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[Fic] Still I Rise (2/3)
Part One and Header Info here
I go home first. Mother sits by the fire, staring silently. She's already checked out. She doesn't even notice me, even though I fling my dress off the moment I get through the door, running up the stairs in my undergarments.
I'm fast. I have to be. I slip into my hunting gear in a couple of minutes, taking the time to ensure I have my sturdiest boots. I have a mad plan forming in the back of my head, and I may be gone a while.
My hunting satchel is still ready to go. I hurry downstairs and go straight for mother's cabinet where the most expensive stuff is. Mother doesn't even look up when I take the only remaining half-full bottle of sleep syrup that we have left, the one that took four months of Prim's goat's milk to procure.
"I'm going to get her back," I say into the empty room, but mother's eyes don't even leave the fire. I send a silent command to Gale to keep her alive, because if he doesn't step in, she'll wither in front of that fire.
I have no need for a mother who won't fight to keep herself alive. She still has me, and I am not enough for her.
As soon as I leave my house I run. I am fleet-footed and sure, because I know this place. It's only as I approach the station that I start to become nervous. How will I sneak onto a Capitol train? Won't they be as fully guarded as Prim and Peeta are right now?
The answer's no, and Madge must have known that to hint that to me. For some reason, they must think District 12 is too docile to try anything. In the end, it is ridiculously simple. The end carriages are all open.
It is in the third carriage I find myself in that causes me a little trouble. There's someone in there, with long red hair and a pale, pale face. A girl. She turns, and startles on seeing me, but doesn't make a sound.
I tense. Surely she's going to raise an alarm. But she doesn't. She taps at a TV screen in the corner. A replay of the Reaping is playing. Our District's Reaping will play on loop until tonight, when the proper edit of all 12 Districts will play. Prim is onscreen, and I nod, and put a hand to my chest.
The girl looks terribly sad, and that's when I realise with a start—I know this girl. She's the one Gale and I saw in the woods, being taken away by a hovercraft. My heart lurches into my throat. She has every right to hate me.
She doesn't. At least, she doesn't raise the alarm. She points at the door, and her sign is clear, leave while you can.
I shake my head. "Haymitch Abernathy. I need to find him."
The girl looks torn, and turns. She drops to her knees and opens a cupboard I hadn't noticed. This whole place is plush and technologically rich, and for a moment I think Prim will love this. Except the price of her enjoying this place is never too far from my mind, and I fight down the bile that rises in the back of my throat. This train is paid for in blood and sweat and death—the blood and the sweat and the death of my District, and the others around us.
She hands me something, then, and I take it and grin. She makes a motion across her mouth. Sealing it shut. I understand, and slip the spare robe over her head. If I stay still and silent, they might think I'm like her.
She hurries over to me and points at the door, and then puts three fingers up.
"Three carriages across?" I guess. She nods. "Thank you. And..." My tongue is a tangle. I can't find the right words. I think about our positions, reversed, and how much help she's been. "I'm sorry. About not saving you and your..." I make a guess. "Brother."
She looks at me, still silent, and then makes our District's three-fingered salute, her eyes full of tears. I understand. She forgives me, and wishes me well on my journey. She understands what I am doing, because she has been there herself, and fallen for it.
I turn and hurry through the door, not wanting to waste the gift she has given me.
I find Haymitch Abernathy slumped in a chair in a half-darkened room. He smells like a brewery. In the corner is a large delivery of various kinds of alcohol, and a wheeled contraption that they were brought in on. As I hadn't thought how I was going to get Haymitch off the train, that's a brilliant find.
He's already half-drunk, if not all the way there, so in the end, this part of the plan is easy too. The Capitol expects its rebellions big and brash. They've spent so long broadcasting hours of TV painting us as foolish and stupid that sometimes they underestimate us. As the farthest District out, District 12 is—of course—the stupidest. Our tributes are often played as fools. Looking at Haymitch, it's easy to see why they come to this conclusion.
Apparently he's more awake than he looks. "You," he slurs, "you Avox, you freak me out." Avox. I turn the word over in my head and mimic how the red-haired girl looked as best as I can. "The Capitol take your tongues, you don't have to add a creepy stare to their disturbing repertoire." He sighs when I don't move. "Make yourself useful and get me a bottle of the green stuff."
I turn to the rows and rows of bottles in his train carriage. I edge a look out of the window, and wonder what will happen if the train goes now. Prim would be on board. I could take her. The train goes fast, but maybe we could jump out from a door—
No, the Capitol needs their tributes. The doors will be locked. We might die jumping out.
"Sometime today, love," Haymitch slurs. I nod, and he makes a disgusting sound. I slip out the bottle of sleep syrup and add the whole lot to the green liquid. If needs be, I can pinch his nose and force it down him, but from the way he clamours again for it, I don't think I'll have to.
I cross the room and pour him a generous amount into the glass he waves at me. "About time," he mutters. "Do they take your brain as well as your tongue?"
His words are harsh, rambling, and his eyes are glazed. He doesn't even sniff at what I've poured him, just downs a whole mouthful of it. He does pull back the glass suspiciously, and I can't help my grin. His head dips. The syrup, especially in that size of a dose acts fast.
He turns and looks up at me, eyes wide. "What did you do?" Haymitch gasps out, and tries to rise from the chair, but his body betrays him and he slumps to the ground.
I work fast. It takes a burst of energy to get Haymitch into the sack I picked up from one of the other storage carriages on the train. Then more energy to get him into one of the alcohol boxes. Then one more heavy to get him onto the trolley with wheels.
A faint snore comes from inside the box, and I wince. I need to get him out of there, immediately. Haymitch knows the arena, better than anyone, and that's what I need.
I don't have time to travel all the way back through the train, so I take a risk. I want to hide what I've done, confuse the Capitol. Slow them down. I rip one of the cushion covers from one of the plush chairs, dowse it in alcohol and fashion quickly a long fuse. I run into another full bottle of alcohol and lie the fuse along the floor, dampening the floor with water so the whole place doesn't go up. I position Haymitch in his box near the door, and take the tinder box from my hunting satchel. I spark a light and set the twisting fabric on fire.
I really won't have long. I open the door and bump him out in the wheeled contraption. I freeze for a moment when I see all the people at the other end of the train, and some of the District crowded around behind them, behind a fence. Waving them off. Like they're just going on a vacation.
I move like I belong there. Like I have been told what to do. Like this is just my job. I am an Avox, whatever that is, with just this task to do.
It works. No one challenges me. I wheel my box, and my drunk, drugged, snoring victor captive, right off the station without the Capitol any the wiser.
It's when I make it to the first line of trees that Haymitch's carriage billows into flame. The windows explode outwards. It sounds like music to me. I look back once, to see the billowing flames, to see the shouting, and then see the spray of the onboard water sprinklers dousing the whole fire out almost immediately. The carriages detach, and the half with Prim on sails off into the distance.
I blink back tears, and push off with my cargo before anyone notices me and links me to the fire.
At least the fire will have wiped out all trace of anything I might have left behind. And it will have burned up the sleep syrup. The Capitol will have no idea where Haymitch has gone.
But I know where he is. And better, I know where to take him.
Haymitch wakes up eventually.
Tied to a chair.
He curses and spits and struggles before even trying to look around him. He swears some more when he sees it is the inside of a rather dishevelled, grungy little hut.
He swears even more when he sees me sitting opposite him. My Avox robe is spread over a rudimentary table my father made once, showing Haymitch immediately who is captor is. My hunting bow is across my knees and I am not even trying to look kind.
"You," Haymitch spits, and struggles in his bonds. He won't get out. Gale makes the best snares in any of the 12 Districts. "What have you done?"
"Kidnapped you," I say, in an unconcerned voice designed purely to drive him mad.
He lets out a few more choice words.
"I'm only sixteen, Mr. Abernathy. Am I old enough to hear that sort of language?" I tease.
