Nobody talks about how Olivia won her Games.
It's strange, really, because Lyra can rattle off the stories of all the other victors. She knows exactly how Elliot won, how he plunged a spear into the heart of the final remaining tribute and rose up from the dirt of his desert arena, half naked and bloody and victorious. How Elliot has always been praised for his ruthlessness, his strength, for the unexpected rage in his heart. When he won he threw his head back on his shoulders and screamed, and screamed, and screamed until he fell to his knees in the dirt. Lyra has seen it; they play the footage sometimes, in the pre-Games retrospective programs.
She knows about Finnick and Haymitch and even Wiress and Beetee. The fairytales of the Districts are all painted in blood. Olivia, though, Olivia is a mystery.
A mystery Lyra has no interest in solving. Olivia is everything Lyra is not, everything Lyra hates. Olivia won her Games twenty years ago and has spent the last two decades living a life of luxury in the Victor's Village. Her body is lush and warm and curvy, not skinny and starving, and she lives in a beautiful house, not crammed into a tiny flat with a woodstove for heat. Every time Olivia steps out in public she's dripping in jewels, wrapped in the most beautiful dresses. The Capitol loves her; they love her beauty, and they love to speculate about her relationship with Elliot, the two of them the only victors from District 6 in the last thirty years, four years apart and maybe in love with each other or maybe not, but everywhere Olivia the gossip follows her like a shadow. Is Elliot with her, are they touching, do you think they're sleeping together? The Capitol loves her; they love to look at her, love to talk about her, and she never, ever does anything to sour their devotion. Lyra is pretty sure she's never even heard Olivia speak. The Capitol loves Olivia, and that is enough to make Lyra hate her.
Olivia is on her mind today, though, because the reaping is today. Lyra is fifteen and she's lost count of how many times her name will be entered, and she is thinking today, as she does each year, about what she will do if her name is called. What she will do when it's her turn to stand in the arena. It's an impossible thing to prepare for; the arena is different every year, the landscape and weapons and challenges constantly changing, though the end goal remains the same. Survive, that's the goal, and Lyra doesn't know how.
Olivia knows, though. That's what Lyra keeps thinking; somehow, some way, Olivia survived. Olivia, who is so beautiful and spoiled, who is nothing more than a glittering bird in a gilded cage, survived the Games. Won the Games and the title of victor and the keys to a beautiful house in the Victor's Village when she was fifteen, same age Lyra is now.
If she can do it, I can do it, Lyra thinks.
It's reassuring, somehow. The thought that not all the victors are careers from District 1, that sometimes pretty girls with soft mouths can win. But then she thinks about what it would mean to win. About the life she'd have. Tries to imagine herself in one of Olivia's ridiculous backless dresses, and wants to scream. If that's the reward for winning, is it even worth the effort? To be dressed up and paraded around, dancing like a puppet on the end of the Capitol's string?
That's not what Lyra wants. What she wants is a warm house and a safe place for her mother to sleep and enough food to eat. Victors get that, too, she knows. Maybe the security of a victor's life is worth the cage they'll put her in.
Maybe her name won't get picked. Maybe it doesn't matter.
Olivia is weeping.
He can tell, even as she tries her best to hide it; she is shaking in his arms, her face buried in the crook of his neck, painting his skin with her tears.
He holds her tighter, tangles his fingers in her hair and pulls her closer against him. Would crack open his chest and let her make her home inside him if he could.
The reaping is today, and she always cries on reaping day. This is her twentieth year as a mentor, twenty-one years since she won her Games, and much will be made of the anniversary - not that much, though; nobody talks about how Olivia won her Games - but it is not cause for celebration. Twenty years of reapings, twenty years of Elliot and Olivia working together to mentor young tributes and watching those tributes die. Those tributes each in their own way Elliot and Olivia's children, the closest Elliot and Olivia will ever come to having children of their own because the teasing, will-they-won't-they nature of their public relationship is the only thing keeping them alive. They're more interesting to the Capitol apart, frozen on the cusp of possibility, than they ever would be as just another boring, normal couple. He can't marry her, and she can't have his children. The Capitol would never allow it.
Liv would never allow it. Any child they have will end up in the reaping just like everyone else, and she can't bear the thought of sending their child to the Games.
It's not an abstract for her; they do it every year. Every year they take two children under their wing and care for them and support them and watch them die. Every year.
Twenty goddamn years. Forty fucking kids.
He can't blame her for crying.
It isn't just the kids she's weeping for, though, and he knows it. She's weeping for herself. The Games mean going to the Capitol, and every trip to the Capitol breaks her just a little bit more. There's things that are expected of them there, expected of her there, that are as horrific as anything they experienced in their arenas.
Olivia is a hot commodity, in the Capitol. The men are desperate for her, willing to pay almost anything for the chance to get their hands on her. It is an opportunity that comes with a lifetime of bragging rights for them, knowing they got to fuck the most desirable victor alive, even if they paid for the privilege. They'll say snide things behind closed doors about how Elliot's never going to know how it feels to be inside her, but they do, their intimate knowledge of her a currency all its own.
They don't have any fucking clue.
On the outside Elliot and Olivia are no more than close friends. Officially they live in different houses in the Victor's Village; they almost always appear in public together but never touch beyond the warmth of his hand at the small of her back, perhaps their two pinky fingers brushing together if the cameras are on them. The Capitol citizens salivate over their every move when they step out in public, and Elliot and Olivia give them a show, but in interviews they always insist there's nothing romantic between them. She's my best friend, he'll say. He's my mentor and I'll always be grateful for him, she'll say. That's all they can say.
There are no cameras here, though. No one is watching them and they have a few hours to kill before the hair and makeup teams will come to prep them for the reaping and Olivia is, as always, nestled in his bed, warm and safe in his embrace. The Victor's Village is empty; there's no one around to notice that she hasn't set foot in her house in months. Right now, it's just them and the truth, and the truth is that he loves her, that she is his wife in every way that matters.
"It's gonna be ok," he tells her.
It's a lie. Nothing about this is ok. In a few hours they'll be up on stage with whatever garish little parrot the Capitol sends to call the names, meeting the children they are about to shepherd to their doom. By tomorrow they'll be in the Capitol, and men will be lining up for the chance to fuck Olivia - to rape her, a little voice in the back of his mind reminds him - and Elliot has to let it happen. He has to let it happen because if he tries to fight the Capitol he will be killed, and if he dies Olivia will, too. He is the only thing keeping her alive, and he knows it, and so he will do what he has always done.
He will stay alive for her.
"I hate this," she breathes unsteadily against his neck. Hate isn't a strong enough word, he knows, for what this horror makes them feel. They are cogs in a machine of evil and it is about to steamroll them once again.
"They don't own you," he says. It's a lie. The Capitol owns them both; they are well fed slaves.
"Not here," he corrects. "Not now."
In this moment, in this bed, they are free. She is free, to do or say whatever she likes, to control her own body and what happens to it. It's a small window of time, but it's theirs. It's what they live for.
"I don't want anyone but you," she tells him. "Just you."
He knows.
"I'm yours," he tells her.
She knows.
It happens slowly; she slides herself over him, kisses him long and deep. Comforting, familiar kisses, the kind they have been trading for two decades now. Their hands begin to wander, and then their skin is bared, and then she is sinking down the length of his cock, riding him lazily as the sun rises through the window behind her.
She's a goddess, he thinks. A goddess chained to the earth.
"There's no me without you," she tells him, palms sliding over his chest while his hands grip hard at her hips. Hard, but not too hard; he can't leave a mark on her. Not now, not today. Someone might see it, and if anyone in the Capitol learns that he has in fact been fucking this woman, his days will be numbered.
"No me without you," he echoes back to her, and then he pulls her down for a gentle kiss, and they rock and grind together until they both come, a mournful sort of release that leaves them clinging to one another. There are tears in both their eyes. They do not speak.
There's no need, really.
District 6 is the biggest by population, its citizens scattered across its sprawling territory. Each year the Capitol sends someone to a different population center to choose the names, but the ceremony is the same everywhere. All the possible tributes, everyone ages 12 to 18, are corralled together in front of a bright stage, surrounded by flowers and banners and armed peacekeepers to keep them in line. A vast screen on the stage projects the Capitol's pre-recorded message, a reminder of the purpose of the Games and their rules. There is music, and a sense of horror in the air.
