"Prim and Punishment"
Chapter Seven
By Brian Grove
Brian at rescueddoggies dot com
Disclaimer – As I'm British and male, it may come as no surprise that I don't own Hunger Games.
An experienced beta would be welcome.
Previous chapter:- Katniss attacks a square full of people.
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My mouth was burning, I felt like I was on fire, from the inside. This had to be an attack from the Capitol. Somehow they had found me and poisoned me. Dropping the chicken piece on the ground, I dropped down, then pulled out and loaded my bow, ready for any attack.
No attack came. If they were killing me by poison, it was slow. Only my mouth was burning. I ducked my whole head in the river to fill my mouth with cooling water. It helped. Not completely, but it helped reduce the burning.
I remembered the man in the shop offering me the yoghurt dip and realized sheepishly that perhaps this wasn't an attack. I opened the pot of yoghurt and put some on one of my fingers and licked it off. The burning eased.
I took the same finger and wiped it over another bit of the chicken and touched my tongue. It burned, so I quickly rinsed it off. So it was the sauce that burned like that. Taking another piece of chicken, I wiped most of the sauce off of it, then dipped the chicken into the yoghurt.
Mmm. Delicious. But why would the Capitol want a sauce that burns? That makes it impossible to eat your food? I decided once again that I'd never understand them in a million years. I was just glad that my antics of the past few minutes weren't being transmitted live to the whole of Panem. I'd be more of a laughing-stock than Haymitch and I'd never live it down. And somehow I don't think the Mockingjay freaking out over being attacked by a cooked chicken would do the rebellion a lot of good either.
Chilli, the label had said. Some kind of joke for something so hot? Maybe. I made a mental note NOT to eat anything else labelled chilli.
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I couldn't make up my mind where to go next. The center, I supposed, as I had originally planned. In the Metro station there were a number of machines lining the walls where you could get food and drinks automatically, using just the card. Although I could easily go into a café and buy something, I didn't want to test my "Effie" voice too much. It wouldn't be convincing if someone tried to get me in a conversation. Even Gale could do a better Effie than me. So the machines it was. I decided to use a different card, remembering the warning Cinna had given me in his letter.
From the first machine I selected a couple of soft bread rolls filled with bacon, lettuce and tomato. From the second, I chose orange juice. Growing up in District Twelve, the idea of being able to get food instantly was still a novelty. Once I'd made my selections, I took a seat in the central area.
The screens in the station were showing the morning news. President Snow was shown smiling in a meeting with the mayors from Districts One and Two. After a few minutes, I was glad that I'd redone my make-up before venturing out from where I'd hidden for the night, because my face, my normal, unmade-up face, appeared on the screens.
"Terror struck a quiet neigborhood of the Capitol last night, when Katniss Everdene..." It's Katniss Mellark, you idiot, I thought. The Capitol made me get married in the first place, so you'd think they'd know my name.
"...already wanted for the murder of the pilot and passengers of the hovercraft which was rescuing her from the arena, murdered a dozen people and left five others injured. She used her trademark bow and arrows to kill six people who were in the square, innocently watching the show..."
Innocently enjoying my sister get tortured, I thought.
"In addition she started a fire which killed three others and left five others with serious burns. In her escape from the square she murdered another three innocent passers by."
I had to admit, they WERE innocent, well, apart for being from the Capitol.
"If you see this girl, do not approach her under any circumstances. She is classified as extremely dangerous and considered to have gone mad after seeing her sister lose in the games."
I gave an involuntary growl which made a couple of people glance at me for a moment. I quickly covered it by coughing. Lose in the games, I thought. She didn't LOSE in the games, she was tortured to death in the games.
"Peacekeepers are instructed to shoot on sight and to shoot to kill."
I couldn't help a grin at that. They must be worried to want me dead quickly. I'd have expected them to want me captured, so that they could torture me to death.
I made my way into the center and seemed to be irresistibly drawn to the City Circle where we had paraded in the chariots. My first time there came back to me, my fear of being burned alive, my not knowing what to think about Peeta, the reaction of the crowd, cheering us at the top of their voices and blowing kisses. It seemed a lifetime ago. I gave a grim smile as I thought, their reaction might be a little different now, if they knew I were here. I had done the unthinkable, the unforgivable. I had done what nobody else had ever done before. I had struck back at the Capitol. I had hurt them.
The Training Centre was lit up, the whole of the wall facing the Circle was covered in screens, showing each of the tributes. The screen for Prim, like many of the others now, was dimmed and had a red diagonal cross over it.
In the center of the wall was one giant screen showing the main action being transmitted at the time. I wasn't surprised to see it focussed on the boy from Two, who seemed to be trying to track someone in the woods. I say trying, because he was making so much noise trying to move quietly that he made Peeta seem almost silent in comparison.
Immediately below the large screen was a timer, showing how long the games had been running for and the score so far. Fifteen dead so far. Feeling slightly guilty for not having looked before, I noticed that the screen for the boy tribute from Twelve was also dimmed with a red cross. I wondered how he died. I hope it was quicker than Prim.
In one way, the City Circle was like a giant clock face, with important-looking building at each position on the clock. If the Training Center was at twelve o'clock, the Remake Center beside it would be at eleven o'clock. The City's main train station was next to it, at ten o'clock. At six o'clock, directly opposite the Training Center was the Television Center. I say at six o'clock, because it was actually a huge complex taking up a quarter of the Circle, from five o'clock to seven o'clock.
