Chapter Text
In a week, I won’t share a room anymore.
In fact, in a week, my room won’t be my room at all. My room will be emptied of both inhabitants, swept, and given to a new pair of girls no older than six. I will be moved to a stilted house on the water, and my roommate will sentence herself to honorable death. We’ve known how things would end for twelve years, of course. That doesn’t make the prospect any less daunting.
The windows in Career Housing are barred beyond their mesh screening, but the breeze still finds its way through, carrying with it the scent of fish and kelp and rustling the linen curtains. Across the room, Tidaline turns under her covers, muttering in her sleep. We’re supposed to be on the docks in an hour, but this close to the Reaping, she can’t be blamed for enjoying every bit of normal life she has left, even if it’s just the luxury of a few more minutes of sleep. Besides, she’s as ready as she can be.
I, on the other hand, don’t have the excuse of an impending Games. I have a life in District Four to prepare for. I’m already far enough behind when it comes to everyday trades; I can identify poisons from districts I’ll never see and throw metal stars with lethal precision, but those skills aren’t particularly helpful when it comes to catching fish. When the week ends and my life goes on, I will have a lot of learning to do.
It’s strange, knowing that my life won’t culminate in an arena, but it’s difficult to complain about not being chosen to fight to the death a thousand miles from home. I’ll just have to watch Tidaline do it, and then continue with my life as if everything I knew didn’t just dissolve before my eyes like soap.
The floor is cool beneath my feet, not yet overwhelmed with the summer sun. I flex my toes and take a moment to enjoy the rough grain and morning chill while there is still time to do so. In a week, my floors will be something worn and warped with water. I will have only making nets and catching fish to look forward to. If I’m lucky, I’ll find work with the merchants and get a house on the shore. Maybe a husband. Maybe a child, if the world is so kind.
In my immediate future, however, is the docks. The docks that have seen far too many late arrivals on my part, especially as of late. Tida can catch up when she decides to roll out of bed.
I swap my nightgown out for the only outfit in my closet: sea-green tunic, loose brown pants, sandals with the divots of my footprints marring the soles, and the dark gray sash emblazoned with District Four’s crest that marks me a Career. It doesn’t matter as much to the people outside as it did before Tidaline was selected to volunteer and I was relegated to back-up, but the chip buried in the crest is all that lets me off the premises.
Tidaline snores behind me, grunting with malcontent when the mirror on my opened closet door bounces light into her face. I try, only once, to get her up.
“Tide? We’re supposed to be at the docks in less than an hour? I can walk with you, if you want, I just figured–”
“Annie…” she buries her face in her pillow, drawing my name out as if I’ve betrayed her terribly, “I don’t wanna…”
“You sure?”
She just groans in response, turning to face the wall. Within the minute, she’s snoring again. I’m filled with the familiar urge to run over, shake her awake, and drag her with me the way I did when we were young. She’ll get scolded for missing her time at the docks, asked how it will reflect on her future. There’s a chance I’ll get scolded, too, for letting my ally down. Though it’s a thought from a time long ago, my stomach still flips.
If it were a year ago, I’d try again. That was when we still had more than mere days together, when it still felt worthwhile to savor every moment. Now, so close to losing her, it only seems reasonable to let her have whatever she wants. She won’t have a mattress in the arena, after all.
I shut the door softly behind me so that I don’t wake her. Breakfast is down the hall; I can already hear the dull roar of the other Careers. The little ones are likely already outside, running and playing before their lessons begin. That leaves the teens, who have just as much energy but don’t want to appear childish in front of their peers. A few trainers are probably still there, sitting at a back table and watching, just in case things get too unruly.
The Reaping is in a week, and it shows in every grain of sand left unswept across the linoleum floors. There’s grit on the high windows, and one of the lights in their long fluorescent tubes has begun to flicker. Every resource has been poured into this year’s tributes and their potential victory.
I can hear trainers through a few doors, preparing the day’s lessons. Sandbags hitting the floor mean weight training, the soft hiss of pulleys mean traps. Sometimes, there’s the shine of screens, games that let the little ones identify poisonous plants and animals.
