Rosewood Hart
Two years ago
The whistle blew and echoed through the trees, signalling the end of the workday. Wiping sweat from her brow, Rose gave a thumbs up to the hoist operator below her, and he slowly started letting her down.
As her boots thumped heavily on the needle-strewn forest floor, she let out a breath. The sun was hotter than hell today, and she wanted nothing more than to get home, shower, and then spend the rest of the evening with Cypress.
She undid her harness and then followed after the other workers. As she cleared the work area, she took off her hard hat and took her ponytail out before running her fingers through her hair. She tossed the hat on the peg with her name engraved on it and went as quickly as she could to the bus station.
She sent a cursory glance around, though she knew her siblings were all posted in a different area this week. It would be a lonely ride into the city, but she didn't mind. She liked having the time alone to think.
As the bus pulled up to the station in the outskirts of District Seven, where nature met civilization, she clambered off the hot, crowded bus with the rest of the foresters, and started quickly towards her house.
She was the first one home, but by the time she had showered and dressed in some relaxing clothes, her two younger brothers had trickled noisily in, and were currently roughousing on the living room carpet.
"Hey!" she shouted as she came out. "Don't you two think you should take that outside? Mom would murder you if you broke something."
Cedar popped his head up. "Birch started it," he replied.
"I don't give a damn who started it," she replied. "Get on outside, you idiots."
Rolling their eyes, the two boys rose and went out the backdoor. Rolling her eyes in return, Rose left the house and went towards the paper-maker's shop, where she knew Cypress would be finishing up for the day.
As she overhead door rang, she saw Cypress peek up over a stack of newly made paper, and their faces both mutually broke into smiles. "Rose," she said, setting the paper precariously down on a desk nearby. She jogged over and hugged her.
"Hey, Cy," she replied, breathing in the smell of woodchips that always seemed to follow her girlfriend around. "How are you?"
"I'm fine. How are you?" She pulled away and looked up at her.
"Tired. It was hot as hell today."
"I bet." She kissed her briefly. "Hold on a second, let me go tell my dad I'm leaving."
She pulled away and disappeared into the back room of the shop. Rose waited, awkwardly twisting her ring around on her finger while she waited.
After a minute, Cypress returned. "Come on," she said, grabbing Rose by the hand and tugging her out of the shop.
"So what should we do tonight?" she asked as they walked down the sidewalk.
She shrugged. "I was thinking we could just walk around for a little while, since I haven't gotten paid yet."
"Sounds good." Cypress was one of those people who never needed to be doing something to enjoy herself. She found joy in other people's presence.
They walked towards the more commercial part of their area of District Seven, talking idly about their day.
Cypress was in the middle of talking about some weird old woman who came into the shop that day when they heard a shout from a few blocks down.
Instinctively, the two of them ran towards the source of the sound, and found a group of Peacekeepers surrounding an old man, who was bowed down on his knees, trembling. One of the Peacekeepers had a baton in his hand, raised above his head in preparation to strike.
Rose was about to shout, but Cypress beat her to it. "Hey! Stop!" she shouted, running forward. "You can't do this!"
The Peacekeepers turned and looked at her. "Stay back," one of them snapped, pointing a baton threateningly at her.
Rose approached and stood close to Cypress.
"No. I'm not going to stand by and watch you beat an old man to death."
"You don't know what's going on. Stay back."
"No."
She stood tall, but the Peacekeepers turned away from them. The baton was raised again, and this time, she stepped forward and grabbed the Peacekeeper by the elbow. "No!"
"Hold her," he commanded. One of the others stepped forward and grabbed her by the shoulders, wrenching her away as she struggled.
"Cypress!" Rose shouted, stepping forward herself.
"Make her kneel."
A pang of panic shot through Rose's chest. She knew what kneeling meant.
"No! Get away from her!" she shouted, running forward and trying to get Cypress away. She didn't care that she might get executed too, she didn't care that this was probably the most dangerous impulsive thing she had ever done. She couldn't watch them kill her, the love of her life—she would die right there in the street with her if she had to.
"Keep her back!"
