Chapter 29:
Tigris caught the bullet in her hand.
She unclasped her fingers- the raised, pink welt like a pillow for the prop bullet casing sitting sizzling in her palm. Tigris dropped the blank shell casing to the pavement and looked up to see Ada slipping back into the crowd.
Tigris kept track of the chromatifur headwrap as it cut through the thicket of spectators packing the sidewalks. The fabric's colors went from variegated to solid shades that flickered around Ada's head. Tigris charged through the crowd, eschewing any and all manners as she raced after Ada. They reached the opening to a dark alleyway, where Tigris reached out and snatched the chromatifur scarf off from Ada's blonde bob, throwing it to the ground.
"Butterfly!?" Tigris shouted, only to be looking down the barrel of the revolver the next moment.
Tigris couldn't see Ada's face in the darkness of the alley- only the glint of moonlight reflecting off the trembling cylinder as it was spun. Tigris stood still under the threat of the gun pointed between her eyes and listened to the shaking whimpers piercing through the dark. A wailing red firework burst overhead, briefly illuminating Ada's desperate, tear-streaked expression with bloody light. The crack of its carmine explosion sounded off a second later like a cannon. Tigris watched Ada turn and run from her down the alley, the woman's crying echoing through the darkness long after she'd disappeared into it.
Tigris turned back to the Corso where the Capitolite masses were still celebrating the marching band parading by with oblivious festivity. She watched the spectator's jovial dances along with the drums, stomping and shuffling to its beats. At their feet, Tigris caught a flash of what looked like someone stepping on a lightbulb. A burst of rainbow light broke across the surface of the chromatifur head wrap lying on the sidewalk as it was crushed beneath the treads of a man's dancing dress shoe. As the woman he spun around on his arm also unknowingly took a step with her stiletto onto the wrap, it appeared to begin to bleed. A black tar leaked out from the fabric and flowed into the cracks of the sidewalk with a viscous, oily iridescence. Tigris paced over to the crumpled, blackened length of chromatifur, pinching the fabric between her fingers. Dark liquid cried from the corner of the scarf and added itself with a splatter to the grime of the alleyway floor. Tigris dropped the scarf into a trash bin and recognizing the poison on her hands, feeling its sting between her fingers and then in her mind.
Tigris practiced her smile as she made her way back to Coriolanus. Every inch of skin across her body was crawling like the tingling sensation that still bubbled on her fingertips. She wanted nothing more than to run until she was far, far away from this place. But her path only led her to Coriolanus standing outside the revolving doors of 74 Cominia as the final horse drawn carriage of the parade carrying a saluting Appius Volpe rolled by on the Corso. The crowd cheered for their President, as did Coriolanus shining a wide, toothy grin as Tigris slid up beside him.
'You gave her blanks.' She imagined herself saying, but instead, just grinned back.
A Peacekeeper approached Coriolanus, placing a hand on his shoulder and whispering into his ear. Coriolanus' joyous expression dropped. He turned to Tigris and revealed to her with an unenthused:
"Livia is awake."
Without another word, Coriolanus left with the Peacekeeper into the crowd, leaving Tigris to watch Appius Volpe be carted past to the erupting roar of the spectators. As his carriage went, Tigris watched Appius' eyes find her among the crowd.
He smirked.
Tigris turned and pushed through the revolving doors of 74 Cominia, stomping through the lobby towards the manager's office. She threw open the door and marched right up to her racks of chromatifur garments. They were the most spectacular works of art she'd ever created. And Tigris hated them so much she could explode.
Tigris turned and snatched up the box of matches from off the office desk, sliding the box open and pulling out a matchstick she struck against the scoring pad without thinking. The flash of fire that burst from the end of the match was reflected in the angry, red flickering hues of the chromatifur's fabric. She watched the small flame burn down the match until it died at her fingertips and left behind a rising line of smoke that seemed to emanate directly from her press-on nails. She set the charred, little stick down on the desk, picked up the ring of master keys, and crossed out the office, making her way to the elevator. Tigris rode up to the fifth floor first, pounding on the door of the unit on that level until a sleepy-eyed Lumen answered the door:
"Tigris?"
