Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Burdock

When the horrible pink bird pierces Maysilee's shoulder, Merrilee screams with her, as if she feels it too. On the March’s tiny couch, she crumbles in on herself and buries her body against Asterid, still keeping her head up enough to watch the screen. Asterid wraps both arms around her and murmurs something into her hair. Even though her voice is steady, I can see how her hands shake. 

On the television, Haymitch has gone completely wild. 

He hacks at the birds until he can get to Maysilee, and then throws her over her shoulder and runs like hell. The awful pink things follow right up to the edge of the hedge and then stop, pacing the perimeter on their stilt legs. Their long beaks knock together as they snap at him.  

I won’t ever be able to look at the herons from the marshes north of the lake the same way again. 

Since the Games begun, Blair and I have watched every broadcast here, in the back room of Asterid’s family’s apothecary. Often, Merrilee joins us when watching with her family is just too emotional. 

The four of us never used to spend time together like this. 

Asterid, sure. Before the Games, I’d save up my coins and invent reasons to stop at the apothecary. A cut that probably didn’t actually need salve. Herbs for Ma that could have waited another week. Once, embarrassingly, a headache I’d mostly made up. 

But as much as I like Asterid, I’d never choose one of the Donner’s as company. Merrilee was Maysilee’s twin sister, and she went along with everything Maysilee said, which often meant picking on her classmates. Blair knew Asterid through me, but before this, he definitely wouldn’t have chosen to be with Merrilee Donner of all people to hang out with on a Saturday night.

But then, the Quarter Quell took away a huge piece of each of our lives, and now we sit shoulder to shoulder every night like birds huddling under the same branch in a storm. 

My family used to have a television of our own, but after Haymitch was reaped, I carried it over to the Abernathy’s house so Willamae and Sid wouldn’t have to watch him die in the square with everyone watching.

I guess I could be watching in the square right now, but then I’d have to deal with the prying eyes of my fellow citizens. 

Everybody in the Seam knows that Blair and I are his best friends. At the Hob these days, people soften their voices when I walk by. The miners who buy my game used to treat me like an equal, but now, they’ll look at me sympathetically and squabble less over prices than they would have otherwise. 

I know everyone means well, but it drives me nuts. Their pity is no help to me, not when Haymitch is out there fighting for his life. 

And it’s comforting to be here with Merrilee, Asterid and Blair. We’ve all grown closer through the shared horror of watching our best friends, or in Merrilee’s case, her twin, fight for their lives. 

Still, it’s a tenuous kind of connection, one that’s destined to be snapped, because there can only be one Victor. 

I’ve enjoyed this time with Asterid, and I hope the two of us stay close after, but I knew that this day was coming. The day where one of them dies, and the connection our little foursome forged in desperation would suddenly shatter, and turn to unimaginable grief on one side, while the others get to keep their hope, maybe just for a little longer. I wonder if Asterid will resent me if Maysilee dies and Haymitch lives. 

On the screen, Haymitch is frantic, unsure how to handle Maysilee’s injury. When he puts his hand over the wound, Maysilee and Merrilee both scream again and he jumps back like a scared animal. He ends up stripping off the ridiculous tribute cloak that the Gamemakers dressed them all in and then he presses it to Maysilee’s wound. Maysilee takes over with her good hand. 

Quickly, the white fabric turns red. 

“Is he doing it right?” Merrilee asks Asterid, clawing desperately at the collar of her friend’s blouse, as she tries to get as close to her as possible. 

“Yes, Merri, he’s doing everything right,” Asterid says gently. 

For a brief moment, her eyes find mine over Merillee’s shoulder, and I wish they hadn’t. I can tell by the look on her face that there isn’t much Haymitch could do for Maysilee. 

There are some injuries you can patch up in the woods, but I don’t think this is one of them, considering how much blood is gone already. She needs medical attention quickly–something she won’t get anytime soon with four players left in the Game. 

All four of us stay frozen to the screen as Haymitch sops up the blood, trying to force Maysilee to stay awake as she drifts away, as all the while, Merrilee weeps. 

Haymitch keeps talking to her. I can’t hear all of it through Merillee’s crying, but I catch enough. 

“Please don’t die.”

Again.

“Please don’t die!”

I look away. 

