides, I’ve only got two knives if you count the one the One girl threw at me, and the other one I have is too heavy to throw.”

Scott grins, reaching behind him for the little case he’d nabbed right back at the Cornucopia, just after the bloodbath. He’d almost forgotten he’d been carrying it the whole time. “Actually…”

He hands it to her, placing it in her lap. Kayo glances at him curiously as she fiddles with the clasp, lifting the lid carefully. Her eyes go as wide as saucers when she sees what’s inside it. “Scott, what- where on earth did you get this?!”

“Been carrying it since day one,” he tells her smugly. “Popped it in my bag without any of the Careers noticing, just in case. Thought you might appreciate them.”

“And you’re only giving them to me now? It’s been, like, four whole days!” She smacks him on the arm - only just hard enough to sting a tiny bit, but he of course flops about in mock agony whilst Kayo makes an exasperated face at his antics. “Dude. Honestly. I was going to be all sappy and hug you or whatever for this, but you’ve ruined the moment.” Scott sits bolt upright immediately, probably looking like a kicked puppy. Kayo relents, wrapping one arm around him in a side hug. He presses a kiss to her forehead.

“Thank you,” she murmurs happily.

“You’re welcome,” he replies. It’s a bit of a morbid ‘gift’ to give to his kid sister, but hey, it’s the Hunger Games. Shit’s miserable.

Their supply of purification tablets is low, too, but they’ll be alright for another day or two if they’re careful. They take full advantage of the steady supply of running water nearby and drink their fill - Scott really doesn’t want to die of dehydration, it’d just be embarrassing after surviving this long – and then, because the rain has died down by the evening, they both jump on the chance to bathe. Scott’s done his best to keep clean so far, mostly by wiping himself down with a rag and water, but he’s not really had the chance to properly bathe since the start of the Games and he’s really feeling it by now. Kayo still needs some help, but she manages to get out of the hollow and down to the stream, where he carefully washes her hair, making sure to keep her dressing dry. They’re both down to their underclothes (Scott refuses to get butt naked on Capitol television) and squealing at the cold water, and he finally feels a tiny bit more normal. Scott doesn’t miss the look he gets from Kayo when she spots his mutt wounds, though, even though they’re healing well. He dismisses them. She raises her eyebrow, but doesn’t press the matter. He doesn’t fail to notice that she’s gained a few injuries of her own. He takes a little comfort in the fact none of them look infected.

They agree to set off the following morning, judging the Cornucopia to be maybe a day’s hike (they’re high enough up that they can just about see the golden horn glittering in the clearing) if they head down in a straight line rather than following the winding river. It’ll give them enough time to find a place to lie in wait, ready for the feast. The anthem that night confirms that there have been no further deaths. Kayo falls asleep first, and Scott lies awake for a while just watching her chest rise and fall, slow but steady. She looks so peaceful that he doesn’t have the heart to wake her when the time comes for them to switch the night watch. Instead he leans over and tucks the sleeping bag round her, brushing a stray hair back from her face, before lying down himself. Hopefully the Gamemakers are invested enough in saving the drama for the feast that they’ll keep the other tributes away for the time being.

Kayo sleeps in again the next morning. She's still paler than Scott would like - the blood loss was and is his biggest worry, given they seem to have avoided infection - but at least some of the colour has returned to her cheeks. She assures him that she'll be alright to hike down to the Cornucopia. He's too scared of leaving her alone to argue much. Besides, Claudia's Templesmith had used the phrase ‘strongly encouraged’ when making the feast announcement. Usually, that means that there will be consequences for anyone not in attendance.

And they'll also probably starve to death if they don't go. So.

They have the last of the beef jerky for breakfast. Scott is hoping almost in vain that they'll find something on the way, but the natural supplies have been dwindling over time. It's not beyond the Capitol's abilities to remove them entirely, he supposes. The arenas are their own carefully crafted little worlds, the danger of the wilderness combined with the absolute power of the Capitol. Look at how you'd be living, if it weren't for us. Watch how we control nature itself. See how powerless you all are against our might.

They chat about nothing in particular as they set off. Kayo points out some plants she recognises from home, recalling to the best of her ability their cooking purposes or medicinal properties. Scott jokes about their stylists, how they'd be horrified to see the state of their arena outfits (his clothes are ripped in several places, and the once yellow fabric of their t-shirts have dulled over time, stained with dirt and blood and sweat that wouldn't entirely come out when they'd tried to wash them). It feels almost like being at home again, sneaking into the woods with his little sister. But then he remembers the cameras - hidden but certainly there - or catches sight of the bandages still covering half Kayo's face, and he remembers all over again.

The whole journey is however weirdly peaceful, despite the minor sense of impending doom that's dampening both their spirits. Scott had rearranged both of their packs to give Kayo a lighter load (though still leaving her some useful stuff in case they're separated for whatever reason - hope for the best, prepare for the worst. One of his grandmother's catchphrases, and his father's before he died), but she's still flagging, so they take more breaks than they had before the Career ambush despite heading downhill, not uphill.

They stop for the final time before heading down and finding a spot to spy on the Cornucopia till the feast. Scott makes use of the dying light to change Kayo's dressing. No sign of infection. He focuses on that, rather than the grisly mess that used to be her eye. It's almost worse now the swelling has gone down; he can clearly tell that the knife tore straight through the eyeball. 

Kayo studies him impassively with her good eye. “That bad, huh?” she says.

He thinks about lying to her for a second, then decides against it. “Pretty much.” His eyes flicker for a second, unable to hold her gaze. “Sorry.”

“Not your fault,” she remarks blandly. “Besides, it's not exactly hard to tell how bad it is. I lost my sight when the knife went in, and there's been nothing since, not even when you took the thing out. My eyesight isn't coming back.” 

Her good eye is dry, her mouth pulled into a half-smile. Only the slightest waver in Kayo's voice gives her away. Scott doesn't hesitate before pulling her into another hug - she squeaks at the sudden movement - and planting a fierce kiss on her forehead.

“I remember when you were little,” he says, changing the subject abruptly. “We'd always known each other ‘cause of our dads - I remember seeing you ‘round when you were a baby, even - but this was when you'd just turned five. You were so tiny, all knees and elbows, but you were the most determined five-year-old I'd met.”

“Gordon must've been pretty bad when he was little too,” Kayo interjects cheekily, poking him in the ribs.

“True,” Scott allows, “but you definitely made him worse. The two of you cause more trouble together than you do apart and you know it.”

Kayo giggles.

“Anyway, we were on the outskirts of that little garden near the Victor's Village, do you remember it?” She nods. “John was climbing up his favourite tree to sit up on a branch and read his book. You wanted to climb too, but you were too short to do it the way John did. You were getting really frustrated - kicking the tree trunk, crossing your arms, pouting - but then I turned away for two seconds and somehow you'd done it. Jumped up and grabbed the branch, swung yourself up or something, I'm not sure exactly. But you were a natural, and you loved it up there.”

Kayo hums, resting her head on Scott's shoulder. “I don't remember that at all.”

“It did happen, honest,” Scott chuckles. “But I was so proud of you for that. You've not changed since then. you know.”

“Still climbing trees?”

“Still not letting anything stop you. Always finding a way round whatever tries to block you from what you want. You're determined, you're a fighter. And I'm still so, so proud of you.”

“Oh,” says Kayo softly, and then a second passes before she's wrapped even tighter round his waist, and all of a sudden Scott is blinking back tears. He allows himself five seconds of stillness, of accepting the contact, counting stubbornly in his head to distract him from the abrupt intensity of emotion. Then he pulls back. Kayo sniffs, turning her head away and adjusting her bag strap. Neither of them say anything for a second. 

“Let’s go win this thing, hey?” Scott nudges her. Kayo takes a second to turn back and face him; when she does, her eyes are bright but determined.

“They aren’t going to know what’s hit them.”

 

---

 

The plan, as it turns out, is quite simple.

They arrive on the outskirts of the clearing a little after dark, giving them a good amount of time to prepare. Despite the fact it’s night, the arena is bathed in light. Scott hasn’t bothered to keep up with the moon phases - clearly a fabrication, just like the rest of the arena - but tonight the full moon looms large, perfectly illuminating the whole forest. The perfect spotlight for the excitement of the upcoming showdown. 

Kayo offers to scale a tree to scout out the Cornucopia, but Scott point-blank refuses to let her with her impaired vision. He goes up instead, severely regretting his choice about six feet off the ground. It’s slow going, but he nestles in a fork in the trunk and surveys the area. There’s no activity. In the middle of the clearing, the Cornucopia glitters strangely, blue-white light pooling in the dips, nooks and crannies of its shining gold surface. Around its mouth, Scott can just about see the scorch marks from the fire that had destroyed the Careers’ supplies. The rest of the structure seems completely untouched. No sign of the promised feast. Of course, they’re still a little ways off midnight. He wonders how they’ll send the food in.

Scott’s attention turns to the rest of the clearing as he attempts to spot any sign of the other tributes. As he surveys the area, he realises that something seems…off about it. The moonlight is reflecting strangely on the grass: much too bright, and strangely rippling. Then he realises.

“They’re flooding the arena,” he says urgently, feet thudding back onto the earth.

“What?”

“The whole marsh is submerged,” Scott confirms. “It looks like the clearing’s flooding too, but I can’t tell how deep it is. I wouldn’t be surprised if it carries on rising into the forest after tonight.”