"Get out." Tigris warned: "Get out of here, now."
"What? Why?" Lumen rubbed his eyes and put on his glasses. "What did I do? What's happening?"
"Just get as far away from the building… from the Corso as you can." Tigris replied.
Lumen didn't need to hear anymore. The man raced frantically out the door in his pajamas and fled down into the stairwell as Tigris crossed back to the elevator, selecting the seventh floor next. Once she arrived, Tigris beat on the door for a long while calling out Silvi and Margaret's names. Neither woman responded from inside, so Tigris was just about to slide her master key into the lock to let herself in when Silvi cracked open the door and snapped at Tigris:
"We'll get you back your cardigan-"
"You need to get out." Tigris asserted.
Silvi shifted, glancing over her shoulder into the darkened unit behind her.
"We're in the middle of something." Silvi dismissed, attempting to shut the door on Tigris, but was blocked by her.
"I'm serious." Tigris urged. "You need to evacuate-"
"This isn't a good time." Silvi tried to shut the door again, but Tigris forced through into the unit:
"The building is going to explode!"
Margaret was at the dining room table in a black splattered smock and gloves, looking up with a caught expression at Tigris bursting into the room. Before Tigris could ask, Margaret threw the smock off of herself and popped a cork in a dark vial on the table before her. She quickly passed Silvi the little glass bottle, who deposited it in her bust. As soon as Margaret's gloves were off, Silvi collected her hand and the two raced out the apartment together. Tigris fled to the elevator and went up a floor, only having the knock on the door for a few seconds before Woof answered and raged at Tigris before she could speak:
"Why didn't you tell me they were going to send that into the Arena?" Woof asked. "I would have deciphered that page for you too, but I guess that wouldn't have helped your game."
"I didn't know for sure." Tigris replied. "That doesn't matter anymore."
He tried to shut the door on her, but Tigris stopped him:
"Woof- wait."
Woof stepped into the door's threshold and lashed out: "You want to know what I found on page 13? That factory fire in my district was intentional. Capitol investors weren't making a profit, so they had Creel's father burn it down in exchange for an insurance pay out."
Tigris felt she were simultaneously drowning and burning in the sea of flames that flared up within her again. "Woof, I need to know where the poison is coming from. Who is the Corso Killer? Ada told me that was on-"
"That's on page 6." Woof revealed, stepping back when Tigris shuddered with further betrayal. "Yeah, you're not the only one she lied to."
"Woof, I need that book back." Tigris pleaded.
"Ada has it." Woof said. "I want nothing to do with this city. Or anyone in it. I'm getting on the first train out of here and going home while I still have my sanity..."
Woof quickly pulled on a pair of shoes and tossed a packed bag over his shoulder, crossing past Tigris out of the unit.
"Woof-" Tigris asked before he departed into the stairwell. "Whose name was on page 6?"
"Ask November." Woof answered with a vague vindictiveness. "He's a more useful idiot to her than me, apparently."
Tigris dashed back to the elevator for the last time, rising to the penultimate floor on the eleventh level. She crossed to the unit's door and pounded her fist against it:
"November, do you have the- you need to get out!"
There was no response. Tigris pounded on the door even harder and called out with increasing dread:
"November!"
A crash, a thud, and a wheeze responded from within the apartment.
Tigris let herself into the dark unit with her master key where an empty wheelchair sat at a tall window overlooking the Corso below. She took only one step inside before her shoe was splattering against a line of black sludge trailing across the floor. A horrific dry heaving gurgle ruptured from behind the bathroom door at the end of the dark trail. Tigris followed the trail and threw open the bathroom door.
