The Bloodbath

The sky is an electric mix of orange and yellow, streaked with pink brighter than Holland's hair beneath the fluorescent lights of their algebra classroom. It's the last sunset Maeve Idlewild will ever see. She knows this. She tries to appreciate it fully and completely, to remember the colors well enough that when she closes her eyes for the last time tomorrow she'll be able to see this sky on the inside of her eyelids. There's something about the knowing that makes it easier in some ways because at least she can sit and devote her attention without worrying about anything else, but in other ways the knowing just makes it all more difficult. The crying, for instance. It's the knowing that makes her cry.

She feels like she shouldn't sleep. She can... well, she can sleep when she's dead. "Ha ha," she tries to laugh to herself, but it just sounds pathetic in the dark. The moon outside her window judges her for it. They both know it's not funny, but it would have been kind to pretend. She turns away and stares at the door, wondering if someone will come for her now that she's gone quiet. If no one could hear her manic tap dancing then maybe someone will hear her silence instead.

It's not until someone actually walks by the door that she starts to worry about the sticky notes on the wall and what the peacekeepers might do if they saw them. "Let them see," she mutters stubbornly, but she's already getting to her feet and running her fingertips across the acid green edges of the tiny squares, doubting her confidence. She was smacked upside the head for attempting to speak earlier. Twice. Hard. Those failed words surely pale in comparison to this display...

Over the course of the next thirty minutes she pulls down dozens of the sticky notes before putting them right back up again, telling herself that now is her chance to be rebellious and defiant. She pulls them down again and puts them up. Down and up. Down and up. Down and up. Another set of heavy footfalls thud down the hallway outside and soon she has every square of paper stuck one on top of another, as if it were a brand-new pad of sticky notes whose fanned and crooked edges were only a little suspicious in their imperfection. Putting them in the left pocket of her dress, she goes to work sweeping up the unsalvageable remains of the mechanical pencil — blowing the crushed dust of it underneath the cot and hiding the larger pieces beneath the length of the fitted sheet that's pushed against the wall.

It's not long after that someone finally does open her door, the train reaching its final stop as she's led outside to the platform and almost immediately into an underground tunnel. The walk is long and uneventful. The boy with the limp must be somewhere behind her because she doesn't see him up ahead, but she doesn't look back to check. There's nothing to see here and she misses her window, even if it was small and didn't open. Even if the only thing she could see was a blur of trees and a moon that made fun of her. And her last sunset.

Closing her eyes, she allows herself to be guided along and focuses her ever-dwindling energy on recalling that fiery sky. It takes all of her effort not to think about pink hair again. She hardly notices when they finally exit the tunnel into a more complicated network of catacombs, except for the part where the air suddenly smells a little fresher and how depressing that is considering where they've arrived. The peacekeepers lock her inside what amounts to being little more than a cage. After that nothing much happens for hours and try as she might not to waste the end of her life, she falls asleep.

She wakes to a heavy pile of something being dropped on top of her from between the bars, along with a pair of black leather boots. "Get changed. I've gotta take a piss." The gray coveralls aren't made for a skinny teenage girl and the excess fabric flops around at her wrists and ankles. Doing her best to tuck the ridiculously baggy pant legs into the tops of her boots, she rolls up the arms of the sleeves as well as she can before realizing that this is it. This is one of the last things they can take away. Sunsets. Her family. Her life. Sure, that's all obvious and overwhelming enough that she hasn't quite been able to process it yet, but there's a difference between the things she knows in a big, inevitable kind of sense and the smaller things that feel easier to believe. Here, now.

Smoothing her hands over the fabric of the sundress in her lap, she stares at the ruffled white socks she stuffed into her tap shoes. Her stupid tap shoes that she doesn't even like, but that she liked using to make other people feel bad so she could trick herself into thinking that was another way of her feeling better. There have been plenty of times when she wanted to throw them away herself. Now it just feels completely weird. Soon that peacekeeper will come back and he will take her tap shoes away and, just like that, they'll be gone. Forever. She frowns, balling her useless fists up in the sundress, and suddenly remembers the pad of sticky notes in the pocket.

