LATER THAT DAY, Iko had all the victors of District 2 gathered around the island in Atlas' kitchen. Alecto hung by the doorway, as though she weren't one of them, rather, a child kept on the outskirts of a conversation between adults, pretending she didn't feel the world tilting beneath her feet, pretending she couldn't smell the thick miasma of tobacco on her father's breath or the knives of fear snuck through the gaps between his ribs, pretending she couldn't see Iko stealing quick gulps of his liquor from the cabinet under the sink when their backs were turned.

There were nine of them left: Kaye, Lyme, Brutus, Atlas, Minerva, Evander, Enobaria, Iko, and Alecto. They were the greatest, the champions, the warriors, the survivors. Once upon a time, there might've been more, basking haloed in the glory of the afternoon light, time in their hands and an altar born at their feet out of the concrete with every step they took. But the years had gone by, age and ailment pruning the numbers down to the nine left standing in Atlas' kitchen, lounging against the kitchen island and the counter, seated atop wooden stools and drinking out of glittering champagne glasses. Granted, they're still the largest pool of victors out of all the other districts. When the old victors passed away, the Capitol broadcasted little memorials of them, showcasing snippets of their most exciting moments during their Games, but otherwise didn't mourn.

"Thank you all for coming," Atlas said, bracing his palms against the edge of the kitchen island. He swept his stony gaze over the room, acknowledging each and every one of the victors.

Mummified in her silence, Alecto stood amongst victors she used to idolise on TV, a ghost hanging behind her father's knees. Now, she is one of them. Even though it'd been two years since she came home bearing a crown and the reverence of the people who once doubted her, the wound of victory felt fresh. She still tasted Nikolai's blood in her mouth. But when she'd run his own sword through his spine, she was certain he was dead. He was dead and she was buried and no rage could excise the noise inside. Victory came at a cost. But victory promised them freedom.

"In a few months two of us will be going back into the arena."

This didn't sound like freedom.

"They'll expect us to jump at the chance to win glory for our district again," Atlas continued, a muscle working in his jaw. "So we're going to choose now, before we get put on the spot and make decisions that bear a multitude of consequences. Two tributes, two mentors. And then we're going to fight. At the very least, one of us won't make it out, but one will. Remember that."

In a room filled with people who once lunged forward to volunteer with the ferocity of a thousand suns, like violence was their blood and their hearts beat to the momentum of the fight, the silence bleeds through the walls. Hesitance flickered over their faces. District 2 earned notoriety for the combat excellence and disciplined brutality of their victory-hungry dogs when it came to the Games. From an outside perspective, one might expect the seasoned warriors to be more than happy—raving, even—to jump headfirst into the fray. They'd expect to see the victors of District 2 lunging towards the stage, volunteering after one another, savagely desperate for another round in the ring.

But even dogs of war grew old and tired. The general consensus was that once they'd won, once they'd brought glory to their district, they'd get to rest. No more of the gruelling training that'd whetted the joys of their childhoods into sharper points. Once they'd won, they were granted a reprieve from the pain. They'd get to live life outside of the Games, they'd get to enjoy their spoils and breathe without thinking about how they were going to survive one day after the next because they didn't have to. Not anymore. Nobody wanted to get back into the arena, even though they wore their victory and every scar collected along the way like medallions.

By now, they all had families. They all were living separate lives and Alecto knew none of them would let go of their respite.

"I'll go."

All eyes snapped to Iko, who clutched a bottle of whiskey by the neck, knuckles white like she was about to choke the life out of glass. She lifted it in the air, a mock toast. "I've got nothing to lose anymore, anyway," she said, voice dead. Her smile was vacant and sharp as she put the bottle to her lips and drank.

Horror flared in Alecto's chest, a screaming beast clawing its way through her skin, turning her blood to adrenaline.

No. Alecto wanted to grab the bottle and smash it between her hands. No, Iko can't go. She was Alecto's only friend. The only person apart from her father that she cared about. Alecto could count on two fingers how many people cared about her unconditionally.

A storm flitted over her father's weathered features, but it was gone before anyone else could catch what Alecto did. Heartbreak. Ever since Iko had mentored Alecto during her Games, having accepted a promise victor-to-victor to look out for her, Atlas seemed to have adopted her as a second daughter. Before that, Iko had been alone. Alone and wasting away in her home, left to duke out her demons by herself, bullet-hole riddled mental stability and shredded sanity and all. Everyone had someone. But Iko had no one. Until Alecto came home. And for the first time in years, Iko had people to eat with at the dinner table.