Morning lessons are only for the little ones, the sixes and eights and twelves who are too small to build any permanent skills and are instead taught the patterns of discipline and deadliness. The older Careers help at the docks in the mornings and train after lunch. It’s important that we aid our community while we can; we are, after all, supposed to sacrifice anything for the District.
Pisces and Reef are waiting at our table across from two chipped tin plates holding our regular breakfast: halibut, dried seaweed, a roll with salty butter, and slices of nectarine. Both of their trays are empty, water glasses emptied and flipped upside down beside them. Reef grins when he sees me, revealing the gap in his teeth.
“You’re late, Cresta.”
“Am I?” I take a piece of nectarine between my fingers and continue speaking between bites, “Or did you just inhale everything on your tray before anyone else got here?”
“You should be grateful I didn’t inhale everything on yours, too.” He reaches for my roll, laughing when I slap his hand away. “Would teach you a lesson in time management.”
“I’d shove you off the docks. Teach you a lesson in swimming.” I narrow my eyes. Reef stares at me in mock seriousness. His eyes, wide and green, are the only indication of his facade, sparkling beyond his control. A smile fights its way to my mouth, pushing outward and making my cheeks ache, and my chest twitches with the effort of stilling my face.
Reef breaks first, his lips curling slowly, but surely, upward.
“Who’s to stop me from dragging you down with me?”
“I’m a better swimmer, for one thing.”
“Even with dead weight latched onto you?”
“It would be good practice.”
“Sure, it would be.” He swipes a piece of nectarine before I can stop him, cramming the whole slice into his mouth.
“Hey!” Reef smiles around the slice, and the sight is so absurd that the heat in my chest fizzles out, and I can’t help but laugh. “Rude.”
“I was hungry!” When I try to push him, Reef just pushes me back, a laugh long and low in his throat. I try again, and he shoves my shoulder.
I swipe for his ankles, a weakness I learned the very first time we roughhoused as kids. My leg connects with his, and he topples forward, losing his balance.
“You’re terrible.” A giggle cuts off any severity my sentence might have had, “We should…send you to the arena…teach you something about…hunger.”
“Please,” I’m too close to him, now, for any effective combat. We shove each other back and forth in a useless scuffle, all tiny pushes and swats, doing nothing but tiring ourselves out, “I’d have every woman in Panem desperate to feed me.”
“It’s good I’m going, then.” Pisces. “The sponsors won’t drain their inheritance trying to send food.”
Reef and I are not laughing anymore.
He isn’t looking at either of us. His focus is on his empty tray and the fork he twirls in one hand. With his height and strength, we knew he’d be chosen over Reef years ago, but something about it still doesn’t feel real.
“I shouldn’t have said–” I start, but Pisces cuts me off with a raised hand.
“It was just a joke. It’s fine.”
“Really. I’m sorry. We shouldn’t joke about–”
“We’ve joked about it our whole lives. What makes it any different now?”
The answer to this is obvious, of course. For most of our lives, Reef and I were just as fated to the arena as Pisces and Tidaline were. We were different from the other children our age. We were damned together, and in that damnation, we were each other’s only comfort. Now that Reef and I are safe, joking about the future of our friends feels cruel. For Pisces, the arena isn’t some hazy possibility anymore.
“I’m just sorry if I upset–”
“Annie.” He sets a hand over one of my own, bringing his face so close I can’t help but meet his eyes. “Really. It’s fine.” With his other hand, Pisces gestures to my breakfast. “You need to eat. We’ll need to get to the docks soon.”
He’s always been this way. Gentle. Overprotective. Far too forgiving of my missteps. As far as I can remember, Pisces has seen me as someone small and frail and his responsibility to care for. If we had more time, I’d be tempted to ask him to consider himself, for once. As things are, I can only nod and go along with him.
The halibut portion is laughably small today, and the meat is dry in my mouth. Some poor member of the kitchen staff probably had to scrape every last morsel off of the bones, and didn’t even get a satisfying result.
“Chemicals got dumped again.” The observation is unimportant, but it’s better than sitting in the uneasy silence of a lifelong friend’s impending death. “Fish are sick. I bet that’s why Tida threw up yesterday.”