The third Peacekeeper grabbed her and threw her aside. Despite her size, he easily overpowered her, and delivered a swift, painful kick to her gut. Despite this, she refused to give up. "Cypress!" she screamed.
She was held back, one hand twisted in her hair, the other holding her wrist. She kicked and struggled, and screamed and screamed and wouldn't stop screaming, wanting everyone to come out of their houses and shops and see, see what they were doing to teenagers and old men in the street, see so that something would happen, so that someone would stop them. There were tears running down her face, and Cypress kept calling her name, reaching out for her, keeping their eyes locked even as the Peacekeeper drew a gun from his holster.
"No!" she wailed.
The two kept shouting for each other as the Peacekeeper stepped back and leveled the gun to the old man's head.
There was a loud bang, and horrid crack, and a sickening thump as the man slumped forward. Cypress' screams grew more desperate, Rose's struggles more intense.
She managed to get a hand free and reached out to her girlfriend, as if she could save her if she could just touch her, but the man holding her grabbed it and drew it sharply behind her back.
There was another bang, another crack, another thump, and Rose lost all thought in her mind.
She screamed Cypress' name, kicked at the Peacekeeper's shins, and started sobbing, ignoring the pain in her skull as a chunk of hair threatened to be pulled loose.
The Peacekeeper who had done the execution looked down at her. There was no face behind his black visor. She knew there wasn't anything human in that suit. Just a monster, a thoughtless, soulless monster who killed and beat for fun, the Capitol's guard dog.
She pulled her foot out and kicked him in the nuts, causing him to double over, as she called him the most obscene words in her vocabulary, all the while sobbing.
He doubled over, but after a moment recovered, and brought the butt of his gun up before hitting her in the face. She felt the cheekbone crack painfully. He ordered the guy holding her to drop her, and she immediately crawled over to Cypress.
The sight was one that would haunt Rose for years. She didn't think about it in that moment, though. She hardly even saw the blood, the spattered brains, the horrible look of frozen terror on her girlfriend's face. She just cradled her in her arms and sobbed and screamed. The Peacekeepers left her then, and after a minute, people started coming out.
As they approached, trying to speak calming words to her, she turned on them like a feral animal, screaming for them to get the fuck away, kicking at them. They had only watched. They could have done something, anything. But they had decided to watch. They had let Cypress die. At that moment, she was disgusted with every other human being on the planet. She hated them all, for letting her die.
Eventually, a different group of Peacekeepers were called. They had to tranquilize her to get her away from Cypress.
She woke up an hour later in the doctor's office, her parents hanging over her.
Her head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton, and her face fucking hurt. Even with the fog settling around her consciousness thanks to the drugs the doctor had given her, it didn't keep her out of reality enough that she forgot how she got there.
"Cypress," she said, beginning to sit up. "Where's Cypress?"
Her mother put a hand on her shoulder. "Rosewood, lay back down—don't exert yourself."
"No, get the fuck away from me! Where is my girlfriend!" Her father and older brother had to hold her down to keep her from getting up.
"Rosewood, you have to calm down, or else they're going to have to put you under again."
"I don't give a shit! Where—" she stopped as sobs broke her speech. "Where is she?"
A nurse came in with a syringe in her hand and a look of pity in her eyes.
The next time she came out of her drug-induced sleep, she didn't speak at all. She just curled up onto her side and screamed. She screamed, and then she threw up, and then she cried. When all the liquids had left her body, she felt so sick and empty that she thought she was going to die, and she welcomed the thought. It seemed like nothing mattered anymore. The pain she was feeling in this moment was so intense that everything else seemed tiny in comparison, and she would give anything to have it stop, to be able to see the love of her life again.
Why did she have to be so stupidly brave? Why did she have to be so headstrong and good that she felt the need to step in and interfere? Why did she have to do it? Of course, Rose had been about to do the same, but that didn't help the pain at all.
She was laid up in bed for two weeks, in and out of consciousness. She missed Cypress' funeral. Her parents still came and checked on her, every day. Told her how much they missed her, how much everyone at work was worried about her. Told her her grades were slipping and she should try her best to get out soon. She never listened. Never even responded.
