Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The odds were never in their favor.

Ziggy knew that, logically, she should be fine. There were over a hundred thousand slips of paper in that bowl. Her name was only in it seven times: one for each year she’d been eligible as tribute, plus an additional two for the tesserae she’d taken out last year. The odds of her being chosen were slim, incredibly slim.

But they were never zero. And as Ziggy had learned, time and time again over the sixteen years she’d been alive, good things didn’t happen for people like her.

Ziggy Berman was district, through and through, and for that, she would die. Whether that meant a Reaping today, an accident at the factory tomorrow, or a Morphling addiction and overdose fifty years from now, she didn’t know. All she knew was that District Six would kill her, one way or another.

That was why, when the escort peered down at the slip of paper in his hand and read Ziggy’s name, she wasn’t even surprised.

“Christine Berman,” the escort read.

At first, all Ziggy felt was a vague, detached grief. No matter who had been reaped, it was hard. Every year, they gathered here to watch terrified children– some familiar, some not, some nearly adults and others barely old enough to be here at all– be carted away to their deaths in the arena. Last year, it had been Alice, and the Berman sisters (along with everyone else in District Six) had been forced to watch her weaken and die over several agonizing days after falling off a cliff and breaking her leg so badly that she couldn’t even crawl to shelter. This year, at least Cindy was safe, having turned nineteen that spring; Ziggy was not so lucky.

So, yes, grief. Whoever had been reaped, they were almost guaranteed to die painfully, and Ziggy couldn’t help but mourn them. Next, she felt a rising sense of confusion. Why were people looking at her like that? Why were they–?

Oh. Oh, of course. Because why wouldn’t this be happening to her?

It had taken Ziggy a few seconds to even recognize her own name; no one had called her Christine in years, not even her own parents. But that was undeniably her name, and with a deep breath, she began to walk forward towards the stage.

As she took her place on the stage, hands clenched tight in furious, terrified fists, Ziggy did her best not to look over at the crowd of onlookers. Cindy was there somewhere, no doubt shocked and dismayed to see her sister be Reaped; while Ziggy herself wasn’t surprised, she was fairly certain that seeing her sister’s face right now would cause her to break down crying, and she didn’t want that.

Ziggy Berman was going to die, and everyone here knew it. But if she was going to die, she was going down swinging. She wouldn’t be reduced to blubbering like a baby on national television.

So instead, she fixed her eyes on one of the news cameras, glaring at it with an intensity that she hoped came off as “fierce” rather than “unhinged.” I hate you, Ziggy thought, picturing all the rich, entitled Capitolites sitting at home right now watching this on screen. She couldn’t pretend to be happy, but rage was an easier emotion than fear, and a less embarrassing one to have broadcast to the world. I may never have the chance to say it out loud, but I hate you. You want me to die? Fine. But I will not smile as you send me to my death. Did you hear me, Capitol? I hate you.

***

Cindy met her in the Justice Building, frantic and already red-eyed from crying. “Ziggy,” she greeted her, desperation in her tone. “Oh my god, Ziggy.”

Her hands gripped Ziggy’s shoulders, and Ziggy could feel the way her hands trembled.

On any other occasion, Ziggy would have shaken her off, made some snarky retort and told Cindy to leave her alone. The sisters hadn’t gotten along in years, after all. But now, knowing that this was Ziggy’s last day in District Six– barring a miracle, one of Ziggy’s last days alive– she found that she couldn’t begrudge her sister this. In fact, there was something comforting about seeing her sister’s face, about hearing her voice, on today of all days.

“I know,” Ziggy responded, her voice wobbling as the tears she’d kept at bay on stage threatened to make an appearance. “I know. But it’s not really a surprise, is it? We were never that lucky.”

“I thought–” Cindy was choked up, pulling Ziggy into a hug and clutching her like she was a lifeline. “I thought, after Alice, it couldn’t get any worse. But now it’s you, and I– I’m so sorry, Ziggy. You know that, right? If I could have volunteered for you, I would have. I would have done anything.”

It was a nice sentiment, if probably not a truthful one. After all, Cindy hadn’t volunteered for her best-friend-turned-enemy last year when she was eligible, and it wasn’t as though Cindy and Ziggy’s relationship was much better.

“Thanks,” Ziggy said awkwardly, deciding not to argue the point. “Um. Could you let go of me?”

Cindy released her at once, stepping back as if she’d been burned. “You’re gonna make it,” she told Ziggy, sounding like she was trying to convince herself more so than her sister. “I know you are.”

“District Six hasn’t had a victor in over a decade,” Ziggy pointed out. While they certainly had more victors (and, therefore, better odds) than the outlying districts, most of the victors came from the so-called “Career” districts, and she saw no reason that this year would be any different.

“I guess that means we’re due another one, right?” Cindy asked, offering Ziggy a watery smile.

“I’m going to die,” Ziggy told her bluntly. “You know that just as well as I do.”

“Ziggy!” Cindy snapped, and for half a second it almost felt like things were normal. “You can’t talk like that! You do have a chance, I think you can do it if you try, but you have to try. You can’t go in thinking you’ve already lost.”

“I have already lost,” Ziggy argued. “I’m only sixteen, I have no weapons or survival training at all, and I’m going up against eighteen-year-old Careers who’ve been training for this half their life. Plus I’m not exactly charming enough to get sponsors. Face it, Cindy, I’m not coming back.”

Towards the end of her sentence, Ziggy’s voice broke. She wasn’t exactly happy about what she was saying, but it was the truth. Ziggy’s odds of survival were just as low as her odds of being Reaped had been; which is to say, they were slim to none.

Cindy shook her head, tears leaking out of the corner of her eyes. “At least promise me that you’ll try,” she begged.

Ziggy grimaced. “Of course I’m going to try. I’d be crazy not to. But I’m just being realistic here, Cindy; it’s not going to work.”

Cindy opened her mouth to reply, but before she could say anything, the door to the room swung open. “Time’s up,” the Peacekeeper said, standing in the doorway and gesturing for Ziggy to follow him. “Let’s go.”

Ziggy trailed after him, glancing back at her sister as she left the room. Cindy looked as heartbroken as Ziggy felt, her face pale and tear-splotched, her hands still shaking slightly at her side. “I love you!” Cindy called after her.

I love you too, Ziggy thought, but by the time she thought to say the words out loud, she was long gone.

***

The train ride to the Capitol was uneventful. The meeting with her stylist once she got there, unfortunately, was not.

“Oh, a redhead!” the woman trilled, sounding positively delighted as she rushed into the room. “And a pretty one, no less! Now this, I can work with.”

Ziggy glowered at her.

“I have so many ideas for dresses already,” the woman continued, either ignoring Ziggy’s expression or completely oblivious to it. “We’ll want to reflect your district, of course– I’m thinking bright, bold colors. Taxicab yellow, firetruck red, a callback to some real vintage forms of transportation. I would have loved to do my yellow dress idea last year, but that blonde girl, the sour one, those color tones would have just washed her right out. You, on the other hand…”

At that, Ziggy had to resist the urge to punch her. Alice had been… well, maybe not a friend, but someone Ziggy had grown up with, almost like another big sister for a long time. They might not have seen each other much after Alice’s fight with Cindy, but that didn’t mean they didn’t care, and hearing someone talk to dismissively about her–as if her Games hadn’t mattered, as if she hadn’t died– caused a renewed well of fury to bubble up inside Ziggy.

