Chapter Text
There’s a party the afternoon the Games end, and while all the victors are invited, nobody goes. I watch the streets burst to life from our balcony on the fourth floor. People run barefoot down the pavement, dancing with silken flags, spinning one another around and around. The air shimmers with fireworks and someone sets off sparklers below. The colours are brilliant, even in the bright light of the day. It smells like petrol and smoke. I lean against the railing in disturbed wonderment until a voice from below calls, “Look, it’s Finnick Odair!”, and I have to depart into the safety of the apartment again.
Mags is making coffee in the living room. She passes me a cup and the tin of sugar, and I pile spoonful after spoonful into the stuff.
“If you’re not careful, your teeth will rot and fall out,” she tells me.
“And then the Capitol will find me new teeth,” I reply.
She shakes her head and then pats me on the shoulder. “You alright?”
“I’m happy it’s over.”
“Yes, but are you alright ?” she replies.
I shrug. “It’ll be nice to have someone my age around next year.”
Mags looks at me. “Yes, I suppose it will.”
We go back downstairs to the Games Centre around late afternoon. There’s not much point in doing anything else. The streets will be too busy to navigate, and the roof will be off-limits as the hovercraft carrying Ashley back from the arena lands. As it turns out, there’s a lot more the floor has to offer besides the Click, the cafeteria, and a few meeting rooms. An entire lounge has been set up, complete with lush velvet loveseats, a bar, and an indoor fountain. The lights are dim and calming, soft music plays over the speakers.
At least a third of the victors have congregated in the room. There are a few faces I don’t recognise — a handful of old winners who have been invited back to the Capitol to take part in the post-Games festivities. We sidestep them, finding ourselves in a group of Mag’s old-timers. Cecelia from Eight gives me a warm look, Beetee and Wiress from Three exchange cautious glances – clearly unsure on how to deal with someone my age. Seeder offers me a bowl of chocolate she’s been snacking from.
I see the way that they’re looking at me, and I know without having to ask that these are more of the people Plutarch Heavansbee was telling me about the other day. Whether they’ve been told that he’s reached out by himself, or perhaps Mags, they certainly know. I bite my lip, thinking about the address he gave me.
Tonight, he told me. I’ll have to see him tonight.
“I swear, these parties get more intense every year,” Cecelia is saying, shaking her head. “I don’t ever remember them lighting fireworks the year after I won.”
“Oh, this is nothing compared to last year,” Seeder says. “Do you remember how long that rager lasted? I could hardly make any of my appointments. Not that I was complaining.”
“I don’t think it’s fair to compare any of us to Finnick,” Cecelia tells her, giving me a good-natured smile. “He’s his own breed of victor.”
I don’t want to think about how happy people were that I won. I duck my head and fiddle with a chocolate chip. “What was it like when you got out, Cecelia?”
“Oh, let me think,” she tilts her head to the side. “I was hardly the most popular of the bunch. I had quite a few anti-fans. I remember that security had to be tightened around the Tribute Centre because they were so worried that the fans of the girl from Two would break in to enact her revenge on me.”
I pale. “They would do that?”
Beetee pipes up nervously. “Back in the day they really didn’t like it when we won,” he says. “Some of us, at least.”
“I suppose they’re all for the underdog nowadays,” Seeder smiles. “And besides, they all eventually fall in love with every victor. There’s nothing quite like exposure bias.”
Sylvia from Seven comes down a little while later to join us. She’s plied with questions. Her body looks exhausted, but her face is relieved. It seems like the weight of the world has been lifted off her shoulders.
“He’s still unconscious,” she tells us. “They have him on a tube while they repair his punctured lung, so he’ll probably be out cold until tomorrow. They’re not sure how he’ll come to. He hit his head very hard.”
“They always sort them right out,” Mags tells her. “He’ll be completely fine.”
I don’t miss the expression they share, and the words that go unspoken between them. Physically, he’ll be fine. The rest is another question altogether.
I excuse myself once it gets dark. The group doesn’t say anything, though I notice the tension in the air. I tell them I’m going to bed, but instead I stop off at the reception on the ground floor of the Tribute Centre and ask for a car to take me to the Games History Museum.
