Chapter 9 : The Number
"Nolan James, District 12."
The words echoed through the waiting area, and I rose from my seat with carefully manufactured reluctance. Shoulders slightly slumped. Eyes down. The picture of a tribute who'd already accepted his fate.
The double doors opened into a gymnasium transformed. Gone were the other tributes, the bustling stations, the trainers correcting technique. Now the space held only equipment, silence, and a viewing balcony where Gamemakers lounged with wine glasses and appetizers.
They barely glanced my direction.
I walked to the center of the floor and bowed. "Nolan James, District 12. Whenever you're ready."
Seneca Crane—I recognized him from the pre-Games coverage, the Head Gamemaker with his distinctive beard—nodded absently. Most of his colleagues didn't even acknowledge my presence. Twenty-three sessions before me had apparently exhausted their attention spans.
Good. Exactly what I wanted.
I started with fire-building at the survival station. Gathered materials, struck flint, nursed a flame into existence. Competent but not fast. The kind of performance that screamed "adequate for basic survival, nothing more."
One Gamemaker yawned. Another refilled his wine.
The knife-throwing station came next. I selected a blade, felt its weight, and threw. First knife hit the target three inches left of center. Second knife struck the outer ring. Third knife found center mass. Fourth knife missed entirely—deliberately, a twitch of the wrist at release.
Inconsistent. Unreliable. The kind of mediocrity that wouldn't register as threat.
But Seneca Crane was watching.
I could feel his attention like heat on my skin. While his colleagues laughed and drank, the Head Gamemaker studied my movements with the calculating focus of someone used to finding patterns. His eyes tracked my footwork, my grip changes, the slight hesitation I'd built into each throw.
He knew something was off. He just couldn't prove it.
I moved to the snare station, demonstrating basic trap-setting with the same deliberate adequacy. A functioning snare that would catch small game. Nothing innovative. Nothing impressive. The work of a tribute who might survive a week if the Careers forgot about him.
Fifteen minutes passed. The Gamemakers' attention had wandered completely now—all except Seneca, whose eyes never left my hands.
"Thank you. That will be all."
The dismissal came from somewhere in the balcony. I bowed again, kept my expression neutral, and walked toward the exit. As the doors opened, I allowed myself the smallest smile.
They'd seen a six. Maybe a seven at best. A tribute worth ignoring in the chaos of the Cornucopia. A body to add to the pile once the real competition thinned out.
Exactly as planned.
Katniss waited in the hallway, called next. Her jaw was set, her eyes hard. Whatever she'd planned for her session, it wasn't going to be subtle.
"Make them remember you," I said quietly.
She nodded once and walked through the doors.
Thirty minutes later, Katniss emerged.
Her face was fierce, flushed, hands shaking at her sides. She walked past me without speaking, headed straight for the elevator, and didn't stop until we reached the District 12 floor.
Haymitch and Effie waited in the common room. Effie's smile was professionally welcoming. Haymitch's expression was carefully blank.
"How did it go?" Effie chirped. "Was it wonderful? Did they love you?"
Katniss didn't answer. She walked to the window, pressed her forehead against the glass, and took three deep breaths.
"Katniss?" Haymitch's voice was cautious now. "What happened?"
"I shot at them."
Silence. Absolute, crushing silence.
Effie's smile froze. Haymitch's glass stopped halfway to his mouth.
"You shot at the Gamemakers," he said slowly.
"At the apple. In the pig's mouth." Katniss turned from the window, defiance burning in her gray eyes. "They weren't watching. They were drunk and laughing and one of them was more interested in a roasted pig than my session. So I put an arrow through the apple."
"You shot at the Gamemakers."
"They weren't in danger. It was just an apple."
"You. Shot. At. The. Gamemakers."
Effie made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a whimper. Her face had gone pale beneath the Capitol makeup.
Haymitch set his glass down. Stood. Walked toward Katniss with measured steps.
And started laughing.
The sound was rough, almost painful, like something rusty being forced into motion. He laughed until tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, until he had to brace himself against the wall, until Effie was staring at him like he'd lost his mind.
"Oh, that's perfect," he managed. "That's absolutely perfect. You shot at them. What did they do?"