And then the names are chosen. This, too, is broadcast all across the District simultaneously. The chosen tributes could come from anywhere. 6 isn't like the smaller Districts, like 12; half the time it seems the tributes from 12 know each other. There have been tributes who were family, from 12. In 6 they're almost always strangers.
It's better that way, Lyra thinks. The only way to win the Games is to make sure everyone else dies, including the tribute from your own District. Surely it's easier if you don't know them, if you won't have to see their mother in the market when you return.
Elliot comes to the market, sometimes. Every time he's spotted in the city, away from the safety of the Victor's Village, people fawn over him. The men respect him, because he was violent, aggressive, determined, everything they think a male victor should be. The women all talk about how handsome he is.
No one ever sees Olivia in the city. Lyra is pretty sure the woman never leaves her house.
Except for reaping day.
This year Lyra's city was chosen to host the ceremony, and she has a clear view from her seat of the stage, and Merope, the lackey chosen by the Capitol to read the names. Merope's hair is electric blue and her dress is an ungainly mass of flowers of sequins, so extravagant it makes it hard to see her face, even up close. Elliot and Olivia are up there with her; Elliot is wearing a plain, closely tailored suit, with a vest and a tie and everything, the cut of his clothes designed to showcase the breadth of his chest, the heavy muscles of his forearms. Some of the victors let themselves go to seed after they win, spend their days drunk or hooked on morphling, but not Elliot. He looks ready to enter the Games today and win, if need be.
Olivia is next to him, and Lyra thinks her dress is prettier than Merope's. It's solid black, dipped low in the front so her breasts almost spill out of it, low enough in the back to almost show the crack of her ass, the hem long enough to cover the tops of her feet. It is the kind of dress that makes Lyra wonder how she could possibly walk in it without accidentally baring herself, or toppling over in those spiky heels. Her hair is long and thick and wild, and her makeup is subtle, a stark contrast to the paint slathered all over Merope. Olivia looks like she's going to a funeral. Maybe, Lyra thinks, that's because she is.
Merope fawns over the Capitol's message and gives a little speech of her own, and then reaches her blue-and-silver painted talons into the girls' bowl, fishing around until she draws out a name with a flourish. Behind her Elliot reaches for Olivia's hand; they're half hidden by Merope and the cameras probably won't pick that up, but Lyra sees it.
It won't be me, Lyra thinks.
"Lyra Bracken!" Merope calls, and Lyra's stomach does a funny little flip.
Shit, she thinks.
The girls all around her shy away, make a clear path for her exit. Some of them she goes to school with; some of them she thought were her friends. None of them will look her in the eye now.
Her mind is completely blank, but her body knows what to do. She's seen it happen enough times. There's no point in looking for her mother; mama refused to come, and the soldiers wouldn't let Lyra go to her, anyway. Her feet carry her through the pass her friends have created, out to the aisle, down to the stage. Merope catches her there, takes her hand and leads her up the steps, squawking like a mockingjay the whole time, though Lyra doesn't hear a word of it. She lets Merope direct her, staring vacantly out at the sea of faceless children before her, her ears ringing like she's been struck on the head.
And then a strong hand lands on her shoulder, and pulls her backwards, and next thing she knows she is standing next to Elliot, close enough to feel the heat of his body, the solidness of him like a brick wall at her side.
"You're ok, kid," he whispers to her, quietly enough that the mics won't pick it up, his hand squeezing her shoulder reassuringly.
Olivia doesn't say a word.
It's the boys' turn next, but Lyra isn't listening. Merope calls another name; shockingly, the boy is from this city, too, a little older than Lyra and just as scared, though he tries not to show it. She's never seen him before. And after the Games, she'll never see him again.
We're both dead, she thinks.
Elliot takes hold of the boy, too, stands there with his hands on both their shoulders, like a proud father.
Lyra's father died when she was a baby. She can't recall his face, and mama won't talk about him.
Olivia lingers behind Elliot's shoulder, lets him take center stage, lets his bulk block her from view, like she wants to hide.
The ceremony ends, and the soldiers come, and whisk them away.
This is it, Lyra thinks.
It's the end of everything.
Mama did come, in the end. A few short minutes and a brief hug in a room just off the stage, and then the new tributes and their mentors were bundled onto the train, and now Lyra is sitting at a table laden with more food than she's ever seen at one time in her entire life, watching the boy stuff his face while Elliot sips slowly at a glass of water and Merope flits around the cabin like a glittering parakeet.
Olivia retreated to her private quarters the second they stepped on the train. Lyra still hasn't heard her say a single word.
"What happens now?" she asks Elliot.
"Now you eat," he tells her. "We'll talk for a while, and then you'll go to bed. It's a long ride, and you'll need your sleep. Tomorrow's a big day."
Tomorrow they'll be in the Capitol. Tomorrow the Games begin in earnest. Training and scoring and interviews with Ceasar Flickerman. She knows what lies ahead and it fills her belly with snakes.
But first, this. Sitting here, with Elliot and this boy and all this food that Merope is refusing to touch.
Might as well eat, Lyra thinks. She doesn't know how many more meals she'll get to enjoy before she dies.
"What are we talking about?" She asks Elliot. She finds the silence unnerving.
He smiles at her, and his eyes crinkle up when he does. She always thought he was old, but he's really not. He's 40, maybe. He won the Games what, 24, 25 years ago? It's an unfathomably long time, to her mind, but he was only 16 when he won. So young then, and he's young, now, still.
"How this works," he says. "What you can expect."
"Talk, then," Lyra says, and reaches for the nearest roll of bread. Whatever he's got to say she plans to listen, because Elliot won his Games once. He's gotta have some insight, she thinks. Then again, twenty years of dead tributes and not one victor from 6; maybe he doesn't know anything at all.
A locked door makes the whole thing a little easier to handle.
The dining carriage is bugged, she knows that. No peacekeepers in this car, but the Capitol is listening to every word Elliot says to those kids. Probably listening inside the sleeper compartments, too. They may even have cameras. She doesn't know for sure, though, so she pretends she's alone. Locks the door to her compartment and strips herself bare, throws her dress in one corner and her shoes in the other and curls up beneath the thick blankets on the narrow bed. If there's cameras then someone is watching, and that means they can see she's naked, but it doesn't bother her like it used to. They've all seen it before, anyway.
It's not fair to the kids, her hiding like this. She knows that. They're scared out of their minds, and what they need now is help. Reassurance, comfort, maybe some guidance on how to survive the Games. She's not the one to give it to them, though. It was a fluke, her win. A freak thing, an accident really. She wasn't supposed to live. She was supposed to die in the arena. Sometimes she thinks she did. Sometimes she thinks the life she leads is no more than a nightmare.
This year is worse. She told Elliot she's not sure why, told him she thinks she's just getting old, but that's not true. This is year is worse because of the baby.
Three months ago, in the dead of winter, she discovered she was pregnant, and slipped out of the Victor's Village in search of a doctor in the city who didn't ask questions. He did his work efficiently and kept no records, and she cried for days, and never told Elliot why. That baby…she wanted that baby. With everything she had, she wanted it, and loved it, and because she loved it, she made sure that baby never drew breath. She couldn't bear it, to subject a child she loved to the horror of the Games. She had to save her baby.
And she did; she hates herself for it, but she saved her baby. Those kids out there, she can't save them, and that's what makes the Games worse this year. This year she's wondering if maybe the best thing for all of them, the kids and Elliot and her, too, would be to die on this train. She thinks she can do it, kill the kids before the soldiers intervene. The soldiers would shoot her on the spot, and Elliot, too, probably, and the Capitol would stage an accident and say they all died on the train, and that'd be that. They'd be free. Her, and Elliot, and all their children.
That's what's worse, this year. She can't stop thinking about dying. In the past it's been a little easier to put the wall up, to separate her heart from the horror around her, but all her walls crumbled the day her baby died and she's been raw and bleeding ever since.
She should go out. Get dressed, and sit with Elliot, and explain it all to the kids. Explain about the training and the scoring system and the sponsors, remind them that food and shelter are as important - more important, probably - than weapons. She should help them. It's why she's here.
