draw the cat eye, sharp enough to kill a man {day four}

All night I keep my palm to my chest. There is a stranger sat amongst us, a new obscure scent who I apologies to for the lack of conversing. Elle has joined us in the aftermath, but I guess amongst the fast pace of the arena, everything must move so much quicker than it does back home. A month-long grieving period, a day of celebrating the life lost. There is no time for that here. The gamemakers are hurrying us along, soon the sun will rise, and the fight will begin again.

All for what exactly?

It is what I ask Ripred in our morning appointment.

I hope you grant Fenrir his wishes, wherever you have brought him. His wishes must have been far stronger than the prayers I have laid on you these past couple of days. Keeping them all alive and well, why did you not listen to me? If there is something greater that you have planned for them, why not show me your agenda? Now you have presented me with Elle. Another name to add to my prayers. How exactly am I meant to protect them when I do not know what your plans are? Just tell me! Just show me anything! I feel like there is nobody listening to me.

I have the one unscented candle lit this morning; I do not deserve to begin the day with the pleasant aromas of the collection in my satchel. Even my own stomach is self-punished, it yearns for tender juicy meat but instead its groans are barely tamed with the green leaves of some edible plants I picked two days ago.

”Are either of you thirsty, I have some water left?” I say as I offer the rest of my goblet. ”Today is a new day, even the sun is trying to escape through the clouds. We need to keep moving, we made a promise.” I throw everything into my satchel, the provisions seems to be shrinking, all I have left of first aid is a measly roll of bandages and a handful of painkilling flora. Today is the first morning where I have not noticed a new change to my body, the same heightened senses, extra hairs, and claw like nails that cause all ten of my fingers to ache with their weight. This is one strange form that Ripred has painted for me or maybe it is just a gamemakers trick.

Leading the pack out of the caves, this time I let my nostrils take us on a journey. Do I track us towards or away from the enemy? Familiar scents intertwine with new ones. This is the fourth day here and we have barely come face to face with most tributes since the bloodbath. A part of me wants to face those creatures of the lake again, at least we all walked away from that one.

We are back to the falls where the red strong-smelling water crashes against ragged rocks. I trudge through ankle deep mud, each step leaves behind a print in the moist turf. There is no time to hide my tracks, not when there are already others on it.

”Did you not listen to what I said yesterday, about leaving us?” Maybe this is a blessing from Ripred but I have been taught that revenge is a sin. Yet so is murder…Fenrir’s killer is the first to swipe with his claws, so I guess this is just self-defence now as I wipe the blood from my arm. ”I guess you being here means Ripred has a plan for you too.”

I don’t sleep, despite the numb fatigue in my bones. My sharpened teeth and pale skin embrace the cool of the night which keeps me awake for all hours. Something hums inside of me, beneath the surface, seeking refuge in the darkness. I feel like the moonlight should make me stronger, but it just saps my energy furthermore.

I wonder if it’s just another side effect of the injected serum, the up and down of my foreign body.

Know it’s something much more complicated than that.

The space next to my curled body is occupied by a new stranger. My skin prickles. I don’t trust her words, her smirk, her blonde hair that still looks flawless despite four days of this torture. She’s just like the other Careers back home – stubborn and cocky and too used to the world always giving her what she wants. Every time she opens her mouth, I have to contain an eye roll.

In theory, two Careers teaming up makes sense. We should know each other better than anyone else in here, a shared camaraderie strengthening a blossoming friendship. It’s too bad I’m only about half of a Career. Nicoli probably suspects as much already – I’m not the polished, refined assassin a Bellisario should be. Fenrir saw right through me straight away. But the stakes are different now. There’s a different beast to impress. Any weakness of mine will only be a strength of hers.

So I bite my tongue and clench my fists and try not to speak out of turn, harder than I’ve ever tried before.

No. I don’t trust Elle – some pretty girl who waltzed on in and expected to fill the space that Fenrir left. I don’t trust her now, and I won’t – not until time gives me a reason to.

I pray time doesn’t give me a reason to, because I’m exhausted and don’t want to fight today. But as the last few days have proven, prayers mean nothing in here.

When the clearing fills with more people, I’m not even surprised. I just raise an eyebrow, eyes wide with realisation because I know these fuckers. The scent of Fenrir hangs thick in the air, and the snarl that comes from my throat is animalistic and grotesque.

“Haven’t you done enough? Why can’t you just leave us the fuck alone?”

I take a step towards the killer – blade raised, eyes blazing. There’s no doubt in my mind – I’m going to kill the motherfucker.

But then I hear it. Soft but sharp. Fenrir’s voice in my head, my ears, “don’t do anything stupid.” A tug at my heart begs me to listen to him. I desperately want to.

But then I see the gaping mouth of a dark cave. I see Fenrir’s bloodlust gaze and the dying pulse of his veins reflected there, shining dimly.

I see claws embedded into an eye socket, blood and blood and blood everywhere.

And I don’t really want to listen anymore.

Nicoli and Elle slash at the boy and my heart aches with every retaliation. Someone is going to die, again. Nicoli shoulders most of the hits as the girl from the other side creeps towards Elle – wolf on vampire, stranger on stranger – and I have to choose.

Protect Nicoli, or protect Elle?

In the end, it doesn’t matter where I strike. I couldn’t protect Fenrir – why the fuck should I think I can protect anybody else?

