The next day goes the same way, but I’m tired of laying low. It’s too quiet in the Training Room for my comfort. As I make my way to the knives, Jake cuts me off. “What are you doing?” he hissed.
“Knives: I’m getting antsy and things need to get interesting fast.” I shove past him. Grabbing the biggest one, I turn to the targets. Bulls-eye. I do this over and over, the knives getting smaller, the targets getting farther away and yet I get a bulls-eye every time. The instructor asks if I want to try dummies. I shake my head, horrified at the image that protrudes into my memory. Dad had me practice on guys that had killed others in the district. Many of their deaths had been slow and painful because I was inexperienced. I hear a cough behind me and I return to the present, the man from the past fading into oblivion. People had lined up to see my work and had seen me space off. I walk off silently. Lunch is called a few moments later and I sit at an empty table, Jake following me like a shadowy sentinel watching over me, protecting me. People instantly flock to my sides, but staying clear of Jake.
I finally snap, tired of the relentless chatter around me. “Stop! I’m going to kill all of you. You don’t want to be friends with your murderer, I know.” I move to a different (empty) table, only followed by Jake. They avoid me like the plague for the rest of the day while I silently box with an instructor. Abel was pissed at me for blowing my cover, but I just turned up the music and continued to eat fruit.
The third day of training was the day we got our scores. Fifteen minutes to prove how skilled you are to the Gamemakers and graded on a scale from one to twelve. As the girl from 12, I’m utterly last after Jake.
“Caroline, why did you take Autumn’s place?” Jake asks as the girl from Eleven is called in. We had been quiet until then and it took me by surprise. “What?” I ask. I completely missed it the first time. Jake repeats himself and I take a few minutes to answer.
“Because she had someone to come home to. I only have you and Kade. She was already married, while I’m only sixteen.” Jake was about to answer when he’s called in.
When I’m called, the Gamemakers are tired and bored. I’m going to have fun. I find a sword that feels right and nod when I find the right one. “Can have I an assistant?” I have to ask three more times before I get someone’s attention. As a man stands opposite me, I grin wickedly and the monster inside of me is unleashed. I turn into a whole different person, horrific at best. The man was a wimp- he couldn’t even hold the sword properly, which I found out as I preformed a stop thrust directly into his chest, killing him instantly. Who would have thought the Gamemakers could look up so fast? “Whoops; looks like he’s dead. Can I have someone that is actually a challenge?” All parts of my former self were gone in the wind; they left with the dead man’s spirit. My smirk returns with renewed cockiness as the sword instructor steps out with a breathtaking blade in hand. Within ten minutes he’s tired but I’m not. As he goes for my head he doesn’t realize that he has his left side wide open. I go in for the “kill”, planning to stop before I actually kill him. Unfortunately, that’s not how it happened. He literally jumps onto my blade and it buries itself in his spine. He dies instantly, blood polling around my feet. I have some wounds, but nothing too bad.
I’m completely shocked, coming back to my normal self, everything setting in. “I’m sorry- I didn’t mean to–.”
“Caroline Sullivan, you are dismissed.” I bow, my heart pounding against my chest. I walk calmly and drop the sword on my way out, letting it clatter to the floor.
I shut the door and break into a run. The elevator is too slow, so I run all twenty flights of stairs to my quarters. Around the sixteenth is when I start to cry and my legs start to burn, but I push myself the last four. When I throw open the door, everyone turns his or her heads, waiting: Everyone but me. I race to my room, wanting to be alone but as I fling myself on my bed I’m only unaccompanied for a few minutes, crying into my pillow. Abel was the first in and he begins to stroke my head.
“What’s wrong, honey?” I cry even harder, remembering when Dad would call me that. In between sobs, I tell him the whole story. “The first kill is always the hardest, honey.” He hands me another box of tissues when I’m done.
“It wasn’t my first kill though! I’ve done plenty more than that and I never acted this way.” I blow my nose loudly and chuck the tissue with the other million on the ground.
“No matter. This was you’re first accidental kill.” He hugs me and I sniffle. “In two hours, we’ll go look at the scores.” I nod and shuffle my way to the shower. Before he left I told him not to tell anyone.
“I have to tell Jake. He’s absolutely rabid: He broke every vase, chair and anything he could get his hands on –including Sam’s arm- just to get to you first.” He laughed and looked at me with a smile. “That boy has a terrible temper, you know that right?”
