Chapter 9: Panic Room

The high-speed locomotive hasn't even slowed to a complete stop before the hydraulic doors are opening and Lucy Gray and I are stepping off back onto District 12 soil.

"Another loss," my mentor sighs.

I simply grunt. "You're surprised?"

She shrugs. "A little. You may have been plastered, but you can't tell me you didn't work hard to get that pick-axe to our boy tribute."

I snort. "For all the good it did. He just missed the Final Eight. I can't believe that stupid girl from 5 won the whole thing just by hiding! But... I suppose James is pleased."

Lucy Gray smiles tightly, but doesn't fully glance in my direction as we leave the District 12 train station and make our way into Town. I am sure she rues the day she ever introduced me to James Logan and Chaff Mitchell. When the three of us get together, it's free drinks for ourselves and everyone else, the booze flowing like water. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know it is humiliating to be a seasoned alcoholic at only 23. But it is hard not to drink yourself to death when this year's Games - the 57th - were a complete disaster. Just like last year. And the year before that. And every year since I won. Two more kids from Twelve are coming home in wooden coffins.

"Home again?" I slur as we reach the edge of Town.

"No, sorry, I just have to make one stop - at the apothecary," Lucy Gray explains.

My face falls a little bit. "Oh. Right."

The tinkling of the chime signals our entrance to the store. Belle Foley smiles brightly at us from where she is working the counter. I have to admit, Belle is one of the nicest girls I've ever known, outside of my dearly departed Rosemary. She has also grown into quite a beautiful woman, her smile warm and dazzling as she rings up Lucy Gray's purchases at the counter. Side-eyeing me, Lucy Gray reluctantly plucks a bottle of wine from a nearby shelf and adds it to her total.

"$40.24 is your bill, Miss Baird," the apothecary's daughter chirps.

"Thanks, Belle," Lucy Gray smiles. Then she turns to me. "Wait outside." I know better than to argue. Leaning lazily against the shopfront window, I note how pretty much every passersby who sees me quickly averts their gaze. Some of the more snooty Merchants even sneer in my direction. I don't really care. I'm the reason this dump of a district can boast about having a Quarter Quell Victor. As a customer practically runs past me to enter the apothecary shop, I can hear Lucy Gray and Belle's low voices briefly waft to my ear from under the tinkling of the chime.

"... you have to talk to him! He could keel over from alcohol poisoning..."

"... I gave up trying to rehab him a long time ago, Belle. Best leave it up to the fates. And besides, Haymitch has always been able to hold his liquor quite well."

The door has only just closed when it is swaying open again, and out comes my mentor. She smiles as warmly as she can at me. I pretend I didn't hear her and Belle's private conversation as we cross over into the Seam and start our final hike to the Village.

The Victors' Village of District 12 is well isolated, high on a hill. Unlike most other districts, our Village is seen as more of a forbidden place, its inhabitants freak accidents of the Games' brutal wrath. I still live in the same mansion where right outside its door, my loved ones were murdered seven years ago; Lucy Gray's palace is directly across the street. Turning off to the right and towards her front stoop, I hang back as my mentor picks up a pile of envelopes from against her bottom doorjamb.

"Mail's here."

I drift over to her and she begins dealing out my own mail to me, separating it from hers the way a card player might deal out a deck. It's not exactly light reading - mostly Capitol catalogs with the stray summons from our District's Justice Building. Pausing at an envelope which I can see is addressed to us jointly, Lucy Gray frowns with curiosity and opens it. Scanning the first line, she reports flatly, "It's from the school."

I groan. "Not the truant officer again!" Victors of the Hunger Games are technically allowed to drop out of school after they win. I did it - hell, I was never that great a student anyway. I mostly went to make sure Gregory stayed out of trouble in the Special Ed School and bullies left him alone. Lucy Gray dropped out after she won nearly half a century ago. That doesn't stop the district truancy board from attempting to enroll Victors again; in a place as poor as this, there is always money to be made. Money that Twelve desperately needs.

"No, it's not about that..." Lucy Gray starts, but I cut her off.

"... because I am not going back to finish school, Lu! 1. I'm over 18, so they can't make me. 2. I don't need to, because I have a steady job -"

"A steady summer job," Lucy Gray mutters dryly. I ignore her.

" - and 3. I have more money than Snow, so why do I need to learn useless stuff for some boring career?"

"And you spend all that money on booze," Lucy Gray retorts, slight contempt in her voice. "But that's not what this is about: the Upper School is inviting us to give a presentation for its Hunger Games History class."

