![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
[Fic] Still I Rise (1/3)
Title: Still I Rise
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mizzy2k
Fandom: The Hunger Games
Type: AU
Word Count: 20,100
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: The Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins. The poem "Still I Rise" was written by Maya Angelou. None of it belongs to me.
Characters/Pairings: Katniss, Katniss/Peeta
Warnings: It's a Hunger Games fic - major character death.
Summary:
Katniss didn't use the proper protocol for volunteering to take Prim's place. Her plea was denied. So Katniss has no choice. No one has ever broken out of the Hunger Games arena before... ...but maybe Katniss can be the first to break in.
You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Still I Rise - Maya Angelou
It's one o'clock on Reaping Day, and because I'm not at death's door, I'm with the rest of District 12 as we head for the square. No one likes that the Reaping is drawn in the square. It's the nicest place District 12 has.
The Capitol try to - pun aside - capitalize on the sometime-holiday feel of the place, sending bright banners for the District to string up around the shops, and the place should be cheerful, but it's not. We all know what's about to happen, and there has never been a Reaping that has given any sort of cause for cheer.
Around the banners are dotted the camera crew, each camera lenses glinting like a predator's gaze, bright and unflinching. Looking down at us all. I already know what we look like to them, because they show these shots when they televise the Reapings. Sometimes, out in the woods, I pull up rocks, looking for insects to populate our snares, and sometimes beneath the rocks there's a crowd of ants, huddling together. It could be so easy to stomp on them with one foot, massacring them.
I know this is what District 12 looks like to the Capitol.
Everyone's silent. Once a year at school there's a festival, halfway between the Hunger Games. It was probably started a few decades ago to coincide with some Victor's Tour or other. Maybe even way back in the early single digit Hunger Games when District 12 scored its first winner. It's not a huge festival and there's not the fanciest feast in the world, but everyone brings what they can and we - the school children, the pool of potential tributes - dance for them. Old time dances.
My mother calls them country dances and our teacher calls them square dances and I'm good enough at the rhythm and co-ordination - but for the last couple of years I've been in the chorus, plugged away singing some monotone, Capitol-approved melody. I inherited more than just survival and hunting skills from my father, but I don't like to sing too loud. It doesn't do to stand out in District 12, especially when your survival requires on hugging the shadows and breaking more than enough laws.
I've never liked the festival, but I don't say anything to anyone - except to Gale. He hates it too. Anything that was created for the Capitol's amusement loses any kind of joy it might have to us.
Filing to the square for the Reaping is just like the dances for the festival. Everyone knows the steps. Everyone files in and does what they're supposed to without chatter or conversation.
The festival doesn't feel as quiet or as stifling as the Reaping does.
Just like the dancing, we're sorted by age for the Reaping. I follow the other sixteen year olds into our roped-off area. Behind me, Prim will be in her section near the back. It's especially bad when a twelve-year old is drawn. Their walk of despair is the longest. The family members lined up around the perimeter have a longer time to stare in horror at the awful reminder of what the Capitol takes from them, year after year. Our mother is in there somewhere. Alone.
Everyone feels sick.
Everyone is silent.
Everyone's thinking the same thing: Not them, not me, not me.
No one's thinking what they should be thinking, me included, even though every other day of the year the thought is clear: the Capitol is to blame for this.
It's not easy to ignore the racketeerers as they slip around the crowd, especially when I hear my name on a random wisp of wind. The racketeers will silence soon.
They do silence as Mayor Undersee, standing on the temporary stage in front of the Justice Building, begins his usual spiel on the rules and history of the Hunger Games. I tune out and think, of the twenty slips of paper with my name, of Gale and his forty-two slips of paper. I wonder who it is has the unenviable job of writing all the names down on the slips of paper in the small, careful handwriting. I wonder if their hand wavered over any of the names. I wonder if they cried.
I don't wonder about Prim's name on one small, neat slip of paper.
I'm distracted as the mayor intones that it is time for repentence and thanks, and lists the District 12 Victors of the past. The first is dead. The second staggers into his seat, hollering something unintelligible. Haymitch Abernathy. Paunchy, middle-aged and completely drunk as he tries to give District 12 presenter - Effie Trinket - a hug.
I clap along with the rest of District 12, even though Mayor Undersee looks distressed at how bad District 12 now looks to the rest of Panem. District 12 usually ends up as the laughingstock of the Games - last year, the two tributes were paraded around naked but for coal dust before the Games. Weak and underfed, District 12 tributes rarely stood a chance.
And when they did get a chance, they ended up just like Haymitch: broken, incoherent, a District-wide embarrassment.
"Happy Hunger Games!" Effie Trinket tries to trill, in her pink and green ridiculous clothes. "And may the odds be ever in your favor!" I resist the urge to mouth along with the words, the words I was mocking with Gale only a few hours ago. My stomach pinches. Between us, Gale and I have 62 slips of papers in the giant glass balls. It's difficult to find anything to laugh at; even Effie's slightly askew pink wig from Haymitch's lecherous drunk advances can only raise the smallest hint of a smirk on my face.
I look across to find Gale, to see how he's reacting to this day. He's as amused as I am; roughly translated as, not very amused at all. But one has to try and find the humour somewhere in situations like this, or... Well, it's been several years since someone fainted during the Reaping, and I still can't erase the memory of the blood from my mind.
The Peacekeepers are not kind to anyone who causes a scene.
Effie is going on about the honour of drawing for District 12, and what an excellent history we have, but maybe Gale's thinking of the number of slips we both have too, because he can't hold my gaze for long.
"But there are still thousands of slips," I repeat to herself, silently, mouth not even moving, wishing Gale could hear my invisible words, and then it's time for the drawing.
"Ladies first!" Effie trills, and canters across the temporary stage to the glass ball with the girls' names in. The stage creaks. Everything sounds ominous on Reaping day, but I don't step back automatically. On Reaping day, it doesn't feel wrong to want to die quickly before someone else can decide what your fate is.
Then I'm not thinking about death or the fact that crowd has gone so unnaturally still and silent that it feels like you could drop the whole District and everything would shatter into pieces or anything about Gale's forty-two strips of paper at all.
I'm only thinking of my own twenty strips. I'm only thinking not me, not me, not me as fast and as hard as I can, as Effie takes the paper back to the podium. Effie straightens the paper and reads out the name in a clear voice.
There's a horrifyingly sick moment where I feel relief, bubbling, acidic relief when the first sound out of Effie's ridiculously plumped, pink mouth isn't K - it isn't me! my brain is singing - until I realise that the rest of the syllables spell out something worse than Katniss Everdeen.
Prim Rose Ev Er Deen.
It takes a horrifyingly long moment for the syllables to make sense in my brain, for them to pull together into something cohesive, and Prim - shaking, brave, despairing Prim - is already halfway up her Path of Doom before my brain kicks in and spells out the horrifying truth:
PRIMROSE EVERDEEN.
The only thing that makes my life worth living, that gives my life any sort of meaning at all, and the Capitol are trying to feed her to some senseless meat machine. A thousand memories of the televised Hunger Games crash through my brain like some awful montage: blood, decapitation, betrayal, explosions, pain.
It's too much.
Prim's face is ghost white. Her little body is tight and stiff. The crowd must be murmuring their disapproval but I can barely hear anything past the horrifying thudding of my heart. It is only the sight of Prim's blouse working free, making a ducktail, that makes my lungs work again.
"Prim!" My voice sounds like a strangled death cry. "Prim!" I move forwards, pushing my elbows up, anticipating a fight through the crowd, but they part effortlessly, like this is one of those rehearsed movements - but it's just en masse guilt, sympathy, relief that it's not them.
With no obstacles in my path, I reach Prim before she even gets to the steps. I sweep out with one arm, pushing Prim firmly behind me. "I volunteer!" I yell, the words forming before I can even recognize the desperate emotion coursing through me, the voice that's screaming through my blood that only says not Prim not Prim NOT PRIM NOT PRIM.
