RAGE. That was the first thing Iko felt raking its talons through her chest, a blinding electricity surging through her veins, a furnace searing white-hot and thermonuclear. Titus was dead. Someone else had claimed her kill. For a rigid moment, she was so paralysed with it she couldn't answer Alex. Fingers staking into her knee, Iko ignored the other two girls, fixing her flinty gaze on Alex, who only stared back, awaiting her response. Did he take her for a fool? Sure, her methods might be harsh, and the blood she'd spilled was fuelled by malice and a visceral adversity towards coming out anywhere but the top. Iko wasn't above playing dirty, but she wasn't so insensible as to risk the alliance yet, when they still had use for the Career pack. She needed them as much as they needed her. Wolves in the wild hunted in packs and only tore each other apart when the time called for it. A lone wolf was a dead wolf. As her training partner whose palms seem to have been fused with hers since the day they'd met, Alex knew this. Knew that she knew this, above all.

Rage was a rogue blade pinwheeling through her body wildly, slashing up her insides, begging to be freed from her skin so it could bury itself to the hilt in someone's face. Rage bled into betrayal, a sting that pounded like a nail through her chest as she searched Alex's face for any sign that he didn't believe that she could possibly pull off such a risky operative. Nothing. Just a flat glare whetted on the basis of suspicion.

"I'll ask again," Alex gritted out, teeth clenched, frustration hardening his features, the steel-eyed glare piercing through her impenetrable armour, needling the fury tearing through her veins. "Did you, or did you not, kill Titus?"

Livid, Iko's lip curled. "I wish I had, but, no, I didn't," she said, her tone ice cold. Her eyes narrowed when Alex's expression didn't even shift. Even when she was telling the truth. "But you don't believe me," she sneered, and watched the micro-expressions in Alex's face, watched his eyes flash, his features tighten up. "So this is what it's come to, then, partner."

A muscle in Alex's jaw ticked. "Show me your knives."

The final cut. A thread snapping.

Mistrust festered between them, smoke-thick as heatwaves cloying in the humid air, dark as storm clouds, obscuring the effortless ability to read each other that once came as second-nature as language. Between them, there was this palpable shift, a reorientation of the land they both stood on, a visible crack running through the earth forcing them so far apart, he didn't even recognise her.

Even if she was still the same girl from back home. Nothing had changed. She had always been the girl who took her violence to the extremes, exacted her rage precise as a blade to make her mark as she would when she was a victor. That same girl who'd carved her name letter-by-letter into the flesh of those boys who called her names other than her own, who bore the scars till this day and flinched each time she walked by them, this diabolic entity. That same girl who culled her competition in a sword fight, chopped off his leg, essentially clipping his wings, rendering him incapable of flight. No remorse, no mercy, no apology in her relentless forward momentum. He was just seeing her as she was. A monster, a girl given in to the abyss. And now, the abyss was staring back at him: What else did you expect?

It felt like a kick to the chest. One she thought she could've shrugged off, but couldn't. She'd already accepted that only one of them was going to make it out alive, and no matter the cost, it was going to be her. She'd already accepted that he might put up a fight at the end. After all, nobody would willingly go to the slaughterhouse submitting to the cruel fate that they were going to die. But this—the fact that he was looking at her like she was the one who'd lied to him, like she hadn't shown him this part of herself before, like she was the one betraying him—this was the final straw.

With a savage vehemence, Iko undid the clasp on the belt around her waist in one fluid motion and threw it at Alex's face, anger burning up inside her, immolating all sense as her vision went red. "See for yourself."

Before they slept, they'd already discussed who was going to take turns watching the entrance. Sage had taken first watch, and Titus volunteered for the second watch. Everyone else had been asleep, and Iko—she'd been the furthest one from Titus, anyway, since she'd sequestered herself towards the back end of the cave. The only person who might've gotten away with assassinating Titus would've been the two girls flanking Alex, their weapons drawn, gleaming in the low light. Whoever had done it must've planned this. With the roar of the waterfall cancelling all noise from the outside, they wouldn't have heard the canon go off once Titus' heart stopped beating. Iko couldn't see the body from where she was sitting, but she assumed they'd already dumped him outside the cave before it stunk up the place.

