A/N: Updated november 15. Thank you so much to my wonderful beta Bellum Gerere.
Chapter 10 – May the Odds be Ever in Your Favor
A tricky thing is yesterday we were just children
Playing soldiers
Just pretending
Dreaming dreams with happy endings
In backyards, winning battles with our wooden swords
But now we've stepped into a cruel world
Where everybody stands to keep score
Taylor Swift, "Eyes Open"
Reaping day. I didn't think it could get any worse than standing on the square in front of the stage, waiting to hear the names, worrying it will be yours. Sitting on the stage and looking down on all these children waiting to be reaped is definitely much worse. I would have taken a hundred more reapings to not be on that stage myself.
The number of children lined up is far less than usual, only one out of seven. A few dozen small, frightened twelve year olds. I spot Rory in the crowd, hair combed and with his too-large blue shirt tucked into his pants. I look over to where I know Gale and the rest of his family are standing. He's staring straight ahead, tension all over his face.
I let my gaze roam over the people of District 12 gathered before me. Something feels different this year, and I don't think it's just me. The atmosphere as a whole is tenser than previous years. Reaping only twelve-year-olds isn't welcomed in the district. I've heard people mumbling about the Capitol, and it's far from praise. People are angry. I've never felt this level of dissatisfaction from District 12 before.
I wonder if President Snow had anticipated the unrest stirred by the Quarter Quell announcement. For all I know, this is exactly what he wants. Hate. Fear. Destruction.
The clock strikes two and Mayor Undersee begins his speech, as he has done every year for as long as I can remember. The story is always the same. The destruction of the old world, the rise of Panem with its glorious Capitol and thirteen districts. Then there's the Dark Days and the rebellion that led to the first ever Hunger Games. And now we celebrate the seventy-fifth.
Celebrate. 74 years and 1702 dead children. In a few weeks, it will be 1725.
The mayor ends his speech with reading the names of District 12's Victors. For the past twenty-five years there have been only two names. This year there are three.
I'm slouched low in my seat, trying to make myself seem small and forgettable, wishing I was anywhere else. On my left side, Haymitch is barely present, far away in a drunken slumber.
I search for Gale in the crowd. When I spot him he's looking back at me. I can see my own desperation reflected in his eyes. It's his first year standing on the sidelines, looking, yet not able to do anything. It's getting to him. I know that, like me, he would also have chosen the reaping for himself rather than this.
The last few months have been nothing but painful. I've left the district for the woods as much as possible. I couldn't stand running into any of the small twelve-year-olds, or their parents for that matter.
Gale has been in an awful mood. Moments away from breaking out in a rage towards the Capitol. Everybody around him has been walking on pins and needles, knowing it wouldn't help anything if he blew up. His anger targets about anything and everything, but it was mostly directed at the Quarter Quell and the Capitol's interference in our relationship.
The normally strong Hazelle has also let the stress get to her. I found her crying one time when I came by. It was the first time I'd ever seen her cry, even including her husband's funeral.
Sundays have been the best days by far. Gale seemed to relax a little out in the woods, and the hunting got both our minds off of things.
The last Sunday before the reaping, almost a week ago, I decided to take him to the lake where my father used to take me. I had never taken him there before. It was a secret magic place that had always been a place for me and my father. I'd never before had the need, nor the want, to share it with anybody else. But that day, I did.
It was an amazing warm, sunny summer day and the forest was alive, a hundred different birds filling the air with song. I swam in the lake. Gale, never having had a chance to learn how to swim, sat on the edge with his feet in the water and watched me. We lay in the grass side by side, feeling the hot sun on our skin. We ate, we laughed, we kissed. For a few hours, we almost forgot about everything else, and we were simply happy.
I sat in the soft grass, tipping my head back to watch the birds fly overhead. Softly, I whistled the four-note song I learned from Rue. Somewhere a mockingjay must have picked it up, because soon I heard it floating back to me. I don't know if I would have realized what I was doing if it hadn't been for Gale's lingering gaze.