I haul in a deeper, more desperate breath, even as two Peacekeepers move in to try and hold me back. "I volunteer as tribute!"
There is instant chaos on stage. The two Peacekeepers keep me restrained. I keep my face upturned towards the stage, desperate.
"Oh," says Effie Trinket, because this is all-but unprecedented for District 12, because volunteering and suicide are great friends in any District 12 thesaurus. "Oh, um. No, this is quite against protocol, I'm afraid. I must introduce the Reaping winner before asking for any volunteers to come forth. Interrupting the protocol, well- Oh, District 4 was the last one this happened to. I'm afraid because you have interrupted, you are no longer eligible to volunteer."
"Now, come on," the mayor starts to say, "what does it matter?"
Prim stumbles forward again, and turns to look at me, horror on her small face.
My heart tumbles hard in my chest. Everything inside of me starts to crumble, and I start to scream, pushing and fighting. It's unclear whose hysterical screams are louder - Prim or mine.
Effie makes some sort of gesture to the Peacekeepers, and the last thing I see is Prim's wide, screaming mouth.
When I wake up, there's some sort of wet cloth on my head. My head's pounding, but I try to sit up regardless. It only takes a few seconds for my memories to make sense again.
Sense. I want to laugh, that crazy outlandish laughter that tastes like acid and colours the sky to dust. I don't think anything's going to make sense ever again.
"Prim!" My brain might be numb but my body hasn't tired of shouting Prim's name. It rips out of me like a gunshot, and thinking that word burns, because a gunshot, a gunshot is merciful compared to the arena. A terrible kind of mercy that's denied my Prim. I shout again, but my skull feels like it's splitting apart; I push my palms into the sides of my head, as if pushing might make the world come back to pain-free focus again. Prim, Prim. Maybe the world will never be pain-free again.
I can feel my heart pounding through my hands.
It takes me a while to realise where I am. The sleek furniture, the smell of roses. It's exactly how Madge smells. My stomach twists in hope. The mayor's house is usually where they hold the tributes until their family can come to say goodbye. Maybe when I was unconscious, they the Mayor spoke up for me and let me replace Prim.
The door opens and I lift my head out of my hands immediately. It's Mayor Undersee and his face already tells me all I need to know.
He doesn't even try and fight me off when I hurl myself at him. I scratch his face in the chaos but I am unco-ordinated and all energy has left my body. Prim, my Prim. No.
"I'm sorry, Katniss. I'm so sorry," he mutters into my hair as I sink against him. My eyes are cold now. I will not weep. Not until Prim is gone. I will be strong for her, when I get to see her. I will show her how she has to present herself to the sponsors. She's a weak candidate in the eyes of any sponsors as it is; tears and fear will only make it worse.
I back away from the mayor, my eyes like fire. I might even have done him more violence if Madge hadn't taken this moment to step into the room.
She doesn't try and touch me. She doesn't say any hollow words of comfort. It is only now, in this moment, that I realise maybe Madge and I have been friends all along without really knowing. I feel comfort from her silence, and that makes me angrier.
I don't deserve comfort when I have let Prim down.
Madge just looks at me, hands twisted in the edge of her expensive, pretty dress, before she crosses over to their television and turns it on.
On screen, they're televising the Reapings, the rougher cut before the formal one later. I can't help but start mentally cataloguing them. Seeing which one might be the one to steal the light from Prim's eyes. I start mentally listing their possible faults. I memorise their faces, so if one of them emerges the victor, I know who to go after if I can't get Prim out.
Then District 12 comes on, and I can hardly breathe. They don't even screen out the part where I come fleeing forwards. The Katniss onscreen looks small and defenceless as she screams Prim's name. Her voice is weak, thin. My voice isn't like that. My voice can't sound so weak and pathetic. On the screen, a Peacekeeper uses his truncheon to knock me out. As I fall, so does all hope on Prim's face.
District 12 is silent. As I lie unconscious on the floor, the District makes no sound. It is the boldest form of dissent they could manage: silence.
It says we do not agree, we do not condone. All of this is wrong.
It's not enough.
Despite a unified belief, no one does anything. I search the screen until I can see Gale's dark head in the crowd. Staying still. Not even looking down at my prone body. His head is turned towards the remaining glass bowl of names.
Prim is trembling as she climbs onto the stage, her ducktail flapping in the wind. She breaks down in tears when she tells Effie Trinket that it was her sister who tried to volunteer. Effie goes through the volunteer protocol and when Effie formally asks for volunteers - where there should have been my voice cutting through the air like a knife - there is nothing but wind.
My stomach curls in revulsion. I want to vomit, but it has been too long since my shared meal with Gale in the woods. The idea that I have shared so much with Gale gives me an odd burn of hope. Could Gale have volunteered to save my Prim? Did he... could he do for me what I would have done for him, if I could?
Prim onscreen starts to cry, and it's embarrassingly loud, and the mayor's face is clearly saying we're going to be punished for this when the remaining District 12 victor, Haymitch Abernathy, causes a scene. He goes up to Prim, pinches her cheek, tells everyone loudly that maybe Prim's farts are deadly. He then promptly rants about whether Prim's ever been flatulent in her life, and I forget for a moment all about the pain in my head and Prim - is this a dig against Prim? Or is it a brave rant against the Capitol? Our diets in District 12 aren't enough to control anything of our bowel movements; I do my best, but sometimes when eating whatever you can find is the only other option to dying, eating a balanced meal isn't exactly on my mind.
Either way, Haymitch punctuates his moment of possible-rebellion in a drunken tumble off the stage. Effie draws from the boys' bowl as Haymitch is carted off on a stretcher.
I have a stunned, horrible moment of time to think Gale? before Effie reads out: "Peeta Mellark!"
Peeta Mellark. No. My stomach makes another attempt to throw out the deeply-seated food. The odds are not in my favour. Once upon a time, Peeta Mellark saved my life. His blue, blue eyes show alarm, like when a rabbit sees my arrow trained right at its heart.
Of course, rabbits don't often see me. I'm very experienced at staying in the shadows.
Peeta's trying his best not to show his emotions. His stoicism is brave. I have the most absurd thought for a second that he's trying to make up for the Everdeen over-showing of emotion.
Effie introduces him and formally asks for a volunteer, and there is nothing but wind. My heart clenches, this is too much, this is too much, and it's then that I do realise the truth: I am expecting Gale to volunteer. It's a huge thing to expect, but I am expecting Gale to stand up and try and save the one thing in life I live for.
He's nearly eighteen. He's strong. He knows how to snare, how to hunt. He stands a chance better than anyone in District 12, better than me, better than a baker's boy with a brilliant heart-
There is nothing but wind.
I search out Peeta's two older brothers in the crowd automatically, but they don't even shuffle guiltily. Family devotion didn't mean much on Reaping day - and apparently not even to me , if I couldn't even wait for the proper volunteering protocol to make sure my sister was safe.
The mayor then starts to read the long, dull Treaty of Treason but I don't listen, I know the words already. I'm too busy watching Peeta and Prim. Peeta moves over, and in a completely unprecedented move, he takes Prim's hand.
Prim clenches back. I stare, dumbfounded. Peeta and I are not friends, even though once he saved all our lives - Prim, our mother and me - when he was eleven. He exchanged a whipping to ensure I got two burned loaves of bread, two loaves of bread that kept us alive long enough to survive.
It was then that I learned I wanted to survive.
It was from then that I really knew the full horror of the Hunger Games. Our chance of survival in District 12 is small, but nothing compared to the odds of the arena.
Madge flicks the switch off as they start doing a recap of last year's games. I stare at her, hollow-eyed, and she just moves over to me. She doesn't touch me or try to comfort me with useless words. She's just there.
