I have a very frustrating case of writer's block. Hence this 'interlude' chapter which gives each of our Quarter Quell victors a scene. The ones that are unnamed in canon and haven't been introduced in Checkmate remain unnamed here.
Thank you all for reading and reviewing, and Happy New Year!
"On the 75th anniversary of the Dark Days, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors."
District 1: Cashmere, victor of the 64th Hunger Games
"It will be us, Gloss."
Cashmere stood crouched on the tallest tower of the Academy, shrouded in the dense fog. Beneath her feet was the Locker, where the misbehaving girls were locked in a grim sarcophagus, the Box, until heat and lack of oxygen made them pass out.
The Academy favored punishments that left no marks on their attractive charges.
"We tell the best story and we made Snow into a fool. I could jump and spare him the effort, spare me the pain of slicing Finn's throat open and of hoping someone else kills you," Cashmere whispered.
Reaped from the existing pool of victors.
The memories of the last eleven years had suddenly lost their luster. The misery and degradation, the rare friendships, the occasional ray of hope, nothing remained. Suddenly, Cashmere found herself here, at the Academy, where her mother had left Gloss and her, and hurried away before the Capitol demanded to have another of her children.
Where it all began.
"It's too clean," Cashmere said, turning towards her brother. The Academy had been barred, locked, the gardens left to wither, the buildings left untouched, as if the District had turned away in disgust and locked the memories of the place in a dark deep corner of their minds.
How civilized.
Cashmere licked her teeth. She wasn't civilized. "Let's do something about that."
Gloss smirked at her, the tension in his shoulders melting away as he offered his hand and helped his sister off the slanted, slippery roof. He pulled a small explosive from his coat and gave it to her with a flourish.
Gloss was always so prepared.
Fingers loosely entwined, they lazily walked out of the Locker, sharing a smile full of understanding as the Box exploded, spraying shards of old wood all over one of the nightmares of their teenage years.
Her clothes and skin, shredded by an exploding trap. Cashmere peeled them off and made sure District Three gave her his.
"I heard Two's are training," Gloss said. It wasn't her Gloss. It was the arena's. Look sharp, survive, don't think of tomorrow. "We can't let them best us."
He'd been big and blond and he'd screamed like a child when Cashmere had sliced his hand off. 'Only my brother gets to see me cry.'
Cashmere tore the heavy metal bar from the Locker's door. "No, we really can't," she said with a twisted smile she hadn't used in years. It fit over her lips like a second skin.
Vases, portraits, carpets, golden chandeliers and silver mirrors, thick cushions and colored curtains, ivory carvings and marble tables, smashed, upturned and shattered.
Cashmere's ears rang and she laughed, laughed as she freed the ghosts of her training years, side by side with the one man who could understand.
Tea sets and silk sheets, old wine and pearl necklaces, everything that would become their lives once their training was complete, this perverse illusion of refinery. Torn, sliced, shredded.
"Stop!"
Cashmere's body stopped, broken to obey that voice by instinct. Gloss' hand was on the crook of her hip, where it belonged, and chased away lingering remnants of fear. Instead of letting go of the metal bar, Cashmere's grip tightened.
Cashmere stared at the woman before her, her throat dry and her eyes glowing with a long denied hunger. Eve. Silver-tongued Eve of the 38th Games with only one artfully clean kill to her name. Eve who had bowed to Snow and said 'of course, Mr. President, I shall train them as you please.'
Eve, grand mistress of the Academy, standing among the ruins of her former palace.
Cashmere sighed as Eve hiccupped, dead before she collapsed on the floor, a long shard of glass sticking out of her heart.
"You're not a gentleman, Gloss, I wanted a piece," Cashmere chided.
District 1: Gloss, victor of the 63rd Hunger Games
When the sun shone bright, none could gaze upon it without squinting. It was a slab of pure marble, jagged and cutting, polished by wind and rain alone.
Vicuña Chrysaor, first true Victor of Panem.
Lived for its glory, died in its defense.
Gloss' thoughts ran in circles, slamming into mental walls and desperate for a way out.
At six, his mother would call Gloss my Prince. His special smile made grown women blush. He conquered every jury at every beauty pageant, happily holding Cashmere's hand and dancing with her for all to see. A Capitol man took a picture with the two of them on his lap and everyone desperately wanted to be Gloss' friend.
At ten he'd believed the world was his for the taking because he was handsome and fast and even the sons of the great families listened when he spoke. He liked fun and happy people and let Cashmere take care of the others. 'You're popular, nice, and I'm mean. Together, Gloss, we're unstoppable.'
At thirteen he was at the Academy and they put a wasp nest in his bed. 'They don't want us to have any loyalties aside from the Capitol. They want you to hate me, Gloss.' Cashmere and he poisoned the food when the Capitol talent scouts came, leaving the two of them the only dignified juniors in the dining hall.
'I want to see those here at sixteen, fiercer, smarter, and just as loyal, Eve. Better yet, I want them in the Hunger Games.' Anora was a Gamemaker's wife and Gloss and Cashmere would come to know her intimately after their victories.
At fifteen, girls outnumbered boys four to one, but that didn't make them safe. Gloss pretended to hate Cashmere with a passion bordering on perverse obsession, for only then would the darkest rumors reach his ears. Four boys tried to break in her room one night. Gloss broke three fingers in each of his hands, but the four bastards who'd wanted his sister were left with no teeth and memories of Cashmere cruelly different from what they'd lusted for.
'We don't have to be too strong, so long as we have each other, little sister.'
Tributes from One, male and female alike, had to be pure. The sponsors demanded it. When Cashmere turned seventeen, she was finally safe. Gloss could go into the arena without fear.
At nineteen, he saw his little sister leave the arena, bloody and too exhausted to smile. The victor siblings, unique, extraordinary! He stood there when she didn't want to be touched. He fought her when she needed to draw blood and exhaust herself and remember the time her body had been hers. He showed her, how to keep her chin up and craft herself to only be bought by those who wanted her in control.
But he hadn't shown her alone.
It wasn't him in the end. It was Finnick, Four's perfect pretty boy, who had allowed them to go home.
Thirty-year-old Gloss stared stiffly at the marble memorial.
What was he fighting for? Why did it suddenly matter?
District 2: Enobaria, 62nd Hunger Games.
That bitch. In love! In love with a baker boy the cameras couldn't get enough of.
Enobaria didn't begrudge Katniss and Peeta the angle. She didn't even begrudge Twelve's victory; that sorry district was lucky to pull a victor out every generation. But this… It'd be so easy, to snap her little neck, to hang her with that braid of hers.
Enobaria wasn't sure what would be worse, being reaped, or not being. That bitch had done something, and now Panem was falling apart. The others couldn't see, they wouldn't see, they lived in their bubble, their perfect Victor's Village where mentors were everything their tributes needed and everyone found their place and lived happily ever after.
Except Enobaria. Enobaria who had bitten a man's throat off like an animal. She'd first thought she'd seen contempt in their eyes, but she'd been wrong. They didn't care what she'd done to win, she was one of them, she belonged.
She didn't want to belong. It had taken her years to simply put words to the overpowering urge to slam her door and run far, far away.
She wanted someone to tell her that what she had done was wrong and not necessary. She wanted to fix it, to erase all the thoughts they'd put in her mind at the Annex. She wanted to be able to feel without her brain ordering her to stop thinking and her body begging her to hit something. She wanted to scrub those memories out so she could find who she was behind the angles foisted upon her since her eighth birthday.
She'd not bitten District Ten because she'd been cornered and freezing to death. She could have driven her knee up his crotch or head-butted him so hard his nose burst, but she'd bared her teeth and dived because that was expected and in that snowstorm, the tribute and the angle, the independent, bloodthirsty beast, had become one.
Enobaria picked up the phone and dialed the one number she knew by heart.
"I hate her!" She hissed. "I hate them both."
