Cage me like an animal • F Odair¹ •

XII

"YOU'RE A WEIRD ONE, FOUR."

•∘♛∘•

Rowan lay in Athena's arms, still, silent, blood still pouring out of his wounds. Tears were forming more rapidly in Athena's eyes and, before she could stop them, they were falling thick and fast down her face, landing on his own. She let out a choked sob, then another, and soon she was sobbing over his body, her hands in her hair as though she was about to rip it out of her skull. In spite of the pain, she remembered to bite down on her lip to muffle her sobbing so no one would hear her. The Games would not pause for her grief. It would be foolish of her to think they would. A dead girl's mistake.

She was sobbing still, Rowan's body lying there beneath her, Cara's body lying motionless a few feet away. She was sobbing out of grief; out of the injustice of it all, that two people so good, so deserving of all the good the world could have given back to them, had their lives ripped away from them so brutally, so suddenly; but she was also sobbing, she knew, at her own foolishness. What other way could she have thought this would end? She had known that it could not last, could see the end even as it was starting, and still she grew attached. Still, she had let her guard down. And this was the price she had to pay; a reminder that in the end, she was alone.

She continued sobbing. But soon the sobs died down in her throat until she was making no noise, the tears now falling quickly and rapidly down her face. There was no noise to be heard now. She felt isolated. Suddenly, she was overcome with a desire to do something for Rowan and Cara. To give them a proper burial, lay flowers down on them, something beautiful and dedicated solely to them, but what was there in this arena for that? There were no flowers, nothing beautiful and growing to be seen because nothing of the sort could survive in this wasted, ruined city.

The monsters and the ugly things survive, Athena thought, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve. We're the only ones that can make it here. Everything else dies.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the wreckage of the building, that damn building that brought them all down with it. She looked over and saw sticks and planks of wood. A few feet away, she saw a great length of rope. And just like that, an idea began to form in her mind.

She stood and stumbled over to the planks and sticks of wood, before walking over to grab the length of rope. Then, she moved to sit in between Rowan and Cara again, and immediately set to work. She laid the plank of wood against one of the sticks to make a sign, before cutting a length of rope with a knife and using it to hold the sign together. She repeated the process to make another sign. Then she made to use the knife to carve out a message on each plank of wood, but stopped suddenly, thinking better of it. She put the knife at her side and picked up her spear instead. She knew using a spear for a task like this would be harder, but somehow, it felt right.

And so she set to work on carving out the message on the planks of wood. When she was finished, the first plank read:

Rowan Lindell, 17

District 7

The sun still rises

The second plank read:

Cara Savera, 13

District 6

Nothing will stop or control me.

She had struggled with herself temporarily over whether she should include their own words on the sign but decided ultimately that it was best. The signs were meant to be makeshift graves, it only made sense to have words from each of them on it. Rowan and Cara deserved more than these wooden, handmade graves, but it was all she could give them.