But when Alex drew out a knife from one of the plastic sheaths, Iko knew.

It was over.

Alex held up the knife for all of them to see, blood crusted over the blade, a shade so dark Iko thought Titus must've been made purely of the same abyss she had crawled out of, but Alex's eyes were sharper, cutting right down to her bones.

Desperation ran her blood cold.

"I didn't do it," Iko said, again, overcome by the compulsion to reach out to Alex, seize him by the shoulders and shake him until he understood. But she didn't. She couldn't. Not without looking like a fool in front of the entirety of Panem. "I didn't kill him. Alex. You know me. I didn't—"

"You were the one who kept talking about claiming him as your kill," Alex said, his voice low. "You were the one who hated him the most. You have the bloody knife. All the evidence is stacked against you, Iko."

Her stomach bottomed out.

Sage turned away, shaking her head. Opal didn't look sad, but as condescending and irritating as Titus was, he'd been her district partner. They were automatically loyal to each other, just as Alex and Iko were supposed to be.

And it was like whatever shredded remnants of friendly air in the small, cramped quarters had been sucked right out the window. The ambient antipathy radiating off Iko's skin could be enough to power a nuclear generator, could be enough to kill without the aid of a weapon. It was suffocating, and none of them had the heart to speak. They'd crossed the fragile line between tolerance and animosity.

Closing her eyes, Opal wrapped her fingers around the cross dangling between her collarbones.

Iko swallowed. She let the world slow around her, split-seconds crystallising into a clarity she'd always been able to call upon. Clambering out of her sleeping bag, Iko felt the relief flooding in when she realised she'd been so exhausted the previous night she hadn't even bothered taking off her combat boots. They watched her with a level stare as she rose to her feet at the same time Alex straightened up, tossing the bloodied knife—evidence, so to speak—aside. Her muscles tensed, wired for a fight. Moments before combat, Iko always told herself: no mercy. Just because Alex was among her adversaries didn't mean she was going to break her own golden rule. Efficiency was key. Iko already knew all of Alex's weak points, even though she knew he was going to put up a hellish fight that might sustain her injuries. Sage, Iko could easily best. For Opal, with what she lacked in power, Iko would have to make up for in speed and dexterity.

Eyes narrowed, Iko drew out a handful of knives, each one studded between her fingers like silver claws, falling back into the familiar stance as the three of them watched her every move. Quite literally, they had her backed into a dead end—but a cornered animal was more vicious than a free one.

If she had to, she'd slash her way out of what could be her death sentence.

Someone had broken the unspoken agreement of the alliance. All signs pointed to her. They wouldn't let her off easy.

Sage was the first to react.

"I vote we take her out now before she starts stabbing us in the back," Sage snarled. A vehement glint sparking in her eyes, she flipped her sword over her knuckles. But when she took a step forward, Alex put out a hand to stop her.

"No," Alex said, his voice flat, emotionless, cold, looking Iko dead in the eyes as if to drive his point home. His face, once so open and warm, was now hard and unyielding and utterly closed to her. "We let her go. Let the arena take care of her."

From the looks on their faces, neither Opal nor Sage were happy about the decision, but they couldn't do anything about it. If Alex was going to stand pat on his order, they'd also have to deal with him.

"Smart choice," Iko sneered, picking up her belt and fastening it around her waist. In a practiced move, the knives disappeared back into their plastic sheathes. She left the bloodied one on the ground. If she'd regret that later, Iko wouldn't know, but she wasn't going to lean on Alex's leniency for longer.

Alex slanted her an incendiary glower. "Get your things and go. Next time we see you, don't count on my courtesy."

With her backpack slung over her shoulders, Iko nearly faltered in her step at the hostility in his words. How unfeeling they were. How unlike anything she's ever heard coming out of his mouth—especially towards her. She's seen his unkind side before, and it'd only ever been reserved for those who deserved it. It was all so unfair. She hadn't killed Titus.