He tells me to get lost in even worse language.
He stops struggling. Eventually. "You're not an Avox," he spits.
"And here I thought I'd acquired Haymitch Abernathy, last remaining District 12 victor of the Hunger Games," I say, my tone mocking, "not Captain Obvious."
"You'd be better as an Avox," Haymitch mutters. "Blow Snow, my head, girl. What did you do?"
"Drugged you with sleep syrup and then burned down your carriage," I tell him. There's no point in lying.
"You- Why would you-" Haymitch forgets he's tied to the chair and struggles, smacking back into the seat of the chair pretty soundly. He sighs again, and looks me over, suspiciously. "Wait, you. You're that girl. The girl from the Reaping."
"Katniss Everdeen," I say, introducing myself. "My sister got picked as tribute."
"I'm genuinely sorry," Haymitch says. "But you're an idiot."
"Says the guy kidnapped and tied to a chair," I return.
"You're the one who messed up, girlie." Haymitch tries to point one of his fingers at me as best as he can in his restraints. "If you'd waited just a few more minutes, you'd have been on that stage and I'd have been meeting you on the train in very different circumstances." He paused. "Did you say you burned down my carriage?"
I tilt my head. "What about it?"
"Man, I'd have loved to see that." Haymitch makes this pleased whistle through his perfect teeth. The sight of them make me mad. Only the richest in our District can afford to keep their teeth in that good a condition.
"Say that again," I say, straightening. My bow stays on my knees even when I move, like it really is part of me.
"I'd have loved to see that?" Haymitch tries.
"Before," I say. Something he said is tugging at something in my brain.
"You're the one who messed up?" Haymitch says, like he's decided to humour the crazy girl. "If you'd just waited a few more minutes-"
"There." See, I don't know Haymitch Abernathy, but I've seen a lot of people in pain come to our house. Mother fixes—or tries to fix—all who come. And sometimes when they're in a lot of pain, they lie to make mother feel better.
I don't know what he's lying about, but Haymitch is lying about something. "You know something. Even if I had gone with proper procedure, they wouldn't have let me volunteer, would they?"
Haymitch's face is carefully blank, then he shrugs as much as he can in his bonds. "Word coming through from the Capitol is that anyone who might volunteer for emotional reasons as opposed to District pride is to be rejected. There's all manner of laws to cover any eventuality. Even if you'd volunteered at the right time..."
I'm stunned. I thought I could have done something to save her. But to learn nothing would have worked... "Why?"
"President Snow has a direct line right to my house, poppet," Haymitch says, "he keeps me informed of all of his terrible, secret plans to crush us all under his thumb-"
I roll my eyes. "Why do you think it's happening?"
Haymitch shrugs, and looks down at his bound wrists disinterestedly, like he's anywhere but here. Tied to a chair in the middle of nowhere by a crazy girl. "I've got my theories."
"Well, it's not like I've got anything else on my agenda today. Kidnapping, fire setting, letting my little sister be taken to her death—all done. I'm free."
"You've got about as much charm as a dead slug," Haymitch snits at me, and exhales, a huffy little annoyed sound I am getting used to. "The country's ripe for a rebellion. No one wants to go through another Quarter Quell. Districts are bigger, more populated, than they've ever been. If all twelve Districts rose up now, at once, word is... maybe we could do it. Hell, what would it matter if we failed? The Quarter Quell this time could take all of our children. All at once. Wouldn't put it past the Capitol. But they'd have to leave enough people behind to keep themselves in the fashion they're accustomed to, or their own people would rebel too. The Districts would survive either way. Comes a time when people are willing to risk everything again. The Capitol think... maybe soon is that time. 'course," he adds, settling into his ropes like it's his choice to be there, "they don't actually think it'll happen. But just in case, as soon as they see any spark of hope, they're crushing on down on it."
A rebellion. The idea sinks heavy in my stomach. The Hunger Games are a punishment for the last rebellion. Our hearts break every time tributes are taken. But if we do nothing, they'll keep taking them.
Surely it might actually be worth the risk. To lose a portion of our people now to a war that will free us?
Or is this the thinking that led us to the Hunger Games in the first place?
"Doesn't matter either way," Haymitch says. "I'm the sitting dead."
I scoff. "I'm not going to kill you. Might leave you out in the middle of nowhere if you don't co-operate, but my flawless aim is reserved for prey I can eat. Your body is so made up of alcohol you'd explode if I tried to cook you."
"You think the Capitol will let me live for missing the train?" Haymitch isn't lying now. There's a raw honesty in his voice that resonates deep inside me. "The Capitol won't take my disappearance impersonally. You've just stranded your sister and her avowed protector in the Games without a mentor."
"Surely-" I start, confused by what he's saying.
"They'll make Primrose and the boy—Peeta—ah, I see you know him too. Boyfriend, is he?"
I narrow my eyes, but maybe the memory of the kiss is making me blush, because Haymitch looks much too aware all of a sudden.
"Regardless," Haymitch says. "The Capitol don't take any disrupted plans kindly. They'll make Peeta and Primrose pay for what you've done by not giving them a mentor. Without a mentor, they won't get sponsors. You've doomed them both." He grins, no humour. "Well done."
My mind is racing. I finger the Mockingjay pin in my pocket, the one I meant to get to Prim. But that idea changed as soon as I saw the train. Take Haymitch, my plan's first step.
Get him to tell you about the arena, my second.
My plan was never to disrupt the Capitol's plans. "They were doomed anyway," I say, looking at him with hard eyes. If he makes any inclination to dub me in, I'll leave him here. I think about telling him I wouldn't kill him, but we both know that's a lie. If I think he'll get me in trouble, I'll leave him tied to the chair, one of my arrows right through his heart. I may be thinking like the Capitol right now, but he's better dead than stopping me. "That's not what I- That's not why I've detained you."
"Right," Haymitch says. "I guess you detained me to have tea."
"Don't be an idiot," I say. "I kidnapped you for your brain."
Haymitch does actually pause at that. After a moment he says, slowly, unsurely, "Not many women say that to me." He adds a rather crass wink.
"Drunk, paunchy, middle-aged—you're a catch all right." I roll my eyes. "Tell me everything you know about the arena. Where is it. How is it protected. How big was it. Is it in the same location every year or do they move it. How-"
"Woah, woah, wait a second," Haymitch says. "What would you do with information like that? I mean, I can give you it. I can definitely give you it. Especially if you soothe the way with something to drink, if you get what I mean. But- To help me focus the answers. It's not like your little sister can break out of the arena, even if you got the answers to her. What do you want it for?"
"Isn't it obvious?" I lean forwards, both hands now on the curve of my bow. "No one's even broken out." I smile at him, wide. I am deadly, and I am capable of this. "But I want to be the first to break in."
Haymitch obviously has some sense of self-preservation left, because he manages not to start laughing for a good few seconds.
"That," he says, when he regains some modicum of self-control, "is the most hilarious thing I've heard in a long, long time."
I resist the urge to stamp my feet. I've never had that urge before. "I'm serious."
"As a heart attack," he wheezes, which just sets him off laughing again. "It's just-" He manages to flail a little bit in his ropes. "What skills do you have that you think you could make it all the way to the Capitol? The Games will start in two weeks. And you think it'll be as easy to get into the arena as it was to get me? The Capitol underestimates placid District 12. It doesn't underestimate any of its surrounding Districts, or do you forget what part District 3 played in the rebellion?"
Our teacher in fourth grade was from District 3, Electronics. You could see her ribs even through her clothes. In District 12, you can starve to death in safety. In District 3, you starve to death in fear—if you live that long.
"You'd have to get into the Capitol to find the location of the arena. Out again. Then into the Command Centre, because there's a forcefield right around the arena, wherever it is. You're just a little girl, Katniss. Go home to mother. You've got nothing."
