Archive of Our Own

Sometimes, Fenya Kotyk wonders if she really exists.

Not in a way where she doesn’t want to exist. She likes existing well enough - there are nice things about it. She likes butterfly wings and the feeling of a pencil eraser against her teeth. She likes curling up next to the windowsill on a sunny afternoon and dozing. She secretly enjoys her sister’s sloppy kisses on her cheek in the morning. There’s plenty to exist for.

But there are times she doubts the sensation of ground beneath her feet and air in her lungs. The older she gets, the more often it happens. Her mothers’ eyes glide over Fenya and onto her twin sister, who does not mean to take up so much space but cannot help it, and Fenya might as well not be in the room. She gets held back in school not once, but twice, ensuring the other kids are always strangers who don’t seem to notice her either. Her older brother works longer hours, and when he’s home, he sleeps, his eyes rarely meeting Fenya’s. When Fenya hears her mothers murmuring in the kitchen late at night, it’s never her they worry about. Always her sister, always her brother. They never catch her listening.

In those moments Fenya is good at telling herself she doesn’t feel anything about it. Frankly, she’s become comfortable with blending into the walls and furniture. Whenever she thinks about doing something like screaming or crying or shouting at the top of her lungs, the thought only lingers a few breaths past what she’d prefer. She exists, she knows that - there’s no need to prove it. That itch doesn’t need to be scratched. Not when her mothers have their hands full with her siblings, and her siblings have their hands full with their big feelings, and Fenya is fine like this. She breathes in and out and she chews her pencils and she cracks the window open so ants can come inside the house and she can watch the patterns they make as they collect the crumbs her sister always leaves on the floor. That is fine. That is enough.

There is no reason to want more.

“Fenya Kotyk!”

The only part of her that moves is her heartbeat, leaping into her throat and threatening to suffocate her. She can’t make her feet shuffle forward. Her eyes won’t blink. Her thoughts fade from her grasp.

Her twin sister stands to her left, a half-step closer to the Reaping stage than Fenya. Her brown hair, same shade as Fenya’s, has somehow gone wild since their mom combed it an hour ago. Ira is shifting from foot to foot, her usually bright face pale and drawn. Her bluish eyes flicker back, meeting Fenya’s. Ira opens her mouth.

No.

Ira has said it plenty of times. The most recent was this morning, like she does before every Reaping Day. She has made the promise over and over again. Ira loves to make big, sweeping promises that don’t mean anything. They’re all sweet words. I’ll never marry anyone, Fenya, we’ll be old spinsters together forever. If you broke your arm I’d break mine too so our skeletons would match. If you lose all your baby teeth first I’ll eat my pillowcase. 

I’ll Volunteer for you if you ever get Reaped. You’ve got nothing to worry about.

The glint in Ira’s eyes is blinding.

The idea that this last promise was a real one is too much. Fenya knows what Ira is about to say, the fate her sister is about to doom herself to, and this is enough to finally force her into motion. She tilts forward, her knees buckling. Ira turns, eyes widening, as Fenya topples into her. The terror sends Fenya’s eyes rolling into the back of her head.

The darkness that takes her is a mercy.

Her brother hugs her so hard she gasps, then chokes on her own spit. Jayr thumps her back but doesn’t let go of her. She feels his tears splash onto the top of her head, dampening her hair. He’s saying something, babbling reassurances for her sake, but Fenya is too dazed to make sense of it. She can’t bring herself to imagine a world where he isn’t holding her. Shielding her. Knowing Jayr, that’s probably what he intends.

A weight grounds her by her calf. She peeks down and sees that Ira, unable to wait her turn, has attached herself to Fenya’s leg like a small child instead of a fourteen-year-old girl. Ira is crying, too, shrieking out apologies that Fenya doesn’t want. Fenya focuses instead on Ira’s jaw moving against Fenya’s shin. It presses so fiercely against her that Fenya can feel the grind of Ira’s molars. The rhythm of it is only interrupted by the occasional hiccup.

Someone tugs at her hand, still pressed against Jayr’s shoulder blade. Her mom is there, intertwining her fingers with Fenya’s. Her eyes shine, but tears do not drop. Fenya has never seen her cry. Part of her wonders if her mom is even able. But she forgets that thought when her mom squeezes Fenya’s hand gently. Not too hard, like her brother’s grip around her ribcage. Her mom’s gesture is enough for the dizziness to threaten its return.

And then there’s a hand on her head, running down her hair. Fenya doesn’t have to look to know it’s her mama as her fingers tangle in the knots that collapsing at the Reapings surely created. Her mama smooths it down, restoring it as she always does. Her mama is mumbling something beneath her siblings’ clamor. Fenya does not hear the words, but she hears the tone. Soothing. 

It takes both her mom and her mama to detangle the three siblings. Fenya knows why they do it - better them than Peacekeepers - but it still hurts. When their time is up, Ira has to be dragged, kicking and screaming up a storm that grates on Fenya’s ears. Jayr calls after her too, his eyes puffy, and Fenya knows his collapse is inevitable now. Her mothers will have their hands full today. 

It’s only when the door slams shut behind them that the silence returns. Fenya realizes then that she hadn’t said a word all through the visit. She’d been so overwhelmed with the sounds and touches and fear that she didn’t even say goodbye.

On the train, Fenya has to meet new people.

The first one is her least favorite. The Escort has done something horrible to her skin that makes it lumpy, but all the lumps are suspiciously heart-shaped, and it makes Fenya shudder. They’re all over her arms and legs and there are even two on her face, nestled on the apple of each cheek. It makes her smile swollen and wrong. Fenya can’t get her name to stick in her mind.

The other adult is her Mentor. He’s older than Jayr, who’s three years past the Reapings, but younger than her mothers, which doesn’t narrow it down much because Fenya doesn’t remember exactly how old her mothers are. His name is Rinzu. Fenya likes the shape of his name on her lips. His eyes are hollow in a way she isn’t used to. She’s used to eyes like Jayr’s and Ira’s, which are sometimes hard to look at because they’re so much. Not Rinzu’s eyes. His dark, longish hair has been mussed by the breeze in the square. There’s a heaviness to his brow that makes Fenya think he hasn’t slept recently.

The last is the other tribute. Fenya had forgotten there would be another tribute until now, when she has to look at him. He’s older than her by several years. He has short black hair and pale brown eyes that study her as though he is Fenya and she is a grasshopper. He’s still, so as not to startle her, but looking closely. Fenya wonders what would make her nearly as interesting as a grasshopper. She can’t imagine much. He hasn’t said his name yet which lets her off the hook of having to remember it for now.

Rinzu and the Escort spend a long time talking. The boy tribute talks, too. If they try to get her full attention it doesn’t work. Fenya lets herself look out the window, watching the landscape blur together. If she looks straight down, the grass is a green-and-brown smudge, but further away, she can see individual pieces swaying in the breeze. She spends a while trying to find the point where the ground stops blurring and looks like it’s just moving very slowly. Her gaze skips from tree to tree, searching.

It’s easier than dwelling on how the top of her head is still damp from Jayr’s tears. It’s better than the memory of Ira’s mouth opening, trying to take Fenya’s place. It’s better than her mothers’ quiet grief that wants to wrap around Fenya like a winter coat and weigh her down.

By the time she thinks she’s found the spot where the grass stops blurring, Rinzu is telling them it’s time to eat. The four of them eat together. Food tastes odd in her mouth - so much flavor, wrong texture - so once her stomach has quieted she chews on her fork instead. She likes the feeling of the tines against the side of her tongue. She gnaws at the metal through the dessert course even though the boy tribute looks at her strangely.

“I have a question,” he says.

Rinzu nods, waiting for the boy to ask, but the boy looks at Fenya instead. “You’re Jayr’s sister, right?”

Fenya blinks slowly. She pushes the fork deeper into her mouth, unsure of what else to do.

“I work with him,” the boy goes on. “In the factory.”

He gestures as he says this, and Fenya notices his right hand for the first time. The boy only has three fingers - his thumb, his ring finger, and his pinky. Fenya has seen plenty of textile factory injuries before, especially on kids’ hands, but she’s never been this close. The shape of it reminds her of a beetle. The kinds with crescent-moon heads.

Rinzu interjects. “Fenya?”

She looks away from the boy’s beetle hand. “Hmm?”

“Is that your brother’s name?” Rinzu asks.

She hums.

The boy grunts with approval, leaning back. “He’s alright.”

Fenya nods in agreement. He moves his beetle hand beneath the table. Fenya decides to check under her bed for spiders after dinner.

To Fenya’s disappointment, there are no bugs on the entire train. Not under her bed, or in her closet, or in the sink drain, or even the dining car. There’s also no dust or dirt anywhere unless Fenya puts it there. She supposes this explains the absence of bugs - nowhere for them to live. She wonders if the Capitol will be different. Rinzu talks about an apartment they’ll be staying in, and a fitness center they’ll visit. Perhaps there will be bugs there.

Sleep comes easily that night, if not gently. Her dreams are all a mess of colors and sounds and sensations. There’s the feeling of her bare feet slamming against grass. Then Ira is there, shrieking and laughing and crying, draining Fenya’s attention. Ants crawl in her mouth, trying to get past her teeth and lips, and Fenya’s brain tells her not to let them. Jayr squeezes her ribs too tight. When Fenya wakes, her body is sore and aching. 

The day does not improve.

After breakfast, their train arrives at the Capitol. Fenya is hauled off the train and left in the hands of three more strangers. Rinzu has told her that they aren’t trying to hurt her, but the longer she’s with them, the harder it is to believe him. He has also told her to try to stay still and quiet, and she really really tries, but there is only so much she can do. 

She’s never thought of herself as particularly hairy. The three strangers - stylists? - are set on ridding her of as much hair as possible. They tweeze and pluck and wax. Fenya writhes at their touch, tears pricking her eyes as they strip her of the soft fuzz on her arms and legs and stomach and back. It stings and burns and itches all at once. Fenya knows lots of women shave their hair but she hadn’t realized how extensive it could be. By the time they’re done, Fenya’s throat is raw from trying not to scream. A quiet headache pulses behind her eyes.

She doesn’t like their hands on her, either. If Fenya has to be touched, she wants it to be Ira or Jayr or Mama or Mom. Not these strangers with hooked nails and wrong teeth and too much powder on their skin. Every time they reach for her, she shrinks back, no matter how hard she tries to brace herself. It gets worse the longer it goes on as they run out of patience and she runs out of body hair. Her skin is raw and their touch is unforgiving. She doesn’t want it.

It’s a relief when Peacekeepers come to take her away from them. She hopes she never has to see those strangers again.

The boy tribute is already at their chariot when Fenya is deposited nearby. The other tributes are all unfamiliar - Rinzu put the Reapings on during the train ride, but Fenya couldn’t make their names stick - so she goes over to him. He is by their horses. She approaches slowly so as not to startle them.

“Hi,” the boy says.

Fenya tries for a nod. This seems to satisfy him, which is good, because Fenya doesn’t really want to talk. Her throat still hurts.

Instead, she mimics him. As he runs a hand along the horse’s neck, she follows. The horse’s hair is coarser than she thought it would be. She likes that their horses are brown. She thinks if she was a horse, she’d look similar to this. Her hair is the same color as theirs.

He pets the horse again. She notices that he uses his left hand to do it, the one with all five fingers. It, too, is scarred, all the way up to his forearms, the way Jayr’s arms collect scars at work. Something about it settles her rabbiting nerves a little more, and she mimics him again. 

The boy tribute looks down at her. “You ever met a horse?”

Fenya shakes her head.

“Me neither,” he says.

Fair enough.

Shortly after that, Peacekeepers start herding tributes into their chariots. The boy tribute steps in first. Fenya follows. Her grip on the railing turns white when it jerks forward. Her instinct is to hide. And she’s spent so much time today trying to be a good and easy tribute, fighting back her screeches and tears and anxiety, that she has nothing left to push against her instinct with. 

Fenya lets go of the railing and crouches low, resting her knees on the rattling chariot floor.

The boy tribute watches, his dark brow furrowed. “You’re going to fall.”

Fenya squeezes her eyes shut.

“Fenya?”

She ducks her head low. Her breath shakes, slipping out of her nose before she can catch it.

“Fenya,” the boy tribute repeats. “Hold on.”

Something nudges her shoulder, and she reaches for it. She’d assumed it would be a hand, but it isn’t. The boy tribute has shifted so he is closer to her, his leg brushing up against her. Solid. Steady. Fenya latches on, clutching at his knee, and keeps her head bowed. Sunlight beats hot against her hair. If she had her hands free she’d plug her ears to keep all the noise out. Her costume (which she doesn’t even understand, though one stylist had attempted a half-hearted explanation) itches horribly. Her eyes sting again. She holds on for dear life.

Fenya doesn’t let go for a long time. She waits until the boy tribute tells her they’re inside again, that Rinzu is coming to pick them up. Only then does she look up again. She still holds onto his pant leg, which the boy doesn’t comment on. His pale brown eyes look tired too. This helps a little.

It’s Rinzu that pries him free of her grip, exchanging the boy’s pants for Rinzu’s hand, which Fenya accepts.

“Let’s get you away from this for now,” Rinzu murmurs into her ear. His voice is very soft and calm. “You were brave. It’s all over now.”

It isn’t, and Fenya knows this. But it’s such a nice thought that Fenya can’t dwell on it. She just lets Rinzu take her and the boy tribute away from the horses instead.

The nice part of the training center is that it’s very spread out. Fenya has plenty of room to wander while still giving the other tributes a wide berth. She doesn’t find any real bugs to look at, only pictures and videos, but that’s better than nothing. She watches the videos for a long time. Fenya likes the station with the paints, too, and the one with the plants, even though the trainer keeps telling her to spit the leaves out.

