A/N: This chapter moves a little strangely. I took the plot in another direction so I'm sorry for some serious AU elements here, but I wanted a bigger outside perspective or to explain everything that happened. That was my huge, lofty goal. I pushed out the timeline for Snow's execution on purpose, too. It's not supposed to feel like the other chapters, I wanted it to feel like something a little different :) I'm getting so close to the end, I have maybe three more chapters before I hit the epilogue status. I'm so stressed about it, I hope it lives up to everything you guys wanted. Please keep in mind the abrupt change in tone is totally on purpose!
Chapter 48: Set My Veins Afire
It was already dark when she heard the tinkling of bells at the door. The alert was soft, like rain on a window, and Callie almost missed it. She had not been able to sleep, choosing instead to sit at the small table beside the window and stare down into the city. Floodlights illuminated the chasm where the reconstruction teams sped through the intense repairs. The President's Manor - nobody had thought to rename it after the victory - was silent. It looked almost dead aside from the occasional bloom of light in an odd window or two. The Capitol at night still felt like a war zone.
Calliope got to her feet, bare on the cool tiles, and wrapped a long shawl around her shoulders. The apartment had come with many beautiful objects and pieces of fine clothing, all of which was just a little too big for her and a little too small for Gale. Callie had never considered who had occupied the space prior to them and was not going to be interested now, either.
Paranoia brought the hand to her lower back where the knives should have been, but all her fingers found was empty space. Callie shifted as though about to go back into the darkened bedroom, but Gale was standing silently in the doorway. She had not even heard him get out of bed, but there he was. Gale looked over at her, a ghostly figure in black and white against the total darkness of the apartment. He placed his hand on his hip where the shape of a small pistol would have been lost if not for the soft white-gray glow of his skin. They were silent until the bell sound came again, then Calliope began to move for the door again. She pushed her pale hair behind her ears - long and thick with untamable curls and waves - and took a deep breath. She touched the panel and the door swung open.
At first, Callie did not register that anyone was there, then her eyes drifted slightly and she stood perfectly still. Beetee had shifted slightly backwards, as alarmed to see her as she was to see him at first. He offered her a careful, awkward smile, jittery and uncertain on his own mouth. Calliope fell forwards and pulled him to her in a haphazard embrace. At first, Beetee felt like he might just leave instead of stay, but he found himself overwhelmed by the gesture and placed a hesitant arm around her shoulder. He had become accustomed to the standoffish, military way of life, it was easy for him to forget that some of his connections were more than just robotic.
Gale stepped out from the shadow of darkness behind her and pulled a shirt over his head. He smiled down at the older man and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder, "I'm glad you made it."
Beetee looked slightly taken aback at first, but not exactly surprised. He had known about the two of them for a while now, but knowing it and seeing it felt completely different, "Yes, I wish it could be under better circumstances."
"It's good to see you," Calliope said with a slow smile. She almost missed what he had said, but the slip of her smile into a frown was almost organic, "What circumstances?"
Beetee shook his head and looked around, Callie saw his hands tighten around his wheelchair for a moment while two guards walked passed. She nodded at them firmly and dropped her gaze back to him, waiting for them to pass before expecting an answer.
"I can't talk about it here. I've been sent to get you, not to discuss why," he moved back away from the door, "Get dressed, I need you to come with me."
Callie opened her mouth to ask more questions, but saw the flat determination in Beetee's face. Instead, she slipped back inside and dressed herself quickly. It was strange not having armor to put on, even after so many days without it, but some cautionary note in Beetee's voice made her feel like she needed it now. She considered putting on her guard uniform, but rejected it. Calliope was not a guard captain, she would not dignify Coin with any potential notion that she was, even accidentally. Instead, she returned to her Mountain Men gear - black pants, black shirt, heavy boots. Callie snapped the knives against her and shrugged a jacket over her shoulders to keep them hidden. It was not possible to take too many precautions in this unstable Panem.
The night was cold against her skin. Not quite cold enough for snow, but colder than it should be for this time of the year. They followed Beetee in some roundabout course through the streets, all deliberately circumventing the patrols in the area. Manpower was still thin, not every street could be guarded. Now, Beetee walked them through alleys and down side streets until he paused in front of a building half destroyed by a blast. Calliope looked around and realized they were in the construction zone, an area Coin had made off limits to anyone but the rebuilding crews.
"Inside, we'll take the elevator to the basement. It leads into the sewers, but it's not bad," Beetee whispered. Secretly, Callie felt her skin prickle at the thought of hitting another Pod sequence again.
"Sewers or Tunnels?" Gale asked, caution in his voice revealing his own anxiety about going back down there.
"Sewers. Coin supposedly disabled the Pods, but," Beetee's voice drifted off for a moment, "Let's just get downstairs."
