I'm waking up. I can tell by the dull ache in my chest that quivers the dry lump in my throat. Birds sing to the morning sun. I sit up, joints stiff from the forest bed. Eyes blink, trying to rid my mind of this outdoor dream. Oh, that's right. I slept in the woods. It takes a three tries to stand, and then another minute to stretch my joints into usefulness. I don't feel rested at all. How do those kids in the arena do it? Desperation makes easy our limited choices, I surmise.
I brush myself off, ignoring some streaks of mud on my clothes, lingering. My hair is a ratty mess of twigs and leaves. Walking is slow at first, requiring certain determination. One foot in front of the other. "C'mon, Kip. Gotta get moving." The mockingjays warble back and forth with each other, oblivious to my misery.
At the edge of my small patch of trees I look out over the fields and see people toiling a few hundred yards away. They're singing again, the songs pleasant and faint in the distance. Gentle air currents ruffle the rows of crops. We have everything that grows in this district, even a generous tract of land and greenhouses for all sorts of floral produce.
I stumble into the field, heading toward the main road into Three Corners when the realization arrives. It's peacefully quiet. There's neither sound nor sign of warfare. How long has it been since my makeshift demolition? Nine? Ten hours? Maybe Scipio's plan calls for more underhanded ways of taking over areas. Maybe there's going to be a surprise attack that's being arranged right now. No gunfire rings out at all. I can't deny that the area is unsettlingly calm.
Eight minutes walk to Three Corners, take a side alley, move cautiously through the streets, look for signs of struggle or aggression from either the underground or the Peacekeepers. I don't know if anyone nearby is with the underground. Obviously, the Peacekeepers are on edge, their eyes wary from fatigue. They still control the entire District, now more jumpy on the trigger.
What if they recognize me? I hike up my jacket and purchase a hat to shadow my face. It's not a great disguise. Routing my path to avoid any Peacekeepers, I make my way to the plaza. The screens are splashed with the Games, like any other day. A few people stand around each pedestal watching. I wonder if Katniss and Peeta are still alive. Thresh, Verona, and Cato were other tributes. What is today, Tuesday? People shuffle here and there whispering with each other about last night's attack. Whatever became of the Main Office barracks, it's the talk of the town. Certainly whatever damage I managed was sufficient to become a topic of choice.
The Main Office is on the other side of the plaza. I make my way there using side streets as much as possible, avoiding all the government buildings I can. Around the north edge of the Peacekeeper complex, there's a lot of activity. Peacekeepers stand guard while crews of their own ranks work to clear away debris, tossing brick and steel scrap and cots and chairs and a dresser and all sorts of other junk down from shoddily erected scaffold.
I keep a good distance away just far enough to assess the damage. It appears as though the roof collapsed as I planned. Yet, that was as far as it got. It buckled through the crawlspace and crushed down the top floor and compressed only that layer. The three floors beneath were mostly unaffected.
To the west, there are a few rows of blue and green tarps draped over lumps on the street. Bodies. Those I've killed! The dead rest a lot easier with me than I expected. Of course, I didn't have to see their mangled appendages or crushed chests. Not the way I saw Mason's compacted body. And besides, they're Peacekeepers; oppressors and targets in this war. This war that Scipio seems forever unwilling to start!
What is it going to take? What exactly is he waiting for if not this? This is a victory! There! Right there on the street, I almost wave my hand with fury. There are the casualties of our enemy! Let them run in fear and hide! Let them tremble at the might of a stronger foe! Let us take back from the Capitol everything they took from us! I want to scream. I want to find Scipio and grab his collar and shake him. Why haven't you done anything? What sort of leader never, ever leads?
Then I see someone. There, standing near the dead Peacekeepers. Three enlistees talk to each other, their faces exhausted from a sleepless night. No Peacekeeper slept a wink last night. Jura Penrose looks worse than tired. His face is streaked with sorrow, anger bites through his round, well-fed cheeks.
I step back into an alleyway and watch. Other residents of Three Corners are standing nearer, surveying the cleanup as well. As the day moves on, the shift clearing rubble from the top of the building is changed three times. Jura Penrose takes two shifts, himself. They find more bodies and lay them out. The highest officers in District 11 come out from the Main Office to supervise cleanup. At this point, it has ceased to be a search for survivors. There were a few throughout the morning. After lunch only two more bodies are found and huge stacks of wreckage have built up beside the northwest wing.
