The reaping condemns five twelve-year-old boys to death, and Katniss cannot cry. A month of the meds have hidden that ability away. She sits in her chambers, alone, and on her shimmering television she watches district after district announce the names. She waits for a miracle. An intervention. Snow will wave a magic wand and make it stop. He will not, surely, allow this reality to continue?
But the children are called, and no salvation comes. They are so small, their faces so confused, and one does not even seem to understand what's going on. After the final tiny, frightened face from District 12 is displayed on the hologram, it cuts hard to Katniss' own face. The dull shape of an anxiety attack drifts through her. She no longer has full attacks, but she still feels the ghost of them. She stares at her own face, and she remembers what terror used to feel like.
The news announcer drones over her glittering smile. 'And to conclude this year's Reaping Ceremony, we celebrate the wonderful news that President Snow has announced his successor as ruler of the nation. President Katniss Snow! The nineteen-year-old Victor of the 74th Hunger Games stunned the nation with her marriage to President Snow, which became the most culturally important romance of the century. Now, Katniss Snow…'
She watches her own smiling face and cannot recall which event footage they have used to illustrate this atrocity. The commenter drones on about how fantastic and extraordinary and blah, blah, blah, she is, playing over a montage of Katniss throughout the stages of her public life: as reaped tribute, fighting to stay alive, as Victor (no Peeta in shot — they talk as though she were the sole winner), as bride, as blood-drenched survivor of the assassin… And as wife, holding onto Snow's arm, the two of them looking for all the world like a perfect couple in love. Over sixty years between them, and an ocean of blood.
Will the public be happy about her appointment? Will they want to hang her? She does not know.
When the announcement concludes, she begs Snow to cancel the Games. She implores him with all his love for her to do something good, really good, for a change, and not just pave the world with blood.
He looks at her with sympathy and kindness. 'The Games are necessary, Katniss,' he says, and he strokes her hair. 'Without them, the Districts would rebel. And we would have war. And many, many more dead children.'
She begs more and she beats his chest with her fists, and eventually he holds her against him and whispers, 'Alright. I'll try to ensure one of the little ones survives.' He stares down at her, wide-eyed and smiling, as though he has given her a lovely birthday present. 'I cannot promise. But I can pull some strings. Does that comfort you?'
It does not comfort her.
There is to be a party for the tributes and their mentors to celebrate the Games, and the announcement of the new President, and Katniss shuts herself in her chambers all day while the mansion is decorated. She does not know what to wear. Snow had them bring her over two dozen dresses to give her some sense of agency over the proceedings, but choosing between these is having a paralytic effect. The medication has squashed her anxiety, but it does not make these decisions any easier. She is sure that if she picks the wrong dress then a child will die. But all the children, save one, of course, will die. Which one will it be? If she wears the dress in green chiffon, will it be the little boy with the smudged nose?
She gets moderately drunk before going downstairs, and she shrugs her skinny body into a dress of velvet indigo and glitter. She's gained some weight in the month since she decided not to kill herself, but it still hangs oddly from her hips and small, sloping breasts. What a faux pas. She ought to look beautiful to celebrate the massacre of children.
Snow has left her a wide selection of jewelry, too, and these she ignores. He has also left her a single white rose, next to a card upon which his perfect, swooping handwriting has written, For my wife and President.
She finds him difficult to stomach, sometimes.
Katniss winds her hair into two braids, then pins these atop her head. This used to be a fancy style in District 12. Here, in the Capitol, it's provincial. But let them think that about her. Let them think her low, and common, and whorish. Better that than think of her as President Snow the Second.
With loathing and a little sexual gratification, she winds the white rose into one of the braids. It's like a little white crown, and it marks her as his.
She leaves her chambers and walks to the foyer, hearing the sounds of the bubbling party below, and she pauses to breathe in and out a few times and remember how to pretend that she's a real human being. Smile. Laugh at jokes. Pretend you're happy.
When she rounds the corner and reaches the foyer and staircase, she freezes in place.
Oh, for fuck's sake.
White roses. Everywhere, white roses. The floors are coated with petals, the surfaces festooned with bouquets, and from every niche explodes an awkwardness of the hideous things. Some of the guests are tripping over the bigger clumps. She can barely think straight for the smell.
They are to celebrate her.
Katniss breathes a little more and accustomed herself to the scent. Why couldn't he have coated everything in blood? It would have been more honest.
She picks her way down the stairs and smiles vaguely at a couple of party-goers; mentors from other Districts, she thinks. It's not like she was ever social at these events in the past and she has no wish to start now.
She wants to find Snow. He is, as ever, the last person she wants to see, and the giant planet to which she is always drawn.
Strangers smile at her and bow their heads and try to greet her, and her eyes slide from their faces like none of them are real. No one feels real to her, anymore. Snow is real. She doesn't think Katniss is real, anymore. That girl got plucked and peeled and fashioned into something else, and now she's just another branch of Snow, growing out of his soily depths.
The ballroom is packed, the air that odd mix of festivity and fear that always characterizes the Games. Mentors, stylists, tributes, Victors, politicians, celebrities… There are a couple of people she can vaguely place. There is Annie Cresta, the vacant-eyed mentor from District 4. There is Cashmere, from District 1, stunning in a golden dress. And—
Katniss' stomach clenches. Senator Daric is here. He is laughing with one of the tributes — a shellshocked looking girl from, Katniss thinks, District 6 — and Katniss can see the whites of his teeth. They are almost whiter than the roses.
