¹ THRONE ─ the hunger games

[ 023 ] you've settled your score

After that, Iko acted as though what she'd done had been necessary.

You could've just put in a request for a partner change, Alex had said, a little bit annoyed, a little bit unsettled by her brutal methods.

You were the one who told me to get rid of him, Iko had countered. As if it was his fault.

It was a joke, he'd explained, now angered by her pinning the blame on him. He'd made a joke, but she'd taken it too far. Some part of him wondered if she'd done it purely because she liked to hurt. Liked the sick power rush. Liked that people were afraid of her.

That was the only time Alex could ever recall them falling out badly. That silence had lasted them eight hours before Iko came barging into Alex's room through his window in the middle of the night.

Then again, the only reason the ice had broken was because Iko needed him to work with her. To be her partner again during training, which required all trainees at the Academy to stick with their assigned pairs or face dire consequences. Take out that factor, and Iko could freeze him out until they were both on their deathbeds. In retrospect, she hadn't even apologised to him that time either. The truth was that Iko did what she wanted. She took and took and took because the world didn't give her much to start off with. Apologies included.

Now, the silence screamed. When Alex watched Iko slash that boy to death, he was fifteen again, watching Mason writhing on the floor, screaming about the loss of his leg.

"We should head West," Iko said, jerking Alex out of his thoughts. Covered in blood, she looked like a savage princess, like she might have a necklace of human tongues. She pointed down the dirt road they'd been following for a good half an hour, toward a handful of new buildings sticking out from behind a wired fence that they hadn't seen before. "We've never seen this part of the arena. Maybe we'll find more tributes there."

Shoving down the unsettling feeling simmering in his chest, Alex nodded. All that could wait for later. For now, he had to prioritise the objective. He squinted into the distance. "It looks about half a mile between those two buildings. We could cover both areas by dark."

Sage grinned hungrily. "Maybe this time, we'll find someone worth our time."

"Maybe this time, she would be more inclined to share," Titus snarked, jerking his thumb at Iko, who ignored him. She looked bored. How was she not haunted by what she'd just done?

Titus scratched the back of his hand obsessively. It was starting to redden. He'd been picking at it since they broke out of the forest. Alex didn't think much of it.

"If you can get there fast enough, maybe," Opal pointed out.

When they reached the first building, Alex nudged the door open, and peeked in, listening out for telltale signs of life. It looked like a lobby, and it was dilapidated like it'd been standing for too long, just like the visitor centre, but empty. The others followed him in. Alex studied the place. A black board labelling the different levels was mounted on the white wall. Brows furrowed, Alex read them all from top to bottom, mouthing the words as if they might make more sense if he spoke them into existence: MANAGEMENT, GENETICS LABORATORY, GENESIS LABORATORY, REARING PEN, and so on. Before they entered, the sign on the building read CLOSED AREA / AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT. But the door had opened without resistance, like something had already broken it down before.

Iko pressed one of the buttons on the wall, and they held their breaths as the elevator doors slid open. Empty.

On the panel, Alex noted seven buttons for seven levels. The first level they explored was the level marked Genetics Laboratory. A sign was mounted on the wall as they exited the elevator: DANGER / RADIOACTIVE ISOTOPES IN USE / CARCINOGENIC POTENTIAL. They worked their way through the corridor, peering through the glass walls separating them from the actual laboratory, where Alex noticed different kinds off contraptions and technology. He recognised a bunch of devices called microscopes, which he'd used before in his botany class. On either side were doors marked with different words. He pushed open a door marked EXTRACTION, which had been left ajar.