Chapter 30:

Tigris shuddered. As if her chilled shiver changed the scene, the shot on the screen switched to the Manticore. Judge still rode atop the creature straddling its neck and gripping onto its uneven horns before him to steady himself. Snowflakes stuck to the boy's eyelashes and the beast's mane as the Manticore brought both further into the blizzard.

"I hope he wins." Lumen said.

"Me too." Tigris replied.

"What will you do with the prize money if he does?" Lumen asked.

Tigris considered this. It was a real possibility now. Only three other tributes stood between Judge's victory. She'd thought she was initially unable to answer because she wanted so much- too many things, and places, and parties, and clothes, and cars. And as Tigris poised her lips to answer so, she recognized she wanted none of it. She just wanted Judge to live. But that's not what Lumen had asked, so Tigris answered:

"Move."

"Where?" Lumen asked. "Downtown?"

"Further." Tigris replied: "What about you? What will you do if Pyrano lives?"

"Die." Lumen immediately exhaled. "Okay, that's dramatic. I'd probably do the same as you… move someplace else. Probably uptown or in the arts district."

"Here? You don't want to move to the Capitol." Tigris warned.

"I always have. And If Pyrano wins, he won't just be coming back to 5- he'll be moving in next door to me in the Victor's Village." Lumen explained.

"You'd be safer sharing a zip code with Pyrano than having your average Capitol citizen for a neighbor." Tigris replied, focusing coldly on the screen ahead of them.

"You know what's in 5?" Lumen asked.

Tigris thought, then shook her head, not knowing what he could be referring to.

"Me either." Lumen shrugged. "I know Capitol Letters is a TV show. You said it's not real and I said you were right but now I actually don't know. I get they are actors. It's a script. They are saying lines. But whoever wrote those words clearly understood love. Tigris, people don't talk like that or feel things like that back home. People in 5 drink and work and just try to forget they're alive. I've done too much and fought too hard to forget I am too." Lumen shivered, clasping his hands in his lap to comfort himself.

"Lumen… a hard question I have had to ask myself is- what if it really was all just made up? Just one very big, beautiful, poetic lie? Have you been paying attention to the show we've been actually watching?" Tigris gestured to the screen. "This is reality. Capitol Letters was a drama. I don't know if there can be true love here."

"There's love everywhere." Lumen replied meekly. "Zagros and you proved that to me. The difference is there is privilege here, too…"

"Listen, if you have any hopes of genuine peace and happiness…" Tigris turned away from Lumen, looking towards the screen. "Just hope you'll be lucky enough to go back home at all."

Tigris turned back to the screen to watch Judge and the Manticore enter into a new ice beaten corridor within the maze. The beast took deep whiffs of the frozen air, examining the scent of the corridor beyond before sinking its talons into the deepening carpet of powdery snow with a careful step forward. The screen cut away to another camera angle of the same snowy corridor- the shot showing Pyrano crouched behind a boulder of marble lying against the frozen wall of the ice covered roses. The boy from 5 peered around the large chunk of glittering white stone and caught sight of the muttation's glowing silhouette through the blizzard's haze.

The Manticore reinitiated its calm strut forward, inspecting the air with its snout after every step it took towards Pyrano's hiding spot. Behind the marble boulder, Pyrano set his jar of black liquid into the snow between his knees, twisted open its lid, and began dipping his hands into the sludge. Collecting black puddles of liquid in his palms, the boy from 5 began lathering up his face with the ooze. Tigris could practically smell its acrid scent and feel the tingling sting of the poison on her skin through the screen. The Manticore trotted up to Pyrano's hidden location just as he finished lathering himself with half of the jar's viscous, black syrup. Judge's Arena uniform was still as white and unmarred as the fresh falling snow. And though the boy from 5's blackened figure stood out quite visibly to the cameras, the Manticore seemed oblivious to Pyrano's proximity as it stopped to sniff the air beside the marble boulder. Judge surveyed his surroundings, his gaze drifting to the side, and made eye contact with Pyrano.

