CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:

Atoka Menzies

The doors to the ranch-house were unlocked. Atoka gripped the steak knife in her sweaty hand, checked to make certain her way was being unwatched, and then she slipped into the foyer. Except for the ceiling fan overhead, it was quiet inside. On her bare feet, the tile floor was biting and cold. Atoka paused for a moment, long enough to let her eyes adjust to the gloom. She could see only dark grey in front of her but as the seconds slipped by her unnoticed, shapes began to materialize in front of her, and in a few minutes she could make out the proper path across the foyer and through the eatery. To the side and just beyond the refrigerator was the arched entrance to the hallway that housed the sleeping chambers. If Jesse was to be believed, Cheneye's chamber was the third on the left. Atoka gripped the knife tighter and began her final journey, the sound of the anthem of Panem ringing in her ears.

Thirteen hours previously…

"I don't think I have any choice but to go," Atoka replied when Moxie shot her a disapproving look. The younger girl put the final touches on their fire, lifted a small pot to the iron bar resting above the flames, and lifted the great looped handle of the pot over the bar to set it to rest above the fire. She set to work crushing herbs in the pestle, grinding them with her mother's stone mortar.

"Doesn't mean you have to," she said through gritted teeth. "Besides, again I ask you how does that fit into our plans?" Atoka heaved a frustrated sigh and plopped down beside the fire, cross in a way that made her behave far younger than her years.

"It doesn't, I guess. But it does put us in the Town, and a distraction at the Ranches might cause the Peacekeepers to look away from the Town Hall. Wouldn't that help the plan?"

"You don't see the obvious flaw in this, do you?" Moxie asked, crushing the herbs more forcefully.

"No," Atoka responded, curtly.

"You're talking about an assassination. How does that translate to causing a commotion at the Ranches unless you toot your own horn?" Moxie waited for a reply that didn't come, mainly because it hadn't dawned on Atoka that an assassination was something done in secret and therefore was something that no one else saw or knew was happening. In the arena, after all, a kill was always signaled by the firing of the cannon. In this arena, though, things were different. "You weren't thinking about that, were you?" Moxie said, pushing the crushed herbs out of the pestle and into the water-filled pot. Heaving her own sigh, Moxie sat down across from Atoka and began stirring the pot. "What was it like in the arena?" She asked.

Atoka felt the suddenness of the question so sharply that she frowned at Moxie. "What's that got to do with our dilemma?"

"Your dilemma," Moxie corrected. "I had a plan. And it's important because I want to know from you what it's like to be in the Hunger Games."

"Well, I don't want to talk about it," Atoka shot back. "And besides, I had a plan to cause a distraction, but you shot it down. So this is also your dilemma."

"You were going to start a fire on your own… in the Ranches… it was a sucky plan, Miss Atoka." Moxie continued to work. "Why won't you tell me about the Games?"

"It's more awful than it looks." Atoka said back, short-tempered.

"But at the end, there's glory," Moxie challenged her.

"You think so, do you?" Atoka said sarcastically. "What's glorious about sleepless nights with a knife under your pillow, waiting for someone to attack you? What's glorious about looking at water and knowing that there are creatures in it that are going to try to rip you to pieces? What is glorious about starving to death on an island so barren of food sources and under a sun so hot and cruel that every waking moment is full of prayers to the Fates to put you to sleep and never wake again?"

"Sounds a bit like life as a Prairie Dog, if you were asking me."

"Oh yeah?" Atoka spat, worked up and irritated that Moxie had forced her to relive her post-Games anxieties. "Well if that's so, why did you ask me about the Games?"

"Because there's a major difference between your Games and mine," Moxie returned forcefully. "Your Games end." Atoka gasped: for the second time in as many minutes, she hadn't thought about Moxie's life and the miseries attached to it. She'd also shockingly realized that she hadn't thought about the lives of any of her people in District 10. But if that was on the one hand, on the other hand, how could Moxie think that the Games ever ended, even for a Victor? How could she scold by suggesting that the Games didn't continue to rule Atoka's life, even now?

