Impavid

“So you’re the capitol sweetheart.” Katniss’ voice was deadpan as I stopped walking to stand next to her. She was standing in front of the archery area, looking at the bows looking as though she were deciding whether to enter or not. She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“Sounds like Haymitch has been talking about me,” I countered, smiling slightly. “Looks like we’ve both got nicknames, girl on fire. How about we stick to first name basis.”

“Agreed.”

“If you teach me archery I’ll teach you hot to make fish hooks,” I said, gesturing to the bows. It was the third day of training and I still had not said two words to Katniss. For all of my determination to save her, I had done a poor job at trying to figure out just how to communicate with her. “Sound like a good deal?”

Her lips imitated a smile before nodding. We both picked up bows and walked into the glass room. She then went into a full lecture about stand, drawing, arrow placement and aiming. I listened to all of it, comparing it to the lessons I had taken from a trainer in my games.

Katniss was not animated about it, but she was passionate. She spoke with a love for what she was explaining, but she did not get into it besides basics. She was polite and pedantic, avoiding sounding personal or open. I took her behavior with a grain of salt, knowing she was struggling to deal with anyone around her.

It seemed to me that Katniss was not a people person. From the way she interacted with everyone around her to the way she struggled in her own games to make allies, I gathered that she was a very solitary person. A solitary person who could have won the game by herself on skill alone- Peeta had just gotten lucky.

“Alright, try it.” Katniss tapped the settings to beginner. “It’s on the most basic setting. They should appear as unmoving targets.”

Nodding my head, I took my stance and drew the bow, taking aim. A yellow figure appeared a few yards away. I let go of the arrow and hit the target in the chest. The next appeared on the balcony and I drew again, releasing the arrow and hitting it in the chest once more. I followed it up with two more hits and a single miss when I aimed for the head.

The system powered down, lights coming on. “You’ve shot before.”

It wasn’t a question. She glared at me flatly and I shrugged. “I tried it out when I was in my games. But if they move I can’t hit them. Unfortunately our fellow tributes are going to be on the move. Kind of not my thing.”

“So why did you make me teach you something you already know?”

“Allies.” I studied her up and down. She met my gaze coolly. “Maybe you don’t want me as an ally and that’s alright. But I wanted to at least talk to you before we go in there, see what kind of person you are.”

“What? You don’t get secrets like Finnick does?” My fists clenched and my jaw worked at the comment. Something in my face must have told her that she hit a nerve, her face softening as she scratched the back of her neck. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” I glanced outside of the glass. Finnick was looking at me from afar, not paying attention to whatever it was he was doing. “How about I teach you those fishhooks?”

It took me an hour to teach Katniss how to properly make a fishhook, but at the end of it she was a lot more open with me and we had even laughed a few times. Her handiwork wasn’t bad, though a child in district four could still fashion a better one.

“Can I ask you something?” I glanced up at her as I examined her hook. I shrugged my shoulders, putting it down and leaning against the table to give her my undivided attention. She looked at me straight on, something I liked about her. “Why didn’t you join the career pack? You were the first from district four in years to defer to a different alliance?”

“That question.” I laughed ruefully. It was a question that i had been asked multiple times. But I always gave a generic answer. I always insisted that I wanted them to do the job for me before they took on themselves. I decided to give Katniss the real answer. “Because I wanted to do the exact opposite of what I was told. From the very beginning I was mad. I was just so mad that I had to go through it, and maybe it’s selfish because I wasn’t mad until I was reaped, but I couldn’t think of anything but my anger.”

She nodded. “Not the answer I expected.”

“What did you want me to say? That I wanted to hunt them down because we all know they have the advantage- that I had an advantage? I don’t like advantages. They take away the meaning.”

“And what’s the meaning?”

“To survive. It isn’t surviving when you’ve got the upper hand. It’s killing. There’s a difference.”

A sound went out to call us to lunch. Katniss and I said no more as we went to the eating area. Like both days before, we all ate as a single unit. We all began joking about what it was that we planned on doing to show off to the game makers, but underneath the jokes was the same underlying tone: no one knew what they could possibly do to show off.

I myself had no idea what to do. My own games I had pulled a score of nine by brandishing my skill with a trident and with knives. They were my best weapons. I had thrown the hell out of the knives and done beautiful work with a trident, even throwing in elegant flips and tricks myself. I had completely made an art form out if it, and they loved it.

Now I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t go in there and do back flips and cartwheels. I also wasn’t good enough with a bow to impress them. Our job now as returning tributes was to do something out of character for us and do it well, or to do something extremely dramatic that they thought would play very well in the games.

Following lunch, the rest of the day consisted like every other training day. I was running out of things to do that I already didn’t know how to do. So when I was tired of pretending that I was trying to learn things, I return back to our living quarters with Finnick.

At our temporary home, Bellona had us sitting down in front of her. She was dressed ridiculous as usual, her hair a ghastly teal color. “We must talk about what you two are going to do to show the game makers!”

“I was thinking of interpretive dancing,” I insisted, leaning into the couch. Finnick snickered at my comment. “You know, to show the progression of the games.”

“I also was thinking of doing something like that,” Finnick said, grinning at me. “Probably going to go in there and take off all of my clothes and strut around. Wouldn’t that be a site to see?”

“Twelves all around.”

Bellona glared, her blue lips pursing. “This is not a game.”

“It’s literally called The Hunger Games, Bellona.”

“That isn’t the point, Lana.”