The two examined one another silently. The Manticore took a second deeper inhale of the snowy air, oblivious to Pyrano's presence. Judge's mouth twisted into a slanted, half frown- biting down onto his bottom lip. For the first time, Tigris saw Pyrano emote something other than something sinister or apathetic. He was truly afraid. The same expression reflected on Judge's face in that next instant, turning his chin forward and gently kicking at the Manticore's shoulder. The beast responded to the loafer's nudge by obediently striding off with Judge clinging to its back as if his trained steed, leaving Pyrano like a shivering blackened shadow against the glistening white marble.

Zizania was shown next on the screen- though you could hardly tell anyone was in the shot at all. The only girl left in the Arena was fairly obscured by the bitter, ice laden winds swirling around her. Carrying her point-less spear pole in one hand and the platinum knife in the other, Zizania turned back over her shoulder and studied the tracks in the snow she'd left. She dropped the spear pole to the ground, using the knife to reopen the scabbing slash across her palm. Blood began flowing down Zizania's fingers as she took back up the spear and pressed on into the storm- holding her hand out to allow the blood drops to deliberately highlight her path deeper into the maze.

Ale was pictured next following the same trail of blood droplets in the snow, his limp having given way to a robust jog. He pointed at the splatters of dark red in the snow with his golden longsword to guide his way through the cold haze of the blizzard raging around him. He pressed on quicker and rounded a corner deeper into the maze, failing to notice the Manticore silently prowling into the empty corridor after him, hungrily sniffing at the same blood trail in the snow he'd been following.

Zizania wiped her slashed palm onto one of the final spots of white remaining on her blood-soaked dress as she came to a frozen, dead end of the maze. The girl dropped both of her weapons to the snow, allowing her long, ginger hair to fall loose as she reached back and pulled out the red ribbon tying it up. The strip of fabric flowed out from her fist with the bloody waterfall that dripped from her bruised knuckles. Zizania turned and put her back against the dead end, sliding down to a sitting position between the spear pole and the platinum knife. Then, her blood-slick fingers began to wrap the unraveled ribbon's length around the hilt of the silvery white knife and the end of the broken spear pole, joining them into one weapon.

Ale entered into the dead-end corridor the same moment Zizania finished fastening the platinum blade to the spear pole's end. A wrathful grin spread across his lips. Ale raised his golden sword and began to charge. The boy's loafers pounded against the snow with powdery explosions of white. Tigris' heart was thumping with every bounding step he took. Zizania leaned back and rested her head against the frozen rosebuds, cocking her neck to the side as she squinted into the icy fog and swirling light beyond Ale in the corridor. The girl gripped the length of the spear in both of her hands, wedging its blunt end into the right angle where the wall of the maze met the floor.

Ale seemed undeterred by the silvery blade fixed to the end of the spear being pointed at his heart even as it began to glow. Zizania held firm in her seated position, maintaining her double handed grip on the makeshift weapon out in front of her as the wind, storm, and boy all barreled down towards her. Then, he was on her. Ale leapt at Zizania. She thrust the spear up and closed her eyes- directing the platinum knife tip past the boy. Ale motioned to bring the sword down onto Zizania, but he was impaled through the skull with a spiraling, black horn from behind before he got the chance.

'BOOM!'

The girl from 9 opened her eyes- the splintered end of the beast's broken left horn mere inches from her forehead. The full length of the beast's right horn was skewered clean through Ale's cranium and embedded beside Zizania's face into the crisp frozen rose buds behind her. Ale's limp fingers dropped the golden sword to the snow. The Manticore fell back as well, the dead boy from 9's body sliding off its horn as it did so. Zizania watched wide eyed as the spear pole she held in her grip slid out of the Manticore's chest with only a blackened, venom slick ribbon still wrapped around its end.

The beast roared in agony, rearing back and tumbling over itself. Tigris heard the crushing blow of wind being knocked from Judge as he was thrown off the Manticore to the snowy floor. Then, the beast collapsed over top of him. Tigris stood up from her seat in a panic at the same moment Zizania scrambled to her feet on the screen. Had Judge just been crushed? Tigris held her breath and waited for the cannon. Zizania was not as patient or curious- promptly snatching up the golden longsword from the expanding pool of bloody snow beside Ale's corpse and dashing around the fallen beast and back out the corridor.

