Author's Note:
For those of you who were worried at the end of the last chapter – nope. I'm not done yet. The plan is to write all the way through the Hunger Games series. This is unfortunately wayyyyy less fun than the last update, but important stuff is happening that cannot be skipped. Gotta move the plot forward so more fluff can happen :) And as always, thank you for reading, and for all the lovely reviews!
It's Monday but I wish it was Saturday again already, and for once it doesn't have anything to do with getting a day off work. In all honesty, it has everything to do with how good she felt. I want more time to learn her intricacies, to test the sureness I had felt. Sureness doesn't really require testing, I admit, but damn it was fun. Madge was far from the first girl I had ever kissed, but she was the first girl that inspired me to pay such minutely close attention.
And I thought I missed her when all we did was argue.
"For someone stuck in a hole a mile underground, you're in an awfully good mood." Bristel pauses next to me with his shovel long enough to shoot a curious glance my way.
I frown at him. "What's that supposed to mean?" Is it that obvious? How much has he figured out? I'm only just now getting comfortable with having this conversation with myself. I don't want to have it with Bristel.
"Every time I look your way this morning you've got this little grin on your face," he says, heaving another pile of coal into the bin. "You and your girlfriend fightin' again?"
My frown becomes a full-fledged scowl, but I'm actually glad that he says your girlfriend instead of blurting out Undersee. The last thing I need is for half the mine to latch onto a rumor that I'm involved with the Mayor's daughter, whether it's true or not. Bristel is a pain in the ass, but he is my friend; he won't say something to get me into trouble on purpose. "This again?" I groan while an admittedly smug little part of me thinks Hell yeah, we're fightin' again.
Bristel shrugs. "I'm not saying I blame you. It'd do wonders for my mood."
The man working next to him overhears, and snorts a small laugh. I scowl at him, too.
"Who says it's because of a girl?" I say, hoping that he'll move on to another subject even though I know he probably won't.
"It's a guy?" he asks with shock so convincing that the laughter starts again in earnest, and others join in. "I have to say I never thought-"
"Bristel, seriously, why can't I just not be miserable for once?"
He rolls his eyes a little as yet another shovelful of coal crashes in to the bin. "You're not exactly famous for your chipper personality, Gale. So if it isn't a girl, then what is it?" He says girl as if he means a very specific one, and he asks the question as if putting me in a position where I'll have to acknowledge that he guessed right.
He did, though I won't admit it to his face. What I have with Madge isn't something I'm willing to cheapen by sharing the details. Plus, I'd rather not start any gossip that could get back to Madge's father (because fathers are protective of daughters and I'd like to live to kiss her again) or Katniss (because she and Madge are friends, and she and I are awkward enough already, thank you). But thinking about Madge gets me thinking….
"Yeah," says the man behind Bristel. "If it's not that, what's got you over there smiling like the cat that got the canary?"
I give them my best knowing smirk and wait a beat to tempt everyone's curiosity. I need to be careful not to speak too loudly; they take the bait and I draw them in a few steps. I think of the things that Madge had said while the Games were still ongoing, how angry she had been at the cruelty of it, how similar her sentiments had been to mine. "I was just thinking… if they can change the rules for the Hunger Games, anything can happen. The rules can change here."
….
It's a full day before I see my father again. I am glad for this, because though I am a very good liar I am not sure whether he would have believed the excuse I had prepared for being so late Sunday evening. Or, rather, I'm not sure whether I could have wiped the deliriously stupid smile off my face while I told him that I had been visiting Katniss and had lost track of time.
I got some time to relive each excruciatingly perfect moment with Gale without being interrogated. I spent another night in bed unable to sleep, but this time it was because my lips still burned where they touched his, my skin still tingled as if branded where his arms circled me. It was astounding how every sensation lingered with me long after he was gone. How finally getting a taste of what I had wanted so badly did nothing by whet my appetite. I got some time to put myself back together before it became obvious to anyone why I was so (pleasantly) out of sorts.