The man was already half dead, lying fetal in a black puddle and clutching his ostomy bag against his heaving abdomen. A geyser of oily blood spewed from his mouth across the floor as Tigris turned to run and find a phone but November's large, oil smeared hand locked around her ankle. The tingling sensation at her calf rose up her body, and Tigris looked down to see the desperate plea in November's bloodshot eyes. She asked:
"Who did this to you?"
November first replied with a spurt of poison that leapt from his lips. Then, with a gargled wheeze, he croaked out a name:
"Snow-uh."
Then, he sang a dozen more.
The fact Coriolanus' name was amongst those November had gargled out did not concern or even surprise her. November named Darning, Crane, Nix, Lunt, Vickers, Jasper, Sickle, Sulla, Heavensbee, Click, and Volpe- and none of those were particularly hard to swallow besides maybe Birrus. It was the fact November implicated Ada last, and most painfully of all, a confession that appeared to eat away at him with the same necrotic whittling of the poison dissolving his body from the inside out. That same bitter truth gnawed at Tigris' soul too until she went numb and dumb with an expertly refined compartmentalization to focus on getting November help.
The next few hours were such a blur, Tigris' next conscious thought was lamenting how uncomfortable the plastic chairs were in the hospital's waiting room. The fluorescent lights were too bright even with her eyes closed. The glaring bars of cold blue light poked at her corneas no matter how tightly she squeezed her lids shut. Tigris blinked awake from her dozing rubbing the red impression of the palm she laid against her pale cheek as a nurse approached and told her the news.
November's organs being external provided doctor's better access than your average 'malignant stomach bug' case, but it ultimately didn't save him from dying on the operating table. Tigris' mind was too detached from reality to understand November was dead; it had to be explicitly explained to her two more times before it was real. She was being asked to sign various medical documents and forms when Tigris unthinkingly rose up on wobbling knees and began to exit.
A bead of sweat sank into her twitching brow as she trotted into the hospital's lobby just as Coriolanus exited from the neonatal unit with Dr. Vickers. Tigris halted and slipped behind the cover of a wide pillar as Coriolanus reached out and shook Dr. Vicker's hand with visible enthusiasm. As Tigris observed them, she recognized the doctor herself seemed far less spirited accepting his handshake with a blank expression aside from a crooked, apathetic smirk. Then, Tigris watched Coriolanus go practically skipping out of the hospital lobby and onto the Corso where a parked car was waiting for him. Had Livia successfully had her baby? Tigris wanted to hope so despite everything that would inevitably mean. Tigris once again, didn't know or want to know, and waited until Coriolanus' car pulled away to make her own path to work.
The Supra felt taller today, or maybe the elevator was just slower, or maybe Tigris just perceived time beginning to slow into a torturous infinity as the Games neared their completion. Eventually, the lift made it to the penthouse lounge where beside the camera crew, only Lucky, Lumen, and Margaret remained. The television presented a wide shot of the circular Arena: crystalline frosts clinging to the blood red roses at the maze's outer perimeters. Tigris took the empty seat at the end of the short row of three chairs just as Lucky launched into his opening broadcast for the day:
"Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome!" Lucky announced before counting on his fingers and adding: "uh… Welcome! That's five 'welcomes' to our fabulous final five! We are possibly less than a day away from crowning our Victor, but…" The studio lights on Lucky were dimmed, even appeared to warm. The host of the Games expression softened as he continued: "Before we lose ourselves in all that fun, we unfortunately have some unfortunate news to share, unfortunately." Lucky snorted a short sniffle. "Please, lend an ear to our Gead Hamemaker."
Then, Coriolanus' much more convincingly sullen expression appeared on the screen replacing Lucky and the image of the Arena.