As the woman continued to ramble on about color swatches and fabric, Ziggy blocked her out, not sure what would happen if she got in a physical fight with her stylist but sure it wouldn’t be good. Better not to risk it, despite the fact that turning up on stage with a black eye and bruised knuckles would probably be the most ‘Ziggy’ thing she could think of.

“So, I’m thinking red for the chariot ride, to start you off strong, and then yellow for the interview, because no one is doing yellow in the interviews. It’ll really set you apart!” her stylist assured her.

“Sounds great,” Ziggy forced herself to say, although she didn’t bother to fake any enthusiasm in her tone. She was fairly certain she’d missed several minutes of ramblings, but it wasn’t as though she needed to know any of this anyway. She would wear what the stylist told her to wear, and Ziggy had no say over what that was. At least, by the sound of things, it wouldn’t be that awful recycled car tire look from a few years back. She was going to die anyway; there was no point in making her death any more humiliating than it needed to be.

“We’re going to make you gorgeous, dear,” her stylist continued. “Oh, this is so exciting! Just wait until you see the final designs. The sponsors will absolutely eat it up.”

***

Everyone in the Capitol (and most everyone in the Districts) would have seen the Reaping already, but the chariot parade was meant to be the Tributes’ first official introduction to all of Panem.

Ziggy was mostly just glad that she didn’t look completely ridiculous. She wasn’t dressed in a coal miner’s outfit like the poor boy from District Twelve, or in sheer, clingy bedazzled mesh that left nothing to the imagination, like both tributes from District One. Instead, Ziggy’s dress was a fairly simple solid-color red dress, chunky bows and an asymmetric cut being the only thing to really set her apart. It was Capitol fashion, but it wasn’t completely ugly, even though Ziggy wouldn’t be caught dead in it outside an event like this. She was covered up and not wearing old car tires, so in her mind, that was a win.

Standing beside her chariot, allowing her stylist to do the finishing touches on her makeup, Ziggy did her best to surreptitiously survey her competition.

The Careers looked intimidating, of course; the pair from Four were dressed in sharp-edged blue with seashell accessories, their arms bare to show off their biceps. The pair from one were barely clothed at all, shimmering gemstones adorning their see-through outfits, both of them clearly leaning into their looks to get sponsors, but Ziggy had seen enough games to know that they’d have the training to back it up. The pair from Two… as Ziggy’s eyes moved to survey them, she realized that the girl was glaring directly at her.

She was shorter than Ziggy by several inches, her hair dark and straight. Even though she was covered by a deep red military-style jacket, Ziggy could tell by the way it fit her that she was strong and muscled underneath, and the angry sneer on her face told Ziggy that this girl was bad news.

The smart thing to do would have been to avert her eyes and hope this Career’s attention didn’t last. Pissing off the Careers was a surefire way to get killed even quicker (and more painfully) than expected. But self-control had never been Ziggy’s strong suit, so she returned the girl’s sneer. “What is your problem?” Ziggy demanded, ignoring the frantic shushing motions her mentor was now making at her from across the room.

The girl’s scowl deepened. “You don’t get to talk to me, Six.”

She said Six like it was a slur, like it somehow made Ziggy less than human. Personally, Ziggy thought that wasn’t quite fair. They were both District, after all, and Six wasn’t even one of the outer districts, so this level of judgement and animosity seemed completely baseless.

“I can talk to whoever I want,” Ziggy retorted. “And you’re the one who’s glaring at me.”

The girl from Two scoffed. “Don’t get ideas above your station, Six. You’ll be lucky to make it past the bloodbath. And you should really rethink your wardrobe– red really isn’t your color.”

That startled a laugh out of her. First of all, who cared about fashion choices when they were all going to die anyway? Second of all, Ziggy knew damn well that wasn’t true, because she’d seen herself in the mirror earlier and (while the bows looked a bit ridiculous to her District sensibilities) the color suited her goddamn well.

“Is that what your problem is?” Ziggy realized aloud. “You’re mad because I’m wearing the same color as you? Are you jealous? Get over yourself.”

The girl scoffed. “Jealous? Of you?”

“Sheila, calm down.” The District Two boy said, putting his hand on her arm as if to hold her back. “It’s not worth it.”

The girl— Sheila— shook off his hand. “You’re pathetic,” she told Ziggy, contempt dripping from every syllable. “And the moment those Games start, I’m going to kill you. Maybe I’ll even break your legs first so you can die slow, like that other girl—“

How dare she. The last fibers of Ziggy’s self-restraint snapped. She lunged forward, swinging her fist wildly at the girl’s face.

The fight, if it could even be called that, was over in seconds. The knuckles on Ziggy’s right hand were bruised and bleeding, the taste of something metallic in the back of her throat from Sheila’s return punch. Her nose ached something awful, and she could only hope it wasn’t broken. Sheila was clutching the side of her jaw, wide-eyed and furious, being pulled away from Ziggy by her district partner. Ziggy’s own arms were restrained by guards as she continued trying to lunge at Sheila, spitting mad.

“Calm down!” her mentor, Martin, snapped. He looked a strange combination of angry, worried, surprised, and impressed. As District Six’s most recent victor (“recent” meaning eleven years ago) and only active mentor, he’d dealt with mentoring plenty of tributes over the past few years, but Ziggy had still managed to take him by surprise; she couldn’t help but take a little bit of pride in that.

“No fighting between tributes allowed!” the Peacekeeper that was restraining her barked. That seemed a little hypocritical, since fighting one another was literally what they’d been brought here for, but Ziggy supposed it wouldn’t do for the Capitol to see their precious tributes already banged up before the Games had even begun.

“Fine,” Ziggy grumbled, and was gratified when the Peacekeeper released her arms. “But if she says one more thing about Alice, it’s on sight, Games or no Games.”

“If you get into any more physical altercations before the start of the Games, you will face disciplinary action,” he warned, taking a few steps back to give her space but keeping a suspicious gaze on her.

With the immediate danger over, Ziggy’s stylist rushed back into view. “Oh no, oh no,” she fretted. “The chariots are supposed to leave any second now, and you’re all banged up.”

She pulled a bottle of makeup out of her purse and began to open it up, but stopped when Martin shook his head. “Leave it,” he instructed.

The stylist scoffed. “What? No, we need to cover up–”

“She’s a fighter,” Martin said, cutting her off. “I can work with that. Leave it.”

On the other side of the room, Ziggy could see another stylist frantically dabbing foundation across Sheila’s cheek. Sheila looked frazzled, although she kept shooting glares in Ziggy’s direction.

Ziggy smirked. Going down swinging, indeed.

Chapter Text

Frankly, Ziggy hadn’t been entirely sure what Martin was going for when he’d told the stylist not to cover her bruises. It was only seeing herself on the big screen, standing proud in her chariot with a freshly-darkening bruise across her face, nose just starting to swell, that she began to understand.

