I dare you {DJ Quest ft Shy Guy vs GG vs FBRD day 4}

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It is dusk when I return, a grin just fading from my face and a pair of delivery words in tow. And really, I don't understand why the stupid birds follow me when there is literally nothing keeping them chained down - maybe it's in some unspoken delivery word contract to follow your captor for some strange reason? I sure as hell don't fucking know.

But by the time I reach camp and get all situated and shit, the memories of a joyous afternoon have already faded in the face of the anticipation for tomorrow. Four faces shown in the sky that night - and joining Larceny is a cast varying from the boy from One (who seemed rather timid for a volunteering Career) to the girl from Eight (who I only remember from our chance encounter after the bloodbath) which puts the total death count at six.

Two deaths on average across three days - if that was standard then we'd end up with a Games that lasted for nearly two weeks on end. And if tradition was going to stick, then that wasn't going to happen.

I push the thought from my mind as I dig into my supplies, pulling out a pair of iodine tablets from the bag. Again, my mind drifts to the past, when I had taken the tablets despite being worried that three wouldn't cover all four of us. But that ceased to become a problem really quickly, and after nearly three days on the move, I was too parched to dwell on it.

Wordlessly, I hand one tablet to Auto and deposit the second one into my jug. Waiting for it to work its magic would be the hard part - but I'd rather wait and live than not wait and die because of some tiny disease that would tear apart my insides. God knows that on the long list of ways that I could potentially die in here, that one was near the bottom in terms of preference.

Heh. Already coming up with ways in how I'd like to die. How perfectly fucking dystopian.

"You have a twin back home, right?" Auto's voice surprises me as much as its tone - surprisingly flat for a girl who just hours earlier had been screaming bloody murder. "Do you feel everything that he does, too?"

I had told the Thefts about Jordan, as part of my grand plan to relate with them during the whole politics portion of the Games (because what better way to make someone your friend than to relate with them?) though it was a topic I hadn't really expected would stick. Both of them seemed more preoccupied with each other and wanton destruction than the family life of a boy from Nine.

But I can see why the topic has come up, even if I don't necessarily like its implications. "Yeah, I do," comes the response, after a moment of contemplation. "That'd be Jordan. Is and always was my better half."

Now, I'm not a believer in superstition or psychic twin bonds or anything, but there was no denying that he and I always seemed to be more in tune with each other than anyone else we'd ever met, parents included.

God, I miss him.

"I wouldn't say everything," I began hesitantly, taking each and every word into consideration before I spoke it. "But enough. The important things." Which was true, in a sense. Comes with the package of sharing a womb, I suppose. You're just more in tune with how the other is feeling.

"Do you still? Even so far away from him?"

Heh. Leave it to the kid to ask the fun questions. "Yeah. And no." And leave it to me to come up with the perfectly vague answers. We're quite the team, Auto and I. "I don't feel him the same way I used to. I suppose I'd need to be in his direct vicinity for that to work. But he's still here-" here I tap my chest, right over my heart "-whether I'd like him to be or not." A chuckle, for might as well keep my dry humor on hand for tonight if I'm going to die tomorrow.

Auto may respond, or she may not, I don't know, for my mind's already wandering.

Wherever Jordan is, whether he's watching me twenty four seven or avoiding the television as much as he's able, I worry for him.

And that's why I can't die. Not without fighting my damned hardest first, anyway. If there's one thing that Larceny and I had in common, it's that we'd do whatever it took to protect our twin until our dying breath.

The only difference is that in my story, death isn't the way to do that.

---

When I wake up, my head is pounding something awful. I suppose getting smacked by a piece of debris traveling at terminal velocity would do that to you.

And speaking of that, I must look something terrible. Blood staining my hands, most of it mine, and no doubt staining my head as well. Complete with my ragged shorts, I must look unrecognizable to anyone who knew me back home in Nine.

Now I've never let my pride stop me from doing the safe option or even affecting my own actions, yet I decide that the next time we happen across a body of water, I'm going to take a good, long rinse. Might as well die looking somewhat recognizable instead of like some half man, half muttation abomination.

