Tonight, part of him will suspect that this was all engineered to get him out of the Arenas, to separate him for weeks on end from his rebellious fellows. He'll think that Sandy's cart was wired to crash if she got too close to the finish line, that they used his collision with her as a convenient excuse. He'll concoct theories that lighten, but don't erase, the burden of being the reigning champion of child-killers.

But right now he can't think. All he can see is the blood dripping from his brow and on Felicity's hand, and an awful replay of Dave's head smacking against the wall, of Sandy crashing into the wall. Of his gruesome, enormous victory.

He falls to his knees with her, another unwilling Victor in a line that's getting longer the more the Neverending Quell goes on.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

There's a Hail Mary on his tongue and a hole in his heart.