these bones are made of metal,
these blood vessels are oiled.
the heart constricts to make all these pieces run.
fumes of gasoline escape from exhales.
these parts and pieces are easier to understand
than the mind we put inside,
with the skull bolted down to keep it trapped.

Balisong Thatcher (16)

District Six

The pieces of Vera's tablet were spread out across the table in front of Balisong, and they leaned so close to all of them that it might have seemed to other people like they were trying to see even the tiniest details to determine what was wrong with it. They scanned over the items for a long moment, a very small screwdriver in one hand, the fingers of the other drumming rhythms onto the arm of the chair. It seemed like this was a lost cause, which they could tell from the moment Vera had asked if they could fix her tablet. But if they didn't at least try to figure out how to fix it, she would stop bringing all the things she wanted fixing to them. And if that stopped happening, they would stop getting extra cash here and there for more upgrades to the chair.

Vera leaned back in her seat, eyes roaming over Balisong's work. She sipped at the tea she'd ordered, and the slurpy noises indicating she'd reached the bottom of the glass snapped them out of their act.

"Well," they said gravely, as if they had tried with all their might and had struggled long enough, "I don't know if there's anything I can do, Miss Halber. It seems—"

She knew that that meant Balisong was about to go off on a tangent about what exactly was wrong with the tablet, so she put up a hand to stop them and stood up, grabbing the broken tablet. "Well, thanks anyway, Bailey," she said. "Hey, good luck today."

Balisong didn't trust her. They knew that she meant the good luck sincerely—it would almost be cruel to wish bad luck on someone during a reaping day—but there was something about her that didn't seem like the kind of person Balisong really wanted to be around. However, money was definitely something they enjoyed, and they would put up with a lot to be able to get the parts for their wheelchair. Lately they hadn't even needed to give any of it over to their parents for bills. It seemed like the budget was in their favor nowadays.

Before Vera left, she had dropped the money for their fries on the table, which meant that Balisong was free to scoop up the change and do with it as they pleased. So that was a perk despite the lack of a task that morning.

They looked up at the television screens here in the little restaurant. The only waiter that was working that day was staring up at the screen as he leaned against the counter, watching the District Four tributes volunteer. If this was a channel with commentary, it was muted, thankfully. Balisong hated hearing what the Capitol had to say about tributes when they were first reaped. It was all so vapid and pointless.

Vera had said when she first sat down that there was some kind of explosion in District One, which had intrigued Balisong. But unfortunately for them and for the curious waiter here, there were no replays of the reaping from One yet. Normally there would already be channels broadcasting recaps with commentary on reactions and demeanors—some even going as far as guessing standings so early on—but now everything seemed to be strictly stuck on District Four, or repeated showings of the average tributes from Two. That only made it more intriguing though. It must have been bad shit if they were keeping it such a secret.

Balisong held a napkin down just below the table and brushed all the little pieces of the broken tablet onto it so that the waiter wouldn't have to clean up the hardware. They dumped it into Vera's empty plate of fries that she had had to snack on while Balisong put on an act for her. They grabbed one of their own fries and stood up, going over to the cash register counter with the money she'd dropped for them.

The waiter didn't notice them over there at first, transfixed on the two people from Four. Balisong looked up at the screen as one of them walked up to the stage, a confident smile on his face as he made his way over to the microphone to announce his name.

Balisong cleared their throat and the waiter jumped into action, hurrying behind the counter. But just as he was taking the ticket and money out of Balisong's hand, he paused and looked down at their legs in confusion.

"But—" He pointed over at the wheelchair still parked at the table that they had been sitting at with Vera.

"I can walk," they said, trying very hard not to let their face sour. Too many people asked too many questions the moment they saw Balisong up out of their chair, as if it was anyone else's business. They already managed to ask so many questions it was suffocating, whether they were walking around confusing people or not. "Can you just take my money?"

Maybe they were being short, but they had to deal with Vera today, were getting stared down right before their eyes, and after they left this place, they'd have to go sit in the square for the reaping.

"Okay, okay," he said, putting the money into the cash register and handing the change back out to Balisong.

They walked back over to their chair, leaving a tip but pocketing the rest of the change. They began to wheel themself out of the restaurant and into the city streets. A lot of people were already milling around, just as early as Balisong was. Any minute now all the shops and restaurants would be shutting down for reaping time and everyone would be finding a place to stand in the square as the District Five reaping was broadcast across the country.

