Chapter 11 - SHADOWS, MAYBE GHOSTS
When they woke up, the air held a crisp chill and smelled of dead leaves and frost.
Rose lingered, her face on Haymitch's chest, listening to his steady heartbeat, cherishing the luxury of drowsy happiness. His hand stroked her hair lazily.
"Can we stay?" she asked quietly. "Is this room safe?"
"Nowhere is safe, until we are out of the arena. But for a short while this will do."
She closed her eyes and sighed. Strange how her world had shrunk into the confinement of the arena, and then into this small windowless room.
"I don't even know where we are."
"The warehouse in District 11, or what count's for it." Haymitch kissed her forehead and sat up. "Mags and Odair would be in 4, and that's across this damned swamp. It's quite a detour, so we better get going soon. But first…"
He took her hand into his and kissed her palm. "I want you to memorize something."
"Hm?"
"A few numbers, just in case."
Rose frowned when he started to recite a long line of numbers without obvious rhyme or reason. It took a while for her to get them right and Haymitch had her repeat them again and again.
When suddenly the anthem started to play. Rose flinched in surprise.
"It's night? How long did we ... sleep?"
"About an hour. Time well spent."
She could only make out his silhouette in the darkness, but she heard him smile.
He used the flat side of his knife to pry lose one of the wooden boards, then another until he'd created a small opening for them to see the night sky.
Rose settled into his embrace and watched the huge government sigil glow and fade. The first time she'd seen the list of the fallen, she'd been shocked how fickle fate was. Old or young, fit or frail - there seemed to be no logic in who died and who survived for another day. That first evening the list had been very long, naturally, as the bloodbath at the cornucopia had killed about a quarter of all tributes.
When she saw Lucas' face in the sky, she swallowed hard. "I lost track. How many are still alive?"
Haymitch shrugged. "You, me, Odair, Mags, Chaff, Beetee, Johanna. Not sure about the careers. Enobaria, Brutus, one or two more maybe. Things are changing fast."
"Who killed Lucas?" She nodded toward the sky where the tribute from District 6 still smiled goofily.
"Gloss." The answer was short and final, and as that tribute's face lit up the night sky right now, she swallowed her next question. It was obvious enough who had fought the golden boy from District 1. Then she frowned and moved closer to the opening in the wall to get a better view of the sky. The face following Gloss' was vaguely familiar, but seemed ... wrong.
"Who is...?"
Haymitch's embrace tightened, his body suddenly coiled like a spring.
The flickering face vanished a suddenly as it had appeared. Confused, Rose turned to him and saw his eyes glitter like stars.
"This was Rue, wasn't it? The little one from District 11. But that was last Games. They must have mixed up the pictures. They made a mistake."
Haymitch took her face in both hands and kissed her thoroughly until she felt faint with longing. His lips brushed her ear.
"Plutarch Heavensbee doesn't make mistakes."
/
The silence in the control room was chill enough to freeze water.
All operators sat, their eyes at their screens, their shoulders hunched like children waiting for punishment.
Plutarch frowned when he saw Fulvia, safely outside the sanctuary, through the floor-to-ceiling glass pane. She mouthed soundlessly, then gestured hectically for him to pick up his 'com.
"Yes." He took a deep breath and kept his voice smooth and unaffected. "Sir." He listened, gave short answers, and with every word his team relaxed a little.
"I can assure you, Sir, that the malfunction responsible for this ... unfortunate glitch ... will be isolated. But as you remarked yourself, it is nighttime - so the live audience will is considerably smaller. As we caught it almost immediately, it was not broadcast more than 2 or 3 seconds. And for the morning reports we will edit it out completely."
None of his team saw him grip his control wand so hard it cracked. "Yes, Sir. I can promise you that. In the light of what's to come, Panem will forget about this small mistake completely. This Quarter Quell will go out in a bang."
He waited, then exhaled slowly and signed to Fulvia to cut the transmission.
A quick look at his watch told him the countdown had started. No turning back now. His face blank, his eyes cold, he turned to his team.
"The Games are still on. Let's give them something to gawk at."
/
Johanna, Finnick and Mags were where he'd left them. The fishing village seemed eerily cosy in the light of the flickering flames from the campfire they'd built by the mole. Now they sat around the fire and Haymitch could only hope the careers were as clumsy as he and Rose so they wouldn't get close enough for an ambush. Mags have woven a fine net of trip wires all around the perimeter. If an intruder so much as touched one of the fine threads, a tiny silver bell – her token, Haymitch assumed – tinkled and warned them. Finnick had almost killed Rose in the darkness before he saw who she was.
He'd explained his plan to the three and met only disbelief and a slew of wary questions.
"Actually, there are several exits," he repeated patiently. "The arena has to be accessible, even when the Games are in full swing. Mutts have to be brought in and kept in check as long as they are not needed, defects must be repaired. Once in a while a dead body gets tangled in the underbrush or crushed by a landslide or ripped to pieces by animals. Then it has to be prepared for the pick-up."
"Wouldn't want to gross out the esteemed audience by collecting a tribute in several tranches," muttered Finnick.
Haymitch shrugged. "They have to maintain the illusion of the arena as a sealed off space. Nobody is to see the Avoxes who service the arena. So the portals are veiled by force fields, in case a camera or tribute gets too close. If you don't know where they are exactly, you'd have to stumble onto one to find it."
"And you know where they are." Johanna did not hide her skepticism. "Say you did find these exits when you played the Quarter Quell. And did not use them then, evidently, or all the world would know by now. Wouldn't they be in different positions with any arena built?"
