Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
AN: And here it is, the story no one asked for. I just needed to clear my mind and ended up playing with my OC Birdy's story, which is the first story I ever wrote. If you haven't been introduced to her you probably won't want to read this, because, well, you know, no investment. Anyways, this story has a lot of tough topic brought up, like rape, suicide, and execution, so don't read if those bother you. I didn't want to shy away from the darker aspects of what life in Panem might be like other Districts, so very little gets held back. Also, things are filtered through the eyes of a twelve year old in this story, not the twenty year old with years of Capitol experience under her belt I introduced in 'Down the Rabbit Hole', please keep that in mind. Anyways, I hope anyone who reads this enjoys it.
Made Unbreakable
"Be careful up there, Bird!"
Glaring down at Jobe, Birdy sits up, spins the knife in her hand.
Right. Careful.
Ignoring the sudden gust of wind that nearly knocks her off balance, Birdy inches further out on the branch until she's at the rope.
The Peacekeepers had hung the seventeen year old almost two weeks prior. Normally they liked to leave the bodies up for a month, a rotting reminder to people the price of misbehavior, but the summer had been particularly hot and humid and the newest batch of Peacekeepers don't have the stomach for the fetid aroma the boy's body is giving off.
They'd come out to the group home and grabbed the first kids they'd seen to do the dirty work of cutting the boy down and disposing of him before the sun had even risen over the tree line.
Yawning, Birdy stretches out and begins sawing through the thick rope. After a few minutes it snaps, followed by the sickening crunch of bone breaking on the ground.
"Ugh!" Jessup grunts, and when Birdy looks down he's shaking his foot, kicking what looks to be innards off his boots.
Squinting down, Birdy sees the body has broken, the force of hitting the ground having been the last abuse it could take.
Birds had pecked his eyes out the first day, then gone after his soft belly over the first week as he'd bloated and split in the heat. Coyotes had come in the night and pulled off his legs after that because he'd been dangling too low on the branches.
What's left will have to be shoveled up and carted off, buried deep, otherwise he'll end up entirely consumed.
It seems a cruel fate for having lost a bullet, but it's the law, the price for the privilege of being a wrangler in the Capitol's employment and being allowed a firearm. Lose a bullet, be unable to account for its use with the body of an animal that was attacking your herd, and you hang.
To the boy's credit, he hadn't cried as they'd put the rope around his neck. He was more a man than the bastards that strung him up.
The Peacekeepers were new to Ten, and it was their first hanging. They'd made the drop was too long. It was nothing short of a miracle the boy's head hadn't popped off when he had the stool kicked out from under him.
"I'll talk to them about proper rope length," Crispin, one of the training Peacekeepers, one who'd been around for a few years and was reasonable, had said when Birdy and Katy-Jo Lewes had gone to him to complain.
"You should," Birdy told him. "If they'd made it too short we'd've been there forever. And they need to use the gallows. We got them for a reason."
And time is valuable.
Like now, they could be out snake hunting, instead they're going to be scooping up rotting guts for at least half an hour because a bunch of green Peacekeepers had used a tree instead of the gallows and more wildlife than normal had gotten hold of the remains. It's wasteful.
Scooting back down the branch, down the rough trunk of the tree, scraping the palms of her hands as she does, Birdy sighs when she reaches the bottom.
It's late afternoon before they finish digging the hole.
The ground is rock hard and dry from drought, making digging nearly impossible, and they have to stop several times to keep from overheating.
"Hope you get better luck on the other side," Katy-Jo Lewes tells the body as they dump what's left of it in the rough hole.
"Amen," Jessup mutters, pushing rust colored dirt in.
"Vaya con dios," Birdy adds.
Jobe frowns as he shovels a load of dirt, stopping to look at her. "What's that mean?"
Nose wrinkling, Birdy answers, "Go with God or something, I think. My dad always said it."
Even though it had gotten him beaten more than a few times. It was a strange tongue, and strange tongues weren't allowed in Panem.
Jobe just grunts, tossing the load of dirt into hole.
He probably doesn't believe in a god, and Birdy doesn't blame him. She isn't sure she does either, but she like the words. Even if there's nothing on the other side of life, no after and no god, the words are pretty, comforting.
And they need pretty and comforting things.
"Think we can gig any frogs tonight?" Jobe asks as they make their way back to the town, dragging their wheelbarrow and shovels behind them.
