A Circus of Eagles [An HG Fanfic]

Hunting - Milo

Milo

He's here. Somewhere. Somewhere among these sad, forgotten graves is the golden boy, if he is actually flesh and blood and not an animat; it wouldn't surprise me if the rebels had been secretly developing them and unveiled Walt just to make sure that the winner is someone who is right on their side. How bad would it look for them if they tried to punish us and the winner ended up being someone who was so strongly against them in the first place? If I were the rebels I wouldn't want it to be any of the high-up sectors. I'd want it to be Walt, the boy who does exactly as he's told to do. Perfect.

Sickening.

Disgusting.

What other words are there?

I did as I was told, but I didn't do that for me. I did that for Cornelius and Anistar, and to not get punished, and because there was nothing else to do apart from starve in the murky alleyways of Haematite. And I've always preferred to stay alive. It didn't seem like a problem until I met Walt, until I saw dogged obedience in action, and now even my loyalty to Cornelius, my affection for dear little Ani, innocent of the pain her father goes through at the hands of his husband, feels wrong. Like a betrayal. Like I stabbed whoever I was back in Ten in the back, then stole his name and face and made him into one of their drones. Perhaps I didn't do as I was told before - it'd explain why my tongue was stolen from me - but none of the half-memories fogging up my brain tell me if this is true or if they just made it up because they needed more servants. So how can I be a traitor to someone I don't know?

But if I am, if I was a rebel before, then why am I here being punished for a crime that isn't mine?

Because it was me or the scared, fuzzy-haired Avox boy from the Silence Halls who wouldn't have made it out of the bloodbath if you'd given him a head start. And because for some reason, when I saw him up there, I knew it had to be me instead. Call it fate if you want. I just had this feeling that I had to take control for once.

I'm on my own, then.

I ball my hands up into fists and resist the urge to scream my tortured, animal Avox scream. That's another thing. The others, if they run into each other, can communicate. Can talk. Make peace. I can't. None of them know sign except perhaps Romily, and it wouldn't surprise me if she knew more than she pretends because she looks clever enough to want to hide it. And she won't ally with me. Like I said, she's clever. So, more than any of the others, I am alone.

And I am hunting Walterin.

I'm unarmed but I don't care. I nearly got the better of him in training, and by now he'll be starting to feel hungry and tired. I feel hungry and tired too, but I'm an Avox and we can cope with that. And it feels like I don't need to eat or sleep. Like I can just keep going and going until I've found Walt without having to rest. I'll survive on this strange internal fire.

The ground here is lumpy and erratic and several times now I've nearly fallen over because the soil has shifted under my feet. The dark doesn't help. And even if it did there's the fog, a thicky soupy knee-high fog that clings to my legs and occasionally swirls up to my shoulders if a particularly strong gust of wind comes along. There could be things hiding in it. Mutts, snake or spider creatures with poisonous fangs slithering just out of sight. Ordinary animals; somewhere in the back of my mind I know that they can be dangerous too. There could even be tributes, curled up and asleep. I could have walked past them. An Avox has to be invisible, and for that you have to be able to move silently; I'm sure I wouldn't have woken them up unless I'd stepped on them.

I imagine Falcon's face sneering at me. This memory is a Capitol memory, so it's real. They had guests round. A wedding party? I'm not sure. Ani is perched on a stool in front of Cornelius, smiling as he shows her off to people proudly, but I can't remember how old she is and since Cornelius and Falcon married after she was born, that's no help either. I know I'm younger and smaller because I'm seeing Falcon from below rather than looking straight across at him. This is the way Cornelius looks at him, except when he does it he doesn't see the wrinkle across the mouth or the cold hard glint in his eyes. He just sees love.