Chapter 12- Oak Peacewood
Tulsee mutters a little in her sleep and moves her head closer to me, but I don't mind. I think this is the closest I've been to another person since I rode to the Capitol the first time alongside my mother. I've been lonely since I got back to District 7, and even though I'm here on this train, I can't help but be happy for the company. For someone who doesn't hate me.
The train car is quiet, and that's a nice change after the arguing and the violence that went on earlier. Sanguin is sitting several feet to the right of me, with his head in his hands like he might snap at any moment. I'm ready for him if he does; I trust him less than any of the others, because he is obviously capable of killing the rest of us. I'll kill him first if it comes to it.
Tulsee stirs and her head moves deeper into the quilt, hiding her face. I like Tulsee, like her a lot, and not just because she was there at the Capitol with me. She's a better friend than what Aldar turned out to be.
I can see him now, sitting beside the door and leaning against the wall. Every so often his eyes flick to me before looking away. Some part of me deep down misses him and all the things we did together as kids. The other part of me can't forgive him for what he did.
I stand in the shadow of the trees, bouncing on the balls of my feet and looking around nervously. I told him to come; is he going to take me up on it? He's been acting funny lately, and we haven't seen each other much in the past few months, but that's got to be normal. He's working in the forests, and I'm working full time for the rebellion.
Just when I think he might not come, Aldar steps out from behind a tree and walks towards me, stopping when he's a few feet away. I grin, pushing my hair out of my face. "Thought you weren't coming," I say.
"Work finished late," Aldar says, and there's an icy tone to his voice.
"How's that going?" I ask.
"Work is work," he says, spreading his arms wide. "So why'd you call me here?"
"It's finally happening," I say, and I'm unable to keep the excitement out of my voice.
"What's happening?"
"The final mission!" He knows that I'm in the rebellion and that Mom's the leader for District 7; he's known that for years, ever since the war started in the first place. I've mentioned before that we've been working on a final mission, and I thought he'd remember. Obviously not.
"So what does that mean?" Aldar asks, crossing his arms and frowning.
I'm not supposed to tell, but this is Aldar, this is why I called him here. I can't leave without telling him, and I need him to come along. I need my best friend with me.
"Mom got the word from 9 and 2; we're finally ready to mobilize to the Capitol. We're leaving in two nights," I say. "I want you to come with me."
Aldar's face turns from disapproval to confusion to anger within a matter of seconds. "Come with you? Why would I come with you?"
I step back at his words. "Because you're my best friend. We're going to need all the help we can get, and you're handy with an axe, and I'm sure you can learn to use a gun if you needed to. I have, and it's not that hard."
"I'm not going to the Capitol, Oak."
"Why not? I know you've been keeping out of the war, but that's just for appearances, isn't it? You want to keep your mom safe, but once we take the Capitol, the war will be over and you don't have to worry any more. So come with us!"
"I told you, I'm not going to the Capitol," Aldar says. "I've never liked the fact that you and your family got involved in this crap, and I really don't like the fact that you're trying to rope me into it now. I told you that I'm staying out of this war, and I mean it."
"This crap? We're fighting for your freedom," I say angrily. "Your freedom and everyone else's freedom, don't you get it? I want you to come with me because you're my friend, and I want you with me when this war ends."
"I'm not going with you!" Aldar says, and his voice rises. "This whole damn war has been a waste of life and time, and it's not going to end well. Look at your sister, Oak; do you think she's going to come home safe?"
"Katya's braver than you are, apparently," I shoot back. "She's actually standing up for what she believes in, and she's making a difference, rather than spending her days cutting down trees in District 7."
"Your father's been gone months and he's not back either," Aldar says.
"District 1's been a hard one to crack. Lots of loyalists there," I say. "This is our last chance before the districts divide again; we have to go now."
"I obviously can't change your mind about going on your suicide mission," Aldar says, "But you're not dragging me into it too."
"Don't you want freedom?"
"We don't need freedom to live!" Aldar says. "The Capitol gives us food and shelter and work to do, and that's how we make Panem survive. Once you disrupt the districts, the whole country will collapse."
"Do you really believe that?" I ask. "That's just what the Capitol wants us to believe. We lived without districts before, back before Panem, remember?"
