Chapter Thirteen
"To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal.
You see, I could conceive death,
but I could not conceive betrayal."
- Malcolm X
The roar of the crowd was deafening.
The stadium was packed to the brim with familiar faces. Celebrities, influencers, and high-profile politicians all stood to their feet, cheering for him, for what he'd done.
"Good job." Wuncler suddenly appeared next to Caesar. He stared down at Jazmine and Huey's remains on the ground, a wide smile creeping across his face. "I thought all of you would end up dead for a minute. You got us good. You really committed to pretending you couldn't escape. Best finale I've ever seen."
He hadn't been pretending, but he didn't bother telling him that. Instead, he stayed perfectly still, electing not to say anything at all. He hadn't even thought about what it would mean to survive the aftermath of the games- especially after he'd killed not one, but two fan favorites in one crazy swoop.
Now, he felt completely gutted by everything that had happened; the truth bearing down on him like a never-ending nightmare.
Everybody was going to hate him for what he'd done. He would never know peace again. His family would never know peace again. He would never be happy for as long as he lived.
He could hear Wuncler sigh in poorly concealed frustration. "It's alright. You're safe. Come on, boy. Just take it easy."
Wuncler reached out to grab his shoulder, and he felt himself jerk back and fall to the ground. The shock of seeing actual sunlight did something to him, something that he couldn't put a name to.
"It's not real." He muttered to himself, rocking back and forth in the fetal position. He hugged his arms to his knees. "It's not real. I'll wake up and everything will be okay again…"
"Get the music going." Someone in the background barked several orders behind him. He could hear what sounded like a bunch of footsteps, coming in from a distance. "Get this kid outta here before he breaks down in front of the investors. Hurry up! Move!"
The crackling of the fireworks only made it worst.
Suddenly, he could feel the surge of electricity run through his bones again. It was like the images wouldn't stop; the feeling of the painful shocks from the wires only intensifying the painful memories. Reliving them only made him rock harder. "It's not real. It's not real…."
"Come over here and pick him up!" Someone said. "Mr. Wuncler, sir? They need on you on the main stage. By the way, Joe Peeto called. Said something about the Freeman kid's family still being alive."
Wuncler chuckled and patted him on the back, not surprised when Caesar cried out, still in a deep haze. "Don't worry, I've hired the best security that money can buy. They'll protect you and your family for life." The man shook his head, still laughing as he walked away. "I'll be damned. This turned out even better than I expected."
He didn't move. Not when the hands carried him away. Not when the workers behind the scenes stared at him in disapproval. And not when he saw all the angry sponsors and relatives, waiting for the remains of the elects.
"You little punk!" Bushido dragged hundreds of guards along with him as he rushed over to where he stood. He flailed wildly, trying as hard as he could to get to Caesar. "You had to kill them like that? You acted like you wanted to help them! Like you wanted to get out!"
"It wasn't like that." He heard himself murmur. "I…I was doing what I had to do."
"We saw what you did!" The man reached forward and crushed Caesar' arms in his hands. "The world saw how you turned on them at the last minute. How you tapped out of the revolution just to save your own sorry skin! The world hates you! I hate you!"
"I'm sorry." Caesar didn't know what else to say. "I know he was like a son to you-"
He wasn't sure what happened after the words tumbled out of his mouth. All that he remembered was how everything went black.
Sadly, it was the only thing he'd forget.
His parents still refused to look at him.
"I don't understand." His mother's hand was resting on her forehead. "I don't understand why you did something like that! We raised you better than this! We thought you were more of a man than this!"
He couldn't believe what she was saying. He'd done it for her! For his family! For Isis' sacrifice to mean something!
"We won't have to worry anymore." Caesar reached out to his mother and father, not surprised when they instinctively snatched away from him. "We'll have enough food, enough money, enough of everything to make it for generations."
His father shook his head.
"You sold your soul, son." The man spoke over his wife's staggered crying. "You think this was all worth it? It isn't." He sighed. "I'm sorry to say this. But you would have been better off dead."
"What?" Caesar squinted his eyes tight. "Pops, I went through hell and back in that arena with those kids! No disrespect, but you don't know what happened."
