Jeopardy: The Fourth Quarter Quell

Chop - Amure

Amure

“Where’s Perry?”

I ignore her.

“Was that Perry?”

He didn’t even scream.

“Ammie?”

I squeeze my eyes closed and imagine she’s not here. I don’t want her to be here, to be seeing all of this. I even cleaned the knife so she wouldn’t know. But she’s a clever girl and she can put two and two together. She might not be bothered, but it worries me. I’m her big sister, a word of comfort in the middle of the night, an argument waiting to happen, a warm hug at the end of the day. I don’t want her to see me as a killer.

“Nina, please.”

“Please what?” A hand rests on my shoulder, squeezing gently. Her voice is edged slightly with panic which makes me heart bleed. But this is a game and this is how to play it and if it means worrying Nina, I’ll do it. She knows what I mean. She just needs to hear me say something, needs big sister to reassure her that everything is okay. What she sees is me crouched on the floor with my head in my hands and my eyes tightly shut, and she’s frightened because if I break down, that could be the end for her too.

I’m not breaking down.

What gets me is the nothingness. I’ve hardened my core against screaming, blood, guilt. I can cope with them. But the girl never even saw me coming. I play it in my head, just pictures and noise with no feeling. Nina running, just where I'd told her, not looking around like I'd also told her. If she's going to die, I don't want her to know it.

My own hands collecting up knives, sticking them into my belt. Casting around for something else, anything, as blurred people run past, looking right over my head. As if everybody was going fast but me.

And then a girl screamed with so much pain that it brought me back to speed, and I saw what was going on.

The girl from Eleven being held onto the ground, Serafina-from-Twelve wrenching a knife through her guts. The girl's partner wrestling not far away with the boy from Twelve. Cole, Cameron? Began with a C anyway.

It clicked in my head. Serafina killing the girl from Eleven to save her district partner. Sure enough the boy fell. Not really fell. One minute he was standing up, the next he was a heap on the floor and the screaming had stopped.

And the next I had my arms around Serafina's throat and the next her blood on my hands and she'd never even got to see me.

Nina doesn't know about that. She was looking the other way. I found her huddled under a tree with tears streaming down her face and she'd hurled her arms around me and sobbed. And all I could do was think that making a noise like that would attract other tributes and that I was now a murderer and that it didn't feel like anything special at all.

I was expecting nightmares but they didn’t come either. Not for me. Nina spent the whole night snuffling and crying, and even now, well into the afternoon, her face is puffy and her forehead blotchy and red.

“Ammie?”

“Please just be quiet.” Why won’t she be quiet? Why is she trying to make me talk when I’m trying to protect her?

I killed the partner first. I should have killed the tribute first, but he was up a tree and I didn’t know how to get to him without the partner knowing and fighting me off. He would have beaten me in a fight, I knew that. Something in his scowl. So I had to creep up behind him, every step slow and steady. I don’t think I even breathed. There was only one thing in my mind; this blade to his throat. One less threat to me, to Nina.