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Description
Rhona is fast.

Rottie has to hand that to her, if nothing else. She runs like she was born for it, feet moving unerringly from rock to rock, somehow managing to find purchase on the unlikeliest of surfaces. But if Rhona was born to run, Rottie was born to give chase. In a matter of minutes, both of them have rounded the rocky foothills that hide the Banquet from direct view of most of the arena and are back on solid ground.

If Ame is following them, Rottie can't hear him. She doubts it; what little of the mountain they crossed would have been too much for a horse to handle at speed, and he probably has his own items to retrieve from the Banquet. His own problems to deal with. As much as it hurts to think it, she can't count on him to care about her.

It takes her a moment to realize the younger girl is headed straight for the city, and a moment longer before a grim smile spreads across her face. She probably thinks there's an advantage to be found in familiar territory. She's wrong.

They run.

They run past broken tanks and abandoned houses, past crumbling vehicles and wind-bleached bones, and both of them flag, both of them stumble, but they never stop moving. Rhona increases her lead at one point; then Rottie increases her pace and gets so close she's seconds away from pouncing; then they round a corner and suddenly the lead has opened up again.

Rhona doesn't even hesitate as they charge past Rottie's warning sign, the letters on the wall long since faded to sticky brown. It takes Rottie a moment before she realizes the younger Tribute probably can't even read it—but the message is clear enough, regardless of whether or not she can understand the words.

Rottie half-expects Sketch to be waiting for her as they enter the city proper, but the dog is nowhere in sight. It's understandable, considering they're entering from an entirely different road, but it's a little disappointing all the same. She contemplates calling for her—what she needs right now is a fresh set of legs and a powerful set of jaws—but she barely even has the breath left to stay upright, let alone say anything. The younger Tribute is sticking to alleys, ducking and weaving in an attempt to throw her off the scent. It's taking everything Rottie has to keep up with her.

At last Rhona leaps onto a still-standing trash can, kicks nimbly off it—where she finds the energy, Rottie has no idea—and catches the lowest rung of a fire escape with one hand, swinging herself up and turning at last to face her pursuer. Rottie follows suit, throwing herself at the bottom rung, but the smaller girl is prepared, bringing one of the packages down hard on Rottie's hands as she tries to pull herself up.

She lets go instinctively and hits the ground hard, cradling her injured fingers with a strangled hiss. Above her, Rhona has hauled the last bit of ladder out of reach and is watching her from the next level, almost shaking with the effort of breathing. She'd run, Rottie expects, but it must have taken the last of her strength to get up there.

Fine. Rottie sits up, taking in great lungfuls of air herself. She can feel a low rumbling building in the back of her throat and behind her eyeballs. But she can't let it free. Not yet.

"One last chance, kid," she growls through the haze of barely concealed anger, and some distant part of her is almost shocked at how alien her voice sounds. "Throw me the package, and we'll call it even."

And Rhona laughs.

It takes her a moment to realize that's what the noise is. Ragged as the girl's breathing is, it's closer to a sob at first. But then she laughs again, leaning forward and pressing her trembling palms against the rusty steel of the fire escape.

"You think I wanna play fair, Rottweiler?" she shouts down.

Her thin chest is still heaving, strands of dark hair falling in her eyes, and she looks exhausted but triumphant, and Rottie can't think why but she doesn't care because her patience is crumbling slowly but steadily and she's just a kid, but she's a kid who took her food and—

"I saw you look at him," says Rhona.

Rottie stops breathing, just for a moment.

"I saw the way you looked at him," says Rhona in a singsong voice, leering down at her. "Rottie Beten loves Ame Gater! They'll love that in the Capitol, won't they? What are you gonna do about that? 'Cause if you're gonna let him kill you, I might as well keep this for myself. Smells pretty good."

Rottie says nothing. The thing in her head is baying now, hurling itself blindly at the confines of her skull, and the pain in her hands is threatening to tear away her poorly constructed mental barriers like they're tissue paper. It's funny, the girl from Six has never looked more like a kid than at this precise instant, and yet suddenly that protective instinct is slipping away.

"Or are you going to kill him?" says Rhona. "I hear the old pull-him-in-for-a-kiss-and-then-stab-him-in-the-back thing works wonders."

"You've got a smart tongue in your head," says Rottie slowly, fingers curling slowly, achingly, into fists. "Let's see if it's still smart when someone tears it out of you."

"I bet Gater will love that." Rhona leans forward, fingers toying with the ties of her package. "And all the kiddies back home. That mess on the wall back there was all you, wasn't it? Who gave you the paint for that? Was it Ward?"

Rottie can feel her ragged nails digging into her palms. The faces of the children back at the orphanage rise up unbidden—but they'll understand. They have to understand. She's doing all of this for them. "You don't know what you're talking about, kid."

(And somewhere, in the muddled depths of Rottie's brain, a thought flickers into existence, just for a moment: The kid has her breath back by now. She should be running. So why isn't she running?)

"Don't I?" Suddenly the singsong tone is gone. Rhona's still fiddling with the package, but her expression is deadly serious. "I know what it's like better than most, Rottweiler. I've seen the interviews. You've got your kids. I've got mine. We're the same. Except for one thing. You know what that is?"

She doesn't. She doesn't care. In her head, the creature howls.

Rhona slides the medicine out of the package and says, "My kids won't think I'm a monster when I win."

---

Rhona knows that look in Beten's eyes, has seen it before. It's the look of someone who won't give up, no matter what. With Rottie Beten, running away is a temporary solution to a permanent problem. This won't end until one of them dies.

It's why she took the package in the first place.

There's a wet, sharp stickiness seeping into the back of her blood-caked shirt. She must have split it open again when she jumped. But the Rottweiler can't reach her from here. Rhona can taunt her all she likes, distract her while she applies the medicine, keep her in her sights. Better than holing herself up in the city with no idea where the other girl is. Better than running blind.