Sure, she didn’t look Capitol-perfect, but there was something captivating about the image anyway. Her lipstick was smudged, her hair (which had previously been perfectly curled and arranged around her shoulders just so) messy and slightly tangled. When she reached up to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes, the camera caught on her split knuckles, and she could feel the attention of the crowd as they started to whisper about it.

She didn’t look perfect, no. She looked fierce. She’d gotten into a fistfight before the Games even began and instead of hiding it, she was flaunting it. Ziggy was strong, bold, untameable… and utterly unashamed of it.

She looked like a contender.

“Oh, my!” One of the announcers was saying. “It looks like our female tribute from District Six has gotten into a bit of trouble backstage. Why, Caesar, fighting amongst tributes isn’t allowed, is it?”

“From the looks of things, Miss Berman doesn’t seem to care!” The other announcer, Caesar Flickerman, exclaimed jovially.

“Do you think it’s intentional?” The first announcer questioned.

As if on cue, a thin stream of blood began leaking out of Ziggy’s nose. She resisted the urge to wipe it away. Luckily, this wasn’t her first nosebleed, so she was able to keep from making a face at the metallic tang of blood on her tongue.

“I don’t know, Constance, that blood looks real to me!” Caesar responded. “Whether it’s real or not, it’s certainly a statement! And oh, look, there are our tributes from Seven coming out now…”

As they transitioned to talking about the next pair of tributes, Ziggy breathed a sigh of relief, but didn’t drop her guard. She wasn’t foolish enough to think that no one was watching her just because the cameras were focusing on someone else. She couldn’t help but feel proud of her performance at the parade, of the impression she’d made on the crowd. Would that be enough to steal sponsors away from the Career tributes? Probably not. But it was something, and that was a hell of a lot more than she’d expected to accomplish today.

She felt a little bit bad for her district partner, actually. Poor Jeremy was only thirteen, and he had neither the confidence nor the physical capabilities to make him a true contender. If Ziggy’s chances were low, Jeremy’s were nonexistent. The announcers hadn’t even mentioned him at all, too focused on Ziggy’s show-stealing nosebleed, taking away any shot he’d had at securing even a single sponsor.

Jeremy was going to die. Ziggy was going to die too, in all likelihood, but she was starting to think that she at least had something of a chance. She couldn’t say the same for Jeremy, and the thought sent a twinge of regret through her. She forced herself to ignore it. Better not to get attached.

The last tributes came out in their chariot and the president began his speech. Ziggy didn’t exactly buy into the whole ‘glory of Panem’ thing he was preaching about, and she doubted many of the other tributes did either, but she knew better than to let that show. Getting herself executed for treason or something for rolling her eyes at the president wasn’t in the cards.

She’d promised Cindy that she’d try and win. The odds might not be in her favor, but goddammit, Ziggy was going to try.

***

The training center was about what she’d expected. There were stations for all sorts of different weapons, along with other useful survival skills like edible plants, firemaking, and that sort of thing. The Careers, all moving as a group, made a beeline for the sword fighting station, which was more than enough of a reason for Ziggy to steer clear of that one for a while.

Martin had told her that she needed to get at least halfway decent with some sort of weapon before the start of the Games. She might not be able to beat a Career in a swordfight anytime soon, but she needed to at least be able to handle a weapon somewhat competently. “Brawling and throwing punches is a good start,” Martin had told her the previous night, “but in the arena, you’ll need more than that.”

She hated to admit it, but he was right. Ziggy could hold her own in a fistfight well enough, even if she hadn’t had any formal training on the matter; the moment her opponent picked up a knife, she’d be screwed, and she knew it.

Survival skills would be useful too, though. And maybe, just maybe, Ziggy could figure something out about the arena based on what they were willing to show her at the edible plant station. But after her showing at the parade, the Capitol would be expecting her to head straight for a fighting station… and in case any of the Gamemakers were watching, Ziggy would hate to disappoint them. Her training score could mean the difference between life and death in the Games, after all, if it gained or lost her any sponsors.

Her mind made up, Ziggy turned and headed for the knives station. No matter what kind of arena she was in, there would almost certainly be knives.

Ziggy was joined at the station by a handful of other tributes, all of whom looked just as nervous as Ziggy felt. Jeremy stood next to her, having followed her over, and as the instructor showed them the proper way to grip a knife, he looked over to Ziggy for reassurance.

“Ziggy?” he asked. “How are we going to do this?”

Ziggy’s heart broke for the kid. He seemed sweet, really, but he wasn’t a fighter. And considering that an alliance wasn’t really in the cards, it was better not to get attached.

“Separately,” she said, turning her attention back to the knife lesson, her tone not inviting any further conversation. The Hunger Games were a solo sport, and there could only be one victor. Getting close to her competition would only invite further pain.

He looked disappointed at her frosty response, but he must have accepted it, because he didn’t say anything else.

The knife instructor pulled out a diagram and began to show them all of the best places to stab a person so that they’d bleed out quickly. Ziggy gripped the handle of her practice knife, polished metal cold in her hands, and wondered if she had what it takes to kill someone.

She wished she’d never have to find out.

***

On the elevator ride back to her floor, Ziggy was met with another stranger trying to talk to her. This one, though, she did recognize.

“Floor Six?” Nick Goode greeted her as she stepped into the elevator.

Ziggy paused, momentarily taken aback, before nodding. While her floor wasn’t actually the sixth in the building, the floors on the elevator buttons were labelled by function, which meant that the button for her floor was in fact marked with the number six.

“You made a pretty big impression at the parade yesterday,” he told her as he pressed the button. “Everyone was impressed.”

“Uh-huh.” She side-eyed him, wondering why he was talking to her in the first place. “No offense, but why do you care? You’re not my mentor, you’re One’s. And why is the Capitol’s favorite new victor here in the tribute elevators, anyway?”

“First of all, they’re everyone’s elevators,” he responded easily. “Well, everyone involved in the Games, at least. Tributes, victors, escorts, we all use these same elevators. And second of all, as a mentor, I absolutely should care, since you might be taking sponsors away from my own tributes.”

Instead of sounding concerned or upset at the idea, he instead sounded amused, like they were both in on some unspoken joke. Ziggy bristled, not entirely certain that she wasn’t the punchline.

“Well, tell your tributes that if they don’t want me stealing sponsors, they should stop picking fights.”

He laughed, a warm smile blooming across his face. “Noted. Although, to be fair, Sheila isn’t one of mine.”

Nick Goode was the newest victor of all, having won last year’s games at only seventeen– a whole year younger than most Career tributes, although still far older than half the kids forced into those Games. He seemed friendly enough, certainly far friendlier than Ziggy would have expected from a former Career, but he was still a Career. The announcers last year had made a big deal out of him being the mayor’s son, rich even compared to the rest of those in District One, and some distant relative to President Goode. Even more spoiled than the rest of them, Ziggy’s brain had translated, and she scowled at him now.

The elevator dinged, and the doors opened up to floor One. “Well, that’s my stop,” Nick told her, as if she couldn’t see the label displayed above the door. “See you around, Six.”

He strode out of the elevator and the door closed behind him.

Ziggy stared after him as the elevator began to move again. “Well,” she said to herself. “That was weird.”