"I only know the coordinates in one arena, the one of '55." He reached for Rose's hand and held it when he continued.
'55. She thought hard. What did she know of '55? Only what she'd seen on the train, reviewing the tapes of all past Games.
"I was a mentor then," murmured Haymitch.
Johanna snorted. "Hell, you have been a mentor every bloody year since the 2nd Quarter Quell."
His mouth twitched. "True enough. But '55 was special. Let's say I had an incentive to keep my tribute alive."
His grip almost crushed Rose's fingers, and she stroked the back of his hand to calm him.
"Hazelle's brother," she ventured.
Mags made a painful sound and spread both hands.
"Yeah." Haymitch stared at the ground, the scene clearly replaying in his mind. "In training it became quite clear that he was neither strong nor cunning. So I thought, what if he could somehow hide in plain sight? Wait it out, until the careers are at each others throat?"
Finnick pursed his lips. "Good plan. Hard to pull through, though. Of course there is camouflage but ..."
"I could not return with two coffins again." Haymitch's voice was very quiet. "The girl tribute had no chance at all, she had a crippled leg. In the end she survived Wyll by 12 minutes before they butchered her in the bloodbath. But that was not the plan."
Rose's hand rubbed his back in circles and it seemed to ease the pain of remembrance a little.
"I had a contact in the construction company," he continued, still not meeting anybody's gaze. "The engineer who'd developed the arena was known for his ... rather special tastes."
"So you provided. And he paid in secrets." Finnick's voice was cool, cynical even, but his eyes held only compassion.
"I did." Haymitch shivered and let go of Rose's hand to massage his cramped fingers. "Fucking cold turkey. Anyway, I had the coordinates of three service ports. Wyll was supposed to run away from the cornucopia as fast as possible. And while all eyes where on the bloodbath, hide in a port. The Gamemakers would flush him out eventually, but the force field interferes with the tracker signal. So he'd be safe for a while.
Only he stepped of the launch platform too early."
"Boom!" said Mags.
Finnick watched Haymitch carefully. "All for nothing."
Blue eyes met sea green. "Or so I thought. Turns out this is the very arena they used then. The newest one had a critical fault, so they had to fall back onto an older model and revamped it partially. New dome. Old base. Same ports."
"And you know this how?"
Haymitch stared the younger man down. "I could tell you. But then I'd have to kill you."
"Which takes us back full circle. Not having to kill each other," remarked Johanna dryly.
Mags made a questioning sound, accompanied by a swift gesture - hand to forehead.
"The cornucopia is point zero," he explained. "A certain number of steps north, south and so on. That's why I needed Beetee to build a compass."
"The Peacekeepers will shoot us like fish in a barrel." Finnick rose, unable to sit still anymore. "Maybe we make it through the tunnels, but then..."
Haymitch stood up, too. Rose saw how gaunt he looked in the morning dawn, and wondered where he found the strengh to not only go on, but convince the others to follow him.
"Then, my friend," he said, still covering his mouth with his hand to shield it from the cameras, "the Mockingjay takes flight and the revolution starts."
/
As soon as it was light enough to see their surroundings, Haymitch set out to find Beetee and Chaff, with Johanna as his guide through the swamp land.
Rose crossed her arms over her chest when she saw them leave, and he nodded curtly in her direction, shafted the knife and picked up one of the water bottles. There'd been no kiss, no promise to return. Not necessary anymore, because they both knew where they stood.
For a while Haymitch and Johanna walked in silence, balancing over the narrow dam, foul smelling water on both sides. When they reached dry land, she pointed up the low chain of hills bordering the swamp.
"Up there. It's the only vantage point."
They made their way through dry grass and creosote, narrowly avoiding the sand snakes nesting under a clump of roots. Johanna's axe and Haymitch's long knife gave the reptiles short shrift. After that he used a long stick to beat the grass. He hated snakes. Lately he saw them slither everywhere and was never sure whether they were real or just a figment of his imagination.
Johanna cleaned her blade on her shirt-sleeve while she walked and said casually: "If the log drops the wrong way…"
Haymitch frowned, then made sense of her District's figure of speech. "It won't. I mean, it will drop alright, but on Snow's head."
Her lips curved, but her eyes stayed serious. "Still. Do you won't me to …" She stroked the silver blade of the hand axe she carried in her belt.
He stared at her. "Are you offering to kill Rose?"
"You know what they'll do to her if they get her alive." Johanna shrugged. "We all know what they are capable of."
A vision flared in his mind. An old memory of the hospital where they'd patched him up after his victory. After he'd been crowned, after Snow had promised to make him pay for ridiculing the government, a Peacekeeper had given him a tour through the closed off wards. He'd seen no torture scenes, not that. Just white-tiled rooms, the drains still clogged with blood. And screams … inhuman screams from behind steel doors.
"I understand if you'd rather do it yourself," she persisted. "But if you are not there …"
A lump in his throat, he shook his head. "Not my decision to make. I don't own her life."
Johanna just shrugged.
They'd reached the hilltop. Beyond, a flat wasteland stretched for miles, burned trees stretching blackened fingers at the sky.
"I came that way, through the ravine," Johanna pointed to the far horizon where a green seam promised a forest. "There are black wells, stinking stick stuff like tar. Ignites in the sun. Had me running like a hare in a wildfire."
Still, it was the shortest way to the area where he'd last seen Beetee.
"I'll find a safe passage. You go back to the others. If we are not back by midday, take them as close to the cornucopia as you dare," he said to Johanna. "We'll find you."
Her eyes narrowed. "Ay? How do I know you won't leg it on your own?