“Must be the whole batch, then.” Reef reaches for my kelp, and I let him take it. I have no use for the extra iron anymore, and there is no love in my heart for the taste of fish spread across the texture of paper. “She couldn’t keep it down the morning before yesterday, either.”
“Really?” By the time Tidaline had rolled out of bed, I’d been at the docks, too nervous to endure the overwhelming sounds of the mess hall.
“Barely made it to a trash bin. Pisces had to hold her hair back. Very romantic of him, wouldn’t you say, Cresta?”
It only takes one glance at Pisces to notice the pink marring his sun-tanned cheeks. He’s not looking at Reef or me, just staring determinedly at the blank wall across from our table as if it holds every answer within its flat lines of tile.
“I think it was very sweet.”
“You’re both terrible.” Pisces doesn’t look at either of us, even as his face has become more red. “Utterly terrible.”
“It’s a shame you love us.” Reef pats his back, face twisted into a downright wicked smile, “You love some of us more than others, but Cresta and I forgive you. Right, Annie?”
“Of course.” I tear off half my bread and stuff it into my mouth.
“Y’know,” at this point, Reef has braced an elbow on Pisces’s shoulder, balancing against him, “Once we’re out of here, I should see if Delphine Fitzgerald has any adverse reactions to bad fish. I could try the holding-back-the-hair trick, see how it goes.”
Pisces shoves him off. “Shut up.”
“A Capitol wedding for you and Tida would be so romantic,” Reef bats his eyes. “Would Cresta and I be invited?”
“You’re blacklisted.”
“Rude.” Reef turns his attention to the bread still in my hand. “You gonna finish that?”
I surrender the roll, if only to quiet him down for a moment. Pisces has buried his face in his hands, tangling long fingers in his hair as he shields himself from the world.
“It’s ok.” The last slice of apricot drips onto the table when I pinch it between my fingers and hold it out to Pisces. “She likes you too, you know.”
He doesn’t say anything when he lifts his head, just takes the fruit from me and glowers ever-so-slightly less. It’s gone in two bites.
I push my chair back with a terrible screech. “We’ll be missed at the docks.”
“What about his girlfriend?” Reef points to Pisces. “We’re just gonna leave her here?”
“She’s still sleeping. I tried to wake her.”
“She’s tired,” Pisces cuts in, coming to stand beside me, “They kept us out until we met the quota last night. It was pitch dark by the time we were done.”
“Again?”
“It’s a bad season.” He shrugs. “Algae bloom. Probably another chemical dump from Eleven.”
“Getting greedy over there.”
“Or their quotas got higher.” I dust the last of breakfast off on my pants. “Ours did.”
We can’t know anything about District Eleven for certain, of course, except that according to victors, their district is close to the ocean, and they grow things. Apparently, in order to grow that much fruit, they need to dose their trees with poison to keep pests away, and that poison goes into the ocean afterwards, spoiling the fish we catch in Four. Their quotas are met at the cost of our own. District Eleven gets to eat the literal fruits of their labor, while District Four goes hungry.
“It's still not right to take it out on us.” The boys start for the doors, and I follow. “There’s gotta be somewhere else to dump the waste, anyhow.”
Reef leads the way out of the Career Grounds, tapping his crest whenever necessary. There’s three gates between any given area of the housing and the outside world. From the Mess Hall, those gates are the doors to the main hallway, the doors to the courtyard, and the gate at the edge of the grounds. I’ve never liked going through the last one. Peacekeepers stand on either side of it, and though their guns are never pointed at us, they’re always easily within reach.
The Peacekeeper Reef presents with his crest flips it over lazily, beaming a ray of violet light into the fabric. The seal of Panem appears beneath the light, signifying the crest’s authenticity. She seems bored as she waves us through.
District Four has always felt like a different world from the Career Grounds. The boardwalk beneath our feet is worn from years of traffic, any original color turned gray from the sun. Sand is everywhere, burrowing its way into my sandals the moment we’re outside. There’s the smell of the processing plants dangling over everything, but on the edge of the ocean, there’s enough saltwater to drown the odor out.
