Filed To Story: Sunrise on the Reaping Book PDF Free
We don’t have much choice, but it’s nice to have someone recognize it.
In the van, inspired by Great-Uncle Silius’s taste in fashion, I decide to double down on the bootlegger angle. I imagine brewing up illegal booze falls into the category of what the Capitol would consider naughty, not dangerous. Judging by the opening ceremony crowd, most of these folks drink like fish, so there should be a fair amount of sympathy for a kid who goes outside the law to keep his district pickled. Anyway, it’s the best rascally angle I can come up with, and it’s founded in truth. I don’t want to get Hattie in any trouble, though, so I decide to pretend it’s something I do on my own.
I’m starting to get antsy about the breaking-the-arena plan, given that I still don’t know the timeline or how the explosives are being smuggled in. Mags and Wiress were allowed to accompany Drusilla, so Beetee should be with his tributes tonight, too.
The interviews are televised from an auditorium that seats a couple thousand people. Drusilla tells us there won’t be a delay, since there’s no potential for an uprising in the Capitol audience, so don’t mess up and expect her to cover for us. That’s rich. After she gets the official lineup, she slips off to have a word with Caesar Flickerman, so he can know how to approach our interviews. As she walks away, she mutters, “Shrew, calculator, lunatic, rascal.”
We’re taken to a waiting room backstage called the greenroom, although it’s painted white. It’s already crowded with mentors, escorts, and stylists hovering around their tributes, who are all polished up and dressed in chic evening wear in their districts’ signature color. Even District 1, who wore ball gowns and suits to the parade, have upped their game, and their snot-green ensembles with flowing trains and plumed coattails require three times the space of any other district.
Effie eyes them critically and whispers, “Thank goodness your color is black! Can you imagine trying to outfit everyone in peridot? That was a flash in the pan.”
Honestly, 12 comes off a lot classier and somehow potentially deadlier. Maybe I’m projecting. My jacket and vest have hidden compartments and my belt some extra loops that Effie told me were for decorative weapons. Hm, decorative. And Effie quickly ruled out the first shirt I tried on because of something that looked suspiciously like a bloodstain that hadn’t come out in the wash. I can’t help wondering if what Great-Aunt Messalina and her husband did to disgrace the family was connected to some lifeless bodies. Makes me feel a little more dangerous, slipping into their skins tonight.
Beetee catches my eye from a cluster of electric blue and gives a quick nod toward the buffet. Drusilla’s busy making sure everybody knows Effie did our clothes, so I’m able to plead thirst and make a beeline for the punch bowl. The table’s spread with delicacies, like candy high-heeled shoes and caviar in seashells and miniature pigs made of ham salad. I don’t recognize half the food, but I follow a lady’s example and smear a dollop of goat cheese on a square of peanut brittle. Surprisingly good.
I’m ladling myself some punch when Beetee sidles up beside me. He picks up a large pair of silver tweezers and begins to meticulously choose tiny vegetables from an arrangement shaped like a bunch of flowers. It’s ridiculous.
“Those work better than your fingers?” I ask.
“Trying not to draw attention to myself,” he says quietly.
I glance around and see several Peacekeepers have their eyes on us. A couple begin to close in when there’s a commotion at the door. Magno Stift lurches into the room, holding a cage of reptiles above his head and shouting, “The party animals are here!”
As the Peacekeepers redirect toward my stylist, Beetee plucks off a minuscule radish and speaks rapidly under his breath. “Head north. Ampert will do the same after he has the explosive. Do your best to locate a mutt portal by tracking returning mutts after an attack. After you and Ampert meet up, take one to access Sub-A, where the tank is located. We’ve replaced the black cord in Ampert’s token with fuse, the blasting cap’s hidden in the weave.”
I take a deep pull on my punch, checking out Ampert’s token over the rim of the cup. It’s indistinguishable from the one Maysilee made, with no sign of the blasting cap in the braided cord. Beetee doesn’t say where it came from, but the rebels must have someone on the inside who smuggled it through security and swapped it for the original.
“All four of District Nine’s sunflowers are now composed of explosive,” he adds.
“But their sunflowers are hard. Kerna’s shattered on the floor.”
“Yes. These are coated with a shellac. Wet them with water and rub them between your palms. The friction will help dissolve the shellac and leave the explosive malleable.”
“Does Nine know the plan?” I ask.
“They do not. Ampert will scavenge one from their persons.” From a dead body, he means. Probably at the bloodbath. “Or more if he can get them. It never hurts to have a spare. And if Ampert fails to show” – Beetee’s voice breaks slightly on this last bit. We both know why Ampert might not be able to reach me. For a moment, he examines a pea-sized tomato under his glasses – “we’ve also replaced the -“
A flutter of chiffon at my elbow alerts me to the arrival of all four District 6 doves, who shimmer in their iridescent gray finery. Beetee moves down to a meatball pyramid without further clarifications, a good-bye, or a good luck.
Wellie whispers, “Ampert says, when we get to the arena, we’re supposed to band together as soon as possible.”
Is that by design? Probably. If Ampert bands with the others, he’ll have access to the tributes from 9 when they die. Meanwhile, I have my own mission, which does not involve protecting this flock.
“That sounds like a good plan,” I agree.
“He says maybe some of you bigger tributes can grab weapons first,” Wellie tells me.
“I’ll give it a shot.” But I will not be able to look after them in the arena – I will have to devote my abilities to blowing up the tank or die trying. “Listen, I’m going to be a real jerk in my interview. It’s something my team worked up, but I will never hurt you, okay? Or any of the Newcomers. That’s a promise.”
“We know that,” says Wellie, eyes full of trust.
Too much trust. I need to distance myself from them for the good of everybody.
“There’s another thing, though,” I say. “You saw my score, that I only got a one. The Gamemakers may be targeting me. It’s dangerous for any of you to be around me. So I’m thinking of going it alone.”
Wellie’s face falls. “But they’re targeting all of us. We need you.”
“You don’t if I’m drawing packs of mutts or being chased into the Careers. You don’t. And you all have to understand that. Tell the others, okay?”
Across the room, a glassy-eyed Magno has backed into a corner but managed to clear some space by freeing a six-foot snake from the cage and waving it around. “Where are my tributes? I need to dress them!”
People are shrieking, and the Peacekeepers form a huddle to confer over their plan to subdue him. Drusilla looks overjoyed, shouting, “Take him down! Take him down!”
But before the Peacekeepers, tasers pulled, can do the job, Lou Lou steps up, hands extended for the snake, and says, “Mine.”
Magno grins, bypasses her hands, drapes the snake around her shoulders, then loops the tail end around her neck. “You wear her like this.”
Lou Lou entwines her arm with the snake’s neck so its head rests on the back of her hand and holds it up. Magno leans over and kisses the snake on the mouth. It’s the very picture of madness, this damaged little girl and our debauched, drugged stylist. Wyatt goes to collect her, putting an arm around her to guide her back to the District 12 crew. The snake seems to have given Lou Lou a sense of power, and she walks by tributes three times her size, brandishing the snake and hissing.
I rejoin my district just as the television at the end of the green room comes to life. On-screen, an invisible hand writes a big curlicue
50 over a shot of the auditorium stage as a booming voice announces, “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Fiftieth Hunger Games Night of Interviews. And here’s everybody’s favorite host, Caesar Flickerman!”
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