A few hours after lunch, Covas comes out, counting the dead and commanding the men. He looks furious, as much as the rest of the Peacekeepers. "You'll get yours, Vol," I whisper. "Just wait."
His orders must have been to take the dead to the morgue. A junior officer jots down information about the corpses, probably names and serial numbers or something. Then others lift each corpse on to gurneys being brought in and cart them off down the street. Will there be enough refrigeration units at the morgue?
It's savagely surreal. I brought down the Peacekeepers' security upon their heads. I made them traipse through the streets of Three Corners with their dead jostling on wheeled beds. How can Scipio avoid taking action?
I know my cut cord didn't bring down even a single wing of the Main Office. But this is a huge step forward! I don't think there has ever been an attack on the Capitol's hammer this devastating, not since the Dark Days, since before the Hunger Games existed. We can't back down now!
Sometime after three, the work slows. Fewer hands are on the scaffold, in the collapsed carnage. The officers pull more and more workers from their shift, probably concerned about additional collapse. They'll care delicately for their own men, yet in the fields, whip our children mercilessly to meet the Capitol's quotas.
Where is Penrose? There he is. Sitting, leaning against the scaffold, his hands over his face. Other Peacekeepers mill around, even those returning from work overseeing field crews. In the croplands, the Peacekeepers rotate three shifts during the day to oversee groups of workers who barely take one break during daylight hours. These men won't be allowed to go into the structure. It will be assumed unsafe until examined by an engineer. Surely, Covas knows that I am responsible for this event. My outburst over dinner made that as much clear, never minding what I said at Rue's burial.
I wouldn't be considered trustworthy as an expert on the quality of the structure. I'm the prime suspect! They have to know it wasn't an accident. My imagination runs wild with Peacekeepers breaking down the door to my house, arresting Meyla. I banish those thoughts from my head. I made my choices. District 11 and Panem will have to live with them. If I can survive, I will have to live with those choices too.
Jura Penrose stands up and walks over to the officer who is clearly directing the cleanup operation. Only a few lines are exchanged before Penrose heads off to the east, striding into an alley. "Where are you going?" I wonder aloud.
I hustle back into my own alley and scurry around several others, crossing two main streets in the meantime. I see him, then, still heading east, sure of his path in the maze of back streets and walkways. I follow maintaining a good distance. Penrose never looks over his shoulder.
After ten minutes, he nears the edge of town. Almost at the last building before the fields replace them, he walks down a shallow flight of stairs and ducks into a cellar. There's no window for the cellar, even on the door. Just a wavy-line symbol carved into the panels.
An illegal bar. I haven't been in one of these for a few months. Scipio and I used to meet with other members of the underground in one way over on the western side of town. Some are frequented by Peacekeepers who tolerate the drab pubs because they like cheap swill as much as the business people who can afford a drink or two in Three Corners.
Tension floods my chest as I step nervously down the stone staircase, below street level. I take a deep breath and rap my knuckles on the door. The shadows are darker here; the corner of the building shades my hat which further covers my face. A wrinkly, thin man, a few waxy strands of silver hair slicked across his bald head, opens the door half a foot and glares at me.
"Lookin' for a drink," I grunt in a hushed tone.
"Well, I'm havin' one. Quit knockin' and get in here." He shakes his head annoyed and swings the door wide open, turning back to his drink. Some of these places like to be more discrete. This 'establishment' obviously cares very little for who knows about it. And why should they? After all, Peacekeepers drink here. One does at least.
I close the door and scan the room. It's too dark to see very well. No matter; green sleeves are unmistakable, even in the poor candlelight. A second glance over reveals this basement was never even wired for electricity, since it's such a rare commodity to have, at any rate. Why waste the extra money on wire, outlets, and fixtures that will hardly ever be used? Spend it on booze!
Jura's at the bar already tossing back a third shot of something amber-colored. In a place like this, it'll be homemade so it could be whiskey or straight bourbon. I was never a heavy drinker, but you learn to recognize what's what, living in the Capitol. I shuffle up to the bar. The keep asks me what I'd like. "Beer."
