Filed To Story: Sunrise on the Reaping Book PDF Free
Peacekeepers’ boots tramp through the audience as the soldiers grab anyone marked with gore, including Otho, and push them into the nearby shops to conceal them.
“We need another boy! That dead one’s no good!” says Drusilla, clunking down the steps into the square.
There’s a high-pitched keening followed by Peacekeepers barking orders. Then I hear Lenore Dove’s voice, and my head shoots up like I don’t control it. She’s trying to help Woodbine’s ma, who’s latched on to his hand as a pair of Peacekeepers attempts to carry him away. Lenore Dove’s tugging on one of the soldier’s arms, begging them to please let his ma have him, just let her see him for one minute. But they don’t seem to have a minute.
This will not end well. Should I get in there? Pull Lenore Dove away? Or will I only make the situation worse? I feel like my knees are glued to the ground.
“What’s the problem there?” I hear Drusilla say. “Get that body off the square!” A squad of four more Peacekeepers heads over.
Having Woodbine referred to as a “body” sets his ma off. She begins to shriek, flinging her arms around his chest, trying to pull her son away from the soldiers. Lenore Dove joins her, grabbing hold of Woodbine’s legs to help free him.
Ma’s going to lay into me for intervening, but I just can’t grovel on the ground while Lenore Dove’s in danger. I push myself up and run toward her, hoping to get her to let Woodbine loose. I spy one of the incoming Peacekeepers raising his rifle to knock her out.
“Stop!” I leap in to shield her, just in time to intercept the rifle butt that slams against my temple. Pain explodes in my head as jagged lights cut through my vision. I don’t even make it to the ground before iron hands lock on my upper arms and haul me forward, my nose inches from the bricks. I’m dropped flat on my face before a pair of yellow boots. The tip of one lifts my chin before letting it bang back on the ground.
“Well, I think we’ve just found our replacement.”
Lenore Dove’s behind me, pleading. “Don’t take him – it wasn’t his fault! It was mine! Punish me!”
“Oh, just shoot that girl, would you?” says Drusilla. A nearby Peacekeeper trains his rifle on Lenore Dove, and Drusilla snorts in exasperation. “Not here! We’ve got enough blood to clean up. Find a discreet location, can’t you?”
As the soldier takes a step toward Lenore Dove, a guy in a violet jumpsuit appears, laying a hand on his elbow. “Hold it. If I could, Drusilla, I’d love to keep her for the tearful good-bye. The audience eats that stuff up and, as you always remind us, it’s a challenge to get them to even notice Twelve.”
“Fine, Plutarch. Whatever. Just get the rest of them up. Up! On your feet, you district pigs!” As they lift me, I notice Drusilla has a riding crop clipped to the side of one boot and wonder if it’s just decorative. Her dead-fish breath hits my face. “Play this right or I’ll shoot you myself.”
“Haymitch!” I hear Lenore Dove cry.
I start to respond but Drusilla clamps on to my face with her long fingers. “And she can watch.”
Plutarch gestures to one of the crew. “Get a camera on that girl, would you, Cassia?” He pursues Drusilla. “You know, we’ve got footage of the Peacekeepers controlling the crowd. It could be an opportunity to hit the ‘No Peacekeeper, No Peace’ angle.”
“I don’t have time, Plutarch! I barely have time to pull off the status quo! Get the first boy. . . . What was his name?”
“Wyatt Callow,” says Plutarch.
“Get Wyatt Callow back in the pen.” Drusilla smacks her forehead. “No!” She thinks a moment. “Yes! I’ll call them both. It will be smoother.”
“It will cost you another thirty seconds.”
“Then let’s get going.” She points at me. “What’s your name?”
My name sounds alien as it leaves my lips. “Haymitch Abernathy.”
“Haymitch Abernanny,” she repeats.
“Haymitch Abernathy,” I correct her.
She turns to Plutarch in vexation. “It’s too long!” He scribbles on his clipboard pad and rips off a strip of paper. She takes it and reads, “Wyatt Callow and Haymitch . . . Aber . . . nathy. Wyatt Callow and Haymitch Abernathy.”
“Why you’re the professional,” Plutarch says. “Better take your place. I’ll position him.” As Drusilla hurries up the steps, he takes my elbow and whispers, “Don’t be stupid, kid. She’ll kill you with a snap if you mess up again.”
I don’t know if he means with a snap of her fingers or some extra-horrible snappy way to die. Either way, I don’t want to die with a snap.
Plutarch leads me to a spot closer to the stage. “This’ll do. Just stay here, and when Drusilla calls your name, you calmly walk up onstage. Okay?”
I try to nod. My head throbs and my thoughts tumble around like rocks in a tin can. What just happened? What’s happening now? Somewhere inside me, I know. I’m a tribute in the Hunger Games. In a few days, I’ll die in the arena. I know all this, but it’s like it’s happening to someone else while I watch from a distance.
The remaining members of the audience have regained their feet but not their composure. People whisper urgently to their neighbors, trying to figure out what’s going on.
“Live in thirty,” someone says over the speakers. “Twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven . . .”
“Shut up!” Drusilla yells at the crowd as a makeup person puffs some powder on her sweaty face. “Shut up or we’ll kill every last one of you!” As if to emphasize this, a Peacekeeper next to her fires a spray of bullets into the air, and a hovercraft passes right over the square.
It gets quiet fast and I can hear my blood pounding in my ears. I have an impulse to flee, like Woodbine did, but remember the look of his brains hanging out of his skull.
“. . . ten, nine, eight . . .”
Everyone onstage has returned to their pre-shooting places: Louella and Maysilee, the Peacekeepers, and Drusilla, who quickly tears the paper Plutarch gave her in two and positions the slips on the pile in the glass ball.
I reach for Burdock and Blair to steady myself, but, of course, they’re not there. Just a couple of younger kids who are giving me plenty of room.
“. . . three, two, one, and we’re live.”
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
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