After the initial grief had passed, and the doctors deemed her stable enough to let her leave the hospital, all the pain and sadness turned to anger. She hated the Capitol, more than she had before. She hated it more than she thought she had been capable of hating anything. If she had the chance, she told herself, she would kill everyone in the Capitol, and everyone associated with it. She would kill every single one of those sick fucks drinking wine and eating cake and talking about how good the District citizens had it, how they should be grateful. She would murder every single one of their white-clad soulless guard-dogs, and anyone and everyone who had played a part in creating the regime that was responsible for her and her family's suffering, responsible for Cypress' death, and the deaths of countless other citizens who had done nothing more than tried to survive.
If anything, that was what kept Rose going. She didn't have any hope for the future. The only thing that burned inside of her chest was red-hot hatred for the Capitol and their regime. She went to work, ate dinner, went on walks. But she hardly ever felt any of it. She withdrew from her friends, from her family, until the only thing she did was eat, work, sleep. Rinse and repeat, day in and day out, waiting for that fire of hatred to burn out so she could finally die.
Cedar Wayne
Six months ago
"You want to talk about today?" Caleb asked.
It was sometime after midnight as they sat underneath a tree, still too young to be cut down. The half-dead flashlight Caleb had brought was barely enough for Cedar to see his hands.
Cedar just shrugged, keeping his eyes trained at his hands, even after he stopped signing. He didn't want to look his best friend in the face. He felt his insides shutting down and his skin getting cold. Caleb knew what the beginnings of a meltdown looked like, so he signed slowly and kept his face gentle.
"I just—I tried to do something today and it didn't work. And I ruined it for my family and—yeah."
"Cedar, you don't have to blame yourself. You know your family doesn't blame you either."
"I know. It's just—I know Dani and Oliver were disappointed. And I hate seeing him so upset." He stopped as his hands started shaking and his eyes filled. He turned away from Caleb and buried his face in his arms. One of the nice things about being Deaf was that he could end a conversation as easily as putting his hands over his eyes.
Caleb knew better than to tap him while he was like this. Usually that was one of the ways to get a Deaf person's attention, but that didn't mix well with touch aversion, so he'd just have to wait until Cedar was good and ready to talk again.
Finally, there was a light touch on his toes. It was far enough away from him that it didn't immediately make him freak out, and he slowly lifted his eyes up. Caleb had moved in front of him. "Maybe it's a little late for you to be out. Let's go home. You need to sleep. You'll feel better in the morning."
He shrugged. He didn't really want to go home. The thought of laying in bed, with the blankets all over him, on that porch that was always too hot or too cold, with the walls closing in on him, made him feel claustrophobic. But he figured that he was right. Maybe by the time they got back to his house he would feel okay enough to go to bed.
He nodded and stood up, brushing the pine needles off the back of his pants.
They walked back towards town in silence. Cedar was glad for it. He didn't want to have to focus on talking at the moment. He just looked up at the stars, so bright and clear above them.
When they reached his house, he waved goodbye to Caleb and went to his room.
He slept on the porch, since the house only had two bedrooms, and his parents had one and his sister and son had the other. His sister's husband was busy saving up to get a house for them, but that was still a long ways off. Cedar didn't mind the porch so much though. Sure, sometimes it was hard because it never seemed to be the right temperature, and everyone had to go through there to get into the backyard—which wasn't much more than ten square feet of dead grass with an elm tree and a tiny garden—but he liked having the privacy. It let him get out at night whenever he wanted.
He lit the woodstove and shoved a log inside, figuring that would make it warm enough to lull him to sleep and he'd be good until morning. He sat on the edge of his bed for a few minutes in the dark, looking out of the bug screen into the yard. Things always looked so different at night. Everything was all blues and greens and purples; a monochromatic world covered in milky white moonlight. He had always loved nighttime. So much quieter. It seemed like the only time he could feel calm. During the day everyone was always moving and touching him. He had heard from other autistic people that sometimes it sounded like all the sounds were too loud, and Cedar was glad he couldn't hear them.
But nighttime was so much simpler, and prettier too.