"I know that you coasted." His father's voice was final. "Those two Maryland kids, Jazmine and Huey, put everything on the line just for you to swoop in at the last minute, lift up those guns, and kill them with your eyes closed. You killed two people who trusted you, who helped you, and who still wanted to get you out by any means necessary, seconds before you did what you did. And let's not forget how the wall opened enough for you all to get out at the last minute. You ruined whatever chance you had the minute the world saw the last conversation they had on the ledge of the mountain. Even Isis wasn't as cowardly as you were in that moment."
Caesar remained quiet. He knew his dad wasn't lying.
"There's no honor in that." He shook his head. "There's no legacy in that."
They pulled up to an unfamiliar house on the outskirts of Chicago.
"Where are we?" Caesar tried to look around, his heart beating faster. "Is someone else here? Do I have to go back? Is someone here to take me away?"
The look in his father's eyes hurt worst of all.
"You're a hero in Wuncler's eyes." The man's voice was stoic, full of a different kind of disappointment. "You represent something bigger than yourself, now. A mindset that decent people, myself included, want eliminated for good."
When Caesar froze, the man shook his head again, walking ahead of him to head into the house.
"Nobody's here now but your mother and me." He said, glancing back at his son. "But believe me…."
Caesar stood in the driveway, listening to what he had to say.
"They're coming."
The next few days weren't much better.
The days that followed were worst. He'd had many attempts made on his life. People spat at him, threw things at him, terrorized him. Oftentimes, they came very close to putting their hands on him.
Yesterday, they'd succeeded.
The hatred he'd encountered was so widespread that Wuncler had hired experts to engineer a force field similar to Hiro's. It would be used for his float in the Annual Victor's Parade, which was scheduled for next week in the city of Woodcrest, Maryland. The new capital of the United States.
Following his meeting with the president and his father, he would be forced to meet with the families of the elects since it was mandatory that they at least extend a courtesy invitation for a brief sit down with the families impacted by the games.
Seeing as though twenty-two of them had opted out this year, Caesar would only be meeting with Huey and Jazmine's living relatives. Nobody else would meet with him
He was already incredibly nervous about it, and even though he wouldn't admit it to anybody else, it also made him angry.
Huey and Jazmine were great people. In another reality, he and Huey would've been fast friends.
But they'd killed too. They'd have killed him in the end if things had come down to it. So why was he being punished for two people who had lied to the public? Two people who had pretended as if they had always been in love with one another when he'd been clear on liking Isis from the jump?
How come his survival didn't matter to anyone?
"Welcome!" Wuncler Sr. shook his hand, admiring the tailoring of Caesar's brand-new suit. "Have a seat."
He shook President Wuncler's hand, taking in the chair of the "new and improved" oval office of Wuncler Sr.'s home.
"Nigga, what you did out there was crazy!" The man clapped, turning around to talk to the Secret Service agents behind him, who nodded and clapped along. "That shit was one helluva plot twist! We killed her traitor ass daddy medieval style, and you shot her and her man in their fucking skulls?" He gasped, laughing to himself. "Our ratings this year were through the roof! People are replaying that moment at the edge of the stadium over and over again! Next year's games are gonna be even better! You changed the game, muthafucka!"
President Wuncler III lifted from his seat and placed a heavy gold medal around his neck. "You're a fucking hero. The Hunger Games are here to stay because of you. You have shown the world that we're unstoppable. And for that, you and your family will always be taken care of."
He blinked, not knowing what to say.
"You was in war, muthafucka!" Rummy, the younger brother of the president, was drunk off his ass. "In the heat of battle, you seized your opportunity! You and Isis played a cold ass game! Just like me and my brother in Iraq! I respect that shit!"
"Um hmmm." The president nodded and stood to his feet, not seeming to notice how Caesar could barely hold still. "Ya ass did that! Now come over here and stand next to Senator Ruckus. Let's take this photo, muthafucka!"
He and Senator Ruckus stood in the middle, with the president standing next to him, and his brother standing on the opposite end next to Ruckus. Ed Wuncler Sr. tossed him a certificate, and Caesar clutched it tightly, holding it open so his name was visible.
"Smile." Wuncler gestured towards the photographer to capture the moment.
"Niggas." Senator Ruckus chuckled to himself. "Put more than one in a barrel, and a nigga like you will always drag the best players down. That's why the white man put all you Chicago niggas in there with Robert's boy. So you all could do what you do best."
He paused, leaning into Caesar with a large smile; then, he let out a deep, maniacal laugh.
"Destroyed the one person who would've set you all free. Only a darkie could be so stupid."
"What…do you want from me?"
The woman stared at him.