“Must be why it’s been raining so much,” Kayo muses. Scott nods; he hadn’t thought of that, but it makes sense. “Does it mean we need to change the plan?”

“Nah. Just means my feet’ll get a little wet.” Kayo rolls her eyes.

Said plan is incredibly simple. Scott, being the faster and more likely to survive a close-quarters fight, will run in for whatever gift the Capitol leaves them. Kayo will stay on the outskirts as backup and attack from a distance if possible. Obviously her injury puts her at a disadvantage; he has no idea how much help she’ll actually be, given that her aim’s been thrown off-kilter. To be honest, he mostly wants to keep her as far away from the fight as possible.

The wait is long. They transfer the majority of Scott’s supplies into Kayo’s pack so that he’ll be less weighed down in a fight. Kayo gets in position halfway up a tree with a good eyeline to the Cornucopia, Scott hovering nervously in case she slips (she doesn’t, of course, not even with her lack of depth perception; he hadn’t needed to worry so much earlier). He heads around the outside a little further so as not to give away her position, burying himself in the undergrowth.

Finally, the telltale hum of a hovercraft catches Scott’s attention. He keeps his eyes fixed on the Cornucopia. The craft lines itself up perfectly with the Cornucopia’s mouth. A table, suspended by strong cables, is lowered down. He can’t make out what exactly is laid out on top; it’s just a bunch of indistinguishable blobs at this distance. The cables detach, and the hovercraft retreats.

Now what?

No one is moving. Scott doesn’t know where the other tributes are, if they’re planning something. He doesn’t want to be the first to make a move - but if he hangs back much longer, there will be nothing left. They’ll be without food for another day at least, until the sponsor gift ban is lifted, and they’re both already feeling the hunger.

Oh, what the heck.

He runs for it.

The Cornucopia is maybe fifty, sixty paces from where he’d hid. Ten paces in and Scott has already reached the water. If no one has spotted him by now, they’ll surely hear the racket he’s making, splashing along like this. It’s deepening a little, slowing him down.

Thirty paces away. Scott piles on the speed. 

He’s nearly there when another tribute sprints out suddenly from behind the Cornucopia. It takes him a second to place the tribute from Ten; it’s been so long, he’d almost forgotten what he looks like. Instinctively, he raises his axe. The boy from Ten stills for a moment, clutching a thick blade Scott thinks is a machete. They stare at each other. Scott barely dares to breathe. Then, Ten boy nods his head slightly and lowers his blade. Scott does the same, exhaling slowly. A truce.

He turns his attention to the table just in front of the mouth of the Cornucopia. Six little bags, presumably each containing a single portion of food. One for each of them, if he’s done the math correctly. The boy from Ten has made it to the table and is grabbing four of them. Scott splashes the last few feet and snatches up the last two, hooking one of the straps round his wrist rather than wasting time stuffing them in his pack. 

That’s when Fuse charges straight into him, knocking him off his feet and sending him plunging into the water.

It’s not very deep - maybe reaching his mid-calf - but it’s enough. Scott is completely submerged. He’d not been able to take a full breath before Fuse slammed into him, and his lungs are already burning. The District Two tribute’s grip is like iron. Scott struggles to shift his hands even an inch, trying to gain any ground he can, but to no avail. The water roars in his ears.

A flash of inspiration hits him through the growing lightheadedness and weakness, and Scott gives up on breaking Fuse’s hold on his neck and goes for his legs and stomach instead. He kicks out wildly, hoping to strike. The boy is on top of him, on his knees, which means when Scott manages to catch him in the gut. Fuse grunts in pain but doesn’t let go. Scott kicks out wildly again and again and again until Fuse roars, his grip loosening. Scott seizes his chance. He hits upwards with his hands, breaking Fuse’s hold on his throat, and surfaces, coughing and sucking in as much air as humanly possible. The feast bags are floating in the water. As soon as he can breathe again he snatches them up in his left hand.

Fuse is still doubled over, stumbling backwards. Scott notices he’d not drawn his sword yet; it’s still in its scabbard on his belt, where Fuse is only now unsheathing it. He briefly wonders why, then casts the thought aside. Whatever the reason, it means he’s not ended up impaled on the boy’s sword, so he’s happy to take the win.

On the other side of the Cornucopia, the Ten boy hasn’t made it away. Petra is swinging viciously at him, and he’s only just managing to keep ahead of her attacks. It makes sense; he’s gone and taken District Two’s bags as well as his own. This is Scott’s chance to make a break for it - whilst Fuse is recovering and Petra is distracted. He turns to run back into the forest, the quickest route he can see, when he spots a strange rippling in the water, travelling rapidly towards them. His eyes widen as he recognises the movements; they’re identical to the movement of those otter things that had attacked him right near the start of the Games.

“Mutts!” he bellows, throat protesting violently at its use so soon after Fuse’s assault.

“Fuck off, Nine!” the boy from Two bites out, straightening up, his sword in a vice-like grip. “I’m not buying your shit!”

Scott points at the distortion in the water, already backing away from it. “I’m not kidding - they’re from the marshes, they’ll tear you apart if you don’t run now!”

He locks eyes with Fuse. The Two boy stares back, jaw tense as he scans Scott’s face. Across the meadow, the other two have stilled for a moment, Petra turning to look at where he’s pointing. With the sounds of fighting dying out, they can hear a low chittering, getting closer by the second. Fuse curses as he realises the truth to Scott’s words.

“Petra, run!” he hollers. Scott’s already scrambling away, running in the opposite direction; Fuse heads toward his partner. Ten boy is a little ahead of them still with all four feast bags, having managed to get a head start. The mutts are gaining. The water thrashes deafeningly behind him. Scott’s throat is in agony with every breath he’s taking, but he can’t stop running and he needs the oxygen. He can’t hear the noise he’s making as he splashes through the shallows over the screeches of the mutts and the way they’re churning up the water all around him. The forest line is right there, along with the edge of the water. Scott practically throws himself onto dry land, feeling the ghosts of the mutts’ snapping jaws and slashing claws grazing his legs. He scrabbles at the dirt on his hands and knees. Turning back, he sees with relief that the mutts aren’t daring to leave the water any more. Instead they tumble over one another, the water so thick with their bodies that it’s like they’ve become one writhing entity. In the distance, he can see the others almost in the forest, more mutts leaping from the water and biting at their heels.

Miraculously, he’s made it through unscathed. Scott takes a minute to catch his breath, shuffling further away from the water’s edge just in case. He also stashes both feast bags in his pack, just in case. Once he doesn’t feel like he’s dying, he clambers to his feet and sets off for the rendezvous point.

Kayo’s so well-hidden in her tree that he almost ends up walking straight past her, even though he knew where she’d set up camp. She drops down behind him - somehow making almost no noise - and clears her throat. He jumps about a foot in the air.

“Shit, Kayo, what the hell?” he wheezes, clutching his heart. She just snorts, giggling maliciously.

“Sorry,” she says, in a voice that tells him she’s not sorry at all.

Scott huffs. “Whatever.”

“You got the feast stuff?” she double-checks. He nods, holding the bags up as proof. “Nice. Saw you being a badass out there, by the way. Good job.”

Scott grins; it looks like she’s actually being genuine for once. “Aw, thanks.”

Kayo exhales, her gaze softening. For a moment, her flippant attitude fades away. “You alright?” Her eyes flick to his throat, where he can imagine some gnarly bruising is already forming. He rubs it self-consciously.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worrying.”

“Sure you’re not.” Kayo doesn’t say anything, and Scott moves on, sensing that she clearly doesn’t want to talk about it. “How about we head up before we settle down for the night? I want to put some distance between us and that water just in case.”

Kayo tilts her head. “In case what?”

“A feeling.” Scott pauses for a moment. “I think the Gamemakers are going to carry on flooding the arena. And those mutts…”

Kayo finishes his thought. “They’re going to attack anyone who’s in the water.”

“I’ve been attacked by them before, and that was on dry land. I barely made it through. If we get attacked in the water, we’re screwed.”

“So we go up.”

Scott nods. “We go up.”

Notes:

okay lowkey had forgotten how much of a banger this chapter is heehee!!!! AND the next two are both crazy crazy so hooray! nearly at the end of the games now!!!!!! i had so much fun writing this section i won't lie

and just to reassure everyone: my goal is to finish this fic before the new year. it WILL happen. i am not letting this thing follow me into 2026 LMAO

Chapter 20: xx: flood

They’re both exhausted, but they hike for maybe another half an hour before finally setting up camp. Scott suggests they both sleep in the trees again for good measure - just in case the water reaches them overnight - and Kayo agrees. He insists on giving her the sleeping bag and uses his rope to secure her in the tree, just in case. Scott settles for taking first watch instead, finding a relatively safe spot to sit on the off-chance that he dozes off. He almost does, but the sound of a cannon jerks him awake and nearly shocks him out of the tree. He can see the whites of Kayo’s eyes gleaming below him as they stare, unnerved, at each other.

They both remain frozen like that for a while. They’re down to the final five now, Scott realises with a jolt, and they won’t know who died until the morning anthem. His mind runs through all the possibilities.

“Two or Ten,” Kayo says quietly. Scott nods, letting his head thud against the tree trunk. Two or Ten. Fuse, Petra, or one of the others. Scott can’t even remember their names, he realises guiltily. Maybe he never will - the projections in the sky only list a tribute’s district, after all. He doesn’t know who he hopes the cannon was for. Logic dictates it’ll probably be easier for them if it’s one of the Careers. He decides to go with that. They’ll all have to die if he and Kayo are to make it out, anyway.

