Two chapters in two days?! What is this madness!? I have a lot of free time right now. Happy reading, stay sane friends.
~B
This story contains mature topics regarding alcoholism, the effects of war, death, abuse, and attempted suicide.
I do not own any of Suzanne Collins' works or characters, and I am not a paid publisher of fanfiction.
This chapter in particular is set during The Games themselves. It will finish in the present, when he gets to District Eight on the Victory Tour Thank you for reading.
"Robert, wait up!" I scramble off the ground and jog to his side. "What the fuck kind of plan do you have for this… Career problem we seem to have?"
He shoots me a look of utter disdain. "As if I'm gonna tell you so you can just go running back to your girlfriend after you kill me. I know what you're thinking right now, and I'll tell you right now, it won't work. I'm smaller and faster than you, and I've been practicing for this moment. I knew it would come eventually, with the amount of tesserae I've been taking out. You've seen my family. I'm the oldest. Twelve years-fucking-old, and I'm the oldest." He punches a tree. "Ten times my name was in that bowl. Ten times, and more years to come? I might as well have volunteered if I hadn't been chosen, just to get it over with."
I lag back, rolling my eyes as he tells his sad, sad story.
"Look, kid, I get it, you're ready for whatever comes your way, but are you really ready to take on a pack of Careers eight, ten, even twelve strong? Cause for fucksake, I'm not."
He whips around, pulling a knife I didn't know he had. "You see this? I grabbed this while you were too busy getting your ass kicked at the Cornucopia. I know what the fuck I'm doing. Do you, Haymitch?" He lunges towards me, as if to stab me, but instead the knife leaves his hand and embeds itself into a tree ten or fifteen yards away.
"Great, you can defend yourself. But you think one knife is enough to fight of people more trained, more skillful, larger than you?"
"No, but I think they'll be too distracted taking care of you to care about a little kid, what do you think?"
I look at him, eyes wide. I understood his plan now. Use me for bait, lure the careers - or most of them - away from their hold of goods, so he can murder whoever is left and take what he wants. It's a smart plan, I'd give him that, but I wasn't going to let myself be wolf-meat. I nod, and start thinking of ways to get him unaware. Killing one of my own hadn't been in my plan from the beginning, but it was an unfortunate reality of the moment. I watch him walk ahead, waving his hands as if carrying on a conversation, but I stay rooted to the spot. I could run, but would he catch me with his knife? I could try to disarm him, but what was he capable of? Fear ran cold through my veins. Was I about to die to one of my own? Wasn't that what I was planning to do to him?
Without warning, he begins to scream, and comes sprinting back towards me, knife clutched in his small hand. He runs past me before I can see what he's running from. A giant rat, bigger than I'd ever seen one, with deep red eyes and foam collecting at its mouth, comes running toward me, eyes moving from Robert to me. I run, not daring to turn my back on it, and skirt around it, watching as it jumps toward me and then looks back in the direction of Robert. It hisses and speeds in the direction of Robert. I run the same way I saw Maysilee leave, relieved I don't have to fight Robert, and wait for the cannon.
It takes an hour to find evidence of Maysilee. Flowers had been torn out of the ground, revealing bubbling, acidic looking fluid in the roots. The cannon booms twice, and I know, or hope, Robert is one of the victims. I climb into the belly of a tree whose roots had grown tall and the engorged ground has made a cozy hole under it. For a moment I hope to sleep, and then realize I have no way to defend myself if found. I pull branches down from the knotted pine, careful not to let them touch my face, as my hands burn when the exposed, green wood brushes against them.
The Capitol Anthem plays loud and clear throughout the arena. The flickering, glowing Seal shines in the sky. The entirety of three, a boy from four, the girls from five, six and eight, three of four from seven, and a girl from nine and ten, and all of eleven are dead. Robert's and Annabelles faces shine in the sky, the number twelve hanging beneath their stark faces. Robert earned no loyalty playing a sniveling brat in the interview, and he earned no loyalty turning me into a piece of meat for the Career pack to munch on, I'm sure. Though I've not received much from the sponsors in ways of gifts either. I lay beneath layers of sticky branches, feeling sweaty and not at all comfortable. Pulling up, I push the tree limbs away from me with bare hands, causing small welts to form again, and shake my head of cloudiness.