She has to spend a long time in the bathroom before lunch is served, on account of the paint. She would leave it there but the trainers insist. Much of it has dried in her nails and cuticles and the webbing of her fingers. The mirror reveals more paint smeared on her neck, her chin, her cheek. Most of the paint on her is green and brown, but she’s managed some splotches of yellow and white too.

The warm water feels nice on her hands. She lets it flow for a while without scrubbing, watching bits and flecks of paint soften. Piece by piece, it starts to swirl down the drain. The colors are temporarily bright against the white porcelain. She touches the porcelain sink, curious; the water is warm, but the porcelain remains cool beneath her fingertip. Huh.

The bathroom door opens in a flash, knocking against the wall as it’s flung open. Two girls stride in. They’re talking and laughing too loud. They’re tall, far taller than Fenya, and she finds herself shrinking back, wiping her wet hands on her pants.

They stop when they see Fenya wedged between the sink and the wall. 

“Oh, sorry,” one of them says. She doesn’t look very sorry. Her black hair is long and straight like blue lines in a notebook. She walks into a bathroom stall, shutting herself in. Fenya wishes she’d thought to do that first.

The other girl is looking at her. Fenya looks away, wanting this interaction to end. 

It does not end. 

Instead, the girl lets out a squeal and darts forward, effectively trapping Fenya between porcelain and wall and human. She’s strong and well-fed in a way that keeps her pale skin from looking sickly. Her hair is orange and looks soft in a fluffy way that makes Fenya want to touch it despite everything. She crouches low so she can meet her at eye level. Her brown eyes are wide and far too close to Fenya’s face. 

“You’re so cute,” the girl says. “Oh my god, you’re even cuter in person. Ody, look!”

“Kind of busy,” the other girl calls from inside the bathroom stall. Fenya can hear her peeing.

The orange-haired girl smushes Fenya’s face between her hands. Fenya freezes, her heart thumping, and she thinks she isn’t breathing. The orange-haired girl stares at her. Fenya stares back.

“I want her,” the orange-haired girl suddenly declares. 

From inside the stall: “You what?”

The orange-haired girl tilts her head. “You don’t have any allies, do you?” she asks, speaking to Fenya. Her voice is gentler now, more of a croon. “You poor little thing. All alone in the Capitol. Is it scary?”

Fenya glances down, wanting to escape her perception.

“Aww, poor thing,” the girl says. “Are you even five feet tall?”

No, but she’s close. Growing is hard in District Eight. Fenya remembers to breathe. “Almost,” she manages, so quiet she can barely hear herself.

The girl grins, and it’s dazzling. “Awww!”

The girl with notebook-lined hair flushes and steps out of the stall again. She washes her hands with a wrinkled nose, and some far-off part of Fenya wonders if she used up all the warm water by accident. 

“Ody, she’s so cute,” the orange-haired girl says. She finally releases Fenya’s cheeks to look back at her friend. “Can I keep her?”

The girl - Ody? - shuts off the tap. “No.”

The orange-haired girl pouts tremendously. “But, Ody-”

“I told you to stop calling me that,” Ody snaps. 

“But, Odyssia,” the orange-haired girl corrects, “I’m obsessed with her.”

“You aren’t.”

“I am!”

“Listen to yourself!” Odyssia retaliates, flicking excess drops of water in their direction. The feeling of tiny droplets of water on her cheeks makes Fenya itchy. “What are you even saying? You want that tiny thing in our alliance? Are you fucking serious?”

“I’ll look out for her,” the orange-haired girl says. “Come on, it’s not like she’ll do anything! She’s so teeny! And she wouldn’t pull anything anyway. Look, she can’t even paint without getting it all over her face. And she hid during the parade yesterday, it was so adorable, remember?”

Fenya stands silently during all of this, looking back and forth between the two. She doesn’t know what to do. Rinzu mentioned something about making friends with the other tributes, but Fenya isn’t sure that’s what’s happening right now. 

“When she dies,” Odyssia says bitterly, “you better not cry about it.”

The orange-haired girl brightens. “Thanks, Ody! I mean, Odyssia.” She winks.

Odyssia huffs and turns around to leave. “You’re explaining this to the others. Not me.”

“Sure,” the orange-haired girl says, cheerful.

Odyssia exits with a huff, the bathroom door slamming behind her.

The orange-haired girl returns to Fenya, crouching in front of her. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” she says with a smile. “You still have some green paint on your cheek. It’s cute though!”

The girl guides Fenya back in front of the mirror. She rubs at the paint marks with a wet, soapy paper towel. Her hands are much sweeter than the stylists’. She uses small circles to clean Fenya, and she doesn’t press nearly as hard. She finishes cleaning Fenya’s nails with expert precision.

When she stands back up to her full height, she smiles. “Much better.”

Fenya nods.

The girl sighs. “Adorable.” Her eyes widen. “Oh, I forgot to say! I’m Blessing, but most people call me Bless. You’re… Faye? Or…?”

“Fenya,” Fenya supplies.

“Fenya!” she says, snapping her fingers. “Close enough.”

The girl goes on, saying something else about alliances and districts and sharp objects. Fenya has a hard time hearing it. Something else has caught her attention instead. There’s a number stitched into the older girl’s jumpsuit. 

And instead of an 8 like Fenya’s, it’s a 1.

Bless brings her over to a cafeteria table with five other people.

Odyssia is there, and another girl, and three boys. Glances at their jumpsuits reveal a 1 and 2s and 4s. They are all enormous and strong, and Fenya can feel them sizing her up. Their eyes seem to pass over every inch of her. Fenya stiffens and steps back, but all this does is knock her into Bless.

Bless lets out a little laugh. She puts her hands on Fenya’s shoulders, fixing Fenya’s balance.  “Guys, look! New alliance member!”

Odyssia sighs. One boy raises his eyebrows. Another shakes his head. The other girl furrows her brows, evidently confused.

“I knew the fainting and hiding was a show!” a boy says, folding his arms and grinning. “It was so obvious - I mean, no one’s that pathetic. Great work, though. You had me at the Reapings, but the parade stunt was overkill, really.”

“What can she do?” the other girl, not-Odyssia-or-Bless, asks.

“Do? What does she need to do? Look at her!” Bless replies. She shakes Fenya’s shoulders for emphasis, making her stumble. “She’s so little!”

“That’s it?” another boy asks.

“I’ve never seen such a cute outer-district kid in my entire life,” Bless gushes.

“So… what? We have to guard her all the time?” the same boy asks. 

Odyssia groans. “If she’s here,” she says, “she’s your responsibility, Blessing. You have to keep her alive.” 

“Of course I will!” Bless says. “She’s mine!”

The first boy snorts. “Of course Bless would find a pet.”

Fenya has never had a pet before. Not even a bug. Ira had a pet rock once. She fed it and watered it and cuddled with it for two whole weeks before she got bored.

“I… I don’t understand,” not-Odyssia-or-Bless says. She hesitates, glancing once at Fenya. She’s the first of the group to meet Fenya’s eyes. “She…”

The boy next to her, a 2 on his chest to match not-Odyssia-or-Bless, finishes the sentence. “She’s cannon fodder. You’re wasting everyone’s time with this.”

Bless gasps. “Rude!”

Fodder. The word sounds familiar. Her district partner’s name is something like that, she thinks. 

At the thought of him, her eyes dart around. He’s sitting a few tables away, and from the look on his face he is clearly watching this too. There’s a displeased wrinkle in his nose as he studies the table of big strong tributes that now, for some reason, includes Fenya.

The older tributes are still arguing. “You’re not allowed to kill her,” Bless declares. “Or else I get to kill you.”

2-boy rolls his eyes. “You’re insane. Is she going to win, then? Is that your plan here?”

“Of course not,” Bless says, matter-of-fact. “I’m winning. But I’m keeping her for a bit first.”

“Why?” not-Odyssia-or-Bless asks.

“Because I deserve nice things and also treats,” Bless answers. She looks down at Fenya and smiles. “Oh my god, we need to get you some of the cake they’re serving with lunch. It’s actually magic.”

“It’s strawberry,” Odyssia corrects.

Bless doesn’t answer that. Instead, she grabs Fenya by the elbow and drags her toward a tray of strawberry cake.

The rest of the afternoon goes by oddly.

Fenya doesn’t get to chew leaves or paint anymore. Instead, she’s pulled from station to station, where Bless shows her how good she is at fighting and Fenya claps for her. The clapping is Bless’s idea. She can’t quite get Fenya to cheer. Fenya does get better at following Bless from place to place, which is nice, because then she doesn’t need to be pulled by Bless’s strong grip. 

Sometimes, the trainers start to give Fenya instructions so she can train too. Bless always stops that, though, so she can make sure Fenya is watching. A knife is in Fenya’s hand for all of eight seconds before Bless takes it away. The trainer who hands it to her doesn’t even have time to correct her grip.

“No need for that,” Bless says, cheerful as she plucks it from Fenya’s grasp.

And because Fenya doesn’t want to make a fuss - wants to be the easy child, the easy ally - she complies. She lets herself fall into this role Bless has created for her where she doesn’t have to be as afraid, even if that means no bug-hunting. She lets herself have a friend. She’s always liked the idea of a friend.

At the end of the afternoon, Bless pats her head, a hand running over her mousy hair. Fenya doesn’t back away this time.

“You what?”

Fenya winces under Rinzu’s stare. It feels too hot on her face. She chews her spoon, and the cold metal feels nice on her gums.

“Are you sure?” Rinzu asks, turning to the boy tribute.

The four of them - Rinzu, boy tribute, Escort - are eating dinner together. The boy tribute has shared about his day. People he met, weapons he tried, what they ate for lunch. When Fenya didn’t offer up much of anything, he’d filled in the blank.

“Yes,” the boy tribute says. “She joined the Career alliance. I’m sure.”

The Escort laughs - at least, that’s what Fenya thinks that sound is. “It’s always the quiet ones!” she says, her cheeks bulging with her smile. “They’re always the best surprises! Who knew she had it in her!”

“How?” Rinzu asks, aghast.

“From what I heard?” The boy tribute lifts a brow, glancing at Fenya. 

Fenya shrugs.

“They think she’s cute,” he supplies. “A few of them, anyway.”

Rinzu does not seem to like this answer. “Cute,” he repeats. The word sounds very different than when Bless says it. “That’s what they said, Fenya? That’s all?”

Fenya removes the spoon from her mouth. “No,” she admits. “They said something about fodder also, I think.”

Rinzu clenches his jaw. The boy tribute grimaces. Even the Escort sucks in a breath as she downs the rest of her wine.

“And you still allied with them?” the boy tribute asks.

“I…” Fenya trails. She thinks of a delicate hand on her head and strawberry cake. “I guess.”

“Did they agree to protect you?” Rinzu asks.

“Yes.”

“Did they ask anything in return?”

“No.” Fenya nibbles at her spoon. “Just to keep me. For a while.”

“Keep you,” Rinzu repeats.

The Escort pours more wine. “Can’t blame them,” she says. “In the right lighting, you’re very sweet-looking. Sometimes it even borders on endearing, even if you could definitely use a little filler above your-”

“Stop,” Rinzu cuts in. He rubs his temples. “I… okay. I’ll think on what to do about this. For now, Fenya, you need to keep a low profile.”

Fenya tilts her head, questioning.

“Don’t attract any more attention,” he says. “Don’t show them anything you’re good at. It will help you later in the arena.”

“I don’t get to hold the weapons anyway,” Fenya says.

“What?” Rinzu asks. “Says who?”

“...Bless,” Fenya answers.

Rinzu mutters something that sounds like a word she isn’t allowed to say (and that Ira says all the time). Then, louder: “Bless is a Career?”

“Yes,” the boy tribute answers. “District One.”

Rinzu proceeds to say several dirty words. There’s even one Fenya hasn’t heard before, which is impressive (she thought Ira knew all the dirty words). 

The Escort shrugs. “Great for sponsors!” she points out. “And screentime. It would be incredible if you both lasted past the first five minutes - that would be a personal best for me.”

The boy tribute grunts. Rinzu does not reply to that.

Instead, he looks to Fenya again. “Keep your head down,” he advises. “And try to learn how to use a weapon. Please. Don’t let Bless see, understand?”

Fenya nods slowly, unsure of how to accomplish this. But it satisfies Rinzu, who leans back in his seat and exhales.

“Sorry,” the boy tribute tells Fenya. “I thought he should know.”

Fenya shrugs, unoffended. Easier to let him tell it anyway.

The rest of training is strange.

She follows Bless and claps for her victories. The other alliance members mostly ignore her, with the exception of Bless and occasionally not-Odyssia-or-Bless. Sometimes, when Bless spends too long sparring, Fenya has time to wander. Two of these times she remembers what Rinzu has asked her to do and visits the knife station. She slips away to paint with the camouflage supplies before Bless can ever see her.

At meals, she always sits next to Bless. Bless continues being nice for reasons that escape Fenya. She even yells at 1-boy when he tosses a roll at Fenya’s face on the third day. Fenya doesn’t dodge successfully. Bless wipes the crumbs off her nose for her.

Bless talks a lot about all sorts of things. Her stylists, her clothes, her training, her family, her friends, her impression on the Capitol, her Mentor, her Escort, her predictions for an arena, her opinions on other tributes. It’s endless. It doesn’t stick well in Fenya’s brain, but she gets used to the sound of Bless talking and doesn't mind it so much. She starts tolerating Bless touching her head with less effort than the first few times. Fenya finds herself searching for soft orange hair whenever it’s out of sight.

At school, Fenya doesn’t have friends. She has her family at home, but after being held back twice, she’s not in the same year as Ira anymore. She’s used to days of solitude. She’s used to watching the groups of other kids travel from place to place together, just a little too far to overhear their conversation. It’s always been something she’d like to have. Any time she wonders if this alliance might not be the best idea - times when Bless is too loud or too touchy or the looks from the other tributes get too intense - it’s been that quiet desire that keeps her from acting. It’s the memories of being alone in the schoolyard. It’s the realization that something she never thought would happen to her, has happened.