It's all going so well until she says that last line about being a monster.

"You know that, right?" she says, shifting back on the fire escape, twisting the lid off the little container of salve. It smells like a cloud of warm mint. She feels a little better just breathing it in. "You think they'll let you anywhere near those kids? You're lucky if you make it out of the Capitol at all. More like they'll stick you on display. Charge people to watch you froth."

Something changes in Beten's stance then. Something shifts. Rhona tenses. But she's all right. Beten can't reach her from here.

"You can never go home," Rhona says. "Not ever. They might call you the Rottweiler, but all it means is you're nothing but a bitch on a leash."

And that something in Beten's stance, whatever it is, breaks free.

Without hesitation, the older girl seizes the trash can beside her and hurls it directly at the fire escape with a force that belies her size. The impact jars Rhona to the bone, sends a jolt of pain straight through her back, and she has to clench her teeth to keep from crying out. It's all she has time to do before the old ledge creaks and finally gives way, and the floor drops out from underneath her, and she falls, the tin of medicine slipping from her numb fingers.

All the wind is knocked out of her the instant she hits the ground. For a moment she can only lie there, struggling to breathe, temporarily deafened by the clatter of metal around her, scrabbling in vain for the tin, which has landed a good distance to her left. Then a shadow looms over her, and her breath hitches.

"You think you can go home, kid?" says Beten. "You think you can go home?" And she lets out a strange, hoarse sound, more bark than laugh, and smiles, a jagged slash of white and red across her face.

Rhona doesn't say anything. Can't, with her lungs still working soundlessly for air. She opens her mouth, and nothing comes out.

"You know what?" says Beten. "You're absolutely right. You're just like me."

She has to move. Beten's too close. Can only push herself back as her breath comes out in short high gasps, like a wounded animal, and underneath all of it there's a slow-bubbling panic, a steady stream of no, no, no.

"And you know what we are to the rest of them?" says Beten, still advancing, even as Rhona tries to retreat. "We're nothing. The scum of the earth at best. A reminder that they can't control everything at worst. They probably rounded up all of your street kids the moment you left the district. If I can never go home, you can't either."

She's wrong. She's dead wrong. She has to be. Alvia is taking bets. Miro and Kansen are watching her back. They haven't caught the Runners, they never have, they never will, and Rhona seizes on that, turns it into energy, breathes. Where are her knives? Here. Hands are shaking. Won't cooperate.

"Face it, kid," says Beten. "Your friends aren't watching you. They're dead."

"Shut up," says Rhona savagely. "Shut up!"

One of her hands closes around a knife at last and she throws it with all her strength, but the movement pulls at her back and the blade flies neatly past Beten, missing by a good foot at least. Useless. Use something bigger next time. Beten crouches, tensing to leap, and with the last ragged remnants of her energy Rhona seizes a battered chunk of metal, hurls it at Beten's face, and claws her way back to her feet.

Blood roars in her ears, makes everything seem distant and filtered, like she's seeing it through smoky glass. She tries to run, but her ankle must have been twisted in the fall and it hurts, and behind her she thinks she can hear Beten making a strange, chilling sound, a horrible vicious noise, like some kind of feral creature.

And then she hears pounding footsteps, and she turns, and it isn't Beten at all, it's a massive, howling dog, dark as night, flashing white teeth in a gaping mouth, and before she can react, it's closed the distance between them in a single bound, knocked her to the ground, and closed its jaws around Rhona's left arm.

And the world turns white.

Somewhere, in the distance, a child is screaming. It doesn't stop until she draws in a deep, shaking breath, and then she realizes with faint surprise that the sound is forcing its way out of her own throat.

A real Rottweiler. Who would have thought it? Maybe it isn't really there. Maybe it's Beten's teeth sunk into her arm and her mind is playing one last trick on her before she dies.

And she is going to die here, she thinks dimly. Her vision has faded back in but everything has gone very still and very quiet, so that when the dog shakes her arm, it is someone else's arm it is shaking, someone else's bones splintering under its powerful teeth. And she can't bring herself to care, because the Runners are dead. The Runners are dead, and Leon can't help her, and she is going to die here alone.

And then there is a shriek, a rustle of wings, and a thunderbolt drops out of the sky.

She's not entirely sure what happens next. Afterward all she remembers is the unmistakable crack of beak meeting bone, and a panicked howl as razor-sharp talons sink into unprotected eyes. Suddenly the jaws crushing her arm go slack, leaving a pink dribble of blood-tinged saliva in their wake, and the dog reels as Rhona tears her arm free and scrabbles backward, breath coming out in short, panicked sobs.

She doesn't want to move. She wants to slink off and cradle her arm and never do anything again. And Beten is shouting something as she runs towards them, her hatchet gleaming in her hand, and this is it, isn't it, this is all there is. Two kids with nothing left in the world, and only one of them is going to walk out of it alive.

The bird shrieks again, cutting through her thoughts. The dog is snarling, doing its level best to fight it off, but all its jaws snap shut on are feathers, and through the haze of pain Rhona realizes its throat is being left wide open, realizes her remaining knife is still in her belt—

Beten is closing in. There's no time to waste. Rhona jerks her knife free and brings it across the dog's throat in one swift motion.

And Beten screams.

It's a wild, frantic sound, just shy of keening, and it nearly gives Rhona pause as she stumbles back. The dog collapses, pawing feebly at nothing, and the bird releases its hold almost instantly, pumping blood-spattered wings in an attempt to regain some height. Beten doesn't even appear to notice it, charges right past and toward Rhona at full speed. Dazed as she is from shock and blood loss, Rhona can barely push herself upright in time for Beten to tackle her to the ground again. The asphalt tears at the still-weeping cut across her back, and it's a moment before she can see anything at all. She catches a faint glimpse of the bird disappearing into the sky again before her gaze swings back to Beten.