As much as Atlas wanted to veto his honorary daughter's decision, there was nothing he could do. He couldn't let Alecto take Iko's place. And no one else was going to step forward, because they had everything to lose.

"No," Kaye argued, slapping a wrinkled and bony hand against the counter. She blinked, the lines of her old face pulling visibly, and Alecto swore her eyes flashed silver with rage. "You still have years on you, girl. I've seen enough. I'll go."

"Gran, that's ridiculous," Evander snapped. "You can barely even walk!"

Unable to stand on her own for very long, Kaye was the only one occupying a barstool at the kitchen island. It was difficult to reconcile this crippled image of the former victor—gnarled with age, too weak to survive a single night in the arena—with the Career tribute who'd manipulated her own allies, including her district partner, into jumping to their deaths into the mouth of an active volcano.

Kaye waved a dismissive hand. "Don't worry about me, boy. I'll just take my walker as my district token. Arthritis won't be the death of me."

"It wouldn't be a fair fight," Atlas pointed out, his tone a soft command. "Plus, you're not exactly the poster District 2 tribute in your current condition. We have a brand to maintain if we ever want to increase our chances of our future tributes getting generous sponsors."

Smug, Evander stuck his tongue out at his grandmother, who grunted and muttered something under her breath, but didn't fight Atlas.

Atlas turned to Iko. "Are you sure?"

Swaying slightly on her feet, Iko tapped two fingers to her temple. Even drunk, she didn't smile. "Positive, sir."

"She's drunk," Enobaria said, regarding Atlas with a frosty look. "Are you going to allow this?"

"Maybe. Now," Iko drawled, shrugging. "But I made the choice before you all got here." A muscle in her jaw ticks. Iko blinks, a hundred years of pain passing over her face like a shadow. But it was gone before anyone could comment. "It's what he would've done." Iko's voice was so soft, a low murmur of thunder, that Alecto barely caught it. Barely caught the small crack in her voice.

"I'll go with her," Brutus—a mountain of a man—said, a grim smile on his scarred mouth when Iko passed him the half-empty bottle. "It'll be fun, won't it? Interesting to see how we'll all do back in there."

What Alecto knew of Brutus extended to the tapes she'd watched with her father of his Games. What became of him after he'd stepped off the train after his victory tour, she wasn't bothered with. But if Brutus was so willing to volunteer, that could only mean, like Iko, he had nobody to live for but himself, unlike the rest of them. Enobaria had her sisters, Minerva was a mother of two children barely breaking out of adolescence, Lyme had her wife, Kaye wasn't even an option, and Evander had his family to care for. Atlas would never let Alecto back into the arena, and the reverse held true.

But Iko was Alecto's family, too.

"I'll mentor this year," Atlas said, his expression carefully blank as he pinned Iko with a pointed look. Alecto guessed he felt responsible for her, as though he could find some sort of restitution by accompanying her as far as he could get, even if the last thing he wanted to do was get back on that train, even if Iko's survival wasn't guaranteed. "Who's coming with?"

Eyes blazing, Alecto stepped forward.

"No, critter," Iko said, shaking her head. "I don't want you watching."

A stab of indignation shot through her core. Even after all this, they were still treating her like a child, still protecting her like she hadn't seen her fair share of bloodshed, like she hadn't dirtied her hands with the lives she'd taken as well. She was nineteen. She'd won the Games. Like the rest of them, she had the guts to drag herself back home. Seething, Alecto slammed her hands against the table, pinning Iko with a livid stare.

A memory jackknifed through the forefront of Alecto's mind.

You'll never be your father. You might be his blood, but you'll never have his legacy.

Nikolai's words echoed in her ears. He'd always made sport of taunting her. Mocking her failures and discounting her few triumphs. There were times she could've killed him. Times she could've torn his throat clean from his neck. But while anger and hatred were powerful emotions, they lent nothing to her skill. In her shortcomings, Nikolai tied his strings, antagonising her at every turn, prodding her with swords, playing cat and mouse. No matter how much she tried, she couldn't best him. Not during their training days. Not in school when she saw him and his friends in the hallways, or when he made sure to sit beside her in class so he could pull on her hair and make snide remarks that stoked the flames of her rage. Not until it was the two of them left standing in the arena. The very last day of the Games. The very last breath he would take. Anger might not have been enough, but Alecto clung to her desperation and primal need. She'd wanted this more than he had. She'd wanted this victory more than anything. The blood staining her hands and the bits of pulpy flesh dripping from the ends of her white-blonde hair had been testament to her ruthlessness. Of course, he was the best and she'd been mediocre all her life, shadowed by her father's fame and infamy, shoved out of the rankings by kids whose fathers pushed them to their limits instead of discouraging them from the sick pull of the Games.

