¹ THRONE ─ the hunger games

[ 023 ] you've settled your score

SILENCE. It followed them through the forest even as Titus and Sage had dragged Opal into taking sides on their argument neither Iko nor Alex had the patience to listen to. At one point, Titus ripped out a red leaf and crushed it between his hands. It bled white sap and he immediately shook it off, lip curled in disgust.

Between the two District 2 tributes there existed a distance so palpable even taking a sword to the block between them couldn't break the ice. Truth was, Alex had nothing to say to Iko. Even if he did, he wouldn't know where to start. There was something unsettling about the way she could brush off what she'd done without batting an eye. Claiming a life was inevitable in these Games, but to do so with such cruelty, such inhumanity—Alex couldn't see past the blood speckling her face anymore. Taking a life wasn't easy, but it was a job they were committed to if they wanted to win. Do it quick, he'd promised himself. Do it honourably.

But Iko clearly enjoyed the savage brutality in taking her victims apart, revelled in their pain. He could see it in her face. Could see it in the way the tension knotting in her body like the dark twist of a forest slowly unwound as she found catharsis in the violence.

Only once had he glimpsed the kind of monster that Iko could be. It was a few years ago, right after the Academy had decided that Iko and Alex had gotten too close for comfort and had subsequently reallocated them new partners to counter their manifest symbiosis. Iko's new partner was a boy whose bark measured deadlier than his bite. His name was Mason, and not only was he never going to make it to the Games with his attitude, he was dragging Iko down with him. Knowing Iko couldn't stand him, Alex had jokingly suggested she get rid of him to score herself a more competent partner.

He didn't think she'd take his words seriously.

He should've known better.

It happened when their trainer, Minerva, had pitted partner against partner in a sparring session with swords. Not a fight to the death, but just enough for one of them to tap out and concede.

Mason was bigger than Iko, but he wasn't as fast, and he certainly didn't see Iko's viciousness the way everyone else saw it. In retrospect, Mason had only been Iko's partner for three weeks, and he should've noticed it. He should've been more careful. He should've known Iko always got her way. Always. At first, it appeared that Mason might win—Iko was always thrown by the weight of a sword, and never turned to it as a first option as a weapon of choice. But then things took a deadly turn when Mason laughed at her for missing the mark. Alex saw the flare in her eyes and he knew, instantly, that it was over. Rage was a weapon. Rage had lent Iko a renewed strength, determination etched into the lines of her face, her movements quicker, more agile, more ferocious. She was going to devour Mason. She was going to make him hurt. And when the sword fight ended with Iko's sword coming down so fast there was no possible way to block it or roll out of the way, all they saw was blood and bone and Mason, writhing on the floor of the combat ring, clutching the stump of his knee.

Till this day, Alex couldn't get the sound of bone crunching and Mason's horrific scream tearing through the gymnasium out of his head. It echoed in his ears now, a reminder of what Iko could do. What she was.

That day, Mason lost his leg and never returned to the Academy. His future was crippled, and so was he.

Iko had been put under review, but the trainers had fought for her to stay, constantly covering for her, constantly protecting their top student.

That was when he understood. In her drive and determination, Iko hadn't just cut herself down to fit into the skin of monster—that alone wasn't enough—but excised every shred of remorse from the soft parts of her until she was sharp as the knives in her hands, forcing those around her to rise to the challenge or get left in the dark.