My father surprises me when he arrives not long after I come home from school, because he is always late on work days. He tells me that he will have to go back to the Justice Building but had given some excuse to get away for dinner so he could share the news, and he immediately invites me to follow him to my mother's room to talk. I worry that this may not be a good idea since she is still so touch-and-go; she spent most of yesterday barely conscious and though she is better today, she still hasn't made it out of bed. Then again, talk of rebellion may be just the tonic she needs….
Mom smiles weakly at me when I walk in the door, then sits up a bit when she sees my father behind me as if his presence indicates that something is amiss. Amiss in a good way, I hope as I take a seat on the edge of her bed. He shuts the door carefully, leans back against it, and looks like he isn't quite sure how to begin.
"Is it Seneca Crane?" I blurt out, struggling to keep my voice low, but impatient just the same.
He shakes his head. "No, not yet," he answers. "But everyone still seems to think that's only a matter of time at this point. Things are playing out there the way we wanted them to." A loaded pause indicates that something else has not. A hundred awful scenarios play out in my mind in the space of that second. "We need to be very careful."
"What is it." My mother's voice shocks me with its quiet intensity. There is no question in the way she speaks, only demand.
"District Eight," he says. "The workers in one of their mills tried to go on strike."
….
I don't say anything more about changing the rules in the Hunger Games. It was a dangerous thing to say at all, so I let it lie. Enough for now to plant the seed. A fire that starts slower burns longer and more reliably; if it flares too quickly, it dies before it can really catch. We go back to working in silence again, but this time it's a different, loud kind of silence. The kind of quiet that only happens when people are thinking carefully about something. When something about the way they see the world is upended.
It isn't that it hadn't occurred to anyone yet. I'm sure it has. It's that I said it aloud. It's that they are beginning to see that they are not alone.
I had promised myself that I'd make the mine manager's lives a living hell, that I'd put the fight in me to good use once I found my footing here. I've found my footing. And even more than a rule change for the Games, Madge Undersee actually wanting me back is the thing that makes me begin to think that anything is possible. She admires the fight in me, and that's exactly the spark I need.
….
I don't know what I find more alarming: the notion that things have started happening beyond our plans and faster than expected, or the fact that he specifically used the word tried.
"What do you mean tried?" my mother asks solemnly, as if reading my thoughts.
Dad sighs and moves to the chair by the window. When he sits down the sunlight makes his face look ashen and aged. "There were… rumblings right after the Games ended, from what I understand. The reports are still inconsistent but apparently it was enough that they felt the need to step up security. People were arrested, curfews were enforced, those kinds of things. Nothing terribly out of the ordinary, the sort of thing the Capitol orders from time to time even if there's no reason."
I suddenly appreciate the fact that no one cares much about Twelve. Those kinds of orders never find their way to our district, but in others it seems that they are a matter of course. I try to imagine what it must be like to live in a place where the Capitol randomly tightens its grip on its citizens just to remind everyone that they are the ones in control.
"It didn't fix the problem, though," he continues. "Somehow, someone let it slip that a group of factory workers were going to try to convince their teams to stop production and protest working conditions and demand better pay."
"Who?" I ask. "Did someone really let it slip, or was there someone spying on them?"
"Hard to say," he says. "It's possible either way. In any case, those suspected of making the plans were arrested quietly at the end of their shift on Saturday. Yesterday, they were all executed." He leans one elbow on the armrest of the chair and holds his head in his hand. Suddenly, this has all become very real. And concretely dangerous.
"How many?" my mother asks softly.
"Fourteen," he answers. "Three of them were Reaping age."
Children. They executed children.
"Publicly? Does the rest of Eight know?"
"No. None of them had told their teams about the plans yet, so the Capitol gave orders for it all to be handled discretely to prevent the news from spreading and creating more discontent. Presumably, some excuse will be given for their disappearance and nothing more will be said."
"What about Chenille? Did she know?" Chenille Bennett is the Mayor of District Eight, and has been supportive of the rebel cause. My father says that she did not, and wouldn't have allowed something like this to happen so soon, before we were more prepared. They start to talk about what may happen now that things are progressing on their own much faster than we anticipated, and I know I should be paying closer attention but I've stopped listening.
I'm stuck on something he said a moment ago. Some excuse will be given. Like what – an accident at work?