***

The rest of the training days flew by. Ziggy spent more time at the knife station, as well as brushing up on her hand-to-hand combat skills, learning to start a fire, and studying countless species of edible and medicinal plants.

Her best guess, based on the list of plants, was that the Games would take place in a deciduous forest. That was good news for her, since Ziggy definitely had a better idea of how to survive in a forest than a desert or in the Arctic or something.

She didn’t have any more conversations with Nick Goode, nor did she spend any more time with Jeremy. They ate meals together on their floor, of course, but she did her best not to engage him in any more conversation than she needed to. The poor kid was dead meat, and Ziggy couldn’t allow herself to get attached. Besides, getting his hopes up for an alliance seemed cruel, somehow.

She didn’t spend any time with Sheila, either, for obvious reasons. That didn’t stop the girl from shooting her glares throughout training, or from body-checking her when they passed each other in the hall. Ziggy did her best not to retaliate, unsure of how the Capitol would punish her for further fighting but not wanting to risk it. Still, when Sheila took a turn at the archery station on the third day and the string on her bow snapped, sending her fist flying into her own face with the sudden release of tension… Ziggy couldn’t help but laugh. Even though there was no way Sheila could have heard her from across the room, she could feel Sheila’s eyes burning into her for the rest of the day, somehow even more furious and resentful than before.

The private training session in front of the Gamemakers came and went. Ziggy demonstrated her combat skills first at the punching bag, then by stabbing a training dummy a few times. It wasn’t the most impressive showing, she was sure, but it was something and that would have to be good enough.

The training scores were announced later that evening.

“Eight, nine, nine… oh, that’s good, the girl you’ve made an enemy of only scored an eight,” Martin narrated as the scores were broadcast on the screen. “That’s still a good score, but it’s on the low end as far as Careers go, so that’s a good sign.”

Ziggy found herself nodding. “An eight, I can beat an eight.” And she could. Maybe not in training scores, but in the arena? If Sheila had scored a ten or an eleven, Ziggy would have been in serious trouble, but she stood a real chance against an eight.

Before long, the announcers had reached District Six. “And for our boy tribute from Six, Jerremy Gage, we have… a three!” the announcer read, adjusting her periwinkle updo as she did. “For our girl, Miss Christine Berman, we have… a six!”

Ziggy breathed a sigh of relief. A six was a respectable score. Not a fabulous one, but respectable. From a Career, it would have been embarrassing, but from any other district it was an accomplishment.

She turned to Jeremy, his eyes downcast and filled with unshed tears, and wondered if she should say something. What could she even say? ‘Sorry you scored so low, but we’re all gonna die anyway, so try not to worry about it so much’ didn’t really seem to cut it.

“Congratulations,” he told her, wiping away the tears with the back of his hand. He didn’t meet her eyes. “A six, that’s really good.”

“Thanks, Jeremy,” she murmured. “I… I’m sorry your score was so low.”

He shrugged, looking morose. “S’okay. I knew I’d do bad, it’s not like it’s a surprise.”

“Still,” she said. “It’s probably not the worst score, you know. Plenty of people get threes. I bet there’ll be someone else who gets a two or something.” 

“Plenty of people get threes,” he repeated. “But not many Victors. But, hey, we both knew I was never winning anyway.”

He stood up from the couch, forcing a smile that didn’t look even close to convincing. “I’m tired, you can fill me in on the rest of the scores in the morning.” With that, he trudged out of the room.

Ziggy bit her lip, wondering if she should go after him, but turned her attention back to the screen instead. The rest of the scores were about what she’d expected: a mixture of fours and fives, a couple of threes mixed in, and even a single two for the boy from eleven. The only real surprise was the boy from Nine, whose training score of ten outshone even the Careers.

Martin was frowning at the screen. “The boy from Nine, what do we know about him?”

Ziggy thought back to what she’d seen from him at training. “He’s big, muscular. Blonde. Uh, I think I’ve seen him at the weights station in training a few times, I don’t know much about weights but the trainer seemed impressed. And he’s good with an axe.”

Martin considered that. “Keep away from him,” he warned. “With the highest training score, the Gamemakers are sure to put an axe at the Cornucopia for him. That’ll be dangerous.”

“Should I avoid the bloodbath, then?” Ziggy asked him. This was something they hadn’t really talked about before, focusing more on her marketing strategy for sponsors and on her training than on the Games themselves.

Martin sighed. “Normally, I would say yes. Unless you’re a part of the Career pack, taking part in the bloodbath never ends well. But…”

“But I’m a fighter,” Ziggy finished his sentence, “that’s the angle we’ve been going with, and if I run away from the biggest fight of them all, I’ll just look like a coward.”

“Exactly.”

All of Ziggy’s instincts screamed at her that this was a terrible idea. Sure, she’d never shied away from fistfights or one-on-one confrontations, but the bloodbath at the Cornucopia was a different beast altogether. Still, Martin was right. If she wanted to win this, she needed sponsors, and if she wanted sponsors, she couldn’t afford to run and hide.

“So I charge right in, then. How do I make sure I don’t die?”

“Stay out of the thick of it,” Martin advised. “Grab one or two items, things you can get to without going through the Careers. Have a short tussle with someone– not the boy from Nine, that would be suicide– and then get the hell out of there. As long as you’re seen doing something before you run, you should be okay as far as sponsors.”

It was dangerous. Recklessly so. But it was the best plan Ziggy was going to get, so she just nodded. “Right. I’ll see you in the morning for interview training, then?”

“See you then. And remember, game face tomorrow. If we want to steal sponsors away from the Careers, we need this interview to go the way we want.”

Chapter Text

Ziggy would forever be grateful to her stylist for being as distinctly not terrible as she could have hoped for.

Once again, her outfit was (while still too ostentatious for Ziggy’s taste) neither skimpy nor embarrassing. Martin must have spoken to the stylist, because rather than the flowing ball gowns that most of the other female tributes sported, Ziggy’s own outfit fit her Games persona perfectly.

Unlike her competitors, Ziggy didn’t wear a dress at all. Instead, she wore a bright yellow jumpsuit, the fabric just as luxurious as any Capitolite gown despite the different style. Banana yellow, Ziggy had called it when she’d seen it for the first time, and her stylist had corrected her. “Not banana yellow, dear. Taxicab yellow. There’s a difference.”

The jumpsuit had both long sleeves and long pants, as befitting the formal atmosphere of the interviews. All of it was one bright, eye-catching shade of yellow, apart from the right sleeve. That sleeve and that sleeve alone was checkered black and white, a callback to classic taxis apparently, although Ziggy had never seen one in her life and wasn’t entirely sure what they were supposed to look like. On her right hand Ziggy wore a fingerless glove, thin and dark and sheer, artistically distressed on the knuckles as if to call to mind the split knuckles of a fistfight.

Her own split knuckles had healed days ago, the process hastened by the Capitol’s ultra-effective medicine. Still, they had been a big part of what caught the Capitol’s attention, so it didn’t surprise her that the stylist had decided to call back to it as a part of this look. She supposed she should just be grateful that she hadn’t been given a fake nosebleed to go with it.