"Stop making your behavior about others and do something because of yourself," Mercury replied, her voice cool and calm and blessedly not telling her to go fight it off and hope it didn't come back.
Enobaria growled, baring the golden teeth that chit from Three had given her almost fifteen years before. She needed this, the questions. Two wasn't about questions, Two adapted. Except Enobaria.
« How could what I want have any impact whatsoever?» It was hard not to swear.
« Depends how much you want it, » Mercury said after a pause. « What do you want? »
What do you want?
Enobaria stepped on stage and bared her teeth when they called her name because she had no other angle to show.
What the hell do I want?
Enobaria's heart lurched when Brutus volunteered. For the first time, she felt a powerful surge affection towards the man. He'd try to kill her.
Enobaria wanted the Annex. She wanted those kids. She wanted to make something out of them. She wanted District Two, a better Two.
District 2: Brutus, 40th Hunger Games.
They'd agreed on rules. No victor who'd won before the 35th would go in. No victor who'd won after the 65th. The young ones could never cope with an arena so soon and the elders had served enough.
Brutus could see it in Lyme's stormy expression. Why? He knew better than to be angry, or to ask.
The President would want a loyal victor. He'd want a Two. Brutus let that one certainty sharpen his focus as he warmed up with a bastard sword he'd never lost familiarity with. He was fifty-five but his body was twenty years younger, always to please the Capitol, and had never known neglect.
Six kills, clean, carefully planned and executed for the cameras. His mentor's voice echoed in his ears. 'It was worth it. You'll never have to do it again.'
Brutus dropped the sword with a curse and picked up a spear. The target exploded, raining dark earth around the stump of wood. Brutus' eyes remained glued on the black flakes of mud, Seeder's proud face flashing before his eyes.
He swallowed, squaring his broad shoulders. The second spear was off by half a yard. They'd have had him scrub every last speck of mud out of the Annex's gutters if he'd made such a lousy shot at fifteen.
Never again. He'd saved them: Tyr, his first tribute, the one they'd all said he'd lose, Archon, who was happy, truly happy, and Phoenix, who'd carved herself a flute and made angels in the snow without a hint of a blush. He'd been the best, favored by the Capitol, never losing his edge. He'd been the one every tribute wanted as a mentor.
A roar escaped Brutus' throat as the third spear flew, burying itself deep in hard wood. The crack was all wrong, a pitiful hollow shadow to the crunch of broken bones.
«You're not fighting kids this time, Brutus. Stop fooling around. »
Brutus turned, catching the thrown sword just in time. His right hand caught the handle but his left was too high and he hissed as the blade dug into his flesh.
He bared his teeth at his old friend. Her year as a tribute had been his first as a mentor. They'd spent over a generation fighting for sponsors side by side. If the two of them were… Brutus absorbed the thought, the rage, the confusion. He removed it from his mind as he had been taught all these years ago and let everything flow to his muscles.
On any other day, he'd have snapped back at Lyme, said something clever, but today there were no words. Their blades clanged, a scream of metal against metal, and Brutus kept his eyes on her hands, her shoulders, her legs, because he was afraid of what he'd find in Lyme's eyes.
Enobaria was reaped, leonine and snarling, a promise of painful death. Brutus swallowed back guilty relief. He met Lyme's gaze and saw a flicker of warmth behind her cool facade.
« The male tribute is... Bahamut. »
Lyme's mask cracked, a flash of naked anguish, and Brutus' jaw tightened. Bahamut, the first boy Lyme had brought out of the arena. That angry, needy mess that had avoided the Capitol as much as he could but who had maybe been the kindest, most affectionate of them.
Worse. Bahamut was Enobaria's mentor.
Brutus stepped forward. His rage now was cold, but he didn't hide it, he didn't fight it, because it was one he knew, it was District Two, and there were some rules one did not break, not even for the Capitol.
A mentor and their tribute would never fight against each other.
A smirk twisted his lips, his expression grew darker, his frame more menacing as Brutus the mentor faded to reveal Brutus the tribute. Brutus the tribute volunteered because he was eager for the arena.
District 3: Wiress, 44th Hunger Games.
D13-2 wagged his metal tail and gave a big smile, raising himself on hind legs and waving its padded paws at the frizzy-haired woman putting the microwaved plate on the tiny free space on her workplace.
Wiress smiled. D13-2 was fun and predictable. With people, she never knew what to do.
'You need to be better.' Wiress struggled to remember her father telling her anything else. He'd always been so upset when she came home with marks just below average. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't do better. 'What if you get sick like your brother, Wiress? What if you die because you're not good enough to get into the hospital? I can't lose you, darling.'
You're not good enough to live. Words never spoken, illogical considering the Capitol couldn't afford to lose half of Three's children, but so deeply ingrained that Wiress still wished she had the ability to disappear.
The door clicked open. «It's Tuesday, remember,» a deep and very human voice called.
Wiress froze. Yes, Tuesday. She sighed, meeting Beetee's dark eyes, kind eyes, intelligent eyes. Her fingers brushed his hand. Beetee, sometimes unpredictable, but not unsafe.
"I found the music you wanted," Beetee said with that soft smile he kept just for her. His hand went to poke at the steel bird on the desk. "B-9 will have her voice by the end of the week. »
Wiress smiled. Beetee understood computers and made them do his bidding, alone in his control room. Wiress didn't like being alone, she liked pretty things, happy things, and she made her own robotic friends from metal and lights. She made them move and love her and Beetee would give them a voice.
« I'm coming, » she said.
Tuesday. There was Aster, already seated, and his eyes were dark and cold, but Wiress was glad to see him and knew he'd spent the whole morning in the kitchen, and that the meal will be delicious. There was Mercury, still young and pretty and cheerful. She gave Wiress a kiss on the cheek and then she started talking, because she was the only one of them who liked people and who would know what to do when the rest of them wanted to be a family but just didn't know how.
Wiress made a move to sit, but suddenly her hands were trembling. Four, two men, two women. Four, there has to be four, not two. Time didn't stop, of course it didn't. Tick, tock, closer to the Reaping.
« We could have had Capitol bodyguards, shadowing us every waking minute and eager to report any rebellious word to Mr. President, but we never did,» Mercury said, « because Snow has always seen himself as more clever and powerful than he is. The Capitol is a giant with feet of clay." She smiled again, it was bright and confident. "Relax, I'm sure the rebels have a plan. »
«You know nothing of rebels, » Beetee said. He smiled too, it was hard and full of warning and Wiress grabbed his hand because it would make his eyes soften and remind her he was still her Beetee.
« Aster doesn't want kids, so what would my motive be? » Mercury said with an eyeroll. « I'm not going to sell you out for a Capitol citizenship and a big apartment in the tallest tower. Ten years ago maybe, I was selfish and scared, but now? I say bring it on.»
Wiress sat down. Mercury was their best liar, but it was Tuesday, and Tuesday was about warmth and family and the truth could wait.
District 3: Beetee, 36th Hunger Games
Beetee's eyes cracked open. He remained still until he ascertained that none of the blurry shapes in the dim lit hospital room were human. He reached for his glasses and lifted the mattress, his hands shaking from stress.
Beetee hated having to trust. Trust required proof of both another's moral fiber and of their intelligence. He depended on too many people.
His heartbeat decelerated marginally when he found a folded sterile suit and matching shoes between the mattress and the springs. He smiled faintly when his fingers brushed the badge in the suit's pocket and closed around the small remote activator.
Despite his hood and filter mask, Beetee tried not to breathe as he entered the corridor, recalling every reported incident of failed hygiene and isolation practices resulting in death in the infectious diseases ward. It had been the only way to escape close surveillance. He left the ward and hastened his pace as he passed the peacekeepers seated just outside the quarantine zone. Clad like a surgeon, they didn't recognize him. Success.