“He’s basically my brother: Of course I know.” He leaves and I take an hour shower, getting rid of as much of my guilt as possible. As soon as I step out, I feel refreshed. I slip on a random dress and flats and let my long waves tumble down my back. Coming into the main room I hear a gasp. “That dress! Where did you get it?” Faye squeals and runs her hands over the fabric.
“Um . . . my closet? Why?” It was a pretty deep purple, with golden flowers dusted on it.
“That’s the President’s daughter’s dress. It was one of her favorites and there is none exactly like it” Seth says. “I wonder how it ended up in there. People have been trying to get their hands on it for a long time; including myself.”
Great. I have a priceless dress on and I’m not even wearing it for any occasion. “Do you want me to change, because I can if you want-?”
“No!” eight people yell at the same time.
“Fine, I’ll keep it on.”
“Good, now it’s time to go. I’ll check the closet to see if we have more. By the way, all of the girls down there will know whose dress that is, so watch out.” Seth says as he disappears into my room.
All of the tributes are standing in front of a podium and when they heard the elevator ping, they looked at us. All the girls gasp and the guys glare at me. “Looks like I have everyone’s attention,” I laugh and smiled. The girls swarm me, and a few have jealousy lacing their voices. I deal with them for a bit, but before I can yell at them, the scores are going to be read out. The boy from One got a seven, which was a pretty high score, and the rest were mainly fives and fours. Jake got a seven, and when the man reading off the scores got to my name, shock filled his voice. “Caroline Sullivan, District 12, has a score of eleven.” Silence: I am now a great, huge, target. Jake grabs my arm, leads me to the elevator and into my room. He pushes me onto the bed with such furry I’ve never seen in him before. I look at my arm that has a crimson handprint on it. “Jake, you’re hand’s bleeding.”
“Well, that’s what I get for caring, I guess. What were you thinking when you picked up that sword? You knew how deadly you were with that weapon, and yet you went ahead with it. Dammit, Caroline! Not only do I have to watch my own back, I now have to watch yours all the time. Not to mention Logan, who you’ve already pissed off.” He was furious, unforgiving, terrifying. I wanted out right then. I thought better of it though. There was no way I was getting through Jake in this state. Then my mind hit a chord…“Who is Logan?”
“The guy from One,” he sat on the bed, defeated and tired; he rubbed his eyes. “We’re dead. I just know it,” he mumbled past his hands.
It was as if all of his fight had transferred to me. I felt fiery heat bubble through my veins. “We are not dead. We have to go as long as possible. I don’t care what happens, if I have to feed you and keep you tied to a tree, then that’s what I’ll do to keep us in at least the top eight. We have to bring admiration to 12. You have your family to get back to, and I only have Kade and memories that haunt me. Now,” I said with finality. “Don’t plunge head first into self pity- I don’t want a dejected partner watching over me.”
Jake looks at me with grief written all over his face. “You don’t understand, do you? Only one of us can win, and frankly I want it to be me, not you.”
My heart was crushed. I didn’t know what to say at first, but only one thing came to mind: “Why?”
“Because I don’t want to see you all alone with Kade: No family, no friends. You’ve had enough pain to last you a lifetime.” He stood and brought me close, only a few inches away. “The single thought that will haunt me for the rest of my life if I win, will be the fact that you left a gaping abyss inside of me. That’s what would drive me to insanity.”
Jake’s so much taller than me, that my head comes to his chest. When I turn my face up, he’s staring at me with such intensity that would bear holes through a wall and tears filling them. “I can’t endure life without you. I just can’t.” He hugs me close, so close I can feel his heartbeat in my ear. While I’m having the life compressed out of me, I can’t help but rethink my feelings for Jake. He’s been my friend forever. I can’t be romantic with him. Can’t I? I’m with Kade, and if I make it home I’ll probably marry him, too. How can I do this without deepening the chasm between Kade and me? The Games probably aren’t helping either…. Screw it! I’m doing this, and suffer the consequences later if I ever see Kade again.
Within an instant, I stand on my toes and do what I haven’t done in a long time.
I’m kissing Jake. Strange thing: I don’t mind it. One more strange fact: No one is pulling away. I hear a door open and the only response we get is “Oh” and the door closes again. Jake pulls away too soon, and sits on the bed. “Thanks for the mood upbringing. It was a nice surprise,” A smile plays across his lips.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, instantly defensive. I sit down next to him and glare.
“You didn’t stop kissing me. I was the one to stop, and you know that I’m not known to stop. Why did you kiss me?” He put his arm around my shoulders, but I didn’t move it no matter how angry I was.
“I did not kiss you! You kissed me!” I lied and got back up.