I wonder how she knows this is just the kind of comfort I need, the only kind I can contemplate tolerating.
"We're keeping the tributes at the other end of the house," Mayor Undersee says, his voice trembling, especially over tributes. My hands shake, because he knows their names, he does. Not a soul in District 12 hasn't pushed their nose up at the Mellark Bakery, staring at the intricate frosting on their epic, unaffordable cakes. And I know from the guilty twitch on the Mayor's face that he recognises me too. The girl who stands on his back step, surreptitiously selling him strawberries that could only be found illegally.
The girl whose face is a symbol: this is what Prim would look like if she grew up.
This is what Prim will never survive to look like.
The Mayor looks away, and it's then that I realise I'm staring, but it's hard to tear my gaze away. I will not yell at him. One thing I remember before the Peacekeepers clubbed me into unconsciousness is him, trying to stand up for me. Trying to let me volunteer to save my sister.
There are a hundred, thousand things that I want to say, but only one that I need to. "Can I see her?"
The Mayor nods, and turns away.
Madge silently leads me through her large house. I catch a glimpse at her face. She looks a little embarrassed. Embarrassed at the house? Embarrassment that she wasn't reaped and Prim was? Embarrassed about me?
None of it feels like it matters as we come to the end of the corridor. There are two Peacekeepers standing guard. I know one of them. He keeps his face carefully averted from me.
It's hard to look anyone in the eye on Reaping Day.
"Your mother's already seen her and left," Madge mumbles. "Peeta Mellark is in the room over the way." She turns and flees, leaving me standing in front of two different doors.
Two doors I don't know how I'll survive going in.
One door is easier than the other. Darius, the Peacekeeper I know, nods. Like he understands. Fool. He can never understand. "Five minutes," his colleague says, like he's almost convinced himself the "and then you'll never see them alive again" shouldn't be tagged onto the end.
Peeta is alone when I push open the door. He starts when the door opens, and then he slinks back into the chair he's been slumped in.
"You shouldn't slump when you're on screen," I say, because I wouldn't appreciate hello should our positions be reversed. "It'll make you look weak. No one will sponsor you."
Peeta looks at me sharply. "You're giving me tips on how to win, sweetheart?"
The sourness in his tone is fully understandable. "You saved our lives once. Prim and myself," I say, forcing myself past the embarrassed stutter that wants to come first. It's not easy remembering that day, soon after father's death, where I nearly failed at providing for my family. Peeta was beaten for deliberately burning a loaf of bread, which he threw to me where I was busy trying to die in the street.
I've always owed him for this. "So I was a good person once upon a time," Peeta says, and he looks away again, out of the window. "I won't be. In the arena, I'll be a killer. Everyone turns into a killer in there."
"It's not murder in the arena. It's survival." That's something I do know for sure. There isn't a single person in Panem that can fight the Capitol on their own. So you have to follow the rules or die. It's not a difficult choice to make, until you're staring death in the face. The rules I break are so I never have to do that again. "I'm not very good at this," I say. "Saying goodbye."
"I might win," Peeta says, with this funny sort of laugh which falls dead. Because we both know, he's not got a chance in hell. There's only been two District 12 winners since the birth of the games. "And if I did, your sister's blood would be on my hands. So whatever the outcome... This is goodbye for us."
My fingers clench at the words sister's blood. I am trembling. I am fury. I stare at him, letting him see how much I hate him for saying that.
"What if I promised to look after Prim?" Peeta gets up from his seat, and looks at me. No one's ever looked at me with such a serious expression. I don't know how to react. I'm not threatened by him. I'm good with my hands. I'm strong and I'm quick. I could kill Peeta Mellark here in this room, before he even gets to the arena.
I'd be dead before evening. The Capitol required two tributes, a boy and a girl, from every district. Even if the Peacekeepers didn't beat me to death, the family of whichever boy would be drawn to replace Peeta would see to it that I would not see tomorrow.
Still... killing Peeta would be a kindness.
"Why would you do that?" I ask Peeta, partly because I am curious, partly because I am already imagining my hands around his neck. Taking him out before he could do a thing to Prim. Peeta's statement is ludicrous. There's a term for it in the Games—Peeta's hypothesising about being a Champion to Prim. Districts 1 through 4 sometimes have one tribute Championing another—it's to do with honour, and money. If one tribute from a District sacrifices their life to a tribute from their same District—and that survivor goes on to win the games—that tribute is honour-bound to share their money with the dead tribute's family.
There is no reason for Peeta to champion Prim.
"You're my first visitor," Peeta tells me. "Hell, you might be my only visitor. Your mother's already visited Prim. No one has come to see me. I don't have anything to come back to District 12 to. Nothing that would accept me after what will happen in the Arena, anyway."
He's not really making sense. "I'm sure your father will come," I say, awkwardly.
Peeta stretches his mouth into a smile, but there's no humour in it. I would have hated him if it did. There is no space for humour on Reaping day. "I'll Champion Prim," Peeta says. "You have my word. And in return..."
He looks at me with that same curious expression. I can't think of a single thing I have that he could want.
"What?" I ask, and my voice feels raw, and small.
"A kiss," Peeta says. "Kiss me. That's all the payment I want."
I choke out a laugh that burns my throat like acid. "Right. One kiss and you'll throw yourself in the way of a knife for a 12 year old you don't even know."
"I know Prim." Peeta steps closer. I can't look at his face. I can see the curve of his arms now under his bland shirt. He looks strong. I've seen him wrestle. He could kill Prim in a second. "Mother buys milk from her goat sometimes."
"I don't believe you," I say. My voice is a whisper.
Peeta tilts his head. "That I know Prim?"
"That you'd do that," I say.
"I'm about to die," Peeta says. He sounds so reasonable. "What boy would like to die without ever having been kissed?"
I think about it. I swallow. "Fine," I say.
He looks surprised, and he tenses for a second. When he lets that tension go, he looks afraid. He saved my life. I owe him this. That thought makes me step forward.
"So," he says, probably about to say something awkward about the logistics of this, and I don't want to think about it. I always thought my first kiss would be with Gale, but Gale's never made a move towards me. I think about him staying still when they called for volunteers for Peeta, not even twitching, which might have shown me the thought had crossed his mind to volunteer, to try and save Prim. It's a ridiculous ask. I couldn't actually ask anyone but myself to volunteer. But still, the resentment is there, seething, permanent, and I don't think I will ever feel the same way about Gale ever again.
I don't want to think, so I impulsively lean forwards and kiss Peeta, stopping his words. It's the first time I've ever kissed a boy, which should make some sort of impression I guess, but all I can register is how unnaturally dry his lips are from his panic about going into the arena.
He smiles awkwardly, and steps back like walking is difficult. "Thank you," he says, awkwardly. "I guess we're even now."
"No," I say, surprising myself. Peeta's blond eyebrows knit together in confusion. I don't even know what I'm going to say or do. We're not even. That kiss, if it can be called a payment, may only even equal out him taking the beating to give me that burned bread all so long ago. Before I even know what I'm doing, I'm moving. And he moves too.
This is not my first kiss, but it feels more like what the girls giggling at school think a first kiss should be like. I actually feel stirring inside my chest. Warm and curious. I'm just thinking that maybe, just maybe I want another when the door startles open.
"Time's up," says the Peacekeeper.
Peeta looks panicked, terrified. Without thinking, I steal that second kiss, and let go of him, stumbling out of the room while the Peacekeeper smirks at me. I turn just in time for the Peacekeeper to tug the door shut behind us, and I catch one last look at Peeta.
He looks completely stunned. My stomach rolls, and I know I'll watch his interview with Caesar Flickerman. I really don't want that stunned image to be the last of Peeta Mellark I have in my mind.
He looks too much like my prey when they catch sight of my arrow pointed at them.
I look up at the Peacekeeper defiantly. "I'd like to see my sister now."