All of the tributes sat by the stage, waiting for their turn to be interviewed. Several seats away, Sheila kept shooting Ziggy dirty looks and sneers, the expression at odds with the resplendent ruby-encrusted gown she wore. She was dressed like a princess, but there was nothing princess-like in her attitude.

Ziggy took a breath and painted a small, subtle smirk on her lips. She was strong, she was confident, she was unbothered. Ziggy Berman, the girl from District Six, might be terrified in this moment… but Ziggy Berman, Hunger Games contender, wouldn’t be, and therefore she couldn’t afford to show any nerves right now.

The tributes from District One were called up to the stage first, as always. The girl went first, twirling on the stage in her slinky ivory gown, leaning into the seductress angle that had been a staple of so many District One tributes over the years. She was followed by the boy from her district, wearing a matching outfit with a mostly-unbuttoned shirt, playing up the same angle. Ziggy rolled her eyes. Couldn’t they have coordinated to not have the exact same strategy, so that they’d each stand out more? That was just bad showmanship.

After the boy from One, it was Sheila’s turn. She strode onstage in her ruby dress, glittering under the fluorescent stage lights, a confident smirk on her face.

“So, Sheila,” Caesar greeted her, a friendly smile on his face. “You volunteered for the Games, is that correct? What made you decide to do that?”

Sheila smiled at him. “Well, Caesar, I saw the opportunity to bring glory to my district by winning and I just couldn’t resist.”

The real answer, Ziggy supposed, was something more along the lines of ‘I’ve been trained for this for years and it was my turn to do it.’ Still, her answer about glory seemed to play well with the Capitol crowd. Ziggy wondered if she really bought into all that ‘honor and glory’ bullshit or if it was all just an act.

“Ah, a glory-seeker!” Caesar exclaimed. “And what makes you so sure you can win it all?”

The words could have sounded questioning, like he doubted her abilities, but instead Caesar’s tone turned them into an opportunity. Sheila smirked. “I’m smart, I’m strong, and I know how to fight. Put a sword in my hands and I can go toe-to-toe with the best of them. And unlike some tributes here, I actually know the meaning of the word ‘discipline’.”

That last comment was clearly aimed at Ziggy, and she couldn’t help but scoff. Sure, Ziggy had thrown the first punch. But it was Sheila who’d gone out of her way to make an enemy of Ziggy since then, to glare and sneer and scowl and brush past her in the hallway. None of that seemed particularly disciplined to Ziggy, and neither did making targeted digs on national television.

Half a second later, Ziggy remembered that she, too, was on national television, and she should probably try to control her facial expressions better. But hey, she was supposed to be the rebellious one, so her momentary lack of poise probably played into that persona pretty well.

The interviews continued. Sheila was the smugly confident glory-hound; the boy from Two was cold, calculating, and intelligent; the girl from Four played a ditzy girl-next-door flirt but there was an undercurrent of steel in her eyes. Before Ziggy knew it, it was her turn.

The announcer called her name, and Ziggy stood up. She felt almost disconnected from her own body, watching herself move onto the stage without making any conscious decision to do so. The name Christine Berman echoed in her ears, so familiar and yet so foreign at the same time.

Caesar extended his hand with a warm smile, and Ziggy shook it. Her dark-gloved hand sparkled under the stage lighting, strands of glittering black thread woven into the distressed section subtly enough that Ziggy hadn’t even noticed them until now. Caesar motioned for her to take her seat, and she did, perching on the large white chair and waiting for the first question.

“So, Christine,” Caesar greeted her. “May I call you Christine?”

He hadn’t asked any other tributes about their name preferences. Ziggy guessed that he must have been informed about her nickname ahead of time, and that was why he’d bothered to ask.

“I go by Ziggy, actually,” she corrected, giving the cameras her best approximation of a bright smile. “It just feels more like me, you know?”

Caesar beamed. “I can see that! ‘Christine’ feels so formal, and something tells me you aren’t really the formal type.”

“Not at all,” Ziggy admitted truthfully. “I’ve always been a bit of a wild child, as my sister would tell you. Following the rules has never really been my strong suit.”

That was probably a bad thing to admit with the whole of Panem watching. Still, she couldn’t take it back now that she’d said it, and trying to backtrack would just make her look weak.

Thankfully, Caesar didn’t look offended or try to imply that she was a lawbreaker. Instead, he laughed. It was a pleasant laugh, one that made her feel like he was laughing with her rather than at her. “So we’ve heard! Is it true that you got into a fight backstage at the parade?”

This was a question Martin had prepared her for, and Ziggy knew exactly what to say. “Well, fighting between tributes would be against the rules… and I know better than to admit to something like that, Caesar.”

Considering what she’d just said about her attitude toward rules, her words were practically an admission, and the Capitol was eating it right up.

“But your nosebleed! Your split knuckles!” Caesar insisted dramatically, playing into the tone of the interview perfectly. “There must have been a fight, yes?”

Ziggy shrugged with an air of faux carelessness. “Maybe there was, maybe there wasn’t. Throwing punches backstage would be frowned upon, but some people… some people just have very punchable faces.”

She cast a deliberate glance towards Sheila, making it clear enough to the audience who she was talking about without outright saying it.

“If I had gotten into a fight, though,” Ziggy added, casting a deliberate glance towards Sheila, “I think it’s safe to say I won it. Just like I’ll win when we face off in the Games.”

“A very bold prediction, Ziggy! What makes you so sure you can win?”

Ziggy smirked. “Well, Caesar, no one can really know what will happen in the Games. But there are some things I do know. Want me to tell you what they are?”

He took the bait, of course, turning to the crowd in the stands and throwing up his hands. “What do we think? Do we want to hear what she knows?”

The roar of the crowd was a clear answer ‘yes’.

That was the good thing about Caesar Flickerman. He always tried to give every tribute the best interview possible. If there was somewhere you were trying to steer the conversation, he would go along with it and give you your chance to shine.

“I think that’s a yes!” he said, turning back to Ziggy. “So, Ziggy, what do you know?”

“I know that the tributes from One, Two, and Four almost always team up in the Games, and some would consider them unstoppable. But I also know that this is the lowest-scoring Career pack in sixteen years.”

There was a hush over the crowd, as if they were wondering if Ziggy was really going there.

Antagonizing the entire Career pack like this, in broad daylight with no attempts at cushioning her words whatsoever? This was dangerous. No, better: this was scandalous, and the Capitol was loving it.

“Eights and nines are perfectly good training scores, of course,” Ziggy continued. “Impressive, really, for any individual tribute. But for a Career? Not a single ten out of the entire group?” she shook her head as she spoke, as if to convey her disappointment.

By this point, Caesar looked genuinely amazed at her brashness, not just playing along. “You aren’t at all concerned that you’re making some enemies right now? That these words could come back to bite you later in the Games?”

Ziggy shook her head with a scoff. Confidence, even to the point of recklessness, was key. Picking fights on purpose was her brand now, and she needed to own it. “Why would I be concerned? Every single member of the Career pack lost in training to a boy from Nine. No offense to him– that’s a great score, really, congratulations– but when every single Career tribute loses to a kid from an outer District, it’s pretty clear that they aren’t much of a threat. Not this year, anyway. So, as far as making enemies? Bring it on.”