None of them would believe otherwise, though. But if they couldn't see sense, then, fine. So be it.

Tapping two fingers to her temple, Iko sent Alex an icy look. "I wasn't counting on it, anyway."

She'd always been better off working alone. Depending on other people wasn't her style. She could rely on her own competence. It was a manner of living that'd been tried and tested many times over since she could remember. Dealing with her mother and her harsh teachings, getting herself ranked top of her cohort in the training academy, pushing herself as hard and fast as she could to stay ahead—that was all her. Surviving this arena wouldn't be that much of a challenge without the others, Iko thought.

But, as she slipped out of the cave and darted into the thick of the forest, her heart pounding in her chest, her pulse lurching between her teeth, she was plunged into the underbrush and a silence that staked its fingers into her face, peeled her eyes open and forced her to see. See that she was alone. There was no one out here to watch her back. For years, the academy had trained her to become a killer. But it'd also drilled into her the paramount necessity of teamwork.

And the reality that she was never going to make it alone.

After all, a lone wolf was a dead wolf.

* * *

IT WASN'T DETERMINATION THAT FORCED HER through the forest, clocking a solid hour of relentless hiking that'd depleted her water supply. She hadn't been economical with her supplies, but she figured that she could always go back to another water source, now that she could navigate the arena with that mental image of the map still fresh in her mind. For the first time in awhile, Iko let the fear consume her. Just the right amount. A controlled submission to her primal instincts, just enough to let the adrenaline push her away from the valley without wasting daylight.

A lonely animal was always a prone victim, and fear was better than the hollowness threatening to engulf her whole. Sentimentality delayed the removal of the unfit. Iko didn't want to dwell on the loss of her partner longer than she needed to. These were the Hunger Games, after all. Nothing that lives is allowed room for error.

After what felt like an eternity, Iko emerged onto the dirt road leading towards the sign that read WELCOME TO JURASSIC PARK. A prickling sense of unease iced her veins. High on alert, Iko felt the paranoia sharpening her vision, like a camera lens shifting into focus, as she surveyed her environment. She'd plunged deep into the forest, where the trees had begun to thicken, the ferns had begun to stain with unnatural colours so vibrant they seemed to lash towards Iko's vision, catching in periphery, drawing her off-road, and the skylight had begun to thin out, so it was only shadows that touched the forest floor, cut into penumbras that paved the way to nowhere, but she kept moving even if the direction she had gone in didn't make any more sense than it did five minutes before, refusing to be distracted by anything else other than the thrum of life in her veins and the promise of glory at the end.

When her stomach rumbled, she chewed on the hardened dried meat strips she'd pilfered from the Career pack's stash of provisions, and kept going. Still, she held onto her iron will to live, to win. There was still time. She could make it on her own. She had to believe that.

In the sky, there hung the memory of light that had risen from the middle of the arena like a flame. In the nightmare light, Iko found the visitor centre. There had to be rooms available for her to take shelter in during the night, but she didn't know the layout of the building too well, and decided against it. If the others tracked her there, she would be cornered. And so she carried on, not daring to stop even to sip from her canteen of water, which she realised she needed to conserve if she wanted to last the night. Dehydration was an overlooked cause of death, and Iko was already beginning to feel the first of its effects—the scratchy throat, the throbbing headache. Down the road, Iko spotted another row of buildings jutting out from beyond a set of abandoned paddocks.

A rustle of movement behind the chainlink fence dividing the dirt road from a set of electrical boxes had Iko ducking behind a bush, knives drawn, muscles tensed and blood pumping to her skin.

At first, Iko was ready to dismiss it as a rodent, or some kind of mutt waiting to claw her to death.

Until a girl with dark hair and tattered clothes vaulted over the fence, landing in a puff of red dust on the dirt road, and shot down the path, straight past the visitor's centre and down to the buildings clustered beside it.

