Sunrise on the Reaping

Something steels inside me, and I think, You are on a high horse, mister. And someday someone will knock you off it straight into your grave. I dismount the chariot and lay Louella down, taking a step back so Snow can’t pretend he doesn’t see her broken little bird body. Then I gesture to him and begin to applaud, giving credit where credit is due.

Spin this, Plutarch, I think.

“I want to remind people I’m here because the Capitol won the war and thinks that, fifty years later, this is a fair way to punish the districts. But I’d like them to consider that fifty years is enough.”

[…]

“So you want to make them end the Hunger Games for good. How?” asks Maysilee.

“I don’t know yet,” I admit. “I guess, for starters, by reminding the audience that we’re human beings. The way they talk about us…piglets…beasts. They called my fingernails claws. You saw how those kids outside the gym looked at us. Like they think of us as animals. And they think of themselves as superior. So it’s okay to kill us. But the people in the Capitol aren’t better than us.”

“And I will orchestrate your death based on your behavior from here on out. You decide what you want Lenore Dove and your mother and that dear little brother of yours to see. You can die clean and fair, or we can open the Games with the slowest, most agonizing death ever to befall a tribute. And yes, you should be thanking me for giving you the option.”

I wonder how Wyatt died and immediately feel certain he was protecting Lou Lou, the way no one had ever protected him. Including me. I ran off and left all the Newcomers to fend for one another. I know I had to if I was going to carry out Beetee’s plan, but it sure doesn’t feel good.

A fury rises up in me at the thought of Wyatt’s sacrifice and how the Capitol has pitted us tributes against one another in this poisonous beauty of an arena. The Games must end. Here. Now. Every death reinforces the importance of the arena plot succeeding.

The cannon fires to confirm [Lou Lou’s] death as her body goes limp. Whoever Lou Lou was, she’s moved on. Her slight, starved frame lies quiet, finally beyond the Capitol’s reach. I lean down and whisper into her bad ear. A personal message to the Gamemakers. “You did this to her. This is who you are.” And then for Lou Lou, I say the thing she no longer can. “Murderers.”

This is my poster. Right here. I give a wild victory cry and spin around shouting, “Did you all want a party? I’ll give you a party!”

Lightning flashes, a clap of thunder booms. I dance around the berm, bellowing the first thing that comes to mind for all of Panem to hear. A song too dangerous to sing—

They hang the man and flog the woman
Who steals the goose from off the common,
Yet let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.

The fate I have been trying to defy ever since I saw that perverse birthday cake on the train has come home to roost like the raven in the poem, forever perched above my chamber door. I am completely in Snow’s power and his to manipulate. His puppet. His pawn. His plaything. It is his poster I am painting. His propaganda. I am trapped into doing his bidding in the Hunger Games, the best propaganda the Capitol has.

I don’t dare think about my loved ones back home. Everything I did, every choice I made, was based on the knowledge that my death protected them from harm. Snow had guaranteed that in the library. “With you out of the picture, Lenore Dove and your family should be free to enjoy long and happy lives.”

[…]

This I know: I have been publicly challenging Snow and his Quarter Quell since I landed in the Capitol. Even after the private meeting in the library, I flaunted my defiance of him. If he served up poisoned oysters to Incitatus Loomy, the parade master, what feast must he have in store for me and mine?

[Lenore Dove’s] eyes fixate on something in the distance. “See that?” she says hoarsely.

I turn my head and see the sun, just peeking over the horizon. “What? The sun?”

“Don’t you…let it…rise…” she gets out.

Tears choke me. “I can’t stop it. You know I can’t stop it.”

Her head jerks a bit to the side. “…on the reaping,” she whispers.

The raven. The unforgiving songbird. Repeatedly reminding me of President Snow’s crystal-clear message to me on my homecoming. That I will never get to love anyone ever again. Nevermore. Because he will make sure they end up dying a horrible death.

And so, I drive away anyone and everyone who could ever have been considered dear to me.