But she can't seem to move. Trapped beneath the blankets she looks up at the ceiling, and wishes, with everything she has, that Elliot would come hold her. He can't, she knows; the Capitol is watching, now. The eyes are on her once again and she has to be perfect, because if she isn't perfect, they'll kill her. And if she dies, Elliot will, too. He won't survive without her, and she can't bear to be the reason he dies.
She will do what she's always done. She will stay alive for him.
It's killing him, laying down to sleep in this cramped compartment without Olivia. He's used to having her by his side. Used to the little snuffling sounds she makes, and the way she curls her fingers around the waist of his underwear, holds on to him in her sleep. Used to the smell of her soap and the warmth of her beneath the blankets. The next few weeks he'll have to do without. They're always careful, in the Capitol. Only a fool would think they were clever enough to keep a secret there.
Just a few more weeks, he thinks, and then wishes he hadn't, because in a few more weeks those kids he ate dinner with tonight will be dead.
He likes them, the kids. He almost always does. Lyra reminds him of Liv, a little. She's brash and bold and trying so hard not to let anyone see how scared she is. There's a grim sort of determination in her eyes; that kid wants to live.
But if she lives that means the boy dies. The boy's name is Fender, and Elliot could tell just by looking at him that his family are mechanics. There's oil under his nails and his skin is sallow like he doesn't get enough sun. Mechanic is good though, Elliot thinks. It means the kid's a scrapper. Means he knows how to build things, how parts fit together, means he wants to fix 'em when they break, means he knows how to work. Spoiled kids always die the fastest.
Not that there's many of those, in the Games.
He and Liv sure weren't spoiled when their names were called. He remembers the first time he met her; he was, what, 19? 20? She was a few months out from her 16th, and when she slipped out of her shirt to change he could count each of her ribs. A skinny little thing with a bitter tongue, but beautiful, already. Those big dark eyes, that soft mouth, the wealth of her hair, the curve of her hip. Back then Elliot was just a dumb kid who still didn't quite understand the world where he'd been imprisoned, but he'd damn sure understood that this girl in front of him was special, and he wanted to try, for her. Wanted to be the mentor she deserved.
The sponsors liked that she was pretty and he thought that meant they'd be inclined to help her, but he was wrong. The sponsers liked that she was pretty, but they wanted to watch the pretty girl bleed.
Still, though, he tried. Ran himself ragged trying to drum up support for the pretty girl who called him names and argued with him about every-fucking-thing, because she was the first living creature he'd seen in years, and he wanted to save her. The people around him, sure, they were breathing, walking, talking, but none of them were alive, not really. Not even him. She was, though. Olivia was alive, full of fire, passionate and scared and desperately clinging to life and all he wanted was to help her.
You did, he tells himself as he stares up at the ceiling in the dark. You helped her. She survived. He's not sure that's true.
Most of the time he tries not to think about Liv's Games. Lyra has reminded him, though, because Lyra reminds him of Liv. There's a spark of something in her eyes; she's scared but she's defiant. That's Liv, fire in her belly and a curse on her tongue. But then he thinks about what happened to Liv, the pain Liv's had to endure, what Liv's had to do just to survive, and he wonders if maybe this kid Lyra isn't dead already. Even if her body survives the Games, the girl she is today will die in that arena. Died the second her name was called, really. Even if she wins, she'll never be the same.
None of us are, he thinks. He can't remember the kid he was before he was reaped. Maybe that's a blessing.
It's late and she's supposed to be sleeping but no one stopped her when she slipped out of her compartment. There are soldiers posted at either end of the car to keep her from running in case she's stupid enough to try. She's not. Instead she's just wandering, drifting away from the individual cubbies where her teammates are sleeping and through the wide open living area of the car. She's thinking about the table where she ate dinner with Elliot and Fender and wondering whether there might be any food left when she freezes in her tracks, shocked to find she's not alone.
There's someone else in the dining room, staring moodily out the window as the world flashes by in darkness, and even though the interloper' back is turned she is immediately recognizable to Lyra. It's the hair. Everyone is always talking about Olivia's hair.
That hair is tumbling down below her shoulders in a riot of curls, mostly dark dark brown but highlighted here and there in gold. Olivia has wrapped herself in a black silk robe, but her feet are bare on the carpet. She is tall, taller than Lyra thought she would be after a lifetime of watching Olivia's face flickering on fuzzy screens. Even barefoot, she's tall. There's a quiet sort of power in her; she's not heavily muscled, but there's something in the way she moves that brings to mind a boxer before a bout.
It's the first time Lyra has seen her since the reaping, and there's a part of Lyra that wants to know why. Why Olivia won't even try to help her, why Olivia can't even be bothered to look at Lyra and Fender, let alone talk to them. It's Olivia's job to mentor the new tributes, to help them, to try to drum up some support and some honor for her own district. It's the only job she has to do, and she only has to do it for two or three weeks each year, but she's refusing, and as far as Lyra is concerned that is pretty fucking unfair.
Lyra wants to speak. She wants to say why do you hate me, wants to say help me, please, you have to help me, wants to say fuck you, wants to hit her. It would feel good, Lyra thinks, to sink her fist into Olivia's pretty face. It would feel good to make Olivia look as ugly as Lyra feels.
Before she gets a chance, though, someone else steps into the dining room. Elliot, this time, drifting in from the other side of the car. He frowns when he sees Olivia alone by the window, and marches over to her without hesitation.
Bet they don't even like each other, Lyra thinks. Everything else about the Games, the Capitol, all of Panem, really, is fucking fake, so why not this? All the teasing, the innuendo, the quiet denials intended to fuel rumors rather than quash them; maybe it's all a lie, a lie to drum up publicity and keep these two aging victors relevant in a world that usually only concerns itself with fresh blood.
Across the room Elliot has reached Olivia, and as Lyra watches he winds his arm around her waist and rests his forehead against her temple.
Maybe they do like each other, at least a little.
"Come on, Liv," he says, very very gently. "You've got to sleep."
"You can sleep if you want," Olivia answers. "I won't."
"The dreams-" Elliot starts to speak in that same even, reassuring tone, but Olivia shakes her head.
"It's more than just dreams," she says. "And they're getting worse. I'd rather go crazy from sleep deprivation out here than lay down in there and watch you die in my head over and over and over."
Maybe they like each other more than a little, Lyra thinks, if Olivia is having nightmares about him dying, if those dreams scare her badly enough to have her wandering the train in the dark in a desperate attempt to escape them. Whether they love each other or not Elliot is all Olivia has, and Lyra knows that. Olivia was the only child of a single mother, a mother who died when Lyra was just a little kid. Lyra remembers the funeral, they broadcast it. And Elliot has no family at all, though Lyra has no idea what happened to them. He had to come from somewhere, but she doesn't know, and that's an ominous thought.
"I'm right here," Elliot tells her. "I'm not dead, and neither are you, and neither are those kids-"
"Those kids are dead, Elliot," Olivia insists flatly. "No matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, those kids aren't gonna make it out of the arena. The Games have changed since we were young. The careers…no fifteen year old daughter of a rail worker is gonna beat a career. The odds are stacked, the -"
"Stop," Elliot says suddenly, catching her by the arm and nodding subtly, meaningfully toward the ceiling. "Every kid has a fair shot now, just like we did back then."
It's not fair, not at all, and Lyra knows it, and she knows Elliot and Olivia know it, so why is he bothering to lie? Maybe, she thinks with a growing dread, maybe it's just a performance. And if he's performing now there must be an audience somewhere, watching. In the middle of the night, alone in the dining room with Olivia, Elliot is behaving as if he's being watched, and that scares her as bad as the impending violence of the Games, because it means that winning alone is not enough to free a tribute from the gamemakers' design. It means the Games never end; it means Elliot and Olivia are still playing.
"You're right," Olivia says heavily. "I'm just tired."
Elliot takes her hand and leads her silently out of the dining room, towards the compartments where they're meant to be sleeping, and after a moment Lyra does the same, tucks herself into her bunk and stares up at the ceiling.
There's no way out, she thinks numbly. No wonder Olivia doesn't want to talk.
As soon as they arrive, she's separated from Elliot. The kids have been whisked off to undergo preparations for tonight's tribute parade. They'll be waxed and cut and medicated, turned into the most beautiful versions of themselves, steps taken to ensure that Lyra won't menstruate during the games. If either of them have vision problems or other conditions those will be corrected, and then they'll be costumed by the best the Capitol has to offer, painted and primed and posed on their chariots, paraded in front of the very people who will cheer for their deaths.
