His hand fumbled in the drawer of his nightstand and found his mother’s compact. As he inhaled the rose-scented powder, his thoughts quieted a bit, but restlessness drove him from his bed. For the next few hours, he wandered the apartment, looking out at the night sky, down at the Corso, into the neighbors’ windows across the way. At some point he found himself up on the roof amid the Grandma’am’s roses and didn’t remember having climbed the stairs to the garden. The fresh night air perfumed by the flowers helped, but soon brought on a bout of shivering that made everything hurt again.
Tigris found him sitting in the kitchen a few hours before dawn. She made tea and they ate the remainder of the casserole straight from the pan. The savory layers of meat, potato, and cheese consoled him, as did Tigris’s gentle reminder that the situation with Lucy Gray was not of his making. They were both, after all, still children whose lives were dictated by powers above them.
Somewhat comforted, he managed to doze for a few hours before a phone call from Satyria woke him. She encouraged him to attend school that morning if he could manage. Another mentor-tribute meeting had been scheduled with the idea of working toward the interviews, which would now be on a completely voluntary basis.
Later at the Academy, as he looked down from the balcony into Heavensbee Hall, the empty chairs rattled him. He knew, in his head, that eight tributes had died, that one was missing, but he’d not envisioned how that would ripple through the pattern of the twenty-four little tables, leaving a jagged, disconcerting mess. No tributes at all from Districts 1, 2, 6, or 9, and only one from 10. Most of the kids who remained were injured, and all looked unwell. As the mentors joined their assignees, the losses became even more pronounced. Six mentors were either dead or hospitalized, and those partnered with the escapees of Districts 1 and 2 had no tributes at their tables and therefore no reason to show up. Livia Cardew had been vocal about this turn of events, demanding new tributes be brought from the districts, or at least that she be given Reaper, the boy assigned to Clemensia, who everyone thought had been hospitalized with the flu. Her wishes had not been accommodated, and Reaper sat alone at his table, a bandage stained with rusty dried blood wrapped around his head.
As Coriolanus took the seat opposite her, Lucy Gray didn’t even attempt a smile. A ragged cough racked her chest, and soot from the fire still clung to her clothing. The veterinarian had exceeded Coriolanus’s expectations, though, as the skin on her hands was healing nicely.
“Hi,” he said, scooting a nut butter sandwich and two of Satyria’s cookies across the table.
“Hey,” she said hoarsely. Any attempt at flirtation or even camaraderie had been abandoned. She patted the sandwich but seemed too tired to eat it. “Thanks.”
“No, thank you for saving my life.” He said it lightly, but as he gazed into her eyes, the levity leached away.
“Is that what you’re telling people?” she asked. “That I saved your life?”
He had said as much to Tigris and the Grandma’am and then, perhaps unsure what to do with the information, let it drift from his thoughts like a dream. Now, with the empty seats of the fallen around them, the memory of how she’d rescued him in the arena demanded his attention, and he could not ignore its significance. If Lucy Gray had not helped him, he would be utterly, irrevocably dead. Another shiny coffin dripping flowers. Another empty chair. When he spoke again, the words caught in his throat before he forced them out. “I told my family. Really. Thank you, Lucy Gray.”
“Well, I had some time on my hands,” she said, tracing the frosted flower on a cookie with a shaky forefinger. “Pretty cookies.”
Then came confusion. If she had saved his life, he owed her, what? A sandwich and two cookies? That was how he was repaying her. For his life. Which apparently he held quite cheaply. The truth was, he owed her everything. He felt the blush burn over his cheeks. “You could have run. And if you had, I would have gone up in flames before they reached me.”
“Run, huh? Seemed like a lot of effort to get shot,” she said.
Coriolanus shook his head. “You can joke, but it won’t change what you did for me. I hope I can repay you in some way.”
“I hope so, too,” she said.
In those few words he sensed a shift in their dynamic. As her mentor, he’d been the gracious giver of gifts, always to be met with gratitude. Now she’d upended things by giving him a gift beyond compare. On the surface, everything looked the same. Chained girl, boy offering food, Peacekeepers guarding that status quo. But deep down, things could never be the same between them. He would always be in her debt. She had the right to demand things.
“I don’t know how,” he admitted.
Lucy Gray glanced around the room, taking in her wounded competitors. Then she looked him in the eye, and impatience tinged her voice. “You could start by thinking I can actually win.”
