District 10
It had been three days since the Reading of the Card.
And for all of those three days, Roan Tully had not been able to stop throwing shit.
He hurled anything and everything he could get his hands on – plates, lamps, even an old desk chair – like a wild Capuchian monkey. Pieces and bits lay shattered and splintered all over his mansion.
Bovina Martinez had needed to grab Elena Perez and run out of his mansion when their only male counterpart first descended into his blazing rage. The next morning, and then periodically over the following days, Bovina had poked her head in to check on him. Each time, once she saw that Roan was still going, the old lady would merely close the front door behind her, then set her watch timer to count down another couple of hours before she came round again.
By now, sitting silent vigil back in Roan's sitting room and with Elena hooked up to her drug IVs and slumped at her side, the only male Victor from 10 had just about smashed all his dishware, and was well on his way to destroying every source of light in the house. Bovina seriously thought about calling the Justice Building and telling them to run up Roan's electricial bill. Or just shut what little lights still remained off completely; with how he was raving, the bastard probably wouldn't even notice.
"ERRRRAHHHHHH!" Seizing a priceless vase that had to date back to the Dark Days, Roan heaved it with all his might…. and sadly without any sense of direction. Bovina had to duck so that it didn't connect with her head, and instead crashed into one of the few working table lamps left in the house. The lamp itself did not break, only teetered on the tabletop… but the lightbulb still fizzled out, plunging the sitting room into darkness.
The cacopahany of crashing and banging had mercifully ceased for the moment. In the inky gloom, Bovina could see Roan's hulking outline. Could hear his ragged breathing. Watched as his head swiveled about, in search of something new to pick up and chuck, but there was hardly anything left to throw.
When his deranged gaze sweeped over her for a moment, Bovina cocked an eyebrow. "Are you quite finished?" Beside her, Elena Perez didn't even lift her head.
"Fuck you, Bovina. And FUCK the Capitol!"
Up went Bovina's second eyebrow into an unimpressed arch. She should have felt happier at this being the first time Roan actually called her by her given name, at least the first time that she could recall. Most of the ensuing seventeen years since he came out of the underground caverns that had populated the 58th Hunger Games, Roan Tully had only ever referred to her and Elena as "you Sazi bitches."
Bovina loathed him. Loathed his Settler ways and all the prejudices and uninformed bigotry that came with it. She tried not to let it bother her personally too much, and expended much of her energy shielding helpless Elena – Roan was still and would always be an asshole, even if he never said anything at all to either of his two mentors.
When she was all there (which was less often than not) Elena still found a way to be kind to the hotheaded Settler. Perhaps because Roan reminded her of Danny, the Settler whom she had fallen in love with before the 34th Games, and whom she had married after coming home from that arena. But poor Danny was dead, and so were their twins. Both of Elena's children had been Reaped for Haymitch Abernathy's Quell, and died in the Bloodbath.
Bovina took a deep breath through her nose and tried again. "Roan…. You need to calm down."
"I can't!" Roan growled, prowling like a tiger in a cage. He was a fuse briefly stamped out, but ready to have someone light him again. "It's that Everdeen woman – she's responsible for all of this! And I'm gonna get that bitch!" His dark eyes flashed with resolve. "If the Capitol tards are gonna make me jump like a dancing bear again for their own amusement, I'm gonna make it worth my while and get some amusement of my own!" He sneered sadistically, and were the sitting room not pitch-black, he might have seen Bovina blanche with fear. Roan never threw around idle threats; it was always best to take him at his horrid word, and deal with the threat seriously. At just 81, Bovina – the Victor of the 12th Hunger Games – had been mentoring tributes long enough, since before the time of Roan's grandparents, to know how to deal with a hotblooded tribute destined for the arena. Roan knew how to mix it up, especially when he felt slighted and felt the need to settle a score.
Glancing down at Elena, Bovina managed to hoist her fellow female to her feet and they both hobbled out of Roan's mansion. He didn't even acknowledge their departure. Taking Elena back to her place and tucking her into bed like a child, Bovina watched her for a long moment. The Reaping would either come down to her or this poor dead woman walking. What kind of quality of life did Elena have, in her drug-addled, grief-stricken state at the loss of her family, even all these years later? As much as it turned Bovina's stomach, it would be a favor to see Elena go back in. So the old lady just had to hope that their escort called Elena's name at the Reaping first.
Cane tapping the dusty earth, Bovina power-walked (whoever said one had to grow old with grace was an idiot) the three doors down to her place and made right for the telephone. It took a bit of wrangling with the operator in Twelve to get the right extension, but she was patched through. The voice on the other end was drunk and slurred, and once she heard it, Bovina knew she had the right number. She would know it if Peeta picked up; that boy was too polite. This man, by contrast….
"Hello?"
"Haymitch? It's Bovina. The bear is out for blood. I repeat: the bear is out for blood. It's gone rogue." Holding the receiver close to her ear, she hissed intensely, "Euthanize the bear. Take it out."
She was probably talking in more code than was necessary, but Haymitch got the message. "We're on it." The CLICK echoed through the dark and empty house as the line went dead.
When Elena Perez was called up along with Roan to return to a contained combat zone, Bovina breathed one sigh of relief. She wouldn't breathe the other until she knew her own male tribute was off the board. In all her years, she had never gone into a Games praying that her tribute would lose, but for the sake of the cause, Roan Tully could absolutely not get anywhere near the Mockingjay or her lover.
The replay of the Reapings on the train was a silent, morose affair. Bovina watched in tears as both her immediate successor and her immediate predecessor in the Victor's chair were called to take the stage and return to certain death. Poor Woof…. he had no say in the matter. But when Mags, who had been there when Bovina herself had woken up in the Recovery Center, the lady whom all of District 10 viewed as a goddess bowed her head and wept like a baby. Roan just clenched his jaw and frowned harder. Elena put her chin on her chest like some kind of bird mutt and continued on in a drug-induced sleep.
When the gong sounded and Bovina saw Roan trapped in the same watery wedge with Haymitch's boy, she nearly had a heart attack. Then she nearly screamed when Roan brazenly leapt from his pedestal and landed on Peeta's, knocking them both into the water before the pair of grown men sank.
BOOM. A cannon fired. On shore, Katniss lowered her bow, fear in her eyes and her heart in her mouth. A body floated to the surface and Bovina wanted to growl in rage. Damn that traitor….
But then an alive and well Peeta Mellark popped up, wet and spluttering, having gotten the drop on a man twice his age and all the tension left Bovina's body in relief.
Thank you.