"Light or dark?" He's a thin man with a moustache and pasty skin. His eyes have seen too much dark cellar and too few light afternoons.
I decide to start light and try dark as the mood strikes. I'm dark enough already. Jura is a seat down from my left. No one else is at the bar. Four other people sit at tables around the room, working on pitchers of beer or bottles of liquor. One man is passed out on his table, drool puddling around his face.
Jura drags another two shots, five grimy glasses sit empty. The keep decides to refill those instead of giving him more, although he takes away three of the shot glasses. "Slow down, J.P.! You gotta take it easy, pal. You don't handle yourself so well with that much in you."
Coughing on his sixth shot, Jura groans, already starting to slur, "What's it matter?"
"I know. I know, just make it last, alright? Don't want to overdo it, J.P."
"Yeah... It'd kill me, right? Maybe I-gnnh join 'em, right, Benheh."
Benheh, probably just Ben, slides a coffee mug full of light beer across the bar to me. It's not awful, a little sour, but not gross. He turns back to Jura, "You got a final count yet? How bad is it?"
Jura sips his seventh shot instead of pouring it down his throat. "Twen-six." He clears his voice and speaks carefully. "Twenty... Six..."
Twenty-six dead? A pittance compared to the hundred and eighty that I estimated were quartered in that wing. No wonder Scipio hadn't begun a revolution. Twenty-six may have just been too small. I grit my teeth and pour beer through them.
May as well pry the drunken Peacekeeper for more information. Speaking to him is harder than I thought it would be. I never thought I would ever be in a situation where I'd have a conversation with Jura Penrose. "Lucky you weren't there, huh?"
He glances at me. The hat still covers my eyes. "Not s'lucky, pal. Got three friends dead now."
The beer loosens me just so that it's easier to reply. I decide to limit my rate of intake. Can't get drunk at a time like this. My tolerance is certainly low from deprivation, demonstrated catastrophically before Covas. "Sorry to hear about that." Sip. "What you think it was? Some sort of accident?"
Jura stares at his shot and blinks. His brow furrows, "Well, aksh'lly... I dunno. Didn't really think about it t'just now. Been tryin' to get ever'one out, we can get out."
I nod and tap my mug against the bar lightly. Ben pours more beer into it from a pitcher. I let it sit and air. "Good friends of yours?"
"Best there are..." Jura holds up the last bit of the seventh shot and mumbles, "To good friends, may the'rest in peast."
Matching the toast, I take a tiny sip. My heart pounds, my temples throbbing through blood surged with adrenalin. I've never been this close to Jura Penrose. He's less than four feet away. Talking now. He's almost human, the filthy murderer!
Jura glances at me twice and I try to look straight ahead, hoping he doesn't recognize me. "You know somethin'?"
I cover my face by sipping from the beer as I look at him, "What?"
"I seen... people beat up b'fore. I-I'vvve," Jura forces his words to form properly, if in odd meter. "seen people been shot 'n hung 'n whipped t'death." He picks up the eighth shot and smells it.
Seven shots in five minutes? Either his choice of liquor is watered down or he's a very regular drinker. Can he pay for all this? My mind rushes with questions as I wait for him to finish his point. Suddenly he remembers that he was talking. "Truth is, I v'only seen dead people busted up like this once before."
My fingers tighten around the mug. "You don't say? When was that?"
"I dunno. A year ago maybe?" He sets the eighth shot down, untouched and holds up his index finger. "A Ben, beer." He laughs raucously at his misstatement. Ben sets a mug down in front of him, leaving the shot as well.
"What happened?" I ask, knowing my voice is shaking more than it should. Penrose is plenty drunk. It shouldn't matter.
He waves his hand dismissively. "Eh, some guy. Fell from the just... us Building. I saw it happen. Crunched pretty good on th'stairs. I'was a big deal but it's history."
My jaw shakes with anger. I cover by choking down another sour sip. "You were up there when that boy fell?"
Jura snorts. "He wasn't a boy! He's twenty or so."
"Some people say that wasn't an accident."
Jura's head turns to me and sags with alcohol fatigue, his eyes are darkened in the candlelight. "I may've help'd him 'long a bit."
