Author's Note: Sorry. This semester has been... yikes. It's basically over now, but I'm taking summer classes and going on an intercultural trip for school and trying to finish the rewrite of the first book in my original series this summer, so... don't expect an update every other day or anything. Heh-heh... (As if anybody has expected that for years.)
Also sorry because... reasons.
"The citizens of District 12 had no organized resistance movement of their own. No say in any of this. They only had the misfortune of having me." –Katniss Everdeen, Mockingjay
The world was light, bursting through his lashes as he cracked his eyelids open. But Sid didn't need to shield his eyes. The brightness didn't hurt his head or make him wince. He felt no pain, no suffering, no cold…
So Vale was right, was his first realization. And his second: Well. I guess I'm dead.
The memories were distant, faded in the light, but he remembered—the volcanic heat exploding around him, Vale's necklace launching out of his hand and flying through the air, toward the mouth of the mine. Hopefully someone would find it and return it to the Whitakers.
The Whitakers. He'd been worried about them. Worried to the point where he couldn't clear his head, and the fear had become a constant buzz inside his skull. But then, Sid had overreacted often since the Games. Found reasons to be afraid, on edge, even when there were none. The Whitaker family would be fine. Whoever had come after Sid—they would quit now. Now that they had gotten what they wanted.
Sid rose to his feet and started walking. He wasn't sure where he was going, but he moved forward out of instinct. Intuition. Even here, he still had that.
He walked until he heard a high peal of laughter. Three figures soared through the air in the distance. The first was a small boy with dark blond, messy hair, performing flips and dips in the sky. The second figure was a girl, not much older than the boy, with wavy, bronze-colored hair and both legs still firmly attached to her body. And the third—an older girl, dressed in white, the breeze lifting strands of her long black hair out of her face…
If Sid hadn't already been dead, his heart might have stopped. "Vale."
/
Rain battered down on Maybelle's shoulders on the day of the funeral. Cold droplets of water bled through her clothing and beaded in her eyelashes like tears. As if she was capable of crying.
Her father and Perrin Leefinch lowered the box into the ground. The box that contained Sid's body, all that was left of it after the mine explosion. Maybelle didn't cry. She watched them shovel dirt over him, until she couldn't see even a splinter of the simple wooden casket. Maybelle didn't cry. They'd carved him a headstone with a name that wasn't his. Buried him right next to Vale's grave.
Maybelle didn't cry. Crying would make it real.
Instead, she clenched her rain-slicked fingers around the heart necklace, hanging around her neck. Perrin had spotted it just outside the entrance to the mine, when he'd discovered Sid's broken body. Sid had found it for her. He'd been ready to return it to her, again.
Maybelle wouldn't cry. She wouldn't. That would mean acknowledging that he was gone, just like Vale.
Maybe they're together now. In that place without districts that she talked about. When they were both alive, in the arena, the sight of Sid and Vale together had made Maybelle sick. But the idea gave her some comfort now. Not much, but a faint spark of warmth inside the cool of her chest. Vale and Sid were together, happy, no longer in pain.
Perrin had assured her and Averill that Sid hadn't been in pain for long. The blast, the collapse would have killed him almost instantly. Maybelle had nodded, had feigned relief, but her mind clung to the "almost."
Almost instantly. Had Sid realized what was happening? That he was dying? What did it feel like? What was the last thought to cross his mind before he was gone? Had he thought about her? About Vale? Of course he had thought about Vale. He loved her. Maybe he had been thankful to die, so he could see her again. Maybe he had embraced death, if the place without districts was so much kinder than the world he'd left behind. Or maybe he hadn't wanted to leave. Maybe death had to drag him kicking and howling out of this life. Even if the world was cruel and full of pain—maybe Maybelle and her family had been enough.
Maybelle broke and sobbed into her hands. It was real. All of it was real. This was really happening, and here she was, standing in front of the grave of another person she'd loved.
Averill asked her later that night, in their home, once they were warm and dry—"Do you really think it was an accident? What killed him?" And slowly, suspicion filled the hollowness in her ribs.
"I don't know."
/
"Vale…"
She didn't hear him. Sid stepped closer, his strides shorter and quicker now. He couldn't breathe, or maybe he hadn't been able to breathe since he woke, and he just hadn't noticed until now. Closer, closer, and Vale still didn't seem to notice him. Closer, and the blond boy—Kit Littleby—spotted him first.
"Citrus?" Kit had caught sight of him while he was in the middle of a flip. He hung upside-down in the air, his mouth open and his forehead creased.
Nerissa turned next, smiling as her eyes fixed on his face. "Obsidian!" She flew down to meet him and threw her arms around his waist. She pulled away and stared at him—taking in his longer hair, faint traces of dark dye still lingering amidst the blond. Nerissa had no trouble standing. There was nothing to indicate the way she had died, after that mutt severed her leg. She was saying something to him. She was saying something, but Sid couldn't hear.
His ears had fixated on a third voice, quiet and hesitant. "Sid?" Vale blinked a couple of times, like this place's light was blinding her—only that wasn't possible. Sid watched her float to the ground. Watched her pick up speed until she was sprinting toward her.
