yeah that's hot ( hotties, day 2

Bruises form a mottled pattern up my side. Weeping blood like watercolors, I can't help but press my fingers into the stain. The memory of what it felt like to fly before the falling.

Tried to keep myself from crying, face down in the snow drift. Dirt in my mouth, the sting of heat and salt helping the chill to settle deeper. They found me like that, I chewed on sobs and smiled with lips going lilac. Something about them made me want to be okay. I'm nothing if not an expert at pretending.

I'm fiddling with the edges of my hair, sticking up from sleep and split at their ends. Blunted scissors are not kind instruments. It's about controlling what you can in this big, vast, fuck-off nothing.

We've found a peaceful place, sunlight spilling like omen. At least I think it's sunlight - are they really killing stars up there? Either way, I fucking hate it. Why bother making something beautiful if it's not meant to be ruined.

Fish keeps chewing on Izzy. Hard not to pity the poor thing. He lives a life of starving, of wanting and never having. When I catch Isolde in my peripheries, I start understanding him. So then I pity me too.

Dunno why Inga stayed with us, but I feel a lot safer with her scowling at my face instead of at my back. Easier to watch the blade descend. I'm trying really hard not to be so utterly incompetent she decides to leave. Only tripped over my own feet thrice during this hike, so I'm pretty sure I'm killing it.

"I can! Here I'll-" Izzy's grip tightens when I pull toward the water, remembering the stench of stagnant lakes and the buzz of minnows nibbling my nape. The depths blink back at me, lapping at the jagged edges of the ice. Waving, laughing, jeering. "Swimming's a bad idea, though." The realization comes a little later, after Izzy's turned her back and I've rubbed the embarrassment from my cheeks.

"I wouldn't want to drown. Too slow." I say, when the wind's teeth are too familiar. I'm so cold I'm basically nothing at all. "So if I'm ever drowning, kill me another way first." It's good to have a plan, right? They just might care enough about me to care about how I die.

But, like, I really should have read the room.

"That was morbid. Sorry."

I look between them both, sheepish and smiling. For some reason I'm always smiling when I look at them. "We could play a game? Or something?"

Anything to move on from tombstone talking.

you wouldn't even have to ask. she smiles, our career. wonder if they're all like that.

as in a little vicious, a little bloodthirsty.

or if we got, like, so lucky to pick up the best of the bunch.

that's the difference, isn't it. how hunger's satiated. steal under the hand that feeds, it's what we've always done. hadn't really moralized it. because a girl is sorry, so what? repenting's never made a crime less guilty. i don't judge. but desecration of the dead's a bit different than learning how to kill fresh, isn't it.

"oh swooning, mercy kill me too, babe." cup a heart from my hands in her direction, but Inga goes back to scowling.

yeah, aware that she could. hasn't yet though.

wonder if she's gonna try again today. my back still hurts from the ridges of bones that dug into it from in the pit.

because she's staring at the ice, you know, and just as i'm thinking she's no fun, girl pipes up.

game. "in the water. we could try it."

i'm looking at her, tilt my chin up an inch to stare. i could laugh.

because yeah, i have terrible taste in people. very mindful that red is, in fact, my favourite colour. and i'm thinking how Sera once said my type's just women who could kill me (common), and men who are funnier than me (rare). but even then, i don't suddenly go fucking stupid.

move a bit closer to Sage again, tuck her to my side, arm over her shoulders, lounging.

"yeah, we could try it."

no one moves.

i nod towards Inga. "so why don't you demonstrate." as Panem dictates, i'm gesturing in a half-bow, "upper districts first."

She glances away from them both, holds herself still. She can feel Izzy's stare on the back of her neck, beneath the hood of the jacket and the flannel, precise as ever.

"We could try it. Upper districts first."

Inga eyes her.

She steps lightly, closer to the edge of her ice chunk. It dips a little under the weight. So she pushes her heel down a bit harder, just to test it. Gentle little rocking motion. The front dips, and then the back goes, closer to where the other two are. The water sloshes up against the cold lip.

Hm.

"Traditionally it goes oldest first." And that's directed to Izzy, in a blasé, innocent sort of way. "You don't even have to be able to swim."

You do sort of have to be able to drown, though. Half of being in the water is accepting that the water might kill you. And it might be right for it. Sometimes the only way to hold your breath those extra few winning seconds is to let a little of the dying in.

Idiot #1 intercepts the web, and Inga shrugs. Tries to make it look nonchalant. It's not like she really wanted to play. It's not like she really wanted to drown them.

It's not like she's trying to gauge how slippery the ice makes their perch.

She looks over her shoulder and they're huddled there like stupid fucking penguins.

Inga's a half step away from either cleaving them in two or throwing up.

Something in her jaw grinds.

"I mean, if you're too scared. That's fine. We can keep going, maybe try and find another group."

"Cruel games are still games, I guess."

I think, a little bit, about my girls. Not mine really, but I certainly don't have anyone else now. What's the harm in making them more familiar in my thoughts? They're less lonely that way.

"But it kind of explains why you ended up like... this." I giggle a little, equal parts apologetic and mocking.

Brittle tension is tiring, as are threats of frigid baptism. Neither Izzy or I stand a chance at surviving Inga's game, but there's still a part of me that yearns to play. To see if I can make the shadows in her eyes burn. Ashes beget blossoms.

"Personally my siblings and I opted for more normal shit." My childhood was far from adjusted, but we worked together to survive. The careers are at each other's throats, aren't they? Crowns aren't meant for sharing. Glory is the easiest virtue to steal.

Inga knows how to win, but first we should figure out how we're going to survive.

That's the stuff you can't do alone.

Or maybe you can, but why would you want to?

"Hide and seek... truth or dare." Lit up with a little idea, I smile and it suddenly the warmest part of me. "We can play that! And then Inga has to be a little subtle about the attempted murder."

I nod, sagely even.

"We can still make watery graves if you're attached to the idea. Just for people who aren't me or Izzy. Deal?"