After that he ends up falling asleep properly. Kayo wakes him in the mid-morning. “I’m hungry,” she tells him matter-of-factly. “Come on, let’s see what you got from the feast.”

It’s fair enough; Scott’s also starving, now he thinks about it. He opens his pack and pulls out the two bags, chucking one to Kayo. He unzips his, sighing in relief at the bone-dry interior. Guess they must be waterproof after all.

They’ve both got two sandwiches - proper fancy ones, with all sorts of vegetables and slices of meat and a delicious creamy cheese spread - as well as some fresh fruit, more cheese, and some crackers. They elect to save the fruit, cheese and crackers for later, but tear into the sandwiches with gusto. Maybe it’s because of the complete scarcity of food these past few days, but it tastes like the best thing Scott’s ever eaten. Kayo’s humming happily as she munches her way through her sandwiches. 

The anthem plays just as they’re finishing their food. Both of them peer up at the murky sky, just about spotting the hazy blue hologram hovering above them, the colours dripping down like ink on paper when water’s been spilled on the page. Scott squints and manages to make out the number ten below the portrait of the kid he remembers from the feast. So the pair from Two made it, then.

“Wonder what’s happened to his ally?” Kayo wonders aloud. “I remember thinking she’d never make it past the bloodbath, but she’s survived this long, so maybe we’ve underestimated her.”

Scott merely shrugs. He’s still conflicted over the survival of his old allies. Part of him had hoped that the tribute from Ten would be able to take at least one of them down with him. Then Scott wouldn’t have to do it himself.

“Should we get going, then?” Kayo asks tentatively, after Scott doesn’t say anything for a while. He sighs and hums in agreement. They climb down from their tree and set off.

The forest is looking even more green today. Scott’s not sure for a while if it’s just his imagination, but when he points it out to Kayo she nods. “It’s the rain,” she tells him, pointing at the sheen of water on the leaves of the bushes at their feet. “I’ve noticed it at home, too. The plants must like it.”

“That makes sense,” Scott hums. “Kind of the opposite of a drought.” There are tiny patches of grass here and there in their hometown, mostly in people’s tiny back gardens or out round the verandas. In the height of summer, they tend to turn a miserable browny-yellow, as dry and crumbling as the cracked dirt around it, and in winter they struggle in the cold. It only follows that the plants would thrive in the rain. It’s the kind of detail Scott would never really notice; the beauty of nature has always been more Virgil’s thing.

Around noon, the heavens open.

Scott’s stomach drops as the rain starts. It’s worse than anything they’ve experienced so far: sudden, heavy, and violent, like nothing he’s ever seen in nature. Usually the canopy would help to shield them, but there’s so much water that it’s getting through and soaking them both through in an instant. Kayo shrieks and flips her hood up; Scott does the same. It doesn’t help much. “What do we do?” she shouts over the relentless drumming of the rain. She’s raising her voice a lot, but Scott’s still struggling to hear her; it’s a constant rushing, like the rapids of the river they’d been at only a couple of days ago, slamming relentlessly onto his hood and thundering in his ears.

“We have to find somewhere more sheltered than this!” he hollers back. “We should carry on uphill - the water level’s gonna rise a lot more now.”

They keep going for as long as they can, but the rain is relentless, hammering down on them until Scott’s convinced he’s going to end up with bruises. Kayo’s putting on a brave face, but she’s clearly disguising worsening pain in her bad eye even with Scott attempting to shield her as they walk. He ends up suggesting they build a small shelter, hiding under the twisted trunk of a tree that’s grown at an odd angle. Kayo stays there whilst Scott has a search for some fallen branches they can use. He’s really missing their little rock hollow about now; it was tiny, but at least it would’ve kept them dry. Their shelter is monumentally shit, but the good news is that he manages to weave a dense enough roof of leafy twigs snapped off nearby trees, propped up by some larger branches, that the worst of the rain is kept off them.

Kayo’s bandage is soaked through. Scott tries not to panic too much about what it’s done to her injury, and instead dries her face off as best he can before padding it with the last anti-bacterial bandage and securing that with one of the ones he’d washed.

“We’re in the endgame anyway,” he reassures her, saying it for his own benefit as much as hers. “They can fix you up real soon if we win this.”

“And if we don’t win, it won’t matter, right?” Kayo says dryly. At Scott’s probably horrified face, she snorts. “Kidding. Well, mostly.”

“We might as well stay here,” Scott sighs, changing the subject. Kayo nods in agreement. It’s nearly evening anyway, and he spent a decent amount of time building this rickety shelter so isn’t keen to abandon it so quickly. Dinner is a little more substantial, making the most of the last food from the feast: cheese and crackers, washed down with one little punnet of strawberries each.

Kayo actually smiles as she pops a strawberry into her mouth. “It tastes like summer,” she says, savouring the flavour.

“Remember when you’d come home with little bags of berries after school- “ Scott leaves out exactly where she got the berries, refusing to implicate his family in anything illegal even now- “and Alan would get so excited? Everyone loved it, but him most of all.”

“He’d always end up with blackberry stains all round his mouth,” Kayo laughs. “He’d always pretend not to sneak a couple extra, but you could literally see it on his face.”

“Not a very effective lie,” Scott laughs along with her.

“And Grandma would bake them into pies…”

“Or try to, anyway.”

Kayo grimaces. “Her improvisations never really worked, did they?”

“Well, when you’re having to substitute half the ingredients…“ Scott pauses as he takes another strawberry. “It’s a miracle her food tastes as good as it does.”

“That’s true.”

He wants to talk more, to reminisce, but he’s uncomfortably aware (as he almost always is) of the cameras trained on them at every turn. Even that little anecdote feels wrong to share – like another piece of himself laid out on display for all of Panem to see. At least his family back home were part of that audience, he supposed. The thought of Alan’s little face lighting up at the memory eases that unsettled feeling a little.

Kayo senses that the conversation has petered out, and doesn’t speak again. They walk in comfortable silence onwards and upwards.

The trees are sparse up here. They’ve been heading in a straight line rather than following the river, and so they’ve made it higher than Scott has ever been in the arena. The ground is a little rocky, but still with enough cover to conceal them from the remaining tributes from a distance. In the dying light, Kayo risks climbing up a particularly big rock to get a view of where they’re headed and to gauge their distance from the water line. (Scott elects to stay on the ground; he’s finally got the hang of tree-climbing, but doesn’t particularly want to push his luck). She crouches low, cautious of being spotted. When she relays the view to him, she speaks so quietly he almost can’t make out what she’s saying.

“The water’s a bit of a way away,” Kayo tells him, pointing downhill. “About where the forest gets thicker. And up ahead it gets flatter, and less rocky. I can’t see anyone, but-”

She’s interrupted by a cannon. Kayo instinctively flattens herself down; Scott’s back collides with the rock as he flinches. His heart thuds in his chest. Only two tributes left. They’ll find out soon, too, if the setting sun is anything to go by.

The distinctive whir of a hovercraft is almost immediate - so immediate, it’s almost odd. Scott and Kayo exchange a furtive glance, both staying still just in case the hovercraft’s appearance stirs the attention of the remaining tributes. The craft dips down, jaws descending into the forest. Despite himself, Scott can’t help but keep watching as a body is pulled from the water. It’s a distance away, but not far enough that he can’t make out some of the details. Long hair, hanging limply downwards; stick-thin limbs; skin too dark to be Petra’s. It must be the Ten girl, then. But then Scott realises with mounting horror that something looks terribly wrong with her. There’s a stifled gasp from above him as Kayo notices it too.

One of her arms is half missing. From the brief look he gets before the hovercraft takes her out of sight, the rest of her body is in similar shape. Chunks of flesh torn out, claw marks gouging deep lines in her skin. Scott puts two and two together very easily. She must have fallen into the water somehow. The mutts would have pounced on her in seconds, torn her to pieces. She never stood a chance. It explained why the hovercraft arrived so quickly, too; no one else had been there when she died to keep it from approaching right away. 

Scott feels a strange stab of sympathy for this girl he barely remembers. To die painfully and alone like that must have been awful.

The hovercraft disappears into the distance. Eventually, Kayo scrambles back down from the rock, dropping cat-like and silent next to him. She straightens, looking a little ashen. “Did you-” she starts, but Scott raises his hand to stop her. 

“I know,” he says softly, “but don’t think about it. She’s gone now.”

Hesitantly, she nods. Scott half-smiles sadly, pulling her in for a hug.

“I suppose it’s one less tribute to fight,” Kayo murmurs, resting her head on his shoulder. “That’s something, at least.”

“It is,” Scott confirms. “There’s only the Twos left now. This’ll be over by tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Kayo echoes. “D’you really think so?”

“Absolutely.” 

They can’t drag it out forever, that’s for certain. The Capitol citizens will be losing their minds by now, making theories and exchanging bets and getting ready for their final Games parties. The streets must be heaving with citizens on all the latest mind-altering substances, gawping at larger-than-life projections of all their faces on massive silver screens. There’ll be dinners at houses and nights out at the clubs and all the frivolous nonsense that ends up on the news on the holoprojectors back home.

And in District 9, they’ll all be watching with bated breath. Scott still hopes that Grandma and John have kept Alan and Gordon away from the screens as much as possible, but at this point the pair of them must be all the District’s talking about. The finale will be mandatory viewing for sure. Maybe the camera crews are getting ready for final family interviews right this second.

