Chapter 8: The Divided Victors of Panem

Annie starts screaming.

Almost immediately, secret panels open in the walls and the imposing men with earpieces and dressed in suits charge into the room, guns drawn, which only sets our poor pregnant friend off all the more. Beetee and Peeta are trying to comfort Annie, while the rest of us are all talking at once.

"Madam President!" one of the men, known as a Secret Service agent, barks. "Are you all right? We heard…"

Paylor smiles tightly. "It's all right, Clint. Mrs. Cresta-Odair has a delicate disposition. I'm afraid this announcement has come as a bit of a shock."

The agent doesn't ask questions as to the details of that announcement, instead silently returning to his post.

By now, the hubbub has subdued considerably, though Annie is still rocking back and forth on the couch, muttering to herself. I think I hear the intonation of her deceased husband's name, lifted like a chant. "Finnick… I want Finnick…."

"Finnick isn't…" Johanna starts to say, but is silenced by Haymitch sending her a nasty warning look.

Naturally, it is Peeta who manages to right the ship again. "So, wait: Madam President, if I am following correctly, we are allowed to take a revote?"

Paylor dips her head to him. "You may, Mr. Mellark, or you can let the original results stand. Before she was… assassinated, President Coin had signed off on an executive order implementing the Games. It took some legal wrangling, but I didn't want to hold you to a decision you all made at a very different time, especially with the benefit of hindsight."

For a President who has managed admirably while in office, I find that Paylor is extremely easy to read – much like Peeta, in a way. But then again, maybe being obvious with one's own feelings and preferences shouldn't be part of a politician's job. Nevertheless, I can tell what result Paylor is hoping for, just as I should have been able to tell easily what outcome Coin had wanted all those weeks ago. In giving us the chance for a do-over, Paylor is hoping – betting even – that passions have cooled. That, with reconciliation already starting, we can move forward with malice towards none and charity for all. (Haymitch voiced the phrase to me once. It sounded like a quote, though he didn't mention to whom it was attributed).

Unfortunately for Paylor, she couldn't be more wrong.

"I stand by what I said last time, and will gladly say it again: enough with the Hunger Games! We rebelled to abolish the damn arenas, so let's bury them and be done with it!" Peeta states firmly.

Beetee nods gravely. "We're on the road to peace. Why take a detour just because it might make some people feel good only for a moment?" He eyes Johanna and Enobaria pointedly over the rim of his spectacles; both ladies ignore him. "My answer is still No."

"Um, are you forgetting who's been all ready to take away our pensions now?!" Enobaria scoffs. "Forget all the war crimes, even – I'll keep voting Yes just on that alone!" She seems satisfied at how Paylor cringes, despite how the President came from the former District 8 – the most rebellious district of all.

Johanna is smirking. "They say Snow's granddaughter's still alive and holed up in one of the orphanages. Say these Games went on: will the Reapings have soft fixes?"

The President now looks deeply uncomfortable. "We, uh… that is, it all depends on how the vote is decided."

"That's pretty much a Yes," Johanna's eyes gleam. "If Little Miss Princess is in, so am I!"

Peeta looks appalled. "You seriously know you can take time off from running an entire State for weeks, Johanna? You're a Governor!"

"That's right, Lover Boy – I am a Governor!" The axe girl from the former District 7 eyes my… my lover hard. "A Governor who watched her people beaten and enslaved in the logging camps from the time I was a toddler. I want my pound of flesh, just as much for them as for me!"

Peeta's eyes are swimming in a daze. "Blight didn't die for this!" He makes one last-ditch appeal to her – a little emotionally low and dirty, perhaps, but if anyone can hold his own in a debate, it's the Boy With the Bread. "He wouldn't stand for this!"

"Oh, yes, he would, and he'd been voting right along with me!" It's just a flicker, so brief that I almost miss it, but only in Johanna's eyes can I discern that even she isn't sure of what she's claiming.

