Filed To Story: Sunrise on the Reaping Book PDF Free
I can feel consciousness threatening to slip away as I free the sunflower from my neck and place the blasting cap in it. I bite off the fuse with my teeth, leaving a few inches, and toss the remainder aside.
This time it works, Ampert. Loose cannon going off, Louella. Wyatt. Lou Lou. Wellie. I pinkie swear, Maysilee. Pay attention, Panem. Newcomers land on top.
The president’s card, courtesy of the Capitol, tears easily. I crumble the pieces and pile them with the candy wrappers. Finally, I pull the flint striker over my head and give it one long kiss.
Oh, Lenore Dove. Oh, love of my life. I am with you before, now, and always. And I will find you. I will find you.
“Haymitch. Haymitch Abernathy. You are to stop all activity immediately.”
The quartz settles in one shaky hand, the other closes over the heads of the snake, the songbird. Such fine workmanship. Pretty with a purpose, she said. It has found its true purpose now.
A cannon fires. No victor’s crown for you, Silka. Just the claw. Listen, those trumpets must be for me.
A spray of sparks flies to the pile and blossoms into a little flame. A spray of bullets dance around my hands. Ha. Missed me.
“Freeze! Haymitch Abernathy, you have been – Drop that! Drop that now!”
The flame’s already dying as I hold out the bomb. It kisses the tip of the short fuse, then hungrily begins to eat up the black cord.
“You don’t know what you’re doing! Stop! Don’t throw it!”
But I do. With my last ounce of strength, I launch the sunflower into the canyon. If nothing else, there should be an impressive boom. But the Gamemaker’s panicked voice has allowed me to hope for more. What will happen when the explosion meets the force field? I have absolutely no idea. Only that they seem to fear it. The quartz slips to the ground, blending into the other rocks. I slide the flint striker under my collar, where it can rest on my heart. She’ll understand.
The wind scatters the last bits of ash, carrying them into oblivion. Black specks flood my eyes, forming a cloud that blocks the sunlight. A blast rocks the world.
My last sensations are of the slippery coils of my intestines in one hand, the songbird pressing against my skin, and the earth quaking beneath me.
I die happy.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
“Ma must have hung the laundry inside.”
Drip. Drip. Drip.
“So cold. Need to put some coal on the fire. So cold. Where’s my quilt? Sid, you got my quilt?”
Drip. Drip. Drip.
“Hattie bottling a new batch. Always stinks like this. First part of the run gets tossed. ‘Throw out the heads, Haymitch. Stuff will kill you. It’ll kill you.'”
Drip. Drip. Drip.
“Too late, Hattie. I’m already dead. Hey, Hattie?”
Drip. Drip. Drip.
“Hattie? Ma?” There’s no response. Something bad is happening. “Ma?”
I snap awake. Why is Hattie brewing in my kitchen? Get us all arrested. Why will no one answer me? This isn’t the kitchen. What the hell is happening? Why do I hurt so bad?
A greenish tornado sky glow. The sharp alcohol smell married with chemicals lining my nose, coating my tongue. Drip-drip-dripping mixed with a distant murmur, words I cannot quite make out. Cold metal pinning me to cold metal. Fear.
I blink hard and the world comes into focus. Through the swampy light, a high ceiling crisscrossed with pipes. I lick my sandpaper lips, try to swallow. Reach to rub my eyes, but my hands can’t make it past my belly. Fingers find the long row of stitches across my gut. Can’t make sense of them. A steel table beneath me. No mattress or sheet or pillow. Metal cuffs with short chains on my wrists and ankles. Strap across my chest. Naked as a jaybird. Not a stitch. No, but something left. My flint striker . . .
The memory swoops back into my brain. The cliffside. The bomb. Silka’s dying gurgles. The warnings from above. Sparks flying. Fuse catching. The arc of the sunflower against the open sky. Then, that earsplitting sound.
I must be dead. I felt my intestines sliding out. My body shutting down. I wanted to go. The job was done, my poster completed.
What’s happened to me?
My flint striker rests on my heart, as it did in my final moment, only now it’s fastened to my neck by the leather bootlace. Someone has tied it there, and it wasn’t Ma.
Where am I, Lenore Dove? Where are you, my only love?
Tubes sprout from my arms. One in my belly. I twist my head to the right and pain scalds my gut. A few feet away, faces press against a glass wall. Tongueless mouths open. Avoxes, unclothed and dirty, paw the glass, begging me for something I can’t give. Terrified, I turn to the left.
A moment of relief as I spot my old friend, the gray rabbit from the arena. My dove in the coal mine, who warned of danger, who led me from the maze. Has it come to save me once again?
Help me. Can you help me? The green eyes stare unblinking from the tank. It presses into the glass. Why does it tremble so?
From the shadows, something strikes. A six-foot snake swallows up my ally. A lump in the sinewy body.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.