"You're still here," Skyler's jabberjay whispered.
Skyler yawned and opened her bleary eyes. She hadn't meant to fall asleep, but it was impossible with the night just drifting by. This was the bit where they'd be talking to families, interviewing friends. Her family would be up on screen, in front of Panem. She would be proud of them. They wouldn't be crying, she knew that. It was horrible, watching the families that cried. Who else was being interviewed? She wished she could see it; she could hardly believe that she was getting bored. She'd never imagined sitting around doing nothing. But it was what she'd spent most of her time doing.
Something had to happen soon.
What if something had happened during the night? What if someone, even two people, had died and now it was the final showdown?
She didn't want to die, but she couldn't stop the feeling that her time was limited. It was horrible, sneaking around the back of her mind.
Two out of three says you're going to die.
She clutched the bow tighter, staring down from the tree intently, just in case somebody did come past. Though the chances of that were slim, it was possible, especially if the Gamemakers were getting as bored as she was. They were probably squeezing as much emotion as possible out of the families, though.
She suddenly remembered that Oak had had a girlfriend. Annabelle. The poor girl. He'd mentioned her once or twice, though always as if he was trying not to, trying to avoid thinking about her and getting upset. Skyler hadn't known her - in a district as big as Eleven you didn't even know the people in your own pen - but she knew what sort of person she would be. Kind, supportive. Patient; she'd have to be. She liked her already. If she got back, she'd have to find her and make friends.
If.
Which other families were on that screen? Her, the quiet boy from Three and his circuit board, his cold district partner who went to sit down during her own interview and the boy from Eight who had done the interview himself, the one who volunteered for his friend with the insane ginger hair. What would his friend have to say?
She was also sure that it was the first time two tributes from Three had got this far, and that the last time someone from Eleven had got to the final four they'd gone on to win, and that was seven years ago. But they were just numbers, statistics. They said nothing about this Games. But still, the betting would be going wild; would anyone be betting on her?
She wouldn't.
"You're still here," the jabberjay whispered encouragingly.
It actually hit her then that somebody could, probably had, died in the night. One more life extinguished, one more family who were just starting to hope, totally destroyed. She couldn't let that happen to Vintage.
It might not be in her power. Perhaps they were saving up the revenge for her outburst. Maybe that was why nothing had happened to her.
Or maybe she was just lucky.
No, it wasn't that nothing had happened to her. She'd been injured, though her arm was fixed now. There wasn't even a scar. She'd felt the pain of physical injury rather than just the pain of hunger. And she'd seen the twins die, come face to face with the cruelty of the Games. All in five, six days. And she was just a girl, barely even sixteen, but then again all of them were just kids.
The tree swayed gently in the morning breeze. It felt strange, to be up a tree for so long yet stay so still. Usually she'd have to be moving around, picking up fruit, constantly on the move. If she won, she wouldn't have to do that. She'd be able to support herself and her family. She'd be the only one in the district who didn't have to work. She'd exchange her life for being put on a pedestal and gawped at, held up as a figure to be admired.
She'd still be a servant to the Capitol.
She looked down as soon as this thought crossed her mind, in case it showed in her face.
Her stomach rumbled. She bit her lip; she didn't really want to get down from her tree. It felt safe up here; she'd be prepared to bet none of the others could climb. She tried to remember back to the training room but everything had been such a whirl and all she could remember was trying to walk in heels, watching the Careers throw weights around even though they all looked so slim and arguing with Oak about the twins.
That was less than a week ago, but it felt like years. Oak was dead. He didn't exist anymore. The Careers were gone, killed. Of the twenty-three kids who had lined up on stage last week, only four were still alive. Three. The feeling that someone had died during the night was persistant and nagged her constantly; who was it?
Her mind kept churning back to whether she would have the guts to kill someone. Maybe it was important that she'd missed both times; maybe she just didn't have it in her. But her life hadn't been at risk those two times, it had been someone else. Daisuke and the twins.
She wanted to think that she'd act no differently if it was her life in danger. But then she didn't, because the remaining people had to have something about them to have got this far, and she couldn't afford to miss.
She hoped whatever was going to come would come soon. She was going crazy up here, with just her thoughts and the jabberjay.
"You're still here," it reminded her.
Vedran deserved everything he got; he knew that. He wasn't surprised that she'd moved on; he would have done the same. Maybe. And when he'd heard the cannon, he'd both hoped and not hoped that it was Megan.
He didn't know what to think, so he decided not to.
The Cornucopia felt empty, so he got up and left.