Balisong heard a familiar voice behind them as they wheeled themself to the square early, and they turned around to see Jilian was calling for them to hold up. She jogged up beside them. "Hey!" she said, and like always there was a conflicted moment where it seemed like she wanted to start pushing their chair. It just annoyed Balisong how everyone felt that they were required to somehow, out of charity for the poor kid with the seizure disorder.

"You're here early, Jil," they said. It was unusual for her to get anywhere before the moment she was supposed to be there, even things as important as the reaping. She was usually one of the stragglers that the officials had to check in last, so they never really saw her on the day of the reaping.

"Yeah, well, I got a ride today," she said. "My dad's driving the tributes to the Capitol this year, so I've been walking around since he dropped me off."

"Oh." Balisong nodded.

They didn't know how to react to that, since that must have been an awful, morbid transportation assignment, especially if someone would have to do that every year. They knew that it was the people from Six who brought the tributes to the death match every single year, whether it was in the trains or the hovercrafts, and they had heard stories of some of them who had succumbed to the morphling that ran rampant in Six because of it. That wasn't something very exciting for Jilian's dad to be a part of now. But maybe her dad had spun it in a better light, talking about the pay he would be bringing home because of it. Maybe that was why she didn't seem resigned to her father's job.

"So what are you up to, Bailey?" she asked, looking down at them. "Saw you coming out of Mickey's back there."

"I was checking someone's tablet," they told her. "I couldn't fix it but she paid for my fries."

"So that's a win."

They turned a corner and came into the open space of the square, the tall buildings around it enclosing them like they were trapped in a castle's courtyard. No one was standing in the reaping section yet. Mostly people were milling around waiting for the officials to arrive to start checking people in, which would be any minute now. There were some camera people setting up and Balisong watched as they brought the reaping bowls full of names out to the stage on either side of the microphone in the middle.

"Oh, Bailey, Jil!" someone called, and Porter Becking came over to them.

Jilian's eyes lit up when she saw Porter, and for a split second it seemed like she would shrink in on herself around him, but she kept herself tall. "Hey, Porter," she said, attention on Balisong forgotten very quickly. It was kind of entertaining how quickly she disappeared into a conversation with him. They had watched Porter and Jilian slowly flirt their way into almost-dating for months now, and at this point it was just insufferable seeing how neither of them could tell what the other thought.

"I'm gonna go get checked in," they told the two once they saw an official sitting down at the table to set up for the registration. Jilian and Porter acknowledged them vaguely, so they wheeled themself over to the table, the first one there.

"Balisong Thatcher," they said, and the official nodded, tapping on the tablet in front of them. Balisong reached out and put their finger down on the little device. They hissed with a sharp intake of air when their blood was drawn and took a cotton ball out of the big bowl placed in between the two registration officials.

"Left section, sixteens row," the official said, her voice flat and bored already.

Balisong turned themself in the right direction and pressed the button on the side of their chair to send them forward, moving along slowly. This was one of the things that they'd been working on for a long time now, building a little engine that could propel them forward when they couldn't or didn't want to wheel themself. They pressed the cotton ball against their finger until they were by the sixteens, and then they pressed the button to stop and went to the left side. They held their right index finger in the air, still stinging a little, as they moved into the empty roped-off area. They couldn't use the engine all the time since it was difficult to get the fuel for it, but it helped in small amounts.

The rows started filling up with people. The screens that would soon show the stage for those way in the back were now showing the District Five reaping. On the stage was their scrawny mayor with a quiet rendition of the Treaty of Treason—a tradition that bored Balisong to no end, especially if they were going to have to hear it echo across the square twice.

Balisong focused on the stage of their own district now, watching as the three District Six victors found their seats. Mayor Findley was talking to Lu Ten Li, the victor of the 85th along with Athena Maine, who had been mentoring tributes since she won. Nanette Tye sat next to them, staring off to the side of the stage at nothing in particular. Ever since she came home from the Games and mentored five years of dead tributes, she had never been completely there within any moment, even after both of her tributes came back in the 85th.

Nik Myler joined him in the sixteens section, coming over to stand by them as he saw them there. "Hey," he said with a smile. He was one of Porter's friends, but he had gotten close to Balisong the last year or so. They had known each other before—a lot of people knew Balisong from school or from having things that needed fixing looked at by them—but had just never really talked. Now, Balisong really enjoyed his company. "How's it going, Bailey? You're here early."

