His mantra was not working. In fact, it seemed to have the opposite effect, drawing yet another physically imposing tribute into the bathroom as well. Reutruse had started to stammer (which struck Keeth as strange in an unidentifiable way; he was used to being the stammerer, not the stammeree) out that it was okay, even though it was most definitely not okay. Nothing was okay about the current situation. He was supposed to be snugly nestled in the tub, like he had been on the way from Six to The Capitol. No one was supposed to come in at all, never mind come in to relieve themselves!
And then it was even less okay. It shouldn’t have struck him as so strange that some people actually wanted to use the bathroom for its intended purpose, but it did. He felt very, very small, hiding in his blankets, with the two daunting young men towering over his less and less adequate bathtub of protection. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything. The only thing that came to mind would actually have been more of a shrill scream, to the tune of GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GO AWAY LEAVE ME ALONE. He’d learned his lessons about screaming long ago. It was better to just consent to whatever hurt or humiliation was coming. He’d probably end up hauled up over one of their heads, or maybe one would take him by the wrists and the other by the ankles and they’d swing him to the count of three before launching him into the corridor. No, that wouldn’t do at all. He’d been thrown like that before, when bigger boys from Six had caught him one day and chucked him into a fountain outside the Hall of Justice. A filthy fountain. Birds pooped all over it, and for all he knew, tall, handsome boys who made his stomach feel funny and warm peed in it all the time. He’d thrashed and gasped as if it had been twenty feet of water rather than less than one, spurring laughter from the ones who’d tossed him and most other people in eye- or earshot.
He heard their words, even as he hid. Reutruse’s stuck in his head. He failed to grasp Marvel’s appraisal of the situation in the initial exchange, but then the boy from eleven protested, it’s not what it looks like. What did it look like? He had no idea. Was there something that one meek coward hiding in a bathtub that just happened to be in the same bathroom as a powerful hero who’d volunteered to save a similar boy looked like? If there was, it was well beyond his kenning. It was like they were speaking in code. Maybe there was a male universal language, hidden between the lines of normal words, which he was not privy to? Maybe it came along with puberty, but only if you got muscles and the need to shave more than once a fortnight as well?
It was when the words doing anything somehow passed through the fabric cocoon and reached his ears that he realized, to a degree, what it looked like. Keeth may have been naïve, but he was fairly observant, and probably too clever for his own good. It was part of always being at the edge of every group, always wearing the outside-looking-in perspective. He’d heard other boys talk about things they had done or would have liked to have done. He was vaguely aware that, for some reason, he was supposed to want to do those things too, whatever, exactly, they were. He had a sneaking suspicion that part of why he was so often the target of bullies was intricately tied to his lack of wanting to learn more about, never mind actually participate in, those activities. He was also reasonably sure that Reutruse and Marvel were talking about those things right now, only it involved him, and Reutruse, and…
… it made him wish the train would derail, right then and there, and consume them all in fiery doom.
He waited about three seconds, bracing himself for the screech of metal. Of course, the world was cruel, so it never came. That meant he had to go with Plan B. Plan B was really more instinctive than anything else. It involved hurtling over the side of the bathtub and dashing out of the bathroom as if he were being chased by a flock of birds that were attended by trackerjackers. He was fast, he knew that, and they both seemed pretty focused on peeing, so he had a good shot at escaping, in his estimation, and then they could do whatever they wanted and just leave him out of it.
Initiate Plan B!
He grabbed the side of the bathtub yet again, and this time got his legs beneath him, erupting with all the awkward grace of an antelope wearing work boots out of his blankety confines and over the edge of the tub. So far so good. He darted in the darkness, avoiding the silhouettes of the two other tributes, and realized, oddly, that his cheeks felt very warm. No time to think about that, even if he wanted to. Every second was precious, if he wanted to make a clean getaway. If either got their hands on him, he’d be as helpless to wriggle free as he had been with the Peacekeeper. Anxious adrenaline had burned the drugs out of his system, it seemed, which was good. He made it to the door unscathed and then grabbed the knob. He was free of the incredibly strange situation!
Or he would have been, if the door weren’t locked. Panic seized him, and rather than work the lock, he tugged and turned and grunted and then started to cry. He was trapped, trapped in the dark (the lightswitch was like, two feet away, but never mind that), and they were going to do who-knew-what to him. He felt very stupid all of three seconds later when Smart Keeth reappeared and undid the lock. Success!
The split-second he spent congratulating himself proved to be his undoing. Before he could pull the door open, someone much stronger than him pushed it open from without. He let out a yelp as he was driven back, and his legs got all tangled up, causing him to stumble and then fall, flat on his back with a very audible ”Oof!” of pain. It radiated up and down his spine, carrying through his limbs. The light pouring in from the doorway was blinding him, forcing him to squint, and even then the amount of time he’d spent in the dark bathroom made it impossible for him to identify the newest participant in this nightmarish experience as anything more than a black shadow in stark contrast to the whiteness that filled the doorframe.