"You're wrong. You should know that," she said finally. "My Games never ended. The arena changed; that's all." Her stomach growled as the scent of herbs in boiling water rose from the pot.

"I'm not a fool," Moxie said, dipping a spoon into the pot and drawing it out, offering Atoka the first taste. "I met a boy, not long ago, who tried to tell me that we are all part of the Games as long as we play them. I didn't believe him either, but I get it now. When we try to run away from the Games, from Panem, from what we are, all we achieve is running back into ourselves. But we're lesser than we were the second time around. When we try to run away from what we are, all we do is continue to play their Games… the Districts' Games… but if we stay and live by their rules, we continue to play their Games too. You have to hold onto something, Miss Atoka," Moxie said.

"I am holding onto something," Atoka snapped.

"What sort of world do you think your child will be living in?" Moxie said, watching Atoka rub her stomach absent-mindedly.

"She's not going to live in this world," Atoka replied, humbled by the new thought, the promise President Snow had made, a promise to destroy her life before this life destroyed her.

"That's right," Moxie said, matching her tone. "That's right, because we're going to change it."

"That's not what I meant," Atoka snapped. "Don't you get it? I can't keep my child! The Capitol won't allow that! When have you ever heard of a Capitol man marrying a District woman? There's no place in this world for my baby girl."

"What?" Moxie asked, shocked. "What do you mean, you're not keeping your child?" Atoka clenched her jaw and told Moxie about her visit with President Snow. When she was finished, Moxie looked caught between sickness and anger. "Is that true?" She asked in a meek voice. Atoka nodded, rubbing her stomach again. They looked into each other's eyes for a long time, and finally Moxie blew out her cheeks and shrugged. "I don't think you have a choice, then, but to assassinate Mrs. Dickson."

"What about your plan?" Atoka asked.

"There's still time to make a new one. But I'll have to make it now. It's only a matter of time before the District starts executing my folk."

Atoka slipped across the foyer, grimacing as her bare skin made small noises as it detached from the frigid tiles. It hadn't been ideal to wear her boots on this floor – on account of making too much noise – but she was certain she was risking frostbite by wearing no shoes at all. Which was worse? She didn't know. The floor of the eatery was a nice polished wood and Atoka was relieved when she set foot on it. She found her way to the closest island counter and went up on tiptoes to get around the tall sitting stools pushed under the countertop. Her foot nearly caught on the legs of one such and she had to step out onto the tiled floor again to avoid it. Her grimace made less noise than the scraping of a stool leg on wood planks might. She was working hard on stepping silently, avoiding obvious traps in how she landed and how she shifted her weight. Moxie's training had helped in those regards, but the trials were long over now: this was the real thing. She had killed plenty before, but this was the first time she'd planned a kill: this was the first kill borne of something more than just a reaction. As Atoka stepped down on the wood floor and shifted her weight to place her other foot down, the board moved and made a relatively loud creak! And Atoka held her breath, one foot on the offending board with the other freezing to the tile, waiting for her attackers to pounce.

Fifteen hours previously…

It was still so cold despite the sun rising almost to its midday height. In a few hours, it would be gone and the long darkness would follow. There were three more Peacekeepers' corpses to attach to the poles surrounding the ghost-like Compound, and Moxie had indoor chores to do: she was setting fires in the remaining huts and hovels built inside the ruins of some foundation on the edge of the Compound. The smoke from the fires would alert the Wild Folk on the fringes of 10, and one band…if Atoka understood correctly…would arrive shortly with some meat to trade for a meal and scavenged blankets from the hovels no destroyed. Her task of affixing the human scarecrows was closing in on personal: Atoka hadn't known many of the Peacekeepers in District 10, but she did recognize those who had escorted her to the Town Hall and the train each year. Uriah was one of them, an olive-skinned man with a flattish face, a neat beard and a fighter's build. He seemed so diminished in death. Atoka secured him on his post and looked into his vacant, frozen eyes.