They all must be terrified.

The two of them set up camp at the base of a rock formation, nestled together for warmth. Kayo’s wincing a little, stopping herself from scratching her eye, but when Scott asks she brushes it off as nothing. He’s a little worried that the water might have somehow irritated her still-healing wound, but there’s nothing he can do except try and trick himself into believing her excuse of an itchy eyebrow.

As the last sunlight dies out, the distinctive beeping of a parachute directs their attention towards the sky. “One final meal,” Scott comments as he opens it, looking at its contents. Two portions of the Capitol stew, still steaming hot. And two apple pies, their pastry crispy and golden, for dessert.

“Penelope’s spoiling us,” Kayo remarks. But her eyes are wide at the sight, brimming with excitement at the thought of hot food. “Thank you!” she exclaims, emboldened by the parachute’s arrival, turning her head up to the sky and beaming. Scott echoes her, blowing kisses up to where he imagines the cameras must be. A show of appreciation for the Capitol citizens, of course, but in his mind he’s only thanking his mentor.

Both of them drop into near silence as they dig in. Scott points out that there’s no point saving any of the stew, as they’ll definitely need their strength for tomorrow. He’s a little worried that they may not even get to the morning without something happening, though he doesn’t say this to Kayo. Better to take advantage of the lull in action now rather than save food for a future meal they may not get to have. At any rate, he’s so hungry it’s all he can do to slow down his pace and not make himself sick.

“D’you want to save the apple pies, at least?” Kayo says hesitantly.

“It’d probably be a good idea,” Scott sighs. “Just in case. We could have them for breakfast tomorrow if there’s time.” Kayo eyes hers longingly, but wraps it back up in the little cloth it had been sent in. Scott does the same with his, putting it in his pack. The thing is a lot lighter than it had been when he first split off from the Careers. No food left except the pie, barely any water (they’ve been rationing for the past few days, and he’s sorely missing the river). Kayo’s knives are neatly attached on the inside of her jacket; they abandoned the case they were in a while back to avoid lugging around any extra weight. There’s the rope, the tiny medkit, and a few matches, but that’s it; even the purification tablets are gone by now. He’s likely going to abandon the sleeping bag in the morning, too, so it doesn’t hinder him in the final fight.

He takes first watch as usual. Kayo goes quiet next to him; for a while Scott’s sure she’s asleep. After a while, though, she shifts, good eye peering up at the stars. He looks over at her questioningly.

“The stars are all wrong here, aren’t they?” she whispers. “I don’t know nearly as many constellations as John or you, but I can’t see any of them at all here.”

“I noticed it too,” Scott replies, shifting a little so he can better see them too. “I think it must be a projection the Gamemakers made, so they can control what we see up there. I might be wrong, but I’m pretty sure they’ve been making the days shorter and the nights longer, like how it is in autumn or spring.”

“It doesn’t feel like summer,” Kayo agrees. “Especially the temperature. But I thought maybe it was because we were somewhere else in the world. Like how some Districts have different timezones.”

Scott doesn’t reply. After a moment, Kayo exhales softly, a little puff of air. “I miss our stars.”

Me too, Scott thinks. But he doesn’t say it.

“What if we make up our own constellations? Just for tonight. Then these can be our stars too.”

“Yeah,” Kayo hums. She goes quiet for a moment, as if deliberating something, then points at a small cluster of bright stars on Scott’s right. “Those ones look a bit like a person sitting down,” she says, drawing the outline for him. Scott nods in agreement, seeing exactly what she means.

“What’s he sitting for?” At Kayo’s look, he shrugs. “Constellations should have a story. They’re not just shapes.”

“He’s thinking about something. Maybe inventing, or coming up with some new ideas, about...” Kayo sounds weirdly frustrated. “Well, I don’t know! I’m not good at telling stories.”

“No, that’s not bad.” Scott squints up at the sky again, seeing if he can make out any shapes. It’s more difficult than he thought; it’s a lot easier when someone else has thought the constellations up for you already. “There’s some there in a triangle too,” he adds eventually. “Over there.” 

Kayo follows his finger up and snorts. “A constellation that’s just a triangle is stupid.”

Scott huffs indignantly. “You come up with a cooler thing that it could be, then, I dare you.”

Kayo pauses. “Alright. Well…it’s a ship. Look, the triangle part is the sail, and below them there’s the sort of…boat bit.”

“Not much better than mine,” Scott gripes. Kayo elbows him and he yelps. “Sorry, sorry.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Scott has one last go. “You see those six stars, almost in a row? They look a bit like a bird. Not when it’s sitting, when it’s flying.”

“They do,” Kayo remarks, sounding almost impressed. Scott smiles triumphantly. “What are the stories for your two, then? The boat and the bird?”

Scott thinks for a bit. “The boat’s gone out fishing. The fisherman who owns the boat is catching food for his family. And the bird is flying back to its nest.”

“Not your best work, Scott.”

“Hey I didn’t make fun of your thinking guy.”

“Fair. Sorry.”

“S’ok.” Scott shuffles back again, propping himself up against the rock. “You should get some sleep, Kayo. You need the rest.”

“Fine. Night, Scott.”

“Night.”

Scott stares up at those constellations for a long while, after Kayo’s breathing evens out and she’s fast asleep. He hadn’t wanted to say the first stories that came to mind when he looked up at the little boat and at that bird - too afraid the sentiment behind them was too treasonous. But in his mind, the little boat sailed out to sea, further and further away from the mainland and the ever-reaching influence of the Capitol. The bird soared high in the sky and never looked back. In his mind, he’s on that boat or in the sky with that bird, far far away from the arena with its fake forest under fake stars.

At some point, he wakes Kayo for her watch. The night is hazy and unreal, but it feels like he’s barely dropped off when Kayo’s shaking him awake again. He blinks up at her; it’s still almost pitch-black, save a little light from the moon (now only half-full, though it’s barely been two days since the feast). Despite the dark, he can clearly see the panic on her face.

“There’s something nearby,” she hisses.

Notes:

a nice quiet chapter before the INSANITY UNFOLDS!!!!! we are nearly at the end now everypony!!!!!!! woohoo!!!!!

Chapter 21: xxi: endgame

Scott sits bolt upright. He grabs his axe and swings his pack onto his shoulder. Kayo does the same. They abandon the sleeping bag; one way or another, they won’t be spending another night here. Ready to move, Scott stands still and listens out for the enemy.

Kayo’s right. He can hear something moving, coming at them from the forest. Too cautious to be a mutt; they tend to charge straight at their prey, programmed to burst out of their Gamemaker cages and straight into action with as little warning as possible. It must be Fuse and Petra. But do they know where Scott and Kayo are? Or have they simply stumbled into the same area as them?

Scott jerks his head, prompting Kayo to climb up the rock they’ve been sheltering under. He’s keen for her to get off the ground and out of danger should it become a full-on fight. Cautiously, she does so, scrutinising the landscape to try and spot the pair from Two. She gestures at him - thumb and forefinger, barely an inch from each other - then points diagonally to the right. Very close.

Scott catches a glimpse of a red t-shirt peeking around the corner before there’s a flash of metal under Kayo’s jacket and a howl of pain signifying that her blade has found its mark. Fuse backs into view, whirling round in frantic search of the mysterious attacker. Petra stumbles after him, blood pouring down her arm from where the blade nicked her. Scott clutches his axe in a death-grip.

“Fuse!” he yells. The boy whips round, furious. “Come and get me!”

But before he can, something roars in the forest.

Fuse’s eyes are wide, terrified. Scott’s head turns to look downhill. At first he can’t see anything. But a second roar answers the first, and then the arena comes alive with the sound. It sends an awful icy cold dripping down Scott’s spine, a primal kind of dread. The pair from Two both turn to look at him, and a silent truce is made.

“Run!” Scott screams.

And they do.

Kayo almost falls flat on her face as she tumbles down from her perch, Scott grabbing her jacket to keep her upright and hauling her along with him. The Twos sprint incredibly fast, pulling ahead of Scott and Kayo almost immediately; they run on the rocky ground like they were born to do it. But then the ground evens out, and Scott and Kayo start to catch up.

Unfortunately, so does whatever’s behind them.

Up ahead, Fuse and Petra come to a halt. Scott slows to a stop immediately when he sees why. In front of them, the ground drops steeply away, straight down to blue-black water. In the moonlight, Scott can just about see what must be an ocean stretching away into the distance, churning and frothy where it meets the jagged rocks closer to shore. They have come to the end of the arena: a steep seaside cliff, certain death for anyone falling off it.

Behind them, the ground thunders with the impact of the mutts on their tail. Scott turns around to face them. It’s not the otter mutts - though he hadn’t thought it would be. No, these beasts are much bigger. Surprisingly there are only three of them. But they’re huge. Snarling, muscled, covered in black fur. They slow down as they approach, fanning out in an unnaturally rigid formation. They remind Scott of a creature he’d once seen on a Capitol documentary, detailing dangerous animals from the Dark Days that the Capitol had since trapped outside the districts for Panem’s protection. Bears. These things, though, are somehow even bigger than the ones he’d seen on the holos. No wonder the Gamemakers had only sent three of them; one would be more than enough to finish all the remaining tributes off.

Well, fuck.