When we were little and his Pa died in the mines, I only ever saw Haymitch cry once, when we went out into the woods just him and me. The second he realized I was looking, he wiped his face on his sleeve and told me pollen had gotten in his eye. 

He didn’t know enough about the woods to know that there is no pollen floating around in November. He’s always been proud like that, or maybe he just doesn’t want to inconvenience people with his tears.

Now, thousands of people are watching him sob on live television as he sits beside his dying ally. His knees come up to his chest, and he rocks slightly, tears streaming down his face as Maysilee fades in and out.

Blair leans forward. 

“Look, I think the bleeding has stopped,” he says softly. “That’s a good sign, right?”

Merrilee through a sob, lets out a wet, humorless laugh, that I think might be relief. 

Behind her back, Asterid shoots him a look sharp enough to skin a rabbit, and his mouth snaps shut.

When Haymitch finally acquiesces to Maysilee’s demands, letting her close her eyes, Asterid sucks in a short breath, and I feel my heart sink. It’s not like I know what would be best for Maysilee medically speaking, but Asterid’s reaction makes me completely sure it’s a death sentence. 

He sits next to the tarp, watching her every move, curled into a ball.

Then, suddenly, the broadcast cuts away. 

The program switches to a rather uneventful scene of the girl from 1, who’s stalking through the woods, hunting for the tiny girl from 6, Haymitch and Maysilee. 

Blair turns to look at me with confusion written plainly on his face. 

“That’s weird,” he says, quietly.

He’s not wrong, it’s an odd time to cut the scene off, when Maysilee lies on her deathbed. Usually, when a tribute dies painfully and slowly, the Capitol forces us all to live through every miserable second of the last moments of their lives. 

Instead, when we could be watching Maysilee and Haymitch, we’re watching a Career push through brush alone.

Asterid disentangles herself from Merillee, and says she’s going to make tea. She disappears into the kitchen, but as she leaves, I catch a glimpse of  her shoulders starting to shake with sobs. 

“Please don’t die,” Merrilee says to the television. “Please, Maysilee, please just hold on.” 

I don’t know what she’s supposed to hold on for, but of course, I’d never say it aloud.

For an agonizing five minutes, we watch the girl from One tromp around the woods, weapon raised, as if Haymitch and Maysilee might pop out from behind one at any second. Of course, she can’t know that not one of the remaining tributes is currently in a position to challenge her.

Then, as suddenly as they changed the feed before, it’s Haymitch again, and I shout for Asterid to return.

She comes running back with no tea. 

Haymitch is pacing beside the cliff, and something about him makes my skin prickle. 

There was a time when I could always tell what Haymitch was thinking from the look on his face and the way he came through the trees. Angry Haymitch broke twigs. Worried Haymitch shoved both hands through his hair and bit his lip. Haymitch with a secret always looked like he was trying to not bust out laughing at his own joke. 

I prized my ability to read Haymitch’s mind, even when Lenore Dove used to roll her eyes and say that it wasn’t exactly a mark of knowing him well, because Haymitch only has about four expressions, and two of them are scowls.

Still, I always insisted that our friendship was so deep that I could tell exactly what he was feeling. He’s my best friend after all, and my first friend too. 

But ever since he went to the Capitol, it’s like that connection has been severed. 

It’s so hard, watching him on the screen, having no idea what he’s thinking. 

When the gong sounded at the beginning of the Games, and instead of fighting for his allies, or at least grabbing for one of other District 12 tributes, he just left the Newcomers, and it was the first time I realized I truly had no idea what he could be thinking. 

My friend, who’s the most loyal person I’ve ever known, darting into the forest just to save his own ass while his allies were slain, was incomprehensible to me. 

I mean, it’s Haymitch, for crying out loud. I once saw him climb halfway down an icy ravine because he heard an injured fox screaming at the bottom. 

“You can’t blame him for trying to survive,” Asterid had told me in the forest later, “He wants to come home to all of you.” 

Still, that didn’t explain the way he desperately searched for the edge of the arena for no apparent reason, or even worse, the kisses he blew to strange, older Capitol women on the stage during his interview. But Lenore Dove wasn’t bothered when I told her about it, so I try not to be bothered either. 

It makes me uneasy that I never know what he’ll do next. Haymitch in the Capitol might as well be a stranger.

I suppose there’s no camera off the cliff’s edge, so when he stops to stare into the abyss, all we can see of Haymitch’s expression is the side of his face, which looks solemn as he looks down.