"And the whole world got destroyed. That's what happens if we have too much freedom, Oak. I'm not going to help destroy everything we've worked so hard to build. The district's already in ruins; why would I destroy it even more?"
"You should want to do something good for the world!" I say.
"I am! I'm helping Panem by not getting involved with the war! I'm not going, Oak. And neither should you," Aldar says.
"Together or not at all!" I say, my eyes welling up with tears. "You remember, Aldar. Together or not at all."
"That's a dumb thing we made up as kids. Not for going to war," Aldar says, and he's starting to walk away.
"You walk away from me, we're done!" I shout, the tears finally spilling over. I hate crying; it makes me look weak and I never like to look weak. But I can see ten years of a friendship shattering in front of me, and I don't care anymore. "Together or not at all, Aldar!"
Aldar pauses at the edge of the trees and looks back at me. "Not at all, then," he says.
"Please. I need your help," I say, tears dripping off my face and onto my shirt. "I need you to help me, and to help win this war. We need everyone we can get, and I need your help."
Aldar looks long and hard at me. "I can't help you, Oak."
I swallow and take a deep breath, focusing all the worry I've had for my family and all the hatred I have for the Capitol into the glare I'm giving Aldar. I thought he was my friend, but he's not. He's shown who he really is, and he's betrayed my trust in him. "Screw you, Aldar."
He doesn't turn back again as he walks out of the forest, leaving me to hate him and grieve for him at the same time.
Aldar's eyes look over to me before shifting upwards to the roof. He told me he would never let me down, and he swore that he'd always be there for me. I asked him to help me once and come with me to liberate the districts, and he wouldn't. He was a coward, and I won't have a coward as my friend.
He said he was sorry, but it means nothing. Not when we're on this train going to die because of the Capitol. Somewhere deep inside of me I'm glad that he got reaped, so that he gets to see first hand that the Capitol was wrong and what happens when freedom is taken away completely. But even as I'm glad to see him proven wrong, I don't want him to die.
He was still my best friend, and I haven't gotten used to watching my friends die yet. And I've had practice at it, too. Aldar wanted to be friends again, but I couldn't trust him then, and I can't trust him now. Not after he broke our friendship apart with four words.
I reach into my pocket, which is now devoid of food, unfortunately. Tulsee and I have to get out soon or we're going to be too weak to escape. I pull out the doll first, a tiny little thing I called Posy when I was little. My mother made it out of scraps of fabric and yarn, and I loved it.
Opening my father's watch I see that it's nearly three in the afternoon. I'm surprised the watch still works, but my father took good care of it to the end, when he gave it to me.
"I'll want it back when I get home, but I'll let you hold onto it for me," Dad says, handing me the gold watch that he always carries in his pocket.
"Aren't you going to need it?" I ask. I don't know exactly what he's going to do, but I'm sure he's going to need a watch where he's going, more than a sixteen year old still in District 7.
Dad smiles and presses the watch into my hand. "I think you'll need it more," he says, and I close my fingers around the gently ticking pocket watch.
He knew he wasn't coming back, didn't he? He knew I would need the watch when he was gone, to remember him by. The realization of that makes my chest and stomach hurt, like I just got punched there. Katya did the same thing when she left, too. She gave me the ring shaped like a silver butterfly the night before she left for the mission to the Capitol. I thought that she didn't want to lose it, but now I think she knew she might die. How could I have been that naïve?
Please don't let Katya be dead.
I'm about to start crying, which I really don't want to do in here, when Aldera coughs. Nobody else seems to pay her any mind, but I whip my head up to look at the pale and limp looking girl who sits in the middle of the room in a grey heap. She coughs again, her whole body shuddering with the effort, and even from here I can see the dark drops of blood that spatter on her dress.
Shit.
I shake Tulsee awake and her head pops out of the quilt, looking hot and slightly bewildered. "What?"
"Aldera's sick," I mutter to her, low enough so the others can't hear.
"What's that?"
"Aldera's sick. You know, the pale girl," I say, nodding my head towards the girl from District 12.
"So?"
"So, we're all going to get it. Tulsee," I say, dropping my voice even lower, "She's coughing up blood."
"Damn it," Tulsee says, pushing herself to sitting with difficulty. "Last thing we need is a consumption case on our hands."
"We need to get out of here as soon as we can."