Tigris watched the Manticore's fur sputter and cough with faded, colored light as it lay prone in the snow. She found herself praying to the stars above that the creature hadn't finally managed to kill Judge. The Manticore's large black eyes blinked open and its chest rose and fell sharply. Tigris' prayers were answered as a pale sleeved arm jutted out from under the beast's still body. With apparent grueling effort, the Manticore appeared to use a final surge of strength to lift its head and Judge dragged himself out from under the creatures' collapsed body, gasping for breath.

The boy from 1 crawled around to the Manticore's face as it labored to draw breaths into its body. Judge sat down before the Manticore's fading dark gaze, its leathery eyelids blinking languidly up at him. Judge reached out and placed a palm on the Manticore's forehead and caressed the fur there to comfort it. An iridescent tear slid from the Manticore's eye as the vibrant colors began to spill out from Judge's touch. The beast's face was enveloped in spectacularly colorful veins of light. The slow-motion lightning's variegated glow washed over Judge and the white canvas of snowfall around them. The prismatic show spread across the Manticore's mane, over its torso, and down its willowy legs until the creature appeared to glow as bright as a pulsar of rainbow light. Then, its bubbling colors began to melt, bubble, and dissolve into a nebulous vapor, sublimating from solid to gas to nothing at all.

Judge sat alone in snow then. An impression of the beast formed a Manticore shaped cavity in the snow where a sparkling mist swirled. A tear fell from Judge's cheek as he reached down into the glimmering fog and drew out the platinum knife sitting within the snowy indentation. Judge stared at the blade for a long beat in his grip, the emotion there as unclear as Tigris had ever read on the boy. He wasn't scared or confused. Not even cold or jaded. Tigris studied Judge- recognizing his expression as it was reflected off the silvery sheen of the knife and understood. The boy was simply ready for all this to end, no matter how.

"And then there were three!" Lucky cheered into the camera lens, his image replacing Judge on the screen. "Tune in tomorrow for the grand finale! And be sure to get your dry cleaning done on time for the after party at the Presidential Palace. Dress code for the Charity Ball is 'Every Rose…!'" Lucky cooed.

Tigris slid her bag over her shoulder and crossed to exit the lounge. She had to get back to 74 Cominia and her collection before the pieces could be transported to the Palace. Tigris felt such awful contradictory desires- wanting to show her art to the world just as fiercely as she wanted to see it go up in flames. She understood the near obliteration of Cominia was a wildly impulsive and traumatized plan. If she couldn't have it, no one could- Tigris internally berated herself with how violently selfish she'd almost been just to spite Coriolanus. Had she not nearly done precisely what Appius had warned: debased herself enough to stoop to their standards of destruction? The worry was only reflected further when Tigris opened the lounge's door to exit and was greeted by Coriolanus' sulking face staring back at her like a mirror.

"Cuz…" Coriolanus let a tear fall from his eye, his expression so cold Tigris was surprised it didn't turn to an icicle against his cheek.

Tigris recognized the role he was playing- and so played hers as well. She reached out and wrapped her arms around Coriolanus as he wept into her shoulder.

"Corio, I am so sorry." Tigris tenderly rubbed his back and tried her best not to allow her screaming suspicions into her tone: "Livia wouldn't want you to cry." Tigris almost made herself snort with how untrue she knew that would be. "You have to be strong for Vicky now."

"I don't know how to tell her." Coriolanus replied. "I don't know how to admit it to myself that Livia is gone."

Tigris's corneas itched to roll her eyes at this comment. She had to blink it away before her facial expression exposed her true thoughts, tactically making the offer:

"How about I do it?" Tigris asked. "I'll tell Vicky. I told you I could babysit... I'll figure out a way to break the news to her."

Coriolanus didn't even think about it for a half second before he replied:

"That'd be such a relief if you could manage that."

Coriolanus dipped his hand into an interior breast pocket of his coat and handed Tigris a key to his apartment. He nodded at her with a guilty sheepishness, biting down on his lips as he crossed past the threshold and into the lounge. Lumen looked up to face Coriolanus as he approached, both offering one another congenial, if not rather robotic greetings. Tigris hovered at the door but caught sight of Coriolanus' disapproving peripheral glance and so promptly departed into the elevator.

Tigris made her way to the Snow family's high-rise condominium building and took the lightning-fast elevator ride to the level where the Snow's unit was located. She used the key to open the door to the condo. The overhead lights dimmed, and the space mostly lit by the television's blaring white noise screen in the living room. Tigris followed the hissing sound and scattered light bouncing off the walls until she came into the den where the television was. She leaned down and pressed the off button, silencing and darkening the screeching static screen. In the black reflection, Tigris saw the glint of the knife behind her.

