Chapter 66: Taylor Musslin

Matthew Harbuckle bounded into the mansion in Victors' Village he shared with his wife of seven years, his two stepchildren, and their shared baby boy. He had managed to get a waiver exempting him from Mandatory Viewing for the Reading of the Card tonight while he made his late-night postman rounds across District 8. Coming around from the foyer, he found his beautiful wife, her back to him, staring at the black TV screen.

"Hey, baby!" he called. "Where are the kids?"

"Across the street. With Grandpa Woof and Aunt Taylor." The dead quality to his bride's voice was the first sign Matthew had that something was wrong. Maybe she was just tired. Playing mother to three little ones – well, two little ones and a teenager; Cardella would soon be midway through her Reapings at 15 – was draining, plus being a faithful and devoted, loving wife. It just made her life as a Victor, mentoring during the summers, all the harder. But Matthew had told her when they'd gotten married that he was all in, even with the hard stuff.

He strode up behind her now, cupping a hand to her silky cheek and turning her face into his lips. "Evening, beautiful." He kissed her passionately, but she didn't move to return it at first.

Then, all at once, her fingers were in his hair, and she was moaning with an almost desperate quality. Before long, she had made an attempt to climb him like a tree, jerking her hips, and while Matthew loved it when his wife was turned on, she was moving fast, too fast. He choked into her plundering lips and shivered when she felt her dainty hands move past his waistband into his underwear so that could cup him, stroke him. Groom and ready him for her.

Matthew suddenly realized his face was wet, and to his ever-increasing panic, he realized it was because Cece was crying.

"Cece? Babe, what is it? You're scaring me!"

Her lips tore from his almost violently, as she gasped for air, her gorgeous breasts heaving in a way that was almost hyper-ventilating, and she was now caressing his face, expression utterly broken but full of love.

"I, Cecelia Rheys, promise to love and cherish you…"

Matthew blinked, recalling the vows she had nervously but happily given on their wedding day. "Whoah, whoah, whoah, what are you doing?"

"Renewing my vows to you before I die…" she sobs.

Die? Matthew's head was swimming, a gnawing, icy feeling wrapping like a noose around his heart. And then he got it.

Oh, the State preserve us.

"No!" he croaked out.

"What?" Cecelia whimpered, looking hurt.

"You don't get to marry me again until they call a name at the Reaping. Until we get out of this together. OK? Now just keep your chin up and breathe, all right?" He held her close and she melted against him, letting out ugly, wracking sobs.

"It's me they want, Matthew… They'll kill our children!"

"Never!" he thundered. He would die himself before he ever let that happen.

"But darling, they will! You know they will!" And then she was kissing him again, even more insistent this time, and when she gallingly hooked her leg behind his knee, he let her leap into his arms.

"Matthew…. Mmm…. You have to kiss me – now!... Hmmm…"

Matthew knew better than to disobey his wife, especially when she was hot and ready for it, and now she needed him, more than ever. And so he carried her away, up to her room and their bed, where he made sweet love to her.

They lay naked and tangled in the sheets many hours later that night, still panting and sweaty. The moon was high in the sky. Between his wife's breathy moans as he had pounded into her, Matthew had heard – or thought he heard – someone come in downstairs. The voices of his children: Cardella, Aaron, baby Milo. Taylor. Possibly Woof. Eventually, the murmurings quieted and he figured one of the others had brought the kids over to their place, or Cardella had rounded everyone up and they were sleeping in the downstairs bedroom.

His wife was now lightly stroking his chest, her head tucked into the crook of his neck. Matthew played with the chestnut strands of her curly hair.

"You OK?"

He felt her nod against him. "Yeah. I'm fine. It's just…." she trailed off lamely, but she didn't have to explain. After seven years of marriage, and many more years of friendship/unrequited loving from him before he finally wore her down, Matthew and Cecelia could read each other better than anyone. That was the intimacy that came from marriage – knowing all the other person's faults and yet loving them anyway.

"It could be Taylor, you know," he mumbled, kissing the swell of her breasts and causing her to let out an aroused hiss. "They could call your name at the Reaping and she could volunteer."

Cecelia shook her head. "I can't ask her to do that. And she won't. She's been out not even a decade herself."

"And you weren't even out that long, either, when she won!" Matthew didn't know how he had suddenly gotten so angry, but it was over the injustice of it all. The kids were probably going to lose their mother, but Taylor could prevent it. Poor Woof didn't have and never had anybody who could protect him from his name in the Reaping Bowl a second time. "She has to take one for the team."

