A Circus of Eagles [An HG Fanfic]

Arrows

Balanced precariously between boredom and fear, driven by some instinct long buried in her in her journalistic training, Caitlin had followed the shouting. When she'd seen Milo coming she'd pressed herself hard against the floor and hoped and hoped he wouldn't see her, and he didn't. Still, she hadn't liked the glimpse she'd got. Milo looked as if he'd walked empty-handed through a warzone, and you could see the things he'd seen in his eyes. If he'd seen her, she had no doubt that, arrows or not, she would be dead. But he hadn't. And she wasn't.

Up ahead a girl was shouting. Caitlin hauled herself up from the floor, wiping the mud from her face. Then, almost as an afterthought, she took an arrow from the quiver and notched it, composing sentences in her head about the feeling of death at her fingertips.

Now here she is, watching Danae from behind a headstone.

What the Ferrous girl is doing makes no sense, and that's to someone good at joining dots together. Caitlin can only see her top half, waist up, because of the dips in the ground. Danae looks half-wild. She keeps disappearing, seemingly to talk to someone on the floor. When the cannon goes Caitlin jumps. Danae sits back on her haunches, her mouth gaping open, and Caitlin sees the disbelief on her face, then the moment it vanishes. I knew who it was, the second I saw Danae, and I know what she was feeling; like the world had suddenly shifted and she had no idea how. I felt a pang of sympathy for her. But I'd accepted this would happen a long time ago, and if Danae had managed to fool herself otherwise, I could not feel sorry for her. She would understand if the girl cries, or ambles off, but she does nothing like that. Instead she dips below Caitlin's eye level again. She surfaces; starts stripping off. Alarmed, Caitlin risks sticking her head a little further over the stone. She can see a pair of legs now, and the grass around them is stained with blood. Danae is fussing away with something and Caitlin's mind jumps ahead, thinks she might be taking whatever Probus Fidelis has. I never thought of Danae as the sort to steal from a corpse. Not that plenty of Capitol citizens haven't done it, during the rebellion. The rebellion my family helped create.

But the Knopes were never killers, and suddenly the arrow between her fingers feels as wide as a tree trunk and the string could be made of barbed wire.

Danae struggles but eventually succeeds in getting Probus Fidelis' shirt and jacket off. Visibly shivering in the cold, she replaces them with her own. Caitlin sees why. It was a touching, tender gesture, to send him home looking as neat as possible. I had to admire it. Danae's new clothes are too big and they're so badly ripped that they look more like rags. She'll freeze. Is it cold enough to freeze to death yet? She could swear it's getting colder and colder every night.

Once she's switched clothes, Danae starts fiddling with something else. When she straightens up she has a black ribbon tied into her hair and blood smeared all over her hands. Caitlin notes that image for her autobiography and, steady, slowly, draws the bow. I just wanted to scare her, make her run, so that I wouldn't have to fight her. Yes. She can see it on the page. She can see the arrow thudding at the girl's feet, her jumping, running. Or sailing over her head. The bow is pulling at her as she pulls at it. She tries to clear her head, like the instructor said, and aim upwards.

It was like the bow was firing me, not the other way around...

And Danae stands.

The arrow takes her in the arm. She stares at it, confused. Caitlin fumbles, notches, fires again. This time, when she's meaning to hit, she misses; Danae turns and runs and, caught by some clutch of fear, Caitlin ducks behind her gravestone and grabs control of her breathing. By the time she has it again the arena has gone quiet. To start with it was peaceful. Now it's clawing at her nerves. Let it never be said I thought the Gamemakers were stupid. Far from it. After only a few moments it's niggling at her, and she feels the need to look up and see what has changed.