But there's no water to be found around here, and so Auto and I agree that moving would be the best option. Plus, never stay in the same place too long - you'll almost certainly be happened upon by unwanted attention. Such is Games law.

So we walk. And walk. And walk.

And walk.

Until trees give way to a noise I've only ever heard on television - that of water pounding against earth in rhythmic waves. Not exactly what I'd meant when I said I'd like to find a body of water to wash in, but close enough, I suppose.

Until we reach the edge and I discover that, while the water is indeed acting as most oceans do (I think, anyway, for I've never seen an entire lake in person, let alone the entire fucking ocean), it is doing so

fifty

fucking

feet

below our position.

Well that's just fucking wonderful.

Perhaps it was for the best - I vaguely remember seeing something that said that salt water was bad for the skin or whatnot on some tabloid thing - but I'm not allowed to dwell on it any further, for we've got company.

I turn to receive something sharp in my arm, and as pain courses through my system for the third time in four days, I look into the gaze of someone all too familiar.

You-!

The girl from Eleven looks definitely worse for the wear, though a lot more alive than she'd been the previous day. Like then, her weapon struck out towards me, though this time it's now coated with my blood.

Fiona is behind her, yet my attention is split further at the arrival of yet more shapes on the horizon - and shit, looks like they made friends.

Heh. So this is to be how I die, with a cliff to my back and a quartet of enemies to my front. Well, it was bound to happen one way or another. No one from Nine had won in almost fifteen years, and before the fucking useless toothpaste man lay a drought even longer than this one. Suppose it was too much to get my hopes up after all.

But I have not forgotten my promise from the previous day, and so dutifully I snag a spear from my cache with my uninjured arm. On a whim, I turn towards my assailant, the little girl from Eleven, and speak.

"Now now, is that any way to treat the guy that saved your life yesterday?" I say, as mocking as I can manage without allowing other, less ideal emotions to bleed into my tone. And it's true, sort of - after all, I did make the difficult decision to drag Auto off of her prone form instead of letting her get choked to death. Guess I'll be regretting that now, but oh well.

I briefly consider sending my spear her way, but two things stop me. The first is that, even here, even now, I still don't consider myself the sort to strike kids. I didn't yesterday, and I won't today (which is just fucking perfect, as it looks like one of the second pair is the boy from Two, who looks even younger than the girl from Eleven).

And second, if we're going to be outnumbered two to one, I might as well let Auto have her chance at revenge. It'll motivate her, at the very least, and with any luck she'll make the breakthrough that I never would be able to.

"I'm with you till the end of the line, Auto," I whisper to my plucky young ally. "Now, let's fucking do this."

With as much strength and desperation as I can muster, I hurl my spear to the oldest looking of our four opponents - the girl I'm pretty sure belongs to Six.

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My projectile scrapes across the girl's head, but -surprisingly - it's harder to get a direct hit on the cranium than it is on the torso. Auto follows up by smashing her weapon into the girl's foot, but it's not enough.

Of course it's not enough.

"It's not like I ever asked you to," the girl from Eleven responds to my tease, and of course the girl that I saved was the one who didn't want to be. Thirteen year old volunteer from Eleven - a bit young for a death wish, in my opinion, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It's just my luck, after all.

"You'll suffer too when you kill someone and you have no idea how." There's a bitterness in her words that one wouldn't have expected from someone so small - but after yesterday, I've learned not to underestimate what the youth these days are truly capable of. "It's an endless cycle so maybe you should stop being so damn cheerful about it."

"Oh trust me, I know," I snap back. I immediately regret the outburst, but what can I say? Getting lectured by a thirteen year old while weapons are tearing your arms apart tends to shorten your fuse. "When my ally got savaged by mutts two days ago, they didn't even bother to finish him off. He laid there, a hole in his head and a hole in his chest yet still clinging so desperately to life that if wishes were true he'd still be alive and well today. But when it came down to it, the amount of time he had left was measured in minutes. So I killed him, because if there's one thing I know about suffering, it's that I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy."