The one focused on Petra pounces first. She swings her sword desperately, but it’s too late. Its claws swipe into her shoulder and she screams, the strength of the blow sending her stumbling to the side. Fuse looks as if he’s about to run to her rescue, but a second bear is zeroing on him. He leaps out of the way of its snapping jaws and pounces back onto his feet, just about hanging onto his sword. The bear lands and pivots back round to make another attack run. Fuse settles into a defensive stance. His face is ashen with a mix of terror and blind determination.

The third bear is snarling, a low and threatening sound like thunder on the horizon. It turns its head towards Scott. He curses internally, readying his axe. But then it changes tack - turns its attention towards Kayo.

Kayo, to her credit, doesn’t panic. She flings a knife, nailing it in the shoulder as it charges, but the thing’s almost superhuman and doesn’t stumble even for a second. Scott doesn’t think as he launches himself towards his sister. He leaps at the last moment, slamming into her and twisting to try and take as much of the impact as he can as the pair of them tumble to the ground. The air rushes above their heads as the beast barrels through the space they had been only a fraction of a second before. His ankle, the one he’d twisted falling from the tree after the parachute attack, gives way again. Something snaps under the skin and he knows he’s going to really feel it later.

More screams pierce the air. Scott rolls to the side, pushing himself up. The bear targeting them has stopped for a moment, tilting its head towards the other remaining tributes. Scott takes advantage of the distraction and tugs Kayo away from it, backing toward the cliff face.

Petra calls out for help, her voice hoarse; she’s the one that’s been screaming. Even from a little distance away, Scott can see why. Her jacket has been ripped to shreds, the left sleeve barely more than rags. What fabric is left has been plastered to her arm by the blood pouring from deep gouges across her body. The hand still doggedly clinging to her sword is stained red. She doesn’t look like she’s going to survive much longer - and from the expression on Fuse’s face, he knows it, even if she doesn’t herself. But her ally is pinned down by the second mutt, locked in a stand-off, and he can’t break off to help her without being torn to shreds.

“Stay out of range,” he snaps at Kayo, voice taut. He pushes past the pain in his ankle and half-runs, half-hobbles towards the Twos. Scott has no idea what his plan is. There’s no way he could beat one of these mutts, let alone two - and that’s not even counting the one already focused on him. But this doesn’t feel fair. Petra doesn’t deserve to die like this, torn up into meat paste by some engineered beast. Penelope is probably screaming at him right now for running to help his enemies and risking everything. And yet here he is. A stupid, foolhardy, reckless boy, running straight into danger for people that want him dead.

“Hey! Ugly!” he yells, waving his arms frantically. The mutt focused on Fuse tilts its head towards the noise. Scott keeps yelling and brandishing his axe. That’s right, keep looking at me.

Fuse seizes the opportunity. He darts forward, slashing at one of the bear’s paws. The sword doesn’t cut all the way through, but it gets close; the mutt’s arm is hanging uselessly, held on by sinew and flesh only. Scott can clearly see where the bone has been sheared in two. The mutt lets out a terrifying howl and rears onto its hind legs, its other front paw swiping blindly in front of it. Fuse has to dart back to avoid having his face sliced off.

Scott, however, moves in.

He slides right underneath the beast, swinging his axe in an arc above his head. The blade carves its belly right open; he hurriedly scrambles away again, terrified of being trampled under its feet as it begins to stagger. He doesn’t quite avoid one flailing paw that tears through his left shoulder. It’s deep, he can feel that immediately. Not life-threatening just yet. He watches his blood pour down his arm with a detached sort of fascination.

The beast’s guts spill out onto the grass. Fuse lets out an incoherent cry of triumph. Grievously wounded, in moments the beast collapses, too weak to hold itself up. Only two left now.

Fuse is already racing over to try and help Petra. He gets there too late.

The other mutt has taken full advantage of the tributes’ distraction. Fuse is only a few feet from his district partner’s side when the bear swipes almost lazily through the air, catching Petra full in the chest. The impact takes her off her feet. She thuds to the ground with a crunch and doesn’t get back up. After a few seconds, the cannon fires, and even though there’s only one person now left between them and victory, Scott feels oddly hollow.

The fight seems to drain out of Fuse as he stares at his district partner, limbs twisted at odd angles like a marionette dropped in a heap on the floor. Scott calls out a warning, trying to get him to focus back on the second mutt - the one that just took out Petra - and the third, which seems to be zeroing in on both of the boys. Kayo’s skirting around the edge of the fight, trying to get a good angle. One of her knives zips over Scott’s head and thuds into the second mutt’s eye; it rears, roars, bats at its face to try and dislodge the blade. The thing isn’t down yet, but it’s clearly now struggling to see. They have an advantage.

The third mutt roars. Fuse is still frozen to the spot, unable to tear his gaze away from Petra’s lifeless form. Scott yells at him again, and he finally turns, but the beast is almost upon him. Fuse tries to duck - the thing catches him in its jaws – but the boy from Two’s sword slices straight into its skull. Death is instant. The mutt’s jaw goes slack, dropping Fuse on the grass. Its body swiftly follows. One massive paw lands on Fuse’s side and he grunts in pain.

Strangely, the final mutt doesn’t attack, despite still being more than capable of tearing the rest of them apart, injured as they are. Instead, it slinks back down the hillside, vanishing amongst the rocks. Kayo and Scott lock eyes in disbelief.

The fight is over.

Eventually, Scott tears his gaze from where the last mutt disappeared. With the danger finally gone, he becomes painfully aware of the pained wheezing coming from down by his feet.

Fuse is still lying on the ground, face twisted in agony. His sword remains buried to the hilt in the vanquished mutt’s skull. One of its paws is haphazardly thrown across the boy from Two, effectively pinning him down. Scott stares down at him, silent and unmoving. The growing pool of blood - some of it the mutt’s, some of it clearly not - laps at Scott’s boots. The mutt’s paw is hiding a large part of Fuse’s torso, but it’s clear that some sort of horrific injuries lie concealed beneath it. His leg is bent at an unnatural angle; it likely snapped clean in two when the bear dropped him. Fuse isn’t going anywhere in a hurry.

Despite being pinned and in pain, the boy from Two manages to twist himself around just enough to look up at Scott. There’s a hollow kind of acceptance in his eyes. Both of them know he’s in no condition to put up any kind of fight.

Scott and Kayo have won.

“What…are you waiting for, Nine…?” Fuse rasps, so quietly Scott almost doesn’t hear. “Do it.”

Scott stares down at the axe in his hand, dripping with black blood from the mutt he’d disembowelled. He could end this. No more waiting, no more arena. But as he looks down at Fuse, he can’t bring himself to land the killing blow. There’s no life or death situation here, no threat to himself or his little sister. Just an old ally, bleeding out in the dirt,

“Sorry, bud,” Scott smiles wearily. “Not happening.”

He casts his axe away and kneels down at Fuse’s side. He heaves the massive paw off him, slowly but surely dragging him free of the mutt’s corpse. Fuse’s hands are clammy in his. Fuse tries to help shuffle himself clear, but it’s obvious that his strength is rapidly draining.

Once he’s finally free from the mutt’s corpse, Fuse tries to get to his feet. He doesn’t get far. His legs tremble and collapse in on themselves when he’s barely a few inches off the ground, and even though he tries again - Scott still doing his best to help pull him up - it’s just not happening. Kayo’s approached cautiously, limping a little. Now Fuse isn’t trapped under the mutt, they can all see the deep puncture marks in his torso made by the bear’s teeth. They’re a deep, bottomless red-black. Blood is spilling freely onto the grass and pooling around him. Fuse’s skin is so ashen it’s almost grey. Kayo stares at Scott knowingly; clearly, she’s reached the same conclusion the boys have.

“Fuse?” Scott says hesitantly. Kayo squints at him inquisitively; he ignores her.

“Hm…?” Fuse is struggling to focus, but his eyes eventually lock back on Scott. Scott carefully crouches down again. 

“I, um… Thank you,” Scott murmurs. “For trusting me, right at the beginning. I know I didn’t repay it, but…thank you anyway.”

Fuse licks his lips, chest rattling. “Sure. Whatever.”

Guilt seeps in as Scott crouches there, watching his old ally bleeding out. For the first time, Fuse doesn’t seem at all intimidating. Scott can see his youth, no longer marred by Scott’s own fear of the Career pack. In another world - one where Scott had been the one living in a Career district like Two - he could see himself in Fuse’s shoes. On the surface, the richer districts seem like worlds away from the tiny rundown town Scott’s called home for the past six years. But, in the end, he and Fuse aren’t that different. Both just trying to survive this nightmare, trying to go home to their loved ones. He thinks of Fuse’s sister, watching her brother die on national television right at this moment, and his heart aches.

“I’m sorry things ended this way,” Scott says. It feels like an empty apology.

“...Me too.” Fuse reaches out and grasps Scott’s right hand. His skin is slick with blood, but Scott holds on tight. “When you- when you visit Two… tell Havoc I love her. And… I’m sorry I failed…sorry I wasn’t strong enough.” His eyes are slowly flickering shut as he fights unconsciousness.

“You were strong, Fuse,” Scott tells him fiercely. “You were so strong. It’s luck, that’s all. Just luck. You didn’t fail. You fought with honour.”

The words feel fake - unbearably fake - but Fuse’s lips curl into a tiny smile all the same. Scott squeezes his hand again. Fuse’s fingers flutter faintly against his palm.

His eyes slowly prise open and his mouth forms those same two words again, so faint Scott almost doesn’t catch them. Do it.

“I - I don’t think I can,” he murmurs, heart clenching in his chest. Fuse’s gaze drifts to somewhere past Scott’s shoulder. He mouths one more word.