He didn’t lose his cool, though his smile got bigger. “That’s not what I saw,” he sang. “I’m hugging you and next thing I know you’re kissing me.” He laughs quietly. “Where in the world did you learn to kiss like that? That was totally different than the last time we kissed.”
“First off, the last time we kissed was when we were twelve. Second, Kade taught me,” I winked and Jake covered his ears in horror.
“I don’t want to know what you do with him!” he yelled and Abel walks in.
“Goody, you’re done. Come eat and we’ll talk about tomorrow.” After we sit down at the table, Abel begins his spiel about presentation. We decide that we’ll work together on it when Abel starts drinking. “Well, if we start early then you can get back to what you guys started.” He waggled his eyebrows as he knocked back the last half of the bottle of beer. Dammit, he’s drunk.
“For your information, Abel, that wasn’t the first time we’ve kissed.” Celestia paused her eating, her fork halfway to her mouth. Jake continued on, ignoring her. “Unfortunately, that was the first time it didn’t feel wrong.”
“Probably because you started all the others; I started this one,” I mumbled. Abel laughs and leaves with a new bottle. Silence is left in his wake except for the clicking of silverware on dishes. Seth claps his hands, announcing that he’s going to bed.
The quiet drags on until it becomes unbearable. “So…how’s the wife and kids, Sam?” Celestia asks.
“Great. They really like Caroline’s dress the other night” a failed attempt at lightening the mood. I stand abruptly and get ready for bed, leaving all of them behind.
A knock on my door makes me jump. “It’s only me,” Jake walks in and I instantly put my hands on my hips. “What do you want? I’m going to bed if you don’t mind,” I say impatiently.
“Only to let you know that if you have any more nightmares tonight, come wake me up. I don’t want you to suffer another sleepless night.” He takes my hands in his and I know he’s being serious. “Please, Caroline. I want to know about them and you know that I’m a great listener.”
“Fine, but no promises,” I fold my arms across my chest and as Jake goes to shut the door behind him, he pokes his head back in. “By the way, that nightgown looks good on you.” He winks and closes the door.
“I can’t believe you sometimes!” I yell after him. When I put on the nightgown, I wasn’t expecting any visitors: A deep red silk with black-laced hems and thin straps. It comes way above mid-thigh (a little shorter than everything else I wear around here) and is also very low cut. Hmm, I wonder how much Kade would like this. I laughed quietly and crawled into bed, ready for the deep void of sleep.
“Knives: I’m getting antsy and things need to get interesting fast.” I shove past him. Grabbing the biggest one, I turn to the targets. Bulls-eye. I do this over and over, the knives getting smaller, the targets getting farther away and yet I get a bulls-eye every time. The instructor asks if I want to try dummies. I shake my head, horrified at the image that protrudes into my memory. Dad had me practice on guys that had killed others in the district. Many of their deaths had been slow and painful because I was inexperienced. I hear a cough behind me and I return to the present, the man from the past fading into oblivion. People had lined up to see my work and had seen me space off. I walk off silently. Lunch is called a few moments later and I sit at an empty table, Jake following me like a shadowy sentinel watching over me, protecting me. People instantly flock to my sides, but staying clear of Jake.
I finally snap, tired of the relentless chatter around me. “Stop! I’m going to kill all of you. You don’t want to be friends with your murderer, I know.” I move to a different (empty) table, only followed by Jake. They avoid me like the plague for the rest of the day while I silently box with an instructor. Abel was pissed at me for blowing my cover, but I just turned up the music and continued to eat fruit.
The third day of training was the day we got our scores. Fifteen minutes to prove how skilled you are to the Gamemakers and graded on a scale from one to twelve. As the girl from 12, I’m utterly last after Jake.
“Caroline, why did you take Autumn’s place?” Jake asks as the girl from Eleven is called in. We had been quiet until then and it took me by surprise. “What?” I ask. I completely missed it the first time. Jake repeats himself and I take a few minutes to answer.
“Because she had someone to come home to. I only have you and Kade. She was already married, while I’m only sixteen.” Jake was about to answer when he’s called in.