"Again," he answered to my unspoken question. He must have seen my confusion. "The song. Can you do it one more time?" And I did.
When evening came, neither of us wanted to go home. We decided to stay the night in the cement house, although it meant a horribly early start for Gale the next day to reach the mines on time. We didn't think about our families being worried to death because we didn't come home, or maybe this time we didn't care.
I remember the feeling of his hands on my bare skin. Surprisingly nervous at first, hesitant. I lost myself in the feeling of his touch, the sensation of his soft lips and the heat radiating from his body. His warm skin under my fingers. The overwhelming closeness. The stinging pain that faded to something totally different, as we moved together.
We fell asleep afterwards, a tangle of limbs and skin against skin. The only bad part was late in the night, when I woke up screaming after one of my nightmares. Gale was awake, looking at me with pain in his eyes. When I asked what it was, he said he didn't like seeing me in pain, but I could tell it was more than that. After pressing him about it, he confessed I'd been calling out for Peeta in my sleep.
"Will he always stand between us?" he asked. I had no answer for him.
"Ladies first," Effie Trinket announces in her overly-cheerful voice, drawing me back to the present. I watch as she moves over to the big glass ball with the girls' names. Slowly she selects a slip of paper and prances back to the microphone.
"Larraine Arterberry," she calls out. I look into the crowd. I can't place the name. The crowd parts and a girl steps forward. She has that Seam look, brown hair and gray eyes, just like me, but her clothes tell me she is not from there.
I can tell she's scared, but she puts on a brave face and walks steady towards the stage. Effie claps her hands, but other than that it's silent except for a few muffled cries somewhere in the audience. The girl has reached the top of the stairs. Our eyes meet and I can see she's fighting back tears. She's looking to me for support, and suddenly it hits me that this is my task now, to support this frightened girl and the boy who's going to join her. I give her a small nod, trying to tell her to keep strong, and that it's smart of her to keep her emotions at bay.
"Come here, dear." Effie guides her to where she is supposed to stand. "Wonderful! And now for the boys." I inhale deeply and close my eyes. I can hear Effie walking across the stage and back. "The boy tribute is…" There's a small pause while she unfolds the paper.
"Tad Huddleston." I breathe out, angry with myself for feeling happy about not hearing Rory's name.
Tad Huddleston. I know that name. A vague memory of two small children, about four or five, flashes across my mind. Then I see him. Yes, I remember him now. He lived not far from us in the Seam. He and Prim used to play together outside our house when they were younger. I think they lost contact when Prim started going to school and he didn't. It looks like he has gone into shock. He just stands there, not moving.
"Come up here, dear," Effie says sweetly, but the boy doesn't move before someone nudges his back and he almost falls. With some guidance from one of the Peacekeepers, he manages to get up on stage.
"Any volunteers?" Effie asks after she's gotten the two small kids to stand where they're supposed to. Of course, no one speaks up. It's like all the twelve-year-olds are holding their breath, afraid to call attention to themselves.
"And here you have them, this year's tributes: Larraine Arterberry and Tad Huddleston! Give them a big round of applause!"
No one claps. It's silent as the grave. Even the cries from the tributes' families have died down. It happens just like the year before: almost as one, the crowd kisses the three middle fingers of their left hands and raises them towards the sky.
Before anyone on the stage has time to react, we are being rushed off the stage and towards the Justice Building, away from the audience. It seems like the Treaty of Treason is forgotten, or neglected. Has this become the new way of saying goodbye? I try to look back at the crowd, but the door closes behind me before I can see what's going on out there.
Larraine and Tad are taken to separate rooms for their goodbyes and Haymitch and I are left to our self, but not for long. Two Peacekeepers come up to us and tell us to follow them. We're escorted into a waiting car. I try to protest. I said I would meet Gale and my family to say goodbye after the ceremony. My objections are ignored, and soon I find myself in the back of the car on the way to the train, my heart aching and my goodbyes still on my lips.