"How do I know you don't kill the others while I am gone?"
She smirked. "We are victors both, aren't we? We don't trust."
He thought about Rose, how everything had changed. How he trusted her, this weakest of the tributes, the one who was no killer, with his life, his very future.
When Haymitch did not answer, Johanna rolled her eyes to the sky in exasperation. "Ah, you fool."
He smiled and shrugged. "Ay."
"Go." She shoved him gently towards the slope. "I'll watch over your woman as long as I can."
He watched her leave, and as soon as she was out of sight, let his knees give way. Only the gnarled trunk of a fallen tree saved him from tumbling down into the ravine.
/
"Sir? Sir?"
Rufus, one of the night-shift controllers, stood before Plutarch. His right eye twitched anxiously. He held out a tablet. Plutarch saw columns of numbers in red and green scrolling down.
"What is it now?" he barked.
"Sir, we have hardly any camera activity in this sector since nightfall." The controller pointed to an area they'd created after the fishing district, with a small laguna, a swamp and a rickety village. With a twinge in his stomach the Head Gamemaker remembered the monster they'd placed in the laguna. A nasty creature, but Mags Cohen, who looked so frail and harmless, had not been impressed. Only the other day they'd watched her kill it, drag it ashore, and make fishcakes of it – a scene that had brought nice ratings and a sponsor gift of bread and salt for Mags.
"Technical glitch?" he frowned.
"We don't know. Since the ground is so wet there, we only have three steady cams on the roofs. One of them has been blinded with mud."
He showed Plutarch a blurry image. "The other two work fine, but don't pick up anything significant. We have some of them …"
"Some of them?" Plutarch frowned. "Have the trackers failed as well?"
The gamemaker blushed. "No, sir. I mean we have M4 and F4 and F12 sitting around a fire, but not much else activity. And no audio."
"The spy bugs?"
A tapping of the tablet, and an image appeared: The sole of a heavy boot.
"They kill them!" Rufus hissed accusingly. "One of these things costs more than I earn in a month, and they step on them!"
"The Impudence!" Plutarch studied the image and suppressed a smile. "We better find something to keep the audience awake while we find a solution. How about F2?
"Shark-girl?" The man cheered up visibly.
Plutarch nodded. "She's always good for action."
Once the controller had returned to his station, Plutarch magnified the dark area on his screen. "Well done, my friend," he murmured. "But now it's time to sacrifice a pawn. Who will it be?"
There was nothing to do but wait until noon.
So they sat around the fire and ate. Rose shared the last two apples from her rucksack, Johanna cut a protein bar in four, and Finnick slapped a huge piece of pale meat onto a hot stone.
Mags crumbled a handful of seaweed and used is as seasoning for the roast. Then she offered Rose a slightly charred piece of ... fish?
Reading her face, Mags chuckled, and Finnick shook his head. "Don't ask. It will keep up your strength, that's all that counts."
She nodded and took a wary bite. It tasted of sea-salt and fiber, like brined card-board. But he was right, it would fill her belly and hopefully this would be their last meal in the arena - whatever the outcome of Haymitch's mission.
Keeping her head down and her mouth shielded so the cameras could not lipread her, she asked: "What will you do, once we are out? "
Johanna's eyes grew hard. "Fight. Pay some debts."
Mags smiled, crossed her arms behind her head and pantomimed lazing in the sun.
"Not in a million years," Finnick snorted. "You won't retire. Not until Panem and all it stands for is razed to the ground." He touched her cheek with finger, a gentle gesture of reproach. "Sixty-five years of scheming, subterfuge, resistance."
"There won't be peace right away," Johanna speculated. "So I guess we all will be soldiers."
"No more lies." Finnick casually picked up a rock and smashed a spy-bug. "I promised Anny, no more lies."
Mags leaned over and ruffled his dust-encrusted hair. Then she picked up the bug's remains and dropped them into the fire.
"So it's the married life for you?" Johanna sounded wistfully.
"Wife, kids, boat." He gave her a smile so radiant Rose could clearly see why all of Panem was in love with him. "Happily ever after."
"Just wait, Annie will have you under her thumb in no time." The girl from District 7 smiled back, but much sadder than he.
"She can have me any time, anywhere she likes."
"Rose, you've been married." Johanna looked at her for help. "Is it worth it?"
She turned her wedding-ring around and around. "I guess it's different for everybody. If you are lucky and marry the right person ... "
"Did you?" Johanna would not let go. "When that mine blew up, it made big news in my District. I know you lost your husband after only a few years. So – was it worth the pain?"
"I'd rather be with Annie for a day," Finnick said very quietly, "than without her for eternity. And she feels the same,"
"Yeah, but you are a fool, and she is crazy." Johanna shrugged and took another bite of … fish.
Rose cleared her throat. "I was very young when I fell in love. I remember looking at my face in the mirror and asking myself: What does he see in me? There were girls much prettier than me in my branch of the district. And Jacob was … just too perfect to be true."
"Then he probably wasn't," Johanna pointed a finger at her. "Perfect, I mean."
Rose remembered her husband, those first giddy months of their marriage. "Oh no, he was perfect., indeed. Only I wasn't." For the first time in years the wedding ring slipped off her finger without resistance, and she weighed the plain gold band in the palm of her hand. "He was an engineer – scholarship, top of his class, a citation by the president for his first project."
"So … a nerd?" Finnick asked, which caught him a slap on the wrist by Mags, who encouraged Rose with a smile to keep talking.
"No. Rather a hero. He went into that mineshaft fully aware of the danger. But there was a slight chance he could improve conditions, make it safer for his people, his friends."
