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Gale Hawthorn dreams.
And the dreams are always the same dreams, over and over again, in rotation.
He is in suffocating darkness, plunging down into the core of the earth. The sounds of the lift creaking, a familiar, wounded old beast. The light he’s holding illuminates the grimy faces of those around him: old friends, long dead. His father, too, laughing, his cheeks speckled with coal dust. They are in the mines back in Twelve. Any minute now, he thinks, the lift will stop, and they will disembark with their tools, ready to do the work; every day the same routine.
Yet this time, the lift does not stop. They keep going down and down. The light continues to flicker.
Then suddenly he is in the woods, at the edge of that cliff. Their spot. The sky is bright blue. The singing of the mockingjays echoing from the forest. She is crouched down nimbly on her toes, her lips touching the strings of her bow. She is following a flock of geese as they rustle up through the trees, streaking across the sky like one of her arrows. She doesn’t see him. Not yet. And if he wanted to sneak up on her without a sound, he could. But he stands still and watches her take the shot.
The bird falls. She drops her bow and turns. “I thought you weren’t coming,” she says, her lips quirking up into a teasing smile. But he doesn’t return it.
“I always come,” he says.
Then the dream changes.
He is in the Capitol as the parachutes fall. The impact of that first explosion ripping the whole world apart. Children screaming. The hold of the Peacekeepers on his arm, around his neck. He can run, he thinks. He has to run. He sees a spot of sky, flaming. Then…. he holds his breath; he knows what’s coming next. He always, always knows.
The second explosion. Prim.
He wakes, gasping for breath.
He doesn’t know if he’d let out a scream. But there’s a soft knock on his door. It opens to reveal his mother, her face lined with worry.
Despite them living in Two for nearly a year now, he can’t quite wrap his head around how his mother has maintained her appearance by shunning every popular fashion trend favoured by the women in this district. She prefers to keep her hair simply braided, like she’d done in Twelve, and had refused the money he’d offered to give her for a new, more Capitol-style friendly wardrobe. Instead she still wears the homely, practical dresses she’d worn in Twelve before the War.
Gale himself has had no choice on the matter. As his mother tells him now: “I have your suit pressed and ready, dear. And it’s time for breakfast.”
He thanks her and tells her he’ll be there in a minute. But she doesn’t leave. “Did you dream again?” she asks.
“Was I loud?”
“Not as loud as last night, but you did cry out.”
He shrugs; what else is there to say? “It happens,” he says.
She looks like she wants to say something else. “You can write to her,” she suggests.
“Who?”
“You know who.” His mother smooths down her apron. “I heard from Greasy Sae that she’s doing better. She’s out hunting again.”
He flinches. “I’ve told you this before, Mum.” His voice is brittle and hard, reminding him of his own father. “I don’t want to talk about this again. I have a big day today. I need to focus.”
His mother stares at him for a while longer, but then relents. “Alright,” she says. “Good luck, dear. Do your best.”
He stands in front of the TV cameras in his new suit: starchy, dark navel, with gold in the lapels. The news broadcaster from the Capitol is prattling on about who he is, his accomplishments: war hero, a key figure in the rebel Command Unit during the War, a close personal friend of the Mockingjay. He doesn’t correct her.
Then the microphone swivels around to him. “What is the current situation in District Two, Soldier Hawthorn?” she asks. She can’t be that much older than him, but she appears at least a decade older, with her thick Capitol make-up and unnaturally cherry red hair.
He gives the report he’s spent weeks practicing. They’ve successfully rounded up Peacekeepers under the old regime and, per instructions from the new President, a new rehabilitation plan has been set in place. He cites his own life story, growing up in District 12 under their oppression.
“Citizens of Panem will no longer have to suffer such violent and unjust policing,” he recites to the camera. “But we need law and order. That’s what ultimately keeps the peace. Our new crop of Peacekeepers will not repeat the mistakes of the old. We will rebuild Panem from the ground up.”
He takes a few more easy questions from other reporters. Then he is whisked away, back to the offices within the Justice Building. He spends the rest of his day in a small room, with four glass walls, putting stamps on papers. Signing off on every little thing, from new badge designs to standard issue weapons. He breaks briefly in the late afternoon for lunch. Then walks over to see the new recruits go through their drills. Other days he would join in. Today he doesn’t.