The timing is less than ideal, but Fenya is grateful anyway.

After her private session - she completely forgets what Rinzu told her to do, and spends most of it wandering around and playing with the paints - the stylists get their hands on her again.

Bless has gushed about her stylists whenever she gets the chance. Fenya will never understand this about Bless. She doesn’t think she has it in her to try.

The small mercy is that this time, there’s far less to do. They still buff her nails too hard and scrape her scalp to clean it and shave her, but it’s all quicker and there are fewer steps. The dress they make her wear scratches at her armpits in a way that makes her grit her teeth. The polish on her nails feels too thick. Also, her shoes are too narrow for her feet. 

She thinks her interview goes… okay. She gets through four questions before she starts to turn into a ball. After the fifth, she is completely spherical. She doesn’t answer any other questions after that, but five is better than zero, and both Rinzu and Bless separately insist they’re proud of her. She knows it’s not a stellar performance, but suspects Rinzu is just glad she showed her face this time.

When she returns to the apartment, there is a very nice period of ten minutes where she gets to rip off her shoes and her dress and wear something that doesn’t make her want to pull at her hair. After ten minutes, there’s a knock at the front door. The Escort answers it.

“Fenya, darling!” she calls. “It’s for you!”

Fenya pads cautiously toward the door, sock-footed. She thinks she knows who it is. She’s right.

“Hiiiiii,” Bless says, her smile brilliant. “Come on!”

She’s still wearing her interview clothes, covered in sequins and glitter and questionable cutouts. Her orange fluffy hair has been twisted into sleek curls that bounce when she walks. Her lips are still painted red and her eyes are outlined with sharp black lines.

“Where?” Fenya asks.

Bless’s smile turns mischievous. “Don’t let me spoil the surprise,” she says. 

The Escort grins. “Have fun, you two!”

Rinzu’s voice sounds from the other end of the apartment. “Wait, what are they-”

The Escort pushes Fenya out the door with a wink, quickly shutting it behind her before Rinzu can get another word in. Bless takes this as her cue to grab Fenya’s elbow and pull her toward the elevator.

“Time for a little last-night fun,” she says.

When Fenya arrives, the other five are already there, sprawled around the District One living room.

1-boy points at Fenya, a cup in his hand. “We said you could only be here if you weren’t a buzzkill,” he tells her. His words string together more than they should, and Fenya thinks of a beaded bracelet. Or necklace. “So don’t be a buzzkill.”

“She won’t,” Bless scoffs. “If anything, Odyssia’s the buzzkill.”

“I don’t care,” Odyssia answers. “I’m not getting drunk the night before the Hunger Games.”

“Buzzkill!” 1-boy shouts.

Bless turns to Fenya. “You shouldn’t drink either,” she says. She bops Fenya lightly on the nose. “Too little. And probably a lightweight.”

Fenya shrugs, not sure what that word means but fine with it nonetheless.

Bless helps herself to something from a bottle and gives Fenya a cup of something else. She sniffs at it. It smells like juice, but even sweeter. She raises the cup and tilts it back, letting the liquid wash against her lips. She doesn’t hate it, so she keeps drinking it. Bless sits in a plush armchair. There are no other places to sit, so Fenya plops down on the floor next to her instead.

Even Fenya notices the other six tributes are acting differently tonight. The ones who are drinking are loose, their cheeks slowly turning pink as they laugh and jab at each other. Their conversation gets fast and nearly incomprehensible. At least, the words themselves don’t make sense. Fenya finds them easier to read. They don’t hold back so much when they’re like this. 

Because some of them still hold back. She’s caught them doing it - their sentences cut off harshly, their eyes lingering on Fenya, and she can connect those dots. It’s happened during meals and casual moments at training stations. When they get truly annoyed with each other, though, they look at each other instead of Fenya. She appreciates that.

Bless is one of the unrestrained tonight. Three of the others get caught in her mayhem; she turns on music and starts dancing, coercing 2-boy into joining her. 1-boy and not-Odyssia-or-Bless follow. It’s not long before they’re running around the living room. They even start throwing pillows at each other, their aim far below what Fenya knows they can do after two straight days of watching them train.

It makes Fenya think of home. Ira loves playing with the pillows. She likes to stack as many as possible and then sit on top of the teetering tower. She makes Fenya time how long she can last before crashing to the ground. Sometimes if she gets mad enough she’ll throw them, too, but it only ever takes one hitting Fenya for Ira to stop.

One flies toward Odyssia, on target for her face before she swats it aside. “Stop,” she snaps.

Fenya, still thinking of Ira, quietly envies her reflexes.

Before she can reminisce any further, someone sits next to her on the floor. She barely has to turn her head to know it’s 4-boy. His curly brown hair is still slicked back from his interview, but a few strands have broken free while dodging errant pillows. The tip of his nose is pink, but not nearly as dark as the others’.

“Fenya,” he says, tipping his head in greeting.

She turns her shoulders toward him, offering her attention.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” he says. 

“Okay,” Fenya mumbles.

He raises a thin eyebrow. “So, I’ve heard the story,” he says. “About how you were so cute and pathetic that Bless adopted you on the spot. God, if I hear her call you cute one more time…”

Fenya waits. She’s been doing a lot of listening today, but she pushes herself to keep it up as 4-boy talks. There’s… something, an edge in his voice, maybe, that tells her she has to. A distant alarm in her head is ringing. 

“...and Bless won’t talk about anything else,” he goes on. “But I know you’re good at something. Even Bless isn’t that fucking stupid that she’d drag you around for no reason.”

If there’s another reason, Fenya has yet to hear it. She, too, only hears about how cute and eensy-weensy she is. Not for the first time, she wonders what that reason is.

“I’m not stupid either,” 4-boy says. His voice lowers, and she knows she’s the only one who can hear him now. “So why are you really here?”

Fenya hesitates. Her hand drifts closer to her mouth, and Fenya puts the rim of her cup between her teeth. Her incisors tap against plastic.

“I’m not letting an outsider take down the pack again,” 4-boy states. “Whatever Bless is planning with you isn’t going to work, Fenya. And I don’t care how much she threatens me - one wrong move and you’re done, Eight.”

Fenya pushes the cup deeper into her mouth, clamping down with her molars.

“I’m watching,” he says. “Odyssia too.”

She glances up. Odyssia catches her eye from the couch, her gaze cool. 

“You’re not tricking anyone,” 4-boy tells her. “Tell me why you’re here, Fenya.”

Fenya drags the cup out of her mouth. She has to say something. She doesn’t want this boy killing her in the morning, so she keeps looking back at him, wide-eyed, and searches for words. She needs words. 

“I…” she says. “Bless… doesn’t tell me anything. I don’t know.” She swallows. “I - I just don’t want to die.”

4-boy studies her. She can feel Odyssia’s eyes on her, too. She stares back at 4-boy. She has faced bullies before. She can look him in the eye, can stand here without running away. This isn’t that different, really. Right?

“Right,” 4-boy says softly. “I see how it is.”

Fenya refuses to blink.

Bless chooses that moment to return, twirling in circles until she trips over a corner of the rug. She collapses into the couch with a wild laugh. Odyssia barely dodges Bless’s landing, scowling at her as Bless kicks her feet in the air to sit upside-down. 

She giggles four times before noticing Fenya and 4-boy. She lights up all over again.

“Oh my god! Did you get her to talk to you? That’s so awesome!” she screeches.

4-boy offers a smile just as wide, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Wasn’t too hard,” he says. He winks at Fenya. 

“Awww,” Bless gushes. “She’s making friends! They grow up so fast…”

“Let me get you more of that, Fenya,” 4-boy says. He takes her cup out of her hand before she can accept his offer.

Bless swings her legs, backwards rolling off the couch. It’s the kind of maneuver Ira would attempt, but Bless still retains some grace as she shifts. “I know what we should do next!”

“What?” not-Odyssia-or-Bless calls, midway through smashing a pillow into 1-boy’s chest. He lets out an oof as it connects.

“Karaoke!” she crows.

Odyssia mumbles something that is definitely not allowed at Fenya’s mama’s dinner table.

Bless reaches for Fenya, pulling her off the ground and hugging her close. Her breath is too sweet, but she’s warm, so Fenya tolerates this close contact. 1-boy turns on the television and starts queuing songs. Fenya doesn’t recognize any of them, but Bless screeches with delight. 

4-boy returns Fenya’s cup to her, then joins in the fun, recommending more songs they should sing. Fenya starts to reach for the cup, then thinks better of it. She feels eyes on her again and looks up, but it’s not 4-boy, or even Odyssia.

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless nods as Fenya retracts her hand, oddly serious among the tipsy, red-flushed faces. If not-Odyssia-or-Bless has been drinking, her skin is too deep to show a flush. The older girl’s shoulders relax a little before she turns away, joining an argument about some song 1-boy wants to sing.

Fenya watches the back of not-Odyssia-or-Bless’s head. Her deep brown hair, straightened by the stylists, has tangled considerably over the last hour. Fenya suddenly wants to run her hands through it, tug at the knots. But she heeds not-Odyssia-or-Bless’s silent warning and keeps her hand close.

That morning, her goodbyes are brief. 

She has to say goodbye to the boy tribute right after eating breakfast. He shakes her hand and wishes her the best, his face serious and drawn. She makes her grip firm to match his and hopes it is enough for him. He squeezes her hand before he lets go and is taken away by Peacekeepers.

“Remember - more than five minutes! You can do it!” the Escort encourages.

As soon as the strange woman leaves, Rinzu kneels down in front of her. “Don’t listen to that,” he says. He looks disgusted, but Fenya knows it’s not her he’s upset with. 

“Just do your best,” he says, more gentle now. “Listen to your instincts. Get a weapon if you can, like we talked about - something small, that the Careers don’t know about. I’m rooting for you, Fenya. You can do it.”

His expression twists, and Fenya thinks he looks very, very sad now. She wonders how many times Rinzu has said goodbye.

She’s scared. She’s terrified, even. But Fenya wants to be a good tribute for him. She’s definitely about to die, but she wants to do that much for him. If there’s one thing Fenya’s good at, it’s being an easy child. 

“Thanks, Rinzu,” she whispers. “I’ll try.”

He looks as though she’s slapped him. For a moment, Fenya is horrified, convinced she’s said the wrong thing. But then he hugs her. 

She’s not sure which one of them is shaking more.

The arena is not what Fenya expected.

Her pedestal brings her up into a world that is soft and sweet. There is no nature, no trees or grass or anything similar - instead, the ground is made up of quilts and pillows and afghans. Bedsheets form the sky over her head, letting twinkling lamplight seep through and illuminate the surroundings. She wears a button-down flannel shirt with matching pants and slippers. The other twenty-three tributes are similarly dressed for a quiet evening.

The Cornucopia ahead is a stack of couch cushions - a fort within a pillow fort, Fenya supposes. More lamplight glows inside. She doesn’t see any weapons or pointy objects, but there are a few bags lying around, along with a wild assortment of stuffed animals and plushies.

She remembers to look at the tributes around her. She doesn’t see the boy tribute, but she does find Bless. The older girl’s orange hair has been pulled into pigtails. The styling is enough that Fenya, if she didn’t know better, could mistake the glint in Bless’s eyes for mischief, an excitement to repeat the pillow fight from the night prior. 

Bless catches her eye and winks.

The timer finishes counting down.

Pandemonium breaks out. Tributes launch from their pedestals, but there’s too much give on the cushioned floor, and half of them go sprawling. Fenya decides to jump off, too, landing with her knees tucked into a ball. Any other day, it would’ve been great fun.

Today, the screams have already started.

Tributes go everywhere, screaming and flailing. Fenya still doesn’t see weapons but she does see blood. She gets to her feet - it takes her three tries before she can get her footing - and tries to breathe. Bless told her to get to the Cornucopia, but she sees a lot of fists and elbows in that direction and she shrinks back. 

She can hide. Yes, she should hide. The Cornucopia isn’t safe yet, and she still remembers 4-boy’s watchful stare and knows better than to run toward one of Bless’s allies. Maybe she can hide under a pillow, or-

Her gaze catches on a spreading red stain.

The tribute it belongs to is dead. He has fallen atop a few pillows and a fluffy-looking blanket that is starting to soak with his blood. The blood is coming from his head and there’s far too much of it. But Fenya needs a hiding place and she needs somewhere no one will look and maybe, just maybe, no one will look too hard at someone already dead.

He’s only fifteen paces from her. She crawls toward him as quickly as the too-soft terrain allows. Every movement has the ground threatening to swallow her up. Fenya doesn’t let herself look at his face - his hair is too light to be the boy tribute’s, which is enough. She burrows under him, under the pillows and beneath the fluffy blanket. Then she tries to hold still.

He is heavy, and it is warm and a little damp under the bedding. Fenya tries to keep her breathing smooth. She tries to stay still, too. It’s horrible and uncomfortable but it’s either that or listen to the killing, only separate from her by a few pieces of fabric. So she focuses on staying still. 

What helps the most is watching the stain grow. Its borders expand gradually, dyeing the pillowcase nearest her face. It spreads and spreads and spreads, inching forward. Part of her thinks that maybe this stain will never stop spreading. It’ll keep going until the whole world is red. 

She only comes out when the cannons start firing. Rinzu has told her that the Bloodbath is over once the cannons fire and for once she remembers something he’s said. She wriggles free of the blanket and the body with a pant. There are red streaks on her flannel from the boy’s blood, and sweat sticks her hair to her temples.

Bless sees her first. “No way!”

She’s standing outside the Cornucopia - at least, what is left of it. The cushions hadn’t held up against the fighting for long. 2-boy and 4-boy are trying to put it back together. 1-boy comes running at Bless’s shout.

