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Foxface comes into the Training Center expecting nothing. She’s largely ignored her fellow District 5 tribute, and he her; she’s been warned by their mentor not to get attached to anyone. It’s easy, really. She just looks at everyone and reminds herself that they all want to kill her. She expects that: the pointed looks, the clenching fists, the narrowed eyes, the sense of preparation heavy in the air.
She’s not expecting him.
He’s huge and grim-faced and he’s clearly one of the older tributes, and Foxface should be terrified of him, and she is—but she’s terrified in the way that makes her flush when he passes by and closes her throat.
She watches him with sharp eyes. She hears him called by name: Thresh. That night—the first night after training—she lies in her bed, eyes closed, and whispers his name.
Thresh.
The next day she tries to force him out of her head, but it’s impossible: when his district partner, the little girl, steals the Career’s sword and hides overhead, and she watches Thresh’s face crack into a wide grin, her heart beats fast. Too fast, and she ducks her head and goes back to the plants she was studying. Her fingers tap-tap-tap over the buttons, and it isn’t until she moves away to give someone else a turn that she realizes her hands are shaking.
At lunch she sidles shyly up to where the District 11 pair are sitting. They barely notice her, perhaps because she sits at the other end of the long table, where from time to time she can sneak glances at Thresh.
That evening, as they’re rocketing up to their floor in the elevator, her district partner grabs her arm. Hard.
“What?” she hisses, pulling away from him.
“I’ve been watching you,” he tells her in a low, rough voice. It’s the first time they’ve spoken to each other this week. “Anyone can see you. It’s stupid."
“What are you talking about?”
“Stop acting like an idiot with a crush,” he snaps. “You came here to kill each other, not to fuck.”
The elevator doors slide open. She shoves him out, roughly; he stumbles and falls onto the floor, grazing his palms on the carpet.
“What is your problem?” she hears echoing after her as she stalks down the hall, her face burning. When she gets to her room, she slams the door and throws herself onto her bed.
She could cry, but she doesn’t. Instead she rips into her pillow with sharp harsh fingers, pretending it’s someone’s face.
She doesn’t know if she’s picturing her partner’s, or Thresh’s.
When the gong is sounded in the arena, Foxface takes off. Not for the Cornucopia—she’s seen the bloodbath there in past years, and she’s not foolish enough to risk immediate death for the faint possibility of supplies—but for the trees beyond.
And then she sees him out of the corner of her eye, running across the field, disappearing toward the part of the circle surrounding the Cornucopia past which nothing is visible. He pauses, looks over the edge and then behind him—and he disappears.
She’s in a tree by now, a few yards inside the woods, hauling herself up, praying nobody will notice her hidden up here in the branches. Once everyone’s spread out from the Cornucopia, she decides, she’ll sneak through the woods to find the place where Thresh dropped away. He wasn’t with Rue, maybe he’ll… Maybe he’ll want an alliance.
She has to wait about five hours for everyone to spread out. The boy from her district died in the initial bloodbath. The Careers from Districts 1, 2, and 4, minus the girl from District 4, have formed a pack, along with the boy from District 12 and the boy from 3; they’ve spent these hours setting up camp, as well as digging up the landmines around the plates that brought her and the other tributes into the arena. Foxface can hear them crowing about their clever plan, reactivating the mines, as they disappear into the woods at twilight. She’s watched carefully how they laid out the mines, memorized how to walk through them without getting blown up. Now, as their voices fade, she climbs carefully down from the tree.
She’ll test the minefield later, in the light of day. For now she skirts the edges of the clearing, making her way to where Thresh disappeared. From afar it looks like the edge of the world, but she sees now, at the edge, a steep dirt slope, and below it a field of tall wheat. She can’t see Thresh, decides he must be hiding, and nervously lowers herself to the ground.
She slides down the bumpy slope, or really she skids. Her ass will be sore in the morning—if she even makes it to morning—but it’s worth it, because she didn’t see anyone but Thresh come down here. Maybe it’ll be a safe place. Maybe. If she can stop him from killing her before she can even speak.