Heart kicking into overdrive, Iko didn't waste a moment. Adrenaline shot through her veins as she took off after the girl. District 9, Iko noted, from the number printed on her shirt, and her pulse jumped when the girl shot her a look over a shoulder. Alarm flooded her face, and she drove ahead, sprinting harder. Despite the exhaustion chipping at her joints, Iko pushed forward, gaining on the girl as she veered right, banking hard round a corner, swift as a fox. Iko skidded after her, teeth bared, a bloodhound snapping at her heels, intent on the trail. Before, she might have drawn out the chase longer for the thrill. Now, she just wanted another kill on her list so she could end this and go home.

Muscles searing, Iko fought the desperate ache in her body, knowing that pushing too hard could cause irreparable damage, and yet doing it anyway, until the pinnacle of pain became indistinguishable from the pinnacle of bloodlust. There was nothing left for her in this arena. Feet pounding against the ground, Iko gave into the rhythm, the estranged roar of her blood in her ears, razor-sharp focus zeroing in on her target as she scrambled over another chainlink fence, and, quickly, so did Iko, the metal rattling like bones in a box beneath her.

Through the front doors, the girl disappeared, but Iko knew that she couldn't have gone far. In the lobby, Iko watched the numbers on the panel above the elevator doors go up. When it stopped on the top level, Iko hit all the buttons so all three elevators would descend, cutting off the girl's exit. There might be more within the network of the building, but this had to be the main exit. Freshly reinvigorated by the prospect of another kill, another step closer to going home, Iko bounded up the emergency stairwell, taking the steps two at a time, pounding, pounding, pounding, until her heartbeat and her footfalls coagulated into one viscous echo in the vessel of concrete, pounding, pounding, pounding, travelling up from within the hollows of her chest to the canals of her ears.

As she worked her way through the building, ascending the stairs to the top level and bursting out of the doors into an office space divided by glass walls into a row of doors and more corridors branching away into more vessels of doors, she felt the avidity thrumming beneath her skin, a cold thrill slipping through her veins.

Sweeping her methodical gaze over the corridor, Iko gleaned her reflection in the glass, almost unrecognisable, something come crawling out from a nightmare, ripped into reality. Her clothes were soiled and her dark hair had begun to slip from its ponytail and bruises bloomed on her skin like rotting flowers and her eyes were something feral, something furious, too big for her face as though they'd been stolen from another.

As she stalked down the corridor, the carpeted flooring muffling her footsteps even though she wasn't trying to be subtle, Iko kicked the doors open, whistling the Capitol anthem, the hollow sound slicing through the air like a blade, bouncing off the glass walls. Each time she passed a door, it banged open under the force of her foot colliding with wood. Each echo ruffled the stale air, bleached it of life. Every nerve in her body sang. Every muscle ached not with exertion but impatience. In her hands, her knives gleamed, silver fangs waiting to sink death into another's flesh.

She could have killed Titus. She could have, and intended to, on a manifold of occasions, but resisted doing so out of practical reasons. But the fact was that she hadn't, and would never do so in such a cowardly manner, and nobody believed her. Not even Alex. Call her dishonourable for taking pleasure in killing, call her sadistic for slashing at hopeless skin to draw suffering, but never think for a second she would take the easy way out. A knife in the back wasn't her knife. If she wanted to kill Titus, everyone would've known about it. Would've anticipated the blood.

If they wanted to paint her as the villain, so be it. She would play the bad guy. In the end, there were no heroes, only villains.

Only one of the doors had been left open. Probably in a haste.

Iko felt the world click into a sudden sharpness as she slowed.

And as she pushed the door open, the world exploded into motion.

* * *

RAGE. That was all Alex felt radiating off Iko as she left, despite the cold carapace glazing her jagged smile and cutting gaze. It didn't matter now, what she did or didn't do. She'd been gone long ago and her trail had gone cold. None of them knew how to track her—or, at least, none of them would since Alex had driven them in another direction.

And they hadn't thought to use the radios.