It only takes a few minutes to stick them all up on the bars of her cell. It looks even more ridiculous than her ill-fitting coveralls — this medieval cage papered in sticky notes, making the intimidating iron bars look like bright green ruffles. One final ugly dance costume, perhaps, for the world's worst tap shoes. "What's he gonna do," she asks herself, jittering with nerves as she waits for the peacekeeper to come back from his piss, "kill me?"




She's started unsticking a handful of the paper notes before resticking them three separate times by the time the peacekeeper comes back to yell at her, thwacking the the bars of the cage with a baton as shiny and black as her patent leather tap shoes. Neon green papers flutter free with each hit, scattering their rebellion all over the ground and making the man curse and curse and curse as he has to crawl around to gather them up. The intimidation is enough that Maeve complies when she's told to take those fucking things down, but she still breaks out into more than one nervous smile of pride as she does so. She did... something. Something stupid and useless and great. She feels great. Maybe for the last time. She can't regret that.

Sticky notes and tap shoes confiscated, she feels hollow as she waits. And she waits. And she waits for the waiting to reveal itself. When the hydraulics start raising the cage up through the levels of the catacombs to the colosseum above it's —

Terrifying.

Gripping the bars, Maeve presses her forehead to the iron and leans back, desperately trying to use the small weight of her body to hold the gate of her cell closed. She's not ready. No one cares. The gate, perhaps most of all, does not care. It opens when it decides to open and she falls away as if it never noticed she was holding on because caring was not one of the things it was forged to do.

It is only the promise of feeling sunlight on her face one last time that convinces Maeve to step out from the shadows of the archway. The sand shifts awkwardly beneath the soles of her boots, reminding her of being a child on the playground and running until the she fell, then getting back up and running some more because falling wasn't fun and fun was what she was there for. Nothing else feels like a playground here, but plenty of things feel like falling.

There are peacekeepers in the stands above — she cannot see their faces, but she recognizes their uniforms well enough. With each step she takes, she can't help but to fix her attention upwards, turning in slow circles in an attempt to see them all. Despite being at the center of everything it still feels like somehow all of this is about them and the scary sound of their boots walking down the hallway outside her room last night. All that white is too bight in the morning sun. It's disorienting after being underground. She closes her eyes and tries to think of twilight and orange and yellow and... and pink.

She opens her eyes and notices the sword jutting up from the sand in front of her. It watches her back. It asks: Are you weak, Maeve? Are you courageous? Will you run from the sound of a peacekeeper's footsteps or will you refuse to surrender your tap shoes and stomp until everyone else relents? It looks heavy, despite the wooden handle. The blade is steel. A blade like that blade will not be easy for her to carry. She names the sword Roux and scowls at it, resenting it for everything it thinks it has the right to demand from her in the same breath it taunts her with how she isn't good enough for it. Even if she tries, she doesn't believe she can lift such a heavy thing.

Just across the way from her sword is another, standing self-assured in the sand waiting for the boy nearby to reach out and claim it as his own. He's younger than the one she boarded the train with, but still much larger than her. That's not hard. His cheeks are soft and when he notices her staring his eyebrows raise as if each one is trying to bend itself into a question mark. Both of them hesitate and Maeve's breath catches in her throat as if it were a physical thing she could choke on. From here she cannot see what kinds of experiences live in his eyes the same way she could when she stood on the train platform with the boy from her own district. The only thing she can see in him is her own uncertainty.

For all she knows he might be a mirage of her fear, but the sword swears that he's real. Maeve's fingers hesitate, skimming through the air around the hilt as she tells herself to touch it! before jerking her hand back as if it might scald her. Then she tries again. Fails, again. She swallows and holds her other hand out in a universal gesture for stop! Don't you dare come any closer! "My name is Maeve Idlewild!" She calls out to him, trying her best to project her voice without also projecting her fear. "I have a twin sister! And a cat! It —" She doesn't know what to say. Everything sounds lame, as if she has forgotten all personal information she ever knew about herself. "It peed on my shoes and so I had to wear tap shoes yesterday! In front of, like —" Trying to mimic the same funny dancing moves she did at the reaping yesterday when one of her friends gave her a wtf, Maeve??? face, she almost trips on her own feet and faceplants in the sand. "— everyone. Have you ever had a crush? Do you know what it's like —" Urgh. Cringing, she almost gets lost in her own tangent until there's a small shift in the boy's stance that jolts her back to the present. "— for your crush to see you in tap shoes?" The odds of coming back from that must be worse than the odds of coming back from this arena.

