THAT NIGHT IKO DREAMT OF BLOOD. On her hands, in her mouth, sticking her clothes to her body so tenaciously peeling them off stripped off a layer of skin. It rose to her chin like a rising tide, a wave of carmine froth so thick she was choking on it. So much of it she thought she might've cut herself open somehow in the middle of the night, tossed and turned herself to ribbons, or worse, wet herself, that she feared to open her eyes in the case that either or both might be true.
When the morning light leaked into her room, she'd been lying awake for a good hour, staring at the ceiling trying to suppress the nerves crawling under her skin. No, not nerves. Something far more dangerous.
It was Janus who came to get her. She didn't see either of the mentors or Alex. Iko supposed Rhea would be tending to him first, the same way Janus had her changed out of her pajamas into a plain shift, before guiding her to the roof where a black hovercraft waited. She supposed her arena-appropriate attire would be provided later on. Shielding her eyes from the dust kicked up in the wind billowing in her face, the ends of her shift tugged violently by invisible hands in the air currents, Iko planted one hand and a foot on the lower rungs of the ladder they'd extended to let her up. Before she could begin climbing, a current in the ladder froze her in place. No matter how much she resisted, her muscles wouldn't cooperate. Slowly, they lifted her into the hovercraft. Iko almost scowled at the woman waiting at the mouth of the entrance, who'd smiled at her in greeting.
"Sorry," the woman said, shrugging, "just protocol. Can't take our chances before the big day, right?"
Iko didn't answer. Even if she wanted to, she couldn't. Something silver and sharp glinted in the woman's hand.
"This is your tracker, Iko," the woman said, holding the large syringe out for Iko to see. "If you're still, it won't hurt as much. It won't take too long, don't worry."
Telling her all this was redundant since the ladder hadn't released Iko from its paralysing hold, and she couldn't fight back even if she wanted to. Still, when the woman sunk the needle into the flesh of her forearm, Iko felt the pinch of the tracking device sliding into place. They'd be able to monitor her every move now. As soon as that was done, Iko felt the current die as the ladder released her. Janus was lifted into the hovercraft shortly after the woman vanished elsewhere while Iko turned to inspect the inside of the hovercraft. On cue, a hollow-eyed Avox with red hair directed them to a room where a generous breakfast spread had been laid out on the table in the centre.
It hit her then, even though the night before, she'd spent the last few seconds of consciousness in a fitful state of anticipation, that today was the beginning of her story. Everything she had trained and bled for had amounted to this. As she ate, scarfing down as much food as she could hold, she wondered what the arena would look like. Forests or snow? Mountains or ocean? There were a million possibilities that the Gamemakers could create and each that she conjured in her mind stoked the flames of excitement curling in her gut a little more.
Janus didn't speak as he waited for her to finish. He seemed to understand her need for silence. As prepared as she was, she needed to focus. Her mind was clear. Sharp. Saying goodbye to Alex last night had been the last step she needed to take to carve herself into the right headspace. Even the view rushing by outside the window as the hovercraft flew over the city, over trees and the sprawling wilderness, couldn't attract her attention. This time, feelings wouldn't be a distraction because she'd cut herself off from them. A mental severing. This time, there was no room for error because every little mistake could result in lethal consequence and Iko Moriyama did not make mistakes. This time, she would be the right kind of monster. The kind that the academy had made in its founders' image. Its founders were victors of the earlier Hunger Games. Though they were dead now, their legacy continued to thrive. Iko would be testament to that.
Minutes passed, and Iko sat in her own isolated world until the room darkened as the windows blacked out. A sick thrill surged through Iko's veins. They must be nearing the arena. When the hovercraft landed, Janus and Iko went back to the ladder, which lowered them through a tube into the catacombs that ran beneath the arena. Wordlessly, Iko followed Janus through the corridors, all the way to a separate chamber the Capitol labelled the Launch Room, though some people in the districts gave it the crude epithet, the Stockyard, where the animals go before they're slaughtered. Iko didn't want to think about it like that. Because unlike the others, Iko refused to be cut down here.
In preparation, Iko took her time showering, letting the warm water soothe her tense muscles. Every fibre of her being was awake, humming like an electric fence. After a hot blast of air dried her off, Janus bound Iko's dark hair up in a simple ponytail, making sure to keep all her hair out of her face. It was long and heavy, a discernible weight at the back of her head, so Janus trimmed three inches of it off and Iko watched the discarded pieces of hair fall to the floor at her feet like volcanic ash. In a blink, the clothes arrived, and Iko finds herself fitted in a breathable olive green cotton shirt and thin, black cargo pants tucked into a pair of black leather combat boots that looked fit for both running and hiking. Everything fit surprisingly well—especially the boots, which felt like they'd been perfectly seasoned, worn multiple times to the point where they didn't blister her feet—and Iko allowed herself to stretch out for a couple minutes in her new clothes, test the flexible material. Even her undergarments were comfortable, light and airy.
