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Beau is already at the top of the building. The night before the Games begin, she can’t sleep. Maybe none of them can. But it’s Beau who goes prowling, silently, through the place that’s more than half prison.
She doesn’t expect the garden. Maybe Caduceus planted it--she thinks she recognizes some of the plants and trees from home. Not all of them--there’s one flower, illuminated by a skylight, that looks unsettlingly like a gunshot wound.
From here, the lights of the Capitol are filtered, fractured. Beau pads through the containers, a wire she hadn’t even known was there loosening in her chest. For the first time since the Reaping, she doesn’t feel like she is being watched.
She sees Jester from the cover of a blooming tree. There’s an open courtyard, near the edge of the roof, that’s bordered on all sides by silver wind chimes. The broad-shouldered girl is bent over something in her lap, her shoulder-length hair shining blue in the lights from the nearest skyscraper.
Beau thinks about leaving her there. She’s frozen, at first, by someone else’s presence in this place she’d thought was hers alone. Then, when Jester doesn’t even flinch--the wind chimes are ringing occasionally in the breeze--she could just leave.
And then Jester starts speaking. “Are you there?”
Beau freezes again, thinking she’s been spotted. But Jester only leans back and looks out through the bars of the balcony, revealing a book in her lap.
“I’m in a bit of a pickle, I think, Traveller.” She laughed a little. “I’m going to do my best, you know, tomorrow. I’m not going to let you or Mama down. But I’m just...I’m maybe a little worried. You’re here, right? You’re listening?”
There’s no answer. Jester sniffs, and laughs a very small laugh. The thing that gets to Beau is that it’s still soft, that laugh, not bitter at all, just...sad.
She doesn’t realize she’s made the decision to come out until the wind chimes are ringing around her, and Jester spins around with a gasp. Her brilliant smile falters a bit, when she sees Beau. Like she was really expecting someone called the Traveller to show up and rescue her from all of this.
Beau’d watched the Reapings. Jester was maybe the first Career she’d ever seen who wasn’t a volunteer, who wanted to be here as little as she did. Still, it’s one thing to hesitate when your name is called out of that big stupid lottery. It’s something else to have a smile like hope , the night before the Hunger Games.
“Hey,” she says, already regretting her decision. She crosses her arms, forces herself to walk over to the balcony and lean against it.
“I didn’t think anyone else was up here,” Jester wipes hurriedly at her eyes. She scrambles to her feet and stands there with the book clutched close to her chest, staring nervously at Beau.
“Yeah, I didn’t even know this place existed until now.” Beau turns to look out over the brilliant lights of the Capitol, leaning her elbows on the cold metal railing. “I think my mentor might have started it.”
“Caduceus?” Jester asks, like she knows him. “It makes sense. He’s really lonely when there’s no plants around.”
That does make Beau look over at her, because there are some things you just can’t learn from the televised appearances of past victors. Jester shrugs and comes over to lean on the balcony as well, book still wrapped tightly in her arms.
“I like talking to people. And a lot of victors stay at the Chateau, you know. When they’re visiting the District.”
“Huh.” Beau hadn’t thought of that. She’s barely even seen the other mentors, certainly hasn’t gotten to know them. Even Caduceus, who’s kind in his own way, is distant. And Beau gets it, sure. It’s been decades since District Twelve has had a victor--decades of watching kids die, up close and personal. But when he’s pretty much her only fucking chance of winning, she needs more than kind and distant . “Sounds like you know him pretty well.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Jester shrugs again, and sighs. She turns to look back at the garden, the weird lights of the building across the street staining her skin blue. “I’m sure you guys are super tight. With all the strategies, and the planning, and that score you got, Beau!”
“Beauregard,” she says, sharply. The silence cuts across them like a knife--Beau wouldn’t have been surprised to find blood, from the sudden ache in her chest. But it’s so fucking easy to let Jester talk, to act like they’re friends . And there’s a good chance Jester is going to be dead by noon tomorrow. There’s a chance, not as good but still fucking there, that Beau will be the one to kill her.
So she lets the silence hang, and breathes through the stupid pain, because it’s better now than later.
Jester is looking at her. Beau can tell from the way the shadows cut across her face, the bright light of the outside and the dark of the garden. “Can I tell you a secret?” Jester says, and then goes on before Beau can answer. “I always hated the Games.” She really whispers it, leans so close that Beau can feel their shoulders press together. Beau’s still facing out, looking stubbornly at the blinding, maddening lights of the city that hates them. There’s something dangerously safe about the way they’re standing, Jester still looking at the garden but close enough that Beau can feel her breath.
