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EIGHT

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𝐍𝐎 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐃 𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐀. Niko had been the last for at least twenty-four hours. Keres and Lia had eaten the last of the nuts and had only two granolas between the two of them left. Keres knew what she had to do and Lia knew it too, from the awful look on her face as she stared at the contents of their bags.

"I don't like it," muttered Lia with a shake of her head.

Keres sighed, zipping her bag closed. "We don't have a choice."

"We can go together–" Lia was interrupted by a coughing fit.

"And that's exactly why you can't go with me."

"I'm fine–"

"You woke up congested," said Keres. "You complained your throat hurts. The wet clothes, the cold weather, and the stress from yesterday...Lia, you're sick. You need to stay here and bundle up. I can go, catch a squirrel, some fish, get you a hot meal."

She crossed her arms, leaning back against the wall to grumble, "I still don't like it."

"You don't have much of a choice."

She slipped her arms through the bag and secured the extra strap across her chest to keep it from moving if she needed to run. Keres ignored the look on Lia's face as she wrapped her hand comfortably around the handle of the ax, finally finding the spots in the hilt where her fingers pressed against like butter, like she was molding it to her skin. It wasn't a sword, but it would do.

"Stay here," said Keres as she made her way to the stairs, "and keep away from the windows. Don't leave–"

"Not even if I hear you?"

"Especially not if you hear me," she said. "We don't know if the mimic from the day before is still here. We don't...we don't know how accurate it can be for someone who's still alive."

Docile and sweet Lia nodded her head, twirling the small knife Keres had given her in her fingers. Those hands had never been made for death and ruin, they should never have had to touch a blade. Keres could only hope they would remain stain free.

Keres left before she could be tempted to stay, but they needed food. They needed something warm to consume. Blood, guts, and soulness things are warm too. She was careful on the steps and as she crept out of the broken doorway and into the frosty air. It was easy to pretend she wasn't in an arena at all, rather, she was at home traipsing through the ruins of a decimated barn in the woods or stepping over beams and twisting metal in her old home.

Things were different here. More quiet.

It made it all the more dangerous.

Within the forest, it was easy for her to track birds and squirrels. It was even easier for her to toss her throwing knives and strike her prey. She tied her three squirrels with the rope, hooking it against her backpack to keep it from bouncing against her hip and thigh.

She lurked behind trees and bushes before throwing her knives with ease, aiming for legs and tails to make it more exciting. She liked the practice.

It still shocked her how much things had changed and were still going to change now that she was finally here. She was in the middle of her most ferocious battle, one of heart and mind, body and hands, blood and guts. She'd been thrown into this cycle of constant abuse and torture, whether that torture was for love and the abuse from the constant shedding of new skin (the death of her parents. the death of her first cow. the death of herself. of elma. of niko. of all of them before and after her).

You can never escape the cycle of death.

I never said I did.

She cleaned her knife against her hip from where she crouched behind the bush. She was close to the lake, back towards the Cornucopia. She hadn't sensed anyone near her but as she stayed crouched down, the more she became aware of a presence. It settled over her, the stare, like something cold on the back of her neck. The hair on her body was standing up from the chill, from the unsettled feeling.

When she turned, she saw no one, but the eyes were still there. She retreated herself further into the bushes, hiding herself completely against the leaves. The rustling she caused subsided as she stilled completely and the voices finally broke free and the strange feeling on her skin vanished.

Through her hiding place, she watched the golden haired monster come charging through with an awful smile on her face. Behind him, in his vice-like grip, he dragged a boy. Keres recognized him instantly as Koru. The sixteen year old was thrashing, trying to free himself, but his leg was obviously broken. Blood oozed from a fracture, bone poking through skin and pants.

A scream erupted off to the side where Vita and Bryn brought out a thrashing Tull who seemed to be all limbs. It seemed the District 7 tributes had decided to stick together, just too bad they were victims to Titus's glory.

Keres hadn't actually seen him so upclose before, although he was still ten yards away. It was almost like the nonexistent sun was hitting him at all angles. His skin was bronzed and smooth, save for the scruff against his cheeks. He was young, only eighteen like her, but he still looked like an adult amongst them. He could've easily passed as twenty-five, thirty maybe.