Johanna nodded. "A good man then."
"A perfect man. He was handsome and clever. He could dance. He wrote songs. He climbed every peak in Branch 12A. They were all in love with him. And he chose me." Rose closed her fingers around the ring. "Me, who wasn't perfect at all."
The fire crackled and sparks flew high. A slight breeze made them rub their arms in spite of the warm fire.
Johanna frowned. "Winter is coming. One day of spring, one of summer. Today is autumn, and tomorrow they'll let it snow."
"We won't be here tomorrow," said Finnick lightly. "I'll be with Annie, and we'll all be free."
A shadow fell over Johanna's face and she would not meet their eyes. "I have a bad feeling about this. Like I'm not going to make it."
Mags snorted and showed her with a few decisive gestures what she thought of such pessimism. Then she pointed at Rose, again urging her to talk.
"I am sure you and Annie are just made for each other," she half apologized to Finnick. "But I always wondered … You see, Jacob would work all day, and at night he'd volunteer to man the medic center. He'd take duty on harvest-night, so fathers could spend it with their families. He volunteered to take the children to the Reaping every year. That's a 20 miles march, there and back. And he never complained, while I …"
"While you were normal. And wanted to sleep in on your day off." Johanna again.
Rose shot her a wane smile. "Maybe. He never said anything, but I always had the feeling I should … I don't know … try harder. Work longer. Strife to be like him, so I wouldn't feel like a fraud all the time."
"A fraud?"
"I think, deep inside I knew that one day he'd wake up and see it was all a terrible mistake and he didn't love me. Cause he was perfect, and I am full of flaws."
"But you loved him."
Now she smiled, in reminiscence of the star-struck girl she'd been. "I loved him, and I worked so hard to be the best I could. It was only that I could never relax, never just … be me." She spread her hands. "I was always running uphill. And then he died, and I thought I'd died with him."
Finnick's sea-green eyes held hers. "If anything happened to the woman I love, I could not go on. I'd drown myself."
Mags snorted and patted his shoulder.
Finnick looked chagrined. "Okay, I'd jump off a building. It's hard for a Fish to drown intentionally. But I could not live without Annie."
"I thought so, too." Rose nodded. "When I was trapped in the mine, I fought my way back and all the time I thought that maybe Jacob had survived, too, and was waiting for me up there in the daylight. It took me months to concede he was gone, and I'd never have the chance to prove he'd been right in choosing me. And I was still…"
Mags uttered a few garbled words.
Finnick translated, a bit embarrassed. "Still not good enough."
Rose answered Mags' knowing gaze with a bitter smile. "I'd never reach the top of that hill. I had to quit the race, had to let him go and get on with my life."
"It's not like this, with us," Finnick said, more to the flames than to Rose. "We are both so broken, so damaged. But together we are whole enough to face the world."
She smiled. "I bet you are. Maybe that's the trick - you have to carry each other."
Stone in hand, Finnick watched one of the small blue birds flutter over the carcass of the mutt-fish Mags had killed. Rose did not know its name, but the birdy was probably just as deadly as the sea-creature. Only prettier.
"And now you are with Haymitch," he said, never taking his eyes off the bird.
She blushed with sudden happiness. So this was it? So simple? "Yes. Now I am with Haymitch."
"Who has the one or other flaw himself…," snarked Johanna. "And can neither dance nor has ever received a citation by the president."
"Who is a dangerous, dangerous bastard…." Finnick took Rose's hand. "Are you sure about this? Because this," he waved at the arena, "is how he truly is."
Johanna tried to shush him but he kept taking. "We all are. The Games made us killers, be it for the thrill or self-defense." He swallowed. "And once you find how easy it is to kill somebody, there is no way back."
"Funny thing is, this should make you stronger, invincible." Johanna sounded lost. "But it doesn't. It drags you under and then you are sinking, and drowning …"
"Unless you find someone to hold on to." Finnick got up and behind Johanna to hug her. She let her head fall back against his chest, suddenly looking like a scared child.
Mags made one of her unintelligible remarks, and Finnick translated. "Sometimes life makes a gift and lets you have a second love." He shook his head. "Not for me. It's Annie until I die."
Rose thought about Haymitch, about the night in the teacher's house, when they'd kissed for the first time, the night on the roof of the training center, when they'd kissed for what they'd both believed to be the last time. Was this the 'second love' Mags meant? Not a heated race for someone's affection, but a steady warmth and certainty in each other. Could they carry each other like Finn and his lover?
She turned away from the fire, to where Haymitch had taken off to find Beetee and Chaff. Was it wrong to love someone like Haymitch? Was it wrong to let him love her? Could they keep each other from drowning in guilt and self-loathing? She knew what he had done for her – another scar on his arm, another fracture in his soul. And a debt for her – one she could never repay. And still…
She remembered the light in his eyes when he'd touched her. The happiness, the rush to the head it gave her to lose herself in his embrace, to be so close to him. To hear his heartbeat.
With Haymitch she'd been alright, right from the beginning. They'd fit. No need to pretend, to be somebody she wasn't. She could love this man. Not like the idol on a pedestal Jacob had been, but like a human being, eye to eye.
"One day you'll find someone, too," she tried to console Johanna, but the girl just shook her head.
"No. There is no-one left."
/
There was a blond girl somewhere to Haymitch's right, just beyond his field of vision. Long blond hair, bloody throat, forever fifteen, she sometimes disappeared for hours, but came back every time, and now she accompanied him all the way down to the tar pits.
