“Buying everything! He bought our way here, bought my schooling, bought my mentorship, and he goes nuts because he can’t buy me,” said Sejanus. “He’ll buy you if you let him. Or at least compensate you for trying to help me.”
Buy away, thought Coriolanus, thinking of next year’s tuition. He only said, “You’re my friend. He doesn’t need to pay me to help you.”
Sejanus laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’re the only reason I’ve lasted this long, Coriolanus. I need to stop causing you trouble.”
“I didn’t realize how bad this was for you. I should have traded tributes when you asked,” he answered.
Sejanus sighed. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing does, really.”
“Of course it matters,” Coriolanus insisted. They were coming now, he could feel it. The sense of a pack closing in on him. “Come out with me.”
“No. There’s no point,” said Sejanus. “There’s nothing left to do but die.”
Coriolanus pressed him. “That’s it? That’s your only choice?”
“It’s the only way I might possibly make a statement. Let the world see me die in protest,” Sejanus concluded. “Even if I’m not truly Capitol, I’m not district either. Like Lucy Gray, but without the talent.”
“Do you really think they’ll show this? They’ll quietly remove your body and say you died of the flu.” Coriolanus stopped, wondering if he’d said too much, if it pointed too directly at Clemensia’s fate. But it wasn’t as if Dr. Gaul and Dean Highbottom could hear him. “They’ve all but blacked out the screen now.”
Sejanus’s face clouded over. “They won’t show it?”
“Not in a million years. You’ll be dead for nothing, and you’ll have wasted your chance to make things better.” A cough, small and muffled, but definitely a cough. Coming from the stands to his right. Coriolanus had not imagined it.
“What chance?” asked Sejanus.
“You have money. Maybe not now, but one day you’ll have a fortune. Money has a lot of uses. Look how it changed your world. Maybe you could make changes, too. Good ones. Maybe if you don’t, a lot more people will suffer.” Coriolanus’s right hand tightened around his pepper spray, then flitted to his flash unit. Which would actually help if he was attacked?
“What makes you think I could do that?” said Sejanus.
“You’re the only one who had the guts to stand up to Dr. Gaul,” said Coriolanus. He hated giving that to him, but it was true. He was the sole member of the class who’d defied her.
“Thank you.” Sejanus sounded tired but a bit saner. “Thank you for that.”
Coriolanus put his free hand on Sejanus’s arm, as if comforting him, but really to grip his shirt if he decided to run. “We’re being surrounded. I’m going. Come with me.” He could see Sejanus starting to cave. “Please. What do you want to do, fight the tributes or fight for them? Don’t give Dr. Gaul the satisfaction of beating you. Don’t give up.”
Sejanus stared down at Marcus for a long moment, weighing his options. “You’re right,” he said finally. “If I believe what I say, it’s my responsibility to take her down. To end this whole atrocity somehow.” He lifted his head, as if suddenly realizing their situation. His eyes turned to the stands, where Coriolanus had heard the cough. “But I won’t leave Marcus.”
Coriolanus made a snap judgment. “I’ll get his feet.” The legs were stiff and heavy, reeking of blood and filth, but he crooked the knees in his arms as best he could and hoisted Marcus’s lower half. Sejanus encircled his chest with his arms, and they began to move, half carrying, half dragging the body toward the barricade. Ten yards, five yards, not far now. Once they’d cleared it, the Peacekeepers should provide some cover.
He tripped on a rock and went down, driving his knee into something sharp and piercing, but sprang back up, heaving Marcus’s body with him. Almost there. Almost —
The footsteps came from behind him. Quick and light. Speeding from the barricade, where the tribute had lain in wait. Coriolanus reflexively dropped Marcus and spun around just in time to see Bobbin bring down his knife.
CHAPTER 16
The blade glanced off his body armor and sliced his left upper arm. As Coriolanus leaped backward, he swung at Bobbin but only encountered air. He landed in a pile of debris, old boards, and plaster as his hand searched for some kind of defense. Bobbin sprang at him again, aiming the knife at his face. Coriolanus’s fingers closed around a two-by-four, and he brought it up, catching Bobbin in the temple hard, sending him to his knees. And then he was on his feet, using the board like a club, bringing it down again and again without being sure where it made contact.
“We have to go!” Sejanus shouted.
Coriolanus could hear catcalls now, and feet pounding down the bleachers. Confused, he made a move toward Marcus’s body, but Sejanus yanked him away. “No! Leave him! Run!”