Foxface takes a few nervous steps into the field, and is immediately swallowed up. The wheat is higher than her head; no wonder Thresh decided to hide out here. And now that darkness is falling—
She shivers a little, and as she does, a shadow rises up from the wheat, looms over her and puts its hands around her throat. She doesn’t even have time to scream.
“Wait!” she tries to say, but his hands are tight around her; she kicks out blindly, and manages to connect with something soft as she claws at his hands.
He buckles, then; his hands loosen and she manages to spring away, rubbing her throat. “Please, just listen,” she begs, as he looks up at her with something murderous in his eyes. This early? She shouldn’t be surprised, but she’d hoped he might give her a chance first. “Look. I don’t—I don’t have any weapons. I didn’t come here to kill you.”
“Then what did you come to do?” he asks, voice deep and booming, like something sweet in her ear.
“I wanted—to be allies,” she says, so softly she can barely hear herself. “I can hunt a little, and I’m fast and I’m good at hiding—“ he doesn’t seem to be convinced—“and I know how to get to the Careers’ food supply.”
That gets his attention, and she rushes on: “They set up camp by the Cornucopia, and they dug up the landmines and reactivated them so that you can’t get to their things unless you know how. But I know how. I’ve been hiding, I watched them set up—I could steal things from them.” He looks like he’s softening. “For us.”
Thresh looks at her warily, and stands up; she forces herself not to shrink back, to prove she’s worthy of allying with him. “All right,” he says after a moment. “You can stay. But if you try to cross me—“
“I won’t,” she says, and she hopes he knows she means it.
He warms up to her as the night goes on; she tries hard to be likeable, to persuade him that she’s of value. She’s not really a threat, they both know that—a young, slight girl with no weapons against the brute physical power that is Thresh’s? She wouldn’t have a chance.
And she wouldn’t want to attack him, anyway. Everyone else in the arena could die and she wouldn’t give a damn, as long as she wasn’t the one doing the killing. She’s not sure she has it in herself to kill other people anyway. She’s seen past years’ Hunger Games, heard about victors even before that. Sometimes people survive and win by doing nothing. She hopes—without much conviction—that she’ll be one of them.
They fall asleep that night yards from each other, Foxface’s hand curled around a sharp rock, Thresh’s fingers flexing. She sinks into slumber more easily than she’d like, but if she’s honest, the rock’s a precaution, not a real weapon. It’s barely the end of the first day. He won’t kill her, she’s sure, until at least after she’s shown him how to get to the Career pack’s food supply. Not in the middle of the night, asleep, knowledge unimparted.
They spend the next day waiting for the Careers to move out. They take turns clambering halfway up the slope, listening to see if the Careers’ laughter and boasting has faded. They’d come back at some point in the night; Foxface had heard Cato’s booming voice when she woke up, talking about the District 8 girl they’d killed.
When they’re not watching out for the Careers, they sit in silence.
That night, finally, Foxface is sick of quiet; she turns to Thresh, and asks, “What’s it like in District 11?”
He tells her, though all the while he looks surprised that she’d ask, that she’d want to know at all. She doesn’t know how to tell him that she wants to know everything about him, that she wants to grasp what little pieces of knowledge she can before she has to die. She was lucky enough to escape the Cornucopia. That escape has to be worth something.
Something changes between them, then. When Foxface falls asleep that night, it’s to Thresh singing her a quiet lullaby.
Foxface wakes up to the hot sun beating into her eyes. Thresh is gone.
She sits up, panicked, heart pounding; where has he gone? She squints into the distance, and moves into a crouch, praying he didn’t leave her to be devoured by the Careers—
“Morning,” says someone behind her, and she gives a little yelp and turns around, heartbeat going faster than ever.
It’s just Thresh, and she breathes a sigh of relief—more relief than she would have expected. He’s looking at her with an expression somewhere between amused and quizzical as he sets down the wheat in his arms. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I am, I just…thought you’d gone.”