“Yes it is. The point is to go in there and show them something absolutely amazing that ensures them we are going to be lovely additions to the arena, that we are going to give them a show. That is a game, a game of chess. They want to know what people are the pawns and what people are the knights, the rooks- the king and queen.”

Bellona opened and closed her mouth. Silence passed through the room. Outside, crowds cheering could be heard. Big screens outside of the building ran a constant stream of highlights from each tributes games that had made them victors. I wondered who was on the screen then.

“I suppose that is a good point,” Bellona confirmed, glaring. She clasped her hands, brushing it off and smiling at the two of us. “Do you have any idea what you are going to do when you go in there?”

“We’ll figure something out.” Finnick looked at me, grinning. “Won’t we, Lana Banana?”

“Of course we will.”

When she could get no more out of us, she bid us goodbye and vanished. Finnick and I remained sitting on the couch, not bothering to exchange words. I began thinking of Cain, wondering if he was okay. I knew that he was safe where he was in district four, but I still worried. And then I worried what would happen when I broke free of the arena, if all went according to plan.

There were so many things that could go wrong. I could die in the arena before it happened, or Katniss could attack us and not trust us. The coil could fail at breaking us out, turning it into a real game. Or we could be successful, but what did that mean for my family?

Too many outcomes. It made me nervous to think about them. And Cain? Hopefully I had given my parents enough of my winnings that they could continue to medicate him until he was older and began working, buying medication himself he could afford it. That all depended on if I died like I was supposed to in the Hunger Games and if we failed. If we didn’t, much worse could happen.

Instead of voicing my concerns, I kept them to myself. Complaining about my fears was useless. I was signed on for the plan, I was on the board the train to revolution. There was no point in admitting how many things could go wrong, how dangerous it was for my family or saying how I thought everything had a chance of failing.

That night I fell asleep yet again with Finnick at my side.

The cornucopia is huge and shining bright in the middle of a large field. The land surrounding us is gold and filled with high grass, stretching around our plates. Finnick’s words of joining the career pack throb in my ears but as I look to either side of me, I search for the allies that I have already made. Farrow from seven is four plates away from me, her blonde hair up and tight. Her counterpart is somewhere I cannot see, perhaps on the other side of the cornucopia.

“Welcome to the 69th annual Hunger Games. Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favor.”

My palms sweat as a clock appears above the cornucopia. I scan what I can see scattered around it. Backpacks, canteens and survival kits. Most of the weapons are tucked inside the mouth, just out of view from my sight. Regardless, I lean forward, opening and closing my hands.

The light-weight shirt on my body dances in the breeze. Ten. Nine. Eight. I think of Cain sitting at home, watching what is going on. My panic is being kept at bay, knowing that I can use the games as a way to help him. Four. Three. Two. I can help my brother.

My feet barely touch the ground as I run. I’m shoving the grass aside, pumping my feet faster and faster. I almost stumble because I’m trying to run faster than my body can possibly manage. Everything around me is completely obscured by glass, but I can hear people running on either side of me. I keep straight, knowing that if I change course I will get lost.

Breaking through the hedge of the grass to the flat land where the cornucopia sits, I see that only three other tributes have made the same amount of time as me. As I charge straight for the cornucopia, I scoop a back pack up as I move along, throwing it over my shoulder. It beats against my back as I run but I ignore it, seeing the girl from give pick up a knife, throwing it right at my chest. I dodge it as I reached the opening of the cornucopia. There are several tributes making for the weapons, directly where I’m standing.

Just like Finnick assured me, there are several tridents sitting on the wall. I grab three of them in one hand and another, sticking it through the strap. Grabbing a knife from the wall, I turn around, hurling it with a vengeance as it catches a girl from three in the head, knocking her over.

Without so much as blinking I’m grabbing a packet of knives, ducking as the boy from two swings a sword hard at me. I don’t bother to engage him, running and throwing another knife in the back of the girl from two as she hacks at a boy from five. I dully note as she dies that it is probably the first time a career tribute has been killed in the bloodbath. I don’t care.

Farrow from seven joins me and we begin tearing towards the edge of the field. Screams are ranging out behind me but I don’t care. I imagine Finnick coldly watching, realizing I have not accepted an alliance with the career pack. Instead, I have made an agreement with the two tributes from seven, depending on their axing skills.

With the pack of knives shoved in the pack, I thankfully have a free hand as a the girl from twelve stumbles in front of us. Farrow holds her hand out to stop me but I throw the trident anyway, catching her in the back. She screams loudly as I jog and pull my weapon from her back. Farrow stares at me. “It’s us or them,” I say solidly, gesturing for her to follow. I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to die.”

“Lana.” The voice startled me. I sat up in bed, looking around, confused at my surroundings. Finnick stood in front of me dressed. Once again he let me sleep in, gesturing for me to hurry as he put on his shoes and said, “You’ve got to hurry. We have to be there in a few minutes.”

Quickly I jumped out of his bed. When I reached the door I said, “I had the dream again.”

“Which one?”

“Where I tell that girl from seven that it’s us or them, the one where I really do sound like a cold hearted killer.” I hesitated, my door on the handle. “It isn’t us or them anymore, alright?”

“I know that, Lana.”

“It just makes me feel better that you know. It’s them.”

“But it’s only them if they don’t try to kill us,” Finnick said, straightening. Surprise flickers in me. “I’m not going to save someone if their trying to kill me. This deal is only in tact if she doesn’t try to kill us.”

In my own room, I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that for once, it isn’t a complete suicide mission.