Her blue eyes, though swimming with tears, were in no way gentle and in no way indicative of any sympathy for him. He'd taken the one good thing she had left. It was obvious that she had nothing left to give, and he had nothing comforting to say.
She repeated herself. "What do you want from me?"
His throat suddenly felt dry. His hands were sweaty. His face felt clammy….
"Spit it out!" Sarah Dubois looked like she hadn't slept in weeks. Her hair was all over her head. It seemed like she hadn't bathed, hadn't done anything but grieve. And now, here he was, adding more salt to a very fresh wound.
"You just up and shot them! Shot her!" The woman got up and angrily pointed her finger at a framed picture of a young Jazmine on the mantle. " I could've at least respected Huey if he'd had to kill her. He gave himself up for Riley, for his granddad. But your parents are fine. Your life is fine. Andyou and that evil bitch, Isis, smiled in their faces only fto take their lives from them! "
He sighed, not denying it.
"You sat by and stayed silent while they accused Makayla of doing exactly what you were planning on doing, and now you have nothing to say to me!?"
"I…" His voice faltered, his head hanging down. "There's nothing I can say that can make it right. It wasn't planned. I…I tried."
"Not good enough." Mrs. Dubois stood to her feet and kept walking until she was only a few centimeters away from him. "You'll have to do better than that. Because my husband is dead. And my daughter is dead. The love of her life… is dead. All because they decided to let their guards down…for you!"
"I just wanted to go home." He wrung his hands together; his lips pressed hard against his teeth. "I know you need your daughter, and I'm sorry. But my parents need me too."
She jerked back and slapped him.
"Oh, please! They don't need your selfish ass." The woman spat. "What they need is a chance. A chance to put all this shit away for good, and you just snatched that from them! From all of us!" She swept her hands across the coffee table and then banged them against it. "You snatched the living embodiments of hope from the world! You took her from me!"
She shook, suddenly sobbing into her tissue.
"Jazmine… will never come home to me again." She cried harder. "And-she'll-never….she'll never walk through those doors, asking me about something crazy that Huey said to her. She'll never wrinkle her nose because she's angry with me or steal my favorite lipstick again."
She violently slammed her palm into her forehead, not even flinching from the impact.
"God why, why on Earth did I bother arguing with her about some stupid makeup when she was alive?" She sobbed again, looking at the sky. "Why did you take her from me? How could you ever think I would be okay with her not coming home to me?"
He didn't answer her, and she didn't ask him to. They both knew he wasn't going to stay much longer.
"With Tom, it was different." She didn't look at him. " He had a choice in the matter. He knew the risks. And he wasn't hand plucked as revenge for his loved one's mistakes or because he spoke out against Wuncler after some planned coercion."
"I was too." Caesar reminded her. He was sick and tired of everybody ignoring the fact that Wuncler had targeted him for the same reasons that he'd targeted Huey and the rest of the elects. "I was too, and nobody cares because I'm not them! I didn't write a fifty page manifesto like he did, and now I'm the world's worst person for doing what I had to do? I didn't have a choice! What do you want me to say?"
"Exactly. You're not them. So, excuse me for me not making this incredibly unpleasant visit easy for you!" The woman growled. "You can sit and cry about it for the rest of your miserable ass life. Just don't expect me or anyone else to give a damn about you after what you did! Everybody knows that those two broke every rule they could for everyone else. They did it for Makayla, they did it for each other, and they were trusting enough to do it for you, even when you didn't deserve it!"
She walked over to the door and held it open, glaring at him with all the hatred she could muster up.
"So no, I do not accept your apology." She walked closer to him. "I do not accept your very weak explanation as to why you decided you should have been the one to come home."
She grabbed his coat and handed it to him. "I understand that this world breeds weak minds, even when said mind had every opportunity to make a better choice. To make the right choice."
When he stepped outside, she took one last look at him, her tone icy and low.
"You're pathetic." She said simply, closing the door behind her. "And I hope you're reminded of that from now on."
Rollo Goodlove wasn't eating.
"You sure you wanna do this, man?" He warily looked over at the Freeman house, right across the street from Sarah Dubois'. They'd agreed to come back after Caesar had broken down in Rollo's limo, too much of a mess to talk to anyone. "They probably ain't gone be as nice as Sarah was."
He nodded, sucking in a breath.
"Yeah, might as well go ahead and get this over with." He tried to sound braver than he felt. "I'll be back."