“Oh.” And there must have been something too raw, too open in her words, because his expression shifts, and his voice softens. “Oh.”
She feels like an idiot, a weakling, because there are tears welling up in her eyes; how can she be so emotional about a boy sentenced to death? And she’ll share his fate. They’ll both be dead before long, and they’re expected to kill each other anyway, and she—
She stops thinking then. He’s moved toward her, and before she can wonder what he’s doing his strong arms have enveloped her. Not in the threatening way of two days past—no, this is gentle, this is tender, this is everything the arena is supposed to exterminate.
It feels so good.
And Foxface is crying then, the tears hot on her face as she clutches Thresh, her fingernails digging into his back; her thoughts are jumbled but he’s a rock, steady in this field, keeping her from getting lost. He doesn’t move as her tears soak his shoulder, doesn’t move as she weakens, as she collapses against him.
After a while, when her tears are all gone, she sniffs and steps away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—“
“It’s okay,” he says gently. “I know.”
That night they sleep without weapons in hand, curled into each other on the hard ground.
On the fourth day the Careers leave their camp during the day. Foxface hears their laughter fading as she’s stalking a tiny, suspicious bird; forgetting the bird, she runs on light feet to where Thresh is gathering food. “They’re gone,” she whispers. “I’m going to go up and get their food.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” he asks.
“No. I can do it myself. I think I still remember how they set up the mines.”
“Okay,” he says dubiously, looking into her eyes. “Be careful, Foxface.”
“I will,” she promises, and sets off.
She’s lucky: she still remembers the way through the minefield, and, what’s more, the Careers have made it easy. There are footprints worn into the soft dirt, and Foxface springs lightly from print to print. When she makes it to the pyramid, she lets herself punch the air in triumph. She doesn’t celebrate for long, though; she’s got to grab just enough food to feed herself and Thresh, but not enough to tip off the Careers that some is missing, and she’s got to do it fast.
She grabs whatever she sees first: crackers, apples, strips of dried beef. The Careers don’t have particularly high-quality food; they just have more of it. This food is as much hers as theirs, though; given that only one person will come out of the arena alive, she doesn’t think she’s particularly denting their chances by taking a few things. She keeps alert for the sound of braggarts crashing through the trees, but hears nothing. Everyone must be steering well clear of here, making it a harder hunt for the Careers—and a better opportunity to steal for Foxface.
She’s back down in the field within a half hour, the food in her jacket twisted into a makeshift bag. “Thresh!” she sings out, spirits suddenly lifted now that she’s made it back safely. “I’m back!”
He emerges from the field, and at the sight of Foxface and the food his face is lit up by that smile that drew her to him what seems like an age ago. He leads her back to their little camp, and then they sit down and look over their spoils. Not much, but it’s theirs. They divvy up the food, and Foxface takes a cracker to snack on now.
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t kill me?” she asks. She means it as a joke, she didn’t think about her words, but when she sees his face she wishes she hadn’t said it.
“I’m sorry.” She looks down at her hands. “We’re so isolated down here, sometimes I almost forget—“
“I know,” he says quietly. “Me too.”
That night, as Thresh roasts a rabbit he caught earlier, Foxface looks up at the moon. It’s full, huge in the dark sky, throwing pale light onto their faces.
When Thresh looks up at her, as he turns the rabbit on a spit, she kisses him. Their mouths are dry and he tastes like longing, but this, she thinks, is the only chance she’ll ever have to kiss anybody.
When they part, he looks at her solemnly, sadly. Whatever they have between them now is so fleeting, so temporary; there is no chance for them in this arena. Twenty-four in, one out. Like as not it’ll be neither of them.
She apologizes for the second time that day. “I just, I’ve wanted to do that since the first day—“
“Don’t be sorry,” he interrupts, and he kisses her again, short and sweet and desperate.
Their hands are joined when they fall asleep that night, tight as though the other is the last thing they’ll ever hold onto.
Neither of them will ever know it, but the Capitol never airs footage of them together. Star-crossed lovers from the same district are bad enough. Star-crossed lovers from two different districts are impossible.
