The Runaway Victor | Book II

Chapter Sixteen | Goodnight

The bunker was set up the same way as the last one. As soon as there were down there safely, they heard the trapdoor get shut again. Then Marcus dropped his stuff on a bottom bunk before walked to a trunk and emptying out his pockets into it. Jules claimed the last bottom bunk, and Orion tossed his backpack on the other. Unlike the other house, there wasn't a single bed which didn't matter, there were only four of them anyway. The rest of the day, the group stayed fairly quiet. Listening for any action upstairs.

After a few hours had passed, Mrs. Yawling and her husband brought down food and also discussed bathing schedules with the group. And the type of bathing wasn't what Quinn had gotten used to, it meant they could go upstairs, and clean their faces and wash their hair. Then that night, everyone was quiet.

All of them knew that something had happened to Ciruss and Wade. They knew that for sure, but they also knew that the Capitol didn't just want to catch them anymore. Now they didn't care if they caught them dead or alive. The whole idea of death, it didn't bother Quinn. What bothered her about it was that people were dying from the Capitol-- because they disagreed with them, were starving...it was what made her stomach flip.

So that night, Quinn was restless. She flipped over, kicked off the blankets-- everything. She couldn't stop thinking about the fact that Ciruss wasn't there. She couldn't accept the fact that the odds of him being alive weren't good. She didn't want to accept that. Mince morning came, Jules had tossed Quinn a few new shirts, and a few new pairs of jeans from a trunk that had been full of things for rebels to choose from. There was a small bathroom in the bunker that Quinn went into and changed quickly.

For some reason, she felt like how she had felt on the tribute train. In the bathroom-- alienated, but not entirely disposable. On the train she knew that tributes were thrown around like garbage, and replaced every year. But now, in District Nine she knew that the Capitol couldn't get rid of her and they sure as hell didn't want to replace her with a new Victor like her. She knew she couldn't let that happen too, but that didn't change the fact that the fact that she was a Victor in the first place...

"Almost done?" Jules tapped lightly on the door. Quinn jumped a bit at the sound of her voice.

"Yeah," she replied as she quickly tugged her shirt on, and then scooped up her clothes from Four. Then she made her way out of the small room so Jules could take her turn.

Quinn climbed up onto her bunk and pulled her backpack onto her lap. She pulled out the practically empty bottle of whiskey, and found a small jar that had the few piece of morphling paper. She dug through it and found the second jar that had tobacco in it. She made sure everything was beside her, and then she rolled up her clothes and shoved it in to the big pocket.

"There's some matches in the supply trunk,"

Quinn looked up towards the other bunk. Marcus had went back to sleep as soon as he woke up, and Orion was still laying down on his bunk. He was on his back, and he didn't look like he was trying to go back to sleep.

Quinn looked at the three trunks, one with cloths, one with weapons, and the third being an assortment of things. Quinn raised an eyebrow as she looked back at Orion. Expecting him to say something about how it wasn't really good for her. But instead he remained silent even as she hopped down and went over to the trunk. She pulled it open, there was paper, pencils, flashlights, and a few half used packs of matches, as well as packets of dry food and water tablets that she was all to familiar with. So Quinn disregarded those things, and took only one half used pack of matches. Then she got up and walked back over to her bunk, then climbed up and gave herself some space to work too.

Quinn felt almost...giddy. She struggled for a moment to to make her fingers work with the paper to smooth it out. But finally she was able to smooth it enough and then pit in a bit of tobacco. She rolled the paper tightly and held it in her mouth as she got a match. Her first drag off of the morphling paper made her mouth tingle because of how long it had been since she had some. Part of her felt a bit guilty though, she was finally starting to think straight and her thoughts weren't as clouded...but one piece of paper couldn't make her so...slow like she was.

She began to pack thinks away, leaving the drink out. She planned on it not going back in the pack, she planned on it getting finished off anyways. Then she looked towards Orion, he had put his arms over his eyes as if to block out the light.

"Couldn't sleep?" Quinn asked curiously.

He shrugged, "I wasn't that bad of a night I guess." but she could hear it in his voice that he hadn't gotten one wink of sleep.

Quinn was quiet for a moment, "Are you alright?" she asked, but he remained silent. "Orion? Is it about District Seven?"

"I don't really want to talk about it," he replied. His tone was hard, and fairly cold considering how they had been talking.

Quinn exhaled heavily, a cloud of white smoke filling the air in front of her.

"Are you sure?" she asked, "I mean, you got me to talk about the games...sort of."

"That's different."

"No it isn't." Quinn retorted, "You said I could talk to you," she said as she pushed herself off of her bunk and then stepped up in the ladder so she was at eye level with Orion. "I figured it was the same way the other way around."

Orion sighed heavily, "There's nothing to talk about, Quinn."

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "What happened wasn't your fault, Orion. If you want to keep telling yourself that...its going to be a long trip to District Thirteen."

That got Orions attention. He moved his arms and turned his head to look at her.

"Says the girl smoking morphling paper and has a bottle of whiskey on her bunk." he retorted sharply, in a bitter tone. "That's not going to make the trip any shorter either."

Quinn stayed quiet for a moment. She felt her fingernails on her left hand digging into the wood of the ladder. She understood that what she chose to do wasn't helping anyway. But she had been through enough, and she had agreed to go with them. She hadn't complained about the long trip ahead of them. In fact, she felt like they had gotten pretty far considering they started in District Four.

She took a long drag off of the paper and then leaned closer to Orion before exhaling it directly into his face. He covered his face again to keep the smoke out of his eyes.

"I only asked you what was wrong." she said coldly. "I'm upset about Ciruss and Wade too. If you hadn't come to get me you'd all be safe in Thirteen. So if you're going to blame someone, blame me. Because if you blame yourself, the odds of any of us getting there are next to none and then your grandfather will feel like he won. If that's what you want, fine. But otherwise, don't give me shit for something I have a right to do and mind your own business." Quinn ranted, "Alright?"

Then with that, Quinn hopped down and climbed back up onto her bunk. And there she stayed for the rest of the day, until the Yawlings brought down some food. Then even after dinner, when Orion and Marcus looked over the map, Quinn stayed on her bunk and only said a few words to Jules and Marcus that night which was a simple goodnight.