Inefficiency was Three's rebellion. Street-riots were barbaric and a waste of lives. Every citizen remained in their Capitol-assigned places but rigor was no longer the master word. A million small mistakes, individually deceptively harmless, had snowballed and led Three's production to a grinding halt. Equipment failure rates skyrocketed, filed results were riddled with mistakes, specifications were forgotten, electronics under performed…
With Three deceptively calm and all eyes on Eight and Eleven, the Capitol had overlooked the increasing discrepancies until February. To restore production, they sent thirty Homeguard; special forces: educated enough to see through an engineer's lies.
Beetee swiped his badge to enter the controls area. He nervously rehearsed his lines in case his trust had been misplaced. Beetee stiffened when he saw the two men in the control room. Asleep? Drool dribbled down their chins and they had adopted uncomfortable resting positions. Drugged. Beetee sighed in relief.
The barracks' reinforced and electronically controlled doors had jammed shut a week before, leaving a hundred and thirty men, forty percent of Three's peacekeeping forces, trapped inside. The remaining active peacekeepers camped in the Justice Building and various schools, but the Homeguard had elected to reside in the hospital's surgery and maternity ward until the barracks were made functional once more.
Whispers were a woman had died giving birth in front of the hospital two days before.
Beetee hoped every last of these trapped dogs starved to death behind their reinforced steel walls and unbreakable windows. Statistically, every one of them was a murderer. Justice. The word would finally recover its meaning.
Beetee deactivated the gas alarms and the air recycling flow.
There were three large pressurized gas cylinders in each of the rooms the Homeguard slept in, labeled oxygen, ostensibly for medical use. They contained nitrogen, inert, non-toxic, but lethally asphyxiating when it replaced the oxygen in the air.
They wouldn't even notice.
The cleaning personnel all had advanced degrees. They had replaced the bottles and labels and attached activated openers to the cylinders' valve switches. Beetee's thumb pressed on the activator.
He watched dispassionately as the oxygen levels plunged. 20%, 15%, 12%, 9%, 7%. He reactivated airflow when he was certain that none of the unconscious Homeguard would ever awaken. The oxygen levels reestablished. Beetee turned the alarms back on.
The peacekeepers on guard barely acknowledged him as he hurried back to the infectious disease ward. Beetee removed his sterile suit and threw it down, along with the sensor and badge, in the disposal chute. He slipped back into his hospital robe and injected himself with a typhus vaccine dose for the second time that week. He would display all the appropriate illness symptoms in the morning.
Exhausted and grimly satisfied, he went back to sleep.
District 4: Mags, 9th Hunger Games
There had been no question of her being part of that Quell. Mags pressed her fist to her chest twice and raised it to the sky, leaving no ambiguity as she walked onstage to replace a sobbing Annie. She walked up to Finnick, her beautiful Finnick, a smile on her face. His arms were strong around her shoulders and he held his head high.
She was so proud of him.
"Poor Mags, she must be confused. Old age must have addled her mind," the commentators would say with nervous little laughs, aware that Snow would have their heads if another volunteer, another Katniss, sowed discord among his subjects.
Mags chuckled softly. The truth would be out soon enough.
District 4: Finnick, 65th Hunger Games.
"I stopped the treatment." Finnick's smile had rarely been so shy, but he hoped Annie heard the happiness behind his trembling tones.
Annie was propped on her elbow on the pillow. Her red-brown locks tumbling down her naked shoulders. "It's the right time for a baby, Finn. Everything is always changing and never finished. We... you should have something of your own."
Finnick swallowed. He loved her so much. It could take months, even a year, for his fertility to regain its peak after so many years of treatment, and with Four on lockdown and medical rationing, he probably wouldn't even know if Annie was pregnant when he left.
'Plutarch will have a plan, Finnick.'
"Finn?"
Finnick grinned and pulled her in a kiss, allowing the taste of her to push his fears away.
Annie had never known fear. Somehow, despite her childhood, fear had eluded her. That's why it had hit her so hard when Barnacle had died: she'd not really thought it possible. Even now, she looked at Finnick with such trust, so certain they'd be a family. And what reason had she to fear? They both saw Mags glide serenely through the days, overseeing as much of the war preparations as her health allowed, with a confidence Finnick couldn't believe.
"Mags always keeps her word, Finn."
"Let's put some clothes on. We should help with the fish disposal," Finnick said, torn between spending more time with Annie and contributing to the work in Creneis. It was past midday already.
Annie scrunched her nose. The fish carcasses piled up in mounds at the edge of Creneis Town, and disposal -putting the carcasses back in the oldest ships in town and dumping the whole back at sea- was an exhausting and messy job, left for children and teenagers who also used the place as seagull hunting grounds. "Must we? It takes days to scrub off the stink."
"People are tempted to leave the fish to rot now that there are no peacekeepers to force us to clean up. We just need to use good boats instead of those floating garbage cans to get it done fast. The cold is keeping the smell bearable, but as soon as Spring hits, we'll all regret having put it off."
"Fine, let's be model citizen," Annie said, stretching and pointedly swaying her hips up to the chair she'd left her dress on to make sure he knew exactly what he was giving up.
Finnick drank in the sight with a rueful smirk. "We can heat your pool without feeling guilty when we come back all sweaty," he said brightly.
With the life he'd led, being a dad... Finnick couldn't even conceive it, and yet he'd never wanted anything so desperately before. Something wholly good, something he and Annie would make together.
"Well, if that's the case, I'll try not to complain when fish eyes get stuck in my hair," Annie said. Her eyes were bright as she stood on tiptoes to be closer to his face. "It is the right time, Finn."
'Plutarch will have a plan.'
Finnick let her pull him out of bed, a new smile on his lips. "We've waited enough." There was no tremble in his voice this time. "There will be no baby more loved in Panem."
Reaping Day came much too fast. It took all of his strength to turn his back to Annie and walk with Mags up to the train. What if she was pregnant? What if he didn't come back? What if she wasn't and they'd lost their chance? Annie's parting screams shredded through his chest. She locked all fear deep into his mind, which made it so much more painful when it burst out, stripping her of all control.
Finnick wasn't sure if he was helping Mags walk or if she was steadying him.
"Finn."
Mags was smiling, her expression warm and loving. Suddenly, his choking fears were replaced by hard determination. Yes, we will win. Finnick grinned and swept her up. She huffed and then laughed as he carried her to the most comfortable armchair and pushed it up to the buffet.
District 5: Asclepiad, 58th Hunger Games.
Pia had learned at the youngest age to make do.
Nana died too soon. She'd been the happy one but Pia had never asked why. Da left. Ma called him weak and made Pia swear she'd never find an excuse not to do her best by those who were hers.
That's the only mark of a good person, Asclepiad. The only mark.
Pia was the youngest, but that changed nothing at all. She made do every day, becoming friends with peacekeeper Cal's girlfriend to jump in front of the waiting lines at the hospital, or kidnapping rich Mrs. Lars' dog and claiming the finders reward to buy Isaak top-of-the-line tools for his apprenticeship. She did her best, and she was proud to be a good person.
She won because she didn't hesitate. Her family's happiness was non-negotiable. She'd had no choice.
Asclepiad never stopped trying. When Isaak had the accident, when her step-father couldn't get treated fast enough, it wasn't anything Pia could have avoided. She sent money to her sister even when Nina wouldn't talk to her anymore. Pia spoke to sponsors and made deals and she wasn't beautiful or Career but she appealed to their good side, their generous side, and she refused to give up. Those children were hers and she always swore to take them out. Never did one make it out. She hoped every year and never as hard as the 74th. Everyone watched District Twelve, but her eyes were on Finch, such a clever girl, running and hiding all the way to the last four.
She'd known those berries were poisonous. Finch had known. She'd chosen death.
Pia woke up drenched in sweat. Like yesterday and the night before and every night back to the Quarter Quell announcement.
She'd done her best. She was a good person.
District 5: Rapid, 42nd Hunger Games
He won because… because… the words used to come so easily. He won because he was stronger, faster, luckier, cleverer, better. Now Rapid would look into the mirror and see a scrawny old man where there had been a scrawny kid and the words just wouldn't come.