"I vote No, just like before, in case that wasn't clear," Annie pipes up meekly, hands clutching her swollen stomach. "And I wouldn't be so great at mentoring, anyway – I only ever shadowed the others. I'd never…"

Peeta latches on to this like a dying man clings to a life preserver, looking triumphant. "You're really going to make an expecting mother mentor and watch kids die? It's not good for the baby!"

"Cut the sob story, Mellark…" Johanna snarls.

"She's pregnant – she CAN'T mentor!"

"Fine, so don't." Enobaria's eyes gleam as she rhetorically parries with dexterity. "Cresta would just be an odd girl out, anyway. If we're still going with 24 tributes, only six of us on hand to coach keeps us at even numbers. We'll just be assigned to double the cases than normal." She might be a bloodthirsty bitch, but when Enobaria puts it like that, it actual sounds reasonable.

"Fantastic! You cows want to stretch yourselves thin, be my fucking guests!" Peeta raises his hands, face roiled in a sneer. At the word 'cows,' Enobaria's eyes narrow dangerously, and even Johanna looks surprised, even disappointed, in my district partner. Like she expected better from him. I certainly did. Peeta's starting to sound more and more like his hijacked self in his passion… and I, for one, don't like it at all.

Something Johanna said moments ago sits in my craw just then, and I blurt out. "Wait: what are soft fixes?"

At this, Johanna begins to cackle with glee. "Oh, you sad, naïve little girl… just you wait – we're going to give you an ed-u-cat-ion!" I purse my lips, overwhelmed by the sinking feeling that I already know the answer to what Johanna is implying. I decide to let it inform my decision, if nothing else.

"Well, that's 3 against and 2 for – now why don't we let Katniss and Haymitch decide?" The President prompts.

Haymitch and I can both feel Peeta's stare burning holes in the side of our skulls, pleading. His impossibly blue orbs are almost adorably hopeful, so sure in his faith that we can redeem ourselves. The déjà vu alone is damn near debilitating. Last time, Haymitch's and my decision ultimately swung the vote. At the time, I had my reasons, much like Johanna did and does still. I voted for the sake of Prim because, knowing what I thought to be true at the time, I wanted to strike a blow against the Capitol for making my sacrifice into the Games essentially meaningless. The only reason I'm even here at all, if we trace the thread of events all the way back to its original source, is because of Prim, and to a lesser extent Effie Trinket, for pulling my sister's name from the Reaping Ball.

Knowing what I know now, however, I'm not so sure a 76th Games would assuage any of the shadows still clinging to me. In a way, Beetee is right: we might feel good in taking our revenge, but only for a moment. At the very least, it certainly doesn't make you full.

I'm allowed to stall in my ruminations by this time allowing Haymitch to voice his decision first. "I'm aligned with Johanna. The Capitol took quite a bit from me – 46 dead kids over a very long career. My family. That's close to 50 innocent folk whose souls need answering. I have a score to settle with these rubes, so let's settle it. I vote Yes."

We're all tied up, only this time, I, and not Haymitch, will be the vote that tips the scale, over whether the Hunger Games will stalk our land one last time. Peeta is begging with me, cajoling – I'm pretty sure he would bribe me with kisses if he thought it could ply the answer he wants to hear out of me.

"Katty… I know that last time you voted for Prim, and I understand why… but taking your grief out on Capitol children isn't going to bring her back. I'll even forgive the vote you took before if you'll just vote No now…."

I admit: the thought is tempting. I'm a sadder and wiser Katniss than I was even a handful of months ago. I understand now that the Capitol isn't even really to blame for what happened to Prim.

But… as I look around at all these people, I see Johanna, now in a place of trust on behalf of her people where once the Mayors of the former Districts were little more than Capitol puppets who were coerced into not caring about their people's will, if they ever cared about it to begin with. I see Annie, nursing her swelling belly, about to bring a baby into the world who, Panem willing, will never have to see the inside of an arena the way we did. Our children, now with the chance to have a better future than we did…

I've seen now, with the taste of getting to vote and speak for myself, how all of that can be so easily taken away, just as easily as it can be dangled like a sponsor gift over the heads of the people who so desperately yearn for it. The Capitol could rise again, history could repeat itself…

… unless we send it a warning shot.