It took me almost half an hour to reach it. At three o'clock was the Peacekeeper Headquarters. I wonder if anyone saw the irony in the fact that the Peacekeepers were the opposite of Justice, as the Justice Building was located at the nine o'clock position. At the four o'clock position was one of the two large gaps in the Circle, the other being at the eight o'clock position. The gaps were for two wide avenues, the one at eight o'clock was the only public exit by road from the Circle, while the avenue at four o'clock led to the Presidential Palace.
When I reached the Television Center I found that, like the Training Center, it had big screens outside on the walls, each showing one of Panem's television channels. It was obvious that the single channel we saw in District Twelve, when it worked, was none of these. These seemed to be for entertainment, although one channel seemed to be just for news. In Twelve, apart from the games, all we ever saw were history programs about Panem, occasional features about the Capitol, and documentaries about coal. Entertainment didn't really come into it, except when Haymitch fell off the stage when I was reaped.
I suspected that the news of my attack in the square the previous night only went out to the Capitol, not to the Districts and I knew that my mission was two-fold. To make the Capitol fear enough that they would turn against Snow, and to give hope to the Districts. Impossible? Possibly, but perhaps I could at least weaken Snow's position.
The central screen attracted my attention when I saw my face alongside the face of President Snow. "Many parts of the Capitol have seen protests this morning calling for action against District Twelve for the callous murders committed by one of their criminals. Here at this station at breakfast time we conducted a straw poll amongst our own employees and over ninety percent want strong action against the District. We suspect the percentage would be similar almost everywhere in the Capitol. Within the last few minutes, President Snow has issued a statement, promising to punish the murders of innocent Capitol citizens and remind the whole of Panem that it isn't only the Girl on Fire who can bring down fire. When asked to give more details, the President refused to do so. We can only hope that he sends a signal strong enough to deter any future killers from the barbarous districts."
Furious, I waited until he finished work, which wasn't long after the lunchtime news ended, then followed him to his car. A single arrow made sure that he was dead before he sat down. In the trunk of his car was a spare gallon tank of fuel. Using his jacket to handle it, I undid the lid and threw it at his body so that it slowly emptied over him. I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't smell of the fuel. I dipped the sleeve of his jacket in the fuel now running from the car, and, using a match to light it, threw it as best I could towards the car... Then ran like hell to get out of there.
Bigotted TV presenter 0, Girl on Fire 1.
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That afternoon I went almost of the edge of the Capitol, as far west as it was possible to go. I waited outside a bar, listening for someone to badmouth the districts or say anything that could justify me picking them as a target.
They were cheering at one of the deaths in the games. If I'd needed an excuse, that was more than enough for me. I didn't see who had died and I didn't care. Apart from the bar tender, the whole group were drunk as skunks, so I might be able to kill more than one again. I wondered to myself. I'd never seen a skunk. Were they really drunk all the time? Or just most of it, like Haymitch?
My first arrow killed the bar tender. When he collapsed, one of his customers started complaining and yelling at him to get up and serve him. He died next. Eight were dead by the time one of them even noticed me. So he was the next and the last to die.
I ran away quickly. Too quickly. I attracted the attention of a Peacekeeper. An arrow straight through the eye dealt with that problem. But not soon enough. A teenage girl, younger than me but older than Prim, had seen and began screaming. I had to shut her up before she brought every Peacekeeper in the Capitol down on me. An arrow to her throat silenced her screams. I tried to ignore the look of panic in her eyes as she died.
As I carefully made my long way back to the riverside where I'd slept the night before, I realized that the girl brought my kills for the day up to twelve, the same as the previous day. My original plan was to kill one for every person they'd sent to the arena. If I stuck to that I was halfway there. But what was I going to do after that?
I didn't eat that night. Killing the girl had killed my appetite. I lay awake, seeing her eyes widen in fear as she bled to death. Her only crime? Wrong place, wrong time.
I remembered Prim, the night before the games... "You're going to have to kill a lot of them, aren't you? To win, I mean," she had asked me.
When I'd I nodded in reply, she had simply told me, "Don't let it make you into a monster."
"Am I becoming a monster?" I asked Prim, even though I knew she was far beyond being able to answer me.
I didn't think so. A monster enjoys killing, don't they? But killing today had been easier than killing yesterday.
Would it soon be so easy that I would come to enjoy it. I'd have to really try to make sure that didn't happen.
"Really, really try. I swear it," I silently promised my dead sister. And I knew, because of Prim, I'd have to.
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Author's notes...
Okay a few major mistakes. I forgot to have them show the photo of the Girl from Two in the evening TV show and that reminded me that I'd forgotten to have her body and her sibling in the hovercraft in chapter four, both now corrected. There were quite a few other errors in chapter six, also now corrected.
Please review.
Brian
THE STORY SO FAR
Chapter 1
President Snow forces Katniss to be a prostitute. Prim tries to kill Snow. Katmiss marries Peeta. In the Quarter Quell a sibling has to join each tribute. Prim is reaped again.
Chapter 2
Peeta finds out the truth. Prim decides it's her turn to protect Katniss. Flames and bruises.
Chapter 3
Into the games and Prim tells her story.
Chapter 4
Prim is killed and Katniss is rescued. Letters.
Chapter 5
Her first kill... almost.
Chapter 6
Katniss attacks a square full of people.
Chapter 7
Another day another dozen.
