Disclaimer: TVD is not mine, nor do I own THG, the lyrics are courtesy of one of my favorite bands, Rammstein. The English translation is from , and is done by the guy who created the website. Thanks dude!
So this chapter is a bit more past-oriented, and it was a little harder to write, but it will be important for chapters to come. Damon no POV in this chapter, and I'm definitely going to focus on him more next chapter.
Sah ein Mädchen ein Röslein stehen
(A girl saw a little rose. . .)
Blühte dort in lichten Höhen
(It bloomed there in bright heights.)
Sprach sie ihren Liebsten an
(She asked her sweetheart. . .)
ob er es ihr steigen kann
( if he could fetch it for her.)
Sie will es und so ist es fein
(She wants it and that's fine)
So war es und so wird es immer sein
(So it was and so it will always be)
Sie will es und so ist es Brauch
(She wants it and that's the custom)
Was sie will bekommt sie auch
(Whatever she wants, she gets)
Tiefe Brunnen muss man graben
(Deep waters must be dug. . .)
wenn man klares Wasser will
(If you want clear water.)
Rosenrot oh Rosenrot
(Rose-red, oh, rose-red.)
Tiefe Wasser sind nicht still
(Deep waters don't run still. . .)
~Rammstein, Rosenrot~
Part l
The Great Haymitch Abernathy
Bonnie Bennett
"Bonnie. . . Bon. . . snap out of it!"
I blink, but I can't think of anything worthwhile to say. What's left anyway? Nothing. After this hour is over, I will be sent to my death. I don't even have a goodbye from my father, and I will never ever get one. I will never get to see him smile at me again, I will never get to see the look on his face when I come home with good news (not that I had much of it to begin with. . .) again. He won't have me around to dole out his pills morning after morning after morning.
Damn it!
I hadn't considered that before I got myself into this mess.
Elena's voice, though still audible, is crazy-difficult to hear. It sounds like she is speaking underwater. . . but maybe I'm the one who is underwater. It feels as if I'm being battered by waves and my throat is closing up. Also, my lungs have been replaced by steel blocks—they can't take in any oxygen. I push past all of that, forcing myself to listen and talk. I have to make sure Dad is taken care of.
"Come on, Bon." She sounds worried now, it probably looks like I've gone catatonic.
"I'm still here, Lena."
She gives me a wary smile. "Good."
Yeah, great.
"Listen, Elena. . ." I begin, unsure of how to ask her for something this big. I'm the one that is more assertive, but never with her. I take care of her, too. Despite her minor rebellious actions—which were few and far in between. "I need you to do me a major favor."
"Anything you need," she says, and she is being sincere.
"My dad. . . he needs to stay on top of the dosage for his pills. Mrs. Everdeen only has a few more of them on stock. . ."
"Okay." Elena declares with absolute determination. "You got it!"
I'm now painfully aware of the clock ticking away on the wall.
I glance at it—crap!—we only have a minute left!
"Alright, he only needs one—don't let him convince you otherwise. He's a good actor. Oh, and he can only take them at—" I'm interrupted by a loud ding!
The wooden door opens immediately after that, revealing two men in white Peacekeeper uniforms. They look like ghosts, phantoms that are here to take absolutely everything away from me.
Which is exactly what they do.
"Time's up," Peacekeeper Number One says. His voice is rough, like sandpaper or gravel. It's kind of scary, not that I let on to that fact.
I keep my face blank. Emotionless.
"Miss," Peacekeeper Number Two intones, and he is far more menacing than his companion. The glare he gives Elena is lethal.
I look at him defiantly and he says nothing else about our time being up, though he does make a movement to retrieve his gun from its holster.
He won't shoot at her; I see the pity in his eyes. Number One's expression mirrors his as well. Pity is standard on Reaping Day, there is always plenty of it to spare.
Elena makes no move to leave the cramped room, instead she asks: "Anything else?"