"I vote Yes…. In the name of a free Panem."

I can't meet the eyes of any of the dissenters. Peeta is screaming at me, clearly not understanding my logic at all. Annie is bowing her head. It is actually Beetee's countenance that cuts the quickest, though I can't really explain why: he looks the picture of a crestfallen father disappointed in his wayward daughter.

Paylor sighs heavily. "The vote is upheld, 4 to 3 in favor of the 76th Hunger Games, falling along identical lines." She sighs again. "I had hoped it wouldn't come to this… but I am a woman of my word. There will be a Hunger Games this summer…"

"Sell-outs," Peeta is muttering darkly, glaring murderously at each of us in turn. "You're all SELL-OUTS!"

"Mr. Mellark, would you feel better about the judgment of your peers if I told you this Games will happen once, and only once?" Paylor's eyes are slits to make damn sure we don't miss her meaning.

Her expression doesn't hold a candle to Peeta's, whose scowl could split stone. "No."

The President doesn't acknowledge Peeta's continued objection. "The next issue then, is what to do about the arena? Plutarch has kept me abreast of their fates – sites for up to the planned 80th Hunger Games were in various stages of development at the time of the revolution, but these were all destroyed by the rebels. And we can't reuse an arena from a previous Games – my administration has something else in mind for them."

Peeta is starting to look hopeful. "That's it, then – if we can't build an arena in time, and we don't have one available, then we'll just have to cancel the whole kit and caboodle!"

Paylor is shaking her head. "I didn't say there wasn't one available. There is one way we could do it. Mike!"

A Secret Service agent appears out of the hidden panels. "Yes, Madam President?"

"Ready my motorcade. And would you kindly dismiss these fine people to wait out in the hall until our departure?"

"Right away, ma'am." Agent Ritter escorts us all out into the entryway of the presidential mansion, and leaves us alone.

The silence and the tension could cut butter. Of course, Peeta has to be the one to break it:

"I hope you're happy. I really hope it was all fucking worth it."

"Oh, it was," Johanna chuckles caustically, unapologetic, unremorseful. "But you know, Mellark, I'm getting really tired of your holier-than-thou shit…!"

"Oh, will you just STOP! You just have to make everything worse, don't you? You just have to have the last word, isn't that it, and who cares who gets hurt? All that blood on your hands… I bet you just bathe in it!"

"Yeah, I have actually, so thank you very fucking kindly for reminding me!" Johanna bites, and I have to cringe at Peeta's misstep. Confused in his memories or not, he should have remembered the blood rain from the clock arena.

Peeta doesn't give any indication that he's been knocked off-balance. "When did you become so bitter? What behooves any of you to say, 'Yeah, let's get our kicks now! Revenge is totally trending!' You're no better than Snow and his goons now, don't you understand that?! And you know what's worse, Johanna? This decision is going to come out, and you're going to make Annie, Beetee and me – you know, the people who actually HAVE a conscience – look bad. We all have to suffer because of your poor decision-making skills! Mason must be turning into a shithole state, with you in the Justice Building!"

"OK, you know what, I'm going to make you hear me, Lover Boy, so listen up and listen to me good: in case you haven't noticed, we're Victors, not saints. So don't pretend like you're all decent, because you're here, after taking the Crown and sitting in the Victors' Throne, same as we all did! No one ever won the goddamn Hunger Games by being a good person, so why pretend that we are now?"

At this point, I step into the breach. "Peeta is a good person. Finnick said once he's the only one who was a Victor by chance. Peeta's a damn sight more decent than any of us here!"

"Says the girl who can never tell just what he feels for her when he goes into a mania!"

Peeta snorts in disgust. "At least I didn't sing like a mockingjay while in prison the second the pressure got too great!"