His jacket was skintight and she could still see the muscle that bulged and stretched the material. He was strong enough to break a neck, he would be strong enough to rip limbs from sockets and teeth from skulls.

"Come on," snarled Titus, thrusting his sword out at the trembling Koru. "We brought 'em right to you!"

"You wouldn't want us to play with our food for too long," muttered Vita with a sly grin as she kicked Tull's knee out from behind her, crumbling the girl.

Keres watched as Adonis Wilder stepped forward, his hair swept back except for two long strands that cradled his face. His dark eyes swept over the two cowering tributes and pulled a long knife from a sheath against his hip.

"But don't we want a show?" asked Adonis, bending down to press the tip of the blade to Koru's wound and the boy let out a howl. "Give the audience what they want, huh?"

"I don't wanna be the fun police," came a disgustingly familiar voice, "but the kid's hurt...put him out of his misery and get on with it."

It was a voice that could send her straight back to childhood.

Only a year younger than her but still so small. So fragile in her eyes, even he did tower over her.

Her brother's back was to her but she could see how his arms were folded, one thumb pushed into his mouth to gnaw on his fingernail. His hair was curlier than normal, probably from the rain, and there was a tightness in his back that told Keres he was scared but trying to hide it. He was always the better actor of the two but...not today, not to her. She would always be able to read him.

"Then you do it," snapped Titus before grinning. He pulled a knife out of his pack and tossed it to the ground by her brother's feet. "Show us what you've been braggin' about this entire time."

Helios almost stuttered. "And take away your big kill after doing all the hard work? Come on, man, don't let me be the asshole."

"No, no," said Titus, a strange roughness to his voice that screamed to Keres as danger. It sounded so calm, so misleading, like it could've easily been mistaken as two friends wanting the other to get what they wanted. He clapped a hand on her brother's shoulder and patted his chest. "Blow off some stream, buddy, you've been tensed like a fuckin' rock since the bloodbath. Pick up the knife. Have some fun."

"It's not my kill–"

"Pick up the damn knife, Helios."

Titus's grip tightened and Helios seemed to freeze, only to bend down and pick up the knife slowly a moment later. When his hand wrapped around the hilt and he stood, towering over Koru who knew exactly what his fate would be probably for the last hour or however long he'd been dragged through the forest, Helios let out a slow sigh.

It took him a few seconds to get the courage, Keres could tell. But when he did finally lower himself to his knees above Koru who looked at him with a steady gaze, her brother was no longer her brother but an actor, a different man.

He didn't stab him violently or make it prolonged. He took Koru by the side of his face and slid the knife quickly under his chin and into his skull, the cannon booming overheard like a war drum. The sound of the knife pushing through bone, muscle, and cartilage was not lost on Keres. The dead boy hadn't fought, he knew he'd lost. Tull, on the other hand, had been screaming so loudly that Keres hadn't registered the exact moment when she finally fell silent.

Blood pooled from her abdomen and she was still, as close to death as she could be because the cannon hadn't gone off for her. For a second, Keres thought she saw the girl's fingers twitch but the wind and the soft patter of rain made it seem like a trick of the eye.

"See?" said Titus, hand on the back of Helios's neck, like gripping the scruff of an animal, of something smaller than him. Her brother was so silent, she wondered if this had been his first kill, as Titus continued with, "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Across from them, Adonis wiped blood from his own knife against his pant leg, scowling down at Tull. He'd been the one to step forward and make the kill, looking unbothered and annoyed by the action. Keres could hardly read him and the way he held himself, like he was something grimey, something undeserving but capable of taking it all, that he too was full of glory.

Beside him, Bryn, with her honeysuckle yellow hair, took his hands in hers and said, very softly, "Let's go wash you both off, you don't need to be sticky for the rest of the day."

There was something suspicious in the way the girl's eyes fluttered back and forth between the boys. Something unspoken.

Keres watched Bryn lead Adonis and Helios away from the bodies and sat and watched the District 1 and 4 tributes for a few moments. Titus bent down to move Tull's head back and as he did so, Keres noticed how he brushed his finger over her upper lip as if to see if she were still breathing. He grunted and it was only a few seconds later did a cannon finally go off.