He turns back to his beer and sips it slowly. I set the mug down and put my hands on my knees, squeezing the fabric of my pants in hatred. I knew it! I always knew it! Those people weren't lying! Volente Covas was the liar and here I have it from the murderer's own drunken, stupid mouth! If only he had been one of the twenty-six dead! If only both of them had been!
Jura continues, "I wasn't thinkin' too much when I did it." He chuckles some tilting the beer into his mouth. "Was kinda drunk, t'tell the truth." He sets his head in his hand and closes his eyes. "All 'cuz of Sandrea."
Mason's girlfriend? Or at least the girl Mason liked? You animal! You'd kill my son because you were jealous that he was flirting with a girl you could never even have? Peacekeepers can't have girlfriends in districts! My hands shake. My chest heaves. My eyes squeeze shut.
The drunken murderer's voice creeps to me with sickening slurs. "You ok, pal? Don' look to good."
"Hey, stranger?" The keep is completely sober. "You alright?"
"I'm fine." My voice manages to growl out. "It's been a few months since I've had a drink." I take a long drag from the mug. "Boy, I've missed it."
"Drink up, then!" Jura raises his shot.
Ben reaches for his hand and says, "Now, J.P., let's let the man alone-"
"Bah! Give him a shot on me, Ben!" Jura grins disgustingly. "Tonight we drink for the dead!"
Ben gives me a shot of the stuff and I was right. Half-water I bet. Looks much thinner and tastes different than regular whiskey. "A toast to the dead, then." The glasses snap back down to the table, my mind finishing the toast. When you leave, Jura, you shall be joining them.
Jura slowed down significantly throughout the evening, dragging out four beers over another hour, while his system soothed through the alcohol that he initially blasted into his veins. I dragged out four beers total and kept to myself, paying my tab as I drank each mug.
Jura paid me little attention, which is well enough for my self-control. Little is holding me back from killing him, right here and now. These people certainly would have knocked me out and turned me in. You don't witness a Peacekeeper being murdered and do nothing. That's a death sentence on your own head in District 11. A very painful, and quite public death.
Jura finally wraps up his binge by shelling out some money for the alcohol. Ben seems glad to see him go. The man stumbles to the door and I linger for ten carefully counted seconds.
Jura has hardly made it up the stairs; I catch up to him easily. He saunters down the street. "Hey, pal. You need a hand?"
Jura laughs and drapes an arm over my shoulder. "Why not?"
His touch is reviling. Jura's breath stinks and his body odor is deplorable too. "Let me ask you something," I start. "That boy that fell, Mason, was his name?"
"Yeah, you knew of 'im?"
I tilt my head up slightly till Jura gets a good look at my face, his drunken expression slow to react with his surprise. I throw my shoulder into his side. He slams against the brick of another building. The furious power of my movements might surprise me more than it does him. This alley isn't very private, but no one is around at the moment. Rage has taken over, all control lost to the evening breeze!
My hands grab his throat and squeeze, hot redness plunges into my vision, darkening the world out of colors, out of grayscale and into a furious crimson terror! In the dwindling twilight Penrose looks so far away, distant. All I can hear are the songs of homecoming field workers drifting on the wind. Mournful again. Mournful for me, for the circumstance that was thrust upon me. For this moment that I barely feel, detachment tugs away my dreamy consciousness.
Now, I can't hear the notes any longer. Something rips at the air, crushes at my ears; a noise so deafening it seems to rumble through me. My own voice, I realize! I'm screaming! My eyes flash wide with surprise and I wonder how long I have been kneeling over Penrose. My lungs gasp raggedly for air, vocal chords beg for mercy.
Sudden stars swim with through my eyes. Someone grabs me from behind. Penrose's pathetic attempts to swing at me have long since ceased, but I still grip his neck like a vice. His eyes stare at me uncaringly, lifelessly. More hands grab at mine, pulling my fingers back. I can feel tendons stretched too far in my fingers, joints snapping! Still my eyes stay fixed on my son's murderer. My throat howls. He doesn't move. My focus is so pure; his body seems to recede as hands draw me backward, fingers broken. The world winks out.