"I bet you would," the Peacekeeper says, in a tone I don't like. I stare him down, and he jerks his head towards the door. "Five minutes."
Part of me wants to suspend this moment forever, so I can live in the denial the space provides. But the other part of me wants to get this done fast. I'll never be able to let Prim know the magnitude of how much I love her. I meant to spend our whole lives showing her. It would take that long.
Instead, I am strong for her this one last time where she cannot be.
She cries and flings her small body into mine, and I start telling her what to do. No crying on camera. In the training time, stick to learning how to survive. Especially identifying edible food that she can forage for. Tributes have won the game just by surviving. Don't be afraid to climb a tree and throw things down if she's found.
Prim quivers beneath me as I keep telling her what to do. I pet her hair, and feel how small her neck is beneath my hands. My hands are strong from a childhood full of skinning small animals. It would be so easy to push, to snap her neck myself. To save her from all this pain.
My voice trembles a little as I push through the best advice I have. Don't show her strength during training. She's excellent at hiding in small spaces. Don't show anyone she has that talent until she sees the people who judge her score. Smile and dimple for the audience. Sponsors love cute blonde girls. If a Career wants to make her their favourite, do what they say until she has a chance to run for it. Then run. If cornered, be as cute as possible. It'll put them off guard. Throw dirt or sand in their eyes.
Don't trust anyone. Peeta might have promised to look after her, but he's just as likely as anyone else to kill her in the heat of the moment. No one wants to die-
My voice breaks, and I push my face into her neck. I am too cowardly to kill her. To deprive the Capitol of their tribute. Even if the Capitol just killed me and spared mother, the family of whichever girl was Reaped in Prim's place would finish off the job of eradicating all trace of Everdeen from this world.
Eventually I trail off. I have so many things left to say to her, but no words left for them. Two minutes. Two minutes, and the next time I see her, she'll be on a television screen and she'll be part of what we outlying Districts call the walking dead.
The two minutes fall away like the fear does on Reaping day when our name isn't called—rapidly, but with a bitter aftertaste.
It's not fair to Prim, but the words rip out of my throat, like acid, "Win for me. Prim, Prim, come back. You can do it. I love you."
"I love you too," is all she manages to say, before the Peacekeepers come in.
"You're not taking her," I tell them, tilting my head.
"Don't be stupid," the Peacekeeper I know tells me. I think his name is Darius. I don't care what his name is. I'll rip his face off with my fingers if it will keep Prim safe. My fists clench automatically. There is violence in my soul, and none—absolutely none—in Prim's.
"Stupid? You're talking about stupid in the face of this stupid contest-"
"Katniss!" Prim howls, in the microsecond before the Peacekeepers baton finds my cheek. My vision explodes and my hand grazes the carpet as I try and steady myself, but I'm not quick or strong or powerful enough to avoid the blows that follow.
The world is a whitewash of pain and Prim screaming, and maybe I'm screaming too. I don't know anything that I am being dragged away from my Prim, and the people dragging me away are happy to just let her be sent to her death.
As I'm dragged out of the room, Peeta's door flings open. He shouts my name but is pushed back inside violently by a third Peacekeeper who's heard the commotion.
Darius bodily slams me into some of the wood panelling. Everything hurts but I don't care. "Listen. Listen. You are no good to your mother like this. Think of the family you have left. If you stay, if you try and fight us, we will kill you. And they'll probably kill your mother just to be thorough. It doesn't hurt the Capitol to present her as an orphan. So calm down and get out. Save at least yourself. Don't let this day take out all the Everdeen line."
His voice is thick and hot against my cheek. I struggle blankly throughout it, but I sink against their grasp at his last hissed line. I look at him, hollow and hurting.
"Take her outside," Darius says, loudly. He must have been whispering to me. It doesn't matter what volume he spoke in. His words felt like howling.
Madge finds me outside. She sits down next to me on the step. I'm still wearing the pretty blue Reaping dress, the relic of my mother's past, and I am getting it dirty and I do not care.
She's silent. She doesn't try to touch me. It occurs to me for a moment that Madge might have been my friend all this time. Then I think I would give her up to save Prim in a heartbeat, and any attempt I want to make to reach out to her withers in an instant.
Once, in the very first Quarter Quell, on the 25th anniversary of the rebellion (the Capitol advises us not to capitalise it, even in our own heads—capital letters bring glory and nothing that has brought us that much pain with the Hunger Games should be capitalised. And yet we have to capitalise the Hunger Games. It all sounds like a death knell anyway, to us out in the outlying districts.)
"I was going to give her this," Madge says, out of nowhere. I glance at her. She's turning something over in her pale, soft hands. Madge has never had to work for food, something Gale's been angry about a lot in his life. I've never felt resentful of Madge until today, even then my envy (that she is here, and Prim is being sent away) is tempered by Prim having one slip. Even Madge's five slips were worse odds than Prim had.
The object glints in the sun. Gold. My mother had a couple of pieces, but she sold them, long ago. You can't eat gold.
"It's a Mockingjay," Madge says. "I like Mockingjays. Something the Capitol created that wasn't meant to survive. Something that did anyway. A lot like us, out here."
I look at her, sharply. Madge is staring off in the direction of the forest, her eyes carefully blank. Sometimes Madge and I sit together at school. She never says anything against the Capitol. She is nothing but soft praise.
I wonder if everyone in District 12 is like that. Calm face to the outside. Bristling fiery rage beneath.
"It was my aunt's." Madge flips the golden bird between her fingers, glittering, like Raaj in the Hob does with coin when he's showing off. The Peacekeepers are best bribed with currency, although my goods are just as good. You can't eat money. "Maysilee Donner. The name doesn't mean anything to you, does it?"
I don't know what reply Madge is searching for. I shake my head. My head feels heavy and my mouth feels dry, cracked. I am an old woman. An hour ago, I had my first kiss, and it might have been a lifetime before.
"It's funny. She was your mother's best friend, back when they were our age."
"She's never mentioned her," I say. I know my tone is harsh, but I can't stop myself. If words were bullets, everyone trying to take Prim away would be taken down with my words. They are harsh and strong and fast and bitter.
"I'm not surprised. Not really. People don't... talk about the tributes after they've gone." Madge stops spinning the Mockingjay, and drops it onto the table her dress makes between her knees, the fabric taut. "Maysilee Donner, my aunt, was one of the four tributes taken in the last Quarter Quell. The one where Haymitch Abernathy won."
In the past, I thought only jealousy to Haymitch's money. I always saw him at the Hob, stumbling around. But I think of seeing him on screen at the Reaping, and I think of his kindness to Prim, and I can't think ill of him.
"Still," Madge says, obviously not looking for more words from me, "my mother always thought the Mockingjay pin would protect her, somehow. When Maysilee left it behind..." Madge lets out this desperately little half-sound which I'm rapidly starting to understand. "Well, sometimes I think that's why mother doesn't fight so much anymore." Madge flickers a look upstairs, to what might be a bedroom window. There are curtains pulled over the panels. Madge picks up the Mockingjay pin, and flips it in her hands. "I wanted Prim to take it, but the Peacekeepers wouldn't let me in to see her. I couldn't give it to her." Madge turns to me, and stretches her hand out. I put my hand out automatically, and she drops the pin into it. She gets to her feet quickly, a determined look on her face, and she darts in and kisses me on the cheek, fleetingly. "You could," she whispers, like it's a challenge. "The train leaves in 30 minutes. Prim will be guarded the whole time, but... there's someone who won't be."
She skips away then, fleeing back into the house, and I turn and stare at her retreating back for a long moment, probably more time than I have to waste. She shuts the door behind her, and I look down at the pin in my hand.
Prim would be guarded the whole time. It would be suicide trying to get to her. But Madge is right. There's one person I can get to.
