when trees burn, they leave the smell of heartbreak in the air

Banshee didn’t know how to answer. She didn’t think she really wanted anything specific in the moment, other than to not be seen. She couldn’t wish to disappear aloud, though. It felt counterintuitive. “I can go,” she offered, her voice breaking as she reached back behind her. “I didn’t - I don’t mean any harm.”

.

“You’re fine, you can stay if you want,” Hazel said taking a trepidatious step backward. “I just – don’t fucking try anything, alright?” Her hands gripped at the rope tied around her body as her hands gave another slight tremble. “I’ll save you the time,” She began nodding her head toward where she had been moments before, “Shit’s empty.”

Avenue’s breath stalled in her throat. She was decidedly not good, but she was alive, which counted for something. “I’m- yes, I’m good,” she answered Hazel, thinking more about the sponsors at home. How pathetic she must’ve looked, and how, even now, she couldn’t quite seem to calm her racing heart or mind. She was in no position to fight with anyone, especially considering how terribly her first confrontation had gone, so she offered Hazel a smile instead– a sort of display of her own need to appear like she was good. “I came up looking for tape,” she explained unnecessarily, her hands gripping the table behind her like a vice to counter both the pain from putting too much weight on her foot and the way the room felt tight around her. “I haven’t had any luck. What about you, did find what you were looking for?”

.

“Good,” Hazel mumbled. She felt useless, clearly this girl wasn’t trying to kill her and she didn’t have anything she’d be able to do to her anyway other than sheer brute force. What would that give her? An easy kill? An upperhand? A heavy breath sucked in through her nose and she shook her head to herself as she asked, “Why’d you need tape?”

Her mouth twitched into an almost-smile as she answered Avenue, “Sleeping pills, or something like it.” She grabbed for her canteen and unscrewed the cap, taking a brief sip before holding it out toward the other tribute, “Here, it’ll help you like...chill.”

She’d had to get out of her outer suit, any armor it might have provided now discarded…somewhere. She hadn’t been paying attention, only thing about survival, and the lack of survival, and Will, and Will’s face, and floating, and how she’d almost missed the platform so she knew what it felt like to float and she knew how it must have felt for him to float away and was he even dead yet? When Pepper tripped against a storage locker, it made the loudest sound she’d heard perhaps in her entire life, and she let out a startled squeak, muted quickly with the panic that came from the discovery that someone else was in the room with her. But that panic faded a split second after the words sunk in.

“Hazel?” Pepper called out, softly, just in case they were not the only ones in this room. She peaked around the locker, and there Hazel was. She tried to grin, but it came out shaking, and on impulse Pepper ran to her friend without waiting for a response, throwing her arms around her neck. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said against Hazel’s shoulder.

.

The deafening clang sent ice toward her veins; she knew it was a statistical improbability she’d make it out of the Hunger Games alive, however, she was determined to ignore the odds, number crunching was for people who fell in love, was for people who killed outside of the arena, was for people who died. Hazel wasn’t dying. Hazel was with Pepper. Pepper was her friend. She was in her body. She would take charge of her actions. Yep. Any moment now.

Hazel was nearly knocked over by Pepper as she flung her arms around her and she couldn’t help but indulge the ghost of a smile over her lips. “Hey, yeah,” Hazel began as she slowly brought her arms up to cling to the younger girl, “I’m okay.” Guilt panged at her chest. Only one of them would be able to get out of there and in an instant, her throat felt dry, threatening to choke her to death. If Pepper died, it’d be Hazel’s fault. She was never very good at being an older sister. “You’re okay?” Hazel asked, her voice coming out smaller, head tucking into the side of Pepper’s, “No one hurt you?”

Banshee hadn’t stopped shaking since she crawled out of the space suit. She was so exposed. It felt like she was naked in the sunshine. It was dangerous. It was too bright in this strange building, her clothes were too close to her skin. She gave little thought of who would be watching her. She was more concerned about who might find her in such a vulnerable state. Even the dead weren’t buried naked. 