Deep down, Alex knew, eventually, they'd have to part ways. Just not this quickly. Before the Games, he'd already worked it all out in his head the night before they entered the arena, when he'd been waiting outside the door to her quarters. He'd stick with her, protect her the best he could, until the very end. There hadn't been a severance of any kind in his plan. Of course, nothing played out as it ever should have. Chaos reigned. Unpredictability was a part of nature as much as a seed belonged to the soil, the process of which were unseen until the results of days of germination broke the mould.

It wasn't that he didn't believe Iko. He knew how she worked. If she'd wanted to kill Titus, she would've made a parade of it. But he had to drive her out of the pack to keep the others from jumping her. If she'd stayed, there would always be that air of mistrust inhibiting their function as a pack. Now that numbers were dissolving, they'd be even more volatile.

Throughout the afternoon, they hunted, combing the foilage for fresh kills, but came up on empty. Alex knew he shouldn't feel as much relief as he did from the lack of carnage and blood on his hands for another day. If he cared a little more about the glory, he would've been disgusted with himself for allowing such emotion, such weakness into his mind, but, now, he couldn't even bring himself to mourn the boy he could have been. Their supplies were dwindling and they were still wary of the mutts beyond the valley. The three of them spent a good hour chasing down game so they wouldn't starve. Now that Iko was gone, Alex had to stay on his toes. There was no one watching his back now. Single-handedly going up against Opal and Sage was going to be hell.

Evening descended upon the arena like a bruise-lilac dress unfurling over the sky. The sunset was a pale rubbing along the western horizon, the clouds like scumbled pastels, a sponge-painted sky. His fingers ached for a brush, the rough surface of a stretched canvas. Before the Reaping, Vesta had gifted him a set of paints and he'd only used them once knowing he'd never touch them again. It hurt, knowing that his affinity for creation would die in a house he had to leave behind. As the temperature dropped, Alex stepped out of the cave, having volunteered to skin the rodents they'd caught and killed in Sage's traps. Gradually, the manmade features of the landscape receded and all that remained were blue hills backlit by crepescular gloaming light, silver over the ridgeline.

Stoking the fire, the smoke rising with the glowing embers, Alex watched the woods in periphery.

If anyone knew how he felt now, they'd eat him alive. Or worse, if anyone from home knew about the relief sagging against his stomach like a balloon swollen with water, they'd spit on his grave. In District 2, where children were taken apart and remade into weapons, their minds moulded to the jagged edges of their reality so they became the butcher's knife rather than the lamb to the slaughter, he would've been crucified for even feeling at all. But Alex had always held onto the philosophy that feeling was essential to living. What was a life if not allowing yourself to have things? Decadance wasn't just money and luxury. It was also reckless abandon, it was fun, it was acknowledging that life was going to end at some point, that dotage and death awaited, and spending his years doing whatever he wanted. His life, short as it was and was going to be, would've been well-lived by his standards.

All except for one thing he had been too coward to speak into existence for years. If he died now, he would only have one regret.

But now it was too late. Iko was gone, and with it, the peace he thought he'd made with his end.

The fire hissed and spat as he prodded it with the tip of an arrow, the rodent that he'd skinned and staked above the flames quickly browning. He missed her. He wasn't afraid to admit it. Even though the arena had made certain unsavoury qualities of Iko's surface in an abrupt and ugly manner, he still missed her, and the hollow beat of his heart ached against his chest just thinking about it. He missed her strength, the sure line of her jaw and the sharpness in her eyes guiding him back into the pressing reality. She always took herself too seriously, always pushed and pushed and pushed until she couldn't recognise a breaking point from a breakthrough. Outside of training was when Alex loved her most. In school, she was a stoic figure, feared for her vicious focus, her savage way of dealing with things, but on the scarce and scant occasion when someone showed her kindness, it was as if her brain forgot how to function. Cynicism kicked in, until she either drove them away or they chipped away until she was an awkward mess, not knowing where to put her hands or how to reciprocate. Iko had been born into this world a fighter. While the world fell at his feet and parted for him, she'd spent all her life hacking through the thorny underbrush, slashing through jungles and clawing for purchase.

