¹ THRONE ─ the hunger games

[ 009 ] teeth to canines

SOMEHOW, THE MEAGRE TWO HOURS OF SLEEP Iko got the night before the first group training session with the other tributes didn't feel like a death sentence when her eyes snap open to the sound of footsteps outside her bedroom door. Instinctively, her hand reaches under her pillow for the steak knife she'd claimed the night before. Three sharp knocks siphoned through the silence as her fingers close around the hilt.

"Rise and shine, Iko! It's a big day!" Aeneas chirped, voice muffled by the door.

Irritation blazed through her nerves. Iko had half a mind to throw the knife at the slab of wood and see if the blade could at least nick Aeneas in the eye. But, because harming her district escort might result in an immediate disqualification, or other worse consequences, Iko only held onto the knife for a moment longer with an iron grip, testing the weight in her palm, and mimed throwing it at the door just to actuate her imagination—a morbid picturesque, of the knife sinking into the wood down to the hilt, of the blade somehow skewering Aeneas right between the eyes, of the blood pooling in dark crimson on the floor, seeping under her door like ectoplasm—before releasing it and rolling out of bed.

The knowledge that she could, if she really wanted to, if she let her self-control slip just a little, was enough to placate her for the moment. Her eyes slid to the clock on her nightstand. Seven in the morning. The numbers glared back at her in the dark, red and pulsing and searing into her irises.

In no time at all, Iko found herself clocking into the military-indoctrinated regime of the day. Back home, it wasn't uncommon for kids who attended the academy to be early risers. Routine, and the importance of structure, of order, of respect and all such military qualities were drilled into the children of District 2 from the moment they could comprehend behavioural patterns. When your future lay within either one of the big two prospective jobs of the district—Career tribute or Peacekeeper—watertight organisation was everything. Without complaint, Iko got ready as she felt herself kick into autopilot mode. In the bathroom, she scrubbed her face of exhaustion, pulled on the training uniform—a simple, black shirt and black pants made from a sort of stretchy material, and brand new combat boots—that Janus had sent to her sometime in the previous evening. Under five minutes, she was out of her room, letting an Avox pull a chair out for her at the dining table where a buffet of breakfast food were piled on serving trays.

"Morning, Iko," Evander said, flashing her a bright grin. The sheer wattage made her blink, nonplussed, scrambling for words on her tongue.

"Hi," Iko said, a beat too late, as she piled on scrambled eggs and possibly more slices of bacon than socially acceptable.

It went without saying—everything that came free in the Capitol, Iko would make capital out of. It's what she was owed. The only time she's ever had bacon was at Alex's house. In her own, breakfast was whatever meagre leftovers from dinner her mother could salvage, usually accompanied by an in-depth criticism of her achievements, based on the reports the trainers from the academy sent home. She'd stopped eating breakfast at home three years ago, and, instead, rose before the sun, stole fruit from the vendors in the local market, and cut through the district straight to the training academy and threw knives until her hands bled before it was time to get to school. There was no way to make her mother happy, and there was no way to make her understand that she was already the best. No way to make her believe in her own daughter. But Iko didn't need her mother's assurance. She found her own in the sick thud of the knives finding their homes in the bullseyes and the panic flickering in her opponents' eyes when they realised there was no fighting their way out of her chokeholds.

What had her mother known about her training, anyway? What had her mother known about anything at all, considering she was never good enough, back in her day, to even be considered a candidate for the Games? The selection process was cruel. Brutality marked a Career tribute. Brutality, ruthlessness, and an edge that most people seemed to lack. Her mother hadn't made the cut. But Iko did. One would think that might make the woman ease up on her, but it had the opposite effect.