CHAPTER TWENTY:

Bess Tyler

In retrospect, I was stupid. I got myself into this situation: here in a spare room at the town hall, a Peacekeeper guarding the door and loads of folks standing around out in the streets, their anger pretty easy to see and hard to miss, all this is my fault. It began with Flaxie's death. We were gathered in the common ground with a circle of Peacekeepers choking the rim of the Compound when Flaxie died. She struggled with the ravenous dog mutt as the buildings around her collapsed. I thought she had defeated the dog mutt when the buildings fell on top of the creature, but it wasn't a long-held victory, if it can be counted as a victory. The ironic thing about Flaxie McKay's death is that she hadn't harmed or even touched a single Tribute before she was mercilessly attacked and killed by that dog mutt. That is why folks around the Compound got hot and bothered. Other Tributes that participate in the Hunger Games and actually play them as they're supposed to, well those folks are murderers just as much as the next Tribute who ends up killing them (if that happens). Flaxie was innocent, and she was murdered anyway.

I looked around the room I was being detained in: it's bare and quite ugly with a wall half painted in green, a color fading from its exposure to light. The light source is a single window that's shuttered at this moment, for my safety, according to the Chief Peacekeeper. He seems to be under the illusion that I am in danger. Maybe he needs a detaining room for himself! Thinking like that is only going to get you into more trouble, Bess, I think. The Peacekeepers are here for a reason. I shrug it off. Not a very good one, a new internal voice comments; it sounds like Moxie's voice and it throws me off. I have never had two opposing voices in my head before… that I can remember. I've always been looking up.

I looked around the common ground after the cannon fired: folks were awash with mixed emotions. Most of the adults carried their emotions just beneath a thin veneer of indifference composed by years of experience with split-second choices that led to life and death. Reading their faces, I can imagine what they might say to me if I plucked up the courage to ask them what they're feeling: "In this District, she'd have lived another day, that's what." "Y'all be careful with wild dogs now. Y'all never know what's really in them." "She didn't deserve to die." "She didn't deserve to die." She didn't deserve to die. I wonder if anyone in that arena deserves to die, and my question is quickly answered when we refocus on a battle at the Cornucopia. Here's how that situation was set up, because someone had a really generous sponsor in the Capitol and those gifts made it possible for the battle at the Cornucopia to happen as it did, and that is like this: last night, Lutris, the Career from 4, received three different gifts from his sponsor(s). I don't know if he has more than one because knowing how outrageous the prices are for gifts, sending three from one person means that person has money to spend, and it seems more likely there's more than one sponsor for Lutris, but I have no clue how any of that works, really, so I can't say. Lutris's first gift was an oval-shaped thing he could hold in his hand. It looked like a small type of flask to me, stopper and all, but I learned differently when the battle at the Cornucopia began. The second gift was a pair of attachable soles for his shoes. They looked like they had spikes and suction cups, and he must've known what they were because he strapped them to his shoes so that they were on the bottom part. Later, when the battle was about to begin, I saw how he used them and I was notably impressed: those things seemed like the best gifts. The third gift I recognized well enough: dynamite sticks. Later, as the assault at the Cornucopia began, I found out that they weren't what I thought they were because they didn't really explode as much as flare and smoke a lot. These were the gifts Lutris got that helped him in the battle at the Cornucopia.