Jessup grins blissfully. "I could do with some Fried legs."
Birdy nods. She could too, and since they'd just traded several snake rattles for a share of lard they could have just that.
"Momma Muetter isn't gonna let us out tonight," Katy-Jo Lewes reminds him. "We gotta be up early for the train tomorrow."
All their excitement dries up after that. Trains mean going to the District Seat, and going to the District Seat means the Reaping.
"The odds are in your favor," their school teacher, Ms. Honeywell, had told them as she'd helped the kids from the District group home fill out their paperwork requesting tesserae.
It was their duty, as orphans, wards of the District, to apply for tesserae in the names of their 'family', the other children in their homes. The extra grain, oil, necessities, were their payment to the District for providing them with the very basics of living, for being drains on their society.
If they'd given the extra provisions to the group homes that would've been fine, great, but in four years of living in the home Birdy had yet to see any extra grain or oil. They weren't given so much as a pound of extra lard. Everything they signed up for went to families, people with loved ones.
There was no fairness in it, but life wasn't fair. If it were none of them would be in the group homes.
"There are thousands of children. And thousands more slips in the hopper," Ms. Honeywell continued to explain.
"Someone'll get picked though," Katy-Jo Marsen had tearfully muttered.
"More than likely it'll be an eighteen year old though, they got hundreds more slips than us," Jessup tried to comfort her. "You won't get picked."
Birdy had almost pointed out that Katy-Jo Marsen would be eighteen someday, and have her hundred and sixty-seven slips multiplied into the thousands, the same as every other kid in a group home.
The system is rigged against them, and while the odds might not be against them necessarily, they certainly aren't in their favor.
She'd held her tongue though. Katy-Jo Marsen cried enough without Birdy's help.
So they'd filled out their papers and handed them in, and known that when their twelfth birthdays came, their papers would be filed.
The hundred and sixty-seven slips with 'Phoebe Alameda' on them concern Birdy only a little. She's more worried for her older friends.
"How many you have in there this year, Jobe?" Jessup asks suddenly.
"Almost five hundred," he answers simply.
Katy-Jo Lewes lets out slow whistle.
"Nice knowing you," Birdy adds, hoping to lighten the moment.
"Oh, shut up, Bird," Jobe grumbles, kicking a rock at her.
It misses widely, causing Birdy to snort.
"With aim like that you should probably leave the frog gigging to others."
Swearing, he aims another kick at her, but the rock misses even worse than the last.
"Well, at least you won't be much of a loss."
Dropping his shovel he dives at her.
Laughing, Birdy dodges him, running away as he slips in the gravel, tearing his pants and skinning his knee.
"Come on, Red, you need to practice if you want you survive the Arena!"
Fighting down a grin, he snatches up his shovel and starts chasing after her.
Despite having longer legs and bigger strides, Birdy beats him back to the home by several minutes, jumps the fence and plops onto the rotting front steps to wait and gloat.
"Wash up," Lizzie tells her when she spots her after nearly ten minutes. "Momma Muetter wants all the Reaping age kids dressed and ready for bed by twenty hundred."
Mumbling to herself, Birdy wades through the waist deep grass to the back of the house.
Dozens of kids are at the troughs, sloshing murky water onto themselves, trying to clean their hair and faces.
"Here, Birdy!" Katy-Jo Marsen waves excitedly, pointing to an open spot beside her.
"Thanks," Birdy mumbles, hoisting herself up and nearly flipping into the water, only being saved by someone grabbing the back of her shirt.
"I swear, you'd die without me," Katy-Jo Lewes grumbles as she pulls her back to the ground.
"Probably," Birdy agrees. "Y'all finally made it back I see."
Rolling her eyes, Katy-Jo Lewes scoops up some water and rubs her face clean.
Half an hour later they're crammed in the big room on the bottom story of the house.
The big room takes up most of the lower floor, only yielding to the kitchen in the back. It's got trampled, threadbare carpet and mold growing under the faded and peeling wallpaper, smells musky, and has no glass in any of the great windows on the north side, but Momma Muetter likes to use it for meetings. Corralling the kids in it is the only way she's guaranteed their attention.
"Tomorrow you will be on you best behavior," she tells them sharply, shifting one of the toddlers on her hip. "I've got to stay here with the little ones. The Peacekeepers will be taking you and I don't have to tell you they won't be as forgiving as I am."