Cecelia moaned, eyes filling with tears, reaching for him. He had been a part of their lives in the Village for years, even before they had fallen in love and gotten together, but even then, he would never understand what it was truly like to be a Victor. "Matthew…"

"No, Cece! Taylor has to be the one! For the good of the family, and the Village. I… I can't lose you again!" And he broke down, remembering how it had felt to visit her in the Justice Building eighteen years ago and not work up the nerve then to tell her he loved her. "I can't... not again."

He felt her soft hand cup his cheek, lift his eyes to meet hers. Her big and brown orbs wide and touched and full of love, Cecelia wound her arms about his neck and kissed him deeply.

"If I went in and won again…. no one would have to step up," she croons.

"We don't know what will happen…"

"Hey – it's you and me. We're a family. What could happen?"

"You could die." He pointed out the obvious, and it echoed like a slap across the face.

Cecelia played with the nape of his neck, kissing his nose lightly, then his lips again. It was a time before she spoke:

"Do you remember, after our first date? The morning after our first night together?"

He wetly grinned like a loon at the memory; he had been in awe of her. It was better than he had dreamed. He nodded.

"Do you remember leaving here to go to work at the factory? Well, not ten minutes after you left, Indigo is on my front porch and demanding to know if I slept with you, and why. I told her we were engaged, and she about had a fit. She thought I was kidding, at first. You wanna know what I said?"

He nodded.

"I said, 'I slept with him because he earned it, and I agreed to marry him because he's also earned that after waiting forever for me.' That was when she gave us her blessing." Cecelia sighed. "It just makes me all the sadder…. Oh, honey…. I'm afraid. I'm…. I'm scared of not being with you."

He almost lost it all over again right there. "That'll never happen, baby…" And he kisses her fiercely, holding her close to his chest.

"Urgggh….. Huhhhh…. Uhhhh…. Faster….. Faster…."

"Fuck, Cece…."

"HARDER! Fuck me harder!"

Taylor and the others could hear Cecelia and her husband Matthew practically shouting as they shagged from all the way downstairs. In between all the groans and the cursing, the creak of the bedsprings was an underscore of metronome-perfect time, in case anyone was still left to their imagination over what the couple was doing. Looking over at her surrogate niece, Taylor could see Cardella (at 15, Cecelia's eldest and only daughter had been given the talk regarding the birds and the bees) biting her lip.

Seated on her lap, Aaron, the middle child at age 10, tugged on her sleeve. "Auntie Taylor? What are Mommy and Daddy doing?"

Taylor cringed as she bounced the inquisitive little boy in her arms. "Mommy and Daddy are…. are playing a game," she improvised lamely (she could feel Cardella's wince from clear across the room).

Aaron's eyes shone. "Can I play too?"

"NO!" Taylor squeaked, a little too sharply, and Aaron sat back, frowning and blinking, feeling left out. She kissed the top of his head. "Not until you're older, sweetie." She made herself shut up while she was still ahead, lest she risk traumatizing the boy accidentally.

A gurgling sound made everyone's eyes snap to baby Milo, crawling around obliviously on the floor. He was 2 and teething, but a happy, curious little boy. Once he scooted close enough, Cardella silently picked him up and drew him into her lap. The teenager's eyes were still wide with fear, and Taylor couldn't blame her.

The minute Snow read the card, Cecelia had stood in a panic, shaking like a leaf. "Can't go back… won't go back…" she had warbled out, gasping, before bursting into wails and drawing her three babies close, kissing each of them fiercely. The moment mandatory programming had ended, she had sent them all to Taylor's place across the street, and while they were gone, apparently jumped her husband's bones, granting herself just enough self-control to drag him into their bedroom upstairs before having her way with her husband.

As if on cue (which would have been a first for him, Taylor thought wryly), Woof himself appeared, bundled in a parka and with a shovel over his shoulder.

"Woof? Where are you going?" Taylor asked in a deadpan, bracing herself for a wild answer.

"Shovel the steps…." Woof answered without even looking at her, seemingly voicing the response for himself as much as for her. "Shovel the steps…"

Taylor glanced out the window. March had come in like a lion, and clearly wasn't going to go out like a lamb, intent on leaving District 8 in the death grips of winter until the bitter end.

"It's 20 degrees outside!" she gawped. "And the middle of the night!"

Woof had a perplexed look on his face, and even pulled back the sash from the window over the kitchen sink, as if to make sure Taylor was right. "Oh," he stated almost mildly. "Where has the day gone? I'd best make supper…."

"We already had supper, Grandpa Woof," Cardella stated patiently. "Remember? Before we watched the mandatory programming."

Woof blinked rapidly for a moment. "So we did." Another pause, and then: "Wait, when did you get here?"

Sighing, Taylor set Aaron down, turning to Cardella. "Honey, why don't you take them into your room and get them dressed for bed?"