I pause, taking a slow breath, than releasing it. Losing my head is the worst thing that I could possibly do at this stage - we're at impossible odds to begin with, having to fight two-on-one, and the last thing that we need is for me to lose my cool. Anger might assist Auto, but all it would do to me is hinder me further.

"I don't hurt kids as a rule," I declared. "Never have, and if I had my way, I never will." It's true - I might put aside my pride at the drop of a coin to do what it takes to survive, but my morals are something else entirely. "But if you're suffering like my ally from Twelve suffered, Eleven - if you want to end it that badly - then you have no shortage of options." So much for keeping my temper in check. "But do not assume that I do not know what it's like to take a life. On that, we share common ground."

It's much more talking than I had ever planned, and apparently it has not fallen on deaf ears.

"Threaten her and you threaten me, not like that already didn't cross your mind, now did it, cockroach?" Predictable - Fiona comes to the rescue of her little friend, in words if not in blades. "Didn't you get my letter?"

"Letter?" I ask, genuinely confused as to what she's referring to. "I don't know what the hell you're-"

HONK.

Oh.

A ruffled-looking delivery word dive bombs out of nowhere, depositing a piece of parchment into my hands. Fiona's shouts fade into the background as I read, and despite myself, I can't help but let out a dry chuckle at the letter.

"Well, you got one thing correct, Fiona," I say, tossing the letter behind me. "Karma most definitely is a bitch. Shame on me for letting Larceny die and saving your friend's life on top of that, right?"

"Why don't you pick on someone from your own district, Maxi-poo, you little shit?"


That confused me - not the insult, because I'd expected that - but the request. "So wait, let me get this straight. In your letter, you say that you're not my punching bag - and yet now you're saying you want me to attack you?"

I can't help but laugh, a dry humorless laugh, that half of our enemies would rather die than watch someone else take the fall, and that Auto and I will likely die to them anyways. "Sounds like quite the crisis if you ask me, so let me know once you get that sorted out." With that, I turn my back towards my district partner - risky, perhaps, but she isn't worth any more of my time.

So I turn back towards the girl from Six, the ringleader of this motley coalition facing us down. Because seriously, who else would it be? Surely not the girl from Eleven or the boy from Two - this was not a plan organized by someone who hadn't quite yet reached puberty yet, and besides, I was sincere in my declaration that I wouldn't go out of my way to hurt a kid. And really? You expect me to believe that my district partner organized this? Hah, give me a fucking break.

So I take another spear out of my cache, and hurl - take down the ringleader, and the sheep will scatter.

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Words fly, and my weapon does too, but they may as well be the same thing for all the good my luck does.

Luckily, Auto is not afflicted by the same curse. As my spear is batted out of the sky by the girl, she rushes in for the follow-up, and the CRACK that resounds is music to my ears.

Heh. No matter what happens to us, at least she'll be feeling it for the rest of her life, however long or short that might be. A little something to remember us by.

But based on how things are going, that might be the only consolation we get in turn. Auto is a fierce little fighter, but the two of us are weak and weary after three days of hardcore fighting, and all the fighting spirit in the world can't change the fact that we're outnumbered two to one by this ragtag coalition that seemingly formed out of nowhere. At this level, we were afforded no mistakes - and I've already dug our chances into the dirt by making some.

Hah. It is so tempting to just give in, just lay down my weapons and let myself be skewered and smashed to pieces by the girls that seem to have had it out for us for the last twenty four hours, or the mismatched pair that they seem to have coerced to their side. I'm not quite sure why exactly we're on the defensive in both the war of words and of weapons when the former pair was the reason behind Larceny's death the other day, but if there's one thing I've learned from watching these damn games year after year it's that logic rarely has a say in how one acts.

Oh well. I pull a third projectile out of my cache and make ready to fling it when both Fiona and her little friend make to take advantage of my weakness.

Off in the distance, I swear I hear Jordan's scream of encouragement. I conclude that I am simply going mad.