He sat at a desk: a rich-looking antique of varnished wood, not anything like high-tech control board Tigris knew he manned downstairs. Coriolanus was in a completely different suit than the one Tigris had seen him in at the hospital: sporting a jet-black ensemble that made his bright blue eyes look gray. There was no slash across his nose. With closed fists locked together in tense intertwined fingers: Coriolanus sighed, set his elbows on the desk before him, and addressed the camera:
"Good morning, Panem- and most importantly, my fellow Capitol brothers and sisters. As you may know, I am Coriolanus Snow. I've the privilege to be your Head Gamemaker for this First Quarter Quell and been massively proud of the performances of my fellow Gamemakers, mentors, and stylists for making these Games as unforgettably spectacular as they have become. My feelings of gratitude must end there, however. You might have noticed the absence of District 9's stylist and mentor: Livia Snow- who also happens to be my wife and the mother of my children."
A portrait of Livia appeared beside Coriolanus- her photograph showed her around a decade younger with a soft, angelic expression.
"Her talent, maternal grace, and positive nature have fostered a Career, a family, and a marriage of inarguable success. My wife devoted her life to that most honorable pursuit of motherhood and last night paid the ultimate price in doing so. It is with an immeasurably heavy heart that I announce the passing of Livia Snow… as well as our newborn son… from complications related to childbirth."
Tigris could feel the collective gasp of the city in her bones with the chill that came over her. Coriolanus seemed to sense it too, taking a pause to let the information settle on his audience before he continued:
"Much grieving is to be had, and much will be grieved; but our Games will not suffer. I know Livia would want the show to go on. She would want her death avenged with spectacle as much as her life was defined by it. So, in the event of a Victor from 9- the funds that would have been awarded to the mentor will be absorbed by the funeral costs for both our dearly departed mother and baby."
Under a severe, downcast gaze, Coriolanus glared into the camera and concluded his announcement with a threat:
"Livia might have asked for mercy of those unfortunate enough to be our enemy. I am not so forgiving." Coriolanus sneered. "Perhaps someone else would give our foes the cold shoulder for their transgressions. But, I plan to unleash a blizzard of epic proportions on those who have wronged me. It's not my beautiful wife who deserves the cold bite of death. It's those tributes, those savages given up by their own, that deserve to die. Prepare yourselves, both inside and outside of the Arena, for what I can ensure will be a chilling finale to these Hunger Games… in Livia and Coriolanus Jr's honor. We'll now return to our normally scheduled broadcast."
Lucky bit his tongue and swiftly segued the topic with an effort at something like empathy: "I'm sure everyone in the country's deepest sympathies are with the Snow family." Lucky held a finger to his earpiece, his eyebrow raising as he listened, then continued: "In fact, why tell you how sympathetic we in the Capitol are willing to be- when I could show you...?"
The wide, aerial shot of the Arena on the flatscreen was replaced by a fairly pitiful image of Ale. The boy limped through the maze, dragging his injured foot behind himself and wielded the bloodied, broken spearhead out ahead. Glistening snowfall flowed down from above, collecting on the blood splatters on the ground and the roses on the walls- it's frost yet unable to wholly absorb the red hues of either. Ale appeared to be following the trickled trail of blood snaking down the powdery snow-covered corridor ahead of him when a parachute sank like an anchor through the icy wind directly onto the blood-stained path. The boy from 9 limped forward and removed the silver lid of the half cylinder canister attached to the parachute- revealing a dozen hot, steaming loaves of buttered bread. And another parachute fell beside the first before he was even able to begin chewing the first roll he'd popped into his hungry mouth.
"Lucky boy!" Lucky cocked his head to the side and winked at the camera: "Takes one to know one."
Ale set down the fist-sized spearhead in the snow and stuffed his cheeks with two more bread rolls to free his hands. With a smacking chew he reached over and snapped open the second sponsor box's clasps and unveiled a roll of medical gauze. Ale grimaced with pain slipping off his run-through maroon loafer and revealing the sinewy pit of dark red left in the top of the arch of his foot. With a bit of initial confusion on how to unravel the roll self-adhering gauze, Ale eventually succeeded in pulling a strip of it free. His anguished facial expression melted into instant relief as soon as the wrinkled texture of the bandage touched Ale's wounded foot. The microphones in the Arena began to pick up the boy's joyous hums- once again purring Gem of Panem to himself with a closed mouth as he gleefully wrapped his wound. A third parachute fell a few feet away from Ale a moment later: the largest of any sent into the Arena in the Games this year.
