Chapter 9: Ladder

At first, he wondered why they even bothered to patch his injured shoulder up at all.

Eventually, he decided that they did because they wanted him mostly lucid when they forced him into paper-thin clothes, strapped him to a chair in a freezing-cold dark room, and made him watch the 100th Games.

It was a short, rough edit, never meant for Panem's public. Almost everything besides the deaths was gone, leaving scene after scene of brutal murder playing out nonstop while someone off in the darkness shouted questions at him.

He did know some of the answers.

But he didn't give any of those answers as he watched Conan and Tion tear Darien to pieces, Shimmer cut down Axela, Leviathan spear Chaff, Eve stab Sola. He saw Conan crush Bonnie's skull and Leviathan cut Beetee's throat open. He watched Mika die again, obliterated by the acid fog, followed by the Careers killing Alder when he kept them from pursuing his district partner as she fled. Lizard mutts chewed Colt to death and Tion, split off from the pack, was beheaded by Johanna. Then Katniss shot Conan, Leviathan fought and stabbed Eve, Cerise charged up and speared Leviathan, and Kori snapped Shimmer's neck.

When showing him every death didn't work, they switched to replaying a few of them. Axela, Beetee, Mika, even Eve, maybe due to her still-unexplained final act.

But they replayed Axela's death the most.

"Who orchestrated the plan? Who helped from the outside? How did you learn of it? Who else knew?"

He'd already replayed Axela's death enough in his own head.

I don't know, I don't really know, I'm not telling you, and I'm definitely not telling you.

When the deaths didn't work, they threw him into a white cell that was empty besides a bucket in a corner and that had lights that never turned off .

Then they s tarted playing Helvius's screams through hidden speakers.

They don't have Hal. He realized that very quickly. They would have already dragged him in front of me and put a gun to his head to make me answer them. That might have worked. Altered voice recordings like those the Arena's jabberjays had copied probably wouldn't. He's dead or safe. Either way...

It still got harder and harder to remember they didn't have Helvius as the hours went by and the scream ing never stopped.

"We'll turn it off if you answer the questions. Just one question, and we'll turn it off." Whoever said that didn't shout, they coaxed.

He didn't answer, and the screams kept going.

There were other screams sometimes, not from altered recordings, coming from another room. Once those screams were accompanied by a bellowed, "You like electricity, bitch? "

They got Kori, too.

Between the lights and the screams and the pain from his shoulder they never entirely bothered to fix, sleep never really came.

They must have grown tired of the noise in his cell eventually, because at some indefinite point it turned off with no explanation, leaving Lee's ears still ringing for what felt like days. He could hear other voices then, other victims, other screams. He recognized them even if he couldn't always get his exhausted mind to put a name and face to them.

Not anyone else from the Arena, though.

The guards gave him water often enough to keep him alive. Food came rather less often, and was usually shoved down his throat. Not long after the speakers went silent, the lights went off and stayed off, leaving him with the distant screaming.

They still wouldn't let him die, though. He couldn't find a way to kill himself, either.

I never thought I'd be grateful for the mind fog. It made him forget where he was sometimes.

Some endless, indeterminable amount of time later, a pair of guards slammed the lights back on and the door wide open. His eyes hadn't adjusted to the light at all before they yanked a bag over his head, cuffed his hands in front of him, and dragged him out.

It took a few minutes for a semi-clear thought to form. If I'm lucky, they'll hook me up to whatever they were using on Kori and electrocute me to death by accident.

They didn't. Instead, they dragged him along for a while, held him upright for a minute in what felt like an elevator, then hauled him out, slammed him into a hard wooden chair, and ripped the bag off of his head.

"Good morning, Mr. Anders," a very familiar voice said as the sound of the guards' boots retreated a few feet . "Can I interest you in a drink?"

Eyes watering, Lee blinked rapidly as the room fell into focus. Fancy wooden paneling, ancient art pieces, massive windows, giant desk with someone sitting across from me at it. I've been here before. Once.

Swallowing, thinking it was lucky that he'd had some water recently, he just managed to rasp out, "No, thank you...President Snow."

Cornelius Snow, dressed impeccably in a dark gray suit complete with a single red rose on the lapel, smirked and reached towards the tea tray set off to one side on his desk. "Suit yourself," he said, pouring himself a cup. "Not even a pastry?"

Lee's last meal having been sour-tasting mush literally force-fed to him made shaking his head in response surprisingly easy. "I'm not hungry."

"Well, I can't imagine your accommodations would be conductive to a healthy appetite." Snow settled back in his chair. "Although, they could be much more comfortable if you just answered a few questions."

"Even if I did, I don't think I'd have most of the answers you want."

"Hmm." Sipping his tea, Snow regarded Lee with narrowed eyes. "I don't doubt that . Which was why I had my...experts, shall we say...focus on the Three girl first. Latier must have told her everything he knew, knowing that he wouldn't make it past the Bloodbath. Besides, she's been a concern of mine since her Games. You, on the other hand...You've never shown yourself to be particularly proactive . "

I haven't heard Kori screaming in a little while. Not anyone, actually. "Maybe you don't need me, then."