I’m still puzzling out what he could possibly be doing, but Asterid gasps, and Blair grabs my hand.

Before I have time to catch up, Merrilee turns to me and asks, “You don’t think he’d jump, do you?”

For some reason, I hadn’t considered it, but now that’s been proposed, my entire body goes cold.

“No.”It comes out instantly, but then I hesitate, and then I hate myself for hesitating. 

“He wouldn’t leave her,” Merillee says, as if she’s trying to convince herself.

“No,” I repeat. “He wouldn’t leave her.”

That part, I really do believe. 

Whatever else has happened to him in there, Haymitch wouldn’t leave somebody helpless if he thought he could do something about it. 

Still, when he looks over the cliff’s edge, looking so empty, I can’t help but wonder.

I’m so glad that Haymitch’s family is home tonight instead of watching in the square so they don’t have to see the judgment in people’s eyes.

Then, bizarrely, he bends down, and picks up a pebble, and drops it over the corner. 

All four of us watch in confusion for a couple seconds, until the pebble lands back right where his hand was. He sinks to his knees, staring down at whatever’s at the bottom of the cliff. Then, he starts to smile. Not his usual smile that I associate with his terrible jokes and his warm, boisterous laughter. It’s more like a cornered animal. A fox caught in a snare, realizing the hunter has stepped within biting distance. 

Then, he’s running to Maysilee’s side, shaking her awake. 

“Mays,” he whispers. 

Maysilee groans, and Merrilee lets out a breath she must have been holding for a long time. 

“Maysilee,” he insists.

“If this is another attempt to keep me awake, I’ll kill you myself.” 

There it is again, that weird, morbid way Haymitch and Maysilee talk to one another. 

Sure, Haymitch has a dry sense of humor, and can be a little cynical at times, but he’s never talked like that. He doesn’t like to show it, but secretly, he’s so sensitive. When our little gang used to make our way out into the woods, far enough that we were sure we wouldn’t be overheard, and Lenore Dove would get herself worked up, talking about Snow like she’d happily bite his throat out herself, he’d go quiet. 

Eventually he’d snap and say something like, “Can we talk about literally anything else?”

I know Haymitch hates the Capitol just as much as the rest of us do, but I could tell that the way we’d talk scared him. Not because he was scared of them, but because he was scared for us. 

Now, he’s allied with the meanest girl in town, and they talk about their painful, impending deaths as if they’re already set in stone, and they find it funny.

On the screen, Haymitch says, “Your necklace.” 

This is what I mean. I never know what he’s up to these days, because most of what he says and does is completely incomprehensible. 

Maysilee’s as confused as us, but she ends up giving her her flower necklace, even though she can barely lift her head off of their backpacks, which she’s been using as a pillow. 

I’ve never had much of a stomach for blood when it comes to people. It’s different when it’s killing an animal in the woods, but seeing Maysilee, a person, a real life girl who I’ve been going to school with my entire life, covered in her own red hot blood, her skin as pale as a ghost, just makes me sick. 

Haymitch gets in closer to remove the necklace, and afterwards, pulls the tarp around her shoulders protectively, blocking out most of the camera’s view of whatever they’re doing. 

Then, abruptly, it’s a different scene again. The District 6 girl in the tree, dehydrated and starving. A truly uninteresting update. 

Merrilee groans, “Oh, come on!”

As Merrilee fusses at the television, Blair leans closer to me.

“Something’s happening,” he says to me lowly.

I turn to half-face him. “Like what?”

“I don’t know man, but it’s like they don’t want us to see what they’re doing” Blair says, swallowing,

After thirty seconds of watching the girl from 6 on her last legs, we finally see Haymitch and Maysilee again. 

For some reason, he’s pulling her up, slinging her good arm around his shoulders, supporting all of her weight on him. 

“He shouldn’t be moving her,” Asterid says immediately, but then clamps her hand over her mouth.

On the screen, they stagger toward the cliff's edge, Maysilee reaches out to grab something out of Haymitch's hand, and…

The television goes black.

Not static, like it does when we get a bad connection because of a storm. Black.

“What the hell?” Merrilee exclaims. 

It’s the loudest I’ve ever heard her speak, and certainly the first time I’ve heard her curse. 

She bolts through the tiny back area of the house, out the front door of the apothecary.