The elevator felt like it would break apart at any moment, vibrating violently as it descended deep into the building below. Beetee seemed unperturbed, like he had already done this a thousand times. Gale shifted uncomfortably and reached for her hand, more for his sake than for her own.
Finally, it stopped at the bottom with a clang, the doors squealed apart, and Beetee moved forwards. At some point, a hole had been either blown or carved out in the wall adjacent to the elevator doors. It opened right into the sewer bypass way, a long corridor meant for maintenance workers in the event of a breakdown. Now, it was lit in some blue incandescent light that seemed to direct them where to go.
"Where are we going?" Calliope demanded, but felt the lack of authority in her own voice.
"There have been some problems," Beetee offered, "This is the best place to go to discuss them." It was all surreal, strange, like her entire life had just jumped the shark and become something insane. Even after all of the terrible twists and turns it had taken, this felt absolutely crazy.
Then the hallway bloomed into a gigantic concrete bubble, an enormous room with only a table and some broken chairs surrounding it. Paylor stood leaning against one of them, Crowe by another. Finnick was there, Enobaria, Johanna, and Haymitch with him. Calliope noticed two other people she recognized, but had never met. Avillias Harbor, leader of District 10 during the rebellion, and Darjinder Maize, leader of District 6. Both of them had pulled their people together and become small militant groups fighting alongside 13 during the battle, now they stood in stoic silence and deferred to Commander Paylor.
Paylor watched her quietly and gestured for Gale and Calliope to come forwards, "This is a lot, I know. What I'm about to say to you is even more. If you want to leave, you can leave and I won't stop you, but I need you to hear me first," the determined frowns on their faces seemed to be enough, "Alma Coin isn't what she seems. We knew it going in, we knew it when we signed on to help her cause because her cause was our cause, but now we need to be prepared for what happens next."
Gale should have seemed shocked, sickened maybe to hear of President Coin being spoken of. It was his silence that made her turn to him. Gale was staring down at her, waiting for a response. It was as if he had known about this the entire time, he knew what was happening down here. Calliope's head reeled with the revelation and she wanted desperately to sit down. It made sense, his lack of surprise when Beetee turned up on her doorstep. All of their quiet criticisms of Coin's new position, all the times Gale phrased certain critiques with a hint of truth, Paylor's deep distaste for the new hierarchy. All of it made sense now.
Callie stared at him for a moment longer before turning back to Paylor, "What do you need from me?" It was not a threatening question or a jab, it was sincere and honest. Calliope wanted to help the rebellion within the rebellion. Perhaps, she mused, she really was her father's daughter.
Paylor took that as permission to continue rather than respond, "We lost Alma along the way somewhere, nobody can really point to when. This became less about Panem, less about our freedom, and just about control. Now, we are sitting on the precipice of something that could wind up being worse than what we had. Snow was cruel, the Games helped him make sure we knew that, but this," she paused to find her way, "Coin is setting the stage to bring about something that would be an entirely new definition of militant cruelty. We've traded one madman for another."
Calliope took a step forwards and looked around the room. All of these people had nearly died or suffered some worse loss in their lives to get to this point, yet here they were wanting to do it again rather than face another generation of the same kind of horror. This must have been what the Dark Days were like, rebels underground and on the surface and underground again.
"What's your plan?" She said firmly. When Callie felt a hand, she turned to Crowe, pride on his face. He nodded respectfully, telling her exactly what she needed to hear without saying a word.
"Snow's execution is in four days," Finnick said, "We can't just launch into another campaign, nobody will trust anybody who comes into power again, it'll create a vacuum we won't recover from. We do it by the books this time, with pens instead of guns. We try her for war crimes, attempted murder of a rebel Commander."
Calliope was surprised at it, she had never spoken about it to anyone outside her inner circle. She had no idea Finnick knew anything about Coin's attempt on her life in District 2. It took her a few spare seconds to realize they were not talking about her. Finnick had turned to look at someone, sporting the smile of a man with an ace up his sleeve.
Lyme stood silently, so still and quiet Callie had not noticed her when she entered the room. The two women stared at one another, Lyme completely unreadable. Callie looked back at Finnick, and tried to find the words. All this time she had been told Lyme was killed in battle, nobody had ever corrected her.
"She sent someone at night, she wanted me to know it was her," Lyme scowled bitterly and Calliope saw the depth of Coin's betrayal in her face, "She sent one of her personal henchmen and almost did it. I'd be dead if Paylor hadn't found me."
Paylor said nothing, just watched Callie carefully. Finally, she must have seen it there, "Something tells me it's not just Lyme who could muster the charges against her."
