Two Weeks Later

The moonlight that permeated through the curtains cast a faint glow on the sleeping figure of Cerise's husband, sleeping peacefully in their bed. Cerise watched the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest, desperately fighting off the sleep that threatened to take over her body. She couldn't sleep until her task for the night was complete.

For what must have been the thousandth time that night, Cerise looked over at the clock on the wall, hoping that it had advanced more than the last time. But its red numbers still taunted her, reading just 2:35. Cerise groaned. Why couldn't time move along? Why did it have to advance slowly, dragging her along at whatever pace it wanted? She wished the gears inside would turn just a little faster, so the clock could finally strike three.

It seemed as though she'd been waiting for it to be three in the morning for hours.

At least it was finally time to get ready to go. Cerise stripped off her pajamas and put on her most professional outfit: a white blouse, black tights, a black pencil skirt, and a purple blazer with the seal of the Capitol embroidered on its lapel. Delicately, she picked up a pair of black pumps and placed them next to the door. Then, she went into her office and unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk. Carefully, Cerise removed a communication device, a small handgun, and an elastic band. She slid the communication device into her pocket, then hitched up her skirt and placed the handgun on her thigh, making sure that the safety was on so it did not fire by mistake. Pointing the barrel of the gun down towards her foot, she slid the elastic band up her leg until it was securely around the gun's grip. Cerise walked around for a few moments, making sure that she could move just as comfortably and confidently as she could without a gun strapped to her leg. Once she was content with her gait, she picked up a badge, which indicated that Cerise was acting on express orders from the President, and a key that was resting on her desk.

Cerise was decidedly not acting on express orders from the President, and she wasn't even supposed to know that a key to Alexios's cell existed.

Cerise took a moment to survey the room around her, making sure she hadn't missed anything that she was supposed to bring. Feeling satisfied in her preparations, she stole another look at the clock, its red light beginning to overtake the moon, which was disappearing behind the mountains.

The good news was that time was finally passing. The bad news was that it was still only 2:50.

Cerise wracked her brain for anything she could think of that she still had to do, any task she could set her mind to, but there was nothing. No, for another ten minutes, she was stuck alone with her thoughts.

And she really did not want to think.

See, the more Cerise had time to think about her plan, the less she liked it. Sure, it was her plan – she'd been the one to suggest it to Alexios, she'd been the one to go out of the way to acquire the gun, she'd been the one to orchestrate the timing of the entire operation, of which her actions tonight were just the first part – but now that the day had finally come to execute the plan, she could feel herself getting cold feet. Perhaps there was some way to take the plan she'd set up and make it so that its outcome was less gruesome, less guaranteed that someone was going to end up hurt. But she needed to have had those ideas weeks ago. There was nothing she could do now, not on the night of, not with the clock ticking down to her leg of the operation.

Unless…

Unless she talked to Alexios.

But would Alexios listen to her? What reason did he have to? He was in charge, after all; the decision on whether or not to go through with the plan was fundamentally his. She might have come up with the idea, but it had become his plan from the minute that she presented it to him and he liked it. He was the one to present it to the others, he was the one to finalize the timetable, he was the one who was putting his life on the line for their cause.

Well, his life was on the line for his cause, but his cause wasn't exactly Cerise's cause. She'd done a good job of convincing him that their goals were the same, and to a large extent they were; even if they had different visions, they were both acting for the good of the country. They just had different visions of what was best for Panem.

Her vision included the Games. His vision did not.

Cerise shook herself out of her head. There was nothing she could do here, in her room, to change the outcome, to prevent what she currently saw as inevitable; she had to go talk to Alexios to have any shot of changing his mind, of changing the plan, of keeping her loved ones safe.

Because in the end, they were still her loved ones, after all.

Cerise stole another glance at the clock. Its menacing red numbers blinked: 2:58.

It was time.

As resolutely as she could, Cerise walked over to the door and slid her heels on. She had to move forward; there was nothing else she could do. Quietly, so as not to wake her sleeping family, Cerise opened the door, and slipped out, making sure that she heard the lock click as she shut it behind her. Straightening herself out, she stood up straight and began walking down the hall, towards whatever the future had in store.

She could only hope she was making the right choice.

As the door closed, Ruby let out a sigh of relief. Days like these, where she had meeting after meeting after meeting, were rewarding, but at Ruby's age, they took a lot out of her. All she wanted was to take some time to rest, but there was no time for that. Not on a day like today.

Reaching into the top drawer of her desk, Ruby pulled out a thick piece of paper and placed it on her desk, the words Transfer of Power staring back at her. The title of the document was slightly misleading, as it did not actually initiate a transfer of power; constitutionally, a president could only stop being president if that person was on their deathbed. What the Transfer of Power paperwork did was formally declare who would take power when the president died. Yes, there was technically a process of constitutional amendment to change this law and to allow a president to step down. But given that Ruby had been prevented from making changes to any major institution of Panem for the first twenty-five years of her term, she hadn't even bothered to try to understand the needlessly complicated process laid out in the constitution.

