7

"District Twelve! District Twelve! District Twelve!"

Prim glanced up at the chanting crowd. They were cheering for…her? No, probably for Peeta—anyone could see she wasn't worth much. Or maybe they were just cheering because Cinna's costume design was so…illuminating.

Prim caught a glimpse of herself on the television screen. Next to Peeta, she looked small, minuscule…but like an explosive little fireball. It was so bizarre to see herself so huge and fiery. She almost felt proud.

"Just imagine it's Katniss cheering you on at the race," Peeta said in her ear.

Katniss would be proud. The last time Prim saw her, Katniss called her "little duck," but now Prim imagined what she might call her instead. Fire duck popped into her head and it was so absurd, so silly, that Prim laughed out loud.

On the television screen, her laugh made her look insane, like she enjoyed burning alive. It made her laugh harder. Maybe she was insane. No other tributes had thought about blowing themselves up to avoid the Games. Besides, the Capitol people seemed to like insane. They roared their approval.

The chariots looped the City Circle and pulled up beneath President Snow's mansion. Prim had never seen President Snow, nor did she want to. He stepped onto the balcony - small, thin, with off-white hair. After a quick welcome, the anthem played and the horses returned of their own accord into the Training Center.

Cinna gave Prim a hand down from the chariot. Only then did she realize she'd been gripping Peeta's hand like a vice the whole ride. His fingers were red from lack of circulation. "I'm sorry," she told him over her shoulder.

He just smiled and she remembered his words: I'll take care of you, Prim. I promise.

She believed him. But why? Why did Katniss trust him? Why did he want to protect Prim?

.

.

Prim threw up on the elevator in the Training Center. She'd never been more embarrassed in her life. How could she handle a two-day train ride, a chariot ride, being lit on fire and stripped of all her body hair…but not an elevator ride? Maybe it was just because the drop of her stomach felt a little too familiar to when she first stepped on the platform with Effie…having just been reaped.

"You poor dear!" Effie hustled Prim to her room so fast that she had very little time to take in the elaborate 12th level designed specifically for her and Peeta. Her room was bigger than her entire house in District 12. Effie swept her straight into the shower. "Just take a nice soak and then come out for dinner."

Prim did as commanded, though it took her a while to figure out all the gadgets on the shower panel. Once the water started spewing from overhead with pink bubbles swirling in the air, she sat on the ground and let it pelt her like an angry rainstorm.

Here. Here she could think. She could digest.

She was in the Capitol. It was so easy to get distracted by the finery, the people, the instant fame and the outfits. But the fact remained that she would be in the Arena in just a few days and she still hadn't settled on a plan.

To blow up or to not blow up?

If only she'd asked Katniss not to watch the Games this year—then she's never see Prim's struggle with cowardice.

But cowardice wasn't the worst of it. When Prim really thought about it, really looked at her situation, she was struck by the knowledge she would be dead in a few days.

Dead.

Gone. No more running. No more Buttercup. No more Mom brushing her hair and then braiding it. No more hopes of Rory Hawthorne holding her hand. No more milking life felt too short and Prim felt too grown up. She didn't want to think about death. Not yet.

A rap on the door startled her. "Time for dinner, dear!"

Effie.

Dinner.

What did it matter?

"I'll be right there." Prim crawled back to her feet. Effie was so nice to her, she couldn't let her down. Not while she still had a couple days to make someone happy.

Dinner was served on a long table with Peeta, Haymitch, Effie, Portia, and Cinna all present. Prim sat next to Peeta. He passed her a plate and then a man in a long white tunic served her some gray-ish soup, vegetables with teensy tomatoes, roast beef and noodles. After serving the food, his hand slipped up and placed a small primrose on her napkin.

Prim gasped and a smile spread across her face. "Thank you!"

The tunic man looked at her, startled, and she wondered if she did something wrong.

"Prim!" Effie set her wine glass on the table. "You're not to speak to Avoxes unless it's to give an order."

"But..." her fingers toyed with the primrose. Maybe the man had been ordered to give it to her. Maybe it wasn't just a gift from him. "W-What's an Avox?" She watched as the man bowed and backed away. Sweat lined his forehead. Did she get him in trouble?

"Someone who committed a crime. They cut their tongues out so they can't speak," said Haymitch.

Prim's throat stuck and her eyes burned. She had an abrupt urge to get up from the table and give the poor Avox man a hug. She looked at him, but he stared at his feet, holding a water pitcher like a statue.

"Shall we move into the sitting room?" Cinna suggested. Everyone else at the table grasped the escape. They stood with their chairs scraping against the floor.

Prim rose last, still stunned. Cutting out people's tongues? Peeta lingered behind to walk with her, but she couldn't just leave. Not with those last words hanging in the air: They cut their tongues out so they can't speak.

What did it matter what Effie thought? What Haymitch thought? Or what the Capitol thought? She tiptoe-ran to the Avox and threw her arms around his middle. He didn't respond. Didn't move. A small groan came from deep within his throat and that's when she pulled away. She didn't want to get him in trouble.

She looked up at his face, not minding that tears streamed down her own. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that anybody ever hurt you."

"Come on, Prim." Peeta sounded tense. The voices in the sitting room grew louder, as if someone was coming back for them.

A single tear slipped down the Avox man's cheek.

"I wish I knew your name," she whispered to him. "But I'll think of you fondly, anyway."

.

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To be continued...

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(New posts every week, sometimes sooner.).

~Feel free to check out my own dystopian book, A Time to Die (by Nadine Brandes), on Amazon~

"How would you live, if you knew the day you'd die?"