But Alecto didn't get what she wanted because of her father's victory. She got it because she wanted it more than everyone else did. She'd done things she wasn't proud of, but every life she took was a necessary casualty. A step forward for her. Regret was something she'd excised from her soul when she'd picked up her first gun. Alecto didn't believe in guilt either. None of those things brought her home. None of those things gave her the tools to step out of her father's shadow into her own legacy.

You know what you've done, Alecto thought. You know what you have to do.

"I'll come with," Enobaria said, placing a hand on Iko's shoulder.

"Guess we better start training," Brutus said, letting out a laugh like he were taking a bite out of the air and spitting it back out. Like they weren't going back into the arena in a matter of months.

He flicked his daughter a stern look. Alecto glared back, her eyes twin scythes of unforgiving ice. Atlas nodded. "Then the decision has been made. There's no backing out from now on. The rest of us just have to put on a show for the Capitol."

* * *

EVENING FELL OVER THE DISTRICT once the meeting had been adjourned and the victors had left. Instead of retreating to her room, Alecto sat in the kitchen while Iko and her father made dinner. It was Atlas who got Iko to stay. He didn't want her going back to the empty house by herself, stewing in her own thoughts, so he proposed dinner. After they ate, watching the sun setting over the mountain range through the kitchen window in silence, the air between them a graveyard of gambled lives and the inevitable nightmare, Iko left with the promise of a bottle of gin tomorrow.

Alecto stayed in the kitchen.

They're silent as they work with only the gurgle of water running from the tap as Atlas washed the dishes, passing them off to Alecto so she could wipe them down with a dishcloth and place them back in the cabinet, a system they clocked into wordlessly. When everything was put away, Alecto made to leave, quiet as a shadow, soundless, wordless, carrying all the noise and silence of her brain with her.

"Wait."

Alecto paused, turning to her father with a blank look. He wiped his hands on a dishcloth, which he hung over the counter as he beckoned her.

"Come, sit." Atlas pulled out a stool, not quite smiling, but not quite looking like the world was ending either. "Just for a bit."

Alecto sat, more curious than compliant now. Without saying anything, her father turned to the counter, and Alecto flicked her hard gaze to the mountains in the distance, mountains she used to climb with her father almost every morning before her Games, and now, weekly.

Her father set a plate before her, snapping her out of her reverie. She blinked, only just comprehending the sight before her.

Fresh bread from the local bakery and a layer of nut butter slathered over the springy slices. He'd cut up a banana into little slices and lined them up in neat rows of three. A generous drizzle of honey glistened over the top. A snack she remembered eating constantly as a child. Her father used to make it for her all the time, but when the time came for her to watch her diet for training's sake, he stopped. And she'd forgotten all about it. Until now.

Alecto levelled her father with a searching stare. But Atlas' face betrayed no emotion, a blank slate, a wall she couldn't tear down. He didn't say anything either. Just sat there, with a cup of hot chocolate in hand, and watched her. Watched as her eyes lit up—not in warning at a sign of an eminent threat, but something a couple shades off of excitement. Watched as she picked up the bread with her fingers, gingerly, to avoid letting the banana slices slip off. Watched as she bit into it slowly, savouring her first bite. Watched as she took the next bite. And then the next. And the next. And more after that.

Until there was only drops of honey pooled on the plate, which she swiped up and licked off her fingers.

Altas grunted.

Alecto pinned him with an endless look.

He didn't ask her to speak.

"It's been a long day" Atlas asked, gesturing out the window, where the sky over the mountain range beyond the lake separating their backyard from their frequented rock faces had darkened. Before her Games, he'd take her to the mountains with a bag of rope, sports chalk, and a handful of other supplies. Over the different routes on different rock faces Alecto and her father had discovered, they'd race each other to the top, and when they'd finally made it, muscles trembling with a satisfying burn, he would procure a smaller bag of food and they'd sit there, watching the watch the sky bleed out as the blood orange sun sank between the mountains, watch buildings of marble and stone slip in and out of their evening colours so vibrant it broke their hearts. "Shall we go rock climbing tomorrow evening?"

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
ok like i get why nobody's picking up this book and i have a feeling its cause theres no promised romance in it but like.... maybe..... maybe..... in my moment of weakness and desperation for validation....... i'll cave into the mainstream and give alecto a love interest (johanna mason most likely)

BUT ANYWAY!!!!!!! the little scene between atlas and alecto was just added today bc my dad did that for me too 🥺 and i thought ....... hm...... atlas and alecto..... hm.