Filed To Story: Sunrise on the Reaping Book PDF Free
We hightail it out of there and into the waiting van, which speeds through the Capitol streets, horn blaring. It’s not enough to drown out a booming version of the anthem, which they must be blasting out citywide. The Hunger Games opening ceremonies have begun without us. As the anthem ends, we screech to a halt and the van doors fly open, revealing the inside of a cavernous stable, its high roof supported by concrete pillars. Handlers are trying to wrangle forty-eight costumed tributes into twelve chariots while harnessing the horses meant to pull us through the streets. Everybody’s shouting, and nobody’s listening.
Parade music begins, the grand stable doors open, and the District 1 tributes pose for photographers before rolling onto the avenue to the roar of the crowd. A photographer runs up and snaps our picture repeatedly, then vanishes. Was that our photo shoot? Us chained up in the van?
Drusilla appears to boss around the handlers. “Get District Twelve mounted!”
We’re unchained, freed of our cuffs, and hauled to a rickety chariot drawn by a quartet of skittish gray nags. My eyes sweep the stable, confirming my suspicions. Everybody looks better than us. The other tributes have new district-themed costumes -sexy red cowboy suits for District 10, shimmering deep seablue mermaid suits for District 4, iridescent gray coveralls with wheel-shaped crowns for District 6. Their chariots are tricked out, some menacing, others elegant, all of them eye-catching. Their glossy horses sport matching plumes and flowers, while ours are bareheaded.
The cart’s much too small for the four of us. The horses dance nervously, jerking it around, making it treacherous to climb on. As one of them rears, Louella stumbles backward.
“Easy there,” I say, catching her. “You got this.”
“I don’t think I do.” Her knees give way and she sinks to the floor.
Drusilla yells at her. “On your feet, missy!”
I pull Louella up. “Look at me,” I say. “In every way, you are a thousand times better than anybody in the Capitol. You are loved better, raised better, and a whole lot better company. You are the best ally I could ever hope for. Okay, sweetheart?”
She nods and straightens up. “You and me to the end. Right, Hay?”
“You and me to the end,” I promise.
“Girls in front!” directs Drusilla.
Maysilee and Louella climb in the chariot and grab hold of the front railing. Wyatt and I follow and brace ourselves on the sides. Presentation takes a back seat to preservation as we try to maintain our footing. One of our horses bucks, banging a hoof into the cart and giving a shrill neigh. We’re supposed to be moving forward, but it’s all they can do to keep our team in check. The District 11 chariot disappears out the door before they finally release us.
We’re late, but what can we do? The horses are supposedly trained to cover the parade route at a stately pace without guidance. Ours head straight into the night air without pausing, bypassing our second photo op.
For the first hundred yards or so, the nags get their act together and trot along in time to the music. I look up at one of the giant screens above the packed stands lining the avenue and see myself in my crappy costume, hunched over the railing.
Long shot, I think, and force myself to stand up straighter.
The crowd looks drunk to a person, hooting and hollering, red-faced and sweating. People chuck bottles and trash at us. Some puke over the barricade set up along the parade route. For all their finery, the audience smells like the gang at the Hob on a rough Saturday night, a mix of perspiration, raw liquor, and vomit.
A guy trying to jab Maysilee with his cane face-plants onto the avenue and loses a front tooth. A near-naked woman makes lewd gestures at me. It’s hard to ignore the mob, but District 12 is hanging in there until someone launches a firework that spirals right in front of our chariot and explodes in a burst of blue.
Our horses lose it, plunging to the side and fighting to stay vertical. I’m knocked to my knees, but manage to keep hold of the railing as our team breaks into a run. The crowd’s going wild as we veer around the District 11 chariot and narrowly miss colliding with District 10, whose team also goes rogue. I want to protect Louella, but it’s all I can do to hang on as we go thundering down the avenue.
Everything’s a blur – the audience, the ground, the other chariots trying to clear out of our way. A siren wails, and I catch sight of red lights spinning, but all this seems to do is whip our team into a frenzy. I remember the parade ends at the circular drive that leads to President Snow’s mansion, so I know we can’t run forever, but how will we stop?
I look down as the spiked wheels of the District 6 chariot close in on ours, and I have my answer. I see the sparks, feel the axles shredding, and lunge for Louella, hoping to brace her. She’s reaching for me just as the wheel collapses and we’re catapulted into the air. Next thing I know, I’m lying on the ground, my hand in a puddle of blood as the lights of the Capitol flash like fireflies above me.
This is better, I tell myself.
Better than dying in the arena. Better than weasels and starvation and swords.
I’m embracing that when I realize the blood isn’t mine. That fate isn’t mine. And the tribute who’s escaped the arena is Louella.
A dead mockingjay chick, eyes still bright, feathers blue-black in the sunlight, clawed feet empty, on a bed of moss. Lenore Dove stroked its plumage with her fingertip. “Poor baby . . . poor little bird . . . who will sing your songs now?”
Louella looks so tiny, so still in the chaos around us. A fine job I did protecting her. Dead before we even made it to the arena. Who will sing your songs now, Louella?
I’m winded by the impact of the fall, bruised for sure, but nothing obviously broken. “Louella?” I say as I kneel over her. Knowing it’s useless, I attempt to rouse her, try to find her pulse, but she has flown her body. Her vacant eyes confirm this as I slide the lids closed. One of her braids rests in the blood leaking from the back of her skull, which cracked open when she hit the pavement. The penciled black eyebrows jump out from her drained face. I arrange her braids, lick my thumb, and wipe a drop of blood from her cheek.
The shaft that connected our cart to the team apparently snapped, and our horses are long gone, leaving a trail of wreckage. Wyatt and Maysilee, who managed to hang on to the railings, extricate themselves from the ruins of our chariot, beat-up but alive. Wyatt picks up Louella’s hat, which must have fallen off when we were thrown. As they join us, neither one has to ask if Louella’s dead.
Maysilee pulls off one of her necklaces, a heavy strand of beads woven into purple and yellow flowers. “I was going to give her this. For her token. So she’d have something from home.” She kneels down, and I lift Louella’s crushed skull while she places the beads around her neck. Fresh blood seeps into my hand.
“Thanks,” I say. “She likes flowers.” I can’t speak of her in the past, not while she’s warm and close.
“They’re coming to get her,” warns Wyatt.
I see four Peacekeepers making a beeline for us amidst the medics and handlers and dazed tributes. They want to take Louella away, to hide her tidily in a wooden box along with their crimes, and ship her home to District 12. They don’t want to feature this death on the Capitol’s watch, unplanned and highlighting their incompetence. This is not the blood they want to paint their posters with.
I scoop Louella up in my arms and begin to back away.
“It’s no use,” Wyatt says. “They’ll still take her.”
“She doesn’t belong to them,” snaps Maysilee. “Don’t just hand her over. Make them fight for her. Run!”
So I do. And I’m a fast runner. The only kid who can beat me in footraces at school is Woodbine Chance. Well, he used to anyway. I run for Louella, but I run for Woodbine, too, because he’ll never run again. I have no idea where I’m going. I only know that I do not want to give Louella to the Capitol. Maysilee’s right. She doesn’t belong to them at all.
Dodging any white Peacekeeper uniform, I weave past red-streaked bodies, past the wrecked District 6 chariot. Apparently, their horses leaped the barricades and plowed into the crowd. Medics swarm around, shouting and carrying stretchers with Capitol people, leaving the injured District 6 tributes where they fell.
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