"They're weaker than us," muttered Isolde as she grabbed Koru by both legs as Vita took his arms, dragging his body near Tull. "Did you see the hesitation? It'd be better to cut our losses, leave them here..."

"We can't leave Adonis with them," said Titus as he stood to his full height, well over six feet. "Bryn, she can adapt."

Reiner scowled, running a hand over his buzzed hair. "And the brother? He's deadweight, man."

"But he'll get us one step closer to the sister and that girl she's with," said Titus with a shrug. "He just needs some extra pushing."

Reduced to nothing, not even a name could save them now.

"What's the point in getting them?" asked Isolde. "Sister is useless and the District 5 girl is probably a mess after what you did to her district partner. Chances are, she's a mess and holed up in one of the buildings still."

"They're sitting ducks," said Titus, looking towards Vita who chose to be silent rather than speak, her silence was terrifying. "If Helios can't kill his sister or the District 12 girl we saw in the trees by the Cornucopia, then we cut him loose."

"Cut him loose?" Reiner made a face and crossed his arms, hidden muscles flexing with the action in his biceps.

Titus grinned as Vita and Isolde finished with the bodies. Keres watched in strange horror as they prepared to burn them, like some offering or warning. She thought of the families, how they would get nothing back but charred remains if the hovercrafts didn't arrive soon for the bodies.

"What'd you got planned?" urged Reiner, still searching for Titus's answer.

The District 1 god struck his match and flicked it into the kindling of dried leaves and twine before looking up and meeting the boy's gaze. "We'll give him a head start but it'll all end the same." The fire rose and Keres could feel the heat sweeping through the air. "He'll die but only when I say he can."

They would never escape their golden haired killer.

"Come," muttered Vita suddenly, her crisp and slow voice drawing all heads towards her, "they'll follow us back to camp when they're done."

Keres waited a few minutes until they were gone before she emerged from her hiding place, on all fours, waiting for a beat. She was crouched down beside the burning bodies, the smell of their flesh churned in the air and in her stomach. Sickly sweet and wrong. She had nothing to put it out with, not without alerting the Careers back. Instead, she turned and went in the direction her brother had gone.

She stuck to the trees, using them as her shield until she could catch the sounds of their voices. Climbing the tree she hid behind, curling herself against the bark and hiding within the leaves, she found her brother's mop of hair through her camouflage. He was bent down on one knee, cleaning the blood from his hands.

"We can't stay with them," muttered her brother, bending his elbows weirdly with Keres left to guess he was trying to dig the blood out from under his nails like an animal. "We can't keep hunting those kids down."

Bryn was shaking her head as Adonis wrapped an arm over her shoulders. "He's deranged, we've all seen it."

"The boy from District 6," Adonis's voice was slow, almost thick. There was concern, a real emotion Keres hadn't expected to come from a Career such as him. "He was thirteen and cut nearly in half." In his free hand, he touched the knife on his hip. "We give it one more day, then we leave."

"But he's still–"

"Helios, we can't leave yet."

"But the girl from 12–"

"Helios, man, shut up." Adonis rubbed his brows. "You think I don't know what he's going to do once he catches up to her? We all saw the bloodbath, we saw that girl by the fountain, and for fucks sake, we saw what was left of the guy who was with your sister. If we leave and let him go after her without us, he'll do much worse."

Bryn nodded, whispering, "We can help make it painless."

She hadn't anticipated these words to come streaming out of the mouths of these puppets. Adonis with his lethal stare and Bryn with her fangs, they had tricked her. Yet, the golden girl had tried to tell Keres all along when she took her hand, pulling her so close.

Not all of us are like Titus and Vita.

Keres stayed where she was. It wasn't safe to expose herself, not when Titus could return to drag them all back sooner for some grand show. There was admiration filling her chest, how they were all so similar. Maybe...maybe they were all from the same mold. The same brokenness and heartache that had spurred them all to volunteer and join the cause, to join the death crusade.

To join the march to an early death.

The need to die pinched and burned the skin of all tributes. The Games created that aching need far before it had ever begun killing children.

Keres had been born with that feeling.

"What about my sister?" asked Helios in a small voice. "If we leave, we have to find her."