The scrap of metal Rhona threw earlier must have connected; there's a jagged cut along Beten's forehead, and she growls faintly, shaking the blood out of her eyes with an impatient toss of her head as she crouches over the smaller girl. If there was anything resembling humanity in the Rottweiler's expression before, it's gone now, wiped clean away and replaced with a terrifying ferocity.

There are no more words now.

Rhona brings up her knife again, but Beten is ready: a fist slams into the inside of her arm, knocking it painfully against the pavement, and the blood-slicked knife skitters away into the gutter. She pins Rhona to the ground with a fist on her shoulder, drawing the hatchet back, and Rhona slams a foot into her stomach, pulling free as the larger girl gasps for breath.

Her useless arm throbs mercilessly, each movement sending a wave of nausea through her. The smart thing to do now would be to retreat, and retreat fast. But both of them are too far gone for that.

This time it's Rhona who goes on the offensive, moving in so close Beten has no choice but to drop the hatchet in favor of grappling with her. Beten snarls, snapping at Rhona's neck, but Rhona twists sharply on her good ankle and the larger girl ends up sinking her teeth into the matted cloth of her shoulder instead, hand closing with punishing force around Rhona's ruined arm.

Rhona lets out a strangled gasp, her good hand coming up instinctively, and claws wildly at Beten's face, digging her blunt nails into the other girl's cheek until she feels them slide on liquid. If anything, it only makes Beten hang on tighter, her jaws grinding into Rhona's shoulder until they rip past cloth and break the skin. The edges of her vision are beginning to go dark, spots of colored light bursting here and there as the bones in her arm start to give under Beten's merciless fingers. She slams her palm against the older girl's jaw, digs her own fingers in deeper, then slides her thumb up and jams it in Beten's eye. That, at least, is enough to make the older girl reel back, and they break apart again, breathing hard.

Beten's face is a mask of red, her jaw bent out of shape, and it makes Rhona's blood run cold, the way she doesn't even seem to feel any of it. Instead she only growls again, and it's a horrible, distorted sound, the tattered strands of flesh that used to be her cheek fluttering like a heartbeat. She retrieves her hatchet again, the fingers of her free hand curling into claws. Rhona tries to grab her knife, but even moving sets her arm on fire again, and watching her own fingers twitch weakly scares her, just a little.

She looks up again. Beten is gathering herself for one more round, and Rhona knows with an unerring instinct that it'll be the last. And she doesn't know if she has the strength left in her to make it out alive.

But she's game to try. She always is.

Beten starts running first, hatchet swinging back, and Rhona drops into a crouch, waiting. With her ankle twisted, there isn't much else she can do. She's never been good at playing defensive, but right now she doesn't have a choice.

A shriek splits the air. The bird drops into the alley again, plummeting towards Beten without hesitation. And Beten stops short, hatchet raised, teeth bared in a wordless challenge.

Everything happens in slow motion after that. The bird's wings snap back, talons outstretched, and Beten swings the hatchet with all her might, and Rhona can only watch in horror as the flat of the blade smashes into its wings and sends it tumbling off course. It hits the alley wall in a burst of feathers and slides to the ground, motionless.

It had to have followed her here, she thinks numbly. Had to have tracked her from above and only plunged in when her life was in danger. And all this time, she thought…

She was wrong.

Rhona doesn't think anymore. Doesn't stop to wonder why an animal would do something as stupid as that for someone it doesn't even know. Only turns, and runs straight at Beten, who is still half-turned from the effort of the swing, and launches herself at her, twisted ankle forgotten.

Her shoulder connects first, driving deep into Beten's stomach. The older girl huffs out a surprised breath and recovers quickly, reaching out to grab Rhona's injured arm again, but she drops and pivots, catching Beten's hatchet arm with her own good right hand. There's a jolt of eye-searing pain as Beten tries again for Rhona's arm and succeeds this time, rough fingers digging into the injury, but Rhona can barely be bothered to react through the haze of adrenaline. Everything has gone stark red except for the memory of the bird's broken body, and she lets that anger fill her as she rears back and sinks her teeth into Beten's wrist.

Beten shakes her for all she's worth, twisting her injured arm, but this time it's Rhona who hangs on, closing her mind to the sensation of tendon and ligament snapping between her jaws and the coppery taste of blood filling her mouth. Hangs on, screaming through clenched teeth, as Beten tries to return the favor but can't for crying out.

And then there is only the hatchet, dropping from Beten's ruined hand, and the awkward feeling of it, heavy and foreign, in Rhona's own, and the split second of silence as their gazes meet and both of them know, irrevocably, what is going to happen.

Beten's arms instinctively go up to protect her head, which is why the first blow of the hatchet buries itself in her stomach. She doesn't make a sound as she drops, hands moving down to clutch at her abdomen as Rhona tugs the blade free.

The second stroke splits Beten's skull open. So does the third. The fourth misses, biting deep into her collarbone instead, but by then everything has faded to grey.

There must be more, after that, because there is the feeling of movement and of the hatchet meeting resistance. But if Rhona sees or hears any of it, she does not remember afterward, and she does not stop until her arm grows too heavy to lift and she lets go of the haft by necessity rather than by choice.

She breathes.

For a moment there is silence, as if a curtain somewhere has been drawn. Then, slowly, sensation returns to her. She is vaguely aware of her legs still holding her upright, but she doesn't know how or why. At that realization they finally give out, and she slowly sinks to her knees.

She stares, blankly, at the tableau in front of her, as if still in a dream. The body, if it can still be called a body, has been rendered unrecognizable in death, its features all but erased, brain matter spattered in a glistening arc. Beten's hands are still curled around her abdomen, as if still trying in vain to keep its contents from slipping out.

