Chapter 24- Oak Peacewood
"Are you sure about me keeping your ring?"
Katya waves me off, grinning. "I'll lose it out there. Keep it until I get back."
She's putting the last items into her bag; she can't take much with her wherever she's going. I don't know if she knows where she's going. This is the first time we'll be apart, and even though she'll be back, it's like she's taking a piece of me with her.
"We'll meet you in the Capitol," I say, parroting Mom's words.
"You better; I don't want to go in without you," Katya says, zipping her bag shut. "Remember the story about the two girls and the dragon?"
"Wasn't it a winter beast?"
Katya laughs, which starts me laughing. "We're still the two ravishingly beautiful sisters, and we're going to fight the winter beast."
"I want to hear all your stories when you get back," I tell her. She's going to have a thousand, and I'll have mine to tell her, too. My fingers absentmindedly fiddle with the silver butterfly on the ring she gave me.
"Keep safe, okay, Oak?" Katya asks, her laughter suddenly dying away. "I want to celebrate with you after the war."
I walk over to her and wrap my sister up in the fiercest hug I can manage. "You too. Don't die out there."
She pulls back and grins again. "As if the Capitol could kill me."
The last thing I see of my sister is her waving, before she turns the corner on the street and disappears into the night, leaving me behind to pick up the pieces of her absence.
My feet stumble over the loose rubble on the street; this is my fault, I helped do this. I helped bring the Capitol to its knees for three years, and now it's in District 7's condition. I can't say I'm sorry.
I'm still running, but I got away, and they haven't come after me yet, so I'm counting that as a win. There's no lights, just the vaguest semblance of a moon that's helping to dimly light the streets. From what I can see, it could have been a beautiful place once, but the blown-out windows and collapsed shapes in the shadows bring it back to reality.
Where am I supposed to find my sister?
Now that I'm here, that I'm standing in the city that I lost everything to get into, I have no idea where to go. Katya could be anywhere, if she's actually here. If she's alive. I need her to be alive, because if she isn't, I've lost everything.
Finally, I just press myself against a building and force myself to breathe. What did they do with the people at the Capitol? I would have watched if they had put a bullet through Katya's head, just like they did to my mother. My wonderful, beautiful mother who helped start a war that ended her life. Who gave us up for the country that gave her no thanks in return.
I wonder if Katya knows about Mom and Dad, both of them in unmarked graves somewhere, thousands of miles apart. Graves I'll never get to visit.
Something or someone moves out of the corner of my eye. As quietly as I can, I reach down for a piece of concrete that's lying haphazardly on the ground by my feet. If it's a Peacekeeper, I can make a good dent in their head; they're not bringing me back in alive. I'm not going to play their Hunger Games.
It's someone sweeping; a pointless activity if you ask me; a broom isn't going to do anything against the disaster that the Capitol is. The man comes into view eventually, while I'm trying not to breathe, still clutching the concrete in my fist. I can barely see him in the dim moonlight, then I move my foot slightly and he jerks up to look at me.
Like when Tulsee arrived on the train, I have the bizarre feeling of recognition. I know him. I know him from the war; he was part of Katya's group that left the night after she gave me the ring.
"Cay?" I hiss. His head jerks again. "Cay, is that you?"
He shrugs, so I come out of the shadows and into the open street. "It's Oak. From District 7."
It is Cay, but he doesn't speak, just nods his head to me. He knew my mother, he knew Katya, so he should know me. "Were you with Katya at the end?"
Cay nods. I don't want to ask why he won't talk to me. I don't want to know. "Do you know where she is now?"
If he says she's dead, I don't know what I'll do. But he nods, and points downward. "She's down? She's dead?" I whisper. He shakes his head, then gestures for me to follow him. So I do; my hands are shaking, but I'm keeping hold on the concrete.
"Katya's down there?" Cay's pointing down to a hole in the ground, half covered by a metal grate. He nods. "And she's alive?" He nods again.
I toe the metal grate off further; the scraping of the metal against the asphalt makes me wince. "Did anyone else of your team get out alive?"
Cay nods again, then holds up three fingers. There were six in Katya's group, I remember that much. "Only lost one, that's as good as you're going to get," I tell him, and he cracks a small smile. "I wasn't here, Cay. You didn't see me."
He nods one more time, then I crouch down, dropping the concrete next to the hole, and swing my legs over the edge. In the dark, I can barely see the ledge, let alone what's down below. Or how I'm going to get down. Kicking my feet along the edges, my boot finally meets what I think must be a ladder.
"I wasn't here, Cay," I say again, then I find the ladder and begin my descent into the blackness.
"You shouldn't have to go to work!"
Katya's bare feet are tucked up under her, her hair hanging in her face as she braids pieces of grass together. "That's why Mom and Dad keep talking about starting the rebellion. Then nobody would have to work if they didn't want to."
"Do you want to?" I ask, brushing a leaf out of my hair. We found this secret area under the lilac bushes two years ago, and this is where we come when we want to be alone. The lilacs aren't blooming anymore, but nobody can see us anyway.
