Chapter 58
NARRATOR | Violet Chappelle, District 7
My corset is so tight that I can feel my heart in my throat, and it's thumping hard enough to make me sick. Venia and Valentina's theme music blares around me, and all I can do is clench my fists, trying to get the world to stop spinning. I was unconscious in a hospital bed this morning... who thought it was a good idea to make me do this today?
"You're going to be fabulous, Violet," Carina chirps, adjusting my dress. It's a disgusting shade of purple; subtlety is not a strength of my stylists. I can tell that Carina's trying to reassure me, but she's making everything worse. Alma's words still linger in the back of my mind, and I don't know who to trust anymore.
"Fifteen seconds," a man calls from across the room. Carina gasps and yanks me by the arm.
"It's time," she hisses. "Don't forget what we practiced!"
Carina brings me to the edge of the stage; from here, I can see both hosts as they charm the crowd. They're dressed in their typical colors, Venia in green and Valentina in red. Beyond them, the Capitol crowd stretches endlessly; the audience is so large that I can't see the back of the theatre from here.
"Without further ado, please welcome the Victor of the 98th Hunger Games, from District Seven... Violet Chappelle!"
Carina pushes me onto the stage, and I'm blinded by the intense lights. Instinct takes over immediately; I've dreamt of this moment for years, and I've practically rehearsed it in my sleep. I smile at the crowd, offering a confident wave as the hosts rise from their seats to greet me. They spout fake-sounding compliments about my dress, and I repeat the lines I rehearsed - "Valentina, red is your color, you should wear it more often!" - before taking my seat across from the two women.
"Violet, what a pleasure it is to have you here with us after such a spectacular Games," Venia says, nearly blinding me with her smile. Her tone drips with admiration, but her eyes gleam like she's plotting how to rip me apart.
"It's an honor to be here," I respond, turning to grin at the cheering audience. "We all knew I'd be here, though, didn't we?"
"Of course," Valentina laughs. "Now, Violet, you know the drill. Before we hear all about the Games, we must refresh our memories! It's been so long, hasn't it..."
"Yes, of course," Venia chuckles. "Roll the tapes!"
The wall behind me lights up, and I glance back to see a shot of the Arena. The screen is so huge that it feels like I'm back in that damn place, and the thought makes my skin crawl.
The Bloodbath starts before I even have time to think, and I watch as all twenty-four of us are dumped from the sky. The audience cringes as the boy from Five plummets through the treetops, and I have to look away when they show a close-up of his body.
The Bloodbath passes in a blur, but I'm surprised to see Evelyn fighting the girl from Twelve. They struggle over a backpack, and Evelyn reaches to the ground behind her, grabs a knife, and shoves it into the girl's chest. She never told me about that... what else was she hiding from me?
Obviously, my final confrontation with Safira is shown in slow motion, and the crowd cheers loudly as the girl drops to the ground. I look ten feet tall as I stand over Safira's body, her blood dripping from my knife.
When the Bloodbath clears, I see Wyatt crawling away in pathetic fashion, leaving a trail of blood behind him. I reconvene with my allies, picking up supplies as the others enter the Cornucopia.
"Evelyn, I'm scared," I hear Declan say. "I don't know what's gotten into Violet, but it's like this whole thing with Safira... it's consumed her. To harm a dead body like that, it's just sick. What if she does the same thing to us?"
"We don't know what Violet's capable of, but we have to trust her right now, okay?" Evelyn reassures him. "She's our only chance."
The stage lights shine brightly in my eyes, and I can feel thousands of eyes watching my reaction. I try to keep my face steady, but I feel like the chair has been knocked out from beneath me. Everything makes sense now; the glances between Declan and Evelyn, the way they both treated me, it was all because they needed me. They just wanted me to kill everybody else and leave them standing at the end.