And seeing as Momma Muetter whips them with regularity, that's not much comfort.
"We've got Reaping clothes pulled out for you. I don't want any whining about them. We won't get any new clothes for another year so we just have to make do with them. I've got some thread and needles, so if you can fix them with those go right ahead."
She shouts out some more news, what time they'll leave and that they need to stay in groups of four and five, before her voice softens and she smiles weakly.
"I hope I see all of you back here tomorrow evening."
They're sent upstairs after that, to their rooms.
"Here Katy-Jo Lewes, Birdy," Lizzy Marsen says as she passes them their dresses.
Bracing for the worst, Katy-Jo Lewes unfolds hers.
It's not really bad, other than being faded, the trim being a bit frayed, it even fits her well when she pulls it on. Not tight or baggy. Comfortable and loose, a nice sun dress almost
Feeling a bit more hopeful Momma Muetter was only trying to scare them, Birdy unfolds her dress.
Her heart stops the moment it's open on her lap. She doesn't know how she hadn't recognized the fabric from the second she touched it.
It's olive and faded, heavy, winter weight, long sleeved with yellowed lace trim.
Hester's dress. Her sister's dress.
It shouldn't be a shock, she'd seen a boy wearing Matt's shirt the year before, only months after she'd watched her brother hang, but having Hester's dress across her lap sends a shock through her.
It seems like so long ago that Hester had been getting ready for the Reaping, assuring Birdy she and Matt would be back.
"It's only the eighteen year olds that have to worry."
"I know, Hetty," Birdy grumbled.
"You should go gig some frogs tomorrow night," Matt had cut in, grinning. "Won't be as many Peacekeepers around. You can probably hunt that big pond over near the shanty even. There's some huge ones there. Then we can fry them when we get back."
They had, because of course they'd come home. There was no question about that.
Two days after the Reaping Matt and Jobe had fried the frogs Birdy, Katy-Jo Lewes, and Jessup had killed and Hester had fixed a rip in her Reaping day dress.
"Just because it's hot and ugly doesn't mean I have wear it torn up," she'd said.
"Anything you wear is pretty cause it's you wearing it," Jobe had squeaked, his voice stuck between a boy's and a man's.
He'd turned scarlet after that, as the others had made kissy noises, asked him when he was proposing.
It had only been a few weeks later, after the Games had ended, that someone else noticed Hester was pretty too.
The sisters had been coming back from town, laughing about something Austin the councilwoman's son had said, when the Peacekeepers grabbed them.
They'd told their supervisor Hester solicited them, but she hadn't. She'd begged them to let her go. Birdy had begged them to let her sister go.
"Please!" Birdy had sobbed, struggled to get away from the burly woman Peacekeeper that had her pinned to the ground, keeping her from helping Hester. "They're hurting her!"
Hester's screams had been so loud, so painful, Birdy knows someone had to have heard her. No one came though. No one helped.
"Finished," the big man, bald, Peacekeeper had grunted, adjusting his pants as two more crawled out of the ditch.
"Took you long enough," the woman mumbled, taking her foot from Birdy's chest.
"She was insatiable," one of the laughed.
The second she could take a full breath, Birdy had scrambled away, tumbling off the road into the ditch. She'd nearly landed on Hester.
Birdy had been too shocked for several seconds, barely recognized her.
She'd been bloody, so bloody. Her eyes were swollen, bloodshot and blackened, dark hair tangled and covered in rust colored dust.
Her dress was shredded, and she'd tried to cover herself, but there wasn't enough left.
"Hester?"
For a moment she hadn't seemed to hear her, then she vomited.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed, shaking, wiping her mouth. "I'm sorry."
"Hester," Birdy felt her eyes swelling with tears. It hadn't been Hester's fault, it was Birdy's fault. She was too small. She hadn't been big enough, strong enough. "No, Hetty, I'm sorry. I couldn't help you."
Birdy had wrapped her arms around her, held her and cried, until the sun sank into the earth and the stars blanketed them. She just wasn't strong enough to drag her back.
It was well past midnight before Matt found them.
"We've been looking all evening for you," he'd chuckled, thinking they'd fallen in a hole or simply broken a broke and were too injured to walk.
It wasn't until he'd crawled into the ditch, squinting in the moonlight, that he'd seen the truth was much worse.
Never in their life had Matt been so quiet as he had been as he'd carried Hester back to the home.