Johanna now looks deeply hurt. She rocks on the balls of her feet a little bit, nearly bowled over. But then the Victor is back out to play and she snarls, lunging for my partner in a rage. "You SON-OF-A-BITCH!"

Shouts go up, and the factions split: Annie, Beetee and I are on one end holding Peeta back, while it takes the combined efforts of Haymitch and Enobaria to wrestle Johanna to the ground.

"Hey…. HEY! STOP IT!" Haymitch bellows.

"My mother was a bitch, actually, so you're not wrong there, for once, Mason! You're gonna have to do a little bit better than that!" Peeta trolls our friend.

"No, she won't! And you: shut the hell up!" Haymitch points at Peeta severely. "Time out! Foul! All of you: foul!"

Johanna giggles wickedly. "Ain't no time outs in the Games, Gin Rummy – only death!"

"We're not back in the Games yet!" Haymitch roars. He lets out a long breath. "I say: allies." Johanna is starting to say something, muscling around to get Peeta in her sights again, but Haymitch subdues her with a look. "We may have disagreements, but that doesn't mean we can't be friends. A difference of opinion shouldn't lead us to hating each other!"

Peeta snorts in disgust. "You're all talking like fools! Even you, old man!"

Now Haymitch is starting to lose his patience. "Look, Boy, if you're that intent on taking all your toys and going home, that's your business, but don't take it out on me…"

"Tough, because I am!"

I sigh. "Peeta…"

"Snow didn't kill Prim! Coin and Gale did! Ain't none of them so different, really! Chew on that when you're on the mentoring beat!" And my lover points between me and Haymitch, throwing up his hands. "You know what? I'm done. You two deserve each other! Have fun sightseeing with Paylor. Call me when the Victor's crowned and you've all gotten your ya-ya's out!" And he stomps into the nearest restroom, slamming the door behind him.

I gaze after him, crestfallen. If his goal was to make us regret our vote, then Peeta is already, probably, succeeding the most with me. I turn helplessly to Haymitch, who is only now letting a still-stewing Johanna Mason up off the floor.

"He's never going to forgive us… is he?"

"That's not our problem," Haymitch runs a tired hand through his blonde toupee. "We still have about three weeks for him to come around. He'll cool off."

If I know Peeta like I think I do, I'm inclined to doubt it.

Paylor finally emerges. If she heard the explosive argument, she doesn't let on. "Well, now, are we ready to proceed to the motorcade?" Eyes making a quick headcount, she falters. "Where's Peeta?"

"Sulking on the toilet like a little bitch," Enobaria shrugs flippantly.

Paylor pretends not to hear her. "Agent Ritter, go fetch Mr. Mellark, will you?" At his ducking away, the President regards each of us in turn. "Victors: how would you like a tour of the Capitol Arena?"

As President Paylor's motorcade winds through the city, I'm feeling a little confused over exactly what she means. The Capitol has an arena inside the city? But where? If such a complex exists, I've certainly never seen it. I've sat through enough Hunger Games History lectures to know that several Games took place under the backdrop of ruined cities – remnants from the ancient Americans… but I have a feeling that isn't what Paylor means here.

As we near the outskirts of the city, Peeta has finally bypassed being dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the presidential mansion (his shouts of, "I won't go! I WON'T GO!" echoed for miles to the point that I was starting to feel embarrassed for him, and for me) and is now just sullen, brooding darkly as he stares out the tinted windows of the limousine.

The motorcade finally rolls to a stop amidst what must be the closest things the Capitol has to ruins. Much of what was once here has been reclaimed by nature and other various undergrowth, but there is an imposing tan structure peeking out from under significantly less foliage and straining up towards the heavens.

We file out of the car, one by one, Haymitch making sure to strategically place himself between Peeta and Johanna. Annie is biting her lip, swaying on her feet and woozy in the summer heat. I'm pretty sure if it were possible to give up his wheelchair, Beetee gladly would so his fellow Victor could at least have a place to sit. As it is, Annie steadies herself as best she can by pushing Beetee's chair from behind; if she does faint from heatstroke, she'll have a body to catch her.