“Merri, don’t do anything rash,” Asterid warns as she pursues her. Blair and I follow too.

Outside, every screen in the square is dark. 

The folks who came to watch in the square have started drifting towards the center, looking from one another to the dead televisions. An odd silence settles over the crowd.

Usually during the Games, even when everybody is watching silently, there’s noise. A baby fussing, somebody whispering, Peacekeepers’ boots, or at least the hum of the screens.

Now it has the strange hush the woods get just before a bad storm, like even the birds have gone quiet.

“What’s happening?” somebody calls.

“Did they lose the signal?”

“Was that a cannon at the end?”

“My boy said he saw something explode–”

Merrilee marches out the front door.

“What’s going on?” she screams out at the square. “Turn it back on! Now!” 

“Merri!” Asterid scolds, trying to pull her back to the apothecary.

A Peacekeeper is walking our way, and my stomach lurches. Maybe they’re going to cart her off like they did Lenore Dove, charge her with ‘disrupting the peace.”

I step in between Merrilee and the approaching danger, probably looking a lot more brave than I feel.

“Hey, it’s her sister up there, she’s just upset,” I start to explain to him as he gets closer.

“Out of the way, kid,” the Peacekeeper says, pushing me out his way. I stumble backwards and hit the stones hard enough to sting both palms.

But then he brushes past Merrilee. 

He walks straight past all of us.

West, toward the base.

I make eye contact with Asterid, who looks as incredulous as I feel. 

On the edges of the square, the Peacekeepers file out. Not spreading out to control the crowd, but just… leaving it. It’s somehow more frightening than if they had pulled out their guns.

“I’m sorry, are we supposed to all go home, or do you want us to stay here in case the Games come back on?” Asterid asks a passing officer. 

“Don’t matter to me, pumpkin,” the Peacekeeper slurs. “Don’t matter at all.” he says, chuckling to himself. 

“What’s going on?” I half-whisper to Blair, climbing back to my feet. 

“They’re all leaving,” he says back, miffed. 

He’s right. All of the rest of the peacekeepers are quickly walking away from us, headed west, up the hill. They move in lines, fast and orderly, packs over their shoulders, weapons strapped down. The same men who ordinarily swagger through Twelve without ever moving aside for anyone, now walk with their heads down and eyes fixed uphill.

“One of our tributes has been seriously wounded,” Asterid says under her breath. “Why would they leave now? It’s like they’re asking for a riot.”

She’s right too. It doesn’t make any sense to leave 12 completely ungoverned, especially with both of our tributes so close to the end. So many families have been affected by the Quell, that there’s been an air of tension, like the whole district’s like coal dust hanging in a shaft, waiting for one spark. A new load of Peacekeepers arrived from 8 just earlier this week to make sure we stayed in line. 

And now, they’re abandoning us. 

A large transport rolls past at the far end of the street, packed with Peacekeepers. Another follows closely behind. 

I watch them disappear up the hill. 

I’ve spent enough time in the woods to know what it means when every animal starts running in the same direction. You don’t need to see what’s wrong to know they’re being chased.

“I’m following them,” I say, before I’ve fully thought it through. 

I expect one of my friends to try to fight me on it, but Asterid just takes my hand, which makes my heart jump in my chest. 

“Go up the east side, away from the road,” she tells me, her voice getting all practical like it does when she has to focus. “Don’t get caught spying.” 

She looks over at Merrilee, who’s staring out into the square with empty eyes, and Asterid whispers “I have to hang back to take care of her.” 

I give Asterid’s hand a squeeze, and take off, Blair hot on my heels. 

We cut behind the shops, through the Seam, and up the wooded slope east of the Peacekeeper road. Once we’re beneath the cover of the trees, I move faster.

A couple hundred feet before we get to the gate that surrounds the base, I stop beneath an old oak. “Up!”

Blair doesn’t ask questions. We both just scramble up the branches. 

From a high branch, the whole back side of the base comes into view. My mouth goes dry.

The road glows red, lit with the tail lights of an endless stream of vehicles. Dozens of trucks, away towards the west. 

The base itself is nearly black, even though the lights always stay on through the night. 

“They’re really leaving,” Blair whispers.

Watching them leave, I feel a sense of wonder. District Twelve is about to be completely devoid of any kind of Capitol presence for the first time in 50 years. For the first time in 50 years, we’re free.

