Chapter 22:
Tigris wished she could have gotten Vicky something more impressive for her party the next day- but was so low on cash, the best she could do was buy a stuffed tiger plushie on sale. It was a fact Tigris commiserated over as she trudged down the Corso from the toy store to Livia's Boutique. She didn't have a penny left to spend on the fabric for Vicky's party dress- or for the charity event she'd be replacing Livia at. As Tigris entered the shop to the dinging of the door's bell, the last of her two designs were being pulled off an empty rack at the back of the store by a pair of wealthy looking Capitolites.
"Think we'll look like Ada Jane?" One of the women asked Livia, standing with her arms crossed behind the counter, as she slid the dresses towards her.
"You'll look like something!" Livia replied through a gritted smile. "Any interest in the rest of our stock? My button up spring skirt is half off-"
"No, thank you." The other woman cut Livia's sale off with pursed lips, simply paying for her single garment. "Patterns are in- monochrome is out."
"But wait- you have anything in that color changing fabric we saw during the interviews on the tributes from 1?" One of the women asked.
"No." Livia replied.
"Oh, what a shame!" The first woman huffed. "You struck gold with these designs, at least." The first woman paid for her dress as well before both exited out the shop- hardly noticing Tigris as they passed by.
As soon as the door's bell chimed again after it shut, Livia slammed a furious fist down on the register with a bashing clang. Tigris stepped forward sheepishly, emerging from around a fully stocked rack into view.
"What do you want?" Livia sneered.
"I need money for fabric." Tigris replied.
Livia seethed: "Your tacky designs are like blinding, neon signs saying: 'I'M HIDEOUS- WEAR ME.' It's like no one can even see the rest of my stock anymore."
"Would it kill you to admit I'm just a better designer?" Tigris turned up her chin.
Livia blinked at Tigris- no, of course she would never admit that without keeling over immediately.
"I mean, I'm selling out." Tigris grasped at the air in Livia's face. "So, I want my cut like we agreed."
"I can't give it to you." Livia bitterly admitted. "Your rags are what's paying off the astronomical rent here on the Corso. I had to cut the little girl with the acne's hours- so I'm working the register like a slave until I can show off my line at the charity event. If I paid you, you wouldn't have a place to sell your designs once a new batch is produced."
"So, what am I supposed to make your daughter's dress out of?" Tigris asked.
"You're the better designer." Livia shrugged. "You tell me."
Tigris had a mind to call up Coriolanus and tell him what she knew about Livia's pregnancy after leaving the boutique empty handed. She stewed over it as she rode the old trolley out of downtown to catch a cab further out where the price wouldn't be as high. It'd serve Livia right- and possibly redirect some heat off Tigris at the current moment, too. How could Livia know what calamity Tigris held over her head- and not do everything in her power to prevent her from dropping it? She'd made up her mind that Livia deserved to be exposed- entering into her basement studio and crossing directly to the landline phone on the wall. Tigris pulled the phone to her ear, raised her hand to punch in Coriolanus' number, but hesitated when her eyes fell on the destroyed space around her.
Her life was in such shambles. Between the broken furniture, missing cat and tapes, and the drama Tigris was about to unleash with this call- she felt just as damaged as her studio. Tigris thought of Livia's baby- and the bomb that would be dropped on the child along with the mother. So much grief and destruction and loss to be had right at the end of her fingertips hovering over the phone's dial pad. Was this mercy or more self-preservation? Perhaps both? It all was too complicated a question- and the more Tigris anguished over her resentment, worry, and loss, the less she was able to confront them. She set the landline phone back on its receiver and trudged over to her armoire. Tigris found her chromatifur trench coat hung up there, reaching down into the hidden pocket beneath its collar to remove the instant film photograph she'd taken.
The picture of herself as a little girl on Appius' bed stared back at her with a glassy eyed, aloof gaze. The square image in her hand shook with her trembling fingers until Tigris took a breath and buried her grief, her troubles, and her trauma with the picture beneath a false bottom in her armoire drawer. If she was unable to expose Appius- she'd be unable to expose Livia. Whether that made her righteous or selfish- Tigris willed herself not to care either way, and the debate became less and less relevant as she worried over a more pressing question: what was Vicky wearing tomorrow? Virtually all of Tigris' personal fabrics were chopped up to make Flossie's interview dress, so there wasn't much left to work with. Tigris pulled the rose petal frock she'd worn to the Reapings that had inspired Vicky's request and began comparing its color to her fabric collection and found no suitable substitutes. In an impulsive moment of grief and fury and despair, Tigris snapped. And so did the dress:
'RIP!'