Maybe Garnet would be able to make sense of the legal mumbo-jumbo when he became president.

That was the good thing about signing this document. While Ruby had been informally training Garnet to be her successor for quite some time now, signing this document allowed her to give her son access to more classified information. She'd begun the process of cluing him in when he signed the document a few weeks prior, just in case something happened to Ruby that prevented her from briefing her son.

The other reason she'd clued him in early was that Ruby had no reason not to sign the document. She just… wasn't ready yet.

For her entire presidency, Ruby had been focused on gaining control of Panem. Her grandfather had stunted her ability to do anything for so long that it was as if she was drowning, floundering in an ocean of laws and regulations that he had just never explained to her. It took quite some time for her to right herself, for her to figure out how to make the changes to Panem that she wanted to make, to create a country that was hers, not her grandfathers. And as soon as she put her pen to paper and signed her name, she was relinquishing some of that control to Garnet. Sure, she trusted her son – he'd proven time and time again that he thought the same way she did about Panem's future, and she was proud to pass the country to him – but there was something scary about giving up the full control she'd worked so hard to obtain.

But she couldn't keep stalling any longer. She could tell him all she wanted, but there were documents Ruby could not share with her son until her signature was on that page. It was only fair to him to sign this document now.

She would not make the same mistakes her grandfather did.

Taking a deep breath, Ruby picked up a pen and signed her name on the line, then carefully stamped the seal of Panem next to it. The deed was done.

As Ruby leaned back in her chair, she noticed the door in front of her creak open. That was concerning; she'd specifically insisted that nobody was to come into her office unless it was a matter of national security. She stood up as the door opened all the way, revealing a white-suited Peacekeeper, visor obscuring his face. The figure turned around and closed the door behind them. "I think you ought to sit down," the deep voice said gravely.

"What's going on?"

She barely had a moment to react before the figure turned, a firearm that seemingly appeared out of nowhere held out in front of him. His visor was flipped up now, revealing the sadistic brown eyes of Alexios Nox.

Ruby was so shocked that she barely even felt the impact of the first bullet as it hit her stomach.

The only decoration on the wall of Alexios's cell was a single clock, its hands making a perfect right angle at this hour of the night.

He was lucky to have that, even. From what he heard, most people who ended up in these high-security cells didn't have anything to indicate the passage of time. He'd only managed to get a clock because he turned himself in; as a reward for cooperating with the Capitol, Ruby was willing to grant him one small request while they waited for the Events to finish so they could begin his trial.

Panem forbid anything get in the way of media coverage of her precious Events.

The second hand ticked by slowly, passing the twelve once, then again, then again. It was a few minutes past three now, and while he knew that Cerise had planned to leave at three, he couldn't help but wonder if she'd forgotten about their plan. So much of what he – no, what they had been working for was finally coming to fruition, and Alexios didn't want anything to get in the way of the goal he'd been working towards for years.

As Alexios waited patiently, or as patiently as he could, he could faintly make out the clicking sounds of high heels through the steel walls of his cell. The sound slowly grew louder, echoing across the empty hallway, before abruptly stopping, as two muffled voices began to converse. Alexios desperately tried to make out a phrase, or even a word, but he had no luck; these walls were truly soundproof. Finally, the door opened, and Cerise Emerald stepped into the room, pulling the door closed behind her with a resounding clang.

"We should be ok to talk," Cerise said, making sure that the door was securely closed. "I asked the guard to leave us be and keep our meeting under wraps, as this is Presidential business. But keep your voice down just in case." Cerise tapped the badge hanging around her neck with a slight smile.

"Cameras?"

"I assume there are cameras but it shouldn't matter; when someone comes in on Presidential business, the guards put a marker in the security footage so only the President can access the tapes. If my mother even finds out that I've been here, it'll likely be too late to do anything about it."

"Fantastic. Give it to me."

Cerise took a communication device out of her pocket and handed it to Alexios. Then, she delicately reached under her skirt and slid a small handgun out. Alexios felt his eyes widen as he reached for it. But Cerise hesitated to extend her own arm out to his. "Before I do…"

"What's up?"

"I… I'm a bit nervous about the plan."

"What do you have to be nervous about?" Alexios exclaimed, trying his best to keep calm. "We've planned this all out perfectly, pretty much down to the minute."

Cerise took a moment. "Promise me you won't kill my mother."

"Huh?"

"We've talked about this plan at length, I know, and we need her out of the way. But is there any way you can do something when you get into that room so she doesn't have to die? Get her to do something with the transfer of power paper she has so it goes to me and not Garnet, get her to throw it out, I don't know, I just… we might not agree on everything but she is my mom and I'm not ready to see her die."