“Woah,” he says, “I definitely thought you were dead.” He turns back to the rest. “Guys! Bless’s pet didn’t die!”

2-boy ignores him. 4-boy’s head jerks up, but Fenya doesn’t get a glimpse of his face in time before Bless runs toward her, arms outstretched. The following embrace knocks the air from her lungs with a wheeze. Bless doesn’t seem to notice as she picks Fenya up and spins her around, showering her head with kisses.

“I was so worried!” she shrieks.

Fenya tries to reply, but only gets out a squeak.

Bless sighs happily. “God, you’re so stinking cute. Never change.”

To her relief, Bless puts her down. She then pulls Fenya by the hand toward the newly-reconstructed Cornucopia.

“Any injuries?” not-Odyssia-or-Bless asks, her eyes on the blood on Fenya’s sleeves.

Fenya shakes her head.

“Ha!” 1-boy sings, “that means I win! Pay up!”

2-boy grumbles something under his breath.

“Wait, Bless says, spinning to look at them, “win what? Were you betting on FenFen?”

“Duh,” 1-boy answers. 

“I thought she’d at least get a scratch on her or something,” 2-boy mutters.

Odyssia’s voice reaches them from the other side of the Cornucopia. “And I bet she’d die right off the bat, so congrats, Bless. I was wrong for once.”

“You’re wrong all the time!” Bless pouts.

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless shakes her head, seemingly disapproving. “Good job,” she tells Fenya quietly.

Fenya shrugs. She opens her mouth, thinking for a moment, before she finally says: “My Escort told me to get through the first five minutes.”

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless raises an eyebrow. “Only?”

“She wants a new record,” Fenya says.

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless covers her mouth with her hand. 1-boy, who apparently heard Fenya, barks out a laugh. 2-boy rolls his eyes. She doesn’t see Odyssia or 4-boy’s reactions - they’re covered by not-Odyssia-or-Bless standing in front of her.

Bless giggles, too, and slings an arm around Fenya’s shoulders. “Good thing you’re with me!”

“Right,” Fenya says, but it comes out as more of a squeak than a word.

The alliance disperses quickly.

There are no conventional weapons in the Cornucopia, but there’s plenty that can be used as one. The most plentiful are the heavy metal flashlights and lanterns. Fenya notices the flashlight in 2-boy’s hand is already bloody at one end and can’t help but think of the dead boy she hid under. Odyssia has stripped the springs from a couch cushion and made something awful with them. 1-boy carries a lamp without its shade. Bless wraps shreds of a pillowcase around her knuckles, tying the loose ends with her teeth. So on and so forth. 

Fenya is left at the Cornucopia with just not-Bless-or-Odyssia. The others take off, Bless kissing Fenya’s forehead before she goes. They have to crouch to get into the next rooms to avoid tangling in the low-hanging sheets at the edge of the room.

Once they’re gone, the bodies are removed. There’s no overhead claw to take them this year; instead, they seem to get pulled deeper into the cushioned floor until they’ve vanished entirely. Fenya knows in her head that the Capitol has taken them, will be sending them home now, but part of her thinks that if she steps in the wrong place she’ll find bones beneath her slippers.

And apparently, that thought isn’t entirely unjustified.

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless allows Fenya to help her sort the Cornucopia’s belongings. The first time she finds a tooth beneath a pillow, Fenya assumes it was from the fighting. The second time, she supposes it could’ve also been from fighting. By the sixth time, the hair on the back of her neck stands up.

“I keep finding them too,” not-Odyssia-or-Bless murmurs. She holds out her hand for Fenya’s perusal - five teeth.

“Baby teeth,” Fenya observes. 

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless grimaces at that. “Yeah, they’re really small…”

For just a second, Fenya has the insane urge to put them in her mouth, to test their strength with her back molars. But then she becomes aware of the feeling of her teeth in her mouth, all the way down to the roots in her gums. She decides she has enough teeth in her mouth already, thank you very much. So she and not-Odyssia-or-Bless make a small pile of them instead.

The rest of the sorting is easier. There’s food, water. Sources of light - mostly flashlights. Night goggles. Stuffed animals, all of creatures Fenya has only heard of in stories. There are plush people, too. They wear jumpsuits and have numbers printed on them. She notices not-Odyssia-or-Bless hold one for a little too long, her lips pressed together in a firm line, before she sets it aside. Fenya doesn’t ask.

Fenya decides, while working alongside the girl from Two, that she likes her. She doesn’t talk too much. She just… coexists. She doesn’t use the nicknames Bless has started showering her with, and she doesn’t insist on touching Fenya all the time, either. She looks Fenya in the eye when she wants her attention instead of looking over her, or behind her, the way most of the others do. There is a steadiness in not-Odyssia-or-Bless’s hands and shoulders. 

There are two more cannons before the other five return, smiling and bickering. There’s blood in the strips of fabric around Bless’s knuckles. She’s still wearing it when she squishes Fenya’s face between her hands, cooing about how much she missed her during her “outing.” Fenya tries not to think of spreading red stains as the fabric brushes her cheeks.

“See, I told you it was nine kills,” 1-boy says. The anthem has just finished playing. Fenya didn’t see the boy tribute’s face in the collection projected against the blankets. 

The realization that the boy tribute is alive somewhere - that she hasn’t been sitting here while the others picked him off - is enough to allow Fenya to start to relax. Bless notices her eyes getting droopy and pulls Fenya in for a cuddle. It doesn’t take long to get comfortable in the throng of pillows and blankets.

However, it also doesn’t take long to be startled back to consciousness.

A scream tears through the quiet evening. Bless is up in an instant, hands curling into fists. Nearby, 4-boy grabs a flashlight. He waves it around wildly, pointing it straight into Fenya’s eyes, which makes her hiss and draw back. 2-boy dives out of their pillow fort of a Cornucopia.

“What happened?” Fenya can hear him saying outside, “what happened?”

“I - I thought I saw…” Odyssia’s voice trails. “There was something out there. In the dark.”

Her voice reminds Fenya of her siblings. Ira still has bad dreams sometimes - Jayr too, when he was younger. Odyssia sounds like that. If only there was a closet Fenya could peek into to show her there was nothing to fear.

4-boy must think the same, because he relaxes. “What, you’re afraid of the dark now?”

“No,” Odyssia snaps. Even more harshly than usual. 

“Where was it?” 2-boy asks.

1-boy squints out into the arena. “Could’ve been another tribute, maybe? Ballsy, though, on night one.”

“No,” Odyssia repeats. “It wasn’t a person. Something else.”

4-boy sighs, his eyeroll so heavy Fenya can sense it in the dark. “Ody, c’mon-”

“She’s right,” another cuts in. Not-Odyssia-or-Bless, who’d been on watch with Odyssia. Her voice doesn’t sound quite right, like it’s hoarse. “There was something out there. But it was gone as soon as my flashlight was on it.”

“So it’s gone?” Bless asks. She returns to Fenya, lying back down with a flounce. The older girl curls around her, but Fenya is still stiff. Bless doesn’t seem to notice.

“I think so,” not-Bless-or-Odyssia confirms.

“I’ll join you guys out here for a bit anyway,” 2-boy says.

“We don’t need-” Odyssia starts.

“I believe you, okay?” 2-boy interrupts. “There was… something here. I’m not gonna fall asleep for a bit, knowing that.”

“Suit yourself,” 1-boy calls, quickly settling back in.

Bless’s breath has already begun to even out. Fenya hears the blankets rustle and senses 4-boy has decided to go back to sleep, too. 

To get her heart to settle, Fenya pictures what Odyssia must have seen. She decides it was a bug, of course. A big, black spider with eight strong legs and lots of eyes. Fenya imagines it crawling around, the folds of the bedding like an ocean to such a creature. At least, she assumes. She’s never seen an ocean.

Her imaginary spider does the trick. Eventually, she falls back asleep.

The routine is established quickly and without much protest.

Each day, five of the Careers leave to hunt for other tributes. Though Fenya sees no issue with their makeshift weapons, most of them are sponsored at least a knife to work with. The sixth Career is left behind with Fenya (“someone has to guard our stuff, not just the pipsqueak”) for the day until the others return. The seven of them eat together in the mornings and evenings; lunch is taken with them, and Fenya has to eat with just the other Career left with her.

On their second day in the arena, Fenya is left with 1-boy. He’s content to chatter in her direction without much input, which is fine by Fenya. No other tributes show up to bother them. Fenya half-listens to 1-boy and half spends the day hunting for spiders. There are so many folds in the fabric, Fenya just knows there has to be one somewhere. There are too many good hiding spots. Maybe the longer they’re here, and the more crumbs they spread, the more likely they are to show up. Or maybe ants will come for the crumbs. Fenya is fine with that too. For now, though, her search of the Cornucopia and the surrounding bloodstained blankets comes up spider-less. 

When she returns to the Cornucopia looking for a snack, 1-boy notices her approach. He tilts his head, blinking a few times before he opens his mouth. “I gotta ask you something.”

Fenya tilts her head back at him.

He takes this as an invitation to keep going. “What do you, like, do?”

Fenya furrows her brow. 

“In the outer districts,” 1-boy says, as though it clarifies anything. “Do you ever have fun? Or is it just super depressing out there? All the footage looks depressing as hell. Like, would it kill you guys to play kickball or something every once in a while?”

“...My brother liked kickball,” Fenya muses.

1-boy’s eyes widen. “Liked? Oh my god, did he die?”

“No,” Fenya answers. “He’s just old now. Less time.”

“Oh, phew!” 1-boy replies. “Well, good to know there’s kickball, at least. What about soccer?”

1-boy spends another ten minutes grilling her on every sport he can name. Fenya just nods along - because yes, District Eight has soccer and tetherball and handball. Then he starts asking if she’s ever tasted fruit before (“I heard only One and the Capitol get to have the raspberries”). Then he asks about how much she can read and if she really knows all of the alphabet.

It’s a relief when the others return. Bless curls up with her again at night. 

Two more faces appear in the sky that evening.

The third day is quiet. The evening, however, is not.

In the morning Fenya is left at the couch cushion Cornucopia with 2-boy. He keeps an eye on her, but doesn’t seem concerned about her presence. He was, after all, the one who talked about cannon fodder when they first met. Fenya is content to re-sort the dried fruit rations. Instead of eating all of the dried apple slices 2-boy lets her have for lunch, she only eats half. The rest she stashes in blanket folds, hoping to invite ants to visit. She even tears them into smaller pieces to make them easier for ants to carry.

Part of the quiet of the third day is that there are no cannons. It means that when the other five do come back, there is an air of unhappiness to them. 

“No luck?” 2-boy asks. 

“Nothing useful,” 4-boy answers. His voice is laced tight with frustration. 

“I still think we should go back out there,” 1-boy says. “Once it’s dark. Bet it’ll be easier to find them if they’re using their flashlights.”

“If they even got any,” not-Bless-or-Odyssia replies. 

“You can go out and look,” Odyssia says. “Have fun. I’ll be staying here.”

“Maybe I will,” 1-boy replies. “Better than sitting here on my ass all night.”

From the look on Odyssia’s face, the jab lands. “Better safe than sorry,” she snaps back. 

Finally, Bless intercedes. “Enough of that,” she says, waving them off. She gives Fenya a half-lidded eye roll. “They’ve been at it all afternoon, would you believe it?”

“Yes,” 2-boy responds, even though she was not talking to him. He eyes the others with something Fenya can’t read. Not-Odyssia-or-Bless gives him a little shake of her head, and he doesn’t say anything else, but he still feels wary to Fenya. Like a fly keeping watch for a spiderweb. 

Not for the first time, Fenya wishes for a spider to look at. It would be nice.

“How was your day?” Bless asks Fenya, ruffling her hair. “You two have fun?”

Fenya, thinking of her time spent hiding dried apple slices, nods. 2-boy clearly didn’t expect this response but seems pleased. Bless does, too.

“Come sit with me,” she instructs, “I want to braid your hair.”

Fenya obliges. She hasn’t combed her hair once since entering the arena, but that’s okay because Bless loves doing her hair. She hums every time she cards her fingers through Fenya’s mousy hair. They have a comb, the fancy kind with a pointy end to make a straight part, but Bless uses her hands instead. Her hands always surprise Fenya with how gentle they are. Bless has never been anything but affectionate with Fenya, but Fenya knows how the older girl gets blood on her pillowcase-wrapped knuckles.

They sit outside the Cornucopia, Bless claiming she’s keeping watch while doing Fenya’s hair. The others are skeptical, but Bless rolls her eyes and no one challenges her further. Fenya can hear the others keep talking.

“I want to go back out,” 1-boy insists.

“Okay! No one’s stopping you!” Odyssia says.

“Stop looking at me like that, then!”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m insane or something!” 1-boy says. “I’m not the one seeing monsters under the bed like a little kid!”

From behind her, Bless sighs. “Men,” she says into Fenya’s ear, “am I right?”

Fenya shrugs. 

“What, no boyfriend back home?” Bless teases. 

“No,” she answers. Fenya doesn’t really have friends, let alone boys that are friends. Or boys that are more than friends. 

“A shame,” Bless replies. “You’re so cute, like, are they even looking at you? They’re missing out, trust me.”

Fenya considers this. 

…No, they aren’t looking at her. No one really does. That only changed when her name was called at the Reaping, and then suddenly everyone was looking.

An old feeling bubbles in her chest. An instinct to cry or scream or simply burst at the unfairness of it all. That all of this, the likely end of her life (because Fenya isn’t stupid, she knows what’s coming) is what it has taken to be seen for once.

She digs her fingers into her palms, pressing her nails too hard against her own flesh. 

Easy. Be easy, she reminds herself, but she can’t unclench her hands.

The others are still arguing. “Don’t be an asshole,” 4-boy is saying.