Why would Snow allow him to attend? Hubris? A scheme? A game? All of the above?
Chewing on her dampened panic, she looks around for her husband. There. On the other side of the room, and staring at her. He is smiling with fantastic pleasure, and she smiles back. They are so perfect for each other.
Katniss grimaces, then wades through the crowd to join him. Some woman is talking to him, but his eyes never leave Katniss' face.
'You look wonderful,' he says when she reaches him, and kisses her on the cheek. There is an odd moment of consideration from both of them, and then they kiss again on the lips. Katniss doesn't really know the appropriate way to behave in public.
'So lovely to see you again, Katniss,' says the woman, and Katniss recognizes her as the party host to their dreadful bombing. Margarita, ensconced tonight in layers of green silk, though thankfully missing her ugly dog. 'You are just stunning. I was telling Coriolanus how marvelous it has been to see him so in love.'
And then Margarita taps her hand against Snow's arm, gentle and playful, and Snow smiles back at her.
Katniss feels something she has not felt in a long time. That feeling when she drove a letter opener into an assassin's face. That feeling when she found a little girl with a spear through her soft body.
Her eyes meet Margarita's. 'Get your fucking hand off my husband.'
The woman blinks, and then she looks to Snow. He is glowing with thrill.
'You really are quite his type,' she observes, and a sly smile is back on her lips. She raises her eyebrows at Snow. 'I'll take my leave, Coriolanus. Do be careful.' Her tone is light, but there is a genuine warning in it, too.
Katniss watches the woman and her green silk wings drift away into the crowd. Her heart is punching itself through her chest.
'That was a little unnecessary, Katniss,' says Snow, although he sounds delighted.
'You fucked her,' says Katniss. Her eyes leave the woman and burn into Snow's. His expression is surprise.
'As a matter of fact, yes,' he says. 'A lifetime ago. Three of your lifetimes, at least.' He is amused, but perplexed. 'I assure you, my dear, there is nothing between us. We were children at the time. To even call it an adolescent dalliance would be an overstatement.'
'How old?' Katniss sees her spit hit Snow's beautiful suit.
'Oh, fifteen or so.'
Katniss wants to kill that woman. Unzip her. Take things out. Put them back in where they don't belong. Make a mockery of her insides.
'She took your virginity.'
The phrase seems to entertain Snow. 'No. That was…' Suddenly, his face falls into blank void, and Katniss watches, mesmerized. His foot goes through the ice of his mind and gets stuck in something foul. And then he yanks it back, and he stands on the ice, and his expression is perfect and smiling once again. 'Anyway. Do you like the roses? I wanted to properly celebrate your ascension.'
Katniss glances askance at a waterfall of the things erupting from a pot. 'A bit overkill, don't you think?'
His expression pours love into her, and she finds him difficult to look at. 'Not at all. I want everyone to know how deserving you are.'
'What if this just makes everyone hate me?'
A slow smile spread over his face like molasses. 'Oh, my dear. Look. Let me show you.' He pulls his tablet from his pocket and presses some buttons, then inclines the screen to Katniss.
It is live footage of a security camera outside the mansion gates. There is a crowd gathered. Katniss cannot hear what they are saying on the camera, but she can read the signs: Katniss Katniss Katniss, GIRL ON FIRE, WE LOVE KATNISS, PRESIDENT EVERDEEN!, and endless pictures of her own face.
'I don't matter to them at all anymore,' says Snow happily, and slides the tablet back into his pocket. 'Everybody adores you.'
She gazes into the enormity of his love for her, and she feels hopeless. He is unsalvageable, a huge rusted ship sunk into the sea mud, and he is quite happy to stay there. She really could kill him. And he probably wouldn't mind.
This is not unromantic.
Snow touches the rose in her hair, and he touches her face, and Katniss feels that pitying thread of affection for him twist through her.
'Will you join me for a dance?' says Snow.
'There didn't used to be dances at these things,' she observes.
His smile unsettles her. 'I added it to the schedule.'
She rolls her eyes at him. 'I can't say I particularly want to dance in celebration of the impending murder of two dozen children.'
'But you like dancing,' he says, as though this is reasonable. 'And I like dancing with you.'
She sighs. This is part of their ongoing game to be normal. Hobbies. Conversation. His love, her hate. They're trying to make something out of the rubble. Build a house from bricks and bones, roofless, leaking, burnt black. Live in the cinders. Make the best of it.
'Fine. Dancing it is.'
A servant is summoned, his ear is whispered into, and a few moments later the music has readjusted into a brightly meandering waltz. The crowd clears, and the guests wait for their hosts to take the first dance.
She doesn't flinch when Snow touches her hand, nor her back, nor does she care anymore for his breath on her face. She does not blanch, either, from the ice-white love in his eyes. She has become accustomed to him. More than this, she even likes it a little bit. There is her raw sexual response, of course, but as well as that is the low, pleasant hum that physical comfort induces in her. She has learnt to find comforts in him, patches of glowing light in the dark. Stare into the black smog. Try to find a star. There — just the one, and just for you.