Tigris looked down at the bisected bodice in one hand and the shorn, tiered skirt in the other, then turned to carry both halves to her sewing machine. A stuffed tiger toy wasn't going to really cut it. Tigris went to pull on her mother's fur coat over her shoulders- but it's warm, soft hairs felt like razors against her skin as she built the red ball gown. The voluminous rosebud skirt and petaled top were nearly done by the time the sewing machine was itself done at around midnight. The old hunk of machinery refused to start back up after it died- so Tigris spent the earliest hours of the morning hand stitching the remaining seams on the gown's bodice until her eyes began to glaze over.
Tigris sighed as she curled up on her deflated sofa to rest, looking over to Smax's empty pet bed. She was so hungry but knew she couldn't eat. The world around her was anything but peaceful-even so Tigris tried with everything to just maintain some level of placidity to make it through the night. She tossed and turned, trying hard to switch her brain and stomach off and focus on constructive ideas. She wouldn't expose anyone, she wouldn't bring any more grief on herself or others if she could help it, she would stay quiet. She would save Judge, and Smax, and herself. And all she had to do was give it a rest. Eventually, Tigris did just that- but awoke what felt like seconds later to three eyes staring down at her.
There was a draft rolling through the space from the opened window at the ceiling of her studio. Tigris tried to rise, leaning forward into the sharp edge of a blade at her neck. She fell back again, squinting through the darkness at the force holding her down. Her eyes adjusted to the night- blinking until she made eye contact with the cyclopic face looming over her.
"Hold her legs, Mags." Silvi ordered the shadowy form at her side.
"She's not struggling." The form replied with a whisper. "Ease off."
Margaret's face and hands materialized through the dark, pulling the knife away from the other woman's single hand, but Silvi did not release the crushing pin she maintained on Tigris' chest. Tigris wheezed:
"What are you doing?"
"One of the last things Clemensia told us before she died..." Margaret began to explain grimly "…was that we could trust you."
"With what?" Tigris asked with an exhausted earnestness: "A custom?"
"Give me the knife back." Silvi hissed at Margaret.
"No, Tigris." Margaret shook her head. "Some of the victors are blackmailing Faust with his affairs. We're going to stop the Games."
Tigris said nothing in response.
"Cat got your tongue?" Silvi asked.
"No." Tigris replied. "I don't have a cat anymore."
"Please, give me my knife so I can stick this smart mouthed-" Silvi began before Tigris spouted:
"No, I'm sorry. I mean…" Tigris stammered. "I just lost my cat for getting involved in a mess of my own making. I can't get into yours, too."
Then, Margaret leaned forward and herself held the knife to Tigris' side.
"Listen… I don't want anyone to get hurt, but if we don't act- this thing will keep going. And kids will keep dying. I can't stand another second of Games, let alone decades more of them." Margaret explained. "So, we have a plan."
"Tomorrow at Snow's little girl's party-" Silvi revealed: "We're kidnapping her."
"No, not Vicky!" Tigris gasped. "The child's done nothing to deserve that."
"Neither have those tributes." Margaret stated. "Well… maybe this year's batch isn't the best example."
"They're a perfectly fine example." Silvi countered. "The worst of them are no worse than the best of you. The people here just wear nicer clothes." Silvi glared at Tigris. "Just because they aren't perfect victims doesn't mean they're not victims."
"Two wrongs don't make a right." Tigris argued. "Hurting Vicky won't help anyone- not in or out of that Arena."
"Our plans don't include killing children." Margaret stated. "But, if we can get her away by someone she trusts, like an 'Auntie,' that makes it even less likely she ends up hurt in the process."
"Look, ladies… I have a fashion line to focus on." Tigris tried to bring levity: "I just want to make clothes. Not war."