“Oh, I’m the asshole?” 1-boy asks. “Seriously? I’m the one trying to get us more kills, by the way, in case you hadn’t noticed-”

“Go get them, then!” Odyssia interrupts.

“I will!”

“He can’t go alone,” not-Odyssia-or-Bless says.

“Well, I’m not going-” Odyssia starts.

“Oh my god, we know,” 1-boy says. “We heard you the first time.”

“I’ll go,” 4-boy snaps. 

“You?”

“Yes, me,” 4-boy says. “That work for you?”

“Fine!”

Bless has noticed Fenya’s tension by now. “Guys,” she calls, “shut up already. You’re freaking Fenya out.”

“I don’t give a fuck about Fenya,” 4-boy replies, quick and sharp as his irritation changes target.

Bless’s hands drop from her hair. “Excuse me?”

“Guys,” not-Odyssia-or-Bless says. It sounds like a warning.

“You heard me,” 4-boy says. “I don’t give a fuck about your little outer-district pet.”

Fenya turns around so she can see properly, her breath hitching. Bless stands, marching over to the others. Part of her wants to follow Bless. Part of her wants to run away. Unsure, she stays where she is.

“I don’t care who you’re mad at,” Bless informs him. “You need to calm the fuck down before I make you.”

“Why do you care about her so bad?” 4-boy asks. His face is a little red, not unlike the night before the Games when everyone was drinking. “She’s not your friend, Bless. She’s a tribute. She’s probably waiting for the chance to slit your throat when you’re asleep.”

Bless isn’t having it. “With what weapon?”

Fenya’s eyes widen. Bless is right - Fenya doesn’t have a weapon. Didn’t Rinzu tell her to do that, during the last time she saw him? She needs to change that. Soon.

4-boy throws his hands up. “Who knows! Have you even checked her for one?”

Bless had not. She hadn’t needed to, because Fenya forgot to arm herself in the first place.

“She’s harmless,” Bless replies. “She doesn’t have anything.”

4-boy narrows his eyes. “There’s thirteen of us left, Bless,” he says. “And seven of us are here, in this alliance. She isn’t going to stay harmless for long.”

He looks at Fenya when he’s done talking. All of them do. Fenya shrinks back at their attention, her hackles fully raised at being the topic of conversation.

Odyssia steps toward her, her mouth set in a firm line. Fenya leans back, working very hard to breathe.

“What are you doing?” Bless shrieks.

“Checking her for weapons,” Odyssia replies. 

She kneels down, reaching out and patting Fenya down. She takes off her slippers, too, and checks in there. Her only find comes from Fenya’s pockets, where she has stashed a slice of apple she’d been gnawing on earlier. 

“Ew,” Odyssia says, recoiling as soon as she touches it. 

“I don’t have anything,” Fenya mumbles. 

“Leave her alone,” Bless says. She marches back over, grabbing Fenya’s arm and tugging her away from Odyssia. “Come on, Fenya, I didn’t get to finish your hair.”

Fenya lets herself be pulled.

The anthem passes that night with no new faces. 1-boy and 4-boy leave, off to search for more tributes, and the tension at the Cornucopia eases with their departure. Odyssia and not-Odyssia-or-Bless go to sleep, exhausted from the day, and Fenya stays up with Bless and 2-boy on watch for their shift. She’s still jittery from the argument - no point in trying to sleep.

“Fenya,” 2-boy says, breaking the silence, “I’d like to ask you something.”

Bless stiffens. Fenya slowly turns her head, looking at him. 

2-boy has spent enough time around Fenya to know she’s listening now. He’s also spent enough time around Bless to speak before she gets the chance. “I was just wondering how you earned your training score,” he says. “You got a 1, right? What did you do?”

Bless nods at her, encouraging.

“Oh,” Fenya squeaks. “I, um… I painted.”

“What did you paint?” Bless asks.

Fenya shrugs. “The wall. And the floor. And some of the weapons.”

“Why?” 2-boy asks.

Fenya shrugs again. “Wanted to make them look nice.”

2-boy studies her for a moment, his own face illuminated by a lantern. After a few breaths, he leans back, apparently satisfied with her answer. “Okay,” he says. 

“She’s so creative,” Bless praises, squishing Fenya’s cheek. Fenya wriggles until she’s freed. Bless laughs and scoops her up again, pulling her into her lap.

“FenFen! I had an idea,” Bless says. “Does your hair hold a curl? Because we can boil some water, and dunk some pillowcase strips in it, and then if we wrap your hair in it overnight-”

“Bless,” 2-boy says, his voice even, “we can’t use our water on that.”

“But she’d look so darling,” Bless whines.

“Maybe,” 2-boy says, “but we need water to survive.”

“I guess,” Bless huffs. “Ugh, I’m thirsty now. Fenya, can you get me some water?”

Fenya nods, crawling out of Bless’s lap and into the Cornucopia. They keep their water stash piled in a corner, and it takes no time at all to reach over not-Odyssia-or-Bless’s sleeping form and take one from the top.

There’s lots of supplies in the Cornucopia. Food, light sources, bits and bobs the others pick up on their hunting trips. On her way out, Fenya almost trips over something sticking out of a blanket fold. She reaches for it and finds the comb Bless never uses, the one with the pointy end.

There’s thirteen of us left, and seven of us are here, in this alliance.

Quiet as a mouse, Fenya slides the pointy-ended comb into her flannel pants pocket. Then she crawls out of the pillow fort to bring Bless her water bottle.

As Bless brings it to her lips, a cannon fires.

Bless freezes. “Oh! They must’ve found someone!” She takes a sip of water, then sighs. “He’s gonna get such a big head when he gets back…”

2-boy scans the blanket fort landscape all the more vigilantly. “Probably,” he agrees.

The cannon has woken the other two. Odyssia pops her head out of the Cornucopia, blinking quickly. “Any word from the others?”

“No,” Bless says, “the cannon just fired, girl. Give them a minute.”

Odyssia shoots her a look. Bless smiles back.

“A minute” turns into several hours. Neither 1-boy or 4-boy appear for the rest of the night. Naturally, it is the main subject of conversation in the morning.

“What if they got lost?” Odyssia asks.

“They might’ve,” not-Bless-or-Odyssia replies. “Navigating is hard enough when the overhead lights are on. They probably got turned around in the dark.”

“They’ll come back,” 2-boy says.

“Yeah,” Bless says. “They’re fine. In the meantime, we should go hunting anyway.”

“True,” 2-boy agrees. “I can go.”

“I’ll come with,” not-Odyssia-or-Bless says.

“I’m staying,” Odyssia says. “I want to wait for the others.”

“I’ll stay too,” Bless says. She beams. “It’s my turn for a Fenya day!”

Odyssia rolls her eyes. “You two are ridiculous.”

The tributes from Two get ready as soon as they’ve eaten breakfast, pulling on small backpacks and holding their makeshift weapons.

“We’ll send them this way if we see them,” not-Bless-or-Odyssia promises. She looks at Odyssia when she says it. Odyssia nods in return.

The Twos leave after that. Bless and Odyssia busy themselves in the Cornucopia - something about making more weapons, the makeshift ones wearing out and the sponsored knives only doing so much - and Fenya checks her dried apple traps. To her delight, one of them has attracted ants. Fenya settles into the blankets, burrowing in and watching the ants break the apple down. Eventually she finds the nerve to reach out a finger, and some of the ants climb on. They’re featherlight on her skin and almost tickle. 

Fenya smiles. 

She puts a bit of apple on her nail and watches as one, two, three ants climb on - four, five-

“Fenya!”

Fenya whirls around. Bless is approaching, and Fenya does not think she’ll like the ants, not even a little bit. Fenya has to hide them. So she does the first thing she can think of, and puts her finger in her mouth, ants and all.

“There you are!” Bless says, clutching her heart. “I didn’t know where you went!”

Fenya, unable to say anything with ants in her mouth, shrugs.

Bless drags her back to the Cornucopia, where she and Odyssia have set up lunch. Fenya sits where she’s told and eats what she’s given. Odyssia eats quickly and leaves the couch cushion structure; her footsteps are consistent and rushed on the blankets outside, as though she’s pacing.

Inside, Bless flops back onto the pillows with a sigh. She does so with such force that her legs fly up, nearly smacking Fenya as they flop down, too. Bless yawns.

“Nice to have an off day,” Bless remarks. “Ugh, you don’t know how good you have it, FenFen. Hanging out here all day… I really do spoil you.”

Fenya nods, because she knows Bless wants her to. The more she agrees with Bless, the more Bless clings to her. And if Bless clings to her, maybe that means she’ll keep defending Fenya from the others. Fenya is not nearly as scared of Bless as she is of the other Careers, she realizes.

But Bless might not stay like this forever. Sweet and doting and clinging.

She’s not your friend, Bless. That’s what 4-boy said last night.

What if Bless starts believing him?

Fenya tucks in against Bless’s side, near her ribs. Bless’s easy breathing is comforting; if Fenya closes her eyes she can almost pretend it’s Ira next to her, breathing and breathing and breathing. 

Bless strokes the top of Fenya’s hair, pressing down flyaways. Fenya doubts this is successful - the fabric arena creates a lot of static electricity - but Bless doesn’t seem to mind. 

“Bless?” 

Bless shifts against her, surprised that Fenya has spoken first. “Yeah?”

Fenya opens her mouth, trying to figure out how to string her words together. It takes two squeaks before she manages. “Why… um… why did you pick me as your ally?”

“You’re adorable,” Bless says, the response automatic. She smiles. “You haven’t heard?”

Fenya swallows. “That’s all?”

Bless hesitates. Fenya waits, letting the quiet draw out between them. Bless doesn’t like quiet; she’ll fill it soon enough.

And she does. “I… I wanted something for myself. Something that was mine,” Bless answers. “You’ve seen how the others are. And when I saw you in the bathroom, I was like, oh, cutie pie, she needs rescuing. And I’ve spent so much time preparing for killing, so I thought… well, why not do the opposite for once?”

Fenya curls up tighter. Bless holds her close, giving her a warm squeeze. Fenya tucks her head into the crook of Bless’s neck. She tries to think, tries to process these words. She doesn’t quite know what to make of them. What would Rinzu think? What would the boy tribute think? What would Ira and Jayr and Mom and Mama think?

She doesn’t know. 

She’s alone in the arena. Fenya has spent much of her life on her own, even when she’s with other people. Her mama likes to joke that Fenya lives on her own little island, but her mama isn’t so far off. Still, Fenya has always been okay with existing this way - quietly, in the background, on her own.

Until now.

Now, she desperately wants someone who sees. She wants Ira or her mama or Rinzu or someone, anyone, maybe even Bless, to see her and help her and tell her what to do. Fenya longs to be the easy child, but she thinks she might be reaching her limit. She thinks she wants to burst, to kick and scream and wail, while someone kisses her forehead and wipes away her tears. 

The longing for that terrifies her. 

So she swallows it down, her mouth suddenly bitter-tasting, and clings to Bless harder.

The tributes from Two return early, in the middle of the afternoon instead of evening. They return with 4-boy in tow. Fenya peers behind them, searching for their other ally, but there’s no sign of 1-boy. 

Fenya turns back to 4-boy. He doesn’t look good - he’s pale, and he’s holding one of his arms close to his chest, like he’s afraid it might fall off if he lets go. His flannel shirt sleeve is tattered and bloody. His curly brown hair is entirely knotted.

“What happened?” Odyssia asks, her voice rising in pitch with each syllable.

4-boy reaches the Cornucopia and sits inside with a wince. As the others crowd around him, Fenya shifts away, uncomfortable. The Cornucopia gets stuffy fast when they all pile inside. She also doesn’t like the smell of blood, which rolls off 4-boy every time he moves. The others are too distracted to notice.

“It was bad,” 4-boy says. His voice is strained. “We were doing fine for a while - retraced our steps from yesterday, then kept going.”

“Did you find anything weird?” Odyssia presses.

He shakes his head. “No. We… ran into someone.”

Bless gasps. “No!”

“Who?” 2-boy asks.

“He didn’t tell you already?” Odyssia asks.

“No,” 2-boy says. “He wouldn’t.”

“Didn’t want to have to repeat myself,” 4-boy says.

“Who cares,” Bless says, “spit it out!”

4-boy huffs a deep breath, wincing again. He glances at Odyssia, then Bless. Then he looks between them, right where Fenya sits in the opposite corner. 

“It was the boy from Eight,” he says. “He… he killed Salvatore.”

Fenya blinks at the name. Who?

“Stop it,” Bless snaps. It’s the meanest Fenya has ever heard her sound. “Don’t fuck around.”

Fenya blinks again. The boy tribute? She hasn’t thought about him in days. The thought makes her mouth sour with guilt.

But he’s still alive.

“I’m not fucking around,” 4-boy says, looking tired. He keeps looking at Fenya.  

“Was he by himself?” not-Odyssia-or-Bless asks.

“He got the jump on us,” 4-boy replies. “Sal’s cannon went off before I even knew what was happening. Got my arm pretty bad - I think he dislocated it, but I got it back in the socket. But yeah. The Eight kid killed him.”

1-boy, Fenya realizes. The boy tribute killed 1-boy.

“An outer district boy got the jump on you guys,” Bless says. “Are you serious?”

4-boy glares at her. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

“That’s pathetic,” Bless snaps. “You both got what you deserve, then, if you can’t handle one fucking tribute.”

“Blessing,” not-Odyssia-or-Bless says quietly. She sounds like Mama.

“Don’t full-name me,” Bless shoots back. 

“You’ll see it in the anthem tonight,” 4-boy says. “I’m not lying. Salvatore’s dead.”

Bless curses, storming out of the Cornucopia as best she can manage with the cushy floor. She nearly knocks over one of the couch cushion walls. 2-boy saves it in the nick of time before it can crash down on them.