The portion of District Four that I know is made of beaches and docks. There’s more to it, of course; the lines of pastel buildings overlooking the shores easily attest to that fact. There are schools and factories and merchant storefronts. There are clinics, where it’s easy to buy cheap balms for sunburn and poultices for muscle cramps. There are people who make clothes and people who sell candy, a whole new universe that I’ll have to assimilate into when this week is over. After twelve years of only seeing District Four through the slats of a fence or, once a year, the windows of a car as we are shuttled to the Reaping, I’ll be entirely part of it.
Reef chatters away as he leads the charge to the docks. He’s so confident, carving shapes into the air with his hands and never checking where his feet are falling. Pisces stalks along beside him. Sometimes, his face turns to Reef, and I can see his mouth moving. Reef says something that makes Pisces smile. Pisces stops walking, bends down, and comes up with a small white shell, which he places into Reef’s hand. They admire the find together, this morning’s argument abandoned.
I trail behind, giving the boys time to talk. They only have a week before they’re apart forever, after spending every day of the past twelve years with one another. I can’t do anything to change what will happen in a week, but I can give them time, and that will need to be enough. I know that either of them would do the same for Tide and me.
It’s a short walk to the docks. They’re already teeming with the morning shift, mending nets and sorting through the first haul of the day. Among them, I spot Delphine, happily chattering away with the other women as her fingers slip in and out of the net she’s fixing. Her eyes flick up to watch us, and a smile breaks across her freckled face. I hope that once I’m no longer a Career, I’ll get to work with her; she’s my only hope of fitting into the District.
Reef pauses for a moment. When Dephine’s eyes lock onto his, her smile flickers, then returns, somehow different. Softer. He glances back towards Pisces, who nudges him forward.
“Say hello.” It is not a suggestion.
“Are you sure–”
“Go say hello to her. She’s your friend. Fix some nets. Cresta and I can handle whatever else they need. Right, Annie?”
“Right.” I lift my hand in a little wave. Delphine waves back. “You can go. We’ll see you after.”
“I–” Reef smooths his shirt, “I mean–yeah–okay–” He glances at Pisces. “Do I look ok?”
“You look fine.”
“Okay–uh–” He takes a deep breath, nods to himself, and darts across the sands. Delphine smiles when he lowers himself to sit next to her, offering him part of her net.
Pisces and I keep walking. Eventually, I kick off my sandals and carry them in one hand, and he does the same. This time of year, the wooden planks are already hot with the morning sun. The portions where they’re reinforced with steel are nearly unbearable against bare feet.
One of our trainers, Ebb Delmer, is already waiting at the end of the docks with the sixteen and seventeen-year-old Careers. The ground is littered with fat lengths of rope ending in rusted iron carabiners, and some of the Careers wear faded orange flippers.
“Annabel and Pisces. Kind of you to humor us with your presence today.” She beckons towards her part of the docks, peering behind us, “Where are the others?”
“Tidaline is sick, and Reef got told to mend nets.” Pisces lies before I’ve even considered that as a possibility.
“Alright.” A length of rope is tossed at my feet. “We’re replacing the mooring lines today. Best get started while the water’s warm.”
Pisces draws a sharp breath, but doesn’t complain out loud. We’re given flippers and rope, directed towards the buoys that need attention, and left to prepare on the edge of the dock. He shoves his feet into flippers with grim intensity, eyeballing the buoys all the while. When he starts to coil rope around his arm, the knuckles holding the line are white.
“I’ll get the far ones.” They’re not so far, after all. I can get there and back without any trouble.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s the least I can do.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just watches me while I put on my own flippers and lamp. I can tell he wants to argue; his hands are tense on the wood of the dock, and his eyes are bright. I wave him off before he can even start.
“I like swimming, Pisces.”
“Whatever you say.” A smirk. “Annabel.”
“Don’t start with that.” I extend my legs down, letting the water wash over my feet.
“It’s a nice name.”
“It’s pretentious.”
“It suits you,” he reaches out to rumple my hair, only succeeding in brushing more of it into my eyes, “What was that word in the poem? The strange one. Seraphim?”
“Sepulchre. Shut up.” I elbow him, a laugh bubbling suddenly out of my throat.