While the kids are occupied, Elliot has gone to talk to sponsors. Not to ask for help, nothing so gauche as that; instead he'll have a drink in a chic private social club and talk casually about his tributes. Their personalities, their strengths. He wants to pique the sponsers interest, because the best way to get them to help is to be interesting. In the past Elliot struggled with this, with putting on a show, with lying, but he's got a flair for the dramatic and he's getting better at it. Maybe this year it'll be enough.
Olivia has a task of her own to complete. Someone has paid for two hours of her time.
This man is tolerable, at least. Not so overfed and heavy that he crushes her into the mattress, not so old that he makes her skin crawl. His hands are too soft and his arms are weak; he isn't stretched out over her for very long before he tires. Olivia has been doing this a long time, and she knows how to keep him happy, how to avoid wounding his pride, how to make it feel like a compliment when she rolls him onto his back and begins to ride him. The look on his face, it's like he actually believes she wants him. The truth is she just wants this to end, and it'll go faster with her on top.
The man finishes inside her. She took something on the train to make sure that no matter what happens here she won't come up pregnant. There are men who want that, but he isn't one of them.
His arms wrap slackly around her and she indulges him for a moment; the sex is over but he paid for two hours and she'll be in trouble if she tries to end the encounter early, so she gives in, lays down over him and tries to catch her breath.
"There's something coming," the man whispers, and her entire body tenses. "Will you be ready?"
It's happening, she realizes. The rebellion she's always wished for but never been able to orchestrate herself is underway, and this man has paid for her time just so he can have the chance to warn her, to make sure she's on the rebels' side. It's a terrible risk he's taking; he's chosen his words carefully, hasn't said much of anything at all, but if Olivia was the kind of victor who remained loyal to her masters he could die for this. Just for suggesting that change might be coming. She's not that kind of victor, though.
"Yes," she whispers back.
His fingers begin to trace idle patterns against her back, patterns that resolve themselves, after a moment, into shapes. 6, 7. 6, 7. 6, 7. Over and over.
67? She thinks, and then it hits her.
6 plus 7. 13. He's writing 13 on her back.
It's hope, what he's offering her. It's a way out. It is almost certain death. She'll take it.
A portly stranger in a heinous green suit waylays Elliot in the corridor on his way out of the club. There's not much time left for Elliot to get in place for the tribute parade and his absence will cost him his life so he's in no mood to listen to this man natter, but the guy looks rich, and needs must.
"I've a bone to pick with you," the man says jovially. "My wife thinks you're so handsome, it's like she forgets I exist!"
"I'm sorry -" Elliot starts to say, but the man isn't listening.
"Tell me the truth, now that I've got you on your own without any cameras, are you actually shagging Olivia?"
"I-"
"Beautiful woman, that," the man continues. "Beautiful, beautiful. You'd have to be a fool not to take her for yourself. A fool."
"Yes, well-"
"You must seize the day, Elliot," the man says, his face going suddenly, shockingly serious as he reaches out to grip hard at Elliot's shoulder. "Seize the day. The time is now. You cannot wait another moment."
His fingers dig into Elliot's shoulder so hard it hurts, his eyes holding Elliot's gaze unblinking, something desperate in them as if he is willing Elliot to understand.
Holy shit, Elliot thinks. It's happening.
"Thank you," Elliot says carefully. "That's good advice. I'll keep that in mind."
"Good lad," the man says, and then he walks away, whistling.
Fender is practically naked and Lyra is trying so, so hard not to stare but it's all but impossible. He's tall, and they've painted him all over, taken the pallor out of his skin, and his hair is shiny and thick and his muscles are well defined, like a sculpture. Apart from the careers he's the oldest boy here, and the only one Lyra wants to look at.
If she wants to live he will have to die and that's so unfair, she thinks. He wants to live, too, she's sure but she doesn't want to die for him. How can she ask him to do the same for her?
It doesn't have to be Lyra who kills him. There's twenty four tributes; any one of them could kill Fender. All she has to do is keep her head down, and let the others kill each other off, and then she'll be the last one standing.
It's a fantasy. Every year there's at least one tribute who thinks they can hide out. Every year they're proven wrong. The arena itself won't allow the tributes to hide; there are traps built in, so the gamemakers can control the tributes' movements, push them together for maximum drama. Waiting it out never works. It's what she plans to do anyway. She doesn't want to kill anyone.
"You ready for this?" Fender asks, offering his hand to help her into the chariot. She wants to bat his hand away and do it herself but she's wearing a ridiculous pair of high heels and she's afraid if she tries to climb up without Fender's assistance she might fall flat on her face. She takes his hand.
The second she's settled in the chariot a sudden clamour erupts behind her, and she and Fender turn together, watch as two of the tributes brawl with each other. It's the boys from 10 & 11, punching, kicking, clawing at each other. She has no idea what set them off but it makes her uneasy, their anger with one another. These boys already want to hurt each other, are already treating one another like enemies, when the truth is they are all the same, unfortunate souls trapped on the same sinking ship, and fighting each other won't save them from disaster. The other tributes aren't to blame for this, Lyra thinks, and she doesn't want to hate them. They're the only ones in the world who really understand what she's feeling right now.
Well. Them and the living victors. Two of those victors appear, drawn by the noise; it's Elliot and Olivia, moving together, as always. Olivia works the crowd, pushes the spectators back while Elliot breaks up the fight. The boys are both bloody, and their teams come for them, whisk them away to get cleaned up before the parade begins. The tributes who had gathered to watch grumble disappointedly amongst themselves as their entertainment comes to an end.
"Whore!" She hears a voice shout clearly, watches as Olivia flinches, as Elliot looks up sharply, furiously searching for the tribute responsible. One of the careers, Lyra thinks, though she doesn't know which one and doesn't know why he'd yell something like that about Olivia. Olivia has never been publicly linked to any man but Elliot, and she always denies that he's anything more than a friend. How can she be a whore, then?
There are no answers forthcoming; Elliot and Olivia are being herded away. The parade is about to begin.
The parade is vile, that's what Olivia thinks.
She does all the things she's supposed to do; she waves when the drone flies over the victors' box where she is sitting next to Elliot, their bodies touching from hip to ankle, and smiles when Ceasar's voice booms a greeting through the parade ground.
"What do you two think?" He asks while the drone hovers in front of Olivia's face. "Will this year be the year you finally mentor a champion?"
I hope this will be the year I rip your throat out with my teeth, Olivia thinks.
"We're proud of our tributes," she says. "They bring honor to our district."
The drone flits away; she has fulfilled her duty, but she can't relax. There's too many people, too many eyes, too many ears. She has to be perfect. Elliot presses his thigh that much harder against hers.
She has to tell him. What the man said this afternoon, what might be coming. Her patron spoke in riddles, offered no real details, but that's because he couldn't, she knows that. Even safe inside the rich man's home the peacekeepers could be listening. The plan won't work if too many people know what it is; each person let in on the secret is a risk. She was never going to be involved in logistics. All the rebels need to know is whether she's on their side, whether she'll help them when the time comes.
She will.
But she needs to warn Elliot. Whatever happens next they will face it together, and she doesn't want him to go in blind. Not that she can see very much herself; she doesn't know what's coming, not really.
How will they do it? She asks herself as she watches the nightmarish pageant below, Caesar's voice reaching frenetic levels of excitement as the chariot bearing the tributes from District 1 comes rolling into view. Who even are they?
Life in Panem is a game, and the Capitol is always victorious. The peacekeepers and the president and the gamemakers, they invented the rules, and stacked the odds in their own favor. The Districts are divided, isolated, and no one District has the resources to fight the Capitol alone. They must be united, but unity is impossible when every communication is monitored, when the slightest whiff of rebellion is snuffed out with brute force. The victors are the only ones who move between the Districts with any regularity, but they have all of them been beaten, cowed, broken. Olivia is not the only one whose body is sold for others' pleasure, and Haymitch is not the only one whose family was murdered. Elliot had a family, once. Mother, father, brothers and sisters, and a girl he meant to marry, and they were all dead before Olivia's name was called on her reaping day. It's impossible to light a fire without tinder; the flame sparks, and smolders, and dies, every time.