But whatever the reason, the attacks seem almost half-hearted, or maybe I've just received a sudden burst of energy. Fiona's polearm is easily avoided on the first swing, and Eleven's war hammer is caught on the shaft of my spear and promptly pushed back.

For a second a flash of triumph sparks within, and then the polearm comes back for another go, catching my neck with razor sharp precision.

But perhaps the fates are not done with me yet, or I've just transferred my luck from the tip of my weapon to my own personage, for while the sting of the thin red line opening on my neck does not go unnoticed, neither does the fact that my spirit still burns fiercely within me. Not yet, I vow. Not fucking yet.

"Hey, Max?" The tonal shift in Fiona's words surprises me, a wavering coolness of a genuine question replacing the fiery barbs that had been flying my way mere moments before. "I really have to know. Do you miss home at all?"

Sympathy for the dead, perhaps? I have no fucking clue - this duo that wasn't satisfied with ending Larceny continues to surprise me at each and every turn.

Perhaps it's the surprise that causes me to indulge, perhaps it's the resentment, I'm not so sure myself. "Never really had an attachment to Nine itself, personally," I admit gruffly. "Didn't have the easiest life before all of this.

"But," I add, before I'm interrupted by a cough. Survival, death, even if we get lucky it'll take time that I do not have to fully recover from this mess. "But I do miss the people. My friends. My parents. My brother, Jordan." My voice nearly catches, for while I had known deep down that I would most likely never see his face again, time and this precipice here certainly haven't helped that fact lose its edge.

"Promise me this, Fiona," I say, sharper now. "If you kill me here-" and I put a great emphasis on the word if, for while stubbornness might be Jordan's signature trait I have a fair amount of it myself, "-I want it to not be in vain. I want you to take the crown all the way back home, and I want you to find my brother and look him dead in the eye and explain to him why you were the reason that I'm not returning home."

Those words drain me more than any tossing of weapons ever had. Or maybe it's just the blood lost catching up with me. Who fucking knows at this point. Not me, that's for damn sure - I'm not omnipresent, I'm just fucking human.

"Not that it matters or anything, but for the record, I'm sorry for attacking you yesterday." It surprises me just how true the statement rings in my voice, given that I had intentionally enacted a strategy of isolation from her to further my own odds of success at becoming the one that sponsors looking to bet on Nine would indulge. But such things have a way of melting away once the big picture comes to the forefront. "I just wanted to protect the kid."

"What's the point of this, guys?" Eleven's shrill voice breaks my concentration on my district partner, and from the looks of things I'm not the only one having an internal crisis. "What is the damn point?"

Girl, if only I knew.

She then spouts words that sound almost akin to an apology of all things, which only serves to further confuse me. Is there some sort of conscience taking over the minds of these two girls at our eleventh hour?

My response to her is succinct. "Don't worry about it," I mutter, hand gripping the hilt of my latest spear. "You're just playing the game, same as the rest of us."

Forgiveness wasn't what I had expected to impart on those that would most likely be the name of my end, but I guess even I can surprise myself sometimes.

I turn away from the girls who time and again have laid their weapons on me, and turn to where Auto is locked in deadly combat with the link we had decided would be most important to break. Anger and rage flies through the air, and it's amazing how such a dichotomy can be enacted in the same overall conflict.

I prime my weapon to throw, same as its cousins, before a thought stops me cold. No.

No. I would not meet my death throwing away my tools of salvation in a vain hope that one will strike true. I would guide that projectile to my opponent with my own hands, even if such a strategy had proven unreliable in the past, and I would die - yes, die - or live with my weapon clasped in my hands like a true fighter would.

So I lower my tool of destruction, clutch it in both hands instead of one, and rush to where Auto is barely holding back her own assault, point directed at my foe.

If this is to be my last, then know this. I am Maxwell Temple, brother to Jordan Temple, resident of the ninth district, and even in this fierce battle against a mighty foe, I will fight to my last breath.

I am Maxwell Temple, and I will not fall of my own accord.

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