"Go away, Maisee," he growled.
She vanished, or rather turned into a shadow, joined the other ghosts who followed him around. Hazelle's brother Wyll. Oona with the crippled foot. Sol and Sukie, the twins he'd lost in the Games of '67...
Watching him. Waiting.
He rubbed his burning eyes.
It was worse this time, he thought and tried to catch his breath. This wasn't his first withdrawal – he'd gone through this several times, mostly against his will when supply ran short. He'd been prepared for the shakes, the cramps, the sweats. But not the sudden bouts of panic, not the nausea. Half of the time he saw things that weren't there. Or maybe Plutarch's team had really excelled this time and created a few ghosts…
While he picked his way down to the bottom of the ravine, retching repeatedly from the pungent smell of burning tar, he weighed his options. Though – not much there to weigh.
"Cause a distraction," he muttered and made the last meters down, slip-sliding on loose gravel. "And then what?"
How was he supposed to get to the ports, with all eyes on him?
A scream.
He jerked to a halt.
Falling stones told him from where the attack would come. Only he wasn't the prey this time. In a jumble of limbs Beetee and the woman from 6 came rolling down, accompanied by a shower of rocks and pine-needles. They landed in a shallow tar pit.
Beetee fought with tooth and nail to get free when he noticed where they'd landed. The woman screamed when he got hold of her hair and forced her into the gooey stinking mass, face down. She struggled violently, but Beetee was onto her and would not let go.
'Intellect zero, brute force one', Haymitch thought, standing on the other side of the ravine, watching the engineer use brute force to kill the other tribute. How long until a person suffocated?
Close to forever, but then it was over.
The canon boomed.
Haymitch let Beetee breath for a few minutes and get down from the adrenalin rush of killing. Then he helped him up. Avoiding Freya's half submerged body, he pushed Beetee into a washed out crevice in the rocks. Hidden from view they waited for the hovercraft to pick up the fallen tribute. One less, and a dangerous one at that, he thought and watched without emotion how the craft tried to maneuver into the narrow ravine. In the end they had to snag her with a hook like a dead fish and pull her up into the craft.
Helping the now shaking engineer up, he made sure they were alone. No craft, no careers. Safe for now.
"What happened, man?" he asked sharply. "Where is Chaff?"
Beetee's teeth chattered in shock but he tried hard to focus on Haymitch. "There was an ambush. My mistake. I tripped a wire, I think."
"Where is Chaff?"
"Don't know. He told me to run. And I did. You know I am not a fighter." His eyes went to the pit where he'd killed Freya. "I am not!"
"You are when you have to be one." Haymitch laid a hand on the other man's shoulder. "So Freya followed you?" Like a wolf pack, he mused. Attack from two angles, and cull the weakest of the herd.
He turned Beetee so he stood with his back to the pit and his face towards the hill side. "Listen." He deliberately used what he'd called his "Mentor voice" – then when he'd still believed he could make a difference and help them to win. "You did well. Climb up that slope and you'll see a narrow path through the swamp. If you can't find it, call for Johanna. She'll help you. You still got the compass?"
In sudden panic, Beetee tapped his pockets, then exhaled slowly and produced a thin metal needle. "Won't need more than this to determine where true north is."
"Good man. Now go. Tell them, I'll meet you at the Cornucopia."
"And you?" asked Beetee, his eyes wide behind the thick glasses.
"I'll find Chaff."
/
It did not take him long to find both Chaff and Brutus.
The career tribute, still in his prime, his body muscular and trained, had made his lair in a jumble of rocks that formed a crude barrier.
He perched on a stone, his weapons carefully laid out next to him. His prisoner wore a tight leash around his neck. Every once in a while Brutus kicked him, and Chaff almost strangled himself when he tried to dodge.
Haymitch lay flat on his stomach and watched.
High above him a vulture drew lazy circles, waiting patiently. Sooner rather than later he would feast on one or more of them, as long as they didn't die fast enough. In the 63nd Games a captivated audience had watched for hours as an injured tribute was eaten alive by some wolf-bear-hybrid. The girl had screamed and screamed, and then only moaned when the beast took another bite. The Hovercraft had only landed after the canon announced the tribute's death.
Slowly Haymitch backed away, crawling on hands and knees. When his foot struck a piece of rock, the faint scraping sound made Brutus' head shoot up. He sported a black eye and a deep cut in the corner of his mouth.
End of an alliance? Thought Haymitch and froze at the spot. Or maybe Chaff had gotten a few good hits in?
Brutus grabbed the next-best weapon, a spear, and rose slowly.
"Abernathy!" he roared. "Where are you?"
"He won't come." Chaff's voice, a bit slurred. Spoke around knocked out teeth and cracked lips, probably. "Told you we aren't allies."
Brutus' feral growl made Haymitch flinch. The tribute was not the only victor who called his days in the arena the best time of his life. In the upper districts, where life was hard and tedious even for a victor, he'd maybe found an outlet in physical labor. But District 2 could afford to pamper his celebrities. So all Brutus had done in the last 15 years, was preparing for another challenge. And for revenge.
Both times they'd met as mentors, Brutus had tried to kill him. Haymitch understood – in a way – how the other man's mind worked. His older brother Magnus, one of the careers in the 2n Quarter Quell, had been just as obsessive. Haymitch had killed him, as he'd killed others to survive. But Brutus, a decade younger and idolizing his big brother, took it personally. Haymitch would have bet that the man had rigged his own District's Reaping, only so he could settle that imaginary bill.
"Know what I'm going to do with your friend here?"