"No! Mom wants me to stay in school," Katya says.
"But if the rebellion started, you would help, right?"
Katya grins and looks right at me. "I'll defeat the Capitol by myself."
I roll over onto my stomach and kick my feet up behind me. "Can't I help?"
"Like I'd leave you behind! We'll go together, no matter what, okay?"
"Okay."
My feet touch the ground, and I can already tell it's smoother than the road I left behind ten minutes ago. Cay replaced the grate once I'd gotten a few feet down, so if they're coming after me, I have time. Wherever this is, it's dimly lit by greenish lights embedded in the ceiling.
I haven't seen light that hasn't come from the sun or fire in months. The Sap isn't lucky enough to have electricity, and I couldn't afford it if it was. But I have absolutely no idea where I am, besides underground.
Why is Katya down here?
Automatically I duck into the shadows when a truck drives past. They could be looking for me, but I don't know why they would look here. Aldar bought me time, he must have, and that idiot from 11 had to have distracted them for a while.
Slowly and as quietly as I can, I start moving again, sticking to the shadows. What I'm figuring this place must be is some sort of transportation system, maybe for getting supplies around the Capitol without being seen. They could have stocked up a thousand times over on food down here, but they were too stupid to do it.
It's empty, and I'm not an idiot enough to start calling out to see if anyone's down here, even if it could be Katya. They're not dragging me back that easily. If they thought I ran at the reaping, I'll kill them now. I have nothing but Katya to lose.
We told her we'd meet her in the Capitol, I told Katya I'd meet her here. I saw her, just once at the final battle. I made her a promise, and I can't break it now.
Katya's standing still, her gun in hand; I can't see her face, but I know it's my sister standing there. I'm about to start running towards her, but two people move in my way, and I can't see her anymore.
"Mom, Mom, it's Katya! I see Katya!" I'm turning, looking for my mother, but she's disappeared too. For the first time in the whole rebellion, I'm alone, torn between two people I love.
Before I can make my decision on who to find first, the world explodes into flames.
"Katya!"
"Ow." I shake my foot out; there's rubble down here too, even though the underground is better preserved than the surface. Something moves further down. Reaching down, I grab the piece of rubble I stubbed my toe on, and grip it tightly. They won't take me back. I won't let them.
The figure in the dark isn't dressed in white from what I can see; it's similar to what Cay was wearing, thinking about it. A dark blue jumpsuit. There were others from Katya's team who made it out alive, and I hold my breath hoping it might be one of them.
But it's not. It's a man I don't know with close cropped brown hair, who startles when he notices me.
"Can you help me?" I ask in as loud a whisper as I can manage. He shrugs. "I'm looking for someone."
He gestures vaguely, his forehead creased. The small pit of terror in my stomach that I've been holding for months is growing every time someone refuses to speak to me. I don't want the rumors to be true, not about Katya.
"She has dark brown hair, mid-back length," I say. "Dark brown eyes. She's nineteen. Her name is Katya."
His eyes light up in recognition, and the terror is briefly replaced by a bit of hope. He points down the corridor he came from, then gestures to the right.
"Down the corridor, and right?" I ask. He nods. He motions picking something up and putting it on something, then nods. Then he points at me, down the hall, and makes an odd motion with his hands, his fingers shaping something that looks like an L.
"I don't know what you mean. Thank you."
Then I leave the man behind, whoever he is, and run as fast as I can down the corridor.
I have Lily in my lap while Katya is moving furniture around with Mom. My sister turns and grins at me.
"Oak, did you know that there were little tree men in the old old days?"
I love her stories. "No, tell me about them."
"Well, they grew out of the earth one day, and took a liking to the trees, especially the pine trees. So they decided to make their homes there, living in little wood houses on the tree branches."
"Do they still live there?" Mom asks, sitting back on her heels from where she was shifting Lily's basket over.
Katya shakes her head. "They got tired of living in the pine trees after a while, so the tree men climbed higher and higher and higher, until they couldn't climb anymore. Then they found out they could fly, and soared into the sky as high as they could go, until they landed on the stars. From then on, they were called star men instead."
She grins again. "The end."
Mom stands up and ruffles Katya's hair. "You have a gift; don't ever stop telling those stories."
"As long as she can talk, she won't stop," I say. It'll take a lot to make Katya stop talking; she's only quiet when she's sleeping. "So we're going to hear a thousand more stories."
I skid to a stop once the corridor splits off and sprint to the right, like the man told me to do. She's here, she has to be here, because if there's another Katya that isn't mine, I don't know what I'll do. I have to find her.
Mom told me Katya would come back for me, but she didn't. And she would have if she could.
There's a truck at the end of the corridor, and there are people around it, putting crates onto the back. Five or six of them; I'm not counting. They're all dressed in blue, but there's only one with long brown hair, pulled back into a ponytail.
"Katya!"
She startles and turns, and it's her, it's my sister, it's Katya, and I want to cry. Her mouth drops open, then she drops the crate she's holding and runs at me. I don't get a chance to breathe before she hits me and wraps me up in one of her hugs that I've been missing desperately.