Please.

When Scott doesn’t move, Kayo kneels down next to him, her mouth a grim line. Her knuckles are white around her knife. She looks one last time to Fuse for confirmation. He jerks his head infinitesimally. Scott looks away.

There’s the sharp sound of a blade slicing through flesh, a shuddering inhale from Fuse. Then a slow exhale. The airs shifts next to him as Kayo moves back again. Seconds later, the cannon fires. Scott squeezes his eyes shut.

He allows himself five seconds of quiet mourning. Five seconds of regret. Then he pushes himself to his feet, reaching out instinctively for his little sister. Everything feels so surreal, it’s almost impossible to accept that they’ve done it. They’ve won.

A fiery pain is shooting down Scott’s leg to his ankle. Blood is still pouring from his shoulder, dripping all the way down his arm and coating his hand in red. He isn’t worried. It’s only pain. In minutes, they will be on a hovercraft, and all of this will go away. Kayo wriggles out of her jacket and presses it to his wound. He lets her. His eyes are fixed on the sky, expectant.

There’s only silence.

“Is - shouldn’t they be announcing it?” Kayo’s clutching his arm tightly, turning her head left and right as if Claudius Templesmith is going to burst from the ground to congratulate them personally. “Why aren’t they announcing it?”

“Maybe we just need to move away from…” Scott gestures behind him, to the body he won’t look at. Kayo nods and pulls him to his feet, tugging his good arm over her shoulder. Together, they hobble away from the bodies littering the clearing, ending up staring out over the water. Scott sits. Kayo kneels next to him, still applying pressure.

“D’you think the sea is that big?” Kayo wonders.

“Bigger, maybe,” Scott says. “Dad said that when he went to Four, it seemed to go on forever.”

“What d’you think’s at the other end of it?”

“Don’t know.” He can’t take his eyes off the horizon. “Maybe the end of the world.”

They don’t say anything more. Everyone knows you aren’t supposed to wonder about what lies beyond Panem. The Gamemakers probably won’t even broadcast their treasonous speculation.

“What’s taking them so long?” Kayo asks again.

“I don’t know.” Scott’s too exhausted to try and figure out the Capitol’s plan.

Both of them go back to staring out at the horizon.

“Y’know,” Kayo says abruptly, “we’ve still got those apple pies from yesterday.”

Scott grins so wide he thinks his face will split open. “No way. You’re right.”

He tugs his pack one-handed off his back (it weighs almost nothing, now, so close to the end) and Kayo makes him keep pressure on his wound so she has both hands free to retrieve the pastries. They look just as good as they did when they arrived in the parachute: golden, crispy, browned with a caramelised sugar coating. She hands him one and keeps ahold of the other.

“Cheers, Penelope.” Scott raises it to the heavens as if toasting her. “See you soon.” Kayo giggles and does the same, before bumping her apple pie against his. They bite into them at the same time, and Scott’s mouth explodes with flavour. Somehow, it’s even better than he remembers.

As they eat, the night slowly begins to morph into day. It takes him aback for a second before he remembers the Gamemakers’ power. Surely this must be a good sign. He can hear the twin hovercrafts behind them, lifting the pair from Two out of the arena. He does his best to ignore it and polishes off the rest of the pastry in record time. The sweetness helps distract from the throbbing in his arm and ankle – though, admittedly, not by much. Kayo sighs happily and rests her head against his good shoulder, hooking her arm round his.

“Greetings to the final contestants of the Seventy-Third Hunger Games.”

Scott almost flinches at Templesmith’s disembodied voice. Kayo startles upright. They both clamber to their feet.

Scott stares up at the sky as it continues to lighten, an unnaturally quick sunrise banishing the shadows from the arena. “The earlier revision has been revoked,” Templesmith continues. “Closer examination of the rule book has disclosed that only one winner may be allowed. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favour.”

He blinks in disbelief. Vaguely, he registers Kayo releasing his arm.

This can’t be happening.

It can’t. It isn’t fair. They can’t just change the rules back like that, so abruptly, right before the end. They can’t.

Kayo’s shaking. Tears streak through the dirt and blood on her face, her good eye shining in the morning light. Scott thinks he might throw up.

He’s just going to have to return to his previous plan, then. Kayo goes home. He stays. Scott just hates that he’s going to have to die now, in front of her. She’ll remember this for the rest of her life. He hates that. Hates the Gamemakers who approved the stupid rule change in the first place for giving him false hope like this.

Kayo steps toward the cliff edge. Scott almost doesn’t notice, caught in a haze of his own feelings. But she takes another step, and as she sniffs and wipes away her tears the movement shakes him out of it like a bucket of icy water has been dumped over his head.

Scott shudders into action, racing to grab her forearm and pull her round. “What the fuck are you doing?” he snaps. Kayo stares dumbly at him like a deer caught in headlights. 

“What the fuck, Kayo? Were you - “ He can’t bring himself to say it. “No. Absolutely not.”

“One of us has to die,” she murmurs blankly.

“Not you!” Scott yells. “You can’t think I’d just - no, Kayo. No.”

She finally looks up at him. “I can’t leave here without you,” she whispers roughly, every syllable scraping her throat. Through the tears her eyes are hard with determination. “I won’t.”

And Scott realises with absolute certainty what will happen if he dies here. Kayo will go home a shell of her former self, to brothers who watched their eldest sibling kill himself rather than come home to them. John will have to do what Scott himself had to when Dad died. Kayo’s money would keep her and Kyrano safe, of course, but they have no legal relation to the Tracy family - and Scott now knows just how strict the Capitol’s laws regarding a Victor’s winnings are. His blood family will have nothing. All of his brothers will have to take out tesserae.

But he can’t kill Kayo.

As they stand there, frozen, Scott’s gaze flits to the cliff edge. Then up. Somewhere in the sky, there must be hidden cameras, capturing this from all angles. The Capitol are watching with bated breath. And then it all clicks.

They just want a good story.

That’s what the Games are truly about. Not who’s the best fighter, not who can survive the longest, but who provides the most entertainment. The fake out with the rule change is just that - an added plotline, the final twisting of the knife to get the last two tributes to perform just a bit longer. They want them to turn on each other, or one of them to make a noble sacrifice: something to keep the Capitol talking for years to come. Well, Scott’s done playing their game. 

“I’m not going home,” Scott says. Kayo shakes her head defiantly. “I’m not. I can’t go home without you.” He cups the side of Kayo’s face, looking right at her.

He lowers his voice. “Do you trust me?”

She nods.

“Then…we go out together.”

Scott turns to the edge of the cliff. Kayo follows his gaze. “It’s a long drop, straight down to the rocks. No way we’d survive. It’ll be quick.”

Kayo still looks unsure for a moment. Then her face sets and she grasps his hand. “Together.”

Scott nods. “Together.”

They start walking to the edge.

Slowly, at first. Then they pick up speed. Scott’s feet thud against the ground, ankle protesting loudly. The wind rushes through his hair. Kayo’s nails are digging into his palm. Still no announcement. They’re almost there now. The sea is so wide, stretching on forever. Scott wonders what’s at the end of it. He’ll likely never know now.

“Stop! Stop!”

They’re a foot away from the edge. Scott drops immediately, yanking Kayo back as she almost stumbles straight over the cliff face. They thud unceremoniously onto the dirt.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the victors of the Seventy-Third Hunger Games, Scott Tracy and Kayo Kyrano of District Nine!”

Scott almost bursts into tears.

 

---

 

The hovercraft arrives only a minute later. Every inch of Scott’s body aches. It’s not just his wounds (he’s accumulated a worrying amount over the however-many-days it’s been, all in varying stages of healing) but his muscles, his skin, his head. Stringing together thoughts becomes increasingly difficult. Still, Kayo is next to him, and he refuses to let go of her hand.

“We’re going home,” he whispers again and again. We’re going home.

Twin ladders drop from the sky. They both stare apprehensively up - still expecting some final gotcha that will leave them trapped here forever - but they each grab onto a bottom rung and nothing happens. It’s the same strange frozen-in-time sensation as the hovercraft from the Tribute Center. The ladders are raised up simultaneously; they’re still holding hands.

The arena vanishes from view. As they’re raised into the steel grey of the hovercraft, Capitol doctors swarm. They break Scott’s grip on Kayo - it takes three of them, one holding on to each of them whilst the third tears their hands apart - and at the loss of contact, Scott snaps. He screams, kicks, bites one of the white-robed Capitolites. Overwhelming terror that they’re going to take Kayo away from him for good has flooded his body. Someone is trying to talk to him, but he can’t hear over the roaring in his ears.

Eventually, there’s a sharp scratch on his arm, and the world fades out.

Notes:

holeeeee fuck guys.... we are DONE with the games!!!! and i'm headed home this weekend so i will finally have the time to sit down and finish this fic in a way that does the story in my head justice!! i hope you've all been enjoying the insanity that is the games and i hope you'll enjoy the ending too :>

hope you're all having a FABULOUS time! lots of loveee

Chapter 22: xxii: victory

Notes:

this one was a BITCH (wrote it without reading the end of the hunger games book to compare the order of victory shenanigans and completely misremembered how everything works so i had to piece together a whole ass new chapter :')

They still haven’t let him see Kayo.

