Twenty Four Shades of Blood [A Hunger Games Fanfic]

Fate - 3

Dawn. Cold, bleak fingers of light push through the clouds. Byron doesn’t look up to watch it like he normally does. He’s sitting under a huge tree, the boxes he’d managed to grab from the Cornucopia scattered around his feet. There wasn’t much in them. Nothing worth risking his life like he had. A length or rope, a small loaf of soft white bread, that sort of thing. Not even a knife or something useful. His eyes flick to where his axe is suck into the ground by the blade. The handle glints a little in the morning light and he looks away again.

Byron takes a deep breath, feeling it shudder through his chest. This is really happening. He’s in the final three of the Games, and he’s going to have to kill someone. The thought makes him feel distinctly queasy. This isn’t like death at home, where the animals go dumbly to their ends, silent and patient and trusting. Here, the death is just as fast, but so much more awful. He tries not to picture the girl’s face in the dull gleam of the Cornucopia. Her eyes had been huge, he’d noticed. Massive and shocked and agonized in the white of her face. And then there’d been Carmen.

She’s the one he’s worried about. The other kid, the boy from Six, doesn’t seem like he’d be much of a challenge. That blow last night had been a fluke, pure and simple. That’d been immediately obvious from the look of complete shock on his face. And he’s smaller than Byron, and he’s only got a knife.

Byron stops, shaking his head slightly. No, that wasn’t the way he could think. Never underestimate your opponent. That’s what all kids from Ten were taught the moment they started work in the horse yards. Even the small colts could break your neck with a kick, so your guard had to be up at all times. Constant vigilance! Byron can almost hear his grandfather’s cracked old voice shouting out the words as the pairs of kids shuffled around the animals in the pens. He wonders what his grandfather would say if he’d been around to see this. Him, the one everyone always said was too nice, too soft, in the final three of the Hunger Games.

He gives a humourless little snort of laughter. Part of him still wants to curl into a little ball and make the chaos and fear all around him disappear, but it’s not as strong as it was when he first arrived in the Capitol. He pushes it away, and sets his jaw. He can do this. It won’t be easy, and it’ll be something he’ll hate himself for for the rest of his life most likely, but…he swallows. No matter what, life is always going to be better than death. There’s too much he’s not done for it all to end yet.

He drags his thoughts back to the two things standing between him and home and the rest of his life. The kid, Benji. Small and wiry and scared looking, but he’s more of a killer than Byron is now. And he’ll be desperate. Fear can do funny things. It’s like the animals back home – corner them, trap them, and they’ll lash out, even if you’re twice as big as they are. And he’s seen Benji lashing out. He’s definitely the lesser threat, but still dangerous, regardless.

Byron tries not to think about just how little he is. Almost…fragile looking. Had he looked that small and scared when he was Benji’s age? He’s sure he was bigger than the kid is. Taller, maybe. Definitely stronger – he’d roped his first bull calf at eleven and started breaking the colts with the men not long after he’d turned twelve. Back when Reapings were just a day off work and everything was still bright and life was good.

He shakes his head as if the action will get the thoughts out of his mind. His eyes flick down to the length of rope he’s been playing with and gives a little smile as he sees what his fingers have made. Old habits die hard he thinks as he slides the slipknot of the lasso up and down the rope. It might be useful after all. The rope rolls between his fingers as he moves on to the other tribute left.

Carmen, all hard and cold, changed from the girl he’d pulled Tyrion out of the bloodbath with. He’d seen that in her face the night before, in that emotionless tilt of the head, in the dark stains that clung to the blade of her sword. The thought of fighting her scares him, and his palms go sweaty as he remembers the girl from Four and the boy from Seven as her sword had cut them down. Who knows how many of the other faces had been her doing?