"I told you this was a dumb idea." Margaret turned to Silvi, shaking her head. "You can't wake people up from a dead sleep and expect them to throw themselves into harm's way."
"I didn't anticipate enthusiasm, either." Silvi shot back before turning to Tigris. "But something you Capitol folks need to learn is not everything beneficial benefits you. I love a sparkly dress as much as the next gal, and you know, I don't particularly enjoy war, either. But I know enough about fashion and have been paying attention to your designs long enough to know that you're capable of both at the same time."
"I'm sorry." Tigris simply breathed out with an ashamed exhale. "I can't help you."
The two women standing over Tigris looked at one another before Margaret turned back and revealed:
"Tigris, your niece is just Plan A." Margaret revealed. "And if we have to resort to Plan B- no one will have the privilege of choice by that point."
Tigris took a long beat to consider her options, which weren't many. When Coriolanus had taken her to the ball- Tigris promised she'd go along with his plot with no intention of ultimately doing so. It got her there- and in spite of everything else, including ultimately doing exactly what Coriolanus had asked of her, it got Tigris her stylist license back in the end. She could also tell the Victress' one thing and do another- profess allegiance to their cause today and be tactically inactive tomorrow. Or even downright antagonistic. It'd betray their trust, and perhaps that meant Clemensia had died believing a lie- but Tigris refused to suffer that same fate. She wouldn't let a lie kill her- she'd live with it. Tigris responded through the knot in her throat:
"Then, let's go with Plan A."
Tigris couldn't go back to bed. She was terrified for Vicky. What was she thinking? She'd have to try and thwart their attempts- that's what she'd do. No one had to get hurt, stolen, killed, or exposed if she simply ruined the plot before it began. But, what about this secondary plan Margaret had alluded to? What if Margaret had told the truth- and never seeing little Vicky ever again somehow was less painful than what they had planned? That couldn't be. She didn't want to even try to imagine what grief that intense would look like. Instead, Tigris did what she normally would when her mind began to rage with stress.
She did her hair and makeup first, being sure to slightly overfill her lips with her favorite dark cherry lipstick and don her most expensive pearl necklace she had left to her name. Tigris slid on a red brocade cocktail dress and her chromatifur trench coat, which lit up with sparks of bright yellow-orange and undercurrents of deep purple as she pulled it over herself. Crossing back to her sewing machine, Tigris checked the contraption one last time for signs of life by pressing its switch- and the final brief, sputtering chug of the needle was like a death rattle. Tigris swatted the old machine's cold body before gathering up a matching purse and making her way to the coat closet. She shifted the armoire back off the trapdoor's hinges, lifted up the hidden hatch, and descended into the Transfer's tunnels.
Underground seemed as dead and silent as the above world was at this time of night. The only life came from the train cars lazily chugging by as if they were half asleep themselves. Tigris climbed into one of these carts as they passed, nestling among the heap of scrap metals within. The twisted pipes, steel sheeting, and rusted car rims, axles, and springs were a jagged, metallic soup of gray, black, and burnt red around her. The metals clanged and clanked against one another as the train chugged on, and Tigris found herself zoning out on their tinkering choir. Then, Tigris noticed her coat had disappeared even though she was still wearing it.
As soon as Tigris' attention was gripped by the sight- the image faded across her body and returned to its natural state. She looked back up at the metals and even more intently focused on their forms, shapes, colors, and textures. Gradually, a realistic impression of the scraps around her materialized again across the coat- camouflaging Tigris' body into the metals she laid on. She felt the train begin to slow down- and so crawled free from the twisted brambles of steel to leap from the car into the gravel at the side of the tunnel as it came to a stop. Tigris only had to trek what would be the equivalent to a block or two on the surface before she reached the assorted pile of fabrics arranged around an oxidized industrial door laid into the tunnel wall.
She passed by the textiles, looking over them to see more chromatifur sitting amongst the stock. 'Why don't you just take it?' The words stung in her mind. What would the Animal man do- go to the police? No, making further enemies out of anyone was not smart. And besides, it wouldn't do much good to buy new fabric until she got a new sewing machine. Tigris couldn't afford either at the current moment- but figured as she crossed to the corridor that led up to the cellar of Dare2Dine, that she would by morning.