PART 2
CHAPTER 11
Lucy Gray’s words stung but, on reflection, were well deserved. Coriolanus had never really considered her a victor in the Games. It had never been part of his strategy to make her one. He had only wished that her charm and appeal would rub off on him and make him a success. Even his encouragement to sing for sponsors was an attempt to prolong the attention she brought him. Only a moment ago, her healed hands were good news because she could use them to play the guitar on interview night, not to defend herself from an attack in the arena. The fact that she mattered to him, as he’d claimed in the zoo, only made things worse. He should’ve been trying to preserve her life, to help her become the victor, no matter the odds.
“I meant what I said about you being the cake with the cream,” Lucy Gray said. “You’re the only one who even bothered to show up. You and your friend Sejanus. You two acted like we were human beings. But the only way you can really repay me now is if you help me survive this thing.”
“I agree.” Stepping up made him feel a bit better. “From now on, we’re in it to win.”
Lucy Gray reached out. “Shake on that?”
Coriolanus gave her hand a careful shake. “You have my word.” The challenge energized him. “Step one: I think of a strategy.”
“We think of a strategy,” she corrected. But she smiled and bit into the sandwich.
“We think of a strategy.” He did the math again. “You’ve only got fourteen competitors left, unless they find Marcus.”
“If you can keep me alive a few more days, I might just win by default,” she said.
Coriolanus looked around the hall at her broken, sickly competitors, draped in chains, which encouraged him until he admitted that Lucy Gray’s condition wasn’t much better. Still, with Districts 1 and 2 out of play, Jessup watching over her, and the new sponsorship program, her odds were vastly improved from what they’d been when she’d arrived in the Capitol. Perhaps, if he could keep her fed, she could run and hide somewhere in the arena while the others fought it out or starved to death. “I have to ask one thing,” he said. “If it came to it, would you kill someone?”
Lucy Gray chewed, weighing the question. “Maybe in self-defense.”
“It’s the Hunger Games. It’s all self-defense,” he said. “But maybe it’s best if you run away from the other tributes, and we get you sponsors for food. Wait it out a bit.”
“Yeah, that’s a better strategy for me,” she agreed. “Enduring horrible things is one of my talents.” A dry bit of bread set her to coughing.
Coriolanus passed her a water bottle from his book bag. “They’re still doing the interviews, but on a voluntary basis. Are you up for it?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve got a song that was made for this whiskey voice,” she said. “You find me a guitar?”
“No. But I will today,” he promised. “Someone must have one I can borrow. If we can get you some sponsors, it will go a long way toward you getting that victory.”
She began to talk with a bit of animation about what she might sing. They’d only been allotted ten minutes, though, and the brief meeting ended with Professor Sickle ordering the mentors back to the high biology lab.
Following what had to be heightened security measures, Peacekeepers escorted them, and Dean Highbottom checked off their names as they filed to their places. The able-bodied mentors of the dead and missing tributes, including Livia and Sejanus, already sat at the lab tables, watching Dr. Gaul drop carrots into the rabbit’s cage. Coriolanus’s skin broke into a sweat at the sight of her, so close, and so crazy.
“Hippity, hoppity, carrot or stick? Everyone’s dying and you’re . . .” She turned to them expectantly, and everyone but Sejanus averted their gaze.
“Feeling sick,” said Sejanus.
Dr. Gaul laughed. “It’s the compassionate one. Where’s your tribute, boy? Any clue?”
Capitol News had continued coverage of the manhunt for Marcus, but it was less frequent now. The official word was that he was trapped down in a remote level of the Transfer, where he’d be apprehended soon. The city had relaxed, the general consensus being that he’d either died or would be captured any moment. At any rate, he seemed more bent on escaping than rising out of the Transfer to murder innocents in the Capitol.
“Possibly on his way to freedom,” said Sejanus in a strained voice. “Possibly captured and under wraps. Possibly injured and hiding. Possibly dead. I’ve no idea. Do you?”
Coriolanus couldn’t help admiring his pluck. Of course, Sejanus didn’t know how dangerous Dr. Gaul could be. He might end up in a cage with a pair of parakeet wings and an elephant’s trunk if he wasn’t careful.
“No, don’t answer,” Sejanus spat out. “He’s either dead or about to be, when you catch him and drag him through the streets in chains.”
“That’s our right,” Dr. Gaul countered.
“No, it isn’t! I don’t care what you say. You’ve no right to starve people, to punish them for no reason. No right to take away their life and freedom. Those are things everyone is born with, and they’re not yours for the taking. Winning a war doesn’t give you that right. Having more weapons doesn’t give you that right. Being from the Capitol doesn’t give you that right. Nothing does. Oh, I don’t even know why I came here today.” With that, Sejanus sprang up and bolted for the door. When he tried the handle, it wouldn’t turn. He jiggled it and then confronted Dr. Gaul. “Locking us in now? It’s like our own little monkey house.”