Chapter Text
Days and nights are white now.
White like the walls in the victor’s home. Like the roses I still get delivered to my doorstep, a reminder that I will never stop being watched. Endless white noise, and my reflection doesn’t look at me anymore. When I look into the mirror, I don’t look at Haymitch Abernathy, rascal, rebel, beloved brother and boyfriend. I look at the victor of the Quarter Quell. The victor with shadows under his eyes, with scars all over his body and hair that’s long overdue for a cut but won’t be trimmed any time soon.
At midnight, I toss the newest delivery of white roses into the fireplace, watching with hatred as they go up in flames, their sweet smell replaced by crackling burns. It’s my birthday gift to myself.
Happy Birthday, Haymitch.
I miss you.
The sun is rising once again, and I haven’t done anything to stop it. It’s another year. Another reaping. Another murder. I’m still letting it happen; I’m not fighting it. I’d blow the whole damn Capitol to pieces if I could.
On the inside, I know that I want to scream and punch the glass of my mirror and get my hands all bloody and messed up and stab myself with the glass shards, sharp and deadly through my heart to stop it from hurting, but maybe one day I will stop the reapings and Lenore Dove would want me to try.
I didn’t sleep. All night, I sat on the floor, staring at the wall, knowing that today will be the day I lead two innocent children to their deaths. I take a swig of the white liquor I saved for today, and another for good measure. Hattie still drops off a bottle every now and then, but she never knocks or talks. Only leaves the bottle on my doorstep. She knows I need it now and never asks me to help her brew it anymore.
Once the sun paints the sky pink, I know that it’s not a dream. I'm really here. I’m really still alive. I’m alive because everyone else isn’t.
The Peacekeepers are at my door bright and early and escort me to the town square. The victor’s village is lonely with me as the only resident. Anxious clouds hang over the sky, despite it being the middle of summer, it’s adequately chilly outside for a morning.
I wonder if I’ll have to watch the reaping. If they’ll put me on the stage again. Or if I’ll wait in the train for the two death sentences. The closer I get to town square, the more I want to fight the two Peacekeepers to my sides. I want to run and get shot in the head like Woodbine Chase. Except nobody would be here to protect my body from being hauled away. Would they shoot me? Snow seems set on keeping me alive. Alive enough, anyway.
I’m there before most of the rest of Twelve. The Peacekeepers push me forward, tell me to wait by the stage. Cameras are already set up, something buzzes. It must be my brain making this irritating noise because nobody else seems to hear it.
I do as I’m told, too tired to put up a fight. It won’t change anything anyways. All I’d do is cause more trouble than I’m worth. So, I stand. I stand and I stare as my district gathers. Everyone is scared. A child is crying. An endless sea of faces, new twelve-year-olds eligible to be reaped, eligible for a premature death.
The banners hanging from the buildings are threat enough. NO CAPITOL, NO PEACE. NO PEACEKEEPERS, NO PEACE. NO PEACE, NO SECURITY. Then, the music starts playing. Panem’s anthem. My eyes flash over the crowd of kids. I’m on display. Perfectly visible for everyone.
When Drusilla enters—good for her, that her hip is healed again—they lead me to the back of the stage where the tributes will join me. Like I’m just another tribute. Again. To the Capitol once more I go, my only companion death and memory. Drusilla is dressed in all-pink this year. A dress so tight I’d be afraid it’d break her hip again if I didn’t hate her so much, hair as tall as a skyscraper with white pearls woven throughout, and heels so sharp she could stab someone with them. Even her satin gloves are pink, candy-pink, with white lace on the edges and a golden P stitched on the back. P for Panem. Her eye-makeup is so pink it’s blinding, and her lashes are laced with feathers that make me wonder how she isn’t constantly rubbing her eyes.
While she holds her standard introduction—Panem forever, President Snow, and so on and so forth—she briefly turns to me, gestures me to smile. I’m a victor, after all. I’m supposed to be happy to have survived, grateful to have experienced such a unique time, proud of having persevered.
