Filed To Story: Sunrise on the Reaping Book PDF Free
I recognize Juvenia, the District 1 escort who Drusilla sneered at, tentatively descending the train steps in snakeskin boots. Behind her come her four tributes, cuffed and chained together, towering over their Peacekeepers. When the car door shuts behind them, the boy bringing up the rear suddenly turns and kicks the window. The glass shatters like an eggshell.
A quiet voice behind me says, “Panache Barker, District One tribute, trained Career, roughly three hundred pounds. His last name suggests he’s related to Palladium Barker, who took the crown four years ago. He’ll currently have odds of about five to two, which in the arena would translate into an average of two meals a day from sponsors. He looks to be a lefty, which can be a plus or a minus, but he’s also a hothead, and that could cost him. Based on the reaping stats – training, weight, lineage – he’s a current crowd favorite, whereas we’re strictly long-shot material.”
We all stare at Wyatt, who keeps his eyes on the competition as he muses, “You might not want me, but it’s a sure bet you need me.”
“Not just a Booker Boy, but an eavesdropper,” says Louella.
“I’m not a Booker Boy,” Wyatt replies. “I’m an oddsmaker. I determine the odds on an event people are betting on. That’s all. My family are the Booker Boys – they take the bets.”
“That sounds just as bad. And you’re still an eavesdropper, either way,” says Louella.
“Where did you expect us to go, Louella?” says Maysilee, indicating that she overheard our conversation as well. “Maybe Wyatt and I don’t want to be your allies either. Thought of that?”
“Then we don’t have a problem,” Louella says.
Plutarch beckons us from the door. “All right, kids, we’re out of here.”
Although the train has not exactly been homey, climbing down into the glaring station makes me feel small and vulnerable. The four of us move closer together, even though we’re far from friendly. The Peacekeepers cuff us again and I wait for a chain to link us together, but when it’s produced, the officer in charge waves it away, saying, “Don’t bother.”
“Long shots,” Wyatt murmurs.
It reinforces what I already know, that we are not victor material. On the other hand, this could be an opportunity to run. But where can an escaped tribute find protection in the Capitol? I think of the smoky mist in my mountains, Lenore Dove’s friend of the condemned, and see no equivalent here.
So I just stand there like the puny long shot I am, taking in the banners that deck the station.
NO PEACE, NO PROSPERITY! NO HUNGER GAMES, NO PEACE! It’s the same campaign they used on our square back in District 12, but with slogans geared to the Capitol residents. Seems the Capitol has to convince its own citizens, too.
Drusilla clatters down the steps in platform boots and a skintight jumpsuit emblazoned with the flag of Panem. Her hat, a two-foot pillar of red fur, jauntily tilts over one eye. A smear of yellow frosting trails out of the side of her mouth. Someone had no problem celebrating my birthday.
“Enjoy the cake?” asks Maysilee. The girl has not backed down an inch.
Drusilla looks confused until Plutarch taps his face. “A little something right here.” For lack of a mirror, Drusilla checks her reflection in the train window and cleans off the frosting with her tongue. Her cheek, where Maysilee struck her, looks slightly bruised under her thick layer of makeup.
“You’re beautiful,” says Plutarch. I guess she’s just another plaything he has to handle, only what controls her are compliments.
“All right, you lot, let’s go,” Drusilla says before striding down the platform.
Outside, we get about thirty seconds of fresh air before we’re loaded into a windowless Peacekeepers van. I’ve only ever been in an automobile a handful of times, in the car to the train station yesterday and on a truck for a couple of school trips to the mines. Never when I couldn’t see out. Never when I was being taken to die. No light, no air. Like they buried me already.
Louella presses against my shoulder and it steadies me. I sense that she’s how I’m going to get through the nightmare of the next few days. Looking after her will give me a reason to keep going; her looking after me will stave off the terror of facing death alone. I can only hope we leave the world together.
“Doing all right, sweetheart?” I ask.
“I’ve been better,” she responds.
“We’ll just stick together, okay?”
“Okay.”
When the van doors swing open, I’m temporarily thrown by the light again. The dryness of the air makes me crave the cold mountain creek water Hattie has me draw buckets of. What will she do now that I’m gone? Get another mule, I guess. A luckier one.
Drusilla and Plutarch are nowhere to be seen. Peacekeepers order us out of the van. My old boots look peculiar on the white marble paving stones of the walkway. It branches out to a wide expanse of imposing buildings filled with people who point and stare at us from a distance. Not grown-ups. People our age, dressed in matching uniforms. School kids.
I feel like a wild animal on display, cuffed and mute, dragged in from the hills for their fun. All of us shrink a bit. Maysilee keeps her head up, but her cheeks burn with embarrassment.
“Still don’t think it’s a good idea to bring them to the Academy,” one of the Peacekeepers mutters.
“This gymnasium’s been empty for close to forty years,” says another. “Might as well get some use out of it.”
“Ought to tear it down,” says the first. “It’s an eyesore.”
The van pulls away, revealing the gymnasium, a looming, dilapidated structure with a banner over the entrance that reads
TRIBUTE CENTER in metallic gold letters. The Peacekeepers hold the cracked glass doors open and the smell of floor cleaner and mildew hits us.
We’re the last tributes to arrive. Our competitors sit around the room in bunches of four at stations marked with their district numbers. The Peacekeepers herd us to the 12 sign at the far end of the gym, amidst catcalls and taunts. They’re a mouthy bunch, this year’s Careers.
Each station consists of four padded tables separated by flimsy curtains. Pairs of white-coated assistants flank the tables, wearing utility belts filled with grooming equipment: scissors and razors and such.
The Peacekeepers direct the boy tributes to one locker room, the girls to another. I don’t like leaving Louella, but there’s no choice. Maybe in a pinch, Maysilee will protect her. She looks like trouble, with her welts and her scowl. Like someone who’d hit back, which it turns out she is.
At the locker room door, they line up the boys by district number, so Wyatt and I don’t have to watch our backs, just the muscular ones of the District 11 tributes ahead of us. They’re a sullen pair, though, uninterested in their surroundings.
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