Sid felt light, light enough that when Vale plowed into him, it was almost enough to knock him off his feet. He braced himself against her, his arms around her shoulders, and there was so much he wanted to say. Then she kissed him, and the shining world went still and silent.
She'd kissed him before, on the night before the Games ended, and the next morning. But this kiss was better. Previous kisses had felt like forever, but they had been tinged with the knowledge that they had no forever. But now, they did. They had as long as they wanted, as long as…
Vale sprang away from Sid at the sound of a loud, hacking cough. "Ewww!" Kit was grimacing at them, his eyes bulging. "What are you doing?"
But Sid didn't speak. His eyes were still locked with Vale's, his mind numbed against any stimulus that wasn't named Vale Whitaker. "I love you," he said softly. "Has it been long enough that I can say that now?"
"I…" Vale smiled. "I guess so."
"Can someone please tell me what the heck's going on?" Kit interjected. "Why are you making out with Obsidian Citrus?" His gaze shifted from Vale to Sid and back again. "I think I was just scarred for life. And I'm dead!"
"Um…" Sid could have sworn that Vale was blushing as she hunted for words. "When I was telling you about the Games, I might have left something out." She started to explain, then paused, looking at Sid. The smile drained from her face. "What happened to you?"
"What killed you," she meant. Sid fumbled with the words. He didn't want to tell her that it had been deliberate. Or that he had been so afraid.
"Mining explosion," he said with a weak chuckle. "Just a stupid accident."
"Mining?" said Vale. "But District One doesn't do any mining. All of that is done in District Twelve."
"Right," Sid said. "It's kind of a funny story, actually…."
/
Maybelle woke on the day of the reaping with dread crushing in on her skull. No, saying she woke would imply that she had gotten any rest in the first place. She had drifted between states of semi-consciousness for a few hours, but she hadn't rested. Not really.
She had always dreaded the reaping, but this year, it was worse. She knew, better than ever, what happened to tributes in the arena. What had happened to Vale and Kit. Images of Amber Sheen's arrow piercing Vale's chest had dominated Maybelle's thoughts when she had struggled for sleep last night. And memories of the haunted glaze that had taken over Sid's eyes sometimes, long after he was free from the Games.
What if they call my name? Or Averill's? Or Laurel's? No, that would just be cruel. To take one of them, just a year after the Capitol had taken their sister.
Maybelle and her family got dressed and prepared to leave for the ceremony. Laurel tried to make her siblings smile, but no one did. Her tiny shoulders slumped beneath the fabric of her pale blue dress. Maybelle clutched her hand as they walked to the assembly.
It was strange, to see someone other than Lavinia Gilden presiding over the ceremony. The new escort was a short woman with an outlandish hairstyle and pale blue skin. Her demeanor was colder than her predecessor's. It sent fresh shocks of dread down Maybelle's spine.
The escort slipped a hand into a clear sphere and drew out the female tribute's name. She smoothed out the paper, and Maybelle couldn't breathe. She cleared her throat, and Maybelle couldn't think. Time crawled forward on its hands and knees, and the entire district stood silently at the edge of an enormous precipice, just waiting for the escort to speak.
"Maybelle Whitaker."
The crowd parted in front of Maybelle—still silent. A shocked, frozen silence, a nearly suspicious silence. There was pity in their faces, in the sets of their thin mouths. Maybelle still couldn't breathe. She met Laurel's eyes first across the sea of faces, and her younger sister burst into tears.
"May, let me…" Laurel started, a burst of panic in her watering eyes.
"Don't," said Maybelle. "Don't you dare."
She let them lead her onto the stage, parade her around like this was some sort of honor. Maybelle didn't feel honored, and she didn't flush with warm pride. The moment felt cold. Numb, like the strangers' faces in the crowd. Maybelle didn't cry, because it didn't feel real.
She didn't cry until she was on the train to the Capitol, along with a fifteen-year-old boy named Jon whom she'd never met before, and she felt like the world was collapsing in on itself. Saying goodbye to her parents and siblings, entrusting Vale's necklace to Laurel, being dragged away by the Peacekeepers—everything had happened so fast.
She felt frozen in place, cold seeping into her bones and taking root there until the ice paralyzed her limbs. There were so many things she should have said, should have done, but she hadn't had enough time.
She knew one thing for sure: this hadn't been an accident. This was a punishment. For Vale's actions, for the Whitakers harboring Sid. Just like Sid's "accidental" death in the mines… this was an act of punishment.
Maybelle only hoped it would stop with her.
/
It didn't stop with Maybelle. The year after Laurel's older sister was killed in the bloodbath of the forty-fifth Hunger Games, Averill's name was called. Laurel prayed that someone would volunteer in his place, but no one did. Laurel watched in icy horror as Averill marched onto the stage—looking less surprised than she felt. At her sides, two of her close friends from school, Ameline and Daisy, held her hands, like they were trying to keep Laurel from floating away. She felt so lightheaded that she might have otherwise.