He thought about the day, thought about everything that had gone wrong. He was fourteen, he kept telling himself, he was too old to be having meltdowns all because he had to try and communicate with a hearing person and they didn't understand his attempts at communication, an awkward mix of charades and sign language. His sister had gone off to take Oliver to the bathroom, and left him in line at the store. They were going to go and have lunch at Oliver's favorite place, and the little guy had been so excited about it. But he had intuited, in that way toddlers seemingly always could, that Cedar couldn't enjoy himself as much as he ought to. It had ruined the day for him, he knew it had. That, of course, only made Cedar feel worse, and no matter how much Dani tried to insist that it was okay, he knew he had disappointed his nephew, who was just about the biggest and brightest light in his life. That funk had followed him all day, and made things that were already difficult basically impossible, and made things that were usually achievable a struggle. And of course, he had to help with chores, and chop wood, and his dad kept asking him to do things, and Cedar didn't feel like he could have asked to have a few moments to recover from the past ten hours of overstimulation, so it had just gotten exponentially worse until he had to lock himself in his room.
After his family had gone to bed, he went and found Caleb, knocking at his window as quietly as he knew how, and they went out in the woods for a little while so he could calm down.
He hated being a burden to his family, it always made him feel terrible. He hated being different, he hated struggling with things that other people didn't have to. He was fourteen years old, he should be able to handle a fucking language barrier.
He laid down with a heavy sigh and tapped his fingers on his chest, trying to lull himself into sleep. He'd feel better in the morning, he thought to himself. He always did.
Cedar Wayne
Present Day
The heavy stamping of a foot woke Cedar. His dad had learned after a couple of anxiety attacks triggered by being touched into wakefulness that vibrations on the floor was a better strategy.
He sat up and looked up at his dad. "You'd better get up before Dani and Oliver get the bathroom, otherwise it'll be an hour until you get in there," he said.
He nodded and as the door shut, Cedar slipped out of bed. Shivering in the cold, he grabbed the clothes for Reaping Day that he had set out the night before and went quickly to the bathroom.
He bathed, but already the day was off to a bad start. The towel that he usually used, which his dad had bought especially for him because the coarseness of all the other towels was sensory hell, was still being washed. He couldn't even enjoy a god damn bath without some stupid thing ruining it.
He tried to keep it from totally sending him into meltdown mode, though. Reaping Day was stressful enough when he wasn't getting overstimulated.
As he left the bathroom, his step-dad was making oatmeal in the kitchen.
He looked up as Caleb entered the room, and put the spoon down long enough to give a quick "Good morning."
David had been his step-dad longer than his mother had been in his life. After his dad realized he was gay, when Cedar was four, they parted amicably and David came into their lives a year or so after. His mom had never really bothered to learn sign language, so their relationship didn't really get much more personal than the occasional brunches with her and his sister. Dani was much closer to their mom, and she usually acted as interpreter. To Cedar, David was his other parent.
He sat down at the table, a book in his hand. Reading was his hobby. He took books everywhere he went. It was hard for him to take part in conversation, even when everyone was speaking in sign for his benefit, so he usually turned to a book. It calmed him down, too, allowed him to disconnect from the world.
After a minute, though, David put a bowl of oatmeal down in front of him. As he attacked the thick stuff with a spoon, Oliver came running in on his two-year-old legs, absolutely naked and soaking wet.
Dani came in after him, presumably shouting something at him. Cedar laughed as his sister scooped her son up in a towel and carried him back out.
"He got away from her, didn't he?" David said, a wide smile on his face.
An hour later, they left the house towards the bus station. The ride to the center of the District was only an hour and a half, but Cedar's dad always wanted to get there early to head off the line. Cedar didn't mind that so much. But he always hated the Reapings. Being roped in places was hard enough; add that onto the thought of being Reaped and the enormous crowds and it was stress city.
Cedar couldn't even stand with Caleb during it, since he hadn't gotten his gender marker changed and had to stand in the girls' section.
At least he could be with Baron, Thomas, and Xavier, though. They weren't nearly as good at sign language, or at being a source of comfort, as Caleb was, but they hadn't known him since he was six, so it was understandable.