"My, my, my… someone is popular!" Lucky said while Ale was pictured on the screen slipping back on his shoe and eyeing the box holding this third sponsor gift.
The box was shaped like oversized lipstick packaging. A rectangle taller than wider, narrower than thicker, standing propped up rather than lying on its side. And though the winds and snow battered against the tall, dark gray box, it stood firm as if it were drilled into the tile. Ale crossed towards it, his limp already improving as he approached with a cautious optimism. The boy reached a hand out to open the gift only to watch the entire thing unfold around itself. The long faces of the box systematically collapsed to the floor and unveiled a stand holding up a razor edged, golden longsword with a gemstone inlaid hilt.
Tigris looked across at Margaret and Lumen for a reaction. Both were so preoccupied with their communicuffs neither seemed to take notice of Ale on the screen exiting briskly with his sword and bread out of the corridor he was in. Lucky listened to a voice in his earpiece that had him scrambling into the light in front of the camera:
"Strap yourself in folks!" Lucky gestured to the new shot on the screen depicting a less snowy, empty corridor of the maze. "We've got ourselves a battle set to walk around that corner any second now."
Trilene stumbled into the corridor with her bow and quiver of arrows a moment later as promised. Tigris almost gasped at the sight- the girl nearly toppling over with every dragging step she took. Trilene's deep, even skin had soured from its even, umber undertone to a waxen grayish yellow. Her once white Arena dress told the story of her tribulations- splattered and stained with blood, sweat, dried sooty water, sauces, and sludge. The oil flowed from the corners of Trilene's shriveled lips, cried from her unfocused eyes, but leaked most heavily from the dark cavity in her torso. She tripped over her own foot, collapsing against a frosted rose covered wall of the maze. As she struggled to pull herself to her feet, gripping onto the thorny, freezing brambles of flowers against the wall- Trilene noticed Pyrano far down at the end of the same corridor.
The two stood examining one another as frozen as the air around them. Pyrano held his long dagger with a chilling study over Trilene's sickly disposition through the hazy breath hanging in front of his face. Trilene stared blankly on Pyrano's form down the corridor as if she was hallucinating him all together. Pyrano gripped the blade in his hand and began to pace forward. At that moment, Trilene appeared to snap back to reality. She reached behind herself, fumbling to clutch an arrow from the quiver strapped over her shoulder. She eventually managed to pinch one's vaned end as the boy from 5 gradually approached and spasmodically attempted to load the arrow onto the string of her bow.
It was like trying to watch a toddler put a square peg into a round hole. Trilene simply could not get her stuttering fingers and flickering eyes to work together to string up the arrow. It took her several bungling attempts before she managed to slot the notch against the bow string and arduously drew it back to aim at Pyrano. Her bicep shaking too much, Trilene released her draw of the bowstring, inhaled heavily to collect herself, and took aim again. Pyrano walked straight towards her undeterred, his blackened bare feet imprinting in the soft snow as he approached. Trilene exhaled and released the taut string. The arrow soared past Pyrano and missed him by a full meter to his left.
Trilene blew a puff of air out and struggled to reload her bow with another arrow, aiming at Pyrano again with wobbling determination. Trilene spewed speckles of black blood through her gray gritted teeth, the aim of her bow drifting back and forth across Pyrano's encroaching figure, as if she were aiming at three of him. Trilene fired again- the arrow once more completely missing its target with a gap of several feet to his right this time. The poor girl was so spent, but unwilling to give up. She reached back and grabbed another arrow from her quiver as her knees began to buckle. Pyrano came within arm's length of her. Trilene motioned to fix the arrow's notch onto the bowstring, but it appeared not only her opponent was closing in on her, but so was her consciousness. Pyrano reached out and grabbed the arm attempting to draw back the arrow and lowered Trilene to the snowy floor just as her legs gave out.