Tigris twisted around to see the silhouette of her niece standing in the hall with a kitchen knife about as long as the child's arm itself. Frozen with fear- Tigris' voice cracked as she called out to the stone-faced girl:

"…Victoria?"

As if the sound of her name had lit a fuse, Vicky raised the knife and charged forwards. Tigris stumbled backwards over a potted plant in her fright- her fall indirectly avoiding the first slice Vicky took at her with the knife. Tigris leapt to her feet, hollering desperately for Victoria to stop. The little girl blocked the way to the apartment's exit with her blade. Tigris was forced down the hall where she pushed through the last open door there and into Vicky's powder pink bedroom. She was cornered as Vicky came erupting into the room after her. Tigris yelped, tripping over a pastel shag rug on the floor and landing in a pile of toys and unwrapped party gifts. Vicky loomed over Tigris with the knife and was ready to stab down onto her when Tigris reached out to grab the first thing she could to block the blow- a white, stuffed tiger plushie:

"Kitty!" Vicky chirped.

Tigris felt the toy be snatched from her hands and opened her eyes to see Vicky's bloodthirsty deadpan melt into the familiar sweet smile. Vicky clutched the toy to her chest, staring into its plastic eyes and scratching the space between them. Tigris breathed out with a shaking, sweet tone to maintain Vicky's sudden placidity:

"Victoria- do you know where the other kitty is?"

"She's dead. I saw." Vicky pleasantly replied. "Come see her blood!"

Tigris watched the girl go bouncing out of the room, leaving her alone in the pile of half-opened birthday gifts. Tigris began shoveling through the presents, searching for that crimson wrapping paper. And she eventually found the dark red foil within the pile- torn apart in two, with no VHS tape to be found.

"This way, Auntie Tigris!" Vicky's little voice called from the master bedroom.

Tigris stood and followed her call down the hall and into Coriolanus and Livia's room. She pursued Vicky into the walk-in closet and up to the safe set against its back wall. The bay window had been replaced and showed an even clearer image of the city through its brand new panes- all the little lights in the skylines windows the closest thing the Capitol could get to a starry night. Tigris looked down to see little Vicky attempting to push aside the large, black steel safe probably ten times her weight. Tigris knelt down and helped the girl push the heavy metal box aside until it toppled over with a thud and uncovered a small door against the wall.

The threshold looked just large enough for a fully grown adult to squeeze their shoulders through, but not much larger. Tigris looked back at Vicky, who reached out, took a hold of the little knob, and pulled the door open. The pungent scent of burning plastic poured out as strong as the strange red lighting that flooded out with it. She knew the old adage about curiosity- but as far as Tigris was concerned, that cat was already dead. So, she lowered her head and crawled through the compact doorway and into the space beyond. Tigris' palms tingled against the sticky floor and eyes burned in the acidic, stagnant air as they adjusted to the dim, red room. The first thing that materialized against the darkness as her eyes focused were the symbols.

The cryptic language of conjoined and mutated numbers and characters were scrawled on papers plastering the black splattered walls and a low ceiling. Tigris studied the writings scrawled across the walls: the clean, neat curling penmanship was far too feminine to belong to Coriolanus. A haggard counter scored and gouged with fizzing blotches of oil ran against the length of the wall opposite the door. Laid out on its surface was a shallow, silvery pan of black poison. Tigris' eyes adjusted fully by this point but strained to open them completely as the stinging air assaulted her senses. A wrinkled sheet of paper pinned on the wall captured Tigris' attention, where she noticed the translations of complete words that were actually legible to her:

"Manticore… plasma… harvest… platinum… pure… children…"

'When I was a babe I fell down in the holler…'

Tigris' blood ran cold as the faint, but familiar sounds of some girl's lovely singing voice and acoustic strumming leaked into the small, red room.

'When I was a girl I fell into your arms.

We fell on hard times and we lost our bright color.

You went to the dogs and I lived by my charms.'

Tigris crawled out through the little doorway back into the closet- unsure if the fumes had her hallucinating the long lost, forgotten tune.