It takes an hour to arrive. I sit nervously in the back seat, sweating into the plush leather. The car moves through the streets at a crawl, inching through a kaleidoscope of brightly coloured bodies. I think of the rundown bloc I visited the other day and wonder if they must be celebrating there too, or if the streets are empty. I can’t imagine a place like that would care much for celebration, but truth be told, I don’t have much idea what the Capitol is like at all.
Thankfully, the Games History Museum has underground parking, so I don’t have to brave the crowds. To my surprise, the lots are all empty. We roll out on the tarmac beside an empty row of elevators, unmanned by guards or attendants. A bright yellow sign tells me to have my tickets ready, but my pockets are empty.
It looks shut. I blink as I watch the car shuffle away. Did I misread the address Plutarch laid out for me? No - I’m certain it was here. Then, what? Do I have to wait? Do I go upstairs? Am I supposed to call someone?
“Don’t look so terrified, kid.”
At the sound of the voice, I nearly jump out of my skin. My fight or flight instincts kick in, and I dig my heels into the ground, balling my hands into fists. My breath whistles between my teeth as I scan the parking lot.
“Next to you.”
I turn. Standing, leaning against one of the concrete poles that tells drivers which spot they’ve parked in is Haymitch Abernathy. He wears a baggy cardigan over a button-up shirt, his hair mussed and tired.
“Oh,” I say, dumbly. “Um. Sorry. Hello?”
“Sonata couldn’t make it,” he says, using Plutarch’s false name. “I’ll be your date tonight, if that doesn’t offend you too much.”
I blink, confused. “Um. No. That’s alright.”
“Great,” he says, striding past me. “Come on. Every victor loves this place.”
We ride up the elevator in silence. I stare at him, wondering what he’s doing here. Plutarch must have asked him to come, but why Haymitch? And why here? Why not find somewhere in the Games Centre to talk? Surely it wouldn't be too conspicuous for two victors to speak amongst themselves, would it?
I’m about to open my mouth to ask when the elevator door slides open to reveal a spotless, barren lobby, infested by the sound of drilling and sawing.
“Museum’s closed for the weekend while they set up this year’s room,” Haymitch explains. “You’ll have to speak up for me to hear you, but at least it means you’ll get to see the sights without being swarmed.”
So, nobody will hear us, I think. I nod tightly. “I’ve heard my trident’s in here somewhere.”
“Oh, it certainly will be,” Haymitch says. “But let’s warm up to that.”
We trudge through the halls, starting with an exhibition on the very first Games. The ordeal began in a Capitol amphitheatre, an old sporting stadium. At one point in its lifecycle, it was bombed. Now it’s been cleared away and preserved as a historic site, same as all the other arenas. They’ve preserved a bit of the rubble in a glass box. I stare at it in astonishment. Beside the rubble is a list of names on a plaque – Capitol citizens who were caught and killed in the blast. Apparently, that was the first year that mentors were introduced into the Games. They had senior students do the job. Sometime around the 25th was when the brilliant idea of having old victors take up the mantle was brought up.
“District Twelve’s first victor won in there,” Haymitch says, gesturing to a photograph of the arena. “I can’t remember what year.”
“What happened to them?” I ask.
He shrugs. “No clue. Guess she died.”
We move on. Mags’ Games were the first ones in a proper arena. It was rudimentary, nothing like what they have now, but it added a new element to the programme that audiences were craving. I look at the photograph they have of her from her victory tour — young, brazen-eyed — and try to blend it with the image I have of the woman I know.
You’ll watch about a hundred children from your district die, I think, looking into her eyes, and then baulk, because that’s only one district of twelve. In the back of my head, some twisted impulse tells me to do the numbers.
I don’t have to. Between rooms, a sign tells us that one-thousand four-hundred and ninety-five tributes have died so far. They’ll need to tack on an extra twenty-three, after this year.
We continue on, mostly in silence. I wait for Haymitch to take charge, say something, but he doesn’t. We hop from Games to Games. I see the remains of the contraption Beetee built which fried seven tributes in a single second. I watch a clip of Seeder climbing to the top of an unbelievably tall tree and showering fire down on the alliance which trapped her. When we reach Haymitch’s Games, I watch him carefully as we examine a single, petrified flower.
