Chapter Nine

Plutarch's weary "we'll do damage control" as he boarded the train with Sienna and the rest did not register with Haymitch, at all. Once the train left the station, he told his mother and Griffin to wait for him at home. Then he ran all the way to the Rowan house and entered without knocking.

Daisy rushed at him before he could reach her father. "Haymitch, please …." she begged him. "He doesn't mean -."

"You're a fool!" said Haymitch, and he walked straight over to Emmet Rowan's chair and punched him full in the face.

Hazelle jumped up from the floor and grabbed Haymitch's arm, risking his wrath, as well. "Daisy! Help me!"

Daisy joined her sister and they grappled for a minute with a wildly-resistant Haymitch. "Mitch!" she said, as he suddenly stopped his struggle and slumped. "Mitch, why are you doing this?"

"Little prick is so upset that I ruined his big day!" exclaimed her father, holding his hand over his jaw. "Ashamed of being engaged to a girl from the Seam, now that you're the big, bad Victor of District Twelve?"

"Don't you get it?" shouted Haymitch back. "I was so careful to leave her out of it! The Capitol wasn't supposed to know about her - to keep her safe from them! And you had to go babbling it out to the whole damn country! You don't even like me! You never wanted me for her before I was the 'big, bad Victor,' you filthy hypocrite!"

The house went abruptly silent at his words. Daisy's mother, sister and brothers all gaped at him with horror. Even Emmett seemed abashed, and fear momentarily flashed across his dumb eyes. Then -

"Haymitch! Haymitch!" A scream from outside. Haymitch, flashing all the way back to a wood full of peril, felt the floor beneath him sway. It was his mother's voice.

Up the street, outside his house, a crowd had gathered. As he ran up to them, he shoved people aside until he got to the center of it. His mother was wailing, lifting her hands up to the sky. Griff was on the ground, still and gray, white foam drying on his lip.

It was Hazelle and Daisy who sat with them that evening. Ma Abernathy was clutching a blanket around herself, slightly rocking back and forth. Haymitch sat dead still, his eyes impossibly wide as they looked at nothing. The Peacekeepers could get little out of either of them, and their information was not much. The boy had developed a cough a few days ago. It had not been getting any better. All of a sudden, as they were walking home from the train station, Griffin had clutched his chest and said 'I can't breathe," gone into convulsions, and collapsed.

The Peacekeepers took the body to the morgue and promised a follow-up, but everyone knew better. There were no blood tests, x-rays, detailed examinations - and there would be no autopsy. In District Twelve, if you could be treated by herbs or bandages or the crude operations on broken limbs or necrotic flesh, good for you. The rest - from viral infections to cancers - simply ran their course. "Suddenly deceased" would be all that Griffin Abernathy would get on his death certificate.

Maysilee Donner's funeral was held two days later and Haymitch managed to get out of his bed that day to attend it, though he watched it in a near-catatonic state, and no one bothered him. He was horribly fixated on the twin, Margie, and the golden pin she wore on the collar of her black dress.

For two days, he had thought to himself: if only I'd been allowed home sooner, just by a day or two, I could have paid to have him cured.

"But it has been a long time since one of you was on this stage."

As he sat on the grass in the West Cemetery - the well-kept lawn where the more respectable members of District Twelve were buried - Haymitch tried to get the voice out of his head. Up close, Snow's voice - which was usually perfectly suited to loud and bombastic proclamations - had been hissing, snake-like in quality, and worm-like in its ability to lodge in his head and stay.

A few days later, Griff's funeral followed, held on the east side of the district. Unofficially referred to as the 'Seam Graveyard,' this less-cared-for and much more crowded cemetery was unexpectedly swollen with mourners as the District turned out in force for the funeral. Griffin Abernathy was laid to rest in a near corner of the cemetery that primarily included the graves of tributes. In fact, the two closest graves were fresh by a week or so. But it was not until Haymitch threw the fist of ashy dirt into the hole that he realized that his brother was occupying the grave that would have been his, had he not fouled up the protocols of the Game.

The Seam prepared to sit its usual mourning watch around Haymitch and his mother. Among the mining accidents, the annual Seam tribute to the Capitol and starvation in general, grief was a well-oiled machine in the Seam, managed by shifts of mourners to sit with the grieving, volunteer workers to take over any mine shifts needed, helpers to cook and clean for a couple of days. But as they proceeded back to the Abernathy's cottage, Ma Abernathy began to cough and the mourners had to disperse, hastily and anxiously, to their own homes.