Needing no persuasion, Coriolanus sprinted for the barricade. Pain shot from his elbow to his shoulder, but he ignored it, pumping his arms as hard as he could, the way Professor Sickle had taught them. When he reached the barricade, barbed wire bit into his shirt, and as he turned to pull it free, he saw them. The two tributes from District 4, Coral and Mizzen, and Tanner — the slaughterhouse kid — making straight for him, armed to the teeth. Mizzen drew his arm back to throw a trident. The fabric on Coriolanus’s sleeve ripped wide as he yanked it from the barbed wire and dove out of the line of fire, with Sejanus right behind him.
Only a few weak rays of moonlight penetrated the layers of the barricade, and Coriolanus found himself crashing into wood and fencing like a wild bird in a cage, surely alerting any tribute who’d somehow missed his presence. He ran facefirst into a concrete slab, and Sejanus plowed into him from behind, smacking his forehead into the unrelenting surface a second time. When he pushed back, it was as if the concussion had never left. His head throbbed, and a cloud of confusion descended.
The tributes started up a whooping sound, rattling their weapons against the barricade as they tracked the mentors through the labyrinth. Which direction to go? The tributes seemed to be all around them. Sejanus grabbed his arm and began to pull him, and he stumbled blindly along behind, wounded and terrified. Was this it, then? Was this how he died? The fury at the injustice of it all, the mockery it made of his existence, sent a surge of energy through him, and he crashed past Sejanus, finding himself on his hands and knees in a cloud of soft, red light. The passageway! Up ahead he could make out the turnstiles, where the Peacekeepers were clustered at the temporary bars. He ran for his life.
The passageway wasn’t long, but it seemed interminable. His legs rose and fell as if he were waist-high in glue, and black specks dotted his vision. Sejanus stayed steady at his elbow, but he could hear the tributes gaining. Something heavy and unyielding — a brick? — clipped the side of his neck. Another object punctured his vest and stuck, bobbing behind him until it fell with a clank. Where was the cover? The protective gunfire from the Peacekeepers? There was nothing, nothing at all, and the bars still stood flush with the floor. He wanted to scream for them to kill the tributes, shoot them dead in their tracks, but his breath was in too short supply.
Someone heavy-footed shrank his lead to a few yards, but once again remembering Professor Sickle’s training, he didn’t dare waste a second looking back to see who it was. Before him, the Peacekeepers finally managed to tilt the unit of bars inward, achieving a gap of about twelve inches at the ground. Coriolanus dove, sanding several layers of skin off his chin on the rough floor and just getting his hands beneath the bars, where the Peacekeepers latched on to him and gave a great yank. Lacking time to turn his head, the rest of his face scraped against the filthy surface until he reached safety.
The guards dumped him immediately to retrieve Sejanus, who gave a sharp cry as Tanner’s knife cut open the back of his calf before he slid out of range. The bars were slammed into place, and bolts locked down the unit, but the tributes were undeterred. Tanner, Mizzen, and Coral jabbed their weapons through the bars at Coriolanus and Sejanus, spewing hate-filled taunts while the Peacekeepers banged on the turnstiles with their batons. Not a shot was fired. Not even a shot of pepper spray. Coriolanus realized that they must have been under orders to leave the tributes untouched.
As the Peacekeepers helped him to his feet, he spat out in rage, “Thanks for having our backs!”
“Just following orders. Don’t blame us if Gaul thinks you’re expendable, boy,” said the old Peacekeeper who’d promised him cover.
Someone tried to steady him but he shoved them off. “I can walk! I can walk, no thanks to you!” Then he listed sideways, almost hitting the floor before they hoisted him up again and made their way back through the lobby. Coriolanus babbled a long string of profanities, which made no impression, and hung in their grip like deadweight until they dropped him, unceremoniously, just outside the arena. After a minute they deposited Sejanus beside him. They both lay panting on the tiles that graced the front of the arena.
“I’m so sorry, Coryo,” said Sejanus. “I’m so sorry.”
Coryo was a nickname for old friends. For family. For people Coriolanus loved. And this was the moment Sejanus decided to try it out? If he’d had the energy, Coriolanus would have reached over and strangled him.
No one paid them any attention. Ma had vanished. Dr. Gaul and Dean Highbottom debated audio levels as they watched the feeds in the van. The Peacekeepers stood in loose clumps, waiting for instructions. Five minutes passed before an ambulance drove up and popped open its back doors. The boys were loaded in without so much as a glance from the authorities.
