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February 5 - February 7, 2025
despite residing in the penthouse of the Capitol’s most opulent apartment building, was as poor as district scum.
Tigris had said to trust her, and he did. Only his cousin’s cleverness with a needle had saved him so far.
Tigris was no great beauty, but she had a sweetness, a vulnerability that invited abuse.
What a luxury it would be to toss it in the trash without a second thought.
he reminded himself that self-control was an essential skill, and he should be grateful his grandmother provided daily opportunities to practice it.
When news of District 13’s demise had reached the Capitol, Coriolanus’s grandmother had publicly brushed it off, saying it was fortunate that they had plenty of other assets. But they didn’t.
“They don’t tax properties in the Capitol. Only in the districts,” said Coriolanus. “It’s a new law,” Sejanus told him. “To get more money for rebuilding the city.”
Was Coriolanus’s place about to be usurped by someone who referred to his mother as “Ma”?
young district lives taken for the young Capitol lives that had been lost. The price of the rebels’ treachery.
His tribute’s choosing such festive attire for the darkest event of the year showed a strangeness beyond a simple lapse of judgment.
Nothing you can take from me was ever worth keeping.
Lucy Gray Baird. She was a gift, he knew it, and he must treat her as such.
The endless dance with hunger had defined his life.
That desperation had turned upstanding Capitol citizens into monsters. People who dropped dead from starvation in the streets became part of a gruesome food chain.
Beans, cabbage, brown bread. Coriolanus grew to hate the stuff, but it kept them alive, without shame, and without cannibalizing the dead bodies in the streets.
Being in debt in the Capitol was historically a ticket to being a Peacekeeper, and that came with a twenty-year commitment
If people had someone to root for, they might actually have an interest in watching the Hunger Games.
They were transporting the tributes in livestock cars,
Following orders, the tributes presented their cuffs for removal and climbed into the cage.
if she’s brave enough to be here, shouldn’t I be?”
Yes, there’s no Hunger Games without the audience.”
A self-important little girl marched up beside them and pointed to a sign on the pillar at the edge of the enclosure. “It says, ‘Please don’t feed the animals.’” “They’re not animals, though,” said Sejanus. “They’re kids, like you and me.” “They’re not like me!” the little girl protested. “They’re district. That’s why they belong in a cage!”
“Oh, for the record, I last ate the night before the reaping,” Lucy Gray announced. “So I guess it’s been three days.”
he had thought about her more as his contender. His filly in a race, his dog in a fight. The more he had treated her as something special, the more she’d become human.
“To feed her is one thing,” she said. “To dine with her suggests that you consider her your equal.
There’s always been something barbaric about the districts. Your own father used to say those people only drank water because it didn’t rain blood. You ignore that at your own peril, Coriolanus.”
He wished he had his mother’s eyes instead, but never said so. Maybe it was best to take after his father. His mother had not really been tough enough for this world.
“Instead of suggesting people watch, make it the law.”
She cried for fifteen minutes straight.” Pup grimaced. “I don’t think District Seven prepared her for a hangnail, let alone the Games.”
Id love to see them in the games
“Hardly rebels. Some of them were two years old when the war ended. The oldest were eight. And now that the war’s over, they’re just citizens of Panem, aren’t they?
“What young brains lack in experience they sometimes make up for in idealism.
I can see all kinds of people holding food, but I think they’re afraid to get too close, even though they’ve got these Peacekeepers in here with us now.”
“We’re a regular circus troupe, we are,” she said as she picked bits of meat off her bone. “None of them can hold a candle to you,” said Coriolanus.
The crowd ventured closer, and a few people began to converse with the captives.
Coriolanus, along with several people around him, automatically crossed off the name of the girl from District 10. But then what? It would make sense to cross off Arachne’s name as well, but that felt different.
It was like the Hunger Games. Only they weren’t district kids. The Capitol was supposed to protect them.
it’s meant the world having someone show up like I mattered.” “You do matter,” he said.
Tigris tucked a spoon into his hand. “Eat your soup. We’ve gotten through worse than this. Snow lands on top?”
High in the air, the bullet-ridden body of the District 10 girl, Brandy, dangled from its hook. Shackled to the truck bed, looking utterly filthy and defeated, were the remaining twenty-three tributes.
He released her ruffles, thinking there would be another stretcher for her, but as they carried him off, he could see a Peacekeeper force her to her stomach and jam the barrel of a gun into her neck,
“You missed bomb time.” “Turns out it’s worse than being there,” said Tigris, “knowing you were going through it all alone.”
they’ve got a top-notch veterinarian over there. I expect she’ll be fine by the time they’ve got the Games up and running.
If she had saved his life, he owed her, what? A sandwich and two cookies? That was how he was repaying her. For his life. Which apparently he held quite cheaply.
He had only wished that her charm and appeal would rub off on him and make him a success.
The truth is, we were all so busy killing each other that we forgot how to have fun.
adjusting a hot pink rosebud in her hair. It matched the one on his lapel, just in case anyone needed a reminder of who Lucy Gray belonged to.
“Well, you know what they say. The show’s not over until the mockingjay sings,” she said. “The mockingjay?” He laughed.
That her success, even now, reflected back on him, making it his success.
while he had no claim on her heart — he barely knew the girl! — he didn’t like the idea of anyone else having it either.
Even if Lucy Gray was confused on the issue, in the eyes of the Capitol, she belonged to him. What point would there be in crediting a district tribute?