So she kept moving. Kept to the walls, mostly, as much as she could. She imagined herself like a vine, clinging to something for security as she moved on. There were hallways, but each room she entered was as clean and bleak, to her eyes, as the next. There was nothing natural here. It made her feel dizzy, terrified. She entered a new room and was almost immediately struck still when she heard a voice and a loud sound. Banshee crouched down immediately, but the door she’d just passed through shut loudly behind her. Exposed. She hated this.

.

Hazel whipped around at the sound of the door opening, fear engulfing her throat. Carefully she stepped out toward the sound, not wanting to let herself hide. She swallowed hard several times trying to will her mouth to move before she finally summoned up the courage to speak to the other tribute, “What d’you want?” It felt lame but she was still attempting to ground herself the best she could while feeling as a whole, lost.

A handful of the exercise machines gave an almost familiarity to Hazel as she connected them back to the training room in the Capitol. A locker with her name caught her attention and she quickly crossed the room and began to rifle through it, hoping for the best when it came to supplies; rope and the broken handle of a knife would only take her so far.

The entire circumstance of the last fifteen minutes of her life felt as if she were viewing her life in the third person; she wasn’t in charge of her actions, there was this version of her that didn’t have people at home, couldn’t remember her little brother’s names, didn’t remember Seven, couldn’t remember why she had volunteered to be there in the first place. Rationally, Hazel knew she had stabbed someone upward of a dozen times and speaking in facts, Hazel also knew more often than not, people didn’t survive stabbings like that. Why didn’t she feel anything one way or the other about someone potentially dying? In fact, she found herself caring much more about why she hadn’t heard a cannon. She knew there were meant to be cannons.

A shaky breath stuttered from Hazel’s lips as she attempted to take in the world around her, heart pounding away in her chest; she didn’t have too much time to think, the star in the center of her field of view gave her something to focus on. They always made tributes face the cornucopia in the Games, logic served to reason that the star was the cornucopia. Wasting no more time Hazel smoothed her hands against the moving wall and adjusted her feet, pushing off the wall and hurtling toward the star.

“Trust your gut. Really. That’s the only sound advice I think you’re gonna get, because we don’t know what’s gonna happen either.” Hazel clearly wasn’t the most balanced person to have volunteered, but despite getting off on the wrong foot, she’d proven herself determined and down-to-earth enough that he couldn’t help himself, he was really thinking she might pull it off.

“I wish you guys knew,” Hazel gave a half-hearted laugh, “Like I get that totally throws away the whole fucked-up decorum or whatever they have, but I think the worst part is not knowing what it’s all gonna be like – ‘cause then maybe it wouldn’t just be me trusting my gut.”

Pepper nodded. They’d need a problem solver. Hazel was the leader of course, and Pepper could learn just about anything from books, but she wasn’t clever and couldn’t figure out riddles or puzzles. She wasn’t sure if Hazel could. “So we have a team,” Pepper said. “Like in the old stories. You’re the leader, Cecil’s the brains, Knox is the muscle, and….and I’m the other brains.” She faltered. She never faltered when she was talking to Hazel. But what was she, if Hazel had Cecil and Knox? “I don’t know where Konner fits in,” she admitted, although Konner was far from who she was thinking about.

Hazel shook her head at being assigned leader, no way in hell was she going to lead, she just wanted to stay alive in the arena. Not lead a band of adolescents to their doom. She had already done enough of that by convincing Pepper to join her in the Games in the first place. “We’re in this together,” Hazel mumbled, “I’m not anyone’s, like, fucking boss or whatever.”

She supposed she hadn’t given Pepper a fair enough position in the Games, in their fate; she hadn’t been the older sister she wanted to be. She couldn’t be. The shoes were too big to fill. “If I try to do anything you don’t like or you think is wicked fucking stupid, tell me Pep,” Hazel spoke softly, the guilt beginning to eat away at her core, “I’m not the boss of you the same way Knox and Cecil and Konner aren’t. You’re my friend, and like, okay, yeah, you’re younger than me but you’re so smart, Pepper.”