The medic gave Coriolanus a pad to hold against his arm wound while she dealt with the more pressing issue of Sejanus’s calf, which was producing quite a bit of blood. Coriolanus dreaded returning to the hospital and that untrustworthy Dr. Wane, until he saw through the small pane of glass that they’d arrived at the Citadel, which seemed twice as scary. Unloaded onto gurneys, they were swiftly transported deep down to the lab where Clemensia had been attacked, leaving Coriolanus to wonder just what modifications they had in store for him.
Accidents must’ve been frequent in the lab, as a small medical clinic awaited them. It had lacked the sophistication for Clemensia’s resurrection yet seemed adequate to patch up the boys. A white curtain divided their two hospital beds, but Coriolanus could hear Sejanus giving one-word answers to the doctors’ inquiries. He gave little more himself as they stitched his arm and cleaned his raw face. His head ached, but he didn’t dare tell them about the rebound of his concussion for fear he’d end up being admitted to the hospital for an indefinite stay. All he wanted was to get away from these people. Despite his protests, they stuck an IV in his arm to rehydrate him and deliver some cocktail of drugs, and he lay rigid on the bed, willing himself not to flee. Although he’d done Dr. Gaul’s bidding, although he’d succeeded, he felt more vulnerable than ever. And here he lay, wounded and trapped, hidden away in her lair.
The pain eased in his arm, but he did not feel the velvet curtain of morphling draw around him. Some alternative drug must have been administered, because, if anything, his mind felt a heightened sharpness, and he noticed everything, from the weave of the bedsheet, to the tug of the tape on his raw skin, to the bitter taste the metal cup of water left on his tongue. Peacekeeper boots approached and withdrew, taking a limping Sejanus with them. Deep in the lab, a round of squeals heralded some creature’s feeding time, and the faint scent of fish reached him. After that, a relative hush fell over the place for a long time. He considered trying to slip away but knew in his heart he was expected to wait. To wait for the soft slipper tread that inevitably made its way to his cubicle.
When Dr. Gaul pulled back the curtain, the twilight of the nocturnal lab gave Coriolanus the strange impression that she stood on the edge of a cliff, that if he were to give her even the smallest shove, she would topple backward into some great chasm, never to be heard from again. If only, he thought. If only. Instead she moved forward and placed two fingers on his wrist, checking his pulse. He flinched at the feel of her cool, papery fingers.
“I started out as a medical doctor, you know,” she said. “Obstetrics.”
How awful, Coriolanus thought. To have you be the first person in the world a baby sees.
“Wasn’t really for me,” said Dr. Gaul. “Parents always want reassurances you can’t give. About the futures their children face. How could I possibly know what they’d encounter? Like you, tonight. Who would’ve imagined Crassus Snow’s darling baby boy fighting for his life in the Capitol Arena? Not him, for one.”
Coriolanus didn’t know how to respond. He could barely remember his father, let alone divine his imaginings.
“What was it like? In the arena?” asked Dr. Gaul.
“Terrifying,” said Coriolanus flatly.
“It’s designed to be.” She checked his pupils, shining a light into each of his eyes. “What about the tributes?”
The light hurt his head. “What about them?”
Dr. Gaul moved on to his stitches. “What did you think of them, now that their chains have been removed? Now that they’ve tried to kill you? Because it was of no benefit to them, your death. You’re not the competition.”
It was true. They’d been close enough to recognize him. But they’d hunted down him and Sejanus — Sejanus, who’d treated the tributes so well, fed them, defended them, given them last rites! — even though they could have used that opportunity to kill one another.
“I think I underestimated how much they hate us,” said Coriolanus.
“And when you realized that, what was your response?” she asked.
He thought back to Bobbin, to the escape, to the tributes’ bloodlust even after he’d cleared the bars. “I wanted them dead. I wanted every one of them dead.”
Dr. Gaul nodded. “Well, mission accomplished with that little one from Eight. You beat him to a pulp. Have to make up some story for that buffoon Flickerman to tell in the morning. But what a wonderful opportunity for you. Transformative.”
“Was it?” Coriolanus remembered the sickening thuds of his board against Bobbin. So he had what? Murdered the boy? No, not that. It was an open-and-shut case of self-defense. But what, then? He had killed him, certainly. There would never be any erasing that. No regaining that innocence. He had taken human life.
“Wasn’t it? More than I could’ve hoped. I needed you to get Sejanus out of the arena, of course, but I wanted you to taste that as well,” she said.
“Even if it killed me?” asked Coriolanus.