"Hey, come here, look at me," Alexios cooed, placing his hand under Cerise's chin as if she was a child and bringing her eyes up to meet his. "I can do my best, but I can't make any promises. This is a very dangerous mission and if we want to have even a shot of getting our way, we might have to take desperate measures."

Cerise looked down at the gun in her hands, then looked back up, tears glistening in her emerald-green eyes that looked so, so much like her mother's. It was a staple of those Emeralds: their natural, emerald-green eyes. "Just promise me it'll be a last resort. Please."

"I promise."

Nervously, Cerise extended the gun to Alexios, who carefully hid it underneath a floor tile in a secret spot that he and Cerise had set up during a previous visit. "I gotta go," Cerise said, trying her best to compose herself. "Be careful."

"I will."

As Cerise's swishing red ponytail disappeared through the door, Alexios couldn't help but feel a little bit of guilt bubble up in her chest. He felt bad about lying to her face, but he wasn't going to outright tell her that he had every intention of killing Ruby Emerald. He'd been working for years for a chance to take down the Snow regime, and after over a decade, this was the first chance he had to actually make a dent.

There was not a Snow's chance in hell that he was letting Ruby Emerald live.

Garnet was sitting in his office, reading his daily briefing, when he saw a little red light blinking on one of the communication devices lined up on the hutch of his desk. He took a second to register which device it was, as he had so many of them for so many different purposes, but once he realized what that blinking light meant, he immediately leapt into action.

"Garnet? What's wrong?" called Elizah from the other room.

"I have to go to the briefing room. I'll be back later."

"Do I need to…"

"No, stay here," Garnet said, grabbing the device and rushing into the bedroom to slide on his shoes. "You're not feeling well. I'll be fine." He bent down and gave his wife a kiss on the cheek. "I love you. I'll see you later."

"Love you too."

Garnet could barely think as he rushed to the briefing room. He couldn't remember the last time he saw this device go off; it was supposed to warn important officials of rebel-related issues, but things had been so calm recently that it hadn't gone off in years. Garnet knew the procedures, of course, but to actually enact them was a whole separate issue.

Not that, at this point, he really had another choice.

As soon as Garnet arrived at the briefing room, he caught sight of Violet, who was frantically typing on one of the keyboards. "What's going on?" he asked.

"I'm not supposed to tell you this before they can," Violet whispered, gesturing to the important-looking officials in the room, "but Alexios escaped."

"What?"

"Somehow he got a gun, killed a Peacekeeper who came to check on him, and switched places. I don't know how nobody caught it but by the time anyone did he was out of the wing and he went god knows where."

Garnet's stomach dropped. He had a feeling he knew what Alexios was doing, and it did not bode well for those he loved. "Do they have anything in the tapes?"

"There's a break at around 3:15 in the morning but it's a Presidential business break so they can't check."

"Presidential business…"

"What?"

"I gotta go."

"Garnet, where are you going?"

Garnet pulled Violet's head close to his ear. "He's going for Mom's office."

Without taking even a moment to think, Garnet bolted out of the room, making a beeline for his mother's office. He knew that Alexios's goal was, and had always been, to get rid of anyone and everyone in the Snows' lineage. If there was anywhere that a disguised Alexios was going to try to go, it was to the place where he was most likely to find a Snow in power. It didn't matter that he was running into a dangerous situation totally unarmed; Garnet had to save his mother.

When he arrived at her office, Garnet threw his weight into the door, throwing it open only to run into the back of a white-suited figure. The man turned around, his gun still smoking, a psychotic glint in his eyes. Garnet could feel his stomach drop as he caught a glimpse of his mother's body slumped over her desk, the papers resting on it slowly turning a deep, bloody red.

"I don't believe we've ever met before," he said, twirling the grip of the gun around his finger. "Alexios Nox."

"Garnet Emerald," Garnet growled. "The pleasure is mine."

Garnet launched himself at Alexios, throwing his entire body weight at the taller man and catching him off-guard. Alexios stumbled, giving Garnet the opportunity to grab hold of the barrel of the gun, pulling it towards his body. But Alexios had a solid grip on the firearm; his finger was not on the trigger, but his one hand on the grip of the gun was stronger than Garnet's two on the barrel. Sensing that he needed to try a different tactic, Garnet slid his right hand down to the grip and began to wrestle with Alexios, trying desperately to pry his fingers off, but with no such luck. He could see that Alexios was struggling at least a little bit, but the other man generally looked unfazed. Suddenly, Garnet heard a click.

"You should have made sure the safety was on," laughed Alexios.

As he'd done the whole day, Garnet acted on instinct. He grabbed Alexios's shoulder with his right hand and pulled, desperately trying to push the barrel of the gun in the direction of Alexios's chest with his left. In an instant, the two were pressed up against each other, the gun in between them, Garnet's green eyes meeting Alexios's brown ones.

Garnet closed his eyes. He didn't want to watch.

A gunshot rang out.

A man fell to the ground.

And the entire course of Panem's history changed forever.