I remember that class. I used to hate it. It was so boring and all we mostly did was watch reruns of past Games on a beat-up, old projector. "What for?"

"Apparently, they're placing a greater emphasis on District 12's Victories in the curriculum."

I can't imagine why that would help. There has never been a public re-airing of Lucy Gray's Games... and from the secret viewings I have done of my pilfered DVD, late at night, I can see why: hers was a shitshow. Probably embarassed the Capitol just as much as my Quell did. The difference, of course, is that, because my Games was a Quell, the Capitol is somewhat compelled to rebroadcast it. It's too... memorable.

"This has more to do with my Victory than yours," I guess.

Lucy Gray shrugs. "Your win was historic. Being the Victor of a Quell carries even greater weight and status; surely Indigo taught you that."

He did. But - "I don't wanna dress up in a monkey suit and show some Powerpoint slides about the worst week of my life!"

"Nonsense! This whole district needs that kind of morale boost. We're going to present at the school, Haymitch, and that's the end of it."

"But Lucy Gray -"

"The END of it!"

Night always seems to fall peacefully here in District 12. Under the recently new command of Cray, the Peacekeepers have actually backed off a little bit since the murder of my loved ones. The white-plated officers patrolling the streets are less quick on the draw. Public whippings have all but disappeared, as have executions. And in the fairly new black market of the Seam, known colloquially as the Hob, illegal dealings are conducted nearly out in the open, with Peacekeepers looking the other way and sometimes even getting in on the take.

At night, I can sit at the table in my rich, Capitol IKEA kitchen - which by this point looks like a bomb went off in it - and sip straight from the wine bottle in peace.

The stillness of the night is interrupted by what sounds like a frantic knocking at the door. But the sound seems too far away to be coming from just the other side of my foyer. Frowning, I cross to the window and lift back the curtain. Through the grimy panes, I see two young adults standing on the porch of Lucy Gray's house across the street. I watch as Lucy Gray emerges in her nightgown, a lantern in hand. Curious, I stroll blithely through my foyer and amble out onto my own porch. I can hear the voices from clear across the way:

"Yarrow? What are you doing here?"

"We're in trouble, Miss Baird," Yarrow Everdeen pleads, clutching the hand of a striking young lady, whom I realize with a start is none other than Belle Foley, the apothecary's daughter. "She stole her mother's wedding dress and we went and signed papers at the Justice Building. We're in love."

Lucy Gray's eyes narrow. "And now they're after you," she guesses.

"The whole of Town!" Belle whimpers, trembling, but gazing into Yarrow's smiling eyes, her jaw sets, resolute.

Just then, on the wind, I hear raised voices. From high on the hill, peering out into the distance, I can see the glow of torches, bobbing like buoys through the darkness as they prowl through Town. The posse/search party will reach the Seam before long, and then make their way here...

"Haymitch!" Lucy Gray calls. "Come here!"

I stroll over, trying to act nonchalant, nodding to Belle, as well as Yarrow Everdeen. Yarrow was in my year in school, though we rarely interacted. His mother is Maude Ivory, the first female Miner Foreman District 12's ever had. She was apparently quite the singer, and once a member of the legendary Covey, back in the day.

"Hurry up!" Lucy Gray snaps impatiently, and I bound onto the porch. Lucy Gray passes the terrified couple off to me. "Go inside, take them to the Telephone Room!"

The voices in Town are drawing closer, so I don't argue. Taking Belle by the hand, I lead her into Lucy Gray's foyer, through the kitchen and down a flight of stairs. Lucy Gray steals inside just after us. "Let's go."

The Telephone Room is actually in the mansion's basement. Every single living Victor in every mansion of every Victors' Village in Panem has to have one. The whole space is equipped with a desk and a big, red phone atop it. A phone that gives you a direct hotline to the Capitol. Mine has become a useful place for storage; I almost never go in there.

I guide a shaking Belle into the desk chair, then sprint back for the stairs up to the ground floor. "Stay in here. Don't make a sound. And whatever you do, don't touch that phone!"

"Why? Is it bugged?" Belle shrinks away from the thing as though it is on fire.

"We don't know," I say grimly. "Lu and I have picked over this room, and mine, and we haven't been able to find any hidden mics and cameras. But we're sure they're watching us. Best not to take any chances."

Slamming the door behind me, I wheel back into the kitchen, where I find Lucy Gray popping the cork off a full bottle of wine.

"How sloshed are you?"

I frown. "Barely. In fact, I'm relatively sober at the moment. Why?"