"Good," they answered. The more people that filed in, the less they could see the stage from where they were sitting, but the screens would still be in their view to watch what was going on when everyone got there. "I was at Mickey's so I was ahead of time."

"Oh, at Mickey's, huh?" he asked. The restaurant wasn't all that fancy, not compared to some places in Six and especially that he'd seen in movies in the Capitol, but it wasn't like a lot of people could afford to eat out at all. Balisong wouldn't have been able to, not even just for the fries, if it weren't for Vera being there. They had brought some spare change just in case she wasn't paying, but it was supposed to be their dinner money—or parts for the chair money, if Mom and Dad actually had them something prepared at home.

They chatted about home and Nik's new job driving one of the rich engineers around while they waited for more people to get there. Before Balisong knew it, the conversation had lasted them fifteen minutes.

Over all the talking, Balisong could hear crying coming from the speakers hooked up to the screens showing District Five. One of the tributes was sobbing. The sound soon died out as the screen changed over to show the stage in Six live, leaving anyone who wished to see the tributes hanging to watch the recaps later on.

It wasn't long before the Treaty of Treason was being read to them again, this time by their mayor. Her nasally voice went through the entire painful speech, and Balisong looked down at the arm of their chair, tracing patterns on the top of it idly. They wondered if this reaping would ever end. Next year, they would find something to do if they happened to be in the city early so that they weren't in this square for what felt like all day long.

After Mayor Findley finished, she looked over the crowd and said, "I have faith in this year, and I wish the best of luck to the reaped. May the odds be ever in your favor."

Balisong heard the sound of clacking across the stage, and soon Oscar Wintry's voice pierced their ears. "Good afternoon, District Six," he said with vigor. "I am so excited to be here before you on this year, the year of the Fourth Quarter Quell!" Oscar Wintry had mastered the art of breezing past silent pauses, ones that were supposed to arouse excitement. But he was excellent at understanding no one was going to clap for him here, so it was best to brush past that and move on. "I have just as much faith in you as our dear Mayor Findley, and oh, my, I cannot wait to see what you have to offer this year. I hope our Athena Maine and I will be able to bring a victor home this year.

"Let's begin with the boys, why don't we?" Oscar said, and the sound of clacking returned for a second.

Balisong wanted to lean back and nap, but that would probably be incredibly insensitive to the people who were about to be reaped, so instead they just focused on improvements they could make to the engine connected to their chair. They had plans to go to Ty Quentin's house that night so nothing would come of it that day, but they had been thinking about improvements for a while now.

They looked up at the screen to see what Oscar was doing. He opened the slip of paper he'd drawn out of the reaping bowl and read out the name, eyes still down on the slip, "Balisong Thatcher?"

Balisong thought they could physically see the silence in the square, like it was tilting this way and that, designed to make them dizzy. They continued to look up at the screen for a minute, waiting for this to be a joke. When it wasn't, it felt like the world unfolded from its sphere to turn inside out and suffocate them.

"You gotta go, dude," Nik whispered to him, but with no one else in the square speaking, it may as well have been yelling. "I'm so sorry, Bailey."

They wheeled past Porter on the way out. His eyes were down on the ground, refusing to look at Balisong as they made their way to the stage. So many eyes on them, so many pitying eyes that they knew so well.

When they were on the stage, looking out at all of the people who had gladly taken homework answers from them, who had asked them to look at their tablets or televisions or computers, it made sense to them. Everyone pitied Balisong when they didn't ask for it, but not a single one of them would ever actually act on it to volunteer.

so here we are, about halfway through! i'm absolutely jacked to be on the final stretch to capitol chapters!

i got sponsoring set up while i was working on this chapter and i'm thinking about a blog. although every time i open the half-made one on weebly i get really intimidated sjfklsdjfl

but for sponsoring, you can get points for reviews and the chapter questions! also bc my overachiever bff ash wanted it, i'm giving points for fanart and playlists or simply just single song recs! so if you wanna get ahead during the capitol chapters, there are the ways to do that. i'm thinking about something that would make sponsoring points useful before the games even begin so watch out for that whenever i announce it

so let me know if you enjoyed, and chapter question: would you be able to bring yourself to volunteer for someone who was at an obvious disadvantage compared to you? would you if you didn't even know them?