"If you want to suggest a plan, I'm all ears," Tulsee says, fiddling with the metal cuffs that are our biggest problem.
"Have to get these off first," I say, arranging my own restraints so they don't cut so deeply into me. Those bastards who put them on in the first place made them too tight on purpose.
"We'll figure it out," Tulsee says, settling herself against the wall. "We've got what, five districts to hit before we get to the Capitol? We'll figure it out."
I look around at my fellow passengers; the travel is taking its toll on the blondes and they look worn and tired, and not too clean either to tell the truth. Not that any of us are, but that's beside the point. Jet hasn't said a word yet, just lies there staring at nothing. Cass kneels by the wall, looking out for hours on end. I think she's run out of food, just like I have; she's shaking a little bit, and not because of the train's movements.
"Tulsee?"
"Yeah?"
"Why were you in the Capitol?"
"What do you mean?" she asks, her eyebrows furrowing together.
"How'd you get involved with the rebellion?" I ask, my voice dropping lower again so the others can't hear. I know almost nothing about my ally except that she was there that day when the world ended.
Tulsee gives a short, breathy laugh. "Long story."
"I doubt we're going anywhere."
Running her fingers through her now tangled hair, Tulsee gives a small smile that seems to say something, but I don't know what. "They killed my Mum two winters ago. Dad had been dead for a year already, from the spotting sickness that comes in the summers in 6." Tulsee fiddles with her cuffs.
"She just wanted to make sure we wouldn't go hungry," she says in a flood of words. "She went to get food, and they shot her. For no reason at all." Tulsee's eyes flash and go hard, like blue glass. "I found her in the street. They just left her there. The Capitol killed her to show they would give the districts no mercy." She looks down, and I know she's keeping tears back. "That's when I made connections with Rigby Handerby. The name doesn't matter now; she's dead too."
"I know; the name's familiar," I say.
"Leader of 6's rebellion. I got in with her and her crew, and they gave me a gun and showed me how to use it. I never looked back. That's how I ended up in the Capitol; I went with Rigby for the last attack. You know how it ends," Tulsee finishes, smiling wryly.
"Rigby got shot the same time as my mother," I say, remembering. They had a lot of the leaders in the Capitol before District 13 was destroyed, and it was easy to kill them from there.
"Yeah."
"And now we're here," I say, looking at the watch again. It reads twenty after three now.
"After they got my mother, I swore I'd never have anything to do with the Capitol again, and after I got with Rigby I swore that I'd rather die than get captured," Tulsee says. "I'm not staying here; I'm not playing their Hunger Games; I won't be their tribute. They picked me because they knew I was with Rigby, and that's the only reason why I'm here. If I'm going to die, it's going to be on my own terms, Oak. Not theirs."
"We're slowing down!" Cass cries, her voice thin and shaky, just like the rest of her.
"Excellent; maybe they can give us some proper food," Tulsee says. I doubt it; the Peacekeepers in charge of all this seem far too happy to see us starve.
Aldera coughs wetly, and Volt, who's closest to her, moves away quickly. "Who'd you think we're getting this time?" he asks.
"Who're you asking?" Flick says.
"Anyone in general."
"I'm guessing a boy and a girl," Tulsee says. Nobody laughs at her comment; Silver and Beade shoot daggers over at us instead. They can glare at us, but we're going to get out alive and they're probably not. They're not going to be so smug once they reach the Capitol and see that everything they've been told is a lie.
"It's not very nice out there," Cass says, peering through her crack in the wall.
"How so?" Rigg asks.
"It's ugly and brownish," she says, looking back at him. The train goes slower and slower under us, until it glides to a halt and we get a reprieve from its noise. I'm hoping that whoever is getting on has something to pick a lock with. It's a long shot, but I can't help but hope.
Cass scrambles back from the door just as it slides open, revealing one fairly pleasant looking Peacekeeper woman and one dour looking Peacekeeper man, holding onto two orange haired, freckled, and unfriendly looking tributes. Wonderful, just what we need.
"Are you hungry?" the pleasant woman says. Silver nearly bursts into tears, nodding so hard I think her head might come off. "We've got food for you all," the woman continues.