The winner of the second Quarter Quell. District 12's sole living victor. From the story Madge told me, he lived while her aunt died.
Haymitch Abernathy.
I pocket the Mockingjay and start running.
Part Two
Author:
mizzy2kFandom: The Hunger Games
Type: AU
Word Count: 20,100
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: The Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins. The poem "Still I Rise" was written by Maya Angelou. None of it belongs to me.
Characters/Pairings: Katniss, Katniss/Peeta
Warnings: It's a Hunger Games fic - major character death.
Summary:
It's one o'clock on Reaping Day, and because I'm not at death's door, I'm with the rest of District 12 as we head for the square. No one likes that the Reaping is drawn in the square. It's the nicest place District 12 has.
The Capitol try to - pun aside - capitalize on the sometime-holiday feel of the place, sending bright banners for the District to string up around the shops, and the place should be cheerful, but it's not. We all know what's about to happen, and there has never been a Reaping that has given any sort of cause for cheer.
Around the banners are dotted the camera crew, each camera lenses glinting like a predator's gaze, bright and unflinching. Looking down at us all. I already know what we look like to them, because they show these shots when they televise the Reapings. Sometimes, out in the woods, I pull up rocks, looking for insects to populate our snares, and sometimes beneath the rocks there's a crowd of ants, huddling together. It could be so easy to stomp on them with one foot, massacring them.
I know this is what District 12 looks like to the Capitol.
Everyone's silent. Once a year at school there's a festival, halfway between the Hunger Games. It was probably started a few decades ago to coincide with some Victor's Tour or other. Maybe even way back in the early single digit Hunger Games when District 12 scored its first winner. It's not a huge festival and there's not the fanciest feast in the world, but everyone brings what they can and we - the school children, the pool of potential tributes - dance for them. Old time dances.
My mother calls them country dances and our teacher calls them square dances and I'm good enough at the rhythm and co-ordination - but for the last couple of years I've been in the chorus, plugged away singing some monotone, Capitol-approved melody. I inherited more than just survival and hunting skills from my father, but I don't like to sing too loud. It doesn't do to stand out in District 12, especially when your survival requires on hugging the shadows and breaking more than enough laws.
I've never liked the festival, but I don't say anything to anyone - except to Gale. He hates it too. Anything that was created for the Capitol's amusement loses any kind of joy it might have to us.
Filing to the square for the Reaping is just like the dances for the festival. Everyone knows the steps. Everyone files in and does what they're supposed to without chatter or conversation.
The festival doesn't feel as quiet or as stifling as the Reaping does.
Just like the dancing, we're sorted by age for the Reaping. I follow the other sixteen year olds into our roped-off area. Behind me, Prim will be in her section near the back. It's especially bad when a twelve-year old is drawn. Their walk of despair is the longest. The family members lined up around the perimeter have a longer time to stare in horror at the awful reminder of what the Capitol takes from them, year after year. Our mother is in there somewhere. Alone.
Everyone feels sick.
Everyone is silent.
Everyone's thinking the same thing: Not them, not me, not me.
No one's thinking what they should be thinking, me included, even though every other day of the year the thought is clear: the Capitol is to blame for this.
It's not easy to ignore the racketeerers as they slip around the crowd, especially when I hear my name on a random wisp of wind. The racketeers will silence soon.
They do silence as Mayor Undersee, standing on the temporary stage in front of the Justice Building, begins his usual spiel on the rules and history of the Hunger Games. I tune out and think, of the twenty slips of paper with my name, of Gale and his forty-two slips of paper. I wonder who it is has the unenviable job of writing all the names down on the slips of paper in the small, careful handwriting. I wonder if their hand wavered over any of the names. I wonder if they cried.
I don't wonder about Prim's name on one small, neat slip of paper.
I'm distracted as the mayor intones that it is time for repentence and thanks, and lists the District 12 Victors of the past. The first is dead. The second staggers into his seat, hollering something unintelligible. Haymitch Abernathy. Paunchy, middle-aged and completely drunk as he tries to give District 12 presenter - Effie Trinket - a hug.
I clap along with the rest of District 12, even though Mayor Undersee looks distressed at how bad District 12 now looks to the rest of Panem. District 12 usually ends up as the laughingstock of the Games - last year, the two tributes were paraded around naked but for coal dust before the Games. Weak and underfed, District 12 tributes rarely stood a chance.
And when they did get a chance, they ended up just like Haymitch: broken, incoherent, a District-wide embarrassment.
"Happy Hunger Games!" Effie Trinket tries to trill, in her pink and green ridiculous clothes. "And may the odds be ever in your favor!" I resist the urge to mouth along with the words, the words I was mocking with Gale only a few hours ago. My stomach pinches. Between us, Gale and I have 62 slips of papers in the giant glass balls. It's difficult to find anything to laugh at; even Effie's slightly askew pink wig from Haymitch's lecherous drunk advances can only raise the smallest hint of a smirk on my face.
I look across to find Gale, to see how he's reacting to this day. He's as amused as I am; roughly translated as, not very amused at all. But one has to try and find the humour somewhere in situations like this, or... Well, it's been several years since someone fainted during the Reaping, and I still can't erase the memory of the blood from my mind.
The Peacekeepers are not kind to anyone who causes a scene.
Effie is going on about the honour of drawing for District 12, and what an excellent history we have, but maybe Gale's thinking of the number of slips we both have too, because he can't hold my gaze for long.
"But there are still thousands of slips," I repeat to herself, silently, mouth not even moving, wishing Gale could hear my invisible words, and then it's time for the drawing.
"Ladies first!" Effie trills, and canters across the temporary stage to the glass ball with the girls' names in. The stage creaks. Everything sounds ominous on Reaping day, but I don't step back automatically. On Reaping day, it doesn't feel wrong to want to die quickly before someone else can decide what your fate is.
Then I'm not thinking about death or the fact that crowd has gone so unnaturally still and silent that it feels like you could drop the whole District and everything would shatter into pieces or anything about Gale's forty-two strips of paper at all.
I'm only thinking of my own twenty strips. I'm only thinking not me, not me, not me as fast and as hard as I can, as Effie takes the paper back to the podium. Effie straightens the paper and reads out the name in a clear voice.
There's a horrifyingly sick moment where I feel relief, bubbling, acidic relief when the first sound out of Effie's ridiculously plumped, pink mouth isn't K - it isn't me! my brain is singing - until I realise that the rest of the syllables spell out something worse than Katniss Everdeen.
Prim Rose Ev Er Deen.
It takes a horrifyingly long moment for the syllables to make sense in my brain, for them to pull together into something cohesive, and Prim - shaking, brave, despairing Prim - is already halfway up her Path of Doom before my brain kicks in and spells out the horrifying truth:
PRIMROSE EVERDEEN.
The only thing that makes my life worth living, that gives my life any sort of meaning at all, and the Capitol are trying to feed her to some senseless meat machine. A thousand memories of the televised Hunger Games crash through my brain like some awful montage: blood, decapitation, betrayal, explosions, pain.
It's too much.
Prim's face is ghost white. Her little body is tight and stiff. The crowd must be murmuring their disapproval but I can barely hear anything past the horrifying thudding of my heart. It is only the sight of Prim's blouse working free, making a ducktail, that makes my lungs work again.
"Prim!" My voice sounds like a strangled death cry. "Prim!" I move forwards, pushing my elbows up, anticipating a fight through the crowd, but they part effortlessly, like this is one of those rehearsed movements - but it's just en masse guilt, sympathy, relief that it's not them.
With no obstacles in my path, I reach Prim before she even gets to the steps. I sweep out with one arm, pushing Prim firmly behind me. "I volunteer!" I yell, the words forming before I can even recognize the desperate emotion coursing through me, the voice that's screaming through my blood that only says not Prim not Prim NOT PRIM NOT PRIM.
