¹ THRONE ─ the hunger games

[ 004 ] friends like you, who needs friends?

AT NIGHT, District Two bore the ornamental magnetism of a parallel dimension. Of streetlights and moonbeams casting orange and silver-blue halos around the buildings, of grey concrete and weathered stone, of dignified detachment and archaic architecture. Masonry was their district's primary contribution to Panem; along with the weapons that District Thirteen had once been a mass producer of before the entire place was obliterated in a nuclear explosion, and the citizens turned Peacekeepers trained and tapered into military readiness, to be shipped off to the Capitol. That, unmistakably, explained the brutal discipline only this district seemed to possess.

Children grew up sword fighting in backyards, pretending mud stains were bloodstains, with victors for mothers and soldiers for fathers. Military history was a required subject taught in schools at all levels. By the time they reached the age of seven, every child had to make a decision for their future. Participate in the Hunger Games, resign to the quarries, apprentice a blacksmith, or serve the militia. Which path will you take?

But, like most children, Iko's future wasn't a choice. Since she could remember, it'd been the Games or nothing. It's all she had been bred for. To make up for her parents' shortcomings. (They'd both undergone the same training to become a Career tribute, but didn't make the cut for the selection process.) To be the one who'd bring glory to their district. It was everything she'd wanted since.

Shoulders squared, Iko kept her eyes trained forward, watchful of the alleyways she passed. In periphery, the faint outline of the mountains receded behind the buildings and dusty marble mausoleums as she went deeper into the district. Dirt paths morphed into uneven cobblestone, which diverged into smooth pavements, which bifurcated into flagstone. Houses grew less dilapidated as she walked, never breaking stride, never looking over her shoulder. Even when she reached the edge of Alex's neighbourhood, she kept moving at her hastened pace.

The Ivanovich's lived in the upper-middle-class sector next to the Victor's Village, where the houses were aligned in neater rows, more cleaned-up and in much more pristine condition. Iko had been running around this neighbourhood with Alex long enough to know every nook and cranny, every little winding alleyway, every little hideout like the back of her hand. In the same vein, she'd been a welcome guest in their home so often she felt more of a member of the family to them than her own blood.

When she finally spotted the humble house nested in the cul-de-sac, a furtive glimpse told her that nobody was awake in their household. But there was the apple tree in Alex's backyard, a branch aligned with his window, and how different could climbing that very tree at twelve years old be than now, aged seventeen and barely three inches taller?

As it turns out, the difference is everything. Balanced precariously on the branch, Iko bites down on her tongue to keep from spitting every curse flying through her head as it dips and groans under her weight. At least she can peer into his bedroom window now, though. Perhaps her efforts, though suicidal, might not be entirely futile after all.

        She raps her knuckles against his window. It rattles slightly from the sharp impact, and for a moment, she is convinced the glass might shatter. But her knocking only grows more desperate as a wind billows through the sector, rustling the leaves. The branch dips abruptly and her heart jams in her throat. Nope, she thinks, fervently, nope, nope, nope, never doing this again.

        "Alex," she hissed, chancing a glance down. Her head spins. Heights were never a problem to Iko, but, at the present, the ground looked more like a gaping black hole in the darkness than a patch of grass. Fingers seizing in a chokehold around the branch, she sucks in a slow breath and cuts her eyes toward the window. "Alex. Wake up."