"I've been tap dancing for pretty much always, but I'm not very good at it! I don't even... I mean, honestly, I don't even like it! But my dads — Abiram! and Mordecai! — they always wanted me to be a dancer! So even though I didn't like it, they liked it! And I liked that they liked it so I kept doing it because... because you know, family. Family and... and..." Trailing off she tries her best to think of a way to end that sentence in a way that's emotional and moving enough to convince someone to spare her life. Stomach twisting as the boy's foot shifts suddenly in the sand once more, her eyes dart to the sword. Do it! Roux screams as Maeve's heart pounds and pounds and POUNDS. The hand that has been hesitating over her ability to touch the weapon's hilt without getting burned, let alone manage to pull it free from the sand, looks more like a panicked snapping turtle than any part of her body at this point. GIRL. Get! That! Sword! Her palm connects with the hilt and she grunts with the effort of pulling it free from the ground, but suddenly it's in her hands and careening barbarically through the air as she tries to gain control of it's momentum.

"UuurraaahhhrrraaaAAAAWWWRRRR!" She screeches, trying her best to sound savage so that the boy across from her might find her threatening. Instead she just sounds... CRAZY. It's a very effective secondary method of being threatening and as she wheels around in a manic circle for the third or fourth time, it becomes obvious that he's backing away. It's what she wanted, but that doesn't mean she knows what to do next. Sword in hand, she does what Roux would do and runs.

The sky is an electric mix of orange and yellow, streaked with pink brighter than Holland's hair beneath the city streetlights flickering on above them. It was quiet for a long, long time after the two of them said all of the things they've been avoiding these past few weeks, both of them trying to hold onto the idea of a perfect relationship in their heads when everything was a lie. Roux and Maeve not getting along was never going to be fixed by getting Maeve together with Holland. She knows this. It's the knowing that makes her cry. All of it would have just been one more excuse for her sister to avoid her and spend as much time as possible with someone else.

Despite the silence following their confessions and despite Roux's tears, Holland had stayed. She picked at the grass and built the remains into small towers on the ground. When those grew too tall and fell she began rearranging them into crude little attempts at houses, constructing an entire town, before trying to convince a ladybug she found to move into one of her creations. The ladybug would go inside at first and then come right back out, like a real estate tour that wasn't going very well. It was almost nice if Roux only looked at the grass and the ladybug and Holland's hands. Not at her.

Roux's dads never showed up, but she kept waiting just in case. Eventually Holland pulled a peanut butter and sugar sandwich out of her backpack and shared half. It was weird. Not just because the sugar was unexpected and kind of A Choice, but because the presence of this person that Roux kept trying to blame for more than her fair share of problems was a little bit comforting to have around. For all of Roux's friends, none of them had tried to comfort her. No one wanted to get involved with this kind of tragedy and that was fair enough — her friends weren't really those kinds of friends. She has quantity, not quality.

The hours passed without any sense of requirement for interaction. Roux just stared blankly at the empty air while Holland played with grass or rolled over to read a comic book or dumped her pencil case out on the ground to sharpen things one by one before tucking everything back inside. The earlier tension was gone by the time Roux finally spoke again. "I should go home."

Holland nodded absently, her head bobbing in a slow, steady rhythm. "I can walk with you. Or sort of just... nearby, even."

Nothing changed in Roux's expression. She just blinked a few times. "Yeah. Okay."

That's how they ended up on the front porch of Roux's house together, Holland awkwardly pushing at the empty porch swing while Roux watched as if there were actually something to see. It's late, but neither of them know what to do with themselves now. All of the windows are dark enough to make it obvious that the house is empty. Wherever her parents are, the pit in her stomach knows they're not coming home tonight.

