Filed To Story: Sunrise on the Reaping Book PDF Free
I slam my eyes shut. This must be a nightmare. Or perhaps I’ve gone to another world, a bad one. I try to will myself back into unconsciousness, to escape this evil place. But in my heart of hearts, I know it’s real. I start shaking as hard as the rabbit. Harder. Awaiting my snake. Please send the snake and end this.
Muffled footsteps. A tug on my tubes. A woman in a mask swaps a full bag of clear fluid for an empty one.
“Where am I?” I rasp. She ignores me. Just sponges my gut stitches with a foul-smelling liquid, sending shocks of pain across my trunk. “Stop! You’re hurting me!” I struggle. She doesn’t stop.
I stop, because moving makes the pain worse.
She leaves. Murmurs again. This time I catch a few words. “Laboratory.” “Sepsis.” “Disruptive.” A coldness surges from the needle planted in my arm. Nothingness.
When I wake again, I have new knowledge. In this place, disruption brings oblivion. Dispensed from afar like the drugs in Lou Lou’s pump. I try to be as disruptive as possible for the hours? days? weeks? I am imprisoned here. When I’m conscious, the Avoxes plead. Padded feet bring pain. Grotesque mutts replace the humans. More bunnies die. Nasty concoctions are forced between my lips. No daylight breaches the walls, no ally comforts me. I am utterly alone and defenseless.
Fresh confusion as I surface in a nest of burnt orange. Somehow, I’m back at the tribute apartment. Across the room, Wyatt’s bed, bereft of covers, catches me off guard. Still haven’t had the space to mourn him.
Gingerly, I wiggle my fingers and toes. All the tubes and restraints have vanished, but a pump identical to Lou Lou’s has sunk its teeth deep into my chest, defying me to remove it. I fold back the fuzzy spread, the fine sheets, and examine my gut wound. No stitches, just a puckered, angry scar, like a twisted smile. My thigh has fared better, but I’ll carry the mark for life. Still naked. I jump up, only to collapse back down on the bed, gripping the covers as the room spins. I wait for things to settle before a second attempt. With my feet carefully planted on the floor, I slowly rise. My pajamas are still in a jumble on the floor where I left them the morning of the Hunger Games. With no other options, I put them on.
I wobble into the living room and steady myself against the doorjamb of the girls’ room. Bedding from our last sleepover drapes the furniture and floor. Dried blood spots from Lou Lou’s ear dot her pillow. Maysilee’s pajamas sit folded in a neat pile on her bed. Nobody’s here because everybody’s dead.
“Mags?” I croak. “Wiress?” No answer. The whole build-ing’s as silent as a grave. The street outside the apartment, deserted. Locked down. Block barricaded off. I am indeed a dangerous young man. The charming rascal turned deadly rebel. Woodbine Chance has grown up into one of his loose cannon kin, fated to swing by his neck while District 12 looks on. Seized by an impulse to flee, I make for the elevator and press the button repeatedly. No humming, no lights, no escape possible.
In the kitchen, the table’s bare, but the refrigerator holds a platter of rolls and a shelf of pint-sized cartons of milk. Snow’s diet after the deadly oysters. Though my stomach has shrunk to the size of a walnut, it still craves food. I dip bits of bread in the milk and suck them down. Being poisoned no longer worries me. If the president wanted me dead, why has he gone to so much trouble to keep me alive? He has big plans for me. The camera in the corner reminds me my every move’s being watched or at least recorded. No, at this point, definitely watched. Eyes on me, 24/7. I will not be allowed to die. I will be resurrected by the Capitol for their entertainment. Perhaps, I am even being broadcast live now. Perhaps, as a victor, I will never be off camera again. . . .
Exhausted by my excursion, I return to bed and sink into a fitful sleep.
Days pass. My schedule’s my own here. Nothing but time to consider the consequences of my actions in the arena. Snow’s perfect little showpiece that I undermined every chance I got. I take no pleasure in that now as I wonder who’s paying the price for it. Beetee. Mags. Wiress. They’re likely all being tortured to reveal the names of accomplices. The rebel sympathizers who crafted sunflower bombs and fuse necklaces. The Gamemakers and Peacekeepers who helped smuggle them in. I hope they’ve spared the prep team and Effie, who are completely clueless Capitol pawns. I doubt anyone suspects Drusilla and Magno Stift of being sympathizers and I don’t care if they do. And Plutarch? I’m still not sure of his role in all this, but he was right about the sun and the berms, and without that knowledge, it would have been impossible to carry out my mission. Is he an ally? A Capitol operative? Both? Impossible to know.
I don’t dare think about my loved ones back home. Everything I did, every choice I made, was based on the knowledge that my death protected them from harm. Snow had guaranteed that in the library.
“With you out of the picture, Lenore Dove and your family should be free to enjoy long and happy lives.” Like Beeteesaid, if he had died, Ampert would have still been alive. Snow wanted him to suffer the horror of watching his son’s execution; it was pointless otherwise. But since Snow needed a victor for his perfect Quarter Quell, I guess he changed his mind about killing me.
