The Beasts of Us [A Hunger Games Fanfic]

ARENA XIII. Kei.

Which one, Kei?

"Neither of them."

I don't think so.

"Both of them."

Aiming high, my boy?

"I could take them." He knew he could. The boy was injured, and the girl was nothing special that he could see. Maybe Imrie would have found something pretty about her, even drenched to the bone and tired. And she was tired. He could see that from here. "Her first, then him."

Dana squeezed his arm so much that it hurt. "Kei, stop listening."

He ran a finger down the crown of her head, to try to soothe her. "It doesn't go away if I do that. And we've got to get out alive, haven't we? For Llyr. For Uncle."

"Is it telling us where to find food?"

"No."

"Or water?"

"Water isn't a problem."

The rain had been thundering down for hours. He'd forgotten what it was like to be dry.

"Shelter?" Dana asked. "Is it going to get us sponsors?"

"No and no."

"Then it won't help us. Ignore it."

He'd been trying. It was starting to feel like too much effort. He kept thinking about Creedence, dispatching Tesla and disappearing into the night with a sudden, silent shock of violence. She'd made it look so easy.

You're learning.

Dana sighed. "I'm your daemon. I'm you. Listen to me!"

She was getting exasperated and so was he. They had never felt so separate. Dana was disappointed that Dannie had gone; as much as she'd been needling her, it had only been to protect him. She'd liked the company. All Kei had been able to think was that it left him as the only target, if someone came across the group. The voice had whispered that that was a good point, and maybe he should have gone for her first.

"Kei, don't make me have to bite you."

She wouldn't anyway. She'd never once bitten him, except when they'd been younger and she'd been able to go from cat to dog and back again and they'd been play-fighting. He nodded to show that he'd heard the warning and lifted his head over the rock again.

"Kei!"

Go on, boy. What do you see?

Rainclouds above, still grey and swollen. Scatterings of rocks all around, some big and wide enough to dwarf a man, some small and likely to skitter away underfoot. In the distance, through the sheet of rain, he could just about make out the line of leaves and branches that signified the valley.

The pair from Six had made their little nest in a dip in the ground, where the rocks parted to make room for a tree that looked older than time itself, spindly and fragile. They'd made their best attempt at a shelter – it was no worse than the one he and Dannie and Tesla had made, and a damn sight better than some of the homes back in Five – and had lined it with a blue plastic sheet so that they weren't sitting in mud. Right now the boy was reclining in there, while the girl sat on guard with her fox-daemon leaning against her legs.

The boy was in a bad way. Whenever Kei peeked he was cradling his arm as if it hurt, and he rarely left the shelter. The girl did, but she didn't go far. He got the impression she was reluctant to leave her district partner. That made him think of him and Feyre; they hadn't been friends, but they hadn't been enemies either. One of the Careers had got her. There wasn't space to be sad about it.