On the 9th day of the Games, the explosion happens.
Foxface has just returned to the field from the Cornucopia, more food in hand; she’s searching for Thresh in the field when she hears it: a loud boom from behind.
Panicking a little, she drops the food and scrambles back up the slope, trying to see what’s happening; when she pokes her head just above, all she sees is smoke. Someone must have blown up the Careers’ food supply, she thinks as she slides back down, and she has a pretty good idea who. There are only so many people left: the Careers and their boy from District 3, both District 11 tributes, both District 12, and herself. Ten people.
The cannon goes off twice that day, and then they’re down to eight. Foxface and Thresh watch the faces projected onto the sky, huddled together by their dying fire. His arm is around her, holding her tight, and she’s nestled into his side. The temperature’s gone down, and it’s cold. They’re the only thing keeping each other warm.
He’s stiff, though. When Rue’s face went up, he tensed and he hasn’t relaxed since. Foxface is almost afraid: he cares so much about this little girl, and he’s so angry, and what if he does something rash and tries to track down whoever killed her?
“Just eight of us now,” she says, when the sky’s gone dark again. Unspoken: what is the fate of their strange little alliance? They’re not from the same district. There’s no chance that they’ll both be able to go home.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he tells her, and she’ll be damned if he doesn’t sound like he means it.
“Thresh, if it’s down to just the two of us—“ She closes her eyes. “I want you to go home.”
“What?” He actually sounds startled, as if he’d forgotten how these games would end.
“You can kill me. Or I’ll kill myself. Just—don’t make me go home alone.” Her voice has dropped to a whisper, and she feels him pull her in tighter.
“Are you sure?” he murmurs.
“Yes. Promise me.”
He does.
On the 10th day, Foxface leaves the field at high noon, gone to see what’s left of the Careers’ supplies.
She laughs when she reaches the rubble, a high hysterical laugh; there’s so little left for her and Thresh, but they stand a better chance of survival now. The Careers obviously didn’t pick through any of this, because she scavenges a metal pot and a knife blade.
Her hand closes unthinkingly around the blade, tight enough to bleed. Up here there’s a danger of being killed any minute; up here she doesn’t have Thresh protecting her.
And then she hears it: a cry of pain.
It’s coming from the field where Thresh is, and panic fills her; no wonder the Careers weren’t up here, picking through their supplies, they’ve gone to kill Thresh without her even noticing—
She sprints off, to the woods, promising herself that she’ll go check it out once she’s figured out if a cannon’s fired or not. She doesn’t want to risk it. She tells herself that this is what Thresh would want her to do, too. Better she survive for now than get herself killed trying to save what might already be a corpse.
When she returns, it’s not until after she’s made sure a cannon hasn’t fired. She doesn’t know what she’d do if one had, but this way she knows he’s still alive. And he is: he’s down in the field. She’s learned over the last week to watch for him, for the rustle of grass and the flashes of dark skin; if you weren’t as watchful as Foxface, you’d probably miss it, but she’s memorized his body and his movement and she thinks she could find him inside a pitch-black cave.
“Thresh,” she calls out, once she’s inside the boundaries of the field. “Thresh!”
He surfaces a few yards away, and the relief is plain on his face. “You’re okay.”
She doesn’t know when she does it, but suddenly the knife and pot are on the ground and she’s in Thresh’s arms and her feet have left the ground.
“I heard you scream,” she whispers into the crook of his neck. “I was so worried—“
“I’m okay,” he says gently. “I’m here. I’m here.”
She doesn’t let him put her down for a while. She has to stop shaking first.
Everything’s quiet for the next couple of days, but they’re tense. Eight people left.
And there’s something desperate rising up in Foxface, some kind of desire. She looks at Thresh and she wants to cry, because there will never be enough time to explore each other, to do everything they want, to learn each other so well that no part of the other is a dark corner.
“I’m going to miss you,” she tells him as the moon rises on the 11th night. “I wish this wasn’t—“ Her voice breaks, and she stops; she doesn’t trust herself not to start sobbing.