They dance, and she likes it. It's fun to move and do something that she's good at, and for people to look at her in approval of her skill at something other than killing. Is it fun to see him gaze into her eyes with unabashed rapture, in front of all these people? Perhaps. He could not more clearly advertise his obsession. Sheets of white roses all around them. Well, it's better than him killing her friends.
'You've become so good at this,' he murmurs.
'I've practiced,' she says, and lets him spin her.
'You look spectacular.'
'Do you never get embarrassed by constantly fawning over me?' she spits back.
He gazes at her with apocalyptic love. 'No. You're mine. I'm yours. I want everyone to know that.'
'Good thing too, because you've been so subtle about it,' she says, and glances pointedly at the carpets of roses.
'Does it overwhelm you?'
She pushes into him, their bodies close, and she whispers like a snake. 'You can't overwhelm me anymore.'
'That's a shame.' And he dips her, quite suddenly, and it's not the kiss that startles her but the burning, teething clutch of his fingers on her arm. When she's back upright, she's blinking back tears from the sharp pain. 'I'll just have to try harder.'
She's a little angry at him. But only a little. He's just playing with her, and it excites her a little bit, especially in front of so many people. Their little games: the threats, the pain, the sex, the knowledge that one day he will die and she will dance one final time with his rotten corpse. She will be so happy.
They conclude their dance to polite applause, and then other couples take to the floor: mentors and trembling tributes, politicians and spouses. She's a little worked up with the exertion and the pain, and part of her would like to blow the whole event off so she and him can go screw in a back room — but that wouldn't be very well-behaved of her. Not very presidential of either of them.
She glances around and looks for someone better to talk to, someone she knows, someone who doesn't want to climb inside her skin and lick her insides.
'Is Cinna here?' she asks. She hasn't seen him in so long. Perhaps he is one of the stylists this year.
Snow looks at her blankly, and then he places the name. 'Cinna Lock? The stylist? He was executed months ago.' He sips his drink, then catches Katniss' empty eyes. 'You weren't aware of that?'
The medication, at least, dulls the grief that falls through her. Most of her emotions are like this, now that the pills have kicked in. Less pain, less despair. Fewer pits to fall into, but plenty of trenches to get your feet caught in. She feels like a pumice stone has been taken to her mind and all her rough edges filed away.
'Oh,' is all she says.
'He was working with the rebellion,' Snow continues, like this is a pleasant conversation. 'Sorry. I thought you knew.'
She winds her arm around his, raises herself, then whispers into his ear. 'Sometimes I want to murder you.'
He smiles at her, and she can see the excitement in it. 'How?'
It's no fun anymore. Her anger is too dull, and he likes it too much. He probably fantasizes about her killing him half the times they're fucking. So Katniss rolls her eyes and disentangles herself, then melts back into the crowd. There must be someone here she can talk to who isn't an insane murderer.
Well, no such luck.
Katniss feels like people are avoiding her. There are Victors she recognizes and knows, though none she would count among her friends. Peeta and Haymitch are nowhere to be seen. She has become so accustomed to effortlessly being the center of attention that she's not sure what to do with herself now that no one is throwing themselves at her and begging for her approval. She hovers, listening in on conversations, trying to find some way to make herself a part of the event.
She is relieved when a young woman strides up to her, one with dark hair and vivid eyes. Katniss vaguely recognizes her at Johanna Mason, the Victor of the 71st Games. They have not spoken much before.
'How noble of you to grace us with your presence,' says Johanna, and Katniss is about to humbly thank her before she realizes that, no, this is not the customary Capitol obsequience; this is sarcastic hostility. 'The wife of the President, lowering herself to rub elbows with the hoi-polloi.' She sighs dramatically and, before Katniss can respond, says, 'Say, what did Snow offer you to jump into bed with him? I hope it was worth it.' She gives a dry, insincere laugh. 'First Mellark, now the President. Who's next, I wonder?'
Katniss tries to look innocent, but Johanna's eyes bore right through her. 'It's not like that,' she fumbles. 'It's… we're in love.'
Johanna laughs again and it sears Katniss' eardrums. Then she drops her voice to a rough whisper. 'You know, people used to talk about you around here. You meant something to these morons. You were a symbol of, I don't know, something that could have been a revolution. I always thought that was a load of bull, of course. And how satisfying it is to be proven right.' She looks Katniss up and down with rank disgust. 'I hope it was worth the sacrifice to get to polish the President's shriveled dick.'
With that, the woman turns on her heel and stalks off to some other group of Victors and tributes. Katniss feels her face burning. She feels dirty all inside her, pipes filling up with silt.
I could have her executed, Katniss thinks idly, then feels sick with herself. She feels sick all over.
Pulling the rose out of her hair, Katniss takes long steps to bring her away from the crowds, out of the ballroom, through empty corridor after empty corridor until she gets somewhere quiet and dark where no one can find her. She finds an empty hall and there she leans against the wall and almost starts to cry, but nothing comes. She smacks her own face instead. She is being pathetic. If people want to charge her with destroying a revolution, well, let them. She is not responsible for the entire political structure of Panem; that's absurd. And she never wanted to be the mockingjay.
She stays there for some time. She could stay there for the whole party, if she liked. She doesn't need to be defined by the Games anymore. Now she's the President's wife. She's above all this.
