The Hunger Games

8

As he walked to the elevator, he threw the bow and quiver away, still angry. Passing the speechless Downworlders, Alec smashed the button on the elevator and managed to stay calm until he reached the twelfth floor, where he went straight to his room, tears falling down his cheeks by then. He heard the others calling for him, but he ignored everyone and locked himself in his room.

Letting himself fall on the bed, he buried his face on the pillow and began sobbing.

He had messed up, he had ruined everything! Whatever little chance he had had of surviving the Games was now completely gone because of the arrow he had shot at the Gamemakers. What would they do to him now? Arrest him? Execute him? Cut his tongue and turn him into a Downworlder so he could wait for the future tributes of Idris?

What had he been thinking, shooting at the Gamemakers? Of course, he hadn't meant to shot at them, just the apple in the pig's mouth, because he had been furious at their dismissal of his shooting. He hadn't been trying to kill them. If he had wanted to, they would all be dead by now!

What did it matter, anyway? It wasn't like he would have won the Games. Who cared what they would do to him? He was going to die whether he liked it or not. What truly scared him, though, was what they might do to his mother or Isabelle, how his family might suffer because of his impulsiveness.

Would they take their few belongings or send his mother to prison and send Isabelle to a community home, or kill them? They wouldn't kill them, would they? Why not? What did they care, even?

Alec should have stayed and apologized. Or laughed, like it had all been a big joke. Then perhaps he would have gotten some leniency. Instead, he had walked out, dismissing himself, in the most disrespectful way possible.

Magnus and Lydia were knocking on his door. He shouted at them to go away and they eventually did. It took about an hour for him to let it all out. Then, he simply lay curled up on the comfortable bed, stroking the silky sheets while he watched the sun set on the horizon.

At first, Alec expected guards to come get him but as time went by, it seemed less likely. He calmed down a bit. They still needed a boy tribute from District 12, didn't they? If the Gamemakers wanted to punish him they could do it publicly, in the arena. Alec could bet they would make sure there were no bows, now!

Before that, though, they would give him a score so low nobody in their right mind would want to sponsor him. That was what would happen tonight, when they made public the scores for each tribute because the private training wasn't open to viewers.

The number, between one, irredeemably bad, and twelve, unattainably high, gave the audience an idea of how things would go in the arena. Those scores simply showed the promise of the tribute, they weren't a guarantee of how they would do in the actual Games. Usually, they were useful to get sponsors.

Alec had hoped he would get a six or a seven because of his shooting skills, but now he knew his score would be less than three, probably a zero. He wondered if anyone had ever gotten a zero before. With a zero, nobody would sponsor him and that decreased his chances of survival to a big zero.

When Lydia came back to tell him it was time for dinner, Alec decided he had to come out of his room eventually, so he might as well do it with the excuse to have dinner. He couldn't hide what had happened forever, anyway. He washed his face but it was still obvious he had cried.

Everyone was waiting sitting around the table, including Lorenzo and Maia's stylist. He wished the stylists hadn't shown up; for some reason, after their big success, Alec couldn't even think about disappointing them. Alec avoided looking at anyone as he sipped his glass of water, refusing to eat because his stomach was still in knots.