Zagros' door was, in fact, always open to Tigris. And so was his bed. She hadn't done anything like what they did that night in so many nights, the entire situation felt just as unfamiliar as it came naturally. There was a tinge of guilt at first, but that had never managed to really leave her body regardless of whose bed she was in. But soon enough, it was just fun. Even if it was a transaction, whether Zagros realized it, or Tigris admitted it. For a moment in time, the two were completely lost in one another- the rest of the world melting away until a place where only they existed was left. It wasn't as glorious of a sight as statuesque mountains and flowing rivers- surrounded by the clutter and mess of Zagros' bedroom. But, lying in his arms as bars of warm sun glowed through the blinds across their bare, scarred bodies- Tigris saw a comparable kind of majesty. She had mostly wanted a new sewing machine and the rest of Beetle's chromatifur stock and Zagros got her both by breakfast. But, despite watching Zagros hand over the panars and pay for every last cent- she still felt like a thief.
Zagros lifted and rolled the weighty, brand-new sewing machine out of the cab and onto the sidewalk in front of the Supra. Tigris stepped out next, completely swamped with the new roll of chromatifur, Vicky's bagged up ball gown, and a few pieces for her collection she carried. She was able to drop most of it off onto the wheeled table the sewing machine was fixed to as the Victor from 8 approached the pair with a severe look on his face and an unsightly scarlet button up slipping off his slender frame.
"That's chromatifur, isn't it?" Woof asked Tigris with a furrowed brow.
"Yes." Tigris replied. "How do you know its name? I'd never heard of it myself until recently."
"District 8 made the base textile for that fabric." Woof grimaced as the three entered into the lobby of the Supra. "It's more inflammable than anything." Woof explained. "And probably responsible for making that factory fire in 8 so bad last year."
"That's horrible." Tigris murmured, stepped into an elevator with the two men and sewing machine, the wad of chromatifur taking up substantial space. "It's so pretty."
"Yeah, be careful, you'd never guess..." Woof's expression switched: "You were Ada's mentor- and you're her friend now, right?"
"More like a daughter." Tigris nodded. "What about her?"
"Has she... mentioned me?" Woof tucked a strand of loose, dirty blond hair behind his ear.
"Ada?" Tigris racked her brain but couldn't think of a single instance. "No, honey. I don't think so."
Woof frowned. "I'm such an idiot."
"No, you're not, pal." Zagros shook his head.
"Compared to her- I am. I don't think she's impressed by my crosswords considering how brilliant she is." Woof sighed. "Not to mention how gorgeous and stylish and perfect… I don't know what to talk to her about-"
"Maybe you just need some grooming." Zagros suggested, running his fingers through his new haircut.
This gave Tigris an idea as she picked up a maroon coat from her line off the sewing machine she'd brought with her:
"Woof- do you know who 'Mags' is?"
Woof held off inhaling for a beat before he replied with a whisper:
"Yes."
Tigris reached into her bag and made sure Woof saw her slip Gaul's black notebook into the interior breast pocket of the maroon jacket she then slid onto his shoulders.
"Why don't you talk to Ada about this book?" Tigris cryptically explained. "I think she'd be impressed if you could help her figure out the name on page 13."
"What is it?" Woof asked. "A word scramble?"
"A cipher." Tigris corrected. "See what you can do."
"I'll try my best." Woof nodded. "Can we ask for help if we can't-"
"No." Tigris immediately responded. "It's really important no one can know you have it. Especially-"
The elevator reached the building's top floor and opened up on Coriolanus in an abrasively red suit- standing directly in the path of its exit. His eyes locked on Tigris and Zagros, only for his attention to be snapped away by Woof:
"Mr. Snow-" Woof gasped as if he'd been confronted with a ghost. "Um- I have a sponsor gift to send to my boy."
"It's a bit early in the Games." Coriolanus grumbled as the three exited the elevator towards him, asking Woof: "How'd he manage that?"
"Mine's the one whose father owns the factories." Woof explained. "He sent the money yesterday but it only went through this morning."
"Come with me." Coriolanus sighed. "I'll process it manually for you."