Rollo stayed in the car, calling after him.
"I'll stay here." He yelled. "You might need somebody to call 911 if one of them tries to shoot you!"
He walked over to the door and pressed the buzzer. The door swung open immediately.
"Come on in, son. We've been expecting you. I'm Robert." The elderly man greeted him with a hug and a warm smile. He gestured to an older woman, who stood at his shoulders. "This is my sister, Cookie Freeman."
Caesar's jaw dropped.
"I…I knew Mr. Freeman and Riley were alive, but I thought you were dead, ? My grandmomma's been upset for the past two weeks! She even got a copy of your obituary through the mail. "
Robert and Cookie looked at each other and burst out laughing. He slowly walked in, still gaping at the woman.
"Follow me." Robert walked over to the stairwell, waiting for him to walk to the boy's room with him. "Riley's upstairs waiting on you."
Caesar awkwardly stood in his spot, unsure of what to do.
The man laughed again. "It'll be alright, boy. His narrow behind ain't gon hurt you. Or I will hurt him!"
Caesar nodded, following behind the man until he slightly pushed the door open and walked inside. "Caesar's here to talk to you." He put his hand on his belt buckle. "Don't even think about doing anything stupid. Or I'll have to remind you. Again."
When the man closed the door, Caesar stood there, watching Huey's brother from afar.
He was way too skinny and obviously irritated by the disruption, but overall, he seemed…normal.
His cornrows were neat. His clothes were clean. His room was perfectly tidy. There was nothing about him that even suggested he'd just lost his brother.
Including the fact that once he noticed him, he said hello and nodded.
Nodded!
He wasn't sure what to say at first, so he stood there, watching as Riley played on the game. He flicked his fingers back and forth on the controller, lifting it from side to side as he angled it so that his character could zoom from one part of the screen to the next without dying.
"I'm, um….I'm sorry for your loss." Caesar began easing his way over to the desk near Riley's bed, caught off guard by his strong resemblance to his brother. "I know how much my actions hurt you, probably more than anyone, and for that, I'm truly sorry. I don't-"
"You got bitches?" The younger boy didn't take his eyes off the game. "Any sympathy pussy offers?"
Caesar's face contorted into confusion. "What?"
"Y'know, hoes. Women tryna ease your pain, asking you to talk, meet up." He tilted his head for a second to jeer at him. "Yo ass ain't never heard of hoes before?"
"I have, but-"
"Do you have any or not?" The buttons from the video game clicked with every motion of his fingers. "It's a simple question."
"No." Caesar shook his head, even more confused. "I don't." He eased even closer to place a hand on the teen's shoulder. "Look, I know we don't know each other very well, and I know I'm the last one you want to talk to right now. But are you good?"
"You an only child or sumn?" Riley paused the game to mean mug him.
He hadn't even thought of that until Riley mentioned it. "Actually, yeah."
"Well that explains a whole fuckin' lot about yo ass." He returned to the game. "Yo Medusa headass wouldn't understand."
"I…I guess I wouldn't." Caesar managed to say. "Look, dude. I just wanted to offer my condolences. It ain't…it's not the best situation, but I'm doing the best I can with it, y'know?"
"All I know is a few weeks ago, I had a brother. And you took him from me with one bitchass move." He kept on playing the game, proceeding to the next level. "And I feel like this. If I tell you what's in my head right now, it won't end with just talking, y'know?"
"Yeah." Caesar turned to leave. "I know."
Riley finally turned around to stare at him, lifting his hand for a moment. "I do got one question though."
"Yeah, man." Caesar didn't look away. "Anything."
"Did Huey at least tell Jazmine that he loved her before you killed him?" Riley stared at him. "Yes, or no. Miss me with that long speech shit."
He nodded, a sad smile on his lips. "Yeah, he did."
"Good." Riley shrugged, returning to the game.
His eyes never lifted from the screen, not even when Caesar had left the room.
He made his way downstairs, ready for one more confrontation before leaving.
"Done already, huh?" Robert Freeman was sitting in his armchair. "Want something to eat?"
He hopped back, nervous that the man wanted to poison him and also nervous that he'd kill him if he declined. As if reading his mind, Robert laughed in response. "Ain't nobody tryna kill you, fool! Walk to the kitchen with me. Sit in here and talk to me for a minute."
He slowly sat down at the table, his back facing the archway, positioned directly in front of Huey's granddad.