The words still raise all the hairs on the back of her neck. Beau glances back, sees Jester watching her. Waiting.
“You can’t say shit like that,” Beau whispers back, too afraid to raise her voice. Jester smiles, and then she laughs , shockingly bright.
“It’s okay I already checked for bugs,” she says, looking back over the garden. “They do a lot of that in the Chateau too, you know. Carlos taught me how to find all the best little gadgets. But there weren’t any here even when I got here, so I knew it was safe.” She does a little dance, even, wiggling back and forth like a puppy looking for praise.
Beau can’t quite believe it--not just like that. It was fine for folks in the Seam to mutter in their shacks at night, but people like her father didn’t tolerate shit like that. It could affect his business relationships . Beau had learned from a very young age not to say what she was thinking, especially when it came to the Capitol.
“The Gamemakers will still get you,” Beau says, flatly. “You think it can’t get any worse? You’ve seen some of the shit they’ve pulled.”
“Beau,” Jester says, but she says it all weird, stretching it out and then dropping the end like a rock. “I really mean it, you can say whatever you want up here. It’s a little zone of truth, just for us.” Her voice gets all light and airy, barely perching on each word. She’s smiling again.
Beau scoffs, but she can’t fucking help but smile back. “Yeah, right.”
“Seriously, what’s one thing you’ve always wanted to say.” Jester swirls away from the balcony, and Beau turns to watch her dance across the courtyard, running one hand across the chimes as she goes. “Come on, Beau,” she says, raising her voice a little over the growing clamor. “IT’S OUR LAST NIGHT!”
“Fuck it!” Beau pushes off the railing, sticks her hand into the middle of a wind chime and yanks . “FUCK CEASER FLICKERMAN AND HIS CRAPPY HAIR!”
Jester laughs again, wilder, and shakes a whole pole so that every wind chime attached to it goes off. “FUCK THE REAPING AND EVERYONE WHO RIGS IT!”
“FUCK THE GAMES, AND FUCK THE CAPITOL!”
Even lost amidst the clamor of the bells, the words frighten Beau, and she goes still. Slowly, Jester stops her spinning, and the chimes start to fall silent. They come to rest standing in front of each other, half lit by the garish world around them. Somewhere out there, Capitol people are partying. Sponsors and Gamemakers are finalizing bets on their lives--her life. Beau is standing less than a foot away from Jester, and it feels like something has shaken loose inside her. Or maybe it’s the world that’s come apart, just a little bit. Her throat hurts.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she asks, and doesn’t wait for Jester to nod before she goes on, “I kissed a girl the day before the Reaping.”
Jester’s hands fly to her mouth, but she doesn’t look horrified. And Beau’s still talking, she can’t stop, something is broken and all her blood is leaking out.
“Her name was Tori. We were friends. She was like, my only friend. We’d get up to all sorts of shit--she was from the Seam, her mom was Ripper, we used to run hooch for...but none of that fucking matters. She had these gray eyes, like storm clouds.”
“Did you love her?” Jester squeaks out from between her fingers, and Beau laughs. It’s nothing but a single sharp bark, full of all the anger she can’t afford to feel.
“Maybe? How would I know? We were out back of her house, getting drunk on white liquor, and I...I kissed her.”
Jester is still mostly frozen, her eyes as big as plates, her hands still cupped over her mouth. Suddenly, Beau realizes what she’s doing, how stupid she’s being, and has to look away. She barely manages to stop herself from running, just walks really quickly back towards the roof access door. “Sorry, I. I’m sorry, that was dumb.” She wraps her arms around herself as if trying to contain a wound, a broken rib.
“It’s not dumb.” Jester puts a hand on her arm, and Beau stops. She doesn’t even flinch, though she does think about punching her. No one can see her like this. She feels a tear run down her cheek and hates herself for it.
“It’s not dumb, Beau.” Jester repeats, ducking into view. “I think it’s really beautiful.”
Beau laughs. It’s not even a laugh, really, just a disbelieving snort that got out of control. “I threw up like, an hour later. And then the fucking Reaping happened, so...not like either of us are going to do anything about it.” She takes a few deep breaths, but they keep hitching into sobs and she can not cry in front of this girl. “Anyway, I gotta. Get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.” She tries to smile, and even for her she knows the expression is ghastly.
“Yeah,” Jester says, the sadness creeping back into her smile. “Yeah, we’d better rest up. Good-night, Beau.” She curtsies before darting back to pick up her book, and Beau takes the opportunity to slip away. She doesn’t think, out of everything that’s happened tonight, that she can stand to say good-night.