She's late.
Rain traps her on the porch for a solid hour before it finally peters out, spent. If she'd been delayed much longer, she might have missed the merchants. They close shop when the sun hides below the earth, retreating upstairs or, for the few who don't already live directly above their establishment, trekking home before curfew. As it is, she'll have only a few minutes with each. Some may have already given up on her.
Rooba the butcher is still waiting, a bare bulb illuminating the side door down the alley, hidden from prying eyes. At her knock, it opens to an apron spattered with the day's blood and gore. Rooba's tired eyes brighten when she sees who it is.
"Wasn't sure you'd make it, what with the rain and all."
"Almost didn't," Katniss agrees as she tips her pack open, careful and casual.
Rooba plucks the fattest rabbit and three of the squirrels. She clucks appreciatively at Katniss' aim, the dark hollow of their eye. Then Katniss is off, trading more meat and pelts for spices, yarn, and a block of soap made from animal fat. She saves the baker for last. His wide apron is coated in a savory blend of flour, butter, and sugar. As always, he gives her a smile and a loaf.
As the final door closes, Katniss skirts the main square, nearly deserted in this late hour. The Hall of Justice is lit up like a furnace. She's truly late now, flirting at being caught past curfew. The big clock shows less than a half hour until those heavy doors open and the Peacekeepers emerge for their final rounds.
But had Katniss not been so late, she would have missed it. Would have been long gone by this time, safe in the Hob, which the Peacekeepers conveniently bypass at this time of night, courtesy of a little arrangement they have with Ripper. Had she not been so late, she would have heard about it the following morning.
But she's late, and so she's passing through the square when she hears it—a laugh. It's not the laugh that attracts her attention so much as the way it cuts off abruptly. And it's not a good kind of laugh.
The air hums, like when the fence flows with electricity. Invisible yet deadly.
Following the source of the sound, she cuts down another alley, a mere slice of air between two buildings, one a charred skeleton of the former Bakery, long abandoned. Peering around a corner, she sees a cluster of boys, facing away from her, necks craned for a better view of something she can't see.
On first glance, it looks innocuous. A crowd of boys, messing around, having a good time, maybe wrestling a little as the townies are wont to do. She doesn't recognize many of them from this angle, but there's one figure that's unmistakable—the burly shoulders of Bo, standing at the front of the pack. He has someone in a headlock, someone with dirty-blond hair. A townie, then.
She's seen variations of this theme many a time in the school hallways, particularly her last year, when all the older boys had graduated.
Bo's given name is Beauregard, after a Capital star that many ladies of the town (the ones who had time to watch Capitol programming) fancied that year, including his mother. Katniss remembers her classmates giggling, on the first day of school, when the teacher was calling attendance. Until Bo punched the nearest kid, mid-laugh, and knocked out two front teeth. No one teased him after that.
From then on, he was Bo, for short. Even the teachers called him Bo. They forgot what his real name was. But he never forgot.
As she watches, Bo roughs his catch up a bit, yanking him around, making the person fight to keep his feet. Everyone laughs, him making the little puppet dance. Then Bo releases him and shoves. The person staggers back, and Katniss sees his face.
That face.
The one she'll never forget.
She freezes, and it's like she's standing on the edge of a precipice. This isn't just a crowd of boys messing around, having a good time. This is no game, no friendly wrestling match. This is something deep, something serious. She takes a closer look, evaluating with new eyes. These are indeed Townie boys, raucous, their ears and necks reddened with artificial courage. A few Seam girls cling to arms on the periphery, providing their own type of encouragement.
Katniss thinks back to the rows of buildings lining the town square, of the storefronts that are already dark, a row of missing teeth in a skull. Anyone who might help is too far away. She thinks of her bow and knife, safe in a fallen log. Also out of reach. This isn't like when they were back in school, no teachers nearby to intervene. The Peacekeepers aren't scheduled to start making their final rounds for another several minutes.
She's alone, then.
Her first instinct is to turn, walk back out of the mouth of the alley, and hustle on her way. You don't interfere with a pack of wolves sharing a kill. It's suicide. She knows she should leave them be, let nature take its course. Survival of the fittest.
She should leave.
She needs to.
Gale is waiting for her.
But she can't leave. She knows she can't. She can't because there, over there, is the big oak tree she'd once used as shelter from the rain, cradling herself in her father's old sweater. There, a splash of mud that used to hold pigs.
Then she hears it—that hollow, sucking sound of something impacting flesh, that thin veneer over bone. A sound that every child in every District knows, the one they hear after mothers warn them to close their eyes, even with their hands clapped over their ears. The sound they dream about.
Here, in this spot, she can't turn away. Because he hadn't turned away that day, either. So she hunter-steps closer, slipping her game bag over her head and stashing it in a dark crevasse behind a barrel, swollen with the spring rains. Drawing a shaky breath, she steps off the edge and plummets into the abyss.
She's never been in a fight in her life. Never needed to. Not with Gale. But he's not here now. He's across town, with the other men, at the Hob. Where she should be.
So when Bo bends, retrieving another rock from a nearby pile of rubble, this one larger than his fist, she does the only thing she can do. She pushes forward, slicing through her former peers, and she steps in front of him, one hand half-raised.