I still needed to find Maysilee; my stomach growled in resistance as I begin to stand. I could feel my hands shaking. Dizzy, sweaty, and starving, I try to locate the edge of the woods. We weren't too far in when I had to run from the feral rodent, but I'd since lost my way, burying myself in a tree to rest for just a moment. I look around, the darkness disorienting me.
"Shit." I hear footsteps behind me, growing closer fast than I had anticipated, and spin around. Three of the huge, hulking Career men are charging towards me, knives glinting in the artificial moonlight that shines through the trees. I turn and dead sprint away, tripping on branches and catching myself on roots every few feet. The farther I run, the closer their pounding footsteps seem to be. I dare to look back instead of at the ground; they're right on me. I catch myself on a root and go careening into the ground, sprawling out before pushing up and crawling until I'm on my feet again, but one of the giant boys crashes on top of me, flips me over, and grins.
"Ah-ha! Got you, Abernathy. Look at you, you're shaking. Scared, boy?" He says, drawing a thin pattern on my shirt front with his knife. He doesn't press hard, but I can still feel its sharp blade through the loose fabric that hangs off my frame. I gather up all my strength and spit right in his face, then shove him backwards and land hard on top of him, wrestling the knife out of his grip.
"What the fuck, goddamn it!" one of the other Careers moans, "Bastion, you fucking had him!" I lunge the blade into Bastions throat, pulling it out quickly and jumping off. The cannon blasts only a few moments later.
"Holy fuck." I hear the whisper of branches behind me and swing around, expecting another career to careen out of the bushes, but Maysilee springs up, and two projectiles come flying out away from me, towards the Careers. It hits one in the leg, and the other takes off sprinting back the way they came. The hulking career cries out, grabbing his leg as he falls to the ground.
"What the fuck is this?" he screams, agonized.
"Your death." she breathes. He groans, louder and louder, until finally it stops, and the cannon booms, and she steps out from behind her hiding place of bushes and towards me.
"Break up, huh?" I can barely see her through the darkness, and the knife in my hand feels heavy with the weight of the dead tribute. "Yeah, right, as if you'd ever make it out of here without me, Abernathy."
"Look, I was just… I wanted you to be safe, and you seemed to be doing better on your own. We were weighing you down." I mutter.
"Saw Robert died. Was that you, or someone else?"
I laugh. "A rat." She looks at me for a moment, then a smile breaks onto her face.
"Ha, alright, well. One less for us to have to fight off, right?" Her tone is sad for a moment. "Look, let's work together for as long as we can, and then we can decide later what to do. For now, there are too many of them, and not enough of us."
I stride towards her and pull her in close to me, hugging her tight. She still smells of the Capitol; roses and lavender and some other smell I can't quite place.
"Maysilee Donner, you have yourself a deal."
I stand now, overlooking the crowd in Eight, heart pounding as I recite line after line of Capitol authorized drivel.
"Your four tributes fought well, and their sacrifice is not overlooked, but will always be remembered as a testament to the function and endurance of this great nation. Thank you for providing your textiles and clothing to the rest of Panem and the great Capitol itself. Your hard work is appreciated and smiled upon. We are all of us united, both Victors and vanquished, in one common goal: Panem today, Panem tomorrow, Panem forever." I close my eyes as the required applause is smattered amongst the crowd, and am escorted off stage by the gripping hand of a Peacekeeper. I pull away once inside, the creaking of the door my means of escape.
"Bathroom?" I ask the Peacekeeper. He nods, points down the left hall of the Justice Building, and I proceed to walk as quickly as possible towards it. Once out of sight of the Peacekeeper, I break into a dead sprint, slamming into the bathroom and bolting the door shut behind me. Breaking protocol was not what I needed to be keeping on my itinerary, but I could barely breath. The children of Eight's faces had haunted me, the boys I had both watched die and murdered in cold blood. The further I got into this Victory Tour, the harder it was to keep my composure. I lean over the porcelain toilet, retching as nothing but alcohol comes up. I stand, looking myself in the mirror. I'm pale - made paler by the fact that I was just sick. Not only that, but my breathing is heavy and my eyes are sunken into my face and my cheeks are hollow. I haven't eaten but bites of my meals and I'm not looking forward to meeting the President again, because I'm sure he'll have less than kind words for me.
