President Clair's eyes were alert as she watched the dozens of screens. "You must be ecstatic," she said to the Head Gamemaker dully. "So much action on a single day."
Rick was indeed smiling gleefully. "Luke is certainly interesting. You must be sad that Nico survived the bloodbath."
"He'll die soon," she said dismissively.
He sighed, "Yes, well, since you got Bryce to kill 'Maria' it's not going to be as compelling anymore. I wonder how long it'll take for the tributes to figure out the arena?"
◼▲◼
When Beckendorf's face flashed across the night sky, Piper felt her blood run cold. Something had happened after they'd left the Cornucopia.
After the girl from 3, Silena appeared. Piper's mouth fell open. There was only one explanation.
Bryce roared out his anger, and birds scattered into the skies. He slammed his axe into a nearby tree. "The TRAITOR! I knew it!"
"Wait," Percy caught at his arm before he could go running. "They could've gotten attacked by someone else. We should check if Luke is also dead first."
Bryce shook him off, "Are you dense? After the bloodbath, there were only two cannons. It was Silena and Beckendorf. Luke betrayed us."
Clarisse had gone white, "Don't blame Silena." Piper didn't want to condemn Silena either, but it had been her idea to trust Luke...
Bryce scowled, "Oh, I'm blaming her."
"Hey!" Piper shouted, deciding this was enough talking. "We need to go now. No one's guarding the horn, and we need those supplies if we want to survive."
"She's right," Percy agreed, "come on."
They sprinted through the rainforest, their feet thumping on dry hard-packed dirt. Piper wished she'd brought a coat with her — somehow it was freezing in the night. Secretly she was glad they were going back.
When they reached the clearing and were halfway up the hill, it was still dark, but they could see the wreckage.
Their supplies at the Cornucopia had been reduced to ashes.
◼▲◼
Annabeth was up early the next day.
Thalia was asleep, and she took the opportunity to bandage her shoulder.
The forest was pretty vast, and she hoped that Luke would be able to find them soon. She needed to take stock of the arena, and also make some sort of path for Luke to follow so he could find them.
She squeezed out of the cave, pulling away the vines that were concealing them to be met with cool air. It was much warmer than it'd been at night, but she still shivered as she carefully looked around. Nobody was nearby.
It was likely that Luke had burned the supplies. Annabeth had told him to only do it if the arena allowed the other Careers to not notice immediately, and since the Careers would obviously go into the forest, they wouldn't be able to see the smoke.
She found a little patch of strawberries by the cave and pulled some off their stems, thinking hard. The layout of the arena did not make any sense to her.
Namely how it was split into four sections — forest, meadow, desert, and tundra.
But who would go to the last two? There was no logic to it. It wasn't like any district would have an advantage in those environments.
She examined her outfit. The tributes had been given bright orange T-shirts — probably so it'd be easier to spot each other — and comfortable navy pants. Her thin leather boots had the most bizarre soles she'd ever seen. Mostly rubber, but also dotted with tiny metal spikes.
They were for ice, she realized. So clearly the Gamemakers expected some of them to go to the tundra at some point. But why? Was that the only place they could find water?
Annabeth took a small bite of one of the berries. It tasted just like normal, and she put them into the med kit, which she'd emptied earlier into Thalia's backpack.
She scanned the trees and surrounding area. She spotted a lizard with rough brown scales and a severed tail skittering by, but she didn't see any other animals.
Water was the most important thing, and she had to find some before doing anything else.
She kicked at some dry leaves, then squinted up at the sunlight filtering through the crackling foliage. For a place that looked every bit a rainforest, there sure wasn't a lot of rain.
It was almost like a desert.
◼▲◼
Will jolted awake. He was sitting against a tree in an oasis, where he'd fallen asleep. Getting hit on the side of the head with a spear and then stabbed was not good for his health, and he must've been exhausted.
Quickly he remembered the events after the bloodbath. Going into the desert wasn't something he'd wanted to do. When he'd gotten away from the bloodbath, he'd planned to make his way into the meadows, where he could possibly find some herbs that'd help the pain or speed healing, but the desert hadn't been nearly as bad as he'd thought.
One reason was the oasis he'd arrived at after an hour of walking, but the second was the complete un-desert-ness of it.
Despite the morning sun beating down from the sky, the desert was humid and barely hot. The sand was only mildly warm, which was jarring. The night hadn't been cold either, only somewhat.
He had no idea where Nico was, and he wondered if their alliance was even still going. He felt terrible for the guy — he was really upset when Maria was killed.
He felt a pang in his arm, and he looked down to see all the dried blood staining the jacket around it. It was high time to really do something about it.
Luckily, his head wasn't spinning anymore, so the Career's blow wasn't too serious. However, the injury to his arm was a problem. Last night he'd washed out the dirt and grass in a river and wrapped it back up. As far as he could tell, the spear had miraculously almost missed the two bones, but it'd fractured one of them. But maybe if he kept his arm straight, it'd be fine.
As for the two wounds (the spear had gone straight through) he needed to keep them closed so they could heal over and not get infected. He couldn't keep the bloody coat around his arm forever.
There were a few cacti in the distance, and Will walked towards them. With a chunk of rock, he broke off a needle. Then, resigning himself, he tore little threads from the jacket.
Stitches were going to be painful.
◼▲◼
It wasn't much of a frozen wasteland, Hazel thought, because it was warm. And when she got far enough, she'd seen trees bursting out of the snow-covered ground, and holes in the ice where animals had burrowed in. It was...weird.
She'd come here because back in district 10, she'd worked in the freezers, delivering crates of frozen meat from the factories to the trucks. She was pretty sure she could stand the cold at least for a few days, especially if the sun stayed this hot.