He's been out of the arena for…he doesn’t know how long. They’ve kept him pumped full of drugs, and time slips by in a haze of amorphous pain dulling his senses and the odd sensation that he’s wrapped in clouds. In the brief moments of consciousness he manages to snatch, he gains the impression of a blank and soulless room. The sun is nowhere to be seen in the facilities they’ve locked him away in, just a strange yellow glow that mixes badly with the drugs to become rippling flames eating away at the ceiling. There are restraints around his wrists and waist. He fights them at first, but quickly learns that there’s no use in it. Sooner or later the drugs always pull him back under anyway.

The first time he stays awake long enough to be semi-functional, someone appears at the foot of his bed. They wear the uniform of the Avoxes; Scott remembers them from back in the Training Centre. He wishes again that he could ask their name. They place a tray gently in front of him and disappear into the wall (for a moment he thinks the drugs are still making him hallucinate, but it seems to just be another feat of Capitol engineering). The portion is tiny, but he only just manages to finish it without throwing up. Then something is fed into his arm and he’s out cold.

It happens a few more times. Sleep, wake, food, sleep. Each time he feels a little stronger.

Scott awakes again to find the restraints gone and himself feeling strong enough to stand. He does. Then nearly launches straight into a panic attack.

Because at the foot of his bed, sitting patiently, is his arena outfit.

Not the one he was really wearing, he realises belatedly. A clean one, with no holes from fire or torn-off strips that he’d used as makeshift bandages. (Just like him, in fact; he’d noticed when he woke up this time that he had once again been scrubbed clean of every single scar he’d gained in the arena. Scott thought that having those reminders of the awful things that happened taken away would have been comforting, but instead he feels uneasy.)

It takes him a second to remember what the outfit is for. A memory surfaces of footage a few years back, of the mousy girl from Four clinging to a boy her age and sobbing. This is what he will wear for the reunion with his team.

He can see everyone again.

That thought helps Scott put on the outfit without throwing up and step towards where he knows the door is. Eventually it swings open into a long hallway. He pokes his head out cautiously.

“Kayo?” he calls out. “Hello?”

There’s no response. Then his gaze falls upon a little group of people in the room at the end of the corridor. A flash of familiar golden-blonde hair catches his eye and spurs him into action.

Scott hurtles straight into Penelope’s arms. She’s so reassuringly the same: little pops of pink in her outfit, cornflower-blue eyes, her distinct floral smell. She kisses the top of his head and whispers “welcome back”, and he can feel the tears pricking at his eyes.

He hugs Elpis next, who seems almost as emotional as he is. Clodia actually looks happy for once – he doesn’t hug her, but goes for a handshake just to please the cameras (because of course there are cameras. There are always cameras).

The whole time, though, he’s wondering where Kayo is.

Scott goes to ask Penelope, but she’s seen the question in her eyes. “They want you to reunite live,” she informs him. “Saturn’s with her.”

“Kayo – she’s okay, though?”

Penelope nods.

For the minute, that will have to be enough. Scott manages to smile and goes in for another hug.

Elpis guides him off down winding corridors and up, up, up to the ground floor. It turns out he’d been under the Tribute Centre the whole time. They cross the foyer and head all the way up again to the ninth floor. Nobody is around. Their footseps echo in the emptiness. The place feels like a ghost town.

His prep team materialise out of nowhere when the elevator doors open. They fuss round him, a whirlwind of activity as they shepherd him into the dining room for his final meal before the interview. The sudden influx of people is making him feel kind of sick, and he only just keeps the small portion of food they allot him down.

Then it’s prep time proper. The team rush around, sorting out his shower and his makeup and his hair. They’re all being very sweet, too, but Scott really isn’t in the mood. He’s relieved when Elpis reappears with his interview outfit. She hangs it up carefully then wraps him up in another hug.

“It really is so good to see you – properly, not with all those cameras around,” she says when they both pull away, patting him on the shoulder. There’s a flicker of concern as she briefly scans his body, properly taking in the weight loss the arena inflicted on him, but she quickly moves on. “I’m so proud of you, you know. You did so well in there.”

Scott smiles a little hesitantly. “Uh, thanks.” They’re words he’s heard endlessly in the past hour from his prep team, when they greeted him and as he ate and as they fussed around him. But Elpis means them differently. She’s not congratulating his performance or gushing over the persona he’s inadvertently created for the cameras - she’s just happy that he survived.

“Now,” she continues, “I’ve got your interview outfit here. Penelope, Saturn and I thought it best we go for a…certain look. Saturn is doing the same with Kayo. We want you both as natural as we can get you. It’s good to remind the audience who you truly are for this interview, as the final lasting impression of your Games.” There’s something in her voice as she says that. Scott nods with a little trepidation.

“I’m sure Penelope will talk with you a little more about the image we’re looking to convey,” she says meaningfully. “But if you pop it on quickly, I’ll make sure the fit is alright. Digital sizing is usually accurate, but I’d like to be certain before you’re on camera.”

Scott moves obediently as Elpis gently guides him into the outfit. Despite her concerns, it fits perfectly. It’s tailored to disguise his weight loss as much as possible, but doesn’t quite succeed. He stands there in front of the mirror, Elpis’ hand on his shoulder as she checks him over, and a stranger looks back at him. The Capitol clothes had made him feel unlike himself before, but now he doesn’t recognise his reflection at all. Scott stares at hollow cheeks and too-smooth skin and feels nothing.

He doesn’t say another word to Elpis until she leaves. It clearly worries her a little, he can tell from the way she glances back as she opens the door, but he can’t find it in himself to care. He just wants it all to be over.

When he follows Elpis out into the foyer, Penelope has reappeared. Before he can join the throng of people in the dining room, she grasps his shoulder and pulls him to one side. “Let’s get some fresh air to clear your head before you go on,” she says. He shrugs and lets her drag him out of the room.

The elevator ride up is quiet. When the elevator doors open, he’s never been so glad to see the colour green. The open air wakes him up, breaks through the haze of drugs he’s been on ever since leaving the arena. Scott closes his eyes and just breathes it in, relishing in the breeze ruffling his hair and brushing softly against his bare skin. Lyme’s garden is still in full bloom; when he opens his eyes, the beauty of it hits him anew. For the first time in days a smile tugs at his lips.

“This is…” He exhales slowly, taking it all in. “Thank you for taking me up here.”

Penelope smiles tightly. “I’m afraid it’s not what you think, Scott. We need to talk.”

Scott hasn’t ever heard Penelope be this serious - not even the night they parted, right before he went into the Games and didn’t think he would come out again. He eyes her apprehensively. “What?”

She jerks her head toward the railing at the edge of the roof. They walk over. Scott already misses the plants, even though they’re just behind him.

“You’ve made a lot of people very angry, Scott,” she says lowly. Scott opens his mouth to ask a question, but she raises a hand in warning. “Let me speak. Your stunt with the podium explosives already upset the Gamemakers. Fermat was the one to execute it, however, so with his death you had seemed to just about get away with it.” Scott flinches at the mention of his old ally, but Penelope continues without hesitation. “And then your…suicide pact with Kayo.”

“I didn’t know what else to do - “ Scott starts. Penelope glares, and he falls silent.

“I know. The difference between me and the Gamemakers is that I know you. I know that you simply wanted to do what’s best for your family. But there are…suspicions that your actions may have been more than that.”

“More?”

Penelope truly looks worried now. “Think, Scott. You’ve just defied the foremost rule of the Hunger Games: that there can only be one victor. If someone from one of the poorest districts in Panem can do that and get away with it, then what’s to stop others from doing the same? You’ve challenged the foundation of this country.”

“I didn’t mean…”

“I know you didn’t. But now you’ll need to convince the audiences that you truly intended to die in that arena. That the thought of going home without your sister was worse than dying. That there was nothing more behind your actions.”

Scott lets that sink in. He stares out over the city, the neon lights of the Capitol night life smudging into unidentifiable blurs of colour in the distance. For the first time, he wonders if it might've been easier if he had died in the arena.

Then he thinks of his brothers back home. The brothers he'll get to see in mere days – if he doesn’t tread another foot wrong. If he makes sure to play his part. The thought steels him, and when Scott turns back around to face Penelope his face is set.

"I can do it. No problem."

Penelope nods. "Good lad."

 

---

 

When they go back down, Scott instantly misses the peace of the rooftop garden. The prep team chatter all the way down, but thankfully head off a different way as they head back to the Tribute Parade and the stage where the pre-Games interviews were held. Elpis gives him some encouraging nods and reassuring smiles (keeping the physical contact to the bare minimum now they’re surrounded by the media chaos, which Scott is surprised just how much he appreciates) but he's saving all his willpower for the interview so he barely says anything at all. If Elpis is worried by his continued near-silence, she doesn't let on.

Clodia has also reappeared at some point. Her fashion is appalling as ever; Scott stares, non-plussed, at her newly bleach-blonde eyebrows. It is not a good look on her. When she tells him happily that yellow and gold are all the rage now thanks to his district, he just about manages to react in what he hopes is an appropriate manner. Capitol fashions were not something he'd missed in the arena. Luckily she is swiftly yanked into conversation with a stressed-looking Capitolite in a headset and equipped with an official-looking clipboard.

Scott is left again with just Penelope. She doesn't have any more advice to offer him, just the comfort of her presence. He squeezes her hand tightly and focuses on the sensation to help keep him grounded.