The man's smile faltered for a moment.
"What?" Caesar wriggled a bit, uncomfortable with the man's sad gaze. "I can move."
The man shook his head; his face was filled with an immense sadness. He'd clearly taken the loss harder than he let on to others. "No, son. It's fine."
Caesar moved anyway. He knew without having to ask that it was Huey's seat he'd been sitting in.
"Why are you being nice to me?" He asked when the man's smile slowly returned. "Don't you hate me?"
The man sighed, folding his arms across his chest. "I told that boy to be selfish and to kill everybody else as soon as he got the chance." When Caesar blinked, he took a sip of his tea, peering over at him from his seat on the other end of the table. "You just happened to be the one to take my advice. Huey chose his character over survival."
When Caesar's head began to hang again, Huey's grandfather set his cup down and stared at him.
"He made his choice. He could've killed you Isis, Hiro, Vince, everyone a lot faster if he'd really wanted to." He frowned, suddenly a bit angry-looking. "But he didn't. He chose to try to get out because he knew he could have, and you chose to survive when you believed that you couldn't. I can't hate you for that. Personally, I don't think that anyone should."
It was the first time that Caesar had heard anyone say that to him, and surprisingly, it didn't make him feel any better.
"This world didn't begin with my nappy-headed ass grandson. It didn't end with him. To put the fate of this country on his shoulders and the demise of it on yours, it ain't right." He shook his head and took another sip of tea. "When I was in the Civil Rights movement, I didn't agree with a lot of things, like using nonviolence to convince the world we needed a change. My opinion wasn't popular at the time, but it was mine to have. A lot of peace came along with my decisions as a result of my opinions, that's how I know I made the right ones."
Caesar lifted a small towel, folded next to him on the table. He ran his hand over the fabric, allowing the texture to soothe him. "But the world didn't hate you for those decisions. And nobody died by your hands because of them."
"Nope. Sho' didn't." The man shrugged. "Wasn't a part of my story back then." He placed the cup back down onto the table. "You will have to live with what you did for the rest of your life. And knowing that you'll spend the rest of your life suffering because of that feeling should be enough to keep anyone from hating you. Your life is much better spent addressing that issue before it spirals into something else."
Caesar hung his head even lower.
Mr. Freeman lifted from the table and placed an oddly comforting hand on his back. "You have plenty of time to go and meet that fate on your own. Just keep living. It's like I told Huey all the time. You do what you can."
"What I can?" Caesar sat, thinking about his words. "There's not much I can do."
"Well, maybe that's true for now." The man placed his cup into the seat and then strode into the living room. "But if the opportunity strikes, and there's something you can do…take the opportunity. Do it."
He sat with his hands folded, still at the table when the man flopped into to his armchair and began flipping through the channels on his television.
"That's all anybody should be asking of you. That's all you should be expecting of yourself."
Caesar lifted from his seat at the table, nodding. "Thank you. I'll be going now."
The man pointed at another room, the formal living room in the back.
"Huey's great aunt wants to talk to you too." He said. "Shouldn't hold you too long."
"Of course." He walked over to the other room and paused in the middle of the hallway. "Thank you, Mr. Freeman."
The man gave him a sad smile before looking at a photo of Huey on the wall. He swallowed, trying to push down the tears so Caesar wouldn't see.
"You're welcome."
Caesar couldn't stop staring at his grandmother's friend. He knew it was rude, but he couldn't help it. The woman was supposed to be dead, after all.
"So." Cookie Freeman's tone was sweet and chipper. "How are you?"
Nobody had really asked him that. He didn't know how to respond.
"How am I?" He repeated the question. "I don't know. Shocked, I guess. I thought you were dead."
The woman laughed. "That's what my brother and I wanted you all to think. You kids weren't the only ones with plans." Her eyes twinkled as she looked back and forth, whispering so that only he could hear what she was saying. "Between me and you, I babysat a lot of those rebels. We may not have been able to get Huey out of those games, but there was no way they were going to sit back and let something happen to Riley, Robert, and I if they could help it."
He shook his head. "But Wuncler said they found you dead. We heard it on the signal that Hiro picked up."
"They got the call and assumed that I was. We even got Riley pretty good. Boy nearly had a heart attack when I showed up and told him otherwise." Cookie shrugged as if what she'd done was no big deal. "That's what happens when you put BET in charge of the militia. It shouldn't have been that easy for you all to hack into their calls. Shouldn't have been that easy to find those power cords, either. But, hey. It was all in God's plan, I guess."
