Amber woke up as the first rays of dawn fluttered onto her eyelids. At first she yawned, her brain still foggy from sleep though it had been trained not to be. Then she realised that Tile hadn't woken her up for her watch. The stupid girl had probably forgotten; she could have got them all killed. Well, some of them at least.
"Tile, you were supposed to wake me up!" she complained, stretching. Her back ached from a night in the comfortable but solid swing and she longed for her bed at home again. It was mildly warm, enough to not be uncomfortable. Her shouting woke up the boys. Klaus sat up, hit his head on the tower and swore angrily. Crete rolled out of the tunnel with a lopsided grin.
"It's morning," he said.
"Is it?" drawled Amber, "I hadn't noticed! Tile! You were meant to wake me up!" Crete yawned and looked around, while Klaus emerged, rubbing his head and grumbling. The playground was empty. Klaus swore again and raced to the pile.
"Everything is still here!" he exclaimed.
"Except the machete," Crete added, joining him. Amber slinked over, frowning. She'd known the girl wasn't worth trusting. "Parasite," she snapped icily.
"Easy," soothed Crete, "She's not taken anything. Apart from the machete. Hasn't even killed any of us." His smart-ass attitude was really starting to annoy Amber now. Maybe it was a District Five thing; something reserved for the techno districts.
"Either way, I get the first blow when we find her. Or when she comes back."
Crete winced, looking out into the woods as if expecting to find her there, laughing at them all for being so silly. He'd only known the girl for the day, but the endless time and pressure of the arena made it feel like much longer.
Something glinted on the floor. Klaus, knelt in the dried blood, hadn't seen and was busy checking that Tile hadn't stolen anything. Amber paced up and down, glaring out into the houses, all traces of sleepiness gone. Crete ambled over to it, knowing what it was before he got a good look.
"The machete."
Klaus was there instantly, whipping the machete into the air and catching it again in a pointless show of strength and coordination. Amber followed slowly, like she was considering every step, watching the mesmerising spin of the blade.
"She could have gone...you know..." suggested Crete, red in the face.
"She wouldn't have gone out there unarmed," Klaus grunted. Crete nodded his agreement, shivers dancing up his spine. Someone had come out here at night and killed her silently, probably without any blood because there wasn't any on the floor, and had left the rest of them alone.
"We should have two on watch tonight," he suggested.
"That's a good idea," said Amber, "I don't want to leave you awake on your own anyway." She nearly laughed when the boy turned white. She'd almost forgotten that he wasn't a Career and therefore not to be trusted.
Then it hit her that two of the Careers hadn't made it to the second day.
Suddenly, she felt very small and almost scared. She wished that Dark was here so she could mess him about, to make herself laugh.
Klaus was seeing Rian again, lounging in the swing with his legs kicking in the air. "Keep going, little brother," he said, and his voice was little more than the rustling of the leaves, "Keep going."
Clarence raided the kitchen, but there was nothing in there that was still edible. The smell had been enough to convince him of that, but he'd thought that maybe there'd be some tins or something. He'd passed the night in various beds, switching every time he woke up, and it was weird sleeping where you knew someone had slept before. He found himself wondering what they were like; young, old, male, female, kind, sarcastic. He briefly wanted to go looking for Pataya, before remembering emotionlessly that she'd been one of the faces in the sky last night, along with the District One boy. That was good; it meant the Careers were starting to get vulnerable. Once another of them died he'd go and hunt out the rest.
Now he didn't know what to do. Staying alive was his main priority, but he'd been doing that for almost twenty four hours now and it was proving easier than he'd expected. Apart from the hunger. It knawed at the inside of his stomach, demanding to be sated. The sensible part of his mind said that it didn't matter yet because he could survive without food for days, but the rest of him said to find something to eat. So that was what he was trying to do.
He was in one of the houses near the wasteland. It must have been depressing to live there, he reflected philosophically, looking out of your window every morning to see scrubby bushes and the occasional pathetic little tree, not like the idyllic views from the rest of the houses. This was more like what he woke up to every morning at home, where the ground had been run dry with trees and couldn't grow any more.