Only when a peacekeeper knocks me in the back with the butt of his gun do I follow the request. I hope that everyone in the crowd can tell it’s not honest. My eyes find the side of the girls. Maysilee stares at me from one of the front rows. Merrilee. Merrilee is alive. Maysilee isn’t. She keeps staring, and I do my best to keep my false smile on my frozen face. Her jaw clenches, she wipes a tear away.
Her sister is dead because I am not. Asterid looks at me the same.
I avert my eyes, try to unfocus them, to blur everything happening in front of me. I know they all hate me. I do, too. Three of us are dead because of me.
“Ladies first,” Drusilla says cheerfully and lets her gloved hand hover around in the bowl of paper slips. She says it like it’s an honor to be chosen first. To be chosen at all. Finally, her fingers pull out a slip, fold it open, hold it in front of her face like she needs reading glasses. I can’t imagine she can see very well through those feathers. “Wylow Lee,” she reads, lets her eyes move over the girls. Some people back away, make room for Wylow. She’s a short girl with a round face and brown braids, but she must be over fifteen. She keeps her face illegible while she walks to the stage, her handmade, yellow dress stands out like a canary in a sea of pigeons. Drusilla helps her up on the stage, eyes the dress, smiles happily and returns to the bowls.
Wylow stays quiet next to me, but I can feel her eyes on me as I keep mine straight ahead.
Drusilla aims for the next slip. Her eyes fixed on the boys in front of the stage, each more nervous than the last, more scared, or more terrified, I don’t know. How horrified one of them is about to be and how relieved the rest of them. Drusilla picks the name, does the same act as she did for Wylow and calls the boy.
“Coltin Rutledge!” I’ve never heard the name before. Coltin steps out of the crowd, hesitant and red in his face. He must be twelve years old. Dark hair and his scrawny looks remind of Ampert, so much that I almost choke on my own breath. Was he purposefully chosen because of his looks? Two birds with one stone; remind both me and Beetee that we’re not out of the woods just because we won. Another knock in my back reminds me to shut up, hold back the scream burning in my lungs.
“What a wonderful ensemble,” Drusilla cheers as the boy joins us on stage. His big eyes are teary, he sniffs next to me. Neither one of the kids is going to survive in this arena. They’re both dead already, and they know it. Short, scrawny, and nervous make for terrible fighters.
The camera gets some shots of us, displaying them on the giant screens above the stage. Everyone can see my face in full resolution, the smile they make me put on and likely the suppressed trembling of my lower lip.
I’m nothing more than a Capitol’s pawn. I drop the smile, and almost instantly the buzzing in my brain stops. Wylow’s and Coltin’s faces are on the screen, attempting to look brave. Suddenly, Drusilla’s cheerful demeanor burns a hole into my chest. She shouldn’t be this happy, she shouldn’t pretend that the Capitol is doing us a favor. I’m out of rocks to throw today, so in the matter of a second, I kick off my shoe and hurl it at her, watching as it hits her right in the face, making her stumble back. In the same second, Peacekeepers restrain me on my arms, one points a gun at my face.
“Shoot me!” I shout. “Just do it already! Shoot me!”
“No!” Drusilla shrieks, holding out her hand to the soldiers. “Do not shoot him, President Snow wants him—” She stops when she remembers that everything is being filmed. Likely not broadcasted live, I suppose. “Cut the stream,” she hisses, fixes her hair with two quick movements of her hands and gestures my captors to let go of me. “Still keeping up that rascal attitude, are you, Haymitch? Get him to the train!”
She drops the shoe off the stage and watches as I stumble with the Peacekeepers, one foot only covered by my sock, while the two tributes are being escorted to say Goodbye to their families.
Rascal. Yeah, that’d be me if I had something left to fight for.
I’m brought to my compartment in the train, I assume one that was made specifically for the mentors, or maybe specifically for me because the bedding is dove-gray. The locks on my door turn—they have locks on the outside to keep us caged like animals—and I slump down on the bed.