Haymitch's condescension snaps my last nerve and before I even know it, my bow is in my hand, and I set off three arrows in quick succession.
It's the mark of someone who has seen death and survived that he does not even blink. He does slowly blink when he realises where my arrows are.
Exactly either side of his neck, and one a hairbreadth away from his groin.
There had been a belligerent amusement in his face before, but now there was nothing but a serious consideration.
"What would you say," Haymitch says, "if there were already plans being made to disrupt the Games - and I could get you into it."
"I'd say you'd been drinking too much," I say, coolly.
"But what if it's true?" he says. I frown.
"If what you're saying is true," I say, "why would you even-"
He tuts, annoyed now. His fingers, the only part of him really left free to move, tap impatiently against his knee. "You're so limited in your vision. Impulsive. It's got you this far. You need people who can see further. And they need someone like you."
"I don't-" I start, but I don't know how to finish. I don't have any plans. He could betray me, but the forest is still my territory. I could get away from him if things turn nasty.
"There's no point keeping me tied up, either," Haymitch says, "I'm too drunk still to move coherently, and I make one wrong move and you'll shoot me down."
I stare.
"I can't do this tied to the seat," Haymitch says. There's a little less slur in his voice, and maybe a glint of something in his eye that wasn't there before. Something which makes him look a little more alive.
"Do what?"
"Can't give all the magic away, can I, sweetheart?" Haymitch winks. I pretend to vomit and bring my bow up. "I'm not playing you, I swear. You think I want to keep living like this? Waiting for the Capitol to show up and take me again? After your little stunt, I'm dead anyway. Shoot me."
Oh, he thinks I plan to shoot him. I smirk, and unleash my arrows at him.
Right at the pivotal rope that leaves the whole binding slithering away from his body.
I keep my bow pointed at him as he pushes the ropes free from his body, and rubs his wrists where I was perhaps a little less than kind with my knots. He looks at me sourly, and reaches around to his back.
He might be going for a knife, so I let my arrowhead track his every movement.
"Relax, it's just a thing," Haymitch says, eloquently.
"A thing," I reply, loading the word with as much sarcasm as I could.
"One day your sarcasm's going to get you into trouble," Haymitch says. "Although you seem to get along with trouble well enough on your own." He pulls out what he's tugging at from behind his back slowly, slowly. I peer at it. It's a small screen, a lot like I've seen some of the more senior Peacekeepers have. "This here's a fancy communicator type thing," Haymitch explains. "Like a phone. But portable. And a TV in there, too. And some sort of game with a ball-"
"The Capitol can track those," I say, interrupting him. I back up a pace, levelling the arrow at his eyes.
Haymitch sighs. "Then you're already toast. It's been on since this morning." He tilts the screen, and thumbs at a meter in the corner. A power meter. Half full. He grins, lopsided. "You need to cater for all possibilities when you plan something. Getting me here, that was just luck. You being here..." He thumbs at something else, and squints at me a little. Like he's considering me for something, except I feel suddenly like livestock.
"I've met President Snow, y'know." Haymitch settles back, staring out of the window, looking like he could be sat in the Capitol itself, not in his kidnapper's dark dungy hut. "He goes on and on about fear being a motivator, and how hope is dangerous. But you know what's more dangerous?"
"A thousand poisoned arrows aimed straight at his stupid head?" I ask. I'm surly. I'm boiling with feelings, none of them that I like. In the darkness, I can see the gleam of Haymitch's teeth as he smiles.
"Love," Haymitch says, simply.
"Oh, give me a break." I get to my feet. Haymitch just follows me with his eyes. "You can't do squat with love. You can't feed your family after your father dies in a ridiculous mine explosion with just love. You can't stop the Capitol taking my baby sister away, taking children away, year after year. You can't stop the stupid Hunger Games with love-"
"You're wrong," Haymitch says. "What if I told you that you could stop the Hunger Games with love?"
That's his plan to break into the arena? With love? I feel like an idiot for thinking he had genuine plans.
"I'd say you've been drinking too much of Ripper's White Liquor."
"Well, that too," Haymitch admits. He taps his fingers against his knee in a pattern. There's an old piano at school. It doesn't work well, only the lower half, and that's out of tune, but Prim got to play it once last year and her fingers moved in just the same way.
Haymitch might have gone to our school twenty-five years ago. Walked those same halls, until the Reaping where he was called up with Maysilee Donner and two others. May the odds be ever in your favor must have sounded even more hollow during that particular Quarter Quell.
I wonder if he felt at useless during our Capitol-approved history lessons. I wonder how much has even changed in the last twenty-four years.
The look on Haymitch's face clearly tells me the answer: nothing.
"So?" I prompt, annoyed at the smug smirk on Haymitch's face. "What is this grand thing that love can do?"
"Love's a spark, nothing else," Haymitch says.
I deflate. I hadn't realised that I'd been waiting for something genuinely amusing. The disappointment chokes me a little. He said that before. A spark. What the hell is a spark supposed to do?
"But a spark... can start a fire. And that's what we need. We need to burn through all the Districts. We need them all alive and on fire. We need to wake them up, Katniss." Haymitch's eyes are gleaming in the dark, and I finally get what he means.
"You mean..." I start, and fall off. Because what he's suggesting, well. That caused a spark of its own. A spark that flamed into the Hunger Games. "You mean to start a revolution."
"There's nothing else, and I guarantee that, nothing else that will get your sister out of that arena alive," Haymitch says, leaning back.
He still looks smug. As well he should.
I am already sold. "What do I do?"
He smiles, and presses another button on his small screen. There's a beep. I think I recognise that beep from around the Peacekeepers.
"Hey, Paylor. Abernathy, here."
"Are you drunk?"
I can hear a woman's voice, but Haymitch keeps the screen tilted from me.
"No," Haymitch insists automatically. "Well, yes. But that's not why I called."
"The line's secure."
"You know you were waiting for the right thing, the right spark to light this rebellion?" Haymitch pauses, and looks across at me, and continues speaking. This time his look isn't like I'm livestock. It's contemplative. It's oddly hopeful. I shuffle, feeling oddly vulnerable. "I think I found her."
I wonder selfishly over the next ten minutes if this is anywhere near how Prim felt, being pulled away to the Hunger Games. I don't know whether I've just opened myself to death - or something amazing. Prim knows she's walking to her death.
I know that's what she's thinking. Even though she's looked to me to protect her for her whole life, there's nothing even one sixteen year old can do against something as oppressive as the Capitol.
Things I've gleaned from the brief conversation between Abernathy and the woman called Paylor:
Haymitch, as an outlying District victor, has only been loosely associated with the rebellion. A lot of the victors are involved, including—as Paylor accidentally leaks, from her muffled curse and Haymitch's apologetic look in my direction to say that I'm dead if the Capitol finds this out from me—Finnick Odair, the beloved District 4 tribute from a few years ago.
They've been looking for a figure to inspire the Districts. Someone with fire in their belly. Someone who would do anything to take the Hunger Games down. They had been holding back. Waiting for a suitable victor to rouse the masses. But this Game... with two 12-year olds in the arena... and the Quarter Quell due next year...
The timing is right. And I might be perfect. Someone called Coin had already suggested me, which makes Haymitch chuckle.
It makes more sense later.
A hovercraft finds us. I want to run and hide, but this is too great an opportunity to give up. Plus, as Haymitch points out, even if I managed to travel interrupted it would take me the full training fortnight to even reach the Capitol. And then it would be a matter of finding out which of the 10 arenas the Games have been set up in this year.
At least, Haymitch says, I have good taste in kidnapping victims.
On the hovercraft, some people I don't recognize give Haymitch and me a dark, almost cozy room with a TV and nothing much else.
"Guess we're being transferred somewhere," Haymitch says, with a shrug. He slumps into one of the armchairs and goes for the TV. "How long was I out?"