For the first time in her life, Roux is scared of her own home. She feels like she shouldn't sleep, but the idea of sitting awake and alone tonight in a house that's empty except for infinite reminders of Maeve just feels —

"Will you..." Roux trails off, unable to say it.

"Sure," Holland responds without knowing how the question ends. If Roux wants she'll stay, she'll go, she'll apologize again, she do anything.

Roux shakes her head because it's not that kind of question. It's harder than all of that. "Will you help me clean her room?" Despite trying to hold it back, there's obvious surprise on Holland's face. "There's stuff I don't want our dads to find, but I don't think I can throw it away on my own."

"Sure," she repeats in the exact same voice as before.

Upstairs, Maeve's room is a carefully calculated mess. Collages of old photos and neon sticky notes cover the walls in snarky commentary and snippets of brooding poetry, while stacks of books and clothes are scattered across the floor. The only things actually hanging in the closet are what must be ten years of old dance costumes — enough stretch sequins, tulle, and crushed velvet to dress every child in the district. There's an entire shelf of satin top hats arranged small to large and an umbrella stand filled with different sizes of canes; it's like a height chart of sorts, each one tagged Maeve, age 5. Maeve, age 6. Maeve, age 6 and 4 months. Maeve, age 7.

Holland looks around awkwardly, chewing on her bottom lip. This is the first time she has truly looked at Maeve Idlewild and not just thought about her twin sister. It's an overwhelming amount of personal information all at once, not just to see so many books with titles that match the ones on her own shelves at home, but to see the full span of someone's life so clearly in a single moment. Something clenches in her chest and she tries to turn her eyes to the ceiling for a reprieve, only to find it covered in glow-in-the-dark stars that have been grouped into constellations of Maeve's own making. The BEAST is scrawled next to a kind of smiley face with many fangs and Roux's Worst Haircut titles a screaming stick figure with jagged hair. There's a cluster of random shapes named Bad Math Math Bad, another constellation called Baby Teeth, and then there's a grouping of stars that have been colored on with a pink highlighter, ♡ Holland Ramsden ♡ scrawled beneath.

There's nowhere to look that doesn't ache. Roux clears her throat to give Holland an excuse to look away from the pink stars she's been staring at for much longer than she thinks she has and then shakes a plastic garbage bag open. "There are, uh, two cigar boxes under the bed. One of them is filled with notes — leave that one alone. The other one has some fake joints and a lighter and stuff like that in it. That one goes in the bag."

"Fake?" Holland asks, eyebrows furrowing in confusion as Roux tries to force a laugh that just comes out as weird noise. Holland frowns. They both know it's not funny, but it would have been kind to pretend.

"Yeah. There's, um, well, there's gonna be a trend."

Over the course of the next thirty minutes they put the cigar box, three different vodka bottles filled with water and rubbing alcohol, and dozens of empty cough syrup bottles inside the garbage bag. They flip through book pages and drawers of old test papers and find a handful of drafts for fake suicide notes, all of the worst parts erased to smudges and written over in a silly mad-libs style. The margins are all filled with things about Maeve telling herself off for being too chicken to even pretend. There's also a badly forged pharmaceutical prescription with no explanation that they can find. After that they search through bins and piles of clothes and under the mattress for anything else they can find. There's not much more — a mint tin filled with white powder that smells too sweet to be convincing and some tiny unlabeled bottles that are probably supposed to imply something horrible, but don't. Roux throws away a jar of rubber cement and a bottle of white craft glue, just for good measure.

Holland started crying at some point in the middle of it all, both of them pretending it wasn't happening.

It takes some effort to ensure the bag filled with Maeve's cries for attention is buried well enough in the alley dumpster that they won't be worried about it getting dug up by a fluke raccoon or something. Afterwards the two girls sit silently in the living room. It's only after Roux has clearly dozed off, her arms clutching a throw pillow and her face buried in an arm of the couch, that Holland dares to ask a question that has been systematically tearing her insides to bits. "Why does Maeve have all that stuff in her room?" There is no answer. She keeps crying until she falls asleep.