"These things happen sometimes," Lizzie had told them as Katy-Jo Lewes and another girl helped Hester get cleaned up. "Remember Rebecca? They kept giving her the looks so she made a job of it. Went to the Seat to work in a brothel."
"They weren't looking, Liz," Matt snapped. "They almost killed her! She's fifteen!"
"Well they at least paid," Lizzie snapped back, holding out a few coins. "She had a death grip on them. Maybe she takes after your mother more than just looks."
Birdy thinks Matt's teeth cracked he ground them so hard.
It happened so fast Birdy almost missed it.
Matt slapped Lizzie's hand, sent the coins flying across the room, clattering noisily before getting within an inch of her face, voice low.
"I don't care if she had a thousand coins in her hand, she didn't ask for this."
Birdy had silently nodded, glaring at Lizzie, hating her for the insinuation.
They'd stayed at Hester's bedside, as she'd drifted in and out of consciousness for hours, before Matt finally asked what happened.
He'd sat silent, his expression unreadable, as Birdy tearfully recounted every painful moment, until finally his mouth settled into a firm line.
"We fix Hetty up and then we'll deal with those bastards," he told her.
It was only two days later that they'd woken to find Hester hanging from the old tree in the backyard of the home.
There'd been no fixing her. Some things can't be fixed.
"You can show me which ones it was?" Matt had asked, after they gently cut her down, buried her out in the old cemetery beside their mother and baby brother Cliff, next to the empty grave with their dad's name on the stone.
Birdy nodded.
They'd told the Supervisor, a slovenly man with a bulbous red nose, but he'd just chuckled at their pain.
"She got paid didn't when? Next time she'll need to solicit fewer at once."
Matt's color had darkened and his gray eyes hardened, and Birdy half expected him to take a swing at the old man right then and there.
"She's dead," Matt told him, voice flat, dead.
"Problem solved then."
He'd waved them off. Their pain and loss no concern of his. They were just a resource and their lives meant nothing.
"Go back to the home," Matt told Birdy as he'd walked off, eyes cold with a strange kind of determination.
It was the last time she'd seen him before they'd called everyone to the town center for his execution.
"For the crime of murder," the haggard looking Peacekeeper had shouted from the platform, as another pair of white clad men shoved Matt to the stool and put the rope around his neck. "Matthew Alameda, Austin Lindsey, and Robinson Cross will hang until death."
They'd stolen some horses, killed all four Peacekeepers that had hurt Hester by dragging their worthless bodies behind them. It took three days to gather up all their parts from the road where they'd bounced and tumbled apart.
It was a fittingly gruesome end for such awful people.
No one tried to intervene, just like Hester, even if anyone cared, they knew there was nothing they could do. Matt's fury had been too much. Nothing would've stopped him.
Matt had given her a small smile, an almost apology, just seconds before they kicked the stool out from under his feet.
Birdy had stayed in the center, watched her brother dangle until the sun vanished and Katy-Jo Lewes gently told her she needed to go home.
A shiver goes up Birdy's back as she pictures Hester still in the tree, the wind gently blowing her body in the early morning light, Matt's haunted expression as he'd looked up at her.
"That dress is going to be way too big for you," someone says, snapping Birdy back into the moment.
"What?" She asks, frowning at the dark material and trying to shake the vision of death from her eyes.
"It's too big for you," Katy-Jo Marsen says again, her eyebrows pinching together.
Shrugging, Birdy begins unbuttoning it. "Doesn't matter. You heard Momma Muetter."
This is her dress, whether she likes it or not.
#######
The wind whips through the old cattle car as it rattles along the rails south.
It still smells of cow manure, even though they'd sprayed them out only moments before loading them up with Reaping age kids and families.
They'd had to wake up before the sun just to make the trip. The kids from the home are unfazed by the discomfort of the hard wood floor of the cars. They don't have beds in the home, they're used to sleeping on the floor without blankets and pillows, and many of them fall asleep as the car rocks them on the ride.
Jessup's mouth hangs open as he snores, propped up against Jobe's shoulder, and Birdy and Katy-Jo Lewes take turns tossing paint chipped from the fading gold Capitol emblem at him.
"That might kill him," Katy-Jo Marsen tells them, giving them a reproachful look as her sister tries to untangle her gold curls.
"So will this Reaping if things go sideways," Birdy chirps and Katy-Jo Lewes snickers.