I'm about to answer when Haymitch lets out a stuttering curse. "Too long," he says, throwing me a dark look. "They're already onto District 11. Not even a chance to see who's your sister's most likely murderer."
I scowl at him, which just makes him smile a little. Onscreen is a small 12-year-old girl. Rue from District 11, the caption says. She reminds me so much of Prim in size and demeanour that my heart makes an escape bid for my mouth, and despite that flight of fancy I do have to swallow, like I'm swallowing the whole organ back down into my chest.
Rue's sweet and beautiful and it's heart-breaking to see someone that young drawn for the Games. Her feet as she sits in her chair don't even touch the ground.
The tribute that follows her makes my blood run cold. Thresh. He's easily six foot and built like an outhouse. His skin is the same colour as Rue's, but that's where their resemblance ends. I find my fingers are clenching my knees automatically. One of Thresh's hands is powerful enough to snap Prim's pale, skinny neck in one go. I find myself hoping, oddly, that if any of them are to take my Prim out, at least can it be this one. He's terse and no-nonsense. He wouldn't make a 12 year old suffer for long.
And then it's time for Prim.
She looks adorable. Whoever her stylist is, he's created this beautiful yellow dress. She looks like a single candle flame, like she would be so easy to extinguish. She looks like the picture of innocence. I think back to what Haymitch said. I'm not the spark of a rebellion—Prim's that.
Then the interview turns to talk of fire. I don't understand what Caesar Flickerman is saying, but Prim gets up to twirl her pretty dress—and then she's suddenly on fire.
I let out a shout, and hurtle towards the screen. Haymitch holds me back, his hands heavy and painful on my shoulders.
"Relax," Haymitch says, "the Capitol use that stuff for fire sculptures at parties. I've fallen headfirst into enough on them to know they don't hurt."
Prim stops twirling, her face shining, and Caesar looks stunned.
Caesar sits her back down and says, "There was an incident during your Reaping. Your sister wanted to replace you—but incorrectly followed the volunteer protocol, stranding you in the Games. Do you hate her for not trying her best to save you?"
"No," Prim says, and turns directly to the camera. Gone is her little girl innocent expression. Her face is hard. Prim, I think woefully, what are you thinking? "My sister loves me. She'd do anything for me. You'd better look out. She might burn you all down for taking me. She will. You'll burn. She'll burn you."
Caesar looks completely stunned, and the crowd murmurs, and Caesar obviously gets instructions from an invisible speaker, because he says, "And that's all the time we have! Our little fake firebird, District 12's Primrose Everdeen!"
I stay kneeling on the floor as Prim is marched off stage by two Peacekeepers, when only one led her on. It feels like all I need to do is reach out to touch her.
"Feisty," Haymitch says. "Perhaps that's the right Everdeen for the job after all."
I throw him a look. I am too busy glaring, and I miss Peeta Mellark coming onto the stage. When I turn back, Caesar's smelling him and the crowd is laughing. I frown, paying the interview more attention. I wonder if he's going to look after Prim, or if even now he's still thinking he may have to kill her.
Caesar asks Peeta whether he has a girlfriend back home. Peeta hesitates, and then shakes his head. I'm not convinced by it. I look across at Haymitch, and he doesn't look convinced either.
"Handsome lad like you," Caesar says, with a little leer that turns my stomach. "There must be some special girl. Come on, what's her name?"
Peeta sighs. "Well, there is this one girl. I've had a crush on her ever since I can remember. But I'm pretty sure she didn't know I was alive until the Reaping."
The crowd sighs. I think of our kiss, and I get a weird feeling in my stomach that I don't like. I distract myself and edge a look at Haymitch. "Why are they sighing?"
Haymitch snorts. "Do you have a heart?" He rolls his eyes when I don't even blink. "Unrequited love, pet. They can relate to it. It's a good angle. Might have got him some sponsors, if I'd been there to get them."
The digs he makes at me, unlike his digs at the Capitol, are not so cleverly disguised. "Oh."
"So, here's what you do," Caesar says, after Peeta's said something about the girl having a lot of admirers. I try and run through my head all the girls at school who might have had their eye on Peeta. There are so many who would go for him: he's strong, silent, kind. Since when had I noticed him so much? Since the kiss? Or since he saved my life? "You win, you go home. She can't turn you down then, eh?" Caesar says, winking broadly and digging Peeta in the ribs like he's trying to be encouraging.
Peeta wrinkles his pink mouth. "I don't think it's going to work out," he says, self-deprecatingly. "Winning... won't help in my case," he adds, sounding much surer of himself.
"Why ever not?" Caesar asks, clearly mystified. The crowd are on the edge of their seats. I find I'm on the edge of mine. There's a weird feeling in my chest that I can't quite explain, that doesn't match the feeling in my chest when I kissed him, and I'm halfway thinking it might be jealousy when Peeta drops a bomb I'm not sure I'll ever be able to recover from.
Peeta blushes beet red, lowers his eyes and stammers, "Well, if I survive, it means... It means I'll have either killed her little sister... or stood by and let it happen." He looks up at Caesar, a more determined expression on his face. "I won't hurt her. I won't. So the other tributes better be aware. If they put a finger on Primrose Everdeen, they'll pay. They'll pay."
Caesar starts laughing a little at Peeta's determination, but the crowd are cooing. It's unprecedented. There's been love shown for tributes at the Reaping stage, but never at the interview stage, never such devotion from one tribute to another; with this show of emotion, Peeta's won the whole crowd.
Hell, what am I saying. Not just the crowd.
"Now after that, had your impulsiveness not gotten in the way, that I could have used to get you some sponsors," Haymitch says. "He's made you the one thing you can't manage on your own. Not a soul in the Capitol knows who you are, but they all think you're the perfect girl right now."
I'm not really listening to Haymitch. How could I be so stupid? How could I never have spoken to him? He saved my life and now, and now he's talking as if he's going to give his own for Prim?
For me?
"Oh, hell, sweetheart." Haymitch shuffles closer. "Now this, this I couldn't have worked with. Star-crossed lovers? Hell of a pitch. You two would have ripped the games apart."
I don't know why he's talking more kindly until I look at him, and he looks a bit fuzzy around the edges. At first I think, oddly, he's drunk, but then I remember alcohol only affects the drinker's perception. So then I think I'm drunk? because it's easier than the truth. Easier to think that than to examine why I would be crying for Peeta Mellark.
"Isn't ripping the Games apart the plan?" I say, angry. I'm not angry at him. All of my anger, all of my life, has been directed to the Capitol.
If it wasn't for them, Prim would be safe, and I wouldn't be in some hovercraft still possibly going to a painful, protracted death. Or maybe towards the Capitol to something worse than death. I think of the red-haired girl. Haymitch called her an Avox, and said something about Avoxes having no tongue.
Decades and decades of the Hunger Games proved that the Capitol are nothing if not creative with their punishment.
There's a knock on the door and I turn. They've still left me with my bow and arrows, and I automatically notch an arrow into my bow as the door slides open. A man stands there, swallowing and tracking the arrowhead with his eyes.
"Ignore her, she's not house-trained," Haymitch says.
"Uh," the guy says.
"He's not a threat," Haymitch tells me. I sigh, and reluctantly lower my weapon.
"We're nearing the drop-off point," the man says. "We'll be using the vacu-tubes so if you have anything loose-" He looks at my arrows again. "Ensure they're secured."
I find myself sending a grin in Haymitch's direction. It feels natural and normal, and he grins back as I take a flap from the inside of my quiver that I normally use during the winter so my arrows don't get wet and bend and knot it over the feathers. My smile fades as my fingers find the gold Mockingjay pin in my pocket, and I pull it out and look at it. This would have kept Prim safe, I think, not even sure if I believe that. I pin it to my jacket, and tie my bow to the quiver tightly before shouldering it.
Now I'm vulnerable. But there's no turning back.