'Katniss?'
She looks up. Of all the people who had to find her, of course it's Snow. It couldn't be Peeta, or Haymitch, or Effie. Someone good. No, he is drawn to her and she to him. He is the sticky, vile film that covers her skin and sinks into her insides. She is Snow, inside and out.
'I'm here,' she says.
He comes to join her. 'I watched you run away.'
'I'm avoiding people,' she says. 'I don't think I belong among human beings anymore.'
'You and I don't belong anywhere,' says Snow. The blood on his breath flows over her, and Katniss feels that familiar kick of arousal in her lower abdomen. Quite naturally, she intertwines her fingers in his and watches warmly, sadly, as he raises them to his lips and gilds her knuckles with kisses.
'Don't you have a party to host?' she says.
'I don't care about the party. I only care about you.'
She sighs in despair for the hopelessness of him, and she lets him kiss her, and she feels her sexual response sharpen.
Let everybody else hate her. Let them despise her. She will never be like them again.
She raises her hot lips to his ear and whispers, eiderdown soft, 'Do you want to fuck me?'
Aurora smile. 'Of course. As soon as the party concludes.'
'No, not later,' she says, and she rests a small palm over his soft cock. 'Now.'
Snow looks alarmed. 'Katniss, this is not a suitably private venue. People could see.'
'So?' She slides up her skirts and begins to work her way out of her underwear. They collapse to the floor in pile of wet cotton. 'You're the President, and it's your house. You can fuck whoever you like, including your wife.'
'Katniss,' he says, amused and despairing.
She presses her body against him, one hand clutching his cock through his clothes, the other freeing her cunt to the air.
'Come on. Just hold it inside me. I want it. I need it.' She sees the trepidation in his eyes, that sense that she is not quite well, and she presses her mouth so close to his that their lips graze as she speaks. 'I want to feel you inside me. I want your cum sliding out of me as I walk around and talk to all these stupid people. Please fuck me.'
She can feel him harden against the river of her working hand. He is always so ready, so obedient to pleasure her. He often doesn't reach his own orgasm during sex, and he doesn't masturbate after. He doesn't care. It's all for her. Snow could be content merely watching her, smiling at her, pressing a kiss against the sole of her foot for the rest of time.
But that is not sufficient to satisfy Katniss. She is the flesh-seeking hunter. And he is always so willing to provide.
He glances down the empty hall, exasperated, a little amused, and gently shifts her hips around so she faces the wall. This sends thrilling pleasure through her; he has never taken her in this position before. She bends, she braces the wall with her palms, she spreads her legs, and when she feels him push into her she lets him hear her moan in gratitude, ache, and self-hatred.
He fucks her with care and with love as Katniss thinks vaguely about dying, while the sounds of the party warble in the not-so-distance. With her acute pain dulled, her suicidality deadened, she has only the abstract memories of panic and the desire for self-annihilation left inside her. Would it not be easier to let Snow destroy her? Make him whatever it is he wants her to be. Then there will be nothing left of her, just the ashy shape where a girl once was…
Suddenly she feels Snow's body tense, though not with pleasure, and then his voice sounds in her ear. 'We have company.'
Katniss turns. Looks. Sees.
It's Peeta.
In a split second, everything about the past eight months since her wedding blows away like sand and she is Katniss Everdeen again. She is a girl and hunter from District 12, and there stands Peeta Mellark, the boy with the bread, who cared for her so tenderly. Who loved her. Who is good, and pure, and who is watching her get fucked.
Peeta's expression is sorrow and chaos. Katniss cannot form words.
Snow speaks first. 'Can we help you?'
Peeta's drops his eyes. 'I'm sorry, sir. I got lost.'
There is nothing for him to do but leave. He cannot intervene or help; Snow would have him killed. And does Katniss even want help?
Of course she wants help.
Peeta quickly turns and strides away, face red and bent, and Katniss knows she has to follow.
She pulls away from Snow and an abominable sound, a moan, one that singularly expresses the sensation of Snow's cock leaving her body, escapes her lips. The noise does not echo in the grand hallway, but Katniss hears it ricochet through her head regardless, as she knows it must do for Peeta. She chases after his retreating back.
'Peeta! Peeta, wait, please.'
She has no thought for Snow, abandoned there, as she pursues Peeta. She chases him through hallway after hallway, deeper into the mansion, into a parlor — where he turns to face her.
His expression is the most horrific thing Katniss has seen in months. It is not horror, or disgust, or hatred. It is embarrassment.
'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to walk in on that,' he says, babbling. 'I just… I was looking for you, and someone said they saw you come back here, so I… I didn't realize you… weren't alone.' He has not even slightly breached the real horror. 'It's none of my business. You're married, you can… I mean, it's fine. It's not…' His face creases with pain. 'What was that, Katniss? Does he force you?'
'No…' She is so horribly aware of the syrupy feeling between her legs, of the absence of her underwear. 'It's… It's complicated, Peeta…'
'It's just… It didn't look very reluctant!' He looks truly stunned, confusion so deep it verges on terror.
'It's not what it looks like,' she says, and she has no idea what that means. It's true, of course: what she has with Snow is so immensely far from anything interpretable. But it's also exactly what it looks like. She's fucking him, evil himself, the man responsible for every terrible thing that has ever happened to either of them.
