Chapter Text
The scream cuts through the early morning air like a knife, piercing the silence and echoing off the rock wall and overhang surrounding Scott and Allison.
Scott bolts upright, pain flashing through his leg where his wound is slowly trying to heal. Allison’s already crouched beside him. Without taking her eyes off of the ledge before them she reaches out and touches his knee, quieting him. Her other hand is on the long knife she got from the body of the tribute who tried to kill Scott. It’s still strange to see it in her hands and know that it was originally meant to kill him.
But Allison’s full of surprises and his time with her has been incredibly unpredictable.
“Stay here.” Allison says. Her brown eyes flick over her shoulder at Scott before she stands, going for her bow.
Scott tries to get to his own feet, his heart beating a wild rhythm in his chest. “No. I’m coming too.”
Allison pins him with a look, particularly at the place where she’s tied one of her jacket sleeves around his leg to stem the flow of blood. He’s still not steady on his feet. “Scott, you’re not well enough to climb back up the mountain.”
“I’m stronger than I look.” Scott argues, reaching for the long stick Allison found to help him get around. “And you’re not leaving me alone up here. What if someone finds me?”
Allison sighs. “Fine. Just stay behind me. And if anything happens, you hide. Alright? I don’t want any of that hero crap, I can handle myself.”
Scott nods enthusiastically. Allison is kind of wildly hot when she’s aggressive and protective. Right now she looks almost nothing like the girl he first saw in her chariot with her long dark hair laying in a silky sheet over her shoulders and her face made up to look like porcelain. Her hair is pulled up in a messy bun and there are streaks of dirt across her face.
She’s prettier this way, Scott thinks. She looks more at home out here than she did in the training center. This way they both have the Capitol washed from them.
Allison rolls her eyes at him and hands him the knife, slinging her bow and arrows over her shoulder. Together they make their way carefully down the mountain. Scott has trouble finding his footing on the steep downgrade. Allison grabs his hand and puts it on her shoulder as she walks ahead of him, keeping her steps absolutely silent.
They advance down the mountain, away from the high vantage point that Allison’s been very proud of for the last few days. Any change in scenery at this point is enough to make Scott nervous. He feels like danger could come at him from any direction.
Allison holds up a fist in what Scott’s just going to assume is a command for them to stop since she kind of crouches and cocks her head to the side. Scott stays where he is since crouching isn’t in the near future for him with his leg being the way it is. She looks back at him over her shoulder, slowly lowering her bow arm so that she can press one finger to her lips.
She gives him a very intense look that Scott’s pretty sure is supposed to be threatening, but instead is just too sexy for words. Not the time or the place for that, though. Scott nods, holding up a hand in an ‘okay’ gesture.
There are sounds of a struggle around the corner of the stone wall that makes up the base of the mountain. Scott cocks his head to the side and distinctly hears a girl’s sniffling.
Allison moves in one fluid movement around the corner, her bow drawn. Scott ambles behind her, poking his head around the corner to see what’s made the noise, if it’s the source of the scream.
The girl on the ground hasn’t noticed Allison yet. She’s too concerned with pressing her hands over a wound to the chest of the boy on the ground before her. Only instead of familiar, red blood, her hands are black with a viscous liquid that makes Scott’s stomach go uneasy.
The girl’s head whips around, finally catching sight of Allison. Quick as a flash, she has a silver knife in her hand, drawn back to fire.
“Allison.” The girl says. Her eyes are wide and panicked looking. Scott’s unsure if this means she’s the one who injured the boy before her, or if she found him this way.
“Lydia.” Allison responds, in a tone that Scott might describe as steely. Back at the training center, Scott remembers seeing Allison and Lydia together, albeit incredibly briefly.
Both girls seem to be at a standoff, while the men with them are incapacitated. The handsome boy from 4 on the ground and half draped over Lydia’s lap looks like he’s in pretty terrible shape.
“Any chance of a truce?” Lydia asks, raising an eyebrow. Her voice is more of a croak than anything. The hand she has raised with the knife is shaking. She’s a pretty girl, looking a lot worse for wear. There are twigs in her hair and a few scratches on her face.
“That depends on you.” Allison says. It sends a chill down Scott’s spine to know that the girl who Scott thought was rather sweet during training is the same person who killed someone right before Scott’s eyes.
“I need protection. Danny needs medical attention. We’ve spent the last 7 hours running for our lives from something—someone.” Lydia says, her face keeps draining of color.
“Yeah,” Allison asks, intrigued. “Who? The Hales?” Scott notices that she spits out the name.
“Jackson.” Lydia responds. Danny makes a pathetic sound. “Like the Hales, but different.”