"You keep saying that, man," muttered Adonis with another deep sigh, "but she's as good as dead. If you wanted to protect her, you shouldn't have joined us. We told you not to and you–"

"I can keep him from her," he snapped back. "If I can turn him in the wrong direction long enough, she'll–"

"She'll what?" said the other boy. "Kill him herself? Fight back? You can't seriously make us believe that twig of a girl is capable of anything other than sewing."

Helios stood, that small voice gone from before. "You better watch your mouth, Adonis."

"You tryin' to tell me the girl who scored a 4 is some killing machine, huh?" he said, barking out a laugh. "We'll help you find your sister, man, but if Titus gets his hands on her before that, well...you'll just have to pray she can run fast."

Helios charged him, fisting Adonis's jacket tightly and thrusting him backwards as the other boy laughed and snarled, "Do it! Start something now and you'll never see your sister again. Come on, Helios, just one swing and we can fucking end it."

"Guys, please," urged Bryn, begging with her big eyes.

Adonis wasn't finished. "Hit me and you'll be leaving your sister to die, you really want that?"

Both boys, near men, stared at the other. Nearly unbreaking until Helios let out a long shudder, fighting with himself, before finally releasing Adonis.

"That's what I thought."

Helios didn't wait for them as he pushed back the boy and went marching in the direction Titus and the other Careers had gone. Leaving just Adonis and Bryn alone by the water, Keres's hand around her ax tightened. They were there alone, only a machete and a knife between them.

It was Bryn's voice that stopped Keres from leaping down from her tree.

"He's doing the best he can," she murmured, so softly it was almost a whisper. "He's not built like we are, he didn't go through the same training."

Adonis, who had been so big moments before, let his shoulders slump. "If we make him strong, he can outlast us here."

Their voices were changing to barely audible, but it was still just in reach of Keres's ears as Bryn said, "Isn't that what we want? Someone smaller to finally be a Victor?"

"The Capitol loves him," said Adonis. "He's charismatic, sympathetic, he's good with the ladies, hell, he's good with the men too. He could be a good face for what we've heard is building–"

A branch broke somewhere behind them all, cutting the conversation short. Keres, still in her tree, let herself lean back against the trunk. She heard their soft feet walk away, going off to follow Helios, and she tried to think of what all that meant. She'd always wondered when the districts would finally rise up, but hearing it come from the mouths of two Careers who got off on the winnings and had more opportunities to become Victors than the rest didn't make sense.

The Careers came from wealth and status, why would they want things to change?

Not all winners receive glory and lifetimes of happiness.

She'd always wondered, like she did with most things in the fields or in the slaughterhouse, how it would all begin, the downfall of the Capitol and Snow. Snow...sitting pretty on his throne, with his tight face and poisonous lips. He was white, like his roses, his dead flowers. He was a painted fool just like the flowers should've been. She'd heard of people dying in the Capitol, political allies or in Snow's case political enemies. No one ever seemed to walk away free from all that luxury and madness.

Did the Victors ever get the chance? To go free?

You'll never get the chance to be one, don't waste your breath of silly fantasies.

Still, she couldn't help but wonder what the life of a Victor could be like if she were able to win. Not with her brother here, he changes everything. Her plan to win, to sneak off into one of the villages, and to...and to...well, it wouldn't be her quest for much longer.

Keres climbed her way down the tree, landing softly in the wet grass. It was a strange thing, how she couldn't find it in herself to move her feet or any part of her. The strange feeling crawled over her skin again, like something stalking her out of sight. She knew what it could be, nothing human could ever make her feel this way.

She almost wanted to turn and taunt it, to beg for it to strike, to give her something to do, but she kept still. The presence felt as if it were on top of her, ready to smother her down. It was like she was being hunted. Could she return to Lia and risk bringing it back with them? Could she lose it if she ran hard enough or would that cause her to run back into the Careers?

Almost deciding to close her eyes and continue to keep still, Keres forced herself to turn. Eyes wide and searching back and forth around her, she found that she was entirely alone save for the wild beast beating inside her chest. She knew what was hunting her, she knew exactly what Capitol made monster was trying to find her. Trying to kill the weakling, but if it had actually wanted that, wouldn't it have struck?

