Chapter Ten ~ No Place for a Woman

"Madge!"

Madge ignored the over-familiar use of her name and kept knotting the strips of bedsheets. The chair wedged under the doorknob would keep him out for now, and she had taken the heavy, silver backed hand mirror from the vanity to use in case he did something so uncivilized as to break down the door.

It was better than nothing.

There has to be a better way than this, she thought resolutely, but unfortunately that was the way the world worked. She was seen as nothing more than a possession, rather like a piece of furniture, to be shuffled about on men's arms, passed from one to another. Peeta had been the exception to that, and though there hadn't been love between them, exactly - she could at least admit that to herself - he had treated her like a human being. Like she mattered in some deep, indefinable way.

He'd been the only one to talk to her like a human being once her mother began to die, the only one to draw her out of her shell. Yes, her father had paid him to paint her portrait (the Undersees would never be so uncouth as to have a common photograph taken, after all), but she and Peeta had struck up such a strong rapport between them that she'd allowed herself to dream that...

Well. That was neither here nor there. Crying over spilt milk, her mother's voice chided in her head. What's done is done, my girl.

She continued knotting the strips, faster now, for the sun had begun to streak the sky all over rose and orange-gold, and she would have to hurry if she was to make it back to the town before dark. Done. Finally! She stood and crossed the room to the open window. Looking at the sheer height of the drop didn't improve it.

Madge swallowed, a momentary pang of unease creeping into her heart. Damn and blast these skirts! She vowed to invest in a pair of bloomers... If she ever got out of this alive.

"Miss Undersee! Open the goddamned door!" The hammering resumed in earnest now, and Madge swallowed her fear, tying a knot she hoped would hold to the nearest bedpost.

There was nothing for it. She threw the makeshift rope out the window, and started down.

XxX

Madge didn't often like to admit that she'd made a mistake, at least not out loud, but it was becoming painfully obvious that her desperate plan had been ill-thought out. She was a third of the way down, her boot heels balanced precariously on the painted wooden planks of the house, when she heard the upstairs door slam open with a mighty crash.

"Miss Undersee!" Seneca Crane's voice roared from the bedroom.

"Fuck!" Madge blurted out in a very unladylike manner, clinging to the rope and trying to walk backwards down the wall as fast as she could. She looked down. She was perhaps fifteen feet from the hard packed earth, barely four feet from where she'd begun on the second story.

She felt the rope slacken and go into free fall. Screaming wildly, she clawed at the slats of the outside wall, desperately seeking a handhold. It wasn't true, what they said about your life flashing before your eyes. All Madge could think of was the little one inside of her, and keeping it safe.

Suddenly, the rope jerked, taut. Madge clung to it in a panic, tears blinding her eyes. We're safe, little one. It was the first time she had thought of the tiny creature inside of her as more than a burden. Her eyes were drawn up to the window, almost unwillingly. Seneca stood there, holding the rope in one hand, the other braced against the windowsill. His eyes were monstrous in the fading light.

"You can come up willingly... Or so help me, I will drop this fucking rope." His teeth bared in a feral grin. "Snow said he wanted you...he did not specify that you should be in one piece. And a little whore with her legs broke can't run away." He saw her waver, and pressed on. "If you come up now, I shall be the soul of knightly valor." But the veneer of civility had cracked between them, and they both knew it.

"Swing left...swing left, miss!" She could barely hear the soft voice. She wondered where it was coming from, and then she saw them. Two small girls, one fair and one dark, were leaning out of a third story window. They pointed to Madge's left, where a spruce tree stood. A blue ribbon lay snagged on a cone, fluttering, though no breeze blew. They were watching her intently, and did not smile.

"Left, miss. Look down." She didn't know who had spoken, or if they were just her imagination playing tricks on her.

Wonderful. Was she going mad as well?

It wasn't like she had any other choice. Crane had forced her hand, and she must escape - or perish.

Madge tore her gaze from Crane's and dropped her eyes, trying to appear like she was having second thoughts. She slanted her gaze left, and she saw it. A hedge. Not much, but it was better than the ground. She looked back up to thank the girls, but they had vanished. Taking a breath, Madge pushed off from the house with one last ferocious swing.

The look on Crane's face was priceless.

Madge let go of the rope too late and flew into the spruce face first instead, the sharp needles of the spruce stabbing her palms as she barely caught the trunk. Her shoulder made contact, hard, and she half-fell, half-shimmied the rest of the way down. The ribbon drifted down, whispering against the nape of her neck, and she shoved it down her front almost in afterthought.

