Chapter Fourteen
"Hey, do you have a place to stay?" asked the girl.
The cashier laughed. "A girl asked me that, just the other day."
"What did she look like?"
"Oh, brown hair, pretty plain looking. Almost like a district girl, but I wouldn't say that to her face."
"Brown hair? Long brown hair?"
"Yeah. Wanted to go to district 12, but I'm not sure why."
"District 12? Did she go there?"
"Beats me. And no, you can't stay here."
"Thanks anyway."
"Hey I didn't catch your name," said the cashier.
"Angel- I mean Alexandra. Alexandra Jackson."
Angeles knew she was no longer an immortal, and her psychic powers were wearing off, but a trace of it remained. She got the feeling that something important was about to happen.
She wandered out into the Capitol streets. She turned corners, this corner here, no, don't go that way. The psychic feeling was strong, and it wasn't just from her. She may not be an immortal, but she was still old. And you get to know the feeling, after a while, of people who are aged far beyond average. It was almost a metallic feeling, somehow.
She came to a house and knocked on the door.
A boy who looked about seventeen came and answered the door. The psychic inside of her went, Bing! And died. That was the end. It had worn off.
He had a small, golden tattoo on his wrist.
"A number eight?" asked Alexandra.
"Who are you?" asked the boy.
"Why do you have a number eight on your wrist?"
The boy pulled his wris back. "It's an infinity symbol."
"That ink…"
"Can you go away, please?"
"What is that ink made of?"
He looked into her eyes, and she met his stare. Then her gaze fel down to his neck.
"What's on your neck?" she asked.
A voice came from upstairs. "Who's at the door? Is it one of your friends from school?" A woman came running down the stars. "Please, come in," she said to Alexandra.
"She was just leaving," the boy said coldly.
"No, actually, I'd love to stay," said Alexandra. That ink was not normal… It was so bright…
She stepped through the door.
"I'll make some refreshments," she said, walking out of the room.
"What's around your neck?" she demanded.
"Nothing."
"Let me see it, she said, making a grab for it. He tried to pull away, but she had the reflexes of a huntress.
"It's god blood," she said.
"I don't know what it is," the boy mumbled.
"Where did you get this?"
"From my mother. My birthmother. I was adopted, so I never met her…"
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
"Why do you have an infinity sign on your wrist?"
"No reason!"
Suddenly Alexandra recognized something. Something from a previous Hunger Games…
She had seen the boy before. On a Capitol television.
"Hunger Games victor number eight," she breathed.
"What?"
"You're him!" she proclaimed. "You're Katia's son!"
"No."
"Yes! You must be almost three hundred years old by now!"
The boy froze in shock. "You know."
"Did you lose it recently?"
"I did."
"It's because Katia did! I can't believe it! You're her son!"
"Katia is an immortal? You know her?"
"Not anymore. She was kcked out for having a son."
"Kicked out of what? I don't understand."
Alexandra started to tell the story. "Well, you've heard about the Greeks…"
111
Katniss was on a train headed for district 12. Her sister! She was probably dead! Prim. Oh, gods, her mother…
Katniss shook herself. You thought gods. You're not a Huntress of Artemis. Get a hold on yourself.
And yet…
She could still read the future. And she felt something in the future, an enormous looming hulk of an event… A horrible event…
A dangerous event. She had to save her family. It was probably too late for Prim. But her mother, and Gale and his family. They needed saving.
111
Miles away, but not so far from the twelfth district, district 13 prepared to launch a bomb. Light the spark and fire will catch.
Two days until it was launched…
111
Farther away, thousands of lightyears away in a different sort of meaurement of distanc, the gos were talking.
They saw the bomb about to be released. And they didn't like it.
"We shouldn't have saved this world," said Athena. "We shoud have let it go into decline, and let it die naturally. They're too advanced! They're too cruel! Things will never go back to how they were!"
"Are you saying we should kill them off?" asked Zeus.
"We don't need to. They'll kill themselves off."