I glance back over the bridge behind us, which took us across a lazy river after passing through a tall wall on the other side of the expanse. There are plenty of missing bricks, chinks in the façade, and it makes me think to something Beetee told me in training before the Quell: there's always a flaw in the system…

"Perhaps it's just as well the Games are on: my team of scientists has been excavating this property anyway for historical preservation," Paylor tell us, as Agent Mike Ritter steps ahead of her to break in an old and rusty turnstile.

"What is this place?" I ask, dazed with wonder.

"This, my dear Mockingjay, was once the Capitol Arena, which served as the sight for the first ten Hunger Games."

Peeta perks up right then, demonstrating the most interest in this whole thing since the vote was taken. "Did you say the first ten Games…?"

One by one, we move past the turnstile and walk through a tunnel before finally emerging out into a circular space blanketed by an open sky.

The first thing I notice about this arena is that I can see the ends of it. We're actually walled in by stone and mortar. It can't be more than a hundred yards in diameter. There are seats and stands, even what might have once been a concession booth, stretching up on an incline and appearing seemingly endless. Through the humid haze, I can just make out the top ring of the space.

Pocketed along this sandy earth are craters of various shapes and sizes – yawning black chasms that lead down to somewhere unknown. Not far from these, scorch marks are still clearly visible – the remnants of a Gamemaker trap? I can't say for certain.

Haymitch is keeping himself remarkably surefooted, feeling around cautiously with his toes as he inches along the flat plain of the arena and towards the first steps leading up into the stands. I don't know to what degree he is plastered, if at all, and I know better than to ask, though I still watch him with a hovering and curious eye. He seems to be feeling, groping for something, ready to leap back at a moment's notice if need be. When he's able to mount the first several steps into the stands without resistance, he frowns, dazed. "So it is true."

"I… I don't understand…." Johanna breathes. "Shouldn't the Bar With Two Legs have encountered a force field by now?"

"There aren't any," Paylor smiles grimly. "The Capitol wouldn't have that kind of advanced technology perfected for another year, thus beginning the possibility of outdoor arenas."

Peeta and I share a significant look. "The 11th Hunger Games… Mags…" My lover's voice is broken as he remembers our friend. That little old lady was more of a pioneer than we ever knew.

Force fields aren't the only things that are missing. Unless the metal has completed deteriorated over decades (which I dobut), I don't see any signs that there even was a Cornucopia. In its place are two steel poles, one of them now leaning at a dangerous tilt. When I squint, I can discern a slice of very faded fabric wrapped around the pole that is still erect and upright, leading me to believe that this might have once been a flagpole, or something that held a banner.

There are the familiar pedestals, however; I wonder if the landmines are still activated. Though, at this early point in our country's history, did the pedestals even have landmines? I'm afraid to ask.

"This was the arena that hosted all the Hunger Games, up to and including the 10th edition," Paylor reiterates. Peeta, Haymitch and I all look at each other, hardly able to breathe. So this is where Lucy Gray Baird proved it was possible for a District 12 tribute to come home alive. "In those days, the Hunger Games were brief and rather disorganized. The Victor was usually decided within hours, if not minutes."

"Minutes…?" At Paylor's words, Peeta turns a ghastly shade of green.

"For the first decade, the tributes' battleground was merely this flat stretch of sand and rock here," Paylor makes a sweep at our feet. "Capitol citizens watched in the stands, sometimes close enough to see the whites of the competitors' eyes, and crudely bet on their favorites."

"And what is that?" Peeta points to a pixelated scoreboard standing proud and silent directly opposite the odd little concession stand, near the heights of the seating.

"That is a scoreboard. Before the betting statistics were well defined, this displayed a tribute's perceived ranking, and could shift manually at any given time. Think of it as a precursor to the tributes' faces being projected into the sky."

"So, why did this place shut down?" Annie asks.