She doesn't speak to them again until they reach the District Seat.
"It's so big," she murmurs, blue eyes wide.
It's dull and dusty, all the buildings are faded from the sun, all the windows dulled by the dirt, but compared to their tiny town on the plains, it's breathtaking.
They roll past pens of cattle, pigs, goats, and chickens before grinding to a stop in a hot and smelly station at the center of the city.
"Spared no expense," Birdy grumbles, losing one of her too big shoes in a pile of manure just as she jumps from the cattle car.
She smears it off, but the smell lingers, following her as she makes her way with the crowd to the stockyard stadium.
"Are you hot?" Crispin asks, eyeing Birdy's heavy dress and wiping perspiration from his brow.
"Dying," she answers. "Soon as this is over I'm finding a water trough and dunking my head in it."
Crispin chuckles. "I'd toss those shoes in there too."
Birdy snorts. "Yeah."
She's glad he'd volunteered to come as one of the Peacekeeper escorts for the kids. He isn't strict like the others, and he talks to them, treats them like kids, not prisoners.
"After the Reaping, can we go find the wranglers?" Birdy asks him. "My dad's crew was always in town during the Reapings and I wanna see if my friend Jefferson is here. I haven't seen him in years."
And if she's lucky he might let her take his horse for a ride. It's been ages since she got to take a horse out for a run.
"We'll see, kid," Crispin answers.
As they come up on the stadium, Lizzie rushes importantly to the front of the group and shouts directions.
"Eighteen year olds to the far left! Seventeens are beside them! Sixteens beside them! Fifteens besi-"
"I think they can figure it out from there, Lizzie," Crispin tells her gently before waving a gloved hand toward the crush of children jockeying for their places in their age lines. "Go on kids."
Birdy gets knocked around as she weaves between taller children's legs, the Katy-Jo's and Jessup fighting to keep up with her.
It's nearly half an hour before they make it to the front of the line where an elderly lady squints down at a smudged paper as she searches for their names.
"Alameda, Alameda…" She runs a finger down her list. "O-L-"
"A," Birdy corrects her. "A-L-A-M-E-D-A. And Phoebe with a 'P'."
"Oh!" The old woman chuckles, flipping through pages, back to the front. "Here you are, deary. Alameda, Phoebe."
She pricks Birdy's finger and smears some blood on another piece of paper before waving her through.
"No, no, L-E-W-E-S," Katy-Jo Lewes spells her name for her old lady.
"Pronounced 'lose'," Jessup chimes in. "Like a 'loser'."
"Shut up."
"And what's your name, young man?" The old woman asks Jessup, once Katy-Jo Lewes is past.
"Jesse Upearly," he answers.
"Upperly," the old lady repeats. "U-P-P-"
"They need a better process," Birdy tells Katy-Jo Lewes as they walk away, toward the girls' side of the stadium.
"We need to cull some old folks is what we need," Katy-Jo Lewes grumbles.
They end up at the back of their corral, half pinned to the metal fence, shoving for room as they wait for everyone to get herded to the right spot.
Birdy crawls up the fence and settles on the bar, squinting up and around at the scene.
The stadium stretches up around them. People, families, are shuffling around in the risers, searching for places to sit on the hot metal benches.
Around her, fewer and fewer children are trickling in, so she assumes they must be nearing the start of the ceremony.
She's seen the Reaping on the big screens set up across the District her entire life, but she's never attended in person, and the scope of it is a little overwhelming. She's never seen this many people in one place before, all dressed in shades of summer green…
The wonder of the moment is cut short by the screech of a microphone falling from the stage.
"Oopsy!" Lineus Flux, the District Escort, shouts, his orange lips stretched into a bright smile as he tries up upright the microphone, dropping it again before Tommy Brandsetter, one of District Ten's Victors, rushes up and fixes the stand.
Lineus, from what Birdy can see, is dressed like a rodeo clown.
Lime colored, pearl snap shirt, aqua colored jeans held up by a diamond studded belt, and boots that appear to be made from some kind of snake skin, he probably thinks he looks every bit the wrangler. It's almost sad, and if he weren't so obnoxious, Birdy would wish someone would take pity on him and tell him his loud clothes are the stuff of nightmares.
Behind him, talking amongst themselves, are the Victors.