“Let’s clean up your arm,” not-Bless-or-Odyssia says. “Don’t want it getting infected.”

4-boy mumbles his thanks as not-Bless-or-Odyssia starts cleaning the blood. Odyssia helps, occasionally poking at 4-boy’s swollen shoulder. He makes a hissing noise every time she does. Fenya can’t stop her teeth from clenching each time she hears it.

The next few hours are quiet, but Fenya can’t relax. 4-boy is constantly making pained noises, and he and Odyssia won’t stop watching her. They give her looks Fenya remembers from the schoolyard. They size her up. Their eyes paint targets on her.

Bless is on edge, too, muttering under her breath. She braids Fenya’s hair absentmindedly, not even bothering to look for the comb now residing in Fenya’s pocket.

2-boy speaks to her, briefly, when the anthem plays that night. True to 4-boy’s word, 1-boy’s face is displayed. 2-boy glances at her once it disappears. “Didn’t know he was a threat.”

The boy tribute is a threat to him. That’s what he means.

Fenya exhales, buying herself a few seconds. “I didn’t either,” she settles on.

2-boy, when she doesn’t say anything more, gives her a slow nod.

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless exists somewhere in between it all, keeping them running. She bandages 4-boy’s wounds and makes dinner and sets the watches. Every once in a while, she looks at Fenya. The warning is in her eyes again.

That night, when Fenya sleeps, she dreams she is a cricket in a bathtub. She knows she has to climb out before she’s swept down the drain, but no matter how hard she scrambles, her feet can’t find purchase.

She wakes somewhere between the fourth and fifth day in the arena.

“...but how?”

She squints into the darkness. Bless has flopped over, her arms for once uncurling from Fenya’s torso. The older girl snores lightly, which makes Fenya long for Jayr’s nighttime rumbling. The thought of Jayr makes her want to roll over and dream about something kinder, but the voices keep going. Fenya could tune them out.

But then it occurs to her that they’re speaking in the same kind of hush that her mothers use when they don’t want anyone to overhear, and she blinks herself awake.

“You think so?” The words are quiet, almost too low to make out, but the tone is unmistakable. Not-Odyssia-or-Bless.

“Must have,” another voice responds. Odyssia. 

“Is he that popular, that he could’ve gotten a sponsorship?”

“Maybe,” Odyssia answers. “Or he could’ve taken Salvatore’s knife after he killed him.”

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless’s reply is too quiet to hear this time. Fenya shifts closer to one of the pillow fort’s openings. From her new angle, she can pick out not-Odyssia-or-Bless’s face in the lamplight. 

“It just… it feels off to me, you know?” Odyssia says.

“What does?”

“That it was the Eight kid of all people,” Odyssia answers. “Is there a chance he could be working with her, somehow? Maybe she took the knife off one of us-”

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless is shaking her head. “She’s been here the whole time.”

“And if Bless helped her?”

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless blinks. “You think Bless helped Fenya get a knife to give to her district partner to kill Salvatore with?”

“Maybe,” Odyssia says, stubborn.

“And Bless used that opportunity to kill her own district partner?” not-Odyssia-or-Bless points out. “Instead of, I don’t know, anyone else?”

“She’s a bitch,” Odyssia says. “Wouldn’t put it past her.”

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless lets a half-smile loose. “You sound paranoid.”

“Whatever.” Odyssia blows out a breath. “I still don’t like it.”

“Like what?”

Odyssia’s voice turns mocking. “FenFen,” she sneers. It’s not a bad impression. It makes Fenya’s throat thick and fuzzy like moth wings.

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless huffs a little laugh. 

“How long is she gonna keep it around?” Odyssia goes on. “For fuck’s sake, this is getting insane, even for her.”

It.

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless shifts, glancing back toward the Cornucopia. Fenya does not move fast enough, and not-Odyssia-or-Bless’s eyes catch hers. She doesn’t look surprised. Fenya freezes.

“As long as she can, probably,” not-Odyssia-or-Bless says. It takes Fenya a moment to realize she’s answering Odyssia’s question.

The girl from Two holds Fenya’s gaze. Her eyes, the same deep brown as her skin, seem to glow in the lantern light.

“It’s been long enough,” Odyssia replies. “She has to come to terms with it eventually.”

“Bless?” not-Odyssia-or-Bless asks. “Or Fenya?”

Odyssia snorts. “Both.”

There’s something not-Odyssia-or-Bless wants to say. Fenya can see it in the shape of her lips and the twitch of her brow. Fenya isn’t sure if it’s for her or Odyssia, and for a moment, her heart seizes, thinking not-Odyssia-or-Bless will choose to finally reveal her to Odyssia. 

But then she doesn’t. Not-Odyssia-or-Bless simply hums - a smooth, noncommittal sound. It reminds Fenya of how Bless hums when she plays with her hair, and her heart un-seizes. 

The conversation continues outside. Fenya has had enough and slinks back into the Cornucopia, returning to Bless’s side. 

It takes what feels like forever to fall back asleep.

After much arguing, the group splits up for the day. The girls are sent out into the arena. The boys stay behind with Fenya. Fenya doesn’t entirely understand how or why they settle on this arrangement. Bless kisses both her cheeks before she leaves, and not-Odyssia-or-Bless gives Fenya another one of those long looks. 

Fenya has a hard time occupying herself throughout the day. There are more ants than ever - they’ve started finding the other slices - but she keeps flitting back to the Cornucopia. She’s unsettled any time 4-boy is out of earshot for too long. He’s easy to find, at least. He’s been confined to the Cornucopia so he can rest and heal. 2-boy is doing all the work of keeping watch today.

“Hi, Fenya,” 4-boy says the first time she checks on him. “How’s the weather out there?”

Fenya squeaks, because how is she supposed to answer that when there’s no weather, and 4-boy smirks as she takes off again.

“Looking for something?” he asks the second time. 

She picks up a water bottle, hoping he takes that for an answer, and leaves.

“Anything interesting out there?”

“Lunch break already?”

“It’s only been ten minutes, did you miss me that much?”

“Boo!”

It’s this last time, his sudden volume sending her sprawling back onto the blankets, that she realizes he’s having fun. He laughs at her, his eyes squinting with amusement even as she frowns back at him.

Boom.

4-boy stops laughing. 

2-boy steps inside, his eyes wide. He relaxes a little as he sees both Fenya and 4-boy still breathing. This only makes Fenya’s heart thump harder against her ribs.

“Wonder who it was,” 2-boy says awkwardly.

“We’ll find out soon enough,” 4-boy replies, casual. “What is that, eleven left now?”

Fenya wonders why he’s pretending not to know. She’s certain he does.

2-boy nods. “Yeah.”

“Hopefully it was Eight,” 4-boy sighs.

2-boy glances at Fenya. Fenya doesn’t offer him anything. She decides to leave again and go back to her ants instead.

“Who’d you get today?” 2-boy asks.

Bless tosses her pack into the blankets. “No one.”

“Ah,” 4-boy says. “See anyone, at least?”

The other girls file in behind Bless. Not-Odyssia-or-Bless wears a neutral expression; Odyssia wears a scowl. Bless doesn’t seem to be in the best mood, either, based on how she immediately reaches for Fenya and starts fiddling with her shirt cuff.

“Saw Three, but he got away,” not-Odyssia-or-Bless says. “Spent a while trying to find him again. No luck.”

“Before or after the cannon?” 4-boy asks.

“Before.”

4-boy shrugs. “Maybe he ran into Eight then.”

Fenya tenses. The boy tribute again. 

“It’s likely,” Odyssia says. 

“We don’t know that it was Three,” not-Odyssia-or-Bless reminds them. “We don’t know who got the kill, either. Could’ve been a mutt.”

“We don’t know it wasn’t,” Odyssia replies.

“The anthem will tell us more,” 2-boy says.

“The anthem’s hours away,” 4-boy says. Fenya isn’t sure he’s right, but she’s had a very hard time keeping track of time in the arena with no clocks. “Are you willing to just sit here and wait to be picked off? For all we know, he’s coming for us next.”

2-boy tilts his head. “That would be hard to pull off. There’s six of us.”

“Five,” Odyssia says. “Don’t act like Fenya counts.”

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless frowns. “That’s not-”

“Shut up, Odyssia,” Bless says at the same time. “You’re so obsessed, you know that?”

“Don’t act like I’m the insane one,” Odyssia snaps. 

“I’m insane?” Bless’s hand drops from Fenya’s sleeve as she turns toward Odyssia, squaring her shoulders. 

“Obviously!”

Alarms are ringing in Fenya’s head. They sound like a mix of Ira throwing a fit and Rinzu swearing at the dinner table. 

Rinzu. Rinzu had said something important the last time she saw him. Not the thing about hiding a weapon… something else…

“What kind of person finds a kid hiding in the bathroom and decides to keep it?” Odyssia is saying. Her straight black hair is yanked back from her face so tightly it pulls at her forehead. It looks uncomfortable. It also makes her look even angrier as she yells at Bless, not bothering to target Fenya yet. 

Bless isn’t looking at her either, busy telling off Odyssia. 4-boy is watching them, a knife in one hand and a flashlight in the other. 2-boy keeps lurching forward and then stopping, as though he wants to pace, but he doesn’t seem interested in joining the argument.

And not-Odyssia-or-Bless is looking right at her.

Listen to your instincts. That’s what he’d said.

Fenya shifts back. She sinks one hand into her pocket where her pointy-ended comb sits. She has half a pack of dried pear in her other pocket. The water bottle she’s been nursing all day is in reach, as well as her flashlight, so she takes those too. 

The argument continues on around her, loud and fierce and increasingly violent. But to most of them, Fenya might as well not exist. No ground beneath her feet, no air in her lungs. 

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless nods.

Fenya blinks at her one more time before sliding out of the Cornucopia. It’s the closest thing to gratitude she can offer her. 

Then she leaves, padded slippers silent against the blanketed floor.

Two cannons fire in her wake.

When the anthem starts, Fenya doesn’t know exactly where she is. She’s in a smaller blanket-room that she only found after zigzagging through the arena’s pillowed tunnels. She’s burrowed in the corner, hoping this is enough to conceal her for the night. 

Bless’s face is projected against the bedsheet ceiling.

Fenya stares. She doesn’t think she can do anything else. Bless’s image sears into her retinas, all fluffy orange hair and wide smile and creamy skin, vibrant as ever. It’s like she’s about to tuck Fenya’s hair behind her ear and call her FenFen and wrap her arms around her so the older girl can fall asleep. But then the picture blinks out.

4-boy is next. His curly brown hair is still neat in the picture, and he’s not as pale. He smirks down at Fenya. This is the happiest he’s ever looked to see her. Fenya pulls the nearest blanket tighter, her hands shaking.

She doesn’t know the third kid. The girl from Nine. She’s a little older than Fenya but looks as scared as she feels. Her eyes are round like coins. Fenya wishes she had a coin to chew on. The metal ribbing on the edge would feel nice right now.

The anthem ends. Her blanket-room is dark again.

She clutches her blankets and pointy-ended comb until she falls asleep.

For the second night in a row, her sleep is interrupted.

At first it’s so quiet Fenya thinks she’s still dreaming. Then she remembers she’s by herself now and forces herself awake, listening more closely. It’s a good thing she does. It sounds like someone breathing.

Or… something.

It’s a low, throaty sound, almost like a snore but deeper. Fenya wonders if it hurts. The thought fades as she realizes the breathing sound is getting closer the more she listens. Fenya’s head feels like it might burst, and she realizes that in her effort to listen for danger, she hasn’t breathed in a while, either. 

The blankets press down nearby with heavy footsteps. Fenya doesn’t move. She’s not sure she could if she wanted to. She hopes and hopes she’s burrowed deep enough into the floor that she won’t be noticed. 

She doesn’t know how much time passes. Spots of color swim across her vision as her body begs for air. She can’t give it any. She can’t stop holding her breath.

Finally, the footsteps shuffle away from where she lies. The breathing slowly quiets. Fenya, relieved and oxygen-starved, promptly passes out again.

When she wakes again, the overhead lights have been turned on again, and the night before feels like a far-off dream. She prefers it that way.

Being alone is a change of pace. It’s familiar in a way that makes her body feel tight; she knows this feeling but has gotten used to its absence, and it threatens to suffocate her now. Though burying her face in the blankets might be part of that. She wants someone to hold her. She wants Mama or Ira or even Bless. 

But Bless is dead.

That feels wrong somehow. Bless is too big to be dead. Her voice is too loud and her squeezes are too tight to go away forever. Fenya tries to picture Bless cold and unmoving, like the boy she hid under during the bloodbath, but can’t do it. Bless always smiles or squeals or spins around, and she’s alive again in Fenya’s mind. 

Fenya never thought she’d be alive when Bless was not. Somehow, it has happened.

So she has to settle back into loneliness again. 

When she moves, it’s slow and wandering. She keeps a blanket on her back like a shield - Ira would call it a cape, she thinks - and picks her way from chamber to chamber. Something in her mind insists she keeps moving; she follows the instinct, like Rinzu has told her to. It’s clear other tributes have passed through this section of the enormous blanket fort arena. The blood makes it obvious enough, but it’s the leftover crumbs of food that catch her attention. Some of them have attracted bugs. She remembers someone in the training center mentioning that bugs can be eaten for food, and her stomach is grumbling, so she does. She likes the crunch. She finds plenty of ants and the kinds of bugs that live on pillows. 

Being alone is more exhausting than she remembers. Every time she hears a sound, she freezes, throwing her blanket-shield over herself and staying still. She devises a system of counting to a hundred before she lets herself stand again and keep going. It’s hard to remember to breathe or blink. 

She doesn’t see anyone that day, though. No faces show in the anthem at the end of the day either. Fenya finds the corner of the room she’s in and settles in again, covering herself so that no one walking by would notice more than a lump.