They want your death to be a show, a parade just like Elma.

The Careers wanted her dead far greater than the Capitol. She almost smiled, if only they knew what exactly they were going to lose by not killing her now when they had the chance. It was better this way. She would be just out of their grasp until it was too late.

She would take away the Capitol's golden Victors and their precious weapons and egos.

The mimic was gone with not even a rustle of the leaves or breaking of branches. She peered around just in case and found nothing. Nothing but herself and the soft ripple that came from the lake. She fixed her belt of squirrels she'd caught and began her trek back to Lia.

She wondered if perhaps the Gamemakers hadn't sent the mimic on her yet because they were waiting to see what she could do. They saw her on their screens and cameras during the bloodbath, they saw her with Niko, they saw her hunt just now. Were they waiting, just like she was, for the perfect moment to strike?

She entered the city, avoiding the fountain and keeping to the surrounding buildings closest to the treeline. She didn't want to accidentally cross paths with other tributes looking for a home base. She still wasn't sure if the Careers had taken up residence at the Cornucopia or had gone for the tallest building in the city. Keres knew where she'd go, but that didn't mean they would do the same or had thought it out at all.

When she found their little hovel, she had all but entered before she caught the sound of something moaning. It wasn't pleasurable, it wasn't something caught up in ecstasy. Keres recognized this sound, the tone and reverberation. In a second, she was up the stairs as swiftly and as silently as she could, her bag already thrown to the side at the top with her catches of the day. She would need her body completely free if she were to do what was needed of her.

The mimic hadn't been tracking her at all, but trying and failing to lead her further and further away. She threw one of her knives with deadly precision as Lia fought the creature above her. Keres could see blood on its hands and blood dripping from its big maw, and she feared the worst. With her heart in her throat, she wasted no time waiting for the beast to turn with her knife lodged between its shoulder blades.

It howled when the knife pierced its thick hide and turned too late. Keres reared back its big head and used her ax at an awkward angle to slice through thick flesh and muscle. The mimic, or whatever it truly was, topped to the side as Keres held its head in her hand. She had sawed through its throat and neck until blood and gore poured from the opening and across Lia's chest and Keres's boots. Tendons and ruined flesh dripped crimson before she tossed it to the side.

"Are you okay?" Keres asked as Lia sat up slowly.

"Yeah," the girl muttered. "Caught me off guard, I'd...I'd fallen asleep..."

Keres dropped to a knee, ignoring what her knees thudded into as she took the girl's face to examine any wounds. There weren't any to her face but she had cuts across her knuckles and fingers where the teeth had taken to her skin. Even the skin of her hands were warm and Keres had a sudden panic building up in her chest.

She didn't want to admit it, but she liked Lia. She liked her snide comments, her suspicions, the softness of her skin, her hair...

But she was a weakness and it was evident in who the mimic had taken to attack.

"Where did it come from?" asked Keres. "The window? The stairs?"

Lia closed her eyes to think as Keres applied pressure to a shallow bite mark on her forearm. "It sounded...it sounded like it had already been in the room with me."

Could the mimics be working together?

"It sounded like Niko and I thought..." Lia winced and Keres let up her grip. "I thought I was dreaming of him."

"Did it say anything specific?"

Lia nodded as Keres used her jacket to try and wipe some of the blood away from a long scratch. "It..."

"Lia," whispered Keres, applying pressure again to stanch the beading blood, "tell me what it said." The wounds were all shallow, all barely penetrating the skin save for the cuts on her hands. Why wouldn't it strike to kill? What was its objective?

Lia swallowed audibly. "It said to kill the weakest." Keres's blood went cold, could the mimics sniff out weakness? Could it smell Lia's fever? "I think the Capitol wants the strongest to go against each other. I don't think we performed the way they wanted us to."

"The bloodbath," said Keres in a slow voice as she caught on. "Only three killed, lowest in decades."

Lia nodded, grimacing as she sat up further to look Keres in the eyes. "Nobody wants a game that lasts two weeks or even three. They want it to be quick, bloodier the better."