"I found you," I whisper, then I hug her back as tightly as I can. She nods into my shoulder, and I can feel her crying too. "I came back for you."
We just stand there like this, indivisible, for what seems like forever. The part of me that Katya took with her when she left is back, and for the first time since the Capitol, I've been given something back. Everything's been taken, but I have my sister back, so maybe it's going to be okay.
Finally, Katya pulls back and holds my face in her hands. I've always been able to read her eyes, but I'm out of practice.
"Did you know about Mom and Dad?" I ask. She pauses, then nods. "And they caught you and brought you here."
I know my sister enough to recognize the pain that flashes in her eyes. "Are you okay?"
Katya opens her mouth, then shuts it again, her hands moving wildly around her like they used to. That terror in my stomach comes back again, the smoke of those rumors alongside it.
"Katya, say something."
She brushes at tears rolling down her cheeks as she gestures to her mouth and shakes her head. I know the rumors are true now, but they're not real until I say the words.
"Did they make you an Avox?" I ask, and my voice is low. Katya nods, and just like that, I want to burn the Capitol down with every person inside. I want them dead; I want to tear out their tongues, because they've silenced my sister.
Her stories. She'll never tell me another story.
"I'm so sorry," I say, then pull her in again. "I'm so sorry."
The other people- the other Avoxes, I realize now- are standing and watching us. One of them is brushing her own cheek. I don't know her, but she could have been a rebel too. If the Capitol had caught me, I would be here with them, without a voice.
"Listen, Katya," I tell her, pushing her back enough that I can look her in the eyes. "They reaped me. For the Hunger Games. Do you know about them?" I have no idea what kind of information they get down here.
But she nods. "I got away. I ran, Aldar helped me. I came to get you so we can get out of the Capitol. I have a friend, she escaped the train on the way here, we can meet up with her. But we have to now, right now, Katya."
The Katya I knew would have grabbed my hand and started running. But this Katya, still my Katya, backs away and shakes her head.
"I came to get you! We have to go before they find us!"
She brushes more tears away, then starts to gesture what I think is a story. She pretends to jog, then mimes having her hands bound, before holding three fingers up. Before I can ask what she means, even though I think I know, Katya rolls up her sleeves to reveal long scars on them.
"You ran three times, and they caught you," I say. She nods. "They did that to you?" I don't look for her nod before I pull her right arm toward me and run my fingers over the white scars. "I won't let you get caught."
Katya shakes her head again. My sister, who went on a mission to help Panem, who went for something that mattered more to her than her family, more than me. She would never hesitate to have an adventure, never.
They've broken my sister.
"You're not going to go with me, are you?" I say, and it's not so much a question as a statement. She makes a fist and moves it in a circle over her heart. "You can't stay here, Katya."
Instead of answering me, she just hugs me again. And like that, my world crashes down around my feet, like it has been doing ever since we fell at the Capitol. There isn't a world for me without Katya, and I'm losing her all over again. There wasn't a point to any of it, none of it.
If losing her tongue broke Katya, losing her has broken me.
She motions for me to run, back down the corridor.
"Take these, all of these." I empty my pockets of my doll, Dad's watch, even the few coins that I've been carrying. They're probably going to be of more use to Katya than me. "I'm not going to need them."
Katya turns the watch over and over in her hand, while some unrecognizable expression goes across her face. Dad's gone too; shot and buried, and we'll never see him again either. "Here. To remember us by," I tell her, then hand her the photo. It's battered from the last week, but you can still see each of us clearly.
"I gave my friend Mom's necklace," I continue, pulling off the ring. "Take it back. It's yours; I told you I'd give it back to you after the war."
I'm hoping she doesn't refuse to take any of it, and she doesn't. She just pockets the watch and Posy, and after a long look at the photograph she pockets that too. And she lets me put her ring back on her finger, where it belongs. The silver butterfly shines in the artificial light.
"Promise me you'll try to be free one day. Please promise me that," I tell her, because I know deep down that this is the last time I'll see Katya. "Please."
And she nods, gesturing towards the corridor again.
"I love you. More than anything." I need her to know that. My beautiful, beautiful sister, who I did love more than anything. She's in almost every memory of my childhood, every good memory. Whatever happens now, I don't really care. I've lost her, she's lost herself.
We lost the war; we lost everything. And now I'm trying to decide whether it was worth it or not.
"Think of me," I say, hug her one last time, then I run down the corridor like she wanted, leaving my heart behind me.
I found her. She's alive. She's defeated. But I know that she's alive, no matter what happens now.
I don't even reach the end of the corridor before the Peacekeepers are there, grabbing me before I can run, even if I wanted to. I don't. There's nowhere to run. But when I'm hauled back up into the night air, I see Cay, terrified and standing next to a Peacekeeper that has a gun aimed in Cay's direction.
What I'd like to tell him is that I understand. That the time for nobility is done. But I don't. I'm as mute as my sister, as Cay, while the Peacekeepers drag me away.
And in the background, over the destroyed city, I can see the hint of a sunrise.