"I won't put God's hand in what I did, Mrs. Freeman." He found it even more hard to look at her. His grandmother had told him all about how much Cookie adored Huey, and even with her sweet disposition, he could see so much pain settling into her features. "I killed them. I felt like it was me or them, and I didn't think about anything but the chance to go home once I realized we couldn't get out." He paused, contemplating if he should finish. "I kind of hoped…that I was dead already, that one of those wires had electrocuted me, and it was all some sort of fever dream. That way, I wouldn't have to face up to what I was about to do."
She glanced up at him, her own hands trembling.
"It wasn't like I hadn't thought about it." Caesar admitted. "Hiro was right. It would've been a lot easier to kill them in the tree when Isis and I found them at first. They were out of it, and it would've been a lot less painful for them too. But I just couldn't. Not without trying to save them first."
She grabbed a tissue and dabbed at her eyes, unable to stop the tears from streaming down her face.
"For what it's worth, he was a cool dude." He paused, realizing it wasn't the right thing to say. "He inspired me. Both him and Jazmine. I didn't hate them. I didn't want to kill anyone. I just wanted to go home."
He paused again.
"It's not profound. It definitely isn't what he would've said to my parents if he were in my position….but it's the truth. I'm sorry for the pain I've caused you all. I can't express that to you enough."
"Don't be sorry." Cookie was still crying, taking in small gasps of air as she spoke. "You survived. You played your hand to the best of your ability, and you're here because of it."
He shook his head, unable to look at her anymore.
"I am going to miss Huey." She kept talking. "I'm going to miss his sweet face, and his hugs, and how he was so passionate about changing the world. But… in his own way, he lived out that purpose. He died still rooted in what he believed in. I think you saved him from himself, to be quite honest. He wouldn't have come home either way. Even if you all had gotten out, he wouldn't have stopped there. I know my nephew well enough to know he'd talked to you about that crazy plan to save Tom."
She got up, reached over, and pulled him into a hug.
"Lord knows that I will miss my nephew, but I cannot hold a grudge against you for doing whatever you needed to do to come home to your folks, even if I wish that Huey had done the same thing." The warmth of her hug transported him somewhere else, into another feeling. The sudden contact broke something inside of him. "All I'm trying to say is it's okay. It is okay, Michael Darius Caesar, I forgive you."
It wasn't what he'd expected to hear, and it wasn't what she'd been expecting to say. But it was what they both needed.
He broke down in the woman's arms, nearly toppling them both onto the floor, but Cookie held on to him with everything she had. Rubbing his back until he finally caved to the pressure and let some of the weight he'd been feeling out completely, crying onto her shoulders.
To his amazement, she didn't let go.
There had been several small parades for Caesar, courtesy of the president and his constituents. But the big parade was the part that every winner of the Hunger Games always dreaded the most.
Everything about it triggered every inch of their senses. The loud noises, the big crowds, the screaming. That's why he'd been warned to keep his earbuds in at all times; They'd even offered him a pill that would keep him calm.
He'd declined.
There were so many posters of them. There was one poster of Jazmine and Huey as kids, laughing together on what appeared to be a rollercoaster, about to plunge downward. Jazmine was laughing, her eyes on Huey, who was staring straight ahead at the town beneath them.
He wondered if he would ever be able to live with what he'd done to them both.
"You ready for this?" Rollo asked, glancing over at the podium and the guards. "Don't worry, no bullets will get in or out of here. The force field has been tested a couple times today for good measure."
He sighed, taking a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm ready." He held the sheet of paper in his hands. "I have the speech all typed out."
"And you're gonna read it?" Rollo made a face, looking him up and down. "Boyyyyy, you sho better than me. I wouldn't say anything outside of thanking the people for their support. Look at them, Ceez! They hate you!"
He wasn't lying.
He could read their lips from the red and white float that he was on.
They were booing him, wishing death on his friends and family, accusing him of wanting Jazmine for himself. He'd even seen people create disgusting flyers of Isis and her body after she'd died in the games, with the words, "See how it feels, Caesar?" scrawled across them.
He'd had over five hundred people run up to his float just to try and attack him on today. He'd had several more throw things at his float, and even more celebrating him for what he'd done.