As we refocused to the center of the arena, I think everyone was reminded that one of the most vicious killers in the Games was hiding inside that horn of empty. Flicka was another Career – being from District 2 – and her skills at killing were fine-tuned though her methods seemed aggravated and wholly animalistic. She'd torn out chunks of flesh and smashed a Tribute's head to a pulp on the first day, and then she'd dug into the flesh of two other Tributes and smashed their heads together, shattering their skulls, a day later. She'd licked blood, sharpened her nails and overall adapted the look of a crazed menace. I suppose if anyone in the arena deserved to die, it was Flicka, and there inlay a problem because it was dawning on me, as I watched the battle begin, that the innocent died faster and without any mercy while the most egregiously guilty survived to fight (and possibly to win) the Hunger Games. How could anyone possibly survive the Games after participating in the destruction of twenty-three others? I felt my optimism falter like a beautiful and healthy animal sensing a trap near her. The battle began. Lutris fastened the things to his shoes and began climbing the Cornucopia. The spikes seemed to dig into the sleek metal of the horn, but no visible marks were made, and the only sounds we could hear were the suction cups sticking and unsticking against the metal. When he'd reached the top, he crawled to the gaping mouth of the horn and leaned over the edge. The cameras changed to capture the mouth, showing impenetrable darkness inside. Swiftly, Lutris uncorked the flask-like thing and chucked it into that darkness. There was a hiss as it fell inside, and in the momentary gloom, we saw Flicka. Then, everything exploded at the back of the Cornucopia. Against any other metal, this grenade would have proved superior, but against the innovation of the Capitol, the explosion was contained by the strength of the metal. It propelled Flicka from her hiding place outward as though she was being shot from a cannon. She was a mess when she landed; fragments of sharp material and the remnants of food stuff stuck to her body: she was bleeding from the shrapnel that cut her skin. Yet, when she picked herself up, her eyes seemed to glow red and yellow. I was sure she was crazed. She fixed a gaze on Lutris atop the horn and let out the sort of piercing, bone-chilling howl that you never forget (and I never will. I shiver just recalling it) and charged toward the horn. Swiftly, Lutris pulled out the dynamite sticks, lit them and tossed them at the charging Flicka. The sparked up and flared relentlessly, smoke billowing from them and stopping Flicka in her charge. She coughed, and then she doubled over and began hacking. Whatever was in that smoke billowing from those sticks, it wasn't normal. Lutris used this time to come down from the Cornucopia and to remove his long sword from the strap slung across his back. I thought this would be an easy kill, but as always with Flicka (and the Hunger Games in general) I was wrong. Her speed and force were truly amazing. She recovered in time to swipe away the first attack and as Lutris was recovering, she pounced on him. The sword was thrown from his hand as she knocked him to the ground and raised her razor-sharp nails to claw him to death. From his boot, Lutris pulled out a jagged edged dirk and plunged it into Flicka's side. She writhed and howled, rolling off him and clawing at the knife. Lutris sprang to his feet and managed to recover his sword as Flicka withdrew the knife and licked it clean. I never understood why she thought that blood was something to be licked, but then there were many things about her that I'll never understand.

I can't imagine how she managed to get several cuts on Lutris, facing him with a comparatively small blade, but amidst ducking and jabbing, Flicka managed to shred Lutris's shirt. He tore it off in one swift motion and in the next he was slashing a long gash across Flicka's face. It was long and deep, and it threw her off. She stumbled back, blood leaking from the fresh wound, and retreated. Lutris didn't follow. He dropped the tip of the sword and heaved stuttered sighs. Is it over? Flicka tackles him from behind, trying to stab him. Lutris is able to fight her off but that's only because he's naturally stronger than her and even though she has momentum in the assault, he has more skill with the sword. They struggle a long time, each getting cuts in on one another. Lutris gets himself into a position to throw Flicka off him, with spikes on the soles of his shoes digging into her stomach. He is about to kick her off him very hard when she slashes at him again and makes him howl and grab for his ankle. As he tries to stem the flow of blood trickling from his Achilles tendon (apparently, as Phinehas Gideon will inform us later), Flicka switches her grip on the dirk and jams it directly into his eye. It's a hard stab but not hard enough that the blade comes out the other side. He falls, limp, the grip of the dirk protruding from his eye, and Flicka – with a chilling wicked laugh – sets to work clawing up his face. He's trying to reach the sword, but she's all over his face, shredding his skin – her gruesome specialty. I was just waiting for the cannon to sound: how can anyone survive the treatment she's giving his face? But then someone pointed out his hand: he's gripping the sword and he's bringing it toward him, slowly; now he's raising it; now he's adjusting his grip. It happens so quickly that several girls and women scream in surprise; Lutris bellows an awful battle cry, and then uses his thighs to flip Flicka over onto her back. Now as he is atop her, he raises the sword high and plunges it into the middle of her chest, offering a terrifying, animalistic cry of triumph as blood gushes from his wounds on his face. The cannon sounds immediately and a hovercraft appears just as quickly, ordering Lutris off his kill. He doesn't listen but drags the body away out of reach of the hovercraft. Eventually the craft disappears. The battle is over, we think.

