Chapter Text
On the plus side, I have a bow and a quiver full of arrows now.
On the minus side, I have lost Samuel L. Jackson ... a badass motherfucker. If there's one thing I can think of that might come in handy in the Games, it's a badass motherfucker.
But in losing my one tentative ally in the chaos I have gained a dance sequence involving some hipster indie band too cool for anyone to actually have heard of and cameo appearances from a handful of notable B-movie character actors. There's color, there's light, there are freeze frames with dramatic code names slapped in bold lettering across them.
This is when I remember that tracker jack venom causes hallucinations. Right before I collapse into the brush and pass out.
The band dances on.
I don't know how long I am out. It could have been hours. It could have been days. The overgrowth, a canopy of convenient weeds that mostly hides me from sight, doesn't look familiar when I wake, but then again the last time I saw it it was probably covered in technicolor lizards playing drinking games with acorn shells. Tracker jacker venom is a bitch.
My head is killing me.
I lie back on the forest floor, enjoying the shade and listening to the birds calling back and forth to one another. I got stung, but so did all my most dangerous rivals. I can afford to let my guard down a little and enjoy the beauty of the woods. The leaves acting like green filters, creating a mosaic out of the sky. The rich smell of wet Earth mixing with the breeze. The snorting of squirrels deep and alarming like an elephant trumpeting.
I shot up at once, bow in hand but fumbling with an arrow in a way that would certainly get me killed if the danger was real. I scan the area around me for the source of the sound.
"Oh, you're up."
I recognize that voice immediately. How could anyone not know the velvety tones that breathed life into Nick Fury, Ordell Robbie and Mace Windu?
"Holy shit! I thought I hallucinated you."
Samuel L.Jackson tilts his head. He's standing over me, his expression intimidatingly blank. I wait for him to say something, but he seems in no particular rush to bond over tea and good conversation. For a second I wonder if the path of this righteous woman is about to be beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men … if you know what I mean. But it seems odd that he would save my life once, only to kill me now.
"Mr. Jackson--"
"Rue."
"Sorry?"
"None of this Mr. Jackson stuff, you think I want this on my IMDb profile?"
"Well I dunno … Jumper is on there, isn't it?"
He frowns, his eyebrows pressing into the bridge of his nose. "Hey look, sometimes at wrap parties you do things that ambitious Sith Lords catch on tape. Do I have to spell this out for you?"
I shake my head. "No Sir."
Samuel L-- I mean Rue, keeps sniffling and rubbing his nose. I think to myself that catching a cold has to be the worst possible way to spend the Hunger Games and wonder how I can make use of this new ally without catching something myself.
"Thank you, by the way, for saving my life."
He shrugs. "You've got the best chance of killing some of those crazy fuckers from District 1 and 2. I'm no fool."
"How many are left?"
"You took out the cheerleader from one, the girl from four … then some other fuckers died. I couldn't be bothered to remember them. I spent two days waiting for you to wake up sleeping beauty. You got any plans for survival besides climbing trees?"
He grabs at something hanging around his neck, a small metal tube that could have been a cross but lacked the arms of a cross. I can't really see what he's doing. It looks like he's twisting it open.
"Yeah I don't know--" I start to say. Then suddenly it hits me. "Is that cocaine?"
Rue looks up from the small vile with a snort. He coughs it back and sniffles a few more times and now I don't even need him to answer my question because it is undeniable. District 11 has much better sponsors than I do.
"Yeah, you know. Just a little boost."
Since that one year the Gamemakers left a small crop of cannabis growing wild in a field, drugs have been a touchy subject in the Games. There's nothing worse than getting the munchies while on a starvation diet, but the feeling of general well being led to the tributes setting up a commune instead of gory death matches. In the end razorback beavers mutts had to be unleashed in the arena to thin the herd.
"You're with the crazy white dude aren't you?" Rue asks.
Honestly there are no shortage of crazy white dudes. It takes me a minute to figure out he means Peeta.
"Not officially--" And then when I struggle with my own tentative understanding of the situation I decide to change the subject. "Aren't you too old to be reaped anyway?"
Rue shrugs. "Well that's the rules, but no surprise that brothers always get the short end of that stick."