Heightened senses, there comes a negative to my newly acquired abilities. The pain is just as intensified. They are both shredding me, piece by piece. Fenrir’s killer is the harder hitter, barely missing the critical hit on my throat. All my life I have been the punching bag and battering ram. I am supposed to take pain but the now counterfeit life of the Rasoios is nothing compared to my predecessors’ time. I have never felt pain like this before.

One hand clings onto my neck and the other keeps my weapons drawn. In the millisecond between hits, there is a moment to make sure Ace and Elle are okay. Ace looks untouched while our new ally is taking a beating from the rather loud vampiric girl that questioned Ripred’s logic. At least she is not the only one to do so...

”Ace, it is time for you to make me a promise…” The bodyguard is falling, my promise to Fenrir is filling with cracks but maybe Elle’s arrival was not just a coincidence. It may be soon my time with Ripred and despite the lack of twenty-four hours with the new career ally, I am sure she is a better protector than I am. ”Please light my candles for me when it is my time to go.”

I say it loud so that they can hear but a gasp skips from my lips after I speak. It reminds me of the time I overcame pneumonia as a child, my lungs are just as heavy as they were then. The crashing sound of the falls is so enhanced, making up for my now spinning vision.

The door may be opening but I am not ready to step through it just yet.

Ripred granted me with these gifts and these new friends. Just a handful of days is not enough time. But why did Ripred bring this boy into our paths for a second day? Ripred!? What’s your logic?

Nicoli endures blow after blow from the other pack, struggling to hold himself together as he falls apart. My blade is busy trying to find purchase on the wolf-girl’s skin. It finds her cheek on a poorly weighted swing – not good enough, never good enough – and I’m halfway done reprimanding myself, preparing to aim straight at her heart, when I hear another sharp set of claws to my left breaking through skin once more.

A familiar whine punches the air.

It’s déjà vu, it’s happening again, it’s just going to keep. fucking. happening.

Everyone leaves me when they finally realise how fucked I am. When the curiosity of unpredictability wears off, it’s plain to see I’m just a broken record, stuck in a time loop where I’m forced to recycle the same anxious thoughts, the darkest fears of my heart.

The threat of losing yet another person from my life paralyses me. A familiar hand reaches for my neck – a hand that cannot be seen, but whose black presence trickles deep into my bloodstream. It holds me tightly, too tightly, I want to go home.

Realise I’ve made my home here.

Realise the only way to change fate – something I’m constantly trying to predict, despite the lunacy of such a feat – is to do the very thing I don’t want to do.

Lucky for me, breaking habits is what I do best.

The noose of the hand slips slightly, and my feet rush out from under me to find Nicoli and hold him upright.

“Please light my candles for me when it is my time to go.”

No, no, no no no, we are not doing this again.

Elle is feral as she comes to stand next to me, shoulder by shoulder, and I wonder if I look the same. I feel like I’m barely holding onto the last string of my sanity, but at least my eyes aren’t blazing like hers at all of the bloodshed. Yet she’s still sane enough to be the voice of reason our duo desperately needed. “Why are we lighting candles? None of us are dying.”

I mimic her sentiment, parroting back to Nicoli as I place my hand over his own in a futile attempt to stop the blood streaming from his neck. “Haven’t you realised yet? I’m the last person who can keep a promise.” I shake my head at him, at myself, trying to stop the onslaught of my own cruel thoughts. I don’t plan to keep his promise, because I refuse to let myself wander down that path of possibility.

“None of us are dying,” I echo it, whisper it, pray that it travels to the right places of this dark arena. Somewhere that will keep us safe.

All the while, the attacks keep coming. Elle lashes out at Fenrir’s killer again and again, and yet every swipe against his skin seems to cause the wolf-girl even more pain than he. As if some type of voodoo magic, mind-linking shit is at play right now. She growls, barely intelligible, desperate in her attempts to protect.

The realisation comes to me: in her rebirth, she is not herself. In this form, she is weaker than us all.

Curious.

“Hey wolfie! I have news for you,” I’m right here, Nicoli,

“You’re putting your faith in the wrong fucking monster.”

She should know the sad truth of reality: all we have is ourselves.

I have seen lame dogs dispatched in back alleys before. A guard dog that has lost its bark or the much-loved family pet whose old age has become a burden. Ripred never discriminates when it is time. The unlikely murdering boy from District Ten has the bolt gun to my head while the other guy has his finger over the trigger. Ace and Elle are trying to push them away, but Ripred has tight reins on them both. Maybe the pain will ease if I just accept it but that is just selfish on my part. Other lives are relying on mine.

Elle is quick to brush away my fate and Ace refuses it. For once, others are actually fighting for me. I have been brought up as the family shield. Fodder in the family tree, a branch that can be easily snapped but there are plenty of others to climb onto.

They have the will to fight for me. Maybe I should have a little more fight left inside me.

Except Ripred has chosen me today. The door is creaking open, and the light is shining through.

Elle is a clear perfect replacement, a battering ram straight out of the gates. I respect her determination and there is a little trust that she will drag Ace along the home straight with her. I can accept that fate, even if Ripred has already written that one of them will return to me.

”This won’t be the last time we see each other. I will remember to wait for you on the other side. Even you.” I direct the final words to the wreck of a guy that has been tearing me up. ”It is a place where sins are forgiven.” One last ounce of strength, either to pull the door shut or to push it wide open. My left hand still cradles my bloodied neck while my right continues with the fight. Sweat is rinsing with blood across my brow, soon my body will be ready to throw in the towel.