Disoriented, she staggered away from the tree. Which direction was Panem? The hills loomed dark and black around her, and if she squinted, she could just make out -

"Looking for something?" The smell of roses and blood swirled out towards her, tendrils reaching. She gagged at the scent. She looked up, and saw him. A gaunt, white bearded man, dressed finely in a suit and tails, a rose in his boutonnière and fine ruffled cravat at his throat. Almost as if he were about to head to a cotillion ball, not stranded in this wretched outpost. It made her head hurt.

"Yes, I'm looking for the town, sir." She raised her chin a fraction of an inch. "I seem to have lost my way."

"Ah," he said, but he made no move to help her. "I think not. I think you are, rather, an ungrateful guest. One does not simply leave a host's home without making the proper niceties. It is quite rude, young lady." His voice was a slow Georgia drawl, made the even more menacing by the calculated chill of it. "Why a young lady of breeding should seek to quit herself of my company so soon... I should venture to presume she is no lady at all."

"What do you want?" The adrenaline from her wild escape was wearing off, and she was tired, so tired. She did not want to play games.

"Come, sit with me, my dear Miss Undersee. I promise you shall remain unmolested." He saw her quick glance up at the window, and chuckled, patting the rocking chair beside his. "Mr Crane is having his wounds tended to as we speak. He wrenched his back attempting to haul you up that ingenious rope of yours." The ghost of a smile came across his face, and in the golden light his mouth appeared very very red and very very wide.

The better to eat you with, my dear. Madge gave an involuntary shiver. The heat was beginning to leach from the air, and once the sun sank, her recent travel by stagecoach had taught her that it would be wretchedly cold. Had she really only gotten off the coach two days ago? She felt like she would turn gray from much more of this. "How do you know my name?" She mustered her best manners, smiling just as falsely as he.

He held up a thin sheaf of papers. "You are Miss Madge Undersee of Twelvetrees, West Virginia. In April of this year, a certain young man wrote a letter to you. When you did not reply, he wrote another, and yet another. It seemed to us - to me - that he wanted to reach you quite badly... For a time. It is too bad that the post often does not make it out of our little town on time. Nor telegrams." His smile went quite wide again, and Madge thought she would collapse if she did not sit down, so up the stairs she went, and perched on the edge of the rocking chair beside the man whom she now knew was General Coriolanus Snow.

Without missing a beat, he handed her a glass of lemonade. It was warm to the touch. Inside, a dozen or more dead butterflies swirled in a sticky cluster. Feeling nauseous, she held it in her hand, but did not drink.

"A wise move, Miss Undersee," he drawled, nearly purring with approval. "Who knows," he continued, removing the glass from her hand and setting it back down on the table between them, "but it could be poisoned."

"What!" Madge drew back in affront. He drew his lips back in a grimace or a smile, she could not be quite sure which. Her heart stilled. His tongue darted out, flicking over his teeth, and he stared into her eyes a beat too long.

She broke eye contact first, dropping her eyes to the letters. "So you are a thief?"

"I prefer to think of it as a reconnaissance tactic. I was in the Army, and old habits die hard, I'm afraid." He clicked his tongue against his teeth.

"But whatever would you need to spy on Peeta for?" She clasped her hands in her lap. They were betraying her by their shaking.

"That's where you come in, Miss Undersee. I believe you and I can help one another."

"Why should I help you?" She squared her shoulders and looked down her nose at him, showing more bravery than she felt.

"You have helped me enough already, more than you shall ever know," he said, quietly laughing to himself. "Tell me, does the name Katniss mean anything to you? No, of course it - Ah. You do know it."

Madge twisted her skirts in her hands. The pale blue material was now a dingy gray. She felt Hanna's gift in her pocket and slid her hand in, surreptitiously running her fingers over it. If she was careful... She swallowed her fear, looking General Snow straight in the eye. "I may have heard it, but I assure you, I do not know the bearer."

"Liar." His hand snaked out, grasping her chin, and he turned her head this way and that. "You are bleeding, Miss Undersee. Allow me." He dabbed his handkerchief on his tongue, and then pressed it against the cuts on her face, which were now beginning to sting. "I wouldn't want my newest acquisition to become marred too soon. Oh yes," he continued, his fingertips stroking the line of her collarbone, "I know a certain man that makes it a point of pride to mark each blushing maid he comes across. So that no man can ever forget he had her first."