So when the float had begun moving, he'd initially felt sick to his stomach. But then, something washed over him, a feeling that moved his feet forward. He approached the podium in the center of the float, the red force field around it flickering as a warning to the crowd to be on their best behavior.
The President and Ed Wuncler Senior waved at him up in the large blue float ahead of his, basking in all the praise they were receiving.
He glanced at his typed speech on the paper and then set it down. Then, he looked out into the angry crowd and began to speak.
"I would first like to thank President Wuncler III, for giving me the opportunity to speak on today. To the fans, the families impacted, especially those who I met with the other day, thank you." He glanced down at the paper and shook his head, balling it up and looking down for a moment. "I'm sorry. But I won't do it. Not like this."
Caesar lifted the mic from the podium and motioned to one of the guards to lower the force field. The crowd was quiet, and to both Ed Wuncler III and Ed Wuncler Sr.'s surprise, nobody, not even their own army, moved to kill him, even when they kept ordering them to.
"I'm ashamed of what I did." Caesar shuffled his feet, staring at the ground before lifting his head and using his finger to point at the men in front of him. "These two men, along with Ruckus and wealthy one percenters, have created a horrifying game, a place where they can physically attack people who offended his grandfather for sport. All in the name of justice. Of greed."
He tore the earbuds out of his ears and jumped back, surprised when something dropped onto the ground nearby.
"This is the reality of the games." He pointed to himself. "They ruin the winners. I've met the other elects who survived, who did what they were forced to do. They can't sleep. They have night terrors, they live in constant fear of what's going to happen to them and their families if they don't cooperate."
The crowd seemed to gather around both floats, preventing the president and his officiants from fleeing the scene. "That's not a world that I want to live in. It's not a game I'm proud to have played. In."
He paused.
"I killed two people who deserved a fair shot at life. Wrong or not, I did it to come home. I genuinely felt there was no other way." He took his hands and placed them on both sides of the podium, ignoring a few boos ringing out across the audience. "That's the psychology that is drilled into us from people who have access to ridiculous amounts of food, medical advancements, and investors. People that have been permitted to weaponize their resources in order keep us reliant on them so that they can reap the benefits."
The crowd nodded, starting to murmur amongst themselves in surprise.
"But I'm not afraid of them anymore." He looked over at Huey's grandfather standing with Cookie Freeman in the crowd and nodded at them. "I'm afraid of what I've allowed. I'm afraid of walking this Earth without speaking up for what's right."
He moved his arms to his side and stood up straight behind the podium. "I, Michael Darius Caesar, renounce the Hunger Games due to their cruel and disgusting methods towards minors in the United States of America. I intend to fight until my dying day to dismantle them and to continue the fight that extends past the lives of Huey Freeman and Jazmine Dubois."
His mom and dad made their way upfront, the pride in their eyes motivating him to keep talking. He hunched over the podium, driving his last point home. "Think of Makayla. Think of all 50 kids in that stadium, and think, of how 38 of them were wiped out in minutes. Now, look at your children, and think about how that number will continue to double and quadruple, year after year. It's not safe for you. It's not safe for them. It's not safe for anyone until we all come together and do what we need to do."
To everybody's surprise, Caesar paused again and waved to someone standing behind him.
"It's not right for me to talk about Huey and Jazmine as their murderer." Caesar continued. "That's why I've called on someone who can speak on them. Someone who knows about their heart, their courage, and who is oftentimes, forgotten in the rehashing of their stories."
The crowd gasped as Bushido Brown escorted a familiar face onto the stage before standing in front of both boys, daring Ed Wuncler Sr. to do something about it as the crowd went wild.
"Please, give your undying support and attention, to the person Huey gave his life for, his brother, Riley Nathaniel Freeman."
If Riley Freeman was afraid, he didn't show it. He stepped towards the podium like a force to be reckoned with.
Just like his brother.
"James Meredith once said that the day for the negro man being a coward is over." He glanced back at Caesar, his eyes hard. "I ain't too sure if I believe in all that."
Bushido nodded at the boy encouragingly when he paused, clearly surprised by the thunderous applause that rang out in the streets.
"I don't know as much as my brother." Riley admitted. "But he always said that the man who knows nothing, knows everything. And by that token, I know a lot."
The crowd laughed again.
"My brother was a pain in my ass." Riley chuckled along with the crowd. "He was bossy. He was always beating me up whenever I stepped out of line, or made fun of Jazmine, which happened often since that's who he always liked, even when he was scurred to admit it."