To make matters worse, Beetee’s transgressions were clandestine and mine were televised to the entire country. Or were they? I have no idea how my efforts have been edited, blacked out, and card-stacked. It’s possible that nothing significant has been aired, gutting the effectiveness of my posters, but perhaps lightening my punishment.
This I know: I have been publicly challenging Snow and his Quarter Quell since I landed in the Capitol. Even after the private meeting in the library, I flaunted my defiance of him. If he served up poisoned oysters to Incitatus Loomy, the parade master, what feast must he have in store for me and mine?
Maybe a week has gone by, according to the shifting light on the street. Solitary confinement continues. The isolation is almost scarier than the creepy lab. You know when you’re starting to miss hanging out with the mutts, you’re in trouble, but I long for company.
The rolls harden, the milk begins to turn, but I keep eating, driven by a convalescent’s ravenous appetite. I fantasize about food. Fresh plums. Mashed potatoes. Rabbit stew. Stack cake. Will I ever taste stack cake again? Unlikely. If I do make it home, I expect childhood celebrations will be a thing of the past. I won’t really be home anyway. I’ll have a house in the Victor’s Village, with all the niceties Beetee alluded to. Reliable electricity, warm and cool air, flushing toilets, and all the hot water I want at the turn of a faucet. No pumping and chopping required. Like my prison here.
Perhaps my victory celebration has been canceled due to my insurrection. Maybe I’m just being imprisoned for my public execution. One can hope.
I start spending long stretches in the tub. The towel I threw over the camera’s been removed and I don’t bother replacing it. They’d just drug me and take it away. Might chain me up again. No point. I soak for hours and hours, replenishing the hot water, watching my fingers and toes get pruney as bits of dead flesh float off my scar. Images of the arena consume me. Death upon death. Ones I didn’t witness, like the bloodbath, I imagine. I try to recall the other forty-seven tributes plus Lou Lou. Using Maysilee’s color system helps a bit, but about half elude me. District 5, District 8. All but forgotten.
Wyatt’s absence haunts me in the bedroom, so I take my spread to the couch and make camp there. The television, unresponsive to my attempts with the remote, begins to turn on and off on its own. I’m fed clips from old Hunger Games, curated especially for me. Gory snippets, terrorized children, despair. The early ones, which they rarely feature on Capitol TV, are low-budget affairs with no attempt at the showiness that marks today’s extravaganzas. Just a bunch of kids thrown into an old arena with some weapons. No costumes or interviews.
One evening, a haunting melody weaves through my dreams. I startle from sleep, calling Lenore Dove’s name. The television glows. On-screen, a girl in a rainbow of ruffles sings a familiar tune with unfamiliar words.
It’s sooner than later that I’m six feet under.
It’s sooner than later that you’ll be alone.
So who will you turn to tomorrow, I wonder?
For when the bell rings, lover, you’re on your own.
She performs on a stage with a shabby backdrop before a Capitol audience in old-fashioned clothes. Great-Aunt Messalina and Great-Uncle Silius would fit right in.
Her voice, that accent, the way those fingers command the guitar strings – a Covey girl, for sure. But not mine . . .
And I am the one who you let see you weeping.
I know the soul that you struggle to save.
Too bad I’m the bet that you lost in the reaping.
Now what will you do when I go to my grave?
Sniffles from the audience. Someone shouts, “Bravo!” The crowd goes wild. The girl bows and extends her hand to a figure who’s standing just out of the spotlight. A silhouette of a man. Upright, trim. A crown of curls. He waits a moment, as if deciding whether or not to join her. Then takes a step forward as the screen goes black.
The reaping, she said? Must be. Why else would a Covey girl be in the Capitol? Could this girl be District 12’s one and only victor? Suddenly, I’m sure she is. No wonder Lenore Dove never wants to talk about her. She knows the story, but it’s too secret, or perhaps too painful, to share even with me. I think about the bits of color Lenore Dove adds to her wardrobe, the bright blue, yellow, and pink. Are they scraps from this girl’s dress? A way to keep her memory alive? What color name did this rainbow girl carry to the Tenth Hunger Games? What happened to her after? Did she come home? Did she die in the nightmarish lab? What did she do to be erased so completely?
Who was the guy she reached out to at the end of her number? Her district partner possibly, who’d have died in the arena. It was someone she cared about, from the look of it. Or perhaps it was someone else, someone hosting the show. An earlier Flickerman. They’d be forty years older now if they’re still alive.
Forty years. Not all that long after the Dark Days. If District 12’s forgotten her, it’s unlikely she’s remembered here in the Capitol. No, wait. Someone here remembers the Covey. Someone who knows how they name their babies and love their birds. Intimate, personal knowledge. The information I attributed to Capitol informers could have an entirely different source. I do the math. Fifty-eight minus forty. Eighteen. President Snow would’ve been eighteen during the Tenth Hunger Games. The Covey girl would have been no older. The curly-headed man in the shadows that she reached out to . . . was it him?
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
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