Haymitch did not rise his head, but could envision Brutus kicking Chaff hard in the rips from the anguished wheezing it produced.
"I'll cut him apart, piece by piece. The right foot and the left. The right hand and …" A maniacal laugh. "Pity. He has only one hand! I'll have to find something else to cut off."
/
Plutarch checked his watch and looked up to catch Fulvia's eyes. He nodded and she turned at once and disappeared behind the door that led to his office.
They'd gone over the plan only the night before, aware that there would be no time to discuss the finer points once the wheels were set in motion by step one: Rue's face on the night-sky, cleverly smuggled into the database by Plutarch himself, had been the signal for all involved.
The next step would be Haymitch's. Get close to the ports and find a distraction so spectacular that nobody would notice if a handful of tributes "disappeared".
How much time would they have? Plutarch hoped for 20 minutes, maybe more. Could be less if damned Snow interfered with one of his "mere suggestions" how to enhance the show's tension. In any case hardly enough time to pass the tunnels, overpower the Peacekeepers, get to the Hovercraft. But that was Haymitch's problem - he had enough on his own plate: Get the other conspirators out - which meant herding about eight people to the airfield without raising suspicion. Seeder, Annie, Daren and Sigfrid would not resist, but Peeta und Katniss?
He and Haymitch had hotly debated whether the two youngest victors should be elucidated about the plan. Haymitch had refused adamantly, and in the end Plutarch had given in. His friend knew Katniss best, if he said the girl was useless as a conspirator, could not hold up a lie convincingly, then he was probably right.
"Sir." A Gamemaker tried to get his attention. "Will you take a look at M12? He's at the tar-pits, and about to write something onto a rock."
Plutarch gritted his teeth. Damn Haymitch! What was he up to?
"Keep the mics open and all eyes on him," he advised wearily. "The guys a joker, maybe he's only teasing us. If he writes anything even slightly incendiary, cut him off."
/
Katniss and Peeta sat on the couch in their quarters, both exhausted from doing nothing. It felt like running against a wall repeatedly, she reckoned. You hurt all over but the wall would not budge.
They'd watched Haymitch kill Gloss, save Rose, treat her cuts with the salve the Avox' contribution had bought. They'd watched Beetee and Chaff stumble through a maze of rocks and ravines, trying to avoid steaming geysers and deadly quicksand. Enobaria and Brutus breaking the alliance with Freya, hunting her through the tense forest of "District 7", but losing her trace. They'd seen the tribute from District 9, covered with trackerjacker stings, go crazy with pain and die all alone in a meadow.
And now they saw Haymitch, face sunburnt, hair and beard blackened with grime, break down on the narrow path through the tar pits. He looked like a figure from a nightmare, someone you'd scare children with. Clearly at the end of his strength, he crawled on, to the meagre shade of a ruined building.
"He's not going to make it much longer." Peeta hit a pillow in frustration. "I still don't understand these rules. There was a syringe of Morphling in the arena. It was clearly meant as a prize for Lucas. So don't you think there'd be some liquor, hidden somewhere for Haymitch to find?"
"To boost the Game?" Katniss speculated. "Probably. He'd do anything to get it. But how is he supposed to find one bottle in this huge arena?"
"Damn, frigging fucking damn!" Peeta got up and walked the length of the room. "I'd rather be in the arena than watch this any longer."
"Not seriously?" She shot him a glance.
"Don't you see? We'll be doing this year after year, until we go mad or ..."
"There is no 'or'." Her voice was flat and absolute. "Have you forgotten about Victor's ratio?"
"No." He rubbed his face. "They'll never let us forget about it." He turned to the door. "I'll go down to the gym."
"Wait!" Katniss called him back, pointing at the screen.
Haymitch held a stick, dripping with tar, which he'd obviously used as a paintbrush. Now the grey wall bore bold black letters.
HI SWEETHEART.
"I guess that's you, not me," Peeta said dryly and sat down.
Haymitch rubbed his chin and looked up, uncertain where the cameras were positioned.
"Well, you probably know how things are around here." He held up his right hand and even from the distance they could see his hand trembling. "I could need a little help from a friend right now. Remember the first time we met?"
Peeta looked enquiringly at Katniss, but she held up a hand so she would not miss a word of what Haymitch said.
"I know you hate that stuff but I really really need it now."
He sat down on the rock and listlessly threw the makeshift paintbrush back into the tar-pit. A small green lizard-like creature peeked out form a crack in the rock and fled when Haymitch drew his knife. In retaliation the lizard burped and spit a small stream of white fire at the tar.
The last thing they heard through the rising smoke was Haymitch's heartfelt curse.
"What did he mean?" Peeta asked.
"I'm not sure." Katniss bit her bottom-lip.
"The stuff you hate... White liquor. He knows there is a bottle somewhere or wants you to send one in."
"Which we are not allowed to."
Peeta rose and went to the intercom. "I'll call Camilla Thornstrom."
"What?" She shot up from her seat and wrenched the com out of his hand. "You are certainly not asking that woman for help!"
"That woman," he gritted, "has connections way up, to Snow himself. Did you just see Haymitch, really see him? He's coming undone. easy prey for the careers. He did everything to keep you alive, damn it. And now he asks you for one thing. He only wants one thing, Katniss!"
Eyes glowing with anger, he snatched the com back and left the room.
Katniss took a last look at the screen, but game-controll had switched to a view of Enobaria skinning a small animal and roasting it on a stick.
Haymitch was probably still fighting his way out of the smoke. If she knew the structure of the Games by now, there'd be an amusing news segment soon - probably XXX and a psychologist discussing what sort of booze Haymitch preferred.
