It was cruel, he thought, to make her Reap her own child's name. She should have seen it coming, of course. Haymitch surely would have, had he known she even had a daughter. All those years they spent in each other's presence and he hadn't even known that much about her. He didn't care about her, of course, she was just another Capitol person that rubbed him raw, someone he was forced to spend time with a month out of the year for the Games.
Being the only surviving Escort, the rest had either been tortured to death or died by their own hand, Coin only saw it fit that she was to read the names. Everything that Haymitch found to be ridiculous about Effie's appearance had only been exacerbated for the day's event: her wig was ridiculously high and rainbow colored, her face covered in red polka dots, and her dress far too puffy and thick to ever look good on anyone. Coin's cruelty and hatred for those from the Capitol definitely showed by how much she was trying to humiliate Effie onstage. Making her dress so ridiculously over the top, making her recite a speech about how honored she was to be Reaping her friends' children, etc. The names were already chosen beforehand, of course, but she was forced to pick them out of a large glass jar one by one anyway. She'd pick one out with a shaky hand that she had to constantly force still, read the name of some important official's child, wait for them to come up, give them a hug and a congratulations, and then reach for another slip of paper. Haymitch didn't even know why he bothered watching. To feel avenged for how the Districts had to suffer? To get a sense of closure? Just to see what was going to happen? He wasn't sure. He knew he wasn't going to stick around to watch when the time came for the actual Games, that was for sure. Effie was on the last slip of paper, and Haymitch was just about to turn off the TV in the room, when, instead of a final name being called, he heard a choked sob and a scream.
"You can't do this!" Effie's face had gone completely pale behind the polka dots. She was shaking all over and her eyes were threatening tears. Her hands were gripping the slip of paper so tightly that her knuckles had gone white.
"You can't do this!" She repeated, but quieter and less brave. She was about to have a complete breakdown, Haymitch thought. He wondered who mattered to her so much that the thought of their child dying made her sick. She'd never expressed any remorse over Reaping names before, at least, never onstage.
Two of Coin's henchmen came out from behind the curtains that Effie was standing in front of and dragged her away from the podium, so quickly that she barely had enough time to yell to be let go. Haymitch watched as Coin stood up from her seat of honor, picked up the slip that Effie had dropped in her haste to fight the grip of the two men, and read what was written.
"We're proud to announce our 25th Tribute, Maisie Trinket."
The girl was smaller than any of the other children. Katniss and all of the others had agreed to up the age limit to fourteen from twelve, because that was just too young, so all of the children they had decided upon were at least large enough for it to be equally fair. There were going to be 24 tributes, all children from some important official in the Capitol, all between the ages of 14 and 18, and strong enough for it to not be as cruel. Coin must have added in Effie's daughter at the last minute, or else Effie would never have gone to read the names, even if she'd been forced to. It made Haymitch angry. Effie wasn't even that important. If she hadn't read the names for District 12 for so many years, somebody else would have. Her daughter couldn't have been more than 11, which was too young even for the Capitol's Games. Granting Effie immunity from District 13's punishment was only so that she could watch her daughter die right before her eyes. Everything ended up working in Coin's favor. It gave him a bad taste in his mouth. The point of these final Games was to insure the Capitol knew that District 13 meant business, that they wouldn't put up with them trying to rebel against the rebels. So why was Coin changing the rules?
He didn't have to answer that: he already knew there was no real reason for doing so. Coin just wanted to watch her suffer. Watch them all suffer the way they had.
Her eyes were gray. Long blonde hair flowed in elegant locks down her back, and her skin was pale, and whether it was due to fear or just how she normally looked, Haymitch couldn't discern. But her eyes were so, so gray.
They paraded the Capitol's Tributes around just like they had done with the District's Tributes, and the volunteer from 8 in charge of the interviews was relentless.
Some of the Tributes tried to act tough, feign apathy, but he saw through them all straight away. They were all scared shitless. They looked ridiculous, what with their blue hair and red eyes and fanged teeth, all fake and fabricated and shallow. None of them were skinny enough to have ever known hunger, their eyes too innocent and spoiled to have known true pain or sadness. Watching them go into the arena, watching them die with their unnatural appearances, in whatever cruel fashion Coin would have made Plutarch cook up, would be akin to watching the ideals and virtues of the Capitol die right before their very eyes. It should have delighted Haymitch, would have delighted him, if Maisie didn't look so young and normal.
Maisie was the only one who cried, and they saved her for last, so it was fresh in everyone's memory. The volunteer from 8 asked her why her mother liked to kill children every year, why she thought it fit to have a child when she had all of that death on her hands. Maisie, between tears, replied that she didn't know, just that her mother loved her very much and that she would do anything to see her again. The woman then asked about her father, and went so far as to even insinuate that Effie probably didn't even know who it was. Her tears stained her cheeks, soaked the feathery pink dress they threw her in, and turned the whites of her eyes red.
Grey and red. Coal and blood, the colors that haunted his nightmares.