When I’m called, the Gamemakers are tired and bored. I’m going to have fun. I find a sword that feels right and nod when I find the right one. “Can have I an assistant?” I have to ask three more times before I get someone’s attention. As a man stands opposite me, I grin wickedly and the monster inside of me is unleashed. I turn into a whole different person, horrific at best. The man was a wimp- he couldn’t even hold the sword properly, which I found out as I preformed a stop thrust directly into his chest, killing him instantly. Who would have thought the Gamemakers could look up so fast? “Whoops; looks like he’s dead. Can I have someone that is actually a challenge?” All parts of my former self were gone in the wind; they left with the dead man’s spirit. My smirk returns with renewed cockiness as the sword instructor steps out with a breathtaking blade in hand. Within ten minutes he’s tired but I’m not. As he goes for my head he doesn’t realize that he has his left side wide open. I go in for the “kill”, planning to stop before I actually kill him. Unfortunately, that’s not how it happened. He literally jumps onto my blade and it buries itself in his spine. He dies instantly, blood polling around my feet. I have some wounds, but nothing too bad.
I’m completely shocked, coming back to my normal self, everything setting in. “I’m sorry- I didn’t mean to–.”
“Caroline Sullivan, you are dismissed.” I bow, my heart pounding against my chest. I walk calmly and drop the sword on my way out, letting it clatter to the floor.
I shut the door and break into a run. The elevator is too slow, so I run all twenty flights of stairs to my quarters. Around the sixteenth is when I start to cry and my legs start to burn, but I push myself the last four. When I throw open the door, everyone turns his or her heads, waiting: Everyone but me. I race to my room, wanting to be alone but as I fling myself on my bed I’m only unaccompanied for a few minutes, crying into my pillow. Abel was the first in and he begins to stroke my head.
“What’s wrong, honey?” I cry even harder, remembering when Dad would call me that. In between sobs, I tell him the whole story. “The first kill is always the hardest, honey.” He hands me another box of tissues when I’m done.
“It wasn’t my first kill though! I’ve done plenty more than that and I never acted this way.” I blow my nose loudly and chuck the tissue with the other million on the ground.
“No matter. This was you’re first accidental kill.” He hugs me and I sniffle. “In two hours, we’ll go look at the scores.” I nod and shuffle my way to the shower. Before he left I told him not to tell anyone.
“I have to tell Jake. He’s absolutely rabid: He broke every vase, chair and anything he could get his hands on –including Sam’s arm- just to get to you first.” He laughed and looked at me with a smile. “That boy has a terrible temper, you know that right?”
“He’s basically my brother: Of course I know.” He leaves and I take an hour shower, getting rid of as much of my guilt as possible. As soon as I step out, I feel refreshed. I slip on a random dress and flats and let my long waves tumble down my back. Coming into the main room I hear a gasp. “That dress! Where did you get it?” Faye squeals and runs her hands over the fabric.
“Um . . . my closet? Why?” It was a pretty deep purple, with golden flowers dusted on it.
“That’s the President’s daughter’s dress. It was one of her favorites and there is none exactly like it” Seth says. “I wonder how it ended up in there. People have been trying to get their hands on it for a long time; including myself.”
Great. I have a priceless dress on and I’m not even wearing it for any occasion. “Do you want me to change, because I can if you want-?”
“No!” eight people yell at the same time.
“Fine, I’ll keep it on.”
“Good, now it’s time to go. I’ll check the closet to see if we have more. By the way, all of the girls down there will know whose dress that is, so watch out.” Seth says as he disappears into my room.
All of the tributes are standing in front of a podium and when they heard the elevator ping, they looked at us. All the girls gasp and the guys glare at me. “Looks like I have everyone’s attention,” I laugh and smiled. The girls swarm me, and a few have jealousy lacing their voices. I deal with them for a bit, but before I can yell at them, the scores are going to be read out. The boy from One got a seven, which was a pretty high score, and the rest were mainly fives and fours. Jake got a seven, and when the man reading off the scores got to my name, shock filled his voice. “Caroline Sullivan, District 12, has a score of eleven.” Silence: I am now a great, huge, target. Jake grabs my arm, leads me to the elevator and into my room. He pushes me onto the bed with such furry I’ve never seen in him before. I look at my arm that has a crimson handprint on it. “Jake, you’re hand’s bleeding.”
“Well, that’s what I get for caring, I guess. What were you thinking when you picked up that sword? You knew how deadly you were with that weapon, and yet you went ahead with it. Dammit, Caroline! Not only do I have to watch my own back, I now have to watch yours all the time. Not to mention Logan, who you’ve already pissed off.” He was furious, unforgiving, terrifying. I wanted out right then. I thought better of it though. There was no way I was getting through Jake in this state. Then my mind hit a chord…“Who is Logan?”
“The guy from One,” he sat on the bed, defeated and tired; he rubbed his eyes. “We’re dead. I just know it,” he mumbled past his hands.