So no, Olivia doesn't know the names of the people involved in whatever plot has been set in motion here. She doesn't know who they are or what has compelled them to fight back against the might of the Capitol. She doesn't know what they intend to do, what they intend to ask of her. She doesn't even know if she can trust them. She will trust them, though. It's a choice she's made, to tie her fate to this faceless coalition of rebels, because it is her only chance at justice. This is the only chance they may ever have to free all of Panem from the brutality of the Capitol, to end the Games once and for all, to save the children, all the children, from the horror of this life.
Whatever happens next, she may pay for her involvement with her life. Before now she hasn't been willing to try, has been determined to survive for Elliot's sake, but there is a world of difference between resisting on her own and fighting as part of an army. Elliot will fight beside her, she knows. Maybe they will die together. Maybe they were always meant to.
The chariots roll on, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Caesar calls out the names of the tributes, explains the meaning behind their costumes, extols their virtues. Not that he knows anything about these kids, not really; the tributes have been sized up and reduced to their most marketable qualities, soundbites for Caesar to regurgitate to the slavering masses eager to watch these children die. This one is brave, this one is strong, this one is clever. How glorious they are, children chosen at random to enter the arena. Olivia wants to vomit.
It's time for her tributes to make their appearance, though. Elliot reaches out, laces his fingers through hers and holds on tight as Lyra and Fender ride into view.
They look beautiful. Not beautiful like a wildflower or a painting, not beautiful like a sunrise or anything of the natural world; they look beautiful according to the Capitol's tastes. Both of them have been covered in makeup and perfected by the hands of the prep team, their youth stolen from them and replaced by a haunting approximation of maturity neither of them has earned. Their clothes are silver and chrome, because 6's primary industry is transportation. Lyra's long dark hair has been woven into an intricate series of braids, and her back is straight, and she is holding Fender's hand just below the rim of the chariot.
She's afraid, Olivia thinks, even as Caesar describes Lyra as a fierce creature, a survivor. The Capitol never cared much about the truth. Olivia does, though. Olivia knows better than to believe them.
They return to their suite together after the parade; Lyra and Fender go to wash off the layers of makeup and try to remember who they are, and Merope has flitted away to attend some Capitol party, and that leaves Elliot and Olivia alone in the sitting room of their suite. Elliot feels as if his entire body is vibrating, thrumming like a tuning fork. Rebellion is coming, and he means to be part of it, but he has to warn Olivia.
There are so many things he wants to talk to her about. He wants to ask about the man who bought her today, wants to know who the man was, if he was gentle with her. He wants to warn Olivia of what lies ahead, and more than anything he wants to take her in his arms, hold her tight, protect her from the darkness that surrounds them. But there are almost certainly bugs in the suite; he can't risk speaking to her openly, can't risk touching her, no matter how badly he longs to.
Still, though, he has to warn her. They must do what they have always done, must find a way to communicate that no one else can understand.
"Did you have a good day?" he asks her carefully as they sit together on the sofa, careful to keep a full foot of empty space between them.
"I did," she says. "I met some nice people."
That's good, he thinks. It means the man didn't hurt her. Elliot hates this arrangement with everything he has, and would kill the man anyway if given the chance, but at least she wasn't hurt. Not physically. Her heart may never recover from what has been done to her.
"What about you? Did you find any sponsors?"
"I think so." A few of the people he spoke to today seemed interested in helping the tributes from 6; the Games get a bit boring when the careers win handily. The audience wants a show, and everybody loves an underdog.
"It's all about to start," he muses, choosing his words precisely, hoping she'll understand what he's trying to tell her. "I think everything will be different this year. Are you ready for what's coming?"
It's not something he ever asks her, if she's ready for the Games. There's no being ready, even after twenty years. The Games don't wait for the players to be ready, anyway.
Olivia looks at him sharply, a flash of something in her eyes, a question, an answer. She knows already, he thinks.
"I'm ready," she says. "It's time. Their training will start tomorrow, and we'll do everything we can to help them. Whatever it takes."
"Whatever it takes," he agrees.
It will take everything, he thinks. Rebellion will require everything they have to give, their very lives. It's a price he's willing to pay, because they haven't been living, not really. Olivia is a shadow of herself, and they cannot speak openly, cannot love one another openly, cannot ever have the things they've dreamed about, a safe home and children of their own to raise and a future that is not soaked in blood. If they refuse to join fight they are doomed; we're dead either way, he thinks. At least this way their deaths may mean something. It's a sacrifice he's willing to make, trading his life for the lives of others. So many people have died for him, his entire family wiped out when he was young and reckless and trying to fight the Capitol on his own. The ones he loved, killed for his sake. The only way to right that wrong is to die for someone else. He'll die for Liv, and for those kids down the hall, for the possibility that one day a child may be born whose name will never enter the lottery. It's his penance, and he will pay it gladly.
Training is nothing like Lyra thought it would be. Mentors aren't allowed in the gymnasium, but Elliot offered his advice when the day began. You're city kids, he told them. We don't know what the arena will look like or how long you'll be there, but you need to know how to find water, how to make shelter, and how to hide. Anyone can pick up a knife, but you need to know how to survive. Olivia didn't offer any advice at all.
The other tributes seem to know what they're doing. Some of them practice with bows, some of them are learning about plants and how to start fires. Fender is preoccupied with the axes, which Lyra privately thinks is kind of stupid. He'd have to be close to someone to kill them with an axe, unless he throws the damn thing, and what good will that do him, tossing his weapon away? There might not even be an axe inside the arena, or maybe there's only one and he won't get his hands on it in time. Boys, she thinks.
There's something else going on here, though, something more than learning how to build a shelter or find water in a desert. Something that looks, Lyra thinks, an awful lot like politics.
The careers are sticking together. There's six of them, from Districts 1, 2, and 4. The careers have been training their whole lives for the Games, and volunteered for the pleasure of competing. These six tributes are the best of the best, the ones with the highest marks at their academies, the strongest, the bravest, the most ruthless. They're all eighteen, the oldest tributes in the room, and they want to be here. She can see the alliance forming already; the careers will band together to pick off the weakest tributes, and then battle it out amongst themselves.
Lyra thinks that's pretty stupid, too. Each of the careers is trained to kill, could easily wipe out the little girl from 5 on their own. They don't need help to defeat their weaker opponents. It's the other careers they ought to be worried about, she thinks. Why work so hard to keep one another alive, just to make the final fight the most difficult? When they're tired, injured maybe, starving maybe, don't they want to fight a weaker tribute, and not someone who's trained as hard as they have?
Lyra isn't interested in an alliance. She isn't interested in making friends, because the only way for her to survive is for everyone else to die. If she makes friends with these kids, she will grieve when it's their turn to bleed. It'll be easier not to talk to anyone.
Except for Fender. She has to talk to Fender, and she is sorry to say she actually kind of likes him. He's earnest, and smart, and he has a nice smile, and he is the closest thing to a friend she has here, and she takes comfort from his presence, even when they're working at different training stations. Part of her is glad she won't be alone in the arena, that Fender will be with her, but it makes her feel guilty, too. He's a nice boy. She doesn't want to watch him die. She will have to, anyway.
That's what she keeps thinking about, all through her training. Die die die, her brain chants at her; they're all going to die. The handsome career from 1 who called Olivia a whore - Lyra knows it's him, now that she's heard him speak - and the eight year old boy from 11, they're equally doomed. And for what, she asks herself; what is the point of any of it? What glory is there in surviving?
It goes on like that for two days. The third day they will be brought before the gamemakers to demonstrate their skills and receive a ranking based on their chances of survival. A good score is crucial to drumming up support from the sponsors, who will provide food and medicine and other needed tools to their favorite tributes during the Games. Everyone loves an underdog but only a fool would waste their resources on the tribute ranked dead last. Lyra has to do well.
On the night before she's set to appear before the gamemakers she lingers in the main room of the suite, staring out the windows at the splendor of the Capitol long after everyone else has gone to bed. She's thinking about what Elliot said, how he called her and Fender city kids like it was a bad thing. Elliot and Olivia were city kids, too, and they won. She's thinking about Fender, and wondering how he'll die. She's thinking about herself, and wondering how long she'll last, if she has any chance at all of beating the careers. It's vital that she behave as if she thinks she can, vital that she tries her hardest and doesn't give up, but doubt is surging through her veins. She's never even punched someone, and now she has to kill, and she doesn't think she can.