Part 3
I go home first. Mother sits by the fire, staring silently. She's already checked out. She doesn't even notice me, even though I fling my dress off the moment I get through the door, running up the stairs in my undergarments.
I'm fast. I have to be. I slip into my hunting gear in a couple of minutes, taking the time to ensure I have my sturdiest boots. I have a mad plan forming in the back of my head, and I may be gone a while.
My hunting satchel is still ready to go. I hurry downstairs and go straight for mother's cabinet where the most expensive stuff is. Mother doesn't even look up when I take the only remaining half-full bottle of sleep syrup that we have left, the one that took four months of Prim's goat's milk to procure.
"I'm going to get her back," I say into the empty room, but mother's eyes don't even leave the fire. I send a silent command to Gale to keep her alive, because if he doesn't step in, she'll wither in front of that fire.
I have no need for a mother who won't fight to keep herself alive. She still has me, and I am not enough for her.
As soon as I leave my house I run. I am fleet-footed and sure, because I know this place. It's only as I approach the station that I start to become nervous. How will I sneak onto a Capitol train? Won't they be as fully guarded as Prim and Peeta are right now?
The answer's no, and Madge must have known that to hint that to me. For some reason, they must think District 12 is too docile to try anything. In the end, it is ridiculously simple. The end carriages are all open.
It is in the third carriage I find myself in that causes me a little trouble. There's someone in there, with long red hair and a pale, pale face. A girl. She turns, and startles on seeing me, but doesn't make a sound.
I tense. Surely she's going to raise an alarm. But she doesn't. She taps at a TV screen in the corner. A replay of the Reaping is playing. Our District's Reaping will play on loop until tonight, when the proper edit of all 12 Districts will play. Prim is onscreen, and I nod, and put a hand to my chest.
The girl looks terribly sad, and that's when I realise with a start—I know this girl. She's the one Gale and I saw in the woods, being taken away by a hovercraft. My heart lurches into my throat. She has every right to hate me.
She doesn't. At least, she doesn't raise the alarm. She points at the door, and her sign is clear, leave while you can.
I shake my head. "Haymitch Abernathy. I need to find him."
The girl looks torn, and turns. She drops to her knees and opens a cupboard I hadn't noticed. This whole place is plush and technologically rich, and for a moment I think Prim will love this. Except the price of her enjoying this place is never too far from my mind, and I fight down the bile that rises in the back of my throat. This train is paid for in blood and sweat and death—the blood and the sweat and the death of my District, and the others around us.
She hands me something, then, and I take it and grin. She makes a motion across her mouth. Sealing it shut. I understand, and slip the spare robe over her head. If I stay still and silent, they might think I'm like her.
She hurries over to me and points at the door, and then puts three fingers up.
"Three carriages across?" I guess. She nods. "Thank you. And..." My tongue is a tangle. I can't find the right words. I think about our positions, reversed, and how much help she's been. "I'm sorry. About not saving you and your..." I make a guess. "Brother."
She looks at me, still silent, and then makes our District's three-fingered salute, her eyes full of tears. I understand. She forgives me, and wishes me well on my journey. She understands what I am doing, because she has been there herself, and fallen for it.
I turn and hurry through the door, not wanting to waste the gift she has given me.
I find Haymitch Abernathy slumped in a chair in a half-darkened room. He smells like a brewery. In the corner is a large delivery of various kinds of alcohol, and a wheeled contraption that they were brought in on. As I hadn't thought how I was going to get Haymitch off the train, that's a brilliant find.
He's already half-drunk, if not all the way there, so in the end, this part of the plan is easy too. The Capitol expects its rebellions big and brash. They've spent so long broadcasting hours of TV painting us as foolish and stupid that sometimes they underestimate us. As the farthest District out, District 12 is—of course—the stupidest. Our tributes are often played as fools. Looking at Haymitch, it's easy to see why they come to this conclusion.
Apparently he's more awake than he looks. "You," he slurs, "you Avox, you freak me out." Avox. I turn the word over in my head and mimic how the red-haired girl looked as best as I can. "The Capitol take your tongues, you don't have to add a creepy stare to their disturbing repertoire." He sighs when I don't move. "Make yourself useful and get me a bottle of the green stuff."
I turn to the rows and rows of bottles in his train carriage. I edge a look out of the window, and wonder what will happen if the train goes now. Prim would be on board. I could take her. The train goes fast, but maybe we could jump out from a door—
No, the Capitol needs their tributes. The doors will be locked. We might die jumping out.
"Sometime today, love," Haymitch slurs. I nod, and he makes a disgusting sound. I slip out the bottle of sleep syrup and add the whole lot to the green liquid. If needs be, I can pinch his nose and force it down him, but from the way he clamours again for it, I don't think I'll have to.
I cross the room and pour him a generous amount into the glass he waves at me. "About time," he mutters. "Do they take your brain as well as your tongue?"
His words are harsh, rambling, and his eyes are glazed. He doesn't even sniff at what I've poured him, just downs a whole mouthful of it. He does pull back the glass suspiciously, and I can't help my grin. His head dips. The syrup, especially in that size of a dose acts fast.
He turns and looks up at me, eyes wide. "What did you do?" Haymitch gasps out, and tries to rise from the chair, but his body betrays him and he slumps to the ground.
I work fast. It takes a burst of energy to get Haymitch into the sack I picked up from one of the other storage carriages on the train. Then more energy to get him into one of the alcohol boxes. Then one more heavy to get him onto the trolley with wheels.
A faint snore comes from inside the box, and I wince. I need to get him out of there, immediately. Haymitch knows the arena, better than anyone, and that's what I need.
I don't have time to travel all the way back through the train, so I take a risk. I want to hide what I've done, confuse the Capitol. Slow them down. I rip one of the cushion covers from one of the plush chairs, dowse it in alcohol and fashion quickly a long fuse. I run into another full bottle of alcohol and lie the fuse along the floor, dampening the floor with water so the whole place doesn't go up. I position Haymitch in his box near the door, and take the tinder box from my hunting satchel. I spark a light and set the twisting fabric on fire.
I really won't have long. I open the door and bump him out in the wheeled contraption. I freeze for a moment when I see all the people at the other end of the train, and some of the District crowded around behind them, behind a fence. Waving them off. Like they're just going on a vacation.
I move like I belong there. Like I have been told what to do. Like this is just my job. I am an Avox, whatever that is, with just this task to do.
It works. No one challenges me. I wheel my box, and my drunk, drugged, snoring victor captive, right off the station without the Capitol any the wiser.
It's when I make it to the first line of trees that Haymitch's carriage billows into flame. The windows explode outwards. It sounds like music to me. I look back once, to see the billowing flames, to see the shouting, and then see the spray of the onboard water sprinklers dousing the whole fire out almost immediately. The carriages detach, and the half with Prim on sails off into the distance.
I blink back tears, and push off with my cargo before anyone notices me and links me to the fire.
At least the fire will have wiped out all trace of anything I might have left behind. And it will have burned up the sleep syrup. The Capitol will have no idea where Haymitch has gone.
But I know where he is. And better, I know where to take him.
Haymitch wakes up eventually.
Tied to a chair.
He curses and spits and struggles before even trying to look around him. He swears some more when he sees it is the inside of a rather dishevelled, grungy little hut.
He swears even more when he sees me sitting opposite him. My Avox robe is spread over a rudimentary table my father made once, showing Haymitch immediately who is captor is. My hunting bow is across my knees and I am not even trying to look kind.
"You," Haymitch spits, and struggles in his bonds. He won't get out. Gale makes the best snares in any of the 12 Districts. "What have you done?"
"Kidnapped you," I say, in an unconcerned voice designed purely to drive him mad.
He lets out a few more choice words.
"I'm only sixteen, Mr. Abernathy. Am I old enough to hear that sort of language?" I tease.