With perfect timing, the buzzer went off to signal the end of her interview time. Ziggy took the exit gratefully, glad that she’d had a chance to get to the end of her speech; it would have been embarrassing to be cut off halfway through. She was also glad that Caesar hadn’t had a chance to ask her about her family back home. If she’d had to talk about Cindy, Ziggy wasn’t sure she’d have been able to keep up the act, and crumbling on live tv in front of the entire Capitol would have ruined her chance at securing those sponsorships.

Ziggy returned to her seat at the side of the stage, watching Jeremy walk up to take her place, and couldn’t help but wonder if she was doing the right thing.

***

“Holy shit, kid,” Martin greeted her the second she stepped out of the elevator onto their floor. “That was incredible. I mean, wow.”

“You think I pulled it off, then?” she asked.

“Hell yeah, you did. You’ll be getting sponsors for sure. So long as you can make it past the bloodbath, you’re golden. And even the ones that don’t go for you will be less likely to sponsor a Career after how you called them out.”

Ziggy wanted to smile, but she was too tired to feel anything more than relieved. As she flopped down on the couch, Martin turned to Jeremy. “And you, Jeremy? You did pretty well for yourself, too. Didn’t stumble over your words at all.”

This interpretation of events was fairly generous; while it was true that Jerremy hadn’t stumbled over his words or stuttered, he’d been visibly nervous throughout the entire interview and hadn’t done much to impress the Capitol. Still, he perked up at Martin’s words, and Ziggy gave him a thumbs up.

“The Games themselves start tomorrow,” Martin reminded them both, “so you’ll want to get a good night’s sleep. Eat well tonight, too, because you’ll probably be too anxious to eat in the morning. I know I was.”

Right. The Games themselves. It was easy to forget, while they were here in the Capitol, that winning over sponsors was only half the battle. The other half took place in the arena, and that was the part she needed to worry about now. Suddenly, the room didn’t feel big enough.

“I’m going up to the roof,” she told them, standing up abruptly from her spot on the couch. “Get some fresh air.”

She hurried out of the room, ignoring Martin and Jeremy’s questioning looks.

The route up to the roof was easy, the Capitol technology making the elevator ride smooth and speedy. Ziggy hadn’t come up here before, despite having been tempted by the button in the elevator, because she’d been so busy with everything else. Now that she finally had the chance, now that she so desperately needed a moment to breathe, she was seizing that opportunity with both hands.

The elevator doors opened up to the roof and Ziggy stepped out, shivering at the unexpected chill of the night air. It was unseasonably cold tonight, or maybe it was always cold at night in the Capitol. She’d only been outside in the day here, so she wouldn’t know. Either way, she crossed her arms to brace against the cold, wishing she’d known to grab a jacket on her way out the door. She made her way over to the edge of the roof, peering out at the endless expanse of city lights ahead of her.

“If you’re looking to jump, I wouldn’t try it,” a voice came from behind her. Ziggy jumped, whirling around. She stumbled, very nearly toppling off the edge, but Nick Goode’s hand moved lightning-fast to grab her arm, steadying her before she could fall.

Ziggy took a shaky breath, then took a step away from the edge. Her heart was beating quickly, fear and adrenaline from her near-miss coursing through her veins. “Thanks. I wasn’t…”

“You wouldn’t have fallen,” he assured her. “There’s an energy field around the whole building to prevent jumpers. Wouldn’t kill you, but it stings like a bitch, and it sends an alert to the Peacekeepers, which is a hassle to deal with. One of the kids in my year tried it, he was shaken up for days.”

“Until he died, I assume.” Ziggy guessed. Unless Nick was talking about himself in the third person, the attempted jumper had to have died in the Games. She wondered if Nick had been the one to kill him. “What are you doing up here?”

“I spend a lot of time on the roof,” Nick admitted. He still hadn’t let go of Ziggy’s arm. “It’s a nice view. We don’t get many tributes up here, I think most of them don’t realize it’s here.”

“There’s a button in the elevator,” Ziggy pointed out, stepping away from Nick and pulling her arm out of his grasp.

He shrugged. “Most of them don’t think to try it, I guess.”

Ziggy didn’t reply. She’d turned her gaze back to the city lights, breathing in the cool and fresh air, wondering why a victor from another district was even bothering to talk to her. There was a hint of spice on the breeze, like someone was cooking, and she wondered if there was a restaurant in one of the neighboring buildings.

“You did a great job in your interview,” Nick told her, stepping forward so they were standing shoulder-to-shoulder with only a few inches of space in between.

Ziggy frowned. Was the compliment genuine, or was he making fun of her somehow? “Yeah, I know. Why do you care?”

“It was impressive, really,” he continued. “If I was allowed to, I know I’d be sponsoring you.”

She scowled. What was he playing at? “You have your own tributes. Worry about them, not me.”

“My tributes have over a decade of training between the two of them, and an entire team of mentors and trainers to turn to if they need help. You have one mentor who’s a decade removed from his own games, and no training. You do the math.”

Ziggy turned to face him. “I don’t even know you,” she snapped. “I don’t need or want your help, and I sure as hell don’t trust you.”

He raised his hands in a signal of surrender. “Fine. Next time my tributes ask me if they should target you first, I won’t tell them to back off and leave you for Sheila.”

That gave Ziggy pause. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Like I told you, you have–”

“No. Not ‘why do I need help’. Why are you, Nick Goode, golden boy of Panem, offering it? Why do you care?”

To his credit, Nick actually stopped to consider that for several seconds. Finally, he shrugged. “You caught my attention,” he admitted. “With that stunt at the parade, you caught everyone’s attention. It’s not like I’m abandoning my own tributes, they have plenty of help. All I’m doing is offering a bit of information.”

“And what information is that?” Ziggy asked, her shoulders relaxing slightly, but still partially on guard.

“My tributes won’t be going after you. Not at first, anyway, not at the bloodbath. If Sheila dies or if it gets far enough into the Games, that will change, but you don’t have to worry about them at first. I told them to leave you for Sheila, not to get in the middle of that feud.”

Ziggy nodded, chewing on her lip as she processed that. She still wasn’t entirely sure if she could trust this information, considering the source, but it was at least worth thinking about. “Anything else?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “No, that’s it. You’re welcome, by the way.”

With that, Nick Goode turned around and headed back toward the elevator. Ziggy watched him go, eyebrows furrowed.

She sat on the edge of the roof, legs crossed to keep from dangling over the edge. She wasn’t entirely sure where the edge of the energy field was, and she didn’t want to find out. She sat there, staring out into the glittering abyss of the night, and tried not to think about what tomorrow would bring.

Chapter Text

As the platforms raised underneath them, bringing the tributes into the arena, Ziggy was relieved to see that her deduction had been correct. They were, as she’d surmised from the contents of the edible plants station, in a deciduous forest. Well, mostly deciduous; she could see some pine trees mixed in as well, which was fine by her. Ziggy wasn’t stupid enough to think that this forest held no surprises– Gamemaker traps, maybe some new muttations– but at least it was a solid place to start.