"Maybe you should stay somewhere else," she told him. "I don't want to get you sick."

Haymitch helped her out of her shoes and set her down on her bed. He felt so numb that he had to reach up to his face to make sure that he was actually still capable of feeling anything. "Nonsense. I'm going to get someone to figure out what is wrong with you. We're going to be fine."

She turned her face to the small square window in the bedroom. It faced east, so the light was dim, but what there was of it threw every wrinkle on her worn face into sharp relief. She looked like an old woman. Her dark eyes glistened with her tears.

Haymitch walked out of the cottage, tamping down his urge to start hitting the walls and breaking the furniture. He had been through a lot - from his father's dangerous meetings to his alcoholic endings; from scavenging food to fending off harsh winters - but this wiped away all of his past struggles. And he, who had been so confident in the arena - the arena! - felt like the world was melting completely away.

He jogged to the Mayor's house and pulled the bell until someone finally answered. Oh, they were at dinner? Well, too bad - his need was urgent.

Eventually, Bar Undersee, the mayor's son, was sent out to deal with him. Expecting more obstruction, Haymitch started pushing past him to get into the house, but the other boy put his hand on Haymitch's arm.

"Shh, just come with me."

Haymitch was led into one of the fancy rooms and handed a telephone, which he gaped at for a minute. Then, he pulled his notes out of his pockets - some instructions Plutarch had left him with - and wordlessly handed them to Bar. He pointed to a number and Bar, looking over his shoulder for a second, punched in some numbers before handing the receiver to Haymitch.

"What is it?" Plutarch's voice was tense and suspicious even before Haymitch could say hello.

In a rush of nearly incoherent words, Haymitch recounted the last couple of days and ended on a moan: "You gotta send me something for my ma. I can't take one more thing. I can't"

"How can I send you something if I don't know what is wrong with her?" Plutarch asked sharply.

"She needs an anti- what is it? An antibiotic. It's some sort of infection. In the lungs."

After a long pause, Plutarch sighed into the phone. "OK, Haymitch. I'll send something on tomorrow's train. But there is no guarantee that an antibiotic is what she needs. I'd … well, we'll see."

With that, Haymitch had to be satisfied. It took two days for the package from Plutarch to arrive and Haymitch had to ignore that it looked like it had been opened at some point in transit; the box had a rip on one end that had been taped over. His mother had started coughing up blood.

There were six doses, to be taken over six days, by injection. His hand shook with the needle in it. Hazelle took pity on him and sent him out with Daisy to relax after she herself administered the first dose.

Daisy walked him away from the Seam, leading him south-west until they reached the gates of Victors' Village. It was an eerie place - perfectly manicured, thanks to upkeep paid for by the Capitol, including watering systems that ran even during drought years, to the consternation of the District. But totally vacant, never lived in - large stone houses that did not seem like homes.

The gate was open and they went into the enclosed space. Victors' Village was a green square surrounded on three sides by two story houses. They walked across the grass to one of the houses on their right, and sat down on the porch. She put her arms around him and he collapsed against her and started to cry. His voice was hoarse and hollow - awful with grief. Hearing himself, he wanted to apologize, but he had no control over his own throat, now.

As his sobs died down, Daisy kissed the top of his head. "You've been through so much," she said, gently.

"I can't take it," he said. "I haven't had time to process any of it and it keeps coming at me - disaster after disaster. Who am I? Where am I? I don't know anything, anymore."

His own confession made him miserable - he had never before felt so helpless. He had survived, damn it - just like he had always survived. But it didn't feel like survival. It felt like he had entered the arena and been reborn from it, soft and wounded, into a grim new world. His brother's sickness … his mother's … it felt like his old life was being stripped from him, as if to confirm his new identity. Not a gentle process, like a moth shedding its chrysalis - but a violent rendering away of his skin.

"I know it feels that way, now," she said. He wished her voice wasn't so soft and distant. "But I promise you that if you persevere - if you get through this part - you will be stronger. And more importantly -."

He looked up as she paused and saw that there were tears in her eyes. His heart collapsed in love for this girl. "What?"

"More importantly, you will never give the Capitol what they want from you. You will survive in the face of everything they tried to take from you. You will survive whatever life tries to take from you. You won't be like those Victors who fade away, or fit themselves to Capitol ways. You will be Haymitch - always. We all saw it in the arena. 'You are stronger than the roots of the woods and you are stronger than the bones of the mountains,'" she added, quoting a beloved song from the Seam.