'I danced for my dinner, spread kisses like honey.

You stole and you gambled and I said you should.

We sang for our suppers, we drank up all our money.

Then one day you left, saying I was no good.'

Tigris pulled the door closed and pushed the safe back upright as it had been. She crossed out of the closet and into the hall, the song drifting down the hall growing more clear as Tigris approached.

'Well, alright, I'm bad, but then, you're no prize either.

Alright, I'm bad, but then, that's nothing new.

You say you won't love me, I won't love you neither.

Just let me remind you who I am to you.'

Tigris entered into the den where Vicky sat cross-legged before the television between the tiger plushie to her left and the kitchen knife to her right. The ruffles of the girl in the rainbow dress on the screen flitted and bobbed along with Vicky's head as she listened to the ballad. Tigris was sucked into the past in the blink of a teary eye- a single drop falling down her cheek as she slowly crossed towards the television completely transfixed by the performance all over again.

'Cause I am the one who looks out when you're leaping.

I am the one who knows how you were brave.

And I am the one who heard what you said sleeping.

I'll take that and more when I go to my grave.'

Tigris knelt down to Vicky's right side, gently sliding the knife away behind herself and out of view. The girl's voice was still just as lovely as she'd remembered, the lyrics just as heartbreaking, too. Tigris realized she'd not witnessed such genuine art since she'd listened to this song for the first and last time all those years ago. She'd have listened to this girl sing everyday if she could. And as the song progressed, Tigris began to weep, but not from any melody or tone. But from what she knew she had to do to the song. And what she had to do to the girl all over again.

'It's sooner than later that I'm six feet under.

It's sooner than later that you'll be alone.

So, who will you turn to tomorrow, I wonder?

For when the bell rings, lover, you're on your own.'

Tigris would listen to the melodic grief of this girl just this one last time. And then she would destroy her like Coriolanus needed. This girl who survived so much, who deserved so much more than she won, who was not just so great the way Tigris always dreamed of being, but was also so, very good- would have to die once and for all. She knew Coriolanus would not allow both of them to live and she had to make a choice. But, as she listened on, the lyrics challenged Tigris' convictions with every note.

'I am the one who you let see you weeping.

I am the one who knows how you were brave.

Too bad I'm the bet that you lost in the reaping.

Now, what will you do when I go to my grave?'

The song ended and Lucy Gray Baird took a sad, curtsying bow of her rainbow ruffles. Tigris' trembling hand hovering over the VHS tape recorder's receiver below the television screen. But, as the television went black, and before it switched to display a shot of the 10th Games opening countdown in the Capitol Arena, Tigris once again saw a figure reflected in the screen behind her. And before she could turn to confront the faceless form, it was squeezing the life out of her.

'60, 59, 58, 57…'

Tigris gripped at the tightening sensation constricting around her throat. She couldn't even tell what she was being wrapped around her neck, let alone who was doing it. The air in Tigris' windpipe beat against her closed airway, desperately trying to force a breath out or in. Neither was possible.

'45, 44, 43, 42, 41…'

Tigris' bloodshot eyes screamed at Vicky who still sat beside her unmoving. The child looked back up with a blank expression fixed on whatever person was garroting Tigris from behind. Tigris attempted to ask the child for help but could not force the air through her crushed throat to do so. Her vision began to fade.

'29, 28, 27, 26, 25…'

Tigris reached back but couldn't get a grip on the person behind her. All her fingers found was the extra length of the pale-yellow scarf that was being used to strangle her. Tigris let go and reached back again towards the floor, feeling for the kitchen knife as her hands began to twitch and go numb.

'14, 13, 12, 11, 10…'

Tigris fingers found the handle of the knife as the countdown entered into the single digits. She gripped the blade and tried to take a stab at her assailant behind her but between the angle and asphyxiation, the blade completely missed its target. As her sense of sight began to be closed in on by a hazy, black vignette- Tigris' fingers slipped into unconsciousness first, dropping the knife to the carpet beside her.

'5, 4, 3, 2, 1…'

The last thing Tigris saw in the silver reflection of the kitchen knife on the floor was Ada Jane's face contorted in a monstrous snarl and gripping the ends of the scarf around her throat. Then, Tigris heard a gong before she was swallowed by a void of glimmering, rainbow stars.