Had he said he wanted a drink? No, not outright.
The first time they'd met, she mused. The Reaping?
"There is want, alright. And then there is need." She rubbed her temples. "It's not always the same."
/
"Told you I could make it happen."
Camilla's finger slid under Peeta's collar and he blushed violently. One call to the President, and Katniss had gotten her wish. For a price, but still…
Peeta was prepared to pay his share, as promised. Katniss would never know.
He let Camilla drew him back into the elevator. The doors closed soundlessly.
/
Cinna pinned the small golden brooch that Madge had given her – a lifetime ago – onto Katniss' collar. She wore a sleek suit, rather military but with a few very-Cinna-style embellishments that made her look much more self-assured than she felt.
"That will do," he proclaimed in his calm voice and gave her a smile. "This is just for show. I designed another one for …" He shook his head. "For later."
She exhaled slowly and tried to remember Effie's tips for public appearances. 'Talk slowly. Keep your head up. And follow the foodling script!. A smile tugged at her lips when she thought of Effie's favorite – and probably only – expletive. She and Peeta had spent hours on the train discussing the hidden meaning of "foodling".
Shaking off the memory she took a last look in the mirror.
"I don't look like me," she said slowly and turned to Cinna. "I look like …"
"Like the Mockingjay."
/
There were times when Plutarch Heavensbee, Head Gamemaker of the proud nation of Panem, wished he was a small child again so he could throw a temper tantrum. And maybe bite someone, preferably the man who sat now in the VIP-box, smiling smugly, stroking his white beard.
The president had the disconcerting habit of showing up at any hour, day or night, to watch certain tributes and make "suggestions" on how to deal with them. But he had never before had the audacity to demand that his viewing screen be connected with Capitol TV.
'If you want to address the people, do it from a studio where they will be happy to comb your beard before you go on air,' thought Plutarch bitterly. Outwardly calm, he enquired politely why this was necessary. After all it would– if only for a short time but still – make the control centre part of the Capitol's energy grid.
"Which bears all kinds of risks," he explained with as much patience as he could muster. Whose head would roll when there was a blackout in the arena and the sponsors demanded their money back? Or worse, the bookies?
"It's only for a few minutes." The President's eyes, cold like ice shards, dared him to refuse his "wish". "Today is my granddaughter's birthday, and this is a surprise for her."
'Great,' thought Plutarch. 'What will it be? Her very first execution? Personalized poison? A doll that said "All for Panem"?'
And said nothing aloud of course, but ordered his techs to follow Snow's request and connect the control center with the main grid.
"She's a huge fan of the Mockingjay's, as girls her age are. Even wears her hair in this strange fashion." The President shook his head sadly, a concerned but doting grandfather. "So I have convinced Miss Everdeen to meet the child and her friends at the viewing plaza. Answer their questions, take pictures, show them her bow and arrows."
Plutarch suddenly had a vision of the Mockingjay on the plaza, garbed in the costume Cinna had made for her, armed to the teeth …
And then he understood. At least he thought so. And his blood ran cold.
No. She wouldn't – couldn't – be stupid enough to take Snow's granddaughter hostage. Katniss Everdeen was a naïve and impulsive young woman but neither stupid nor suicidal. So what was her plan?
"Convinced, Sir?" Plutarch had to cough to clear his suddenly parched throat.
"She drives a hard bargain – as they say in District 2." The President watched the techs dig in the innards of the screen and impatiently tapped his fingers on the remote.
Plutarch saw beads of sweat on the forehead of one of the Avoxes. Naked fear in the techs eyes.
"What did she want, Sir?" he croaked.
Snow shrugged nonchalantly. "A bottle of liquor for Mr. Abernathy." He nodded toward the screen. "His plea had her all desperate."
"So she puts on a show for the little girls on the plaza..."
"And in return Mr. Abernathy will receive a message which reveals where the bottle is hidden." Snow frowned. "It was supposed to be a prize, or rather bait. But …" He raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. "The things we do for the people we love."
The screen flickered back to live and showed beaming young faces.
"Ah, there she is! Snow smiled indulgently. "She has her mother's eyes, don't you think?"
'Who you had killed in an 'accident' because she became too popular,' Plutarch thought and gave the techs a silent signal to retreat.
The President settled back into his chair. "Now, let's see how Miss Everdeen holds up her end of the bargain."
Plutarch bowed his head, curtly but still respectfully enough not to raise suspicion. "I'll watch from the control room. Must have an eye on the game. Excuse me."
He slipped out the door, and for a moment sagged against a wall. He so wished Cressida was still here – her creative mind would have found three workarounds for the problem in no time. But his best director had vanished a few months ago and he could only hope she and her crew had made it safely to District 13 and were not buried in a shallow grave in one of the Capital's prisons.
His fist hit the wall.
Damned be Snow and his granddaughter and Katniss Everdeen! When had everybody and their bird gotten it into their head to make plans?
And why did the clock in his mind tick even faster now?
/
A quiet signal announced one of the elevators. Reeva, the girl who'd translated for the Avoxes in their underground assembly hall, slipped out. She carried a long tube and held it out to Cinna.
"Mr. Plutarch sends this."
Cinna smiled at her and pointed at the bowl at his desk, where foil wrapped chocolates beckoned. "Thank you, Reeva."
He opened the tube and unwrapped an arrow with a red tip.
Katniss took the arrow from his hand. It looked like any arrow but for the read tip, but felt heavier, somehow unbalanced. Like a …
"Did he say anything else?" she snapped at Reeva, and the girl almost choked on the chocolates she'd stuffed her mouth with. "The Head Gamemaker?"