He tells me to get lost in even worse language.
He stops struggling. Eventually. "You're not an Avox," he spits.
"And here I thought I'd acquired Haymitch Abernathy, last remaining District 12 victor of the Hunger Games," I say, my tone mocking, "not Captain Obvious."
"You'd be better as an Avox," Haymitch mutters. "Blow Snow, my head, girl. What did you do?"
"Drugged you with sleep syrup and then burned down your carriage," I tell him. There's no point in lying.
"You- Why would you-" Haymitch forgets he's tied to the chair and struggles, smacking back into the seat of the chair pretty soundly. He sighs again, and looks me over, suspiciously. "Wait, you. You're that girl. The girl from the Reaping."
"Katniss Everdeen," I say, introducing myself. "My sister got picked as tribute."
"I'm genuinely sorry," Haymitch says. "But you're an idiot."
"Says the guy kidnapped and tied to a chair," I return.
"You're the one who messed up, girlie." Haymitch tries to point one of his fingers at me as best as he can in his restraints. "If you'd waited just a few more minutes, you'd have been on that stage and I'd have been meeting you on the train in very different circumstances." He paused. "Did you say you burned down my carriage?"
I tilt my head. "What about it?"
"Man, I'd have loved to see that." Haymitch makes this pleased whistle through his perfect teeth. The sight of them make me mad. Only the richest in our District can afford to keep their teeth in that good a condition.
"Say that again," I say, straightening. My bow stays on my knees even when I move, like it really is part of me.
"I'd have loved to see that?" Haymitch tries.
"Before," I say. Something he said is tugging at something in my brain.
"You're the one who messed up?" Haymitch says, like he's decided to humour the crazy girl. "If you'd just waited a few more minutes-"
"There." See, I don't know Haymitch Abernathy, but I've seen a lot of people in pain come to our house. Mother fixes—or tries to fix—all who come. And sometimes when they're in a lot of pain, they lie to make mother feel better.
I don't know what he's lying about, but Haymitch is lying about something. "You know something. Even if I had gone with proper procedure, they wouldn't have let me volunteer, would they?"
Haymitch's face is carefully blank, then he shrugs as much as he can in his bonds. "Word coming through from the Capitol is that anyone who might volunteer for emotional reasons as opposed to District pride is to be rejected. There's all manner of laws to cover any eventuality. Even if you'd volunteered at the right time..."
I'm stunned. I thought I could have done something to save her. But to learn nothing would have worked... "Why?"
"President Snow has a direct line right to my house, poppet," Haymitch says, "he keeps me informed of all of his terrible, secret plans to crush us all under his thumb-"
I roll my eyes. "Why do you think it's happening?"
Haymitch shrugs, and looks down at his bound wrists disinterestedly, like he's anywhere but here. Tied to a chair in the middle of nowhere by a crazy girl. "I've got my theories."
"Well, it's not like I've got anything else on my agenda today. Kidnapping, fire setting, letting my little sister be taken to her death—all done. I'm free."
"You've got about as much charm as a dead slug," Haymitch snits at me, and exhales, a huffy little annoyed sound I am getting used to. "The country's ripe for a rebellion. No one wants to go through another Quarter Quell. Districts are bigger, more populated, than they've ever been. If all twelve Districts rose up now, at once, word is... maybe we could do it. Hell, what would it matter if we failed? The Quarter Quell this time could take all of our children. All at once. Wouldn't put it past the Capitol. But they'd have to leave enough people behind to keep themselves in the fashion they're accustomed to, or their own people would rebel too. The Districts would survive either way. Comes a time when people are willing to risk everything again. The Capitol think... maybe soon is that time. 'course," he adds, settling into his ropes like it's his choice to be there, "they don't actually think it'll happen. But just in case, as soon as they see any spark of hope, they're crushing on down on it."
A rebellion. The idea sinks heavy in my stomach. The Hunger Games are a punishment for the last rebellion. Our hearts break every time tributes are taken. But if we do nothing, they'll keep taking them.
Surely it might actually be worth the risk. To lose a portion of our people now to a war that will free us?
Or is this the thinking that led us to the Hunger Games in the first place?
"Doesn't matter either way," Haymitch says. "I'm the sitting dead."
I scoff. "I'm not going to kill you. Might leave you out in the middle of nowhere if you don't co-operate, but my flawless aim is reserved for prey I can eat. Your body is so made up of alcohol you'd explode if I tried to cook you."
"You think the Capitol will let me live for missing the train?" Haymitch isn't lying now. There's a raw honesty in his voice that resonates deep inside me. "The Capitol won't take my disappearance impersonally. You've just stranded your sister and her avowed protector in the Games without a mentor."
"Surely-" I start, confused by what he's saying.
"They'll make Primrose and the boy—Peeta—ah, I see you know him too. Boyfriend, is he?"
I narrow my eyes, but maybe the memory of the kiss is making me blush, because Haymitch looks much too aware all of a sudden.
"Regardless," Haymitch says. "The Capitol don't take any disrupted plans kindly. They'll make Peeta and Primrose pay for what you've done by not giving them a mentor. Without a mentor, they won't get sponsors. You've doomed them both." He grins, no humour. "Well done."
My mind is racing. I finger the Mockingjay pin in my pocket, the one I meant to get to Prim. But that idea changed as soon as I saw the train. Take Haymitch, my plan's first step.
Get him to tell you about the arena, my second.
My plan was never to disrupt the Capitol's plans. "They were doomed anyway," I say, looking at him with hard eyes. If he makes any inclination to dub me in, I'll leave him here. I think about telling him I wouldn't kill him, but we both know that's a lie. If I think he'll get me in trouble, I'll leave him tied to the chair, one of my arrows right through his heart. I may be thinking like the Capitol right now, but he's better dead than stopping me. "That's not what I- That's not why I've detained you."
"Right," Haymitch says. "I guess you detained me to have tea."
"Don't be an idiot," I say. "I kidnapped you for your brain."
Haymitch does actually pause at that. After a moment he says, slowly, unsurely, "Not many women say that to me." He adds a rather crass wink.
"Drunk, paunchy, middle-aged—you're a catch all right." I roll my eyes. "Tell me everything you know about the arena. Where is it. How is it protected. How big was it. Is it in the same location every year or do they move it. How-"
"Woah, woah, wait a second," Haymitch says. "What would you do with information like that? I mean, I can give you it. I can definitely give you it. Especially if you soothe the way with something to drink, if you get what I mean. But- To help me focus the answers. It's not like your little sister can break out of the arena, even if you got the answers to her. What do you want it for?"
"Isn't it obvious?" I lean forwards, both hands now on the curve of my bow. "No one's even broken out." I smile at him, wide. I am deadly, and I am capable of this. "But I want to be the first to break in."
Haymitch obviously has some sense of self-preservation left, because he manages not to start laughing for a good few seconds.
"That," he says, when he regains some modicum of self-control, "is the most hilarious thing I've heard in a long, long time."
I resist the urge to stamp my feet. I've never had that urge before. "I'm serious."
"As a heart attack," he wheezes, which just sets him off laughing again. "It's just-" He manages to flail a little bit in his ropes. "What skills do you have that you think you could make it all the way to the Capitol? The Games will start in two weeks. And you think it'll be as easy to get into the arena as it was to get me? The Capitol underestimates placid District 12. It doesn't underestimate any of its surrounding Districts, or do you forget what part District 3 played in the rebellion?"
Our teacher in fourth grade was from District 3, Electronics. You could see her ribs even through her clothes. In District 12, you can starve to death in safety. In District 3, you starve to death in fear—if you live that long.
"You'd have to get into the Capitol to find the location of the arena. Out again. Then into the Command Centre, because there's a forcefield right around the arena, wherever it is. You're just a little girl, Katniss. Go home to mother. You've got nothing."