Now it’s Allison’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Well, that’s certainly a surprise. I thought we were only going to have to deal with two Mutts in the games.”
Lydia rolls her eyes. “If you want to kill them, want a real chance at it. I have something that you’re gonna need. And if you kill me, you’ll never get it.”
Allison sighs. “So what, I’m just supposed to trust you? I’m supposed to believe that you have something that will help me end the Hales and the Whitmore kid?”
“I want him gone.” Lydia says, “That Hales I could care less about. It seems they want nothing to do with Danny and I. But Jackson, gone for sure.”
“I’ll bite.” Allison says, lowering her bow a tiny bit. “An alliance on the terms that you give me what I need to stop the Hales, of I’ll kill you. If you try to hurt Scott, I’ll kill you. If you—“
“Let me guess, you’ll kill me?” Lydia asked sarcastically. “Spare me the threats and help me carry him?” She motioned to Danny’s unmoving form.”
“First tell me what it is that I apparently need so badly.” Allison says, keeping her bow drawn.
Lydia, looking like she’s pretty much ready to drop, lowers her knife and sighs. “My voice. Once I figure out how to use it again.”
Allison must know what this means, because she lowers her bow as well.
It can’t be that easy. Not to form an alliance that might get them one step closer to the end, Scott thinks. Though, he’s unsure what it will mean for Allison and he to be nearing the end of the Games. One Victor can make it out alive.
Scott thinks that Allison would deserve it considering her skills, and the compassion she showed him. He thinks that the crown on her head would make her look like a warrior princess.
Its just a shame he won’t be there to see it.
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Alan Deaton keeps his eyes locked on the display before him with a red dot marking the location of each tribute in the games. It’s rude, considering the guest in his office. But at Gamemaker, it’s his job to stay as up to date as possible on the actions happening in the arena.
“This has gone on long enough.” The man before him says. His voice is the same gruff tone that he uses to address the whole of Panem. Hearing it now in his office is even more startling. “I want these little groups obliterated, scattered to the wind. I want to see what you promised me. I want District vs. District. I want blood, and I want those Mutts gone.”
Deaton raises an eyebrow, his eyes briefly flicker over to the place where the Hales have stopped, near the edge of the arena. Deaton spent the whole night watching practically all of the tributes scatter across the playing field as the night progressed. And somehow, like ships passing thought the night, there hadn’t been any more casualties other than Ennis and Kali.
Mutts chasing tributes. Tributes running for their lives. Three transformations by the light of the full moon. An event broadcast is there’s ever been one. The Gamemaker in him knows the only thing that could make it better is if it hadn’t happened in the middle of the night, when most of the population was asleep. Never mind that. It was being cut together by a team in the other room for the recap airing that evening.
“The Whitmore situation isn’t something that we foresaw.” Deaton explains, “The bite was administered by an alpha—“ Deaton neglects to restate his argument that having Peter Hale meander around the Training Center unguarded was a huge mistake. “in an unmonitored part of the Training Center.”
President Silver narrows his eyes, “I don’t care how it happened. Least the boy could have done was kill Martin and the boy. He just played with them.”
“Sir,” Deaton says, “Believe me when I tell you that I have something in mind. We’ve run simulations and the results will be spectacular.”
“Good.” Silver nods his grizzled head. Only, the word coming from his lips feels like the total opposite of good. “I want these games ended within the week.”
Deaton agrees. Any more than a week and they’ll be running on fumes. It’s so much more entertaining to have many tributes rather an one or two trying to pick each other off for days on end.
“You’re still sure about the girl?” Deaton asks.
Silver pushes himself up from the chair across from Deaton’s desk. “Do me a favor and don’t ever ask me if I’m sure of anything, ever again.”
Deaton nods his head to the other man, standing as is only polite when the president is about to leave.
When Silver is gone, the smell of monkshood still lingers in the office. Deaton flicks through his notes on the tablet in his hands, back to the date of his initial planning meeting with Silver.
There they had outlined the names of the Tributes to be selected, apart from 12 where their options were completely limited. There, at the top of the sheet, a red circle had been drawn around a single name.
Silver had been certain that if he was going to allow children and wards of former Victors into the games, he was going to control who it was that made it out alive in the end.
For all that Deaton and the rest of Panem saw Silver as a ruthless man masquerading as a benevolent protector, it was rare that he showed his cards to anyone.
But blood proved the strongest motivator the day that Silver had decided that not only would his only grandchild enter the Hunger Games. But that she would also come out as the Victor. And even Deaton couldn’t predict what would happen once Silver had her in the Capitol.