The first thing I remember seeing was dancing white lights above my head. At first I couldn't remember what had happened or even what my name was, much less where I was. Then slowly, it came back to me. My name is Talia Snow. I was trying to find Junia, trying to keep her safe.
"But safe from what?" I thought. Images of a fleet of hovercrafts came into my mind's eye. They were going to bomb us, a whole room of kids. We had gotten Junia out…and then what? It occurred to me, that wherever I was, I should try to sit up but just trying to move my arms made my head spin. I decided to focus on decoding whatever series of events had lead me to this state. The next thing I remembered was the whole room going up in flames. Hmmm….was I dead? It was a definite possibility, I guess. But now that I thought of it, I had to be lying on something. I reached out my fingers and grabbed a fistful of….blankets? Was I on a bed somewhere? If I was then at least I wasn't dead. I remembered hitting my head so maybe that was part of it.
For a while, I just lay there waiting for something to happen. I can't be sure, but I think I may have fallen asleep a few times because after a little while, when I looked up at the lights, they weren't lights anymore but rather a light. A light stuck in a square of drop ceiling.
Definitely not dead, then.
This time when I tried to sit up, I was able to lever myself up into a sort of sitting position. I looked around the room and it was fairly easy to tell that I was in some kind of hospital or infirmary. There were several other beds but mine was the only one that appeared to be occupied. I knew from the mahogany walls that I still had to be in the Presidential Mansion.
"I know girls need their beauty sleep but don't you think you're taking that a bit literally?" came a voice. I knew who said it before I looked over. Sure enough, there he was sitting on a chair, same crooked half smile same medium length straight black hair and eyes.
"So now you're making a habit of watching girls sleep? Some people might interpret that as creepy," I shot back but he only laughed quietly. I looked over to a table on my right where an empty tray of food was. "Did you eat my lunch?" I asked accusingly to which he winked. I rolled my eyes at him and reached over to pull up the metal tray. Looking at my reflection, I wondered if you could still call my sleep "beauty sleep" if you woke up looking like the undead. I turned back towards Cass.
"So we lived?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said, which was an unusually short answer for him. I looked at him and saw that he wasn't meeting my eyes and that he was playing with a piece of medical tape between his fingers. I narrowed my eyes at him.
"What aren't you telling me?" I asked. Obviously, the rebels had won over the Capitol so maybe that was it but there was definitely something else that he didn't want me to know.
"You missed the first sunny day of spring," he said, "there were birds and other picturesque woodland creatures out and about,"
"I can tell you're stalling so whatever it is you might as well just tell me," I said, starting to get annoyed.
"You think I'm stalling?" he asked with mock confusion. In reply I glared at him and he relented. "Ok, how long do you think you were out?" he said his voice getting business like.
"I don't know two days, maybe three?" I answered, carefully watching his face for any reactions.
"Actually, it was more like a week, give or take," he said scratching his head. "Actually, it was more like two." I could tell he was watching me, gauging my reactions. For some reason this bothered me so I kept my face deadpan. Inside though, I was reeling. Two weeks? How could I have been out cold for two weeks? And then I remembered.
"Is Junia…Ok?" I asked, terrified to hear the answer.
"Yeah, shes fine. She wanted to see you when first woke up but the doctors said she was too young or something," he said. I breathed out slowly, relief flooding my body.
"So what exactly did I wake up from?" I asked.
"The bombs that they dropped were fire bombs, Tal, but they were also designed to go off again to hit the wave of first responders. You were OK through the first round of them but the second time knocked you out," He looked at me, as if giving me time to process before going on. "The doctors say that you were lucky, because you weren't burned by the fire but they said that with your first concussion and the original blast, the second round was enough to knock you out. You were in some kind of coma for a week and by the time you came out of it a lot of things had happened.
"The rebels won the Capitol so that combined with their hold over the districts effectively gives them control over Panem. The hovercrafts that bombed us were from the Capitol. They we-"
"The hovercraft weren't from the Capitol," I interjected. "If they were, they would have been evacuating Snow, not bombing the only protection he had left"
"Well that's what everyone's saying, Tallie. Maybe you're right, maybe not but those hovercrafts had Capitol seals on them and Coin is definitely not going to take responsibility," he replied.
"So Coin is the new head?" I asked. He nodded in reply and I started thinking. Regardless of what statement some ambitious up-and-coming rebel president said, I still couldn't believe that those hovercrafts were from the Capitol. So if they were rebel, then why? Why bomb a room full of children. There was no point to it, not when the war was so close to being over. Unless whoever sent them thought that the quickest way to end Capitol resistance was to destroy whatever faith they had left in their president. And what better way to do so then-
"Um..Tallie? Are you OK? You're being really quiet," asked Cass. I started, realizing that I had just been all but ignoring Cass.