Tears well in my eyes and I can barely breathe, but I crinkle my brow and move out of the bathroom as a Peacekeeper comes down the hall to find me.
"Everything okay?" He says, eyes narrow.
"Fine. Sour stomach." I shrug, easing into a monotone voice that hides both my fear and my anger. I had another dinner to get to.
We board the train after yet another uneventful dinner. Part of me almost misses the spitfire child from Eleven, with her dark blue eyes that remind me too much of home.
Seven, six, five, all speed by in a blur of fancy people and poor citizens, the same dull monologue rolling off my tongue in my same bored voice, though with each District, it becomes a little more slurred and I become a little more loose lipped at the dinner table. My mentor ground her heel into my feet as I mention the state of Six, its citizens bedraggled and its technology a little worse for wear.
"What IS your industry, anyway?" I say, moving my wine around in my glass. I stare at the Mayor, whose demeanor has turned dark, and he glares at me.
"We make the cars, the trains, all the transportation you see here, in the Capitol, and even in Twelve. That's us."
"Yeah, but, you use Three's technology, Two's metals, Five's power… What's truly yours here?" I slur, lounging back a little harder than I mean to. My chair skids back across the floor and I tumble out, spilling wine across myself and the ground. I laugh as I rise, shooing the Avox who comes rushing to my aid away. "Don't- don't! I got it!" My tone rises to anger, and I grab the pristine white napkin I haven't touched yet off the table, throwing it on the ground and absorbing a fair amount of the wine by wiping it around with my too tight shoe.
"We should go." says Veridia.
"Yes, maybe you should." says the Mayor, whose name I'd already forgotten. "I hope you have a fair rest of your Victory Tour, Mr. Abernathy."
"Cool, thanks." I say, picking up the soaking rag and dropping it on the table as I let the Peacekeeper escort me out of the room, through a deserted alley, and onto the train. The station is empty of reporters, be it because they've decided to flock to the Career districts, or because of my drunkenness, I do not know. The doors slide shut behind me, and I stand in front of Veridia, who has crossed arms and a furrowed brow.
"You need to not act like this, Haymitch. We're only five days from the Capitol. What is wrong with you?" her tone is filled with condescension, and I can't do anything but stare at her, dumbfounded.
"Wrong with… what is wrong with me?" I murmur, locking gaze with her. "It's only been six months since I came back from the Arena. Where I killed people - children. Where I watched my best friend die. And this… Victory Tour? It's just a reminder of all the people that died there. Why would…" I shake my head and walk away.
"Don't walk away from me, Haymitch." Veridia says, stomping after me.
"Do. NOT. Follow me." I say, beginning to lose my temper. "Follow me, and I will not be kind or generous or gentle anymore." Veridia stops in her tracks, face turning paler than it already is beneath layers of makeup. "I will finish this Victory Tour. I will finish it the only way I know how, and that is mostly incapacitated. And then I will go home, and I will disappear until you need me again. But-" I pause, watching her eyes well up with tears. She shakes slightly, perhaps fearful, perhaps furious. "But I cannot do this sober and return home sane."
I walk away from her now, leaving her shaking and crying and feeling worse than I did when I stood on stage in front of all those people, who looked at me as if I was garbage. Maybe I was. Maybe all of this, the grandour, the celebration, the feasts, was for nothing because nothing would come of me. I had no family anymore; James walked on eggshells around me, afraid to bring up Maysilee, Evie, anyone who could cause me too much grief. Maggie could barely look at me, the loss of her friend too much to take. She still had a year in the bowl; without tesserae she would be fine.
I sit in the bar car, in the same seat I'd always occupied to play thoughts over and over in my head. My family had died for my ineptitude at staying the shining, sparkling image of the Capitol's victory. My victory had come in the form of amber and clear liquid that flowed endlessly from the mouth of privilege. Barely holding myself above water, I come to the conclusion that to keep my remaining family safe, I needed to fade away.
Okay, enough sad Haymitch for now. I know you guys are waiting for something more eventful, more recounting of his time in the games, and maybe more of him mentoring? But, enough said. He's sad, he's going to keep being sad, but I will post more of his sadness next week. I'm gonna try to post this story on Thursdays and Saturdays, and I'll post other stories other days of the week, when and if I get the chance to.
Please remember to review, favorite, follow, and keep reading. Thanks, stay sane friends.
~B