“Why, though?” Blair asks. 

With a shaky breath, I look down at the town. People in their wooden homes with tin roofs, coal dust lining every nook and cranny of the district. The slag heaps, packed tight together.

It would all burn like tinder.

“I think they’re getting out of the way,” I say, the words feeling like sawdust in my mouth. 

I turn to look at Blair, who’s as white as a sheet, staring at the Peacekeepers’ retreating vehicles.

“Blair, I’m being serious,” I tell him firmly. “I think we need to get people out of here,” 

“You really think they’d–” he whispers.

“It’s what they did to District 13.” 

There’s a slight pause, and I can only hear wind moving through the leaves. 

And then somewhere, far down the slope, a dog starts barking. Then another answers. Then another. 

“Fuck,” Blair says. 

“We’ve gotta start telling folks so we can get everybody out.” 

The second I say it, the impossible size of everybody unfolds in my head.

Everyone I’ve ever met has to get out of this town tonight, or they’ll die. 

“Go, now,” I tell him, my voice cracking. “Take anyone who will follow you out to the meadow and force the fence down, and send them north, out to the lake.” 

“All the way out there?” Blair asks. “That’s like ten miles.” 

“We’ll need fresh water,” I say simply. 

“A lot of people, the older folks, the kids, they can’t–”

“I know!” I say harsher than I meant to. Blair flinches.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to do, Blair.” 

Then, he nods. 

“Go get the miners to help you lead the bunch. And, please, please, make sure my Ma gets out.”

“What are you going to do?” he asks.

I look at the base. Not a soul left. Except for one.

Blair’s face changes. “Burdock, no–”

“Lenore Dove’s in there, and I’m not just leaving her to die,” I say, the fear creeping into my voice. 

“Burdie, you don’t even know if she’s still–”

“Just don’t!” I yell back. “I’ll meet you out there, just go!”

Then, again, probably seeming more brave than I feel, I crawl out onto a branch that hangs over the fence into the base, get myself as low as I can, and jump down. 

I land hard on my tailbone, and I bite back a yell. I force myself to my feet without assessing the damage. Without sparing another glance upwards, I start running to the side of the building where they keep the prisoners. 

“Lenore Dove!” I shout. “Lenore Dove!”

I reach the detention building, where the singular cell sits partly underground. Along the base of the wall are narrow, barred windows only a little wider than my shoulders.

“Lenore Dove!”

Then, fingers wrap around the bars, and her face appears behind them, streaked with tears.

“Burdie, they’ve all just left,” Lenore Dove chokes out, sobbing. “I heard them talking. Bombers are coming. They said they’d hit Twelve as soon as they can make it from the Capitol. One of them laughed at me and said I wouldn’t even have time to smell the smoke. Burdie, please, you have to get me out, we have to run!” 

I already knew it, but her confirmation of our impending doom makes my heart sink. 

“I know,” I tell her, and she cries in relief, like she was expecting me to not believe her. “I know, that’s why I’m here.”

“Thank the heavens,” she cries.

“Back up, I’m going to break down the bars.” 

“No, it’s no use, they won’t budge, I’ve tried!” she shouts.

“It might be different from the outside, just back up for me!”

She runs to the back of the cell, and I start kicking the steel bars with all of my might. When nothing happens, I start tugging, bracing one foot against the wall and yanking harder and harder. When they don’t so much as creak, I look around desperately for some kind of solution. 

“Burdie,” she says softly, “I think… I think you may not have time to get me out.” 

“Shut up!” I tell her.

 “You have to go and save yourself–” 

“Quit talking like that! I’m not leaving my cousin to die!” I yell at her, turning away from her so she can’t argue with me anymore.

I turn around, searching the abandoned yard for anything, a crowbar, or an axe, anything at all.

Then, I see an old truck.

It’s an ugly Capitol utility vehicle parked beside the maintenance shed, its bed half-full of straw and empty feed sacks. 

The driver’s door hangs open, and the engine’s still running.

I run to the truck, even though I’ve never driven anything in my life. I mean, I’ve ridden in mine transports when we go down for school field trips. I’ve watched Peacekeepers drive. I understand, in the broadest possible sense, the one pedal makes the thing go forward, and the other one stops it. 

And for right now, that’s got to be enough. I climb in. 