He won… he won because the gamemakers wanted him that year. Not him, Rapid, not even a District Five, no, him an outlier, a nobody. Politics.
He'd go back in that arena because of politics. Not because of anything he was or had done.
Maybe he should just give them Katniss Everdeen. Snow wanted loyalty, he wanted harmless servants. Rapid could be both.
Rapid would just kill the Girl on Fire and start anew.
District 6: Sparrow, 27th Hunger Games.
Red, green, orange, blue. Sparrow hadn't known the names of hues back then, only the flashing colors, bright, ugly, evil, safe and unsafe. One long day of colors. Columbus told her that the Games had lasted fourteen days, but days and night were blue and black. Sparrow remembered one long gray and never, ever falling asleep.
Mounts and walls and hiding places, and the weapons scattered all around, purple, yellow, gold and pink, cold to the touch and then warmer, warmer, hot, until they had to be thrown away. Each weapon shot balls, sprayed liquid on rock and flesh and every color was different. Yellow was water to drink, blue was lightning death.
Sparrow had come from a world of sterilized white and red-eyed mice. She'd sat stiff and proud because she knew what was real and what was not, and all the morphling and colors in the world were not worth her big brother's laugh when she told him fun stories.
She closed her eyes when a little voice reminded her not everyone had laughed. Stupid Sparrow, ditsy Sparrow.
The first weapon she'd found had been a small purple gun. Sparrow had put it in her mouth before any Career could come her way. She closed her eyes and opened them again. Everyone was gone. Purple wasn't death, purple was never-sleep.
Everything changes when you can't sleep. Dreams not dreams, voices not voices, and a young lab-technician that forgot everything except the one rule. Shoot. Shoot and win.
One long day of blurred shapes and colors and they were beautiful. Sparrow ran fast and aimed true and laughed, because she felt light and fuzzy and it was all a game and there was no fear to be had.
The fog lifted and she woke up, and they called her a victor.
Magenta, indigo, copper and teal. Soft, singing, warm. Sparrow doesn't want to wake up. She remembers the big boy that laughed; she remembers her mother's sparkling eyes. The syringe is in her hand but there are no lab rats or cages, only her bare arm full of tiny red marks.
Columbus tells her that her paintings are beautiful and he smiles. His eyes are dark blue, like her brother's were. The dreams are good. Sparrow doesn't want to wake up.
They say she's red and gold, Katniss, the Mockingjay, but she's a solid brown and green, a lone hunter made to wear a dress with a meaning so much bigger than her. He's silver and bright, the boy who loves her, and he wraps her in silver and song and there Sparrow finally sees the flames.
Sparrow walks on the reaping stage, the hum of red and gold rippling among her people, and she knows it's time to wake up.
Silver, beautiful. Mags didn't have to tell her that the boy, Peeta, is important, Sparrow already knows.
District 6: Columbus, 23rd Hunger Games.
Columbus' hands were raw as he scrubbed every last bit of melted wax off the scented candles. They had to be smooth and glow, or it wouldn't do.
She'd been so passionate, dramatic and so alive. Columbus saw her ghost in every light and shadow. When her ghost vanished, Columbus upped the dose, and she came back. Bianca. His mentor, his lover, his best friend. Had it really been that long ago? He looked in the mirror and saw a haggard man with wisps of white hair and yellowed skin; him they'd once called handsome.
He'd loved her and made her happy. Happier at least. She'd loved him and the rest of Panem had mattered little.
He'd died with her. He knew that. Every morning he would take out the tarot cards and read what messages they had for him. He would then wipe them one by one, once, twice, thrice, until they were clean enough to be put away. Columbus didn't let himself die for real. He was terrified of what lay beyond.
'You deserve to die, you horrible brat. Be grateful we take care of you.'
What if she'd been right? What if death was agony and torment? That's what had kept him, a friendless orphan with no one to come back to, alive in the arena.
He and Sparrow were the last. He'd expected a part of him to cheer when Wader gave the Capitol a taste of their own medicine by crashing the hovercraft in their tower. But without Bianca… And then they killed Daphne and Fustel and… How could Columbus care about a better world if there was no-one to share it with? He regretted a lot. He'd never told Fustel how much he admired the boy. He'd wanted to tell him, his one and only victor, that his daughter had lived sixteen beautiful years and that it was worth more than no years at all, but Fustel had died with his daughter just like Columbus had died with Bianca, and Columbus had gone back to mentor in Fustel's stead instead, trying to act a bit the father he had never had a chance to be.
It was time for Columbus to see what was beyond. He slipped his gloves on and pulled out the tarot cards.
Maybe he'd ask Mags how he should die. She'd been Bianca's friend.
District 7: Johanna, 71st Hunger Games
They'd killed her whole family, they had nothing on her. Not like Finnick who couldn't keep his pants on. She was free.
Free to feed and clothe the dozen peacekeepers who sat around the Village day and night, and get to leave during day hours instead of being forced to stay home and juggle with her axes until her hands fell off.
She fed them well: juicy meat and filling cakes. Those idiots couldn't keep watch past midnight with their stomachs so full.
Last night, she'd snatched some white paint from one of the factories and applied her artistic abilities to the Justice Building walls. Where are 7's rebels? Johanna winced and put the long-range binoculars down. Half the letters were bleeding paint and she had first read robds instead of 'rebels'. She should have just paid a kid with experience to write the message for her, but then she'd have missed half the satisfaction bringing a red glow to her cheeks.
She wiped her grin off remembering the reason that had pushed her to write that message.
Johanna was proud to be from Seven. They were tough and didn't get let the constant stream of shit from Capitol television soften their brains. So where were the ax-wielding armies ready to tear the Capitol a new one? What did people need? Two freaking Mockingjays?
All talk. She spat on the ground. Her district was all talk.
Seven is small scattered villages with few communication lines. The reasonable voice in her mind sounded a lot like Finnick. Finnick in the serious moments, when he dropped the boytoy attitude and stared into the future.
Truck drivers brought the wood, raw or cut into large beams, from the villages to Central Town, the only real town, where it was made into furniture or paper and wrapped up to be shipped elsewhere.
The solution was obvious: make every truck driver a rebel and smuggle weapons in those bloody trucks.
They're searched all the time. Truck drivers are closely monitored.
"Shut up, Finn," Johanna hissed.
District Seven was a butch damsel in distress waiting for the big boys. Johanna spat on the ground. She needed to hack at something.
Again. She'd have to do it all again. Although... driving an axe through Cashmere's pretty neck wouldn't be too unpleasant. Johanna's faint smile died before she could persuade herself she really meant it.
Finnick had told her not to worry. A waste of rebel energy for a useless, patronizing message. A huff escaped her mouth and Jo couldn't keep a rueful smile from lighting her face. She'd gone from spitting fury to just normal pissed upon reading those stupid words. She didn't know whether to love or hate that.
She'd break Odair's knees if it was just a bluff to keep her calm.
Jumping off the window sill, Johanna went to get her throwing axes, breaking into a run.
At least there wouldn't be fucking dinosaurs this time round.
District 7: Blight, 51st Hunger Games
Blight had grown up hating his mother.
She'd called him Blight. Branded him with all her misery. It wasn't his fault that she'd been beautiful and that peacekeeper a bastard. It wasn't his fault that the wedding had been called off and she'd been left with nothing. It wasn't his fault that she'd grown so bitter and hateful that no one wanted to help her. It wasn't his fault that he liked boys and wouldn't hook up with a proper girl who'd take care of her mother-in-law. Why he'd been stupid enough to tell her, he'd never know. She'd made him the joke of his village, a pariah.
But all that… all that had given Blight a wonderful story to tell in the Capitol. They loved him, for his peculiar manners, his cutting wit, for the contempt he held his district in.