Maybe there would be animals in there that he could eat.
Taylor was dangling her toes in the water, like she used to do at home when Austin was doing her work for her because she was too tired or, more likely, had managed to trick him. Right now he was crouched on a little shelf, filling up bottles they'd found in various houses.
"That was close, wasn't it?" he said cheerily. It took Taylor a while to work out that he was talking about the Careers. "Yeah," she agreed, "I never thought I'd be grateful towards one of the Careers."
"He just went mental," Austin mused, "Perhaps we can do it again..." His eyes twinkled with mischief.
"No, let's not go near them again," Taylor insisted, "It was close enough first time and I don't want to lose you."
Suddenly the breezy air felt very heavy. They would have to lose each other soon, somehow.
"I'll keep you alive, Tay, don't worry."
She sighed, holding back tears. It was horrible, that feeling she'd had when Dark was clinging to her shoulders and she was sure, totally sure, that she was going to die and Austin was going to have to watch.
"Oh, Austin, I forgot. There was a cannon last night," she murmured. He looked up at her, her own face gazing curiously. "I wonder who that was," he said. They both went quiet again, thinking. Austin filled up one of the bottles; it leaked out again. Frustrated again, he dipped it in the water but the water just dribbled out. He threw it into the stream and moved onto the next one.
Sebastian saw the bottle coming as it bubbled around a meandering bend in front of the bridge. Someone was upstream. It wasn't in his plans, but he had nothing better to do and it might benefit him later down the line to get some people out of the way now. He made sure that he had everything in his bag and that the reeds were all upright so that if anyone came past they wouldn't know he was there and spring an ambush. Then he made sure he had the sleeper berries and the newly sharpened cocktail sticks and slid through the reeds almost noiselessly.
There was a noise inside a house. It sounded like a burst of laughter, male. The voice was broken so it was probably one of the older ones; Vedran, Raylum, Klaus or Oak. Neither Raylum nor Klaus seemed like the laughing type, though he realised this kind of reasoning was feeble. They could have been acting. He ruled out Klaus instantly; he would still be with the Careers.
There was another laugh, a short sharp bark, female. It could have been any of them, though he doubted that it was Court. It wasn't giggly enough to be the girl-twin.
He would stop here on his way back from finding the other person.
Very carefully, he hopped onto the other bank, slipping a little. From here he could see into the house, or at least through the back window. He couldn't see much, just a bright blonde head, a girl sat on a chair and facing away from him. Megan. He reckoned then that there was only one candidate for the male voice, which scuppered his plans to get rid of them both. Still, this could prove an advantage.
Using the knife he'd taken to keep his sticks sharp, he dug the number 3 into a nearby tree, so that he would remember where to stop, and went off in search of the person who had thrown the bottle.
The screen was showing the befuddled Careers, sat around the playground like a group of petulant kids. "Look at Amber's face," chuckled Megan. Then her expression went back to blank. Vedran was used to this by now; any allusion to dying or the Games themselves always made her snap shut. Outside, something rustled. It was probably just a bird in the trees; he'd seen no animals but birds and the occasional fly or insect.
"Your family," he blurted.
"What about them?" she asked icily.
"I know nothing about them. Well, apart from your dad..." he trailed off, not wanting to remind her why she hated people in the first place.
She sighed. "I've got a little sister. Grace, she's called. She's just reaping age." She twiddled her thumbs; obviously worried for her. Little Grace took after her, she knew that, but she was soft. She'd sobbed her heart out in the Justice Building, which had made it hard for Megan to keep up her blank face, and begged her to promise that she'd come back.
She hadn't been able to do that. Vedran sat on the arm of the chair and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. He seemed to have an instinct about that sort of thing, what to do and when.
"What about you?" she asked, before the silence got any more uncomfortable. He tipped his head back, looking at the blank ceiling. "Just me and my parents. I sometimes wish I'd had little siblings."
"A bit pessimistic, are we?" she said, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth. He sighed and slid onto the chair so that he was sat next to her. She rested her head on his shoulder again.
"Not pessimistic," he murmured, his heart heavy, "Realistic."