He thinks of what his mother had said this morning. He lets his mind wander, very briefly, back to Twelve. Then he shuts it down before it can go any further. Nostalgia only leads to unnecessary pain and hindrance.
A few hours later, after work is over for the day, he finds himself in his usual club, not too far from the Justice Building.
He occupies a booth at the back and nurses a drink as he listens to the singer on the stage. A girl from a district further out. Probably Ten, if he should hazard a guess. Long raven hair that falls to the small of her back, and a strong, warm voice that rises beautifully over the den of conversation and laughter. She is not a regular here, but that is no surprise; sometimes they’d get travelling performers who come and go. After the War, more and more people have become displaced. Everyone scurrying around Panem trying to squeeze themselves into new lives, new clothes, new money. Anything to escape what had come before.
A girl slips into his booth. He recognises her from last week. Blonde hair, with streaks of orange. Eyes that are too hungry for his liking, but pretty all the same. She takes a sip of his drink. Her lips so full. Soft, too, if his memories are correct. And they mostly always are.
“I saw you on the television,” she says, grinning at him over the rim of his glass. “You looked really fancy. So handsome.”
He cracks a smile. “What did you think about what I said?”
“You said everything beautifully,” says the girl. The song reaches its crescendo; the singer twisting the notes around so effortlessly like one of his old knots. “But I don’t know much about politics,” the girl continues. “It’s all the same to me.”
“It’s not all the same.”
“Maybe not,” she says, not really caring. “But I still think you said everything very well.”
She is not lying; he can tell. She really does think he did well. She reaches out and cups his face. Runs a finger up and down his cheek. He feels something within him caving to her touch. Melting, softening. He closes his eyes. Savours the music.
Her lips meeting his, so gently. “You’ve been very tired,” she whispers into his mouth. “You look like you haven’t slept.”
“I haven’t,” he admits.
Her hand sliding into his. “Let’s get you some rest.”
He leaves hers sometime after midnight. He always leaves.
His quarters are already dark by the time he gets back, with his mother and younger siblings already asleep. He showers quickly, washing the day’s scents out of his skin, his hair. Then he towels himself dry, pulls on a pair of cotton pyjamas and slips into bed.
He shuts his eyes, hoping exhaustion would throw him into a dreamless sleep.
But once again, he lies awake, enclosed in darkness. He recalls the mine shafts. The sound of drills and hammers. The explosions.
A few hours later, it is his mother again, knocking on his door to wake him up.
Three days later, he is back at the club in the evening. This time, a different singer is on stage. An older man, with a bushy beard and a low, earthy voice that trembles through every note. The songs he sings reminds Gale of warm fires in the Hob, back in Twelve. Laughter of friends. Meat cooking over the flames. A memory: And Darius was teasing you about trading a rabbit for one of his kisses. And I realised… I minded.
He shakes it away.
Someone slips into his booth.
He is about to tell the woman — for it is usually always a woman — that he is not in the mood tonight. But then he sees who it is and is left speechless.
The woman lets out a humourless bark of laughter. “I was told I’d find you here,” she says. “Don’t look so shocked. I haven’t come to kill you.”
“Johanna?”
For it is Johanna Mason. District Seven’s famous victor. Survivor of the Quarter Quell and President Snow’s subsequent tortures that had hi-jacked Peeta Mellark.
She looks healthier than he has last saw her, right at the end of the War. Her hair has grown back, and she wears it in a short bob that frames her still-hollowed out cheeks. She sits down next to him, a drink of her own in her hand. Her eyes flash playfully in his direction. “I’ve always wondered what’s happened to Katniss’ tall, handsome cousin,” she muses.
The mention of that name brings back his senses. “What are you doing here?” he asks bluntly.
He and Johanna were never friends. Sure, they passed each other in the corridors in Thirteen, exchanged a few pleasantries. She’d flirted with him once, probably out of boredom. And he flirted back, only a little. But back then everything had been Katniss, and the Rebellion.
“They don’t know what to do with me,” says Johanna, taking a big swig of her drink. Then wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “I’ve been deemed restless, reckless, a liability. They don’t say all this to my face, of course, I’m still a Victor, and everyone has to be polite to us because of what we’ve… endured. So they’ve sent me here to train and inspire this new squad of Peacekeepers you’ve cobbled together.”
She says all of this very quickly. Then turns too him with a sardonic smile on her lips. “So what do you say? Partners?”