Averill, like Vale and Maybelle before him, begged Laurel and Hazelle not to watch the Games. But this time, Laurel watched. She watched because she felt even more helpless when she didn't—as if watching the events unfold might grant her some power to change them—as childish an idea as that was.
She watched as the timer dropped away to zero over an arena made of juts of craggy rocks, and the Games began. She watched, clutching Vale's necklace in her fist, as the tributes onscreen started running—some of them toward the Cornucopia and its bounty of supplies, and some of them away. Averill sprinted away from the Cornucopia, wide-eyed and pale. No tributes were going after him, so Laurel assumed he was safe. Averill thought so, too, because a faint grin started to spread across his face. A pale sliver of teeth and hope.
Then, he tripped over a protrusion in the uneven ground and fell. He cracked his head against a rock. A sharp sound burst out of Laurel's mouth. She watched her brother lay there, dazed, gaping up at the sky, with blood seeping out of the wound on his forehead. The girl from District One, Diadem, buried a knife in his chest before he could get up.
Laurel expected her name to be called at the next year's reaping. She stood in the crowd of fifteen-year-olds, gripping Ameline and Daisy's hands again, and held her breath as the blue-skinned escort drew the female tribute's name out of the heap of paper slips.
It wasn't her.
And Laurel had watched too many people she loved die to be one hundred percent certain that she was safe after that, but another year passed—lonely and too empty—and she tried to believe it. It was exhausting, after all: coexisting with the gnawing concern that the government was planning to kill you. It was naïve to imagine that everything was going to be all right, but it helped Laurel to sleep at night and made her feel better about stepping around corners.
The next reaping arrived, for the forty-eighth Games, and again, Laurel clung to Daisy and Ameline and prayed.
"We're going to be fine," said Daisy.
"If they were going to do anything, they would have done it last year," Ameline offered, squeezing Laurel's hand. "You won't have to go into the arena. I promise. This year will pass, and the next one, and the next one, and you won't have to go into that arena."
The escort selected a slip of paper, and Laurel struggled to calm her breathing. Daisy smiled at her, a wavery smile. The escort unfolded the paper. Laurel watched the woman's eyes scan the name, before she looked into the crowd and parted her blood red lips to speak.
"Laurel Whitaker."
Laurel whirled around, scanning the crowd until she found her family, what was left of it. Her father shaking his head, expressionless and numb. Her mother, clinging to Hazelle with tears already spilling over her cheeks. And Hazelle, who wasn't crying, not this year. Hazelle, whose small face was full of sorrow, but whose cheeks were dry as she tried to comfort her mother. Hazelle, whose determination already shone out of her eyes like beacons.
Tansy Leefinch and her husband Damon cut through the crowd to comfort the Whitakers, as well. Tansy was clutching her infant son. They'd named him Kit—after Kit Littleby. The baby picked up on Mrs. Whitaker's distress and started to howl.
"Come on." Laurel gave a start as a Peacekeeper—a towering man with a bristly jaw—seized her by the crooks of her arms. Her hands were yanked away from Ameline's and Daisy's. The Peacekeeper started to lead her toward the stage, and she didn't have the nerve to protest.
"Wait! Stop!" Laurel craned her neck at the shout. The Peacekeeper paused, looking back.
Ameline stood directly behind them, with her fists on her hips. Sixteen and short. She wore a hand-me-down dress from one of her older sisters, and her hair was held back in two girlish braids, but the expression on her face was cold. Intimidating. She glared up at the escort onstage, and fire crackled in her voice as she spoke—before Laurel could stop her.
"Stop! I'll go instead."
"Ameline…" Laurel began, as the Peacekeeper released his grip and marched toward her friend instead.
Ameline took a step forward, her gray eyes softening as they met Laurel's. "What did I tell you? I promised."
She almost choked as she tried to object. "But that doesn't mean…!"
The Peacekeeper knocked her out of the way. "Move it, Lucky. Just be grateful."
And Laurel tried to be grateful—she did. But it was difficult when she had to say goodbye through tears and snot to one of her best friends before Ameline boarded a train bound for the Capitol. And when she watched her ride a racing chariot through the gilded Capitol streets wearing a ridiculous imitation of a coal miner's cap, like the one that Sid had been wearing when he died. And when she learned that Sid's cousin, Glint Citrine—seventeen years old now, his angular face like a distorted echo of Sid's—was going into the arena this year, as well. And when Ameline stood on a platform in an arena that didn't look so different from Vale's, as the countdown dwindled to zero, and all Laurel could do was watch.
She didn't feel lucky. She just felt cold and scared, all over again. She wanted to believe that everything would be fine, that Ameline would make it through, but… she had lost too many people. Laurel couldn't cling to naïve hope. Not this time.
"But if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all? And if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like you've been here before? How am I gonna be an optimist about this?" –Bastille, "Pompeii"
Author's Note: Yeah, sorry because reasons. So many reasons. Where do I begin? ("The rubble or our sins?") Oh, yeah, maybe I should begin with the fact that I keep killing people off. Yeah. Sorry.
~Lily