Woof stepped back inside the elevator and left with Coriolanus. Zagros rolled the sewing machine station through the doorway to the Supra's penthouse lounge, where Lucky was already set up, the sour expression on his face as red as his tux. Lucky glared at the pair entering with all the brooding of an ill tempered child, his arms crossed and mouth twisted up in a pout. Before Tigris could even ask, Lucky held up a hand and stopped her with a gruff:
"Don't talk to me- I haven't had my morning cocktail."
Tigris had Zagros wheel her sewing machine over to a corner of the lounge, where she began testing its controls as the rest of the mentors began arriving for the second day of Games. Tigris was threading a needle when she caught eye contact with Lumen as he entered. She offered him a friendly smile. Lumen's revolted gaze immediately fell away from hers, as if her simple glare had the capability to kill him. But the vague hostilities she read on the man's face was nothing compared to the open hostilities Livia had for Tigris as she arrived.
"Congratulations." Livia stabbed Tigris with the word- then pointed a sharp, red acrylic nail at the coat bag containing Vicky's birthday ball gown. "Is this her dress?"
"Yes." Tigris meekly confirmed. "I'm sorry about the charity event, Livia."
The chromatifur fabric on the table in front of Tigris glowed green.
"I can tell." Livia eyed the verdant colors bubbling as she scooped up the coat bag. Tigris began attaching a strip of rouged chromatifur to the hemline of a dress through the sewing machine, the loud chugging of its needle echoed off the glass walls of the lounge. Livia rolled her eyes at Tigris and asked: "Are you going to keep that up all morning?"
And into the afternoon. The morning of the second day of Games started out largely uneventful. Tigris was able to get a good bit of work done on her fashion line as she watched the Arena's live feeds from her corner. Things started to pick up once the morning came to an end. There was a bit of excitement when the boy from 5 managed to sneak up and steal a glass water bottle directly out of the backpack of the pair from 11- with neither noticing until they heard his bare feet speeding away out the corridor. They made an attempt to run down and kill him, but Pyrano proved speedy and adept at navigating his way through the maze's corridors and quickly succeeded in escaping.
Then, around a half hour later, the Careers came across the tributes from 10. Tigris watched the screen as much as she watched Tallulah, who was shaking with a tortured grief as the scene played out on the television before them. Dot was wheezing as she was pulled along so quickly by the older boy from her district, Paddock, she was essentially being dragged. Eventually- the young man just picked her up in his arms and sped on cradling her as the Careers pursued. Just when it appeared as though the young man might have been able to break free of the pack's sight, the looped length of the whip Paddock carried came loose and was caught up in a tangle at his legs. He went spilling to the white tiled floor with a heavy thud and dropped Dot- who too slammed down and slid away upon impact.
Paddock lifted his busted chin. With a bloody mouthful of teeth missing- he cried out with garbled speech for Dot to run. The little girl did as instructed just as the pair from 2 charged around a corner. Dot was small, but her pitiful attempts at running had to be a more result of her rapidly failing health, rather than her short legs. She laboriously began her trudge away from the Careers, who had reached Paddock lying prone by this point. But, instead of immediately attacking him, the tributes from 2 raced on to catch up with Dot. Romulus was about to bring his mace down onto the back of Dot's skull when he was snagged at the foot and brought to the floor with a crash.
A knot snapped tightly around Romulus' ankle, who looked down the length of braided leather to see Paddock holding firmly onto the other end with a grim look across his bloodied face. Petrina turned back as Dot raced around a corner and disappeared into the maze. Then, all the Careers looked down onto the boy from 10, who spat a red spray intermixed with broken teeth against the wall of white roses. The tributes from 4 were made to hold down his limbs while the pair from 2 began their fun. Zagros briskly jogged out the lounge at the first slice of Petrina's dagger into the boy's skin. And hours after the boy from 10's cannon did sound, the hovercraft had to descend multiple times to individually collect each of his dismembered pieces from off the blood-slick tile
Zagros returned with red, puffy eyes and took his seat again as noon came and went, and Tigris felt the tense stiffness of his neck go limp again as she soothed him with the gentle caressing of his hair. Tigris examined her communicuff, finding the donation number over Flossie's picture had doubled while Judge's hovered at roughly the same miniscule digits as yesterday. Poor Judge, Tigris thought to herself- how was he going to manage in the long haul without any sponsorships? She got something of an answer as a parachute began to descend from the vibrant blue sky above the Arena on the screen.