“Without the threat of death, it wouldn’t have been much of a lesson,” said Dr. Gaul. “What happened in the arena? That’s humanity undressed. The tributes. And you, too. How quickly civilization disappears. All your fine manners, education, family background, everything you pride yourself on, stripped away in the blink of an eye, revealing everything you actually are. A boy with a club who beats another boy to death. That’s mankind in its natural state.”
The idea, laid out as such, shocked him, but he attempted a laugh. “Are we really as bad as all that?”
“I would say yes, absolutely. But it’s a matter of personal opinion.” Dr. Gaul pulled a roll of gauze from the pocket of her lab coat. “What do you think?”
“I think I wouldn’t have beaten anyone to death if you hadn’t stuck me in that arena!” he retorted.
“You can blame it on the circumstances, the environment, but you made the choices you made, no one else. It’s a lot to take in all at once, but it’s essential that you make an effort to answer that question. Who are human beings? Because who we are determines the type of governing we need. Later on, I hope you can reflect and be honest with yourself about what you learned tonight.” Dr. Gaul began to wrap his wound in gauze. “And a few stitches in your arm is a cheap price to pay for it.”
Coriolanus felt nauseous at her words but even more enraged that she had forced him to kill for the sake of her lesson. Something that significant should have been his decision, not hers. No one’s but his. “So, if I’m a vicious animal, then who are you? You’re the teacher who sent her student to beat another boy to death!”
“Oh, yes. That role has fallen to me.” She neatly finished the bandage off. “You know, Dean Highbottom and I read your essay through. What you liked about the war. A lot of fluff. Drivel, really. Until that bit in the end. The part about control. For your next assignment, I’d like you to elaborate on that. The value of control. On what happens without it. Take your time with it. But it might be a nice addition to your prize application.”
Coriolanus knew what happened without control. He’d seen it recently, at the zoo when Arachne died, in the arena when the bombs went off, and then again tonight. “Chaos happens. What else is there to say?”
“Oh, a good deal, I think. Start with that. Chaos. No control, no law, no government at all. Like being in the arena. Where do we go from there? What sort of agreement is necessary if we’re to live in peace? What sort of social contract is required for survival?” She removed the drip from his arm. “We’ll need you back in a couple of days to check those stitches. Until then, I would keep the night’s events to yourself. Better get home and catch a few hours of sleep. Remarkably, your tribute still needs you.”
After she left, Coriolanus slowly pulled on his sliced, torn, bloody shirt and fastened the buttons. He wandered until he found the elevator to street level, and the disinterested guards waved him out. The trolleys ended at midnight, and the Capitol clock showed two, so he pointed his filthy shoes toward home.
The Plinths’ luxurious car slid up beside him, and the window lowered to reveal the Avox, who stepped out and opened the back door for him. Coriolanus guessed he’d already taken Sejanus home, and Ma had sent him back. Since the car was empty of Plinths, he got in. One last ride, then he wanted nothing to do with that family ever again. When the driver let him out at his apartment, Coriolanus was presented with a large paper bag. Before he could object, the car pulled away.
Upstairs, he peeked in to see Tigris waiting by the tea table, wrapped in a ratty fur coat that had been her mother’s. It was her security blanket, much as the rose powder compact had been his before he revamped it as a weapon. He grabbed a school jacket from the coatrack and pulled it over his damaged shirt before he went in to see her.
Coriolanus tried to make light of the dreadful night. “Surely, it’s not so bad you need the coat?”
Her fingers dug into the fur. “You tell me.”
“I will. Every bit of it. But in the morning, okay?” he said.
“Okay.” When she reached up to hug him good night, her hand felt the bulge of the bandage on his arm. Before he could stop her, she pulled back the jacket and saw the blood. She bit her lip. “Oh, Coryo. They made you go into the arena, didn’t they?”
He hugged her. “Not that bad, really. I’m here. Got Sejanus out, too.”
“Not that bad? It’s horrific to think of you in there. To think of anyone in there!” she cried. “Poor Lucy Gray.”
Lucy Gray. Now that he’d been in the arena himself, her circumstances seemed even more dire than before. The thought of her huddled somewhere in the cold blackness of the arena, too petrified to close her eyes, made him ache. For the first time, he felt glad he’d killed Bobbin. At least he’d saved her from that animal. “It’s going to be okay, Tigris. But you have to let me get some rest. You need to sleep, too.”
She nodded, but he knew she’d be lucky to snatch an hour or two. He handed her the bag. “Courtesy of Ma Plinth. Breakfast, by the smell of it. See you then?”