Since Janus didn't know what the arena looked like, he didn't have a hand in designing their attire for the arena. Like her, he could only guess.
"A humid environment, I think," Janus mused, pinching the short sleeve of her shirt between his thumb and forefinger. "They didn't provide a jacket, so unless the Gamemakers are total sadists—" to which, Iko was tempted to point out that sending twenty-three children to their deaths could also be considered sadistic, but decided against it, because as long as she wasn't one of the twenty-three, it wasn't her problem— "they won't freeze you out. Hopefully you won't bake."
"Hopefully?" Iko drawled, pinning Janus with a deadpan look.
Janus' lips curled into a wry smile, and his devil wings flapped slightly. Iko noticed that he'd been holding onto something in his free hand. He caught her questioning gaze and opened his fist. When his fingers unfurled like a blooming flower, Iko lifted a brow. Sitting in his palm like blue pearls was her sea-glass bracelet. It gleamed in the fluorescent light
"It passed the review board," Janus said. He cocked his head. "Anything special about it?"
"It's just a bracelet," Iko said, flippantly, slipping it on and letting her hand fall to her side.
"Is it really?" Janus asked, cocking his head. "Everyone who comes through here brings in something close to their heart."
Iko shrugged. How much did she want to tell her stylist about the merchant who'd come to see her during the visitation period before she'd boarded the train? That this had come—not from home—but from a complete stranger, when her mother wouldn't even bid her goodbye to her face. In any case, Career tributes didn't have hearts. It's what she'd been raised to believe, and in the space of its absence, a monster had grown. So she told him again, "It's just a bracelet." Because that was the only way she could think about it. Not because the moment she laid eyes on her bracelet, she couldn't forget the voice of the merchant telling her that somebody cared. No attachments.
While Iko stretched, taking care not to overdo it in her eagerness to get to the arena, Janus sat to the side, watching idly.
"Is it weird that you're going into the arena with Alex?" Janus asked, picking at his black nails, tapered to form sharp points like talons. Lifting a brow, he flicked her a questioning glance as she met his pressing stare with a cold glare. "I know you told Caesar that he's a challenge, or whatever, but he also said that you grew up together. You think the history would get in the way?"
Iko sent him a cutting look. "Only the weak let such distractions get in the way." It wasn't a lie.
"That's not an answer," Janus pointed out. "Even if I were here with my childhood nemesis—"
"But you're not," Iko said in a tone sharp enough to skewer his sentence. As she straightened up, crossing her arms over her chest, Iko dug her thumb into the inside of her forearm where the lump of her tracker pressed back. In the moment, she allowed a hot flash of rage to consume her. In the moment, she wanted to hurt him, wanted to wrap her hands around a couple knives and carve him into different shapes, because what did he know? What would he know about a difficult, complicated predicament while he was sitting in the Capitol, comfortable in his finances, comfortable in the security of his life. He would never have to fight the same battles she did, and she wanted to tell him, while she slipped a blade through his skin and tore lines in his face, that the point is, you aren't. You'll never understand and you'll never have to know what that feels like. So don't ask, and don't try to, because you don't want to know.
Instead, she thought: I am cold. I am decisive. I cut my own heart out when I was young so I could be here today. So I could win.
It was with that last thought and the automated female voice piping through the speakers, announcing that it was time to launch, that sent a delectable chill down her bones. Brick by brick, Iko thought, stepping onto the circular metal plate. She flexed her hands. They were clammy with agitation, and she wiped them against her pants. All the pieces were on her side. All the odds were stacked in her favour. This was how she built her throne.
It felt like just yesterday, she was a little girl playing with knives for the first time. A little girl who didn't know how to be deadly. And now...
"I'll see you soon, Iko," Janus said, standing in front of her as a glass cylinder lowered around her, closing her in. He grinned. "I've already made sketches of the dresses you'll be wearing throughout your Victory Tour. Don't let my hard work go to waste."
A wicked rush shot through her veins. She was already itching to get to the arena. Nothing else mattered. Iko let a condescending smile slip over her lips. "I look forward to them."
She glanced up as the platform began to rise. First, for a few seconds into the darkness submerging her completely, and then, a bright light and the end. As the platform pushed her out into the open, Iko's vision went white, dazzled by the sudden brightness. She caught the pungent scent of richly damp air, trees after a night's thunderstorm. When her eyes finally adjusted, like a camera lens shifting into focus, Iko found herself staring at the back end of the Cornucopia, a silver horn-shaped structure glinting brilliantly like a giant tooth in the light.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Claudius Templesmith's, the announcer's, voice booms, resonating grandly around the arena, "let the Sixty-Eighth Hunger Games begin!"
AUTHOR'S NOTE.
short chapter bc i decided not to include the bloodbath in this one bc it's gonna be so morbidly long. anyway i'm very excited to show y'all the arena even though it's very easy to guess from all the gifs i've put up in the summary