if we were villains ✘ threeofwolves, post-bb.

You were targeted.

And by a bunch of lower districts.

You scoff. Whatever the fuck happened to class solidarity? But again, you should have expected less. Should have planned more. As you stalk the halls, dragging the tip of your ice pick against the walls to make a nail on chalkboard sound, you are on a slow hunt for reparations.

Yet only the wind howls back in response as you reach the door to the lodge.

There, a mote of black on white, Rhys Peace. Too far away to chase. You watch him unblinkingly as he and a few tributes get slowly and slowly dwarfed by the giant snowy expanse until, all at once, they are no more.

You grit your teeth, annoyed.

Another day, you tell yourself.

Time is an inexpensive commodity here. They won’t, can’t, stop the timer until only one is left. 

You turn back. Out of all the bruises on your body, the one on your cheek by Rhys Peace aches the most in a painful tempo. Not physically, no, but rather an ego bruise, coupled by a bloodlust and a rage you have harbored for his kind for so long. It is an unbroken anger, the embers of which have smothered for centuries due to unbroken injustice. You made him a promise on the train. You intend to keep it.

Then there were the promises others had made.

Let me take care of you, Lucky’s exact pledge was. You remember holding back a punch as he said it, intent on showing him that you were the furthest creature to need any taking care of, but you forced yourself to hold your tongue then. Take care of me, lucky shot? A wordless chuckle escapes you. Not if I take care of you first. And you, deadshot, had taken good care of many.

You take a step back inside. But the sight and sounds you pick up on hold your foot mid-air. You tilt your head. Stare past the darkness and shadows at a peculiar scene: Lucky and Xylia playing with a groveling boy.

Lionel, wasn’t it?

You pick up two crucial pieces of information then: your alliance choice has been proven right, and so was your instinct to not undermine the careers. But they were polished, fanciful, flaunting. At this crawling rate, you would have taken Lionel’s finger already. Or you would have slit his throat. Instead they chose to, well, take turns spitting on the poor guy.

Great. Fucking great.

Lionel crawls by. You watch on, statuesque as a gargoyle, when the boy passes you. As both of your eyes meet, you only raise an amused brow, almost in question. How did things end up this way, little lion? A moment after the other escaped, or was given the choice to, you step past the rickety doorframe and walk towards your two allies again. At first you say nothing, wearing only a deadpan expression. Then, all of your features twist as you snarl: “if you see my district partner, lay off him. He’s mine.”

The corpse on the floor gathers icicles, eyes blank and frosty. You squat to look at her close up. From Three. You hadn’t  learnt her name and now here she goes, off to a land where nameless spirits roam for eternity, unless she had done a good deed in her years to get reincarnated.

Good deeds were a rarity these days.

You look back at your allies. “So,” the edges of your lips curl upward, “what’s the plan?” Your eyes slide towards. “All good partners of crime should have plans together, no?”

You understand the power this trio has. The high training scores, the blatant disregard for mercy, the need to do whatever necessary. Three flesh hounds on a hunt for blood, you push down the thought of what would happen if the hunger worsened and there was no prey left in this wasteland. Instead, you peek at what was left of this place, the spoils after the brief skirmish.

“Dibs,” one spindly finger of yours rise to point, “on the pointy knives.”

Then warmth explodes, so instantaneously that your hand rears back on its own to prepare a shoot with the ice pick at the source. The fireplace. Embers pop, pop, pop, coloring the lacquered wood of the lodge a dull orange before once again, the cold winds snuff it out. It leaves a faint smoke trail. You look at Lucky, look at Xylia, and then back at the fireplace.

You begin creeping towards it. Step by step, inch by inch, all until you can look down at the smoldering coals and rule them out as harmless.

The relief escapes you in a breath.

“Gamemaker sickos trying to pull a funny prank,” you grumble. And you are about to turn away from you spot lumps in the ashes. You raise one eyebrow. Using the tip of your boot, you kick one and watch as something gets unearthed, the length – the barrel – of it poking out almost invitingly. Oh, heavens.

“Whatever dibs I called, forget it,” you say, reaching down into the pile to extract and then, afterwards, cradle a thing of beauty, compact but well-crafted. You caress its muzzle affectionately.

Click, click, the empty chamber chirps once you try a test load. Your eyes glint gunmetal grey at Lucky and Xylia then, a color not so dissimilar to that of the shotgun you now hold in your hands. You bet it feels right at home there.   

“What do you say we go out and find more trophies to mount on these fuckin' walls?”