“Poison,” he tells me. “It was all poison.”
We trek through arenas I start to remember from my childhood. There’s a cast from the neck of the tribute Enobaria mauled with her teeth. A model of the mutt Cecelia managed to tame. The stone Gloss used to bring down on his opponent’s head.
Then we reach my Games.
It feels like travelling back in time. The thick grass, the smell of smoke. The large, flat mountain. Faces of the children I came to know — the children I killed. And sitting at the very end of the room, haloed in light, like a twisted angel, is my trident. Golden. Polished. Deadly.
Haymitch sniffs. The sound of drilling is the loudest here. They’ll be working right next door, building a new room for a new boy, just like mine. And then next year, they’ll build a room for the next one, and then the year after that, and on, and on, and I wonder when it is that they’ll run out of space, and what will happen when they do when it happens.
They’ll probably just build another museum.
We walk right up to the trident. It’s clean. I don’t remember it being clean.
“You get it, don’t you?” asks Haymitch.
I nod slowly, because I don’t think I can bring myself to speak actual words.
“Listen, I told him not to involve you just yet,” he says. “You should have time. But he thinks you could be exactly what we need.”
My throat is hoarse. “What do you need?”
“Someone to unite them,” Haymitch tells me.
I feel dizzy. My mind feels foggy, but at the same time, the clearest it’s ever been since I stepped out of the arena. “He thinks I can do that?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t think you can. But I do think that they love you in a way that they’ve never loved any of us before. You’ve set the precedent, Odair. If I had to guess, I’d say you’ve paved the path. Maybe someday in the future, someone will be able to run down it.”
“I don’t get it, though,” I say. “I haven't actually done anything special. I’m no different to you, or any of the others.”
“Mm,” he shrugs. “Maybe you’re not. Maybe it’s just time. You’ve seen how many years we’ve been playing this Game. At one point, maybe things are bound to change.”
“What are you doing?” I ask him.
“Giving things a little shove,” he says. “Setting up. Taking stock. Plutarch thinks you’ll be vital in making us new friends.”
“New friends?”
“Allies,” he says. “Oh, because when it comes to this, it’s no different to the arena, Finnick. We have to set up the framework. Train. Make allies. And then, when the right time arrives, we’ll strike.”
“But what are you trying to do?”
Haymitch keeps his eyes firmly trailed on the trident. “We’re trying to stop all this.”
I look around me. “Stop it?”
“Yes,” he says. “They’ve made the rules, and we have to play by them. Funny thing is, we’re good at that. We’re victors. ”
“But this is the way it’s always been.”
“No, Finnick,” he says. “It hasn’t.”
I think of the photograph of Mags. I think of Maia, and Leander, and god knows how many other tributes I’ll come to know in my next few years of mentoring. “So, I just have to say yes, right? And then I’m in?”
“It’s a little bit more complicated than that, usually,” Haymich tells me. “But yes.”
“And we’ll end it all?”
“Maybe,” he says. “Well, we hope to, anyway. We have no clue how long it’ll take. It might take a whole lifetime. Maybe more. Maybe less. We might not even be around to see it when it happens. But we have a responsibility to try.”
There’s a list of names across the room. Names of the tributes who died in my Games. I don’t even need to look at them to remember every single one.
“Is it dangerous?”
“People have already died,” he says.
“People have died for this?”
“And people will probably continue to die for it too,” he says. “But it’s better than kids dying for nothing.”
I take another look at my trident.
“I’m in,” I tell him.
WHEN I return home, Mags knows where I’ve been. We don’t talk about it. We don’t dare to. But she sees the look in my eyes and nods firmly before she bids me goodnight, as though she’s telling me that she knows what I’ve agreed to, and she respects it.
I know that I’ll probably think a lot about this decision in the next few years. Maybe I’ll wonder what I could have done differently. Maybe I’ll want to go back in time. Ask more questions. Savour more time. I really have no clue what the future will bring.