“Lenore Dove, I’m sorry,” I whisper into the stillness of room. I pull my legs up on the bed, wrap my arms around them. “I’m so sorry, my love.”
She doesn’t respond. I sit there for what feels like hours but can’t be more than twenty minutes before the train starts moving. Goodbye, Twelve. Welcome back to the Capitol. Through the cotton stuffed in my ears I hear the lock turn again, and my hands tremble as I slide the door open. I wipe over my eyes, because having a lunatic for a mentor is bad enough, they don’t need a crying one too to make matters worse.
My legs are slow and stale, and I hear noise from the dining compartment. Drusilla’s noise, specifically. She is congratulating Wylow and Coltin on their luck, and encourages them to dig in. When she sees me, her expression changes.
“Haymitch,” she says, “come join us, won’t you? I’m sure you’re hungry. We have breakfast made just for the three of you.”
Slowly, as if in a trance, I sit down across from my two mentees.
“You’re lucky you’re such a Capitol favorite, that little shoe stunt would not have ended well for anyone else,” she informs me. “Snow must really think you’re one of a kind if he allows such behavior. Rebellious behavior.” She shudders. “I expect you to be better once we’re at the Capitol. You don’t want to put your reputation on those two.”
“Why not, if I’m such a favorite?” I pick up the butterknife in front of me and slam it into a bread roll. “They must love me over there.”
“Don’t play with fire, Haymitch. Be grateful you survived.” She eyes the knife in the bread and stands up from the table. “Excuse me,” she says sweetly, “I will freshen up while you can get to know each other.” I’m sure she only leaves because she doesn’t want a knife to be added to the collection of things that I have thrown at her.
Once she leaves the compartment and only an Avox is left to watch over us, Wylow reaches for the knife and removes it from the bread roll, dropping it back on the table. “How are we going to survive if you don’t even want us to live?” she asks.
Coltin’s face turns even redder.
“It’s not that I don’t want you to live, canary” I say. “It’s that you don’t want to live.”
“I want to live,” Coltin mutters. “I want my brothers.”
“No.” Maybe my words are too harsh. Too hurtful. But if I had had an actual mentor who could’ve told me this, I would’ve appreciated it. “You don’t. You’re a part of this now, whether you like it or not. Maybe you think that you want to make it out of the games now. But once you have, you won’t want it anymore. Surviving the games is not winning the games.”
“Great, so we have a suicidal drunk for a mentor,” Wylow remarks sarcastically. “I want to at least try. I won’t let my family down.”
In the middle of the table stands a bottle of liquor. I reach for it, fill up my glass. Alcohol for breakfast. One more drink won’t hurt. “How old are you?”
“Sixteen,” Wylow says. “I got a long life ahead of me.”
“Your life is expiring.” I take a swig. “Whether you survive or not. You’re either going to die in that arena, or you’re going to survive, and regret having lived. There’s no other choice.”
“Do you have any actual advice?” Wylow’s cheeks are almost as red as Coltin’s, though his are colored from fear and hers from anger with me.
“Yeah.” I pour the liquor in my glass down my throat, slam the glass back on the table. “Don’t pull any stunts. Don’t try to rebel. Don’t do anything that could look like you’re questioning the Capitol’s choices. They’ll hunt you down.” I push my chair back and grab the liquor bottle by the neck. “I got some sleep to catch up on. While I’m gone, don’t try to get to know each other. It’ll only make it hurt more.”
I leave them with that, grasping the bottle firmly and disappearing into my compartment. The alcohol finds its place in my stomach, and I slide the small window open and begin stuffing the bedsheets out of it until they flutter away in the wind and my bed is bare. The sheets are followed by the empty bottle, smashing against the outside of the train and onto the tracks by the time we’ve already put too much distance between us and Twelve.
I collapse onto my bed and stare at the ceiling; my arm draped across my stomach as I wait for the alcohol to catch up to me. Return to the Capitol. Back to those mouths starving for entertainment, longing for children to kill each other for the general population’s amusement.
Right into President Snow’s fangs.