Peeta looks at her in desperate confusion. 'Then what… Katniss, what were you doing?'
There is nothing he can say or feel that isn't justified. She is doing something repugnant. She deserves to be hated.
'We were just…' She casts around for any explanation that could explain it. She was lonely? She was sad? She was confused? These paltry excuses shrink in comparison to Snow's evil. There is no justification. She has sunk to Snow's level. Johanna Mason is right. She deserves hatred and condemnation, and she does not deserve to even breathe the same air as someone as good as Peeta Mellark. She folds her arms, trying and failing to project spite. She always seems more vunerable than she means to be. Wound-like. 'Well, what business is it of yours?' Her voice shakes. 'We're married. It's fine. It's what couples do. Not that you'd know.'
There is no understanding, no sense in Peeta's face. He is appalled — not at her, of course, never at her. He'd forgive her anything. He is just abstractly appalled the way you are at terrible tragedies. An awful thing happened, and isn't it sad?
'That's okay,' he says. 'You don't have to explain it. I don't need to understand. It's your life. I'm just… I'm just happy to see you.' He smiles, and the smile is so real and soft and so, so different to anything she ever sees ripping open Snow's face. 'But you can talk to me if you need. If there's anything I can do. You don't have to do this alone. I can—'
'Stop.' She holds up a hand exactly the way that Snow does when he wants to silence someone. How dare Peeta forgive her? How dare something as wretched and filthy as her be granted absolution for the terrible things she's done? Fucking Snow, living in wealth bought with blood, smiling and dancing as little children get reaped… Holding Snow between her thighs, ignoring him as he begs her to stop…
She cannot stomach the sight of Peeta's face. She turns on him, and she leaves him there, uncomprehending, full of kindness for her. She is something so dreadful: a dirty black spider, a cluster of them, crawling over one another in a high corner, somewhere. She cannot bear to sully him with her putrescence.
She walks without sense, without purpose, through hallway after hallway, not knowing quite what she is looking for. It has been a long time since she seriously wanted to hurt herself, but now the urge is back. She slides into an empty room piled with supplies for the party: bottles of champagne, glasses, napkins… What she needs is a knife. A broken bottle. Anything, sharp, something that will scar…
'Girl, you look awful.'
Katniss spins on the spot. There, slouched in a corner among the boxes, a bottle of plundered champagne in his hand, is Haymitch.
'You're one to talk,' she says, her voice hoarse. He looks dreadful: hair lank, face sunken, a bruise greening his jaw.
They exchange scowls, and then Haymitch is standing and Katniss is in his arms, and she is clutching the fabric of his ill-fitting waistcoat. He holds her, awkwardly at first, and then her mouth makes dry, tearless sobs and he holds her closer.
'Hey, sweetheart,' he says, 'it's okay.'
She wants to cry properly. She feels like she could cry for years. But the medication has halted that process, and she can't do much more than hiccup. She pushes back from Haymitch and collapses on a box next to him like a discarded marionette.
Haymitch sits too. He offers her the bottle and she takes it, wiping his saliva off the neck before she drinks. She misses the cheap white spirits of District 12. They tasted like home.
'How are you coping?' says Haymitch at last.
Katniss laughs drily. She looks at him with dark eyes. 'I'm not.'
'You've got real skinny. I've never known you to be off your food.'
'Living with Snow doesn't do wonders for your appetite.'
'How has married life been treating you?' It's an ironic question. He knows she can't possibly try to answer it, but simply to hear the gentle flow of normal conversation is a balm.
'Oh, you know. Absolute bliss. I'm so happy. How I love my murderous old husband. He's just…' Oh, what even is Snow? She shrugs and spills champagne. 'He's the worst man in the world.'
'Here's to that,' says Haymitch, and he pulls another full bottle of champagne from a box and pops it open, then drinks deeply. 'You seen Peeta yet? He was looking for you. Been worrying about you for months.'
'I just ran into him,' she says. 'I just… We just spoke.' Her voice is disturbingly high-pitched. 'He, uh…' She does not want to lie. She wants honesty. She does not want forgiveness: she only wants someone to judge her cruelly, and tell her how evil she has become. 'He walked in on us. Me and Snow.' Her eyes are too wide. She clinks her freshly regrown nails against the glass bottle. 'He walked in on us having sex.'
She takes a long, cleansing drink so she won't have to look at Haymitch. When she's done, she forces herself to meet the dark hollows of his eyes. He is only looking at her with concern.
'We, uh…' She laughs with the hysteria that has become so common to her. 'It just seemed like a good idea at the time.' She cannot look at Haymitch. 'I think there's something really wrong with me. That's not even the worst thing I've done. I'm… I think I'm a terrible person.' She drinks. 'We've been sleeping together for months.'
She wonders if it's too late to volunteer for the reaping. Sure, she's a year too old, but they could fudge the paperwork. She's the President's wife. She can do whatever she wants.
Then Haymitch says something quite unexpected: 'Yeah, I know.'
She stares. 'You… what?'
His shoulder slurs in a shrug, the bottle sloshes. 'C'mon. I can tell just by looking at you two. The way you sat together in that awful engagement announcement, compared to the way you were dancing together? Can practically smell it.'