They wake to blankets tucked around their shoulders and mugs of steaming tea waiting for them on the coffee table. One of Roux's dads kisses her forehead and strokes her hair, Holland doesn't know which one, before he crouches down to whisper explanations and apologies for their absence. The word jail hangs in the air and Holland does her best not to eavesdrop, but overhears a lot of it anyhow. "You did the right thing, dad," Roux assures him.

"Who's your friend?" He tries to ask softly enough not to be heard.

"Holland Ramsden," Roux tells him, the corners of her mouth strained. It's obvious from the flicker of surprise crossing her father's face that everyone in this household was familiar with the name of Maeve's infamous crush, not just her sister.

"I should go," Holland says as the cat jumps up onto the armchair with her, sensing sadness and offering the comfort of cuddles.

"Yeah," Roux replies, "you probably should. But you don't have to."

"I —"

The same way Holland shouldn't stay, Roux shouldn't say the horrible truth behind her words, but that doesn't stop her from saying it anyway. "I think Maeve would want you to watch."

The television is turned on. It's —

Terrifying.

Not one of the four people watching is prepared for the moment Maeve steps out from the shadows of the archway. The sand shifts awkwardly beneath the soles of her boots and she can't help but to fix her attention upwards, turning in slow circles in an attempt to see the peacekeepers in the stands above. The cameras catch her face drenched in sunlight and it's the worst moment possible for everyone to be struck by how pretty she is, but that doesn't stop it from happening any more than it's stopped anything else. There's a jarring cut shot to the twenty-four swords awaiting each of the tributes. Maeve's fingers hesitate, skimming through the air around the hilt as her family wills her to pick it up, to try, but she can't bring herself to so much as touch it. Then she tries again. Fails, again.

She swallows and holds her other hand out in a universal gesture for stop! Don't you dare come any closer! The boy closest to her doesn't move. "My name is Maeve Idlewild!" She calls out to him, trying her best to project her voice without also projecting her fear. "I have a twin sister! And a cat! It —" For a moment Roux's face twists with a tiny smile at the callout. She hasn't been disowned completely. "It peed on my shoes and so I had to wear tap shoes yesterday! In front of, like —" Trying to mimic the same funny dancing moves she did at the reaping yesterday when one of her friends gave her a wtf, Maeve??? face, she almost trips on her own feet and faceplants in the sand. "— everyone. Have you ever had a crush? Do you know what it's like —" Holland tries to melt into her chair far enough to disappear. More than pink, she is bright red and hoping the flames of her shame just finish her off right here and now. "— for your crush to see you in tap shoes?"

The cat decides Holland is too wiggly and jumps onto Roux's lap instead, even though her instinctive petting is too tense to feel very good. "Oh, Maeve," she murmurs to her sister and her cat at the same time, scooping the feline up and clutching it to her chest.

"I've been tap dancing for pretty much always, but I'm not very good at it! I don't even... I mean, honestly, I don't even like it! But my dads — Abiram! and Mordecai! — they always wanted me to be a dancer!" It wasn't that this was ever a secret, but it was always one of those truths that no one says aloud because the truth was never the point. One man takes the other's hand and no one tries to pretend they're not crying because that would mean pretending they didn't care about Maeve. Of all the wounds she's destined for today, that won't be one of them. "So even though I didn't like it, they liked it! And I liked that they liked it so I kept doing it because... because you know, family. Family and... and..." Their hearts burn even more fiercely than Holland's face.

When the boy's stance shift and Maeve finally makes a move for her sword, the room erupts. "Do it!" Roux screams as Maeve's heart pounds and pounds and POUNDS. "Do it! Do it! DO IT!" Her voice is shrill and piercing, but no one turns to look at her. Everyone is gaping open-mouthed at the television as her palm connects with the hilt and she grunts with the effort of pulling it free from the ground, but suddenly it's in her hands and careening barbarically through the air as she tries to gain control of it's momentum. The scream that bellows from Maeve's mouth in the moments that follow isn't a battlecry of savagery so much as it sounds like the familiar racket of her throwing a tantrum in her bedroom. Mordecai heaves with a sob, going weak in his husband's arms. "Run!" Roux screeches frantically and Maeve does.