Cardella nodded, scooping up Milo. Wanting to look like he was doing something, Woof corralled them. "Always did like having houseguests passing through. Come on, be good children, the guest room is this way…"

"We're not houseguests, Grandpa Woof. We're at our house. And it's me, Cardella. Your granddaughter?" Taylor heard the teenager saying.

"Oh, of course, my dear! How could I forget?"

Dementia. That's how, Taylor thought tragically as she stood and turned out the living room light, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders. Crossing to the window, she stared out at the snow flurries coming down in a torrent; even through the blizzard, she could make out the single light, bobbing like a sentinel, in the Tribute Graveyard at the edge of the Village. The light was never supposed to go off, after being placed there six months ago at Indigo Weaver's funeral, when she joined poor Savera Inchcape in the ground; the 9th Victor had departed this life soon after baby Milo was born.

Indigo. Eight's third Victor and the winner of the very first Quarter Quell half a century ago. By the State, what would she make of this fiasco? No doubt she would volunteer for you and for Cece, even if the Reaping probably would have been rigged to send her back in.

Indigo, the fierce old lady who had loved Cece's babies like they were her own flesh-and-blood grandchildren. Indigo, who had helped Woof give away Cecelia at her wedding and held her hand through every birth.

"FUCK!" A particularly piercing wail wafted down from upstairs, and Taylor cringed again. She and Matthew had better try keeping it down; the little ones were trying to sleep! All the same, she could hardly fault her former mentor. The twist had compelled Cecelia to need to have somebody, to feel, to forget…. And she loved Matthew more than she loved anybody. The man had apparently needed to ask her one hundred and forty-seven times before she agreed to a first date. When he had proposed, he'd only needed to ask once. They were a lovely couple, if also a little eccentric. They weirdly suited each other.

And now, a wife had a 50-50 chance of being Reaped for the arena again. A mother had a 50-50 chance of being taken away from her babies. Poor Woof had a reservation for the arena already in his name – an eighty-year-old grandpa, forced to compete again after more than six decades… it was indecent! It was unjust! It also reflected on how shameless the Capitol could be.

Panem alive, how she wished Indigo and Savera both were still here! If she was, Indigo would have allowed herself to be tapped again, and probably old Abernathy in 12 would be fixed in right along with her – the prospect of the past two Quarter Quell Victors meeting in the arena again would have been too good to pass up. Some talking head in the Capitol somewhere would bring it up and bemoan this tragically missed opportunity.

If Indigo was still here, she would go in before she ever saw Cece or Savera or Taylor herself go back, and all these problems, all these thoughts, would be solved.

For as she listened to the continued creak of the bedsprings (though these were quieting), Taylor knew that only nine years on the outside for her was not enough. No amount of years would be enough before she would ever be ready to go back. So, as cruel as it was, Taylor desperately wished that Hermia Flutter would call Cecelia's name at the Reaping first. If she, Taylor, was called, she was fairly certain that Cecelia wouldn't volunteer willingly, letting her former tribute take the fall. Taylor couldn't resent her for that possibility if it did come to pass.

But that didn't stop the guilt from lacerating her insides as she thought about what she would do if Cecelia's name was called this summer. Or, more accurately, what she would not do.

To District 8's credit, people wept openly when Woof was called, even though the outcome had never been in doubt for months.

Then Hermia turned to the women's bowl and Taylor squeezed her eyes shut tight.

"Cecelia Rheys!"

Taylor exhaled, and stood back.

Cecelia was starting to take her place, when three little heads of hair rushed the stage, sobbing and clinging to her. Cecelia spoke to Cardella, Aaron and Milo as tenderly as she always did, trying to tell them that Mommy had to go before clinging to them all the tighter.

Taylor's conscience throttled her. It still wasn't too late. She could volunteer right now and halt this truly macabre scene. But her mouth couldn't form the words.

And then it was too late. Cecelia took her place, and she and Woof Barton were introduced as the tributes for District 8.

As the pair of Victors walked into the Justice Building, a distraught Cardella glared at her surrogate aunt, and Taylor ashamedly turned her face away, the tears glistening.

You're a coward, Taylor Musslin. You're a godammn, yeller-bellied coward.

She would make up for it, though. She would mentor Cecelia and Woof every step of the way until they both went down in the Bloodbath. Then, when Katniss Everdeen destroyed the forcefield and everything went to shit, Taylor would help evacuate as many Victors as she could, guiding Haymitch to Plutarch's personal hovercraft while the old drunk had to practically carry Connor Murphy over his shoulders. Then, as the ship took off, she would go out in a blaze of glory, blowing up the landing platform and taking a battalion of those Peacekeeper fuckers with her.

Taylor Musslin may have been a coward when it mattered most…. but she was also a hero when it counted.