Think, he told himself. Where would she go? The answer hit him like a ton of bricks. She would not want to battle him, armed with a rifle, when she had only a knife. She’d return to the lake house to get a gun herself. Perhaps she’d circled around him and was headed there right now. He strained his ears and yes. Yes! He thought he could hear someone moving off to his right, retreating to the lake. He started running toward the sound and then stopped abruptly. Sure enough, having heard him, she was flying through the underbrush, realizing what he had realized, no longer caring if he heard her. He estimated her to be about ten yards away, lifted the rifle to his shoulder, and released a spray of bullets in her direction. A flock of birds squawked as they took to the air, and he heard a faint cry. Got you, he thought. He crashed through the woods after her, branches and thorns catching his clothes and scratching his face, ignoring all of it until he came to the spot where he’d guessed her to be. There was no trace of her. No matter. She would have to move again, and when she moved, he’d find her.
“Lucy Gray,” he said in his normal voice. “Lucy Gray. It’s not too late to work something out.” Of course, it was, but he owed her nothing. Certainly not the truth. “Lucy Gray, won’t you talk to me?”
Her voice surprised him, lifting suddenly and sweetly into the air.
Are you, are you
Coming to the tree?
Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.
Yes, I get it, he thought. You know about Sejanus. “Necklace of rope” and all that.
He took a step in her direction just as a mockingjay picked up her song. Then a second. Then a third. The woods came alive with their melody as dozens joined in. He dove through the trees and then opened fire on the spot the voice had come from. Had he hit her? He couldn’t tell, because the birdsong filled his ears, disorienting him. Little black specks swam in his field of vision, and his arm began to throb. “Lucy Gray!” he bellowed in frustration. Clever, devious, deadly girl. She knew they’d cover for her. He lifted the rifle and machine-gunned the trees, trying to wipe out the birds. Many fluttered into the sky, but the song had spread, and the woods were alive with it. “Lucy Gray! Lucy Gray!” Furious, he turned this way and that and finally blasted the woods in a full circle, going around and around until his bullets were spent. He collapsed on the ground, dizzy and nauseous, as the woods exploded, every bird of every kind screaming its head off while the mockingjays continued their rendition of “The Hanging Tree.” Nature gone mad. Genes gone bad. Chaos.
He had to get out of there. His arm had begun to swell. He had to get back to the base. Forcing himself to his feet, he tramped back to the lake. Everything in the house remained as he had left it. At least he’d prevented her from getting back. Using a pair of his socks as gloves, he wiped off the murder weapon, crammed all the weapons back in the burlap bag, hoisted it over his shoulder, and ran to the lake. Judging it heavy enough to sink without being weighted down with rocks, he plunged into the lake and towed it out into deeper water. He submerged the bag and watched it spiral slowly down into the gloom.
An alarming tingling enveloped his arm. A clumsy dog paddle carried him back to shore, and he staggered back to the house. What of the supplies? Should he drown those as well? No point. Either she was dead and the Covey would find them, or she was alive and she would hopefully use them to escape. He threw the fish into the fire to burn and left, closing the door tightly behind him.
The rain began again, a real downpour. He expected it would wash away any trace of his visit. The guns were gone. The supplies were Lucy Gray’s. The only thing that remained were his footprints, and those were melting before his eyes. The clouds seemed to be infiltrating his brain. He struggled to think. Get back. You must get back to base. But where was it? He pulled his father’s compass from his pocket, amazed it still worked after the dunking in the lake. Crassus Snow was still out there somewhere, still protecting him.
Coriolanus clung to the compass, a lifeline in the storm, as he headed south. He stumbled through the woods, terrified and alone but feeling his father’s presence beside him. Crassus might not have thought much of him, but he’d have wanted his legacy to live on, and perhaps Coriolanus had redeemed himself somewhat today? None of it would matter if the venom killed him. He stopped to vomit, wishing he’d brought along the jug of water. He vaguely realized that his DNA would be on that, too, but who cared? The jug was not a murder weapon. It didn’t matter. He was safe. If the Covey found Lucy Gray’s body, they wouldn’t report it. They wouldn’t want the attention it brought. It might connect them to the rebels or reveal their hideout. If there was a body. He could not even confirm he’d hit her.
Coriolanus made it back. Not to the hanging tree, exactly, but to District 12, wandering out of a stretch of trees into a clump of miners’ hovels and somehow finding the road. The ground shook with thunder, and lightning slashed the sky as he reached the town square. He saw no one as he made it to the base and climbed back through the fence. He went straight to the clinic, claiming he’d stopped to tie his shoe on his way to the gym, when a snake had appeared out of nowhere to bite him.
The doctor nodded. “The rain brings them out.”
“Does it?” Coriolanus thought his story would have been challenged, or at least met with skepticism.
The doctor did not seem suspicious. “Did you get a look at it?”
“Not really. It was raining, and it moved fast,” he answered. “Am I going to die?”
“Hardly,” the doctor chuckled. “It wasn’t even venomous. See the teeth marks? No fangs. Going to be sore for a few days, though.”
“Are you sure? I threw up, and I couldn’t think straight,” he said.
“Well, panic can do that.” She cleaned the wound. “Probably leave a scar.”
Good, thought Coriolanus. It will remind me to be more careful.
She gave him several shots and a bottle of pills. “Come by tomorrow, and we’ll check it again.”
“Tomorrow I’m being reassigned to District Two,” replied Coriolanus.
“Visit the clinic there, then,” she said. “Good luck, soldier.”
