𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋 | Hunger Games

xᴠɪ

"THIS ENTIRE ARENA SEEMS TO BE LAID OUT LIKE A CLOCK," Katniss explained as the new group of seven allies made their way up the small rocky path that led from the beach to the Cornucopia.

Aella opted to stay quiet and listen to whatever the Girl on Fire had to say. Katniss had clearly figured something out before Aella had quite literally dived on to that beach in the middle of a brawl and interrupted them all going about their morning in the arena. She didn't regret it despite the looks of displeasure she'd caught Katniss giving her—as if the woman knew Aella was one more person she'd have to fight when the time came.

Of course Aella wasn't going to tell Katniss that the time wasn't going to come and she had to reign in her sharp words whenever she caught her scowling at her.

Whatever Katniss had figured out though had helped them—would help them massively. She wasn't entirely sure on the ins and outs of it all. All she knew was what Finnick had told her of quickly as they'd walked across the beach together a few moments ago. She knew it both started and ended with Wiress going clinically insane and singing the words 'tick tock' over and over again.

He wasn't wrong. Something had scarred Wiress' brilliant mind so badly she'd slipped into some kind of hysteria. Aella had merely pressed her lips together and watched the woman with a small grimace as she repeated the words 'tick tock' over and over again. Her eyes were bleak. Aella hadn't been able to find a single thought there.

She looked away from Katniss Everdeens back as she led the way back to the Cornucopia and instead examined the large sea of water that surrounded them.

At first she thought the design of the Cornucopia set out in a large circle was just for aesthetic purposes. She was quick to remember that the Capitol and the Gamemakers didn't do anything without reason—especially during the Quarter Quell. The arena was set out in that way purposefully and it seemed Wiress had been the one to finally figure it out.

Aella looked at each sector marked and split with the same rocky pathways she was currently walking up from the beach to the Cornucopia. Each sector had two launch pods inside—twenty four in total with twelve sectors. The pathways weren't pathways at all but rather the hours of a clock.

It was genius and so was Wiress.

"There's a new threat every hour but they stay only within their wedge." Katniss explained what she'd realised, "It all starts with the lightning. Then blood rain, fog and monkeys. That's the first four hours. At ten that big wave heads from over there."

So, unbelievably, clever. Quarter Quell indeed.

Aella looked to the direction in which Katniss pointed. It was the direction she had ran from that morning and she shuddered before mumbling under her breath, "Don't we know it."

Johanna glanced sideways at her, eyes glimmering in a twisted form of amusement that Aella shared. Neither woman said anything else on the matter. They just held eye contact until Finnick walked past them and to Wiress in front of them. The older woman stopped and she turned back on herself to look out across the arena silently as they reached the Cornucopia.

"Wiress you're a genius." Finnick said casually and Aella nodded in agreement with him. She placed her hand fleetingly on the woman's shoulder as she passed with a small smile on her lips.

"Look, the tail points at twelve." Peeta said as looked upward.

"That's where the lightning strikes at noon and midnight." Katniss says at they all come to a stop.

Aella frowned, "So does that mean it's approaching twelve now?" She asked, "Does the Cornucopia turn like a clock would and we just haven't realised it?"