Being partners with Johanna Mason is the last thing he wants. And she sees the sentiment written on his face, plain as day.
She laughs. “I expected nothing less.” She downs the contents of her glass. “Fuck it. Let’s just drink then.”
The two of them fall into a sort of rhythm. They speak to each other when necessary. Argue when it is prudent. Drink when there is nothing else to do. They hardly talk.
Yet he finds himself learning little things about her. Like how she keeps saying training new Peacekeepers is a thankless task. (“Just because we’ve put them in a different uniform and we have better intentions than Snow doesn’t guarantee that the result will be any different.”) Yet she trains them harder than any other instructor.
She, like him, seems to have trouble sleeping; she always shows up to work with dark circles under her eyes.
She can drink him under the table; the two of them frequent the club together often. Both young, lonely, a little lost.
She doesn’t care if someone stares at her for far too long; she always stares back, unflinching.
One time, while they’re drinking, she lets slip: “I haven’t been to see Annie and the baby since Finnick died.”
He remembers a lifetime ago when he’d worried about Finnick setting his sights on Katniss. He’d been a different person then, his worries so trivial and juvenile, it almost makes him want to laugh at his own adolescence.
“Why don’t you?” he asks. “Go see them, I mean.”
“Probably for the same reason you haven’t been back to Twelve.” She takes another swig of her strong drink. “You know what I’ve heard? That your little mockingjay is now sharing more than just bread with her little baker boy. And it’s not just an act for the cameras this time.”
He’s heard similar news from his mother, by way of Greasy Sae and other family acquaintances who are left in Twelve. He forces his voice to remain steady. “Good for them,” he manages to say. “I want her to be happy.”
She scoffs. “Don’t make me laugh.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” he replies defensively.
“And who are you sharing your bread with?” she asks.
“Why do you want to know?”
“I want to know because I’m bored, and rude, and have no respect for people’s privacy.”
He can’t help but smile. “I get by just fine,” he says.
“Oh, I bet you do.”
Her voice is bitter. But hidden beneath it is something else…
He wishes he could tell her that she doesn’t have to be extremely tough all the time. But who is he to talk?
Instead he blames the alcohol for lifting a hand to brush a strand of hair out of her face. For his hand briefly grazing her skin. She moves her head, infinitesimally, as though chasing his touch. But then he turns away.
It would be a weakness, he thinks. Desperation. And both of them have far too much blood on their hands for something good.
Another memory: I know he was desperate. That makes people do all kinds of crazy things.
Johanna says unexpectedly, shattering his memory: “Maybe you should kiss me and get it over with,”
“Get what over with?”
“This dance you do,” she replies. “Of pretending to be honourable.”
So he grabs her face and finds her mouth with his. The kiss is all teeth, all biting. Like how he’s afraid it’d be: desperate. Unlike those soft, warm kisses from the girl with orange streaks in her hair. Unlike Katniss’.
Johanna’s hands go under his shirt, over the planes of his chest. He grips her waist and pulls her to him with a need that surprises him. She moans in his mouth. Then makes a sound like a woman drowning. Everything about her is sharp, hard. Full of edges. No softness anywhere.
Yet he can’t get enough. Yet it makes sense…
They don’t talk about it the next day, or the day after, or the day after that.
When it happens again, four days later, they don’t talk about it after, either. Before long, it just becomes something they do: another dance, another deflection.
He doesn’t think he even likes her. Not the way he’d loved Katniss. But he no longer goes home with the girl with the orange hair, or any other girl, for that matter. Not necessarily because he is going out of his way to do so; simply because it is easier and less complicated to do so.
He doesn’t know if she has taken any other men to her bed. He wouldn’t blame her if she did; Two is swarming with young men from all over Panem, eager to make their fortune either as part of the new Peacekeeper unit or as an officer. But he doesn’t ask.
When he is with Johanna, sometimes he can’t help but wonder how different it would be if this were Katniss. He’s never lacked female attention, and he wasn’t lying when he told Katniss that they’d been many other women he’d kissed and been with. But the truth of it is that none of these women were her…
If this were Katniss, would they be talking more? Fold into each other with the trust and security that comes from being old friends? And would the silence be sweeter? The partings less hurried and cold?
It’s like kissing someone who’s drunk, he’d told her once, after she’d kissed him. But now is he the one who’s drunk, kissing Johanna? If Katniss were to know, would she mind? Or would it be, still, all too late?