She also hadn't wanted to go to the forest, where she was bound to meet someone eventually. The meadows gave her bad vibes, and she figured nobody would come to the tundra.
She had been right. Vaguely she wondered if there were polar bears here, but that thought just made her think of Frank.
Frank.
Just the thought of him made her want to scream. How many people had he saved at that bloodbath?
He'd died a hero, but she still wished the big teddy bear was here with her.
There was a scratching sound nearby, and she turned to find a brown bunny digging at the ground with tiny paws.
Hazel came closer and bent down, "Want some help?"
The rabbit leapt away, and she sighed. Animals never liked her. Guess that was why she ended up in the freezers.
She returned to the tree she'd been hiding out in. She had gotten a backpack Frank had dropped when he went to save her, and there was no food or water inside, but plenty of other things. There were matches, a pair of sunglasses, some rope, an empty water bottle, a change of clothes, and a sleeping bag.
Hazel put on the sunglasses so the sun wasn't reflecting so painfully off the ice into her eyes. She could try melting some ice for water.
It was astounding how lucky she'd been, after her years of bad luck. She wondered what her parents would think, if they hadn't died for selling the gold jewelry she'd found on the ground, not knowing it belonged to the escort from the Capitol.
◼▲◼
When Nico woke up late on the second day of the Games, he was aching.
He wasn't sure how long he'd ran. It had turned into more of a pained walk after a few miles, until he'd eventually collapsed by a tree, completely drained.
After all, what was the point of anything?
His sister was gone forever, he was empty-handed and bleeding, Will had disappeared, and his sister was gone forever.
He wiped at his face and felt all the dried tear tracks.
There was a twinge in his side when he moved, and he remembered the knife the girl from 1 had thrown. He discovered that he'd already pulled it out and it was in his left hand. In his grieving haze he must've realized that running with a blade inside him wasn't a healthy idea.
I want death, he tried to say, but found that his throat was so dry it hurt.
Bianca wouldn't want him to give up like this.
He looked around and saw a silver parachute two feet away. He tried to stand up, but it hurt too much, so he fell forward onto his knees and crawled towards it.
There was a roll of bandages inside it, and he stared at it with surprise. He got a one in training because he refused to do anything. Why did people want to sponsor him?
Now wasn't the time to question it though. He lifted the dumb orange T-shirt every tribute had to wear and examined the wound, trying not to think about Bianca.
The cut was quite bad, though he was lucky it hadn't pierced anything important, and it'd stopped bleeding. He had no memory of seeing water, so there wasn't any way to clean it. He wrapped it up as best he could and tucked the leftover in his pocket, putting the parachute in too.
He was in a large patch of sunlight that also shined on where he'd been sleeping. That must've been why he woke up. He was glad for it though. The night had been really cold and the sun was hot.
The air was warm though, so he scooted into the shade. Now that he was thinking more clearly, he knew he needed to find water soon. The cold might've helped him not sweat too much during the night, but he knew he'd already lost way too much water from running and, you know, crying.
There was a patch of juicy strawberries nearby, and he inched himself over to it, glad for something to do.
◼▲◼
Percy hoped his mother wasn't too worried. He and the other Careers dug through the debris. Anything made of cloth was either burned to a crisp or half-burnt. The majority of the food was blackened and inedible.
The weapons were probably alright, but a large fire had been set inside the Cornucopia, filling it with toxic fumes. It was still smoking now — Luke must have dragged a lot of fabrics and branches in there to make it happen.
Clarisse had gone inside with her jacket over her face, and come out with two swords and red watering eyes. Now she was cursing Luke and storming around the hill, roaring for him to come and fight her.
Bryce was tearing up the grass with his axe, throwing a thunderous tantrum that the rest of them stayed well away from.
Piper crossed her arms, "We definitely set a record for how fast the Careers lose their supplies."
Percy walked around the plain, hoping there was more that Luke had missed. A few bandages or an apple maybe. Right now they needed all they could get.
He came across a small figurine of a man and picked it up, turning it over. It could've been a marker for a board game or something similar.
"What do you have there?" Piper asked, coming over. "Something useful?"
"Uh, no," Percy held it up. "It's someone's token."
"Oh," Piper remarked. "I think it belongs to that boy from 12. I saw him holding it in the Training Center."
Nico, Percy remembered. It was the guy who'd somehow managed to get a score of 1. He hadn't seen him in the bloodbath, likely because he'd stayed by the opening.
"Anyway," Piper said. "I found this." She revealed a long blowgun that'd been behind her back, like she was embarrassed by it. "It was by the Cornucopia, not inside it."
Percy wasn't sure what to say. "Congratulations?"
"I mean, I can use it," Piper mused. "It's the weapon my dad used to win, so naturally I trained with it. It's just not as glorious as my knife-throwing."
"Well, it's something. Besides, you have plenty of knives, so that blowgun can be your backup."
"I guess," she put the weapon into her belt and watched Bryce throw his axe around for a while.
Do you feel terrible about all this? he wanted to ask her. When you slew so many people, did you feel guilty like I did while watching it?
Who are you doing this for?
"What now?" he asked instead.
She surveyed the burning Cornucopia. "Best plan is to stay here and salvage what we can before anyone else. We'll try the forest again tomorrow, though the other players would be pretty concealed by now."
"Why do we call them players so often? Everyone else always says tributes."
Piper blinked, hesitating, "Because...these are the Games."
He didn't know what to make of her answer. It seemed to be every Careers' excuse to kill other kids. Percy pocketed Nico's token, though he wasn't sure why. Piper watched him do it but didn't say a word.