"You wouldn't be singing my praises to this ungrateful whore, would you, Coriolanus old friend?"

Madge forced herself to stay perfectly still. A smooth finger stroked the nape of her neck from her hairline to the collar of her gown, and with a vicious yank the material ripped through the buttons all the way down her spine. The tip of something sharp and metal whispered against her skin, and she was unable to hold in a sob of fear.

General Snow's smile, if anything, became wider. "Seneca's greatest weakness is also his greatest kindness. If you think you are a pearl above price now..." He drew a dead blue butterfly from her lemonade with his fingers and pressed it to her lips. "Did you really think I would forgive your willful disobedience so easily?"

Crane's hands swept the pins from her hair and they fell to the porch with a cacophony of pings. He was breathing heavily, his thumb kneading the curve of her lower back as she fought to wriggle away. "Such splendor, Miss Undersee." His voice was hoarse with reverence. She froze in place.

"Let me go! Oh, please, I beg you!" She choked out, trying to pull herself away from Crane's grasp. "I have never done you an injustice, sir! I had never heard of this place except from -"

"Yes, from Mr Mellark." He nodded, sagely. "Because you are new to this place, I am afraid you do not know the rules."

Frozen to her chair, she could but shake her head. "Please." Such a paltry word. It was having no effect in the least.

"Perhaps I should give you to my friend. Would that rout the weasel and his jill out of their warren? Or, perhaps... Perhaps he does not care for you at all, and advises you to quit your affection for him." A malicious gleam appeared in his eye. He patted the letters affectionately. "Yet, here you are, all the same. Why is that, I wonder?" He leaned close. "Desperation makes people do foolish things, Miss Undersee."

"I told you, I don't -"

"Oh, if you only knew! This is delicious indeed. I shall take the utmost delight in breaking the news to you. Once Mr Crane is done with his business, that is." He dabbed his lips primly. "Such an impeccable canvas of flesh, do you not agree, Seneca?"

"She will be my masterpiece, General." The knife caressed her cheek, and Crane wound one hand in her hair, yanking it back to bury his face in it. She heard him greedily inhale. "I told you we would become intimate friends, did I not, Miss Undersee?" Without waiting for an answer, he ripped her dress the rest of the way down the back.

"Let me go!" Madge screamed.

Seneca's only answer was to pull Madge up and press his bulging breeches into her back with a dark laugh. "I'll enjoy the breaking almost as much as I enjoy the unmaking."

That was it. Madge shrieked like a wild thing, and plunged Hanna's knife into Crane's thigh. "Bitch!" With a swipe of his fist, he cuffed her across the side of the head, toppling her to the porch.

Stars swam in her eyes as she got up on all fours. She tasted blood, and her ears were full of a high pitched buzzing. Luckily, her vision was clear enough. She turned her head to look at Crane, who was cursing a blue streak. He had pulled out the knife, and it lay forgotten on the porch. Blood spurted between his fingers.

"She fucking stabbed me, Coriolanus!"

It would have been funny if she hadn't been in such a panic to escape. Madge grabbed the knife. It was slick with blood, and she wiped it on her skirts. Standing, she turned to flee.

Quick as a wink, Snow's hand darted out and latched around her wrist. He had risen, and was leaning heavily on a silver-tipped cane. "Not so fast, my dear. Unless, of course, you wish to tempt Fate."

"I'd rather deal with Fate any day than stay here one more minute!" She held up the knife, her eyes wild. "I told him not to touch me without my permission! And don't you touch me either!" The knife flashed, and he yanked his hand back too late. Blood bloomed across his knuckles. Madge opened her mouth, a horrified apology on the tip of her tongue.

The mask had dropped. His eyes met hers, flat and cold, and he put two fingers to his mouth and let out a whistle. The answering howl sent a trickle of fear down her spine. "Now run, Miss Undersee, for if you do not, you will surely wish you had."

XxXxX

A/N: As always, thank you for your reviews. As for Seneca Crane, he was a Gamemaker in the books/movie and just happened to come out as a different stripe of killer here. Let me know what you think! Madge isn't out of the woods yet (literally).

I only have two more buffer chapters before I run out of pre-written material, so chapters will switch to once every two weeks unless I can pull another all-nighter or two.