There are only three left. Just the two years before Tomas Walkup, their first Victor, had died, leaving Coraline Lons, Tommy Brandsetter, and Mary Jacson as the District's guardians.
They're all dressed in green, just like the rest of the District, though their outfits are a far cry from the hand-me-downs and ragged second hand outfits most of the kids in the Reaping corrals are stuck with.
"That is a nice dress," Katy-Jo Lewes says, squinting up at the stage. "I'd look so good in a dress like that."
"That dress costs more than we'll ever see in a lifetime," Birdy reminds her.
"Still, nice."
"Get off there!" A Peacekeeper snaps, shoving Birdy from the barrier and onto Katy-Jo Marsen.
"Sorry."
Katy-Jo Marsen doesn't seem to hear her, just looks around fretfully.
"Twelve year olds never get picked," she half chants to herself, chewing her lip, before taking notice of Birdy. "Right?"
"Right," Birdy agrees.
Katy-Jo Lewes nods. "Calm down. I thought your sister rubbed lavender on you?"
"She did."
Sighing, Katy-Jo Lewes wraps an arm around Katy-Jo Marsen's shoulder and tries to calm her down while Birdy tries not to roll her eyes.
"Ladies and gentlemen of District Ten," Mayor Stahl's deep voice suddenly booms through the air, silencing every voice. "I would like your full attention as Commissioner Mills recites the history of the Games, in case anyone has forgotten."
There's no trace of irritation in his voice, though Birdy knows he probably hates the annual reading as much as the rest.
A tall woman, Sorghum Mills, Ten's Commissioner of Tesserae and Human Resources, steps to the lectern and clears her throat as she squints out at the sea of green around her.
Her grim expression never changes as she speaks, first repeating the history of the uprising and the dark days, then pulling out the Treaty and tonelessly reading it.
"Good luck to everyone," she finishes. "And may the odds be ever in your favor."
Her shoes echo in a hollow sort of way as she steps away and takes her spot next to the Mayor and his wife.
"Howdy y'all!" Lineus Flux shouts brightly into the microphone, waving a pink cowboy hat at the crowd. "How's everybody doing today?"
He waits, looking fully expectant of a cheerful response despite the fact that in his seven years as the escort no one has, before chuckling.
"I know, I'm so excited I can barely speak myself!"
Oblivious to the fact that everyone is hot and miserable, desperate for a breeze of wind to break through the thick walls of the stadium, and doesn't want to have a conversation with him, Lineus twitters on, talking about his outfit and new boots.
"And I picked the snakes they made the boots from myself," he finishes, looking very pleased with himself. "But enough pleasantries, let's get to the main event!"
Mayor Stahl and Commissioner Mills push out a pair of enormous barrels, turned on their sides and freshly painted gold. The Reaping hopper.
"Pearls before swine!" Lineus shouts as he reaches out and begins spinning the barrel.
It spins at a dizzying rate for something so big, and for half a moment Birdy wonders if she could fit inside.
She's so preoccupied that she doesn't realize when the barrel stops and Lineus flips open the little door at the center and reaches in.
A name echoes through the stadium, but Birdy misses it, still focused on the enormity of the hopper and the fact that she could fit inside. It isn't until the name is called again that she breaks the trance.
"Who'd he call?" She asks, frowning and standing on her toes, squinting up at the eighteen year old corral despite the fact she can't see it from the back. "Katherine-Jo, who'd he call?"
Looking over, feeling a little annoyed she isn't answering and wondering if maybe it was Lizzy Marsen and Katy-Jo Marsen has fainted, Birdy frowns when she sees the looks on both Katy-Jo's faces.
"What?"
"Birdy?"
Turning, she finds Crispin at the fence, his forehead deeply wrinkled as he stares at her.
"Phoebe Alameda!" Lineus calls out again, his voice straining to stay chipper. "We are waiting, young lady!"
It takes her another second to register what he's said.
"But-Crisp, I'm Phoebe," she finally says.
Crispin's lips twitch up into a weak smile and he nods. "I know, kid."
He jerks his head toward the gate and Birdy numbly walks to it as the other girls back away from her, as if she's diseased.
Across from her corral, she spots Jessup, face bloodless as he stares out at her disbelieving.
The too big shoes nearly trip her up as she passes Jobe's corral. His red hair is twice as vivid against his skin as normal as he watches her pass. She hears Lizzy sobbing at the seventeen year old gate before she reaches the stage and Crispin gives her a nudge toward the steps.