There's a soft shuffling sound behind her, and she tenses, remains still as a stone as she waits to see who has come to join her. A few heartbeats pass, and then there is a warm body beside her, staring out into the night same as her.
"Couldn't sleep?" Olivia asks her quietly.
So she does speak, Lyra thinks. Olivia is dressed for bed, wearing a black satin pajama set that whispers quietly when she moves, her hair tumbling free around her shoulders. She looks beautiful, but tired, sad, worn down somehow. Olivia is a little younger than Elliot, not even forty yet, but she has been a mentor for twenty years, and the weight of her losses makes her seem as old as time.
"Could you?" Lyra answers.
"No," Olivia allows. "I can't sleep during the Games."
"All the excitement keeps you up?" Lyra asks bitterly.
"The dreams," Olivia tells her evenly.
Lyra remembers then about what she saw that night on the train. About Olivia, telling Elliot she has nightmares about him dying, and she feels a little guilty for forgetting. It's frustrating, the way Olivia has been avoiding her, but she understands why.
"I know you're angry, but you have to remember Elliot and I have done this before. We've been where you are. We don't like this anymore than you do."
"You already won," Lyra says. "You don't have anything to worry about."
"You have no idea the things I have to worry about," Olivia says with some heat. It's more emotion than Lyra has ever seen from her. "But most of all I'm worried about you."
"If you're trying to say you care about what happens to us you got a funny way of showing it. You haven't helped us at all."
At least Elliot has tried. Offered advice, fussed over them like a mother hen, telling them to eat, to sleep, to take care of themselves. What has Olivia done, besides hide out in her room and refuse to speak to anyone? If he does love her, I can't imagine why, Lyra thinks.
"Just because you haven't seen my help doesn't mean it isn't there."
What is that supposed to mean?
"But you're right. I haven't been…present, for you. And I am sorry about that."
"You gonna be present now?" Lyra sneers. "You've been saving up some great wisdom for me, or something?"
"Yes," Olivia says simply. "Remember who the real enemy is, Lyra. The other tributes, they're like you. They're scared, and they want to live, just like you. You aren't fighting them, you're fighting the Games. You're fighting the arena."
It is perilously close to treason, this wisdom Olivia imparts. Close, but not over the line; she didn't disparage the Capitol or the President and she didn't say those fuckers are the real enemy, but Lyra hears it, just the same. It surprises her, somehow; she'd thought before now that Olivia was happy with her comfortable life, with all the attention and the praise and the beautiful clothes. Maybe Lyra was wrong.
"How did you win?" she blurts without thinking. It's a touchy subject, she knows, because no one ever talks about how Olivia won her Games. Of all the victors, Olivia is the only one whose face never appears in the highlight reels from past Games. The Capitol loves to celebrate the victors, and the silence is telling.
"I was like you," Olivia says slowly. "I didn't try to make friends or form an alliance. I'd always been on my own and I played the Games the same way. I…I hid, Lyra. The arena was rocky. No trees, very little water, but there were caves and boulders everywhere. The Gamemakers would flood the caves or start landslides if any of us stayed in one place too long, so I had to keep moving. It went on for eight days, and I barely slept, and by the end I was practically delirious."
"But it worked? You hid the whole time?"
"The whole time," Olivia says, nodding. "I didn't kill anyone. Some of the other tributes drowned or were crushed by landslides. We didn't have any weapons, we had to use our hands or the rocks. It was…"
"Brutal," Lyra suggests when Olivia loses her voice. Olivia nods again.
It's unthinkable, really. There's something impersonal about a bow, a swinging sword, a flung spear. Having to use their bare hands to kill one another is grim, and intimate. Lyra doesn't blame Olivia for hiding. She isn't sure she could kill someone that way herself.
"In the end it was down to me and a career from 1. The gamemakers were ready for the show to end, so they triggered all these disasters, shoved me and the career into a valley together. He was…deranged, Lyra. Covered in blood. The light in his eyes when he saw me, it was…evil. He knew he'd won. I hadn't killed anyone, and he had killed so many. I wasn't strong enough to fight him. He was older, bigger, meaner. I thought…I thought I was going to die."
It seems impossible, hearing the story, that a fifteen year old girl from 6 could have survived hand-to-hand combat with a bloodthirsty career. Impossible, but Olivia is standing beside Lyra now, and no one remembers the career's name.
"How did you do it?"
She has to know. It's plain Olivia doesn't want to talk about it, but Lyra has to know the secret that saved Olivia's life. It may save her own.
"He made a mistake," Olivia says, shrugging. "He was out of his mind and he was certain that he'd won and he decided…there's no easy way to say this. It was twenty years ago and I still can't…"
"It's ok," Lyra tells her. She thinks that's what she's supposed to say when someone is upset. It's what mama said to her when the peacekeepers took her away. It is a lie to soothe the sting.
"No, it isn't," Olivia answers. "He tried to rape me, Lyra."
It is the last thing Lyra expected to hear. The Games are violent, but they aren't sexual; the Capitol doesn't approve of that kind of behavior, and the tributes are too concerned with survival to waste time on romance or pleasure. It's beastly, what this career tried to do, that he would forestall his own victory just to enjoy overpowering a girl he could have killed with ease. To risk his future for that…no wonder the Capitol doesn't want to talk about Olivia's Games.
"He tackled me. I hit my head on the way down, I was dazed. He ripped my clothes off, he punched me." Olivia rattles off the details with a clinical kind of detachment. "But while he was trying to get his pants down I saw a rock on the ground next to me and I grabbed it and I hit him with it. I hit his head, over and over. He fell to the side and I just kept hitting him until there was nothing left to hit."
For a moment Lyra tries to imagine it. What it would have looked like, watching Olivia, young and naked and bloody, bashing that boy's head in with a rock. It makes her feel sick to her stomach.
"Elliot was waiting for me when they took me off the transport. They used to film the reunions between the victors and the mentors. There were all these cameras around. I just remember stumbling out into the light, and Elliot was there, and he took his jacket off and wrapped it around me and held me. I remember screaming. They don't broadcast the reunions, any more."
Olivia was fifteen when she won. Elliot was maybe nineteen. She can almost imagine it, a naked, bloodied girl screaming while her mentor wraps her in his jacket, holds her tight. She can almost imagine the way Elliot would've cradled Olivia's head in his hand, would've soothed her like a baby. They were just kids, and he had to watch while she was brutalized, and it's no wonder, Lyra realizes now, that they care so deeply for one another, that they go everywhere together. It's no wonder he's so protective of her. And it's no wonder the Capitol is too ashamed to admit what they did to her.
"You can win, on your own," Olivia says after a moment. "That's the only way to win, because if you make it to the end you will be utterly alone. You don't know what you're capable of until you're in it. But don't forget who you are, Lyra. Don't forget what matters to you. That career, he forgot. He lost his focus. And he paid with his life."
And Olivia has paid the price, too, Lyra thinks. Olivia tried so hard, and won the Games with just one kill, one moment of self-defense.
They'd hate it if I did that, Lyra thinks. If she used the same tactics as Olivia, if she refused to be violent until the very end, if she didn't play the Game the way the Capitol wants her to. But the Capitol always wins, she thinks, because Olivia didn't want to kill anyone, and she did in the end, anyway. The only way to survive is to do what the Capitol wants, and that's the problem. They always get their way. The Games always win.
"How do you keep doing this?" Lyra asks her sadly. "All these years, all these Games…"
"It's hope. That's all it is. I can't stop it, I can't save everyone, but I have to hope that maybe, one day…"
She can't finish the sentence. If she does, her life will be forfeit. But she has said enough. Olivia hopes, just as Lyra does, that one day there will be a Panem without the Games. That one day no more children will have to die. If Olivia can hope, Lyra can, too.
The night before the Games begin all the tributes are gathered together for their interviews with Caesar. It's a lavish affair; the tributes are beautifully dressed, paraded around like celebrities, twinkling like stars under the blinding lights.
Olivia hates this part. All of it, really, all of the Games, but this part, this part where everyone pretends to care about the tributes as people, where their stories are written for them by Caesar's quick-wit and the camera lenses, this is where their true selves die. Already the gamemakers are trying to decide who the tributes will be, how their stories will be told. One of them will survive to become victor, and the victor's story starts here.
