The Beasts of Us [A Hunger Games Fanfic]

ARENA XX. Creedence.

She was stuck.

It should have been so simple! Wait until darkness, then get within striking distance and get Shrill to snap up that pathetic little excuse for a daemon. Easy. It was cold and cruel and callous and Creedence didn't care. She'd seen to the boy from Three herself; she'd pushed that glittering creature from One into a thorn bush and lived. She could do anything. To live, she would do anything.

She'd have to do something else now. Just when she was thinking he was tired enough to actually sleep - sleep deeply enough to not hear her creeping down the tree, anyway - here was the girl from Two, and she didn't seem to sleep at all. Her eyes closed, but that wasn't the same thing. What kind of creatures were they hammering out in that district? Once or twice she'd even looked up. She hadn't seen her, but that wasn't the point. She could have done.

Creed's foot was going numb. She shifted position on the branch as carefully as she could and got Shrill to peck some feeling back into it. As her daemon did that she crumbled some leaves in her palm, chewed on some, and rubbed the rest into her forehead and her uninjured cheek.

The other cheek complained anyway. Her hopes that it would soothe itself quickly had faded; it hurt whenever she moved her face, and she couldn't bring herself to touch it in case the pain was enough to make her cry out. Even breathing was worse than it should have been. She could put up with it, of course, because she didn't have any other choice, but the pain risked distracting her. It was worse than hunger.

By now it was dark, and past the time for pictures if there had been any. What little she could see of the moon was falling. The rain was an ever-present patter that soaked her right to the skin and made what remained of her clothes stick to her as if they'd been glued; the two underneath her had their hoods up, so that until one of them moved it was hard to tell who was who.

Hard, but not impossible. The boy was bigger, thicker set, and sometimes she lost sight of him against the trees even though he hadn't moved and wasn't properly camouflaged. If she was really struggling she could always use the daemons. Or, more precisely, daemon. She'd not seen the boy's at all. It was as if he never had one.

That thought made her shiver, or that could have just been the rain.

It was the boy who was asleep now and the girl who was on watch. Every so often - Creed suspected it was regular as a clock, though she had no way to tell - she would stand up and march in a circle around the tree, her daemon doing the same at what had to be almost his full reach. Then they would sit back down again without a word. Even to Creed, something of a risk taker, it would have been too much of a risk to try anything while they were alert.

As with the boy from Three, the waiting had been the hard part. It didn't come naturally. There was nothing to do, no Peacekeepers to evade or school to not go to, and nobody to talk to but Shrill. Each moment that ticked past seemed slower than the last. It was all she could do not to get bored and go hurtling into a fight. Shrill was just as bad as she was, which made it worse.

After hours, the girl crouched and gave her ally a brisk tap on the knee.

"Charlie?"

The boy from Seven surfaced from his sleep. When he stretched, muscles strained against his jacket. If she'd been the sort to admire a shape like a bulbous carrot Creed might have found it distracting; she'd always preferred them thin and hungry-looking. Plenty of them in Twelve. All of them idiots when they opened their mouths.

"I'm awake," Charlie mumbled.

"Your turn."

Yes. Creed clenched her fingers to keep herself still. Shrill's feathers shimmered excitedly. Just a bit more waiting...