He didn't have a weapon, so he picked up some blunt knives that were lying around near the entrance, unclaimed. There was a halter with them so he clipped that around his waist and stuck a few of the knives in it. There were still bits and pieces scattered around, but none of it really looked useful. Like his little music chip. He curled his fingers around it until it dug into his palm, a reminder of home. Getting hauled out of bed in the mornings, skulking through work until the supervisor shouted at him. The same routine, every day.
He could remember, clear as day, the reaping. The fear that it would be him; he was so scared he almost expected it. Megan was up first, and when someone hissed it made him furious. There'd never been any concrete evidence and he was sure she couldn't have done it, but nobody else seemed to think that. And then it was his name, and because he'd almost been expecting it he'd given a quip back, and people had laughed. It was only when he got up on stage that it properly sunk in and he'd thought he was going to be sick. And then he'd had to shake hands with Megan, and he'd said he believed her. That was where it all went wrong, probably.
"You're a fool, Vedran Emirate."
He ended up in the Career's playground. He'd never actually been here before, but he'd seen it on screen little more than a few days ago. A few days, and so much had happened. He could barely remember the house, the screen.
What was that about anyway? He was sure they hadn't made that screen, and he'd know. Then where were they? Perhaps it was a Capitol decoy, designed to freak them out. But then why had they been allowed to watch the Games?
They - he, he tried to make himself think - hadn't been in any other houses. Perhaps they were all like that, and perhaps other tributes had been watching him. Perhaps Sebastian was watching him now.
Perhaps Megan was.
No. He wouldn't let himself think that she was maybe still alive. He had a sinking, awful feeling about the cannon last night, after the faces had faded away, and he was only just managing to keep it down. He had to concentrate on keeping himself alive, getting back home. He could do it, couldn't he? Or he wouldn't have got this far...
He'd never been in the playground before, but it felt chillingly empty without the Careers prowling around the vivid fences. It was sinister anyway; a place where children should play turned into a kind of burial ground. Who had died here? Tile. Dark. That had taken him by surprise, Klaus suddenly going mental for no apparent reason. Now Klaus was dead; he'd been in the sky. He was sure there was someone else...
The girl from Ten, the silent one who hadn't impressed him and Megan at the interview. They'd made a few snide comments about her. She'd been trying to sneak up on the Careers and the boy from Five - who had just stopped Amber eating some kind of berry - had suddenly speared her. He couldn't remember her name, or indeed anything about her except that in training she'd been quick around the obstacle course.
Her family. Were they happy that the boy who killed her was dead? The word dead was starting to feel strange to him now, like it didn't have any real meaning. Dead meant not here. His mind didn't seem to be able to comprehend anything more; non-existant, not alive, darkness. Dead just meant not in the arena.
He sat down on the roundabout, then realised this left him in plain view. But he decided not to move; here he'd be able to see anyone sneaking up on him. Being in plain view worked both ways, and he'd guess he was out of Sebastian's range by now. For some reason he couldn't imagine that the cannon was the cold and clinical boy from Eight, the one who had deliberately heaped all the attention on Vedran himself in the interviews. Why? He still wasn't sure. If he'd been trying to push the Career's attention, it hadn't worked.
If the cannon...who did that leave? Him. Sebastian; he was almost sure of that. But who was the last one? He couldn't remember at all.
Glasses, a girl in glasses. One of the lower districts. Not Nine, that was the twins. He remembered them easily. He hoped they'd died together, at least. Small mercies, his mother would have said. She did say that, whenever things like that happened in the Games.
Not Ten; that was the girl with the spikey hair that the Five boy had stabbed, right on that spot. There was no blood there now.
Twelve was Court. She was gone too, yesterday. Somehow. Megan had killed Raylum. Now she really was a murderer, except was it murder if it was in the Games? If it was what you were meant to do?
It was the girl from Eleven, the one with the unusual name. He thought it began with an S but he wasn't sure.
A pale, lanky shape melted out of the trees.
He jumped to his feet, startled, everything rushing to his head at once.
You need to fight. You're going to die. Don't let him get too close. You've got the knives. There's no point in running away. You're so close.
This is the person that killed Megan.
Of this he was absolutely certain. The girl from Eleven wasn't a murderer. He'd seen her miss Daisuke and he'd heard from Megan about her missing...
Sebastian.
"Nice to see you," Vedran croaked, his voice making it very clear that it wasn't nice to see him at all.
"Nice to see you too," he replied. He knew what the boy from Three was doing; he was trying to knock his confidence, put him on the back foot. Well, that wouldn't work. He should say something now to reverse that.