Rhona's eyes pass over it without really seeing. Something wet and foul is seeping into her trousers. She wonders if Leon will send her another pair, now that the Banquet is over.

A few feet away, the bird's crumpled form is still lying silent. A breeze stirs its feathers, so it looks for a moment like it's still moving.

No. It is moving.

Rhona pushes herself up one-handed; runs, half-stumbling, to where the bird is stirring feebly, dulled eyes blinking confusedly up at her. There is blood on its feathers, and not all of it is the dog's.

The only sensible thing to do would be to kill it. She knows that, learned it long ago, in a classroom made of corrugated iron and falling shells. The last few minutes might be a blur to her, but she remembers the crack of it hitting the wall as clear as anything. A bird that can't fly is useless at best and a liability at worst, and she has enough liabilities cut into her body as it is.

She kneels beside it, her breath catching as the movement makes her whole body tense up, and reaches out with her good hand. Which is shaking, she notes vaguely. Why is it doing that?

"Stop that," she says, and her voice comes out as more of a cough than anything resembling actual words, and she's not sure if she's talking to herself or the bird. Either way, it doesn't listen, only shudders again and opens its mouth, as if trying to reply—which is stupid, it can't talk, it's going to die and she should help it along, it's not like she can do anything for it—

And then, without quite realizing it, she is back on her feet, decidedly unsteady now: down the alley, past the two silent corpses, out onto the street, and towards the twisted remnants of the fire escape, where the tin of medicine is lying on its side. Some of it has spilled out onto the ground, but she carefully scrapes what she can back into the tin and staggers back into the dark.

When she reaches the bird again, there's a small parachute sitting next to it, the light blinking steadily. But it can wait; the bird's breathing is shallower now, or she thinks it is, and that realization makes her heart plummet.

She doesn't even know what she's doing as she smears the salve awkwardly onto its wing, but if she can't do anything else she can at least stop the bleeding. She doesn't know the first thing about how birds work but something that small probably hasn't got a lot of blood to waste, and she isn't about to let it waste any more. After a moment it stops struggling, only lies there staring at her with its clouded eyes, and she can't tell if that's worse or not.

"Don't," she warns it, and hates how her voice cracks on the word. "Don't you dare."

Not here. Not now, when it's the only thing in this godforsaken arena that doesn't want her dead. The only thing she might actually be able to trust to have her back. Now that she's actually got it, the idea that she might lose it is unthinkable. She can feel hot tears springing to her eyes, but for the first time in hours, she remembers the cameras, and she swallows, takes another deep breath.

She thinks: she hasn't even named the damn thing.

There's a little salve left in the tin, and she puts what she can on whatever part of her back she can reach, but it doesn't take a doctor to know it won't do any good. As for her arm, that's completely out of the question. She can hardly feel it any more, for one thing, and she may have just killed a girl with a hatchet, but the sight of the mangled flesh and pale wet bone shining through sickens her for a moment.

The parachute, she thinks, turning. It should hold something, anything that can help. She wrestles with the clasp for a moment—whoever designed these clearly intended them to be opened by someone with two functioning hands—but it pops open at last, and she peers inside eagerly.

There's nothing inside but a folded piece of paper.

Maybe it's some kind of bandage. She fishes it out carefully, trying not to smudge blood or worse all over it as she unfolds it.

And then she stares in growing disbelief and hurt, because it's not a bandage, it's not medicine, it's not anything, it's just a stupid letter covered in words, and the worst part is it's not even Leon's handwriting. She's seen Leon's handwriting before, and it's sloppy and wanders around a page in a confident, reassuring sort of way, and this doesn't look anything like it. The angles and lines are all different, and it's signed at the bottom with a name that's definitely not Leon's, because she knows the shape of his name even if she doesn't know the letters.

Leon didn't send this. Leon wouldn't have, because he knows she can't read. Because he would have given her something that wasn't a bunch of words. Which means that someone else must be calling the shots for her in the Capitol. Someone else who doesn't know she can't read. Which means…

Which means that Leon must be dead.

Because he talks too big and he dreams too big for his own good, for a cabbie from a district that doesn't exist anymore. Because he wouldn't leave her alone like this if he could help it. Because—

She can feel the tears coming again, like an oncoming train, and this time she's powerless to stop them. All she can do is curl into a ball and clutch the letter with a shaking hand and let it out at last, hoarse shaking sobs that wrack her body until her teeth chatter. Halfway between breaths her necklace slips out of her shirt, bumps against her ribs, and she hangs onto it like a lifeline even as she knows it isn't connected to anything. Not anymore. She hasn't cried in years and suddenly it feels like she's only been hoarding it all away, and now it's all she can do to close her eyes and ride it out.

What does it matter? Nobody who matters a damn is watching her, and Leon is dead, and she can never go home again.

She doesn't know how long it is before the tears stop and her breathing slows. But gradually the world grows quiet and soft and dark, wrapping around her thin, quivering shoulders like an embrace.

And this time—this time she welcomes it, lets the letter flutter out from between cramped fingers, and falls reluctantly asleep.

---

Rottie,

The Gamemakers tell me packages are banned right now, but they'll send this as soon as the Banquet has been cleared. I don't know if it will reach you in time. I hope it does. I guess you could do with a little motivation.

I'll be brief: I approached Patricia with a little proposition I've been thinking about for some time, and she told me I'd be better off asking you myself. So this is it. When all of this is over, when you make it out—I'd like to adopt you. Give you the chance to be part a family.

Well, you don't have to answer me right away. Just think about it, okay?

You probably won't hear from me for a while, and I probably won't be around to hear your response, either. Suffice to say I'm going to have to disappear, and it's better if you don't know why. But stay strong, Rottie. Keep fighting.

There's a home waiting for you at the end of it all, if you want it.

Sincerely,
Ventace Lazuli

Description
Rhona is fast.

