The Tribute

I can't wait to get home.

My coronation as victor had been an absolute nightmare. I'd challenged myself to watch every second of the games recap without looking away, just to show the Capitol that they hadn't broken me. Even though every glimpse of Ramona 2.0 and Fawkes had sent daggers of guilt and regret through me. Watching Fawkes transform into that thing again...

The moment the cameras were turned off, I'd stumbled backstage and found a bucket to vomit into. Wiress helped me clean up. I would've expected Ramona to help but she has issues with vomit. Understandable, given what her poison had done to the Careers.

The strangest thing about being a victor is how different the other victors look afterwards. Maybe it's because I can finally view them as equals. I can talk to Wiress and Beetee, thinking about all the things they'd done in the arena, and then remember that I'd done those things as well. I'd used technology to win, just like they had.

But, now I'd won the Hunger Games, now I'd programmed a drone to drop acid on a girl's face, their feats didn't seem so impressive. They were just like me, once. They were teenagers who were reaped and had to fight for their lives the only way they knew how. Now the veil has lifted, I can see how broken they were by their experiences.

As for Ramona, she seems exhausted. All the polish and glamour that had made her seem more like a Capitolite than a District 3 victor has been stripped away during the games. It's only on the train back to District 3 that I realise she's only three years older than me. She was seventeen when she'd won her games, eighteen - my age - when she'd married Alexander Snow. Ramona had always seemed much older, but now I can see that she was just a girl who'd got herself caught up in something much bigger than she was. The cold, regal persona she'd built up was just a way of protecting herself.

Underneath the mask, I can tell she's just as lost as I am.

It's late evening when the train pulls into the station. The sun is only just beginning to set as we step out of the train and onto the platform, casting a beautiful, golden light over the world. I feel relieved to be able to see the sky again but sadness cuts through it. I can't help but think of something that Fawkes had said while he was dying.

"I miss the sky."

The platform is crowded with people waving home-made signs and cheering for me. Most of them are complete strangers. As I'm rushed towards a car by peacekeepers, Ramona following me, I scan the crowd for my parents. I have a hope that, maybe what I'd done in the arena would get them off my back. Now I'm a victor, one of the most successful people in the district, they won't need to pressure me any more to succeed.

Maybe, watching me come close to death so many times, has taught them that I have a value. Maybe they came so close to losing me that they'll love me like they're supposed to, for fear of losing me again.

But I don't see them at the station.

I only start to feel worried when the car pulls up in front of my house and the peacekeepers open the door. They just pull out a set of keys and open it. They don't even knock.

"You could just knock." I point out. "My parents might be stubborn but they'll open the door for a peacekeeper."

"Your parents aren't in." One of the peacekeepers says. "They were executed for cyber-crime a week ago."

My world collapses. My parents executed? For cyber-crime?

"There has to be a mistake." I say. "My parents would never break the law. They're teachers, not criminals!"

"That's not what the computer we confiscated from this building says." The peacekeeper replies.

My heart sinks. That must've been my computer the peacekeepers had confiscated. I'd been involved in so much cyber-crime. Maybe I hadn't covered my tracks well enough.

Maybe they'd executed my parents because of me.

"That must've been my computer!" I blurt out. "I was a hacker. I blackmailed peacekeepers like you under the name TakedaLives68. I leaked the odds of last year's games. I'm the one who did all those things. My parents didn't even know what I was doing. They thought I was using the computer to study."

"I'm sorry, Miss Katayanagi." The peacekeeper says, infuriatingly calmly, like he hasn't even heard what I've just said. "There's nothing we can do."

I'm about to say something else but Ramona steps in.

"Miss Katayanagi is very tired from her long journey. Perhaps we could do this tomorrow morning, when she's rested. She can spend the night at my house. There's plenty of space and I've already had most of my belongings moved there."

As we climb back into the car, she hisses something in my ear.

"I'll explain everything. Just wait until we get inside."

I sit on Ramona's sofa, my hands curled around a cup of peppermint tea. Ramona's tearing through the room like a whirlwind, searching for something. While I wait for her to finish, I experimentally take a sip of my tea. It's much too bitter, the flavour of mint too strong. Maybe Ramona sucks at making tea or maybe this is just how she likes it.

My parents are dead. They might have not been the best parents. But the more I think about it, the more I'm sure that they'd loved me. Panem's a harsh place. Maybe they'd felt like they'd needed to be harsh to make me ready for it. Maybe they'd been so focused on making me ready, keeping me safe, they hadn't been able to show me any love.

I'll never be able to ask them.

When Ramona's satisfied with whatever search she'd been doing, she sits down next to me.

"What's going on?" I ask her.

"There's no easy way to say this." Ramona says. "You were rigged into the games because the Capitol knew you were a hacker."

I laugh, a little hysterically. "That's ridiculous. They execute hackers. They don't put them in the games. Because if the hacker won the games, the Capitol would be really screwed, wouldn't they?"

I feel a small surge of pride for messing up the Capitol's plans. The Capitol have no way of executing me now. Because I'm a victor and victors are untouchable.

"There may have been another reason." Ramona says. "You're also eighteen, and pretty fit by Three standards. Remember when I told you that Alexander... was dead?"

"Yeah..." I say, a little uncertainly. "What does that have to do with me being reaped?"

"He was poisoned. Five days into the games, when I wasn't around because I was busy mentoring a strong tribute in a strong alliance."

It takes me a second to wrap my overwhelmed brain around what Ramona had just said. I'd been rigged into the games because a complete stranger with a lot of power had wanted someone dead and I was just caught in the crossfire. I'd just been an unwitting, expendable piece in a political game much bigger than me and it had almost killed me.

It had almost killed me. But I wasn't the only person in the arena.

"Fawkes." I say. "Was he..."

"I think so." Ramona says.

"So they killed him, they tried to kill me... because they wanted to kill your husband." I say.

Ramona nods, silently.

"That's so much death." I say. "Did they kill my parents to punish me for the hacking. Because they couldn't kill me after I'd won?"

"Not just for the hacking." Ramona says. "Seneca Crane didn't take kindly to being insulted, by you or by Fawkes."

"What did Fawkes do?" I ask, suddenly curious. He must've insulted Seneca Crane really badly to deserve... that.

"Tributes aren't supposed to use the arena to their advantage like Fawkes did." Ramona says. "It looks like they're doing a better job at being gamemakers than the gamemakers."

I remember Fawkes' interview, what Caesar had said.

"Watch out, Seneca Crane! Someone's after your job!"

He'd been doomed from the start...

I try to shake off all my thoughts of Fawkes and honour one of his last wishes. Don't let me hurt you when I'm dead.

It doesn't work.

"I want to destroy them, Ramona." I say, tears burning my eyes. "I want to make them suffer. For everyone they've killed."

"I know." My mentor says. "But you can't let them see it. If they see it, they'll do everything in their power to hurt you until you stop.

"What do I do?" I ask.

"You wait." Ramona says. "Until the right moment to strike."

Binah learns the hard way that giving the head gamemaker the middle finger will never end well. Now Binah's parents are dead. She might not have had the best relationship with her parents but they'd only been trying to keep her safe, even if they'd gone the wrong way about it and completely alienated her. Now she'll never be able to repair her relationship with them. If there's one good thing about Binah losing her parents, it's that she now has no loved-ones left, apart from Ramona, who's becoming her closest friend. Since Ramona's a victor and she's as safe from death as one can be in Panem, it's unlikely that the Capitol will ever be able to force Binah into prostitution or an arranged marriage. There's simply no-one left that they can threaten.