There was a pregnant pause and a heavy silence while they waited for Callie to give them some kind of verification. She stood in stubborn silence, refusing to take a stand either way at the statement. It seemed to be enough. Gale touched her arm lightly and gave her a curious frown, somewhat injured she had never said anything.
"What about Katniss? Peeta? Do they know?" She said, changing the subject and looking to Johanna for confirmation. Johanna shook her head, but it was Maize who responded in his hoarse tone
"No," he said curtly, "She can't handle another war, neither can he. They can't be our poster children. They can't be anybody's tool anymore, we won't to go back to that propaganda bullshit." The agreement seemed universal, most ardently from Johanna and Finnick who had the most exposure to the effects the propos had.
Calliope nodded and ran her hand over her face, through her hair. She wanted to sit down and try to absorb all of this, but it felt like a display of weakness. The last thing she would do was slip back into that fragile girl from District 1 she had left behind so long ago. She nodded slowly and looked back at Paylor.
"What do you need me to do?"
"After the execution," Paylor said somewhat eagerly, "Coin will want to make a speech. She will introduce all of us as the new Parliament, change the whole government while leaving herself as the sole authority and lawmaker. It's an illusion of freedom she plans to promise to Panem. Before her speech is over, you will take the personal guard you'll be attached to and arrest her for treason. We will deliberate on a temporary leader for twenty-four hours and assign a new President while her trial commences. Once the Parliament decides to find her guilty, she'll be sentenced to a lifetime in prison."
It felt choreographed, but not necessarily in a bad way. It was a clean plan, it lacked the feeling of underhandedness that seemed to permeate Coin's entire reign. Calliope could be behind a plan like this, so she nodded her approval and accepted the assignment. They needed her for that part, there could be no one else.
Something occurred to her then, "What happens to us all after its done?"
Paylor looked surprised for a moment and gathered herself, realizing she had left out details, "We will all be reassigned, set in positions that will let us help the country instead of wasting ourselves in appointments that are unfit for us, or beneath us as the case may be," Callie seemed to be waiting for more, so she continued, "I would elect to hold a vote to put you in District 2, set you in charge of something. Captain of the guard is a petty, despicable title. It's a waste."
Calliope nodded thoughtfully and kept trying to struggle with her thoughts. She felt overwhelmed, floundering in all of this information. It was both exhilarating and painful to put her swords down only to pick them back up. Still, she knew she would be kidding herself if she said it was not what she had wanted all along.
The air felt colder when they reached the surface again. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, enjoying the smell of metal and dirt on the breeze. Gale waited for her patiently, almost uncertainly.
"Go back home," Calliope said, looking over at him, "I need a walk, I think."
Something about the way the moon hit her face made Callie seem ethereal. Her goldenrod hair bloomed around her shoulders like a halo, her bright blue eyes seemed more crystalline than Gale remembered. The surface brought out how lovely she was, he knew in that moment he would never stop catching himself from falling in love with her. Slowly, he nodded his assent to leave her on her own - despite his better judgement.
It was inevitable that her feet would carry her there. Perhaps it was the constant pull Callie felt towards the building or perhaps it was the looming, ever-presence of the building. Either way, the President's Manor stood in front of her, quiet and dormant. There were no lights on in the front of the place, just a small squadron of guards out front. They knew her enough to not deny her access to the grounds, but she did not recognize their faces. That bothered Calliope more than she anticipated, plucking at the strings of annoyance and doubt that had been pulled taut in her gut.
She stood in the courtyard, running her fingers along the leaves of one of the vibrantly green bushes. She remembered the first and only time she had ever been in that courtyard, before the war or the rebellion or the mountain. It felt like a flashback, some DNA memory of a lifetime long before her own. Ava's insistence, meeting Finnick, Haymitch drinking, the opulence of it all. She mused about what her present self would have thought of that kind of party, but she was unable to fully fathom that kind of decadence anymore and the memory continued on like a fragment in her mind.
The building itself stood in front of Callie like it was waiting for something. Doors twice her size stood tall and shut like sentries flanked with pillars, windows rose tall like eyes staring down at her. Darkness flooded the front of the building, continued on down the rows of hedges, and around the sides. Calliope walked the perimeter of the Manor, running her hand along the surface of the walls. It was some kind of smooth stucco, decorative designs were three-dimensional and rough under her fingers. Calliope did not know how long it took her to round the corner towards the rear gardens – probably not an unrealistic ten minutes of walking – but eventually she found herself at the edge of a small semicircle of brilliant white light. Floodlights illuminated the area, guards and soldiers alike kept a tight perimeter around a small section of the garden.
Calliope, curious, started to walk towards the center of the ranks when they pushed together to keep her out. She scowled viciously, "At ease, soldiers."