“Burdie, what the hell are you doing!” 

“I have a terrible idea!” I shout back. 

Then, I slam the car door. I press one pedal and the engine roars. The truck stays still. I start fumbling with the lever behind the steering wheel, and move it to D.

I ease off one of the pedals and the truck lurches forward so violently my forehead almost hits the wheel.

“SHIT!” I stomp down again.

“Burdie, are you driving right now? You don’t know how to drive!” Lenore Dove shouts from her cell. I ignore her.

The back of the truck has a heavy tow hitch and a coil of rope. I drag it to the window and loop it twice around two of the bars, knotting it the way the miners taught us for hauling loads. 

Lenore Dove looks from the rope to the truck, and breathes out a quiet “Oh.”

“Yep!’ I say, tying the other end to the hitch.

“You’re right. That is a terrible idea.” 

“Everybody’s a critic tonight!” I yell back, climbing back inside the truck.

The truck needs to move away from the wall.

Straight. 

That's all.

I can do straight. 

I put it in D.

“Get back!” I shout, hanging my head out the window.

Lenore Dove disappears into the cell, and I ease my foot up on the pedal. The truck rolls forward, and the rope goes taut. 

For one second, nothing happens. And then the whole vehicle begins to shudder, and metal shrieks against stone. 

The bars tear free with a noise like a tree splitting in a lightning storm. The whole thing jumps forward, and I slam the pedal again, and climb out of the truck, my ears ringing.

“Lenore Dove?” I call.

Instead of her face, her arm appears inside the gap, as she tries to pull herself up.

Only then do I realize her wrists are still shackled together. 

I grab her forearms, and she twists sideways and squeezes through the opening. Her dress catches, and then I hear fabric tear, and then she’s falling towards me. 

We hug, or I hug her, because she can’t separate her wrists. 

Then somewhere far overhead comes a low hum. Not thunder. It’s too steady. Mechanical.

“We have to go,” she says.

I’m not going to argue with that.

I grab one of her hands and take off running again.

“Blair’s already out spreading the word,” I yell, as we get through the gates of the Peacekeeper base. “Make sure CC and Tam Amber get out, and then start yelling in the streets. We’re meeting in the meadow and going up to the lake.”

We sprint right to the Seam, and after that, the next few minutes stop arranging themselves properly in my memory. 

I remember doors. Pounding until my fists hurt. Yanking people out by their sleeves. Screaming those same words until they stopped sounding like language. 

GET OUT! BOMBS! MEADOW! NORTH! NOW!

Some people believe me immediately. Others stare at me like I’ve lost my mind. When I think back on it, I think most of them didn’t believe me. 

An old man from town tells me the Capitol would never destroy its own mines.

A woman from the Seam starts loading plates into a sack.

One of the merchant families is trying to drag an entire chest of drawers onto a cart.

“LEAVE IT!” I scream at them. “LEAVE EVERYTHING!”

Blankets, babies, bread, photographs, medicine. One little girl runs past me carrying a cage with no bird inside of it. 

Somewhere along the way, Lenore Dove disappears toward the house where the Covey live, shouting that she’ll get Clerk Carmine and Tam Amber.

I’m running around like a madman, telling everyone I can what I know in fragmented yells and commands. As I’m running by the Hob, Sae, the woman who runs the soup counter, grabs my collar. “Son, is it true?”

“Lenore Dove heard the orders herself. Bombers are coming.” I tell her, struggling to catch my breath.

Her face goes hard. “Then quit wasting time talking to me. Go find your people.”

Right. My people. Ma.

Finally, I slam up against my front door, unable to open it for a second before I burst through. It’s empty. For one breath, I let myself believe that’s good, because that means that Blair already got to her. 

But then a tiny voice in my mind starts whispering, telling me that she probably went to the square to watch the Games tonight, and maybe Blair couldn’t find her. 

Even though I don’t think I have very much time left, I sprint into town. I reason that I can’t leave Asterid either, so it’s worth it to double check.

The square is empty except for the squabbling merchant families. The apothecary is dark when I reach it, but there’s still light upstairs at the Donners’.

“ASTERID!” I shout, swinging the door open.

She meets me halfway down the stairs, already crying.

“I know. I’m sorry, I can’t get her to leave.”

We run through the Donner’s house, passing Merillee’s parents who argue at the kitchen table.