Rottie has to hand that to her, if nothing else. She runs like she was born for it, feet moving unerringly from rock to rock, somehow managing to find purchase on the unlikeliest of surfaces. But if Rhona was born to run, Rottie was born to give chase. In a matter of minutes, both of them have rounded the rocky foothills that hide the Banquet from direct view of most of the arena and are back on solid ground.

If Ame is following them, Rottie can't hear him. She doubts it; what little of the mountain they crossed would have been too much for a horse to handle at speed, and he probably has his own items to retrieve from the Banquet. His own problems to deal with. As much as it hurts to think it, she can't count on him to care about her.

It takes her a moment to realize the younger girl is headed straight for the city, and a moment longer before a grim smile spreads across her face. She probably thinks there's an advantage to be found in familiar territory. She's wrong.

They run.

They run past broken tanks and abandoned houses, past crumbling vehicles and wind-bleached bones, and both of them flag, both of them stumble, but they never stop moving. Rhona increases her lead at one point; then Rottie increases her pace and gets so close she's seconds away from pouncing; then they round a corner and suddenly the lead has opened up again.

Rhona doesn't even hesitate as they charge past Rottie's warning sign, the letters on the wall long since faded to sticky brown. It takes Rottie a moment before she realizes the younger Tribute probably can't even read it—but the message is clear enough, regardless of whether or not she can understand the words.

Rottie half-expects Sketch to be waiting for her as they enter the city proper, but the dog is nowhere in sight. It's understandable, considering they're entering from an entirely different road, but it's a little disappointing all the same. She contemplates calling for her—what she needs right now is a fresh set of legs and a powerful set of jaws—but she barely even has the breath left to stay upright, let alone say anything. The younger Tribute is sticking to alleys, ducking and weaving in an attempt to throw her off the scent. It's taking everything Rottie has to keep up with her.

At last Rhona leaps onto a still-standing trash can, kicks nimbly off it—where she finds the energy, Rottie has no idea—and catches the lowest rung of a fire escape with one hand, swinging herself up and turning at last to face her pursuer. Rottie follows suit, throwing herself at the bottom rung, but the smaller girl is prepared, bringing one of the packages down hard on Rottie's hands as she tries to pull herself up.

She lets go instinctively and hits the ground hard, cradling her injured fingers with a strangled hiss. Above her, Rhona has hauled the last bit of ladder out of reach and is watching her from the next level, almost shaking with the effort of breathing. She'd run, Rottie expects, but it must have taken the last of her strength to get up there.

Fine. Rottie sits up, taking in great lungfuls of air herself. She can feel a low rumbling building in the back of her throat and behind her eyeballs. But she can't let it free. Not yet.

"One last chance, kid," she growls through the haze of barely concealed anger, and some distant part of her is almost shocked at how alien her voice sounds. "Throw me the package, and we'll call it even."

And Rhona laughs.

It takes her a moment to realize that's what the noise is. Ragged as the girl's breathing is, it's closer to a sob at first. But then she laughs again, leaning forward and pressing her trembling palms against the rusty steel of the fire escape.

"You think I wanna play fair, Rottweiler?" she shouts down.

Her thin chest is still heaving, strands of dark hair falling in her eyes, and she looks exhausted but triumphant, and Rottie can't think why but she doesn't care because her patience is crumbling slowly but steadily and she's just a kid, but she's a kid who took her food and—

"I saw you look at him," says Rhona.

Rottie stops breathing, just for a moment.

"I saw the way you looked at him," says Rhona in a singsong voice, leering down at her. "Rottie Beten loves Ame Gater! They'll love that in the Capitol, won't they? What are you gonna do about that? 'Cause if you're gonna let him kill you, I might as well keep this for myself. Smells pretty good."

Rottie says nothing. The thing in her head is baying now, hurling itself blindly at the confines of her skull, and the pain in her hands is threatening to tear away her poorly constructed mental barriers like they're tissue paper. It's funny, the girl from Six has never looked more like a kid than at this precise instant, and yet suddenly that protective instinct is slipping away.

"Or are you going to kill him?" says Rhona. "I hear the old pull-him-in-for-a-kiss-and-then-stab-him-in-the-back thing works wonders."

"You've got a smart tongue in your head," says Rottie slowly, fingers curling slowly, achingly, into fists. "Let's see if it's still smart when someone tears it out of you."

"I bet Gater will love that." Rhona leans forward, fingers toying with the ties of her package. "And all the kiddies back home. That mess on the wall back there was all you, wasn't it? Who gave you the paint for that? Was it Ward?"

Rottie can feel her ragged nails digging into her palms. The faces of the children back at the orphanage rise up unbidden—but they'll understand. They have to understand. She's doing all of this for them. "You don't know what you're talking about, kid."

(And somewhere, in the muddled depths of Rottie's brain, a thought flickers into existence, just for a moment: The kid has her breath back by now. She should be running. So why isn't she running?)

"Don't I?" Suddenly the singsong tone is gone. Rhona's still fiddling with the package, but her expression is deadly serious. "I know what it's like better than most, Rottweiler. I've seen the interviews. You've got your kids. I've got mine. We're the same. Except for one thing. You know what that is?"

She doesn't. She doesn't care. In her head, the creature howls.

Rhona slides the medicine out of the package and says, "My kids won't think I'm a monster when I win."

---

Rhona knows that look in Beten's eyes, has seen it before. It's the look of someone who won't give up, no matter what. With Rottie Beten, running away is a temporary solution to a permanent problem. This won't end until one of them dies.

It's why she took the package in the first place.

There's a wet, sharp stickiness seeping into the back of her blood-caked shirt. She must have split it open again when she jumped. But the Rottweiler can't reach her from here. Rhona can taunt her all she likes, distract her while she applies the medicine, keep her in her sights. Better than holing herself up in the city with no idea where the other girl is. Better than running blind.

