bruised not broken {cool kids corner - day 1}

There were little things she couldn’t have prepared herself to see, not in the furthest stretch of her imagination. The sound of bones crushing, the screaming, the sound of the cannon. The way steam oozed from a hot and bloody wound in the dry, cold air. The acrid smell of insides coming out.

Xov had never been so glad to hear her own heart beating. Never so convinced someone was really watching over her from a distance. Her ancestors, or some guardian spirit, if such beings dared to tread here. There was no other way to explain how she was still alive after all that. Even the movements of her hands felt like they had come from somewhere else—a backhanded punch breaking someone’s leg, a slash of her pike sending a fountain of blood from the girl from Seven. Thinking back on it was like viewing herself from the outside, possessed by something beyond her comprehension.

Wind biting her knuckles through the cotton, her hands still clutched Juno’s arm, his knee contorted at an angle that made her stomach turn. Her hold on him was more automatic than actually helpful—he had managed to prop himself up with his pike, using it as a cane to distribute his weight. So courteous, this Juno was. The place where his body weighed lightly on her side was a welcome vestige of warmth. She didn’t want to push him, but every inch of distance they put between themselves and the other tributes felt insufficient.

Like she’d done this morning, Xov made a mental list of the positives. They were still alive. They were together. Even though J was bent and bruised, his knee could maybe be braced. And, though dirt- and blood-stained, the thin fibers of white thread were still wrapped around their wrists, holding their souls intact.

Still, she couldn’t help feeling something was fishy. Juno was easily the more capable fighter, but he’d been badly hurt while she escaped almost entirely unscathed, save for the slice of her cheek Lionel had rudely taken. It didn’t sit right with her bad luck streak, and she wondered it that meant misfortune would soon turn its gaze her way.

Although maybe it had nothing to do with her luck—just Lionel being a total asshole. Xov made a mental note to send his knee pointing backwards if she ever came face to face with him again. Not a bone in her body reveled in others’ pain, but she knew when justice was owed, and that boy had it coming to him.

She needed to focus. The work wasn’t done yet. Hanging around this creepy lodge made her nervous, but they needed to find supplies to do something about J’s wounds.

When they turned a corner that seemed safe enough, Xov’s footsteps slowed to a stop. She stood back to get a good look at Juno’s injury, her eyebrows furrowing with concern as she wished she had found him sooner, so that maybe this senseless attack could have been avoided.

”J,” she began, I’m so sorry I couldn’t get there before he did this to you. That—that prick!” An arsenal of curse words lay dormant under her tongue, itching to be let loose, but she reminded herself her parents were watching.

What had she expected from that boy from Five? Kindness? Decency, maybe? Xov knew she had to get a grip on this new reality—speaking to someone face to face, seeing them as flawed and kind of embarrassing and human, meant nothing after the gong rang. Lionel was just another reminder that no one could be trusted here.

A little voice in the back of her head reminded her this could apply to Juno. Maybe he was hearing that little voice too. But she shook it away like it was the tiniest, most inconsequential thing, a fly landing on a horse. She had already made up her mind about trusting him. Caring for him right now was what anchored her to the present.

”How do you feel? Maybe we should try to brace it with something? Just… tell me what I can do to help.” Palms turned upward, her eyes scanned the ground for anything that might be useful.