It's where Olivia's story began. Where Caesar gushed over her, told her how pretty she was, how all the boys must have been dying to hold her hand. It wasn't true; Olivia kept to herself as a teenager, didn't have much in the way of friends, and no boy had ever really paid her any attention. Not that she'd have cared if they did. She was too busy trying to keep her mother fed, trying to keep people from noticing the way Serena's hands shook, the way she was never far from a flask. That's not the story the Capitol wanted to tell; they wanted her to be beautiful, desirable, aspirational. She is all of those things now, and she wishes, desperately, that she wasn't.
She and Elliot are standing together, watching as Lyra joins Caesar on the stage. The interviews never last long and Caesar does the bulk of the work; all Lyra has to do is smile, and follow where he leads.
"Look at you!" Caesar crows. "Aren't you lovely?"
Lyra starts to thank him, but he doesn't give her the chance.
"You remind me of someone," he muses. "Who could it be, who could it be…"
It's an act, his forgetfulness; he's already written every word he wants to say, and after a moment's pause Olivia's picture appears on the screen behind him, and everyone laughs.
"Yes, of course!" he crows. "You do remind us so much of Olivia. And we love her, don't we, folks?"
The audience roars its approval, right on cue.
"Tell me, how has it been, working with Olivia?"
"Wonderful," Lyra says. Olivia thinks that might not be true; she hasn't helped the girl as much as she wishes she could. "Olivia is kind and brave and I'm so glad she's my mentor."
"Would you want to be like Olivia, when you grow up?
If you grow up, Olivia thinks. It's not a guarantee Lyra will get the chance.
"I…I'd like that," Lyra manages to say. "I'd like to be as strong as she is."
Is it strength, Olivia wonders, that's carried her this far? She doesn't feel very strong. Maybe it's just stubbornness. Maybe it's just Elliot that's kept her alive all these years.
Caesar natters at Lyra for another thirty seconds, and then she's whisked away, and it's Fender's turn.
"You know, Fender, we were just talking to Lyra about how much she reminds us of Olivia. Do you think they're very similar?"
"Oh, I know better than to compare one woman to another," Fender says, and Olivia shoots Elliot a look. Elliot must have coached the boy, she thinks, must have encouraged him to be charming; Caesar is eating it up.
"Oh ho ho," he laughs, "you're a wise young man. I have to say you remind me of Elliot, too. He thinks quick on his feet and I think you do, too. Do you see any of him in yourself?"
"Elliot is the best of the best," Fender says. "Everyone knows he was a fierce competitor, and he's a good friend to have. I'd like to be a good friend, too."
"It's so interesting you say that." Caesar has caught a whiff of something, and is pursuing it like a bloodhound. "You know Elliot and Olivia are very good friends."
There's a titter from the crowd; they all know what he's implying.
"Are you and Lyra friends, too?"
"I'd like to think so," Fender answers sincerely. "Being from the same District, in the Capitol for the first time, it's been good having her with me."
"But you and your friend are both about to enter the arena together, and only one of you will leave it. That must put a strain on your friendship."
"Maybe," Fender allows. "Anything could happen in the arena. But I don't…I don't want to be the one to hurt Lyra. I don't want to have to make that choice."
It is those words that seal his fate, Olivia thinks. The gamemakers must be salivating over this, wondering if there's any way to make sure the tributes from 6 are the final two. It will make for compelling viewing, watching Lyra and Fender decide whether or not to kill one another. Fender doesn't want to make that choice, and so the gamemakers will want to force him to it.
They'd do the same to us if they got the chance, she thinks, looking at Elliot now. If she and Elliot were ever faced with the choice she knows what they would do; they would kill themselves before they'd kill each other. Lyra and Fender have only known one another for a week; probably they'd make a different choice. Their fates aren't tied together yet, not like Elliot and Olivia's. They both have a chance for a life, but not for a life together. Maybe it's better that way. Maybe if she'd never met that beautiful boy with his bright blue eyes and his easy smile she would've died years ago, and been spared a world of grief.
It's time; training week has passed, and the teams are preparing the tributes for their transport to the arena. This is the last time Elliot and Olivia will see Lyra and Fender; after this they will be herded onto the transport with the other tributes and taken to the arena. There they will be separated, and the prep teams will give their finishing touches, and the tributes will be placed in the arena, and the Games will begin.
The kids look nervous, Elliot thinks. There are people milling about everywhere, mentors and tributes grouped together, giving their final pieces of advice. He looks at these kids, and finds himself at a loss for words.
Looking at Lyra is like looking at Olivia as she was before her Games. Beautiful, and determined, and scared. In Fender's face he sees his own, the grim certainty of what he has to do setting in. Lyra and Fender keep brushing shoulders, like two kittens seeking comfort from their littermates. He doesn't think they even realize they're doing it.
"Keep your heads," Olivia says, reaching out to brush Lyra's hair back from her shoulders. "Don't do anything dramatic. You'll be disoriented at the start. They want you disoriented. Stay back, find shelter, get the lay of the land. Everyone is going to run for the cornucopia, and half of them will die there. Don't be one of them."
"But that's where the supplies are," Fender says. "If we want weapons, food, we have to take some before the careers take it all."
"Food won't do you any good if you're dead," Elliot tells him bluntly. It's what the gamemakers want, an exciting start to the Games, all those deaths right at the beginning, and the audience baying for blood. The kids need to survive; something is coming, and if this rebellion has any hope of saving Lyra and Fender the kids need to be alive for the rescue. If Fender dies trying to get his hands on an axe there won't be any point.
"We're working with the sponsors," Olivia says a little more evenly, shooting Elliot a dark look as if to chastise him for speaking to the kids this way. "We'll do everything we can to get you the supplies you need. Let us work that angle, you just stay away from the careers."
Both the kids got decent scores; Lyra got an 8 for survival skills and spear handling, and Fender got a 9 for brute strength and axe throwing. Not the 10s and 11s the careers got, but a damn sight better than the 3 the little girl from 5 got. The sponsors are curious, and they like the comparisons the media has begun to draw between Elliot and Olivia and Lyra and Fender. Caesar started that, pointed out how much the tributes look like their mentors, how they seem to be friendly like Elliot and Olivia are. Legacy, that's what they're playing off here. Elliot and Olivia are popular, and these kids are their natural successors, and the Capitol loves a good story.
"Stick together in there," Olivia reminds them. "It'll play better if you're a team. You have to make them care about you. You have to give them something to root for."
"Is that what you do?" Lyra asks shrewdly. That girl, she sees the world shockingly clearly for a fifteen year old.
"Yes," Elliot tells her. Yes, he and Olivia play up their relationship because the Capitol's interest in them is what keeps them alive. A good story, that's all they want, and it's what the victors from District 6 have been giving them for twenty years. Maybe it'll be enough to buy Lyra and Fender some time.
"Take care of each other out there," Elliot says, and then an alarm blares, and peacekeepers come marching into view. It's time to say goodbye.
"Come here," Olivia says suddenly, and throws her arms around the kids, pulls them in close for a fierce hug. None of the other mentors are so affectionate with their tributes; all around them their fellow victors are standing back, watching as the peacekeepers pull their kids away, but Olivia is clinging to these children desperately. She loves them, Elliot knows. She doesn't always show it, but she loves them, all of them. She would've made a great mom.
"May the odds be ever in your favor," she whispers, and then pulls away before the peacekeepers get the chance to do it for her.
She steps back, and Elliot wraps his arm around her shoulders, and they watch together as Lyra and Fender walk towards the transport. Fender reaches out, and takes Lyra's hand, and she holds on.
"They're going to be ok," Elliot says.
"They're going to die," Olivia answers sadly.
Privately, he thinks she may be right.
There are things that are expected of them, now that the tributes are en route to the arena. All the victors are gathered together in a sparkling room, cameras and Capitol lackeys everywhere. They are giving interviews, drinking champagne and talking about their tributes, and their faces, their voices, are being broadcast throughout the Districts. The transport will be in the air another twenty minutes, and then they'll land, and the Games will begin.