"On the contrary. That girl is more stubborn than I'd given her credit for."

Snow took another long sip of tea, and Lee struggled to hide his relief. Present tense. She's still alive.

"But I also didn't get anything out of Sherwood and that other Seven, the drunkard…" Snow shook his head. "They were older, Sherwood in particular. The same with Jules from Five...Their hearts didn't hold up as well as hers did, and some of my valued employees can be a bit...overenthusiastic."

Tim. Blight. Percy. Gone.

Snow kept talking. "Cinna's associate...ah, yes, Portia was her name...didn't give up anything either. Neither did the fool that impostor Capitolite kept around...Obviously Cinna didn't make it far past the tribute launch…"

What impostor Capitolite? He's talking about tribute stylists…

He didn't have time to pursue that line of thought before Snow turned a mounted screen on his desk around so Lee could see it. The video was short, filmed in what looked like the Training Center's gymnasium.

Balbus. Basilia. My prep team, Axela's stylist and prep team…

Even though he knew it was coming, he flinched when the row of Peacekeepers shot them all in the head.

They didn't know this could be coming.

"I couldn't execute Capitolite citizens publicly, of course," Snow said, rotating the screen back to face him. "Some official district executions were long overdue, however. Not to mention the unfortunate measures taken in Three and Twelve..."

He trailed off in favor of taking a bite of pastry, leaving Lee with a horrible sinking feeling. Three and Twelve. Kori and Katniss's districts. What the fuck did he do?

Then something else occurred to him. "If...all that...had worked as well as you wanted, you wouldn't need me."

"No, I wouldn't." The president retrieved his teacup, stood, and walked over to the nearest window, behind his desk but off to the side a few feet. "When my father was on his deathbed, do you know what he told me one of his greatest regrets was?" He didn't wait for an answer. "He regretted that the last Victor he crowned was an ungrateful brat."

Helvius. Coriolanus Snow died right after his Victory Tour.

"And while I can't say it is mygreatest regret…" Snow turned, expression cold. ".. I am very disappointed that the first Victor I had to crown was you."

A worthless addict.

"Imagine how I felt when, after what transpired in this most recent Arena, the finances of certain Victors were investigated and I learned that the only reason you won was because that same ungrateful brat my father disliked so much made sure you didn't starve."

Lee tried to keep himself from showing any emotion. "I didn't know myself for years."

"And therein lies a problem you may be able to help with." Snow returned to his seat, returned the teacup to its saucer, and leaned forward with his arms on the desk. "Helvius Glitz. Who overnight went from an ungrateful idiot to someone I could not ignore. Confessing his love for a Victor from another district, joining an alliance with incendiary figures…" Bringing something up on the screen and turning it back to Lee, he finished, "...and doing things like this."

It took a few seconds for Lee to realize what he was looking at, given how shaky it had been filmed. A town half in ruins, Capitol hovercrafts overhead, people trying to shoot them down...Wait, that's Hal…

His Hal, shoulder to shoulder with Katniss Everdeen, both shooting hovercrafts out of the sky with what looked like explosive arrows.

The clip ended and, as Lee sat stunned, Snow said, "This is part of a propoganda video the rebels in Thirteen released last night. The footage was filmed the day before that, in District Eight. Bombers were sent to stamp out a rebel faction, and the propo team and their camera-ready Victors just happened to be there. The situation...and the reported reactions of those in the districts who did get to see the video...alerted me to the fact that your lover is, in fact, much more of a problem than I thought."

District Thirteen, rebels, the districts, full-on rebellion...

It all sank in then, and Lee laughed out loud.

Helvius is a rebel now. I knew it wouldn't take much.

"You find this funny, Mr. Anders?"

He composed himself. "You just showed me that the one person you could still hurt me with is alive, far away from the Capitol, and fighting back. I think you should leave the interrogation to your employees, Mr. President."

Snow moved so fast Lee didn't realize his head had been slammed into the desk until he heard a crack and jolted back, trying to stem the flow of blood from his nose with his cuffed hands as sharp pain spread across his face.

Already back in his seat, adjusting his suit jacket, Snow said, almost casually, "Do you know why I became president after my father died? Because, unlike my lovely big sister and idiot little brother, I know when to exercise patience. I waited while they schemed, watched while they went behind his back, reported to him faithfully for years and years...and in the end, I was the only one of us three left standing. Father never did shirk from killing family and friends if they were a threat...It's just a shame that he didn't get rid of Celeste at some point, too. He was always too soft on her."

So Celeste Snow was the Gamemaker on the inside, Lee thought hazily. I did wonder.

The president nodded to the guards, and they stepped forward and jerked Lee out of the seat. Blood from his nose splattered across the desk. "I was patient with you, Mr. Anders. I kept you more or less intact, just in case. And now that's paid off...There's not much I can do about Everdeen anymore. But I wonder how long your dear Hal will keep fighting when he keeps receiving videos of you begging for mercy."