The Cornucopia was in the center of a large clearing, surrounded by ankle-length grass and hard-packed dirt. There was only one tree in the clearing, a large, gnarled oak tree with branches twisting over and partially covering the Cornucopia itself. Around the Cornucopia were an assortment of weapons and supply packs, and as the countdown began, Ziggy’s eyes scanned the area to pick a target.

There. By the roots of the oak tree was a bright orange backpack, smaller than some of the others but still a respectable size. It was hard to make out the details from a distance, but Ziggy was fairly certain she saw the sheath of a hunting knife strapped to the side.

That would be her target, then. Close enough to the main fray to be considered part of the bloodbath, but not so close that she would become trapped in the fighting. As the final seconds ticked down, Ziggy braced herself.

The gong sounded. Ziggy launched herself off of her platform, sprinting towards that backpack with every ounce of energy she could summon. A single second of hesitation could make the difference between life and death.

Ziggy wasn’t the first to reach the supplies, but she wasn’t the last, either. She snatched up her backpack and flung it over her shoulder, dodging a swipe from a boy with a knife as she did so. She body-checked the boy and ran past him, reaching down to grab a gleaming metal water bottle as she did so.

That movement was what saved her life. As she reached for the bottle, an arrow whistled just over her shoulder, snagging the fabric of her shirt and just barely scraping the skin. Ziggy gasped in fear and surprise, whipping her head over to see that the boy from Four had reached the bow and arrows. He was drawing another arrow back, taking aim at her again, when Sheila noticed what he was doing and snapped at him.

Ziggy didn’t stick around to see the results of that argument. She leapt into motion, taking the backpack and the full bottle and sprinting toward the trees. If she could just make it to the trees, she’d be safe for a little while.

Ziggy had barely made it ten feet before she was tackled from the side, hitting the ground hard. The metal water bottle in her hand was beneath her as she fell, smashing unpleasantly into her ribs, and she groaned.

A hand wrapped around her throat, squeezing tight, and Ziggy blinked the darkness out of her eyes. She couldn’t afford not to fight back. If she didn’t fight back, she’d be dead.

Ziggy wrenched her arm, still clutching the water bottle, out from underneath her and swung it upwards wildly. The metal bottle made contact with her attacker’s head and suddenly the hand was gone from her throat, the weight partially removed from her back. She pushed herself up from the ground, grabbing the knife from her backpack with her free hand.

Her attacker looked dazed, his eyes wide and unfocused. She must have hit him hard, then. Before she could even take a second to think, Ziggy slashed at him with the knife, aiming directly for the soft flesh of his neck.

The knife went in cleanly, blood spraying across Ziggy’s arm and face. She gagged, barely remembering to keep a grip on her knife as she forced herself to her feet and staggered away.

A glance back at the Cornucopia showed her that Sheila was holding a bloodied sword and was coming her way. Ziggy was in no condition to be having this confrontation now, especially not when there were so many other tributes– both Career and not– around to complicate things.

She turned and ran for the treeline, knife still clutched in one white-knuckled fist.

***

Ziggy wasn’t sure how much time passed before she began to hear cannons. Maybe it had been hours, or maybe only a few minutes. She couldn’t be sure. She had stopped running, by this point, low on energy and far enough from the Cornucopia that she’d long since stopped hearing fighting.

One cannon, then another, then another, all in quick succession. Ziggy leaned against a tree, barely keeping on her feet, as she counted. Ten cannons altogether, which left a total of fourteen tributes still in the Games. She wondered if any of those deaths had been Careers.

One of those kills, Ziggy recalled suddenly, had been her own. Her face, arms, and her entire torso were still covered in his blood, drying in some places and still wet in others. She tried to wipe her face with her sleeve, but as her sleeve was also damp with blood, it didn’t accomplish much.

Who had she even killed? She didn’t know half their names, much less how to recognize them on sight. He’d been a fellow redhead, she was fairly sure, although the entire fight had been so chaotic and over so quickly that she could barely make sense of it in her memories. The boy from Seven, maybe? Whoever he was, he was dead now, and he was dead because of her.

He was dead because of the Capitol, Ziggy reminded herself. She hadn’t invented the Hunger Games, nor had she volunteered for them. But somehow, the distinction didn’t seem to help, not when her hand had been the one holding the knife.

She could have a moral crisis later; for now, she needed to get it together. Glancing around, Ziggy decided that she was probably safe for now. She sat down, still leaning against the tree trunk, and unzipped her backpack with shaking hands.

There wasn’t much in there. A bedroll and a granola bar, plus the knife that had been strapped to the side. There was also the water bottle– pre-filled, which was nice– that Ziggy had gotten at the Cornucopia, although the side of it was slightly dented now and stained with blood.

Minimal supplies, no allies, and no idea what to do next. Beyond that, all Ziggy had was herself and her wits. Somehow, it didn’t seem like enough.

“Right,” she said out loud, trying to shake herself out of it. “Shelter. I need to find shelter.”

She’d need water, too, and food before long. But she had the bottle, so water could wait until morning, and the granola bar could keep her going for a couple of days in a pinch. Right now, what she needed was a relatively safe place to lay down and sleep. Hopefully she’d be able to pull herself together better tomorrow.

***

The anthem began to play at dusk. Ziggy looked up at the sky, partially obscured by the branches of the oak tree she’d taken shelter under, and waited for the display of dead tributes.

The first face to pop up was the boy from Three, followed by the girl from the same. After that was the boy from Five, then both from Seven.

No deaths from the Careers, then. That was bad news, but not unexpected.

Ziggy didn’t know most of the tributes by name. None of the ones she did know appeared in the sky that night. Sheila and the rest of the Careers were alive, as well as Jeremy and the blonde boy from Nine. Tommy was his name, she was pretty sure, and if he was still alive then he was the biggest threat apart from the Careers.

The boy from Seven, whose face did appear in the sky, sported a familiar mess of red curls. In the picture, he was whole and healthy. In Ziggy’s mind, a fountain of blood erupted from his throat.

She clamped down on the nausea and lay down, squeezing her eyes shut. She needed to get some rest, and dwelling on it wouldn’t help.

***

Ziggy was jolted awake in the middle of the night by another cannon. She clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming.

After a few seconds of initial startlement and terror, Ziggy felt her heart rate slowing back down to normal. The Careers must be out hunting already, must have stumbled across some poor idiot who’d made a fire. Either that, or someone had been injured in the bloodbath and had just now bled out.

Less than a minute later, another cannon went off. Ziggy jumped, scrambling to her feet and unsheathing her knife. If the Careers were having a successful hunt right now, Ziggy did not want to be caught unawares. The odds of them finding and killing two tributes in such a short time were slim, but maybe it had been an allied pair. They could be on the other side of the arena for all Ziggy knew, but better safe than sorry. She wouldn’t be getting any more sleep tonight.

A third cannon went off, only twenty seconds after the second. That… couldn’t be right. What the hell was happening?

A fourth cannon went off, and then silence.

New theory: maybe the Gamemakers had released some sort of deadly muttation or poison gas or something, and it had taken multiple tributes out. It seemed unlikely for the Gamemakers to do something like that on the very first night, but it was the only thing that made sense. What else could have killed so many people in such a short time?