"Yeah, I'm fine. So Rebels in control, new person, same power hungry leader…anything else I missed?" I asked.
"Well, yes. You know Katniss Everdeen?" he asked.
"Katniss Everdeen, face of the rebellion, victor of the Hunger Games, pregnant with Peeta's love-child, Katniss Everdeen? Yeah I'm familiar," I responded.
"Her little sister was one of the victims of the blast. She was one of the first responders to the bombings. Well she wasn't quite so lucky and she's…well, she died…but the point is that it riled up the country again and there isn't exactly a lot of pro-Capitol sentiment right now, "he said.
I nodded, taking it all in. I remembered the sister from some of the TV interviews. She was a year younger than me and all of Panem adored her. It was really tragic that she died like that but how did it affect us? Cass wouldn't have mentioned it if it didn't. It wasn't like Panem had been filled with pro-Capitol sentiment before but I still didn't see how all of this came back to us. As far as the rebels knew, neither one of us was personally involved in the war.
"Well while you were out there was a lot of talk about what would happen to the survivors in the Capitol. You see, some people thought it was best just to get rid of all of us but obviously that didn't go through but people still wanted some form of revenge," and here he finally looked away and I could tell that we were getting to whatever he didn't want to tell me. What he said next, he said all in one breath. "There was a vote between all surviving victors to what would happen as a punishment and they agreed that there would be one more Hunger Games to compensate for the lives the districts lost in the past ones. And this one would be fought with the children of important Capitol figures," he finished apologetically.
WHAT? This was not happening. This could not be happening. After everything, after all the lengths I had gone through to keep us all safe, this? Children of important Capitol figures? That was me. There was no possibility that I would dodge this, being Snow's granddaughter. I wouldn't if I could anyway, because Cass's mother was the head of the peacekeeping force which guaranteed him a spot. But this didn't make sense. Of all the things that I anticipated, that I knew could happen to a politician's child, this was never one of them. I had prepared for every danger that could possibly befall us and yet it had never even crossed my mind that this could happen. There were certain risks that came with being born into politics, like being subject to unruly tempers, or being used as leverage against uncooperative parents, but never in a million years would I have considered this. Not after everything we made it through, the three of us. And then it hit me. And I felt ice cold panic seeping through every vein in my body.
"No," I said when I finally found my voice. "They can't have her," Cass couldn't even look up and just sat with his head in his hands.
Not her. I was supposed to protect her, supposed to keep her safe. But how could I do that in an arena filled with 21 other people whose survival hinged on her dying? But maybe she wouldn't get picked. Her parents both occupied pretty major positions in Snow's office, both involved with the Hunger Games but surely nobody would be so cruel to make 11 year old Junia fight to the death against people almost twice her age and three times her weight. She wasn't even of the required age for another 10 months.
And then another equally unpleasant thought hit me. Out of the twenty-four that would compete in these Hunger Games, twenty-three would have to die. Most of the people we would be up against would be people I knew and some of them I was friends with. And what about Cass? If I chose to save Junea, he would have to die to and the very thought starts to make me light headed. That's when one of the machines I was hooked up to starts beeping and within seconds the room was filled with nurses. I heard Cass yelling at them and telling them to leave me alone and I try to sit up only to be pushed back down into the bed. Then I feel a needle being pushed into the crook of my arm and my vision turns to black.
_8 Years Ago_
I remember the first time that I met Cass. It was at some fancy dinner thrown my grandfather, President Snow, as a banquet for all of his higher ups. By then I already knew Junia who was only a three year old at the time. I kept glancing down the table at her, trying to make sure she was OK but my mother would pull me back my collar and tell me not to lean and that I had to keep my posture. Cass was in between his parents, sitting opposite of me and was looking at me with confusion, as if trying to figure out what I was trying to see. That's when my mother switched the conversation from grain supply in the districts to the Capitol education. As part of the Presidential family, I had gone to the High Academy of Learning and Fine Arts, a school reserved for the children of the most important families. The current argument revolved around whether the children were being instructed well enough in their classical language studies. That's when my mother spoke up.
"Young Talia is the model of what the students should be. 7 years old and already fluent in two languages," she said. I knew that showing off your kid's achievements was an upper-class way of bragging in the Capitol but by then I think I had realized that even though I attended HALFA, it was not normal for someone of my age to be fluent in two languages. I would find out later just how different I was.
"Oh? And which languages would that be?" asked the man who I recognized as the head of District Labor. I opened my mouth to answer only to get cut off by my mother.