Whoever made this recap just wants to see me break, because it feels like every other clip is a jab to my heart. I have a mental breakdown in the treetops with Declan - honestly, I barely remember that happening - and immediately after, I watch as Evelyn berates him for consoling me. Evelyn and Lucas use my brother's death to rile me up; paranoia takes over me, and Evelyn plays me like a fiddle. My face burns with embarrassment, but I try not to show it in my expression. I never realized how much Evelyn took control over me... if she hadn't been injured in that battle, I don't know if I'd be sitting out here.
Every new scene humiliates me more and more. I can't believe that I survived three weeks in the Arena when I truly knew so little. When my alliance attacks Ansel's friends, I watch as Ashlyn instructs Lucas to steal the sapphire from me... were they working together the whole time?
"Don't let Violet take control of these Games," the girl says. "Don't let her take control of you. If you do, she will walk out of here alive and the rest of us will die." I glance at the audience, and they laugh. Looks like I made it out anyway.
And then there's the end. My ax ends up in Ansel's neck, I cut off his arm - it looks insane on-camera, but I needed the bracelet - and kill Corbin. Finally, it's just Wyatt and me, and I make quick work of him. The crowd cheers as the screen goes black.
I take a deep breath, turning back to the audience with a fake smile on my face. Beneath the mask, my mind is spinning. The more I see of the Games, the more discombobulated I get. I have so many questions, and this is not the time or place for answers.
"Violet, you have certainly made your mark on Hunger Games history this year after killing a whopping seven tributes," Venia says, her eyes wide with excitement. "Some analysts argue that this number could be as high as nine depending on how you define it, but who's counting? Tell us: how does it feel to have achieved this impressive feat?"
My thoughts are moving in a million different directions, and I have to clench my fists to stop myself from lashing out. Remember what Alma told you.
"I'm honored, but it was a difficult thing to do," I tell them. "All those children had families, and I know what it's like to lose someone you love. In the Arena, I let myself go crazy, and I'm sorry to those who I hurt."
The crowd laughs as if I'm joking. "Very humble," Valentina jokes. "But really, Violet, you have made history. Seven is a large number - we haven't seen anything like that in many years!"
"I'm happy to be making history," I smile, unsure of what else to say. "But I'm not proud of everything I did in the Arena. The person I was in there... I let my emotions get the best of me."
Alma's advice is echoing through my head, and I still don't know what to make of it. I feel like every word I say is the wrong one.
"Okay," Valentina sighs, repositioning herself in her seat. "Let's just talk between us, then. I know the audience makes us nervous sometimes."
The crowd laughs as Venia turns her head, covering her face with her cards and pretending to disappear.
"You told us before the Games began how hard you worked to be here, Violet. You told us that you trained for years to bring justice for your brother. Aren't you proud that all that hard work paid off? Wasn't it worth it to know that you outlasted your competitors when so many of them wanted you dead?"
When so many of them wanted you dead.
They all did want me to fail, didn't they? Every person I thought I could trust in that Arena played me like a fool so that I'd do their dirty work for them. Looking back, I never had a single person on my side, and yet I still prevailed.
"Of course I'm proud," I spit before I can stop myself. "We saw what my competitors said about me behind my back. All of them wanted to use me for their own gain, and then they all wanted to see me fail. Well, I worked five damn years to get here, and yes, my hard work paid off. I avenged my brother, Safira Holland is dead-"
The crowd roars, but I'm so intensely angry that I barely register the sound in the back of my mind.
"Her family destroyed mine, and I had to repay the favor. And the rest... it's the Hunger Games. Twenty-three have to die so that one can live. Clearly, as we saw in the recap, everybody was counting on me to do the killing for them. Seven was low considering that fact."
"Low!" Venia gasps, peeking over her cards. "You'd go higher than seven?"
"Easily," I say, feeling my old confidence surging through me. "Verity is lucky I didn't get my hands on her, and Evelyn... well, she got what she deserved in the end, even if I didn't know it at the time."