He paused and stepped in front of the podium, linking arms with Bushido.
"Huey wanted to change the world, and I always told him that he was dumb for wanting to." Riley sighed, turning his head back towards Caesar. "I guess that's why it was so easy for me to say yes when you reached out. Cuz' me and you have regret in common." He sighed again. "Imma regret saying dumb shit like that to him for the rest of my life."
He took another step forward.
"I wish I hadn't spent so much time calling him stupid and crazy. Because he wasn't. There's a whole host of other perfect insults that ya'll ain't gone never know about because that shit's between me and him."
The crowd laughed again as Riley lifted his hands to his cheek, started by a few tears that were rolling down his face.
"I was always listening to him, admiring him, and there's nobody…" His voice cracked, and the crowd cheered loudly to encourage him to keep going.
"There's nobody in this world that I respect more than him." He paused again, giving them a cheeky grin. "That's why I gotta give ya'll a little taste of what my brother would tell ya'll." He held his free hand up and gestured towards the crowd. "These games won't end unless we make em' end. Look around! Look at how scared these folks are when a million of us run up on a few of them!"
He stepped closer to edge of the float, engaging with the crowd. "Emmett Till's momma said she used to say 'That's their business, not mine.' when something happened to black people down south. And then, her son got murdered. Just like my brother and 47 kids ages eight to eighteen got murdered, just like 230 kids have died by suicide or murder in these games in the last four years!"
"Preach, little brother!"
"There's another quote from James Meredith, a few actually, that until now, I secretly agreed with." He glanced up at the sky and pointed, before placing a finger on his lips, as if swearing the crowd to secrecy until they rang out into laughter. "James Meredith said that when it came to his rights as an American citizen and anybody else's, that he was a triumphalist and an absolutist. That's his fancy way of saying he was about that business."
He was smirking now, walking back and forth on the podium.
"And ya'll wanna know what else he said?"
"What?" The crowd responded, staring at him with curious eyes.
"He said that anything less is an insult." He leapt onto the ground with Bushido Brown trailing behind him. "Now, my personal favorite is from Malcolm X. Imma say some of it, but ya'll gon' have to help me out and say the rest, aight?"
He glanced over at the crowd, who murmured amongst themselves in quiet agreement.
"I said, ya'll are gonna say the rest! Aight?!"
"Alright!" The people in the crowd shouted, moving aside so that some of them could make their way onto Wuncler's float to hold him and Ed Wuncler III down.
"Malcolm X said that nobody can give you freedom, nobody can give you equality, or justice, or anything. If you're a man…"
"You take it!" The crowd shouted in response.
"Aight, I see ya'll." Riley grinned at the crowd. "I see ya'll ain't too different from my brother after all. See, he liked Malcolm X too."
He walked over to his granddad and his Aunt Cookie, standing in between them with his arms linked through theirs.
"He hated these games too. He believed that everybody could rise up and make a difference. But only if we really wanted to." He walked forward, his last living relatives by his side. "So we're gonna do is take the reigns from my brother and finish what he started. We're gonna take what is ours to take!"
Caesar couldn't look away. He followed behind them, ignoring Rollo Goodlove's protests as he made his way through the parting crowd, linking his arms with Cookie and his parents, just in time for his Bushido to step forward and link his arms with Robert's.
Riley moved forward to step in front of them.
"We're taking everything back, today! We ain't asking no more!" Riley yelled into the mic and stepped further out into the forefront, ready to lead them all to their destiny. "So let's make it our business to get angry! Let's make it our business to bring about change! Today, it's time for justice! It's time for change! Let's! Take! It! All! Back!"
He moved forward, the news cameras following him and a crowd of millions. "It's time to take everything back! Our freedom! Our rights! Our voice! Our humanity!"
His voice roared with the wind and the leaves that swirled around him, just like it did with his brother, Huey.
"No justice! No peace! For the Brave 46! For Makayla! For Jazmine! For Huey!" He cried out. "Let's liberate ourselves, NOW!"
They marched through the streets together. They burnt every building, they attacked every form of opposition, and they yelled their demands without ceasing. The revolution would not be silenced.
They had finally come together.
Overcoming as one.
Author's Note:
The last chapter is posted. I hope that it brings you a little bit of comfort after this rollercoaster of a story.
And from the bottom of my heart, thank you for reading.
- Miss Ace Thank You