"Yeah," I manage. I realize that I have so much more to say to my best friend. That one hour they give us tributes is shit. I also know that I can't tell her everything, not even if the Capitol gave us years to leave all that we know behind. I decide to give her the one piece of advice everybody needs to hear."Stay strong—promise me that."
"Promise."
"How touching," a familiar voice says, and it doesn't belong to the two Casper's—that's for sure.
Damon.
He is standing next to an irate Effie, who's skin has turned pink—almost like her stupid wig.
"What the fuck do you want?" I ask him, glowering as he smiled. It's his typical shit-eating grin. The one that gets under my skin every single time he uses it.
His eyes find Elena, they wander over her body appreciatively. God, he is such a chauvinistic bastard. "As of right now, I want you to get your perky ass off of the sofa so we can leave this Hell hole."
I remain seated, my fingers curl around the arms of the couch. No way am I leaving, not on his terms.
"We are on a schedule, Trelix." Effie reminds Peacekeeper Two—Trelix—with a huff. "If we were in the Capitol, with Capitol Peacekeepers, surely we would be on time. District 12 is always so unorganized. Lana should have left here—"
"I'm up!" I say. If there's one thing I dislike already about Effie Trinket, it's her grating need for perfection and/or punctuality.
"Me too!" Elena agrees hastily.
As if to restore his non-Capitol competence, Trelix marches over to my friend. He takes her by the arm, throws a disapproving look at me, and removes Elena from the room. She struggles to keep up with the Peacekeepers' unnaturally fast pace and ends up tripping in those shoes she should have never worn.
Her eyes meet mine. She's fighting tears of her own. "Bye." she mouths silently.
I give her a broken wave.
Bye.
ѮѼѮ
The Tribute Train is different from any other locomotive that comes in or out of District 12. It's far more ornate than the coal trains that take our exports to all of products. It's also longer, presumably with more compartments than the two that are standard in our normal trains. The train I am stepping into now is not fueled by coal, it's a bullet train. Meaning it runs solely on electricity. Inside, it looks like a much nicer version of my home. It has a kitchen with chrome appliances; a stove, refrigerator (it just about reaches the ceiling in terms of height), and a dishwasher. I had to wash our plates and silverware by hand at home. There is a living room-type area to the left of me, complete with a large TV and couch.
Effie leads us down a narrow corridor, there are several doorways decorating the walls. She taps on the one at the right.
A long string of curse words filters out into the hallway."."
Haymitch is drunk.
"We'll talk to him later," Effie says in an exasperated tone.
Before Damon could make some smart-ass comment, Effie points to two other doors. They're made of some kind of dark wood and stand right next to each other.
"That's your room, Damon." She points to the door on the left and goes over to turn the knob.
It's much bigger than it looks. A closet and dresser are both present in the room, along with a brand-new mattress, comfy pillows, and a matching comforter set.
He enters the room and flops down on the bed without taking his shoes off. The blankets are now stained with that black dust.
Our Escort cringes. "I understand that you two come from 12, but could you please attempt to act like you belong in society."
Damon scowls at her.
My hands ball into fist at my sides.
"And dinner is at six 'o clock sharp, dress accordingly, we will be using forks and knives."
"We get to use knives?" Damon asks with false-eagerness. "Wow, Dad will be so surprised! He never let me use them at home!"
"I can't say I'm surprised."
I hide a smile as she storms away.
ѮѼѮ
(Twelve 'o clock, Midnight)
ѮѼѮ
Despite the softness of my mattress, I cannot drift off to sleep.
It's too wrong here.
I feel like I'm in a cage, though I know that will get once when we arrive in the Capitol. The citizens will finally get to see their twenty four new toys. And then things will just go downhill from there.
Sighing, I get up and leave my makeshift bedroom.
The kitchen is empty, the cooks have long since gone to bed and Damon is snoring peacefully amongst his mountain of pillows. That's right—Damon Salvatore snores. He is also more arrogant than I first thought. He kept sending for the Avoxes—people who are punished by the Capitol in the form of tongue-mutilation—to bring him snacks, before he went to sleep. How he can sleep after that disaster of a dinner, I have no clue. . .