I haul in a deeper, more desperate breath, even as two Peacekeepers move in to try and hold me back. "I volunteer as tribute!"
There is instant chaos on stage. The two Peacekeepers keep me restrained. I keep my face upturned towards the stage, desperate.
"Oh," says Effie Trinket, because this is all-but unprecedented for District 12, because volunteering and suicide are great friends in any District 12 thesaurus. "Oh, um. No, this is quite against protocol, I'm afraid. I must introduce the Reaping winner before asking for any volunteers to come forth. Interrupting the protocol, well- Oh, District 4 was the last one this happened to. I'm afraid because you have interrupted, you are no longer eligible to volunteer."
"Now, come on," the mayor starts to say, "what does it matter?"
Prim stumbles forward again, and turns to look at me, horror on her small face.
My heart tumbles hard in my chest. Everything inside of me starts to crumble, and I start to scream, pushing and fighting. It's unclear whose hysterical screams are louder - Prim or mine.
Effie makes some sort of gesture to the Peacekeepers, and the last thing I see is Prim's wide, screaming mouth.
When I wake up, there's some sort of wet cloth on my head. My head's pounding, but I try to sit up regardless. It only takes a few seconds for my memories to make sense again.
Sense. I want to laugh, that crazy outlandish laughter that tastes like acid and colours the sky to dust. I don't think anything's going to make sense ever again.
"Prim!" My brain might be numb but my body hasn't tired of shouting Prim's name. It rips out of me like a gunshot, and thinking that word burns, because a gunshot, a gunshot is merciful compared to the arena. A terrible kind of mercy that's denied my Prim. I shout again, but my skull feels like it's splitting apart; I push my palms into the sides of my head, as if pushing might make the world come back to pain-free focus again. Prim, Prim. Maybe the world will never be pain-free again.
I can feel my heart pounding through my hands.
It takes me a while to realise where I am. The sleek furniture, the smell of roses. It's exactly how Madge smells. My stomach twists in hope. The mayor's house is usually where they hold the tributes until their family can come to say goodbye. Maybe when I was unconscious, they the Mayor spoke up for me and let me replace Prim.
The door opens and I lift my head out of my hands immediately. It's Mayor Undersee and his face already tells me all I need to know.
He doesn't even try and fight me off when I hurl myself at him. I scratch his face in the chaos but I am unco-ordinated and all energy has left my body. Prim, my Prim. No.
"I'm sorry, Katniss. I'm so sorry," he mutters into my hair as I sink against him. My eyes are cold now. I will not weep. Not until Prim is gone. I will be strong for her, when I get to see her. I will show her how she has to present herself to the sponsors. She's a weak candidate in the eyes of any sponsors as it is; tears and fear will only make it worse.
I back away from the mayor, my eyes like fire. I might even have done him more violence if Madge hadn't taken this moment to step into the room.
She doesn't try and touch me. She doesn't say any hollow words of comfort. It is only now, in this moment, that I realise maybe Madge and I have been friends all along without really knowing. I feel comfort from her silence, and that makes me angrier.
I don't deserve comfort when I have let Prim down.
Madge just looks at me, hands twisted in the edge of her expensive, pretty dress, before she crosses over to their television and turns it on.
On screen, they're televising the Reapings, the rougher cut before the formal one later. I can't help but start mentally cataloguing them. Seeing which one might be the one to steal the light from Prim's eyes. I start mentally listing their possible faults. I memorise their faces, so if one of them emerges the victor, I know who to go after if I can't get Prim out.
Then District 12 comes on, and I can hardly breathe. They don't even screen out the part where I come fleeing forwards. The Katniss onscreen looks small and defenceless as she screams Prim's name. Her voice is weak, thin. My voice isn't like that. My voice can't sound so weak and pathetic. On the screen, a Peacekeeper uses his truncheon to knock me out. As I fall, so does all hope on Prim's face.
District 12 is silent. As I lie unconscious on the floor, the District makes no sound. It is the boldest form of dissent they could manage: silence.
It says we do not agree, we do not condone. All of this is wrong.
It's not enough.
Despite a unified belief, no one does anything. I search the screen until I can see Gale's dark head in the crowd. Staying still. Not even looking down at my prone body. His head is turned towards the remaining glass bowl of names.
Prim is trembling as she climbs onto the stage, her ducktail flapping in the wind. She breaks down in tears when she tells Effie Trinket that it was her sister who tried to volunteer. Effie goes through the volunteer protocol and when Effie formally asks for volunteers - where there should have been my voice cutting through the air like a knife - there is nothing but wind.
My stomach curls in revulsion. I want to vomit, but it has been too long since my shared meal with Gale in the woods. The idea that I have shared so much with Gale gives me an odd burn of hope. Could Gale have volunteered to save my Prim? Did he... could he do for me what I would have done for him, if I could?
Prim onscreen starts to cry, and it's embarrassingly loud, and the mayor's face is clearly saying we're going to be punished for this when the remaining District 12 victor, Haymitch Abernathy, causes a scene. He goes up to Prim, pinches her cheek, tells everyone loudly that maybe Prim's farts are deadly. He then promptly rants about whether Prim's ever been flatulent in her life, and I forget for a moment all about the pain in my head and Prim - is this a dig against Prim? Or is it a brave rant against the Capitol? Our diets in District 12 aren't enough to control anything of our bowel movements; I do my best, but sometimes when eating whatever you can find is the only other option to dying, eating a balanced meal isn't exactly on my mind.
Either way, Haymitch punctuates his moment of possible-rebellion in a drunken tumble off the stage. Effie draws from the boys' bowl as Haymitch is carted off on a stretcher.
I have a stunned, horrible moment of time to think Gale? before Effie reads out: "Peeta Mellark!"
Peeta Mellark. No. My stomach makes another attempt to throw out the deeply-seated food. The odds are not in my favour. Once upon a time, Peeta Mellark saved my life. His blue, blue eyes show alarm, like when a rabbit sees my arrow trained right at its heart.
Of course, rabbits don't often see me. I'm very experienced at staying in the shadows.
Peeta's trying his best not to show his emotions. His stoicism is brave. I have the most absurd thought for a second that he's trying to make up for the Everdeen over-showing of emotion.
Effie introduces him and formally asks for a volunteer, and there is nothing but wind. My heart clenches, this is too much, this is too much, and it's then that I do realise the truth: I am expecting Gale to volunteer. It's a huge thing to expect, but I am expecting Gale to stand up and try and save the one thing in life I live for.
He's nearly eighteen. He's strong. He knows how to snare, how to hunt. He stands a chance better than anyone in District 12, better than me, better than a baker's boy with a brilliant heart-
There is nothing but wind.
I search out Peeta's two older brothers in the crowd automatically, but they don't even shuffle guiltily. Family devotion didn't mean much on Reaping day - and apparently not even to me , if I couldn't even wait for the proper volunteering protocol to make sure my sister was safe.
The mayor then starts to read the long, dull Treaty of Treason but I don't listen, I know the words already. I'm too busy watching Peeta and Prim. Peeta moves over, and in a completely unprecedented move, he takes Prim's hand.
Prim clenches back. I stare, dumbfounded. Peeta and I are not friends, even though once he saved all our lives - Prim, our mother and me - when he was eleven. He exchanged a whipping to ensure I got two burned loaves of bread, two loaves of bread that kept us alive long enough to survive.
It was then that I learned I wanted to survive.
It was from then that I really knew the full horror of the Hunger Games. Our chance of survival in District 12 is small, but nothing compared to the odds of the arena.
Madge flicks the switch off as they start doing a recap of last year's games. I stare at her, hollow-eyed, and she just moves over to me. She doesn't touch me or try to comfort me with useless words. She's just there.
I wonder how she knows this is just the kind of comfort I need, the only kind I can contemplate tolerating.