The hum of voices ceases, like that rare moment in the forest when a twig snaps beneath an errant foot. She can feel her heartbeat, thrumming in her chest. Her face feels hard, frozen.
Bo squints at her in the gloom, harsh brows pulled low on his face. With her dark hair and braid, she could be anyone. But standing here, tall and unflinching, she's not just anyone. Someone hisses her name, low and quick, like a curse word. They know what her presence means. They know who her presence means. Maybe, if she's lucky, they'll think Gale nearby.
Bo eyes her hand, the one disappearing into the side pocket of her jacket. Yes, she tells him with her stance, her eyes. She pretends very hard that in her jacket is her knife.
"Move aside," he warns, still hefting that rock. But when she doesn't, not even a slight shift on the balls of her feet, he adds, "This has nothing to do with you."
He sounds calm, almost rational. Others around him nod. They can't see the predatory craze in his eyes. "Move aside," they echo, Fred and Jay and Mason. Boys she went to school with, all of them. And not one of them will meet her gaze.
Emboldened, Bo says, "I don't want to hurt you," and his tone implies, But I will. This has escalated almost past the point of no return, the dark and the drink have driven them too far down this path. No turning back, they've made their choice, one that was years in the making. Waiting for the right opportunity, perhaps. Surprising that it hasn't happened before.
Behind her, something creaks, like the leather of a pair of boots. She feels a presence at her back, knows the Victor is close. He understood the threat, too. Why is he stepping forward now, when he hadn't before, when it will only make things worse? Bo's gaze shifts from her face to somewhere behind her. She sees it in Bo's eyes now. Fear.
Time for her to say something, to fan that flame.
"Hurt me, and he'll hurt you." She's calm. It's ambiguous, that she doesn't say a name.
Behind her, a voice says, "Don't." Low enough for her alone to hear. A warning. He's close, at her ear. She should be, but she's not afraid.
She continues, loud and clear, so everyone will hear. "You throw that rock, and Gale will end you." She would have preferred not to use his name, but it's the only way.
"The mighty Gale," Bo sneers. "Insubstantial as a gust of wind." But she's given him pause. Back in school, Bo had messed with Rory once, the year after Gale graduated to go work in the mines. Bo hadn't come to school the rest of the week.
"I'm not afraid of him. Not Gale," he practically spits the word, "and certainly not this miserable worm you're trying to protect."
But Bo is afraid. She can see it in his eyes, in every plane of his body, his hands that shake, and not just from the liquor.
"How about the Peacekeepers, then? Not afraid of them, either?"
More murmurs from Bo's crew. They're looking back now, toward the Justice building. Some of the girls have stepped away, are pulling on their man's arms.
Miraculously, the sirens sound, three short pulses that signify curfew. That's all it takes. Bo drops the rock, and it lands heavily near her left foot. He stares her down for one more moment, then turns and strides off into the darkness, away from the square. The rest follow, no more than a pack of wild dogs, tails and ears wilted. Only Bo looks back at her, a glance like a poisoned dart. He will never forget.
The night is still and silent again. All of the storefronts have winked out like fireflies, leaving them in the gloom.
They're alone.
Adrenaline turns to fear, which feathers up her spine. They're alone, in a back alley, at night. She's just saved the Victor's life, but that might not mean anything. Not to him.
Slowly, so as not to startle him, she turns to survey the damage. The collar of his shirt is rumpled and ripped, hair damp and askew, falling into his eyes. It's longer than she remembers it, and ragged, a far cry from the sleek slick it had been in the Capitol. He's crouched low, collecting dark shapes from the ground, stuffing them back into the bag from which they'd spilled. What could he possibly need, that had driven him to town at this hour?
When she reaches for something near her feet, something in a long, thin box, he snatches it away, before she can touch. Then he stands, but angled away, as though her nearness makes him uncomfortable. The moon chisels his profile, his strong nose, his jaw, clenched.
This is the first time she's been so close to him, even when they were in school. He's more compact than she's used to, after Gale's rangy limbs. Smaller than you'd think, after everything. Deceptively small. The cameras had always made him look bigger. She remembers a close-up of his face, towering over them all gathered in the square. Larger than life.
But standing in front of him now, she sees that they're almost the same height.
She's thought of this moment for years, what she'd say if she could. Thank you. Or maybe, I'm sorry. These simple words, they don't seem like enough.
But he speaks first.
"You shouldn't have done that." His jaw is tight, twitching. "I didn't need your help."
It's like a blow, pushing the air from her lungs. She can't breathe. The first thing he's ever said to her. After everything. After what she's just done for him.
Then he's gone, surging past her, carefully not touching, leaving nothing but cold in his wake.
She looks down to see a lump in the mud, something he missed. After a moment, she recognizes the shape, one she's seen a thousand times. It's a squirrel, with nothing but a dark hollow as its right eye. One of hers, likely one that she had just sold to the butcher, now ruined in the melee.
And the Victor hadn't even looked at it, hadn't even tried to salvage it.
Just left it like that, trampled in the dirt.