"There it is!" Woof sighed with relief as the parachute floated down with a chirping beep past the walls of the maze until it came to a clanking plop at the feet of the boy from 8.
Creel had just unclasped the metal container that opened to reveal a steaming loaf of bread when the boys from 3 and 7 tackled him. He was pulled to the floor by one boy and had the bread loaf snatched away by the other. Creel screamed so loud as the boy from 7 raised his ax to kill him that the hidden cameras showing a wide shot even picked up his cry. They also picked up the audio of Judge's voice that followed.
"Hey!" Judge shouted down from the top of a white marble staircase that led to an elevated threshold in the wall of the maze. He asked the boys below him: "What kinda bread is that?"
The boy from 7 held the ax high as the boy from 3 split the bread loaf into two halves and inspected it. Judge squinted down and called out:
"Sourdough is expensive." Judge explained the other boys, but they just stared up at him incredulously. Judge added: "That kid is rich."
The boys from 3 and 7 looked at one another with furrowed brows as they stood over Creel- as if that made a difference to them until Judge went on:
"I'm probably not getting any bread from my Pop. Are you all?" Judge asked. "The tributes from 2 and 4 are hunting in a pack. We'd be safer with equal numbers."
The boy from 7, Frax, let his ax fall to his side and began mumbling to his ally. Glitch, the boy from 3, listened dutifully, at first appearing confused, only to end up nodding enthusiastically with approval while holding firmly onto Creel. Tigris' heart began to pound as Frax began climbing up the marble staircase towards Judge with the ax in hand. Then, when Frax was within killing distance of the boy, rather than murder Judge, he complimented him:
"Good idea, 1."
By the time noon had come and gone, activity in the Arena died down again. Judge had earned himself three new allies, and that fact calmed Tigris' nerves to feel comfortable enough to leave the Supra early with the rest of the mentors to attend Vicky's birthday party. She'd have to be away from a television screen for around a half hour as she and Zagros shared a cab out to the Highlands- and as the trip dragged on, Tigris' anxiety regarding her kids in the Arena grew. And Zagros' questions didn't help either:
"How are you feeling after last night?"
Tigris replied: "Compliments to the chef."
"Be serious." Zagros gazed over Tigris. "I feel strange, I don't know."
"Why?" Tigris questioned.
"It feels wrong being so happy." Zagros explained.
Tigris agreed but couldn't reply saying so, which preceding a long beat before Zagros asked:
"Do you ever want kids, Tigris?"
"I can't have any." She answered. "And I think that's for the best."
"That's not a yes or no." Zagros muttered.
"Zagros- I'm starting to realize maybe the things I want are different from the things I deserve." Tigris answered.
"Which are we, then?" Zagros asked with some dubiety.
Once again, Tigris couldn't reply, instead just rested her head on Zagros' shoulder rather than admit to herself the answer one way or another as their car entered through the gates of the Highlands neighborhood. Tigris' heart sank as the cab pulled at the gleaming curb of Appius Volpe's mansion, its front facade appearing so drastically different in the daylight than its rear had in the night. Zagros seemed to sense her unease, asking:
"Are you alright, Tig?"
"Do not call me that." Tigris snapped, glowering out the window at the mansion.
Zagros paid the driver as Tigris stepped out of the cab with Vicky's bow wrapped tiger plushie in hand. The two made their way up the vibrant green plain of the front lawn, gradually overhearing the argument between Lucky Flickerman and his pre-teen son on the porch of the mansion.
"Caesar- if you have an issue with the party theme, you're going to have real issues when my job is yours."
"I just want to go home, Dad." Lucky's son whined. "I don't care about the Games or the party."
"You should start to!" Lucky lit a cigar he had between his lips and blew smoke in his son's face as he went on: "The Games are a party, son. Act like it."