Olivia is shaking. She's trying to hide it by holding his hand, but he can feel her trembling next to him, even as they discuss Lyra and Fender's chances in the arena. The same fear, the same adrenaline coursing through her is echoed in Elliot's body; something is coming, but they don't know what, and they don't know when, and they don't know what they're supposed to do when it happens. It'll be obvious in the moment, he thinks; whatever it is, they'll know it when they see it. But he can't prepare for that. Can't make a plan, can't brace himself for an impact that can come at any time. All he can do is wait, and it's driving him mad. He has never been any good at waiting.
Maybe they'll wait until the Games begin, he thinks. Get the kids in the arena and then…what? There's a new arena every year, and no one but the gamemakers even know where it is. Have the rebels found it, do they plan to break in and set the kids free? The arena could be massive, finding the kids once they're in there could be all but impossible. And some of the tributes won't want to go. The careers, they've been preparing for this their whole lives. They believe in the honor of the Games, they want to play, to win, to be victorious. They might put up a fight. Will the rebels have to kill some of the tributes just to save the rest?
Or does it have nothing to do with the kids at all? What if the rebels' plan is to unfold here in the Capitol, while everyone's eyes are on the arena? What if it's already begun? It may be days before he finds out what's afoot.
Or not; he's in the middle of a sentence, telling Caesar that Fender has a good head on his shoulders and that he's determined to keep Lyra safe, when pandemonium breaks out. The camera feeds are all cut and peacekeepers burst in, and Caesar is whisked away. There's yelling, and some of the champagne glasses shatter as the peacekeepers push the victors away from the windows, gather them together in the center of the room.
What's happening? he hears several people murmur. Where's Caesar? Why did they cut the feed?
The peacekeepers are pointing their guns at the victors. Elliot steps in front of Olivia, puts himself between her and the soldier in front of them, but the peacekeepers have surrounded them in a ring, and he can't protect her from all sides. The other victors push in close around them, everyone eyeing the exits, looking for weaknesses in the peacekeepers' line. The victors all come from different places, are all different ages, some as young as nineteen, some as old as eighty, but they all share one crucial thing in common. They are all survivors. Not just of the Games, but of the Capitol's machinations. There have been victors who made it out of the arena only to be killed by the regime; the ones standing in this room are the ones who know how to live.
Haymitch draws up close behind Olivia, and Finnick and Mags come sidling in from the sides, and the five of them make a tight knot with Liv and Mags in the center. Olivia throws her arm around Mags's shoulders, and holds the old lady close.
It's started, Elliot thinks. Whatever the rebels intend, it has begun, and he thinks Finnick and Haymitch must be in on it, too. That's good, he thinks. They're good allies to have. As long as Haymitch is sober.
We won't be any good to anyone if we die in this room, he thinks. There's too many guns, the victors all unarmed; if any of them tries to rush the peacekeepers they'll all be riddled with bullets in the space of a heartbeat. We have to be smart. He feels Olivia's fingertips pressing against the small of his back, a comforting reminder of her presence.
Maybe that's all they wanted us for, Elliot realizes. Maybe all they wanted us to do is die.
The feeds were cut, but maybe one of the cameras is still recording. The Districts will erupt like a powderkeg if they ever see the footage of their unarmed victors being massacred. Even the Capitol citizens will be furious; the victors are their friends, now, familiar faces they're used to seeing at parties, on holidays, the heroes their children revere. All those men who've bedded Olivia, at least some of them must care about her. If they don't their wives do; it's the wives who titter over Elliot and Olivia's secret love affair. They'll be heartbroken, and their men may be weak, but even a weak man can be strong in defense of the woman he loves.
Several anxious minutes pass in an uneasy silence, the victors swaying like a sea before a storm, but then the screen behind them crackles to life, and the President's face appears, his expression grim while the banner of Panem flaps in the breeze behind him.
"Citizens of Panem," he begins in a terrible voice. "A tragedy has befallen us this day. The transport carrying our tributes to the arena suffered a mechanical failure, and all lives on board were lost."
"No," he hears Olivia breathe even as the other victors murmur amongst themselves, alarmed.
Is this what they planned? Rage flows through him, thick and hot; how does shooting twenty-four children out of the sky set anyone free? Maybe the rebels were trying to make a point. Maybe without the tributes there can be no Games. The reaping apparatus is vast and requires methodical planning and resources, thousands of boots on the ground needed to keep everyone in line. It would take weeks to plan another reaping and the Districts may be angry, unwilling to sacrifice four tributes in one year. Two is bad enough, but to go back and ask for more? They'll have to start all over, with new costumes that haven't been designed yet, another week's worth of training, and throwing the schedule off will cost the Capitol dearly. Business all but shuts down here during the Games, and the delay may be untenable to the money-men. Maybe there is wisdom in this plan, but to take the lives of so many innocents in the process feels wrong.
The kids were all dead anyway. Maybe this is grace, killing them quickly aboard the transport instead of forcing them to murder each other.
Maybe they aren't dead at all. He wouldn't put it past the President to lie. If the transport was diverted, or captured, if the tributes are all alive and being held somewhere by the rebels, the President would never admit to it. To admit that he had been caught off guard, the anyone was able to infiltrate the network of the Games and rescue the tributes, would be a show of weakness. The kids - Elliot and Olivia's kids - may still be out there somewhere, alive.
"I grieve with you, for the loss of these bright tributes who have been denied the opportunity to fight for the honor of their Districts. We thank them for their sacrifice, and will remember them always."
Bullshit, Elliot thinks. The kids never got to compete, were only in the Capitol for a week. Six months from now no one will remember their names, no one but the families and friends they left behind.
"Yet we must uphold our most sacred of traditions," the President continues. "The Games are a time of unity, a time for us to remember where we have been, and look to the future in hope. We cannot falter in the preservation of our heritage. The Games will go on."
How, Elliot hears someone ask. Somewhere in his heart he fears he knows the answer.
"While these tributes have been lost, representatives from each District are gathered in the Capitol even now. The surviving victors have agreed to stand up, and fight for their Districts once more."
"Bullshit!" Haymitch spits, while someone else yells the fuck we did! and the pool of victors surges all around, buzzing like a nest of furious hornets. Someone, Wiress he thinks, vomits.
It is a victor's worst nightmare. Having survived the arena once the one solace available to them was the knowledge that they would not ever have to fight to the death again. They are supposed to be safe, pampered and removed from the horrors of the Games, watching others compete but never again having to do it themselves. Some Districts don't even have enough surviving victors to compete; Haymitch is the only living victor from 12, and Mags is old and frail. It's wrong, what the President intends to do to them, and Elliot can scent violence in the air from the other victors.
"I shall read out the names of the chosen victors now," the President says, and then he does. As he calls out each name, peacekeepers move forward, isolate their target and drag them away, never breaking ranks, their rifles pointing unerringly at the angry, terrified victors before them.
"I can't compete if you kill me," Johanna Mason says shrilly, and privately Elliot thinks she has a point. If the President calls their name, and they refuse to move, what can the peacekeepers do? They can't kill a victor after the President has promised that victor will compete. He gets his answer when Mags's name is called; Finnick roars like a wounded animal and does his best to fight the peacekeepers off, and Olivia clings to the old lady tightly, fear in her eyes. A peacekeeper puts Finnick down with the butt of his rifle, bashes his head so hard and so fast that Finnick's knees buckle before he can defend himself. Two more of them begin to rip Mags from Olivia's arms, and he can see they're about to hit Liv, too, so Elliot steps in, catches Olivia around the waist and hauls her away. She screams when he touches her.
"Put me down, you son of a bitch!" she cries, clawing at him, but he holds her fast.
"You gotta let her go, Liv," he tells her. "We'll protect her in the arena, but we can't do that if you let them hurt you now."
She goes limp in his arms, lets him set her down, but her eyes are wild.
"I can't go back," she says while the President calls Finnick's name, and then moves on to District 5. "Elliot, I can't go back."
"It's different this time," he tells her. "I'll be there."
And, god willing, the rebels will help them. This has to be part of it, he thinks; taking out the tributes' transport can't be the full extent of the rebellion. Maybe the rebels planned for this, all the victors together in the arena. Maybe that's what they want, and maybe once Elliot and Olivia arrive there more of the plan will be revealed. They just have to stay alive long enough to find out.
"I'm not going to let anything happen to you," he tells her fiercely, pressing his forehead against hers. "There is no me without you."
"No me without you," she repeats.
And then the President calls her name.
The Games have begun.
TBC