Cedar said goodbye to his family as they got the Square, and went to stand in the short line. He rubbed his arms repeatedly, always feeling nervous and exposed when he was standing alone in a place he wasn't familiar with. Soon enough he was sent into the pens, and walked idly around the perimeter while he waited for someone else to find him.
Thomas was the first to show up. He waved and came over.
"How are you?" he asked. Thomas had the bad habit of talking when he signed, which was distracting to say the least, but at least he talked in the right order for sign language. He probably sounded super weird to everyone around him, though.
"I'm fine," he said. It was almost automatic to respond like that, even if he wasn't fine. "Stressed, you know."
"Yeah. Reaping days are stressful. Have you seen Caleb?"
"No, not since last night. We talked and stuff. Have you?"
"No. He's probably still at home. It's gotta take his family hours to get ready, with four siblings."
"Yeah."
Baron and Xavier joined them soon enough, and they all talked for a little while, and as the pen filled up, Cedar made his way to the upper left corner so he could see the stage. Every year he complained to Mabel, the woman who usually interpreted for him at school and things, that they should really just put screens in the square so that he could see the interpreter the Capitol sent better.
She signed a few things at him, and he tried to get a feel for how she signed. He was pretty sure the Capitolites spoke a slightly different version of sign language than he did, so it was always difficult at the beginning of the Reapings. Lucky for him, he had the whole Treaty of Treason to watch her and get used to it, before the actual "important" stuff started.
When the Mayor stepped away from the Podium, their Escort, a woman whose name Cedar couldn't remember and who was dressed in a full-length ballgown covered in bright, twinkling lightbulbs made to resemble the night sky, replaced him. For a moment, Cedar was distracted by her outfit and forgot that he was supposed to be watching the interpreter, until he saw her mouth moving.
"A wonderful day for a Reaping, isn't it?" she was saying by the time Cedar tuned in. "Now, as a reminder to everyone, the Quarter Quell this year: the name I pull from the lottery will choose another citizen within their age group who will go into the Hunger Games. Volunteers will be allowed like every other year. Now, who shall we do first?" There was a momentary pause, as if she were waiting for a response. "Well. I suppose let's do the ladies!" Cedar watched her walk across the stage, dig around in the girl's bowl, and then go back to the microphone.
He looked to the interpreter. He was always tempted to look away while they spelled out the names. He hated knowing who was going in. But concern for his friends kept his eyes glued there.
"Irina Oakland."
A slight girl walked up to the stage, looking around nervously. She looked older, but she was so malnourished it was difficult to tell. Starvation tended to add years.
"Do you have a name for someone to replace you?" the Escort asked. After a long moment, he watched as the interpreter spelled out: "Rosewood Hart." That name sounded familiar, but Cedar couldn't remember where.
There must have been some kind of sound behind Cedar, because all of a sudden everyone turned. He saw a girl—a woman, really—pushing her way out of the pen, trying to fight past Peacekeepers in an attempt to get away. She was shouting something and he couldn't quite read her lips—save for the word "fuck" and variations thereof rather often.
A group of four Peacekeepers descended on her, grabbing her and dragging her up towards the stage. She was kicking, biting, clawing, and, presumably, shouting and swearing the whole way. Cedar wondered why they didn't just tase her. He figured it wouldn't be a good look.
They ended up having to cuff her to keep her from attacking the Escort, and two of them stood behind her, ready to grab her again if she tried to make a run for it. There was a look in her eyes, like a hunted animal surrounded by enemies. It wasn't a look he had seen on any human outside of the Arena, and he wondered what had happened to her that made her look like that.
He was watching Rose for a moment while the Escort read out the boy's name.
He kept his eyes on the interpreter, his hands clenched into fists as anxiety threatened to shut his throat.
The guy seemed to be stuttering, so the interpreter kept having to stop and go as she translated. Finally, she stopped, and just watched the kid, and Cedar's eyes shifted. He was pointing into the crowd, into the fourteen-year-old's section. Cedar traced a line from the kid's finger… right to his face. Instinctively, he stepped to the side,but it was too late. The Peacekeeper's sights were honed in on him, and if he didn't move in a second, they were going to drag him like they had done to Rosewood.