"What lies led you to this fate, Uriah?" she asked. His mouth remained agape, frozen in his last gasp of life. "By whose orders did you go, blindly, to your own demise?" She stroked his cheek, frozen and blackening with frostbite. It seemed wrong to be leaving him up here on the post he'd died upon, a frostbitten sentinel looking out across the lifeless plains to the Old Fifty Yards Tree.

"Miss Atoka!" Moxie called from a hut across the common ground. "Are you finished yet?" Atoka shook her head and patted Uriah's frozen chest. And finally she left him there.

"What's the matter?" Atoka asked as she ducked into the smoky hovel. She had no need to ask because it was clear that Moxie was struggling to make the fire in this of all huts. Atoka looked down at the wood Moxie was trying to set alight and she could tell, despite possessing unpracticed eyes, that the wood was no good for lighting. "Moxie, stop. This wood isn't good. You'll never get it to light. Leave this one. It's not worth it." Moxie shoved her off.

"Look around you, Miss Atoka. This space is the biggest after my own hut. We can house so many Wild Folk in here easily. I need this fire to start." Atoka couldn't see how Moxie didn't see the futility in her actions. She stepped backward and left the hut. "Where are you going?" Moxie called. "I need your help." Atoka had an idea. She ducked into one of the nearest hovels and using a knife she stripped off long curls of bark from one of the branches serving as a roof beam. She dipped the end into the fire pit, waited for it to catch and then rushed back to Moxie's hovel. One log was trying to catch and Atoka shoved Moxie out of the way, kneeling down and placing her burning bark at an angle so that the smoldering log might catch fire. Moxie crouched on the other side and began to blow on the pitiful fire. In a matter of minutes, the small fire was out completely. Moxie sat back in frustration. "We don't have much time. The Wild Folk are supposed to be here soon."

"Remind me again why we need them?" Atoka asked.

"Because they could help us raid the Town and rout the Peacekeepers. I told you that so many times, Miss Atoka. Why do I have to tell you again?" Atoka ignored Moxie's question.

"Well I told you these logs are no good. We need to replace them."

"And I told you we don't have the time!" Moxie raised her voice.

"Well then change your plans because this fire isn't working." Atoka snapped back and marched out of the hut. She was ticked off by Moxie's drive to rout the Peacekeepers, especially after she had been made to stake up her old acquaintance, Uriah. In truth, the plan hadn't been hers entirely: Atoka had made up some of it. The idea of taking down the Prairie Dogs and the Peacekeepers had been the original plan, but it had changed when, perhaps in a fit of righteous indignation, Moxie had suggested that the Prairie Dogs come down but the Peacekeepers stay up. Atoka hadn't had any reservations there until she saw Uriah, and now she wanted nothing to do with the old plan. In the back of her head, she had been wondering when would be the right time to strike at Mrs. Dickson, and it was becoming clearer and clearer to her that this was the time to do it. She could use the cover of their new old plan as an excuse to lead an assault on the Ranches and to take out Mrs. Dickson. If she could cause enough chaos, maybe it would work. No one would expect an assault, and anyone who expected an assault wouldn't count on it being in the dead of winter. With her new orchestrations for a plan coming together, Atoka realized that the revitalization of their plan to house the Wild Folk would be to her advantage. If they were as wild as the stories Moxie told, they would help her put a torch to the Ranches and use that as cover to murder Mrs. Dickson. The only trouble was that she still cared for Jesse, and thinking about that put an immediate halt in her planning. Why did she have to care about that cowboy? Why did he have to be one of Mrs. Dickson's? It seemed that as readily as her planning had begun, so equally readily it died. She couldn't torch the Ranches without alerting Jesse to expect it, and she couldn't alert Jesse to expect it without spilling her other plans out on him. If I didn't care, she thought, it would be much easier. But the truth was that she did, and therefore it was not.