Reeva shrugged and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. "Only to hit the center."
"The center?" Cinna asked doubtfully.
"Hit the center," Reeva repeated serenely. "Cause that's where it hurts."
/
"Stay back!"
Blood trickled from Chaff's lips. "It's a trap!"
"Of course it's a trap!" Brutus roared with laughter. He stood behind Chaff, holding him upright with his left arm around Chaff's waist. The right held the arm-long knife – Edwatt's machete, thought Haymitch, numb with fear. The tip of the blade dug into Chaff's sternum hard enough to draw blood.
Haymitch sighed. Time to end this, one way or another.
"Let him go," he said, as calm as he could.
From where he stood, Brutus could not reach him without letting go of Chaff and vaulting over the rock barrier. But what of Enobaria? Was this an ambush?
"Haymitch, don't be an idiot. He won't let me live."
"Na, don't be an Idiot, Haymy!" Brutus mocked Chaff and applied more pressure to the machete. Blood soaked Chaff's t-shirt and pants.
Haymitch let both arms hang loose, weighing the knife in his left hand. One chance was all he had, and he'd have to hit Brutus' neck. Possible, but only just. The man was tall, the human shield reached only his shoulder. But the way he stood, his back against the wall, Chaff between Haymitch and himself, made it very hard to aim truly.
"Brother, don't do this." Chaff again, now only a whisper.
Haymitch's eyes held Brutus' captive. He dropped the rock he'd held in his right hand.
Brutus grinned and nudged Chaff. "Told you he'd chicken out."
The knifeman stroke out while Haymitch still wondered if he could do it. The knifeman had no doubts, no fear. High above them glowed a pale winter sun. A ray of light pierced the clouds and made the silver metal of the flying knife flash.
When the blade missed its target and hit the rock, sparks flew.
'So close,' Haymitch thought in a daze.
Chaff was on his knees, the machete still piercing his chest. Not dead, Haymitch saw with horror. Gruesome as the wound might be, the weapon effectively served as tamponade, almost like a plug – once removed, he'd bleed out in seconds. Already the snow covered ground bloomed red where he stood.
Brutus had been dead before he hit the ground, A head taller than Chaff, the machete had entered his lower torso and sliced open a large blood vessel in the stomach. Chaff had pinned him against the rock face long enough for his convulsions to paint the stone blood red.
Chaff grinned a painful smile. His skin was already grey, he'd lost a lot of blood before the last fatal wound. "I got the bastard good and well."
"Yeah, you did." Haymitch could not move, hardly breathe, just stare at the bloody blade that protruded from Chaff's back. So fast. No time to think.
He'd thrown his own knife, Brutus had hitched Chaff up as a shield, and Chaff had used that moment to throw himself into Brutus' long blade. And then pin the tribute against the rock, a living – no, dying – weapon. The blade had been long enough to kill them both.
"You saved my life."
"So glad I could give you a hand. Only got one, but still…" Chaff coughed, and bloody bubbles appeared in the corner of his mouth.
Haymitch closed his eyes briefly.
"It's cold," said Chaff meditatively. "I don't like the cold."
"No," said Haymitch. "You never did."
"Shift's over. Time to go home."
"Yeah."
"My lips … so dry." The words came slowly now, like a dreamer's. "Will you whistle for me, brother?"
The sun broke through. Harsh light. Red on white. Snowflakes in Chaff's eyelashes.
It took Haymitch three tries to whistle the short tune of the call that had become the Mockingjay's. Chaff smiled.
"Nice."
Haymitch's hand ripped the machete out of the man's chest. Blood spurted and the snow turned red. Chaff sank back in an eerily graceful motion, arms outstretched like a bird taking flight.
/
The audience gasped.
Katniss stood in the middle of the Plaza, oblivious of the mesmerized mass of onlookers. All eyes were at the huge screen.
Chaff was dead.
Dazed, she heard a canon boom.
Then Haymitch's face occupied the whole screen. She could see his bloodshot eyes, the faint traces of tears in his soot-blackened face.
More saw than heard him say:" If you are there, Sweetheart, now would be a good time."
The red arrow was in her hand, on the drawstring, in flight without a conscious thought.
When it hit the centre of the screen, the sky fell.
Literally.
There were screams. Sparks. Sirens and more screams.
And then darkness.
/
"Good girl," sighed Plutarch when the emergency lights in the control room flashed, and pushed his seat back unobtrusively. His fingertip touched a panel in quick succession and so started the program which would lock all the doors in the centre for ten minutes once he'd left the room.
Not much, but it would suffice.
Time to go. Now.
/
The sky shivered. The sun fizzled out.
Darkness fell like a blanket and filled the arena.
Haymitch ran.
Katniss had done it, whatever it was. There was the distraction he'd asked for. Only it might mean his undoing. Blindly he felt his way through the snowstorm, the darkness. Across the field, stumbling, slipping. Suddenly a cold shiver passed his skin – not the wind, not his protesting muscles. Icy fingers caressed his cheek. He stood stock-still, kept his breath.
"Wrong way," whispered the ghost of Maysilee Donner.
"Haymitch!" Rose's anxious cry, so very close, made him jump. She stood right behind him … 110 meters true north of the cornucopia. Behind her a soft glow emanating from an opening in the ground. So Beetee's compass had worked, and she'd remembered the code that unlocked the pod.
He turned a last time, trying to find the shadow of that blond girl, but there was nothing but snow. Then he stumbled into Rose's arms.
/
To be continued.