Coriolanus went back to his room, shocked to find it was only midafternoon. Between the booze and the rain, his bunkmates had never even risen. He went to the bathroom and emptied his pockets. The lake water had reduced his mother’s rose-scented powder to a nasty paste, and he threw the whole thing in the trash. The photos stuck together and shredded when he tried to separate them, so they went the way of the powder. Only the compass had survived the outing. He peeled off his clothes and scrubbed off the last bits of the lake. When he’d dressed, he took down his duffel and began to pack, returning the compass to his box of personal items and stowing it deep in the bag. On reflection, he opened Sejanus’s locker and took his box as well. When he got to District 2, he’d mail it to the Plinths with a note of condolence. That would be appropriate as Sejanus’s best friend. And who knew? Maybe the cookies would keep coming.
The following morning, after a tearful good-bye from his bunkmates, he boarded the hovercraft for District Two. Things improved immediately. The plush seat. The attendant. The beverage selection. Not luxurious, by any means, but a far cry from the recruit train. Comforted by comfort, he leaned his temple against the window, hoping to get in a nap. All night, while the rain had drummed on the barrack’s roof, he’d wondered where Lucy Gray was. Dead in the rain? Curled up by the fire in the lake house? If she’d survived, surely she’d abandoned the idea of returning to District 12. He dozed off with the melody to “The Hanging Tree” humming in his brain, and awoke hours later as the hovercraft touched down.
“Welcome to the Capitol,” the attendant said.
Coriolanus’s eyes popped open. “What? No. Did I miss my stop? I have to report to District Two.”
“This craft goes on to Two, but we have orders to drop you here,” said the attendant, checking a list. “I’m afraid you need to disembark. We have a schedule to keep.”
He found himself on the tarmac of a small, unfamiliar airport. A Peacekeepers’ truck pulled up, and he was ordered into the back. As he rattled along, unable to get any information from the driver, dread seeped into him. There had been a mistake. Or had there? What if they had somehow linked him to the murders? Maybe Lucy Gray had returned and accused him, and they needed to question him? Would they drag the lake for the weapons? His heart gave a little jump as they turned onto Scholars Road and drove past the Academy, quiet and still on a summer afternoon. There was the park where they’d sometimes hung out at after school. And the bakery with those cupcakes he loved. At least he’d been granted one more glimpse of his hometown. Nostalgia faded as the truck made a sharp turn and he realized they were heading up the drive to the Citadel.
Inside, the guards waved him right through to the elevator. “She’s expecting you in the lab.”
He held on to the thin hope that “she” meant Dr. Kay, not Dr. Gaul, but his old nemesis waved to him from across the lab as he stepped off the elevator. Why was he here? Was he going to end up in one of her cages? As he crossed to her, he saw her drop a live baby mouse into a tank of golden snakes.
“So the victor returns. Here, hold these.” Dr. Gaul pushed a metal bowl filled with squirming, pink rodents into his hands.
Coriolanus suppressed a gag. “Hello, Dr. Gaul.”
“I got your letter,” she said. “And your jabberjay. Too bad about young Plinth. Although, is it, really? Anyway, I was pleased to see you were continuing your studies in Twelve. Developing your worldview.”
He felt himself pulled right back into the old tutorial with her, as if nothing had happened. “Yes, it was eye-opening. I thought about all the things we’d discussed. Chaos, control, the contract. The three C’s.”
“Did you think about the Hunger Games?” she asked. “The day we met, Casca asked you what their purpose was, and you gave the stock answer. To punish the districts. Would you change that now?”
Coriolanus remembered the conversation he’d had with Sejanus as they’d unpacked his duffel. “I’d elaborate on it. They’re not just to punish the districts, they’re part of the eternal war. Each one is its own battle. One we can hold in the palm of our hand, instead of waging a real war that could get out of our control.”
“Hm.” She swung a mouse away from a gaping mouth. “You there, don’t be greedy.”
“And they’re a reminder of what we did to each other, what we have the potential to do again, because of who we are,” he continued.
“And who are we, did you determine?” she asked.
“Creatures who need the Capitol to survive.” He couldn’t help getting in a dig. “It’s all pointless, though, you know. The Hunger Games. No one in Twelve even watches it. Except for the reaping. We didn’t even have a working television on base.”
“While that could be a problem in the future, it’s a blessing this year, given that I’ve had to erase the whole mess,” said Dr. Gaul. “It was a mistake getting the students mixed up in it. Especially when they started dropping like flies. Presented the Capitol as far too vulnerable.”
“You erased it?” he asked.
“Every last copy gone, never to be aired again.” She grinned. “I’ve a master in the vault, of course, but that’s just for my own amusement.”
He was glad about the erasure. It was just one more way to eliminate Lucy Gray from the world. The Capitol would forget her, the districts barely knew her, and District 12 had never accepted her as one of their own. In a few years, there would be a vague memory that a girl had once sung in the arena. And then that would be forgotten, too. Good-bye, Lucy Gray, we hardly knew you.
“Not a total loss. I think we’ll bring Flickerman back next year. And your idea about the betting is a keeper,” she said.
“You need to somehow make the viewing mandatory. No one in Twelve will tune in to something that depressing by choice,” he told her. “They spend what little free time they have drinking to forget the rest of their lives.”
Dr. Gaul chuckled. “It seems you’ve learned a lot on your summer vacation, Mr. Snow.”
“Vacation?” he said, perplexed.
“Well, what were you going to do here? Laze around the Capitol, combing out your curls? I thought a summer with the Peacekeepers would be far more educational.” She took in the confusion on his face. “You don’t think I’ve invested all this time in you to hand you off to those imbeciles in the districts, do you?”
“I don’t understand, I was told —” he began.
She cut him off. “I’ve ordered you an honorable discharge, effective immediately. You’re to study under me at the University.”
“The University? Here in the Capitol?” he said in surprise.
She dropped one last mouse into the tank. “Classes start Thursday.”