Blight had never held an ax. He'd worked in the paper mills since he could reach the handles. He used to steal some wood shards before they were turned to pulp. He'd craft small weapons, fantasizing that he'd save everyone from a great evil and become a hero, and everyone would love him.
His mother killed herself just before his return. They didn't love him, but they left him alone. They were kind enough not to mention he'd driven a sharpened stick through a thirteen-year-old's eye. Blight decided to let go of the hate after Parcel Day, the first day he realized that he'd done some good. For the first time, he wept his mother's passing.
He'd found love twice and twice he'd lost it. Once, it was the Capitol's fault. The second time, he'd ruined it all by himself because he hadn't let himself believe.
Today Blight laced the peacekeepers' food with sleeping pills, again. He didn't tell Johanna, not when she felt so clever. He treasured the moments she let her guard down and asked him for advice. He liked to think he could take some credit for her victory, her strength.
The summer heat was scorching, and Blight stared hard at Keith from the Reaping Stage. Rowan would have volunteered for Blight, he'd been a good man, the best of them. Keith was sixty, he'd lived his time. Blight swallowed back bitter anger and chanced a glance at Johanna.
Johanna, his spitfire little girl.
Blight's lips twitched painfully. She thought he was weak, wolfing down feel-good Capitol novels and fine wine until he forgot his own life, and she was right, but he'd do his best to see that strength never leave her eyes.
District 8: Cecelia, 58th Hunger Games
"Mother, surely Plutarch won't allow you to go in the Hunger Games?" Charles was staring at her with those silver-gray eyes, standing tall and confident and almost reaching her chest. "It will be Moire, surely."
Cecelia angrily blinked tears out of her eyes before they even reached them.
Her well-spoken boy. Charles, her little king. Victoria was right behind him, with her best death glare as she hid behind her Capitol faces, because she couldn't handle her real feelings right now.
Camlet was sleeping. Cecelia fiercely prayed he'd not be struck by precocious insight and would keep toddling along until this was all over.
But surely Plutarch wouldn't. Or if he would, it'd be because he had a plan. A real solid plan that didn't involve three orphans of his own blood. Her eyes instinctively went to the window, to the score of peacekeepers patrolling around Victor's Village. As if Cecelia would join the rioting rebels with three kids in tow.
He'd adopt them, he'd better. Cecelia swallowed back fear, doubt and every urge that good mothers didn't display in front of their young children. But she couldn't die, she was their mother!
"Uncle Archie will have a plan. He always has a plan and whatever it is, it'll be what's best for you."
She smiled, her eyes too bright but her happiness unfeigned when her boy nodded. Charles was still her baby and he trusted her.
Her arms closed around him and Victoria, cradling them in a painful hug. Cecelia vowed that if Plutarch didn't have a plan, her children would not see her destroyed as well as killed. She'd die quickly, before the instincts that had kept her alive all these years ago resurfaced. She wouldn't be that person again. She'd be tragic and innocent and her children would live because the Capitol would demand it.
The Twos would do it if she asked.
District 8: Woof, 17th Hunger Games
"Woof! Woof, you really need to get better ears put on," Victoria said. "I kept calling and you don't hear me."
Woof scowled. There was something about being told off by a six year old that made him feel like he was shrinking and should watch his back in case his lovely late mother popped up with a wooden spoon.
"Why did you break your wall?" Victoria said, gingerly poking at the microwave-sized hole in his kitchen wall.
Woof grunted. Pain pulsed up his stiff back, reminding him microwave-throwing was just as moronic as it sounded. "'Cause I always was stupid when I was angry."
"Mom's gone. She told us to go to Moire, but Charles said to check on you because Moire just sent us to play with her rabbits as if we can't see she's crying." Victoria turned away from the broken microwave and shrugged. She'd seen weirder things at Capitol parties. "May I play with Teddy?"
"Sure," Woof said, forcing a smile, trying to forget he'd be reaped again. Kid was alive and staring at him, he forced himself to pay attention to her. Not her mother, who had a chance in two of going in, her. Woof had to focus. He couldn't let the anger take hold. He couldn't hurt little Vicky.
Teddy was almost as big as Woof and had a room he shared with all other teddies and kitties and every plush toy Woof had sewn together and stuffed for the Capitol or himself over the years. That was a bloody whole lot of years, but Woof liked plush toys, dressing them up, cross-dressing them up, and other silly things.
It was his secret to sanity. Why get old when you can be a kid? He'd always remember Mags' face when he'd chased her around with that huge bubble maker. To his defense, the younger victors were starting to be too intimidated by her, when really, she gave hugs to anyone who asked.
Woof froze. Bloody hell. Mags wouldn't be letting Nori or Annie on that stage, especially not with Finnick… Oh bloody hell!
"Vicky," Woof said, his hands shaking and not just from age. "Let's play surgeon and see what those beasties have in their bellies. I think I lost a pair of scissors in one of them."
Victoria giggled. "Mommy says you're no real Grandpa if you're not forgetful and a bit deaf."
Brat. "What? Didn't catch that, speak louder," Woof said, shooting her a dark glare. Damn, he loved those kids.
Victoria just smiled. Kid was too clever to be fooled.
Great things, plush toys, you could rip them apart and then make them all good again.
District 9: Scythia, 61st Hunger Games
Filthy. Object. Used.
Scythia fastened the black cloth around her face until the world was shrouded in shadow.
It's not your fault. Cecelia, that shameless Finnick, even those terrible Ones, they told her that and they were silly enough to believe it.
She'd killed Eir. District Two girls weren't sold. District Two mentors had tributes who survived. District Two victors were each other's family and could grow old together.
Of course it was Scythia's fault. Her choice to kill that girl for a life that wasn't worth it.
The knife on the kitchen table was staring at her, tempting, loving. Scythia stepped outside, hoping her will wouldn't break today.
They lie. There's an above, my dear. There's a beyond. The Capitol, they want us to forget, because it takes the power away from them. Life is a gift, treasure it. Your life does not belong to them.
Her grandfather had taken her in when her parents had a sixth child and couldn't fit them all in the house. He'd told her about God, he'd told her about before. He'd died in a fall when she'd been twelve and hadn't had the time to ask him so many crucial questions.
The bad will burn if they do not atone. That she remembered vividly.
Every day was her atonement. She would not give in like Eirene from Four had. She forced herself to eat even if her body repulsed her.
Scythia smiled when she heard the Quarter Quell announcement. Finally.
District 9: Whittle, 31st Hunger Games
He'd cut the District One girl's hair during training and almost got murdered right there.
Whittle had always done shit like that. He remembered angry faces, crying kids he taunted, his aunt screaming 'what's wrong with you!' and his boyhood friend, what's-his-name, telling him he was funny but that he'd die young.
His four siblings had died young, before Whittle had even got reaped. It wasn't peacekeepers or some vendetta against his folks, just plain shit old District Nine and probably bad genes. His mother had gone mad and killed his father. He guessed that's what made him a victor, the ability not to give a shit. And probably bad genes.
The thing is, he'd understood how it worked. He'd not gone to school or Career club, but he'd been doing dumb shit for attention for so long he got it. He got what the crowds wanted.
So he told the girl from One to fake a romance with him. Obviously he cut her hair because he loved her. Whittle even kept the locks for interview night, red and shiny like girls in Nine could only dream of. District One decided to go along, because on her own she wasn't near as cool. Whittle kept stealing from the Career pack with her covering for him, and every single one of those trained monsters knew, but hey, it was good TV, and Careers prefer to kill people when they're at the bottom of the Capitol's popularity list. Especially when the idiot outlier at the top had a four in training.
They finally had enough when Whittle sicked mutts on them. They tied him up to a pole and One jumped in to kiss him goodbye and boost her angle. Great kiss. Riveting too, because when the two Sevens popped up unexpectedly, they hacked half the Pack apart before they got hacked back. Whittle was off with One, the Fours were on their own and somehow Whittle and One kept inventing bullshit until sponsors gave them both swords.