"The Capitol doesn't like when it's days of waiting and sitting on our asses," said Keres. It's why the Gamemakers made elaborate arenas and sent targeted attacks on tributes. A few years ago, an avalanche took out three tributes suddenly. Nothing could've caused it besides the influence of the Gamemakers. "If they don't get the show they planned for, they'll force one instead. It's...disgustingly genius."

Keres retreated back to her bag, grabbing her supplies and food for the next few days. They'd need to start a fire but it wasn't safe to leave yet. She would need to tell Lia what she saw out there and contemplated not telling her all if she hadn't asked about the cannons.

"I heard them," she said, "there were two. I was scared one was you and I'd be...I'd be here alone."

"Tull and Koru," said Keres, dragging the mimic's body towards the stairs to keep it away from them. "Titus forced Helios to kill Koru and Adonis killed Tull."

"You saw them?"

She nodded.

"Do you know where they went? Where they're holding up?"

"Possibly the Cornucopia," said Keres, her eyes finally trailing up to the darkness that led into the next story above them.

The third floor and its broken staircase. She knew she should've explored it when they first came but the shock from Niko's death had rattled them both far more than she'd expected. Keres had barely known the boy but his fierce protectiveness over Lia...she could understand him more than she had ever wanted or known.

She understood wanting to keep someone safe, wanting to see them out until the very end.

Keres peered up into the darkness, standing under the broken stairs, looking as if they were levitating. The support had been knocked to the side completely.

"You can't go up there," said Lia in a whisper, fear coated her words.

"We need to know if there are more up there."

"Let me go with you–"

Keres shook her head. "Watch our gear, I'll be quick."

"How are you–"

With her ax tucked in the belt loop of her pants before Keres jumped, gripping the ledge of the third floor. She kicked her feet a few times for momentum upwards before her forearm and elbow rested on the floor and she was able to lift herself fully into the darkness.

It was colder upstairs, if that were even possible. Keres was immediately chilled to her bones.

Her eyes scanned the room, through what little darkness there truly was between the open cracks in the walls and the seeping light. Even with the sun behind the clouds, the gray still slipped through like misty light.

There was an obvious hole within the foundation where whatever that creature was could've gotten through. As Keres walked forward to investigate, she noticed claw marks in the walls, long and jagged that could've been mistaken for teeth marks from the size of their rotten fangs. She ran her fingers through the grooves it had left, thinking of the marks left in every arena and home after the games. How some tributes tried to claw their way through mud and ice to get away from their killers, how children would gnaw on their own skin in anxiety fits over the reapings and from friends dying.

She had her own teeth marks, her own claws dug into flesh and cement. Against her fingers where she pulled skin and nails, against the floors in the slaughterhouse where the cattle had dug their hooves into the dirt to try and escape. It seemed, in every inch of life, there were creatures always looking to escape and be free.

Keres stood, knowing there was nothing to be done about the hole and headed back to the opening. She wasn't sure how much longer it would take until she finally needed to go find Helios and rescue him from the Careers. She also needed to decide whether or not Adonis and Bryn could actually be trusted.

She slid her legs through the opening.

They were speaking about things she wasn't sure about. What she did know, like many of the tributes from the lower districts had grown up knowing, as there would come a time when all of this would fall. The golden crowns would no longer be shiny and new, but from decades before when the Games had been real and tormenting those who did not deserve it. It was a future Keres didn't like to think about because she didn't like to pretend. She didn't want to imagine something impossible, not until it was in her grasp.

Dropping down, Lia startled slightly. She was no longer the girl she'd been during training. Her fire was gone and what was left was not a shell but perhaps a husk, where something had crawled out and gotten loose. A cocoon, meant for something to come slithering home for the evening.

"It'll be okay," Keres found herself saying, "I promise, Lia, it'll be okay."

It didn't matter that she was lying, only that it made Lia feel better. It was strange, caring for someone other than her brother again. Keres just wasn't sure whether it was a good thing or not quite yet.

AUTHOR'S NOTE━━i just love ghosting then coming back randomly w a new chapter <333 i hope y'all liked this...it felt wrong. idk i might go back and add in new things

pls pls lmk what ur thoughts are, esp on adonis/bryn, helios, and death predictions!!!!!

<333

vote/comment pls pls pls ily