Nothing Personal

Memory - 18

Grace was still struggling to communicate properly with Meridan. He was trying his best, she knew that, but he was still pale and in shock and she knew that the cannon that had gone off just before he'd practically fallen into her lap was something to do with him. But she didn't want to ask.

She wouldn't have known how anyway. His sign language probably made sense if you were from District Four, but she couldn't make heads or tails of it. 

She'd pointed to the house.

He'd nodded.

That sort of thing would have to do.

As soon as they were inside, he'd run through the hallway and started rummaging through drawers in a room with books lining the walls and a sturdy mahogany desk squatting in one corner. He obviously hadn't found what he wanted because he'd then thrown himself onto the floor with his head in his hands and hadn't moved since. She'd half expected him to flinch at the cannon that went off about an hour later, because it had made her jump. She'd already worked out that something had happened to Misty because he wouldn't be able to go anywhere without her, and she thought that solved the mystery of the cannon that had gone off as Meridan careered around the hedge. But what about the first two - she knew the origin of the third - and the one that had gone off just now? 

She hoped it wasn't Crete.

Crete was fine. In fact, he was great. The Careers had for some odd reason chosen the playground as their base and he was sat there lounging on one of the swings next to Amber. It was actually well situated, on the top of a slight hill, rimmed with trees on one side but with a sloping view down the rambling estates on the other. If they'd have looked very carefully at the trees towering in a small cluster they'd have been able to see Skyler's glasses flashing in the sun, but the Careers never looked carefully.

"So," he drawled, his voice laden with irony, "What do you do for fun around here?"

Tile grinned at him, bouncing off the climbing frame she was hanging from. "We kill tributes!" exclaimed Dark. He was still on top of the tower, looking down on everyone. Just how he liked it.

Klaus glared up at him. Crete had already worked out that there was something not quite right about Klaus. Sometimes he was the top dog, shouting and showing off his muscles and flirting with Tile. Others he was quiet and withdrawn, staring into space and occasionally shaking his head. There was often almost no time between him switching between the two.

"What's up with Klaus?" he muttered to Tile, as she stood behind the swing and pushed him playfully. Amber was slinking around the brightly coloured fences, on the prowl. Klaus was spinning slowly around the roundabout, out of hearing range. Tile giggled and pushed him higher, catching him when he swung back down.

"Oh, that's sad," she muttered back, pulling a sad face, "He used to have an older brother. They trained together all the time. Rian was nice, but Klaus was stronger. They used to work at the same steelworks, the one inside the old volcano place. There was some kind of misunderstanding...I don't know exactly what happened. Apparently Rian was messing about, trying to impress somone. Probably Klaus; they adored one another. He was waving something around, something heavy, but one of the Peacekeepers thought that he was threatening him. They shot him on the spot, in front of his little brother. And me," she added egotistically, pushing him up again. The wind streaked through his hair, then battered his back and he was still again, Tile holding him up.

"That is sad," he muttered.

"Yeah," she murmured, flipping her head so that her hair fell back over her shoulders, "It was Rian's last year and he was going to volunteer, whatever happened. So maybe he would have lost him anyway. So Klaus took his place as soon as he could."