"This is what they call the endgame," he said.
"I'll take your word for it," Vedran interrupted, taking a very surreptitious step backwards, edging around the roundabout. Sebastian took a matching one forwards. Chasing, chess style. One move at a time until eventually the king is cornered. Checkmate.
"Only a few pieces left on the board. Everyone knows the end is coming but they don't know when or where. Only the players can see where and who wins."
This was basically mindless prattle while he got closer to him, but he knew he had a point. Both of them were playing out the scene in their heads, different actions, how it would work. Both of them could see it in their heads; it was probably just the same.
Vedran was gradually coming to the conclusion that he was totally and utterly screwed.
Sebastian stopped inching forwards.
"You know, Vedran," he said, "I think if it wasn't for this, we might have been friends."
Vedran stopped sliding backwards.
He hadn't been expecting anything like that at all. Completely out of the left field, to use a metaphor of his own. But as much as he hated and feared Sebastian - he was now even more sure that he had killed Megan, and he dearly hoped that he hadn't toyed with her like this first - a grudging part of him had to admit that he admired him, just a little. Besides, didn't he only hate him because he was a killer, because he was doing what they wanted him to do?
"I think you might be right," he said cautiously.
"I usually am," was the retort.
"You killed Megan." He couldn't have held it in anymore, and it burst out before he could do anything about it. If possible, a darker shadow swept over Sebastian's face.
"I killed a lot of people," he admitted. Just for a second, his brave front vanished and he was just a boy, a young man, standing awkwardly in the middle of a playground.
Then it was back again.
Vedran took this as a confession. He'd already known it, but it hit him hard, physically winded him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he'd been insistant that she was still alive. She was dead.
He had the note; she was alive in that.
But he was stuck, somehow. Sebastian had cornered him. His grip tightened on the knife but he didn't trust himself to throw it accurately at this distance, and surely he'd only get one shot.
"Was it...?" he started, but he couldn't get the rest of the question out. He didn't want to know, but he had to. After all, he'd seen Sebastian bludgeon Misty around the head, but he'd also seen him carefully poison Tile.
As he'd expected, Sebastian knew what he wanted to say. "Painless," he said, carefully emotionless, "I promise. In her sleep, if you must know."
Vedran was a sort of pale green, absolutely petrified. Sebastian took another hesistant step forwards, into the boundaries of the playground itself. Vedran was clutching a knife so that his knuckles were bright white and it was obvious that he would throw it if he came too close. He would be able to throw further than the range of the darts, Sebastian knew. And he could remember him in training. He'd been able to hit a target, at least.
But he had the confidence; the upper ground. His revelation that he'd killed Megan appeared to have totally frozen his opponent. The odds here were with him, though he'd never liked playing the odds. They were too flexible, variable.
Distantly, he wondered how crazy the Capitol was going over this scene.
"If you're going to hit me, get it over with now," Vedran insisted.
This took him by surprise. He'd expected him to at least put up a fight. Maybe it was a trick, to get him in range.
"I'd have expected you to put up a fight," he responded, watching carefully to see if this affected Vedran in any way whatsoever. It didn't seem to.
Both boys were reminded of the interview.
Vedran couldn't cope with this. His heart was going so quickly he thought it might burst if it carried on much longer. He'd been tense for so long that it was starting to ache and he felt like he was going to collapse from the sheer stress of it all.
"So you're not going to hit me?" he asked. His brain was whirling. Sebastian looked confused, something he'd never expected to see. Perhaps he should take advantage of it. He had three knives, the one in his hand and the other two in the halter. He could throw one; if he missed it would spark Sebastian into action, and while he came forwards to hit him he could throw the others.
If it went wrong, he was dead for sure.
Sebastian was still weighing up the various answers to 'you're not going to hit me?'. He suddenly didn't want to provoke Vedran; he was starting to get the annoying feeling that he'd underestimated him.
He'd hesitated too long. Before he could even blink, a knife whizzed past his shoulder, too close. He darted forwards, ducking around the swings, as another thudded into the wood.
Vedran was panicking. He'd missed twice and now Sebastian was rushing towards him, darting neatly behind the equipment. For someone so lanky he was startlingly coordinated. This person killed Megan.
He had one knife left and scrabbled to get it out of the holster and take aim before he was in range, stumbling backwards.
He threw.
He missed.
Minutes later, the cannon went off. Skyler, up her tree, sighed, her stomach sinking.
Now she didn't have a choice.
She grabbed the bow and arrow, dropped out of the tree, and headed for the Cornucopia.