Cold! Cold water splashes, shocking me to awareness. I'm shivering in a chair. Reflexively my body attempts standing up, arms strain to wrap around myself for warmth. The water is biting, freezing my core! Something restrains me from moving. Tight straps hold my arms fast to the chair.
Jaw seizes uncontrollably with chill. Breath is ragged, bitten by my chattering teeth. My eyes should be adjusting to the dim lighting; so far the room is a dark blur. There are black walls somewhere in the distance and a few men. I can see them vaguely; pick them out because of the buckets.
One steps forward and speaks. "So, Mr. Silvernale. Are you with us yet?" His voice is deep and strong, devoid of emotion. He pushes my head back with his fingers. This Peacekeeper is enormous, an immense man with total control over himself. "Good. I think we can get started then."
Two other Peacekeepers move silently forward, dragging wires with then. They clip electrodes to my skin, one on my left ear and another on my left forearm, pinching the clamps together until the teeth bite through my flesh. My growls of pain are ignored.
The big man talks again. "Okay, Silvernale. This is pretty simple. We want to know who ordered you to destroy the roof?"
In sudden defiance, my lungs spit out a laugh, "Hah!" Mistake. The big Peacekeeper jams a mouth guard in between my teeth and steps back.
Someone turns on the juice like a supernova in my muscles! My chest shakes with an all new sensation. I've never felt electricity like this before! Neck jerks to the left, arm clenches harder than I could ever tell it to, and my rib cage seems to rattle with the thousands, maybe millions of volts sapping through me. My teeth grind with uncontrollable pressure and I manage to gasp out a few shaky screams. No mercy.
Then it's over again and I collapse against the restraints, exhausted, freezing, and miserable. The fingers on my left hand had clenched, despite being broken. They rest at nauseatingly abnormal angles.
"Five seconds, Silvernale." The big man pushes my head to the right and it falls limp. My chest heaves. He adjusts the electrode on my ear. "We'll go for twenty seconds if you don't tell me. Who do you get your orders from?"
Scipio's name almost leaps out of my mouth. Only fatigue saves me from spilling my guts. I think for three extra seconds. "No one." Without hesitating the big Peacekeeper moves to put the mouth piece back in. "Wait! Wait! Think about it!" He pauses. "If-" I cough raggedly. "If this were coordinated, do you think it would have been so... ineffective?"
"Twenty-six men are dead, Silvernale. Eight more are in the hospital. I wouldn't say that's ineffective." His fingers push the plastic into my mouth again.
The juice comes on, wiping away every thought I have, every logical argument at my fingertips. This isn't twenty seconds. It's two hours and twenty seconds! My body fluctuates with the current, my breath held against my control, cheeks shaking. I bite the mouth piece so hard, concern flashes that I'll bite the thick plastic right in half.
An eternity later, the power shuts off. My head hangs limp from my neck, drool adds to the water. It's still freezing cold, although that doesn't seem so bad anymore. I'll take cold over frying any day. Anything but electricity! The mouth guard tumbles from my lips onto the soaked floor.
"That was fifteen seconds. We'll try for the full twenty in a few minutes." The Peacekeepers walk for the door. "Unless you have something you want to tell me." They leave.
I try to pick my head up. It lolls back against the headrest of the chair. My mind stumbles for any sentience, finding little purchase in my tortured flesh. I have to tell them it was Scipio. I have to. Even though he told me not to, that's who they're looking for. I don't have a choice!
Water drips from the chair into the eerily silent room. My mind wonders where this room is. Probably the Main Office or the Justice Building. Either is as likely as neither, though.
The mayor in District 11 isn't very fond of our district. He always wanted to move to the Capitol, taking out his frustration on the residents when no permission was forthcoming. He'd fit right in with them. Part of me wonders if this torture session is being recorded, not merely for analysis and record keeping, but also for the sadistic pleasures of the twisted minds running Panem.
Silence is deafening, my ears ring, some sort of after affect of the charge they pushed through me. Something warm slides down my neck on the left side. Blood, probably from the metal clip. I cough. My abdominal muscles ache from electrically forced over-exertion.