"Speaking of Evelyn, let's talk about the tributes who were on your side," Valentina says, changing the subject. "At least on paper. Evelyn, Declan, and Lucas. An unlikely group, that's for sure."
"We heard what they had to say about you behind your back," Venia smiles. "Do you think it was fair for them to be afraid of you, or should they have been more trusting?"
"They should've been more afraid," I bite. "They should've gotten away while they had the chance. Now I know the truth, that they manipulated me to do what they wanted. And they all got what they deserved. I wish I'd killed Evelyn while I had the chance; I only left her to the wolves because I felt nice, but clearly, she didn't deserve it."
The crowd seems shocked by my harsh words, but I don't care. My blood feels like it's about to boil out of my ears, and I can hardly think straight. The people who I trusted the most, the minions who I thought were mindless shields, were working against me the whole time. I thought I'd executed the perfect strategy: accumulate mindless allies, use them as meat shields, and cruise to Victory. Only now do I realize how close my plan was to falling apart.
"Now, before we let you go, Violet, we need to talk about Ansel," Venia says, and the crowd cheers. "The relationship between the two of you was so interesting to watch; you were District partners, and yet it all ended with your ax in his neck. Where did everything go wrong?"
"When he took Safira's side over me," I say, because that's the obvious answer. As soon as I knew that Safira had won him over, I knew I could never trust him again.
"Really?" Valentina asks. "No resentment from home, no years-long feud?"
The audience laughs, and I can't help but smile at her banter. "No feud," I sigh. "We just... ended up on the wrong side of things, I guess. We did know each other back in Seven, and I never thought everything would end the way it did. But that's the way things go."
For a second, I'm lost in thoughts of the old days. It feels like a lifetime ago when Ansel and I were in school, growing up together... He was the boy all the other girls were obsessed with, kind and smart all in one. When my brother was killed in the Games, he brought me a basket of pastries from the bakery in town. We never saw each other outside of school, though, so when I dropped out I disconnected from that world completely.
What would twelve-year-old Violet think, if she saw me now? What would she think if she knew Ansel Voltaire would die at her hands?
"Well, it's certainly been a while since we saw a tribute kill their District partner," Venia remarks. "Especially with four tributes left in the Games."
"But that's what a true winner is made of," Valentina adds with a grin. "Ladies and gentlemen, Violet Chappelle from District Seven!"
The crowd roars as I stand, and I do my best to avoid tripping on my dress as I'm ushered off-stage. Alma, Lila, and Carina are waiting backstage when I arrive.
"What a star," Carina gasps, cradling my face. "That was... perfect!"
Everything happened so fast that I hardly remember what I said on stage. The adrenaline, paired with everything I just saw from the Games, makes me feel like I'm about to pass out.
"I don't feel good," I sigh, grabbing Carina's arm for support. "It feels like I've been hit by a train."
"That's normal, dear," Lila says. "Take a breath."
I try to close my eyes and breathe, but it feels like the ground is being pulled away from beneath my feet. Everything I saw on that screen is making my brain hurt, and I don't know what to believe anymore.
"The escorts were dying backstage," Carina babbles. "You could have your own show, Violet, really..."
I couldn't care less what Carina thinks about my performance; the only person I care about is Alma, especially after her cryptic warnings earlier. I turn to my mentor, and the look on her face stops me in my tracks. All I can see is deep, cutting disappointment; there's pain in her gaze, but I still can't quite decipher it.
"The train back to Seven leaves in the morning," she says simply, her voice curt. "Let's get some rest."
A/N - Well, Violet definitely said some things, that's for sure lol
This chapter isn't my absolute best work so sorry for that, the writing is a little all over the place but I think Violet's thoughts are all over the place too so it fits hopefully? I had to rewrite a lot of it after switching creative directions midway through lol
But Violet's interview is done! How do we think the Districts will react, especially District Seven? Coming up is Violet's Victory Tour and then it'll be time to wrap up this long adventure.
And Happy New Year! Sending my love for 2025 (and beyond for any later readers)!
~S