It's all going so well until she says that last line about being a monster.

"You know that, right?" she says, shifting back on the fire escape, twisting the lid off the little container of salve. It smells like a cloud of warm mint. She feels a little better just breathing it in. "You think they'll let you anywhere near those kids? You're lucky if you make it out of the Capitol at all. More like they'll stick you on display. Charge people to watch you froth."

Something changes in Beten's stance then. Something shifts. Rhona tenses. But she's all right. Beten can't reach her from here.

"You can never go home," Rhona says. "Not ever. They might call you the Rottweiler, but all it means is you're nothing but a bitch on a leash."

And that something in Beten's stance, whatever it is, breaks free.

Without hesitation, the older girl seizes the trash can beside her and hurls it directly at the fire escape with a force that belies her size. The impact jars Rhona to the bone, sends a jolt of pain straight through her back, and she has to clench her teeth to keep from crying out. It's all she has time to do before the old ledge creaks and finally gives way, and the floor drops out from underneath her, and she falls, the tin of medicine slipping from her numb fingers.

All the wind is knocked out of her the instant she hits the ground. For a moment she can only lie there, struggling to breathe, temporarily deafened by the clatter of metal around her, scrabbling in vain for the tin, which has landed a good distance to her left. Then a shadow looms over her, and her breath hitches.

"You think you can go home, kid?" says Beten. "You think you can go home?" And she lets out a strange, hoarse sound, more bark than laugh, and smiles, a jagged slash of white and red across her face.

Rhona doesn't say anything. Can't, with her lungs still working soundlessly for air. She opens her mouth, and nothing comes out.

"You know what?" says Beten. "You're absolutely right. You're just like me."

She has to move. Beten's too close. Can only push herself back as her breath comes out in short high gasps, like a wounded animal, and underneath all of it there's a slow-bubbling panic, a steady stream of no, no, no.

"And you know what we are to the rest of them?" says Beten, still advancing, even as Rhona tries to retreat. "We're nothing. The scum of the earth at best. A reminder that they can't control everything at worst. They probably rounded up all of your street kids the moment you left the district. If I can never go home, you can't either."

She's wrong. She's dead wrong. She has to be. Alvia is taking bets. Miro and Kansen are watching her back. They haven't caught the Runners, they never have, they never will, and Rhona seizes on that, turns it into energy, breathes. Where are her knives? Here. Hands are shaking. Won't cooperate.

"Face it, kid," says Beten. "Your friends aren't watching you. They're dead."

"Shut up," says Rhona savagely. "Shut up!"

One of her hands closes around a knife at last and she throws it with all her strength, but the movement pulls at her back and the blade flies neatly past Beten, missing by a good foot at least. Useless. Use something bigger next time. Beten crouches, tensing to leap, and with the last ragged remnants of her energy Rhona seizes a battered chunk of metal, hurls it at Beten's face, and claws her way back to her feet.

Blood roars in her ears, makes everything seem distant and filtered, like she's seeing it through smoky glass. She tries to run, but her ankle must have been twisted in the fall and it hurts, and behind her she thinks she can hear Beten making a strange, chilling sound, a horrible vicious noise, like some kind of feral creature.

And then she hears pounding footsteps, and she turns, and it isn't Beten at all, it's a massive, howling dog, dark as night, flashing white teeth in a gaping mouth, and before she can react, it's closed the distance between them in a single bound, knocked her to the ground, and closed its jaws around Rhona's left arm.

And the world turns white.

Somewhere, in the distance, a child is screaming. It doesn't stop until she draws in a deep, shaking breath, and then she realizes with faint surprise that the sound is forcing its way out of her own throat.

A real Rottweiler. Who would have thought it? Maybe it isn't really there. Maybe it's Beten's teeth sunk into her arm and her mind is playing one last trick on her before she dies.

And she is going to die here, she thinks dimly. Her vision has faded back in but everything has gone very still and very quiet, so that when the dog shakes her arm, it is someone else's arm it is shaking, someone else's bones splintering under its powerful teeth. And she can't bring herself to care, because the Runners are dead. The Runners are dead, and Leon can't help her, and she is going to die here alone.

And then there is a shriek, a rustle of wings, and a thunderbolt drops out of the sky.

She's not entirely sure what happens next. Afterward all she remembers is the unmistakable crack of beak meeting bone, and a panicked howl as razor-sharp talons sink into unprotected eyes. Suddenly the jaws crushing her arm go slack, leaving a pink dribble of blood-tinged saliva in their wake, and the dog reels as Rhona tears her arm free and scrabbles backward, breath coming out in short, panicked sobs.

She doesn't want to move. She wants to slink off and cradle her arm and never do anything again. And Beten is shouting something as she runs towards them, her hatchet gleaming in her hand, and this is it, isn't it, this is all there is. Two kids with nothing left in the world, and only one of them is going to walk out of it alive.

The bird shrieks again, cutting through her thoughts. The dog is snarling, doing its level best to fight it off, but all its jaws snap shut on are feathers, and through the haze of pain Rhona realizes its throat is being left wide open, realizes her remaining knife is still in her belt—

Beten is closing in. There's no time to waste. Rhona jerks her knife free and brings it across the dog's throat in one swift motion.

And Beten screams.

It's a wild, frantic sound, just shy of keening, and it nearly gives Rhona pause as she stumbles back. The dog collapses, pawing feebly at nothing, and the bird releases its hold almost instantly, pumping blood-spattered wings in an attempt to regain some height. Beten doesn't even appear to notice it, charges right past and toward Rhona at full speed. Dazed as she is from shock and blood loss, Rhona can barely push herself upright in time for Beten to tackle her to the ground again. The asphalt tears at the still-weeping cut across her back, and it's a moment before she can see anything at all. She catches a faint glimpse of the bird disappearing into the sky again before her gaze swings back to Beten.