Whittle didn't even know which way to swing the damn sword and almost impaled himself on it when the Fours showed up. He was so pathetic they ignored him. He was so cool Four-boy fell for it when Whittle started crying for his mother. Four got just close enough to receive the most beautiful kick in the nuts Panem had ever seen.
Then… Then Whittle used the sword and that's why he'd buy Four's mentor coffee ever year. Not Mags, but whoever would be with her. It was the way she'd look at him, like she could see right through his crap. At least Finnick pretended and laughed at his jokes.
Whittle was the third victor of Nine, third bloke, twenty-nine years after a guy who'd offed himself during his Tour and twenty-five years after that drunk Rye who'd gotten Achlys mad enough to kill him, so Whittle decided to play it cool.
Whittle barely changed anything with his life, except the food of course, and the house with heating. It was an art, pissing people off. He made friends too, but let them go after the 50th, because Snow was Panem's biggest dick. Whittle sang bawdy tunes next to schools until somebody got offended, he flirted with pretty girls half his age, especially if they were married, he offered rounds and rounds of drinks at the alehouse until fights happened (that almost got him friends even after the 50th), and he sometimes dressed as a peacekeeper to spook people who looked insultingly happy. He generally made sure nobody ever forgot he existed.
Then Scythia somehow survived and the blasted Capitol had to ruin everything. She was a pretty little thing who'd worn her heart on her sleeve and when Whittle had met on her the train, he fancied he'd have had a daughter like that in another life. Scythia had a gift for making him feel like shit and then feel even worse for being selfish enough to make it about himself. He replaced those black drapes she called clothes with pink miniskirts and sparkly bras once. She gave him a look so judgmental he didn't dare leave his house for a week.
He'd asked Brutus how to take care of a new victor, because that's the one thing he had to grant those bloody Twos: they were good with their own. Better than he was. Whenever Whittle saw Scythia in black, whenever she slammed the door and closed off for weeks after finally allowing him in, he felt like the biggest failure in the twelve Districts.
When they announced the Quarter Quell, Scythia came to see him, in normal clothes, like he could see her face and neck and almost didn't recognize her, and she said that finally her prayers had been answered.
He forgot his half-formed plan to blow up the barracks and offered to bake cookies.
Was this life's version of a half-assed apology? Finally giving him a friend before ending it all?
District 10 female, 30th Hunger Games
She was a freak. The Capitol liked freaks. She wasn't just comically ugly, too tall with big crooked teeth and flapping ears. She couldn't feel pain.
Down in the arena, among all those ice figures, she twisted her arms into impossible positions and knew how to carve herself to bleed the most but heal the best. She was funny. She made dares with herself, jumping off the tallest statues and breaking her leg, baring the bone for all to see and making a big messy show about it. Always the medicine came, because she promised she could do even better.
Yes, she was different. Screw everyone else. She'd made good money as a kid. Bored peacekeepers paid to see how far she could go. She'd learned to fake pain, bear the healing, and laugh along. Her parents had thought she was awesome for it. Screw everyone who judged them.
Back in that maze of ice with its traps and secret passages, she'd just stayed fun enough to stay safe. Until they were three, then she got found. She pretended to die, that's what people did when they had a mace tear their arm off. The boy was so high with victory juice that he forgot no canon had sounded and that she was a freak to begin with. She stood back up and had and brained him with an ice-chunk. She fainted on him too. Pain or no pain, the blood coming out of her arm had been real.
She had a family. Nana who'd lived to see eighty, Aries, that horrid Lana who still was useful sometimes, the twins and Tauro, her little Tauro who just jumped in her arms, called her Auntie and looked at her like she was the best in the world. And Veles, of course who'd argued his way into her life and her bed and had slammed the door and vowed they were through too many times to count.
She kept her family because every year she found a rebel or three to rat out to the Capitol. She didn't flaunt it, no interviews, no boasting, just the freak victor in the background and not a peep to any of the other victors.
She looked stupid and immature, even now she'd had her teeth and ears fixed and didn't break her own arm for laughs, and everyone underestimated her.
She never told about Beetee or Cecelia, about Mags or those shifty looking avoxes who were definitely spies. She never ratted out the rebels which really mattered. Propped on her elbows against the window, she serenely waited for the rebellion to reach Ten.
They never told her anything, and she didn't blame them. She just wanted to live to eighty and have loved ones cry when she died. She was already three-quarters of the way there.
Frigging Quarter Quell.
She saw people in the crowd, people of Ten who didn't look unhappy. Probably she'd ratted one of their loved ones out.
She wasn't sorry. Her family was alive, her whole family. Which other victor could say the same?
District 10 male, 47th Games.
He hadn't touched anyone in six years, not since that day he'd grown so bored of paid company that he'd contemplated taking that desperate young girl up for her offer. That day he'd bolted his door and had the postman deliver him everything in neatly piled boxes so that he'd never be tempted to cross that terrible line.
It had been like the chicken. Jump them and wring their necks. Just like cows, a cap-bolt gun to the head (forget it's a sharp rock and the noise and feel is all wrong), painless, quick. In the dark, it had been easy to pretend just long enough to do it. They hate you. They all want to kill you. It's you or them. They're evil.
He'd always worked the night shifts as a lad, even if they'd been supposed to take turns. He'd had no voice.
You complaining, loser? You too good for this job?
He'd won because he'd got a Career without been seen and they turned on each other, leaving only one, right in front of him. The other times, he hadn't even woken them.
Mattock, his mentor, a family man, as fine as they came, stopped him from going feral, but he died too soon, a stupid accident with a horse.
For the last twenty-three years, he'd slept during the day and gone out at night, just walking and walking, between the Capitol-owned settlements where farmers slept in tiny houses, or past the slaughterhouses where work never stopped.
He tried to avoid people, but accidents happened. Whenever he'd see someone, his eyes would dart across the room, the street, wherever he was, and his mind would conjure twenty ways to kill them. He would flee before the image of that stranger splattered on the ground had faded from his eyes.
He'd managed never to kill anyone since his 17th birthday, to keep the monster at bay. He held onto that.
I'll show them. They'll never push me around anymore. It had mattered back then, all these angry voices in his mind, because he'd been without parents and because some boys with crappy lives were always eager to take it out on those who had it even worse.
He stepped on the train for the 75th Hunger Games, his fists balled as he visualized choking the escort with the ribbons of her own blouse. These weren't chicken, they were his people, other districts, same nightmares. He couldn't kill them. The fight had gone out of him long ago.
District 11: Seeder, 33rd Hunger Games
Seeder jolted awake.
Her hand wrapped around the knife under her pillow. Frantic barks boomed in the night air, cut by piercing whinneys and the thunk of hooves smashing against hard wood. Another gunshot ripped through the air.
She'd been sleeping dressed since the Capitol had shut down the electrical plant at the beginning of winter. She didn't need light to walk her own house; candles were too valuable to waste.
New thuds, muffled, very unlike the horses', reached Seeder's ears as she rushed to the back door. She tensed, the heaviness in her legs reminding her not to forget her body's sixty years. Something was being thrown at her roof.
She pressed herself against the wall, crouched in the total darkness, her knife held tight. The back door burst open.
"Seeder?" A flash of light revealed tight black curls and a youthful face. Not light, flames.
Seeder revealed herself. "What have you done, boy?" She asked, her heart hammering. She'd never wanted part of this. The drunken violence that was tearing her homeland apart.
"The Capitol are monsters. Everything theirs has to go. Victors' Village is theirs: it's gotta go. Move quick before we get trapped."
Shock had Seeder take a deep breath. The air was dryer, warmer. She could hear the crackling now, as the thatched roof was devoured by fire. They'd put her house on fire.
Thank goodness they hadn't meant to kill her too.
Outside, the light was blinding. Flames ate at the tall fences segregating Victor's Village from the unending orchards and plantations. Fruits, vegetables, flowers, spices, cocoa, drugs, bred and altered to withstand any weather, to grow in any soil, but barren, so that none would seek to grow a garden far from the Capitol's eyes.