It was as if all of his fight had transferred to me. I felt fiery heat bubble through my veins. “We are not dead. We have to go as long as possible. I don’t care what happens, if I have to feed you and keep you tied to a tree, then that’s what I’ll do to keep us in at least the top eight. We have to bring admiration to 12. You have your family to get back to, and I only have Kade and memories that haunt me. Now,” I said with finality. “Don’t plunge head first into self pity- I don’t want a dejected partner watching over me.”
Jake looks at me with grief written all over his face. “You don’t understand, do you? Only one of us can win, and frankly I want it to be me, not you.”
My heart was crushed. I didn’t know what to say at first, but only one thing came to mind: “Why?”
“Because I don’t want to see you all alone with Kade: No family, no friends. You’ve had enough pain to last you a lifetime.” He stood and brought me close, only a few inches away. “The single thought that will haunt me for the rest of my life if I win, will be the fact that you left a gaping abyss inside of me. That’s what would drive me to insanity.”
Jake’s so much taller than me, that my head comes to his chest. When I turn my face up, he’s staring at me with such intensity that would bear holes through a wall and tears filling them. “I can’t endure life without you. I just can’t.” He hugs me close, so close I can feel his heartbeat in my ear. While I’m having the life compressed out of me, I can’t help but rethink my feelings for Jake. He’s been my friend forever. I can’t be romantic with him. Can’t I? I’m with Kade, and if I make it home I’ll probably marry him, too. How can I do this without deepening the chasm between Kade and me? The Games probably aren’t helping either…. Screw it! I’m doing this, and suffer the consequences later if I ever see Kade again.
Within an instant, I stand on my toes and do what I haven’t done in a long time.
I’m kissing Jake. Strange thing: I don’t mind it. One more strange fact: No one is pulling away. I hear a door open and the only response we get is “Oh” and the door closes again. Jake pulls away too soon, and sits on the bed. “Thanks for the mood upbringing. It was a nice surprise,” A smile plays across his lips.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, instantly defensive. I sit down next to him and glare.
“You didn’t stop kissing me. I was the one to stop, and you know that I’m not known to stop. Why did you kiss me?” He put his arm around my shoulders, but I didn’t move it no matter how angry I was.
“I did not kiss you! You kissed me!” I lied and got back up.
He didn’t lose his cool, though his smile got bigger. “That’s not what I saw,” he sang. “I’m hugging you and next thing I know you’re kissing me.” He laughs quietly. “Where in the world did you learn to kiss like that? That was totally different than the last time we kissed.”
“First off, the last time we kissed was when we were twelve. Second, Kade taught me,” I winked and Jake covered his ears in horror.
“I don’t want to know what you do with him!” he yelled and Abel walks in.
“Goody, you’re done. Come eat and we’ll talk about tomorrow.” After we sit down at the table, Abel begins his spiel about presentation. We decide that we’ll work together on it when Abel starts drinking. “Well, if we start early then you can get back to what you guys started.” He waggled his eyebrows as he knocked back the last half of the bottle of beer. Dammit, he’s drunk.
“For your information, Abel, that wasn’t the first time we’ve kissed.” Celestia paused her eating, her fork halfway to her mouth. Jake continued on, ignoring her. “Unfortunately, that was the first time it didn’t feel wrong.”
“Probably because you started all the others; I started this one,” I mumbled. Abel laughs and leaves with a new bottle. Silence is left in his wake except for the clicking of silverware on dishes. Seth claps his hands, announcing that he’s going to bed.
The quiet drags on until it becomes unbearable. “So…how’s the wife and kids, Sam?” Celestia asks.
“Great. They really like Caroline’s dress the other night” a failed attempt at lightening the mood. I stand abruptly and get ready for bed, leaving all of them behind.
A knock on my door makes me jump. “It’s only me,” Jake walks in and I instantly put my hands on my hips. “What do you want? I’m going to bed if you don’t mind,” I say impatiently.
“Only to let you know that if you have any more nightmares tonight, come wake me up. I don’t want you to suffer another sleepless night.” He takes my hands in his and I know he’s being serious. “Please, Caroline. I want to know about them and you know that I’m a great listener.”
“Fine, but no promises,” I fold my arms across my chest and as Jake goes to shut the door behind him, he pokes his head back in. “By the way, that nightgown looks good on you.” He winks and closes the door.
“I can’t believe you sometimes!” I yell after him. When I put on the nightgown, I wasn’t expecting any visitors: A deep red silk with black-laced hems and thin straps. It comes way above mid-thigh (a little shorter than everything else I wear around here) and is also very low cut. Hmm, I wonder how much Kade would like this. I laughed quietly and crawled into bed, ready for the deep void of sleep.
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