“We could’ve really been something, you know,” he murmurs. “Some other place, some other time…”
Her entire body clenches, pushing closer into him, as though he could swallow her whole, as though somehow he could carry her out of here. It isn’t fair. They should be lying in a soft bed somewhere instead of on the ground of an arena; they should be arguing over children’s names instead of who is going to die first. She should be making him promise anything other than what she has. But they can’t both win, and she’s not sure she’d even want to if it meant his death. She’s not that cold yet.
Claudius Templesmith’s voice booms out over the arena one evening, inviting everyone to a feast. Foxface isn’t sure what it is that the Gamemakers think she or Thresh desperately needs, unless—
“They’re not going to let us go home together,” he says quietly, watching the dirt slope that will take them to the Cornucopia. “It’s not going to be that.”
Her shoulders slump. “I know.”
“We should split up, though,” he continues, drawing idly in the dirt. “Just in case.”
She nods. “I’ll go now. Hide in the Cornucopia, I think.”
He looks at her admiringly, as if the idea would never have occurred to him. “Good luck.”
“Feasts are usually bloody, though…” Foxface keeps her voice quiet, keeps her gaze off Thresh. “Maybe we should just. Split up. See if we can make it through to the very end.” She risks a look at him now.
He looks—she doesn’t know how to read his expression. But it’s one that hurts her, that makes her wish desperately that they could be anywhere other than here, that there could be any fate other than theirs. “All right,” he says, after a moment. “Foxface—“
She presses a finger against his lips. “Eve. My name is Eve.”
“Eve.” He seems to be tasting the name, the way the single syllable sounds on his tongue, and she’s not sure she can bear it. “Eve—“
She kisses him before either of them can say another word, hard and desperate and rougher than she’s ever kissed him before or will ever kiss him again. His big hands cup her sharp small jaw, more gently than anyone else would think he could be capable of—these hands that tried to crush her windpipe now caress her, and she wonders if she should just get this over with now, let him kill her here.
But she’s called Foxface for a reason. Her survival instinct kicks in, like it always does, and when she pulls away she does it gasping.
“I’ll see you,” she whispers, and grabs her knife. Then she darts away, running for the Cornucopia as night wears on, forcing herself not to turn around and run back into Thresh’s arms.
The plan to hide in the Cornucopia pays off. She’s the first to get her pack, and no one chases her. She thinks she sees Thresh at the edge of the woods, but she doesn’t stop for him. She runs, and she keeps going, racing upstream, everything forgotten but survival.
Thresh dies during a thunderstorm, two days later. She doesn’t hear the cannon—it’s thundering too hard—but she’s on the ground when the anthem plays, and she sees the projection, and she sees his face up there, floating in the sky.
There’s no hope for them now, and she’s too tired of this game to stop herself from screaming out his name. It’s not nearly as sweet on her tongue as it was the first time she said it, or the thousand times she’s said it since they came to the arena. It tastes like death now: his, and her own.
She’s got to die somehow, and she doesn’t want it to be a brutal death, like Thresh’s probably was. She doesn’t want Cato to beat her to a pulp, and she doesn’t want Katniss to shoot her through the heart. But she’s going to die somehow. There’s no way for her to win this.
Her answer comes the next day, when she hears the District Twelves crashing through the woods; she slips through the trees, following them.
Her answer comes when Peeta is picking berries by the stream. She’d reached to pick off some of their cheese when her sharp eyes catch the berries in Peeta’s hand.
“Nightlock,” she breathes, and there’s her answer.
When he leaves to go find Katniss, she walks slowly to the stream, and kneels by the berry bush. This is it. This is how she can escape the arena, finally, and do it without pain. She’ll be dead seconds after she puts them in her mouth.
She picks up the nightlock berries, crushes them in her trembling fist. When she closes her eyes and puts the berries onto her tongue, Thresh’s face swims in the darkness of her eyelids.
Be strong, he says, and then—
And then there is nothing.