But he couldn't get his body to move. All of a sudden, he felt every bit of cognition in his brain shut down, and he knew in a half second he was going to freak out. His mind was having a war with itself—either he go up to the stage of his own volition, or the Peacekeepers would have to grab him and pull him. The thought of those white gloves landing on him finally sprung his legs to life, and he went towards the stage. He nearly tripped on the stairs because his knees were shaking so bad, and as he neared the microphone, the Escort's smile did little to comfort him. She said something to him, and he glanced at the interpreter, his eyes wide and full or terror.
"Your name," she said. He had to ask her to repeat it twice before it sunk in. He signed it to her, though she should have known already.
He watched as her mouth moved, formed the syllables to his name, syllables he hadn't heard spoken aloud since he was four and a half, while his hearing was finally starting to fade into nothingness.
Somehow, watching her say his name cemented everything, and he felt his eyes roll into his head.
He'd never fainted before, he didn't think. Then again, he'd never been in a situation like this.
He didn't know what happened after he fell, but he woke up on the couch in the goodbye room in the Justice Building. A doctor was hanging over him.
She was saying something, but Cedar shook his head. The doctor frowned.
He pushed at her, trying to talk, trying to remember how, but he knew that all that was coming out of his mouth were garbled vocalizations that only sometimes resembled words.
She stepped back, and Cedar curled up into a ball, shouting.
The floor vibrated, and he looked up. His interpreter, Mabel, was standing at the door.
"Calm down," she said, coming over to him.
The doctor talked to her for a second.
"The doctor wants to know if you've ever fainted before," she said.
Cedar didn't respond, he just stood up and made for the door. Of course, Mabel stopped him. "You can't go out there," she said. Her eyes filled. "I'm so sorry. Your parents will be in in a second—the doctor just wanted to make sure you were okay."
He stared at her with wide eyes, watching her sign to him. Then, he shook his head, backing away from her. He felt like he was going to fall over, and he couldn't get his mind to work long enough for him to formulate a sentence. He was panicking, shutting down, he wanted to get out of this room, wanted to get out of the building, out of the district, wanted to split himself open and fly away so he wouldn't have to feel so cramped in his own god damn body anymore.
"You have to calm down, or they'll bring the Peacekeepers in. Where's your ball? Get your ball."
He fumbled around in the pockets of his pants and drew out the ball, looking down at its faded rainbow of color. He sat down and shut his eyes as he squeezed and rubbed the ball. He took a deep breath in, and then let it out, and repeated that until he didn't quite feel like he was going to die.
Then, he looked up at Mabel again, and saw that she was crying, and he realized that he was crying, and the doctor was still standing there looking concerned.
Mabel turned and looked at her and said something, and she left. Cedar felt immediate relief. He hated doctors. He had been around them off and on his whole life, so he had grown to hate them.
"Are you okay?"
He shook his head, his hands too occupied with stimming to sign back.
"Of course. I know you're not. This is terrifying. Do you want me to bring your family in, or do you need a minute?"
He put the ball in his lap, only long enough to sign "wait" before he went back to rocking back and forth and humming and squeezing his ball.
Finally, he rubbed his eyes and stood up, still fondling the rough rubbery texture of his childhood stim toy. He went over to the couch.
"Ready?" Mabel asked.
He nodded.
"I'll be back in to interpret for anyone else who comes."
Another nod.
She opened the door and his parents came in, followed by Dani, Oliver, and Dani's husband Petre.
Oliver was wailing, and everyone else's faces were full of fear and anguish. Even though he was only two, he had picked up on the adult's suffering and, not knowing what else to do, had started crying as well.
His dad hugged him, holding him tightly, as if he would be able to keep him there, keep them from taking him away to the train. He figured there were probably words being said, but they weren't for Cedar's benefit anyway.
After a moment, his dad moved and Oliver climbed into his lap. Cedar hushed him and rocked him back and forth. Dani sat down and wrapped her arms around the two of them. He could feel her tears fall onto his shoulder, could see her breath shudder in her chest.