“You should go,” I tell them as I run by. “Bombers are coming.”

“Mind your business, Seam rat,” The Donner’s mother snaps at me. 

"Suit yourselves, if you want to die," I say, hoping my words will scare them enough that they might listen. 

We find Merillee in the bedroom she shares with Maysilee, pulling clothes out of drawers and throwing them onto the floor.

“I need her dress!”

“Merri—” Asterid starts, pleading. 

“Her favorite one! She’ll need it when she comes home!” 

Asterid looks at me helplessly while Merillee digs desperately through the drawers. Outside, I can still hear the screaming.

I cross the room.

“Merillee,” I say firmly.

“I almost have it,” she says through tears.

“We have to go, and if you don’t walk out of here, I’ll drag you.”

“No.”

“Now.”

“NO!”

So, I grab her around the waist. She fights me like a trapped cat, kicking and clawing, and Asterid takes her legs before she can get free.

Halfway out the door, she goes limp in my arms. 

“I can run myself, I’m sorry,” she cries. “I just wanted to get a few of her things.”

I can’t think of anything to say to that, so I just grab Asterid’s hand and take off, hoping Merillee follows. 

By the time we reach the meadow, the evacuation has become too big for any one person to control. Blair is there, thank God, waving people toward the gap in the fence with three miners beside him. People pour through in clumps.

Children are crying because their parents are crying. Dogs yank at leashes. Somebody has a goat with them too. Somebody else has brought a sack of flour but forgotten shoes.

And every few seconds another person arrives shouting a name.

“Has anybody seen my mother?”

“Where’s Denny?”

“Did the bakers get out?”

“Where’s my boy?”

We push forward, waiting for our turn out of the fence, and I have to keep telling myself it’s okay, because Blair got my family out, I got Asterid and Merillee out, Lenore Dove got the Covey out, and–

Horrible realization crashes down on me all at once. 

Haymitch wasn’t home to get his family out. 

I whip around back to 12. I take two steps forward, about to start running back for his Ma and Sid, when I hear the swoop of a hovercraft, and suddenly, the front of my body is so hot that I have to close my eyes. 

The ground shakes beneath us and a bloom of orange rises beyond the rooftops, followed by a few seconds later by a crack so violent it seems to split the night itself. 

They’re here. 

I’m the worst best friend ever, I think to myself, shame prickling at the back of my neck.

It’s mayhem now. People are pushing forward, toward the fence, and others are falling, getting stepped on.

“NORTH!” I scream, as I grab for Asterid and keep pushing forward. “GET INTO THE TREES! GO!”

Another blast splits open the earth. Then another.

We all run like hell, bumping into each other, clawing to get away from the wreckage that used to be home.

After that, time becomes distance.

We walk until my feet blister, while the sky behind us turns orange. Babies cry themselves hoarse and then fall asleep against strangers’ shoulders.

I make sure to go to the tree where I hide my bows and quivers before we entirely abandon our home behind. The feeling of my weapon in my hands calms me more than it should.

Every so often I double back through the line, looking, until I finally find my Ma. I fall into her arms, crying, and she gently strokes my hair. 

“Sweet boy, you did it, you got us out,” she coos into my ear. 

Even through the relief of being held by my mother, guilt still builds in my chest about Haymitch’s family, and it makes it almost worse now that I’ve found my own. 

For the hours and hours we walk, I keep doubling back through the crowd, calling their names. There’s so many people, and it’s dark enough it’s hard to make out faces, so I still hold onto a little hope. 

Maybe Sid and Willamae just can’t hear me through all the chaos. Maybe they didn’t die back there with the rest of 12.

I find Asterid each time I go back through. Merillee stays beside her, wrapped in somebody else’s coat, one fist closed around Asterid’s sleeve. Her parents aren’t with her.

I find Lenore Dove eventually too, her wrists still manacled, Clerk Carmine and Tam Amber walking beside her. She seems to actually be in fairly good spirits, considering the circumstances. 

“One way or another, we’re free now,” she says, sadly. I have to bite my tongue, because even if we’re out of 12, even if we’re free, we certainly aren’t safe.

I work my ass off to bring enough game home for my family, for the Abernathy’s and the McCoy’s and the people I trade with at the Hob. 

How could I feed hundreds of hungry mouths?