Knox sat in silence for a moment as she thought about this offer. Right off the bat, she had three people in the arena who wouldn’t be gunning for her and honestly, that sounded too good to pass up. Especially when it guarantees some safety for Konner. “Okay, sounds like a deal to me.” Knox told her, truthfully. “No bloodbath and I’d be fine with a little longer than that also. As long as it didn’t put us into any kind of ‘finale’ together.” Knox offered, curious to see what she thought of the counter offer. 

“That’s true,” he allowed. They didn’t exactly ship off the excess food so that everyone could have a seat at the table. “Just makes me feel like part of the fuckin’ establishment, you know? It’s the guilt.” When you grow up with nothing and suddenly find yourself with something, it’s hard to know how to enjoy it or what to even do with it.

.

“I get it,” Hazel laughed nodding as she crossed her arms over her chest. “ It’s like, when I first got here I wasn’t sure if I like should eat any of the stuff they had because there’s just so much and it’s so wicked-fancy,” She added, hoping the anecdote would put them on the same page, “Like I had ice cream for the first time just because I like could but it still felt weird because it’s just...no one back home can really get their hands on that, you know?”

I need to win. Ash had heard that many times before, but hearing it from Hazel now reminded her of one instance in particular. A similar looking face, not too long ago, had told her the very same. And Aspen had succumbed to emotions, too, in a way, unfortunately in a much more destructive setting than just the skill presentation. “You know, your sister said the same thing,” Ash mused out loud. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that she had a lot of potential.” Aspen could have–maybe even should have–won. Ash had failed the first Sawyer tribute, she did not want to fail another. “So do you.”

.

“She did?” Hazel asked, pausing in her downward spiral. She hadn’t thought about Aspen in that regard; she only thought about Aspen in the cold hard fact she had known. Deviations from the knowledge she had broke the script she had prepared for herself and for how she conducted herself. “Yeah, but she got a Six,” Hazel defended. She was always a step behind Aspen, she had been for her entire life even though she factually looked up to Aspen it wasn’t – she was never good enough. “But, I dunno, I guess I’m not gonna get distracted like she did,” Hazel murmured, blinking back some tears.

Albany caught the eye of an Avox from across the room and quietly signed a brief Tea? For her? Thank you! before returning his attention to Hazel. Stressed was a common enough emotion, and Benny reckoned it was an understatement. But still, she was dealing with it. That was impressive.

“Alright, well. At risk of this being the stupidest question you’ve heard in a while: what’s stressing you out?” He sipped at his own tea. “For what it’s worth, you’re doing great. Your scores, your interviews… you’re handling yourself incredibly well, Hazel. Better than I was in your position, that’s for sure.”

Hazel appreciatively nodded toward the Avox as they scooted off to work on the tea. She collected her knees to her chest, placing her feet on the chair below her. “What was it like for yours?” Hazel asked brow furrowing down, “Like in the arena or like your stuff that you worked on before it?”

“Since I’m still alive? In some cases, definitely. Yes.” In others, there was some luck but… there was a lot of killer training, too. A lot of it. That wouldn’t help Hazel, though, so he left it out. “Obviously don’t do anything dumb, but… why not you? You know? I feel like if both me and that girl from Ten made it out a few Games ago, anyone can.” He tried for a reassuring smile, and there was a part of him that maybe even believed it himself, too, that Hazel could do it. 

.

“Monster, victim, survivor, winner – whatever the fuck you wanna call it,” Carol shrugged, honestly disinterested in such labels. “Let’s not bore each other too much. Bottom line, don’t terrorize my best friend and have fun.”

.

“I’ll try not to fuckin’ re-traumatize her or whatever,” Hazel offered. She couldn’t help but laugh and she cocked her head to the side, “Have fun? The Hunger Games where people very historically have an absolute blast?”