He started counting. 76 years since the Games were started. 26 years since his Games. A few years since Katniss and Peeta. A few months since the rebels overthrew the Capitol. Two weeks until these Games started. 13 years since his lips first touched Effie's. 12 since they were first, and last, intimate, the day when her first Tributes were killed and she drank herself sick. A few weeks after that and he never saw her again until 1 year later.
He downed the entire bottle and passed out before he let himself finish the thought.
The Cornucopia that year killed the first ten tributes that approached it. Blew them right to bits.
They should have known better.
Haymitch didn't know why he was still watching. He should have turned it off when he saw Maisie pick up a knife that landed near her after the explosion. He should have turned it off when she sought out someone, Dacia Sagittarius, whose father was President Snow's head military strategist, and teamed up with her. She and Maisie were the smallest two in the arena.
He should have turned it off when he saw Maisie kill her first person. They started crying, because the dead boy was the first one Dacia had ever kissed, and because Maisie was now a murderer. The arena was a conglomerate of how all the various Districts in Panem looked, and he should have turned it off when Maisie and Dacia wandered into the area that was meant to replicate District 12.
Dacia was freezing that night and she refused to start a fire. Maisie was submissive at first, but no amount of huddling and hugging considerably warmed them up. They were afraid to move, because it was dark and they didn't know if anyone was near them.
Dacia's lips were frozen cold and her teeth were chattering when Maisie had a spark. Dacia's protests were barely audible, and Maisie didn't even have to pretend not to hear them, though she knew they were there.
They had been huddling around the fire for a good twenty minutes. Maisie was plenty warm and Dacia was much better, and they'd even managed a few laughs. Maisie said she thought that, if they managed to survive long enough, they might both get to live, just like Katniss and Peeta. Dacia snorted at that, and Maisie, with her hauntingly gray eyes, looked away and didn't say another word.
He should have turned it off when Hersilia Snow snuck up behind them and struck Dacia with a rock. Hersilia was grabbing for another from her sack when Maisie, who she hadn't seen, stabbed her directly in the heart with the knife she grabbed from the Cornucopia. Maisie ran her knife through Hersilia's stomach, and through her chest, and, when she was sure Hersilia was suffering too badly to retaliate, slit her throat.
He should have turned it off when Maisie turned back around to see that Dacia had fallen into the fire, unconscious, and was burning alive. His television was on a low volume, but Maisie's screams still filled Haymitch's room and sent a chill up his spine. He should have turned it off then too.
She couldn't put the fire out, so she dragged Dacia's burning corpse to a small stream about two minutes away. Maisie had stopped screaming but she was hyperventilating and Haymitch thought that she would have exploded if she didn't calm down soon.
After she was no longer on fire, Maisie dragged the remains of Dacia's corpse out of the stream and laid her near the edge. She braided what was left of her violet hair and kissed what might have been her lips.
Haymitch reached for the remote and instead found his liquor bottle.
Maisie did not kill another person, but she didn't have to. After that night, only five tributes, including her, remained. Ten died at the Cornucopia, Hersilia, Dacia, and the boy who attacked them were all dead, and seven others had died in fates that Maisie was too frightened to imagine. It was the second day, and Maisie was washing off crusting blood in the river when she heard the singing. It was low at first, and seemed very distant. It took her a good thirty minutes to reach the artificial grain fields, which were to replicate District 9. Maisie's small frame and golden hair were well hidden behind the tall fields, where she spied the four other tributes that were left.
They were standing in a circle, holding hands with one another. Their eyes were closed and they were singing a popular Capitol lullaby. Maisie was transfixed. She tentatively walked towards them. Haymitch's entire body went rigid as he watched. He started pleading with Maisie, even though she was thousands of miles away in the Capitol, pleading with her to not get any closer, to not be stupid. She was five feet away, still well hidden, when common sense took ahold of her and she stopped walking. They were still singing. Maisie quietly reached into her small bag, pulled out a handful of blackberries, and continued to observe them. It wasn't until nightfall that they stopped. Maisie had been careful to keep her distance and not move around much, but she could still see them easily enough from where she was crouched. An older boy with spiky red hair and tattoos of dragon scales all over his skin told the rest to give it up, that she wasn't coming. Maisie's ears perked up at this. They were talking about her.
None of the others seemed pleased by this, but the boy continued, saying they had made a pact. The girl had obviously not heard them or wasn't able to reach them, so they should continue on with their plan anyway. So what if she did become the final Victor? Their point would still be made. None of them explicitly cared for any of the others, and if the girl was tortured, what would it matter to them? They'd be dead. They all took knives out of their pockets, and slit each other in a clockwise fashion.
Maisie ran out suddenly, screaming their names. She had thought she was too late, but the boy with the red spikes and dragon scales looked at her. He coughed up a ton of blood and smiled, and congratulated her on being the final Victor in the Hunger Games.
"Looks like the odds are always in the Trinkets' favor." The boy coughed up another ton of blood and his eyes went blank.
Maisie's tears were expected, but no less painful.
Claudius Templesmith's voice rang out over the arena and through the television, declaring Maisie Trinket the victor of the 76th Hunger Games.
Haymitch felt a burden he didn't know he was carrying lift from his shoulders.