Seeder whipped her head to the side. A man, no a boy, fell, shot by a burning, screaming, peacekeeper. Three more jumped on the cop before he could shoot again.
"We made catapults, got the filth to burn and scatter so we could take 'em. Got the ideas from the Hunger Games."
Unlike the eager boy beside her, Seeder wasn't smiling. "Get Chaff safe. I can take care of myself."
The stable was burning, forgotten in the chaos. The statue of the panther by the doors staring ominously at Seeder in the flame lit night.
Chance, her clever panther, her one ally in Games that didn't want the tributes to bond. Games of hunting and hiding, until Seeder poisoned the supply bases on the fourth day with a powder Mags had sent her. That day, the Gamemakers, those wonderful people always full of bright ideas, decided to better explore the Hunger in Hunger Games and sent them the meal that would be their last: raw meat, the kind that would poison if not cooked. The cooking fires led the killers to their victims and dropped the survivors' number to nine. The mutts would always stop before the kill, making sure the tributes would have the honor. Seeder remembered Luca, his dark hair and freckled baby face, but above all his hateful shouts, as he kicked at his badger-mutt, screaming at it to kill her. Seeder had let him go, too busy patching up Chance to contemplate becoming a killer.
No two tributes met after that sixth day. Seeder gave the raw meat to Chance. She wanted a friend more than she needed a meal, and Chance was hungrier than she was. Seeder curled next to the panther, keeping warm, waiting. She tried not to think of cameras, and how the Capitol had turned them into a twisted medical experiment. Those who turned on their mutts in desperate hunger died the worst deaths. Others were taken by hallucinations, stumbling about aimlessly, driven to a panic by the slightest sound, until they slid and slammed their head against a rock. Rain came every day, and Seeder gathered it in leaves, stripping to the limit of decency and hiding her clothes under Chance so they would be dry once the rain ended. Chance occasionally whined, but she never left her side. On the thirty-seventh day, Seeder had dazedly realized the cannon blast was the twenty-third.
Her eyes watering from the heat and soot, Seeder shoved the large key around her neck in the lock and rushed to cover before the dogs and horses could trample her as they fled the burning stable. Seeder had made her talent about animals and the sense of safety, of confidence, only they could give a broken child. The Capitol was always eager to take credit for her farm, for the smiles on the children's faces. The civilizing force in a District of barbarians. Orphans, occasionally runaways, Seeder helped them heal until they could return to work.
Snow had used her farm, the quiet of Victor's Village, to distract from the unrest, as pretense all was normal. Seeder took one last look at her home of over forty years. Pretense would be impossible now.
A hand grasped her arm. Seeder almost stabbed Chaff for the sixty-third time since she'd become his mentor.
"Come with us. They've got heart, but they'll need brains," Chaff said, his expression caught between horror and delight.
Seeder shook her head. She'd never had to kill anyone to get what she wanted. She wouldn't start now. "Chaff, go. I'll find you." She placed a kiss on his cheek and smiled. He was her little brother in all but name. "I have somewhere to be"
She found one of her horses before dawn. Four days later, hunger gnawing at her stomach, she slipped through the peacekeeper lines and entered the labor camp where the condemned broke their backs until the peacekeepers decided they had no more use. Clad in dirty clothes and without Capitol makeup, no one recognized her.
"I'm here to get you to safety," she said, smiling at the five young faces staring at her wide-eyed. She'd not been able to save Rue, but she could save Rue's family.
"What about Uncle Sepal?" The eldest was barely eleven, such a lovely boy with a frown much too hard for his age. "His back's getting worse, they've got him patching up uniforms for now, but they'll take him away!"
"Uncle Sepal too, and your cousin Corolla. These new peacekeepers aren't very clever," Seeder said with a wink, making the youngest giggle and the eldest perk up.
Faced with massive uprisings, the Capitol had drafted ten thousand additional peacekeepers from Two, men and tough women of all ages, who had less than two months' training behind them. Shock troops with very simple orders: beat down the rebels. Many were eager to do just that, but Seeder had a keen eye for people, and two months wasn't enough to cripple the empathy of those who'd been drafted half-decent.
"Just do as I say," she said with a smile.
District 11: Chaff, 45th Hunger Games
"Why are we here, Chaff? It's a bloody waste of men to try and take that! We've got no time to spare, man."
The Capitol had tried to break them as soon as the riots began, with little Rue's death. They'd brought in automatics that killed men by the dozen in seconds, but people weren't stupid. There weren't many weapons like that still around. That knowledge had been lost, the science of real weapons. Every man and woman knew they had to take the peacekeepers out before the Capitol sent their mutt armies.
"Shut up and do as I say," Chaff snapped, his patience wearing thin.
There were six of them in the scouting team, crouching in the field right above the guarded settlement. The memories of this place did little to help Chaff's temper.
"That's the dogs camp. What –"
"Why do you think it's always guarded?" Chaff ground out, struggling to keep his voice low. "Don't you think those dogs would turn back to us if their families were safe? They're all boys of fighting age, we're going to need them."
"That's a nice dream. Look around you, everyone here has a family. A family that's no traitor to Eleven. You asking us to risk our lives hoping for dogs to bite their masters' hands off?"
Chaff face darkened. Dogs. Peacekeepers came for you when you grew big and strong in Eleven. They gave your mother a bigger house, better clothes, heating for the winter, with the mothers and families of other big boys. They protected you as long as you protected them. Clad in black, holding crowbars and making sure nobody stole from the Capitol.
"I used to be one of them, when I was a lad," Chaff admitted, his stump concealed in his large coat. "I know how they think. You all agreed you trust me."
But that agreement was before they'd known. Suspicion warred with disgust and other dark emotions. "You were a dog?"
Chaff remembered the talk from his Ma. He'd been ten. 'Chaff, a peacekeeper calls you out, you look down. He tells you you did something wrong, I don't care if he's lying, you say 'Sorry Sir, won't happen again Sir.' and you keep your eyes on your feet, Boy. He push over a friend of yours, you don't be loyal, 'cause that's the surest way to get both of you killed.'
He'd done that, every damn time. He lost a friend, then two, but he said nothing and his Ma said she was proud of him, for being a survivor. Chaff grew tall and strong. The peacekeepers noticed and drafted him in. He became a black jacket, one of the thugs that helped ten thousand peacekeepers keep the five hundred thousand citizen of Eleven in line. It was serving or coming home and realizing his Ma was gone. Chaff had been stupid and fifteen. He couldn't handle it: accepting he had no choice but do wrong. So he let them convince him it wasn't wrong. That he and his Ma were better than the rest. That his Ma wouldn't have gone barren if people didn't steal apples in orchards or slack when cropping the grape vines. That his friends had somehow deserved the punishments they got. Chaff convinced himself he was the good guy. The black jackets were his family, they treated him right. The more arrests he made, the more money he earned. He grew bigger and tougher because black jackets had extra rations. When his conscience nudged at him, he let a kid or two get away with gobbling a handful of strawberries while working, or looked away when a pregnant woman took an extra break, and he convinced himself he acted as best as he could.
"Chaff, they kill us. They killed you when you took the jacket. They'll kill you again whether you win or not. Don't come back if you can't be my Chaff," his Ma told him at the Justice building. Then she'd hugged him so hard and the words had screwed with his mind so bad he'd spent all his Capitol time obsessing over them. And they'd made him angry. Those words had shredded apart every bit of convincing he'd done to hold onto pride.
Chaff killed the three Career boys in that arena. Ironically, he didn't lose the arm to them, but to Cosmo, District Six, the year's self-proclaimed rebel, who got him with a poisoned knife when Chaff had just wanted them to be allies. Chaff cut the arm off and cauterized it, and it was the most important lesson in his life. Rebels can be damned idiots.