"Nothing. They just stared. Then I walked out." Katniss's defiance faltered slightly. "Was it bad? Did I ruin everything?"
"Bad?" Haymitch wiped his eyes. "Sweetheart, you just made yourself the most memorable tribute they've seen in years. The girl who volunteered for her sister and then shot at the Gamemakers when they ignored her?" He laughed again. "They're going to love you or hate you. Either way, they're going to watch."
"What about sponsors? What about—"
"Sponsors want drama. You just gave them enough to last the whole Games." He finally sobered, expression shifting to something almost respectful. "It was stupid. Reckless. The kind of move that gets tributes killed before they even enter the arena." A pause. "I would've done the same thing."
Katniss stared at him. Then something released in her shoulders—not quite relaxation, but the first loosening of tension since she'd emerged from her session.
"So I didn't destroy our chances?"
"You rolled the dice. We'll find out tonight how they landed."
The balcony outside my room became our waiting place.
Katniss and I sat on opposite ends of a bench designed for two, watching the Capitol's endless lights pulse against the darkness. Neither of us spoke. Words seemed inadequate for what we were facing—the numbers that would determine how sponsors viewed us, how the Careers targeted us, whether we'd be hunted or ignored.
I retrieved a chocolate from storage—one of the last I'd saved from the previous night's dessert—and offered it to her.
She took it without comment. Our fingers brushed in the exchange.
The chocolate was soft from the warmth of my pocket dimension, but she ate it anyway, eyes fixed on some distant point past the Capitol's skyline. I wondered what she saw. Her sister, probably. The Seam. The life she might never return to.
"Do you think about dying?" she asked.
The question surprised me. Katniss Everdeen didn't talk about fear. Didn't acknowledge weakness. The fact that she was asking meant something had cracked in her armor.
"I died once already," I said. The words came before I could stop them.
She looked at me, confusion evident. "What?"
"Before. In another life." The lie built itself from truth, the way the best lies did. "I was sick. For a long time. Knew I wasn't going to make it. Eventually I just... stopped fighting." I watched the lights. "This is my second chance. I'm not going to waste it being careful."
Katniss was silent for a long time. Then: "You sound like you actually believe that."
"I do."
"Then you're either crazy or the bravest person I've ever met."
"Probably both."
Something almost like a smile crossed her face. Brief, reluctant, but real. We sat in silence until Effie's voice called us inside—the scores were about to be announced.
The television flickered to life. Caesar Flickerman appeared in his trademark blue, smile gleaming, ready to reveal the numbers that would shape the arena.
District 1 tributes: 9 and 8. Solid Career scores.
District 2: Cato received a 10, Clove a 9. The highest so far.
District after district rolled past, most tributes landing between 5 and 8. Rue earned a 7—impressive for her age and size. Thresh got an 8.
"District 12. Nolan James."
I leaned forward.
Caesar's smile widened. "A score of... six."
Perfect. Exactly what I'd aimed for. Forgettable. Beneath notice. The Careers would scratch my name from their priority list.
"Katniss Everdeen."
The room went still.
"A score of... eleven."
Effie shrieked. Haymitch dropped his glass. Katniss stared at the screen like it had grown a second head.
"Eleven," Haymitch breathed. "They gave her an eleven. They actually..."
The highest score of the year. The highest score in recent memory from an outer district. Katniss Everdeen, the girl who volunteered for her sister and shot at the Gamemakers, had just become the most dangerous tribute in the Games.
And everyone—every Career, every sponsor, every viewer in Panem—would be watching her.
I turned to look at Katniss. Her face was pale, eyes wide, reality crashing down around her.
"They're going to hunt me," she said.
"Yes."
"Every Career. Every alliance. They'll all come for me first."
"Yes."
"This is impossible. I can't—"
"You can." I stood, stepped closer, met her eyes. "Because you won't be alone. Six and eleven. They'll see the archer and ignore the shadow. And when they come for you, they won't see me coming."
Katniss held my gaze. The fear didn't leave her face, but something harder formed beneath it. Determination. The same steel that had driven her to volunteer for Prim.
"Partners," she said.
"Until the end."
The television continued its recap, showing our faces side by side. The girl on fire with her impossible eleven. The forgettable volunteer with his calculated six.
Nobody watching would guess which of us was the greater threat.
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