"Latin and Greek," she said with a little false laugh at the end. I felt her long, painted finger nails dig into my shoulder as she put her arm delicately around me.
"Could we hear some from little Talia?" asked a man wearing a badge that distinguished him as one of Snow's advisors. I looked over at my mother for permission, with my hands folded in my lap. I was using all of the etiquette that was considered proper for a child of my stature.
"Well go on Talia, show them," said my mother, her voice like breaking glass. I cleared my throat quietly.
"Et glorificatus sum in curia praesidis per exempla haberi felis. Denique omnia ad doctrinam de gratia Lorem ipsum iudices Capitolio," I answered in perfect Latin. The table broke out into applause and I bowed my head and smiled in the proper form of flattery. All the time Cass, was just watching me as if trying to figure something out.
It was only after the dinner was over that I fist spoke to him. I was wearing a frilly pink party dress that no doubt cost thousands of dollars and when he came up to me, he was wearing a tuxedo that was obviously appropriate for the occasion. I was only seven years old but I had already learned only to speak when spoken to and the procedures that had to be followed when approached by someone of equal rank. I immediately curtsied when he came up to me and he bowed back to me in perfect form.
"You know two languages?" he asked. I kept my head down and nodded in a sign of humility. "I wish I did. I can barely say what my name is in Latin," he said. I was a little taken aback by his statement. It was considered bad etiquette to bring up one's own shortcomings or to express jealousy over another's accomplishments. I looked up at him and noticed that his eyes were a shade of ice-blue that could only have come from some kind of Capitol genetic modification.
"I don't remember seeing you in school," I told him politely. As the son of the Head of Peacekeepers he would go to HALFA too and he looked to be about my age.
"I'm with the eights," he answered.
"I'm a seven," I said. So that was why he wasn't familiar. Being an eight, he would be in the year ahead of me. He looked at me and nodded.
"Do you want to see something amazing?" he asked. I knew that this was definitely considered bad manners and all of my etiquette training was screaming at me that now was the time to politely tell him that I had to return to my parents. But something inside of me was tired of following all of the rules and the idea of sneaking off, unauthorized with another member of the presidential families had a sort of quality of rebellion that immediately appealed to me. I froze for a minute, torn between what I should do and what I wanted to do.
"It's on the roof so I get it if you're scared," he went on. That made up my mind.
"I am not scared." I said and stamped my foot in an unladylike moment of indignation. "Take me to the roof," I said. He grinned at me in a goofy way and then started walking off down one of the hallways leaving me to hurry after.
When we made it through the final doorway that lead to the roof, I immediately sighed with pleasure as I felt the cool air of the outside world hitting my face. I knew that the mansion had a roof but I had never been allowed up on it. It was filled with a garden and all different kind of plants. I recognized some of them from a book on botany I had borrowed from my library. I had never seen them in real life though. He ran off ahead, gesturing to me to follow him. He finally stopped at the edge of the roof. He was smiling proudly and pointing down. I cautiously came up close to the edge and looked over and gasped. The whole Capitol was lit up in a multicolored kaleidoscope. Down on the street, I could see crowds of people walking by.
"How did you find this place," I murmured.
"Each time your grandfather invites us to your house, I always found a time to explore. But when I found this place, I always came back to it every time I was here." He explained quietly.
"It's beautiful!" I exclaimed, still mesmerized by the bright city lights below us. "It's like seeing everything for the first time. I can't believe I never knew…" I trailed off. We sat there, our legs dangling over the edge until we saw the cars that would take the guests home pull up outside of the mansion.
"I guess we have to go now," he said, standing up and stretching. I tore my sight away from the view below and looked at him.
"Why did you take me here?" I asked. He looked surprised, as if he had never quite considered it.
"I guess because we need to stick together. You know, all of us." He answered slowly. I thought of Junia and nodded. He turned to go and I followed him silently. When we made it back to the dining room he met up with his parents and I found mine.
I thought that I wouldn't see him until the next time my grandfather threw a State Dinner but it turned out the very next day at HALFA, he found me in the lunch room. A year later, my grandfather invited his family and a few others to move into the mansion to keep his political allies closer. That was easily one of the best days of my life because for the first time I had found someone that I could spend time with without worrying about what was good form or having to talk about superficial petty things. Together, we became inseparable. Whenever we had the chance, we went up to the roof together, sometimes taking Junia with us.
For the first time, I started to learn about what happened in the real world beyond what I learned in books. I started to feel like a real person instead of a pretty, robotic manikin. I began to understand just how sheltered my life had been and just how dangerous the world could be. As it turned out, I would find out firsthand only a year and a half later.