"We're keeping the tributes at the other end of the house," Mayor Undersee says, his voice trembling, especially over tributes. My hands shake, because he knows their names, he does. Not a soul in District 12 hasn't pushed their nose up at the Mellark Bakery, staring at the intricate frosting on their epic, unaffordable cakes. And I know from the guilty twitch on the Mayor's face that he recognises me too. The girl who stands on his back step, surreptitiously selling him strawberries that could only be found illegally.
The girl whose face is a symbol: this is what Prim would look like if she grew up.
This is what Prim will never survive to look like.
The Mayor looks away, and it's then that I realise I'm staring, but it's hard to tear my gaze away. I will not yell at him. One thing I remember before the Peacekeepers clubbed me into unconsciousness is him, trying to stand up for me. Trying to let me volunteer to save my sister.
There are a hundred, thousand things that I want to say, but only one that I need to. "Can I see her?"
The Mayor nods, and turns away.
Madge silently leads me through her large house. I catch a glimpse at her face. She looks a little embarrassed. Embarrassed at the house? Embarrassment that she wasn't reaped and Prim was? Embarrassed about me?
None of it feels like it matters as we come to the end of the corridor. There are two Peacekeepers standing guard. I know one of them. He keeps his face carefully averted from me.
It's hard to look anyone in the eye on Reaping Day.
"Your mother's already seen her and left," Madge mumbles. "Peeta Mellark is in the room over the way." She turns and flees, leaving me standing in front of two different doors.
Two doors I don't know how I'll survive going in.
One door is easier than the other. Darius, the Peacekeeper I know, nods. Like he understands. Fool. He can never understand. "Five minutes," his colleague says, like he's almost convinced himself the "and then you'll never see them alive again" shouldn't be tagged onto the end.
Peeta is alone when I push open the door. He starts when the door opens, and then he slinks back into the chair he's been slumped in.
"You shouldn't slump when you're on screen," I say, because I wouldn't appreciate hello should our positions be reversed. "It'll make you look weak. No one will sponsor you."
Peeta looks at me sharply. "You're giving me tips on how to win, sweetheart?"
The sourness in his tone is fully understandable. "You saved our lives once. Prim and myself," I say, forcing myself past the embarrassed stutter that wants to come first. It's not easy remembering that day, soon after father's death, where I nearly failed at providing for my family. Peeta was beaten for deliberately burning a loaf of bread, which he threw to me where I was busy trying to die in the street.
I've always owed him for this. "So I was a good person once upon a time," Peeta says, and he looks away again, out of the window. "I won't be. In the arena, I'll be a killer. Everyone turns into a killer in there."
"It's not murder in the arena. It's survival." That's something I do know for sure. There isn't a single person in Panem that can fight the Capitol on their own. So you have to follow the rules or die. It's not a difficult choice to make, until you're staring death in the face. The rules I break are so I never have to do that again. "I'm not very good at this," I say. "Saying goodbye."
"I might win," Peeta says, with this funny sort of laugh which falls dead. Because we both know, he's not got a chance in hell. There's only been two District 12 winners since the birth of the games. "And if I did, your sister's blood would be on my hands. So whatever the outcome... This is goodbye for us."
My fingers clench at the words sister's blood. I am trembling. I am fury. I stare at him, letting him see how much I hate him for saying that.
"What if I promised to look after Prim?" Peeta gets up from his seat, and looks at me. No one's ever looked at me with such a serious expression. I don't know how to react. I'm not threatened by him. I'm good with my hands. I'm strong and I'm quick. I could kill Peeta Mellark here in this room, before he even gets to the arena.
I'd be dead before evening. The Capitol required two tributes, a boy and a girl, from every district. Even if the Peacekeepers didn't beat me to death, the family of whichever boy would be drawn to replace Peeta would see to it that I would not see tomorrow.
Still... killing Peeta would be a kindness.
"Why would you do that?" I ask Peeta, partly because I am curious, partly because I am already imagining my hands around his neck. Taking him out before he could do a thing to Prim. Peeta's statement is ludicrous. There's a term for it in the Games—Peeta's hypothesising about being a Champion to Prim. Districts 1 through 4 sometimes have one tribute Championing another—it's to do with honour, and money. If one tribute from a District sacrifices their life to a tribute from their same District—and that survivor goes on to win the games—that tribute is honour-bound to share their money with the dead tribute's family.
There is no reason for Peeta to champion Prim.
"You're my first visitor," Peeta tells me. "Hell, you might be my only visitor. Your mother's already visited Prim. No one has come to see me. I don't have anything to come back to District 12 to. Nothing that would accept me after what will happen in the Arena, anyway."
He's not really making sense. "I'm sure your father will come," I say, awkwardly.
Peeta stretches his mouth into a smile, but there's no humour in it. I would have hated him if it did. There is no space for humour on Reaping day. "I'll Champion Prim," Peeta says. "You have my word. And in return..."
He looks at me with that same curious expression. I can't think of a single thing I have that he could want.
"What?" I ask, and my voice feels raw, and small.
"A kiss," Peeta says. "Kiss me. That's all the payment I want."
I choke out a laugh that burns my throat like acid. "Right. One kiss and you'll throw yourself in the way of a knife for a 12 year old you don't even know."
"I know Prim." Peeta steps closer. I can't look at his face. I can see the curve of his arms now under his bland shirt. He looks strong. I've seen him wrestle. He could kill Prim in a second. "Mother buys milk from her goat sometimes."
"I don't believe you," I say. My voice is a whisper.
Peeta tilts his head. "That I know Prim?"
"That you'd do that," I say.
"I'm about to die," Peeta says. He sounds so reasonable. "What boy would like to die without ever having been kissed?"
I think about it. I swallow. "Fine," I say.
He looks surprised, and he tenses for a second. When he lets that tension go, he looks afraid. He saved my life. I owe him this. That thought makes me step forward.
"So," he says, probably about to say something awkward about the logistics of this, and I don't want to think about it. I always thought my first kiss would be with Gale, but Gale's never made a move towards me. I think about him staying still when they called for volunteers for Peeta, not even twitching, which might have shown me the thought had crossed his mind to volunteer, to try and save Prim. It's a ridiculous ask. I couldn't actually ask anyone but myself to volunteer. But still, the resentment is there, seething, permanent, and I don't think I will ever feel the same way about Gale ever again.
I don't want to think, so I impulsively lean forwards and kiss Peeta, stopping his words. It's the first time I've ever kissed a boy, which should make some sort of impression I guess, but all I can register is how unnaturally dry his lips are from his panic about going into the arena.
He smiles awkwardly, and steps back like walking is difficult. "Thank you," he says, awkwardly. "I guess we're even now."
"No," I say, surprising myself. Peeta's blond eyebrows knit together in confusion. I don't even know what I'm going to say or do. We're not even. That kiss, if it can be called a payment, may only even equal out him taking the beating to give me that burned bread all so long ago. Before I even know what I'm doing, I'm moving. And he moves too.
This is not my first kiss, but it feels more like what the girls giggling at school think a first kiss should be like. I actually feel stirring inside my chest. Warm and curious. I'm just thinking that maybe, just maybe I want another when the door startles open.
"Time's up," says the Peacekeeper.
Peeta looks panicked, terrified. Without thinking, I steal that second kiss, and let go of him, stumbling out of the room while the Peacekeeper smirks at me. I turn just in time for the Peacekeeper to tug the door shut behind us, and I catch one last look at Peeta.
He looks completely stunned. My stomach rolls, and I know I'll watch his interview with Caesar Flickerman. I really don't want that stunned image to be the last of Peeta Mellark I have in my mind.
He looks too much like my prey when they catch sight of my arrow pointed at them.
I look up at the Peacekeeper defiantly. "I'd like to see my sister now."
"I bet you would," the Peacekeeper says, in a tone I don't like. I stare him down, and he jerks his head towards the door. "Five minutes."