The setting inside of the mansion corroborated Lucky's argument in a way. The Hunger Games themed event was a spectacle in and of itself- blood red streamers, golden balloons, a Cornucopia shaped cake, and little girls in princess dresses chasing one another around the leather and shag den with neon colored foam swords and plastic axes tied up with ribbons. As the children played out their little battles, the flat screen television on the wall of the den displayed muted live feeds of the Arena. Gretchen Crane was bouncing her infant on her knee beside a party-hatted Appius Volpe- sitting on the same couch Tigris had witnessed be the setting of some otherworldly debauchery just a day previously. Zagros appeared equally as uncomfortable- though it seemed to have more to do with the booths arranged throughout the living room.
The decorated stations were set up with cartoon illustrated depictions of each of the mentor Victor's Arenas- a offensively child-like sanitization of the horrors those places represented in reality. Ada waved to Tigris from her place at a booth arranged before a painted backdrop of looping roller coaster tracks and toppled pastel amusement rides. A group of children pulled at Ada's red skirt as they asked her endless questions about the 19th Games. Ada responded with a collected, perhaps cold poise- winking as she shot finger guns at the children. The rest of the Victors were in similar situations- handling the throngs of snotty Capitol children asking about the worst trauma of their lives with varying degrees of tact and discomfort. Tigris caught Silvi's eye studying her from her own booth before it switched from her to narrow on Vicky being paraded down the stairs in the rose ball gown by Coriolanus.
The birthday girl had the disposition of an aching, thousand year old woman. Vicky eyed the crowd of party-goers beneath her with such a numb, somber expression, Tigris could hardly recognize the vivacious child in the ball gown she'd made for her. The party cooed and cheered to celebrate Vicky's arrival, regardless, and Coriolanus set her down with a careful grace as he reached the bottom of the stairs. As Vicky was pulled away by a chattering group of sword wielding little girls, likely her school friends- Tigris and Coriolanus shared a spine chilling moment of eye contact. He smiled at her. Tigris' entire body was overcome with a wave of nausea she had to walk off- pulling the stuffed tiger toy plushie from her bag and crossing to the pile of Vicky's birthday presents. There, Lumen was dropping off a small, rectangular shaped gift wrapped up in red paper. The small man's eyes flitted away from Tigris as she approached, and his frigidness was finally her enough to ask him:
"Mr. Veton, are you-"
"Stay away from me you evil bitch." Lumen bluntly snapped at Tigris with wet eyes that darted from her to past her in an instant- melting from an anguished stare into a terrified one, as if he'd realized he'd just stepped on a landmine. Tigris turned to see a seething Zagros with balled fists just mere feet away, having overheard every word Lumen had spoken to her. Then, Tigris' attention was drawn past Zagros' enraged red face to the muted television screen. The silent image on the screen showed a terrified Flossie frantically running as fast as her legs could carry her through the white rose covered corridors of the maze.
Tigris raced over to a remote control sitting on the mantle of the fireplace- snatching it up to silence the party music and raise the volume on the television. A familiar whistle was the first sound that came through the speakers- and it was enough to capture the attention of the rest of the party who gradually began to gather at the television. Flossie's fallen, blonde curls bounced behind her as she scurried around a corner of the maze, the pair from 2 leading the Career pack around the same corner just seconds later. Tigris' eyes began to fill with tears, looking down to see Vicky sitting cross-legged on the shag carpet, completely encumbered by her gown and now completely unaffected by the scene she watched playing out on the screen. Romulus hurled his spiked mace at Flossie, the spiked end of the club making contact with her ankles and sending her spilling to the floor.
Flossie attempted to scramble onto her bleeding, possibly even broken feet before collapsing again. Tigris felt like she was going to pass out, her own legs buckling as she took in the girl's injuries. Flossie was whistling and grunting, hyperventilating with adrenaline as she began to drag her bleeding legs around a bend, only to find the corridor beyond almost immediately terminating. Flossie crawled to the end of the corridor, turning herself over and sitting helplessly against the white rose covered wall to face the Career pack as they came around the corner. Petrina smiled- a longsword and dagger in each hand as she and Romulus descended. Flossie looked up at the fake ether overhead and cried out a final question:
"What do I do?!"
Then, as if in reply, the whistling of an arrow flew right between the pair from 2's shoulders and embedded itself directly in Flossie's heart, killing her instantly.