It was a long time before anyone wanted to pull away long enough to sign.
"It's going to be okay," was the first thing his dad said. That was ridiculous, of course, and he should know better than to try and delude any of them into thinking anything was going to be remotely okay. He was going into the fucking Hunger Games. He could count the number of Victors from their District in the past fifty years on his fingers. Sure, they weren't as bad off as some of the other Districts, and they won three years ago, both District Partners made it out, but that didn't mean he had any kind of chance.
But he didn't sign his thoughts. All he did was nod along.
"We love you so much Cedar," Dani said then. "We want you to come back, okay? Do your best to come back."
"I will," he said.
Naturally, there was more hugging than talking going around, up until they were about to leave.
"I wish I had something to give you," Dani said.
Cedar shrugged. "I've got my ball," he said, producing the worn out old thing. "They only let you take one token in, so I figure it's good to have something practical."
"I want—" her hands shook, "I want to give you something, though."
She searched around for a moment before producing a pen from her purse. She took Cedar's left hand in hers and drew a heart on his skin. "I know it's not much. But I hope it will remind you of us," she said after putting the pen back.
He started sobbing then, and he couldn't bring himself to let go of his family. He didn't want to have to go, didn't want to have this inked heart be the only thing he had to remember them by in his last moments of life. But no one had brought anything. They had all assumed they would be going home together that afternoon.
Finally, they left, and Cedar was alone for a few moments. His mom came in then, her eyes full of tears. Mabel came in after her. She had never been good at sign language, but now Cedar wished he had made her become fluent, because he didn't want to have to have a secondhand goodbye from his mother. She embraced him, and told him many of the same things his dad had. He said many of the same things in response. It was weird, how repetitive everything felt. He wondered if it was like this for everyone.
Soon, his mom left too. His friends came, and everything was the same. They were all sad, they were all crying, they all stumbled through goodbyes as they took moments to hug or wipe their eyes. Every time he had to go through this, he felt everything get exponentially darker. Chances were, he'd never see any of them every again. How many more goodbyes could he take? How much more torture could he undergo before he just turned to dust?
It was all he could do not to completely shut down, to make it so that no one could say goodbye to him, so that none of them could have the closure they all needed.
Finally, everyone had left besides Mabel. She stood awkwardly in the center of the room. She and Cedar watched one another.
Finally, she took a breath. "I would do anything to take your place," she said. "You know I would. I'd do anything in the world to make it so that you didn't have to go. I wish—" she stopped as she tilted her head up, trying to stem the tears that threatened to throw themselves out of her eyes and down her face. "I wish I could even just go with you, a little piece of home, up until you have to go into the Arena. But they're going to give you interpreters in the Capitol. I know it's going to be hard, being in a new place, with the Games hanging over you, and everything—but I want you to do your best to be strong and work through it. I know you haven't always had the easiest time, living in a world of Hearing people and people who don't understand what an amazing kid you are—but I want you to try and be the best version of yourself you can be, while you're there, okay?"
He nodded, but didn't reply. Instead, he stood, crossed the room, and hugged her tightly. He had known her since he was eight, she was like a fourth caretaker to him. She was more than his interpreter.
Cedar thought that he had been all cried out, but new tears managed to come as he said goodbye to Mabel. The hour was almost up, and he knew he'd have to go to the car soon, that the car would take him to the train station and then he'd leave District Seven and all its stupid trees behind.
The door opened behind Mabel's shoulder and it was a Peacekeeper, with the Escort and the Capitol interpreter behind her.
Cedar took a step back, feeling new fear threaten to take hold of his body. Carefully, Mabel stepped up next to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
He looked at her, knowing he probably looked like a scared child, but definitely feeling like one.
"You have to go," she said, her eyes full of gentleness and sadness and fear.
Slowly, he followed the Escort out, clenching and unclenching his hands, slapping his fists against his legs. He wasn't even entirely aware he was doing it as they left the Justice Building to a fancy black car with tinted windows.
Rosewood Hart
Present day
Rose had to be put in handcuffs just so the Peacekeepers could get her inside the Justice Building. But God knew she wasn't going to go quietly. She snapped and snarled and swore the whole way. Assuming the Capitol hadn't cut the cameras by then, every single viewer was getting an earful.