The scrap of metal Rhona threw earlier must have connected; there's a jagged cut along Beten's forehead, and she growls faintly, shaking the blood out of her eyes with an impatient toss of her head as she crouches over the smaller girl. If there was anything resembling humanity in the Rottweiler's expression before, it's gone now, wiped clean away and replaced with a terrifying ferocity.

There are no more words now.

Rhona brings up her knife again, but Beten is ready: a fist slams into the inside of her arm, knocking it painfully against the pavement, and the blood-slicked knife skitters away into the gutter. She pins Rhona to the ground with a fist on her shoulder, drawing the hatchet back, and Rhona slams a foot into her stomach, pulling free as the larger girl gasps for breath.

Her useless arm throbs mercilessly, each movement sending a wave of nausea through her. The smart thing to do now would be to retreat, and retreat fast. But both of them are too far gone for that.

This time it's Rhona who goes on the offensive, moving in so close Beten has no choice but to drop the hatchet in favor of grappling with her. Beten snarls, snapping at Rhona's neck, but Rhona twists sharply on her good ankle and the larger girl ends up sinking her teeth into the matted cloth of her shoulder instead, hand closing with punishing force around Rhona's ruined arm.

Rhona lets out a strangled gasp, her good hand coming up instinctively, and claws wildly at Beten's face, digging her blunt nails into the other girl's cheek until she feels them slide on liquid. If anything, it only makes Beten hang on tighter, her jaws grinding into Rhona's shoulder until they rip past cloth and break the skin. The edges of her vision are beginning to go dark, spots of colored light bursting here and there as the bones in her arm start to give under Beten's merciless fingers. She slams her palm against the older girl's jaw, digs her own fingers in deeper, then slides her thumb up and jams it in Beten's eye. That, at least, is enough to make the older girl reel back, and they break apart again, breathing hard.

Beten's face is a mask of red, her jaw bent out of shape, and it makes Rhona's blood run cold, the way she doesn't even seem to feel any of it. Instead she only growls again, and it's a horrible, distorted sound, the tattered strands of flesh that used to be her cheek fluttering like a heartbeat. She retrieves her hatchet again, the fingers of her free hand curling into claws. Rhona tries to grab her knife, but even moving sets her arm on fire again, and watching her own fingers twitch weakly scares her, just a little.

She looks up again. Beten is gathering herself for one more round, and Rhona knows with an unerring instinct that it'll be the last. And she doesn't know if she has the strength left in her to make it out alive.

But she's game to try. She always is.

Beten starts running first, hatchet swinging back, and Rhona drops into a crouch, waiting. With her ankle twisted, there isn't much else she can do. She's never been good at playing defensive, but right now she doesn't have a choice.

A shriek splits the air. The bird drops into the alley again, plummeting towards Beten without hesitation. And Beten stops short, hatchet raised, teeth bared in a wordless challenge.

Everything happens in slow motion after that. The bird's wings snap back, talons outstretched, and Beten swings the hatchet with all her might, and Rhona can only watch in horror as the flat of the blade smashes into its wings and sends it tumbling off course. It hits the alley wall in a burst of feathers and slides to the ground, motionless.

It had to have followed her here, she thinks numbly. Had to have tracked her from above and only plunged in when her life was in danger. And all this time, she thought…

She was wrong.

Rhona doesn't think anymore. Doesn't stop to wonder why an animal would do something as stupid as that for someone it doesn't even know. Only turns, and runs straight at Beten, who is still half-turned from the effort of the swing, and launches herself at her, twisted ankle forgotten.

Her shoulder connects first, driving deep into Beten's stomach. The older girl huffs out a surprised breath and recovers quickly, reaching out to grab Rhona's injured arm again, but she drops and pivots, catching Beten's hatchet arm with her own good right hand. There's a jolt of eye-searing pain as Beten tries again for Rhona's arm and succeeds this time, rough fingers digging into the injury, but Rhona can barely be bothered to react through the haze of adrenaline. Everything has gone stark red except for the memory of the bird's broken body, and she lets that anger fill her as she rears back and sinks her teeth into Beten's wrist.

Beten shakes her for all she's worth, twisting her injured arm, but this time it's Rhona who hangs on, closing her mind to the sensation of tendon and ligament snapping between her jaws and the coppery taste of blood filling her mouth. Hangs on, screaming through clenched teeth, as Beten tries to return the favor but can't for crying out.

And then there is only the hatchet, dropping from Beten's ruined hand, and the awkward feeling of it, heavy and foreign, in Rhona's own, and the split second of silence as their gazes meet and both of them know, irrevocably, what is going to happen.

Beten's arms instinctively go up to protect her head, which is why the first blow of the hatchet buries itself in her stomach. She doesn't make a sound as she drops, hands moving down to clutch at her abdomen as Rhona tugs the blade free.

The second stroke splits Beten's skull open. So does the third. The fourth misses, biting deep into her collarbone instead, but by then everything has faded to grey.

There must be more, after that, because there is the feeling of movement and of the hatchet meeting resistance. But if Rhona sees or hears any of it, she does not remember afterward, and she does not stop until her arm grows too heavy to lift and she lets go of the haft by necessity rather than by choice.

She breathes.

For a moment there is silence, as if a curtain somewhere has been drawn. Then, slowly, sensation returns to her. She is vaguely aware of her legs still holding her upright, but she doesn't know how or why. At that realization they finally give out, and she slowly sinks to her knees.

She stares, blankly, at the tableau in front of her, as if still in a dream. The body, if it can still be called a body, has been rendered unrecognizable in death, its features all but erased, brain matter spattered in a glistening arc. Beten's hands are still curled around her abdomen, as if still trying in vain to keep its contents from slipping out.