Ziggy sat there until the sky started to lighten, unable to fall back asleep when she was on such high alert. In the early dawn light, she packed up her meagre supplies and started walking.

***

Ziggy found a stream fairly early in the day and washed the blood off as best she could, rinsing red flakes of dried blood off of her skin as best she could in the cold water.

Her ribs and throat ached horribly; lifting up her shirt to check, she could see a dark purple bruise forming where she’d landed on her water bottle. 

Prodding at it, she let out a hiss of pain, dropping her hand with a grimace. Being injured this early was not a good sign. If her ribs were broken, she’d be in serious trouble, but considering that she’d been able to walk with little difficulty Ziggy was hopeful it was just a bruise.

Her throat was harder to get a look at, but from her reflection on the stream, it looked bruised as well. The bruises ringed her entire entire throat, she presumed, where the boy from Seven had tried choking her. It didn’t seem to have obstructed her breathing in any way, so she was probably fine.

Still, two injuries on day one, and not even from a Career. These Games were not off to a great start.

Ziggy refilled her water bottle, hoping there were no horribly deadly bacteria in the water, and kept walking.

The sun was high in the sky by the time Ziggy ran into another tribute. The girl from Ten looked rough, her left arm twisted oddly and clutched close to her chest. Her dark eyes were wide and frightened.

Ziggy and the other tribute eyed each other from opposite sides of a fallen log. The sponsors would want to see Ziggy attack her, to see some real bloodshed, but Ziggy couldn’t bring herself to do it. This girl looked even younger than Ziggy, and it wouldn’t be right to attack her.

“You seen if the Careers are in this area?” Ziggy asked after several seconds of silence. Her voice came out rough, gravelly, and she grimaced at the sound.

The girl shook her head, looking faintly bewildered at the question.

Ziggy pursed her lips and nodded. “Right.” She paused, then said, “I’m going to walk away now. If you follow me, I’ll kill you.”

With that, she turned and kept walking, keeping an ear out for footsteps behind her. There were none.

There were a couple more cannons later in the afternoon, with enough space between them that they didn’t send Ziggy into another tailspin. She had stuck close to the stream all day, not wanting to lose her only source of water, and hadn’t run into anyone else in hours.

 By the time dusk arrived, Ziggy was exhausted. Her bruises ached down to the bone, and she knew that if she ran into another tribute right now, it would be game over for her.

Ziggy looked around for somewhere to make camp. She managed to find a mostly-sheltered place in a copse of pine trees, just a few feet from the bank of the stream, where she could curl up on her bedroll and sleep. There were even a couple of different plants along the bank that she was reasonably confident she recognized from the edible plant station.

She gathered as many of the leaves as she was sure of and choked them down, grimacing at the taste— who knew plants could be so bitter?— to quell the hunger pangs in her stomach. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

…Not by much, though. After a long day of walking, not to mention the fighting yesterday, she was famished. She needed to conserve food, but wouldn’t it be better to keep up her strength now? If only there had been more supplies in the backpack, but she would make do with what she had.

Ziggy took her single granola bar from her backpack with trembling fingers, second-guessing herself even as she unwrapped it, and took a bite. Soft, chewy granola, dried fruits, a sticky honey glaze; this was heaven. Far better than the ration bars they had in Six. It hurt a little bit going down her poor injured throat, but she ignored the pain, relishing instead the feeling of a no-longer-empty belly.

Ziggy could easily have devoured a dozen of them, but she forced herself to stop after three bites. She carefully wrapped the remainder back up and slid it into her bag, saving the second half to eat tomorrow.

Her stomach still twisted with hunger, but it wasn’t dire yet, and she’d made do with worse. Better to ration her supplies now than to run out.

She’d barely finished zipping her bag up when the anthem started. Ziggy looked up, leaning slightly to the left to give herself a mostly-unobstructed view of the sky. How many dead today? Two cannons in the afternoon, plus the four from the night before; that was six new deaths, and she was both terrified and incredibly curious to find out who they were. If she was lucky, one of them would be that boy from Nine or maybe even a Career, serious competition taken out early. If she was unlucky, one of them would be Sheila, and the small amount of protection Ziggy had from being Sheila’s intended target would be gone.

To Ziggy’s shock and relief, the first face she saw projected in the sky was the boy from One. So there had been a Career taken out, then. Anything that weakened the pack could only be a good thing for Ziggy’s chances.

He was immediately followed by the girl from One, and Ziggy’s jaw dropped open. Two of them? That meant District One was entirely out of the competition, and it had only been two days. Less than, really, considering that the Games had started midway through the previous day. That was… that was almost unheard of.

The face that followed was somehow an even bigger shock: the boy from Two. That made at least half of the Career pack downed within a single day. “What the fuck?” Ziggy said out loud, not bothering to censor herself. Because seriously, what the fuck?

Sheila’s face was not a part of the display, but the boy from Four was. Ziggy hadn’t really known him well, but he’d been the one to graze her with an arrow at the bloodbath, and she couldn’t help but be relieved that the only Career with a long-range weapon had been taken out of the running.

The other faces that had been added to the list were very familiar to Ziggy. First was Jeremy, looking so innocent in his tribute photo, wide-eyed and glasses slightly askew. Ziggy squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath, willing herself not to cry. She’d made the choice not to ally with him, and she couldn’t afford to regret that choice, not now.

The other new death was the girl from Ten, the one Ziggy had run into earlier that day. She’d already been injured then, so it wasn’t a huge surprise that someone or something else had finished her off.

Six deaths. Eight tributes left. They’d have started the interviews with their families today, then. They always did that with the final eight. Distantly, Ziggy wondered what Cindy would say in the interview. How would she have reacted to Ziggy’s behavior at the interview, at the parade? How would she have reacted to seeing Ziggy kill someone?

Eight tributes left, and only two of them were Careers. Sheila and the girl from Four were the only Career tributes left. What in the world had happened last night to take four of them out within a matter of minutes? A part of Ziggy couldn’t help but be pleased by the news, knowing that her path to the end was much clearer without a Career pack running the show. Another, much larger part of her part wanted to retch. As awful as they’d been, as dangerous as they’d made the Games for her, they’d still been children. Teenagers, just like Ziggy was, forced into this by the Capitol, and she felt a curdling sense of shame and guilt at even the thought of celebrating their deaths.

Four teenagers, four trained Career killers, massacred in a single day. It was a horrifying thing to think about. But then again, if the Career pack was no more… or if, at the very least, it had been reduced to only two people… the viewers would expect Ziggy to react in a certain way. And no matter how she might feel about it on the inside, the show must go on.

“Well then, Sheila,” she murmured, pasting a smirk on her face as she attempted to project a confidence she didn’t feel. “Guess I’ll be seeing you soon.”

After only a moment of hesitation, Ziggy took out the uneaten half of her granola bar and began to eat it. “I’d love some more food, by the way,” she spoke aloud, addressing the cameras that she knew had to be around here somewhere, even if she didn’t know exactly where. “If I’m taking on Sheila tomorrow, I’ll need all the strength I can get.”

With that, Ziggy lay down and closed her eyes, hoping she could get a good night’s rest this time.