As they shut and locked her inside the room, Rose proceeded to throw herself at the door, shouting and banging on it with her hand.
"Watch it in there!" shouted the guards outside, "or you'll be sorry."
"Shut the fuck up," she snapped back. "I don't give a shit what you want from me, you're not getting it."
Then, her mother's voice came through the door. "Rosewood, step back from the door, or they're not going to let us in."
With a sigh, she retreated a few steps. "Alright," she said.
Her family came in, and although she knew they were all trying to hide it, there were tears in their eyes. They all gathered around on the couch, Rose being the center of attention. There were pleas from everyone for her to try and come back, to team up with her District partner, if he wouldn't hold her back, there were words of encouragement, and empty repetitions of "It'll be okay." By the end of the hour—since no one else would come to see her—Rose was the only one who hadn't started crying. She knew her family would notice it, but none of them would be brave enough to say anything.
She would miss her family, and she didn't want to die, but she had been living with anger and grief for so long that she didn't know how to express this new layer of shittiness on top of the hundreds of layers of shittiness that had been accruing for her whole life.
All she could really think about, as she nodded along and hugged her family and let them have their closure, was that the moment she stepped into the Capitol, she was going to give them all hell. She was going to be the single most inconvenient tribute that had ever existed—except for, perhaps, one of the ones that had gone off and started a revolution. But she wasn't in this for something like that, not really. As much as she would have liked to see the Capitol burnt to the ground and their regime destroyed, she knew that was never going to happen. Everything was just too broken—one person wasn't going to change it. But God was she going to give them hell for being responsible for all the pain in misery that had become a constant in the Districts.
"Rosewood," her mother said, snapping her out of her ruminations.
Rose looked into her mother's eyes, the same color as hers.
"I don't want you doing anything foolish in some kind of attempt to get revenge. You know that won't bring her back."
"I know it won't bring her back," she retorted, glaring. "I'm not looking to bring her back. I want to make them regret taking her in the first place."
"You know doing foolish things isn't going to fix that either, sweetheart," her father put in. "No one in the Capitol has any idea what happened here, as terrible as it is."
"But they're all responsible. They're all culpable, just like everyone who sat back and watched as they killed her and that man."
"Getting yourself killed isn't going to help."
"Maybe it'll make me feel better." Like she wasn't going to get killed anyway.
"Rose—" he stopped as the door opened.
"Time's up," the Peacekeeper said.
She started to get up, wanting to snap at her, wanting to do anything she could to disrupt the lull of oppression the Capitol had on all of them. But her brothers held her back.
"Okay," her father said to the Peacekeeper. He looked down at his daughter one last time. "Rosewood, I love you so much. We all do. We know you're going to be amazing."
They all hugged her, and then one by one left.
The Escort came with two more Peacekeepers to bring her out of the Justice Building. There were cameras there again, and she flipped each of them the bird before the Escort told her she needed to stop before they cuffed her again. She muttered something choice under her breath in response and just settled for twisting her ring around her finger. It was so old and beaten up, but she never took it off. Cypress had given it to her as an anniversary present, a few months before she died. It had been silver, at one point, but now it was so tarnished it was hardly recognizable. She didn't care though. It had been a gift from her girlfriend, and it always reminded her of her, and what happened to her. As she sat down in the car beside her District partner and his interpreter, she looked out the tinted windows as they neared the train station.
She felt something emptying in her heart, which surprised her. She had come to the conclusion a while ago that the only thing inside of her anymore was anger.
A/N: whoo! That was a long one lmao. Anywhomst, I'm doing nano this year, so even if I don't get the full 50,000 words out, hopefully it'll put me several chapters ahead so I can keep updating regularly!
This was Rosewood Hart from Author-Hime and Cedar Wayne, who was my own tribute, since someone *cough* Sydni basicgay *cough cough* didn't get me a tribute.
(I tease. We're best friends so i'm allowed to do that).
Anyway, let me know what you think! I did my best to do right by Cedar's Deafness and autism, hopefully I did an okay job!