"I just need - I need them not to take you," he said.

"Why would they want me?" she asked.

He kissed her with an urgency that, he knew as soon as his lips touched her lips, she shared with him. The kiss grew - and grew - and grew.

Manusha Abernathy - known her whole life as "Ma" even before she was one - was buried exactly a week after her younger son. The medicines had done nothing - they had arrested the illness not one iota. Toward the end of her illness, she had complained about an itchy spot on the back of her neck, but no one associated it with the origins of Griff's illness and Haymitch himself did not put it together until some time later.

Daisy Rowan's death occurred under even stranger circumstances. She had been crossing the street on the east side of town, between the Peacekeeper barracks and the electric plant, carrying a basket of flowers she had purchased in the market square, early on a Saturday morning. Some witnesses said she just collapsed as she walked, though the Peacekeepers who reported her death to the archivist explained that she had tripped on a loose cobblestone and unfortunately hit the back of her head in a deadly place. A wild and unforeseen accident, and most sad for the victor, Haymitch Abernathy, who was to celebrate his birthday that very day and receive the key to his new house in the village.

Haymitch's seventeenth birthday was a nightmare of epic proportions. It was the last day of four or five in a row in which he had not slept a wink, and now he existed only in a haze of shock and pain - not aware of where he was or what he was doing. When Plutarch and Sienna came to collect him from his old house, he had only vaguely been aware why they were here. He let them march him over to Victors' Village with little resistance or protest. But he would not answer their questions - he could not even figure out what they were saying.

Yet, despite this nightmarish confusion, this was the day he could never forget no matter how many substances he later consumed - and this was the day he would try hardest to forget, for the rest of his life.

Besides his team from the Capitol and the Mayor and - of all people - Maysilee's father, the archivist, Haymitch was alone. It was Hazelle who had brought him the news this morning, and she was hyperventilating in her own grief and anger, hardly able to talk, let alone remain with him. The keening for the dead girl then went up and down the Seam, and it rang in his ears. To have survived both hunger and the reaping for this long … only to die in the street? The Seam felt losses like this very pointedly.

For the rest of the district, it seemed like all of Haymitch's good fortune in the arena had had the inverse impact on his loved ones when he got home. It was not that they blamed him - it was just that - well … it felt like bad luck to be around him.

"This is amazing," said Plutarch softly, as the archivist turned the key on the house that Haymitch had chosen. "The very first occupant of the District Twelve Victors' Village."

"Wasn't there another District Twelve victor?" asked Sienna, as they stepped into a sitting room, furnished with puffy chairs that faced the front windows, covered in plastic sheets, and a coal-burning stove in the corner.

Haymitch stood still in this room, while the others went on ahead of him - through the dining room and into a kitchen.

"Oh, I don't think Victors' Village was built then. The villages were President Snow's doing."

"At any rate," said Mr. Donner, "the last victor didn't remain here too long after she won."

Haymitch perked up his ears at this. It was his own thought. Death. Death was the only way out of this.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, no one knows for certain what happened to her … it's a very odd story, and we don't repeat it here. She disappeared - let's leave it at that."

"I'm going to have to know what -."

And at that, Haymitch started screaming. He could no longer stand the sound of these voices, talking normally and lightly about things that didn't matter. She was gone - they were gone - and he had not been home two weeks. And he was seventeen. He didn't want to die, and he didn't want to live, and there was nothing to do but scream until his lungs dissolved and his heart collapsed in on itself.

He felt himself fall to his knees. All of his thoughts were a stormy maelstrom, unformed, except the one: this was not a coincidence. He did not know the how and he did not quite know the why, but he knew it. Everything he had been most proud of - his instinct to survive and, yes, his cleverness in doing it - had been turned to ash. It didn't matter. The Capitol could reach out from wherever, whenever and take anything away from him they felt like. It didn't matter.

He felt hands on him, lifting him up. There was no one to hold him, to hug him, to kiss away his tears. He felt something metal put to his mouth - a flask. "Drink up, son," said Plutarch. "It will help."

He didn't know the flavor of it - just the fire of it as it tore through his tonsils and down his throat. This also didn't matter: a lifetime of deliberately avoiding the choices of his father. His father's despair had proved right in the end.