Haymitch's condescension snaps my last nerve and before I even know it, my bow is in my hand, and I set off three arrows in quick succession.
It's the mark of someone who has seen death and survived that he does not even blink. He does slowly blink when he realises where my arrows are.
Exactly either side of his neck, and one a hairbreadth away from his groin.
There had been a belligerent amusement in his face before, but now there was nothing but a serious consideration.
"What would you say," Haymitch says, "if there were already plans being made to disrupt the Games - and I could get you into it."
"I'd say you'd been drinking too much," I say, coolly.
"But what if it's true?" he says. I frown.
"If what you're saying is true," I say, "why would you even-"
He tuts, annoyed now. His fingers, the only part of him really left free to move, tap impatiently against his knee. "You're so limited in your vision. Impulsive. It's got you this far. You need people who can see further. And they need someone like you."
"I don't-" I start, but I don't know how to finish. I don't have any plans. He could betray me, but the forest is still my territory. I could get away from him if things turn nasty.
"There's no point keeping me tied up, either," Haymitch says, "I'm too drunk still to move coherently, and I make one wrong move and you'll shoot me down."
I stare.
"I can't do this tied to the seat," Haymitch says. There's a little less slur in his voice, and maybe a glint of something in his eye that wasn't there before. Something which makes him look a little more alive.
"Do what?"
"Can't give all the magic away, can I, sweetheart?" Haymitch winks. I pretend to vomit and bring my bow up. "I'm not playing you, I swear. You think I want to keep living like this? Waiting for the Capitol to show up and take me again? After your little stunt, I'm dead anyway. Shoot me."
Oh, he thinks I plan to shoot him. I smirk, and unleash my arrows at him.
Right at the pivotal rope that leaves the whole binding slithering away from his body.
I keep my bow pointed at him as he pushes the ropes free from his body, and rubs his wrists where I was perhaps a little less than kind with my knots. He looks at me sourly, and reaches around to his back.
He might be going for a knife, so I let my arrowhead track his every movement.
"Relax, it's just a thing," Haymitch says, eloquently.
"A thing," I reply, loading the word with as much sarcasm as I could.
"One day your sarcasm's going to get you into trouble," Haymitch says. "Although you seem to get along with trouble well enough on your own." He pulls out what he's tugging at from behind his back slowly, slowly. I peer at it. It's a small screen, a lot like I've seen some of the more senior Peacekeepers have. "This here's a fancy communicator type thing," Haymitch explains. "Like a phone. But portable. And a TV in there, too. And some sort of game with a ball-"
"The Capitol can track those," I say, interrupting him. I back up a pace, levelling the arrow at his eyes.
Haymitch sighs. "Then you're already toast. It's been on since this morning." He tilts the screen, and thumbs at a meter in the corner. A power meter. Half full. He grins, lopsided. "You need to cater for all possibilities when you plan something. Getting me here, that was just luck. You being here..." He thumbs at something else, and squints at me a little. Like he's considering me for something, except I feel suddenly like livestock.
"I've met President Snow, y'know." Haymitch settles back, staring out of the window, looking like he could be sat in the Capitol itself, not in his kidnapper's dark dungy hut. "He goes on and on about fear being a motivator, and how hope is dangerous. But you know what's more dangerous?"
"A thousand poisoned arrows aimed straight at his stupid head?" I ask. I'm surly. I'm boiling with feelings, none of them that I like. In the darkness, I can see the gleam of Haymitch's teeth as he smiles.
"Love," Haymitch says, simply.
"Oh, give me a break." I get to my feet. Haymitch just follows me with his eyes. "You can't do squat with love. You can't feed your family after your father dies in a ridiculous mine explosion with just love. You can't stop the Capitol taking my baby sister away, taking children away, year after year. You can't stop the stupid Hunger Games with love-"
"You're wrong," Haymitch says. "What if I told you that you could stop the Hunger Games with love?"
That's his plan to break into the arena? With love? I feel like an idiot for thinking he had genuine plans.
"I'd say you've been drinking too much of Ripper's White Liquor."
"Well, that too," Haymitch admits. He taps his fingers against his knee in a pattern. There's an old piano at school. It doesn't work well, only the lower half, and that's out of tune, but Prim got to play it once last year and her fingers moved in just the same way.
Haymitch might have gone to our school twenty-five years ago. Walked those same halls, until the Reaping where he was called up with Maysilee Donner and two others. May the odds be ever in your favor must have sounded even more hollow during that particular Quarter Quell.
I wonder if he felt at useless during our Capitol-approved history lessons. I wonder how much has even changed in the last twenty-four years.
The look on Haymitch's face clearly tells me the answer: nothing.
"So?" I prompt, annoyed at the smug smirk on Haymitch's face. "What is this grand thing that love can do?"
"Love's a spark, nothing else," Haymitch says.
I deflate. I hadn't realised that I'd been waiting for something genuinely amusing. The disappointment chokes me a little. He said that before. A spark. What the hell is a spark supposed to do?
"But a spark... can start a fire. And that's what we need. We need to burn through all the Districts. We need them all alive and on fire. We need to wake them up, Katniss." Haymitch's eyes are gleaming in the dark, and I finally get what he means.
"You mean..." I start, and fall off. Because what he's suggesting, well. That caused a spark of its own. A spark that flamed into the Hunger Games. "You mean to start a revolution."
"There's nothing else, and I guarantee that, nothing else that will get your sister out of that arena alive," Haymitch says, leaning back.
He still looks smug. As well he should.
I am already sold. "What do I do?"
He smiles, and presses another button on his small screen. There's a beep. I think I recognise that beep from around the Peacekeepers.
"Hey, Paylor. Abernathy, here."
"Are you drunk?"
I can hear a woman's voice, but Haymitch keeps the screen tilted from me.
"No," Haymitch insists automatically. "Well, yes. But that's not why I called."
"The line's secure."
"You know you were waiting for the right thing, the right spark to light this rebellion?" Haymitch pauses, and looks across at me, and continues speaking. This time his look isn't like I'm livestock. It's contemplative. It's oddly hopeful. I shuffle, feeling oddly vulnerable. "I think I found her."
I wonder selfishly over the next ten minutes if this is anywhere near how Prim felt, being pulled away to the Hunger Games. I don't know whether I've just opened myself to death - or something amazing. Prim knows she's walking to her death.
I know that's what she's thinking. Even though she's looked to me to protect her for her whole life, there's nothing even one sixteen year old can do against something as oppressive as the Capitol.
Things I've gleaned from the brief conversation between Abernathy and the woman called Paylor:
Haymitch, as an outlying District victor, has only been loosely associated with the rebellion. A lot of the victors are involved, including—as Paylor accidentally leaks, from her muffled curse and Haymitch's apologetic look in my direction to say that I'm dead if the Capitol finds this out from me—Finnick Odair, the beloved District 4 tribute from a few years ago.
They've been looking for a figure to inspire the Districts. Someone with fire in their belly. Someone who would do anything to take the Hunger Games down. They had been holding back. Waiting for a suitable victor to rouse the masses. But this Game... with two 12-year olds in the arena... and the Quarter Quell due next year...
The timing is right. And I might be perfect. Someone called Coin had already suggested me, which makes Haymitch chuckle.
It makes more sense later.
A hovercraft finds us. I want to run and hide, but this is too great an opportunity to give up. Plus, as Haymitch points out, even if I managed to travel interrupted it would take me the full training fortnight to even reach the Capitol. And then it would be a matter of finding out which of the 10 arenas the Games have been set up in this year.
At least, Haymitch says, I have good taste in kidnapping victims.
On the hovercraft, some people I don't recognize give Haymitch and me a dark, almost cozy room with a TV and nothing much else.
"Guess we're being transferred somewhere," Haymitch says, with a shrug. He slumps into one of the armchairs and goes for the TV. "How long was I out?"