One of the guards shifted uncomfortably and she thought she recognized him, "Ma'am, we're under strict orders to-"
"Step aside," Callie demanded, feeling suddenly both powerless and useless. She refused to let them know that, though. The key was always confidence, especially since one of them clearly knew who she was.
The uncomfortable guard looked at his companion who stood stoic and stalwart, "Ma'am, I can't. We're under orders from President Coin to keep this area locked down."
"President Coin?" Calliope repeated the name with a hint of acid, reaching into the wide pocket of her wrap and pulling out her identification badge. All of the higher-ups managed to have them, but Calliope's offered her limited access. It was another placating move by Coin, another subtle jab to remind Callie who she no longer was.
The stoic guard reached out and took the badge from her, turning it over in his hand. He frowned and looked from the badge to Calliope, then back to the badge. He grunted and handed it back to her, reluctantly stepping aside to allow her through. Callie felt a small modicum of relief and went past them both. She heard the whisper of 'Commander' under the uncomfortable guard's breath, but ignored it. That was not who she was anymore, now Callie was Guard Captain Cress. A title that felt as flaccid and plain as the position it dictated.
The garden swarmed with guards, posted every few feet around the hedges. It took Calliope a moment before she realized some of the plants were blooming. She reached out and touched the small, white velvety bud of one small flower. She smiled softly, almost faraway.
Roses. White roses prepared to bloom or started to bloom all around her. She wandered the intricate garden path and paused to examine a bulbous young flower. It still curled around itself, the most picturesque rosebud, something out of a painting if Callie could not feel its softness under her fingers.
"I know you from somewhere," the voice was familiar. Faux fatherly, somewhere between a firm grandparent and a tyrannical overlord.
Calliope felt her heart freeze, her eyes widen, her hand grip the blossom tightly until its fleshy petals burst into soft brownish-green bruises. She knew that terrible voice, she knew it too well. She turned slowly and tried to collect herself, but Snow was too smart for that. He sat on one of the ornate stone benches, light bursting from a lamp behind him. Guards stood on either side, two more on every exit. He was handcuffed still, but holding a sealed little flower in his hand.
His expression changed, tactfully and slowly, to one of consideration. It was as though he were looking at the cover of a book he had not read in a long time, trying to remember the plot. Calliope said nothing. She could not, her voice had disappeared on the wind.
"Ah," Snow said coolly, like it was something he did not need to think about, "The girl from the camera footage, the blond one. You're from District 1," Calliope still said nothing, some combination of seething hatred and starstruck silence, "Lightwood, if I remember correctly."
"How do you know my name?" Callie hissed, a whisper she thought too faint for him to hear. Something about hearing it, her old name, tugged at some primal darkness in her. She felt her fingers tighten into a fist involuntarily.
There was a long, stretched out silence between them, waiting for the other to speak. Calliope had nothing to say. All of this, every death, every life, every bullet. All of it was for Cornelius Snow. He knew it, she could feel the smugness of the knowledge he possessed wafting from his shoulders into her face. Some hot, acidic cloud of cruelty and manipulation.
"Your face," he finally offered, taking a deep breath and offering a paternal smile, "We ran it, you matched a profile," Snow waited theatrically, "You didn't think you were under the radar, did you? We didn't know who you were?" Calliope kept herself whitewashed, completely emotionless. She would not give him the satisfaction, "No place is safe, Miss Lightwood."
Calliope bit her lip for a moment and took a slow, calculated breath. She stared at him, willing him to feel her frothing hatred, "It's Cress. Not Lightwood."
Snow chuckled to himself and nodded. Involuntarily, she took a step towards him and he shot her a cold, quiet smile. Snow nodded slightly, just barely, and Calliope stood there. It felt like she was waiting for something, but nobody knew exactly what. She wished she had known how Peeta had captured him, if Peeta had captured him. Something to jab under his ribs and make him feel shame for everything he had ever witnessed in his life, that was all she wanted.
Snow adjusted himself on the bench, kept his eyes fixed on her, "You know what she is," it was a blunt, terrible fact, "You know what all of this has been," Snow inhaled slowly and let her contemplate his words, "So why don't you do anything about it?"
Callie hesitated before she responded, but refused to acknowledge the veiled warning, "What do you know about me?" Snow was silent, but she asked again.
He chuckled and shook his head, lifting his bound hands to run a thumb over his eyebrow, "I know you're a threat to her plan, her great vision for Panem. I know you've lost several people in the Games. I know you'd kill me right now if you had the chance," the last sentence made her see him. Really, truly see him. Snow stared at her the way a mouse stares at a snake when it can sense its impending death. The statement hung there between them for a long while before he spoke again, "I know she's pretending to be something she is not, making you something you are not. All in the name of her new Panem," Snow cleared his throat, "Tell me, Miss Cress. Is it worth it?"