Before she even gets her leaden feet up the first step, Lineus reaches down and yanks her up, making her lose one of her shoes.
"And here she is!" He grins wildly, sweat hanging in his hair. "I'm guessing you're Phoebe, am I right?"
Stepping back from him, almost tripping, Birdy grimaces. "Unfortunately."
"Ha!" Lineus yanks her to the middle of the stage and pushes her toward the front.
"All right, ladies, any volunteers for our little Phoebe?"
Birdy wishes he'd have given her a chance to tell him not to bother. Ten has never had a volunteer, and she knows there isn't a chance she'll be the first to get a reprieve.
Looking out at the corrals, Birdy sees Lizzie at the center of the eighteen year old girls.
For half a heartbeat Birdy thinks she might raise her hand and volunteer, but just as quickly as the thought forms, it evaporates.
Not so much as the wind answers him.
"No one?" He smiles down at Birdy, his orange lips stretched tight. "Looks like you're going to the Capitol, you lucky girl."
Birdy doesn't smile back, just gives him a vaguely ill grunt as he shoves her behind him and goes to the second barrel.
"Now for our young man!"
It's stopped spinning before Birdy can even form the prayer that he doesn't grab Jobe or Jessup's name.
"Angus Wyatt!"
The name echoes and Birdy lets out a relieved breath. She doesn't know the name.
A boy emerges from the fourteen year old section.
He's tall, at least two heads taller than Birdy, has curly, strawberry hair that's dripping with sweat, and looks a bit green and clammy.
Watching him, Birdy feels her stomach drop. He'll crush her like a bug.
"Angus, welcome! Welcome!"
Once more, Lineus asks for a volunteer, and once more, not so much as a gust of wind answers.
#######
The room in the Justice Building is frigid. The hair on Birdy's arms stand on end. She supposes that's fitting. She'd read once they kept dead bodies cold before burial. That's all the Capitol is doing she supposes.
Her fingers run over the velvet material of the sofa, making designs in it, writing her name, and wondering how many others had and would do the same over the years.
The door quietly opens and her friends spill in.
Katy-Jo and Lizzy Marsen fling their arms around her.
"It's all right," Birdy murmurs, trying to sound convincing even if she doesn't feel it herself. She's dead already, even if she's still alive.
"No it's not!" Lizzy sobs.
"It's not all right! It's wrong!" Katy-Jo Marsen sobs.
"Don't, worry, okay? This is what happens, it was bound to be someone you knew eventually…"
"Maybe it'll be quick," Jobe offers somberly.
"Jobe!" Lizzy looks horrified, began sputtering, "How can you-why would you-that's-that's…"
Her eyes well up and she covers her mouth, apparently too horrified to say just what she's thinking.
"He's right," Jessup nods, his face a faint shade of green. "It'll be better if-if you-you know?-go early."
He's right, Birdy knows that, even if it makes her feel ill to think about it.
The longer the Tribute stays in the Game the more violent, the more gruesome the death. It's really best to die early on, before anyone who bothered to care about you watched you slowly suffer to death.
"Maybe you can get one of the weaker Careers to off you during the bloodbath. You know, then they'll have a higher kill stat. Having a guaranteed kill might even make them willing to coordinate it beforehand. Make it quick and painless," Jobe offers, clearly thinking he's being thoughtful.
"True, but how do you know they'll keep their word and make it quick and painless?" Jessup asks, frowning.
"There's a dark cloud to every silver lining," Birdy mutters, insides swimming.
"What 'silver lining'? You'll be dead!" Katy-Jo Marsen half shouts, panicking and pulling at her hair, pressing her face into her sister's side. Lizzy pulls her closer while giving everyone in the room a mortified look.
"But less painfully so," Jessup reminds her.
The room goes silent after that. All they seem capable of doing is staring at her, letting the silence grow thicker and more uncomfortable as the minutes tick by.
Finally, a Peacekeeper comes in and tells them time is up.
They shuffle out, giving her somber goodbyes. It isn't until the door shuts that Birdy realizes someone hasn't left.
Katy-Jo Lewes chin quivers and her eyes shine, giving Birdy the sinking feeling she's about to cry, and she can't take one more crying person.
"That was awkward," she waves a hand at the door, hoping to break the awkwardness. "The Marsens have really got to get a grip on themselves."