I don't understand what he does next. As the bare-chested Lutris stands, it looks like he has a dagger sticking out just below his midsection. In the shade of the rear side of the Cornucopia, he withdraws the sword from Flicka's corpse, pulls the dagger from his eye-socket, taking most of his eye with it, and then unfastens his trousers. There is blood everywhere, from his chest and face and where his eye used to be. He stumbles but manages to drop to his knees. His trousers fall off and next he is ripping Flicka's clothes off her legs. The women around the Compound make disturbed noises and cover the eyes of the children near them. I look away voluntarily, but the groaning sounds coming from the screen are hard to block out. There are other sounds too. I don't understand it but something deep inside me tells me that what is happening is really upsetting and shouldn't happen. He groans among other sounds – sounds like those that your clenched fist makes when you pound it against your palm – and it's very upsetting for everyone, even though most of us don't know why. His groans get louder and that other sound gets louder with them. Just when I can't take it anymore, the feed cuts away from whatever was happening. I look around at the women, and I've never seen them angrier in my life. Whatever just happened, it has upset them very deeply. In sympathy, I am upset as well.

We've changed locations in the arena. Seeder is there in his hiding place. The shadows have fallen on the arena, so there is a cascade of feeble light coming in through the window. Seeder has fixed himself a good meal from the food stock that he's hording. The light in the window changes and he doesn't notice it until the variant kicks in the glass and appears, his back to the camera. We can't see Seeder now, but we can hear him. "No… no! Guss, we had a deal! We had a deal! Guss noooooo!" The other boy has a bow and a quiver of arrows… from where? I don't know. He's knocked an arrow in the bow. He draws back the string. "Guss! Don't! Guss, please!" I can't peel my eyes from the screen even though we all know what's about to happen. The arrow whistles through the air and very quickly buries itself into flesh. Seeder's pleas are silenced, but around me the women of the Compound launch into action. Most of them scream, some keen, others push their children out of the way, and a handful of ready and willing Prairie Dogs grab whatever is nearest to them and attack the Peacekeepers. Instinctively, I pounce on Sissy and Lenox. I flatten them beneath me and pull Striker down with us as soon as the brutal popping sound of a volley of gunfire cuts through the chaos. Everything after that is a nightmare I don't want to remember.

We're all dragged into the town square. "All" is generous: there were about forty-seven of us living in the Compound, and now, counting only those who can stand on their own, there are nineteen. Of that nineteen, the Tylers comprise four. That's a little more than 20%. The Townies saw us coming and closed up their doors and windows very tight. I wonder if they thought we were going to be exterminated in the town square and they just had no intention of watching. Whatever their reasons, all I know is that if I hadn't forced my siblings down, there would have been less than nineteen of us. The unceasing sounds of screaming answered by the mechanic popping of machine guns was bad, but after a minute of it, you get used to those sounds. When it stopped, though, that was really horrible. At least the sounds of gunfire deafened the sounds of screaming. Without the gunfire, though, we were left with a chorus of moans, screams, cries of agony, all of that. The Peacekeepers had administered black bags to our heads and forced us apart as we were roughly rounded up and pushed down the dusty road from the Compound to the Town. If you fell or couldn't move on your own, you were shot. When we reached the Town, our black bags were removed and we could see each other again: the survivors. What a hateful title and word, survivors… survivors of what? The Peacekeepers forced us into the town hall and we were separated into rooms all over the building. I got pushed up to the second floor, and the room I am in now used to be shared with four other women and girls. They went to the interrogations before me, and they haven't come back. I'm pretty resolved that my fate is now that I will die here. I suppose my only wish now is that I see the people I love before I am killed.

No, I don't suppose it; I know it. I know my last desire of this world is to see the people I love one last time. Moxie, Sissy, Elka, Lenox and Striker, Dad, Miss Vetta, Deane, and Thatcher.