The convulsive spasms of Trilene's chest and gurgling breaths were too familiar a sight to Tigris now. The girl's eyes darted around wildly; her living body decaying while her heart sputtered and strained to keep itself pumping. Trilene coughed up a viscous slurry of black that splattered back down across her face and Pyrano's thighs as he knelt beside her. The boy from 5 took a finger and curiously wiped up some of the oily splatter on her cheek before holding his slick, blackened finger up to his face to examine its iridescent sheen dribbling down his knuckle. Pyrano pulled a small knapsack off his shoulder, removing the glass bottle he'd stolen from the pair from 11. Trilene's lips spurted another gushing of black venom as she attempted to speak. It took several poison-logged, groveled attempts, but eventually Trilene was able to settle her agonized gaze on Pyrano's dagger and request:
"Kill me."
Pyrano squinted down at Trilene's lips and read the words she murmured. He reached out with his oil-stained hand and dug a finger into the black cavity gored into Trilene's abdomen. Her body seized up with agony while the boy prodded at her exposed, rotting innards with his bare hand. Trilene whimpered as loudly as her body could allow, once more begging the boy to end her suffering while he removed his venom-stained fingers from within her:
"Please…"
The boy from 5's lips twisted into a slant. Pyrano set the dagger down in the snow between himself and Trilene, lowered his sinister glare back down on her, and shook his head back and forth to convey: 'no.'
What followed were the longest hours of the Games thus far. Trilene refused to die- enduring several hours of agonal breathing, convulsive episodes, and the retching up of venom to be collected by Pyrano in his glass before her heart finally gave out. The sun was beginning to set by the time her cannon finally fired. Golden rays of sunlight filtered into the Supra's lounge shining over the image of Trilene's gray corpse being carried into the air by the hovercraft. With his glass jar filled with what looked like a cup of sloshing black void, Pyrano watched the airship above him depart. Then, he made off as well, carrying the jar of poison against his chest into the maze. Lucky was dozing off behind the unstocked bar counter and had to be stirred awake by the cameraman to address Trilene's death.
"Four croaked?" Lucky groaned with sleep in his throat still. He held a finger to his ear, where a voice there must have confirmed it: "Four croaked! Four left!" Lucky pulled himself up and had a production assistant blot the shin from his forehead before he stepped in front of the camera. "Well, ladies and gentlemen, down goes another. And a favorite to win, too! How upsetting. Miss Flannigan, Miss Flannigan- your girl did a spectacular job: fifth out of twenty-four is no small feat. Is there anything you'd like to say on, eh… Trident…? Trident's behalf?"
Margaret did not move from her chair. Tigris checked with her peripheral vision, seeing the woman's pained, dewy-eyed expression fixed downwards and appeared unable to breathe. The Victress from 4 finally took a deep breath, gathering herself before she stood and crossed towards the camera. Taking the spot in the light beside Lucky, Margaret fought back her tears and corrected:
"Trilene. Her name is Trilene." Margaret bit the inside of her cheek and continued on while looking directly into the camera- the grief spilling over as she commemorated: "Trilene… I will never forget you. Your heart, your aim… your sacrifice." Margaret allowed a tear to fall down her face. "And my only hope is… I live long enough to find an ounce of your bravery within myself. Rest easy, sweet girl."
Margaret's chair and communicuff were removed once she'd departed from the lounge. With District 4 now officially out of the Games, it left only Tigris and Lumen to sit with the fiery evening at their backs and the bitterly icy Arena before them. The summer sun baked the back of Tigris' neck, but the Arena seemed to only grow more frigid with every passing moment. Its frozen perimeter crept inwards as the afternoon wore on. The eye of the ice storm appeared to be gradually closing in on the Central Courtyard, as of yet untouched by the snow and cold, still coated in budding blooms of vibrant red. Tigris took in the shot on the screen depicting an aerial view of the Arena. The black cast iron horn at its center, ringed by bands of deep red and then icy gray- a bloodied eye staring back, watching her, too.