She is horrified. 'Can everyone tell?'
He gives her a are-you-stupid? expression. 'Sweetheart, as far as the country at large is concerned, you two have been at it since the honeymoon. I think only me, your mother, your sister, Peeta, and…' There is a little silence where Haymitch might have once said Gale's name. 'Well, those are probably the only folks to whom this would come as a surprise.'
She clutches the edge of her seat. 'You're not… angry with me?'
His mocking expression softens. 'Oh, hon, of course not. You got dealt the shittiest hand any girl's ever had. It's not like you can get away from the guy; he's your husband. If sex helps you get through whatever it is you have to get through, then so what? It's not like it's anybody's business.' He takes a long, thirsty sip of his drink. 'When I first won the Games, it wasn't booze I was spending my money on. It was whores. There was a superb brothel back in the Seam in those days, and they would send the prettiest girls up to my new place whenever I wanted. I was just desperate for anything to drown out the screaming in my nightmares, you know? And those were girls that would do anything. Some of them younger than you.' He takes another draught. 'I ain't proud of that. I'm sure what you're doing is a damn sight better.' He shrugs, and he drinks, and he smacks his lips and fixes Katniss with a penetrating stare. 'Is he at least a good lay?'
Katniss stares. 'What?'
Haymitch shrugs defensively. 'I'm just saying, if you're gonna screw the worst human being in the world, you better be getting a good ploughing out of it.'
Katniss cannot make sense of these words. And then it makes sense to her. He is making a joke. He is trying to cheer her up. Katniss laughs, then Haymitch laughs, and then they both collapse into giggles.
'He actually is,' she says through her laughter. 'You want details?'
Haymitch offers mock confusion. 'Why wouldn't I want details of the sexual habits of the most evil man in the universe?'
This, for some reason, is hysterical to both of them. They laugh for a long time, punctuated by the most vulgar questions each can think of ('He a grower or a shower?', 'You want to know our favorite position?'), until Katniss is half-collapsed and shaking with joy and relief. Getting fucked by Snow is one thing; having someone to make her laugh is quite another.
Snow never makes her laugh.
Haymitch's laughter subsides and he wipes tears from his eyes. 'Oh man,' he says. 'What a couple you make. Makes me feel better about my romantic choices, let me tell you.' He regards her with a little more seriousness. 'Does he make you happy?'
'Nothing makes me happy,' she mutters. 'I don't remember what that feels like.' She sighs, exhausted. 'I am on more medication that you can imagine, to stop me killing myself. To try to feel okay, at least some of the time. The days when I feel nothing at all are the good days. But he's happy, though,' she adds, thoughtfully. 'He's ecstatic.'
Haymitch studies her. 'How does he feel about you?'
A small but dreadful frown alights on Katniss' forehead. She drops her voice to the quietest whisper, hoping that whatever cameras are watching them won't hear her words. 'He's madly in love with me. Insanely, obsessively, violently in love with me.'
Haymitch's face is drawn. 'That's not good.'
'No, no it's not. The man I'm stuck with is in love with me, and he's evil, and he's about to let two dozen children die and I can't do anything about it. I begged him to the cancel the Games, but he won't do it.'
Haymitch shrugs. 'You cancel them, then.'
She blinks. 'What?'
'Aren't you the next President?' Haymitch gives a massive shrug. 'Give it a go! What are they gonna do, murder more children?' He jabs his thumb toward the window. 'There's a bunch of reporters outside. Just go cancel it. See what happens.'
Katniss stares at Haymitch, and Haymitch stares at her. This is not what she would consider a well-thought-out plan. It's a very stupid plan, in fact; perhaps not quite so stupid as getting engaged to President Snow, but it's certainly up there.
But for the first time in months, since before that day Snow came to her door in District 12, she feels something bright inside her. Something like a chance for happiness.
Katniss meets Haymitch's eyes, and they exchange a nod, and then she is gone. She strides down hallways, paths she knows so well, the bowels of her home and prison. Out to the back, where Snow held back her hair as she vomited. Out to the gardens, around which she ran so many times her feet turned to bloody leather. Out around the perimeter of the mansion, to the drive where she ran after him and he almost broke her arm. Some of the guards call out to her, but what are they going to do? She can do what she likes.
She is a Victor.
She is the President's wife.
She is to be President Katniss Snow.
When she approaches the gate, there is an explosion of cheers. The security camera was correct: hoards of people, and nearly all to see and celebrate her. She beams her lovely, insane smile, and everybody starts screaming their love for her.
'Katniss, Katniss!'
'We love you, Katniss! Oh my gosh, we love you!'
'Killer queen! Killer queen!'
'Girl on fire!'
They are as insane as she.
Katniss stands before the gate and dozens of hands reach through, desperate to touch her. The security guards ready their guns. Katniss interlaces her fingers in front of her and waits, and slowly the screaming dims. The cameras all press forward to capture her. She will have to be quick.