I'm about to answer when Haymitch lets out a stuttering curse. "Too long," he says, throwing me a dark look. "They're already onto District 11. Not even a chance to see who's your sister's most likely murderer."
I scowl at him, which just makes him smile a little. Onscreen is a small 12-year-old girl. Rue from District 11, the caption says. She reminds me so much of Prim in size and demeanour that my heart makes an escape bid for my mouth, and despite that flight of fancy I do have to swallow, like I'm swallowing the whole organ back down into my chest.
Rue's sweet and beautiful and it's heart-breaking to see someone that young drawn for the Games. Her feet as she sits in her chair don't even touch the ground.
The tribute that follows her makes my blood run cold. Thresh. He's easily six foot and built like an outhouse. His skin is the same colour as Rue's, but that's where their resemblance ends. I find my fingers are clenching my knees automatically. One of Thresh's hands is powerful enough to snap Prim's pale, skinny neck in one go. I find myself hoping, oddly, that if any of them are to take my Prim out, at least can it be this one. He's terse and no-nonsense. He wouldn't make a 12 year old suffer for long.
And then it's time for Prim.
She looks adorable. Whoever her stylist is, he's created this beautiful yellow dress. She looks like a single candle flame, like she would be so easy to extinguish. She looks like the picture of innocence. I think back to what Haymitch said. I'm not the spark of a rebellion—Prim's that.
Then the interview turns to talk of fire. I don't understand what Caesar Flickerman is saying, but Prim gets up to twirl her pretty dress—and then she's suddenly on fire.
I let out a shout, and hurtle towards the screen. Haymitch holds me back, his hands heavy and painful on my shoulders.
"Relax," Haymitch says, "the Capitol use that stuff for fire sculptures at parties. I've fallen headfirst into enough on them to know they don't hurt."
Prim stops twirling, her face shining, and Caesar looks stunned.
Caesar sits her back down and says, "There was an incident during your Reaping. Your sister wanted to replace you—but incorrectly followed the volunteer protocol, stranding you in the Games. Do you hate her for not trying her best to save you?"
"No," Prim says, and turns directly to the camera. Gone is her little girl innocent expression. Her face is hard. Prim, I think woefully, what are you thinking? "My sister loves me. She'd do anything for me. You'd better look out. She might burn you all down for taking me. She will. You'll burn. She'll burn you."
Caesar looks completely stunned, and the crowd murmurs, and Caesar obviously gets instructions from an invisible speaker, because he says, "And that's all the time we have! Our little fake firebird, District 12's Primrose Everdeen!"
I stay kneeling on the floor as Prim is marched off stage by two Peacekeepers, when only one led her on. It feels like all I need to do is reach out to touch her.
"Feisty," Haymitch says. "Perhaps that's the right Everdeen for the job after all."
I throw him a look. I am too busy glaring, and I miss Peeta Mellark coming onto the stage. When I turn back, Caesar's smelling him and the crowd is laughing. I frown, paying the interview more attention. I wonder if he's going to look after Prim, or if even now he's still thinking he may have to kill her.
Caesar asks Peeta whether he has a girlfriend back home. Peeta hesitates, and then shakes his head. I'm not convinced by it. I look across at Haymitch, and he doesn't look convinced either.
"Handsome lad like you," Caesar says, with a little leer that turns my stomach. "There must be some special girl. Come on, what's her name?"
Peeta sighs. "Well, there is this one girl. I've had a crush on her ever since I can remember. But I'm pretty sure she didn't know I was alive until the Reaping."
The crowd sighs. I think of our kiss, and I get a weird feeling in my stomach that I don't like. I distract myself and edge a look at Haymitch. "Why are they sighing?"
Haymitch snorts. "Do you have a heart?" He rolls his eyes when I don't even blink. "Unrequited love, pet. They can relate to it. It's a good angle. Might have got him some sponsors, if I'd been there to get them."
The digs he makes at me, unlike his digs at the Capitol, are not so cleverly disguised. "Oh."
"So, here's what you do," Caesar says, after Peeta's said something about the girl having a lot of admirers. I try and run through my head all the girls at school who might have had their eye on Peeta. There are so many who would go for him: he's strong, silent, kind. Since when had I noticed him so much? Since the kiss? Or since he saved my life? "You win, you go home. She can't turn you down then, eh?" Caesar says, winking broadly and digging Peeta in the ribs like he's trying to be encouraging.
Peeta wrinkles his pink mouth. "I don't think it's going to work out," he says, self-deprecatingly. "Winning... won't help in my case," he adds, sounding much surer of himself.
"Why ever not?" Caesar asks, clearly mystified. The crowd are on the edge of their seats. I find I'm on the edge of mine. There's a weird feeling in my chest that I can't quite explain, that doesn't match the feeling in my chest when I kissed him, and I'm halfway thinking it might be jealousy when Peeta drops a bomb I'm not sure I'll ever be able to recover from.
Peeta blushes beet red, lowers his eyes and stammers, "Well, if I survive, it means... It means I'll have either killed her little sister... or stood by and let it happen." He looks up at Caesar, a more determined expression on his face. "I won't hurt her. I won't. So the other tributes better be aware. If they put a finger on Primrose Everdeen, they'll pay. They'll pay."
Caesar starts laughing a little at Peeta's determination, but the crowd are cooing. It's unprecedented. There's been love shown for tributes at the Reaping stage, but never at the interview stage, never such devotion from one tribute to another; with this show of emotion, Peeta's won the whole crowd.
Hell, what am I saying. Not just the crowd.
"Now after that, had your impulsiveness not gotten in the way, that I could have used to get you some sponsors," Haymitch says. "He's made you the one thing you can't manage on your own. Not a soul in the Capitol knows who you are, but they all think you're the perfect girl right now."
I'm not really listening to Haymitch. How could I be so stupid? How could I never have spoken to him? He saved my life and now, and now he's talking as if he's going to give his own for Prim?
For me?
"Oh, hell, sweetheart." Haymitch shuffles closer. "Now this, this I couldn't have worked with. Star-crossed lovers? Hell of a pitch. You two would have ripped the games apart."
I don't know why he's talking more kindly until I look at him, and he looks a bit fuzzy around the edges. At first I think, oddly, he's drunk, but then I remember alcohol only affects the drinker's perception. So then I think I'm drunk? because it's easier than the truth. Easier to think that than to examine why I would be crying for Peeta Mellark.
"Isn't ripping the Games apart the plan?" I say, angry. I'm not angry at him. All of my anger, all of my life, has been directed to the Capitol.
If it wasn't for them, Prim would be safe, and I wouldn't be in some hovercraft still possibly going to a painful, protracted death. Or maybe towards the Capitol to something worse than death. I think of the red-haired girl. Haymitch called her an Avox, and said something about Avoxes having no tongue.
Decades and decades of the Hunger Games proved that the Capitol are nothing if not creative with their punishment.
There's a knock on the door and I turn. They've still left me with my bow and arrows, and I automatically notch an arrow into my bow as the door slides open. A man stands there, swallowing and tracking the arrowhead with his eyes.
"Ignore her, she's not house-trained," Haymitch says.
"Uh," the guy says.
"He's not a threat," Haymitch tells me. I sigh, and reluctantly lower my weapon.
"We're nearing the drop-off point," the man says. "We'll be using the vacu-tubes so if you have anything loose-" He looks at my arrows again. "Ensure they're secured."
I find myself sending a grin in Haymitch's direction. It feels natural and normal, and he grins back as I take a flap from the inside of my quiver that I normally use during the winter so my arrows don't get wet and bend and knot it over the feathers. My smile fades as my fingers find the gold Mockingjay pin in my pocket, and I pull it out and look at it. This would have kept Prim safe, I think, not even sure if I believe that. I pin it to my jacket, and tie my bow to the quiver tightly before shouldering it.
Now I'm vulnerable. But there's no turning back.
Part 3