But if I’m certain about one thing, I’m certain that I won’t regret saying yes.
THE next few days are a blur. While the party on the streets outside has died down enough to let people enjoy the city, most of the mentors spend their time waiting in the lounge on the Donum Floor. We hear bits and pieces about Ashley’s recovery from Sylvia.
“Most of his major wounds have healed,” she tells us, on the third day. “But I’m worried about him. He has a bad head injury. His speech is slurred. He can’t even read.”
“Head wounds take time to heal,” Seeder assures her. “If he keeps working at it, I’m sure he’ll recover.”
“The longer he takes, the longer we’re stuck here,” Chaff grunts.
“He’s just a boy,” Seeder tells him. “Give him time.”
It takes six days for the Gamemakers to deem Ashley recovered enough to make it on stage for the closing festivities. I’m invited to meet with a few benefactors in the meantime. There are comments about my upcoming birthday, which only succeeds in reminding me that the countdown to the day they can touch me hasn’t stopped ticking. It makes me nervous, cold, but I push through it by reminding myself that one day, if I’m lucky, and if I fight hard enough, this might all be over.
All the victors are invited to the final viewing of the Games. Invited being code for mandatory. I get dressed in my finest sponsored outfit and pack up my things, because tonight, I’ll be on a train home.
We pack into seats. I’m next to Cashmere. She doesn’t look at me, and pretends that what happened the other day never did. I play along.
When the crowd sees Ashley, they go wild. He’s bemused. He really does look young on stage, I notice. He’s thin and hasn’t quite lost the wild look in his eyes that he had in the arena. When Caesar asks him a question, he stares blankly.
“I said, how does it feel to be back?”
“Um,” Ashley blinks. “Good. It’s good.” He stammers involuntarily as he speaks, fighting to form the words. They’ve pushed him on stage before he’s ready, I realise. “I forgot how many people would be here.”
“Well, you have quite a few fans,” Caesar tells him. On cue, the crowd cries up. I see Sylvia up on the balcony, looking worried. Ashley sways slightly. “Are you quite alright?”
“Yes,” Ashley says, hesitantly. “I’m sorry. I’m a bit dizzy.”
“Well, that was quite a blow to the head you took there,” Caesar says. “Let’s have you sat down and you can see exactly what a splash you’ve made.”
When the recap is over, we’re all led to a great hall under the stage, where we’re told to say our goodbyes. I wander around, shaking hands. Until next year, everyone says. Next year.
Seeder ruffles my hair. Chaff punches me on the arm. Across the hall, Haymitch raises a glass at me.
At one point in the evening, Ashley is led down. Sylvia escorts him, holding his arm as he stumbles around. A couple victors call out in greeting. He catches my eye briefly as they walk past, and I think that maybe he recognises me from our conversation back at the chariots. I think about going up to say hello, but then think better of it. I’ll have all of next year to get to know him, after all. And the year after that. And then the next one.
“I want to go home,” I hear him tell Sylvia, as they head towards the escalator. “I miss mum.”
I think about my own home, and my own father and sister. I think about my bed, and the sea, and about the fact that Ness will be getting married soon.
I want to go home too.
But there’s someone else I need to say goodbye to first.
I find him on the train a few hours later, in a clean, unmarked wooden coffin. His skin is grey, but otherwise, it looks like he might be asleep. He looks almost peaceful, his expression unlined by the tension that always seemed to cross it when he was alive. There are no marks from the arena. No scars or lines from training. Nothing at all to remind me of the boy who I met on this train, just a few short weeks ago.
“I’m sorry, Leander,” I tell him.
He doesn’t reply, of course, because he’s dead. I imagine if he wasn’t, he’d just roll his eyes and tell me to get over it.
I pat Maia’s coffin too, but I don’t look at her, and I don’t say goodbye. It feels like an invasion of privacy, but maybe I don’t want to see what they’ve done to her body.
I walk to the door. One day, I promise myself, I won’t have to say goodbye to anyone. I won’t have to come here to apologise, because the person I came here with is going to come back home with me.
Of course, that’ll be a story for another year.
But there’ll be plenty of those to come.