Perhaps it was fortuitous that Atoka should look toward the road and the Reserve at that particular moment, for a very small figure appeared upon it but as she looked, Atoka saw the figure turn from the road and direct itself toward her. It was a young girl, running as best she could on the frozen ground directly to the Compound. She had dark brown hair and features not unlike Moxie's. Her eyes went wide as she came to a stop in front of Atoka and tried to catch her breath. "It is you! I didn't believe it!" she gasped, causing Atoka to frown.

"Who are you?" Atoka asked.

"I'm a messenger," the little girl replied. "You must listen to me," she said. The message that followed threw Atoka's new plan into a new and possible light. If the achievement of Moxie's objectives lay in the Town Hall, all Atoka might have to do was draw attention away from the Town toward the Ranches.

"And what must I do?" Atoka asked when the messenger had finished. The girl shrugged.

"Follow your plans, I guess. I can't imagine you don't have any." She smiled a really big smile and then darted away like some graceful animal, perhaps a doe or fawn. She left Atoka's planning wheels churning again.

At first, nothing happened. Atoka grimaced as she felt the tile biting her skin, and finally it was too much for her. Finally, she lifted her foot off the tiled floor and placed it, tentatively, on the next board over, bracing herself for the creak. It didn't come, to her astonishment and relief. Her heart was throbbing in her chest, and her ears could only hear the pounding of blood coursing through her veins; but Atoka Menzies, Victor of the 9th Annual Hunger Games, didn't lose her calm. She slid her offending foot off the creaking board and onto the other, and with her mistake brushed over, she began to tiptoe again. She was nearly to the arched entrance to the sleeping chambers when a shadow moved in the gloom off to her left, covered by the window and the wall. Atoka nearly jumped out of her skin but kept her calm and waited for the shadow to move again. Seconds seemed like endless minutes or hours even. Then, the shadow spoke:

"Miss Menzies, don't do this."

Fourteen hours previously…

"What did the messenger say again?" Moxie was searching through stocks of herbs and picking out several that all looked the same to Atoka.

"She said that she'd seen something involving you and a whole lot of folks she didn't know. She said that she'd seen something that involved the Mayor too. It wasn't actually the Mayor, but it was his name placard in the Town Hall where his office is; she said all it said was 'Mayor X. Steward'. She said she'd seen a boy and a pantry, and a girl she knew to be your sister. She said they were hiding from someone or something. She also said she saw me, but she didn't think it was me because it looked like you and your sister at the same time."

"What were we doing?" Moxie demanded.

"Nothing. Really. She said she saw us … or at least the person she thought looked like us … surrounded by shadows and ghosts. She said that she thought it was the shadows of our past and the ghosts of the men we love, which I thought was strange since you're so young. I mean, who can you possibly love at your age?" Moxie scowled.

"What else?"

"She said you knew the boy. The one who is hiding."

"And…?"

"That's it." Atoka finished and crossed her arms. "You don't love someone out there, do you?"

"My father is out there," Moxie replied, curtly.

"Okay. So are you saying your love your father and that's who she saw in the shadows?"

"Look, I don't think it's the shadows that matter the most, Miss Atoka," Moxie replied back. "I think it's the thing about the placard and the Town Hall. I've never actually been in the Town Hall though. Is there a placard like the one she described?" Atoka nodded.

"It's not exactly as she described it. The placard in the Town Hall is all scratched and beat-up looking. I mean, Mr. Steward has been the Mayor of 10 for more than twenty years now. The one she described sounded fresh like it was just put up there."

"Okay and what about the boy and the girl hiding?"

"That's all she said about them," Atoka said, shortly. "And that you knew the boy."

"She didn't say if there was another boy who looked like the first did she?"

"Nope. Just that you knew him."

"I think we have to find out for ourselves then," Moxie said after a long pause. In the silence, Atoka had begun to figure out the words she needed to explain her plan to Moxie, and as fortune might have it, Moxie seemed on the verge of rewriting her own plan. "The Wild Folk have good scouts, if they can be believed. When they come, I want to go in to the Town and scout out the Town Hall. I'm going to need you with us because you've been in the Town Hall before."