She pretends the pressure of the pillows around her is Ira that night. It’s missing her sister’s fingers curled around her wrist, and her drool in Fenya’s hair, but it’s something. 

She’s only just dozed off when there’s more screaming.

Footsteps pound on the floor beyond her blanket, thrown over her head as she sleeps. There are two sets of them. At first Fenya thinks it’s two tributes, one killing the other while the second screams in fear. Then she hears the low, ragged breathing again and knows it’s probably worse.

The steps are getting closer; she’s going to have to move. She reaches into her pocket, her hand finding the cool metal of her flashlight, and pulls it out. She wants to shine it in her face and blind them. It’s a trick she learned from Ira, who has a habit of turning on the overhead light when she needs to pee in the middle of the night. 

One, two, three!

She throws her blanket back, sitting up so fast it makes her dizzy, and flicks her flashlight on. 

Her light hits the other tribute as they scream again. A backpack falls from their flannel shoulders. There’s something else there, too - something dark, with hunched shoulders and reflective eyes and claws. It screeches and flees as the light reaches it, retreating deep into the arena.

The other tribute flails and falls.

Fenya stares after the mutt - creature? - her mouth is dry and she’s not blinking much. She squeaks, trying to understand what that was. That’s what was creeping around the night before. That’s what Odyssia had seen the very first night. But - but what was-

The tribute on the ground coughs. Fenya looks down, guiding the light toward the sound.

They’re maybe a couple years older than Fenya. Greasy brown hair, sallow skin, twig-like arms. Three scratches rake through their abdomen. They’re bleeding too much. One arm is wrapped around themself, trying to keep the blood in. The other reaches toward Fenya, fingers wrapping around Fenya’s ankle.

Fenya starts and trips backward, falling on her bottom. The tribute lets go of her ankle, eyes wide. They don’t move toward her again. They just breathe wetly. 

Oh. They are dying.

Fenya pulls the nearest blanket from the floor. She pulls it over the other tribute’s abdomen. She doesn’t know what she’s doing but this doesn’t feel like it’ll make anything worse. Blood seeps through quickly, painting three red lines on the blanket, so she puts two more on top. 

The other tribute lets her. They watch with half-lidded eyes. “Thanks.”

Fenya startles again. Her hands are shaking. She wonders when that started. 

The other tribute, to her surprise, has more to say. “Switchblade,” they say. “In my bag.”

Fenya knows instructions when she hears them. She pulls the backpack into her lap, rifling around in it until she finds the weapon. She almost slices her finger with it when the blade pops out - luckily, she drops it in time.

The other tribute looks at her expectantly.

Fenya tilts her head. 

“Make it quick,” they mumble.

The knife is in her hands again before the gravity of their words hits her. Her hands are shaking hard now. They want her to end it. Fenya doesn’t want to understand, but sees the exhaustion and pain in their face, and the bits of red seeping through three layers of blankets, and understands anyway. 

And it’s easier to help them, to be who they need her to be, than to turn away. That’s how Fenya’s always been.

She holds the knife where it’s supposed to go. Then she squeezes her eyes shut and stabs down.

A choked gasp, then silence again.

Boom.

Fenya wipes the knife on the blanket. If she could throw up, she would, but there’s nothing in her stomach. She leans back, pushing herself away from the now-dead tribute and their growing red pool. She feels dizzy. She wants to go home. 

She can’t stand, her legs now shaking as violently as her hands, but she can crawl. She leaves that blanket fort chamber and the tribute in it behind, crawling until she finds a new corner and collapses in it.

The seventh morning is a repeat of the sixth. She wanders and eats bugs and crumbs she happens across. Thankfully her new bag, the one from the other tribute the night before, has some more food in it. Crackers and dried meat and even some water too. She puts her flashlight in the bag with her extra water bottle. The switchblade stays in her pocket. It’s definitely better than her comb, but she has to be careful not to put her hand in her pocket for fear of cutting herself.

She takes a break during a time that feels somewhat like lunch. She finishes off her dried pear slices for good and even lets herself have an extra sip of water. Fenya is just about to leave again when she hears fighting, and it doesn’t sound far.

Nor does it sound like strangers.

“Cover me!” a girl shouts. Fenya recognizes the voice, but has to parse through her panic before she can place it. 

They’re in the next room over, separated by only a few bits of fabric. She can hear the scuffle - the grunting, the shuffling, the thuds of fists hitting true - from where she crouches. Then there’s a sickening crunch that makes Fenya’s stomach roll. A different tribute cries out. It sounds like a boy. Fenya realizes there are three of them in there going at it.

“Come on, then,” a boy says. His voice is strained. Fenya hasn’t heard it in a week, but it’s this that cuts through her thoughts. She knows him. 

The boy tribute.

There are more thuds and grunts, and then the girl screams. A third voice calls for her, which helps Fenya solve the puzzle. It’s the boy tribute in there, against not-Odyssia-or-Bless and 2-boy. And they’re killing each other.

Fenya reaches into her pocket and pulls out her switchblade, her stomach flip-flopping all the while. She drags herself forward, to the opening into the next room, and peers in. 

It’s not good.

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless has fallen to one knee. She is bleeding from her stomach and her shoulder from what Fenya can make out. She’s gritting her teeth and glaring, which Fenya thinks doesn’t look exactly right on her face. In front of her, 2-boy stands with a knife outstretched, pointing it at the boy tribute. He too is worse for wear - he has bandages on his arm and around his head - but doesn’t look ashen like not-Odyssia-or-Bless. And in front of him, on his back and hurriedly pushing himself away, is the boy tribute with his familiar dark hair and pale brown eyes. One of his legs is going the wrong way. 

“Dragging it out?” the boy tribute snarls. Fenya worries her lip at his tone; she knows 2-boy won’t like it, and she doesn’t really like it, either. He doesn’t sound like the boy who ate dinner with her and Rinzu for a whole week. She wonders briefly what the Gamemakers have put him through. 

“Wouldn’t take so long if you surrendered,” 2-boy snaps back. 

“Stop fucking with me, then!”

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless winces. “We’re not-”

“I’m not a toy or a pet or whatever the fuck else you want me to be,” the boy tribute cuts her off. “Don’t - don’t treat me like that. I can’t take it.” He clenches his jaw. “I don’t know how she does.”

Me, Fenya understands. He’s talking about me.

“I don’t either,” not-Odyssia-or-Bless murmurs. 

Neither boy seems to hear her. “You’re not. You’re an opponent,” 2-boy informs him. 

The boy tribute huffs a humorless laugh. “Then fight me, you dick.”

2-boy obliges him. He sweeps forward with an iron fist, moving faster than the boy tribute can dodge. The strike knocks one of the boy tribute’s teeth loose. He spits it out, then launches himself at 2-boy again, wrapping his hands around 2-boy’s neck. 

It’s short-lived. 2-boy wrestles him back, pinning him on his stomach to the cushioned floor. The boy tribute’s head is tilted toward Fenya’s hiding-hole. Fenya can see the whites of his eyes. 2-boy yanks a small knife (Fenya remembers it from the early sponsorships) free from his belt loop.

The boy tribute’s pale brown eyes land on Fenya. Fenya stares at him. He stares back. 

His eyes crinkle in the corners. Just a little bit.

Then 2-boy stabs him five times and the boy tribute is dead.

Boom.

Fenya lets out a muffled squeak, barely covering her mouth with her hand in time. 2-boy stands, letting the boy tribute lie limp on the cushions. Not-Odyssia-or-Bless still hangs back, watching all this.

“You should go,” not-Odyssia-or-Bless says. Her words are sharp and leave no room for argument.

2-boy tries anyway. “But-”

“Do a lap,” not-Odyssia-or-Bless says. “Check for any allies or his - or if Odyssia heard us and came running. We’re not safe.”

“Scout the perimeter?”

“Yes,” not-Odyssia-or-Bless says. “Go, now!”

2-boy nods and leaves through the opposite entryway. As soon as he’s gone, not-Odyssia-or-Bless collapses.

She’s bleeding a lot. Fenya wonders what the boy tribute got her with, because even from the next chamber she can tell it’s deep and nasty. Not-Odyssia-or-Bless’s inhales sound shallow. Fenya thinks she might be crying.

Before she can think through what she’s doing, she’s crawling forward again. It only takes a few seconds for her to arrive at not-Odyssia-or-Bless’s side. 

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless exhales when she sees Fenya. “Should’ve known you were there.”

Fenya presses her lips together. “You saw me?”

“No,” not-Odyssia-or-Bless answers. Her voice is already getting thinner. “Just a feeling.”

Fenya knows the older girl has a knife. She also knows the human body can only have so much blood. Her only instinct is to do what she did the night before and pull a blanket from the floor over not-Odyssia-or-Bless’s shaking body. 

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless watches her do it. “You should leave, too,” she says. “He’ll come back. You can’t be here when he does.”

Fenya nods. She starts tucking not-Odyssia-or-Bless into the blanket, hoping it helps. It usually makes her feel better when her mama does it. Maybe it will help here, too.

“Thanks,” not-Odyssia-or-Bless says, a ghost of a smile on her lips. 

Fenya shrugs. 

Not-Odyssia-or-Bless closes her eyes. She’s still breathing, but Fenya can tell the older girl wants her to leave. She wants to be alone now and Fenya thinks she understands. Fenya takes a last look at her, then swallows hard.

She turns away. The boy tribute is across the room; she pads over and does the same ritual for him, tucking him in like he’s going to sleep. She hates seeing him so still. It takes a few layers for the blood of 2-boy’s knife to not be so obvious. Fenya runs a hand over his black hair before she pushes herself to leave him. She longs to latch onto his knee again like it’s enough to make her safe, the way it did before. She doesn’t let herself.

As Fenya steps back toward the exit, not-Odyssia-or-Bless sighs.

Boom.

Fenya breaks into a run, just in case.

The night is bad. 

There are more of the dark mutts with the loud breathing. She remembers what happened with the tribute the night before and chases them away with her flashlight. As soon as the light hits them, they run, long dark limbs disappearing into the night. 

But they never stay away for long. They come around every time Fenya thinks her heart has slowed enough to finally fall asleep, stomping around and breathing. There are a few close calls. After hours of this Fenya knows she couldn’t sleep if she wanted to. Her body is wired for wakefulness like the time she accidentally drank her mom’s morning coffee. 

Two more cannons go off as she keeps watch for the monsters. 

The cannonfire makes her think of the boy tribute and not-Odyssia-or-Bless and Bless. She wishes she could’ve done more than tuck them in. She can’t get not-Odyssia-or-Bless’s warning eyes out of her head, or the desperate cut of the boy tribute’s voice. She knows as hard as she tried to be easy for them there were times where she wasn’t, and there’s no time left to make it up to them. 

She clutches her blanket-shield-cape around herself, one hand on her flashlight, thinking and not thinking and waiting and watching. Somehow she’s still alive. She wonders if she can keep it that way. 

Somewhere in the afternoon of the eighth day, Fenya starts coughing. 

It doesn’t bother her much at first. Her stomach has been hurting (maybe she shouldn’t have eaten those pillow-bugs) so this is likely related to that. 

But then her finger slips on her flashlight switch. She turns it off again, nervous about batteries, then hesitates. The air in that beam of light looked… fuzzy. Wrong. 

Fenya turns the light on again. There’s some kind of fog or smoke rolling into the chamber. Toward her. She coughs again and she realizes she really, really doesn’t feel good. Her head is too heavy and her nose is burning. Time to move. 

She scrambles forward, her movements sluggish after her nighttime vigilance. There’s another exit on the other side of the chamber and she takes it, then the next, then the next as the fog continues after her. She coughs a few more times. Her lungs ache to stop, to hack it out, but she knows she can’t let herself. She pulls her collar up over her nose and keeps moving.

When it finally stops - twenty, thirty minutes later? - she can hear the telltale sounds of a fight nearby. She drops to her knees to catch her breath. Fenya coughs because she has to, trying her best to muffle it with her shirt. Her legs are trembling beneath her.

Someone screams. Fenya’s head jerks up at the proximity of it. She’s just in time to see another tribute launch themself at her.

The tribute - a girl, Fenya thinks, with more freckles than not - tackles Fenya to the soft ground. She’s bigger than Fenya and has longer limbs. Fenya’s flashlight topples from her hand and breath leaves her with a whoosh. Pain bursts at her temple as the girl’s knuckles plow into it. Fenya would cry out but her air is already gone. She lashes out the only way she knows how, scratching at the girl’s face. It buys her some time to get her hand on her flashlight again. It’s metal and heavy and Fenya whips it at the other girl as she lunges again. 

It makes a cracking noise when it hits the girl’s skull. The other girl screams and falls back, away from Fenya. Fenya does not want to keep going. She wants to crawl under her blankets and hide and sleep, but the instinct Rinzu told her to trust insists she’s not safe. So Fenya leans forward and throws her body against the other girl. The girl topples, her face turning gray. 

Fenya slams the metal flashlight down again. The girl cries out. Her eyelids are fluttering, her eyes threatening to roll back. Fenya squeezes her eyes shut and hits her head with the flashlight. The girl groans. Fenya’s hands feel wet but she can’t open her eyes to check. She just rains the flashlight down, down, down, until-

Boom.

Fenya slides off the dead girl. She can’t look at what’s left of the girl’s face. Her flashlight is a bloody mess and Fenya drops it, her eyes filling with tears. She crawls away and retches onto one of the blankets, though little comes up. Her throat burns from bile and Gamemaker gas-fog-smoke. 

She doesn’t want to do that again. She can’t pick up her flashlight again. She wipes her wet hands on her flannel pajamas. Her right hand hits something hard in her pocket, and she pulls out the switchblade she scavenged. At least with this, she doesn’t need to touch the flashlight again.