Always, I find Blair at the front with some of the younger miners. He’s walking fast and trying very hard to look like he knows where we’re going. But none of us do, not even me. It’s so dark that all I can rely on is my gut. 

I think Asterid figures it out, because when I bring her and Merillee to the front of the group, long after midnight, she whispers in my ear, “Where are we going?” 

“The lake,” I say, for the thousandth time.

She looks around to make sure no one’s listening, and then whispers, “I know you said there was a house there, but is there room for all of us there?”

“No.” Of course there’s not. There has to be hundreds of us, and I think that little cabin could fit ten at most.

She looks at me with big, sad eyes.

“Do you have a better idea?” I ask her, trying really hard not to sound mean.

She doesn’t.

We keep walking.

By what I can only figure is around the sixth hour, the explosions have finally stopped, or maybe we’ve just gotten so far away that we can’t feel them anymore. The woods settle around us again, full of crickets and night birds who don’t know that District Twelve no longer exists behind them.

I’m beginning to wonder whether we’ll walk until sunrise when a new sound rolls across the trees.

A hovercraft.

Everyone hears it at once, and the line of refugees breaks apart. People scramble, running blindly through the woods. Mothers pull children behind the trees. Miners grab rocks and knives. I shove Asterid and Merillee behind me and aim my bow, even though I know it won’t do anything against the Capitol’s guns. 

Blair appears at my side with my spare bow that I gave him to hold.

“You know you can’t shoot that for shit." 

“Seems like a bad time to bring it up though,” he says through gritted teeth. 

The hovercraft descends into a clearing ahead of us.

White light pours through the trees.

The hatch opens.

Blair looses his arrow, and it misses the open hatch by an embarrassing amount.

“Blair,” I say, tiredly.

“I panicked!”

A well groomed man steps into the clearing, looking completely exhausted. He wears an ugly purple suit, and has ugly purple bruises blooming around his throat to match. 

“Please,” he says, holding up both hands. “Before anyone else shoots at me, my name is Plutarch Heavensbee, and I’m here to help you all.”

I don’t lower my bow, but I do recognize him. From the Reaping. A citizen of the Capitol, working on the Games. 

Behind me, there’s a commotion, and then Lenore Dove pushes through the crowd.

“You!” she shouts, accusatorially.

He actually looks pleased to see her, as if they’re old friends or something.

“Hello, Lenore Dove.”

I draw my bow tighter, aiming at the welts on his thick neck.

“Give me one reason not to put an arrow through you,” I say, as brave as I can muster. 

He lifts his hands again. “I’m not here on behalf of the Capitol. I’m here as a member of the rebellion, just like you.”

“We’re not part of any rebellion!” I spit at him. “These are just regular people, and your people just bombed their home.”

“My mistake,” he says, shrugging. “But I reckon you all could use some help, and I have a place you could go to be safe.” 

I hear people start murmuring behind me. 

“Where? The Capitol?” Lenore Dove cut in, angrily.

“District 13,” Plutarch says. “Seriously, I can tell you all of the details on the way, but could you all just please start loading up the hovercraft? We’re going to have to make a couple of trips to pick up all of you.” 

He says it almost casually, as if he hasn’t said the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.

“Why should we believe you?” I ask him, loudly, hoping the rest of my district will quiet down.

“Well, you don’t have much of a choice, for one,” he says with a smile that makes me hate him even more. 

Then he turns to Lenore Dove. 

“I think you’ll understand that a desire for freedom isn’t limited to the districts, Lenore Dove.” He says, in almost a sing-songy voice. “Rebels in the Capitol have been working against our corrupt government for years."

Lenore Dove surveys him with a wary eye, but he's clearly got her attention. 

I want to rip my cousin away from this fancy man's tricks. I don't trust him at all. I'm only seconds away from letting my arrow fly.

He must know he's on a timer, because he lands a final blow that he must know won't miss.

"And this year, your boyfriend was one of them.” 

Beside me, Lenore Dove goes perfectly still.

“I have him to thank for these,” he tells her, his fingers drifting toward the bruises around his neck. “He was pretty upset with me when I dragged him out of that arena.”

Despite my best efforts to not trust the man, my heart leaps in my chest.

“He’s alive?” I ask.

Plutarch gives us a terse little smile, like he’s a little irritated with us somehow, and says simply, “Of course he is. Now can you please get on board? We have a lot of work to do."