The door opens. Dread consumes me and disgust. Disgust that I would give up Scipio because of my fear, because of the torture. I'm already broken, though. I am as consciously aware of that fact as I am the pain of the electrodes. If they try to push the mouth piece back into my bite, I'll spill my guts. Lie even, tell them what they want to know.
It won't matter that Scipio had nothing to do with my mediocre attack. It will matter that he does run an underground movement. Then, he'll be in this chair with electrodes and frozen with icy water. Would he break so easily? It doesn't matter. I'm broken. Twenty seconds of torture and I'm broken.
It's not the big man this time. Only one person enters. Too dark to see his face. I recognize the weathered voice right away. "Hate to see you like this, Kip."
"Vol?"
"Yeah, it's me."
Maybe I expected to be able to lash out at him, since he's the only person alive that I care to punish. There's no strength left in me though. My arms have never felt so tired. I just want to lie down and sleep forever.
"Kip, I know you didn't have help with what you did." He opens up a folding chair and rifles through a thick folder. "I have manifest records of the last time you purchased explosives. Way too long ago to have been a plot. You weren't even on our radar screen until about a month ago."
I force my eyes to focus on him through the swimming dizziness and murky gloom. Saying nothing.
He continues, "Frankly, it was a poor excuse for a bombing, probably because you didn't have enough materials. I expect the only reason anyone died at all is because you really are a superb engineer."
Silence.
"Most of all, you wouldn't have been caught in the street strangling Jura Penrose, if you were part of an organized effort. He died, by the way." Covas gazes intently at me.
Despite my condition, an awkward, cruel satisfaction warms through my belly. I try to sit up straight, "Then... you know what this is about."
Covas nods. "I'm afraid that won't help you much. The mayor has already signed the order for your hanging. The construction of gallows will begin tomorrow. Until then, I'm going to have to put in the hammock."
That's better than in this torture chamber, I suppose.
Covas stands up and moves toward the door. "I'm sorry, Kip. I truly am, but my hands are tied in this."
With pure rage I spit back, "No! Can't you see?" My arms strain against the bonds. "My hands are tied! Mason's hands were tied! Everyone in Panem has their hands tied so long as people like you keep doing the dirty work for the Capitol. But it won't stay like this forever! One day, Vol, one day things will really change so watch out!"
Covas' fingers tap the folder, eyes stare at me, seeing other places and people. His voice lowers mysteriously, "This is really much bigger than you and I, though, isn't it?" The door clicks shut softly behind him.
Fury rejuvenates me against anticlimax. I was broken and ready to confess. Only my foolhardiness has saved Scipio. I'm half-dragged, half-walked out of the room. The basement of the Main Office is recognizable by its typical paint, even if this area's off limits without escort. The Peacekeepers march me upstairs and out into the plaza, still dripping wet. It's night, now and all the shops are already closed. It's late, maybe even early in the morning.
The hammock is a crude device. We have stocks that people are sometimes placed in, where their wrists and necks are secured in place, making them kneel for hours. The hammock is far worse.
Leather straps are belted to your wrists and ankles. Then the restraints are raised until just your buttocks touch the ground. It wears out the abdominal muscles and mine are already shot from the torture session. I'll be slowly suffocating, while they build the gallows for my execution. You never get to the point where you can't draw breath; it just hurts to do so each and every single time.
I'd rather they hang me sooner than later. That seems easier than... What? Scipio isn't coming to the rescue. He'll sacrifice me for the greater cause. Yet, the greater cause demands urgent movement now! That was why I did what I did. Kippen Silvernale scored thirty-five enemy casualties. That's as good a start as any. There's still a tiny chance that an uprising will save me.
The Peacekeepers secure my hands in the leather straps and my ankles. They jack the chains into winches until my arms are pulled tight over my head and my legs jut up at an odd angle. Clearly, torture, humiliation, and certain doom are not enough, because one of the men punches me brutally in the gut. Thus begins my deliberate suffocation. I cough and hack, head aching, trying to regain breath, each inspiration shoots blistering pain through my body.
And still Mason's smile haunts me. Of course it does. I never expected to forget about my poor son. Rue's eyes stab worse though. Jura Penrose is dead. The Capitol's tyranny lives on. And I won't be there to oppose it. We, the willing, will be killed. Maybe it will never end.