'People of Panem,' says Katniss, her heart hammering, recalling a hundred of these speeches she's seen from Snow. It is crucial she does this correctly. 'This year's reaping has called forth a tremendous selection of tributes. The Capitol wishes to honor them for their bravery and for their sacrifice, but also to show our love for you, the nation, both Capitol and Districts, as we always have. This year, from grace and from love, my husband President Coriolanus Snow and I, forthcoming President Katniss Snow, announce that this year there is to be no Hunger Games.' She pauses. The crowd is silent. The damage is done: she has had her victory. 'All the tributes will be returned to their Districts.' She feels Snow's voice coming out of her mouth, even if these are words he would never say. 'Know that this is an act of love and charity. We hope that this will continue to pave the way for a stronger, more united Panem.'
The crowd goes insane.
She does not wait to see it. She turns, panicking gently, and strides back to the front entrance of the mansion. What will this do? Can Snow simply undo it? How weak will that make him look? What kind of uproar will it create? Will there be more war, more bodies, more tiny dead children?
These questions swirl around her and, in her deep center, she feels happiness.
The little boy with the smudged nose will go home to his family.
She has done something good.
The news of the announcement spreads fast over the news and mic link-ups of the security team. In the minute it takes her to return to the front door, the guards already look terrified.
'Ma'am,' says a familiar voice, and Katniss turns to see Sulla running up to her. 'The President knows.'
'Good,' she says lightly. 'I ought to discuss it with him. I am sure he will have much to say.'
Sulla shakes his head. There is a confused panic in his calm, lined face she has not seen before. 'He'll kill you for this, ma'am.'
She smiles. 'No, he won't.' She reaches out and lightly taps her palm again his face. 'Where is he?'
Sulla, unmoored, presses something on his earpiece and listens. 'He'll meet you in his chambers,' he says. 'Security has orders to evacuate the party. There might be violence.'
'Lovely,' she says brightly. 'I'll go to him now.'
'I'll escort you,' he says. She has never seen him so nervous. 'I just don't know how people are going to react.'
Sulla brings her quickly to the foyer, up the steps, shielding her body against the wall as they move. Other guards are directing the sea of people, holding them up to let her pass, then ushering the flood through once she's clear. What a strange mix of relief and confusion and terror goes through the crowd.
Katniss catches one brief glimpse of that woman. Margarita. She looks afraid.
Good.
Sulla leads her to the familiar chambers, and then the doors shut behind her.
It is quiet here. It's always a place of comfort for her, and of sex, and of Snow. The rotten womb she can always crawl back into.
It takes her a moment to spot her husband. He is stood by the window, looking out at the crowd of people being expelled from the mansion, his expression quite blank.
She has ruined his party.
Snow turns to her. He looks strange. Confused.
'What did you do?' he asks, his voice quiet and polite.
'I cancelled the Hunger Games,' says Katniss. 'I did the first good thing I've ever done as your wife.'
Snow seems to think for a long time. Then he says, 'Katniss, if we cancel the Games one year, they'll expect it every year.'
'Would that be such a bad thing?'
His expression is still troubled. He takes a step from her and his hand reaches out and rests on a vase. Then his fingers clench. He lifts the vase and he hurls it at the wall. She screams when it shatters.
He breathes hard, his back to her. 'I am sorry.' His voice is placid and black. Impossible depths beneath. 'I didn't mean to frighten you.'
'Didn't you?' Her body, which is a mazy mess of wrong-wired responses, is a little excited by the violence. 'Don't you like me frightened?'
There is no reciprocation when he turns around. 'I adore you frightened,' he says flatly. 'But you have no idea what you have done. This could bring down the entire system.'
'Maybe the system needs to be brought down.'
His odd, thoughtful expression curls unpleasantly at the edge, and beneath it she sees superiority, disdain… indifference.
'You're a stupid girl,' he says.
He has said a lot of terrible things to her in the course of their marriage — has done a lot of terrible things, too. But this is something else. This is disrespect. This is cruel. It makes her want to burst into tears like an idiot child, then run into his embrace and beg him to make it better.
Which she does not do.
Instead, she slaps him.
'Don't disrespect me like that,' she says. 'I'm your wife. And the future President.'
It has been a long time since she hit him, and regret immediately cuts into her. This was not what they promised each other. They were supposed to try to be kinder.
She tries to think of an apology, but before the words form she sees Snow draw his hand back. She has become so accustomed to his gentleness that she does nothing to stop the blow to her face. Unexpected, flat, hard: a raw fist against her temple. Meat and bone on meat and bone. She falls back, dazed, blinking away little stars.
I deserved that, she thinks.
Katniss rubs her throbbing skin. 'You hit my face,' she murmurs, and there is accusation and surprise and hatred and pleasure all mixed up inside her. 'I'll have a black eye. No more public appearances for me, right? Keep me in line?'
There is more confusion swirling through him, but also something else. 'I didn't…' He blinks. 'We agreed not to hit each other. This isn't what you want. Is this what you want?'
She has upset something inside him. She takes a step back. He takes a step forward.
'No,' she says firmly. 'I shouldn't have hit you. That was wrong of me. I'm sorry.'
Another step back. Another step forward.
'I am very angry with you, Katniss,' says Snow, and there is no feeling in it whatsoever. 'I never want to hit you out of anger. You know that. I love you. Do you love me?'
She shakes her head. 'I can't.'
More steps, and Katniss' back collides with the wall.
'Were you playing with me?' says Snow, more to himself than to her, his eyes clouded. 'You defeated the Hunger Games once… That was a chess move… Now you do it again…' His eyes meet hers again, and they are white phosphorous. 'Are we playing again?'