The boy, who's shorter but stocky, lunges out at his captor, the man, and bites him hard on the arm. The Peacekeeper shouts and punches the boy across the face, knocking him to the side. I can see blood start to bloom against the crisp white of the Peacekeeper's uniform sleeve; maybe these tributes are what we need. What I need, anyway.
"Shove it," the boy says, spitting out blood onto the ground. Before the Peacekeepers can react, he yanks away from them and takes off, his hands still manacled together. The girl, who's slightly taller with the same orange curls that the boy has, tenses, and I can see her debating whether to run after him or not.
The male Peacekeeper takes off after the boy, disappearing from sight. The woman smiles a strained smile at the rest of us and pushes the girl into the side of the train, forcing her to climb in. The girl doesn't look happy about it, but who is? I like these two, now that I've seen what they can do. A few more like them and we can overwhelm the Peacekeepers at our next station.
"Here's some food," the woman says, throwing a heavy brown sack into the middle of the train. We swarm upon it like wild animals, Tulsee and me included. They can all pretend to be friends, but there are no friends when it comes to food. I snatch a small loaf of bread, a bag of nuts, and a hunk of cheese before staggering backward, avoiding Glow, the big idiot from 1, who's starting to swing at anyone in his way.
Tulsee's grabbed some stuff too, and we run back to our spot, diving underneath the comfort of the ripped quilt again. By the time the male Peacekeeper's dragged the boy back to the train, the sack is empty and everyone's scurried back to their own spots, holding onto their treasures for dear life. The woman Peacekeeper looks bewildered, but she says nothing as the orange haired boy is shoved into the train and the door is slammed behind him.
"I told you it wouldn't work!" the new girl says; her voice has a sharp pitch to it, making me think of a harsh tongued bird.
"Worth a try, Birches," the boy says, his voice low and dull, standing up and brushing dirt off his knees the best he can with his hands tied in front of him.
"Got food," the girl says, gesturing the boy over to her; she's chosen to go between Jet and Sanguin; the latter of which looks deranged clutching a loaf of bread. He creeps the hell out of me.
Underneath us, the train starts up again, the wheels making their rattling, screeching sound that I've become accustomed to hearing over the past few days. I don't mind it right now; I'm too curious about these newcomers and what they might mean for me and Tulsee.
"Are you related?" Beade calls out. The girl, Birches I think the boy called her, whips her head around to look at the girl from 9.
"What's it to you?" she says.
"You've got the same hair," Beade says, rather lamely.
"Yeah? So?"
"So I'm curious, are you related?"
"We're cousins," Birches snaps. "Curiosity satisfied?"
"Nice bite. Pity you didn't get away," I say to the boy, who's crouched on the ground next to his cousin. Even in the semi darkness of the train, his hair glows like fire. I've never seen hair that orange before; it's fascinating.
"If I was taller I would have gotten away," he says, still dully.
"I ran too, when I got reaped," I say. He raises one eyebrow, and Birches turns her attention to me.
"You ran?" she asks suspiciously. "You?"
"Yeah I ran," I say, a self satisfied smile coming over my face. "Took two Peacekeepers to bring me back in." Birches looks briefly impressed.
"What side were you in the war?" she asks.
"My mother was Sky Peacewood," I say. If she's loyalist, the name will mean little. If she's rebel, the name will mean everything.
"We're rebel too," Birches says, nodding to me. "I'm Birches; this is Tazzel. District 8."
Tazzel nods his head.
"You looking for allies then?" Tulsee asks, leaning forward so she can see them better. "I'm Tulsee, 6 rebel."
Birches looks the two of us over, then lets her face go blank. "We can be friendly, but I'm not making allies with anyone but my cousin. I've had enough of trusting people just so they can stab me in the back. I work with Tazzel only. Sorry." And with that, it's like Tulsee and I aren't even here. Birches turns to Tazzel and the rest of us disappear.
"It's better with just you and me anyway," Tulsee whispers to me. "We're going to get out of here soon. Today or tomorrow."
I look at Tazzel and Birches, who are lost in quiet conversation with each other; I look at the loyalists who are eating their hastily gathered food, dumb as rocks. I look at Cass, who got nothing in the struggle for food. There's no one else here that I can trust besides Tulsee. Certainly not Aldar, who's pretending to be asleep. I look at Aldera, who's still coughing.
Finally, I look at Tulsee. "Tonight or tomorrow," I say. "Together, or not at all."