“I like the word!” He elbows me back. “It’s a nice word.”
“Like I said. It’s pretentious.”
“I think it’s pretty.” Pisces shrugs, turning to look at the water.
The ache that comes upon me is sudden and cold. We’ve had a thousand conversations like this, separated from the others. This is no different, but there’s something to the slump of Pisces’s shoulders and the cold pit in my stomach that casts everything in the wrong light.
“Stop it.”
“I’m serious. I’m not making fun of you.”
“Not that.” When I turn to look at him, he’s smiling at me. “All of…this.” When description fails, I wave my hand at him vaguely, fumbling for words, “This…” I wait for an interruption that never comes. Pisces is still watching, head tilted, patient. Heat scratches at my ribs and climbs my throat. “...I don’t know. Forget it.”
The smile disappears.
“No, it’s fine. You can keep talking.”
“There isn’t anything to say.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He backs off after that, leaving me to stare into the ocean. The last traces of sunrise still hang in orange brushstrokes on the horizon, casting the morning in a soft pink haze. Puddles of gold pool between the crests of the ocean, searing my eyes if I stare at them too long. A tangle of the brightest stars hangs fat and ripe above the horizon. Fishing boats blot the scene, and from them, conversations and laughter. Nets rise from the water, filled with flopping, silver fish. Waves lap against my ankles in a rhythm as steady and gentle as a heartbeat. My legs rise and fall with the pulse of the tide, in and out, familiar as my own breathing.
Next to me is Pisces. He sits far enough back from the water that his feet graze it without becoming submerged. We have the same District Four look: brown hair that glows red in the light, skin freckled and tanned with years of the sun’s attention, calloused hands, and bright green eyes. Any outsider could mistake us for siblings; when we were younger, we asked the trainers if we were brother and sister.
The similarities trace deeper than hair color and freckles. We both draw our eyebrows down when we’re thinking. We have the same nervous tic, a fluttering of the fingers and shaking of the wrist. We’re both quiet, in comparison to the people around us. I think, deep down, it’s why Pisces has gone through so much trouble to look after me. I needed a brother, he needed a sister, and anyway, we looked alike.
In one week, Pisces and Tidaline will go to the Capitol, and Reef and I will never speak to them again. We’ll watch them fight in the arena. We’ll honor their sacrifices. Life will be nothing like we’ve ever known, and we’ll have no choice but to keep going. That’s how it’s always been. That’s how it always will be.
As far back as I can remember, I’ve been told how things will end. It’s why Careers are taken from their district families early, to prevent the formation of too many memories. It’s why we’re separated from anyone outside of our age group at the age of twelve, relegated to pods of four until we hardly remember the Tributes we watch die each year.
It’s why, every handful of years, a rumor passes through the Career Grounds, whispered away from the ears of trainers, about a secondary Career, the one who was not chosen to volunteer, losing their mind. It’s why, if I ask for it, I will be provided with several Morpling doses upon the conclusion of the Reaping, to spend a few weeks in a pleasant haze until I am well enough to be a productive citizen of Panem once again.
It’s better this way. At some point or another, everyone has watched some underfed twelve-year-old from another district stumble onto a reaping stage, wide-eyed, a skinny little lamb ripe for the slaughter. Everyone has witnessed the silent crowd, full of people strong enough to stand a chance in the Games, none of whom step up to the challenge. Those crowds then spend the rest of the year scuttling around, heads down, living in the endless fear that their child’s name will be pulled next.
Because of us, no child in District 4 needs to fear their name being called on Reaping Day. There will always be someone larger and stronger than them to face the fight instead. Is that so terrible, to sacrifice the childhoods of a few children every year in order to provide a life free of fear for all the others? For the gift of their own children, parents of Careers are provided tesserae and housing that is new and dry and safe from the threat of storms. It is unpleasantness in exchange for safety. It is guaranteed suffering for a few in order to protect the many. Anyone would agree after watching enough twelve-year-olds bleed out.
“...I’m not going to win the Games.” Pisces again, speaking softly into the sea. “I can’t.”