'No,' she repeats. 'I shouldn't have hit you. I'm really sorry. That was wrong of me. Cancelling the Games wasn't about you, it was…'
He has her pressed against the wall, now, and he is staring at her. Just to the left of her eye, at the red smear where a bruise will bloom. And then he grasps her throat.
'You like to play,' he says, utterly deranged.
'No. Not like that. I don't—' It is hard to make sounds. The hand on her throat is not gentle. 'We can… We can play something else. Snow, I can't…' She struggles a little to breathe, and then she struggles a lot. His body gets closer to her, seeking the press of her, and even in her fear and suffocation she feels her cunt clench. 'Can't breathe,' she manages. 'Snow—' she tries to say, but there is so little air left in her lungs.
The fingers of Snow's other hand find her face, and they find her mouth, and they press inside her lips. His eyes are ice giants, overwhelming her vision, and she cannot see a single trace of that man who holds her and kisses her forehead and brings her hot chocolate. He is a black pit greased with viscera, with nothing at the bottom but the desire to eat her.
This is how he loves her.
His voice sinks into her pores. 'I want to kill all those children just to see what you'll do next.'
In wild desperation, and thinking she truly might die, Katniss pulls back her fist, knuckles like knives, and plunges it into his stomach.
Snow's eyes go wide. She waits for the counter-blow, but none comes. A hideous, tearing cough bursts free of his throat and thick, black, gritty blood sprays over Katniss' face. Snow falls backward, hitting the dresser, dislodging books, overturning a vase of white roses with a wet crash, and then he collapses on the floor with a curious lack of violence: like a withering, like a deflating.
He is dead.
Katniss stares at the body on the floor. She is breathing hard. Snow's eyes are open and blood is dripping freely from the side of his mouth, which is inclined to the carpet.
He is dead!
Katniss awaits choirs. She awaits an explosion of ecstasy, and fireworks, and a joy unimaginable. She stands next to the body of her husband and she waits for a happiness unknowable to descend upon her body and fill her with diamonds and relief.
None comes.
The room is cold. Wearing that sleeveless dress, Katniss shivers a little.
'Are you cold?' comes a memory of Snow's voice, but his mouth is wide and unmoving.
Katniss turns and walks away unevenly. She pushes open the door and wanders into the hall, sweat covering her skin, blood flecking her hair, arousal clinging thick between her legs. One of the security guards glances at her, confused and uncertain at her repugnant appearance.
'Please help him,' Katniss says faintly. 'He needs a doctor.'
The guards do not hesitate: they are in the room in seconds. One of them is saying something into a mouthpiece and then begins chest compressions. Another goes to an unassuming chiffoniere and opens a drawer to reveal an extensive medical kit, and then begins to work on Snow.
Katniss hovers. Should she run? Without Snow, she has no protection. If they think she's responsible for this, then her family will be targets. She should run. Get out of the mansion. Get transport. How could she get a message to her family? What could she possibly do?
The security team arrive, more medical equipment in tow, and Katniss watches in quiet terror as an oxygen mask is strapped to Snow's face and he is transferred to a stretcher. Her heart jumps. They would not give him an oxygen mask if there was no hope. They did not give Gale an oxygen mask.
They wouldn't have given Gale oxygen even if there was hope, she knows.
The security team lift the stretcher and Katniss follows in its wake. She feels like a lost kitten, following the first living thing it sees. She wishes Sulla was here, but he is nowhere to be seen. The team block her sight of Snow, for which she is grateful. She does not want to see him like this. The Snow she knows is powerful. He is awful, and despicable, but he is so glorious! He is twenty feet of electricity in the town square! He is death itself and the father of the nation! He is not a corpse. He is not limp and slack-mouthed and grey.
The medical suite is not far. Wooden doors open into a sterile, tiled corridor, and beyond them is plastic sheeting. Two of the security team turn and one holds up a hand to Katniss.
'You are not permitted any further.'
'Then… where do I go?'
The guards look at one another. This is not a situation they have been trained for.
'I'll wait back there,' Katniss says, and feels herself drift backward. 'I'll wait in his rooms until…' There is a void at the end of that sentence. 'I'll wait there.'
The bedroom is in disarray. She tidies it gently. It seems terribly important that everything be put back how it was. Snow does so like everything to be in order. She puts the upset books back in their place, aligning them perfectly, and she refills the spilt vase of roses and puts it back. There is blood and water soaking into the carpet. She dries these the best she can, and then when she looks at the tissues stained with Snow's blood she starts shaking extremely badly. She finds she cannot throw them away and instead tucks them neatly on the shelf behind the toilet. Someone will know what to do with them.
It takes her some time to find the sleeping pills Snow once gave her, but when she does she throws two back and dips her face to the cool water of Snow's huge sink to wash them down. She walks back to his bed. She cannot understand why it brings her a comfort that her own bed does not, but there is nowhere else she wants to sleep tonight.
Katniss folds herself into the heavy silk sheets, under layers and layers, and she feels like she's being covered up for the winter. It smells like blood and roses, and she finds she no longer minds this scent so much. This is where she belongs. She will hibernate like a soft little rabbit, and when she crawls out of her burrow… And then… Why, then someone hungry and cruel will land an arrow in her throat…