"The rebels managed to bomb the arena just before the 10th Hunger Games, creating the tunnels that you see here." Paylor points to the holes in the ground. "These made for an interesting dynamic at the decade anniversary of the contest, but it was decided that having the Games in the same place year after year made it a tempting target for security risks. Outdoor arenas were constructed and scattered throughout the country as soon as the technology had advanced enough."

Enobaria looks awestruck, and perhaps somewhat haunted. It does feel like we've been dropped into an old ghost story. "Maximus used to talk about this place, what it was like… but I didn't think…"

"What? That it was real?" Peeta sneers. The last living Career avoids his eyes.

I turn to Haymitch, mind and soul quivering with curiosity but also deep, deep fear about what we might find if we dig far enough. He just nods.

We're dismissed to go home after our guided tour of the Capitol Arena, to rest up for the three weeks until the Reaping. Though he's mellowed, I can tell Peeta is still dead-set against having any part of what he feels is nothing more than a sham, and I wonder if he'll try and call Aurelius in a desperate attempt to get out of it. If Annie can decline with a legitimate excuse, on account of pregnancy, who's to say Peeta might not try and use his own psychological fragility as an out?

We arrive back on Victors' Hill in Everdeen just as dusk is settling in two days after we toured the Capitol Arena, dragging ourselves into Haymitch's mansion just in time to hear the ringing of his landline phone. The drunk picks up.

"Abernathy. Oh, hey, Beetee… yeah, sorry, we just got in. Uh-huh… she's here, I can put her on." He passes the phone to me. "It's for you."

Frowning in bemusement, I take the call. "Hello? Beetee?"

"Katniss. Good. I tried calling your house, and then Peeta's but they both went to voicemail. Um… I have your mother holding on another line to patch her through. She wants to speak to you."

"Oh." My heart seesaws in indecision, uncertain of my feelings over my mother finally wanting to talk to me. I'm even less sure of what to say. "O-Ok…. Put her on."

There is a brief dial tone, during which I'm given time to think. I didn't know Beetee even talked to my mother regularly, though I do understand they've been working together at Victor's Mercy, the Capitol hospital.

"Go ahead, Belle," Beetee encourages.

I also didn't know Beetee and Mother were on a first-name basis, I frown curiously. It's all I can ponder before Mother is speaking to me quite severely.

"Katniss Magenta, young lady, I am very disappointed in you!"

I sigh, already knowing where this is going. "Mother…"

"Voting to hold another Hunger Games when you know how much it affected you! Affected our family! And for what? To take out your anger on Capitol children…!"

In the sitting room, I can hear Haymitch's television going with coverage: "Breaking News: the seven surviving Hunger Games Victors have once again voted to hold a final, 76th Hunger Games, this time using Capitol children as tributes. Cressida Blunt has more of the story from the great state of Odair…"

"Mother: I'm not a Healer. I don't form attachments with Capitolites like you are, treating them for bulimia or the latest fashion accident!" I snap coolly. "If you want to be mad about anything or at anyone, be mad at yourself for not calling me in over three damn months!"

"Katty…." Mother sighs, and I can feel how my words have stung her through the phone, but don't very much care.

"Katniss…" Beetee oddly chooses this moment to try and butt in.

"I've gotta go to bed. Goodbye." I slam the receiver down so hard, the cradle chips. Glancing up, I can see Peeta and Haymitch watching me sympathetically from the edge of the sitting room. Haymitch slowly lets a nervous grin creep across his face.

"Guys…?"

Slowly, Haymitch pulls a videotape from underneath his jacket in the same way a Mafioso might brandish a gun before a shootout. "Are you ready?"

Peeta nods gravely. "It's time we found out what went on here…" Taking the tape gingerly from Haymitch, he shakes it emphatically. "This entire Games and its Victor was hidden. Nearly erased: why?"

And he turns to the holoTV set, popping the videotape of the 10th Annual Hunger Games, the first won by District 12, into the player.