There’s shouting nearby. Fenya can’t remember how many tributes are left but knows there aren’t many. Three, maybe four. No matter what happens she’s close to the end. 

Her shoulders sag at the thought. She could fall asleep this instant if she wanted to, and she really wants to. It would be easy.

Easy.

Fenya, the easy child. Fenya, the easy tribute. Fenya doesn’t want anyone to worry. That means she has to take care of this now. Herself. Then when she’s alone, maybe she will finally let herself scream and cry the way she hasn’t in all fourteen years of being alive. But she needs to do this first.

Being easy is a lot of work, she thinks.

She squeezes her hand around the switchblade. She follows the voices.

She knows them both. She steps into the next chamber and recognizes their faces, even with the blood on them. It’s 2-boy and Odyssia, fighting with knives and twisted mattress springs and broken glass that Fenya suspects comes from one of their lanterns. 

Odyssia is angry. Just watching her anger exhausts Fenya. She is screaming bloody murder with every attempted strike. Her flannel sleeves have been torn off, revealing a canvas of mottled bruises. Her notebook-straight hair is in a knot. 

2-boy is steady. He is silent where Odyssia cannot help but make noise, his movements calculated where hers are sloppy. Fenya thinks he’s winning and this must be why. Odyssia has lost all focus, while 2-boy still has his.

They’re terrifying. Fenya stands, watching, and does not back away.

2-boy stabs a piece of glass into Odyssia’s left eye. Odyssia wails, trying to get away as the pain hits her, but 2-boy is too professional for that. He gets under her outstretched arms and whips his hand from right to left, right at Odyssia’s throat. A red line follows his movement. Odyssia’s screech turns watery. She falls.

It takes a moment for her to die. She twitches and cries, kicking feebly at 2-boy’s shins. Her lips are moving but Fenya can’t make out what she wants to say. Finally, she stills.

Boom.

2-boy hasn’t noticed Fenya yet. He pants, staring at Odyssia’s dead body.

Fenya thinks. She remembers her quiet day with 2-boy. She remembers dinners with the Careers and how 2-boy didn’t ignore her, exactly - more just forgot she was even there. She was a person to him but not an important one. A tribute but not a threat. Cannon fodder.

Her instincts tell her to move now.

Fenya scampers toward 2-boy, throwing herself and her switchblade at his back. 2-boy is fast enough that he starts to turn before she reaches him, but she still manages to get on his back. He spins, trying to throw her off, but she wraps her hands around his throat and clings to him. 

He chokes, tearing at her fingers with his own. Fenya lets go with one hand so she can try to stab him. She gets a good one in his shoulder. He grunts as she removes the switchblade to stab again, jerking left and right to try to remove her again, and this sends her next attempt at a strike skittering across her own forearm.

Fenya hisses, startled by the sting, and 2-boy takes his chance to finally throw her off. Fenya hits the pillowed ground with a squeak but doesn’t stop moving, cannot stop moving. She’s dropped her switchblade and fumbles for it. At the same time 2-boy is reaching for her, wanting to grab her. She leans in to meet him and opens her mouth so she can snap her teeth down on 2-boy’s fingers. 

This time he does scream. When Fenya pulls back her mouth tastes like the fork she chewed all the way back on the train. Half of two of his fingers are still in her mouth even as she releases him. She spits them out, her nausea returning. She tilts forward, wanting to throw up-

-there’s her switchblade.

She grabs it. She leaps to her feet, chasing after 2-boy. 

Again, he isn’t looking at her. He’s distracted by his hand, too preoccupied to care about what Fenya’s doing now. She doesn’t think 2-boy has ever cared about that. 

Fenya slips forward. She gets under 2-boy’s arms. He doesn’t notice. Has never noticed. Even as she jams the switchblade into 2-boy’s ribs and stomach and chest, he barely glances at her. His attempts to push her back are sloppy and half-hearted. Fenya wonders how much energy he wasted on Odyssia before he would’ve had to deal with Fenya. Most of it, she thinks. He hasn’t spared much effort for her.

His lips part the second time she stabs him. His eyebrows lift when she stabs him the fourth time. He gets a hand on her shoulder the seventh time, finally shoving her away, but it’s too late. Fenya has done too much damage.

He collapses. The blankets and sheets and pillowcases under him turn red, red, red. All of it is red. The whole world is red.

Distantly, Fenya hears her name, shouted through a speaker. She sees the bodies of Odyssia and 2-boy start to sink into the ground, being pulled away by Gamemakers. She drops her switchblade and watches it sink away too. 

She steps back. She pulls her blanket-shield-cape around herself and takes shelter in the far corner. She wants to sink down, too. She wants to be taken away from here.

She closes her eyes. Exhaustion sweeps her away.

When Fenya wakes up, she thinks she’s still in the arena at first. Her head rests against a pillow and there’s a blanket covering most of her body. 

Then she notices the bandages, and the fancy machines, and the man sitting in a chair next to her bed.

“Fenya,” Rinzu says. His eyes are swollen. He looks as exhausted as Fenya feels. 

She squeaks, unsure of what to say.

Rinzu thankfully reads her mind. “You’re safe,” he said, his voice tight. “You did it. You’re safe.”

Fenya stares at him. He watches her back, hesitating. 

Something hot and heavy builds in her chest and claws up her throat. Her eyes prickle and overflow. Her cheeks and ears are warm.

Fenya opens her mouth and wails.

She cries and screams and kicks. She pushes over an expensive machine and tears the hospital sheets. She slaps the mattress and throws her pillow and stomps her feet on the railing of the bed. She hears people come in but they are only noise and blurs of starched white fabric to her. 

“Fenya,” Rinzu says. “Fenya, it’s okay. Fenya, I’ve got you.”

As soon as she starts to slow he climbs onto her hospital bed and wraps his arms around her. He doesn’t flinch when she scratches him or when she screams her apology for it. He rocks back and forth, holding her so tight, and lets Fenya be the most difficult she’s ever been in her entire life. 

Fenya screams herself hoarse. She cries every single tear her body can make. Her hospital bedsheets now resemble ribbons more than bedsheets.  She doesn’t know how long it takes, but Rinzu doesn’t let go. 

The rest of her time in the Capitol goes faster than the first time. The doctors say she didn’t get many injuries, so it’s not long before she’s deemed fit for her exit interview. 

Rinzu coaches her on what to say. To her dismay, she does have to see her stylists again. They’re much nicer to her this time, though, and much more gentle. The shoes they give her fit better. Her dress is soft and has puffy capped sleeves. Her stylists coo over her relentlessly when she puts it on. She still sneezes when they put powder on her face. 

The interview is an improvement from her last one. She answers more than five questions. Her answers are longer, too. She doesn’t start to shrink until the final one, and by then it’s over. All she has to do is watch the recap.

Most of the movie is about her alliance. The camera focuses on Fenya as much as it can, but she’s more easily spotted in the background. She sees herself lingering on the edges of the Careers’ couch-cushion camp, watching but rarely engaging. The audience laughs a lot. They laugh at her comment about “setting a new record” for her Escort, at her answers to 1-boy’s questions, at her accidentally passing out from holding her breath too long. Fenya isn’t sure why it’s funny, but she smiles along anyway.

The longer it goes on, the more Fenya realizes how much she didn’t see.

“So what is it?” 1-boy asks. It’s the second night, maybe the third, and both Ones are on night watch together. 

“With Fenya?” Bless replies.

He snorts. “Duh.”

Bless toys with the ends of her orange hair. “Does there have to be something, Sal?”

“No,” 1-boy admits. “Honestly, it’s funny enough watching Odyssia and Nerian lose their shit about it. But, like… it’s you. There’s gotta be something.”

Bless sighs, overly long, but 1-boy is used to Bless’s dramatics by now. He nudges her with his elbow, and she smiles. 

“...It is funny, isn’t it?”

1-boy grins.

“She’s cute, too, you have to admit. And if I’m going to take someone to the end,” Bless goes on, “why take someone who could kill me?”

1-boy’s grin slides into a smirk. “You think she’ll last that long?”

“No.” Bless smirks back. “But if she takes a knife for me, hey, that works too.”

Fenya’s mouth is dry long past the end of that scene. She’s seen Bless smirk before, but never like that. And it had always been directed at someone else, not Fenya’s expense.

She watches the Fours lose their patience. It’s 4-boy, not the boy tribute, who kills 1-boy on their trip during the night. She watches not-Odyssia-or-Bless tell her to run with her eyes. The Careers implode immediately after. 4-boy is an easy target with his injury, but so is Bless, with no one left on her side without Fenya and 1-boy.

It’s Odyssia who makes that kill. Odyssia laughs when she does it, catharsis bleeding into every violent motion. It’s the only time Fenya ever sees Bless truly panic. No bravado, no persona, no human shield to throw in front of herself. She screams, high and girlish, when she dies. Like any other tribute.

The movie keeps playing. Monster muttations kill tributes in the night, nearly getting Fenya a few times. She kills a tribute in an act of mercy, she crawls away from the fog’s grasp, she fends off another tribute, she leaps onto 2-boy’s back. 

Then it ends. The audience cheers so loud Fenya has to resist the urge to shrink back, to clap her hands over her ears. Someone behind her puts a crown on her head. She has to grab it so it doesn’t slide off her soft brown hair. She thinks she smiles. She hopes she does.

The first time she tries to sleep in a dark room doesn’t go well. 

It happens when Fenya is riding back to Eight on the train. She’s restless, flopping back and forth and seeing shapes in the shadows that aren’t there. She can’t stop turning her bedside lamp on and off, checking to make sure there’s nothing there. When she does fall asleep it doesn’t last long - she always wakes with a gasp. 

She tries leaving the lamp on. It helps a bit, but not enough. The minutes crawl by, and Fenya still feels the need to crack her eyes open and check that she’s safe. She turns on the overhead light, too, but that does little to ease her mind.

Finally, somewhere around three in the morning, she wraps her comforter around herself and walks down the hall. The light in Rinzu’s room is on too. She knocks. After a few breaths, he answers. 

“Fenya?” he asks. He looks tired, too, the same kind of tired as her. She thinks he might have been crying again.

Her breath hitches. “Can I…”

Rinzu smiles, but he still manages to look sad. He’s found a knack for that kind of look over the last few days. “Sure,” he says. 

He steps aside. Fenya beelines for his couch, pulling her comforter over her head. She hears Rinzu return to his bed, but he doesn’t turn the light off. Fenya loves him a little extra for that.

When the train pulls into the station, it almost feels like a dream.

She never really thought she’d be back here. It wasn’t that Fenya had ever wanted to die - more that she hadn’t expected to live. She doesn’t think anyone expected that. Even now, finally out of the Capitol, she’s not sure how it happened. Fenya had made her peace with not existing anymore. Part of her thought she already knew the feeling.

The train doors slide open. Her Escort pushes her onto the platform, waving grandly and shouting to the crowd of cameras. Rinzu is instantly at her side, shielding her from the throng of people. Someone gets under his guard, however, and slams into Fenya with a shriek. Fenya shrieks back, because she knows that shriek and that slam and the fingers digging into her back.

“Fenya!” Ira weeps. Her face is red and splotchy, and she wastes no time wiping her runny nose on Fenya’s shoulder. 

Beyond her, Fenya can see the rest of her family. They move between her and Rinzu and the surrounding Peacekeepers, kissing her and squeezing her hand and thanking Rinzu as much as humanly possible. Peacekeepers shuffle the group of six - Fenya, Ira, Rinzu, Jayr, Mama, Mom - toward a sleek black car. 

She holds it all in until they’re in the mansion. Her mansion now. 

Then she can’t help but start wailing again. Her mama is at her side in a second. She wipes Fenya’s tears with her thumb and whispers reassurances in her ear, makes her drink water and holds her close. Ira won’t let go of her hand. Jayr and Mom won’t let her out of their sight. Rinzu and her mom speak in low voices at the other end of the room where Fenya can’t hear. Rinzu wears that happy-sad look again.

What’s left of the day stays dreamlike. 

Jayr takes her for a walk around the new neighborhood in the afternoon. He lets her stop as often as she wants to peer at ants on the sidewalk and beetles in the grass. He holds her hand the entire time, even when she crouches. Jayr looks like he wants to cry a few times but holds it back for once.

Her mama makes her favorite dinner. Her mom watches intently until every bite on Fenya’s plate is gone. There are even cookies, far less fancy than the Capitol ones but still cookies. They are sweet on her tongue. Her mama peppers her head with kisses while her mom wipes the crumbs from her mouth. 

There’s so much love. The Kotyk household has always had love, but it’s never had this many eyes on Fenya. Her family constantly looks her way, as if to check she’s still there. Still existing.

She can’t sleep that night in an unfamiliar room in the dark. By two in the morning she gives up trying, pulling her comforter off her bed and dragging it until she’s in the bedroom next door. It’s nearly identical to her new one, with a lacquered door and high ceilings and an oversized bed. 

Fenya climbs into bed next to her twin sister. Ira is drooling on her pillow like she always does. She shifts as Fenya’s weight makes the mattress dip, blinking with groggy eyes. 

“Fenya?” she whispers, peering at her.

Fenya nods. The lump in her throat is too big to talk through.

Ira sees the look on her face and reaches for her. She pulls Fenya and her comforter close, breathing into her hair and lacing her fingers through Fenya’s.

“I’m so sorry,” Ira whispers, and Fenya knows Ira is apologizing for all of it, even the things that are not remotely her fault. It’s Ira’s way. Her sister gives her heart to the whole world whether it’s wise or not. 

Fenya shakes her head, refusing the apology, and curls up tighter. For once, Ira holds her, instead of the other way around. There’s a novelty to it, but Fenya thinks she can get used to this.

Her eyelids grow heavy. Fenya’s last thought before she falls asleep next to her sister is that, despite it all, she is glad for this moment where she is seen and held and loved and knows, beyond a doubt, that she exists.