Being awake for this long is definitely starting to get to him. Scott can feel his shaky grasp on linear time slipping; it has started to jump around, minutes passing in the blink of an eye or an eternity. It could have been five minutes or two hours, but out of nowhere Scott is being ushered into position beneath the stage, ready for his dramatic entrance (he remembers this from previous years). From down here he can see all the scaffolding, rough wooden beams holding up this temporary structure that will surely be torn down later this evening. A makeshift barrier has been hurriedly erected just to his right; he is told by the Capitolite with the headset and clipboard that Kayo will be on the other side of it.

All at once, Scott is reminded of the stakes of this interview. His future, his family's future, all rests on their next performance. He feels the urge to vomit.

Then the platform judders to life, the mechanism stopping and starting nauseatingly, and Scott is raised up. The cheers are deafening, the roar of thousands like a rumbling thunder. The stage lights blind him, flashes of lightning in the night sky. For a moment, the violent coming together of sight and sound paralyses him, his senses so overwhelmed that they shut down on him completely. But then he senses more than sees the figure next to him, and Kayo crashes into his arms, and for a moment everything is okay.

"Are you-" he whispers harshly into her ear as he picks her up and holds her tight (she shouldn't be this light, he registers with horror).

"I'm fine," she whispers back, words blurring together in her hurry to get them out. "I'm fine, I'm okay."

The crowd is still going wild. Scott reluctantly pulls back, waving out at them. Kayo does the same. Caesar's clapping just out of sight behind them. "What a greeting!" he exclaims, his toothy smile audible. "And what a pair of Victors we have here with us now - making history, not an easy thing to do. Incredible! Come, come, take a seat."

The usual armchairs have been replaced with a little couch. Scott sits down and immediately pulls Kayo close, one arm looped protectively round her shoulder. The crowd awws at the pair of them. He mentally prepares himself for two to three hours of this. Honestly, Scott's already wondering if he can do it; the hatred toward the audience who've been watching him and his sister suffer for weeks on end is so strong. But it's tempered by the fear of what the President and the Gamemakers will do to the rest of his family if he steps a foot wrong. So on with the show it is.

"We'll get onto all of your favourite moments soon, don't fret," Caesar is telling the crowd, "but first - Scott, Kayo, I have to ask. How does it feel to be back here, having beaten your competition?"

Scott looks to Kayo briefly, then speaks first. "If I'm honest, Caesar, I never thought I'd make it out. I wanted to give Kayo the best chance I could, and I was willing to die for her."

"You nearly did," Caesar intones.

"I did," Scott agreed. "That moment on the cliff, I thought that was it, and I was okay with that. But then…it was a dream come true."

Kayo nods, reaching for Scott's hand and squeezing it. "I couldn't have come home without him," she says quietly.

Caesar smiles again, flashing those pearly white teeth. "Truly wonderful. Family is just so important." He throws out an arm to the audience. "Don't you agree?" he shouts, and the crowd roar in response. "Now, I think we'd better get started on this recap, eh? Oh, I just love to see how tributes are transformed to victors."

The next three or four hours are a blur of condensed horror. Scott had been bracing himself for this moment ever since he'd realised it was happening, but seeing it all on the big screen was something else. He watched in paralysing clarity as screen-Scott sliced into that kid from Twelve in the bloodbath (they didn't include his mercy kill, he notices) and tossed a blade to Fuse that was driven right into Hollis' gut. He watches the Career pack slowly splinter apart, barely recognising some of them even though they had been alive and breathing in front of him only two weeks ago. There is no sign of the impromptu training session Petra gave him, or of the jokes Fuse had made and he had laughed at. Scott wishes they had included those. What they do include is the moment where he'd spotted Fermat in the bushes and helped him hide from the Careers. He supposes it works well with the narrative of their later allyship. Scott forces himself to take in every detail of his face, terrified of forgetting like he had the Careers.

The one thing that cuts through the haze of awful memories, at least, is the inclusion of Kayo's actions for those first few days. It’s a bit sparse - there weren't many close moments between her and Anise, even though Scott knows there must have been - but enough to show them sticking close together and making it out of the bloodbath with zero injuries and a decently stocked pack. They had surveilled the Career pack closely (sometimes very closely; it was a miracle they weren't ever spotted) and when Derrick attacks Scott there's a close-up shot of Kayo flicking a knife with deadly accuracy into his skull.

After that, Scott has to try incredibly hard to keep it together. Kayo nestles closer in to his side, prompting coos from the audience, and he holds her hand as tight as he dares without risking hurting her. His attention fades in and out. The Cornucopia goes up in flames. They show a clip of Fermat stumbling to the ground with one of Taffeta's knives in his leg, of Jill spearing him in the chest with her trident. Caesar asks him how he's feeling and he doesn't remember his reply. The Career camp erupts as the bomb goes off. Kids die on screen. He watches himself stumble and fall away from the scene and wishes that he'd died in that explosion. Then he registers the weight of his little sister's hand in his, and reminds himself that he hadn't kept on living for his own sake.

The scenes of him and Kayo reunited are better, but he doesn't like watching those. They were private, they were theirs, and here's the proof once again that the entire country had been watching too.

He fades back into oblivion.

Dimly, the deaths of the other tributes register, one by one. Anise dies and Kayo next to him somehow manages to hold herself together. Taffeta dies and Scott feels nothing at all. Ten boy and girl are barely featured, and only in their final moments. Scott remembers how he'd helped comfort her at the reaping all those days ago. They'd nearly made it. If it hadn't been for him and Kayo, they might have made it.

Or Fuse and Petra. They get to see those deaths again, too. He pretends they're just actors on a screen. All pretend. It certainly feels so pretend, all this death on the screen. It's detached from his memories, of the feel of the grass under his feet and the blood under his nails. Or maybe he's the one who's detached. Either way, he's grateful for the numbness.

Caesar talks to them a little more once the reel is done, and he thinks he plays it off well. Hopes that he does. Kayo is selling it too, every part the baby sister grateful for the protection of her big brother. Every now and again the knowledge of what is resting on their performance hits Scott again like a bolt of lightning, tethering his back to the present, only for his mind to start slipping away again. He keeps going and hopes against hope that it will all be over soon.

Then they have to stand and approach the President for the crowning ceremony. Dimly, he registers that he's about to meet the leader of Panem himself.

He's never seen the man up so close before. His snake-like eyes glitter green under the stage lights, his suit tailored to perfection. His fashion sense is a lot more subdued than the rest of the audience, gaudiness exchanged for sharp lines and deep velvet which lends him a gravitas no other Capitol citizen Scott has met before possesses. But there's something else that unsettles Scott deeply as he approaches. It's not until he leans close to place the crown - split symbolically in half, one piece going to each of them - that he realises what it is.

The president smells of blood.

It's faint, but it's there. A metallic tang Scott now knows all too well. For a moment he's right back in that arena watching Fuse bleed out on his lap - Anise dead in the mud at his feet - his sister grievously wounded in his arms. Then he blinks, and all he sees is President Gaat's cold, dead snake-eyes.

"Congratulations, Mr Tracy," he purrs, and Scott thinks that he might be sick right then and there.

He holds it together long enough, through the walk back to the front of the stage, for the final ovation and the exit into the wings. Then he doubles over and throws up into a mop bucket abandoned in a corner. Penelope has materialised back at his side, rubbing his shoulder blades and murmuring meaningless comforts. He wishes he could just go back now, hide away in his room in the Tribute Centre until the train back to Nine was ready to depart and he could see his family again. But no. Once Scott has drunk the liquid handed to him by one of the backstage team (which probably has something in it to stop him throwing up again) he must head out to the car patiently waiting to ferry them over to the President’s mansion for the Victory banquet. They must still make it through the next few hours before they are granted the luxury of sleep.

At least Kayo is there.

They cling to each other like the two children from the story his mother had told him when he was very young. The tale of the brother and sister lost in the forest, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs so that they won’t get lost – only for the trail to be gone when they turned around, leaving them stranded. The Capitol felt very much like the old woman’s gingerbread house from the story. That would probably make the President the witch who lured children in with sweeties so that she could cook them alive. It would be ridiculous if it didn’t ring so eerily true.

Scott loses his grip on time more and more throughout the evening. When he looks back, he barely remembers any of it apart from vague flashes. The cameras, the photos, the endless poses with the elite Capitol citizens all vying for a moment in the spotlight with the country’s shiny new Victors. There are no spare moments for him to even attempt to talk to Kayo. They put on brave faces and keep smiling until their team surge through the throng and strongarm them back to the car. He doesn’t remember any of the journey back, or the walk into the Tribute Centre and into the elevator.

When Scott next comes to, he stares around him, trying to get his bearings. Soft lighting of a crystal chandelier, heavy beaded curtains stretching across the entirety of one of the walls, sumptuous bedsheets and entirely too many pillows surrounding him like the bird's nest of the richest peacock in the world. It takes him embarrassingly long to recognise his room back in the Training Centre.

He tears off his interview outfit as quickly as he can and stumbles over to the wardrobe that is thankfully still there. He throws on the softest thing he can find. Then he all but collapses onto the bed, finally allowing himself to slip back into nothingness.

Notes:

surprise!!!! this is the new thing that i've only been going on about for uh-- two years now? oops... but i've gotten a lot of this written already, and i'm super excited to actually be able to keep on top of a project for once!! the hunger games and thunderbirds are two things i've loved for years and years and i'm properly excited to combine the two, especially since it means i get to explore areas of the hunger games universe that aren't touched on as much in the books/movies.

i hope you all enjoy this series as much a i'm enjoying writing it, and i hope you all have a wonderful day/night!

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of everybody wants to rule the world