Then he pulls himself together: Katniss is in Twelve; she has chosen Peeta. And Prim is dead. Prim is dead, and Katniss would never look at him the same way again, so she might as well be dead, too.
Four months after she arrived in Two, Johanna tells him one day, out of the blue, while he’s getting dressed: “I’m leaving in ten days. They’re re-stationing me back to Seven.”
He’s been tying his shoelaces. He makes himself finish the task before looking up. “Why?”
“Apparently they need someone to talk sense to a group of youngsters who’s been criticising the new government.” Her voice is thick with contempt. “Since I’m a Victor, they think my voice might hold sway.”
“They want someone who can talk sense, and they called you?”
She rolls her eyes. “I know, right? Genius plan.”
“You’re the best instructor we have here. It’d be a shame to lose you.”
“Are you getting sentimental on me, Soldier?” Another one of her mocking smiles. “It doesn’t suit you.”
“Not sentimental. Just stating a fact. You’re the best instructor we have.”
She seems to be taken aback by his sincerity, and falters. “Thank you,” she says.
“You’re welcome.” He is surprised that he wants to keep talking. To let her know that her tenacity and skills are valued right here, right where the real work is happening. Not shoved away in the forests in Seven. But all he says is: “It’s actually not been too bad having you around.”
Once again, she rolls her eyes. “Please. If you’re trying to flirt with me, you’re not doing a very good job. We both know we’ve been nothing but ghosts for each other.”
Leave it to Johanna to be extremely blunt. He doesn’t deny it: what’s the point? She knows, from that very first day she’d called him Katniss’ cousin, who his ghost is. He doesn’t know hers. But he understands that he has no right to.
“You’ve always known that this can’t last,” she says.
“I don’t expect anything to last,” he replies. Yet, surprising himself, he asks: “What are you doing tomorrow?”
“Why? Are you taking me out?” She scoffs. “Is there a picnic? A dinner?”
“No.” He frowns. “But would you like to go hunting with me?”
She looks at him for a moment. He is grateful that, for the first time, she doesn’t offer a quip or a joke. She nods. “Sure, I can hunt.”
He gives her the coordinates. “Meet me here tomorrow morning at eight,” he says. “Bring your own weapons.”
The woods here in Two are different than the ones back home. The trees here, he feels, are all wrong. But he has missed the routine of hunting; it is freeing to abandon everything else and simply get lost in the forest again. To focus on nothing but the chase.
He is surprised he hasn’t hunted here before, but then again he hasn’t hunted since Katniss. He keeps expecting to hear her soundless footsteps beside him. The rhythm of her breathing, once so familiar to him as his own. He has to stop himself from giving signals that he knows she’d recognise. He turns, sometimes, expecting to see a flash of her brown braid in the corner of his eye…
But every time, it is Johanna he sees… her strong strides, her formidable strength, the whip of her sharp eyes as she surveys their surroundings…
They stop for a break a few hours in. He’d gotten a squirrel and a duck. She’d caught sight of a stag and is determined to keep tracking it until they can get a clean shot. They share sandwiches he’d packed for them and sip water from their standard government-issued bottles.
They are sitting on a hillside, with mountains spread out before them. The peaks are all touched with snow. He spots a creek, winding its way down. Daffodils and lilacs. Tall blades of grass to lose yourself in.
A memory: him and Beetee strategising on how to blow up the Nut. He smothers it down.
A flicker of recognition in Johanna’s gaze: she must have seen the whole scene play out on his face. But she doesn’t pry. Survivors in this new world are entitled to our secrets; we have earned them.
“You’re a good shot,” she remarks. “Much better than I thought you would be. But I shouldn’t have been surprised, considering who your cousin is.”
“When are you going to stop with that cousin line?”
“When it is no longer funny.”
“Well, I’m not laughing,” he says.
“But you’re smiling.”
He hadn’t realised. He bites down on his bottom lip in an attempt to hide it. “I’ll miss your jokes,” he says. “When you’re gone.”
“That’s all you’ll miss?” she teases.
“You know I’ll miss much more than that.”
“I didn’t expect it,” she says curtly.
“Expect what?”
“That in the end, you’d be a good thing.”
His voice is tinged with sadness. “I didn’t expect you to be, either,” he says.
They sit for a while longer, resting. Talking about nothing. Their eyes straying every once in a while to the mountaintops ahead.
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