“Of course you can.” It would be miraculous, to see him coming home alive. Not just alive, but as a Victor. “You’re strong, and you’re smart. You’re kind. You’d get lots of sponsors, and–”
“I can’t.” He raises a hand, silencing me, “...Annie. If I win, then Tidaline–”
The thought of Tide laying lifeless in a box strikes suddenly, cutting the air from my lungs. My roommate. My best friend. The person who braided my hair and gossipped with me about the trainers and sat in the sand beside me late into the night, watching the stars, gone.
I try to argue, but any words I dredge up dry out in my mouth. To tell Pisces I want him to win, I would tell him that I want Tidaline to die. If I tell Pisces that I want Tidaline to win, then I must look him in the eyes and wish him dead.
“...I’m going to get her home.” His eyes float to the horizon, dreamlike, “I’ll do whatever it takes. I need her to live, Annie. I need her to–” A soft, choked sound catches in his voice, and his eyes fall shut.
There’s nothing to say. I cover his hand with my own, trying to push comfort into him when all that I’m feeling is cold.
Another vision shimmers into my mind, then. Pisces and Tidaline coming back together. Two victors, crown split in half, holding hands and waving to the crowd. Star-crossed lovers, willing to defy the very nature of our world to be together. Impossible, of course, but beautiful all the same.
“You love her.”
“...I do.” His shoulders slump. “Of course I do.”
“Do you ever wonder–” my words dry up again, for just a moment, but the picture in my head is so beautiful that I can’t help but speak it, “...what if things changed? What if we didn’t have to worry about the Games? What if we could just…”
“That’s not worth thinking about.” He finally looks at me. “Believe me, I’ve gone down that road. If Tide and I don’t step up, it’s gonna be someone else who goes. Some kids. It’s my job to protect them. I’m not just going to back down and let someone’s child die.”
“Someone else could step up.”
“You and Reef? My family?” Pisces’s eyes flash, filled with a sudden fervor, “I’m not letting that happen to you guys.”
“It wouldn’t be someone’s kid. It wouldn’t be someone’s brother or sister.” I’ve thought about the arena, of course. Until I was seventeen, there was a chance I would be sent as tribute, after all. I wouldn’t survive the cold and the bloodshed and the hunger, but Tidaline and every other girl in Four would get to live, and that would mean something, right? “It would be Careers.”
“It would be my brother and sister.”
I could argue, of course, that by that logic, I would be the one watching my brother go to his death in a week, but we’ve known that for a year now. Mentioning it wouldn’t change anything.
My submerged legs kick, softly pushing through the tides. My motions make tiny crests that sputter and shatter into the air, then dissolve into ripples. Against the ocean’s force, any resistance is meaningless. My actions won’t change the sea itself.
“...what if nobody had to volunteer?”
“Then we’d draw a name at random.”
“That’s not what I meant.” The vision again, Tidaline and Pisces, safe and whole. Soft and impossible and shining. With my feet, I trace circles in the sea, watching the light catch the new ripples,“What if there wasn’t a Reaping at all? What if there were no Games?”
“Annie.” There is a warning hidden in my name.
“I know it’s not going to happen,” I run my words together, fast as I can, on the off-chance someone hears the treason that just came out of my mouth, “I know it’s impossible. I know we need them to keep order, and I know it’s kind that there’s even a victor in the first place, and that we should be grateful it’s only two of us every year, but…can you imagine?”
“You can’t start with that.” He looks at me, stern. “There are going to be cameras here soon. Do you know what would happen if something like that got out?”
There is work to be done. There are mooring lines to fix and quotas to meet, and we’re already behind without Tide here. Besides, Pisces is right. I can’t talk about a different world, not so close to the Reaping. Not if I want any chance at a life after this week is over. I cannot make trouble. The Capitol has ways of dealing with those who make trouble.
I coil a few lengths of rope around one arm and shift my weight on the dock, tipping forwards towards the sea. In the distance, a buoy bobs idly, waiting for me. I speak to the waves, so quiet I’m not sure if he’ll hear me, whispering one last treason into the salt and the tides.
“Just. Think about it. What would you do, if things could change?”
I’m underwater before Pisces has the chance to answer.