"I can't believe I'm saying this..." Lucy Gray takes a deep breath, before she is pushing the bottle into my hands. "Drink, Haymitch! Drink!"

I chug the whole thing in one go, instantly feeling the effects rush to my head. The room starts to spin and when I teeter, Lucy Gray gets under me, slinging my arm across her shoulders. Is it the alcohol talking, or do those raised and angry voices now sound like they are coming over the hill, entering the Village?

"Don't say a damn word," Lucy Gray hisses in my ear. "Let me do the talking."

We stagger into the foyer, just as there is a purposeful knock at the door. Slowly, Lucy Gray opens it, making a show of appearing bleary-eyed, like she was just roused from bed.

A crowd of Merchants is gathered on her front stoop, tiki torches, guns and pitchforks in their hands. Every single face is laced with anger, the lights of the fires making them appear even more ghoulish. A light drizzle has begun to fall, and one of the torches in the back fizzles out with a HISS.

"Lucy Gray." At the head of the posse is Barnabus Foley, the Merchant apothecary. "We're sorry to disturb you and... the boy," he glances down his nose at me disdainfully. "But my daughter has run off with Maude Ivory's boy. They've eloped - the clerk showed me the papers they signed this afternoon at the Justice Building. Have you seen anything of them?"

"No, Barnabus," Lucy Gray apologizes, managing a pretty convincing yawn. "Haymitch and I have been home since we left your shop this morning. I was just getting him home to bed."

"Ones more bottle, Lu! Just one... more..." I decide to add to the charade by bellowing as drunkenly as I can.

Lucy Gray sends me a hairy eyeball. "Not another peep out of you," she scolds.

Barnabus nods graciously, then he and the whole posse stand aside. After a moment, Lucy Gray props me against her, and makes sure to lock her front door behind her. Dragging me through the parted crowd, she deposits me into the rocking chair on my front porch, whispering to me to stay there and shut up. Then she crosses back to her own house. "Is there anything else I can do for you gentlemen?"

"Well, if you hear word from Belle and that goddamn Everdeen boy... just holler." Barnabus turns back to his men. "Let's go, boys! Let's clear out!"

"Where else are we gonna look?" a miner grouses. "No sign of them in the Seam. They wouldn't have gone down one of the mine shafts, would they?"

"You might check the woods beyond the fence!" Lucy Gray calls out the suggestion to their retreating backs.

When they are gone, my mentor glances furtively about, races back across the street, grabs me and hauls me back into her house. Leaving me in the kitchen, I hear her pad down into the Telephone Room.

"All clear!"

Yarrow and Belle bound up the stairs, looking relieved and beyond grateful.

"How can we ever thank you?" Yarrow asks.

Lucy Gray glances between the couple with a small smile. "Just love each other and be true. Have you had your Toasting yet?" The Toasting is an informal tradition in District 12. No one here feels married until you've burned a bit of bread over the hearth and shared it.

Belle blushes. "No. We were... interrupted."

Yarrow's grey eyes suddenly brighten as he gets an idea. "We need witnesses! Would you and Mr. Abernathy like to witness our Toasting, Miss Baird?"

It might be just a trick of the moonlight, but I could swear that Lucy Gray's eyes are shimmering with tears. "We'd be honored. Have it right here. I'll stoke the poker!"

And so, barely able to stand up, I actually substitute for Barnabus Foley as I escort his only daughter, Belle, down a crude aisle made from my mentor's kitchen chairs. Lucy Gray uses the poker to start up a fire in her hearth, over which Yarrow toasts a piece of bread she hands to him. Slowly, reverently, Yarrow and Belle each feed one another a piece. Eyes growing heavy and solemn, Belle then tilts her head and permits her new husband to take her in his arms and kiss her. From the way she melts into it, I can tell: she is very much in love.

Lucy Gray actually hugs Yarrow as Belle floats over to me with a soft smile and pecks me on the cheek. "Thank you."

Yarrow then pumps my hand. "Thank you, Mr. Abernathy."

"It's Haymitch," I smirk at him. "But... you're welcome, Yarrow."

We see the newlywed Everdeens off Lucy Gray's porch and out of the Village. I don't know how they'll manage - a Merchant and a Seam miner married - but I wish them godspeed. Glancing to my mentor, I notice her wiping her wet eyes.

"What's got you so emotional?"

She fixes me with a long and thoughtful stare. "Promise me you won't tell anybody?"

I blink, realizing how serious she is. "I promise," I reply sincerely.

Stepping close, Lucy Gray whispers in my ear. When I draw back, I can't help but be a little teary myself.

"I'm happy for you," I tell her. And I am.