Haymitch (who was very hungover at the time) had asked us what we were capable of.
Damon had answered for me, saying that I was very good at nagging, and therefore would be able to do so to some poor bastard in the arena.
I responded by saying that Damon didn't have a chance in the arena, he was such a sexist pig that he would easily get beaten to death.
He had said: "Thanks Judgy, I am sexy."
Damon isn't stupid, I know that much, because his eyes flashed angrily and he flung a piece of cranberry sauce in my face. I had retaliated by throwing my bitter-tasting coffee in his face. He still had the burn mark on his cheek to prove it. And it's not like I didn't know it was hot, I planned on scalding him. It was supposed to hurt him.
I'm still a bit shocked with myself. Sure, I certainly don't care about rules or about breaking them, but I am not a violent person. I care about people, about life in general.
I walk over to the fridge and take a bottle from Haymitch's not-so-secret-secret-stash.
I had only hurt a living creature once, and I am still haunted by it. . .
ѮѼѮ
It was a typical day in District 12, the sky was cloudy and everyone was just getting back to their daily routines.
It was a day after the Reaping, and I had survived. Too bad I had six more to go. . . it had only be my first one. Elena spent the entire hour squeezing my hand into a pulp and Stefan was freaked out over the horror stories Damon had told him.
I was walking home with Elena—like always—and we were passing the fence. Suddenly, she clutched my arm and stopped walking.
"What?" I asked.
"Did you see that?" She pointed to the open gap in the chain link. "I think I saw that guy go under there!"
We had all heard about Gale Hawthorne at one point or another, we even saw him bring in his game at the Hob. Nobody really questioned it, if he was resourceful enough to find food beyond the boundaries of 12, then who were we to stop him. I even caught him at the back door of Mayor Undersee's house giving strawberries to his daughter, Madge.
"Gale?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah," she said.
I kind of respected the guy, I liked how he didn't stop with tesserae, he still did everything he could to feed himself.
Elena glared at where he went into the Meadow. "I can't believe he kills animals like that." She had a rabbit named Thumper, whom she was super-protective of.
I wasn't in the mood to talk about animal rights today, nor much of anything else. "He needs to, Lena."
"It's against the rules to go out of—" she looked at me.
I had just positioned my body in front of the person-sized hole Gale made.
"What are you doing?"
I looked out into the open field, spotting a blood-red flower in the distance. "Getting that tulip." I could have said, "Proving a point." but that sounded a little too mean.
My mother had picture books filled with them, she could spend hours upon hours looking at the petals.
"Bonnie!"
"I'll be back in a sec, I promise."
I lied.
Instead, I ventured a little farther into the woods, picking up a pointed rock. I assumed that Elena wouldn't follow me, as her Aunt Jenna always told her she would get electrocuted if she ever dared to touch it. I also assumed Gale needed extra protection out here—my teacher, Mr. Saltzman—told us that rabid animals lived in the woods.
I didn't know what got into me; I just felt like I needed to do this.
I spotted a bunny not far away from a group of trees. Steadying my aim, I threw the rock at it. There was a thud! And an exclamation of "Shit!"
Gale emerged from a group of bushes and examined my kill.
Then it hit me.
I actually murdered something.
I was a horrible person.
Then he saw me.
At first, he looked upset, but then he quietly approached me—he was even carrying the rabbit.
"Nice shot." He said begrudgingly, he still looked pissed off.
I grimaced. Said nothing.
"Here." Gale handed the dead bunny to me and left not two seconds later to check his snares.
Before I left the area, my entire body heavy with grief, I grabbed a handful of flowers to give to Mom.
Elena wouldn't speak to me for a week after she saw the carcass.
Two weeks later, Mom got sick.
ѮѼѮ
Since then, Gale has a new hunting companion.
Katniss Everdeen.
And I have stopped eating animals, much to Dad's chagrin, I'm a vegetarian.
"Can I have some?"
I look up to see Damon staring at me, his burn prominent.
"Sure."