Part of me wants to suspend this moment forever, so I can live in the denial the space provides. But the other part of me wants to get this done fast. I'll never be able to let Prim know the magnitude of how much I love her. I meant to spend our whole lives showing her. It would take that long.
Instead, I am strong for her this one last time where she cannot be.
She cries and flings her small body into mine, and I start telling her what to do. No crying on camera. In the training time, stick to learning how to survive. Especially identifying edible food that she can forage for. Tributes have won the game just by surviving. Don't be afraid to climb a tree and throw things down if she's found.
Prim quivers beneath me as I keep telling her what to do. I pet her hair, and feel how small her neck is beneath my hands. My hands are strong from a childhood full of skinning small animals. It would be so easy to push, to snap her neck myself. To save her from all this pain.
My voice trembles a little as I push through the best advice I have. Don't show her strength during training. She's excellent at hiding in small spaces. Don't show anyone she has that talent until she sees the people who judge her score. Smile and dimple for the audience. Sponsors love cute blonde girls. If a Career wants to make her their favourite, do what they say until she has a chance to run for it. Then run. If cornered, be as cute as possible. It'll put them off guard. Throw dirt or sand in their eyes.
Don't trust anyone. Peeta might have promised to look after her, but he's just as likely as anyone else to kill her in the heat of the moment. No one wants to die-
My voice breaks, and I push my face into her neck. I am too cowardly to kill her. To deprive the Capitol of their tribute. Even if the Capitol just killed me and spared mother, the family of whichever girl was Reaped in Prim's place would finish off the job of eradicating all trace of Everdeen from this world.
Eventually I trail off. I have so many things left to say to her, but no words left for them. Two minutes. Two minutes, and the next time I see her, she'll be on a television screen and she'll be part of what we outlying Districts call the walking dead.
The two minutes fall away like the fear does on Reaping day when our name isn't called—rapidly, but with a bitter aftertaste.
It's not fair to Prim, but the words rip out of my throat, like acid, "Win for me. Prim, Prim, come back. You can do it. I love you."
"I love you too," is all she manages to say, before the Peacekeepers come in.
"You're not taking her," I tell them, tilting my head.
"Don't be stupid," the Peacekeeper I know tells me. I think his name is Darius. I don't care what his name is. I'll rip his face off with my fingers if it will keep Prim safe. My fists clench automatically. There is violence in my soul, and none—absolutely none—in Prim's.
"Stupid? You're talking about stupid in the face of this stupid contest-"
"Katniss!" Prim howls, in the microsecond before the Peacekeepers baton finds my cheek. My vision explodes and my hand grazes the carpet as I try and steady myself, but I'm not quick or strong or powerful enough to avoid the blows that follow.
The world is a whitewash of pain and Prim screaming, and maybe I'm screaming too. I don't know anything that I am being dragged away from my Prim, and the people dragging me away are happy to just let her be sent to her death.
As I'm dragged out of the room, Peeta's door flings open. He shouts my name but is pushed back inside violently by a third Peacekeeper who's heard the commotion.
Darius bodily slams me into some of the wood panelling. Everything hurts but I don't care. "Listen. Listen. You are no good to your mother like this. Think of the family you have left. If you stay, if you try and fight us, we will kill you. And they'll probably kill your mother just to be thorough. It doesn't hurt the Capitol to present her as an orphan. So calm down and get out. Save at least yourself. Don't let this day take out all the Everdeen line."
His voice is thick and hot against my cheek. I struggle blankly throughout it, but I sink against their grasp at his last hissed line. I look at him, hollow and hurting.
"Take her outside," Darius says, loudly. He must have been whispering to me. It doesn't matter what volume he spoke in. His words felt like howling.
Madge finds me outside. She sits down next to me on the step. I'm still wearing the pretty blue Reaping dress, the relic of my mother's past, and I am getting it dirty and I do not care.
She's silent. She doesn't try to touch me. It occurs to me for a moment that Madge might have been my friend all this time. Then I think I would give her up to save Prim in a heartbeat, and any attempt I want to make to reach out to her withers in an instant.
Once, in the very first Quarter Quell, on the 25th anniversary of the rebellion (the Capitol advises us not to capitalise it, even in our own heads—capital letters bring glory and nothing that has brought us that much pain with the Hunger Games should be capitalised. And yet we have to capitalise the Hunger Games. It all sounds like a death knell anyway, to us out in the outlying districts.)
"I was going to give her this," Madge says, out of nowhere. I glance at her. She's turning something over in her pale, soft hands. Madge has never had to work for food, something Gale's been angry about a lot in his life. I've never felt resentful of Madge until today, even then my envy (that she is here, and Prim is being sent away) is tempered by Prim having one slip. Even Madge's five slips were worse odds than Prim had.
The object glints in the sun. Gold. My mother had a couple of pieces, but she sold them, long ago. You can't eat gold.
"It's a Mockingjay," Madge says. "I like Mockingjays. Something the Capitol created that wasn't meant to survive. Something that did anyway. A lot like us, out here."
I look at her, sharply. Madge is staring off in the direction of the forest, her eyes carefully blank. Sometimes Madge and I sit together at school. She never says anything against the Capitol. She is nothing but soft praise.
I wonder if everyone in District 12 is like that. Calm face to the outside. Bristling fiery rage beneath.
"It was my aunt's." Madge flips the golden bird between her fingers, glittering, like Raaj in the Hob does with coin when he's showing off. The Peacekeepers are best bribed with currency, although my goods are just as good. You can't eat money. "Maysilee Donner. The name doesn't mean anything to you, does it?"
I don't know what reply Madge is searching for. I shake my head. My head feels heavy and my mouth feels dry, cracked. I am an old woman. An hour ago, I had my first kiss, and it might have been a lifetime before.
"It's funny. She was your mother's best friend, back when they were our age."
"She's never mentioned her," I say. I know my tone is harsh, but I can't stop myself. If words were bullets, everyone trying to take Prim away would be taken down with my words. They are harsh and strong and fast and bitter.
"I'm not surprised. Not really. People don't... talk about the tributes after they've gone." Madge stops spinning the Mockingjay, and drops it onto the table her dress makes between her knees, the fabric taut. "Maysilee Donner, my aunt, was one of the four tributes taken in the last Quarter Quell. The one where Haymitch Abernathy won."
In the past, I thought only jealousy to Haymitch's money. I always saw him at the Hob, stumbling around. But I think of seeing him on screen at the Reaping, and I think of his kindness to Prim, and I can't think ill of him.
"Still," Madge says, obviously not looking for more words from me, "my mother always thought the Mockingjay pin would protect her, somehow. When Maysilee left it behind..." Madge lets out this desperately little half-sound which I'm rapidly starting to understand. "Well, sometimes I think that's why mother doesn't fight so much anymore." Madge flickers a look upstairs, to what might be a bedroom window. There are curtains pulled over the panels. Madge picks up the Mockingjay pin, and flips it in her hands. "I wanted Prim to take it, but the Peacekeepers wouldn't let me in to see her. I couldn't give it to her." Madge turns to me, and stretches her hand out. I put my hand out automatically, and she drops the pin into it. She gets to her feet quickly, a determined look on her face, and she darts in and kisses me on the cheek, fleetingly. "You could," she whispers, like it's a challenge. "The train leaves in 30 minutes. Prim will be guarded the whole time, but... there's someone who won't be."
She skips away then, fleeing back into the house, and I turn and stare at her retreating back for a long moment, probably more time than I have to waste. She shuts the door behind her, and I look down at the pin in my hand.
Prim would be guarded the whole time. It would be suicide trying to get to her. But Madge is right. There's one person I can get to.
The winner of the second Quarter Quell. District 12's sole living victor. From the story Madge told me, he lived while her aunt died.
Haymitch Abernathy.
I pocket the Mockingjay and start running.
Part Two