Rhona's eyes pass over it without really seeing. Something wet and foul is seeping into her trousers. She wonders if Leon will send her another pair, now that the Banquet is over.

A few feet away, the bird's crumpled form is still lying silent. A breeze stirs its feathers, so it looks for a moment like it's still moving.

No. It is moving.

Rhona pushes herself up one-handed; runs, half-stumbling, to where the bird is stirring feebly, dulled eyes blinking confusedly up at her. There is blood on its feathers, and not all of it is the dog's.

The only sensible thing to do would be to kill it. She knows that, learned it long ago, in a classroom made of corrugated iron and falling shells. The last few minutes might be a blur to her, but she remembers the crack of it hitting the wall as clear as anything. A bird that can't fly is useless at best and a liability at worst, and she has enough liabilities cut into her body as it is.

She kneels beside it, her breath catching as the movement makes her whole body tense up, and reaches out with her good hand. Which is shaking, she notes vaguely. Why is it doing that?

"Stop that," she says, and her voice comes out as more of a cough than anything resembling actual words, and she's not sure if she's talking to herself or the bird. Either way, it doesn't listen, only shudders again and opens its mouth, as if trying to reply—which is stupid, it can't talk, it's going to die and she should help it along, it's not like she can do anything for it—

And then, without quite realizing it, she is back on her feet, decidedly unsteady now: down the alley, past the two silent corpses, out onto the street, and towards the twisted remnants of the fire escape, where the tin of medicine is lying on its side. Some of it has spilled out onto the ground, but she carefully scrapes what she can back into the tin and staggers back into the dark.

When she reaches the bird again, there's a small parachute sitting next to it, the light blinking steadily. But it can wait; the bird's breathing is shallower now, or she thinks it is, and that realization makes her heart plummet.

She doesn't even know what she's doing as she smears the salve awkwardly onto its wing, but if she can't do anything else she can at least stop the bleeding. She doesn't know the first thing about how birds work but something that small probably hasn't got a lot of blood to waste, and she isn't about to let it waste any more. After a moment it stops struggling, only lies there staring at her with its clouded eyes, and she can't tell if that's worse or not.

"Don't," she warns it, and hates how her voice cracks on the word. "Don't you dare."

Not here. Not now, when it's the only thing in this godforsaken arena that doesn't want her dead. The only thing she might actually be able to trust to have her back. Now that she's actually got it, the idea that she might lose it is unthinkable. She can feel hot tears springing to her eyes, but for the first time in hours, she remembers the cameras, and she swallows, takes another deep breath.

She thinks: she hasn't even named the damn thing.

There's a little salve left in the tin, and she puts what she can on whatever part of her back she can reach, but it doesn't take a doctor to know it won't do any good. As for her arm, that's completely out of the question. She can hardly feel it any more, for one thing, and she may have just killed a girl with a hatchet, but the sight of the mangled flesh and pale wet bone shining through sickens her for a moment.

The parachute, she thinks, turning. It should hold something, anything that can help. She wrestles with the clasp for a moment—whoever designed these clearly intended them to be opened by someone with two functioning hands—but it pops open at last, and she peers inside eagerly.

There's nothing inside but a folded piece of paper.

Maybe it's some kind of bandage. She fishes it out carefully, trying not to smudge blood or worse all over it as she unfolds it.

And then she stares in growing disbelief and hurt, because it's not a bandage, it's not medicine, it's not anything, it's just a stupid letter covered in words, and the worst part is it's not even Leon's handwriting. She's seen Leon's handwriting before, and it's sloppy and wanders around a page in a confident, reassuring sort of way, and this doesn't look anything like it. The angles and lines are all different, and it's signed at the bottom with a name that's definitely not Leon's, because she knows the shape of his name even if she doesn't know the letters.

Leon didn't send this. Leon wouldn't have, because he knows she can't read. Because he would have given her something that wasn't a bunch of words. Which means that someone else must be calling the shots for her in the Capitol. Someone else who doesn't know she can't read. Which means…

Which means that Leon must be dead.

Because he talks too big and he dreams too big for his own good, for a cabbie from a district that doesn't exist anymore. Because he wouldn't leave her alone like this if he could help it. Because—

She can feel the tears coming again, like an oncoming train, and this time she's powerless to stop them. All she can do is curl into a ball and clutch the letter with a shaking hand and let it out at last, hoarse shaking sobs that wrack her body until her teeth chatter. Halfway between breaths her necklace slips out of her shirt, bumps against her ribs, and she hangs onto it like a lifeline even as she knows it isn't connected to anything. Not anymore. She hasn't cried in years and suddenly it feels like she's only been hoarding it all away, and now it's all she can do to close her eyes and ride it out.

What does it matter? Nobody who matters a damn is watching her, and Leon is dead, and she can never go home again.

She doesn't know how long it is before the tears stop and her breathing slows. But gradually the world grows quiet and soft and dark, wrapping around her thin, quivering shoulders like an embrace.

And this time—this time she welcomes it, lets the letter flutter out from between cramped fingers, and falls reluctantly asleep.

---

Rottie,

The Gamemakers tell me packages are banned right now, but they'll send this as soon as the Banquet has been cleared. I don't know if it will reach you in time. I hope it does. I guess you could do with a little motivation.

I'll be brief: I approached Patricia with a little proposition I've been thinking about for some time, and she told me I'd be better off asking you myself. So this is it. When all of this is over, when you make it out—I'd like to adopt you. Give you the chance to be part a family.

Well, you don't have to answer me right away. Just think about it, okay?

You probably won't hear from me for a while, and I probably won't be around to hear your response, either. Suffice to say I'm going to have to disappear, and it's better if you don't know why. But stay strong, Rottie. Keep fighting.

There's a home waiting for you at the end of it all, if you want it.

Sincerely,
Ventace Lazuli