"Actually, I had another plan myself," Atoka said, raising her voice.

"Does it involve going with me into the Town Hall?" Moxie asked.

"Not exactly, but it might involve getting you into the Town Hall without the threat of Peacekeepers." Moxie set down her work for a moment and looked over at Atoka.

"I'm listening."

"Well, remember how I told you about my baby and my hope to marry?" Moxie nodded. "I didn't tell you that I have to remove someone first before any of that can happen. There's a Cow-man who sees too much, and I have to kill her."

"Hold on. How does any of this connect to being able to get me into the Town Hall without the threat of Peacekeepers?" Moxie interrupted.

"Listen. I have to kill this woman Cow-man and in order to do that, I'm going to have to sneak into her ranch. That gives us the cover of darkness…"

"When the Peacekeepers will be on high alert for some sort of attack. I don't like this plan, Miss Atoka." Moxie said with a tone of finality. Atoka let out a frustrated groan and crossed her arms.

"Listen will you? My plan is to sneak into the ranch house and assassinate the cow-man, then to raise the house to the ground. I just have to get a certain cowboy out first. It will be mayhem! The Peacekeepers will have to respond."

"How are you going to start the fire?" Moxie challenged. "You can't sneak around with a lit fire in your hand."

"I don't know. I'll figure it out."

"Your plan sucks, Miss Atoka," Moxie said as if that was the final word.

"I don't care what you think of my plan," Atoka shouted. "You say that this whole thing about going into the Town Hall is something that you have to do! Well have you ever considered that going into the Ranches and killing a cow-man might be something I have to do? Or do you just think about yourself all the time?" It seemed that the frustrations that had been building up from the day were finally boiling over. Moxie didn't appear to have heard or acknowledged Atoka's outburst at all. She kept working on the herbs, picking out this one, leaving that one, sorting through the stocks for what looked to Atoka like the same kind of green leaf.

"Go see if the Wild Folk are here yet, will you?" Moxie said in a flat tone.

"Don't you get it?" Atoka tried again. "Your people are going to be executed because that's what 10 does when it feels threatened from within! How did this whole mess even start? Some ranch hand stole a horse and ran away with a Prairie Dog girl? Is that it? If I didn't know any better, I'd guess that the girl was you! You being out there consorting with Wild Folk and who knows who else?! I'm trying to save a life here, and you have no idea!" Moxie was up in a flash, wrestling Atoka to the ground and pinning her there with a strong arm against her windpipe.

"You're trying to save a life?! I'm trying to save nineteen lives and my own! The plan I have might not be up to scratch with your kind in the arena, but it's got to work or else we're all dead. That includes you and your unborn child. So unless you want to royally screw up this plan, give up on your own." She released Atoka, who gasped for air and struggled to her feet. Childishly, Atoka kicked dirt in Moxie's direction as she left the hut and sought the crisp albeit frigid air outside. On the periphery of the horizon, she could see figures moving at a slow pace from beyond the Fifty Yards Tree. She reckoned they were the Wild Folk and she reckoned they'd be at the Compound within the next hour. Maybe Moxie had a point. Maybe what they were working towards was bigger than killing Mrs. Dickson, but maybe, also, her plans were a part of the bigger picture as well. It made no sense to try and abandon the wild girl now; it seemed that news of the public executions of her people had lit a fire under her. All Atoka had to do was convince her that the killing of a cow-man fit into the plan. She had to do it before the Wild Folk came.

The shadow moved again, stepping from its gloomy corner and into the half-light from the window. Atoka caught her breath as she recognized the outline of the cowboy. "Please," he said, lifting his arm toward her. He gripped something in his hand, and the quick shine of light on metal revealed to Atoka what she was up against: Jesse cocked the gun and stood his ground. "Please, Miss Menzies. Don't do this. It's all wrong."