His Ma took him back, and said she was proud of him for the first time in three years. Chaff remembered the awe in her eyes, as if she'd taught him all those lessons, look down, accept what you must accept, because she saw no way out. Chaff had shown her a way out. He'd survived the Hunger Games.
His Ma died a few months after Chaff learned Snow had killed Haymitch Abernathy's family. Lots of victors lost loved ones during those years, and later too. Haymitch had become a friend. Snow was making it mighty personal.
"I was. That's how I know what I know," Chaff said, his jaw set. "The Capitol didn't just create the black jackets because they needed more people to beat us down. They did that to tear Eleven apart. We're to fix that. That's what rebels do."
He saw the words sink in. These weren't bad people. He saw them look down and nod, a new resolve in their eyes.
"When we're done, you'll stay or you're going to find Seeder?"
Chaff's chest constricted. He'd meant to join rebels and get some peacekeeper blood on his clothes, but he couldn't do that, not after Seeder had done so much for him. He wanted her proud, so instead, he vowed he'd get the black jackets back on the right path and try to spill as little blood as he could. He couldn't be her, finding her peace in kind acts, but he'd do right by her as well he could.
"I'll be off to find her," Chaff said. Knowing Seeder, she'd be at one of the safehouses trying to get the displaced kids back in contact with their families. "We'll need to turn ourselves in before the Reapings." If they could get a friendly peacekeeper promoted to Captain for 'finding' them, it'd be even better.
Chaff grinned when they looked at him like he was crazy. "Enough yapping. Boys and gals, we have a settlement to free."
He hoped Haymitch would stay out of trouble in Twelve. He was looking forward to that drink.
District 12: Katniss, 74th Hunger Games
Katniss watched as Peeta tied his first snares. Just minutes ago Gale had scowled, his words sharp and condescending, his jaw set in anger, as he made it obvious he was helping Peeta because Katniss had begged him to.
Now Gale was crouched next to Peeta, his broad shoulders more relaxed, something thoughtful about his piercing dark gaze. Katniss swallowed, anger stirring in her chest. Peeta had that effect on people. Everyone liked Peeta.
She had to love him. And what was not to love about Peeta? Why couldn't she? What was wrong with her?
Snow had ordered her to love Peeta during the Victory Tour. To prove that she'd meant it in the arena. She had done her best, she'd held his hand and kissed his lips even when she could barely think from the fear and the confusion consuming her. Was Gale almost smiling? Katniss turned away. She couldn't watch. Peeta, the boy who'd saved her life. The boy she kept hurting. Had it been all fake, it would have been easier. Why couldn't she just love him? Prim would die if Katniss failed, and maybe she had already had.
Prim couldn't die. She just couldn't.
"You'll slice your fingers doing that." Gale's voice flitted over to her, filling Katniss with bitter longing for the days before she had volunteered. She wanted her best friend back so badly.
The Quell. One more thing standing between her and her family, one more reason to hate Snow.
Haymitch had promised. He'd volunteer for Peeta if Peeta was reaped. Then, Katniss would just have to worry about going home to Prim. She'd done it once, she'd do it again.
She dreamed of him, Rue's grandfather, that proud black man shot like an animal. She wondered sometimes if she'd just imagined those people rioting in District Eight. She'd seen it, in blood red paint, the Mockinjay, her, the symbol of their war.
The Seam wasn't rebelling. Everything was the same, but everything had changed. Peeta, Gale, the Hob, District Twelve, everything… The Mockinjay. She'd just been trying to survive.
No, no that's not right. She'd known. She'd known deep down that it was defiant and she wasn't sorry.
Peeta chuckled at something Gale said. Katniss' heart clenched. She took a shaky breath before the all too familiar fear and confusion could overwhelm her once more.
Haymitch. She had to see Haymitch.
District 12: Peeta, 74th Hunger Games.
"Why would they kill each other?" Peeta asked, arms crossed as he sat across Haymitch at the messy living room table. The windows were open, the howling wind chasing away the stench of alcohol but most importantly deafening the bugs in the walls.
Haymitch didn't seem to know whether he should bother to sober up or not. The Quell announcement had changed everything. It was so much bigger than them and Peeta needed more pieces of the puzzle.
Peacekeeper Thread and the hundred new peacekeepers terrorizing Twelve. The shooting in Eleven. The fighting in Eight. The Mockingjay symbol everywhere. The Head Gamemaker, Plutarch Heavensbee, dancing with Katniss during the Tour and that same mockingjay again. Capitolites cheering, smiling, where they that stupid? Or did they disagree with President Snow?
Peeta needed to know. For Katniss. For everyone worth saving.
"Haymitch, we're all adults. You know the other victors. You're friends with some of them." He vividly remembered Chaff from Eleven. "If it was me, I'd just refuse to play. Snow's not executing us, it has to mean he can't." Peeta's voice rose, the words tumbling out as Haymitch just stared in the distance, his expression infuriatingly slack. "The Capitol, the sponsors, they don't want us dead."
"Ha." Haymitch's scoff had the effect of an ice bath. "They'll fight. The Careers can't see beyond the damn rules. The arena will fight. They'll drug the air. They'll drug us if they need to."
Peeta inhaled through painfully clamped teeth. "Should I just kill myself then?" He snarled. He'd never been so close to punching Haymitch. The man had facts, he'd been among victors and Capitolites for over thirty years! He knew so much and he kept them in the dark.
Peeta had to make sure Katniss survived. He could paint her in his sleep, the suspicion in her gray eyes, that hint of feelings, those questions that burned his heart when she thought he couldn't see her. That long dark braid that trapped resin and leaf chips and told Katniss' story for all who bothered to look, the story of a girl who wouldn't be bound when those she loved needed her. That creased frown that betrayed so many thoughts, so many conversations Peeta wished they could have. She was lean and slight and narrow, always coiled and ready to bolt, and so beautiful. Peeta sometimes spied on her, just to see the sudden strength that straightened her back, the softness in her gaze and the tug at her lips that became the most touching of smiles, when she was with her sister Prim.
"That won't do any good, kid." Haymitch didn't even meet his gaze. "Snow will just invent a story and the Capitol will move on."
"Haymitch," Peeta said, calm only because this man had been through so much and they'd never have made it out without him. "I know there's a rebellion. I know the other victors will have agendas and that Snow isn't the only person in Panem. This Quell is about killing..." He couldn't say it. "Killing the Mockinjay. Is there anything I can do?" He said, his voice a hoarse whisper.
He'd been smitten from the moment she'd sang that first day of school. He always sat at lunch where he could see, cheering when Gale made her laugh and smile, vowing he'd talk to her and always putting that moment off. Their first kiss... Peeta could never have imagined anything so inebriating and yet so sad.
"Haymitch, please," Peeta demanded. The Capitol would want him and Katniss together in the arena, that one certainty kept panic from overcoming him.
Finally the man locked eyes with him. "You need to protect her. She cares about you more than she does about the rebellion. You need to keep her from being stupid."
Something twisted in Peeta's chest. He didn't want to think about Katniss caring. For him it was as easy as breathing while she... she'd been forced all the way and he knew he had to give her time, but she wouldn't even try to be his friend. She probably doesn't know how. Peeta shut his eyes briefly, a small smile on his lips. Katniss wouldn't be Katniss without her awkwardness.
"So I have to use her guilt to keep her alive." Peeta said, forcing a smile and the bitterness out of his voice. She would so love feeling manipulated. "Haymitch... I'm struggling here. I'm not... blind." He'd almost said Katniss. "I can see you're holding back."
Haymitch stood up, his face suddenly animated. "Kid, stop asking questions, go bake a cake and do as you're told," he snapped, striding for the front door. "You'll get your answers. Smarter people than us both have plans. Now get out!"
Peeta frowned, a smile tugging at his lips. He was sure he'd heard Haymitch give a rueful chuckle when he'd slammed the door.
Rebels with plans. Best news Peeta had had in weeks.
Please review^^.
PS:I know some of the character's ages are a bit off, mea culpa.