Most of all, he missed how soft she could be in those rare moments where she lay her armour down for him. Just the two of them with nothing else in between. When she told him about her mother and her harsh brutality, what she thought of his paintings, how much she wished she could see her father in person, even though she knew that wishing did no good. Iko had always been a person of action.

If he could rewind the clocks, he'd do it. Change the sky back to the summer where they lay floating face-up in the lake behind the stone quarries, where the humidity cooled against their puckered skin, their scars bared to the world. If he closed his eyes now, he could imagine floating next to her, his hands reaching to hers, fingers catching, furling, until they interlaced and they bobbed together with the slow current, like seals afraid of drifting apart in the riptides.

Lifting up the stick of meat after ensuring it'd been cooked through properly, Alex swallowed down the bitter lump that'd formed in his throat. He was sick of this. The Games, the constant search for glory, the sickness in his veins each time his arrows sunk into someone else's chest. Unlike the other Careers, he didn't see victims or targets or tributes. Each time he shot someone in a killing place, he thought: That's someone's son. That's someone's daughter. That's someone's sibling. That's a child. He had to restrain himself from throwing up each time they returned to the cave, blood wetting his ledger and sticking to the skin of his hands.

As much as he wanted to leave now and spend the whole night tracking Iko down, he couldn't. Survival instincts disallowed him from doing so. Rather than acting on his impulses, Alex collected whatever he'd cooked, threw water over the fire, and slipped back into the cave, where Sage was sitting slumped against the wall, humming to herself as she cleaned her weapons, and Opal stared blankly at the wall.

"Hey, you're back," Sage remarked, grinning up at him. She spotted the food in his hands, and reached out, wriggling her fingers greedily as he handed one of the cooked rodents over. "Oh, thank you. I'm fucking starving."

"You okay?" Alex asked, crouching next to Opal, concern pinching his tone. "You should eat something."

Even if Opal wasn't his responsibility, even if Titus wasn't the greatest company, she'd still lost someone close to home. It was obvious they were friends, despite Titus' foul attitude. Empathy might have been starved from the rest of them, snuffed out like a candle flame, cut out like a tumour, but not Alex. He held onto it, like a child sheltering a bird with a broken wing in secret.

Opal shook her head. "I'll be fine." Her voice was flat, devoid of emotion.

Alex didn't press, but he stayed beside her as he ate.

"I can't wait till this is over," Sage grunted, nose wrinkling in disdain at the carcass of the rodent she'd tossed at the mouth of the cave. "I miss real food. I miss fish. My mother used to make this fish pie that was absolutely divine. When I get back, I'm going to eat fifty."

"When you get back?" Alex teased, lifting a brow.

Sage smirked. "I like my chances."

Alex laughed. "You keep on believing what you want."

"Oh, no, I don't believe, I know—"

"Guys," Opal snapped, holding a hand up, perking up suddenly, halting all lighthearted banter in the alcove. He brows furrowed, as she strained to hear something. "You hear that?"

Alex frowned, glancing at the mouth of the cave.

A beat of silence elapsed, and there was nothing. Sage opened her mouth to dismiss Opal, until they heard it, too. A high-pitched chirping, a chittering sound cutting through the roar of the waterfall, which they were so accustomed to now it'd been dulled to their senses.

And then a small, green lizard-like creature darted into the cave. It was bipedal, and was as big as a chicken, moving around nervously in jerky jumping motions as it surveyed the cave. Alex snatched his bow up and nocked an arrow. A second green lizard hopped into the cave, perching on one of the rocks sloping against the wall. Its little talons gleamed in the torchlight. Sage slowly backed away.

Alex loosed an arrow, and it shot clean through the first lizard's chest, knocking it back into the waterfall. The second lizard seemed unaffected by its comrade's demise. Instead, it stretched open its tiny maw, displaying its jagged rows of sharp teeth, and let out a shrill chitter.

And then a swarm of little green lizards poured into the cave.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
this fic boutta be the death of me
next 2 chapters will make up for how boring this one was i SWEAR