Katy-Jo Lewes nods, the edges of her lips twitching up. "You've been a good friend, Birdy. My best friend. I won't forget you. Promise."
"Thanks," Birdy sniffles.
She refuses to cry, at least not until she knows no one will see her.
Swallowing down a sob, she forces a smile.
"Katy-Jo Lewes, will you try, when they bring me back, to make sure they put me with my family? I don't know if they might try and put me in a special plot for Tributes, I've never really heard what they do with the b-bodies." Her voice cracks and she quickly forces down the pain bubbling up in her chest. "You split my stuff with Jess. Anything you two don't want can go to the others, alright? And let Jobe know he can have my gig, okay?"
Katy-Jo Lewes nods.
The Peacekeeper comes back in, glaring at Katy-Jo Lewes. "I said time up."
Before Birdy knows what's happened, Katy-Jo Lewes has flung her arms around her neck and is squeezing her tightly, tears dripping off her cheeks and into Birdy's hair.
"You're my best friend. I don't know what I'm gonna do without you."
Shrugging, Birdy chuckles wetly. "Have a lot less fun, that's for sure."
Pulling back, Katy-Jo Lewes wipes her face, smearing tears across her face. "I'll see you on the other side, Bird."
Forcing her smile a little brighter, Birdy nods. "Yeah, see you, Katy"
#######
"You afraid, little bird?" Crispin asks when he comes for her.
His eyes are a little pink as he squints down at her as they walk down one of the back halls of the Justice Building toward the awaiting train.
Her first thought is to ask him how he got roped into escorting her to the train, but decides against it. It isn't important and she hasn't got much time for silly questions.
Instead, she shakes her head bravely. "Nope."
His mouth turns up. "No?"
"No," she sighs, musters up what little bravado she has left after seeing her friends for the last time. "Little annoyed. Had plans, you know? Frogs to gig...'cause they're pests."
He chuckles. "Yeah, pests." He stops, eyes shining. "Maybe when you come back."
Birdy stops too, gives him a small smile. "Don't be dense, Crispy. I'm not coming back."
It's a one way ticket. More for her than most. She's small and young, the odds are not in her favor.
"You might. Every Tribute has a chance."
"You're joking, right?" She shakes her head. "Being a Tribute doesn't give me a chance any more than dressing like some kind of unicorn vomit cowboy makes Lineus a wrangler."
He knows that. He has to know that.
"Birdy," Crispin frowns at her, "listen to me." He blinks, takes a ragged breath. "Don't give up. No," he puts a hand up to halt her protest, "I mean it. You're smart, too smart for your own good sometimes. You've got as much chance as anyone. Use that to your advantage."
He sounds almost desperate and Birdy wishes he wouldn't. He shouldn't pin his hopes to her. She's a lost cause.
She wrinkles her nose, frowns at him. "Why do you care, Crisp?"
Even if he's kinder than the others, he's still a Peacekeeper. He's still one of them and she's still just one more disposable kid from an outlying district.
He frowns down at her, apparently arguing something with himself, before sighing. "You remind me of my sister. She was a Career. Volunteered. Died."
"Aside from my impending death I don't see us having much in common."
He chuckles wistfully. "I think it's that…quick wit."
"Pity I'm going to the Capitol then, huh?" She squints. They were standing in the shadowed doorway opening to the ramp that leads up to the train. Angus is already there, looking less ill, but still sweaty. She shoots Crispin a slight smile. "It'll all be wasted on them."
Crispin squeezes her shoulder. "Don't give up yet, kid."
She can't bring herself to let him down, not now, while she can see him break. She'll do it eventually, but she won't have to watch it at least.
Instead of telling him it isn't a matter of giving up or not, there's only one way for this story to end, Birdy just nods and gives him a smile.
With that she steps out of the shadow and onto the wooden ramp, walking with deliberate steps up to the train.
Lineus is standing and waving, beaded fringe on his arms shaking violently with the motion. She hadn't noticed that before.
"Off we go, my little cow-patties!" He giggles as he gives their shoulders a push, turning them to board the train.
Angus gives her a tight little nod and she returns it as they step onto the train.
Belatedly, Birdy remembers she's only got one shoe.
As she considers flinging the remaining shoe off, one of the beads on Lineus' arm hit her in the eye and she wonders if it would gain her sponsors if she pushed Lineus Flux under the train before the games even start.
At the very least the fashion world would thank her.
